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Announcements

Proposals

Author-PD-none

During WS:COPYVIO(2007-11)#Author:W. H. Auden and the more recent WS:COPYVIO#In praise of limestone, we have collated a lot of useful copyright information on Author:W. H. Auden, but now that we have no more works that are in the public domain, this page is now a speedy candidate due to CSD#G6:

Copyright violation: Content which is a clear and proven copyright violation, or content previously deleted as a copyright violation, or author pages for authors whose works are all copyrighted.
Please don't Wikilawyer, especially not if most of us are agreeing with you on the important points. Anyone can look up a CSD criterion, but we delete things because it is the right thing to do . . . not because some rule tells us that we should. Resorting to rules citation too easily turns a collaborative process into an adversarial one. Eclecticology 20:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a wasted opportunity to delete these author pages, as his knowledge is best kept organised on an Author page, where it can be maintained and readily accessed, as opposed to being spread out on WS:COPYVIO or WS:PD, or discouraged altogether. As a result, I have created a template {{Author-PD-none}} that indicates that works by this author are not desirable. This may even help prevent copyvio's being dumped on WS, as it is probable that well intending people will search for an authors name before donating a text. The search results could now inform them of the reason why they should not waste their time.

A change like this has obvious flow on effects, both good and bad. It bring about a slight shift in focus from only being a source depot to also being about sources more generally. I am confident that with a bit of work, our pages for modern authors could be a feature of our project, as Wikipedia is usually a terrible place to find information about an authors works, as the list is abridged, the names of the works are littered throughout the text and accuracy of minor details like venue of first publication are not considered important. We can give people a well organised page that just lists works with ample room for the obscure yet important details, especially relating to copyright.

It would also be good for the project as it brings in new contributors who are not interested in transcribing, and brings in new readers who would otherwise go to LibraryThing.

The problem, if it can be called that, is that this proposal creates a hole in our well-maintained wall that keeps self-published nonsense out off Wikisource. If we accept author pages when no PD works exist, recently published authors will feel indignant when we deny them a right to have an author page as well. A new barrier will need to be erected to prevent garbage from cluttering up our Author namespace, detracting from any good this proposal achieves. John Vandenberg 17:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

One benefit would be that it clearly notes the copyright status of these authors and their works. And this hopefully will help newbies (and oldies) from mistakenly starting an inaccurate author page and non-PD texts. FloNight 17:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this is a interesting and useful proposal. One way to limit self-published authors would be to only accept dead authors: so at least no vanity pages for living authors. Yann 17:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Great idea. That will give us room to develop this concept without needing to worry about any the problem. John Vandenberg 17:40, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I think that only accepting dead authors can make it workable. And as noted below, these are the authors most likely to be wanted by folks wanting to get ready for an author almost ready for a page here. Currently, there can be much research and prolonged discussions about these "almost ready for a page" authors prior to their deletion. Also, linking to these discussions on the author talk page can better help new users understand their status. FloNight 17:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Another benefit is that we are at liberty to create author pages a year or two before any of their works are PD, which is technically not acceptable at the moment (cough, cough).
I support the idea. it will also help explaining to the general public why wikisource does not have works by these authors when they are searched for. ThomasV 18:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I too think it's a useful template. The wording that such works have not yet been identified leaves room for the occasional exception, but leaves the burden of establishing the right to include squarely on the shoulders of the person proposing that a work be included. Some of the investigation regarding the copyright status of material takes a considerable work, and it would be a shame not to have the benefit of that effort when a newbie tries to add the work again in a year or two.
I don't see living vanity authors as a big issue under copyright. It would be consistent with that vanity for them to grant whatever free licence we want. The vanity problem is probably best dealt with under another criterion. Eclecticology 20:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I think we need to stick with a strictly defined new group to include now as to not overwhelm our resources and keep the quality of the project up. I think that including dead author is workable and useful. I think including contemporary authors that are alive will greatly increase the chance that we will be over run with vanity works. FloNight 21:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • To make a concrete proposal here. Let's alter CSD#G6 to say:
Copyright violation: Content which is a clear and proven copyright violation, or content previously deleted as a copyright violation, or author pages for living authors whose works are all copyrighted.

