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Announcements

Nomination for a bureaucrat

For the community to note that I have nominated one of the community to fill an extra role of a bureaucrat to English Wikisource. Please see Wikisource:Administrators#Nomination for bureaucrat — billinghurst sDrewth

Proposals

New Main Page format

I am proposing we change our main page to something like this:

Please see here

  1. I think this better illustrates the way our site functions
  2. A more dynamic look as new texts change, leaner.
  3. Can help promote validating new proofread text, showcase older, but newly validated texts.
    1. Validated and Proofread texts use existing {{New texts/item}} template; image changed maybe weekly or daily depending on volume.
      1. Note: texts in example are not either newly validated or proofread, just placeholders.
    2. images in new texts to make the page more aesthetic.
  4. Categories expanded, but condensed into the top.
  5. Collaboration
    1. CotW, with no opposition to it being continued in the future if/when editor help has grown, has been inactive and should be removed from the main page.
    2. PotM is active, but I think it is mainly by regular editors who don't need to see it on the main page, and would be just as successful on a Collaboration page or something, and like the CotW,no prejudice towards use in the Main page in the future.
  6. Condensed sister sites template.

Any modifications to what I have feel free to make and please let me know what you think; the main points of this proposal are to separate the new texts, and to remove the collaboration from it's own large cell, although they can exist as separate proposals if necessary :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:51, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I may be wrong here but from the bits and pieces I've read in passing to date, I don't believe there is much "room" to make such "changes" to the basic main_page layout irregardless of which foundation site is in question. I think the idea was to make at least that much uniform in appearance across all the sister-sites' opening main_pages. I believe that is also the reason why they have coded much of the html layout into shared CSS classes, ids, etc. — George Orwell III (talk) 22:03, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Every en Main page I've seen is different; Meta, Species, Books and Quote being in my opinion the most unique. They're all significantly different. - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for not being more clear -- and not meant to be insulting but to emphasize -- its not the content changes itself, it's about your editing practices and style approaches it seems.

Taking a closer look after putting my foot in my mouth once again first; you do seem to be following the existing premise and guide just fine. Yet, and this has been somewhat of a recurring theme with you, your layout looks like something bicycle-helmet wearing, keee-pads in the shower and most improved finger-painter 2002, 2003 & 2007, Corky came up with. Forgive the harsh comparision. I only wish to make it crystal clear to you that while you may "see" everything aligned and proportioned correctly in such cases; not everybody uses the same setup with the same browser, etc. as you use. Therefore, edits such as this example look far worse than it rightly deserves to... and that may be partly why some of your proposals are not intially recieved, for lack of a better term, "well" by some folks (see my 'foot-in-mouth' above for example & dbl-Sorry 'bout that.) — George Orwell III (talk) 22:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Ouch... no I'm kidding. What's most important to me is if you agree with the any or all concepts:

  1. retiring (at least for the time being) the PotM and CotW from the main page
  2. The separation of Validated and Proofread New texts and direct links to explanations.
  3. Combination of the header and subjects (similar to Wikipedia's header)
  4. Leaner sister project banner.
I'm not a developer, and I am quick to check on Chrome and IE and then figure everything is okay, but any changes to enhance usability and appearance I whole-heartily welcome. In my mind, we can at minimum remove the row with collaboration and categories, and without objection I think that should be done. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:27, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm involved today in Wikisource to the degree I am because one day I wandered on to the main page of Wikisource (weary of the wiki-drama elsewhere) and saw that the POTM was Grove's Dictionary. If it had not been on the main page I wouldn't have looked any further for such a project and probably wouldn't have become engaged with the project.
I'm also of the "no surprises" philosophy and prefer the current sister project layout. I frequently use it to navigate a new window to Commons or WP. I'd be reluctant too, to see the information about the other Wikisource language projects go. The English versions of the Wikimedia projects are often the first that people come to and then learn of other language projects and can investigate to see if their language is on the list. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the feedback Beeswaxcandle, regarding the language projects: are you talking about the links in the side bar for different languages, or the link to the old wikisource? The sister projects layout though, I don't understand what you mean by "no surprises;" this setup is already used by Wikibooks. I am totally glad that you're here; you're a great editor, but I still not convinced that PotM and CotW belong on the main page because of the chance that it grabbed you; I see a larger rotation of works both validated and proofread on the main page as having more potential in grabbing a passer-by. - Theornamentalist (talk) 10:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest that maybe the first part should be a philosophical discussion rather than a jump straight to the singular proposal. I don't think that (m)any are against reviewing the front page for functionality, though I can guess that numbers are not in line with your thinking. Personally, I find it narrowly focused proposal based on your limited experience with us, rather than a holistic view of what the site has been doing, and achieving. This site is more than the main page, though the main page is the avenue that many will have into the site, however, it is not the only avenue that people will have. I would suggest that people follow links, and also come via their user page or their watchlist. Your statements about the PotM, I would argue are without research or evidence, further I believe that the evidence would demonstrate that not only does it bring in newbies each month, it also is a place that our low-end regulars come to contribute their little bit for the site each month. Your proposal ignores the projects which I would argue are one of the demonstrated means of collaboration on this site and the only means to undertake large tasks and a demonstrated success. I would also argue that the switch from our previous more dynamic welcome messages, to the more static messages have not been helpful for the site. So I am not against a more dynamic front page, I just think that the proposal can do with further research of the prior iterations of the front page, and a holistic approach of how the site works, and the avenues of travel. I would also say that John Vandenberg has introduced topic matter on a more push approach to visitation. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right, I was likely guaranteeing no change by proposing too much at once, reinforced with poor development by yours truly. I did not use any figures to decide that the PotM would be successful if placed off of the main page and into a collaboration page; it was just an observation and a suggestion.

Here are my individual proposals:

Retiring CotW from the main page

  • Support Dormant for many months. - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Provisional support - in its current state, although I would prefer this to be reactivated or repurposed in some way. At the moment it is redundant and could make the project look inactive. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. It should be restored only if active again.--Jusjih (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
  •   Support Remains inactive for months at a time, and does does not get updated weekly as it's name points out. Should be removed from the main page until it becomes more active. --Angelprincess72 (talk) 18:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose it is a good place for a current collaboration. However, it should be renamed to something like "Community Collaboration" or "Current Collaboration" to reflect the lack of concrete timescales. If there is no active community effort, it can rotate (slowly, on the order of days to weeks) the current WikiProjects to air them on the front page. We occasionally get good flurries of activity from CotW (WS:NARA is doing very nicely, with dozens of works added, converted and proofread), and it's a good way for users to try to recruit others into larger efforts that are otherwise hidden from view. Sometimes it falls flat and little gets added, but in general good work gets done. The only reason that it seems moribund is that if no-one cares to kick a new one off after the current one gets stale, it lies dormant. An auto-rotation of projects in off-periods will sort that out. Starting a CotW takes time and effort, and I'd prefer a slow turnover of "good" topics than a rapid turnover of any old subjects just to justify the name "of the Week". Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
    I have changed the visual text that appears on the front page for COTW to be Community Collaboration. The landing page WS:CotW has not been changed, though I am happy to undertake that change of the community is comfortable with that name. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Very satisfied with how NARA worked out; this proposal came after nearly a year of Disney. With Billinghurst changing the name, I see no reason to remove at this point. With no other place to put such a request without starting another discussion, I think that PotM and CC should appear in their own boxes on the main page, only because I see the category box next door as a waste of space. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Can I make the name change from CotW to CC more permanent? — billinghurst sDrewth 10:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I support. CC is at this point in time better reflective and more open to our needs.

In the past it seems to have been used portal or author improvement, which I think worked well with the weeklong timeframe. Without that req. I'm curious to see what kind of odd jobs we can come up with. - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource:Collaboration of the Week moved to and rebadged as Wikisource:Community collaboration — billinghurst sDrewth 07:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Retiring PotM from the main page

For what it is worth, between 1300 and 1400 edits for the PotM this month, 24 contributors, eight of whom were new to the PotM and seven were new to English Wikisource. — billinghurst sDrewth 16:07, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
By the way, where do you find such statistics? Is it just through looking at the individual page histories? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 07:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Separation of New texts into "New Validated Works" and "New Proofread Works"

  • Support - with direct links to explanations might help promote scans in place of non-scan works. - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Provisional support - I think it can work but I'm not sure about limiting it to validated and proofread. Will the proofread section include complete works that only have a red ribbon (which is the point at which I usually add new works myself)? If so, having a section for new works (red or yellow) and a section for absolutely complete works is OK. An objection might be that the validated list will mostly just be repeating the other box after some time delay. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Hmm, didn't think of that; I think that allowing for individual works within a publication that have been either proofread or validated to go on the main page is beneficial, as opposed to the entire publication; it is rewarding to see something worked-on on the main page, especially for new editors; might promote passer-by's to validate? I don't know; I guess the way we loosely define "new texts" now is fine; and I don't mind if the work appears on the main page twice; that means it's been validated :) Now if we saw large cases were works were quickly being moved from Pr. to Va., maybe we could refine the process then; but I still don't think that's a bad thing; just shows our sites activity. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Combination of Welcome message with categories

Leaner sister project banner as seen in Wikibooks.

Comments

Comment Personally I object to this occurring in this format. I object to every proposal of yours starting off as a popularity contest and straight in for a vote. As I indicated above about this a proposal that it should have proper consideration, looking at what are our objectives and traffic flow supported by data, etc. Not some half-arsed biased opinion without support of evidence. In this form I will certainly just say NO. On a previous occasion you took and implemented idea for which there had been a few comments, a small level of support, and where there had been negative comment, there was neither a consensus nor an more universal agreement by the community. I also did not like the way that you took my not vocally disagreeing with you, by asking for more information as a tacit approval. This is a facile approach and does not do justice to the main page, the site nor its holistic objectives. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

In an effort to trend with your described approach of our community in making decisions, I did not formally ask for votes when applying {{rt}}; I discussed it in our most public forum for 9 or more days with several editors, none of which showed disapproval; my exact words for your opinion on the matter where " not entirely convinced," which was used to illustrate that it did not receive a unanimous agreement, but was not controversial enough to illicit the type of reactions and edits done by Cygnis. However, the format you requested which I adhered to is clearly stil not enough; you've deemed the efforts of myself, AdamBMorgan, Propsody and George Orwell III on {{Rt}}, who, including you, were 100% of the input in the esteemed discussion, as being only a "small level of support." I ask you then, which approach should anyone take? You seem to dislike both ways, and it remains that I want to make changes to improve the site. This site happens to be a wiki, and I hold not just my opinion on a matter, but also my way of vocalizing it, just as important and correct as I do yours. I hope that you do not simply vote "NO" on my proposals (biased by virtue of them actually being mine), but feel free to; most of these proposals are non-controversial (the most being removing PotM from the main page, which I thought was extreme but wanted to see how other people felt)

Regarding the last approach and its subsequent disapproval by Cygnis, I still don't understand how you are more unimpressed with a good faith and harmless proposal, regardless of its format, and not with the editing habits Cygnis has shown which have gone ignored.

I am here to work together, and have only the best intentions for the website and every editor; I do not mean to offend in any proposal I make. - Theornamentalist (talk) 19:31, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey wait a second - I was all for recovering the space in which the proposed {{Rt}} icon was suppose appear (the same as the Featured and Locked icons originally did and, thanks to Adam, still do under dynamic layouts now too). My support for the project itself wasn't solidified by any measure one way or the other; where the icon icon appeared, if a consensus was ever reached on the proposal, really made no difference to me. Sorry if this was not made clear earlier. — George Orwell III (talk) 20:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

By and large I am not in favor of a redesign of the main page. I do, however, agree that the CotW should be removed until someone picked it up again. It was Sherurcij's pet project and completely died when he left. I'd be in favor of moving PotM to the top of the collaboration box and adding in the other spot a rotating list of currently active wikiprojects (like DNB00). That way we don't just have PotM hanging out all alone.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  • I am likewise not in favour of a major shake-up. I think PotM is a very successful event, which routinely garners thousands of edits and often exceeds expectations and lands in a "bonus" validation round. CotW is arguably a misnomer, and "Current Collaboration" would be more apt, and can be moved on when people see fit or after a certain period of inactivity. I would also like to see the suggested validations that are currently found at WS:POTM displayed permanently on the front page, as they otherwise only get full exposure when the PotM has run out.
  • At most, I'd support a rethink of the naming and template layouts, the fundamental ideas being more or less sound. The issue we have here is a relatively small number of active editors with their own agendas. This is the nature of WS, so we should look to be as "in tune" with the volatile editor attention base by not assuming a too-rapid turnover of these nice-to-have community projects which don't have priority to your average editor with his head in a specific book (myself included). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
As a relatively simple modification, what about moving the "Main categories" bullet points into the header (right of Index of Works and Index of Authors). Then split the Collaboration box in two, leaving POTM with an added list of suggestions in one box and a new improved Collaboration box where the categories used to be? I think Billinghurst was talking about changing the COTW box to automatically rotate on a weekly/monthly sequence; that should work. (It might need two suggestions in the COTW box to balance the size of the POTW box.) Even without the movement of Main categories, the COTW change sounds good. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
I support this, funny how things can change that although I'm not active nor am I monitoring activity, I feel that the NARA CotW is useful on the main page. This isn't to say that I retract my opinion based on 7 months of Disney, but think that it would be neater and more inline with other wiki-sites. Categories at the bottom feels like content filler, and there's plenty of room up top. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:51, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Import text size modifier from it.ws

Candalua (talk • contribs) recently posted about a new tool for version comparison. Upon viewing their demo, I noticed that they have a script for increasing font size to 200% and decreasing to 50%. As was noted by Candalua, this came as a desire to cater to children, where the default font size may be too small for them to read comfortably. I believe the use can be expanded for anyone who wishes to read less words per line, whether it is in fact a child, an elderly person, one with poor eyesight. This is to combat the idea that the casual reader can and will create an account and edit their js or css, or know how to increase font size in their browser or computer. It also allows for each computer user (as in a household with a mother who browses with a smaller font than that of her 8 year old son) to specify what size they want specifically on our site, without relying on the know-how of changing their settings. It does not affect our default bare-bones layout, is apparently friendly in multiple browsers (I've tried IE, firefox and chrome, will check opera later), and does not reduce clarity of text like using ctrl+ or ctrl- does in chrome, keeps our left navigation margin regular sized as does our top margin. At it.ws, they use a fixed margin for transclusion his script exact has clearance for the icons; here, however, this would overlap. What I am proposing is to list this option in our left navigation margin, under "Display options." This will give us
Display options
Layout 1
Smaller text
Larger text
Hide page links
To implement, all we would have to do to our header template is introduce <div class="textBody"> to surround the text we want to enlarge/reduce. I see no detriment to introducing this and it addresses concerns about line length and readability. I cannot account for all existing templates to work perfectly as text size is either increased or decreased, but I think these can be looked at if we see problems and made compatible if they actually arise. - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Did this die on the vine or is it being discussed elsewhere? I think it sounds like a great idea. However, I don't like putting things in the sidebar that we want inexperienced people to actually use. The it.ws location is very intuitive, the sidebar is not. Inexperienced users are not likely to find the display options right away. Additionally, adding it under display options is not trivial and requires a modification to the skin, I believe; though I think it can be added to the toolbox relatively easily through modifying the common.js. Still, I think that it is worth finding a solution here. What are you saying the it.ws buttons would conflict with?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 10:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
I have modified it so that it works for me by applying to the the id="bodyContent" element. Simply adding the following your JS can enable it:
importScript('User:Inductiveload/resizer.js');
Would we also want a "return to normal button"? Any why not just use the browser zoom? (Ctrl-scroll on Firefox) Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
I felt that placement on the side would be better becuase of the potential overlap of wide text, and also that it would be somewhat neater of a feature over there, expanding and hopefully increasing display option visibility. I think it is a neat feature overall, and solves many problems. In regards to the zoom, I actually did not know about it until someone suggested it here at en.ws, and I don't believe I've ever seen anyone that I know use the zoom, so I can either conclude that it is largely unnecessary for most sites or that no one is aware of it. Also, a benefit of this script is that it only increases font of the work, not the site overall, does not carry though to other sites or works (google chrome zoom follows), does not increase image size, which typically renders them blurry or pixelated, and is independent of the user knowing how to zoom at all in whatever browser theyre using. Thank you for importing it Inductiveload. - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
And it could be explained as a feature at something from the main page, like Why choose Wikisource? :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Gadgetise it. Adding these to the left hand tools piecemeal is not desirable. Write some help text at Wikisource:Tools and scripts. — billinghurst sDrewth 15:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Billinghurst, while I agree that gadgetizing it is a good idea for us editors, I think Theornamentalist has a valid point that this is of greatest value to users - most of whom don't have an account, let alone know how to enable a gadget. As I said above, I don't like it in the toolbar for the very same reason. Why can't we have a similar set-up to it.ws? that system seems to actually increase accessibility in ways that sidebars, let alone gadgets and userscripts, do not.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:44, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Choice! We should not be imposing it on people without them having the ability to control it easily. Put it as a gadget, then you can argue that it should be on by default, but it should be a gadget either way. To why not that implementation is that it sits in the main part of the document space, and our full width layouts do not accommodate it at this point in time. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I also don't like it overlapping text, I find it.ws icons bulky. I think that it should be in the display options sidebar. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:31, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
And after myself engaging and reading past issues with character length per line (I recall reading over a large discussion which took place during the implementation of different layouts) I believe that this is an important enough feature that I will concede to take it anyway possible as a standard feature for the non-editor users. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Probably worthwhile looking to Help:Gadgets utilising the similar style that AdamBMorgan used with his other help page recently. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

beta preference for toolbar

Yet another thing that presents an obstacle to contributing here. Using the beta feature "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" at Special:Preferences#preftab-3 will suppress the display of the [+] button. The options are to remove it, or emblazon it with a specific warning that it will interfere with one's ability to contribute to the Page: namespace. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 12:29, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I vote for "add a warning". Removing it entirely is probably the most sensible (removing any chance of confusion at the same time), but I would at least like the option of using it so I lean more towards the warning. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:57, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
To edit that text it is Mediawiki:wikieditor-toolbar-preference. We cannot remove it, and we cannot turn it off by default. We could even add link to more information — billinghurst sDrewth 23:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually we can, but it would require community consensus and a request on bugzilla:. On the other hand, the real problem is not caused by the enhanced toolbar itself, but by the Proofread Page extension, as explained on bug 28574.
In the other topic I added a link to an example of how to add back the toolbar buttons (screenshot). It works fine for zoom and for OCR, but the code is not functional for the remaining buttons because the ProofreadPage extension doesn't let us to access the functions pr_toggle_visibility() and pr_toggle_layout(), so I've just commented it out to avoid JS errors in the browser.
For now, I would go with a small waning pointing to some topic which mentions the bugzilla request about the problem, so that people can vote in the bug (maybe this helps it to get some attention, since it is open since april 2011). Helder 01:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
I asked about having the default turned off for Wikieditor if we get a consensus, and was basically told "no, it won't happen". — billinghurst sDrewth 12:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Humm.. =/ Helder 18:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I have added the standard text and amended by appending the text For Wikisource it is recommended that the enhanced editing toolbar is turned off to enable best use of our proofreading tools. in a smaller font, to the file indicated above. Suggestions for further helpful text welcomed.

