[Foundation-l] A Wikisource Definition (was: RfC: A Free Content and Expression Definition)

[amgine at saewyc.net]

On Thu, 2006-04-05 at 11:51 +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
On 5/3/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But might it not be a good idea to have the text of a license like the
> > GPL even if we don't have any material under it? Would not that be
> > well under the purpose of Wikisource?
>
> This is an excellent question.  It leads to another one: Why does
> Wikisource, as a project, exist? People will have many different
> answers to that. Here's mine.
>
...


> Erik
>
This is all well and good to present your ideas of what this project is
and should do. I tend to give weight to the people who are actually doing.
The Foundation should (and did) describe the projects goals and missions,
and approve any modifications of these. But changes from outside that
process from people not involved in it?

Wikisource doesn't have some of the things I see as part of their mission
- Galleries of artwork (they are the proper repository for such), original
research (transcriptions of oral histories, for example), or a legal
library (collections of court decisions, to be used as references for a
Wikibooks curriculum of law textbooks) to name just a few - but from
outside the project and unwilling (-able?) to put in the work to add this
content I have little or no basis to try to dictate to them.

Likewise, members of the larger community need to consider that people
active in the project are most knowledgeable of the needs of the project.
It's one of the underlying tenets of the Wikimedia Foundation. So long as
the goals and mission are being addressed, trying to force changes from
outside are likely to be counter-productive.

Amgine