On 6/6/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 6/6/07, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)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.