User talk:SBennett SpecialCollections

Welcome!

Hi SBennett SpecialCollections, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like it here and decide to stay. Our intro page provides helpful information for new users—please check it out! If you have any questions, you can get help from experienced editors at the Teahouse. Happy editing! SilkTork (talk) 10:56, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

April 2021

Hello, I'm User3749. I wanted to let you know that one or more external links you added to Arthur Ransome have been removed because they seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. User3749 (talk) 08:26, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

This is your only warning; if you insert a spam link to Wikipedia again, as you did at Anthony Thwaite, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Persistent spammers may have their websites blacklisted, preventing anyone from linking to them from all Wikimedia sites as well as potentially being penalized by search engines. User3749 (talk) 08:27, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

New message from User3749

Hello, SBennett SpecialCollections. You have new messages at User3749's talk page.
Message added 09:12, 23 April 2021 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

User3749 (talk) 09:12, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

External links

Hi again SBennett. I've had a look at your contributions, and I understand that your intention is to provide a service to Wikipedia, but our external links are intended to provide information helpful to someone wishing to learn more about the subject of the article. Your links are simply providing information about your library. I can see that you would feel that informing readers that you have material in your library relevant to the subject might be helpful, but unless you are linking directly to the documents themselves, the links are of no use to the reader, even if the reader lived in Leeds, because there is no encyclopaedic information in the links, other than to say that the Leeds library holds some documents which may be accessed at the library under various conditions. I note above that this was brought to your attention on 23rd April, but - contrary to your own statement on your user page - you did not modify your behaviour, and have continued to add inappropriate links. I have undone some of the links you added, but there are something like 40 more to do. Normally in this situation you would be blocked because you have been warned, yet have continued to add inappropriate links - please read Wikipedia:Spam. However, I feel you are a well meaning person, and will understand that you have made a mistake, and will wish to correct yourself the errors you have made. Therefore I will leave your account unblocked to allow you to revert your edits. Of course, if you continue to insert inappropriate links, or if you do not revert the links you have already added within a reasonable time frame (say, seven days) your account will be blocked, either by myself or another admin. Please leave a message here or on my talkpage if you have any queries about this. SilkTork (talk) 01:57, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you SilkTork for taking the time to explain the situation and why some have interpreted SBennett's edits as spam. Templated messages can sometimes not be terribly informative.

If you are reading a Wikipedia article you may be interested in futher information, in which case knowing that an archive holds materials on a particular subject would be helpful. For example, the article on Mary Wollstonecraft, a Featured Article, contains a link to the UK's National Archives in its external links section. You can't view the documents in the archive online, but signposting them to readers is still a useful service. Similarly, the article on P. G. Wodehouse contains a link to the British Library's Wodehouse archive though the materials have to be consulted in person. Adding a link to the archive of Tony Harrison, as in this example, seems not only consistent with the approach found in other Wikipedia articles but adds value by directing the reader to where more information can be found.

I do see why the addition of external links has raised a few eyebrows, though I would dispute the characterisation as spam since linking to an archive adds value to the article. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell (WMUK) and SilkTork: So, are External Links to availability of archives spam or not spam? Who will decide? A lot of time has been spent already, by SBennett in adding links and by SilkTork in removing them - I've come here because Frances Brody is on my watchlist so I saw the addition] and the unexplained removal, which I reverted and then corrected my edit summary. Where do we go from here? An RfC? Or can we not take the presence of an archive link in a FA as evidence that it is a valued addition to an article? Someone wanting to learn about a writer or other topic might well find it useful to know where their archive is held, with a view to making enquiries remotely. (Declaration of non-COI: I am a long-retired member of staff of Leeds University Library, but I believe I would be responding in the same way if the links were to archives held in any other library). PamD 16:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

The several useful archive links weren't actually included in the Wollstonecraft article when it was "Today's Featured Article in 2007, and I see that someone a couple of months ago proposed a FA Review... can we find another nice example of a FA with archive collections as External Links at the point of promotion to FA, I wonder? The P G Wodehouse TFA version also didn't include the BL archive link, which came later. Those two examples don't support my argument here, but I offer the links to save other people spending time doing the same research.

A thought: Would it be more acceptable to @SilkTork: if there was a sentence in the body of the article saying:

"The University of Leeds Library holds an archive of Brody's literary papers from 1969 to 2017."?

References

I'm not sure whether that would be more, or less, useful to the reader. PamD 16:31, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@PamD and SilkTork: I was wondering if adding a sentence with a link to the archives as a reference would be a possible way forward. What happens to a person's work and personal effects is part of their legacy, so it would certainly fit as prose. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:39, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping Richard, see Wikipedia_talk:GLAM#External_links_to_archive_collections for current discussion. I am considering, along with User:Tim riley, a site wide RfC on handling external links to libraries (and other resource sites) so we can pool our knowledge and skills and come up with "some up to the minute consensus and clear guidance on the matter". It seems more appropriate and useful for links to library resources to be uploaded to some central data storage authority like WikiData rather than to a general public encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Wikipedia would be better placed to link to one central resource rather than multiple resources, with ensuing debates on the value of individual links. SilkTork (talk) 15:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