I think it is good idea to put a link to Help:Proofread#Editing_pages in the text "proofreading tools". Helder 18:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Brion fixed the code of the Proofread Page extension ;-), so you can remove the warning now. Helder 22:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
File removed, so text is reverted. The fix is indeed functional, though it looks as through we are going to need to update the gadget that toggles the header open and closed. Probably also worth an email to the mailing list. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I assume that it is this fix that may have introduced a minor glitch into Proofread Page: until a few days ago, when in "zoom" mode, the mouse cursor changed to crosshairs, while "scroll" mode was the normal arrow. Now it is the arrow in both modes, which is an inconvenience.--T. Mazzei (talk) 06:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

phe-bot

User:phe-bot, a toolserver bot run by User:phe, has replaced User:ThomasBot for Match & Split operations. I request we flag the bot so Match & Split jobs don't flood the recent changes.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:55, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Help

Other discussions

Third Party Help with the editing of Cygnis insignis

Regarding the use of {{Referenced top}} among other things, after a discussion and subsequent project work, I felt a consensus had been reached between participating editors of myself, Prosody, AdamBMorgan, George Orwell III, and although not entirely convinced, Billinghurst. After nearly two weeks and many examples posted at WS:S, I non-controversially added {{Referenced top}} to the Template: space. I believe that at each step and to a great degree of transparency, myself and the others logged and discussed our progress in implementation. As part of the joint effort at Wikisource:WikiProject References to Wikisource, we have been going through works; along every step, user Cygnis insignis has been making efforts to undermine my editing; this has included:

  • Removing links in the main space to portal space that they felt were unnecessary. see history
  • I conceded after trying to discuss, but they pretty much disappeared.
  • Removing PD tags & obvious portal links within the notes section see here, and here; I have not been rude to him and was largely ignored besides edit wars he insisted on continuing without discussion: (see here and here.
  • Ignoring discussions and repeatedly removing with insufficient reasoning
  • Removal of {{Rt}} template on a page that they were a part of contributing to.
  • A second time, after their stated problem was resolved. See here, and here

I've left them several comments, which they refused to answer and in one case labeled "undone and unread."

If they wish not to speak to me, that's fine, but this is a collaborative project. As an editor, they are entitled to ignore collaborative efforts on my part, as an admin, this is wholly unacceptable. I don't want to cause problems and would rather simply move on, but it still stands that in place of discussion they would rather engage in an edit-war. I have tried to squelch any of it as it fell on the brink, and they have choose not to participate in any reasonable dialogue. I ask that for the time being and to move along with our established consensus through work and discussion, that {{Rt}} gets placed back in Tales (Poe)/The Fall of the House of Usher. However, I do not want to be in a war with this user anymore.

Stepping away from this situation, I want to say that Cygnis has been polite to me in the past, and I've seen the great work they've done. - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Round two

With no reply by any other admin on the site, I am beginning to feel that this is being ignored. Unfortunately, the habits have not stopped. Cygnis recently and conveniently archived their talk page without answering either point I brought up. Rather than retype and re-explain the situation, I will repost what was on their talk page here:

Re-adding text quality and incomplete tags in text. [1] [2] [3]

Hey Cygnis,

With the texts in question having been validated using our current scan indices, is it really necessary to have an icon that refers to the previous way of proofreading? The scan could be different from the assumed previous non-scan version, so using it is misleading.

Also, the index for William Blake, a critical essay has been validated (no need for a 50% proofread icon) and is listed in its index as complete, which I assume is disregarding the non-validated advertisements. It was my understanding that advertisements were not required in validating a book, as is reflective in the index status, so why did you re-add the {{incomplete}} tag?

Why did you revert my edits then? - Theornamentalist (talk) 11:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Shelley, a poem, with other writings relating to Shelley, to which is added an essay on the poems of William Blake

Edit: [4]

Please do not revert my validation without specifying why you are doing so. It is both unnecessary and unhelpful. I see that you also reverted a validation of the page by Hesperian in the past; if you do so, update the progress in the index to reflect the status of the contents; don't leave it as done.

Edit: [5]

This series of edits does not make sense; if you saw an issue with the red links for the contents in the Table of Contents field, fix it! Please don't delete a works TOC from the TOC field.-Theornamentalist (talk) 10:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

In both cases, I made an edit, Cygnis undid it, I asked why, and received no response. In the second case, they went a step further.

I am bringing this up because Cygnis has just unvalidated a page that I validated a second time; this is the third time the page has been unvalidated. I also asked them to supply a reason; they have refused any discussion. On top of that, I recently corrected the TOC in the index to this work, only to have it undone twice without reason by Cygnis. This behavior is not acceptable for an administrator. I am asking any administrator to please step in and help; I do not want to, for a third time validate this page and add the TOC to the index, as I am not trying to have an edit war. Thank you. - Theornamentalist (talk) 19:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments on third party help request

I'm going to be unavailable for a few days, and don't have time to look at all of this, but I really can't see any rationale for Cygnis reverting this seemingly innocuous edit twice. Nor do I understand why he would revert this seemingly helpful edit. I agree that explanation would be helpful (Cygnis, please point me in the right direction if you've addressed this already). —Spangineer (háblame) 21:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I, too, am concerned about these reversions made without stated reasons and would ask that Cygnis explains why he has performed these actions, or pointed to existing or ongoing discussion (I can't see anything directly relevant at either User talk:Cygnis insignis or User talk:Theornamentalist). The following quote of Cygnis to Theornamentalist that Spangineer was pointed to at Cygnis' talk page doesn't really cut it for me:
"If you want to a sober discussion regarding content, what I have done and why, call back in a month or two. I made two short and simple comments on this, your responses have moved well beyond that.", which appears to mean the following one-liners:
  • "More important than 'how' (the resolution of a technical problem is not consensus) is why." (regarding {{rt}}, see discussion above)
  • "Facts should be added to wikipedia, if they are notable." (regarding addition of "Little Red Riding Hood" to Portal:Children's literature, not POV in my eyes, especially given that the author directly states children are the target audience.)
I don't consider this adequate explanation, and would welcome further elaboration. I believe Theornamentalist's questions here are valid, and deserve more explanation, especially as I see only good faith and constructive editing from him. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • At face value, it appear to be an inexplicable revert. It is not, but I am not willing to discuss matters—that have a wide-spread impact on the site—in a confrontational atmosphere. I am not willing to buy into an edit war, a trivial, and the most recent example, being a section heading "Round 2". As I said, "your responses have moved well beyond that", and they have. If, in a month or two, the person operating this account decides to be less reactive, pointy, impatient, and hostile, I am willing to discuss matters of content and scope. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 07:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Recent stuff

Rather than dealing with this alone, I want to bring attention to a recent disagreement between Cygnis and I. A couple days ago, I came across Charles von Hügel. Noting that it had many images, I went over to commons to make sure that they had been categorized properly. When arriving, I saw that all images from the text were located in the category Charles von Hügel. These images are not specifically about Charles von Hügel, so, in order to properly categorize them I created Charles von Hügel (1903 memoir) as a category. I then made this category a sub category of the person Charles von Hügel; now, these images are linked and organized directly under him, but were within their own category so people related like Elizabeth Farquharson would not appear directly in his category. This is standard organization done not solely at commons all of the time, but how works at wikisource are organized for isolation of the media. With the images and djvu correctly moved to the category for the book, I then added a sister link at the header of the main page of the work. Cygnis did not like any of this, claiming that I did it "so you could add it to the header of a work I poured effort into, that the community has agreed is complete." The whole conversation, in which he accuses me of many things, talks down to me, and manages to miss my reasoning and other examples given is found at the bottom here, beginning at the section Charles von Hügel. I ask that you read all of it. Immediately after my last comment, he reverted all my edits at commons back to list the djvu and images from the book Charles von Hügel back into the category Charles von Hügel.

If I have done something terribly wrong with this, please let me know. But I've seen countless times all over en.ws this organization; media from a work placed in its own category and then linked. I told Cygnis my reasons and why I think it is helpful both for viewers and for organization, but they refuse to bend. Please help us in resolving this, both here and at commons. - Theornamentalist (talk) 16:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Goodness, why don't you just keep away from CI? Between the two of you it is just pick pick pick. Everything that you want and Cygnis wants is not going to come about, you have to both accept that this is a shared site and that there will not be perfect. Most of the rest of us have learnt that each of us does something differently, not how we would do it, but it isn't wrong, it is just different. We get over it and move on. — billinghurst sDrewth 17:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
This priggish commentary is is helpful? Really snookums, your hypocrisy is galling … CYGNIS INSIGNIS 21:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't poke him for fun or to prove a point, I was just going about normal editing. Am I supposed to check page history for every work to see if Cygnis has edited it in order to avoid conflict? - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
At the risk of being unhelpful: I can only speak for myself here, but personally, I would answer "Yes" to your question. For now, anyway. Just because this forum is impersonal and anonymous doesn't mean we can't personally take some seemingly unnecessary measures to avoid further conflict—just as we might similarly do were we co-workers at a shop. In the "real world" (never liked that phrase), those with a conflict would ideally talk things over privately face-to-face; if that were to fail, then they might take things out back, and may the better man win!... But we don't have that luxury here...We don't know one another here and nothing can be kept private. Sometimes when my kids argue, and they each have valid points, the issue just has to become one of, "Well, then, it is worth it to argue?"... Of course, we all have to follow official policy here. But we can also take some seemingly unnecessary measures as well when we don't (and perhaps won't) know another's bigger picture or motive. There's a big, wide, Wikisource world out there with lots to add and edit! We love it here (for various reasons) or we wouldn't be here (I am reminded of a minority few, however—who in the WS past have had more wicked motives here—after having just proofread the following: "No one had thought that a man would invest capital in a business that he might destroy it." But that is the exception, and not the rule)... As for me, I think I will lay off the Recent changes page for a while... It was initially helpful, but lately has all too often led me to follow the "wrong path." Not worth it! Getting back to the Source, Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the feedback LJB, I do not target his pages, and in most cases I do try to avoid. It is tough though, for works that have many edits, where CI has edited one year ago or something so it may be on his watchlist, to avoid it completely. They do not respect this kind of line in the sand either; he will come in and make changes to things I've worked on without hesitation. When I question it, if I have a logical reason for doing so, he is offended, angered and short with me, or chooses not to respond. Below, I've noted some instances where he has does this, on top of works like Little Red Riding Hood and Human Immortality, where he has used what I've worked on as an example of what he feels the site should be. I want to note that within the last 500 edits, he has removed 4 portals from works, all of which I added in. The site is full of portal links in works, yet he chooses to only remove ones which I add. I've asked him to bring up his opinion here so we can reach a decision so the community can work uniformly (in order to avoid conflict in this matter, which is what I'm trying to achieve) but he has failed to do so at this point. - Theornamentalist (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm familiar with all of which you speak, due to my frequent visits of late over at Recent changes (which I am laying off of for now re: my above stated reasons). Lacking a sufficient answer or helpful insight, I can be of no help, and so will bow out now—selfishly hoping things work out... Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I've given in several times to his whims in hope of some kind of harmony, latest one being his obsession with The Dead Man's Chest, which he insisted on editing against mine and Green Cardomom's editing. I sincerely tried to discuss this with him, but he refused to talk and did what he wanted anyway. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Ta for this edit: diff=2991705&oldid=2991611 CYGNIS INSIGNIS 21:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • The message on the edit summary "If you do not want your writing to be edited and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here." used to say something like, "If you want what you do to stay as it is, don't do it here". If you combine that with "If it ain't broke don't fix it", and billinghurst's message at 17:59, 24 June 2011 (UTC)... JeepdaySock (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
  • The only thing most people like less than listening to other's squabbling, is being asked to pick a side in such squabbles. You are both of you wrong in failing to work together. Either of you could have made the collaboration work, if only you had made "collaboration with X" the primary goal of the situation. Anyone can be worked with if you are willing to support their choices. It takes at least two people, both of them unwilling to give over, for failure. Collaboration simply requires using the old improv trick, "Yes, and . . ." If either of you truly wants to resolve this, it is a simple four step program: 1) Never revert. 2) When reverted clarify exactly what improvement you were trying to make on the talk page and express your hope that someone else might find a less contraversial means to that same end. (with sincerity not snark) 3) Unwatch the page 4) Begin work on an entirely different page. Guaranteed to work after six months or a full refund will be issued--BirgitteSB 06:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Unvalidating pages

How am I supposed to deal with these kinds of edits? Reverting pages back into proofread status, even reintroducing errors? Is that the preferred way to edit? [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. I know for most, it appears to be some conflict between only us and it is easy to simply say "both of you knock it off," especially because CI does not do this to your edits. Imagine if it was your edits and your time spent and you can see why this is very frustrating. - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In my experience the reverts look neither right nor helpful, and at face value would seem to be an inappropriate use of the revert function. If you believe that the edits are correct, then I would think that you could validate the works again. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for feedback Billinghurst. I revalidated them and he reverted them all again: [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]. This doesn't make sense; a second person is necessary in our validation process. Other than being quite frankly, rude, this goes against our sites collaborative qualities, the proofreading system, and is an abuse of the rollback feature. - Theornamentalist (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Yep, and me too, and I was told that I was "skating on thin ice", which must mean that I am standing beside Cygnis. I too find the response unsatisfactory. I truly believe that there should be an explanation of what is wrong with the edits, or what is going on. If one of the other admins doesn't step up and determine the why for the possessiveness, then we are in for a problem. — billinghurst sDrewth 16:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Are you going to mention that you were using the opportunity to bully thorough your latest and greatest notion? CYGNIS INSIGNIS 16:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
That is really your interpretation? There was no such intent, and there definitely was no such claim. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that is my interpretation. On whether that was your conscious intention, or just a habit, I have no opinion. It is a strategem that is learnt at wiki-communities, and forms much of the foundation of my objections; users advancing a notion in which they have a lot of investment, but is ultimately questionable, if not objectionable, can gain advantage by insisting on making it personal. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 09:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Are you going to explain why you keep rolling back other people's good-faith edits? Angr 16:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Can someone please explain something? I tried to check the history of a few of these edits but couldn't see any differences between iterations. Without more information, it looks like an edit war over literally nothing. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
(ec)Well said, one wonders what the profit is in doing so, and whether 'good faith' is involved. Are posters here aware, for a recent example, that one of the edit warriors here pursued a steward to elicit "private information". That I made a specific request to stop making general discussions personal to the same, and their response was to insist on it. That they ignored advice to find something else to do, and continued to stalk me and advance their forty-seventh notion for what everyone else should do. There are about 1.5 million books that could be transcribed, I am making a modest contribution toward that goal. If I don't stop, and cede to yet another demand to discuss their notions, then it is hammered through with a series of thousands of edits to the efforts of content contributors, three days later. Please carry on with unobjectionable contributions of content, as greater than 95% of my edits are. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 17:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Also, (but I'm sure a waste of time) stalk you? It's called recent changes, and I saw validation as something both of us, as editors, supported. And dude, your belief of this "stalking" I can only think you attribute to the recent events where you removed a portal link I added, as addressed in your talk page. Again, I conceded and it remains without a portal link. As far as your percentage of content edits, and as you've belittled my edits in the past, please show me how this makes your arguments worth any more than mine, or anyone elses for that matter. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Are posters here aware, for a recent example, that one of the edit warriors here pursued a steward to elicit "private information". Wait, what does Matanya coming here asking for help with a vandal have to do with anything? Not some heroic act, but the guy came asking for help in order to block a persistant vandal, so I helped. What are you trying to say? - Theornamentalist (talk) 17:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't see that any of the charges you mention above has anything to do with Theorn.'s edits to An Argosy of Fables or why you reverted them. It looks like you did it out of spite, because you're mad at him for reasons that have nothing to do with proofreading that work. Angr 17:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. Of the 8 diffs Theornamentalist gave above, there is no difference at all in nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7. All that Cygnis reverted was Theornamentalist's marking of the pages as Validated. In no. 8, he additionally reverted Theorn.'s changing of font size; and in nos. 2 and 6, he additionally reverted Theornamentalist's corrections of typos as well as the changing of font size. That's why I would like Cygnis to explain why he's doing this. Angr 17:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
My understanding is that Cygnis feels that Theornamentalist stalks him and wastes his time; that he has made it clear to Theornamentalist, repeatedly, that he doesn't want to collaborate with Theornamentalist because it always ends up with him wasting his time in pointless conflict; that Cygnis believes that another pointless conflict was only just around the corner from these benign edits: if he allowed Theornamentalist to take on the validation of this work, then conflict was only twenty pages away; that Cygnis is at the point of flatly refusing to collaborate with Theornamentalist in any way; that in this case the only ways to refuse collaboration were to walk away from the work he had just started proofing, or aggressively reject Theornamentalist's overtures. He chose the latter. Hesperian 23:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I would like to address this right away; I have said that CI has continually made changes (that I've deemed controversial, i.e. The Dead Man's Chest; as controversial as something could be in such an otherwise uncontroversial site) by only removing portals that I've added, where CI may have had no history of editing. I feel stalked, like I am made an example of what he feels the site should be; has CI ever removed a portal from a page you worked on? Ever removed PD tags? Ever reinserted incomplete tags on complete works? Removed {{edition}} templates? Deleted works? He has endlessly done so to things I've worked on. Have I edited pages he has contributed? Yes, but without prejudice, and I assure you if you look over my history there is no pattern towards narrowly focusing on pages he feels are his, as absolutely silly as that reads typing in a wikimedia site. These are all direct edits on pages that he has either zero history or a distant history in. - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
You are behaving like a thug, but I am not intimidated. These assertions are too easily falsifiable, they present no challenge and my time is better spent on adding content, so if you still insist on turning this page into a 'battlefield' I will give you another opportunity to choose the 'ground' and the 'weapons'. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 09:15, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
I would also appreciate an explanation of these edits. This is the latest in a long series of targeted reverts of Theornamentalist's work. I have previously asked CI what the reason is for this, only to be told that it is related to "discussion elsewhere" (which I could not find) and that he would not answer further. So, I am now requesting that CI states what his reasons are, plainly and without directing us elsewhere. In my mind, it is not Theo's responsibility to ensure any page he edits (in good faith, as it would seem, due to the innocuous edits being made) have never been edited by CI. Rather, it is CI's responsibility to explain what the matter is, and answer the question already asked of him: why are you reverting useful edits? It is disturbing to me to see two otherwise brilliant editors falling out of what seems to me to be literally nothing and damaging the project in the process. Revert wars help no-one, and with what I have in front of me, the onus is on CI to explain what is going on, as Theo has repeatedly requested explanation and has been snubbed every time. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
This is an accurate reiteration of what the user charges, with the addition of unsubstantiated insights into my motivation, yet it is a grotesque misrepresentation of what I actually stated. I reject your opinion that I am a "brilliant editor", my time is usually spent plodding along, making type-transcripts of what the dead have said, not editing and not especially brilliant. As a past-time it would bore most people, though there is evidence that others share my passion, the options are to become involved in everything but this, or rejoin the legions of 'process users' at the other place. Generating shit-storms like this, and drawing attention to oneself requires creativity and imagination, I would describe that as a kind of brilliance if it were original, it is not, it just requires time, persistence, and dubious strategies like 'playing the victim'. The points in this form of online war-gaming are gathered by exasperating content contributors, double points for getting them damned or blocked, or propelling the most absurd ideas and link-cruft, with icons, to the top of every page of actual content. Genuinely useful ideas are few: making scripts that assists users in adding PD texts, brilliant! Coming up with another way of adding running headers, by grabbing the one two pages earlier, also brilliant! CYGNIS INSIGNIS 09:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I'll play devil's advocate here. I don't endorse Cygnis' use of the rollback tool, and many of the opinions expressed above are fair enough. But what has been overlooked in this discussion so far is that Theornamentalist knows full well that he is unwelcome in Cygnis' line of sight, yet he is continually getting in his face. You might think by now that Theornamentalist would know better than to see Cygnis proofing a new work on Recent Changes, and immediately jump in and start validating it. Why is that that Cygnis' name attracts Theornamentalist rather than warning him off? Cygnis refers to 'stalking' above; I don't endorse that either, but it isn't a total fantasy: there are behavioural elements here that are of concern. Hesperian 23:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Theornamentalist was "stalking" User:Cygnis insignis, reverting constructive edits and page validations simply because you don't want to have any dealings with another user is childish, to say the least. There appears to be only two solutions here: Cygnis shall collaborate with Theornamentalist (at least to the bare minimum of ignoring positive contributions), or Theornamentalist is effectively barred from editing anything Cygnis has ever worked on. I know which seems more in the spirit of this site.--T. Mazzei (talk) 01:32, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
  • What I am reading here is that Cygnis insignis feels threatened by several editors and has expressed a desire to not work or communicate with Theornamentalist at all, even going as far as reverting constructive edits that Cygnis insignis feels some ownership of. I Am also reading that Theornamentalist has been attempting to work through difficulties, unsuccessfully. I think that T. Mazzei sums up the choices very well. I would also point out that in my opinion only one of these two is using the judgement I would expect from an Admin, while there is no indication of miss use of tools in these disagreements, I am not seeing the professionalism I would expect from someone who been given the trust of the community. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Professionalism!?, that is really a bit sad, but think what you like. Accepting the repeated lie of past insult as a basis for dealing out more is not exactly mature. I reverted their validation of pages, immediately after their fifth attempt to do something questionable without discussion. The net loss to the site is miniscule, if any, as someone pointed out above; it is conflating nothing into grounds for yet another personal attack and wasting my time, and everybody elses. The reason should be very clear, I'm rejecting the benign edit because of their behaviour, I am telling the user to go away. They did not have to check the page history, they knew it was me and saw this on RC: they admitted this fact. The user is fixated on me.

The essence of the meme, 'this is a wiki' is that people do what they want. The obvious clause is that do what though will is only an effective rule where that does not interfere with what others want to do. It is not "belittling" to point out that almost all my contributions are unobjectionable. I don't hope for, or expect, praise for that, though I expect that it will be silently appreciated by some reader, sometime. The user's pattern is transcribe a dozen pages then attempt to foist their latest notion onto the presentation of the hard work by others. They insist of polls, ignore the results, and the reasons not to do something, by myself and others, and, select anything less than 'please don't' as endorsement to go ahead with it. If they fail to draw attention to their ideas, in essence, to themselves, then it is deployed three days later in a systematic way, including editing through page protection to FT articles. It then becomes a 'rule', according to them. Little, if any, of these ideas have flown. If I do object, the strategem has been to make verbose and empty rationales, couched in personal insults and over-familiarity ("dude, my man, reply to CI"); ad hominem attacks as a substitute for description of actual benefits to the site and its explicit purpose. I log in to continue creating transcript that belong to everyone, that other sites try to make people pay for, the user immediately pounces on me to demand 'collaborating' with him, effectively this means ignoring my carefully thought out response, and insist that I compromise by agreeing to a less outlandish idea. This sort of thing is indistinguisable from harassment, stalking, what trolls, talk page ghouls, and ethics breaching experiments by users at wikiversity get up to; what the Kohser (the only 'professional' I've encountered here) describes as 'exploiting the weaknesses' of open communities. Shall I go on, or get back to what I am usually doing here, namely, adding content, helping others to do the same, or attempting to make objective observations about what is good for the site and its scope. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 10:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Wow, Cygnis, I just want to do work without you reverting every edit of mine you come across. I am going to keep it short for each point; these blatant lies and misdirections deserve no real attention:
  1. Validating pages is necessary for the site; a reversion without so much as explanation or discussion is unnacceptable.
  2. I do not filter which pages I validate or do anything with when watching RC. I first saw this book after a note inserted Wind in the Willows linked me to it, and sparked an interest for me.
  3. Fixated on you? Cygnis, this is backwards, and quite frankly, you can continue thinking that if it helps fuel whatever views you have of me, I don't care. Just know that I do not attack your pages; like I said, I've had 4 portals removed in the last month, all of which are from you, and they are the only portals you have removed. It's clear you have some perfect image of what wikisource should be, but you only make an example of pages I edit.
  4. Do not spin your insults into nothing more than a reflection of your own editing. In the original message you placed your edits on pedestal, and condescended on mine.
  5. Show me where we discussed re-adding {{textquality}} to scanned works, incomplete tags, removing portals without any hesitation only on pages I edit, commons categories and plain sisterlinks, deleting works without so much as a word based on your view of the site, italicizing header titles, removing liscensing tags, deleting TOC] from indexes, unvalidating many pages and restoring typos and the list goes on. Look, everyone pops up on everyones watchlist if they are not specifically creating a new work. You choose to revert it if my name shows up regardless of what the edit was, which is absolutely ridiculous. You take ownership of pages. Let me give you an example: I proofread this page, Digipoke came and added a link to en.wp for the Lick Observatory while validating. Do I think it should be there? No, I do not like adding links directly to wikipedia articles. Did I remove it? No, it is not my page. - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Alternatively, assume I know what I'm doing and had a good reason for restoring it. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 19:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Or you could explain how {{textquality}} is not rendered obsolete with our scanned proofreading system; also how it is not confusing (how is the text both 50% complete, but also 100% validated?) Also, how the work is incomplete, when we regard a text as complete regardless of advertisements at the end, per a long discussion which led to clarification in the progress field to read: Done—All pages of the work proper are validated. - Theornamentalist (talk) 19:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
answer, and i will let it be
I think you forgot to put an exclamation point in that edit summary. Before I respond, if I do, what will be the consequences of refusing your latest demand? CYGNIS INSIGNIS 19:56, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Ha I should have used all CAPS. What I meant is, I would like an explanation because I feel there is good reason to not have either on the page, because neither is indicative of the works progress, and one is confusing. You haven't given me a reason, and I've asked before. I feel like you are reverting only because it was I who made the edit. That is an insufficient reason, and you haven't given any other reasons why. If you justify the edit, as I have with mine, I will concede. Otherwise I will ask someone else to, because it is IMO that neither belong there, and I believe that others will agree with me. Just explain! - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:22, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Cyg, you have ignored or worked around every request for an explanation and your ability to work around Inductiveload's demand for answers was astounding, but you do need to answer; the above discussion is very disconcerting, your non-answers only make it more so. What is your reason for reverting the edits? --Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Author pages

(Move log); 16:47 . . Cygnis insignis (Talk | contribs) Author:William Matthew Flinders Petrie moved to Author:Flinders Petrie over redirect (according to en.wp., unambiguous refs)

Am I wrong in thinking that our author pages are supposed to be at the full name of the author? StateOfAvon (talk) 22:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I have moved it back. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not aware of any discussion of this 'rule', though I have often given reasons not to do it in my edit summaries. The response has been to ignore these rationales, carefully considered for individual author pages, and persist in to apply the 'rule' elsewhere until the momentum can be presented as a faux-policy and therefore a "janitorial" task. Authors often chose to style their name in a way that is different to the 'legal name', and author intent is a key guideline in determinations at this site, eg. it was a mystery why the page Author:Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis appeared on my watchlist until I realised it was an author who was very familiar to me. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 10:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
AKA, Samuel Langhorne Clemens? Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:26, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
On second thought, it occurred to me that there might be humor(?) in your statement, and I am too obtuse to catch it...? Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I think it's sort of silly to have the fully expanded names as the base name for people with very long legal names, people who always used their initials, or people who used a pen name. Beyond the watch list and a few other minor issues though I don't see why we need a rule on this and would argue that any move is disruptive. Redirects are often sold as being cheap but they also make our pages very much relative. They point you where we have the info, whether we call it Author:Mark Twain or put Dewey Decimal or LOC numbers in to the page titles. The much worse sin, is failing to create all the redirects. I found today that Author:Samuel Clemens didn't work. I'm sure I'm not the only one who navigates by typing names into the address bar. We don't have a policy on this, we have a draft project space page on this with some discussion.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Noob Question: Hidden header/footers?

I am curious how to see/edit headers and footers. Apparently I used to be smarter then I am now, because I manged to do this once, but it seems I have lost the art. Thenub314 (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There should be an icon the looks like [+] over the scanned page image. Clicking that should make the header and footer visible or hidden. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:02, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Strangely I don't see it. I will try a different skin and see if it shows up then. Thenub314 (talk) 23:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I am feeling about as thick as a brick. But I really don't see it. Is there anyway I could have a bad setting? Thenub314 (talk) 05:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't see it either; apparently it is gone/broken.
Thenub314, go into the Gadgets tab of Special:Preferences, check "Show header and footer fields when editing in the Page namespace", and save. This will make headers and footers show by default.
Hesperian 05:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Also, make sure the Enhanced editing toolbar is turned off under the Editing tab of Preferences. It doesn't behave in the Page namespace. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Instructions at User:Billinghurst/HeaderToggle. To note that I tried to build new buttons for the WikiEditor, and I failed miserably, though not surprising seeing that I am not a hacker. Krinkle (talk • contribs) listened to my plaintive wails and has been building a better button maker, which has just become available for playtime. I am hoping that I can have something in place by the end of June. Taken long enough. :-/ 08:01, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks everyone! Thenub314 (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Good (bad!?) to know that these buttons stopped working here too and this isn't a problem just on Portuguese Wikisource. Helder 17:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
The buttons for zoom and for getting the OCR can be added by means of this code (see this screenshot). I think the two remaining buttons (for toggling the visibility of the headers and the layout) can only be added if the problem mentioned on bugzilla:28574#c3 is solved. Helder 19:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Brion fixed the code of the Proofread Page extension ;-)
Now we just need some admin to fixing also the code which adds the OCR button (on oldwikisource:MediaWiki:OCR.js). Helder 22:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Annotations

Can we as a community please look at forming a consensus on whether or not we host user-generated annotations? There seems to be two points of view:

  1. User-generated annotations add value and should fall within our mission.
  2. We are librarians. We curate texts; we don't improve them. Adding our own annotations is akin to scrawling in the margins.

Position 1 is historically our policy. But over the last few years there has been a strong shift towards stringently validating works as they are, and many of us now consider unvalidable pages with user-generated content, such as The Annotated Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde/Story Of The Door, to be contrary to our mission.

My personal opinion is annotations are problematic and do not fit in here. If I had my way, novel works like The Annotated Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde would be moved to Wikibooks. Hesperian 02:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree about blanking Wikisource:Annotations. Why blank it now after 6 years when finally its being discussed? It's useful to reference for the discussion. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
"Why blank it now after 6 years when finally its being discussed?" Because, as you know, there was an edit war over its content. Hesperian 04:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Edit war? Uh, ok... Anyway, still doesn't make sense to blank the page. Add a big header pointing to this discussion, leave the content for reference. Would that be an OK compromise? Green Cardamom (talk) 04:49, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Which version should be restored for reference? Hesperian 05:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't care. Your choice. If you prefer, restore to the anti-annotation version. The point is we need the page for reference, all the stuff is there either way, it's just in strikeout. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:02, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


Questions

Are internal wikisource links included in the definition of annotations? I mean, if an author's name, publisher or work are in the text. Also, I know Cygnis dislikes portal linking, ie

"called religion in the strict sense; for Buddhism and Taoism have never had any connection with the State,"

but I find it useful. They also dislike my using of the word useful, and if responded, I anticipate the word useful to either appear in italics or apostrophes. :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:53, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that internal wikilinks should be the only annotations permitted. Hesperian 04:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Is there a problem with offering our visitors a range of choices for every text? They can prefer to see a text without links first, then at another moment with such kind of links, then with such other kind of links, then see the nude text again; to see a kind of annotations, chosen, and being given a possibility to know where these annotations came from and who wrote them and when; for instance chosing between an old spelling and a modern one; then to have the possibility to come back easily to the nude original text again. Technically it is possible, see the options tried here. I don’t mean it would be necessary that we have them all, but we may offer choices to our reader instead of deciding ourselves what will be offered, don’t you think so? --Zyephyrus (talk) 00:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
If it was considered necessary for this type of thing, I would think that the braver(?) option would be to create an [annotated] namespace and tab (akin to wiktionary's citation namespace and tab) and that could be utilised in a similar functionality. The work belongs at Wikisource, and any annotation is additional to the work, so it is a matter of working out how initially, and if the annotation becomes more commentary, then I would think that then it might go to Wikibooks. I don't think that creating an extra property is the answer. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:27, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
How hard is it to add new namespaces like that? Especially attached the mainspace like a talk page? I remember something about handling metadata with such a page but I don't know if the idea went anywhere. I like the optional view approach, probably using javascript, but if we decide that we really need to separate original texts from the annotations, the namespace would be a good way to do it. (If so, getting metadata done at the same time might be helpful, or at least efficient.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 01:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Community decision, after rationale discussion, and I don't know if there is any limitation to the number of namespaces. Personally I don't think that it is my favoured position as it is just another space to manage and try to explain to newbies. I too would like to see a "hide/show" functionality. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments (annotations)

Wikibooks is not the answer, they do text and annotations differently there. Basically if you reject annotations here, there is no place in any MediaWiki project. The existing works will be deleted, and future annotation editors will have no available options open to them and will go elsewhere.

