This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:GLAM. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Just a thought, but might Template:British-Museum-object be useful as an article-space template (rather than Talk:-namespace)? It does after all serve a purpose for the reader - highlighting that the object can be seen in person somewhere. Could be the first of many. :-)
Some sources being used in articles have been superseded by other writers. Is there a recommended list from each department for key sources and possibly "bad" sources?
First off - kudos to the BM for doing both the WiR and the Backstage Pass. I hope it works out for both parties. Just a few thoughts from me :
I wonder if Liam can do something with UCL students? Once they finish their exams they'll have some time for this kind of thing, they're nearby and some of them should know a bit about the relevant subjects. The main downside is that they won't be sober for a week after exams, but I'm sure an Aussie is used to working under those conditions!
Might there be scope for a "cut-down" Backstage Pass event on a Sunday? No curators or trips behind the scenes, but if an Internet-enabled room could be made available people could trip between that and the collections? It might work better for those who can't make a weekday. Perhaps with Liam on hand to help people find their way through the catalogues etc.
Considering the massive variation in Wikipedian experience shown by attendees yesterday, it may be of great benefit to hold a couple of 'Wiki-101' type workshops walking the newer users through how to create good articles and some of the tools and templates they can use. I was fielding quite a few questions relating to consensus, vandalism, copyright, sock puppetry, role of an admin, dealing with lobbying, quality sources, etc. All good stuff but worth covering in a preliminary session with the support of a few long term contributors.Fæ (talk) 12:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Talking of which, it has to be sensible to make the most of stuff that's already available before we launch content raids. Is there stuff that their IT dept can do to make catalogues etc more user friendly? Perhaps they could construct cite web tags for people to copy off a webpage?
It seems to me that if you want to introduce BM expertise into the wider Wiki community, you'd get a lot of bang-for-buck if curators could assemble annotated packages of links to reference sources for WikiProjects;sources to avoid can be equally useful. My work on old Scottish stuff was transformed by discovering the RCAHMS database for instance. We've started doing something like this at WP:WikiProject Clans of Scotland#Resources, and there's an unannotated one at WP:WPMS#Resources_for_writing_articles, but WP:WPASK and WP:NORSE have no equivalent yet.
Just generally, introducing subject experts to the Projects would be perhaps the single most useful thing to do, I know I was rather surprised to discover that there was any kind of organisation behind Wikipedia!!!! Those four projects above are obvious ones, aside from WP:ARCHAEO and its daughters, WP:NUMIS, country projects like eg WP:NIGERIA and ethnic ones like WP:CELTS. It might be worth plugging the Backstage Pass directly among those kinds of Projects? Incidentally, as a generalist who tends to fill in the gaps left by others, I'd be happy to stand aside to make way for the real Project specialists if spaces were limited. The Wellcome or the Kensington museums are probably a better fit to my specialisms, but the BM fits a lot of my enthusiasms. :-)
Another way to make the most of subject experts' limited time would be to encourage them to peer review article content, particularly the big general articles. Sometimes it's not easy for enthusiastic amateurs to identify the gaps in a general article, or to be overly influenced by a source with a minority viewpoint. That's not to say that professional academics don't have their own biases, but it would be a big leg up in improving such articles. Again, being able to point people to particular references would also be useful.
On a related note - I can understand why curators might want to encourage articles on their pet objects. But it's worth pointing out to them how their outreach might be much greater by weaving the object into a more general article. Thus Papyrus gets 100x the readership of Abbott Papyrus. More readers are interested in the general, the curators in the specific - and editors are caught in between, trying to balance the two!
You can regard the USP of the BM as bringing global culture to a city where it can be seen by a lot of Wikipedians. I regard that as a special opportunity to do something about the global biases of Wikipedia - and in fact the BM has a special duty to broadcast those global objects back to their home countries. So if I was looking for articles to focus on in particular, I would avoid the UK-centric Our Top Ten Treasures and go for something that is really iconic on a global scale. If you go to the final room of the Ife exhibition, you'll see a wall that any Wikipedian would recognise as an "In popular culture" section. With all due respect to the Top 10, none of them have anything like that kind of ubiquity in British culture, although the Lewis chessmen might come close for the ga/gd Wikipedias.
So I'd suggest the Benin Bronzes as fitting that requirement, as well as being a popular article that is pretty shabby right now, and en.wiki is one of Nigeria's "home" wikipedias. You could regard that articles as a bit unrepresentative, because more is known about the bronzes than many archaeological finds - "Dunno who made it, dunno why they made it, here's some speculation about its uses and a bit of information about what it's made of. Pretty though, isn't it?" In general I don't think the FA - or even GA - processes are that well geared to that kind of article, where there's simply not that much to say about the object. Perhaps Hoa Hakananai'a might make for a better example, or one of the obelisks or something. Another approach might be to make the most of temporary exhibitions whilst they're there - I see Ife doubled its pageviews in March - assuming that the lenders are OK with image rights. Or perhaps there is some South African object that might be topical in the next few weeks - unless an Aussie doesn't want to talk about World Cups....?
Finally - this is perhaps one for the Backstage page rather than here, but perhaps it might help if both the Wikipedians and BM staff indicated some of their target articles in advance, people would probably get more out of it if they could do a bit of background reading? Le Deluge (talk) 15:35, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Informal review checklist
As part of this afternoon's discussion with Liam McNamara, we came up with a few ideas for generic questions that may assist peer review / informal review (or potentially review of an article by a curator):
Does the article include correct accession number(s)* in the article?
Is there a pithy lead as well as a fully descriptive main text? Does the lead appear valid compared with the BM online collections entry?
Are the sources valid and impartial?
Does the accuracy compare with any BM website for the same article/area?
Are the recommended sources on the BM website used?
Are there any significant gaps in sourcing?
Does the text seem impartial and unbiased?
Is there context for the history of the object (collection history, provenance as well as when created)?
A suitable check-list could help as an efficient way for BM contributors to provide feedback on key articles. It was envisaged that any recommendations for improvement could be tracked on the GLAM/BM page as a means to encourage contributions from interested editors. Fæ (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't mind taking on the organisation of reviewing, I just need to think a bit about how best to organise it - do we want fields on the BM banner perhaps for "needs review"?Le Deluge (talk) 10:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good. It would be neat to have an automatic review "backlog" so that BM staff (and other interested experts) could pick up the next review and bang out their observations given 15-20 minutes of effort, then in a similar fashion layman Wikipedians can ferret through the observations and go through a "burn-down" improving the article over a few days and gaining satisfaction by a nice upgrade in page status. Fæ (talk) 12:38, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
In the case of Ginger (mummy), I have applied the standard peer review template using the topic of History. If we want to avoid special processes, it might be neat if the project page could include a bot-list of BM-related articles using {{PR}} as this would be a great to-do list for volunteers and BM contributors. Fæ (talk) 07:53, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello
I have been poking about in various BM-related pages and came across this. I have been making a few articles to do with 100 Onjects. I also started this list User:Chasuble/List of objects in the British Museum's Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan but sort of gave up on it as it seemed too many objects were not really notable. My initial aim was for the page to be a list of all the 'highlight' objects in each dept and do a page on each one I could then link to the list. Anyhow, if there is anything on it that is of use to you, please help yourself. Chasuble (talk) 16:43, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it's an amazing list! But yes, it is probably too difficult to maintain especially given that many of the objects are non notable and also that it would need to be updated any time the BM changed its displays. What I can see this article becoming is the second "department-specific" article after British Museum Department of Asia. Do you think you could re-jig it to match that kind of style so it could become the "main article" linked from here (British_Museum#Department_of_Ancient_Egypt_and_Sudan) and also incorporated directly into the BM navbox? WittyLama
Accession numbers
We need a consensus on how to reference accession numbers (two letter dept code + "big number") and potentially use the same info box on all articles. It was noted that the BM website uses the department based accession number in the text of associated articles but uses a unique database identification in URL names. There was some discussion about the possibility of the BM being able to handle accession number references (the BM search engine will recognize them).
In an example updated article Ginger (mummy), I have quoted EA 32751 in the infobox. The BM highlights web page and the collection database include this number. This should not be confused with the digital image identifiers that the collection database also quotes. Fæ (talk) 22:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Witty lama and the BM guys have been thinking quite a bit about this - and apparently there's been arguments in the past about musuem references in infoboxes which came out against "because it's not inherent in the object". Personally I think that's a dumb argument, but apparently that was the conclusion - and it seems that {{Infobox artifact}} has an id field ??? Of course, we could do what we like with a new BM artifact infobox - do we want one? What fields would we want beyond Infobox artifact's name=/image=/image_caption=/material=/size=/writing=/created=/discovered=/location=/id= ?? Le Deluge (talk) 10:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Having now used the default artefact infobox, I'm not sure it would be a great improvement to have lots of special BM fields. The default location, id etc. are pretty intuitive and I would tend to fall back on the KISS principle. The BM folks may like the idea of a special BM style for infoboxes but considering we have a special navbox and a special BM object page footer, again this may be over-egging the pages. Unless someone points out a significant missing element, it does not look like a good rationale for a separate template... We could however extend the infobox artefact template, for example better object history fields (such as an acquired date) or add a couple of customizable fields for rarely used qualifiers such as date destroyed or date restored. There seems nothing in these additions that would not benefit non-BM objects.
(Re: numbers) I've played around and created {{British-Museum-db}}. The online collections database is indexed by the unique and simple accession number as seen in the objectid url parameter. Weirdly, the BM missed the opportunity to start quoting this number on the collection record itself, so the text invariably would have the reader use the non-unique and inconsistently formatted department-based big number. As per the templates we currently have, there is benefit to a layman reader of any BM-related article of knowing the BM/big number for any artefact as they would be able to see it being quoted in later articles, or indeed see it labelled that way if on display in the public galleries. I suggest the objectid/accession number is seen as a more gnomic method of generating a URL, but of far less benefit to the layman. Regardless of any debate in the BM, this seems a simple rationale for Wikipedians, though if there is any debate here it would be easy enough to have a quick RFC to check consensus.
(Re: terminology) I am aware that I have been using the terms "accession number", "big number", "identification" rather loosely here and in the documentation for templates. We could do with an authoritative definition of terms used by the BM, perhaps someone from the BM could point to a definitive statement for in-house citation style and terminology that is recent enough to take account of the on-line collection website? If there is no suitable, simple, authoritative current document, perhaps something could be drafted with the intent of updating the collection website help pages...? Fæ (talk) 13:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
I have created the essay User:Fæ/BM refs on using and formatting the British Museum registration number in Wikipedia articles. Comments and corrections welcome. Fæ (talk) 08:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
In the case of the PD number you quote, this is a standard registration number, see the essay for the explanation or refer directly to the BM help page. Fæ (talk) 22:52, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Watchlist
Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Mike_Peel/BM is a great resource, but I was wondering if there was an easy way for interested editors to add BM-related articles to their watchlists? I have handrolically cut & pasted the current version but it would be neat to press a button and have my watchlist updated. Fæ (talk) 05:29, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
To my knowledge, they can't be added to people's watchlists in automated ways. I'm glad that you find the page useful. For anyone wanting to update the lists: the raw source lists can be generated at [1] (just those tagged with BM-Related) and [2] (including Category:British_Museum and selected subcategories). Mike Peel (talk) 23:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Books about the British Museum
Hi all. I've posted a (very partial) list of books about the British Museum that are available in the public domain on the archive on wikisource - does anyone have any (either from this list, or separately from it) that they particularly want digitizing/making available via Wikisource? Mike Peel (talk) 23:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Infoboxes
Must we have these on everything? I have image preferences set large, and they have a very bad effect on the lead image, which is often the only one, for nearly all these articles. There is a much less intrusive template for the registration number which can be used. The view at Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts, under which many of these articles fall, is against the blanket imposition of these, leaving the decision to the local editors. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Where on the Visual arts page does it discuss this? All I can see is a set of recommended infoboxes. I note that articles on the FA list on the same page often lead with an infobox.