As regards adding a sentence saying "The University of Leeds Library holds an archive of Brody's literary papers from 1969 to 2017." That would require an independent reliable source. We don't add information to articles because it is true, but because it is verifiably notable. That rule has frustrated and perplexed many people! It becomes particularly irksome when the reliable sources have got the information wrong! SilkTork (talk) 15:53, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Where there are other links to libraries in Wikipedia article, we should be evaluating them individually as to their value. In essence Wikipedia is not a linking service. This was decided early on, and forms part of one of our core policies - see WP:LINKFARM. We are a free general encyclopaedia which attempts to summarise (not detail) human knowledge. Where appropriate we will provide links, but that is not our purpose. Where we do see links increasing, we need to examine closely what is happening. If there are public documents, these can be stored at Wikisource, while images, maps, and media files can be stored at Wikimedia Commons. Where appropriate, if there is useful information stored on a website which cannot be summarised on Wikipedia, and this information is freely available on that website, then we will consider linking to it (it is not part of our mission to do so, but we will consider it). It is however, not appropriate for us to link to any and all libraries around the world just because they have some books on the subject which can be consulted at that library under special circumstances. It is to be expected in the course of things that a library will have some books or documents which are related to the topic, but it is not our function to identify and list all such documents. The term Spam covers all incidents of unnecessary links, most of which are done with good intentions. It is not intended to derogate the resource being linked. SilkTork (talk) 16:43, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi User:PamD. Would you please revert yourself on Frances Brody. It was my mistake that I rollbacked rather than undid with an explanation. However, now that you understand that the edit was part of a clean up to remove inappropriate links on Wikipedia, you'll see that my edit was not an act of vandalism. ;-) Thanks. SilkTork (talk) 16:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@SilkTork: Briefly, No. You believe that the link is spam, three other editors in good standing believe it is a useful addition. But in any case, see the note I'm about to leave below. PamD 17:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Template and Wikidata

Exploring this further, I found the template {{Archival records}}, followed up the example shown of Ursula Franklin, and by adding the archive information to Wikidata I have now used that template in Frances Brody. This might be the way forward, but I think there still needs to be some agreement about these links, so that we don't have mass creations being mass reverted, time wasted, and threats thrown around. I suppose Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography might be a place for a discussion. PamD 17:10, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Inspired by that success, I had a look at Simon Armitage, and found that there was already info about his archive at Wikidata, though "Leeds University Library" didn't appear in the archive display until I added the "reference URL" as a duplicate of the "described at URL". Again, did it by comparing with the Ursula Franklin record and mimicking it. Well, they say learning a new skill is the way to keep the brain active: that's today's learning. PamD 17:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I have looked into this and found what is required. there is a template: {{Library resources box}}, which can be found in use at Education#External_links. To be a part of this template, a library completes a form at FTL: Forward to Libraries, and if approved they are added to the scheme. As you'll note, Leeds is already part of this scheme, so there is no need to do anything. I will make the adjustments as necessary on the articles that SBennett has edited. SilkTork (talk) 05:59, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I've just used that box, and now I don't think it's the solution as it doesn't show the library archive documents, it merely shows what books the library has for lending. Ideally, what is required is a resource which shows both the unique archive material and the general books which a library has. I'll look into this a bit more. SilkTork (talk) 06:13, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

No, SilkTork. "Library resources" about someone implies a collection of books by or about them. An archive is different: it is a collection of unique items - papers, drafts, diaries, photos, whatever - which is held in one place. That is why there is a specific template, and specific area in the Wikidata record, to provide access to archives. The links SBennett has been providing are to archives, not general "library resources". I have reverted the change at Frances Brody. Please revert any other such changes you have made. PamD 07:14, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

And that "library resources" box is designed to answer "What resources has my local/preferred library got on this topic?", not the quite different question of "Where are the unique original physical items pertaining to this person?". Very different question. PamD 07:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@SilkTork: Your statement above "It is however, not appropriate for us to link to any and all libraries around the world just because they have some books on the subject which can be consulted at that library under special circumstances. It is to be expected in the course of things that a library will have some books or documents which are related to the topic, but it is not our function to identify and list all such documents." suggests that you perhaps misunderstand what an archive is: it is boxes or shelves of actual physical documents produced or owned by the person concerned - more like museum objects than ordinary published library books. Often manuscripts showing revisions of earlier drafts (pre-word-processing), personal diaries, etc. It's just not the same as a library having "some books on the subject". In some cases an author will donate their papers to a library while they are still alive, in other cases the library will receive them by donation, inheritance, or purchase, but an archive is a unique resource (there may be multiple archives if a person's papers have ended up being held in more than one place, but each of those collections will be of unique objects). PamD 08:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

And see this current news item about Stephen Hawking's archive (though there they are getting the full contents of his office too). PamD 08:07, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello everyone. A big thank you to everyone for this discussion. I will ensure that any future edits I make with this account will follow the guidance discussed. SBennett (talk) 08:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Stand Magazine

Hello, SBennett SpecialCollections. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Stand Magazine, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 10:01, 21 February 2022 (UTC)