I agree with you, many will not do it.
It is not only about a screenshot of a OSMmap (which I used as a example) There lots of other layers/images screenshots that need attribution. (aerial layers, data layers)
You can not do it for all. There are always layers, that need attribution.
It cannot be that we do not do use attribution in this forum at all.
This topic is about finding out what is a properly attibution on the forum.
A good workflow for on the forum use and also use beside the forum.
This is an interesting question. Like others, I’m worried that users may not take the time and will not be cautious enough to add the licence and attribution to every screenshot.
I think we should search for the best workflow that fulfills this condition by design. By this I mean that we should provide a tool to users to include the attribution correctly without them having to type it. The screenshot near the right bottom corner is a good idea, but not enough based on previous answers. It is nothing more than a workaround solution for me; this is not satisfying enough.
On the right of the https://www.openstreetmap.org/ page, there is a Share button which can be used to download the current screen in several formats. Sadly, the result does not have any attribution.
I think the best solution would be to make an improvement on this existing functionality, by adding a mention similar to the one on the right bottom and completing it with the licence.
I think users would be a little more encline to use this Share functionality doing the attribution automatically than having to type it themselves, without forgetting the licence. At least I think the ones who are aware about the licence and would like to respect the conditions if it’s not too tedious to do it could be willing to follow this process. This looks like an improvement to me.
I also like the idea to only use https://www.openstreetmap.org/ to respect the licence, and not directing the users to use Greenshot or whatever program to have a chance to respect all the conditions.
The workflow would then be:
Click on Share
Choose your options: zone to capture, image format, scale, etc.
Click on Download
You then have a file that respects all the conditions.
You can then use another program to annotate it, or directly insert it in any forum.
This kind of functionality should also be encouraged in any other OpenStreetMap client.
Side note: I tried this Share functionality to the scale of a country first, and I had a timeout as a result. Maybe the performance could also be improved to be useful in every situation.
As per the Attribution Guidelines, “if multiple static images appear on the same document, one instance of attribution is sufficient.” Thus, for a forum like this one devoted to OSM, a website footer message of “map images are from OpenStreetMap unless otherwise noted” is sufficient, without need to label the images individually.
Does it make sense/feasible to auto-append license info to the picture’s metadata if nothing exists when it is added to one of the OSM sites. Might be worth adding a license check when posting pictures and other media. Users could re-licensing material before being able with an incompatible copyright.
