Talk:Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Page title

Isn't this current naming going to be very difficult to Search for? RickK 04:59, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Advance notice of intent to move this back to 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. This article is not currently at the normal English spelling of the title and as the ad shows, it's also not the title used for the work by its vendor. Objections anyone? Jamesday 22:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have an original copy right here and it does say "Encyclopædia". --Wik 22:47, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

I also object. Look at the spelling on http://www.britannica.com/ Mintguy (T)

I used to have fun sometimes asking people to spell "encyclopædia britannica". You could tell immediately by the look they gave whether they had previously noticed the old-style spelling or not. The main entry should have the spelling used then and still used now. jallan 22:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

FWIW I find the ligature silly, and it introduces all kinds of problems. Internally, you can use a redirect, but the use of the ligature means that many if not most will get to the article via a redirect - and that's slow for the user, and demanding on the already-strained resources of wikipedia. In short, it's pointlessly fussy, archaic,a waste of resources and user-unfriendly.flux.books 20:04, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Additional info

I can't find anything about "lazy negroes", etc. in the encyclopedia. I think we should see some proof first.

I've got most of the volumes of EB11 in print. I just had a quick look at the US Civil War article but didn't see any mention of negroes at all. However looking at http://94.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HA/HAITI.htm it says "The people are almost entirely pure-blooded negroes, the mulattoes, who form about 10% of the population, being a rapidly diminishing and much-hated class. The negroes are a kindly, hospitable people, but ignorant and lazy. " Mintguy (T) 21:12, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Is there a similar public domain encyclopedia in spanish??Mac 09:27 Mar 8, 2003 (UTC)

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Just how much material in an article with a boilerplate link to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica must be rewritten or removed before that link can be removed? -- llywrch 20:23, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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You may find the article on this one a little easier to read, considering it has minimal typos. Эйрон Кинни 00:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia content

"Much content from the 1911 edition has been incorporated into Wikipedia; the count as of 26 September 2004 was about 2200 articles."

2200 is about the number of pages in Category:1911 Britannica, but there are more which have been removed from the category as more info from other sources has been added.

—wwoods 05

25, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just thought id say that i have a complete 1911 Encyclopaedia Britanica. Its not in great shape but is still very readable and is quite amazing. If you wish to get a hold of me EMAIl me @ britanicajoe@hotmail.com

Non-PD versions?

The description of the link to http://1911encyclopedia.org/ says: This appears to be a raw, unproofread OCR-scanned version, and so contains many errors and no illustrations. This source should not be used for anything more than research; the content is not public domain. - I don't understand the "not public domain" part. AFAIK raw scanning doesn't constitute any new copyright on a text with expired copyright protection - it doesn't constitute a new "work" (which would have to meet minimal standards of originality), regardless of what the site states. So, shouldn't the "This source..." part be removed? IANAL, however. Gestumblindi 01:47, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I thought the compilation of PD data was protected under copyright law even when the source data is PD (in order to prevent wholesale ripping-off of existing compilations). But I'm not sure, not being a lawyer either. Cwoyte 15:35, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

At least according to European copyright laws, a simple compilation of PD data doesn't constitute a new protection of the data itself - it may be the case that the data of http://1911encyclopedia.org/ may not be used in exactly the "compiled" form there... maybe even that, there's a nice word in German law: "Schöpfungshöhe" - "extent of creation", a "work" has to be be of a certain uniqueness, a relevant amount of newly created content is required to gain copyright protection. Still, I think it is allowed to extract the raw data and use it in a different form. Gestumblindi 18:45, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I revised the satement on the link to say that the source claimed copyright as a fair warning to users. DES 17:10, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright-clean version?

Does anyone have a "copyright-clean" version of the 1911 EB online? From what I can tell:

• 1911encyclopedia.org has an OCR scan that may be copyright-encumbered
• PG has released a handfull of volumes, but nowhere near all of them (and they won't be finished anytime soon)
• Some people/companies have scans of the encyclopedia, but nobody is making them available online -- at least not for free ($$) and not without claims of copyright.

Is there anywhere people can get this important document in its entirety online? I'm surprised that someone like archive.org doesn't have scans on their site.

