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This is a discussion archive first created in April 2012, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date.
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Announcements

Wikisources' software application updated to 1.19wmf1

Hi to all. Just saw one of the techs pop into the Wikisource IRC channel, and that was a good indication that they have updated our mediawiki software. Please report errors or discrepancies that you see. In IRC would be great (details at the top of the page), here is useful, or if you think that it should then it can go straight into bugzilla:. I will start a section at the bottom of the page as a place to record issues. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

See #MediaWiki 1.19 for previous notice. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There were caching issues that have been causing problems in browsers. All users are encouraged to refresh their case (Ctrl-F5) so that bits.wikimedia.org updates your skins, modules, etc. For those who want to read the tech, see bugzilla:34706

This bug has now been marked as resolved, I hope that this is the case for users. If that is not the case, then please comment in the active section below. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposals

Proposal: add Worldcat ID to template:author

Wikisource now has works attributed to more than 11,000 authors. Well, we at least have more than 11,000 uses of {{author}}.

That's a lot of authors.

As it happens, there is an identification scheme for authors at the U.S. library of Congress, and the database is accessible online at Worldcat Identities. Over at the English Wikipedia, we use a template w:Template:Worldcat id to link to the appropriate database entry from an author's article.

I think we should do the same here at Wikisource, but more consistently: after all, we are all about capturing works written by authors.

I propose that we modify {{author}} to add a "worldcat_id" field. This field will add a link to the Worldcat ID database page for the author ID.

We also should add a hidden category [[Category:Author template without worldcat_id]] which will automatically list all authors for which this field has not yet been filled in. This will ease the task of any bot or manual effort to fill in the worldcat_id fields.

But why?

The Worldcat ID database lists all works by the author in the Worldcat library database. The Worldcat Library database is a list of all physical copies of the book in participating libraries all over the world. This is useful to us in two ways:

We can add to the list of the author's works based on the listing at Worldcat ID.
potential Wikksource contributors can find where to go to find physical copies of works when scans are not available.

Why this proposal?

usually, I just make the change myself, but the "author" template is protected, so an administrator must perform the change, and this is after all a big change.

-Arch dude (talk) 02:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe that there was a similar earlier discussion at Template talk:Author. I also see that at Commons in the Creator: namespace that they utilise a range of identifiers through {{authority control}} (which was imported to pair with Commons). To me there needs to be an expert opinion what is the best linking schema, and the application of metadata (a long standing need). At this stage I haven't seen a convincing case made to use WorldCat / rather than VIAF / rather than LCCN / ... — billinghurst sDrewth 06:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I do not know about VIAF, but the lccn (Library of Congress Catalog Number) is used for the Worldcat database if an lccn has been assigned for the author. Worldcat is run by the Library of Congress. I do not think we need to make an either/or choice, but instead we should have fields for each well-known ID. The decision to actually use the field to generate a clickable link to an external database is a separate decision. -Arch dude (talk) 08:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

{{authority control}} is still experimental, especially as I tried to make it work for books as well as authors, but it seems stable. You can see author pages that use it in Category:Author pages with authority control data. The template is at the bottom of each page rather than with the header. For example, Author:Bram Stoker. (Other than experiments, I've used it where I found it difficult to initially identify an author; like a citation in a way.) It would be easy to add this template to the author template if there was a consensus to do so (and if there was a consensus that this template works). Slightly harder but not too difficult would be to extract the desired code and add that directly to the author template.

Note that as part of experimenting with incorporating the authority control template/data into Wikisource, I've added some less prestigious but (in my opinion at least) potentially useful authorities, some of which come from Special:BookSources. For the author template, we might have to decide which authorities are suitable and which are not. As an example, I've thought about adding the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) as an authority, although I haven't done so yet, to cover those authors who have also worked as screenwriters etc. (The Library of Congress does sometimes link to IMDb from its own identity pages.) Commons' Creator template as standard (when preloaded) uses PND (German National Library), VIAF, LCCN (which creates an additional link to Worldcat) and ULAN (a toolserver link, in German, for WP-Personeninfo, based on German Wikipedia). All but the latter are available in our template.

Our authority control template is not protected so it can be tweaked by anyone if necessary. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 10:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Worldcat linkfarm

Since linking to Worldcat is effectively promoting its website over other cataloguing services and other cataloguing systems, I object to creating links that effectively direct web traffic to sites not affiliated to Wikimedia Foundation, because by doing so, this shows favoritism and makes Commons a linkfarm for cataloguing sites. In my view, Special:BookSources should be adapted so that books searches can be made to multiple cataloguing systems, not just ISDN. For editors interested in earlier discussions on this issue, have a look at the discussion "Worldcat Weblink. In my view, there must be a better way to link to Worldcat by indirect means that does not look like Wikimedia is endorsing their site by creating hundreds of links to Worldcat web pages. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see the analysis at w:Template talk:Worldcat id, which presents a point-by-point analysis of Wordcat ID with respect to Wikimedia policy. Worldcat id is not a link farm and links to it do not violate either the letter or the spirit of any one of the "no linkfarms" prohibitions, and there is no other individual site that can replace it. I do think that linking to site in addition to Worldcat ID is a very good idea, but at the time the template was introduced at WP, the "authority control" template did not exist. Note that I am specifically concerned here with the author link, not the ISBN link for specific works, and in fact ISDN is only useful when you are worried about a specific edition of a specific work. Worldcat ID is provided by OCLC, which is a non-commercial association of a large number of libraries. It's as close as we can et to linking to the world's physical libraries, and the goal of Wikisource is to digitize as much of the material as we can from these libraries. Let me re-emphasize: Yes, we should link to the physical resources in whatever other ways we can in addition to Worldcat ID. The only reason I chose it originally is that it appears to do some the things I think we need. -Arch dude (talk) 00:01, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is a good idea and acknowledge your argument that Worldcat is pretty close to being a worldwide library database, and maybe there is no better source of cataloging information. Nonetheless, that does not justify creating thousands of links to Worldcat. When you compare with direct links to Worldcat with the method of searching for ISBN using Special:BookSources, you can see that we are not tied into one book cataloging service when searching for a book using ISBN, whereas we are with Worldcat. By linking to Worldcat directly rather than though the method used by Special:BookSources, Commons is acting directly as a feeder of web traffic to their site, who benefit through advertising as a result. I am not against advertising per se, but we have to be clear that very Commons is set to become a potentially rich source of web traffic for advertisers.

I am concerned these links effectively compromise Wikimedia's independence. I know it is a mutually beneficial relationship, and the links to Worldcat provide a service that is needed. However, the relationship is too close and is not at arms length like it is for ISBN. We don't have such a cosy relationship with the ISBN website, and I am not sure we are taking the issue of independence as an important governance issue seriously if we are not sober enough to see through the immediate benefits and examine the wider implications. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 01:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I am very confused here. I know of no advertising associated in any way associated with any OCLC web site. Please point me to any such advertizing if I am wrong. Also, you are conflating Worldcat (access to individual books) with Worldcat ID (lists of works or about authors.) ISBN is about individual editions of individual works, not authors. I'm neutral-to-negative about linking individual Wikisource texts to specific ISBNs. I am strongly positive about linking Wikisource authors to Worldcat ID (and any other "authority control" sites) that may provide access to physical texts by or about authors. -Arch dude (talk) 02:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

ISBN is unlikely to be an issue for Wikisource. It was only introduced in the 1970s, so anything that has one it almost certainly still under copyright unless released under a free licence. As for Worldcat, I think it is perfectly reasonable to link to this catalogue. I can think of two responses, depending on scope:

From a Wikimedia point of view: Worldcat is already linked to as standard from both Wikipedia and Commons. Both of which are orders of magnitude larger than Wikisource. It's too late to prevent linking and, to reverse any effect, you will have to discuss it on those projects or with the Foundation itself.
From a Wikisource point of view: We are a library and Worldcat is an amalgamated library catalogue. Along with the Library of Congress, VIAF etc, it is appropriate for Wikisource, more than the other projects, to link to these resources.

OCLC seems to be the main concern in the linked discussions on Wikipedia. The authority control template that I imported from Wikipedia and Commons uses the LCCN (provided by the Library of Congress) to create a link to both the LOC and Worldcat. I had to personally alter the template to create an link to Worldcat based on OCLC and that is still overridden by the LCCN. I'm not sure why OCLC is such a concern but it is just one of many authority systems.

I mentioned above that we might need to decide which authorities are appropriate, or if they are all acceptable. Worldcat is part of this. Nevertheless, of all the resources that help support Wikisource and Wikisource's mission, Worldcat is one of the ones I find most useful. I think having standardised links to other catalogues is a good thing for this project (not to mention in line with other projects' standards). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:12, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no doubts about the benefits of such links, but I still consider it to run contrary to good governance to link directly to web sites that do not come under the umbrella of Mediawiki Foundation. These sites are good databases to be sure, but I would question whether it Wikisource's mission is to direct large amounts of web traffic to any external site, no matter how worthy. In order to maintain an "arms-length" connection to these cataloging databases, it would be better to extend Special:BookSources so that searches can be made to multiple cataloguing systems, so we get all the benefits without loosing independence, which is the issue we should all consider before making a commitment to hook up with Worldcat, or any other similar service. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem as you present it. Has the Foundation mentioned this? I have not read all of Wikimedia's policies so I may have missed this issue. Given that Wikipedia and Commons are already doing this without any objections (again, that I've seen), is this really a problem or policy-issue for the Wikimedia projects?

In a specific sense: Firstly, taking the entire "authority control" issue, we would need dozens of BookSource-equivalent pages, some of which would be pointless in scope. Leaving Worldcat aside for a moment, things like VIAF are only directly used by VIAF. There would only be one link on the VIAFBookSources special page. (VIAF is linked from the LOC and other sites but they do not use the number for their own catalogues.) It is overwhelmingly simpler just to provide the direct links. Secondly, these links have a practical function somewhat equivalent to citations on Wikipedia, which are free to link directly to external sites. They add reliability and value to our pages. Thirdly, we have no policy on Wikisource about arm's length connections. While I don't personally see a problem with linking to relevant sources, we might need to discuss having such a policy before we base decisions on it. Even the policy at Wikipedia doesn't mention a need to remain at arm's length; it is more concerned with the number of links dwarfing the article or being of limited authority/reliablity, neither of which apply here. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem of independence from a governance point of view relates to the influence that a book cataloguing service may seek exert over Wikimedia projects in the future. Simply put, if Commons becomes a significant source of web traffic for book cataloguing sites, then it may be in their interest to maintain or increase that traffic over the long term. As other cataloguing sites emerge, they too may seek to influence our policies in order to obtain a slice of the action, so to speak.

To illustrate this, lets imagine you have become the proprietor of a new cataloguing service that is seeking to obtain web traffic from Commons at some point in the future: you would not only advocate that linking to your site is beneficial, but also that the number of links should be actively increased in order to utilise new features of your site, a by-product might be increased advertising revenue. Of course there may be synergies from such a relationship, but the point I am making that once Commons becomes a large/significant source of webtraffic, then web cataloging services have an incentive to compromise our independence by seeking to increase the nature and scale of their influence in our projects, which is why I am agruing that an arms length relationship would be a good thing. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC): I see no problem with linking to WorldCat.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:10, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:36, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

As I said in the discussion below, I think Worldcat IDs are great, but so are other authority controls, and we can use {{authority control}} for all of them. The header, in my opinion, shouldn't have extra-WMF links, but I would welcome them elsewhere. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 00:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

They are external links, and I would think that if we were to host (any of) them, then they would be in an external links before the copyright tag. Then we can best utilise any authoritative link without cluttering the top of the page. I would like to think that something like {{authority control}} can be a default template for its links, though may vary in its layout between sites, then if we choose to further customise, then we can do so. I think that a reasonable size linkfarm to authoritative or semi-authoritative sites is of benefit to an Author page. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

WorldCat

This may have come up before, in which case direct me ...

I have just created Author:Andrew B. Meehan and then found his WorldCat page. I thought I'd put it in {{author}} somehow but am failing. Do we want the WorldCat pages of authors linked routinely? Charles Matthews (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

At the moment, the standalone template {{authority control}} handles WorldCat links but there is no consensus yet about routine linking. There's a discussion about four threads up, at time of writing, under Proposal: add Worldcat ID to template:author. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:19, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

(Don't like using the word "against") so, I am not for adding WorldCat links for various reasons and especially because this already exists in Wikipedia. We already have wiki links in the template and don't need to duplicate info that exists elsewhere. I would rather place the existing WS link templates in the relevant Wikipedia articles to point to us, and likewise provide WP editors a list of authors not existent there. They have more resources, as well as we should not veer too far from the our purpose of text presentation. Another reason of questioning this idea is because after adding about 1,300 authors from the PSM project, I now see the amount of work it requires to maintain and update the info.— Ineuw talk 21:53, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I fully support adding Worldcat IDs to author pages, but not in the author template. We have {{authority control}}, and I would rather we have a full set of authority controls added to that template than cherry pick a single one to go in the header and duplicate that information. Besides, who's to say Worldcat is the "best" AC to have in the header? Why not VIAF or (choose alternative ID system). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 23:41, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I apologise for starting a separate thread. I'd suggest that the "proposal" above be moved to the Proposals section, and this thread be appended to that. But on the substance: I don't understand the argument via enWP. Ineuw, I don't see that authors here are necessarily notable by the standards of Wikipedia; for example we would want often enough a page about an author of an encyclopedia or periodical article, and such people can be quite obscure otherwise. And matching WP articles do have to be created, where notability is there for an author. Is the argument that a WorldCat page implies notability, and so an article on enWP ought to exist, relieving the burden from WS? It would be good to have a clear idea of "division of labour" for context, if that is the argument. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

What Inductiveload says makes sense to me, while illustrating the "best is enemy of the good" concept in action. It sounds as if {{authority control}} ought to be allowed to come to a consensus version, and that including WorldCat there is currently a bit contentious but has fair amount of support. To be fair, though, WorldCat is actually better as a general bibliographical reference, I would think, than for names/dates/dab. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Moved as suggested. AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

VIAF Authority control data gadget

I have made a gadget that makes it very easy to gather authority control data from VIAF. Go to your gadgets and turn on the bottom link under "Development" (Add a toolbox link to select and import a variety of authority control data from VIAF). Open any author page (mainspace and indexes work too) and click the "Add authority data" in the toolbar, enter your query and click the button. Select a VIAF entry and see the authority data appear! Please do your best to break it and report bugs, feature requests and suggestions at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-addViafData.js. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Currently has no capability to add the data automatically, so you need to copy and paste. I could consider auto-adding it, but first we need to decide on authority control data placement (see below). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Summary

Opinions are scattered over a few sub-threads, so to sum up: I beleive there are 6 users broadly in favour of WorldCat/authority control (Arch dude [original proposer], Prosfilaes, Charles Matthews, Inductiveload, billinghurst, myself) and 2 users broadly against (Gavin Collins, Ineuw). I can see three questions to answer:

Do we directly link to WorldCat (or any other directory)?
If so, do we use an author template parameter or separate authority control template?
Depending on the last question, where should the parameter/template be placed on the page?

So, to keep things clear, please give your opinions below. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Direct links?

Support: I think direct links are the most useful in this context. I would consider this akin to a reference or other supportive document on other projects. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Support: Direct (but small) links to outside sources are fine and even desirable, but they should not be promoted to the header to jockey for space with the interwiki links and descriptive information, not least because there can be any number of authority control files linked. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Support in principle—However, I'm concerned that this may lead to adding these types of data to works in the main namespace as well. I'm not yet convinced by the arguments for giving WorldCat the imprimatur over another database, but whichever database is chosen it should be the most comprehensive and should be seen by the general user outside the WS editors as a defacto standard (sort of like iMDB) and therefore not a surprise. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

How to link?

Authority control: This template is in use on two other projects for the same purpose. Standardisation across Wikimedia projects makes things easier for users and helps newcomers from those projects to understand and work on our project. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Authority control template: This template contains all the logic needed to construct a nice box with simple links to both the Wikisource authority control guidance, the AC file entry and the Wikipedia article on that particular database. The compact form and easy syntax means we don't have to deal with an unruly and ugly list of links, just a simple template. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Separate to header—Headers are messy enough now with the various plain sister templates within them. Should also be easier to maintain as a separate template. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Placement?

Footer: Commons often places it at the top and Wikipedia places it at the bottom of a page. I think the footer is the best place on our project. Adding it to the header would increase the clutter at that point and might be intimidating to the reader. On the other hand, users may be more accustomed to see extra detail and external links at the bottom of the page. So far, I have placed it under the licence but I have no strong opinion about the preferred order. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Footer: These are external links and should come after everything we have on our home and sister wikis. I have followed the convention of placing under the license so far, but I also don't mind if others object. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
End of page—Placement at the end of the page is consistent with the way we manage external links in works. External links are generally in the footnotes and I think general users would expect to find such at the bottom of an author page. The main wikimedia exception I can think of is infoboxes in WP and as Author pages are a construct by us (rather than replication of a work), we could look at consistency with this layout and place it on the right of the page. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
End of page: By that I mean after the pagetext mw-content-[language direction here] container ends but before the end of the #pageContent wrap itself (it should mirror the categories bar just below it in other words). The AC links should "look" something like that already in the Author: namespace if one follows the logical premise of adding it after the license bar -- not so pretty in the main namespace under dynamic layout 2 though (in fairness to the proposal, most everything header- or footer-like will continue to suffer the same fate until Dynamic Layouts are seriously 'overhauled' to be blunt about it).
In theory, the placement of such templates within the edit box's content field should not matter as long as coding/scripting forces the output to where we ultimately decide it should be once the edit has been saved & rendered. There is too much going on already in the current header templates regardless of which namespace we're dealing with imho -- don't get me started -- but this AC bar, or any citation-like bar, could be slipped-in between the nav-tops and the blue-notes sections if displaying it at the top becomes a must for the community... fairly sure the latest mW release allows us to collapse that until asked for even! -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

A Worldcat related comment

I support the idea of a unified ID code for references, although at this point in time, Worldcat is very very slow. The majority of its English language source comes from the US Library of Congress] which retrieves data almost instantly. I've done some searches on Worldcat and then on USLC and the result was obviously from LOC. — Ineuw talk 01:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Constitutionality of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act copyright restoration

The US Supreme Court ruled the Uruguay Round Agreements Act copyright restoration to be constitutional on 2012-01-18, so:

I would like to propose the speedy deletion of Template:Not-PD-US-URAA that is no longer necessary as we can just use {{copyvio}} and discuss whether to export the articles to Canadian Wikilivres.
Should we move Template:PD-SA-speech to Template:PD-SA-speech-1996? As South African speech of a political nature or a speech delivered in the course of legal proceedings does not always qualify for {{PD-EdictGov}} and the USA does not apply the rule of the shorter term, South African speeches since 1996 may still be legally copyrightable in the USA.--Jusjih (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

For your second point, I think we should move the three works tagged with {{PD-SA-speech}} to Wikilivres and then delete the template. In general if speeches are neither {{PD-SAGov}} nor old enough to be PD in the usual way, then PD-SA-speech won't save them from US copyright, as I understand it. - Htonl (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Then let us propose exporting {{PD-SA-speech}} and its three works to Canadian Wikilivres at WS:COPYVIO.--Jusjih (talk) 20:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm retracting my previous comment as I see that all three of the items currently tagged with {{PD-SA-speech}} have been previously discussed at WS:COPYVIO and kept as a result. I see, judging by the section currently at the top of WS:COPYVIO, that I may have misinterpreted the law, and that the pre-1996 items are in fact PD in the US, in which case we could simply add {{PD-1996}} to them. The text of {{PD-SA-speech}} is already clear that it is insufficient on its own to prove that a work is in the PD. But I'm also open to changing the tag to PD-SA-speech-1996 if you prefer. - Htonl (talk) 23:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I just nominated "State of the Nation Address 2010 by President Jacob Zuma" as a possible US copyvio. I plan to rename {{PD-SA-speech}} only after the 2010 South African presidential address is ascertained of its copyright status.--Jusjih (talk) 11:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Having kept State of the Nation Address 2010 by President Jacob Zuma as {{PD-SAGov}}, I also moved {{PD-SA-speech}} to {{PD-SA-speech-1996}} to discourage improper use for South African speeches since 1996.--Jusjih (talk) 09:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Page numbers

As you can see above in the MW 1.19 bugs, we have a complex situation with pagenumbers, resulting in an intertwining of components that could be independent. This makes it hard to modularise the system. So, here is a proposal: how about we make MediaWiki:Proofreadpage pagenum template give us an inline link (we can still move it over to the left with CSS). Then, we gadgetise the PageNumbers.js components so that if people want they can have highlighting and dynamic layouts (default on, I'd say, so IPs can have DLs). An advantage here is that if a visitor has JS disabled (eg NoScript), they still get page numbers and links, whereas now, they get nothing.

Styling of page links is not part of this proposal, that is just a bit of CSS on top and can be done any time. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Support modifying pagenum template to a version with inline link. Throw PageNumber.js in the trash-can (or gadgetize its morsels for those who want them). For the sake of finishing just one of these proposals instead of it disappearing a month from now - leave Dynamic Layouts "on" as the default for IPs (though I'd welcome revisiting this and other DL issues some point way down the road).
Proofreading status colors are not "styling" they are a status indicators using visual ques & should not be subject to deviations based on preferences as normal "styling of page links" implies (still not relevant to this proposal however). -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:07, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- Withdrawn. I don't find any other language sites that have the proposed change and a selection of dynamic layouts at the same time. They all seem to be stuck on using just one layout (Layout 2). Hope I'm wrong but until shown otherwise, I withdraw my previous support for this change. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

User:Addihockey10 (automated)

This bot is to change superseded raster images to their vectorized counterparts. Addihockey10 (talk) 23:53, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking at Special:Contributions/Addihockey10_(automated), my first question is ... Why? Seems a fairly pointless exercise for an itsy-bitsy icon where it makes no difference. It looks to have worked okay, however, at this time, I don't see the point. If this was seen as necessary and important, especially through that image, we would be better to template the icon (allows for easier update any other time), and to better document the use. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agree. I left a note on the BOT's parent User page clarifying that WS:BOT requests was for tasks needing attention from established flagged BOTs; not for announcing and running a BOT simply because one can & feels like it. Had this been brought to the community's attention first, we might have acomplished something here that actually added value to our works & work-flow in this case. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

For the cases of the 25%.png, 50%.png, 75%.png and 100%.png they can be templated quite easily. Would someone mind if I changed links to them to a template like {{25%}} etc?

I don't see the value in running a bot through to convert those from image links in talk pages to template images, especially when we already have {{25%}} +++ — billinghurst sDrewth 14:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Not granted. Hesperian 04:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Bot status for LA2-bot

I'm using my account LA2-bot to create raw OCR pages, using the standard Pywikipedia djvutext.py. It could be convenient to have bot status, so these edits are hidden in the Recent changes. LA2-bot has bot status on 18 other projects and 800K edits since 2007 (400K on en.wiktionary and 200K on sv.wikipedia). --LA2 (talk) 17:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Support flagging for this usage. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Speedy Support -- no issues found within recent runs; seems OK for proper bot-flag -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
speedy support, trusted operator with a tried methodology. Note: I would only expect it to be running upon request for a specific purpose, as I believe that the community has expressed a general view that just having a bot run and there being no validation on the works is undesirable. My thoughts on an exception to this general view is for compilations where having a text layer applied for biographical works and the like is useful for search engines and people appearing to transcribe and correct. Though I would ask that for all such works that we have a very good checking system for scan quality and missing pags as we have found from lessons learnt with the DNB that management of a poor scan later is both problematic and time-consuming. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

A comment on Billinghurst's note: I think this can be extended from biographical works to reference works in general, where individual chapters are useful. My current example is The Statesman's Year-Book where the chapter on Abyssinia is useful on its own, whereas chapter 7 of a novel would be next to useless on its own. As for poor OCR quality and missing pages, I always look for Internet Archive scans (in colour) and avoid Google scans. --LA2 (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I used the word compilations, which was meant to cover the genre as you suggested. Re pages, sure about better sources of scans, but we have seen the problem from there too, so just asking for the rigour of checking for this type of work based on our experiences here. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:55, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Support: recent changes is getting filled by this bot. I don't find bot population of reference works problematic, as long as it is not transcluded to the mainspace and abandoned, which isn't the case here. Getting a Google hit at least give the searcher something to look at, even if it is not proofread yet. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 09:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Granted. Hesperian 04:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Help

Other discussions

Ink removed from footnote

On this page, Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 1 (1897).djvu/121, the 2nd footnote looks like the ink has been worn off. How do we figure out what words were there? - Tannertsf (talk) 01:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Best practice would be to locate the same edition elsewhere and compare the two. In this case, I was only able to find an 1899 edition online & on Page 60 (off by a dozen or so pages vs. the 1897 edition) where the last word of that particular footnote is "Rome." so only the e and the full stop period afterwards are missing from our page scan. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Requirement to back up texts with scans?

Wikisource is the free library. If we place books on this site, we should be obligated to add the sources of these books on Commons as well.

The addition of DjVu or PDF files for every text in Wikisource provides many benefits. First off, if they are from the Internet Archive, then we have a safe and legal mirror of the whole site that shall remain should either site go down (Internet Archive likely, Wikimedia not so much). Second, we have a greater opportunity for people to begin editing and proofreading texts—even though the electronic sources that aren't scanned (like sacred-texts.com) are public domain, Wikisource should NOT be a copy-and-paste source; just as Wikipedia is not a copy-and-paste encyclopedia and Wiktionary is not a cut-and-paste dictionary. Third (and perhaps most superficially), the whole collection would expand n-fold: Wikisource would top Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and maybe even the Internet Archive itself.

