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Why not introduce some maintenance obligations for admins?

The following discussion is closed:

All that needed saying appears to have been said in this thread.

I initially posted over at Wikisource_talk:Adminship#Obligations_2 but it seems that is a scarcely-viewed page, so I thought I'd post here. I'm looking over the project and it is, quite frankly, an absolute pigsty. There are works that have been tagged as needing clean-up for fourteen years (Category:Works with no header template), and there are 300 Category:Works with no license templates. Talk:Speech at the closing session of the 5th Meeting on Globalization and Development held in Havana, Cuba addressed the fact it's tagged as a copyvio back in 2010 but nothing's been done about it since then. If we hop in a time-machine back to December 31 2009, ten years ago, we’ll see that Wikisource:Requested texts is so ignored that the majority of texts requested ten years ago have still not been added. (And before you say "Great lemuritus, go do all that", I just added Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex which had been sitting there unfulfilled for the last 12 years.) Christiane Taubira Speech on the Same-Sex Marriage Bill had three different maintenance templates thrown on it five years ago but nothing happened, and Hail the Sign, the Sign of Jesus has been locked to prevent any editwarring since 2011, there are 956 Category:Pages containing deprecated templates, despite having multiple Admins who list "Greek" among their languages Category:Pages with missing Greek characters has had the same page listed for nine years, Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month is obviously long since abandoned, and my personal favorite has to be that Category:Deletion requests/Unknown translators has had a {{backlog}} template for its 43 pages since 2006 :)

So basically I'm asking, why don’t we make a short checklist of tasks that every administrator must accomplish before their annual comfirmation (10 Xs, 10 Ys, 5 Zs), and a slightly longer one (25, 25, 10) for those aspiring to be an administrator to include along with their nomination? Because after 17 years, it’s a little silly to say we're just getting around to these things. Obviously the current policies are not working to keep up with the maintenance. Lemuritus (talk) 04:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there something of value that reducing the number of administrators would accomplish? To me, that seems like the most likely outcome of this proposal. -Pete (talk) 05:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
I agree that would be a bad outcome, though only if you believe administrators cared so little about their adminship that they wouldn’t devote thirty minutes a year to a project they wouldn't otherwise choose. I doubt any administrator would resign rather than help deal with backlogged needs. Lemuritus (talk) 05:07, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Being an admin already means spending time on efforts that are for the good of the community rather than your own pet projects. That's really all the tools are: everything only an admin can do is a task that an admin has to do for the community rather than for their own interests. I don't think any of our current crop of admins care about being an admin as such; rather, they are admins because they are willing to contribute some of their precious volunteer time to the community rather than their own pet projects. There is no surer or faster way to kill that volunteer spirit than requiring them to meet a quota of some sort.
In addition, there is not a single backlog on the project that I am aware of that requires admin tools (the maintenance queues that require tools are being processed as they come in). There is absolutely no reason why we should be looking at the admins to process these when the community at large can do that just as well. And if they bother you so much, the answer really is "So go do something about it!".
That being said, we do have a massive backlog in all sorts of areas, so I would absolutely encourage you to try to organise some kind of community backlog drive over on the Scriptorium. I'm quite certain most of the admins will chip in there as time allows, as more than averagely engaged members of the Wikisource community. --Xover (talk) 10:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Ditto. Frankly speaking, your proposal is quite irritating, especially considering the level of engagement admins here have on average. It shows your lack of knowledge of this place and it assumes admins here only care about a job title. If you feel this place is an absolute pigsty, pick up some tasks and go ahead if you really care. After you have done that for a while, then you can preach us about what we do, how and why. I am sure admins and the rest of the community will assist you. Time will tell how much you care. Mpaa (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
BTW, regarding your contribution, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, which you clearly made to have your conscience at rest before doing such proposal, unfortunately it is going to pile up on the backlog of maintenance tasks, as it is far from quality policies & practices. So a good place for you start would be to clean your own stuff. Mpaa (talk) 16:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
(e/c)Because we are volunteers with the same limited time as every other contributor here and the only one of these maintenance backlogs you've listed here that is semi-restricted to Admins is copyright issues. There are several contributors working their way through the various copyright backlogs. I could respond to each of the other concerns you've raised as there are reasons for some of them being left, but that isn't your point. Additionally, not all Admins have abilities in multiple areas of maintainance. e.g. Asking someone who has no music skills to look after the score missing backlog would be foolish. However, I'm gradually dealing with this one because I'm a musician rather than because I'm an admin. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
What parts of copyvio cleanup requires admin bits? Any user can tag for speedy the obvious stuff, and any user can nominate and comment on WS:CV. It's only pressing the "delete" button that requires admin permissions, and that's the last and least step. The hard / time-consuming part is finding, researching, and presenting / discussing each case, and no special permissions are required for that. --Xover (talk) 10:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I have been here two weeks and have looked up authors who have missing initials or biographical details, gotten rid of "Orphan" templates, recategorized the "Missing character" templates, tackled "Requested texts", created about 300 authorpages for redlinked authors, created the eight countries that were missing from Portal:Texts by Country for the past twelve years, and it seems a little rich to just say "Yeah, there is a HUGE mess, 600,000 uncategorized works - no real method for somebody interested in Assyria to notice we have anything about it, and even the administrators are consistently adding authors and works without categorizing them…but keep up the good work lemuritus, if you see a problem you fix it, we’ll do what we like and no we will not spend thirty minutes a year on a directed task aimed at fixing the project". And to accuse me of virtue-signalling when literally all I have done here the past two weeks is try to tackle the mess, much of which I can't even figure out how to accomplish tasks or whether policies exist, is just bizarre. "I know you are, but what am I" is barely a functional taunt from playground bullies, but from WMF admins?

Time is much less likely to show "how much I care", and much more likely to show how little I care about investing more than thirty minutes a day into doing the thankless maintenance tasks that are long overdue because those who want to be administrators want to avoid having to clear ten items on a backlog every year, or asking self-nominations next year to include twenty items off the backlog. Wiktionary was a "pigsty" for a couple years before it got fixed, Wikiquote was a "pigsty" for probably five years…but here we see not only a pigsty, but an obstinate refusal to actually tackle the necessary cleaning to fix it. Little surprise Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month is dead in the water when the administrators themselves didn't support it. Lemuritus (talk) 17:15, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

If you want to start a discussion about problems that you think are worth addressing, that would probably be well received. But instead of that, you've proposed a solution that reflects a poor understanding of the wider dynamics. My suggestion would be to gracefully end this discussion, take a step back, and maybe after a little reflection bring up the parts you still think are worthy of discussion. If instead of insisting that you have identified the one effective solution, you express an openness to the perspectives of that those of us who have been working on these problems, or adjacent ones, for months or years, that might help too. -Pete (talk) 17:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Administrator status doesn't come with a paycheck. It makes just as much sense to demand that that before creating a new work, certain amount of backlog must be taken care of.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
  •   Comment Adminship gives one access to tools to do things as the admins are trusted by the community to implement the consensus of the community; nothing more, nothing less. Adminship is not a promotion, it is not a privilege, it is just access to tools. So giving admins obligations is changing the balance dynamic; we all own this site, so we all have obligations. Please don't harass people who already do a truckload of work for this place. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:42, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
  •   Comment I'm going to give Lemuritus some credit for bringing this up. If there are specific very old backlogs that we can feasibly power through with a reasonably small investment of coordinated effort, I'll work on some of those. BD2412 T 05:13, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

General response to the criticism. Whilst you may have some valid points, you also have multiple misunderstandings, and actions that are not actually helpful, and some that cause more maintenance rather than less. A major misunderstanding is the role of administrators which are those around implementing the consensus of community, and those that have restrictions as such that administrative tools are required to undertaken them (see special:ListGroupRights#sysop), if it is not there then it is probably a community responsibility rather than administrative. (I have deleted my first response to you as it could best be summarised as echoing your interesting approach to win friends and influence people.) If you have specific concerns and suggestions, then I encourage you to raise them individually at Wikisource:Scriptorium so the community can respond. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

As a follow-up, please do not create user pages like that. We can all do that sort of creation, instead we look to create useful author pages with suitable listings, text, connections, licences, wikidata, etc. You have created a slab of maintenance work to get to style, and to be useful, many hours worth of work. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:30, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:00, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Unwarranted

The following discussion is closed:

There doesn't really appear to be anything here that requires administrator intervention, beyond an admonishment that enwp's "assume good faith" essay can be beneficially applied here too even when it appears like the other person is being unreasonable.


Some digging elsewhere suggests there is a content issue of general applicability hiding inside all this smoke, regarding how to preserve our proofreading process (independent validation) when replacing an image of a score with a Lilypond version in non-scan-backed works. But that's an issue best addressed by the wider community at the Scriptorium.

