Warning Please do not post any new comments on this page.
This is a discussion archive first created in , although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date.
See current discussion.

Tech News: 2023-02

MediaWiki message delivery 01:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Author:Y. Victor Brozek

May I ask if you could have a look at Author:Y. Victor Brozek? I failed to find any information about him except this and this? Do you think you could find his birth and death dates in some records? -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:34, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Will do. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
@Jan.Kamenicek: Done Yaro Victor Brozek (1898-1959). Detail on author_talk. I will let you populate WD. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:59, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks very much, that is wonderful. Knowing the first name helped me to find even some more sources. Wikidata updated. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:11, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Hanging indent & character-tag questions

Hello Billinghurst,

I had a couple of questions that I posed over at the discussion section for a transcription project I'm working on, but I am not sure how long it will take someone to answer there, so I wanted to ask directly to you: (1) how do you make a hanging indent carry across two pages? (2) what should I do if a dialogue tag is centered, but in the work in question the dialogue itself won't line up under the tag in the same way it does in the initial document? For reference, the work is at Page:Hamilton play 1917.pdf/15. Thank you, Packer1028 (talk) 03:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Packer1028: {{hanging indent/s}} / {{hanging indent/e}} if it is just the one paragraph. One of those start/finish (open/close) type <div> scenarios. Re the second question, I am not I understand the question. Are you talking about presentation in the Page: ns, or are you talking about presentation when transcluded to the main ns? In the main ns, where it becomes terribly lop-sided, then we would usually utilise {{default layout}} per "Layout 2". If that is not the right answer to the question, then please try again. Also to note that the best spot for answers is WS:Scriptorium/Help as most eyes to help beginners is on that page. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Broken links

When you moved The Western Mail/22 September 1919/Welsh Artist - Death of Mr George Howell Baker without leaving a redirect, you broke the links on my user page and on Index:Welsh Artist - Death of Mr George Howell Baker - Western Mail - 22nd September 1919.png. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:01, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: What are you talking about? You moved that page in 2021. All I did this week was to remove a redirect under a disambiguation page that shouldn't have been there. Why have you have left pages linked to a redirect sitting under a disambiguation page when you moved it, and you were fully aware of it? Seems that is a question you should asked yourself, plus why didn't you fix that up forever ago. Please stop shooting workers cleaning up messes left by other people, and accept some of your own responsibilities. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Allow me to rephrase:

When you deleted the in-use redirect at The Western Mail/22 September 1919/Welsh Artist - Death of Mr George Howell Baker, you broke the links on my user page and on Index:Welsh Artist - Death of Mr George Howell Baker - Western Mail - 22nd September 1919.png. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:49, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Yes, if you have links to a redirect of a subpage of a work that is a disambiguation page, that is likely to happen. We typically do not have subpage redirects to subpages as they problematic to manage, and often misleading. Expecting subpages to be checked for links, especially on user pages is an unreasonable burden on those who are needing to do bulk maintenance to fix problems created by others. The available tools for doing bulk moves do not allow that sort of maintenance readily.

As we have a number of local templates that utilise WD, that is how I would recommend that you link on your user page for link continuity. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:03, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The links were working. You broke them.

Index:Welsh Artist - Death of Mr George Howell Baker - Western Mail - 22nd September 1919.png is not my user page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:58, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I explained to you a better and more resilient way to link. It was you who made and had redirects from a subpage of a disambiguation page, and you did not fix them, and you knew that you had created them. As I said, there are not the tools to find these linked pages and no bot to fix them, and there is zero way that I am checking these one by one when I am having to bulk moves. Help us out, don't use redirect subpage links, and when you do make them, fix your additions. Don't expect others to do this for you. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:04, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-03

MediaWiki message delivery 01:10, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Parsing error

One of your (seemingly automated) edits removing {{portal link}} has produced Portal:Little, Brown and Company as "Little" at Keeban, which may be because of a problem parsing commas. Just wanted to let you know. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh... This is actually a MediaWiki parsing problem. [[Portal:Little, Brown and Company|]] automatically produces [[Portal:Little, Brown and Company|Little]]... PseudoSkull (talk) 03:56, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Oh shit, I forget that the w:help:pipe trick dumbs out on a comma rather than at the end of the phrase. I will have to dig these out and resolve them. Grrr. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

  Donebillinghurst sDrewth 09:50, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Broken links in Dictionary of National Biography

Hi, I've found a couple of pages where SDrewthbot has broken links, e.g. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Townshend, Charles (1674-1738) and Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Montagu, Edward (1602-1671). I've since fixed these, but there may be others. DivermanAU (talk) 06:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

@DivermanAU: Thanks. Think I found them and fixed them, subarticle code that I didn't find in my testing phase, and usually I will grab and test from a range of the subfolders. Interestingly, we actually don't tag those for difference. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-04

MediaWiki message delivery 23:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

DNB27

Things are now proceeding. We should get on the same page about format, in particular, before going much further and starting to create articles.

@Miraclepine: The decision, about ten years ago, was for DNB12 to treat the name in the initial place in articles as in a bold font, even if the letters are less thick and black than in the earlier volumes. (That is what is done consistently on https://www.oxforddnb.com/ for their transcriptions, for example.) So we should do that for what is in caps. I don't think we have to use caps for small caps, though. E.g. for Sir, we should reproduce the original small caps, for legibility.

It is a convention going back to the DNB work before 2009, when I started here, that DNB article titles do not include titles of nobility, or Sir, Dame etc. So that should clearly continue for the third supplement also.

We'll need {{DNB27}} which I suppose should be based directly on {{DNB12}}. The remaining thing would be to decide on the standard transclusion formula to use. I did have a recent comment about a past version. I don't mind, but we should agree on how to do it.

Charles Matthews (talk) 09:54, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@Charles Matthews: Seeing that these are the norm for DNB12 and also DNB01, I don't see a problem with continuing any of this in DNB27, so I might bold the relevant stuff in that edition provided there's no objection. ミラP@Miraclepine 18:25, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
I think that we have a house style for DNB and it should continue, that there is some variation in publishers over the years can be classed as interesting, rather than binding. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
template created, just rudimentary. I need to tidy these all out and get them updated to modern versions. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:17, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

about your eyes for reprints....

I seem to remember encountering several reprints here that were spotted by you. I was trying to sort through the volumes of two trade journals that merged, and the only way the volume number makes sense is if it is a reprint after the merge, but, I determined this after some confusion, so maybe you could look at it?

Railway Age, still exists, is the oldest (1856) and was merged into in 1908.

Railroad Gazette, 1870 until merging in 1908.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021737674 <--reprint? Hathi calls it Volume 2
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021737658 <--the one I am working with.

