Talk:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Content policies

Untitled[edit]

Is there actually a difference between these two editions? Are scans available for the 1776 edition? If "no" to either question, I'd say it makes more sense to just use the 1897 edition as the primary (no disambig) until someone decides to start working on a 1776 scan edition. —Spangineerwp (háblame) 15:26, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Admittedly, I just took the information on the 1776 version at face value (I have no idea what the source was for this). I was trying to provide a space for the incoming scans but I seem to have problems with this text whenever I try to do something. I'll move everything back and match&split it to the scans. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very glad you're working on this; it's a shame that this widely-cited work is in such disrepair. If you find that the existing text lines up with the scans, by all means do a match&split as you mention, but if they turn out to be different (in formatting, spelling, whatever), don't worry about it—you can also just proofread the scans and step by step replace the chapters without scans. I'll try to keep abreast of your progress and do some validating too. —Spangineerwp (háblame) 16:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've fixed most of the damage I did (or, rather, had it fixed); now it's one edition again. I should say it's more Tannertsf working on this than me but I do intend to take part as well. Apparently matching & splitting is unnecessary for Gutenberg-sourced text (which this probably is), so I woon't do that at the moment. A potential problem is the lack of a complete collection of scans at the Internet Archive. I've transferred a few editions to Commons (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) now but each one seems to miss a volume, although the different editions are probably the same or similar and can cover each other. However, that's not an issue for the near future. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Be careful. It's a significant benefit to have the complete work in one edition. Have you or Tannertsf researched the various editions to figure out which is the best? According to w:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it was originally published in 6 volumes, so perhaps the 1777 edition on commons is complete. What was added to the 1897 edition? Is it worth adding? Is there an alternate source of volume 2 of the 1897 edition?
According to WP, the 1909 (Bury) edition was a long-time standard, so if the other volumes can be found, it may be preferable.
I've found that it's much easier to address these problems before much proofreading has been done. We don't have the manpower to spare doing double work. —Spangineer (háblame) 19:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see the 1897 is also Bury, and it looks like his edition is the best available. So let's find that 2nd volume... —Spangineer (háblame) 19:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've found one at last. It's a Google scan from Harvard University that was partially mislabelled on the Internet Archive. I've added it to Commons, so everything should now be in place. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent! Good catch—I looked through a few dozen on IA but didn't have your success. —Spangineer (háblame) 13:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]