Anybody have comments on this? I was merely trying to add (and correct the differences of...) the lilypond score to Abide with Me (Illustrated Victorian Songbook) and now User:EncycloPetey is lecturing me on how I'm not allowed to make any mistakes and everything must be 100% as in the source right off the bat. This could all have been dealt with in a more collegial manner (and I'd much rather it had), but I find it frankly quite irritating when somebody who is unwilling or unable to fix what are essentially relatively minor mistakes (differing punctuation; the exact placement of a musical symbol; ...) instead asks the person who got it wrong to fix it without specifying what is wrong (if there's a mistake, it's very likely because it hasn't been noticed...) and then insinuates that the mistakes were there in bad faith (see w:WP:AGF...). 107.190.33.254 01:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

As I have pointed out on his talk page: the problem was the removal of content and replacing it with different content that is wholly unfaithful to the original. Compare:
 
with
 
This is not a matter of not being 100% correct, but not even being 50% correct and with removal of the original, then arguing and reverting. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
We've already had this argument. The only things wrong there (besides the missing lyrics, which can be added later, since we're not on a deadline is the title (too long) and the names (which are spelt out in full)) (I missed a few, but that's not the point) Such major issues, they require only a few seconds to fix, and when pointed out were indeed fixed, but instead we have this... 107.190.33.254 01:26, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Edit: can't edit my own comment so here we go again:We've already had this argument. The point I was making was not that I didn't make any errors or oversights (it happens), but rather that the way it was dealt with was quite unbecoming. 107.190.33.254 01:45, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Is this really something that requires administrator intervention? I'm sure EncycloPetey could have been more patient and diplomatic (as we all could, myself very much included), but then 107.190 certainly could have taken on board the guidance with more grace. This is a collaborative project, so collaborate, discuss, and if needed ask for wider feedback on the best approach at the Scriptorium.
    In particular, I think there are probably some issues of principle to decide regarding what precise level of fidelity is expected with Lilypond scores. We don't expect perfect diplomatic reproduction of prose works, and the same principles apply to music scores. But scores and Lilypond have added complications with multiple ways to express the same concept, and some practical tradeoffs with formatting (wrapping, exact placement of components). These are probably issues that could benefit from wider input (preferably from contributors that know more about music than me; which is pretty much everyone). --Xover (talk) 06:31, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    The score isn't the issue; the text is. We expect the text to closely match, but in the transcription above none of the text matches and most of it was missing. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    Maybe I should have explained this from the beginning, but when creating scores using lilypond, the most time consuming part is not the lyrics or the header text (which can be fixed quite easily once you take care to do so) but rather the musical part - which leads to me focusing most of the time on the music and disregarding everything else until I'm satisfied with the music. So when I copied this from the A&N Hymnal I mostly concerned myself with updating the few places in the music which had an additional octave note here (ex. bars 10-11 on the words "[hel-] pers fail, and [...]"). I copied the lyrics from below the score without a second though because I made the usually correct assumption that they were a transcription and that it would have been done properly, eg. as is done at the A&H hymnal.
    That being said, on the particular issue of "perfect diplomatic reproduction", my point of view is that as long as we have the music (i.e. notes) right, which usually implies that most other basic things (key and time signature, staff layout, etc...) are there too, everything else usually becomes a minor detail which can be added in little to no time if so required (eg. lyrics, header information), and if it can't be done easily (for example, I don't think I can force the mezzo-forte (mf) indication to be in what modern musical typographical standards consider the wrong place...) then we shouldn't make too much of a fuss over it... 107.190.33.254 14:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    Looking at Abide with Me (Illustrated Victorian Songbook) now, and comparing it to File:Abide with Me Sheet Music.png, it appears to me to be reasonably faithful, with only trivial differences (such as the precise placement of the mf). Are there still issues outstanding or have they been suitably addressed now? --Xover (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    It is still unclear whether 107.190 understands that removing content and replacing it with wholly unfaithful content is not acceptable. Throughout the process, I have heard repeated justification for why the content was not faithful to the source, such as if the notes are right then the text can be anything at all, but no acceptance of the Wikisource principle that a transcription should match the original. Especially so when the document is not backed by a scan, so simple visual comparison by future editors is not possible. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:08, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    I fail to see how what I did is "wholly unfaithful". It wasn't an exact reproduction but the differences were quickly fixed. As for the transcription as I said that was a wrong assumption from my part, mea culpa, mistake fixed, can we now move on? In any case I don't see why you are being antagonistic about it - it's not as if I was completely useless, right? And, again, for crying out loud, it's been fixed. 107.190.33.254 17:29, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
    Perhaps you should look at WP:BOOMERANG, since we're citing Wikipedia policies. You link to w:WP:CIVIL in a manner not "politely, calmly and reasonably, even during heated debates." If you feel this is a dead horse, perhaps you should move on.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 17:06, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

National Library of Scotland contributors

We've recently had several contributors from NLS create accounts and start making contributions. Presumably this is while they are in lockdown and working remotely. They don't seem to have had any guidance on how to do things here—particularly in the area of basic layout. This means that the content is being validated, but the presentation is lacking. There's also no structure for transclusion from the Page: namespace to the Mainspace. As there are in the order of 15 to 20 NLS contributors, so I'm asking for some help in assisting them to bring their valued contributions up to our standards. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:18, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Further to the above, I have been working off-Wiki with the NLS to develop guidelines for their staff to make useful contributions here. There are now more than 50 contributors who will be doing the initial pass-through of the OCRed text. They will be followed up by a smaller group of validators who will ensure that the layout of the pages meets our requirements. Once works are fully validated, a small team of NLS people will do the transclusions. I'll be assisting with this last while they get used to the process. The primary goal of NLS is to get the text up, so that it can be used in their searchable datamarts. A by-product is that we benefit by gaining access to works that are not held anywhere else and we may well gain some more longer-term contributors once this project is completed. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Lua module error for multiple Author pages

Something has been broken. On multiple Author pages, instead of an image, we now get a "Lua error in module". I've spotted the error on multiple Author pages, but a "null edit" fixes the problem. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:26, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: I've made null edits to all authors linked from the Main page, as well as a few high-profile authors and Classical author pages to speed clean-up. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

A single subpage within the module was created, and it existed for 5 minutes until the issue was identified. I am surprised that 1) it flowed through and 2) stayed flowed through. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 13:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
It's been nearly 24 hours and we still have multiple broken Author pages. We may need to run a bot to do touch-edits on all the pages in the Author namespace to fix this. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:03, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I am not seeing any broken author pages. I suggest you purge your cache. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not my cache. I'm visiting Author pages that I've never visited from this computer, and the error is not browser dependent. I've checked on three different machines running three different operating systems with Safari (on two of them), Chrome, and Firefox. The same pages produces an error on all three machines. The error does not show up on all pages, but appears more often on pages for high-profile authors. I spent 90 minutes last night manually making null edits for as many as I could, but I'm still finding pages with Lua errors even now. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:44, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I have opened one hundred Special:Random/Author logged in Firefox, and 100 logged out in Chrome. Not one has an error. Please see if you can purge Module:Wikidata/i18n, thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:02, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
To purge, I would first have to re-create the page, which is probably a bad idea. I cannot purge a page that has been deleted. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
It exists/existed in your system as that is the error that you are getting, so purging it in your cache should remove it. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:21, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
As I already indicated: I purged my cache and that did not fix the problem. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Death of User:Dmitrismirnov

At special:permalink/10084886#User:Dmitrismirnov there is the announcement of the death of Dmitry, one of our long term and quietly achieving administrators. I have protected the page with a link to the Russian Wikinews item, notified stewards, removed from admin list, and closed him on the graph at Wikisource:Administrators/Archives. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Rights removed — billinghurst sDrewth 07:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Move request

I would like to ask to move the work Evening Songs (1919) and all its subpages to the correct title Evening Songs (1920). I apologize for the mistake. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

  Done — billinghurst sDrewth 16:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Please move page and subpages

Please move the following page, and be sure to tick the box to move all subpages:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:MovePage/Page:History_of_California,_Volume_1_(Bancroft).djvu

Change the number "1" to "3" (this is actually a scan of volume 3).

This should be an uncontroversial one. Thanks to user:James500 for pointing out the problem. -Pete (talk) 21:40, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: The Mediawiki limit is 100 and this work has 200+ subpages (the limit is set based on what makes sense on enWP, not enWS where we routinely need to move 1000+ pages). This is an (admin)bot request more than an admin request, is what I'm saying. And I'm not set up for bot operations. Sorry. billinghurst and mpaa: are either of you able to help here? --Xover (talk) 06:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining...and, sorry to make such a dumb mistake! -Pete (talk) 06:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Xover: We found that we can have the hack of creating a root page in the Page: namespace that allows us to move 100 pages. We can cheat by recreating the root page over and over and sequentially moving the remaining "n x 100" pages without redirect by an admin, and not requiring a bot. Sure it is hacky loophole in the system, though quite useful so one we haven't bothered to have closed. Just need to remember to delete the root page at the end.

Can I say that I still do not think that we should be creating all these non-proofread pages for no real reason, and there are a whole heap of reasons to not create these pages (header/footer/page numbering/missing pages/wrong name/...). It is not especially productive compared to creating a page and proofreading them. The community stopped creating these pages by bots unless there was a clear and good reason to do so, and the current processing doesn't seem to fit within that space. This user seems to think that they know better and continues to undertake the creation process. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Addendum. I sometimes think that we should stop standard users from moving Index: and Page: namespace pages with a filter. It is just painful to recover from that at times, and painful when we cannot get fresh access to the underlying scan. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks @Billinghurst:. Re: the latter part of your comment, please note that the first specific issue you called out (header) is one that I addressed via regex and manual attention prior to the Match & Split. The last work you brought this issue up with me was The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, which now, a few short months later, is 100% proofread, >50% validated, by the efforts of three dedicated contributors, and serving as source material for English Wikipedia pages as part of a campaign drive. I have tried on several occasions to engage with you in discussion about this, because I value your knowledge and your perspective; but several times, you have vanished from the discussion, sometimes stating that it's not worth talking to me, and other times simply vanishing. Either it's worth finding some common ground on process, or it's not. I am here to discuss if you would ever like to do so. I am open to adjusting my practices, but any discussion that starts from the obviously false premise that I'm an annoyance who does not do productive work and/or is not worth talking to is unlikely to go well. Please, think about your own role in this apparent disagreement, the shape of which I do not fully understand.
On your last comment, was it unhelpful for me to do the parts of maintenance that were available to me? I had thought that by doing those, I was reducing the impact on admins to help fix the problem. But if it would have been easier to simply report the problem here and let and admin take care of it all at one go, that makes sense to me. Just let me know if that's your preference, and I'll keep it in mind if a similar situation comes up. -Pete (talk) 07:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Oh. I hadn't even considered whether we might be able to work around the limit like that! I guess that's why we pay you the big bucks! :)
@Peteforsyth: In light of that I'll try to get the moves done in a little while if nobody beats me to it.
This thread now is sliding into multiple side issues, so I'm going to bite my tongue and avoid commenting on them here. But I think we should make a point of addressing them in some suitable structure (user talk or a separate thread or something). --Xover (talk) 07:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: Done. Please let me know if I messed anything up. --Xover (talk) 07:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: I was referring to the recent application of over a hundred thousand Page: ns pages, without proofreading, and the other issues that ensue. Nothing to any of your undertakings. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Not having thought particularly hard about it or heard any arguments in the practice's favour, I generally agree with you on the batch creation of pages containing nothing but raw OCR. But I don't think we have any articulated policy to hang that on (I'm sure there are second-order stuff that could justify preventing it, but that feels like reaching) when polite requests have no effect. I'd suggest having a community discussion on WS:S to settle the issue, but with the poor participation there lately (cf. the Lilypond thread as one recent example; and that's not by far the worst example) I fear that would just cause conflict without a firm consensus either way to offset it, and thus I'm hesitant to go that route. --Xover (talk) 14:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you @Xover:, that worked perfectly. Hope it wasn't too much hassle. I agree that it would be worthwhile to have some guidance about generating pages etc. For the situation you describe, in my experience the best approach is usually for a user with a clear vision to draft an essay describing what they see as best practice. That can be discussed as proposed policy, or it can sit on a wiki page unread, or it can attract discussion and incremental improvement. It can be a strong step toward greater clarity, but it requires real work on the part of the person with a strong opinion. I suppose I might be getting to the point where I could imagine taking a stab at something like that, but there are people with far more experience and far stronger opinions than me around here, so it hasn't occurred to me until now to do so.
@Billinghurst: Since you referred to "this user," and I'm the user who brought the issue up, and I'm the user who created all the pages, and I'm the user you've complained to about similar things in the past, I don't think I can be faulted for thinking you were talking about me. Even in hindsight it seems strange that it would be otherwise. Perhaps you were talking about James (who in this case did nothing besides identifying and reporting the problem); from your user page it appears he may have a similar story to tell about having a hard time finishing discussions with you; but I'll leave that to him. -Pete (talk) 16:59, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I came here to address an issue to which I was pinged; please don't make people regret helping. If I am not answering many questions in many places at the time, it is due to RL. I don't have to justify how or where I spend my small amount of online time, grab some perspective.

