Talk:Digital humanities

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Concerns

• The foregrounding of the digital humanities praxis at CUNY in the very first paragraph seems incorrect. Not only does this give the wrong impression about the composition of the field to readers, it also implies that the CUNY program is an antecedent to DH, which is false. If the purpose of the sentence is to quickly gesture toward the ancestors of the field, it would be best to stick to "humanities computing" only, as this was the field that actually changed names to DH. All information about the origins and sources of that field, and of DH post name change, should be put in another paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ontoligent (talk • contribs) 11:35, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

There are two links that are no longer supported. One is the 53rd citation of Howard, Jennifer (2009-12-31). "The MLA Convention in Translation". The other is a bibliographic entry by Classen, Christoph, Kinnebrock, Susanne, & Löblich, Maria, eds. (2012). Towards Web History: Sources, Methods, and Challenges in the Digital Age. Historical Social Research. Altown40 (talk) 06:04, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Along those same lines, the link for the Fitzpatrick article in the Bibliography is also dead (Fitzpatrick, Kathleen (2011). Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. New York; NYU Press.). Krrlee (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

General

I figured I should start this, since no one has.Elijahmeeks 00:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

There are many basic tennants of Humanities Computing that were in the old article that were not carried over in the merge. I actually feel Huco should be kept as a separate article. Rendar 00:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The reference material in that article referred to both Digital Humanities and Humanities Computing. It seems the relevant research treats these two terms as referring to the same concept, and so I'd disagree. Perhaps if the tenets you're referring to were added to this article that would fix things? Elijahmeeks 01:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

At a THATcamp at the National Library of Australia on 2nd November 2014 a session devoted to exploring collaborative editing spent an hour editing the digital humanities page. (I've added this note to explain the flurry of edits appearing right now by unregistered users.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.102.239.195 (talk) 00:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I would recommend organizing the subjects in order to make a more cohesive "narrative" regarding Digital Humanities. I would suggest bumping the "History" subject right after "Definition." Also within the first paragraph of "Definition" I would suggest linking terms such as "hashtag activism" and "alternate reality games" to their respective wiki entries. Hectorlopez17 (talk) 22:31, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

In the digital archives subsection of the projects, I would recommend adding collaborative digital archives that are collaborative in nature. For a field built on collaboration, this section should highlight projects that encourage non-professional users to add their own content to the project. Mbhankins (talk) 05:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest adding links to NEH and NSF, as I did not see an explanation of what these abbreviations represent. People with no background information on this subject may find it confusing. Meaghanjarnecke (talk) 00:32, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I think perhaps some section reorganization is in order now that the article is fairly well established. For instance, in most articles, "History" is either the very first section, or at least immediately follows the "Definition"/"Etymology" section. Also, given the shortness of the "Tools" section, might it be merged with the discussion on "Methods"? Apjames93 (talk) 15:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Technology, criticisms, & future

I would dearly love if somebody would be so kind as to answer the following questions for me which I'm still left wondering about having read this article:

• 1. What is the difference between creating a really cool website focusing on your scholarly research, and what is known as the digital humanities?
• 2. Could somebody be more precise about the technical skills one would need to engage in the digital humanities? What computer programming knowledge and skills would one need to attain to make a career out of this?
• 3. I want to know, I suppose, are digital humanities' professionals (??) simply web designers with an advanced knowledge of a humanities discipline? If not, in what ways are they different?
• 4. What are the future prospects for this field of study?
• 5. It seems like a brilliant idea to take scholarly work away from esoteric journals and open it to the world (including the taxpayers who fund so much scholarly activity), why is every university not embracing this without reservation; what are the criticisms of the digital humanities?

86.42.71.111 (talk) 10:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In a recent article in the American Historical Review (2016) 121 (1): 143-155, entitled Harlem Crime, Soapbox Speeches, and Beauty Parlors: Digital Historical Context and the Challenge of Preserving Source Integrity. Joshua Sternfeld reviews digitalharlem.org and is critical of the way race and gender are approached. This might be a good addition to the subheading Diversity under Criticisms. Altown40 (talk) 15:16, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

