[WikiEN-l] Sourcemonkeys

[stevertigo]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:30 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> I could probably negotiate a license with any publisher that would let
> a medium or large defined number of users to use the material to source articles;

Ideas? Which publishers?

> I do not think I could obtain a license which would permit a small group to regularly download
> articles and send them to other people for their use in sourcing articles.

That's not the idea: the idea is that people try to write about a
subject as best they can, and see if that expression is in accord with
published concepts. We do this anyway; instead of quoting things
wholesale we reformulate the concepts expressed in the source into
free expressions.

The sourcemonkey only needs to do three things: take requests for
sourcing particular statements, find and offer a selection of excised
relevant quotations (small), and aid in determining which sources are
superior to others (reliability, authorship, date of publication,
citations of, etc.)

> Occasional and sporadic, yes; regular & organized, no.  If regular and organized is
> what you have in mind, i doubt I could find a publisher who would
> agree, nor would I agree if i were a publisher. I would expect payment
> based upon the actual number of potential end-users.

I don't think they would do that, and if they did, we could deal just
with the ones that have a better concept. The idea is that the
sourcemonkeys would be trusted with 1) complying with publisher's
proprietary policies, and 2) aiding Wikipedians in improving public
articles. Particular sourcemonkeys may run afoul of either, and be
suspended from either, but that should not effect a relationship
between publisher and Wikipedia/WikiMedia.

> The question is that if I asked for a license for, say 2,000 or 20,000
> users, whether the cost would be affordable. I am not aware of any
> pricing precedent for ad hoc groups like ours.

Ostensibly (just looking at Lexis), we could qualify for either
corporate, academic, or (perhaps) legal accounts, or more than one.
There are lots of sub-genre account types, though, and the selection
of which seems to be more of an issue than affordability. Ideally they
would offer a grab-bag for a modest number of accounts. We are not an
"ad-hoc group" by the way - we are the most powerful and universal
learning and publication institution on the planet. :-)

> The general price range
> price per publisher for packages is on the order of a few dollars per
> user per year. If anyone at the foundation would like me to ask, I
> know whom to ask.

That would be great if some foundational someone seconded this.

> But most people at Wikipedia have not even bothered to find out what
> their public or school library may already be paying for. Almost all
> of them buy at least some packages.

Excellent point. We already have people with access - they just don't
know that they can be wikipedia:sourcemonkeys yet; neutrally assisting
average Wikipedians in the course of normal everyday article
development.

SV