[CentOS-docs] Authorship and Attribution

Tue Apr 21 22:39:53 UTC 2009
Karanbir Singh <mail-lists at karan.org>

On 04/18/2009 11:58 AM, Marcus Moeller wrote:
> As I have mentioned in another thread a while ago, it should be easy
> to just add a 'Original Author' and 'Last Editor' notes so anyone who
> is willed to contribute could just get in contact with him/her. You
> can already read the page changelogs, of course.

+1

I agree with this completely, we could just have an Original Author and 
a last edited by. Not sure how easy that is going to be though. Someone 
might need to look at some python code and come up with something.

Also, having the Original Author field establishes who came up with the 
first cut, and therefore attribution is covered. However, the complexity 
will come in when pages are split / moved and when content changes 
'significantly' down the road to not really have much relation with the 
original cut. Exactly how and what definition of 'significant' is 
adopted, is again subject to discussion.

We also need to keep in mind through this conversation that the content 
on the wiki is licensed under very liberal terms, lets not try and make 
efforts to wall in edit rights or to contradict the license terms 
themselves.

Also, how long does an 'original author' or 'contributor' need to be 
inactive or non responsive for before they are considered dormant or 
'past contributors' ?

Johnny's concern about having moderated content came from the fact that 
an open wiki would allow plenty of people to contribute pretty much 
anything ( eg: wget ; ./configure; make; make install ) and we might not 
want to have content of that nature on the wiki. That is where, imho, 
the EditGroup would fit in.

-- 
Karanbir Singh : http://www.karan.org/  : 2522219 at icq