User talk:Dream Focus

Welcome

Welcome to Wikisource!

Now that you're here, you're probably wondering... Welcome! Thank you for joining Wikisource; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. We are a small community of approximately a hundred key people, with infinite help from random passersby. You might be wondering which of the two classes we consider you...well, I guess that's going to be up to you. You'll find we are our own little corner of the Wikimedia Foundation, free from all the drama, arguments and policy violations you may be used to seeing elsewhere. In fact, since we largely just republish exactly what others before us have already written, there is very little concern about "neutrality" for example. After all, if the text of a speech by Adolf Hitler is inflammatory and biased...wasn't that its purpose? If you're looking for a specific topic, you'll likely find it by navigating through Wikisource:Works, whether it's Portal:Islam or Portal:Mermaids. For overarching categories, you might be better looking at something like Category:Poems or Category:Novels. Of course, if you know the author's name, that's easiest of all, just plug in "Author:Rudyard Kipling" and you'll see everything he ever wrote (or was written about him!).

Chances are, you have a favourite subject we don't cover very well...here's how to change that! So, your favourite author or subject isn't very well represented on the project? Well as long as you make sure the texts fit the standards of Public Domain, you can add them yourself! (Like all rules, those are basic guidelines, if you want to play with exceptions to the rule, just ask any of the administrators for help) If the text doesn't already exist, just enter its name below and it will pre-load an editing page for you to set to work! Be sure to add {{no header}} to the top of the page, and then include categories so people can find it. If you can't think of any particular corners to improve on Wikisource, how about taking a look at Portal:Religious texts, Portal:Wars or Portal:Texts by Country for some ideas? Don't forget to list your contributions on those pages as well so others will find and read them in the future!

Reading when you want, how you want

Places to go, people to meet Well, if you've clicked all the way to this tab, you might as well plan on spending a few more hours acquainting yourself with our massive library. It's not perfect, sometimes there's an occasional misspelling or you'll see a text sorted incorrectly. So help us out, let us know, or fix it yourself! If you're bored and just wanting to grab a mop and bucket, then there are plenty of corners that need tidying. Works that need to be split into chapters, Works that need their licensing clarified, Works that need machine-read words corrected, Works that need page-numbers removed and Authors whose full names we don't know would all be a great place to start!

Help us out Scriptorium discussion IRC discussion Incomplete translations Possible Copyright Violations Pages for deletion Recent Changes

Cirt (talk) 17:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Per your question on your userpage

"Is it every single thing ever written, even if it promotes hatred and violence against others, encouraging and glorifying criminal behavior?" -- no, we have repeatedly forbidden the hosting of Oliver Twist as encouraging juvenile delinquency, and Bible for its repeated cases of genocide...not to mention the underage suicide glorification of Romeo and Juliet.

Okay, so I'm being a tad facetious - but we are a library - we do not pass subjective judgment on works; especially works written in a different era than we are currently in. Can we really judge an Edwardian poem about rape in light of modern sensibilities? Can we simply remove all references to Roman myths involving rape? Unfortunately, the answer is no - it is neither practical nor desirable. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone.} 18:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

People aren't reading it for any historical context, but because they get off reading about kidnapping, torture, brainwashing, and raping women. Roman myths should be kept because it shows something that millions of people believed in at one time, and were influenced by. The difference should be obvious. Can any hate group upload every speech and publication ever written by any hate monger out there, to use as recruitment propaganda, and get free hosting for it and perhaps more attention than they normally would elsewhere? There has to be limits somewhere. Do you believe most people who donate to Wikipedia know their money is being used to host rape glorification pornography, and would support that? Dream Focus (talk) 22:39, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Should we delete Author:Saddam Hussein, Author:Adolf Hitler and Author:Osama bin Laden then, in case sinister groups are "using" it? Of course not, they have scholastic value - and thus we keep them. Looking at Victorian erotica has the same value - to some people it may be porn, to others a look at Libertine influences across the Channel. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone.} 01:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Its kidnapping, torture, and rape, for those who fantasize about that. There is nothing more to it. Historical figures, and things that have some educational value, should be kept. Things that are only used for entertainment, and nothing more, should be censored according to some standards, such as, if it is nothing more than a dirty story encouraging the rape and torture of women, it should not be allowed. Dream Focus (talk) 09:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

as long as we don't use "free speech" as an excuse for anarchy

"as long as we don't use "free speech" as an excuse for anarchy" is an old line; I believe it may first have been used by the Inquisition in Spain.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

History gap

Your userpage starts off with a question you posted on Oct 15: here. This section is no longer around, so I tried to locate where it was moved to (as I assumed it was archived) but could not find it to update the internal link for you. I did find the section in question in an old revision: here. Being unable to find it, was able to find some nearby sections. As you can see, the one preceding it was 'Code Update' (Sept 24) & succeeding is 'Problems with new update' then 'Socialist Unity' (Sept 25). In this archive made in October for Questions, you can see the CU + SU topics, however your section and the PWNU section seem to be missing. Do you think they were deleted? Ty (talk) 02:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

[1] Shows my post there and the last response someone seems to have made. Instead of starting a new topic, I saw a mention of that, and posted there. [2] is still there. Yeah, they delete things all the time to keep a page from being crowded. Not sure if they ever do it to quite voices of dissent or anything. Be ironic since they are protesting censorship. Dream Focus (talk) 09:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)