[Wikipedia-l] Force user to choose a licence when uploading data

[Ray Saintonge]

Peter Jaros wrote:

> On Wednesday, March 17, 2004, at 03:55 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>> I think there is universal support for this proposal, actually this
>> proposal:
>>
>> 1.  Force the user to choose a license
>> 2.  Force the user to fill out a field (or more?) indicating the source
>> 3.  Write this on the page: {{msg:<NameOfLicense>}}
>> 4.  Additionally store the license and source information in a separate
>> database field
>
> What about {{msg:CopyrightedFreeUseProvided}}, which takes an 
> "argument" (text following the tag)?  Perhaps a text field after the 
> license choice? 

My only concern about this approach is that most people don't understand 
anything about copyright.  Asking them to choose a license under those 
circumstances is like rolling dice.  It would be nice if the license 
choices were accompanied by a brief outline of the implications of each 
choice.

Ec