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Announcements

mw:MediaWiki 1.21/Roadmap

mw:MediaWiki_1.21/wmf1 imminent

WMF has branched their latest version, and the roadmap suggests that the next version will roll from today across the Wikisource. As usual there are a raft of various maintenance components, some of which do touch Proofread Page, including a bug fix. A quick scroll through the list didn't indicate anything to me that would seem to especially impact upon the WS. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Please notice and report big glitches - changes coming — MediaWiki 1.21/wmf2

On Monday we start deploying a new version of MediaWiki, 1.21wmf2, to the wikis, starting with mediawiki.org and 2 test wikis -- see mw:MediaWiki_1.21/Roadmap for more. 1.21wmf2 will have 3 big new things in it and we need your help to test now to see if there are any really critical bugs, especially bugs that affect your bots and gadgets.

The three biggest changes

  1. The new ContentHandler might affect handing of CSS and JavaScript pages, import/export (including PDF export), and API stuff, especially when rendering and editing. Also look out for issues in template rendering, images and media handling, localisation, and mobile device access. (merged on Oct 9)
  2. High-resolution image support. This work-in-progress will try to give higher-res images to high-density screens that can support it, like new Retina displays (more info). One of the bigger risks of the high res stuff is load-based, since we may see substantial new load on our image scalers. So *all* image scaling might be impacted. (merged on Oct 11)
  3. "Sites" is a new backend to represent and store information about sites and site-specific configuration. This code is meant to replace the current interwiki code, but does not do so just yet. Still, keep an eye out for site-specific configuration or interwiki issues.


Right now the version of MediaWiki on the beta cluster dates from 9 Oct and thus has ContentHandler but not the high-res image support or Sites. So please test on the beta sites now, and look out for these issues on your sites in the weeks ahead. These test plans give some ideas on how to find errors.

Thanks! With your help we can find bugs early and get them fixed before they affect lots of readers and editors.

Sumana Harihareswara Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 12:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Upcoming software changes - please report any problems

 

All Wikimedia wikis - including this one - will soon be upgraded with new and possibly disruptive code. This process starts today and finishes on October 24 (see the upgrade schedule & code details).

Please watch for problems with:

  • revision diffs
  • templates
  • CSS and JavaScript pages (like user scripts)
  • bots
  • PDF export
  • images, video, and sound, especially scaling sizes
  • the CologneBlue skin

If you notice any problems, please report problems at our defect tracker site. You can test for possible problems at test2.wikipedia.org and mediawiki.org, which have already been updated.

Thanks! With your help we can find problems fast and get them fixed faster.

Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 02:50, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S.: For the regular, smaller MediaWiki updates every two weeks, please watch this schedule.

Social media trial run

I have not seen Eliyak around so, as part of WikiProject Social media, I have started a trial run on Tumblr. Right now, it is only going to cover items from the main page as a way to make announcements related to Wikisource. More can be added later if and/or when this appears to be working. I've added a request to add this blog to the Planet Wikimedia aggregator, so at least other Wikimedians will see these announcements. However, the Planet is currently being upgraded, so it might be some time before the tumblr posts are included. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Changes in ProofreadPage deployed with MediaWiki 1.21-wmf3

Two big modifications have been merged into ProofreadPage trunk last week. They will be deployed next week, Wednesday, October 31 with Mediawiki 1.21-wmf3 and are already live on beta server.

The first one is the rewriting of the edition form of the index pages in PHP in order to decrease loading time and add new features like an help system. A description have be made in OldWikisource.

In oder to add these new features (default value, help message...), this rewriting introduce a new configuration message for index pages based on one JSON array located in Mediawiki:Proofreadpage_index_data_config. JSON format have chosen because it's very extensible in order to add easily new features in the future. This message regroup Mediawiki:proofreadpage_index_attributes and Mediawiki:proofreadpage_js_attributes. The use of this new configuration way is not required in order to have time to improve the configuration system in the future if there are any problem and to allow a smooth migration. Small wikis are invited to keep using the old configuration way. This format is also described on oldWikisource. A migration tool have been written in order to migrate easily.

The second change, more small, change the way of configuration of Index and Page namespaces: the configuration will not be done in Mediawiki:Proofreadpage_namespace and Mediawiki:Proofreadpage_index_namespace but directly in PHP configuration. The support of the new configuration system have already been added to Wikimedia's websites configuration so their might be no problem. Description of the new configuration system.

If you find bugs please report them in Bugzilla. Tpt (talk) 14:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

These patches are live now. Tpt (talk) 19:12, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Enabled on en.WS as of this post. Please provide Feedback either way I guess. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource link in enWP's {{Infobox book}}

For users to note that following a suggestion from Theornamentalist (talk • contribs) at enWP we have added an optional wikisource parameter to {{infobox book}}. The parameter allows to link directly linked from the infobox at enWP to the work rather than utilising inline or external links sections. If you can think of a good place to add this information locally, then that would be great. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:06, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposals

Changes to two Proofreadpage messages

The following discussion is closed:

The two changes described in the table have been approved. But the links will point to Help:Proofread as suggested by Chris55, and the other messages will be changed consequently.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 09:02, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The content of Help:Proofread has changed, so now linking to Help:Page status is better.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Changes made. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

This proposal has started on Chris55's talk page. The proposed changes are:

Message page Current text Proposed text
MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality1 message This page has not been proofread. This page needs to be proofread.
MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality3 message This page has been proofread. This page has been proofread, but needs to bevalidated.

Inserted in consideration of comments in box shown above---

This page needs to be proofread
This page needs to be validated

⁠⁠ OR

please proofread
please validate

Kindest regards, Maury —William Maury Morris IITalk 12:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


The goal is to give emphasis to what users can do for the page instead of what has (not) been done.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 08:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

support but could I suggest the link is to Help:Proofread. This contains a transcluded version of Help:Page Status and may better encourage people to start doing it. Also the second link could go to Help:Validate which needs to be created! (I've been thinking of doing it.) Chris55 (talk) 11:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Advertising Maintenance of the Month

The following discussion is closed:

Implemented on main page (item 1) as part of the collaboration section, not implemented in the welcome template (item 2). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a proposal to add links to Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month on:

  1. The main page
  2. The {{Welcome}} template.

The project could use more attention. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Support – MotM could be added to the {{collaboration}} template with an image on the right. In the {{welcome}} template the links might be a bullet point after Community collaboration and a "code" after {{CotW}}.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Not supported for Welcome template. The effective message that would be conveyed is: "Welcome to Wikisource, the library that's in a mess and needs help to sort it out." This is not how we should be presenting ourselves to new users. We use the Welcome template for people who have made a single drive-by edit as well as for those who may well stay. I don't believe that this is the right place to advertise the project.
wrt the MainPage, I'm not keen on adding more length to the Collaboration template. I already have to scroll to see it and adding to it will unbalance the two columns significantly. I'm also not sure that we want the general user who lands on the Mainpage to have the "we're in a mess and need help" message up front in their face, but I'm happy to hear arguments to the contrary.
Don't get me wrong, the project is doing and will do valuable work that is much needed, I'm just not sure that recruiting people who have little to no experience with enWS is the best way to get that work done. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Wikisource needs maintenance, but this does not necessarily mean that we are in a mess. We need help, of course, but it's in the nature of all wikis. In the {{collaboration}} template, in lieu of the two "Recent collaborations" lists we could indicate only the last one to keep the two columns on the main page balanced.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 10:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, we are in a mess and we do need help sorting it out. I have been here years and still can’t figure out how to do a bunch of stuff and the help pages are often less then helpful. The message is presented to new users as soon as they try to navigate through the mess, at least by announcing the WS:MOTM to them they will know we are working on it, and would appreciate their assistance in correction of the issue. JeepdaySock (talk) 10:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Changes to the {{collaboration}} template

The following discussion is closed:

Changes made to template as described. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Current appearance Proposed appearance
 

The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to …
WikiProject NARA

Recent collaborations: Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

 
The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to WikiProject NARA

Recent collaborations: Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

  
  The current Proofread of the Month is The American Indian: Anthropology of the New World (1917) by Clark Wissler

Recent collaborations: The European Concert in the Eastern Question, Climatic Cycles and Tree-Growth, The Oak: An Introduction to Forest-botany
The current Maintenance of the Month task is Main page & Community portal revision

Recent collaborations: Help page improvement, Categorization, Project Set Up

  

The changes are:

  • boldface and italics are used less,
  • the text is left-aligned,
  • lists are less bulky,
  • entries are not floated,
  • MotM is included.

