Suboptimal external links to BPS

Minura · December 26, 2023, 3:13am

Hi,

I noticed that in many of Bikkhu Bodhi’s texts (perhaps in all texts originally published by the Buddhist Publication Society), the link to the source on the BPS website is a PDF of the cover of the book and not the text itself. I think it would be significantly more useful to either link out to the reference page for the book on the BPS site or to link directly to the text pdf.

For example, on this sutta translation by Bikkhu Bodhi, if you go to the info icon in the top right, the link to the source is “Complete book available from Buddhist Publication Society” which is a PDF of only the cover page.

I was able to find the source using the search functionality here (using the title in the cover PDF) and get to the reference page for the book which has links to the pdf (and occasionally, epub and other formats).

I would suggest, changing to links from the cover pdf to the reference page because you can do it simply by using the book id in the search url like so:
Current link on SuttaCentral: https://www.bps.lk/cover.php?id=bp212s
New link: **Select document format

Note: I did a quick search on GitHub to see if I could find these links (I assumed the text for this website was stored like that of a static site) to submit some pull requests but was unable to find the URLs at least using the GitHub search. If it is possible for me to make/suggest these changes on GitHub and you would like me to help, please let me know.

Thank you,
Minura

Khemarato.bhikkhu · December 26, 2023, 6:47am

I believe you have to search the sc-data repo:

github.com

suttacentral/sc-data/blob/f0655a4447a44d7d63992497721d56b91e5fe1c1/html_text/en/pli/sutta/dn/dn1.html#L501


      
          <p>Digital Transcription Source: BPS Transcription Project</p>
          <p>Extracted from <i>The All-embracing Net of Views: The Brahmajāla Sutta and its Commentaries</i>, translated and introduced by <span class='author'>Bhikkhu Bodhi</span>. (BP209S). First published <span class='publication-date'>1978</span>. Second printing 1990. Second edition 2007.</p>
          <p>ISBN: 978–955-24-0052-0.</p>
          <p>Copyright © 1978, 2007 by <span class='author'>Bhikkhu Bodhi</span>. BPS On-line Excerpt ©: 2013.</p>
          <p>This text has been made available by the kind permission of Bhikkhu Bodhi and the Buddhist Publication Society. It was released under the following licence terms:</p>
          <p><i>For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis, and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such.</i></p>
          <address>Buddhist Publication Society<br>
          P.O. Box. 61<br>
          54, Sangharaja Mawatha<br>
          Kandy, Sri Lanka</address>
          <p>Complete book available from <a href='http://www.bps.lk/cover.php?id=bp209s'>Buddhist Publication Society</a>.</p>
          <p>Prepared for SuttaCentral by <span class='editor'>Bhikkhu Sujato</span>.</p>
          </footer>
          </article>
          </body>
          </html>

Snowbird · December 27, 2023, 4:59am

With the BPS changing there website completely from time to time, I recommend removing the link. Google, or whatever comes next should be good enough for people to find it in the future. Or perhaps archive.org.

Snowbird · December 28, 2023, 6:31am

Now that I’m at a computer, I clicked on that link and it actually doesn’t go to a pdf of the cover. It goes to the book page on their website:

Are you getting something different?

Now, the link on that page to the online version is broken. Which is sub optimal, but that’s the fault of the BPS.

sujato · December 29, 2023, 8:36pm

Tbh I’m inclined to leave as is. At least it goes to the bps website so people can see what they have.

suaimhneas · December 30, 2023, 9:21pm

Hi Minura,

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Minura · January 1, 2024, 4:18am

@Snowbird, that pdf only has the cover and is a dead end with no link to the actual text. The url itself says “cover” so I think this must have been added accidentally and is not a broken link.

I found only 3 BPS links pointing to the cover page and about 100 pointing to either the BPS homepage or the BPS store for a paid print book. Either way, it’s still possible to navigate from the home page or the store to the free PDF.

I’ve submitted a pull request to fix the link for the three that pointed to the cover page here: fix links to point to download page (used to point to cover page) by MinuraSilva · Pull Request #244 · suttacentral/sc-data · GitHub

Snowbird · January 1, 2024, 4:35am

I have no idea what you are clicking on. I don’t get directed to a PDF at all. That link, https://www.bps.lk/cover.php?id=bp209s is to a web page, not a PDF. Could you have some browser plugin that is doing something strange?

I agree that the page the link goes to is not great. But it doesn’t take me to a pdf. Could you perhaps upload the pdf here? Just so we are all talking about the same thing?