Project:About: Difference between revisions

In particular, since 2012, the WAB's [https://wab.uib.no/sfb/ "Semantic faceted search and browsing" (SFB) website] allows readers and researchers across the globe to search, filter and display individual remarks from the ''Nachlass'', or collections thereof, based on their content or relevant metadata. Moreover, since 2016, the WAB's [https://wab.uib.no/transform/wab.php?modus=opsjoner "Interactive dynamic presentation" (IDP) website] makes it possible for users to view entire manuscripts or typescripts, in a linear or diplomatic style, while dynamically selecting which sets of information to display.

Both websites display their human-readable output by using dedicated software to index and parse the WAB's machine-readable transcriptions of Wittgenstein's manuscripts and typescripts. These transcriptions of the handwritten or typewritten material are encoded in the [[wikipedia:XML|XML]] format according to the [[wikipedia:Text Encoding Initiative|TEI guidelines]]. While the transcriptions were originally published as part of the CD-based Bergen Electronic Edition in 2000, the SFB and IDP websites now allow anyone who has an Internet connection to easily browse them.

As of late 2022, the many graphics and figures that Wittgenstein had included in the 20.000 pages he wrote were rendered by these transcriptions in one of two ways:

# Some had been encoded using a combination of [[wikipedia:Unicode|Unicode]] characters (such as letters, numbers, dashes, arrows...) and XML markup that the parsing engine renders as HTML; these are tagged with this syntax in the XML files: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline=""><seg type="notation" ... subtype="graphics_..." rend="linear"></seg></syntaxhighlight>;

# Others (generally speaking, those that were visually more complex) had been redrawn, as had previously been done by publishers with the drawings included in Wittgenstein's writings that had appeared in print; these are tagged with this syntax in the XML files: <syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline=""><seg type="notation" ... subtype="graphics_..." rend="bitmap"></seg></syntaxhighlight>.

[[File:Previous generation images - 130,100.jpg|x110px|center|class=img-comfy]]

<p class="image-caption">Example of point 2 above: the early redrawn version of Wittgenstein's graphic in [http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/Ms-130,100_f Ms-130, page 100] was this JPG file.</p>

 

The quality and consistency of the WAB's redrawn graphics, however, was not considered entirely satisfactory. This prompted Alois Pichler, director of the WAB, and Michele Lavazza, coordinator of the [https://wittgensteinproject.org/ Ludwig Wittgenstein Project], to start a cooperation intended to redraw all these visuals.

After the completion of the redrawing phase, it started to seem desirable that the image files should also become available – ''i.e.'', browsable and searchable – in and of themselves, and not only as an integral part of the manuscripts. Thus, Michele Lavazza built this website ([[Main Page|{{SITENAME}}]]) to host the files and used data from the WAB's XML transcriptions, combined with a database-like infrastructure powered by [https://semantic-mediawiki.org Semantic MediaWiki], to make it possible to search and filter them by description tags as well as by manuscript number. In this task, he received help from Frederic Kettelhoit and continued working in cooperation with Alois Pichler.

 

Finally, at this stage, it became clear that an added value would be provided by the fact of also indexing the visuals that had been encoded in the WAB's transcriptions by the abovementioned combination of XML tags and Unicode characters. These are currently represented by grey placeholders that merely serve the purpose of bearing the semantic tags (more on this topic in the ''[[#User guide|User guide]]'' section below). It is our hope that in the future, with the evolution and continuous improvement of the transcriptions, it will become possible to also include their visual appearance in this website.

This website contains high-quality, "normalised", redrawn visuals that correspond to the hand-drawn graphics and figures from the manuscripts and typescripts in Ludwig Wittgenstein's ''Nachlass''.

The visual items that were recreated are those that had already been redrawn (as opposed to encoded as XML and Unicode) by the WAB as of October 2022. In other words, the scope of the redrawn graphics has not changed since the early phase of the work to transcribe the ''Nachlass'', and the visuals that were initially encoded as XML and Unicode are still encoded in the same way.

Additionally, this website contains a placeholder for each item, encoded in the transcription as XML and Unicode, that was tagged as a "graphic" in the XML file (<syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline="">subtype="graphic"</syntaxhighlight>) as opposed to a "logic" or "maths" item (<syntaxhighlight lang="xml" inline="">subtype="logic"</syntaxhighlight> or <code>subtype="math"</code>).

The drawings are licenced under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0]. This means that the image files can be freely downloaded without asking for permission or paying a fee and can be reused for any purpose, including commercial, provided that the authors are credited, if possible with a link to this website.

The rights to the semantic tags (''i.e.'', to the relationship between the image files and the descriptors) belong to the WAB. The copyright holders (The Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Bergen, Bergen, in agreement with Oxford University Press) released the transcriptions of a subset of the manuscripts (Ts-201a1, Ts-201a2, Ms-139a, Ts-207, Ms-114, Ms-115, Ms-153a, Ms-153b, Ms-154, Ms-155, Ms-156a, Ms-148, Ms-149, Ms-150, Ts-212, Ts-213, p.39v of Ms-140, Ms-141, Ms-152, Ts-310) under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0], meaning that the semantic tags are also available under the same licence; all rights to the transcriptions of the other manuscripts are reserved.