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Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2009-11

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Announcements

Welsh Wills prior to 1858

National Library of Wales announces that wills are now freely available, see announcement. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:57, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

Proposals of texts

Searching for Lucy Clifford's short story "The New Mother", I found it is not yet in Wikisource. The text is in other places in the internet but it would be great to have it here checked against paper publications. I looked for a space to leave this proposal but I failed to find one by looking at the links in the main page. If there is such a place for asking for possible new additions to Wikisource, wouldn't it be a good idea to make it conspicuous. Thanks. --80.5.88.40 18:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

WS:RT. :) --Eliyak T·C 05:13, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

{{Header}} and Scans

I would like to propose that we look to add (yet) another field to {{header}} that provides a direct link to the relevant image file Index: page. Tentatively call the field | scan = though I could be convinced to call it a number of things. read more ...

Other discussions

Nolo's Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Blog

Came across this while researching a copyright topic. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Questions

Dynamic Page List

Could we install the DynamicPageList extension? mw:Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia) Arlen22 (talk) 19:13, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain how you would see it used at WS, specific features, and the perceived benefits, what support may be needed on an ongoing basis, etc.-- billinghurst (talk) 09:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know about support, I know it is used on Wikibooks and Wikinews to provide a dynamic listing of pages in a certain category. Arlen22 (talk) 19:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Question - Copyrights - The Way of a Man with a Maid

I was unable to find an answer on this site and through the internet. Since the author of The Way of a Man with a Maid http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Way_of_a_Man_with_a_Maid has remained anonymous for some time now, is this story copyright-free?

Also, is it not possible for all copyright status to stories and publications be disclosed on this site? Can't we make this mandatory prior to listing? This way we will all know if a story/publication is in the public domain or not? —unsigned comment by 76.64.97.184 (talk) .

Hah, told you people come for the erotica. Anyways, the story was published at least by 1908, so it is Public Domain, copyright-free, yours to do with as you will as though it were in your own snuggery. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 04:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Our works should contain a copyright notice at the base of the page which relates to US copyright, as this does. We cannot cover every countries copyright at the end of each document, so for anonymous works you will need to check your countries laws. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
It would be nice if there were some basic source data, though; where was it published and when? Right now, all it says is pre-1923.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Can anything at all, regardless of its content, be put on Wikisource, if a copyright does not prevent it? Here we have a story where a man glorifies rape and torture, saying women might protest, but they'll be enjoying it and thank you for it once you have raped them. Can someone upload hate literature promoting the discrimination against a certain religion or race, and encourage violence against them? Or is it only the hatred and violence against women that is tolerable? Where are the rules listed at? I don't see it on the main page or anywhere. Dream Focus (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Only hatred and violence against women is acceptable. No, no, I'm kidding of course. We do not censor what we host, you are free to upload hate literature that is free of copyright restrictions and notable. In fact, we have Wikisource:Ku Klux Klan, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and similar works. The only times I have halted myself personally are with works advocating (rather than detailing) the sexual abuse of children, since they would put me in legal jeopardy for distributing them in my home country (But works like The Sexual Life of the Child do not advocate child sexuality, they merely discuss it in a scholastic context). If you or somebody else wanted to upload them, WS would almost certainly host them. (Free speech laws are a lot stronger in the country where the servers are located, than where I live). We are a library, we provide what history has provided us. And we probably hold close to the Wilde maxim "The books the world judges obscene, are the books that show the world its own shame". Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 18:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
There's no formal notability guidelines, and notability as a guideline at all is a bit controversial. Wikisource:What Wikisource includes is the inclusion guidelines; most notably the emphasis is on earlier works, and modern self-published works are excluded. I suspect most of us would be impatient with people wanting to upload their own racist rantings, but we have a number of historical ones. As for discrimination against a certain religion: are you not familiar with the fact that most branches of Christianity call for the annihilation of all non-Christian religions by conversion? That's a huge volume of popular text you're asking for us to exclude. [1] you argue that it's about how people use the text, to which I respond that the Bible, the works of the Popes, the writings of Martin Luther, Mohammed, etc., have a lot of non-historical readers and a lot of people who label part or all of those texts as encouraging hatred against women, and I suspect a lot more people taking action on their readings then the erotica we include. You also talk about most people who donate to the Wikimedia Foundation; I think most of them are familiar with w:WP:CENSORED and the frankness of Wikipedia's articles on sex, and would understand that Wikisource, as a library, would try to be similarly comprehensive. There's also a danger in that argument, in that you don't want to give every person who tosses a few bucks your way control over what you post, and worrying about hypothetical donaters can be paralyzing. The best is to set up clear policy and let people donate if they find that acceptable. Like about anything at Wikimedia, it's not set in stone, but most projects accept the basic concepts of w:WP:CENSORED, including this one.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
The Alt Sex Stories Text Repository probably adds more erotic text to their archive every year than was published before 1923, if not all history, and a lot of it isn't very nice. Stopping Wikisource, an Internet library, from publishing historically published erotic works isn't going to change people's masturbation habits one bit; it's still going to exist out there, and they were never coming to Wikisource in the first place.--74.104.24.216 00:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, I certainly read "coming to Wikisource" in a new light...Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 00:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Those who would be influenced by religious text for violence, will be converted by the weekly brainwashing ceremonies their parents or others take them to. Thus the only people looking up such things here, are those who wish to learn more about it. Historical figures, and things of an educational value should be allowed. But for things that have no value whatsoever except fictional entertainment, there should be some simple rules, such as, whatever people like to read is fine, if published long enough ago so not in copyright, unless it glorifies kidnapping, torture, brainwashing, and rape of women, showing all the young perverts out there that it is alright to do so, she'll enjoy it and thank you later, and keep coming back for more. I'll take my suggestion to the proper policy discussing page though. Dream Focus (talk) 09:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
[2] here is where the discussion should be continued. Dream Focus (talk) 10:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Shall we delete Titus Andronicus on those standards as well? Look, we cannot/doNot/willNot delete texts because somebody finds them unsavoury. We have works by Author:Adolf Hitler, Author:Osama bin Laden and Author:Marquis de Sade. If somebody wants to add the w:NAMBLA constitution, they're welcome to do so - we are a collection of primary sources, not a collection of bedtime stories for your 7-year old. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 12:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Problems with new update

The latest code update seems to have introduced a serious problem with respect to flowing paragraphs across pages. If I'm not much mistaken, the problem is that, on any page saved since the update, a carriage return is forced at the end of a page. Thus any transclusion page that uses a separate line for each {{page}} call (i.e. most of them) will produce blocks of transcluded text separated by two successive carriage returns, resulting in an unwanted paragraph break at each page break.

