Talk:Calendrical Calculations

A fact from Calendrical Calculations appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 April 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the book Calendrical Calculations has been called "the most extensive and detailed publication on calendar systems" since Friedrich Karl Ginzel's work in the early 20th century?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2020/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Calendrical Calculations.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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... that the book Calendrical Calculations has been called "the most extensive and detailed publication on calendar systems" since the early 20th-century work of Friedrich Karl Ginzel? Source: https://zbmath.org/?format=complete&q=an:0894.01023

Reviewed: Twelve Bens

Created by David Eppstein (talk). Self-nominated at 22:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC).[reply]

I find the hook to be interesting, but I think the article needs a bit of a copyedit first. It also has a bit of a promotional tone, with words such as "this book" that need to be revised before the review can process. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:59, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- @Narutolovehinata5: please explain how referring to the subject of the article, a book, as "this book", is in any way promotional, and in what other shorthand manner I can refer to it instead of repeating its title every single time it is the subject or object of a sentence without you finding it promotional. Also please be specific about any other issues you think might require copyediting rather than merely saying you think it might require copyediting without any hint as to what problems might require copyediting. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For example, would there be another way to revises phrases such as One purpose of the book is to provide usable and efficient open software, One of the innovations of the book, and This is primarily a reference book, but can also be read for pleasure by readers interested in this topic? The last example in particular sounds promotional and appears to speak in Wikipedia's voice, when ideally such phrasing should be avoided whenever possible. I also have some concerns about the wording of the part that goes There have been many different calendars in different societies, and there is much difficulty in converting between them... as it appears to speak in Wikipedia's voice when as far as I can tell it should instead be written in such a way that it is clearly attributed to the authors. Perhaps in this case, it could be revised to include words like "According to the authors" or phrasing to that effect? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 16:58, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is a description of the audience the book is aimed at. Different books have different audiences: for instance a mathematics book may be intended for amateurs, for undergraduate mathematics student class textbooks, for graduate student classes, for other professional mathematicians in that specialty, etc. Describing the audience of a book is a factual evaluation of the book, not the kind of opinion that needs to be set off with a specific attribution warning the readers that only that one person has the opinion and everyone else should ignore it (in some other cases, reviewers differ as to who would want to read the book, and in those cases, I will include attributions, but this is not one of those cases). As for "many different calendars", this is also a factual, sourced, and easily-sourced statement about culture and society, background for understanding why the book exists. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't "Describing the audience of a book is a factual evaluation of the book" count as original research unless there were references supporting it? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 17:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean that it's original research to determine which kinds of conclusions from sources count as factual, then no. If you mean that it would be original research to describe the audience of a book without providing a reference, then yes but irrelevant to this case: the description of the audience is not unsourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, I would really suggest that the article be revised somewhat. I understand that what you're trying to say is that the article is intended for a more technical audience, but speaking as a reviewer who is not well-versed in the topic, it instead looks like an (unintentional) advertisement for the book. This particularly seems to be the case for the "Topic" section: for example, quotes such as One purpose of the book is to provide usable and efficient open software in an area where previous solutions were largely proprietary, incomplete, and buggy, ...a precise and unambiguous way of describing each algorithm and One of the innovations of the book sound like things you'd see in a press release, not an encyclopedia article. Finally, I remain worried about the This is primarily a reference book sentence: although it has a footnote citing a review by William Wynne Willson, he is not mentioned by name in that part. I would suggest revising the sentence to make it clear that it's Wynne Willson's words and not Wikipedia's, lest the article be accused of plagiarism. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 17:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Repeating the opinion of a reviewer in different words, with a citation to that reviewer, is so far from "plagiarism" that I have to question your competence. Can I have a new reviewer who is capable of following the DYK rules (none of which have been referenced in this review) and reading articles objectively without attempting to squeeze them into a "this must be an ad" point of view, please? This one seems incapable of allowing any more detailed description than "this is a book" without thinking of it as an ad. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what's the problem with simply changing "This is primarily a reference book..." to something like "In his review, Wynne Willson notes that although it is primarily a reference book...", because saying "This is primarily" makes it seem that the sentence is using Wikipedia's voice when in fact it is Wynne Willson's comment. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 18:47, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When you created the article Back Arrow did you provide a source for the opinion that the subject of the article is an anime series? When you created Takako Tanaka did you clearly state, in the text of the article, that her claim to being a voice actress is merely the opinion of her agency? When you created Sumika (band), to whom did you credit the opinion that the genre of music that it plays is rock? This is exactly the same sort of thing: what kind of book is it? Why should it be subject to different standards than you apply to the articles you write yourself? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article is new enough and long enough, neutrally written, well referenced, no copyvio concerns raised by Earwig, and QPQ done. Hook is cited and interesting and complies with DYK policy. Ready to go now. Moonraker (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]