Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:Algemeyne Entsiklopedye

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Algemeyne Entsiklopedye/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Generalissima (talk · contribs) 06:40, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Czar (talk · contribs) 01:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Breadth

Very interested to read more about this topic. Let's start with the Breadth criterion. There are a few areas I would expect this article to touch on for basic breadth that I did not see represented, for instance the scope of the work, its circulation, and its contemporaneous reception. Usually there would be a Contents section: How many entries were there? What was their topical range? What did it cover that other reference works didn't? Were any entries particularly noteworthy? Who were the major contributors? On circulation, who read it? Was it purchased mostly by libraries or was it meant for households? How many copies sold? For contemporaneous reception, usually either librarians' or special interest periodicals would cover releases like this. For instance, what did the major Yiddish periodicals of the time say? These are rhetorical questions not to be answered here but were the questions I had in my mind for basic breadth for the GA criterion as I read. I imagine that Yiddish-language scholarship might have the answers to this and would be inaccessible to us if we both don't read it, so the answer may be that we don't know any of the above since it isn't in English-language sources. Alas, it's my job as a reviewer to ask. :)

On basic source breadth, some sources that may also answer some of the above questions:

  • Pinson, Koppel S. (1945). "Review of ‮עידעפאלקיצנע עניימעגלא‬ (General Encyclopaedia), Vol. v, Arkadius: Baalei-hayyim". Jewish Social Studies. 7 (1): 76–78. ISSN 0021-6704. JSTOR 4464634.
    • Incorporated. - G
  • Weinryb, Bernard D. (1942). "Review of ‮ןדיי עידעפאלקיצנע עניימענלא‬ (General Encyclopedia: Jews). Vol. i-ii". Jewish Social Studies. 4 (1): 85–86. ISSN 0021-6704. JSTOR 4615191.
    • Incorporated. - G
    I believe these are reception of the Yidn volumes
  • I stubbed The Jewish People: Past and Present and put seven reviews there that reflect on its breadth of content and relationship with Yidn volumes. (If not for the line that these volumes were not simple translations but expansions of Yidn, I would recommend that they all be covered in the same article scope, since Yidn is part of the General Encyclopedia.)
  • Same for Trachtenberg's The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish, which might have reviews that also pertain to the encyclopedia's reception
    • Before I go in for another read, I think this is the last bullet to address, if there's anything from these sources that applies to this article's breadth, namely the original questions I had asked above and whether the English translation reviews explain the scope of the Yiddish encyclopedia or its supplements. And, likewise, does Trachtenberg not address any of those questions in his book? Basic details like the number of articles and the scope of the entries is standard to what a reader would expect to learn in an encyclopedia article about an encyclopedia. czar 14:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Blumental, Nachman (April 1966). "The General Encyclopedia in Yiddish and the Holocaust". Yad Vashem Bulletin. 18: 26–30. OCLC 1101762274. (Here's the original citation in Hebrew.)
@Czar: That took me a while, but I included as much information from Trachtenberg as I could! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:05, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll pause there and close out of some windows. Next up will be reading for prose clarity. czar 01:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, one more: Daniel Charney is mentioned in the current Reception but wasn't he a contributor to the encyclopedia (I don't have a copy but in the Trachtenberg book per [1])? czar 02:18, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oh I totally misread this at first - yeah, fair point. Moved that Charney quote. - G

Lots of great expansion here! The lede should be updated to summarize what has been added, i.e., the range of its coverage, what it set out to do relatively to what it ended up being (five volumes of a general encyclopedia abandoned after the second letter and seven volumes of a supplement on Jewish culture with an English translation), how it was used. Right now it's very heavy on its publication history, as the article was before its expansion. Ultimately that's a small part of its story. There are also some open questions from above: Did Trachtenberg have a count of total entries? Who read it/what was its circulation among libraries and private citizens? How did it sell or how many copies were printed? czar 15:01, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Veidlinger and Weinryb both underscore how the purpose of the encyclopedia changed over time, namely that it became a project about "commemoration of a destroyed way of life instead of the edifying resource book initially envisioned" (Veidlinger). It doesn't come through in the lede that this purpose overtook the original general encyclopedia purpose. To answer my question above about intended readership, Weinryb also mentions how Yiddish audiences declined. (Weinryb also makes a good point about how Hebrew language had much less coverage than the Yiddish language even though Hebrew was amidst a revival.) czar 21:34, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clarity

On how I'll edit, I'll leave most of my clarity comments inline in the article and edit copy for anywhere I trip up. The below comments are anything I felt would be too cumbersome to leave as an inline comment. These are rhetorical questions—I don't necessarily need answers here unless you want. But as a reader, I would want the text to be clear enough so I don't have the question, i.e., you can resolve by revising the text.

  • The background section conflates the history of Jewish and Yiddish encyclopedias. It's unclear what kind of encyclopedias were originally envisioned (Jewish encyclopedias or Yiddish encyclopedias?) and why. Meisel says that prior efforts to make a Jewish encyclopedia have failed but we just cited multiple Jewish encyclopedias, ostensibly successful. If it's about a Yiddish Jewish encyclopedia, it should specify. It's also unclear if Meisel's article influenced the YIVO committee.
  • Usually it's helpful to start with a description of the contents of a work before going into its history, as that gives the reader background on what exactly the reference work is and what it's about before delving into its authors' motivations and development process.
  • severe funding issues How? It's never fully established whence this funding is coming.
  • This would be the last such volume ... forced an increasing turn away from general knowledge towards fully capturing Jewish culture, religion, and history This is in reference to a Yidn volume, insinuating that the Yidn volume was about general knowledge but it says about that the Yidn volume was about Jewish culture. Which is it?
    • This isn't about a Yidn volume. I'll try to make things more clear - G
  • Also it's unclear if volumes of the main encyclopedia continued to be published during this Yidn period. Were they keeping apace of two a year? If they didn't complete the general encyclopedia, how far did they get? Five volumes? It would be worthwhile to summarize their output vs. what they planned. Did they only complete one quarter of what they set to accomplish? How many supplemental volumes were produced in total, etc.
  • Rather than organizing by location, I think it would be easier for the reader to organize by volume. I'm trying to follow the thread of the general encyclopedia and then Yidn is inserted and it's unclear how the two fit together. E.g., why is the Dov Weinryb Yidn criticism in the history rather than the Reception of the Yidn volumes? Relatedly, "Normale" isn't introduced as the name for the general series. This could be done if the Contents were to proceed the History section. I'd break out the Probeheft as its own section in that case too. This way the history becomes about how these already-introduced items were written rather than both introducing them and briefly describing what they are while giving the history. The Content section currently begins with its bibliography rather than an introduction of the actual contents.
  • Scope: I get that they're covered adjacently in sources, but are the General Encyclopedia and Yidn series part of the same or separate? With Yidn's republication, I get the sense of the latter, even though it started as a supplement or subseries of the General Encyclopedia. Likewise, if Yidn is part of the General Encyclopedia and The Jewish People: Past and Present is part of Yidn, isn't The Jewish People part of the General Encyclopedia?
  • I've seen a few sources allude to copies lost in Europe, e.g., Blumenthal p. 27. Was it just the second Yidn volume or were other copies lost too?

Other criteria

  • Is the first volume still in copyright (was it renewed)? If not, its cover or title page would be a good introductory/infobox image to illustrate the topic. czar 23:02, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The first volume was published in France, which from what I understand has lifetime of the author + 70 years copyright that doesnt actually requires it to be renewed. The probheft might be out of copyright in Germany (the Yiddish Book Center seems to think so), but it also might not (going by Commons' copyright guide to Germany), and I can't make a firm guess on it or not. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 23:15, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That gets complicated. We'd have to look up who owns the French copyright, likely from their national library, to see if it's eligible for Commons (based on its French and US copyright). But for upload on the English Wikipedia, it just has to be public domain in the US, which still looks unlikely based on WP:HIRTLE. The title page might be PD-text though if it only has the title. Do you have a copy? czar 15:08, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    An alternative is to photograph the spines to illustrate the topic, like Trachtenberg did at the beginning of his book. czar 21:51, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Title page for the probeheft works czar 02:12, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Abramovitch photograph needs evidence of first publication. Its rationale says it was published before 1930 but gives no evidence of this.
  • On neutrality, the only part that gives me pause is whether the Reception accurately represents the breadth of reviewers and what other voices/reviews are missing from the mix.
  • No copyvio found in Earwig's. Spotchecks next.
  • Blumental p. 26a – unclear why the Encyclopedia Judaica is mentioned but not the earlier Judisches Lexikon; also worth mentioning which volumes were incomplete, as that informs why Meisel would say later that previous attempts have failed
  • 26b – At the behest of Shalit, it was agreed that only Jewish writers would be allowed to contribute. This appears to be cited to Trachtenberg p. 44 where I see it was decreed but where was it agreed? Also if this is only cited to this one page then it does not need the full range cited.
  • 26c checks but was also cited to Trachtenberg when it appears only in Blumental
  • 26d checks
  • p. 27 – This is what I was referencing above re: lost copies. Trachtenberg didn't expand on this? Trachtenberg has something in p. 129 of his book: 3 In addition, the fund’s stockpile of copies of all published volumes, approximately twelve thousand in number, had to be abandoned. That's big. (Also Trachtenberg has expansion on the number of copies printed, which isn't in the article.)
  • p. 27–30 – checked and expanded
  • Veidlinger ref is attached to four sentences and two additional citations spanning nine pages. Makes it difficult to verify...
  • Notes on more to cover from Weinryb above. Quote checks out but unclear why the same sentence is cited to Trachtenberg—is that a mistake?

Criteria

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

See comments above

  1. Is it well written?
    A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
    Tagged unclear sections of prose; no major grammar issues
    B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
    Comments on lede above
  2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
    A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
    B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):
    While it's fine for the GA criteria, it really is hard to verify claims that don't connect specific sentences to specific pages.
    C. It contains no original research:
    D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
    See comments above
    B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
  4. Is it neutral?
    It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
    See comments above re reviewer breadth
  5. Is it stable?
    It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
  6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    See comments above
    B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:

Article title

Outside the GA review scope: the title. I see from WorldCat that it's known in English as the "General Encyclopedia in Yiddish" It's also the name used in two of the The Jewish People: Past and Present reviews. Would this be the more appropriate common name for the article title? czar 01:41, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I think it could go either way (I'm also unsure if a Yiddish title should include Di or not). Trachtenberg quite consistently uses "Algemeyne Entsiklopedye" in his work, and the reviews of Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish tend to him follow him in that respect - so by sheer volume of scholarly coverage, that probably weighs things more towards the Yiddish title. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does he say why he does that? If the current name is kept, I'd likely drop the "Di" to match how Trachtenberg uses the name (since "the" isn't part of its title). czar 02:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the "Di". czar 21:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

  • ... that a group of Jewish refugees continued work on their Yiddish encyclopedia after fleeing from Germany and France?
  • Source: Trachtenberg, B. (2006). Di Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, the Holocaust and the changing mission of Yiddish scholarship. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 5(3), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725880600961601
Created by Generalissima (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 98 past nominations.

Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:00, 3 January 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Di_Algemeyne_Entsiklopedye