Help:Importing content from Wikipedia

This page is intended to help editors who wish to import material from other encyclopedias such as Wikipedia

Importing articles from Wikipedia

These are "how to" instructions for editors of this wiki.

There are many excellent articles in the Buddhism topic area in Wikipedia. Nearly 6000 in total and most of them were originally written in a spirit similarly to that of the Rimé approach, of recognizing differences and using the writings of scholars within the traditions as the main sources for the articles. Generally, you can expect an article authored before October 2014 to follow this approach - though some articles such as the Anatta and Dzogchen ones were modified earlier in spring to summer 2014.

Also with so many articles and only a few editors remaining in the topic area there, it takes a while for them to update them all to match their new ideas about how to proceed. Many of the articles are essentially in the same state they were in from 2014 with only minor edits. The edits since then are often fixes of the articles by "wiki gnomes" dealing with typos, spelling, punctuation, grammar, broken links, wiki formatting etc so may be worth including. Or they may be by wikipedia editors that are not yet following this new approach. For others, even if they are heavily edited since then, they will still have the original article preserved in the articles history tab, if you scroll back to 2014.

So editors here may often wish to import an article from Wikipedia to use as their starting point.

How to import the current version of a Wikipedia article

To do that go to the Export pages section of wikipedia and enter the name of the article you wish to export. Be sure to select the check box "Include Templates" to make sure any necessary templates are copied over as well.

Then click on "Export" and in the dialog that pops up in your browser choose Save File.

Then go to the import page of this wiki: Import pages

Browse for the file you have just exported and click on Import.

Finally be sure to attribute the page you just imported, to its original authors in wikipedia.

Just copy / paste this to the end of the page:

{{En-WP-Attrib}}

How to import an earlier version of a Wikipedia article

If you wish to use an earlier version of the page, you can still export and import the latest version first. This may be useful as a way to make sure you have all the necessary templates, if they aren't here already, as well as simultaneously creating a page here with the same name as the original article.

However, then go to the pages history tab of the original article, find the dated version you want to copy (usually september or october 2014, sometimes earlier, sometimes later), and click edit and copy / paste over to the new page in this wiki.

Also be sure to remove the template {{Use dmy dates}} from the head of the article, as this will mark it as an old out of date article.

This time, to attribute the original article, use the template: {{En-WP-Attrib-date}} But this time you have to add extra paremteres to identifiy the original page and give its month and year last edited, as:

{{En-WP-Attrib-date|oldid|year|monthnumber}}

You get the oldid from the url for the old version of the page.

E.g. suppose the page is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_Buddhist_council&oldid=705587374

The top of that page shows the date as February 2016. The oldid is 705587374.

So the template is:

{{En-WP-Attrib-date|705587374|2016|2}}

which, when attached to the First Buddhist council page in this encyclopedia will generate an attribution to the First Buddhist council page on Wikipedia for February 2016. For details see the documentation for {{En-WP-Attrib-date}}

How to import a template

To attribute an imported template use {{En-WP-TP-Attrib}} immediately after the <noinclude> statement:

<noinclude>{{En-WP-TP-Attrib}}{{Documentation}}</noinclude>

(I didn't think to do this for most of the imported templates - since they are used in pages already marked as imported from Wikipedia it probably doesn't matter much but good to do it when editing / importing new ones)

Attributing other versions of Wikipedia or other wikis with a similar format and the same license

To attribute an article from another wiki use {{WP-Attrib-url}}

Example: {{WP-Attrib-url|//nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringu_Tulku_Rinpoche|Netherlands Wikipedia|Ringu Tulku Rinpoche}}

Generates:

This article uses material from Ringu Tulku Rinpoche on Netherlands Wikipedia. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (view authors).

Attributing other wikis with a different license

Use {{WP-Attrib-url}} again - but to make sure the user knows the license is different also add a license to the top of the page

Example: {{Page-License|This page licensed under:<br>[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0] }}

This page licensed under:
CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Generates:

Then you need to attribute it at the bottom of the page as before:

Example: {{WP-Attrib-url|//www.wisdompubs.org/book/wheel-life/introduction|Wisdom Publications|The Wheel of Life - Introduction|Tenzin Gyatso and Jeffrey Hopkins|[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0]}}

Generates:

The other way around - attributing artices from this encyclopedia in other wikis

How to attribute articles from this encyclopedia if released under the creative commons share alike license (default)

As with Wikipedia, an appropriate way to attribute them on another website is to use a notice like this:

This article uses material from the Encyclopedia of Buddhism article Help:Importing content from Wikipedia , which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).

That uses the template {{Enc-Buddhism-Attrib}} which you can copy and use in your own wiki, if it is based on MediaWiki. Be sure to check the page license before using it.

However, you need to check the page before doing this. If it is released under a different license, this will be given at top left beneath the author's avatar. See this test page for an example: User:Robertinventor/attribution

If released under a different license

If it is released under a different license you can use {{Enc-Buddhism-Attrib-license}} to attribute these articles on another website. Again, you can copy this template over and use it in your own wiki, if it is based on MediaWiki.

e.g. {{Enc-Buddhism-Attrib-license|[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]}}

generates:

I.e. that the article has to be copied verbatim with no derivatives and can't be used commercially without permission from the author.

To customize the author

Or if it is an article with a named author at top left (or several authors), you can use {{Enc-Buddhism-Attrib-Author-license}} to attribute these articles on another website. Once again, you can copy this template over and use it in your own wiki, if it is based on MediaWiki.

e.g. {{Enc-Buddhism-Attrib-Author-license|[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]|Author: FirstName LastName}}

generates:

If the article has issues needing attention of an expert

Many of the Wikipedia articles in this topic area are excellent, but some can be of variable quality. If the article you import has issues and you are not able to fix it right away (don't have the time or don't have the expertise), you can flag it as needing the attention of an expert, using the template {{Expert_needed}}.

Before doing that, you can try the history tab to see if an earlier version is okay. But if you think it still needs attention, then you can use this template to attract expert attention.

The format is:

{{Template:Expert_needed|Buddhism|reason=reason}}} Or you can start a discussion on the talk piage in which case it is

{{Template:Expert_needed|Buddhism|reason=reason|talk=talk_page_section}}}

For details see the documentation for {{Expert_needed}}

If you want to help fix these articles, you can find a list of the articles with this template attached here:

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Expert_needed

Once you have fixed the article, just remove the template. If the article was mistakenly tagged and you are sure as an expert that it is okay, just remove the template. You may like to say a few words on the talk page about your edit, either way.

Bulk import

You can use the Wikipedia import page and this encyclopedia's import page to do a bulk import of many articles at once if you have the right permission level. To do so, go to:

• Wikipedia:Special:Export

Enter the pages you want to export one to a line, and be sure to select "Include templates".

After they are exported, go to the exported xml file and edit it to add {{En-WP-Attrib}} to the end of each section for an imported page, to make sure they are all properly attributed. Alternatively you can do this after they are imported but you can often do it faster in the xml file with judicious use of search and replace.

Now go to

• Special:Import

Browse for the file and upload it.

Minimal biography

This is not a general encyclopedia but specifically an encyclopedia about the Buddhist teachings. It is interesting to touch on the lives of some of the Buddhist teachers here, especially details such as

• Who their own teachers are or were
• Notable students
• Place and date of birth
• Style of teaching, including the tradition(s) of Buddhism they teach within, and where they taught / teach.
• Bibliography - list of their writings. When it is a published author with books or other works you can access - buy or find in a library or read online. Perhaps this is the most interesting section for this encyclopedia.
• Minimal basic chronology of their life
• In the case of Tulkus, then their previous and next incarnations and their reincarnation lineage

Beyond that, details of their personal lives are not the main focus unless particularly relevant to their style of teaching or to Buddhism (for instance of course we would cover the sixth Dalai Lama's poetry and decision not to follow a monastic path).

Similarly details of their politics are not relevant here, either internal to Buddhism or external, politics between countries and in society as a whole.

See also

• EOB:Project Importing
• EOB:Project Biographies
• EOB:Project Templates