[Wikisource-l] new statistics

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:12 AM, ThomasV <thomasV1 at gmx.de> wrote:
> One thing that I find disappointing is that the number of texts without
> scans
> still increases at en.ws (see the graph). In fact, it even increased at
> a rather
> alarming pace recently, if we balance the amount of new text created with
> our capability to proofread it.

I also find it alarming, especially as it _feels_ wrong based on based
on watching the project move towards pagescans.  We have been a slow
adopter.

> This suggests that the en.ws community, or at least an influential part
> of it,
> still considers texts without scans as a valuable addition for Wikisource.
>
> However, texts without scans are *harmful* to Wikisource.

I long for the day when the vast majority of our texts are based on
scans, however I disagree that texts without scans are, by that fact
along, harmful.

For example, here is one text that I find extremely useful, as
Wikimedia Australia is incorporated under this law.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Associations_Incorporation_Act_1981_%28Victoria%29

Scans are definitely crown copyright, so it isn't possible to upload scans.

If anyone was to modify those pages, I receive an email of the change,
and I would investigate it.  That is 'Wikipedia' style quality
assurance; it is not ideal, but it does suit my purposes.

My view is that the problem with English Wikisource was that
Wikipedians would come over to English Wikisource, dump the text and
never come back.  It is for this reason that I think we should change
the default prefs so that all new pages are added to the watchlist,
and changes on the watchlist send an email.

--
John Vandenberg