Should there be anything problematic about such a requirement, then it will probably be technical. Yes, we do need perhaps more servers to accommodate all of the incoming material, but the mirroring should be done manually, or perhaps with scripts that detect non-PD works.

I believe this should be taken into deep consideration. Mahir256 (talk) 01:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

We do encourage new works to be added using scans as a verifiable source, through the proofreadpage extension. However, many texts were added to wikisource without scan backing before the technical capability for page-by-page proofreading existed. Many of these works are important texts, and while they would be better to have scan backup, they are still excellent resources.

Hosting a mirror of the Internet Archive is, I believe, not practical due to the large amount of duplication, poor organisation, as well as the presence of some copyright material. If you would like to work on uploading files from the IA to Commons, I can help you with some technical aspects, but that would be better taken up with the bot community at Commons. Processing of metadata and correct organisation would be the primary challenge, along with working out duplicate and non-free works. Google books are more problematic still due to the very low quality and lack of OCR in downloaded files, and the lack of a scriptable interface. Google digitises books to widen the search corpus and to provide free books is a secondary concern.

In general, yes, we should encourage scans to be used, and we do. However, I feel formalising policy to that effect will only make it harder to add works here, and not all works are necessarily available as a scan, so exceptions will make the policy a guideline at best. The full work flow from external file to side by side proofread text is complex and is not something I expect or new users to grasp fully. There are several things you can do to help. One would be to patrol for {{ext scan link}} templates for works which could be backed by scans, another is to search for scans for existing works. Alternatively, you could help find ways to make the whole process simpler. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity: Is it possible to get scans for texts from Project Gutenberg? V85 (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, PG doesn't produce links to their scans. It's not impossible to find scans of the works they publish (or even the same edition). All you really need to do is look around at the Internet Archive and compare the text from PG with that of the scans in the Archive to determine whether it's likely that they're the same works.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is very possible. For example, American Poetry 1922 was an import of this PG text, which was given scans and proofread against those. PD texts are not as good as ours can be, because they sometimes mis-transcribe and omit accents and special characters (that is often on purpose), and without scan backing, you'd never know if it was a transcribed typo or mistake by PG. They also sometimes take a mish-mash of different editions, whereas we'd keep each edition separate. Unfortunately, this means that a PG import is just about as much work as starting from scratch, as each page of a scan still has to be proofread twice.
Something they have always had and that we have only recently got is the ability to export their books as PDF and ePub to eBook readers. We need a bit more work to make our books accessible, which may mean some sort of project to round up "complete" books once we finalise how the system works. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 11:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Looking for properly typeset poems

Do you have anything on poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti? See e.g. w:Found (Rossetti). It's very hard to put poems into articles if they are not properly typeset. Discussed this at the NYC meetup. Please contact me at my en wiki talk page. Smallbones (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

A call to all coding wonks

Can one of you development or scripting gurus out there take the time to review my latest "rant" and weigh in on if I'm at least in the ballpark?

TalkPage for MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js (OldWikiSource).

It could go a long way in making the Proposals on default layouts per certain types of work (and similar nuances ~~found far above on this page~~ now archived into obscurity & out of sight/mind) a bit more possible (imho). Thanks for any attention in advance. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Template clean-up

There is a closed discussion at Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Template:Bible_versions_and_Template:Bible_versions_2, where one template will be deleted and replaced by the other. There are still some incoming links at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Bible_versions, would someone be willing to do the final clean up on the templates so the discussion can be archived?

I volunteered. Only Talk/User pages (and the template pages themselves) now link there. Was not sure what to do with them. --Mpaa (talk) 23:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks :), The talk pages stay as red links,the template doc page got deleted along with the template. On the deleted page you can still use the Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Bible_versions, which shows the archived discussion, so any one wondering about the red link on their talk page can find the discussion/decision. Jeepday (talk) 11:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

My reading of that close is that both should be deleted. Hesperian 12:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2012-02#Template:Bible_versions_and_Template:Bible_versions_2, The first seems to be the most problematic, so migrated, so only it was deleted. Where would you suggest those that are using the second template migrate to? Simply deleting the second template would leave pages like Romans decimated. (no objections to re-opening the debate until a workable solution is found) JeepdaySock (talk) 11:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been pretty busy IRL, and this is a low priority, but eventually I will get around to cleaning up the New Testament pages that way I've cleaned up most of the Old Testament ones. When I do, I'll ensure that second template is cleanly removed from service. I just wanted to be clear that there is community consensus to do so; it might not have been actioned yet, but the consensus is there. Hesperian 01:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

No objections, to your approach. JeepdaySock (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

epub export and its about page

Hi folks! Did you try the new Wsexport tool? How is it going, do you have any problems with it? Are you going to adopt it?

I've just translated the About page into English for oldwikisource, but since I'm not a native speaker I'm sure I made lots of mistakes. Can you please review it and make it into better prose? (You will probably want to create a similar page here, if you're going to use the tool.) Thank you! Candalua (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I've used it a few times, and found it pretty great. I've found a tiny problem with a template in the xhtml version (e.g. ch.VIII of the appendix here), but haven't really had the time to investigate whether that's to do with the book's pages or the tool. Other than that, though, I love it! — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 04:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Linking to book tool books?

Anyone got any thoughts on how Book Tool books should be linked to, from the works' main page? I've just been having a play with {{book tool}}. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 07:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Three ideas to help proofreading

Here three ideas to make proofreading simpler; we're using them into it.source and users seem appreciate them. Discard them if you are already using similar/better tools, please address me to them.

to fix left sidebar manipulating style of div containers. Very useful if you use Pathoschild's Regex Framework, which adds tools there; such tools are fixed while scrolling long Page pages.
to add a jQuery UI .draggable feature and a fixed style to toolbox, optionally adding into it main edit buttons (save-preview), again to avoid scrolling of tools while editing long pages.
to add "tattoos", a list of small, fixed links to call small js tools too particular and book-specific to be converted in general gadgets. --Alex brollo (talk) 10:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Old New Land

Hello,

I would like to add the English translation of Old New Land, which is available online here. I got the permission of the owner. I am new in the English wikisource. Can you please show me how to start a new book? --Erel Segal (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The book was originally published in German in 1902, but the question is, when and where was the English translation where and by whom (death date). This determines its acceptability on Wikisource. I doubt that that the website is the owner of the translation. After having these issues resolved, the next question would be, in what format do you have this document? Text? PDF? etc. I can offer help how to start, or point you to people who know better. — Ineuw talk 06:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is what I got from the webmaster: "Translated from the German by Sylvie D'Avigdor. Adapted from the edition published in 1946 by the American Zionist Emergency Council. Proofread and corrected by MidEastWeb, with a preface by Ami Isseroff. PDF e-book compiled by MidEastWeb http://www.MidEastweb.org for distribution free of charge". I don't know who is Sylvie D'Avigdor, however I found that another very translation of hers - for "The Jewish State" - is published in Project Gutenberg and also here in Wkisource. What do you say? --Erel Segal (talk) 06:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I haven't found a copyright registration for this text, and certainly no renewal, so the translation might be {{PD-US-no-notice}} or {{PD-US-no renewal}}. There is a Lotta Levensohn translation published in 1941 (registered May 22, 1941 under the registration number A154210); I'm not sure if it is related or not but that translation would be PD-US-no-renewal. If you intend to use the MidEastWeb PDF, you can start by uploading it to Wikimedia Commons. Copying and pasting the text directly is also OK (if not optimum); if so, remember to add the {{textinfo}} template to the talk page and complete as much of it as possible. (NB: There might be some versions on the Internet Archive if you want to start from an original scan. This is preferred but not mandatory and I don't think it's the approach you were intending to take.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The translator was Sylvie D'Avigdor, (Sylvie Blackston Clapcott), born in 1873, but her date of death is unknown. I am pretty sure it's in the public domain. The first thing is to upload the document to wikimedia commons, stating as much information as is known about the English version (what you wrote here). Unfortunately, I never worked with .PDF format and what we need here is a text layer. Perhaps, User:George Orwell III would be the person to ask. Once this is resolved, I can help in the proofreading process.— Ineuw talk 19:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I just found out that the PDF in MidEastWeb contains a translation of The Jewish State only, and not the Old New Land. I didn't find a PDF of Old New Land, the only version is the version is the HTML version in the zionism-israel site. I started a page, but I am not sure of the details - can you please take a look? --Erel Segal (talk) 07:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're referring to Old New Land, it looks OK, and I wouldn't worry about the looks at this point, but are you ready to place the contents? — Ineuw talk 07:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

P.S: it's better to prepare the document in a sandbox and then move it to the main namespace with some content. — Ineuw talk 07:57, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I started loading some text, does it look OK? --Erel Segal (talk) 12:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not a large book. I recommend that the first page should contain the complete Table of Contents and not split to sub pages. It's unnecessary navigation through empty pages. Also navigation links to the TOC for quick access should be defined in the titles. See the accessibility in the titles of an article like HERE.

Book 1: Part 1; Part 2; etc . . .

Book 2: Part 1; Part 2; etc . . .

— Ineuw talk 16:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I changed it. How does it look now? --Erel Segal (talk) 06:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I have done some basic research and created the author page, though I think that we have a bit of an issue to work through first. The author was English and died in 1954, so are needing to determine the year of publication the translation. If we cannot determine the year of publication before 1923, then I think that we are going to be in copyright for the translation. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't show up on the British Library catalogue. I can't actually find any proof d'Avigdor made a translation of this work, although it is plausible as she translated Herzl's Jewish State. (FYI: She was the younger sister of Sir Osmond Elim d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, the first of the D'Avigdor-Goldsmid Baronets, if that helps anyone find any more information.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Erel Segal, It looks fine (to me) except the page numbers should be removed from the middle of the text. To address copyright concerns, contact the Israel National Library (Hebrew University), or the Jewish Agency Library (if they have one), and inquire about the copyright of the translation. Some archivist can point you to the information. — Ineuw talk 15:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

How to render an empty row in a table, et al.

I was wondering how I can add more space between lines in a table. For example (see below), I need another empty line space between the line that reads, "The Cities are full of pride" and the section "The Seven Seas."

|-
|[[The Seven Seas#Dedication|DEDICATION]]
|
|-
|{{gap}}{{smaller|''The Cities are full of pride,''}}
|align=right|{{smaller|v}}
|-
|{{center|''The Seven Seas''}}
|
|-
|[[A Song of The English|A SONG OF THE ENGLISH]]
|
|-
|{{gap}}{{smaller|Fair is our lot—O goodly is our heritage!}}
|align=right|{{smaller|1}}
|-

Can this be done without resorting to the following:

|-
|[[The Seven Seas#Dedication|DEDICATION]]
|
|-
|{{gap}}{{smaller|''The Cities are full of pride,''}}
|align=right|{{smaller|v}}
|-
|
|
|-
|
|
|-
|
|
|-
|
|
|-
|
|
|-
|
|
|-
|{{center|''The Seven Seas''}}
|
|-

Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And, I wouldn't mind a suggestion on how to deal with titling (WS title as well as titling for TOC) with varied apostrophe use/usage(?):

[[Follow Me 'Ome|'FOLLOW ME 'OME ']]

And, even thought I'm well on my way in the TOC for The Seven Seas, I'm still open to better formatting suggestions, even if it means reworking again. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Assuming that you wanted an empty block of 6 rows, the only way I know is to create a single row using followed by 6 new lines <br />, and completed with a single space, &nbsp. I use the border=1 temporarily, just to see if my table definition is correct. There are additional steps which can be used to refine the technique, depending on the requirements. I hope this helps.— Ineuw talk 19:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

DEDICATION
⁠The Cities are full of pride,	v

The Seven Seas

Thanks... Not necessarily 6 rows,—just a line-space or two, just so it renders similarly to:

DEDICATION

⁠The Cities are full of pride,

The Seven Seas

A SONG OF THE ENGLISH

⁠Fair is our lot—O goodly is our heritage!

Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi. You can also try playing with {{ts}} line-height and vertical alignement params. Mpaa (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, man... I went there already yesterday, I think :( I tried one or two things (line height), but gave up quickly when it didn't work (user error). I figured the parameters listed were for table-wide use and not single-line... I'll try again when I'm not feeling lazy... Thanks! Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like GO3 already got to it using colspan, etc.,—enabling my laziness! :) Thanks all, Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Or putting margin-bottom or padding-bottom on a row or cell marker. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask you to point me to an approximate example, 'cause I wouldn't know how to apply the parameters to a single row (and I'm not sure what you mean by a "cell marker")? Sorry,— Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe he means something like this:

{| {{ts|bc|ba|mc}}
| [[The Seven Seas#Dedication|DEDICATION]]
|
|-
| {{gap}}{{smaller|''The Cities are full of pride,''}}
| {{ts|ar}} | {{smaller|v}}
|-
| style="padding-bottom: 100px;" | 
|
|-
| colspan="2" {{ts|ac}} | ''The Seven Seas''
|}

DEDICATION
⁠The Cities are full of pride,	v

The Seven Seas

Also, personally, I try not to include wrapping quotation marks/apostrophes in the page title as it both messes with the categorisation and it is probably not what someone would type if they were searching for the page. I do include the punctuation in the header title, however. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Right... Even if someone were to type the " 'Ome " without the apostrophe in the search bar, they would still find the title; and I purposely haven't included any of the "wrapping" apostrophes (there are a few poems in the work whose titles are "wrapped" in apostrophes) in the Mainspace page titles... I was mostly concerned with the header title for the poem I used as an example, for it was the only one that would render funny in the header title; e.g., "... 'Ome' " (which is "misleading" where end-apostrophe placement is concerned) as opposed to "... 'Ome ' ". I was merely wondering if there was a better solution than using the latter option. Blah, I think I'm being confusing... Thanks! Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

|-
|(blah)
|-style="padding-bottom: 100px;"
|...

should also work, and is what I meant against the row marker, see w:Help:Table#Row — billinghurst sDrewth 06:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

NASA technical reports

I discovered this source of technical and scientific resources for upload to commons and easily for include in Wikisource. Go to [http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/search.jsp NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) ], many works not in copyrights (See in description page of documents, in section "Accessibility" for know status of copyright before upload some document to commons) Shooke (talk) 20:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be really good if you could capture that data at Portal:National Aeronautics and Space Administration, while getting the documents internally hosted is great, we can also do external links as works, and or through use of {{ext scan link}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

New licence: PD-old-US

I've just created the new licence {{PD-old-US}} because I couldn't find any other licence or combination of licences to match my requirements. If I missed something can somebody please point out where I went wrong? The situation I have is for works by Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) that were published in 2007. According to Cornell's Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States, all works published after 2002 have a Life+70 copyright term. As Howard died in 1936, that would make them public domain as of 2006. This is an odd combination (Life+70 and 01-January-2003+ publication) but it occurs with quite a few of Howard's poems, letters and even a few stories. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me, can we add in the DOD parameter like in {{Pd/1923|year of author's death}}? Does this bring back anything of Howard's that was previously deleted? If so and it was discussed at Wikisource:Possible copyright violations, post the list to be undeleted there so we can document the reversal for the record. Jeepday (talk) 12:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. I don't think there are any works to be undeleted due to this but it might allow some more to be added in the future. I still need to check on whether a periodical's renewal can renew a work after the death of an author, which will bring a lot of works back (including all the early Conan stories). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for being late to the discussion and I only realised when I saw Adam's creation, but shouldn't this belong to the {{PD-posthumous}} series rather than have {{PD-old}}? I have always considered the PD-old series of tags for works published during the life of the author, or where the death of the author is more than 100 years ago so it is basically irrelevant). Is it too late to look to rejig this? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

No, it can still be rejigged. I did think about the {{PD-posthumous}} tag, which I have previously used in a few cases where the new tag actually belongs, but the description and function of those tags don't quite match. PD-posthumous refers to the published year + period and all of the associated categories are based on that premise. However, I can change PD-old-US to a parallel version, say PD-posthumous-US or PD-US-posthumous? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Input is sought on new categories for PSM

I want to create four new categories for PSM, three of which are combinations, but unsure if they are acceptable. They are combined due to their relationship and the number of relevant articles.

Category	Parent
Diseases	Medicine
Civil engineering and infrastructure	Engineering
Colonialism and race relations	Sociology / Politics / Society
Parapsychology and paranormal beliefs⁠	Pseudoscience

Parapscyhology exists and I would re-categorize the existing articles.

In general, for anyone interested PSM related categories (existing and proposed) are found at Wikisource:WikiProject Popular Science Monthly/Categories. The list and categorized articles are regularly updated.— Ineuw talk 11:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Instead of combining subjects, have you considered, for example, making Category:Paranormal beliefs a sub-category of Category:Parapsychology? Similarly, Category:Race relations as a sub-category of Category:Colonialism; which would allow other works to be categorised into Colonialism and for Race relations to be cross-categorised into Category:Ethnic groups as well. Separate subjects and child categories would make the category more flexible for potential future additions. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly as this would be my preference. But, way back when I began categorizing, I was made to understand not to create new categories for just a couple of articles. I interpreted "few" to be an arbitrary quantity of at least four articles per subject, before creating a category. I have no clue as to how many additional articles will be in the proposed categories. I just wish to categorize them when creating the main namespace title so that they are not "lost". Then, periodically, I re-examine and change/separate and add a new category when the number of articles in a general category increases.

Perfect examples are the Medicine, and Education which grew to over 200 articles.— Ineuw talk 22:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly fine to add a category for just a few articles. They'll likely expand as more works are added and existing works are better categorized. I say do what your preference is and let the categories grow into usage.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.19

(Apologies if this message isn't in your language.) The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to upgrade MediaWiki (the software powering this wiki) to its latest version this month. You can help to test it before it is enabled, to avoid disruption and breakage. More information is available in the full announcement. Thank you for your understanding.

Guillaume Paumier, via the Global message delivery system (wrong page? You can fix it.). 14:57, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Scan offer swap for PD-US-no-renewal and other unscanned works

Idle thought I had today: the big scanners (Google et al.) don't have the capacity to sort through works whose copyright has expired during the copyright renewal regime. We do. But scanning is a bit of a time investment which one may not care to undertake when already devoting time to other projects. This can be solved by putting up offers to scan rather than dropping everything to do so. For the person interested in digitizing the work it's just a higher latency equivalent of the normal scan-hunting process, and for the scanner they only do what ends up bearing fruit.

For my own part, an initial review of my modest collection came up with these two likely no-renewals: 100 Poems from the Chinese t. Kenneth Rexroth, 1st edition, 1956 (published in Italy, never registered to begin with, but by a US citizen who was not domiciled in Italy so renewal shouldn't come into play; there is a renewal for a 1971 edition which is LINM: NEW MATTER: additional text), and Inner Asian Frontiers of China by Owen Lattimore, 3rd edition, 19612. Prosody (talk) 05:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Index:Buttered Side Down.djvu

Hi. Checking for IP contribs, I found out that this Index is lacking some images compared to this scan of the same book of on IA, which I guess has also a text layer not present on the current one (might the reason be that such images are copyrighted?). I am not familiar with djvus (keen to learn, though), so I was wondering if it is a huge work to swap djvus, so that we have the complete work, and if it is worthwhile doing it. And, in case, if someone volunteers … Bye --Mpaa (talk) 22:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Not difficult at all with the right tools. I'll take care of this and upload a new version shortly. --Spangineer (háblame) 23:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I've uploaded a new DJVU and adjusted the index page to account for the images and new pagination. --Spangineer (háblame) 23:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --Mpaa (talk) 00:14, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Help please.

I can only see half of the page scan when in edit mode, while trying to proofread it, but looks fine in read mode. Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/678. Can someone please take a look if it can be fixed? — Ineuw talk 03:11, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

This has been happening alot lately but not much can be done about it. If I've understood things correctly, this is a Commons caching issue rather than anything local - its just a matter of bad timing, where one person is affected at any particular moment in time while others are not & won't be. I suggest you try the various methods refreshing/clearing your local/server caches. Otherwise, move on and come back to it in a day or two (thats the only thing that eventually brought the whole scan back into view for me in either mode). -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, GO III. I'll do as recommended. I usually have problems in the afternoons between 3 and 6pm EDT (-5 UT) on school days, but very rarely at this hour.— Ineuw talk 04:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Book feature for Wikisource

This page relates to the Google Summer of Code project for creating a way to have books for WikiSource/WikiBooks (see bug 15071). Books are essentially set of individual wiki pages grouped together. The main goal of this project is to enable the user to create such books and provide him with a set of options for usage and management of these books. Current list of deliverables that have been thought are:

Create a book
Page addition wizard (also containing search filters for finding particular pages)
Import book metadata (my suggestion where user can directly add set of pages from his export list)
Export book metadata (export the book details containing all page links to a file which can be saved by user, similar to MetaBooks)
Add to a book option for every page
Table of contents for a book
Read a book
Recent changes for each book
Create chapters
Arrange order of pages in a book
Protect/watchlist/move/delete all pages of a book
List books
Search for a book
Search in a book
Automatic Bookshelves, where the books of a wiki could be organized according to their metadata (examples: English, Portuguese, ...)

All developers interested in this feature feel free to add your suggestions and ideas.

--Aashish.mittal (talk) 11:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Web fonts

Hello,

I propose to install the WebFonts extension in the English Wikisource.

This extension is used since early December in Wikimedia projects in some languages of India to allow people who use computers on which the needed Indic fonts are not installed to read the content in their languages without any additional effort.

For the most part, the English language is supported well on modern operating systems, so in the English Wikisource the purpose of the extension will be somewhat different: To allow correct display of strings in other languages that appear in books here. The most obvious examples for works that will benefit from this would be Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, Grammar of the Burmese Language and Sanskrit Grammar - books that include strings in Biblical Hebrew, Burmese and Sanskrit, three languages which are not supported well on many operating systems, used by many millions of people. This will make using these books by academics and students a lot easier.

Web fonts may also be used for ensuring the correct display of strings in the Latin alphabet, but with many diacritics, which may be unsupported on some operating systems, for example strings in Vietnamese or in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It can also help with displaying Greek and many other languages, and also Old English with letters such as "wynn" and "yogh".

Some technical notes relevant to Wikisource:

In general, this extension is not supposed to have any effect on most pages which are written only in English.
If you took a look at how WebFonts work in Indic Wikipedias, for example the Oriya Wikipedia, you may have noticed major text flickering. This is an unfortunate effect of how browsers load the web fonts. This is not supposed to have a significant effect on the English Wikisource, because the web font will be applied only to small parts of the page.
The best way to request the loading of a font is to specify the HTML lang attribute for an element - he or hbo for Hebrew, my for Burmese, sa for Sanskrit, en-fonipa for English in IPA, etc. These can also be added using templates, such as {{Lang-he}}

Any comments? questions? objections?

Thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I support this. I know we have some works that don't have the required fonts installed on computers I use regularly which annoys me as I can't proofread (or even read) them at all. And with Unicode adding new scripts (and operating systems not updating to match the new Unicode addition) it'd be nice if we could supply the fonts ourselves.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea, assuming there are no objections on a technical level, I say install it. JeepdaySock (talk) 11:50, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

If there are no objections, it can be enabled the next Monday. Are there any? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment - breaks most ProofReading & Dynamic Layout .js induced functionality when enabled in User preferences (for both MonoBook & Vector skins) under IE6 & IE8. Unticking WebFonts on the Appearance tab restored all previous functionality again. Thought I'd better mention it is all. -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the comment, i'll check it. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Preload template gadget

Hello. I mostly edit the Esperanto Wikisource, and I've noticed that the English one has a useful gadget to automatically put a header template on new pages. How would I go about getting that function on my Wikisource? Thank you.--Frglz (talk) 23:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Three options

It you are talking about just you, then you can add javascript text to and get it to run directly, the issue will be that it will be in English
You can copy over the script to your user space, update it, get it working (with help) and show it to your community
You can ask an EO administrator to take it over to your wiki and install it as a gadget

To note that anything that is a gadget, or a user script, you can generally "borrow". A number of us can probably give general info, for specialist help you are a little more limited. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Commons:Category:Freedom of speech - Crosswiki Sister Link project coordination

Category:Freedom of speech

Regarding this category - I'm doing a cross-collaboration project as a crosswiki sister project coordination at Commons:Category:Freedom of speech. Please feel free to help populate the category locally at this project, that'd be most appreciated. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 09:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Why a category rather than create a portal for it? Portal:Freedom of speech — billinghurst sDrewth 13:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, both are great ideas! I've started one at our sister project, at w:Portal:Freedom of speech. Will get on creating one here, after that one's done, or someone else can feel free to get started on it! -- Cirt (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Gadget for categories — shortening to SUBPAGENAME

I have acquired one of Krinkle's tools and put it into the development section of our gadgets. The gadget's purpose is that it enables the shortening of file name to the last component, so for things like Category:Obituaries we can just get the last part, similarly for any other place where we have works with categorised subpages. So it would be useful for those who peruse categories to see if it helps with what they are after. Also, in talking to Inductiveload, he wondered whether we could have it toggle in the left sidebar.

Supplementary: Inductiveload and I also wondered whether there is even scope on the left sidebar to collect the tools that we have into a group, we are starting to have a few that work well to toggle on and off. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I really like this gadget. Placing it anywhere for public access (for those without accounts) would be immensely helpful. I also propose giving it a name like Pagename toggle? :-)— Ineuw talk 17:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

A help page for authors

I've noticed that there are no help pages about the author namespace and the content of the pages in it. I'd like to create one; it may be at Help:Author pages. I only need an information: there are other things to do after creating an author page (for example, adding the author to a list)? Thanks in advance.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a fair wad of info in {{author}}, though the three documents that you are looking for are in the Wikisource: ns, for historical reasons

A fresh opinion on what should be happening would be useful, thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

We could use a specific page for author page help, even if some sections were just a summary and wikilink to another page. It is the sort of thing a new user might look for. (And new authors should really be manually added to one of the alphabetical lists under Wikisource:Authors, although there are automatic categories as well.)

Incidentally, Wikisource:Author names is currently the only Wikisource essay. I started it because it would help to have the information somewhere accessible (mostly culled from Scriptorium) and essays seemed a better fit than a harder policy or guideline. I had plans for more essays eventually. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

My fresh opinion is: although there are already pages about the Author namespace, they should be linked and/or transcluded in a page of reference, with other things which aren't neither in Wikisource:Style guide nor in Wikisource:Author names. I'm going to start the work tomorrow—now it's about 21:30 for me.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Hidden categories

How can one fix a page categorized as Pages with broken file links? I am referring to Accoutrement of a Field-Geologist.— Ineuw talk 00:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

There are two possible problems. 1) The file doesn't exist on Commons; 2) The file is on Commons with a different name. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:20, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — Ineuw talk 17:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Statesman's Year-Book

I've added, and hope for help with proofreading of, four volumes (1871, 1899, 1913, 1921) of the Statesman's Year-Book (see Wikipedia). This is an almanac similar to the CIA World Factbook, having chapters for every country, empire and colony, but published in London since 1864. These volumes (more are available) have been scanned in color and OCRed in high quality at the Universities of Florida and Toronto for the Internet Archive. (Google scans in black-and-white are also available, but usually of poorer quality.) I picked four years with some distance from within the public-domain (pre 1923) era, reporting current events of the Franco-Prussian War, Spanish-American War and describing the world before and after World War I.

So far I have only proofread and transcluded the tables of contents and a few sample chapters. For smaller, individual countries, described on 1–30 pages each, it's obvious they should be presented on a subpage of their own, e.g. 1899/Abyssinia, 1913/Abyssinia, 1871/Denmark, 1921/Esthonia, 1899/Sweden and Norway. I think the same goes for the individual states of the United States. It's yet a bit unclear how the larger empires (British, French, German, Russian) should be transcluded.

The 1899 volume is a special American Edition, having both an American preface and the regular preface. I separately transcluded the sections on U.S. newspapers, naturalization, and the Spanish-American War. I also made the prefaces of 1913 and 1921, a chronicle of 1870 and a Retrospect 1861-1911.

I hope these volumes can be useful as a reference source for Wikipedia. Each chapter also lists books of reference, that can suggest new titles to add to Wikisource. I already found one reference to a title we have, Nansen's Eskimo Life. --LA2 (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Three Stories and Ten Poems/Out of Season

Hi. In the process of transferring content from a page to another, I "broke" the chain to track history and who contributed to what. The first contributor objected about the process. As suggested by George Orwell III in Talk:Three Stories and Ten Poems/Out of Season (where you can find full details), an expert admin is needed to fix the proper history. Sorry for the issue and thank for help. --Mpaa (talk) 07:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. I'm not an expert admin, so the page will need checking that it's all there. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Messed up numbers in OCR

Has it happened to you, that when a page contains numbers in a table, the part before the first comma or period is cut away? Here is an example, where the OCR text says ",075,266 ,152,474" instead of "58,075,266 62,152,474". This happened when I manually clicked a red link to create the page and OCR text was pulled from the Djvu. However, it doesn't happen when the bot (djvutext.py) does the same thing, so the OCR layer does contain the whole number. --LA2 (talk) 02:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Something similar occurred previously, due to a regular expression bug. See Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2010-08#missing text. Hesperian 04:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I see it regularly for leading numbers. I had always blamed the OCR. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Copyright renewal help page

I finally got around to finishing Help:Copyright renewals. Could someone have a look through it and see if I got everything right? It would be bad if someone followed these guidelines but still ended up in possible copyright violations. (NB: At the same time, I've created {{Copyright help navbox}} to aid navigation between copyright related pages). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The finished product looks good. JeepdaySock (talk) 11:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Old issues solved - new one popped up.

Topic was moved to User defined toolbar messed up by the latest mw software update— Ineuw talk 07:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking for ancient works before 700 BC

I'm looking for ancient writings and I found Category:Authors by era but it only goes back to 700 BC. Where can I find works from before that? I don't see any "prehistoric" category. Arlen22 (talk) 21:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, found Hammurabi, and he is listed as ~1800, so I changed {{eras}} to pre AD 600. Arlen22 (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Now, specifically, I am looking for ancient near eastern works contemporary to the Codex Hammurubi. Arlen22 (talk) 21:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

There are not going to be many texts in that period as you are scraping the edge of the beginning of writing. I can't find any more here but a translation of something like the Epic of Gilgamesh would be in that area (NB: There might be more in that era, as we currently have more than 67,000 undated works, but I haven't found any). Central Wikisource has one more Akkadian text in oldwikisource:Category:Akkadian (akk) but it's incomplete (and in Akkadian). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

w:History of writing & w:Ancient literature provide some insight on older documents. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Bottom line separated

For new facsimile pages that I proofread, such as this one, the bottom line gets separated as if it was a new paragraph. I learned that this was not the case for some page in Popular Science Monthly, because there the footer is not simply "<references/>" but has a leading blank line, i.e. "\n<references/>". That looks like a work-around that shouldn't be necessary. What is the proper solution to this problem? --LA2 (talk) 02:38, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

All the CR and LF were still in the text. I've removed them and it now behaves. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:17, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

That is not a solution. I want to keep the linebreaks, to be able to compare it to the printed page later. The problem remains, and still needs a solution. --LA2 (talk) 06:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

HTML arrows with "feathers"?

The image descriptions of these pages Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/767 and Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/768 contain arrows with "feathers" (it's the only way I know how to describe them). I have not seen them in the HTML entities lists anywhere. Am I missing something? Can someone tell me if they exist? Thanks. — Ineuw talk 21:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Unicode characters U+27B3 through U+27B9 supply feathered arrows:

U+27B3 ➳ WHITE-FEATHERED RIGHTWARDS ARROW

U+27B4 ➴ BLACK-FEATHERED SOUTH EAST ARROW

U+27B5 ➵ BLACK-FEATHERED RIGHTWARDS ARROW

U+27B6 ➶ BLACK-FEATHERED NORTH EAST ARROW

U+27B7 ➷ HEAVY BLACK-FEATHERED SOUTH EAST ARROW

U+27B8 ➸ HEAVY BLACK-FEATHERED RIGHTWARDS ARROW

U+27B9 ➹ HEAVY BLACK-FEATHERED NORTH EAST ARROW

I've added U+27B3 to p. 767, but unfortunately there are no vertical feathered arrow characters in Unicode, and that's what's required at p. 768. See [1] for all Unicode characters with the word "arrow" in the name. An gr 22:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The variety boggles the mind. I don't know what the Wikisource 'norm' is in case of missing characters, but I was thinking of using a reasonable facsimile from the list.— Ineuw talk 22:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Might want to rotate the svg file?--Mpaa (talk) 23:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mpaa. Didn't think of it, thanks. :(.— Ineuw talk 23:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Survey invitation

The Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to take part in a brief survey.

With this survey, the Foundation hopes to figure out which resources Wikimedians want and need (some may require funding), and how to prioritize them. Not all Foundation programs will be on here (core operations are specifically excluded) – just resources that individual contributors or Wikimedia-affiliated organizations such as chapters might ask for.

The goal here is to identify what YOU (or groups, such as chapters or clubs) might be interested in, ranking the options by preference. We have not included on this list things like “keep the servers running”, because they’re not a responsibility of individual contributors or volunteer organizations. This survey is intended to tell us what funding priorities contributors agree and disagree on.

To read more about the survey, and to take part, please visit the survey page. You may select the language in which to take the survey with the pull-down menu at the top.

This invitation is being sent only to those projects where the survey has been translated in full or in majority into your language. It is, however, open to any contributor from any project. Please feel free to share the link with other Wikimedians and to invite their participation.

If you have any questions for me, please address them to my talk page, since I won’t be able to keep an eye at every point where I place the notice.

Thank you! Slaporte (WMF) (talk) 22:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The thing that comes to mind for Wikisource, is a way to facilitate the conversion of paper copies of PD works in the possession of those who would like to contribute them to Wikisource (any language) for OCR. There are several hurdles both technical and logistical that prevent all but the most savvy user from contributing print to Wikisource. Anyone else able to expand on this or other interests so we can present a unified suggestion? JeepdaySock (talk) 11:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The survey doesn't go into that level of detail, although there is a field about halfway through to sugest other things that might be helpful to contributors. From the given options, I'd say this would be some combination of "Access to physical tools", "Access to better software tools" and "Access to training and skills development" (all of which you are asked to rank on a scale of 1-10). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Author link template - Feedback requested..

I've added some different styles to {{Ci-author}} with reasonable option names, However I'd like some feedback as to what additional styles might be needed. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

If you think it's useful for a book you're working on, develop whatever templates you need. But edits like this one seems unnecessary and unwanted. --LA2 (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If the surname really is "Charles Williamson" not just "Williamson", then arguably it was worth making that clarification. Otherwise I agree with LA2. Hesperian 00:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Point taken Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Multi-page tables

Hi. Can someone help me to find out what's wrong with these multi-page tables 61, 62, 63? It is really messy in the Page ns but neat in Main namespace Drug_Themes_in_Science_Fiction/Index. Usually it is the other way around … Must be something trivial but I cannot figure it out.--Mpaa (talk) 10:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Check them again - all that was needed was an extra line-return prior to the table start tag to insure the [hidden] div start tag & the table start tag were not "inline" with each other (more 1.19 weirdness ?). -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --Mpaa (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Google Plus Hangout for Online Collaboration and Meeting

Hi guys, I had an idea for something that might be helpful to the community. Would a Google Plus Hangout be helpful to our community?

Here is an demo video of stuff we could do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHXOjTYewo

There are a few drawbacks in my opinion. First, is you need a Google account to use it. Second, it displays what your real name is set to instead of a handle. Third, by default, it wants to turn on your camera and mic, but you can turn these off before entering the room. Last but not least it post that you used a hang out in your stream. The only other drawback I can see is we had a little problem with screen sharing, but I think that is beginner's error. :)

I think this tool could be verify useful for collaborating on problems that one person sees but not another. Another great thing might be coding together using the note program. Of course, just general voice and video chat is great too with this.

I just wanted to see what the community felt about this. Another channel on Freenode has a Google Plus Hangout and it is great! Last night they had nine people in it. 7 people doing video chat and 9 people total. I heard previously it go up to 14 just a few nights before that. :)

--Mattwj2002 (talk) 03:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Scientists, personal notes and Wikisource

My colleagues and I have been using Wikisource -- very, very successfully -- to transcribe and annotate historical biodiversity data from the field notebooks of Junius Henderson (1905-1931). We can do this because Henderson died in 1937, which puts his works in the public domain in the US, and his field notebooks qualify for Wikisource publication as historical documents, and we think there's tremendous scope for incorporating historical field notes into Wikisource (check out Wikisource:WikiProject Field Notes if you're interested!).

Last week, Dr. Andrew Farke, a paleontologist at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, released a whole bundle of field notes made by him in 2000 under the CC-BY license. These are handwritten notes and sketches, and since Wikisource is the premier open-source transcription project, I think they could and should find a permanent home here, where the handwriting can be transcribed and kept side-by-side with the illustrations.

