[Foundation-l] Schools Wikipedia & GFDL - no direct credit to authors?

[Erik Moeller]

2008/10/24 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> Indeed - such disputes are only going to become more common if we
> don't sort out a standard system. I agree with you about a direct link
> be preferable. What are your views on the offline version where there
> can't be an actual link (since it is specifically intended for users
> without internet access), just a URL?

My view is that a practice as described by Gregory here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GFDL_suggestions#Proposed_attribution_text

makes sense. IMO there are two different needs here:

* History for the purposes of tracking down who wrote what when. This
is the purpose of the GFDL "History" section, as far as I can see. A
full history (not just including names but dates etc.) can be a huge
document, and a URL seems to be an appropriate way to provide this
information. A copy alongside the other files in an electronic medium
would be doable, but I don't think this should be a legal requirement.
* Attribution for moral reasons. I think we should work towards a
situation where, if there are 1-10 clear principal authors, and we can
easily name them, we will do so. Re-users shouldn't have to worry
about this -- they would just find those names listed at the bottom.
And, if there are more, i.e. history pages with thousands of names, I
think it should be sufficient, in any medium, to credit it as
"Multiple authors, see [URL] for a full list and change history."

But that's just my take -- I don't think there's a clearly codified
"organizational position" on this issue yet, and of course then
there's the letter of the GFDL which can be interpreted to impose
fairly heavy requirements on re-users. Historically, WMF has advised
re-users online to link to the history, and re-users in print to
provide author lists, though this is an interesting middle ground case
(offline but electronic medium).

Does anyone know how it was done in the German Wikipedia DVD?

Erik
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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