Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Archive 5

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This is the third archive of the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles.

1911 missing inline citations

It is nice to put text from 1911 Britannica in WP but since the aim is to help direct people to other resources from WP articles, it would be nice to take all the articles and add inline citations to comfort each fact given in Britannica so that this information is verified and checked. Lincher 01:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not nice to put text from 1911 in WP because it is out of date. Rather than keeping ancient text and adding notes to it. Better to write prose appropriate to 2006. The 1911 project is already "finished" though so the point may be moot. Pcb21 Pete 09:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

List for the project

Hi. I'm not sure where it should be listed exactly, but I thought WP:MEA should know about this list of record labels that was taken from List of independent record labels, which seems to be on the verge of deletion.

Please sign your messages. This is to follow basic Wikipedia gudelines. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

American Senators

Down to about 100 senators in the American senators page, out of almost 2000. Any help?--Rayc 03:49, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

One new list of missing topics

I have collected a list of possible topics based on the sources I have. The list is bound to overlap with other similar lists and I'm sure some are just in need of a proper redirect. Could any interested parties have a look? - Skysmith 09:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

A simple thing you can do to help identify redirects is to add or modify one of the existing search templates. (Template:Search, Template:SearchCath, Template:SearchFilm, Template:SearchAlbums. It makes it much much easier to search wikipedia for existing items or as a starting point for creating articles. If you are "finished" creating the list, you can feel free to add it to another list available to the community. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 14:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. - Skysmith 10:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Article titled Ashtapradhan

Ashta Pradhan (

• wp
• g
• b

) Ashta pradhan - available on WP as Ashtapradhan but currently on AFD. Thought it best to put a note here. --Gurubrahma 12:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Removal of a couple of lists

I would like to propose the removal of the following lists:

• Evangelical Dictionary of Theology - Incomplete, not updated since July 2005, likely copyright violation if copied in toto
• Hotlist of Electronics Incomplete with single editor, no edits since 2005 .
  • Creator is willing to continue project 15:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• Dictionary of New Zealand Biography - Inactive, move to regional notice board, no entries have been removed
• MacTutor archive - Created at request, likely copyright vio (see Feist vs. Rural).

These list don't have to be deleted - (except the copyright violations), they can be userfied, moved elsewhere or simply remain. However, they have not raised the attention of any users and do not seem to be serving the function of this project, which is identification of topics. Thanks! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Links that link to the article that links them?

Confusing title, I know. But I am looking for help on the Raisinets page.

See, Raisinets is a registered trademark of a relatively popular candy (apparently the original brand name chocolate-covered raisins, to be exact, and it's been in the U.S. for almost 90 years). Yet the page Raisinets automatically redirects ONLY to a page (and a stub at that) that only talks about chocolate-covered raisins in general, and only mentions Raisinets in passing, saying that it's "another word" for the candy based on the trademark. It even links to Raisinets, which is annoying as hell, because it just puts you back on the exact same page - which is, again, a stub about the general TYPE of candy with hardly any information on the Raisinets brand itself. We don't do this with kleenex, so why do it with with Raisinets?? :\

I have no idea how to undo a redirect. :( Please help! Even if this isn't the right WikiProject for it (I figured it might be, since even though it's got a circular link, it also requires the creation of a seperate article in place of the redirect), I'd appreciate so much as being pointed in the right direction! Runa27 18:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Just go here and write a real article :) Haukur 19:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

1911encylopedia.org wikified

Some time in the past 4 days, LoveToKnow (1911encylopedia.org) has been wikified, using MediaWiki software, no less. According to the explanation, anyone can log in to correct OCR errors and extend the encylopedia (in separate pieces of text). I'm not sure what to make of this - it will be interesting to see whether it gets traction. We now have the Tim Starling scans, which means we have access to the original text anyway. Any thoughts? Did anyone see any announcement? And am I the only one caring about 1911 verification any more? David Brooks 06:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

More: although anyone can log in and edit, they now explicitly claim claim copyright on any changes. This license text was expanded July 11 from a short statement claiming copyright on all content (although they forgot to change the copyright years; right now it says 2002 and 2003). WP editors certainly shouldn't volunteer changes, and using this as a source text is now even more likely to be tainted. Also, although the recent changes list starts July 11, the edit history of the index suggests the wiki version has been in development since August 2005.

