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Announcements

Endorsements now open for Wikimedia Foundation Board

The Wikimedia Board Election Steering Committee invites all community members to endorse candidates they support. Endorsements may be submitted on meta now till next Saturday, 23:59 June 23, 2007.

Each qualified community member can submit up to three endorsements. Please note several things:
- Only confirmed candidates are listed, so the list can be updated during the endorsements phase.
- You need an account on meta, not just the project that you are qualified to vote under, unless you meet the criteria on meta too.
- Please link your meta user page and your home wiki page. Detailed procedure can be found on the meta endorsement page.

All information is available on meta at:
On endorsements: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements/en
On candidates each: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
Election general: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

Questions about election are welcome at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2007/FAQ

Thanks to devoted volunteering translators, those pages are also available in some languages other than English.

Thank you for your attention, we look forward to your participation.


For the election committee,
- Philippe | Talk 00:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Labeled Section Transclusion installed

This function has been activated across Wikisource languages!

Many thanks to Brion for testing it, making final changes, and installing it.

Many thanks to User:Sanbeg for taking so much time and trouble to write it and refine over a period of several months.

Some initial test pages I have done:

A full description of the function may be found at:

I've added another example at Bible/2 John -Steve Sanbeg 18:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, I probably should start using my bot account, since there are a lot of these. The request was posted here for a few months without objection, but nothing was done with it since I couldn't edit without the exension. -Steve Sanbeg

Board elections 2007 results

Excerpted from Wikisource:News/2007-08-01:

The 2007 Board of Trustees elections (see last month's coverage) have concluded. Eloquence and Mindspillage have renewed their positions on the board, and Frieda replaces the outgoing Oscar (see summaries of their candidate platforms).

The 2007 elections committee has opened a request for comment about the elections process to gather suggestions for the next elections scheduled for July 2008.

# User name Real name Links Votes
1. Eloquence
Erik Möller
 statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1671 votes (elected)
2. Mindspillage
Kathleen Walsh
 statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1427 votes (elected)
3. Frieda
Frieda Brioschi
 statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1254 votes (elected)
4. Oscar Oscar van Dillen statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1234 votes
5. Michael Snow Michael Snow statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1217 votes
6. Yann Yann Forget statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1153 votes
7. Kim Bruning Kim Bruning statement, questions & answers, endorsements 1047 votes
8. Kate River Tarnell statement, questions & answers, endorsements 889 votes
9. Kingboyk Stephen Kennedy statement, questions & answers, endorsements 864 votes
10. Ausir Pawel Dembowski statement, questions & answers, endorsements 693 votes
11. ^demon Michael "Chad" Horohoe statement, questions & answers, endorsements 672 votes
12. WarX Artur Jan Fijalkowski statement, questions & answers, endorsements 571 votes
13. DragonFire1024 Jason Safoutin statement, questions & answers, endorsements 495 votes

—{admin} Pathoschild 03:22:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Great news from Google Books

Google Books has now made plain text accessible on its public domain works. This should make it a lot easier to transfer stuff here, and also correct whatever mistakes are in their OCR copy.--Pharos 22:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Need even more signatures to fight the American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term

I just found that July 2007 got only 4 new signatures to fight the American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term in the Reclaim the Rule of the Shorter Term Petition. There are only 139 signatures so far. If there is no significant objections, I would like to make a long-term announcement at MediaWiki:Sitenotice to remind how bad the problem can cause. Wikipedia article rule of the shorter term suggests that American courts would not honor the rule of the shorter term to non-American works.--Jusjih 11:56, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have not signed because I do not support the petition because it calls for more then what its title says it does. The Public Domain Enhancement Act, which the petition calls on the Congress to pass, has nothing to do with the rule of the shorter term. By requiring registration of works, it inherently makes copyright biased against individuals who may not be as informed about it in favour of large corporations (whose works would be most likely wanted to be used anyway). I think that if copyright exists it should apply equally and be automatic—of reasonable length. I oppose the petition being mentioned in the site notice. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 14:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Your opposition is so late. If you spoke out much earlier, the petition could have been planned in a different way, but the text in the external site can no longer be changed, unless a new petition is started. I also disagree your bias theory as the Public Domain Enhancement Act would have allowed a grace period and it could be reformatted to a better version.--Jusjih 14:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
*shrug* By the time I looked at the petition to begin with, it was already on petition.com. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 21:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
You said: "I think that if copyright exists it should apply equally and be automatic—of reasonable length." Please remember what orphan works are and that American works published through 1963 required copyright renewal registrations 28 years after publication, which would be considered too short now while easily forgettable. Most countries do differentiate individual and organizational copyright terms, so a modified Public Domain Enhancement Act may be better than no change while even the USA Copyright Office considers existing copyright term too long.
If you oppose announcing the petition in our site notice, I can just announce: "Please read how m:American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term may affect Wikisource. " Would you still oppose this simple message without mentioning the petition? Would you still oppose a modified petition deleting paragraphs talking about the Public Domain Enhancement Act? If you visit petitiononline.com closely, a comment field allows any signatory to show minor opposition while generally supporting a petition. I have amended m:American_non-acceptance_of_the_rule_of_the_shorter_term#How to sign the petition to give anyone like you an idea how to sign the petition when generally supporting it with minor oppositions to certain parts. When I sign certain other petitions at that site, I sometimes write in my minor oppositions. Why can't you?
Admins are expected to delete copyvios, but I consider that admins should also morally support well balanced copyright protection and public domain, which is not the case in the USA where the Wikisource server is located.--Jusjih 14:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I was a little heavy handed in how I worded my reply; I like Jusjih's compromise. You didn't actually send an e-mail to the WMF, you sent it to m:OTRS volunteers. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 23:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Newmanbe, I was emailing to info at wikimedia dot org per http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Contact_us . Perhaps I will send a fax next time and I plan to tell any US Congressmembers by faxes. 216.165.199.50, should the USA accepts the rule of the shorter term, it will not release U.S. 1923-1936 works into the public domain as they are domestically protected. Anything like the Public Domain Enhancement Act will affect USA works only as well.--Jusjih 12:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I have added a new section at Wikisource:Requested texts titled "Works in the public domain in source countries but copyrighted in the USA". I would like to suggest admins to add involved works to that list when deleting. I just did it when reluctantly deleting some involved works. This is based on my experience administering Chinese Wikisource. Even if you do not or cannot sign my prepared petition or any reasons, having 140 signatures is better than having my own voice. As Newmanbe has liked my compromise, I have made a very simple site notice.--Jusjih 17:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

What we really need is a petition solely of Wikisource contributors, to move our servers, presented to the WMF and signed by 95% of our regular contributors ;) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Henry Ford 19:15, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Sherurcij, thanks for joining this discussion, but do you have any idea how to do it? Moving our servers out of the USA? I once received an email from a Wikipedia user suggesting that the WMF as a non-profit organization cannot engage in excessive political lobbying, so we have to lobby by ourselves. I have sent an email to the WMF seeking any comment no matter how brief. Despite the live petition, any new ideas to improve our own lobbying are welcome.--Jusjih 13:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Sherurcij, if the United States Congress ever passed the rule of the shorter term, it would make the protection of U.S. 1923-1936 works all the more conspicuous. This would be contrary to the interests of certain large entertainment companies possessing the rights to many of such works so getting the legislation passed would be an uphill battle. Moving the servers would, on the other hand would cause Wikisource to lose all works published before 1923 by authors who died less than 70 years ago. For example Author:Bertrand Russell's work, some of which was published in the 19th century would not be available until 2040. 216.165.199.50 01:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Since this is unlikely to reach any conclusion within the next few years, how about writing a story for Wikisource News instead? This is more informative, is visible to a number of active users (including a list of headlines on the Scriptorium), and you can link users to this page for a good summary of how it affects the English Wikisource in particular. I think the site notice should only be used in cases of emergency or very important global announcements; advertising a long-term petition is not appropriate. —{admin} Pathoschild 16:06:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I have not written Wikisource News. I already yielded to Newmanbe who has liked my compromise by mentioning the Meta page but not the petition. Pathoschild, since you have a possibly better idea, why not go ahead to do it? Once a better idea is done, not using the site notice for my intended purpose is okay then. However, as Chinese Wikisource does not write news, using the site notice is the only effective way as I can think. Now I can see the benefit of breaking up Multilingual Wikisource into language subdomains.--Jusjih 13:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
It is announced in the September edition of Wikisource News. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:25:35, 01 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposals

Sidebar link to the Scriptorium

I've renamed the Scriptorium in the navigation menu to 'Community discussion', since 'Scriptorium' is only meaningful to experienced Wikisource users. Any thoughts on the change? —{admin} Pathoschild 05:57:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, so long as the page is still internally referred as "Scriptorium" - I don't think anything is lost in renaming the navigational link. Sherurcij COTW:Harriet Beecher Stowe 14:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
It shows up on two lines for me, unlike all of the other links, so if it could be shortened somehow (maybe "Project discussion" or something) that would be great. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 18:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
This page is not only for project discussion, but I can't think of a good shorter label. —{admin} Pathoschild 14:33:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I just realized the problem only exists in Internet Explorer. Apparently the normal text size in FireFox is a bit smaller than in IE. Since a sizable chunk of our visitors use IE, I think this is worth discussing.
What about simply "Discussion"? Or, in the spirit of places with lots of books, what about something related to the concept of a bookstore's cafe or a library's talking room? Maybe "Discussion cafe" or something like that. Just some thoughts... --Spangineerwp (háblame) 05:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Ideally, the name should not imply that the Scriptorium is for any discussion. For example, most discussion should be on relevant talk pages, not on the Scriptorium. Maybe "Global discussion"? —{admin} Pathoschild 18:53:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Soft redirects

I propose that the use and deletion of soft redirects be eliminated in favor of regular redirects that are kept permanently.

