Index talk:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu

Current plans
Note that I'm currently only planning on proofreading Malone's essay on the order of the plays (page 269–346), so anyone that wants to have a go at the rest of it should feel free. --Xover (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

File/Index name and multiple volumes
Hmm. It suddenly occurs to me that since this is a multi-volume work, the File/Index name for this work is unfortunate and should probably be addressed at some point. I'm not sure what the naming conventions are for multi-volume works on Wikisource so I'll leave this as a "todo" item for when I have the time to investigate it; but if someone would like to chime in here with pointers to the relevant guidelines I'd be most obliged. --Xover (talk) 06:39, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I will have some time later today and will resolve the issue. Generally, it would just be the addition of something like ... volume 1 ... volume n. As long as there is difference we can manage. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:35, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, excellent. Thank you! BTW, is there a guide for this anywhere? I can come up with a couple of ad hoc naming conventions that would avoid simple naming collisions, but no obvious ideas about how and when to use sub-pages (e.g. ) as well as how one would handle this in terms of indexes (A single index for multiple volumes? One index for each volume? How would you, in terms of syntax/technical join them both in the Index:-namespace and in mainspace?). I'm also strongly inclined towards sensible names that work across both Commons and Wikisource while still being human readable (i.e. the naming of this vs. the default naming of files on the Internet Archive:  ). Then again, I probably obsess too much over such issues. :) --Xover (talk) 08:13, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Having noodled some more on this… The file names for individual scans are, of course, not critical, since you pick explicitly from where you transclude when you create the page for the work in mainspace. And the issue of multiple volumes vs. subpages and such doesn't arise there because in Index:- and Page:-space you would treat each volume as individual works. So… If I've understood this correctly, the place where subpages become relevant is in mainspace, where you might have a main The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778), that has subpages for …/Volume I, …/Volume II, …, /Volume X. Or at least I think that makes sense. --Xover (talk) 11:59, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Mainspace transclusions and the definition of a "work"
Leaving this here (rather than, say, putting a query to the Scriptorium) as something partway between notes to myself; thinking out loud; and previous luck with "kind strangers" (new page patrollers, I suspect ;D) popping by and chiming in to reduce my confusion…

A typical critical edition of Shakespeare will be, while in theory authored by Shakespeare, in practice authored by whoever the editor is for the particular edition. Often what we care about is that editor's specific editorial and textual choices, among the many possible such (Elizajacobean grammar is still not fixed; and there are multiple conflicting editions of about half of the plays); or the, usually quite copious, notes to the text; or we care about the prolegomena which are directly authored (not just edited) by the editor. This, perhaps, goes doubly for the great early collected editions by the "Shakespeare gang" (Johnson, Steevens, Malone, Reed, and Boswell (Jr., but he's missing from WS) who, in addition to all the plays with their notes, and a preface of some sort by the works named editor, often contained prefaces by every previous editor as well as biographies and essays on some aspect of the plays.

Case in point, this "work" is the 1778 second edition of George Steevens' collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. It is a revised edition of his original 1773 publication. That in turn was based on ("inherited from") Samuel Johnson's 1765 edition. All of them contain Johnson's Preface (lightly amended) from the 1765 edition. And Johnson's Preface is both famous in itself, and Johnson's fame is in part based on his Preface. That is, in a very real sense, the Preface by Johnson in this work is a full blown "work' in itself. And, the plays, which really should exist as individual works, linked from Author:William Shakespeare, with a versions page to disambiguate all the various editions of each play that exists (and there are something like 10 public domain editions of the plays—even discounting the 16th- and 17-century quarto and folio editions—that can and should be included on WS), make a lot of sense as standalone works in addition to being part of the collected editions.

Thus it would be a good thing to list the Preface as a work on Author:Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).

However, in order to do that, the Preface has to exist as a page somewhere in mainspace. Preface seems a bit generic. Preface by Johnson (the title in this work's TOC) makes sense mostly in context of this work, but would not make sense, I don't think, as a version listed on a possible future The Plays of William Shakspeare (1765) (along with the versions that appeared in 1773, this work's first edition, and later editions). So I'm thinking, possibly, that it might exist as a subpage of this work; something like The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/Preface by Johnson. But that introduces a need to make every chapter a subpage for consistency; and some of these chapters are very short and have little independent merit. On the other hand, this is a ten-volume work (lots of pages that would benefit from being split up), and most of the "chapters" are actually entire plays; and not least, some of the chapters are independently notable (Malone's Attempt to ascertain the order… as a prime example; a chapter that should also appear as an independent work on Malone's author page).

A vaguely related problem is that I can't find the remaining nine volumes of this edition anywhere, and so they are unlikely to appear here any time soon. Creating a "…/Volume nn/" structure of subpages that will remain redlinks for a long time seems… I dunno, messy perhaps?

Anyways, I'm torn on what makes most sense; and I am uncertain what the practices and guidelines on Wikisource are as concerns this. So, any kind stranger that can shed light or help me reason about this would be most welcome and very much appreciated! --Xover (talk) 06:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * a quick response (full response at a later time) We set all works within the context of the published edition, as such [(edition title)/(work title)].  1) puts all "other" components like preface in a context; 2) it allows for multiple editions of a work to exist, and leaves the root page to exist for disambiguation.  If we only have one copy of a work, then we would put a redirect from the root name to the [(edition title)/(work title)] to make it easy to get to the work AND to have it as a disambiguation page later. (If my skim read is insufficient then I will add more when I get time to properly address this). — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Addendum, the use of the "Volume N" component has a bit of flexibility. We don't demand or refute its use. It can lead to linking complexity, so consider whether we can ignore volumes and just have EDITION/WORK or whether there is value in EDITION/VOLUME N/WORK.  There is a variety of opinion and practice here, so feel free to be able to express a reasoned opinion on your choice, and pretty much we will agree with your position. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

outdenting

Hmm. Digesting… Yes, I think you've helped this crystallise for me somewhat. On edition / work vs. edition / volume / work I am yet undecided, so will use the latter as a default for now, and will have to consider it further when I get a better feel for how linking and such would work in practice. For the remainder, however, I think I can then sketch out a tentative plan as follows: In addition there would be versions pages something like: And then in Author:-space: That leaves an issue with smaller chapters where a single page contains text from two separate chapters; but I'm sure that's a problem that's been solved before.
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)—The main mainspace page for this edition, possibly split into subpages for each volume.
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Preface by Johnson
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Advertisement by Steevens
 * …&c.…
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Tempest
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Two Gentlemen of Verona
 * The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Merry Wives of Windsor
 * Preface to Shakespeare (Johnson): includes a link to The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Preface by Johnson (as well as the 1765 and 1773 editions)
 * The Tempest: includes a link to The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Tempest
 * Two Gentlemen of Verona: includes a link to The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Two Gentlemen of Verona
 * Merry Wives of Windsor: includes a link to The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume I/ Merry Wives of Windsor
 * Author:Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
 * …: link to Preface to Shakespeare (Johnson) (or directly to each edition of it?)
 * …: as well as Johnson's own 1765 edition of The Plays of William Shakspeare
 * Author:William Shakespeare: link to versions page for The Tempest (but probably not directly to this edition of the play?)
 * Author:George Steevens: link to The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778) (as well as the 1773 edition)

Does that sound at least roughly sensible? --Xover (talk) 06:13, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Apart from those clarifications, you have grasped the considerations admirably — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) We can have The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Volume 1/Tempest (note the arabic numeral, not the roman, they don't sort well, +++) or The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778)/Tempest (more subpages requires more hierarchical relative linking, and thinking about how you manage top links, volume links, and volume pages what you have/can put on them.
 * 2) If we had a one off we would not normally redirect root to subpage for Preface to Shakespeare (Johnson), as this is a disambiguation page, that makes it different. It is usually a work of the edition. We would indeed link to it from Johnson's author page.  Noting that we are talking a versions page to disambiguate as they are the same work.
 * 3) On the author page, you can link to the various disambiguations where there is value to do so, and depending how you set it out. We are looking for logical and reasonable as an approach, making things visible and accessible without creating so much noise or length that it becomes unusable.