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Announcements

International Wikisource Conference, Vienna - November 20-22, 2015

For the most recent information on the conference: see this page on meta.wikimedia.org.

“ Registration for the 2015 international Wikisource Conference in Vienna was open until October 13, 2015. As our PEG proposal was successful, we will be able to offer some scholarships to increase diversity among participants in terms of language and geography.

The registration process also entails the scholarship application for those participants who are not funded by a Wikimedia affiliate or other organization. We encourage especially visa applicants to register and get in touch with the team from WMAT soon.

We are looking forward to seeing some of you in Vienna soon!

”

—Claudia, Andrea and David, Wikisource-L

Proposals

Split the scriptorium?

Perhaps this has been discussed before (I couldn't find anything in the archives) but wouldn't this page be better off being split with a dedicated subpage for each of the current sections e.g. a separate bot approvals page? It might be just me but it seems to take a bit longer to load this page than similar pages elsewhere. Green Giant (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@Green Giant: We could look to remove the transclusion to the Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help subpage, and replace it with a link to the page, and the ability to start a question as a new section on the subpage. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:25, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Yeah that's the approach I had in mind. I was thinking that we could have a set of tabs like c:Template:Administrators' noticeboard, leaving only the Other Discussions visible here. I don't know how popular that might be though. Green Giant (talk) 12:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Strong support for this proposal. Pages should be kept reasonably short (and loadable), and concisely directed in terms of their topic. Cheers! BD2412 T 14:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I think this is an excellent idea. This page is long and it is sometimes difficult to keep on top of all the discussions going on at once.   Support —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:37, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
  Support: one subpage for each of the current sections and no transclusion, as in Wikipedia's Village pump. I just made a draft of the section index (feel free to edit it), and there I included links to pages which are outside the Scriptorium, like Wikisource:Possible copyright violations, but nevertheless may be what users are looking for when they click on "Central discussion" in the sidebar.
With regard to this, what about enabling Flow in some or all of the subpages?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 09:55, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
I have removed the transcluded section, and added a click link to start a new question. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:30, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Updating obsolete gadgets

My recent voyage through the gadgetland reminded me that the Regex search and replace gadget is obsolete and was superseded long ago by a much better version from Pathoschild. Would it be possible to replace the old gadget with the new code so that everyone can benefit from this tool, rather than having to paste this code in the their common.js file?

mw.loader.load('//tools-static.wmflabs.org/meta/scripts/pathoschild.templatescript.js');

This new script saves the search and replace parameters to be reused, rather than having to be retyped. — Ineuw talk 04:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I have poked Pathoschild, he has global rights to update. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:27, 17 August 2015‎ (UTC)
TemplateScript is the newer version of the obsolete regex menu framework. It's much more powerful, but it's not backwards compatible — I'll update custom scripts that use it over the next little while, and update the gadget when I'm done. —Pathoschild 00:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
When you say "not backwards compatible", what does that mean? I don't know who uses the old regex framework, but as far as I know it didn't store any parameters for reuse. Did I miss something (which is not unusual)? — Ineuw talk 08:34, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
TemplateScript was designed as the successor to the regex menu framework, so it's mostly backward compatible. Here's a quick overview off the top of my head:
  Regex menu framework TemplateScript backward compatible
regex editor ✓ ✓ improved ✓
custom scripts ✓ ✓ improved ✘ different schema
custom sidebars "Scripts" sidebar ✓ any number of custom sidebars ✓
supported views edit ✓ any (edit, block, protect, etc) ✓
gadget support no-conflict mode (one gadget) ✓ built-in support (any number of gadgets) ✓
compatibility unknown ✓ all skins, modernish browsers, MW extensions ✓
keyboard shortcuts ✘ ✓ ✓
save regex patterns ✘ ✓ ✓
custom plugins ✘ ✓ ✓
translatable ✘ ✓ ✓
The only breaking change is how you define custom scripts in your *.js pages. TemplateScript was written to take this much further than the regex menu framework did, so it uses a more expressive approach to defining custom scripts. Here's a sample complex script from a recent migration (using the new helpers):
Regex menu framework: 
function rmflinks() {
   regexTool('remove linebreaks','linebreaks()');
}

function linebreaks() {
   /* exception pattern */
   var pattern = '\{\{[^}]+\}\}';

   /* store exceptions in an array */
   var patternlocal = new RegExp(pattern, 'ig');
   var exceptionvalues = editbox.value.match(patternlocal);

   /* replace exceptions with placeholders */
   var patternlocal = new RegExp(pattern, 'i');
   for(var x=0; x<exceptionvalues.length; x++) {
      editbox.value = editbox.value.replace(patternlocal, '~exception~');
   }

   regex(/([^\n]+)\n([^\n]+)/g,'$1 $2',10);
   regex(/(=+.+?=+) *([^\n]+)/g,'$1\n$2');

   /* restore placeholders */
   for(var i=0; i<exceptionvalues.length; i++) {
      var pattern = new RegExp('~exception~');
      editbox.value = editbox.value.replace(pattern, exceptionvalues[i]);
   }
}
→ TemplateScript: 
pathoschild.TemplateScript.add({
   name: 'remove linebreaks',
      script: function(editor) {
         editor
            .escape(/\{\{[^}]+\}\}/g)
            .replace(/([^\n])\n([^\n])/g,'$1 $2')
            .replace(/(=+.+?=+) *([^\n]+)/g,'$1\n$2');
            .unescape();
   }
});
So to migrate the gadget to TemplateScript, I first need to update custom scripts. —Pathoschild 18:37, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
Done! There's a few people still using regex menu framework, but I added an import to their scripts so nothing breaks until I migrate them. —Pathoschild 13:24, 03 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. — Ineuw talk 15:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Down with unnecessary WS banners.

Each time a main namespace page is created, TWO banners are displayed which cause more interruption and confusion than the information they provide. The problem is exacerbated when a prepared header is pasted into the page and then previewed.

The banners end up inserted between the header template and the transcluded page definition. TRY THIS LINK, PASTE ANY HEADER TEMPLATE, CLICK TO PREVIEW, BUT DON'T SAVE THE PAGE! I suggest that the banners are to be merged into one with clarified info on a a green background #ECFCF4 used in informational banners, and displayed above template. — Ineuw talk

I had a role in creating the second banner... but as you can see here my intention was to add namespace-specific text to MediaWiki:Newarticletext rather than creating editnotices. On the one hand, editnotices display in edit mode even after the page is created, which may be useful; on the other hand, editnotices are visually separated from Newarticletext and, it turns out, they sometimes display in the wrong position. Visual separation alone is fairly easy to solve, as it would suffice to remove the borders and use a background color instead. I do not know what wrong positioning is due to, though.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 09:14, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
The edit notices were added to assist newbies to have the right template for the right namespace, and as such and they are namespace context sensitive, hence why they are separated from each the generic newarticle text. There are discussions about this in a few places as GOIII and myself tried to address the issue, and in a few ways. I am pretty sure that there was some discussion here, which is usually what we do.

I have added some css to your common.css file that should hide edit notice components. To note that the edit notices always display in the expected space to me. To also note that you can have your preview page above or below the edit fields, and what you are possible seeing is the preview above the edit components which editnotice is a component. Play with your preferences and see what you can do. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:50, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I've always complained the editnotices where added without the js/lua component that detected the autopatroller flag and stopped the display of these banners in the first place. Long story short - go with the addition to your .css file until enough people get sick of the lost viewspace that they begin to demand we properly implement these notices or do away with them. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
One small niggle folks: you can choose either GOIII's approach of adding:
    #editnotice-area {display: none !important;}

or what I think (yeah, yeah) Billinghurst intended to add to @Ineuw:'s common.css, being: 

/*  kill edit notice */
    .mw-editnotice  { display: none; }

However in point of detail what was added was: 

/*  kill edit notice */
    #mw-editnotice  { display: none; }

There should be a dot in front of "mw-editnotice" indicating a class is to be selected not an id. N.B. editnotice-area is an #id name but mw-editnotice is a .class name.) AuFCL (talk) 06:52, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Added the following and it blocked the banner about new user. The line with # does not work.
/*  kill edit notice */
    .mw-editnotice  { display: none !important; }
What I tried to convey is that there shouldn't be any banners inserted in the middle of an editor's work and no banner should have a white background. (we still have some colour paint left in the can). The "Preview warning" is still inserted between the header template and the rest of the transclusion. — Ineuw talk 07:40, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
If what you are asking for is to suppress the red "Remember that this is only a preview &c" stuff then this might be what you want:
/*  kill edit notice */
.mw-editnotice,div.previewnote p  { display: none; }
AuFCL (talk) 08:03, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
A late beware! That last also chops out the "Go to editing area" link which might be a bit much for you to to bear? AuFCL (talk) 08:09, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Here is a bit of a compromise (leaves "Your changes have not yet been saved → Go to editing area" intact):
/*  kill edit notice and part of preview warning */
.mw-editnotice,div.previewnote p strong { display: none; }
AuFCL (talk) 08:17, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

request for bot flag on account KasparBot

I want to perform the same task as on enwiki, frwiki, dawiki, mkwiki, jawiki, kowiki and cswiki, huwiki, bewiki in future. The bot will #1 move authority control information (Template:Authority control) to wikidata and replace the template with a blank {{Authority control}} (see w:en:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/KasparBot), #2 add {{Authority control}} to pages with authority control information on wikidata but without a local template transclusion on bewiki (see w:en:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/KasparBot 2). It uses my own Java framework. The bot's tasks are coordinated at Wikidata:WikiProject Authority control/Status. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 08:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you make a consistency check between local and wikidata info? If so, what if the two are different? Do you skip the page or who wins?— Mpaa (talk) 15:31, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
I skip the page. All problems will be tracked at a special section at the bot's tool. Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 23:58, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mpaa: I could make same test edits. Do you agree? --T.seppelt (talk) 07:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

ok for meMpaa (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
@Mpaa: done. I didn't notice any mistakes. -- T.seppelt (talk) 06:29, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

@Mpaa:, @BirgitteSB:, @Hesperian:, @Zhaladshar: Nothing happens here. Do you want to me to hand in any information or do some more test edits? By the way, you can see the estimated edits of this bot at [1]. Kind regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 16:13, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't really add a flag because there is not really any consensus. I don't know enough about authority control to really weigh in on this. I'm hoping enough people who do can put together a consensus so that I know whether I can flag the account or not.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:32, 25 July 2015 (UTC)|
I'd need to know more about this to say, but it looks as though the test edits were all done in the Author namespace. Will the bot's edits be limited to the Author namespace? The stated scope of the bot's edits is very vague. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
The bot looks at all pages in Category:Pages using authority control with parameters. User pages won't be affected because they usually don't have Wikidata items. You can inspect the estimated edits at the bot's tool page. Kind regards, --T.seppelt (talk) 19:47, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
@Mpaa:,@EncycloPetey: I started a general discussion. -- T.seppelt (talk) 06:34, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

@Mpaa:,@EncycloPetey: there is consensus according to the RfC at #Future of Authority control on English Wikisource. -- T.seppelt (talk) 13:56, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

  Oppose There is not a consensus here. Holding an impromptu vote in a location other than the one for bot approval does not indicate approval of the bot. The approval must happen here. I have yet to seen my concerns fully addressed; they remain. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: As you like. @Captain Nemo:, @Billinghurst: Can you please vote here again? Thank you very much. Kind regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 11:30, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

request for bot flag on account YiFeiBot

Removing interlanguage links to from pages if the link is already on Wikidata. The bot is already approved as global bot and locally on commonswiki, enwiki, urwiki, zhwiki, zhwikivoyage. Programmed in python with pywikibot framework (source). --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 05:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

