Project: Link Wikipedia pages to LibriVox recordings

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pfil2u
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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Post by pfil2u »

Evidently my notes were insufficiently explicit. I'll expand:

b1171 Ion false link problems (as noted in my previous post)

As suggested, this is explained in a previous post, which I'll repeat:
pfil2u wrote: February 10th, 2018, 10:58 am I've discovered an interesting problem -- which will occur very seldom. Consider {{Librivox book |title=Ion |author=Plato}}. The title is such a common string that, even when the author is specified, we get several false hits. (There are works by Plato on Librivox which contain "Version" or "Definition" in their titles!) I see 4 possible paths:

(1) This is good enough. It's a rare problem. A fraction of the time we link to too many books. Who cares?
(2) In these cases we just can't place the template on the Wikipedia page, as it's somewhat compromised.
(3) In the future, try to avoid giving Librivox books extremely short titles (like "Ion") that can be part of additional false hits. Simply "Plato's Ion" or something of the like should be enough.
(4) Fix the Wikipedia template to allow the specification of specific books (here, "b1171").

Honestly, I lean toward #1 (and I have placed the template), but I wanted to alert you to the problem.
To reiterate: very possibly this effect does not need to be fixed. But it still exists. If you don't believe me, all I can do is direct you to the link that the Wikipedia template generated for me: https://librivox.org/search?title=Ion&author=Plato&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced. I trust you will see the several "non-Ion" books.

b9660 The Chandogya Upanishad No "The" in Librivox title.

The LibriVox entry does not (and did not) have a "The" -- however, the ekzemplaro list did and does -- probably this doesn't matter, but I thought I'd mention it.

b9005 Theodoric the Goth There is no WP page for the book. The template is on the page for the PERSON, which in my view is bad practice.

The book Theodoric the Goth and the person Theoderic the Great (sometimes referred to as Theodoric the Goth) are distinct entities. For example, one was born, and one was written. There is a Wikipedia page for the person. There is not currently a Wikipedia page for the book. My reading of the protocol developed for placing LibriVox templates on Wikipedia pages is that the {{Librivox author}} template should go on author pages, and the {{Librivox book}} template should go on book pages. Since there does not exist a book page, there is not currently a home for the {{Librivox book}} template. Yet the template is there on the person's page. (I didn't put it there; I found it there.) I am asking: doesn't this transgress the protocol? I think it is better to take a strict interpretation; failure to do so can lead to a proliferation of external links (e.g. why not link a work on every article whose subject is mentioned in the work?) which will make Wikipedians dislike you.

b3335 The Catiline Conspiracy and the Jugurthine War The LV book appears to include 2 works. Only The Catiline Conspiracy has a WP page.

This is just a note; I was not suggesting that anything necessarily needed to be changed. But, for example, if one of the goals of this exercise is to alert LibriVox contributors to missing Wikipedia articles that might be written, then marking this book as a Status-2, while true for The Catiline Conspiracy, would render the need for an article on Sallust's The Jugurthine War invisible. But to suggest that this appears to have been fixed would seem to necessitate either (1) The LibriVox book has now been split into 2 books, or (2) There is now a Wikipedia article for Sallust's work "Jugurthine War". Neither of these is true. Although I now notice that the article on the war called the Jugurthine War has a {{Librivox book}} template on it. For my view on its appropriateness, please see the note just above, mutatis mutandis.

b6980 Vairagya Shatakam LV book forms part of the WP work

I am just noting that there is currently no Wikipedia article for Vairagya Shatakam (although I have just now created a redirect). Rather, this work forms a part of another work called Śatakatraya, which is where I've placed the LibriVox template.

b6631 Twenty Two Goblins LV attribution to Dandin is wrong

I see that the "Wikipedia book" link on the LibriVox book's page does indeed link to Dashakumaracharita. This is simply wrong; it is a totally unrelated work by an unrelated author. LibriVox must link to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baital_Pachisi instead. And remove Daṇḍin as author before someone gets hurt!

Cheers. Phil.
melpaulm
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Post by melpaulm »

Just discovered this topic....I'll be finishing a solo project soon, and am a seasoned Wikipedia editor and webmaster. Can I assist with this work here? You can message me directly. I can't quite figure out exactly what needs to be done.
/Melanie McCalmont
pfil2u
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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Post by pfil2u »

melpaulm wrote: February 20th, 2018, 6:16 pm Just discovered this topic....I'll be finishing a solo project soon, and am a seasoned Wikipedia editor and webmaster. Can I assist with this work here? You can message me directly. I can't quite figure out exactly what needs to be done.
Hi Melanie. I'm an extremely lame LibriVox contributor (and I just found this thread a few weeks ago myself) so literally anyone else responding will be more authoritative on LV topics, but I'm an old hand at WP and this thread doesn't seem to get much traffic, so I'll try to address your question. All the important facts are set out in the very first post of this thread, so go there for details.

The Simple Story

...is that every Wikipedia article of a work recorded by LibriVox should have a LibriVox book template on it. This should appear under the External links section near the bottom of the article, and takes the form:

* {{Librivox book |title=The Book of Bob |author=Bob Bobington}} (maybe with a space or no space after the *? Every bloody WP is different -- I just follow what's already there.)

The parameters in the template do not necessarily have to match the WP author & title, but should match exactly the LV author & title, because the template will link to the LV catalog and automatically generate a search.

In most cases, this process will be simple and clear. You'll notice (above) that I've called out several problematic or ambiguous cases. I say just use your best judgement; I'm not sure that LV forum members are very interested in adjudicating these cases ... they're by and large quite the opposite of the Wikilawyers you may have had the misfortune of meeting on WP. I will make 1 point: I believe that we have to hold firm on putting these book templates on book (well, work) articles. Inevitably you'll come across (say) the book George Washington by Professor Ned Neverheardof. Only extremely influential books of this sort will ever have WP articles themselves; the vast majority will not. But of course the subject has an article. It is clear that other editors have sometimes placed these book templates on their subject's pages. But this is not sound, and will (I believe) ultimately lead to excessive External link proliferation and LV being regarded as a pest at WP. Unfortunately in these cases I believe there is simply no article for the LV link to be placed on.

And that's all there is to the Simple Story...

The More Complex Story

How many of these are done? How many are left? Am I just repeating someone else's efforts? To track progress and direct effort, an LV member has generated a list of LV works and their WP template status (see initial post for details). This is a brilliant idea, but there are 3 important problems:

(a) Is it still being kept up? It is over 1 year since the last post in this thread indicating that anyone is actually curating this list. It's been half a month since I posted my list of updates, and there has been no indication that there is anyone here to implement them. If the list is no longer being updated, it no longer has a purpose, and my following notes are also purposeless.
(b) Of course anyone can place a template without coordinating with (or even knowing about) the list. So there are many many cases of book templates being placed without being noted on the list. For this reason it is important, not just to note all the templates you place, but to note all the templates you find already in place too.
(c) The list currently lacks an important status (which I'm calling "0.5"): "This book currently has no WP article." This status will be important in reducing duplicated effort and directing profitable effort, and if you proceed with the list, I recommend you note these statuses as well as the canonical ones, in the hope that someone here will implement this new status.

So...

(1) Download the list. It will take a little while, but it'll come. Save it to your computer as an Excel file.
(2) This list will direct you in at least 2 ways: you can sort by author, topic, etc., to follow your own interests. Then you can focus on books that are in statuses -1/0/1: these are the books that need attention at WP.
(3) Place templates at WP: your work should bring each -1/0/1 row up to either 0.5 (no such article) or 2 (has LV template). Record ALL new statuses, and remember to include templates you find as well as place.
(4) If you're a good person, you'll also check the existing LV pages to see if they link back to WP correctly (if yes, this bumps the row up to status3). If the LV page has no link or an incorrect link, then it remains status 2: include the correct WP link when you post your status report. I'm NOT a good person, so I'm just getting everything to status 2 and including the WP links in my reports, and leaving the LV-to-WP links to someone else to sort out.
(5) Post lists of books with new statuses on this thread. It seems that LV favors clumps of a single status, i.e. one post for all the new 0.5's, a second post for all the new 2's, etc.

I hope that helps. I'm Phil wink on Wikipedia, if you care.

Cheers. Phil.
melpaulm
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Post by melpaulm »

Interesting! and thanks for the details. I'm going to do a test run of one audiobook, and see how it works! Should have some results this coming week and could get organized. Thanks, Phil!!
/Melanie McCalmont
dlolso21
LibriVox Admin Team
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Post by dlolso21 »

pfil2u wrote: February 10th, 2018, 11:24 am More news: I've place a couple of templates on specific Upanishads (don't worry, I'm keeping a list which I'll post at the end of my session). While I've double-checked that I'm creating the correct specific link (e.g. {{Librivox book |title=Maitrayana Upanishad |author=Unknown}}), these templates keep sending me to the general Upanishads page (e.g. https://librivox.org/search?title=Maitrayana+Upanishad&author=Unknown&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced). Is this a bug or a feature?

Cheers. Phil.
Phil,

That is a feature of our search. When multiple projects have been collected into a group by an Admin/MC a hit for anything in the group will return the group and not the individual project. If you search for "Romans" you will see individual results as well as the different versions of the bible that contain Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

David O
wardwebber
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Joined: July 29th, 2018, 11:48 am

Post by wardwebber »

I've added a link from the Wikipedia article for A Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott to the LibriVox audio book of the same name.
Foon
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Post by Foon »

Would anyone be able to add a link to
https://librivox.org/the-phenomenology-of-mind-volume-1-by-georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel/
on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenology_of_Spirit
?

I would do it myself but wikipedia editing is a mystery to me :shock:
Foon - Real life is getting in the way of LV, will be slow until all is back on track, please bear with me!


Readers needed:
Dramatic Reading: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Folklore/legends: Arabian Nights Vol. 11
Play: Zeus the Tragedian
annise
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Post by annise »

We like to leave it to people who really know how Wikipedia thinks , some of their editors have strong views about acceptable and not acceptable links.

Anne
TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

I'd do it, but it's complicated. There's a template to use in the first post of this thread, but that's assuming the book name at LV exactly matches the Wikipedia article's book title. Your project is different, in that the two book titles are slightly different. Yes, like Anne said, this one is best left to the experts. ;) Hopefully one of them is monitoring this thread and will do it for you.
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
Foon
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Joined: May 10th, 2018, 2:33 pm

Post by Foon »

Ahh, I see what you mean. It is indeed the same book, however because it's a translation, there are multiple titles out there (translating "Geistes" to either "Mind" or "Spirit"). If it's a hassle/too complicated, no worries of course. :)
Foon - Real life is getting in the way of LV, will be slow until all is back on track, please bear with me!


Readers needed:
Dramatic Reading: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Folklore/legends: Arabian Nights Vol. 11
Play: Zeus the Tragedian
shortsaler
Posts: 2
Joined: July 19th, 2018, 6:42 pm

Post by shortsaler »

hi, I'm new here but I'd like to stretch my volunteer wings -- I'd be happy to learn the template and master linking LV recordings to Wikipedia. Not sure where to begin (other than becoming familiar with template)....browse recordings to locate recordings not linked? 8-)
dlolso21
LibriVox Admin Team
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Joined: January 11th, 2011, 12:13 pm

Post by dlolso21 »

Shortsaler,

Do you have a Wikipedia account set up?

Have you looked at the first post in this topic? It contains specific information on formatting these links.

Have you downloaded and looked at "ekzemplaro's book list with Wikipedia link information" (see link in first post)? I don't know how up-to-date the list is, but he was the last volunteer that was maintaining a comprehensive list.

David O
mahne
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Post by mahne »

Foon wrote: August 8th, 2018, 4:40 am Would anyone be able to add a link to
https://librivox.org/the-phenomenology-of-mind-volume-1-by-georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel/
on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenology_of_Spirit
?

I would do it myself but wikipedia editing is a mystery to me :shock:
Hi,

I've done the change on wikipedia. Really, it's not a mystery and the first post and the template page on wiki explains it nicely.
Still, if you have questions, ask here or via pm.

I'm afraid ekzemplaros list is not up to date and he also seems to be not around anymore. Still, all values==-1 need a look to them.

Another interesting link might be
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Librivox_book&hidelinks=1&hideredirs=1
the "What Links Here" page of the template, filtered only for the usages of the template. It shows we have 2428 usages of the template.
Cool number, but way to go!

Cheers
mahne
all covers made by mahne, constructive criticism appreciated
annise
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Post by annise »

many of those are search links to the author page rather than links to each book - my understanding was that the wiki people prefer that way ?

Anne
mahne
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Location: Germany

Post by mahne »

Yes, the book template should be placed on the wikipedia article about the book.
For an author link there is another template https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Librivox_author
which should be used on the wikipedia article about the author.
So you found lots of usages of the book template that make no use of the title parameter? Do you have examples?
I would like to change that and try to notify whoever did these entries.

Thanks
mahne
all covers made by mahne, constructive criticism appreciated
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