https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Software/ProjectHome

[Allan Day]

>>> I'm going to add one more point for discussion. I noticed that part of
>>> the Software/ProjectHome initiative seems to be to add a brief list of
>>> contributors to the bottom of each page. This has been discussed in
>>> the past, and we've always rejected it - it's not practical to include
>>> a proper attribution list on the bottom of every page because the
>>> contributors to most pages are extremely wide-ranging and such lists
>>> would be wrong. An incomplete attribution list is not a good idea
>>> because it fails to give credit to some contributors. A proper
>>> attribution list is available from the page revision history
>>> (available from the "Info" link), and we shouldn't try to duplicate
>>> that by manually maintaining lists of contributors in the body of
>>> pages.
>>>       
>> Allan an I have also discussed this. My reasons are a bit complex and
>> I'll go through them some other time. 
Yes, me and Duncan have discussed this by email. I think it's essential 
to talk about why you want to have a contributors list. You need to 
specify your aims if you want to discuss the best way of achieving them.

The aim of having a contributors section which came up in my exchanges 
with Duncan was to encourage contribution - it is a means of saying 
'people just like you have contributed to this page - you could 
contribute too, if you wanted'. If this is the case, then completeness 
of the contributors list isn't such an issue - you can communicate the 
desired message without necessarily having a complete list of 
contributors. What does become important, however, is the phrasing of 
the contributors section. An example:

'Contributors: Jim, Bob, Sally'

To me, this doesn't send the right message, because it suggests that 
contributors are specific individuals - that they are a classification 
of person which the reader might not identify with. Reading it, someone 
could think something along the lines of, 'all these people are 
contributors, but I'm not that kind of person.' In my discussion with 
Duncan, I therefore suggested two alternatives:

'People who have contributed to this page: Jim, Bob, Sally'

'Humans who have contributed to this page: Jim, Bob, Sally'

I think both of these do send the right message - they say 'these are 
normal people (just like you) who have contributed.' I also think it 
continues the Linux for Human Beings theme very well (especially the 
second example). If you're concerned about missing people out, you could 
even do it like this:

'Some of the humans who have contributed to this page: Jim, Bob, Sally'

I'm still making up my mind about the utility of having such a section 
at the bottom of pages. I'm not sure whether the labour involved in 
adding such a section would be worth it, and I'm not sure about the 
politics of crediting other people (whether we add other people's names 
for them is an important question). Still, it's good to have the discussion.

>> What do you think about the
>> bottom of this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Applications
>>     
>
> I have to say that I disagree with the philosophy generally of
> repeating in the page text links which are already present (or should
> be present) in the page theme. It's high maintenance to include links
> like that in every page, and unnecessary if it can be done via the
> theme.
>   
I agree with Matthew on this one.

> The "Page History" link is already provided by the theme (although
> it's labelled "Info" since the upgrade, which I think think we should
> revert). 
Yes, 'Page History' would be more informative than 'Info'. Info? What 
info?! Isn't it all info?!
> Equally, "Edit" is also provided by the theme, and the link
> to the page talk page should be (as discussed in the
> HelpWikiQualityAssurance specification).
That would also be great. A question in this regard - what is the best 
name for a discussion page? /Talk? /Discussion? /PageDiscussion? I've 
started using /PageDiscussion, but it would be nice to be consistent 
with what other people are doing.

Best,

Allan