For an example, see A specimen of the botany of New Holland/Billardiera scandens. I have edited page 3, as a result of which there is an unwanted paragraph break at the start of page 4.

It is not possible to fix this by deleting the trailing carriage return; the carriage return will always be restored when the page is saved. I suppose it could be fixed by pulling all the {{page}} template calls onto the same line, but this is a hideous solution. I'm not sure if the <page> tag will fix this, but even if it does I think forcing a trailing carriage return is a problem.

Hesperian 05:41, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

thanks for pointing it; I'll try to fix it today. in the meantime the problem is not present with 'pages' ThomasV (talk) 06:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I successfully have <pages> work its new nomenclature (from PotM), though see that the [RC] isn't showing the Page: ns edits from today. -- billinghurst (talk) 08:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Do you or does anyone else know if it is possible to display page numbers like the {{page}} template does; and if so, does it automatically draw the numbering from the <pagelist> attributes on the index page, or must they be added independently? Hesperian 13:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I see that this is supposed to be possible—each page transclusion is supposed to post a call to MediaWiki:Proofreadpage pagenum template—but this seems not to be working; or perhaps the template is being called but the code is wrong. Hesperian 13:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Gosh, the page numbers can be see on the edit page of Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey/Supplement/Kent but do not appear on the display page. Most bizarre, these are present on the preview page while the page is loading, but disappear once the page is loaded. This is spooky. Hesperian 13:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
page numbers are ok. you just need to click on 'links to scans' in the margin. (I guess this should be renamed to 'page numbers')
apparently the cookie that stores whether page numbers should be visible or hidden is not the same on edit preview and normal display; this probably explains the confusion.
concerning that extra carriage return, the fix is ready and I am just waiting for brion to show up and deploy it. all the pages edited in the meantime will have that unwanted CR; I am very sorry about it ThomasV (talk) 13:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I see. Thanks.

There's no need to apologize. We'll take our lumps. Hesperian 13:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Has the fix been deployed yet? I'm still finding a CR inserted between the page body and the footer when I save. - Htonl (talk) 11:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
no, it has not. don't worry too much about it; I can catch it up later with a robot. ThomasV (talk) 11:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


We've noticed the new update also at the swedish wikisource.
There was a trouble with the last version in the page-namespace, since it was possible to edit by clicking on [redigera] (edit) in the the page, and the page became strange when saving. We solved that by adding a "NOEDITSECTION" in {{PageQuality}}. That does not help any longer, since the template no longer is in use. Therefor the trouble has been reintroduced.
Is there any other way to solve this in the new version? It's not a problem for us, who has been editing proofreading-pages some time. But it's a problem when newbies are introduced.
And Yes, I can edit MediaWiki-namnspace if that's required... -- Lavallen (talk) 16:28, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I will fix the noeditsection thing; in the meantime it is possible to add it to Mediawiki:Proofreadpage_default_header ThomasV (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
modifying the css is actually better : .ns-104 .editsection { visibility:hidden; } ThomasV (talk) 18:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
".ns-104.editsection { visibility:hidden; }" will work even better... -- Lavallen (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I sometimes get that when I BACK into an edit page, make changes and re-edit so had put it down to my editing. I either undo to the previous edit or manually just delete the additional page info. Or I am mistaking what you are saying
he means something slightly else, but with similar result; I think the problem you describe does not occur anymore with the new version. ThomasV (talk) 17:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The carriage return creates large problems on no:WS, see for instance no:Jesus Messias/VIII , where the first paragraph of pages 109 and 118 are treated and presented as if they were code, and not text (and similarly in chapter IX, p. 123). As you can see, the result of this problem is highly unattractive. V85 (talk) 09:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that problem is occurring because no:Mal:Sider has a space in between each call to no:Mal:Side. If you were to convert all those spaces to line breaks, you would have our problem instead of the problem you have. But the fact that your problem only occurs after the first {{Side}} call suggests that it could perhaps be fixed by tweaking {{Sider}}. Hesperian 12:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


ok the fix has been activated. pages that have been edited during the last 2 weeks have an unwanted \n and they will need a null-edit (I will write a robot for that). I also used this opportunity to add a search button to Special:IndexPages ThomasV (talk) 20:07, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
NEAT! Is there a means to be able to transclude a search result into a project page? My example is this result -- billinghurst (talk) 23:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Rollback?

I am not sure if it has ever been proposed before, but has the community ever considered adding the rollback group? It would be very beneficial in fighting vandals. Thoughts? Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 00:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

As we are (still) a fairly tight-knit community, where each major contributor/admin knows each of the other major contributors/admins, we are quite liberal in simply appointing anybody who we'd trust with Rollback, to full Admin status :) Personally, I think this fact helps maintain our pleasant atmosphere, since it avoids creating "ranks" where drama and squabbling break out and people begin grabbing their webcam and a ruler to prove who has the largest ePenis. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 16:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Ah, well, I see. Thanks :) Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 01:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Classy words Sherurcij, and goes well with your eErotica. <laugh> So, in short I agree, less competition here, be clueful, be trusted, privileges granted. We do have a review process, see Wikisource:Adminship. That said, if there was a member of the community who just wanted to take the one step, and was passionate, I am sure that we would consider it. To this point it just hasn't been necessary, though am prepared to listen to ideas. -- billinghurst (talk) 08:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

refactored main page

Hi. I've done a refactor of the main page, including the header up top. This was mostly about getting all of the styling into a style sheet instead hard-coding it inline. This will centralize common stuff and allow future tweaks to be more easily managed. Because of the css caching, I've reverted my edits for a few days until people have the updated Common.css loaded. How long do folks think this needs to be? The changes to MediaWiki:Common.css are this scary diff and the changes to {{Main Page header}} and Main Page are the right sides of these: [3] [4]. I've also switched to proper wiki-text heading elements for semantic reasons. An extra I did restyles any embedded prettytables to use the same colors as the header; light blue, instead of grays.

Please stay off these pages so that I can bring the changes back easily, ok? Open to suggestions, of course. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Time? Something to suit your timetable. By the weekend should be enough. We can do an announcement here too. billinghurst (talk)
Sounds about right. I had three days in mind. This is a first step; I'd like to see the tables go, next. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Interesting as I wanted them to go first. However, that is probably just selfishness for the {{PotM}}. :-) billinghurst (talk) 14:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm talking about the tables wrapped around the individual modules; they'll become divs in the next iteration ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC) (who's back to hyper-busy)

I just took this set of changes live. Clear your cache, if you've not done so since earlier this week. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: The Main Page from the outward appearance looks pretty much the same, though the coding is of course different. What is the advantage to the change? Cirt (talk) 23:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Overriding Cover Image Properties on Index Pages

This edit to MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template hard-codes several parameters into the cover image that is displayed on Index: pages, including size and border parameters. Doing so overrides the options that users may ordinarily specify when referencing images on the site, and causes a substantial number of existing Index: pages to display incorrectly. (Basically, any image reference that includes a size parameter larger than the now hard-coded value of 150px will display incorrectly; the image will be scaled to whatever size the size parameter indicates, but only the upper-left-most 150px-by-220px region of that scaled-down version will be displayed on the Index: page.)

Can this be fixed so that user-selected size and border parameters are still applied as written? I do not want to simply revert the edit to MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template in case it is doing other things that are important to preserve (template syntax isn’t my forte), but it would be nice to have the old behavior back. Tarmstro99 (talk) 17:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Could we delete the hardcoded table width ("width:150px;height:220px;") and change the "160px" to "frameless" so that default user thumb size preferences are honoured? Like this:[5]? Hesperian 00:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
Hearing no objection, I’ll give that a try. Tarmstro99 (talk) 16:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Quirky at Index:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu at this point.-- billinghurst (talk) 20:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Looks okay to me; what are you seeing? Hesperian 23:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Spare image space to the right of the image (image left justified). Image space isn't conforming to the image frame, similar at Index:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu. -- billinghurst (talk) 09:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Unified login question

I'd like to set up a unified login across Wikimedia projects. Wikisource is the one and only project in which my username is "Pete Forsyth" rather than "Peteforsyth". It's my understanding that changing that here is a good step to take before applying for UL; however, I'm unsure of the process for doing that.

Can anybody advise? Is there a bureaucrats' noticeboard or something I should be aware of? Thanks for any guidance. -Pete (talk) 23:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

No, this is pretty much the right place. Shall I rename you to "Peteforsyth"?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Please do -- thanks for the quick response! -Pete (talk) 00:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Done.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Thx :) -Pete (talk) 09:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm, UL seems to be working oddly. When I log in somewhere, it says it's logging me in to multiple projects; but then when I go to a different project, I'm not logged in. Any idea what that's about? -67.160.165.194 15:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't know what causes that. That happened to me for a while, too. Now it's fixed for my account.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:24, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Me too. I suspect you need to reconfirm your pre-existing accounts with a login, then it should be automatic. Cygnis insignis (talk) 07:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it has to do with the cookies. Using Firefox I have UL in all wikimedia-projects, but with IE it only works within a single group of project. -- Lavallen (talk) 15:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Volunteers still needed

Hi all,
Although we soon will remove the centralnotice that is up, the Wikimedia Foundation is still looking for volunteers to serve as subject area experts or to sit on task forces that will study particular areas and make recommendations to the Foundation about its strategic plan. You may apply to serve on a task force or register your name as an expert in a specific area at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org.

The Foundation's strategy project is a year-long collaborative process which is hosted on the strategy wiki, at http://strategy.wikimedia.org. Your input is welcome (and greatly desired) there. When the task forces begin to meet, they will do their work transparently and on that wiki, and any member of the community may join fully in their work. This process is specifically designed to involve as many community members as possible.

Any questions can be addressed to me either on my talk page here or on the strategy wiki or by email to philippe at wikimedia.org.

I hope you'll consider joining us!

Philippe (talk) 01:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

A survey of English literature, 1780-1880, Volume 2

A survey of English literature, 1780-1880, Volume 2

Oliver Elton

Was just wondering if this would be in public domain by now and if I could add it to the database or not? Thank You more info on Google Books. Kxw (talk) 23:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure; it was published in 1920 and thus is fair game. (If it will come up under Public Domain Only on Google Books, it's almost certainly acceptable for us.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
How do I add it with all the information like your style guide? Kxw (talk) 23:52, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Replied on talk page. Cygnis insignis (talk) 07:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Opera libretto

I would like to upload an opera libretto that is in German, and then have a collaborative project to translate it into English. Ideally the original German and the English should be displayed side-by-side, like in a booklet that comes with a CD, so that one could follow the translation while listening to the opera in German. (The German text is in the public domain, but the currently available translations are not. A CD version that I have does not include the libretto because the publisher apparently could not afford to license the copyrighted text. They actually say this in the back of the booklet.) I have looked here but I have not been able to figure out how I should do this. I have not yet found any examples of something like this. Thanks for any suggestions and/or links! --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest first uploading the original version to the German wikisource; then finding some German speakers here and seeing if you can collaboratively get the first section done - if so, start a Wikiproject for it to help further your collaboration :) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 03:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Also have a look at Wikisource:Translations. There is a interwiki matching technology that one of our developers has that is available, however, as Sherurcij says, it relies on having something in the deWS first. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Will the German WS accept the libretto without any scans to back it up? Something in the back of my head tells them they'll just delete it. I personally don't see why we couldn't accept the German as well (in the case that the German WS won't take it), since we already have foreign texts in many of our national anthems and in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That should be very helpful! --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Could I create a DjVu (sp?) file of the German text and then put it up on the English WS for translation? The text comes from a Swiss web site. I could organize it into pages first, I seem to remember it is one or two very long web pages. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

If the images are out of copyright, yes, though we load images to Commons:. Look at Help:DjVu files -- billinghurst (talk) 04:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Noli Me Tangere

Hello. I am a new user in WikiSource. User:Billinghurst referred me to speak out here in Scriptorium (sounds like the library used by monks in Middle Aged Europe, if I am not mistaken) since WikiSource is not that large community like Wikipedia.

When I am beginning to write the article in the space Noli Me Tangere, I saw the notice that it was deleted in 2008 because of copyvio. Well, I want to make the article with a new start, but my recent searches in different archives in WikiSource, especially this Scriptorium discussion proved that writing Noli was problematic in the past (2008). They are arguing that the version was León Ma. Guerrero's, which was initially published (according to them) in 1961, and not qualifies Philippine copyright laws.

