Why not implement quote tags?
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Your standard is clear and simple. I will begin to follow suite.
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I think we need quote tags in the app, I will *try* but not about to break my posting habits for one app of the many I use.
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I prefer to use quotation marks, they're less intrusive and less geeky. And isn't that what they are for? The clue is in the name. :)

As in...

Jeff Hoard says:

"What I do when I copy/paste text, I do this...
---quote---
Copied text in here
---/quote---"

Apart from putting things in quote marks or otherwise identifying them as quotes, there are other issues, like...

- How big a chunk is it acceptable to quote?
- Can an answer be entirely made up of a quote?
- Do you need to take responsiblity for whether what is in the quote is actually valid?

I'm not sure there are simple answers to questions like that. But they are part of the difference between trustworthy research and yet another internet site full of junk.
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This is an important question for the Mahalo community.

I'd suggest, in response to philipy's q:
---quote---
- Can an answer be entirely made up of a quote?
---/quote---

It can, but it wouldn't be a quality answer. I'd say the responder should simply provide the link to the text instead of inserting the entire quote (as the whole answer).

OK, so now here's the animal (in this case dogs) in a hat image for your viewing pleasure...
Source(s):
flikr photo credit: artofthegreyhound


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Creative Commons by | El Caganer
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Great plan, I hope it catches on.
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I agree with your idea, and hope it becomes a standard on Mahalo Answers!
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"even some purple belts"

uhhh....actually, even some (or should I say "a") brown belt shamelessly copies and pastes from wiki.

I think a simple " and " at the end of the information, and at the bottom the source and link are sufficient
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To be honest, I don't like the idea. It's... for lack of a better word... ugly. I would rather quote tags like most forums have, or just try to make my quotation marks clearer. Or to at least find a better looking way of doing it.

I do agree with the point, though. If we don't want new members copying and pasting without giving proper credit, we have to make sure that we make our quotes clear ourselves.

Edit: Here's my first attempt at making my quoting a little clearer. I'll keep playing around with it until I find my style.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/current-events/first-baptist-church-maryville-il-shooting-fred-winter-why-did-he-get-shot

http://parrots4parties.com/images/parrot_in_a_hat-sm.jpg
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I try to use quotes at the start and end, along with the source in the text from where I found it (which is not always on the internet) as well as a link, if there is one.

I do like Jeff's suggestion for making it clear that it's a quote when there might be other quotes inside the quote, for clarity's sake.

http://josh.yosh.org/travel/andes/andes_files/image315.jpg
The turtle on the left is wearing a butterfly hat, and no human was involved in putting it there!

But if human involvement is ok:

http://petesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/meloncat.jpg
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It only makes sense to add a source when you copy and paste. I've copied and pasted whole articles before, but I always add a source. Sometimes it would be better to simply put them in quotes or reference the information as follows.

The below information comes from the article "Name of Article" and then put it in quotes. I'm not saying that people are too lazy to go to the link, yet it sometimes is helpful when more information is available to the user. If you are going to use the information as a whole, add quotes, a source where it came from. Granted, nobody is perfect, and we all make mistakes forgetting to add the source.
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As I recall from school, you could italicize or underline book titles. Is there a way to use an italicized font or enable underlining?

I have copied and pasted only twice online.....both times here. One was a huge list and another was a fairly descriptive sequence. Both times I used my source, but there is no technology I've found here to use any other font or color.
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I tried using quote /quote tags here, and it seemed to hyperlink the tags while stripping out the square brackets, odd.

http://www.mahalo.com/answers/from-twitter/on-nokia-phones-there-is-a-flash-message-option-can-i-send-one-from-another-phone-by-inserting-certain-characters-into-my-text#
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I usually will only use quotes when I find it absolutely necessary to include it in an answer or in any composition for that matter. Even then I'll limit what I use, and if I were to use multiple quotes, unless I needed them undivided, by using more than one sentence to support a single point, or specific idea, I would probably separate each of these quotes with my own words, in order to create the answer as original to my own individual idealistically formed answer, as possible. If I were to need more than a reasonable size paragraph in someone else's words, I would give the paragraph numbers along with the source location, and/or link. ( I don't see anything wrong with using ---quote--- , or other clear indicators).

This is of course, the way I like to conduct myself, and really don't care that much about how much of someone else's writing you are using, as long as they get credit for it somewhere on the same page, whether that means quotations, sources/links, or both.

What is a reasonable size to use & using parenthetical source tags, etc. is, I do believe, another story.
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I think folks can have their own style for quoting as long as it's clear.

For my money I like when people use quotes. Like this:

CNN says "The moon is made of cheese because the mice who live on it like to eat cheese." http://www.cnn.com/micelikemooncheese

or

From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/cheeseeatingmoonrats

"The moon is made of cheese because the mice who live on it like to eat
cheese."

That's how journalists do it: they attribute the work and put the quote right after it.

The most important thing for me is that people do more than cut and paste other people's work. Quoting is just fine provided you're not taking the entire work and you're linking back to the person.

Original copy (words) is really what people need to add to their quoting. So, if someone asks what's the best selling beer in the world I think it's great to see a list from a New York Times story, but I would like it to have a little extra copy like "I found three stories that all confirm that Bud Light is the best selling beer in the world. Two stories reported that Snow from China is, with 1 billion gallons sold, the best selling beer in the world."

In other words, take the research and distill it down for me.
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