Announcements

Sources for Australian works

If anyone's interested I've found some sources for Australian works at Project Gutenberg Australia and FreeRead.com.au Kathleen.wright5 22:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Extreme caution is required when taking works from PG-au, as they are usually posted to PG-au because they are public domain in Australia, but not public in the USA, and so cant be hosted on Wikisource, which is located in the USA. I have not seen FreeRead.com.au before. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Proofread of the Month project

Jayvdb and I have started the proofread of the month project. The purpose of this project is to help improve the quality of the text on Wikisource. This is particularly helpful for text that have OCR text like a lot of our Djvu files. Each month the community will select one text to be proofread and hopefully we can completely proofread the text in that amount of time. We would love to have community input on the PotM for August. --Mattwj2002 06:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Should probably go on the main page for increased visibility.--T. Mazzei 21:30, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Hopefully this gets well off the ground and we can start having more sources for our Text of the Month slot.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea. However, problems have already arisen. Psych less 01:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

ACLU v. NSA Opinion featured

ACLU v. NSA Opinion has been promoted to featured status, and is scheduled to be on the main page on August 2008. I uploaded the original PDF file from www.mied.uscourts.gov to Commons (see image). It is scheduled to appear on the Main Page on August 2008, the second anniversary of the judicial opinion. - Mtmelendez 15:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The pagination of this article is currently incomplete, with one week until it hits FA status. User Jmcneill inserted marks to show the ends of the first two pages of the 44 page source material in May, and user Michael D. Sullivan suggested it would be better to increment the numbers and show the beginning of new pages, rather than the ending of the previous. If possible I would like to have the page unlocked for an hour or so to insert the other 42 pagination marks, which can then be incremented if Mr. Sullivan's suggestion is preferred. Theophobic 21:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I have unprotected it.--BirgitteSB 11:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll be done shortly.Theophobic 18:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Why are we even retaining the pagination in the first place? It's a fairly arbitrary division of a text, we don't do it for more than 99% of our texts, and it's ugly.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

While I can understand why people would want pagination, I certainly prefer the sort of pagination we generally use with the ProofreadPage extension (i.e. Early Settlers Along the Mississippi). I am leaving the text unprotected for now.--BirgitteSB 23:45, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Starting about 75% of the way down the page, Talk:ACLU v. NSA Opinion#Fine point comments there is a discussion about pagination for this text. I agree with both of you in that it probably is ugly. However, that is a separate issue for which I don't have a quick solution. But, pagination is probably desirable. This is because of the enhanced respect we would get from those who are familiar with using the usual legal sources such as the Lexis and Westlaw databases. In a long document like this one, being able to cross reference passages to check exact meanings is valuable. I found other WS court opinions that also use pagination.

The styles [114], [p114], [*114] or [*114] seem to be the ones from which to choose. The style that Birgitte recommends, Early Settlers Along the Mississippi is quite beautiful. But it probably lacks the specific, character by character accuracy that legal readers are accustomed to reading.

I tried looking for guidance in other WS legal text opinions, but there doesn't seem to be any format that is consistent. I haven't found any other WS court opinions that have reached any kind of honored status.

Is now a good time to change the page title to ACLU v. NSA (District Court opinion), or should this wait until after the August promotion period? There seems to be a consensus that my last title selection is uncommonly wrong.Jmcneill2 04:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I have set up a transcription project in case anyone wants to attempt to migrate this to pagescans before it is featured: Index:ACLU v. NSA Opinion (August 17, 2006), US District Court, East-Michigan.djvu. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposals

Unknown translators

Hello, I added a parameter "not mentioned" to the translator field of the Header template, for the cases where we have have an old translation (pre-1923) which does not mention the name of translator. Yann 22:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes "not known" would be more appropriate. Many of these older publications never identified the translator since it was a collective effort of the editorial staff. Editors of the time often treated translators, editors and illustrators as hired personnel who never had copyright in their own work. If an original author renewed the copyright, he had no right to renew the illustrations added by a publisher's employee. Eclecticology 18:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought about that, but the "unknown" parameter was already used, but not mentioned in the documentation. And "unknown" is not precise enough: we don't know if it means unknown to us or in the original edition. Yann 14:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Preferences/Gadgets

One of the selections on the Gadgets tab of Prefereences is "Preload useful templates such as header2 and textinfo (Firefox only, report bugs to Remember the dot)". Should that be changed to from "header2" to "header"? Jeepday (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the problem.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, thank you :) Jeepday (talk) 22:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright tags for anonymous works

We do not have any copyright tags for anonymous works here, nor do we have something like commons:Template:PD-because. I would like to suggest adding something like commons:Template:Anonymous work. As different countries have different rules, I would like to suggest allowing write-in in the new template, such as 50 or 70 years after publication.--Jusjih 02:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea.—Giggy 03:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

With the ongoing confusion regarding the rule of shorter term in the U.S., there is doubt whether something being PD in another country makes it PD in the US. see WS:COPYVIO#Statute_Of_The_Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital for an instance of this doubt.

In principle I like the idea of adding more templates, however I would prefer to have a template for each jurisdiction, or at least a parameter indicating which country's laws apply, for two reasons. 1) laws change over time, 2) we want the copyright act on Wikisource if at all possible. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding purge link to Index pages

For large Djvu projects, it seems the server lags behind once I mark pages under one of the page status buttons. After a do some pages I like to check back on my progress. I also tend to go back to pages to use text commands since formatting is consistent throughout the work, only to find red links at the work's index page. Could we add a Purge link in one of the areas of the main index page to avoid this? Thanks, - Mtmelendez 18:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

See a related review at Help talk:Side by side image view for proofreading#Update Color, Jeepday (talk) 23:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the "Pages" button/link to the left of the links to individual pages, purges the index. Suicidalhamster 12:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Just add ?action=purge to the end of the page's URL (in the address bar near the top of the browser) and click Go; that purges the page. See also w:Wikipedia:Purge. —Giggy 12:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

There's also w:Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Add purge to tabs; if you want (and if nobody else can/does) I can try and import that to here tomorrow (I need to get some sleep pretty soon and my javascript isn't that great so it might take me a while :-) —Giggy 12:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Suicidalhamster is right. Just click on the bluelinked "Pages:" Hesperian 12:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That's what I always did Giggy, but thanks. I see the purge link in Pages now. I should be more curious on all those blue links next time. Thanks to all! - Mtmelendez 21:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

retain line breaks in the proofreading output

The mediawiki code has always quietly merged consecutive lines into a single paragraph. This is fine and dandy as it means we can retain line breaks in the original without it affecting the readibility. There is one downside, in that when a page, such as Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 1 - p1-22.djvu/19 is viewed, there is no way to represent those line breaks. i.e. the line breaks are lost in the output. To get around this, I often proofread pages in edit mode, but that has other downsides.

I think the answer is to wrap each line with a <span>, so that stylesheets can override the default layout for these spans in the "Page:" namespace. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:53, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

wikisource bots

Hi, see please oldwikisource:Scriptorium#Wikisource bots, some ideas for specialized sourcebots, thanks, -jkb- (cs.source) 17:33, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Other discussions

Something from Wikiversity

The pages linked to from Wikiversity:Airplane_Flying_Handbook were created at Wikiversity. It appears they are just duplications of the government publication found here. An interested user here may be interested in transwiki-ing it or adding it here. I'm sure itching to nominate for deletion off Wikiversity. Emesee 20:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Questions

One-page and PDF versions of book

Is there a way to get a one-page version of a book, thus enabling searching of the book using a browser's search function? And is there any way to create a PDF version? Thanks. --Dan Polansky 12:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Your question was posted quite a while ago... but it seems to me that what you want is to:

Be able to search the entirety of a book for specific words, and
Be able to create a copy of a book as a PDF file.

All of this can be done, but it probably isn't as easy as you hope. First, the best way to search an entire book, the way wikisource is right now is to do a google search, something like [search terms] site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/[name of page with underscores in place of spaces]. For example, I tested it to search for Uncas in Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since with this search term: uncas site:http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sketch_of_Connecticut,_Forty_Years_Since/. I know that you were hoping to have an easier way to do this, but right now there simply is not a way. It seems like transclusion could be used to create a page which transcludes the text of all the subpages onto a single page, and I believe this would be sometimes useful, but right now it is not done.

Second, to create a copy as a PDF file, there are a few possible approaches. The best-looking approach would probably be to copy/paste the entire book into OpenOffice.org, MS Word, or another text editor capable of the appearance you want (for an entire book on letter-size paper, you might want two columns). Then, to make the file into a PDF just get PDF Creator from this link at SourceForge.net. When you install, change the name of the printer it creates to something like Print to a PDF File. I usually uncheck the 'PDF Creator Toolbar for "Internet Explorer and Firefox"' option, too. The next time you open your word processor, click print and one of your printers will be Print to a PDF File. Choosing this option and selecting where to save, you will have made a PDF from the text that looks like the word processor content. Good luck. --Mkoyle 23:47, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikibooks has a Print Version Gadget which looks like something we could replicate here. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Quotation marks as first letter of the alphabet

The page http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Romantic_poetry has titles of various poems, in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, it doesn't start with A; it starts with a large double quotation mark, presumably because the first two poems have their titles in quotation marks, and then it proceeds to the Capital A. It looks a bit silly, and seems a classic example of something that a machine would do and a human wouldn't. Is there any way to tell the machine not to count quotation marks as the first letter of the alphabet? Stratford490 22:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you want to use the {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word. Something like {{DEFAULTSORT:title of poem without quotes}} will sort it correctly.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. How simple! It worked! Stratford490 23:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The other alternative would be to leave out quotation marks from article titles altogether, as in On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again. Here the older approach would have been to us quotation marks around "King Lear", but it might now be rendered in italics. We cannot expect that the proper convention will always be followed, and it may not always be clear. Article titles do best to transcend these possible variations. Of course the name that appears in the title parameter of the heading should retain the proper punctuation or italicization. Eclecticology 21:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There's no real need for it in page names, what's important is that the title in the "header2" template follows it. - Mtmelendez 22:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

If an author consistently use quotation marks for some (but not all) titles in most editions; I would want us to do the same. If a certain edition puts quotations around every poem title I see less obligation for us to use them in those cases.--BirgitteSB 03:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that we can presume that kind of consistency on the part of authors, publishers and readers. Shakespeare's own King Lear should appear without quotation marks, but a critic's essay about the work with the same title should appear with them. It can't be assumed that the reader knows how the punctuation was treated if he searches for the critic's work; he may not know that a poem with a ship's name properly followed the convention. Stripping the punctuation from the article title gets around that problem. Putting it back in the header parameter informs the reader of the correct reading of the title.

Using redirects or the "DEFAULTSORT" template are awkward and artificial solutions that require knowing the special techniques. We can't expect readers or newbies to know and apply them. Eclecticology 11:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Every authorized edition I have seen of "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" uses quotes. I don't know that I have ever seen it without them, but with the internet full of sloppy trancscriptions of poetry I am sure you can find one. The redirect works just as well going from no qoutes to the title with quotes. And defaultsort solves the other issue. I don't care how critic's essays are treated, but poets actually use punctuation with intention and we should follow their decisions.--BirgitteSB 13:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. With things like Google Books and Archive.org it should be easy enough to find whether a poem consistently has quotation marks around the title. For those that do, we should add them, just like we add other punctuation marks to the names of pages as well.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

"Fuzzy-Wuzzy" may be somewhat of a straw man because it is so well known. The redirect already exists as well. In general we can't assume that a general reader knows about the punctuation, or that he has accessed Google Books (full texts of which are not universally available) or Archive.org. Other punctuation marks can have their own problems. Some titles are in two lines with the second line in a smaller font serving as a natural disambiguator. How do you propose handling that? You seem to ignore that I do support taking these into account in the header. Eclecticology 19:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not a straw man, it is a poem that begins with a punctuation mark. (A straw man would be to suggest your position would have us re-title The Jungle Book to Jungle Book simply to avoid having to use defaultsort) I don't quite understand what a title with two lines has to do with transcribing punctuation so I won't follow that tangent. My position is that we should title poems as the author did in both the page title and the header while making redirects to the page from simplified titles and using defaultsort with simplified titles. There is no reason not to be accurate when we have tools such as redirects and defaultsort--BirgitteSB 14:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

In essence a straw man argument is a generalisation from an easily supported specific situation to support a less obvious situation. The strongest argument for suppressing "The" from titles is really uncertainty about whether it belongs in a specific title. Some long-lived periodicals have not been consistent with its use in their titles. As for the two line title, a line break can be just as much a form of punctuation as the comma, colon or m-dash that is often substituted for it.

I fully agree that the internet is full of sloppy transcriptions. There's nothing we can do about that. The question then becomes, "How can we best make those errors not matter?" We cannot assume that the fly-by passive reader knows anything about the conventions that we have adopted. Eclecticology 19:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

A straw man is a mistatement of the opposite view to argue against something that wasn't said by anyone but yourself; the closest I see to that is the comment about multi-line titles, since nobody suggested making software changes to support more titles than we do now. If the software can handle a title correctly, then we should use the functionality; if someone might not know the correct title, we should use redirects. I don't see how we'd even get a coherent title policy if we required the title to be the result of some series of transformations on the published title. -Steve Sanbeg 17:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't particularly intend to play semantic games over whether the logical fallacy that I was describing should properly be called a straw man or something else. If you have a better name for the fallacy in question feel free to offer it. Apart from that it's difficult to divine what software changes you are opposing if nobody suggested any in the first place. Nobody is suggesting multi-line article titles, but such titles can be accommodated in the headers. Eclecticology 07:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright?

Not feeling like speculating too much,

what do you believe is copyright status of these documents? Nikola Smolenski 20:12, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

They are usually considered ineligible for copyright; in the U.S. {{PD-GovEdict}} should cover them. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

If you reject Kosovo's independence Serbian law would be valid for this. If Kosovo is to be recognized as an independent country, I doubt that they have yet had time to subscribe to the Berne Convention or any other international convention. Eclecticology 21:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

True. My point is that in the U.S., works of this nature are not consider eligible for copyright, irrespective of who the authors are.