If I got the wrong person, sorry to take your time.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 17:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

No idea. I typically find things when fixing something else. We just have to make decisions based on best advice. Suggest that WS:S is the place to put the issue, and we can reach a community consensus. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:03, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

The Eleventh Hour

I don't see any policy that verbosely excludes the "See also" heading. It appears on quite a lot of disambiguation pages. Why remove this one only? PseudoSkull (talk) 05:50, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

What is the point of it in that situation? It is either disambiguating (include it) or it isn't (don't include it). The other uses of "see also" are typically other namespace, or other disambiguation pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:53, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
A title can look similar but not be exactly the same. The template says a disambiguation page "lists works that share the same title", but some searchers may be one letter off from the work they're looking for, so it's valid IMO to include a "See also" for some similarly titled works that do not share the exact same title. PseudoSkull (talk) 06:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
A good example would be at the page The Living Dead, which puts in See also Night of the Living Dead. The film was never at any point just called The Living Dead, but I felt that this was such a significant film that a huge amount of people would associate the phrase "The Living Dead" with "Night of the Living Dead", so I included it. PseudoSkull (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Disambiguation pages are not for titles that are similar, they are to disambiguate where of the same name or usage. Users can click the links in the top right for "intitle" searches. So if you have done that, please take those pages out. this is not directory type listings, those belong in Wikisource: or Portal namespaces. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Per w:WP:Disambiguation disambiguation pages serve the purpose to resolving conflicts in article titles. The "similar" used is around "A" "The", plurals, where the usage is insignificant and often casual. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Would it not also be helpful to include works whose titles can very easily be confused with the headword of the disambiguation page? Removing this stuff is just impractical. I put it there for a logical reason, and that logical reason is that I thought it would better serve readers than if it wasn't there.
When people think of the phrase "The Living Dead" do you think that most people would immediately think of some obscure poem by an obscure Canadian author, or another obscure poem by a somewhat obscure American author? No. The first thought that comes to the head of someone in the modern West is the 1968 hit horror film, Night of the Living Dead, so it's obvious to me that film should be represented somewhere on that page for when searchers will be inevitably confused in title searching. PseudoSkull (talk) 06:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
I didn't remove it, I blended it into the list. Apart from that you are extending the use of disambiguation pages. The reasons that we have the title prepend and intitle links is to cover those cases, it is not to convert disambiguation pages into something else. We had that conversation when we created the current template. If you want to change the consensus of the community, then please do it by overt conversation, rather than by incremental stealth. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
And to note that the top text of Help:Disambiguation spells out their purpose. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:32, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
So you start the conversation then don't like the other opinion and the community consensus and just ignore it? — billinghurst sDrewth 13:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

AF

Can you have a look at [12], please. Apparently a false positive, but I do not understand the code to find the mistake. -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: It is hitting something in the last line (user_name+added_lines+summary) ... while meeting the top three lines (there is an AND condition with all the lines below being grouped OR conditions. I will add a condition to line 2 to help us out. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Change of plan, that low level of false positive and the conditions of that account would work for having to do some weird condition making. The block impact is temporary and not draconian, finding the matching slab of text for the regex in such a large addition is ugly, and of low value. If we are seeing this sort of positive come through repeatedly, we can dig deeper then. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:19, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
The fourth condition in the last line of the filter matches line 221 and 715 of the added wikitext. This condition is too wide and too likely to be used legitimately as is IMO (the character classes in square brackets allows any single character from that set; so even the common english word as normally spelled will match). Xover (talk) 13:36, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! So I have removed that condition. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 16:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

plain sister

cf. this. If the page is connected to a Wikidata item it gets sister links in the left sidebar automatically. See e.g. Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, with a giant list in the sidebar plus in the plain sister output. Is there a reason for having both, or is it just overlap with something else? Xover (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

It is the same implementation of logic and process that is used in all of our headers, and is what the community determined was our solution and process long ago. Naturally the evolution of things with WD changes some aspects, and similarly what we display and when we display is always there for the community consensus. [That I never notice interwikis in the left column and rely on the overt nature of the top labelling is probably both a personal weakness and an indicator of the difference with overt labelling. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:31, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Hmm. Yeah, the sisterlinks in the sidebar are fairly recent (they were added in the last year or two I think), and it took me a good long while to notice them too. I guess we chalk it up as something to look at closer at some point to see whether we defer sisterlinks to those provided by MediaWiki, and if so whether we can do so in only some or in all cases. Once I did take notice of them I found them immensely useful for some of the things I do, but on the other hand I never really noticed the duplication with explicit {{plain sister}} until I happened to see you add it to an otherwise empty Category: page that also happened to exist on many sister projects. Xover (talk) 07:56, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
Gut feel is limit the number or prioritise. I think that WP, CommonsCat and WD are priorities, and the rest can sit in sidebar, and that could be just for cats, or for all. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:04, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

@Xover: Thinking a little laterally, it would be useful with this template if was able to put some commentary that checks which data in Module:Author/data populates the automated additions from the WD components. Though I have a feeling that may be a tad complicated, I have done an example to how manually => insert P & Q values Template:Plain sister/sandbox => Template:Plain sister/testcases => Category:Monks (parameters p/1, q/2, and only showing up in category namespace, and if one of the parameters is present) — billinghurst sDrewth 00:35, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-05

MediaWiki message delivery 00:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Feb 2023 to do

quickstatements

Need to redevelop set of DNB contributors and feed through QuickStatements. (re-)Read instructions at d:Help:QuickStatements=

billinghurst sDrewth 00:03, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

example of query in Petscan, and then the set up for addition through feed to QS Petscan:23824645billinghurst sDrewth 10:35, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-06

MediaWiki message delivery 10:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

To do (Jan 2023)

billinghurst sDrewth 21:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

March 2023 to do

DNB contributor

  • DNB contributor
  • DNB contributor 2ndSupp
  • DNB contributor 3rdSupp
  1. need to ensure that all data is present on author pages
  2. push "contributor to creative work" / "biographer" / "initials"
  3. construct the QS components (see if we can do anything with harvest tool first)
  4. convert usage of "object named as" to subject

Portal: YYYY

Return to the components of reconstructing the year templates for portal namespace.

  • Build overarching {{portal year}} to replicate {{national}} approach
  • Build subsections (get consultation)
    components (what do we want?)
    • latest {{Portal/dpl-latest}}
    • novels
    • poems
    • films
    • births
    • deaths
    • short stories
    • speeches
    • songs, lyrics, song lyrics
    • court decisions
    • executive orders
    • treaties
    • constitutional documents
    • magazines, journals, and newspapers
  • build years, and pump into corresponding WD items — billinghurst sDrewth 23:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Author:E. A. Terhune

Could you have a look at this author please? I failed to check the identity of this author and the new contributor who founded that page does not answer, see User talk:Timzy D'Great. -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: the 1905 work definitely isn't written by a 1921 birther. There look to be three E. A. Terhune [17] and I am guessing that this is number 1, as I don't think that we are having the 1895 birther being the author. When I can get access to my full search kit I will track it down, though I am guessing that we are looking for someone born c. 1870s — billinghurst sDrewth 21:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Ah, obviously, I must have been stricken blind not to notice that :-) --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
I had the awareness of 2nd and 3rd versions of authors and dates, so I was more looking at the date for the guidance, hence a different focus. Got to love "working in the zone" <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 22:57, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
@Jan.Kamenicek:   Done and I will leave you to populate WD. If you need more data, then please let me know. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:32, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-07

MediaWiki message delivery 01:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Act 2015

You've adjusted this page to remove all sub pages and convert to a versions only page. Could you clarify the reason for this? It has created several broken links, and in terms of usability, it's made navigating between versions of a particular section more difficult, requiring clicking up two levels to the version page, then down two levels to the section. The change does not appear to be an improvement. ElDubs (talk) 02:33, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

@ElDubs: The top level page is per help:versions, and each version is standalone. We don't create versions pages at subpage levels. Comparison between versions is not typically our mission, though we can create something like that within the notes sections to flick between versions if it is truly needed. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
@ElDubs: Re broken links. Please do not wikilink section, that is not something that is encouraged or wise. That parameter is meant to be plain text. I will run my bot through those and clean them up once we have further consensus on what else needs to be addressed with these versions. In terms of versions, we would usually have {{other versions}} at the top of the root page of each version, and NOT have wikilinks to the versions page from the title field. Subpages usually have relative links to the root page of the work itself, not to a disambiguation page. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:04, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I hadn't looked at the work in detail, so some comments. We would not normally reproduce a work like that in sections of the Act, we would more normally do something like that in Parts of the Act, rather than sections as readability is important. [We are not trying to replicate those sites that like austlii, that is not our purpose or what we are trying to be. Wikibooks is more the space for the analytical aspects of works, we are here for the reproduction] At the top level of our works is where we put year / portal / category as they apply to the whole work, we would only add detail into subpages where it differs from the parent page. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:27, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I do understand that you're laying out how things are usually done. And yeah I took a different approach for what I saw was a fairly unique situation, which is laws where the majority of the act is largely identical across all sections, and there's value in easily switching between versions of that particular section that has been amended.
I agree comparison between versions is not *typically* our mission, but the entire value in storing versions of a law is in their comparison. So I took actions that make this easier. In this sense, flicking between versions would always be needed, but since acts can have dozens or even hundreds of versions, putting this in the notes section seems far less effective than having a page for each section.
Running your bot through those would remove a very useful navigation feature which makes navigating this legislation, so please don't just send in your bot before seeking that further consensus, which I will be happy to engage in. Ideally sweeping changes that are disagreed with should occur after this.
There is stuff here that is not done how we usually do it, but that is not a bad thing. It's a good opportunity to discuss. ElDubs (talk) 03:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
@ElDubs: The purpose of main namespace is the transcription of a pure work, first and foremost. All commentary and comparison is meant to be separate from the pure presentation of our works. Shifting the focus for these works without consultation with the community is always going to tripping up something and somewhere. There are better tools for comparison, and those are what we should be exploring. We have been amenable to how we can do such things, and the namespaces that we utilise, though we do demand that clean work with which to start. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Noting that the wiki has installed mw:Extension:DoubleWiki which seems ideal for the comparative aspects, though we need to see how function that extension would be. It aligns respective sections so maybe we can get to play, though it was not set for this exact task, so we will need to play. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:02, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm definitely happy to keep the namespace "pure" as you put it. That seems reasonable and definitely happy to explore other avenues. It's why I started with a small act like the one we're discussing, I didn't want to start big and find I'd stepped on toes. I'd say linking to sections is still an essential part of the way legislation is structured, and that can be done while respecting the concept that first and foremost we're replicating the pure work. The idea of linking was indeed to keep that comparison separate. Happy to shift that linking to the notes if that's sufficient but I do think linking between versions of a section is pretty important. DoubleWiki is an interesting concept that I hadn't considered. Appreciate the thought you're putting into it! ElDubs (talk) 04:40, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

the change in where the date shows up

Hi! In regards to your changes to {{WD author}} I have had a person replace the template for a subst due to inconsistency in display. While I don't know for sure it was because of the change in the location of the date in the display, I suspect it might be and also, I did not hear of the changes you cited. Perhaps you could announce or re-announce this change so that I have a link to paste in explanation.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 16:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

What are the focus for author pages, and their order? 1) Title, 2) where published if it is inside source, 3) date, then follows other data. We are not building a structured bibliography to go anywhere. That is why we are there for our author pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I see that this is the productive way in which you organize your thoughts. I would like to start with a visual representation of the template and how the seasoned sourcerer "fixed" it. So, from an author page:
The template:
  • Two Old Ladies, Two Foolish Fairies and a Tom Cat, illustrated by Arthur Rackham (October 1897)
The return to consistency:
  • "Two Old Ladies, Two Foolish Fairies and a Tom Cat", illustrated by Arthur Rackham (October 1897)
The original publication, from a magazine, via template:
  • "The Surprising Adventures of Tuppy and Tue", illustrated by Arthur Rackham, in Little Folks (1896)
There were some limitations with the module that prevented me from making the template I had first imagined. The one problem I remember at this moment is that I wanted to get linked "Volume"/"Issue" data for journals and that did not work at all. So, "Published in" was used for this and I think that is sloppy.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:39, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
"Published in" is correct terminology, with qualifiers like volume, issue, page number, and publication date, etc. It is not sloppy at all. Having them as their own items rather than as qualifiers simply not correct. There are some who forget the exact purpose of our author pages and they can do it on their edits. Having templates that do not wander away from purpose is problematic. When we are on an author page, we are not trying to build a reference list for a journal article. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-08

MediaWiki message delivery 01:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Link templates updates...

You had concerns about attempts to standardize links?

Yes these were bold edits, with a view to having one link format, but as you say there isnt' a consensus, fair enough.

Is there a fast way to unwind the relevant edits? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:09, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

The reason for attempting to standardize the links, was to ultimately add a tracking category to the relevant templates, so that it was possible to see which pages had links to scanned works that could be obtained for Commons/Wikisource use, from specfic external sites. It's not as far as I know possible to do that with {{ext scan link}}. Running a query against a specfic template pattern, or pages in a category is far easier then having to run a generic grep against every single instance of {{ext scan link}} ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:06, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
No, there is no need to undo it as it has been done. The issue is about doing something noisy and of little value in the first place. Plan, consult, seek consensus of the community first, saves on the angst and lack of understanding of your actions. When you are putting something to the community, be prepared to explain what is the value of a tracking category, and how it improves our tasks. It is not overt to me what would be achieved, or couldn't be achieved by tinkering with existing templates. The community is full of ideas and opinions, so asking first is always best. If people don't respond to a request for consultation, then they lessen their ability for criticism.

One piece of feedback about any grep of a string is contingent upon someone having made the right choice of scan in the first place, so I am not seeing the imperative, they are indicators only. The works need their appropriateness and quality checks done on upload, not on data entry, so I still don't see the value in the exercise. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:58, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-09

MediaWiki message delivery 23:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Emma Orczy

I see that you removed Emma Orczy from the category "Translators as authors" - why was that ? -- Beardo (talk) 19:29, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Have a look again. It was already automatically added by the WD entry, so the manual addition was duplicate. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:18, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Ah - I see. Sorry ! -- Beardo (talk) 18:09, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-10

MediaWiki message delivery 23:49, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-11

MediaWiki message delivery 23:20, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Evansville Courier and Press/1942/Mineola, N. Y., June 29 …

I assume that "it he Sahara desert" should have been "in the" - was that typo in the original ?

I think that item has the wrong copyright note. -- Beardo (talk) 23:31, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, my tyslop. And you are correct about the CN, I am so used to typing UK articles, good pick up! — billinghurst sDrewth 00:00, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-12

MediaWiki message delivery 01:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-13

MediaWiki message delivery 01:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Author:E. Irene Rood

Could you have a look at Author:E. Irene Rood and find some details about her when you have time, please? There is no hurry. -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:01, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

I have finally managed to find out the full name and date of death, which are imo the most crucial data. What remains is date (and place) of birth, but that is not so urgent, although it would be helpful too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:43, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
  Done @Jan.Kamenicek:billinghurst sDrewth 11:57, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-14

MediaWiki message delivery 23:39, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Portal talk:Film

Any reason for the protection? I don't see any vandalism going on there. PseudoSkull (talk) 21:11, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

LTA. Abuselog. Shorten the duration if you think that it needs to be done. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:55, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-15

MediaWiki message delivery 20:05, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Reversion of edit on Index:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu

Hi. I was wondering why you reverted my edit on the above. According to its help page, the 'running header' template requires three inputs for a standard LEFT-CENTRE-RIGHT header, but the text in the 'header' box only generates a header to accept two, hence my change, which added an extra 'pipe'. Regards, Chrisguise (talk) 05:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I was wondering why you changed my edit in the first place. The reason that I have it set as I do, is that the available text appears at the top of the raw page of text, one drops a pipe between the page number and the text, and drags and drops it into the header. Voila, all ready to go. Your way means that I have to go and delete a redundant pipe. [I will also note that the {{RunningHeader}} has positional parameters, and actually only requires 3 or 4 when the third and fourth are required. Though I do have good practice of having three when I do it.]

Tech News: 2023-16

MediaWiki message delivery 01:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Sister projects task force

Hi, I hope things are well with you. Perhaps you might be interested in applying as a voluntary advisory member of meta:Wikimedia Foundation Community Affairs Committee/Sister Projects Task Force? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: Oh, I clearly have been hiding away from wikipolitics--and just editing--I didn't even know that it existed. I will give it some thinking. A quick glance clearly shows that the excuse that I am not qualified isn't going to hold water. <sheepish grin> Thanks for the push. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
@Mike Peel: muddy footprints applied. I will now wander back to editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-17

MediaWiki message delivery 22:03, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-18

MediaWiki message delivery 01:45, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Not actually transcluded

Do we have the means to search Indexes marked as "fully transcluded" to find those works that aren't actually transcluded. I just found half a dozen such works in a very short time, most of which had not been transcluded 'at all, but were marked as "fully transcluded". Can someone run a bot and/or auto-change the transclusion status on these works? I think User:JAM3SP196 does not understand what transclusion actually means, and has long been marking works as "fully transcluded" when they have been proofread, but not transcluded. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:25, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, one of the transclusion queries on my user page User:Billinghurst#Petscan queries.— billinghurst sDrewth 22:33, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
I do not see a query that matches what I described. I am looking for Indexes that have had the Transclusion status marked a "fully transcluded", but which are not actually fully transcluded, or not transcluded at all. I see a more general search on your page for identifying Validated works needing to be transcluded, but that is a far more general than I am looking for. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Although, that list is only 43, so it is not too long at the moment to check. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:49, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Oh, fully transcluded? My brain heard validated. Umm. No, that is not a possible check as I understand things. Yes, I can run a bot for a namespace and a status, though a little harder where someone was the last editor. Just easier to go and undo all those Index: ns edits. The changes that someone has made to the tool has been problematic from the means that I undertook. Now it is way to easy to do this incorrectly, at least my harder way did add some certainty as it was done by experienced users. I am undoing all those edits, plese speak to the user. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:20, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I already left a message with the user. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
But looking further, they're also marking works Validated that have not yet been validated. . . --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:27, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: Every existing edit in the Index: ns that did not have a subsequent edit has been reverted. I will also note that some of the changes were indeed correct, some were fully transcluded, some have been changed to reflect the proofreading status, just way to many incorrect changes to retain them, and I definitely wasn't going to step through one by one review. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:15, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree. Thanks. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:22, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

A recent edit of yours uncovered a potential glitch..

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Fine_block/s&oldid=13195286

You changed this, meaning that for some reason the classing isn't taking effect when the template is called.

See for example Page:The_railway_children_(IA_railwaychildren00nesb_1).pdf/307 which doesn't apply 'fine' after your recent update to the template. It would be nice if you could provide an explanation as to where the the glitch is, so that it can be repaired. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:52, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I suspect what's happening is that the templatestyles tag needs to be inside the onlyinclude (which means the parent template may need to be updated as well.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I did it late at night and just interchanged, I missed it. I hate the misuse of <includeonly>. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the update. Can you go into more detail about the difference between onlyinclude and includeonly? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:21, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
<includeonly> only displays a component WHEN it is transcluded, and does not display it when it is NOT transcluded. <onlyinclude> always displays the component, and when the page is transcluded it only shows that tag component, not other content on the page that is outside of the tags. See mw:Help:Transclusionbillinghurst sDrewth 09:26, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:04, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-19

MediaWiki message delivery 00:36, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Author:George Bayldon

I've placed what little information I could find onto the Wikidata entry. He is listed as "Rev." on the title page of the one book he seems to have authored. I could not find him in the DNB, on Wikipedia, or in Wikidata. VIAF lists only the one book by him, and doesn't list him at any of the larger databases. IA likewise lists just the one book, but it's a significant one. Any additional information you can manage to find would be appreciated. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I notice the Czech database has biographical information apparently cited from a 2015 book The Victorian Parson by Barry Turner, so I've ordered a copy. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:39, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: All done => Author talk:George Bayldon (1816-1900) and noting that the 1874 Crockford's lists more than one book — billinghurst sDrewth 00:41, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Happy, how to say what this star represents?

 


I'm very happy about you and had no time to express it, so I try this image.

Congrats, and lots of thanks: so many tools that you have taught me how to use, so many ingenious solutions for transmitting texts in so many different languages, does this image tell how solid and always present your help has been?

--Zyephyrus (talk) 19:55, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

G'day @Zyephyrus:. Not sure what I have done that has you smiling today, though thanks for taking the time to connect and to let me know that I am having some success in my efforts to enabling us all to have a bigger, interesting, participative interwiki of Wikisources. I cannot take credit for the knowledge, as it will have been handed to me by many, and I thank them for their generosity. Though I suppose that I have done some of the interpretation for novel solutions—some winners, some losers—and it is great when we can try, and through consensus, get to better outcomes. And again thanks for reaching out.  billinghurst sDrewth 22:15, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-20

MediaWiki message delivery 21:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-21

16:55, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Copyright status of Constitutions

Hi, I was trying to transcribe some constitutions on Wikisource and just wanted to make sure that these sources https://web.archive.org/web/20200724123709/https://confinder.richmond.edu/admin/docs/Chile.pdf and https://en.gouv.mc/Gouvernement-et-Institutions/Les-Institutions/La-Constitution-de-la-Principaute would fit the requirement for the PD-EdictGov template. Thanks. Constdoc (talk) 07:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

