Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Archive 4

message: There is only one more item on the list- for a town of Saxony that has a reasonable article. However, the comment on the project page seems to demand that it be nearly as fleshed out as its excellent de.wikipedia counterpart. Do we have to wait for someone to translate over all de's data, or can we mark it (and by extension, the 1911xCE crossoever list) as done? --maru  (talk) contribs 07:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Slap it with an  request and put a descriptive comment in talk. Then put a fork in that list - it's done! – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 12:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --maru  (talk) contribs 17:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1911xCatholic Encyclopedia crossover done? 

message: A full list of items with the  reference template is now available for verfication Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/1911 verification.  Guidelines for removal should also be discussed before any pruning begins, including usage of another template, or removal of the old template if the wikipedia text is sufficiently different from the 1911 text. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 16:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The ones tagged with 1911 are the safe ones. Shouldn't it be a higher priority to check all 1911 articles without the tag, as they the ones that are more likely to get forgotten about as time goes on? Pcb21 Pete 17:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure all of those are safe.  I checked through some of the problematic items mentioned above and it looked like that they had the  tag even if it was a direct copy and paste job.  I also don't know how to easily find the "bad entries" that weren't tagged without having to slag through the ~30,000 articles that EB1911 where we already have decent coverage like Einstein, Achilles that were never based on the 1911.  I'm open to suggestion.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 18:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the tagged articles are safer than the untagged ones, simply because someone who had bothered to tag the article would probably also have done a decent job of writing the article. Is there a record of the first 1911 list posted by this project? Possibly that should be used as the list for checking. It could be cross-referenced with the list of tagged articles to produce a list of untagged articles created (mostly) through this project. Is that feasible?--Cherry blossom tree 23:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I should have been clearer. Yes I agree, there will be some tagged 1911 that are problematc, but at least they are tagged so we can find them, examine them, re-tag at leisure. A next step is to go back to the original pruned list as posted by Bogdan  see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Undelete&target=Wikipedia%3A1911_Encyclopedia_topics%2F3×tamp=20041205174119. Because they are pruned, the really obvious stuff such as Achilles doesn't appear and they would be not too bad to check. Admittedly these leaves a hole for stuff that was copied before the official project was started but I guess we can live with that. Pcb21 Pete 09:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can I assume that no one would anyone object to combining the two lists ( and the original 14K list).  That way we can get the untagged items tagged items and false negatives excluded from the original list that were later tagged with 1911.  It would also eliminate duplicates from both lists.  This would also elimate the double duty of going over the original list, then going over it again with the tagged items.  The drawback is that this new list may be longer than 15K because of different naming conventions between Britannica and Wikipedia.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 20:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks like you have done some great work Reflex Reaction, thank you very much. Looks like that list will be very useful. Pcb21 Pete 10:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like a good plan to me.... I'm not too terribly concerned. Do we have any idea how many 1911 articles got copied over before systemization began, and have evaded either editing or WP:Cleanup to date? I doubt it could be more than a few hundred... Alba 01:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

text: That's kind of a fuzzy thing, Taxman. I was working on the last really long 1911 article, Variation and Selection; it was "more comprehensive" in some areas but was also much more out of date. If we didn't merge in "more comprehensive" material from 1911, it probably was for good reason... do you want a quality control check on our transfer work in this second pass? Or just to check for updating needs? Alba 01:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My feeling is we should do both while we're at it. At least note where our article is missing information. And of course you did the right thing in not including the out of date information, but then we should note that our article is less comprehensive because it doesn't include x,y,z information that the EB article did. Either at that time or later people can use that information as a guide in improving the article. There are also times where EB just rambles and the information isn't all that relevant, in that case, note that too, and if people agree, don't bother with it. If they disagree, it again may add highlight useful material our articles can cover. Our goal is to be comprehensive and accurate, not just have a stub for every topic covered in EB. - Taxman Talk 20:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Verfication of 1911

message: Here's a template that may help: . Sometimes you'll find a Wikipedia article that is obviously deficient, and it has a decent 1911 article. If the 1911 info should be included into the Wikipedia article, and you don't feel like doing it right now, just put  on the talk page, and that adds the article to :Category:Articles needing improvement from EB1911. Then someone who feels like it can go through those and add 1911 info to the article. What do you think? Useful? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 13:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've created new templates  and . See the verification main page for a description of their usage, as well as  and . And, of course, feel free to change them. David Brooks 06:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New template for verification 

message: Why not make a list of the articles in the Jewish Virtual Library for this project?--Carabinieri 21:36, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just a quick look over the contents of the list and it looks like incorporating the JVL would not be appropriate or easy for a WP:MEA list.  First the contents are copyrighted, and the topic listing is a bit specific.  There is good information to incorporate for individual articles but I'm not sure how it could compiled into a list well. Any suggestions you have would be appreciated though.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Jewish Virtual Library

message: Thanks to everyone for setting up the verification list. Looks good. My question is, if someone finds an error on the list (such as a duplicate), should it be reported here or on the verification talk page? My example is: on the first page of the A list, numbers 402 and 403: Aethelred of Mercia, followed by Aethelred of Mercla; I am fairly confident the second one is a misspelling for the first one.  Please advise.  
Also, a comment: I think this is going to be a great help to verify the 1911 information to help update  and improve Wikipedia. I am one of the people who was responsible for some of the quick cut and paste jobs at the end of the project referred to by Kaldari. I hope I can redeem myself by offering to check the print version of the 1911 EB for problems which crop up as we progress (I have access to it at my job). Thanks again, --FeanorStar7 00:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question and comment

message: Hi, guys. Working on Wikisource, I found a bunch of EB1911 articles that do not have a Wikipedia article. This and (Latin author) this are two examples. Worth a careful check. Danny 01:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Described at, respectively, Zheleznovodsk and Gaius Julius Hyginus. These probably date from the time when we didn't have a rule to create redirects for every EB1911/Nuttall title when they were archaic spellings or nonstandard bio titles. See my comments above on initialisms. Now back to my wikibreak. David Brooks 02:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

text: When we started the project, it was a reasonable decision at the time to ignore the 1911 article titles that were already blue links, so that we could focus on the red links. We did recognize the danger of assuming the article with the same name was on the same topic. Now it is in the verification phase, it would be most reasonable to take the time and verify "same topic" for each blue link. In theory, that should only be necessary for articles that were not created as part of the project. I suppose checking articles that are not tagged as 1911 and not redirects would be close enough. David Brooks 19:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose the implication of the above is that we should check the entire content list of 1911, not just Bogdan's pruned list. In either case, though, aren't we revisiting the potential copyright concerns that originally generated the "merged" lists. Does anyone else see a problem here? David Brooks 03:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1911 is PD, so there aren't copyright concerns are there? Pcb21 Pete 07:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: D'oh. I was confusing with the 2004 situation. My first statement (question really) is still germane. David Brooks 17:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it sounds like a bot could do some useful work here: Get a list of 1911 titles. Then sort into three categories according to their Wikipedia status. Red links, Blue links without an  tag and Blue links with such a tag. That much is pure bot work. Then the reds are highest priority, uncatted second, catted third...? Pcb21 Pete 21:44, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 1911

message: Well done to the project!   DaGizzaChat © 05:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congrats 

message: I've made some redirects for some of the missing articles which actually had a corresponding wikipedia article already.  So I assume that these articles will now go to the "unverified bluelinks" section where someone will check them all to see that they really make sense.  Is this necessary, or should I just remove them from the main list myself after I make them? --Xyzzyplugh 23:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have decided to answer my own question, and remove my own bluelinks.  Never mind.  --Xyzzyplugh 14:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unverified Bluelinks? 

message: Full texts of many more PD reference works are coming available online as a result of the Google Books Library Project - for example, A New General Biographical Dictionary, published by Hugh James Rose in 1857. Should we start to compile a list of possible reference works that we might eventually want to work our way through? --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 18:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I think that might be useful, I'm really not sure how useful.  We can have a wishlist of reference texts along with their status on Gutenberg project, but don't know how useful unorganized, non-OCR images of text are for spotting missing coverage areas.  Brian0918 proposed a distributed indexing which, while I didn't oppose really didn't endorse, though having a tracked wishlist might be beneficial.  Again, I'm not going to oppose, but I really don't think it's our "job" but will be nice to have.  --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Google Booksearch

message: There are a bunch of non-English reference works available online. These may be a bit more difficult to use. One can't just take text wholesale, as it needs to be translated and adapted. It requires more work to check whether the topics exist on the English Wikipedia (and it requires someone who has at least a reading knowledge of the language). 
It is easiest to compile topic lists with proper nouns, as will be found in purely topographical or biographical dictionaries. There almost anything can, at the very least, be a valid redirect to an article. A while ago, I made a list of articles in a Swedish biographical handbook from 1908 (Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon), based on the index at the Project Runeberg website. See: Wikipedia:Swedish Wikipedians' notice board/Biography. 
There is also a public domain Danish dictionary of biography available online, the Dansk biografisk lexikon. It also covers early modern Norway (then under Danish rule). The German Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie is available in facsimile online, and searchable along with its successor Neue Deutsche Biographie here. Some articles from ADB are available in on Wikisource.
General encyclopedias online include the German Meyers Konversationslexikon (1888), the Swedish Nordisk familjebok (2nd ed., 1904-1926) and the Danish Salmonsens konversationsleksikon (2nd ed., 1915-1930, here, but not yet completed).
I don't know about other languages. French and Spanish would for instance be useful, but I don't know of any similar projects to put old public domain resources online for those languages. It should be noted that my impression is that the Swedish Nordisk familjebok is better for e.g. German topics than EB1911. Uppland 20:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's great research. I presume the relevant language Wikipedias know about these works? Ideally they would have a project similar to this one. And then ideally we work on having everything in other Wikipedias, so then we get all these topics too eventually ;). Pcb21 Pete 09:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, those are being used. See Einarr Skúlason, for example, and the Swedish interwiki link there. First I dumped the text into sv (wikifying and updating the spelling) and then I translated it to en. We even have a template for Ugglan. Haukur 15:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-English reference works