If the focus is on the librarians, the 1% elite of Wikisource, then of course get rid of annotations. If the focus is on readers and casual editors, the 99% majority, then it should be kept with a working policy. It's clear there has been a desire for annotations by many people over the years. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean that we are all librarians in a vocational sense. I mean that our role as Wikisourcerers is to be librarians, to curate and organise, but not to write new material.
I don't think it is at all clear that there has been a desire for annotations by many people over the years. As you point out, we've had an annotations policy for six years. In that time we've accrued, what, half a dozen annotated texts? What that says to me is that there is very little desire for or interest in annotations here.
Hesperian 04:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
More than six, if you were to look at how many documents contain "annotations" it's probably in the many thousands. Links to Wikipedia for example. One of the reasons there are not more full-fledged annotated works like J&Hyde is because 1) it takes a huge amount of effort and time and thus 2) Wikisource policy has always been wishy-washy, thus discouraging users from making the investment, given an uncertain future. If we had a real solid policy and welcoming attitude, it would encourage more users to take up annotating.
Basically what I see is the "librarian"-minded Wikisourcer doesn't want to be burdened worrying about Wikipedia-type material (original content by users) since it can't be verified using existing systems. I understand that, but this is a big sand box that no single person is responsible for or owns, there's room for multiple uses here. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:40, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Also, Wikibooks:Wikibooks:Annotated texts does not support your assertion that "Wikibooks is not the answer... If you reject annotations here, there is no place in any MediaWiki project." Hesperian 04:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
This is true. It does seem explicit, I had not read it in a while. I think the problem is they are looking for CliffNotes - that's basically what they do. Their policy page is vague, but look at the example annotated books, they don't seem to fit the model of annotating with full text and footnotes. I suspect they'll reject a transwiki. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:40, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
As I wrote on the Annotations talk page, Wikibooks' concept of an annotated work is slightly different from the approach used on Wikisource's annotations. Here, annotations consist of either wikilinks or additional footnotes in <ref> tags. Wikibooks annotations have additional sections and subpages examining elements such as characters and themes in the work. Additionally, several points on their policy page point towards a focus on classroom use ("if they are shown to be academic", "These are central classroom texts" etc). Wikisource's equivalent scope revolves around professionally published works, whether they are to be studied in a classroom or not. I think these differences, small though they may seem, are enough to provide a distinction between Wikisource annotations and Wikibooks annotations. What could qualify as a valid resource on one project could be the deleted at the other. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
I think the difference is quantitative not qualitative. Wikisource is for clean originals. Wikibooks will host good solid annotated texts. Our annotated texts fall through the cracks not because they are qualitatively different but because they are half-baked. Hesperian 13:53, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Uh no, full-baked. A combination whole-text original + editorial footnotes and introductions. Good for you too :) It mirrors real-world practices in real books, like Oxford World's Classics or Penguin Classics, the policy page has examples of. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
   I hesitate to give my opinion here, due to my horrible lack of knowledge on WS, etc. policy/proposed policy... But if I may speak as a layman (which I am) here, I appreciate having easy access to wikilinked material; not so much when reading a fictional piece, but certainly when reading non-fiction—and the more technical the work, the more I appreciate the ready-reference. Law reference material comes to mind (since I have been dabbling in the genre lately)—with all the cross-referenced cases, terms, etc., wikilinks are very useful. If I was new to this site, and I came across the following unannotated reference, e.g.,—"United States vs. Knight, 156 U.S. 1. 1895"—and wanted to "dig deeper," true, I would merely plug it into a search engine and see what comes up. Sure enough, the WS article comes up at #8 in the results... But how much "better" is it to be able to "keep it in the family" first via annotation (we know original source texts are always the best place to start anyway, right?); and then if the reader wants to dig even deeper, they can.
   Thinking about the terms "qualitative" and "quantitative"—with regard to annotations: "Quality" to me here on WS means a nice, clean, faithful rendering of the original text (which, in the [my] opinion that I am trying to explain/establish—albeit not very well—can include well-chosen wikilinks). Hesperian (I think—correct me if I'm wrong) above refers to "quantity" as consisting of "good solid annotated texts" that aren't "half-baked"—like the sort you could find on Wikibooks. But "quantity" in my mind, and for our purposes, is irrelevant here on WS. In my opinion, annotation here on WS should consist of strict non-subjective internal-only wikilinking (perhaps an occasional sister-site link). The quantity would merely depend on the available material we have hosted here to wikilink to. I am a big fan of original source texts, and I look to WS for just that (it's like looking up lyrics to songs: better to consult songmeanings.net online? or the original CD booklet?) If I wanted commentary, I would happily go elsewhere. But here on WS, just "give me the facts!" Strict wikilinking can accomplish that without compromising the integrity of the works here. Any external links or additional facts can easily be placed on corresponding Talk:pages. I think the new text I recently uploaded illustrates pretty well what I am trying to get across... Enough from me, though, —Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
"But here on WS, just "give me the facts!"" Agreed. Keep in mind annotated texts don't replace or compete with Wikisource's vision. They just need a place to exist within the MediaWiki somewhere. It's not an either/or proposition. It's always been understood that a plain clean-text version always exists, and annotated versions are additional to, different versions clearly defined. It's really a no-starter to try and combine into a single document the plain text and annotated text, few people would go for that, for the reasons you mention. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - IMO, in order for the "Library" point (point 2) to be truly valid, in some sense we should be re-inserting the validated proofread text back into the file that was used to create the index of pages in the first place. The curator argument rings a bit hollow in the current absence of an easy way to (re)generate new (and corrected-text included) base files to supplant the file originally used in proofreading. I know there has been a bug-fix on this problem filed for sometime now but without an easy & reliable way for the reader/contributor to "carry off" an un-annotated work to further edit it as they may desire elsewhere (thus avoiding the scribbling in the margins in the process here), I do not see how we can fairly halt the practice of annotated versions, as controversial or contrary to current practices as they may be, on en.WS until that is resolved first. -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - (Just to be clear, I support the hosting of annotations on Wikisource, this partly explains why.) Libraries and Librarians do produce some original material, usually based on or about their collections. The wiki-format is both one of Wikisource's strengths and one of our unique selling points. We are not the only online library of public domain works but we are the only one that can offer things like wikilinks to explain and support our works. The Wikisource mission could be considered "Collecting and preserving knowledge and literature for all" (where the sister projects disseminate knowledge in their own ways); this mission would be supported by having explanatory notes available either within or alongside the text to help readers understand the work. Additionally, we already do allow original, derivative works: we host original translations. Translations are novel works that involve an act of orginal creativity because languages do not map to each other exactly (backed up by the fact that translations may be copyrighted, requiring a Creative Commons licence here, and the basis of copyright is originality). While we don't have any at present, Simple Reader versions of our works could also be considered within our scope. Simple Reader versions of books exist with the language simplified (see also Simple English Wikipedia) and annotations added where necessary to explain certain points. Simple English should be acceptable here as a variant of the English language (just as, say, Anglo Saxon counts) and recreating a work in this dialect would be akin to a translation. Annotations are necessary to support this (as well as being an intermediary version of the same thing, helping readers who are not absolutely familiar with a topic or the English language). So, I think we should allow derivitive works on Wikisource as long as (1) they are marked as such in some way and (2) they are based on a non-derivative work already legitimately hosted on Wikisource. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:02, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - I believe internal links should appear in the original version, i.e. Author, publisher, and other works, as well as internal portal links. There is no place that says we even have to act as a conventional library; these texts are PD, we can do whatever we want with them. So in this regard, I also support the existence of an annotated text option. However, I do not like our current system. I can't fathom the development behind such a thing, but I think the "neatest" way to separate these is simply offering an option under "Display options" which would alternate between the two similarly to how our layouts do. Default would be only internal links and non-annotated. Selecting "Annotations" would reveal sister-linked sites and whatever the hell else anyone decides to add in (in theory, not practice). Potential mess? Yes, but we're watching, and its obviously not a highly active endeavor; and the benefit is that our sister sites have a plethora of knowledge, making the ability to understand an archaic term or notable and illiterate 18th century english fisherman a click away.

    Is it possible to program this so that we can hide every sister link in its typical [[x:reader interest]], only allowing [[internal wikisource link]] in our works? - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

There would always be a clean text version. But I think whoever is doing the annotation project should have the freedom to use whichever annotation system on a per project basis. Just as Wikipedia offers multiple systems for footnotes. Green Cardamom (talk) 20:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I mean rather than create a separate page, to suppress annotations as it appears at default. I don't mind the added footnotes like in J&H and agree users should have the option for several systems. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:48, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment At this point in time our annotation amount is a little like how long is a piece of string, so I find that the discussion useful at this time, though maybe not its circumstance. Some of Theornamentalist's comments give some background that I find food for thought. I am not in favour of plain jane works that do not have links, etc. Firstly, that is available from other sites so it is not our point of different, and we are librarians/stewards; though that is 21st librarians, not 19th century librarians. This is a library with coffee, talk, and multiple media. So we present the work as the author intended, though we give those people who wish to print or to download a clean version that option, or make even it the default option. So those things that I do (ie. that I find acceptable) are 1) try to provide the main links in the headers of the works, where possible 2) link to works and authors in the body of a work, especially being the case where the works have internal references themselves 3) for words that are misspelt and people may wish to correct {{SIC}}, 4) for words that are uncommon in current English, or archaic, a link to Wiktionary, and v.v. 5) for a major theme, significant assistance in understanding an article, I will consider a link to Wikipedia. 5) for errors in works, ie. where we have 20-20 historical hindsight, I will consider the use of {{user annotation}}, eg. The Times/1902/Obituary/Charles Kent 6) for certain works, I have also used some of the templates that utilise {{tooltip}}, eg. where there is continued use of Latin in the text, and its understanding is useful for reading the work, eg. expected contemporary knowledge of that time, is definitely not today. I feel that for a specific additional text annotation that there should be a clear benefit for that to occur, rather than its appearance as a feature.

    Where wouldn't I do annotations? Analytical interpretation of a work, especially where there is lots of this. Where the annotations detract from the author's intent, or overwhelm the author's work. If there is the call for such works, I am yet to be convinced that it is at WS, and one wonders if there was no WMF site, whether it should be enWB or enWS that should be first requested to adapt their position. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:34, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment It's starting to sound like everyone has a unique idea of what "annotation" means, there is no common definition. Maybe the first step is to define and name the "types" of annotation (intra-wiki-links, inter-wiki-links, ref tags w/ cites, ref tag with original analysis, transclusions, etc) by looking at existing examples on WS, and from comments in this thread. From that list of "types", it might be possible to build a more formal vote, with each type put up for vote. Once we know what types of annotation are allowed on WS (if any), then a policy can be built that deals with things such as when, where and how to annotate. As for existing annotated works that don't pass the vote, that would be a different process of either transwiki, cleanup to conform with new rules, or grandfathered in. Thoughts? Green Cardamom (talk) 21:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a great idea; personally, other than linking directly to works, publishers and authors, I view everything else as an annotation. This even includes things such as {{SIC}}, but a list would be helpful to vote on. - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Probably because they are all annotations. Building the list is an excellent idea, as if we do look to means to nullify them in output, or other means, that gives us the ability to do some magic more easily. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I think there has always been consensus that a plain version of text should always be available through Wikisource. Consensus has been reached for the notes field in {{header}}. Consensus for some wikilinking of the text exists, but there is no consensus about which is the point where wikilinking should be disallowed nor if there is any such point at all. No consensus has ever been reached about any other methods of annotation to be encouraged, nor that any paticular method of annotation be enitrely disallowed so long as a plain version is available. In cases on no consensus, the field is open for experimentaion unitil the therorectical disscussions can left behind and consensus can be formed based on the examples produced by the experimentation. This example works; that example doesn't work. Discouraging experimentation only prolongs the period of no consensus. If we could reach consensus with theory alone; it would have happened already. The OP supposition that Wikisource should not host annotations on a purity basis is null, because we already do have consenusus for two forms of annotation. That line has already been crossed. Two further points; 1 "Because I have no interest in making nor reading X type of annotation" is not valid reasoning for holding that they do not belong here at all. 2 WS has eliminated entire types of works which once existed here and had no where else to go in the past. --BirgitteSB 13:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I generally agree with Billinghurst, though I must go a little further. I think that a clean version of a text is a nice ideal but unless we can devise an easy way to create it simultaneously, we will often have only one or the other. If I can't put basic links to enwp in the work the first time through, it won't get done; especially because none of the proofreaders will add it. We are a library but we are a WIKI library and like Billinghurst said that is one of the big differences between us and every other university project (from which some of us regularly grab not only the page images but also the PD text! - or at least work on that). I work with some pretty old texts sometimes that have not only archaic spellings but names of places or things that are not common and references that are clear only within the field. These works need basic annotations and they are mostly available unannotated elsewhere. The idea that basic annotations belong elsewhere makes me wonder what the point of this project is. I could format the text as well on a word processor and post it on any old website if we don't have useful links. Wikilinks are absolutely necessary to the functioning of a wiki and whether or not we malign them by calling them annotations we must have them. They can always be discussed as part of any review and any well transcribed work would have only non-POV wikilinks, preferably with a good reason and basis for them. The more we isolate ourselves from other sister projects the more pointless we make ourselves. Additionally, there is a lot to be said for links to wiktionary which can be used to create backlink references for the meanings of the words in the manner of the O.E.D. (who followed Johnson on this method of lexicography).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Identifying an annotation

I guess a simple yes or no with explanation if needed to identify what we should consider an annotation to be suppressed from the default preferred appearance of a work.

I more or less agree with Theornamentalist here, but before I add my name I'd like to see portal links considered, and I'd like to see a distinction between linking explicit cross-references in the work e.g. citations, "q.v.", "see Chapter 4", contents and index pages, etc; versus adding links when a work or author merely gets mentioned in passing. Hesperian 01:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Theornamentalist, thanks for the list. I was hoping to collaborate on a list of annotation types on a separate page, in the Wikisource:Annotations space, people need time and notification to contribute to the list. I don't think an informal Scriptorium vote is the way. This process should take weeks and involve many people, with broad notification of what's happening, there's no rush. I can tell you that some people at WMF (Wikimedia Foundation in San Fran) are aware of this issue and what's happening and are willing to help in any way we would like. Anyway, we still need to hear from others on what they think of this idea in general as a way forward in solving the annotation question at Wikisource. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that this part of the discussion would be better placed over at Wikisource talk:Annotations. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:16, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok I've created Wikisource:Annotations/types to begin collaborating in creating a list of the different types of annotations. This really is the key to the whole thing I think, thus why I believe a separate page is important for the list itself. From the list eventually can be derived a vote and a policy page, if it comes to that. Green Cardamom (talk) 02:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
The source document is Strivings of the Negro People (1897). The footnotes then contain differences between the 1897 document and a 1903 later edition. Do you mean the footnotes are incorrect, that they don't reflect the differences between these two linked documents? Green Cardamom (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I made a note in the pre-existing section Talk:Strivings of the Negro People#Annotations, after uploading a scan of a 1903 edition, then marked The Souls of Black Folk as "no source" because the text did not match the source given on that talk page. The first idea [21] is probably the best one, I really no have idea what is going on; while I think this is typical of the annotations I have encountered, I thought it fair to note here this was probably not a good example.

I would proffer another example, but it is even worse. There was a user who 'discovered' that references to another work's page numbers were all incorrect, growing worse as the page number increased, so it was important to add notes on that. I suggested that the author was referring to a different edition and, unsurprisingly, heard no more about it. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 18:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

PD-old

Adding function to {{PD-old}} see Template_talk:PD-US-no-renewal#PD-Old, please take a look and help check for issues. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

19th century images displayed on websites

I posted this message two days ago on a Commons admin’s talk page, but it seems that he/she is not available, so I am re-posting it here. I found some public domain portrait photos on other websites and which I would like to copy and upload to the commons. They are all from the 19th century. Do I need some kind of permission from those sites for copying them, and how do I attribute them?

Here are some examples:
Captain George H. Clarke
WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN
Frank P. Crandon
— Ineuw talk 23:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

No permission needed; use the proper license and attribute them by listing their site as the source. That's all! - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you.— Ineuw talk 00:06, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

  • Just to clarify, we often call this "attribution" as the Theornamentalist did above, but technically, it's just telling the source of the digital images so that we could go back and get others, ensure they are authentic, etc. There is no legal requirement to give any reference to the website you got them from but Commons tends to get upset if you don't say where as they think that weakens the evidence that the work is PD; for many works it makes no difference - though sometimes it's helpful to have the source website's note that picture is of "Joe Schmoe painted in 1866". Of course, legally, you don't even need to give attribution to the author if it's PD but don't try that here. ;) --Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation and versions primer

Hi folks,

I've been doing a lot of cleanup of disambiguation and versions pages lately, most recently with the books of the bible, which are a terrible mess. It is clear that there is a lot of confusion around the purpose of disambiguation and versions pages, so I'd like to have a rant and clear it up a bit:

  • Disambiguation pages are for listing works that share the same title. You shouldn't list works with distinct titles on a disambiguation page, even if they are versions of the same work, or commentary on the same subject.
  • Versions pages are for listing different versions of essentially the same work, regardless of title or author. You shouldn't list completely distinct works on a versions page, even if they have the same title, or the same author, or the same subject, or even if they are analysis or commentary on the work that the versions page is for.


