Intellectual Property…Mooney Wall etc.
Just a question about forum etiquette-
I am sure most of us visit other forums. When questions are posted on other sites, whereby the information to best answer that question was learned on this site, what is the right thing to do?
Refer them to this site…….they may not be a contractor.
Offer the best solution, and credit the source?
Just stay out of it?
Example- I recently read a post about a guy looking to convert his 2×4 walls in a garage to 2×6, so that he could add insulation. he wanted to add 2×2 along the edge of the 2×4 to make a 2×6. Obviously, a better idea would be to use the “Mooney Wall”…. But it is not my information, just learned it from reading this forum, futhermore, i have never built anything where I used this concept. BTW, I did not reply to the post, but did feel that the advice he did get was inadequate.
Are the contributors offering their knowledge to the world, or is it like the Las Vegas commercial “what happens here, stays here”?
Replies
I s'pose it's your choice. Me, I'd be inclined to simply answer the question.
But if then I was given great praise, I'd have to say I learned it form so and so. Anyway, anything discussed here becomes the property of Taunton anyway.
I've had my ideas used and traded on "Knots" as if they were others ideas, but hey, this is more or less a public forum.
Edited 7/18/2006 7:21 am ET by jackplane
Of course the best advice would be something you have tried (and more than once) and found to prove true to the application. However, to offer a link to other answers that you think might be right is often a wise move. Qualifying your answer with the link would provide the questioner the caution needed whether to believe it as gospel or not.
A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
the advice he did get was inadequate
Go to Bob Vila's site if you want some goofy advice.
Saw a post once about cells, guy was told since he hadn't put up a VB before drywalling he'd have loose cells floating through his home forever.
Joe H
"Refer them to this site.......they may not be a contractor."
I'm pretty sure you don't have to be a contractor to visit this site, be a member of this site, or to buy Fine Homebuilding, for that matter.
But it is not my information ...
Copyright doesn't apply to ideas or concepts, only expressions of ideas or concepts. If you can relay an idea or concept entirely in our own words, without deriving or paraphrasing someone else's description, then there's no technical problem with doing so. 'seems to be a good courtesy to give credit to the orignal source, though.
I think there was a thread some months ago, whereby the owners of this site emphatically stated that participation here is not limited to construction professionals.
dear services: Mooney wall is for the world..
i only named it... guys & gurls knocking around ideas on this formum actually developed it.. with the lions share and the missing piece comming from Tim Mooney..
so long as you call it "Mooney Wall" ... i, frankly , will be thrilled..
as for generally speaking...
ideas discussed here are for everyone to share.. that is what we do.. we share..
and it is also the reason this site is so successful ... because of that sharing