Keeping the wikisource list in cc: . SJ
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Samuel Kleinmeta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Karen Coylekcoyle@kcoyle.net wrote:
Just a few comments on OL plans....
Thank you!
* version history for manifestations (latest cleaned up version of a file) and expressions (latest cleaned up translation of a work) ** links to manifestations archived elsewhere, if they are not mirrored by the OL/IA for some reason
Is this referring to the metadata or the full text?
Both. (both can be edited by people, or updated/cleaned by context-aware or cross-language info-retrieval scripts)
* providing a namespace and format for collections and lists of works; as a normalized way of identifying collections in which a given work has been included. This is slightly different in use, intent, and visualization than classification categories. There might be a couple dozen subject categories for a complex work, but it could have hundreds of associations with collections, awards, designations, &c.
Yes, this is part of the "lists" function, in development, although the details have not been fully worked out. We've noted that the NY Times has made its best seller lists available, so that makes sense as a collection; Pulitzer prizes, Booker prize, etc. All of these should form lists or collections within OL. Plus users should be able to create any lists, bibliographies, etc.
Excellent - do you have a link to recent discussion?
Adding discussion pages has been discussed. There are two things here: discussion on OL about the books, and discussion about the OL project. As for the latter, more than discussion perhaps we need a place where people share uses of OL, changes they've made to OL (all of the templates are editable by anyone, although you need to share those edits... I don't think we've explained this well, and definitely haven't done enough to foster a community of users.). A kind of community space. Yes, this is really needed.
So, why not make this one use of the OL wiki? discussion about a work and about the project will regularly overlap as style guidelines and community dynamics play out.
OL would like to show metadata in the preferred language of the user. That presents lots of issues, starting with the one of: what if there isn't any metadata in the language of the user? But also how you do this AND give the user an idea of the origins of the work (first publication date and place and language). Wikipedia is able to do this because its data is created by people. OL is working with metadata created for individual editions that doesn't link easily to the work. Where there is a wikipedia entry for the work OL may be able to use that to determine the origins, but in many cases no such entry will be available.
This seems solvable - define the style you'd recommend people create by hand where they have the time; and write scripts that can approximate this where there is limited data. script-assisted people can do tremendous amounts of work category by category.
In any case, all of this is being discussed and considered. Since email is so non-sticky, would the OL blog be a good place to provide more of this information and discussion?
A blog isn't sufficiently sticky for my tastes -- limited permalinks, no version history or diffs, limited capacity for collaboration directly on ideas, texts, and overviews; poor namespace control for naming and classifying discussions; and limited interlinnks between different posts/comments/contributors.
Let's please use something at least as sticky as a wiki. [NTS: we need a term for collaboration environments that parallels "Turing-complete" to describe anything that can mimic a set of basic wiki services.]
SJ
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