User:Slaporte/GSoC2010
Abstract
[edit]Creating a tool to format judicial decisions, legal scholarship, and statutes for Wikisource.
Identity
[edit]Name: Stephen LaPorte
Email: stephen.laporte -at- gmail.com
Project title: Wikisource Legal Tool
Contact/working info
[edit]Timezone: UTC-7 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Typical working hours: Flexible
Project summary
[edit]WikiSource should be a repository of statutory law, judicial decisions, and legal scholarship. Prof. Timothy K. Armstrong identified Wikisource as solution to the architectural limitations of existing repositories for judicial decisions and legal scholarship.[1] Prof. Armstrong listed three obstacles for Wikisource--legal, content, and cultural issues. The legal and cultural issues can be address through education and outreach. This project addresses the problem of content.
A tool to format judicial decisions and statutes will help users move text that is already electronically available[2] and in the public domain[3] to Wikisource, solving the "chicken-and-egg" problem that Wikisource currently faces. Once Wikisource has a substantial body of legal sources, users will gain value[4] from and improve the coverage of those legal sources.
About me
[edit]I am currently a Juris Doctor candidate studying Intellectual Property Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. In 2008, I received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Latin from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. I am interested in open access to information, especially the law.
I have written small programs in PHP, used MediaWiki templates regularly in editing, and am familiar with the MediaWiki template system.
Deliverables
[edit]The tool should be able to sort through text from standard sources, identify important information, and apply templates and wiki formatting. The tool should be part of a workflow that allows users to efficiently move content on to Wikisource.
Required deliverables
[edit]- Identify key information, such as the title, citation, and author from text or html
- Sort the text, e.g. determining if it is a statute or a U.S. Supreme Court concurring opinion.
- Apply wiki templates and categories based on the above information
- Turn citations (full and short form) to cases, statutes, and secondary material into wiki links to the corresponding page on Wikisource
- Format footnotes with <ref> tags
- Develop workflow for users moving law and legal sources on to Wikisource
If time permits
[edit]- Turn "Id." citations[5] to links to corresponding page on Wikisource
Project schedule
[edit]- Identify electronic sources of judicial decisions and statutes, and determine copyright status
- Discuss with mentor and other people the best way to build the tool
- Review proof of concept with mentor
- Expand/rewrite script for identifying key information
- Expand script for applying templates and categories
- Automate templates within tool
- Write script to identify citations
- Write script to identify short-form citations
- Improve range of identifiable sources
- Develop workflow and integrate this tool
Key dates
[edit]- May 24: Evaluate proof of concept
- May 31: Work on function to identify key information
- June 14: Work on function to identify citations
- July 16: Submit tool for midterm evaluation
- July 26: Test across sources
- August 6: Finish tool, write documentation for workflow
Participation
[edit]I will communicate frequently with my mentor, and I will contact others (such as research librarians) who are familiar with electronically available legal sources. I have a clear vision of what I want the tool to do, and I want to discuss with a mentor the best technology and approach for doing it.
I see this tool as a first step for a WikiProject:Law on wikisource,[6] so I am interested in building something effective.
Proof of concept
[edit]Proof of concept code is running here, with an explanation here.
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Timothy K. Armstrong, Rich Texts: Wikisource as an Open Access Repository for Law and the Humanities (March 15, 2010). U of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 10-09. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1566148
- ↑ For example, see Office of the Law Revision Counsel's Downloadable U.S. Code
- ↑ See the 17 U.S.C. 105
- ↑ For example, wiki links in citations allows users to conduct research, and the "what links here" feature allows users to find cases that cite back to a case as authority. If Wikisource had more legal sources, it would be a powerful and free research tool.
- ↑ An Id. citation refers to the previous full or short form citation
- ↑ There is not, as of March 2010, a Wikisource WikiProject:Law. There is WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases, but it is largely inactive. It is difficult to start a WikiProject:Law where there are not active users, and there are no active users because there is not a lot of content. This is the "chicken-and-the-egg" problem that this tool will help users address.