Deleting redirects causes broken links both within our own Wikimedia projects (such as links from the Commons) and, more importantly, from outside pages. Tim Berners-Lee puts it this way:

"When you change a URI on your server, you can never completely tell who will have links to the old URI. They might have made links from regular web pages. They might have bookmarked your page. They might have scrawled the URI in the margin of a letter to a friend.
"When someone follows a link and it breaks, they generally lose confidence in the owner of the server. They also are frustrated - emotionally and practically from accomplishing their goal."[1]

The preservation of links is even more important here than on other websites due to the nature of our content. Since this is a repository of books and other writings, consider how often these pages will be referenced as sources in other published material. If we aim to be a useful and reliable source, we can't keep moving our content around in an untraceable fashion. -SCEhardT 22:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the abolition of soft redirects in general but I see your point. For me, soft redirects are primarily an internal device enabling users to change a page title without leaving a redirect behind for too long. This feature is more important for Wikisource than for other projects because, unlike e.g. in Wikipedia, a title change can leave a massive trail of redirects (and possibly double redirects) behind. A single work can have dozens or even hundreds of pages in the main namespace, and thousands of pages in the Page namespace. Indeed, one of the first tasks of TalBot was to move the title of but two works, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism and Experimental researches in electricity. More than a thousand page moves were needed. Extrapolating, an unmanageable number of redirects would build up over time. This is not a problem for sister projects as they are unlikely to have hundreds or thousands of links to a single work. Instead, they are likely to link to the front page of the relevant work. Therefore, I propose we discuss liberalising the soft redirect policy of front pages, not the existence of soft redirects in general.
Now, regarding incoming links and page moves. If we strictly adhered to your suggestion, we would never delete any redirect, ever (were this policy applied to a "normal" web site, this would mean html files would never vanish). This can't be the solution. We are looking for something more practical. It should be noted that broken links on a wiki aren't that bad to begin with. Instead of the dreaded four-oh-four, a friendly page appears giving the user the opportunity to search the wiki and the deletion log (note that the bot leaves the new link in this log). Another possibility would be to keep soft redirects around longer. On the other hand, if, after two months, no one has realised the link is broken, is such a link needed in the first place? These are my thoughts based on what you have written above. Maybe you could give us some examples where these measures failed, so we can understand your situation better.--GrafZahl (talk) 10:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with GrafZahl. I have no problem leaving "front page" redirects, but I really think it is necessary to eliminate the redirects on subpages. Eventually we will need some sort of subpage directory feature and redirects will make it useless.--15:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I am not familiar with the subpage directory feature. Could you please explain what it does and how redirects will effect it? (Or just point me to a link where it is discussed). Thanks! -SCEhardT 23:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
There isn't a directory currently, but I think it is logical that such a feature is needed on any wiki which use subpages as heavily as we do. Basically a feature would be like "What links here", but would be a list of all subpages of given page. For example "Foo" would show "Foo/Chapter I"; "Foo/Chapter II"; "Foo/Chapter III" etc. If there had been page moves with redirects such as "Foo/1: A beginning"; "Foo/2: the next part"; "Foo/3: the story continues" they would still exist in such a directory even though they are not a real component of "Foo". --BirgitteSB 15:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I am glad there is some agreement for keeping front page redirects; I think this will go a long way to solve the current problem.
However, I don't understand the need to eliminate redirects to subpages. I fully agree with the assertion that a huge number of redirects will build up if books are moved and the resulting redirects are not deleted. However, I don't see how this will create a problem. I wouldn't say that the redirects will become 'unmanageable' because there really isn't much to manage. Redirects don't take up space (any more than deleted pages) or slow down the site. They also don't appear in categories, and in general they remain invisible unless they are needed. If vandalism is a problem, the bot could protect the redirects rather than deleting them. For comparison, the most recent English Wikipedia statistics show a 1:1 ratio of redirects:articles.
One example of the current system causing problems are the images from pages of The How and Why Library I uploaded to the Commons. When I uploaded them, I linked the images (such as this one) to their pages at this project. However, those links now lead to dead pages such as The How and Why Library: Geography: Section III. Granted, this will not be a huge undertaking to fix, mainly because I didn't get very far along in the book before the pages were moved.

The most important reason I am proposing this change, however, is not for the contributors or regular users of this site. It is for the infrequent users, hopefully our largest audience. While the meaning of our error page is clear to experienced users, it will not be clear to many Internet users. Examples of links include:

  • Published works such as books and papers that reference our pages
  • News articles that link to our copy of a recent political speech
  • Educational websites that links to our pages as part of a reading list

In the sidebar, we offer a "Permanent link" as well as a method to "Cite this article." Both of these are preserved if the page is moved but broken if the page is eventually deleted. I hope that Wikisource will be seen as a reliable and permanent collection, but I believe that deleting redirects hampers that view. -SCEhardT 23:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Permanent links work as long as the content exists, even if the redirects are deleted. (A weird bug breaks links if the deleted title is specified; I've filed a bug report. This bug has already been fixed in r23445, so all permanent links will work on Wikisource as soon as the rNumber reaches r23445: 1.43.0-wmf.1 (8e1947e) —pathoschild 01:19:25) For example, clicking this permanent link to the deleted redirect The How and Why Library: Geography: Section III works. We should more prominently encourage the use of permanent links in infrequently- or never-updated external documents, maybe with a visible-but-not-intrusive box under the title. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:59:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This would certainly be a big improvement, but I think that many people would still just copy the URL (which is the convention) rather than noticing (or understanding why they should care about) a permanent link. I wonder if there is a way we could change the default URL to the permanent link? (Such as http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&oldid=397759 rather than http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III) -SCEhardT 06:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This would certainly be possible with JavaScript, but I don't think it is desirable. In most cases, we want to link to the current version. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:54:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point - too bad there isn't a way to link to the current version and automatically bypass deleted redirects. Maybe something can be developed for http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&oldid=397759&version=current to work :-) -SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd call redirects "unmanageable" if the community cannot keep up with the usual edit reviewing and vandalism detection. The situation is somewhat different here than, say, on Wikipedia, where the average editor is unlikely to create many redirects (or indeed, pages) in a single strike. The English Wikipedia has two pages per registered user; the English Wikisource has nine. Granted, such figures must be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a fact that the number of pages which are not watched at all is daunting given that there are less than twenty admins. These kinds of things just tie up too much time. I'm also against page protection to forestall vandalism except as a temporary response to an acute threat. There are enough legitimate reasons to edit a redirect (the existence of two different works with the same title is a typical example) so that frustrating too many non-admin users is possible. There is also the feature of semi-protection, which would at least prevent anonymous vandalism. However, the fact that Wikimedia projects assign equal value to good anonymous contributions as to non-anonymous ones is one of the things that set them apart from other projects, so I see semi-protection as a last resort measure only.
Regarding external permalinks and their use, I don't think we should always assume the laziest credible user. Instead, we could provide a little user education ourselves. I'm thinking about spicing up the Noarticletext interface a little to notify users of the permalink feature and make the other options more understandable.--GrafZahl (talk) 09:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
All excellent points! I hadn't fully considered the consequences of protecting redirects. Also, it would certainly not be a good idea to put a heavy burden on the admins with regard to maintaining redirects. I posted a revised proposal that takes all the helpful feedback I've gotten here into account. -SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Soft redirects (2)

Based on the above feedback, I am revising my proposal to the following changes:

  • When works are moved, a redirect from the old front page to the new front page should remain.
  • Modify Noarticletext to make the message more clear for novice wiki users.
  • More prominently encourage the use of permanent links in infrequently- or never-updated external documents. (Place instructions in Help:Reading and possibly a link under the page title).

-SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding permalinks, maybe something like this:
Page title
The location and content of this page may change; when citing this page in a permanent form, please use the permanent link http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium?oldid=401726 .
—{admin} Pathoschild 00:12:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I think all the points here are good points. I support this proposal. And would it be possible to make the CSS available to suppress the message to the permalink so editors don't have to see it if they don't want it?  :) —Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Reform month

Proposal

My main contributions to Wikisource are to its structure (policies and guidelines, templates, processes, et cetera). I've essentially memorized the entire structure as a result, so I'm not well-positioned to simplify it for new users and find confusing aspects.

To help develop this structure, I would like to add a box on the main page and above the page title inviting all users and readers to leave feedback at Wikisource:Reform month (there is no featured text for this July, so the relevant box on the main page will be empty). This will let us collect feedback from as many users as possible in view of improving the entire structure over the next few months. At the end of July, I will read through all the feedback and propose changes to the structure, one page at a time.

I will set up the structure and add the notices at 00:00 on the first of July UTC if there is no opposition. If all goes well, this might be a productive annual event. What say you? —{admin} Pathoschild 02:30:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I say you crazy. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 02:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I like this idea as I do not understand everything about Wikisource templates and such. Wabbit98 02:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - —Wikijeff 04:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Structure as in what? Structure as how the reader sees it (author pages, books divided into subpages, linking words within works, use of templates, etc.) or structure as the editors see it (copyright policy, process for deletion, image uploading guidelines, etc.), or both? To me, I think pursuing the second would be less valuable, because people familiar with editing probably know (or soon will) that nothing is set in stone, and that anything confusing/silly can be challenged. That's not to say that we shouldn't go it; I just don't see a main page advertisement doing much for us in that respect (after all, it's designed for readers, not editors--I know I never look at it).

    I say it's a good idea to encourage readers to give suggestions on how to make Wikisource a more user-friendly tool, and, separately, make sure that editors (especially new ones) know that we don't do things because it's the Only Right Way, but simply because it's the best thing we've figured out so far. Do the first on the main page, and the second in a variety of places, such as the "you successfully created a user name" message and the template welcome message. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 05:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

    By 'structure', I mean 'policies and guidelines, templates, processes, et cetera'. This includes the division of books, for example, because that is described by the Style guide. Both readers and editors are welcome to comment. —{admin} Pathoschild 09:13:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm in the same position you are in that I'm not at a good spot to judge how confusing or not our structure is.  :( It all seems pretty straightforward to me, but we generally get a ton of new people who have a hard time getting settled with our structure, so I support this move. It will be a good data-gathering exercise.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Implemented

I've created Wikisource:Reform month and added a note to the Main Page. The board elections are also happening this month, so I added a note to MediaWiki:Sitenotice for registered users (who can vote), and to MediaWiki:Anonnotice without the board elections notice for anonymous users (who cannot vote).

Since we're inviting comments from all readers and editors, I've added instructions for adding a comment and editing; please review the page and make any corrections or simplifications you see possible. (Try to avoid jargon like "wiki" or "user".) —{admin} Pathoschild 03:57:24, 01 July 2007 (UTC)

Bot flag

I'd like to request a bot flag for sanbeg (bot) (talk • contribs), to generate comparisons of bible books using labeled section transclusion. This was originally requested (somewhat prematurely, it turns out) at /Archives/2006/12#Labeled_Section_Transclusion; then I posted a reminder when the extension was posted, and did a trial run on a few of the smaller books. It's now capable of handling the larger ones, but should have a flag for that.

The steps to generate one of the bible book comparisons are currently:

  1. Use a script to add LST sections around the verses on each page, which takes about 5 edits.
  2. Create a template that transcludes the sections from each book. This is currently done by manually copying and modifying existing templates, and could be done with 1 edit.
  3. Create a page for each verse & chapter. This is automated, requiring many similar edits to generate all of the pages.

thanks - Steve Sanbeg 19:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Automatic footer link insertion

I'd like to propose inclusion of JavaScript code into MediaWiki:common.js to automatically add a footer at the end of pages with a {{header2}}. Such a footer would roughly look like this:

←Tweedledum and TweedledeeReturn to the top of the page.Humpty Dumpty→

This proposal is similar to an archived proposal, with several improvements as suggested by Pathoschild. Here is a feature list:

  • The footer contains a link to the top of the page as well as section links copied from the header.
  • The footer uses the same style as the header (headertemplate).
  • The interface to {{header2}} does not need to be changed. See User:GrafZahl/Templates/header.
  • It is not necessary to explicitly use {{footer}}; the template is inserted after the page content automatically.
  • Insertion of a footer can be precluded with a special nofooter parameter to the header template.
  • Does not work with browsers that don't support JavaScript, but does not break them, either.

Demonstration

To test this template, copy the function SetFooter() from User:GrafZahl/monobook.js to your personal JavaScript and add it to your onload-hooks. Reload. Then the footer should appear on pages using the template User:GrafZahl/Templates/header. This is demonstrated in User:GrafZahl/Sandboxes/HeaderFooter. --GrafZahl (talk) 15:20, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Support —Wikijeff 20:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support, have often debated manually copy/pasting such a footer. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Maxim Gorky 03:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I thank all those who have taken the time to test the JavaScript. I'm not sure whether the meagre response is due to the community being largely indifferent (which would be perfectly understandable; it's not such an important tool after all), or else the procedure of altering one's own JavaScript being too intricate. So I'll add the code to the site-wide JavaScript in a few days from now unless there is objection.--GrafZahl (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

FT Process Ossified?

