RaboKarbakian

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February 2025
Towards a New Architecture

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• User:RaboKarbakian/Trial and error

Big beautiful book projects

First of all, I’ve sent for the book. Hopefully it will be sent, but if it’s rare enough it might not be. [I myself own a few of the old readers, but not this 1930 example.] I have been dealing with “book projects,” but unfortunately not much in the way of “big beautiful.” Lots of text, not a lot of images. And when there are images, they are not all that interesting. Your three other Rackhams have been sitting in unprocessed requests because they’re all too rare and won’t come out of special collections. For your scanning example, I would recommend scanning in a (small) public-domain book as an example, as I don’t quite understand your explanation and wouldn’t want you to needlessly violate the law. For some of the Rackhams, I’ve been waiting on SnowyCinema to develop his QuickProofread system, which would really help with, e.g., The Castle Inn (one image, 371 pages of novel). Most of my scanning right now is developed towards a book with a lot of images, although they’re not all that interesting: Japanese, the U.S. government’s official, 21-volume guide to the language. I’m going to combine all of the volumes into one part once I’m finished with scanning. The only other of my recent uploads (I’m a little behind on it because I keep finding new projects) is Index:Compendium Maleficarum.djvu—there are already images on Commons, but they’re not very good. I can upload the images if you would be interested. Another thing I almost forgot: a few years ago, I sent in requests for a number of Rackham’s early works in Little Folks, but they’ve been ignored for a while. I asked my ILL contact to put them through again, and one came back! File:Reginald's Comic Song (The Songs of Simple Simon).pdf. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:16, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

In these last few years, when I can understand the "not letting the old books into the public" (Raggedy Ann's Alphabet Book had blue crayon scribbles throughout), I have been imagining going to these universities and scanning them while there.

The scans at Hathi, some of them are from a university close to me and while they are good scans for the text, they are terrible for the images. How they got to Hathi is left to the imagination except for the watermarks that were left on them. It looks like a big google project. And the scans are consistent and can be easily deconstructed because of this consistency. But the beautiful books; the image heavy books, and especially the important books like Fun with Dick and Jane and the Little House books--in the late 1990s my friend had a scanner that would scan 1200dpi. She, and later me, were so new to computers then; and the home computers then were also really cranky about working with files that large. 600dpi is great! 1200dpi for Dick and Jane seems like a good idea though, when you think of the generations that learned from them; the Roosevelt and Eisenhauer youth. Probably they stopped using them, but maybe not. I have no idea how little kids learn to read these days. But, I ramble.

I can well imagine small groups in a wikimedia project, touring their local universities, armed with disposable white gloves, having appointments with the universities libraries and one of the great scanners there and rescanning the beautiful books that are there.

The magazines too! Every magazine I spend time with here, I find something very interesting in the ads. Example: "101 ways to use a pencil" back when they were a new invention, for example. What a great document that must be! Maybe somewhere at that company (which still exists and makes pencils) has an old copy of it.

Inside, I piff a bit when I see kids stuff, it is an AdultExceptionalism. The child inside piffs a bit also, because the new stuff isn't Captain Kangaroo (CaptKangarooExceptionalism?). When I was working on the books that I thought were PD, I started to remember the Captain reading them to me; feeling so sad when Choo Choo lost his tender. Those were formative years where I really wanted to learn to read. I never knew that there were Raggedy Ann books, but along with that patent, I discovered an industry. Who knew? My piffs are not so loud any longer. At the least, Dick and Jane deserve a good publicly available scan.

Big books! I got a handful of Watty Piper books that were too big for my scanner before I had the idea for the top and bottom scanning and I turned them back. I should get those back and scan them now; refine the script. I am pretty sure I made a djvu of Katy and the Big Snow, it was rough but useable.