I think this is a good place to start and we can always revist the "living" restriction in the future.--BirgitteSB 19:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes that wording covers the new use for author pages as discussed. FloNight 19:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • As a policy minimalist it would be sufficient to have "Content which is a clear or proven copyright violation." The reference to previously deleted material is a redundancy. The proper place for dealing with living authors is under the need to have been previously published. The wording in the proposal would have the effect of excluding Author:Lawrence Lessig and others who are very much alive and legitimate, but have released their work under a free licence. We all know that wikilawyers are renowned for their literalism. If people want to exclude some living author pages it should be based on normal deletion criteria that are open to discussion. There is no pressing need that would require that this be done speedily. Speedy deletion should be reserved only for the clearest and most unequivocal circumstances. Eclecticology 19:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
If that wording excludes Lessig then your proposed wording doesn't cover CC-NC works. To avoid someone following in your "outside WS policy" interpretation I propose:
Copyright violation: Content which is a clear and proven violation of Wikisource copyright policy, or content previously deleted as a violation of Wikisource copyright policy, or author pages for living authors whose works are all violations of Wikisource copyright policy.--BirgitteSB 20:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
A separate rule about "author pages for living authors with no works which can be distributed in accordance with wikisource policy" may work better at covering related cases while being less cumbersome that trying to add it into the copyright violation rule. -Steve Sanbeg 23:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. This proposal is to allow our Author index to develop in spite of copyright, so it makes sense to remove reference to Authors from the CSD that deals with copyright of works. John Vandenberg 23:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

While I think this template is generally a good idea, I suggest we rename it to {{copyrighted author}}. The PD-* syntax is used to denote works that are in the public domain, not simply as an acronym; using this name would fool scripts into assuming all copyrighted-only authors have public domain works. This is also a more general name, since we could also host works released under free licenses even if none are in the public domain. Finally, this is a clearer name that doesn't require a knowledge of copyright acronyms or Wikisource's public-domain-template naming conventions. —{admin} Pathoschild 01:47:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:38:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Other discussions

Ulysses

What is the most important text to have on Wikisource? Answers will vary, but Ulysses by Author:James Joyce would be a very defensible choice. Modern Library named it the best novel of the 20th century, and Radcliffe Publishing listed it as the #6 greatest book (but #1 through #5 are all still under copyright). Since it was first published in its complete uncensored form in 1922, it is in the public domain.

Unfortunately, our version is incomplete, and doesn't specify the source or which edition it comes from. We're not alone in that: I can't find any online version that specifies what edition it comes from, and there are many editions that differ in significant ways. It's a shame that no verifiable edition of this extremely important work can be accessed online.

I've discussed the details of the situation at Talk:Ulysses (Joyce), but it boils down to this: could someone find one of the facsimiles of the 1922 edition (available in many large libraries) and scan in the pages? I'm certainly willing to help proofread to fix this glaring hole in Wikisource's material -- and indeed, in the material of the entire Internet. Any volunteers? —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 20:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Questions

Bot flag request: Polbot, take 2

It's sometimes difficult to find if a work exists here, when there are similar but different titles for the same work. I'd like to run a script under User:Polbot to look for works that start with "The ", "A ", or "An , and make redirects (if they don't already exist) for the title without the article. Example: she would make Muse of the Department into a redirect to The Muse of the Department. Cool? Quadell 14:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Update: I found 4,845 articles needing this sort of redirect, and there are 263 more that might need such a redirect (but need manual confirmation, just to be sure). Quadell 19:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
That sounds useful. If nobody objects, do a short run to add 50 of these redirects. John Vandenberg 23:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here. I just looked at Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which is redirected from a page that begins with "A ". Shouldn't this be the other way around with the article being on the page with the actual title? Eclecticology 18:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're right -- the page should really be at A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. My bot would create redirects at names without the article, to names with the article. Quadell 19:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, she's running. I gave her a batch of articles that start with a mix of As, Ans, and Thes, just for variety, and there's a mix of special characters and double-redirects for good measure. I'll inspect her work in the morning. Goodnight all! Quadell 06:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This looks like a problem. John Vandenberg 10:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes it is. I have now fixed that in the code.   Quadell 13:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that while you're at it, could you also create redirects from e.g. Portrait of the artist as a young man and A portrait of the artist as a young man? This would require a certain amount of supervision, as you wouldn't want to decapitalise proper nouns. Hesperian 10:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There are a whole lot of potentially-useful redirects I can think of (The Americanization Of Edward Bok -> The Americanization of Edward Bok, Author:James Rhodes -> Author:James Ford Rhodes, etc.), but one at a time.   Quadell 13:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Let's not get too carried away. While their may be a sound basis for redirects between sentence and headline style, it seems excessive to try to account for a miscapitalized "Of" that would be wrong in either style. Eclecticology 20:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I can think of some cogent arguments for having possibly-unnecessary redirects for things like that -- but for now, I'm just doing "a, an, and the". I won't expand this without discussion and consensus. —Quadell (talk/swapmeet) 21:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

