[mlyang]

I never implied that the reporter was culpable. He isn't, RapGenius 100% is. But if I were in the original poster's shoes-- for me at least-- I would've initially found breaking the story to be fun and interesting, but seeing how Rap Genius as a business is basically screwed for the foreseeable future, I would've definitely thought twice. I agree that Rap Genius is 100% wrong in its shady tactics, but as a lot of the other commenters in this above thread (who have not been down-voted to oblivion) have stated, this is a pretty harsh punishment on Google's part. Knowing the harshness of the punishment after the fact, I was just pondering as to how the original poster felt, that's all.

[hbags]

Perhaps you didn't intend to imply it, but unfortunately that message was communicated to several of us. Thank you for clarifying that you don't hold that view. This apparent miscommunication emphasizes the importance of not deleting (and not substantially editing) posts once they've garnered attention.

I, for one, hope the author feels no remorse for their article. It was a fun and interesting article, and they reported the story well.

I continue to hold the belief that if this incident creates a material problem for RG, then RG was already a ticking time bomb. That said, I have plenty of faith that RG will weather the storm, and that perhaps this will be a wake-up call that inspires them to do something more creative and valuable than a spammy link-swap.