Thanks for being part of our great community. Bestnaija cannot exist without you all.
There is an issue that has kept resurfacing frequently very recently and it has to do with our improved content strategy. We want to share and pride in only quality and reliable and original information. The benefits are both short term and long term.
The Reasons
We frown at fake news. We discourage plagiarism. We encourage quality information sharing as these will add value to our members and help build trust and credibility.
Because of these, we would like to clarify the following:
It's the act of copying other peoples works and using or presenting them as your own (similar to theft) and without giving proper credit to the source or original owners. Not right, right?
The Way Forward:
For communities like our own, it is unavoidable that we copy or reference content from other websites. These contents - texts, articles, videos, images - are results of hard works of other people. To use them with global best practice, it is imperative we give credit to the source of such intellectual works.
How To: Referencing Articles From Other Websites
To do this properly, the following are the best practice.
When you reference (or copy) an article or piece of text from another website, you must:
1. Modify the subject/title to your own words
2. Introduce the article or text with an intro paragraph expressing your own thoughts before pasting the copied piece of text
3. If you like, the copied text or articles may be best pasted between the [quote] … [ /quote] tags to show it is being quoted from another website.
4. And finally, the poster must give credit to the source. The minimum expected here is to mention the name of the source. Meanwhile, it is appropriate to submit the link to the original article.
Those are the best practices for quoting, copying or referencing text contents (news, articles, etc) from other websites.
Original Contents - The Best!
The best form of contents is Original Content. Original contents are those generated or typed or concocted by the poster himself in his own words. This gets the best ranking because of it's uniqueness and quality.
We encourage all Bestnaija posters to:
1. Post original contents in their own words, or
2. Retype all copied contents in their own words before sharing or
3. Follow the above 4 guidelines to properly reference copied and pasted contents from other websites.
In the case of non-compliance?
We shall NOT ban anyone for doing that. But such submitted content or post may be deleted, or modified or at least demoted.
Thanks for your anticipated understanding.
From Management.
The Bestnaija
