On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk(a)eunet.yu> wrote:
Given that
full attributions are both largely worthless and onerous to
the point of forbidding reuse in many circumstances (e.g. paragraph
Please stop beating the dead horse. No one has ever suggested that full
attributions are necessary.
Yes they have.
quotes, most
physical mediums, compilations, etc.) and partial
attributions are in many ways worse than no attributions at all,
Could you specify at least some of these many ways?
Ok, so off the top of my head:
- It is impossible to reliably determine the top contributors in a
mechanical fashion, because:
- There are no reliable metrics for identifying 'top contributors'
(e.g. edit count vs wikiblame vs creator vs something else?) but:
- Manual determination of top contributors creates opportunities for
internal conflict where there would otherwise be none yet:
- Partial attribution creates opportunities for external conflict
(think DMCA, lawsuits, etc.) where those excluded take exception,
which leads us to:
- Optional attribution which incents those who might otherwise not
care to request attribution and besides:
- Content changes over time so the article consulted at a random
point during the life of the derivative work will differ from that
when it was incorporated; thus it's meaningless anyway unless:
- Re-users are forced to copy the entire (already massive and
constantly growing) edit history and identify the specific version
that was used and even then:
- Extracting signal from the noise is virtually impossible, even for
a small number of authors which takes us back to the start.
Wikis, or 'Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Sites' (as the FSF calls
them) are a relatively new concept. Copyright, attribution, etc. works
well for individuals and extends to relatively small groups (e.g.
bands, tv/film crews, journals, etc.) but many of us believe that it
breaks badly at this scale.
In any case it is clear that Erik/WMF have a good handle on the issue
and Brian's nailed it:
"With a system that can find the authors of any given piece of text no matter
when it existed in any language version:"
"Wikipedia"
Sam