@Constdoc: For works published by governments in English, it is pretty easy to say yes PD-GovEdict. For original works in another language, then a third party translation, then yes if the translation is out of copyright , and no if the translation is within copyright, see Wikisource:Translations and {{translation licence}} where we need yes and yes. If there is no pubished translation, then we can host a Wikisource-generated translation, per previous link. To note that for copyright questions, typically we would use WS:S for opinions fro the community.— billinghurst sDrewth 09:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-22

MediaWiki message delivery 22:03, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Template:Table class/3184136.css

It was both the talk page and the unused stylesheet that should be deleted. I can't mark the stylesheet for deletion directly, hence I used the talk page instead. Thanks regardless. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that if you comment the line, then use {{sdelete}} that it has some effect. It definitely makes it obvious that it needs removing. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:05, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I'd also like to request some kind of mentoring, Please see my talk page for the reasons. I might need some help in determining what's considered 'disruptive' when it comes to mass editing.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:08, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
I am not the person to assist. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

June 2023 to do

DNB contributor

  • DNB contributor
  • DNB contributor 2ndSupp
  • DNB contributor 3rdSupp
  1. need to ensure that all data is present on author pages
  2. push "contributor to creative work" / "biographer" / "initials"
  3. construct the QS components (see if we can do anything with harvest tool first)

Petscan / QS pushes

billinghurst sDrewth 23:49, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-23

MediaWiki message delivery 22:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Files and fix

The “missing pages” have been interspersed among San Kuo, Volume 1. The “Hudson” files are now superfluous to Index:Arthur Rackham (Hudson).pdf. The “fix” edit was because your edit broke the page, which you would have noticed if you looked at it. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:39, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

  • The “Wells 8” files have been incorporated into The Works of H.G. Wells (Atlantic Edition), vol. 8. The other file was created in response to a copyright discussion, for which see. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 16:27, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
    @TE(æ)A,ea.: Does that mean that they are now able to be deleted? I am not certain how to interpret a comment into discrete action. If they use is now complete, then they can be marked with {{sdelete}} and a comment. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:02, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
    • I don’t want to put the template on all of the files, because that would take some time. The San Kuo, “Hudson” and “Wells 8” images can be deleted. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 20:42, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
    @TE(æ)A,ea.: It is both a WS and a WMF requirement that all of our files have their source and copyright information. If they are truly temporary files, then we need for you to actively manage them, not set and forget. We are not in a solitary and personal sandbox, the information needs to be complete, or obvious to others what is happening or needs to happen. Temporary files can have the same {{information}} file and instruction on whey they can be deleted. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-23

MediaWiki message delivery 22:51, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Author:William Delisle Hay

The databases are divided over the birth year of this author. Are you able to sort out the discrepancy? Three database entries are linked on the Wikidata item d:Q33671477, and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database gives another layer of sources where the others do not. But it isn't clear which (if any) of those sources give an actual birth year or date. At least one of the cited sources is from 1851 (the year given in the Lib. of Congress) whereas the Speculative Fiction site gives a date of 1853. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:24, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: Definitely 1853 birth. Definitely not 1885 death. I can see indication that alive in 1896, though nothing after, and nothing evident for a date of death in England or Wales. Last known publication in 1887 tends to indicate that a 18890s death most likely, though that could have been anywhere if they were unwell and seeking a healing clime. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:35, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-24

MediaWiki message delivery 14:51, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-25

MediaWiki message delivery 20:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

note to self (regex)

/{{Co[^\/]+?/Volume (\d+)/Issue (\d+)/(.*)/g
{{US Congressional Record link|volume=$1|issue=$2|link=$3|article={{subst:#titleparts:$3||-1}}}}

Weird Tales

I note that in Weird Tales/Volume 2/Issue 3/The Sign from Heaven, you said "we do not drill down to month with the year parameter" - is that rule stated anywhere? (I was just following the way that earlier stories in that issue had been done).

Also, you removed that story from the category "1923 works" - is the policy that only the issues of periodicals go in that sort of category, not the stories within an issue? I don't see any issue of Weird Tales appearing in that category. -- Beardo (talk) 22:51, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

@Beardo: Year is year per template:header, if it is done elsewhere with month in the year then it is wrong and should be fixed. I saw this case as it appeared in my watchlist in one of my watched categories for needing fixing. Re categories of works by year, we do it by the parameter, not manually. At the moment, the only manual 'YYYY works we do is where we have translated works and we add the original language date to pair with the parameter used for the English language work. If you think that this is something that the community should review, then please address it to the community at WS:S. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-26

MediaWiki message delivery 16:18, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-27

MediaWiki message delivery 22:51, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Need your input on a policy impacting gadgets and UserJS

Dear interface administrator,

This is Samuel from the Security team and I hope my message finds you well.

There is an ongoing discussion on a proposed policy governing the use of external resources in gadgets and UserJS. The proposed Third-party resources policy aims at making the UserJS and Gadgets landscape a bit safer by encouraging best practices around external resources. After an initial non-public conversation with a small number of interface admins and staff, we've launched a much larger, public consultation to get a wider pool of feedback for improving the policy proposal. Based on the ideas received so far, the proposed policy now includes some of the risks related to user scripts and gadgets loading third-party resources, best practices for gadgets and UserJS developers, and exemptions requirements such as code transparency and inspectability.

As an interface administrator, your feedback and suggestions are warmly welcome until July 17, 2023 on the policy talk page.

Have a great day!

Samuel (WMF), on behalf of the Foundation's Security team 23:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-28

MediaWiki message delivery 19:53, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Criminal Law Act 1977

It seems that WS:MOS mentioned nothing about deprecating Roman numerals in subpage titles (and before 2001), so did you amended them to make them more understandable?廣九直通車 (talk) 05:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@廣九直通車: Help:Subpagesbillinghurst sDrewth 07:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Many thanks for your explanation.廣九直通車 (talk) 08:08, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

w:template:if

check to see if this is readily usable and understandable so we can look to manage some of the redlink mess that some are creating. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

template:if   Done yes — billinghurst sDrewth 03:13, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-29

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

centering tables

What is the current method preferred for centering tables, as I gather that align="center" will be going away? --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Billinghurst/styles for index cssbillinghurst sDrewth 10:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't see anything there that would center a table on a page (unless I'm missing it), though I do see things that would align items within table cells in various ways. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:21, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
margin: auto; keeps a table centered; text-align: center; centres text — billinghurst sDrewth 00:36, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
also used in {{table style}} — billinghurst sDrewth 00:38, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. The list at {{table style}} is lengthy, organized alphabetically, and relies on the user to figure things out for themselves. The only things I've used that template for is formatting cell content because I had no idea it was useful beyond that. It practically needs a manual for anyone to use it, but lacks one. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:03, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it has bloat, primarily of those who think that that facsimile of a book is required. We should be looking to use the respective index: css as they don't suffer the issues of template bloat. However, I have given up that battle, apart from the occasional acerbic comment. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-30

MediaWiki message delivery 02:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-31

MediaWiki message delivery 23:54, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

PD or Fair Use

Hi! I noticed that you have uploaded:

  1. File:Andy_Warhol_Foundation_v._Goldsmith,_opinion_of_Justice_Kagan,_page_6_image.jpg
  2. File:Andy_Warhol_Foundation_v._Goldsmith,_opinion_of_the_Court,_Figure_5-1.jpg
  3. File:Andy_Warhol_Foundation_v._Goldsmith,_opinion_of_the_Court,_Figure_5-4.jpg

You added a PD-license + a {{do not move to Commons}}. If the file is PD it could be moved to Commons. If it is copyrighted then perhaps add {{Fair Use}} instead? --MGA73 (talk) 18:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@MGA73: Comment: Wikisource does not allow fair use, per WS:WWI and WS:CP. I've nominated {{Fair Use}} for deletion as a misleading and apparently useless template. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Sigh. These are clearly and obviously (and speediably) not PD. Even if it wasn't obvious on the face of it that Andy Warhol's paintings are not PD (ditto the photo he used as a reference, of which the painting is a derivative work), the images are extracted from a SCOTUS case that says they are protected by copyright, and that not even the asserted fair use defence by AWF was valid. The only person who thinks they are PD is the one who uploaded them to Commons, as with the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. case, because they for some reason think the court's fair use inclusion of a third-party copyrighted work somehow magically means Justice Kagan painted Andy Warhol's pictures and that Justice Souter wrote the lyrics for Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman. Xover (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Xover: And per that discussion on Commons, which you still refuse to acknowledge, they are in the public domain. If you try to delete stuff like this (again), save the trouble and start another discussion. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  Comment I just moved them over from Commons where they were deleted. I had meant to do more with the process, just too many tasks and too many distractions, and not currently at home so limited screens/tools is a right PITA. This conversation belongs on WS:CV or WS:CV. [While I do not think that we should individually carry copyrighted work, where it is evidence in a court case, and reproduced in that sense in something equivalent to enWP's fair use, then we may have that consideration BUT we also say that anything can be reproduced, so it needs that conversation of the nuance--but not here on my talk page.] — billinghurst sDrewth 01:57, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Template:United States Executive Branch Navbox edits

I am aware that it is common practice to remove redlinks, however, you have fundamentally altered the template to a point where it does not look or act in a way that is compliant with standard Wikimedia formatting. Multiple links to subpages of portals have the name of the main page where it is not necessary, the sections which display the names of the departments are far larger than they should be (which is the reason I used </br>), and the formatting of the list of subdivisions of the departments are encapsulated within blocks which are visually unappealing and take up far more space than necessary. While I created the template, your modifications, while removing the redlinks, have drastically changed the template and its functioning for the worse. I reach out to you to notify you of this problem, and I request that you improve the formatting, as you are far more knowledgeable on common practice of not only standard formatting but also wikitext where I feel you would be far superior as one to solve this problem than I. I thank you for your proactivity and attempts at improvement, but I also request you take reparational steps for your actions. Thank you. VGPaleontologist (talk) 19:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC).

template artefact, fixed. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:12, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-32

MediaWiki message delivery 21:20, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-33

MediaWiki message delivery 05:59, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Constitution for the Federation of Earth

Dear Billinghurst, VRT is in contact with the World Constitution and Parliament Association and they claim this constitution to be public domain as government work of the World Government. I'm not sure is this is an acceptable claim, and/or if the WCPA is eligible to make such definitions. Please advise if you think this is sufficient to keep the mentioned article, or what exactly we should request from them. --Krd (talk) 14:23, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@Krd: Thanks. We just need the work suitably licensed for Commons or English Wikisource, whichever is going to host the work. If the publisher is putting it into the public domain / making freely available, then excellent news. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-34

15:25, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Academic Journal

Hi @Billinghurst, I want to ask about the journal that can be in the Wikisource. Can you show the path the academic journal is requested to be in the Wikisource. Thank you! Maqa001 (talk) 15:24, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

@Maqa001: There is no specific path, any public domain journal simply needs to meet our inclusion criteria per WS:What Wikisource includes. Depending on how it meets that criteria may put some process in place to demonstrate or to otherwise put a work in the public domain. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:32, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for answer. I see Works created before 1928 is this meaning that i cannot create a academic journal which published 2017 even the Publisher and Copyrighter want to the Journal to be in WikiSource? Maqa001 (talk) 15:38, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
You have misread that, prior to 1928, all works are in the public domain in the US per {{PD-US}}. Works after that need to meet other criteria. If you are talking circa 2017, typically such a work would be creative commons or similar. See what tag the author wishes the work to be from the guidance at help:Copyright tags. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:49, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
My user talk page is not the best spot for this conversation, as I am only one opinion. Typically we would encourage conversations about contributions of a journal and copyright to be at WS:Scriptorium or WS:CVbillinghurst sDrewth 15:50, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your attention and information! Maqa001 (talk) 06:55, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-35

MediaWiki message delivery 14:00, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-36

MediaWiki message delivery 23:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Equality Act (H.R. 5; 117th Congress)

Were there actual pages and index for the Equality Act of 2021 anywhere ? I notice that there are now a number of broken redirects following your deletion of pages, and also see that Equality Act (H.R. 5; 117th Congress) is showing an error. -- Beardo (talk) 17:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

All fixed. Special:prefixindex is your friend, well that and forcing some cache fixes. Thanks for the ping. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:29, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

A Naval Biographical Dictionary problems

I was looking into Category:Pages transcluding nonexistent sections when I noticed a lot of page from A Naval Biographical Dictionary showing up there. It uses {{Naval Biographical Dictionary}} for some automation of the header and transclusion; but it looks like there are a lot of cases of mismatch between the section labels used in the Page: pages and the subpage name used when transcluded. Specifically it looks like the contributor tried to use an "Addendum: " prefix in both labels and page names for entries in the work's addendum, but was inconsistent in applying both. In any case, all the entries showing up in that category are various kinds of broken and my stack is a bit deep just now. Any chance you could take a look?

My thought was to just drop the "Addendum: " prefix entirely, in both labels and page names, because it looks unneeded and makes things a lot more complicated than it needs to be. But I'm neither familiar with this particular work nor the biographical dictionaries in general, so I'm not confident in that assessment. Xover (talk) 07:40, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Done. They were all duplicate transclusions, it seems that I had fixed those gaps previously as they appeared missing in the indexes. Fixed the errors in the others. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-37

MediaWiki message delivery 21:07, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Page:Horse_shoes_and_horse_shoeing.djvu/37

Hi,

The reference in this contains unterminated P tags (and it looks to be a semi-formatted plainlist anyway, The situation here was why {{pbri}} and {{blockref}}) existed as possible work-arounds. However, given your concerns expressed elsewhere, I was wanting to ask what you felt a stable repair to this would be. I can of course ignore these if you think there isn't one. (Aside: I had been using {{*/s}} {{*/i}} {{*/e}} as work-around for list-limitations in certain situations, that may help if the nominal 'list' extends across multiple follows.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 05:13, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that you should fuss it. It is displaying perfectly finely, and every browser known will happily deal with it, and the internet is never going to break due to <p>. Nothing will break with how it is displayed, and creating fake workarounds to "trick" the lint filter to do something different because cite is broken is completely the wrong way around it and will never get Extension:Cite resolved. Wrong semantic approach.

