[Wikipedia-l] Where to put acknowledgements

[Tim Marklew]

Mav wrote:
>What's wrong with simply placing any attrib or URL in the edit summary that
>places the text in the article? The history isn't editable and will
>(hopefully) be a permanent part of the article.
I agree that we should always credit attributions in the edit summary, so 
that it appears in the 'History'.  As far as I understand it, we use the 
article history, which includes the edit summary, as the formal history as 
required under the GFDL.
>That, combined with another
>notice at the top of talk will be more than enough.
I don't think it is enough.  If others were using wikipedia articles, we 
would want a prominent clickable link back to our article, not something 
buried in the edit history or the talk page.  Simple fairness and courtesy 
would require that we do the same and link prominently to others, as we do 
with FOLDOC.

I think crediting in the edit summary and talk should be seen as the 
absolute minimum, with a link in the main article if significant material 
has been used.  We can always remove the link in the main article later if, 
for example, the material has been heavily edited by Wikipedians so a 
prominent credit is no longer necessary.
>As for others using our
>material; we already require a link-back to the original article so others
>can access the talk and history.
As far as I understand it, users of our material have to provide a history 
of contributors, and we suggest that they link back to our article to fulfil 
this obligation.  Alternatively, there is nothing to stop them just copying 
our history and use that instead, without linking to us (strictly, they may 
not even have to credit 'Wikipedia' at all).  So we will be relying to some 
extent on the goodwill of other sites to credit us fully and prominently.  
This suggests that we should build up goodwill by linking prominently to 
other sites that we use for contributions.

Tim (Enchanter)

_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. 
http://www.hotmail.com