[Foundation-l] Proposed revised attribution language

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>> Anthony wrote:
>>   
>>> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>> Anthony wrote:
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>>>>> a) a link (URL) to the history page of the article
>>>>>> or other page that contains the authorship
>>>>>> information of the articles you are re-using.
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>           
>>>>> For offline copies, that would likewise be no attribution at all.
>>>>>       
>>>>>         
>>>> Can we please drop the nonsense that a URL is "no attribution at all" in
>>>> an offline context? I've made this point before, but URLs do not
>>>> suddenly become devoid of meaning just because you're using a medium
>>>> where you can't follow a hyperlink. I could just as soon say that print
>>>> media aren't acceptable sources for Wikipedia articles because you can't
>>>> check them by following a hyperlink, it's the same logic.
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>> It's not the same logic at all.  A reference, by the very definition of the
>>> term, refers to something outside the work itself.
>>>   
>>>     
>> In its own way, attribution by definition refers to something outside 
>> the work itself. Even if you reduce me to the contents of my user page 
>> on Wikipedia, that page is not an actual part of the Wikipedia articles 
>> I've helped write, and that holds true regardless of what you think is 
>> the "right" way to be doing attribution. That's even the case online, 
>> with hyperlinks and all. I suppose it's "not the same logic at all" in 
>> the same way that a URL is "no attribution at all" then?
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>>
>>
>>     

Let me just clarify that as the first person in this thread to
use the words "no attribution at all" (as phrased and put
within scare quotes), I did *not* argue that it was valid
to apply to all forms of attributing by URL. I have specifically
argued that linking to history is in my view the only valid
form for such an attribution, but it is *both* necessary *and*
sufficient.

I have pointedly stayed out of the argument on the more
metaphysical side of what actually linking by URL entails,
as that is best left for those with a strong stomach for
nonsense of the non-Carrollian kind.

But in the interests of somewhat reducing the ambient
tensions in this thread and some others about the same
subject, let me offer a recommendation of a wonderful
dramatic work, written by Alan Bennett and directed
through commission by John Schlesinger:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Question_of_Attribution

Prunella Scales' depiction of the Queen is wonderfully
piercing, with every line delivered allusive on multiple
levels. And Edward Fox as the Surveyor of the Queens
pictures (Anthony Blunt), comes accross most human,
caught in the web of human intrigue, though not without
complicity.


Yours, semper fi;

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen