Greg Morris

Where’s My Name Gone?

Over the past few years I have been writing on and off for several websites. Some small, some slightly bigger, never successfully but I enjoyed it all the same. I flirted with writing if you will. During this time I never really cared about my words, I never really gave a second thought to what happens to them in a few years, but I have noticed a trend of taking others words and putting someone else’s name on them.

The vast majority of the websites I have posted to have closed down now. Unmaintainable in an externally crowded internet and squeezed monetisation options. Some are just relics, still active but no longer updated. Some of the larger ones are still going strong and doing amazing work which is great to see. A few however have taken all of the words I have written and attached some else’s name to them.

This isn’t an ego rubbing post, I try to keep that in check nowadays. I just don’t understand the ethics behind it. When did this become the norm? I don’t care about the words. Delete them for all that it matters, but don’t pretend someone else wrote them instead. It’s unethical to say the least, doubly so if you have the audacity to show adverts against them.

I go backwards and forwards on whether this actually matters or not, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t. It is a modern day, internet publishing side effect. Something that it seems is to be expected from time to time, the price to pay for handing over work to others. This is ultimately why I moved to blogging for myself and away from platforms such as Medium.

Writing for other websites has its advantages. There is a editor there to pick up my typos and lambast my poor grammar. Yet also someone there making decisions that determine what happens to your words. With me just left to wonder where my name has gone, and why.

I like these things, you might too