Ephemeratta

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. The following links will help you begin editing on Wikipedia:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Editing tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Simplified Manual of Style

Please bear these points in mind while editing Wikipedia

• Respect copyrights – do not copy and paste text or images directly from other websites.
• Maintain a neutral point of view – this is one of Wikipedia's core policies.
• Take particular care while adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page and follow Wikipedia's Biography of Living Persons policy. Particularly, controversial and negative statements should be referenced with multiple reliable sources.
• No edit warring or sock puppetry.
• If you are testing, please use the Sandbox to do so.
• Do not add troublesome content to any article, such as: copyrighted text, libel, advertising or promotional messages, and text that is not related to an article's subject. Deliberately adding such content or otherwise editing articles maliciously is considered vandalism; doing so will result in your account or IP being blocked from editing.
• Do not use talk pages as discussion or forum pages as Wikipedia is not a forum.

The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~ (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Ephemeratta, you are invited to the Teahouse

Hi Ephemeratta! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Nathan2055 (I'm a Teahouse host) Visit the Teahouse This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 16:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

April 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Walter Crane may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• ; he was an examiner for the [[Science and Art Department]] at the [[South Kensington Museum]] (now the [[Victoria & Albert Museum]]; director of design at the [[Manchester School of Art|
• of [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/holmes.00414 ''A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys<nowiki>]</nowiki>]:File:Walter-crane-little-red-riding-hood-meets-the-wolf-in-the-woods.jpg|[[Little Red Riding Hood]]

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Clark Mills (sculptor) may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/lprbscsm.scsm1047 Clark Mills. ''Life Cast of Abraham Lincoln'', 1865], [[Library of Congress]</ref>

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 14:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Ethel Reed may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6170 Ethel Reed, The Beautiful Poster Lady.] Webcast at the [[Library of Congress]

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Incunabula

Hello Ephemeratta, thank you for adding all those links to digital reproductions! In case you are working for the Library of Congress or if you are in contact with their rare books department, consider telling the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke about them (if you haven't done so already ;-). On the german Wikipedia we usually just link to their database (instead of mirroring it). --HHill (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello HHill. I don't know how to get in touch with you. Are you seeing this post? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ephemeratta (talk • contribs) 20:16, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes I do. --HHill (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I am the Digital Coordinator for the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the Library of Congress. Thank you very much for recommending that I notify Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke about the books in our collection. We are interesting in reaching out to the rare book community! Are you employed by Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ephemeratta (talk • contribs) 20:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

No, I am just an unpaid volunteer (as are most of the other editors). I wrote some articles on printers of incunabula over at german wikipedia, e.g. Konrad Sweynheym, Johannes Numeister ... --HHill (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I see. Well thank you for the help and interest! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ephemeratta (talk • contribs) 21:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

My pleasure. I'll keep your page on my watchlist (the link goes to yours), in case you want to contact me again. Otherwise you could add a new section over at my own talkpage, that way I'll get one of those notifications. --HHill (talk) 22:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

September 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Hartmann Schedel may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• 23 Dec. 1493. From the http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/ Rare Book and Special Collections Division] at the [[Library of Congress]]

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I fixed that one. --HHill (talk) 20:14, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Aesop's Fables may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• *[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rosenwald.0306.1 Fabulae. [Naples, Cristannus Preller, ca. 1495]. From

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Portugal may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

SPAM

I notice you are inserting " Rare Book and Special Collections Division " with an external link to your site, multiple times in articles. This is considered spam. In an article, particularly in references, a URL should be included only if it directly relates to the reference in question. Just adding many identical links to the generic "rare book" site on many articles does not improve the articles or the encyclopedia. Please reconsider. Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 20:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

@Tarlneustaedter: I don't know english wikipedia's policies concerning this, but at the german wikipedia e. g. someone from the University and State Library Düsseldorf is doing a similar thing, and it's mostly appreciated. --HHill (talk) 22:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

On second thoughts, the relevant template has no general link either and is in use at most accompanied by a link to the pertinent wikipedia article, which would be Library of Congress in this case. Could you use this instead User:Ephemeratta? --HHill (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Basically, the general standard is that any given link should appear only once in an article, although that generally refers to links within Wikipedia itself (See WP:OVERLINK). Another standard is that links should be as specific as possible - in general, referencing a specific book is good, a general link to a collection is not, unless the article itself is about the collection (rather than something which happens to be contained in the collection). That specifically would be in WP:ELNO item 4. You specifically should pay attention to WP:ADV. The general overview you probably want to read is the manual of style as relates to linking, specifically WP:MOSLINK. Regards, Tarl.Neustaedter (talk) 05:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Ephemeratta! I see that you've already been asked not to repeatedly add external links to our articles, because doing so, even if the link is to a valuable resource such as the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, is regarded as WP:SPAMming. I hope you will now agree to stop doing this, and perhaps be kind enough to go round and remove those that remain. By the way, if you happen to be in any way connected with that collection, you might let them know that a page such as this would be a damn sight more useful if it had a clickable link or a "list the collection" button, to make it possible to discover what those 1134 books actually are. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Again, links should only be included if they directly relate to the article subject, per WP:ELNO #13 ("A general site that has information about a variety of subjects should usually not be linked from an article on a more specific subject.") Here you've added links to four general magic collection archives to the ventriloquism article. If there's significant ventriloquism material in there somewhere (if Houdini wrote an essay on it or something), please link to it directly so that the reader can understand what the material is, and is able to access it directly. --McGeddon (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree completely with the above comments. There is a case to be made that (e.g.) the Cooking article should have a list of collections in that area, such as the LOC's Pennell Collection and Harvard's Schlesinger Library, but why not just link to Virginia Tech's list of such collections. In any case, it is certainly not useful to link to the LOC collection on pages like French cuisine, Italian cuisine, etc. --Macrakis (talk) 23:29, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I removed the Italian and French Cuisine links. I would debate that the Pennell Collection has a major focus on seminal French and Italian cooking, but it is not worth the fuss of arguing. I have presented a draft page for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division in Wikipedia. Once this passes muster, I will begin to re-link of prior references.

Thanks for the response. A couple of comments:

• Please sign your comments on Talk pages using --~~~~, which Wikipedia automatically replaces with your user name and a timestamp.
• I am not sure I understand what you mean about your draft page. To whom have you presented this draft page? Where is it?
• I am also not sure what you mean about relinking prior references. Do you plan to link (e.g.) French cuisine to a new article on Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections? That wouldn't make sense. It would, of course, make sense to have a link from the appropriate place in the Library of Congress page to that page.
• Appropriate links to a rare books library might include:

• In an article about person or organization X, the fact that their papers (or a significant portion) are deposited at that library, e.g. in National Organization for Women: "In 1972 NOW chose the Schlesinger Library as the archives for its records."
• In an article about a particular book of which few copies are extant, a list of collections including it, e.g., Mainz Psalter has such a list.
• In an article about particular classes of books, e.g. incunabula, a list of notable collections of such books.
• Links from the parent library (Library of Congress) or from subcollections.
• Links to notable specialized collections that are specific to the article's topic may be useful. For example, I've just added a section on library collections to the Cookbook article. That list is certainly incomplete and can be improved. Those collections that specialize in American cuisine should probably be mentioned in the American cuisine article. Although these collections also include Chinese, Italian, Brazilian, etc. cookbooks, they are not specialized in those topics, and shouldn't be mentioned in the corresponding articles.
• If a particular book mentioned in a footnote or bibliography is hard to find in the usual ways (Worldcat etc.), it can be useful to have a link to collections including it.

I'm sure there are other good cases.

Some inappropriate links would be:

• Links to a collection specialized in a much broader or much narrower topic than the article. For example, an article on the Statue of Liberty probably shouldn't have a link to a collection of books on sculpture or even on monumental sculpture, but a link to Bartholdi's papers might be appropriate if there is in fact material about the Statue of Liberty. The cookbooks article should have a section listing collections specializing in cookbooks.
• Links from similar libraries. The Schlesinger Library at Harvard shouldn't have links to other libraries specialized in women's issues or cookbooks.
• Links to large libraries which happen to have many books on a topic simply by virtue of their size.

Thanks, --Macrakis (talk) 19:08, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

In re-reading the remarks above, I think we've started off on the wrong foot. There are certainly lots of good reasons Wikipedia articles should mention relevant special collections at the LOC and elsewhere, and many of the links you've added can be incorporated into the articles in useful ways. It's just that I (and probably others) were a bit alarmed that you were adding links to large numbers of articles despite feedback on this page to which you weren't responding. As it happens, though there are general principles as mentioned above (WP:ELNO, WP:OVERLINK, etc.), there are no established specific guidelines on how to link to library collections (as opposed to individual volumes), and we probably need to hash them out — and then document them for the next time.

I've been going through some more of the articles to which you've added links to the LOC Rare Books collection and tried to integrate the information better with the article. In one case, the LOC was already mentioned, and I moved the additional information to a better place [1]; in another case, I added more information on other relevant collections [2]; similarly, I added information on cookbook collections to the Cookbook article [3]—the Pennell collection should probably be added here.

So... welcome again to WP. It will be great to incorporate information from the LOC into WP articles. I just think it will take a bit of thought to do it in the best way. I invite you to engage with us, your fellow editors, in figuring that out. --Macrakis (talk) 23:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

October 2014

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Evocation may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-magicapparatus.html The Magic Apparatus of Neopunk Hofsinzer]] and the [http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html the Harry Houdini Collection] at the [[

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Ventriloquism may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• Valentine ''I Can See Your Lips Moving, the history and art of ventriloquism'' (1993) 224 pages. (3000 year history of the practice. Plato Publishing/Empire publications ISBN 0-88734-622-7
• rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-magicapparatus.html The Magic Apparatus of Neopunk Hofsinzer]] and the [http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html the Harry Houdini Collection] at the [[

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Fortune-telling may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-magicapparatus.html The Magic Apparatus of Neopunk Hofsinzer]] and the [http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html the Harry Houdini Collection] at the [[

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Automaton may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-magicapparatus.html The Magic Apparatus of Neopunk Hofsinzer]] and the [http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html the Harry Houdini Collection] at the [[

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Mediumship may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-magicapparatus.html The Magic Apparatus of Neopunk Hofsinzer]] and the [http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html the Harry Houdini Collection] at the [[

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you reading this

Hello, Ephemeratta, are you reading this Talk page? You continue to be adding links to LOC collections on large numbers of pages, ignoring the [#SPAM] discussion above. But you have never written a comment on this Talk page or any other Talk page. My guess is that you simply aren't reading your Talk page. It is very important on Wikipedia to discuss controversial changes rather than persisting in making them -- you may end up being blocked from editing if you don't at least respond to other editors' concerns. --Macrakis (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

There are some comments from the user in the "Incunabula" section from September. But yes, if someone is adding links against WP:ELNO policy and appearing not to hear or understand other editor's explanations of why those links are inappropriate, our only option is ultimately to (temporarily) block them from editing, to get their attention. For all we know the user might be running an automated script that they've set up and left running without checking that its additions are still making sense. --McGeddon (talk) 09:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Draft article on Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Hi, Ephemeratta, I took a look at your Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division. It will be great to have an article on this organization in Wikipedia. I see that you are starting with a word-for-word copy of a page on the LOC web site; so far, the only changes I see are some wikilinks. That has several consequences:

• Credit is not given (though the site is linked). Although works of the federal government cannot be copyrighted, giving credit for text is still important. As a model, see Afonso_II_of_Portugal#References.
• The article doesn't start with a lead section outlining the topic. Here is some proposed language:

The Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress is a collection of about 800,000 rare and special documents within the United States Library of Congress, including Thomas Jefferson's library and 5700 incunabula, among over 100 separate collections. Its reading room is in the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building.

• The institutional history isn't clear. Was it only at the time of the Thacher gift that the rare books were organized separately?
• There is puffery, e.g., "reflects the division's strength", "the munificent rare book donor", "a multitude of strengths", "rich resources".
• It includes advice addressed to its users: "the researcher will find records for...". This whole paragraph gives too much practical detail, and should be replaced with something like:

The division's central catalog contains 650,000 cards, not all included in the online version. There are also dozens of specialized card files with additional information about various collections.

• Practical information like the room number doesn't belong here.
• It refers to the Division as "us": "our collecting operation".
• It is probably not useful to mention the various special funds.
• It would be nice to have some useful headings, e.g., "History", "Collections", etc.
• It is completely unclear what the Rosenwald room is and why it is mentioned.
• Though it's useful to have a "Notes and References" section, it is much more useful to footnote individual statements in the article.
• Why is a video about the Federalist Papers included in the "Notes and References"?
• It would be nice to discuss the digitized materials in the text of the article, not just in the Notes.
• The Finding Aids section of the Division's website probably doesn't need to be mentioned, though it might be a useful footnote to the discussion about catalogues.

Hope all this helps — I'm looking forward to seeing a great article on this important institution! --Macrakis (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Rare Book and Special Collections Division (December 18)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by DGG was: You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
• You can also get real-time chat help from experienced editors.

DGG ( talk ) 14:03, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Informally, please note that I am myself a librarian, and would be glad to help you. The previous comments are also all relevant; not all of them have been attended to. I echo Macrakis (talk · contribs)'s comment that it is very important that this be a strong article. Please notify me with a note on my talk page when your revision is ready, and I will immediately review it. DGG ( talk ) 14:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division, a page you created, has not been edited in 6 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:33, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:07, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Rare Book and Special Collections Division, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:41, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Ephemeratta. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)