Case study: Song of Songs is a book of the bible also known as Song of Solomon, Canticle and Canticle of Canticles.

The works of commentary Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)/Solomon, Song of and Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Canticle of Canticles are neither works with the same title, nor versions of the same work, so they should not be found together on a disambiguation page or a versions page. The only appropriate place to pull together all the various published commentary and analysis of Song of Songs, regardless of title, would be Portal:Song of Songs.


I hope this clears things up a bit. Hesperian 01:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Putting text to Help:Disambiguation which has been a page that I have been meaning to look to create for ages. Hesperian, you probably should have a rant about translations so that I can copy that text too. :-P — billinghurst sDrewth 02:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Translations are just a special case of versions. Hesperian 02:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I expanded the Wikisource:Style guide section on disambiguation to include versions and translations a week or so ago; there might be some stuff in there you could use too. Hesperian 02:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Have pasted the text with a jiggle. If it is considered that we should just redirect to the style page#anchor, then so be it. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I'd be more inclined to shift the underlying principles of disambigation etc onto your new page, and keep the style guide for details of page layout. Hesperian 03:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree entirely (with everything Hesperian has said in this thread) and I particularly agree that translations are just versions, they shouldn't even have their own template, one will do the job nicely for both. Especially since it would be quite odd for us to host both versions and translations of the same work, since only the English versions should be here. I haven't caught up with the newest details of dabs etc. yet though.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Closed out Transwiki:

It has been sitting there dormant, redundant and gathering dust. anyway, I have dealt with the remaining works sitting in the faux namespace, moved them into main ns, and created {{dated soft redirect}}s. Culled all the Talk:Transwiki... pages, and closed out Wikisource:Transwiki log. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

How does this affect Transwiki screening if at all? There are always EOs and Proclamations that they (Wikipedia) want to export to here that we already have for example. -- George Orwell III (talk) 17:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Do you mean at the other place? If yes, I look occasionally, but probably not enough, and there is no reliable alert process to know when new stuff is added. The Transwiki false space here has not had newly populated information, and nobody but admins could really use it, and we are better to Special:Import and put it into place, so no physical effect on this side of the divide. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
That reminds me, the instructions at meta send people to transwiki pseudo space. We need to fix those at some point or someone will just recreate it thinking it's needed.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Karl Max

Who is Karl Max? ResScholar (talk) 01:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

In the absence of context, my best guess is it is a misspelling of Karl Marx. Hesperian 03:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, it kind of has a flashiness to it. Maybe it's another one of those "modernizations" we keep hearing about! ResScholar (talk) 04:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Wow, I am truly embarrassed. Trying to publicly deride me in place of fixing the typo is productive. - Theornamentalist (talk) 16:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
As far as you know, I could have just accepted your explanation. The comment's only deriding when one supposes your pretext of modernization was actually phony despite your protestations to the contrary. Are you now retracting your denial? ResScholar (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I am talking about how you actually brought up a typo at Scriptorium. This seems unprecedented; would you care to explain how, in a collaborative, editable, continuous improval project, where you are in fact not just an established editor, but also an administrator, who is supposed to be setting examples, and conducting yourself with maturity and an assumed overall pursuit for integrity of the site, how you would not fix it, a typo which linked to the correct author, but instead decided to bring it here and then go on about your issues with how I edited a page that had nothing to do with the subject you brought up in the first place. That's how I know it was not about the typo, that's how it's obvious you would rather spend your time trying to deride me and complain about something in the past, and prefer to leave the site with an obvious error so you could use it as a platform in your crusade against "modernization." - Theornamentalist (talk) 11:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Just Click

Notice that the buttons for OCR and header are not visible. A while ago I figured out how to make the header stay visable, but what happened to the buttons, and why do I get instructions to click buttons I can't see? JeepdaySock (talk) 10:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)  

I know they "moved" header to be a preference, but I do agree that we need the buttons, or we need to take the instructions off. - Tannertsf (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Using the beta feature "Enable enhanced editing toolbar" at Special:Preferences#preftab-3 is not recommended, it will suppress the display of the [+] button. Using the OCR button is the answer to the wrong question. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 12:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
See also the topic Noob Question: Hidden header/footers? on this same page. Helder 16:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks this is the fix. JeepdaySock (talk) 11:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Also, make sure the Enhanced editing toolbar is turned off under the Editing tab of Preferences. It doesn't behave in the Page namespace. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

How do you make BIG tables (averaging 27 rows by 4 columns) without the enhanced editing toolbar? I just switched back to the regular toolbar and can't find a way. - Tannertsf (talk) 11:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Now it is possible to use the buttons also in the enhanced toolbar, because Brion fixed the code of the Proofread Page extension ;-). Helder 22:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
One can make tables with the Wikieditor toolbar? Wikicode w:Help:Table — billinghurst sDrewth 12:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Yep! If you have enabled the enhanced toolbar and also "dialogs for inserting links, tables and more", you will be able to use the "Table" button   of the "Advanced" section. Helder 15:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
  • OCR bot not running. So now I have the OCR button, but the Bot is not running "The OCR robot is not running. Please try again later." JeepdaySock (talk)
Indeed. Same problem here. Helder 18:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Umm. The OCR button hasn't done anything since the last MediaWiki update in February. I assumed it was deliberate and so haven't raised it as an issue. When it was working and I used it, it usually gave me junk or nothing. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 21:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Yep, ThomasV either turned it off as part of his attempt at retirement, and nudging us to stop the dependence, or it failed, and it wouldn't seem he is turning it back on as part of his attempt …

If you have just the occasional page from a djvu to reOCR, you can right click it and save it, or do similar from the online version at archive.org and then upload to somewhere like http://www.freeocr.net/ or http://www.onlineocr.net/ which seem to do a nice job. I am hoping that if it is needed that someone would put their hand up for a such an account at Toolserver to run an OCR beast. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource/Wikipedia Game

We are developing an open-source online educational game to promote engagement with primary sources which we propose would involve (1) contributing quality primary sources to Wikisource, (2) contributing new articles in Wikipedia, and (3) creating links from Wikisource documents to relevant Wikipedia articles using the appropriate template. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikisource). We’d like to solicit your feedback to ensure that the game is in keeping with the spirit and practices of the Wikimedia community. Umbrellas000 (talk) 00:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I would think that we would welcome greater two-way interaction between the sites. I know that I do like to bring to life and to make available old sources that support the notability of those who were notable in their time, but who do not get noticed now.
As a note, we have moved to putting main links to wikipedia and like communities through parameters in our article headers, eg. {{header}}, though ultimately they are from the underlying template {{plain sister}}. The variety and size of the presentation of the templates {{wikipedia}}, {{wikiquote}} etc. was becoming problematic. There is still some inline links through use of [[w:|]], [[q:|]] and the like. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the feedback. We will advise players to put any links to Wikipedia in the header. 128.138.65.190 20:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
This game is pretty much standard practice (I would have thought), but the distinction between an object and subject based path should be emphasised. A link from a wikisource document to wikipedia ought to be one-to-one, to an article about that work, eg. The Raven (Poe) (versions of the poem) links to w:The Raven (article about the same poem). Adding sources here and linking to them from wikipedia is the subjective path, and subject to the discretion and dissection of that community. If the transcript is scan based, the page number that appears at left can be linked with a "#", ie. [[s:Some work#page number]] or [[s:Some Work/Section#page number]] for works with sections arranged by /subpage CYGNIS INSIGNIS 21:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for drawing this distinction. We had envisioned creating subjective path links (i.e., links to Wikisource documents from within relevant Wikipedia articles). Umbrellas000 (talk) 22:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Links to Wikisource transcriptions in US National Archives catalog

It's great that Wikisource is transcribing historical documents held by institutions that don't have the resources to do that themselves, but wouldn't it be even better if the institutions actually tried to incorporate that content back into their own information on the documents and made it prominently available to their patrons? I am going to propose to my colleagues at the National Archives that we begin to link out to Wikisource transcriptions in the online catalog (for example, in the field where Pictopia is linked at [22]).

I can't make any promises right now because I don't know how much bureaucracy will be involved, but I do know that their two primary concerns are that the transcriptions to be linked to are properly vetted and that there is very little chance of link rot. It seems to me that Wikisource's existing validation process adequately addresses the first concern, but I created {{NARA linked}} for the second, in part because this is a wiki and pages are liable to be moved or altered somehow. We would also likely want to mark the linked transcriptions in any case; that's the only change I see needed to Wikisource's standard procedure. I would appreciate any feedback you have on this idea generally, or the talk page banner specifically. Dominic (talk) 14:50, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

For me this is a case where we do want to lock down documents against a move. We also need to consider whether there is or should be a level of edit protection for such works, though again as it is scans and transclusions, may be enough to just do the main namespace as a "no move, edit to autoconfirmed users". — billinghurst sDrewth 03:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
Move protection sounds like a good idea, since that is not likely to cause any disruption to the project, either, which is why I worry about any edit protection. This being Wikisource, I think there is very little likelihood of problematic edits anyway.I know it's not really how Wikisource operates, but I'd like to be able to have this written down in some sort of policy document. I'm working with an organization that doesn't operate in the wiki world, and so those kind of assurances go a long way. Dominic (talk) 14:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
So something along the lines of …
  • "It is proposed that the Wikisource:Protection policy be amended to allow for Wikisource WikiProjects to request of the community a protection policy that adopts the principles of Wikisource, though may be slightly in variance to any existing version of the the protection policy, and that once the community approval is given that the adaptation by noted on the project's WikiProject page;
  • It is further proposed that main namespace documents that are part of the Wikisource:WikiProject NARA that once at the proofread stage are:
    • fully protected from a move, and where a move is required for the NARA project documents, that a permanent and fully protected redirect be left in place
    • semi-protected from editing
    • such works shall be tagged with {{locked}} on the main namespace and {{NARA thingy}} on the talk page of the article.
    • that this statement be recorded on the NARA Project page as an accepted and special process approved by the Wikisource community to allow ...(add your above argument)
and I open up the above statements to improvement by the community.
My reason for proposing semi-p on editing is that we may need to bot the pages, and it becomes a PITA to do with protection, and with most of the text coming from a transclusion, and just header detail being there it is somewhat less vandalised, easily noticed, and easily repaired. We could review this in 12 months to see whether there is a necessity to block edits once twice validated, though I find that it is does prohibit fixes as we do see pages that still have errors are twice validated. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Previous discussion of linkrot resulted in the adoption of item M2 of the deletion policy. Most of the discussion is either here or linked from there. Perhaps we could see if current written procedures will satisfy the NARA before getting needlessly bureaucratic. Edit or move protection really only protects against vandalism which does not really seem to me to actually be the concern. I would like some more explicit information on what the NARA will require of us before adopting a particular policy to try satisfy them.--BirgitteSB 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
    There is detail at Template:NARA linked and the start of the discussion at Template talk:NARA linked. We are talking about an archive that has specific names and reference for data, and has the professionals. Giving them a little certainty that we hear their concerns and have a process in place is a small price for innocuous discussion and statement of intent. It isn't a particularly a change in the policy, more a stated work method for these works. — billinghurst sDrewth 17:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
    This isn't just about satisfying NARA, but making sure the system actually works. As long as we conscientiously come up with what Wikisource as a community thinks is the best way to ensure stable links without compromising its mission, I am sure that solution will satisfy NARA. We all want the same thing. I'm not overly concerned about vandalism, because there isn't a whole lot here, and it seems like it would be easily identified. But, since it is a wiki, someone might come along one day and decide to alter a page to disambiguate with a new document of the same name, or decide to fold a page into a larger text, or all sorts of things that would affect the original link. A talk page banner would let people know to be careful about preserving the link when editing the pages, and a move protection would actually bring it to their attention if they don't look at the talk page first. That much, I think, is common sense. Dominic (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
    I don't think this will be much of an issue in the coming months either. As long as folks are using the hortatory or popular titles rather than the specific leagalese citation titles (as they have been for the most part to date), I don't expect much movement or alteration of NARA works due to naming or link conflicts with other series or journals. — George Orwell III (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Reusing signatures?

I've seen this done both ways when there's already a signature scan available at Commons, and can see the appeal of each. Signatures are by their nature pretty invariant. Also for major figures like US presidents it seems like Commons has a nice thing going on with a matching SVG and PNG pair, and it just seems icky to flood that with a billion Abraham Lincolns with the background not normalized to white. On the other hand it is an intrinsic part of the document, and perhaps shouldn't be substituted out for a generic equivalent. Anyone have arguments for or against? Prosody (talk) 21:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Personally I am not bothered either way. I would accept it as validated even with a typed signature, so any image is preferable. I think that it is up to the editor in question, but there should be some effort made to normalise the background and make the image presentable if a "generic" image is not used. If the signature is in some way unique or notable, then the actual signature from the document should be used, but if that person's signatures are all alike, then I don't see a big problem.
  • However, I would like to make sure that people use the "alt" parameter of signature images so the text can be copied as you would expect, just as we do for illustrated drop-caps. The {{SigR}} template does this already, which is good. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I am with Inductiveload, it is the words that are important here not the physical representation of the signature, which is more towards the decorative. So with that in mind, to me it is project specific type question about whether it is the original scanned signature per work or a generic scan, they can talk about their needs and approach. I would think that if a scan or a signature is to be done then it should be to a standard format (file type; background white or transparent ...). Personal opinion is that unless there is something unique about a specific signature that relying on a good quality representation is sufficient. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Great work by the PotMers

This month the Wikisource:Proofread of the Month project has completed two works Picturesque Nepal and Picturesque New Guinea, including the reproduction of images. An absolutely magnificent effort! These are two works that cover areas that are not well represented in our collection, though add to some of our diverse geographic works, including last year's Picturesque New Zealand. A hearty congratulations by all involved. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Portal theater Plays

I propose to create a new portal for plays. We can call it "Portal theater". What do you think?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 14:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest one minor modification to keep it in line with the rest of our portals. I'd create the page at Portal:Theater and put it in the Portal: namespace. Otherwise, that sounds like a good project!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The word "Theater" refers specifically to live performance in front of an audience, and encompasses such art forms as drama, music, dance and even puppetry. If your portal is to be about the form of literature that underpins dramatic performances, then Portal:Plays is a much more appropriate title. Hesperian 00:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree w/Hesperian. Plus it would go better with the existing category - Category:Plays — George Orwell III (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, shall I create the page?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 08:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Go for it. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I put in the plays in the Category:Plays until the letter F. Before I continue, please tell me if I made mistakes, then I'll divide the works according to the authors and historical periods.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 13:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It looks fine. I've changed the classification to PN based on the Library of Congress Classification outline (PN1997 in fact) but everything else is good. By all means, keep going. :) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A Gift

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6554331

"These particular documents are the historic back archives of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society...The portion of the collection included in this archive, ones published prior to 1923 and therefore obviously in the public domain, total some 18,592 papers and 33 gigabytes of data". These docs were published before 1923 but the publisher still insists we pay for them. They have now been uploaded for free (not by the publisher). Can someone clarify if we are able to host these? Digipoke (talk) 20:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
IANAL, but these articles ARE public domain in the United States, and many of them are presumably PD elsewhere. No-one has the right to claim copyright on them, even for scanning, as sweat-of-the-brow doesn't apply in the US (which is, rightly or wrongly, all WS cares about). Any infraction committed by the person supplying these is a Terms of Service violation, and is strictly between them and the Royal Society. Public domain is public domain, and we don't take responsibility for the source of documents, but we do take notice of copyright (which is long gone). We can upload any PD-in-the-UK-and-US works to Commons, and any PD-in-the-US-but-not-UK works locally until they become valid to be transferred to Commons. These works would fall under Wikisource:WikiProject Royal Society Journals if they are added here. I would request that the addition of these works, if deemed acceptable, would be organised through that WikiProject, as the willy-nilly addition of 18500 papers would be chaotic at best. If needed, this can be a future Collaboration (it is very much along the lines of WS:NARA, which is storming along currently. We do need clarification on whether this data is "fair game". Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Is it an issue for here or for Commons? Presumably we are looking to host them at Commons where possible. I do not see that it is markedly different from the PD-Art brouhaha and the National Gallery images, and Commons still retains those images. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Meta action FYI

I just stumbled across this, m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Poetlister, JeepdaySock (talk) 15:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It hadn't escaped my attention, but I thought better of notifying users here, DFTT. Visit the talk if you want to see some breath-taking wiki-lawyering, but another aspect of this user-complex, more relevant to this site, is the deletion discussion at wikiversity. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 16:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Regex menu framework

Note for anyone using the Regex Menu Framework (RMF).