I rather like infoboxes on articles about an object or place, particularly when these are strongly related to articles in the same genre as it gives a sense of cohesive style. Fæ (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
See WP:VAMOS, and regular discussions on the talk page - and for example yesterday's main page FA, where someone added one (not for the first time) which was quickly removed by the regular editors. I think you'll find the majority of recent FA art articles did not have infoboxes when they passed FA, for example the BM-related The Disasters of War. Of course there are a number of drive-by editors who try to impose them everywhere. I have no objection to them for many subjects, but they raise special issues for art, as I have explained in the discussion linked above and elsewhere. Johnbod (talk) 18:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Based on practical use for BM articles, I have added the non-BM specific parameters of place, period and registration to the infobox. These are optional but make more sense for excavated items and those with complex identification. In the case of BM artefacts, this will help distinguish the department/exhibition/big number from the registration number where this is appropriate. Fæ (talk) 09:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
I have knocked up a script for my own use and others may find it useful: User:Fæ/BM refs/imacro. The script generates content for {{infobox artefact}} and other templates based on the BM collections database record. Drop me a note for suggestions and improvements. Fæ (talk) 07:49, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Photos required
Not sure if this is the right place to put this. The new page on Hedwig glass, which is up to be on DYK, could really do with a photo - is there any chance anyone in London could nip into the BM a take a pic of the one on display there? (Room 34, Islamic World). Is there a page where we can put in requests for BM objects that we would like photographing, either for existing articles or proposed ones? Chasuble (talk) 14:29, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
What is this for? It seems entirely superfluous to what is already quite a complicated category tree? Is it needed for the stats? If so it should be on the talkpages. Johnbod (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I'll take out the hidden category from the templates (they were already there before I tweaked them and I 'cloned' the object template to make the db template). I agree that the talk page headers which automatically add categories should be sufficient and articles probably need rather more refined categorization than auto-categorization can handle. The only exception would be the stub template as a transient stub category is fairly conventional.
Does this mean we can simply delete the category (and the categorisation of all those articles currently listed within it) without harm? Can this be done by a bot rather than me manually deleting the category from each of the articles, please? WittyLama11:54, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
If they persist then they might have been added by hand. However, I'm not sure about refresh times. Before rushing to fix these, your cache of the article and/or category may need to be refreshed and (maybe) give it a few hours to ensure the new template propagated across Wikipedia. Taking the example of Crystal skull I can see that Category:British Museum-related articles does not appear on the article itself and yet is still listed in the category even after a hard refresh. Anyway, leave it for a while and maybe check it out again this evening or tomorrow. Fæ (talk) 12:02, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
I put my hand up and say I added some yesterday when I saw other articles on objects had them. After that I got into all sorts of confusions over some of the commons BM categories so decided to steer clear of cats altogether! I'll undo my ones and then will leave well alone, promise. Chasuble (talk) 14:55, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
BTW, the relevant policy that applies is PROJCATS. I suggest this is kept in mind for future changes in the way we categorize these articles. Fæ (talk) 17:19, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Nice essay - well thought out. I added a bit too. Currently nothing links to it other than this link. Consider linking it more formally from the GLAM/BM page and also the work you've done on the BM Database formats essay - they should be more easily findable. I will show the DB one to the tech staff on Monday to see if they've anything to add. WittyLama10:35, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Proposed category
BM department name has not been used consistently for categorizing articles. I propose that we create Category:Artefacts from Africa, Oceania and the Americas in the British Museum (unless someone can think of better wording) so that these artefacts are associated with department name rather than more general qualities. For example Crystal skull was found in Mexico, is kept by the BM Africa, Oceania & the Americas department and is currently classified under category British Museum.
This is precisely one of the things that I was going to do myself and if you want to do it go right ahead! "Ethnographic" was a former department that got re-named/merged and so our category tree doesn't match the current structure in the BM. Well spotted. WittyLama10:27, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
It also seems to fly in the face of BM practice re Museum of Mankind, a page which has been swallowed up by the building which hosted it. Perhaps we need an article on Ethnography at the British Museum, and the category retained and dealing with what has been regarded as "ethnographic" by this department. THis is actually quite a big question.Harrypotter (talk) 18:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I think this is more of an argument to expand Ethnography at the British Museum rather than for a useful additional category. "Category:Artefacts once on display in the Museum of Mankind", or equivalent, seems less than useful and the article itself could summarize any exhibition highlights. The alternative of "Category:Ethnographic artefacts at the British Museum", or equivalent, again is problematic as this could be apply to almost any artefact. If the general topic of "Category:Ethnography at the British Museum" were to exclude artefacts then the contents would seem overly limited to be of any use (any category of less than 8 articles would seem trivial) and only duplicate an article of the same name. Fæ (talk) 09:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
In the context of the British Museum "ethnographic" is a former department - not a definition of the subjects which, as Fae says, could apply to anything. Things that used to be "ethnographic" and "africa" are now all within the department of "Africa, Oceania and the Americas". WittyLama16:49, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Is this article related to the BM? Could someone with a familiarity of the subject to check it? It's a bit weirdly written at first blush. WittyLama23:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
People who worked in British Museum departments that are now part of the British Library
Last week I created an article on Eric Grinstead who was an assistant keeper in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum during the 1940s through 1960s, before the British Library split off from the British Museum. Does he come within the scope of this project as his working career was spent at the British Musuem, even though his department is now part of the British Library ? BabelStone (talk) 11:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
always tricky, but I'd say BM given that's what the organisation actually was at his time. If you asked him where he worked he'd say BM. WittyLama
With regard as to what to do with these, perhaps as a thankyou for the support of uk.wikimedia.org they could be used as prizes to promote more projects of this type (any school outreach initiatives going on)?
I was wondering if the GLAM/BM experience of using these during our events is to be compiled into some short published user feedback for Openmoko? Fæ (talk) 11:57, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I think as you can see above (and elsewhere) the whole concept of prizes is considered verboten so we'll have to come with something else. Heaven forfend that we thank/encourage people with prizes... WittyLama12:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I hope nobody is getting bent out of shape over a rather technical question of governance. As there is plenty of good will from all parties and everyone has kept an eye on the COI policies, I would expect advice from forums such as COIN to be fully supportive of our work. A COI statement might be useful for the project, making it clear how we avoid these issues and such a statement would avoid these questions if linked to from project pages that mention prizes and collaboration with the BM.
Note that I have raised the point in a friendly way on User talk:Jimbo Wales as Wikipedia should have clear cut processes enabling "us" to be supported and promoted by organizations on a non-profit/non-commercial basis without the possibility of being caught out by overlooked COI issues later on. If only our Members of Parliament were as transparent in their partnerships. ;) Fæ (talk) 13:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
the "people" section is a seemingly random collection of people who are in some way related (former staff, major donors, people who used the reading room..)
The "places" section is a series of places where some of their objects came from originally. This is both incomplete and in my mind irrelevant to the navbox
The "Objects" section has a random collection of objects which are important but not in any objective way.
What I propose is the following:
Greatly reduce the number of "people" to those who are absolutely crucial (e.g. Hans Sloan, Current Director etc.)
Remove the "places" section altogether.
Expand the "objects section to have a more studied (as far as this can be measured) collection of key objects - at least one from each department.
I agree, though better yet might be having the departments (still linked) in the left "margin" as headers, and the objects to the right of them, so sorted by department. Many templates of this sort include everything applicable, though that might not be possible here. Johnbod (talk) 00:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that is a very good idea, especially if the objects listed can be expanded to cover all objects with a non-stub article, as most readers will be far more interested in objects than people. BabelStone (talk) 12:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
As well as the obvious preference for listing the best FA/GA articles, I wonder if there's scope for somehow including the most popular artefact articles? If nowhere else, such a list might be useful on the GLAM/BM page in order to ensure these pages have good x-links and layout. Using the treeview tool gives this top 10 for 2010 hits to date: ~ Fæ (talk) 16:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the People section should eliminate all previous and current Directors, notable Friends and Trustees that are named on associated lists that can be linked (not sure if there is one for Trustees)? This would only leave a few notable people who happened to have designed the building etc. I suggest those with weak connections are also removed (Agatha Christie for example has no mention of any connection on her BLP article, so by definition any connection must be a weak one). Fæ (talk) 11:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
On Agatha Christie - there was an exhibition at the BM called Agatha Christie and Archaeologyref here (it's not entirely clear from that article whether Max Mallowan's excavations, which she worked on, were funded by the BM). The connection is a weak one because the Wiki article on Christie is not very comprehensive, rather than her connection with the BM being a weak one, I'd say. Chasuble (talk) 12:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and taken an axe to this template - dropping the "place" section completely and cutting about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people out (leaving the remainder classified into "donors" (loosely defined) and "architects". (my changes aren't showing immediately, it takes a bit for the template-fairy to work). I think this can still be shortened but the main problem remains the "objects" section. I did ask the departments to tell me their "most important objects" to decide what to put, but they didn't respond. So... I say we pick 1 or 2 from each department to make the list of objects. WittyLama23:19, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
A lot easier on the eye... In the absence of any BM preference, how about the one most visited artefact from each department (maybe highlighting FA articles too)? In my opinion the list of donors feels a little listcrufty, perhaps this could be cut and made into a list article to be referenced in the same way as the list of directors (this would also give the opportunity to put "loosely defined" in context)? Fæ (talk) 23:29, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
If you want to create an article Donors to the British Museum then go ahead - but I think that way dragons lie... We would have several problems there - 1) separating financial and object donors. 2) does anyone who's ever given stuff to the BM get listed? 3) some of the objects are not willingly given by the original country so "donation" could imply POV, 4) many objects came in from excavations with funding to the expedition leader coming from the BM - are they "donors" or staff?
I think we should just keep chipping away at "people" as we see fit but what needs work is "objects". Most visited from each dept. works for me to start with. Highlighting the FA's would be odd as they are not correlating with importance. WittyLama23:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Apologies. I added the template to Nereid Monument, and Nereid Monument to the template, without reading the discussion here. Feel free to remove if you don't think it merits a place. But I did also alphabetise, which I think should stay. Grafen (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Not a problem Grafen - I think JohnBod's suggestion earlier is a good one - having the departments listed down the side with a series of objects listed next to them - one line per department. I'd do it, but I don't know how to set up that kind of code in the template. Anyone care to have a go? We can debate which objects should be in or out after that. WittyLama17:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I have put a version in WP:GLAM/British Museum/Archive 1/sandbox, please revise as you see fit. All departments have their own sub-list and the list of people are taken out (remove comment marks buried in the template to have them back in). Each department needs a bit of work getting populated with artefact articles before this format could replace the old version. Fæ (talk) 21:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
It took me a while to catch on, but we need to separate departments with long term exhibitions from those without. For example Portable Antiquities and Treasure has no permanent exhibition. I'll tweak the draft again. Fæ (talk) 07:37, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Good one separating out the "non exhibiting" departments, but I think that needs a different name - makes them sound like they're supposed to be exhibiting but havn't, which isn't true. On another note, I've added back in the first line of "people" as i reckon there should be some folks there. However, going back on what I said yesterday (above) it looks like "donors" or "patrons or "trustees" should be created as a list article as a way of combining all the people into one place. However - I don't think I should be the one creating such articles for perception of CoI issues. You can start with category:trustees of the British Museum and also look at the BM's current trustees listing. Most, if not all of those people should have articles already. WittyLama11:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Ok - the new version is now live. I've moved the section about Coins and Medals into the "other" group for the moment but we can move it back later if we find any Notable objects in the collection that need articles in their own right. Does the navnox need a thumbnail picture perhaps? I've also re-jigged the new Trustees of the British Museum article with a "former" subsection that greatly needs improving but I think we'll need a "history of the BM" book as a source for that because it's not on their website. WittyLama00:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I think it is fair to consider any article about artefacts in the British Museum or about the British Museum should be in British English rather than any other variation. One of my personal niggles is the repeated used of the American "artifact" rather than British "artefact". With an eye on consistency for FA/GA articles, can we agree that it would be reasonable to change all spelling to an OED recognized variant? Perhaps we should tag articles suffering from doubtful spelling with the {{British English}} talk page header? Fæ (talk) 00:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
But the (print) OED says for "artefact" only "Variant of "artifact"", and rather oddly calls the latter "rare". I know the modern COD says differently. I agree British English should be used, except for North American objects perhaps (first come first served then), but I'm not sure we should be too prescriptive on "artefact". Johnbod (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I was going by askoxford which is the Compact OED, but, after checking with the full OED I think you have the spellings the wrong way around as the full text states "In contemporary use, artefact is the usual spelling in British print sources (and is the preferred form in most publishers' stylesheets, etc.), but it is rare in U.S. use.". Sorry to nitpick you back! Fæ (talk) 09:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I said the print OED, which is as I reported, and not adjusted in the 1933 supplement. That's why they say "In contemporary use". So the usual English spelling has apparently flipped since 1933 (or the OED is wrong, again), but I think both spellings can be regarded as acceptable British English still. I notice ChrisO uses "artifact" throughout in Cyrus cylinder. Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, by full OED, I was referring to the the full on-line OED database which is pretty comprehensive. Checking my 1987 print of the Shorter OED, I can see that neither spelling is recommended and 'artefact' is listed as an alternate, so it does seem that they have "flipped" in the online latest version, probably based on the "correctness" of the etymological rationale supported by level of current usage in publication. The evolution of this word in the OED is more complex than I would have expected. Fæ (talk) 21:48, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure that there is an overwhelming argument for insisting on British English to discuss an object if its only connection with Britain is that it has ended up in the British Museum. Grafen (talk) 10:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree, this is entirely logical. I would like to take a common-sense approach with the proposal that: Unless there is a stated consensus on the article talk page, articles about artefacts found or created in English speaking countries default to that local variant of English whilst artefacts from non-English speaking countries default to British English with the rationale that the vast majority of publications about artefacts in the British Museum are written in British English.
Don't entirely agree with that. Just because the papers on an object are British-published does not, in itself, give an object strong ties to Britain. The established convention where an article does not have a strong national tie is to follow the English variant used by the first author of the article. I would be completely against "correcting" the spelling of an American author who chose to write an article on a British Museum object unless the object is specifically British. I am not even sure that there is a case for British Bronze Age objects being forced to be in British English; after all they come from a culture that was not using any variety of English. SpinningSpark11:25, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Surely a consistent choice of English variation should logically be related to the artefact or associated publications and never the nationality of the Wikipedia editor? If this were the case then would we be forced to stick to the language used by the first editor, or the one who contributed most, or the language used by the majority of editors...? Fæ (talk) 11:42, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
British archaeological journals such as Antiquity and the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, British archaeological monographs such as those published by East Anglian Archaeology, Oxford Archaeology and Wessex Archaeology, and the English Heritage Manual of Style all use "artefact". I think we need consistency when editing under the BM banner. Chasuble (talk) 14:19, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we should do anything different because we are "editing under the BM banner", or indeed that that is what we are doing. A search on the BM website gives 7 hits on "artifact" vs. 113 "artefact", suggesting it is still a UK spelling, if a minority one. Johnbod (talk) 14:33, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Spelling errors on the BM site do not set a precedent, particularly as I find 3 instances of "Repair if necesary" in artefact maintenance records. Fæ (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
The argument for consistency of spelling system is no different here than it is anywhere else on Wikipedia. The consensus at the moment is that Wikipedia does not have a preferred spelling system, consistency is only demanded within articles, not within projects or subject areas. You may disagree with that position, but individual projects should not try to wheedle policy changes in by the back door, the guidelines set here should be flowed down from the MoS. That is, they should be expansions and clarifications of the MoS, not contradictions of it. If you want to attempt to change policy you are welcome to try, I might even support you, but you can't do it here. You might want to also consider that setting a Wikipedia wide spelling standard is inevitably going to end up on the American standard. SpinningSpark21:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting. I was originally avoiding using WPBannerMeta, partly due to what I felt was a desire of Witty Lama to avoid making this outright a WikiProject; the non-standard appearance was deliberate. I therefore have mixed feelings about the change, but if it's preferred, I don't have a problem with it. To some extent, I think that facilitating GLAM interaction, and running GLAM-related projects, ought to be a WikiProject—and a major one at that—but I've not yet taken the time to do a good analysis of my position. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}17:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Interesting point. Yes, eventaully, there might be "Wikiperoject GLAM" to oversee all forms of GLAM-Wiki relations, which could be kind of cool. Not sure if that's shoehorning the existing systems into a new form of interaction but it's possible. There's equally what Pharos is trying to do at WP:Culture and it's subpage WP:Culture/NYPL which will be interesting to see how it develops. As for the meta templates - I'm happy either way. Perhaps as a compromise the could be made smaller and both on one line? WittyLama17:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, we have there the difficulty in using meta-templates: when you use a meta-template, you have only as much freedom as the meta-template allows—and I don't think WPBannerMeta has a "smaller and both on one line" option. This is why I took the approach I did initially: it scavenged some subtemplates from WPBannerMeta (to easily handle important but annoying bits like categorization), while using a generic tmbox-style table for most of the outer structure (to provide plenty of freedom in presentation). As for the WP:Culture page… it's not quite what I'm imagining, I suppose… but it's heading in the same general direction. I think I'll write a blog entry to clear my thoughts, and then come back (here or elsewhere) to start a new thread concerning that idea. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}19:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
The whole idea of how do we interact with the cultural sector (let alone academia, the media...) in a sustainable and mutually beneficial way is obviously something I've been trying to work on for a while too, so if you come up with an answer please tell me :-) One of the severest problems as far as I can see is that if there are people who are actually willing to be Wikipedia-liason within cultural organisations as part of their actual job and therefore to take the relationship professionally, they are highly likely to be booted off Wikipedia for being a paid editor or for having a conflict of interest... We need to come up with a way of allowing people to be engaged with the content of Wikipedia professionally (without undermining our principles) in the same way that we can perfecly accept that some of the techies behind mediawiki are paid staff and some are volunteer devs. But - this conversation should be at wikipedia talk:glam rather than here. WittyLama21:56, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
COI / paid editing
I think this project sails a little close to the wind. I appreciate that the museum is a not for profit academic institution, and I'm happy to be part of this and to explore how we can collaborate with such institutions. In so far as this project furthers our aims of making the sum total of human knowledge freely available to everyone, and the museum's aim of making its collection available to everyone, then I think we have grounds to cooperate. However I'm uncomfortable with both the gift voucher program and anything that measures this in terms of clickthroughs to the BM site.
Have we had a debate on Wiki as to where to draw the line when working with museums? If so where was it? ϢereSpielChequers10:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Would you like to raise a friendly request for advice on WP:COIN? This would help get some independent viewpoints, clear the air, provide a formal log of the issue having been discussed and perhaps benefit the project with some advice on how best to guide new contributors or suggest some refinement of the general GLAM page. My personal view is that as BM staff are declaring their interest and primarily (I think) acting in the role of expert reviewers there is little chance of a real problem.
(ec) The other point of driving click-throughs is more problematic. The BM benefits, but by offering themselves as free supporting experts in order to encourage improvement of Wikipedia articles as measured by Wikipedia defined criteria seems a highly neutral approach. This would be a good area for advice as using BM click-throughs as a project motivation seems debatable whilst Wikipedia article hit-counts seem quite acceptable for a Wiki-project. However the BM doing their own analysis on the benefits of collaborating with Wikipedians separate from any Wiki-project is a non-issue so long as this is not a direct project motivation. The prize is measured by the FA criteria which again seems a carefully chosen neutral way of offering an improvement bonus.
As a side note, my largest contribution here has been to create some BM-related templates. When considering the design of templates (now being widely used in BM related pages) I have deliberately avoided any unnecessary BM promotional styling or text and have not been blanket-adding or overly promoting the templates if editors prefer to provide information and links in other ways. The nearest thing to a promotional template in design is the British Museum navigation template (not my design) which seems fairly standard compared to other organization related templates (compare with US military templates which are far more specially styled, some even include logos). As it happens, I have no possible COI myself but would encourage contributors to explain if they do have some sort of direct association, even if not a current employee of the BM, in order to ensure that the project is doing the right thing and is seen to be doing the right thing. Fæ (talk) 11:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
The clickthrough motivation relates to the BM's internal aims, which is fair enough. Liam is, temporarily, straddling both camps, but is careful to avoid COI, in particular by not editing BM-related article text, except to tag, categorize, assess etc, in this period. I agree issues like this need to be considered carefully, but I think the project is proceeding well, to everybody's advantage. Johnbod (talk) 11:24, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I've been very careful to try and avoid CoI with this project (by deliberately NOT having this project focus on the articles about the organisation, staff or politically-contentious obejcts) and also to provide reward and incentives to Wikimedians that are not unnacceptable paid editing. but as you can see here you're not the only one with concerns. However, I am at contstant pains to stress that the Feature Article Prize are a thank you prize/incentive/reward for anyone who writes good quality content on a subject area that's relevant to the mission of the (public) institution. This is quite different to commissioning a specific person to either a) write the article about the institution itself or b) only "paying up" if the institution has its POV inserted in the article. The FA Prizes (which - by the way - the Hoxne challenge is not a part of) is the museum deliberately saying "you can chose the subject, we'll help you improve it and we will accept your judgment of whether it's good quality". Recall also that the prize isn't cash - it's a voucher at the museum shop so the money stays within the organisation.
I'm pretty sure this fits in the first point of the "normally acceptable editing" part of the paid editing proposal which states: "A non-governmental organization without specific financial interest in the content rewards an editor with a prize for creating a high quality web resource [is normally acceptable]."
oh and as for the importance of clickthroughs - yes, improving the quality and visibility of WP is a goal in its own right but when I'm reporting on the relationship between the two communities the traffic between them is obviously an important measure. Furthermore - I consider anyone of Wikipedia's viewers who leaves WP to go to a museum research catalogue via a linked-footnote in an article to be a successfully served customer of our encyclopedia. We're ultimately trying to encourage people to seek out those resources. Finally, it's interesting to report on clickthroughs because that's the kind of data wikipedians have never had access to before. WittyLama14:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the vouchers, it looks similar to WP:REWARD which is permitted, so it shouldn't be a problem. If BM staff are editing I would err on the side that they are experts in their field of knowledge and that we should therefore encourage them to edit (it's mentioned at Wikipedia:COI#Subject_and_culture_sector_professionals). Personally I see no problems with the arrangement here and projects like the Hoxne challenge sound great. 86.7.19.159 (talk) 20:52, 18 June 2010 (UTC) (Smartse)
The bottom line is that the British Museum's aim is compatible with Wikipedia's mission; therefore it is in our best interest to allow this. (This is in contrast to requests you see on Elance, where Wikipedia is abused as a vanity press.) MER-C03:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
I have created this template in a similar way to some of the WP templates to easily add details to any BM artefact image on commons. The template is not intended to be used in any blanket fashion but does help add a link to the BM on-line collection database and may be particularly helpful when looking for images likely to be used in articles. Suggestions for improvement welcome.
That's neat, but as an aside I thought we'd all agreed that "object" was the correct default term covering all items in the collection. And at least there's no spelling issue with that. Johnbod (talk) 13:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I thought there was; anyway there should be. The Museum itself uses object, which is pretty standard across the museums sector. Ginger the naturally mummified corpse is not an artefact, and it would be an unusual term to use for a 19th century watercolour. Artefact is really only the standard term in archaeology & maybe anthropology. Johnbod (talk) 14:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
That's a fair rationale with good examples. As this is probably not of enough interest for a wider discussion, I've gone ahead and made the '-object' version the template name with the variant names as redirects in line with your preference. Fæ (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
The link to the BM collection database does not seem to be working on any of my uploads (e.g. see here). Am I doing something wrong, or is the template broken? BabelStone (talk) 23:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
You were using it right, it broke after adding "objectid" as an alternative parameter name to "id". It looks okay now I've tweaked the code again. Fæ (talk) 00:06, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
Both Royal Gold Cup (nom] and Cyrus Cylinder (nom) seem to be very close to getting approved as Feature articles (with Royal Gold Cup seeming to have a smoother ride so far). What, if anything, can we do to get these articles over the line? Do we need more reviewers? Or do we need someone to copyedit or fix footnote styles? How can I help? WittyLama10:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I think RGC is probably ok thanks. What it needs is another few days with no opposes, and/or more "uninvolved" supports from FAC regulars (like Casliber on Cyrus). And it hasn't had an image review, but specialist image reviewers seem thin on the ground now - it should be ok on that. I think Cyrus should be ok the way it is going, with Chris responding to the comments. The promotions tend to happen at the end of the week. I put Sutton Hoo up for GA, but that is moving pretty slow these days, although Sweet Track (see the talk page) has been picked up for review & looks good; that might be promoted this week. I'm not sure if Burney Relief is ready without further work, & a knowledgeable nominator, & in view of the queue left it. Johnbod (talk) 10:29, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I put Burney Relief up for GA rather than FA yesterday. There seemed to be a few potential discussion points (probable copy editing needed to trim the text, doubtful use of galleries for comparative artefacts, special formatting used in references) that made going straight for FA seem a bit of a stretch. In the past I've tended not to get too involved in the actual GA/FA process, so I'm hesitant to start dishing out review comments myself without more time to absorb the guidance. Fæ (talk) 10:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I missed this because it is in the "World history" section. It should go to either Art or (probably best) Archaeology, both of which have shorter queues anyway. Just cut & paste on the nom page & change the section in the article talk page link. Or I can move it. Johnbod (talk) 11:19, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Are the categories within commons:Category:British Museum by room meant to only refer to objects that are currently within that room? Or things that have ever been within that room? I ask particularly because I'm writing an article about the Ormside bowl which was temporarily in room 2 (the room for temporary exhibitions or showcases so this could potentially apply to quite a few objects as they move around) but is now presumably on its way to York Museum. JMiall₰15:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I have been interpreting this as applying to permanent exhibits. For example Ginger has been in the same gallery for a century. Transient exhibitions (such as those in the Reading Room) would not seem appropriate. Fæ (talk) 15:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, just what's there now I think, although if they went away for conservation or an exhibitioon that would be ok. Johnbod (talk) 15:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I have added a clarification for selection criteria to the commons category itself, hopefully to avoid potential confusion. Fæ (talk) 16:03, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
It occured to me that it would make some sense if on commons the category applied to the image (so where the picture was taken) but on wp the category applied to the object (where it currently is). JMiall₰20:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Isn't that how it is now - the by room cats are only on Commons, & I don't think even the Louvre has by room WP cats - there just aren't enough articles. Johnbod (talk) 23:54, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
While we're on the subject, should files just be in a "by room" category, or in a dept category as well? At the moment practice varies. Johnbod (talk) 16:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
I suggest both cat trees apply at the same time. I would like to always see department and then room for permanent artefacts (other special categories may also apply). It sounds like it might be a good idea to update the Wikipedia:GLAM/BM/Categories essay with the same comments. I see no reason why the same structure should not apply to Commons. Fæ (talk) 16:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
if people feel the "by room" categories are useful, then ok. But personally I'm not sure about their use. Categories by department or by culture or geographical origin make sense by "by room" is only useful for people who are going through the whole building vacuuming up photos, or, people looking for objects in the BM having first seen them online (in which case the caption should say where it is, not the category). WittyLama12:25, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
I rather agree; the Louvre has them, but they have way more photos (and rooms) than the BM & something is probably needed. I'd rather see more breakdown by type within the departments, as the number of images grows. The Department of Prehistory and Europe in poarticular covers a huge stretch, including of course the Romano-British stuff. But I don't object to a by room tree as well. Johnbod (talk) 13:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
I'll defer any improvement of the categories essay for the time being. Categories tend to go through stages of organic growth and then redesign (and sometimes heated debate). When categories begin to look over-full then we can discuss again. I agree that by-departments (and then by collections) is most logical. By-room is a little arbitrary but arguably useful with clear criteria and there are endless potentially problematic categories (e.g. human remains, Islamic, disputed provenance...); all bridges only worth crossing if needed. Fæ (talk) 14:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
pageviews
I tried to run the pageview statistics for the category:british museum to update the quantitative section...
