[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

[Robert Rohde]

Let me make a radical suggestion.  One that, for the moment, ignores
all those overbearing legal questions.

Why not assume that the appropriate amount of attribution for a
Wikipedia article is essentially the amount that it has now?

When you look at a Wikipedia article there is no list of authors
(principal or otherwise).  There is simply a link to "history", a
statement at the bottom of the page saying that the content is under
the GFDL, and a link to the GFDL.  On the Wikipedia page itself, that
is essentially the full extent of the licensing and attribution.

I assume that practically all Wikipedia contributors are comfortable
with recieving this very low level of attribution for Wikipedia
articles.

So, by extension, perhaps the goal should be finding a way to codify
this scheme in a way that works both for us and for reusers.  Namely,
making the requirements for redistribution of Wikipedia content to
simply be:

1) A link or reference to the article's history
2) A statement acknowledging the free content license
3) A link or reference to the text of that license

That's very simple and practical.  One can add some details regarding
new versions and modifications, but even there I think you accomplish
more by keeping it simple.


Now I suspect there are about three dozen reasons why defining
attribution as simply a link to the history page is legally impossible
and incompatible with the GFDL.  But even so, doesn't it make some
sense to start with:  How are Wikipedia articles being used?  and work
backwards backwards to construct the licensing scheme that best
resembles actual practice while still being legally rigorous?
Wikipedia authors don't seem to want or expect prominent and overt
acknowledgements when writing articles, so why should our licensing
scheme require reusers to add more overt statements than even we
ourselves have?

-Robert Rohde


On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The GFDL has specific attribution requirements that were designed for
> software manuals. What's appropriate attribution for a wiki, where a
> page can have thousands of authors, and a collection of pages is very
> likely to? I would like to start a broad initial discussion on this
> topic; it's likely that the issue will need to be raised more
> specifically in the context of possible modifications to the GFDL or a
> migration to CC-BY-SA.
>
> The relevant GFDL clause states: "List on the Title Page, as authors,
> one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
> modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of
> the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors,
> if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this
> requirement."
>
> Most people have chosen to ignore the "principal authors" requirement
> and to try to attribute every author instead because there's no
> obvious way to determine who the principal authors are. I remember a
> few years back that Anthony tried a completely different approach,
> where he created a full copy of Wikipedia (under the assumption that
> it's a single GFDL work) and attributed it to five people on the
> frontpage. Anthony, please correct me if my recollection is incorrect.
>
> The community process that has developed with regard to GFDL
> compliance on the web has generally tacitly favored a link to the
> article and to its history as proper credit. But, for printed books,
> publishers have generally wanted to be more in compliance with the
> letter of the license. So, the Bertelsmann "Wikipedia in one volume"
> includes a looong list of authors in a very tiny font.
>
> Is that practical? How about Wikipedia articles on passenger
> information systems (screens on subways, airplanes)? How about small
> booklets where there isn't a lot of room for licensing information?
> Should a good license for wikis make a distinction between print and
> online uses?
>
> I haven't heard anyone argue strongly for full inclusion of the
> _license text_. But I'd like to hear opinions on the inclusion of
> username lists.
>
> My personal preference would be a system where we have a special
> "credits" URL for each article, something like
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/credits/World_War_II
>
> which would list authors and also provide full licensing information
> for all media files. If we had a specific collection of articles, the
> system could support this using collection IDs:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/collection_credits/Bertelsmann_One_Volume_Encyclopedia
>
> (These URLs are completely made up and have no basis in reality.)
>
> The advantage that I see of such an approach is that it would allow us
> to standardize and continually refine the way we display authorship
> information, and benefit the free sharing of content with a very
> lightweight process. The disadvantage (if it is perceived as such) is
> that if we would officially recommend such attribution in printed
> books, individual contributors would be less likely to see their
> username in print. But we might see more print uses because it would
> make the attribution more manageable.
>
> It's also conceivable to require full author attribution for printed
> collections of a certain length or printed in certain quantity. (The
> GFDL has "in quantity" rules, but they do not seem to apply in any way
> to the authorship information.)
>
> Aside from what the legal implications of any given approach are, the
> first question I think that needs to be answered is what's desirable.
> Thoughts?
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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