[sword-devel] General question

[Paul Dean]

"Harry Plantinga" <hplantin@calvin.edu> writes:

> Jerry,
> 
> I assume you're aware of the GNU distribution of the digital
> facsimile software -- see http://www.ccel.org/facsim/
> 
> Yes, there could be valuable unpublished works.  My experience
> with the WWSB (http://www.ccel.org/wwsb/) suggests that many people
> have written studies, commentaries, sermons, and the like, that
> they would like to have published in some form, and some of them
> are worthwhile.  However, on the WWSB I stopped encouraging any
> and all contributions. The problem was that some people wanted to
> publish -- well -- wacky stuff, and keeping up a level of quality
> would have meant instituting some kind of review process.
> 
> I've moved in the direction of publishing only material that has
> a wide reputation as being valuable.  I think it makes for a more
> useful library--classics generally become classics for a good
> reason. And there are plenty of 'classics' to occupy my time
> and resources.

I really value the wwsb, but I always wish there were more
contemporary sermons.  There are so many non-crazy preachers who would
surely be happy to submit that if, for example, I wanted to prepare a
sermon on verse X, then to browse a dozen sermons on that verse would
be very useful.

But.. yes, there must be a way to guard against crazies.  One way
would be to have an interactive peer-review in terms of a rating
system.  If you read a sermon and think it's wacko, you press the
"thumbs down button" and that author goes down the ratings.  If you
think it was insightful and spiritual, then you press the thumbs up
button and that author's sermons go higher up the lists.  Just think -
a dozen contemporary sermons on every verse in the bible!  That would
be great.

I guess the ratings system would be less simple than I at first
thought in order to stop people raising the ratings on their own
sermons.  hmm. :(

-- 
Paul
http://www.redeemed.org.uk/