I think it would be polite to acknowledge the materials taken from his site with a boilerplate note at the bottom of the article containing a link back, similar to what we have been doing with FOLDOC materials,
I think we should set a precendent that such acknowledgements go on the Talk page, not in the main article. As long as they are posted at the top of the talk page, with discussion below, and not deleted if discussion is refactored, I think we will meet all our credit obligations without limiting our ability to edit text.
I disagree, for the following reasons:
* Precedent has arguably been set with the FOLDOC materials already, but precedent doesn't really matter, so let's forget that.
* If somebody uses our material on their site, we want a prominent link back. We would probably not be happy with a notice on some attached discussion page that is buried among dozens of links and rather difficult to find for the casual user of the site. So then fairness requires that we give the same prominent attributions to others.
* I don't understand the "limiting our ability to edit text" part. * If you mean: we are then limited because we cannot remove the acknowledgement from the article anymore, then you are correct. Removing that notice would amount to a breach of copyright law, just like pasting in some copyrighted material would. But people check edits all the time, and these things would be noticed and reversed. The same applies to your Talk page solution, but edits on Talk pages are arguably much less scrutinized than edits in the main namespace. * If you mean we lose the ability to edit the material of the article itself: that's incorrect; we just phrase the acknowledgement properly ("This article is based on material from ...")
* Talk pages are for discussion, not for credits. Nobody would look there for them, and nobody would put them there. If you want a Credits: namespace, I think I could live with that, but I still find it more polite to give the original source more prominent exposure in the article itself. If somebody prints out the article, I want them to see the acknowledgement.
Axel
On 21-08-2002, Axel Boldt wrote thusly :
I think it would be polite to acknowledge the materials taken from his site with a boilerplate note at the bottom of the article containing a link back, similar to what we have been doing with FOLDOC materials,
I think we should set a precendent that such acknowledgements go on the Talk page, not in the main article. As long as they are posted at the top of the talk page, with discussion below, and not deleted if discussion is refactored, I think we will meet all our credit obligations without limiting our ability to edit text.
I disagree, for the following reasons:
- Precedent has arguably been set with the FOLDOC materials already, but precedent doesn't really matter, so let's forget that.
- If somebody uses our material on their site, we want a prominent link back. We would probably not be happy with a notice on some attached discussion page that is buried among dozens of links and rather difficult to find for the casual user of the site. So then fairness requires that we give the same prominent attributions to others.
- I don't understand the "limiting our ability to edit text" part.
- If you mean: we are then limited because we cannot remove the acknowledgement from the article anymore, then you are correct. Removing that notice would amount to a breach of copyright law, just like pasting in some copyrighted material would. But people check edits all the time, and these things would be noticed and reversed. The same applies to your Talk page solution, but edits on Talk pages are arguably much less scrutinized than edits in the main namespace.
- If you mean we lose the ability to edit the material of the article itself: that's incorrect; we just phrase the acknowledgement properly ("This article is based on material from ...")
- Talk pages are for discussion, not for credits. Nobody would look there for them, and nobody would put them there. If you want a Credits: namespace, I think I could live with that, but I still find it more polite to give the original source more prominent exposure in the article itself. If somebody prints out the article, I want them to see the acknowledgement.
Hi all,
I feel that it wouldn't be proper for Wikipedia to give credits and acknowledgements on article pages themselves. It wouldn't be Wikiwiki.
We don't sign our articles. After a time there can be very little left from the original source and it would be just misleading to state "it is based on...". It will be a nuisance to find out when it is Wikipedia's rather than the original author.
Either we should create a separate acknowledgement page or we should work out some mechanism for including a short note in the header or foot of pages.
Alternatively we should ask for a written consent to release their material under GNU FDL.
I think it is important for some people that links to their sites appeared somewhere on Wikipedia to draw visitors as well as improve their page rank.
Best regards, kpjas.
On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 11:09:53AM +0200, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
I feel that it wouldn't be proper for Wikipedia to give credits and acknowledgements on article pages themselves. It wouldn't be Wikiwiki.
Au contraire! WikiWiki is also about community building and as the biggest kid on the block Wikipedia has a certain responsibility here. The more interlinked the open-content sites are, the better it is. And as Axel already said, it is simply a matter of common courtesy: treat others as you would like them to treat you.
After a time there can be very little left from the original source and it would be just misleading to state "it is based on...". It will be a nuisance to find out when it is Wikipedia's rather than the original author.
Why would you want to? Even if the original version only served as scaffolding for the current article, I still feel a link on the page would be warranted.
Either we should create a separate acknowledgement page or we should work out some mechanism for including a short note in the header or foot of pages.
Hmm. As long as it shows up in the article itself. We might even have a little pull-down menu on the edit pages with all the open-content sources that have given explicit permission.
-- Jan Hidders
On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Jan Hidders wrote:
Hmm. As long as it shows up in the article itself. We might even have a little pull-down menu on the edit pages with all the open-content sources that have given explicit permission.
