Augnablik
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Citation templates essay
editHi,
Posting here so I don't add yet another sub-branch to the help desk topic.
I hadn't come across Citation templates are evil before. It's superb, and I now feel very happy leaving well(-ish) alone in a Norwegian bibliography section I found in an English article. (That is, the comments about the entries were in Norwegian, untranslated.)
I was curious about who'd written it, so went into the edit history and recognised the name: someone who'd been very helpful when I was trying to put some explanatory background at the start of a technical article but first had to check it was about what I thought it was.
I was sad to see from his user page that he's died since my encounter with him. He seems to have been the kind of person we could do with more of.
I think you might be interested in his user page, which is User:Spinningspark, in particular some of the quotes. His talk page now consists entirely of tribute messages. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:03, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
- Glad you enjoyed that essay. I came across it only recently, perfect timing for this discussion about using the sfn template.
- And thank you for introducing me to Spinningspark. What a beautiful Wiki tradition it is to leave the user pages of deceased editors up for viewing.
- I'm sure I would have enjoyed "meeting" him in Wikipedia exchanges. Speaking of which, because of your "handle" I've been wondering about whatever connection you might have with music. Augnablik (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
- I agree, it's a good tradition, and a good reminder of what really matters: not what we type into articles, but the human beings who do the typing, and appreciating them for their humanity.
- To satisfy your curiosity: I've not been playing for a few years, but I play the violin (if that's not too contradictory!), and at one time belonged to several amateur orchestras and helped out in a few more when they needed extra string players. When I was younger I hoped I might get good enough to play professionally eventually, but that was out of reach and probably not desirable anyway.
- The -neologist bit is about a writing project of sorts that accidentally started when I got pedantic in the pub after a rehearsal. Someone used "orchestritis" to refer to a state of sleepiness caused by too many nights at rehearsals. I protested that orchestritis would be an inflamed orchestra, and that in fact they had zombiform orchestrosis . . . Things got out of hand and I ended up compiling a list of about 450 "medical" terms for things that happen in orchestras, with the intention of eventually putting it into proper dictionary format.
- I never know what username to give myself when I create online accounts, so I used this one since it had some truth in it while also being reasonably cryptic. Thanks for asking, by the way.
- I was going to ask what language augnablik was, but I see your user page answers that already. I could see it was related to Augenblick (German) and øyeblikk (Norwegian), but didn't get as far as guessing it was Icelandic. Musiconeologist (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
- Somehow I can see Pedantic in a Pub as a great book title!
- This is the first that any other Wikipedia has picked up on the linguistic correlatives of Augnablik. As I don't speak Norwegian or German, I hadn't known about the connection. Do the two words you mentioned in those languages mean the same as Augnablik in Icelandic? Augnablik (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know Icelandic. ;-) But it's a word for "a moment", constructed as something like "eye glance". I think the basic meaning is the same.
- Not sure how much the "etymologi" here will help, but it might be fun to look if you want—middelnedertysk is Middle Low German and tysk is German. The word it says they're derived from doesn't look too far from augnablik, but I'm not a linguist, just someone who likes language(s).
- For what it's worth, nobody has asked about my username before, either.
- I was vaguely thinking of Dictionary of Orchestral Pathology . . .
- Is it OK to ask which country you're in? The other side of the world from the US might be quite a lot of places. (If that's not something you want to answer on a public page, don't answer it.) Musiconeologist (talk) 01:27, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Of course … "in the blink of an eye," as we say in US English.
- Let me think about a "location reveal," as this has never come up for me before though a perfectly normal and legitimate question. Augnablik (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- It might not be an appropriate place to ask it, though. My instinct is that needing to think about it probably means it isn't. And that's more important than my curiosity.
- (We use the same phrase in British English, by the way.) Musiconeologist (talk) 02:33, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Ah, you're British. I don't know why but I assumed you were also American. Not only that but I assumed you were a much newer Wikipedia than I saw on your User page.
