Help scientists decipher 'lost' gospel

[Arizona Hot]

Is anyone here interested in helping researchers organize the Oxyrhynchus Papyri? "Since its discovery, the treasure trove has yielded up some masterpieces of the age, including the comedies of Menander, the poems of Sappho and the gnostic Gospel of Thomas."

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If you don't have the time for that, you may be interested in Structured Procrastination.

[IainB]

I think we probably have a duty to offer help to some scientists. I'm a member of Clime-Aid.

[attach]

[Renegade]

Is anyone here interested in helping researchers organize the Oxyrhynchus Papyri? "Since its discovery, the treasure trove has yielded up some masterpieces of the age, including the comedies of Menander, the poems of Sappho and the gnostic Gospel of Thomas."

I studied some Ancient Greek as a part of a course, but it's completely out of my league.

I do like the concept of crowd-sourcing that though.

[tomos]

Just in case people think they need ancient Greek:

How you can help
The beauty part is that you don't even have to know Greek to help out. The online interface asks only that you compare the letters on each fragment with the shapes displayed on a keyboard. Lintott told me that the current plan calls for each fragment to be checked five times or so, to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. Think of it as a variant of the "Captcha" type-in-the-phrase system that's used to block spammers.

The interface looks impressive
http://ancientlives.org/tutorial/transcribe

[Arizona Hot]

This post has been read 123 times. The next time I want to offer a text file(Structured Procrastination), I will attach it here so that I can see how many people download it. Or would that discourage people from reading it(at least here)?

[40hz]

Structured Procrastination is aught but the poor stepchild of Dynamic Apathy.

I'd be happy to provide further details, but...well...you know how it is.  

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@A - make that 124 reads.

[Stoic Joker]

Dynamic Apathy

(I needed a good laugh today) Damn you're good!

[TaoPhoenix]

Structured Procrastination is aught but the poor stepchild of Dynamic Apathy.

I'd be happy to provide further details, but...well...you know how it is. 

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@A - make that 124 reads.

(Impassioned)
No no no! I care a great deal about Dynamic Apathy! It can teach us a great deal about ...
uh... oh wait...

[iphigenie]

Sounds lovely but then I see this text on it

"Images may not be copied or offloaded, and the images and their texts may not be published. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are © Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford. The papyri themselves are owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, London. All rights reserved."

So... we help them decypher it all and then they own it all, and will they charge the rest of the academic and scholarly world to access it? It would make me far more likely to give a bit of time if there was some form of open science commitment.. but no, it will be published in paid for series

[Renegade]

(Impassioned)
No no no! I care a great deal about Dynamic Apathy! It can teach us a great deal about ...
uh... oh wait...

Yep. Not worth even trying. Nobody gives a poop. And neither should you.

Just in case people think they need ancient Greek:
...
The interface looks impressive
http://ancientlives.org/tutorial/transcribe

I tried that out. Pretty nifty! Seems to work very well. I like how they did the UI.

Errr... not that *I* really care though. Or maybe I should have waited until tomorrow to say that...

[40hz]

Sounds lovely but then I see this text on it

"Images may not be copied or offloaded, and the images and their texts may not be published. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are © Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford. The papyri themselves are owned by the Egypt Exploration Society, London. All rights reserved."

So... we help them decypher it all and then they own it all, and will they charge the rest of the academic and scholarly world to access it? It would make me far more likely to give a bit of time if there was some form of open science commitment.. but no, it will be published in paid for series

You have to admire their gall.

But we're easy to dupe. Most of us still think of schools as being created for the public sharing and dissemination of knowledge - and not the public and semi-private for-profit corporations (in all but name) so many have become.

[iphigenie]

Scientific publishing doesn't make lots of money - I worked in it, I know. The cost of publishing, on or offline, massive amounts of content that is only of interest to a tiny minority just doesn't.

WHat makes money are derivatives - bibliographical databases (at least they used to make money, nowadays I am not so sure), financial derivatives. I remember that the finance department was one of the big profit centres in one of the ones I worked with - playing with options, advances, and currency FX