Talk:Bibliothèques Sans Frontières

Page Overhaul
Hello,

I'm very new to wikipedia, and I want to do an overhaul on the Libraries Without Borders article.

1) The title is wrong:

Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières means Librarians without borders, a separate, different organization. So, I wanted to change the title to: Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, or Libraries Without Borders

2) Make this as the translation of the page "Bibliothèques Sans Frontières" that already exists in French.

3) Add information on the organization, (history, aims, etc) so that it doesn't consist of a vague two paragraphs.

I'm not much of an online editor, but I do translation work and wanted to contribute. I don't know who created this page, but both the English content and the redirects to this page indicate that Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières page title is a typo that should be the English version for Bibliothèques Sans Frontières. Even the links on the page send me to their websites.

For the first two points, I cannot really do anything and need your help, as for the third point, I think I can create the content and we can edit it together.

I'd really appreciate all your help,

Thank you, -M MattBenoît (talk) 09:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * So, I'm getting quite confused by this.
 * This is the article more or less as I wrote it in 2006, when the organisation was "Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières", and this was their website.
 * In 2013, someone changed the name to "Bibliotheques Sans Frontières" (without changing the article title) and changed the link to a different website
 * In early 2017, someone then came along and rewrote the article entirely to be about "Bibliothèques Sans Frontières".
 * My best guess is that the article was originally about Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières. Between 2007 and 2013 their website went offline; the group might have shut down. Someone who didn't know about this group changed the page in 2013 thinking it was a typo for Bibliothèques Sans Frontières. In 2017 the page was rewritten to be about this other group.
 * There are thus three different groups:
 * Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières, created in 1999 and based in France; the article was originally about them. They may now have shut down. They didn't use an English name.
 * Bibliothèques Sans Frontières/Libraries Without Borders, created in 1997 and based in the US; the article is now about them, and fr:Bibliothèques sans frontières is about them
 * Librarians Without Borders, created in 2007 and based in Canada; Librarians Without Borders is about them. They don't use a French version of the name, just the English one.
 * - does this sound correct to you? If so, what I'll do is rename this page to Bibliothèques Sans Frontières and create a third page for the 1999 French organisation, with the old details in it, then tie the French Wikipedia page to this one. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:56, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This is correct. Bibliothèques Sans Frontières is a separate entity from Bibliothécaires Sans Frontières. Libraries Without Borders is the US branch of Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, which is headquartered in Paris.



I think you've totally solved the case Andrew! It totally makes sense to me, and yes, if you could rename the page, tie it to the French Wiki page (so this would show up if I wanted to read the Bibliothèques Sans Frontières page in English), that would be perfect. I'll work on compiling some content so that the page isn't just 2-3 paragraphs, but most of my info comes from their website, not sure if that's an issue. Any ideas? Thank you so much for your time and fast replies! - M MattBenoît (talk) 08:18, 1 March 2017 (UTC) Also, I'm wondering what if people search Libraries Without Borders on google to find this page. Would it be possible to name this article, "Libraries Without Borders", tie it to Bibliothèques Sans Frontières as its translation, and as part of its content, we include, "Libraries Without Borders (Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF))... etc."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattBenoît (talk • contribs) 08:35, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

all done! Three articles now at the appropriate titles, and this one crosslinked to French. I've left it under the Bibliothèques Sans Frontières title for now until the Libraries Without Borders redirect discussion is sorted out, but I'm happy to move this page to "Libraries Without Borders" when it's done - give me a ping then and I'll sort it out. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

This is perfect, I really appreciate the help! Thank you! I'll let you know when it's done! — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattBenoît (talk • contribs) 09:02, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hey Andrew (and others!), I'm making progress slow and steady, but I need to check something with you real quick. To what extent can I use their website as a source? Common sense tells me things like their objectives, history, and places where they are/have been active can be taken from their site, and the rest from news articles, but I need some guidance here. Also, this organization seems to be relatively off the media except several articles, I'm thinking of using French newspapers/journals if I can find some, but do you have any other suggestions on where to look? I'm considering translating things from their French page and using the same sources as another option, what do you say? Thank you so much!MattBenoît (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the delay, busy week...
 * It's fine to use the website as a source for basic and uncontroversial data, but it's always good to supplement this with external sources where possible. And French material is fine - sources in English are preferred but not required and if French is all we have, then go for it. Hopefully readers about a part-French NGO with a French name won't be too worried about seeing French in the sources ;-) Andrew Gray (talk) 09:36, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Haha, tell me about it, the Spring woke up all the work I had thrown under the snow! Thank you for your advice, I'll try to work on it when I find some time soon! MattBenoît (talk) 07:55, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

COI editing
A recent editor is apparently a leading light in this organisation and appears not to be familiar with the Neutral point of view guidance. I've just removed a lot of promotional text and some external links but there is further improvement required before the tag should be removed. Deb (talk) 09:04, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Peter.Sahlins (talk) 12:40, 28 March 2021 (UTC)peter.sahlins (Not sure how to respond except to edit this): It's true that I'm close to the organisation, BSF, although hardly a "leading light." I studied the page for the NPV and did try to conform in adding information to the BSF entry. I added external links and sought to keep the tone objective, although I guess I fell short in using "promotional language." I will edit this further to tone down anything except the basic facts. How will I know when it's good enough to remove the tag?