Template talk:Internet Archive author

"scanned books original editions color illustrated"

I'm impressed by your work on this template. I don't really understand the bit of the output in parentheses though, "scanned books original editions color illustrated". Colour illustrations don't seem to me to be a particularly prominent feature of IA's collections, as most of the books there are out-of-copyright works that pre-date widespread use of colour printing. I'm not sure they're all "original editions" either. How about something simpler and closer to how archive.org/details/texts describes itself, such as "Works by or about <name> at the Internet Archive's digital books collections"? Qwfp (talk) 18:43, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes part of the goal of this template is to make changing the coda in 1 place instead of thousands. The current coda is just what I had been using for years when adding the URLs manually. The scans are mostly color scans. Compare with the scans from Google Books which are B&W, these are color scans (the pages are yellow like the paper). The purpose of the "color" was to set it apart from Google Books (ie. higher quality), and the "scanned" to set it apart from Gutenberg and other ascii-text (and epub etc) digital books collections. The illustrations, there were recently millions of illustrations from IA uploaded to Flickr.

With all that said there's something to say about simplicity and a clean look. In truth IA and Gutenberg have crossed lines and now offer more than the traditional scanned book vs ascii text. And they have been around long enough most people know what they are. It might be best to just have no coda by default, it would reduce clutter in the External links sections. It would match the look of {{Gutenberg author}} which has no coda. For {{Librivox author}} I would keep the (free audiobooks) coda since that is less well known. These three templates usually stack next to each other and look best when uniform in look and style. I can add an option for a custom coda.

Qwfp, if you have spare time :) and want to help adding new templates, there are probably 20 thousand authors who could us it, but currently only about 900 have it. The rest have to be added manually. I wrote a tool called WP:ELD to find those authors but it's a manual process of adding the template since it's very difficult to automate adding a new entry to External links. Choose a Category: of interest (eg. 19th century Russian novelists), run the ELD report for it. That way it's small pieces here and there as time and interest allow. -- GreenC 19:44, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, I think it needs a bit more than just say "Works by or about <name> at Internet Archive", as Internet Archive also archives websites, audio, and moving images, but the search generated by this template doesn't include those, only what IA classifies as 'texts'. I'm not sure what the best description of this for the template's output would be though — "texts", "digital book collection", "digitized printed materials", something else?

Possibly the template could usefully be expanded to cover those other media types though, perhaps with an optional 'mediatype' parameter? I noticed this template as you added it to the article on the composer Edward Elgar, which is on my Watchlist. IA holds quite a few audio recordings of his works that don't come up from the search currently generated by this template, but simply changing "mediatype:(texts)" to "mediatype:(audio)" in the text string appears to work. Qwfp (talk) 20:41, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I see. Let me investigate and think about it. IA is currently running slowly and I need to do some tests to see what kind of false positives are returned with a broader search. I kept it focused on the texts collection to avoid too many false positives. There is so much stuff in the other collections I'm afraid the false positive problem will make searches less than desirable for the majority of the cases who don't have audio/video works. -- GreenC 21:12, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

@Qwfp: The script is updated. The template by default will do a broad search in all media collections: texts, audio and video. If that produces too many false positives, there are three ways to customize the search: 1. Via the "media" option which you suggested above. 2. By changing the search id ("sname"). and 3. A custom search string which can be anything. The script is now generic enough for anyone (musician, film director, etc..). It might be worth renaming the template but not sure what to replace "author" with. Perhaps "artist" or "person". Thanks for the feedback. -- GreenC 21:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Why IA vice OL?

Interesting work here, but perhaps some discussion would be in order. Why choose IA author over OL author if all the IA records are reproduced in OL? For many users, site access to IA is policy blocked either for security reasons or for supposedly offensive content. The insistence of IA on pushing flickering images at users also represents a (rather bizarre) accessibility problem. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:24, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

IA is an archive of books, like a local library. OL is a catalog of books, like WorldCat, it's meant to catalog all books every made, not just those at IA. They are two separate things. Further while OL does list books that are located at IA, they also include many commercial and other books not at IA. Also OL's listings are not always complete, the searches used here are more accurate. -- GreenC 18:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for an edit

