Talk:Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index/Archive 1

Aarne-Thompson vs. Aarne-Thompson-Uther

 * This is a relocation from my own talk page, as the issue is article-based and deserves wider discussion here. It's in relation to these two blocks of deletion:
 * User:Adl0090
 * User:Adl0090
 * Andy Dingley (talk) 16:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This was not an "unexplained deletion". The Aarne-Thompson system of classification of folktales is a universally accepted system taught at the academic level. One person (Uther) cannot decide to revamp this system and hijack the wiki page for the Aarne-Thompson system to promotion of their own, not universally or peer-edited, version and expect that to hold to referenceable standard. Just because they add their name on the end to make some "ATU" system does not mean that is credible. If they want to try and slide in this type of advertisement they can make their own page for it, and not dilute the value of the Aarne-Thompson page, which clearly should only show the true Aarne-Thompson system.

Furthermore, I am working to provide the correct inline citations for the references because there are many good (credible) ways to purvey this information without personally marketing for someone's (Uther) book.

Thank you for not continuing to undo my work.

Adl0090 (talk) 03:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that it was an "unexplained deletion". In your sequence of deletions there isn't a single case where you used an edit summary. Now your edits might well be genuine, but it's hard for other editors (such as myself) to see this. When an editor first appears, their first actions are to delete sections, and there's no other evidence or explanation to support this, the sad truth of WP is that they're far more likely to be a vandal than anything else. Aarne-Thompson isn't a subject I'm familiar with, so all I have to go on is whether it looks like a good edit. Without an edit summary or a comment on the talk page, yours do indeed look like vandalism.


 * It seems that there is an AT system and a later ATU system. Your argument here would seem to be that AT is notable and the topic of this article, but that ATU is not. I would find it hard to justify removing mention of ATU from the article, given that it appears to be the work of a bona fide published author. Admittedly I'm not knowledgeable in this subject field (I try to avoid editing in such cases), but as far as I can see, the article was reasonable as it was.


 * Would you claim that ATU is simply too trivial to be notable?
 * Too different to incorporate within the same article, unless clearly separated to its own section?
 * Simply beyond WP:UNDUE for the article to list categorization, as anything more than a passing note that ATU exists?


 * Maybe there's scope for a re-write that covers both, i.e. both are covered, but it's clear which sections related to which and it doesn't have the recent problem that ATU does seem to have wholly subsumed AT.


 * I've moved this discussion to the article's talk page, as a more appropriate forum. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I know nothing about AT vs. ATU, but Adl0090's edits raised a significant red flag for me, in that they replaced a detailed specific listing of motifs with a much less detailed list which contains very dubious sounding entries such as "Numskull[sic] stories", "Novelle (romantic tales)" (where I have no idea which language, if any, the word "novelle" belongs to) etc. AnonMoos (talk) 17:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You beat me to the revert there. I care increasingly less if Adl0090 is right or wrong, big deletions without discussion or evidence just aren't the way to work. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is not not about the Aarne-Thompson system of classification. It is about one individual persons attempt to hijack that system. In the "to date" version of the article, it doesn't even HAVE the Aarne-Thompson system shown, it has Uthers "ATU" system with a link to his site that is conveniently selling his books.

This "ATU" system is not universally accepted as any kind of "expansion" of the Aarne-Thompson system. It should not be what is on the Aarne-Thompson page. If Uther wants to push his product, he can make his own page.

For example, I don't know how to translate German, but thier wiki is more realistic.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne-Thompson-Index

It lists the actual Aarne-Thompson system with the REAL classifications of the real stories it was classified by. It is not some reprint of one persons attempt to take credit for their work by tacking on some extra numbers. If I can just have enough time to fix this article, I will do something similar to the German version.

For now, I would like it if people would help me fix it and make it accurate to the Aarne-Thompson system, and not just keep hitting the reset button thinking that (in some way) helps at all.

Adl0090 (talk) 01:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In responce to : "Novelle (romantic tales)" (where I have no idea which language, if any, the word "novelle" belongs to) etc. AnonMoos (talk) 17:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adl0090 (talk • contribs)

You what to know what is funny? That "dubious" entries and classifications come from the very website you are trying to defend and keep posted. If you think it is wrong, then why did you reset the article to show more of the very same information?

Also, that "detailed list" is not the Aarne-Thompson system. It is Uther's system of classification that has been reprinted on the Aarne-Thompson page. Just to be clear, "Uther" was not part of the Aarne-Thompson collaboration on the catalogue system. It was one persons attempt (over almost 100 years later) to tack on more numbers and take credit for their work by changing the title to "ATU". Again, it is not a universally accredited system and the fact the referencing link for the "ATU" system takes you to a page that will conveniently sell you his book is completely not the point of a Wikipedia article. This is not a marketing gimmick. It was not the Aarne-Thompson system of classification. The article needs to be changed to reflect what the Aarne-Thompson system actually is, which is what the recent changes have attempted to do.