- I often wonder what it would be like to get together with other editors in person or online, as many have done … I'm sure every picture I have of those I interact with a lot will be dashed in pieces! Augnablik (talk) 03:08, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm guessing my being online in the middle of our night might be a factor?I've had some very long breaks from Wikipedia, so maybe the date isn't a good guide—really it's a burst of activity for a few months every few years. I think I'll just make a few minor edits, then get sucked in because there's more to fix, then get drawn into unexpected editing disputes and find it too exhausting. In terms of number of edits, I think I'm only at about 50% more than you.I've never knowingly met another Wikipedia editor, but recently I added a photo for a longstanding editor with a conflict of interest who I'd always thought of as quite fierce—it turned out he's 84 and doesn't have perfect English, and it was impossible to reconcile the person in the photo with the impression I'd had of him. And on reading the article about him, I realised that an edit of mine that he'd reverted within about 30 seconds of me saving it was bang in the middle of the subject of his PhD thesis! So of course he cared about it. Musiconeologist (talk) 04:09, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Orchestritis, perhaps? I too used to be in an orchestra, back in junior high, on the clarinet. 🙂 Augnablik (talk) 04:37, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding the time of day, you mean? Somnowikipedic somethingorother, probably . . . (Serious answer is a weird sleep pattern).
I did succeed in getting some squeaks out of a clarinet once, when someone let me have a go on theirs for some reason. It wasn't a very musical 30 seconds.
Do you still play at all? Musiconeologist (talk) 05:15, 27 January 2025 (UTC)- Yes, perhaps nighttime.
- No, I never played clarinet after junior high. I did go on with guitar in college and onward, though. Augnablik (talk) 05:38, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding the time of day, you mean? Somnowikipedic somethingorother, probably . . . (Serious answer is a weird sleep pattern).
- Orchestritis, perhaps? I too used to be in an orchestra, back in junior high, on the clarinet. 🙂 Augnablik (talk) 04:37, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- I'm guessing my being online in the middle of our night might be a factor?I've had some very long breaks from Wikipedia, so maybe the date isn't a good guide—really it's a burst of activity for a few months every few years. I think I'll just make a few minor edits, then get sucked in because there's more to fix, then get drawn into unexpected editing disputes and find it too exhausting. In terms of number of edits, I think I'm only at about 50% more than you.I've never knowingly met another Wikipedia editor, but recently I added a photo for a longstanding editor with a conflict of interest who I'd always thought of as quite fierce—it turned out he's 84 and doesn't have perfect English, and it was impossible to reconcile the person in the photo with the impression I'd had of him. And on reading the article about him, I realised that an edit of mine that he'd reverted within about 30 seconds of me saving it was bang in the middle of the subject of his PhD thesis! So of course he cared about it. Musiconeologist (talk) 04:09, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
- Not the first ; I knew right away what it meant, but not which Germanic language it was. I was guessing Swabian or Badisch, and wasn't surprised to find out it was Icelandic. ChatGPT believes that in Swabian the word is Augablick, and in Baden dialect it is either Augablick or Augabli, so I wasn't too far off. Mathglot (talk) 03:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Hello, @Mathglot, I see you've dropped in ... as you must have guessed, Musiconeologist is the new editor friend I mentioned in a different conversation you and I had yesterday. If either of you didn't already know, the two of you are fellow Brits. ;) As is my mentor. The three of you could have a delightful meet-up in a real teahouse — maybe London — some day!
- Now that you're halfway to fully meeting Musiconeologist, may I suggest you begin finding out about his wonderful, even if not what you'd call "official," connections with instructional design. He's a natural at that, with special ability to "sniff out" what works, doesn't work, and would work in Wiki directions. Augnablik (talk) 04:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Well I might be about to stick my head out of the parapet on that one. There's a serious risk that I'm going to rewrite the first sentence of the short descriptions page, which I think sets off on the wrong foot straight away. People get confused about short descriptions because they don't have a clear idea of their purpose, which isn't to explain the article's scope—that's done by the combination of the title and description. The same confusion happens a few times in the article, and I think it might be helping to mislead people about what to write.The odd thing about that page is that suggestions on its talk page often get no response at all (eg so far, my post there about the Android app) but bad changes get reverted extremely quickly—so the only way to test whether a rewording is wanted is to go ahead and do it. I think maybe people are watching the article page but not the talk page.PS am I a friend to new editors, a new editor who is a friend, a new friend of editors, or a new friend who is an editor? ;-) Musiconeologist (talk) 18:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- Ah but I was the first to publish, and I cited a reference. ;-) (Admittedly not one that's in English, but you can't have everything.) My first guess was that it might be something like Yiddish, but it didn't look right for that.By the way, Im not at all sure this reply is threaded properly (I'm using Convenient Discussions). Musiconeologist (talk) 17:15, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Musiconeologist and @Mathglot, I'm happy that the two of you have now sort of met but this conversation has gotten kind of confused. I contributed to it — sorry — by typing the wrong name (Mathglot instead of Musiconeologist) in the message I wrote Mathglot just above this last one from Musiconeologist. Which I've just fixed, but a bit late in the game.
Suggestion to the two of you "M&Ms": the more I've come to know each of you and find we share many of the same interests and ideas, how about you fellows take it from here and start a new thread at one of your Talk pages where you can get to know each other? I think you'd find it both delightful and useful.- We've crossed paths a few times, I think. (I'm certainly used to seeing @User:Mathglot's name around.) The most recent was when I asked on the translation WikiProject page about recommended practice for including translated titles in bibliographies, and got a very helpful answer. Possibly we've also encountered each other's edits to some of the maths pages and similar that I've tried to make more readable, but I'm less sure of that.
- Musiconeologist (talk) 18:21, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
Targetless sfn in Saccidananda Ashram
edit
Augnablik, in this edit of 08:56, 29 January 2025 you added the following (among other stuff):
Le Saux was also a Benedictine monk.{{Sfn|The Life of Swami Abhishiktananda|n.d.}}
But this sfn generates a no-target error, because that sfn doesn't link to any of the Sources. It looks like you forgot to include the full citation in the § Sources section. I assume you probably meant De Boulay-2005: The cave of the heart : the life of Swami Abhishiktananda; or perhaps, you meant one of these.
As a secondary issue, please do not use the title in the 'author' parameter of Template:sfn. If your edit was referring to the De Boulay-2005 book, which has 276 pages, you would need the page number as well, so you would code something like this:
Le Saux was also a Benedictine monk.{{Sfn|De Boulay|2005|p=123}}
Can you please find the source you used to verify the statement about his being a Benedictine monk, add the full citation to § Sources, and adjust the {{sfn}} as needed? Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 04:18, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Will follow through, but let me mention that this article was the one in which I found out there was such a thing as an sfn template, leading to much bewilderment and several requests for help — followed by eventually sharing one of the request threads with you a few days ago as a likely contender for title of Most Unforgettable Pain Points of My Wiki Editing Journey! Augnablik (talk) 04:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Augnablik:, I can do it for you. Just tell me which source you used, and the page number where it states that. Mathglot (talk) 05:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- As I address your request, @Mathglot, I'm reliving a lot of the pain involved with the issue of sfn templates that came up as I worked on this article. In addition to the archived Help Desk thread that I shared with you, I'd had an earlier discussion on the same topic with my mentor just prior; in fact, it's what sent me to the Help Desk right afterwards! (If you'd like to add to your collection of my "from the trenches" reporting, you might want to read that thread as well to see how my sfn issue developed. You'd go to User talk:Michael D. Turnbull, then search for "A challenging edit.")
- I understand that because the citation #4 is a website, the sfn template that came up when I clicked on the Cite icon won't work, but I didn't know how to get it for my immediate need. Since you said you could do it for me, here's the source information below ... but after you make the change, please tell me how you did it.
- Title: The Life of Swami Abhishiktananda
- URL: https://www.abhishiktananda.org.in/html/life-of-swami-abhishiktananda.php
- Name of the Website: Swami Abhishiktananda: The Call of the Self [At this website, the following line appears under the above name: Official Website of the Abhishitananda Centre for Interreligious Dialogue. How is this information incorporated along with the name?] Augnablik (talk) 05:58, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- I forgot to include the access date above. Frankly, I don't recall the original one, but you can just use today's date because I did visit the site again today. Augnablik (talk) 06:11, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- I just realized that this citation, though included in the Sources, isn't yet also in the References. 😞 Augnablik (talk) 07:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Augnablik:, (edit conflict) it would be easy enough to correct the problem by adding a full citation to the web site you gave to the § Sources, but before we do that, let me point out that that site does not really satisfy WP:Verifiability very well, as it is a self-published source, and therefore non-independent. Our time might be better spent using some other reference than that one. For example, any of these, all of which verify Le Saux's history as a Benedictine monk:
- Abhishiktananda A Memoir of Dom Henri Le Saux, by Murray Rogers (2011)
- Mysticism in the French Tradition: Eruptions from France, by L. Nelstrop, B. Onishi (2016)
- The Cave of the Heart: The Life of Swami Abhishiktananda, by S. Du Boulay (2005)
- Prayer in the Cave of the Heart: The Universal Call to Contemplation, by C. Consiglio (2010)
- Finally, if {{sfn}} is causing you problems in this (or any) article while you on-board, just ignore sfn and WP:CITEVAR completely for now and place a standard <ref> tag inline instead, like I know you know how to do. WP:Verifiability is policy, and that is by far the most important thing here; details about whether you are using the correct citation style has very little importance compared to that, and someone will come along after you and convert any stray <ref> tags to {{sfn}} if need be. (You can even ask them to, in the edit summary.) It is not worth wasting a lot of your time getting sfn's right if it is taking away productive time from making improvements here or elsewhere. Eventually, as you gain experience as an editor, you will get the hang of it. So if you want to try an {{sfn}} now, go ahead, but at the first sign of trouble, feel free to drop it and just insert an inline <ref> tag instead. Verifiability is what is important, not style. (And if you ever get grief from a third party because of using <ref> tags, just tell them I told you to, and ping me.) Mathglot (talk) 08:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- If the The Abhishiktananda Centre for Interreligious Dialogue website wouldn't qualify as a verifiable source about Fr. le Saux (Swami Abhishiktananda) and I'd have to cite a book, how would I go about that — not having access to the needed books? I wanted to use a website for that very reason. By the way, the reason I would call what I added important enough to add at all was because the original article made it appear that Monchanin was a priest whereas le Saux was only a monk, when I knew le Saux was both and that it would be an integral piece of information for many readers.
- As for really wanting to master sfn templates, in a nutshell I don't. I was just following through on what several seniors have recommended, including (implicitly, anyway) my mentor. I'd much prefer being able to use the Visual editor for everything I do in Wikipedia, being able to rely on its behind-the-scenes programing just as I can for almost 100% of what I do in word processing (including citations and bibliographies).
- By contrast, I find using the Source editor a rather distressing work environment because it's so cluttered. It takes me so much longer to accomplish the same tasks as the Visual editor. And it causes me eyestrain. But if the Visual editor isn't as reliable or feature-rich as the Source editor, that's a different matter, though one I wish the tekkies/techies would work on to make it possible for those editors who work better in one place over the other to be able to do so. Augnablik (talk) 10:57, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
- Augnablik A word about terminology: we talk about assertions in articles ("The sun is hot") being verifiable or not; sources are reliable (or not), but not verifiable (in the wiki sense).
- Regarding book access: there are numerous ways to find sources or get books, and most of that is o/t here, but Google books and the Internet Archive are good places to start. Also, for a task like sourcing a particular assertion, you don't need access to the entire book, just the part that verifies the part about his being a Benedictine monk. All the links above are Google book links that I picked because you should have access to the page which verifies his Benedictine status. What happens when you click those links 1, 2, and 4 for example; can you see a page in a book that talks about him being a Benedictine? If so, you can use that source to replace the non-independent source from the Abhishiktananda Centre.
- As far as VE vs. wikicode editing, I know little about VE, so am not the best person to ask about it. If you are comfortable with VE, I would say stick with it, and ask questions at the Teahouse or Help desk when you have questions about it. If you don't feel up to replacing the ref, lmk and I will take care of it. Mathglot (talk) 11:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, I thought reliability was the correct word to use when discussing an actual citation. I used it only because every time I re-read the message you wrote just before my message to which you're replying, it seemed as if that was what you were using ... and although that confused me, I didn't want to take the time to get off the main point you were making to raise a question about whether you'd actually meant to say verifiable or reliable.
- —As for book access, I know there are places online where we can actually read books, but I thought they'd be only ones over a certain amount of years old. Are you saying that Google Books and the Internet Archive (which I've never heard of) give access to all books, irrespective of publishing date? If so, I didn't know that either. I should mention that I'm aware of the Wikipedia Library, but not whether it also gives access to books. I've used it a little to check newspapers to find something, but haven't gotten much further. (By the way, the Library is another area I wish there were more in the way of good solid tutorials with practice situations for us to work on and tests with helpful feedback closely related to our answers.)
- —You asked what happens when I click on links in the article, which seemed to mean you thought that by doing so I should get access to a page in the original source that could verify le Saux's monk status. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant, Mathglot, but if I did interpret it the way you meant, surely you know that clicking on a citation link in the text simply leads to its corresponding footnote, which in turn simply provides some publishing information (and then if you click on that link, it leads to its corresponding reference). If only we could click on citation links and we'd really be taken directly to the original source ...!