Is it just me or does this process seem to be in a stage of advanced ossification? I have a text listed as an FT candidate which has attracted precisely two comments since being listed on 20/06 - looking at the other current FT candidates, this low level of participation seems to be the norm. Given this, should we perhaps reconsider the competitive element of FT status? Is it tenable to continue to restrict it to only one text per month or should we open things up a little, conferring it upon all qualifying texts a la Wikipedia?

Playing devil's advocate here, but should we perhaps think about doing away with FT altogether? We deal with source texts here - the ultimate state of a Wikisource text is that it conforms exactly to its source. As a result, should 100% completion be the new FT?

Xdamrtalk 14:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Featured text candidates are most extensively discussed when the deadline approaches for the next selection (see discussions in the archives). Low participation is a natural problem on a wiki with a small community; for example, I note that you did not participate in any featured text discussion beyond your nomination. The problem is compounded by the fact that I, who usually maintain the process, am very busy in physical life until late August. However, low participation is not ossification; the process regularly selects one featured text per month.
The purpose of the Featured texts process is to spur participation in quality development: not only completing texts, but also proofreading, formatting, organizing, and conforming to Wikisource standards. The criteria for featured status require review by several users, so it cannot be done automatically without discussion.
Wikipedia uses the same selection process, but has sufficient community to have a featured article per day instead of per month. For example, today's featured article (Wallis, Duchess of Windsor) was discussed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Wallis, Duchess of Windsor. —{admin} Pathoschild 15:55:03, 04 August 2007 (UTC)
I take your points (and please don't take my comments to imply any sort of criticism of yourself or other participants etc). I suppose my fundamental feeling is that if there are two articles, each conforming vis a vis requirements of formatting, style, textual integrity, etc then there is no real reason why both should not be promoted to FT. FT is surely a reflection on quality the text itself - the competitive 'only one can be chosen per month' element breaks down when there is limited participation.
I do feel that we need to divorce two issues here - quality of the individual text, and which text(s) is/are featured on the front page. On Wikipedia, any article can be promoted FA if it meets the standard - this is aside from the question of whether it is or is not displayed on the front page. I accept the need for a review of candidate articles, but once a text is acknowledged to meet FT standards then should this not lead to promotion?
Xdamrtalk 16:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
On your first point: We do promote numerous texts to FT status, should they conform to our text quality requirements. But the thing is, we don't often have too many of these texts pop up in a month (we get only a few nominations at a time and even fewer are passed) so we still equate FT to one that will (eventually) show up on the main page. There really isn't much need to change this practice, in my opinion, as we aren't being overloaded with texts that match the requirements to become FTs.
To your second point: Yes, once a text has been reviewed to meet the requirements, it should be promoted. When has this not happened?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


There is no reason not to promote multiple texts; for example, three works were simultaneously promoted to featured status in February (Resignation letter (Roosevelt), Darkness, and Lights). All featured articles on Wikipedia are eventually displayed on the main page, but such a large community produces featured articles more quickly than they are displayed (see Wikipedia:Today's featured article/2007 and Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the main page).
The main reason we are only scheduling one month at a time recently is that I am too busy to process more, and I am the only active maintainer of that process. Promoting an article almost always involves some last-minute proofreading, categorizing, and standardizing. However, there's no need to worry; any good candidate will be featured, even if it is at the last minute. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:59:33, 04 August 2007 (UTC)

Bot flag for User:ZSBot

I'd like to request permission to use ZSBot for edits other than interwiki linking and obtain a bot flag for it. I'd like to use the bot to do page and category moves, in addition to its occasional interwiki link adding. I will be running the DotNetWikiBot framework, which is C-based and utilizes Microsoft's .NET framework.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Granted. The local bureaucrat is the owner and can't close this request, so I declared this request successful and had another steward add the flag. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:18:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Move images to commons

Based on the Wikisource:Image guidelines, there are a lot of images in Special:Prefixindex/Image: that should be moved to the commons or removed if they are not suitable. I have worked through the images starting with 0-9 and A, tagging them into Category:Move to Wikimedia Commons where appropriate (more details on Wikisource talk:Image guidelines#Assessment of images). I would like to suggest that we create a few additional categories to ensure all media files are here for a known reason:

  • Images of texts
  • PDFs of texts ( perhaps unnecessary as they can be found using google [2]
  • Wikisource media - media used in skins, policy, etc
  • Text media - media used for a text

The outcome I am hoping for is that uncategorised media can then be readily found and assessed.

I've found that a lot of the images are only appropriate for Wikisource because the image was not prepared to be used elsewhere. In order to reduce the number of these (and increase the commons), I suggest we add a few maintenance categories:

John Vandenberg 12:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Encourage uploading to commons

Following on from the "Move images to commons" proposal above, we could "assist" contributors find the right place to upload images by emulating the trick used by Commons: change the "Upload file" item on the navigation to point to a normal page "Wikisource:Upload". The new page would give the user a push-button decision process that would take the user to commons:Commons:Upload for 99% of uploads, and only mention Special:Upload in fine print. If this proposal has any legs, I am happy to draft a pretty Wikisource:Upload page. John Vandenberg 12:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Quick Proof Reading Request Page

At the moment very few documents are proof read and locked - perhaps becuase the large documents take such a long time.

I would like to see a place where we can list short documents that need proof reading. To be listed a document would have to:

(a) be no longer 1,500 word

(b) have a online copy elsewhere that the proof reader could use

For example:

John Cross 23:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we can incorporate this into WS:PR? List the number (or approximate number) of words of a text or even have a complete section for smaller works? That way maybe more time will be given to works larger than poems but not quite novel length.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea.

John Cross 20:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Other discussions

Locking of Template:New texts

I can understand why the main page is locked from editing, but I do not understand why the "New Texts' Template is locked. How are we going to list the latest new texts? I request that the lock on the "New Texts" template be removed or direction be given to a page on which we can add the new texts that have been added.--Drboisclair 22:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

From looking at the logs, it appears to only be semi-protected. Am I missing something?--BirgitteSB 13:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
It is locked because of cascading effect from the Main Page. Yann 08:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
However, it seems fairly certain it shouldn't be locked - so let's find a way around this, even if it means we make the Main Page stop cascading locks. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Weekhave you done your part? 08:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that ideally this template should not be locked. Removing cascading locks is the only way it would be possible now. I will wait other admins opinions before unlocking it. Yann 12:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree it shouldn't be locked completely. Semi-protection makes sense--BirgitteSB 14:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Two days ago GrafZahl removed the cascade protecting on the Main Page. Will a non-admin user try to edit Template:New texts?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Appears to be fine now -SCEhardT 18:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Quality color code for wikisource

this is a proposal to display text quality in links : meta:Quality color code for wikisource please comment there.

ThomasV 11:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Tool for creating Index: pages

I've made a tool for creating index page tables. Hopefully it will be easier (and much faster) than creating the tables by hand. I'm looking for feedback about how it can be improved and where it might be linked on Wikisource. Thanks -SCEhardT 20:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Main Page at High-Resolution

No disrespect to the persons who worked on the main page, but at high resolutions e.g 1920x1200, the page gets all out of whack. This is apparently not a problem at lower resolutions. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there any chance it will be fixed in the near future? Thanks. —Wikijeff 04:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You're the first to report the problem. Could you take a screenshot, so we can determine the problem and likely cause? —{admin} Pathoschild 02:04:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Flags

We have a lot of flags here from & for CIA World Fact Book, 2004. I have created a table of the local flag and the commons SVG. Where they are identical, is it OK if I change the WFB to link to the commons SVG and {{sdelete}} the local image?

Many of the images are slightly different, either in dimensions or shades; in some cases due to the low res copy being uploaded, but in other cases, such as Andorra, the high res is also a different to the commons SVG. If we want to continue to show the WFB image, I think that the high res version should be uploaded onto the commons. Does anyone see a problem with that? John Vandenberg 16:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a problem with relying on Commons for dated material. In fact I need to go through and re-upload all the maps for that text to Commons under new names with big notices to ensure it the stabilty is not hijacked by other Commons users. If you would like to make a duplicate of all the flags on Commons SVG file under a new name including "2004" and leave such a note on that new image about stability concerns, I would have no objection to migrating to those files and deleting local ones. However your proposal will lead to long-term issues when the file is "updated" for other Commons users, resulting in changing our image on the page which is supposed to display a 2004 version.--BirgitteSB 16:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I had not considered that aspect. I went looking for a way to specify the version of an image that is desired, but couldnt find any. Something like [[:Image:Blah.svg;1]] to say we want the first version, and [[:Image:Blah.svg;2]] for the second version, etc. Alternatively or in addition, we could run a bot that records the media URL for each image used on Wikisource, which sends an alarm to contributors if/when the media URL changes. John Vandenberg 23:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, a bot is already doing a similar task: Wikisource:CommonsTicker. John Vandenberg 00:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
The alarm is useful but it doesn't help the fact that all the Wikipedias will want an updated version of an item and will change it on us. We need files labeled for stability for maps and things like this. Confirming all the media in the 2004 Factbook and putting stable files on Commons is on my list of things to do, but we can't be using the same file as all the Wikipedias. We just can't "guard" our files well enough to do that. We don't have the manpower and Commons attitude is that majority of usage wins (which will never be us). So we need to link to separate stable files from the beginning that are clearly marked as dated material.--BirgitteSB 13:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[[Image:WFB Flag of Ashmore and Cartier Islands.PNG|right]] [[Image:WFB Flag of Australia.PNG|right]] I have found that some of the flags differ substantially from the proper flags. For example, Ashmore and Cartier Islands are a territory of Australia, and the WFB even states that the flag for these islands should be that of Australia, yet the flags differ in the width of the lines in the Union Jack. WFB 2007 has fixed this. I have carefully checked the local WFB images for the territories of the UK, France and the US and found that they are all duplicates of the main flag, so they are all tagged with {{sdelete}}. Due to Birgitte's comments above, I agree that we need to upload the original flags to commons. I have collected what WFB flags I could see there into commons:Category:CIA World Factbook flags; most have comments indicating they have been altered so they probably will not not suit our needs. In the process I found that commons:Image:Mongolia flag large.png uses a tag {{Original|Image:Flag of Mongolia.svg|Flag of Mongolia from the 2004 CIA World Fact Book; used at [[wikisource:CIA World Fact Book, 2004/Mongolia]]}} that may help to avoid undesirable deletions. Currently we have the small copies of the WFB flags; I think it would be more appropriate to upload the large WFB flags to commons as 'Flag of x (WFB 2004)', and have the MediaWiki software do the scaling down as required. John Vandenberg 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The high res WFB flags have been uploaded to the Commons as the original gif files, and added to User:JayVDB/Images Flags. Does anyone have a bot that could be readily adapted to update all of the WFB pages to use the new image name? If not, I'll file a bot request and get my fingers dirty. John Vandenberg 02:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

UN provision on PD-US-no-renewal

Quoting myself on Template talk:PD-US-no-renewal: "http://www.un.int/usa/host_hqs.htm is now a broken link. In case another reliable URL cant be readily found, I have created United States Headquarters Agreement as a copy from the cache and checked it against other copies found on .edu sites. John Vandenberg 15:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)".

Do we have any works that depend on this UN provision? Having read the basis of the UN provision, it doesnt appear to be firm basis for PD, as it from 1947 and mentions that the US will bend over backwards to promptly resolve any UN issue may have with the restrictions in it. Is there any evidence that UN publications did need to be renewed just like any other? I dont see the UN listed as a renewing entity in the renewal databases. John Vandenberg 23:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

UN offices hosted outside the USA do not normally need copyright renewal. The Headquarters Agreement applies to the NY HQ only.--Jusjih 01:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement applies the federal, state and local law of the United States to the HQ except as otherwise provided in this agreement or in the General Convention. If you have reasonable doubts, we can remove the relevant texts from {{PD-US-no-notice}} and {{PD-US-no-renewal}} for now.--Jusjih 12:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not worried about the texts so much as ensuring we have a firm basis for them; United States Headquarters Agreement is an old legal document and contains provisions for it to be overridden; my concern is it has been overriden and we haven't accounted for it. If we could find works that were renewed, that would make me happy as it would show the UN felt they needed to jump through those hoops. The lack of renewal notices from works created in the UN/NY office makes worry that they didnt believe they needed to follow this procedure. John Vandenberg 13:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
UN works qualifying for {{PD-UN}} are fine here. If you know anything overriding the Headquarters Agreement, please show us.--Jusjih 16:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Questions

Works released into public

If a communiqué is found in a place and then printed in a magazine, who holds copyright law for that work? Isn't a communiqué a message that is considered to be a release inherently of public domain, in which there is no possibility for demand of copyrights? I would like to put a communiqué that is under this conditions, with the proper reference of the magazine where it was published.89.155.14.81 14:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Communiqués are not inherently released into the public domain. While their authors may have intended them to be widely read or viewed (and release into the public domain helps), the same reasoning does not allow them to be used, modified, and exploited by anyone, in any form, and for any purpose including commercial exploitation without exception and without limitation (as is the case with works in the public domain).
This is tangentially demonstrated by Estate of Martin Luther King versus CBS: "The district court granted summary judgment to CBS on the ground that Dr. King had engaged in a general publication of the speech, placing it into the public domain. [...] We now reverse." —{admin} Pathoschild 15:31:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, press communiqués are usually in the public domain, although there could be exceptions. This court case is not about a communiqué... Yann 17:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
The relevance of that court case is that it disproves the argument that general publication implies automatic release into the public domain. That decision is not only applicable to spoken communiqués. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:45:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments on new speech?

Hey, Just uploaded 10_May_2007_Tony_Blair_resignation_speech. Any suggestions/comments?

Knowing a bit of Crown copyright law, is this protected under it. Or because of it being a speech that it is public domain even though it was made by a British PM still in office at the time? Wabbit98 02:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Please upload this image

...uploading [[:Image:Marryat.jpg]] to Commons? eN WpA needs a pic of him as well. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 04:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it if you can supply good provenance for it. Commons only allows free images. Almost certainly it's PD due to age but without a source for the image it's hard to tell. (If i forget, remind me on my talk page, here or on commons). ++Lar: t/c 00:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Seems to be from here. If Marryat died in 1848 and this was painted during his lifetime, the author would have have died sooner then 1937 and been old enough to paint almost 100 years previously. 68.39.174.238 01:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Proofread NSTC-1

I was wondering if a few people would proof read this 4 line document so it can be completed. Thanks. Chris 02:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a complete layman when it comes to US matters but I'd suggest you put 'state' or 'government'(or something equally specific) instead of 'the'.

This series will be used to direct that reviews and analyses be undertaken by ** departments and agencies.

Formatting in Religious texts

I do some minor fixes in various works when I see the need for them, but for the most part, I have been adding religious texts of the Jewish and Christian variety. I was told once that all texts must be both Human and Bot readable. Which brings up an interesting question: When the Bible is cited LORD and Lord do not indicate the same thing. LORD is a euphemism of sorts for the Divine Name. In the texts I've uploaded, when I came across LORD I used a capital 'L' and used the small-caps font variant in a span tag for 'ord'. Even though Lord looks better (to my eye, at least) than LORD is this a bad idea? Is it likely that Bots will pull the text and not properly distinguish between the two. Should I instead use CSS psudo elements to transform 'ORD' to lower case (instead of doing it by hand as I have previously) and then use the small-caps variant in a span tag. This way any Bot that pulls the text down will still have LORD and Lord if it should strip the formatting for its own purposes? Thanks. —Wikijeff 17:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Where did you hear that texts have to be bot readable? I've never uploaded anything and formatted it keeping a bot in mind. I say don't worry about the bots, unless there is a compelling reason we shouldn't, so I say format the text any way you want.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Pathoschild made such a comment regarding the header / header2 template here: WS:FTC#History_of_the_Ten_Lost_Tribes_-_Anglo-Israelism_Examined. However, that comment may have been limited that template alone, not the text. —Wikijeff 01:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, that comment was only for the header template, and not the body of the work. So, you can do the formatting for "LORD" any way you want.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello from Wikibooks

Hello, I'm Whiteknight, and I'm a Wikibookian. I would like to open up lines of communication between Wikibooks and Wikisource, considering that the two projects are very similar (in that we create books), and that we have a certain amount of overlap (annotated texts, in particular). In some public forums, such as on foundation-l and on Meta, I have heard the occasional suggestion that perhaps Wikibooks and Wikisource projects should be merged together, although I haven't heard anybody give this suggestion any serious thought. It is, however, something that is worth worrying about.

Some things that I think we can do immediately are work out things like where annotated texts belong, or how to handle situations where people "donate" books to a free license, a situation that has risen several times on Wikibooks with decidedly mixed results. If we have a better idea of what Wikisource is all about, it will be easier for us to direct traffic to your site, because we do get a lot of people who want to contribute things that really don't belong on Wikibooks, but which may very well find a nice home here. --Whiteknight 03:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource is for things already published that have lost copyright. Think of Gutenberg[sic]: It's about the same thing and several works here are straight off of PG. For example, The Privateersman, or One Hundred Years Ago. 68.39.174.238 04:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC) (PS. I note that someone suggests moving your page on Nasareddin[sic] over here. You may want to move it to Wikiquotes instead)
What about something more recent that has been published, but was later released by the author to the GFDL? We've had a number of instances where authors want to donate their books to the common good, long before their copyrights have expired. --Whiteknight 19:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Whiteknight,
The above comment (by the anon) needs clarification. We don't merely collect works which have fallen out of copyright, but any previously published work which is "free." In your case, any work that has been licensed under the GFDL or a compatible license is welcome here at Wikisource and we would take any such book.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I would add that self-published books will not be accepted.--BirgitteSB 20:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, hence my emphasis on lack-of-copyrightness, as that is how almost everything that's here (That I've seen) is here. Granted, there may be others, but the field of "published at large and then released as "free"" is perilously small compared to the vast amount of PD stuff we have. I would venture to say it's more the 98% of all that's here. 68.39.174.238 05:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggested additions

You might choose to include Lausanne Covenant http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-1974/lausanne-covenant.html and Manila Manifesto http://www.lausanne.org/manila-1989/manila-manifesto.html in the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

You might choose to include the following. They are major historical document that shaped the thinking of millions of people in the past and have ripples into the present. They fit in the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

Luther’s 95 Theses http://www.carm.org/creeds/95theses.htm

95 Theses already, Sherurcij Collaboration of the Weekhave you done your part? 00:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Heidelberg Confessions http://www.carm.org/creeds/heidelberg.htm


Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy http://www.carm.org/creeds/chicago.htm

Baptist Faith and Message http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp to the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

There are many Christian denominations. All of them have some kind of summary statement of faith. However Southern Baptist are one of the largest and most actively influential.

According to their website http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/default.asp Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has grown to over 16 million members who worship in more than 42,000 churches in the United States. Southern Baptists sponsor about 5,000 home missionaries serving the United States, Canada, Guam and the Caribbean, as well as sponsoring more than 5,000 foreign missionaries in 153 nations of the world.

But is it out of copyright? 68.39.174.238 05:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Horizontal ToC?

Is it possible by means of some template to orient the ToC of a given work Horizontally instead of vertically? Perhaps listing 10 sections at a time and then dropping a line and doing it again? —Wikijeff 16:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

There isn't any way to do this automatically. You'll have to create the ToC if you want it to do anything outside of listing everything vertically.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Disable TOC autonumbering?

Is there anyway to add a TOC so that it is organized heirachally but withouth numbers? I would find this useful because some source documents come pre numbered in their organization; so to have the TOC put numbers in too obfuscates navigability (see Code_of_Federal_Regulations/Title_1), and building a TOC manually is required (and it is a real pain). If this feature does not exist, would the place to try and have it be implimented be bug reports (on meta?)? --Remi 21:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

This feature currently does not exist. However, there is an open bug report that would create such a feature. In fact, there is already an attachment posted. I suggest (and I know how annoying the autonumbering can be) you remind devs that there is a year-and-a-half old bug report for this feature. They all might have forgotten.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Poet's AuthorPage Organisation

As a new contributor, I have been confused by the organisation of Poets' authorpages. I know it is in the nature of poets to be individualistic thinkers, but I have come across various styles, eg.:

Am I alone in thinking that there should be a common format for this (inasmuch as the vagaries of poets and the veils of history allow)? Planning now may save us a lot of work later. Thoughts, please.

Ebenezer.Elijah 22:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I think each person who created the Author pages for those poets had their own style. I think it should be in the order that it was written if it is known. If the year is not known then in alphabetic order. I am not an admin but if you want to take point on this and come up with a way to order these then that would be great. Wabbit98 23:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
My personal preference would be a broad heading of "Works", with the published works in chronological order, each linking to the content, be it prose or poetry, or a secondary menu of contained poems. That way, original and compendium collections can link to individual poem pages. The links would be followed by a short description of the genre of work (e.g. Poetry Collection, Prose, Philosophical treatise, Epic Poem, Sonnet, doodle on the corner of a napkin...) I think that Phaedriel is doing an exemplary job on Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox at the moment. Having said that, I am undecided as to whether poetry collections should have separate sections from prose etc. (I was very confused by Author: John Ruskin). P.S. I am shocked that I cannot find a complete bibliography of WB Yeats on Wikipedia or Wikisource, despite the encyclopaedia entry being a featured article. However, mustn't grumble... Ebenezer.Elijah 00:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
The Style guide suggests alphabetical order, but I've always used (and seen others use) chronological order. I can see good arguments for either order; I'll adjust the style guide depending on this discussion.
I think alphabetical order might be better. Author pages are indexes of works; a reader looking for a particular work will most likely know the title, but not the original date of publication. One possible catch-all solution would be a JavaScript tool which switches between chronological and alphabetical based on the standard format. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:27:53, 02 July 2007 (UTC)
I personally prefer alphabetical order, for a couple reasons.
  1. The date of most of our poems are not documented, and many might be difficult to find (not saying we shouldn't find them, but realistically we have very few pub. dates for the majority of our poems)
  2. When most people look for a poem, they look for title and not pub. date
  3. For pages like Author:Rudyard Kipling, Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Author:John Greenleaf Whittier who have hundreds of poems, organizing by date instead of letter makes it hard to find any poem without the search feature.
But, as Pathoschild suggested, and to make this site more usable, I think we should definitely lean toward using sortable tables. That way, people can see the list according to letter but also can organize them by date.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I take the point about datings of many poems being unknown. I guess the circumstances of each author are different. Anyway, as some of you know I've been mauling the page Author:Rupert Brooke about and I've tried to incorporate some of your suggestions. I have no clue as to how to construct javascript tools (sorry, Pathoschild) but since we're supposed to be about reproducing texts, I thought that ordering alphabetically on the Authorpage and enhancing this with alternative orderings as found in previously published collections may be a way forward. Do have a look and see if it works for you! I'll try and get the Memoir and Introductory notes up too, for the Brooke collected works, once all the poems are done. --Ebenezer.Elijah 22:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Look how the newspaper articles are presented here. This is something I was envisioning (I don't know if this is what Pathoschild had in mind). We could put the poems in a sortable table (using class="sortable") that would order everything according to the different values we choose--alphabetically and chronologically, in our case.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Elijah makes an excellent point, and Pathoschild's solution (and Zhaladshar comment above) sounds like the best possible way to satisfy every criteria. If we can aim for this, all problems will be automatically solved.
However, in case we chose not to innovate on the matter, I don't think it's entirely necessary to update the Style guidelines. I have myself used both alphabetical order most of the time, particularly when the date is not clear/known, like when building up the works of Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë or William Cullen Bryant; I've even used the order in which they were listed as contents of a poetry book, like at Ella Wheeler Wilcox's Poems of Passion. My take on this is, each case has its own circumstances, and the best applicable criteria for each case should be used accordingly. Very prolific authors, who published/wrote many individual poems throughout the years like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow should better be arranged alphabetically; meanwhile, other cases could better use a chronological listing. I believe it's best to keep the current Style guideline, keeping in mind that it's not set on stone and one must use the best judgement to make an entry as clear and coherent as possible. Love, Phaedriel - 22:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Can't log in

