Talk:John Ratcliff (bookbinder)

Improvements
Hello Doug, Firstly thanks for fixing the mistake I made in the John Ratcliff article. I did not realize that the article "The Bookbindings of John Ratcliff..." was already featured in the Bibliography section, I simply missed that it was there, and assumed that top source was supposed to point to it.

That said, I think there are some things that could be changed here, and since you seem to be keeping an eye on this article I thought I would run them by you. Firstly I should state up front that I actually work for the American Antiquarian Society, and on the side of my other duties; for a few hours a week, I've been trying to add links to any references to AAS proceedings articles that I find in Wikipedia, and work on adding a citation where it is necessary, with the goal helping to improve Wikipedia by giving its users access to as many proceedings articles as possible. Although many of the proceedings articles are technically not in the public domain, from about 1880 to the present(more on the way hopefully!) they are available freely for download from the AAS website. It is from here that I usually link the articles as it is a consistent spot to which to link to the PDFs. There are places where individuals have linked out to Google Books or Hathitrust, and unless the link is bad, I generally just leave those be except I will sometimes add a bit of citation information if it is lacking.

Here are a couple things I've noticed, and I'd be happy to do any work if you'd like if you think these changes make sense:

1. Reference #14 must be referring to the 1929 "The Bookbindings of John Ratcliff..." but it is tied to what is essentially a bibliographic place holder through Google books which doesn't actually contain any content. Would it make more sense to tie it to the link for "The Bookbindings of John Ratcliff..."?

2. If that article were tied to that link, the first reference would essentially be superfluous, and could probably just be deleted, since again it doesn't really link to any content that users can access.

3. On the topic of "The Bookbindings of John Ratcliff..."; the link that is present in the article is again basically a bibliographic place holder. Because it's published in 1929 it's outside the public domain and so I guess Google doesn't link to it. I could (or anyone could as they are all up there for anyone's use) easily link to the full article from the AAS website, and Wikipedia readers would then have full access to this article.

4. One last thing, which is that the link for "The Bookbindings of John Ratcliff..." doesn't really have any citation information. If it were to be linked to the PDF on the AAS site, the link would be for that particular article, and the specific information for that volume of the proceedings wouldn't be readily available, and anyone wishing to find that information would have to do some hunting to figure out just which volume it comes out of. Rather than citing the article as by "The Society" If we were to add a citation similar to the one that I added above for "Additional notes on Ratcliff and Ranger bindings" than there would be a link to the full article and a good citation that would make it easy for users to know exactly where the article came from.

5. Oh I just noticed something, would it make sense to add the suffix(Bookbinder) to the Ratcliff article title? He seems to be one of many John Ratcliffs including one with the same spelling who is apparently a cricket player.

Phew! that's a mouthful over a couple links. Let me know how you feel about these suggestions, and if I can be of any assistance.

Sincerely, ADGB1750 (talk) 19:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * My answer to all that you said = Yes! Please give me any assistance you can. Thanks for help.
 * If you see what can be fixed, go ahead and make that edit. Meanwhile, I'll study what you said and try to make those improvements. If I see something technical, I'll fix it. Otherwise you will know the references better. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:43, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Let me start first by making the name John Ratcliff (bookbinder).--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:01, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I just removed the bad links you are referring to. If you want to go ahead and make those improvement links = now it is available. If you need technical help, just say something.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:11, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I put back the references (#14) that I removed earlier, as after I got thinking about it I do believe it to be correct.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:51, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I put the PDF file "Holmes, Thomas James. Additional notes on Ratcliff and Ranger bindings. Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 39(2): 291-306. 1929" in External links per WP:MoS.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:56, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160303211428/http://www.americanantiquarian.org/bindings2.htm to http://www.americanantiquarian.org/bindings2.htm

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Copyright contributor investigation and Good article reassessment
This article is part of Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 and the Good article (GA) drive to reassess and potentially delist over 200 GAs that might contain copyright and other problems. An AN discussion closed with consensus to delist this group of articles en masse, unless a reviewer opens an independent review and can vouch for/verify content of all sources. Please review Good article reassessment/February 2023 for further information about the GA status of this article, the timeline and process for delisting, and suggestions for improvements. Questions or comments can be made at the project talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:36, 9 February 2023 (UTC)