User talk:John Carter/Archives/2014

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2014, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Tenth Anniversary Contest runner up

WS:10 runner up

Congratulations, you were the runner up in the second week of the Tenth Anniversary Contest. I will be contacting Wikimedia UK regarding the prize, a £10 (GBP) voucher, soon to see how they want to handle that. The contest stated that this was an Amazon voucher but it you would prefer a different company that might be possible. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi John, if you could drop me an email on richard.nevellwikimedia.org.uk we can set about getting the prize sorted. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi John, not sure if you've seen this, but let me know when you do. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:22, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

FYI

Hello again John. Since you asked Dr. Blofeld about non-US/Europe digitization sources, maybe then you will be interested to take a look in this page. To facilitate mass upload of PDF books from the websites to Internet Archive I started Help:Internet Archive/Requested uploads. Take a look and also check the new Help:IA-Upload tool. It is now incredibly easy to upload anything to Commons if it is available on IA. Solomon7968 (talk) 19:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very, very much. There are a huge number of fairly broad interest reference sources I have listed on my user page which can be found at IA, and I've only got into those starting with an M so far. And I imagine that there are any number of other, more focused, reference works not listed in the source I consulted. Such information is very, very welcome indeed. John Carter (talk) 16:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I think perhaps we can add more value to the list (your user page) by adding prose text based on book reviews of the works. I know that this will increase the workload geometrically and book reviews are really not readily available for maximum older works, but still the end result is definitely something to be proud of. Also, a lot of the reference sources are bound to be unreliable and skewed to anglo-american topics. Example take the case of A Chinese Biographical Dictionary by Herbert Allen Giles for example. Although the only biographical dictionary of its kind it is unreliable. Same goes for other reference works, even the DNB contains fictitious entries. A well documented, what-is-reliable-and-what-is-not list will be incredible. Solomon7968 (talk) 16:54, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Sorry for the constant badgering but any thoughts on the proposal? Solomon7968 (talk) 17:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Just now saw theses comments. FWIW, all the sources in the list are included in the 10th edition of a guide to reference source by Gail Sheehy which came out in the mid 1980s, and all of them have been, to some extent, described in that source as being at least "still valuable" in some way. I very much agree that getting reviews of them together would be useful, and, given the existence of JSTOR, archive.org, and other sites, we probably could get together wikipedia articles on all of them, and I have some hopes to, eventually, try to get those which I might put on commons or here to also have articles there about them, specifically indicating where they are and aren't considered reliable in those reviews. The down side is that so far as I can tell wikipedia doesn't really have clear existing guidelines for content regarding articles about reference works. I've seen some recent reference works, like the Eliade Encyclopedia of Religion, where the reviews of the work were, literally, the sole subject of the articles in multiple academic journals, often with separate articles on different subtopics. But, maybe, when I present to the Books WikiProject there the need for such articles, and a willingness to put some together, there is a chance that maybe we can get some sort of text together somewhere indicating where these works are considered useful. John Carter (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes but my point is that there are varied degree of emphasis on Public domain sources among WikiProjects. Example the Giles biographical dictionary I mentioned above is the *only* work of its kind regarding China. Same goes for other Projects like the British Raj era sources about India. Solomon7968 (talk) 18:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I understand your point, and agree with it. Unfortunately, for some topics in the field of religion, with which I am a bit more familiar, I can say that I have seen some of the more current encyclopedic sources on given topics covered in the Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics discuss those earlier articles in an extremely dismissive way. Several other topics, where the topics have changed and/or much better information is available today, and that tends to be the case in several areas of study, are in the same situation. Personally, I think the best way we could go with both wikipedia and wikisource would be to get together both the better old PD sources and the more current well received reference sources. The older PD sources still favorably included in some recent bibliographies would be good things for us to have either here or at commons, and, at the same time, getting together more pages like w:Category:WikiProject lists of encyclopedic articles indicating what reference sources discuss which topics to what degree. Given the frankly incredible number of reference books on almost all topics being put out today, I have to think that with only a few exceptions, like biographical encyclopedias of British printers or loyalists to the British Crown in the US Revolutionary War, most of the topics discussed in the old PD sources will also be included in at least one or more of the more current sources. So, if we could get both those lists and this entity a bit better developed, that would I think help a lot. Yeah, it will be hard to find them all, and even harder to generate article lists like those I link to above, but at this point I think if we really want to improve both entities, those things will have to be done. I have e-mailed myself some reviews of older sources from databanks, and will try, to some degree, to build some of the wikipedia articles on those topics. I imagine that for some topics regarding India or other somewhat English language countries, such will be harder, and even harder for countries where English isn't used widely. But I also think that will probably be one thing required for our future development of at least both those entities, and that it won't happen unless someone starts it.