The problem is, Noli Me Tangere is originally in Spanish. WikiSource, I think accepts English right now. Charles Derbyshire had the first translation in English, and that was in 1912. Project Gutenberg has declared the English translation as public. If I shall re-write the article again, will I the same problem arise? Thanks for the help.--JL 09 (talk) 12:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

No. Both the original work and the translation you are doing were published before 1923, putting them out of copyright here in the U.S. There should be no problems if you added Derbyshire's translation.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. Maybe the previous addition in 2008, was copy-pasted from 1960s edition, which is before 1923.--JL 09 (talk) 14:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

SDrewthbot and author "fixes"

I've been looking at some of the changes the bot's making and I'm not entirely happy, but I don't know the details behind the headers. [6] delinks Federal Communications Commission which is unquestionably wrong, and I felt the effects of [7], changing the author name from the version used on the book and removing the illustrator from the authors field to the notes, was suboptimal. What's the goal here, and do others agree with my esthetic opinions?--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

For the first edit, I must say I'm relatively impartial. I've never liked the decision to have non-people author pages, but since the community has moved to that direction, I won't say the edit was a good one. For the second edit, though, I fully support. The author parameter should only be for authors; illustrators, translators, editors, etc., I feel have no place in that field. If we want to put that information in the actual header (which I do believe is a good idea) they should be given their own parameters (like | illustrator = ) so that we can process it as (pseudo) metadata and can add automatic categories (e.g. Category:Illustrated works) based on the existence of those fields.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
So what about expanding the author's name to its full form instead of what was on the book in the second edit? In the first case, I wouldn't be surprised if every word in the letter was written by some committee in the FCC and only signed by the person we list as author, so I'm uncomfortable just listing it under one person's name.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I weakly agree on the second point, I noticed a "Lev Tolstoi" changed to "Leo Tolstoy" earlier on a work I'd added with the "actual printed name" of the author - but didn't care enough to revert it back to "Lev Tolstoi". But when we can use the name as it appeared on the book - I support that. But not 100%. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Linnaeus. 17:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't believe it's the job of the header template to present the information that is specific to a particular work. If we want to use a variant of the author's name (such as "Lev Tolstoi" instead of "Leo Tolstoy") that should be done in the non-header portion. I think author names added into the header should be the name for which we have a (non-redirect) page created serving as an author page. (Note, I'm not married to this idea and won't strongly argue for it, as we can use redirects liberally to get things done. The thing I will argue for, is that attribution be in the right place--e.g., editors and illustrators not in the author parameter.)—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
The idea of an |illustrator= parameter was floated In April without any disagreement - I think if anybody can take the time to insert it then we'll be glad to have it. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 19:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
How should it be presented? We don't have a lot of real estate in the header, and with translators and authors, we chew it up quickly. Do we want it to say something like "by AUTHOR, illustrated by ILLUSTRATOR and translated by TRANSLATOR"? (Of course, assuming that both of those fields exist--otherwise "by AUTHOR, illustrated by ILLUSTRATOR" would work fine.) Or is there a better way of going about it?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I would think that it would be possible to put the extra information so that it is reproduced as the first components of the Notes field. That is, create separate and distinct fields as required, and have them display distinctly formatted as the first components of Notes. It keeps the Header component more consistent; does not upset existing formatting, and gives scope for future expansion. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:24, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
First things first. A decision needs to be made here, to what extent {{header}} is intended to carry metadata, and to what extent it is intended to render an attractive header. Personally I think the main purpose is the latter, and therefore we should be somewhat free to pick and choose what we put in the header and what we omit. e.g. whether we mention the illustrator in the header should depends upon how important the illustrations are to the work: in some works the illustrations are more important than the text. I would be opposed to a header that refused to mention the illustrator alongside the author, no matter how important they are to the work; and I would also be opposed to a header that insists on mentioning the illustrator alongside the author, even when they are of no importance to the work. Hesperian 02:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Background

I am currently working through a maintenance category that is set aside to find where we are using author hacks, and with ~14k pages listed, it was non-functional to be able to scan for maintenance tasks. Basic work is to churn through and do a simple workthrough, and push works to override author and then clean that up as required. In the author field, I have also seen that there are wikilinks to WP pages especially for organisations, and some of those I have left, WP-linked, though now with override author. To be followed-up when I get to override_author.

Comment

We have three basic pages that cover the matters raised which I have utilised when slowing churning through with the bot

Authors
  1. Guidance is given that natural authors use the AUTHOR field and others should not be linked and have OVERRIDE_AUTHOR, example given is UK Parliament, and I have left all US Congress links. I would propose that such pages would be better collated under Wikisource: or similar. Worthy of a separate discussion, especially where various authors have produced books under the aegis of the British Museum, and UK Public Records Office for over a hundred years.
    1. to the specific author question, I know not, and neither the bot nor its owner were wasn't about to start that argument, and if a concern then I would argue that either the work's or author's talk page is a more relevant place
  2. There is a specific statement that authors are those who write books. If we want ILLUSTRATOR field, then I mind not either way. We should also consider COMPOSER as we have situations of music and lyrics. While we are at it a PUBLISHER field, etc. How long is this piece of string? The discussion is more than just the field per se, and also about how you want it listed, recorded, wikilinked or not
  3. It is stated that fully expanded names are preferred, and where there is common usage for the author with initials to create a redirect. I can say that as we add authors, disambiguating these to full names is starting to raise its head, and I would prefer that if we are using initials, that they may be better specified in the body of the work as part of a reproduced title page.
Tolstoi

My fault, I missed that variation in those works between before and after pipe. Generally I leave fully expanded names as they are and create redirects as needed.

Anyway, I welcome the discussions and feedback on how to improve the work that I feed the bot. Though can I suggest that starting off as a criticism, or bringing in feelings of happiness, or values of unquestionable wrongness brings in a subjectivity. There is a lot of back of house maintenance and no-one really working on the tedious/curatorial, so if we can be positive and forward looking and thinking about fixes, rather than backward looking and critical, that would be fantastic. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Several points bear commenting:
    1. I have never felt that the "override author" parameter override was a good way of doing things. A simple and single symbol that could be used whenever and wherever an override was required, not just in headers, would be more efficient. "Override author" is awkward and counter-intuitive.
    2. Corporate authors need a preferred place in the heading, and to be treated like any other author. In the opening example future users need to be aware that this is a government work and that copyrights are affected accordingly. While it is unlikely that the error will be made in the near term, there is a risk that letters of this sort will become detached from their encompassing work, and that the letter-writer will be treated as the copyright owner.
    3. We need a publisher parameter. In the long term different editions will be identified by their publishers. Many works in the past have been separately published in London and New York with all the usual variations between British and American spelling. This has since become impractical in the general case, but most of these later works are still copyright protected anyway. A publisher parameter will also be useful when there is confusion between the corporate author and the publisher.
    4. I support the notion that we should recognize supplementary authorship, but the various types of such people present an open-ended list. In All the Year Round Dickens (both father and son, and without distinguishing which) appeared with the phrase "conducted by". It would not make sense to have a separate parameter for each of these. Better a two part parameter where the first part shows the type of relation to the work (editor, illustrator, translator, etc.), and the second shows the name of the person. The parameter should be repeated freely as often as needed.
    5. Full names should be preferred for author pages, thus "Lev Nikolayevitch Tolstoy" rather than simply "Lev Tolstoy" or "Leo Tolstoy". This is doubly important for authors who wrote in languages that must be transliterated. The header itself is not a part of the work; it is an artifact for linking that work with the rest of Wikisource. Author names as they appear on a title page vary considerably in time and place, and a preferred name form helps in linking things together. There will always be a place for showing the title-page form in the body of the page.
  • Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 17:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

New bugs

Hello, I find a new bug here: Special:Contributions/newbies (links to talk pages). I mentioned that on #wikimedia-tech Yann (talk) 20:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not understanding, from that page, the links to newbies talk pages work fine for me. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Book Tool Issues and the Way to the Solution

Hi guys, we have had an open ticket on problems with our book tool for over 7 months. I have talked to the guys on #mediawiki and #pediapress about this issue and here is what they said we need to do to get this issue resolved. I could really use some help to get this bug going. This tool is so important to the project. With projects such as the WS:PotM we could start offering to print public domain text, but until this issue is resolved this is not possible. Anyways, the following is what we need:

  • Add a minimal example to the bug report. Tell what is happening and what you'd expect to happen.
  • If possible link a description which explains how this djvu stuff works. (They believe the way the templates and the transcluding work is causing the problem and it is also confusing)
  • Explain what templates might be involved and explain anything that helps to quickly understand the problem is helpful.

I got these questions from hejko from #pediapress. They are pretty much a direct quote. The bug can be found here at http://code.pediapress.com/wiki/ticket/508. Registration is required. Anyways, what do you guys think. Can you help with this? Thanks. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 18:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that this bug also exists for pages using the <pages /> notation. It looks like there needs to be some kind of tie-in between ProofreadPage and the PDF book creator.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Gutenberg and Wikisource

I format (.txt) files downloaded from Gutenberg, hyperlinking the chapter titles to recreate the table of contents, format and clean the text, paginate the documents for printing or onscreen reading. This, being one of my hobbies, I give copies to anyone for their reading enjoyment, in .txt .doc, .html or .pdf format.

I would like to contribute but, this being my start on this wiki, it would be best if I first join an ongoing project that requires additional work. This would help get the feel of the specific format requirements of this wiki, by analyzing previous contributions. Pointing me to the general direction would be greatly appreciated. Ineuw (talk) 19:41, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome welcome welcome. Now, I would happily steal you for the magnificent DNB and our project page is Wikisource:WikiProject_DNB, note though there are some other 'pretenders' who think that their projects are also worthwhile. [ducking shoes]. I would think that the best projects to be involved with are either Proofread of the Month or Contributor of the Week. We are an eclectic and (mostly) friendly bunch. Personal preference for PotM as there are always new things to try. Always feel welcome to also pop into the IRC channel #wikisource. -- billinghurst (talk) 00:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
If you're not familiar with DJVU texts WS:CotW is the better choice of the two; but if you do, POTM and Wikiproject:Popular Science are both great and could use your help. Glad to hear we have another "free access" advocate. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 02:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

We need an award system on Wikisource

Hi guys, I noticed on Wikisource we have no form of awards. I propose that we add something like this Wikipedia:Awards. My personal favorite is WikiCookies. Anyways, what do you guys think? Is this a good idea, bad, otherwise? Please let me know. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 06:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm typically opposed to the idea of "Barnstars" for example for the same reason as I'm opposed to Rollbackers and other things that lend themselves towards creating subconscious "cabals" and "factions" - things like adding a plate of cookies are great for our "Welcome" templates to show we don't take ourselves too seriously to newcomers...but after somebody's been here a month, I prefer the idea they're not rewarding people for doing things they like, or doing things to gain awards, etc. On WP for example, cookies, barnstars and similar templates lead to everyone displaying them on their userpage as a kind of "ePenis" as though it's a popularity contest...and while I can't say for certain that such "award systems" are the reason WP and WS are so different in atmosphere...I would be reticent to adopt WP policies on WS in most circumstances as I believe the less bureaucracy and infrastructure, the better. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 17:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I do have my little rubber stamp that I have been utilising for {{PotM}} contributors, though I see that it promotes the project, some of those works, and hopefully gives a smile to those who participated. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
That may be the solution. Let it happen, but don't create a "system" for it. Hesperian 23:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
My "solution" would be to adopt the wiki way (old-style) and allow spontaneous "awards" - why not? I don't think I've ever awarded a barnstar, since my style is a personal message of thanks when I feel so moved. The basic issue is not whether people's work should be recognised, but whether you need some kind of template to do that. This is an issue on which there should be legislation? Charles Matthews (talk) 10:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't think we need a formalised system of awards, like most of the commentators have mentioned above; spontaneous thanks, or even a quick graphic put together and left on someone's talk page seems immensely more "rewarding" in a sense than a pre-compile barnstar applied cookie-cutter style whenever someone feels like it. So, in summary: Keep it as it is. If you want to give someone an award, do so; don't make it formalised or turn it into a policy, because I think that just removes any value whatsoever from an "award". Jude (talk) 10:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
The personal touch is always more meaningful than a templated picture that is as thrilling as one more toaster as a wedding gift. Linking your praise to a specific activity by the recipient shows him that you have actually looking favorably at his work, as in something like "I appreciate what you have been doing at [[ ... ]]. Keep up the good work." Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Index page editing bug: double quote escaping

When the index page editing interface loads, the JavaScript (?) seems to truncate existing field values at double quotes.