And, while I'm on the subject, the other online encyclopedia is now accepting submitted corrections; I didn't see when that happened. They have a simple copyright claim on the entire site content, so again it may cover submissions. David Brooks 14:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, David, I'm working on bringing all the articles of the EB1911 to the GA status so I'm trying to help in fact-checking and rephrasing the encyclopedia to our day texts and all. If you've got any questions drop me a line or look at the first page of the EB1911 verif page. Lincher 04:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

IANAL (I am not a Lawyer) but US Copyright law and wikipedia itself come to the rescue. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. Summing up, "Even if accurate reproductions require a great deal of skill, experience and effort, the key element for copyrightability under U.S. law is that copyrighted material must show sufficient originality." While the case specifically applies to photographs, I am sure the translation to written works and OCR is relevant. Further, Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service is where the Supreme Court shifts from "sweat alot, its copyrightable" to "The court clarified that the intent of copyright law was not, as claimed by Rural and some lower courts, to reward the efforts of persons collecting information, but rather "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (U.S. Const. 1.8.8), that is, to encourage creative expression." The findings of the court were unanimous. A good read. Attempting to copyright public domain text by just OCRing it will likely fail if tried in court. Copy and paste as needed, there is no danger of "taint," at least for US based wikipedia folks Electrawn 07:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem, potentially, comes when and if the online sites add original and useful text (submitted or their own) directly to their versions of the articles that isn't in the printed original. That may well be contrary to their original intent, but who's to stop them, and who's to know? After all, it does say "based on". There is a related danger, that innocent people might notice the extensions and (not reading the warnings here and elsewhere) assume that they too are free. I'm being cautious here, but I think appropriately. David Brooks 16:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I am a developer with three monitors. Monitor left has 1911, monitor right has the png scans on wikisource and monitor middle has the article I am working on. So I scan both. I haven't cut and pasted any text so far. I was looking at doing it for Sewerage as the 1911 is comprehensive and wikipedia is well...complete crud. Too bad the scans, tables, and formulas did not translate OCR very well. Also, The 1911 site conveinently splits new stuff on a seperate/page and tab from the original 1911 text. Users should obviously be careful, however, I strongly believe the law is on our side. Yay. Electrawn 19:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was wondering about that Sewerage thing. Is there a danger of replacing an inadequate article with an irrelevant one - has the technology really not advanced since 1911? I suppose the basic principles will be the same though; the Victorians were really enthusiastic about the idea. David Brooks 19:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I doubt it has changed much in the last 2000 years. I saw blue man recently, and had to search far and wide to dig this up for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E9MZli4qeU . (hee hee) I also doubt the physics formulas and assumptions have changed much over millenia. I think the only real additions would be the use of PVC and plastics in "Sewerage" Electrawn 19:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hotlist of Mythology topics

Is anyone editing the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/Hotlist_of_Mythology_&_Folklore pages to (a) remove blue links or (b) update the %complete? No one seems to have touched it in quite some time, apart from me who updated the %complete about two months ago. Is there a bot that's supposed to do that, BTW? It was a real true pain doing it in Excel... Bookgrrl 15:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I did a bit of work on it. I went through and cleaned up the Zs (not actually sure why I started with the Zs...). I tried to create as many redirects as I could, I cleaned up all bluelinks that actually seemed to link to something useful, and I added notes to the bluelinks that might need more work. I didn't update the percentage though. I think I'll probably try and slowly plod my way through the whole list over the next little while. --Gpollock 17:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Inter-Wikiproject Cooperation?