Womble 14:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

See http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WikiProject_1911_Encyclopedia. We are working on it! If you want a paper copy of your own, ABE is advertising several copies, both the orginal and the compact size reprint for about £200 plus carriage. As the compact version was marketed by mail order it is not at all rare. Apwoolrich 16:04, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Caithness

Why why why is Caithness in this category? Laurel Bush 17:48, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC).

EB1911 More harm than good?

I own a hard copy of EB1911 and have spent considerable time reading articles on WP with the {EB} tag. I have reached the conclusion that they tend to be incredibly bad articles. It's really very simple, read an article from EB1911 versus the same article written in the latest EB2005 and you will see what I mean. The choice of words, the grammar, the inclusion of reams of facts that have no importance or relevance, a lack of modern narrative technique (much less post-modern), the covert nationalistic biases, the lack of any meaning or significance to people or events, no modern interpretations, shocking POV historical revisionisms. I just don't understand why people think it is a good idea to import these articles in to WP, they should avoided, used for some very basic fact checking or ideas of things to write about. Wikipedia is not a fact repository, it is a living document, when a would-be editor runs across a topic that has been usurpered by lengthy, dense, difficult to decipher old dusty article from 1911 it is so much work to untangle and create a modern, up to date well written article, most of the time it is left alone and continues on like some kind of virus lurking in the bowels of Wikipedia. It is as if Wikipedians are expressing a conservative bias that is safer to go with old views than to update with modern ones. I would really like to see a more strict policy about polluting our waters with this stuff, I and others have spent considerable time deleting utter junk imported from EB1911 by good intentioned but misguided people, and with Gutenburg releasing more volumes I suspect this flood will continue.

--Stbalbach 05:17, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It certainly is easy enough to delete a bad article and start from scratch. If you think we're better off without them, go for it. I don't think there is much danger of further flooding of EB articles from PG. I don't think anybody was really waiting on PG; text was already available from 1911encyclopedia.org for anyone interested. Feel free to fix them or delete them; it's Wikipedia! --Amillar 23:47, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Let me give an example. I know very little about this particular topic, but just came upon it this morning, and it is representative of the 100s (thousands?) of bad EB1911 articles on Wikipedia. The article is Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (Ive since updated it, so am linking to the original for purpose of example), created from EB1911, it was first made in Sept of 2003. Since that time, a year and a half, there have been a few syntaxual edits, but nothing else. I challenge you to tell me why this person is important (somthing typically found in the first paragraph of the lead section). It would require a serious effort of time and energy to figure it out, if you could even at all. In fact, here is what it says on why he is important, at the very end of the article:

But his most famous literary service was the printing at Alcalá (in Latin Complutum) of the Complutensian Polyglott, the first edition of the Christian Scriptures in the original text. In this work, on which he is said to have expended half a million of ducats, the cardinal was aided by the celebrated Stunica (D. Lopez de Zuñiga), the Greek scholar Nuñez de Guzman (Pincianus), the Hebraist Vergara, and the humanist Nebrija, by a Cretan Greek Dentetrius Ducas, and by three Jewish converts, of whom Zamora edited the Targum to the Pentateuch.

Can you decipher what that means? Would you have even found it? Here is a modern translation:

Cisneros was a Spanish Renaissance cardinal who helped spread the revival of learning through his rosetta stone like translation of the Bible. He set up six different versions of the Bible in parallel columns using the original Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin so that readers for the first time could check the translations of all the texts.

Now you may say, I should enter that information and therefore Wikipedia "works" and I would agree. My argument is more specific to EB1911 articles -- not only are they not clear, they actually serve to prevent future editors from improving on them. In other words, if this particular article had been left a blank slate instead of importing the EB1911 version, I think it would be a much better article today because editors would be more encouraged to improve on a blank slate, than to try and decipher and fix the old EB1911 version.

I have since gone through and made further updates. Another problem with these articles are they are elaborate narratives, like stories. It makes it very difficult to insert new information because it breaks the narrative. By the same token, the reader must read from the begining or else things dont make sense half way in. This particular article is more than one mans biography, it is a partial history of Spain. While it is useful, it just isnt in the spirit of Wikipedia IMO.