A similar issue has been raised recently at Wikisource talk:Constitutional documents#Sealand removed.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait. Are these two English texts original? If not originally in English while Kosovo does not officially speak English, who translated them? It seems that {{PD-GovEdict}} does not cover privately made translations.--Jusjih 03:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

In several cases, treaties signed by the parent nation have been considered binding on a nation splitting from them; I suspect unless Kosovo specifically wants to get out of the Berne Convention, it will be considered a member with all rights and responsibilities.--Prosfilaes 23:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Mjbot bot flag

I would like to request a bot flag for my new bot Mjbot. I will only be doing tasks the community approves of. If you notice there are any problems, please let a message on my talk page immediately and I will fix it. I will always monitor what the bot does and will not run it unattended. I will fix any problems when they occur. --Mattwj2002 04:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Support. I have been helping Matt; he initially did some bot work under his own account, and as he is now uploading djvu pages using the djvutxt.py bot that I created, he has created a bot account mjbot (talk • contribs) because we dont want hundreds of new pages polluting the RC feed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

support ThomasV 05:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea and a competent op; support. —Giggy 07:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Support had a look through its contributions which seem fine to me, and good for edits which extract text from djvu to be removable from recent changes. Suicidalhamster 14:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

MJbot has been given a bot flag.--BirgitteSB 21:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The proofreading buttons found at the bottom of pages currently put different notes in front of the editing than Wikisource:Text quality would suggest as appropriate. Currently they are Incomplete, Not formatted, Complete and formatted, and Proofread. There may be a historical reason for this, but new editors may be misled by the descriptions to believe that if they have personally proofread a text they should use the 100% button.

Perhaps it would be better to change these descriptors to more closely match the information at Wikisource:Text quality... perhaps Incomplete, Not formatted, Proofread and corrected, Proofread by several users. --Mkoyle 01:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I've copied the text over from template:textquality, so that should be more consistent. -Steve Sanbeg 14:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I need help with something

How do I create a new text or poem or something? Can u give me the outline? --Maltdragon 10:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Maltdragon. I saw your question and I wanted to point you to a page to help with adding text. Hopefully this helps. --Mattwj2002 11:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

hutah

please give definition of the word "hutah" and where it may be found —unsigned comment by 97.115.169.38 (talk) 02:00, 3 July 2008.

This might not be the best place for such a question, but in an attempt to be helpful I will tell you that 'hutah' is not found in the Oxford English Dictionary online and is, therefore, most likely either 1. not an English word or 2. a made-up word. To really help you, someone would need the context where you discovered the word (or the name of the book or page where you found it). Since your request appears to be the only place on wikisource where 'hutah' appears, neither I nor anyone else could truly answer your question. Just as a sample of the random silliness to be found, though, you will find at this Ewok site that hutah means lizard in Ewok.

Working on the idea that you weren't looking for something in Ewok, maybe this article about the Temple Mount will answer your question. More commonly spelled Huttah, it is Arabic for 'Remission' (and probably a zillion other English words which is why you need to find somewhere where people speak Arabic or whatever language you're looking for to know what all the meanings of your word are). Hope that's helpful. Good luck. --Mkoyle 18:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Is anybody sure that this is a serious request? Eclecticology 06:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
- I assume these come from the feel free to ask questions at the scriptorium blurb on top of the main page; it would be nice if we keep clarify the types of questions we're referring to without messing up the tone of that. -Steve Sanbeg 16:07, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Bottom-headers, cont

Has anyone noticed that the footers are not displaying when the page has a translunded text? Example no footer Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc/Book II/Chapter 18; example with footer Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc/Conclusion. Can anyone fix it? Jeepday 20:16, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Done; an error in another part of the CSS aborted before the footer display; it seems OK now. -Steve Sanbeg 16:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It is still not displaying for me currently Jeepday (talk) 17:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

My bad; anyway, the problem is with template:option. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it doesn't seem to be in use, so I disabled it. -Steve Sanbeg 18:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

That seems to have fixed it, thanks :) Jeepday (talk) 20:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

thanks for pointing out this problem. The problem came from the Page template, it is fixed now. I restored the optiontext code Common.js. ThomasV 06:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Strange center appearance

Can anyone explain why the <center> function does not line up properly at [1]? I was trying to proofread it and struggled to figure out a way to make the text line up. Finally it looked okay when I removed all newline characters and used <br/> in stead. Just wondering what is causing that and how to avoid it. Thanks in advance, --Mkoyle 22:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that myself, and for the life of me can't seem to figure it out.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the same problem. I believe it is caused by the whole page being wrapped in a div class="pagetext". This class apparently includes a style="text-indent:2em", and it is the interaction of that style with align="center" that causes the misalignment. Essentially, the first line of each paragraph is indented, so the centre alignment of lines that Mediawiki treats at the first line of a paragraph, differs from the alignment of subsequent lines in that paragraph. This problem can be overcome by inserting blank lines instead of br (so that every line is treated as the first line of a paragraph), or by starting a sequence of br-separated lines with a br (so that no line is treated as the first line of a paragraph). Personally, though, I'd rather this was solved by removing indentation from the pagetext class; I think this is wrong because it inserts indentation into the page that disappears when the page is transcluded. Hesperian 00:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If no one objects, I'll make the edit.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If your plan is to remove the disappearing indentation to make the correction, I support. Jeepday (talk) 20:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Can a bot do this?

I have a couple of requests for a bot to work on the subpages of Alabama State Constitution of 1901:

The amendment titles should be boldfaced to match the official website (May not be worth it?)
Many amendments refer to other amendments: Can these be automatically linked to the amendments they refer to?

I'm asking about a bot to do it because it would be next to impossible to do it by hand (IMAO). Thanx, 68.39.174.238 20:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

My bot skills are limited to AWB, so solely from that perspective, I don't think it's possible. I think Pathoschild is the best person to ask. —Giggy 01:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Quadell's a botter too. Hesperian 01:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If someone can clearly specify what is required, a request should go on WS:BOTR. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added bold tags around the names. Finding the links could be tricker, so that should be more clearly specified on BOTR. -Steve Sanbeg 02:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Versions without end

It turns out I will likely never get a chance to finish copying The Swiss Family Robinson from the edition that I was using. I have, however, found a new edition: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/UFDC/UFDC.aspx?s=defoe&m=hd1J&i=58855 . Can one just be overwritten by the other? Note, however, this new version is scanned pages.

Finally, what is to be done for a book like this, with innumerable (wildly) different versions of the same work with the same title?

Thanx, 68.39.174.238 00:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, one of the archive.org editions should be selected. We can then upload it to Wikisource and set up a Transcription project. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Much easier would be the Project Gutenberg edition. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:John McCain and Author:Barack Obama} 02:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Easier, certainly, but I find that the PG editions often lack enough information to even compare with some identified printed edition, whether on-line of in paper copy. The archive.org version may be a more practical option, but not to the extent that it must be given primacy. Defining a particular edition as definitive or authoritative may require more scholarship than any of us are prepared to undertake. All significant variations are important to the evolution of a literary work, and resolving them is difficult enough in something as short as a poem. I've been working on some of these problems with the Kipling novel Kim, and it is not an easy problem. We need to look at this issue in very broad forward-looking terms. Eclecticology 07:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That gutenberg edition is this djvu, and the etext notes that a few pages are missing from the transcription. I am in the process of reducing the size of that DJVU so it can be uploaded to commons.