So, does the testrun pass muster? Can my little botfriend have a flag? —Quadell (talk/swapmeet) 21:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Re-asking. . . pretty please? —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 14:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The test run went well. Hassle a crat. :-) John Vandenberg 02:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Quadell: the Crathassler. I like the sound of that. :-) —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 03:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
This is strange. I went to look at Polbot's contributions and only two are listed. Did the testrun happen under a different account? I'm willing to grant the account a flag, but I'd like to see the test run first.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
They are here. John Vandenberg 02:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry, I ran it under my own account. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 03:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much!   Polbot 03:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Soft Redirects

I recently came across Category:Soft redirects I wondered how useful the system actually is. It seems to me that some of the Redirects are perfectly valid for example Dedication. to my mother. and Author:United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. and really could be beneficial as normal redirects. On top of this it requires some maintenance (I realise a bot does the deleting but the pages are dated by humans) and I saw similar comments here and thought I would bring it a greater visibility. Am I missing something? Thanks. Suicidalhamster 20:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

E and I just cleaned up the inbound links to Dedication. to my mother. and then I deleted it. It could be a hard redirect I suppose, or stay deleted. But your point seems well taken, soft redirects that don't lead off wiki should be examined to see if their inbounds have been cleaned up and if so, then deleted. ++Lar: t/c 01:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Pages that end in a period are nasty. Dedication. to my mother. was OK if that was the name of the poem, but I cant see any benefit in keeping Author:United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
As I understand it, the purpose of {{dated soft redirect}} is to 1) allow Internet caches to get a new snapshot of the page as a pointer to the actual destination, and 2) give humans a chance to learn of the new location and possibly object to it before the deletion happens (WS:CSD does not allow old page names to be deleted immediately). John Vandenberg 02:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
So are you saying I shouldn't have deleted that one? I can undelete it I guess... or you can. ++Lar: t/c 00:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I recall Epousesquecido being quite adamant that the period was in the title of some of these poems. If this was one of them, I think we should have a redirect with the trailing period to the page name without the trailing period. John Vandenberg 00:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Why yes, I recall that too! :) And the period indeed is in the title of many of these. Those titles are wacky. I think the scans of the originals are around somewhere to show what odd capitalization and punctuation they had/have. But should these be soft or real redirects, and which should be the title and which the redirect? ++Lar: t/c 02:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Since this has come up again, please see here. I will be happy to correct all of the titles on the table of contents page and the poem pages again, with some consensus or proper guidance. - Epousesquecido 17:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Australian Copyright Info

