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I want to make sure that my contributions will benefit the community the time of my account deletion, not just Stackexchange so I would like to make it clear like Steve Jessop here:

All my original contributions to StackOverflow are hereby placed into the public domain. If this is not legally possible, then anyone receiving a copy of them by any means is granted a non-exclusive perpetual license to use, distribute and modify them, and to distribute modifications, under any license or none, with or without attribution to me. Please note that this license applies only to my original contributions - quoted material and edits by me to existing material on StackOverflow are not my creations and I cannot grant rights in them.

Shortly, I am getting fed up to this: they drive you out of the site and then they get all rights over your material after anonymization, good ploy. So

How can I specify the license with anonymized account?

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  • $\begingroup$ I repeat I want my account and material in that will be handled in Freedom-respecting way so anyway could make it better without attributions -- and if anonymity cannot be achieved, it is unfortunate. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:51
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    $\begingroup$ Did you really do something so spectacular that this is necessary? I mean, frankly, you only have 17 answers, only one of which has more than 2 upvotes. And, the one that has more than 2 upvotes will be completely out of date in a year or two because it is based on technology. Your reputation is 1/100th of Steve Jessop, and his is completely based on answers. $\endgroup$
    – GeoffDS
    Oct 5, 2012 at 20:02
  • $\begingroup$ @Graphth Is there something bad in having good examples such as Steve? Asking questions is sometimes far more than solving the problems, personally, I love to ask -- you can, of course, do it with different style. Sure I have to work more on answers in the future, thank you for the notice, but here a question about principles: I want my contributions require no attributions, not to SE and not to me. Of course, it is cool if they are made but I don't want to force people to make arbitrary attributions like "fish is fishing in fish-pond". It is my right but currently made blurry in profile $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 7, 2012 at 22:58

4 Answers 4

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hhh,

You are still the copyright owner of your work, so you are still free to do whatever you wish with the original work. You own your work always and forever under copyright law. We have not nor can not take that away from you.

Creative Commons is just a license that says you agreed (through the license) to let us use this stuff, too. No ownership has changed hands. We in turn agree (under Creative Commons) to extend those terms to anyone else who agrees to those terms (reuse). That's so someone down the line can never claim your work under as their own (or make it more restricted).

However, a Creative Commons license is perpetual. That means you cannot come to us or all the folks down the line who agreed to reuse and say, "Hey, I change the terms and don't want this to be Creative Commons anymore." That's what perpetual means.

If you decide one day that you no longer wish to have your name associated with the work you licensed, Creative Commons allows for that, too. Section 4(c) or the Creative Commons license says that you can remove your credit as Licensor to your work. That's what account deletion (in Stack Exchange Terms) does.

Through all this rigamarole and legal jargon, you are still the copyright owner of your work. You simply licensed it to us and everyone else for reuse. But you never gave up original ownership at all and you are still free to do whatever you wish with the original work. You're not even bound by the terms for reuse. You can write a book, place it the public domain… anything you want. But that doesn't change the terms here. It's still licensed under Creative Commons, but you yourself can do with it whatever you please outside the terms for which you licensed it here. It's your stuff.