--Stbalbach 15:29, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I vigorously disagree w Stbalbach regarding the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, and will continue to merge as much of its content into the wikipedia as possible. If I knew how to make a bot to create every article the wikipedia lacks and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica possesses I surely would. There is a rather stagnant related discussion @ Talk:Animism, BTW. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 17:00, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I might suggest using a bot to import EB1911 is the work of an archivest or antiquarian. Importing articles takes no thought or effort, knowing what information is wrong and how to re-write it takes experience and knowledge and research and considerable labour. EB1911 is a single source of many, if we had no copyright restrictions, there are modern reference materials that are far better and more accurate we would use instead. There is a certain belief that EB1911 is better than nothing, I believe it is worse than nothing. With nothing we have a blank slate without the Victorian era legacy. Stbalbach 18:04, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The victorian era has a verifiable expert POV. This conversation starkly reminds me of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/WHEELER. Many feel that WHEELER's addition of classical greek POV is unfortunate. I on the other hand prefer a true diversity of thought, with expression of all signifigant POV's. If you feel the Victorian POV is insignifigant, we differ on that. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 08:08, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "verifiable", much of the problem with 1911 is they made stuff up or reported on stuff that is in fact not verifiable or essentially gosip. If you don't think that's true, you have never spent the time "cleaning up" a 1911 article with multiple more reliable modern sources and the benefit of 100 years of research. What your describing, your joy of old views, is antiquarianism, interesting in its own right, but of no value to the modern reader without further synthesis and analysis. Antiquanianism is not what Wikipedia is about, you can buy the hardbound copies of 1911 for a $100 or so and read it there, or read online for free through Gutenburg.Stbalbach 15:36, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I often spend the time to clean up 1911 articles, weaving them into the wikipedia. Indeed if I wasn't concerned you'd go and give them a rather severe "cleaning" of your own I'd link you to a few ;) I will say there was a circumstance where persons w a P.C. viewpoint had shoved a great deal of leftist weasel speak into a rather fine 1911 article, only to be chagrined to discover that the antiquated views contained therin were the only verifiable views available on the subject, it being a concept almost entirely neglected by "modernists", mainly due to Sapir-Whorfesque changes in views. if you convince me you'll be tender, I may even give you a link ;) (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 18:58, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think a lot of people hang on to older historical writings because they are well written and entertaining, which for many is more important than being factually accurate or intellectually challenging. There are many examples of classic historical works that still sell well to this day, despite modern research which challenges and refutes the old notions and beliefs. For me, history is about finding the truth. For 19th century historians, telling a good story was paramount; in fact this is true of most historians prior to the 20th century, the art of history only became a profession with standards of accuracy very recently. Stbalbach 20:11, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We agree entirely there. I usually explain it thusly: When speaking with a friend about his day, he is acting as an eye witness (the least reliable form of evidence). When reading the news, we are hearing from someone we don't know, who is at best (indeed rarely) reciting 1st or second hand information. When we are reading contemporary history, the lens is that much darker, the opinions and paradigms expressed by the author that much stronger, and the telephone game that much more distant from the source. But when we are talking about history 100 yrs old or more!... we honestly can't interpret it as very much more than a sociological or psychological insight into the author and the translators and historians between them and us.

Frankly, history is far removed from a hard science, and even the best intellegence gathering regarding the most pressing of current events (like WMD in Iraq for example) compiled by the most reliable of experts... isn't very reliable at all ;) In summary, take all such fairy tales, from the newspaper, from your history books old and new, and yes, even from your closest friend discussing his exciting day... with about a pound of salt ;) Cheers, Sam Spade Apply now, exciting opportunities available at Spade & Archer! 12:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hello I'm a fellow wikipedian who like yourself shares a liking of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. I noticed your defense of the 1911 encyclopedia on the talk page and thought you might be intrested in taking part in a wikimedia project that intends to put the entire 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica on the internet proofread and in wiki format. This gives you an opprotunity to share the knowledge of the 1911 version without engaging in edit wars with modernists.

Some links to this 1911wikipedia wikimedia project are: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WikiProject_1911_Encyclopedia

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/1911wikipedia

I hope that you will be able to participate in this project. Even if you can not it would be most appreciated if you can spread word of this project to those who are intrested. In a few years practicaly all hard copies of the 1911 enyclopedia will be unreadable. This is the last chance to preserve the complete sum of human knowledge of the 20th century for humanity. This is also a chance to create a major supplement to the mdoern wikipedia filling in on the parts that wikipedia is weakest : pre20th century knowledge. --Gary123 12:23, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

The EB 1911 should be a separate project. There's a great deal of historical value in having an accurate transcription of it. And some of the biographical and historical material might make useful entries or sections of entries in wikipedia, as they would be as current today as they were then - even if you personally believe the people to be obscure, there is great value while studying history in identifying individuals who were signifcant to a particular time period!

