Template talk:British-Museum-object

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Merge with Artwork[edit]

This template should be merged with Artwork --Jarekt (talk) 01:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By using {{British-Museum-db}} in {{Artwork}} "Accession number" field. --Jarekt (talk) 12:04, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is what this template does. What is the point of making it harder to use or understand by forcing users to nest templates? Fæ (talk) 12:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We are trying to go away from 100's small unmaintained templates related to a single object or artifact and replace them with few standard templates. This provides common look and allows us to internationalize the template so it looks well in Russian, Arabic, English and other languages. And we do a lot of template nesting to translate many commonly used terms. --Jarekt (talk) 12:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, as this template relates to the several million objects available in the BM online database, your rationale does not seem to apply. Fæ (talk) 13:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This template is used on only 135 pages, not "several million" you mention. It capabilities closely parallel {{Artwork}} with {{British-Museum-db}}, and it is not internationalized, so the field names are not translated to the visitors from non-english wikis. See File:British Museum Kang Hou Gui Front.jpg do we need {{British-Museum-object}} there? Now nook at this same page here.--Jarekt (talk) 14:17, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are misquoting me, I referred to the BM online database which the BM states includes 1,896,683 objects, not Commons. Your criteria above was for "unmaintained templates relating to a single object". You recognize that this template does not fall into that criteria as it relates to 135 pages. You have failed to make a case that the template represents a failure to meet guidelines or that the merge you propose would be to the benefit of end users. I do not feel further discussion would achieve a consensus between ourselves. I suggest that we should welcome independent comments from other editors rather than continue. Fæ (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Jarekt. Ths template should be merged with {{Artwork}}. The purpose of templates is to achieve generality as much as possible, which {{Artwork}} does remarkably well. Jean-Fred (talk) 09:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
queries about Zolo's reckless behaviour and a few thoughts by Fæ and Zolo
User_talk:Zolo#Blanking_of_information. Amongst other problems that Zolo's changes created were sloppy re-writes to specific information about the photograph, making the information boxes area approximately 3 times longer, using terminology that is non-standard for British Museum objects, creating a potential new copyright issue by taking more information than previously used from the British Museum database record and changing of measurement information giving a false impression of precision. Some of these issues may not be the problem of the new template and may be due to someone not familiar with the British Museum collaboration and previous discussion making such blanket changes. I remain firmly against this arbitrary change of template to a generic template that has not been reviewed or discussed properly to reach an agreed consensus with GLAM/BM and were the only benefit is to "achieve generality" which as far as I am aware is not supported by Commons policy. --Fæ (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt this will bring anything good but I have to reply to that:
  1. "sloppy rewrite" (I take it means I replaced {{en|Side view of Burney Relief to show depth.}} by a multilingual {{view|side}}. "To show depth" was a bit difficult to internationalize and I did not imagine it was really important. I have readded it: it has nothing to do with the template
    I have not bothered to do a detailed double check of all of your changes (why should that be my problem when you should follow BRD and revert these problematic changes while they are under discussion?) but when I saw you had changed "owl" to "old" in the photo description I considered that sloppy - there seems little excuse not to cut and paste the author's description of their photo accurately. --Fæ (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes I apologize for that, but it has nothing to do with the template.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
  2. "making the information boxes area approximately 3 times longer". I fail to see any problem with that, as long as the informaton is relevant. To be perfectly honest I had accidentally blanked some info from some files and user:AnonMoos expressed his discontent on that. Since these info were about the object in general, it makes no sense to have them in some files but not in others. If some of them are unneeded, this is very easy to remove.
    As the extended description is on the category page, this is not easy to remove as it will now affect every image you have transcluded it to. The main description seems inappropriate to fully repeat for tight detail shots where the description should focus on that detail not describe the entire artefact or collection. Descriptions are supposed to be brief, due to your changes with the infobox area being extended over more than one screen, these images no longer meet the basic guidelines of Commons:First steps/Quality and description. --Fæ (talk) 10:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The use of{{Artwork}} for details of objects may look clumsy, though I personnally think it is okay (and better in {{Object photo}}).
    The only mention about "brevity" I find on Commons:First steps/Quality and description is "If it's an artwork, please provide brief historical background." How do I fail to comply with that ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
  3. "using terminology that is non-standard for British Museum objects". Here there is something related to the template, in that the template display "accession number". But we write "registration number" inside the field.
    Obviously forcing the template to fit was not needed in the original version, this seems to be making unnecessary complications. --Fæ (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Again this is a real point though I fail to see it as a sufficient reason not to use the template.
  4. "taking more information than previously used from the British Museum database record", as mentionned on my talk page, I have only added info that were already on Commons, except for translations of "Burney Refief" that are not from the museum.
    You are missing the point. We can quote separate pieces from a copyright document on different pages, when you integrate these on one page it becomes a copyright violation.
    I believe your changes have now created an unfortunate problem and I am wondering if the best approach now would be to delete all use of copyrighted text copied from the British Museum database rather than risk our good relationship with the institution. This would be a pity as these are the most accurate descriptions we can hope for and removals will upset other GLAM/BM contributors who have made sterling efforts with their contributions, but fair use of text is controversial and when I see that you have transcluded this text on multiple pages with no fair use rationale then this has tipped over to more than marginal copyright infringement. --Fæ (talk) 10:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What I understand here is: "we can't use long texts from the BM's database so let's scatter it into different pages". Does it make sense ? If we can't use some text because of copyright problems, let's not use it.
    Clearly there is no fair use rationale: there should not be any fair use. I would be happy to have any clear, referenced explanation of when we get into copyright violation here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
  5. "changing of measurement information". I have just used the standard Commons {{Size}}, which allows for automatic translation in 15 languages. Conversion into inches happens to look more precise, but it can easily be changed.
    I would expect this to be discussed in advance or made to match the current text when you make the changes not left as errors to possibly be picked up by other editors should they get around to double checking all your blanket changes. --Fæ (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The only change that occurred was that the inch conversion did not look excatly the same, is it really so serious ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
  6. " a generic template that has not been reviewed or discussed properly to reach an agreed consensus with GLAM/BM". Certainly a consensus with GLAM/BM but we are on Commons and {{Artwork}} has been much more extensively discussed here than {{British-Museum-object}}, with a call for participation at Commons:Village Pump, how we could have done more.
    Plainly there are a category of images relating to the BM workshops, it would seem easy to leave a note with the creators of these pages about your plans and at least point to the Village Pump discussion. I have asked several times for a link to a consensus, presumably the Village Pump does not count as a consensus and that's why you never answered the question? --Fæ (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I have pointed to you the archive of template talk:artwork and told you the question had been raised at the Village Pump. I must admit I thought the template was discussed on the Village Pump but there was only an announcement on August 2010 (that drew some contributors to template talk:artwork]] at the time. But what else should we have ? We can't send an email to every contributor. In turn you have not provided me any real discussion about {{British-Museum-object}}. The only talk page I see on Commons is User talk:Fæ/2010 where User: Bibi Saint-Pol mentions that the template is redundant with other Commons templates. I have not found much about your celebrated GLAM consensus on Wikipedia either.
    I did not know BM workshops. I had jhanged a few files some time ago and had not got any negative feedback (and I got positive feedback from user:BabelStone today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
  7. " the only benefit is to "achieve generality". Generality is pretty much important. I also think the template plainly looks better. As mentioned on my talk page, another benefit is multilinguality, which is something important to many users.--Zolo (talk) 06:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Multilingual features can be added without creating copyright problems and introducing errors. The simple addition of {{En}} is quite effective in the current templates. Again, these changes are not because of an agreed Commons policy and you should follow BRD rather than make blanket changes and make me appear to be a fringe complainant when I point out the problems and errors you are creating. Please revert these problematic blanket changes and if there is a proper consensus to force the elimination of tailored templates from Commons I would be happy to help with the issues that arise from this and from using mass transclusion of artwork descriptions in this unusual way. --Fæ (talk) 10:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The parameter names of {{Artwork}} are translated and not those of {{British-Museum-object}}. Yes we could do it with several templates, but it is longer to do and harder to maintain.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 18:48 (UTC)
I can only repeat what I have said:
  1. I have not added anything from the Brooklyn Museum database
  2. the transclusion of information is not directly related to the {{Artwork}} against {{British-Museum-object}} dilemna
  3. you have not shown what is problematic with the current situation
  4. if we want to discuss which template is best we need to have both of them visible.--Zolo (talk) 12:04, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When did BRD stop being best practice? Please apply it rather than creating disruption and argument. --Fæ (talk) 13:05, 11 March 2011 (UTC)+ --Zolo (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Considering it as unlikely that many people will want to read the previous text I try to sum up the artwork/British-Museum-object dilemna, bearing in mind Fæ's arguments and not mentioning issues mentioned above that are not directly about it.

Benefits of artwork
  • it is a much more widely used templates. It is easier to maintain a few large templates that many small ones.
  • we can't expect users to know too many templates. Admittedly, when all back-up templates are taken into accound, {{Artwork}} is not so easy for inexperienced contributors.
Benefits of British-Museum-object
  • it is quicker to fill
  • it is specifically designed for the British Museum
Some questions
  • How should photographs of object details be handled ?
    • Currently they {{Artwork}} just mentions it inside the template either in the title or in the descrption field.
    • Currently the description of the detail is called "description" and the description of the object is called "detailed description" in {{British-Museum-object}}
    • I would suggest other solutions in the case of transcluded description, but I think we can leave out this question for now.
  • How could we handle the registration number and the link to BM's database with {{Artwork}} ?
    • Should we provide a link to the British Museum database in "accession number" or in "references" ? Accession number sounds simpler to create and maintains, "references" sound more logical.
    • {{Artwork}} diplays "accession number" while the British Museum uses "registration number". I would suggest to adapt {{British-Museum-db}} so that it would display "registration number". Clearly not perfect but not awful I think.
Apparently the museum uses "accession number" to refer to a secondary number but it is not all clear to me: "Supplementary accession number previously allocated, as lacked valid accession number. More on that would be appreciated.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Zolo (talk • contribs) 2011-03-11 20:57 (UTC)
What if we switch from British-Museum-object to artwork ?
  • I suppose a bot can make the move so that no content should be lost. However there may be some manual fixes to be do afterwards, notably because a bot may confuse photographer and artist and photo date and object date.

Please sign your posts on talk pages. You have re-factored my comments above without my permission and for a dispute that you were part of. This is not acceptable behaviour for talk pages, please reverse your changes intended to hide my comments. If you think the discussion requires a summary then ask someone independent to do so, being one of the parties involved makes the summary suspect for bias and is unlikely to help reach a consensus even if you are trying your best to summarize fairly. --Fæ (talk) 23:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Examining the collapsed comments I note you have added several undated comments after my final dated comment, this is misleading and may be seen as manipulative, particularly considering some of the pointy comments about "celebrated GLAM/BM consensus" which was never a claim of mine. Please go back and add correct dates and times to your comments otherwise I shall consider your additions deliberately intended to mislead as to what my later comments were in reply to. --Fæ (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the signature, this was an oversight. I have added {{Unsigned}} to make clear I had not done it properly.
I had apparently misunderstood your "Considering the GLAM/BM discussion about the original template design it seems odd to over-rule existing project/task force collaborations", I thought that overruling a collaboration meant overruling a consensus achieved during that collaboration.
I had collapsed the above text because I thought we could all agree most of it was off topic. Again I apologize if you feel it is manipulative, I did not mean to prevent you from answering there. I have uncollapsed the table, and somewhat changed its title.--Zolo (talk) 05:29, 12 March 2011 (UTC)+ --Zolo (talk) 05:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

URL for British Museum pages needs updating?[edit]

The example URL results in a "page not found" page on their website. That result page does however state that they've updated their website, and indicates what the correct URL should be. Can someone fix this (sorry, I don't know how).--A bit iffy (talk) 22:19, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I Agree here. The template for building links into the BM website from object-numbers is broken as of 18 March 2021. As an example I use Fæ's Vindolanda Tablet 291 info page, British Museum object number 1986,1001.64 ... at present this produces a bad URL http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=1362732&partid=1 ... the page https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?museum_number=1986,1001.64 would work better. I'm unsure how to change the template so that correct URL's are produced, but it seems that https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?museum_number=MUSEUM-NUMBER would be a better template? Mcvoorhis (talk) 13:35, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh -- I see now the discussion here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:British-Museum-db left by BabelStone at 11:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC) ... the British Museum has changed their entire inventory system. Whoops. Mcvoorhis (talk) 13:48, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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