I wanted to add this tract to WS, but am unable to determine its copyright status. Patten died in 1957, which makes his personal copyright one year too late to fall under the old laws of 50pma - but the statement certainly seems the type of thing to be copyrighted by the AAC, it's very clear that Patten is just signing it on behalf of the group. So what's the status? Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Sheet music 03:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Remember that the copyright duration is life + 50/70 of the author irrespective of who owns the copyright. i.e. If I author something and transfer the copyright to you, your copyright extends until 70 years after my death. I can transfer my copyright to you, but I can't transfer my authorship, else we'd all transfer authorship to our children and retain copyright in perpetuity.
In this case, the work remains in copyright until 50/70 years after the death of the author(s), irrespective of who claims ownership of the intellectual property itself. Patten may not have authored it alone, but it is likely that he had a hand in it, so the expiry of what you call "his personal copyright" is an unmet necessary precondition of it being in the public domain.
Even if Patten had nothing to do with it, it would be very cheeky to declare it an orphan work, when it has an identifiable signature on the bottom. I should say you are obliged to treat Patten as prima facie author in this case.
Hesperian 10:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Is that notice/declaration all there is to it? If so there is no prima facie case for his authorship. Patten and Ferguson are signing "on behalf" of the organization in their official capacity. For me the prima facie case is of corporate authorship. Since the main element of this notice is a resolution, (unless the resolution was never brought before the intended assembly) the principles of parliamentary procedure would have it that a resolution that has been duly presented becomes the property of the assembly. In other words their can be no personal copyright. Eclecticology 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Like Eclecticology, it seemed to me a fairly clear-cut case of corporate copyright - my problem was that I couldn't find the Australian laws on that. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Wikisource:Sheet music 23:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Unlike U.S. law, Australian copyright law here doesn't have a provision for corporate authorship ("corporate authorship" being authorship by an artificial person, such as a company, that doesn't have a year of death). It covers "joint authorship", where there are multiple authors, but section 80 says that copyright is based on the year of death of the author who died last. Australia's INFORMATION SHEET G0023 on copyright says:

How long does copyright last if a company is the copyright owner?
For companies and other organizations other than government, duration of copyright is generally determined by reference to a person's lifetime, even if that person never owned copyright (for example, because they created the material as an employee).

So it looks like we still have to go with Patten's year of death, unfortunately. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 13:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Not at all
  1. There is no evidence that Patten is a joint author. The resolution cited could have been by any member of the organisation, and Patten would just be fulfilling his duties as an officer of the organization. At best this resolution is by an anonymous author.
  2. Provision in the Australian Act for a body corporate is provided in the definition of "qualified person". A corporation is a person.
  3. How does a newspaper ad qualify as a "literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work?"
  4. The "Information Sheet" is not law. A pamphlet published by vested interests cannot supersede the law by hypothesizing something that isn't there.
Eclecticology 21:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  1. Patten was president of the society that released this. If Patton is not an author, then we are stuck not knowing who the authors were. (If it were officially "anonymous", then the work would still be under copyright -- but there's no evidence that the work fits the legal definition of "anonymous"). If we don't know who the authors were, then we don't know when the copyright will expire, and we can't use the image.
  2. A "body corporate" counts as a "qualified person", but does not have a date of death (obviously). Expiration of copyright is either based on year of death when the author is known. This can be confusing, which is why the information sheet describes how this is interpreted.
  3. A newspaper ad is a literary work, subject to copyright in all jurisdictions I've ever heard of.
  4. You're right that the information sheet is not law. It's a description of the law issued by the Australian Copyright Council, an "independent non-profit organisation", not a "vested interest". It's very unlikely that you or I understand Australian copyright law better than the lawyers who published that information sheet.

The only way copyright could have expired on this ad would be if all authors had died before 1957. (I don't think we can show that. If it was my own neck on the line, I might risk it, but it's the Wikimedia Foundation who is legally responsible for hosting what we post. I'm just not in favor of putting their neck on the line when the copyright status of an image isn't known.) —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 22:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