BUT very few substantial topics would be well served by importing entire 1911 articles, or mixing them in. wikipedia is meant to be a current reference reflecting current knowledge. Wholesale imports are guaranteed not to be that, in most cases. flux.books 16:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

1911 Wikipedia

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/1911wikipedia

• Link to proposal on mailing list: [1]
• Naming suggestions:1911 Wikipedia
• Domain name:en.1911wikipedia.org
• Scope:The 1911 Enyclopedia Brittanica is considered the best encyclopedia ever made. Many of the historical and literary articles in wikipedia use the 1911 Brittanica as the main source. A 19111 wikipedia project would work to put the entire encylopedia onlibe in wikipedia format. This would be an excellent source and support for wikipedia articles. Current online 1911 editions are ocd scanned and thus of very poor quality. Our wikipedia editors would be very effective in editing it.
• Details: 1911wikipedia
• Proposer:--Gary123 18:50, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
• People interested joining:
• Relevant links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%E6dia_Britannica http://1911encyclopedia.org/ http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/A10_ADA/index.html

Content of the article: Copyright issues

Much of the content of this article seems to be taken word-for-word from [2], a source linked to in the article. I am not clear on the copyright staus of this source, but even if it is PD, shouldn't this level of cloning require an explicit citation of the source? DES 16:35, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Classic Literature Library the source abovc, has a copyright notice for 2004. The history of this page looks like the original verison was much closer to the text now online at that site. Also, some but not all of the same text is now online at [3] which ahs a site copyright notice. It is possible that both are quoting some PD site, or even copying from wikipedia, but that is not clear. A google search on the first sentance of the current article turns up 157 hist, most of which seem to be taken from wikipedia as far as i can see. DES 17:08, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

FWIW, the site "Classic Literature Library" also claims Copyright to the Bible. Stbalbach 16:40, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed a manually inserted Category:Possible copyright violations from the article. If someone thinks this article indeed violates a copyright, tag it with the copyvio template. -Poli 07:54, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)

Very well i shall do so, then we'll see what reactions there are. DES 4 July 2005 23:35 (UTC)

What makes you think Wikipedia copied that site and not the other way around? This article still has text from the first revision in history from 2002. According to archive.org, encyclopedia.classic-literature.co.uk has only existed since 2004. Angela. July 4, 2005 23:49 (UTC)

External Links: problem is not a problem.

The text contained in the External Links portion as follows: "All the image files of books in the product are claimed to be copyrighted, although all but a few of the books are in the public domain. Determining actual copyright status may require legal advice."

...can be changed. A scanned image (or a simple photograph) of a book in the public domain does not make it able to be copyrighted. This is true for the USA and any nation with which the USA has a reciprocal agreement regarding copyright laws pertaining to written works, which means most of the world. Google it if you want. This has been decided by case law rulings for decades as of this year. 23.June.2005

This is a grey area of copyright law. Many museums charge money and claim copyright status on the images of their paintings, even if the paintings are a couple of hundred years old (and have expired copyright status). Part of this is because they keep cameras away from these works of art (for sometimes a good archival reason... but not always) and call the photograph of the painting to be an original work. So it is the photograph itself (or the image scan, in this case) which is copyrighted. Weak claim, I will admit, but it is there neverless. If you have the original volume and choose to scan it in yourself, that is in the public domain and can't be disputed. Taking scanned images from somebody else that has asserted copyright status on those scans may be a copyright violation. That is where you need legal advise. --Robert Horning 17:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

This is not a grey area of copyright law; Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. clearly sets out that they are in the public domain in the US. [4] points out that while the museum community was negatively impacted by the ruling and really hate it, they thought it was the correct opinion under the law.--Prosfilaes 10:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Which is why we have this image tag (Template:pd-art):

The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. This photograph of the work is also in the public domain in the United States (see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.).

--Stbalbach 15:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Copyright problem?

I reverted the copyright problem notice as this being a violation of http://encyclopedia.classic-literature.co.uk/ As far as I can tell, that was clearly taken from us-- including an ad which I scanned from an old National Geographic (Image:EncycBrit1913.jpg), clearly the same with matching age yellowing pattern. -- Infrogmation 5 July 2005 00:52 (UTC)

I agree. Classic Literature claims copyright on a lot of things that are public domain, it's not a top tier site, or even second rate maybe. Stbalbach 5 July 2005 02:51 (UTC)

Agree. Little doubt is left that wikipedia was the source of their article.-Poli 2005 July 7 20:01 (UTC)

Thoughts on the 1911 Britannica

My ex-wife has, I think as a family heirloom, an 11th edition Britannica. I agree with the comments that it was the sum of human knowledge at the time, and was the greatest encyclopedia ever published. At the same time, it does not have a neutral point of view. Its point of view is sometimes what would today be characterized as racist or colonialist.

In some ways, the world has moved forward, in terms of respecting other points of view. In other ways, it has moved backward, in no longer recognizing that there can be such a thing as knowledge.

I do have one concern about Wikipedia and the 1911 Britannica. Most of its text should be considered good material for inclusion in the Wikipedia, but some articles are racist or colonialist.

Robert McClenon 02:12, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I take the opinion that this edition should be used as a source for some content, particularly for older historical information, or to get a viewpoint on what a particular branch of science had one hundred years ago. Medical advise in particular is very out of date, but articles on contemporary historical figures (that is...contemporary to 1911 editors) are outstanding and in some cases are the only real source of information that can be obtained for some of them.

Right now I'm plowing through the articles on the Wikisource 1911 Encyclopaedia Britiannica Wikiproject, and I'm finding it very interesting what articles have been updated since the original articles were "seeded" into Wikipedia and what articles have stayed almost word-for-word exactly what was found in 1911. Surprisingly it is European historical figures that are usually the least touched, while people of historical note that are from places further from England (and the further it is, the more likly it seems to be) are drastically changed...usually with considerably more detail. It will be interesting to see what minor contributions to Wikipedia this project can deliever when it gets close to completion. --Robert Horning 04:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I personally can't believe some people can SERIOUSLY believe the 1911 EB was the sum of human knowledge at the 20th century. Firstly it was only ever Encyclopaedic knowledge. There is a lot of knowledge that humans have which is not considered Encyclopedaediac. For example only 34 women contributed. I'm qute sure at the time quite a number of women knew a lot of things that very few men knew. Secondly our idea of what is encylopedic knowledge changes over time. I haven't looked at 1911 EB but I'm sure there are many articles where people would go why the heck did they bother to include this or go into so much detail whereas there are also probably many articles when there was a lot of knowledge in 1911 which was not included because at the time not considered encyclopedia or important enough.

On a related note, thirdly and most importantly, it wasn't just colonial and racist, it would have undoutedly been EXTREMELY Western world view oriented (not just Western, probably England specific too). There was undoutedly a LOT of encyclopedaedic knowledge thats Asians, Arabic, South Americans, Pacific Islanders and Africans (and to some extent probably even Russians etc) and others knew which was not included because very few from the West knew these things and they were not considered important. To be fair, Wikipedia has a Western bias (as it has much more contributors from there) but this is improving and in any case, no one has ever claimed Wikipedia represents the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 21st century.

BTW, I wouldn't Robert's analysis is surprising. It's exactly as we would expect. Since 1911 EB undoutedly had a extreme Western (or England) bias, we would expect the info on Asian, Arabic etc figures to be limited, biased and in number of cases maybe downright incorrect so it need to go through substanial revisions to be even remotely useful for Wiki. Of course, as I noted even Wiki tends to have a Western world view bias but the fact that we still notice such a large disparity between revisions perhaps just goes to show how extremely bad 1911 EB was on non-Western figures! Nil Einne 17:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

There are quite a few articles on Wikipedia that are copies of articles from this encyclopedia. Many of the articles are have racial and political bias, and some are just downright opinionated (see Manon Lescaut, I'm rewriting it now). Some mentions of this should be made. in this article.