I do have access to several paid subscription databanks, although, admittedly, not as many as I would like, and also to the American Reference Book Annuals and some other sources reviewing paid and free databanks. I'm working on developing lists of that kind as well. If I can ever get to all do all of that, or if others help, I think that we should be able to improve a lot of things around here.

Sorry for rambling by the way. Some of the things I have to do and consume before the medical procedures tomorrow are making me both crankier and more bored than I generally like. John Carter (talk) 02:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Random break

"getting together more pages like w:Category:WikiProject lists of encyclopedic articles" wholeheartedly agree with this. But don't you think it will be much much better if we create the lists on the main namespace and develop them into featured lists? I have closely observed some of your work (BTW I know next to nothing about Christianity and Judaism, your specialty) and bluntly speaking found it pathetic that your hard work not getting the attention it deserves. Getting together the book reviews is only twice the work I think but at least it will be of something of value rather than a meaningless incomprehensible list of books. Imagine a hypothetical situation: Say a young Chinese teenager looks at your User page, more than anything else he will be scared but if we can point him that the Giles biographical dictionary listed on the page is the *only* (I repeat *only*) work biographical dictionary regarding China then I am sure there is high chance that he will be interested in proofreading the work. Solomon7968 (talk) 16:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Good points. Unfortunately, I rather doubt that any list of articles in a single source would necessarily qualify for inclusion as a stand-alone list in wikipedia on the basis of notability guidelines, and a list of and, unfortunately, given the rather widely varied titles articles on the same topics get in different reference sources, it would probably be difficult to get together a list of articles included in multiple reference sources would have questions about which of several variant names to use. Now, I think it probably would be possible to use the article lists in the development of pages like w:Outline of Christianity and similar pages, but every individual reference source will almost certainly have some variation in what it places the greatest emphasis by weight on, which would present a problem in structuring the outline with enough support to get considered for FL status.

Also, FWIW, despite the length of time since that list was first created, the list on my user page was primarily created as a first step toward determining which of the multiple reference sources available at archive.org and elsewhere were still considered most valuable, and most in a sense deserving of getting included here as indexes. So far as I can tell, most of them still aren't included here, and the ones I haven't added links next to yet in the A-R sections don't apparently yet have files at archive.org. I expect to check the similar sights after finishing that one, and having a better indicator of what sources are available.

Having said that, I acknowledge up front that a lot of more narrowly focused works, like a biographical dictionary of New Jersey I saw on archive.org, would also be useful for editors interested in those slightly narrower topic areas. Computer failure, the Christmas season and its demands and distractions, working to develop and recent medical problems have all kind of conspired to keep me doing other things for about two months now. I do think, and rather hope, that when I get finished with finding all of the sources listed there which are available online, and I'm fairly sure that at least some aren't available online yet, I expect to drop messages to the various English language WikiProjects out there to the effect that whichever sources I do find are available for proofreading here and basic use as a source in wikipedia, and ask for the help of the potentially larger number of interested editors there. But it would probably be better to have the lists of sources available for those projects first.

At this point, it seems to me that you are thinking that the list was created as an end unto itself. It was never intended to be that, just a working page I could store somewhere safe where computer failure, loss of a thumb drive, or other problems wouldn't make it disappear. When my last computer crashed, I lost several additional lists of articles and other data that will be hard to redevelop. I just wanted to make sure that sort of thing wouldn't happen again. John Carter (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I seriously have a concrete proposal to start a Bibliography from scratch and taking it to featured list status but that is too much work for me. Will you be willing to help? Just a model list, hopefully that will encourage other editors to create Bibliography articles and nominate them for FL. Solomon7968 (talk) 09:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Not knowing directly exactly how such guidelines get developed, having not been involved in that process very much, I would definitely be willing to try. Guidelines for bibliographies, and for content of articles of reference/encyclopedic sources, would both be really useful. I don't know how many reviews of some reference sources I have, only to basically throw up my hands because I have no clue how to structure the article content relating to the content of the work in question. I just now looked, because I've never dealt with writing MOS before, and saw w:WP:WORKS, which seems more oriented toward discographies and filmographies, so there don't seem to be any extant related works. I'd be game if you are. John Carter (talk) 13:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No!!!! I was referring to create a *list* from scratch to FL. Creating yet another guideline is frankly a waste of time. Just to be clear I am intending to create a Bibliography of English and American Literature from the books cited in the reference book The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. I proposed this to you some months ago, quoting the discussion here:

The Bibliographies listed in the Eighteen Volumes w:The Cambridge History of English and American Literature is probably of interest to you. It is available in HTML format online and all of the books are public domain. Solomon7968 (talk) 17:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I actually download the four volumes of the American Literature already, and am going to try, emphasis "try", to get some of that material included here shortly. The 17 volumes of the English literature work, while also certainly worthwhile, is probably something to perhaps wait on, although, perhaps I'll try to get to it after completing the rest of the list and seeing which other of those works is at least started here. John Carter (talk) 15:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe you thought I was referring to proofreading the 18 volume works. I wasn't, that is indeed quite a big deal and better not be tried at this point. But we can use the Bibliographies listed in the work and collate a giant bibliography and get it to FL status. Massive work needed for sure but the end result would be something of a value. Solomon7968 (talk) 14:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

That is a really good idea, actually. and having an exemplar page would really be useful, probably better than a guideline. The one reservation might be the scope of the list, given that the two fields taken together form a bit of a SYNTH problem, but I just in the past few minutes received word that my current situation of limited mobility (hospitalization for gastrointestinal problems) may be ending by the end of the day now, which would allow me to go out and find a second source or second sources to use to establish the absolutely unambiguous notability of the list(s), but I can and will try to do that in the next few days.

My regular work week runs Monday thru Wednesday, 12 hours a day, so that might it harder to really be able to do much of substance before Thursday, but I can try to have some basic material together for use by then. John Carter (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you aware of the Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books? It converts a Google Books URL into {{cite book}} extracting the metadata. Creating the list is not so difficult, just copy pasting the lists from Bartleby.com and searching Google Books for the URL and metadata extracting by the citation tool. But raising the Bibliography to FL status is a lot of work. We need individual book reviews for every book listed with at least some portion of the review paraphrased to prove the notability of the book. That's a lot of work! I think if/when created this list is going to be the longest article on Wikipedia with te most number of references. Indeed something to be proud of. Solomon7968 (talk) 17:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The one reservation I have at this point is whether to make one British-American list or one American and one British list. The latter option would seem to me to be more likely to not be subdivided. Where possible, I think Elsevier's book on best encyclopedias, the Guide to Reference Books in a recent edition, or some "core collection" articles in recent journals would probably be among the best sources to use, along with, possibly, any descriptive commentary in other more recent reference works, particularly ones with similar scope. John Carter (talk) 22:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed on this, I will opt for separate American and British list. Back in 1923 there was very few if any secondary academic studies regarding other English dialects most notably Indian English. Discussing two English dialects together while ignoring others is indeed Synthesis as you say. Solomon7968 (talk) 07:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Book access?

Hi John, I was wondering if you can access Van Willigen, John (1979). The Indian City: A Bibliographical Guide to the Literature on Urban India.  from any library. It is the only bibliography of its kind I can find, solely about cities of any particular nation. If you can access it, I think it would be a good idea to create a list of the public domain books specifically for Wikisource. Solomon7968 (talk) 11:35, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

The nearest library with it to me is over 150 miles away I'm afraid. It might be possible to go to Wikipedia:WP:RX and ask for some information from it, though. There do seem to be some libraries in the vicinity of some editors I know, and they might be able to get ahold of it. John Carter (talk) 21:47, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Did I do this correctly?

It feels strange not to be adding more of an edit summary when I validated this page, but no changes were necessary, and that seemed to be what other people were doing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. If no changes to a page are necessary, then the automated edit summary of /* Validated */ is all that is required. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Index stuff

Thanks for the vote of support.

BTW are you a fan of Rice Burroughs? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Um, gee,what would make you think that? :) Yeah, I read most of his books as a kid, when they were in paperback and had a lot of the covers by Frank Frazetta, including the iconic cover for A Princess of Mars. I read a lot of SF in general as well. John Carter (talk) 16:05, 31 December 2014 (UTC)