- — I'd be happy to replace citation #4 if you help me find a way to directly access the books you suggested, or others.
- — By the way, what does "o/t here" mean (line 1, par. 2 of your above message)? Augnablik (talk) 12:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Augnablik: Most of this discussion is o/t (off topic) for this page, and I'll respond at your Talk page about those points. As far as how to directly access the books, I tried to show you above. To be explicit, please click these links and see what appears:
- Rogers (2011), Nelstrop (2016), Consiglio (2010) (same as the ones above).
- They should each show you a page that says on it that Saux was a Bendedictine monk. That is the assertion in this Wikipedia article that we are trying to verify using a reliable source. Currently, the assertion in the article is unverified because the citation for it is non-independent. Non-independent sources are unreliable sources; and unreliable sources do not verify anything. But all of the books above are reliable, and any one of them may be used to replace the unreliable citation that is currently in the article, and then the article content will be properly sourced. So the next step is to pick one of them, and place it in the article. That involves two steps:
- write a {{cite book}} template and add it to the § Sources section of the article. (This is a key skill you need to know at Wikipedia, or you cannot move forward.)
- write an {{sfn}} linking to the new source, and place it inline just after the assertion of Saux being a Benedictine monk, replacing the existing, unreliable citation in the article. (This is not something you *have* to know, but it is useful to learn it eventually. Specifying the page number to display in the sfn template will be easiest for the first one.)
- If you want to do this but need help with it, please lmk, and I will explain how to do them on your Talk page. If you'd rather not, I will do it for you. (P.S., for wikipedia jargon like 3RR, AFG, Diff, or Meatpuppet, see the Wikipedia:Glossary. If that doesn't work, for general internet slang like AFK, OP, OT, or YMMV, try the The Jargon File or Acronym Finder. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 21:20, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
- We've just had two communication challenges we can add to our collection, and laugh at after the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
- 1- When you mentioned links you wanted me to follow, you were referring to the four book titles you pointed our as possible sources in your message of 08:32 3 February (UTC). Somehow I didn't think of them as links as such, because you spoke of them originally as just sources, and I didn't notice the little citation icons following each one saw because I hadn't been expecting live links but merely titles.
- 2- Until your message of 11:17 4 February (UTC), where it was clear that you were giving me live links you wanted me to follow and I realized I was being taken to Google Books — I think for my first time, though I'd heard of that website — I didn't know much about it. I see that it's a much handier resource than I knew. However, when I went to each of the titles you'd asked me to, I found that they didn't all have the same information.
- I've made a PDF file showing screenshots of what was displayed for each of the four sources. If you like, I can post them for you to see and then immediately delete because of copyright issues — or I could post them in online storage and give you the link to use to look at. Only one of the links has everything required for a book reference: the first one on your list.
- On to another message below to the issues I'm facing with trying to make a citation. Augnablik (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- Here's the information I found at Google Books for the book I want to use as both a source and citation #4. I'm placing it in its own separate message so you can see the information more clearly.
- _______________
- — Rogers, Murray & Barton, David [Although the book in the left stub has only Murray Rogers as author, the main one shows these two authors on the frontispiece]
- — Abhishiktananda: A Memoir of Dom Henri Le Saux
- — SLG Press, Oxford, England
- — Second Impression 2011 [I assume this is to be used as the publishing date]
- — via https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780728301603/abhishiktananda
- — Page 1
- — ISBN-10 0-7283-0160-7, ISBN-13 978-0-7283-0160-3, ISSN 03077-1405
- [All three of the above ISBNs appear in the publishing information. I think why this was done is that the two authors wrote separate publications that were compiled into this one single publication.]
- [Please note: also at Google Books, after clicking on https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780728301603/abhishiktananda, I saw Canterbury Press Norwich listed as publisher with a single ISBN of 9780728301603. And again at Google Books, Fairacres Publications.] Augnablik (talk) 13:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- _______________
- I’m beginning to think I have a glimmer of understanding about some of my confusion about the two lists of citation information that are always displayed after Wiki articles, and that's because I’ve seen quite a few different ways they’ve been worded in Wiki articles as well as in other editors’ ways of referring to them in messages. Here are several examples. The first is what’s used in the Saccidananda Ashram article, after I pointed out to editor TSventon who was helping me at the Help Desk and later at my Talk page, that both the lists were entitled References, and he changed the second one to Sources. Never seen Sources used anywhere else in Wikipedia, though.
- References Footnotes Citations
- ___________ __________ __________
- Sources Bibliography References
- Now on to some questions for you in order for me to be able to create both a reference and a source for the Rogers & Barton book:
- 1- About creating a source with the cite book template, please give me the exact steps. I’ve tried countless times to create a source for the Rogers & Barton book (and others earlier) under Sources, but I’ve never succeeded because I've never known exactly where I was supposed to start out and what to do.
- I’ve assumed I should click on the shaded list and when I see the Edit option, I should click on that. But — as I’ve tried to explain in past requests for help with this same situation — a long form is displayed with all the previous sources and I don’t know where to go to start out. I can’t just go down to the source above or below which I should add the new one because if I do, I’ll overwrite the previous source.
- 2- I think I can do an sfn template source entry now, so the main pain point —11 on a scale of 10 at last check — is for me to make an entry on the Source list.
- 3- As for your use of o/t, I thought it was simply basic computer usage like lol, imho, fwiw — that sort of thing. Not Wiki jargon!Augnablik (talk) 13:19, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Augnablik: Most of this discussion is o/t (off topic) for this page, and I'll respond at your Talk page about those points. As far as how to directly access the books, I tried to show you above. To be explicit, please click these links and see what appears:
- @Augnablik:, (edit conflict) it would be easy enough to correct the problem by adding a full citation to the web site you gave to the § Sources, but before we do that, let me point out that that site does not really satisfy WP:Verifiability very well, as it is a self-published source, and therefore non-independent. Our time might be better spent using some other reference than that one. For example, any of these, all of which verify Le Saux's history as a Benedictine monk:
- @Augnablik:, I can do it for you. Just tell me which source you used, and the page number where it states that. Mathglot (talk) 05:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)
@Augnablik: This discussion is now way past the point of being on-topic here, and unless you have an objection, I will move the whole thing to your Talk page, leaving a short section here naming the issue of targetless sfn, and pointing to the discussion on your page. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks in turn, Mathglot — for the same reasons, I suggested a similar move for us on your Talk page some time ago. Augnablik (talk) 04:53, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
I don't have time for an extended reply right now, so briefly: the public sources you should be aware of for starters, are: 1) your public library (not being patronizing; they probably have dozens or hundreds of free databases you can use; call your local library reference desk and ask them; the first db you should investigate specifically is JSTOR); 2) Google books; 3) Google scholar; 4) Internet Archive's Open Library; and 5) The Wikipedia library (logged-in Wikipedia users only). Please try searching for something on each of them, so you can start to get used to how they work. To find the closest library to your home location that has any given source, search for it while logged in (free registration) at WorldCat; if it's a book or article and cannot be found in WorldCat, it probably doesn't exist.
Spend some time learning the basics of these citation templates (some you already know): {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite web}}. If reading the documentation on any of these leaves you confused, try the WP:Teahouse or WP:Help desk; maybe the doc needs improvement.
Check the Wikipedia:Glossary to see what it says about overloaded terms like Reference, or Source, and just browse around a bit for terms you have heard used around here that haven't been clear to you. (Please keep a list of any terms that are confusing to you that are *not* in the glossary; you can paste them into a section on my Talk page.) We can get into your specific questions above after that, or your mentor or the Help desk may able to help you while you are reading up on these things. Mathglot (talk) 05:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- I wish public libraries were available in India, where I've resided for the past 20 years. They're not.
- But the Wiki Library is definitely on my radar and I've already tried a few things out there, though not yet mastered getting into books. I'd been putting it off till I could finish a few other competing priorities, but perhaps it I pop in there for a few minutes the magic moment will have arrived.
Augnablik (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- I was surprised to hear that, although there are at least some, but nowhere near as many as I had imagined. One site claims 70,000 libraries in India, facing many challenges, however. If none are near you or worth visiting, you may have to rely more on the online sources available, which fortunately are numerous. They occasionally provide the full text of a book or article, but mostly they do not. Because of your particular situation, there is one more resource you should familiarize yourself with: WP:RX. Once you have found the name of a book or other document you need in a catalog or in any of the places previously linked, if they do not provide the full text online, then you should copy the citation information of the resource and start a request at WP:RX. Somebody is likely to have access to the book, article, or document that you need, and they will obtain copies of it and email excerpts to you. Good luck, Mathglot (talk) 07:57, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Well, Mathglot, you just made me aware of something I didn't know, that there were any public libraries here at all. I was told long ago that there weren't. Universities, government groups, and research organizations, however, sure.