Also worth pointing out is that this djvu is available from Project Gutenberg, however the Gutenberg transcription is missing a paragraph on the first page of chapter 1, which isnt a good sign, but it is a start. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's the problem with this novel: The "authoritative" edition would probably be the original on (In German) that Wyss did. We'd have to translate that (or find a free translation) after we found it (Also not easy). The real problem is that when it was published in English, it was modified significantly. This is the version that would probably be "definitive" in English, except that there have been so many different versions (And I can say from experience that they are NOT minor differences) that I don't think any one could be said to have had a meaningful plurality of distribution. We may just have to take (almost?) all of them... 68.39.174.238 22:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

What makes a particular edition "authoritative" or "definitive"? Choosing one translation as more definitive than another requires a breach of NPOV. Whether one has been distributed more than another is of no consequence. Can we at least say that our German colleagues have settled the matter with regards to the original version? Past that, having our own wiki translation strikes me as a preferred option. Eclecticology 00:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I replied to your comments above: "The archive.org version may be a more practical option, but not to the extent that it must be given primacy. Defining a particular edition as definitive or authoritative may require more scholarship than any of us are prepared to undertake.", which suggests it may be possible (Although I doubt it's actually possible here). Anyway, I'm not sure the original (German, Wyss) version even exists anymore. 68.39.174.238 23:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

A German edition is here. Im not sure if it is the original. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It is difficult to believe that all copies of the 1812 German language original have disappeared, but may be our colleagues at de:Wikisource could help us with that question. Eclecticology 01:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Transcription project Index:The Swiss Family Robinson - 1851.djvu has been created; the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. If someone wants to work on a different edition, I'll happily assist setting it up if a matching set of pagescans and transcribed text can be identified. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In order to avoid the NPOV issue Eclecticology stated above, I'd argue for including any and all versions and editions of a famous work, so long as they are duly identified and if they differ from one another. Exact duplicates printed in different years should be avoided, but marked appropriately in the standing work's page by including the publication years. Versions which may differ in wording, translation, or which includes new content (such as images, prefaces, postscripts), should all be included and linked to an appropriate disambiguation or "home" page so to speak. This provides the most information and sources to the reader as reasonably possible. - Mtmelendez 13:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Straying a little bit, The Owl and the Pussy-Cat has been tagged with {{merge}} to The Owl and the Pussycat which is almost identical, but there are slight differences. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This stray moggy raises an interesting point about the role of anthologies. In a sense the material in anthologies is as valid as that which is found anywhere else, and if it's the only available version of a poem it will have to do. I believe that the author's own version should take precedence over inclusion in a later anthology, but how important is it to document any new changes that arise in such later anthologies? Eclecticology 00:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

DjVu not displaying next page arrow

For some reason several pages like Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/37 doe not display a next page arrow, while some pages in the same set do display the arrow Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/4. Why would that be? Jeepday (talk) 02:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No idea. The arrows stop at Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/28 if this helps anyone. —Giggy 02:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I Just surfed through the arrow comes and goes, it will be on one page, then not on the next one. No arrow Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/38, Arrow Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/39, no arrow Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/40. I did not notice a pattern. Jeepday (talk) 02:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

it is because there is a direct link to the page in the index (in the table of contents). I will need to fix that. in the meantime you should use a link template ThomasV 07:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I was the one to put the table of contents onto the index page, so apologies for messing thinks up. I had no idea! Suicidalhamster 21:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Have tried to start fixing it at Page:Poems (Owen, 1920).djvu/17 - Suicidalhamster 21:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing the direct links caused the navigation arrows to be restored to the pages. Jeepday (talk) 19:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Done Jeepday (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've raised bugzilla:14819 to track this problem. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

TeX

I just discovered TeX rendering of formulas and I found a trouble... characters are really too big! They waste the graphics into a normal page, particolarly when inline.

I slowly understood that TeX conversion means simply that a special png image is built by the extension, then the image is posted into the page.

Imagine that <math> tag would accept a single parameter... something like <math width="75%">, giving the opportunity to scale simply the resulting png default image... wouldn't it be a good solution to that issue? Or - as probably is true - there's a nicer trick to obtain such a result, that I merely didn't find by now into the wiki-labirinth?

PS: I tried to download the png image, and to re-load it as a usual image... obviously such a trick runs ;-), the server would be very happy, and the image can be resized as you like, but it's far from comfortable and source is lost.

--Alex brollo 20:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There are prefs to control the output, and bugzilla:12223 suggests a way to have improved configurability for "inline" expressions.

Your idea of allowing the dimensions to be specified is another good solution to the problem; worthy of another bug being raised.

It will probably take a while for the software to improve, but it is better to wait rather than create a whole lot of images that will eventually need to be deleted. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not going at all into the job to convert TeX output into normally manageable images... nevertheless I like the trick, and if you take a look to the image page, it's so strange: the description of the image is the source of the same image ... --Alex brollo 10:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Text quality notation

Hello, I think it is important to note the quality of texts (see Wikisource:Text quality). It is a pity that is rarely done. I use a 75% note when the text is imported from PG as mentioned in this link, but it seems that other users do differently. Or has the convention changed over time? Yann 10:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I try to use the the 75% button when importing from PG, Jeepday (talk) 13:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Though I do wonder if you should go back to 50% if you move from PG to DjVu as some of the formatting is disturbed and needs to be corrected. Jeepday (talk) 13:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll usually treat PG material as 50%. PG often does not provide a reference to the original edition that can be used for proper proofreading. Boosting that to 75% tells me that someone has proofread the text by comparing it with a printed edition or a scan of that printed edition. The 75% description also makes a reference to "properly formatted" without any indication to how that term is defined. Eclecticology 18:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with E. It's reasonably reliable, but the formatting is always an issue. Most works are transcribed from books but they fail to follow the same page format. I've also seen minor scanning errors from PG. So 50% should be the default setting from that site, IMO, unless the version that they have includes proper formatting and has been reviewed by an editor here. - Mtmelendez 12:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, but then, there are two problems: 1. We need to have a notation saying "the text is complete and the formatting is OK, but proofreading is needed", especially because that is the state of most works in WS. 2. We need to fix the help pages according to the practise. Yann 14:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think {{Clean up djvu}} does what you mean, if there is a set of pagescans. And if there is no pagescans, perhaps we need a template like "Please find a digital edition so proofreading can begin". Proofreading without pagescans is silly, because one person will do a few chapters and another person will do a few chapters, but they are like to be different editions. see User talk:70.240.250.38 for the most recent example. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 15:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, Using DJVU files and the Page: namespace is a good thing, but it is a different issue. What I ask here is 1. What status do we give to PG texts? Is it reliable enough to be considered as proofread? If a WS contributor proofread a PG text, do we consider that the text is proofread by two persons? I don't have a definitive opinion about this, but PG claims that their texts are proofread, and it seems that is what we did here in the past. 2. We need a notation for works which come from another source (not as reliable as PG), but are nevertheless complete and formated. Yann 15:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's important to note that, at least in my experience in uploading works, Project Gutenberg has similar text quality issues as we have here. There are works which are completely formatted, with all text tied to the corresponding pages of the original printed and published edition, and there are those which simply look as if they have been OCR'ed and I've had to correct minor errors. Therefore, we can't just pass all works from PG as "double-checked for formatting and scanning errors" without doing part of it ourselves.

If I see a complete formatted work on PG, I'd mark as 75%. If not, I'd be just as happy marking as 50%, waiting for a reference edition to be uploaded to begin proofreading. The importance, I think, in drawing the line between 50% and 75% is whether one Wikisource editor is willing to take responsibility in representing to readers and the community that the work uploaded here is reasonably formatted and proofread (whereas the 100% mark is for when the entire Wikisource community represents to readers that the text is very reliable.) It has to be a judgment call by the uploader to determine the differences between 50% and 75%, and the help pages should reflect this. - Mtmelendez 22:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like the recommendation is to change the ranking at Wikisource:Text quality so that copy and past from GP is at 50%, leaving "the text has been proofread and corrected by one user, who has checked it with a reference edition." (DjVu checked once) as the single criteria for 75%. This would seem to suggest that moving "the text has been scanned by a Wikisource contributor, but not yet proofread." and "the text has been imported from the Web, and the source is not known to be reliable." back to 25%. Do others agree that this is the consensus that is emerging? Jeepday (talk) 20:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe so. In my view, it should look like this (additions, ~~deletions~~):

(Image:25%.svg): There is no guarantee that any part of the text is reliable, at all proofread, or properly formatted. The text may not yet be complete. Use this if:
- the text has been scanned by a Wikisource contributor, but not yet proofread or checked for completeness.
- the text has been imported from the Web, and the source is not known to be reliable.
(Image:50%.svg): The text is apparently complete and mostly formatted, but may still contain errors in content and formatting. Use this if:
- ~~the text has been scanned by a Wikisource contributor, but not yet proofread.~~
- ~~the text has been imported from the Web, and the source is not known to be reliable.~~
- the text has been imported from a reliable source ~~(e.g. Project Gutenberg, Gallica)~~, but not checked for formatting and scanning errors.
(Image:75%.svg): The text is reasonably reliable and properly formatted, and supplied with information about the source edition. Use this if:
- the text has been proofread and corrected by one user, who has checked it with a reference edition.
- the text has been imported from a reliable source ~~(e.g. Project Gutenberg, Gallica)~~ and double-checked for formatting and scanning errors.

Two revisions I made include deleting the mentioning of Project Gutenberg and Gallica since they may represent to editors that only these or similar sites are reliable which simply isn't true. We could add "imported from a reliable source as determined by the community", as is the current case. I also think we should emphasize the edition of the publication which is used as a source, which many works, including mine, fail to do so. This allows for precise research in looking for potential physical or digital copies (djvu files) used to proofread a work here.

These are just suggestions. Please provide comment. - Mtmelendez 22:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

We have yet to define what is meant by "properly formatted"; perhaps that should be a separate scale from the one about textual completeness.

IIRC one difference between PG and Gallica is that the latter uses scans on its pages. (Someone will surely let me know if I have my facts wrong.) That alone can be a big distinguishing factor between between the 50% and 75% levels.

I have no problem with completeness and reliable sourcing as the key criteria that move a text from 25% to 50%. That reliable source can be an OCR text from a site with a reputation for at least making an effort to get things right. A superficially complete text from a site with a reputation for editing material to serve its own purpose would not be reliable.

In addition to proofreading by one person, the presence of an identified reference copy is key to 75% completion. I don't think that it should matter whether the reference copy is online, or on paper. The key is that it exists so that a person wanting to bring the text to the 100% level will know where to go to perform proofreading, or if he has any questions about the text.

Another point to take into account is showing the completeness level for each chapter in the Table of Contents. It will often be easier to upgrade a single chapter than a whole book. Someone who sees that only a few chapters remain to be done may be more willing to take on one chapter than to start work on a whole book. Eclecticology 00:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You've pointed out to a few important facts we must consider when noting the text's quality. In formatting, I believe a work is at 50% if the work is organized following the original reference edition, either by chapters, titles, Acts, etc. For 75%, we may require that the work here be under the same format as the work was published, using page numbers, section breaks, etc. in addition to chapters, Acts, etc. But this is hard to come by, when you consider that the majority of texts in the project just follow the organization of the work, and not it's exact format. So, we could establish a separate scale for formatting, so as not to detract from the text's quality in terms of completeness and reliability.

As for sourcing, there's no way a work can be 75% without including the source edition of the work, it wont meet the "checked with a reference edition" criteria. But we need input from more users on this, because it seems this discussion is leaning towards increasing our standards of quality for texts, something I'm all for, but others might see as too much given the project's current condition. - Mtmelendez 14:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Your comments about formatting suggest that there is much room for different opinions about how much formatting needs to be retained, and what formatting variations are acceptable that retain ease of editing without harming the intent of the author. Thus, one may ask such questions as, "Is it acceptable to convert marginal notes into headings?" or "Do we need to retain the line-numbering that appears with a poetical work?" or "Do we need to retain the long 's'?" This is not to say that there are no additional scales that can be used, such as the amount of Wikification that would give added value to our version of the work.

Increasing standards is tautologically good. Nevertheless it still needs to be balanced with ease of editing. We want people to add material without being intimidated by a lot of complex markup or templates. I may be reading your comments wrongly, but to ma a "source" or "reference" edition does not necessarily mean one that has been scanned into the internet. Eclecticology 17:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Noli Me Tangere date of publication of translation

Hi! Just passed by to answer the editor's question.

The publication of the translation of Noli Me Tangere into English was on 1905.

Thank you. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Question

How do I make an interwiki link to the old wikisource? --Cradel 22:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

per http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interwiki_map OldWikisource:Rime veneziane, Jeepday (talk) 23:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how that answers my question, I was asking how to make an interwiki link in the left menu bar (under "in other languages") --Cradel 23:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it has to be done by the developers or administrators, meta:Help:Interwiki linking says that whether or not it appears as an IWL depends on how each prefix is configured. 68.39.174.238 00:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't. If the prefix matches on of the language codes in the software (svn:trunk/phase3/languages/Names.php), then if shows up in the language box. -Steve Sanbeg 02:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Would it be better to merge (transwiki) the oldwikisource content to the proper language wikisource then link to that? Jeepday (talk) 12:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

What documents are you refering to? Yann 12:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Jeepday is assuming this question is directed at Cradel, who started the interwiki link question. For clarification on the specific challenge that needs to be addressed. Jeepday (talk)

DjVu pages to images

You may have noticed a comment on djvu pages "This page consists of an image that needs to be cropped or cleaned up, and uploaded to commons." (examplePage:Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.djvu/9) there has been a minor discussion over at Commons:Commons:Village pump#Possible to upload djvu page as ordinary image? the building concensus with very little input is - "save it to the users computer, edit and crop as required, then upload it back to commons with a link to the source and DjVu page", If others have a better thought or any comment please stop by over there. Jeepday (talk) 19:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, he's talking about my mushrooms djvu. Pulling images out of djvu is non-trivial; I have offered to upload jpegs of any pages he so desires. Hesperian 01:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest we remove the red lettered "This page consists of an image that needs to be cropped or cleaned up, and uploaded to commons." message from DjVu pages with images as there is no simple and effective way to actually do it? Putting the pages in a category that might be dealt with when there is a simple tool to make it work might be a better choice. Jeepday (talk) 09:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Translations

