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Wikipedia scans and digitizes old paper articles? In all seriousness, have you ever tried digitizing old journals? It is fairly time consuming.

malandrew 14y ago
Personally, I'd be fine handing over all journal publishing responsibilities to Google. The one great thing that Google has going for it is that many many many of the engineers there came from academia and understand the value of open access to information. I don't care if they run ads while they do so. It would be orders of magnitude better than the status quo.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I fail to understand how a for-profit corporation that sells your privacy to the $500 billion advertising/media/branding industry is a better steward of this information than a not for profit organization that simply charges a fee for their services.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- tzs 14y ago
  No, let's not do this. We don't need the scientific literature fucked as badly as Google fucked the USENET archives.
  - malandrew 14y ago
    Enlighten me. I'm curious.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Google made a complete hash out of the Usenet archives that they bought from DejaNews; you could literally issue the same search month after month and watch yourself getting progressively fewer and fewer results.
- duaneb 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure Google imposes the same limitations JSTOR does for public domain stuff. Google and JSTOR are both the status quo for digital copies of public domain stuff.
rmc 14y ago
In all seriousness, have you ever tried digitizing old journals? It is fairly time consuming. Writing an encyclopedia is time consuming, but we did that. Walking & driving all over the world is time consuming, but the OpenStreetMap community has done that. Scanning & digitizing old public domain books is time consuming, but the Project Gutenberg project has done that. What's next?
toomuchtodo 14y ago
Sir, I've worked on/off with Project Gutenberg for over 12 years (since I was 18). I've mailed thousands of CDs/DVDs full of PG's library to people in thirdwave world countries, and I've also reviewed hundreds of books, on my own time and for no compensation, for their Distributed Proofreaders project (http://www.pgdp.net/c/ http://www.pgdp.net/c/). No, I have not tried to digitize old journals. But I HAVE helped contribute to the digitization and distribution of public domain works. I'm aware of the time and financial resource commitments involved.

malandrew 14y ago

Personally, I'd be fine handing over all journal publishing responsibilities to Google. The one great thing that Google has going for it is that many many many of the engineers there came from academia and understand the value of open access to information. I don't care if they run ads while they do so. It would be orders of magnitude better than the status quo.

rayiner 14y ago
I fail to understand how a for-profit corporation that sells your privacy to the $500 billion advertising/media/branding industry is a better steward of this information than a not for profit organization that simply charges a fee for their services.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tzs 14y ago
No, let's not do this. We don't need the scientific literature fucked as badly as Google fucked the USENET archives.
- malandrew 14y ago
  Enlighten me. I'm curious.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Google made a complete hash out of the Usenet archives that they bought from DejaNews; you could literally issue the same search month after month and watch yourself getting progressively fewer and fewer results.
duaneb 14y ago
I'm pretty sure Google imposes the same limitations JSTOR does for public domain stuff. Google and JSTOR are both the status quo for digital copies of public domain stuff.

rmc 14y ago

In all seriousness, have you ever tried digitizing old journals? It is fairly time consuming. Writing an encyclopedia is time consuming, but we did that. Walking & driving all over the world is time consuming, but the OpenStreetMap community has done that. Scanning & digitizing old public domain books is time consuming, but the Project Gutenberg project has done that. What's next?

toomuchtodo 14y ago

Sir, I've worked on/off with Project Gutenberg for over 12 years (since I was 18). I've mailed thousands of CDs/DVDs full of PG's library to people in thirdwave world countries, and I've also reviewed hundreds of books, on my own time and for no compensation, for their Distributed Proofreaders project (http://www.pgdp.net/c/ http://www.pgdp.net/c/). No, I have not tried to digitize old journals. But I HAVE helped contribute to the digitization and distribution of public domain works. I'm aware of the time and financial resource commitments involved.