Thanks Lars.
Your examples 1 and 2 are the combination of two
printed
editions or variants into one digital product. That
process is
scholarly, text-critical editing, an intellectual exercise. For
example, if the British and American editions would be found
to differ not only in spelling but also in content, you would
have to develop a policy for how to deal with that.
Absolutely correct, and that is exactly what we have done at Hebrew Wikisource. If there
is a book that requires special editorial guidelines beyond just simple proofreading, then
a page in the Wikisource namespace is created such as [[Wikisource:The Kinematics of
Machinery]] where the community collaboratively develops those guidelines.
The current
process in Wikisource, as supported by the ProofreadPage
extension, doesn't address such issues, but only converts one
printed edition into a digital edition, through scanned images
and human proofreading. It is a much more limited task, a
mostly non-intellectual exercise, guided by simple rules.
Also correct to some degree for Wikisources in the larger Latin languages, but not all of
Wikisource is this process, not even in English and certainly not in many other languages.
There are still plenty of people at en.wikisource who edit and format texts without PP
(e.g. based on Gutenburg files or typing themselves), Wikisource translations, etc.
"Proofread Page" is a tool for Wikisource, not the definition of the project
itself.
Even if many people at English Wikisource are not currently preoccupied with issues
1&2, wouldn't it be healthy to broaden horizons? Imagine Wikisource creating a
modern version of the Loeb Classical Library based on collaborative work... It's
wonderful to transcribe Mark Twain or the 1911 Britannica from scanned editions, but the
full power and possibilities of the Wiki platform are so much more than that!
It can't link to both. Ideally, ProofreadPage would
be remade so
that each position in the book (a certain chapter, a certain page,
a certain paragraph) has only one unique address. This is
an aspect that apparently was not considered when the current
software and namespace architecture were developed.
Totally agree that would be a very important function. Equally important would be for the
function to allow reference and citation with the simplest address possible: The title of
the book plus completely flexible labels for the subsections so that links can be written
manually in an intuitive way.
I looked at Aubrey's onion layers again and it seems to me they actually might be able
to include the kinds of things I mentioned in 1&2, but I'd like to hear from her
about that.
As to her wondering whether Wikisource is the place for such things, it really
shouldn't be such an issue. A simple analogy is called for: Let's say a Wikipedia
article needs to be written about the 2012 US Presidential elections. Writing such an
article requires a huge amount of fact finding, decisions about writing and presentation
and balance. Those problems are solved when there is good faith collaborative editing, by
documenting external sources and scholarship, and by a commitment to presenting all sides
of an issue fairly (NPOV). That is why even a highly controversial topic like the US
presidential elections can have an article in Wikipedia.
The obstacles in creating a critical or annotated version of a text at Wikisource are far
*less* in terms of original research or NPOV than in creating almost any Wikipedia
article. The best way to find out is to simply try it!
I looked at DPLA by the way and it looks like a wonderful thing. But I can't imagine
it replacing Wikisource in terms of quite a few fundamentals: Open Licensing, full
commitment to many languages and cultures with full localization, and creative
collaboration not just to document the existing library, but to enhance it and improve
it.
Does anyone understand whether the years of discussion of "Wikidata" might have
anything to do with #1-2?
Dovi