On 3/20/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
But the thing is... why not just say
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
Not everything has to have a weblink next to it... why does it need to be "verified"? All that does is confirm the purported source exists; it doesn't actually give us any help in confirming the content of the source.
Why do ISBNs and ISSNs have check digits? Wikipedia's citations needs to be verified because there is no other way to visually differentiate between
Jean Justice. "Le Crime de la Route A6". Laffont, 1968.
and
Jean Justic. "Le Crime". Laffont, 1968.
Having the ability to verify works means volunteers can chase down the ones that look a little sketchy. And rapidly double check the ones that do have the linkies.
If you want better metadata than the fragment on the Amazon site, you can get it out of the BNF catalogue easily enough - it took me, with my patchy French, two minutes to find...
Jean Justice. Le Crime de la route A6 [Texte imprimé][″Murder versus murder″]. Traduction et présentation de Claude Mourthé. - Paris : R. Laffont, 1968. - In-16 (20 cm), 343 p., carte, pl., couv. ill. 19,50 F. [D. L. 2867-68].
...but you can't give it a fixed URL, so I guess it may as well not exist. Catalogue number is FRBNF33059758 ;-)
While I do find the link to Amazon useful, my reasoning for using ASIN for works without another identifier is simply that it is useful to add catalogue identifiers to every citation and reference work in order to assist others that use the raw wikipedia data as input to other projects (e.g. librarything). The reality is that most people dont know about WorldCat, wont bother trying to use the LOC search, and definitely will be confused by our LOC templates. They will on the other hand add an ISBN or ASIN if it is sitting right in front of them, and our newer contributors will be mighty chuffed with themselves when they manage to add an Amazon link correctly. Learn to love the bomb.
{{ASIN}} allows all ASINs to be placed into [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:ASIN]] or a category if that becomes necessary. This allows others who care more for the utility of the these citations, beyond mere reading pleasure, to replace them with the an appropriate identifier where possible.
I see the ASIN template primarily as a way of classifying citations and the articles they sit on. I would expect that the [[WP:FACT]] project would endeavour to remove any ASIN from an article before it hit the front page. If {{ASIN}} become over-used (its been hovering between 50-100 for a while), they could plough through them in a clean-up exercise.
If we end up with a large number of ASINs that cant be replaced with a better identifier, a repository like WorldCat may come along and create verified records for them all, simply because they are used on Wikipedia.
Back to the ASIN B0000DQ7SP; as far as I can tell, there is only one online catalogue that has this work listed at present. People are far more likely to click on an ASIN than they are to ask a librarian about the book. A bit of babelfish and this ASIN lets me know there is a good chance that this work has photographs in it.
As an aside, this ASIN entry on amazon.fr is definitely not primarily for the purpose of generating revenue; it may not be philanthropic, but it is a public service.
Any call to not link to ASINs because it *may* have incorrect data should bear in mind that people link to Wikipedia in spite of the same possible problem. WorldCat also has problems. I don't have much experience with LOC but I'm sure they have problems too. By linking to any/all of these resources discrepancies can be easily spotted, and enquiring minds will usually do some digging and we can expect that all of these external resources will become more accurate over time.
Also, I feel the need to make a slightly odd objection here - why are we citing an English work *and* citing its French translation? Does the latter contain more information?
My guess is it has been put on the enwiki to ensure all works about the subject are listed, or perhaps in preparation for a French translation of the English article.
-- John