From memory, there is already a bot doing this here, so I don't see the point in duplication of function. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:09, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm unaware of any active & approved bot on this task. And some simulated runs shows many to-be-removed interlanguage links. Would you point out the bot for me? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
Oppose - There are links here that should not be removed even if they exist somewhere on Wikidata. Some of the interlinkages are not yet properly figured out, and if we rely solely on Wikidata, we can lose track of the links altogether. I've seen this happening in recent months when someone at Wikidata decided that our copy of a work was an "edition", and so needed to be on a separate data item from the work itself. Because the interwiki links were all at Wikidata, the move meant that all interwiki links disappeared from that work. So, at this point, because reasonable precautions are not yet in place against that sort of thing, I would say "no", we shouldn't start stripping out the interwikis. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
Hmm. The removal on Wikidata seems to be vandalism and should be reverted on sight, as existing items should be used whenever possible. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 18:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
To note that the edits at Wikidata are correct, as our works are editions, and part of a general book, it just hasn't been suitably thought through on how we interlanguage link due to this. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
  Oppose Agree with EncycloPetey that it is premature to remove interwiki links by bot and transfer them to WD. There is still the open discussions to occur about how to link books/editions/translations between languages, and still the discussion about how to best cater for links between works. I would hope that the Wikisource conference proposed for Vienna in November would be able to have a good roundtable discussion about this matter. @Micru, @Aubrey: —unsigned comment by billinghurst (talk) 00:37, 17 August 2015.

I withdraw my nomination. If en.ws community decides not to remove the links, I'm fine with this outcome, and wait for the Wikisource conference in November. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Help

Repairs (and moves)

Other discussions

Need to edit a copy-protected page

The page Onward, Christian Soldiers is copy protected, but the source text exists on wikisource so the page should be redirected to The Army and Navy Hymnal/Hymns/Onward, Christian Soldiers —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:43, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I unprotected the page and leave it up to you to move/redirect/replace as needed with the scan-backed version. Just let us know if we need to protect anything afterwards here. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I've redirected it. I don't think protecting it is necessary, as it just gets in the way of legitimate editing, but I guess if it was a highly vandalized page we'll just have to wait and see if the vandalism recurs. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Also odd that the protected version included two verses that were not supported by the accompanying source text. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Is that odd? It came from a different place. It might be necessary to turn the original into a dab and move the old test somewhere else instead of just deleting the extra verses. (Assuming they're genuine.) — LlywelynII 10:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Resurrected and moved old page. Converted base page to {{versions}} — billinghurst sDrewth 11:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
You should consider renaming the old page. The old page is not sheet music, and the new one is, so the disambig is incorrect at best and confusing at worst. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:26, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
FYI Onward Christian Soldiers is also available in the Salvation Army Songbook here Onward Christian Soldiers Songbook No. 690 --kathleen wright5 (talk) 03:29, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • The ContentTranslation extension has been updated:
    • You can now type in list paragraphs on wikis with right-to-left scripts. [2]
    • Some user interface updates changed how details in the ContentTranslation extension look. [3] [4] [5] [6]
  • The error page you see when the sites are not working is now simpler and easier to read. It also shows the Wikimedia logo. [7]
  • MediaWiki now supports redirects for CSS pages. [8]
  • Bots can't guess captchas unlimited times anymore. [9]

Problems

  • There was a problem with thumbnails on wikis with local images on July 24 and 25. It was due to a code error. [10]
  • We can't search by file type on Wikimedia wikis now. [11]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 5. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 6 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 4 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:51, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

quote before dropped initial

I have tried a previously provided solution to format a quote mark before a dropped initial but it hasn't worked for me on this page. Any suggestions? — Zoeannl (talk) 03:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

  Done @Zoeannl: Just "float left" the quote, not the "dropinitial" too, which has its own formatting to push it left. There is guidance provided at Template:Dropinitial of the means depending on your desired output — billinghurst sDrewth 04:07, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Future of Authority control on English Wikisource

Hello everyone,

I am requesting the bot flag for my bot (KasparBot) at the moment. According to Wikidata:WikiProject Authority control/Status the bot will copy authority control information from this wiki to Wikidata and clean up the template (stage 2): {{Authority control|...}} → {{Authority control}} You can inspect the assumed edits here. The second task includes embedding blank templates to those articles which have authority control information on Wikidata but not on enwikisource (stage 5). The bot runs on enwiki, frwiki and multiple other wikis too. The final aim is to deprecate the local parameters of the template and use Wikidata information by default (stage 4). This would remove differences and improve the consistency of Authority control information on all wikis. Please comment on this proposal. I need a community consensus to run the bot. Thank you very much.

Regards, -- T.seppelt (talk) 06:33, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I would welcome the cleanup of authority control by bot, rather than my slow manual processes, and will check out your example edits. I believe that we have cleaned up those author pages where there is information discrepancy, so would think that there is probably a quick an easy job.

Rather than the addition of the authority control template to each author page, I would think that we should be better considering the automatic addition (embedding to base?) of the template to our existing configuration for author pages. I would much rather that we looked to have it applied to the base of all top level author pages (not to subpages) so it never has to be fussed about in addition ever, it is just there. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be in my eyes the best solution. (we should think about something like this as stage 6..) I could also help with removing the entire template after checking for differences. Regards, --T.seppelt (talk) 07:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
1) I also would welcome the cleanup of authority control by bot, rather than my slow manual processes, and will check out your example edits:) We have indeed cleaned up those author pages with discrepancies, but only with respect to viaf, there might be quite a few GND, LCCN, etc to fix. And those values are not necessarily correct ones, they might have been added by the gadget when viaf was added.
2) there is an issue with cleaning up the template: the existing gadget "add authority control" is not working properly if there is naked {{Authority control}} template on the page. This is why there are quite a few appearances of "{{Authority control|$1}}".
3) I also think that authority control should be a part of author template (though, it's a separate discussion:)
To sum up, I support the proposal. Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 07:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC).
The gadget should just be killed, it is well superfluous and pre-dates WD. We now have the means to identify when and where the AC are, and when they are not local, and if we secrete it to every author page, it will pick up the data; and if there is no corresponding page at WD, we should note and resolve that separately. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
The proposal is not limited to doing Authors pages, and for that reason I oppose this. I've seen how often the data are added incorrectly at Wikidata for our works, or a new data item is started incorrectly there, or a mismatch between items was made. The identification and matching between works cannot be handled by bot. There are just too many errors, and too many additional interwiki linking problems when it comes to dealing with works and editions. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: then how are you with limiting this to Author/Portal namespace where we predominantly have AC in place? — billinghurst sDrewth 23:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Follow-up. To note that we have less than 250 works with authority control in the main namespace which is a manageable number to handle manually. If the detail added at WD is problematic for works, then we should be looking to review and provide that feedback to WD as part of their quality assurance processes. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:58, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
If only it were that simple. I've looked at the guide page they have for "books". The talk page is a long running list of unresolved issues. Issues are being raised there, but they're not being resolved. Even for individual works that I've done there, I've sometimes had to go back and forth on conversation with two or more people about issues for which there is no provision and no common-sense solution in place either. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:34, 6 August 2015 (UTC).
Agree w/EncycloPetey. And the larger problem here is we never really did a good job of tracking edition info. IMO, the year parameter should have been associated with the publisher (& it's location/nation/city) rather than the title, work or author. That combination of Year & Publisher would more correctly dictate the print run of any given edition regardless of translations, etc. What we have now makes it too hard for a bot or script to separate a work from its editions and/or the author/editor and so on. Unfortunately, the only way to insure accuracy at the work vs. edition level without the Publisher part would be to do it manually (pretty much they way we've been dealing with the edition nuance since I first landed here). -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Wait a second, that argument is starting to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" with just a blanket NO statement. Firstly, 1) the first part of the proposal is to put our AC information against our WD data that was taken from our site, so that seems like a good thing. If we do that, why would we still want local parameters? If we have concerns that others are not taking the same stringency with WD additions then that is about us controlling the addition of AC template addition here. So we modify the proposal that we don't have the bot add AC templates here, and that seems like a wise choice, we can manage that ourselves by our processes, and manage and review its addition. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:19, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
"Seems" on the face of the proposal perhaps, but definitely NOT in the light of what I know to be the case in actual fact. I've been trying to clean up just the two dozen surviving dramatical works from ancient Greece and have run into all sorts of mismatch problems and errors. The concept "seems" fine in theory, but in fact it is too flawed for me to support it. And, yes, even the data taken from our own site is wrong, as it is from other Wikisource projects. And the problem is not just the addition of data here; I have seen multiple cases where bots were used to generate incorrect items on Wikidata from information here. Damage is already being done. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Then you are saying, don't trust our main namespace data. If that is the case, why don't we kill it all and start afresh. We should then monitor the addition of the template locally, and ensure that the data has been appropriately been added at WD, and any data here is pushed to WD. Or, we migrate to a verified template for AC signed by the verifier, similar to how Commons manages Flickr imports. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Let me clarify - as for the AC template in Author: namespace; I would tend to agree that our current info has been through enough vetting to "hand over" to Wikidata. That doesn't mean its perfect by any measure either.

On the other hand, the use and/or exportation of AC info associated primarily with anything in the main or translation namespace is premature at best. That info is just plain not ready for Wikidata by any stretch -- in my opinion -- because our current repository of information for those namespaces lacks the more accurate publisher[-city]-year-edition relationship. That's more of an [Index: to] Header template deficiency rather than an AC template issue or bot problem. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

On top of that, Wikidata items do not match with ours (and will not match) for individual works. For example, the English Wikipedia has an article about Shakespeare's Hamlet, which has a matching data item on Wikidata, and all the other Wikipedias have their articles listed there as well. Wikiquote too. However, Wikisource has a particular edition of Hamlet, or several such editions. By current proposed norms on Wikidata, each edition must have its own separate data item, so there is not a direct relationship between any copy of Hamlet here and the general Wikidata item. What must happen is for Wikisource to create a general page for Hamlet where all possible current and future editions will be listed, and that page will be added at Wikidata. Any individual editions we have must become separate data items at Wikisource, with all the information specific to that edition. Then the item for that edition is identified as an edition on the general Wiidata item, and the general item gets a link to the instance of each edition. The same holds true for any translation of a work from the original language, so the eventual result at Wikidata is that every Wikisource work listed anywhere on any Wikisource project will have its own individual data item, with its own specific set of bibliographical info. This edition has a different year, publisher, ISBN, etc? Then it goes on a new data item, and all the AC info has to be tracked down anew.

That is most certainly not how any of the Wikisource projects are currently set up.

This also creates the problem that there will be no wikilinks to, from, or between any works on any Wikisource. The general page with all the Wikipedia links will be separate from the First Folio edition of Hamlet, which will be separate from the Quarto, which will be separate from any later editions, from the French translation, from the Spanish translation, etc. So the ultimate result of the current scheme will necessary remove all wikilinks between Wikisource projects for individual works.

So, billinghurst, it's not just the main namespace data that's wrong on Wikisource, but rather the entire structure of our main namespace has to change in order to connect properly with Wikidata.

--EncycloPetey (talk) 01:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

You and I both have been vocal about the last para (me on wikisource-l, and you at WD), and I would prefer to separate that discussion away from the bot discussion. It is a discussion that needs to happen, but can we please separate it.

I believe that we can agree that at this point of time, that the migration of enWS AC data from the main ns should not occur, and in fact the issue of AC data in mainspace is complex and problematic primarily in association with an edition. Accordingly, I propose that we would recommend to the bot operator (first redraft)

  • to not take enWS main ns AC data to WD (veracity in doubt)
  • to not undertake AC changes by bot to the main ns
  • that the translation ns should be off-limit as it is Wikisource'd transcription area, and should actually be devoid of any valid AC data at this point of time
  • that the Author and Portal ns should be able to be migrated, though there will be some errors as no validation has been undertaken
  • that following completion of migration of data that the bot operator to recheck with this community whether the existing AC templates in the Author and Portal ns should be updated or removed, pending any discussion that we undertake about a suitable replacement strategy.
  • that there is an indication whether this is a one-off proposal to migrate data, or whether it will be a regular check and update process for the bot
Thoughts? — billinghurst sDrewth 01:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
May I present a radical perspective?

Once I trusted Author: pages on enWS, if only because if I happened to spot a flaw to which I knew the correction I could so apply said correction, and take the personal consequences if I introduced an error.

Then along came WD, and that was O.K. because only the language modified (I could edit a "claim" over there instead of wikitext here to fix a fault; and some kind of robotic synchronisation between the systems restored consistency) but the functionality remained largely similar.

NOW you are suggesting all changes must be propagated back from WD (which along the road has modified the rules and I am no longer allowed to modify in ways which previously were not barred) to enWS, and enWS modifications are to be isolated/ignored or perhaps in the near future not permitted either? Slice-by-insidious slice the ability to pay even the shabbiest lip-service to the concept of "the X that anyone can edit" has been stripped until this last step leaves the basic concept in ruins. Is it too high a price to pay to eliminate the core mission? I ask why did it come to this at all?

I must side with EncycloPetey above in opposing this in the proposed form. Either that or I have entirely misunderstood the flow of development and would very much appreciate being reassured that my interpolation of feared future changes is incorrect. AuFCL (talk) 01:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Re: billinghurst: The Author namespace is the only one that the bot has been tested for, and the only one where we've had serious and methodical vetting by experienced users. Thus, the Authors namespace is the only one I think could actually benefit at this time from AC data transfer (in either direction). However, this limitation is strongly at odds with the original bot proposal, and with the response I got when I queried the bot operator about it. So, I would want to hear from the bot operator about this, and be sure he understands the nature and severity of the issue for the other namespaces. (I am of the opinion that no one who properly understands Wikisource is proposing to run a bot. We had the same issue on Wiktionary when Wikidata proposed housing the dictionary information, but that issue is even more deeply challenging, in ways that I won't try to elaborate upon here.) --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Continue to concur with EP; the Author namespace is the only namespace where enough iterations of review by us as well as by WD have taken place to be considered remotely accurate. That still won't do us much good if any non-English WS doesn't closely follow our approach and templates to the Author namespace not to mention conflicting info between the domains for any given Author.