I will do whatever images you need, happily. I am going to download that Little Folks pdf today. I am going to keep imagining going to Calvin University and scanning Dick and Jane. My dutch friend never heard of Calvin; I was surprised. Also, good to know that Snowy hasn't completely disappeared.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:28, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

• He’s been a bit on-and-off lately, but he’s definitely still around. Most of the books on HathiTrust are imported from Google Books, which allows more ready attribution to the universities from which the books were scanned. The scanner I used years ago had dedicated DPI settings, but it was a lot harder to scan actual books, as opposed to loose pieces of paper. The new scanner, which is the freely available one at the local college, had generically named “Standard,” “High,” and “Photo” levels—I scan the text in “High” PDF, and the images in “Photo” TIFF. You could probably figure out what those levels of quality mean by looking at the scans. Funnily enough about the white gloves, the practice on that has changed: unless the books is metallic or poisonous, you’re not supposed to use them. For the newspaper letters, you’d be surprised what they let go. I just got to see a letter from Coca-Cola, urging businesses to keep buying their products—despite the reduced sugar content, done to help with the war effort. Despite how cool it is, and how big the company is, they don’t actually have a copy of it! The nice thing about the books in general collections is that they’ll be shipped out—that’s how I got Sterrett’s Arabian Nights, after all, although was in somewhat poorly condition. I had a book shipped for one of the items on my requests page, and it’s unfortunately just too large for my scanner. The images are in Category:Compendium Maleficarum images. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 18:31, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
• Another one, from the same issue: File:The Maker of Ghosts and the Maker of Shadows, 2 (April 1896).pdf. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

We did this one already The Land of Enchantment/The Maker of Ghosts and the Maker of Shadows. It is good to have the issue date!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 11:47, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

I am right now very confused about Little Folks from USA and Little Folks from Britain. I am thinking that these two (three if you count the first Simple Simon) are from the British mag due to authors/illustrators and the date which is a year before wikipedia claims that the American LF started. I guess I need confirmation before I start making and moving things.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

• RaboKarbakian: Based on metadata from the actual scan I was shipped, it’s the British one. In any case, Rackham would have had no connection with the United States at this early date. Also, for “The Maker of Ghosts,” I put the “2” in the title because it’s the second part (the first part having been published in an earlier issue). TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 13:35, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
• Two more Rackham Little Folks items: File:The Terrible Trouble of Forty Winks.pdf (the last part of “The Maker of Ghosts”) and File:The Mines of Experience.pdf (in two parts). TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:48, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I have uploaded djvus. Index:The Mines of Experience-1896.djvu and Index:The Terrible Trouble of Forty Winks.djvu--I feel clueless about how to deal with them here and at wikidata. I rarely feel this much cluelessness. I still need to do the images for Forty-Winks but I am pretty sure that the images from the book are better than anything I can do with the pdf. I am going to work on the Art Songs, which I am the regular amount of clueless about.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 16:48, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Also, could you create the three images (1, 2, 3) from Art Songs of Japan, please? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

That "2" is music notation; are you sure you want that via pixel manipulation?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 19:15, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

• Yes; unlike the music in the rest of the book, which is intended to be read, this music is just advertisement for other sheet music. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I accidentally chopped about "an inch" of the cover off when I was working on this. If you find it to be too annoying, I can surely put the two pieces back together. And of course, the wikisourcerer musicians do not do adverts here!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 16:48, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Your images (for Art Songs) look fine; I didn’t even notice the crop. I’ve just finished proofreading the two new Rackham Little Folks indices, but I’ve left the transclusion for you as well as I see that you have begun putting these works under the work title. I noticed the images for the Compendium Maleficarum pages which I have proofread; could you add the illustrated border to the image on the title page, please? I have finally finished scanning the text of my longest-running project (21 vols.), and now just need to scan the images from the last volume in high quality. I also need to go back and get some of the volumes I had scanned, as the copy from which I scanned was missing a few pages. Then, I just need to find a way to combine 5,000-odd pages’ worth of PDFs…. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:23, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

About Art Songs: when I looked at the IA cropped image (included in the djvu) apparently they cropped at the same place. Also, the line at that edge is on the original and is only close to where I accidentally cropped (yes, a little defensive here) and truly on the original. Anyway, it has been repaired/fixed and is good now.

About Little Folks: I did the image for Forty Winks and it looks pretty good for having started with a bitonal scan. That being said, there is something between me and commons right now and I will get to them as soon as I have direct access, which will not be today. Without the Volume number, I feel like I am well, to quote an old joke "farting in the general direction of" where to put those. So, I will start my day with them, not end it and that should help some with my disorientation. Pretty silly, I guess but there you go.

