[Foundation-l] Donation of Encyclopedic Entries on Famous Poems

[Ray Saintonge]

geni wrote:
> On 22 June 2010 01:25, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>   
>> Jeffrey Peters wrote:
>>     
>>> Both rewrites/expansions can be found on Simple Wikipedia, a project
>>> that is noble and deserves more involvement by the community as a
>>> whole:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ottava_Rima/Ode:_Intimations_of_Immortalit
>> y
>>     
>>> http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ottava_Rima/Kubla_Khan
>>>       
>> Neither article appears to be written in Simple English (or whatever the
>> Simple English Wikipedia has contrived to mean "Simple English").
>>
>> MZMcBride
>>     
>
> I assume Ottava is using the pages in question as a holding ground
> until they can be moved over to en. If you really need to know the
> details see:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ottava_Rima_restrictions#Ottava_Rima_banned
>
> But the short version is that in an environment full of people with
> poor social skill's Ottava's approach to interactions has caused
> problems. Good content editor mind.
>
>   
After taking a quick look at the incomprehensible and opaque dispute 
that took place, I do agree that adding this material to Simple seems to 
be an act of self-preservation.  The kind of detailed scholarship in 
them does not accord with my own vision of Simple. While articles on key 
tidbits of English literature deserve a place in Simple, one must ever 
be mindful that the potential audience has an even more limited 
apprehension of English literary history than of the English language.

That said, these articles, as worthy as anything that might be found in 
PMLA, do have a place somewhere in the wiki family, even if the rules 
against original research may not make them suitable for Wikipedia itself.

If we accept as a premise that these articles constitute original 
research, what is the best place for them? Good original research is 
only too quickly distorted when subject to multiple edits by different 
individuals with divergent perspectives until it is refined into the 
coherence of a Jehovah's Witness tract. 

Perhaps a new project is needed where the integrity of the original 
contribution is retained, and future modifications remain the sole right 
of the oriuginal contributor.  These essays would still be available for 
comment criticism and peer review in associated pages. Sj's thread on 
citation bias in the medical field struck a chord in me.  It makes me 
wonder how we might be able to do peer review better than the academic 
establishment.

Ec