Are translations by users allowed ? This work for example was translated to english by a user of the english wikisource --Cradel 15:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, so long as the user licenses the work under a GFDL-compatible license or releases it into the public domain.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I would go so far as to strongly encourage more such translations. GFDL licensing is already implicit when we contribute anything new. (See the instructions at the bottom of any edit page.) I would also suggest beginning with a machine translation. I will be the first to admit that machine translations are bloody awful. They nevertheless have one important advantage as a starting point: As the result of a mechanical process they lack the originality needed to make them copyrightable. Technical processes are also not influenced by familiarity with other translations, and can thus avoid inadvertent copyvios. This puts our first translation of the work on the same copyright footing as the work in the original language. If the original work is in the public domain, so too will be our first translation. Any improvements on that awful first version will be GFDL. Translations can have progress ratings too. Eclecticology 17:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Translations by Wikisource users must be identified as Wikisource translations per Wikisource:Translations. However, I would like to know how to copy user-translated lyrics from Wikipedia. English Wikipedia does not strictly require translated lyrics to show who translated them, so unless sourced, they may be either user-translated or, in worse scenarios, plagiarized copies of others' translations. Many other Wikisource language subdomains also allow user-made translations. Italian Wikisource usually forbids these due to quality concerns.--Jusjih 01:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Links to Wikipedia

I have been using a fairly liberal application of Wikisource:Style guide#Wikilinks, see Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc/Translator's Preface for example with several links, or Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc/Book I/Chapter 3 for example with only a few links. Are there any thoughts on if I am being to excessive with the crosswiki links? Note that this work is w:Historical fiction with lots of good Wikipedia articles that have ancient (middle age) references. There are probably few other fictional works in Wikisource that combine the historical accuracy and sheer volume of available Wikipedia articles as Joan of Arc. So I would consider this work to probably contain the highest ratio of wiki links that anyone would expect in a Wikisource book. Jeepday (talk) 21:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The more the better! That's what value-added is about. Sure, not many articles have all the links that they deserve, but I don't think that it's because of any rule against them. It's just damn hard work. Eclecticology 03:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with "the more the better". Unfortunately, German Wikisource does not agree: de:Wikisource:Kommentieren says "Vom Setzen von Links zu anderen Seiten in Wikisource oder Interwikilinks zur Wikipedia im Quellentext selbst ist in der Regel Abstand zu nehmen" (Setting links to other pages in Wikisource or interwiki links to Wikipedia in the source text itself should normally be avoided). This seems to be part of a general trend in German-language Wikimedia projects to make the projects as unhelpful for users as possible. An gr 11:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Then I wholeheartedly disagree with them. In this work, for example, links to other pages in Wikisource gives invaluable background to the subject at hand, something they would not know unless they were experts on the subject. - Mtmelendez 16:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally I disagree with linking to Wikipedia except in annotations, though not particularly strongly. However, cross-linking between other Wikisource documents is the primary value-add of Wikisource, and the main point of difference between us and Project Gutenberg! Those Germans must have rocks in their heads to be discouraging it.

Here's a good example of how well it can work: James Edward Smith's Characters of a new Liliaceous Genus called Brodiaea opens with

"I have had occasion, in treating of the distinctions between a calyx and corolla, Introduction to Botany, 263, to advert to a new genus of the liliaceous family, furnished with internal petals."

Clicking on that page number takes you to the exact page of An introduction to physiological and systematical botany that Smith is referring to. This isn't a gimmick; this has the potential to make real-world botanical research easier.

Another good example: on Page 259 of An introduction to physiological and systematical botany, Smith writes

"Proud man is disposed to think that 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,' because he has not deigned to explore it; but we find that even the beauties of the most sequestered wilderness are not made in vain."

The 'Full many a flower' bit is an Alexander Pope quote, but most people won't pick up the allusion without a bit of help. The link takes the user directly to line of Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard being quoted.

As for the Joan of Arc example linked to above, I think linking Song of Roland to the Wikipedia article is a lost opportunity. Because Song of Roland is itself a source, it should be linked to The Song of Roland, even if that were a redlink, because redlinks invite contributors!

Hesperian 12:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pope didn't write Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.--Poetlister 17:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The Song of Roland is subject to deletion pending review at WS:COPYVIO#The_Song_of_Roland, but I will put a note at copyvio to change the link at Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc/Book I/Chapter 3 if it turns out, (which it likely will) that the copyright renewal here only applies to intro by Hamish Miles, images and other new work not to the actual translation by Moncrieff, which is available at Project Gutenberg in theory as a PD work. I did not include the WS link pending the copyright clarification, but I should have made a note about it. Making notes now. Jeepday (talk) 09:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I support not linking to wikipedia in a source text in that meaning, that the link should not be made in the text itself: first, it has not been there in the origin text (the point of the authenticity), second, it brings the reader away from the document and could disturb while reading. But on the other hand, and we practice this in the Czech Wikisource, we use in that case numbered (Wikisource) remarks in the text itself, and naturally we have interwikis in the left column, and on the author pges we are preparing now links to biography articles in the "home language wikipedia" of the author (now we have links to biographies in the cs.wiki only). But we do not want to have links to general articles like history, WW2, New York, book etc. Every page on the cs.source contains a link to a main article in the cs.wiki, so that everybody who needs more information can go there and find all that words (in my opinion there are too much links there anyway). -jkb- 14:33, 18. 7. 2008 (UTC) - - - this was -jkb- (cs.source) - my signature will not function somehow

I often add works of a fairly technical nature to Wikisource, in particular books and articles on linguistics, and these works are full of technical terms. I find it useful to link these technical terms to their corresponding encyclopedia articles directly, so the reader can discover what the terms mean. The fact that the links aren't there in the original source document is irrelevant as long as the wording itself hasn't changed. I think it is much harder and more distracting to read a text^[1] that is full^[2] of footnotes^[3] than to read a text that is full of words written in blue. It would also be annoying for the reader to click on the footnote index, get to the footnotes, and see there's nothing there but a link to Wikipedia than to be able to just click on the Wikipedia link directly from the source text. (PS: You need to fix your preferences so your signature points to User:-jkb- rather than Uživatel:-jkb-, since "Uživatel:" is not a valid namespace here at English Wikisource.) An gr 16:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

@ Angr: sure I have User in the link to my page here, I had Uživatel in my link to cs.source. See my former contributions, it worked. This afternoon there is a sort of a bug. Now it functions. -jkb- (cs.source) 17:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I also believe these links to be very useful for readers, since many are looking for works as part of a larger research project. Adding links to Wikipedia or to Wiktionary for rare or overtly technical terms and subjects gives depth to the work they are reading. - Mtmelendez 16:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

But back to the point: I can understand that in case of specialized texts (technical ones, medical ones etc.) there are many words that are not common. The question is although: is Wikisource a general encyclopaedia or something else. I guess if somebody is reading here a specialized text on a medical problem so he or she will first have read some general articles about the matter in the wikipedia or somewhere else. Here we have the origin texts, and when we talk about technical etc. texts so we can assume hte people that read it understand a bit what the thext is writing about. Once again: not in Wikipedia, where I am really and often unlucky when I see there a lot of specialized texts without any help to specialized words or problems. But this is Wikisource, and when I have here a text about the history of the Roman Empire so I can not explain here the whole history of this Empire. Wikipedia does it, not Wikisource. -jkb- (cs.source) 17:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikisource is an improved version of the common library. We hold published works here, but our tools allows us to provide much more information for the reader than any single librarian could. Links is one of those tools, and should be used to provide relevant context. So for example, if the author Aeschylus refers to a specific real event in Ancient Greek times in one of his works, it might be worth linking to Wikipedia because readers may want to know what that event was to understand the author's work. I personally tend to link real persons to their biographies in Wikipedia, or their author page here, to provide background to the reader. We don't have to provide summaries or notes in here from Wikipedias, just a simple piped link in relevant titles, names, terms or phrases, used sparingly. That's hardly intrusive towards the work. We have also included footnotes and commentaries in works, but so do many other sites and publishers. - Mtmelendez 18:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally I agree with the people who believe this sort of linking is what sets us apart from mere duplication of the efforts of similar projects. I also agree with Angr that the hypertext is much less distracting than footnotes. When this was discussed in the past, consensus was that the blue text can still be somewhat distracting and preferaly it could be optional to "hide" the hypertext links. I still have the result of that in my monobook, which adds a tab marked "hide/show" which can turn the blue text black (the link still works however). If people are interested, this could probaly be added to the gadgets available in preferences by someone technical.--BirgitteSB 21:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I'll have a look at it. This could be something I could favorize as a solution. -jkb- (cs.source) 21:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Author template problems

