[Foundation-l] RfC: License update proposal

[David Goodman]

But since most of the contributors to Wikipedia are anonymous, this is
one thing we do not and will never know, regardless of licensing.  so
to the extent Wikipedia has any authority it's precisely from the fact
of community editing on a non-personal basis.
Yes, within Wikipedia it's valuable to know who contributed what , and
how the interplay of people (or pseudo-people) takes place. For the
evaluation of Wikipedia from outside, it stands, for better or worse,
on the quality of the community editing.

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote
>>> Anthony wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:14 AM, David Goodman wrote
>>>>
>>>>> I am proud of my work, not of my name being on my work. that's narcissism.
>>>>>
>>>> In any case, I find it hard to see how, in this particular context, you
>>>> could be proud of your work but not at least prefer your name to be on it.
>>>>
>>>> If you've achieved something of great value to yourself and to others, isn't
>>>>
>>>> it better for you, and for everyone, if people know you achieved it?
>>>>
>>> I guess that some of us are nothing more than unrepentant altruists.  We
>>> believe that free works belong to everybody.  If something is of great
>>> value to you don't need for anyone to tell you that; you already know
>>> it.  How does knowing that you produced something make the idea any
>>> better or worse than it would be without that knowledge. How is knowing
>>> that you did it better for everyone?  Pride, after all, is one of the
>>> seven deadly sins.
>>>
>> Well, David said he *is* proud of his work, so your "seven deadly sins"
>> argument apparently isn't the one he was resting on.  As for how sharing
>> your name is better for everyone, I think it's fairly clear that a work of
>> non-fiction is better if you know who wrote it, and further I think it's
>> also clear that when someone creates a great work it is beneficial to know
>> who created it so that one can find more works by that person.  So that's
>> how it benefits society.
>
> I wouldn't want to suggest that David was a fallen angel.
>
> Whether you know who wrote a work or not it's still the same work.  It's
> a non-sequitur to draw the conclusion that you do.  Following your line
> of reasoning we should all bow down before the Encyclopedia Britannica
> and give up Wikipedia because EB is better.  Sure, a person who likes
> the works of a particular author will seek out more of his works, but
> that can be much more about better marketing than a better book.
> Where's the benefit to society.
>> How it benefits the individual is even more
>> obvious, to the point that I don't even think I have to explain it.
>>
>>
> We don't really have a difference about benefit to the individual.
>
> Ec
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG