Revamping Paper Authorship, *or* Should Papers Roll Credits
There is movement towards contributorship as a concept to replace authorship. Journals like Science and Nature (and others) ask authors to provide a list of each contributors contribution. Add to that a definition of what constitutes contributorship (Vancouver Protocol; see ICMJE for the following example):


  
  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; 
  
  
  AND
  
  
  Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 
  
  
  AND
  
  
  Final approval of the version to be published; 
  
  
  AND
  
  
  Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. 
  


In this case it is the publishers and editors who will have to implement the tools to provide the correct credit. As an author it is possible to volunteer the information in the acknowledgement. It is of course still possible to give false credit by faking entries for authors who have not contributed but I doubt any system will be perfect.