We used to apply the layers by bot, and as I remember it, through community discussion we stopped; it was often problematic and there was the general feeling there was little gain in doing so. The problems outweighed the solutions. We especially wanted to be having proofread pages in preference to slapped down "not proofread" pages.

It is not a rule "to not do it" as there are times when it is of value, when people need a finding aid to transcribe. It is a practice to not do it unless there is a clear value; and it should be okay to have that as a conversation. It should be okay to ask a person to use a bot, per our guidance, if they are going to be applying over a hundred thousand pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

You are not addressing an issue on which you were pinged. You are making off topic comments that have nothing to do with the subject of this thread. James500 (talk) 06:10, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I only asked if the file and index page needed to be moved, because I cannot request file moves on commons due to interface problems, and I do not know what the effect of moving an index page is. I could have moved all the sub pages myself if others had waited 24 hours. James500 (talk) 06:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@James500: For this kind of move it is better to have an admin do it since they can suppress redirects at the old page names, and the old incorrect names would have been in the way in this case. On the other issues I think this is a conversation that should be had elsewhere (typically on WS:S for community discussions, or user talk pages for issues relevant to a particular user). --Xover (talk) 07:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Page shift after page insertion

Hi,

I have a small page shift request after inserting some missing pages:

  • Notes: pages 180, 182 do not need shifting.

Thanks, Inductiveload—talk/contribs 09:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Done. --Xover (talk) 12:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:55, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Request to move Baruch Jacob Placzek

I would like to ask for moving Author:Baruch Jacob Plačzek to Author:Baruch Jacob Placzek (without diacritics). 1) This German speaking author did not use any diacritics in the name a so do not any relevant sources, including Czech National Library Database. 2) Such usage of diacritics does not make any sense, Czech diacritical version of the surname is Plaček (without "z"), German non-diacritical version is Placzek (with "z" instead of diacritics). --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:49, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Change seems consistent with Wikidata and Wikipedia articles. Moved.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:56, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 23:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Billinghurst admin tool misuse

The user seems to be using their admin access to indiscrimently revert contributions of other volunteers they disagree with. Can someone stop it? Jura1 (talk) 11:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

You have been making trivial, though problematic changes to the means of transclusion in Page: ns, and the section tags, though not aligning with section parameters; and in ways that make it hard to undo and unpick or to go in and recast a transclusion, and having to check both the main and page namespaces, and then tens of trivial changes to tags in Page: ns. Easiest way to resolve this is to undo them all, and go back where I didn't get it right, and making sure that the main ns pages have transcluded. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jura1: You are due my apologies for not having communicated prior to undertaken the action that I did. I had replied to your post in the other forum, and as I intimated there, unpicking (reverting) these transclusions and changes over pages; it becomes like pulling that loose thread of cotton, it just unravels, and you go looking for the scissors and have to work out where to cut. I thought that I had time to resolve the issue, and then come back to you about why and what I had done. I had set a short period of flood protection, and was doing that. My reading of your contributions indicated to me that you were not active, and clearly I presumed wrong. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:15, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jura1: Please tell us all relevant edits and logs, or we cannot help.--Jusjih (talk) 00:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Jusjih (talk) 05:20, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Poems of Sappho and other works deleted as copyvio which have meanwhile slipped into PD

The following discussion is closed:

Issue resolved, closing to enable archiving.

The Poems of Sappho were deleted in 2013 as copyvio and moved to Wikilivres (which has unfortunately disappeared). Looking at Author:Edwin Marion Cox the work was published in 1924 and so it should be in PD now. Is it possible to restore it? It would be also great if it were possible to find other deleted works of this kind which later slipped into the PD and restore them too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

As I commented elsewhere, our copy of The Poems of Sappho was a tiny fragment of the whole work, and not the first part either. Wikisource standards have changed, and we wouldn't host such an extract these days. For that work, it would be advisable to start from scratch. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Whitelisting request

The following discussion is closed:

Issue resolved, closing to enable archiving.

I would like to draw the admins’ attention to a forgotten request at WS:Scriptorium#Spam whitelist request. Can somebody help there? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

What is the purpose of having the link? That question was asked, but not satisfactorily answered. "I want to add it" is not a reason to permit it. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'd point out:
One might just as readily ask, "what's the purpose of denying a longtime, productive editor the ability to add a link to an article that clearly has wiki relevance?" I can understand why we might want to discourage linking to a self-publishing site like Medium, which publishes lots of stuff that is not up to Wikipedia's sourcing standards, and where publication generally is not sufficient for transcription on Wikisource. But there is worthwhile content published on Medium, and sometimes there is good reason to link to it. I trust Andy to make a good judgment about stuff like that. Is there no administrator who feels the same? -Pete (talk) 04:03, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd also point out, @EncycloPetey: it does not appear to me that anybody did ask him why he wanted to have the link. Where was it asked? The thing I saw was a assumption that he wanted to transcribe the contents at the link, and a denial on the basis of that (clearly mistaken) assumption. If it's important to you to have an answer to that question, perhaps you should ask it. -Pete (talk) 04:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Andy sort of bit Billinghurst when Billinghurst asked about it. It didn't encourage this administrator to ask more questions.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree that Andy’s way of communication is sometimes difficult to cope with. We can let him know that we do not like his form of messages but at the same time should not ignore their contents. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 08:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll just note that there ain't a one of us that communicates optimally all of the time. And at the same time, two people communicating suboptimally tends to multiply the original problem. Doing better at this should be a constant goal for all of us. --Xover (talk) 10:01, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Andy is an adult and knows well about communication, and the strengths and weaknesses of his approach. I don't think that we need to be saying anything specific that hasn't been said previously in other communities.

As administrators adding exclusions to the whitelist they should be documented as to the reason so the community knows why the exemption exists, and whether it is permanent or temporary. Having an answer is not an unreasonable process, and it is easy to do. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:54, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

If the purpose of adding the link was to create a miniature external link farm, as you suggest, then the link should not be added. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:03, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:52, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Final warning: Mobile main page special casing will be disabled July

The following discussion is closed:

Issue resolved, closing to enable archiving.

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T254287

It seems that we have some work to do to ensure that our frontpage continues to be viable in the mobile form. We are listed as an impacted wiki according to Jdlrobson

“
How to fix

Option 1 - use the compatiblity stylesheet [minimal effort]

  1. Create Template:Main_page using the compatibility site template
  2. Include it in your main page using <templatestyles src="Main Page/minerva.css" />
  3. Add nomobile class to any HTML elements you want to hide on mobile
  4. Using the test URI (?mfnolegacytransform=1&debug=1) check that the main page renders correctly around 300px

Example: https://fr.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Accueil&diff=845666

… (other options explained at phabricator ticket)

”

—Jdlrobson@phabricator

I know that we have a few administrators better able to act, while numbers of us are at the bottom end when it comes of CSS expertise. We have a few weeks to have a solution, and to test. Though we certainly don't want to go into something without sandboxing first. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:43, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I will note that Xover recently create Template:Main page/styles.css which is more likely going to need part of an integration to the solution. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:47, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: I am working on addressing T254287 at Main Page/sandbox new (we can't use Main Page/sandbox because MediaWiki:Gadget-enws-mainpage.css hardcodes style rules for that page name, and I still haven't set up 2FA for this account so I can't request +interface-admin to fix it). For the short term there are some challenges with keeping it looking the same (due to the complications of the mobile proxy etc., and which I've been bugging Jon about) but I think I'll get the last bits sorted in time. Longer term, when we have time to run community discussions, we should try to do some bigger changes in the design and implementation; but for now I am avoiding those as much as possible. --Xover (talk) 08:44, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Headers displayed twice

The following discussion is closed:

Issue resolved, closing to enable archiving.

Headers of all pages are displayed twice for some reason, see e. g. Seven Years in South Africa or wherever else. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 16:59, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: I'm trying to track it down. Will follow up on WS:S (there's an existing thread there). --Xover (talk) 17:11, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:50, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

IP vandalism: 38.121.43.176

The following discussion is closed:

Issue resolved, closing to enable archiving.

