Comment by kstrauser
2 days ago
That's ridiculous and you're wrong. I grant them a CC license to my content to fold, spindle and mutilate it for their own purposes, but not to leave my name attached to the folded, spindled, mutilated version.
My answer has my name on it. It's right there saying "kstrauser said these words". If I didn't say them, I don't want the site lying and saying that I did. I don't mind if someone fixes an obvious typo, or updates a URL that had bitrotted. That's fine. They're what I obvious intended to say. But I've had people add extra sentences or paragraphs, and oh hell no.
That was never a core principle of the site, at least not when I joined it before you. If it'd been an expressed core principle that people could edit my words, attributed to me, so that my user account ends up saying things I never said, I never would have signed up and not many other people would have, either.
> That's ridiculous and you're wrong. I grant them a CC license to my content to fold, spindle and mutilate it for their own purposes, but not to leave my name attached to the folded, spindled, mutilated version.
The choice of license is made clear at https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service/public#lice..., and the consequences elaborated at https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/347758/creative-com... . The license itself is at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ . It is one of the BY licenses, so the site is legally required to leave your name on the work. The interface explicitly marks both the original author and the most recent editor on the main facing page; and it offers the ability to click in and see the entire editing history.
> But I've had people add extra sentences or paragraphs, and oh hell no.
This is overwhelmingly done in good faith, and it's explicitly policy not to change your meaning. In fact, there are many posts on meta where people complained about attempting a good-faith edit and having been judged as falling afoul of that for no reason. See e.g. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/349950 .) But it's also explicitly policy that they can "edit your words, attributed to you" (see e.g. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/403176 ). The people who make these changes, generally, sincerely believe that they are either saying things you intended to say, or at least adding information that you would have added if you'd come back to keep things up to date. There has been a ton of discussion trying to clarify and/or figure out where the line is: see e.g. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bediting%5D+intent... .
If you saw someone change something that fell afoul of this, there was a meta site where you could raise the objection. But we were constantly inundated with people who thought it was wrong that we took "thank you in advance, my_username" off the end of the their questions or similar (see e.g. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/260776 ), as if they thought they had a right to that.