HOW can I log-in; I've attempted to do so - but your system won't allow me to do so - I am logged into the main site.

I don't understand what the problem could be other than this site is going down often. Today is not the first day I've attempted to log-in, but I've attempted to do so quite a few times today.

I would be very interested in helping with this book site, but obviously I can't do so without being logged in because when I attempt to make any comment, a page comes up stating I'm not logged in  ???

with all sincerity, and hoping that someone will read this and get back with me; anne-ology with laginnis@gmail.com [info. from main site] —unsigned comment by 71.203.66.108 (talk) .

Hi - A couple things that may help:
  • The login for the main site wikisource.org is separate from the login for the English sub-site en.wikisource.org. You will need to create another login account for this site.
  • It is not strictly necessary for you to log in to contribute - You will be able to edit almost all the pages here without logging in.
I also sent this message to the email address above. -SCEhardT 14:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

How to add lyrics?

So I've been looking around in Wikisource, and I noticed we dont have here many lyrics for 'modern' music. I also saw the project with no people in it. So my question is: if I add lyrics, how does the template go? Example by who? The actual composer or the one(s) who sing it? Thanks for your time. Elve 17:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

If by "modern", you mean in the last fifty years or so - the music is all still largely under copyright. You probably want to check out LyricWiki, in which case it is "Singer: Title", so "/John Lennon:Imagine" Sherurcij Collaboration of the Weekhave you done your part? 19:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


Crown copyright

Does this cover everything producted by ministers and MP's during their term in office as part of Her/His Majesties Government. I'm just thinking about whether the Beveridge Report is pd, having been produced in 1942 by William Beveridge[3]? RHB 20:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I know it covers Acts of Parliament, until it has been 50 years. I do not know if it covers speeches if they were MP's or ministers. But anything that is 50 years or older is fair game, at least in my opinion of the crown copyright.Wabbit98 22:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
The Beveridge Report was published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and therefore is public domain. The following site [Modern History Sourcebook] also lists a substantial extract of the report as being public domain or copy-permitted texts for introductory classes history.

Editing???

Why would an article from an encyclopedia be edit-able? Either the text represented is the text from the 1913 Encyclopedia of So-and-so or you need to proof read and then lock it. The ability to edit seems out of place!? —unsigned comment by 71.71.220.128 (talk) 03:16, 6 July 2007.

You're right, but for proofreading purposes, you need the ability to edit in order to fix spelling errors, formatting and such. Once a text has reached a text quality of at least 75%, you may request protection on Wikisource:Protection requests.--GrafZahl (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew Bible update and question

Hi, I saw above that some work is going to be done on Bible here using LST. I would like to give a brief update on what has been going on in Hebrew, and pose a technical question.

Update: In Hebrew, several people have been working together quite solidly for about two weeks now, testing and planning and working out the procedures for uploading editions of the Hebrew Bible. It has proven a lot more complicated than we initially thought, with a lot of technical issues to work out, programming for bots, and numerous editorial decisions.

In the end, we plan to have parallel editions of full biblical books with the following features:

  • Three major editions: (1) letter-only, (2) with vowel points, and (3) with cantillation notes.
  • Each of the three major editions will have three presentation options (using LST): (a) Text flow with parashah divisions only; (b) text flow with verse numbering; (c) each verse on its own line.

In addition to the 9 above pages with full-book text, we will be able using LST to present sections of any type: parashah, chapter, and individual verses. Individual verse pages will present each verse in its various Hebrew editions, and a second "verse" edition with classical Hebrew commentaries (Mikraot Gedolot. Most of this work (besides the commentaries that need to be edited) can be accomplished via bot.

Finally, I have a question. My assumption is that one (of possibly many) ways we will collaborate between languages is through interwiki language links. This means linking individual pages for chapters, verses, etc. However, when editing different versions of the text we uncovered a problem that is trivial on a reading level but serious when trying to program a bot, namely that Hebrew versus non-Hebrew versions have slightly differing numbering in a few places. For one example, see Jeremiah 31:1, which is 30:25 in Hebrew editions, a fact which then changes the verse numbers through chapter 31.

In order to program a bot to deal with these numbering differences we need a complete list of them, but (surprisingly) I have not been able to find any such list online. If anyone can find such a list please post a link! Or if anyone has access to the new JPS "Jewish Study Bible" it contains a table of these differences, and it would be great if the information could be forwarded. Dovi 18:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The main problem I see with the different numbering is that you can't put interwiki links into the templates, so you'd need a bot to link each page. Assuming the number of verses is the same, it should be sufficient to scan an English and Hebrew edition of the same book to get a list of verses, then look at the corresponding lines from each list. That seems more consistent than assuming the numbers are usually the same and coding exceptions, and you'd need that list anyway to generate all the verse pages and set the previous/next links. -Steve Sanbeg 20:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

"Freedom of Information Act 2000"

Somebody uploaded a few pages on Wikibooks that seem like they might be a better fit for Wikisource instead:

I dont quite know how parliamentary copyright works, so I dont know if these are technically "free". Wikibooks has consigned these to deletion, so if you don't want them they are going to disappear. --Whiteknight 17:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Parliamentary copyright appears to be the legislative analogue to Crown copyright, so it's not free until 50 years after publication.--GrafZahl (talk) 08:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Rename user

Where do you ask to be renamed? If this is the place, could I be renamed from Skunkmaster to Skunkmaster IV?

Ask at User talk:Zhaladshar.--BirgitteSB 04:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

w:Talk:Columbia University Chapter of SDS fit for Wikisource?

This article reads like an essay worth preserving (see 2nd section), but it is wholly not Wikified. I have put it in [w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Columbia University Chapter of SDS|an AFD]], but I wanted to see if the writing is a candidate to be transwikid to WikiSource. Please respond via my [w:User talk:Guroadrunner|Wikipedia talk page]] or comment here.

Responded at AFD.--BirgitteSB 15:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this source okay?

I found a website with free books and I contacted them so see if it was okay for adding the stuff to WikiSource or WikiBooks and they said that the content of their website is open for whatever a person wishes to do with the content on the website. I just wanted to make sure that adding stuff from that website is okay since I am new to Wikisource. If you could please email me or leave a message on my talk page, that would be excellent. Also if you e-mail me I can give you the URL. I can also show you the e-mail that was sent to me.

If someone could please help because I am not completely sure what to do!


Skunkmaster 15:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Giving an example of what types of books would be the most useful, but many sites like Project Gutenberg, Biblio and several Universities, maintain near-identical collections to us, "public domain books" - assuming these are very old books we're chiefly discussing (most would be from before 1923, with some exceptions) - then yes, they would belong here. Let me know if there's any other questions. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week:this week: Ernest Hemingway 04:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I love this novel It was the best novel wich I read in all my life.

John Greenleaf Whittier

I am looking for any information related to John Greenleaf Whittier. I have a old book that has The Tent on the Beach collection, however it is missing a few from a list that i found. The book itself is a small leather bound hand crafted approximately 4inx 6in in size with sterling silver corner pieces, also appears to have the title and decorations burned into leather, hand bound leather. Last owned in June 1912, by possible a Ohara J Pike, or maybe Olivia or Oliver. Difficult to read the name due to fading. Book also has illustrations, and was aquried in New York State, around 1975. Book is in good condition, copyright dated 1867, by riverside press. Anyone with any information or interest, please e-mail pinckneylarena@yahoo.com. Thank you for any help you may be able to offer.

You can find a list of his works online at Author:John Greenleaf Whittier, or an extensive biography at w:John Greenleaf Whittier. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Maxim Gorky 00:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Youth Sports League Results

Hey, im a member of the English wiki, and was wondering if i would be able to put youth sports league results on here, as EnWiki says its unencyclopedic, and in one of the AfD's it suggested that we move the information to wikisource. So can i? (i dont wanna violate community rules etc - hence why i am asking here). Thanks! (p.s. can you reply on my talk page? plz.) Five Years 03:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If the sports results were published in a book and the copyright has expired, then they may be appropriate for Wikisource. Which Afd was this on, and which sports league are you referring to? John Vandenberg 07:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

sorcerer

I was reading a book where the author stated the meaning of sorcerer is source. Has anyone ever heard of this definition? I have researched this for awhile and am not seeing where the author got this information.

