On 8/26/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that
most articles may well
be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or
most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are
mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are
overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to
argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest,
and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call
the editor an author.
In my experience, that's about right. I have a list of about 100
articles that I've started, and I highlight the ones that have been
greatly expanded by others. Probably about 70% are really entirely my
own work - stubs, categories and types aside. Another 20-25% might
have a few sentences here or there added. And the last few have been
more than doubled by other editors. They're the ones that warm your
heart...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcot_Manor
(I wrote two sentences. Some crazy person expanded it to a full
article complete with pictures...)
Steve