The presentation of the Negative publicity section has some issues with neutrality. The author is channeling some ideas directly from the sources (new wine in old bottles) without some necessary context, while other positions are presented as statement, rather than opinion (If it were not burdened...)Kaxsalla (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The criticisms section should include a reference to the often-stated criticism that Digital Humanities is a very temporary field that will only exist for the few years between when digital methods have started to infiltrate the humanities and when (presumably very shortly) everyone in the humanities will be using them. This comes up a lot at digital humanities conferences, but I haven't had a chance to find a good reference of a discussion of it in writing yet.192.102.239.195 (talk) 01:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

In the subsection "Difficulty of evaluation," it might be useful to reference guidelines to evaluate digital scholarship developed by various organizations, such as the American Historical Association or the Modern Language Association, to demonstrate the academic world is trying to educate various departments in the humanities on how to properly assess digital scholarship as it related to promotion, tenure etc. This information seems lacking in the articleTealover7711 (talk) 04:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

While issues of access are addressed, they focus primarily on issues of access for those with disabilities. I would suggest exploring other potential access issues that may stem from race or socioeconomic class, and perhaps a lack of internationalization in the field and what problems these pose. is one source that explains how many digital humanities centers are typically East-West based and usually reside in higher economic areas. JonnieFox (talk) 21:10, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

External Links

Since this page has been flagged for having too many links (incl. one I just added myself), I suggest the following:

• 1. Someone with DMOZ editor status re-compile this list on that site under Arts>Humanities>Scholarship and Technology>[new category:]Digital Humanities Centers. Migrate only "Digital Humanities Centers" since they make up the bulk of the current list.
• 2. Link to that page from the External Links section using a title like "Directory of Digital Humanities Centers [DMOZ]."
• 3. Add note for Wikipedia editors that, for the sake of usability and organization, such links belong on DMOZ.
• 4. Review remaining external links.

Ebellempire (talk) 22:02, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Sample websites?

Could somebody put some visual samples of a good Digital Humanities website? This article badly needs some visuals. 86.41.8.16 (talk) 13:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Nice quote but needs a better source

Blogs are not reliable sources; but this quote is nice. I moved it here from the category where next to nobody would ever see it. If this appears in a more reliable outlet, I'd support inclusion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 20:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not just a blog post: Melissa said it in front of some 240 delegates as part of her closing keynote at the Digital Humanities 2010 conference. There's video footage of her saying it hosted on an academic non-blog site (linked here), although I'm not sure if the footage has been removed or if the server just happens to be down right now. ARK (talk) 21:12, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

"Those definitions of DH must be personal, and must vary – but how many of us, when asked to explain DH, go 'well, its kinda the intersection of....' – and you lost them at kinda." - Melissa Terras, "Present, Not Voting: Digital Humanities in the Panopticon"

Blogs can be reliable sources. When they have professional editorial staff or written by qualified professionals in their field. Melissa Terras is a professional digital humanist, with tenure at a recognised university and no known history of promoting WP:FRINGE theories, this makes her blog a reliable source as far as wikipedia is concerned (but only about the digital humanities, which is where the qualifications are). Stuartyeates (talk) 01:39, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

List of DH journals

Southern Spaces is no doubt an interesting and innovative journal. However, it does not seem to be in any way specifically related to Digital Humanities. This is their self-definition: "An interdisciplinary journal about regions, places, and cultures of the US South and their global connections." (http://www.southernspaces.org/). In my opinion, this journal should be removed from the list.

At the same time, the "Journal of Digital Humanities" is missing. Here is their self-definition: "The Journal of Digital Humanities is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, open access journal that features the best scholarship, tools, and conversations produced by the digital humanities community in the previous trimester." (http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/). This one should probably be added. I'm willing to make those changes myself but will wait for reactions first. --Christof-Schoech (talk) 12:37, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

"Methods" section & self-promotion

Nice idea to add a "methods" section, should we merge it with the "tools" one? However, it will be necessary not to focus only on textual analysis. Please also note that this content has be added by an user (Thinkbig-project) who dropped the same content on other pages: see his contributions (the cited papers are all from the same group of authors). Self-promotion of scientific publications appears to be frequent on Wikipedia (and is of course sometimes necessary to improve articles). What should we do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calvinius (talk • contribs) 13:15, 1 May 2015 (UTC) (oh yes, sorry for forgetting the signature, SineBot ;) Calvinius (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC))

I agree that the tools section still seems biased toward digital tools related to textual analysis. I think it would be helpful to expand this section to include other digital tools to provide some balance.Tealover7711 (talk) 03:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Goal of making this a Featured Article

