Wikipedia talk:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Old talk is at Wikipedia talk:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica/archive 1.

I wonder about the fate of Wikipedia a hundred years from now -- the nature of the Wikipedia is to keep itself current, and so the Wikipedia of 2102 is unlikely to have any of the historical context of 2002. It won't be possible to use Wikipedia in the same manner that we're using the 1911 EB, and that's unfortunate. There's something to be said for committing it all to paper...
--Bob Jonkman 11 September 2002

Well, even if the edit histories on the live server get cleared again, I for one intend to have a century's worth of backups in my petabyte storage crystal library when the times comes. :) --Brion 03:52 Sep 12, 2002 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia should use that 1911encyclopedia.org stuff without getting the copyright issues completely resolved. 1911encyclopedia claims copyright to spelling corrections they've made and stuff like that. Basically they mean they've sprinkled copyright traps all through the text to prevent legal copying. I think that shows unfriendly intentions on their part.

It's going to be necessary to OCR the EB again to get a really public domain text file. This is on Project Gutenberg's agenda to do, but don't expect it real soon. (Someone did volume 1 a long time ago and now there's renewed interest in doing the other volumes). --Paul Rubin, 10 oct 2002.

AFAIK spellchecking corrections and similar changes lack the "creativity" required to obtain the new copyright. --Imran

It is in process as of Jan 22, 2003. It is being prepared for input to Project Gutenberg by way of Distributed Proofreaders. Anyone can help proofread at http://texts01.archive.org/dp/ --AMillar

Fantastic! I've been wondering if DP would start working on EB1911. I'll be glad when the world finally gets a text without some company making dubious copyright claims. -- Stephen Gilbert 00:49 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

As we say on the subject page here, no one should use EB1911 as is. They may have made changes in the scanned material. They'd have to just to put it on the web, but I don't think they've done any concerted editing at all. For instance, they lost the entire entry on Plato.Ortolan88

They've also run together "Telepathy" and "Telephone":
The experimental evidence for telepathy is made up partly ... of successes in hypnotization at a distance; ... and in a small but important class of cases, [tr]ansmitted for business purposes over a distance of 1542.3 m., viz., over the lines of the American Telegraph and Telephone Company from Omaha to Boston.
Andy G 19:24, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I read this talk page and the old one. I saw the copyright claim on their site '5. Use on Other Web Sites...' Someone mentioned it here before. Right now I am still a bit confused. So many opinions. Is the text in Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica the final conclusion or still subject to debate? Erik Zachte

I own two copies of the 1911 Encyclopedia. Every word we use was typed by hand from one or the other of them.
Lets say, just for argument, that someone simply cut and pasted an article from the online version of the encyclopedia, used a good deal semi-verbatim, edited a good deal more, quoted the encyclopedia directly on some occasions and it came out looking like Richard Francis Burton in the context of an online encyclopedia that looks nothing like the EB1911 and consists of 90 per cent non-EB1911 material. It's more than spellchecking, it's an entirely different use in an entirely different context.
They don't want someone to make money off their encyclopedia. Nothing we are doing is likely to cause us any trouble in the real world. And, if it does, we'll just rewrite it some more and press on. The Wikipedia does not depend on EB1911. I'm sitting here with two copies of the EB1911, six or seven dictionaries, and the entire Internet and the Minuteman Interlibrary Loan system at my disposal, not to mention a well-stuffed brainpan and hundreds of other people editing everything I see. I'm not just cutting and pasting from one source.
As long as we edit the EB1911 material, and it desparately needs it as the editing guide on the subject page makes clear, and we don't advertise that we are in any way the Britannica, and no more than ten percent of the Wikipedia even traces its ancestry to the EB1911, I am thinking that we'll have no problem, and, should we have a problem, it is easily fixed by rewriting some articles. There's no Britbot importing Britannica by the ton, there's a few people -- ten, a hundred, no more -- using a damn handy online version of an out-of-copyright reference book to make some articles.Ortolan88 04:38 Oct 27, 2002 (UTC)

Item 6 says that "the presentation is British." Is this actually true? The Encyclopedia Britannica is an American encyclopedia (contrary to what its name might suggest). Why would an American encylopedia have used British spelling? soulpatch


See http://corporate.britannica.com/company_info.html --Brion
By the time the thoroughly revised fourteenth edition appeared in 1929, the principal operations of the company had moved to the United States., not yet in 1911. - Patrick 08:51 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)
From what I've seen (from Distributed Proofreading), is that it's basically British English, with a few dashes of Americanisms in some articles (mostly those pertaining to American topics) -- |||

In light of Ortolan's recent advice on the mailing list, I'd like to propose the following boilerplate text for the foot of Enc1911 pages:

This article was originally based on material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Update as needed.
''This article was originally based on material from the [[Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica|1911 Encyclopedia Britannica]]. Update as needed.''
I'm pretty sure I said that should go on the talk page of the article, not in the text. I don't generally like editorial injunctions in the text. Ortolan88
Infrogmation's unanswered and important Q on 16:22 May 11, 2003 has been moved down.

