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→Pictures, Sources, and Copyright: Add some more notes about copyright, permissions, etc.
=== Pictures, Sources, and Copyright ===
Before adding any picture to the site, please be sure that the owner of the picture is happy for you to do so. Quite a few images online will have a free-use license specified (for example, all images on Wikimedia Commons and many some on Flickr), and in cases where a license an image isn't already available, the vast majority of people will respond kindly to a simple request as long as they are acknowledged as the picture's author. A list of authors who have given permission for their work to be used on the wiki can be found at [[permission for material use]]. If you are unable to get permission for a picture you've found online (e.g. because , the author's account is no longer active), an easy best solution is to create a link to the page with the picture on, rather than using the image on this site - it's slightly less pretty than having the picture itself, but it does avoid copyright issues! It is not entirely clear what the legal situation regarding the use of images that are hosted externally ("inline linking" or "hotlinking") is, as whilst this avoids uploading the image to our own website, the effect (i.e. the unauthorised display of the image) is the same. [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/305165/c-notice-201401.pdf UK Government Advice] is that this may infringe copyright, and we don't feel inclined to get involved in a court battle that sets the legal precedent that changes "may infringe" into "will infringe"!
You should avoid copying text from a source such as a website, book, magazine, or so on, and definitely shouldn't do so without acknowledging where you got it from. If you do need to copy a section, you should make it very clear that it is a quote (e.g. by italicising it), and by crediting the source. Otherwise, you should attempt to rewrite the information in your own words - this often makes for a better quality page anyway - and mention your source. This also means that anyone wishing to research a subject in more detail then knows where to start looking, and often a source of information for one page can be used as a source for another.
The Creative Commons (CC) license is a commonly-used license for work released online, allowing free use (and possibly modification) for the material, providing the author is attributed. In the case of the CC license, and possibly others, it is not necessary to place an attribution on each use of an image. Instead, if the file page contains the attribution information, then the fact that the image will link to its file page is suitable attribution, per the [https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#How_do_I_properly_attribute_material_offered_under_a_Creative_Commons_license.3F Creative Commons FAQ]:
:"''Additionally, you You may satisfy the attribution requirement by providing a link to a place where the attribution information may be found''"
==== Ordnance Survey Maps / Crown Copyright ====
