Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Walkthrough

The purpose of this page is to provide the basic range of ideas for the successful conversion of raw Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) text into Wikipedia articles. The assumption will be that a new article is being written from scratch. Expansion of an existing stub article is also an important process: it is not so very different, though.

The conversion is best thought of as quite a large number of separate steps: the walkthroughs given are in ten basic editing stages, for clarity and to allow commentary on particular points. With experience some steps are easy enough to combine.

While the gap between old DNB text and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style may seem daunting, it can actually be safely bridged by taking things one at a time, as they arise. This guide, naturally, is written in the belief that this approach is valid and well worth doing.

Drafting

It really is easier for everyone if the initial stages are carried out as drafts, rather than in the main article space. The discussion here is deliberately divided into two:

What to do before posting the new article in the main namespace (i.e. as an actual Wikipedia article); and
Steps that can and in some cases really should be taken to upgrade the converted article once posted.

The options for drafting are (a) offline in a text processor, (b) using your own userspace (can be on your user page, or in a subpage created by adding [[/Draft]]). Each has some advantages. Practiced users of DNB text can draft directly, in an open editing window in mainspace, and using preview, but it is probably easier to work up to this as an aspiration.

Before posting

Starting with the original text (from Wikisource or elsewhere—we'll assume the text exists on Wikisource and can simply be copied in here) there are a number of basic steps, with the beginning and end of the potential article first needing attention. Once the text is there, some footers should be added.

Style in general

One factor that complicates many longer adaptations is that the order of the material in the DNB article can make for confusing reading in a WP article. Another point to look out for is that rather antiquated language and bloated prose style needs to be changed; and some content is simply not suitable, especially if it is opinion rather than fact, or diffuse. Victorian "soft soap", or any moralising editorial, should just be omitted. There can of course be POV problems, too.

There is a general list of unlovable DNB prose on the project page at /Prose. "Padding" is common enough (blame the penny-a-line culture of Victorian periodicals); WP's house style isn't to encourage repetitious writing but concision.

Walkthrough 1

This is a relatively short and simple case. James Plumptre was drafted in userspace, being adapted from s:Plumptre, James (DNB00), and its early history has numbered edit summaries:

Diff 1

Diff 1 is the fundamental step of creating a lead section. The name of the subject should start the article, should be bolded, and should be in the normal name order rather than the inversion used in the DNB. The lead must be in complete sentences. This example shows the replacement of the obsolete term "divine" by "clergyman" (in some cases "churchman" or "minister" works better); other examples of change of language since the DNB was written would be "diplomat" for "diplomatist", or "sculptor" for "statuary". Wikipedia style is to include basic attributes such as nationality and occupation right at the start. Reasons for notability can follow. But getting a lead sentence in place is fundamental for conformity with the Manual.

Comments: The section following is always likely to be "Life", given that we are converting biographies. In a few cases DNB articles are on authors with little biographical information available, so the structure may be "Lead" - "Works" only.

Diff 2

Diff 2 cuts out a "subarticle": a secondary biography included with this one. Also deleted are the end references.

Comments: A subarticle may or may not be worth an article in its own right; family members can sometimes be included in an article with shorter biographical information than this case. Inclusion of end references in WP is an issue with only tentative solutions as yet; but they are rarely actually needed to make a good article.

Diff 3

Diff 3. The existing "Life" section is divided to allow for a separate "Works" section.

Diff 4

Diff 4. Deal with [q. v.] and other inline referencing from the original. Here there is just the conversion of a [q. v.] into a wikilink.

Comments: The DNB does a great deal of [See X] as well as [q. v.] for its internal cross-referencing. It also does inline referencing in parentheses; and often quotes extensively from primary sources. It is usually best to be minimalist about retaining this material, leaving only what is obviously justified in a WP article.

Diff 5

Diff 5. Coming to copy edits of the "Life" section, the first sentence needs some rescue work as well as links.

Diff 6

Diff 6. Further copy edits of the "Life" section, dealing with a "separately noticed", some padding, antique "whence", and dividing into two paragraphs. Wikification (i.e. internal linking) combines with copy editing, though each decision to link should be on merit. Wikilinks do need later checking to see that the target is as intended.

Comment: The DNB abbreviates names of months, apart from May. These should be expanded as part of general copyediting. (Here Jan. goes to January.)

Diff 7

Diff 7. Copy edit of the "Works" section involves turning a numbered list into a bulleted list; but also copy editing of the short intro, removing some padding.

Diff 8

Diff 8. Attention to issues raised by links.

Diff 9

Diff 9. Essential templates added at the end.

Comment: Having both DNB templates is actually necessary since they do different tasks; when the referencing style in the article goes inline, as it really must as soon as other references are used (for clarity), the {{cite DNB}} will no longer be in the current "footer" position. These templates link to the Wikisource page holding the original text; which ought now to be edited to create a link back here.

Diff 10

Diff 10. Add categories as the final basic editing step.

Comments: It does help to be familiar with typical categories at this point. Using {{subst:l}} adds defaultsort and birth-and-death categories with less typing; see Template:L for documentation.

The article was then moved into mainspace ("move" tab). For what next, see the section on "upgrading" below.

Upgrading

Once there is an article created from DNB text, and that can pass muster as WP article, there are actually numerous ways to go next with it. To some extent the most urgent upgrade depends on the type of content. Things to do include:

(a) Add images: Typically for DNB biographies we are talking about portraits and engravings. For an artist, there may be some works of theirs that can be used to illustrate.

(b) Fact checking: The old DNB text (1900 or earlier) may well not reflect current scholarship. Access to the current Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) website is not hard for many people in the UK or academia, or in libraries. A check through the ODNB version of an article may show some factual points to alter and reference (use {{ODNBweb}}). Look out also for a few major misconceptions in the DNB (e.g. non-existent people, two people being confused, or identical persons not recognised by the original authors). What to worry about most depends on the period, lives up to 1600 being much less trustworthy. There are also DNB errata: the 1904 volume of Errata (s:Index:Dictionary of National Biography. Errata (1904).djvu) is on Wikisource, but not yet proof-read, so you may need to go to page images.

(c) Further referencing: Articles are much better with a range of sources. Search for other references on the subject of the article, and build it up using the DNB text as the basic scaffolding.

(d) Inline referencing: As soon as other references are added, move the {{cite DNB}} reference from footer to inline position, at least for each paragraph: this prevents confusion about what comes from where. The construction <ref name = DNB>{{cite DNB|wstitle=...}}</ref> plus <ref name = DNB/>, with {{reflist}} in the footer, allows quick inline referencing to the DNB. (The process of adding inline refs is illustrated in this diff.)

(e) Tentative and tendentious content: Where the DNB says "perhaps", or includes opinions of the author, that content can't really stand here. If it is worth retaining, it can be tweaked to read "Alexander Gordon in his Dictionary of National Biography article suggests/states ..." making an explicit attribution.

(f) Incoming links: Certainly the new article should be linked in from other articles, and you should search the site to create incoming links, if you have not already done so. Add the article to its name disambiguation page, if appropriate.

(g) Format: For example, book titles are conventionally in italics.

(h) Prose: It is highly likely that the first pass at adapting the DNB can be improved to read better. Look out for remaining awkward constructions, redundancies and verbosity.

(i) See also, further reading, external links: These can be added if the article would benefit.

(j) Interwiki: For these topics, it so not so likely that another language version would have been created first; but not impossible.

Matters arising

There is also the interesting but less focussed class of "matters arising". From fact-checking or extra reading, from the WP articles that link in, or from researching redlinks found in the new article, other facets or directions of the subject may appear. Redlinks can lead to further DNB articles to convert, for example. Depending on the area and your own interests, creating one article may spark off further work (create a new list or category, investigate the engraver of a portrait, look at authors writing books about the subject ...)

Adding wikilinks, and then wondering if they should be there (notability issue) or are possible to disambiguate, can also in itself be significant in generating "matters". The DNB assumes tacitly that any reader could identify "Dr. Johnson" as Samuel Johnson; but in some cases goes much further in referring to people just by a surname, and it can be an effort to recover the intended person (e.g. Talk page diff to identify the default meaning of "Gough"). Putting in full names by itself is "encyclopedic" work, making the version here better than the original.

Another surprising fruitful area is the annotation given in lists of works: later editors, translators, dedicatees and so on may have to be tracked down and can be of independent interest.

Asking for specific help from the WikiProject

Is always possible on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography.

Biographies not on Wikisource

The first edition DNB (1885–1900), and the supplements from 1901 and 1912, are in the public domain; later DNB articles are not. The Wikisource project to post the approximately 30,000 PD biographies from the DNB is over 50% done. You can browse from s:Dictionary of National Biography.

For a specific biography you can ask for it to be posted at Wikisource for you (for example on WT:WP DNB). Otherwise the text is available on the ODNB website, and can be referenced from what is there.