If an author's birth/death date(s) are unknown, the author template puts the author in the "ancient authors" category. This should be fixed; Author:Dave White is an example of why this is a bad idea. I tried to fix it, but I'm not very good with template code. Psych less 03:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Author:Dave White doesn't exist. Could you give another example please? This is the first I've heard of this problem.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found an example: Author:A. E. Henderson. This is an interesting bug; without having to change the code simply removing the questions marks will make the problem go away.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. And by the way, the link should have been Author:David White. Psych less 00:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing the ? solves the problem. Yann 07:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist question

On one's watchlist, boldface means the page has been changed since the last time one visited. What does the red exclamation point mean? Angr/_Talk 18:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The revision has yet to be Patrolled, and the person seeing the red exclamation marks has permission to patrol the revision. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Main Page

Hello, fellow librarians. I made two comments which I'd like to see feedback from. The first is two minor suggestions for the COTW template box on the Main Page, and the other is a visual problem I have with two template boxes which aren't floating next to each other. Please take a look. Thanks, - Mtmelendez 14:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright tagging subpages

Hi all. I recently asked Kathleen.wright5 not to put a copyright tag on every subpage of a work, as tagging the main page of a work suffices, and tagging subpages unnecessarily clutters up the works-by-copyright-status categories. She has obliged. However, Yann has since questioned this, and suggested that it is SOP to tag subpages. Can anyone shed any light on what is common sense/SOP/policy on this point?

We need to put the tag on for at least two reason

to blank the text so that we are not violating copyright, and so that mirrors don't pick it up and continue the copyright violation
to inform people why the content is blanked and where to go to comment or learn more

I would say the probable solution would be to build a secondary tag that blanks, list the appropriate and information and that puts the subpages in a different category. Jeepday (talk) 23:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about copyvio tags. I'm talking about copyright status tags like {{PD-old}}. Hesperian 12:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. I'd argue for one copyright tag on the work's main page, but it may present problems if readers are searching for chapters or sections only, since they may not be aware that work is copyrighted in their native country. - Mtmelendez 14:45, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe some clever person could make smaller, less conspicuous copyright tags to go on subpages. The normal ones are so big they would really start getting on your nerves if you saw them on every page, but something small and inconspicuous could provide a link to the full version of the template, making it clear whether the work is PD in the user's own country or not. An gr 21:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

An excellent idea! I'm all for it, sort of like a small line saying "This page is part of a larger work which is in the Public Domain." - Mtmelendez 14:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Titles of translations on Wikisource

The issue: should the Wikisource title of a translated work follow the original published title or the modern convention of how the title should be translated? The case at hand: I uploaded a translation of Fichte's Sonnenklarer Bericht made by A.E. Kroeger, originally published as Sun-Clear Statement. Another user has changed the title to Crystal Clear Report because that is the the title translation favored by Dan Breazeale/Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (NOTE: there is only one other English translation of this work, made by John Botterman and William Rash -- found in this book -- and it was the only available translation at the time Breazeale wrote the SEP article. The title chosen by Botterman/Rash: A Crystal Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest Philosophy: An Attempt to Force the Reader to Understand.) My argument: I uploaded Kroeger's translation, Kroeger chose to translate Sonnenklarer Bericht literally (Sun-Clear Statement) so the Wikisource page title should reflect his choice (and the original published title).

The broader question is how much liberty should a Wikisource contributor take with the texts s/he is working with. If titles are fair game, what about chapter headings? Content?

I am just a casual contributor to Wikisource so will a more experience Wikisource user weigh in on this? There is more on User talk:Ingram.

Ingram 01:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

If we translated it ourselves, then we are at liberty to argue over what the title should be. Such debates are held in the real world all the time, so we must expect them to happen here too e.g. Remembrances of things past versus In search of lost time. But when posting a published translation, we must be true to the published version, rather than "improving" on it by changing the title. Hesperian 01:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

...and therefore, with respect to your specific case, a transcription of Kroeger's translation must use Kroeger's title. Hesperian 01:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

From the message on your talk, I am guessing that the naming being suggested is based on the Wikipedia naming conventions, which are usually fairly applicable here, but they dont work for translations.

It is important to separate the naming of pages from the title of works. Our title of the work should be very closely aligned with the published title of the work, in this case the translators choice of title. Our chapters are typically numbered rather than named. i.e. "Work pagename/Chapter 1", so chapter headings are less of an issue. The page name is primarily the address on the web, and so should be selected based for its uniqueness, appearance, search weighting, etc. In this case "Sun-Clear Statement" is at least as good an address on the web as "Crystal Clear Report", and I would actually prefer "Sun-Clear Statement" because the other translation is named "A Crystal Clear Report ...". i.e. "Sun-Clear Statement" is a far less ambiguous page name. A disambiguation page should be created at Sonnenklarer Bericht, listing all translations even if we dont yet have them. Any other sensible name for this work should be a redirect to the disambiguation page name. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Preloaded templates

Hello,

This script is one of the most useful feature of WS. Could this script be modified so that, if the TOC is [[/Chapter 2|Chapter 2. Title Chapter 2]], the previous and next parameters should be "next = [[../Chapter 2|Chapter 2. Title Chapter 2]]" and not "next = [[../Chapter 2|Chapter 2]]"? Also do we already have a help page about it? Thanks, Yann 15:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

De Trinitate needs to be fixed

I'm a grad student currently doing an Independent Readings course in Augustine's "De Trinitate." In the course of my work, I discovered that the text for Book IV posted for that work (http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/De_trinitate_%28Aurelius_Augustinus%29_-_Liber_IV) is actually the Latin text for Book IV of "De Civitate Dei." I was thinking that perhaps the links for Book IV of "De Trinitate" and Book IV of "De Civitate Dei" got crossed somehow. Upon finding the Latin text for "De Civitate Dei" however, I saw that only Books I through III are online as of yet. What happened to Book IV of "De Trinitate"? Does anybody know?

Anyone can contact me at arick@gcts.edu. My name is Adam.

You may get a speedier response if you ask at the Latin Scriptorium. Psych less 15:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Done and done. --Adam

Desirability of linking Google/archive scholarly/standard editions from author pages

German Wikisource (e.g. Sophokles) has used its author pages to link to scholarly editions and other resources at Google Books, archive.org, etc. English Wikipedia articles sometimes have the same information in the external links (e.g. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Hippocratic Corpus). Obviously, in many cases the scholarly editions, seen in scanned page images, convey much information that would be difficult to bring to a Wikisource text (critical apparatuses, etc.). Google Books, archive.org, etc., are themselves so poorly indexed, that it would certainly be a service to have listings by author pooled somewhere.

