[Foundation-l] GFDL Q&A update and question

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Erik Moeller wrote:


> The proposed attribution (crediting authors where it is reasonably
> possible and linking to the version history where that would be
> onerous) is completely consistent with
> 1) established practices on Wikipedia;
> 2) the ethics and spirit of the GNU Free Documentation License;
> 3) the ethics of the free culture movement;
> 4) the legal language of both licenses;
> 5) the experience of a human being contributing to Wikipedia.
>
> On that latter point, a person making an edit will surely not fail to
> notice that their name does not actually appear _at all_ in any
> obvious location after they have done so. If anything, after making
> this update, we will attribute more clearly and consistently, and the
> same standards will apply to all. For example, I'm in favor of a
> software change to show the authors of an article, where there are
> less than six authors, in the footer of the article. The notion that
> this is a conspiracy theory to remove or reduce attribution comes from
> a deep misunderstanding of law, ethics, practices, and the human
> experience.
>   


The sentence in the above that interests me the most, is:

"For example, I'm in favor of a software change to show
the authors of an article, where there are less than six
authors, in the footer of the article."

I would be interested in a clarification on this point.
Do you mean less than six people who have edited the
article ever, or less than six people whose text remains
in the current form of the article?


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen