[sword-devel] summary

[jhphx]

Matthew wrote:
> 2. The sword project should maintain sources via svn of at the very
> least the public domain resources. There is very clear community
> consensus on this point as well.
>   

If by sources and resources you mean texts, then I have to question 
this. Maybe you are right but there are some points about maintaining 
texts and allowing easy editing that leads to confusion and errors. You 
certainly don't want some of the shenanigans that happened at Wikipedia. 
Even with safeguards to avoid those mistakes you still want people that 
can follow protocol and avoid the temptation to act solely on their own 
extensive knowledge and judgment without confirmation that they are in 
fact right. I say this because when I was handling error reports for 
texts at another project often errors which seemed obviously to be 
errors were not errors and correcting them would have inserted errors 
where none were before. In something like Weymouth's version of Mat 
12:41 "and mark! there is One greater than Jonah here," some people will 
think that "mark" should be "hark" or "behold". "Mark" does not sound 
right to some ears. You could end up with a text that cycles through 
errors and corrections. These may seem like minor errors but it goes to 
credibility if care is not taken. Think Wikipedia. There is also the 
problem of what it means to be faithful to original sources, witch can 
make for differences of opinion on what is an error. Perhaps it is good 
to have someone with the last word on these matters.

Also, even if these things need to be done do they need to be done under 
CrossWire and The SWORD Project? I can see reasons for and against. Some 
that probably shouldn't be discussed in a public forum.

All I am saying is be sure you have considered this carefully and that 
you know all the issues and not just your own preferences in this.

Jerry