What do you do with copy/paste articles or news?

[Motobaka]

In our forum we create some news and articles by ourselves but in reality they are not in quantity what we would like. We allow users to place articles or news but most of them just copy/paste. We do ask them to at least give credit to the author but I don’t really like copy/paste.


Lately I’ve been thinking about not allowing this anymore. This will drastically diminish the quantity but at least the ones we get will end up being probably better in quality.


What are your thoughts on this?

 

[BoostN]

I usually quote the article and give the full credit via the link with my own cliff notes.

 

[AndyB]

Lately I’ve been thinking about not allowing this anymore.

You didn't indicate your concerns.

 

[FredC]

I much prefer copy/pate articles with a source link back over hyperlinks that direct members away from my site.. As a matter of fact we encourage copy/paste vs outside links.

 

[Motobaka]

You didn't indicate your concerns.

Well to be completely honest with you my only concern is not generating our own material. I feel like we are stealing a bit by doing only copy paste. Maybe something like BoostN said about commenting could be the first step.

 

[AndyB]

Well to be completely honest with you my only concern is not generating our own material. I feel like we are stealing a bit by doing only copy paste. Maybe something like BoostN said about commenting could be the first step.

I don't look at it at all this way. When a member takes the time to share an article, it is often done to start a discussion on the subject. Forums are the best media for in-depth discussions where learning more about a subject can take place.

 

[tajhay]

I believe i read somewhere that if you are going to copy and paste the article, you NEED to post a link to the source to verify that you are simply reposting the news item rather than trying to claim the article as your own. Apparently google is cutting down on people copying and pasting without link for articles originating elsewhere.

 

[cclaerhout]

Check your country regulations. Most of the time you can't reproduce an article but you can quote some parts of it with sourcing it.

 

[FredC]

I don't look at it at all this way. When a member takes the time to share an article, it is often done to start a discussion on the subject. Forums are the best media for in-depth discussions where learning more about a subject can take place.

Exactly this.. Hard to generate good discussions when the OP is a simple link offsite..

 

[SelfSufficientMe]

It's just like blogging if I can say so - forums are another type of publishing and it's really not good manners to plagiarise without at least referencing the source (not to mention copyright laws).

Most publishing sites using other sites content reference the source (eg Pinterest).

Google does have a policy to penalise sites trying to pass off copied content as their own but how they determine it isn't clear.

To be safe I'd ensure copied content is referenced at least and /or linked. Possibly just go through and edit those excerpts that haven't been.

Having said that, referencing/using content from other sources is a good thing imo.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

It's just not legal to allow the wholesale copying of an article, link back or not. Small portions can be copied but that's it to avoid being on shaky legal ground. I allow my trusted users to use an [article] bbcode which is basically an iframe so the original publisher gets to show the ads they would normally show if a user clicked over to their page.

 

[Blue]

Title and link only.

 

[DJ XtAzY]

Take a look at how overclock.net users are doing it. Title will have a prefix with the site name, then quote a small snippet of the article, then finally leaves the source link. They do that everyday and generate pages of discussions. I would noindex that forum for seo purposes.