Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/31/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
(Re: Wikisource)
... but the *original source* should be protected at the steward level, which requires a software change.
You mean the "original source" as in the print edition that was scanned to create the Wikisource document? You could lock it up somewhere, I suppose. ;-) In seriousness, the scanning and proofreading process is, of course, prone to errors which are fixed over time. Even for a well-checked document, new metadata is added, annotations are made, new formatting standards implemented, and so on. So what you end up with is, once again, the need for the "last known stable version". Same as in Wikipedia, really.
There's nothing inherently wrong with using wiki processes for small changes to large documents.
Erik
Hoi, When a source is scanned, OCR-d, spell checked (mind you a spell checker should be a spell checker that allows for the spelling of the period) and checked again, it provides a facsimile of the document that was scanned. This underlying data is what should have some form of protection. However, there is nothing stopping anyone from annotating the document, the point is that it is outside the document itself and it should be obvious that it is. When I read something like a work of Shakespeare, I am not necessarily interested in all the fluff that his work has accumulated over the years. I would like to read the bard. The functionality to read the original text without annotations and stuff is very much essential to reading a source. Remember, it is a SOURCE.
Thanks, GerardM