I noticed that my regex menu in the sidebar disappeared last week, and on investigation this appears to have been caused by the now-unsupported RMF being broken in Firefox 5 by some change in the system. I have therefore ported my scripts to the new TemplateScript framework (TSF), also by Pathoschild, which is the successor of RMF. If anyone has lost their regex menu and wants it back, here is how I have done it: 

//import the TemplateScript framework. Remove this line when this is gadgetised properly.
$.getScript( 'http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pathoschild/Scripts/TemplateScript/dev.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

//Populate with the functions you wish to add.
pathoschild.TemplateScript.Add([
    { name:'Title to appear in sidebar 1',   script:function($target, TemplateScript){your_custom_function1();} },
    { name:'Title to appear in sidebar 2',   script:function($target, TemplateScript){your_custom_function2();} },
]);

You can read meta:User:Pathoschild/Scripts/TemplateScript/dev for more information on how to use the powerful and versatile TSF. If anyone who knows JS could indicate if the above is the "right" way to do it, that would be great. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 01:01, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Any knowledge surrounding w:Template:UF-hcard-name

Quoting the template "The HTML markup produced by this template includes an hCard microformat, which makes the person's name parsable by computers, either acting automatically to catalogue articles across Wikipedia or via a browser tool operated by a reader, to (for example) add the subject to an address book. For more information about the use of microformats on Wikipedia, please see the microformat project." That project is at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats

To me, that has elements of a discussion above, and may be something that we could look to do for our Author pages. I have no knowledge of the matter and wonder whether any others did so. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Completely defunct and widely ignored technology, with a massive presence on the English Wikipedia only because of Andy Mabbett's longtime promotion of them there, which was in fact an attempt to use the English Wikipedia to promote Microformats. If they weren't already dead in the water, then HTML5's microdata feature has killed them. Hesperian
Good-o. One less thing to think about. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Classics

If anyone wants a personal project, our collection of the Classics could use some updating. (I am not doing this myself as I have already built up about as many personal projects as I can handle.) I've been updating Wikipedia's citation templates for works on Wikisource and collected some data in the process (see Citations to Wikisource on Wikipedia). Quite a lot of these citations are to Classical Greek or Roman works. In particular, Hellenica (Xenophon) is cited 39 times on Wikipedia, closely followed by History of the Peloponnesian War with 24 citations. However, few of them have a source and none are backed by a DjVu. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm currently working on Cassius Dio's Roman History (9 vols.) - Index:Dio's Roman History, tr. Cary - Volume 1.djvu - which has Greek and an English translation on facing page, but I have requested that no one else work in the volumes because of my preparing it for class use (I'm a teacher) later this fall. This was just to let you know that there is some activity going on in the classics department.

If you would upload a good scan of the history of the Peloponnesian War I will put it in my future list of proofreading. - Tannertsf (talk) 12:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't planning to, but good idea. I don't know how to (I don't speak or write those languages), so if someone else could that would be great. - Tannertsf (talk) 13:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

  • Oh, I guess I thought the class would be transcribing the Greek and the Latin (the Latin would be easy by the way, so if you weren't thinking about doing so, you might). You would transcribe those texts on their respective language subdomains and then use {{iwpage}} to transclude the whole page here so that anyone looking at the work would have both the English and the original. It's clunky and has several drawbacks but it is the best solution we have so far due to the way we've split up the project by languages. If you work on a Latin work, let me know and I can set it up for you and I'll have to ask someone else to do the Greek one that you're working on now - though you could create the index just by going to the index and changing "en" on the address bar to "el" (for 'Ellenika) and hitting enter, then saving the index - though it will be missing a lot of information!--Doug.(talk • contribs) 14:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Not intending to be ignorant, but this book is just a side project and so if someone else could (or wants to) transclude, set-up, link, etc., that would be great. But I'm probably not going to have the time or want to do this. I agree with it ... its what we should do, and its the right thing. - Tannertsf (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

{{edition}} suggestions/recommendations

Before I start going crazy, and making changes to every Florence Earle Coates poetry page/Talk page, I wanted a little "best practice" feedback on what I've been considering so far... what's needed/not needed, redundant, etc. I'll probably have to go back also at a later time and update some antiquated formatting on some Index:pages, but not yet... Thanks for any help! Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

{{textinfo}} is pretty well redundant where we have scans; its implementation has mostly been used where we have no scan/transclusion. Before you did anything in that regard anyway, we would be far better off having a bot run through and do bits to the identified pages rather than waste good human time for a boring repetitive task. See Wikisource:Bot requests — billinghurst sDrewth 18:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Hmm... When do you use {{textinfo}} and when {{edition}}? The redundancy factor makes sense... Do you think it is useful to add the "first published" (magazine) info? Seems so to me, but I'm just like that... If so, should it go in the notes section on the Main page or still somewhere/somehow on the Talk page? RE: bots: I hadn't thought of that (them)... I'll give it a considered thinkover here soon... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I guess a versions disambig. page would take care of the prev. published info (mags etc.)... Like here... Most of her works have appeared subsequently in her 1916 collection which is also hosted here, so eventually I'll get around to creating all the corresponding versions pages... A bot to get rid of all the pd tags at the end of all the pages would be good at least... I'll have to look into that... Londonjackbooks (talk) 20:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
  • (ec)I don't find either of these templates in the least useful for works where we have scans. This is mostly the sort of meta data that ought to be stored on the index page and linked from the main page of the article (or transcluded there). I think the first published data is very important (in many cases it establishes the basis for the PD claim for one thing), but there is tons more data about the publisher and printer and such that we don't normally even have on ws. Adding it all to the notes is clunky and really makes the mainspace ugly. Adding data about the work to talk is even worse, talk is for discussion not for data that people might actually need to grab or sort. I certainly don't think we should put the {{Textinfo}} on each page. The {{edition}} template is horrible because it's supposed to signal that there is more information on talk (which is already a bad place for it) but it really only means anything to regulars. I know this is the way we have done things, but we've come a long way and there are better options we could be using.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:43, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
    The edition/textinfo is definitely an artefact of an earlier time, though in the absence scans I see that it is better than nothing when we need to get the original source of data. If someone can create a better a means than hallelujah! The absence of good schemes for capturing metadata is a gaping whole at Wikisource. Where we have scans I would also agree that the index page for each work and/or {{book}}@Commons are the ideal places to capture the bulk of the metadata and for our scans. I am just not holding my breath for the solution. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    Maybe so, at the very least {{edition}} should be reworked to display a more useful link to the data. Inductiveload had some good ideas for the data and we were brainstorming possible solutions a few months back but tabled it due to time but I'm hoping we'll pick it up again soon with a proposal. The idea mentioned above that the index pages be moved to the base page space page is intriguing as that would make the index space available for all the meta/library data; though I missed the earlier discussion it referenced; so I don't know how feasible or likely that move is. If that happened, then we wouldn't necessarily have to have index (i.e. meta) data organized by file names - thereby allowing texts without scans to have an associated meta space for publication data and technical notes.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 10:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Hate to ask...

I've been down this road before, but don't remember how to get rid of the unnecessary |-|- marks in the TOC (see here). And please feel free to tweak anything else you see fit (table width, column width, etc.). Sorry, and thanks! Londonjackbooks (talk) 20:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

All you have to do is add {{nop}} on a new line at the top of ever page except the first. The problem you have there was caused by this code:
Page 1 body
....
| table row 1
|-
Page 2 body
| table row 2
....

When transcluded together, there is a no newline between the two, so in the end you actually get the following, which the mediawiki software sees as a table row holding "- | table row 1": 

| table row 1
|- | table row 1

Adding a {{nop}} gives you this:

Page 2 body (modified)
{{nop}}
| table row 2
|....

And the end result is now the following, which works correctly. 

| table row 1
|-{{nop}}
| table row 2

Hope this helps. A summary of this process can be found on my user page. However, your use of the header and footer fields in this table is exactly right! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Printing this out & making a mental note... Thanks to you and GO3! Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Yup - you also had an "extra" |- at the top of pages 2 & 3 that should have been in the noinclude header rather than the page text box. The |- at the bottom of the preceeding page will handle the table row break. Inductive uses Nop in the pagetext box - I use a closing paragraph tag in the header noinclude box; same result. — George Orwell III (talk) 21:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Anders Behring Breivik detention hearing

I've added the DjVu file of the verdict from ABB's detention hearing File:11-119207ENE-OTIR~03.djvu on Commons. I've also proofread it on :s:no (no:11-119207ENE-OTIR/03. As this is a case that has the world's attention right now, I assume that it's a text that has some interest also elsewhere. I would be willing to do a preliminary translation of the text, however, as I am not a lawyer, I would need someone who has a better grasp of English legal terms to look over my translation once it's been done. The real question here is: Is this a type of text that would be welcome on :s:en? and: How would I go about translating it? Do I create an index page for the Norwegian file and do a page-by-page translation/proofread of it? V85 (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no experience from translation, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not Norwegian. But I am Swedish, I read Norwegian, and I have been active in Wikisource and Wiktionary. I agree that it is important that all terminology is correctly translated. We should list all the terms used, find the best translations, and document them in Wiktionary. This is a short document of 4 pages, 5668 bytes, 782 words from a dictionary of 387 words (or slightly less). The most common words "og, i, at" (and, in, that) are used 24, 23, and 20 times in the document. So this is a quite small task. The most common technical terms (i.e. words with non-obvious meanings) are (with my preliminary translations in parenthesis): siktede (suspect, used 19 times), retten (the court, 12), kjennelse (6), straffeloven (criminal code, the written law for criminal offences, 7), straffeprocessloven (the legal code for legal processeses in criminal cases, 4), isolasjon (isolation, 4), påtalemyndigheten (prosecutor's office, 4), varetektsfengsling (detention, 3), gjelder (3), erkjent (confessed, 3), Arbeiderpartiet (Labour party, 3), vilkårene (conditions, 2), siktelsen (2), sak (case, a legal case, 2), rettsmøte (a session of the court, 2), overtredelse (offense, 2), henvisning (reference, 2), forræderiet (treason, 2), fengslingsperioden (2), fengsling (detention, imprisonment or custody, 2), etterforskning (investigation, 2), bevissituasjon (2), besøksforbud (2), advokat (defense lawyer, 2) and a number of terms only used once. Are these Norwegian words already listed and correctly translated in the English Wiktionary? --LA2 (talk) 01:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Author name question

Do we use initials in author page names? The line "Use the author's full name (including middle name(s)), where the author is known by a shorter name create a redirect that points to the full name." was in the style guide until recently when I started going through author pages to implement that. (See also {{initials}}). Which is correct, full, abbreviated or either format? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

  • I don't know which is correct, but the full name, with redirects from a.k.a. names, sounds sensible to me. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 00:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • Ugh, I hate this policy. I've always felt that our author pages should be at "T. S. Eliot" (not "Thomas Stearns Eliot"), "Mark Twain" (not "Samuel Langhorne Clemens"), "Virginia Woolf" (not "Adeline Virginia Woolf"), and so on. The most commonly used name should be first preference, and disambiguation should be only as necessary. Hesperian 00:38, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
  • The use primarily of the full name with redirects of all its variations to it seems the logical way to go to me. If I went with the popular or self proclaimed titles for a particular work rather it's proper name or official designation, it would be contrary to that same logic so I don't understand what the controversy here is if redirects are used to supplement the full name anyway (sounds a bit lazy to me to be frank). — George Orwell III (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • I think the more important part is the name that is used in headers in the texts themselves. I think, if you're reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, then you expect to see Mark Twain in the header (which you currently do; good). That this actually goes to Author:Samuel Langhorne Clemens doesn't really matter. Hmm... actually, now I look at it from that point of view, I think the two should concord, and agree with Herperian above. (Not that I'm about to go changing any Author pages!) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
    • The official title of a work is decided by the author (or sometimes the publisher, et al.). The name of the author that appears on the work is decided by the same people. The authors actual name is decided by some vague relations who have usually little bearing on the literary world. It seems to me that using the author's nom de plume is actually the more consistent approach. The only issue I see is for authors that used multiple pen names. --T. Mazzei (talk) 03:20, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
      • Seems fine to use what you've described in the mainspace's header of a published work but I thought the question was to the Author: namspace in particular. With all due respect to T.S. Eliot, Timothy Eliot or Tabitha Eliot might have something alphabetical to say about ol' Thomas being listed much like a modern day rapper named "T." something ahead of them. If en.WS is suppose to be based around being a library and not just an airport bookstore why mess with intials in the card catalog?.... or is the Author: namespace believed to be on par with the main namespace, not subserviant to it? — George Orwell III (talk) 03:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
        • Indeed, I think it is best to use the "given" name in the header of a work in mainspace, which can then be redirected to the authors "canonical name" in the Author space. What this is is the question here. I would say that a person's canonical name is the one that appears on their tax returns, as that is the persons' unique identifier (unless we use a Personennamendatei, LCCN, etc) in the world, and all others are just real-world redirects to that name. It is not uncommon to have an author who writes under more than one name: Camille Flammarion vs Marion Fulgence, Patrick Moore vs R. T. Fishall, Iain Banks vs Iain M. Banks. The latter is especially worrying, as each is approximately as common at the other (un/luckily he is too modern to have any eligible works for WS). So the commonness of a particular name is down to some numerical advantage in works, with a subjective weighting for "fame" or "importance", which is itself biased by the works we have listed here. So therefore I find it easier, more consistent and logical to redirect to the full name and be done with it. Any common variations or pen-names should always be listed in the description field of the author header anyway. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 04:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
          • You make a pretty strong argument re authors with multiple pen names but only one identity, and wanting a "canonical" name to represent their identity. A very strong argument. I'm almost convinced. On the other hand, I find the notion that a legal name is someone's "unique identifier", and all other names merely real-world redirects, to be rather silly. Hesperian 04:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
            • Add a "so to speak" in there or something. To be honest, and I should have made this clear before, I'm not that bothered—the above is just my opinion that the "real" name is the one to write on the database record. None of this has any bearing on anything as there will be redirects in either case, and the name of the page is not necessarily the one we even write in the author header. The content will still be there. So, this whole thing is like complaining that your printer is branded "Dell" when it is really a "Lexmark". It'll still print your stuff out just the same! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
              • Hear! Hear!. This whole argument (much of which is much further above and on other pages) is pointless. I think that any move of an author page that isn't precipitated by an actual conflict is disruptive. All possible redirects need to be created. The page on which the data resides is of no consequence, it could be [[Author:137400757]] for all that matters.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 09:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
                • In my case it isn't an argument, I just want to know which policy to follow. I was just doing some gnoming in Authorspace when it came up. So far, it seems consensus is towards full names with a potential exception for famous alternatives. (My personal preference is for full names as the most exact and information-rich option.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
                  • Oh, I know you weren't making an argument, this is a long standing debate. My apologies if it sounded like I was saying you had done anything wrong by bringing this up. I think that it doesn't matter where you put it as long as you create all plausible redirects. I also think that if you create it at the common name and someone moves it to the full name or you create it at the full name and someone moves it to the common name, that move is disruptive and not supported by any policy, guideline, etc..--Doug.(talk • contribs) 14:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


So do we still adhere to alphabetically listing authors with such uniqueness as going by an initial or two in their names on the Authors indexes as well? Should T. S. Eliot appear ahead of somebody like the hypothetical author Tabitha Eliot for example in the El sub-section of the Authors-E master page?

