Wikisource:FAQ/en

This page should help you with the orientation on Wikisource.

Can I start posting a new text right away?

Principially yes. But if you are a newcomer we urgently recommend to first acquaint yourself with the functioning, standards and rules of this project. This basic knowledge can be obtained best by helping with an already existing text by correcting it (see Where can I help?)

In case of major text-projects (more than 25 pages) we request that you first contact our Skriptorium for a discussion.

When posting texts without a source (details see Wikisource:Textgrundlage) it is quite possible that they will be deleted after a short time, so please don't start projects without providing this necessary information.

Texts that violate the copyright or where it is suspected that this is the case, will be deleted immediately.

Where can I help?

Ongoing projects that require help can be found at Wikisource:Projekte. Please also look at Wikisource:Korrekturen des Tages (Correction of the day) where you can find shorter texts which require support.

Where can I ask questions about Wikisource?

Questions about how this project works can be answered by any active user here, but you can also ask at the Skriptorium. If your question is about something you read in a text or of a more general nature (not project-specific) there is Wikisource:Auskunft. We also have a Chat, where you could contact users (mainly in the evening).

What does "Mehraugenprinzip"/"multiple-eye-principle" mean?

Wikisource can not compete with commercial projects because they use elaborate correction technology which can guarantee an almost error-free text. Nevertheless, we try that every text is corrected by at least three independent proofreaders. See Hilfe:Bearbeitungsstand.

This means that a text (transcribed manually or by OCR) has the status unkorrigiert (uncorrected), or if some parts of the text are still missing the status is called unvollständig (incomplete). Then another user who was not involved in the transcribing-process will do the first proofreading and eventually set the processing status to korrigiert (corrected). Finally, one more user compares the transcribed text once again to the source and afterwards sets the status of the text to fertig (finished).

Why are scans so important?

According to Wikisource:Textgrundlage Wikisource only accepts e-texts only in very special cases.

Scans (or digital photos), which should be uploaded to Commons, are necessary for two reasons:

• Scans allow collaborative proofreading in Wikisource.
• As Wikisource can't guarantee perfect texts, the possibility to control a texts original is required for scientific cites.

Moreover, scans of free works enrich the Public domain.