Opponents include:
Counter-argument: Wikipedia is a repository of all general knowledge, and primary sources certainly fall within that mission. However, the current Wikipedia code needs some way to automatically distinguish between entries and primary sources, or a way to automatically work with Project Gutenberg.
I'm opposed to the willy-nilly inclusion of primary sources into Wikipedia, because I think it could potentially place a *very* heavy load on the server (we could end up with terabytes of primary source material, particularly if we start getting images, sound and video), making it considerably more difficult to mirror, and so on. A parallel project for a "primary source repository" would be cool, though, but I doubt any server on earth could afford to keep it running (is a RedHat CD ISO a "primary source"? Probably. Can Bomis afford to mirror it? Probably not) --Robert Merkel
Some (a little) primary source material is indispensable. But Wikipedia is not the place for swathes of it. When I look in an encyclopaedia for a reference to William Shakespeare, my expectations of an encyclopaedia is that there will be a biographical outline, his historical context, a list of references, some criticism, and perhaps a few examples of his work and a couple of salient plot synopses. I would be somewhat amazed to find not only all of the foregoing but the complete works not only of WS, but also Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Ford, The Battle of Maldon (poem)[?], Beowulf, the Bible, etc, etc, etc. It would be a very large collection of tomes liable to collapse under the weight of their own critical mass, an almost Borgesian proposition to even contemplate... sjc
Consider the text of a few Shakespeare dramas that we currently have. They are just Gutenberg copies (or other copies available freely on the web), with some nicer formatting. What's the use of keeping them on Wikipedia if they're available in hundreds of other places?
But if we were to publish in Wikipedia an authoritative, scholarly edition of a Shakespeare play, together with textual apparatus, notes on which readings are preferred for which reasons, etc. etc. - that would, in my opinion, be valuable, and serve well the Wikipedia ideal of moving in deeper and broader than a traditional encyclopaedia. Or, alternatively, the text of the plays precisely as in the Folio edition, or the Quarto edition, could be published, and that would be very valuable for everyone who wanted to see Shakespeare's text as it first appeared - something not so easily and not so widely available on the web precisely because it's a scholarly resource, not a general-purpose resource - but one of Wikipedia's purposes may be to provide such scholarly resources.
It's the same with other primary sources. Don't just take a KJV Bible off the web - take it, and proofread it, and make a web of topics around it discussing its history, its translation principles, etc. etc.
Finally, the software should be accomodated to allow for easier work with primary sources, as well. Those who actually imported Shakespeare etc. into Wikipedia will probably know better than I what to suggest in this regard.
--AV
I will gladly change my vote from agree to disagree if and when the wikiware is changed to allow for strong protection of primary sources. One way this can be done is through the use of a source:namespace that only can be edited by sysops or trusted longtime users and be called upon by individual lines in an article. For example, typing [source:Origin of Species/Chapter 1{1-15}] within the edit box of an article causes the display lines 1 through 15 of Chapter 1 of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in that article (working in a similar way as placing a url of an uploaded image in the same edit box -- except the result will be selectable text). This way, one could call upon any set of lines within the Origin of Species and annotate until they are blue in the face without changing what Darwin said. However this really is on the border of being a counter-wiki idea and may go beyond the scope of this project.... What does everyone else think? --maveric149
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