--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The proposed new version looks good. The only point I'm not entirely happy with is the shortening of the list of previous collaborations. I'd prefer to see the previous three items, rather than just the previous one. It might also be a good idea to put in a line break before presenting the title on the PotM, to avoid a possible line break early in the title. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I have a strong preference for centering for this, left justification here looks boring and stolid. I agree with EncycloPetey that more than one previous item is required. We want to garner interest in the project and a view of the range of stuff we do is important towards that. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  Done: Text is center-aligned and there are three items in the lists. The font size for the lists is the same as the current version.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Re-naming: Collaboration → Current collaborations

The title "Collaboration" was given to the box when it included just Collaboration of the Week. Now a plural title would be more significant. What about performing the re-naming in the heading?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 19:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

Help

Other discussions

Help with Proofreading US District Court Jury Verdict

Hello, I have done all I can do with this pdf I upload onto Wikisource and one editor proofread the first page and I took his suggestions to the rest of the pages but now I need a 2nd proofreader to finish it so I can refer to it from Wikipedia. Thank you! http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:US_District_Court_Jury_Verdict_SRF_v_Ananda_2002.pdf Red Rose 13 (talk) 14:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Created US District Court Jury Verdict SRF v Ananda 2002, you can mark the pages as proofread. Or if someone else has already proofread, you can promote to validated. The pages do not need to be fully validated to use as a reference at Wikipedia. JeepdaySock (talk) 10:25, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I've now made a few additional correcitons to more closely align the Wikisource text with the scans -- italics, correcitng typos, etc. — Objectivesea (talk) 08:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"Wikisource is just a hobby"

Ineuw, et al, I think this is a good time to ask a question of you and others. It was thrown in my face via phone that all works on Wikisource "is just a hobby" whereas I have never considered our work as a hobby and had stated it. Do others here believe what we do is "just a hobby"? Sincerely, —William Maury Morris IITalk 07:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Without casting aspersions, I was told the same by friends and family, and possibly by the same person as you have. :-D. But saying that it was "thrown" in your face is a bit strong. But, even if it's looked on as a hobby, it's only true to a point. One must look at our contributions in the long term. Also, there are a few things we can do which Google can't.
Currently, WS's value as general reference is limited because our production is too slow (like a true 12-13th century scriptorium). Too many works and too many not-proofread pages. In general, we are also limited to public domain works prior to 1923. Perhaps our best value is as a two way secondary, or tertiary reference for Wikipedia, Wikispecies, and Wiktionary and all of this is a good thing.
As for the constant cosmetic software changes, I suspect that we, as the other Wikimedia sites, are the guinea pigs, the test labs, for their their software tests, prior to their release to the general public. — Ineuw talk 07:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
It was thrown in my face "strong" and I reacted very strongly in return. I can cut with words when angry and I did and I don't regret it. Had it not been a phone conversation I may well be sitting a jail now. The offender is in Virginia and therefore safe. I like to jest here as others do at times but I look at this as work for posterity. I can think of a lot of useless things to do for "a hobby" but what we do is educating ourselves and others today and in the future. I have been here and on WP since about 2006 and I never thought of what I have been doing as just a "hobby". If we were selling our works, I do not think many people would view it as a hobby. Just because one values work and sees something worth doing does not mean that it is a "hobby" -- in my opinion. It was an insult of the highest order that made me very angry and especially considering who made the statement -- a dummy that barely finished high school and rarely did any hard physical labor nor was ever in the military -- a lazy person, lazy in mind, body, and spirit. I used to do construction work to learn 3 or 4 trades and started at age 15 and have done some extremely hard work that convicts breaking up rocks with a sledge hammer never had to do. I started construction before war and later the university. War got in my way but I went back through university working trades and using my G.I. Bill for education. There are few jobs these days and we here make our own jobs working on books and with codes. Beyond few jobs, as I have told you, I am retired due to age now. I do not see Wikisource as a "hobby" but if it is then it is a worthy cause to give education to others who will be living when we have long turned to dust. Respectfully, —William Maury Morris IITalk 08:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Nope. None of the people who told me so, live in Virginia. I also have difficulty understanding why you feel so insulted? Consider their comment sourced in jealousy. They probably have nothing to do, are jealous and are out to aggravate you. BTW, I must assume you are talking about the Vietnam War. As for your reasons for contributing to Wikisource, they are very valid. — Ineuw talk 08:50, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
It's been true since the time of Aesop, that when someone does not understand, or cannot have, something that someone else values, they dismiss it as "unimportant", "undesirable", or "weird". I was talking to a colleague once about the SCA (a Medieval and Renaissance re-enactment group). She decided they were weird and strange for dressing up in costumes and holding gatherings, but moments later was enthusiastically telling me how she and other Jimmy Buffet fans dress up in parrot heads at concerts. It's really all a matter of perspective and experience; one person's "hobby" is another person's "passion". --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
let me know, and i'll invite "virginia" to a meetup at the National Archives, or Library of Congress. (government sponsored hobbyists who seem to value us) keep in mind there is a peculiar philistine strain through america that money is the measure of all things. they say what they can't measure they can't manage; but the most important things cannot be measured. they have no framework to value the diffusion of knowledge. i grant a lot of what passes for policy discussion seems a waste of time. non-profits are not hobbies in the tax code, but it's a distinction lost on the ignorant. is the measure, of the national book festival, the book sales? Slowking4 (talk) 14:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The division between hobby and something "more meaningful" is rather arbitrary. Do we only live for the vocations that bring in money to our households? What about the concept of "everybody's working for the weekend"? The whole point of labor, i.e. work that you don't feel like doing, is so that you can engage in leisure, which you do feel like doing. Arguably, it's leisure activities like Wikisource that give meaning to life more than the drudgery of the work-week.

At the job site, you generally lack freedom; you have to toil at whatever task the manager (or, for the self-employed, the customer) demands, except to the extent you're willing to trade off money for a more satisfactory job. Here, you can work on whatever you want. So it is in our hobbies that we are freest and finally get to do what we want for a change. Without freedom, isn't life rather empty and unfulfilling?

Also, sometimes play can be more productive that work. Some of the original architects of the Internet got involved in those projects primarily because they thought it was fun. We owe a lot to what people do because they want to, rather than because they get a paycheck for it. Indeed, there are some unemployed folk (including children and the retired) who contribute quite a lot to society without asking (or in any case, without getting) any money in return.

It just happens that money is a useful measure of how much something is worth to those who are willing to pay money for it, but some things are priceless. It can be easy to lose sight of that in a society in which people are so focused on the bottom line. There are transaction costs whenever there's a monetary exchange, and arguably the volunteer community of projects like Wikisource is more efficient than what a community of paid writers, such as what Britannica has, could provide. In any event, you do get paid for your work here, in that you can draw attention to ideas that you find important, and get help from a collaborative project in formatting various works and integrating them into a larger whole, by posting them here and otherwise contributing to the community. Leucosticte (talk) 05:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

People can call what we do here a "hobby" all they want but let them have a try at it and they will turn away. The fact that there are rules to follow and codes for any text venture (i.e. transclusion) here to work with shows that works here are more than a hobby unless, perhaps, one loves code as a hobby but still there is more than just code to deal with. Ineuw and I are both "retired" and I say that retirement is boring. I have never been without books in my life but I have seen it in poor nations and amongst poor people in other nations. IMAGINE living your entire life in a world of no books—take time and really think of that. Not able to read or write and no books to learn reading and writing. Books are for Survival and progress of civilization because we can learn from mistakes throughout history. Even books on recipes can bring a better meal. It bothers me that the USA is so far down the scale of education amongst other nations. How did that happen? Too, I have been told that the political system in Mexico is such that those in power keep the poor in the same status of being poor so that the wealthy can always rule while the poor are always "servants". This is probably a major reason why the USA has so many Hispanic immigrants. While they make "take jobs" they would have to work very hard to keep them. I welcome them because they are like fresh water in a stagnant pond. They have to give up a lot and are in schools learning to speak and write English as required by law here. These people, in my view, are a hope for a better USA. I do not know who will benefit from the hobby/work we do here but know I do benefit from the great satisfaction of providing others the opportunity to have free books and in that to learn old ways and new things from our books on Wikisource. Finally, these 100+ year old books, aside from giving us a window into the past to explore, they also give us a glimpse of where we are today and what the future can hold for these educational materials that will continue to help others throughout God only knows how many generations. Books are also bonds between people of other nations. It would be a waste of my education not to continue onward and work with books for the sake of other people, whomever they may be, born in whichever the many unknown generations, as well as for my own self-esteem. I certainly do not want to sit and watch television all day. —William Maury Morris IITalk 06:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Well said. Actually, immigrants tend to create jobs; a lot of American high-tech firms (e.g. Google, eBay, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems and Intel) were founded or co-founded by people born abroad, and of course they have also started a variety of smaller businesses, such as restaurants, doctor’s offices, real-estate firms, groceries and truck-transportation services. I find that some of the older works, such as Resistance to Civil Government and Cato's Letters, are still relevant today. Philosophy never goes out of date; we still know as little now as we did then about certain mysteries of the universe, and we still wrestle with some of the same political and ethical conundrums as those who came before us. Leucosticte (talk) 09:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
What's wrong with it being a hobby? It's volunteer work. Is a volunteer EMT's work any less because it's perhaps not a "primary profession"? "It's just a hobby." "Darn straight, and this hobby will change the world." That being said, people have to eat, pay rent, etc. If you can't meet your basic needs, then you have to put hobbies aside for a time, unless you think you can find a way to make them pay. Perhaps you could print these works out and republish them under an "open" (public domain) copyright. Sure, others could too, but perhaps you can find people who'd be willing to pay to read these in physical print? Perhaps you could find a university that needs its old books digitized? If you can't meet your basic needs, then you need to spend some time meeting those needs. If you can meet your basic needs, then spend your rime on whatever you want. Banaticus (talk) 20:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The has been an ongoing discussion at the English Wiki about article erosion

The discussion is here: [Alarming policy on Sources that should be addressed.]

I a nutshell, since maybe 70% of article sources are online, every year a certain percentage of those sources are going to go away, never to be replaced. When a source disappears, the material should theoretically be removed from the article. Unless these sources are replaced with hard copy equivalents, all of our articles will gradually erode away, like Fantasia.

The perfect solution is an add an existing extension to the English Wikipedia which will automatically archive sources. This seems to be the perfect solution, however the question is now, "Where do we save the sources? My thought was that your title WikiSource sounds like the perfect place to store sources. But, I have little idea about the nuts and bolts of WikiSource. Comments? --  :- ) Don 17:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Essentially, this would be an ideal solution because it would make Wikisource more relevant. It would be nice to be the primary archival repository for Wikipedia, (and I assume this would have to include web pages). However, who from Wikipedia would commit themselves and assume the management of the extra work load? As it is, we don't have the sufficient number of active members to keep up with proofreading.— Ineuw talk 19:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Wikisource might fit occasionally but there are some problems with its use in general. A major problem would be the massive copyright violation implicit in this scheme. It is against both the law and Wikisource policy to reproduce other people's copyrighted works. If they are freely licensed it should be OK but I expect this would not be the case for a lot of material. Wikisource policy also requires professional publication (sort of, no vanity press at least), which is probably necessary for most reliable sources as well but not for every citation on Wikipedia. Sourcing might be another issue, as we usually want something to prove that our version is accurate (a scan of a book, for example). Copyright will be the big concern, however, and that will be the case across all the Wikimedia Foundation projects rather than limited to Wikisource. (NB: This has probably come up but websites like WebCite do this job already.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks ABM, I always say, leave it to the pros. :-) — Ineuw talk 19:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
i have used the internet archive wayback machine to fix link rot, but it's a manual thing, and some websites wreck the webcrawler. some newspapers have online access for limited time with paid archive. it would be a nice bot task to assign a cached version of online references. we have the added theme of link rot tagging, with cite needed to link rot, rather that finding references. or cite reference with page number before the link rots. Slowking4 (talk) 23:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Do people ever wonder who the real pros are? A pro is often obvious because they are not elitists. Are the pros the people who deem themselves to be the pros and who try to cast aside those they deem not to be pros? I don't believe so, I think that comes under the heading of the elitist. There exists some elitism on Wikisource and perhaps too much of it. I do not refer to AdamBMorgan but only to those few who are elitists in their own mind, or perhaps are not aware they are, but think they are "pros" -- the best of the best and among the best -- those few who contrive, using false good manners or not, to push others aside or away completely. Some people accurately state that there are "not enough proofreaders". Why wonder why when actions speak for themselves? It is not difficult to understand why some leave wikipedia or wikisource when any apparent elitists show themselves to be elitists and to a point where it is obvious.

I have been working and enjoying "projects" on wikipedia and wikisource since about 2006, although I started with a different alias. In seeing and experiencing the elitist attitudes on multiple subjects, I am ready to leave wikisource for better places, manners, and a true consideration of people's projects and WS work interests. The elitist will simply buddy up with other elitists, or true pros, and will take over projects of the average workers--those who do not consider themselves to be elitist and who never sought nor now seek any such position for the sake of their egotistical needs in that dark realm of their own needed egotistical dominance over the average workers -- those who leave -- those who hear of this -- or read this -- those who often never start editing because of the attitude of any elitist. —William Maury Morris IITalk 20:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I too sometimes find other people's comments and behaviour irksome. When that happens I try to remember that my own comments and behaviour are probably just as irksome to them. The "elitists" may well have an unflattering label for you too. I guess all we can do is leave the labels aside and focus our comments on how we can improve this site and its culture. Hesperian 23:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
In a similar reply and thought, I do not mind what an elitist "thinks" for only s/he knows those "thoughts". I totally agree with your statement on, ".....focus our comments on how we can improve this site and its culture" -- which is why I posted above. Also, add to that how do we bring in, and retain proofreaders and other workers on WS?, which has been my exact thoughts ever since I have been on Wikisource. This is why, when in one-on-one conversations, I so often use manners and thank people who have helped, and signed with the likes of, "Kindest regards" and "Respectfully", —William Maury Morris IITalk 01:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the response that Wikisource can provide to the issues at Wikipedia are, and have always been, that any source material that aligns with Wikisource:What Wikisource includes can be hosted here. We are unable to do more. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Adam suggested Webcite and it might be a viable alternative to the wayback machine, which seems these days to be crippled by its dependence on the individiual site's robots.txt. An automated system which entered every article cited in wikipedia to webcite would soon solve the problem - assuming of course they wouldn't think that's too many. Chris55 (talk) 21:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry been busy with taxes and Wikipedia. I don't think we can rely on Wayback or any other source that is not under Foundation control. If an automated scheme could be devised (or maybe it already exists) where the source cited on Wikipedia was archived at Wikisource and it could only be retrieved though the link on Wikipedia, would that really be a copyright violation? Wouldn't it be identical to making a reference copy for your own use. --  :- ) Don 20:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Page:KAL801Finalreport.pdf/195

The transcript of the CVR doesn't seem to be in the text layer.

Does anyone here know how to contact Korean Wikisource to find someone able to assist with a transcription? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

위키문헌:사랑방 English is a required language in Koren school. Enter your request in English, you should be able to get assistance. JeepdaySock (talk) 10:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
http://ko.wikisource.org/wiki/%EC%9C%84%ED%82%A4%EB%AC%B8%ED%97%8C:%EC%82%AC%EB%9E%91%EB%B0%A9#A_request_from_English_Wikisource... Sfan00 IMG (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Index:The_Army_and_Navy_Hymnal.djvu

I'd appreciate some assistance in getting this finished before Nov 1st :) Sfan00 IMG (talk) 22:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Until such time as the music extension is made available to us this book can't be finished Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:13, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Can we at least have a colab to get the lyrics transcribed? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 00:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Is Eliyak's work of any use? - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately not. The examples don't display correctly in Firefox and are unplayable as they stand. Also, as they use a different language to construct them than either Lilypond or ABC it would mean constructing them twice. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:05, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Simplifying proofreading

In working on strategies to increase the number of proofreaders in Wikisource, it's become very obvious how much we demand of a beginner. Not only do they have to learn to use the proofreading extension, but to learn all the intricacies of formatting documents. This is not just wikitext: it's also using the template language and the many templates that are in use, many of which are poorly documented, and even learning html syntax (for footnotes, etc.).

The only solution seems to be a radical move to eliminate the need for any formatting markup from the proofreading stage and move formatting to the validation stage. This would bring back the emphasis at the first stage to a careful reading and correction of the text and at the same time give body to the validation stage, which at present needs no input at all if the first stage is done correctly.

We've discussed this at the Proofreading project and agreed that it doesn't need any changes to the stages through which the pages go. Problematic pages still need to have 2 checks in some cases. It does need some changes in when a document is transcluded, which is often automatically done when the first stage is complete and probably deserves a new validation help page which doesn't yet exist. It also strengthens the need for clarification of the criteria for declaring a project "done".

The 'Problematic' status has never sat well with me. Its one thing to status a page problematic because it needs stand-alone image insertion or intricate table work and an entirely other thing to status a work problematic because of a blured, duplicate or missing scan. I'm sure that if this distinction was more clear (and better advertised), the chances for volunteers from Commons and/or Wikipedia specializing in either vein would step up to address the challenges at hand in greater numbers. It would have been much better to status pages needing special attention as 'Pending' ( as in pending the creation of a table or image) and have truely problematic issues listed in some standard format either in the remarks section on the Index's talk page. Improved categorization could better reflect the need for either task as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:23, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I wonder if there is a way to require a reason for marking as Problematic and then Category:Problematic could be queried with the reasons. Then the image specialists, or those with Hebrew knowledge, or the table experts, or the DjVu manipulation experts would have access to a queue of work, rather than guess which of the 6152 pages in the category are theirs. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. I'm sure most of those will be of the 'needing image' type but it would be nice to have the separation from the other types for just such reasons. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
We do have templates like {{missing image}}, {{hebrew missing}} etc. Can these not serve this purpose? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:19, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

We're not suggesting banning all markup at the proofreading stage. Anything that can be done reasonably using a menu button in the editor could be done at this stage and no doubt many existing editors will continue as before. The main reason for delaying all formatting would be to help a spell-checking system, but we don't have any specialised tools for that at the moment (only what people might have on their browsers). At the moment, someone who can't cope with some particular form of markup is forced to mark a page as problematic and to do this too often is damaging to morale and may be responsible for many people giving up.