Also, there are some links to commercial products at the bottom of the article. I understand that it's nice to link to places you can get the entire encyclopedia scanned with a K12 curriculum and blah blah, but I thought there was some sort of guidelines about that sort of thing? Foofy 04:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleting EB1911 text from articles that are too cumbersome to work with is sometimes the best thing to do. Some people do EB1911 "text dumps" 100s of articles at a time without fact checking or modernizations and expect/assume someone will fix it. It's often better to start with a clean slate and draw on more recent resources and have an external link to the original EB1911 article. Also, I added a section to Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias which discusses the systemic bias EB1911 has unwittingly introduced to Wikipedia. There is a small minority of EB1911 fantatics that have done more harm than good IMO.--Stbalbach 04:34, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing. I'm not a good writer so it takes me a bit of time. Am I right in assuming that EB1911 shouldn't be used as a valid "source" in most articles? There are some claims it makes about Manon Lescaut and Antoine Prévost that I've not been able confirm elsewhere, and I'm hesitant to keep them... Foofy 04:42, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Correct. It was typical of historians in that era to hype-up controversial stuff, present it as fact, with the aim of entertainment and a good story. Often it was not their fault as no one had time yet to verify the sources and so they just repeated the only sources they had which were very old and questionable. Since then we've had more time and resources to investigate and research new facts have come to light. --Stbalbach 15:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

More thoughts on 1911 Britannica

In a recent book about the encyclopedia brittanica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Know-It-All:_One_Man%27s_Humble_Quest_to_Become_the_Smartest_Person_in_the_World under the passage on "encylopedia" it mentions a new yorker article that goes in depth on the 1911 brittanica. I think that article and the passage from the book itself would be very useful for this article.--Gary123 16:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

1911 EB Introduction

This is now available on Wikisource http://wikisource.org/wiki/EB1911:Original_introduction. Apwoolrich 18:03, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

That would be useful, if you mean the editorial introduction. But it seems gone? scan here at the moment, you probably need alternatiff plugin. Well worth reading for those interested in this subject. flux.books 18:19, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

How odd. If you click on the infobox for 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica to the right of the main page you will find it. Has anyone altered the name of this page from EB1911 to something different? It worked fine with this link last August. I have added a note on the main page. Apwoolrich 19:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

"often regarded as the greatest edition"

This is purely a subjective opinion. Often..how often? Regarded.. by whom? In fact someone in the 1930's who read both the 11th and 14th in entirety said the 14th was a "great improvement" over the 11th, that it had been mostly re-written. The lead section needs to be written without presenting this rather one-sided opinion and keep with facts instead of hyping it up. If your going to present that "fact" that some people things its the best, then you also need to present the "fact" that there is considerable criticism of the encyclopedia. --Stbalbach 19:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Please...of course new editions will be rewritten, as the old get outdated. That it's the greatest edition doesn't mean it's the best to use today. Where is there "considerable criticism" of the 11th edition? Actually the Criticisms section is rather silly, saying "Articles about science and medicine are outdated". Well, you don't say! What kind of criticism is it to say a book published in 1911 is outdated in 2005? And the only other criticism is that it wasn't exactly following a neutral point of view. Well, that's precisely what Kenneth Clark praised it for ("slightly coloured by prejudice"), there's no evidence that this has been a cause for "considerable criticism".

Kolokol 19:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It may seem obvious to you, but many people do take it literarly, that this encyclopedia really is the best encyclopedia ever published, even to this day. There is ample evidence of this all over Wikipedia with a core group of eb1911 supporters who cut and paste entire eb1911 articles in with no revisions or edits, including science articles. You may think its silly, and I would agree, but ive seen it many times. I even had a conversation with one person who said he'll only read history from Victorian authors. There really are people who think this encyclopedia is better than more recent ones. --Stbalbach 20:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Even they will be aware that much of it is outdated. They may just sympathize more with the "Victorian POV", and that's their choice. Still, there is no objective evidence of widespread criticism. Your personal criticism doesn't belong in the article. Kolokol 21:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

