A post was made on another Civil War forum about the hierarchical structure of a pre-Civil war cotton plantation.  The moderator questioned the legitimacy of what had been written.  He had questions about primary sources, secondary sources, and a thinly veiled threat about copyright court.  The odd thing is I am the one who wrote it.  It was a cut and paste from one of the long winded stories that come off of this keyboard.  Granted, it was a fiction piece, but fiction aside, that portion was an accurate representation of what it was.  Since it was a problem for this moderator, a request was made for the offending post to be removed from the forum.  Giving credit where it is due, it was.  

This is not being posted to whine, find fault with another person’s judgment,  or to make disparaging remarks.  Actually, all of the above is written to ask a question.  In a situation like this, should you quote yourself as a reference? That seems like a bizarre thing to do, as well as a little bit egotistical.  No matter, how do you go about doing it without turning it into one of these "hey, look at me" situations?

Published authors refer to their own works all the time. A quick browse through my bookshelf found the following authors who've used their own earlier work as a referene in a more recent work: Thomas Desjardin ("These Honored Dead"), Bruce Catton ("This Hallowed Ground"), William Davis ("Look Away!"), Peter Cozzens ("This Terrible Sound"), Larry Daniel ("Shiloh"). In each instance, the earlier work was one of dozens of works the author used as references. The situation would certainly appear to be different if the only reference you quote is yourself.

I should have mentioned none of this has been published

I recall reading the post, and the only thing, in my opinion, that made a moderator question it was that it was written in a more formal style than the usual brief research post. Because everybody's used to seeing a formal byline on formal writing, it looks kinda anonymous without one, despite the fact the poster's usual signature at the bottom. I know that makes no logical sense, but somehow that's the way people's brains work.

So I'd guess the moderator (Em, wasn't it?) thought it might have been a cut-and-paste of an article by someone else with a missing byline. Otherwise, it would have been like any other post--type it up, hit send, and everyone assumes you wrote it.

All I would have done, when questioned by a moderator, is say, yeah, it's something I wrote myself. And maybe next time, realizing the potential confusion when I wanted to post something more like an article than an internet post, add a formal byline at the start, or if that seems too pretentious, just a sentence, "Here's an article I wrote about X that I thought I'd share."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

Cutis,

That is a fine piece of work,--and you'd long ago told me the whole background of that piece, and the amount of research and sheer dogged luck that went into it.

I sure wish you'd hang that piece out again here--its a valuable reference.

Shoot me an email as to whereall you are going next---I've got that Mims book to loan to you, and need to hand it over.  Fine piece of work too, and I was able to flesh out my base persona a great deal from that work.