Sks23cu

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Roman abacus

Greetings! I have reverted your edits to Roman abacus, because they are inconsistent with the flow of an encyclopedia article—and in one case constituted original research. However, I have looked into your allegations of copyright violation.

I do not have access to the two books listed as references—now as additional sources—so I cannot determine whether or not the bulk of the article's content can be derived from them alone.

However, the entire section formerly known as "Other facts" appears to be lifted wholesale from your paper. Accordingly, not only have I rewritten that section and moved it into the body of the article (since "Other facts" or "Trivia" sections are to be avoided on principle), but I have also referenced your paper as the source of the information.

Hopefully that improves the situation in the article. If you have other concerns, please feel free to address them on the talk page of the article or in another user's talk page. However, if you wish to just improve the text of the article (without addressing such meta-issues), feel free to do that to the article itself. Or, if you have any questions in general, feel free to ask at my talk page. Thank you, and happy editing! —C.Fred (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Abacus, Further Reading

Section before it was reverted to revision 566816145 by NeilN whose comment was, "Come on, we really don't need multiple books and multiple editions by the same authors" (enumeration added):

1. Menninger, Karl W. (1969), Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-13040-8.

2. Kojima, Takashi (1991, first 1954), The Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory, Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, ISBN 0804802785.

3. Kojima, Takashi (2012), The Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory [Kindle Edition], Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, ASIN B00CST3NLY.

4. Kojima, Takashi (1991, first 1963), Advanced Abacus: Japanese Theory and Practice, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, ISBN 0804800030.

5. Kojima, Takashi (2012), Advanced Abacus: Japanese Theory and Practice [Kindle Edition], Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, ASIN B008EM89KO.

6. Stephenson, Stephen Kent (July 7, 2010), Ancient Computers, IEEE Global History Network, retrieved 2011-07-02.

7. Stephenson, Stephen Kent (2013), Ancient Computers, Part I - Rediscovery, Edition 2, Createspace, ISBN 1490964371.

8. Stephenson, Stephen Kent (2013), Ancient Computers, Part I - Rediscovery, Edition 2 [Kindle Edition], ASIN B00DVPPQ78.

9. Stephenson, Stephen Kent (2013), Ancient Computers, Part II - Video Users' Manual, 1 of 2, How To Use a Counting Board Abacus, Amazon.com, ASIN B00DUJBAL6.

10. Stephenson, Stephen Kent (2013), Ancient Computers, Part II - Video Users' Manual, 2 of 2, How Romans Used a Counting Board Abacus, Amazon.com, ASIN B00DUJBE3U.

My comments and requests:

In Advanced Abacus: Japanese Theory and Practice, Kojima states in his forward, "This book has been written as a sequel to my earlier work The Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory. In this volume I shall both expand the explanation of some of the basic abacus operations given in the first volume and discuss new operations and new ways of doing the basic operations. In the first chapter I shall discuss the Oriental history of the abacus in greater detail than was done in my first book."

So to get a full picture, the reader pursuing "Further reading" should be able to access both books.

Unfortunately the print editions are out of print and rare book dealers are asking hundreds of dollars for each one. Fortunately the publisher has released both as affordable (<$10 ea.) eBook Kindle editions.

Will you allow me to edit "Further reading" to include items 1, 3, and 5?

As to my publications: 6 is an online pre-publish paper accessible for FREE, 7 is a paperback for those who want a hardcopy book, and 8 is the eBook Kindle version (in which the links are live). 8 could be found when looking up 7 on Amazon because they show them together. Searching for 7's ISBN on the web brings up many book retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Will you allow me to edit "Further reading" to include items 6 and 7?

Items 9 and 10 are DVDs that provide media copies of my YouTube videos in playlist http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL545ABCC6BA8D6F44. This playlist is referenced in the book and is effectively a video users' manual. A viewer left a comment on YouTube that he would like to be able to buy DVDs of the videos, so I published them through Amazon's subsidiary, CreateSpace. There are two DVDs because I couldn't fit all 18 on one DVD, so I put 1-12 on the first DVD and 13-18 on the second. Unfortunately, CreateSpace does single DVDs only, no multi-disc sets. So Amazon lists the two DVDs separately and does not link them together on their site; nor do they link them to the book.

I know these DVDs are not "reading", per se, but teaching how to use a counting board abacus is a performance art that is much clearer in video than in words; so will you allow me to edit "Further reading" to include items 9 and 10? If so, do you think I should include an entry for the YouTube playlist?

Thank you for your consideration, -Steve Stephenson Sks23cu (talk) 14:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Wasn't me. It was User:Spinningspark. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Steve. Here are the reasons are reverted you,

1. Firstly, posting ones own stuff, especially when it is not being used as a reference (but that as well), is considered poor etiquette. The reason it is not a good idea is that it is near impossible to maintain a neutral POV due to a conflict of interest. It is far preferable to make suggestions on the article talk page and leave it to other editors to decide whether it is useful. If no one puts it in, then too bad.
2. We do not need a separate line for each edition of the same book. As you pointed out yourself, the Kindle editions can be found through the ISBN link. At most, add an alternate ISBN, ISSN, OCLC ref etc. I am not in favour of adding ASIN numbers as these relate to only one supplier (Amazon), nor is it good to link directly to suppliers. It should be left to the reader to decide how they want to obtain their books and the ISBN automagic link goes to a page which links to Amazon in any case.
3. There may be a good case for listing Kojima's advanced book, and if that is all you had done I probably would not have reverted you.

Best regards, SpinningSpark 18:37, 8 August 2013 (UTC)