Wikisource talk:Annotations

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[edit] Annotated texts (moved from Scriptorium)

The main problem is documentation/annotation. Sometimes, I think that Wikisource is meant to be much more than just a reference library of texts: we should all be creating and working together on annotated versions of the text, something that the wiki can help. Otherwise, using a wiki system has very few benefits. We need to reconsider our mission.[…]Ambush Commander 01:42, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Ambush's comment in the section just above caught my interest. I am deeply interested in annotated texts (wikis style), and I just finished writing a policy page about where to draw the line (if there should be a line...) between Wikisource and Wikibooks for annotated texts:

I tried to write very conservatively on that page, and still hope to get feedback so that we can make necessary changes. However, my own personal opinion is it would be much better if we kept our collective attitude towards this whole topic very open and very liberal.

What I mean is this: We should recognize that, on the one hand, it is OK if some source texts with planned annotation are held on Wikibooks, even though their annotation hasn't happened yet. But on the other hand, there are texts at Wikisource whose natural development can and should eventually lead to their annotation, in order to make them more useful and reader-friendly. Many translations (which we include here at Wikisource) will eventually lead to annotations as well. If and when this happens, it shouldn't mean that the text must be moved from one project to another!

Instead of enforcing rigid policies for which texts should be on which project, I think it would be better if both projects acknowledged that there is legitimate overlap in the realm of annotated texts, and that texts with annotations may in principle be included on either project. The decision should mostly be left up to the contributor(s) at work on the text in question.

Wikibooks has had an inclusive policy for annotated texts for a very long time. I recently "cleaned up" the material there on annotated texts. A summary of the current situation and links can be found at:

One final thought: There are different kinds of annotated texts. Some are meant for students preparing for tests on literature (that is very much up Wikibook's alley). Others are more scholarly in nature, or meant for individual study, but are mostly unconnected to classrooms and examinations. Here, too, it may not always be possible to draw a clear line between the two, and I once again suggest we be liberal about this whole thing.

All that is really needed for the liberal policy I suggest (i.e. that texts may in principle be included in either project) is for people on both projects to agree to it! Do people here agree with it? Shall we ask at Wikibooks? Dovi 08:21, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

It's a great job you have done there, it is clear that you have thought a lot about the subjekt. I generally support that we should accept annotated versions here, but I think that wikisource should still supply an edition without annotations. That is, if annotations are to be made, they should be made in a separate "annotated version" like text name (annotated), especially for texts with "in text"-annotations. I often prefer to read a text as it was written, and we should continue to provide such "clean" text versions. --Christian S 14:12, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
I too support the idea of providing a "clean" version. the mission of wikisource is to provide primary "sources".
It remains unclear to me if "annotated" versions should go here or on wikibooks. Since they already provide annotated versions, I think the matter should be discussed with them first. we do not want to duplicate their efforts, it would be counter-productive. in other words, I do not support the idea that wikibooks and wikisource should overlap.
ThomasV 07:57, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Hmm... Then I ask this question: what exactly is the point of having Wikisource as a Wiki? Ambush Commander 20:08, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi everybody. The text I wrote at Wikisource:Wikisource and Wikibooks more or less reflects ThomasV's attitude. What I mean by "conservative" is that it reflects the status-quo at Wikisource/Wikibooks. Even that status quo has some undeniable (and legitimate) ambiguity, and the page tries to give guidelines for dealing with borderline cases. I think even Thomas would agree that there are some borderline cases that have to be dealt with. So even if we stick with the conservative status-quo, I think we should still honor any reasonable decision by the contributor(s) of a borderline text.

There are also some places where the need for annotations is obvious even on Wikisource: Many translations will require at least some annotation, textual variants in source texts will require it. Maybe the best thing to do, then, is to stick with the status-quo, allow (and even encourage) any appropriate and limited annotation activity that remains within reason (i.e. without clearly crossing the line into Wikibooks by creating resources good for classroom use).

Is there any objection to my moving this whole discussion to the talk page of Wikisource:Wikisource and Wikibooks? Dovi 20:44, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with that. In fact, I'll be bold. Ambush Commander 00:46, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Would it be possible to create an extension to MediaWiki that allows for one page to overlay another or be displayed next to another? That way, Source could maintain the clean text and Books could maintain just the annotation. A user could view the text and overlay it with various annotations. If there were some way of marking line numbers on wiki pages, I think this could be done with a greasemonkey script which iterated through the page and inserted annotated content on the fly. Another possibility would be to narrow the article window and stick an iframe on the right side that contained the text annotation pulled in from Books. Again, this is all dependant on some method of marking the position in the source text. CSN 23:46, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Annotated translations

Should translations always be annotated? (This was asked on the "about" page.)

Reply: of course not. Certain kinds of translations of certain kinds of texts require annotation by their very nature, but not all translations! The great majority of translations at Wikisource will probably be "straight" translations without any notes. Dovi 08:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] my pov

First of all, let me make one thing clear: I suppose what you guys are talking about are FOOTnotes, not notes inserted in the body of a text. I absolutely oppose to people inserting notes in the body of texts on wikisource. And I believe everybody here agrees on that. So, what follows is about footnotes, or notes gathered in a different page, and accessed through hypertext links.

I agree that there are limit cases to be dealt with, such as translations performed on the wiki. However, before we discuss the limit cases, let me talk about the general case. The mission of wikisource is to provide original texts, in a reliable and accurate way. (somebody mentioned that wikisource should redefine its mission... great idea, but let me remind you that such a decision would not belong to us, but to the wikimedia foundation. just as we have no right to decide that wikisource will now sell pizzas).

This "mission" is not incompatible with adding footnotes to the texts we provide. However, I want to avoid people adding random notes of variable quality to texts written by great authors (not to mention npov issues). Because readers have a right to a clean version.

I would like to make the following point: footnotes, or hypertext links, added to a text, are not neutral. The break the reading rythm of the reader. They have a disturbing effect. Instead of giving its full attention to the ideas exposed by the author, the reader has to perform a choice: to follow or not the link that is provided. The footnote steals a part of the reader's attentional resources. This disturbance was not wanted by the writer. The addition of a footnote is always unfaithful to the author. (and please, don't tell me that adding hypertext links in a text from the XIXth century is "creative")

Because of that, and because a text on wikisource should be faithful to the author, I believe footnotes should not be added randomly by contributors. I see three distinct types of footnotes:

  • footnotes that were added by the author: we always want them.
  • footnotes that were added later, by some editor, and published: we want them, if they are in the public domain. the fact that they have beed published is a guarantee of quality. however, we may also want to provide a footnote-free version to the reader. (when I added Les Femmes savantes to wikisource, I did not include the notes, because I did not know if they were public domain; the empty links remain).
  • footnotes added by wiki contributors: I think they belong in wikibooks. but that is not really the issue, we could as well have them here, if the people at wikibooks do not want to have them. For me, the problem is the point I made above: if we add links to these notes the texts that are here, whatever the quality of these notes, these links will disturb the reader. (so too will notes added by an editor, but the fact that they have been published makes them eligible for wikisource). For that reason, I think that we should at least provide a footnote-free version of all texts. Another possibility would be to find a technical way to hide these notes (and that would be the default).

