Talk:Night (memoir) - Misplaced Pages

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view · edit Frequently asked questions Why does the article say "Moshe the Beadle" and not "Moishe"? The article uses the original English translation of Night by Stella Rodway (Hill & Wang, 1960), reproduced in the 1982 Bantam Books edition. If you are using the translation from the 2006 Oprah Book Club edition, you will find differences in the text and in the way some names are written.

"Moshe" and "Moishe" are variants from Hebrew and Yiddish of the same name – "Moses" in English. "Moshe" is from the original 1960 English translation of Night.

Moshe the Beadle is:

Moché-le-Bedeau in Elie Wiesel's La Nuit (1958), the French edition from which Night originated;
Moshe in Night 1960, 1982;
Moshe, Moishele and Moishe in Wiesel's All Rivers Run to the Sea (1995, 2010);
Moshe in Elie Wiesel: Conversations (2002); and
Moishe in Night (2006).

Night (memoir) is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 6, 2010.

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August 11, 2006	Featured article candidate	Promoted

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Yiddish title

The infobox says it was first published 1956: Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (Yiddish). That confuses me as Yiddish is typically written in Hebrew and "Un di Velt Hot Geshvign" looks like a transliteration to the Latin alphabet. I would have expected to see "און די װעלט האט געשװיגן" or "און די וועלט איז געבליבן שטיל". There's nothing in the article that explains why a Yiddish book was not published using the Hebrew alphabet.

The article also has "Turkov's Tzentral Varband fun Polishe Yidn in Argentina (Central Union of Polish Jews in Argentina) published the book in 1956 in Buenos Aires as the 245-page Un di velt hot geshvign ("And the World Remained Silent")." Mark Turkov was a publisher of Yiddish texts. Was his business name the transliterated "Tzentral Varband fun Polishe Yidn in Argentina" or did the sign on the front door have "סענטראַל פֿאַרבאַנד פון פּויליש יידן אין ארגענטינע"? --Marc Kupper|talk 20:13, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to your questions, Marc, but if you can find out, you're welcome to add the information. SarahSV 05:36, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Infobox

Frietjes, I'm going to restore the generic infobox shortly. The one you added has included a genre parameter which isn't there in edit mode that I can see, and has labelled the work an autobiographical novel. I can't see how to get rid of it. Wiesel has strongly denied that this is a novel, so this is an issue, which has unfortunately been in the lead for nearly a year. Also, it is missing some of the old parameters. It added that the book was in Yiddish, and it's not able to cope with the different translations. SarahSV 05:35, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, the genre data comes from wikidata. if there is an error, you can remove it by adding a blank genre parameter or by editing the value on the wikidata page. you should be more specific concerning "missing some of the old parameters". Frietjes (talk) 13:13, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes, thanks for fixing that. Can you show me where in Wikidata "autobiographical novel" came from and how it ended up in this infobox? Critics of Wiesel have called this work a "novel," in some cases to undermine it, so I was surprised to see that it had appeared in the infobox and that I couldn't remove it. SarahSV 03:05, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

It should be noted that the inclusion of inaccurate information that cannot be easily removed is an ongoing issue with infoboxes at many articles about books. I pointed this out at WikiProject Books here, but I have not received a reply as yet. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:47, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Infoboxes and Wikidata

For background, the issue is that Holocaust deniers have claimed this book isn't factual, so Wiesel is at pains to stress that it isn't a novel. It's not that only Holocaust deniers call it a novel (some scholars have too), but it's why it's a sensitive issue and why our lead calls it a "work."

I see now how "autobiographical novel" managed to get added to the infobox:

In November 2013, VIAFbot (Maximilianklein) added "novel" as the genre to Night's page on Wikidata (where Night is known as Q592503). His next edit said the genre was "imported from the Italian Misplaced Pages."
In May 2015 Frietjes removed the custom-made infobox from this article (which had no genre parameter) and added {{infobox book}}. (Note: Frietjes did not add a "genre" parameter, but when you scroll down to look at the revision Frietjes left, it says "genre=memoir." That is only because Andreasmperu made a change today to Wikidata.)
On the same day I reverted to the custom-made infobox.
On 9 July 2015 Andreasmperu added "genre = autobiographical novel" to Night's page on Wikidata.
On 31 July 2015 Bgwhite reverted at this article to {{infobox book}}.
Because of the reverting, I took the article off my watchlist.
In March 2016, Frietjes edited {{infobox book}} so that Wikidata supplies certain parameters to articles that use it, even when the editors of those articlea have decided not to add those parameters. (See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Books#"#property:" in Infobox Books for objections.)
From then on {{infobox book}} added the "autobiographical novel" genre to this article. Because the change was made remotely, the edit bypassed watchlists.
I didn't notice it until I looked at the article yesterday. When I tried to remove it, I couldn't because there was no genre parameter in the article. I pinged Frietjes, and she removed it by adding an empty parameter ("genre=") to the infobox.
After I started this discussion and pinged him, Andreasmperu added "genre=memoir" to Wikidata as an alternative to novel. (It's best not to call Night memoir either. Many sources argue that it defies categorization; see Night (book)#Reception.) Freitjes then removed "autobiographical novel" from Wikidata.

This means that infoboxes on the English Misplaced Pages are being edited remotely, perhaps unsourced or based on text from another wiki. There is nothing here to alert us to the changes. And the text appears in read mode only, so if you do notice it, you can't remove it unless you know to add the empty parameter. Is there consensus for Wikidata text to be added like this? SarahSV 04:06, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I've edited the sequence of events above because I've just noticed the edits Frietjes made in March to {{Infobox book}}. It means that someone can change the lead of an article off-site by (a) changing the infobox template so that it fetches text from Wikidata, then (b) adding that text to Wikidata. Frietjes I think you ought to revert yourself and gain consensus. SarahSV 22:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, watchlist changes have a checkbox to hide wikidata changes in your watchlist. by default that box may be checked, so if you uncheck it, you will see wikidata changes. I removed the claim from the wikidata page since the cited source was that it was simply imported from the Italian WP. the source for the secondary genre = memoir claim is an actual source. Frietjes (talk) 13:32, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes, no one should have to get involved with Wikidata to keep an eye on changes here. As for "memoir," that's based on one non-academic source. How to categorize Night is contentious; prioritizing the first source someone finds is an NPOV violation. But the point is that these changes shouldn't be made remotely. You can see from this sequence of events how it's going to cause mistakes to creep into articles, because the people who wrote the articles won't notice that the changes have been made. SarahSV 22:34, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I am sure Swpb can tell you more about the migration of book metadata to wikidata, and consensus for using it in the infobox. Frietjes (talk) 22:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes, it was this change of yours that made it possible. Is there consensus for that kind of change to infoboxes, and if there is, can you link to the discussion? SarahSV 23:15, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

To editor SlimVirgin: Since I've been pinged, I'll let you know what I know. Without weighing in on Night, I can tell you that we are very definitely moving toward more importation of infobox parameters from Wikidata. That is one of the primary motivating factors for Wikidata; to centralize statements and sourcing in a language-independent database that all Wikimedia projects can draw from. You can fight that change if you want, but I can tell you it will be a quixotic fight; that consensus ship has sailed (discussion here). That was in 2013, and much has been done since then. There are, at present, 82 templates on en using wikidata in some form. If you're concerned about facts changing on you, then put the relevant Wikidata items on your watchlist. You don't need to set up a new account to watch and edit there, and you can choose to have your Wikidata watchlist changes displayed in your Misplaced Pages watchlist, so the burden is really not that great. —swpb 12:46, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Swpb. Only c. 28 people said yes to option 4 (or 3 or 4) in that RfC. We would need more than that for such a significant change. As you can see on WikiProject Books talk, several people are complaining about it. No editor should have to watch changes on Wikidata too. Editors are already leaving, taking pages off their watchlists, or not reacting to changes when they see them. To suppose that a new wave of free labour will emerge to deal with Wikidata too, to the point where errors like this are spotted quickly, seems unlikely as things stand. SarahSV 00:26, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

To editor SlimVirgin: Like I said, fight it if you want. I think the consensus there was pretty solid, but I'm not the one you have to convince otherwise. —swpb 13:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Break

What is worrying is that the Wikidata edits seem to apply retroactively. When you look at old versions, the Wikidata text is present in read mode, even though it was added later. You have to go into edit mode to see that it was not in the article at the time. This seems worrying in terms of preserving history (pinging Denny).

