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Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Pages needing attention

< Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography

This page is for finding pages in the scope of the WikiProject that require attention, by various types of specific search.

Custom searches part 1

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These use a toolserver program by User:Magnus Manske, and can be further adapted. The basic pattern is to look for the combination of {{DNB}} with some other template, e.g. {{wikify}}.

Template found with {{DNB}} Search Baseline number of hits (22 May 2011)
multiple issues run search 72
rewrite run search 69
lead rewrite run search 1
lead too short run search 2
cleanup run search 23
copy edit run search 4
tone run search 2
wikify run search 319
sections run search 6
no footnotes run search 5
orphan run search 179
cat improve run search 55
one source run search 151
merge run search 4
merge from run search 2
merge to run search 3

Custom searches part 2

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These use a toolserver program by User:Magnus Manske, and can be further adapted. The basic pattern is to look for the combination of {{Cite DNB}} with some other template, e.g. {{Wikify}}.

Template found with {{Cite DNB}} Search Baseline number of hits (22 May 2011)
notability run search 1
multiple issues run search 92
rewrite run search 73
lead rewrite run search 1
lead too short run search 5
cleanup run search 28
copy edit run search 6
tone run search 5
wikify run search 457
sections run search 6
no footnotes run search 40
orphan run search 252
cat improve run search 298
one source run search 257
merge run search 6
merge from run search 2
merge to run search 6

Regular searches

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Searches that can be done by search engine, just including "DNB" in the search. DNB text was fairly clearly subedited to impose uniformity in certain ways, and this can work to our advantage in finding places in need of updating. (It was also aggressively downcased, e.g. "royal artillery" for "Royal Artillery", which is to be noted; but would need case sensitivity in the search, rather than the regular stuff.)

Typical examples are the following:

  • Pages with "the present writer" can be fixed as "X stated", X being the original author.
  • Pages with [q. v.] or [q.v.]: to wiki-link the previous name and remove qv.
  • Pages with "separately noticed", as a type of forward/backward reference (noticed below, noticed above), indicate a need to wikify with links to subject of the DNB article(s). Usually these are family members.
  • Pages with sums of money in form 100l. etc; replace by £100 (or omit if the sum isn't crucial).
  • Pages with month abbreviations (Jan., Feb., ..., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.): expand.
  • Pages with 4vo, 8vo, 12mo etc.; the inclusion of book sizes was a help in finding books in older libraries, but is usually not necessary from the point of view of the general reader. The same may apply to "in 2 vols.".
  • Pages with obsolete terminology, e.g. Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, although using these names may make the place clearer, since there were many subsequent boundary changes.
  • Pages with heavy prose, e.g. "in conjunction with", "in spite of the fact that" (despite+noun phrase such as "the rain" or though+verb phrase such as "it was raining"), "was desirous of" (wanted), "a question having arisen", etc.
  • Pages with antique or pedant's English in general: "removed to" is normally something to update to "moved to"; "whence" is "from where" or a rephrase in current English, the same with "thence" and "thither"; "resided" becomes "lived", "residence" usually becomes "home" (except for official residences); "took fire" would now be "caught fire"; "matriculated from" rather than "matriculated at" was probably pedantic already for the Victorians; "that gentleman" for him, "that city" for there, usually to fix an unclear construction (rewrite).

See /Prose for more typical Victorian expressions usually needing work.

Location
  • "to that place" => "there"
Temporal
  • "One son, now a major in the Guards." recast the obvious way "One son, who became a major in the Guards." - if possible check whether he ever ranked higher.
  • "...the present Lord Godfrey remarked upon..." determine which Lord Godfrey and wikilink
  • "...Jeff Monroe, now Lord Godfrey..." recast "...Jeff Monroe, later Lord Godfrey..."
MPs

This is an interesting subarea. Links for Members of Parliament should run to constituency pages, not placenames. It happens that the DNB contains a huge amount of MP information, scattered somewhat casually in the text; and part of the project's aim should be to help build up the MP listings (i.e. to check that the links back from constituency pages are in place). This is most obviously needed up to 1660; unfortunately the DNB's information about 16th century MPs is not 100% reliable, but troubleshooting can be done via the ODNB. The searches to find the information are multifarious, including

  • "knight of the shire"
  • "sat for the borough of", "represented the borough of"
  • "was member for", "member of parliament for".
Military
  • There is a tendency to use rather general terms "Xth regiment" , "xth foot" or "xth Higlanders". Some care is needed linking, as there has often been more than one regiment with a given number, sometimes in rapid succession.
Punctuation
  • We have our marks for things like titles and short quotes before the full-stop. DNB pulls the stop into the marks.
  • We put superscripted references after the punctuation, DNB uses parenthetical references before.

And so on. Please help build up the list.

Categories

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Special searches

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