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3 and 4 is plagiarism no matter how they insert the source url in the content. Those are not how you cite and credit someone or something as the source of the copied paraphrase or sentence. Not unless he wants to credit or give source is the image itself in #4.
As a poster here or any social media website, why complicate things if your purpose is to credit the author or website?

So far it is a quote from Cointelegraph, it is not bad to quote it. This is the most appropriate as the link is included, you can continue with your own opinions or writings. Just like Mr A said and I quote. It is the most appropriate because it was copied words for words from another source.

Or just put it in your own way off hand without copying/pasting it from external source, then quote is not necessary but only include the link for authenticity of your post.

These above are the two I preferred.

The 2 is not bad either but 1 is the best. I can never use 2, it is a way some people might later modify how they include link in a way that is irritating.

3 needs to be writing in you own way if the link is like that.

The 4th is not plagiarism but looking unattractive.

I think you shouldn't play around like that and tempt the moderators. If someone finds plagiarism with such a link, you just need to report it, with a visible link to the source. You should not create inconvenience for verification, and the one who decides to "joke" like this and hide links should be punished, and after that think whether it was worth appropriating and hiding other people's texts.

I can see how the moderators handle reports in the ban thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5094661.msg59106740#msg59106740). If there is solid evidence, for which you do not need to climb into a separate topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5094661.msg59109092#msg59109092), accounts are blocked instantly. The same is true with plagiarism. If you don't want to be banned, provide a visible link.

On the other hand, mk4 recently complained about a post that had a hidden link (for safety I will not show the link) And the account was banned.

Not plagiarism, but not making sense and not professional, so far you included the link like that in the 3rd one, you should write it in your own way, not copy/paste the external source content. This is done like when bringing up a thread that you want people to comment to what you think or something. Example, like gossips on YouTube that someone can bring up what happened in an event and asking what did people think about it.

It is not about what moderators think about it only, it also has to be done professionally.

It's annoying enough to copy an entire post verbatim and just add a link to the source, so at least if you're going to do that, then a user should try as much as possible to make the link very visible for all to see, 1 and 2 is obviously good and a great way to clearly distance yourself from the authorship of a copied work. But as for option 3, it can only be suitable when you're not copying the entire text verbatim, prolly you read a text and you want to put it in your own words, you can sew the link to the original source you got your ideas from in that way and it wouldn't be so obnoxious or even considered as plagiarism. As for 4, I wouldn't just use it.

So what we should call this, an opinionated rule?
Plagiarism is a hot topic in this forum or even the most reasons why mods have huge work load banning and unbanning users, if I'm not wrong theymos even have special number of days to ban a user that plagiarised depends on their contribution in the past, yet it all depends on the mod who handle the report.
Why mods don't make specific rule about plagiarism, how source is cited, the dos and donts.

Best option for the newbies is to go with options 2 and most preferably it should be at the beginning of your thread if you'll be copying majority of the article. I'm sure people will appreciate you letting them know the post they're about reading isn't yours. Putting it at the very end after a long post of copied article would send the wrong signal as that's what majority of the activity/merit hunters do and you'll be looking like one.

The first option isn't that easy to execute especially for newbies who aren't used to how the feature of the forum work, I know it took me something before I could perfect it, it got some to point I have to quote reply a post then edit before I could get the right format to used. Just as others have said, the third and last option shoudn't be considered unless you're writing an original post and what to link some articles outside the forum to stress your point or for more insight on what you're writing.

It is also important to consider that a simply copied post with a provided link, but without their own comments, many moderators agree to accept it as a low-quality post. I have reported a few, and if the discussion does not continue, then such posts are simply deleted.

That's understandable and acceptable but from the topic at hand we're looking at the best way to present a discussion that isn't of your original thoughts without been guilty of plagiarized. Irrespective of how the thought is presented from the four options above, I would delete any that doesn't have a continuous discussions as they all can be considered low quality posts. What give them some content is when they're other valuable discussion developing as users pick interest in the topic.

Imho this 3rd case is pretty close to writing:

I've read in a newspaper (https://cointelegraph.com/news/el-salvador-president-predicts-gigantic-price-increase-for-bitcoin): Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele made yet another bullish Bitcoin (BTC) prediction soon after the International Monetary Fund had urged his government to remove Bitcoin’s status as legal tender.

which will not be considered plagiarism.
So it's pretty much debatable and it may pretty much depend on the mod.

