On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:12 AM, ThomasV thomasV1@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_%28Victori...
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