Hello everyone,
I write to let you know about a really interesting project on Wikisource. A group of volunteers, including Charles Matthews, has just finished digitising the Victorian-era Dictionary of National Biographyhttp://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900. The project is the result of the efforts of over 30 volunteers since 2008 and has led to over 30,000 articles being added to Wikisource.
Charles has put together a blog post about the project which can be seen herehttp://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/02/victorian-era-dictionary-of-national-biography-digitised-on-wikisource/ .
Thanks and regards,
Stevie
On 11 February 2013 16:40, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
The project is the result of the efforts of over 30 volunteers since 2008 and has led to over 30,000 articles being added to Wikisource.
Thanks Stevie. On the remote possibility that there may be a pedant out there, the exact number today is 29,051. DNB buffs will know about the supplements, and we'll make up 30K when we have done the extra 5% in the second supplement.
Charles
Congratulations all round, especially to Charles.
Congratulations indeed.
Putting 29,000+ biographies onto Wikisource is a monumental achievement; Charles and all those who contributed deserve to be told by us how much their efforts are appreciated.
What's next, Charles?
On 11 February 2013 18:03, rexx rexx@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
Congratulations indeed.
Putting 29,000+ biographies onto Wikisource is a monumental achievement; Charles and all those who contributed deserve to be told by us how much their efforts are appreciated.
What's next, Charles?
Well, I only got into this project through my so-called friend Dsp13, at the time in 2009 when I wanted some Puritan biographies. Much of the point is to have material that can build up WP, with a really convenient way of linking back to the original. Old text can be used on WP, but you have to be really ruthless in editing it.
So almost as important to me on Wikipedia as WP:DNB (Don't Bite the Newbies) is WP:WP DNB, the WikiProject devoted to quarrying out the good stuff from the DNB, starting articles, and upgrading them. Now at last we'll be able to find how many missing topics there are (I guess 5,000 to 6,000, about 20%), through various routes. The Wikisource category Category:DNB No WP says 13,152 missing today, which is much too high; but Magnus Manske has a way of sorting by rough length and so today I'm working on a WP article that is one of the longest missing (spreads over four DNB pages). Rich Farmbrough has worked on this category in the past.
Charles
That's really exciting - it's relatively easy to work out that a given topic area (in this case notable Victorians) has gaps, but it's wonderful to have something like this that tells us exactly what those gaps are and helps us fill them.
In fact, it's the sort of thing you could build an edit-a-thon around to get people filling in the gaps... Harry Mitchell
Phone: 024 7698 0977 Skype: harry_j_mitchell
________________________________ From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com To: UK Wikimedia mailing list wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 11 February 2013, 18:25 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Victorian-era Dictionary of National Biography digitised on Wikisource
On 11 February 2013 18:03, rexx rexx@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
Congratulations indeed.
Putting 29,000+ biographies onto Wikisource is a monumental achievement; Charles and all those who contributed deserve to be told by us how much their efforts are appreciated.
What's next, Charles?
Well, I only got into this project through my so-called friend Dsp13, at the time in 2009 when I wanted some Puritan biographies. Much of the point is to have material that can build up WP, with a really convenient way of linking back to the original. Old text can be used on WP, but you have to be really ruthless in editing it.
So almost as important to me on Wikipedia as WP:DNB (Don't Bite the Newbies) is WP:WP DNB, the WikiProject devoted to quarrying out the good stuff from the DNB, starting articles, and upgrading them. Now at last we'll be able to find how many missing topics there are (I guess 5,000 to 6,000, about 20%), through various routes. The Wikisource category Category:DNB No WP says 13,152 missing today, which is much too high; but Magnus Manske has a way of sorting by rough length and so today I'm working on a WP article that is one of the longest missing (spreads over four DNB pages). Rich Farmbrough has worked on this category in the past.
Charles
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On 11 February 2013 18:25, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
WP:WP DNB, the WikiProject devoted to quarrying out the good stuff from the DNB,
Excellent job.
Is there a template for linking from Wikipedia articles to the corresponding DNB entry on Wikisource?
On 11 February 2013 20:24, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 11 February 2013 18:25, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
WP:WP DNB, the WikiProject devoted to quarrying out the good stuff from the DNB,
Excellent job.
Is there a template for linking from Wikipedia articles to the corresponding DNB entry on Wikisource?
Yes, {{cite DNB|wstitle =}}, in which you place the Wikisource title, such as Darwin, Charles Robert (DNB00), without the suffix. So {{cite DNB|wstitle = Darwin, Charles Robert}}. That's for citations: plain {{DNB}} works the same way for attribution of copied text.
Charles
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