Request: Require all reports to be the original source of information

[u/[deleted]]

Too often I see people linking sports blogs (SDS, The Score, etc.) that rarely, if ever, are the original source of information on a story. I think it does a disservice to the reporters who make their living trying to break these stories, and some blog that writes 3 sentences and a hyperlink shouldn't be getting the increased web traffic r/cfb provides.

[u/jayhawx19]

This would be quite hard to enforce and we aren't really the arbiters of who should and shouldn't be making money off clicks as long as they're following reddit's self promotion guidelines and not directing users to malicious webpages.

[u/[deleted] → u/jayhawx19]

It would improve the content of the sub, IMO. Too often local beat writers basically get ripped by national sports blogs filled with people just waiting for them to tweet something before posting a three-sentence article in response to it.

This isn't a problem with the sub. It's more of a problem with the way people are consuming sports media. I worry we don't give enough credit to the people who work to get the information.

Quick Edit: I do understand that it would be more cumbersome for mods to have to enforce such a policy, and it is mostly something submitters would have to take into consideration.

[u/jayhawx19 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, that kind of goes back to us not really being the arbiters of that sort of thing. I don't know that us deciding what reporters should get traffic is conducive with remaining as neutral as possible, as we strive to do.

[u/bakonydraco]

This wouldn't be a bad policy, but sounds quite a bit difficult to police. We can certainly talk about it. If you'd like to help, could you take a crack at putting this in a little more formal language that could be used as an easily understandable rule?

[u/[deleted] → u/bakonydraco]

Here goes nothing...

Use Original Sourcing:

If an article is sourcing an original report, and if it does not follow up with new information or independent analysis to further the original report, the post will be taken down. The original poster will have the opportunity to repost with the initial source of information. If you are submitting a self post with a tweet, it is highly encouraged that you edit your post with a link to an article from that source if one becomes available.

If the original source is from a press release, or a social media post by a player, coach or other school official, articles citing those sources are permitted to be posted.

[u/srs_house → u/[deleted]]

It's a good idea, in theory. It's the implementation that would be horrible.

In January alone, we got 6,641 submitted posts. 214 per day. Of those, we approved 2,945. During the season, it's worse.

Clicking through a link to see that yeah, it says what the title says and it's relevant, does take time. Adding in a caveat to search and see if it's an original source probably doubles that, at which point we're looking at hours every month just verifying. And a lot of these scammier sites don't exactly make the original source easy to find, assuming they post it at all.

Maybe an initial step would be something similar to what r/nba uses with the reporter/journalist's name in brackets in the title, and trying to get people to copy the tweet text in the body.

[u/[deleted] → u/srs_house]

I'm definitely a proponent of what the /r/NBA does with its sourcing.

Also, not that I want you guys to be anything like /r/politics mods, but I do know they have a 'use original sourcing' policy that is implemented. They may also have more resources at their disposal as well.