Recently, Shawn Blanc, Patrick Rhone and others have been discussing attribution on the web. The tech web is especially incestuous, as the same 8-9 stories hit site after site daily. It’s important to identify both the source and the reference, or “via.” Here’s how I do it.

Imagine that website.com wrote a nice original piece. I first became aware of it by reading a link on coolstuff.com. In re-posting the story myself, I’ll note and link the website.com story in the body of the post. At the end of the post, I’ll include a link to the reference at coolstuff.com as a footnote of sorts, like so:

[Via coolstuff.com]

That way both sites get a link. The source is clearly identified in the body of the post while the reference (or “via”) follows, always using the same syntax. If you do it differently, I’d like to hear about it.