ThomasV 09:34, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I think all of us agree that annotations would mean notes appended to the text, plus other notations "surrounding" it (introductions, summaries, indexing...)
I think the decision does belong to us, i.e. to people at both Wikisource and Wikibooks. I don't think the foundation or anyone else would have a problem with us agreeing on a way to handle borderline cases between the two projects, or even on the exact scope of the projects, as long as the basic idea remains.
Thomas wrote:
This "mission" is not incompatible with adding footnotes to the texts we provide. However, I want to avoid people adding random notes of variable quality to texts written by great authors (not to mention npov issues). Because readers have a right to a clean version.
In this I (and I think all of us) agree 200%. We would have to be very careful: For any text project that might get some annotation, it should be decided in advance what kind of annotation, what standards, etc., especially if there is going to be any marking within a source text (even just a footnote number). And anyone who makes such a mark should explain clearly what s/he is doing on the talk page, otherwise it should be reverted.
Furthermore, as Christian S suggested earlier, there should be a parallel unmarked text. Because footnotes are disturbing (especially if we have added them, rather than a previously published edition).
In general, for texts (especially pre-modern ones) which can be published in a number of different editorial formats, I think we should have parallel versions when we can. Annotations are really just a subset of this more general problem. The only think making annotations a unique issue is that it is also shared by another project (Wikibooks).
A technical solution to hide notations would be an ideal tool to have in many cases. Though I would guess that even if we had it, I think we would still want to provide a "clean" text separately.
Note that many of the above concerns are not a problem for wiki translations. I.e. when you do your own translation, if you add a footnote you are not interfering the great work of an original author. On the contrary, the footnote will usually provide the basis for the chosen translation and/or offer an alternative translation. These are attempts to properly present the author's own text, and so much less of an interference! (Notes such as these, or any other kind, also be represented without any footnote numbers at all, but rather by quoting the snippet of text discussed in bold, and then adding the note on it.) Dovi 13:59, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of templates: "Clean" text and options for presentation

Hi everyone. I want to let people know about an ongoing process that is being discussed and experimented with at Hebrew Wikisource. It may have a lot of relevance to the annotation discussion.

Above we discussed the need for a "clean" text. I.e. even allowing a certain amount of annotation, there must be a way to view the plain text without those annotations interfering. The user must always have the option of a clean source text.

At Hebrew Wikisource, this was compounded by a further problem: There we are working on a literature that is composed of source texts that include numerous commentaries (source texts, not our own annotations) on each and every passage. The problem was: How is it possible to present different selections of commentaries according to the preferences of the user? And how is it possible to present the "clean" text of one commentary in running form on all the passages, without the primary text or the other commentaries?

This could be done, of course, by duplicating the source text numerous times, but that opens a Pandora's box filled with lots of other problems. And then we realized what the solution is: The use of templates! Each commentary on each passage is its own template. This makes it easy to present the various commentaries on a single passage on one page, a "clean" running commentary on another page, and any other combination of texts that users may find useful.

Furthermore, the templates provide a way to completely isolate the source text from any organizational or presentation features, or annotations, that may be useful within a page.

Plus, by isolating each passage as a template, it is easier to keep track of the edit history. The use of templates also helps counter random vandalism by denying the user direct access to "edit" on the original source text.

There is, of course, a disadvantage to this system: It involves more work! And it is more complicated for new users. But where and when it can be usefully implemented, it provides a tool that can solve a number of problems. Like any tool, it is best used only when it can help get the job done well. Dovi 19:23, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Discussion

Reply to last comment above 8 months later:

Interesting idea. Has anyone done this? -- Stbalbach 06:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
It has already been done on Hebrew Wikisource for literally thousands of individual text passages. There is unfortunately only one example of it on English Wikisource, and although it is admittedly not a terribly impressive one, it still manages to get the basic point across. Take a look at Mishnah_Tractate_Berakhot and see how in chapter one, each single passage is presented both individually with annotations and as part of an entire chapter of plain text. (Also note, by the way, that chapter one is already a trilingual Wikisource text in Hebrew, English, and French.) Dovi 07:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
This is cool, and makes sense for that type of source. I wonder if it makes sense for classic literature. Unlike the Mishnah_Tractate_Berakhot, where one chapter can be broken into 5 parts and commented on in 5 parts, classic literature has to be broken into sentence by sentence, or even word for word, since commentary takes place at that micro level. It might make more sense that the annotations be simple wikilinks which go to a separate page for each commentary. For entire sections, the annotation may be a super-script number (like a footnote number). That way you have annotations on specific words or passages (wikilinks), plus annotations for entire sections, lines or paragraphs (footnoted numbers) -- with both leading to separate commentary pages. -- Stbalbach 22:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I strongly think templates should not be used for annotations or any presentation of text. I'm sure earlier I was in favor of templates, and I realize I am changing my mind, but I think I know of a better way to get a "clean" text. Besides, templates will clutter up the template namespace and completely make it impossible to find real templates from text-containing templates. After much effort was/is still being spent to organize all the templates and remove redundant ones, this is not very appealing. If the purpose of templates is to provide for "clean" texts, let me throw something else up: div classes. We can easily make a div class, put the annotations in "<div>" tags and provide a new tab on the top of the screen which will hide all annotations when it is clicked. It will also show all hidden annotations when clicked again.
To me, and for the sake of maintenance, this seems to be a much better approach than templates. We've got something similar to this for hiding external wikilinks to WP. A few of Kipling's poems are heavily wikified, so users who want a clean version (and who have the appropriate JavaScript--my monobook for example--can do this) click a tab to hide all the light blue links. It's pretty nice.
Another alternative is to bother the developers who need to actually get around to helping out the WS projects--and not save us till they're bored and have got nothing else to do--and create a way of hovering the mouse pointer over text and getting a bubble to pop up with the annotation. Again, this gives us a clean text rich with annotations.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree templates are messy, it offloads a burden on others to maintain, its not what templates are designed for. Plus the more technical the solution, the less portable it is to other media, such as print copy. BTW there is also the new </ref> feature which would work well, but my concern is it would so clutter the source text it would be hard to edit, perhaps not. Is this essentially the same as the "div" class method? Also clean copies makes no sense, the annotated version is an entirely new work, separate from the original, if the reader wants a clean copy its available as a separate document. It's a given that an annotated version will be annotated. -- Stbalbach 02:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
From what I've been able to piece together, the <ref> method is only useful for making footnotes--probably not what your looking for in terms of annotations. The div class is simply a CSS class where you can format any text within your div tags however you feel like, with the added benefit of entirely removing that text with a bit of JavaScript.
I don't think I understand what you mean that "clean" copies make no sense. Yes, an annotated version will, by definition, be annotated, but the annotated version (which is done by contributors) cannot be a standalone work and fit under WS's purview--it will have to be exported to Wikibooks--unless it's been previously published and there is a non-electronic hard copy floating around. Any user annotations should be "hideable" so as not to detract from being able to read the actual source. And having duplicate copies of one work--one annotated, one "clean"--seems like a bad idea. It's cluttering, just in the main article namespace.
Personally, I think any annotations above linking to Wiktionary or Wikipedia should be beyond WS's scope. But that's another discussion (well, maybe not).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Can you show me the Wikisource guidelines behind this statement: the annotated version (which is done by contributors) cannot be a standalone work and fit under WS's purview--it will have to be exported to Wikibooks . I'd like to learn more about that. Thanks. -- Stbalbach 04:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
We currently have a "prior publication" and a "no self-publication" rule at Wikisource. Wikisource:What Wikisource includes is the closest thing I can think of that mentions it, although the section in question (the annotations section) is still in the process of being revised (actually, the entire document is still in-works, and the exceptions to such rules still need to be figured out). Also, see Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2005/12#Wikification? for a discussion on wikification of poetry. Again, also note that Wikisource collects source texts—always been the case—and annotations are more along the lines of taking a person point by point through a text and teaching/explaining things that the reader might not have observed. I'm not that familiar with Wikibooks, but this seems something that more goes with a Wikiversity than here. This isn't to say that annotations will be nixed here; our policy on this topic just has to be formulated.
Also, we've consistently deleted user collaborations/compilations and most things which can't be tied to a true source.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 05:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, there is a lot to reply to here and I don't have much time today. Briefly: On the policy issue, Zhaladshar, have you read the recent discussion on Wikibooks? The points you make about "sources" are correct, but they are just part of a larger set of issues that is made clear there. All of these points have been tossed around for a long time, with no clear resolution. I think Stbalbach's most basic point is that they should finally be resolved, and I agree with him.

