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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Reviewing use of DNB material

I was thinking of adapting {{Update-EB}} to the needs of this project. That's a template for tagging an article, placing the article in a maintenance category, and asking someone to review and then leave a talk page note. I think we could afford a talk page category for articles based on the DNB, that have been checked against the ODNB. Maybe there should be a date in the system, though, for long-term use? How exactly should checking be set up? There are currently very many articles being created here using DNB text. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Pages needing attention

Plenty of DNB material is being added here, and the Wikisource end of the project is nearing 50% done. I have created a project page to make it easier to find articles adapting the DNB that need basic forms of attention. There are a couple of other things I have been thinking about: a "manual" which will turn out to be about best practice (taking opinions suggest there is no general agreement on at least one issue); and a model article with some diffs to highlight stages in adaptation. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:03, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Update: here's a search to give the {{wikify}} and {{DNB}} tagged articles in order of the size of page. I'm currently concentrating on wikification of articles at least 5K long; the numbers involved are rising not only because of new creations, but also because I'm tagging with {{DNB}} some articles only carrying {{cite DNB}}. Articles in the remit of this project really ought to have both, so please help with adding the attribution at the bottom, per the basic guideline on importing text. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Where are we up to?

I did some playing on Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/DNB Epitome 03 last week, and found we had articles for all bar 2 of the first 100 people listed there. Are the Epitome lists still useful tools in tracking DNB articles in WP, or has bot work or wikisource work somewhat overtake them? Do we know, and is there a good source for, the DNB redlinks that remain? --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

This shows all (9841) missing pages links from the Epitome lists. --Magnus Manske (talk) 10:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Still useful, certainly. What is going on is that many volumes are now complete on Wikisource; and User:Boleyn is creating articles here. She tends to work from the start of the alphabet, and since the first three volumes are done on Wikisource I would guess from the state of s:Category:DNB No WP that the main DNB00 articles for volumes 1 to 3 will be present. NB that the Epitome lists contain also supplement articles (DNB01) and subarticles: it is by no means clear that all the subarticles are about independently notable people. There will be bluelinks for numerous people that are not properly dabbed. My initial guess was that around 50% of the DNB articles were new to WP, and I don't see a reason to change that: conservatively we are talking about 10,000 articles to create.
My plan (not that these things go to plan) is to move to a new set of lists in time, which can serve as better checklists for things to do. That is, the current 63 lists are really designed to identify biographies correctly. A cleaned-up set of lists which can include other information (has the article been fact-checked against ODNB? and has a search been done for a portrait? are two of interest) would be appropriate for the later stages of the project. Should be done volume-by-volume. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:07, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
The biggest problem for me is wikisource:Category:DNB No WP which actually have a WP entry, this is probably about 1/3 of them. Also of interest is that many EB1911 articles seem to have been copied from DNB, indeed sometimes they have the same authors. Rich Farmbrough, 02:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC).
Short answer we are now up to "E") Rich Farmbrough, 04:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC).
As far as Rich's problem is concerned, there is a tool adapted to matching WS DNB articles to existing WP articles. On the other hand wikisource:Category:DNB No WP is a maintenance category and is in constant flux. I expect there to be thousands of articles in there for quite some time, and there really can't be a guarantee that the "wikipedia=" field is filled in when the article is created, where that is possible. Things aren't going to settle down until the WS proofreading phase is largely complete, which will be another year or so. It's an issue of scale, and not checking the "wikipedia=" field is an expedient to get the proofing done quicker. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

General guide

I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Walkthrough as a DNB editing guide, at a level where new Wikipedia editors could be inducted into article creation that way (not my idea, but put to me last weekend). I have another walkthrough to add (based on John Walker (scholar), see the edit summaries there) shortly.

Anyone is of course welcome to add to the guide. The further idea is this: create another project page with a carefully selected dozen or so redlinks and links to DNB at Wikisource, to serve as candidate articles to convert for people who want to get into the work. Suggestions for that page? Charles Matthews (talk) 09:56, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Notification template?

Though I've been aware of many articles transcribed from the 1911 Britannica, I just learned about the DNB project. Great stuff! The one thing that I think would be useful would be a notification template at the top of such articles, similar to Template:1911 POV (which I find a little over-stated) reading something like "This article is largely based on the 1909 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, which may include outdated scholarship or points of view." --Macrakis (talk) 13:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Such a template could exist, of course. Using technology, however, it would be just as easy to search for articles tagged with both {{POV}} and {{DNB}} (the latter indicating that it contains adapted DNB text). That is in line with other cleanup approaches we have. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
That would be useful for editors looking for articles to clean up. I was thinking more about the non-editor user who comes across a Wikipedia article and should be warned that the content dates from 1909 or earlier and has not been reviewed for accuracy and neutrality by Wikipedia editors. --Macrakis (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
How do you propose we judge whether the scholarship is outdated? That it is old is not enough. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
My suggested wording says that they "may include outdated scholarship", not that the scholarship is outdated. That is, I think, a reasonable warning for material which hasn't been reviewed in over 100 years. --Macrakis (talk) 12:16, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I disagree, in part because I don't much favour nag-banners at the top of articles. The scholarship may be perfectly good and not need a health warning. I would not want to carpet-bomb all DNB articles because some, may, have issues. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

