Thanks for that point, John

The current Wikisource methodology is that files (ideally DejaVu files) are uploaded to Commons, and then the Wikisource software enables an editing window alongside the commons file, page by page.

The advantage of the OTRS system is that there is verification of the author. Also if a text is tampered with, this becomes immediately apparent, as a new version has to be uploaded and this is immediately apparent.

I am not sure from your comments whether you are just considering Commons as such, or its role in supporting Wikisource. Also it would be interesting to know whether you can point to any actual problems which have arisen with wikisource/commons, or that you are wary from other experiences of data manipulation

Thanks for the link to https://oatd.org/, very interesting. However this does not facilitate producing annotated versions of texts - by which I mean inserting hyperlinks in the text and "where appropriate" footnotes (I realise that "where appropriate" can be contentious).

Certainly in medicine the discussion of what a fact actually is dates back at least to Ludwik Fleck http://www.crossingdialogues.com/Ms-C11-04.pdf . Annotations with hyperlinks precisely falls within the area of "the formation of connections between concepts" (see hyperlink for Fleck.)

Fleck's work in the 1930's looked at the evolution of a scientific fact as a process of social consolidation. Eighty years later with the mass of scientific material becoming available day by day the question of facilitating this connection between concepts becomes much more pressing.

I feel we have already made substantial progress in this area through Wikipedia. I would like to see further progress through Wikisource.

all the best

Fabian

On 02 May 2017 at 22:03 John Byrne <john@bodkinprints.co.uk> wrote:

I think Commons is a wholly inappropriate home for theses. The Commons licence allows changes to the material, which at least in scientific subjects could be disastrous, with results and conclusions being fiddled with. When I was at the Royal Society and then Cancer Research UK they were well aware of this risk. In many contentious areas this would be very likely to happen, from a variety of motives.

What is needed is open access. There are various OA thesis banks, like https://oatd.org/ which is the best way of doing it. It is difficult enough usiing their search, with just theses; imagine trying to find something using Commons search.

John Byrne

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