Dear list,
As this is my first post to this list, an intro to start: I am a student at Sussex, but live in London, writing a PhD on the history of imprisonment for debt. I've been doing minor edits and correction on wikipedia for about 4 years, and attended wikimania at the Barbican a few years back. My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia
My Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.
My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled).
My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes
Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it. I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, but such is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.
As empire spread English common law around the world, there are many international aspects to this as well, not least the number of British statutes concerned with other countries. To this end I've been collecting sources of Anglophone common law, eg for Barbados: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/barbados-law/ & Jamaica: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/jamaican-law/ And also OCR'd a set of volumes of Irish statutes to 1800: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes/tree/master/Ireland (Raw OCR, no auto correction carried out) I'd very much like to see wikipedia develop this legal history as well, but for my part I have enough to do with the British acts.
I hope this is of interest to you,
John
On 03 January 2017 at 14:44 John Levin <anterotesis@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia
Hello John - we actually exchanged mails a few years ago
My Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.
Wikisource can host primary rsource material, subject to some caveats.
My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled). My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it.
Well, laudable doesn't begin to cover it.
I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, butsuch is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.
Wikidata is a good place to develop metadata. It can do that in conjunction with Wikisource, but I wouldn't want to imply that is the only way.
Charles
Hello John,
That's a phenomenal resource. You mention that more hands might be needed, do you have a particular plan for adding info to the Wikimedia sites?
Regards, Richard Nevell
On 3 January 2017 at 15:41, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld. com> wrote:
On 03 January 2017 at 14:44 John Levin anterotesis@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia
Hello John - we actually exchanged mails a few years ago
My Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.
Wikisource can host primary rsource material, subject to some caveats.
My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled).
My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes
Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it.
Well, laudable doesn't begin to cover it.
I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, but such is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.
Wikidata is a good place to develop metadata. It can do that in conjunction with Wikisource, but I wouldn't want to imply that is the only way.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Hi Richard, & list,
I don't really have anything actionable right now, given the state of the texts.
My priority at the moment is to extract the tables of acts at the beginning of each volume, and thereby build a list of all the legislation passed, with their *long titles*.
At that point, I'd like to see the Wikipedia lists of legislation augmented and added to; those pages are pretty variable.
This would also be a good opportunity to turn the lists of acts on wikipedia into sortable tables, perhaps with a link to the text of the act where available, and where no dedicated WP page exists for that act.
My own sandbox for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia/sandbox
Perhaps also going through the acts, working out which should have entries, possibly automating stub creation.
But I'm not very experienced with WP, and certainly don't want to make decisions off my own bat.
Best,
John
On 05/01/2017 11:05, Richard Nevell wrote:
Hello John,
That's a phenomenal resource. You mention that more hands might be needed, do you have a particular plan for adding info to the Wikimedia sites?
Regards, Richard Nevell
On 3 January 2017 at 15:41, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com mailto:charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
__On 03 January 2017 at 14:44 John Levin <anterotesis@gmail.com <mailto:anterotesis@gmail.com>> wrote:<snip>My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia>Hello John - we actually exchanged mails a few years agoMy Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.Wikisource can host primary rsource material, subject to some caveats.My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled). My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes <https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes> Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it.Well, laudable doesn't begin to cover it.I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, but such is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.Wikidata is a good place to develop metadata. It can do that in conjunction with Wikisource, but I wouldn't want to imply that is the only way. Charles _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk-- Richard Nevell Project Coordinator Wikimedia UK - sign up to our newsletter http://eepurl.com/cnYOw5 +44 (0) 20 7065 0921 tel:020%207065%200921
On 10 January 2017 at 22:43, John Levin anterotesis@gmail.com wrote:
At that point, I'd like to see the Wikipedia lists of legislation augmented and added to; those pages are pretty variable.
This would also be a good opportunity to turn the lists of acts on wikipedia into sortable tables, perhaps with a link to the text of the act where available, and where no dedicated WP page exists for that act.
I would concentrate on getting the data into Wikidata, *first*. The lists can then be created and updated from there, automatically, in the format you describe.
If you have your data in a spreadsheet, with a column for Wikidata ID where one already exists, then that can be used to automate the creation or updating of Wikidata items.