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    $\begingroup$ ...you don't address the key thing about "the must for attribution". Could you address that also? Why? And how to circumvent it as an original author for the benefit of community? I think you are aware that I have deleted accounts in similar cases where I don't have any respect to moderators that discriminate or patronize other people and me. In this kind of cases, particularly, I want to make sure the material is going to benefit community without a must for references, how can I do it? $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 7, 2012 at 22:31
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    $\begingroup$ @hhh As the copyright holder, you can post your content wherever you choose. Use whatever license you want (or place it in the public domain). But you can't change the licensing terms for the stuff posted here. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Oct 8, 2012 at 13:40
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    $\begingroup$ Yes this is what I suspected, you need to have a separate content host for your stuff in order to make the content under freedom-respecting license. The profile with freedom-respecting -license does no make the content actually under it: when it is here, it is always under the non-freedom-respecting license. So basically one has to set up competitive content-host for freedom-respecting material away from SE, thank you for clarification +1 -- I hope someone has done it, do you know any such content host? $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 8, 2012 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ [IMPORTANT] Is this statement "But you can't change the licensing terms for the stuff posted here.". false in the light of "Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder."? So does it mean that I am able to revoke all rights from SE to use my contributions or what does it mean? What does the term "wave" mean? -1 unless clarified. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 8, 2012 at 22:22
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    $\begingroup$ Where is this even stated in Creative Commons? Regardless, "waive" does not mean "revoke." The share-alike agreement means anyone can use the content here with attribution. We don't waive that requirement; you can't revoke it. If you want to distribute your work somewhere else under different terms, please do so. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Oct 9, 2012 at 14:43
  • $\begingroup$ It is on your site linked, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, and "To waive something is to choose not to insist on something that you are entitled to insist on" according to G.M. so actually it is possible by the license to "waive" rights? It is written there or am I misunderstanding something? What does it mean in practise? What is the difference between "revoke" and "waive"? $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 9, 2012 at 19:00
  • $\begingroup$ @hhh Thanks, that's a good link. Click on the 'waived' link and 'Learn more'. It's much more readable in plain English. "Are you aware that CC licenses are not revocable? You are free to stop offering the work under a CC license at any time, but this will not affect the rights associated with any copies of your work already in circulation absent a breach by a particular licensee (which does not affect continual use of the work by other licensees)." $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Oct 9, 2012 at 19:21
  • $\begingroup$ Not totally right "This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach --", the section about termination. "2. Fair Dealing Rights. Nothing in this License is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any uses free from copyright or rights " so if copyright -holders are not allowed to have their material under more freedom-respecting -license, they can terminate i.e. revoke the license, right? Can I now drop out the requirement for references in the license in my contributions, please. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 9, 2012 at 19:23
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What you want is logically impossible.

  1. You want your contributions to not carry any indication that you wrote them (that's what account deletion means).

  2. You want your contributions to carry indication that they are available under a more permissive license than the SE default, by virtue of being written by you.

These two wishes are plainly in conflict with each other, and there is no conceivable way the website can behave such as to satisfy both of them simultaneously.