- I'd read WP:RX but figured I probably wouldn't ever need it. Nice to know it's available, of course. Augnablik (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- A book I happen to have out of the library is The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, by Heinrich Böll. I logged onto WorldCat, changed my profile to say I lived in Noida, India, which I picked because I remember that a colleague told me that she was born there. I searched WorldCat for the book, which gave me all the publication details as well as a list of 1,535 libraries around the world that have the book, sorted by inverse distance from Noida. The #1 result, was the library at Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, 177 km away in Hisar, Haryana. Too far, for sure. I tried two other books I own, and there were few to no Indian holdings, but the UAE had copies of all of them. So based on a very small, non-random sample, it looks like maybe Indian libraries don't have extensive holdings of books that might be needed for expanding articles at Wikipedia. (On the other hand, if you want to know about sorghum production, Chaudhary U. has tons of articles about that in the library.) Anyway, it's still worth trying WorldCat, you might luck out; you never know. Now I just have to remember to switch my WorldCat profile back to home! Mathglot (talk) 09:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- I live in Pune, definitely among the cities most likely to have at least one of the 70,000 public libraries I didn't know were in India. Just checked on Google Maps and sure enough, found it so. We seem to have several, in fact.
- Even so, I have the small inconvenience of being attached to an oxygen machine at home, which does sort of put a crimp in running off to any of them any time soon. 😅 Augnablik (talk) 09:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- A book I happen to have out of the library is The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, by Heinrich Böll. I logged onto WorldCat, changed my profile to say I lived in Noida, India, which I picked because I remember that a colleague told me that she was born there. I searched WorldCat for the book, which gave me all the publication details as well as a list of 1,535 libraries around the world that have the book, sorted by inverse distance from Noida. The #1 result, was the library at Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, 177 km away in Hisar, Haryana. Too far, for sure. I tried two other books I own, and there were few to no Indian holdings, but the UAE had copies of all of them. So based on a very small, non-random sample, it looks like maybe Indian libraries don't have extensive holdings of books that might be needed for expanding articles at Wikipedia. (On the other hand, if you want to know about sorghum production, Chaudhary U. has tons of articles about that in the library.) Anyway, it's still worth trying WorldCat, you might luck out; you never know. Now I just have to remember to switch my WorldCat profile back to home! Mathglot (talk) 09:20, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- I was surprised to hear that, although there are at least some, but nowhere near as many as I had imagined. One site claims 70,000 libraries in India, facing many challenges, however. If none are near you or worth visiting, you may have to rely more on the online sources available, which fortunately are numerous. They occasionally provide the full text of a book or article, but mostly they do not. Because of your particular situation, there is one more resource you should familiarize yourself with: WP:RX. Once you have found the name of a book or other document you need in a catalog or in any of the places previously linked, if they do not provide the full text online, then you should copy the citation information of the resource and start a request at WP:RX. Somebody is likely to have access to the book, article, or document that you need, and they will obtain copies of it and email excerpts to you. Good luck, Mathglot (talk) 07:57, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
You've got mail
editIt may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— at any time by removing the Mathglot (talk) 10:15, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
Signature placement
editGenerally, your signature should be placed immediately after the last word of your post, preceded by a space. Placing it on a separate line is not standard, but not forbidden; however if you wish to do that, then be sure to start the line with a break character (<br/>
), or {{br}}
), as starting a new line with spaces will not do what you expect. See your 06:10, 13 Feb. comment in the previous section for an example of how it looks when you do that. Mathglot (talk) 08:00, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- You seem to be writing about this because you've noticed some signatures of mine did what described. If so, I plead innocence. I always write messages in the Visual editor and signatures are automatically added at the end of what you write when you publish. Augnablik (talk) 08:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, in the section just above. Search on page (Ctrl+F) for the string
06:10
. That seems odd, as your sig appears dozens of times on this page, all perfectly correctly except for that one. I wonder what was different in that post. Mathglot (talk) 09:32, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, in the section just above. Search on page (Ctrl+F) for the string