I'm just wondering how much cooperation there is between this and other Wikiprojects? I'm not sure whether this has been standard practice for the project, but I just went around the Wikiprojects related to mythology and asked for some help with our very own Hotlist of Mythology & Folklore. I mean, since we are working with such an incredibly broad spectrum of topics, I can see it being incredibly useful to try and get some help from people in more specific Wikiprojects, who might have much deeper knowledge of these topics. Has this been done? Does WikiProject Authors or WikiProject Books know about our Project Gutenberg author list? Does Wikiproject Film know about our List of notable films? etc etc etc... Just wondering. --Gpollock 22:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, they should. However, to get a more definite answer, I feel that you should find this out from the more active contributors in their respective Wikiprojects. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Weekly focus

So... for exactly how long is the weekly focus going to be Hotlist of Topics/O? My "original articles" list is getting a bit heavy on the O's. --Aguerriero (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My vote is to work on the crossover lists, like Top list or List of encyclopedia topics × Music, or even General×Hotlist. All three lists put together total around 452. For the price of getting rid of one Hotlist letter, you could get rid of three whole lists.--Rayc 22:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

That is a very pregnent analysis of the situation, Rayce! I fully agree with you. However, who is going to change the subject matter of the weekly focus? --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The last change of weekly focus was on May 1 [1].

I guess Wikipedia uses long weeks... or is waiting for someone to be WP:BB. --Alvestrand 18:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Some statistics

I compiled some statistics: how many articles from non-English Wikipedias are translated into English, and how many notable topics from specialized databases are covered on Wiki so far. My conclusions: there are about 2 millions articles in need of translation, and more then 400 million of specialized topics in need of creation :) See User:Piotrus/Wikipedia interwiki and specialized knowledge test for details.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus  talk}  18:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Bugger. We'd better move the planned completion date back by a week or two. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Where did all the lists of bands go?

I was looking for the List of bands from North Carolina page to add some more bands and noticed its gone? so is the south carolina page, and no state i type in works. These pages weren't really opinionated, to my opinion that is. just a simple list of bands. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.71.216.138 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC).

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States musicians (2nd nomination). Basically they were replaced with categories. If you want to work on the red links on the list then you could ask that it be undeleted and placed in either User: or Wikipedia: space. Your best bet would probably be to ask at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Content_review. It would be better if you signed up for a user account so that you would have a userspace for the page to sit in. --Cherry blossom tree 19:25, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals

Another useful resource might be the Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals edited by Timothy Larsen, David W. Bebbington, and Mark A. Noll, InterVarsity Press (Jul 2003), ISBN 0830829253. DFH 08:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Logos Bible Software produced an electronic edition. DFH 09:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Small question

So, if you are going through the various lists (which are amazing, quite frankly) and you see some blue links, such as here, is it ok to delete 'em? Dev920 (Tory?) 15:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Not really. At least you should check that the WP article is actually on the same topic as the source article. Some of us (especially in the 1911 cleanup project) are also tagging or fixing inadequate articles, so that we have equivalent coverage, not just the same list of topics. But it must be admitted that the auto-deletion of blue links has happened, including those deleted automatically when some of the source lists were originally created. David Brooks 15:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Some people are in the habit of creating one-line substubs just to blue a link, and even when the length of the article in Wikipedia is the same, there is a chance that it is all trivia. Uppland 16:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Where did the list of high schools go?

Did we just give up on that project?--Rayc 21:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone is free to create them, but listing them here implies that they are all "missing" and necessary for a complete encyclopedia. This is a problem, too, for portions of the General topics list which contains a host of dictionary words that are very frequently created and then soon replaced with {{wi}} as being merely dictionary definitions. —Centrx→talk • 22:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

That's nonsense. This project is for people interested in creating articles that we currently don't have. Your basing your entire argument on the 3-word name of the project, rather than the individuals who are likely to have an interest in the project. It hurts nothing to include the list under See Also. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-25 19:09Z

Is this the page you're looking for? Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/High_schools AuburnPilot^Talk 04:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Greetings and question

