I have seen quite a lot of code being copied straight from Mathematica's manual into answers without any attribution (I'm afraid to say I've been doing that myself occasionally). What do you think, should we adhere to academic standards regarding citations or can we assume people will be (become) aware of the source of the material?
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I encourage people to leave remarks about things like these as they see fit, but I don't think we should require to quote the help function. The answer was written to help others in the first place, not for personal benefit. On the other hand, a reference is often a good starting point for further reading, therefore I would suggest if you've found a source you simply edit the post accordingly.
In short: Sources yes, but don't call people out on it.
- 3Actually, I'd go farther and first link to the source in the comments, to give the answerer the opportunity to edit it him/herself. If some amount of time has passed and the answerer still hasn't included the source, then feel free to edit.J. M.'s missing motivation– J. M.'s missing motivation2012-01-25 00:21:06 +00:00Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 0:21
- 3I usually try to provide links to documentation even when I'm just introducing a particular command, but please understand that the speed of everyone else's answers will just encourage a "post first revise immediately" workflow.Verbeia– Verbeia2012-01-25 00:57:24 +00:00Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 0:57