Talk:Against Their Will (Polyan book)

Book title

(moved from Talk:Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union) And does the book have an English translation? I think the title is really more effectively rendered as Not of Their Own Will? Daniel Case 17:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not aware of a translation. The "by" version seems to be in common use, and in the expected sense. If you could explain the stylistic difference... mikka (t) 17:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If it's in common use, then alright. But in English as I grew up speaking it, "of" is much more commonly used as the governing preposition than "by." That makes sense, but it sounds a little strange.

I guess it's someone grabbing for an adequate English version of "по," which can sometimes have the same meaning as English "by," (when it takes the dative, as in "according to," i.e. the English "He does his job by the book" would go into Russian as "он делает его служба по книги. Or the common way of rendering "in (insert language)" in Russian. Daniel Case 00:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Like: "For it was not of their own will, but by Divine appointment". I am not saying that you are not right. Let's waith for one more opinion, and I will make the move. mikka (t) 01:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Table of contents

Altenmann, you reverted my edits without explanation. That comes across as rude. I gave a clear reason for my edits, so you should have given a reason for your revert. A list of the book's chapters is undue content for this article. In general, it serves no purpose of any kind to list the titles of a book's chapters: such information is trivial in itself, as there is no reason why readers should care what a book's chapters are titled. Any relevant, substantive information can be better conveyed by other methods. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:22, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it serves the purpose as described until someone writes a decent article about the book. You are welcome to write substantive information. How on Earth you concluded that table of contents serves no purpose? Please explain how you arrived at a conclusion that this particular list is trivial. Yes the readers very much care how sections are titled (unless they are titles of a stupid love story or something) and often they are pissed off when section titles are "trivial in itself". Yes it is rude for a pompous username to actually destroy knowledge on a whim. - üser:Altenmann >t 03:34, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I disagree, Altenmann. The table of chapters is useless, and a worthless substitute for a proper description of the book. It should be removed as the useless trivia it is. In very few cases does listing the chapters of a book ever improve an article; I see no reason to make an exception in this case. Asserting that readers care about the titles of the chapters of a book is ridiculous. Even if there were a few people who cared about such inconsequential trivia, there is no reason Wikipedia should satisfy them. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information: see WP:RAWDATA. I did not remove the table for chapters for a whim, my username is irrelevant, and you should have given a proper edit summary, as is expected here. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:41, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

"The table of chapters is useless, and a worthless substitute for a proper description of the book." - I am 98% with you here, with an insignificant exception of the choice of words. Now, the real issue here is, did you provide a worthy substitute? Did you create knowledge? "Asserting that readers care about the titles of the chapters of a book is ridiculous." - Now, it is your assertion that is ridiculous. We are probably reading very different kinds of books. The first thing of any scholarly book I look at is its TOC and intro. How else do I learn about book's contents? Read a wikipedia article ? "...see WP:RAWDATA" Yes, please see. Especially the part "Such articles should be expanded to have broader coverage." Nu? - üser:Altenmann >t 05:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

You may say that the first thing of any scholarly book you look at is the table of contents, but I doubt that that is even physically possible, because in real life the first thing of any scholarly book one is normally going to look at is the cover. However useful you personally may find tables of contents, that does not mean that listing the chapters of a book is going to be useful on Wikipedia. I do not think that it is going to be useful for the two of us to argue this issue any further. I will ask for a third opinion. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:28, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Now we are resorting to cheap shots, buddy. Still, "in real life the first thing of any scholarly book one is normally going to look at is the cover" - false. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:35, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Um, no. Unless the cover of a book has been ripped off, it is not even physically possible to look at the table of chapters before looking at the cover. But that's just insisting on strict accuracy. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:38, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Um, yes. Think harder. - üser:Altenmann >t 05:55, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Thank you for requesting a third opinion. I will respond with bullet points: The Table of Contents (TOC) is highly important in the exploratory phase of reading a book (it, along with the introduction or abstract) can help provide a good sense of its argument and themes. Reading the conclusion is also good. Having a direct copy of a book's TOC is an infringement of its copyright and a violation of Wikipedia's WP:COPYVIO. No part of a copyrighted work should be copied to Wikipedia in such a manner. In lieu of the TOC, a brief summary of the book is always a welcome addition. A discussion is needed on the relevance of this book. I find no references indicating why this book meets the notability guidelines so that it can have an article in Wikipedia (please see WP:NN). It raises a major concern. Wikipedia is not a database of books. Also, a note on behavior: let's please avoid petty arguments about parts of a book that can be first read; these usually escalate into larger problems and are clearly against WP:NOTAFORUM. Thanks! Have a great day!-- MarshalN20 Talk 21:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• I have no objections of merging the book into author's bio. The book is most certainly important and influential in study of Stalinist repressions, and well cited, but unfortunately I no longer have energy and patience to work seriously on articles. As for TOC, I assumed it is fair use, but being no lawyer, I will not insist. - üser:Altenmann >t 04:15, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the sincerity, but this is not a matter of knowledge about law. Most books have a copyright statement, and this one is no exception. This is the text found in the cover of the book ([1]): "All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmited, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher." Fair use only applies to cited quotations or cited paraphrase.--MarshalN20 ^Talk 04:41, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

This question is probably completely unnecessary, but I take it then that you agree that the TOC should be removed, MarshalN20? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:00, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, at least as it currently stands ([2]). The text can always be summarized or paraphrased (as long as it is properly cited); that's fair use. However, a more pressing issue here is the notability of the text—no source in the article proves this meets the WP:NOTABILITY guidelines.--MarshalN20 ^Talk 05:53, 18 May 2016 (UTC)