- From: Chris Mills <cmills@opera.com>
- Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2013 09:15:45 +0000
- To: Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org>
- Cc: "public-webplatform@w3.org" <public-webplatform@w3.org>
Chris Mills Opera Software, dev.opera.com W3C Fellow, web education and webplatform.org Author of "Practical CSS3: Develop and Design" (http://goo.gl/AKf9M) On 19 Jan 2013, at 06:22, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote: > Hi, folks- > > As an addendum, it may be a good idea for us to investigate how we can make sure that attribution is preserved from removal by casual editors who aren't familiar with our policies. > > There may also be other kinds of information or content that we want to be immutable, including any legal advice or security warnings. > > I can think of 2 ways to manage this technically: > > 1) try to find a way to make certain blocks editable only by admins (with a template somehow?); > > 2) try to find how to make any edits to a particular block send out a notification to some watcher. Nice overview Doug, this kind of information might be interesting as blog post … hint hint ;-) We could perhaps have a system whereby when an article is first added, the attribution information is a mandatory field for addition, addable by anyone, and then when they've finished their addition (for now), it gives them a "finalise this article first draft, yes/no" meaning that the content is still editable, but certain information is locked down and only editable by admins, such as the attribution info... > > I don't know how feasible either of those approaches is... I welcome other thoughts. > > In the meantime, maybe we could add some instructions in the template, that show up in the form, that warn people from changing the attribution without careful consideration. > > Thoughts? > > Regards- > -Doug > > On 1/19/13 1:12 AM, Doug Schepers wrote: >> Hi, folks- >> >> There was a recently a slip-up in which some of the attribution on >> certain pages was removed; this has been corrected... no harm, no foul. >> But I thought it was a good idea to remind (or inform) everyone of the >> importance of attribution. >> >> Attribution is critical to this project, from a legal, practical, and >> motivational perspective. >> >> >> On the legal side, our license is CC-BY, or Creative Commons >> Attribution. When we agree to the site license, we all agree to honor >> this. Failing to provide attribution, or removing past attribution, is a >> violation of the letter and spirit of this license. Note that there are >> two exception to this: >> >> 1) things that only state facts, and not interpretation, are not >> protected by copyright, and are thus outside the bounds of licensing . >> But this line can be gray... a compilation of facts is protected by >> copyright if the selection and arrangement of the material is original; >> it's safer to provide and preserve attribution >> >> 2) if all the original material from a particular source has been >> excised from the article, attribution for that source can optionally be >> removed; in practice, however, we are only using this to deliberately >> simplify the license the article is available under, e.g., if the >> original content was under CC-BY-SA (Attribution and Share Alike), we >> might remove all the old material so it can be reused under CC-BY. >> >> >> On the practical side, attribution is used for fame and blame. Fame is >> praising the original contributor for their content, so people know who >> to credit and thank when they are reusing the content. Blame is the >> flip-side of the same coin... it helps users (and reusers) to evaluate >> any possibly bias on the part of the original contributor. >> >> >> On the motivational side, we are lucky enough to have many primary bulk >> contet contributors, and we hope to have large numbers of community >> contributors over time. Part of what motivates those contributors is the >> aforementioned well-deserved fame... remove that attribution, and you >> undermine motivation, and the project suffers; even people who don't >> want notoriety per se still have a sense of fairness, and may be >> discouraged if their contributions are not afforded equal treatment. >> This even affects people who are potential contributors... they see how >> contributions and attributions are handled, and that may affect their >> decision on whether they will start contributing. >> >> >> So, everyone, please remember not to remove existing attribution, and >> always give credit when adding content. >> >> Thanks! >> >> Regards- >> -Doug Schepers >> W3C Developer Relations Lead >> >> >
Received on Saturday, 19 January 2013 09:16:16 UTC