Note that the pages and the content on this wiki belong to no-one as well as to everyone, so identification of content presented as the work of a signer may or may not give an accurate picture of identity. Unless universal acceptance of a procedure is established which attaches meaning to a signature on work produced, the signature will only serve as a convenience.
The making of this series of statements is intended to provide new wiki users with more than enough information to make their own decisions about whether to sign their own contributions. It does not resolve a difficult issue one way or another, but it does attempt to present the views which have existed and presently exist.
Here are the donor pages which have supplied the sentences given on this page (some of which have been reworded slightly) about signing Wiki pages:
- A WikiSignature
- identifies the author of a contribution.
- makes a comment seem more friendly but why?
- puts a personal touch to the page and helps in these cases.
- Unsigned changes
- makes you feel free to correct it.
- Questions And Problems
- Maybe I'm over-exposed from SlashDot, but anonymous contributions often seem antagonistic.
- Do I want to go back and erase my signatures?
- Do not sign your name in wiki if
- you are editing someone else's contribution without changing its meaning.
- you are presenting facts, widely held beliefs, or other information that is completely impersonal.
- you don't care about getting credit.
- you make contributions which can be taken by some to be less serious than contributions for which one takes credit.
- you want to remain anonymous.
- you want your contribution to be deleted if others deem it irrelevant or unhelpful.
- you want your contribution to be merged into the whole.
- Do sign your name if
- you want to help readers sort out positions or statements made by different parties.
- "I", "me", or "my" appear in your contribution, that's a good indication that it merits a signature.
- you are directly criticizing another author or stating a controversial opinion.
- you are engaging in a dialogue or ThreadMode discussion with multiple authors.
- you are relating personal experience or personal opinion, or are otherwise talking about yourself.
- you are trying to provide friendly, helpful advice.
- you want to establish "ownership" or "protection" of the contribution (but see below).
- you want to find your contributions later.
- you want to take credit, either because you are proud of it or because you want others to correspond with you about it.
- Even if a work is signed, there is no way you can be sure that the signer is the same as the signature indicates, and that contents have not been altered since the signature.
- Have you ever found a full text of Berne available anywhere?
- Having the UserName
- displayed on RecentChanges completely breaks the convention of not signing: Wiki now signs everything for me.
- URL or domain name displayed in RecentChanges interferes
- with the (generally desired) collaborative nature of Wiki
- with that mechanism because the RecentChangesJunkies have learned to recognize their peers by domain name, even whether the location is home/work whatever.
- Historically
- Kent doesn't sign his posts.
- Ward rarely signs his.
- Signatures helpful to some because:
- I don't have enough time to read everything on Wiki but I certainly would like to see anything that you've written because I know that I like your work.
- I think that it might also help people to be more careful about what they say here if they have to lay their credibility on the line every time they say something.
- I'd advise a wiki-ist to periodically peruse the WikiIceberg, seek out the dumb comments, and make sure they aren't just something that was unhearable at the time.
- Protected and shielded
- If you want your work to be protected, either put it in your WikiHomePage, or find a forum that offers more control than this wiki does.
- In periods when the use of signatures decrease, there is an increase of flippant (I-wouldn't-want-to-sign-that) short retorts where earlier there were discussions.
- Distinctions
- It is a good distinction to draw a distinction between taking responsibility and owning something.
- It is common for signatures to be removed during the editing and refactoring process as people try to distill DocumentMode pages from ThreadMode pages, and signed contributions may be deleted if they are deemed to be redundant or irrelevant.
- One can take responsibility for what is done, without taking "ownership" in a way that prevents others from changing the contribution.
- One person
- always sign
- if they are saying something controversial that "the whole Wiki community" mightn't want.
- signs when he's participating in a discussion in ThreadMode
- One person doesn't sign
- when they want their identity to get lost in the noise.
- when they are writing something longer and more substantial, because they thinks it's best for such things to belong to the whole Wiki community.
- Some authors
- adhere to a moderate position, signing some contributions and not signing others.
- goes through phases: sometimes signing every contribution/edit made, sometimes signing none, and other times mixing it up. depending on mood, the subject, the tone of the page and so on.
- hates the aspect of Berne that says that anything published using any medium is copyright until the author releases it.
- says that I sign my work in RecentChanges, though I'm often not signing my contributions in the text.
- thinks not signing gives one a greater freedom to be quick and irresponsible in the posting.
- wants any input that survives a week to be <ahem> "Public Domain" in the true sense.
- will sign when he's willing to stick by his posting.
- should when contributing to this wiki, consider that the work posted will bear a signature, if only that of the computer from which it was posted.
- Pages which generate this response: "I wish that I had said that", or "that is oh so true" are the pages that endure and mature.
- Perhaps the only exception is in quotes which come from another source, such as an article, book, web site or historical document.
- Alternativies to signatures
- UserName
- Rather than signing a statement, some people make semi-anonymous comments, but allow their UserName to show up in RecentChanges.
- Reason: I'm taking responsibility for what I do, without taking "ownership" in a way that prevents others from changing my contributions.
- In addition to or as an alternative to signatures, you can set a UserName that will show up on the RecentChanges or RecentEdits page after you make an edit.
- I'm interested in why a person would PreferAnonymousContributions. I kind of liked seeing the names in RecentChanges -- when they show up.
- Signatures allow or facilitate
- Reasonable people disagree about use of signatures.
- people to revisit their work.
- you when at a later date, when you realize you have written far too much, you can return and FixYourWiki.
- following a who said what in he-said/she-said dialogs.
- ConversationalStyle? and ThreadMode
- CopyrightableOriginalContributions?
