[CentOS-docs] Authorship and Attribution

Fri Apr 17 17:29:12 UTC 2009
Phil Schaffner <Philip.R.Schaffner at NASA.gov>

Mats Karlsson wrote:
> So could we have two alternative text to cover the topic, who can edit
> an article?
> 
> "Currently maintained by: name"
> Can only be edited by maintainer.
> 
> "Currently maintained by: CentOS-docs mailing list"
> Can be edited by anyone on the mailinglist.

s/Can/Should/ at least as far as possibility, and practically speaking 
many pages cannot be edited by "anyone on the mailinglist" as they may 
lack edit rights unless that privilege is to be extended to all list 
members.  I agree with the basic sentiment, but there is also the 
possibility that a page is authored and/or maintained by somebody who 
welcomes help and edits from other contributors.

I'd suggest that the guidelines could state that authors/maintainers 
should explicitly reserve the edit-rights to pages if they do not want 
others messing with them - similar to what is suggested above. 
Admittedly well-meaning people could mess things up; but it is, after 
all, a Wiki and it is possible to back out unwanted changes.

Seems obvious to me after all this (and previous) discussion that some 
more guidance on the "Contribute" page would help to clarify what is and 
is not considered acceptable.  Such a statement could be arrived at 
either by consensus or by edict of a benevolent dictator. :-)

Phil