However, what this masks is the fact that the stats.grok.se failed to compile most of the last week of pageviews - thereby missing all of the activity we've generated. I've written to Erik Zachte to see if he can do anything but at present we have no way of measuring our impact on Wikipedia for this month :-( WittyLama17:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
We're doomed! Worse things have happened in the BM basement... Just have to count the new articles and guesstimate. Presumably the BM can track any significant changes in site traffic for related objects? Fæ (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the BM can track inbound traffic from Wikipedia, but the pageviews is the only quantitative measure that we have so without it, it is impossible to report quantitatively about what we achieved this month. Bugger! WittyLama19:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I've been told a way to factor this in and get a month reprt on the basis of the days which did report correctly. Will fix tonight hopefuly. WittyLama13:08, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
stats.grok.se has been having a bad month. In June some days were severely underestimated, and some weren't counted at all. Here's what page views for the main page usually look like and here's what they looked like in June. That pattern of under-counting for June is Wikipedia wide (eg: [3][4][5]). As the main page views hover fairly consistently about 1.5 million (Dec 09, Mar 10, Apr 10, May 10), I estimate that the June figures are about 30% below what the actual figures are. Not all page view counters have been affected this way; for example while the castle article apparently got 59,000 views last month, according to another program it got 142,000. As articles relating to the British Museum now have their own project banner, perhaps filing a request here would be useful; the list of the most popular British Museum related articles would be generated monthly by a bot.
While page views are a guide for how interesting a subject may be, it doesn't guarantee people read to the end, or even past the first line. Also, I've not seen evidence that improved quality means more people going to a page, although in theory I would expect that more people would read through a well-written article than a badly written one. Unfortunately, I doubt that can be proven by the available statistics. Page views aren't the be all and end all though; a properly researched article is far more useful to readers, even if it's a small number, than an incorrect one that's hard to follow but lots of people go to. Nev1 (talk) 11:53, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Closing out my time here
Today is my last day at the British Museum. I'm writing up a blogpost and also a mailout to the list. I've also changed the lead of this page to indicate that my time here has concluded. This of course does not mean that I won't be watching the page - but merely that I'm no longer going to be able to devote my full-time resources to it. People wishing to contact curators via the one-on-one process or people wishing to claim FA prizes can still of course contact me. The British Museum, meanwhile will be discussing internally if/how they wish to continue this relationship formally.
Well it goes on ....100s of images from the BM ...
As a result of the days at the BM we have 100s of images that have been transferred by one of Magnus's tools from where they were on Flickr. Lots of these are now transferred but are uncategorised. Anyone with an hour to spare might look here. Nearly all of these are "ours". There are several more 100 to come. Any categorisation is better than none. PrtableAntiquities.com has much more data but the license is not commercial. (but you can't copyright a fact). Hope you can help Victuallers (talk) 19:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
How can we tell if the items are BM or not? I'd suggest creating a commonscat "Portable Antiquities Scheme" & putting them all there initially. Johnbod (talk) 19:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think you can tell if they are BM or not. The images are used on the PortableAntiquities website. Many are from metal detector finds that may never get to the BM but are interesting. JohnBods suggestion is a good one. I had intended to add such a cat when it was loaded but I must have missed a comma or something as it didn't appear. I was hoping to speak to Magnus again to see if there was an efficient way to add it now its 60%? loaded. It would be a good idea to have a holding category. I thought about adding "artefact" to each one but that just makes that category unusable until these are better sorted. There are also some useful unrelated pics - pictures of MPs like Barbara Follett etc but there are also some that are non notable and no use. I was hoping to speedy delete them, but there doesnt appear to be an easy way to get rid of them. I guess we could create a subcat of "not useful" and then get an admin to delete them later en bloc.
I'm pretty sure we have some goldcoin photos from the Hoxne Hoard if we want them, but the article already has a lot of bling, is a gold coin needed? Remember there are several special things about this hoard. The amount of gold coins isn't one of them. ϢereSpielChequers23:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
a) A Bot is going to allocate the PAS category- BabelStone - its booked but it may take a while for it to be written and run. Other cats are obviously very useful. I have added dozens tonight using Hotcat. b) The Hoxne Hoard attribution was vocal from Dan. c) Not sure the pics are useful to Hoxne hoard article except that it is good if the commons cat supplies lots of extra info for further research. Victuallers (talk) 21:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Good to hear about the bot -- I thought there must be an easier way to do it. Once the pics are all one one place it will be easier to review and categorise them; and I will try to put some time aside to help out. BabelStone (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Infobox for hoards ?
The Template:Infobox artifact used on the Hoxne Hoard, Frome Hoard, Stanchester Hoard pages does not seem entirely appropriate in these cases, as the parameters are not designed for a group of objects. For example, what does the size parameter refer to in the context of a hoard? and does the date created parameter refer to the date range of all the objects in the hoard or to the date that the hoard was buried? Would it be a good idea to create a special hoard infobox with more appropriate parameters, such as date buried, date range of objects, container (e.g. box or ceramic pot), contents (for a summary of the hoard contents) ? BabelStone (talk) 19:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Prima facie, it seems a bit overspecific. How many hoard articles do we have? I wouldn't create an infobox unless I knew that it would cover either at least 10–15 articles, or a very-tightly-interlinked set of at least 3–6 articles (the latter of which I doubt is the case here). {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}19:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Just remember that infoboxes aren't always the best way to convey information. Sometimes a sentence in the lead is sufficient. There's no requirement that an article must have an infobox. It's something of a personal judgement whether you think they're useful. Nev1 (talk) 20:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
It is possible to add user definable label/data fields to the template. This might be a preferable option to creating a new infobox type. Fæ (talk) 20:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Given the main problem with infoboxes in this area is always the oversimplifications they lead to, I would think this one would be asking for trouble myself. Johnbod (talk) 22:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Quoting descriptions for objects from the on-line collection database and copyright
The detailed descriptions (not the images which are my personal photographs) of File:Achilles_and_Troilos_vase.jpg and File:Oedipus slaying the sphinx.jpg have been challenged on my Commons talk page as potential copyvio as they include text from the BM online record for the same item. I am slightly concerned about the precedent here as I would rather accurately quote the BM record (which the text links to) on the image description rather than introduce errors by paraphrasing. I would also rather include this text rather than relying on a reader navigating to the BM website as this is an obvious aid to searching. I do not believe there is any copyvio as the website T&C's allow for "research by individuals or charities, societies, institutions or trusts existing exclusively for public benefit".
I have sent an email to web@britishmuseum.org today asking for clarification on the website T&Cs but some of the people contributing here may be able to advise. I shall add the result of any reply I get from the BM. Fæ (talk) 09:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I have been deliberately not pasting in the BM detailed desciption into the description field of the BM Object template as I assumed that it would be against Wikipedia's strict copyright policies. Given that the template links to the BM database page for the object is there really any need to include the detailed description for that page directly? BabelStone (talk) 09:54, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I would like to avoid getting trapped by Close paraphrasing challenges. It would be hard to stay accurate and create fully original non-challengable text for what may be fairly technical descriptions. In my email to the BM I have asked "As there is no intention to use images but only some of the text from the object record, could you please confirm this is a fair interpretation or if not then what you would consider reasonable."
Please keep in mind we are talking about a purely descriptive paragraph for an image of a BM object correctly licensed and released on Commons, not text for an article. We may wish to limit the amount of such text but it could be formatted as an attributed quotation (as it is already linked this would be straightforward). Fæ (talk) 10:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
There is something important to take in account: when you write something in Commons or Wikipedia, you publish it under a free license called CC-BY-SA. This is implicit and you can't choose another license (for the texts). That means that if you paste texts from the BM site to Wikipedia or Commons, you solemnly declare that those texts are under a free license and can be freely used by anyone, including for commercial use and so...
