I read the blog post "Attribution Required" by Jeff Atwood. As I understand the post, SE "require[s]" that reusers "Hyperlink directly to the original question", that reusers "Hyperlink each author name", that users use "standard HTML", and that "the links must not be nofollowed." Taken literally, this would mean that republishing substantial portions of a question or answer in any medium other than the web would infringe copyright, as would republishing in web environments that forbid hyperlinks to SE sites. It would end up ruling out substantial quoting in the following situations:
- Print, because hyperlinks are impossible. URLs may be printed, but that's like using nofollow.
- Sites like Everything2, because external hyperlinks are disabled as a spam control measure. URLs may be posted as text, but that's like using nofollow.
- Several web sites' comment systems, because external hyperlinks are disabled as a spam control measure. They reject any post that contains text that looks like a URL.
What did I misunderstand? Or did SE intend to forbid quoting questions and answers outside the web when it set the attribution policy?