[Wikipedia-l] Re: Bibliography

Mon Jan 10 00:42:26 UTC 2005

Jens Ropers wrote:

> On 9 Jan 2005, at 08:06, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
>
>> I consider Wikisource as superfluous.  We should join forces with the
>> "Project Gutenberg" (that's what I do).
>
> In theory I'd be inclined to agree. Yet Project Gutenberg does not 
> anywhere near have the "instant editability" that Wikisource has. (Of 
> course a "Gutenbergian" can do anything they like anytime they please 
> -- but AFAIK the only way to avoid duplication of another Gutenberg 
> contributor's past or present efforts is to go through some red tape 
> -- Contacting people, asking writing emails...) So, yes, maybe we 
> should merge. Of course they are established, have "brand recognition" 
> and have already completed lots of work, so "us *joining* them" would 
> maybe be the better (more polite and palatable to them) way of putting 
> it. But if were to merge/join, we should bring the wiki concept along.

I think there would be even more than that to merging the two cultures.  
They take the idea of the plain vanilla text to an extreme to the point 
where their English site does not allow for accented characters, 
italics, etc.  We are much more open to the idea of adding illustrations 
if someone wants to do that.  In legal terms simply duplicating a 
Gutenbergian's work may be perfectly acceptable, but it does not advance 
our cause very much.  If Wikisource is to develop a reputation and 
character of its own it's going to depend on what originality we can 
bring to the table to make our product superior.

Ec