http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick
To blow my own horn a bit, this was discussed on my LiveJournal a bit a while ago:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/reddragdiva/143397.html?thread=1663269#t166... http://www.livejournal.com/users/reddragdiva/143397.html
- d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow: 1. Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite, and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink. 2. Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data. 3. Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information.
Stirling Newberry wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, If the idea is to link citations to the US-Library of Congres then it may be a good idea inside the United States. If the idea is to link to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek then it may be an equally valid idea inside the Netherlands. When a standard is chosen that does not show how it relevancy outside the United States, the idea is how well intended fatally flawed.
I do know there is a Library of Congress but I am more interested in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. When a proposed system is structured in such a way that institutions that are equal to the Library of Congress are treated as such, a system as is proposed may be feasible. Without this, facts not known in the USA would not be creditable and this, is deadly for the credibility of this proposed system.
Thanks, GerardM
Thanks
On Jan 30, 2005, at 2:26 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Stirling Newberry wrote:
Hoi, If the idea is to link citations to the US-Library of Congres then it may be a good idea inside the United States. If the idea is to link to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek then it may be an equally valid idea inside the Netherlands. When a standard is chosen that does not show how it relevancy outside the United States, the idea is how well intended fatally flawed.
I do know there is a Library of Congress but I am more interested in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. When a proposed system is structured in such a way that institutions that are equal to the Library of Congress are treated as such, a system as is proposed may be feasible. Without this, facts not known in the USA would not be creditable and this, is deadly for the credibility of this proposed system.
Thanks, GerardM
As the proposal shows, it would be linking to citations in wikipedia, and the use of protocols would allow the querying of all important repositories, and not merely one national one.
I think that at the moment credibility is extremely overrated among Must Add Sources to All Articles Right Now Fanatics.
While it does certainly help, it seems to me that most people take everything Wikipedia says as true no matter what, despite what the MASAARNF say - lack of sources vs. presence of sources would only be a distinguisher for a limited number of people ("intelligent" people as the case may be, or people to whom credibility is important, ie somebody who isn't just wanting to know something and doesn't care a lot about credibility).
Prolonged existance of a fact in en.wikipedia by itself certifies to a certain degree the credibility of the fact - anything that is absolute hogwash will usually be removed right away or within a week, and anything that is hogwash but less so will usually be removed within a few weeks. The kind of stuff that gets through for months on end is usually the type of stuff that is only subtly wrong and for most people is "right enough".
So while I don't propose not giving cites at all, I do propose a whupping for all those who add cites to articles I wrote completely, given that I was either too lazy to add cites and theirs are only guesses, or I didn't add cites because I didn't use any sources other than myself (Did the person who wrote the first book use cites? No, because there /was/ nothing to cite - so people judged the content by itself and not by the citations).
Cites do not ensure credibility, either. I can add loads and loads of hogwash to [[Indo-European languages]] citing Edo Nyland, yet the stuff I say will still be hogwash. That it comes with honest cites attached is only misleading, given the total unreliability of the resources cited (No expert, in their right mind, will be able to read anything Mr Nyland has written without falling to the floor and laughing themselves near to death - although Mr Nyland appears to be completely serious and believes what he writes).
If I add to [[Basque language]] that "Basque is, along with [[Ainu language|Ainu]] and the [[Dravidian languages]], the modern descendant of the Saharan language, and is the origin of all modern languages which were created by Benedictine priests." and cite Mr Nyland (who now in addition to his crackpot website has apparently been published - you can get his crackpot book for 30 US dollars now), that does not mean it should not be deleted just because it gives a citation, and it does not mean it should be trusted, either. (in case you couldn't tell, Benedictine priests are most definitely not responsible for "inventing" all modern languages from the vocabulary of some ur-language called "Saharan")
Mark
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I should add that this is especially deceiving because Mr Nyland shares his name with Dr Edo Nyland, a professor emeritus in geophysics (not linguistics, but still it gives a false sense of credibility) at the university of Alberta. (whom he notes, on his homepage, he is NOT)
Mark
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 16:21:04 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think that at the moment credibility is extremely overrated among Must Add Sources to All Articles Right Now Fanatics.
While it does certainly help, it seems to me that most people take everything Wikipedia says as true no matter what, despite what the MASAARNF say - lack of sources vs. presence of sources would only be a distinguisher for a limited number of people ("intelligent" people as the case may be, or people to whom credibility is important, ie somebody who isn't just wanting to know something and doesn't care a lot about credibility).
Prolonged existance of a fact in en.wikipedia by itself certifies to a certain degree the credibility of the fact - anything that is absolute hogwash will usually be removed right away or within a week, and anything that is hogwash but less so will usually be removed within a few weeks. The kind of stuff that gets through for months on end is usually the type of stuff that is only subtly wrong and for most people is "right enough".
So while I don't propose not giving cites at all, I do propose a whupping for all those who add cites to articles I wrote completely, given that I was either too lazy to add cites and theirs are only guesses, or I didn't add cites because I didn't use any sources other than myself (Did the person who wrote the first book use cites? No, because there /was/ nothing to cite - so people judged the content by itself and not by the citations).
Cites do not ensure credibility, either. I can add loads and loads of hogwash to [[Indo-European languages]] citing Edo Nyland, yet the stuff I say will still be hogwash. That it comes with honest cites attached is only misleading, given the total unreliability of the resources cited (No expert, in their right mind, will be able to read anything Mr Nyland has written without falling to the floor and laughing themselves near to death - although Mr Nyland appears to be completely serious and believes what he writes).
If I add to [[Basque language]] that "Basque is, along with [[Ainu language|Ainu]] and the [[Dravidian languages]], the modern descendant of the Saharan language, and is the origin of all modern languages which were created by Benedictine priests." and cite Mr Nyland (who now in addition to his crackpot website has apparently been published
- you can get his crackpot book for 30 US dollars now), that does not
mean it should not be deleted just because it gives a citation, and it does not mean it should be trusted, either. (in case you couldn't tell, Benedictine priests are most definitely not responsible for "inventing" all modern languages from the vocabulary of some ur-language called "Saharan")
Mark
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also. In addition to helping us reference our existing articles, this would be a fine way to provide a universal, POV-free service (with potentially POV commentary built on top of it).
+sj+
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Anyone in the Boston area who is interested in this subject, please come to our next meetup this Sunday evening at 6pm! We will be discussing librarianship, citations, and database imports... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston
--SJ--
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 05:21:45 -0500, Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also. In addition to helping us reference our existing articles, this would be a fine way to provide a universal, POV-free service (with potentially POV commentary built on top of it).
+sj+
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...]
Sj wrote (about Wikicite):
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also.
As in "if you cook, we will eat", or the other way around?
Stirling Newbury wrote:
together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
Who are these people at LoC? Does their project have a name?
I think the best way is to digitize every book and give each page a URL, like this, http://runeberg.org/pictswed/0219.html
We already know how to handle URLs, and it's only a matter of time until we have scanned every book and newspaper there is. I would guess the task will be completed within the next 50 years. Most of us will be around to see it.
So, I have a proposed solution and a time table. What's your time table?
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 20:59:56 +0100 (CET), Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Who are these people at LoC? Does their project have a name?
I think the best way is to digitize every book and give each page a URL, like this, http://runeberg.org/pictswed/0219.html
We already know how to handle URLs, and it's only a matter of time until we have scanned every book and newspaper there is. I would guess the task will be completed within the next 50 years. Most of us will be around to see it.
Scanning is difficult. I know that in the British Library and other copyright libraries, photocopying (and therefore scanning) of a book has to be one page at a time: you cannot open a book flat for photocopying, but let one page at a time dangle on the side of the photocopier. Also, material beyond a certain age may not be photocopied at all. (I think you might also need permission sometimes).
I don't know how far back the Library of Congress goes, but these may apply.
Also, these things are copyrighted. :P
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 20:59:56 +0100 (CET), Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Sj wrote (about Wikicite):
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also.
As in "if you cook, we will eat", or the other way around?
They were interested in helping out / promoting the idea. (But have no access to the databases in question)
SJ
On Feb 9, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Sj wrote (about Wikicite):
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also.
As in "if you cook, we will eat", or the other way around?
Stirling Newbury wrote:
together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
Who are these people at LoC? Does their project have a name?
Bibliographic enhancement, there is a link on the page.
I think the best way is to digitize every book and give each page a URL, like this, http://runeberg.org/pictswed/0219.html
Where the material is in Wikisource this is great, but you still need the card for context and references.
We already know how to handle URLs, and it's only a matter of time until we have scanned every book and newspaper there is. I would guess the task will be completed within the next 50 years. Most of us will be around to see it.
So, I have a proposed solution and a time table. What's your time table?
Links to sources don't create citation indexes, they don't make citing easier and they don't allow us to annotate sources - it also assumes that a great deal of material will be released into the public domain that is not currently. I feel that we can have a first pass wikicite ready to be used in wikipedia and wikitionary articles within a year based on ISBN numbers for books and ISSN numbers for journals.
I think a very important issue here is whether to add cites to articles that we don't know what sources were used.
If I wrote the entire text of [[Japanese language]] (which I didn't, this is just an example), without a cite, it would be a very horrible thing in my mind if somebody added a cite for a book I'd never even heard of. It's simply not accurate, and in some cases the book may not even be a good resource.
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source. It's very irritating to have people doing that, almost like bees, who while they make honey also tend to annoy people.
Mark
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:15:16 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Feb 9, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Sj wrote (about Wikicite):
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also.
As in "if you cook, we will eat", or the other way around?
Stirling Newbury wrote:
together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
Who are these people at LoC? Does their project have a name?
Bibliographic enhancement, there is a link on the page.
I think the best way is to digitize every book and give each page a URL, like this, http://runeberg.org/pictswed/0219.html
Where the material is in Wikisource this is great, but you still need the card for context and references.
We already know how to handle URLs, and it's only a matter of time until we have scanned every book and newspaper there is. I would guess the task will be completed within the next 50 years. Most of us will be around to see it.
So, I have a proposed solution and a time table. What's your time table?
Links to sources don't create citation indexes, they don't make citing easier and they don't allow us to annotate sources - it also assumes that a great deal of material will be released into the public domain that is not currently. I feel that we can have a first pass wikicite ready to be used in wikipedia and wikitionary articles within a year based on ISBN numbers for books and ISSN numbers for journals.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source.
So no one is allowed to touch the article references section except yourself? That's a little possessive, to say the least. Suppose I check your claims against my reference, find them good, see no reason to change the text, and add the reference as a token that I've done the checking?
References are there for *other* people to use; if you've neglected to mention the standard text that readers should look at if they want to know more, then other editors need to be able to fix your mistake.
By your reasoning, we could never add to the references section for an article written two years ago by someone who has since moved on, nor could a 1911EB-derived article ever get updated references, at least not without casting a resurrection spell first...
Stan
If you add text to the article, you may add your own cites and you won't at all irritate me.
You are confusing cites with "see also"s. Cites are not there for people to get standard reference texts. If I cite 3 books, "Japanese linguistics", "Languages of the World", and "How to Have Better Sex", for [[Japanese language]], this doesn't mean all three of them are standard reference works, it just means I used information I read in them to write what I wrote.
If, however, I add them in a "see also" section, they should be standard reference works for the topic and "How to Have Better Sex" probably doesn't belong.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:59:01 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source.
So no one is allowed to touch the article references section except yourself? That's a little possessive, to say the least. Suppose I check your claims against my reference, find them good, see no reason to change the text, and add the reference as a token that I've done the checking?
References are there for *other* people to use; if you've neglected to mention the standard text that readers should look at if they want to know more, then other editors need to be able to fix your mistake.
By your reasoning, we could never add to the references section for an article written two years ago by someone who has since moved on, nor could a 1911EB-derived article ever get updated references, at least not without casting a resurrection spell first...
Stan
Mark Williamson wrote:
If you add text to the article, you may add your own cites and you won't at all irritate me.
Didn't you read the fine print on the edit screen? People can edit your writing in any way that seems good to them and conforms to policy; it's not your place to say that they can't, whether it's to add or change citations, references, see alsos, or whatever. I care much more that the readers see a sensible article than whether my edits irritate you or not.
Stan
I don't recall saying they couldn't, just that I find it irritating.
Adding citations that weren't actually used is bad. Adding references or see alsos, good.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 16:07:59 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
If you add text to the article, you may add your own cites and you won't at all irritate me.
Didn't you read the fine print on the edit screen? People can edit your writing in any way that seems good to them and conforms to policy; it's not your place to say that they can't, whether it's to add or change citations, references, see alsos, or whatever. I care much more that the readers see a sensible article than whether my edits irritate you or not.
Stan
Mark Williamson wrote:
I don't recall saying they couldn't, just that I find it irritating.
Adding citations that weren't actually used is bad. Adding references or see alsos, good.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 16:07:59 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
If you add text to the article, you may add your own cites and you won't at all irritate me.
Didn't you read the fine print on the edit screen? People can edit your writing in any way that seems good to them and conforms to policy; it's not your place to say that they can't, whether it's to add or change citations, references, see alsos, or whatever. I care much more that the readers see a sensible article than whether my edits irritate you or not.
Stan
I think the point Mark is making is that there is a difference between a source actually used when writing the document, and a suggestion for further reading. One suggests that the source was used as a text source or authority, the other does not. Mixing the two up can create a false impression; and unfortunately many editors do not appreciate the differences.
There's a big difference between saying "I read this as I wrote this article", "I used this as an authority", and "someone mentioned this in their list of references for another article on the subject".
-- Neil
Neil Harris wrote:
I think the point Mark is making is that there is a difference between a source actually used when writing the document, and a suggestion for further reading. One suggests that the source was used as a text source or authority, the other does not. Mixing the two up can create a false impression; and unfortunately many editors do not appreciate the differences.
There's a big difference between saying "I read this as I wrote this article", "I used this as an authority", and "someone mentioned this in their list of references for another article on the subject".
Sure there's a distinction, but it's only interesting for about 15 minutes, or less if the next editor comes along sooner. We don't value process over product; if a person adds a bit of text but justifies with an irrelevant or incorrect citation, we want to fix the text or citation or both as necessary.
For instance, in areas where I'm a recognized expert, I can write at length from memory, and don't need to refer to any sources at all; then the references I include are just for the benefit of readers, and other editors who want to check up on me. In other areas, I'm carefully paraphrasing the one reference I've been able to locate. However, I'm not expected or required to tell anybody which of the two processes I used for any particular edit, and even if I did, nobody would care much. So it's a distinction without a difference.
To put it another way, we evaluate an article based on what the current version looks like, not by studying the article's edit history. A good thing too - some of our finest articles have, shall we say, a checkered past. :-)
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
Neil Harris wrote:
I think the point Mark is making is that there is a difference between a source actually used when writing the document, and a suggestion for further reading. One suggests that the source was used as a text source or authority, the other does not. Mixing the two up can create a false impression; and unfortunately many editors do not appreciate the differences.
There's a big difference between saying "I read this as I wrote this article", "I used this as an authority", and "someone mentioned this in their list of references for another article on the subject".
Sure there's a distinction, but it's only interesting for about 15 minutes, or less if the next editor comes along sooner. We don't value process over product; if a person adds a bit of text but justifies with an irrelevant or incorrect citation, we want to fix the text or citation or both as necessary.
For instance, in areas where I'm a recognized expert, I can write at length from memory, and don't need to refer to any sources at all; then the references I include are just for the benefit of readers, and other editors who want to check up on me. In other areas, I'm carefully paraphrasing the one reference I've been able to locate. However, I'm not expected or required to tell anybody which of the two processes I used for any particular edit, and even if I did, nobody would care much. So it's a distinction without a difference.
Certainly if Mark makes an exact quote that can and must be justified by an exact source. Careful paraphrasing, which most of us will do if we don't want to start infringing copyrights, can be based equally well on any of several texts. If we paraphrase print author B who had himself paraphrased earlier print author A; we can still cite author A as a reference.
Ec
Also, while I'd have no qualms about citing 三省堂言語学大辞典セレクション:日本列島の言語 in an English Wikipedia article, I would be wary of including it as a "see also", even though it is the standard reference work and is a billion times better than the most comprehensive English-language work on the topic, "The Languages of Japan" by Masayosi Sibatani, because that assumes that the majority or even a significant number of readers will be able to read it, which isn't true.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:59:01 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source.
So no one is allowed to touch the article references section except yourself? That's a little possessive, to say the least. Suppose I check your claims against my reference, find them good, see no reason to change the text, and add the reference as a token that I've done the checking?
References are there for *other* people to use; if you've neglected to mention the standard text that readers should look at if they want to know more, then other editors need to be able to fix your mistake.
By your reasoning, we could never add to the references section for an article written two years ago by someone who has since moved on, nor could a 1911EB-derived article ever get updated references, at least not without casting a resurrection spell first...
Stan
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:40:05 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think a very important issue here is whether to add cites to articles that we don't know what sources were used.
If I wrote the entire text of [[Japanese language]] (which I didn't, this is just an example), without a cite, it would be a very horrible thing in my mind if somebody added a cite for a book I'd never even heard of. It's simply not accurate, and in some cases the book may not even be a good resource.
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source. It's very irritating to have people doing that, almost like bees, who while they make honey also tend to annoy people.
Hmm. If something is common knowledge to specialists in the field (sounds contradictory, I know) then any reliable cite documenting this will do, not just the one you've used.
Of course.
But Stan is saying that cites are equal to standard reference works. A well-known fact about the Japanese language may be written in a book about cats, and it should be cited if used, but that doesn't mean it's a standard reference work.
Mark
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:21:11 +0000, Tomer Chachamu the.r3m0t@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:40:05 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think a very important issue here is whether to add cites to articles that we don't know what sources were used.
If I wrote the entire text of [[Japanese language]] (which I didn't, this is just an example), without a cite, it would be a very horrible thing in my mind if somebody added a cite for a book I'd never even heard of. It's simply not accurate, and in some cases the book may not even be a good resource.
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source. It's very irritating to have people doing that, almost like bees, who while they make honey also tend to annoy people.
Hmm. If something is common knowledge to specialists in the field (sounds contradictory, I know) then any reliable cite documenting this will do, not just the one you've used. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
I think a very important issue here is whether to add cites to articles that we don't know what sources were used.
If I wrote the entire text of [[Japanese language]] (which I didn't, this is just an example), without a cite, it would be a very horrible thing in my mind if somebody added a cite for a book I'd never even heard of. It's simply not accurate, and in some cases the book may not even be a good resource.
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source. It's very irritating to have people doing that, almost like bees, who while they make honey also tend to annoy people.
That's not nice. It suggests that you have taken personal ownership of the article. When somebody adds a citation, one should at least presume that the person acted in good faith, and that he felt that the source supported some of the things said in the article. How can you possibly tell whether a book is a good resource if you've never heard of it? You have no basis for determining that the cite is "random".
It's not as if he were referring to a source with a known biased political point of view.
Ec
You are confusing "citation" with "see also" or "other references".
I know I'm right because Wiktionary agrees: 2 The act of citing a passage from a book, or from another person, in his own words; also, the passage or words quoted; quotation. 3 Enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts.
If I write an article on a subject, it shows bad academic scruples for me to cite sources I didn't use. Likewise, it is bad for Wikipedia for somebody to add a cite to an article that didn't go into the writing of the text, although that's not nessecarily true if it was used to confirm a fact as opposed to it just being a good book on the subject.
For example, the English version of the article Trisceli recently copied the cites line-for-line from the independently-written (ie, not translated) Sicilian article, without adding text. This is poor.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:59:24 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
I think a very important issue here is whether to add cites to articles that we don't know what sources were used.
If I wrote the entire text of [[Japanese language]] (which I didn't, this is just an example), without a cite, it would be a very horrible thing in my mind if somebody added a cite for a book I'd never even heard of. It's simply not accurate, and in some cases the book may not even be a good resource.
Whenever somebody adds a random cite to an article written mostly or entirely by me, I remove it unless I actually DID use that source. It's very irritating to have people doing that, almost like bees, who while they make honey also tend to annoy people.
That's not nice. It suggests that you have taken personal ownership of the article. When somebody adds a citation, one should at least presume that the person acted in good faith, and that he felt that the source supported some of the things said in the article. How can you possibly tell whether a book is a good resource if you've never heard of it? You have no basis for determining that the cite is "random".
It's not as if he were referring to a source with a known biased political point of view.
Ec
On Feb 9, 2005, at 11:17 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
You are confusing "citation" with "see also" or "other references".
I know I'm right because Wiktionary agrees: 2 The act of citing a passage from a book, or from another person, in his own words; also, the passage or words quoted; quotation. 3 Enumeration; mention; as, a citation of facts.
If I write an article on a subject, it shows bad academic scruples for me to cite sources I didn't use. Likewise, it is bad for Wikipedia for somebody to add a cite to an article that didn't go into the writing of the text, although that's not nessecarily true if it was used to confirm a fact as opposed to it just being a good book on the subject.
For example, the English version of the article Trisceli recently copied the cites line-for-line from the independently-written (ie, not translated) Sicilian article, without adding text. This is poor.
Mark
Which is why the wikicite proposal includes the incorporation of footnoting code which is being worked on. One way to cut down on citation cruft, a current problem, is to integrate footnoting more directly into wiki writing. This way people will see which citations were directly used.
Stirling Newberry wrote:
On Feb 9, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Lars Aronsson wrote:
Sj wrote (about Wikicite):
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also.
As in "if you cook, we will eat", or the other way around?
Stirling Newbury wrote:
together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
Who are these people at LoC? Does their project have a name?
Bibliographic enhancement, there is a link on the page.
I think the best way is to digitize every book and give each page a URL, like this, http://runeberg.org/pictswed/0219.html
Where the material is in Wikisource this is great, but you still need the card for context and references.
We already know how to handle URLs, and it's only a matter of time until we have scanned every book and newspaper there is. I would guess the task will be completed within the next 50 years. Most of us will be around to see it.
So, I have a proposed solution and a time table. What's your time table?
Links to sources don't create citation indexes, they don't make citing easier and they don't allow us to annotate sources - it also assumes that a great deal of material will be released into the public domain that is not currently. I feel that we can have a first pass wikicite ready to be used in wikipedia and wikitionary articles within a year based on ISBN numbers for books and ISSN numbers for journals.
ISBNs are of limited value since they were only adopted in 1970. Most of that material is still copyright protected. The public domain material on Wikisource is much older than that, and has no ISBNs.
Ec
ISBNs are of limited value since they were only adopted in 1970. Most of that material is still copyright protected. The public domain material on Wikisource is much older than that, and has no ISBNs.
Ec
Once ISBN is implemented we can expand to LCCN, which is everything copyright in the US library of Congress, and is not a copyright system. From this other call numbers, provided they can be referenced in the public domain, will be possible. ISBN's are not of "limited" value, since anything which has had an edition since then has one. This includes many texts which were produced prior to 1970, and virtually all of the commonly cited material on wikipedia. Since the proposed format allows for different types of identifiers, it will be a simple matter to add additional identifiers by which material may be cited.
Stirling Newberry wrote:
ISBNs are of limited value since they were only adopted in 1970. Most of that material is still copyright protected. The public domain material on Wikisource is much older than that, and has no ISBNs.
Ec
Once ISBN is implemented we can expand to LCCN, which is everything copyright in the US library of Congress, and is not a copyright system. From this other call numbers, provided they can be referenced in the public domain, will be possible. ISBN's are not of "limited" value, since anything which has had an edition since then has one. This includes many texts which were produced prior to 1970, and virtually all of the commonly cited material on wikipedia. Since the proposed format allows for different types of identifiers, it will be a simple matter to add additional identifiers by which material may be cited.
Call numbers serve a different purpose at LOC than LCCNs. Saying that "anything which has had an edition since then has one" is not accurate. It's that later edition that has one; the earlier edition still does not. Thus in the Wikipedia [[BibTeX]] article, the example given for the Abramovitz and Stegun volume as published by Dover. That is not a 1964 publication as the article would suggest. My personal copy of the work is the March 1965 third printing, with corrections produced by the US Dept. of Commerce, and has no ISBN. It would be inappropriate to stick Dover's ISBN on that.
No-one is suggesting that ISBN is a copyright system. The extent to which ISBNs are commonly used will very much depend on the subject matter. The use is bound to be strong in most of the sciences, but in literature and history much of the references can be very old.
While I'm certainly not opposing the Wikicite project, my concern remains with Wikisource, and how the system as ultimately adopted will fit in with that project. I have raised the issue of citing sources on both Wikisource and Wiktionary. Still, my experience suggests to me that a significant fraction of our contributors have a great deal of difficulty in grasping the concept or its importance.
Ec
On Feb 10, 2005, at 6:17 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Call numbers serve a different purpose at LOC than LCCNs. Saying that "anything which has had an edition since then has one" is not accurate. It's that later edition that has one; the earlier edition still does not. Thus in the Wikipedia [[BibTeX]] article, the example given for the Abramovitz and Stegun volume as published by Dover. That is not a 1964 publication as the article would suggest. My personal copy of the work is the March 1965 third printing, with corrections produced by the US Dept. of Commerce, and has no ISBN. It would be inappropriate to stick Dover's ISBN on that.
First off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikicite_feature_requests
But I will reply to the categorical assertion of coverage, which is overly broad. It is only inappropriate to cite a later version of the work in the references when there is a difference between the editions, and that difference is important to the article. This isn't to minimize the point, because while it is a small number of cases, those cases are important: namely cases where a point is specifically quoted or paraphrased.
As for the difference purpose at the Library of Congress, what is important is that any particular identifier locate one particular edition, which is is assured of doing, having many numerical identifiers for the same work isn't a problem.
No-one is suggesting that ISBN is a copyright system. The extent to which ISBNs are commonly used will very much depend on the subject matter. The use is bound to be strong in most of the sciences, but in literature and history much of the references can be very old.
But other call number systems are under copyright, for example the primary legal citation system in the US is copyright.
While I'm certainly not opposing the Wikicite project, my concern remains with Wikisource, and how the system as ultimately adopted will fit in with that project. I have raised the issue of citing sources on both Wikisource and Wiktionary. Still, my experience suggests to me that a significant fraction of our contributors have a great deal of difficulty in grasping the concept or its importance.
Ec
Wikicite is a middle layer between sources and articles. The reasons for having this middle layer are many fold. First, it reduces the work of generating references. Second, it opens those references to the wiki process of credibility. Third is that it will connect citations to the source. If that source exists in wikisource, then the card should have a pointer to that wikisource object, so that the reader can easily call up that object, as you will note http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: Wikicite_project_purpose#Expansion the expansion macro should expressly create a link to the wikisource object if one has been recorded on the Wikicite card.
In fact, one of the seeds for wikicite should be the wikisource database.
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
In fact, one of the seeds for wikicite should be the wikisource database.
wikicite is superflous. Use technology that is state of the art, you will be able to extract interesting snippets from a document or a document system (XML with XPath resp. XPointer). Zebra (idzebra) is such an iplementation (cf. indexdata.dk).
On Feb 10, 2005, at 1:39 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
In fact, one of the seeds for wikicite should be the wikisource database.
wikicite is superflous. Use technology that is state of the art, you will be able to extract interesting snippets from a document or a document system (XML with XPath resp. XPointer). Zebra (idzebra) is such an iplementation (cf. indexdata.dk).
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span. I am willing to believe the second will happen in my lifetime, but not the first.
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span.
Do you think you are allowed to store a collection of "citations" of copyright protected works?
On Feb 10, 2005, at 3:40 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span.
Do you think you are allowed to store a collection of "citations" of copyright protected works?
--
The information content of a work is not merely the lexical content, this is why lexical search engines have given way to google which includes who cites who. Wikicite will provide a means for generating scholarly apparatus to determine the linkages between works, their content and the communities annotation on those works. Human knowledge isn't an undifferentiated bucket of bits.
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
The information content of a work is not merely the lexical content, this is why lexical search engines have given way to google which includes who cites who. Wikicite will provide a means for generating scholarly apparatus to determine the linkages between works, their content and the communities annotation on those works. Human knowledge isn't an undifferentiated bucket of bits.
Of course, it is allowed to store bibliographical data (even annotations etc.). Try idzebra (indexdata.dk) , it even comes with a PHP interface.
On Feb 10, 2005, at 4:36 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
The information content of a work is not merely the lexical content, this is why lexical search engines have given way to google which includes who cites who. Wikicite will provide a means for generating scholarly apparatus to determine the linkages between works, their content and the communities annotation on those works. Human knowledge isn't an undifferentiated bucket of bits.
Of course, it is allowed to store bibliographical data (even annotations etc.). Try idzebra (indexdata.dk) , it even comes with a PHP interface.
--
*rolls eyes*
What it doesn't come with is the actual data, nor are those annotations wiki editable, nor do the coordinate references in a structured way.
I would like to refer you to [[m:How to deal with Poles]].
"*rolls eyes*" and "*sigh*" are obviously very helpful and further a sense of mutual understanding.
Mark
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:37:36 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Feb 10, 2005, at 4:36 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
The information content of a work is not merely the lexical content, this is why lexical search engines have given way to google which includes who cites who. Wikicite will provide a means for generating scholarly apparatus to determine the linkages between works, their content and the communities annotation on those works. Human knowledge isn't an undifferentiated bucket of bits.
Of course, it is allowed to store bibliographical data (even annotations etc.). Try idzebra (indexdata.dk) , it even comes with a PHP interface.
--
*rolls eyes*
What it doesn't come with is the actual data, nor are those annotations wiki editable, nor do the coordinate references in a structured way.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
What it doesn't come with is the actual data,
1/ you can import data from Z39.50 servers, esp. from the LoC if you restrict yourself to limited number of datasets the day.
2/ I will happily feed the database once it is in place, and others will do the same, I'm sure.
nor are those annotations wiki editable, nor do the coordinate references in a structured way.
If the database is working in the background you can connect it with a wiki.
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com writes:
"*rolls eyes*" and "*sigh*" are obviously very helpful and further a sense of mutual understanding.
Yes, those abbreviations can quickly lead to misunderstandings.
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
[snip]
-- http://www.gnu.franken.de/ke/ | ,__o | _-_<, | (*)/'(*) Key fingerprint = F138 B28F B7ED E0AC 1AB4 AA7F C90A 35C3 E9D0 5D1C
I may have to "steal" that ASCII art bicyclist from you. How should I attribute it?
-- Chad
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span.
Do you think you are allowed to store a collection of "citations" of copyright protected works?
Being copyright does not prevent a work from being cited.
Ec
On Feb 10, 2005, at 5:46 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span.
Do you think you are allowed to store a collection of "citations" of copyright protected works?
Being copyright does not prevent a work from being cited. Ec
But it does prevent a complete copy from being stored where we can search it.
Stirling Newberry wrote:
On Feb 10, 2005, at 5:46 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
Which works only in a world without copyright and with everyone having a 7 second attention span.
Do you think you are allowed to store a collection of "citations" of copyright protected works?
Being copyright does not prevent a work from being cited. Ec
But it does prevent a complete copy from being stored where we can search it.
Would we want that anyway? If amazon.com wants to fight that copyright battle maybe they should. There is still the possibility that a text could be in private rather than public storage. This would allow for searching which would give only limited segments of texts as results, but would block people from downloading anything larger. That should fall within fair use.
Ec
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net writes:
In fact, one of the seeds for wikicite should be the wikisource database.
wikicite is superflous. Use technology that is state of the art, you will be able to extract interesting snippets from a document or a document system (XML with XPath resp. XPointer). Zebra (idzebra) is such an iplementation (cf. indexdata.dk).
That would be very nice in an ideal world.
Using state-of-the-art technology will probably very effectively accomplish what you say, but at what price? Retro-compatibility is essential, because only those most closely acquainted with the technology can afford to maintain their systems up-to-date. The VisiCalc program that I bought in 1982 did everything that I wanted it to. I did get away from my Apple II+, but the Microsoft Excel 5.0c from 1994 still does its job. Many users resent being obliged to buy new technology when the old one was adequate.
One of the key advantages of the wiki way is that it draws more people into the ranks of the knowledgeable. Binding ourselves to state-of-the-art technology may only result in creating a new elite. If we set about destroying the ivory tower it should not be with the sole purpose of using the debris as a foundation for a new one.
Ec
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net writes:
One of the key advantages of the wiki way is that it draws more people into the ranks of the knowledgeable. Binding ourselves to state-of-the-art technology may only result in creating a new elite. If we set about destroying the ivory tower it should not be with the sole purpose of using the debris as a foundation for a new one.
The wiki syntax is not good enough for long-term storage of books and other sources. Okay, that's my very personal opinion, but that's the reason why I don't want to spend a second on wikisource in its current incarnation. Wait, more or less by accident I proposed a copyright protected poem for deletion - it is still accessible here at http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Der_Mond_...&oldid=37693
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net writes:
One of the key advantages of the wiki way is that it draws more people into the ranks of the knowledgeable. Binding ourselves to state-of-the-art technology may only result in creating a new elite. If we set about destroying the ivory tower it should not be with the sole purpose of using the debris as a foundation for a new one.