Hi, looks like Special:Contributions/38.121.43.176 has been on a small censorship spree. Rather than individually reverting each edit, is there a better way? Nevermind, looks like @FreCha: got all of them while this loitered unsaved all day in an open tab! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:50, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Transwikifying assistance

Hi. I'm Barkeep49, an administrator on English Wikipedia. 126 articles were brought up for deletion there. We have consensus that these articles do not meet our guidelines but there was a feeling that they could be usefully be transwikified. Would this project be interested in the 126 articles listed here? If so can someone here assist me in importing them so I may complete our process? If there is not interest in importing these articles I can, instead, carry out our deletion process. Thanks and best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Thanks for the notice!
This is sufficiently borderline relative to our inclusion criteria (cf. #Reference material) that I wouldn't want to claim one thing or the other unilaterally. Let's see if we get any kind of representative discussion here at AN quickly (small project, often few people around in the middle of summer), or alternately we may simply transwiki them to a sandbox here and then have our own deletion discussion. We may eventually have to, but they're nice work and probably useful for somebody so it'd be a pity to just delete them. --Xover (talk) 07:17, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think that they are ours to import in meeting our criteria for inclusion. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
My impression is that this doesn't meet the inclusion criteria as it's user-generated, though the original might if it were public domain. Wikibooks seems possibly appropriate, perhaps somewhere in wikibooks:Department:Computing. wikibooks:Unicode says it exists exactly for this reason (hosting evicted enWP content). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:27, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
The problem isn't copyright: there's nothing copyrightable about these data tables. Nor that they're user generated: the onwiki representation just reproduces the tables in the PDF. The problem is that they are mere data, which is out of scope unless it is a subsidiary part of an overall work that is in scope. The community has in the pasted vote to keep similar items, but that is in spite of the policy. Speaking as an engineer, this information has value as reference and informational material and I would hate to see it just disappear. Anybody have a foot in over at WikiBooks so we could check whether they'd be interested? --Xover (talk) 11:32, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
[1] though maybe @Jusjih, @JackPotte: who are familiar with us and there may like to advise Barkeep349 and enWP. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:06, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Hello, according to me w:Code page 875 is importable to Wikibooks. For example we already have b:Unicode/Character reference/0000-0FFF. JackPotte (talk) 07:01, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
@JackPotte: Can you advice on how best to proceed? A note posted to b:WB:RFI perhaps? I would be happy to help, but it's probably best if Barkeep49 handles it directly since they have to coordinate on the enwp side anyway, and Wikisource is just a detour in this case. --Xover (talk) 07:59, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes and yes. I may then import them by bot if the time allows. JackPotte (talk) 09:27, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Barkeep49 to work with JackPotte to enWikibooks, rather than enWS — billinghurst sDrewth 06:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Correcting MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist for hyper-links present in Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians

The following pages from Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians have hyper-links which need to be added to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist:

I have suspended the youtube blacklisting. With flic.kr, just put a raw flickr.com url and/or put that in inside some wikilinks with the link being unshortcut'd. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 22:14, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Request to move Author:Sigismund Schlomo Freud to Author:Sigmund Freud

The following discussion is closed:

Belongs on WS:S.

Requesting to move the author page in question since:

(a) Freud changed his name to Sigmund at the age of 22; and
(b) he did not use either his birth name nor his middle name in his professional career, and published all of his works under the name "Sigmund Freud".

As such it seems to me more consistent with the practice on other author pages to use the name Freud's published works carried, rather than his birth name. --AristippusSer (talk) 10:12, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@AristippusSer: Our policy is to use the author's full name (unlike enwp's "commonly known as" practice), and the current name seems conformant with that. The convenience redirect from the common name should also mostly make the issue moot. In any case, this probably is an issue to put to the community at large on the Scriptorium rather than the admin noticeboard. An admin can implement community consensus if necessary, but other than that we have no special role in such calls. --Xover (talk) 09:23, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Xover (talk) 09:23, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Abuse editor filter editor CSS

The following discussion is closed:

Two months ought to be sufficient notice, so tagging this for archiving.

The following rule from the global MediaWiki:Common.css has been removed: 

.mw-abusefilter-editor { width: 600px }  /* widens abuse filter editor */

According to @Xover:, this rule is overridden in the Vector skin anyway, and even if it is active, it's only of use to the small number of abuse filter editors. If you are such an editor and you wish to continue to use this rule, you can add it to Special:MyPage/common.css and it should continue to work as before. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:31, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Xover (talk) 09:18, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Range-blocks placed: 46.155.0.0/16 and 46.221.0.0/16

The following discussion is closed:

Blocks expired, and they seem to have lost interest.

To avoid playing whack-a-mole with a Turkish IP-hopping vandal I have placed two large range-blocks. Both blocks are for chunks of Vodafone Turkey's cellular service. There are a lot of other /16 blocks in their network, and the previous cases of this LTA have seen them hopping between mobile operators (and deliberately changing their IP), so I expect more may be needed. Registered users in these ranges will have to log in, and unregistered users are SOL until the blocks expire (so keep an eye out for innocent IP users caught up in this and posting on their IP's talk page) --Xover (talk) 06:39, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  This section is considered resolved, for the purposes of archiving. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Xover (talk) 09:16, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Request to create MediaWiki:Cite link label group-lower-alpha

The following discussion is closed:

Resolved.

Hi. In order to make {{efn}} work, could an admin please copy the following text (excluding the <pre> and </pre> tags) to MediaWiki:Cite link label group-lower-alpha with the edit summary copy from [[:en:w:MediaWiki:Cite link label group-lower-alpha]]?

Extended content
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci cj ck cl cm cn co cp cq cr cs ct cu cv cw cx cy cz da db dc dd de df dg dh di dj dk dl dm dn do dp dq dr ds dt du dv dw dx dy dz ea eb ec ed ee ef eg eh ei ej ek el em en eo ep eq er es et eu ev ew ex ey ez fa fb fc fd fe ff fg fh fi fj fk fl fm fn fo fp fq fr fs ft fu fv fw fx fy fz ga gb gc gd ge gf gg gh gi gj gk gl gm gn go gp gq gr gs gt gu gv gw gx gy gz ha hb hc hd he hf hg hh hi hj hk hl hm hn ho hp hq hr hs ht hu hv hw hx hy hz ia ib ic id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je jf jg jh ji jj jk jl jm jn jo jp jq jr js jt ju jv jw jx jy jz ka kb kc kd ke kf kg kh ki kj kk kl km kn ko kp kq kr ks kt ku kv kw kx ky kz la lb lc ld le lf lg lh li lj lk ll lm ln lo lp lq lr ls lt lu lv lw lx ly lz ma mb mc md me mf mg mh mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz na nb nc nd ne nf ng nh ni nj nk nl nm nn no np nq nr ns nt nu nv nw nx ny nz oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os ot ou ov ow ox oy oz pa pb pc pd pe pf pg ph pi pj pk pl pm pn po pp pq pr ps pt pu pv pw px py pz qa qb qc qd qe qf qg qh qi qj qk ql qm qn qo qp qq qr qs qt qu qv qw qx qy qz ra rb rc rd re rf rg rh ri rj rk rl rm rn ro rp rq rr rs rt ru rv rw rx ry rz sa sb sc sd se sf sg sh si sj sk sl sm sn so sp sq sr ss st su sv sw sx sy sz ta tb tc td te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr ts tt tu tv tw tx ty tz ua ub uc ud ue uf ug uh ui uj uk ul um un uo up uq ur us ut uu uv uw ux uy uz va vb vc vd ve vf vg vh vi vj vk vl vm vn vo vp vq vr vs vt vu vv vw vx vy vz wa wb wc wd we wf wg wh wi wj wk wl wm wn wo wp wq wr ws wt wu wv ww wx wy wz xa xb xc xd xe xf xg xh xi xj xk xl xm xn xo xp xq xr xs xt xu xv xw xx xy xz ya yb yc yd ye yf yg yh yi yj yk yl ym yn yo yp yq yr ys yt yu yv yw yx yy yz za zb zc zd ze zf zg zh zi zj zk zl zm zn zo zp zq zr zs zt zu zv zw zx zy zz aaa aab aac aad aae aaf aag aah aai aaj aak aal aam aan aao aap aaq aar aas aat aau aav aaw aax aay aaz aba abb abc abd abe abf abg abh abi abj abk abl abm abn abo abp abq abr abs abt abu abv abw abx aby abz aca acb acc acd ace acf acg ach aci acj ack acl acm acn aco acp acq acr acs act acu acv acw acx acy acz ada adb adc add ade adf adg adh adi adj adk adl adm adn ado adp adq adr ads adt adu adv adw adx ady adz aea aeb aec aed aee aef aeg aeh aei aej aek ael aem aen aeo aep aeq aer aes aet aeu aev aew aex aey aez afa afb afc afd afe aff afg afh afi afj afk afl afm afn afo afp afq afr afs aft afu afv afw afx afy afz aga agb agc agd age agf agg agh agi agj agk agl agm agn ago agp agq agr ags agt agu agv agw agx agy agz aha ahb ahc ahd ahe ahf ahg ahh ahi ahj ahk ahl ahm ahn aho ahp ahq ahr ahs aht ahu ahv ahw ahx ahy ahz aia aib aic aid aie aif aig aih aii aij aik ail aim ain aio aip aiq air ais ait aiu aiv aiw aix aiy aiz aja ajb ajc ajd aje ajf ajg ajh aji ajj ajk ajl ajm ajn ajo ajp ajq ajr ajs ajt aju ajv ajw ajx ajy ajz aka akb akc akd ake akf akg akh aki akj akk akl akm akn ako akp akq akr aks akt aku akv akw akx aky akz ala alb alc ald ale alf alg alh ali alj alk all alm aln alo alp alq alr als alt alu alv alw alx aly alz ama amb amc amd ame amf amg amh ami amj amk aml amm amn amo amp amq amr ams amt amu amv amw amx amy amz ana anb anc and ane anf ang anh ani anj ank anl anm ann ano anp anq anr ans ant anu anv anw anx any anz aoa aob aoc aod aoe aof aog aoh aoi aoj aok aol aom aon aoo aop aoq aor aos aot aou aov aow aox aoy aoz apa apb apc apd ape apf apg aph api apj apk apl apm apn apo app apq apr aps apt apu apv apw apx apy apz aqa aqb aqc aqd aqe aqf aqg aqh aqi aqj aqk aql aqm aqn aqo aqp aqq aqr aqs aqt aqu aqv aqw aqx aqy aqz ara arb arc ard are arf arg arh ari arj ark arl arm arn aro arp arq arr ars art aru arv arw arx ary arz asa asb asc asd ase asf asg ash asi asj ask asl asm asn aso asp asq asr ass ast asu asv asw asx asy asz ata atb atc atd ate atf atg ath ati atj atk atl atm atn ato atp atq atr ats att atu atv atw atx aty atz aua aub auc aud aue auf aug auh aui auj auk aul aum aun auo aup auq aur aus aut auu auv auw aux auy auz ava avb avc avd ave avf avg avh avi avj avk avl avm avn avo avp avq avr avs avt avu avv avw avx avy avz awa awb awc awd awe awf awg awh awi awj awk awl awm awn awo awp awq awr aws awt awu awv aww awx awy awz axa axb axc axd axe axf axg axh axi axj axk axl axm axn axo axp axq axr axs axt axu axv axw axx axy axz aya ayb ayc ayd aye ayf ayg ayh ayi ayj ayk ayl aym ayn ayo ayp ayq ayr ays ayt ayu ayv ayw ayx ayy ayz aza azb azc azd aze azf azg azh azi azj azk azl azm azn azo azp azq azr azs azt azu azv azw azx azy azz

