One thing that I find disappointing is that the number of texts without scans still increases at en.ws (see the graph). In fact, it even increased at a rather alarming pace recently, if we balance the amount of new text created with our capability to proofread it.

This suggests that the en.ws community, or at least an influential part of it, still considers texts without scans as a valuable addition for Wikisource.

However, texts without scans are *harmful* to Wikisource.

1. Texts without scans cannot be verified as easily as they can be vandalized. 2. Texts without scans harm our reputation. Any sensible person who tries to understand how a wiki can provide text that remains faithful to a reference edition can only have strong doubts when they discover an edit window that invites them to freely modify the text. In contrast, the presence of a scan next to the edit window, combined with the notion that other users have access to the same window with the same scan, and can check what you are doing, makes the whole process constrained and trustable. 3. The continued presence of texts without scans, that almost nobody can verify, conveys the feeling that most texts present at Wikisource are never verified, and that rubbish may very well remain undetected for years. (which is actually true) 4. Finally, low quality standards can only deter serious contributors, and attract contributors who fail to understand the problem, or who refuse to see it because they are happy with the current situation where nobody checks what they do.

Part of the problem comes from the fact that some users see Wikisource as an extension of Wikipedia, and believe that Wikipedia's error correction principles similarly apply to Wikisource.

However, this is completely wrong. We have much less contributors than Wikipedia, and the number of texts that we have in scope is much larger. Thus, the number of times a Wikisource text is likely to be corrected is orders of magnitude below that of a Wikipedia article. Once a text without scan has been declared "ok" by its contributor, it often remains untouched (and most likely unread) for years. In those conditions, it is wishful thinking to believe that Wikipedia's principles of error correction by peers similarly apply to Wikisource.

Wikisource will not be trustable until we stop accepting texts without scans.

And no matter how virtuous some subdomains are, I think that the reputation of Wikisource as a whole strongly depends on what is being done at en.ws.

Thomas

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:12 AM, ThomasV thomasV1@gmx.de wrote:

One thing that I find disappointing is that the number of texts without scans still increases at en.ws (see the graph). In fact, it even increased at a rather alarming pace recently, if we balance the amount of new text created with our capability to proofread it.

I also find it alarming, especially as it _feels_ wrong based on based on watching the project move towards pagescans. We have been a slow adopter.

This suggests that the en.ws community, or at least an influential part of it, still considers texts without scans as a valuable addition for Wikisource.

However, texts without scans are *harmful* to Wikisource.

I long for the day when the vast majority of our texts are based on scans, however I disagree that texts without scans are, by that fact along, harmful.

For example, here is one text that I find extremely useful, as Wikimedia Australia is incorporated under this law.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Associations_Incorporation_Act_1981_%28Victori...

Scans are definitely crown copyright, so it isn't possible to upload scans.

If anyone was to modify those pages, I receive an email of the change, and I would investigate it. That is 'Wikipedia' style quality assurance; it is not ideal, but it does suit my purposes.

My view is that the problem with English Wikisource was that Wikipedians would come over to English Wikisource, dump the text and never come back. It is for this reason that I think we should change the default prefs so that all new pages are added to the watchlist, and changes on the watchlist send an email.

-- John Vandenberg

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Klaus Graf klausgraf@googlemail.com wrote:

2010/10/5 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:

...

...

However, texts without scans are *harmful* to Wikisource.

I long for the day when the vast majority of our texts are based on scans, however I disagree that texts without scans are, by that fact along [sic: should have been alone], harmful.

I fully agree.

...

For example, here is one text that I find extremely useful, as Wikimedia Australia is incorporated under this law.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Associations_Incorporation_Act_1981_%28Victori...

Scans are definitely crown copyright, so it isn't possible to upload scans.

This is a very special case. If a representation of a PD text which one need for proofreading at WS is not free, the WS text cannot be regarded as free. If I could I would speedy delete the text.

There are quite a few specical cases where the text is PD, but the full scan is not. e.g. where illustrations on the pages are still covered by copyright, but the words are not.

I do not think that we need longer tolerance for projects tolerating scan-less texts. In 99,9 percent of all scan-less cases there are NO legal obstacles like in the Australian case.

maybe we need a cross-language discussion (on www.wikisource.org?), where we formally change the rule for all projects to disallow texts without scans, with caveats for the special cases which we agree are required.

e.g. we could decide that existing projects with less than 1,000 pages are not required to use proofread page, but any _new_ language project must use proofread page. I think that would mean that 'cs' and 'th' are the only projects which would need to start using proofread page.

-- John Vandenberg