>I think that Wikisource communities could decide to *try*
>implementing "critical editions" of texts. I would think it is
>better to have a proper namespace for that, or at least
>a clear template which warns users about the collaborative
>nature of the edition.
Thanks Aubrey, this point is crucial. I think it is important enough for a separate thread title. When at the very beginning we considered annotated editions at Hebrew Wikisource, the solution we found was quite simple: An "Annotation:" namespace. A separate namespace is a way to effectively address all of the legitimate concerns about creativity, neutrality, professionalism, etc. It immediately lets the user know that he is using a text that has been produced collaboratively and in a different way than basic typing and proofreading. It provides a clear separate space for people to produce valuable editions without allowing any confusion between the products of two different kinds of processes.
For editions with serious editing guidelines (such as a critical edition), we include a link in the title template to a Wikisource page "about this edition".
I suggested creating an "Annotation:" namespace some time ago at English Wikisource, but didn't get a response. And I am loathe to push the issue there myself, since I am hardly active in English anymore and so I don't see it as my place to deal with policy. But I do think, for those who are currently active in English doing things beyond proofreading, that it is highly important to create a safe and defined area for their activity through the creation of a namespace. It is wrong to leave them and their activity in limbo over the course of years, as it has been so far. So I highly urge those to whom this is important in English and other languages to seriously consider doing what we have done in Hebrew, namely to allocate a namespace for the purpose. It is simple, painless, and a highly intuitive solution to an inherent problem. And in our experience it works just fine.
>I would also think that these critical editions would be for just
>few texts, compared to the thousand of printed texts Wikisource
>provides. And, of you think about, "neutrality" does not exists
>neither in our proofreading work, there is always interpretatation...
Correct. Basic proofreading will always provide many times more texts, and that is perfectly fine of course. And your point about neutrality is also correct in principle (though not everyone is fully aware of how true it is).
>I'm interested in Wikisource critical editions (as I am in
>annotation and hyperlinks), and as I explained before I think a
>layer system should be better, but we are technologically far
>from that.
At Hebrew Wikisource we have created various templates for this purpose. They can do a lot, and actually make creating good new editions both possible and relatively easy, but they still cannot do everything that your proposed layer system would allow for. I truly hope that the technology will move in this direction (especially regarding TEI support), and would be happy to take part in that process.
Dovi
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