On 8/26/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
All the data that I've seen so far suggest that most articles may well be the product of single authors. Not most high profile articles, or most featured articles, ... but most articles. Most articles are mostly short and on obsecure matters.
Yes, most have had edits by a few others. But these edits are overwhelmingly tagging and markup related. It would often be hard to argue that they were substantial enough to carry a copyright interest, and no one sane would argue that such edits are enough to rightly call the editor an author.
In my experience, that's about right. I have a list of about 100 articles that I've started, and I highlight the ones that have been greatly expanded by others. Probably about 70% are really entirely my own work - stubs, categories and types aside. Another 20-25% might have a few sentences here or there added. And the last few have been more than doubled by other editors. They're the ones that warm your heart...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcot_Manor
(I wrote two sentences. Some crazy person expanded it to a full article complete with pictures...)
Steve