Request Change to the biblecontents Template

The {{biblecontents}} template is rather nice. The template assumes Christian (Protestant) cannon order and has a few logical switches for Catholic Cannon and some others. However, it has no switch for Jewish Canon Order. Though Jewish Bibles have the same contents as the Christian Old Testament, they appear in a different order, and have differing section names. A good example of Jewish Cannon Order can be found at the Bible_(Jewish_Publication_Society_1917) Table of Contents page. The template is too esoteric for me to safely modify. Could someone else modify it to have a "Jewish" switch. Also, Ethopic canon might be a nice switch to add as well. The Ethiopian Church holds as books such as Enoch and Jubilees, to be part of their cannon. —Wikijeff 02:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource:Suicide notes

Some of you may remember the Wikisource:Suicide notes page before it got castrated for copyright concerns...anyways, according to the copyright lawyers of copylaw.com, it seems that "On December 31, 2002, the era of perpetual copyright ended. On that date, all works that were unpublished as of December 31, 2002, were released from their perpetual copyright...The term of protection for such works is now the life of the author plus 70 years." - so it was retroactive, and thus the following suicide notes should be un-deleted. Sergei Esenin suicide note (1925, though translation details were not included, off Wikipedia), George Eastman suicide note (1932), Paul Bern suicide note (1932), Sara Teasdale suicide note (1933) and Robert E. Howard suicide note (1936). Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 06:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

But that applies to all works that were unpublished as of December 31, 2002. I would think these notes would have been published shortly after the deaths. On a more general note this information is a really great find!--BirgitteSB 12:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The entire argument (not mine!) for deleting them was that they couldn't have been legally published, since the author was then immediately killed - and that thus, without any evidence that they had tried to publish their suicide notes, we had to treat them as unpublished. So either "Sherurcij was right all along, just go re-add all the suicide notes", or "Sherurcij is right now, go undelete at least the ones he just proved". Don't you remember the great fiasco of "they were published in a newspaper after their death..." "Yes, but not legally published! We can't copy illegal publishings by newpapers!" Geez, it's like one of my worst memories on Wikisource, of Ze Copyright Nazis deleting stuff that never would have led to any potential legal trouble. :P Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 18:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
I never bought the "newspapers publish these things illegally" argument. I will have to do some archive reading and refresh my memory over this issue.--BirgitteSB 19:18, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  The argument comes down to either "They were published without copyright notice, thus all pre-1970 notes are PD", or "They weren't published, thus all pre 1937 ones are PD". See how simple it is? wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 19:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Here is the actual deletion closing statement: Deleted. No user has provided sufficient argument placing these works into the public domain. 81.229.40.212 has put forth a strong argument in opposition to this assumption which has not been refuted— a work meant to be read by anyone is not necessarily in the public domain, which can be used for any purpose without any limitation whatsoever and without proprietary rights held by the copyright owner. There being no legal precedent, and the Wikisource community not having the legal right to set new precedents in the name of the Wikimedia Foundation, and fair use being prohibited, these works must be assumed to be copyrighted unless proven otherwise in conformance with the Copyright policy. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

81.229.40.212's argument: I am sure that many suicide notes are written for anyone to read. But does that mean that they are in the Public Domain? Public Domain does not just mean that anyone can read and redistribute the text. Public Domain means that anyone can do anything they like with the text. /81.229.40.212 10:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion is to ask Pathoschild if this new information changes his closing decision for these documents. If it comes to opening up a deletion review, I would like to take some time trying to solicit opinions from lawyers on the issue.--BirgitteSB 19:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Didn't WMF just get a new legal counsel person? Maybe we can ask him/her and hope that the WMF gives us more help than in the past.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
THe law seems pretty clear-cut, either they were published or they weren't. In one instance, everything pre-1970s is fair game, in the other instance, everything pre-1937 is fair game. Either way, the ones I listed are public domain, whether they were published or not. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 20:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The law is 17 U.S.C. 303 and you can read it on Wikisource! I suggest that you do, because it doesn't necessarily say what you would like it to. Physchim62 23:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Only one of the notes that you mention above was deleted because of the November 2006 deletion request which you so delicately discuss—Sara Teasdale suicide note, which you admit to not having the complete text. This should really be discussed at WS:PD. Physchim62 00:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I just re-read the law (Section 302 and amendments), and it says exactly what I said it says, that these works are public domain 70 years after the death of the author, thus all pre-1937 works. Please do not speak in riddles to hide the fact that you have no legal standing, these works are public domain, it is very clear, the law itself agrees with me, as do copyright lawyers. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 03:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Well put them up for deletion appeal then, instead of slapping around throwaway phrases here. Physchim62 15:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Please avoid making this adversarial. There is nothing wrong with discussing the issue here. I don't believe that any admin would reverse Pathoschild's deletion without going though WS:DEL (or his consent), as general process whatever the merits are. But there is no reason to move things to less active forum of WS:PD. I have already expressed my doubts that this new information can be applied to anything published before December 31, 2002. I think it will be hard to determine the status of these works without knowing the first instance (or at least the earliest we can find) of publication (rather than the date of composition). If it was sometime in the thirties, then they should appear in renewal databases if they are still under copyright. I don't think this is as cut and dry as either of you believe, but rather the situation does bear looking into. We have certainly made mistakes in the past with copyright in both extremes (*cough* UN *cough* shorter term). We should be happy to take a fresh look at these sorts of decisions now and in the future.--BirgitteSB 15:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree it's not clear whether/when these were "published", I know the previous argument brought up during deletion was that "If newspapers published them, they did so illegally, and thus it doesn't count" which I still believe is armchair legalese - but the thing that bothers me, is that either they were published and thus fall under "published without copyright notice" and are PD, or they weren't published, and thus fall under "life+70 for unpublished works with a known author" as mentioned by the copyright lawyer on copylaw. So ultimately, they're PD either way, it's just a question of which template we should be marking them with. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 18:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Depreciating use of PD-old-70 and PD-1923 templates on works pages

Administrator User:Jusjih ask me to share my thinking that I left on his user page on discouraging (in general) the PD-old-70 template as well as the pd-1923 template on works pages.

Here is the background:

The pd-old-70 template used on works pages states that the work was written by an author who died over 70 years ago and thus belongs to the public domain in countries which use that term.

The pd-1923 used on works pages states that the work was written by an author who wrote works written before 1923, and that those works are in the public domain in the U. S.

I also "was bold" and added a second sentence to the pd-1923 template that only shows up on author pages, not works pages, explaining that the regulations retaining copyright ordinarily applying in countries following the 70-year term may not apply to works published before 1923 due to the "w:Rule of the shorter term"

Dear Jusjih,

Regarding the use of the {PD-old-70} template:

For all works published in the 20th century before 1923 it may be helpful to explain to users that the work is no longer under copyright in the U.S; hence the first sentence of the pd-1923 form.

For works published in the 20th century before 1923 and whose author died after 1936, it may be helpful to explain to users that the "70-years after the author's death" may not apply in non-U.S. countries (due to the rule of the shorter term); hence the second sentence of the pd-1923 form.
For works published in the 20th century before 1923 and whose author died before 1936, it may be helpful to explain to users that "70-years after the author's death" now applies to all the author's works; hence the use of the pd-old-70 form.

Therefore, in the second case of the second condition, two templates may be helpful to explain the law concerning its copyright.

The natural place to do this is on the author page, where the works are collected together as a unit, and the copyright conditions can be stated once instead of, as would sometimes have to happen, adding two templates to every work.

I admit that there should be some exceptions to this rule. For example if there is no author page or if the date of the author's death is unknown.

But what I said is why I think that in general the use of the {PD-old-70} and {PD-1923} templates should be discouraged on "works" pages.

[end excerpt]

To see an example of both templates on an author page (with the new second pd-1923 sentence) go to the bottom of Author:Arthur Conan Doyle.

216.165.199.50 02:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC) To be exact the "second sentence" is actually a "third sentence". 216.165.199.50 02:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


Readers need to know the copyright status of the works. We cannot expect them to know to look on the author pages for this. And this status also needs to be displayed on printed version of the page.--BirgitteSB 19:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to suggest any concerned users, especially admins, to speedily reject this IP user's idea to deprecate PD-old-70 and PD-1923 on works pages. I found this IP users when noticing some license tags removed. However, as categories PD-USGov ‎has 5,782 members and PD-old ‎has 2,922 members, we should consider splitting them.--Jusjih 11:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
In my defense of removing them, here are some of the facts: I removed notices from 9 pages where they were already present on the author's page, documented it every time in the edit summary, and always researched to add the date of publication, if one was absent, on both the author page (which always included a pd-old-70 or pd-1923) and the work page. In one case, "A Country Doctor", the pd-70 was applied to a translation of a work, and thus it may not have been applicable for that reason.
I would welcome comment as well on whether the third sentence I added to pd-1923 to appear on author pages is helpful or not, and whether, assuming Birgitte's arguments in favor of using the templates on works pages are valid, the clause would also be appropriate on the works pages. 216.165.199.50 18:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the change to the template is useful because the information is too specific. What is said about US authors is true, but it will end up on pages of non-US authors as well. So it is a bit too-specific. I am more concerned about have the right tags on works than on author pages however. Most everything with {{PD-1923}} will need to dual tagged or have notice about being copyrighted outside the US.--BirgitteSB 21:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Birgitte, there's been a change to the PD-1923 template since I posted my invitation for comment, such that those seeing and speaking about the {{PD-1923}} template without seeing the edit history wouldn't be referring to the same version of the template that I was. On 4 August, about 10:00 am GMT, User:Physchim62 changed the beginning of the template as it appears on the author page from "Some or all works by this author are in the Public Domain" to "Some or all works by this United States author are in the Public Domain".
About a day later, I asked Physchim whether the clause really only applied to U.S. authors. He responded an hour later, saying "I'm sorry I haven't replied at the Scriptorium yet", and then explained his thinking. I hadn't written anything to him on the Scriptorium personally, so I assumed by "replied", he meant "explained my thinking on the matter". Four hours later, I thanked him for his response, and explained my thinking. That was a little more than four days ago (this is all recorded on our user pages), so I am still waiting for Physchim to have his say on the Scriptorium (unless I misunderstood him).
If I didn't misunderstand him, I think such a discussion deserves a fresh header, so that's all I have to say about it here.
Birgitte, if you have the leisure and have come to think the parts I did add to the 1923 template are too specific or unhelpful in other ways, please say so, as I appreciate your opinion. 216.165.199.50 04:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not think that the copyright status of a work needs to be displayed on the same page, it really makes these pages ugly; for example, if I want to read peotry, I do not want to read legalese on the same page. It would be much better to keep these warnings on the discussion pages, when they are necessary. However in most cases they are completely useless; it is indeed useless to tell readers that a work is in the public domain, because this is the default case on wikisource. The only case where you want to display a copyright notice is for works that are under a free licence, because the n the notice is mandatory. ThomasV 06:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find a relevant bit of style-guide for where we should and shouldn't have copyright tags, and I see that Physchim62 was mentioned here. Said user took copyright tags off all subpages ([4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]) of a particular work (this is the only one I have on my watchlist), removed PD-old-50 from the top-level page ([12]) and removed all of the author's copyright tags ([13]). Does there exist an actual policy somewhere for what tags go on what pages in what situation? This is all a bit confusing. grendel|khan 17:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there is a policy on it. It has been discussed several times in the past with divided opinion over whether we should follow the "french style" (keeping copyright info on a separate tab from the main text) or have it displayed more prominently so that it appears on printed copies as well. I am of the latter opinion. Although I think there could eventually be a technical solution to help handle meta-data better on the wiki and still ensure it is part of the printable version. On the other hand, I don't believe we are so efficient at collecting this sort of copyright information to spend a great deal of time worrying about how it is displayed. --BirgitteSB 13:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Folk songs and lyric variations

Hi all. If my question is answered elsewhere, a link would be appreciated.