It does require some new guidelines about how different types of text (including footnotes, tables etc.) should be left and a list of these is shown at Plain text proofreading. I'd emphasize that this list needs expanding into a help text with proper examples: at present it just shows the issues that will occur and how to cope with them. Do use the discussion page there for any specific comments.

This alone will not enable us to catch up on the enormous backlog of texts for which scans have been loaded but are sitting there unattended. We need to make it much easier to find the texts that need to be worked on and provide a much more proactive environment for proofreaders and work is underway on these. But simplifying the process so that beginners find it a rewarding experience is, I think, an essential preliminary. Chris55 (talk) 10:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I was not aware that we considered Wiki markup a requirement of proofreading. A nice addition maybe, but not a requirement. To me if a person checks that the words on the print page the html page match, they should promote it to the next level, proofread or validated as the case may be. JeepdaySock (talk) 15:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
If you look at the primary guide for newcomers: Help:Proofreading and in particular the section Formatting conventions, you will see that the guidance on proofreading is very largely concerned with formatting. It is not unusual to see an editor revert the status if one of these - for example the running headers or footnotes - has not been finished. Similarly the Style guide says "Text formatting should mimic the original document to show the work as presented, within reasonable limits. Basic formatting is desirable, but attempts to exactly reproduce an original may be cumbersome and inaccessible." I've never seen a suggestion that no formatting was acceptable at any stage, though I'd be happy if you could point me to it. Chris55 (talk) 20:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Maybe there is a need for a 'text proof' and 'typesetting proof' as distinct phases?Sfan00 IMG (talk)
The software is volunteer-developed and used across the Wikisources. Changing it is possible but would require a lot of agreement from all the other users and especially from User:Tpt who would be the one doing all the actual work. (NB: By the way, I'm fine with formatting being optional at the proofreading level and required only at the validated level). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:19, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, an agreement of most important Wikisources is needed for important changes like add a step to the proofreading process. Myself, I don't think that 'text proof' and 'typesetting proof' as distinct phases is a good idea because this distinction is only needed, I think, for a very few text (most of users know basic Wikisyntax). More, the VisualEditor will arrive in 2013 (I think in summer but maybe before) and will make more easy to do basic typesetting. My priority for Proofreead Page development in 2013 is to adapt it for Wikisource use. Tpt (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Splitting "text proof" and "typesetting proof" would be useful even if we had the visual editor. Currently, if the first proofreader worked well, the other has nothing much to do. Instead, according to Chris' proposal, the second contributor would both check against mistakes and format, and the validation stage would increase in value.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Given that no-one has raised objections to a shift of emphasis (without changing the formal stages) I'll modify the help files to make this clearer. I welcome Tpt's announcement of the "VisualEditor": I hope this include wysiwyg tables. Chris55 (talk) 08:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Umm, no/yes/maybe/what. How about you come back with some specifics, and go through a more formal process rather than tucking something away in a general discussion that may or may not be read depending on one's commitments at the the time. There is so much fluff in the above discussion, it is unclear on what is the actual proposal. I definitely don't see an agreement to the change is inferred above, and without that I don't think that it should be taken as an approval. Proofreading has always been about the text, and so is the validation. Formatting with templates is always a side issue, similarly wikilinks; neither is part of the proofreading process, formatting is all bonus AND part of the patrolling system. Don't forget that the patrolling that we do is clearly to assist in getting those elements right and supporting newbies. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to upload page scans for {{missing image}}

Hi folks,

I have a proposal for you:

We have over 3700 pages tagged with {{missing image}}. That's a lot of pages, and as far as I know we have no plan for systematically dealing with them.

Most of them belong to DjVu files sourced from the Internet Archive, which means these missing images are available to us as hi-res page scans, but as jp2 images buried in huge zip files, making it a challenge to get at them.

Using a script, I have extracted from the Internet Archive over 2300 page scans for pages tagged with {{missing image}}. I propose to upload them all to Wikisource.

I say Wikisource, not Commons, because they need work, because I'm not willing to provide a description and copyright tag for each image, and because if I mess something up I want to know I'm among friends. The page images would be uploaded as-is. It would be the community's responsibility to take it from there. A typical page scan image will need to be downloaded and cleaned up — e.g. rotated, cropped, colour-balanced, converted to the preferred format — and then uploaded to Commons under a suitable name with a description and copyright tag. And then the unedited Wikisource image would need to be deleted.

In my opinion, uploading these images would be a huge step forward, because it will put them right at our fingertips — linkable, viewable and easily downloadable — thus demolishing a major barrier to participation. For example, I would anticipate updating the {{missing image}} template to direct contributors to the page scan image, with advice on how to proceed.

To illustrate what I am proposing, I have uploaded three example images:

  1. the page scan for Page:The Elements of Euclid for the Use of Schools and Colleges - 1872.djvu/38 is at File:The Elements of Euclid for the Use of Schools and Colleges - 1872-djvu-38.png
  2. the page scan for Page:Wearing of the Gray.djvu/87 is at File:Wearing of the Gray-djvu-87.png
  3. the page scan for Page:A song of the English (1909).djvu/167 is at File:A song of the English (1909)-djvu-167.png

What do you think?

Hesperian 12:55, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

  •   Support anything that may help facilitate the resolution of any pending backlog or outstanding issue, such as these missing images. It can only help bring more works into the validated status - though I doubt this is a major barrier to overall participation here on en.WS; formatting, proofreading and validating what amounts to nothing more than a plain-text dump is. -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I am not against the proposal, though would feel that we would want to specifically and explicitly label the files so that they could identified as requiring work, and then relocation to Commons. (My preference here would be to have the image cropped and uploaded over the top of the existing image.) Would we also be able to annotate the works to identify the source? Cygnis insignis always suggested that we reference the original at archive.org rather than the underlying djvu at Commons, so I hope that we can do that easily. If we had whatever data was available with the scan, I can run a bot through to at least throw it into base {{information}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:20, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  •   Support although I would suggest a tracking category and/or template to keep everything organised; as well as any information that can be automatically generated (like a back link to archive.org per billinghurst). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:13, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  •   Oppose I was under the impression that no images are to be stored on Wikisource. It may be less cumbersome if only the image page link to IA is provided. If one analyzes image management, placing it on Wikisource doubles the workload . . . downloading, cleaning, uploading to the commons, and then deleting from Wikisource. For the commons, the images need to be properly titled with a description and categorized. Even the direct uploading to a separate Wikisource section on the Commons exclusively for this purpose, categorized by the book titles, would not prepare the images for use. They still would have to be downloaded, prepared and uploaded. Also, all PSM images for Volumes 1 to 87 inclusive are already on the commons, so they can be eliminated from this proposed script list.— Ineuw talk 07:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
    • There is no "image page link to IA", unless you are happy to accept the crappy low-res page they serve live. The only way to get at the hi-res scans is to download a huge zip file of jp2s, extract the page you want (and it is rarely clear which one that is), and convert to a more accessible format. Hesperian 08:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
One can get the high res images by magnifying the page to the max, which may be done by the script. In any case a direct upload to the Commons is more preferable because then, the cleaned images can be re-uploaded as a direct replacement, avoiding a lot of the issues involved with a first time upload.— Ineuw talk 08:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I won't be uploading to Commons. This is an English Wikisource maintenance project. Hesperian 08:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Correct me if I am wrong, but are not the images supposed to end up on the commons after cleanup? Why double the workload?
The only way I could see it being less work is if the images were preloaded with the information (copyright, source, etc.) for commons, making a transfer much easier after the image has been properly isolated/cleaned up. Unless the goal is to get the editor off of IA, then it makes sense to upload them directly at wikisource. Otherwise, I think a link to the image on IA (if that is possible to automate based off of what page the {{image}} tag is placed) might be easier for all involved. I may be missing something here though, and if so, I apologize. - Theornamentalist (talk) 19:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
@Ineuw, please focus on the intent of the policy (the principle) not get hung up on words. The purpose of the policy is to have images at Commons, wherever possible, so that the images are most widely available. That is still the intention of what Hesperian proposes. With regard to mechanics, we can easily speak to numbers of bot operators to have some process in place to have the images transferred when we set the right conditions, and, where the community approves, we can even assign such a bot with admin rights to clean up after itself. The issue is that if it the process is undertaken here, we have control of the process where we can define the rules, and we can transfer files to Commons when the files are fit for Commons, and where they are fit for Commons. Nobody is stopping anybody from grabbing the image from here, fixing and uploading to Commons, and then requesting deletion here. My understanding of Hesperian's proposal is to isolate the images from the jp2 files, and get them somewhere where they are readily available. It is not instructing anyone how to do their work, or how to run processes, it was solely around files that are labelled with the identified template. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Broken page

Templates don't expand fully on page transclusion.

Korean_Air_Flight_801_-_Aircraft_Accident_Report_(NTSB)/Conclusions

This seems to be a bug. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 23:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Something has changed alright. The closing list-item tags ( </LI> ) are not usually required according to the html specs. but in the wiki coding it seems like the auto insertion of them is no longer working upon transclusion. I had to open and close the items on each page - making the use of templates over straight html tags pretty much pointless. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:52, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Discard Validation ?