For the record, and the hell of it, encyclopedia is not a misspelling, encyclopaedia is the misspelling, but a very, very old one. According to the OED, the spelling with ae is "pseudo-Greek" and "an erroneous form (said to be a false reading) occurring in MSS. of Quintilian, Pliny, and Galen, for encyklios paideia 'encycyclical education', the circle of arts and sciences considered by the Greeks as essential to a liberal education. The spelling with ae has been preserved from becoming obs. by the fact that many of the works so called have Latin titles, as Encyclopaedia Britannica." At least half the citations in the OED are for the so-called "incorrect" spelling. The OED states no preference, nor does Webster's Unabridged. The OED puts the ae form first, Webster's puts it second. The Wikipedia explicitly has no preference between British and American spelling. Ortolan88 18:27 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Actually, the official spelling of the flagship work of scholarly fluff is Encyclopædia Britannica (note the ligature tying the A and E together). How's that for an unpeeling, er, mispeeling? --Uncle Ed

A while back there was some discussion that we should not put the name "Encyclopaedia Britannica" in such a note on articles as the name is still a copyrighted trademark. Has it been decided that we can use that name? Wondering simply, `` Infrogmation 16:22 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I've seen this principle taken much too far; check out the notice at the bottom of Anaximander. I think that placing the appropriate symbol (©, ®, or whatever it may be) after the word Britannica should suffice. -Smack 22:19, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)
The text is not copyrighted!!! It is in the public domain (placing the © after the word "Britannica" means that it is copyrighted by Britannica!). Trademarks are not copyrighted, they are protected by trademark law. It is furthermore not necessary to even have the ® symbol - all it is, is a notice by the trademark owner that they have registered their trademark and intend to protect its use. Our use, however, does not infringe on their trademark; we are simply stating the source of the public domain text. --mav 22:31, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Erm, pardon my absurd fixation with the last 92 years and the intervening changes in how we perceive our world, but it's now 2003: is a 1911 encyclopedia article actually of use here except as useless (and excessive) filler? I thought this was a new project, not a regurgitation of a fascinating but for present purposes obsolete view of the world. I take it that the non-deletion rule doesn't apply to this worthless ballast. Graculus 02:23 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It's pretty accurate on pre-20th century history. Are you saying that history from antiquity to 1900 is "worthless ballast"? I've adapted a number of biographies from the scholar's ed., and I've found them to be consistently interesting and accurate. -- Tim Starling 02:38 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I agree with Tim. History before 1900 is not "worthless ballast." That is the most bizarre thing I've read in a while. --mav 02:42 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Tim and Mav: Please read what I wrote. No history is WB, but the inclusion here of articles written 92 years ago with all of the prejudices and analytical limitations of the time is. The biographies in the 1911 ed range from the factual to the outlandishly hagiographical, but my point is that we should be doing original stuff here, and in a form that's accessible to modern readers (and that doesn't drone on for dozens of paragraphs about something that can be neatly encapsulated in a couple of views with appropriate links). I'm as interested in the pre-1900 world as you are and I find the 11th ed exctemely useful - that's why I bought one, for God's sake - but just bulking out Wikipedia with the stuff is a hindrance to incorporating critical modern interpretation, not a help. Graculus 03:27 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Pre-existing content is not a disincentive to further improvement. Don't be shy about complete rewrites. If you're aware of a problem with an article, fix it. -- Tim Starling 03:35 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)
That's right Tim. Graculus: The few people who are now involved with importing these entries are pretty careful about fixing their major problems (Victorian prose, POV, archaic words, formatting, style etc.). At one time some people thought that direct imports were OK - that was a very unpopular stance (I was one of the leading people who rebelled against that). Maybe you have come across the older bad imports... But I don't see what's wrong with the current imports (they are few in number and trickle in and at last count there were fewer than 5,000 total EB 1911 imported articles). Think of us as picking up where EB left off 92 years ago. Big deal - just fix things as you see them. --mav 04:38 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I visited Samothrace and was surprised to discover that it is still a province of the Ottoman Empire. If you lift articles from the 1911 EB, so are supposed to check that the material is still correct. Adam 01:52, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There are tons of articles like that...mostly the populations still reflect 1911 numbers, or they don't reflect that something has radically changed because of World War I. Sometimes there are even articles about people who were still alive in 1911. There used to be a Georges Clemenceau article that had minutiae about his political life in the 1890s or whatever, but of course nothing about World War I. I also notice that there are many articles about Greek topics that originally had Greek text in them, which has become unintelligible through scanning. Unfortunately I don't think you can get people to stop copying text from there, since it's such an easy/lazy way out :) Adam Bishop 02:00, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why is the mediawiki note for 1911 recommended to be used as a subst:, and not as a msg:? --Shallot 13:35, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A valid question indeed. It's much easier checking which articles linked with Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:1911 than with Special:Whatlinkshere/1911 Encyclopædia Britannica (the latter might be articles linked to mention E.B. in some manner, not necessarily quoted from it. I vote to change the example here, and everywhere else where the {{subst:1911}} is commonly preferred. --Gabbe 21:54, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica Use Guidelines?

What are the guidelines (if any) for using material from the (copyright free) 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica? Can it be used verbatim? Are there plagiarism issues? Is there a standard (boilerplate?) for citation? Sorry if this has all been discussed before someplace. I've looked but I couldn't find such a discussion. Paul August 03:09, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)

Use it verbatim and slap a {{1911}} tag on it. →Raul654 03:12, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
..and have fun wikilinking all the appropriate names, words and phrases! —Stormie 03:23, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
You should take a look at Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopedia Britannica Just slapping a tag on is really not enough. This encyclopedia is replete with scanning typos and archaicisms and other unsuitable material. It can hardly ever be used without some hard work. The article (I wrote it back when) is full of hints and ideas about how to adopt and/or adapt material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Incidentally, I have two copies of the EB1911 and will be glad to check things for you if asked nicely. Ortolan88 04:11, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Ortolan88: Thanks for the great article! As regards to the content issues: scanning errors, out-of-dateedness, I had mostly figured them out for myself. My primary concern, was/is with the legal/ethical/intellectual honesty issues. Is it a correct reading of the article that it is inappropriate to copy and paste content from online versions of 1911? That you must have access to your own copy of the text to use it? Paul August 15:17, Aug 4, 2004 (UTC)
The 1911 Britannica is out of copyright, so there's no legal problem using it. It's certainly polite to cite Britannica as a source. Beyond copyright problems, plagarism isn't really an issue here. So providing you don't claim 1911 Britannica's works to be your own, I can't see any ethical problems. It's probably inappropriate to cut'n'paste from 1911 only because of the scanning, out-of-datedness, etc., issues. Naturally, it's downright illegal to cut'n'paste more than a trivial amount from later Britannicas. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:48, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Many of the brief biographies in 1911 Britannica can stand with little modification, mainly because little work has been published on the subjects since. Certainly the language wants tweaking, but the basic facts are often sound. Much of the writing about British subjects was based on the DNB which appeared a decade or so previously. One thing I am not clear over is how many of the articles are a carry-over from earlier editions. The three additional volumes which make the 12th edition were published 1921-22 and so are out of copyright as well. If somebody could scan and put that on line it would be an incomparable resource for WWI topics. What is the prospect of Wikimedia building up a bank of online out-of-print resources for Wikipedia contributors? Apwoolrich 16:07, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The online version also lacks the numerous illustrations, diagrams, maps, photographs, circuit schematics, etc. that form important parts of many articles in the original, particularly articles on science and technology. I haven't checked to see how the online version deals with the 1911 Encyclopaedia's frequent use of tables and mathematical formulae, but I'll bet it doesn't do it well. [[User:Dpbsmith|dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:10, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It doesn't - those things just appear as gibberish in the middle of the text (which compounds the bigger problem of missing text, that happens even more often). Adam Bishop 15:45, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I have just noted that Knight's 3 vol Dictionary of Mechanics, c 1880 is on line. Tbis has a great number of good quality line drawings of all manner of machines and mechanisms of the C19. Maybe that is in public domain. I will put a page about this in the Dictionary section when I can get round to it. Holidays are now due!!Apwoolrich 16:50, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)


[edit] 1911 Britannica : Old but interesting articles

I have a hard copy of the 1911 Britannica. There are some articles that are outdated, yet still very interesting. The "Calculating Machines" article for example is about the state of the art in computers in 1911. Theres very little useful information there to incorporate into Wikipedia, but it is still fascinating to glimpse what was happening in computers at the time.

Any thoughts on how this would incorporate, if at all, into Wikipedia, or perhaps a diffrent Wiki project? Stbalbach 21:43, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My thoughts are that surely you shouldn't need to worry about whether or not to add such topics when there are extensive Wikipedia articles on entirely fictional universes. I mean, there's actually a Klingon Wikipedia! So obscure facts are, I assume, the least of people's worries. zoney ███ talk 22:19, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Read Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica if you haven't already. I think the bottom line is, as long as it is still relevant, even if only as a historical record, by all means do so. Just remember to note {{subst:1911}} as a reference. In the specific case you raised, History of computing hardware would probably be the place to add stuff from "Calculating Machines", if it's not already there. In general, biographies would have their own articles, but most general science, technical, etc. topics would probably be best in =History= sections of related articles, if you can find a place to work it into the natural flow, but you should also check if there's already a "History of..." type article, and add it there if anything's missing. If you can't make it flow naturally in a related existing article, make a new article, but make logical links to it from relevant topics--no point in creating orphans. Also, Wikipedians are generally encouraged to be bold with their contributions. For example, wherever you put this content, if there's a better place, it will eventually get there, but it can't if it's not entered somewhere in the first place. Niteowlneils 23:09, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Isaac Newton (in depth) was taken from the 1911 Britannica, but the scanned copy online was incomplete, missing a section or two at the end. It's been on my mind ever since, it would be really great if we could fill in the gap. -- Tim Starling 00:10, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)
Ok I'll put Newton on the list of things to look into. Stbalbach 00:32, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
The 1911 Britannica is great. I have a hard copy of it, too, and I browse it for pleasure. The online version, in addition to being grotesquely full of scanning errors, is missing all the pictures. I also have the three-volume supplement that was added in 1922 and brings it up to date with all the latest advances in aviation from the Great War. There is plenty of stuff in it that is just fine. And a lot of things that give context and depth (it's very odd to read an article about nutrition that doesn't mention vitamins, for example!). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:54, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
yeah I picked it up for $150 from a local book seller, it's been a cheap entertainment investment and theres nothing like dealing with huge old tombs of leather books that weigh 7 pounds a piece and smell like a grandfathers smoke room, it reminds you of how diffrent electronic versus real books are.. it's like the diffrence between grape "drink" and a bottle of good wine, we are missing something for all the benefits of electronica.
They're probably only tombs if you happen to be buried under a pile of them. On a shelf, they are (probably :o) just tomes. Incidently - man that's annoying - I wish my local bookshops had such items for such cheap prices. I'm guessing 1911 EB would be at least twice the amount here in Ireland (but probably a lot more!). But then again, when one can pay €3/$3.50 (or more) for a cappucino here, it's not too surprising. Bah! Stupid indigeneous economic jungle cats. zoney ███ talk 11:51, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Tim Starling the Newton updates are done, it is the complete article. Stbalbach 07:29, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
There are __so many__ mistakes, particularly with dates, in the online scanned edition that I am tempted to believe they are deliberate. After all 1911encyclopedia.org goes into great detail about how it is against their terms of service to copy the public domain text. I can't help but find that site a bit of an insult to the original! Pcb21| Pete 08:15, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
And I've found, without trying, a couple of items in Wikipedia that reproduced errors. Fixed them, of course. Without doubt there are others. Can anything be done to prevent these liftings? Dandrake 23:04, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Articles in 1911 EB not always reliable

When I made investigations for the German articles about Félix de Azara and José Nicolás de Azara, I found that several dates in the existing articles in several Wikipedias (en, fr, es) are inaccurate or simply wrong. That articles are based on 1911 EB. So I recommend to verify any information carefully. Don't simply copy it - even that from the EB. They weren't and they aren't immune against making mistakes. --EvaK 23:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

They may be inaccurate but are historically accurate from a 1911 timeline point of view. To say that these articles are wrong absolutely is an inaccurate observation. A more accurate observation remark is that these articles are outdated. --Siva1979Talk to me 19:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Please don't misunderstand me. I never claimed that 1911 EB's articles are absolutely wrong. I simply gave a warning that those articles might contain mistakes, even from the perspective of 1911. Therefore it is necessary to check such information carefully before using it. --EvaK 01:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible notes from the operator of 1911encyclopedia.org

Comment moved from the article page; it belongs on this talk page: The fact that whoever wrote that used the term "copywritten" rather than "copyrighted" implies that they have a poor grasp of copyright law — PhilHibbs | talk 15:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Updates about use of online versions

I made some changes in the past 24 hours, mostly to reflect recent discussions of how to use the text as source for WP articles, and driven by a debate on the status of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article; see the three threads on its talk page starting here. David Brooks 16:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

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