But I am new to Wikisource and my question is whether it is worthwhile to try to introduce listings of such external free-book resources here, or whether it clashes with the accepted view here of the project's purpose and limits. If this directory information doesn't belong anywhere here, where does it belong? (Surely not only in the various individuals' catalogs that have sprouted up around the internet, which can disappear at any time.) Wareh 17:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you familiar with Side by side image view for proofreading? Jeepday (talk) 21:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Since January I'm building a list of downloadable books in Portuguese language found in Google Book Search. In the past week it becomes public as a draft at http://indexlivres.uni.cc/ (not open for editing yet) (externally hosted since it requires Semantic MediaWiki and it is helpfull for Wikisource and Distributed Proofreaders). If anyone is interested to build a fork on your own language, I can share my views and my experience related to it. Lugusto 21:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Lugusto gives an example of what I meant by scattered catalogs by individuals; I have contributed to this genre too. Thanks for the pointer to Side by side image view for proofreading. I saw the Tolstoy journal example, which was part of a Microsoft-scanned book; has anyone definitely implemented this for a Google-scanned book? Obviously it's a lot more work to implement this than to just provide a link to Google or archive.org; I guess what I was wondering is whether there's a standard format for linking scanned-book resources pending such integration. (Nothing would please me more than to see these public domain images hosted on a site like Wikisource that is purely in the public interest, but for now, since the huge bulk of such material remains elsewhere, pointing at it would be a start.)

A related question is the English-language exclusion here. My original Greek examples showed that at German Wikisource it's considered normal to link standard editions of original-language (non-German) texts if available. But here, at Author:Virgil there is no link to the original-language texts of this author, even though excellent quality ones are in the public domain. I find something highly artificial about segregating such wikisourced texts at Latin Wikisource, where the whole user interface is in Latin, talk pages ("disputationes") are presumably supposed to be in Latin, etc., even though the majority of people interested in reading Virgil in Latin are (1) not competent to discuss wikisource issues in Latin, but (2) competent to do so in English. I'm mixing a lot of issues here; what it boils down to is, "Why doesn't this English site offer its users the kind of helpful information and links as the German Wikisource page on Sophocles I linked?" (with no disrespect intended or suggestion that there aren't good reasons). I ask because, like Lugusto, within some areas, I have a pretty good sense of what unexploited and unappreciated sources are out there, but it seems there's no standardized clearing-house to which I can contribute this information. Wareh 01:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Latin Wikisource, like Latin Wikipedia, allows discussion in English, French, German and Italian as well as Latin. De facto, English is used predominantly. An gr 05:04, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason why you couldn't make a heading at the bottom of any page and indicate the sources you refer to, just like the German page. There isn't any particular convention here that says you cannot do this and I agree it would be useful. As long as the works are valuable to research on the author, I do not believe anyone will have a problem with a heading at the bottom of the page for "Additional research" or "Commentaries" or perhaps a nested set of works separated by type, something like ==Works in original Latin==, ==Other authors== : ===Analysis===, ===Criticism===, and so on. There isn't anything that says this cannot be done and it seems as useful as the texts. As these things were added to other wikisource languages, the links of some could migrate to their new locations. The best answer to why it isn't done right now is lack of time, interest, and/or knowledge on the part of other contributors. Therefore, if you have these things, help everyone ;) --Mkoyle 18:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the information and encouragement. Wareh 03:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Page break inside an indented paragraph

When using side-by-side proofreading so that each page of the original is reflected by one page in the Page: namespace, is there any way to get a page break that falls inside an indented paragraph (i.e. one that starts with a ":" in the MediaWiki markup). Take a look at Scottish Gaelic Dialects and the break between page 328 and 329 to see what I'm talking about. An gr 20:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeap, you should transclude the pages 328 and 329 without any line break (and don't repeat the indented tag in the page 329). --LaosLos 20:22, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! An gr 20:25, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, put the “:” on the second page inside a pair of <noinclude>…</noinclude> tags. That way, the indentation displays correctly both in the Page: namespace and when the page text is transcluded. (See, for example, the carryover paragraph from pages 11 to 12 of Copyright Law Revision (House Report No. 94-1476). Tarmstro99 19:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Discovering something of Tex engine by myself...

Could be, all from you know what I discovered about png rendering of TeX codes, nevertheless I'm proud to tell you that I found by myself this:

"The static name of png image of a formula is the MD5 hash of the TeX code as appears into alt parameter of the png image".

You can see my step-by-step work into my user page.

So, the same formula written anywhere into wiki projects point to the same image I presume... and i presume that if an identical image exists, there's no need to parse it again and to re-build the same image. Is there someone deep into mysteries of wiki TeX engine? I'm a very curious fellow ;-) --Alex brollo 07:24, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Speeches

Are all speeches in the Public Domain? Can we include any speech in Wikisource? 85.112.95.14 18:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a tricky question that neither Wikisource nor the legal community can fully answer. There are administrators on both sides of the issue, and a variety that inhabit a grey area in between. It would be best if you could specify the general nature of the speeches you want to add - for example, we can guarantee that all official speeches made by an American president, senator or congressman are in the Public Domain - but with Canadian Prime Ministers...we can only guarantee that speeches made by Prime Ministers from Louis St. Laurent and further back are in the Public Domain. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon} 19:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Some speeches are copyrighted, even though it's not apparent. For an example, see Author talk:Martin Luther King, Jr., whose speeches are widely cited and published but, according to research, are still copyrighted. There are several things to consider, for example: When and where was the speech given? Does it have a copyright notice? Was it prepared and written beforehand? Was it made by a private person or a public employee? These questions may answer whether or not they are copyrighted. When in doubt, leave a message here to obtain feedback from the community and administrators on a particular speech before posting. - Mtmelendez 14:41, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Stephen Colbert's address to the White House Press Correspondents Dinner was recently deleted as a copyvio, so no, not all speeches are public domain and includable at WS. An gr 07:08, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Ummm...Tricky. Anyways, Thank you. 85.112.95.14 13:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Help with an image, please

This is in reference to Arts and Crafts Essays/Printing. Please look at the scan of the book, page 127. Notice that there is a small diagram inserted in the text halfway down. I have the image at the commons; I believe if it was reduced to 50px wide it would be the right size to fit into the text in the same way as in the printed source. However, as far as I can tell, the usual wiki image commands aren't equipped to insert something in the middle of the line like that. Does anyone here have an idea how it could be done?

Thanks. --Levana Taylor 05:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You mean like

this, perchance? This image was rendered inline with [[Image:ArtsAndCraftsLines.GIF|50px]]. I can't access the book page you're referring to. Google only offers me a lot of "Buy this book" links.--GrafZahl (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I downloaded the book from archive.org and inline rendering appears indeed to be the correct way of representation. Note that it might be a good idea to upload the book to the Commons for side-by-side proofing, see Help:Side by side image view for proofreading.--GrafZahl (talk) 08:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, it works! Okay, now I feel like the newbiest of newbies. Thanks, GrafZahl. --Levana Taylor 08:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Sanbeg/Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2008-08