Thanks, Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Given that there is no documentation on the template, I'm not sure exactly what it is meant to do (other than something to do with footnotes). However, our policy H:REF states that "[o]n Wikisource all footnotes should be implemented with <ref> tags." Therefore, you will need to explain in more detail why making this template work would meet our policy. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:54, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
@Mdaniels5757: House style here is numerical footnotes, not alphabetical. This is one of our deviations from replication, and it is for our continuity purposes. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:18, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
OK, thanks for explaining. Mdaniels5757 (talk) 15:19, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  Comment I think that Template:Efn should be DR'd. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:12, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Remove admin bit

The following discussion is closed:

Bit removed.

I got pruned from the roll a few months ago for inactivity and it got taken to the steward request page to be executed, but apparently it got missed or something since I still have it. Could someone follow up? Thanks! Prosody (talk) 02:05, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@Prosody: Done. Thanks for following up on this! --Xover (talk) 06:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  Steward closure   Done Administrator rights were revoked from the user. Thank you for your service. --Martin Urbanec (talk) 07:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 09:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Blacklisted page

I have problems with founding the subpage The Conversion of St. Vladimir/A Short Historical Sketch of the life of St. Vladimir, I always receive the following message: Permission error. The title "The Conversion of St. Vladimir/A Short Historical Sketch of the life of St. Vladimir" has been banned from creation. It matches the following blacklist entry: .*(mattia|vlad|morleo).*(mattia|vlad|morleo)?.*(mattia|vlad|morleo).*

May I ask what is happening, why the subpage has been blacklisted and what can be done about it? Thanks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:22, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It is probably the repeated name "Vladimir" which causes problems for some reason, as it seems that The Conversion of St. Vladimir/A Short Historical Sketch of the life of St. George would be allowed, while The Conversion of St. Vladimir/Vladimir would not. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:51, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
This comes from meta:Title_blacklist, where it was added in 2016 and modified in 2018, both apparently in response to long-term crosswiki spam. I went to create it just now for you but Xover was too fast for me. ;_; Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Perfect, thanks very much to both of you :-) --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:52, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Renaming of group of pages required

Hi there, I transcribed and transcluded a bunch of pages regarding a New Zealand Act of Parliament, however I got the title formatting ever so slightly wrong.

I entered Subordinate Legislation Confirmation and Validation Act 2015 when I should have added brackets to the correct place. Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Act 2015

If it's easy enough for an admin to do, could you rename all pages that have that string in it to include the brackets?

There should be:

Bonus request if it's easy. In the bodies of all these pages, there's the string "Subordinate Legislation Confirmation and Validation Act 2015" at least once or more, if it's possible to also automatically add the brackets to those, that would be fantastic. But, if that'll take a significant amount of your time, then I can just go through and do that.

Appreciate any help you can provide. Supertrinko (talk) 03:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  Done Mainspace: pages moved as requested (although I have used parentheses () rather than brackets [], as they are the norm in NZ legislation). Index and files not moved as there is no requirement for those names to be identical to mainspace titles. I supressed the redirects, so you'll need to adjust links as appropriate. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:42, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Oh yes I did mean parentheses rather than brackets. Appreciate your help. Supertrinko (talk) 05:46, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Phe-bot

Hi, Could someone tell me who is controlling User:Phe-bot? ZI Jony (SWMT) 14:25, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

@ZI Jony: Phe-bot is operated by Phe but they have been inactive for quite some time now. Is there a problem with the bot? --Xover (talk) 18:18, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Xover, thanks for response, I noticed that, that's why asked here. I actually need to add "Template:ALL TEXTS" on Punjabi Wikisource in the bot list, so bot can updates regularly. Do you have any idea how it is possible right now? ZI Jony (SWMT) 18:26, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@ZI Jony: I don`t actually know, but I would assume you need Phe involved to do that. At least, I am not aware of any on-wiki way to do that. --Xover (talk) 18:36, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
Xover, I've send an email, if response will be better. Thanks! ZI Jony (SWMT) 18:55, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

  Comment @ZI Jony: Possibly that is phetools. Maintainers are @Candalua, @Phe, @Tpt: per https://admin.toolforge.org/tools I would think that they could tell you from whence to inhale the number. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:11, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

billinghurst, Thank you. I leave messages on their home wiki talk page. ZI Jony (SWMT) 18:13, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

User:62.149.29.50/oil-and-clown-colors.js

Vandalism, please delete. Thanks! -- CptViraj (talk) 09:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

  Done --Zyephyrus (talk) 10:04, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Possibly we could set up Abuse Filter to disallow creating subpages for IP users? Alternately, to disallow .css/.js for IP users. I don't see any legitimate use cases for these, so disallowing them would cut off this avenue for spam with no deleterious effects. --Xover (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Seems like a good candidate for the MediaWiki:Titleblacklist—assuming the regex to match on IP addresses isn't too complicated? BethNaught (talk) 10:35, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
@Xover: User .css/.js/.json pages creation is blocked for anonymous users (IPs) globally, these both pages were created before this setting was made. -- CptViraj (talk) 13:07, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, that makes more sense. --Xover (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Found 4 more: User:86.69.154.228/phantom.js, User:86.69.154.139/mixing-sailors.js, User:79.115.134.108/monobook.js, User:24.62.144.162/common.css. Please delete, Thanks! -- CptViraj (talk) 13:14, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
  Done --Xover (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
If we wish to find if there are others, it is going to need for someone to do a database search. I tried running both insource: and intitle: regex and the system just spat the dummy at me Regular expression syntax error at unknown: unknown. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:16, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I couldn't find any more via the database, but I might not have searched correctly --DannyS712 (talk) 00:39, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks DS. Wouldn't overly fuss it, I doubt that it is effective means to vandalise or spam. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:43, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:43, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Request for interface admin rights

The following discussion is closed:

Interface admin flag granted, with confirmation rolled into Inductiveload's next regular admin confirmation.

  • @Hesperian:, @Mpaa: I'd like to ask for interface admin right so I can lend a hand untangling some of the CSS and JS "history". For example, I'd like to make this fix: MediaWiki_talk:Mobile.css, as well a few tidy-ups for gadgets and assisting with the vestiges of the main page CSS makeover. I already have 2FA enabled. I'm not sure what time-boxing is deemed appropriate for such activities, I have no preference and I don't mind re-applying if it lapses before everything is done. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 16:38, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't think there's much policy / established process for this kind of thing, but you're a long-time trusted admin so... granted for six months. If there is still an interest and need after that, I suggest granting ad-hoc for another six months, and then folding it into your annual admin confirmation. Hesperian 02:49, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
    The summary is that rights are requested somewhere here on WS:AN, and granted by local `crats analogously to other such temporary rights. We don't actually have any facility for permanently granting the right, but I don't imagine anyone will object in practice if you roll it into Inductiveload's next confirmation. I am a little worried that we only have one active `crat right now, and no formal written policy to point the Stewards at if we need them, but it seems to be as much formal stuff as the community has the appetite for so far. --Xover (talk) 06:55, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Bot flag for User:350bot

The following discussion is closed:

Bot flag granted, and subsequently expired, with no edits made from the bot account.

See User talk:Suzukaze-c#350bot and Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2020-07#User:350bot. Suzukaze-c (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been away too long, I am not updated and I will not be able to be around to much for a while, 2nd opinion welcome. IMO, no need for a special bot for such a small task.Mpaa (talk) 20:23, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
@Mpaa: The way I understand it (I could be wrong), Suzukaze-c is actually just requesting permission to mass-create those subpages and wants a bot flag for the operation in order to not flood recent changes. I have not understood this to be a proposal for a specific ongoing bot, and would presume removing the flag once the pages have been created to be ok. --Xover (talk) 18:41, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@Suzukaze-c:, I have given you the bot flag to your account for this task. Please try to do small batches at first, just to make sure the outcome is as wanted. Let us know when you are done, so we can revoke the flag. 20:55, 20 September 2020 (UTC)Mpaa (talk)
I have set one month expiry, hope it is enough and ok for the community. Mpaa (talk) 20:57, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
@Mpaa: Lovely, thank you. Suzukaze-c (talk) 22:00, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
(And I check all output because I don't trust my code, BTW. So no worries there. Suzukaze-c (talk) 22:25, 20 September 2020 (UTC))
@Mpaa:   Done. Suzukaze-c (talk) 05:29, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Speedy policy on raw OCR text?

The following discussion is closed:

Not actioned. It's not clear that administrators have the authority to delete such pages, except under the general latitude admins have to make judgement calls to the benefit of the project, and there's dissent on whether deleting them is an appropriate course of action (mainly because it was unclear whether any benefit would have been achieved by it). There is enough support among the participants that an admin wishing to action individual such cases under general latitude is not acting against consensus, but it would be prudent for requesters to bring these cases to the community at WS:PD rather than request speedy.

There are currently 30 pages in Category:Speedy deletion requests, that are posts of raw OCR, requested for deletion by someone (@Ratte:) who wants to recreate them properly. This seems reasonable to me: posts of raw OCR are generally unhelpful, and doubly so if they are interrupting the workflow of someone who wants to proofread.

Does this fall within a speedy delete criterion? Maybe "process deletion"? If so, are edits needed to make that explicit?

(I'm not sure I would support a 'nuke them from orbit' approach to raw OCR posts; I'm just talking about situations like this where the pages are interrupting a workflow)

Hesperian 00:07, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

But is that the raw OCR or the text layer of the file? If it's the text layer in the file, then exactly the same text will show up upon recreation of the page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
In the past when I've deleted pages to restore the text layer, I've used M1-Process deletion. However, @EncycloPetey: is correct, this is the text layer, so there's no point. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
I have scripts that only trigger when creating a page. I could tweak them, sure, but on the rare occasion when I hit a text layer dump, it's easier to delete and re-create the pages. So I am open to the possibility that these pages are interfering with Ratte's workflow.
At this point I am inclined to action the deletions under M1, but leave the policy as it is.
Hesperian 23:40, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ratte: Are you using special scripts, or just working from the existing text layer? Your input would be welcome. --01:13, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

  Comment These are "not proofread" pages without formatting just delete them, what is the loss? How it is different for a new version uploaded or anything similar where we just man-handle the pages to meet needs? — billinghurst sDrewth 04:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

(None of the pings were successful, I've seen this discussion by chance). This is my usual practice since ru.wikisource: I nominate for SD non-proofread pages created by other user and then recreate it myself with proof-reading. Why? Because there's no any warranty that other user has created them without losing text, that's all. Maybe it's the text layer of the file; maybe not, you cannot know. It's just for ease in work. EncycloPetey has rejected my nominations, so there's no any subject for discussion. Thanks. Ratte (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that recreating the text layer will have all the text either. All proofreading should be done by comparing the scan with the edited text, regardless of its source. You cannot rely on the text layer to have all the text, the correct punctuation, or anything. If you are simply using spellcheck, and not comparing against the original, then you are not proofreading. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:27, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Does my contribution lead to the conclusion that I am simply using spellcheck, and not comparing against the original? I just wanted an original raw material (without possible outside interference) for further proofreading. It’s sad that I couldn't get any comprehension and help. Ratte (talk) 07:32, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ratte: I feel your frustration. I also find such "not proofread" pages that are just raw OCR dumps a hindrance to proofreading, and see little if any value in them. But the issue is that we do not have a policy to directly address this specific issue. Nowhere that I have found (not even in help pages or style guidance) do we discourage or prohibit these, and there are long-standing community members that have the, at least occasional, practice of doing so (their motivation is incomprehensible to me, but that may just be my failing). Absent that it is not clear that administrators actually are permitted to delete such pages. We sometimes play fast and loose with such strictures when that seems to benefit the project, and the community has generally supported that, but there are limits to how far we can stretch that, and, speaking only for myself, this is an instance that would have given me pause (but I really wouldn't have batted an eye if someone had deleted them either). For that reason I would argue that we should have a policy addressing this, but that would take a community discussion and a formal proposal that may be felt to be more effort than the issue is worth. In any case, frustrating as it may feel, there's actually a reason why you didn't get the help you needed. Please do not be discouraged by this outcome and hopefully we'll do better the next time! --Xover (talk) 10:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. It's just technical deletions — pages that needs to be deleted to perform non-controversial technical tasks. I am surprised that administrator’s decision is not enough for this. Ratte (talk) 12:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:25, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Marking some more users as Autopatrolled

The following discussion is closed:

Not actioned. enWS has a different practice for assigning the autopatrolled flag.

Some good candidates for being marked as autopatrolled include:

I don't know, anybody who'd do this for fun bears watching... :-) Shenme (talk) 04:29, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

All four of them have recent edits that show clear understanding of how to contribute. Hopefully this is the right way to propose them for being autopatrolled. JesseW (talk) 22:10, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

  Not done we allocate autopatrolled based on our criteria for knowledge of our editing in multiple namespaces, not a trust issue. Any autoconfirmed user here can mark something as patrolled, so that restriction is not an issue compared with other wikis. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Need help shifting group of pages

The following discussion is closed:

Done.

Hi there, I've been transcribing the Social Security Act 2018. Each time this act is amended, a new version is published. I had made these versions sub-pages of the parent act. i.e. Social Security Act 2018/Version 56 and Version 59.

I've been advised the appropriate way to format this would be something like Social Security Act 2018 (Version 56) as its own parent page. I've also been told that the best way to get this page move done is to post here as it's easier for an admin to shift all the necessary pages.

Is this something you can help with? Each version has its own sub-subpages. e.g. Social Security Act 2018/Version 59/Section 8 which should become Social Security Act 2018 (Version 59)/Section 8. I'm unsure if you need me to provide a full list of all sub-pages. But they can be found in the TOC on the Version 56 and Version 59 pages as the non-red links.

Thus far only Version 56 and 59 exist.

Appreciate any assistance you can provide. Supertrinko (talk) 22:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

  Done Pages and subpages have been moved. Re-directs have been supressed, so any links pointing to the old names will now be redlinks. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:13, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:27, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

User:176.147.224.55/monobook.js

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.

Spam, please delete. Thanks! -- CptViraj (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

  Done Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:43, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler

The following discussion is closed:

Protection level reduced.

Three years ago the page Author:Adolf Hitler was protected from editing because of edit warring of a user who stopped contributing two years ago. Would it be possible either to end the protection or at least to allow e.g. autopatrollers to edit it? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:47, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: I've dropped it down to only autoconfirmed (vs. only admins) so we can see how it goes. But I'll have a hair-trigger on the fully protect button if it starts drawing edit warring again. @EncycloPetey: I modified the protection settings you set in 2016/2017. Please do revert if you disagree! --Xover (talk) 12:45, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:29, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic locked

The following discussion is closed:

Protection dropped.

I would like to fix the link of Declaration of Independence of the Czechoslovak Nation by its Provisional Government to Declaration of Independence of the Czechoslovak Nation by Its Provisional Government in the header of The Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, but it is locked. Is it possible to unlock it? If not, can some admin fix the link, please?

Thanks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: updated. Not sure what the correct protections should be for non-current FT's, admin-only seems a bit strong to me, especially since only the mainspace page is protected. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. As for the protection itself: The featured status of the work can be understood that the work was so well proofread that no other changes should be necessary. If so, it would make sense if the work in the page namespace were locked. But the main namespace page is never "finished" because there can be added newly created categories, portals, notes, links to other versions… and so it should not be locked for the sole reason of featured status. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:10, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 12:30, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

OCR change?

The following discussion is closed:

Resolved. Issue fixed in an out-of-cycle patch.

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T265571

Has something changed with the OCR since yesterday? I’m getting alot of &#(number); showing up that weren’t there before. Especially &# 59; for semicolons. Cheers, Zoeannl (talk) 01:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

@Zoeannl: Which OCR button (we have two), and on which pages are you seeing this? --Xover (talk) 06:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Oh, hmm, I see. It looks like this happens to the existing OCR text layer in at least DjVu files. Which means this is a change in how MediaWiki extracts the text layer when displaying it in the Page: namespace. In the case I ran across it is displaying &#32; (that's the syntax for a HTML character entity, and 32 is the decimal code for the ASCII space character) on lines containing a single space character, but not for other instances of space characters (in running text say). This looks like a bug to me, and probably introduced in the scheduled MediaWiki release that should have rolled out yesterday. --Xover (talk) 06:38, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
I've filed a bug report for this at phab:T265571. --Xover (talk) 07:38, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, it’s been really bugging me… Zoeannl (talk) 09:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Just to give an update on this. The change was a rapid-response patch to address a reported security issue. After some discussion in the Phabricator task the current consensus seems to be that that particular security problem is not actually relevant for our use case. There is a patch in place that rolls back these changes, but the discussion hasn't quite concluded yet so it hasn't been pushed to the release train. Provided the current consensus stands up, the patch will eventually be pushed to the release train and then get rolled out to all the Wikisources in the weekly updates (which hits Wikisource roughly every Wednesday). This could happen as soon as next Wednesday, or it could happen in a later update cycle. It can technically also be pushed out out of cycle (think "emergency fix"), but I don't think that's currently in the cards. If I were to guess I would guess either this coming Wednesday or the Wednesday after. --Xover (talk) 08:14, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Xover: is it worth making a quick default gadget or something to replace the codes in the wikitext in the meantime? Something like the Save-Load-Action gadget? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 08:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Inductiveload: I was planning to hold off until I got a better feel for the timeline. If it goes out with the next train or sooner there's probably no point; but if drags on…
    We know exactly what transformation is applied here (it's a limited subset of characters that are entity encoded) so reversing it should be reliable and relatively straightforward. If you have the time and inclination, go for it; at worst it'll be a useful experience and reference to have if we need something similar in the future. --Xover (talk) 08:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Xover: I've cannibalised the Save-Load action script as MediaWiki:Gadget-T265571_fixer.js to do a set of replacements automatically, only in Page namespace. It's under page proofreading preferences, but it's not a default gadget. I'll only make it default if there's consensus to do so. Thoughts? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 09:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Inductiveload: Already testing it, and finding no problems. I also skimmed through the code and it looks good to me.
    This works around an immediate problem that is highly annoying to all users: so I'd say make it default, announce it, and we can drop it if anybody objects. Which I can't imagine anybody will unless a serious problem crops up. --Xover (talk) 10:00, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Xover:, The only issue I can foresee is if someone has used an HTML entity on purpose and we nuke it. But probably highly unlikely in Pagespace. But actually, if we check wgCurRevisionId == 0, that should only apply the fix on pages that don't currently exist and load the OCR text? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:06, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    Announcement: Wikisource:Scriptorium#Gadget to resolve issues with HTML entities like &#39; in Page OCR. Feel free to make it clearer if it is not clear enough! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:23, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Inductiveload: I don't think that's necessary. I don't think I've ever ran across a raw HTML character entity reference in Page:, and we should not be using them so any occurrence will be an expression of a different problem that we should fix. I'm not 100% on the semantics of wgCurRevisionId == 0: it may be true in other cases as well. --Xover (talk) 10:27, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    They can very occasionally be used for something like a quote or apostrophe at the start/end of an italic section which then becomes bold, but something like ''&#39; works. Perhaps wgArticleId is better semantics, but I suspect they are the same. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:38, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    @Inductiveload: It looks like the revert was just deployed out of cycle, and my testing suggests this is now no longer an issue. --Xover (talk) 11:54, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    Well, maybe a handful of page creations got the benefit in the meantime! :-D Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:04, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

In what way is (was) this an administrator issue? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:56, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:01, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Images moved by Commons is in a thing

The following discussion is closed:

Discussion seems to have petered out.

