On 8 November 2013 10:27, Richard Nevell richard.nevell@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:

I think this sounds like a really interesting idea, what do other people think?

Just a caveat or so.

As a text repository, Wikisource functions as a library and archive, and I suppose that is how people mostly think of it. That doesn't really describe its full scope: you'll find individual poems, journal articles, encyclopedia articles, which in a sense is an even better use (really useful to able to link to the precise text you want, compared to say linking to the Internet Archive or Google Books).

The way this translates into proofreading is that people's initial idea is, for example, going through a Victorian novel and picking up typos, with spellchecker support. That is Gutenberg-like and perfectly fine, and it is what Gutenberg does well. There are texts that are much harder to proofread, even opposite a scan: e.g. reference material.

So proofreading contests that munge all proofing together are basically going to favour the more readable prose. I have no real problem with that, but the issue is worth a little thought.

It's a low-hanging fruit situation, in brief. It would be welcome if that were reflected in the judging.

Charles

There are reasonable resources for Latin and Greek translations online; the site which springs to mind is Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu which has nearly 45 million words in English of Greek and Roman source material.

Richard

On 8 November 2013 10:52, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

Yes getting more traction for Wikisource would be useful, particularly for non-English texts. The ability to show multiple languages side by side is an excellent way of transcribing and translating texts, however one that is rarely used by anyone. I would be surprised if this attracted many new people who would stay on and become regular wikisourcerers.

Having 'been around' for quite a while, dabbled in Wikisource and lurked around its back passages, I still find it comparatively hard to understand. If this is to attract newcomers, then it would be nice to see this go hand-in-hand with improving both the guidelines on exactly how to proofread (there's a complex multi-stage process that could do with a simpler work-flow), the peculiarities of how text is marked-up there and the rather convoluted underpinning process for turning a document/book into a djvu file, loading it on Commons and then setting it up as a book on Wikisource (phew). I'm fairly wizardly but I found the "norms" hard to work out and arbitrary.

I agree with Charles' point about low-hanging fruit. With ancient text transcriptions falling into disrepair (as University IT departments cut back) there is significant educational value in publishing transcriptions of Latin and ancient Greek inscriptions, however hardly any are on Wikisource, as this is much harder than transcribing a page from a 19th century journal. Having talked to a couple of academics about this area, I personally would not recommend Wikisource to any historians over a custom solution at the moment, mainly due to its poor interface, lack of standards for transcriptions (e.g. how do you mark up "this letter is likely to be a delta" or "this word is missing from the original" apart from making generic custom pop up notes?) and general clunkiness, which is a great pity.

Fae

faewik@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm

---

Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

On 8 November 2013 11:18, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

Non-commercial use of texts from Perseus is prohibited.

Oops, invert that, I meant commercial reuse is prohibited.

Fae

On 8 November 2013 11:33, Richard Nevell richard.nevell@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:

But, returning to the point of this thread: proofreading Wikisource. If

there is an appetite to take part, how would it be best organised? Checking for typos and using a spellchecker seems like the simplest approach, would it be one which results in a significant impact?

As a start, if WMUK thinks it would be putting some staff time towards

this competition, the best thing might be to start a thread at

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Announcements

just saying you are considering backing it.

English Wikisource runs a "Proofread of the Month" and one model would be to adapt that to the needs of the competition ("all must have prizes" in PoTM, namely a template on your userpage). So there could be a definite bunch of works selected, where people proofread and validate them page by page.

Charles

On 8 November 2013 10:52, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

Having 'been around' for quite a while, dabbled in Wikisource and lurked around its back passages, I still find it comparatively hard to understand. If this is to attract newcomers, then it would be nice to see this go hand-in-hand with improving both the guidelines on exactly how to proofread (there's a complex multi-stage process that could do with a simpler work-flow), the peculiarities of how text is marked-up there and the rather convoluted underpinning process for turning a document/book into a djvu file, loading it on Commons and then setting it up as a book on Wikisource (phew). I'm fairly wizardly but I found the "norms" hard to work out and arbitrary.

These and Fae's other general comments are fair.

Since I spoke about Wikisource at the WMUK AGM in 2010, the project has been getting somewhat more attention, better technical support and so on. Obviously the competition initiative is a profile-raising exercise, and the context is other work going on that is off-topic here.

As a text repository Wikisource has plenty of rivals (even the logo acknowledges that). ProofReadPage, the MediaWiki extension that allows proofing via "text opposite scan", should become the USP, but needs to be supplemented by sound policies on annotation and translation. The enWS community anyway is hardcore and fairly slow to be impressed, but has been known recently to generate and accept initiatives.

Charles