I've been wondering about the lyrics to folk songs. For example, Child's Ballads/4 has 7 variations that are all recorded in Child's Ballads (which is a standard reference work, and pre-1923). But Child's Ballads/81, listed as "The Old ballad of Little Musgrave and the Lady Barnard", which only has (if I understand correctly) one variation in Child's Ballads, is much more well known as "Matty Groves", and there are plenty of variations (although not in that book). My questions are:

  1. Should the variations all go on the one page, even though they might come from different sources?
  2. Is it reasonable to put in an "External Links" section at the bottom, or does that go on the talk page?
You should transcribe a published edition of the work as it was printed. In the end there will be multiple editions on Wikisource. I also think it would be acceptable to put all variations on one central page with links to editions the came from within Wikisource. This could be done in a similar fashion to Bible/Obadiah/1/1, with each subsection having a different version. There should not be external links on the page, although you can list the source on the talk page in {{textinfo}}.--BirgitteSB 16:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

slightly modified works

I would like to upload a newspaper column of w:Paul Morphy, of which ChessCafe has a few, e.g. [14]. The problem is that they have "taken the liberty of converting all the [chess] moves to algebraic notation." As a result, I am not sure whether a) it is appropriate to include the algebraic notation on Wikisource as it was not in the original, and b) if I was to use the algebraic notation, would ChessCafe have a copyright on those elements (doubtful)? To be on the safe side, I have been uploading the text without the list of moves and tagging it with {{incomplete}} (e.g. St. Louis Globe Democrat/A Draw Game. John Vandenberg 16:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

It's about damned time somebody learned how to use the infinitely-intriguing {{Chess diagram}} :) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Wilhelm II 17:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I think ... here is the first chess diagram on Wikisource: Morphy's Games/Anderssen/Game I. The tiles are taken from the book in order to appear similar; e.g. page 7. John Vandenberg 06:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

John, it would be much better to actually have the original moves and not the algebraic notation. I'm trying to figure out what they did, though. Did they change a bunch of chess diagrams (i.e., pictures of a chessboard with all the pieces on it) to algebraic notation? My suggestion is to place {{incomplete}} on each page that's been so changed and document it on the talk page of each article. My college has microfiche scans of STL Globe Democrat, so I can try to hunt those pictures down when school resumes, if missing diagrams is indeed the problem. Or, we could do Sherurcij's suggestion and try that template out. I figure this way we could get it done a bit more quickly.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there were no images in the original. CafeChess has replaced w:Descriptive chess notation with the newer w:Algebraic chess notation. I'll need to read up on the two styles of notation and see if it is reverseable. John Vandenberg 06:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

help/check

Can someone check my attempt at tidying up United States Code/Title 10/Subtitle A/Part I/Chapter 15/2006-10-16. I believe it would need to move to United States Code/Title 10/Subtitle A/Part I/Chapter 15. I only formatted it, nothing else. Thank you. ☻ Fred 02:38, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks good to me. And, yes, it should be moved to the USC page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Move done, and soft redirect placed at the transwiki page. It actually went to United States Code/Title 10/Subtitle A/Part I/Chapter 15/2006-10-16, as the law has changed since that text was written. Thanks a lot for the formatting. Physchim62 23:20, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

single file

Many wikisource pages should really be more able to save or print as a single file. Obviosly, many documents are spread over many web pages. It's annoying to print out 20 different web pages separately. Sometimes something is worth saving, and while I use a utility to save links on the contents page, to save each page by hand would be quite tediously. A generated zip file with all the HTMLs included, but an alternate single page version is probably more feasible. —unsigned comment by 01:29, 7 August 2007 (talk) 67.176.245.222.

Over on wikibooks, print versions and PDF's are created for that reason; see b:Chess, and others on b:Wikibooks:Featured books. It appears that print/PDF versions are not required for a wikibook to be classed a "good book", but most do. John Vandenberg 01:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that with those texts that use the ProofreadPage extension, a single text unit version may be created with nearly zero effort (by transcluding all pages into a single text unit). A similar method should work even for texts which do not use ProofreadPage using labelled section transclusion, with slightly more effort, however, as section markers have to be placed on all chapters.--GrafZahl (talk) 08:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
On a related topic, I would like to make use of section headers and the automated TOC however the section headers are not easily controlled using CSS. The best idea I can think of is using a DIV with CSS to hide the sections (using templates to simplify this). e.g.:

<div style="display: none;">
=={{{1}}}==
</div>
Ideally, I would like a book/page-specific CSS file to be included by MediaWiki to allow finer control over the style and layout. John Vandenberg 11:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure what you want to accomplish, but you can do something like:
<h2 class="whatever" style="something else">title</h2>
For example, on Page:On the expression of a number in the form 𝑎𝑥²+𝑏𝑦²+𝑐𝑧²+𝑑𝑢².djvu/2, centred level three sections are used (the TOC has been hidden on that specific page, however).--GrafZahl (talk) 12:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
That is what I wanted; thank you! I thought I needed to use the "== blah ==" syntax in order for it to appear in the automated TOC. Following on from that, is there a way to override the presentation of the automated TOC using CSS on a per-page level? e.g. change the bullets to be Roman numerals. John Vandenberg 12:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, the CSS class in question is toc, not sure if you can override that, nor whether it is desirable to do so (see my comment below).--GrafZahl (talk) 15:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


(outdent) I havent been able to override the style; I think this is because the style is applied using a 'class="..."' on the HTMLElement, rather than in the stylesheet. Just now I found a case where I the automatic TOC looked terrible. I have "fixed" it using syntax similar to my example above [15]. As an unexpected side effect of this fix, the edit buttons are also hidden, and my attempts to recreate them in the template were not successful. The number of sections in this work is unlikely to increase, so I can hand code the TOC. John Vandenberg 05:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

If you could recover the edit links, they would only point to nonexistant sections anyway, since the headers are in a template, not the text body. -Steve Sanbeg 22:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

fonts

Is there any cross platform/browser way of "installing" fonts? It would be nice to create w:.ttf files for fonts used in a work, and providing the font on the commons and define it as the font to be used on a specific work. I'm not thinking of w:Embedded OpenType which are intended to be a subset of a font for a specific page; I am thinking of open source fonts, and merely requesting a browser install/use it -- IIRC, CSS3 has something like this. John Vandenberg 11:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

You can always specify a font name in CSS, and a small number of font aliases are guaranteed to be present. As for providing additional fonts, let me tell you from my personal experience that trying too much to make a text layout look like the original (such as creating fonts or designing specially crafted stylesheets) is an incredible time sink of questionable merit. If users really need an accurate rendering of the original layout, they can use the scanned pages (which you duly uploaded to the commons, didn't you;). In other words: while Wikisource should strive towards absolute text integrity, the original layout should only be mimicked to a reasonable degree, read: if possible, use wiki markup only, oft-used CSS acrobatics can be hidden in templates, but don't do CSS design on a per-page level. Some common layout techniques, such as poem formatting, musical notations and typesetting formulas, may require special extensions. This is, of course, merely my personal opinion. And there may be exceptions, uncommon layouts whose accurate reproduction is very important for some reason. But I expect these are rare. If your questions pertain to a specific project of yours, some information about it may be helpful.--GrafZahl (talk) 15:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Plays?

Does Wikisource have plays? I looked under Category:Works by type and didn't see any. I would like to add a rather famous play by Anna Cora Mowatt. If so, can someone point me to one which is considered to be formatted correctly? Thank you - Epousesquecido 23:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. We do accept plays, although at this time we don't have very many of them. As such, style standards for plays aren't entirely set in stone, but if you want something to go by, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a well formatted play.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I noticed the TOC is formatted after the list of characters. Is this the preferred way, or should it be at the top of the page? - Epousesquecido 15:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I would say that the TOC should be before the cast of characters. I would normally put the dramatis personae in the appropriate header level tags so that the TOC appears before it and it's also incorporated into the TOC.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you on the TOC. Also, should Category:Works by type have "play" added?? Thanks for all your time - Epousesquecido 22:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Look under Category:Works by genre it contains Category:Drama which itself contains subgenres. I'm not quite sure what the difference between genre and type is. 216.165.199.50 23:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I just looked at Category:Works by type and saw that "Plays" has been added. Thank you, Yann !! - Epousesquecido 01:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource category at Commons

There is a discussion about the structure of the Wikisource category at Commons at commons:COM:CFD#Category:Wikisource. /90.229.135.239 10:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Modify automatic footer placement?

Would it be possible to modify the automatic footer placement on pages to appear before the list of categories? On some pages it shows up but right after the category list and it looks a little weird (to me). I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, I think the change would be much better.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all I need to add a padding space, so that the footer doesn't cling to the category box. It'll make the footer look a lot less weird ;) It's not hard to place the footer above the category box. Now that I think of it, it makes more sense to me, too. After all, the category box is not part of the actual page content. Tomorrow morning (UTC) I should have time to edit the JavaScript.--GrafZahl (talk) 20:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Done. What do you say?--GrafZahl (talk) 10:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't see anything. I've found pages I think should have the automatic footer placement, but I can't see anything. Could you give me a page that has it? I think I just might not be able to see it, because I can't even see the footer when {{footer}} is explicitly placed on pages.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I can see it now. It looks great! Thanks :D.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Worth to read

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/duguid/ --84.62.246.14 01:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Why aren't pages protected!?!?!

I'm sure that over 90% of Wikisource's pages will never need any changing. For example, Great Expectations. It was written in 1860 is is set in stone. I can see no reason for it to need a change. I don't know the numbers, but many edits here may be vandalism. I'm sure that this has been highly discussed, but this seems insane to me, with pages like Presidential Radio Address - 24 January 1987 never needing an update, yet still allowing edits. Wikinews protects its news stories once they are done, even though so often they aren't, although here they are. Please explain this over-openness. 74.133.19.68 18:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, hey, I found it! Wikisource:Protection policy. But the above and much more should be protected. That process seems that it would take too long. How many pages actually are protected compared to those not? All ten of ten random pages were unprotected. 74.133.19.68 18:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

As long as a text is incomplete, unformatted or not yet proofread, the benefit of an editor being able to quickly improve a text is greater than the benefit provided by vandal protection. As for Great Expectations, that seems to be a Project Gutenberg text. They are usually quite reliable, so even an unproofed Gutenberg text may already meet our quality standards. Occasionally, however, even a Gutenberg text may not be a sufficiently faithful reproduction of the original, usually due to technical limitations which were present when the Gutenberg edition was made. In the case of material previously published in printed form, it's best to have a scanned copy available online, so that everyone, even people without a printed copy, can participate in the proofreading.--GrafZahl (talk) 08:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
A wiki with 90% page protection is no wiki I'll ever patronize. That's completely useless. 68.39.174.238 04:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Time to update protection policy?

It looks like the protection policy hasn't been updated to account for cascading protection. In particluar, copyright vios & some vandalism would probably be better off deleted and transcluded in a list somewhere, not recreated and put in a category. -Steve Sanbeg 21:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

christian martyrs

anyone aware of this book of martyrs published in 1820? —unsigned comment by Lsylvester (talk) 01:32, 16 August 2007.