When the author is not known the copyright expires 50 years ofter the date of publication, since changed to 70 years. If there is such a thing as a "legal definition of 'anonymous'" I'd like to know where; that said it normally means that the author is not known. The ad was published in 1938, so on that basis alone it expired at the end of 1988.
Can you cite one case where such an ad was determined to be a literary work?
Being an "independent non-profit organisation" and having vested interests are not mutually exclusive. A non-profit organisation that represents the interests of presumed copyright owners has a vested interest.
An ISP is not legally responsible for the copyright of the content unless it has been notified by the copyright owner that it is there. Without that it has no way of knowing that the material is in fact copyright protected. Because there are so many complications in copyright, and so many possible interpretations it cannot determine something to be copyright solely on the basis that it appears somewhere else. Eclecticology 03:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
When the author is not known the copyright expires 50 years after the date of publication. I think it would be extremely cheeky to declare the author of a work to be unknown when it is actually signed. I think you're obliged to treat the signer as the (or at least an) author. Hesperian 05:27, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
There is absolutely no evidence that Patton is the author. Signing as an officer of the organisation does not imply that he is an author. Since when is it so "cheeky" to state the obvious. Where is the rule that "obliges" me to jump to false conclusions? Such an extreme view verges on copyright paranoia. Eclecticology 08:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, signing a document most certainly does imply that he is the author. You are right that this implication is sometimes misleading, but, misleading or not, the signature on the bottom is a prima facie assertion of authorship. Hesperian 10:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
And the fact that they sign as president and secretary is just as much prima facie evidence that they are NOT personal authors. You need to distinguish between what someone does personally and what someone does in the performance of his official duties. When a country's president signs a bill into law it does not imply that he wrote it himself. Eclecticology 09:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding images

I want to add illustrations to all the Beatrix Potter books, as her illustrations form a very, very important part of her work. I've uploaded them here rather than at Commons, as I was told that Commons require that an image be PD both in the US and in the country of origin. Nearly all of Potter's works were published before 1923, and are therefore PD in the US, but as she didn't die until 1943, they won't be PD in the UK for another few years.

I started with Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes. Comparing the current version to the original one, I'm quite pleased, though I might want to make the first few images smaller. It's normal in Beatrix Potter printed books to have the text on one page and a picture on the page facing, so I tried to have the images beside the text, rather than above. It looks fine when you look at the saved version, I think, but if you open the edit box, it looks terrible! Is there a more proper way of doing it than just pressing the "Return" key dozens of times, and so having lots of blank lines? I'm keen to get this right, as I want to add illustrations for all the other public domain Potter books as well. Thanks. Cowardly Lion 22:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You might think it even uglier in the text, but I would be inclined to try
 {| align="center"
 |- valign="center"
 | 
 :<big><big>Gentlemen came every day,</big></big>
 :<big><big>Till Cecily Parsley ran away.</big></big>
 | [[Image:PotterCecily7.jpg|400px|right|thumb]]
 |-
 ...
 |}
This will ensure you get the layout you want regardless of how the enduser reshapes their screen or resizes their font.
If that is not to your taste, you can put a
 <br clear="all"/>
after each block of text, to clear it up to the bottom of the image; then add the next image, and you'll only need to add a few carriage returns to vertically align the next block.
Hesperian 22:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much for all that. I've tried your first suggestion, and I'm very happy with it except that I'd like it better if all the images were directly under each other. I don't mean the ones at the very beginning, which are all centralized. I mean the ones opposite the text. Some are a little more to the right or to the left than others.
Since most of her books are in prose rather than in verse, that won't do for The Tale of Peter Rabbit etc., as I want free-flowing text, not lines of poetry directly under each other. So I'm afraid I'll be back here for help when I start on them, probably next week.
In the meantime, if anyone here happens to have a printed copy of Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes, could you please have a look at the picture for the verse about the little pig that went "Wee! wee! wee!" I copied the images faithfully from the Gutenberg source (though I put them beside the text rather than under and above), but that picture is a rabbit, not a pig, and it can't be right! I'll try and consult a printed copy myself in the next few days, but if anyone has one in the house, I'd be glad of some help there. Thanks. Cowardly Lion 03:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
You slightly misunderstood my meaning. The ellipsis was intended to indicate a table row for each image. I've made that change, which has fixed your alignment issue. I also took the liberty of deframing and inlining (i.e. unfloating) the images, since there's no need to float them right if they're constrained by a table. Heck, that doesn't make much sense; look at the document, decide if it is better, and revert me if it ain't. Hesperian 08:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. That looks great now. I'm nearly as proud of it as if I had done the coding myself. I'll be passing a bookshop on my way home so I'll try and see if there's a copy of the book, and if Beatrix Potter REALLY thought that this was a pig! Cowardly Lion 14:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
The current version looks great! Thanks for adding the images. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 13:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

