Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1417834-20140208041633

So recently I was informed by wikia that the terms of the CC-BY-SA license are met by a single url to the source page on wikia, no matter where it is placed on the page or how poorly formatted. The license requires a notice that the content is being reused under the license and a link to or a copy of the license (stated multiple times, sections 4a, 4b(I)) as well as clear indications of changes made (3b).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

According to my conversions with Wikia, users don't have to indicate the license of the reused content or add a link to the license or indicate if changes were made.

Even wikia's own Licensing page doesn't only provide a link at the bottom: http://www.wikia.com/Licensing

" These terms are based on those of another company; the  Wikimedia Foundation ; and are used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License ( view authors )."

I was told about the licensing part that: "There is no particular requirement to actually link to the web page of the license at all." and that the requirement was met by the footer of the page reusing the content and the footer on the page the content is from. The footer is not a direct link to the license or a copy of it, nor is part of the page content through means such as export, the api, or the monobook skin.

As for indicating if changes were made, they aren't required by wikia to do that either despite the requirement to clearly indicate if changes were made. because there is a page history in the url, that they say is not obscured, despite it being hidden in a dropdown which many people do not know about. Wikipedia's policy even notes that this can be done by indicating the changes are in the page history (not that the changes are indicated by the page history). Wikia thinks it's apparently "easy enough for wikia users to trace the lineage" without a link to the history.

I understand the license and that the content can be reused from my wiki. But I just don't feel that wikia is enforcing the license in the way it was intended or written. Attribution shouldn't be a matter of going around through multiple pages trying to find different pieces that are required for the license. The examples I have seen on many wiki in the past keep clearly indicate the page history, the page url, and a link to the license at the top of the page.

I would appreciate input from other people, who have experience related to or opinions on this. 