[Wikipedia-l] GFDL and Wikipedia, II

[Jimmy Wales]

I agree totally with the idea that we should not impose a strict table
attribution requirement.  However, I don't think all these arguments
against it are valid.

Axel Boldt wrote:
> * Three additional arguments against the current strict table
>   attribution requirement occured to me last night:
>    
>    ** if we really want large websites to adopt Wikipedia (Microsoft
>       is out since they have Encarta, but Yahoo, Google and AOL are
>       potential customers), there is absolutely no way that we can hope to
>       dictate layout decisions to them. Their site designers will laugh us
>       out the door.

Actually, many sites (Google, AOL, Altavista, and some other major
sites) do use the "Open Directory Project" data, and it has a strict
table requirement.  So apparently this isn't as big an issue as we
might think.

>    ** On educational websites that use some materials from Wikipedia,
>       teachers typically would want to tell students about the project, but
>       they don't want their students to jump right in and contribute
>       to Wikipedia: it would distract too much; learning is the focus.
>       So you make actually discourage teachers from using Wikipedia
>       material, because the current table would suggest to students
>       that the teacher wants them to contribute.

I'm not sure that this would really be a factor, but it is certainly
one thing to consider in thinking about what, exactly, we want to require.

>    ** We are currently using FOLDOC materials which were licensed to
>       us under GFDL. Imagine their invariant section contained some
>       pink table and a blinking icon. I don't think we would
>       appreciate it.

That's right.

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