2012/3/12 Andrea Zanni <andrea.zanni(a)wikimedia.it>it>:
Dear Wikisourcerors,
I'm planning to go to Wikimania and submit a speech, which goes like:
*Wikisource: what we've done, what we could do better* (or "What we
got right, what we'd get better")
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Wikisource:_what_we%27v…
Anyway, the idea is very simple:
1. We need to talk about Wikisource at Wikimania. Period.
I submitted a talk about Wikisource, too:
https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_hundred-year_old_w…
The idea of my talk is to show how Wikisource projects are useful in
real life in surprising ways. Admittedly, some projects mentioned
there are my own pet projects. My plan was that for the Malayalam
Wikisource part i would invite a guest speaker; from what i heard
about it, this project deserves a whole talk of its own, but if no-one
else steps up, it will a part of mine.
I'm *totally* open for ideas. For example, my talk can be a part of
series of talks or of a panel. Or i could add other projects that
anybody would suggest to my talk. Or i can do a short presentation as
part of another talk, if anybody believes that this would be more
efficient.
Nonetheless, Wikisources suffers significant flaws, as
a proper
metadata system (Dublin Core metadata, OAI-MPH complaint system),
which prevents us to collaborate with
other projects, as Europeana, or other digital libraries.
Now, I'm writing you to ask you if such a panel/workshop would be interesting,
and to ask you if it would be better, with your help, to create a
panel in which some of us describe the best aspects and features of
their Wikisource.
It would definitely interest me.
It would definitely interest many more people, but you should be
careful about using too much lingo. Librarians and information
scientists will love words like "Dublin Core metadata" and "OAI-MPH
complaint system", but other people will be scared away. So please do
talk about what these things are and how they will be useful, but
don't emphasize the professional jargon too much in the abstract and
in the slides. (I organized the schedule for a Wikimania just a few
short months ago. Trust me.)
Another huge thing that is missing from Wikisource is a better way to
organize proofread pages into exportable books. People come up with
projects that are supposed to fix that every now and then, but nothing
substantial came out of it yet (unless i'm missing some elephant in
the room). This could be mentioned
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore