Forum:Formulating a common attribution policy

Following the recent problems regarding attribution and the disputes that occurred on Wikia, I'd like to put forward a proposal for a concrete attribution policy, inspired in part by Wikipedia's own attribution policy, to remain compliant with the CC 3.0 licensing policy we use (namely, that the licensor specifies the manner of attribution).

Policy below:

Attribution
As The Vault bases on the Creative Commons copyleft license, using, remixing, further building upon the content etc. is permitted as long as the content is properly attributed.

Article text attribution
This tag should be located at the top of the article, above the maintenance tags to provide proper credit to the authors of the article.

File attribution
The tag should be posted in the file summary, at the top.

Content exempt from attribution
Not everything needs to be attributed. As a rule of thumb, content rewritten using one's own words does not need attribution, and neither do:


 * Raw references
 * Simple lists of information
 * Data exported from the game
 * Sound clips
 * Textures
 * Exported dialogue files (not dialogue converted for use on The Vault)
 * Other raw data exported from the game

The above list is a guideline, if in doubt, ask a staff member.

Why do I have to attribute it like that?
The intent of this policy is to encourage the creation of original content and respect the original contributors of The Vault. You are encouraged to use the material, assuming proper attribution, but we believe that it's even better to create your own content using our own as a starting point. Own words require no attribution!

That's the current proposal, compliant with the Creative Commons license. I've used our own Wikipedia copyright template as the starting point, the only difference is the tag placement, meant to encourage writing of own content. Thoughts? Tagaziel (talk) 11:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * What about images?--Ant2242 (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It's the file attribution heading, with the att. limited to original content created for a site. We can't claim copyright on textures and other game files. Tagaziel (talk) 13:03, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * At face value it looks satisfactory for its purpose. Would there be another tag available were we to use information from Wikia (similar to Wikipedia)? --Kastera (talk) 15:29, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

That is in their hands. I believe we'd be more than happy to accommodate, wouldn't we? Tagaziel (talk) 15:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I have decent writing skills so creating original content is easy enough for me that I have need to attribute works that often, but should I need to, I'd be happy to. But that's just me; I don't want to speak for everyone else. --Kastera (talk) 15:58, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I meant images from not only GECK file images but also In-game Screen-save images from the individual(s) game(s).--Ant2242 (talk) 16:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I wager specific screenshots would fall under illustration. Especially wide angle composite images that were created out of multiple screen shots. Tagaziel (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Votes
So?

Yes

 * Yes Tagaziel (talk)
 * Yes Kastera1000 (User:Kastera1000) (talk)
 * Yes veryblackraven