On Zhaladshar's point of "messing up" template space - I think you are right (I never thought of that), and probably the answer for texts that do require this sort of thing (such as multiple commentaries that are per-passage) is to use simple page transclusion without making the text in question a template. That should solve the problem.

On using div class to hide notes - that is fantastic, but I don't really understand how it works. Could you point out an example?

Finally, on actual Wikilinks within the text: Has anyone else noticed that there is already a simple, build in solution to this problem? Namely: Simply click "Printable version" and you get a "clean text" without Wikilinks. Dovi 07:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Dovi, have you read Wikisource:What Wikisource includes? I'll highlight some key passages with my comments in {{{ }}}.

  • What Wikisource excludes
    • Original contributions
      • New collaborative creations .. do not belong at Wikisource. {{{a community annotation project is a collaborative creation}}}. The idea here is not to publish your new novel on Wikisource. Annotations are to add value to a previously published text, as are translations. Dovi 04:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Annotations
    • Previously published versions of texts with annotations are the first priority... {{{ So in the case of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, annotated by Franklin Baker in 1909, it would be approrpiate on Wikisource since it was previously published. But it would not be appropriate for collaborative expansion of the annotations on Wikisource.}}} Which just goes to show why it is silly to divide two closely related versions of the same literature between two projects. For translations, both published translations and revisions of them belong here; same for annotations. Once again, all versions of all literature in all languages belong on the same wiki, annotated or not, for many reasons. Dovi 04:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Annotations may include critical data about the source text itself, references, sectioning and section titles, introductions, summaries, indices. In all cases, annotations by contributors must be added in such a way that an undisturbed, "clean" source text remains. {{{a collaborative annotation project would not be a "clean" source text, without technical problems to overcome, such as the template hack mentioned above. }}}. There are a number of different tools to deal with this, and it actually quite easy to provide a "clean" text. There is an extremely simple solution to "template hack" as was already mentioned. Dovi 04:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikisource or Wikibooks? {{{ from Wikisource:What is Wikisource? }}}
    • The distinction between these two projects is relatively easy:
      • Wikisource focuses on material published elsewhere. Wikisource can be viewed as a library of public domain works. {{{collaborative annotations are not published elsewhere }}} Annotations also focus on material published elsewhere, like translations.
      • Wikibooks are instructional materials written by the contributors themselves (e.g. study guides, classroom textbooks, and annotated texts for classroom use). {{{annotated texts could be for classroom use}}} Yes, I agree that those are welcome at Wikibooks. But what about the majority that are not like Norton?

These rules and concepts about what Wikisource is, and is not, seem pretty straight forward. Actually, it now seems I was not nearly clear enough when I wrote them, since we are both able to read them in opposite ways... :-) The truth is that how I phrased things reflects the continuuing ambiguity of the whole matter. If only it were straightforward. The solution is: Let's clarify this, vote on it, and make it straightforward! Dovi 04:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

-- Stbalbach 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Not only have I seen most of that, I wrote most of it myself. Specifically: "Annotations may include critical data about the source text itself, references, sectioning and section titles, introductions, summaries, indices. In all cases, annotations by contributors must be added in such a way that an undisturbed, "clean" source text remains." - this is a positive not a negative. There are various ways of keeping the "clean" text, as we have been discussing.

New collaborative creations is meant to prevent people from writing their own new novels. The whole point of critical editions (which cannot possibly be at Wikibooks) and annotations is that they are added value to source texts. Like translations. They aren't new books.

Annotations are no more original than translations, both of which have been proposed since the beginnings of Wikisource and even before. I suggest, so that this whole thing will be clearer, that we add the whole recent discussion from Wikibooks here. Dovi 18:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Discussion from Wikibooks

Moved from b:Wikibooks:Annotated Texts.

It's been almost a year since there was any substantial discussion and I would like to add some new energy for discussion:

Problems

  1. As far as I can tell, there are zero fully annotated texts on Wikibooks or Wikisource. This is incredible after 2-4 years. The only explanation I can conclude is not because of lack of desire (see this thread at Metafilter in which people are dieing for a "Wikipedia-like" annotation project of classic books, and the successful examples done outside of Wikipedia listed below), but simply because no one has properly put the pieces together and presented a ready-made solution for editors to comfortably step in and start working together.
  2. The current proposed annotation policies are ambiguous and confusing, with Wikibooks pointing to Wikisource and vice versa.
  3. There is confusion on what exactly an annotated book is, with some calling annotated texts "study guides (essentially "cliff notes", which is not what an annotated text is). Unlike Wikipedia, where everyone knows what an encyclopedia is, no one seems to know what exactly an annotated text is, there is no general agreement.
  4. There are no guidelines on how to do the annotations, technically. Are they at the end of the work, in-lined, per-page, one per page. Also what about user discussions connected with each annotation (see The Diary of Samuel Pepys example below).