Several images so moved are not eligible for Wikimedia Commons, and need to removed from thence, and deleted there. I have only gone through a few of the files, but they include the following:

In addition, this user should not be acting this way without community involvement. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:17, 3 November 2020 (UTC).

a) Files that are not eligible for Commons are supposed to have that explicitly stated on their page. There was no indication on the files of this, so I have confirmed the moves by deleting the local files; b) moving files that were uploaded here across to Commons is mostly an uncontroversial action and does not require community discussion prior to doing so. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 00:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

  Comment If files are being transwiki'd to Commons and to be renamed, it is generally better to move them first THEN rename. 1) Commons have bots that do renaming; 2) It means we don't have a redirect here that points nowhere, and better redirects are at Commons. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:56, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:03, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The Vampyre

The following discussion is closed:

Done.

I propose to add {{similar|The Vampire}} to the edit-protected page The Vampyre. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:19, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

47.223.165.231

The following discussion is closed:

Resolved.

Could you block this IP address, please (vandalism)? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC).

  already done — billinghurst sDrewth 10:21, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

“The Book of the Aquarium and Cater Cabinet” pages

The following discussion is closed:

Done.

The index was originally at this title, so a large number of pages had to be moved. Some, but not all, of the original pages were deleted; the remainder should be deleted. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 19:40, 22 November 2020 (UTC).

Done. Mpaa (talk) 21:23, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

User:72.69.36.4

The following discussion is closed:

Blocked.

Repeated vandalism at Robert Bork's America. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 01:28, 9 December 2020 (UTC).

  Done The above IP has been blocked.--kathleen wright5 (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:13, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of pages

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.

Per this discussion, sub-pages of this page and the index should be deleted. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 04:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC).

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 15:16, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Revolutionary Nudism

The following discussion is closed:

Request moved to WS:CV.

I think that the page Revolutionary Nudism can be speedy deleted as a clear copyvio. The original English translation of the 1934 French Émile Armand’s text can be seen e. g. at https://usa.anarchistlibraries.net/library/emile-armand-revolutionary-nudism. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 00:04, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: Request speedy using {{sdelete}} with the relevant rationale. But this one I would have declined and referred to WS:CV. It is probably a copyvio, but it's not so obvious that a community discussion isn't a good quality control measure. --Xover (talk) 15:12, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
OK, proposed at WS:Copyright discussions. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:42, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 14:14, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

TikTok spam

This site is a beautiful conglomeration of (mostly) older works, and we really don't need youngins coming in and spewing their newfangled TikTok crap on our talk pages and the like. Jokes aside, when is there ever even a need to discuss that platform on Wikisource, especially from newly registered users on their first edits? I have seen TikTok spam here a few times, meaning it has probably happened here far more often than I have seen it, and on Wikisource talk:General disclaimer, such spam has somehow survived for half a year before being reverted (by me). So I suggest adding a new filter for non-autoconfirmed users mentioning TikTok. PseudoSkull (talk) 06:34, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

@BD2412: True. Unfortunately the spammers I have seen don't usually post links; they seem to know that already triggers a filter. They just post that they have a TikTok, and I guess they suspect we will look their username up there. So filtering for the keyword "tiktok" alone for new users I think should be done, which would cover external links and mentions. PseudoSkull (talk) 17:17, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
I once went through the project fixing scannos where "modern" had been transcribed as "modem" on the theory that we won't have mentions of modems in public domain works. Of course, we do have a number of more recent government documents, so it is not unthinkable that a recent document could mention TikTok (particularly given attention by the current administration to the platform). I would imagine some structure could be set up to whitelist discussions of documents legitimately containing the word. BD2412 T 18:29, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Alas, you're right. There's even apparently an Oz character called "Tik-Tok". See this. And "Tiktok" has been mentioned in at least one Executive Order according to these results. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:15, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
How big is the problem? There will always be spammers and they are not evident much in our main namespace. If we get the occasional bit of unlinked garbage in our talk: space, it is not a killer. I am not seeing it overly in my work. — billinghurst sDrewth 20:18, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Anecdotally, I think I've seen maybe two of these, total. But I've temporarily set up an abuse filter to look for it. It has no action so we'll need to check that filter's log to see anything, but if this is a problem of appreciable size we'll have data on it. --Xover (talk) 21:04, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 13:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Pd/1923

I have updated {{PD-anon-1923}} and moved it to {{PD-anon-US}}, and also moved {{PD-1923}} to {{PD-US}}, per [2]. However, {{Pd/1923}} is locked and so I would like to ask an admin to move it to {{PD/US}} per the same discussion. Thanks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:15, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

The difference between "-" and "/" is opaque; can we use meaningful template names, that give the user a clue as to what each is meant for? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:02, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
It is usually difficult to get consensus for too complex changes and it is often better to go step by step. So I suggest to rename PD/1923 as asked above and then we can continue discussing e. g. merging PD-US and PD/US into one template. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:07, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Just reminding about this request. I think it should not take much time. Thanks. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Done. I understand Andy Mabbett's point, but this has been a long discussion, and moving it now doesn't preclude moving it later.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:22, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
@Prosfilaes: Quick headsup… When moving templates like this it's important to fix up any double redirects: the software doesn't handle double redirects well for templates, leading to the literal text "#REDIRECT PD/US" showing up in mainspaces pages and ebook exports. I fixed the one at Template:PD/1923 (canonical name pre-move was Template:Pd/1923, with lower-case "d"). --Xover (talk) 10:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

  Comment doing a global replace anyway. Should be finished in a few days. Probably should write a filter to prompt people to not add into the future. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:50, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

One of the reasons that this drew little enthusiasm was the enormity of the task for very little actual benefit. I hope that those who put this into action are helping on the fix. So great times. :-( — billinghurst sDrewth 11:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
This is probably directed to me: I thought that the only thing to be done is to move the template and fix one or two double redirects. I could have fixed the double redirects too and I am sorry I did not check them after the move was performed. I did not consider the global replacement necessary. Thanks everybody who took part in solving this. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Help:Beginner's guide to copyright and Help:Author pages need updating and to fix them to increment on year. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:44, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  Done with {{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}-95}} (or 96) so it'll stay current until 2058 when the 95 year horizon reaches 1963! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:32, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

  Comment Some additional tasks here:

  1. (already done) I changed {{PD-1923}} to {{PD-US}} in the code of {{PD/US}}.
  2. (to do) {{PD-US}} and {{PD-anon-US}} add works to Category:PD-1923 and Category:PD-anon-1923 respectively. Those categories need renaming and the templates updating.

BethNaught (talk) 20:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

  Done I renamed the two categories and also Category:Author-PD-1923 to Category:Author-PD-US and also fixed the most important links. I also fixed the templates so that they populate the renamed categories. The old categories can IMO be deleted. The renamed categories remain still empty at the moment, but I guess it is only because of the cache reasons. Hope I did everything right. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, that all looks fine! It looks like the works have started to move categories, hopefully the caches will update fully soon. As for speedy deleting the old categories, I'm not sure. They might fall under WS:CSD#M1 if deleting them is uncontroversial, but given their long history, I wouldn't assert that. BethNaught (talk) 22:29, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
@Jan.Kamenicek: Please don't hard redirect categories, it is just ugly and pretty much should never be done; utilise {{category redirect}}. Categories like these should also go through a community discussion at WS:PD if deletion is required.— billinghurst sDrewth 22:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
@Billinghurst:Well, I did not intend to redirect the categories. The redirects were created automatically after the move and I did not bother about it too much as I was suggesting their deletion anyway. However, these soft redirects are probably a better solution. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

  Comment I think that I am done. The output templates, and categories are updated, with some tidying. I would appreciate someone checking dark corners for things that I may have missed. I am a little over it. There should be ZERO active components in author, main or category namespaces for 1923 things, they should all be in something-US — billinghurst sDrewth 13:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

This is what I could find:
Sorry to bear bad tidings, and thank you for all the work you've done one this. BethNaught (talk) 19:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I also do thank for all the work which proved to be much bigger than I had imagined. I have removed a few remaining transclusion of PD-1923 in various talk namespaces. However, if it is not desirable to leave any transclusions of the old and now redirected templates, than another one remaining to solve is PD-anon-1923 which has even more transclusions than Pd-anon-1923 mentioned above by BethNaught :-( --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Partly done, together with bullet "Some calls to Pd-anon-1923" above. Mpaa (talk) 22:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Think that this is done now. Most of the old components needed to have link updates. I must have throttled the servers. I just need to manually fix the remaining works in "The Times", though as they are my old manual transcriptions, I intend to put then into WD, so all should be good.