I hope, by "permission" they understand that the material is now under the GNU FDL, and that if someone feels like it, they can remove any attribution or back links.
-- Daniel
On 21-08-2002, Jan Hidders wrote thusly :
On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 11:09:53AM +0200, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
I feel that it wouldn't be proper for Wikipedia to give credits and acknowledgements on article pages themselves. It wouldn't be Wikiwiki.
Au contraire! WikiWiki is also about community building and as the biggest kid on the block Wikipedia has a certain responsibility here. The more interlinked the open-content sites are, the better it is. And as Axel already said, it is simply a matter of common courtesy: treat others as you would like them to treat you.
Knowledge, information and content cross all borders. It is the property of mankind. I agree that some acknowledgement should be made but not neccessarily on the page. I think most of us take advantage of a lot of sources and resources. We don't want them all listed on the pages ? OK. What's the consensus here ?
After a time there can be very little left from the original source and it would be just misleading to state "it is based on...". It will be a nuisance to find out when it is Wikipedia's rather than the original author.
Why would you want to? Even if the original version only served as scaffolding for the current article, I still feel a link on the page would be warranted.
Either we should create a separate acknowledgement page or we should work out some mechanism for including a short note in the header or foot of pages.
Hmm. As long as it shows up in the article itself. We might even have a little pull-down menu on the edit pages with all the open-content sources that have given explicit permission.
Something like that.
Regards, kpjas.
Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
On 21-08-2002, Jan Hidders wrote thusly :
WikiWiki is also about community building and as the biggest kid on the block Wikipedia has a certain responsibility here. The more interlinked the open-content sites are, the better it is. And as Axel already said, it is simply a matter of common courtesy: treat others as you would like them to treat you.
Knowledge, information and content cross all borders. It is the property of mankind. I agree that some acknowledgement should be made but not neccessarily on the page. I think most of us take advantage of a lot of sources and resources. We don't want them all listed on the pages ? OK. What's the consensus here ?
Here's my vote supporting the inclusion of credits on the article page. A distant second choice would be for a separate acknowledgement page.
This isn't an issue of somebody's legal rights. (The information in these long lists of kings is in the public domain.) It's as much an issue of courtesy and public relations. We don't sign our articles, but many Wikipedians use their user pages to give a long list of articles to which they have contributed, and that's OK.
The person who compiled these long lists must have done a lot of work to do this, and it doesn't harm the article to have the credit appear prominently. When the efforts of others are taken for granted they can easily feel ripped-off. There's no question of lawsuits, but sometimes we can lose potentially valuable contributors, or we can get a lot of negative comments on other people's pages.
Certainly our pages change over time, and a part of the editing process is making sure that links work and that they continue to be relevant. When the links cease to be valid, they can always be removed at that later time.
Eclecticology
On 21 Aug 2002, at 11:09, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
On 21-08-2002, Axel Boldt wrote thusly :
I think it would be polite to acknowledge the materials taken from his site with a boilerplate note at the bottom of the article containing a link back, similar to what we have been doing with FOLDOC materials,
I think we should set a precendent that such acknowledgements go on the Talk page, not in the main article. As long as they are posted at the top of the talk page, with discussion below, and not deleted if discussion is refactored, I think we will meet all our credit obligations without limiting our ability to edit text.
I disagree, for the following reasons:
- Precedent has arguably been set with the FOLDOC materials already, but precedent doesn't really matter, so let's forget that.
- If somebody uses our material on their site, we want a prominent link back. We would probably not be happy with a notice on some attached discussion page that is buried among dozens of links and rather difficult to find for the casual user of the site. So then fairness requires that we give the same prominent attributions to others.
- I don't understand the "limiting our ability to edit text" part.
- If you mean: we are then limited because we cannot remove the acknowledgement from the article anymore, then you are correct. Removing that notice would amount to a breach of copyright law, just like pasting in some copyrighted material would. But people check edits all the time, and these things would be noticed and reversed. The same applies to your Talk page solution, but edits on Talk pages are arguably much less scrutinized than edits in the main namespace.
- If you mean we lose the ability to edit the material of the article itself: that's incorrect; we just phrase the acknowledgement properly ("This article is based on material from ...")
- Talk pages are for discussion, not for credits. Nobody would look there for them, and nobody would put them there. If you want a Credits: namespace, I think I could live with that, but I still find it more polite to give the original source more prominent exposure in the article itself. If somebody prints out the article, I want them to see the acknowledgement.
Hi all,
I feel that it wouldn't be proper for Wikipedia to give credits and acknowledgements on article pages themselves. It wouldn't be Wikiwiki.
We don't sign our articles.
But the usernames are stored in the history, so essentially speaking we are signing them. (In the same sense that some program don't have list of contributors in the program, rather in a CREDITS or AUTHORS file.)
Imran
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