Talk:Color book

Short sections

The sections Russian Orange Book, Serbian Blue Book, Belgian Gray Books are currently about a sentence each. Yes, they could be combined, but the point of having separate sections for them is threefold:

• parallel structure with the other, larger color book subsections
• keep like with like, and encourage expansion
• provide a natural destination for the individual redirects

Mathglot (talk) 01:16, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Source reliability

I have some reservations about the use of Hans Kempe (2008) as a source for claims about Germany, and about what other countries opine about Germany. He seems partisan; I'd like to know more about his background, whether he's a historian, and how to assess his reliability. Mathglot (talk) 11:18, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Lots more info available

There is a wealth of information available about this topic which could be used to expand the article, much of it online in full-text versions, as they are either out of copyright because of age or are governmental publications. Much of it is primary source material, as there are many thousands of pages of original documents and cables published by their governments. Some of them are compendia of original publications, with an added introduction which may or may not be under copyright, but these are secondary sources which have good analyses or summaries of different color books. In creating the article, when I added a citation using one of the sources I found, I placed the citation in section #Works cited; other sources I found but did not use (yet) in a citation, can be found in section #Further reading. Mathglot (talk) 23:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland

• Special:diff/1314939715

@Mathglot: What is your objection to listing the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland series? The Swiss series is listed on the website of the International Nettwork of Editors of Diplomatic Documents [1], alongside the other anthologies mentioned in the article — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 00:46, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

It is out of scope for this article, based on policy. The title of an article "indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles". Put another way, the title determines what the topic is, and by extension, what the scope is; i.e., what is in, and what is out. If we have an article about Diplomatic correspondence of Switzerland, then per the title, it would likely be devoted to the history of diplomatic correspondence going back to the old Confederacy, the Helvetian Republic, the Federal State, the world wars period, and postwar correspondence, and maybe have sections on language and diplomacy, some of the leading diplomatic figures involved, other countries involved in the correspondence, and so on. In such an article, the publishers who disseminate such correspondence would be peripheral to the main topic, but might rate a mention, especially Dodis which as a central role in it, but in that case, so might other institutions and publishers, like the Swiss Federal Archives, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, official pub.s of the Federal Chancellery (Bundesblatt, Feuille fédérale, etc), and various independent academic publishers. Feel free to write that article, it is unquestionably a notable topic, and we don't have an article about it yet. When you do, adding something about Dodis would be entirely appropriate.

However, this article, is not that article. The topic of Swiss diplomatic correspondence has nothing to do with the topic of this article, as defined by its title, Color book. Switzerland never published a color book during the world wars, or at any other time in its history. It did not need to, because it had no war policy to justify, and did not need to gain a propaganda victory or score points against enemy countries. Nothing about Swiss diplomatic correspondence is relevant to this article, and the peripheral subtopic about who published it is an irrelevant subtopic of an irrelevant issue. Inclusion of Dodis in this article would be a violation of normal standards of relevance, therefore it should be excluded.

That doesn't mean the content you wish to add is bad, just that this is the wrong venue for it. By all means, please do write Diplomatic correspondence of Switzerland and add it there; that would be a valuable improvement to the encyclopedia. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:03, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Are there any modern sources that define "color books" as exclusively referring the diplomatic documents of belligerent parties. None of the sources linked in the article offer such a definition, and many in fact use a much broader definition — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 05:58, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia verifiability does not work by demanding proof of a negative and allowing everything not disproven, but by finding support for some assertion in a reliable source, and citing it. In fact, the WP:BURDEN is on you to prove that Dodis is involved in generating color books, not on other editors to demonstrate that it is not. If you can find some reliable sources that show that it is, I will be the first to support you, and I will even personally add it to the article. If you cannot, then it may not be added. Good luck, 00:53, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. Zala's book was delivered today, and I have added cited content about the Swiss White Book. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 17:56, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I've summarized your edit and moved it to the § Others section. All of the other countries in this section actually published a color book for the typical reasons during the wars; only Switzerland did not. Nevertheless, although I don't think it belongs there with the same weight as other countries, I have added it to this section as a compromise. It certainly does not merit its own section, as a document that was never published. If you disagree with this edit, I suggest you seek a Third opinion, or other method of dispute resolution. Since there are only the two of us involved, WP:3O would be a good first stop. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 09:03, 9 October 2025 (UTC)P

I feel DODIS should remain. Zala's history of color books is perhaps the most authoritative, having been cited in almost every scholarly discussion of "color books" for the last 25 years. Zala's central thesis is that the challenges encountered preparing the Swiss White Book spurred a global transition to towards the quasi-independent production of color books, with, for example, FRUS being prepared in consultation with an independent committee, despite remaining an official government publication. Zala's treatise on color books, and the ensuring scholarship, give great weight to the Swiss White Book as a color book, and per WP:DUE, this article must do so as well.

Furthermore, I see no reason to limit the scope of this article to color books published by wartime belligerents. No modern sources use such a narrow definition, and both Hartwig and Zala explicitly give broader definitions.

