Netiquette 1
Everything on the web — text, photos, clipart, programs and every sub-classification of all that — was posted by someone. That someone owns those texts, photos, cliparts and programs. That ownership is called copyright. In the same manner, when we bloggers put our thoughts into words and publish them online, we own our words.
There are times when we want to reference someone else’s words to make our blog entries clear. The most common and effective way to create the reference is to 1) enclose the text in blockquotes and 2) provide a link to the source.
In your write page, you create blockquotes by clicking on icon #7 before you start quoting and you close the quotation by clicking on icon #6.
How blockquotes will appear on your pages depends on how the theme you are using was designed.
Let’s illustrate. For instance, I want to quote a paragraph from Ericsaint’s blog.
Getting online is no longer as expensive as it once was. You don’t even need to have your own PC or landline, as internet cafés can be found in nearly every corner of the metro. For those with the hardware and a landline, prepaid cards abound for as low as P100.00 a card, at around P0.50/minute rates, or about 3 hours of internet time. [A WORK IN PROGRESS: The 24 March 2007 Official Launch of HEdCen.com - Our Third Home (99.5% Draft)]
The text is enclosed in blockquotes and the title of the article from which it was taken is a hyperlink to the page itself.
Why the fuss about the format? It’s not about the format. It’s about letting the public know that we are merely using using someone else’s text to clarify our own point. It’s about acknowledging that the person who originally wrote those words owns them and we are not claiming that they are ours. In short, it is about respect for the author. It is also about NOT misleading our readers by misrepresenting that those are our words. It is also about not getting slapped with lawsuits. Yes, copyright can lead to lawsuits so it is important to give credit where credit is due.