FYI: Danny was saying good things towards us in a Wikimedia-l thread, so I
replied as you see below.
Good job, guys.
Aubrey
On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 9:55 PM, Danny Horn <dhorn(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
The Wikisource community did a tremendous job in
showing up and giving
support to the Wikisource proposals. The top wishes in that category got 41
and 39 votes, which is really impressive considering the relative size of
the projects.
The discussion on using Google's OCR in Indic language Wikisource is
especially interesting -- a lively debate about finding the right solution
to what is clearly a deeply-felt need from a community that's working
really hard to add their languages' knowledge to the movement. I hope that
having that debate here is a step towards a larger discussion about how we
can support Wikisource projects.
Thanks, Danny.
In the Wikisource Conference, held in Vienna from 20 to 22 November, we
discussed a lot about what Wikisource needs to reach it's full potential as
a project. We decided to agree on a priority list (here:
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wscon2015needs) and also to participate in
the Survey.
But, if you feel brave enough, there is the whole 665 lines Etherpad here:
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wscon2015weekend [1]
Wikisource, as a project, is completely dependent on the Proofread Page
Extension [2].
Unfortunately, the extension is maintained by volunteers only (I think,
just one: Tpt).
Also, the extension doesn't support RTL languages: so Wikisources in
arabic, hebrew, farsi, indic languages don't really work as the others.
This is to be added to the fact that there is no good embedded OCR for
Indic languages, right now.
And, finally, to the simple fact that we'd love to have the Visual Editor,
*within* the ProofreadPage Extension, as Wikisource uses a *lot* of
formatting, and that could enable many, many more users in proofreading and
validating pages.
Of course, we are a small community, but we're trying really hard to make
our case.
At the moment, to the best of my knowledge, there is no, and there's never
been, any software development dedicated to Wikisource from the WMF.
Aubrey
(also a member of the Wikisource Community User Group)
[1] I hereby claim this as the longest Etherpad written by a group of
wikimedians (~40). I hope there is a prize for it. You can even read the
Wikisource mission forged and translated in real time in 21 languages (line
564).
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Proofread_Page