Talk:Howard Besser

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 September 2021 and 20 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Drpencil9. Peer reviewers: Serialsgirl, Flanagan Institute Applicant, Hf1842, Gainag, He4150.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Berkeley

• Did he live in berkeley for a while, while as student or on faculty at UC?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Still maintains a residence in Berkeley. --Lquilter (talk) 16:55, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio in inventory description from Getty archive

An inventory description in an external link here was copied verbatim from the Getty archive website, which is copyright. I removed it; Lquilter restored it and placed the offending material in quotes, a perfectly reasonable way of solving the problem. Nevertheless, I believe that so long a quote for something that can so easily be paraphrased, or indeed dispensed with entirely, is hard to justify. I've removed the description, but left (and fixed) the link itself. If this seems evenly remotely to matter, I remain open to discussion of alternatives. There were about 100 copyvios of this type. Since they are in my view relatively minor I have not opened a CCI on the user; but am willing to do so if others think it necessary. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• That would be awesome. Please. Feel free to open a WP:CCI on me. In the meantime, you may wish to consider the merger doctrine in copyright law: When facts are subject to only a limited number of possible expressions, the copyrightable expression "merges" into the uncopyrightable facts, and the result is not copyrightable. Short factual catalog descriptions consisting of a serial comma separated list of items would certainly be analyzed under the merger doctrine. See, e.g., Morrissey v. Procter & Gamble Co., 379 F.2d 267 (1st Cir. 1967) (holding that the rules of a sweepstakes game were not copyrightable):

  "When the uncopyrightable subject matter is very narrow, so that 'the topic necessarily requires,' [...] if not only one form of expression, at best only a limited number, to permit copyrighting would mean that a party or parties, by copyrighting a mere handful of forms, could exhaust all possibilities of future use of the substance. In such circumstances it does not seem accurate to say that any particular form of expression comes from the subject matter. However, it is necessary to say that the subject matter would be appropriated by permitting the copyrighting of its expression." (internal citations omitted)

FWIW, I believe that there is an active effort on the part of Wikipedia to encourage this sort of link to external papers / research collections in articles. For researchers, catalog descriptions are important resources. ... update: here it is: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Loves_Libraries. There's been a concerted effort to get librarians/archivists to include links to these kinds of things. It wouldn't surprise me if the user who added all those links is actually affiliated with Getty.

As to the descriptions and their length -- catalog descriptions are important for researchers looking at a reference for an external set of papers. This is ESPECIALLY true because links are frail. A researcher who sees a bare title in EL, clicks, gets a bad link, is much less likely to look further -- or even to be able to look further -- than a researcher who has a description of the catalog in hand and understands the contents.

If you're worried about the length of descriptions, or find them unnecessary, perhaps you might consider working on a style guide for catalog descriptions. Current MOS on ELs says: "If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question. If you link to an online article, try to provide as much meaningful article information as possible. ... Most external links should present different details from citations. For instance, a concise description of the contents and a clear indication of its source is more important than the actual title of the page" So, descriptions are encouraged; but perhaps some guidance as to what kind of descriptions would be appropriate.

Or, of course, you could paraphrase them yourself rather than simply deleting them as presumptive copyvios.

Finally, I think it's sort of hilarious that on Howard Besser's article. Heh.

--Lquilter (talk) 03:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, clearly a major misunderstanding here. To be clear: I have no intention of opening a CCI in regard to Lquilter, as to do so would be entirely baseless and entirely absurd. If I gave any impression that that might have been my intention, then I apologise. As to your other comments, I agree with all you say, including your last comment. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

external links

In addition to grave concerns about copyright violations of descriptions of archives, User:Justlettersandnumbers also is apparently concerned about external links on academic pages. JLAN has deleted the same links twice (most recently at this diff). So, rather than edit-warring, let's discuss it here like civilized folks.

1. NYU, faculty profile with links to publications, etc. - This is a link to a faculty profile. It's pretty common for entries on academics to have links to their faculty profiles and/or lab pages, along with any significant personal outlets. I find this link unobjectionable and propose re-inserting it. While I used it as a ref, ELs and refs do not serve exactly the same purpose. Refs support factual statements; ELs provide access to significant related materials. ELs are frequently used of course as a dumping ground for unattributed refs, but that's not the case here. Is this faculty profile especially inappropriate? Or has there been a change in Wikipedia policy such that institutional faculty profiles are now verboten? I had thought it was considered one of the "official links" (see WP:EL).
2. Interview with NYU's Howard Besser, Educause, April 20, 2006 (33 minute audio file). - This was deleted as a "blog"; as the caption makes clear, it's a link to an interview with Besser, published by Educause, from a scholarly meeting -- not a personal blog/website as one might think from the edit summary. Seems like the sort of thing for which ELs are well-suited, since it's material that's not easily found, but would readily give more information to an interested Wikipedia reader about the subject of this article. Linking directly to the media file itself is disfavored; hence, the link to the
3. "Howard Besser", Digital Preservation Pioneers, Library of Congress (Interview, last visited Aug. 9, 2012) - Another interview, this time as part of the Pioneers of Digital Preservation series at the Library of Congress. After JLAN deleted this, I embedded content from it in a reference. I'm okay with deleting this as an external link since the content is (now) incorporated referentially.

Per WP:LINKFARM "excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate." I don't think that four (now three) external links "dwarf[s]" the article or "detract[s] from the purpose of Wikipedia. Nor are these links "fansites", so .... I would suggest putting back the two links, and would gently suggest to User:JLAN that pruning a little more carefully and leniently would be in the better interests of the encyclopedia.

--Lquilter (talk) 03:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, as for care: the first and third of those are duplicates, already in use in the article as references; and the second is a blog site. However, I happily defer to your judgement on their suitability or otherwise. Unwatching this now. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Sartorial question

[He] 'wears only T-shirts' - no socks, trousers/kilts etc? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2015 (UTC)