It raises the issue I've been mulling over for a bit, though: at a time when some of us are able to turn to more systematic examination of DNB content here (i.e. driven by listings, rather than what comes one's way), what would be a good checklist to have so that issues could be addressed more systematically? "Factcheck" would be one, and here factchecking via the ODNB is indicated, which makes it a bit different from the EB case. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:06, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Knowing that an article was written in 1900 and not 2011 is an important piece of context. I love reading the EB11, but I certainly don't read it the same way I read something written recently. Not only has more been learned about the world, but our attitudes to things has changed. I wouldn't be surprised to find deeply ethnocentric or racist content in a DNB article on say a colonial administrator, but I would hate to read it in Wikipedia's editorial voice. The informational banners are useful that way. --Macrakis (talk) 16:39, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
The DNB citation and attribution tags both provide DNB publication dates. Caveat lector. Either you like top-of-article banners or you don't. I don't. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Are you referring to Template:DNB, which reads "This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain..."? That is completely noncommittal as to how much of the article comes from the 1900 publication, and as to whether it's been reviewed since then. --Macrakis (talk) 17:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Cite DNB

The template Template:Cite DNB, which should be used when DNB is a reference, but not a source of text, is also used for articles taken in part or completely from the DNB, e.g. George Beattie (poet), George Steward Beatson, Richard Butcher (antiquary), John Dunstall, Gabriel Dugrès, William Augustus Barron, Dubthach Maccu Lugir... These pages are now not listed in a DNB category. Any suggestion how to solve this? What would be the easiest way to a) find all pages that incorrectly use Cite DNB, and b) convert all pages that have Cite DNB but should have another DNB template, to that other template? Fram (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

If the article is the whole text, then it is still a citation, just very complete. What is it that you are trying to solve? Which category are you wanting the addition? If required we can look to add categorisation to the template. If you are just wanting to find the articles, then we should be looking at the use of wikify or where it is just a one reference for a work. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Two things I want to solve, an easy way to find all articles with text taken from the DNB, and proper attribution of those articles. An article like Gabriel Dugrès is currently cited to the DNB, but doesn't indicate that it is actually a word-for-word copy of it, unlike many other attribution template like the 1911 Britannica one, or the actual template DNB. Replacing the Cite DNB with DNB on those articles where part of or the whole text is taken from DNB is sufficient, but is there an easy or at least practical way to find which of the 6000 or so articles that use Cite DNB should have the other template? Fram (talk) 07:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
When I linked {{DNB}} to {{Cite DNB}} I deliberately called a redirect {{DNB Cite}}, so that when someone lists the articles linked to {{Cite DNB}} those that call it via {{DNB}} would not show up outside the redirect :-) Also unfortunately we have much bigger problems with {{1911}} than with {{DNB}} and its associated templates. For example a shade over 10,000 {{1911}} articles do not have any parameters at all. So what we are saying there is "somewhere in the 29 volumes of EB 1911 there is some text that was into this article but *I am not going to tell you where)". On top of that there are about 1,000 articles that should be using the 1911 template but are instead using {{Wikisource1911Enc Citation}} which give no attribution (I have started going through them but often the template is below the external sources section so AWB can identify them but it takes had edits to fix them). Also there are still articles copied from 1911 in the good old days (before we had a distinction between policy and guidelines etc) that have not mention of 1911 as their source. I came across Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds only a couple of days ago, that had been sitting in Wikipedia since 3 September 2003! -- PBS (talk) 08:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

List

Although there are a number of pages that will have a problem of text copied from DNB to a Wikipedia article without proper attribution. I think that Fram has identified a particular set that were generated by Rich Farmbrough. I have had a chat with Rich, and he has some opinion about the inadvisability of using wstitle "The use of wstitle is something I was aware of, although not in detail. I cannot, now I know it is an intrawiki link, condone its use." (seen here) which has lead to his use of {{Cite DNB}} in quite creative ways. So far I have altered two of the articles Rich created so that they are attributed as recommended in Plagarism: Where to place attribution (George Beattie (poet) and John Bearblock). Here is a list that Rich provided (around 6 score):

More comments

First I think that Rich is to be congratulated on his work effort, but if the first two that I have edited (George Beattie (poet) and John Bearblock) are a sample of the ports then there is some more work to be done on these articles over and above altering the template from {{Cite DNB}} to {{DNB}} this involves copy editing the text to bring it more in line with the usual Wikipedia article formats. This includes:

  • separating the lead from the body of the article with a section header and in larger article more section headers to cover family and bibliography/works.
  • Checking the article links to make sure that the are correct
  • Checking that the text does not include any personal or Victorian POVs which would not usually be incorporated into a modern work.
  • Checking against the ODNB to make sure that the facts are accurate.

