Using Ideas in Good Faith

I have a site called Eclogiselle and it has instructions for very basic water infrastructure in challenging circumstances, so I'm working with some strict standards to keep it:

1. Affordable.

2. Approachable by ordinary people with no training wanting to DIY it (DIY = do it yourself).

3. Able to actually produce potable water (safe to drink or otherwise consume by humans, like wash dishes or use for cooking).

4. Practical for off-grid living by people who may not realistically have other options for getting the water they need.

If money is no object, you don't need my ideas on Eclogiselle. You can just look up something like local filtration systems by osmosis and call someone up and have it professionally installed and who CARES what I think?

And I didn't singlehandedly invent every solution I write about. I cite my sources and link to stuff to add information.

But I have reason to believe that even in America, a lot of people living off grid don't really know how to establish an adequate supply of safe drinking water. I participated in a discussion on Reddit where I was possibly the first reply and I said in part "To my knowledge, no countertop water filtration system will kill germs." and I was new to the sub in question and was attacked and insulted by someone who posted a link and said THIS brand works.

I looked it up and found two things:

1. The website for the brand which was making unsupported claims. They said it killed germs and "take my word for it!"

2. An article of independent research saying "No, it doesn't."

And I posted that and said okay support your position and I was insulted some more by someone unwilling to engage in good faith. Most likely, this person was using this filtration system and getting sick from it and in denial and not wanting to hear the truth.

I have college education pertinent to this stuff and I have a serious medical condition, so germ control is my life. I'm confident that filter system doesn't actually kill germs and being ugly to me -- "killing the messenger" -- doesn't change that.

So as a case study about stealing and botching ideas, let's talk about what's the opposite of that? What constitutes good faith usage of my writing?

Because with no meaningful promotion, Eclogiselle is getting hundreds of page views per post and also states clearly "You are allowed to translate my work." Given the nature of the information there, 200 page views could be the tip of the iceberg and may represent thousands of people actually using my information.

1. Translating my writing and stating it's a translation and linking to the original is not stealing my ideas.

I do the exact same thing over and over by linking to videos and other websites.

2. Following my instructions and building the infrastructure is not stealing my ideas.

I mean I WISH I was making more money, but if that site has traction someplace like rural Africa, it may not be feasible for the people building very basic water infrastructure to just click the PayPal or Patreon button and pay me. There may be technical and other barriers there. While I wish enough people would pay me to make this adequate income for me, it's a BLOG and there's no reasonable expectation that every single person reading it owes me money.

In practice, if you build gabions or other very basic water infrastructure as a DIY project, it probably has NO writing on it saying who built it or similar. So in practice, there's no expectation you will carve my name on it. You probably didn't carve your name on it either.

But if someone asked you about it, you should tell the truth that you built it but the idea comes from Eclogiselle and, if appropriate, tell them you made some changes to the instructions.

The reason for that is in part because it establishes something like a chain of custody for evidence.

If they like the idea but you didn't do it well and they read MY instructions, maybe they figure out you made a mistake. Or maybe they figure out you aren't wrong, you just aren't good at explaining it.

Similarly, if you state it's a translation and someone isn't sure they trust that it works, they can go to the original source and check if maybe your translation says something different in their mind than my writing.

Which may not mean you made a mistake. It may just mean you and they use different words in the same language to talk about something. 

Some words have many different meanings and sometimes phrasing can be easily misinterpreted to mean something else entirely. So sometimes there's a failure to communicate even if you translated it correctly and some people will understand it.

But if you did make a mistake because you don't have the educational background I have and you used a word that isn't exactly wrong for the word I used but maybe isn't the best word for the idea I'm trying to convey, then people can go to the source -- MY writing -- and see if they might say that a little differently.

So even if you don't care in the slightest about ME getting the credit I deserve and having some hope of getting money for my work, if you are translating something like instructions for very basic water infrastructure and you CARE whether or not YOUR audience is getting sick if they use that, you should cite your sources so there's that chain of where you got it.

No matter how careful you are, people make mistakes and different people who nominally speak the same language don't always use words the same.

America and England have been called two countries separated by a common language because we both speak English and should have no trouble understanding each other, but there's just enough differences in language and culture that we do have trouble understanding each other.

I read somewhere that diplomatic negotiations stalled for two or more weeks between two English-speaking countries because someone said they wanted to table this detail of the discussion and they meant "I want to talk about this." and it was misinterpreted to mean "I want to not talk about this. I want to set it aside to discuss later."

So both sides wanted to discuss it and are ARGUING about whether or not to table it because they are stuck on a single word they are using differently. (I think that was America and Canada, but I'm not certain.)

I can't quite find a phrase for the concept I have in mind. I did a little searching and came up with three phrases that kind of fit:

1. Conveyance of information 

2. Transference of knowledge 

3. Dissemination of facts

So if you are BUILDING stuff using my writing, cool! If you can figure out how to pay me for it, great! Just don't LIE if someone asks you about it and you are fine.

Articles I looked at while researching how to say what I want to say that may be helpful to some readers:

13 Synonyms for Give Credit in Writing and Speech

10 Words For Someone Who Takes Credit For Your Work