The wiki syntax is not good enough for long-term storage of books and other sources. Okay, that's my very personal opinion, but that's the reason why I don't want to spend a second on wikisource in its current incarnation. Wait, more or less by accident I proposed a copyright protected poem for deletion - it is still accessible here at http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Der_Mond_...&oldid=37693
I followed your link and found nothing there to indicate that any kind of deletion proposal had been made. Apart from Zhaladshar and me nobody else seems to pay any sort of attention to that potential problem. Neither of us are German speaking, so without some kind of alert the likelihood that we would have spotted the problem is small. An anonymous blanking of the article with a brief mention on the summary line is not likely to be noticed. Now that I know about it I can do something.
This incident gives weight to my view that there should not be a separate de:wikisource.
It's really too early to say that the Wiki syntax is not adequate for books. For sure the potential is there for vandals to make stupid changes to an author's text, but that's not happening. On the other hand the potential for creating annotations and translations is also very important, and I look forward to the day when this can be done more easily.
Ec
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
wikicite is superflous. Use technology that is state of the art, you will be able to extract interesting snippets from a document or a document system (XML with XPath resp. XPointer). Zebra (idzebra) is such an iplementation (cf. indexdata.dk).
I'm skeptic to your proposition that this would indeed be a workable solution for the problem at hand. Is there any running prototype to prove it?
Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se writes:
I'm skeptic to your proposition that this would indeed be a workable solution for the problem at hand. Is there any running prototype to prove it?
The Perseus Project uses something along these lines (IIRC, you can retrieve complete books, chapters, or sections) - but I guess the technology they use predates XPath/Xpointer. Or look at our beloved "copyrighted" Adelung project http://mdz.bib-bvb.de/digbib/lexika/adelung/text/band1/@Generic__BookView;cs... - I'm quite sure they make use of an XML storage system (Dynaweb?).
If you use idzebra you can send arbitrary XPath statements to the database back-end and thus you can extract "quotes". Using XLink you can even embed them properly ;)
On Feb 10, 2005, at 4:17 PM, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se writes:
I'm skeptic to your proposition that this would indeed be a workable solution for the problem at hand. Is there any running prototype to prove it?
The Perseus Project uses something along these lines (IIRC, you can retrieve complete books, chapters, or sections) - but I guess the technology they use predates XPath/Xpointer. Or look at our beloved "copyrighted" Adelung project http://mdz.bib-bvb.de/digbib/lexika/adelung/text/band1/ @Generic__BookView;cs=default;ts=default
- I'm quite sure they make use of an XML storage system (Dynaweb?).
If you use idzebra you can send arbitrary XPath statements to the database back-end and thus you can extract "quotes". Using XLink you can even embed them properly ;)
And perseus has extensive textual apparatus, proving that even if one can find any bit of text, on still needs the means to create the references between it. And perseus deals only with a relatively small corpus.
Extraction of quotes is no substitute for the means of coordinating sources.
If this project goes through, I'd also suggest original language of publication, place of publication (perhaps a part of the publisher field), and any further language editions of the work, as well as any further revisions of the work (e.g. an encyclopedia, almanac, Guiness Book, etc.). Just some thoughts.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Sj Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 11:22 AM To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikicite project pages (english versions only sofar)
I was wary of this idea at first, but after talking to Stirling about it last week, I am very enthusiastic. Two librarians I have talked to in Boston seem to think it's a good idea, also. In addition to helping us reference our existing articles, this would be a fine way to provide a universal, POV-free service (with potentially POV commentary built on top of it).
+sj+
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:07:43 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikicite http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
A fact is only as reliable as the ability to source that fact, and the ability to weigh carefully that source. Wikipedia's community, in an effort to expand its useful sphere of users, increase its reliability, usability and credibility has held several related discussions on improving the scholarly apparatus of wikipedia. The need to cite sources is now in the community standard's list, the desire to upgrade the citation of articles is the subject of the Fact and Reference Project, and the Encyclopediac Standards project has discussed automatic, or at least software assisted citations. There has also been a coding effort to support footnoting. [edit]
Need for Live Data
These projects, need, not only to be joined together, but to be joined together in a live manner, which allows for the creation of bibliographic apparatus. The Library of Congress is working on such a project for its purposes, it is the purpose of this project to create an open wiki system which will allow:
- Software assisted citation. To make it easier for editors to cite,
and to make citations comprehensive to include a link to an author article, the book's card and the date as a wikilink.
- Card catalogs which will allow users to annotate the work, and to
link to other works, which could include later editions, bibliography and textual apparatus. To make the card catalog live data, rather than dead data.
- Support a footnote system in wikimedia. To improve the ability to
assess credibility and standards compliance of articles and their information. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Feb 9, 2005, at 3:56 PM, James R. Johnson wrote:
If this project goes through, I'd also suggest original language of publication, place of publication (perhaps a part of the publisher field), and any further language editions of the work, as well as any further revisions of the work (e.g. an encyclopedia, almanac, Guiness Book, etc.). Just some thoughts.
James
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