I only play the devil's advocate role here for future clarity - personally I'm more of the mind what-the-base-entry-is and what-redirects-to-it are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to functionality as inferred above as long as all the naming variations are covered one way or the other. But instances such as the T. S. in relation to Tabitha (Eliot) one may make uniform organization and/or bulk maintenance somewhat problematic if not just unclear to the newbie contributor at least as accepted practices go for the Wikisource: author index listing page if not directly in the Author: name space somehow. — George Orwell III (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Procedure to reach consensus

Does WS follow the same procedure for reaching a consensus that WP does? Also, is there a way to search WS for all pages which have the {{proposal}} template on it? Could there be more than what is found even? I only ask, because the Wikisource:Policies and guidelines page only lists three proposed policy pages, and it seems it would need to be updated...? Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Proposal gives you the means to see what touches the template, so the means to find what uses the template is via identifying which [pages transclude. With regard to consensus, there are probably two means to it, sometimes we have a yes/no type response, and we may just need to keep batting the ball back and forwards; hopefully we have a range of responses, so we can progress things to the point of disagreement, update to that point and see whether that is sufficient or not. In all these spaces, I think that Wikisource has done well basing its approach on a shared principle, and allowing differences in approach within the principles, rather than trying to codify everything and then get the argument "the rules say …" It is probably fair to say that we have recently lost some of that acceptance of some difference and have had a few more approaches of "this is how I have been doing it", taken our eyes off the goals of the project and more focused on how things should run around here. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
You can also find them via Category:Proposed Wikisource policy. I think the basic answer is "yes", consensus means the same thing here, we're just more relaxed about it and, as Billinghurst says, the consensus is often presumed (from lack of comment otherwise) to be "you do things your way and I'll do things mine" and only if those noticeably clash do we worry much about it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 11:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Notice: Problems with Template:Long-s

Phe and I discovered that {{Long s}} (normally seen as {{ls}}) was breaking Google searches. Google sees the result of the {{custom substitution}} in that template as "ss" and therefore only finds the pagespace. The template will behave normally unless you were using the custom substitution to implement user preferences (e.g. through Inductiveload's recent script), those will simply not function now. The template will continue to show "ſ" in the pagespace and "s" in the mainspace. The problem has existed for about 1 year. Options for switching the mainspace display are being investigated; but for the time being it's more important that Google will find the text. Further discussion of this template should be at Template talk:Long s. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 09:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

djvu merge needed

INDEX If anyone is interested. Cheers. Moondyne (talk) 09:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I've uploaded the pages as a temp djvu HERE. If that is to your satisfaction, I can insert the pages at the proper point in the existing djvu and re-upload it to Commons without too much trouble. The problem then becomes a page-to-content offset of +2 for all the existing proofread/created pages after the point where scan page #175 appears. I don't know how to move them other than one at a time but I know it can be done by a bot (if someone is willing to step up that is). At any rate & either way; let me know. — George Orwell III (talk) 10:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Just make the new complete file and post the new name here and I or another bot operator should be able to bot over the pages quite easily.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 11:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
OK its up. Index needs re-alignment and, of course, those pages moved. — George Orwell III (talk) 11:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't see it, what's the name of the new index/Commons file?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:21, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
New? I inserted the 2 missing pages between djvu pages 202 & 203 in the original djvu first linked above by Moondyne to its Index: page. There will be 2 extra pages at the end of the djvu. Move everything "down" 2 pages working backwards from the end until you get to djvu 204 & 203 which is the new 175 & 174. Why move 250 pages+ from the front to whole new index when you can move just the last 40 or 50 in the existing one? What am I missing? George Orwell III (talk) 13:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Never mind. I'm tracking now.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

  Done by Billinghurst and me, by hand - we decided it wasn't worth setting up a bot run for such a small number of pages. I also proofed the two pages that were inserted.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Well its not like I didn't warn you what was needed. Curious though - isn't there a script or bot that does for you code-der types already? Something where our new offset of 2 after insertion means....
  • input the old last page as starting point
  • assign a move of +2 (new last page)
  • go –3 pages for next old page to move
  • repeat as needed.
I only ask because this is far from the last time something like this will be needed. — George Orwell III (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
It wasn't much work and I was going to put something together but Billinghurst started by hand at which point I was only likely to mess things up. There is no canned script for PWB (what I use) - there's one to move but it wasn't designed for incrementing. I'm not a very good coder, but I think it would be pretty simple for someone like say, Inductiveload or due. I'll look into it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
I left him a TalkBack pointing here as well.
Pivoting to a related issue... I was going through the Index: PR status CATs hoping to find someway to easily find other instances of "prison library" page image files being transcluded/substituted into Indexes that are also suffering from skipped/missing original scan pages issues in the bundled Djvu without much luck. Maybe there aren't that many but is there anyway to determine something like that either way? -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm looking forward to being able to utilize it. Thanks. — George Orwell III (talk) 18:59, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
User:Inductiveload/Scripts/Page shifter, you need to set the options by hand at the start, as sometimes you need to shift up and sometimes down. It will also shift to a whole new index if required. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:47, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Serial issue #1 from 1916 publication...worth transcribing?

Would there be any purpose in transcribing a first issue booklet (32pp; chs 1-3) from a 1916 serial publication? I don't know much about these sorts of publications, but from what I could glean from online, there were apparently more than 100 booklets in this particular series (Forbidden Path by Helen Glyn Kingsley). A Catalogue of Copyright Entries entry shows Nos. 1-10 having sold for $12.00... I have uploaded the front and back (the back gives a good description of the story) covers to Commons already, but I am holding off on the "middle matter" pending opinions on whether it would be worth it (since I only have one booklet)... This is also a "sample copy" as stated on the back. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 06:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Comments are still welcome, but I'm not likely going to do anything with this any time soon... Too much else to do. Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I requested speedy deletions of images associated with this booklet over at Commons. I found the booklet while in a store with family members, and as my eyes are naturally drawn to old stuff, I picked it up. I have not yet read the booklet, and likely won't, but it has nevertheless been bothering me recently... Lesson learned: only post stuff that has subject matter you're familiar with. JeepdaySock,—if it is okay to do so, could this whole post be deleted altogether, or should it remain here? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 20:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Slow Commons Uploads

Everyone, it took me hours to find this bug about the slowness uploading files to the Commons and I wanted to share in case anyone could add any input. The bug is here. I have all ready added my own input. I have experienced the problem with the regular upload, basic upload, and upload.py. Thanks! --Mattwj2002 (talk) 21:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource for Wikipedians

I have created the page Wikisource:For Wikipedians, based on the similar Wikinews:For Wikipedians. The Wikinews page seemed like a good idea, so I've been working on this; now it's live. I would appreciate thoughts and opinions on getting this page right. If everything is OK, I would like to add a link to it in the standard {{Welcome}} and {{Welcome-anon}} messages. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:39, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I quite like that; well done. Hesperian 00:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Indeed! Looks good. :-) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 01:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Nicely done! That Venn diagram will go a long way in explaining what's desired. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Excellent. Only thoughts would be a link to the style guide, as that is a biggie for enWP, and that we pre-form our pages headers namespaces. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:12, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
This page was greatly needed, and it is nearly perfect! CYGNIS INSIGNIS 08:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Great work, I have added the link to the welcome templates. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:13, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Very nice. Shouldn't we also add Portal to the namespace? — Ineuw talk 19:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks (although, again, it's Wikinews' idea). I've added links to the style guide, and notes on headers and portals. If I've missed anything else, feel free to edit it directly; it's out in the wild now, just another page in the Wikisource namespace. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

page links

I had the idea that the Page links would appear when previewing a page in 'main', allowing me to make corrections to the Page:ns before hitting save, now this only seems to work after the page has been created. Am I wrong or has something changed? CYGNIS INSIGNIS 08:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Labeled Section Transclusion

Over at Wikibooks we've been wondering, how much this extension is used. We're considering whether to enable it, and some concern was raised that if it's not really used much, some other extension might be introduced in the future that would be incompatible with it.

Any insights into how well (or badly) it works would be helpful, too. --Pi zero (talk) 16:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It works very well for what it does. Directly, it is used on help pages and documentation to multiply transclude parts of other documentation. We use the ProofreadPage extension a lot in our mainspace, and that does a similar thing: you can transclude only a section of a page. I am not sure if that is LST itself, or if the PP extension has its own routines for that. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 18:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
LST is used along with the PP transcultion where things are not exactly 1:1. For example a book of poems that begins a new poem halfway down the page. In page space vanilla PP works well, but to transclude each poem to a separate title in Mainspace we need to use LST. Inline illustrated books also need LST to avoid the caption being in the middle of text. There are other special uses of LST (footnotes broken over two pages, special comparative displays), it really is very versatile. I doubt it will be surpassed by another extention. IIRC Once a dev imganined it was some form of unneccesary extention sprawl and tried to figure away to eliminate it but after actually looking at some case-studies he conceded there was not an alternative solution. So I think it is about as safe as anything that isn't depended on by en.WP.--BirgitteSB 22:42, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion is an integral part of Wikisource's methodology, and ProofreadPage uses it (search file for #lst), it is (seamlessly?) built into the PrP extention. It is called in any page where we use a tosection/fromsectiontag within a <pages> command. I have read some comment that it is not the most efficient coding and may not be as effective on large load sites, for the load that is one WS servers, it would be extensive work, for less benefit to redesign it at this stage. This wouldn't be the forum to ask about the compatibility against future developments, not many hackers here. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:36, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
All this feedback y'all are providing is just what I was hoping for, though. I realize this isn't a technical forum — but the question of future problems has a strong social element, in that the devs are far more likely to be respectful of an existing extension if it's heavily used by a prominent sister project. Which, apparently, it is. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Two images' related questions

  1. In attempting to diversify my time and contribution to WS, I decided to transfer images from WS to the Commons, but ran up against several "challenges" and this post is to seek advice from WS editors & admins:
    1. Renewed my TUSC token on the Commons. (just in case).
    2. Attempted to transfer images using the http://toolserver.org/~magnus/commonshelper.php AND its successor: http://toolserver.org/~commonshelper2/?language=en&project=wikipedia&target_file=&file=&use_checkusage=1 but to no avail. In both cases, the transfer failed with various error messages and ended up downloading a file to my desktop and then upload it - a needlessly long and frustrating process.
    3. What am I doing wrong?
      From enWP I have been successfully transferring files directly to Commons, not via my PC. I probably haven't done it for a month here, though I haven't had problems previously. What error message are you specifically getting? Issues can be that there is no copyright tag, or the information in the file is incompatible with Commons requirements. The answer is to ensure that you update the file at this end with the {{information}} tag complete. [To note that ours should be a replica of Commons as I did update that template in the last year or so to their version, though it is probably worthwhile us updating it again.]
The only image information template I know is of the Commons and it's up to date. The file I had to download and upload had all the correct information, but the transfer tool didn't work. - No matter I will keep on trying.
  1. Began proofreading PSM project pages with images. Since my understanding of image quality has improved since I began, I often see the need to replace earlier uploads with cleaner and clearer versions. This is not a problem in itself since I have copies of the originals, but the quandary is that in the (mid) course of uploading, I was asked to switch from .jpg to .png format. My preference is to comply with the Commons' instructions.
    1. How can use the Commons' image replacement feature where the image is of the same name but with a different format (extension)?
      1. Is it the option of adding the {{db}} template? OR
      2. Use the same format as the original?

Thanks in advance for the advice. — Ineuw talk 04:14, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Asked? Asked by whom? At this stage I would think that where we are updating a file, that we would do like with like, and utilise the upload facility attached to the file. If you were looking for perfection at Commons, with the iamge as king, then you would be looking to fully align with their aims. If it is a less than optimal scan, and makes no real difference, then what is the fuss? What we do in any future uploads of new files is a separate issue and we would be looking at the page Commons:File types as our guidance in this space, eg., is it a photo? yes, then jpg; no, then probably png. What is the source of the original file, and how much work are we doing, etc. Advice on the best types for each scenario is surely with those graphics geeks at Commons. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for the belated reply, but I noticed that others on the Commons Village pump posted on this issue and I just received an authoritative reply as to what to do. Numerous PSM .JPG uploads were tagged as {{BadJPG}} by Commons User:Mikhail Ryazonov (no user page just talk page). A lengthy post can be read on his talk page. I am grateful to him for explaining and demonstrating the differences, and since then I am uploading only .PNG formats which is most suitable for these 19th century grayscale images. (Photos and drawings). The problem occurred when I tried replacing .JPG images of earlier uploads with .PNG replacements. To take advantage of the image replacement with a better version, one must replace the original with the same format. i.e.: .JPG with .JPG. So, this issue is resolved. — Ineuw talk 04:38, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Text layer problem

On Index:Last of the tasmanians.djvu the text layer doesn't appear when I open the pages, despite being in the djvu I just uploaded, I've checked that in my copy. Any ideas what's gone wrong?Misarxist (talk) 11:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I purged the file at Commons, and the text layer is now available. Why wasn't it there before? NFI. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:53, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Thnx Misarxist (talk) 13:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal image filter referendum

Hello. :) Though this is not local policy, the dates are approaching, and I wanted to make sure that your project was aware--as it is certainly far-reaching. (It seems like it might not have a lot of impact here, but might, and could certainly still be of interest.)

The Wikimedia Foundation, at the direction of the Board of Trustees, will be holding a vote to determine whether members of the community support the creation and usage of an opt-in personal image filter, which would allow readers to voluntarily screen particular types of images strictly for their own accounts. The referendum is scheduled for 12-27 August. You can read more about it at m:Image filter referendum/en; if you are interested in weighing in, you may especially want to review M:Image filter referendum/FAQ/en. Thanks! --Mdennis (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

My comment surrounding this would be that we have had certain talk and main namespace image vandalism here, where certain nefarious vandals have included images as shock vandalism, and this may be a means to lessen the impact for users. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:05, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The logotype, mobile version

The mobile version of Wikisource (at least sv, en and www.wikisource, and most likely all language-versions) uses a simplified version of the wikipedia-logotype.

There has to be a better solution. - But where is the right place to talk about something that conserns all Wikisource-versions? -- Lavallen (talk) 06:54, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

That'd be oldwikisource:. Its address is just wikisource.org without a subdomain. 74.96.104.206 21:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
To get that fixed, you would need to add a request to bugzilla:, and presumably a discussion would be either through the Wikisource-L mailing list, or over at oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium, though it is definitely a quieter place these days. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:57, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

TOC

The following book Index:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu does not contain TOC but I would like to make one, to be used possibly in Index TOC field and then transcluded to Main namespace. I have not figured out if it is possible to transclude the "Table of Content" field in the Index space. Any suggestions on how to solve this? The alternative would be either to make TOC only in the Mainspace, I guess, or cheat and use a blank page to host the TOC? --Mpaa (talk) 18:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Generally I have imported in the reverse direction if I have created a ToC and wish to import. In that regard I would have created the ToC in the main namespace, and wrap the bits that you want to import either in <onlyinclude> tags, or alternatively the bits that you do not wish to include, eg. {{header}}, etc. inside <noinclude> tags, then transclude the main ns page {{:Name of work}} into the index. One of the things to consider when building our own ToC is how to display it and distinguish it from the real sections. That has been done previously in a couple of ways, though Inductiveload recently put together {{Auxiliary Table of Contents}} to assist that process. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Concur, that would be better. The mainspace needs the TOC more than the index page even if it wasn't in the original and it can easily be transcluded to the index. Maintaining 2 TOCs, or 2 of anything is a bad idea. {{Auxiliary Table of Contents}} would be quite appropriate in this case.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 10:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Closed Captioning from Years Worth of Congress, Senate and the House Videos

I found a great source public domain content. It is closed captioning from years worth of congress, senate and the house recording. This is closed captioning from tons of debate. Here is the a link to the videos with the .srt files:

http://www.archive.org/details/metavid_congress
Example video: http://www.archive.org/details/mv_senate_proceeding_12-04-09

If you take the .srt file open and open it in WordPad it will format it correctly.

Here is a sample: 

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,000
starttime 1259937035.06183

2
00:01:20,001 --> 00:01:21,000
SENATE ON C-SPAN2.


3
00:01:21,001 --> 00:01:24,000
THE PRESIDING OFFICER: THE


4
00:01:24,001 --> 00:01:34,000
SENATE WILL COME TO ORDER.


5
00:01:34,001 --> 00:01:38,000
WILL LEAD THE SENATE IN PRAYER.

Please let me know what you think. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Image placement help

If anyone has any good ideas on how I can improve image placement on TheKing's Horses page, I would be obliged... As of right now, the pages are transcluded as they are in the original text, but as you will see, the second image just won't do as currently placed (or will it?). Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It seemed to display fine for me, what is your concern? Though to note that we can place the image itself without wrapping it in {{center}}, plus forcing image size is always one of those quandaries. To force or to allow the user's preferred size to rule. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
My concern was that image placement breaks up the text mid-sentence in the Main, and that seems kind of undesirable to me...? Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
There are two schools of thought (camps?):
  • One that says, that is how the book was laid out and our replication does not differ. This in situ location means that we there is no sneak coding, and we just transclude, and hence put up with the breaks, and occasions where images are not near text.
  • and the other says, break in considered places, be that at paragraph markers, or locate the images to the context of the text. This requires elements of <noinclude> coding around images that are to be re-located, and <includeonly> coding to where they will be locate.
Personally my position straddles the zone as I have done works both ways; so my approach is if the work is of an artistic nature, or (my) logic indicates and it makes sense to relocate, then do so. An example of where I did was Highways and Byways in Sussex where I wanted to have the images with the parishes, as we don't bind, we aren't restricted about where we could place images. If the editors haven't otherwise taken considered actions, why are we trying to do so? — billinghurst sDrewth 10:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Billinghurst, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what your bot did with some of the Pages in the text you mention (see here, for example). Does all that have to do with how you placed/adjusted your images, or is it not related? With the images that appeared on the same page as text, I see where you simply inserted them between paragraphs (with exceptions)... Here, where the image has its own page, I see that you have kept it as is similarly rendered in Men I Have Painted... (more comments from me follow below Cygnis insignis' comments) Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
It was just ripping out line breaks, and pre-dates Hesperian's tidier cleanup() script that we use now through the browser. — billinghurst sDrewth 16:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Phew... Thank goodness! Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The "Illustration" list indicates the image of Crown Prince is found "facing page 32". Why is breaking paragraphs a problem? it is sometimes deliberate, or arguably so. Keeping page order is a good practice, referring to page numbers is an old one; the solutions applied to Page for editing the copy add complexity. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 13:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Cygnis insignis, I'm trying to figure out whether by "Why is breaking paragraphs a problem?" you mean, "It is a problem, and here's why" or "It may not be a problem in this case." I think you mean the former, with what follows (breaking paragraphs often being arguably deliberate)—coupled with the note that "pagination is crucial."... further,
Billinghurst & Cygnis insignis, The first written mention of "Crown Prince" in the text is on p. 33 (the page after the plate of the horse)—in the "Buckingham Palace Hotel, London, S.W." letter. If I were to insert the picture just before that letter, would that be objectionable? Do you think it would "violate" good pagination? Would all I need to do then with page 32f is wrap the image/text body in noinclude coding and insert the image/text over to page 33 just before the entry where Crown Prince is mentioned? (Sorry I'm making this more difficult than it probably needs to be...) Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I gave it a shot, let me know what you all think... Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:25, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Scaling up the import of open-access sources

I saw that a few open-access articles are already present here (e.g. those currently listed in the category PLoS ONE, which are all licensed CC-BY). Has there been a discussion on whether and how to import such reusably licensed materials more systematically? I would like to work on that as part of a Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science project. Thanks for any pointers. I posted the same inquiry at Wikisource_talk:What_Wikisource_includes#Open-access_materials.3F, as I am not sure what the best place is to discuss the matter. Cheers, -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 15:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I would say that the conversation is a better one for here, rather than the other page. We quite often have discussions about similar sorts of topic matters, and my response is that one needs to build a critical mass, and look to run such matters as a WikiProject, and the critical mass is not especially here at this particular moment. We have a number of people who lead and solidly progress with certain projects, and they have their regular or occasional followers. Wikisource is the evident place to receive such works, and the support would be there, though I would also encourage you to look at Wikisource:WikiProject Academic Papers which would seem to be a parent to what you are discussing. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer - I left a note there. As for critical mass, I am thinking of having bots do the actual upload from individual publishers or, preferably, from repositories that aggregate content across publishers in a coherent format (e.g. PubMed Central), so the main things which require involvement from the community would be to define the scope of this import project (e.g. in terms of scientific disciplines or copyright licenses covered) as well as the layout of those articles for here (including templates, categories and possibly a namespace), to write the bot scripts and to get the bots approved and deployed. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 12:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
You may want to speak with the operator of User:BenchBot who has done similar with importing US Supreme Court works. With regard to templates, sure we have bits, the important one is {{header}}; also with regard to namespace would be the detail in our Portal namespace, and our Author page build. One of our admins recently has developed Wikisource:For Wikipedians which would be really useful. Depending on what "extra" or morphed data you are bringing into the mix, we could customise a variation of {{header}}. With the size of our community, it has been general practice to talk more broadly and generically here, and possibly specific data off on relevant talk pages. I know that I am comfortable for the overarching conversation taking place at this page.

