Battlestar Wiki:Derivative Works

This page is an official policy of Battlestar Wiki. This policy is considered by the community and its leadership to be the status quo of Battlestar Wiki and is not to be countermanded or ignored, though changes to it can be discussed on the appropriate talk page. This policy was implemented on 14 April 2005.

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Overview

At times, there are already articles on the Internet or other Wikipedias that may be needed from time to time.

Sometimes creating a derivative work is easier than rewriting what is already so eloquently or sensibly expressed. Some pages on this wiki are works derived from sources, such as the English language Wikipedia.

Of course, derivative works are permitted under certain conditions and licenses, for instance:

• GNU Free Document License
  • Used by Wikipedia
• Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License
  • Used by Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki
• Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commericial-Share Alike License
  • Used by Battlestar Wiki.

Note that this is not an exhaustive, totally inclusive list of all licenses permitting reusage and derivative works.

Properly Deriving A Work

For the purposes of clarity, we will refer to the euphemism source text; the source text is the text you wish to create a derivative work from.

In order to properly derive a work, we recommend the following:

1. Read the license that the source text is already licensed under.
   • Failing this, you may wish to e-mail the author(s) of the text, should an email address be available. If another means of communication is open to you, such as postal mail ("snail mail"), fax or telephone, then use it to get the author's permission.
     • When contacting the author(s) of the work, please ensure that you are polite and be sure to state why you wish to create a derivative work.
2. Once you've read the license, be sure that it permits derivative works. Some licenses require that the derivative work share the same license as the source text.
   • Should any ambiguities exist, DO NOT make assumptions. Please contact the author(s), explain why (and where) you want to create the derivative work, and accept their answer. It is their work; they can do with it as they wish.
3. Should you be able to create a derivative work without infringing on copyright, then feel free to begin!

How to Post a Derivative Work

Derivative works can be posted like a regular article with one exception: we request that the user identify the work as a derivative work.

To do so, we have created two templates. These templates should be placed before the start of the article. Essentially when adding / editing the derivative work in the text edit box, the tag should be on the first line or first few lines, thus the message prints prior to the actual content.

Identifying a Derivative Work from a non-Wiki Web Site

For sites that are not on a Wiki, and therefore an Interwiki prefix cannot be used, use the following template:

{{derivative|

URL=http://www.webpageurl.com/foo/foo.html|

URL_TITLE=Source Article R Us|

LICENSE=GNU FDL

}}

The tag is case sensitive, therefore derivative, URL, URL_TITLE, and LICENSE should be in their respective cases.

It is important that the pipe symbol, |, (or Shift + \) be placed AFTER the line. Do not place the pipe on the final line, which holds the LICENSE text.

Using the example above, it'll show up on the page as:

This is a derivative work from Source Article R Us, which is permissible under the GNU FDL license.

Identifying a Derivative Work from a Wiki

Should the source work be on a Wiki, you may be able to use an Interwiki prefix and Wiki-link formatting. Therefore, the following template exists:

{{derivative2|

INTERWIKI=Wikipedia|

TITLE=Battlestar Galactica Adult Content|

TITLE_TEXT=BSG Adult Content|

LICENSE=Creative Commons NC-SA 2.0

}}

Note that, as with the {{derivative}} template, the derivative2, INTERWIKI, TITLE, TITLE_TEXT and LICENSE must adhere to case sensitivity.

Also, like the first derivative tag, the pipe symbol must be after each line, save the last two.

Thus by using the above syntax, you now have something that reads:

This is a derivative work from BSG Adult Content, which is permissible under the Creative Commons NC-SA 2.0 license. All related edits will be released under this same license.

Other Messy Miscellany

Tags Without Additional Information

Should the tags be inserted by themselves, the following is printed:

For {{derivative}}:

This is a derivative work from [{{{URL}}} {{{URL_TITLE}}}], which is permissible under the {{{LICENSE}}} license.

For {{derivative2}}:

This is a derivative work from [[{{{INTERWIKI}}}:{{{TITLE}}}|{{{TITLE_TEXT}}}]], which is permissible under the {{{LICENSE}}} license. All related edits will be released under this same license.

Creating a Link out of LICENSE

You may use the LICENSE field to create a link to the license, should you so choose.

Please assume that the LICENSE examples below are encapsulated by either the {{derivative}} or {{derivative2}} tags.

For External Hyperlinks

The format is:

LICENSE=[http://www.foo.com the FOO Text Derivative]

Which, in a {{derivative}} tag, would print:

This is a derivative work from Source Article R Us, which is permissible under the the FOO Text Derivative license.

For Wiki Links

The format is:

LICENSE=[[Wiktionary:foo|foo]]

Which, in a {{derivative}} tag, would print:

This is a derivative work from Source Article R Us, which is permissible under the foo license.