The one thing I'm worried about is that -- being personal notes -- they haven't been, or are likely to be, peer-reviewed. I still think it would be a net win to have such content hosted on Wikisource, but might it open the floodgates to people posting any non-reviewed "scientific" material they like? Is there any way we could sensibly regulate such content while still bringing Wikisource's strengths (links with the Commons for permanent archiving of images, side-by-side transcription, active community of proof-readers) to this content? -- Gaurav (talk) 02:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

they haven't been, or are likely to be, peer-reviewed - I do not think this is an issue. WS hosts the authors' works, which is not necessarily said to be the truth. It is up to the reader to make good use of the info hosted here. The burden of the investigation is up to the reader, not on those who transcribe.--Mpaa (talk) 09:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually peer review is a requirement of WS:WWI#Scientific_research. So the question becomes, is there some level of authorship that transcends the peer review requirement and if so what is the standard? Having no knowledge of Author:Junius Henderson I can not speak to this author, but works from Author:Galileo Galilei or Author:Leonardo da Vinci would seem to be worthy of WS regardless of their peer review status. JeepdaySock (talk) 10:52, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Without prior publication, it would come down to Wikipedia-style notability (which is always debatable). I think the notes in question are by Dr Andrew [Allen] Farke rather than Henderson. Farke does not have a Wikipedia biography (which would have made this easier) but he is used as a reference several times in the Wikipedia articles w:Triceratops, w:Torosaurus, w:Utahceratops, w:2010 in paleontology etc. I'm in the Inclusionist camp in Wikipedian terms, so I would say that was good enough, but others may disagree. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

More on notability: I suspect this would be a lot easier if I knew anything about the Paleontology field. However, resorting to Google searches, it seems Farke has been mentioned in the news for discovering a new species of dinosaur and appeared in a Discovery Channel series. I think that makes him notable in his field and his notes should count as a "documentary source". What does everyone else thnk? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

In loo of the WS requirements, I usually use Wikipedia notability as a crutch for this sort of thing. I think if he met Wikipedia's standards for notability; ie, it might interest you to write an article, then I could support hosting the works here. - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree firstly with Jeepday & AdamBMorgan, and the thrust of Theornamentalist ... I would add a little twist and with a generous sprinkle to the notability criteria, in that they would meet the notability requirements of WP, though not necessarily have an article OR be a published author which makes them sufficiently notable here. From the general sound of what you are discussing, I would accept field notes of the person mentioned as fitting within the broad thrust of WWI. So my part of the opinion is go for it. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I made an update to Wikisource:What_Wikisource_includes#Scientific_research summarizing the above. JeepdaySock (talk) 15:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone here for commenting. We'll be contacting Dr. Farke about this ASAP! --Ack-thom (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI - These are starting to be moved in, I looked and added {{PD-old-70}} no indication of publication and died 1937 so been PD in US for a while (life + 70 for unpublished). JeepdaySock (talk) 15:12, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Font support for proofreading

When you proofread a text with mixed languages, how do you tell a Latin A from a Cyrillic А and a Greek Α? Is there any font that makes a good difference, e.g. sans-serif for Latin letters but serifs for Greek letters and boldface Cyrillic? One example with mixed Latin and Cyrillic is this page, which is a list of literature references in Russian, German, French, and English. If a page number reference says "c. 820", that is a Cyrillic s (cтраница = stranitsa = page), not a Latin c. But if it says p. 127, that's a Latin p (page), not a Cyrillic r. --LA2 (talk) 15:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I am like you. I have not found any font file for that purpose. So, I have created a little HTML page here. You copy and paste a text, you click on a button, and you see the text with different colored background according to the character set of the text. The main code of the page is in the following lines:

...

...

for(i=0; i < from_lg; i++) {

c = from.charAt(i, 1);

n = from.charCodeAt(i, 1);

if (n >= 0x41 && n <= 0x5A) typ = "L"; // Latin

else if (n >= 0x61 && n <= 0x7A) typ = "L"; // Latin

else if (n >= 0xC0 && n <= 0xFF) typ = "L"; // Latin

else if (n >= 0x370 && n <= 0x3E1) typ = "G"; // Greek

else if (n >= 0x400 && n <= 0x46F) typ = "C"; // Cyrillic

else typ = "O"; // Other

...

</script>

--Rene1596 (talk) 11:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I would have thought that we could convert that to a gadget. Have you tried that as a local javacript file? — billinghurst sDrewth 11:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know yet how to create gadgets. You see, above, I don't even know how to put my piece of code in a frame. :-) --Rene1596 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

With your permission I'd be happy to adapt it. Prosody (talk) 20:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I am happy to give you the permission for this program, and also, if you like, for the new version where you can convert a word from one alphabet to the other, e.g. He -> Не, simply with a click of the mouse. --Rene1596 (talk) 00:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I have a beginning at User:Prosody/charsetdisambig.js, but I've run into a pretty strange problem: it seems like document.getElementById("wpTextbox1").value isn't returning the current value of textbox field but the value it had when the page loaded. But in the inspect console it has the right value. Anyone know what's going on? Prosody (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, another example of me stumbling on an answer immediately after asking it (dialog's html property is rendered at load). Just a bit more fiddling around and it should be ready. Prosody (talk) 20:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm done with it, I guess. You can start considerations for including it as a gadget if y'all think it has potential for general use. And if not, you can always just include it as a userscript by going to Special:MyPage/vector.js and adding

mw.loader.load('//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User:Prosody/charsetdisambig.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

and then following the instructions there to clear your cache. Prosody (talk) 06:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I doubt if it helps with mixed languages, but I long ago set my browser's default monospace font to DBCustomMono2. Hesperian 23:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Recommended source for Kipling's work

I've been using an 1896 edition of Kipling's The Seven Seas to proofread/update Wikisource's hosted yet as-of-yet unindexed work. It would be ideal if we could get some version of the work indexed here, but I would like to get a second opinion on which edition to use. On Google Books, I noted a 1907 [1905] version not available on Archive.org (that I saw)... There are also these versions on Archive.org. Would love some direction before I go further. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

After going through the couple possibilities, I am suggesting this one from Archive.org. It's a first edition of the work. I ultimately don't think it will matter which one you use, but first editions are always nice to have.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

It actually looks like a 1900 reprinting/reissue(?) of the 1896 edition (different typeset/pagination too), but determining what is/is not a first edition is not my specialty... Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

It also seems to be missing at least one poem, "In the Neolithic Age"... Oh, versions versions versions... Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC) Add to that, "The Answer" and "The Lost Legion"... and there's no telling where other textual/wording differences would lie... Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Aye, you're right! Well, then I suggest using whichever one has the most number of poems. I hate sorting through editions because I can never figure out which one to do, either. You could just flip a coin. ;)—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:14, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

How very scientific of you!—Well, seeing as though I'm no expert on the subject, perhaps beginner's luck will be with me the first one or two flips of the coin then!? Comparing tables of contents is easy enough, but even when those match up between editions, the difficulty lies in noting the dis-similarities between poem versions... Cygnis was always good at choosing editions; I suppose in their absence, I'll have to use my own brain for such tasks. Thanks for the input... Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Send Cygnis and email or leave a message on talk page. They popped [2] in the other day. Jeepday (talk) 22:40, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

No, no, no... Cygnis would never answer an email from me, and I lose brain cells when they're around anyway. I'll figure this one out for myself... eventually... :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Piecing two Google scans together

For a particular book, the only scans I found were two PDF files from Google, digitized at Harvard and Oxford. One has some missing pages and the other has some blurred pages. I know I can piece together a good copy, but this turns out to be very time consuming. Are there any tools available that make this easier? I disassembled both files with pdfimages (under Linux), removed all the "digitized by Google" (always 1034x204 pixels) and colour bitmaps, removed duplicates and inserted placeholders for missing pages. Now having two directories with the same filenames, I open an image viewer for each, side by side, stepping forward and copying the left or right image to a resulting directory. This would have been much faster with a dedicated application, something like ScanTailor, but for two parallel sequences. --LA2 (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I have used DjView Win to splice together components of the same edition of a book where the two versions were problematic, though fortunately in different places. It wasn't a major issue but there was not huge slabs of interchange required. The DjView command line stuff did seem to allow reasonable manipulation, but I have never really given it a run for its money. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for a help page about Author pages

I've made a proposal for a page named Help:Author pages (see this previous discussion). You can find it here. How does it look? If there are errors of any kind, please correct them. I hope the page is useful, but I don't know what to write about copyright tags: can someone make a list of possible templates to be used? Thanks.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I stole a piece of text from the copyright tag documentation and adapted it to the page. It doesn't cover everything but should handle most cases. You might want to add something about disambiguation for duplicate author names. It might also be worth mentioning that there are more Authors by categories (such as Category:Authors by genre). It looks good though. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Looks OK to me. I have two minor comments. 1. Few words on pen names (e.g. create author under penname and redirect the real name or viceversa) 2. What about how to handle titles in first name of last name (Sir, King, Jr. etc.). All sort of flavors and combinations can be currently found. --Mpaa (talk) 22:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Something just occurred to me: Your help page directs users to put works in alphabetical order. I usually use date order, although the style guide does indeed say alphabetical. Nevertheless, I haven't been corrected yet on this and a quick look at random authors suggests the date-order approach is most common. Which should we use (and what should we tell people seeking help about it)? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation: added a new section named "Disambiguation and redirects".
Categorization: I've added categorization by affiliation, genre, and type at Help:Categorization and linked to there.
Redirects: see first point.
Titles: they should not be used, as explained in the page.
Alphabetical order or date-order: perhaps the second is more common, but date is sometimes unavailable, while alphabetical order can always be used.

--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 22:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I've made a few changes, feel free to revert if they don't help. With respect to the alphabetic vs date order: I think there needs to be something about how to deal with series or sequels. I would always want to find all the books in a series together and in their logical reading order, rather than scattered throughout an alphabetic list. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, your changes help. The order of the works in an author page sounds like a good topic for an essay; for now I've removed the sentence about the order.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 21:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Link repair request

Sorry to bug whomever with somewhat of a vanity issue (definitely not WS priority)... The Russian phrase in my quotation header renders fine when copied/pasted elsewhere, but not within the formatted whatchamacallit. I'm not sure what the issue is aside from the possibility that the external link is messing things up(?) Usually, using <center> instead of {{center}} will render it correctly, but not this time. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The Google Translate link includes a hash and two pipes, either or all of which may be confusing the software trying to parse wikitext. (ie. Hashes in a URL or link normally mean an anchor on the page rather than an intermediary directory, pipes are part of the wiki mark up to separate elements of a template.) I can't think of a way around it (well, a successful way, everything I tried failed too). Do you need the link? Could you use something like —{{tooltip|Желаю удачи|Good Luck}}—or, as I've now found out about language tagging, —{{tooltip|{{lang|ru|Желаю удачи}}|Good Luck}}? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I'll use the latter... I forget my own stated "principle" from some time back that it's not necessarily necessary to handfeed readers info.... If they want to know a thing badly enough, they'll seek it out for themselves! :) Thanks, Adam! Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Abuse filters

Hello, I was looking at some abuse filters here and I think that there's some inefficiency. If you throw too many warnings on users or even disallow edits, you can effectively destroy constructive activity, besides slowing down the site. On special:abusefilter I see that there are many hits (this is the Wikimedia project with most hits right now, almost 9 % of all actions); I can't see exactly because many filters are private, but I think you should review filters to see what's actually needed and constructive and to get back at normal hit levels. A couple examples follow.

Special:AbuseFilter/1 seems the biggest one. I'm not sure it's constructive to give so many warnings to users, who will need to click two times for every edit they make on such pages, but this is a legitimate choice I suppose. Surely, it doesn't make sense to give warnings to bots though. ;-)
This is a filter that works well in getting users to add {{header}} and the special warning page provides the template, generally we do want it to tag so where someone ignores the warning we go and add the template. It works nicely, both in warn and tag steps. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:11, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
"Surely, it doesn't make sense to give warnings to bots though. ;-)" -- Actually, it would make the greatest sense to halt any offending BOT since most BOTs that come thru here don't typically heed any of the warnings & such anyway - they are primarily concerned with improving their home wiki(s), etc. at the expense of ours. Scum of the earth in my book. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:25, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Sure and it hasn't been an issue until now and I have just fixed one of the filters to ignore bots, and about to do another. Generally we have been fixing the headerless where there is no header, not leaving them with no fix intended, so the alert is not entirely problematic. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Why? If the community agreed to grant a BOT flag to a user based on the premise that the User: will practice good editing standards, then what exactly makes them above the rest of us to deserve exemption? Remove the BOT flag for folks who don't care to look at or review what they're doing on en.WS; not amend the filter designed to illicit expected compliance from everyone who encounters the warning. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:42, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I now have no idea about what you are currently discussing. Filter 1 shows very little bot activity and I would hardly expect bots to be adding new works into the main ns, and if/when they do I would expect them to comply with the guidelines. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:08, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh I'm with you 100% on Filter 1 all the way - its been workin' just fine. That's not the Filter you recently excluded the flagged BOT group from however. Nearly every editor of every stripe who has come across that header2-deprecated-tag situation manages to correct the issue in a key-stroke or less during their regular travels - I don't see why both flagged and un-flagged BOTs (for the most part) choose to ignore the warning - you'd think they'd incorporate a fix into their script by now if they were really following up on what they're doing - I can only assume adhering to en.WS standards and practices is secondary to whatever fish they are trying to fry this week elsewhere. Duly noted. :( -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:31, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Probably keeping to the compact of bot rights and only changing what is programmed, though I will admit to always header2 to header conversion, especially if working in fully auto mode. Probably is just worth adding a note for operator, and I will do so on his bot. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:05, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
Special:AbuseFilter/9 is private, but I don't see how a filter against page blanking could contain private information or special pattern catching tricks to be kept secret. Nemo 13:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
It tags and that just has review for admins, no bother for any user, like the vast bulk of the filters used. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Nemo on this, why is it private? It doesn't have review for just admins, it has review for just abuse filter editors. Even admins can't see it unless they give themselves the abuse filter right which is a bit of a pain just to see a fairly mundane filter in my opinion.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 15:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The same goes for 2 and 14, I haven't gotten beyond 15 in looking, is there any point to keeping these private?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 16:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
The vast majority of our filters are simply tagged which means that they clearly show up on in Recent Changes, they do not prohibit anything, and they also show at Special:Tags, there is next to no point in looking elsewhere, and no need to see the filter. The vast bulk of them are open, those that are closed are for aberrant editing, so I am not seeing what is the issue. With regards to your rights, they are self-administered, get done once, and sit in the same place where administrators give rights to autopatrolling, so again, I don't see the issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Overall, I think that you will find that there is some great efficiency there, where we have a major style factor required and it is not included, then the user is guided and provided with a template. All other filters simply mark for administrators that there is something amiss, and please to review, with no impact upon the user. I see nothing amiss, no inefficiency, and we have zero complaints about the filter. In fact for filter 1, shows the effectiveness of the filter in that 12,133 hits reduces to 3.5k tags. Also except for two minor filters, all the results with labelling Special:Tags. I don't see an issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Sources in the Arabic script