Example: Index:AIM-443.djvu (double quotes in Title)

It looks like field data is being inserted into the <input value="..."/> element without proper escaping, closing the value attribute prematurely and spilling the rest of the field data into HTML source.

(The problem can be worked around by restoring the field value (using "Show changes", for example), and saving without previewing again; this avoids the truncation during interface load.) --Piet Delport (talk) 04:17, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, i investigated further, and found the relevant code in proofread_index.js, in proofreadpage_index_init, which uses string building and innerHTML to construct the edit form.
Correctly escaping all those strings is non-trivial and tedious, so i changed the code to use DOM construction methods instead, which should cleanly avoid this class of error. The (unrun and untested!) patch is here: User talk:ThomasV#proofread_index.js edit form construction fix. --Piet Delport (talk) 02:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Renewals

When a work written in, say 1928, is renewed in say, 1955, surely it's not an indefinite copyright. It must be set to expire at some point, no? Yet poking around WMF, Stanford, Rutgers and the rest haven't yielded any findings on when renewed works will expire. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 21:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

95 years from first publication.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Yeah? Didn't see that anywhere. Assuming that's correct, 2018 is the date we start to see works enter then...Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 22:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Cornell has a full chart.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
And it's January 1st, 2019; they get a full 95 years of protection, and then it gets rounded up to January 1st.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
The (U.S.) statute you’re looking for is Section 304. (No need to go all the way to Rutgers for that!) :-) For works published with formalities in the U.S. in 1923 (the earliest published works still under copyright at present) and validly renewed, copyright will remain in force through 12/31/2018 (assuming no further statutory extensions of the term, which is admittedly a shaky assumption). Tarmstro99 (talk) 10:56, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sister project links

Anyone for standardising our sister project link boxes? Have a look at Wikisource:Yagan. Hideous, ain't it? Hesperian 11:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

  • On French Wikisource we have suppressed the boxes, in order that the text can be alone in its own space; we put links in the left menu with this template:
{{interprojet|nolink|w=Le Songe d'une nuit d'été}}
You will see the result here.
--Zyephyrus (talk) 21:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
To me, those left links just disappear, though I like the idea of using the space. Would it be possible to put the link to the left hand side though utilise the images/text? -- billinghurst (talk) 23:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
There should be a common template; either one that uses a keyword to fill everything (i.e. template talk:sister) or make the individual templates call a common one with several parameters, which could have reasonable defaults. Then maybe see if that standard template should do something fancier. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 04:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

DjVu text layers

Does anyone know how to add text layers to djvu files? I can create djvus pretty easily, but the products have no accompanying text. These documents are hundreds of pages long and the proofreading would go much more easily if the PR extension could just use the available layer rather than do a fresh OCR for each individual page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

ThomasBot (talk • contribs) does some stuff like that, though it is usually aimed at where we have validated the text, and brought the djvu images along later. billinghurst (talk)
I looked into this earlies this year, because I liked the idea of replacing the crappy OCR with our validated text, once we have finished the transcription. DjVuLibre's djvused command gives you access; see http://djvu.sourceforge.net/doc/man/djvused.html. But DjVu text layers don't just contain text. Every word of a DjVu text layer is associated with a bounding box that defines its location on the page. And djvused does not help you define those rectangles and put it all in the required format. Hesperian 23:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I stumbled across djvused as well. But I have no idea how to automate that process or know of anything that will do it for me.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I just remembered: Any2DjVu has an option to upload a DjVu for verification or OCR. I used it once, and it seemed okay. Hesperian 23:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
The easiest way that I know (thanks to Yann) is to upload the files to archive.org in your available form, then wait for archive.org to do its magic, produce the text djvu format, and download that format later, and upload to Commons. [Now all I need is for their to be a way to push directly from archive.org to Commons without a download and upload process]. I find that Any2djvu can be problematic for larger files. -- billinghurst (talk) 00:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
This only works if the PDF file is uploaded to the Internet Archive. IA doesn't add the text layer to an existing DJVU. Yann (talk) 09:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
as I already explained to Billinghurst, I recently added a "match" command to ThomasBot. This command compares the text layer of an existing djvu (supposed to contain raw ocr text) to a page of the wiki (supposed to contain a proofread text), in order to find out the page positions. once the page positions have been found, the "split" command can be used to migrate the text to the page namespace. ThomasV (talk) 09:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
The issue isn't about taking an existing work on WS and migrating it to DJVU. It's about extracting a (non-existent) text layer from a DJVU to create a work on WS. Making DJVUs by hand does not add the text layer to the file, so when I start editing, the software does not immediately extract the text from it and I must push the OCR button. This isn't problematic, just inconvenient, but the file would be much improved if it had a text layer (for the benefit of anybody who might later download that file).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

New gadget added - edittop

You can turn it on at Special:Preferences --> Gadgets tab.

Quite helpful when you only want to edit something in the top of the page before the first subsection, like the header. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 19:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! --Piet Delport (talk) 09:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Internet Archive Scanning Services

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let everyone know about Internet Archive's official scanning services. Here is a link to it. We are planning on using these services for Popular Science Volume 75. What do you guys think about doing this on a regular basis? I know earlier there was some talk about wikimoney. If we have an easy way to scan, I think it would be a good idea to do it regularly. Please let me know what you think. Thanks. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 03:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to add something else to this as well. If we want to do this on regular basis we should use Wikisource:Purchases to make a list and add to the fund to purchase the books. I think it would be great if we could scan them in on a regular basis. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
We're talking about amounts less than 20 bucks here. Is it really worth trying to administrate a fund instead of people buying and mailing them out of their own pocket?--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Spelling rules for proofreading

I realize that even 136 years ago, contributions to journals crossed the oceans and thus there were numerous variations of spelling within a single edition, depending on the contributing authors' origins. Aside from obvious corrections, how strict, and how updated, should proofreading be for spelling?

