Link to Author Webpage #34

gserena01 · 2020-07-03T18:45:11Z

Gunctionality for including a link to a web page with the author's information. Webpage can be authors personal webpages or the webpage from a larger poetry database

thundercomb · 2020-07-05T10:52:45Z

Hi @gserena01

Thank you for raising this feature request.

Thinking about the API design, it could potentially be part of a /info output field for a poem, with the author link being a subfield. This makes it possible to add other info subfields in future.

For example:

[
  {
    "title": "Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come",
    "author": "William Shakespeare",
    "lines": [
      "Who will believe my verse in time to come,",
      "If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?",     
.
.
.
      "  But were some child of yours alive that time,",
      "  You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme."
    ],
    "linecount": "14",
    "info": {
      "author": "https://williamshakespeare.com",
    }
  }
]

Would that be useful and is it what you had in mind?

Note that the bulk of the effort will most likely be identifying suitable websites for each relevant author. Those will usually not be personal web pages in the strict sense, as the authors currently available on PoetryDB are classic authors whose works are in the public domain. So it will be more about identifying a representative website for each author. In some cases a Wikipedia page might have to suffice.

If so, would you be interested in assisting with the task of identifying such websites?

gserena01 · 2020-07-07T14:32:35Z

The info field sounds great! And yes, I would be happy to help find these websites!

thundercomb · 2020-07-30T10:14:11Z

That's great, thank you!

The names of all the authors are available at the following URL:

https://poetrydb.org/authors

If you find a link you like for a particular author, please note it in this thread, for example:

Emily Dickinson: https://emilydickinson.com

Anyone can submit suggestions.

Once the number of links have reached a tipping point, and the functionality has been coded, then the database can be updated.

Thanks again for the help.

PPInfy · 2020-10-06T12:56:23Z

Hey why dont you make it part of #hacktoberfest

gserena01 · 2021-08-19T23:54:37Z

wweverma1 · 2022-05-01T10:29:09Z

@thundercomb Can I take up the coding part of this issue?

thundercomb · 2022-05-03T10:43:15Z

@wweverma1 Thanks for offering, yes please go ahead: create a new branch from master; then a pull request once you're happy and / or would like a review.
@gserena01 Many thanks for all your efforts on the links, and apologies for the very delayed response. I was slightly concerned that overreliance on a single website (My Poetic Side) could be a probem, but they appear to have been around for quite a while so looking good.

Once all the code is in place I will add the new data and we're good to go.

nedjo · 2022-07-30T20:42:51Z

Some suggested tweaks to data format.

I agree choosing some reference sources is a much easier task than trying to decide on individual sites, which is inevitably going to be fairly arbitrary--one person's list of the best Shakespeare site(s) is going to differ from another's.

Even if we start with a single reference source, we should probably build a data structure that accepts multiple ones.

Of course, there are any number of potential reference sites out there that offer info on various poets. Which should we choose?

I guess the thoughtful approach would be a two-step process:

Establish and document criteria for including a particular source.
Select sources based on those criteria.

Re criteria, I'd suggest to get us started:

Includes biographical information on the poet.
Includes a list of works.
Is produced by a neutral, non-commercial organization such as a nonprofit.
Has been in place for at least several years.
Is regularly maintained and updated.

It's great to have the list of links for My Poetic Side and having done all that work we should probably run with it. Personally, though, visiting the site, I don't know what to make of it. Who's behind it? I couldn't find any information--no "about us" page or such, at least not as far as I could tell. I'd want to know more before selecting it as a reliable source.

Other candidates? There's obviously Wikipedia. Which has its limitations, of course, but they're ones that at least lots of people are fairly aware of.

The Poetry Foundation is another obvious candidate.

I'd suggest sources rather than info as a key. One reason is it leaves open the future possibility of adding a /source endpoint.

The JSON might look like:

[
  {
    "title": "Not at Home to Callers",
    "author": "Emily Dickinson",
    "lines": [
      "Not at Home to Callers",
      "Says the Naked Tree --",
      "Bonnet due in April --",
      "Wishing you Good Day --"
    ],
    "linecount": "4",
    "sources": {
      "author": [
        {
          "My Poetic Side": "https://mypoeticside.com/poets/emily-dickinson-poems",
        },
        {
          "The Poetry Foundation": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson",
        },
        {
          "Wikipedia": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
]

A downside of this format is it will repeat sources for each poem. For example, the query https://poetrydb.org/author/Emily%20Dickinson returns 362 poems. That's a lot of times to list off multiple author URLs. We can't add source information to the response from the author endpoint, /author/[author's name], because the top-level structure there is an array of poems. A possible alternative though would be to add a new endpoint, such as /author/[author's name]/info. A response could look like:

{
  "name": "Emily Dickinson",
  "sources": [
      {
        "My Poetic Side": "https://mypoeticside.com/poets/emily-dickinson-poems",
      },
      {
        "The Poetry Foundation": "https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson",
      },
      {
        "Wikipedia": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson"
      }
  ]
}

jamogriff · 2022-08-02T14:10:44Z

@nedjo I like that dedicated endpoint idea for author/[author's name]/info and having a data structure to return multiple sources. That would also allow the backend to order and return those sources in the future by some metric without versioning the API.

