h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... should be 'by' the originator of the entry. So if I write an entry on Frogs and I put 'Frogman' in the researcher list, it'd still show up as 'Frogs by Lucinda (et al)'. Invariably, the person who put the most work into a collaborative entry is the originator, who has to edit together the individual comments of lots of other researchers, picking and choosing amongst them, and so forth. And deal with any changes from Peer Review, etc.

Sounds good. I think there is probably scope for a middle line here - what about 'By Lucinda and others'?

Whoami?

I think that would essentially be penalising people for being collaborative and using other people's contributions, and so forth. I think there's already a danger that some people deliberately avoid collaborating because they don't want to share 'written by' credits. Insisting on 'and others' wouldn't help that, imo.

As an example, A517646 is credited to me and to Colonel Sellers, because I grabbed his words for footnote 2 about Heaven's Gate. I know that certain researchers would have written their own description of Heaven's Gate to avoid having to share credits on the entry. That's an attitude I want to discourage.

-Martin

I'm not so sure I follow you there - surely working together is in the spirit of the site and so 'and others' is something to be proud of?

Whoami?

I think the way it works at moment is good enough really. You have to remember that someone else could come along, update the entry and add their name at any time...

Yes, but the original author would remain the same. Anyway, the idea was that the system could call up the Author credit itself - so it would simply update as necessary...

Whoami?