Case of newspaper article titles/headlines?

Anyone got an opinion on this? See Wikisource talk:WikiProject Newspapers. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

HathiTrust

German Wikisource needs people with affiliation to the HathiTrust partners which are providing Shibboleth access to the PDFs of whole Public Domain Books in HathiTrust. These people can download the PDFs and these PDFs can be uploaded to the Internet Archive to facilitate the access for Not-US-citizen who are unable to use web proxies. Using HathiHelper to collect single page PDFs of whole books with US proxy is extremely frustrating. Please check your friends to find such contacts. Thank you!

List of HathiTrust partner institutions with HT Full-PDF-access (I have contacted Phoebe Ayers but she could not help because her university at Davis which is a HT partner too has no Shibboleth access.)

  • Arizona State University
  • Baylor University
  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • Dartmouth College
  • Duke University
  • Indiana University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Lafayette College
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Michigan State University
  • New York University
  • North Carolina State University
  • Northwestern University
  • The Pennsylvania State University
  • Princeton University
  • Purdue University
  • Stanford University
  • Texas A&M University
  • The Ohio State University
  • Universidad Complutense de Madrid
  • University of California Berkeley
  • University of California Irvine
  • University of California Los Angeles
  • University of California Merced
  • University of California San Diego
  • University of California San Francisco
  • The University of Chicago
  • University of Illinois at Urbana
  • University of Illinois at Chicago
  • The University of Iowa
  • University of Maryland, College Park
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Minnesota
  • The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Utah
  • University of Virginia
  • University of Washington
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Utah State University
  • Yale University Library

--FrobenChristoph (talk) 01:11, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I can download works page-by-page and collate to DjVu if PDFs cannot be found, but it is slow work, so I can't do huge lists. The tool I use to do this is Pygrabber, which you can use yourself if you can satisfy the dependencies. You can use a proxy if required to get the US-only access. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 02:26, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Exactly due to this reasons it would be preferable to have such contacts: slow work and difficulties to find really good proxies --84.62.78.109 20:50, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Cf. ?

Please see the footnote on this index page. I am not sure what Cf. means, and I do not know if I placed the <ref> for that particular "footnote" in the correct place. Thank you, Londonjackbooks (talk) 19:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

It's an old fashioned acronym for confer 'compare.' Pretty much equivalent to 'see also.' I would wager that in this example it's a second paragraph of the first note. Prosody (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll fix it. Londonjackbooks (talk) 20:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

New text

Hi. Is there a way to add two authors with wikilinks when adding a book to {{new texts}}? --Mpaa (talk) 00:35, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure. Yes the nowiki component and then do a standard Author: linking. Instructions at {{new texts/item}} — billinghurst sDrewth 02:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource now mentioned in National Archives online catalog!

 
Example of NARA's new external links to Wikisource.

I am happy to announce that, starting today, validated transcriptions on Wikisource of documents in the US National Archives' holdings will be linked from the National Archives online catalog! You can see the first batch of such documents at Category:Wikisource transcriptions linked from the the US National Archives online catalog. Links in the catalog are live for these 21 entries; for example, see [23] ("The Nonsense of It") for how this looks in practice. I also put up a screenshot at right, but you can't really see what it says without clicking through to full size.

This means that the work we do here will directly benefit researchers using the National Archives catalog even if they had never heard of Wikisource before, and that the National Archives supports and appreciates your work, which adds value to its collections. Many Wikisource texts, and especially the ones that are unique documents, are held in the collections of libraries and archives whose users would benefit from our transcriptions but will never find them using the institution's catalog and research tools. Hopefully this is only the beginning of more fruitful partnerships between Wikisource and the institutions which have a stake in its work.

Would you like to help out? There are two ways. First and foremost, please help transcribe the NARA texts we have queued up already. This first batch added by the National archives today was the 21 documents we identified as transcribed through the WS:NARA. Please see Wikisource:WikiProject NARA/To prepare for more documents you can work on. Right now, most of these are actual fairly short documents. There is a bot on Commons that is uploading many more documents, too; the ones listed there are just the beginning. There are also documents that are awaiting validation. We can double the number of Wikisource texts in NARA's catalog just by validating all of these right now. Once completed and validated, list texts at Wikisource:WikiProject NARA/Completed#To link for NARA staff to add to the catalog. Also, Wikisource presumably has may texts transcribed already when are held by the National Archives. Any documents related to presidential administrations, Congress, or the rest of the federal government are especially likely to be NARA holdings. If you list any validated texts that already exist on Wikisource, we'll link them as well, and also try to locate high-res scans that were likely not available before. Dominic (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Very neat. Have we progressed to requiring the protection for those documents? — billinghurst sDrewth 01:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Meetup in Perth, Western Australia

Just in case anyone's interested: there's going to be a Wikimedia meetup this weekend in Perth. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 13:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Western Europe in the Middle Ages

This book is online here - http://www.questia.com/read/11306783# - Can we put it on here then?

Internet Archive link - http://www.archive.org/details/westerneuropeint006728mbp - Tannertsf (talk) 16:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Probably. Published in the United States in 1955 with a copyright notice, and I can't find a renewal record on either of the two renewal databases. That would make it {{PD-US-no-renewal}}. Prosody (talk) 21:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Great. Could you upload it and set it up for me, Prosody? - Tannertsf (talk) 03:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Here you are. For some reason the cover image isn't rendering properly, maybe a thumbnail related issue; that shouldn't really be a problem though. Prosody (talk) 04:25, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Repaging pdfs

Does anyone know if there's an automatic method for getting separate pages out of a pdf that's been scanned as double pages? (Or at least quicker than cutting and pasting each page manually.) Was wondering about this [24] book.Misarxist (talk) 10:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I think user:Inductiveload may have a script for this. He did this for me with the copy of Utopia at Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld, producing File:Utopia, which is being proofread at la:Liber:Utopia, More, 1518.djvu.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:39, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanx, have asked him.Misarxist (talk) 10:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Excerpt presented as whole work

I just fixed a major error on Piers Plowman (see the talk page). (What I assume is) a short free-standing excerpt from this massive work was entered as if it were the whole poem. I suspect that the problem comes from somebody entering items from a collection -- in this case, The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918 -- under the titles given them there, without seeking further.

The source may be at fault. I have here only The New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1950, and it has a different piece by Langland (p.4), under the title "Et Incarnatus Est". For all I know, this one may also be an excerpt from "Piers Plowman".

Better check out everything from that source, eh? (But I'm not volunteering... even typing this is procrastination). --Thnidu (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Match & split problems

Keep getting an unspecified error trying to match and split The Guide for the Perplexed (Friedlander)/Translator's Introduction to p 9 of Index:Guideforperplexed.djvu which I just uploaded. Never tried this before, what am I doing wrong? (Also the main namespace page is The Guide for the Perplexed (1904) while the subpages are all under "The Guide for the Perplexed (Friedlander)" is this a problem?) Misarxist (talk) 11:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Page titles using quotation marks and/or other characters

What is the thinking on using quotation marks or other characters in page titles—especially if that is how they are meant to be titled: such as "Men who March away", In Time of "The Breaking of Nations", or The Battle of Liège to use examples... I am in the process of creating title pages for the anchored poems that redirect to their respective text section (e.g.). While browsing recently, I came across dialogue discussing the matter, but I can't remember where I saw it or what the 'best practice' was... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I believe the main potential problem with quotation marks and special characters is searching. If someone searches for Men who March away rather than "Men who March away", they will get a search results screen rather than the poem (although the top result will probably be the right one). The easiest solution is to create two redirects, one with the special characters and one without; so, whichever is used, the reader will still be directed to the right page. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 09:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll create the two redirects then. Another question, however: Is it or is it not recommended to use lower case in titles unless proper nouns are used? For example, Men who march away v. Men Who March Away? Using another example from above,—In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" or In time of "the breaking of nations" or In time of the breaking of nations (even though there should be a distinction made here that the title references another title/song), etc. etc.? Sorry, the questions just keep coming! Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
In the past there has been no consensus on that. I think we were much closer to settling on title case than sentence case though. Perhaps it is time to test consensus again. Hesperian 01:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. "Closer to settling" in which direction—favoring upper case or lower? Can you point me to the specific Talk page the dialogue is on? I'll try to look for it myself in the meantime. Appreciated, Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Found this from way back... I'll look for more... Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
And this... I'll look it over. Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I see what you mean... It would make more sense to render In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" as I just did it, and I'm sure there are other exceptions out there as well that would favor "maximal"... Even though most titles lend themselves well to minimal, perhaps the exceptions may be the deciding factor for the rest? I don't know...? Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Although a standard is nice, a rule on this has little value. What's amazing is that no one has created the redirects on some of the works noted on the discussions you linked. The names are relative. It doesn't matter whether The Scarlet Letter redirects to The scarlet letter or vice versa. The "title" is within the page (frequently in the header) not on the address bar. The only difference is what shows in bold at the top of the page, above the editable page, which argues for using Title Case but even that can be modified by using the magic word DISPLAYTITLE. The use of punctuation in the address can be problematic and some characters and character combinations are invalid. Among other things it frequently result in an unintelligible address. I recommend using Title Case without punctuation in the address of the work but still creating a redirect from the the fully punctuated page and the sentence case name with and without punctuation and using DISPLAYTITLE to get the correct punctuation on the page title; however, if you're going to use DISPLAYTITLE, it really matters little what the actual address says. Redirects are cheap yet valuable; though unlike on our larger sister, I expect few can successfully navigate among works that they haven't personally edited by using the address bar. There is useful information at w:Wikipedia:Page name to supplement the information we have locally.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Not so amazing... I had mentioned that I was working on them; and I was waiting on more info. Lots of things to do with the TWP text, as it uses anchors, needs author pages created, etc... I try to do the redirects when I work on the corresponding author pages, but have been thinking about doing redirects first, then author pages, etc... I'm still "sleeping" right now, but will look through the remainder of the above details in a bit when I'm more coherent! Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 09:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Still wrapping my mind around "using Title Case without punctuation but still creating a redirect from the the fully punctuated page and the sentence case name with and without punctuation and using DISPLAYTITLE to get the correct punctuation on the page title; however, if you're going to use DISPLAYTITLE, it really matters little what the actual address says" Too much in one sentence for my brain... I looked into DISPLAYTITLE over there, but noted a caution about it over here that maybe it doesn't work as well over here as it does over there... Either way, I don't think I need to mess with DISPLAYTITLE (I'd have to understand it better first anyway); I just want to make searching for a title as easy as possible while maintaining uniformity. So what I think I'll do is this: Create the page In Time of The Breaking of Nations (no quotations, but still capitalizing the "The" to denote that it is referring to another title within the title); however, if someone starts typing in time of the "breaking... etc. in the search bar, will the quotation marks the searcher enters keep the actual title (In Time of The Breaking of Nations) from popping up? That's the gist of my concern. I don't want to break the search before it "reaches" its desired destination. Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
No, it won't. If someone inputs in time of the "breaking of nations" then search engines will see that as search for the words "in", "time", "of", "the", and the phrase "breaking of nations". They'll still find this work and they won't confuse it with a (hypothetical) work called "Breaking Nations of Time" (most search engines will largely ignore the articles and prepositions). This is basically what I was saying. If you ignore the part about DISPLAYTITLE, the best practice would seem to be to leave out punctuation (except in redirects) and to create the work at either the Sentence case or the Title Case name. I would prefer the Title Case name only because it will look more like the title on the book. If you have a link to the discussion of DISPLAYTITLE not working well here, I'd like to read it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
More of a "mention" than a "discussion", and I believe it was a response to you (it's the very last entry in the section). I was searching for results with "DISPLAYTITLE" in them, and that one came up... Where searching is concerned, I was referring to typing in the WS search bar in particular. I'll try to look around for an example of what I mean... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I tested it, it works, but not as I advertised above. You can only use it for thing like adding italics or to change Author:E.e. cummings to read Author:e.e. cummings on the page title this can even be done for a redirect, see here. Adding quotes would fail as the page name has to resolve the same. I'm not sure why that restriction exists but it is in the documentation at en.wp.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Follow-up: As of Media-Wiki 1.14 this can be overriden to allow display of any page name by setting $wgRestrictDisplayTitle = false. There's a big downside though, since you can't then copy and paste the page title to use as a link.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 14:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Ok, you're right about quotation marks not mattering in a search (even in the WS bar). I erroneously (on purpose) started entering on re-"reading the sick king and it still "dropped down" to On Re-reading "The Sick King in Bokhara". Good to go there... Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Script toolbar

Hi. Can someone help me in fixing a probelm with my script page common.js? I struggled with this for a while getting nowhere.

Issue 1: if I do not comment the following line I see two identical scripts sections in the left, one under toolbox and one below, and Custom Regex works. If I comment it, I see only one script section, Custom Regex is displayed in it but when I click on it nothing happens.

importScriptURI('http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pathoschild/Scripts/Regex_menu_framework.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
Do you have the script on through the available gadget?

2) is there a way to have the script section already open by default when I start editing a page?

I cannot remember I have changed since before summer but now it does not work as it used to. --Mpaa (talk) 08:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not the expert here, however, I am not even sure what you mean by "script section already open". Do you have links on the left hand side of your page? Also to note that Pathoschild now has a brand new shiny replacement script @meta, though I have yet to go and play. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I have. But I just have "Scripts", with no links to the different scripts shown. I have to press "Scripts" on the side to open the menu. It is just one more click but it is quite annoying. And before it did not worked like that. Everything was visible right away. --Mpaa (talk) 08:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

A namespace for projects?

According to me we should create a new namespace for projects. In the past on it.wikisource there was projects at addresses like this: Wikisource:Progetto Matematica (in English Wikisource:Project Mathematics), now these addresses are like this: Progetto:Matematica. I think that it was a good idea and propose to create a similar namespace here, too. What do you think?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's unnecessary, since surely that's one of the things that the Wikisource: namespace is for? Just as at English Wikipedia all the WikiProjects are in the Wikipedia: namespace. - Htonl (talk) 20:31, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Htonl that the Wikisource namespace suffices for all meta content. Hesperian 01:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I too agree that we should utilise the Wikisource namespace. My reasoning is that the approach has been that the community and its organisation exists within the Wikisource: namespace, and specifically I would see that this would belong at Wikisource:WikiProject Mathematics (see the listing at Wikisource:WikiProjects). It is not evident to me the value or benefit of another namespace, though would happily listen to opinion on how it would or could work better, especially as a separate namespace, not just an organisational space. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Page:Western Europe in the Middle Ages.djvu/27

Could someone help me with this page by putting the picture on the page? Not a good picture, but I still believe in staying true to the book. - Tannertsf (talk) 01:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Have you separately extracted the image from the page? If so, what is its name at Commons? If not, then we would look to utilise the better quality images available at the page's source to extract, crop and clean. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:45, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No, and it is from the Internet Archive. - Tannertsf (talk) 03:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If it is not extracted then add {{page contains image}} & mark with problematic. There is no system yet for getting others to extract images, nor a set of volunteers at Commons lining up to help. I WISH THERE WAS!!! — billinghurst sDrewth 04:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've extracted the image directly from the IA's TIFF files and added it to the page. It's still not a brilliant quality image, but it's OK. I've just put it in there at 400px and right-aligned, but feel free to reformat however you want to. - Htonl (talk) 15:09, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Done a minimal improvement of the image darkness, but can't do more. However, based on past experience, this same (iconic) image will pop up in another publication and in a clearer format.— Ineuw talk 02:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
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