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But 4 is pretty much clear, since there's no visible clue at all about the originating source of the quote. That's a problem. That asks for ban.

I guess number 3 is the hardest to decide but yes this is plagiarism. I saw a couple of such posts on the forum, I guess it's a smart way to avoid the ban. There is no clear citation of sources and this type of writing is used in paid posts to create a backlink.
the context in which the quoted text is cited is also important. if it is presented as one's own opinion, then it is definitely for a penalty while if it is clearly indicated as an example or representation of a different opinion, then it could be considered acceptable.

Examples 1, 2, and 3 are not plagiarism. If you were to report such things to the moderators, the committers would not be banned for it. Plagiarism is not just copy-pasting someone's text. It's also pretending that the work is yours. In the first three examples, it's obvious that you aren't pretending it's yours because there is a quote, source link, or hyperlink to the original source. We might discuss what style is the most appropriate and which one should be used on the forum, but it's not plagiarism.     

I have never come across example #4. Maybe because they are difficult to spot and I didn't see them. Technically, it's not plagiarism because there is a source. However, those who do that, deserve whatever is coming to them because why would you go through the trouble of hiding a link like that when you can just show it normally? Example #4 could be considered plagiarism because the person is pretending that the post is his. You wouldn't be able to know there is an image and source there unless you quoted and checked the code of the post. The only reason I see that someone would do that is to acquire merits making people believe he is the original author, but if someone checks, he can always say that a source was provided but hidden inside the post.   

As long as the post contains the source link it is not considered as plagiarism which I observed from my experiences here because lot of people were copying article from cryptocurrency related news site and post it here to get some merits and at the end of their post they add the source. But I always prefer to put the copied article inside quote bb code and express my opinion below of that.

All these examples have the same error, since the quoted material should be marked with quotation marks. Thus, if you add the quoted text to your message, it will be clearly visible where the quoted text is and where the author's text is. If the link to the source is hidden, then this entails deliberate deception, in which the authorship of the quoted text may mistakenly be attributed to the author of the message.

I'm sure most discretion would involve applying Occam's razor to the user's intent.

Most of the time, pasting a link is easy enough (and the easiest option). If it seems obvious enough that the user intends to credit something to another, then contextual crediting (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5383858.msg59133283#msg59133283) is no different from sourcing something else.

Doing something in an obfuscated way means you have little intention to share it: that seems contrary to someone wishing to credit others' work.

That's exactly what I was saying and that's the case with example #4 in Ratimov's OP.

Putting something in quote is enough to show the public that you are not trying to make it look like the content is yours. Hence the quote tags. I still wouldn't do that without placing a source link. You would most certainly be safe from getting banned, but maybe a mod would consider deleting your post. I personally see if as an unneeded gamble.   

After all, the purpose of quoting is not only not to be accused of plagiarism, but also the norm of copyright. Therefore, in addition to quotation marks, the source and author, if any, should be indicated. And for web publications, a hyperlink to the original message should also be indicated.

Technically true, at least on this forum. 3rd example is very sketchy though. I can't think of any good reason to do this. Since the person doing this is would be most likely already aware of how plagiarism is treated on this forum, they should just put in a proper link/quote and not run the risk of moderators misinterpreting it. For example, what if the link is dead and moderator doesn't realize it was supposed to be a link to the source of the text and not some random link about the underlined word?

And for a casual observer who doesn't want to click links it's not really obvious that it's a source link for the entire following paragraph (or multiple paragraphs? where does it end?), therefore the user who posted such a link may be incorrectly assumed to be the author of the text by merit senders etc... not entirely ethical I think. So yeah maybe I can think of a (bad) reason to do this - merit whoring.

Put it in quote tags and remove all doubt.

The fact that moderators are extremely lenient in such cases doesn't make it a good or even acceptable practice.

Option 2 is practically the best way to go about putting a source on a post. It's more directory than the other options. At one glance, you could spot out the that, its not some original content of the OP. People reference stuffs all the time, stuffs that might not be from the source of the specific information being relayed but then, it could help for a better understanding or appreciation of the content.

Now, for those who don't really care to look or are scared on tapping links, they really wouldn't know it was some reference better understanding or the source link. So, pointing it out looks the more better to me.

If I am a moderator or if I want to report plagiarism to a moderator,  I will not consider 1, 2 and 3 as plagiarism.
Obviously, they are not. In as much there is no standard or professional way of referencing in this forum, such as APA style etc, any style can go.

However, I do no see the reason anyone should use the number 4 option in referencing. If actually I want to reference someone and then hide the reference, to what purpose? Maybe, tempting the moderator or bringing an innovation?

You are right on this that is why we have the quote tag and it is equivalent to quote and I quote making it appear that you don't own the sentence or portion of the article but simply quoting, I have done it several times but you have to insert the link where you get the text for reference so to invite readers to check your source to justify your post and making it not appear out of context.

I see "option 2" (with a link at the bottom) a lot, but I don't like it. By omitting the quote button it's not instantly clear that it's a quote, and if someone were to quote part of that post, chances are the fact that it was a quote already disappears completely. Example:
<my response to this text makes it look as if Ratimov typed this>
This is better:
<if I quote option 1, at least the quote inside the quote makes it still clear Ratimov didn't write this>

I've argued before that it should be required. I currently consider it a loophole in the forum rules.

That's another loophole. It may not be plagiarism, but it sure is a copyright violation.

My preferred option (let's call it #5) would be this:

Or, now that I think about it, this would be even better (but I don't use this myself):

Ratimov didn't mention it in his OP, but I am pretty sure you could also use italicized fonts in quotation marks to copy certain content and that would be fine as well. It needs to be clear you are not trying to pass it off as your own and admins can easily see what exactly is copy-pasted.

I could say something like this for example:
Suchmoon said "put it in quote tags and remove all doubt". But Ratimov doesn't think it's necessary, and he stated: "this is not required and is not required by anyone".

Even though those two sentence segments don't belong to me and I copy-pasted them, no one could look at the sentence above and think that I have plagiarized. It's clearly indicated who said it and the copy-pasted content is easily recognizable. Whether or not it should be done is a completely different ting though.   

Maybe article below will make this thread easier to understand and how it should be done. This means that if everything in a post meets the stated criteria, then the post is not called plagiarism. Regarding quotation marks, because not everyone cares about it or doesn't understand that it is one of journalistic ethics, I think it can be understood, because there are definitely a lot of members here who don't have a journalist background.

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Let's look at the post made by stonybrook (link below), in that article, they copied my quoted points above, the contents exactly the same as the one on USG, and only included a hyperlink to the source. This mean, this is a normal thing that can be done


Source 1: https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/citations/avoid-plagiarism
Source 2: https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit08/credit08_03.phtml

It should be made OBVIOUS that whatever you are quoting is not your own words..

It should not be easy to mistake quotes words as the posters own words..

The poster absolutely should not edit words like “I” “WE” or “US” into the quoted text to further trick readers into believing that the quoted text is the posters own words..

The link containing the original text should be obviously attached to the quoted text, and not just hidden in a bunch of other irreverent links to further confuse readers into believing that the text is the posters original words but barely escape a permaban because “the link was there”..


Ratimov...  

An unrelated idea to the main topic, but I think it would be a good idea to make the link URL visible next to the link text by default (this can be turned off in account preferences on a per-user basis), if only to protect from phishing and malware attempts.

Regardless of what style the poster uses to credit the original author, as long as they provide the source to the original post then I don't think it's plagiarism. But the 4th option is something that can be considered plagiarism because it will not be noticed clearly even if it has an disguised source.

I don't feel that options 1, 2, and 3 are a problem for most people as they have a clearly visible source and the poster probably has its own style to do so.

If I want to reference somebody, it means I want to give someone credit for his or her works. But if I give such credit and hide it so that the person I am giving the credit and others will not notice that I have given the author the credit. I think the reason for the credit is defeated. Giving someone credit should happen in a simple and straightforward manner.

That disguise makes it partially plagiarism because you are making it seem like your wrote it. It's more difficult to create that disguise in example #4 than to do what was shown in cases 1-3. You are technically putting more effort into hiding the source than showing it.