[Wikisource-l] Newsweek article on the Wiki Bible project

[Ray Saintonge]

John Vandenberg wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 12:31 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>   
>> John Vandenberg wrote:
>>     
>>> http://www.newsweek.com/id/141516
>>>       
>> It would be nice if they had credited Wikisource for this instead of
>> Wikipedia.  The way the article stands, potential additional translators
>> won't be able to find it.
>>     
> It gets worse ..
>
> The wikisource project is being confused with another wiki bible project:
>
> http://www.badthinking.com/2008/06/wiki-bible-project.html
>
> That project appears to be more concerned with Google Rank than anything else:
>
> http://thewikibible.pbwiki.com/The+Wiki+Bible+Project+News
>
> They do have translations of the Bible, including chapters which we do
> not have, but I couldnt quickly see what copyright status this work
> has.
>
> http://thewikibible.pbwiki.com/AllPages
> http://thewikibible.pbwiki.com/1+Corinthians+10
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible_%28Free%29/1_Corinthians
>
>   
They also use a different software that doesn't seem as advanced as ours.

Editing there depends on two basics.  The first seems routine enough for 
good wiki behaviour.  The second depends on adopting a creed which 
includes "We believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of the Old and 
New Testaments and hold them to be the inherent Word of God." and "We 
believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust."  Abandon 
all hope of editing there unless you have first adopted the correct 
prejudices. :-)

I really don't think they have given much thought to copyright, nor are 
they keen to give credit.  All I could find at 
http://pbwiki.com/content/privacypolicy was "PBwiki does not claim any 
ownership in any of the content, including any text, data, information, 
images, photographs, music, sound, video, or other material, that you 
upload, transmit or store in your pbwiki account." 

Their wiki bible seems to have a relationship to pbwiki similar to that 
held by Wikia's projects. 

There are some other kinds of Bible translations out there.  
lolcatbible.com is hilarious, and has already reached a high degree of 
completion.  Compare their version of 1 Corinthians 10, or read their 
version of the Lord's Prayer (which they call the Ceiling Cat Prayer) 
linked from their sidebar.

We can continue to stress the importance of NPOV in our translations.  
As long as we do that we shouldn't need to worry about these other sites.

Ec