Wikipedia talk:WikiProject ConwayLibrary

Project HomepageTo Do ListsContributorsQuestions and CommentsTraining Videos and Resources

This is the project talk page

Please use this page for discussion or to ask questions.

Please remember to sign your messages on this talk page by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date.

Create a new section on this page by clicking on the link in the infobox above to create a new discussion point.

To reply to an existing discussion, click 'edit' in the header of the section.

Project badge

This user is a participant in WikiProject Conway Library

Contributors to this project can display this page on their user page.

Thank you for your contributions!

Template for welcoming new contributors - to be pasted onto user's talk page by project coordinators

Welcome to Wikipedia, USERNAME! This is your Talk page, where other Wikipedia users might drop you a message from time to time related to any edits you make. You'll notice that we have dropped a 'badge' on this page, which shows that you are involved in the Conway project. Thanks for taking this first step!  If you reply here, please make sure you type in {{U|ConwayDigi}} to your message  which will give us a notification. Thank you!

Projects

This user is a participant in WikiProject Conway Library

more than a thousand architectural

ShermanSLH created the article Zygmunt Świechowski, providing much good material but also saying that the book Romanische Reliefs von venezianischen Fassaden, "Patere e Formelle" provides "photographs of more than a thou­sand little-known Venetian architectural from the 11th–13th centuries". Architectural what? I might guess, but this isn't good enough. ShermanSLH then seems to have disappeared from en:Wikipedia. Can somebody with access to a copy of the book please examine it and rewrite accordingly? -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Welcome back, ShermanSLH, and thank you for your recent fix. (Incidentally, I can't confidently make up my own mind about "from the 11th to the 13th century/centuries".) I hope that you stick around and write more! -- Hoary (talk) 23:40, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Wet blanket

I quote your project page:

Not everyone who contributed photographs to the Conway Library will be considered 'notable' by the Wikipedia community. See these guides for what constitutes a notable academic, and on notability in general.

Indeed. A lot of the drafts that I've seen show little if any sign that the person is notable (as defined by Wikipedia), whether generally or as an academic. I have to admit that these substandard drafts include some that are now substandard articles because I indulgently okayed them: if these are ever nominated for deletion, then either they'll need fast and radical improvement or they'll be deleted.

I quote your project page again:

If you are struggling to find open-source secondary sources regarding a particular scholarly argument, or biographical details of a person's achievements or history of a group, then why not make a source? If you are able to write up a blog post that contains first-hand information about a person, then that can act as a source for Wikipedia.

Oh really? On citing yourself, see WP:SELFCITE. On citing blogs, see WP:USERGENERATED and WP:BLOGS.

The Digital Media blog is literate, thoughtful and fascinating, and for all I know may have rigorous editorial oversight. However, without either (i) strong evidence of such oversight or (ii) attribution to recognized experts, use of such blog entries contravenes Wikipedia policy, and articles depending on them are likely to fail at "AFD". -- Hoary (talk) 23:45, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Hello @Hoary: thanks for taking the time to engage with this project, I really appreciate it!

To address point one: because I expect that many of the photographers will not be notable, this is why contributors are going through the AfC route rather than direct publication: I am keen that most articles (except for very obvious ones, eg. people hitting more than 1 notability criteria) go through this process, and, if they are rejected and cannot be fixed, I am collecting that information so that the Conway Library can use it internally (as biographical information of photographers is always useful for a library to have!). Contributors have been told that this may happen and not to be disappointed if it does.

After all, I am concerned with ensuring only suitable-quality articles are published - this is not a project that just wants to make as many pages as possible.

I am somewhat disappointed therefore to hear that some articles were approved 'indulgently'. This seems a shame: either an article is suitable for wikipedia (with consensus) or it isn't... hence the AfC route.

And your second point is an honest mistake on my part. I previously took part in a wikithon and a member of the wikimedia foundation gave me this as a tip for helping create sources for people who are notable, but may have a very limited web presence (especially, for instance, women, or scholars in very niche fields). The tip was specifically around blogs/ web sources that are hosted on university platforms, and may therefore have a little more credibility than your average blogspot. Of course, I would always expect (as noted above) that the wikipedia community would then decide whether or not the source was suitable, but I didn't realise it was a total no-no. I wonder, then, how you might suggest / if there is guidance out there on how to show that the blog has 'strong editorial oversight' by the professional library team? In the meantime, I have removed this line from the project page, so thank you for the heads up. With thanks, KerstingFan (talk) 09:58, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

KerstingFan, I'm glad to hear that if an article is deleted it will live on elsewhere. (And it is of course possible for an article to be deleted for lack of [Wikipedia-defined] notability, for more material to be unearthed later, and for an augmented and improved article to be created and to flourish.)

For the indulgence, I blame myself (among others). Reviewing "articles for creation" tends to be a dispiriting business, as a large percentage of the drafts are more or less obviously promotional, are about this month's pop culture or celeb trivia, are constructed from junk sources, show a total ignorance of or disregard for referencing, etc. I for one feel refreshed when out of this sludge there appears a seemingly scrupulous and anyway non-promotional article about a long-deceased connoisseur of corbels or whatever. My delight has sometimes led me to overlook notability requirements. I don't think I've been alone in this.

The people whom you (plural) are writing about have only one thing in common and are otherwise quite diverse. But I notice that a number of them have had books published, and that these tend just to be listed. It's not always easy to learn of reviews of a book, let alone to locate a copy of the review in order to read it. However, some reviews may be easy to find for people working through university libraries; also, there's the resource exchange.

When the guidelines of Wikipedia warn people off citing blogs, they of course primarily have in mind personal blogs, where there's no editorial oversight of an author who may sound convincing (to the particular editor, if not to you or me) yet be as uninformed and unhinged as, say, an all-caps celebrity tweeter. But they don't only have these in mind. Anything looking like (or calling itself) a blog really needs reassurances of its soundness. Here's "Digital media: The Courtauld Connects' Digitisation Project Blog". Near the top of the page we see "ABOUT" -- but this isn't about the project, let alone about the blog; it's instead about the Institute. At the foot of the page is "Categories | Conway Photographers | The Conway Library | Volunteer opportunities // Tags | auteur | conway | photographers | Research | wikipedia" -- couldn't there be an additional link there to "About this blog"? Alternatively, on the right: "Recent posts | Instagram | Categories | Subscribe": "About this blog" could be added to this. The "About this blog" page should of course honestly describe the blog: I can't make any suggestions as I don't know what the facts are (and am over 9,000 km away and so can't pay a visit). -- Hoary (talk) 23:28, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Hoary, Thank you, again! The information on the Resource Exchange is super helpful, thank you! As you know, sometimes reviews can be the most difficult thing, and most of the people making contributions to this project don't have log in access for paywalled content, but this is something I can ask the library staff to help with.

And your guidance / suggestions for what else to include on the blog is great - thank you for the tip. I understand that of course reviewers/ Wikipedians may still decide the blog is not a good source, but it's good to know what may help. Your time is really appreciated! KerstingFan (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC)