[Foundation-l] [Wikisource-l] Open Library, Wikisource, and cleaning and translating OCR of Classics

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

Lars Aronsson wrote:
> Yann Forget wrote:
> 
>> This discussion is very interesting. I would like to make a summary, so
>> that we can go further.
>>
>> 1. A database of all books ever published is one of the thing 
>> still missing.
> 
> No, no, no, this is *not* missing. This is exactly the scope of 
> OpenLibrary. Just as Wikipedia is not yet a complete encyclopedia, 
> or OpenStreetMap is not yet a complete map of the world, some 
> books are still missing from OpenLibrary's database, but it is a 
> project aiming to compile a database of every book ever published.

At least Wikipedia can say that it has the most complete encyclopedia,
and OpenStreetMap the most complete free maps that ever existed. AFAIK
OpenLibrary is very very far to have anything comprensive, through I am
curious to have the figures. As I already said, the first steps would be
to import existing databases, and Wikimedians are very good at this job.

>> Personally I don't find OL very practical. May be I am too much 
>> used too Mediawiki. ;oD
> 
> And therefore, you would not try to improve OpenLibrary, but 
> rather start an entirely new project based on MediaWiki?  I'm 
> afraid that this ("not invented here") is a common sentiment, and 
> a major reason that we will get nowhere.

You are wrong here. I was delighted to see a project as OL and I
inserted a few books and authors, but I have not been convinced. On
books and authors, Wikimedia projects have already much more data than
OL, and a lot of basic funtionalities are not available: tagging 2
entries as identical (redirect), multilinguism, links between related
entries (interwiki), etc.

I don't really care who would host this "Universal Library", as long as
it is freely available with a powerful search engine, and no restriction
on reuse. What I say is that Mediawiki is really much better that
anything else for any massive online cooperative work. The most
important point for such a project is building a community. OpenLibrary
has certainly done a good job, but I don't see _a community_. The tools
and the social environment available on Wikimedia projects are missing.
I believe the social environment is a consequence both of the software
and the leadership. Once the community exists it may be self-sustaining
if other conditions are met. OL lacks a good software as Mediawiki and a
leader as Jimbo.

Yann
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