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fabulousrice t1_j8oplks wrote

Reply to comment by DastardlyDM in New study examines Leonardo da Vinci's experiments on gravity by Rear-gunner

My suggestion to crowd source was regarding the financing of the translation and hosting.

That could be a type of Kickstarter project that would say “we are $… away from being able to make this document fully translated and accessible for free and on the public domain for the next hundred years”.

I know it sounds counterintuitive to say that in order for something to be free to access on the Internet people have to pay, but those things would get financed very quickly and benefit a great number of people for many years.

Again, that is how Wikipedia works… and centralizing information on a famous website like Wikipedia would be a much better solution than everybody who owns important documents creating their own type of website and their own type of subscription plan and their own type of paywall…

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DastardlyDM t1_j8or2yx wrote

Except my recommendation was not everyone own their own website. It was governments creating and preserving things as a social works. Why do you want the responsibility to fall on individuals instead of the bodies that represent everyone?

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fabulousrice t1_j8osq6f wrote

I agree with your idea but not all government have:

-desires or duty to allow their people to access information (education and science funding is usually a left wing value);

-budgets or dedicated political bodies for research, science, education that can afford it;

-a long lasting policy of open and accessible information, even accessible to foreign internet users (bandwidth costs money and why use tax money from your country to allow people abroad who don’t pay taxes to use the information?)

-consistent political views on the same topics, depending on the succession of different rulers (a new ruler in place could decide to shut down servers dedicated to science if that doesn’t fit their politics);

Etc. Ideally, it would be possible. But the fickle nature of digital information makes me wonder if publishing important papers on physical supports (no-DRM, I mean paper…) is still the most reliable and persistent way of preserving and sharing it.

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DastardlyDM t1_j8oxima wrote

Why do you believe a centralized, privately run, non-profit is any less at risk of the same short comings you just listed? At least with a government program it would take an act of law to drop instead of just a private entity pulling the plugs

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fabulousrice t1_j8oxyef wrote

Because there is more consistency in how Wikipedia has operated since it started existing than in most governments across different parties and mandates?

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DastardlyDM t1_j8ozmml wrote

As they threaten to shutter their doors or sell out every year?

Also shows you know nothing about the library of Congress or other such government groups.

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