Have you noticed the new Fodors Guidelines? They include the following: "All postings must be your own words (ie. no cutting or pasting of copyrighted material)." And they mean it: I couldn't even cut and paste the warning for this post! <BR> <BR>This probably explains why some of the many newspaper articles, poems and other items that have been shared over the past few days have been pulled. I miss those contributions, but the Fodors folks do have a point. So those of you who were feeling picked on, you're not paranoid-- they really ARE after you!

to the top <BR>

Some of the posts disappeared because they were disgusting and not travel related. <BR> <BR>I vote for registration and no aliases allowed. That would stop the disgusting and nasty stuff put up by the brainless that turns everyone off (everyone except the aliases).

Hey, I didn't know about the cutting and pasting. Quite honestly, I'm surprised: If you give proper attribution to the source, why not quote? Seems more honest to me than passing something off as my own if it isn't.

Most of the time people cut and paste things without giving attribution, for one thing. However, copyright law doesn't give you the right to lift and publish someone else's work without their permission regardless of whether you quote the source or not. People really do own their work and are allowed to decide where and when it is published.

Posting on a message board is not "publishing"; I would assume it is more like in academia where reasonable quotation is permissible as long as you attribute it.

Christine, I'm no expert, but I don't think copyright law works quite that way. You can use other people's writings for parody or commentary, of course, which is mostly what goes on here.

I realize this is a travel forum and a very worthwhile one at that, I've gotten many tips from the knowledgeable posters on this board for my last trip to Italy, -- but what keeps me coming back now that I really don't have any travel-related questions are some of the humorous and other so-called non-travel related posts. If some of these are offensive to some people, my opionion is -- don't read them. I can see the problem with cutting and pasting copyrighted material, but I don't feel that threads should be deleted because they are not strictly travel-related. We all need some diversions these days.