With the increasing visibility of Digital Humanities and the fact that Wikipedia embodies several DH values (iterative, collaborative, distributive, multimodal, open and accessible), I would like to see this article improved so it can become one of the Featured articles and provide a solid coverage of the topic. Join with me! --Catsandthings (talk) 04:37, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Nice initiative. However, IMHO even more important than improving coverage is at the moment to straighten the text: Move definitional controversies to a subsection of controversies, remove them from the introductory texts (these are absolutely not helpful for people looking for a *first* orientation on DH), break paragraphs into smaller segments, possibly introduce sub-headings. However, I know colleagues who would appreciate the current elaborate style of writing (even though it's not very {d/w}ictionary-like), so I'm suggesting this rather than just to apply it. -- Chiarcos (talk) 11:31, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

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Values and Methods

It may be helpful to add a brief statement explaining each of the values in the bulleted-list. Users can read more about them if the follow the link to Josh Honn's article, but I think it's still useful to add something to the wiki article...as it stands, it sounds a bit vague. Krrlee (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I thought the same thing as I was reading through the list—but I'm wondering if trying to describe them without paraphrasing or outright quoting the source proved to be more work than was really necessary, when a link could be provided far more easily. Apjames93 (talk) 14:54, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

History

Drawing on an academic talk that Dr. Tara McPherson gave last summer, I have added a small paragraph to reflect the non-canonical but significant contributions to the history of the digital humanities made by groups such as SIGGRAPH and artists such as the E.A.T. group and Charles and Ray Eames. Sadwingsofdestiny (talk) 15:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Further Reading Section

Hello, I am curious if anyone believes it may be productive to add more material to the Further Reading section of this page? There is one subheading only, and I think this large topic should merit more further readings and subheadings since it encompasses such a large amount of material. If this were a possibility, I could provide a series of scholarly articles to point toward for readers. Thenewpulp (talk) 21:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Would these happen to be scholarly articles that you have been paid to list on Wikipedia? - MrOllie (talk) 21:11, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

In an effort to be polite rather than snarky, I will make sure to be absolutely clear here: every article that I have listed is coming from a scholarly source. Additionally, a number of the articles that you reverted were from Google Scholar and not INKE. You may want to look into that before removing them so quickly. Furthermore, you removed links from the Digital Humanities Summer Institute website, which is partially run by the ETCL and INKE. In an effort to address balance and consensus, I was sure to add articles that were published by scholarly sources outside of INKE that are also relevant to the specific page. My main page, as well, lists all of the necessary and relevant information for INKE, which is part of a public institution, is publicly funded, and based out of a major research university in Canada. None of this is promotional. It is scholarly outreach, which is a basic tenet of INKE, ETCL, and Wikipedia. The systematic and outright harassment that you have demonstrated here is unacceptable. If you wish to continue with this behaviour, despite my designation was Wikipedian-in-Residence here (you might want to look into what that entails), I'll have to move forward with an official complaint. You are being tedious and obstructing legitimate scholarly outreach. If you can provide any rationale for why you reverted those articles, please let me know. The links are available. You might want to read them first. Thenewpulp (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

If you want to lodge a complaint of that type, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents would be the place to do that. Given that you want to personalize this dispute, I'll reserve substantive comments about your recent edits for that process, should they be required. - MrOllie (talk) 21:57, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I have absolutely no interest in personalizing this issue at all. I don't believe I have demonstrated a capacity to do so. If you were genuinely interested in providing me with substantive feedback about the edits and had taken the time to do so, this situation could have been avoided. However, you decided to provide single sentence snarky replies that are quite clearly meant to suggest a tone of being both rude and curt, neither of which I appreciate. You have overturned every edit I have proposed, no matter the size, at a speed that demonstrates you have not actually reviewed any of the scholarly sources that I have attached. As I said earlier, I used articles from both Google Scholar *and* INKE to provide some form of balance. Every article is from a scholarly source and peer-edited. The issue here is that you are not providing feedback so much as rudely trampling on every edit and providing zero feedback while also being rude. You have made it a personal issue, I am merely trying to find ways to highlight public scholarship on various Wikipedia Pages. Thenewpulp (talk) 22:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

