Look at the History and Discussion tabs of several Wikipedia history entries and write about what you see. 2) Consider what Creative Commons License you might use for your own site. What role does copyright play in the resources you are working with this semester?
I looked into several different history entries on Wikipedia to get a sense of how active those pages are and what most of the editing involved for those topics. Since I already had some practice editing Wikipedia I have a decent understanding of how administrators deal with newly updated content and the processes of how to make contributions to pages.
One of the interesting points I noticed was the varying levels of seriousness in the discussions on content in the talk pages for each articles. There were sections that contained heated debates right next to sections on reasons for removal or grammar arguments. For instance on the talk section for Sun Yat-sen there was a grammar question on how his name should be shorted when discussing him throughout the page. One of the contributors suggested using “Yat-sen” whenever he was referenced. However another reviewer brought up that “Yat-sen” was his first name and it is standard both in Chinese and English writing to primarily refer to an individual by either their full or last name.
Another page I looked into had an interesting perspective on sources. Wikipedia articles often have a series of sources for the information presented. In an article on the Great Leap Forward one editor wrote about trying to diversify the sources for quotes that the article uses. Noting that all of the quotes seem to be coming from the same print source, they suggest trying to check those quotes in other sources just to maintain the credibility of those sources.
In terms of Creative Commons licensing as a group we would need to come to a consensus on what type of licensing we should use for our site. We should also discuss with Luisa Dispenzirie about any expectations the National Park Service might had in terms of licensing. The diaries are of course currently public domain however since the Park Service are in charge of the diaries they may have an opinion or a standard procedure on copyright that we should be aware and respectful about. However I speculate that we will probably use a Creative Common license in the end, and one that is more restrictive than the least restrictive license that Creative Commons offers.