Don't be driven by the creators of the lint filter to do unproductive work. There are many more broken things that actually need people to look at and fix, rather than fuss such inane editing. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:59, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Now I can actually agree with you on that. Cite (or the parser) needs fixing to cope with block based-refs. However I'm not holding my breath on this, given that took over 6 years for a phabricator ticket I raised on some linter based concern.
For now I can safely ignore <P> in the linter results.
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:43, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
On a different issue, do you have any experience with writing regular expressions to look for the situation of a non-html tag appearing as one mistakanely in dumped OCR? It would be nice to when de-linting Page:'s with, Missing Tags, between those that are ''' or '' pairing issues and those that are a<bsolutely<nowiki></code> <code><nowiki>m<istakes in the OCR (The latter being a situation that also arose at Latin Wikisource where the bracketing used for reconstructions was in the original text.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:43, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

A concern -

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Page:In_a_Glass_Darkly_-_v1.djvu/11&diff=next&oldid=12905327

Here an edit you made put the noinclude portions into the body. What went wrong? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:21, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Found with the following search - https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2F%5C%3C%5Cnoinclude%5C%3E%5C%3C%5C%2Fnoinclude%5C%3E%5C%3C%5Cnoinclude%5C%3E%5C%3C%5C%2Fnoinclude%5C%3E%2F+-insource%3A%2Fpagequality+level%5C%3D%5C%22%5B0%5D%5C%22%2F&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns104=1&ns114=1 ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Clearly looks like a HotCat gadget and ProofreadPage not playing nicely together. See the edit summary. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:40, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes. I read that as well. Is there a "feasible" repair for this, as all it seems to do at present is give a dual validation bar. (Aside: I found the above concern because I was attempting to find Pages with no-content that weren't marked as ql-0. I had not yet found a reliable regexp to do that. ) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
I am not here to help you search for non-problems, or things that are inconsequential. Please concentrate on fixes that have true value. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:54, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
The reason I was attempting to find 'blank' pages not marked as ql-0 was because in de-linting a page here,
Page:Vedic Grammar.djvu/60 I was reading back through other pages in that work, and found some scan pages with content, where the equivalent Page: was blank. The plan was to do an OCR/initial cleanup of those pages. Adding cleaned up pages is hardly inconsequential. But you've managed to convince me otherwise. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:04, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Delinting is primarily aimed at Wikipedias and their content ready pages. We are simply not that case example here due to our different processes, page status, etc. Until delinter is designed and fine-tuned for us, it is only a guide for what we can do and where problems exist. It should not be driving what we do, just assisting and informing for a small part of what could be wrong. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:21, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-38

MediaWiki message delivery 19:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

tosection vs onlysection

These are not equivalent. Please don't substitute one for the other without making sure it has the intended result.

Also, please do not strip dates from the header of works. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:58, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Again, please do not transclude willy-nilly into the mainspace text that should not be so transcluded. onlysection and tosection are not equivalent. This is a serious lapse. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:18, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Header and section repairs...

Thank you. Do you have a list of other 'high visibility' repairs that whilst time consuming would not need significant debate? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:54, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Authors and other parameters of the headers in works' chapters

I have noticed that you remove various parameters like "author" or "portal" from the headers of chapters of works. It is much better when people can see the authors (incl. translators) of a work in the top of every chapter without the necessity of going to the title page to find it out. I do not think that easier maintenance can justify such inconvenience, so I would like to ask you not to remove them. It can be useful to have there other parameters like portals too, although it is probably not as important as authors are. -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:55, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-39

MediaWiki message delivery 16:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-40

MediaWiki message delivery 01:26, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Extra vertical bars

Hello. Some time ago you were replacing templates like {{al|Karel Čapek|Čapek}} and {{pol|Sokol|Sokols}} and others for [[Author:Karel Čapek|Čapek]] and [[Portal:Sokol|Sokols]] etc., but there was often an extra vertical bar left, like here or here. I have already corrected a few of these, but I suspect there could be many more. Could your bot check it, please? -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:32, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Another one spotted. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:14, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-41

MediaWiki message delivery 14:39, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-42

MediaWiki message delivery 23:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-43

MediaWiki message delivery 23:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

On the excellence of tracking cats over doomscrolling recent changes :)

File:Contemporary English Woodcuts (1922) illustration 18.png is still missing from Contemporary English woodcuts (I'm guessing it just slipped by when you fixed the others, but I didn't look beyond seeing it was missing). Xover (talk) 05:37, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

  Done thx — billinghurst sDrewth 11:56, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-44

MediaWiki message delivery 23:21, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Talk page archiving

My user talk page is getting a bit long, and my understanding is that you have a bot available that could produce talk page discussion archives? Would you be able to set this up for me? Thank you. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:05, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull Done. @Billinghurst sorry to highjack your page, I was fixing errors in archiving pages. Mpaa (talk) 21:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-45

MediaWiki message delivery 21:05, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. And thanks for fixing the reference error. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Do we have any more information on the translators? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I do not know how many times I need to tell you keep out of the way of other people's active editing. I am fixing up complex mucked up refs, and you go an do that piddly pissant edit that just fucks up what I am doing. KEEP OUT OF THE WAY and stop with the pointless and valueless edits. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:39, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Is there a relatively simple backlog, that wouldn't be pointless to work on, that will not conflict your appreciated efforts? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:50, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Are you truly that tone deaf? Please go and play away from my talk page. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:05, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-46

MediaWiki message delivery 23:52, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Author:Rebekah Crockett Kading

This author page has just appeared on the orphaned page list. I guess that a page that previously linked there has been deleted.

Do you recall anything about her ? -- Beardo (talk) 17:50, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Nope. Guessing it was a scientific paper that was up[loaded to Wikisource: namespace at one time. That is a different story. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:29, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
Odd that she had no works listed. Do we just leave her there as an orphaned page ? -- Beardo (talk) 14:12, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-47

MediaWiki message delivery 00:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Marcus Tullius Cicero/Letters

Mantioning orphaned pages, I notice that there are half a dozen pages of the form Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero/Letters/CCLXXXI etc which have no content or links. Are those pages wanted ? -- Beardo (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

If blank, then no. Give me a list and I will kill them. I don't remember the specifics, guessing that I moved them out of main ns. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:49, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
The others are:
They date from 2009. There may be others, but these are the ones which show up as orphaned. -- Beardo (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-48

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

deletion at test.wikipedia.org

Hi. Would you mind deleting this for me? "Category:Pywikibot Protect Test" at test.wikipedia.org [202]. Thanks Mpaa (talk) 21:23, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

already   Donebillinghurst sDrewth 00:05, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. The category was supposed to stay one these pages (User:Sn1per/ProtectTest1 and User:Sn1per/ProtectTest2), so these actions [203] and [204] should be reverted. If you could add me as admin, I will stop bothering you. Mpaa (talk) 10:10, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
OK, someone else re-added the category on pages, so nothing to be done. Anyhow, request for admin is still valid. Mpaa (talk) 15:14, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
@Mpaa:. I m not a 'crat, speak to one of the active users at https://meta.toolforge.org/stewardry/testwiki?bureaucrat=1billinghurst sDrewth 23:30, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-49

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Global IP block exempt status on Commons

Hello! I am wondering whether it would be possible (and appropriate) for you to give my alt account User:Beleg Âlt "IP block exempt" status on Commons. When I am using my alt account, my Internet is usually routed via Azure, which is globally blocked as an open proxy. I hope that I am trustworthy enough to be permitted this access :) (I've already given my alt this status on enWS, but editing enWS without Commons access is rather limiting as I'm sure you are aware) —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 14:39, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

PS Koavf had some questions when I made a similar request about Wikidata, so I'll give you the answers I gave them: I'm asking you because you're the Commons admin I interact with the most, and the most active Commons admin on enWS; and also I can't ask on Commons directly from this account because of the global IP block, and I keep forgetting to do so from my own account at home :) —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 14:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
@Beleg Tâl: Done, for 5 years. Zero issue, all the right does is reinstate the status quo, which is never an issue for a trusted user, and entirely the purpose of the right assignation. Trusted users should just need to say that face an IP block, and no need to explain further. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:11, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-50

MediaWiki message delivery 02:12, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

imagetransfer.py

Regarding this. imagetransfer.py was broken for a while due to MW and API changes, but through the patches in T267535 and T300531 it should be working again (I last checked at the start of November). pwb.py imagetransfer -lang:commons -family:commons "File:The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories - Forster (1912).djvu" -tolang:en -tofamily:wikisource -keepname -force_if_shared. If the file is over 100MB add -asynchronous -chunk_size:20480 (20MB chunks, adjust as needed; 4096 through 20MB are all reasonable sizes, others will probably work but may have unexpected side-effects).

I happen to have a terminal window with PWB open always for other reasons, so this is fairly convenient for me. Your mileage may vary if you primarily use AWB for bulk changes or whatever. Xover (talk) 07:40, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-51

MediaWiki message delivery 16:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Request

Any ideas on who Author:A. Donald Rahn is? PseudoSkull (talk) 00:59, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Possibly Angelo Donald Rahn b. 1871? MarkLSteadman (talk) 22:59, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
It is, I just don't currently have access to my (semi-dead) PC with all my research tools. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

What's good for the goose...

Considering your previously expressed stance, I thought it interesting to observe that you just renamed every single image in c:Category:The Gentle Grafter (1908) despite them obviously having an extant naming schema—one consistent across all the many works in this series—as well as making entirely pointless substitutions of {{c}} → {{center}}, {{di}} → {{dropinitial}}, {{rh}} → {{RunningHeader}}, etc. without so much as a by-your-leave. I'd be happy to discuss optimal naming schema for this, but the extant schema was deliberately chosen and, absent persuasive arguments otherwise, my preferred schema. Xover (talk) 14:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I haven't changed the case of your titles, nor moved any of the pages, nor made any structural changes to the work, beyond file names (discussed next para), fixing a few typos and moving some formatting to the index: css.

The files were renamed per Commons naming criteria as over there the chosen names make little sense, and they make for no clear re-use nor ability to be found in the form that they were uploaded, with the only context being you know where to find them in a book of an edition. The purpose of Commons is to be more universal usage than the scope for, and single focus of, English Wikisource. The descriptions at Commons were also updated to add the missing text, context, and the short story names. I am happy to have that conversation over there about the naming of files.

Re the template name expansion, I have been doing that since somewhere 2010 to 2012. It also followed a conversation in WS:S about the way that we obscure template function with shortcut names, and the having a better practice than the use of often unobvious/ambiguous/confusing of redirect template names. It is scripted, so it was of zero effort produces no known fault. Think it started with hws/hwe pair, rh, among others. Happy to hear what problem it causes or why the conversion from the redirects is a problem. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I am curious which of the six reasons on Commons:File renaming was chosen for renaming these files, and how it is better to have them sort alphabetically by caption instead of by the order in which they appear in the book, especially since the containing category is for that book and the reason they were uploaded is to be illustrations from that book.
Descriptive names, and ideally images have more than one category. Please don't have your enWS blinkers on. I have already created an alphabetical listing in the directory if that is what is required. As mentioned, I am happy to have a Commons discussion at Commons. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:18, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
I have started a discussion there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
I assume that, should an editor here prepare and run a script that makes the changes {{center}} → {{c}}, {{dropinitial}} → {{di}}, {{RunningHeader}} → {{rh}}, etc. you'd be OK with that, since running the script requires no effort and no error is introduced? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
I was validating pages, and made no unrequired edit. Please don't be unnecessarily provocative. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:14, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
But that's precisely the problem. You have made multiple unrequired edits, and will not own up to that fact. You've claimed that you renamed files "per Commons naming criteria", but your actions contradict Commons renaming policy. You've now implied that the edits you made in validating were required, but in fact they were not. It is not required that template redirects be replaced with the template name itself. The entire reason that we have the redirects is to use them. I'm getting the sense that you're increasingly out of step with current practices and norms on Wikisource. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:22, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
I validated every page, just the one edit when validating. All those changes occurred in the same edit. I am running essentially the same script that i have run for ten years. I have not changed the context of those pages, nor the templates when validating. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:35, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
I have definitely not contradicted Commons naming practices, and will happy have that conversation at Commons. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:38, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I haven't changed the case of your titles, nor moved any of the pages, nor made any structural changes to the work is effectively a strawman. I made no mention of such changes, and it should be obvious to anyone that my reference to the precious conversation was by way of analogy. I was pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of your complaining in that case about not respecting the original contributor's choices but here you have made far more fundamental changes for, at best, marginal subjective benefit.
The original file names were clearly deliberately chosen, were internally consistent, logical and descriptive, and according to a broader schema for the series. In those cases the policy for file moves on Commons is to not rename them arbitrarily to a different schema (and a file mover on Commons would get their bit revoked for doing it). That you prefer a different schema is fine (no schema is perfect), but that's a reason to raise a discussion about it, not to unilaterally rename them to suit your preference. In particular, you do know the way to my talk page and know that I am active so at least dropping a quick note there would not have been an undue burden. I also think deflecting discussions about this to Commons is pretty disingenuous since you clearly made the changes as part of the work to validate a text here on enWS.
That you have been running this script that expands template names for a decade does not actually make it better. The changes have, at best, hypothetical value and any value assigned to it will in any case be subjective; and that value will be offset by similar negative impact (I do actually choose these things deliberately and for a reason). It is also an argument at odds with your oft-repeated stance that we should respect the original contributor's stance, which was the point I was trying to make. I've proofread 7 of O. Henry's collections, and plan to do the remaining 10, and have put effort into making them consistent where possible. For you to come in and cherry-pick one of them where you see fit to transform it to match your preference is pretty disrespectful of that "original contributor". If you had an actual issue with some of my choices there (always possible, I've no delusions of perfection) the respectful thing to do would be raise it with me on some related talk page. Don't let's blow the importance of the template changes here out of proportion—as you say, it makes no big difference for functionality or presentation—but it does irk me somewhat out of proportion to its actual importance due to the context. Xover (talk) 14:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)