I can understand of course that the ideal of credit is appealing. David's idea of automatically generated contribution statistics under a "Show credit" template is a good idea, its basically an editor summary of the article. As far as actually listing editors in the text of the article for credit - I think that it is difficult and contentious to the point of being not worth the effort. If the process is subjective, it will be yet another meta-distraction from the goal - which is content, not credit.
Perhaps if simple and objective criteria were proposed, an idea similar to "Show credits" could be workable and useful, although the almost universal use of pseudonyms sort of takes the meaning out of public credit (as opposed to a similar show credit box on the talk page, perhaps).
On Jan 24, 2008 3:22 PM, Shmuel Weidberg ezrawax@gmail.com wrote:
I'm reposting my reply to Nathan and breaking up the paragraphs to make it easier to read.
Public credit as I mentioned would be a section at the end of the article much like Brittanica has. I don't believe they credit the minor editors.
I don't know that it makes a difference whether the work is good, only that it is substantial.
I would give credit in the order of contribution with perhaps the truly major contributors getting top billing.
If the work of an editor is mostly deleted, then his credit would be removed as well. If somebody decides that he decides that he no longer agrees with what he wrote, or it has been edited to say something that he no longer agrees with, he can remove himself from the list.
The same people who edit the article can decide who gets credit. When you edit an article you can decide for yourself how much credit you deserve, and if some subsequent editor disagrees, they can change it, or discuss it on the talk page as with the the contents of the articles.
I am sure that there will be a number of arbcom cases as a result, but so what. I think many editors agreed to not be credited because they did not want to fight the system.
Walt Disney didn't used to credit his animators either, and they technically agreed to it, because they could have stopped working for him, but they certainly weren't happy about it, and they ultimately prevailed.
Regards, Ezra
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