[Wikipedia-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia privacy

[The Cunctator]

On 4/4/03 5:27 PM, "Axel Boldt" <axelboldt at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 2003-04-04 at 13:52, Axel Boldt wrote:
> 
>>> In order to be allowed to distribute a modified version of a
>>> GFDL document, you have to list the person responsible for
>>> the modification (section 4B).
>> 
>> No; the GFDL states you have to list "one or more persons or entities
>> responsible for authorship of the modifications".
>> 
>> Note: "entity". "The Wikipedia Contributors" is such an entity.
> 
> No. If Helga makes an edit somewhere, then the vast majority of the
> "Wikipedia Contributors" won't even know about it, and even if they
> did, they certainly have never agreed to be "responsible" for her work.

The point is that they have, by agreeing to submit to Wikipedia. The
warning/disclaimer makes it pretty clear (and if necessary, could be more
explicit) that your contributions may be changed out of recognition by
someone else.

> You might just as well use "Humanity" as the entity. Clearly, that's
> trying to circumvent the intended meaning of clause 4B.
> 
>> Note also "one or more persons". Not "every person".
> 
> If Helga makes a modification, then there is only one person, Helga,
> responsible for it. "Every person" and "one or more persons" is the
> same in this case.

Your interpretation depends on an unusual parsing of the relevant phrase.

You're interpreting the quotation as

    one or more (persons or entities responsible for authorship of [all]
    the modifications)

in which case "one or more" == "every", leaving nothing to the discretion of
the original authors, whereas a more logical interpretation (because it
allows "one or more" to have meaning) is

    (one or more persons or entities) responsible for authorship of the
    modifications

in which case it just means that you need to credit at least <someone> as
the author, to the discretion of the original authors.

>> There is nothing in the GFDL that makes anonymous edits problematic.
> 
> There sure is.

Again, there isn't. There may be something about anonymous edits that upsets
you (and others), but that's a different story.