[Foundation-l] Wikisource as a repository for thesis

Wed Oct 13 19:02:33 UTC 2004

rfrangi at coopetition.it wrote:

>I dont'know if the subject has been already debated in the past, but we are going to publish on wikisource a thesis written by a fellow wikipedian who graduated last week in sociology. The nice thing about this is that the thesis is ON wikipedia (specifically the italian edition).
>
>Since we haven't found any other thesis published on wikisource, we asked ourselves if a thesis can be published there.
>On http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:What_is_Wikisource%3F is stated that "Original writings by a Wikipedia contributor are excluded" (but given the subject of the thesis we think everyone will close an eye).
>Still a thesis is a document, that has a certain degree of academic recognition.
>
>The question is: wouldn't be nice (and useful) if wikisource could work also as a repository for thesis? 
>  
>
Speaking as a Wikisource admin and as the person who wrote most of that 
policy page I think that I can safely say that such a thesis can be 
accomodated.  That rule is primarily there to forestall those 
individuals who are out to promote their own pet theories or bad poetry 
that has never been published anywhere.  Perhaps they could be 
accomodated at Wikibooks, but since I have very little involvement with 
that project I cannot speak for them.

In this case I would tend to interpret the submission of the thesis to 
the appropriate university authorities as a form of prior publication.

Including the thesis will leave it subject to the FDL rules for 
copyright purposes.  The submission should include enough information to 
legally identify you as the owner of the copyright so that we know that 
you have the authority to release the text under a free distribution 
licence.

Ec