Hello,
I would like to read what you think of the following:
When someone copies some text that is under the GFDL to a wikipedia article, the rule is to write about it on the bottom of the article to pay attribution. I think this is not fair for users of wikipedia, as for them the only attribution is in the History section. Take as an example an article of five paragraphs, two from some other GFDL source and three from a user contributions. The X source will me mentioned in the article, while the user will be mentioned only in history, among minor edits and bot edits. Remember that the GFDL says that authors should be mentioned in a section entitled "History" not in the Document.
I think we would follow the GFDL better, if there was a feature in MediaWiki that would allow a user to make a contribution, and put a note and/or a weblink instead of his username to the history (independent of the summary note). I mean something like:
* (cur) (last) 23:13, 19 February 2005 User1 (→This) * (cur) (last) 23:12, 19 February 2005 128.205.218.14 (→Something - translating a paragraph) * (cur) (last) 18:15, 18 February 2005 66.134.120.164 (→That - partial English translation) * (cur) (last) 15:17, 16 February 2005 '''FOLDOC''' (copied text from FOLDOC) * (cur) (last) 10:05, 16 February 2005 UserX (some edits)
Instead of having a history like this:
* (cur) (last) 23:13, 19 February 2005 User1 (→This) * (cur) (last) 23:12, 19 February 2005 128.205.218.14 (→Something - translating a paragraph) * (cur) (last) 18:15, 18 February 2005 66.134.120.164 (→That - partial English translation) * (cur) (last) 15:17, 16 February 2005 UserX (copied text from FOLDOC) * (cur) (last) 10:05, 16 February 2005 UserX (some edits)
And having to put a note on the article (''This article is based on...'')
It would be nice for all users to be able to make contributions like this, or at least sysops or bureaucrats to be able to change attribution of some edit to something other than just a username (this would be very useful: many times there are new articles from anonymous IPs from copyrighted sources and we receive permission under the GFDL when we check about the copyrights).
What do you think? Is this possible?
Konstantinos (geraki@el.wikipedia)
2006/4/1, geraki@geraki.net geraki@geraki.net:
When someone copies some text that is under the GFDL to a wikipedia article, the rule is to write about it on the bottom of the article to pay attribution. I think this is not fair for users of wikipedia, as for them the only attribution is in the History section. Take as an example an article of five paragraphs, two from some other GFDL source and three from a user contributions. The X source will me mentioned in the article, while the user will be mentioned only in history, among minor edits and bot edits. Remember that the GFDL says that authors should be mentioned in a section entitled "History" not in the Document.
The GFDL also says that authors (or at least the last author and the five main authors of the previous document) should be shown on the title page, which for a Wikipedia page would be the area between the title and the start of the article. Why follow the letter of the GFDL at one place, and follow neither letter nor spirit on another?
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l- bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andre Engels Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 2:12 AM To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] History
2006/4/1, geraki@geraki.net geraki@geraki.net:
When someone copies some text that is under the GFDL to a wikipedia
article, the
rule is to write about it on the bottom of the article to pay
attribution. I
think this is not fair for users of wikipedia, as for them the only
attribution
is in the History section. Take as an example an article of five
paragraphs, two
from some other GFDL source and three from a user contributions. The X
source
will me mentioned in the article, while the user will be mentioned only
in
history, among minor edits and bot edits. Remember that the GFDL says
that
authors should be mentioned in a section entitled "History" not in the Document.
The GFDL also says that authors (or at least the last author and the five main authors of the previous document) should be shown on the title page, which for a Wikipedia page would be the area between the title and the start of the article. Why follow the letter of the GFDL at one place, and follow neither letter nor spirit on another?
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
We don't follow the spirit or letter of the GFDL at two places, and we can make it one. The fact that it is almost impossible to put the five main authors on the title page does not mean that we should not try to fix the other issue. Discriminating wikipedia authors from external sources does follow neither the letter nor the spirit of the license. We can fix this, and we will have only the other one.
Konstantinos (geraki@el.wikipedia)
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org