Obvious first thought: how to coordinate this with what http://www.bailii.org/ does?
- d.
On 3 January 2017 at 14:44, John Levin anterotesis@gmail.com wrote:
Dear list,
As this is my first post to this list, an intro to start: I am a student at Sussex, but live in London, writing a PhD on the history of imprisonment for debt. I've been doing minor edits and correction on wikipedia for about 4 years, and attended wikimania at the Barbican a few years back. My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia
My Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.
My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled).
My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes
Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it. I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, but such is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.
As empire spread English common law around the world, there are many international aspects to this as well, not least the number of British statutes concerned with other countries. To this end I've been collecting sources of Anglophone common law, eg for Barbados: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/barbados-law/ & Jamaica: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/jamaican-law/ And also OCR'd a set of volumes of Irish statutes to 1800: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes/tree/master/Ireland (Raw OCR, no auto correction carried out) I'd very much like to see wikipedia develop this legal history as well, but for my part I have enough to do with the British acts.
I hope this is of interest to you,
John
-- John Levin http://www.anterotesis.com http://twitter.com/anterotesis
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 11/01/2017 13:27, David Gerard wrote:
Obvious first thought: how to coordinate this with what http://www.bailii.org/ does?
Contacting BAILII is on my list of things to do. Will do it soon.
John
- d.
On 3 January 2017 at 14:44, John Levin anterotesis@gmail.com wrote:
Dear list,
As this is my first post to this list, an intro to start: I am a student at Sussex, but live in London, writing a PhD on the history of imprisonment for debt. I've been doing minor edits and correction on wikipedia for about 4 years, and attended wikimania at the Barbican a few years back. My user page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Technolalia
My Phd has involved a lot of digging around for historic statutes, and this has led to a side project, and one that I hope will work with Wikipedia. In short, I have OCRd around 80 volumes of various editions of the Statutes At Large and the Public General Statutes. They cover the period from Magna Carta, up to 1875 (after which digitized volumes are scarce). I believe they contain a more or less complete set of public acts from about 1765 to 1875. Although it is obviously alphanumeric soup at the moment, I am working on automatic correction of the more obvious errors, and on producing decent metadata.
My aims are to make finding legislation easier, to make it easier to examine, both by eye and by machine, and to produce reliable metadata from and for it. My immediate priority is to extract the tables of contents from the collections, and build a reliable list of acts with regnal codes and full titles (correctly spelled).
My site for this project: http://statutes.org.uk and my github repo: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes
Wikipedia has many useful lists of statutes, some entries on particular acts, & in wikicommons a few of the texts. I very much want my work to contribute to wikipedia and improve this aspect of it. I've been talking with Andrew Gray, mainly with regard to Wikidata, but such is the size of the task I think more hands will be needed. & of course I don't want to start making great changes without consultation.
As empire spread English common law around the world, there are many international aspects to this as well, not least the number of British statutes concerned with other countries. To this end I've been collecting sources of Anglophone common law, eg for Barbados: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/barbados-law/ & Jamaica: http://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/international/jamaican-law/ And also OCR'd a set of volumes of Irish statutes to 1800: https://github.com/Anterotesis/statutes/tree/master/Ireland (Raw OCR, no auto correction carried out) I'd very much like to see wikipedia develop this legal history as well, but for my part I have enough to do with the British acts.
I hope this is of interest to you,
John
-- John Levin http://www.anterotesis.com http://twitter.com/anterotesis
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 11 January 2017 at 14:41 John Levin <anterotesis@gmail.com> wrote: On 11/01/2017 13:27, David Gerard wrote: > Obvious first thought: how to coordinate this with what > http://www.bailii.org/ does? > > Contacting BAILII is on my list of things to do. Will do it soon.
Putting together what Andy and David are suggesting: http://www.bailii.org/indices/uk-legis-index.html looks pretty interesting from a data point of view. At first sight modern legislation at a fine granularity is drowning everything else out: but here is
http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/1689/bill_of_rights.html
So that provides an identifier (suffix) for the Bill of Rights.
The existence of these legislation identifiers does mean that Wikidata could be used to generate lists in an automated fashion, as Andy was saying. Plugging into that infrastructure would probably pay dividends, for a project on the scale you were indicating.
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org