Give credit where credit is due. Or not?

Oh, Noddy, that's beautiful.

Acquiunk, people rely on the fact that it is so so hard to track down and prosecute copyright violation, especially when it involves "intellectual property". Lawyers know that there isn't a lot of money to be made off of it either so most people are unable to pursue it. I'm guessing that the people who successfully sued Kinko's might disagree - but that's a rarity. Good luck to her.

Noddy, that IS beautiful. It's priceless! Good for her. I love that story and I will remember that lesson.

Acquiunk, that sucks. I hope justice is served, through and through.

OK, people, now I have a question for you.

I am on this committee that is incredibly frustrating in terms of not giving credit where credit is due. The nature of the beast, right? I've been letting it slide, largely, (there have been many, many instances) and am wondering what to do in this situation:

We have a totally putrid website that is only half filled-in, but the one person who has her part finished has been going and advertising the website everywhere -- her specific section, yes, but doesn't take much for people to investigate the site a bit, find all the inoperative links. (Craven, bless his heart, offered to make a decent website for us, gratis, but the guy who's doing it is deaf and, well, for whatever reason the chair of the committee wouldn't consider it. Stew stew stew. )

Anyway, 2 parts to my current dilemma/ gripe. The chair asked everyone to submit the verbiage for their section, and I did so almost right away. I wrote everything I knew, and a draft of what I didn't know so that the people who did know could fill that part in. (I'm the fundraising person, and can say things like "Other items available for sponsorship include interpreting services", but need the chair, business manager or interpreter coordinator to tell me interpreting services cost to put that next to the item.)

So, it's been a couple of weeks now since I submitted my draft straight to the chair, rather than on the committee message board, as per her request, and the person who is spreading the website far and wide is being very strident about "Why isn't anyone else doing anything???" The chair, though she has addressed the subject, hasn't mentioned that at least I have done my part. That's kind of whatever.

However, I checked out the website recently and there was some really bad stuff on it -- the registration page says, and I quote, "Registering for [event] is very easy blah blah." Obviously, it was meant to be a draft that would then be improved upon, but people are looking at those pages. I think that needs to be changed, IMMEDIATELY, and am happy to supply the replacement verbiage (just a paragraph or two.)

My question is do I:

1.) Submit replacement verbiage directly to the chair, as that will save her some embarrassment and she has previously asked that those kinds of things (generally) go to her

or

2.) Submit replacement verbiage to the group message board, for her to see but also everyone else, as I am 99% sure that if I submit it straight to the chair, it will be plonked into place with no mention of who wrote it. However, chair may be a bit cheesed.

?

(Lots of exposition for a rather straightforward problem, sorry. Realized it didn't make much sense without the background.)

(Or just stay the hell out of it... but the committee is all deaf, English as a second language, and almost everything official has gone through me first for proofreading, so it's been kind of established that I'm the verbiage person. 2/3rds of that is uncredited, of course. )

Thinking.....

(I decided just to write directly to the registration person, not the chair, not the general message boards. More of a "this is what I noticed, but it's probably in process, right? If you'd like any help, just let me know.")

Good approach, Sozobe. I like it. Just of the off chance you are invited to fill in the blanks, mention your own job committments and workload - just by explaining why you will need approval from your own department head or whatever. In other words, insure that your extra work is going to be noticed.

Good point.

OK, I'm way to egocentric to allow my greatness to ever go unnoticed. I love the idea of my idea being the idea but I don't wan't the idea not to give people the idea that it was my idea. Get the idea?

That'll get ya far.

Actually, sometimes it does -- kinda all or nothing.

Richard Feynman, whoa look thats his idea! He must be great!

Uh, but in the context of real world organizations, one needs to ascertain how to act wisely, and unfortunately that, hah hah, varies. Bludgeoning on with sidewings whapping is not always as useful as it seems at first glance. See (much of western drama).

Varies, that is the key word.

Yikes sozobe. You're right - something needs to be done right away if there is already someone out there publicizing the web site.

I think your approach is a good one. It sounds like you've brought it to the attention of the person who can get something done about it.

At the next meeting, or on the message boards, you might mention that you fear the incomplete status of the site will effect your ability to raise funds since at this point it does not appear professional. Request that staff stop directing people to the site and urge everyone to get the information completed.

Absolutely. Approach the subject and stay focused on the group as a whole and what's best for the organization. People have a tendency to forget who and what they're working for to concentrate solely on themselves and how they can outshine everyone else. The idea of working towards the same goal is quickly kicked to the curb.

(Late breaking news -- the chair asked me if my friend was still interested in doing the site, I asked Craven, he said "sure", that's going forward now. Is he a sweetheart or what??)

Excellent!

Yeah, well...

Word got out fast that he was open to the idea (though I'd stressed to the chair that he was open to the idea but needed to know more info before he committed to anything) and I am now being deluged with requests nay demands from every quarter. I am NOT going to repay Craven's kindness by passing on all of this stuff (contradictory, demanding, and marked by an appalling lack of gratitude) to him.

I do believe I will never be on another committee if I can possibly help it.

Oooooo, we can imagine...

Update:

People were wondering about what was going on with the website. The chair hadn't said anything, so I didn't say anything (that Craven is working on it.) She now finally said, and I quote, "Some of us agreed that it was difficult to have two separate people desiging and maintaining the website. We have found a person, who prefers to remain incognito, to design and maintain our website. He is almost finished with it."

'zat's it. NOTHING about who pointed her in the direction of this guy, or why this guy might be willing to go to such expense of time and energy...

Grrrr...

We have found a person, who

I'm only surprised they "have found a person" instead of using the expected passive voice, like "a person has been found."