add « Languag(es) » section to « Common Knowledge »

I am in doubt about how to add some field values about Yiddish authors to « Common Knowledge » :

I only added /commonknowledge/search.php?q=Yiddish-language+poet+&f=17&exact=1 as « Occupations » so far. But what about writers, linguists, translators into Yiddish, translators from Yiddish etc.
   note: 2010.01.28 corrected the link above.

Example: Common Knowledge for Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–1991) shows:

Occupations
journalist
novelist
short-story writer
playwright
journalist

I assume that a « Languag(es) » section at « Common Knowledge » would be a great help for everybody.

The idea for Common Knowledge is not to parse out everything at the top level. It is, after all, Common Knowledge. You're not going to get everyone to re-write the CK guidelines (and re-enter occupations) that have been in place for years because you'd believe the language that they held their occupation in is just as important as the occupation - after all, why not Yiddish Plumber?

For these, the more appropriate suggestion (and one that has been made countless times before) is to be able to combine CK searches. This way, one could combine an occupation with a nationality search - since that seems to be the thing that you really want to be able to do.

If you truly believe that the nationality is important in these cases, you shouldn't rob the author of their ability to be linked in with others. The appropriate occupational designation would be poet (Yiddish poet) so that the author still appeared under the more general poet searches as well as the more narrow search.

Wouldn't quite solve it, since "Yiddish" isn't a nationality. But I think you're right that original language should not be entered in "occupation".

p.s.: so if you feel you must enter these people as "Yiddish language poet" please also enter them as simply "poet" on a separate line - for people simply looking for poets.

My probmel is not only with Yiddish which is not a nationality but also with Esperanto (I learned the language since 1978).

There are both native Esperanto speakers as well as great supporters of the language one is the Nobel Memorial Prize (Economic Sciences) winner Reinhard Selten. There are other head of states etc. Esperanto is not their main occupation but their support and their works are very important for that language community.

About other languages are less disputes: Neither Kurdish people do not live in a Kurdish state nor Romanies. There are many more examples: You may find many pages about Coptic language but no Wikipedia article about Coptic people; but 8,200 at google.

Another question. I see « poet (Yiddish poet) » very useful. Would « poet (Esperanto) (Russian) » work also?

>5

What about simply adding "Esperantist" to occupations? It's not a nationality or an ethnicity, but something people take up from choice, so it would fit under occupations quite nicely.

>5 Another question. I see « poet (Yiddish poet) » very useful. Would « poet (Esperanto) (Russian) » work also?

Herta Müller shoes:
Occupations
translator
teacher
novelist
poet
essayist
She mainly writes in German but has also written in Romanian; see Este sau nu este Ion (Biblioteca Naţională a României).

It would be nice to have the ability to link to her fellow writers from the time she was active at the group « Aktionsgruppe Banat » and in the association of (German) writers « Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn > » in Romania. I would like to include « Common Knowledge » type links to more general German writers from (the region) Banat.

Similar examples:
« Paul Celan » a German writer from Bukovina.
« Shmerke Kaczerginsky » a Yiddish poet and partisan from Vilna (Vilnius) who was a companion of « Abraham Sutzkever » and « Hirsh Glick » .

So basically I try to learn about a way either to generate combinbation entries in « Common Knowledge » or to learn about links filtering subsets from different fields.

I'm not sure. Maybe you should make that « poet (Esperanto) » and « poet (Russian) » on separate lines.

If "Aktionsgruppe Banat" is / was a real group, or even only sort of a real group, you could enter that info under "Organizations". You can even put other individual members under "Relationships" - format: lastname, firstname (explication). This will even link directly to that author's page.

Breaking CK into language-based occupations to making things easily searchable for your interest makes the feature largely useless for a lot of people that would like to just find a person who was once a translator or a poet.

It's tempting to believe that improvements that we'd love would be beneficial to everyone (especially ourselves), but in the case of Common Knowledge, breaking broad categories so you can see all the commonalities (the thousands that were translators, for instance), into the myriad of individuals that translated into specific languages is a poor trade-off. Great for you as an individual, poor for the vast majority.

Yes, but there is room for multiple entries - so "Yiddish Language Poet" and "Poet" (for example) could both be entered on separate lines - which would allow it to wok in both broad and narrow search. Strictly I don't agree with the first description in "occupation", the language isn't the occupation, but okay... But please at least don't forget the broader description when you're doing so.

One thought: since most of CK doesn't propagate between language sites, why not put information that is chiefly of interest to one language group on the CK of the LT site for that language?

>>11 re: ... the LT site for that language
at this moment intime these LT sites are dormant

As for people working in the Esperanto language community -- presumably to develop the language, or encourage its adoption? -- I would tend to add that specific information to organizations or occupations, as appropriate. e.g.,
- occupations: "Esperanto activist"; "Esperanto developer";
- organizations: "International Esperanto Association (member)"

I do think language of writing and translating are relevant defining attributes within those occupations. It's difficult for me to see, quite, how to balance it though. Clearly one wants translators to be together, and equally clearly one would want to see "English-Latin translators", but would one want to see both in the page? Even if people are mostly in just one language, for the person who is (a) short-story writer, (b) novelist, (c) playwright, (d) screenwriter, (e) poet -- we would have ten fields just to specify the generic and the language.

It would be nice (ideal) if the parenthetical information could be in some way sorted or displayed as unique items .... Like, maybe a greater-than sign to demarcate between items that could be separately displayable or not.

>If you want unique items in a parenthetical, separate it with a pipe - | that's all it takes. So Poet (Yiddish Poet|Esperanto Poet|Russian Poet) would be one entry, but would produce 4 unique search results.

>14 Thanks a lot!