TE(æ)A,ea. So, I woke up this morning certain I would find the volume information in the Rackham bibliography. I did not find it, then I screwed up the Compendium index and now I learn (and should have known) that The Mines has two additional images. I am frustrated and also being frustrating! So, two more images and I really should check that other bibliography (it had a better listing iirc.) So, sorry and sorry and better days to everyone!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• I checked both bibliographies that we have (Latimore and Haskell, 1936 and Rota in Hudson, 1960), but neither gives the volume and issue information. Latimore and Haskell has more detailed information on each item, while Rota has very minimal information but his list is more complete. (I would also like to go through and try to Wiki-link the references in these two lists, like you’ve done for the books in Latimore and Haskell.) TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:59, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that border! Things were working more bad than the usual on that computer. When I tried to reboot, there was an mDNS job that was preventing it. Not being online or on the internet at all, I got pretty frustrated with this and have started removing software. Anyway, soon with that too! Thanks for the reminder.

I think that pdf job sounds just great! Especially as the scanning is already done. Let me do it, please! 3 volumes at a time, we could get it done in 2 weeks or so I guess. I could work on that while you are scanning the images. Just volunteering.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:10, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

• I thank you for your volunteering! I still need to clean up the scan before I combine and upload it; there are a few pages missing here and there, and volume 2 probably needs to be completely re-done as the copy from which I was scanning was missing about 50 pages. For Little Folks, unfortunately little is known, and the existence of an American periodical of that name just makes things worse. I really need to finish it up next month; I hope, sooner rather than later. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
• I’ve finally combined the book: Index:Japanese.pdf. (5292 pages and 21 volumes—about a year and a quarter of scanning, on and off, altogether.) I have already uploaded some of the images here; I can upload the remaining images as an update to that listing, as that would probably be the easiest way of going about this. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 03:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

When you mentioned this project, 21 volumes in one file is something I did not imagine. I am so impressed that the wiki can handle it! Just to make sure, did you want the pdf to be 21 separate djvu?

I have bad news about all the computer here. They are all breached. I start them up and the $35 pi and the old clangy borrowed laptop, which both make much noise, stop making noise early in the boot process. It is creepy for me to use them like this and also, people think I am that stupid. It is not stupidity (not knowing) but ignorance (knowing and working with them anyways) that I am using either one of them. This is not a long no, but it is a not like this. The information that I have about who is on the other side of these hack is "spineless twits who will not or cannot ask before taking and who will not or cannot own their own actions". I cannot take on a big job like this with all the creepy I have here. Given more information, that feeling might change. So not "no" but "not in this situation".--RaboKarbakian (talk) 10:37, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• I’m fine without the DJVU files in this case, as I used PDF as it was more available. If you can work out the images separately that would be appreciated, but while the images are interesting they aren’t a huge demand. For that future time, by the way, would it work for me to upload them to the images directory on Internet Archive (the one that already has some of them)? The better to get them off of my computer. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 13:13, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

IA is fine. Downloadable in one file is really good! It would be nice for an option to download a zipped category from wikimedia sites! I've been paying google $20 a year so that I can provide files to be downloaded. I cannot recommend that. A very bad experience. But yes, IA is fine.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 13:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I don't know where in the distance between me and IA that people are pasting their faces into my work; but those images I looked at seemed to be not that kind of image.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:04, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• Could you create the few images from here? The other four issues don’t have any images. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 18:47, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
• I’ve just finished proofreading the text of Compendium Maleficarum; would you mind finishing up the images from it? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:47, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Duplicated ID's..

Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/391 You have a duplicated ID. This was why it was removed. Perhaps you can check your anchors are in fact unique over a transclusion?ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:18, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

ShakespeareFan00 You were right. It needed to be "on" but I changed everything to "lr". Not "wi" at all! Thanks for the check-up!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:23, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Strand Magazine

I realise the concept of who owns different texts on this site can be rather fraught, but I have put quite a lot of work into The Strand Magazine since becoming active on the site (and it's a text that I've worked on electronically in different forms and on different sites for 20 years (!) ), including creating the contents pages for the first 10 volumes, codifying the formatting styles, cropping processing and uploading the images for the first 6 volumes, and doing the vast majority of the proofreading on the project over the last three years (including completely proofreading and transcluding the first 31 issues). As a result, I do feel some sense of 'ownership' over the look and feel of The Strand Magazine.

As a result, I have reverted your edits to The Strand Magazine main page, which seem to have been in order to add a link to an alternate edition of a work which also appeared in The Strand Magazine in a different form (but the Strand Magazine version of which has not been proofread), and because you disagreed with the way I formatted the main page.