The question you should ask the BM is: do you agree to see your texts released under a CC-BY-SA license? If they say yes, I'll build you a statue ;) Bibi Saint-Pol (parler) 12:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
The email already went off, let's see if I get a reply. As before, I think that including an attributed quotation as an extracted description is a non-issue, it would only be the maximum length of a quotation that we would need to reach a consensus on. If the BM clarifies along the lines of any extract from a record of "less than 50 words is reasonable use within the T&Cs" then this would make a working guideline even without a full CC-BY-SA release (which avoids issues such a someone creating a text mirror of the entire database; possible if they were to grant such a release...). Fæ (talk) 12:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't know the answer - I would think it is ok. But note that some collection database pages include extracts from books, following a heading such as "Smith, 1978". Obviously these are different. Can't you just put them in quotes, or otherwise clearly attribute them by saying "British Museum description" etc? Johnbod (talk) 12:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
I have only asked about the description field, the full record sometimes includes these other items such as a full transcription of text, restoration records, bibliographical details etc. A full replication of all this would not seem suitable under the current T&Cs and that's why I have only asked about the description which for the majority of records represents a small proportion of the text. Fæ (talk) 12:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
Sadly I've yet to receive a reply from the Museum. In the absence of any statement of their preferences, I have started adding "~ Description extract from BM record" whenever quoting text direct from the online database. I shall also try to limit such extracts to, say, less than 50 words at a time. Fæ (talk) 10:21, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Note: Copyright law would not apply to any description on permanent display bt the article. Copyright does not apply here. So you could use a picture of the articles description. Victuallers (talk) 10:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, the labels do vary from the database (sometimes the labels have more up to date information, quite noticeable in the case of new displays for the '100 Objects' series) and as a general good practice I take a shot of any label when taking a photo. Cluttering Commons with shots of labels would seem a bit pedantic (plus they are normally rather hasty poor quality shots compared with the care I might take with a main image) but I will consider transcribing the label for future photos and noting that's the source of the descriptive text. Thinking about it, sometimes the display has interesting diagrams which might be useful on Commons... Fæ (talk) 10:56, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Good question ... I have created several BM articles but not addede them as didn't want to overblow the template. Would our best 100 articles be an idea? Obviously best is a blend of well known and having a decent article.Victuallers (talk) 10:42, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
We actually had a fairly lengthy debate about that template already: Wikipedia_talk:GLAM/BM/Archive_1#Template:British_Museum. It's been considerably revamped since how it looked before the project. Yes, it's tricky to work out what should go in and what shouldn't, but the rule of thumb was "a few" from each department - the ones that you would save first in a fire :-) WittyLama04:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Sutton Hoo has been nominated to be listed as a Good Article. A review has started and is now on hold while the reviewer does more background reading on the topic. In the meantime a few points have been listed for improvement or discussion here. This project is tagged on the talkpage as one that has an interest in the article, and any extra assistance is always appreciated during a GA review. SilkTork *YES!10:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
I came across this stub on a shield of the C4th BC in the BM. I've just added a category & won't do more, but I hope someone will. Johnbod (talk) 00:51, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
I tried to add this to my userpage boxes, but it wouldn't sit inside the box of boxes {{Boxboxtop... Does anyone know why? Johnbod (talk) 16:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Waterloo Helmet looks interesting (but nominally on wikibreak) I think the meme/myth that vikings wore helmets like this would aid the click rate. Talking of clicks & pics I see BabelStone has added a pic for Copper Bull and he has added a quite a few pictures to A History of the World in 100 Objects. Quite a few of these would make good DYK articles. (I have one on the Hawaiian feather head dress in preparation.) Victuallers (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
And nearly 10,000 collateral hits for Newstead Helmet as well. With 2,100 hits on the 7th (day of sale), the massive increase to 55,000 hits yesterday must be down to its spot In the News on the main page. To my surprise there were a couple of vocal oppositions to including it in the news on the basis that "tons of these types of items sell every day at auctions (legal and illegal) round the world" ! BabelStone (talk) 14:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
All I know is what it says. It implies its 20 pounds for wikimedians which doesnt sound too unreasonable ... travel will cost me at least 3x that - more if I can't find a bed for the night. Victuallers (talk) 10:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi all, yes, in an earlier draft it was free for members. The Chapter decided however to make it a consistent number. Obviously, this does mean a higher number, but I would like to stress that this number is still below cost (especially if you eat more than your fair share of catering!) :-) I would, obviously, very much like to see as many people who've been involved in the GLAM/BM project turn up at this event. Hope to see you there. WittyLama14:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Hi, at some point there was a discussion about getting the Hoxne Hoard as an FA on the front page, and I think 16 November was the planned day, because the anniversary of the find. There's nothing here - [7] . I was going to make sure that one of the objects from the Hoard was on the Brtish Museum home page on the same day - does someone who was involved in the Hoxne Challenge want to propose this? - maybe best not me in case it is viewed as COI, and I dont know the FA protocol! Cheers Matthewcock (talk) 08:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The ratings for the project were done by Liam, often following those used by other projects already tagging the articles. It seems to me that, in particular, there are too few "Top importance" objects - currently only the Elgin Marbles and Rosetta Stone are so rated. Looking at, for example, the "High-importance" B class objects on the grid, I think that at the least Admonitions Scroll, Sutton Hoo, Cyrus cylinder, Mildenhall Treasure and Portland Vase would qualify, & maybe others. It occurs to me we might ask the BM themselves to comment - maybe they have lists? Perhaps we should pick a number - are we looking for the top 100, top 50, or whatever? Another issue is that a wholesale re-rating will affect before-and-after comparisons on the grid. We should at the least record the old totals before we do it. I have re-rated the odd article but not very many. What do people think? Johnbod (talk) 23:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Nooo - bad idea. Top is a pretty exclusive rating, typically only 1-3% of a project's articles get it, and typically only 10-20% of a project's articles are even High. You don't want to dilute things too much, although obviously in an immature "project" like this more of the important articles will have been created by now, and the less important ones are still red links. Top should be there to split out the articles of really global interest - the overviews of the museum, and a _handful_ of the "superstar" objects that are household names - Rosetta, Elgin, maybe one or two more. The History of the World objects will probably be mostly Highs, possibly some Mids. I know some people really hate the idea, but pageviews can be a useful shortcut for assigning importance. It shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all - I'll say that again as people usually miss it - pageviews aren't the be-all-and-end-all, but empirically they can provide a pretty good guide. I've looked at large numbers of articles over several different projects, and there's a pretty good correlation in general, Low articles generally get <10 views/day, Mids get less than 100 views/day, and Highs get more than that. OK, it's more like 275/month and 2750/month if you're being picky, but the grok.se tool allows you to eyeball it by days and recently its monthly stats have had several days missing. You need to apply a "common sense" fudge factor sometimes to knock it up or down one level depending on whether there's some spurious pop culture link boosting views or a "strategic" importance that isn't captured in pageviews, but it won't be two levels out. FlagSteward (talk) 23:24, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Er, yes I think. You're missing several points here. Firstly this isn't a project, and will never have that many articles. Looking at other projects, I haven't done the maths but the 1-3% is probably about right, but with a large project that will produce often well over a hundred articles. You seem to think 4 is about the right number (for objects). That is far too few imo, but I'd be interested to hear arguments. I'm not suggesting that 50 or 100 or the articles we have should be Top importance - large numbers of the objects in a putative list of top obkjects don't have articles at present at all. We should probably have fewer than 10 at present. Sutton Hoo gots about 700 views per day in May 2010, actually more than Elgin Marbles. Cyrus Cylinder gets typically about 200 per day, & so on. Admonitions Scroll is new and Chinese, and obviously gets far fewer, but it is comparable in significance to East Asian art as the Elgin Marbles are to European art. It might be true of a smaller museum to say that it has less than five objects that are in a class of their own, but I don't believe this is at all an accurate view of the BM, nor do I believe the museum thinks that way. With all due respect, to say "The History of the World objects will probably be mostly Highs, possibly some Mids" is nonsense - in fact the median for them is probably low, and many are probably not notable individually at all (which is why they don't have articles). The objects were not selected on that sort of basis at all; the series is not a highlights tour. Johnbod (talk) 23:52, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I know it's not a project, hence my use of quotes. But the "article demographics" are similar. I don't share your lack of ambition for GLAM/BM, it could easily become 1000+ articles and around 20 of those should be Tops, a couple about the museum and a dozen or so about objects. Yes, that does mean that 8-10% of the present article count would be Tops (assuming all those potential Tops have been created) - I'm not saying that it should be 1-3% of the current population, I'm allowing for this being an immature population of articles.
To my mind the importance thing is saying something along these lines : given the resources we have available, our medium-term aim should be to get all Tops to FA, Highs to GA, Mids to a workable B/C standard, and Lows start/stubs that exist and are available for expansion, but we're not really bothered about just yet. Is that a reasonable starting point?
The thing is, that getting a FA consumes a whole heap of resources, maybe 4x that for a GA? Perhaps it's rather less for these kinds of articles, they're better WP:RS'd than most. So by pushing for an FA on say the Mildenhall Treasure, you're withdrawing resources that could get 4 articles like Standard of Ur to GA. In my view only a very few articles, on the exponential bit of the pageview curve, deserve that much Wikilove, our readers are better served by getting lots of those "quite important" articles to GA. That would be reflected by a "flatter" distribution of importances. IMO anyway, I think people get a bit snobby about GAs but this is another example where perfection is the enemy of "good enough".FlagSteward (talk) 13:10, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
At the risk of getting my fingers burnt. Can I say that this is a useful discussion. I agree that the BM "project" does have too few TOPs. We should remember that the BM has already excluded lots of of low importance things. Just getting to the BM and putting an object on display implies a level of importance denied to many artefacts. I thing the pageview idea is a neat way of sorting things although the "100 objects" is a poor example. Some of the objects are of Top importance other "objects" like "pieces of eight" are not even specific objects. I would support a review if Liam's first pass that tried to reduce the number of lows and mids... and I would expect it to be imperfect. Victuallers (talk) 15:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
"putting an object on display implies a level of importance" is a distraction, we're not really talking about importance in absolute terms. Inasmuch as it can ever be agreed on in the first place, and the BM does have a fair bit of rubbish accumulated in its role as attic for the Empire... WPBIO replaces the term with "priority", which is much closer to what we're really talking about. This tag is being used as a way of allocating finite resources within the "project", so it's more about relative priorities than absolute "importance". I do have some tools that would help with this kind of stuff, but it might be better to wait a few weeks for any pageview-based analysis, just to let things settle down a bit after the great editing surge of the summer. If people are looking for potential Tops, then I don't know if all the departmental articles have been created, those kind of overview articles can be very useful to readers and a great way to drive traffic to object articles, but they're difficult to write. FlagSteward (talk) 11:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Just to weigh in here myself briefly:
I initially did the ratings with a rough idea of importance based on "what would you save first in a fire" approach :-) Top importance I deliberately kept low as these are the things in my mind which should be absolutely first thing in your mind when you think "British Museum". This is not to say that things like Cyrus Cylinder are not exceedingly important but I was making the ratings relative to the BM rather than relative to humanity at large. That said - I'm very very happy for people to start re-rating things, not just the 'importance' but also the 'quality' side of things.
There is also a point raised a couple of times in this thread - this GLAM/BM page is not a wikiproject but it does behave like one. I specifically created this in the GLAM subspace after feedback saying that a wikiproject needs to have a demonstrated community willing to run it. I would humbly suggest that I think the ongoing activity at this talkpage and in British Museum stuff in general tends to the conclusion that there now exists a reasonably active community - enough to justify making this into a fully fledged wikiproject. What do you think? WittyLama14:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree the project (or whatever) has sustained itself beyond Liam's residency far better than expected, & is now more active than most full projects. Obviously I hope this continues, especially beyond the 100 objects series. I'm not sure what extra benefits being a full project would bring, but I think the move can be justified. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
I was surprised we were not a project when we started, however now I feel it doesnt matter. I think there is some benefit to being in GLAM as I think we are a good example. The Smithsonian doesnt seem to have had our success. Welcome back Liam. If you disappeared on purpose then it was an excellent move ... as we have kept going. As Johnbod says we have done a lot of a A History of 100 objects but the fact I'm most proud of is we have "A History of 100 Articles" .... and with "no more stubs" than 1st June. Cheers Victuallers (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Ah! I hadn't noticed that fact - we've increased the number of BM-related articles by 100 but with no total increase in the number of stubs. Cool! Yes, I have been deliberately not being very active here so as not to pretend to WP:OWN. Also however, I've been very busy talking about what a good job we've done - the GLAM sector worldwide is very interested in the BM project. For example, I'm in the Netherlands at the moment, going to give this Keynote next week: http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-plenary-2010/ This will be for 350 of Europe's culture sector organisations and they are specifically wanting to know about Wikipedia and cultural outreach we've done. I think that we can call that a successful project!!
As for the Wikiproject thing - Yes, we're currently acting like a wikiproject anyway so there would be no specific advantage in making a namespace changeover. Indeed, it's kind of nice being over here as "GLAM/BM". The Smithsonian project hasn't really started so we can't know what good stuff they'll come up with - same for the GLAM/TCMI project too (I'll be working there for 2 weeks in October so I'll report about that). I think the principle advantage of moving to a Wikiproject namespace would be to formalise the thing as something ongoing external of the context of the residency - this might also encourage any new people to join who weren't involved in what we did this year. WittyLama23:21, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
Just to say, we here at the Museum would feel honoured if the GLAM/BM project became a proper Wikiproject, were that the right thing to happen. On the "importance" issue - the Museum does have highlights that we urge people to see if they have only a short time on the Museum, but as any curator will tell you, one object isn't more important to us than other - just like children, we try to be equal in our love. But that said, let me know if you want some help upping the high importance objects! Matthewcock (talk) 08:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Matthew.
So.... What do people say about moving this to the formal Wikiproject namespace, and archiving the GLAM/BM page to be "merely" about the residency project. This differentiates ongoing work with work that was achieved this year (primarily whilst I was on site). WittyLama05:58, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Just a rephrase suggested. By all means lets move it and leave the ephemera concerning the residency archived here, but I want to keep the list of articles. The rate has severely dropped off but I'm hoping to arrange some DYK's on the main page for the GLAM conference. Anyone care to join in? Anyone speak French? Victuallers (talk) 16:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
100 Articles
Late estimate just in - The Library of Congress inspired one person to create over 200 articles by releasing some cc images. Nice search designed by the LOC see hereVictuallers (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Move to Wikiproject
To return to a theme I've raised before: is it time to move the ongoing efforts on British Museum related articles to a dedicated British Museum Wikiproject and archive this page about the residency project as complete/closed for posterity? WittyLama08:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. (as an aside ... I wonder whether if there was a WikiProject British Museum, it should set up an A-class assessment process. That could be even more interesting! ) The Land (talk) 13:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Fae - are you referring to my idea of a BM wikiproject being "a rather narrow long term project" or The Land's idea of an A-class assessment process? WittyLama01:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
As per the choice of indentation, I was referring to a BM WP. I am not that experienced in :en assessment processes (though I am well experienced in assessment off-wiki) and my only intuition is that SMAR(T?) assessment criteria with the BM in mind could be reused to help all GLAM articles. Fæ (talk) 09:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
"too narrow a focus" and "unlikely to sustain longterm interest" were the reasons given when I first started the BM project as to why it should be placed here rather than creating a wikiproject. Johnbod, I believe that was you? :-) However, I think we've clearly demonstrated that there is ongoing interest in BM-WP work (from both directions) independently of having a resident. As such it would make sense IMO to move future collaboration out into a Wikiproject-proper and keep doing what we're already doing (e.g. Book of the dead is now a Good article). WittyLama00:34, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
My reasons for keeping on pushing this idea is that this page was set up as a home-base for a specific event but it is now, in all but name, a reasonably active Wikiproject with ongoing interest. This is great to see! But since it's been demonstrated that this subject area can sustain a Wikiproject's-worth of interest I think hosting the discussions here might now be hindering its growth. The "old people" who were involved with me in the residency period are still here but "new people" who have no relationship to that would probably not join. WittyLama07:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not against a project, it just seems odd to create a project around one institution rather than a part of the GLAM sector. A project with clear goals to improve articles on UK GLAMs, UK Archives or UK Museum Collections would seem more sustainable than a BM project which would imply the need to create separate projects for all the largest GLAM organizations. I am also not against experimenting as the project can be redefined if its scope needs to shift. Fæ (talk) 08:33, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
My preferred option would be a BM Wikiproject - we are one de facto, and there is no minimum size - but a taskforce would also be fine by me. The Land (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
This is my point - this project is already behaving as a Wikiproject would, and is actually more active/cohesive than most. Furthermore, if there were a formalised ongoing BM wikiproject then we could more easily ask the BM for some formalised/ongoing assistance e.g. an annual hoxne-like challenge, a few free tickets here and there, etc. etc. Of course, they would do these things already if asked, but it would be easier for them to point to an ongoing relationship than this page which is ostensibly documenting the residency project. WittyLama07:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Liam, from BM point of view, it would be good to have a new page to frame the ongoing relationship - around challenges, one-to-one collaborations etc. However, if that doesnt work from the Wikipeda side, and it would be better to keep within a more general GLAM:WIKI one, then that's fine too. Matthewcock (talk) 10:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
What about just archiving the residency project stuff to a subpage, and making the main page more generalized like WP:GLAM/SI? It does and should still behave in every way like a wikiproject, but it would be kind of nice to retain the cohesion among those 'GLAM' wikiprojects where we have an active relationship with the parent institution.--Pharos (talk) 17:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Any thoughts on this link issue?
