Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Copyright issues...

[Chris Uzelac]

I would have to agree with you on both points.  It would be impossible to
ensure that material isn't plagiarized (what with the innumerable sources
out there) and it may discourage some people from submitting.

But I am worried that somebody may lift an article straight from Encarta,
and if Microsoft would catch wind of it, things would not look too good for
GNUPedia.  At the very least, the article would have to be removed.

However, I don't think that requiring (or possibly, strongly encouraging)
the submission of sources would discourage a large number of writers.
Nearly everybody who has written a college-level research paper has an
understanding of how to record their sources (and it's likely that most have
made a habit out of it).  If it discouraged anybody, I think that it would
discourage people who don't have the desire to check their facts with
established references.  And I doubt that we would want to have writers of
that type submitting articles anyway.

It would be to our benefit to make submitting sources as easy as is humanly
possible.  Perhaps giving an XML tag for it so a contributor need only
report the information in the correct tags and not have to format it in MLA
style.  That could be done by script.

Just an idea and I'm more than open to other ones.  But I think that is
quite an important issue that needs to be resolved before we start taking
articles.  Perhaps if there is a lawyer in the audience, he or she can offer
some sound legal advice about the liability of GNUPedia if a case of
plagiarism were to arise.

-Chris

--original message--

From: "Toby Tremayne" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Copyright issues...
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 12:14:07 +1100
Reply-To: address@hidden

two things about this though -

a) is it feasable to think of looking at all of these articles and ensuring
somehow that the content is not plaguarised?

b) while guidelines for submission and content are going to be necessary, is
it going to push people away from it if they have to spend too much time
messing about with citations etc?


Toby Tremayne
Code Poet and Zen Master of the Heavy Sleep
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