Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/31/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email)
<alphasigmax(a)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