Matthew Cock has been in touch to say that the BM is going to be moving http://www.worldtimelines.org.uk/ to their main British Museum domain sometime in the new year. As you can see here there are a number of links to the current URLs and these are going to die when worldtimelines.org goes offline. Is there any alternative to going through manually removing the links and then replacing them in a couple of months when the migration's happened? Does anyone know a method of semi-automating a job like this? Regards, The Land (talk) 20:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
A request at User talk:DeadLinkBOT might do the migration if we can agree the logical format rules for the new url based on the old url (I assume that there will be a point when both sites are alive and that would probably be the best time for a bot to run), though I have not used this bot before. Fæ (talk) 11:09, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Fae, it pains me to say this, but I'm afraid there wont be a time when both sites are live. There will be a gap. This is because we are closing the site down before renewal of hosting, and we dont have time to do all the design, build and migration before that time. We will have the site on an internal server in the interim. Matthewcock (talk) 11:31, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
The risk will be that some users will delete deadlinks as soon as they spot them. To reduce the chances of this happening the re-linking by bot would have to be ASAP after BM migration. Can whoever is doing the migration details advise as to how to auto-rename old links to new so the bot can be set up? If there is no easy relationship between old links to new, then we might have to repoint the links to a higher generic page in the hierarchy. Thanks, Fæ (talk) 13:12, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
You start by refing those you can - Blackmail & the recent mummy's should be easy. Or put a list on the BM website & use that as a ref! The Ipcress File was not I think "declared" as the BM, if we're talking about the library scene. The exterior shots were ? Imperial college at Sth Ken. - aka Royal School of Mines. I see London in film claims it used the main (circular) reading room, but I'm dubious about this - see the 5th row here. Johnbod (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
WTF??? Since when can you only start an article if it has a list of sources? Unless there is reason to believe an article is a hoax, or it's a biography of a living person, unsourced articles won't get deleted, so there is no reason not to create them. Anyway, my only comment on the article is that unless there's material to add to it, it might work better as a category, or possibly as prose in the main BM article, though I'm sure similar lists exist... The Land (talk) 09:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia's articles need to be dragged out of the Stone Age, and that means including references so that information is verifiable, which is policy. It should be standard practise to include sources; it may seem unfair as there are so many unsourced or poorly sourced articles on Wikipedia, but it's got to start somewhere. Nev1 (talk) 21:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for helping with this. I think fr me it is probably most useful in the long-term as a section of the main BM article, rather than a plain list/category, because I can then explore the detail, and get input from Johnbod and others. So maybe I wont fight it, and will develop it a bit further in my userspace, and then try again. 195.194.86.1 (talk) 10:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The Film IS the reference. Hitler died in 1945 - ODNB Churchill had a cigar - see this photo - This was shot in the British Museum - see the film credits in the film. If we have to use paper refs then what are you reading right now. Wikipedia uses refs to non paper docs all the time. Hope that helps Victuallers (talk) 20:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
British Library edit-a-thon
Those subscribed to the Wikimedia-uk mailing list would have seen this message from Mike Peel, but for those that aren't:
Hi all,
I'm delighted to be able to announce that we'll be running an 'editathon' at the British Library on Friday the 14th and Saturday the 15th January! I've put the details about the event up on the wiki at:
If you can come, please sign up there. Please note that the details are still preliminary and may change. I'll be adding more info to the wiki page as I get it.
A couple of key points:
Some British Library curators will be available on the Friday - if there are specific topics that you are interested in, then please let us know on the webpage so that we can make sure whether the appropriate curators will be coming or not. Sadly, we probably won't have many (any?) curators on the Saturday due to it not being a work day.
We're limited to around 20 people in the room at once, so it'll be first come, first served (with priority for Wikimedia UK members). We can overflow a bit into the reader rooms, but you'll need a reader pass to gain access to those rooms (info on how to pre-register for one of these is on the wiki page). You may also need a readers pass to be able to access the British Library's resources in general - I'm checking this with them at the moment.
How was the BM-related tag set up - i.e. who went through the articles, did they have a list of BM topics to work from, was any semiautomation used? And was it done before or during the residency project? Am just curious because I tihnk it's likely to be a useful preliminary stage to setting up collaborations with other institutions. The Land (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Good point. I'd ask Liam .... or Magnus (my guess). I think you can find a lot by searchng for "in the British Museum" but a tool that modded the talk pages would be useful. However Liam did assess the pages so he must have looked at them to do importance I presume. Oh and Happy Christmas to you and other readers. Victuallers (talk) 19:35, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
user:nihiltres was my main co-conspirator in setting up that pseudo-wikiproject article assessment system. I'll ask him to comment here. The articles were tagged on the basis of the British Museum category (and related categories) and then I manually checked every single one to start with and gave it a quality/importance rating. I also added a bunch more that were missing, removed some that were irrelevant and generally cleaned it all up! Took a damn long time too... but without that initial assessment, we would never have been able to give the comparative view that we now have in the "qualitative" section of the project page :-) WittyLama12:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
We used the pre-existing categories for the most part. Articles related to the museum already had categories for it, so it was relatively simple to use that as a basis for initial tagging. At some point Witty Lama asked me to check if there were any in the category that had been missed, so I used a bit of ad hoc AppleScript (Mac-only) to get a list of the items in the category tree from the API and trim out the ones already listed at the template's WhatLinksHere. There's a revision from my sandbox where I dumped what I came up with. I've still got the part of the AppleScript that retrieves the category tree. I was too lazy to make it work with categories that have over 500 members (it wasn't necessary in the BM case), but aside from that it's useful and I can post it in my userspace if anyone wants it. Aside from that, I'd suggest looking into tools like AutoWikiBrowser (Windows-only) or "WikiCleaner" (Java-based, can't remember where I found it) that might help simplify the tagging and list-generating steps. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}19:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Very interesting, thanks. I think this is going to be quite an important part of replicating the BM project at any other institution. So it might be helpful if it could be written up as a process... which presumably would go something like;
Create an institution-specific WikiProject template (is there any procedure here or do you just do it?)
Tag the institution and any other very relevant articles with the template
Look for any relevant categories existing for the institution and tag their contents (perhaps using AWB or similar)
Follow any links from the institution's page to articles about its exhibits and tag them
Search for articles about ojects/exhibits in the institution
Tabulate the results using {{Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/British Museum-related articles by quality statistics}} on a relevant page. (How do you create a template like that?)
I take it this is a good preparatory step for anyone who's in dialogue with a particular institution, as it gives some quantitative figures to point at? Happy Christmas to all, btw :-) The Land (talk) 16:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I've experimented a bit and set up Template:NMM-related for the National Maritime Museum... however, obviously that creates a lot of redlinks, which all seem to be set up for people who are creating a WikiProject. Any idea what I can fill those redlinks with that won't demand the creation of a WikiProject? The Land (talk) 17:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
Just in case people haven't had this on their watchlist page : Wikipedia:CONTRIB/Imperial. A Wikipedia society at Imperial would be an obvious contact point for all the South Ken museums, do we have any existing contacts with them? They're such an obvious target I assume we must? Perhaps the Imperial mob would be a way to awaken some interest at UCL, who could then be a local contact for the Bloomsbury museums? Le Deluge (talk) 20:44, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
We've had various contacts with the V&A & Natural History Museum, who were both represented at the GLAM conference last year. Not sure about the Science Museum. But I'm not sure student groups are the best contact point. Johnbod (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Vinnypatel is the point of contact for the new student soc in Imperial (which is the first Wikipedia student soc in the UK). When the BM event kicks off I suggest the student group gets a warm invitation, particularly for less experienced editors that might find the behind-the-scenes experience great motivation for getting involved. Fæ (talk) 11:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
British Museum / Wikipedia collaboration 2011
Event proposal & interest
Following the success of the Hoxne Challenge, and by popular demand, I have been talking to a curator here about another collaboration focused on particular objects in the British Museum collection and related subject areas – with a session at the Museum, and online/email collaboration for a period afterwards.
The subject area that we would like to propose to the Wikipedians that might be interested goes back even earlier than the Hoxne Hoard, to the Palaeolithic period, beginning very close to home: the Gray’s Inn Handaxe, collected by Hans Sloane. Jill, the curator, proposes that we look at a group of records - including objects from the period, such as the handaxe, but also those related to the collectors, like Sloane and Henry Christy, and whatever other articles come into the sphere. Some of these objects are on display in the Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery, because they tell a fascinating story of how people’s view of the world was changing at that time, influenced by the emerging disciplines of archaeology and natural sciences.
In late October, the exhibition that Jill is currently working on, Ice Age Art is opening at the Museum – featuring such wonderful objects as the swimming reindeer, which was in A History of the World. I hope that the collaboration on this material can extend throughout 2011 right up to include this exhibition and the publication of the catalogue, which will enable a whole lot of new references and articles I imagine.
Do let me know below here if you would be interested, and I will start to arrange a date for a session, and ask the curator to draw up a reading list / article list. I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone who was involved in the Hoxne Challenge about how we can change the format (if necessary) to make it work better. I personally think that a whole day at the Museum was too much, and that a half day would be better, and to allow more time for preparation/reading, and time after for Wiki work. Matthewcock (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm certainly interested! One rather inevitable difficulty on the Hoxne Hoard day was that we were presented with the copies of Catherine John's big book, and then about 30 seconds later with Catherine herself et al. to ask questions about it all. In ideal conditions there would have been about a month between those two moments, though it did add to the sense of urgency & drama on the day! The more we can do beforehand the better, which means accessing sources. In some ways it may be easier if we are dealing with a group of articles, rather than a single one, reducing the amount of treading on each others toes. There may be an issue in that many tool-type artefacts like axe heads - not so much things one can clearly class as "art" - maybe be best dealt with by type articles rather than ones devoted to a specific object. Category:Lithics has a large number of such articles, but mostly dealing with North American things like Clovis point and the many sub-types. This may not apply to ones with some individual modern history like the Gray’s Inn Handaxe. Something to bear in mind. Art of the Upper Paleolithic can certainly do with expansion. Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Ohh! Interesting! Yes, will definitely make it if I can. I second John's point about sources - the sources, as much as the experts, are key. A bit of reading before the event can make sure that the Wikipedians can make best use of the experts at the event by understanding the context and knowing the right questions to ask. Of course not many of us have access to research libraries, but we do have access to public libraries, and (cough) I've never found it hard to get hold of articles from any journal that's listed on JSTOR. The Land (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Matthew sounds good as you know I think we need to continue the idea. As you know it was the little articles that I found more interesting. Henry Chisty and the objects he was involved in are intriguing to me. I ve heard rumours that another museum will be revealling its special interest in the enlightenment period that I'm also interested in. I'll email you although I know that tsome above are aware of what I allude to. I'm certainly keen to see approaching a group. Christy's contributions or as The Land suggests "type articles". When I read stuff about a great artist (say Raphael) then it is followed by 'examples in the Met, Uffuzi, NG' etc. I think we cound be doing the same with artefects. A type article about prehistoric carvings might mention that there are examples in various museums.