In addition, today I have taken from the German wiki the REAL Aarne-Thompson system and posted the corosponding tales with their real Aarne-Thompson numbers. I am not sure how the blocks for the tables look. I will continue to work on perfecting an easily readable list. Also, the German page has a much more comprehensive list, and as I work on a credible translation I will continue to try and fill the lists. I admit I am not as skilled as some of the more "senior" editors here, but it would be nice if the focus was on helping improve the article and not spamming the undo button.

Adl0090 (talk) 01:24, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe they were primarily dismayed by the mass-deletion of content.
 * Some comments and suggestions:
 * Format:
 * If you add * at the start of each line, you'll get bullet points.
 * On talkpages, you can indent with : adding an additional level for each response in a thread.
 * Sources:
 * What source are you using for the AT system? The German article only covers 300-749, but the list you've added goes up to 938A.
 * We need independent sources for the credibility of the ATU system, to verify that it is a major/accepted addition to the academic literature.
 * I agree that there should at the very least be a clear separation between the AT and ATU classifications, barring strong evidence that the ATU has subsumed the AT.
 * Someone should politely ask the initial contributor for input, they're still an active editor.
 * I'll try to keep an eye here, and find some paper references over the weekend. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I believe the German wiki list is not complete in stopping in the 700's. If you look at the last link I posted under references you can find the full table I used for many of the titles. Each one of the 700+ is listed and does have the reference books for each one. The German wiki also included the reference numbers for the work done by the Grimm brothers, which again is not part of the Aarne-Thompson classification system itself. Also, they DID have more tales that filled out some of the sections under 700.

A full list is going to take time to compile. Many of the titles of the folklore were in other languages, and need to be translated and put in the appropriate place on the list.

Adl0090 (talk) 02:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatever, dude -- I have not visited any website, and am not defending anything. All I know is that the list of motifs that you're providing looks a whole lot less useful than the list that was there before. AnonMoos (talk) 02:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am coming at this topic with slightly more background in folkloristics, and I am not completely comfortable with eliminating Uther from the article. The Uther revision of the catalogue is in fact being used by scholars today, because it attempts to more effectively and correctly encompass the wider space of world folklore. I appreciate the concern with reflecting the classic and still-dominant Aarne-Thompson system, but we should not (1) lose the wikilinking that the ATU-based list provided, or (2) completely disregard ATU. A quick literature search pulls up plenty of meaningful usage of the Uther revisions-- I myself am a little hesitant to give much credence to a system that won't admit the possibility of revision. Finally, since the article should not simply be a copy of translation of the AT list, it would be very useful to have cross-referencing with Grimm, or between AT and ATU. A pure copy or translation would be a better fit for Wikisource than Wikipedia. Avram (talk) 04:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If anyone is still interested in this subject I'd like to point out that the article cited for the ATU revision (by the way, Aarne and Thompson were not collaborators, Stith Thompson published his first revision/expansion 3 years after Aarne died and the last in 1961) was published in the same folklore journal, Folklore Fellows, published in Finland (and why it's so hard to find a copy of the AT), that publishes the last Aarne-Thompson revision. And that journal is one of the most respected (or was back in 1990 when I graduated from UC Berkeley, having taken all the classes from Alan Dundes I could) in the world. So if there are objections to it I'd look to the literature. And it's been known forever that there was a problem with the fact they were using only European and West Asian tales and that it needed a lot of expansion. Which is why the Motif Index is much more worldwide. I also don't quite see the reason to publish practically the whole AT list, wouldn't a few, with an expansion down to motifs for a famous story, say Cinderella (very old, very widespread story) be a better illustration? And I really don't think it's a good idea to use a list you found on the internet unless you're going to check it against the actual tale type index. I may be inspired to do some of the last but I don't know how Uther changed it. But I could give at least the Cinderella part down to the motifs of the tale type index. - erikagillian (I can't seem to get into my old account). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.204.211.181 (talk) 21:50, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The last unsigned comment was me, got back in! ErikaGillian (talk) 22:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Copyright issues
I like having the list included with this article; it's obviously pretty important. However, is it considered a breach of copyright to include this list as it appeared it academic publications? Should the list be included as a quotation from a prior work? I don't know who originated this list. Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm going to continue adding to this list from http://oaks.nvg.org/folktale-types.html, which is the best list I've found. Andrew Keenan Richardson 18:36, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Good question; I was wondering about that too. I'm not sure of the answer though... mere "information" cannot be copyrighted, but I don't know about an extended list of this form. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:51, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A copyright violation is when a substantial portion of any (recent) work is copied to a new place without written permission from the owner, in this case in Wikipedia, in the form of agreeing to CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. Simply citing them as a reference does not mitigate copyright infringement. A taxonomy of stories, unlike, say, a standard taxonomy of plants does not rely on a "natural" order, but a creative interpretation of how something can be arranged. Note the word "creative". Because Antti Aarne published in 1910, his work can be literally quoted. Stith Thompson's work, however, is well after 1923, and is almost certainly copyrighted. I.e., editors shouldn't spend too much time updating this article with the recent details ... if someone feels the urge to scrutinize ... it's likely most material after Antti Aarne would be removed. Sincerely, 98.210.160.166 (talk) 06:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