Hello there, I'm trying to improve all Uruguay-related articles through this project but I'm not sure where to get started, the amount of red links is pretty wide and I still don't understand how you guys get organised, do you agree on fixing one article at the time or something? Thanks

Wesborland 04:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello. There are a lot of articles missing on the presidents of Uruguay. See for example [2] I think there are quite important. I cannot answer you well to your question on organisation.--Youssef 14:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Expansions

Mataró has an {{MEA-expand}} tag on it. I have expanded it somewhat from the corresponding Catalan article (could do with a bit more work, but it's no longer stubbish): where does this want reporting? Similarly, I am about to start on Badalona, which is tagged {{update-eb}}... Physchim62 (talk) 15:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

1911encyclopedia.org links

Hi, is this project the one that's putting 1911encyclopedia.org links all over Wikipedia? There are over 1000 of them and I'd just put a notice about them over on the Wikispam discussion board and was ready to start cleaning them up as spam. The 1911encyclopedia.org site is commercial and claims copyright to their scan--we should use the template {{1911}} to indicate that one of our articles incorporates EB1911 text, and we should only cite EB1911 in a references section if it's an actual reference (i.e. something that was referred to while writing the article) rather than supplemental material. Unless the EB article has stuff that a WP featured article wouldn't contain once fully developed, we shouldn't extlink to it per WP:EL. Since it's public domain we should just incorporate any useful material from it directly into Wikipedia.

Really, we should be using our own scan of EB1911 (or Gutenberg's) rather than linking to some company's. I realize that the whole thing isn't yet online in such a form (either on Wikisource or Gutenberg) but it's being worked on.

Any thoughts what to do about all these links? Thanks. 67.117.130.181 03:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Certainly not anymore, since there are no more 1911 articles to add to Wikipedia, but even when we were working on that list the instructions were to use {{1911}} (see Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopedia topics.) I don't have any problem with switching these links to the standard template. --Cherry blossom tree 12:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure which links to change. If there's a link in the reference section of some WP article, that means one of:

• it was actually a reference to the article (somebody referred to it while writing the WP article) and the WP article incorporates WP text; this should be changed to the standard template; or,
• it was purely a reference for the article (somebody referred to it while writing the WP article but didn't incorporate actual text); in this case the 1911 template isn't accurate and we should use some other kind of cite (but what?); or,
• It wasn't really a reference (nobody referred to it while writing the WP article), in which case it is spam and should be removed, not changed.

I think there are many instances of each of the above. My question is how to tell which is which. Any thoughts? 67.117.130.181 12:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The only way to tell is to read the two texts. It's pretty easy to find a DNA match, and if there is one, it deserves the {{1911}} tag. If not, and there is interesting material in 1911 that isn't appropriate for inclusion in WP (that'd be a rare case) then I would put it in an unlinked Further Reading section, possibly with a comment "for an early 20th century perspective, see...". Don't try to guess whether an earlier author has referred to 1911; just let it go. I agree linking to the copyrighted online versions is not right. Happy Christmas to all. David Brooks 07:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I really want to get rid of these links more than I want to read hundreds of WP articles and compare them to the corresponding 1911 articles. My current idea is to replace every 1911encyclopedia.org link that points to a 1911 article with a new template call, like {{1911 title|article title}}. That could start out as an empty template but it would still be possible to find all the occurrences in the wiki by template search. Then later over some long period, these calls could be checked out and cleaned up or replaced with visible 1911 references. How does this sound? 67.117.130.181 23:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the replacement suggestion. The "some long period" could be until the sun melts; I think I'm already the only person doing 1911 cleanup, so your checking out project is likely to have few volunteers! David Brooks 07:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

As I see there is just a couple of these ext links now. Am I missing something or someone already did a cleanup? `'mikka 01:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The links are still there search. 67.117.130.181 10:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a full set of free 1911 Britannica scans at wikisource. Physchim62 (talk) 01:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)