Me too. Resurrecting some of the lesser used (or technically superseded) 18th/19th century sources or tracking a time-line of contemporary news articles to add 'colour' to articles about the collectors sounds interesting. I have just spent a day in the British Library ferreting out some 19th century documents and then came home to discover a couple of them already scanned in and neatly searchable at archive.org, though having an electronic version doesn't always beat the serendipity of noticing odd adverts and unexpected extra inserts bound in with an original, plus that exciting dusty book smell has yet to be simulated over the internet... Fæ (talk) 23:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Event options
Not only am I pleased to see the BM wishes to run this "challenge" event again but I'm wondering whether we can scale-up to have this as the centrepiece of a worldwide simultaneous "GLAM challenge day". Similar to the way the 10th anniversary has a central organisation page perhaps we could have a list of museums around the world that wish to host such a challenge and get several communities editing all at once - one in London, on in DC, Paris, Amsterdam... We would need to get support/expressions of interest from different museums and Wikimedia communities, and we would also need to write up the documentation of what is required to have a successful day (which we have learned from doing this last year). Perhaps Matthew you would be willing to write an invitation to other museums to join, thereby making this a BM-led initiative?? What do folks think about turning the "2010 Hoxne Challenge" into the "2011 GLAM Challenge"? There would be no overt competition but I think a bit of friendly rivalry between museums trying to get good quality content on WP would go well :-) WittyLama01:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Nice idea - you have a habit of taking an idea and raising it - a real challenge! However, I'm concerned that the symbolism of picking the same day for everyone would inveitably have problems for some of the collaborations - ie a day that was suitable at the BM might not be for another Museum (or related Wikipedians), thus putting them off. Also, its not for me/ the BM to take a leading role in this without talking to my bosses, and given the projects I have on this coming year, I think they would be reluctant. But let's discuss. Great to see positive response above BTW! Matthewcock (talk) 07:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I can see how the day thing might be an issue - you could perhaps do something without being too specific on day, just say that it is some time in February or whatever. Just in general, winter is good for Wikitime, as far as specific timings go I can't help feeling that it would be useful to involve UCL students, whether formally during termtime, or less formally during the vacation, there's hopefully a good resource of well-informed writing talent to draw on there. I wasn't at the Hoxne day, but from my experience of the original BM day I'd definitely say that a bit of time to read up in advance and get a feel for what the articles need doing to them is definitely needed if we're to get the most out of the face time. Having said that, I'm not sure I could make it this time, I'm still waaay behind on my wiki to-do list!
As far as subject, I quite see how the BM are more interested in specific artifacts, but as I said that day, where this kind of collaboration can really help from a Wiki-world perspective is in the more general articles. They're the ones that have the most readers, yet they are the articles that are much the hardest to write by the sort of interested amateur who tends to do much of the heavy lifting towards GA/FA, you do need that deep background knowledge of the subject and to be reasonably well up on the literature. Hence we tend to do a less good job serving the areas of most interest to our "customers". So I'd definitely vote in favour of targeting a general article, and then trickling down into specific BM artifacts, somebody like Christy would be far less of a priority from a Wiki point of view. Something like Art of the Upper Paleolithic would be one place to start, or any of the topics on the {{Stone Age}} and {{Paleolithic}} templates - to take a few random ones, Upper Paleolithic gets nearly 20,000 hits/month, Stone tool, Beaker culture, Mousterian are all around 7000 hits/month, Levallois technique half that, Lithic reduction is at 2000/month. Mousterian strikes me as particularly weak in comparison to Acheulean, which is only a bit more popular. These numbers are 10-30x the readers that Hoxne was getting back in May, although it has gone up from around 600 hits/month to around 3000/month as a result of all the work on it (and the FA front-page-ing was responsible for a one-off 70,000 hits) - Matthew, can you say how many of those are coming in from you? Le Deluge (talk) 21:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I think Witty Lama has been reading my mail (Well Ive stolen ideas off him too). I worked up a proposal for Wikimedia UK that took "the BM model" and ran it not on one day but in monthly bursts. Amsterdam run their day in April (say) and at that meeting their are reps from Berlin. Amsterdam do their thing. The following month (May?) there is an event in Berlin which builds on the best things that happened in Amsterdam and at that meeting we have the reps from Oslo. The following month there is an event in Oslo. The proposal was to just run it in the UK but flights for one or two might be in budget for keen museums. According to my plan each museum would run there own challenge day (The day might concentrate on other aspects like wikisource, pictures or articles in different languages). I think this might be called the "Olympic torch model" as I imagine the idea being passed from museum to museum. Obviously (lazy/poor) GLAM editors can take a virtual tour of Europe by joining in each day remotely. Any takers? I know of two museums who might be persuaded.
The problem I can see is language. It might be wise to start with just English Born speakers and strong English speaking (e.g. The Dutch and Norwegians, before trying more unusual locations. But in the long run the multi-language approach might be beneficial Victuallers (talk) 23:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
To take the point from user:La Deluge, Matthew - would the BM be interested in hosting a 2011 Challenge event if the subject of the editing was not specifically a BM object but rather a subject in which there is in-house expertise? Or, would it only really be of value from the BM's point of view if the editing was to be focused on an article that the BM can claim a direct relationship?
I also take the point from above that coordinating a single day where several museums run events simultaneously would be difficult. However I do think the concept of a museum challenge would garner more interest from a variety of locations if there was "an event" rather than merely "here's a project that you can replicate sometime". Of course, nothing's stopping people doing this kind of thing whenever they want already. I think the impetus of the BM saying "we're running this event about this article(s) on this day/week/month - join us!" would be huge. In terms of the practical difference from the BM's perspective I believe it would be nil - it is merely the BM declaring what it's going to do and asking other musuems to join in with their local communities (preferably in the same day/week/month). What do you think? WittyLama02:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree it would be unwise to have a project that you can replicate sometime, as Liam notes this is the situation we have at present and I guess is the default. The trick with my suggestion which is not as ambitios as a single global event would be to use an "Olypic Torch" metaphor so that the product for each museum could be seen as good for them.... but could also be a contribution to the projects conclusion. A final celebration at a location like the BM where the "Olypic torch" would finish is a good addition and gives the project a conclusion. However if the day/week can be done then that sounds great although some good comms and organisation may be tricky Victuallers (talk) 11:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
I see the benefits of publicising a GLAM/WIKI calendar of some sort, this would be handy to attract interest in small-archive initiatives as well as the larger museums. I can see that we are gradually evolving re-usable templates for GLAM projects though we have yet to grow a more generalized (and low-maintenance) action/request area where, say, a smaller museum such as the Brunel Museum (run by a handful of local volunteers) might ask for support improving articles about their collections or discuss potential collaboration events. The idea of a GLAM challenge would have to be geared in such a way as to still attract and encourage the smaller organizations where the number of related articles might also be relatively small. Fæ (talk) 12:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Just thinking of other things that might tick boxes among Matthew's overlords - you could explicitly go for an interwiki challenge, the same article in multiple languages. It would probably involve fewer institutions, which might help the availability thing and there's obvious synergies with France/Germany/Spain/Portugal if you're going for something in the vicinity of Art of the Upper Paleolithic. It's a good idea to "front-run" BM exhibitions so something in the Stone Age (artifact or overview or both) makes sense, but just looking further ahead, there's a lot of the peoples of western Asia among the Level 4 Vital Articles (our "top 10,000") which might represent fertile territory for future collaborations; Stone Age and Neolithic Revolution are both Level 3 (top 1000), the former isn't in brilliant shape. I know I said I'd help with some of the template things - I'll bump it up the list.... Le Deluge (talk) 12:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
I would suspect that leaving the topic/subject for each museum up to them - rather than us predetermining paeleolithic (or whatever) - would be easier... Sure, the BM has stuff/experts on that subject but recall that one of the points of the Hoxne Challenge was that it was something where the BM was the experts and had all the relevant resources available. If we predetermine a subject or subject area then we are by definition predetermining the range of musuems that can participate - in whatever language/country. Sure, there would need to be a list of criteria (e.g. nothing politically controversial, must have publications, must have experts on hand willing to participate...) but imagine if we determined the topic was "paleolithic" and then the Chateau of Versaille museum said they really really wanted to join in - do we say "no, sorry, you don't know about this subject"? WittyLama15:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
That said - Matthew - Would the BM be happy/interested in a "subject" challenge (like "upper paleolthic") rather than "object" challenge like Hoxne was? WittyLama15:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Well Versailles was responsible for some of the finest flint-based weapons ever made! And the UK photo competitions have shown that it's possible to organise a (broader than Paleolithic) theme that can work for just about everyone - "stone working" perhaps? But that wouldn't be the same as working on a specific article or area, where there's the possibility for synergies between the different groups.
I get where you're coming from with the "more the merrier" approach. But I can see there's also mileage in a smaller more focussed approach, you don't have to go for a big bang straight away when we're still working out what works. For one thing, exclusivity can break down barriers in the long term - it's much harder for critics to dismiss the idea when it's coming from the blue chip institutions rather than the ones that can be dismissed as "faddish". Also, rather than relying on external pressure from the likes of Liam, this puts more weight on existing relationships between curators/"Matthews" and their peers in the Louvre/Berlin/Vienna/Madrid. "Insiders" may be a better way in to the more conservative institutions, which in turn can be the most effective advertisements for the process further down the line, the best counter to accusations of faddishness. Obviously it's much harder to get people to sign up in the first place when it's not an article about one of their own "pet" artifacts, so in some ways the interwiki approach is more ambitious than the mishmash one. But it does allow for the possibility of synergies, working on articles where the key expertise is spread over mebbe 2-3 institutions. Dissemination into other languages seems to interest the BM at least, as something they can't readily do themselves, although I suspect they hadn't bargained for Catalan and Latin being prime targets last time! Arabic and Farsi would obviously be great ones for a lot of their artifact articles, I wonder if something separate could be done on that front. And collaboration rather than competition is just - so much more wiki-ish....! But this is just floating ideas, obviously the interwiki task would need a lot more organising on the institutional side rather than the Wiki side, so a lot depends on whether people within the institutions are interested. Maybe the mishmash task is less demanding in the first instance. Le Deluge (talk) 00:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, a lot does depend on what other organisations and wikimedia communities would be interested in doing. How about we focus on setting up the BM one first - chosing a date and subject area - and then we can advertise to other GLAMs and Wikimedians around the world if they would like to get involved in their own way (and what way would suit them best). WittyLama05:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry I haven't been back to the page for a few days, and realise lots of questions/observations aimed at me! I'll try and respond to all of them. Yes, we're perfectly happy to focus on 'subject' articles as well as 'object articles, provided those subjects are relevant to us, and at some point link to notable objects in our collection. I see that the GLAM/BM 2011 Challenge, as I will call it until we think of a better name will be on a group of articles that include both, and the articles included can evolve over time - I'm happy not to fix it - and let editors move around as they want. If it goes too far from our expertise, we'll say so, and leave it to the editors to decide what to do. On the view to pull this into something more meta (the relay, the interwiki, the cross-Museum); I will leave that to others. My 2 curators may well suggest other people who know this stuff, and we can see if they want to be involved, but I dont want to set any targets for the sake of it. In the end, the BM have only done this once (Hoxne) - we'd prefer we evolve the model with subtle tweaks, rather than taking it up a level for the sake of it. That works for us. I'm open for others to fit that into other cogs, and support. Re languages: Definitely interested in Arabic and Farsi, but as you say in another collaboration around more relevant objects. Happy to discuss.
Next steps from me is to produce a list of articles (on subjects, and objects) and a reading list from the curators, and post that up for those interested to comment on. Can I make a plea that we have a new page for the GLAM/BM 2011 Challenge? Matthewcock (talk) 17:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
For those of you interested in changes to the British Museum photos on Commons, there are current attempts to blanket change the tailored templates to standard ones, refer to Commons:User_talk:Zolo#Blanking_of_information. I was unaware of any consensus to do this, perhaps someone was involved? In the meantime I have complained about the factual errors this appears to be arbitrarily introducing. Thanks Fæ (talk) 18:38, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Cyrus Cylinder as a possible Good Article candidate?
With the Nimrud Ivories in the news, I've been re-reading an article about another Mesopotamian BM artefact, the Cyrus Cylinder, and I think it could be worth considering as a possible Good Article candidate. It already seems to have gone through a featured article review last year but evidently failed, for reasons that I'm not clear about. However, even if it doesn't meet the standard for featured articles it certainly looks a lot more comprehensive than most articles I've read about BM artefacts.