Given that WebFonts is supported at en.wikisource, it is now possible to use a much better font then the one that is typically available. It is the Amiri font and I have added it to the national anthem of Saudi Arabia. Thanks, Gmeijssen (talk) 17:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I must be having a poor brain day, neither mw:Help:Extension:WebFonts and mw:Extension:WebFonts help me. I will enquire more widely. Generally WebFonts are less needed here as we would normally look to add an interwiki and utilise Extension:DoubleWiki to put the versions side by side. I am presuming that at arWS they have the requisite font(s) in place. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The Arabic Wikisource is not enabled for WebFonts. My personal understanding is that this font does a more credible job then the fonts delivered with operating systems. Thanks, Gmeijssen (talk) 19:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively, I am willing to ask Hesperian to give you temp ~~editinterface~~ admin status and you can do it, and we can all learn. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:16, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Disregarding WebFonts, all wikis/sites rely on the same font support on the client side, i.e. arWS doesn't have any advantage over enWS (afaik). However, now that WebFonts is installed here, you can use available fonts, such as the Amiri font, as Gerard did by using font-family and preferably a lang attribute. Obviously no admin rights are needed for that. Arabic does not have a default WebFonts implementation, which means that the menu doesn't appear at the top of the page (in that sense, Arabic is a bad example to explain WebFonts). If you'd use a lang attribute with any of these language codes around a text then the menu should appear. I hope my explanation helps a bit. SPQRobin (talk) 18:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

WebFonts is enabled on en.ws. Consequently any text in a language with fonts can be triggered with a web font. I did this for the national anthem of Saudi Arabia. Thanks, Gmeijssen (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I get it now, you are saying that we can do things better in a general practice, rather than our previous arcane methodology. Totally with you, and we should be looking to template this stuff, rather than rely defaults, and look to simplify this where possible. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:43, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Parking code here as a reminder of what we need to do, and with what we need to contend


<div lang="ar" class="mw-content-rtl" style="font-family:'Amiri'; width: 49%; float: right;">

— billinghurst sDrewth 00:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

(I suppose you understand that the width and float is just used to make the test display next to the English translation instead of below it, and is not related to WebFonts.) So in principle any foreign language should be marked with a lang="" attribute, and in case of a right-to-left language (such as Arabic and Hebrew) this should come with class="mw-content-rtl". And optionally, to specify a font that is available in WebFonts, you can use style="font-family:Name;". SPQRobin (talk) 03:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

fwiw.... the latest incarnation of the textarea edit field is
<div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr">
They say to avoid only relying the 'class' since it constrains the lang direction capabilities in some cases. -- George Orwell III (talk) 09:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Could we do this with a generic template, say {{webfont}}, taking parameters such as language, font and (of course) text? Would it work with a span, rather than div, so it could also be used on a single word in a sentence rather than a block of text? Language specific templates could then feed through this one (if they are needed at all), keeping the code consistant and manageable throughout the project. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:39, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, looking through the supported languages/fonts on the extension page, Arabic and Amiri are not listed. Is there a list of all available fonts anywhere? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:45, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I would not recommend using a template, since language tagging is something you should do regardless of WebFonts. If you do want a template nonetheless, I'd use e.g. {{lang}} (and maybe adapt that to be able to specify a font). I have now created a page at Meta to provide information to all Wikimedia wikis, see meta:Language tagging. I hope that explains the basics; feel free to improve it or tell me if anything is not clear or lacking on that page. And here you can see which fonts are currently available here. The extension page is probably a bit outdated. SPQRobin (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

If I've understood things correctly before - first problem with creating some sort of template is we don't follow the "normal" ISO639 approach to language coding here on enWS but depend on our own generated list (names.php?)

Second, we have the additional issue with dynamic layouts exending itself into areas contrary to language diectionality support guidelines - see ...Adding UI stuff within these classes should not be done. For example, the category links and FlaggedRevs review form are inside #bodyContent but outside .mw-content-ltr/rtl. I've been trying to head off the second problem before it actually starts to materialize in practice with little help from those who could possibly fix that. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I've updated {{lang}} to implement web fonts and generally conform to the posts made in this thread. I think I've got it right and I don't appear to have broken anything. (I can't comment on the the Mediawiki/structure issues brought up by George Orwell III). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:50, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

@George Orwell III: Names.php doesn't matter here, that is just a list for MediaWiki itself and should follow ISO 639 as closely as possible (any difference is because of legacy). About the second issue, what does this have to do with this topic? (I think I wrote the sentence you quoted; and I developed a lot of the relevant directionality support. If any questions/problems, please tell me.)
AdamBMorgan: Thanks for implementing a font option, and adding a simple default direction. I fixed a few things on the lang template. SPQRobin (talk) 02:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Have a look at PageNumbers.js. which prepends (then wraps) everything starting before the div with id of mw-content-text at the div with the id of contentSub instead. The mw-content-text & its sister class, mw-content-rtl/ltr, didn't exist when Dynamic Layouts were developed, so they just used the next closest div container to wrap then load everything, contentSub. Currently, among others, things like the Fund-raising banner are subject to dynamic layouts because the scheme went beyond the opening and closing tags of what amounts the textarea field in edit mode - just like the warning to avoid doing that you apparently wrote & that I quoted above. I'd like to get everything back in between this new skin-generated wiki-wide div container for starters is all. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. As far as I understand you, the problem you raise is bug 35247? The problem is that it's harder to do in the MediaWiki code, but maybe developers who are more experienced than me can do that. I do want to say that the directionality classes (mw-content-ltr/rtl) do not always coincide with the mw-content-text id, and their intended use is very different. SPQRobin (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't tie yourself up with this - nobody else does. Directionality aside can we be clear on just 3 points for the benefit of others moving forward... First, everything typed into the textarea in edit mode should be taking place between the opening and closing tags of the new Div container (mw-content-text, mw-content-rtl/ltr). Second, things like notice/fundraising banners, headers, featured/protected icons, etc. should be taking place after the bodyContent opening Div tag but prior to the new opening mw-content-text Div tag. And finally, things like nav-bars/footer-boxes, license banners and the like should start after the close of the new mw-content-text Div container but before the well known categories bar starts.

Is that a fair summary of what is expected development wise (including translation and directionality support if and when it gets closer to 100%) or not? -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I would saw yes, but this might get a bit complicated/confusing on pages in the file namespace, and also in the special namespace where I wonder where mw-content-text would/could be put. I suppose best would be then to leave it out on special pages. Btw, see also the page mw:Manual:Interface/IDs and classes I made to try to clear up the availability and use of various classes and IDs. SPQRobin (talk) 19:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Understood. I should have preixed that to say specifically in the main namespace, a possibility for some other mainspaces and not-so-much for File:/Special: namespaces if at all. I am alo familar with the new table as well and thank you for it. Nevertheless, a possible pitfall still exists here on WS when it comes to Dynamci Layouts -- part(s) of it starts a container wrap begining at #conentSub (rather than the start of #mw-content-text, etc.) and ends prior to the start of the category bar (instead of ending at the close of #mw-content-text, etc.) So far, not a big deal but I'm concerned as things progress in the language-direction or -translation areas, this situation will negatively affect how we will utilize these things and to what degree successfully. Thanks again for your time at any rate. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing .djvu transclusions in Page namespace

Can anyone tell me how and whom to contact about the problem of transclusions from the Commons to WS? Random pages are not displaying the .djvu scans and I suspect that the cache, wherever it is, needs to be cleared. Thanks. — Ineuw talk 20:33, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that pages are not rendering? Are you seeing this in presentation mode, or edit mode, or both? Generally what is happening is that the thumbnail renderer being used by WMF fails, and then repeatedly gives the same version, rather than rendering a fresh and full version. That being the case, I am unaware of any means to purge the thumbnail file, and one needs to wait for the cache to refresh. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:23, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi. When I switch to edit mode, the .djvu image is missing so I can't proofread. It started several days ago randomly, and the pages were loading slower and slower, and as of yesterday I can't do any proofreading. As I write this, If others don't have this problem, I beginning to suspect Firefox and I will get back to you ASAP.— Ineuw talk 04:48, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

billinghurst, it's not Firefox. I created a new profile and it still doesn't show the page image. Please see the following:

This page I see the scan and from this page on the scans are no longer visible. Only the text edit is visible.— Ineuw talk 05:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

It's also happening with me, but I get around it by having 2 Firefox browser windows open on my 27in Mac. One window has the text and the other is in editing mode. --kathleen wright5 (talk) 05:52, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kathleen. I tried that but needed an enlarged image. :-) — Ineuw talk 06:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

P.S: I have dual boot and normally I work in XP where I never use IE6. Tested the same in W7 and latest version of IE and the problem is the same.— Ineuw talk 06:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Same status for me on other works s well, same workaround as mentioned above by kathleen wright5, but obviously not efficient.--Mpaa (talk) 08:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I am seeing the same problem on the example page using Firefox and Microsoft. Has anyone reported it as a bug? JeepdaySock (talk) 10:37, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Please check again. I changed the default display edit resolution from 1000px (blank) to 800px on the Djvu's Index: page (the editable field near the end of all the possible settings and values on an Index: page in edit mode) and all images from .DjVu/633 on now appear in edit mode. If I recall correctly, this has more to do with a change in the source file's composition/resolution than anything specific to do with the ProofRead Page extension... but don't hold me to that now that ThomasV is no longer around to ask for sure. -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

GO3. It works in PSM!!! The rendering is instant. Many thanks.— Ineuw talk 20:11, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That's good to hear, Ineuw. How about other folks? -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Fixed worked for me. JeepdaySock (talk) 10:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I pretty well said it above, though obviously not clearly enough or in enough depth, and it is one that happens on occasions. 1) It is not Firefox, nor any specific browser issue. 2) It is the thumbnail generator at Commons, that WMF uses, fails to properly produce the thumbnail used (and that can be in either the view or in edit mode), as with most things at WMF the thumbnail is cached for reuse. The issue is that this cached thumbnail is broken (and re-served) and there is no ready means that I have found to purge the thumbnail. Changing the default thumbnail size for the work like GOIII did on this occasion does address the issue to get new thumbnails at the new size, hence defeating the problem, though not regenerating the thumbnail image that was problematic. I generally just go back to the page a couple of days later when the cache version has run out and it will get re-served. (I hope that I have ungeeked that enough). 3) I presume that it happens in times of high load or due to some other hiccough that stops the proper generation. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Examples (from above two Page refs that Ineuw added

These thumbnails are generated on the fly, and some other mystic processes to how and where they are located (blah blah blah) but to note that the breakage of the second — billinghurst sDrewth 11:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully beg to differ a bit. This was a case of "black-space" filled thumbnail image content only in edit mode; not no thumbnail image in either view or edit mode which is the condition I believe is being decribed above. In my notes & observations, the hint at a difference between the two behaviors is the presence of a substantial scroll bar along the bottom of the blackened thumbnail edit frame (note I view PR pages with the thumbnail on top; not side by side). Also, envoking zoom will not bring an enlarged image into view whereas under the other condition a zoomed imaged will typically appear in both view and edit modes. So when I observe the substantial scroll-bar along the bottom but no image & just a blackened thumnail field (edit mode only) - the resolution tweak always brings the images back in edit mode in my expierence.

The other behaviour with the lag from an out-of-whack cache thing is as described above - we need to wait-it-out until some sort of system refresh takes place. -- George Orwell III (talk) 15:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Just a note before possible archiving -- one week plus later and for the life of me I still can't get the above 1000px thumbnail to appear no matter how much I flush/clear. Still believe as stated earlier (2 separate issues being discussed here - one issue can overlap the other at times, however). -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I've come to suspect that the missing 200px was usurped en.wikipedia because they are hungry for additional resources, and have no respect for us. :-)— Ineuw talk 03:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Nah... that's not it. A 999px thumbnail, one pixel less, works just fine for example. I still think its not a resource/cache thing behind this but rather something with the composition of the specific pages (or those before &/or after them) within the make-up of the DjVu file itself that causes the wiki-magic to fail in this case.