I suggest that as the DNB templage is introduced into the above a {{Tick}} is placed against them and then a another {{Tick}} if anyone is so inclined to indicate that they have copy edited the article. -- PBS (talk) 07:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that in e.g. George Beattie (poet), the year of his death is given as 1828 and as 1823. This is caused by using Wikisource pages that haven't even been proofread on Wikisource (indicated there as "pink", not "green" or even "yellow"), which contain transcription errors. User:Boleyn did the same, but he or she has agreed to stop creating DNB pages like this about a month ago (section higher on this page). Rich Farmbrough on the other hand, despite knowing of these problems but not fixing them, requested permission to create a whole lot more of these earlier this month at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Rich Farmbrough (mass article creation). While he may be congratulated on his "effort", he shouldn't be congratulated on his "work" on these at all... Fram (talk) 08:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Please assume good faith. This project has an enormous task on hand, and these matters cannot be dealt with all in one thread. I think I have more experience than anyone else with adapting DNB text, and the changes needed are in fact not so hard, at least in the shorter articles. The issues with Wikisource text you mention go back a long way to the initial bot postings, and I could describe in quite some detail why your conclusions are wrong in a majority of cases. (In fact the Catholic Encyclopedia text on Wikisource is a lot worse and that is unverifiable; the traditional use of EB1911 text here was much, much worse). Text quality issues can be raised at s:Wikisource:WikiProject DNB. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Silly me, I had assumed that these were proofread pages. Given that they are not, we seem to have two things that we can do. Either fix them here on Wikipedia, or put them up for a mass deletion. -- PBS (talk) 09:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
More often than not the text is that of the ODNB website, and "not proofread" can indicate that it is not the first edition as required on enWS, but some later version. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I just noticed that two of these are duplicates of articles we already have: "Duff (d.967)" (exists as Dub, King of Scotland since February 2002‎) and "Dubthach Maccu Lugir" (exists as Dubthach maccu Lugair since May 2010‎). I've left a note on the talkpages that the copied-Duff can be safely redirected, and that the copied Dubthach should probably be merged.---Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 05:32, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, this is something in this project's lap. I would say that User:Boleyn and User:Rich Farmbrough have created the vast majority of the recent articles that probably lack {{DNB}}. So one way to get to these is simply to trawl their article creations for patches of multiple creation; which are probably well marked. I'm not quite sure what Rich's issue is with the current accepted style, but probably that should be a separate discussion, actually.
What I do, certainly, is where just one of {{cite DNB}} and {{DNB}} occurs in an article that is a DNB adaptation, is to make sure that we have {{cite DNB}}/ Attribution {{DNB}}. If {{cite DNB}} is initially in a footer, it will be good practice to move it into a footnote and use it in inline refs. So the apparent duplication is actually illusory. I suggest therefore that this approach is used for initial cleanup. Articles with {{DNB}} and not {{cite DNB}} will need both.
For the other way round: according to our listings, any article that involves a complete DNB adaptation should get {{tick}}{{tick}}. That is on the "Epitome" lists that are to be found in Category:Missing encyclopedic articles (Dictionary of National Biography). Now because there are 63 lists and 30,000 articles to cover, not everything is marked up as it should be. But the checking work will in time find these articles in question, I think.
There is also a good way starting in Wikisource, namely start at s:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 and look where the bluelinks for a given volume lead to from their "wikipedia=" field. An effort ought to be made anyway to standardise the WS referencing for the DNB; and these listings can be used in conjunction with the "Epitome" listinge here to update the whole area.
So I think the resourceful editor will find a number of ways to work on this problem. It is anyway gradually being addressed under {{wikify}} cleanup, I should say also. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
While he may be congratulated on his "effort", he shouldn't be congratulated on his "work" on these at all
on the contrary, i congratulate him for the fine work product, errors and all. i will cleanup after him any time; i will ignore your tags and source all articles except those you tagged. nothing could be more destructive to the project than mass deletions. but i see where this is going: will you now nominated all pages created with errors, or unsourced? Slowking4: 7@1|x 19:05, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I have not tagged any of these pages for mass deletions, so I have no idea how you "see where this is going". Please assume good faith, and note that I have asked for cleanup and a way to properly attribute these articles, which is required by policy but not done when these were created. I have not asked for deletions here. Fram (talk) 19:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
That comment seems unnecessary. The discussion based on pages on Wikisource supposedly not being proofread is based on a misunderstanding of the Wikisource process. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Can I be clear, CW, that your recommendation is for use of {{Cite DNB}} & {{DNB}} pretty much as per this instance of JohnBearblock? The salient feature in this for me would be the complete separation of function: {{Cite DNB}} as a reference to the source of the knowledge and  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) as a reference to the source of the text. Is that the standard we're looking for in adapted articles? --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
You have chosen an example with a block of "end references": that is a separate discussion (and extra complication) and I don't do that nor think that is the best way. What I do is as in William Webster (clergyman) (text added earlier today). We do have Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Walkthrough and this issue is explained as "Diff 9" there. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
It is not the way I do it Charles. Rather than using {{Cite DNB}}, I put all the parameters into {{DNB}} including volume and page numbers, and then use {{sfn}} and {{harvnb}}. Those two templates automagically link the author to the text in {{DNB}}. Doing it that way, I can include the specific page number to a particular paragraph, just as one would for any page based media. See for example the most recent one I have edited above Thomas Elrington (actor). -- PBS (talk) 11:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Um, no: it is clear that the "not proofread" pages are still full of transcription errors, mainly in dates and other numbers. I don't really care why this happened, it is clear that such pages shouldn't be used as the basis of articles without correcting those errors from the start. I also use a public domain source as the basis of many articles, and I clean the text before posting the article, I don't just copy it. Fram (talk) 19:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Please take the trouble to understand, though. While Wikisource cannot guarantee perfect proofreading, any article there transcluded from the Page: namespace to the mainspace is asserted to be proofread (by whoever does that). The inclusion of "red" on the ribbon may mean this: some page has not been completely proofread, but has been partially proofread in the part included. As I asked above, this issue should really be brought up at Wikisource. You can probably find some mistakes in such text, but it is not necessarily anything wrong in principle, and until you understand how the ribbon indicator works in some cases you will perhaps remain confused about what is going on there. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
But a page like [1] is not asserted to be proofread, right? It is only transcluded, nothing more? (Well, in this case, Rich Farmbrough added an incorrect link to Wikipedia as well, but that's besides the point). Or if the transclusion suggests that it is proofread, it shouldn't have been done, since no errors were corrected. In the end, the result is that a poorly transcripted page is transferred to Wikipedia without any checks or corrections. Fram (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
That page was transcluded by User:Arch dude, who actually set up the WikiProject. It is marked with a yellow ribbon, so it is proofread. It is not marked with a green ribbon, which is "validated". Validation is the second layer of proofreading, and must be done by a different person. So you are incorrect: the page has been proofread once. (This is why I asked you to raise the article quality issue at Wikisource: there we could discuss both the general aspects of the system, and any particular weaknesses that may exist in given cases, which might be because of particular editors.) The page history shows in fact two pairs of eyeballs before it was marked as proofread. I have just checked that article myself, and found a single small error, in punctuation.
You really could be taking a more reasonable approach here, rather than asserting that "a poorly transcripted page is transferred to Wikipedia without any checks or corrections" which is completely inaccurate as description of the process. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Brilliant. You have just proofread a page there[2] without seeing the rather blatant error in the very first line, even though I corrected it here (on Wikipedia) already. You may have found only one error, in punctuation, but in reality the page at Wikisource (and until I changed it today, the page here) gave as his year of death 1828, while the actual DNB article gives 1823. The incorrect 1828 date was then used on Wikipedia in the article, the infobox, the persondata, and the category. Please, before asking me to take a more reasonable approach, please try a more serious effort at checking such things... I notice that you also didn't notice that "l" should actually become "£", "1816" should become "1815", "rolicking" should be "rollicking", and "M'" should be "Mt"... So that page there was, after your passage, supposedly proofread by three different people? Fram (talk) 10:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I didn't claim to have proofread it thoroughly: if I had, I would have validated it, and I didn't. You make some good points, but it is not the case that sums of money should be written with £, because the Wikisource convention is to respect the original text; also (and this illustrates the problems with page scans) you are not correct about the Scottish patronymic prefix M' in M' Cyrus, which is a version of Mac or Mc, and is OK (it is not Mt as you seem to be saying). So I think honours are even: your scrutiny of this case has revealed some uncorrected OCR errors in dates that are serious from a factual point of view. Please document any examples you have of this at s:Wikisource talk:WikiProject DNB#OCR digit errors, as the appropriate forum where something can be done about this issue. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
