Oh No She Didn't! Two Bloggers And The Same Post

If you have been blogging long enough, more than likely you have ran into someone who posted on the same topic as you or their post was very similar. Off and on, in the DIY blogging world or the design blogging world, I will notice that someone in a comments section will think they are doing the blog's author a favor and kindly point them in the direction of another blog who supposedly stole their post or project.

When I have run into these, I almost always will go over and look for myself. What I find usually is not what was thought they saw but someone who happened to have the same idea yet the post was written in their own words. There was no plagiarism going on!

Via  White Kitchens House Beautiful

One thing that we all have to keep in mind is that no one has the monopoly on a certain idea. I can write about white kitchens and guess what? There will be 500 other bloggers writing about the same topic. And the odds are that some are going to write the same week I do, even less may even post within a day or 2 of when I do.  But it does happen often!  It's even very likely that we may use some of the same inspiration photos. After all, Pinterest makes sure we all get to see a lot of the same inspiration images. Let's face it, a lot of us have the same tastes! How many posts have you read on Chevron over the years?

                                                                      

My Chevron Pillow DIY. This pillow cover will look much nicer with a larger pillow in it.

        

Granted if they copied your post word for word, well that would be a whole other enchilada.

I think we are doing each other a great disservice by judging or jumping to conclusions about another blogger's intentions. I can say with perfect confidence that I don't steal posts, but this happens to me literally all the time. There are how many design/diy/craft blogs out there? Thousands upon thousands? Millions? I don't know the exact number but I know there are a lot of them and I know that I will have a post in draft and work on it as I have the time, and very often someone will beat me to the punch and write something very similar to what I am already working on.  The more I post the more I see it.

 I can say it's happened to me more times than not, actually.

The most recent time it happened is just this past week when Centsational Girl wrote a post on Homebuying Tips, I believe. I haven't read the post yet, but I did see the title of the post when it was posted.  Well, guess what I have in draft?  First Time Homebuyer's 411.  I've learned so much the last few months in house hunting, that my husband and I thought it would make a good post. However, we've been working on this for quite awhile, and I didn't want to post it til I was done with the process.

It's OK! We all will very frequently have the same ideas. It's all rather innocent. And to be honest, I like reading more than one blogger's tips on a subject I'm interested in!

One time I was gold leafing a chair with my Krylon gold leaf paint pen and getting ready to post about it, the very same day, Jenny, from a Little Green Notebook, posted a coffee table that she had gold leafed with the same paint pen. Her table had very similar features to my chair legs.

                                                                               

My shame, the UGLY chair. Aka, my Doug chair. Those who use to watch TLC's Trading Spaces back in the day will know what I mean.

I was just getting ready to post this! I froze. I was thinking, "Oh no! What if someone thinks I copied her?"  I was 2 seconds away from NOT posting it and deleting the whole project. In hindsight, I should have scrapped it because my chair was UGLY!  Her table turned out great, though. She's really an amazing stylist and DIY'er.

                                                                                   

The "iconic" paint pen.

One last example, recently I was writing a post on Jonathan Adler coming to JC Penny and all of a sudden, another blogger on my reading list posted the same topic! Did either of us know the other was already working on the idea? No. No harm, no foul!

Let me point out that doesn't mean that you can't find information on another blog and share that news with your own readers! Of course you can! Just make sure to put it in your own words!

There were many other times that I did delete a post because someone else beat me to it.  Finally, it happened so much that I realized there is no way to avoid it, if it was happening to me, then surely other bloggers knew this happened too, and I just let myself relax a little on it.

Trust me, if this hasn't happened to you yet, it will.  The more blogs in your niche that you read, the more linky parties you participate in, and the more blogs that you have on your reading list, the more likely it is that you too, will find other bloggers blogging about something you just posted or were getting ready to post.

 I just put my own spin on my own ideas and I put it out there.  If someone else happened to do it too, then that's OK, cause it's going to happen.

We are not in competition with each other.  Blogging is about community.  Isn't it so nice just sharing what you love and finding someone that loves the same thing and chatting over it for a short time?  I find it refreshing to see someone post similarly to me but they bring something different to the table.   It makes it interesting and it's inspiring.
                                                                                    
                                                                                

I think we have a community of ethical bloggers in the DIY/ design world.  Let's give each other credit and not tear each other apart.

BTW,  I don't remember the people who participated in the commenting.   I'm not singling anyone out!

Linking up Here
http://itssoverycheri.com/2013/04/21/its-party-time-4-21-2013/  http://www.threemangoseeds.blogspot.com/