My question was meant to remind you that you forgot to disclose your conflict of interest on this talk page, as you should do whenever you make this sort of request - any other meaning that you ascribe is in your head, not mine. Since we are all here to build an encyclopedia, we should start with the uncontroversial stuff. Can you make a list of the sources you want to use that have authorship unrelated to your employer? It'll be easier to consider if they aren't mixed in with the paid placement stuff. Oh, and as we have discussed elsewhere, please keep in mind that secondary sources are much preferred over primary sources. - MrOllie (talk) 22:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

If you happen to have a conflict of interest then you should not be editing this or other related articles. Of course, you're welcome to make suggestions here in Talk. ElKevbo (talk) 22:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

When I make these suggestions and then receive this reply "Would these happen to be scholarly articles that you have been paid to list on Wikipedia?", how exactly should I continue forward if I'm going to be pursued by a single editor in this way? Also, my understanding is that declaring my position, acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence, and carefully being attentive to balance would ameliorate this issue. Is that not the case? Thenewpulp (talk) 22:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the Wikipedian-in-Residence program but it seems like it sets up an immediate conflict of interest for participants. COIs are not unmanageable, however, and I appreciate the transparency and honesty. But it's still a COI and in my opinion it's still best managed like most other COIs by making suggestions in Talk for other editors to evaluate, modify, and possibly carry out.

Setting that aside, I do not believe that you can strike any sort of balance by trying to also provide links from sources other than your employer. That's a false kind of balance that at best is naive and at worst is disingenuous. If the very best sources for this specific topic happen to be from your employer then just say so and let us make our own judgments knowing that we may disagree. But if the very best sources don't include anything from your employer then you should be honest enough to say that, too. In the end, you must remember that this is an encyclopedia article and not a venue to promote your employer. ElKevbo (talk) 22:34, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Projects

I would propose to add the following lines of information to better support the topic with secondary sources. The information I wish to edit in will appear in italics.

Digital humanities projects are more likely than traditional humanities work to involve a team or a lab, which may be composed of faculty, staff, graduate or undergraduate students, information technology specialists, and partners in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. Credit and authorship are often given to multiple people to reflect this collaborative nature, which is different from the sole authorship model in the traditional humanities (and more like the natural sciences). This leads to the decentering of authority, challenging peer review, solitary writing, and authority as well as the channels utilized to disseminate information.

According to Geoffrey Rockwell, due to the need of diverse skills in order to complete digital projects as well as the availability of technologies that facilitates collaborations for digital projects, digital humanities are characterized by collaborative effort towards project completion. The convergence between theses two factors results in a particular characteristic of digital humanities which Rockwell refers to as “collaborative weeds of interactivity and participation.”

Hectorlopez17 (talk) 21:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Hectorlopez17. I'm afraid I will have to decline this edit request as well. Because I can only check portions of the book you cited (the only access I have is a Google Books preview), and due to licensing issues with your other edit requests, I'm not comfortable granting this request. Altamel (talk) 04:12, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

References

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Lists of DH projects in Wikidata

• Women's history DH projects in Wikidata: < http://w.wiki/Cqf >.
• Black DH projects in Wikidata: < https://w.wiki/CSD >.

-- Oa01 (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Oa01: WP:TALK pages are for discussing changes to the article. Could you explain what changes to the article you are proposing? Biogeographist (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Just sharing material of interest to editors/readers. -- Oa01 (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Oa01: WP:TALK#SHARE is specifically about parking "material removed from the article due to verification or other concerns" or new material "to be put into the article" after preparation or discussion. Talk pages are not a forum for general discussion about the subject of the article and not a repository of links, images, or media files. How do you think the links that you shared should be used to improve the article? Biogeographist (talk) 22:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Criticism section a bit excessive?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel as though the criticism section has an unusually high amount of [undue] WP:WEIGHT, and seemingly some original research. It's dense and some of it seems beyond the scope of what an encyclopedia should touch on.

I think we should try to concisely present the main points with simpler language. I'm not an expert on the subject and just thought I would point this out. I might make some edits if I find the time... --Pythagimedes (talk) 20:45, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

This. Absolutely. I was referring an acquaintance to this page as a field that might be of academic interest to them and was surprised to discover than about half of it was just a hatchet job on the whole field. There are some legitimate concerns expressed here, but they're expressed loudly and repeatedly at length. It is not proportionate. Volfied (talk) 11:31, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes to lead section

The edit made to the second paragraph of the article on 4 August 2021 at 6:02 inserts information about a particular research project. This information seems quite specific for the lead section. I wonder what others think. Heilprin (talk) 01:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)