No, they are not aware. That is the point. They read the article and take it literarly word for word. Is there some reason you wish to subvert putting this encyclopedia into historical context? Historical context may be obvious to you, but its not obvious to other people. --Stbalbach 21:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, what does "greatest edition" mean? That is a subjective POV statement. If I wrote that in any article on Wikipedia Id be thrown out. "King Kong is regard by some people as the greatest movie ever made". Completely inappropriate to Wikiepdia. It's pretty obvious you have a strong bias in favour of eb1911 and are not solely interested in being fair and balanced. --Stbalbach 21:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea I "wish to subvert putting this encyclopedia into historical context"? Putting it into historical context is not "criticism". And the article does not say it's the greatest edition, which would indeed be POV. It says it is widely regarded as such, which is just fact. This works for movies just the same, e.g. Lo que le Paso a Santiago says it "is considered by many to be the greatest movie ever produced in Puerto Rico" or Balthazar (film) says it "is often praised as one of the greatest films ever made". Kolokol 21:54, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The link provided doesnt say it's "the greatest".. it has a section header at the bottom with an ambiguous "still the best" (better than the 2005 version?), which doesnt really count, but more importantly, it is an article on a rare book dealer website.. It is an infomercial. Of course a rare book dealer will think highly of old books. It's not a reliable source, or even authoritative. As for other articles doing the same, on wikipedia you can get away with that when no one contests it, in this case its being contested. A citeable authoritative source is being requested to back it up and put into context. --Stbalbach 22:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, you won't find this kind of infomercial about, say, the 14th edition. And reliable sources are for facts, this one was just an example of the widely held opinion. But for a reliable source as to the fact that this opinion is indeed the prevailing one, will the current Britannica be good enough for you? It says: "The famed 11th edition was issued in 29 volumes ... The rich, leisurely prose of the 11th edition marked the pinnacle of literary style in the Britannica." It doesn't describe any other edition as "famed". Kolokol 23:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

heh.. quoting Encyclopedia Britannica about its own heritage doesnt count as a reliable source, as per the definition of reliable source. What we really need is a well-known author or scholar (who is neutral) who we can quote their name and give the "greatest" opinion some weight. Failing that I would not be opposed to replace "greatest" (someones opinion) with "famed" (factual), its more appropriate, not likely to be mis-understood. The infomercial link is appropriate for backing up that it is "famous", but not as a direct citeable authoritative source for the claim its the "greatest". --Stbalbach 23:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind restarting the indents ... added the quote from Collison, certainly one of the top authorities. Unless someone finds a quote from Frank Kafker that's better, that's probably a definitive statement. flux.books 20:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

rail "schedules"

I used the word schedule loosely rather than get into details, but for example in the 1911 Appomattox article it gives information on which nearby towns the train will stop at (trains at the time were probably seen as permanent geographic fixtures like highways today). --Stbalbach 23:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

move to 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica / new proposal to move to "Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition"

I have moved this article as EB describes this as the "11th edition" itself [5] and the term "1911 Encyclopædia Britannica" was introduced mainly by wikipedia (compare 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica versus 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica -wikipedia). —Ruud 18:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Very good point about the 1911 terminology - that usage was invented.

But the use of "11th edition ..." doesn't seem like the best answer, either, in the end. "Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition" would seem to better fit their actual usage (used for example on the title page (click to view the png version)), and it would sort nicely too. Anyone keenly interested might poke around the digitized version.

Also, moving a frequently referenced and edited page like this should be discussed rather than just doing it. So propose this get moved to Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, with a similar change for the "Ninth Edition." flux.books 18:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The "What links here" shows thousands of articles using the current name. It would be very messy to have thousands of redirects. Any move proposal needs to address this first. It may be a simple matter of changing the {1911} template, I'm not sure. -- Stbalbach 18:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

This page was moved a few weeks ago. Given that, not sure what to make of the comment. flux.books 18:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

When I moved this page I updates all the redirects, which took me about half an hour, HOWEVER after I moved this page Wikipedia went down for several minutes. Now I hope this just was a coincidence, but I'd like to see that confirmed before we move it again. —Ruud 19:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

So perhaps we could set aside for now what seems to be a very modest technical problem, especially since the handful of those links that are ever used could be updated in a few minutes - and discuss the core element of the proposal? The authority is very clear, see the title page image and the rest of the edition at the links above. flux.books 13:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I'm read to move ahead with Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition - seems clear enough from the title page. -- Stbalbach 16:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

