I really have to come out against putting
acknowledgements on
the pages themselves. It's /not/ required by the license,
Agreed.
it's /not/ what I would expect someone using our
text to do,
That's the crucial point. Previously, I had interpreted the consensus
on this list as asking for links back to Wikipedia on every page that
uses Wikipedia material. If that's really not the case (and I could
live with that), then we should phrase [[wikipedia:copyrights]] a bit
clearer.
it clutters the page with information that isn't
relevant to most
users, it gives a sense to users of the text being a "fixed" rather
than "dynamic" thing, and it will create a growing problem in the long
run.
The last point, with accumulating credits over time, is a good one.
We're here to serve the readers, not the egos of
writers who think
writing a sentence or two is a major accomplishment forever worthy of
credit. Indeed, we are changing the notion of "authorship" itself,
and we shouldn't constrain ourselves to policies that fit the old
paradigm.
We have however chosen a license that enshrines these authorship
rights.
Another possibility I'm open to is a wiki markup
specifically for
endnotes and credits
This would be good, or alternatively a Credits: namespace which by
default always contains a text like "Wikipedia articles are
collaborative efforts; you can find the contributors on the [[History
page]]." and then we could credit any other outside sources there.
I would however request that the Printable Version of every article
contains these Credits (in a smaller font if desired). Otherwise,
printed out copies could arguably be seen as being in breach of license.
Axel