Any guidelines on copying from other sources?Follow

The question is pretty much stated in the title. Before people run off and start copy/pasting, it should be stated whether or not this practice is deemed acceptable or not. Thoughts, opinion, etc.?

It depends upon the source. Most images and writings on the internet are copyrighted and can't be copied and pasted to another site. If you are just using a small part of that writing to highlight a point in your own post, you can usually do that as long as you credit the original source. Also, most wikis use the GFDL for copyrights (as do we -- you can find a link to it on our wiki). This lets you copy the wiki text to other wikis as long as you follow a specific set of guidelines. In addition, some sites specifically disclaim a copyright and encourage you to copy things from them or contain images and writings that are considered public domain and open to use by anyone.

From a practical standpoint, I would discourage anyone from copying and pasting from other sites to our wiki. There is nothing wrong with researching other sites to help out with what you are putting together, but we encourage you to write your own text. We will remove anything that we think may be a copyright violation, so writing up your own version ensures that your work won't just be removed at a later date.