Examples

Here are some examples of what fully annotated texts can look like online:

  1. Gulliver's Travels. Annotations are on separate pages, sorted alphabetically. No feature for outside contributions.
  2. The Diary of Samuel Pepys - an impressive community annotation project of a classic work. Every annotation has its own page with a thread-discussion. It's almost three years old and the amount of data built up makes this more authoritative than anything published.
  3. The Waste Land - very detailed with two types of annotations: generic "wikilinks" to definitions and such, or specific line by line numbers with didactic annotations in a left-hand framed window. Does not allow for community additions.

Here are some examples of fully annotated texts in printed form:

  1. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, annotated by Franklin Baker in 1909. Online version of a 1909 annotated text.
  2. Dracula (Norton Critical Edition), by Bram Stoker, annotated by Nina Auerbach 1997 (see "Look Inside" for examples of what annotations look like).

Suggestions

  1. Clearly define what an annotated text is. For anyone who has read or used the Norton Annotated series, this is an example of what "fully annotated" means in the academic world. When you combine a fully annotated text with "study guides", and other elements, the combined work is known as a "Critical Edition" (again, in Norton parlance, but generally used).
  2. Clearly define where annotated works reside. I suggest Wikibooks, since Wikisource is just that, a source, like a library. Annotations add new and original material which belongs in Wikibooks.
  3. Create a fully annotated text as a alpha project and then use that as a base to refine and improve the proposed annotation policy. Ideas are good, action is better.

Hope to hear others thoughts and ideas.

-- Stbalbach 21:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. First of all, thanks for re-starting the discussion. I was beginning to feel kind of lonely as seemingly the only person interested in this.

I very much agree with your analysis of the problems.

The examples you cite are of course excellent ones, though I would hesitate to say that they are the only way annotated books may look. There are other models too. Remember that most of the books you list are English literature from modern times. Other kinds of literature (classical, medieval, or translations from other languages to which annotations are to be added) may need to follow different models.

The only example of even the start of an attempt to annotatate any text using wiki is s:Mishnah at Wikisource (see Berakhot for initial examples). This allows for translating the text wiki-style, adding introductions to each unit, and supplying a commentary which is really an anthology of source texts of classic commentaries found at Hebrew Wikisource. The translations of the text itself are kept in templates (a "clean" version without annotations) and links to the original source-texts in Hebrew Wikisource using interwiki links. This would not be possible in Wikibooks.

As for where such works should reside, I understand your point that since it is original wiki work it fits in with Wikibooks; in fact, that was my initial opinion when I started. However, I later discovered that there are other issues too: Not all annotated texts are instructional materials. I agree that annotations are not always "Cliff notes" type stuff; but when they are not are they appropriate for Wikibooks? The key criterion at Wikibooks has always been "instructional material." Another issue is for texts that need constant close attention in the notes to parallel texts from similar literature, which may be found in Wikisource, not Wikibooks (Mishnah is an example of this). Hebrew Wikibooks and Wikisource had a long discussion of this about a year ago - remember that this a problem not just for English, because these are multilingual projects.

Annotations are no more original than translations, which belong at Wikisource. In fact, sometimes they are much less original if they are updates or improvements of previously published annotations. There is no reason that such improvements should have to be on separate projects.

About "Critical Editions" - in my academic experience, such editions have nothing whatsoever to do with including "study guides". Rather, they organize textual, editorial, literary and historical data for scholars. They may also include useful introductions, indices, etc. Perhaps a distinction could be made that critical editions are more closely related to Wikisource than are annotated texts, many of which certainly belong at Wikibooks.

The only problem is when several elements are combined, and this artificially forces a separate project: What if someone produces a critical edition on Wikisource, but then wants to add section summaries based upon that edition - must the elements be separated between the two projects?

For all of the above reasons, I personally lean towards leaving all things closely related to source texts (such as critical editions) at Wikisource, except things that are clearly instructional materials, such as study guides (Cliff notes style). Though I certainly agree that the latter are not the best example of "annotated texts." You are certainly right that we a great deal more clarity about the terms. Dovi 15:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the reply. Well, regarding books v. source, the thing I can't get past is, annotations are instructional. Perhaps it depends on the interpretation of the word "instructional". But it is an instructional element. Annotations are like having an expert guide you through the text. If instead of in-line notes, the notes were unbound from the source, and written out in essay form, as a separate document, would they be no less instructional? For example "On page one, Stevenson says 'I incline to Cains heresy', a reference to Genesis 4:5 where Cain murders his brother Abel, a foreshadowing of events. etc..". It's certainly instructional in nature.
I included "study guides" in a "critical edition" because it would seem like a logical thing to do - combine all the elements we have at our disposal, create a whole "book". Call it a "Wikibook Critical Edition" or something. I think that is the goal, to create a combination of elements all in one location: annotations, study guide, criticisms, background, introduction, etc.. but that is open for discussion.
My first reaction was it belongs in books, it was your first reaction, and I think its the natural reaction most people would have. But, is there a practical reason it should be in source? The parallel texts is interesting, but then, any annotation project is going to require a lot of inter-wikilinks (encyclopedia and dictionary being even more common than wikisource).
-- Stbalbach 16:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi! "The thing I can't get past is, annotations are instructional" - you are absolutely right of course, though they may not be instructional materials in the sense normally thought of at Wikibooks. Remember that the kinds of texts you have in mind are commonly used in high-school or college literature courses, and so they clearly meet the expectation of of classroom use or even private study in preparation for exams. (That is where the very fine works produced by Norton earn nice profits.) But there are thousands of other texts for which calling their annotations instructional materials is less clear.

It is equally impossible to get past that source texts are at the heart of annotated texts. Annotated texts are combinations of two different elements that happen to fall across the given definitions of two separate Wikimedia projects, and that is what creates the lack of clarity here. As source texts they belong with other source texts - a lot of wikilinks is true, but preventing marginal language links ("Other languages") would be a major disadvantage for certain types of literature. Perhaps an example is in order. It is true that something like Gulliver's Travels can easily be annotated as a stand-alone kind of thing. But something like Aristotle's Physics should be kept in the same project as the rest of a huge corpus of literature, with which it can and should share templates (including text templates) and language-link through texts in dozens of Wikisource languages that include the Greek, Latin, and Arabic rescensions of Aristotle's works. Moving the annotated Physics to Wikibooks could be very detrimental to a much larger project.

Critical editions are not study guides. They are source texts, arguably even more so than non-critical standard editions. But you are totally right, of course, that combining those two disparate elements (critical apparatus and study guides) would seem to be the natural thing to do on a wiki - why make things harder by dividing them across two separate projects? The only reason this question even comes up is because the mutual definitions of Wikibooks and Wikisource overlap in exactly this example. You just can't get around the fact that the elements seem to be divided between the two projects.

