Stirling Newberry (stirling.newberry@xigenics.net) [050216 01:22]:
On Feb 15, 2005, at 9:13 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
NSK said:
Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia? it's because I know that nobody will know that an article or paragraph was written by me.
Good grief, is that what it's all about?
In my course of recruiting for wikipedia, this is a statement made by several academics. The nature of wikipedia as a "people's encyclopedia" stops them. Now this is a serious question - people will work for free but not for nothing - and part of what will help wikipedia grow is finding ways of giving people the ability to get "something" for their work, particularly in the writing community, that is the body of editors who make large contributions.
I use my full name (rather than a net handle) on Wikipedia because it seems more proper, and also the credit clearly then goes to ME ME ME ME ME. Have they seen the history pages? It's usually clear which two or three editors are primarily responsible for an article text.
However, "credit" of other kinds could given, one which did not attach "ownership" to a particular article. Wikipedia should look into ways to recognize its creative contributors, without attaching personal credit or ownership over articles.
I picture a future version of Mediawiki in which the history of particular sentences is visible.
- d.