User talk:Habst
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Hello, Habst, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for joining the project. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
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Again, welcome! — billinghurst sDrewth 23:45, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Natural History
[edit]You added a link for the Rackham, Jones, & Eichholz translation, but it is unlikely that a translation published circa 1950 will be free of copyright. Wikisource does not host works that are still under copyright. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:46, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @EncycloPetey:, the webpage for this translation here says "[This work is in the public domain]" so I think it will be OK for Wikisource. Thanks for checking though! --Habst (talk) 17:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- PD in which country? It must be PD in the United States to host here, and with a first publication date of 1938, it is unlikely to be free of copyright in the United States unless the publisher failed to renew the copyright. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- It says "published by Harvard University Press, Massachusetts" and the translators seem to be American so I think it is reasonable to assume the authors were at least referring to public domain in the U.S., and possibly additionally public domain in the UK (not that UK PD would be necessary for Wikisource). By stating the work is in the public domain I think they have disclaimed copyright, and it is also listed and published as "Public Domain" on archive.org here. --Habst (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- The first edition was published in 1938 in both the US and UK, and Rackham was British as far as I can tell. The Internet Archive copies were scanned at the University of Toronto, which follows Canadian copyright law. The copyright term in Canada is shorter than either the US or UK, so isn't a good guide to follow. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- It says "published by Harvard University Press, Massachusetts" and the translators seem to be American so I think it is reasonable to assume the authors were at least referring to public domain in the U.S., and possibly additionally public domain in the UK (not that UK PD would be necessary for Wikisource). By stating the work is in the public domain I think they have disclaimed copyright, and it is also listed and published as "Public Domain" on archive.org here. --Habst (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- PD in which country? It must be PD in the United States to host here, and with a first publication date of 1938, it is unlikely to be free of copyright in the United States unless the publisher failed to renew the copyright. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
I just want to be certain we know this is PD before you invest so much time adding a lengthy text. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:04, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, I appreciate you bringing this up and have looked into it. The translation is listed in the Loeb Classical Library with a 1938 publication date here, and the Loeb Classical Library wikisource page says "It's probable that all volumes published before 1939 are public domain in the US." This is apparently because many (all?) of the texts were published without a copyright notice as required by law. I could not find any legitimate claim of copyright on the text. Do you think this is enough reason to continue? --Habst (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
- That fact alone, possibly not, but I've now looked in the records of US copyright renewals and could find none. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Comment For a work of this intensity and density, I would much prefer that anything in this area is down with scans directly supporting the transcription, rather than a copy and paste. A copy and paste is not going to get the proofreading done, and especially not with any rigor. In our experience these works as copy/paste remain incomplete and get abandoned due to their intensity, and they are too hard to pick up. Then we end up deleting them.
When I look at something like vol. 8 it shows a copyright statement, though it is a 1963 reproduction. I can see in 1939 a Times Supplement announcement The Times Literary Supplement, Saturday, February 11, 1939; pg. 94; Issue 1932. of the publishing. So best I think that we can say is that it is a joint UK, and US publication, and probably within 30 days which according to the chart would mean that we are looking for renewal for 1923-1963 publications. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Harris Rackham's 1944 obit in the Times states that in his retirement that he had numbers of translations published in Loeb's Classics, so I think that we are pretty safe to reproduce, either for no compliance, or no renewal. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Billinghurst:, thank you for your research on this and I would love to associate scans with the text. I do not have a physical copy of the text though, so what way do you think would be best to do that? --Habst (talk) 02:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Sense? Clarity?
[edit]If we say Natural History (1938) by Pliny the Elder, translated by H. Rackham (vols. 1-5, 9), W.H.S. Jones (vols. 6-8), and D.E. Eichholz (vol. 10) then say Book 16 that doesn't seem to make sense. Are we in one of the volumes or not? Also, we should only be having the translator listed for the work that they contributed, not an overarching sweeping statements. The clarity is needed. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- The work is also missing the source. I am guessing that you have not typed this manually, it has occurred to quickly, so please look to identify the source of your transcripts. We would normally do this from the work's talk page and using the template {{textinfo}} for any text not supported by a transclusion. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:58, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Billinghurst, thanks for checking in. The term "book" is used to refer to Pliny's original separation of the work into 37 physical books, while the term "volume" is used to refer to Rackham, Jones, & Eichholz's separation of the work into ten physical volumes, each one containing several "books" from the original. The source is the text I linked above here, I will look about the correct way to denote that on the page. Thank you, --Habst (talk) 14:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- Wikisource produces editions of works, not generic versions, nor just "a book". So your approach here reflects an early and generally abandoned approach to bringing works to Wikisource. Just taking works from elsewhere, while still allowable, is not our preferred methodology. Such works are of an unknown quality, they cannot be checked or proofread to the original text; they are against unknown editions where we cannot reflect the very specific edition information, and that also means unverifiable or challengeable for the statements cited. They are unable to be well-represented in Wikidata as they lack vital information. Apart from the fact that if we can just link from the author page to wherever the work existed, there is not a specific reason to import it.
I would encourage you to read the above links and reflect on the modern mission of Wikisource. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:42, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Billinghurst, I appreciate your help but I think you are being unnecessarily harsh to a newcomer following the rules and scope of Wikisource who wants to help the project. As said earlier the intention was to contribute, I'm not planning on abandoning this work any time soon and do plan on integrating the archive.org scans when I have time. Meanwhile I've added some of the source info in the talk page. --Habst (talk) 03:40, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am talking to you to where the community is; what it is trying to achieve; and the reflections on our journey. I cannot see how telling you that is harsh. When would you like for me to talk to you about what the community does? Early or late in the contribution cycle? — billinghurst sDrewth 08:49, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Billinghurst, I'm really not trying to nitpick here and do think we're on the same side, but I hope you can agree that starting a discussion on my talk page with the title "Sense? Clarity?" is not the nicest way to begin a conversation with someone else, and ending it by telling me to "reflect on the modern mission of Wikisource" is speech that I found condescending. I thanked you for your advice three times on my talk page while you have not done the same to me (for my contributions) even once. I really do appreciate all you've done to help WS, but I think the delivery of these messages was harsh for those reasons. Anyways I agree we should focus on improving Natural History in the mean time, and I think the best thing I could do to get it in line with the guidelines is to copy over the archive.org DJVu to Commons, then attach it to the WS text and modify the text if there are any discrepancies between the archive.org DJVu and the wikitext. Thank you, --Habst (talk) 16:55, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am talking to you to where the community is; what it is trying to achieve; and the reflections on our journey. I cannot see how telling you that is harsh. When would you like for me to talk to you about what the community does? Early or late in the contribution cycle? — billinghurst sDrewth 08:49, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Billinghurst, I appreciate your help but I think you are being unnecessarily harsh to a newcomer following the rules and scope of Wikisource who wants to help the project. As said earlier the intention was to contribute, I'm not planning on abandoning this work any time soon and do plan on integrating the archive.org scans when I have time. Meanwhile I've added some of the source info in the talk page. --Habst (talk) 03:40, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
- Wikisource produces editions of works, not generic versions, nor just "a book". So your approach here reflects an early and generally abandoned approach to bringing works to Wikisource. Just taking works from elsewhere, while still allowable, is not our preferred methodology. Such works are of an unknown quality, they cannot be checked or proofread to the original text; they are against unknown editions where we cannot reflect the very specific edition information, and that also means unverifiable or challengeable for the statements cited. They are unable to be well-represented in Wikidata as they lack vital information. Apart from the fact that if we can just link from the author page to wherever the work existed, there is not a specific reason to import it.
- Hi @Billinghurst, thanks for checking in. The term "book" is used to refer to Pliny's original separation of the work into 37 physical books, while the term "volume" is used to refer to Rackham, Jones, & Eichholz's separation of the work into ten physical volumes, each one containing several "books" from the original. The source is the text I linked above here, I will look about the correct way to denote that on the page. Thank you, --Habst (talk) 14:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)