Since there is no way around this, the only practical answer I was able to come up with is that all literature in all languages belongs on the same project, namely Wikisource. It would be hard to justify moving an annotated English edition of Thomas Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle to Wikibooks, where it would find itself on a separate project from the non-annotated works of Aristotle, as well making it impossible to easily link to the parallel works of Aquinas in Latin, French and German (which are on Wikisource). The exception would be for works that are truly stand-alone and often used in classroom situations, like the ones you listed. So yes, there is a practical reason, and this is it. Parallel texts are more than just interesting, they are the heart of a multilingual wiki system.

The thing I feel mostly strongly about, however, is that the bottom line should be common sense and tolerance. If the contributor of an annotated text or critical edition or a study guide has a reasonable justification for putting it one project or the other, there is no reason to make an issue of it, since any work of this sort has a clear connection to either project. Dovi 14:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

PS The following text was noted above as a " fully annotated text in printed form":

  1. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, annotated by Franklin Baker in 1909. Online version of a 1909 annotated text.

Since that is a previously-published, public domain source-text, there is not the slightest doubt that it belongs on Wikisource, despite its similarities to the other books listed. Which just goes to show once again that all literature really belongs on the same wiki, whether annotated or not. Dovi 04:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Dovi, despite my intial comments at WS. Especially when we start dealing with transaltions and Wikisource can compare them side by side. I think we must at least start these projects on Wikisource and if gets to point of being too instructional it can always be moved. If anyone is interested in doing a trial to see how it comes out. I suggest we start with s:The Waste Land as it has plenty of material, but is not so long as a novel. I have never dealt much with annoted texts so I am not sure how organiztion should procede. (forgot to sign I am s:User:BirgitteSB--69.153.101.153 17:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I think s:The Waste Land is an excellent example, also because it can easily take annotations with no marks in the source text by virtue of its static line numbers (as a poem). If I understand correctly, it already seems to be annotated. Dovi 07:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

OK - I'm starting to come around to the Wikisource. The annotated version is a source, even if its a community/group annotation with multiple anonymous authors. I'll pick up camp and move over to s:Wikisource:Annotations. -- Stbalbach 05:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Great. (Although like I wrote above this certainly doens't mean disallowing the use of Wikibooks when someone has a reason to do so.) I'll follow the discussion back to the talk page there. In any case, the policy page needs major rewriting. Want to help do it? Dovi 07:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Dovi, based on the recent comments by Zhaladshar over at s:Wikisource talk:Annotations I'm concerned there are some people who are "purists" about what's allowed on Wikisource, and that if I were to start a project I might run into a problem, perhaps a vote for deletion (not by Zhaladshar but someone else with similar views). I suspect Wikibooks might be more flexible and inclusive in its mandate and thus a safer place. One could easily make a case that annotations are instructive, but I could see running into problems on Wikisource, since its not a published work with a single author, rather a community effort, it doesn't belong on source. This is really my main concern. I've had stuff deleted from wikisource before that was much less debatable (I still don't know why!). -- Stbalbach 04:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi! Actually, the same thing can and has happened at Wikibooks: "Let's get rid of this stuff, it has very little annotation and sources belong at Wikisource." I doubt it would ever be possible to permanently keep a critical edition (without normal annotations) at Wikibooks. The problem is that the stuff overlaps, as both of us fully understand, so if things stay as they are these texts will always run into problems at both websites. I personally never found any dogmatic purists at Wikisource, though some are less keen on annotations than others.
My main problem is that I always found myself completely alone at both projects - simply put, nobody else was ever much interested in this on either one. I think the only way to change the status quo is to discuss the issues fully and openly and make a clear, final decision on the matter that will be codified as accepted procedure. In my opinion it should be Wikisource for reasons previously discussed: All literature, annotated or not, should and must be on the same wiki for very practical reasons. To divide them is artificial. If you are OK with that - let's give it a try! If not, then for the kinds of texts you are working on Wikisource remains valid anyways, so no harm done.
I will be away for a long weekend, by the way. Next week (after Monday) I would like to start a rewrite of Wikisource "Annotations" page with full rationale and details: explaining what kinds of texts there are, etc. Then let's see what kind of reaction we get. Dovi 18:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for discussion and a decision

Hi. All the major discussion of this issue, both old and recent, appears above. Please take the time to read through it, despite the length! I would like to summarize the issues and pose some specific questions here. I will be leaving home tomorrow for a long weekend, and probably won't be able to respond to replies until Monday evening.

[edit] Glossary

  • Critical edition - This is a version of a text accompanied by a technical "apparatus" that provides textual variants from manuscripts and other technical data of use to scholars. Such editions often include technical introductions, indices, etc (which are tightly related to the text and not appropriate for an encyclopedia article either). A critical edition is of clear importance to the source text, but has absolutely no place on Wikibooks. It would provide exceptional "added value" to texts at Wikisource.
  • Annotated text - references and explanations that can be on a variety of levels, whether meant for academic scholars or for high school/college students preparing for literature exams. If the former, they have no place at Wikibooks (even a critical apparatus is a form of annotation). If the latter, Wikibooks also makes very good sense. But all of these include the source text itself, which must be duplicated from Wikisource if placed on a separate project. An annotated text can also be based upon a critical edition. A single work can combine both elements harmoniously, being a critical edition and an annotated text at once. But if annotated texts are confined to Wikibooks, then the two elements will have to be divided across two projects, and the texts duplicated. In some cases this may not matter, in others it may be a major disadvantage.
  • Study guides - like How to Read Shakespeare's Sonnets, which do not include the whole source text itself. I don't think anyone disagrees that this belongs on Wikibooks, not here.

The main point of the above definitions is that there are grey areas, possible combinations of all of them, and what exactly is appropriate for any given text varies. Not all annotations are "instructional" in the Wikibooks sense. There is not - and cannot be - a clear line between an annotated text and a critical edition.

This fact has caused a great deal of lack of clarity, and hurt the development of annotated/critical editions at both projects for the simple reason that this kind of text overlaps both projects in its two elements. There is no getting around this fact, and it calls for a decision one way or the other.

Translations: These are kept on Wikisource despite being original work, because the point is not original writing but rather adding value to the source text. Critical editions and annotations fit into the same exact category as translations for the precisely same reason, and both have been suggested as natural options for Wikisource from the very beginning.

[edit] Concise proposal

  • 1. All matter, whether professional or didactic or both, which includes a source text within it and whose whose sole purpose is to add value to that text, is encouraged at Wikisource.
    • 1a. Clarification: This does not include matter that can stand alone as a study guide (at Wikibooks) or as an encyclopedia article (at Wikipedia).
    • 1b. Exception: Annotated works designed for classroom use or test preparation are welcome at Wikibooks. In fact, this is the only kind of "annotated text" that Wikibooks ever expected or wanted, as discussion there makes clear.
  • 2. It is the responsibility of the contributor to provide a "clean" text unincumbered by additional matter. Annotations are welcome only if they add value without causing detrimental side effects. There are various ways of accomplishing this, with different methods appropriate to different texts.