FYI - I've made a request with admin User:Jmabel to move the page and the Template:1911 at the same time. We can clean up any other redirect problems later. request to Jmabel. -- Stbalbach 17:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks all. I manually changed several of what seemed likely to be the most common links and redirects. There don't seem to be that many left, maybe the bot has already been at work. flux.books 20:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition" is better than "1911 Encyclopædia Britannica", but shouldn't there be a comma in there, that is: "Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition"? --Macrakis 15:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it would add un-needed complication, article titles are not sentences that need to be grammatically correct, there is something to be said for simple and easy article names. You could use a comma, or a dash, or a slash, or parenthesis etc.. there's all sorts of things that could be done. -- Stbalbach 15:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a complication, rather a clarification. Four run-on words don't make much sense; and it is certainly not consistent with scholarly or bibliographic usage. As for the text of the EB11 itself, in the preface, you see Encyclopædia Britannica in italics, and Eleventh Edition in roman, and in fact I don't think they ever appear together. There are many other WP article titles with commas when appropriate. --Macrakis 15:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"yet stirs the heart of the modern literary reader"

Does it now? This seems like the sort of claim I think it'd be better to leave out.

Yes, it's not by any means the KJV of the Bible. flux.books 17:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Gutenberg table

What is the point of this table? I'm not sure what data it's trying to convey, nor what any data regarding the exact locations of proofreaders matter. I'd like to remove it. -- Ec5618 12:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think its relevant to this article. It explains what it is. --Stbalbach 15:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

So, what does Chicago mean, in this context? Yes, the text above the table suggests something about distributed proofreading, which might mean there are proofreaders in Chicag, but it isn't explicitly mentioned. More importantly, I don't see the relevance of the information. -- Ec5618 15:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Its pretty clear if you read the paragraph above the table. Im not sure what to say, click the links and read in more detail the terms your not familar with. "Chicago–Chiton" is obviously the name of the Volume, it covers all the articles alphabetically between "Chicago" and "Chiton". --Stbalbach 16:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I dredged up the project pages for several of these sections. Can you open them without being logged into DP? If so, links to the page images are in the Image column, and links to the proofed text are in P2/Text.

—wwoods 23:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• EB1911 V. 2.2: [6]

• EB1911 V. 3.1: [7]
• EB1911 V. 3.2: [8]

• EB1911 V. 4.1: [9]
• EB1911 V. 4.2: [10]
• EB1911 V. 4.4: [11]

• EB1911 V. 6.5: [12]
• EB1911 V. 6.6: [13]
• EB1911 V. 6.7: [14]

I'm afraid the above links merely ask me to log in, though they note a few completion statistics.

monkey2:monkey2 or see bugmenot.com 71.81.37.129 07:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Stbalbach, I honestly didn't realise that the words in the table referred to the first and last articles of specific books, even after reading the text above it. Perhaps the text isn't as clear as you imagine.

I also notice that the formatting of the template is a bit odd, since some cells use all caps (hardly useful), while others use small. There doesn't appear to be information about volume 5.4. -- Ec5618 23:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No mention of relationship to Wikipedia

Forgive me if this question marks me as a Wikipedian come lately, but wasn't much of the initial Wikipedia filled out with articles copied verbatim from the 11th ed. EB? Is that not worthy of mention in the article on it? --Jfruh 21:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally its bad form to discuss wikipedia on wikipedia (some rule about self-reference) if it can be discussed in a more general way; theres a section about EB1911's modern usage which can apply to wikipedia or any other site. I think there is also considerable controversy about the use of EB1911 articles on wikipedia being copied verbatim (see the Wikipedia Biases article). --Stbalbach 22:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Wiki depends so heavily on EB-11 is important for users to know. We should not hide it. It makes clear how influential EB11 still is. That is we are showing the influence of EB11, not boasting about Wiki. In my opinion there is too much reliance on EB11 in Wiki, and it is indeed controversial. But it is a verifiable fact of importance and use to users, so keep it. The fact that EB11 is online is also important to users. Rjensen 02:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia does not "depend heavily" on EB1911. And Im not sure I agree mentioning Wikipedia is a good idea -- it lends EB1911 undo credibility, anyone can cut and paste an article in 1 minute but that doesnt mean its a quality article. Plus there is a rule about not self-referencing wikipedia in articles -- wikipedia is not the only source that uses EB1911, why just mention Wikipedia? There is already a whole section in this article that talks about the pros and cons of using EB1911 as a modern source. -- Stbalbach 03:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)