If some kind of source ranking is desired in the future I think it would make sense to store each site's domain (and rank) in a dedicated DB table, and a many-to-many table links poet ids, source ids, and URLs. That would provide flexibility to serve non-ranked multiple sources, ranked sources or only a few dedicated domain sources.

thundercomb · 2023-01-15T17:15:40Z

Dear all, I have a request for clarification, and a suggestion.

The initial request from @gserena01 was for "a link to a web page with the author's information. Webpage can be authors personal webpages or the webpage from a larger poetry database"

Can this be answered with a short bio, and a description of the poet's poetry and influence?

From the perspective of the purpose of the PoetryDB website it would be preferable, in my view, if the API offered this as text content rather than a link. Reasons for this include that it would:

be in keeping with the poetry, which is text content
avoid risking broken links, which can happen without warning
make consistency of content easier to enforce

Until now it did not seem practical to custom write such information for all 120+ poets on the site. However, having explored this with ChatGPT, my impression is that it is now possible with less effort.

ChatGPT appears able to synthesise information about poets both concisely and with a consistency of style. Here are a couple of examples:

Emily Dickinson was an American poet and writer, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts and died in 1886. She is considered one of the most important figures in American literature, known for her unique and unconventional style of poetry.

Throughout her life, Dickinson lived a relatively private and reclusive life, rarely leaving her home in Amherst and maintaining few close relationships. Her poems often reflect this solitude and introspection. Many of her poems were influenced by her religious beliefs and the natural world.

Dickinson wrote over 1,800 poems, though only a handful were published during her lifetime. She is known for her unique style, characterized by her use of short lines, unconventional punctuation and capitalization, and her focus on common everyday objects and experiences.

Her most famous poems include "Because I could not stop for Death," "I'm Nobody! Who are you?," "Hope is the thing with feathers," and "There's a certain Slant of light."

Dickinson's poetry was not widely recognized until after her death. Her work was first published in 1890 in a collection edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Since then her poetry has been widely read and studied, influencing many poets and writers. Her legacy is that of a powerful and unique voice in American poetry, who through her innovative and unconventional style, pushed the boundaries of what poetry could be and continues to inspire readers and poets alike.

William Topaz McGonagall was a Scottish poet, born in 1825 in Edinburgh and died in 1902. He is known for his comically bad poetry, which was often ridiculed during his lifetime, but has since become something of a cult classic.

McGonagall worked as a weaver in Dundee, Scotland and later as a performer, reciting his poetry in public. He wrote mainly on serious and historical themes, such as the Tay Bridge Disaster and Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, but his poetry is often criticized for its poor meter, rhyme and overall lack of literary merit.

His most famous poems include "The Tay Bridge Disaster," and "The Famous Tay Whale," both of which were written in the aftermath of the events they describe.

Despite the poor quality of his poetry, McGonagall's legacy is one of a unique and enduring figure in literature. His poetry is often cited as an example of bad poetry, but it has also gained a cult following for its unintentional humor. His poetry is still read and performed today and serves as a reminder of the importance of not taking oneself too seriously.

While it would still be an undertaking to generate and fact check such a summary for each poet, it now seems more doable.

Please let me know your thoughts.

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Link to Author Webpage #34

Link to Author Webpage #34

gserena01 commented Jul 3, 2020

thundercomb commented Jul 5, 2020 •

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gserena01 commented Jul 7, 2020

thundercomb commented Jul 30, 2020

PPInfy commented Oct 6, 2020

gserena01 commented Aug 19, 2021

wweverma1 commented May 1, 2022

thundercomb commented May 3, 2022

nedjo commented Jul 30, 2022 •

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jamogriff commented Aug 2, 2022

thundercomb commented Jan 15, 2023 •

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Link to Author Webpage #34

Link to Author Webpage #34

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gserena01 commented Jul 3, 2020

thundercomb commented Jul 5, 2020 • edited Loading

gserena01 commented Jul 7, 2020

thundercomb commented Jul 30, 2020

PPInfy commented Oct 6, 2020

gserena01 commented Aug 19, 2021

wweverma1 commented May 1, 2022

thundercomb commented May 3, 2022

nedjo commented Jul 30, 2022 • edited Loading

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thundercomb commented Jan 15, 2023 • edited Loading

thundercomb commented Jul 5, 2020 •

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nedjo commented Jul 30, 2022 •

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thundercomb commented Jan 15, 2023 •

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