[This is mostly me blowing off steam, but there's an actual serious
proposal in here too...]
On 20/03/07, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote:
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.
But the thing is, once we've verified the bibliographic data is
correct, we're done. End of story. We no longer need the catalogue
reference, in the same way we wouldn't need a note saying "this book
is borrowed by Sally, remember to add the publication details when she
brings it back".
Basically, this is my objection. The Amazon link, or the LoC link, or
any other link, is *not a source*; I mean, really, what are we
verifying? That a work by this name and with this metadata appears in
an online catalogue. Nothing more. It does not verify the assertion
that this is a relevant work, or that it is one we used. It is simply
what we use to sanity-check the metadata in our own list of sources.
Once we've done that check, we've confirmed we've spelled the name
right and got the year correct, we don't need to keep that link or
that catalogue code; it's an internal editorial reference, and it can
be kept on the talk page or junked, but it's unneccesary and somewhat
misleading to keep it with the citation.
ISBNs are a special case - we keep them around because MediaWiki can
do cunning magic with them, and we faintly hope we can hack something
similar together later for LCCNs. But it would not materially harm the
intellectual integrity of our listed references to quietly lose every
ISBN overnight, because they're icing and not cake.
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.
But *what does it matter*? As above, once we have the bibliographic
data, we don't need a link or a code to another place listing that
data - it just seems futile. Our readers are going to follow that link
and find, er, nothing of any use to them.
As for reuse, I think a much more effective solution would be to start
writing something to parse {{cite book}} templates for their bib
data...
...which prompts a thought. Could we expand the citation templates and
have default-non-displaying fields, like the hack we have with
persondata? This would allow us to silently include all the catalogue
identifiers we could wish for, BNB codes or BNF references or LCCNs or
OCLC codes or, hell, even LibraryThing work IDs - without the
objectionable issues of including and displaying unhelpful links (or
the limitation of only including one ID number). We could then fiddle
it with different div IDs so that people can select in CSS to display
ISBNs or ESTC numbers or whatever their little heart desires...
(ESTC is probably one of the rare counterexamples to "no comprehensive
identifiers before 1960s", but I don't see us citing too many of its
works...)
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.
I did :-) About August 2005 I killed almost every ASIN listed on
Wikipedia, as unneccesary and unhelpful. I am utterly astonished to
find people encouraging their use, as may be apparent...
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.
This isn't how cataloguing works, sad to say. You can't create a
verified record without the book in your hand; if they had the book in
their hand (well, stock), it would have been catalogued eventually
regardless...
(WorldCat isn't a repository. It's a union catalogue of thousands of
libraries. I suspect none of them are the Institute for Philanthropic
Bibliography...)
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.
I fear you jest! It's there because someone wanted to sell a copy and
has now sold it, or because amazon.fr picked up the details from one
of their databases and put it up in the hope someone would list one...
Amazon.com certainly prune old ASIN pages; I've known them vanish.
There's no guarantee the code will ever be reused; if the same work
reappears it may well get a new code, or the old code may be recycled
for a different work. There is no "standard" to it, no published
information on how it works or guidance on using it; it's not intended
for external use.
WorldCat also has problems.
I have strong views against WorldCat as well, but that's another rant
- vast quanties of very sloppy cataloguing, and a misleading
presentation as being substantially more comprehensive than it is.
(Remember, you have to pay to join the consortium...) I would argue
(almost) as strongly against arguing we should routinely include OCLC
id codes, or whatever it is they use; I got very het up recently when
someone wanted to spam the Worldcat "author pages" across Wikipedia.
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.
I would discourage calling it a "source", then... "further reading"
can cover a multitude of sins.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk