Guild Wars Wiki:Copyrighted content
From Guild Wars Wiki
 |
This page is an official policy on the Guild Wars Wiki. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. |
This policy deals with keeping the site compatible with the licensing terms. Any content that is incompatible should not be added or kept.
[edit] Incompatible content sources
In general, content from the following resources cannot automatically be assumed okay to copy verbatim to Guild Wars Wiki:
- Content from wikis with incompatible licenses, such as GuildWiki (cc-by-nc-sa is incompatible with GFDL).
- Content from other, non-GFDL sources (regardless of whether fair use applies).
[edit] Compatible content sources
- Original content (which the contributor holds the copyright to)
- Content copied from a compatible GFDL or public domain source. This includes wikis with compatible licenses, such as Wikipedia. Attribute the source in the edit summary.
- Regarding facts: copyright only covers their expression, and not their information content. Factual information from incompatible sources can be used as long as they are re-expressed in an original manner.
- Copyrighted material under incompatible licenses might still be usable if legally available through alternate means (for example, dual-licensed under GFDL, public domain, or copyrighted by ArenaNet). Some users of GuildWiki have additionally licensed all their contributions under GFDL. When adding material this way, it is advisable to note exactly why it is compatible in the edit summary.
- Guild Wars content where the copyright remains with ArenaNet or NCsoft. This might include content from the Guild Wars game, website, manuals, guides, fansite kits, etc. Images of this type should be tagged with {{arenanet image}}.
[edit] Dealing with copyright violations
If you come across an article which is entirely a strongly suspected copyright violation and there are no legitimate versions in the article history, blank it and tag it with the copyvio template, e.g. {{copyvio|http://www.guildwiki.org/wiki/Foo}}. This categorizes it as a copyright violation, marks it for eventual deletion (if nobody opposes), and gives a mechanism for working on a non-violating version.
For suspected copyright violations where the article history contains a legitimate version, do a full revert (not partial) to the last good version. This leaves the violation in the article history; if specifically required by the copyright holder, a sysop may delete the article and selectively restore the revisions before the violation and after the revert, to effectively remove the violation from the history.
