Fact check your sources before posting!

This post has been sitting in my Draft folder for about a week, but since it is of general relevance, I am posting it anyway (do you have that feeling that unless you react to something within say, 48 hours, it sort of becomes moot ?). I must preface this post that I am not picking on Steve on this one, it is just that his post was the catalyst for coming around to writing something on the topic.

On Friday 04/22, Steve Rubel posted this on Micro Persuasion:

Google has consistently denied it is working on a web browser, even as Firefox's developers openly discuss how they are jumping to go work for the search giant. Well now comes word from MarketingVOX that bloggers have spotted the browser in their server logs. Why doesn't Google just come out with it on their sleepy corporate blog that they are getting into the browser game?

The post refers to a "scoop" intially written by Nick Aster over at Silicon Valley Watcher, stating that he had spotted the Loch Ness Monster in their server logs. Did I say the Loch Ness Monster ? Sorry, I meant the Google Browser. In true blogosphere fashion, that post was linked quite a bit, in multiple layers. This output of BlogPulse partially shows the depth of linking. Steve's post was 3 links down from Nick's.

What's the issue ? Well, Nick wrote a second post 4 hours after his original piece, explaining that a number of SVW readers had helped demonstrate that there was no GBrowser in his logs. Still, Steve Rubel's post was written two days later, two days after the scoop had been, well, un-scooped.

What is the lesson here ? First that updating the original post might be more appropriate then posting the update in a new one, because it makes it easier for readers to follow the action. If a new post is required, then the original post should contain a link to this update. Even if it might satisfy your ego, you can't assume that people coming across a post of yours have subscribed to your feed, and will see an update coming through another post.
Then, if you credit a post for a given piece of information, it might be wise to follow links back to the origin of the information. And finally. check whether the same information has been posted by others to get a different or complementary perspective.

Posting might therefore involve more time to research and fact check (though in this case, a quick check would have led to not posting), but after all we owe it to our readers. And I'd rather get quality posts then quantity, thank you.

Because the blogosphere is a giant "tam tam", it has a strong tendancy to self-reinforcement. I recall a post from someone about the flickr acquisition rumour (scooped by Om), who listed all the blogs on which he/she had read about the rumour. So it had to be true! Well, all these posts referred directly or indirectly to Om's original one. So there was not a multiplication of rumours, just an amplification.

For example, the "Become.com controversy" was dealt with quite properly: SiliconBeat wrote a piece suggesting a potential issue, many of us chimed in, Michael Yang - the CEO of Become.com clarified the situation, everybody posted an update to reflect this additional information, case was closed.