You claimed to have checked the page, and only having found one punctuation error, and used that as justification to state that I needed to take a "more reasonable approach", and also claimed based on that same check that "a poorly transcripted page" was "completely inaccurate". It now appears that this was more a prejudiced view than an actual assessment of the situation, even though nothing in your previous post alluded to this. And where dod you get the idea that the "Mt" is used as a Scottish patronymic prefix? The Miami University Libraries disagree with you, as does the University of Cambridge, and a book by Arthur Symons[3], and a book by John Malcolm Bulloch[4], and so on. On the other hand, there is not a single source to suggest that there has been an A.S. McCyrus (or any variation thereof), and the actual source (DNB) clearly shows a miniature "t", not something else. Of course, all this may have to do with the fact that these lands were called "Mount Cyrus" in the past[5], and so, despite being Scottish, this has nothing do with any Mc or Mac. Please, stop relying on what you expect to be true, and check things with how they are in reality. It costs more time, but produces less errors and less "foot in mouth" situations. Fram (talk) 11:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I believe you are correct about Mt, so I apologise for what I said before about that. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Pages are being "ticked" above, but as far as I can tell still aren't properly attributed (and not listed in a DNB category either), e.g. Robert Beatson. Fram (talk) 08:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you talking about ticks in the epitome pages? Then you'll appreciate that the epitome pages are not currently set up to track whether attribution is done correctly. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean here. I'm talking about the list of pages given above in this section, where people are "ticking them off" (adding those green checkmarks) to indicate that the problems are solved at these pages. Sadly, they aren't, since the citation templates used are still nor proper atteribution templates, and nothing on those pages indicates that the content not only are sourced to DNB, but are actually literally copied from it. It is also usual and practical (though not mandatory) to include a category that indicates the copying of text from the DNB in the article. This is usually included in the attribution template and doesn't need to be done separately. Fram (talk) 10:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
i added a Tick when the DNB templage was rearranged, deleting the Reflist group="DNB". i've added page footnotes, using the endnotes citation style. per my comment above, i will not add categories to a "Improve categories" tagged article: you may do so. when copyedited, a second tick may be added. Slowking4: 7@1|x 21:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
So I come here with a complaint based on two aspects, the lack of proper attribution and (minor) the lack of a categorization to find these DNB pages, and you tick pages where neither of these is actually tackled? Your ticking of pages only means that you have done some improvements, not that the actual work that needs ticking of is done. Isn't that rather, well, confusing? Fram (talk) 21:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
The work being done on a page such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/DNB Epitome 04 is explained at the top of the page, where the meaning of ticks and so on is given. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Then perhaps an extra check is needed to make sure that the pages are properly attributed? Wikipedia:Public domain makes it clear that "Proper attribution to the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still required to avoid plagiarism." Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain sources then further explains this: "Public-domain attribution notices should not be removed from an article or simply replaced with inline citations unless it is verified that all phrasing and information from the public-domain source has been excised." Nothing in those articles currently indicates that any portion of the text is taken literally from the source given. Sourcing and attribution are not the same thing. Please, as a project devoted to copying text from a PD source, take the issue of attribution more seriously and make it one of the checks that need to be done before an article is ticked off. Fram (talk) 07:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Please edit {{DNBListing}} in any way that you think is suitable. I could explain the rationale for the page as it is (basically we wanted to use previous experience on EB1911 and the Catholic Encyclopedia) coming from the essay Wikipedia:Merging encyclopedias. That of course you can edit also with any general points. The existing epitome lists have as a primary purpose to check which articles as still missing: that is the philosophy of Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles (see its project goal). Of course it depends how broad a discussion you want. But the "ticks" are ticks in the sense of that project: to ensure that Wikipedia has a corresponding article for every article in every other general purpose encyclopedia available. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I'll remember that next time there is a problem with a group of DNB articles, this is not the place to come to, since you are apparently not interested in solving the problems, to the extent that people change and cleanup the articles in many aspects, but for some reason don't include the attribution into that cleanup. So now it isn't enough that I indicate the problem and cause, with some examples, but I also have to change your project pages, as if miraculously changing those pages will change your behaviour... Thank you to Philip Baird Shearer, who effectively did something to tackle this and works on it, but the other responses here leave me rather disappointed. I'm not asking for any degree of perfection, but following some of our basic copyright rules shouldn't be too much to ask. Fram (talk) 21:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, this is a wiki site, and the responses you have had are quite appropriate in that context. All pages are editable for good reasons. You are not being treated as an outsider. Changing the project pages is an alternative to preaching to people; it would indicate exactly how you would see a notation on checked attribution fitting into the system. Do you want those lists to indicate problems with attribution to fix, or that a comprehensive check has been carried out (bear in mind that the latter, i.e. potentially checking 30,000 articles, is very heavy work). Do you want to have a template that could be applied to problem pages, placing them in a maintenance category such as Category:Pages using DNB text requiring attribution? Actually I think such a category is what you want, since it is likely to be more use in the longer term than the list in this thread.
You are not the only person who finds discussions here sometimes frustrating. You are asking not for copyright compliance, but for compliance with WP:PLAGIARISM; and actually I agree with you, since there are good reasons. So you need to reach out to others. If you want to influence behaviour, rather simply express annoyance, you do have to engage with the system. If you want to influence people at Wikisource, you have to go there. If you want to engage constructively with the people on a WikiProject, it is not the best thing simply to say that their attitude is lacking. Everyone on Wikipedia has their own priorities. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:33, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I have no interest in influencing people or things at Wikisource, I'm only worried about Wikipedia. As for the rest: I tried engaging constructively, and found the response to that effort seriously lacking (in most but not all cases). I then expressed annoyance with that. Reread my initial post here: "Any suggestion how to solve this? What would be the easiest way to[...]". I started being annoyed when people were more interested in congratulating whoever created these seriously deficient articles than with solving the problems. Things didn't get any better afterwards. Your first post in this thread started, rather out of the blue, with "Please assume good faith." How's that for "If you want to engage constructively with the people on a WikiProject, it is not the best thing simply to say that their attitude is lacking." Fram (talk) 12:41, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I started being annoyed when people were more interested in congratulating whoever created these seriously deficient articles than with solving the problems. i'm sorry i don't buy it for an instant. i see articles with typos, scan problems, and formatting attribution of a template. The monster under the rug is a serious problem, and bandinage on project talk is a personal problem. but i will now institute a self imposed interaction ban; i recommended it to the project. Slowking4: †@1₭ 19:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand half of what you are saying here (e.g. what was it that you recommended to the project?), but there is a lot more wrong with these articles, particularly very poorly thought out wikilinking. Many, many links on these articles go to the wrong article (e.g. George Barrett (actuary) has "Wheeler Street, a small hamlet in Surrey", but links to Wheeler Street, Cambridge: it also contains the redlink Haroun al Raschid, which I'll now turn into a bluelink to Harun al-Rashid; William Augustus Barron links to William Tomkins, who has nothing to do with the article, to Picot which is equally wrong, and to the disambiguation Richmond Bridge; and please check out the links in John Barrow (fl. 1756), some of them are really, really, really ridiculous), indicative of how little thought and how much script-work (or equally mindless work) went in those articles. Fram (talk) 10:17, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Can someone from here perhaps indicate to Rich Farmbrough that if he is to create more DNB pages, he would do best to follow a few simple guidelines, e.g. with regards to attribution? Pages like Robert de Beaufeu still have the same lack of attribution as those pages that started this thread. Fram (talk) 10:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that standard attribution style should be used in DNB (and other article) creations. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Poster template

