Wikisource
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Wikisource is a sister project to Wikipedia that aims to create a free wiki library of primary source texts, and translations of source texts in any language.
History
Wikisource was originally called "Project Sourceberg" during its planning stages (a play on words for "Project Gutenberg)."
The project began its activity when source texts were placed at ps.wikipedia.org. "PS" was taken to mean either "primary sources" (http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_commentary/Project_Sourceberg&diff=prev&oldid=54331) or "Project Sourceberg" by the contributors, who erroneously took over the subdomain of the Pashto language Wikipedia!
Project Sourceberg started officially when it received its own temporary URL on November 24, 2003 (http://sources.wikipedia.org); all texts and discussions were moved there from ps.wikipedia.org. A vote on the project's name changed it to Wikisource on December 6, 2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent domain (at http://wikisource.org) until July 23, 2004 (http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Scriptorium&diff=11750&oldid=11747).
Within two weeks of the project's official start (at sources.wikipedia.org), over 1000 pages had been created, with approximately 200 of these being designated as actual articles. At the start of 2004, the site had 100 registered users. In early July, 2004 the number of articles exceeded 2400, and more than 500 users had registered.
On April 30, 2005, there were 2667 registered users (including 18 administrators) and almost 19,000 articles. The project passed its 96,000th edit that same day.
A vote that ended May 12, 2005 supported the adoption of separate language subdomains at Wikisource, allowing texts in each language to be hosted on their own wiki. These language subdomains are expected to be set up starting in June.
Logo
The current Wikisource logo (shown above) with a picture of an iceberg was selected because of the project's original name ("Project Sourceberg"). It has not attracted much enthusiasm since the change of name to "Wikisource."
The iceberg logo is reminiscent to Sigmund Freud's use of an iceberg as an analogy to illustrate his concept of the unconscious mind.
External links
- Wikisource site (http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page:English) (English Main Page)
- Early discussions about the project (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource)cs:Wikisource
de:Wikisource he:ויקיטקסט fa:ویکینبشت fr:Wikisource hu:Wikisource ja:ウィキソース nl:Wikisource ro:Wikisource ru:Wikisource fi:Wikiaineisto sv:Wikisource zh:维基文库