As I had expected, the picture of the rabbit did not belong in the rhyme about the little pigs! I checked in a bookshop on my way home. I've now started work on The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The difference here is that it's not verses; it's continuous prose - sometimes a whole paragraph opposite a picture. I did exactly what Hesperian had done for Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes, except that I just inserted the whole paragraph where I would have had one line. I've only done a few images. Could someone please check that I'm doing it in the appropriate way, and then I'll try to finish it tomorrow (though internet access over the weekend may be limited). No need to bother about the images at the very beginning, going with the title of the book. It's the text beside the first few images after the story begins that I'd like someone to have a look at. And by the way, with "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter", each name is meant to be more indented than the previous one. Thanks. Cowardly Lion 02:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

That came out very nice. One question, is the picture of the hat and shoes used as a scarecrow supposed to be duplicated (toward the end...)? Another comment, perhaps more controversial, is that I'd encourage you to put these images on Commons rather than here, so that perhaps other projects can use them as well. They're PD. ++Lar: t/c 15:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
To your first comment, whoops, yes, you're right! Thanks for catching that. I've fixed it now. To your second comment, I raised the issue at Commons here, and was told that Commons policy requires that an image be PD both in the US and in the country of origin. Nearly all of Beatrix Potter's books are PD in the US, as most were published before 1923. However, in the UK, they won't be PD until 70 years after her death, which was in December 1943. After I raised that issue on Commons, the existing Potter images were nominated for deletion. (That's why I'm uploading them here.) See Commons:Deletion requests/Beatrix Potter. Cowardly Lion 22:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I forgot about that. I apologise for perhaps picking at a recent scab. :) Perhaps slap something on the images saying "oh and if you think they belong on commons, here's why not:" :) ++Lar: t/c 22:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No, no, there was no scab. I was actually the person who asked if the Beatrix Potter images should be deleted from Commons after someone had explained the policy to me. Anyway, if I'm still around on 1 January 2014, I'll start uploading them to Commons immediately! I've proofread The Tale of Peter Rabbit from a printed edition now, and I'm fairly confident that I've got rid of any errors. Thanks, everyone, for all the help. Cowardly Lion 00:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Duplicates?

What's the best way of handling duplicates where there are slight differences in the text like hyphenation? For example we have A Baby Tramp and The Baby Tramp; "A Baby Tramp" appears to be the right title according to a Google search. Here's the difference between them. Graham87 02:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

In a situation where you are not 100% sure, tag both with {{merge}} and ask contributors of both to discuss. In this case, I think you can safely go ahead and merge templates, cats, etc. Then redirect one to the other. John Vandenberg 03:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've redirected "The Baby Tramp" to "A Baby Tramp" and merged the more specific category into "A Baby Tramp". Graham87 06:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Twin Books v. Walt Disney Co.

Please take a look at Wikisource talk:Copyright_policy#Twin_Books_v._Walt_Disney_Co. Lugusto 08:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I commented there. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 14:53, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The bird book