I think this is a separate discussion from the preceding thread. Some DNB adaptations use {{Wikisource}} to give the Wikisource link. Now I don't like this: such posters strike me as intrusive, firstly, and they are overdue some redesign. But the whole discussion about the distinction citation/attribution really indicates that we (this project) have got beyond simply linking across to relevant material. The onus to attribute accurately is there, and I think we should respect it (whatever the ideal implementation should be, in the end).

Therefore I think it would be very helpful to thrash out this issue, and draft the promised Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Templates. As things have been happening over at {{ODNBweb}} too, this all looks overdue. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I have now created this page, and its talk page will be a useful page on which to discuss the issues that come up. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

{{Wikisource}} is certainly not a good attribution or citation link: it is an external link and should be used to refer to relevant Wikisource material, regardless of whether it has been used as a source. Rich Farmbrough, 11:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for that, Rich; helps to clarify what is going on in the preceding thread to have it from you. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Charles, i see your comment above where endnotes are deprecated, could you elaborate? i could not find any guidance on preferred footnote style. (i like having the endnote since it replicates the material at DNB). Slowking4: 7@1|x 18:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The immediate point is that there is a protocol for attribution, and {{wikisource}} does not match up exactly to it. The other point, which is my own, is a feeling that the template as a way to link externally to Wikisource is not a great design, by present standards. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

A salutary lesson

Usually if I am looking to create or expand an article it is something that I know something about (so I am aware when things don't seem right). Cleaning up the recently created articles listed in above #Cite DNB had taught me a very good lesson in checking the DNB facts in the ODNB when it is in an area I know little:

