Nelson & His World

Wow!

The National Maritime Museum has released the data it holds on over 20,000 British warships from about 1500 to 1950 under a Creative Commons licence, and is inviting the public to engage in a collaborative project to enhance the data. The NMM has 'partnered with Wikimedia UK to reach out to the many knowledgeable experts and enthusiasts around the world'. See here: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/resear ... histories/

The project has been set up by Wikimedia UK, but is now running entirely on Wikipedia, and is open to everyone. See the Wikipedia project page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/NMM

I have somewhat mixed feelings about Wikipedia, not just because of the inaccuracies that creep into it, but because of its cavalier attitude towards copyright law outside the USA, its open condoning of contributors obtaining material by hacking, and the bullying methods used to gain access to material. But it's here to stay, and I do contribute to Wikipedia occasionally myself.

But the NMM should be very warmly congratulated on this collaborative project, which is exactly the sort of initiative that is needed to widen access to information.

Huzza!

On the other hand, it would be nice if the NMM was actually participating in the collaborative project in addition to providing the initial data. A cynic might say that the Museum was just chucking out old unwanted historical data (largely overtaken by the books of David Lyon and Rif Winfield), in order to concentrate on its new found focus on art installations and the like...

What do others think?

Tony,

This sounds a good idea, as there must be thousands of people who have a great deal of relevant, and perhaps more to the point, accurate, information and who would like to contribute, not that they couldn't have already of course, like yourself. Due to this input from the NMM, it seems likely that much contained in Wikipedia's own pages at present will get updated and of course, should there be any errors, these will be corrected. Perhaps also in light of this, the use of Wikipedia as a serious source of information for maritime historians and others - at least in the maritime area - will now go up by leaps and bounds!

On your second point, it does seem strange that the NMM themselves do not seem to want to be that involved, which I would have thought would have given the project more 'legitimacy'. Or doesn't it? Your suspicions have now raised them in my mind, something perhaps along the lines of, 'out with the old... ' Maybe though, I'm reading too much into it...