... and please be kind in the future - its not cool to make fun of the retarded that way (they know not what they do for the most part :-) George Orwell III (talk) 03:39, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I still think that the problem is as is described at Commons:Help:Purge#Advanced manual thumbnail purging. I see that they have a gadget, and I will endeavour to look to see 1) if we can install it, 2) that it actually will help, and 3) that we can successfully incorporate it in Page: ns. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Trigger words.

When I created Catullus 105, it said in the page history that the edit "added trigger word". What are trigger words, and do I need to avoid them ? Thanks.—unsigned comment by Aplomb (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2012‎.

The abuse filter noticed that you added profanity, but that's OK because the profanity was a genuine part of the text. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Why are we making a wikisource translation? There are multiple PD translations available and we have at least one of them.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 04:03, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Early modern (i.e. published and fallen out of copyright) translations of Catullus are hilariously bowlderized. See for example Cornish's XVI, which he deletes almost in its entirety even in the Latin! Prosody (talk) 04:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

So much for being bold

Seeing that Commons, Wikipedia, Wikiquote and Wiktionary all had pages referring to April Fools' Day, in several languages mind you, I went ahead and created the page as a disambiguation page here. I then added all the sister project links and went and linked all of them here. I came back here to do some more work less than an hour later and found that User:George Orwell III had deleted the page, reverted all the other work I had done and left me a bon mot about 'test edits.'

So much for being bold. So much for not biting newbies. Someone mentioned to me that they wished more people utilized wikisource. Well, since wikisource doesn't want the April Fools page, I am now forced to go remove the links from the the other four projects. Signing off. Surf Dog (talk) 05:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no published work called "April Fools' Day" held by enWS and therefore there is no need for a page with that title. Please see the article What Wikisource is for guidance as to what our purpose in the WikiMedia world is. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

"There is no published work called April Fools' Day held by enWS" — sure there is. Now redirected to The New Student's Reference Work/April Fools' Day. ;) Hesperian 11:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Do we want to protect April Fools' Day or just keep an eye on it? I personally lean towards protection. JeepdaySock (talk) 14:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

How about creating Portal:April Fools' Day and change the redirect at April Fools' Day to point to that? Evrik (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

A portal for a single page of content seems excessive. Maybe start by brining in more content. This 1890 work April fools:A farce in one act for three male characters or this 1880 work Mud-larks. April fools would both seem to be in the public domain. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Announcing a position for a Wikipedian and/or Wikisourcerer

Hello lovers of knowledge! OCLC, the non-profit behind WorldCat and other library services, is recruiting for a paid Wikipedian in Residence position based in the San Francisco Bay Area. This summer, 3 months. Your knowledge and passion for Wikimedia projects is desired! Here's a link to my blog post about it -- linking there because it also covers a similar (but perhaps not quite as broadly relevant to Wikisource types) opportunity at Consumer Reports in New York. Please take a look, and if it looks like a fit, apply early and often! ;) -Pete (talk) 00:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Transcluding sections of pages

I'm attempting to get the poems Alysoun and Fredome correctly transcluded from the relevant pages of Index:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu, with only limited success. Here are my problems: (1) At Alysoun, I have said to transclude only the section called "3b" from Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/33, but instead it's transcluding the entire page. (2) At Fredome, I have said to transclude the section called "13 notes b" from Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/45, but it doesn't show up. Can anyone help? Thanks! An gr 21:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Same problem as below. The poem tags aren't matching. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:14, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, although I admit it took me a while to notice the problem. I fixed the first one and Alysoun works for me now. There was no closing poem tag so it kept going, which seems to have overruled all the other tags on the page. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Another not closed poem at Fredome.--Mpaa (talk) 22:45, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Weird line spacing

In the poem Spring-tide on Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/33, what have I done to create so much space in between the lines, and how do I get rid of it so the lines space normally as at the top of that page? An gr 21:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

You've got two open poem tags, but only one close on the page. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:12, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's help, both here and in the previous thread. Who'da thunk one little missing </poem> tag could cause so much trouble? An gr 22:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Against basic Wikimedia projects principles

I came across the Bug 35147 registered on the bugzilla by the admin of mr.wikisource and was surprise the way they are working. If needed they can seek help from others. Samual (talk) 02:32, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

It's a brand new project, and I think the people running it are high on enthusiasm but low on knowledge of Wikimedia culture and principles. This isn't their first unusual request. Hesperian 03:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The over enthusiasm without knowledge of Wikimedia culture and principles is dangerous. They should ask some more matured and experienced editors from Marathi Wikipedia community to manage it. - Kamble (talk) 14:42, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

We could have a test that you have to pass before being allowed to submit bugs or post to policy change requests ;) JeepdaySock (talk) 16:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Or better yet, a requirement of 2 years of WMF activity and 2000+ edits. ;-) --Eliyak T·C 17:33, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Italy and Her Invaders

Can someone please upload and get ready Thomas Hodgkins' Italy and Her Invaders, Volume 1? I need it uploaded ASAP, but can't download DJVU files on my computer.

Thanks in advance. - Tannertsf (talk) 18:37, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Before we upload more, how are the previous uploads for you progressing? I could be mistaken but I cannot recall many making it to {{new texts}} as completed works. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

And why are these always a huge rush for you? Instead you might consider making a list of several works you'd like to see uploaded to commons at some point in the future.
BTW, if the tools are working and there is no need to edit the djvu, it can be directly uploaded. The only reasons I can think of to put it on your own machine are 1) for quick reference to the whole work, 2) to edit the djvu (such as merge djvus, replace missing pages, merge docs, or to add a missing text layer), 3) to use a bot to add the text layer to the pagespace, or 4) if it's not a djvu and you're going to make it into one. Of course, if the tools are broken that might not work.
When you ask for something to be uploaded, it would be nice if you provided a link.

--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 15:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I like to jump around when proofing, and this book seemed very good to me. I also was hoping someone could find me a decent version; IA ones were sparse - not sure if the volumes are all there. Thats why a link wasn't provided. - Tannertsf (talk) 11:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Help requested

The caption below the image on THIS PAGE ends up looking like a template parameter {{{2}}}. I've been using this caption style thousands of times and this has only happened a couple of times in the past month, never before. — Ineuw talk 03:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

The caption had an equals sign in it. When Mediawiki sees an unnamed parameter of the form

"mustache = horizontal line above curve of cap"

it parses it as a named parameter with name "mustache" and value "horizontal line above curve of cap". The solution is to write it as

"2 = mustache = horizontal line above curve of cap"

This forces Mediawiki to recognise everything after the "2 =" as the value of the second unnamed parameter. Hesperian 04:02, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Hesperian. Very interesting. — Ineuw talk 04:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Another option is to use an HTML entity like = in place of the equals sign when it's in a template parameter. An gr 21:44, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

... or use the {{=}} template. Hesperian 00:09, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Problems with URL2Commons?

Is anyone else having problems using the URL2Commons tool on the toolserver? It keeps failing for me but I want to know if the problem is at my end or with the tool itself. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 06:22, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is problematic, both SFan00 IMG and myself have been unable to do so. As there had been some issues with Toolserver so I waited until that was resolved, however, no luck. I emailed him yesterday. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:46, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Magnus got back to me today, and it is all fixed, and even looks 'upgraded'. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've tested it from a few different computers with different items and everything is indeed definitely working now. There now appears to be a small progress report at the end too (unless I've just been missing it before). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

appropriate knowledge and experience

Would someone with the appropriate knowledge please upload the following on WikiSource. It is about 40 pages. *[[3]] Subject: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865; Author: Christian, George Llewellyn. I thank you all for your consideration, —William Maury Morris II ^Talk 19:04, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Done Sorry, I thought you didn't want this any more. Available here: Index:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Adam. I have placed the text in MS-Word because I wanted to read that text and edit it. I struck through my ~~request~~ on your talk page because (1) you had problems with the uploading tool and (2) I thought I was requesting too much of you and especially since we both are still working on the 52 volumes of the SHSP and (3) I remembered that I asked Billinghurst not long ago as to where should we ask others about uploading and he stated that here, on Scriptorium, would probably be best. You came through as always! With all due respect for you and an admiration of your wonderful abilities, —William Maury Morris II ^Talk 20:25, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Blank scan

On this page, Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/480, I can't find the text Wikisource always gives so you don't have to type it all in. Could someone please help me get the text for this page? - Tannertsf (talk) 09:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Use the OCR button on the editing toolbar when you are in this situation. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 10:09, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Header2 > Header

There are a lot of pages out there with {{Header2}} with pop-up a message when you try to edit them, and you have to remove the "2" to apply the edit [4] this is not universal as I was able to update a page without being stopped [5]. Making a guess from available info it is only problematic on where header2 is used rather then Header2. It would seem to be good housekeeping to just go through with a bot and change "header2" to "Header", thoughts or volunteers? Jeepday (talk) 12:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I can do this. The point of that edit filter is escaping me (Bilinghurst? GO3?) but given its existence a bot run makes more sense. --Spangineer (háblame) 13:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I made a formal BOT request earlier today to do just this based on the script that was used to do the opposite in 2008 (header to header2). The whole point with the abuse filter was primarily to get people to stop creating new works using the wrong header call while whittling down the amount of existing pages with the wrong header if, for some reason, the page was touched by a new edit. The first part worked fine and most folks took the time out to remove the number 2 before saving but the interwiki BOTs just kept ignoring the bang so the large number of tagging without correction just kept growing & growing. I had hoped granting a formal bot flag meant you followed the community standards but that principle 'blows with wind' I guess. Lesson learned - I will be opposing any BOT flag unless the user agrees to abide by basic en.WS standards in full.

Anyway, it would be great if somebody took up the BOT request and put end to this dual header scheme once and for all. I can disable the abuse filter as soon as someone does as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The bot is easy, it is the expected value to the community of doing 15k edits to modify a change a header that incorporates a redirect and running a bot through solely for that purpose though no distinguishable difference, nor improvements. If we do that are we setting a precedent for any other template? {{hws}}, {{hwe}}, {{sc}}, {{c}}, {{di}} ... If it is the communities wish to have it done, then I will get it done. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Those redirects have value because they save an ounce of typing time at the expense of only an additional drop in [post] processing resources. Header2 serves no such typing-time value, still uses a drop more in resources than need be and then goes to creating confusion by seemingly establishing two classes of the same type of mainspace work for newcomers and moving forward. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The confusion argument, combined with the absolute simplicity of making the change, makes a bot run worthwhile to me. I am all set to do it (in fact I've done about 50 so far to verify my setup), so I will start unless someone disagrees. --Spangineer (háblame) 14:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The filter is disabled just in case. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to not do it, for this template. Jeepday (talk) 17:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

All transclusions of {{header2}} have been changed to {{header}}. --Spangineer (háblame) 14:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

[Somewhat off-topic] Titanic White Star Line question

Any historians around here know about how long—in 1912 or thereabouts—one would have had to book a spot on a ship before it sailed? I am only asking because Mrs. Coates and her husband traveled from the US to England (Great Britain?) about a month after the Titanic went down (i.e., in May)... Which reminds me... in an audio recording of a sermon I heard, given by Peter Marshall—U. S. Senate Chaplain during the late 40's, Marshall misspeaks and says the Titanic went down in "May 1912"... probably no significance in the error, however... Anyway, I'm trying to piece some things together, and was wondering if anyone could help in this regard... If I don't get any responses, I'll just add this to my Talk page along with my other Standing requests. Thanks as usual, Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

If the ship had space and one had the ready cash, as long as one showed up before sailing. — After sailing, I am not sure :-). Ships are equipped to handle cash transactions. Even these days, it's more a matter of security than accomodations. I hope this helps. — Ineuw talk 20:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Yup, sort of & thank you. Looking back at old passport applications, I guess I never really bothered to take a look at how soon after one's application was approved (seemed to have been a somewhat complicated procedure...?) that the passenger(s) would board ship... I had an Ancestry.com membership for a time, but I have "suspended" it for now to save some money. Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:16, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Problematic page

Does anyone have any insight into why Cygnis might have marked this page as Problematic (see also the page's history)? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Ci seems to have had an issue with {{nop}}. I looked at the history entries and compared it to the current from the beginning. I checked how it rendered in the main ns transclusion, with or without it. With it, there is a minute gap, without it it's seamless, so I marked it proofread. — Ineuw talk 15:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Special:MyPage/common.js

At enWS, my common.js file, now has redlinks to MediaWiki:Jswarning & Template:Script doc auto. Does anyone else have this? Or has anyone done anything that may make these pop up? — billinghurst sDrewth 12:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

GO3 ... MediaWiki:Clearyourcache isn't working. Presumably the files don't exist yet. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

My apologiees -it was late and I only finished up the edit notices for the site-wide common.css & common.js files. I didn't realize the User customizations of these would be affected. I'll get on it in a bit & post back here. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC).

That should do it. All the files/templates exist now. (I hope). Sorry again. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

It was more confusion, and having to battle the mysteries and intricacies of Mediawiki, and it was half-past pumpkin so none of it was making sense to me. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:31, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2012-04