[WikiEN-l] WP and Deep Web, was Re: Age fabrication and original research

[stevertigo]

Charles wrote:
> book -> scan -> post to archive.org.
David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> If they are not in copyright, Open Libraries Intiiative and Google
> Books are doing quite nicely;

This is of course the right idea, but to rely on these negates what
WP:RS means: Outside of online published papers and pre-1920's works,
"reliable" sources are almost always "copyrighted" sources (in fact
that deals with two of WP's most interesting paradoxes). It's not a
big deal to copy a block text in from a magazine that's handy, but put
that same magazine online (to simply make it digitized, searchable,
and shareable -- typical modern conveniences) and it somehow becomes
some kind of issue of global criminality.

> Most major research libraries are engaged in digitization projects, at
> least for their out-of-copyright material,
> In-copyright material is quite another matter.
> That most of us here regard this situation deplorable does not affect
> the reality of it. Much material is sufficiently expensive to produce
> that until there are arrangements to subsidize the production, they
> cannot be realistically expected to be free for the reading. for the
> problems involved, see the WP article on Open Access.

Well the WP:SOHE idea to me seems a reasonable compromise -- one that
makes small parts of copyright texts open to our research needs, while
still respecting the needs of authors to keep whole works marketable.
No doubt our usage increases their sales, so there's a winning
prospect for creators. And sharing passages from the better books
means that we won't have to quote the lesser ones, or rely exclusively
on those who own copies to deal with the article. The commercial world
is, in fact, a bottleneck to NPOV.

Our main reading audience *is those '20 year olds.' And younger. So
what we are talking about is increasing our dimensions of freedom to
collaborative not just in the task of writing articles, but in sharing
sources that make those articles better. That book on your shelf is
useless to us unless its in the hands of someone who's right now
energetic and interested enough to deal with it and write about it.
LibraryThing doesn't quite facilitate what we need in terms of a
generalized interface, still it's basic concept is entirely relevant
here.

-Stevertigo
"a big bouquet of cactus...