10
$\begingroup$

So, some recent discussion has raised a question in my mind, and just plain in general. A buddy of mine and I are thinking of starting up a small site for puzzles. He doesn't particularily enjoy computing, so I'd probably be handling all the setup and management while he wrote most of the puzzles. So, thinking into the future, if he were to write a puzzle and it was posted on our site, but didn't get enough attention and we wanted to then post it here, what course of action would I need to take?

Due to plagiarism concerns, I would want to give credit to him as I didn't write the puzzle. But, in doing so, I would be need to link the puzzle to a site that I would be associated with. What is an appropriate course of action in this case?

$\endgroup$
13
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Does it still count as plagiarism if you're given his express permission to post the riddle? $\endgroup$
    – Bailey M
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 19:00
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @BaileyM I doubt he would come after me for it, but I'd still be "taking credit" for something he did. I would also worry about someone seeing both and it getting removed because they thought it was plagiarism. Either way, I like giving credit where credit is due. $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:05
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Does adding a note: "made by Zyzzyx the Intelligent AI, posted with permission" satisfy attribution from your/their side? $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:08
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul That would make me feel better about giving due credit, but what about if someone happens upon the puzzle in both places and deems the posting here as being a plagiarized version? To the subtle onlooker who doesn't know I'm associated with that site, it might appear that even though I give credit, I haven't fully given due mention to the "copyright" holder. $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:12
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @AggieKidd "posted with permission of [person name]" should nominally clear that up. If it's flagged, we should see that and not take action; if it's flagged and we take the wrong action, just let us know and we'll correct it. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 20:57
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul We are considering allowing users to post puzzles anonymously. How would we approach that situation (my buddy likes anonymity)? $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 22:39
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I'm... not totally sure, to be honest. That's a good question that I don't have a solid answer to. The answer might also come down to a case-by-case basis. There's a fine line between "posting a lot with attribution and permission" and spam. I'm not sure if I have good guidelines for how to draw it without a more specific example. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 8:40
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul There's at least one already-existing "specific example": the recent riddle from Minder Daemon. Since you're considering MD to be my sock and nobody else's, that means it's posted someone else's riddle without attribution. Would something like "I didn't write this riddle; attribution is due to the original author, who published it on a website I co-own (see my profile)" meet the spam/plagiarism requirements? $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 14:04
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I'm going to see if we can create a more definitive guide - I think comments are reaching the limit of their usefulness here. Going to need to talk with other mods before saying much more - I've probably already said too much, and I don't want to set this policy myself. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 16:15
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Emrakul Thanks! I'll just add that if there were some simply (yet indirect) way to reference the site,I think that would suffice for my concerns. $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Commented Aug 27, 2015 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ I think the fact that noone has to click our attribution links to enjoy the puzzle should exonerate us. $\endgroup$
    – d'alar'cop
    Commented Aug 28, 2015 at 21:17
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Apologies for the delays in getting this out - it's been a hectic few days. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Aug 31, 2015 at 7:53
  • $\begingroup$ The policy is now out as its own question. $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 4:01

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0
$\begingroup$

What is your real, honest intention here?

1) Having a lot of (hopefully great) puzzles in the public.

2) Having your own, high traffic webpage with your own, unique style and just redirecting web-traffic?

If the answer is:

1) If you just have cool puzzles you want people to crack, why not only post it here?

but if it is

2) This is quite a bit more problematic, I think. It's a bit like a back-door banner-advertising for your own site on P.SE. I don't think this should be encouraged at all.

Now, as always, there might be something just in-between 1 & 2, i.e. you have your own site, but ever so often (rarely!) a really, really cool/tricky/etc. puzzle just doesn't get the attention. Only in this case the discussion above applies, and re-posting the puzzle with proper references and permissions would be okay.

$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ What do you think about puzzles that are posted that we feel are of a higher quality that receive a lot of positive feedback? Again, the idea of getting great puzzles out to the public, but they were posted originally to another site? $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Commented Aug 28, 2015 at 14:03
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @AggieKidd Same grey area. If it happens once a year or so nobody will - I hope - complain, but if the feeling is that all you really do is spamming to draw traffic to your site, people will not like it. See the similar discussion on plagiarism here on meta. You don't want to fall into this trap. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Commented Aug 28, 2015 at 16:38

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .