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Archive 1

Opposition to page move?

Is there any opposition to moving these pages to reflect the full name of the organization (World Digital Library)? I think abbreviations should be reserved for redirects, and that way (when browsing categories or project pages) readers know which institution is being referred to. --Another Believer (Talk) 17:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, I just don't want to be responsible for the moving of all the pages, templates, etc. SarahStierch (talk) 02:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Dates

From about when would this start, and when would it end? My RL work load is about to increase exponentially, hence the question. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm resident until January 2014. ANd it could go beyond that, but we'll see! No pressure or stress of course!!!SarahStierch (talk) 01:15, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Instruction

Thanks! SarahStierch (talk) 13:39, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Yo, Latin Wikipedia is in the house!

Looks like we've been spotted. Djembayz (talk) 14:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Couple of questions

Looking at the wiki article on the WDL it says it will be providing primary sources including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs. Wikipedia policy does not allow for the use of primary sources, rare books are old and not really of much use. Does the WDL also plan to include more recent research? Which could be used in histroical articles? Darkness Shines (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I've been editing Wikipedia for quite sometime, and I have been sparingly using primary sources for years. Primary sources can be used to provide some light input about subjects - and even quoted. For example, a map can be used to verify that perhaps a city or country was once called something else. A journal written by a notable subject might be able to verify that the subject wrote about certain topics. That journal can even be used to improve content about subjects featured in it. Here is a great guide about how to use primary sources written by the community: Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_primary_and_secondary_sources#You_are_allowed_to_use_primary_sources..._carefully. Thanks for your interested and I'll hope you'll get involved! SarahStierch (talk) 13:35, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
I also have questions. The links I've clicked on took me to web pages where I found an image related to the topic and a very short description of the topic. For the most part, the descriptive information was already in the Wikipedia article. The images I found didn't have free licenses, so they can't be uploaded to Wikipedia. What am I failing to see here? --Orlady (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi Orlady! You are correct, there is often an image and then a brief writing about a subject. It took me months to make these to-do lists and I wasn't able to read every article that I linked to. I often did brief scans of the Wikipedia article. If content isn't useful for an article, do leave it on the to-do list and perhaps someone can improve it in another language. Or even write another article about the Wikipedia page. Or, if you feel it's not helpful, and can't even be linked as an external link, I totally assume good faith and trust you to remove or declare the citation useless and the Wikipedia article as not needing improvement. And of course, perhaps there isn't much content of interest for you at this time in the project. Thanks for stopping by, and I'm sorry that the links haven't been much use for you - but this is good, maybe I need to do a scan of the to-do lists and clean it up some. SarahStierch (talk) 13:35, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to provide an illustration of my experience, as it may help inform your understanding of the challenges I see in using WDL as a resource. The To-do list link to John Cullen Murphy highlighted that article as having been visited from my browser, because I had edited it while cleaning up after a vandal. I visited the article and the WDL link. I found that the article definitely needed work (it still does, in spite of my recent edits) and I thought the WDL page was interesting, but the biographical information in the WDL article didn't add much to what was already in Wikipedia (I had much better luck with the New York Times obituary that I found online), and WDL didn't have enough information about the non-free image to allow it to be meaningfully discussed in the Wikipedia article. I ended up citing WDL in the article, but I didn't see much potential for taking the WDL content beyond that. Looking at other WDL links, in general I found that the WDL content focused on an artifact of some sort and didn't provide the background information and context that is needed to build a Wikiepdia article. --Orlady (talk) 15:56, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

While working on creating/expanding articles on the To Do list, I have also expanded other related articles using the WDL resources, and included those latter articles on the Outcome list in addition to completed To Do ones - assuming that expanding use of the WDL was the intent, and this shows how resources can be applied.Parkwells (talk) 13:58, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely! Thank you. SarahStierch (talk) 15:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

More about the project

Are the items in the WDL to be considered the entree/invitation to those institutions' other resources? I'm somewhat confused about how these selections relate to the rest of their holdings - a specialized pool of interest? It sounds very exciting conceptually and I support it in theory.Parkwells (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. The WDL has over 50 partners and those partners - libraries from around the world - often have limited resources to digitize and share their content. So, WDL supports those organizations to digitize content and share valuable curatorial and archival information about that content. You can read more about WDL - partners, the background, mission and so forth here. Thanks for getting involved! SarahStierch (talk) 15:11, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Question re: adding category - hidden?

If it's important to add Category:World Digital Library related to articles using these resources, to promote the project, why does the category only show up on the Edit page and not on the reading page? This has happened on every article where I added it. I could not see any indication it was supposed to be hidden.Parkwells (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi! It's because it's a Wikipedia:Hidden category. We use it only for tracking purposes - to find out how many times articles in that category have been viewed, and to generally know how many articles related to WDL exist. No other purpose really :) SarahStierch (talk) 15:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks - that's what I thought, but also thought you were wanting it to be visible as publicity.Parkwells (talk) 13:26, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

World Digital Library Question

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your message on my talk page. I began to try to contribute to this project but had a couple questions. Firstly, I wanted to make sure that all picture content from WDL was fair to use on Wikipedia. Secondly, the outcomes list said to add the WDL category to the articles I work on. I expanded an article (Alligator wrestling) with WDL content that did not seem to have content from the WDL before. However, it already had the WDL category. I added it to the outcome list but am not sure if there is anything else I have to do with that article in relation to this project (other than to work on it some more). Lastly, I'm a bit confused by the wording in the "outcomes" tab. Do you become eligible only by adding the WDL category to an article?

Thanks, —Σosthenes12 Talk 18:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)Sosthenes12

Hi there! So glad you're contributing - thank you! See the question above this one. That might answer your question about the images. It's based on the partner organization. Let me know if that doesn't provide you what you're looking for. Regarding the category - I placed those categories on many of the articles that need improvement when I was building the to-do list. If you see the category, please keep it on the article. Also, add the category to new articles you write or improve that aren't on the to-do list. In order to have your work be considered for a barnstar, articles you improve and write should be listed on the outcomes page. Thanks again, and I hope I answered your questions! :) SarahStierch (talk) 18:39, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Use of images

Browsing around the WDL, all the content relating to New Zealand appears to be image holdings. None of this contains a note of the licensing. Is there a policy statement or tool for knowing whether this content can be transferred to wikimedia commons? and if so under which license? I'm thinking of images such as http://www.wdl.org/en/item/495/ Stuartyeates (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

There isn't a single licensing rule because WDL content comes from many partners around the world with varying polices & copyright laws. The external resource link on the item page - e.g. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.wdl/dlc.495 on the item you mentioned above – will lead to the the holding institution's page for that item and that will hopefully have more information. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95502527/ shows “No known restrictions on publication” for that image. Chris Adams (talk) 13:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
To be honest, for the region I care about (Oceania), I'm not seeing that WDL adds a whole lot, unless I'm missing something. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:00, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

"North America 1950 CE - 2010 CE"

The 41 Results include:

Ok. groupuscule (talk) 09:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Citation template

It occurred to me, as I filled in yet another {{cite web}}, that this project could benefit from an automated citation template that can expand a full citation from a URL or other identifier (similar to {{cite doi}} or the Google Books converter). I've asked one of our more technically-savvy volunteers if he'd mind taking a look at the idea, but if others want to take a crack at it, I for one would welcome its existence. Yunshui 雲‍水 10:29, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Awesome idea Yunshui! I'm surely not savvy enough to do that at this point. I'd love it if someday WDL could "install" a citation option (like that the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design[1] did. I can't wait to see if this citation template can be created. Thanks for being bold! SarahStierch (talk) 13:36, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
We'll discuss this internally. If someone wants to build an external tool, all of our item pages use schema.org Microdata (HTML) to expose the metadata in standard form — see e.g. Google's Rich Snippet Tester or my extractor service — so a simple web service or even bookmarklet should be pretty easy to write. Chris Adams (talk) 15:50, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
It turned out to be pretty easy to add cite_web to my microdata extractor - how does e.g. http://microdata-extractor.improbable.org/extract/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wdl.org%2Fen%2Fitem%2F107%2F look to you? Chris Adams (talk) 16:39, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I have to admit..I have no clue what to do with that link. We have to remember: the majority of our editors are not coders/devs, so making this as easy as possible is ideal! SarahStierch (talk) 16:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
There's a wikipedia citations section which has a first pass at copy-and-pasteable {{cite_web}} markup: you should be able to paste in the URL for any WDL item and paste the result to get something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chris_Adams/sandbox Chris Adams (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Ask and ye shall receive, indeed - that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. Bookmarking it now, thank you Chris! Sarah, it's awesomely simple - copy the URL of the WDL page, paste it into Chris's tool, copy the resulting citation template and paste it into the article. Ignore all the tecchy-looking green stuff; that's clever-people language, not for the likes of us... Yunshui 雲‍水 18:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Glad you like it Yunshui – please let me know if there's anything else which you'd like to includeChris Adams (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

As anyone who's ever done anything technical on my behalf knows, that's a dangerous question to ask... but since you did: would it be possible to add in some of the other parameters from Template:Cite web? Based on the information on a standard WDL page, it should be possible to glean sufficient info directly from the WDL entry to populate the following additional parameters:

  • | author = (and author2 = etc.)
  • | publisher =
  • | location =
  • | language = (if not English)

Not vital, but as a general rule: the more expanded the reference, the better. Theopolisme is also looking into modifying a Wikipedia citation template to make the process easier for editors here, you may want to have a chat to him as well. Thanks again for putting this useful tool together. Yunshui 雲‍水 21:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey all - I created {{cite wdl}} this morning, and have finished coding a bot that will fill in citations with title, url, date, and accessdate—I can look into adding more parameters. Theopolisme (talk) 01:14, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
The way {{cite wdl}} would work if y'all would like is that an editor adds something like <ref>{{cite wdl|1}}</ref> to an article, where 1 in the case can be any WDL id—after a few minutes, the bot will notice and then{{cite wdl|1}} will print {{cite wdl|1}} as the reference. Theopolisme (talk) 02:54, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
@Yunshui and SarahStierch: is this something you all are interested in? Theopolisme (talk) 14:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Wanted to add my vote for an expanded template, to enable readers/editors to quickly see the original institution holding the item/resource, i.e., Library of Congress, Bibliotheque Nationale, etc. That may encourage them to go directly to those resources.Parkwells (talk) 14:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Working on a more expanded template now per requests above; see also Template:Cite_wdl/params. Theopolisme (talk) 14:15, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
The template expansion is in progress now--right now I've implemented authors and language. Theopolisme (talk) 00:43, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

FYI: {{cite wdl}} is functioning and ready for use! Theopolisme (talk) 18:25, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Terrific job! Thanks. Parkwells (talk) 23:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks again for making the template Theopolisme; it makes it so easy, and fills in the category, too. You really helped us.Parkwells (talk) 12:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Certain troubling issues, with suggestions for positive changes

So: the above selections from North America do not inspire a great deal of confidence in the political leanings of the collection. But it's a small sample.

Doing searches for "colonialism" and "imperialism" in the archive, I can't help but feel as though these topics are being whitewashed, despite the fact that the phenomena of colonialism and imperialism are the major sources for most of these images and texts.

I'm also a little concerned about the articles being created as part of this project.

Having just selected a few at random:

  • Nemontemi: "the five days between two year cycles". OK, cool. But this topic is already covered at Veintena, Aztec calendar, Mesoamerican calendars, and probably elsewhere--and it's not even the indigenous name for this part of the calendar! The page doesn't link to any of the relevant pre-existing work on Mesoamerican calendars. The only source for this page is the WDL. The image is cool and all, but it's not even used!—perhaps because we're not sure about the copyright status, a caveat that's not really made clear by the project.
  • "Samuel Gustaf Hermelin (4 April 1744, Stockholm – 4 March 1820) was a Swedish industrialist, diplomat and cartographer. He attended the University of Uppsala for mining. He went to the United States to study. He served as Swedish ambassador to the United States. He eventually moved back to Sweden. He owned a mining company in Lapland.[1]" That's the whole entry and the item listing for a WDL map is the only source.
  • "Arthur H. Hider (1870-1952), was a Canadian painter and commercial illustrator.[1] Hider was born in England. He moved to Canada at a young age. Much of his work consisted of illustrating calendars. Gerlach Barklow Company commissioned several of his painting for their calendars.[2]" Sources: WDL and "AskArt.com"

Honestly, I'm not really sure why we would consider the WDL a reliable source? No authors or sources are even cited for the item descriptions. Surely they shouldn't be the sole basis for new articles?

OK and what articles have been changed with information from the WDL? Choosing now less randomly from articles modified, listed at the "Outcomes" page:

  • Here is a (generally valid) copyedit of Belgian colonial empire. What does it add from WDL? Belgian support for Guatemalan independence. A similar fact has been added at Rafael Carrera, History of Guatemala, and Santo Tomás de Castilla, all of which show up on the outcomes page. This fact might be true, but it's not well-supported by the WDL item, which is a map. It's better supported by the item description. (But... again... who wrote this description?) When I do various Google searches to learn more about Belgium's relationship to Guatemalan independence, I get... the very Wikipedia articles which have just been edited. Is it necessary to add that, meanwhile, I see nothing in the WDL discussing the brutal reality of Belgium's actual colonial empire?
INSERT: As the person who added content from the background of the WDL item to several related Guatemala pages, I wanted to explain my thinking. First, I am taking the WDL as an RS, so do not have trouble using the background materials. Secondly, the relation of Belgium to Guatemala's drive for independence or Carrera's success was not covered at all in the articles before I added it; I thought the additions at least expanded the perspective and showed the international complexity of affairs at the time. This is more of the history of the Atlantic world, which has been a major field of study by historians. Similarly, I don't assume that only Belgium got something from their colonial commission at Santo Tomas; the Guatemalans likely believed foreign investment would help them. Would more thorough and detailed info be useful? Sure, and maybe I will follow up and look for it. But my opinion is those articles were improved by adding that content, however limited it might be. Can't address whether WDL has material about Belgium's brutal colonial regime, but WP uses many other sources to cover that for Congo-related articles, for instance. The high mortality of Belgians at Santo Tomas shows other costs of the colonial endeavor.Parkwells (talk) 13:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Could it be that

  • At Indian independence movement (diff), Indian Rebellion of 1857 (diff), Company rule in India (diff), Government of India Act 1858 (diff link keeps breaking, don't know why), Council of India (diff) and even at Modern history (diff), this item was used in citations appended to pre-existing text, pertaining to the transfer of control over India from the East India Company to the British government. I'm not sure that the addition of WDL citations has any particular political significance. At the same time, the item doesn't mention the Indian independence movement, or the Indian rebellion! It doesn't even describe the WDL picture, except to say it is "photograph of an official in India ". The majority of the text present is promotional material regarding the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, an archive of work produced by a White man from Ohio. One might also speculate that this fact, given how frequently it appears, uncited, would be an excellent example of Wikipedia:Common knowledge.
  • Even the choice to include a visibly Indian official is a subtle negation of the reality of British colonial rule. Yes, it's just one image. But take a look at the entire category of materials related to India. Many of the items that depict actually people come from the "Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at the Brown University Library". But the closest we come to the history of British military conquest is an item from 1791 titled "Indian Demons Attacking Fort Defended by European Troops". This article in The Guardian uses British historical archives to suggest that, in one ten-year uprising alone, the British Empire perpetrated an "untold holocaust" involving the death of ten million indigenous Indians. Will we ever see these records in the WDL?
  • At Thomas Jefferson and slavery (diff) and slave narrative (diff), there's links added for this interview with Fountain Hughes. Admittedly, this is a fascinating item. Admittedly, its archival status is interesting. But it was archived at the Library of Congress; does its reproduction at the World Digital Library really merit mention a unique wikilink in both of these articles? Do any sources outside the WDL describe its inclusion there as notable? Inclusion in "slave narrative" is definitely appropriate... but Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The extent of the discussion on that is the interviewer saying "didn't your father belong to Thomas Jefferson?" and Hughes replying "my grandfather belonged to Thomas Jefferson. (P.S. I also see it's at Betty Hemings. Appropriate, certainly, though, again, I'm not sure that a disinterested editor would have found its inclusion in the WDL notable.)
INSERT: Again, these were my choices. I've done a lot of reading about Jefferson and slavery, including Annette Gordon-Reed's work, as well as noting the expansion of material from the Monticello website, among many sources, to provide much more information about the slaves and their families, and their descendants, and the multi-racial society of the time. One strand of historical interest has been related to whether Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings' children. But the larger issue has been study of slave families for themselves - capped by an exhibit opening in 2012 on "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello" at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History on the Mall, which is touring to Atlanta and St. Louis. It highlights the Hemings family (headed by the matriarch Betty Hemings), and several others. It is the first time that Jefferson as slaveholder has been covered in an exhibit on the Mall. Fountain Hughes' grandparents and their children were owned by Jefferson; all but his grandfather were sold after Jefferson's death and much of the family split apart. (His grandfather was a grandson of Betty Hemings.) Fountain Hughes was born into slavery before the Civil War - and in his recording was speaking from the middle of the 20th century. I included the WDL item because it was easier to access than a search in the Library of Congress, and because it demonstrated the long reach of that history, the complex past of the US, which was suppressed for a time.Parkwells (talk) 13:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Now, I'm not calling attention to this stuff because I like being a jerk. And I'm not trying to suggest that anyone involved in this project is Bad People. I love libraries and librarians. But I have some concerns about this project, which I think also serve as a comment on the Encyclopedia and on third party contributors in general. A list:

  1. Undue promotion of World Digital Library. OK, so WDL has more than $10,000,000 ($1231 per item!) and a WikiProject. I guess "You can't buy your way onto Wikipedia" is a losing battle. I guess we're going to have to live with that. My question would be: can we steer WDL's participation in Wikipedia to increase the inherent value of its contributions?
  2. WDL used inappropriately as a source. I don't think there is a valid reason, as it stands now, to consider the text accompanying WDL entries as a reliable source. Frankly, I think the whole idea is a little disingenuous. The novelty of the Library is the Items it contains... but the Items are not even being used in articles.
  3. Eurocentric bias. It seems that the WDL is organized and written from a European perspective, and that the WDL WikiProject is advancing a primarily European POV on Global topics. This bias may result from the political preferences of WDL's Partners, from someone's desire to avoid unpleasant topics, or from some other source. Wherever it comes from, I fear that, as it stands, a project to include WDL materials will further (and not Counter) systemic bias on Wikipedia.
  4. More specific biases.Given where the WDL's money comes from, I'm not holding my breath for images of punitive amputations or of labor conditions at Foxconn. I mention that as an afterthought, since it would be more important to address systemic issues than particular PR items. Still, it's important to be aware of these limitations, and I think they should be mentioned at the World Digital Library article on Wikipedia.

I do think these concerns can be resolved in a way that will make the WDL an awesome contributor to Wikipedia. I am hoping that User:SarahStierch can talk to WDL (and Partners) about these issues, since they seem to be positioned as a mediator between Wikipedia and WDL.

  1. Quality over quantity. This is the simplest change, and also the most broadly applicable. (That doesn't make it an easy change.) We have these barnstars as incentives. We have these "outcome" lists. Can we incentivize editor behaviors that leads to more substantial research and editing, rather than the dissemination of WDL links across as many pages as possible?
  2. Images for Wikimedia Commons? When I saw this project described initially on my talk page, I assumed that the goal was to incorporate new images that had become available from WDL. I'm disappointed to see that an image's inclusion within WDL does not automatically imply fair game for use on Wikipedia. Often the copyright status of these images is not clear, even from original pages on their home archives. It would be sweet if contributing to WDL was like contributing to WMC, in that WDL images were automatically licensed under Creative Commons or public domain. This would allow the WDL to highlight the features that actually make it unique, instead of relying on captions as unnecessary reliable sources.
  3. Directly address selection bias? I know that many of the libraries listed as WDL partners have materials generated by the Third World, and not about the Third World by Europeans and (USA) Americans. I know these libraries have materials that address the realities of colonialism, imperialism, and racist violence worldwide. These realities aren't pretty or comfortable, but they are a really important part of our collective human history, and it is wrong to exclude them from our archives. I know 'sins of omission' are very elusive. But I'm looking at a citation used for Indian independence movement that ignores the existence of an Indian independence movement.

Hm, this turned into a pretty long post. Thanks for your attention, groupuscule (talk) 13:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. Yeah, I think this is maybe..umm....going a bit too intense into politics and so forth. I have *very limited influence* on what I can do. I volunteered to do this project because I enjoy working with cultural institutions and it's something I can focus on. I also had never heard of WDL until the opportunity arose and now I realize there is a lot of cool content on it! I don't even know where to start with your post. I do ask that you 1) assume good faith 2) understand that my time is limited (I only do this part time for WDL) and that even the staff at WDL is limited on what they can do - partners decide on what they share - not staff. OK, here we go:
  1. If you are concerned about the articles being written you do have the freedom to
  • Nominate them for deletion or PROD them
  • Expand them yourself. For example, if you can read Swedish you can expand Samuel Gustaf Hermelin. If you enjoy research and art history you can expand Arthur H. Hider. I'll probably do the later. And of course Wikipedia:Other stuff exists throughout Wikipedia that is reference free and a lot worse in content and notability fears.
  1. Re: Reliable source. Like any library of archive, one must use all content with trust and caution. These entries can be seen as a form of a finding aid. What happens is that partners submit images and whatever information they might have about an object or image and/or it's creator(s). Then, staff at WDL research and write brief finding aid statements about that image or something related to it. This is a project of UNESCO and the Library of Congress. The fact that it takes research material, examines and researches on top of it, and then writes a resource based on those resources (taking into account primary sources, etc, which is what secondary sources do) makes it a reliable source to me. But, I'm a curator by trade and education and I've been working in museums for 10 years. To me, this is a reliable source.
  2. The citations added to the India articles provide a citation for one sentence about the Government of India Act 1858. If you feel that these were added and mis-cited, then feel free to challenge and remove them. I added them in good faith because they weren't cited in those articles. If you do fear that they are misleading and bad information, then please remove them from the outcomes list and so forth. I was doing work in good faith - adding what I consider a quality source to articles that needed citation improvement. Not trying to promote who Frank Carpenter was. If you read the source I added you can see where I refer to Government of India Act 1858.
  3. I'm not able to influence the Library of Congress on what type of content they share. If you'd like to write an email requesting certain types of content I'm happy to forward it onto a staff member. I can't make any promises. This is my third Wikipedian in Residency and the most requested thing is Wikipedians asking for specific content or images, and me being unable to deliver because of institutional red tape. If you have specific requests, as I said, you can email me and I can introduce you to staff that might be able to help out. I do agree that there can be more content - I have a Native American Studies degree and I want to see more content about them and genocidal content related to that. But, with about 10 employees and everyone overworked, it's hard for WDL to request specific subjects from partners when most partners don't even have the staff to produce regular amounts of content.
  4. You'd have to bring up the subjects related to the Thomas Jefferson stuff with the person who added it to those articles. I didn't do it, and was surprised to see it appear on the list. I'd talk to the Wikipedian perhaps about their decision to add WDL citations to those pages.
  5. Re: Undue promotion. We can say this about every single GLAM-Wiki project. I've heard it a thousand times. I can't really respond much to it aside from assume good faith - we're trying to improve Wikipedia, even if we are limited with the sources we have. We've already received praise from Arabic Wikipedians for introducing people to WDL and now Arabic Wikipedia volunteers are starting at WDL portal on ar.wikipedia so we can improve content there. So that's exciting to me. So I look at the positives and get happy that I'm able to help share a new resource with people. While one might find it promotional, other Wikipedians have found it helpful and valuable.
  6. If you're concerned about things being used inappropriately it's best to bring it up with the Wikipedians who added it to the articles. As we both know, WP:SOFIXIT. If there is concern, that citations are being used inappropriately then bring it up with the editors who added it. Perhaps there is some failure to use citations correctly. I stand by my citing of the Government of India Act 1858 content.
  7. Euro bias is seen in almost every single institution on earth. WDL is working on getting more content from Qatar and African partners, for example, however, it's a long haul and not something that happens over night. Especially when those partners have never digitized content before and only have catalogue cards written in pencil (true story). Again, as a museum professional I've seen a painful Eurocentric/Anglocentric focus in every single organization I've worked at except the National Museum of the American Indian and National Museum of African American History and Culture. And I've worked at Native American art departments and programs throughout the country. The focus of this project isn't to counter systematic bias. It's to improve Wikipedia in general and perhaps there is content on the website that can do that.
  8. Concerns about article creation should maybe be brought up with the Wikipedians writing them. Most of the people writing articles tend to be writing articles using many sources. I know that WDL can't be the only source they should be using. WDL even knows that (We had a conversation about it last week). Perhaps we have problems with our volunteers who are unaware about our multiple reliable source policies.
  9. Regretfully images are something we're unable to engage partners with at this time. I've beat this over and over and over again with a stick and sadly we can't budge on it. What people do with the content on the WDL site is their decision as long as they know what the copyright laws are for each image and the partners/locational copyright laws. I have asked about getting content donations, and it's been rejected repeatedly and it's not WDL's fault - it's partners that aren't interested at this time.
  10. If you or other participants are interested in seeing specific types of content feel free to email me and I'll introduce/pass it onto WDL staff. WDL it's self isn't Eurocentric (seriously. I know them, about 10 people, a mix of devs doing tech work and librarians, from many countries, many languages, many backgrounds), but, partner contributed content does lean that way. It crossed my head as I've now read every single entry in the collection. However, we have to assume good faith, use things in a smart way, and if people want to see something specific I can introduce them to staff members who can mediate and see if anything can be done.