Do I use the original as is? Or, do I change words like electro-magnetism to electromagnetism and, accept instalment as being correct? I would really like to hear what other proofreaders do? Thanks for any input. Ineuw (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Unless it is a clear typo I leave it as the source puts it. I don't see a need to update the spelling to match today's current spelling, since who knows what current spellings will change in the next 150 years? It provides a bit of a snapshot of that area's spelling practices (for those who are interested in such things).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Yup, when it is just a misspelling/archaic spelling, I leave it as in the source document. So "instalment" I would leave alone, while "instalmezt" I would like fix. I even try to use the ſ instead of s, when possible. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 21:43, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to you both. I came around to the same view, that the task is really about preservation of the original. I just needed the input of experience. Ineuw (talk) 21:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
You can also use {{sic}} after a word you're worried some casual reader will try to "fix" when they read the text in a year. It doesn't show up on the page at all, just when they click "Edit", they'll notice it and be warned that's an intentional mistake. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:David Livingstone. 22:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
A number of aspects to this. Generally Type What You See (TWYS) Also with our greater use of the Page: environment and side by side, it is more evident if it is HOW IT WAS otherwise then a scan or transcriber error.
  • American spelling versus proper spelling  ;-)
  • Archaic text is usually formatted differently, so it is what it is. We tend to automatically accept.
  • Use of wikilinks to wiktionary or wikipedia, where the meaning is commonly not known
  • There is also {{SIC}} which is good for tysop.
-- billinghurst (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with everything said and I am collecting everyone's comments and rules on my talk page. It's a simple, step by step rules I follow and revise as I go along. Please feel free to change and contribute. - Being Canadian, I am well versed in all spelling variations and terminologies, and use several sources to check when in doubt. Not all articles use US spelling, which tells me that the contributor was from somewhere in the British Dominion.

Having spent endless time as a kid, observing Linotype operators setting up daily newspaper pages (shows my age, eh?), am amazed by the pages I look at, because they were prepared prior to the implementation of the first Linotype machines (circa 1875). On one page, someone inked in a missing character. I hope this was done by a reader, and not an army of apprentices poring over every copy and correct it before publication. Some food for thought, eh. :-) Ineuw (talk) 15:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Linotype? Have you forgotten when type used to be set by hand? :-) Respecting the errors and peculiarities of sources becomes a useful too for tracing the provenance of texts. I admit it was tempting to "fix" the spellings when I proofread Kipling's Kim from an American souce. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 04:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Who are the developers?

Who are the developers of the beta skin of Wikisource? I am tried using it but, the editor is missing features specific to Wikisource. I find the simplicity of the skin layout easy on my eyes. I use it in Wikipedia. Ineuw (talk) 17:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The beta skin is the beta skin. I am presuming that you are meaning the Page: namespace, which hasn't been adapted for the Page: environment by the WMF developers, and I wouldn't have thought that we would look to make localisation changes until it comes out of beta and is adopted. I have quite an extended addition of icons to my toolbar, and rolled back to the standard as customising a beta wasn't worth my effort.-- billinghurst (talk) 20:46, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Ineuw means the Useability Initiative re-skin that you can sign up for from the "Try Beta" link next to your username at the top of the page. The Useability Initiative has its own wiki, at http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Hesperian 23:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
My comment was unclear with regard to the missing features specific to WS is presumably within the Page: namespace where ThomasV has a specific set of tools for our use, and they don't translate through. -- billinghurst (talk) 08:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I recently commited a patch so that the Page ns will be correctly rendered with the vector skin. (attention: this is not about the usability edit mode, just about the vector skin) ThomasV (talk) 09:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Swedish bible-texts, Help wanted!

Hej!

I need some help uploading this book to Common. I need help since the first two pages, probably has to be removed first, since they are added by Google. I'm afraid my computer can't handle DjVu-files today. The book is from 19'th century and contains bible-texts translated to swedish in the 15'th century.

Best Regards! -- Lavallen (talk) 14:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll upload it for you. Best regards! --Mattwj2002 (talk) 14:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Swedish, well it's hard to separate the scandinavian languages at this era. It looks a lot like Danish when I read it. The languages was separated when the first official swedish bible was introduced by 1526/1541. In the 1541-bible, all words that look to much like danish were removed by political reasons. -- Lavallen (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Is this of any use?

Taking a break from proofreading Popular Science Volume 1, I skipped all the way to the Index page of the 1918 edition and formatted it, just for change of scenery. My question is; is this of any help for the Index? Ineuw (talk)

Are you asking whether index pages are worth transcribing? If so, then my answer is yes, definitely. They are of particular use if you link the page numbers. Hesperian 02:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Certainly yes! It would, however, be more useful to link to the article, and then the page on it. It's a lot of work! See The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night/Volume 1/Index. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 04:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, pages references should definitely link to the actual page; the example I gave above also does so. If you want I can show you a trick for doing it very quickly and efficiently. Hesperian 06:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Hesperian, I will take you up on your offer, the next break I take. I sort of committed myself to proofread all of Popular Science Vol 1, but in between, I must do something else for diversion. :-) Ineuw (talk) 14:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding obituaries to wikisource..

New here...

I came looking for a place that I could add some obituaries for a couple of historical figures from newspapers that are way out of copyright. The idea is just to provide some light source reading linked from the WP article. After reading the documentation, I'm still try to come to terms with something that is probably quite simple...

I have four questions. Are these types of one off documents welcome at wikisource, or do they just clutter up the organisation and approach to adding newspaper content? Secondly, since the newspaper articles are already online and free, and since I'm just extracting a bit of them, any value I'm adding is in the extraction rather than in making them freely available. Is that something of value? Should I always add the source document, or is it sufficient to just provide the text and a link to the source? And finally, what is the best way to name the article? There are obituaries here that seem to have article names with a few different variations. --Inas66 (talk) 05:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

So far our collected obituaries are about person's who may be considered notable, or are in support of the authors of works who have Author: namespace listings. You can have a look at some via
that said, there is also the opportunity to collect via publication, and you will see some of the same data presented via
My basic approach is if the person has an article at Wikipedia:, then we can host their obituary, as that becomes a source for the article, and directly wikilinkable. If there is defendable value against the scope of WS:IO, they are presumably in.
  • Our base preference is to have the source of the article uploaded to Commons:, however, we understand that it may not be possible. Many of the obits that I have uploaded do not have scans as they are not of reasonable copy IMHO.
  • Nomenclature is not set, and may depend more on the source of the article. For The Times you will see that I have done as [Publication/Year/Event/Person's Name], though that it partly due to the potential for the amount of information that is available. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


