It concerns mainly WS. Yann
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Universal Library Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 02:29:28 -0400 From: David Goodman To: Yann Forget
More accurately, the number of items there with adequate and complete information comes close to zero--or perhaps is actually zero-- One example for now, the first I looked at:
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Vie_d%E2%80%99Alexandre_le_Grand Plutarque traduction Ricard, 1840 There were many eds. of his translation. The 1840 is not the first ed, which was 1798-1803, but presumably the 1837-1841 published by F.A. Dubois, Vol. and pages not specified. It makes a difference whether a translation was done in the 18th c. or the 19th.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_(Dryden_translation)/Alexander Lives by Plutarch , translated by John Dryden -- but it doesn't specify the edition at all.
The French comes out ahead, but not by much. Neither specified just what copy was used, or even what printing, a basic necessity for checking the transcription. IAS and Google Book Search do. Not in the metadata, unfortunately, but they do show it in the scan. They also scan multiple copies from multiple libraries, a basic necessity for scholarly work. No responsible academic would prepare a text from a single copy.
As for translation links, the enWS links to the frWS, the frWS links to the enWS, but incorrectly. They both link to the Greek, which gives no indication at all of which edition is being followed. It is very unlikely to be the one use by Ricard or the one used by Dryden.
If you want to know, I do not work for the enWS because the accepted standards are so low I have no hope of fixing it; for the enWP I can at least have some effect.
As for the frWP sourcing, I checked 20 articles. Half were unsourced entirely, or to primary sources from the subject of the article only. The frWP does an excellent job of sourcing to primary documentary sources--much better than the en. Neither do all that well otherwise, except for scattered articles worked on by good people. The deWP is the one that comes closer to adequacy.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Yann Forgetyann@forget-me.net wrote:
David Goodman wrote: ...
information) The accuracy & adequacy -- let alone completeness-- of the bibliographic information in WS is close to zero,
This alone shows that you know very little of this project, where I have never seen you. You claim to be an expert, but you talk about things which you don't know. So I won't pursue this discussion, it is quite useless in that context.
...
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
Regards,
Yann
On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 11:34 PM, Yann Forgetyann@forget-me.net wrote:
It concerns mainly WS. Yann
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Universal Library Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009 02:29:28 -0400 From: David Goodman To: Yann Forget
More accurately, the number of items there with adequate and complete information comes close to zero--or perhaps is actually zero-- One example for now, the first I looked at:
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Vie_d%E2%80%99Alexandre_le_Grand Plutarque traduction Ricard, 1840 There were many eds. of his translation. The 1840 is not the first ed, which was 1798-1803, but presumably the 1837-1841 published by F.A. Dubois, Vol. and pages not specified. It makes a difference whether a translation was done in the 18th c. or the 19th.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_(Dryden_translation)/Alexander Lives by Plutarch , translated by John Dryden -- but it doesn't specify the edition at all.
En.Ws indicates the source.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Talk:Lives_%28Dryden_translation%29
And this is very much beside the point - _we_ have the full text, which means the reader can assist in further identifying it using the copy on their home/library shelf.
Open Library doesn't contain digital objects, which means that identification of duplicates isn't possible.
The French comes out ahead, but not by much. Neither specified just what copy was used, or even what printing, a basic necessity for checking the transcription. IAS and Google Book Search do. Not in the metadata, unfortunately, but they do show it in the scan. They also scan multiple copies from multiple libraries, a basic necessity for scholarly work. No responsible academic would prepare a text from a single copy.
As for translation links, the enWS links to the frWS, the frWS links to the enWS, but incorrectly. They both link to the Greek, which gives no indication at all of which edition is being followed. It is very unlikely to be the one use by Ricard or the one used by Dryden.
If you want to know, I do not work for the enWS because the accepted standards are so low I have no hope of fixing it; for the enWP I can at least have some effect.
I can understand this; enWS is full of texts with poor metadata.
As for the frWP sourcing, I checked 20 articles. Half were unsourced entirely, or to primary sources from the subject of the article only. The frWP does an excellent job of sourcing to primary documentary sources--much better than the en. Neither do all that well otherwise, except for scattered articles worked on by good people. The deWP is the one that comes closer to adequacy.
I expect David has just performed a random sample, rather than looking at what the contributors are actively working on.
He needs to look at the featured texts, especially on German and French Wikisource.
Perhaps we need a "showcase", where we demonstrate our best works.
-- John Vandenberg
John Vandenberg, 05/09/2009 15:56:
En.Ws indicates the source.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Talk:Lives_%28Dryden_translation%29
Perhaps you may modify the tab name from "discussion" to "source" as other Wikisource projects?
Nemo
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