Can anyone import the bird book (a priori no copyright) ? VIGNERON 16:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I could import the text easily enough. But I somehow think a text-only version would be missing something. :-) —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 19:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Quadell, if you can import the text, the images can then be added in place by VIGNERON. Ideally, we would want to add the DJVU file to commons, but that depends on bugzilla:12595. John Vandenberg 02:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I can do it, but the text will be worthless unless someone adds the images. The only way I know how to do that is to open the djvu book, printscreen to the clipboard, edit the screencap down to the specific image, save as a jpg, and upload. In other words, lots of work. I'll import the text, if someone else will volunteer to import the images. Perhaps someone knowns of an easier way? —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 03:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the only way to do it is the way you just suggested ;-). However, instead of doing screencaps and then cropping those, it might be better to actually disassemble the djvu file into its component pages (which is a lossless process). This way we can maximize the quality of the images we want to take from the text. Since I've got DjVu-Libre installed on my machine, I can easily do this (that is, it takes 5 seconds). Where shall I upload the images? Note, they will all be in DjVu format, though.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Since it was first published in the U.S. before 1923, the images can be uploaded to the Commons. I'm importing the text now. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 20:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, the DJVU file should definitely be on Commons, but I'm reluctant to upload 400+ individual image files which are going to be used for the sole purpose of extracting images of the birds. I was thinking I'd upload it to something like Megaupload or YouSendIt and tell the person who wants to get all the images where to find it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Those individual bird/egg pics could be quite useful in Wikipedia articles on those species. I think it would be good to have the images on Commons. If you have a machine with perl on it, this script will upload all images in a directory to the Commons (assuming you have an account there). I use that script all the time, mostly for LibriVox oggs nowadays. But I still think it would be best to have the images in jpg format, since djvu is fixed-res just like jpg is (and unlike PDF). But whatever you're willing to do would be great. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 21:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually each individual page of the djvu file can be linked from Commons. The syntax would be [[Image:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu|page=#]]. This will retrieve and display the second page of the String Figures and How to Make Them DjVu file. So, if WP wants to link to an image, they don't need to have each individual page by itself to do so.
But for WS, we just want the images of the birds (without the text). So, I was merely proposing sending someone who wants to work on The Bird Book and is willing to extract the images from the text the list of all the DjVu images (which they can then crop and convert to JPG, as that would be the least lossy way of doing this). But since these individual images are merely meant to be temporary (we only need the bird pictures), no need to clutter Commons (which is already cluttered enough).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, it's now at The Bird Book, but man, is it in bad shape! OCR just isn't made for scanning picturebooks like this. I imported just the basic default OCR, with page numbers, errors, etc. Have at it; my work here is done. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 21:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Two accounts?

I see that there is a user with two accounts, Citizensunshine and Citisunshine, both working on Bible (Free).[1][2] Is this good practice?--Poetlister 11:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the user briefly used an account name that was different from their Wikipedia name, but have decided to keep the user name consistent. I suggest asking the user if they no longer wish to use the old account name, in which case we can effective "merge" the two by redirecting user/talk of the old account to the new name. John Vandenberg 11:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
There's no legal problems (GFDL) or policy problems with it. As you know, we're a lot more forgiving about using multiple accounts here on Wikisource. It's only a problem if you use both accounts for discussion, to try to create the appearance of consensus for your favored point of view. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 14:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there a mathematician in the house?

I'm proofreading On Mr. Babbage's new machine for calculating and printing mathematical and astronomical tables as part of a swapmeet deal, and I've come upon a problem. The source PDF at Image:On Mr. Babbage's new machine for calculating and printing mathematical and astronomical tables.pdf shows several equations, but the quality of the scan is imperfect, and I'm having trouble determining one particular character. Here is the excerpt: "A table of sines. . . may be represented in its whole extent by the equation  ." But that last 1 might actually be an x, making it  . Now I took some higher math classes back in college, but I can't really tell what this is supposed to be. Does anyone know whether there should be a 1 or an x here? —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 13:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

While this is not the math I'm trained in or ever studied (I've never seen these equations before), I believe that it should be a "1" and not an "x." It doesn't quite seem to make sense to have an "x" in that spot, nor does that scribble look like the other "x"s they use in other equations. Also, the equation in question is merely a restatement of the same equation given earlier. All the equations of that kind have no "x"s in them, so I would imagine that this equation would not, either.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, the last 2 equasions are   and  . That, and the fact that (3+1) looks at first blush like it would reduce to 4, make me think that it's an x. (It does look quite a bit like an x.) But then again, another equation given is  , and the 2 is quite clear. —Quadell (talk / swapmeet) 21:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Right, but in the subscripts to the u there are no variables, all numerals. I would hazard a guess it would be safe to think it were a "1" (especially knowing ones looking a lot like squatty I's than 1's, as well).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Wordsworth hunting

Trying to wikify Christ Among the Cattle, I came across a line that seems to be from Wordsworth, including a reference to Ode to Duty - but it seems impossible to find where this phrase, quoted in 19th century books and attributed to Wordsworth, actually appeared. There is also a discrepency, among the very few references I can find, whether the term used should be "pride" or "pain". Any help would be much appreciated.

"Never to mix our pleasure or our pride/pain
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Ovid 23:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, actually there seem to be a half-dozen variations on it - from Hart-Leap Well, all of which have variations in the wording, with the "mistaken" references obviously dating back more than a century - anybody feel like figuring out the original and putting it on WS? Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Ovid 23:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
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