Talk:Belle Kendrick Abbott

Title of her only published book is actually just "Leah Mordecai"

Hey, I checked out the reference to the project Gutenberg page, and that's the only reference to the title in which I see Leah Mordecai. The text of the book itself uses the title 'Leah Mordecai' on the first line. It seems very evident from both the book and all other references to it outside of the title on the Upenn gutenberg mirror and on wikipedia, that the original title is actually Leah Mordecai. For example, see these pages:

Title "Leah Mordecai" as found through an online book catalog

Title "Leah Mordecai" as being shiftily published by Powell's books. They have a right to republish it and charge for it - it's public domain... but it's not like they're putting it to print again, they're just charging for people to get it as a PDF online, whereas it can and should obtained for free from Project Gutenberg. Those people have no class.

Forbe's book club's reference to the book as "Leah Mordecai"

The "A novel." part was actually a line after the title on the title page, like many authors included in the 19th century. See Steppenwolf, for example. Even today, many publishers as tradition note the form of the book under the title on the title page. The confusion probably stemmed from the mistake in the title on the UPenn site referenced. -Monk of the highest order 21:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

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Just trying to participate in the project to add pages linking of project Gutenberg...

Maybe there's a stub template I should put in the page?

Still a newbie :-(

I've added a few other short pages ... if this is not useful and they're going to be speedily deleted then I'm wasting my time - but I thought I was following the projects guidelines. Any help about how much is minimal or what other template I should be putting in the pages is appreciated. I did verify that they do link correctly to the Project Gutenberg pages ...

Brian 11:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)btball

Hi Brian. Generally Wikipedia articles should not be mostly/wholey composed of links to outside resources. Although Wikipedia is primarily a web-based encyclopedia today, it is intended that it will be published in other formats in the future. There is already a project to create a paper version. Wikipedia content is also widely distributed on other sites, some of which don't maintain URLs correctly. This means that a collection of weblinks isn't particularly useful as they may not be accessible from a particular version of ths article.

More importantly, Wikipedia is an encyclopdia in its own right and articles should be self-contained. One reasons for this is that if the linked website changes or goes away, the quality of the information in Wikipedia stays the same. Imagine going to Britannica and finding an articl simply said "Read about this in the Kansas City Herald, June 16th. 1897 edition" - it wouldn't be very helpful :-)

I hope this helps you understand why we don't have articles that consist just of links to other sites. I don't think adding a stub would be enough - we need a substantial article on Belle Abbott to make this a Wikipedia article. Feel free to ask me further questions if I can be of any help. Best, Gwernol 11:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

ok, that's helpful. I did understand that Project Gutenberg was somewhat of an exception as that's an entire source of public domain works. For the few entries from the Wikipedia Gutenberg project that I edited this morning, they should probably all be deleted. I don't personally know enough about Belle Abbott to write a complete article. I can probably put in enough to create a stub and this - along with hundreds of other books in project Gutenberg probably are worth an entry.

I'll put some additional information in as well as a stub notification and then if you or others on the community still feel like it's better to have no article than what I can come up with I won't argue.

Thanks for the help and patience as I learn the ropes here :-)

I'll update this entry once I've made some changes to the article.

Brian 12:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)btball

ok, I've updated the entry with what I've been able to find out. Not much as she only wrote one novel. If you or others still feel it's not sufficient I won't argue.

If I don't hear back in a few days (before the 5 day clock is up <smile>) I'll delete the deletion warning.

Thanks, I'll see what I can do about my other short articles too :-)

Brian 13:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)btball

Brian, I've removed the prod notice as I consider this to be a perfectly acceptable article. Good work on getting this done so quickly. All the best, Gwernol 14:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Gwernol, Thanks! It's still a pretty tiny article, but I did do a fair amount of research to gather just that little bit. It also sets a good benchmark for me as to what is minimal.

Thanks for the help as I'm still learning the ropes.

Brian 15:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)btball

Merger

I suggest that the stub at Leah Mordecai be merged into this article. Richard Pinch (talk) 19:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Abbott is a one-book wonder (and it's not a very wonderful book, either). Just set up a refer so that searches on "Leah Mordecai" land on the Abbot page. 75.57.80.103 (talk) 15:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)