I know this isn't probably the best response ever. I just know there is little i can do about some of your concerns, and sadly i can't control how each Wikipedian uses content. Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts. SarahStierch (talk) 15:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Some of the subjects on the to-do list may simply not meet our notability standards. I realized that Arthur H. Hider is probably not notable, after I created the a stub and searched for more sources. I have found that the WDL seems to have less value as a reliable source, and more value as a catalog of potential subjects, and an incomplete repository of documents and images. I can understand groupuscule's concerns about the apparent political overtones of the WDL's collection, but I really don't have a concern about how that might affect this project, since editorial discretion should come into play. - MrX 19:33, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I found another minor mention with the Robin Hood Flour Cookbook cover he did and was used by the company, but while it may not meet the notability guideline, we see a lot of little ones by a subject whose work is over a 100 years old and has a decent stub without any original research. Also it looks like he is notable because some of his works are currently in possession of the National Archives of Canada. He is probably more well known as 'Art Hider' but his full name was Arthur Henry Hider. His works are commonly signed AH Hider. While sites like this may not be the most 'reliable', this is about the best we can get without requesting information from the archives. Oh... and its not just that one page either; check the side for more. The WDL doesn't cover everything in utmost detail, but please AGF and at least recognize that it was more than a century ago when Hilder's work was in its prime; sources from the era are still very difficult to obtain, but one source can make all the difference. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:44, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for adding that source, Chris. I agree that, although it's difficult to find sources for Hider, he does seem notable, at least in some small, historical sense. - MrX 13:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
Added comments above to explain my own use of WDL images/background material in specific instances. For the larger project, I am viewing the WDL material as a start, and a way to promote material and sources that provide more information and perhaps perspective. The WDL link provided data in background material to add substance to the Guatemala articles, even if limited. There will no doubt be other cases where people disagree on how images or background data are used, but if we take a long view, we can make progress.Parkwells (talk) 13:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

UNESCO for endangered language lists

  • Hey, are those attractive barnstars retroactive? ;-) One day or other I'll update all the endangered language lists from UNESCO data. I'll sign myself up for this project, but won't be active anytime soon. • Serviceable†Villain 05:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
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