Talk:Christmas Day in the Workhouse

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A fact from Christmas Day in the Workhouse appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 December 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that "Christmas Day in the Workhouse" was a criticism of the harsh conditions in English and Welsh workhouses under the 1834 Poor Law?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/In the Workhouse – Christmas Day.

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Copyright[edit]

Is this work still in copyright? If not, could the full text be included? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It will be out of copyright now but it's quite a long poem and so I reckon a couple of verses is enough. We can link to the full text elsewhere. Andrew D. (talk) 23:49, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Page name[edit]

After this runs its course on DYK, I think the name should be changed to either of the titles I saw in the various sources:

Christmas Day in the Workhouse -or-
In the Workhouse: Christmas Day
I didn't see it anywhere with that long dash. Yoninah (talk) 00:23, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If we look here, it seems that the original 1881 edition of The Dragonet Ballads had, in the Contents list "IN THE WORKHOUSE: CHRISTMAS DAY" (colon), while the poem itself (p.8) had "IN THE WORKHOUSE. CHRISTMAS DAY." (two full stops). But, of course, "wiki house-style" (whatever that it) can take precedence, I've been told. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:00, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The format shown in The Dagonet Ballads per Martin's link seems ok to me and I have tried it out so we can see what it looks like. I'm keen to have a look at the original in The Referee and will try the British Library for this when I visit there. Andrew D. (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Space, colon, space!? Wow, that's a bit radical! Martinevans123 (talk) 22:50, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's traditional rather than radical. Anyway, I was just copying the style shown in the link you supplied. My impression is that the original thinking was to have "In the Workhouse" as the main title and "Christmas Day" as a sub title. Our MOS would then have us drop the subtitle in the page name but that would stray even further from the common name. Andrew D. (talk) 23:12, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't sure there was a space before the colon on that Index page entry, but the typography does not appear wholly consistent, so it's hard to tell. Otherwise, that all sounds very fair. Pending your further researches - should the style in it's first ever printing in a newspaper trump it's first publication in a book? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:23, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We can have numerous redirects for the variations. The page should end up at the common name. My impression is that that's "Christmas Day in the Workhouse". Andrew D. (talk) 23:28, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Christmas Day in the Workhouse. And Wikipedia style is to delete that space before the colon; no one will look it up that way. Yoninah (talk) 23:30, 26 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it has a non-punctuated charm all of its own. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:31, 26 December 2015 (UTC) ... although, when did we start getting "'Twas... "? Long before Sir Terry, I suspect.[reply]

We now have consensus to rename the page by its common name, Christmas Day in the Workhouse. However, this page has been moved so many times that it will not be possible to move it to the latter title without an administrator's intervention. Yoninah (talk) 14:30, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done Philg88 ^♦talk 20:16, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Yoninah (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked to find that it got 1692 hits on Christmas Day. That's not many so I suppose that Wikipedia is not so busy on that day. Andrew D. (talk) 12:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]