[Wikisource-l] help needed searching for pagescans and front covers

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Wed, 8/13/08, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> From: Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se>
> Subject: Re: [Wikisource-l] help needed searching for pagescans and front covers
> To: "discussion list for Wikisource, the free library" <wikisource-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 10:45 AM
> LaosLos wrote:
> 
> > Why are there people who think that Wikisource is not
> related to 
> > the act of creating something? that is, why WS is not
> "like a 
> > publisher that prints a new edition", even when
> we are 
> > publishing a new encyclopaedia, new textbooks, a new
> quote 
> > database, new images... ?
> 
> Could you please stay focused on Wikisource.  What exactly
> is 
> intended to be "created" in Wikisource?  The
> whole purpose of 
> Wikisource is to present source texts, as they were
> written.  
> It's not really up to us to modify that content, is it?
> 
> 

While the focus is on accurately presenting texts; that is not all Wikisource is.  In fact the more strongly we focus on accuracy the more complicated things are.  As John points out, the static nature of texts is mostly a fallacy.  While everyone knows that is would silly to type in "Bible" and arrive a the text of the Bible without making further choices on whether you are looking for a Jewish or Christian text much less which translation you are looking for, many other much more mundane texts have a variety editions.  Any attempt to be accurate will also invlove creating indexes and researching the various editions and finding ways sharing that research to inform reader's choices.  Then there are things like creating translation and adding value to text by wikilinks.  I see Wikisource as creating a library rather than creating the texts.  The core of a library is always created by others but it is the creation of useful bits around the texts that
 differentiates a library from a scrapyard of books.

Birgitte SB