Wikipedia DNB ODNB Notes
Ernest, Duke of York and Albany "Ernest Augustus (1674-1728)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. "Ernest Augustus, Prince, duke of York and Albany (1674–1728)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8839. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) The DNB comment "The fact of his existence was scarcely known to the majority of the British nation"
John Fenwicke "Fenwicke, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. "Fenwicke, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9306. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) I have not fixed the Wikipedia article yet (hence the X -- volunteers?), but there is hardly a fact in the DNB article that is supported by the ODNB, Eg the DNB has him dying at the Battle of the Dunes in 1658 the ONDB has him dying about 1670.
Robert Finch (antiquarian) "Finch, Robert (1783-1830)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. "Finch, Robert". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9441. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ODNB "A small place in the footnotes of Romantic scholarship gives this pretentious ass a lingering reputation that his collections would never have justified."
Kirkman Finlay (philhellene) "Finlay, Kirkman (d.1828)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. *"Finlay, Kirkman (supp. c.1802–1828)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9466. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ODNB "unless new evidence is found, more reliable than the obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine of April 1828 which called him into being, ‘the second quite imaginary Kirkman Finlay of the Dictionary of National Biography “who was neither killed in Greece nor born anywhere”’ can be safely buried."

That last one should be a lesson to us all. I have tried to document it, but what is the betting people will soon be putting into the article templates about too few links and too few categories!

The bigoted, the bad, the ugly, and the un--!¬@$%^&*--believable.

--PBS (talk) 10:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

My response to the main thought is to suggest that a version {{expertDNB}} of {{expert}} should be created. For reasons I mentioned above, it is not acceptable to me that people should insist on ODNB access for DNB-based articles: and in any case there is no practical way to control adaptations from Wikisource. So let's propose that people tag articles as they create them. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
This is fairly typical for these old PD sources. I'm creating articles from a PD source (listed in Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers), and I regularly have to omit articles where there currently is no longer support for the existence of said person, or change significant facts (like dates of birth or death), or the name is incorrect (e.g. Francis William Edmonds was given in that source as John W. Edmonds). Creating articles from PD sources is very useful, and most entries are about notable people, but the creations should be done manually and relatively slowly, with checks of the basic facts, checks whether we don't have an article yet with a slightly different name, and so on. Fram (talk) 11:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Bryan is pretty bad, apparently, which is a shame as I bought it in two volumes (explains why it was cheap) ... at least one of the art wikiproject people would like to see it never used. DNB can be bad but in the case of Thomas Mason (clergyman) I found that the ODNB had introduced an identification that was obviously wrong from Google: i.e. the ODNB had introduced a major mistake. No one source is infallible, people.

I have only one general principle about this, which may be counter-intuitive: trying to expand the article is the best way to fact-check what is already there. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Can I just note that my life has been immeasurably improved by the discovery that the ODNB calls people a "pretentious ass"? Thankyou PBS for turning that up.... Shimgray | talk | 22:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Useful list

User:Topbanana/Missing articles: part of this contains auto-generated suggestions relative to filling in redlinks on the DNB Epitome pages. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)‎

Volume of the Month

I want to progress things by setting up a "Volume of the Month" regularly. Arbitrary choice has fallen on vol. 21 for January 2012. Please look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Volume of the Month and Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/VOTM 2012-01a for sample pages. I have not gone a long way with the second (tracking) page yet, for the obvious reason that I'd like to obtain some feedback. VOTM should run over four tracking pages, which will therefore not be as unwieldly as the "Epitome" pages which will remain useful for the moment. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year to you! Will look this evening. (atm, have the entries for the example of Alf Arthur Garnett got a bit garbled? Should the 'N' in the first column be a 'Y', and the number be the ODNB key?) Dsp13 (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

You're completely correct, thanks. Now ungarbled, I trust. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

So far I have run a matching check using the tool http://toolserver.org/~magnus/dnb/map2wp.php?letter=Ge (which handily can take any two-letter prefix); which reduced the apparently missing articles by 20%; and then added to the table on the tracking page by a hand method, for the first column of the volume. Quite satisfactory, really, though this might have to be done every week or so. Now I need to check the redlinks with the Epitome page. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, the January 2012 tracking page a is now presentable. Cross-reference it with Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/DNB Epitome 21 and s:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Vol 21 Garnett - Gloucester. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

what is there to do with 1901 errata? integrate sensibly into WP, but should anything in particular be done at the wikisource end? Dsp13 (talk) 12:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

On Wikisource, they are placed beneath the article, with an alert in the "extra notes" field. Best to look at an example for that: according to s:Wikisource:WikiProject DNB/Completions they are all done in vol. 18. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

An example is at s:Roden, William Thomas (DNB00). Charles Matthews (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I like the table, thanks, and have tweaked the first row slightly. Possible extra columns: 1) Is it appropriate to have columns to check for a DNB Attribution template and a DNB reference, or is that handled some other way? 2) A link to a DNB source page. 3) Indeed we could ask more generally which steps of the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dictionary_of_National_Biography/Volume_of_the_Month#Task_list task list we wish to track with the table: search for inbound links; competent wikilinking; etc. I'm not confident that the of the month concept will work, and think the names of the tracking pages might more usefully tally with their content a la WPDNB_Checklist_Garnett-Geddes and be offered in a VOTM page via transclusion. We could, thus, build up an Aaa-Zzz set of checklist pages with regular names even if the of the month stalls. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Points in some sort of order:

  • Existence of {{cite DNB}} and {{DNB}} on the page is theoretically under "Task A", and for simplicity is not spelled out in column-fashion;
  • There could be a column explicitly linking to the WS article, yes;
  • I usually overload things with detail, so this time I thought I'd keep it fairly minimal—but what I posted is not supposed to be the last word.

