Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

If we just do that, we'd need some way to know their name in order to cite it, which is impossible.

We have already gone over this while you were gone (I forgot which list..). Anon contributors work under the pseudonym which happens to be their IP address. It is their choice to do so. Real names are not needed.

Why not have it all just be the same as Wikipedia is? That seems to be working. I don't like ownership of knowledge, and I'd rather that everything contributed to wikibooks, anonymous or otherwise, is considered authored by wikibooks, just like Wikipedia.

No Dan, that is not how Wikipedia works. All unique content is owned by the contributors on Wikipedia (same here). However, by placing their work on the Wikimedia server they all agree to license a copy of their work to Wikimedia under terms of the GNU FDL.

Additionally, some textbooks (like my Algebra I textbook, for one) are partially based on Wikipedia content, so it would be nearly impossible to say that all of the non-anonymous contributers in any way own the content; that would just be too broad.

In order to comply with the GNU FDL you need to do more to cite just what material you are using from Wikipedia. On the Algebra I authors page, IMO, you should list (maybe in a subpage) the Wikipedia articles you copied and provide link backs to them.

Come to think of it, we need to form a policy on how to use Wikipedia content (how to cite being the most important thing to consider).

Aside: It would also be nice if links to other Wikimedia projects looked different than external links. A green color would be nice..

--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)