Andrew Whitworth wrote:

On en.wikibooks we are having some problems instituting an ownership policy (a local equivalent of [[WP:OWN]]). Some of the common arguments we are receiving are:

1. There is a qualitative distinction between "authors" and "contributors".

Not all contributors can be listed as authors of a particular book (especially if the book is printed and distributed). 2. The history pages represent a "log", and do not constitute legal attribution 3. "Contributors" do not have the legal rights that "authors" do. None of us at en.wikibooks are lawyers, and frankly we don't know how to address these objections, or where to find the correct answers. Also, because books are distributed projects (spread across multiple pages), it is not uncommon on wikibooks for a book to have a list of authors somewhere. Are such lists appropriate?

Any help in these questions would be much appreciated. --Andrew Whitworth

While I would agree that the "history page" of articles/modules only are a log, it is at least in theory possible to go through the history of what is written and be able to attribute each and every word with the person who originally penned that word. As such, this history itself is able to constitute legal attribution.

BTW, this is a problem that has been discussed with articles that have been transwikied between the various Wikimedia projects, and to other 3rd party Wikis such as the Novella Wiki and Memory Alpha. The "Special:Export" does not provide all of the information necessary for a proper attribution of all of the words in the article, at least currently as implemented for Wikimedia projects.

I've struggled in attempts to try and come up with a metric to determine who the "primary" authors of a page are. Two obvious methods include edit counts and word counts. Of the two, edit counts are far simplier to implement but also include known vandals and minor changes like admins reverting vandalism or even just fixing spelling or other minor editorial actions.

In addition to everything else, it is also necessary for legal copyright reasons to get to know exactly who is claiming copyright on a particular work.... particularly for larger works like a Wikibook. For this reason, having just a psuedonym with no additional information is not sufficient, but instead an actual legal name is required, together with information such as your current country of residence and nationality (in terms of whose laws will be enforced regarding copyright). You simply can't assume that all Wikimedia content will be (or should be) enforced and protected under laws of the State of Florida and the USA.

I have fought in the past (even submitted a Bugzilla request) to have added to the "user information" for each Wikimedia user some additional "voluntary" information that could be used for the purposes of publishing Wikimedia content. This includes your legal (or "Real") name, and where you live. Sure, you can make this up and put places like "Alpha Centauri" in as where you live, but by so doing you are essentially granting all of your contributions to the public domain. For some Wikimedia users, that probably would be just fine and what they intend. For others, legitimate copyright enforcement under the terms of the GFDL is exactly what they are interested in, and to do that you need to have this actual information.

I know that there are those on this mailing list that are very paranoid about privacy. And with legitimate cause. But at the same time, if you want legal protections like copyright you need to stick your neck out and proclaim exactly who you are and where you live. This is one of the reasons why my user account uses my actual legal name instead of a psudonym, as I do claim copyright on all of my (now significant) contributions to Wikimedia projects. And if I catch somebody misusing that content in violation of the GFDL, I will seek damages in a court of law, under the laws of my nationality: The United States of America.

I don't expect everybody to do this, which is why this needs to be voluntary. And on Wikibooks I established the tradition of asking politely to have people add their names to a list of authors precisely because MediaWiki software does not allow you otherwise to provide this information, at the moment. For those who for various reasons want to remain anonymous, I support the general idea that they should remain so. And that Wikimedia policies should be established to protect that privacy. But you also give up something in the process of being anonymous, and one of those things is the right to control who copies your work, including even under the terms of the GFDL.