Book Around The Corner and Wikipedia
I’m a daily user of Wikipedia, especially for literature as it’s the place where I find original book titles. It’s priceless in order to reconcile French and English titles of books. And sometimes guessing is impossible, like Whatever for Houellebecq’s Extension du domaine de la lutte. Without Wikipedia, I’d get mad or I’d write mistakes.
Honestly, until tonight, I never really wondered who writes articles for Wikipedia. I know it’s a community of writers, that errors are checked and corrected by the group. I took it for granted and never really thought further about it. Now that I’ve discovered that my blog is listed among other literary blogs in the Litblog article, after a solid moment of sheer puzzlement, I really wonder who put me there. Anyway, I’m shallow enough to be proud of it… 🙂 So thanks to the anonymous contributor who added me to the list of examples.
See you as soon as possible for the review of Wide Sargasso Sea, when job applications, resumes, work and family life will leave me enough time to write.
Book Around the Corner 
Always nice to get a little recognition.
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Yes. In French I’d say “Je ne vais pas bouder mon plaisir”
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Not shallow at all! It’s good to be listed. The nice thing about Wikipedia is that it’s all transparent, so you can see the history of the article and who added what. The link to your blog was added by http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/. On 13th September at 13:01, if you’re interested 🙂
Good luck with the job applications!
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Hello, thanks for the detective work, as Caroline called it. Now I know who I need to thank, ie Lisa from ANZ Litlovers. (Her blog is in my blogroll, it’s worth visiting)
Job applications have changed in five years, the last time I did that. No more written letters, endless internet forms and Skype interviews. Welcome in the internet world. I still wonder how they sort 250 resumes for the same position.
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If you want to prove that you are not shallow you can recommend us. 🙂 (I’m joking!)
Good for you.
I’m surprised about Andrew’s detective work.
Good luck with the applications. I might write one this week as well. Saw a terrific job.
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Well, you know you can contact Lisa, from ANZ Litlovers. There’s no one from Switzerland who writes in English and speak numerous foreign languages. You’re a lot more exotic than me. 🙂
Good luck for your job applications too.
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Lisa, if you read this, thank you very much for thinking of me.
I understand why I’m in such a good company : you, Kevin From Canada, Whispering Gums, Winston’s Dad, The Mookse and the Gripes.
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T’was indeed I, Emma.
I was peeved that all the blogs listed there were from the US or the UK so I added some from The Rest of the World. I wanted to add some from other places too, e.g. New Zealand, South America, other parts of Africa, other countries in Europe etc but I don’t know of any from those places that would meet Wikipedia’s tough ‘notability’ rules, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability
Any time the Wikipedia Notability Police can come along and delete anything that they think doesn’t meet the criteria. And they do, ruthlessly! But I guess that’s ok, it is an encyclopaedia after all…
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Thanks again.
For Switzerland, there’s Caroline’s blog : beautyisasleepingcat.wordpress.com
For the Netherlands, Iris’s blog : irisonbooks.wordpress.com
Richard’s blog is interesting as it is bilingual American/Spanish : caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.com
I don’t see why they wouldn’t meet the Wikipedia Notability Police if mine does.
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Well, I’ve added them, but who knows how long they’ll stay there? We might think they’re notable, but may need to defend their right to be there, so be prepared just in case, with *verifiable* info about their significance. It is not enough to be popular or unusual or even representative of a culture; the criteria are still under discussion because it’s a moveable feast, but at this stage it looks as if the litblog must at the very least be a serious and sustained contribution to analysis of literature (and probably the high end of literature at that i.e. blogging about *literary* authors who are themselves on Wikipedia i.e. not crime or romance popular fiction) and the blogger ought to have network connections that go beyond just being linked to somebody else’s blog e.g. having a review included on a prestigious site like The Complete Review, being linked to an academic institution, or being interviewed as a blogger of note on a site of significance somewhere.
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Thanks, Lisa and Emma. 🙂
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Congratulations, Emma! I rely on Wikipedia too, and have recently used it to suss out the Dreyfus Affair with reference to Proust. But now I learn that I will also need to have a working knowledge of Moliere, and I don’t think even Wikipedia can get me up to speed from a position of complete ignorance… Oh well. It’s lucky that Proust is so rich and I can afford to let that aspect go 🙂
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Knowing about the Dreyfus Affair is really important to read Proust, and reading Wikipedia’s article is worth the effort.
You can leave aside the Molière aspect, it’s not so important.
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Congratulations on being listed! (It’s quite a temptation, I must admit, to go in there and list my own blog, but that really would be cheating, wouldn’t it? 🙂 )
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Yes, I guess it would be cheating. I wouldn’t know how to do it though.
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