Lsylvester, I am having troubles finding this work; what is the name of the work, and who is the author? Could you be referring to OCLC:20858919all editions or OCLC:15290633all editions ? John Vandenberg 12:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright on Sayyid Qutb's writings

Save me the effort of obtaining/transcribing/huntingDown translations of Sayyid Qutb's writings only to have newman/Pyschim delete them -- help me find where they were published (in the United States at all? Stanford doesn't seem to have any renewed copyrights, but maybe they were never published in the US? Or in another country that by some miracle rules by Life+40?) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Napoleon Bonaparte 03:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to WP, he died in 1966, so I don't see how his works could be public domain in any way. His works were certainly not published before 1923. Even in Canada, they won't be PD before 1st January 2017. Yann 18:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Well most of his works were 'published' while imprisoned in Egypt (any chance Egypt had a "no profits/copyrights while imprisoned" clause at the time?), and it seems Egyptian Copyright Law suggests death+50 as the standard, (though as a point of interest, like the United States, "official works of the government" are public domain...we should make a list). So I'm not sure what the rule is on something "smuggled out of prison" and privately printed, without any attempts at registering copyright, in the 1950/60s in Egypt.
However, his first published work was 1949 (58 years ago) in the United States (in Arabic), with no copyright renewal found for Al-'adala al-Ijtima'iyya fi-l-Islam. It was translated in 1970 as "Social Justice in Islam" by Octagon Books translator John B. Hardie, again, no renewal seems to appear. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Napoleon Bonaparte 18:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The magical date for {{PD-US-no-renewal}} is 1964. If it was never published in the United States, and was public domain in (Egypt) 1996, it would be public domain in the United States by virtue of {{PD-1996}}. Assuming Al-'adala al-Ijtima'iyya fi-l-Islam was not transliterated differently when it was registered, it looks like you can start translating it from Arabic. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 13:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

So the 1970 translation is out, but is there anything suggesting Al-'adala al-Ijtima'iyya fi-l-Islam would even fall under Egyptian copyright law, why are we concerned with its status in Egypt, if it was first published in the United States? (btw, I looked up by author Qutb/Kotb/Kutb/Qotb as well, in case of the transliteration of al-adala, but seemingly nothing was renewed of his in the US, if it was ever copyrighted in the first place.) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Napoleon Bonaparte 15:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't know, but you were talking about Life+40. —Benn Newman (AMDG) 02:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

PD-US-unpublished

{{PD-US-unpublished}} is currently not used by anything. At the moment I am trying to find the appropriate tag for Moondyne Joe - A Picturesque Outlaw which is unpublished, but I am unsure whether US law or Aus applies. If US law for 1928 defers to Aus law, then we have a (fixable) problem because unpublished works in Australia are part of the estate. I say fixable because I am pretty sure we can grab the newspaper article, compare it, and if it is similar, use that instead. John Vandenberg 11:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The situation with Moondyne Joe - A Picturesque Outlaw is slightly more complex than "unpublished". It was transcribed by Badroscoe from some hand-written foolscap pages found in the archives of Houghton Winery. Thus its provenance must be attributed to an unpublished source. However, an article of the same title appeared in The Sunday Times in 1928, with authorship attributed to C. W. Ferguson, a former owner of Houghton. I have checked Badroscoe's transcription against The Sunday Times article, and it appears to be word-for-word identical. Therefore it would appear that Badroscoe's source was a final draft of an article that was subsequently published. My position on this is that we may consider it a published work for copyright purposes, but the provenance of the source should continue to be attributed to the unpublished draft. I am happy to stand corrected, however. If worst comes to worst, I will simply re-transcribe it from The Sunday Times, thereby providing a version whose provenance is indisputably published. Hesperian 14:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
{{PD-US-unpublished}} is currently unused because it is a new tag, created to be used on certain works which we haven't yet decided to undelete. If this work was first published in w:The Sunday Times, then it is UK copyright law which needs to be applied and therefore it is still under copyright (70 pma, with author's death in 1940, plus U.S. renewed copyright until publication+95 years). In any case, I think it is safe to say that work was legally published (publication was in 1928, author did not die until 1940), and so this template does not apply: it shouldn't apply in any case, as the author is (apparently) Australian. Physchim62 13:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
It was published in the West Australian newspaper of the same name, and PD-1996 is an appropriate tag. I am still curious about whether {{PD-US-unpublished}} applies to works published in Australia as I am sure it is a tag I will have opportunity to make use of in the future; the template reads as if it does. John Vandenberg 14:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization of archaic titles

I am interested in women poets and writers from the 18th and 19th centuries. I have been creating Wikisource pages of their work. Per the MOS: "Sentence form (most words lowercase) is preferred, unless an original capitalization is consistently used." The original authors used archaic capitalization in their titles and odd puncuation, which I have respected and preserved. Others have gone into these pages and changed them. For example, see the history, and move history, of Poems (Botta) and it's associated pages. Another example is The Posthumous Works of Ann Eliza Bleecker/A Prospect of Death. I'm frustrated. What can or should I do about this? - Epousesquecido 01:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

In regard to the recent move of Dedication. To my mother, the main reason was because poems are often published many times, in various media, so a new name was necessary to separate the poem from the collection it was published in. I used a simple name "Dedication to my mother" without capitalisation; my apologies for frustration caused. John Vandenberg 01:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I do not believe these poems were published anywhere other than in this work, entitled simply "Poems". So they should be subpaged, per the WS:MOS. - Epousesquecido 02:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe the MOS is referring to instances where original capitalisation was relevant, such as the poems of w:e. e. cummings - nevertheless, the URLs themselves should follow a standard process...at best you could make the internal links from Poems say something like [[Dedication to my Mother|DEDICATION TO MY MOTHER]]. That's my take on it, anyways. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook 23:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Days of War, Nights of Love

I was wondering if I could add the book Days of War, Nights of Love to Wikisource. At the start of it, there is a "copyright" statement that reads as follows:

No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced and transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical... Other recommended methods include... and just signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work. Any claim relating to copyright infringement... should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue.

Can we consider this permission to add it to Wikisource? -- LGagnon 02:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It has been published as ISBN 097091010X, and is held in many libraries so it appears to be a worthwhile work to include if copyright can be established. According to this they host "a decent selection of texts that appear in the book, they can be found, although in earlier, sometimes more primitive forms, in our reading library," here. It is odd that they dont host it entirely and as published if there is no copyright issues. I can't grok the above copyright statement, and searches for "and signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work" and "should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue" both return zero results. Could you provide a link to, or copy of, the unabridged copyright statement? John Vandenberg 06:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The statement appears to have been written for the print edition, so that might explain why it's not online yet. Here's the whole thing:
English language (and all applications thereof) used without permission from its inventors, writers, and copywriters. No rights reserved. All parts of this book may be reproduced and transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, especially including photocopying if it is done at the expense of some unsuspecting corporation. Other recommended methods include broadcasting reading over pirate radio, reprinting tracts in unwary newspapers, and just signing your own name to this and publishing it as your own work. Any claim relating to copyright infringement, advocation of illegal activities, defamation of character, incitement to riot, treason, etc. should be addressed directly to your Congressperson as a military rather than civil issue.
Oh ya,... intended "for entertainment purposes only," you fucking sheep.
Note that the "..." was part of the last line, not another abridgement. -- LGagnon 17:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if the licence is good enough for WS, but it would be a worthwhile addition to Wikilivres. Yann 18:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The Wikilivres link doesn't work for me. Besides, I'd rather find out if I can add the book here. -- LGagnon 23:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
the copyright statement seems OK to me (as a dedication to the public domain), although I would be happier if you could upload scans of the relevant pages (page with copyright statement and title page with author's name), just to be doubly sure and to have some sort of a paper-trail. Physchim62 13:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't own a scanner, so [[:Image:Days of War Nights of Love title page.jpg|this photo]] was the best I could come up with. You can find a better picture of it here, though I don't know if we can use that instead. -- LGagnon 20:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I started adding it at Days of War, Nights of Love, given that we have one OK and no complete objections. -- LGagnon 03:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Count it as two "okay"s, for what it's worth. I'm a firm believer in interpreting "intentions" in publishing. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook 02:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Barnstars

Does WikiSource have Barnstars like Wikipedia? If not, does anyone think we should make them?

Some reasons to give them to people could be for contributing to:

  • Certain time periods (e.g. Ancient Texts)
  • Certain Authors (e.g. Charles Dickens)
  • Certain Genres (e.g. Fiction)
  • Certain subjects (e.g. Russian History)

or we could give them for helping in WikiSource in general like:

  • for reducing the amount of stuff in backlogs (e.g. reducing the amount of articles needing to be split)
  • or any other areas of WikiSource.

Thanks, Skunkmaster IV 16:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Don't think I've seen any, though to be fair I think there's probably a good reason. WS is a fairly small "community" compared to WP, but a fairly tight-knit one as well - so even when a newbie joins, we tend to leave more "personalised" thanks (See User talk:Wild Wolf for an example of somebody who received three or four "barnstars" of thanks shortly after joining). The beauty of barnstars on Wiki is that they're relatively anonymous, you'll get one from a random person who noticed all your vandal-hunting, or all your Islam-related articles, or your stub-sorting, etc. Here, even if you don't know the person who gave you the "star/thanks" today, you probably will within the week. I dunno...that's my pseudo-rant. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Captain Cook 17:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Im not a fan of barnstars in any Wiki, because I like a talk page to be full of talk and quick to render; images and lots of layout dont help that. To expand on Sherurcij's point on the community size difference, here it is possible to watch Special:Recentchanges daily (maybe set to 100 or 250 changes) in order to see everything that has occurred. We can literally know what everyone has done, so there isnt a need for one user to "appreciate" someone who they have noticed is doing a good job; here everyone is mostly aware of what everyone else is doing. John Vandenberg 21:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

NSRW

Dear Librarians,

I just popped in here to say I edited Template:NSRW-link to resemble the new state of the text (i.e. page view). If it works fine - I'm writing here also to have someone check my edit - you could get rid of a lot of soft redirects... εΔω from it.source. 07:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, we have a problem here. This template is used on both the Page: main namespaces. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The template seems to be used much more often for main namespace links, so I'm going to revert your changes. I'll investigate whether the remaining uses should be substed or if I can add some parser function magic to select the correct prefix.--GrafZahl (talk) 10:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added a kludge to distinguish between template arguments that begin with a letter and those which don't.--GrafZahl (talk) 12:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

List of Suicide Letters of Notable Persons Removed, request for repost.

I'd like to study them again. I found them very interesting. I was in NYC last year about this time reading G.I. Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson and while skimming across notable articles on Kurt Cobain, I found a list compiled of 'LIST BY SUBJECT/SUICIDE LETTERS'. Pertained of notables like Mr. Cobain, Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson, Wendy O. Williams, etc. This may be a stretch but the style of prose was very similar to the rants of Beelzebub. I feel since we have a list of Zodiac_Killer_letters we might as well either delete those as we've done with the Suicide Notes, or restore the Suicide section. Just to be fair with Death. Most Appreciatively Yours, --216.100.216.5 22:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I refuse to stoop to the level of pointing out that my contributions to WS are the ones that draw in anonymous readers ;) The suicide note collection was linked to by a number of high-profile websites that considered it the best collection on the internet (as well as the Zodiac Killer letters and Author:Leo Tolstoy just to carry on...) - they were deleted due to "copyright concerns", some valid, some not so much. Hopefully they will be returned with time, I've already moved to have five of them re-instated since the authors died 70+ years ago...but people are still dragging their feet. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 22:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I opened a can of Death Worms I see. Ok...fight on fighter. These people and stories of their lives are very important to a Wikipedian. I speak for myself, and yet for all. Question continued that does not infringe on ze copyright issue. Besides the lucky ole' five that were restored, please list for us what were the names that were removed. This will suffice as a sort of scooby-snack before we can take the mask off the monster we call Lawyer. (by the way, I asked of this information over 6 months ago, and I am pleased someone else asked and I'm still reading the rest of your discussion from last month, thanks much, your hard work is not in vain.) --kwisatz haderach216.100.216.5 22:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
By taking your own right to live, does that fall into you having no right from that point on? So, shouldn't that open up all copyrighting of said Artist? I don't know if I can just simplify the Copyright standards of a Suicide person(s), but if you voided your existence, by what right does someone say you have or have not a right? --kwisatz haderach(questions into the wind)--216.100.216.5 23:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here, but FYI the list of Suicide Notes we *used to* host included
And a few others Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Ancient Egypt 23:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm just saying, if they were all on the internet, I can do searches. But it's annoying that they were all in one place, and now all spread out again. Thanks, KwisatzHaderach--216.100.216.5 23:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
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