[Foundation-l] Licensing interim update

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Tuesday 03 February 2009 21:07:51 Sam Johnston wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu> wrote:
> >> Given that full attributions are both largely worthless and onerous to
> >> the point of forbidding reuse in many circumstances (e.g. paragraph
> >
> > Please stop beating the dead horse. No one has ever suggested that full
> > attributions are necessary.
>
> Yes they have.

Citation?

> >> quotes, most physical mediums, compilations, etc.) and partial
> >> attributions are in many ways worse than no attributions at all,
> >
> > Could you specify at least some of these many ways?
>
> Ok, so off the top of my head:
>
>  - It is impossible to reliably determine the top contributors in a
> mechanical fashion, because:
>  - There are no reliable metrics for identifying 'top contributors'
> (e.g. edit count vs wikiblame vs creator vs something else?) but:
>  - Manual determination of top contributors creates opportunities for
> internal conflict where there would otherwise be none yet:
>  - Partial attribution creates opportunities for external conflict
> (think DMCA, lawsuits, etc.) where those excluded take exception,
> which leads us to:

Yes, but how is this worse than no attribution at all? Surely, anyone who will 
object to being out of a partial attribution will also object not being 
attributed at all.

What you wrote after that is completely fictional. 

> Wikis, or 'Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Sites' (as the FSF calls
> them) are a relatively new concept. Copyright, attribution, etc. works
> well for individuals and extends to relatively small groups (e.g.
> bands, tv/film crews, journals, etc.) but many of us believe that it
> breaks badly at this scale.

Many of us also do not. Film crews are still typically larger than the number 
of editors of a Wikipedia article.

> In any case it is clear that Erik/WMF have a good handle on the issue
> and Brian's nailed it:
>
> "With a system that can find the authors of any given piece of text no
> matter when it existed in any language version:"
>
> "Wikipedia"

OK. Could you please show me how to find the authors of the article "Gay 
Nigger Association of America" as of May 2006?