In some cases we need to attribute content created on external sites, and
reused on Wikimedia-sites. In Norway Åndsverksloven says "The creator has
the right to be named according to good practice" ("Opphavsmannen har krav
på å bli navngitt slik som god skikk tilsier") and for our content that is
given by our license and our terms of use. That means by a link to the page
if possible, or if possible an entry in the history.
Now we use a template on the page itself, or similar, but it is not the
page on our site that the external entity has provided, they have provided
the content at their site. So we must say that in some consistent way.
I believe that the best option would be to have a log entry injected into
the history for our page that says "this revision comes in full or part
from that external source". Such an entry could be made by the editor or by
an administrator, but must be made as an extension of the revision. It
should also be possible to delete such an entry.
An alternative could be to make the summary editable, but the summary is
the description of the revision, not the source of the revision.
Does this make sense? Will it solve the problem, or is it just another
level that makes things more confusing?
John Erling Blad
