Well RS is my personal "axe to grind" :) and I think this is perfectly acceptable, and indeed an inviolate, reliable source.

With such matters we have to consider content, author, publisher. Content is fine, just factual secondary level information based on historical research. Author is fine too, NMM is clearly an excellent academic source in the field of naval history. Indeed, you'd struggle to find better I think. Publisher, in this case is no real issue; NMM are de-facto publishers whether it goes on their site, Wikisource or as a data dump on Commons.

So I doubt you will see any resistance to it as a RS :)

Tom / ErrantX

On 26 February 2011 20:52, Chris Keating <fightingforfairness@hotmail.com> wrote:
Alex - I will certainly make that point to them. The dataset *might* yet end up on the NMM's own website, though there are apparently some obstacles to doing so.

WSC - I'd thought about Wikisource. I'm not particularly familiar with that project - their inclusion guidelines say "Wikisource does not collect reference material unless it is published as part of a complete source text. Such information has not been previously published, is often user-compiled and unverified, and does not fit the goals of Wikisource." The interesting bit is probably the interpretation of "complete source text", as we're definitely not talking about user-compiled info, and hopefully it does very much meet the goals of Wikisource.

Is there anyone here who is involved with Wikisource who can offer an opinion?

Chris

> Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:47:45 +0000

> From: werespielchequers@gmail.com
> To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] National Maritime Museum collaboration
>
> Perhaps it would be appropriate to load their material to WikiSource
> rather than directly to Wikipedia
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> Then we can cite it in Wikipedia, or if the license is compatible and
> they have an article where we don't we could even import bits into
> Wikipedia.
>
> Some historians might raise an eyebrow if the NMM releases its
> information on one of our sister projects, but once they get used to
> the idea I would hope they'd be happy to cite it.
>
> WereSpielChequers
>
> On 26 February 2011 19:25, Alex Stinson <stinsoad@dukes.jmu.edu> wrote:
> >> Deryck - yes, it would be bizarre if Wikipedia told the National Maritime
> >> Museum their work wasn't up to our standards. However, because it's unusual
> >> to get information of this nature and in this format, I'm keen to establish
> >> a consensus at the outset rather than risk an argument about it later.
> >>
> > I have been working with Royal Navy history for the past year or so and am
> > working under one of NAM Rodger's students right now in writing an
> > undergraduate honors thesis. As it goes for organizations which publish or
> > support Naval History, the NMM is considered one of the more important
> > authorities along with the Naval Records Society which sponsor or publish
> > sets of sources. It clearly is reliable and I would be surprised if someone
> > questioned it.
> > That being said, as Historian, I would find the donation much more useful if
> > it were sponsored on another website (a closed wiki vetted by the NMM?),
> > that way historians can use it without having to cite one of the Wikimedia
> > projects. History, in particular, is a mildly backward field when it comes
> > to digital integration into scholarship. And it is certainly one of the
> > fields I don't think we will see lots of citations to Wikipedia in anytime
> > soon. Naval History is one of the worst subfields for digital integration as
> > well (most of the journals published in the field are not available
> > digitally yet). Any sources published digitally outside of a pay wall would
> > be infinitely useful for scholarship. That would also be useful for vetting
> > of Wikipedia facts, instead of the content being inserted once, it could be
> > refered to for verifiability for however long it is needed.
> > Alex Stinson
> > User:Sadads
> >
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> > wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org
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> >
> >
>
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