[Wikipedia-l] Where to put acknowledgements

[Imran Ghory]

On 21 Aug 2002, at 11:09, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:

> On 21-08-2002, Axel Boldt wrote thusly :
> > >> I think it would be polite to acknowledge the materials taken
> > >> from his site with a boilerplate note at the bottom of the
> > >> article containing a link back, similar to what we have been
> > >> doing with FOLDOC materials,
> > >I think we should set a precendent that such acknowledgements go on
> > >the Talk page, not in the main article.  As long as they are posted
> > >at the top of the talk page, with discussion below, and not deleted
> > >if discussion is refactored, I think we will meet all our credit
> > >obligations without limiting our ability to edit text.
> > I disagree, for the following reasons:
> > * Precedent has arguably been set with the FOLDOC materials already,
> >   but precedent doesn't really matter, so let's forget that.
> > * If somebody uses our material on their site, we want a prominent
> >   link back. We would probably not be happy with a notice on some
> >   attached discussion page that is buried among dozens of links and
> >   rather difficult to find for the casual user of the site. So then
> >   fairness requires that we give the same prominent attributions to
> >   others.
> > * I don't understand the "limiting our ability to edit text" part. 
> >    * If you mean: we are then limited because we cannot remove the
> >      acknowledgement from the article anymore, then you are correct.
> >      Removing that notice would amount to a breach of copyright law,
> >      just like pasting in some copyrighted material would. But
> >      people check edits all the time, and these things would be
> >      noticed and reversed. The same applies to your Talk page
> >      solution, but edits on Talk pages are arguably much less
> >      scrutinized than edits in the main namespace.
> >    * If you mean we lose the ability to edit the material of the
> >      article itself: that's incorrect; we just phrase the 
> >      acknowledgement properly ("This article is based on material
> >      from ...")
> > * Talk pages are for discussion, not for credits. Nobody would look
> >   there for them, and nobody would put them there. If you want a
> >   Credits: namespace, I think I could live with that, but I still
> >   find it more polite to give the original source more prominent
> >   exposure in the article itself. If somebody prints out the
> >   article, I want them to see the acknowledgement.
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I feel that it wouldn't be proper for Wikipedia to give credits and
> acknowledgements on article pages themselves. It wouldn't be Wikiwiki.
> 
> We don't sign our articles.

But the usernames are stored in the history, so essentially 
speaking we are signing them. (In the same sense that some 
program don't have list of contributors in the program, rather in a 
CREDITS or AUTHORS file.)

Imran