Talk:Norman Mailer’s Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969

Translating this book from print to digital will be our primary objective for the spring 2019. Here are some things we have to decide:

Project Organization

Should each letter have its own page? I’m leaning toward yes here.

Yes. Grlucas (talk) 12:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Do we need to seek permission for the Mailer letters? JVbird (User talk:JVbird)

@JVbird: No, I have already secured permissions. —Grlucas (talk) 20:25, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Letter Pages

How should each page be named so each is unique? I think subpages would be the way to go here, like Structured Vision, but then what do we call each page? “To: So and So”, like: Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969/To: Eiichi Yaminishi? What do we do when we have more than one letter to Eiichi Yaminishi? Should we add the date? Norman Mailer's Letters on An American Dream, 1963–1969/To: Eiichi Yaminishi (November 25, 1963) It’s beginning to get unwieldy. Suggestions?

I decided against using subpages, so each letter will have its own page, linked both off of AAD:Letters and Norman Mailer’s Letters. —Grlucas (talk) 12:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

I spoke with my librarian, Gilbert Deas about the issue of posting Mailer's letters and Gilbert suggested we do use subsections by year and author. For example, in 1963 Mailer wrote three letters on the same date. The subsections would look something like this:

             1963:
             October 15- Andre Deutsch, Alan Earney, Reed Whittemore
             October 16- Eiichi Yaminishi

or another suggestion would be to: Putting each person's name such "Letters to So and So" then list the date of each letter to that person under their name with date linking to the letter on another page. --Dillbug (talk) 17:10, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Dillbug: How about the way I began doing it with a table on the main page? This is close to Gilbert’s suggestion. —Grlucas (talk) 21:31, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: I think a table would work well and make adding the letters much easier. I would like to work on adding the letters. Where do I find the actual letters to digitize and format?--Dillbug (talk) 21:05, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Dillbug: Everything you need is in the shared Google drive. —Grlucas (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Final Letter Format

OK, I decided on the final letter format. See either of the first two letters for an example. I added a letterhead template and decided that we should make each letter's introductory statement into footnotes. Please let me know if you have any questions. I appreciate everyone's diligent and conscientious work. —Grlucas (talk) 12:21, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Namir Riptide, JVbird, and Dillbug: Please be sure you read above for posting letters! Thanks. —Grlucas (talk) 21:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Noted and fixed. Please check the last six letters to make sure. Namir Riptide (talk) 01:08, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas, Namir Riptide, and Dillbug: Thanks! I'm going to wrap up my letters by Saturday at the latest, starting with the 2 I already posted, with corrections. JVbird (talk) 06:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Namir Riptide: Looking good. Be sure everything that should be in italics is italicized, like titles of novels. There should also be no space between text and the footnote indication: Dear Whit,^[1] not Dear Whit, ^[1] — these details are important, so be meticulous. Also, look at the Deutsch letter again and how the footnotes are done: footnotes should be placed next to the items in the letter that they refer to — not all up front. Thanks. —Grlucas (talk) 11:21, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@JVbird: Please have a look at this post to answer some of your questions about the formatting of your letters. Thanks. —Grlucas (talk) 23:21, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Letter Format

How should they be formatted? I.e., how should they appear on the screen? I think we should create a navbar to link them. Other ideas? Check out WD entries for ideas.

Each will use two templates: {{NMletter}} as a header and {{aade-sm}} somewhere on the page to identify it as part of this project. —Grlucas (talk) 12:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

OK, I was playing with format. Which do you like better?

1. The one I posted for Ambassador Gutierres-Olivos, September 18, 1963; or
2. The one that's in my sandbox?

What think you? —Grlucas (talk) 20:51, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: I like the one in your sandbox better. It seperates the letter from the rest of the information on the page visually. Namir Riptide (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: I agree with Namir the sandbox looks so much better and very similar to the example you provided to follow.--Dillbug (talk) 18:36, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

@Namir Riptide: Yeah, I thought I did, too, but it doesn't work too well when you resize your browser window. Maybe if we aligned everything on the left, it would work better. I can keep playing. —Grlucas (talk) 21:22, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Unfortuantely, with the formatting from the sandbox example, the addresses spill out of the box and the signature wraps around to the next line. A few colons less and they would fit. But the two letters available for viewing are not the same format. Which to use with our letter postings in our sandboxes? Namir Riptide (talk) 00:29, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Namir Riptide: Sandboxes are unnecessary in this case. Just work on the letters in the main space. Scary...

@Grlucas: Still using them to play around with formatting and editing is okay, yes? And i have run into another problem . the Letters i got from our student talk do not have pages for me to add them.

@Namir Riptide: You may use your sandbox for anything you'd like. I'm not sure what you mean by "do not have pages"? —Grlucas (talk) 11:17, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: It was that the links to pages for the letters were not made. I figured it out and have posted the letters I was to do. I have also added links to other letters not yet done.

I was also thinking that instead of introducing the letters, we put the introductory comments in footnotes. The intros made sense in a book format, but footnotes might make more sense here. What say you? —Grlucas (talk) 00:36, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Dr. Lucas, I posted all of my letters from January 1964 - March 1964 in separate sandboxes using your sandbox format for an example. I put any introductory comments at the beginning of each letter as in your example. Should I now change the format? If so, which format should I use? Are we now to post them directly to PM? --Dillbug (talk) 18:54, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Dillbug: Be sure you read the conversation. There's no need to use sandboxes. Also see #Final Letter Format above. Alterations in your letters will need to be made. Thanks. —Grlucas (talk) 21:05, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I think knowing what is going on when reading the letters may help in understanding why the letter is important to be posted. Namir Riptide (talk) 01:01, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Categories

What will be our category schema?

Each of the above templates will include appropriate categories. —Grlucas (talk) 12:06, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Cite Button

My sandbox does not have a "cite" button. Am I the only person with this issue?—ssimsjones (talk) 05:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ssimsjones: You know, I never installed the visual editor here because I don't use it. This might be what you mean. I'm reluctant to do it, as I don't want to slow my install down any more. If many want the visual editor option, I might consider. Sorry for any trouble. —Grlucas (talk) 12:31, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Thank You Dr. Lucas. I will work on submitting any references manually. With only a few weeks left, I'm not sure that everyone will want it installed. —ssimsjones (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Review Letters

@Grlucas: I am hopeful my letters are ready for review. I am responsible for the Letters written from January 1964 through the end of March 1964.--Dillbug (talk) 16:33, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Dillbug: Great, post ’em, and we’ll have a look. Thanks! —Grlucas (talk) 16:44, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Unless I somehow posted them incorrectly (you know I can do it), the letters are already posted and ready for review.--Dillbug (talk) 16:54, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Dillbug: Oh, yeah. Those have all been reviewed and tweaked by me an Jules Carry (talk | contribs). 👍🏼 —Grlucas (talk) 18:37, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: So very happy to hear I posted the letters in the right area correctly! One task down, and more to go.--Dillbug (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2019 (UTC)