Talk:A Researcher's Guide to Local History Terminology

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Contents

[edit] The Move

I took all the Local_history_glossary article and made it into a wikibook here. Seems to have made the move pretty well. This is my first significant edit on WIkibooks so I don't know much about it. When I began the move I was directed to the page Help:Wikibooks for Wikipedians which talks about the difference between Wikipedia and Wikibook. I think this work is going to do a lot better here as a book then it does there as an article. On Wikibook you can divide it into chapters and lots of cool stuff. Do you have any ideas on how to section the new book in to chapters? Do you think "Scottish Rural Life, History Dictionary" was the right choice for a name? Let me know. Jeepday 13:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Begin Dewikify

The page Wikibooks:Dewikify tells about going from Wikipedia to Wikibook. I have started on it, looks like some of the pictures are going to need work to show up here. Jeepday 13:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger with How to write a research paper in History

I noticed this was moved from Wikipedia due to it being outside Wikipedia's scope (eg Wikipedia is not a dictionary). However in its current form I believe it is also outside of Wikibooks' scope as well (eg Wikibooks is not a dictionary). One way to make this work on Wikibooks, is to make it more then just a dictionary or making it part of an existing book as a supplemental dictionary, glossary or appendix. I propose this page be merged into How to write a research paper in History, since this may be useful in such a book. --darklama 13:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh no not again! Do you really insist? How about doing both and putting a copy on Wikitionary? You may have noticed that I am expanding individual entries so that it is more of a book and not a dictionary - should I change the name - A Source Book for Local History for instance. I have noticed that such logic does not forestall the 'Wikizealots', but please give it some thought. Rosser1954 13:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to scare or discourage you. The only problem as I see it is, that it says its a dictionary in both the name of the page, what it says its intended for, how its written, and what its primary purpose is. I think this page can stay if its made more then just a dictionary and renamed, with the dictionary part being secondary, or if it is made part of an existing book. So instead of proposing that this page might need to be deleted, I'm proposed a possibly solution that could work, without having to dramatically change the format of the page.
You could copy it to Wiktionary and move this page to be part of How to write a research paper in History if you want, but thats not the only solution. Wikibooks is a little more flexible in that regard then Wikipedia. If you want to change the name that would work too, but I think the scope would need to be changed or clarified, so that its clear that this isn't intended to be a dictionary. There are other solutions that could work as well. There are books for example that teach a language, so I think a book that teaches researchers how to understand any historical documentations that might be encountered would work too. Just something to think about. I'm not insistent on any specific solution. --darklama 14:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I will mull it over. Rosser1954 22:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] A Resource book for Local History

Does this solve the problem? Can this still be merged as well? Rosser1954 16:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it starts to solve the problem. It could still be merged, but if you don't want to, don't worry about it. Seems like the book I proposed a merger with isn't actively contributed to. I just thought the topics fit well together in the same book, but if you have something different in mind, I'm not going to push it. Maybe you could jot down some of your intentions for this book, what direction you want to go with it, etc. on this talk page. I think this book has the potential to be a useful book for history researchers.
I do have a question about the book name. Is there a point in saying "local history" when the book doesn't appear to be intended to be limited to a specific region or location in the world? Would "Understanding Historic Documents" be a more descriptive/accurate name for this book, or am I way off on what your plans are? --darklama 15:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Local History is meant to refer to the investigation of the history of a locality or area - any locality - anywhere.

I found in my own researches that many texts had very obscure or specialised terms, personal names, dialect words, etc. that took a lot of searching to find out their meanings - some have still stumped me. It seemed worthwhile collating these as Local History research is a very popular pastime in my experience and others would find the info helpful. Primary & secondary School projects would also benefit.

I would like to encourage editors to expand each entry to give examples or background. I will do so also as I come across more info. Titles are always difficult - 'A Researchers Guide to Local History' What do you think? Rosser1954 22:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

How about "A Researchers Guide to Local Language History"? P.S. the book is looking very good! Jeepday 16:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

or 'A Researchers Guide to Local History Terminology' Rosser1954 20:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I am going to remove the merge tag, the proposal seems to have lost traction with a rename as a better choice. As for name I think either "A Researchers Guide to Local Language History" or "A Researchers Guide to Local History Terminology" works. Jeepday 18:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chapters

This is getting big, I wonder if it should be broken into chapters? Jeepday 18:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it should and I've already gone ahead and split two parts of it off into separate pages and transincluded them for now. I think there is a need to split the words themselves into separate chapters somehow too, maybe by region or something? --darklama 14:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WB:WIW -- Not a Dictionary

I want to start out that I love this resource. I really do! And this is something that I need to get a copy of for some historical research (I am a bit of a history buff myself). But this doesn't really fit the mission of Wikibooks.

I want to start out here that I don't want to force this to VfD status, as that would destroy this valuable work and discourage others from participating.... but at the same time this was the wrong place to get this started if all you wanted to do was make up a glossary of this nature.

One way out of this issue is to turn this into an appendix (perhaps a very large appendix) to a book about things you can do if you are a local history researcher. In otherwords, rename this page to A Researcher's Guide to Local History/Glossary and start A Researcher's Guide to Local History as a new Wikibook that goes into methods and techniques of researching local histories. This is not only acceptable, but encouraged. If those involved with finding the definition of these words (some of them simply must be added to Wiktionary too!) could get involved with writing some real prose about researching local histories, this has the potential of being an outstanding resource and something which is desperately needed. Both just here on Wikibooks and elsewhere.

I know this changes the scope of this project by quite a bit, but I hope you understand where it may be an issue. Our sister project, Wiktionary, is really the place to add glossaries and other similar kinds of word lists. Other similar lists have been moved there in the past, and have been successfully incorporated into that project. --Rob Horning 01:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unused subpage?

G'day, A Researcher's Guide to Local History Terminology/Researching local history appears to be orphaned and a duplicate of this page. Should it be deleted, or is there something else afoot? Webaware talk 01:29, 2 February 2008 (UTC)