Greetings and felicitations. Would an authorized user please be so kind as to change the output from "Works by or about X at Internet Archive" to "Works by or about X at the Internet Archive". This would bring it into accord with the usage of the "Internet Archive" article. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@WOSlinker: Might you be so kind? —DocWatson42 (talk) 01:39, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@DocWatson42: I think you should be able to do this yourself. While the template is protected, the module is free to be edited. In Module:Internet Archive, just update the tagline = "at [[Internet Archive]]" row. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

My preference would be without "the" because these sorts of things are not meant to be grammatically correct complete sentences, brevity is a factor. The "Internet Archive" article isn't really authoritative, just how someone did at it at some point, there are no talk page discussions explaining a rationale. The archive.org website does not use the when referring to itself. -- GreenC 16:12, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I disagree about brevity—four more characters (including the space) is not much of a burden. Also, the site's "About" page does use the definite article when referring to the site, in five of the five self references (including one in the sidebar). I discount the title of a press release, as that follows headline format. (@WOSlinker: I just tested it, and you seem to be correct (thanks!), but having found GreenC's dissent I thought I work towards consensus.) —DocWatson42 (talk) 04:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

It increases the tagline word count by a third (33%). It's a personal preference or matter of style, the use of "the" is optional throughout the archive.org website and other secondary sources. We generally don't change things for personal style preferences, particularly when it adds unnecessary text in a brief message area. Looking at other external link templates, generally most of them don't use "the", either, meaning it would go against the prevailing (though not universal) style in template tag lines. The principle is to keep tag lines as brief as possible while conveying accurate information and keeping consistency across templates. -- GreenC 16:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 April 2019

To be grammatically correct, this should read either "at the Internet Archive" or "at archive.org". —Hugh (talk) 01:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

"at Internet Archive" is in-line with other external link templates, like Project Gutenberg and LibriVox. These shorthand taglines are meant to be brief and not grammatical sentences though even by convention we often omit "the" when speaking of Internet Archive. -- GreenC 01:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Use outside of Wikipedia?

I'd like to use this template on my own install of Mediawiki. I'm getting 'Lua error in Module:Internet_Archive at line 573: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).'

I know my own install of Mediawiki can't access wikibase. But I'm not sure it's necessary for this module to access wikibase. If I include the sname, birth & death dates in the template, can it create the search URL without accessing wikibase?

This is how the template is being called.

{{Internet Archive author |sname=David Laing |birth=1793|death=1878}}

Thank you. Redheadkelly (talk) 22:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Rename "function p.bdDate" --> "function p.bdDateOld" and rename "function p.bdDateAlt" --> "function p.bdDate" -- GreenC 02:28, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Template information for visual editor

If we can add a <templatedata> section to the documentation, that will dramatically increase usability for the template when using the new editor. I just added this template to Ameen Rihani bibliography and found that I had to dig through the documentation to find out how to use dname as a parameter to avoid issues there; if you look at Template:StandardEbooks, you can see what this would look like, and if you try adding it to a page in the visual editor, you can see that it makes it easier to know what information should be added to achieve the desired result.

I'm happy to do the work to add this, but since I didn't create this template, I wanted to check with others who are better informed before doing so. It looks like @GreenC: is the person paying the most attention to this template. Smith(talk) 10:47, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

User:ACB Smith: Yes I conceived, wrote and maintain the template and documentation. All arguments are optional, by default it can be {{Internet Archive bot}} and it will produce results. Usually you want to also include at least |sname=Article title to lock in the search name (sname ie. search name) against future page moves. The rest of the optional parameters are explained in the docs. If you want to create templatedata that would be great. I don't know anything about it. Happy to work with you on this. -- GreenC 16:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

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Template-protected edit request on 3 August 2024

Greetings and felicitations. Please change the output to "Works by or about X at the Internet Archive" to bring it into line with all of the other Internet Archive templates. Of the templates with "Internet Archive" in the name, one does not have "Internet Archive" is not in the output, seven use "the Internet Archive", this template outputs "Internet Archive", and one is a navbar. Four characters is not very much. —DocWatson42 (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Per discussion below, it seems that the definite article "the" is actually a part of the IA's proper name, as in "The Internet Archive", so while this template does need the capitalized "The", the other templates that use "the" should be changed to "The". P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Template editing procedure discussion

Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 17:14, 3 August 2024 (UTC) Wait, this was implemented 30 minutes after requested. I'm the primary author of the template and the module, the lack of "the" was done on purpose, not an oversight. The template most often appears as part of a triage with {{Gutenberg author}} and {{Librivox author}}. See Avery_Hopwood#External_links example. When in that grouping, which is almost always how it's used, the other two don't use "the". One with "the" looks out of place and makes the line even longer than already is. The other 6 Internet Archive templates are not typically found in or near this template, so any inconsistency there would only be noticeable to someone looking at these other templates as a whole, and that's a rare perspective. More important is how people see it when rendered. Reducing the amount of meta text is desirable. -- GreenC 00:55, 4 August 2024 (UTC) I'm trying to understand, editor GreenC. The two templates you produced above read: Works by (author) at Project Gutenberg, and Works by (author) at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Those two use correct grammar without the need for a definite article. However, the way this template read before: Works by or about (author) at Internet Archive is incorrect grammar. It's like me saying, "I just got a job at bakery," instead of "I just got a job at the bakery," or "Yes, Joe Biden is still in Whitehouse," rather than "Yes, Joe Biden is still in the Whitehouse." You say you are concerned with "how people see it when rendered". How do you think people reacted before when they saw the incorrect "Works by or about (author) at Internet Archive"? Aren't we concerned anymore about how Wikipedia is perceived if it produces poor grammar in templates? This is so much more about using correct grammar than it is about consistency. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 02:06, 4 August 2024 (UTC) Template information like this does not need to produce correct grammar. They don't have a full stop (period). They are meant to be brief bits of relevant information, not full prose sentences. This is the case throughout Wikipedia is many examples. It is consistent not to use "the" when these templates are used together, which is most of the time. -- GreenC 14:51, 4 August 2024 (UTC) Is this info seen by readers? Yes, and readers judge Wikipedia based on just this kind of correct grammar or lack of it. Even with the definite article a "full prose sentence" is not produced, so that is not relevant. Even in such sentence fragments, readers will still sense poor grammar. The word "the" is essential here, so readers will not be astonished by poor grammar. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 16:32, 5 August 2024 (UTC) In about 10 years, I can't ever recall anyone reporting this to be a problem. Even the OP was suggesting it for consistency, not for grammar. You are probably the first person in millions who wants an external link template to produce grammatically correct prose. Do you know how many external links templates are not grammatical? Are you on a crusade to make every template grammatically correct? What this looks like is I admonished you for making the change so quickly, and you got a little triggered and responded by digging up a rationale to justify a hasty template edit without discussion or consensus. -- GreenC 16:58, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Readers draw conclusions from what they read, but seldom to they report them as problems. They try to fix them if they know how, but few know how to fix templates and modules. I did not see your post as an admonishment, because there is no policy nor guideline that tells me I cannot perform an edit request seconds after it is requested. Yours is more ownership than admonishment. However having said that, I think it is less ownership and more custodianship in this case. And as custodian of this fine template and module, I would hope that you would appreciate the original poster's attempt to correct a problem of consistency and my agreeing to it on the grounds of good grammar. Such a change is uncontroversial and so does not require a consensus. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 17:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Template editing is different from normal editing because it causes load on backend servers if there is a revert, and not everyone has template editing privileges. which can be abused by some editors. See WP:TPE. The general spirit of template editing is to go slow and cautious and don't make assumptions. Unilateral changes are normally not recommended, with a few exceptions. One of those exceptions is copyediting, that has its own exception: "just be sure you are right!". In this case, it is controversial. So while you believe your side of the controversy is "right", that is not the same as being uncontroversial. The best way to determine controversy is wait before making the change. You should not be editing templates in a way that is or might be controversial, there is no such thing as bold template editing. The OP even said, "Four characters is not very much", indicating a recognition of a counter-argument, that it could be controversial. If I had a OWN problem, as you suggest, I would have reverted it, and not engaged you in a consensus discussion to undo something that never had consensus in the first place. My reason for not adding "the" is rationale and makes sense, for this template. -- GreenC 23:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC) No, I don't really think you have an OWN problem; however, you have been taking care of this template and module that you created, so I do think that perhaps you are too close to it to accept the consensus of the editor who proposed this edit, and myself, who supported the change, over your acknowledged, albeit confounding, opposition to using good grammar. I think the WP:Consensus policy is pretty clear that we have consensus thus far to go forward with "the Internet Archive" in this module. So I think it requires the input of more editors to change that. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 23:55, 5 August 2024 (UTC) What exactly in WP:CONSENSUS are you referring to? Template editing is governed by WP:TPE. WP:TPEBOLD says: This right should never be used to gain an upper hand in editing disputes. You have a privilege that most people do not have. The normal BOLD, revert, discuss cycle does not apply because those without this right are unable to perform the "revert" step. Therefore, if your edit is or may be controversial (see the "When to seek discussion" criteria above), avoid making unilateral decisions, and instead propose the change on the template's talk page, and then make the change if there are no objections after a few days. Do not change the template to your preferred version when consensus has not been achieved yet to resolve the dispute. Given the previous discussions on this talk page (above, which I forgot about), it was clearly controversial, objections were raised. -- GreenC 02:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC) I like to try to get along with editors of this great reference work; therefore, I have self-reverted the edit, with an apology to editor DocWatson42, and to you, editor GreenC. Having done so, let me now reiterate: while I greatly respect the work you've done with this template and module, the omission of the definite article "the" in this case remains to be poor grammar that can be seen by readers of Wikipedia, and which should be corrected. I still believe that my rationale put together with DocWatson42's arguments constitute a consensus to correct this grammar issue. I hope you will either change your present position or, at the very least, recognize this consensus and reinsert the definite article where it belongs. Thank you for your diligent effort to show me that, for now, the edit does appear to be controversial and therefore has been reverted for the time being. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 05:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC) I didn't use the grammar argument because you (have) seemed immune to it, but that is the actual reason I want the change, and have all along—to fix the grammar. —DocWatson42 (talk) 21:45, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Have you and I ever discussed it, before you made the edit request? -- GreenC 22:31, 5 August 2024 (UTC) Yes—in 2018; see above. While I haven't notified them, I also note Hugh's 2019 request for this same edit. —DocWatson42 (talk) 01:09, 6 August 2024 (UTC) I forgot about that. So, we have a history of controversy and opposition to this change. You neglected to mention that in your OP, and rather than ping me or continue the previous discussion, you just started another one that was quickly answered by someone who often quickly answers your template edit requests. -- GreenC 02:35, 6 August 2024 (UTC) I had assumed that you would remember, or notice. —DocWatson42 (talk) 09:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