Looking again at how it happened:

On 10 November 2013 a bot (VIAFbot, run by Maximilianklein) added genre="autobiographical novel" to Wikidata, "imported from the Italian Misplaced Pages."

At that time (I'm linking to the source code just in case), and still, the Italian Misplaced Pages referred to Night as a novel. But why did the bot add text to Wikidata from the Italian version? In its current form, and with its current title, it was first published in France, then in the United States. The French infobox said at the time: "genre=Autobiographie, Shoah." The English infobox said "genre=Autobiography, memoir, novel." (Later the English infobox had no genre parameter, because I felt it was better to leave it out, given that it's contentious.)

So the first question (for Maximilianklein) is why the bot imported text from the Italian Misplaced Pages, which seems to view Night as fiction, when it could have chosen the French or English. Second question (for anyone): how can we make sure Wikidata text doesn't appear in old version of infoboxes, so that the history of the article is preserved without having to read the source code? SarahSV 01:56, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

The history-un-preserving thing is not from Wikidata, but a MediaWiki feature in general, unfortunately. It is true for templates and Commons images as well :( It would be great (but certainly not easy) to fix that. There's been quite a bit of research on that, I'd just point to a deliverable I was involved in: Render D1.1.2. I hope that's helpful as background. --denny vrandečić (talk) 16:35, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Denny. It's a concern that articles (including featured articles) can now have mistakes added remotely, and nothing appears on our watchlists unless we choose to watchlist another project. There are obvious BLP issues. And trying to remove the mistake, or even find out when it was added, is tricky because of the template history problem.

Maximilianklein, can you say why your bot on Wikidata added the genre from the Italian Misplaced Pages, and not from here or the French WP? I'd like to know more about how that works.

It seems that these changes to infoboxes happened on the basis of Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2, which was closed early, and in which just 28 people formed the consensus (option 4). The RfC was added to WP:CENT, but the notification didn't mention infoboxes. Several people who usually discuss infoboxes didn't comment. So I'm wondering how many editors know that this is happening. SarahSV 01:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi SlimVirgin, I'm sorry that my bot edit caused so much confusion, and particularly one that would fuel Holocaust denial. Certainly not my intention. As you see the bot edit was done almost 3 years ago, and I don't have a clear recollection about why it ended up that way. I'm looking at my old code, and it seems that my intention was too add a plurality sources to claims if they did not exist. My comment in my code says

        
'''there are three states 
noMatchingClaim, so we add our claim
matchingClaimUnsourced, so we add our source
matchingClaimSourced, claim was already present and had the same source, do nothing'''

Very unfortunately I missed about what to if we have the same claim with a conflicting source. So I think what happenend is that the Italian data must have been added first and then the bot must have thought seen the conflicting targets of the genre claim but there is a bug at line 430, which is there is no "else" clause about what to do in this case.

I wanted to use Wikidata's ideology of plurality and add all the claims and all their sources - but I wrote an uncaught bug. Sorry is all I can say. Maximilianklein (talk) 02:55, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Max, thank you, and no need to apologize. I'm just trying to figure out how the bot makes its choices. I know that these issues can creep in easily. Best, SarahSV 00:34, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

SV, that's also true for Commons - one can go and change an image in Commons, and you wouldn't notice it on English Misplaced Pages. In Wikidata we at least integrated the watchlists, and you can see changes from Wikidata from within enwp. But I'd say that's not a new issue. --denny vrandečić (talk) 16:29, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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