As for VoTM as concept, it is true that collaborations don't always work out that well here (Wikisource is better, that way). Moving the pages, sooner or later, is pretty much trivial. The rate of one such page per week is one I thought I could sustain. Once there is an accepted model for tracking page, they can be created for any volume complete at WS (which now amounts to 33). And they can be created at more systematic titles, and worked on. That is all quite compatible with having a monthly focus. The limiting factor, with around 300 pages to create, is that the cross-check with the Epitome takes an hour or so to do each time: and that work shouldn't be skimped, because it directly feeds into dab work and completeness checking.

Bottom line (noting the thread below): yes to more columns if they are really going to be used; please consider that a five-year schedule for checking and adapting seems not unreasonable, and that a monthly focus probably helps with thoroughness. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Slightly OT: I have written a tool (surprise!) that checks how often the redlinks in a page are linked to from other pages (in main namespace); it can help prioritise articles-to-be-written for a list with many redlinks. Here for the Volume of the Month. I already used it and created Thomas Gaspey, with >30 pages linking to it. --Magnus Manske (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Excellent I was going to have to write that tool for other evil purposes. Now I don't have to. Rich Farmbrough, 21:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC).

Cool! Thanks, Magnus. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Article assessment / talk page tagging

Does anyone have strenuous objection to the idea of the creation of a WP:WP DNB talk page tag, bot insertion of said tag on all articles within the Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of National Biography tree, and the creation of a quality assessment page a la Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Roads/Assessment? And more specifically, to inherit existing Quality ratings as the tags are first added; and to dispense with the importance= parameter.

The main drivers are 1) because we can 2) I'd like to see a summary of the quality of WP's DNB articles, for no good reason 3) a means of publicising this project as a result of the placement of the tag on the talk pages of n thousand articles.

Given the potential for at least a feeble flicker of interest in WP:WP DNB, I'd not look to implement before we've closed and/or actioned the result of the Volume of the Month discussion, above. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't suppose that anyone from this WikiProject would object. It's the sort of idea to try in 100 cases first and see whether the outside world objects. Anything on top of the VoTM tables, or adapting that concept, should probably be done with automation in mind; meaning, in the terms of Magnus Manske-style technology, it all starts from a category (which we have). A discussion with Magnus on these things is usually illuminating. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Volume of the Month, February

OK, here we go again. I've put up a page for February's volume (this time vol. 48): here. Some changes have been incorporated. The redlink counting tool is now set up on the page: the top links are Morgan Rhys, Henry Revell Reynolds and John Russell Reynolds. I have added two columns to the table; and put the boilerplate into a template. The proportion of actual redlinks is quite small (and most of them would be orphans). In theory the project is going ahead now on the basis of four such pages per month. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

And here's the second page for that volume: here. This time the top redlinks (after allowing for false positives) are George Rice (died 1779) (he was an MP for Carmarthen), John Richardson (judge), and Michael Richards (artillerist). Charles Matthews (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I recently discovered that the editor and a contributor of a similar but older work were inconsiderately long-lived, and hence their work is still copyright in the EU (in one case for less than another year). For this reason I would prefer (at least) to concentrate efforts on articles whose authors died over 70 years ago. How close are we to having this data? Rich Farmbrough, 21:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC).

The good news, such as it is, is that s:Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/List of Contributors has now just a single redlink, and that author only wrote a single DNB article. Not all the author pages have a date of death, however, and that is because efforts to identify the author have so far failed; or the date of death has not been successfully researched. s:Talk: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/List of Contributors is the standard forum in which these matters are addressed.
We know that a few of the contributors lived on into the 1940s, so that under a 70 year rule they are gradually dropping out of copyright as we proceed. I'd estimate that copyright of that sort affects well under 1% of DNB articles from the first edition and first supplement; when we tackle the 1912 supplement, which is PD, there will be a fresh bunch of authors to worry about, but that part of the project will get going at earliest later this year.
There is also the question of who wrote the anonymous articles, which are about 300. According to Fenwick these were mostly Leslie Stephen, so that issue is smaller than it may look at first sight.
So it's certainly a bit messy still, for the purist. The chances are, though, that a given article will be easily checked for 70 year compliance. I'd hazard a guess that a tool could extract from s:Category:Contributors to DNB the authors for which date of death is absent or "?"; or after 1941. Such a list might motivate some more research, to narrow down the reqion of uncertainty. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Wikisource

this is a heads up. There is a proposal that eventually all access to Wikisource via templates should be through a universal template, this of course would affect {{DNB}} etc: See Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikisource -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:DNBIE

There are two templates for articles that include from Dictionary of National Biography Index and Epitome

  1. {{Cite DNBIE}}
  2. {{DNBIE}}

The work in a similar manner to {{Cite DNB}} and {{DNB}}. They have one additional feature that makes them useful for this project. If a page (or pages) parameter is supplied then there is a link to a facsimile page of the book at the Internet Archive. Each biographical entry of the Index and Epitome includes a reference to the volume and page number of the entry in the full volumes.

Each use of {{DNBIE}} fills in two categories:

{{Cite DNBIE}} fills in two categories:

These categories can be useful for two purposes. The first is identifying entries on Wikipedia that could benefit from the incorporation of information from a Wikisource DNB entry. The second is identifying articles on Wikipedia where there is no Wikisource copy of the full DNB entry, so providing a priority for creating such an entry.

As an example as of now the Wikipedia article Bridget Bendish incorporates text from the DNBIE which amounts to one line, but there is a complete DNB article available on Wikisource to expand the article. -- PBS (talk) 14:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Review article of the various online biographical dictionaries

Came across this today, a review covering the major online Dictionaries of National Biography-equivalents, and in particular this closing remark:

It has also to be admitted that some of the biographies on Wikipedia are as good, or better, and often longer, more transparent, and better-referenced, than the equivalent in their national dictionary, and should assuredly be read alongside them.

