[WikiEN-l] Attributing articles to their authors

[Charlotte Webb]

On 1/24/08, Shmuel Weidberg <ezrawax at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think articles should also be attributed to their authors in the
> body of the article. Every major encyclopedia does it.

Granted, no other major encyclopedia is the product of collaboration
by the general public[1].

> Certainly there would be some debate about how much of a
> contribution should be required for attribution...

This is a debate which no one will win and which most of us would
rather not conduct. Right now we can't agree on when it is, or when it
isn't, appropriate to use the "[x] Minor edit" check-box. What makes
an edit "major" or "minor" anyway? In practice it's a subjective
evaluation. Before saving one's edit, the user might ask "hmm... is
this edit more significant or less significant than the last one?" or
even "how would I rate this on a scale of 1-10?" Of course it's a
mistake to spend this much time thinking about it.

> ...and what form the attribution should take, whether real full names, wikipedia nicks, or real full initials.

Obviously this is the individual user's prerogative. Anybody who wants
their edits to be attributed to their real name can have their account
renamed accordingly, and the history tab of every page they have
edited will reflect this change. Initials are another story. You'll
probably notice that most two- or three- letter usernames are already
in use.

[1] And no, Citizendium doesn't count. Calling it "major" or calling
its participants "the general public" would be a repugnant farce.

—C.W.