[edit] Concise rationale

  • All literature - whether plain, annotated, or critical - benefits from being together on the same project in all languages:
    • Texts should not have to be duplicated on a separate project for annotations.
    • Language links should work for annotated and non-annotated texts alike. This is especially true of large literary areas in multiple languages, where some texts may have annotation, others not (for more details, see above.)
    • Templates should be shared across literature in the same language, whether annotated or not.
  • It is impossible to draw a clear line for all texts between "sources" and various other elements. I.e. what is the "true" source text: The plain text that was copied to Wikisource or the data in the critical apparatus?
  • It is impossible to draw a clear line between scholarly, professional, and didactic annotations.

The "concise proposal" above is really not much different from the current proposals at b:Wikibooks:Annotated texts and Wikisource:Annotations. (It is actually a bit closer to the first link than to the second, which reflects changes in my own thought on this matter, since I wrote them both...:) What really needs to be done is a firm decision about whether these can be policy or not. Is the "concise proposal" something people can agree to?

[edit] Discussion of proposal

Look forward to getting your reactions on Monday. I will try to take a quick peek tomorrow before I leave. Dovi 19:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the glossary, Dovi! We need to be able to have a common ground for discussion as to what certain texts are (how we will be using them in policy formulation). I can agree with the concise proposal, although I'd like to stress my desire to try our utmost to keep the number of sources to a minimum. I mean, if WS users are to make annotations, I would much rather there be one source text which has been annotated (whose annotations can be hidden - see de:ADB:Adelbert (Erzbischof von Hamburg-Bremen) and click the link that says "Seitenzahlen ausblenden" and you'll see the gray page numbers (such as "[57]") disappear) than two separate versions. If the community would like otherwise, that will be fine, too, but I'd just like to throw this out for everybody. After all, if anyone's been tracking the slight fiasco with the Croatian Wikisource, that is the reason I'd like to keep this number down (and it just seems a waste of space to create multiple annotated pages of a source when one will do).
I also just thought of something. We've had a lot of talk about having "completed" texts. Since, potentially, annotations will continuously be added and will evolve, what implications will this have for any of the methods of page protection we've been discussing?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:46, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Correct. Protection is not always the most appropriate tool for text integrity. Here is where transclusion of separate units might come into play, or stable versions. Simplest of all, of course, is just to protect the page when the contributor is done, and then unfreeze it when someone wants to add more (the same as for texts without annotations). We've discussed a lot of this stuff. Dovi 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
The German example is cool, I'll try o figure it out for myself after the weekend. Really got to go now... Dovi 04:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
That plan might work. I honestly can't see annotations ever being a very large project here (partly because of the high level of knowledge/research required for the annotations to be any added value), that a simple request to unprotect it would work. But we can iron that point out later. Let's keep to the proposal for now.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:58, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, one concern I have is that we allow and encourage users to experiment and have the flexibility to adapt works to annotations as needed. As noted in online annotation project examples above, there is no single best way to do annotations online, there are all sorts of interesting and creative ideas being used that are fairly extensive in how they mark-up the original source. The Hebrew wikisource example Dovi mentioned is another example. Users should have the freedom to use the method they think is best: templates, inline footnotes, a combo, whatever creative ideas the editors have. This however is at odds with the "one source, clean text" rule which limits what you can do, and would not make Wikisource a great choice for an annotation project (remember we are competing with other platforms). At the same time it is true, we can't have multiple "forks" of the same annotated text. So therefore I propose that annotated texts be separate from non-annotated texts (up to 2 versions of a source: original and annotated) - but there is no "forking" of an annotated text, there can be only one annotated version. This is similar to Wikipedia's rule on forking articles. Once an annotated version is created, editors must work out any differences on discussion pages on how to best annotate it, but no forking off a new annotated version if one already exists. Exceptions to this would be like the 1909 annotated Treasure Island example, which is an original source in its own right, and would not be a community editable source, although since its in the PD, it could be used as a base for creating a community annotated version.

So for example for Treasure Island there is 1)the original clear source text by Stevenson, 2) the 1909 annotated version by Franklin T Baker, and 3) a community-editable annotated version, which could be based on the 1909 version, or not, as decided on the "annotated treasure island" talk page. (note that most of the time, there would only be 2 versions, since there are few annotated sources in the public domain, the 1909 version of treasure island is an exceptional case, but illustrative as an example). -- Stbalbach 18:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel the guidleines in the Concise section are admirable. My only quibble on the idea of annotation is just what gets annotated in a text. It depends on the target audience, I know, but I feel that over-annotation should be discouraged. By this I mean defining terms that an educated reader might be expected to know, or if he/she does not, is able to use an ofline reference source to find out. Terms such as common weights and measures and currency. In the UK it is common to find £.s.d money sums converted into decimal currency in reproductions of historic texts. This is fine for a school text book, but not for anything else.

I also think is is vital that before annotation is done the essential stage of making an accurate clear text is done first. Annotaton should never be done on a text which has not been properly proof read and certified as such.

As to making annotations, there was a discussion a few months back on the procedures for differentiating between a reference and note in the original document and a referencre and note made by a WS editor. It involved preceding the reference and note figure with the a letter such as W, thus [W1]. Apwoolrich 20:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting, the first issues you raise are content issues, which would normally be hashed out by editors in the discussion page or through editing, like on wikipedia where editors decided what content is included and what's not, and if there is disgreement, there are rules for handling disagreements. Of course, this makes Wikisource look like Wikipedia in terms of the rules it will requires: "reliable sources", no "original research" and "NPOV". Which suggests annotations are really a combination of all three projects: Wikimedia, Wikisource and Wikibooks. Is Wikisource capable of handling original content and the "user constitution" rules like Wikipedia has? (a somewhat rhetorical question not expecting a definitive answer but something to consider) -- Stbalbach 02:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks to everybody for your patience and ideas. From reading the above, it looks like I made a mistake in the "Concise proposal" - apparently it was so concise that it didn't address things that needed to be spelled out. Stbalbach wrote above that he is concerned about:

"that we allow and encourage users to experiment and have the flexibility to adapt works to annotations as needed. As noted in online annotation project examples above, there is no single best way to do annotations online, there are all sorts of interesting and creative ideas being used that are fairly extensive in how they mark-up the original source... This however is at odds with the "one source, clean text" rule which limits what you can do, and would not make Wikisource a great choice for an annotation project (remember we are competing with other platforms). At the same time it is true, we can't have multiple "forks" of the same annotated text...

The truth is that the proposal says nothing about "one source." All it says is that a "clean text" must be kept/provided by the contributor. But that doesn't mean you can't have both Gulliver's Travels and Gulliver's Travel's (annotated) at the same time. In fact, you can, if that is the best way of dealing with the text at hand.