Are we now discarding validation? Is validation really of any importance? I myself tend to validate the works of others and see to it that my works get validated. But often I see that people do not seem to be concerned about validating. So, I wonder, was validation at one time of importance? Better yet, is it important now? Validating from my viewpoint is a double proofread, and assurance that all is well. —William Maury Morris IITalk 17:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

No, we are not discarding validation and, yes it really is important. The philosophy of Wikisource has always been at least two independent proofreaders. I know that when I'm proofreading that I make mistakes. Some of them I spot immediately after committing the page (grr), the others the validators pick up. I need validators and so in return I validate other people's proofreading. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I remember that you once hated apostrophes in your book, Beez. and yet you're a pro with the hard stuff.   I don't believe that any text should be submitted as a New Text until it has been fully validated. —William Maury Morris IITalk 06:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely not to discarding of validation. Also, no to requiring works to be fully validated prior to getting announced. We strive for perfection in the quality of our works and the coverage of topics, volumes, ... Expecting it as a starting point will just hamstring our efforts, the interests that we generate, and bringing people in to proofread.

Re validation, I know that I regularly follow on and validate works, especially follow BWC's work. Similarly when patrolling for new users when they move to proofread, that I will patrol and validate in two actions. ALSO (BIG NOTE) that so far for each November our Wikisource:Proofread of the Month is validation month, when we work upon a range of proofread works. Also similarly at the end of months, we work on a range of smaller works to take them to completion. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

My proposal of simplifying the proofreading stage is partly aimed at giving more beef to the validation stage. At present there are often no changes at the validation stage. That's fine if indeed the work was done properly in the first round, but there's no real evidence that the person doing the validation did a proper job: it could have been a cursory glance at the page. I'm not suggesting this is common practice but I doubt anyone would suggest there are no validated pages with mistakes. I come across them. As others have said, it's vital that at least two people look at every page. Chris55 (talk) 08:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Out of body HathiTrust experience?

Either something has changed at HathiTrust, possibly a response to the various legal challenges brought against them on limiting/blocking whole works known to be in the Public Domain, or I'm having an acid flashback because I can download the entire book at the following link in one shot & with no password... -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t2g738p0h
  • Can somebody IN the U.S. verify that the above linked Aussie book can be downloaded in full & in one shot without the need for any partner login?
    • I can download the above linked book in full in the USA in one shot without a partner login. MarkLSteadman (talk) 04:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Negative: I tried and it appeared to work. I saw a white banner loading in an orange color and the words, "Your PDF is being built" or something close to that but it would not download. I kept trying, that 1st try was under "scroll" and the 2nd was under "classic view". If finally stated that the problem is noted and to "check again in 24 hours." (USA) —William Maury Morris IITalk 05:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      The download button only appears after the orange progress bar finishes creating the document. Don't bother - the point was enough that you did not see or need 'the partner login' caveat to access the entire book for downloading. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      I know about the progress bar. It finished and I was offered to download via "Adobe Reader" and "Save" but neither would download the file and I did wait for them to download that file with 2 tries using each method, "Adobe Reader" and later by "Save". —William Maury Morris IITalk 05:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      I don't know what to tell you - it worked fine for me on the first try clicking plain old 'Save' --> Gave it a file name ending in .pdf --> then hitting the 'OK' button. If you got the "24 hour" blurb on HathiTrust, it means your access quota for the day was reached somehow (too many clicks too fast?). Keep in mind - the download speed is restricted by them so the download is longer than what you'd expect. Also, what roughly amounted to a ~200 page book would up being around 300 Meg when common sense says it should be more like ~30 Meg tops. These issues need to be investigated and worked out to better benefit us, of course. The point here was that nobody was able to download a whole work in one shot without having a member password log-in first before I happened across this example earlier today (as far as I know that is). -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Can somebody IN AU verify that the above linked Aussie book can not be downloaded in full or in one shot and still needs a partner login to access?
    • Confirmed: "Full view is not available for this item due to copyright © restrictions." Hesperian 04:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Each-Way-Bet: 'Full view is not available for this item due to copyright © restrictions.'/'Limited (search only)'. Selecting "Download whole book (PDF)" downloaded 11x8.5" representation of black page with white text 'restricted' (in AU.) Would somebody please explain what we just tested? MODCHK (talk) 05:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


OK - I'm not crazy.... and something new started in August 2012 - selections from various U.S. universities currently hosted on the Internet Archive (IA) are now being "Ingested" by HathiTrust. The snippet from their news page....

Ingest


Internet Archive Digitization

HathiTrust ingested nearly all of a set of approximately 2,000 volumes from Boston College, and loaded bibliographic records for additional volumes that will be deposited by the University of Illinois. The University of Florida submitted sample bibliographic records to be analyzed in preparation for content ingest.

I think this (plus the pending court actions) means tagging works as P.D. in the U.S. might actually get some movement moving forward. This is done by making the case for P.D. at the Feedback links found at the top or bottom of every catalog entry (or work). The only "problem" with submitting feedback is that a valid email address is needed because responses have typically been by persons and not a bot with canned responses. No reply = no action (well, that's what my experience has been in the past with them). -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Catalog of Copyright Entries

Any chance someone could check to see if these could be transcribed for WikIData ?

http://archive.org/details/copyrightrecords/

Other scans are linked from http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/ but seem to be Hathi or Google scans on some cases although the original documents are certainly US Gov.

Is there a case for requesting a formal set of scans directly from the Copyright Office? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 00:16, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I thought about it once but it would be a very big task and probably a somewhat dull one too (I often read as I transcribe but thousands of pages of very similar lists might get a trifle dull). I suspect all the registration numbers would be annoying to proofread. That said, it's certainly worthwhile if you did want to try. Several people doing a few pages a day could probably get a lot done. The fact that the entries are in a standardised format means a template or two could be made to speed things up a bit too.
I'm not sure what this has to do with Wikidata, however, assuming you mean Wikimedia Germany's new project. As I understand it, that's a Wikipedia-only database of infobox data.
I don't think the Copyright Office have formal scans of these but there are enough around if we do want to transcribe them. The archive scans are about as good as they could be anyway and Google scans are good enough for something like this.
NB: Project Gutenberg has already transcribed the individual renewals (see Help:Copyright renewals for links). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
OK Thanks Sfan00 IMG (talk) 23:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Missing Index page

This page is missing from this Index... What do you normally do in such situations? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:38, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

At the moment it seems you tell George, and shortly thereafter viola! it is fixed. Hesperian 03:46, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
You do exactly what you just did here...
  1. YOU STOP CREATING NEW PAGES once you've identified an issue such as duplicate/missing pages.
  2. YOU LOCATE A SUBSTITUTE if one is out there somewhere online when needed.
  3. YOU COME HERE WITH THE ISSUE & the facts you've ascertained to see what can be done about it.
All one accomplishes by pushing-on & ignoring the issue is to further compound the problem in addition to increasing the amount of work needed to correct it. If you cannot stop yourself from further proofreading & page creation when faced with this situation, PLEASE SEEK TREATMENT NOW !!!

  Done Actually - it was that page and the blank before it that were missing. Inserted, re-aligned pagelist, moved affected pages and cleaned up any transcluded pages in the main namespace. -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:56, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, guys,—for the fix and the chuckle I got this morning even before coffee! Londonjackbooks (talk) 10:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
No problem & say - did you ever get the chance to see if the Block Center fixes worked any better for you since our last discussion? -- George Orwell III (talk) 11:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
Still breaking as described on talk page (see my last entry as of 30 Sept). Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Replacing the main page

With this page, which is a work in progress. There is also a replacement for the community portal, which can be found here. Both are major entry points into Wikisource and are linked to from every page via the side bar, the latter is particularly bad but gets a lot of visits per month. This is, incidentally, a proposal and pair of works in progress as part of the Maintenance of the Month project. Creating replacement for these pages is the October task and everyone is free to contribute. Sorry for not announcing this earlier in the month but I have been busy. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Why replace the pages? JeepdaySock (talk) 10:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
The community portal is quite out of date at the moment and needs attention. As for the main page, some improvements and alterations were suggested. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 15:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I think hosting "newly proofread" and "newly validated" works on the main page is an elegant way to show how our process works. I'd like to see "Main categories" go, as I don't think too many people bother navigating through category pages, and as our library gets larger I find that these would only become further separated from the work. Also support the single row of sister projects. - Theornamentalist (talk) 17:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Category pages are something I've used a lot, so I'd like to see something easily found on the Main Page, even if it's a single prominent link advertising a "catalog" of our works, with all the links and details moved to their own separate page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Right. Should I place the "Main categories" section above or below the highlights?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I dislike the single row of sister projects and much prefer the version on Wiktionary's main page with a brief description of what the sister is. Also omitting the "Wikisource languages" section is unhelpful. As I said last time a proposed change to the mainpage came up, the English subdomains are often the entry point for new users who then discover that there are other language subdomains. They can then investigate to see if their language is on the list.

From a layout perspective the reverse subheading boxes need to either stretch the full width of the box or be centered. The way they currently touch the left margin but are dangling off the right margin is ugly in my opinion. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource: A so-called "Library" consisting of Cobwebs and Staleness

Wikisource is nothing but an archives of books unless Wikisource is in some way, or better yet, in several ways, is promoted to the eyes of outsiders. We call Wikisource a "Library" but if it is a library it is one of those of yesteryear where one has to search for books because there is little promotion of what wonderful books are here. When Wikipedia has a link to our books, then Wikisource is viewed that way -- a mere part of Wikipedia -- as opposed to something different. Imagine sitting and reading through encyclopedias then imagine in comparison reading books here. There is a difference. An encyclopedia consists of short articles but a library has full books and shows sources. Too, Wikipedia uses outside links that all too often are "404" dead links. What is that -- a page missing from that encyclopedia? I saw a 404 yesterday that had been a website and many statements (about 8) made had been connected to that website that is now gone. Therefore that entire article is unreliable. Websites do not tend to last very long so Wikipedia appears to have many pages missing -- and becomes an encyclopedia with missing sources. But on the other hand Wikisource's books are archived away from browsing eyes like the old days using the old ways -- one never knows what gems are here. I think Wikisource needs to, or should, fight her way out of the cobwebs and staleness -- instead of being just another library of archives and stagnation. The Featured Text is a wonderful idea and rotating that is even better but those are only a few of the books on Wikisource. All others are not promoted and thus Wikisource is not promoted enough. The idea of On this Date in History, sticking as strongly as possible only to Wikisource, if possible, is a good one to promote Wikisource works. It is just a matter of imagination and work and knowledge and of keeping in mind what the project's goal is. All of the nay-sayers would probably not be inclined to assist. That is why I stated a few days back it must be a community situation. Theornamentalist and JeepdaySock stated ideas that they liked but are now silent. Why is that? Theornamentalist, I remember well you telling me that you read this area so why not submit some ideas or assert your opinion? JeepdaySock , you wanted me to be an administrator and I backed down when it came close to happening but I remain the same person so why is it that you also do not assert your opinion is it because there are important administrations here as nay-sayers that you fear crossing swords with by stating your opinions and elaborating upon them? But are they not our fellow Wikisourcers. Why should anyone fear a fellow worker for the same cause with that cause to better Wikisource if possible. Why be concerned of a new idea or an old idea modified -- why not try something new to see if it is possible to better Wikisource? Maury, (—William Maury Morris IITalk 12:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Fundraising localization: volunteers from outside the USA needed

Please translate for your local community

Hello All,

The Wikimedia Foundation's Fundraising team have begun our 'User Experience' project, with the goal of understanding the donation experience in different countries outside the USA and enhancing the localization of our donation pages. I am searching for volunteers to spend 30 minutes on a Skype chat with me, reviewing their own country's donation pages. It will be done on a 'usability' format (I will ask you to read the text and go through the donation flow) and will be asking your feedback in the meanwhile.

The only pre-requisite is for the volunteer to actually live in the country and to have access to at least one donation method that we offer for that country (mainly credit/debit card, but also real-time banking like IDEAL, E-wallets, etc...) so we can do a live test and see if the donation goes through. All volunteers will be reimbursed of the donations that eventually succeed (and they will be low amounts, like 1-2 dollars)

By helping us you are actually helping thousands of people to support our mission of free knowledge across the world. Please sing up and help us with our 'User Experience' project! :) If you are interested (or know of anyone who could be) please email ppena@wikimedia.org. All countries needed (excepting USA)!

Thanks!
Pats Pena
Global Fundraising Operations Manager, Wikimedia Foundation

Sent using Global message delivery, 16:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Alpine Journal

I started to contribute on wikisource 2 weeks ago and I have a lot of fun. I'd like to finish to proofread the book I'm currently working on. But after that, I would be interested to proofread the Alpine Journal. A journal that start to be published in 1863. More info here. It will be interesting to proofread the first years because, there is a lot of information about the first ascents in the Alps. 2 questions: Is it in the scope of wikisource? Do you know where I could find the djvu files. Thanks. Zil (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I found exemplaries on the Bodleian Library (thanks to Europeana) : http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=OXVU1&docId=oxfaleph015319815
and there are also volumes on Google Books
hope this will help :) --Hsarrazin (talk) 18:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikisource. The Alpine Journal is within the scope of Wikisource so feel free to start proofreading whenever you are ready. The PDFs already linked can be converted to DjVu in a few different ways or you can proofread them directly instead (Wikisource can handle PDFs as well as DjVu files). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Seems that we have the basis of a Portal namespace page too! Maybe for both mountaineering and one for the journal itself. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't get the Portal namespace story... Zil (talk) 06:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
It isn't necessary but it is something you (or someone else) could do later. You could create Portal:Alpine Journal and/or Portal:Mountaineering to complement Alpine Journal when you have it proofread. The first would have wikilinks for the journal and anything related to it, the second would have links to all of our works about mountaineering, including the Alpine Journal articles. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
It allows for the presentation based on a subject matter, and it allows for a designed presentation, or some sort of organisation space. It is useful for looking to list a string of journals that we might be looking to import. To note that we use {{portal header}} in the space. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Why's the prose class so thin?

If I go to read all the chapters of Herbert West: Reanimator/full, it doesn't even take up a third of the page width. Granted, I'm on a widescreen monitor, but wouldn't it be better to just let the text flow to fit however big the browser window is? Banaticus (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Some people prefer a narrow column; they say it's easier for them to read without having to move their eyes and/or head too much. Personally, I prefer the full screen-width look but there is no consensus (to my knowledge) that determines the layout either way. In this case, it looks like an early editor's preference. There is a compromise but it only works with proofread-from-scans works. If you go to, for example, The Statement of Randolph Carter, there will be a "Display options" item in the sidebar, and the first item underneath this is "Layout 1". Clicking that will cycle through a few different layouts. Unfortunately, this does not apply to second-hand works like our current version of Herbert West: Reanimator. This is likely to be a bigger problem in the future when more people access the project from mobile devices. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Prose is not our encouraged means to format and display work, and pretty well is deprecated. Our strong preference is for the use of Page: namespace and transclusion to the main namespace, and then to utilise the choice of dynamic layout features. We have had strong conversations and the general consensus is to generally not bind the right margin and set hard widths, so that we can let page formatting be dynamic and flow. About the only thing that does get hard widths is where we have tables. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:28, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

New main page

As a result of the work of the previous weeks (see #Replacing the main page above), I'm submitting this draft to the community, which has been worked out by AdamBMorgan, Chris55, and me. I hope that the effort will be appreciated and the new design will be adopted. Another draft (for the community portal) is almost finished.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 21:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I like it. I have a few comments: first of all, I don't like the large white space in the "Welcome to Wikisource" table. Secondly, are we limiting the new texts now to only fully validated? I'm fine with that in some respects, but I think we should also have fully proofread section, or maybe an indicator (like a small yellow or green box) to distinguish between the two kinds of indices we feature on the main page. Finally, I think the "Highlights" section should go above "Explore Wikisource" because I find the portals to be more easily navigated over the categories. But these are only the comments of one person.. - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I like the Main Page as is presently shown. However, I no longer believe this statement, "the free library that anyone can improve". In reference to proofread and validated I think both should be completed. Proofread (yellow) only indicates that at least one person has worked on the text although in reality it may be more. Validated (green) shows that the work is more complete -- that it has been proofread and proofread again and thereby is more trustworthy as being complete and accurate. A mixture of proofread(yellow) and validated (green) definitely looks as though the work is a hodgepodge mixture of completed and uncompleted colors indicative of a non completed work and therefore is but a two-color conglomeration of an unfinished Blimey Limey, lemons and limes, attempt at a finished work. I assure all that these too are only the comments of one person   —William Maury Morris IITalk 22:19, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I added an image to the "Welcome to Wikisource" table so that it doesn't show too much white space, and I placed the highlights above the "Explore Wikisource" section. Having "newly proofread" and "newly validated" was my first attempt, but not everyone liked.
I noticed the change immediately and I like it. There is less white in the background and in case someone doesn't know, -- it's a color world. It is good it was not created in all black and white. —William Maury Morris IITalk 15:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Maury, why is the statement no longer valid?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 20:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Erasmo Barresi, -- cool name, it reminds me of the 3 Tenors (Italians) that I love to hear. Well, Erasmo, it does remain valid. In total honesty with you I was just feeling down (depressed) when I wrote what I did. I did not state that it isn't valid, I said, '"I no longer believe this statement, "the free library that anyone can improve".' and it was, at that time, in reference to feeling depressed about "On This Date" plus AdamBMorgan having created an area for me to work on that idea. The idea that Adam had was excellent in my opinion but I myself was struggling to work in a certain direction that apparently does not fit on En.Wikisource. In that I felt cast aside by fellow Wikisourcers and knowing what I believe to be a very intelligent, *always helpful* and kind person, AdamBMorgan, also had his ideas also cast aside and it was my fault. For many years here I have felt a freedom and friendship unlike any I have had before. I have taken to heart, Billinghurst's statement of sometime back being "We are family". So, I felt hurt and that changed to depression for what I had wanted to enhance en.WS, and I had unknowingly pulled Adam into a struggle so I felt a guilt in that. I seriously do appreciate the people here -- all of them. We all struggle to make a better world. That, for me, is an emotion that comes from God -- our Creator -- whatever version of God others here have. I felt I had caused a serious mess but perhaps that is my nature for speaking out as much as I do-- probably so. I am not like the silent people of this world in most things whether here or in real life. I always like to try to do something original and to make a better world however small my ideas may be. Throughout my life many of the ideas I have advocated worked but too some have failed. The one we refer to now was a failure of mine. It is not that the text isn't valid because it is valid. It was just my emotions pulling me down at that particular time. It happens sometimes Erasmo. There is nothing wrong with the validity of the page statement. Most Respectfully, Maury (—William Maury Morris IITalk 07:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Okay.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I like the image in the "Welcome to Wiksource" section. As to other things, my belated comments in the previous section still apply. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I did't notice your previous post. 1) There are short descriptions of the sisters as tooltips. 2) The languages are already in the sidebar, so the "Wikisource language" section is redundant. 3) The headings now touch both margins.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Interwiki links don't replace the "Wikisource language" section. I don't think that all the WS sub-domains have an interwiki link here yet. Also, the Multilingual Portal and oldwikisource can't be reached through interwiki links. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid Erasmo is right in his vision for the layout. Every other sister has the proper portal page with the language layouts presented (type http://wikipedia.org --> becomes www.wikipedia.org --> & takes you to the universally accepted portal layout with the full blown language tree for Wikipedia). It is only us, here in this stupid world where oldwikisource usurps the universal standard by making our opening portal their main page (follow the same as the previous but using http://wikisource.org instead) that has this fork from the norm. You see how we get blown instead of blowing others away?