- implied ownership.
- inhibit editing.
- some "protection" from editing by other authors.
- no protection or guarantee that what appears is truly what you posted, since any page can be edited, changed, modified, partially erased, reworded.
- Sometimes
- pages develop over years, with the content losing connections to identies who contributed and modified it.
- Some People
- think that all contributions should be signed, to give proper credit to the authors, to promote clear dialogue, and to promote community spirit and mutual respect.
- say at least 80% of what they write here is unsigned.
- think that nothing should ever be signed, because anonymity promotes free flow and editing of information.
- use SignedDocumentMode (they add their name ExactlyOnce to a Contributors: and/or a Interested: section on the page, rather than signing their name to each and every paragraph they wrote.
- think signatures make it so: if you don't like a change I've made, you know who to yell at.
- The purpose of a signature on a work of art is to identify the artist with the work.
- The signature that RecentChanges imposes on your work lasts only until someone else makes a contribution to the same page or the page name scrolls off the top.
- There is an additional threshold for ChangingSignedContributions if signing author doesn't explicitly encourage it.
- There must be something here that I'm missing: what in fact is the benefit of having any kind of ID present on RecentChanges?
- This attribution will last only until the next person makes an edit to a page you have edited.
- This is
- about signature issues for new users.
- good because ... On the other hand, this ...
- a kind of a RedHerring, as I haven't written anything deep enough to get your shoes wet.
- This seems
- to combine the best of joint ownership: You know I did it, but you're free to change it.
- How To sign a paragraph
- affix two hyphen characters and your UserName Old version --MyName? or more recently -- MyName?
- How To use signatures in searching
- Use FullSearch with your name, or use the backlink at the top of your WikiHomePage to find where you have signed or your name is mentioned.
- Use of personal signatures is a controversial issue.
- When several people set their UserName to AnonymousDonor, then you will appear to be anonymous.
- When you don't sign
- a strongly negative anonymous contribution that does not have obvious value, it is likely to be categorized as "ranting" or "vandalism" and often will be ignored and possibly deleted.
- Wiki is a collaborative medium that distills the knowledge and experience of a lot of people.
- You will notice that some paragraphs have a person's name attached to the end. This is called their "signature"
- You can tell something of the author by the content and tone of the post, many times the quality and nature of the post is such that you may say, I wish that I had said that!
Your individual contributions can be anonymous for purposes of copyright, readability and posterity.
There is a signed work on Wiki and you want to...
- DeleteItCompletely: This is legit. It may or may not be moral and it may or may not cause others to be angry with you, but you have every right to do it. Don't forget to remove the signature too.
- MakeTechnicalCorrectionsToIt: This is perfectly fine as long as it's done in good faith. The original author will own the improved work.
- SummarizeIt: This is almost certainly a "fair use" allowed by copyright law, and the norms of this community, and Ward's intent in creating Wiki (as I understand it). The signature should be modified to reflect that this is now a summarized quote. The signature can probably be removed safely if the summarized information is common or public knowledge.
- CombinedWithotherWorksOnWiki: I believe that this is also fair use and is within the norms of this community. It is probably best to attribute quotes, opinions, and summaries to their correct authors within the body of the new work.
- UsedAsPartOfaNewWork: That's probably also fair use as long as it remains signed or properly attributed and as long as it remains on Wiki. It's probably not okay to publish signed material from Wiki elsewhere without permission from the author. Attributed quotation would be within fair use (see HowToCiteWiki).
- ChangingTheMeaning: You can't go around putting words in someone else's mouth. It's immoral if not illegal and has no place on Wiki. That means that you can't change the meaning of a signed piece and leave the signature intact and you can't put someone else's signature on work that they did not create. See ChangingTheMeaningOfSignedContributions for more.
- OriginalAuthorsOwnershipInDerivedWorks: The original author will own the improved work. Both original author and the editor will own the improved work. I don't think Ward can take copyright away from the editor. That is, as I understand the BerneConvention, the person who made the edits has an absolute right to say, "I made the edits". Nobody else has that right and it cannot be signed away.
- WhenYouSignSomethingOnWikiThenWhat: Once you sign a work on Wiki it becomes copyrighted - Under the Berne Convention, it is copyrighted whether or not it is signed,
- WhatAboutNonExclusiveLicense: What we are talking about here is often not so much ownership of copyright but a non-exclusive license to use in certain ways. That license is granted implicitly, by the act of posting to the Wiki server.
Much in common with ChangingSignedContributions here
NoNamesConventionWikis: Generally these wikis are newer, smaller or a single-topic wikis. However, WikiPedia is the largest wiki and it fosters a "No names, please" convention on its encylopedia articles.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the NoNamesPlease convention.
- Advantages: Reduces the ability to create ThreadMode, Eliminates ownership issues, Discourages personal attacks and personal defensiveness, On the other hand, being anonymous might increase the likelihood of flamage and other uncivil behavior. On TheGrippingHand, anonymous uncivil behavior is easily {rectified|refactored|removed}.
- Disadvantages: Extremely difficult to carry on a conversation, Reduces the back-and-forth exchange of ideas and opinions, Produces a rather sterile "Just the facts Ma'am" wiki (some would consider this a Pro), and, Some wikis seem to have a "no names" convention. Generally these wikis are newer, smaller or a single-topic wikis. However, WikiPedia is the largest wiki and it fosters a "No names, please" convention on its encylopedia articles, and, Gives people less encouragement to contribute
WardsWiki comes closest to a
NoNamesPlease when it is used in
DocumentMode.
See also FooDash, ExampleStuffInMouth, WaltzingWithMyTilde
Signing Conventions