DocWatson42 & User:Paine Ellsworth, let's move past the procedural issues raised in the collapsed section above, and discuss the substance of the request and try to reach a resolution to this long standing disagreement. Thank you Paine Ellsworth for returning it to status quo for the moment. OK, this is called a "false title", discussed by the essay, WP:FALSETITLE [May 2023 by User:Popcornfud]. It's a widely known point of contention on Wikipedia, there is no MOS guideline for it, and as the essay says, there should not be a guideline. The essay does not address templates, which frequently abbreviate sentences, the essay concerns the prose sections of articles. The essay raises concerns about clarity of meaning, which can happen with false titles, there is no ambiguity of meaning in this case. The essay concludes "When editors disagree about whether the use of false titles is appropriate in an article, the status quo should be followed until a consensus to change it forms." This is where we are now.

It would be great to hear from User:Popcornfud, if they so wish, about types of text where false titles are commonly accepted, such as when text is abbreviated. This is an interesting question because false titles are not only found in newspaper headlines, they are produced by software on screen, it is arguably even more common. The descriptive abbreviations produced by templates are due to repetition; the way we read online text is often not the same way we read printed text (scanning vs. word by word comprehension); reducing word count and complexity of the text; reducing screen real estate. These are some reasons I can think of why it's common practice to abbreviate template output, even when those reasons are unconscious preferences. -- GreenC 15:14, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi there. I don't think this is actually a false title issue. A false title is when you use a noun before another noun like a title — for example, writing songwriter Bob Dylan instead of the songwriter Bob Dylan, sort of how you'd write "King George" or "Captain Kirk".

In this case, there's only one noun, Internet Archive. We're not writing website Internet Archive or anything like that.

It seems that the Internet Archive is generally referred to in sentences with "the" (like the White House and the New York Rangers). In the news headline writing style (headlinese), where articles are omitted, a news headline would read "Internet Archive hacked", not "The Internet Archive has been hacked".

If we want to use an abbreviated form, because these are not really proper sentences and we want to save space, then we could drop "the" (as in headline style). If we don't, then include "the".