When we get around to proofreading the Strand Magazines version of that work, we will add it to The Strand Magazine page. Until then it will not appear. When it does appear, the link to The Strand Magazine's version can be put in the disambiguation page.

On the formatting of the main page, I consider that your change made it look materially worse. You may like 500 red links on a page, but I don't. There is some good work on some of the later volumes of Strand Magazine which I have been monitoring and which does need to be on the main page, but I need to properly write the contents pages for those editions so that it fits the formatting of the first 10 volumes.

I saw in the Scriptorium that you had a post about your ideas about how serial publications should look, and given the nature of the site there are a *lot* of moribund periodicals where I'm sure having a more consistent system is a good idea, but I'm currently quite happy with how the periodicals that *I'm* working on are looking, so I'll keep them the way they were until we have some much larger site-wide discussion about how periodicals should look (you can see on my user page which periodicals I'm currently working on - some purely as a contributor, and some as a higher-level organiser).

Qq1122qq (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Qq1122qq: It was (well, is) beautiful but it is not functional except as a presentation that makes it look as if there is nothing to be done there. It isn't the way of things here. One should be able to visit any journal here and expect to see approximately the same thing. That I can paste links to any first publication of a work any where except The Strand is weird and somewhat wrong. Hiding the red links is a en.wikipedia way but this is en.wikisource.

That was the third H. G. Wells original publication I found that came from The Strand. There are prolific people here who transcribe articles before the source is available here and keeping track of them is a pain. Almost every wikipedia rule I have butted heads with (on wiki that are not en.wikipedia) cause research to be researched and researched and researched.

I know I don't "own" magazines here, but I have recently been making many of them look like the existing magazines here. Also, the original work at the Strand was accomplished by a lot of people and kindly software, who are not you. Which involves a lot more than the formatting of the main page.

Please, two things!

1. Scriptorium#Magazines,_Newspapers_and_other_works_with_many_volumes comment or if your wikipedia ways are so strong "vote" there, where I told all of my plans and was open for comments.
2. Tell me of the already authored articles which exist below the namespace The Strand Magazine and when and how you found them and your plans for remembering them.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 11:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

   Thank you - I have replied to some of your thoughts in your post on the Scriptorium.

   I am very aware that the work on The Strand Magazine involves a lot of work other than formatting of the main page. Almost all of this (aside from the glory hunters who proofread the Sherlock Holmes stories) in volume 2-6 has been by me, at least in the last 2-3 years.

   On point (2), respectfully, I will be doing this myself. Qq1122qq (talk) 16:08, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Clipper of the Clouds / Master of the World

If Clipper of the Clouds was published in 1887, surely it can't include Maître du monde as that was not until 1904 ?

Also, wikipedia has the article without the leading "The" which matches the French title. Should it have "The" ? -- Beardo (talk) 19:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Beardo For sure you know more about this than I do. I am sorting through the mess at wikidata. "full work" pointing to a german translation. "open library" pointing to a 2003 spanish paperback edition. etc. I will remove the Clipper and move it to something "the-less".

wikidata is complaining because 1904 is greater than the last year of the publisher of Voyages Extraodi-something french. Do you know anything about that? I might just leave that for someone who knows French business or at least can speak french.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I really only know what I have read here and there. Clipper of the Clouds appears to be a tran;ation of Robur the Conqueror - and I guess there is confusion because some editions of Master of the World include both books.

According to w:Voyages extraordinaires, they continued up to 1905, (and beyond with works completed by Verne's son) - so that seems to be an error in wikidata. -- Beardo (talk) 20:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

For the publisher, like many companies, it was started by a person and used his name. But when he died, the publishing company continued. Almost all of the data are linking to that person so I am relinking to his company. That really happened often.

And yes, the son finished some and re-worked others. I am not sure how to reflect this at wikidata, and I really don't want to get involved with this now. It is a good research project for someone, though.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Author:Walter Noble Burns

I see that you noted him as Lebanese/American. According to wikipedia, he was born in w:Lebanon, Kentucky - I don't think that makes him Lebanese. -- Beardo (talk) 21:07, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Oops! I apparently read the wikidata entry without clicking on it to see which city. I am on an upload flurry and on a mobile device; can you fix that? It is clearly wrong. Thanks for finding it.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 21:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

Done. -- Beardo (talk) 22:39, 2 May 2025 (UTC)