On 6/6/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/6/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
We would be better off if we added "I agree to be credited as 'a Wikipedia contributor' (or collectively as 'various Wikipedia contributors') where authorship must be credited under the terms of the GFDL" to the submission statement. At least for non-logged-in contributions. Save us a lot of grief.
You're joking, right? How would that differ from allowing the Foundation to assume copyright of all entries? If you wrote the article of the century, pretty much by yourself, some how I doubt a byline of "From Wikipedia, by Wikipedia" wherever it's mirrored would be satisfactory to you. Not without at least a link to the edit history.
Actually, it would be totally fine with me. I don't contribute to Wikipedia for the glory.
Also, I don't have anything against making it a choice. Just that it would be helpful if it were the default. That we act like it's important to credit IP addresses is a sign of a broken policy.
The actual quality of most users' edits will not rise to that level, but that is not a factor in copyright status or attribution requirements, which must be fulfilled unless said edits have been explicitly released into the public domain, which while quite common is not the norm. And even with no legal requirement to credit the author of explicit public domain edits, it is still a polite, ethical thing to do.
I don't know about ethical, but it can be helpful for historians.