Yep, what Billinghurst said. These documents are welcome here. Preferably the title should be based on the title of the actual source document. You are free to post the text as a standalone page, for example to a title like "Robert Brown D.C.L.". Even better is to post it as if a component of a larger text, for example to a title like "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London/Volume 9/Robert Brown D.C.L." (creating, if necessary, skeleton pages at "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London" and "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London/Volume 9". Finally, best practice is to upload the document to commons as a DjVu (if multipage) or png/jpeg (if a single page), then proof against the image using the ProofReadPage extension; however, that is a lot to learn for someone just starting out here. Hesperian 06:13, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

1. Do we want obituaries? Absolutely! I'm sure that you will find strong agreement on that point. 2. Please, the whole thing, not just extracts. Having whole articles avoids the POV problems that can arise in the selection process. We still have lots to argue about here, but unlike Wikipedia a much smaller proportion is about NPOV. We cannot hope to compete with the large databases that include scans of the entire run of a long-lived publication. In the long term the real value of this wiki will be in the ability to provide extensive linking between articles, and the ability to provide translations and annotations. It is difficult to know in advance what links will be of value. 3. I'm not a big supporter of the necessity of having a copy of the scanned material, especially when it is otherwise easily accessible. That said, if no scans are provided it is essential that a bibliographical description of the precise source be provided to enable future Wikisourcerors to verify the material. 4. There are also differences of approach to the naming of these articles. Obituaries of persons are a subset of biographies. My own preference has always been to put the person's name as the first element in such articles. It's important to be flexible because one can find many situations requiring special attention. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

And just a quick note in case there was confusion still surrounding the issue for you, WS does not really have "notability" guidelines - as long as it was legitimately published and is free of copyright. So a 1999 Obituary in the Times is no good, and your blog post about your mother dying is no good, but "Joe Smith" from Arkansas in 1913...go right ahead and add it in! :) Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. 14:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Typographic or take an image

At Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/168 there is a replication of a stonemason's work. Seeking opinion on whether think it better to try and replicate typographical, or just say stuff it, and create it as an image, and insert. -- billinghurst (talk) 04:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't even be able to tell if some of those dots are supposed to be there or not. They seem to be oddly placed (which might be hard to accurately type up). I vote for turning it into a picture.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd say a picture too. That piece would be hard to represent accurately with text. For example, there's a high, horizontal line in the middle row, currently represented by a tilde; that's not really accurate and I can't think of an appropriate alternative character. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I just figured out what it is in the picture. The inscription blended together a "T" and an "H" into one "letter" (the word should read "the"). There's also another one that mixes "T" and "E" in the second row. Of course, I highly doubt those letters are at all represented in any character set, so it's best to use a picture. —Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Now that you've pointed it out, it's obvious. In that case, I think it's supposed to be the letter thorn (þ). I think the picture would still be best but the thorn could be helpful somehow. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks all, thanks Cyg. I have been using Fireshot for quick image grabs. -- billinghurst (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Just Throwing this out there A Simple English Wikisource.

What is everyone's thoughts on contributing also to a simple english wikisource make things a little easier for esl people seniors younger children and disabled people also anyone can really contribute if they choose to. Putting this up for proposal for Opposing this idea or Supporting this idea i really hope it comes out to be a good new simple english project thank you for your time everyone.

Support I support this idea... Seabanks (talk) 23:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

A Wikisource hosts historical textual material. That makes a Simple English Wikisource a little pointless; there's absolutely no reason not to upload any works historically written in simple English to this Wikisource. Furthermore, any new Wikimedia Wikis need to be discussed at Meta, and new Simple wikis have been consistently declined; the current rules don't allow for the creation of any wiki in a language without an ISO 639-3 language code.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
There may be the scope to collate works that you think are relevant and maybe create a page like Wikisource:Simple, and then link to it from simple: billinghurst (talk) 03:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
In what way would it be simple, then? In terms of the texts contained, or in terms of the means by which material was contributed? I don't think there's much more than we can do to simplify contribution, and as for texts, we can identify them within this project as Billinghurst suggests. BD2412 T 03:52, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I support exploring this suggestion. Access could be improved for all new users. The users of simple wikis could have a selection of texts and guides to contributing here. Finding ways to improve access will be useful for all the documents. These groups already suggest and provide solutions at regular and simple wikipedias. Cygnis insignis (talk) 05:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
He made the identical suggestion on Wikinews as well, I'm guessing he's just copy/pasting the idea between projects without really thinking it through. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. 17:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Does this proposal mean collecting works that are already simple or "translating" more complicated works into Simple English? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


Per Sherucij. No thought has gone into this. Seabanks was also over a meta proposing a Simple English wikitravel, until he realised that there isn't even an English one; whereupon he proposed a English Wikitravel, until someone pointed out that Wikitravel is not a WikiMedia project; whereupon he proposed a WikiMovies. He seems then to have given up on Wikimedia and gone off to create his own personal Simple English Video Game Wiki on another site, then come back here to spam it. Hesperian 23:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Just curious about a minor mystery

Hi everyone. Intermittently, as in Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/219, there is a sequential number below the last line of the page text. On this page, it's 14, and I paid attention to a previous page where a number appeared, and it was 13. Does anyone know what those numbers signified? A typographer's, or the printer's guide perhaps? Ineuw (talk) 16:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

They're binding signatures. They should be 8 or 12 or 16 pages apart, and label each physical sheet of paper that was folded to make those 8, 12 or 16 pages.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Many thanks Prosfilaes, the cat has revived. :-) Ineuw (talk) 02:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Hidden headers

I am unclear about the text style for the hidden [+] page header. I noticed on a validated page, that the header line is in a template embedded within a template (Italics and other styles). Currently, I just clean and place the page heading in capitals, followed, or preceded by the page number. Does this template have anything to do with the TOC, or the index?

I would like to follow the consensus and, if such list doesn't exist, provide a quick guide to proofreaders, impatient to start with the basics. My current proofreading notes, are refer to my editing methods but I intend to re-write them for general use.—unsigned comment by Ineuw (talk) .

There is information at H:SIDE, we have been using {{Running header}} more recently. The idea is that the page elements that we do not want to transclude into the main namespace (headers and footers) are placed in that space. billinghurst (talk) 23:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Billinghurst. I tried it, but for reasons you mentioned above, I think that just moving the cleaned header and page number, without italics and template is sufficient. Ineuw (talk) 02:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
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