Skip Navigation
ProleWiki @lemmygrad.ml ember @lemmygrad.ml

We need your feedback on a new library feature

Hello, I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself and seek input from our community regarding a new feature we're considering implementing in the Prolewiki Library.

Iโ€™m the new Library Maintainer for Prolewiki. My responsibilities are to fix any incomplete library works, make the library easy to navigate, collect feedback and analyze how you all use it to make it better. Essentially, I'm here to ensure that the library functions smoothly and is user-friendly.

Lately at Prolewiki we have been exploring the idea of adding notes and introductions to the books, articles and other works in the library in the form of footnotes and an introduction paragraph. This serves a couple of purposes: firstly, it allows us to bring awareness to mistakes in the text, and secondly, it provides contextual information to deepen comprehension.

This is ONLY about adding notes and introductions, we would NOT be removing or changing anything from works we upload like the MIA Does! With that in mind we have some questions we would like to ask to get feedback from you about this feature.

QUESTIONS

  1. Do you believe that having footnotes/introductions for corrections and context would enhance the overall quality of content in our library and make it more trustworthy?

  2. Would you consider using Prolewiki more often for the same books and articles that you can also find on other websites if we provided helpful notes or introductions?

  3. Do you think they should be used solely for corrections and context, or should they also allow for opinions and interpretations?

  4. How concerned are you about potential abuse or misuse such as biased commentary or incorrect information? Would this possibility make you less likely to use our library?

  5. Are there any specific examples of books, articles, or works in the library that you believe would greatly benefit from this feature at this time? Please provide some examples.

  6. How do you think we could name the Prolewiki introduction paragraph to make it clear this is a ProleWiki addition?

  7. What additional suggestions or concerns do you have about the implementation of this feature in our library?

Thank you for your feedback comrades!!!

3
3 comments
    1. yes
    2. yes, as long as it's clearly distinguished from the main text
    3. mainly the former; I would use separate articles for the latter
    4. somewhat concerned, which is the basis for my answer to the previous question
    5. none
    6. something like "comments from the ProleWiki contributors/editors"
    7. none
    1. It seems fine to me as a concept, as it doesn't strike me as much different than any book which has multiple introductions as different publishers pick it up over time. There could also be a page somewhere, "About ProleWiki introductions" which is linked at the start of each of these intros. The page could explain the overall method behind how and why these intros are written and when the implementation of this feature began, for transparency.
    2. Possibly.
    3. Unsure on this. I think more detailed opinions and interpretations might be better placed in an essay, perhaps books in the library can have a section at the beginning after the contextual introduction, or on a related page, in which editors may add links to opinion/interpretation essays on the work, perhaps limited to essays which were specifically written and submitted as introductions for the work (rather than just any essay about the work), or with section headings separating introduction essays from other types of essays on the work. However, as I said, I am unsure.
    4. Somewhat concerned, but as it hasn't been implemented yet, I want to see what happens in practice with a few works.
    5. Nothing comes to mind right away but I will keep this question in mind next time I access a work on the library.
    6. "Introduction to the ProleWiki edition", possible link to "about ProleWiki intros" page suggested above, the intro itself, ending with the date it was written and names of its author(s). Footnotes could start with "(PW)" or something similar.
    7. (1) In general I am happy to see things like this being tried out, whatever the results may be. (2) This makes me curious as to whether things like comprehension questions (such as for self study or study groups) could also be appended to some works in a similar way, if there is interest in it and if the introductions concept seems to be working smoothly? As well as other forms of extra material that might appear in the end of a book, I am curious whether there is interest in that type of thing or other extra material (beyond what can already be accomplished as essays which are not specifically linked or included in a work).

    1. Yes, it'd possibly help make older historical materials more accessible to modern audiences and also avoid issues with hosting texts which have severe errors in them, but are overall useful for other reasons.

    2. Definitely! It'd be a great advantage over the MIA for example, which does barely any effort to contextualise their texts. We also have a problem with internet archives where a ton of older texts have some 4 "prefaces to the German edition of 19xx," all of which with a lot of historical context mostly relevant only for the time of those prefaces, and it seems fair that we have some for our times and context as well.

    3. It'd be hard to separate this, but one thing I've found in some publications was to have a preface for context and a postface for opinions and analysis. But I believe different users will have at least slightly different opinions and interpretations over the material and how it applies to their context of interest, so (resources willing) this could be its own section if there's a lot of interest from the editorship.

    4. I wouldn't personally due to trusting the wiki given my experience so far. And since the PW is openly ML less trusting users would at least see those biases up front rather than hidden.

    5. From the ones I read there, Harman's "How Marxism Works" really could use one, and the Maidan Trials one seems too topical to not do one too, specially with the knowledge of later developments. The Little Red Book is broken right now, but that one is basically a bunch of context-less quotations that are ripe for misinterpretation, so that'd be interesting too after it gets fixed. And one that took me quite a while to get through due to all the historical context I was missing was Lenin's "What is to be done?" which I've read in Portuguese somewhere else.

    6. "Preface to the ProleWiki Edition" sounds nice, maybe add a date.

    7. If footnotes are to be implemented and if it's feasible, I'd really like if y'all somehow adapted the Wikipedia footnote hover popups, as going to the bottom of the webpage and then back can be really frustrating. And not exactly a suggestion, but I'm curious how this will be applied to large books when compared with small pamphlets. It's one thing to do a single preface for the Manifesto, quite another to a longer book like Imperialism, so it may or may not be interesting to provide a