I've generally considered it a good thing, that our discussions are covered by the media and sometime lead to local stories. I personally hope that reporters contact participants before quoting them in an article, but I don't think its anything that we can enforce and sometimes time is an issue. We do ask that reporters credit the St. Paul Issues Forum, when quoting from our discussions - but again, I'm not sure if this is something that we can really enforce.
As, Shauna Croom stated, this forum is much like a face to face public policy forum - your comments are on the record and can show up in other places. In fact, in this forum, your comments are REALLY on the record. They are automatically stored "verbatim" in a publicly accessible archive.
Here is the current guideline in regard to "copyright and reuse" of forum posts, the closed thing that we have to a policy in this regard. NOTE: I'm also including the PROPOSED RULE that is currently under consideration.
You may comment on the proposed rule at:
http://e-democracy.org/townhall/viewtopic.php?t=20
----------- Current Guideline --------------
Copyright and Reuse - By submitting an original message to MN- POLITICS-DISCUSS, authors agree to distribute their intellectual property via e-mail and inclusion in a permanent web archive. While excerpts and URLs are appropriate, do not post the full text of material where a copyright notice has been posted by an individual or commercial entity. All original authors retain their copyright. These messages may be quoted or forwarded online to others as long as the author's name and the "Minnesota Politics Discussion Forum" name or address and the full <http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics> web address are cited or linked. To ensure appropriate credits and promote public access to this community service, no media outlet may quote original postings first made available on this discussion list without giving the full citation.
http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics/mpd.txt
------------ Proposed Rule ----------------
Public Content and Use - By sharing an original message, forum members (authors) agree to distribute their intellectual property via the Internet and inclusion of that content a permanent publicly accessible online archive in perpetuity. A discussion forum posting may only be removed from the public archives under a court order or a case-by-case decision a Chapter or Board. With copyrighted material, you may post quotations from articles or web sites with the source URL. While forum posters (original authors) retain their personal copyright, they grant others through E-Democracy.Org the right to quote or forwarded their public forum messages to others as long as the author's name and the forum's name or web address are cited or linked.
http://e-democracy.org/townhall/viewtopic.php?t=20
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