The interwiki links on the left are all that are suppose to be needed once you've landed on a specific language domain. In my view, any other (re)mention of what the main Portal provides to navigate the languages of any particular sister-site is more of a courtesy than a necessity. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:29, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Trivial remark: I think that the color scheme of the main page is mostly blue, and it is because of this that I am not a big fan of the brown book bindings image. How about something like File:Accueil scribe.png; or any other ideas? - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

<chuckle> Can't we find something even older than either pic currently conveys? Natives with a crude chisel & a rock-hammer taking to a stone tablet maybe? -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
lol, good point. I was just looking at the color scheme. Wish I were a graphic designer... - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:47, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Changed the image to File:Accueil scribe.png. Also used light blue in lieu of light red in the left column.
Some time ago there was a "Multilingual" link in the sidebar of the main page. Since the number of subdomains is growing, we could display only the thirty (?) largest ones—selecting the criteria would be very hard—along with a "Complete list" link to the multilingual portal.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
You can try to reduce the number of sites but it probably won't last for long. Language sub-domains that never had any intrest in or from English Wikisource whatsoever were added by external bots before and I suspect they'll be re-added after your edits once again. Its how they justify the formal flagging of their bot(s) at the various language sites; it didn't matter to them if not a single soul ever asked or clicked on the interlink then and I don't think it will matter to them what we are trying to do here now with these revisions either. At any rate, I support whittling down the number to only the most used or useful. -- George Orwell III (talk) 17:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I see that enWP now limits to top 30 or so with a link to the complete list at the end. Maybe the best way to select a cut-down list would be to match the list that Phe does the stats for on the toolserver. This would at least give the list of those subdomains with the Proofreading extension turned on. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Very well! The discussion has been open for more than one week, so it's time to close it. Please note that:

  • the "new texts" section will include only validated works (Theornamentalist proposed two lists, but I explained that most users wouldn't probably like),
  • interwikis will be just the top 30 listed here, with a "Complete list" link in addition.

Could someone knowing JavaScript check the below script, please? Thanks in advance.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC) 

// "Complete list" link in the sidebar of the main page
 
if (wgPageName == 'Main_Page' || wgPageName == 'Talk:Main_Page') {
    $(function () {
        mw.util.addPortletLink('p-lang', '//wikisource.org/wiki/', 'Complete list');
    });
}
If there are any objections to these changes, please make them now. Otherwise, I will implement the new main page later today. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Actually, slightly later. My connection keeps dropping for some reason. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
  Done more or less - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The new Main Page has a clean, professional look. One point on which it might be improved: reversal of the image in the upper left. The standard in publishing is to try to orient faces and other directional images to look or point towards the center-line of the page, rather than towards the margin. As it is, the figure seated in the top left looks to have his back turned on the whole of Wikisource as he is deeply absorbed in whatever he is doing. Can we reverse the image's orientation so that he instead is facing right, and therefore loking towards the center-line of the Main Page? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I saw that too and didn't say anything that might upset anyone. I totally agree with the above. The scribe is looking towards a wall instead of any of the scrolls, books, and candlesticks. Humm, make that into a masthead (marquis?) and have him looking at scrolls, books and candlesticks -- and place a skull with a candle near him for a better eye-catching presentation and excitation of passers-by. Place a standing world globe nearby and hang some old maps on the wall. —William Maury Morris IITalk 02:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
  Done Thanks to Theornamentalist for making this change. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:40, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Theornamentalist! Wow, it made a bigger difference than I had expected. And, thank you too, EncycloPetey, for posting on that here. Kind regards, Maury ( —William Maury Morris IITalk 07:53, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Copyright status of reprint

A Higher Sanskrit Grammar by M. R. Kale, via archive.org. This version of the book was printed in 1961 and added to the University of Toronto library in 1969. But the book is clearly much older; the preface is dated 1894.

I'm new to matters of copyright and want to be absolutely sure of the status of this work.

  • Is it public domain? and
  • Can I host it on Wikisource?
  • Yes. The oldest edition I can find on WorldCat is from 1922 (although it says 6th edition). Anything before 1923 should be public domain in the United States, so either 1894 or 1922 is OK. Reprints don't affect the copyright unless they change something, which should get it's own copyright.
  • Yes. It is in the public domain, it was published professionally (ie. not modern vanity press) and there is a scan available for proofreading. All conditions have been met, so it is OK to host on Wikisource. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 09:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Improving communication between your wiki and "tech people"

Hi. I'm posting this as part of my job for the WMF, where I currently work on technical communications.

As you'll probably agree, communication between Wikipedia contributors and "tech people" (primarily MediaWiki developers, but also designers and other engineers) hasn't always been ideal. In recent years, Wikimedia employees have made efforts to become more transparent, for example by writing monthly activity reports, by providing hubs listing current activities, and by maintaining "activity pages" for each significant activity. Furthermore, the yearly engineering goals for the WMF were developed publicly, and the more granular Roadmap is updated weekly.

Now, that's all well and such, but what I'd rather like to discuss is how we can better engage in true collaboration and 2-way discussion, not just reports and announcements. It's easy to post a link to a new feature that's already been implemented, and tell users "Please provide feedback!". It's much more difficult to truly collaborate every step of the way, from the early planning to deployment.

Some "big" tech projects sponsored by the WMF are lucky enough to have Oliver Keyes who can spend a lot of time discussing with editors, basically incarnating this 2-way communication channel between users and engineering staff. But Oliver can only do so much: he has to focus on a handful of features, and primarily discusses with the English Wikipedia community. We want to be able to do this for dozens of engineering projects with hundreds of wikis, in many languages, and truly collaborate to build new features together. Hiring hundreds of Community Liaisons isn't really a viable option.

There are probably things in the way we do tech stuff (e.g. new software features and deployments) that drive you insane. You probably have lots of ideas about what the ideal situation should be, and how to get there: What can the developer community (staff and volunteers) do to get there? (in the short term, medium term, long term?) What can users do to get there?

I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, and I can't do a proper job to improve things without your help. So please help me help make your lives easier, and speak up.

This is intended to be a very open discussion. Unapologetic complaining is fine; suggestions are also welcome. Stock of ponies is limited. guillom (talk) 14:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Appreciation for restoring "Continue editing"

I never realised how much I used that link until it was gone. Thank you very much whoever restored it! MODCHK (talk) 20:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Front Page --- The Daily Source

I have been visiting the Front Page of Wikipedia, Commons, and am back to our beloved Wikisource. I like the faint background colors the others have because it is easy on the eyes. Stark white is probably the most common color I see on Internet as I surf the net and with time that hurts my eyes. I recently checked and the eye doctor states there is nothing wrong with my eyes and I don't need eye-glasses. Not long ago I asked Inductiveload if he could write a javascript for protection of my eyes and longer times to edit. He did so in his typical usual manner. I do not know how many know of and use that option of a color background when editing but I think I know of two beyond myself. Eyestrain is a problem on Internet. People either endure as much stark white as possible and that's it -- offline. As people roam Internet their eyes become weary, it is not natural for them to constantly bee looking at what is much the same as snow and they feel the effects of a snow-blindness. Thus the soft colored background should be applied to Wikisource. People can stop at the front page after roaming and see what we have to offer with an eye-relaxing soft colored background -- if we had that but we don't. The Front Page is nice, very nice, but still, there is that stark white while our "sisters" have adjusted by having soft colored backgrounds. Too, they seem to have a few more images and vision is the strongest of the human senses. Images attract! Thanks to the wonderful rotating Featured Texts we do get some illustrations and uniquely for us those images rotate thereby providing a visual pleasure.

