[Wikipedia-l] Acknowledgements

[Axel Boldt]

>I really have to come out against putting acknowledgements on 
>the pages themselves.  It's /not/ required by the license, 

Agreed.

>it's /not/ what I would expect someone using our text to do, 

That's the crucial point. Previously, I had interpreted the consensus
on this list as asking for links back to Wikipedia on every page that
uses Wikipedia material. If that's really not the case (and I could
live with that), then we should phrase [[wikipedia:copyrights]] a bit
clearer.

>it clutters the page with information that isn't relevant to most
>users, it gives a sense to users of the text being a "fixed" rather
>than "dynamic" thing, and it will create a growing problem in the long
>run.

The last point, with accumulating credits over time, is a good one.

>We're here to serve the readers, not the egos of writers who think
>writing a sentence or two is a major accomplishment forever worthy of
>credit. Indeed, we are changing the notion of "authorship" itself,
>and we shouldn't constrain ourselves to policies that fit the old
>paradigm.

We have however chosen a license that enshrines these authorship
rights.

>Another possibility I'm open to is a wiki markup specifically for 
>endnotes and credits

This would be good, or alternatively a Credits: namespace which by
default always contains a text like "Wikipedia articles are
collaborative efforts; you can find the contributors on the [[History
page]]." and then we could credit any other outside sources there.

I would however request that the Printable Version of every article
contains these Credits (in a smaller font if desired). Otherwise,
printed out copies could arguably be seen as being in breach of license.

Axel