I likewise see no merit to reducing the weight given to an unpublished book, despite prominent discussion in scholarly texts. WP:DUE governs article content, not historic publishing decisions. If otherwise, the entirety of Category:Unpublished books would merit deletion.

I agree we need a third opinion. I will type up some quotations and request a WP:3O — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:35, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

As many reliable sources attest, after World War 2, propaganda oriented color-books gradually transformed into scholarly publications. If I were to create an article on Documentary publishing of diplomatic documents, would you object to this article including a paragraph summarizing the transition? — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 00:16, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Not at all; sounds like a fine topic, as long as it can be defined and scoped per the first paragraph of WP:AT policy independently from this one. There would be some overlap, which is okay, but we don't want it to end up being a WP:POVFORK, so need to watch out for that. I was a little confused by the title, having to backtrack and reparse after reading Documentary as a noun, as it often is, but after restarting viewing it as an adjective, I got it. But you might want to see if there's an alternative title that does not have that as an issue. It's not the worst thing in the world, so if there is nothing better, then there isn't. Mathglot (talk) 04:27, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I've been mulling it over, and the more I think about it, the more I think there may be other problems with the word documentary in that proposed title. For one thing, it is repetitive with the third word. For another, it seems to assign an intent, as in, "Publishing with what purpose in mind?" Usually, we would use a noun phrase for a title that just states what something is, not its intent; for example, wouldn't Publishing of diplomatic documents be just as good, or the equivalent, and shorter, Diplomatic document publishing be enough to describe the topic you have in mind? And since 'document' pretty much includes anything that could be published, what if you drop that word and have just plain Diplomatic publishing? That gets us down from four words to two, but I can't mind-read you, so I don't know if you had something else in mind covered by "Documentary publishing of diplomatic documents" that is different from "Diplomatic publishing". Mathglot (talk) 04:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Documentary publishing is the standard term used by archivists, although, as that article states, the term is often misunderstood. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:33, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Spelling of Grey / Gray

@Mathglot: Are you aware of any official translations describing the Belgium **Grey** Book as Gray. None of the official English langue sources provided in the article do so? — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 20:46, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

No, I am not; your recent change was a good edit. But I think there is some confusion here due to multiple sources. The spelling you just fixed has been in the article, untouched (and with the wrong spelling) ever since December 2020 (diff); that's the one you just fixed. I suspect your message above was in response to something else, though, namely, this revert of mine, undoing this edit of yours where you changed Grey to Gray, so actually we are in complete agreement about "Grey" being the correct title word (in English).

The whole situation is somewhat complicated by a slight tension between WP:ENGVAR (which calls for gray in non-title, non-quotation running text in the body) and MOS:PMC which calls for original spelling in quoted text and titles of published works. As an example of this tension: if a WP article about color perception was written in American English, we would spell it color in body text, but if we mentioned titles of works by Brits, we would use their original title spelling, so we could end up with a possible sentence like: "Zeki wrote about color perception in his 1980 'The representation of colours in the cerebral cortex' " – so that's a case where a spelling inconsistency is actually exactly according to the rules.

In the gray-grey case here, we actually have a get-out-of-jail-free card, that we do not have in the color-colour case. That is because although grey is more BE than AE, it is also an accepted spelling in AE, more of a secondary one, but still, acceptable. So, we could consider changing all occurrences of gray to grey in the body text as well, even when it wasn't in a quotation or a title, and still be using a generally accepted (albeit secondary) AE spelling, and thus still respecting WP:ENGVAR and improving consistency to boot. This would probably slip under the radar, but if there was some editor with a really strong viewpoint on ENGVAR who turned it back to gray again in the running text, I would just leave it that way and wouldn't quarrel with them about it, but that is probably not a very likely scenario. Mathglot (talk) 21:40, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Terminology section

Hi, Bill. You tagged something 'failed verification' in this edit, but now the paragraph ends with "and" followed by a period/full stop, which I am sure wasn't your intention, and it isn't clear what exactly is being tagged. Can you have a look at this? Mathglot (talk) 21:55, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the call out. I've self reverted for now. My concern was that Adler (1951) never uses the term' color book' — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 21:59, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Correct template now used.

@Mathglot: Your edit summary hints at a desire to remove the sentence in question. If you wish to do so, I also support removal. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 22:17, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Yah, let's do that. (Btw, I am subscribed, so pings not necessary for this section and the previous one.) Mathglot (talk) 22:36, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Citation errors

Bill, citations 34, 36, and 37 (Umscheid; Kabermann; Zala) are currently broken, because the short footnotes do not link to any full citation in the § Works cited section. Typically you must have {{sfn|AuthorLast|year|p=...}}, and the problem is probably the missing years. See WP:SFN for details. In addition, if you install the user script User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors in your common.js, then when you preview the page, it will show you any citation errors of that type, so you can fix them before you save the page. Mathglot (talk) 05:15, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks for the tip about the script. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 05:32, 11 October 2025 (UTC)