Talk:Works by Harry Collingwood

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To the suggestion that: This article possibly contains original research. (February 2020)

I am at a loss here - I don't think that the precis of the works contain original research - or do I need to change the way I have written them? Johncosgrave (talk) 16:08, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

To the suggestion that: "This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience."

Yes- it does contain intricate detail, but we are looking at 44 novels and two short stories over five decades works. Yes it will only a particular audience - this this is not a valid criticism as almost every Wikipedia article is only of interest to a particular audience. Think of all of the articles detailing a particular TV series. However, WorldCat shows 19 print books and 30 ebook editions since 2005, so there is definitely an audience out there. Numerous publishers have issued print-on-demand versions of Harry Collingwood novels, and Amazon is offering over 80 different version for sale.

I wrote this article because, having enjoyed many Collingwood novels, I went to look him up. I was surprised that there was no article and so wrote one. However I also wanted to detail his works - with the intent of linking in the events around which they are based, as that is the full joy of Wikipedia, that you can start looking at one article and then be drawn along in a whole chain of articles. Yes, I have more to do to link events into the Main article and the separate works one - that is what makes Wikipedia interesting - that you start reading about Collingwood, and end up learning about the war between Chile and Peru. Johncosgrave (talk) 16:02, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@Johncosgrave: This list has all the appearances of being your views, not a balanced summary of the accepted published record. You dwell excessively on primary sources and databases, analyze them without providing attribution, and offer your own musings, speculations, and conclusions (e.g. "this may be a reference to that novel", "These facts fit William John Lancaster rather than WJC Lancaster," "it is perfectly possible that there were other editions," "The usual Collingwood fare follows" (what, objectively is "the usual Collingwood fare"?), and even "No Online Text found" (if you didn't find it, who cares?)). A fundamental policy of Wikipedia is No original research. Wikipedia isn't a personal blog or fan tribute page or research project to 'set the record straight'. Primary sources (e.g. the works themselves, or databases that merely list works) should be used sparingly and with great care per WP:PSTS: do not analyze primary sources to reach conclusions not explicitly stated in any source. If databases give incomplete or incorrect numbers, or some sources state facts that conflict with other sources, we can either ignore them, not cite them, or offer both statements if warranted by editorial discretion (we need not cite a typo found in an otherwise reliable source, nor include dubious facts from a less-than-scholarly sources, but if two equally reliable sources state different birth dates we can include both, without commentary on why they may differ). Diving deep into the numbers of titles in WorldCat, even without any speculation, is, in my opinion excessive detail even if 'true'. Analyzing numbers of titles on Wikisource is equally frivolous and pointless, because Wikisource, as a user-generated website is an unreliable source: it could simply be that an editor neglected some works, and as a wiki, it could change at any moment. In short, everything you write on Wikipedia, be it fact or an opinion, must be directly attributable to previously existing sources. There should be no presence of editorial 'voice', be it yours or anyone else's. Finally, aside from issues of tone and original research, embedded external links (i.e. to books) in the body of an article should be avoided per Wikipedia:External links. For the best examples of how bibliographies can and should be presented, see some of the Featured lists in literature, including George Orwell bibliography, Arthur Conan Doyle bibliography, and List of works by Dorothy L. Sayers. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

OK - it looks as if it is back to the drawing board for me. The problem with Collingwood is that there is not a lot a published source material, and what published source material there is contains errors - e.g. the claim in many published sources that Collingwood attended the Royal Naval College at a time when it didn't exist. Also many published sources contain the incorrect birth year (1851 rather than 1843) - ODND has that right at least - as is confirmed by the scans of Collingwoods application to join the ICE. Also the ludicrous claim in Sutherland's Companion to Victorian Fiction that Arthur Ransome was inspired by Collingwood's Yacht Swallow, where there is well established history and documented history on the origins. On the case of WorldCat, that must be considered a Reliable Source surely, as it aggregates the catalogues of many many libraries. Rather than offering my own view on Collingwood's output I am trying to find more and more contemporary reviews, and will restrict myself to facts rather than expressions of opinion. Thanks. John Johncosgrave (talk) 22:59, 2 February 2020 (UTC) I've looked at the Dorothy L Sayers works list - lots of tables as per the wiki standard. However, the titles link out to other Wiki pages - I did consider that originally, but it seemed like a lot of work.Johncosgrave (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I was considering changing the list of books to something like that used in Percy F. Westerman and removing the list of works from the main article. What do you think? Johncosgrave (talk) 19:27, 4 February 2020 (UTC)