Perhaps of some interest! Andrew Gray (talk) 13:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Update

Articles for the whole of the first edition are now available on Wikisource. I have just updated {{DNBListing}} accordingly. I have made an effort to link WS articles to WP articles, but that is ongoing. Right now there are about 11,500 unlinked articles, or say 39%. This is the first time we have had a figure, anyway. But that is too high - I expect it to be below 25% to do when the checking has been done. (Ask me about the semi-automation over on Wikisource.)

NB in any case that the Epitome lists here, and the "wikipedia=" fields on Wikisource, are not synchronised. Seeing what WS has for a particular volume may be a big help in checking here, and to some extent vice versa. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Harv tweak needed

The basic template {{cite DNB}} would be of greater use if it had a harv= field, allowing Harvard referencing. It is not a style I apply myself, but in the course of standardising DNB refs here, I find it quite often. Is anyone able to oblige? Charles Matthews (talk) 08:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I have only just seen this. The template {{cite DNB}} includes it as a parameter (so it can be set manually) but does not set it by default (which is how it is for all the standard {{cite name}} templates). The template {{DNB}} sets it by default. The reason for this difference is that someone may choose to use the {{cite DNB}} template more than once in the same article, and as such they may only wish one instance to be linked from a short citation. If on consideration you still would like it to be turned on by default (as it is in {{DNB}}) then request it here, and if no one else does it, when I periodically look here I'll do it, or if you post to my talk page I'll do it more quickly. Or if you prefer as spot of DIY, look for the line in the template that reads
| ref = {{{ref|}}}
and change it to:
| ref = {{{ref|harv}}}
-- PBS (talk) 12:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Ratios tool

There is a new and very relevant DNB tool at http://tools.wmflabs.org/dnbtools/dnb_ratios.php (thanks once more to User:Magnus Manske. The idea is to compare DNB biographies and articles here by length, and there is a listing by descending ratio. I.e. articles at the top have a long DNB biography compared to what is here, so there is scope for expansion from the DNB.

It's a bit more complicated than that in practice, but after some preliminary work I can give a top 10:

The readout of the tool is quite dynamic, and a page move here is quite likely to change it. So the top of the list has "noise": pages linking to redirects or dab pages. I have cleared away those at ratios > 2. Page moves happen daily and the listing can be affected. It is easy enough to update the "wikipedia=" field in the Wikisource header in those cases, and refresh. I did find an instance of vandalism here with the tool.

For the intended purpose of finding pages here to upgrade, NB that the "WS words" value will be a few thousand, and the ratio is likely less than 2 (the size of a WP article in bytes is inflated by persondata and categories in particular). Where the "WS words" value is in three figures, expect to find the "wikipedia=" field occupied by a redirect, or link to a dab page. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Tracking page

Beginning to get on top of the actual progress. The new page at

Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Tracking

shows a breakdown of where the missing articles may be. Basically since the first edition was completed on Wikisource earlier in the year, one third of the links missing to matching articles here have been filled in. There are fewer than 9,000 articles now missing. (NB there will be additional articles from the second supplement added in, over time.) The links on the tracking page to the "DNB match" tool will show you what these articles are (apparently). Of course the tool isn't always correct, and you should expect some false negatives. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Review of the subscription template

There is a discussion at Template talk:ODNBsub#Template's utility or it's wrong or misleading; and has spam on whether the subscription wording at the end of the template {{Cite ODNB}} ought to be changed. -- PBS (talk) 01:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It's at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Missing women. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

It's at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Naval biographies. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:32, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Tools page

s:Wikisource:WikiProject DNB/Tools is a summary page for the various Magnus Manske tools relevant to the DNB. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:04, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Ratios tool: new template feature

The "DNB ratios" tool at http://tools.wmflabs.org/dnbtools/dnb_ratios.php now has some super-useful template finding features. The right hand column notes colour coded templates on WP articles.

Green means a template in Category:Article message templates, such as {{unreferenced}}. So I can see today that there are 175 WP articles that match a DNB biography on Wikisource and tagged as {{unreferenced}}.

Blue means a template in Category:Attribution templates. For example {{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature}}, a pet hate of mine, occurs on just over 300 articles relevant to this project. Often these have hung around as stubs since 2004.

Plenty to do! Thanks to User:Magnus Manske for the upgrade.

Charles Matthews (talk) 15:07, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both for the work! Generally I find the results pretty encouraging - only 10 articles have ratios over 1.25, which given the sources often wordy style is pretty good. Expansion of these should generally come from newer sources, imo - in particular all UK editors should be able to access the new ODNB at home via libraries, which I hope we all realize. Johnbod (talk) 13:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The actual ratios are skewed, however: the methodology is fairly crude, and misses the fact that a short biography here may have much of its length made up by the hidden Persondata section, iceberg-style. Currently the tool is good for finding articles like Robert Persons, where the existing WP article was a bit perfunctory, while the DNB had plenty to say.

Many of the top hits are actors, where the DNB really goes to town with heavy detail from early theatre historians like John Genest, which then needs a lot of work to make readable.

Thanks for dropping by, John. As you say, the road to fuller upgrading involves use of other sources. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Most of them, for the people I see anyway, are completely rewritten. Johnbod (talk) 13:17, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

cite DNB in articles here

I see from Catscan 2.0 that {{cite DNB}} is now used in over 10000 articles. Just thought you'd like to know that. There are a number of other ways in which the DNB is referenced, typically with drawbacks. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:02, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

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