Could someone please advise on how the article could be put forward as a Good Article candidate and who might be available to do a review? Prioryman (talk) 23:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
It has problems with satisfying the stability criteria for FA or GA due to political contention on the talk page. For that reason it may be easier to focus on one of the other major articles about BM artefacts but by all means put it up for review if you feel it is worth trying again (see WP:GAN for the process, you don't need to find a reviewer in advance). Cheers Fæ (talk) 23:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Political contention certainly exists - an apparently new editor is currently pushing to deprecate expert views because he disagrees with them (I've explained the original research policy to him, though). However, I think it would be helpful to have some outside views on the current state of the article and some views on how it could be improved, and if it could achieve GA or maybe even FA status I think that would help with the stability issue. It certainly needs the involvement of more experienced editors. Thanks for the pointer to WP:GAN. Prioryman (talk) 23:32, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Fæ, the article is not entirely stable and free from edit-waring, which is a prerequisite, and there are still some "citation needed" and "weasel words", etc. templates that would need to be dealt with before nominating. You will probably have better luck with GA (and it is a bit of a lottery, depending upon the luck of getting a helpful and constructive reviewer) if you work on a less contentious article with fewer active editors. BabelStone (talk) 23:37, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid to say that my most recent experience with a GA review was quite unpleasant with unwelcome ad-hom comments rather than just focusing on the article. It might be an idea to wait until the current push on backlog numbers is out of the way and reviewers are less concerned about getting the review done to chalk up the numbers and refocused on making the process helpful to the editors before making a request. I thought the comment "I just raise problems as I see them. how nominators take them is up to them." quite telling. Fæ (talk) 23:45, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
The article history suggests that it has been reasonably stable for the last few months and there is no edit-warring at the moment, so this may be as good as it gets. Is there any chance that a GLAM/BM participant might be available to review the article? It would definitely benefit from being reviewed by someone with relevant knowledge. I'll have a look at the templates before I do anything else with it. Prioryman (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Review of lead section requested
I'm having difficulties explaining to two editors what WP:LEAD requires. They are concerned that the lead of Cyrus Cylinder is "repetitive" because it summarises material that is covered in more detail later in the article. I have explained that this is in fact what the lead is meant to do. I would appreciate it if someone could provide some advice at Talk:Cyrus Cylinder#Arbitrary break on whether this understanding of the requirements of WP:LEAD is in fact correct, and if so whether the current lead (as of this diff) meets these requirements. Prioryman (talk) 02:44, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Congratulations to whoever produced this informative spread and wrote up the context for the annual report, nicely done and looks good enough to be a poster in its own right. Flattered to see my name mentioned. Fæ (talk) 07:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Forthcoming proposal to remove all text based on BM database records from Commons
Please note that due to the enforced harmonization on Commons of the Artwork template (which is being used to transclude artwork descriptions from a Category page), it seems likely that I will be forced to propose purging Commons of all quoted text from the British Museum database in order to protect the interests of the copyright holder. Until now, the text has been used in a limited form (normally less than 50 word extracts) in order to provide an easy to find accurate description of artefacts. Due to the process of mass transclusion, the data is being presented in a data-mining friendly format and is stepping well outside our normal expectations for how to handle limited quotes from non-commercial only text. Your comments would be welcome at Commons:Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2011/03/Category:Old_Babylonian_period_Queen_of_Night_relief in advance of any proposal to make such blanket changes. Thanks Fæ (talk) 11:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
There's a RM discussion going on which y'all're welcome to participate in. Doubtless you have experience in the current nomenclature regardless of what Google says.
More importantly, regardless of the eventual name of the article, it's certainly an important one and remains an absolute pig's breakfast despite my efforts at cleanup. It's a big topic but when some of you have time and interest, a clear overview of the history (as it was understood and is considered today) and historiology (as it was constructed and is currently debated) would be welcome. — LlywelynII01:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Dan Pett of the PAS has been very helpful to us on a number of PAS-related articles over the last year or two, and provided many excellent photos (e.g. Commons:Category:Crosby Garrett Helmet). Most appropriately licensed content from the portableantiquities flickr stream has already been uploaded to Commons by Victuallers (see Commons:Category:Portable Antiquities Scheme). I asked Dan Pett on twitter if he could get a good image of the unique coin from the Silverdale Hoard, and he said he would try, so fingers crossed. BabelStone (talk) 12:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes! I saw this! Great news. I've tweeted it to the manager at the British Museum and he's going to tell their people about it. He also said he might be able to link to it from their own French page.[8]Wittylama01:15, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
No, though I have personally talked to contacts at English Heritage in the past and have some context that I could discuss off-wiki. If you are interested in this area, you may want to come along to the wmuk:Wiki Loves Monuments brainstorm next Saturday. --Fæ (talk) 00:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Can we use the images of prints from the British Museum website, some of which are the only known pictures of notable individuals? If so, should they be uploaded to Commons or Wikipedia, and are there any templates that should be used in their file pages? From what I can make of the terms and conditions, the thumbnails and "larger images" can be used under certain conditions, but not the free image service, and I've seen prints on Commons just tagged PD with no explanation. --xensyriaT18:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Something of a grey area. Assuming the images are out of artist's copyright (lasts for 70 years after death in the US & UK), they are 2-dimensional images whose use is free in the US, where our servers are located, under the US legal precedent Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. However, uploading to Commons is breaching the BM terms, because the licence will then allow (in particular) commercial reuse, though the BM have never requested that the many images on Commons are removed. So US law rejects the copyright claim that the BM site makes, which is (probably) a valid one under UK law.
Prints are hardly ever unique and almost all "pictures of notable individuals", if they are British, will be on the National Portrait Gallery site as well, though that gives rise to pretty much the same copyright issues. Hope that helps. In practice, these images can be uploaded to Commons without problems. Johnbod (talk) 18:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, and I should have said something like "more obscure, but still notable" people. I'd used NPG for one subject (which I uploaded here but didn't crop per their request), but couldn't find an alternative anywhere else for another. Also interesting that the U.S. court case first claimed that images of public domain subjects wouldn't even be copyrightable in the U.K., and the reference to Antiquesportfolio.com v Rodney Fitch & Co. saying that "re-photographing a print" wouldn't constitute an original work. --xensyriaT19:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Image request (fluorite cups)
Deeper field version with higher ISO
Could someone please upload snaps of one or both of these cups?
Right, I had some luck! Museum gallery photography is always a bit of a challenge, as the light levels aren't great, objects are rarely well-positioned for photos, and there is irritatingly reflective glass in the way. BUT I have uploaded two candidates of the Barber Cup taken with my lens right up against the glass, so you can see the detail of the engraving without distracting glare. The caption card was a bit in the way, sadly, but I think these are probably as good as anyone is going to get while it's still in the gallery.
The Crawford Cup was next to it and I have some shots, but they haven't come out anything like as well.
OT-ish, but before following the links, I assumed they were made from Derbyshire Blue John, which is a local curiosity in the Peak district that enjoyed a surge of fashion in Victorian times, there's some grand pieces in places like Chatsworth and IIRC the Stoke and Derby museums.Le Deluge (talk) 17:34, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Can someone add the talk page templates to this article? I have been away from editing from so long that I'm rusty on the conventions now. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:53, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Are you sure they are not on display at the BM? Both statues are catalogued on this BM page (with photos of left statue and right statue). This page indicates that these statues have been exhibited in Canada, South Korea and Hong Kong over the past five years, so they are unlikely to be hidden away in a storage room at the BM. BabelStone (talk) 15:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
Incidentally, the licenses for File:Tangata manu statuette.jpg (PD-old and PD-1923) are surely invalid as the copyright of the photograph (which must have been taken after acquisition by the BM in 1928) can be assumed to belong to Stéphen-Chauvet (1885-1950), and so should still be under copyright; and as these are three-dimensional objects PD-Art cannot apply. BabelStone (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, I did wonder! But if it was "work for hire" for a book published in 1935 (in France?), who knows the position? Note: "Acquisition notes - Acquisition details unknown. Thought to have been acquired pre 1900". Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
The BM page is confusing because it refers to several statues. Stéphen-Chauvet's book mentions "The birdman in Figure 109, acquired in 1928", and the BM page states "acquired 1928 Oc 1928,0517.1" for the first statue, so I believe that one of the two statues depicted (the left one I think) was acquired by the BM in 1928, which means the photo must be post-1928. Under the precautionary principle we have to assume that the photo is still under copyright. BabelStone (talk) 15:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I was quoting from this, the page Cas linked, which only covers one object. The proliferating catalogue numbers and databases of the BM never cease to amaze, & should be a warning for Wikidata folk. Johnbod (talk) 16:01, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't think this record (Oc,EP.26) refers to either of the two statues in the image from Stephen-Chauvet, as they are given as 28 cm (left) and 24 cm (right) in height, but the BM page for "Oc,EP.26" gives the height as 15 inches (= 38 cm). I totally agree with you about the proliferating catalogue numbers and databases -- that the otherwise detailed and informative page for Object EOC16977 does not give accession numbers used elsewhere on the BM site is really quite annoying. BabelStone (talk) 11:33, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Wow, thanks all...question is, what to do now. Agree that there is a problem with the licences. Do we still have a link with BM folks? The nice colour images are nicer than B/W ones from an old book....Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 13:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
We have never yet had the BM release a photo of theirs, though the matter is currently under discussion, again. Johnbod (talk) 13:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
No. This is an old one, & perhaps never a BM one. There may be a few current BM images of 3D objects lifted from their site that should, but the vast majority of Commons pics in the BM cats are amateur ones uploaded by the taker, or from flickr in the usual way. Johnbod (talk) 23:59, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Is there a British Museum Wikipedian in residence? Seeking article.
Just a long shot request: I've been working on expanding the article Ralph Vary Chamberlin, a prolific Amreican biologist, and just thought I'd put out a request for anyone that might have access to the German publication Arachnologisches Magazin, which only appears in a few libraries on WorldCat (none of them in the United States): one of them being the Natural History Museum in London.
"Beruehmte Arachnologen: Ralph Vary Chamberlin, 1879-1967. [Famous arachnologists: Ralph Vary Chamberlin, 1879-1967.]". Arachnologisches Magazin (in German). 9 (5): 11–12. 2001. ISSN0944-8667. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
If anyone has or could obtain the above article, and could email me a scan or photocopy, I would be very much appreciative. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:24, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
The page remains active, at a low level, but only relates to the British Museum, not the Natural History Museum. Better to ask on German WP I think. Johnbod (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
@Animalparty: I suggest you email @Edwbaker: (as he has not logged in for a while), our contact at the NHM who may be able to help and happens to specialize in entomology. I'm presuming you have JSTOR access? If not, email me and I can send you back a couple of PDFs for research. There are a few related articles including an obit for one of his working colleagues. Unfortunately Arachnologistches does not seem to be available digitally. --Fæ (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks all, I'll try WP:RX and other projects. I do have JSTOR access, from which I've found some useful secondary info, but most are primary sources (written by Chamberlin) or passing mentions. --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:16, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
Splitting
The article on the British Museum is (rightfully) very long and detailed. It might be time to split the article into sections regarding the different departments of the museum. Currently only the Department of Asiahas its own article. Every department having its own article would make the main article and the different departments easier to navigate. It would also allow more details to be added to each section.SpiritedMichelle (talk) 02:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.
Help finding document 14654
I would appreciate finding help identifying, citing, and potentially accessing pictures of the 6th century document British Museum 14654 f. 32 referred to in Phillips, George (1876). The doctrine of Addai, the apostle. London: Trübner & Co. p. 51. for the Doctrine of Addai article. My apologies in advance if this is the wrong page to ask. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
I think I solved my own problem. It is ms Londres, British Library, Add. 14654, f. 33r-v (fgt) + Add. 14644, f. 1-9v + Add. 14535, f. 1r (fgt) + Add. 12155, f. 53v + Add. 17193, f. 36v-37 (extrait) mentioned in Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon; Michelson, David A.; Zanetti, Ugo; Detienne, Claude, eds. (5 November 2015). "Addai (Teaching of) (text)". Bibliotheca Hagiographica Syriaca. While I welcome links or citation improvements to the list of British Museum manuscripts mentioned at Doctrine_of_Addai#Manuscripts, my immediate problem of identification is resolved. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 15:50, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Although this page hasn't been active in a while, figured it was worth a shot asking. Is there any chance of getting a photograph of this object? The current image on the article page is a public domain sketch from 1904, and other than the BM photographs and one B&W photograph in a 1999 book, I haven't seen any photographs of the object at all. The article is currently a featured article candidate, and getting an actual photo would be a nice touch.
Done Moved to Archaeology. Fæ (talk) 11:23, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
After the spectacular results with the Witham Shield just above, I'd like to draw attention to excellent new photos of BM objects such as the Waterloo Helmet and Penrith Hoard by User:Ealdgyth. I'm working up Pennanular brooch which will fit with the hoard. see also [6], to which more will be added. Johnbod (talk) 22:40, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Fæ (talk) 07:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