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  • $\begingroup$ ...perhaps I could move the rights to some aggregator that keeps the material under its name so masking the genuine writer? I can understand this problem +1 but I don't see that it is impossible, you basically need a third-party in-between SE and users to get the rights and keep them under freedom-respecting license. +1 for constructive point. I would be much happier to know that my contributions will help other people without arbitrary constraits about attributions. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:03
  • $\begingroup$ The third party would need to keep a record of your license grant -- otherwise they would be vulnerable to you later reneging on it and accusing them of copyright infringement when they "falsely" claim that the posts are in the public domain. But such record-keeping seem to be what you expressly do not want to happen since you want the postings to be dissociated from you. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:38
  • $\begingroup$ I don't really care about anonymity, it is an option not must. I care that the material will be available in Freedom-respecting way to the next-generations and the next-next-...-one. I hope dreams come to reality such as here. I don't want to give my working to bullies, I feel like giving up if I delete my account. I want my account and material in that will be handled in Freedom-respecting way so anyway could make it better without attributions -- and if anonymity cannot be achieved, it is unfortunate. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:44
  • $\begingroup$ You don't seem to describe any reason to wish for your account to be deleted. If you let it hang around, it will give you a place to put your license grant, and everybody will be happy. Or am I missing something? $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ I have deleted many accounts, a lot of good material to make it easier to maintain things -- I cannot concentrate on too many accounts and keep them high quality and update info etc. I would be much happier if I could move material under some safe-haven the material of which people could use as they wish without attributions. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:53
  • $\begingroup$ You don't seem to describe any reason to wish for your account to be deleted. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:54
  • $\begingroup$ I did not understand. I don't want to delete my account unless the material will go under freedom-respecting license without requiring attributions. Account deletion is an option but I don't like to do it, the material becomes easily ghost -material. By having proper license, I make sure I even myself is able to use the material without arbitrary attributions. If I delete my account, it is extremely hard to prove that I am the original author. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:54
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    $\begingroup$ Right now, your profile page does not list any more permissive license grant than the standard CC-by-sa license. I don't understand why you worry about the status if you delete the account when your contributions are currently only available under CC-by-sa anyway. What's stopping you from granting something more permissive now, without deleting your account if that is what you want to do? $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 13:58
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    $\begingroup$ You're ranting and not making any sense. If you want to license your contributions under a more permissive license than the default one SE requires, go right ahead and do that. Nobody's stopping you. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 14:39
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    $\begingroup$ However, if you want SE to stop telling people that you wrote those posts, you cannot logically expect them to nevertheless keep telling people about your additional license grant. Either you have a profile or you don't, and if you explicitly want not to have one, that logically implies that you want no special treatment for your posts. Information about an additional license grant is a special treatment. You can have that, nobody's stopping you, unless you persist in wanting to have special treatment for your profile all while not having any profile at all . $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 14:42
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    $\begingroup$ What you want is to grant a license to your work that is more permissive than the license SE requires you to grant by default. One of these words is a verb, the other is a noun. In "license grant" the verb has been nouned, and the entire phrase denote the fact that a license has been granted, the action of granting a licence, and/or the text that describes this action. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 5, 2012 at 14:45
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    $\begingroup$ @hhh A couple of quick clarifications. (1) Your content here is always licensed for reuse. Deleting your account does not change that at all. (2) Neither you nor Stack Exchange can change the terms for which you licensed the content here. (3) You still (and always have) owned the original copyright of your work so you can do whatever you want with it elsewhere. See my response: meta.math.stackexchange.com/a/6294/69 $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Oct 5, 2012 at 16:05
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    $\begingroup$ File a copyright registration for your work through the Copyright Office (or whatever legal protection your local country provides). We've already licensed the work for re-distribution to guarantee access to the work. If you want to keep personal records of authorship after you wipe your account here, that's all on you. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Cartaino
    Oct 8, 2012 at 13:24
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    $\begingroup$ @hhh: If that is true, it would be better to make a feature request of dissociation from the Google login, rather than a feature request for a "deleted, but not really deleted anyway" state for the account. And you are completely free NOT to attempt to reverse your licensing decision if you don't want to reverse it. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 8, 2012 at 18:06
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    $\begingroup$ @hhh, CC's human-readable overview of CC-by-sa itself says: Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.. Since you're the copyright holder, you're free to issue such a permission to anyone if you'd like to. $\endgroup$
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Oct 8, 2012 at 18:42
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The ip material here is all under the creative commons license, meaning that everyone can already use everything on the site for whatever purpose, so long as they provide attribution.

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    $\begingroup$ -1 Sorry but that is different license to specified above, I want that public is able to use my contributed material without reference to SO or SE: "under any license or none". If someone uses my material for education purposes such as writing a crowd-sourced book, I don't want references to SO or SE to mess things up. If I remove my account due to this kind of evil activity such as patronization or discrimination, I don't have much respect to SE -- I want to make sure anyone, besides SE, is able to work with material, even to create new SE if wanted. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 5, 2012 at 9:17
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I am trying to summarize now the key points of the answers.

Robert wrote "But you can't change the licensing terms for the stuff posted here.".

Changing license

CC's human-readable overview of CC-by-sa itself says: Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.. Since you're the copyright holder, you're free to issue such a permission to anyone if you'd like to. (Henning's comment and some license text)

You can dual-license things, this right cannot be dangered. So yes you can create a new SE if you have permissions from every copyright -holder. But what does the "waive rights" actually mean? Is Robert's statement "But you can't change the licensing terms for the stuff posted here." correct?

Termination

Robert said that the license is not revocable but parts such as part 2 must be fulfilled:

"This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach --", the section about termination. "2. Fair Dealing Rights. Nothing in this License is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any uses free from copyright or rights " so if copyright -holders are not allowed to have their material under more freedom-respecting -license, they can terminate i.e. revoke the license, right? Can I now drop out the requirement for references in the license in my contributions, please.

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    $\begingroup$ Note, ${\rm wave}\ne{\rm waive}$. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Oct 8, 2012 at 23:16
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson thank you, I cannot yet fully understand the difference between "to wave" and "to waive", moved it to English SE here. $\endgroup$
    – hhh
    Oct 8, 2012 at 23:42
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    $\begingroup$ To waive something is to choose not to insist on something that you are entitled to insist on. To wave something is to hold it up and move it repeatedly from side to side. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Oct 9, 2012 at 5:14

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