This isn't really a license issue.

You are assuming that the post was written elsewhere first, then copied here. However, since the same user posted all of them, we should assume that user wrote the post once locally, then copied that to all the sites. In any case, it's the user's IP, and the user is free to copy it to wherever they like.

The only time this would not apply is if users have agreed on another site that anything posted there belongs to the site only, and the original author has given up all rights. That is probably not the case. Even then, its the user posting here that is violating someone else's copyright, not us.

The real question is what our policy should be towards a user posting the same question at essentially the same time in other places because of what it means to this site and the volunteers that might answer, not because of IP concerns.

Personally, I think that's rather an obnoxious thing to do because it's abusing the free help of the volunteers on all the sites. Multiple people across the internet may spend time writing answers, without the benefit of seeing what others have already written. The answers are then scattered about, with only the original asker benefitting from them all.

I propose our policy be

• Questions first posted here aren't allowed to be posted elsewhere for some time limit (3 days?).
• When a question here is later posted elsewhere, the question here must be updated with a link to the duplicate. This includes any additional future duplicates.
• Questions first posted elsewhere may be posted here only after some time limit (3 days?).
• Questions here that are copies of elsewhere must include a clear statement to that effect, and links to any copies of the same questions elsewhere.

Violation of these rules is a serious abuse of this site and the volunteers here. The first offence results in account suspension of a few days, and the second offence a couple of weeks. By the third offence, the account is simply deleted.

Can we really assume that they are originally written by the same individual? They are posted on other sites by many different accounts and they never react to any comment asking if they are the same user.

That's a good point I hadn't considered. That does make the license more relevant. I figured one user was just trying to maximize their chance for a quick answer. I don't know why another user would copy posts between sites, but I suppose we can't be sure it is a single user when they won't say so. The timestamps on the various copies might provide a clue.

I'm not sure what to do in the case of users we can't tell are the same. The safe thing would be to delete the post altogether. Others than the original author shouldn't be copying posts from elsewhere, and certainly shouldn't be doing it without attribution.

It would be more work, and I don't think it's worth it, but we could delete a duplicate post only if it was posted later than another one out there. If the other way around, we send a message to the other site demanding attribution or removal of the post. Again though, I don't think getting into this level of detail makes sense.

posted about 3 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

3y ago

Olin Lathrop‭

850 reputation 3 25 70 19