In an earlier post, I drew attention to the uncanny similarities between the style of Jim West and the style of the anonymous author of the Dilettante Hobby Horse blog. The latest post on the site continues the trend, with another West-style neologism ("horsistary"), and characteristic usages like "'em" phrases ("tell 'em", "show 'em", etc.). But what makes the new post striking is that the anonymous author is now not only imitating Jim's style but also using materials sent to him by Jim without the proper attribution.
The sequence of events appears to go something like this. Chris Tilling posted on Negotiating Tensions in the Bible. A character called "sickrandir" adds a comment and then Jim comments, "i'm going to copy his comment and send them over to the dilettante hobby horse!" The comments in question then appear on the Dilettante Hobby Horse very shortly afterwards, but without the requisite "hat tip" to Jim. Now we all know how Jim feels about using material without a hat-tip (e.g. with reference to BAR). So it seems likely that the Dilettante Hobby Horse is going to be in for Jim's wrath pretty soon. As well as blogging anonymously, he fails to attribute his sources, and he has the affrontery to do all of this using Jim's own writing style. Time to take action, Jim!
Here's a curious development. Jim has responded to Mark's "taking Jim's side", saying, "Because [The Dilettante Hobby-Horse Blog] is anonymous, I don’t have a link to it. Nor shall I.". That represents a change of heart from the Jim who earlier said, "I’ve added [The Dilettante Hobby-Horse Blog] to the blogroll and I’ll shortly add it to Biblioblogs.com". Some minds are as fickle as blogrolls. :)
ReplyDeletei did indeed add it to biblioblogs. and it was on my blogroll just long enough to 'advertise' it.
ReplyDeleteif you've paid any attention at all you'll have noticed it was removed from my roll a day or two later.
as far as fickle is concerned, i've been quite consistent.