Portal talk:Texts by Country

Bill of Rights
The U.S. Bill of Rights in the languages indicated are clearly acceptable as source texts, but I would question having them on a link that advocates gun ownership. Eclecticology 00:05, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This should be renamed "Political documents"? &mdash;Ashley Y 10:25, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, even though many of them had very political circumstances to accompany them. "Historical" is a braoder category that can include a lot of other things.  Eclecticology 21:49, 24 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * That's just the problem, it pretty much includes all other things. For instance, "Ancient and Classical Texts", "Medieval Texts" and "Early Modern Texts" are all obviously historical. But everything here is specifically political. &mdash;Ashley Y 06:09, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've removed the Bill of Rights link. It was to Wikipedia rather than to a Wikisource text. It's part of the US Constitution anyway, and we already have that. The other language versions were links to an outside site with its own agenda.

Vietnamese historical documents?
UN Vietnam lists a number of reports etc. that have to do with Vietnam (and are in Vietnamese) on one page. I'd like someone to take a look at the titles (which are in English) and see if the documents linked from there could be historical. And, if they are indeed historical, should I just link to the page, or should I link to each individual document from here? – Minh Nguyen 22:26, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * These are not what I would call historical documents. I see them rather as secondary documents that report on the development of certain programs; some are only summaries of reports.  I would tend to discourage this kind of material in this section, but that does not help us when we are trying to determine what to do with them in the Wiki family.  My inclination would be to suggest writing an article on the role of the UN in the post occupation reconstruction of Vietnam, and to make links from that article to these documents.  The documents provide significant information affecting not just the reconstruction of Vietnam, but also the reform of the United Nations' own bureaucratic procedures.  I hope that others will also jump into this discussion.  Our discussion of this topic will be important in establishing the limits of what does and does not belong in Wikisource. Eclecticology 02:07, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

State of the Union, 2003
I've also found a Vietnamese translation of US President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Would the State of the Union address be considered a historical document, though? (An English version would probably be found at the White House's website.) – Minh Nguyen 22:53, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * This is indeed a historical document, but it does not belong in this category for a different reason. The top level categories were intended to be viewed in order so that if in respect to a topic you can answer "yes" to any earlier question, you need look no further.  The address has a clearly identifiable author, and it should be linked through him in the authors section. Eclecticology 02:17, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Does this project want the Columbia Accident Investigation Report and the related documentation? The items are: The main CAIB web site appears to be vanishing on Feb 1. All federal government works, so all copyright-free, AFAIK. About for the video because I haven't yet completed downloading it all. For a faster response, ping me over at the Wikipedia, same user... Jamesday 10:29, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * A mirror of the core site, including the CAIB Report and appendices, the text of all presentations and transcripts, all HTML and all static images (GIF, JPG etc). About 500MB. Just the high resolution copy of the report and its ancilliary items would be significantly less than this but would miss much background material which isn't likely to be widely mirrored.
 * The video of all hearings, round tables and press briefings, about 17 hours of each:
 * In Microsoft WMF format, about 1.7GB
 * In Real RM format, about 3.4GB (Looks a little worse quality than WMF)
 * I would be seriously concerned about whether we are ready to handle video files. There may be technical issues revolving around the use of proprietary software to view our files, but that is beyond my capacity for comment.  Gigabyte files could rapidly fill the hardware, and may be completely unusable by some of our users.


 * The report text is more acceptable, but it is still a large file when all the images are included. I have no problem with the suitabilty of the content for Wikisource, especially when there is likelihood that it will no longer be generally available.  What would be the advantage to having "high resolution" text in place of a no-frills text of this material? Eclecticology 01:05, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Breaking this page down further
I've added in a couple more recent UN Security Council resolutions today. I'd like to keep going with these, but I don't want to overwhelm this page with Security Council documents. Is anyone going to mind if I created a seperate page for Security Council resolutions? Ambivalenthysteria 10:40, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I really do not like this page. It is reasonable to put the Franco-German Armistice on the same page as the Soviet National Anthem? I think not. I see no choice but to make a chronological list for the things that got a time and something else for the other stuff. Your thoughts? PaulinSaudi 05:58, 13 May 2004 (UTC)]]


 * The present structure of this page is based on what could be likely categories for further breakdowns in the future. Constitutional documents and Security Council resolutions have already been spun off.  National anthems are a reasonable candidate for spin off when that sub-category gets too big.  A strict chronological structure may obscure that goal.  The present title allows new entries of historical documents to be parked here when the contributor is unable to categorize it further.  Eclecticology 18:04, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Articles of Confederation
On the Articles of Confederation (A.K.A US Constitution 0.5 beta) I would say it qualifies as a historical document as the Wikipedia page for the Articles of Confederation does not contain the actual document. Any objections? --flufeemunk 05:10, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes, it belongs here, but link it from Constitutional documents. That heading is meant to be broader than bare constitutional texts, but should include any document having a significant bearing on a constitution, or even national existence. Eclecticology 10:22, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I believe constitutional documents (and the like) should be listed under the individual countries as well. It seems very strange, for example, to look through the lengthy United States list and not find the Constitution, especially now that the Constitutional documents list isn't even on this page anymore. - dcljr 23:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Reclassifying to more appropriate section?
I think there should be some reorganization, moving several Arab League, OAS and OAU/AU documents from "Multilateral and regional documents" to "Documents of non-national or supranational organizations", under the appropriate headings. I'll do this immediately if there is no objection, the first category is getting big, while the second is rather small now. Right now people may not be adding to the second grouping because of not wanting to put some nice friendly document in with the interesting selection there now: headed by the popular favorite Al Qaeda, together with the Ku Klux Klan, Hamas, Comintern etc. Perhaps further subdivision UN regional groupings, followed by national movements documents - the Palestine stuff is arguably not "non-national", and then "other". As al is an article, possibly Al Q should be filed under Q, which would have the effect of removing it from the head of any list it is on.John Z 04:32, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, the second "non-national and supra etc" category should probably be retitled international organizations, subdivided into orgs of states and other international orgs, with the Palestine stuff going mainly to constitutional documents, where some is already, and the Ku Klux to the US "Reconstruction to present" section.John Z 06:51, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikisource users should be able to organize Wikisource documents by date. This would be very useful feature to many. This could be most practically accomplished by creating an advanced search including the option to choose documents between certain dates. It could also be accomplished by a "Veiw All" option in which you could sort the documents by a number of distinctions such as by Date. Granted, this would take some reformatting of the website which can only be done by the Wikisource web masters and not "anyone." Nonetheless, it is a much needed improvment to Wikisource.Brooks Golden 02:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Due to a WS:PD discussion, this topical index has replaced the older index "Wikisource:Historical documents", which dates back to December 2003. John Vandenberg 02:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Since I want to avoid any future conflict about Kosovo, Macedonia, Scotland or other "not quite" entities, would Texts by Nation make more sense? Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Karl Marx 22:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)