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PLEASE READ Upcoming Rule Change: Citations

WesL

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In the coming weeks the moderating and administrative teams will receive training on a new rule that will go into effect on May 1, 2018. Our terms of service and community standards documents will be updated to reflect this simple and easy change.

Many of our TalkWeather members already provide good citation information when posting pictures and reports. Going forward we are making a change to our standards that will make it mandatory to cite your source if you post a picture or graphic or specific information related to a event. For example, if you find a picture of storm related damage and wish to post it, please give credit to the creator of the work or the website where you found it. If you hear a report of storm damage from a local TV station, give credit to the station or met who relayed the information and if they give a source pass that a long as well. If you post a posting from social media you don't have to provide additional information is the post already contains the citation (see examples below).

This change not only provides content creators with the credit they deserve, but it also helps make the information on TalkWeather traceable and also helps make TalkWather a more reliable source of information and allows us to be compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We will actively investigate and respond to any copyright's holders take down requests.

If you have questions please leave them below or feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail to [email protected]

I've outlined a few examples below:

Picture Citation:
Storm.jpg

Image: Wes Lyons & Matthew Pylant via AP.com
http://ap.com/image/tag/example

Text Citation:
1
054 AM NON-TSTM WND DMG 5 W HOWARD 42.37N 77.61W
04/04/2018 STEUBEN NY 911 CALL CENTER

TREE AND WIRES DOWN IN THE VICINITY 3492 COUNTY ROUTE
70A NEAR HOWARD, NY.
Source: Binghamton, NY NWS Office - Preliminary Storm Reports
https://forecast.weather.gov/produc...M&product=LSR&format=txt&version=1&glossary=0

Social Media Posts:
Do your best to track down the creator of the social media content if the post you are giving doesn't already have the information. If you are using a post by traditional media, as shown below, most have already given credit to the author.

 
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MattW

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How should we credit ourselves? Just a short "own work?" What about reports we hear over a weather [ham] radio net? Just a short "Georgia Skywarn net" for instance?
 
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WesL

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How should we credit ourselves? Just a short "own work?" What about reports we hear over a weather [ham] radio net? Just a short "Georgia Skywarn net" for instance?
@MattW that is a great question! You should always credit yourself for a picture or video you made. Another great question about radio traffic as well. I think your suggestion is perfect. Something as easy as saying as reported on the Skywarn net for region/county etc.

I really don’t want anyone to be scared by this. We just had a situation with someone who created content that was used on the site without proper citation. The person in question was super nice about it and is now a member. It is their choice to speak up if they would like. However, even if that hadn’t happened I think we should give credit where credit is due.

We won’t be removing content or anything like that. We will shoot someone a message for a source if something is posted without a citation.

Let me know if there are any other questions.
 

Gus

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Good rule. Also it wouldn't hurt to put (copyright with your name) on your own pictures to keep them from winding up on the news unaccredited. We do have lurkers.
 

xJownage

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I'm presuming that it's okay to post radar imagery without citation? I use gr2analyst and post images from time to time, and am curious as to what the protocol would be. Maybe being required to include the outer window?
 
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WesL

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Good rule. Also it wouldn't hurt to put (copyright with your name) on your own pictures to keep them from winding up on the news unaccredited. We do have lurkers.
Totally agree with this. I've had some pictures lifted from a website and used before. Learned that the hard way. They can still use them under fair use, but if you have your information on them they aren't supposed to modify them.

I'm presuming that it's okay to post radar imagery without citation? I use gr2analyst and post images from time to time, and am curious as to what the protocol would be. Maybe being required to include the outer window?
I would think that would be acceptable. Does anyone disagree with that?
 

Mike S

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I would think any NWS radar imagery is public domain material since we paid for it.
 
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