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

I feel that this shagbark tree has been given too much credit.
Apparently the editors are now adding the name of any researcher
who in there opinion adds significantly to someone elses article.
two cases in point.
1. While considering an article on development of toilets
I ran across a comment that almost nothing was said about toilets in antiquity. So I checked a couple search engines found a piece about a toilet in an ancient chinese tomb and posted the discovery in peer review. I forgot all about it until the article was accepted for the edited guide and my name was listed as one of the researchers, all for about fifteen minutes work.
2. The Smiley page used to begin "Nobody knows who created the first smiley." While lurking in an other forum I spotted a post mentioning the death of Harvey Ball, the creator of the smiley. I called this to the attention of Jimi-x who updates previously edited articles and to my surprise he decides to add my name as a researcher on the page.
even though all I did was locate something that another researcher had said. Oh well, and as to the trees, this is done with an image generator which I believe Bossel had located. I put the page number in my journal entries. After Thanksgiving the trees will return to my homepage. Well enough rambling. have a veggie and some cracked hickory nuts

Thanks Shagbark. I was getting a bit peckish

I came across a thread in the soapbox forum about this authorship thing, last year. I wonder why they do that. If someone writes a book and lots of people are helpful to the author, they get thanked on the acknowledgement pages at the beginning of the book. They don't all get credited with authorship. I can imagine it would be a bit embarrassing to be credited with someone else's work, especially if the real author put in a lot of time and effort and you just mentioned something that you happened to know without having to dig for info. It could cause problems couldn't it? You might be reluctant to comment on someone else's work and you might be reluctant to spend time and effort on your own entry if you think it's going to be credited to several other people and you could be right at the bottom of the list of authors, thereby implying that you made the smallest contribution to it. I don't know if things have changed at all since the discussion on the soap box but the list of authors is (or was) in order of researcher number. You'd think that, at the very least, they'd put the main author's name at the top of the list. Ah well.

Anyway, I don't mind sharing credit for my bird and cat article. The main aim of that is to make the situation better for birds and other indigenous animals suffering from predation by pet cats. If lots of people get credited with it then it'll be displayed on all those people's pages. It should be noticed and read by more people if it can be accessed from more pages. That could mean more people make an effort to exercise a bit of control over their cats' hunting behaviour.

I noticed your tree pic was missing from your page. You're fiddling with the image then, are you? I look forward to seeing how you've grown

just a note one the missing tree. the leaves here are turning,
and I didn't want a green tree on my page right now. If I run across a tree with colored leaves I might put that in. so for now the page will be like you see it.

You're a stickler for perfection, I can tell

I'm also one who doesn't believe in reinventing the wheel. That's why my articles have so many hyperlinks. I figure why paraphrase someone elses work when I can connect you to what they actually said.