Myself, I don't have a strong preference. But my gut instinct is that even though these aren't proper sentences, they're not written in headlinese, either. They might be closer to the style used in caption fragments on Wikipedia (see MOS:CAPFRAG). Would we be comfortable writing the caption fragment "Halloween party at White House" (no "the") below a photo, or would it feel weird? Popcornfud (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

User:Popcornfud thank you for your time and insights. Given a hypothetical example, to avoid confusion with previous convention, there is an archive on Mars (someday!). They brand it "Mars Archive", and it is also literally "the Mars archive" (an archive on Mars). These are distinct concepts. One describes an archive on Mars. The other is a brand name, a proper noun, a named corporation. If we said "Mars archive" it would be a false title (one noun following the other). If we said "Mars Archive" it would not be a false title, it's a single proper noun. Thus, there is ambiguity in spoken language, it sounds off when spoken, since capitalization is invisible when speaking. Thus we usually include "the" when writing prose.

However in non-prose text, our existing convention on Wikipedia is to use Internet Archive: in the title, the first sentence of the article, infobox title, and sub-section titles. In the prose sections (first sentence often excluded), "the" is used. Personally, I think differentiating prose from non-prose text when deciding to use "the" is a good idea and has support with other examples, although it is not entirely consistent (see The New York Times).

There is a final issue, which is that The Internet Archive is the correct legal term of the entity, just like The New York Times. We still don't capitalize "the" when writing in prose, there is a MOS about this somewhere, but that is the case. -- GreenC 15:31, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

• Concur – I agree with the nom that for purposes of consistency with other similar templates and to use good grammar whenever possible, the definite article should be used, as in "the Internet Archive". This needed change has been included in the module's sandbox. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:21, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

  Reply: templates have traditionally been abbreviated, putting more emphasis on word count versus grammar, similar to article and section titles. Consistency with other Internet Archive templates is less important than consistency with fellow travelers, like Project Gutenberg and LibriVox, that are usually displayed together. -- GreenC 15:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Again, those two are happy without a definite article in terms of grammar. And judging from your above response to editor Popcornfud, we should be using "the" with the entire proper name, "The Internet Archive", anyway. So now the present rendering has three strikes against it – consistency, grammar and the correct usage of the full proper name. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  That could work, since all three words are blue linked as a proper noun ie. "works by [author] at [location]" which conforms with the other templates of this class, and it seems to appease the grammatically correct concerns. However, I would ask that you not change every instance of "the Internet Archive", within the prose sections of articles. There is a guideline about this somewhere, it's perfectly acceptable to write "He was an editor at the New York Times". The main exception to this rule is bands, for example we must write "the Who" not "The Who". Anyway give me a day or so to consider the proposal. -- GreenC 18:20, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding the New York Times example, see MOS:THETITLE. —DocWatson42 (talk) 19:48, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Re: "There is a guideline about this somewhere". As I suspected, digging around The Beatles turned it up: MOS:THEMUSIC. But this and the (ahem) above are just side notes. —DocWatson42 (talk) 23:06, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  MOS:INSTITUTION is the one that would apply to the Internet Archive, as the Internet Archive is an institution and not the title of a work/publication. Popcornfud (talk) 00:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  It says "The word the at the start of a name is uncapitalized in running text, regardless of the institution's own usage". So that would preclude capitalization. Assuming templates are treated like any other text covered by the MOS ("running text"). I've asked a question: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Text_produced_by_templates -- GreenC 02:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

  It appears there is no special guideline or MOS for template generated text. This is an oversight, for example citations contain ungrammatical template generated text. Maybe some templates are covered by MOS, and some not, we don't know which.

  It appears the use of "the" is not a matter of grammar, but convention, per the comment by User:Popcornfud, who said:

  Why is it "the White House" but just "Bush House"? Why is it "the Eiffel Tower" but just "Tokyo Tower"? No reason, no logic, just common usage.

  If that is the case, the template should follow convention, which appears to favor "the".

  It should follow MOS:INSTITUTION as lower-case.

  Thus logically I would accept the addition of lower case "the".

  Why these arbitrary conventions exist in language, I tried to deconstruct in a post above. I suspect it is a connection with capitalization and spoken language. It will require a linguist to understand. -- GreenC 18:39, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of definite article "the" has been  reinstated. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:44, 9 August 2024 (UTC)