[Foundation-l] content ownership in different projects

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2011/6/17 Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>:
> I guess that Amir was rather referring to the cultural aspect than the legal
> aspect.

You guessed correctly.

> Amir, is there a specific background that you are thinking of which is why
> you are asking this? Maybe that helps people answering your question.

Nothing in particular. Dozens of times every day i edit articles in
which i see mistakes. Usually nobody complains, but sometimes the
people who wrote most of the article get very upset about the fact
that i touched it at all and send me messages saying this. I used to
reply and politely explain that that, by definition, is the way wikis
work and to cite WP:OWN or its Hebrew counterpart. Sometimes it helps,
but sometimes it makes the person even more upset.

In such cases, as an Israeli saying goes, i am right, but i am not
clever. It hurts that person and it hurts the project, because that
person may otherwise be a very valuable contributor and such things
often make people resign. And every time it happens i spend months
thinking how i could avoid it.

Of course, i am not the only person to whom this happens and Hebrew
and English are not the only languages in which this happens.

So, are we doomed to experience such things every once in a while? Or
does anyone have a bright idea about improving the balance between
ownership and wiki-ness?