TODO: Make this article suck less
Anything else immediately apparent? ~ Josh "Duff Man" (talk) 19:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Find out what is meant by the asterisks next to some titles, and make that apparent
 * Fix all of the piped links that display a language name instead of the name of the tale that they are linking to. Probably by doing something like Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed (Norwegian) instead of (Norwegian)
 * Consider making a table, or some other formatting change to make the displaying of the numbers more ordered. Perhaps bold the numbers, or put them at the beginning of the line (before the name, instead of after)
 * You mean the asterisks that are described in the text as indicating subtypes?
 * Breaking all the piped links would make the article worse, since by indicating the source, it gives an indication of how widespread the tales are, but the name will often mean nothing to the reader. Therefore, the piped links give more information that your proposed "fix".  Goldfritha (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2011 (UTC)


 * To me, JoshDuffMan's suggestion seems more logical. You can then follow the link to the article on the tale. Ohterwise it is a surprise to click on, say, "Aesop" and be directed to a particular tale rather than something about Aesop.
 * Also, I can't find the mention of the asterisks in the article.--Annielogue (talk) 20:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I guess that '(195)', '(198)' etc. refer to page numbers in Dundes' paper. However convenient this citation style may be for specialists, it is confusing for a layman like me. Ersaloz (talk) 03:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Lying Tale
Does Lying Tale refer to all lying tales? I believe there's one about a dog and another about an unborn child sent to look in a wood. 86.179.2.177 (talk) 12:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Eurocentric?
This article seems pretty Eurocentric, but then again, it's from the early 20th century. Nonetheless, could we include some non-Western tales in the list somehow, or would that be original research? Jamutaq (talk) 19:10, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Poor State: Motif Index and Tale Type Index Confusion and Copyright
This article is currently in a pretty mixed, confused state. For example, it does a very poor job of conveying to the reader that this article is in fact about to indexes; one index cataloguing motifs (the various revisions of Motif-Index of Folk-Literature) and another index cataloguing tale types (i.e. AT X). It doesn't help that the majority of the article is made up of a big dump of some form of the tale type index (with no source provided, no less). The article probably just needs to be outright rewritten given its problematic current state. Meanwhile, I'll make some adjustments, including deleting the tale type dump here (wherever it's taken from). &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 20:19, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Why would you delete the tale types from this page and not create another page for this content? I feel that this list ( still here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system&oldid=660385373#The_ATU_taxonomy ) should remain, in some form, as a Wikipedia page. Really, is there any better use for this platform? Wes.turner0 (talk) 16:07, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. We obviously need this somewhere (though sourced), and should probably start with the ATU, since it's current.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It requires a source *and* there are potential copyright issues involved. This seems like it might be way too big of a quotation given that the index is not yet public domain. It also needs to be clear that we're talking about the tale types as opposed to the motif index. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 19:48, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Classification System Taxonomy links
I am undoing this change because it was not justified: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system&oldid=678513329

Wes.turner0 (talk) 15:59, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The reasons for this change were indeed "justified" on this very talk page above. &#58;bloodofox: (talk) 19:50, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Emdashes
My brother pointed this out. This should be written with hyphens, not emdashes. Maybe we should move the page to one with a title with the hyphens in it. Zweifel (talk) 18:30, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Go ahead. Kortoso (talk) 19:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dash
I've changed the page title to "Aarne–Thompson classification systems" (with an en dash) per MOS:ENDASH; see the subsection titled "Use an en dash for the names of two or more entities in an attributive compound." Doremo (talk) 08:48, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Is this fluff?
"The indices are used in folkloristics to organize, classify, and analyze folklore narratives and are essential tools for folklorists because, as Alan Dundes explained in 1997 about the first two indices, 'the identification of folk narratives through motif and/or tale type numbers has become an international sine qua non among bona fide folklorists'."

This sentence seems to indicate the wider significance of the subject, but on closer examination sine qua non just means "an indispensable and essential action" according to that phrase's article, so the sentence just says that the classification system is essential because it is essential. I think it would be much more helpful if there were one or two sentences that explained to the layperson why this classification system is or was considered by experts to be useful to their study. 24.185.241.203 (talk) 02:00, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2020 and 15 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hikitsune-Red.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:12, 16 January 2022 (UTC)