I have deprecated templates, and migrated manual use of some templates to the automated version. We should write some abuse filters that discourage use of the subsidiary parts of {{PD/US}} and {{PD/1996}}. We also better need to reorganise Help:Copyright tags to make these lead the page and dominant being our most used. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Export to Commons—configuration updated

I have updated the configuration file for migrating files to Commons from enWS. If anyone has any issues with their migrations then please let me know with specific information about the issue that you are seeing and I will see what I can do to resolve. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 13:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject NLS

A large number of indexes in this hidden category are being marked as “validated,” even though some pages have not been validated. I have fixed some of them, although it appears there are many more that still have this problem. It would be more helpful for an administrator to notify the editors involved. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 21:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC).

@TE(æ)A,ea.: I'm not sure this is something that particularly requires an administrator, but…
I took a look at the first ten indexes in this Petscan search (intersection of indexes that are in Category:WikiProject NLS and Category:Index Validated) and of these 7 had one or two pages marked as "Problematic" due to a missing image, but were otherwise all Validated. Most of the indexes were marked as validated by Kathleen.wright5, and one by Annalang13 at the NLS.
Kathleen: I'm not sure I see the reasoning behind marking these as Validated. Could you elaborate?
Courtesy ping and a question to @Gweduni: is this part of the workflow you had sketched out with Beeswaxcandle? And what are your plans for these images? --Xover (talk) 04:12, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I thought that it should receive the attention of an administrator, at least. The indexes I found and fixed, perhaps 60 or so, were just those which were recently added to Category:Index Validated. I fear this may be similar to the problem with the Indonesian Wikisource works, where the editors involved are not proofreading/validating a page to the standards required on Wikisource. The main reason I mentioned this here was so that an administrator could correct these changes, and notify the editors who made the mistakes—it would be more appropriate for an administrator to do such, rather than a normal editor such as myself. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2020 (UTC).
we never discussed the image element as part of the original workflow - my understanding was that we could validate and transclude without including the images - it wasn't brought up so I suppose we assumed it was not a critical part of the process and more of a nice extra (we don't have any resource to add these in retrosepctively, so not sure what the best approach is now) Gweduni (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Gweduni: Individual pages can be progressed through Proofread to Validated independently, and works can be transcluded before they are complete, but the work as a whole (through the status on the Index: page) should not be marked as Validated until all its component pages have been Validated. That in particular goes for pages marked Problematic due to missing images. And there are several reasons for this, but perhaps most apposite here is that when marked as fully validated the work disappears from maintenance backlogs so there is little chance they will ever get finished, much less in a systematic way. --Xover (talk) 13:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Xover: OK, so for now we can keep going as we are as long as we don't set the status on the index page to Validated (for the work as a whole)? Gweduni (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Gweduni: Without going into nuances or the inevitable exceptions… In principle the Progress field of an Index: should not be set to "To be validated" until all its Page: pages have been Proofread, and it should not be set to "Done" until all pages are Validated. But the most critical part is that the Index: isn't marked as "Done" until the work is actually finished. --Xover (talk) 13:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Also some works like Index:Story teller (4).pdf are marked validated, but not all the pages are validated, and the contents page probably isn't even at proofread level, despite being marked so. It's OK if works don't get validated, they can still be "complete" and marked "proofread". It's less ideal if incomplete works are marked validated without actually being validated. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
not sure what is wrong with the contents page above? Gweduni (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Gweduni: At the time Inductiveload posted the above, the page in question looked like this. --Xover (talk) 12:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
ah, can see the problem - will feed back to the team Gweduni (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi, I see from the discussion above this work shouldn't be marked as 'Done' anyway due to the 'Missing Image', but just wanted to apologise for this slightly different issue, this one's my fault. I marked the work as 'Done' while I was editing the index to create the main-page transclusion link, as I wanted to check how things would look when transcluded, and to make sure the sub-page links on the contents page were correct. I didn't realise it would cause a problem and look like these pages hadn't been worked on, sorry, won't do it again! --Annalang13 (talk) 14:48, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
@Annalang13: There's no real harm done, as long as the pages get done eventually (and that is certainly not a criticism anyone can level at NLS, the amount of completed work is, as they say, uh-may-zing). It's just in general, a "proofread" page that's not actually proofread may well loiter in that state for years or practically forever, and not even show in the immense backlog of pages that need proofreading.
FYI, there's no technical requirement for an Index to be "done", or for individual pages to be "proofread" to be able to transclude to mainspace. The "rules", such as they are, say pages that aren't "proofread" or above shouldn't generally be transcluded, but that is a process thing and not for any technical reason: they're still just pages. A not "proofread" page generally consists of raw OCR or is otherwise not presentable in mainspace, but that's not always true. There are times it's fine to transclude a "not proofread" or "problematic" page, for example if something is just missing and there's no alternative source, or if only one article on a page is proofread. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 18:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 07:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Bureaucrat

Hi. Lately I have been less involved in Wikisource due to RL, so I would like to resign from my bureaucrat role. As next confirmation would be in March, I am giving this heads-up to the community so there is time to look for a candidate. Thanks Mpaa (talk) 12:17, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

How much bureacratship is there to do on this project? I've been a 'crat on Wikiquote since 2011 (where there is an adminship request once in a blue moon), and would be willing to pick up the role here as well if needed. BD2412 T 03:29, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the volume of work is all that large (don't underestimate the amount of work Hesperian and Mpaa have been doing, keeping WS:AN running etc., though!), but the tasks there are are rather critical and when you need a `crat you really need a `crat. Having more `crats means a better chance that one is available when a need arises. If you're willing to take it on that would be very welcome news! --Xover (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah, yes. It takes a 'crat to declare the outcomes of the monthly evaluations. BD2412 T 17:28, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
Credits to Hesperian, I have mostly been in 'warm standby' config mode, now in cold ... :-) Mpaa (talk) 23:03, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


Thanks for your service Mpaa; I'll make a note to resign you as 'crat at your March confirmation. Please let us know if you change your mind in the interim.

I too am very busy IRL these days, and my engagement with Wikisource is not what it was. I've mostly stayed on top of monthly confirmations, but I'm not really following community discussions, nor even thinking about other 'crat admin stuff like bot and interface rights.

I'm happy to continue as 'crat for now; but there is definitely a risk for the community in only having a single 'crat who is not very engaged. I highly recommend the community at least elect a replacement for Mpaa... if not multiple new 'crats so that you can stand me down.

Hesperian 03:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 07:11, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Time to prune the bot accounts?

The following accounts have the +bot flag but have not been active since ~2015, and have listed operators that have similarly not edited on enWS in the same period or are not so active here that it seems likely they will resume bot operations any time soon.

Since bot accounts' edits do not show up in recent changes, and are exempt from some restrictions on high volume editing, they are high value targets for hijacking (full list of permissions here). Inactive and possibly abandoned bot accounts are also high risk of actually being hijacked (for example, a user that has moved on from enWS sells an old computer where the bot account credentials are saved).

Bots who have not edited in 5+ years, and whose bot approval is consequently equally old, are also at significant risk of no longer being up to date with current standards and practices, and cannot safely be assumed to still have consensus for their task (the policy actually says these should have admin-style periodic reconfirmations, but, you know…).

I therefore propose that we prune these 7 bot accounts (of 22 total) by removing the +bot flag and blocking the accounts (with a suitable log message making clear that it is a preventative technical measure only and no form of indication the operator has done anything wrong).

  1. BenchBot (last edit: 2011-04-09) operated by Slaporte (last edit: 2016-07-03)
  2. CandalBot (last edit: 2014-01-15) operated by Candalua (last edit: 2018-12-12)
  3. DougBot (last edit: 2011-08-10) operated by DeirdreAnne (last edit: 2018-10-29)
  4. JVbot (last edit: 2011-04-23) operated by John Vandenberg (last edit: 2018-08-11)
  5. JackBot (last edit: 2014-09-17) operated by JackPotte (last edit: 2020-07-15)
  6. LA2-bot (last edit: 2012-03-05) operated by LA2 (last edit: 2020-07-15)
  7. Robbie the Robot (last edit: 2015-04-28) operated by AdamBMorgan (last edit: 2016-04-01)

Operators who are still active here or on other projects (e.g. JackPotte and LA2) and either have plans to resume bot operation or want to hold on to the account just in case (for example if the bot is used for ad hoc tasks) should comment to that effect here. I propose that for any operator that's sufficiently active and interested to respond here that should be sufficient grounds to leave the bot account active.

For any bot whose operator is not currently active and where the bot has not edited in ~5 years, I suggest we should require a quick recheck with the community (in WS:S#Bot approval requests) before resuming operations; but unblocking and re-adding +bot should otherwise be just a simple `crat request. Or put another way, it's the bot's actions that need rechecking, not the mere technical unlocking and adding the +bot flag. --Xover (talk) 09:48, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

(Last time we did this on WS:S.) 1 through 4 and 7 as bots of inactive users I would support the rights removal through inactivity. For 5 and 6, if operators say they expect to use their bot then the rights can be retained, otherwise in lieu of that comment, then remove the rights. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 06:05, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Request move

Hello. Could you please move "Siamese Interim Administrative Charter Act, Buddhist Era 2475 (1932)" to "Translation:Act on Interim Charter for Public Administration of Siam, 2475 Buddhist Era" and change its namespace from "main" to "translation"? Thank you so much. --KhaoNiaoMaMuang (talk) 12:21, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

  Done The above has been moved. Wikidata item needs to be moved. --kathleen wright5 (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kathleen.wright5: The WD items should be updated when you do the moves, or very quickly afterwards. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:29, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
If anyone is interested in working on this particular backlog, there are about 80+ works (mostly Thai legal documents) that need to be moved from Mainspace to Translation space. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:04, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
If someone can map out the required conversions from {{header}} to {{translation header}} then I can run through them. Just too busy to do all the thinking of the conversions. Would be wanting indications of which lines add/remove/change, to make the bot tasking easier. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Most of them are obvious - title=<title>, author=<author>, etc. The interwiki link [[th:<pagetitle>]] gives you the values for language=th and original=<pagetitle>. If shortcut and/or year are omitted, they need to be added as blank parameters. Finally, any instance of override_translator = [[Wikisource:Translations|Wikisource]] needs to be removed. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:24, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 04:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
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