--

Another thought: "On This Day" on Wikipedia I saw this moments ago-- "October 25: Constitution Day in Lithuania (1992); Retrocession Day in Taiwan (1945); Armed Forces Day in Romania.."

Now, that is "English" Wikipedia. Hmmm...what the gobbley-gook (a modified phrase from Vietnam days that I borrowed from a kinsman of Texas, Congressman Fontaine "Maury Maverick") do I care about Lithuania, and "Armed Forces day in Romania" unless something bodacious is happening? When I attempted "On This Date", I had nothing like those places in mind--certainly not the entire world--nor throughout all of mankind's history. What I was basically thinking of was "On this date" in the U.S.A., England, Australia's--our history, science, literature &c., &c. It is after-all, en.WS I was vaguely thinking out as I worked entries of Anglo-Saxon for "en.WS" It is over now but I wanted to make my statement and a clarification as to what it was I was trying to do with our authors and books. They, like the rotating featured texts could also rotate and while I don't know I think this idea of rotating is unique to our English-Wikisource. It is a brilliant idea and I thank those who enhanced our home-port here on EN.WS —William Maury Morris IITalk 06:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful colours

Some Wikisource main pages are quite beautiful. The adding of color in the background also makes them look good since so many thousands of books are only black and white. They remind me of the old days of photographic film before color film was created which was a grand advancement. —William Maury Morris IITalk 22:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagina_principal%C4%83

ref within a ref

Can someone please point me to how we handle formatting refs within refs? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The method's not been formally documented yet, but I've done one recently on Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/592 through /594. It's transcluded as footnote 87 on History of England (Froude)/Chapter 13. Hopefully your example is not as messy as this one. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Taking a break for now; will get to it later unless the power goes due to Sandy. Londonjackbooks (talk) 20:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
We had the same issue turn up here, and you can see how that was handled. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks both; as rendered. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. More to wrap my mind around, but I'll make note of it! Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:09, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
The other way is to utilise {{ref}} and {{note}} if it is just a simple one-off case where you need to force the footnote to appear at a place. Just means that you have to force a little formatting. — billinghurst sDrewth

Impact of page move on subpages for Byron's Works

It just dawned on me, with regard to The Works of Lord Byron, that if I move this page to The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) Volume 1—which I need to do—(better titling suggestions welcomed), I may have to also move the subpages of the poems already transcribed. Would that be the case? or can I just keep the subpage titles as-is since they would all be a part of the whole set anyhow? I can make one Mainspace page dedicated to 'housing' links to all 13 volumes (Poetry & Letters and Journals) using The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero). Input appreciated, Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Admins can move the subpages with the basepage, so just request a move. I have not done this already because I just want to double check that The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) Volume 1 is the desired target. That also means that, for example, The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) Volume 1/A Fragment becomes The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/A Fragment. Is this correct? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 05:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Another thought: If you want one Mainspace page dedicated to housing all volumes, would you want it to be The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero), with the above volume moved to The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 1 (mimicking the structure of the series)? That would leave the current page as the basepage and all constituent volumes, and their contents, would be held on its subpages. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 05:30, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes sir to all the above. There are also redirects involved (E.g., A Fragment (Byron, 1803), etc.) which link to the created subpages. Let me know if there's anything I can do at my end. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
And with regard to the Letters and Journals volumes, probably keep to the text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Letters and Journals/Volume 1 (i.e., Volume 1 of Letters and Journals instead of Volume 8 of the whole set). But I'll defer to someone with more insight. Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyright status of monograph

There are scans of the monograph Land Mollusca of North America (north of Mexico) by Henry Augustus Pilsbry at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001499602. There, it says that the scans are public domain, but he died in 1957, and the work was published after 1923, in 1939, so I think it's only PD-CA. Can someone check and see whether it can be added to Wikisource, or if it should go to Wikilivres?--Frglz (talk) 06:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to have been renewed, so I think you can load to enWS with {{PD-US-no-renewal|1957|1939}}. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Um, do you know how to load the scans to Commons and set up an Index page for the source text? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Ah, good point. After I finish the table of contents, I'll download the PDFs and convert them into a DJVU file. (Apparently, you can only download individual pages, but not the entire volumes at once.)--Frglz (talk) 17:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
The work is in 2 volumes, with each part having a cover page, and 3 of them having prefaces. Should I create one DJVU file with everything, or 4 separate ones?--Frglz (talk) 22:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It partly depends on how you plan to present it in the Mainspace. Will it be a single (longish) page or will there be separate pages for each part/volume? Are there logical places (e.g. chapters) that can be used to break it into subpages? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:43, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I'd recommend four separate DjVu files, since each part was published in a different year. It makes it much easier to post and track information about the individual volumes both here and on Commons. You can still link them all from a single master page for the work, as I've been doing for Ferdinand and Isabella. That work was published as three volumes for the edition I'm working from, and I have an entry page for each volume as well as a master page for the complete work. See History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (10th ed.) and its associated source pages, etc. to see what I chose to do in this instance. Note also that the Contents in the volumes themselves is so long and overly detailed that the master page for the work uses a summary instead. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
The format used in the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (10th ed.) looks good. (Master page with separate pages for each volume). I'm not sure if there should be a separate page for each genus, or for each family. The size of either can vary widely (from only a few pages to over a hundred). Is there a maximum size for a single page, or is there no limit?--Frglz (talk) 02:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
There's no limit because this is a wiki. However, one of the things we need to consider is how readers will access the work and very long pages on e-readers are awkward. A couple of examples of taxonomic works to look at and help with this decision are: Manual of the New Zealand Flora where I'm doing each of the orders on a sub-page, Natural History, Mollusca which we divided by class, and Ornithological Biography which we divided by species. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:54, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Agreed, but you also don't have to decide that right now. In the example I've used above, I created the tables of contents first and looked at what I had. Fortunately the chapters were all of relatively similar size and there weren't too many. You might first upload the DjVu (or whatever) and create the individual pages, and then decide afterwards how best to divide up the work. You might even have some families on a single page because they are short, while some species or species groups get separate pages because of the length of coverage. Either way, you can create the individual pages from the source files using OCR, and then decide afterwards how to set up the displayed version of the work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

November is Validation Month

The 2012 Validation Month has begun. This is the month when the Proofread of the Month project focuses on Validating works. To begin with I've selected works over a wide range of subjects and of various lengths. There are eight works running at time and each work appears on the Mainpage and at WS:PotM for about three hours at a time. As we complete the works, they will be taken out of the cycle and replaced. The best place to list works that you would like to have validated as part of Validation Month is in this queue. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks to everyone who worked on Index:The American Indian.djvu last month. It proved to be a more difficult text than I had thought when I proposed it. We'll try to find a couple more straightforward works for December and January. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

  Done'Problem:' One of the selected works for November is missing 75% of the image content from its DjVu file. See the discussion page for P. G. Wodehouse's Mike for details. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Uploading of new djvu on-going.--Mpaa (talk) 10:49, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Done. Pages in Page ns moved. Left to be done: 1. upload images to Commons (will do it later) and 2. update page ref in Main ns. Can someone take care of it?--Mpaa (talk) 17:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Problem 2: Another selected work is now "done" except that one of the images was mis-cropped by the original editor who uploaded it. See Index talk:Eurypterids of the Devonian Holland Quarry Shale of Ohio.djvu for details. If someone can correct this issue, then the article will be completely done. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:43, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
  Done. Need to wait cache refresh.--Mpaa (talk) 22:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:45, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for Proofreads of the Month

I often see a banner that states: There are no works on Wikisource by this author. If you'd like to add a new text, please review Help:Adding texts. The 2nd one that I saw today was about a "British Naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist." Why not consider placing at least one work of these Authors that have no works on en.WS? In this particular situation I came here to present this idea and this author, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:George_Busk

This way we can fill in some blanks where we have authors, and this particular fellow has an excellent article on en.WPedia plus there is a photograph to add to a completed-looking work. I do not believe we should have authors without an authored works when we can change that situation by adding them as a proofread of the month. Kindest regards to all and a Happy November 1st. —William Maury Morris IITalk 14:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Please feel free to make suggestions for particular works at WT:PotM#Books parked for consideration. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:27, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I am now an administrator

Title got your attention? Where is an administrator? A new alias created moments ago inserted a link to that business in http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WikiProject_Proofreading. I removed the insertion but this person should be blocked asap before he does harm elsewhere. —William Maury Morris IITalk 17:28, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

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