[WikiEN-l] Citizendium

[wjhonson at aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 4:40 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:44 PM,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
> In a message dated 4/16/2009 4:02:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> wikimail at inbox.org writes:
>
>
>> Once you've released your writing, it can be "edited mercilessly" in
>> ways which are directly counter to your intent, and you're left with 
the
>> choice between abandoning credit for your work and being considered
>> responsible for the modifications of others (or, in the case of
>> Citizendium,
>> you're forced to choose the latter).>>
>>
>
> I dont' understand about this "responsible" part.
> Even though I've started many articles in-project that were later put 
in a
> state that I wouldn't want, I don't feel responsible for the current 
state
> of the article.

Interestingly, this feeds into a current discussion going on about the
use of PD text. The discussion (which may have got a little out of
hand, is on the talk page of the Signpost's article about plagiarism).
The basis of part of the subthread is whether it is morally right to
take someone's PD work, to republish it as a Wikipedia article (with a
template at the bottom providing attribution), and to then leave it to
the tender mercies of the Wiki editing process. At what point might
the author of the original PD text no longer want to be credited for
writing the text that "seeded" the eventual result on Wikipedia?

And does it make a difference if the author of the PD text is long
dead and the text is PD "by age" or if the author is alive and the
text has been released as PD by the author's employer, or if the
author himself released it as a PD text?

Or to put it another way - is it acceptable for Wikipedia to co-opt
other authors into the "collective credit" that the authors of a
Wikipedia article take for that article?

Carcharoth>>
--------------------------------------------

To answer your last point, yes, it's acceptable.

However here is how I would do it.  Put the PD item on WikiSOURCE, and 
then from the Wikipedia article, initially identical, point at the 
WikiSource article "Original version is here...."

For the 1911 EB articles we say something like "This article 
*incorportates* information from the 1911 EB..."  or something like 
that.

If the author who is placing their material PD, not by age, doesn't 
like what people do with it, they shouldn't have made it PD.  I mean 
you can't give away your cake and then claim that it shouldn't be eaten.

Will "Marie Antoinette Didn't Say That" Johnson