User:Simonides

I joined on the 16th of June, 2004 after reading an article on Wilhelm Reich that needed correction. I then noticed that Wikipedia did not have an article on Cavafy, the famous Greek poet, and I decided to create a brief article about him. In my first flush of enthusiasm I also created articles on Henri Michaux, Dubravka Ugresic and Yuri Olesha, without actually writing much. It has been downhill since then. I've been sucked into the pedant's whirlpool of Suggestions, Critiques, and Edits, and some of my current obsessions follow. You can also check out my [sandbox] to see what I am fiddling with now.

I believe all or most members should be using the Wikiprojects to smooth out the reckless, incomplete and unorganized categories, lists, and unformatted or stubbed or forgotten articles that infest Wikipedia. I've personally restructured the Catalogue of Wikiprojects, and I would like co-operation and assistance with three areas:

subsuming all Lists of Writers, Philosophers, etc under a giant index of major writers, for which I need
- someone to help with creating, sorting and editing all the copious data for the lists;
- agreement on a system of distribution for these lists among the appropriate categories;
- standardization of the lists everywhere they occur;
structuring all related articles in a Wikiproject according to a single format - ex. Summary, Bio, Works, External Links, Bibliography. Bibliographies must not contain ISBNs;
researching and expanding all articles to include (at the very least) authoritative points of view, politically sensitive terminology, and awareness of international and historical traditions. All articles here are tremendously skewed towards conventional Anglo-American perspectives; while this is understandable to some extent, there are innumerable blatant ommissions that are tremendously disappointing to anyone with a wider knowledge of the field in question.

Below is a selected list of interests. These are also the areas I need help with.

Philosophy and its offshoots, ex. Critical Theory

(Wikiprojects)

Other

Literature and related topics, ex. Translation, specific Books, etc.

(Wikiprojects)

Other

List_of_mythology_topics
Classics
List_of_literary_topics
Wikipedia:Literature_basic_topics
History_of_Literature
List_of_books
List_of_novelists_by_nationality
List_of_poets
List_of_playwrights
List_of_short_story_authors
Noted_translators - I wrote a substantial part of that list.

Visual, Performing and Graphic Arts, especially Painting and Cinema

(Wikiprojects)

Other

Politics (usually just the contentious issues)

(Wikiprojects)

Other

History (which would overlap with Histories of the above fields.)

(Wikiprojects)

Timelines

ISBNs

I wrote this earlier at the Village Pump (spread the word!): I am quite opposed to the idea of using ISBNs, because they are misleading. An ISBN usually points to a single edition of a book, not to a title - the edition may be out of print, it may only be available in a certain country, it may be more expensive, it may be harder to find than other widely available editions, it may be out of date, it may not be in the original language, and so on. I think everyone should include only the title and authors, and the year of printing should refer either to 1) year of copyright on latest paperback copy or 2) year of copyright on first printing (perhaps both) and the language should be specified (ex. do not include original copyright year of German publication for a translated English title.) + I also remembered that ISBNs were introduced in 1970 - anything published earlier which was not reprinted would not have an ISBN and would require a bibliographic record anyway.