Can you have more than one annotated version? Why not, if the contributors can explain how each one serves a different purpose for a different audience. Perhaps an edition of the medical works attributes to Hippocrates with explanatory notes for laymen, and another with critical notes for scholars. These can link to each other in useful ways. In general, I kind of assumed that this whole area would be the same as described in Wikisource translations (take a look there): In general, one translation of a text is enough for the vast majority of texts. But for certain kinds of texts, different translations are truly different works that serve different purposes for different audiences. If the contributors to a text agree that they want to provide two different types of translations, and they collectively have the time and expertise to do so, then why not? The same for annotations.

The only disadvantage with having both Gulliver's Travels and Gulliver's Travel's (annotated) at the same time - and perhaps this is I confused people about in the past - is that if people proofread Gulliver's Travels and make corrections to it over time, those corrections will not automatically appear in Gulliver's Travel's (annotated). Same thing if the annotated version is at Wikibooks. This is a problem that can be overcome in different ways:

  1. Text transclusion (formerly "Text templates, but without messing up template namespace)
  2. Hiding annotations
  3. Manually updating the parallel text

Just because this problem exists doesn't mean that it has to stop progress. The idea is to make the different technical options known, and then let contributors figure out what works best for the text at hand.

Finally, two brief points about practicality and ideology:

Practicality: I agree with Zhaladshar (above) that because of the level of expertise needed to do these kinds of things, annotations will probably be a very small part of Wikisource for a very long time. Nevertheless, we might well be surprised: A couple of years ago, no one could have imagined the number and level of experts who would volunteer to contribute to Wikipedia. Here too, I think the important thing is to establish that this sort of thing is welcome, and that people who are capable and willing to do it may in fact do so. They will almost certainly be few in the near future, but we might be surprised in the long run. We may also find, as at Wikipedia, that even non-experts can often do very fine, professional work.

Ideology: We seem to have both "liberals" and "purists" (as Stbalbach called them earlier) here at Wikisource. This proposal is an attempt to meet the needs of both.

  • The "liberals" get the opportunity to add value to the literature and source texts kept here by contributing translations and annotations, additional materials that The Free Library should appreciate if built to order by contributors, especially since they are not usually available in the public domain (not even for very old source-texts).
  • The "purists" get objective, exactly-sourced versions of texts (e.g. "Text X according to the London, 1917 edition") without any interference caused by the "wiki-matter" added contributors, which cannot be absolutely objective. (In fact, no pedagogical or academic work is ever absolutely objective.)

I'd like to add that I'm thinking of doing really "new" stuff in the future: Imagine loading pdf images of old editions and manuscripts of texts, linked to digital transcriptions of them, comparisons of the different versions of the "source text"... Annotations regarding the textual evidence... Links to parallel literature... Believe it or not, the technology and setup in Wikisource allow for all of this to be done, if we choose to make it welcome here. Dovi 08:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok great sounds like we are on the same page in terms of freedom for editors to create multiple copies of the same source (one clean, one annotated, another annotated, etc..). Although we do need a mechanism to prevent bad-faith forking, but that as a minor problem now that can be addressed as it comes up.
The other problem that came up in Apwoolrich's comment (and my reply to it) is, since this is original content, does Wikisource have the rules in place to deal with that like Wikipedia does? If two editors have a dispute over content, are there any rules? I mean, can I replace someones academic annotation with an annotation from my religion or sect? Wikipedia has some base rules such as "no original research" and "npov". It also has conflict resolution mechanisms. I dont think anything like that exists at Wikisource, it's just not set up for it. Wikibooks at least has a "for education" guideline, wikisource has no guidelines for original content. -- Stbalbach 17:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikisource does have a NPOV policy, however we have never needed to develop the conflict resolution policies that Wikipedia has. I can certainly imagine an ugly downside to hosting annotations here in that respect. I really sometimes am having trouble picturing how annotations would work. The most I've ever read of annoted works were rather short poems. I think I am one the people that want to give a great deal of information, but at the same time I want to be able to easily read a "clean text" first and then read with annotations. I would like to see what we are caple of doing with "hiding" the annotations and only having one text. Also I would encourage you to see how much can be done with wikilinks. Especially if you are willing to work on the Wikipedia article. Many broader themes could easily have sub-section for "In literature" or something similar. A quick example is this, which certainly could be even better. I think it would be interesting to see how well we can adapt wikilinks to giving us the right information and then see what is left that needs to dealt with more specifically. If we put all that on the talk page for now we could run some trials of different ways to handle it.--BirgitteSB 19:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

BirgitteSB,

Glad to hear WS has a NPOV policy. Assuming this project will be a success, Wikisource will need to be prepared to handle the same issues that Wikipedia has with user contributed original content. I wonder how that will go over with the rest of the Wikisource community once they understand the full implications of annotations.

Here are some examples of what fully annotated texts can look like online:

  1. Gulliver's Travels. Annotations are on separate pages, sorted alphabetically. No feature for outside contributions.
  2. The Diary of Samuel Pepys - an impressive community annotation project of a classic work. Every annotation has its own page with a thread-discussion. It's almost three years old and the amount of data built up makes this more authoritative than anything published.
  3. The Waste Land - very detailed with two types of annotations: generic "wikilinks" to definitions and such, or specific line by line numbers with didactic annotations in a left-hand framed window. Does not allow for community additions.

Here are some examples of fully annotated texts in print form:

  1. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, annotated by Franklin Baker in 1909. Online version of a 1909 annotated text.
  2. Dracula (Norton Critical Edition), by Bram Stoker, annotated by Nina Auerbach 1997 (see "Look Inside" for examples of what annotations look like).

At a bare minimum, annotations on Wikisource could just be footnotes and wikilinks.

A clean text version in parallel would always be available, as a separate source, per discussions above. Creating a clean text version with annotations in the same source is technically awkward, certainly a goal and one option, but not a requirement right now (I hope). -- Stbalbach 20:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To be quite frank, I'm not sure why NPOV mechanisms are really such a difficult issue. We are committed to NPOV, period. Multiple contributors would have to agree to it on two levels: On the type of annotated work being built overall, and on the details within it. But that is no different than in any other wiki project. Since we are talking about material that is tied-in closely to an "objective" source text, in most cases it will probably be even easier to maintain NPOV here than in Wikipedia. Dovi 21:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok if there's a NPOV policy than the rest can work its self out. Your proposal above is good, we all seem to agree with it basically, how about we go ahead and replace the old policy with this one and make any changes as needed? -- Stbalbach 16:21, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Re original research and problems stemming from the WP rules, raised by Stbalbachabove. Annotations will be original writings by the editors and will inevitably include an element of original research. We already have rules about WS accepting original translations, and also writings by editors published elsewhere, and I see no problems about annotations being treated in the same way. The problem I foresee is if we get new editors who are only used to the WP ways attempting to impose them here. I can't recall how far forward we are in formulating our final rules on this, but once its agreed, maybe there is a case for tweaking the welcome template to specifically mention this point.
I may be wrong, but annotation is highly specialised and only likely to interest an editor with detailed knowledge of the text of the subject area. It seems improbable to me that we will get major edit wars. Apwoolrich 19:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I think if you look at other annotation projects, such as The Diary of Samuel Pepys, it's not limited to specialists and has a fairly large number of contributors. Just as Wikipedia has been a surprising success (who would have guessed a million users for something as arcane as an encyclopedia), annotations could also attract anyone who wants to contribute to their favorite book, adding their own personal thoughts and ideas. It really could be big. The cool thing about annotations is there is no single "right" answer (beyond the basic factual one), so for any single annotation, there may be as many comments as there are people commenting on it. Which brings up the question, just like in Samuel Pepys Diary above, do we want contributors to sign their comments, since it is original research? -- Stbalbach 19:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi. You yourself are very aware of what goes into annotated volumes that meet academic standards. There is normally very little that cannot (and should not) be sourced in detail.

I think the idea of expressing personal thoughts and ideas about a text, — in essence using Wikisource as a vehicle not just to dissemate texts but also to actually study them — is a great one! There is an appropriate place for that, however, namely in talk pages and on personal user pages. Dovi 22:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy page changes

Ok I've edited boldly and changed the proposal page for a first draft based on Dovi's and our comments. I removed a lot of language I thought was appropriate to a talk page discussion than a policy page, it was a lengthy rational about wbooks vs wsource that I think we can just say "we are using wsource" in the policy page, with the highlited points why, and defend it in detail on the talk pages if it comes up. If there are any points missing or concerns of current please add/discuss. -- Stbalbach 17:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the rewriting! The best thing about it is that I didn't have to do it myself — now there is someone who is equally interested in the whole topic. I'll also go over it myself in detail in the near future. Dovi 22:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

Well, it looks like we're going to go ahead and allow WS-annotated works. Do we currently have a naming convention for WS-annotations?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jekyll and Hyde

I've been working like a mad scientist the past few days and just finished The Annotated Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. It's using the new MediaWiki footnote feature. I wanted to test what it's like creating an annotated work; it's only a 60 page "book" (novella), but it took about 15-20 hours of work (basically have to re-read the entire book very thoughtfully word for word, research, and text markup). I approached it like a project, specifying the goals and conventions for that particular work, although with time I could see creating project boilerplates for specific genres (19th century English literature). This is just one way to do it. Any suggestions or contributions welcome. -- Stbalbach 05:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally think your work is outstanding, and hope you will add more. Sorry I've been very distracted by other things recently, and have not yet gone over the rewrite of "annotations" fully. Hopefully soon. Dovi 07:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Dovi. Many congratulations. An interesting feature of the new Mediawiki footnote feature is that it will stop a major hassle one has with PG texts with footnotes. PG texts run footnotes inline with the text, and two texts I have been working on for the Samuel Smiles Project have meant I have had to manually place the note texts (using a split-screen text editor on my PC)at the ends of the chapters and then code then with incremental numbers. I still have some chapters to do on Industrial Biography and I will use this new system on them, and see if any snags arise. I take it that if I wish to annotate the Smiles texts I can do this and somehow interpolate my work with the original notes. - Or not!! Apwoolrich 20:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Dovi and Apwoolrich. Hope it provides some framework for others to annotate their favorite works. Apwoolrich, yeah you can add your own original annotations; so long as there is an original parallel copy, and the new annotated version (with your original annotations) is called somthing else like "The Annotated Smiles.." -- Stbalbach 01:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Annotating copyright works

Somthing else to consider, I have seen websites for annotating copyrighted works. The original source is not online (which would be illegal), but it is possible to note the page number and passage in question. Not sure if this falls under the mission of Wikisource, but it's an interesting way to bring communities of people together who are interested in a new or popular book. Would this be Wikisource-allowed? -- Stbalbach 01:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

This really seems like it's going the way of SparkNotes. I would have to say it's not WS-allowed, as there won't be a "clean" version for a person to read. I believe earlier on the page, we've said that there should always be the option for a reader to access a non-annotated text. For copyrighted works this will never be the case, so we should forego annotating such works until they've been released into the PD.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
It would be strange to keep annotations of public domain sources on one project, and annotations of commercial works on another project, when they are otherwise exactly the same thing. The "clean" rule was so people could read it without the markups, not to exclude annotating commercial works, which was never brought up till now. -- Stbalbach 05:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe we should include such annotations. Wikisource:What Wikisource includes explains our mission of collecting source texts. We accept annotations because they add value to the source texts we have. Annotations alone our outside our mission.--BirgitteSB 03:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Do you think the idea has merit on one of the sister projects? -- Stbalbach 03:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
For annotations of copyright works, I think Wikibooks would be grand. Since you could not include the entire source text, the best way to approach this, in my opinion, would be to do a Cliffs Notes or a Sparknotes type of annotation. This seems to be more of an instructional type of endeavor than anything else (if you feel otherwise, please tell me), so Wikibooks would be ideal.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I also think if it isn't worked-in with the source text itself it doesn't belong here. Projects like these may also be limited in what they can do (even without reproducing the source text) for copyright reasons. Dovi 18:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Annotations have, in every way a place on wikibooks, although on copyrighted works I would agree it could be hard. However, for classics and books that are public domain it's a great idea for wikibooks. These annotations are not full texts, yet not enclopedia articles, so they belong at neither wikisource or wikipedia. The intermediate wiki is, of course, wikibooks. Basejumper123 01:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC) 01:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright works are being annotated on Wikibooks. See for example Wikibooks: Fiction annotations. Green Cardamom (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question about minor annotations to a poem

Apologies if I have missed the answer to this somewhere along the line, or if this isn't the right place to ask, but I have a question. If I want to add translation annotations to a poem, how do I do it? I see that an clean version must remain, but am unsure as to the precise meaning of this. I want to add a few individual word translations at the end of the appropriate lines in a Robert Burns poem that will then be included (transcluded) in a wikipedia page. Is the fact that the translations will be at the end of the line rather than within the line sufficient for it to be regarded as 'clean'? It is quite common to see this in poetry books. If not, what method should I choose to add the annotations? You mention 'hiding annotations', which sounds attractive, but I haven't managed to find any mention of how. Would hover text be an option? To clarify, these translations were not provided by the author and were not part of the original publication of the poems. Ewan carmichael 15:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I think annotations in hover texte would still count as a clean edition. If you want to translate individual words, it is often preferable to link them to a Wikipedia or Wiktionary page instead; for example, see the last two lines of Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est. However, annotations or translations that are visible by default represent a new edition, so they should be placed on a new page with the title "Foo (Wikisource)" (see the style guide for page title guidelines). —{admin} Pathoschild 20:51:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
You can also use the similar {{comment}} as in Alyosha. --Bequw 22:04, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Could this be used...

...to clarify ("revise") works in nonstandard or prestandard English, EG [[The Ballad of Gresham College? 68.39.174.238 20:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

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