And I agree picking up the editions -to- works discussion should take place besides this narrower one. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Re: AuFCL: I share your concerns, and am uncertain towards what direction future development will lead. However, I do see one strong advantage for Wikisource integration with Wikidata: greater accessibility to our resources, and thus a stronger internet presence. FreeBase now pulls directly from Wikidata for searches, and the addition of LoC and other control information will permit users of those libraries and databases to access our works through searches from those institutions' databases. We do more good for the global internet community with that kind of accessibility. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Re portal namespace, there are 49 [12], we move them manually if you want, I don't mind, though believe that users who added them were competent. If it is only the Author: ns, fine with me, it contains >> 99% of our AC additions.
Re AuFCL's comments. Absolutely not, that is melodramatic scaremongering. We control our templates and how we code and use them, each of them has the ability to override whatever data is in WD, and I have made no proposal to change that. Each of us has the ability to edit WD and so manage the data that appears at our site, but yes, it is off-WS. The issue is that our data is static and UNCHECKED, so when a page moves at a sister wiki, it is not updated here, where it is moved a sister WS, it is not updated here. As new authorities are added or are corrected or merged they won't appear here. Certainly there are risks with big data, but we manage our risks, and get involved in the process, and be rigorous, we don't undertake the ostrich manoeuvre. It is a value proposition and we have an open discussion about what we do and how. WD has had issue with data, and they are very much addressing that, and part of that is taking our data into their system. Changes should be reviewed, and we have a good community to do that, and we should ask for good processes to maintain the integrity of data. There are also benefits, and they should also be part of the discussion and how we measure the value of a proposal. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:48, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I have no intention of prosecuting this further. Melodramatic or otherwise, that is my honest take upon the apparent trend of changes and I await reassurance or vindication, neither of which have been provided by statements made so far. And yes, I accept this is an argument which should take place elsewhere. AuFCL (talk) 02:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Okay, so there is a (narrowed down) proposal that pushes our Author control authority data to WD where it doesn't exist there. [I have already been through and cleaned up instances of where we have had data mismatches based on the VIAF.] Then the proposal is to display that data here by use of the WD call using the template. For existing authors there should be negligible difference in data [noting that we already have WD populated AC templates, partially or fully.] What are your specific issues with the specific proposal as it sits, and what risks do you see that we would need to manage? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
With regard to VIAF, do you find multiple VIAF identifiers for the same item much? I have been working through the 40 or so surviving ancient Greek plays, adding authority control data from LoC, BnF, and VIAF. More often than not, the VIAF has two or even three identifiers for the same Greek play--most of which appear to be duplicates as a result of not synchronizing the import of BnF data into the mix (the oddball identifier is usually French, or includes the French listing). Have you found this to be the case? And at some point we'll have to consider how our authority control template will deal with multiple VIAF values. In the immediate case, the question is whether the bot can handle such a situation, namely, that there is a VIAF identifier mismatch, but neither is actually wrong and both should be used. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
[For the works that I do, I struggle to find them in VIAF in the first place.] For the authors, I believe that there has been a big effort to merge and resolve duplicates, and how much of that has been due to Wikidata and public collaboration would be interesting to know. So I would suggest that you add the multiples and then set a "preferred" ranking for the one that will continue, or set the unpreferred to "deprecated". I have seen that where VIAF has amalgamated data that they have now created their own system of redirects for the old numbers, so I am hoping that WD will have a system to automate updates and additions either via the VIAF identifier, or via the individual repositories pushing data. [one day!] — billinghurst sDrewth 00:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately, when there is more than one VIAF identifier for a work, I do not know which identifier will be the one that continues. The split is sometimes half-and-half, or a three-way split of libraries between identifiers. As I say, I've found this to be the case more often than not (and for well-known and long-standing works of literature such as the ancient Greek dramas!). If I knew someone I could contact who handles VIAF data, and could say "all these have been found to be duplicates", then I would do so. But for now, this state of affairs bodes ill for trying to coordinate VIAF information pertaining to works of literature either at wikidata or here, since I expect the same situation will apply to the VIAF identifiers of other works. What I have tried to do is to include the LoC Authority and the code from the BnF in the Wikidata item, so that users (who may only receive only one of several VIAF identifiers through the template) can still access the French and US listings. I tried doing the GND as well, but the German library data was not as easy to figure out, even when I had the VIAF listing already at hand. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:38, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
The template will select and display one, and if they are equivalent (and not set separately), then it is not particularly an issue. The VIAF data will update and be resolved and/or the predominant will be set. In my experience, the lowest number is retained for VIAF data, presumably as it is the oldest record, but in the end it doesn't matter, due to the redirects that are implemented, so as long as we are not selecting the wrong work/link, all should be good. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:24, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst:, @EncycloPetey:, @George Orwell III:, @AuFCL: Some urban legends seem to be created in this discussion:) So, some hard facts about the relationship between VIAF and Wikidata. Wikidata now is the official partner of VIAF: see here. What that means: 1) wikidata item about a person is the official part of the VIAF cluster; 2) hard data such as birth and death date is sought and used in VIAf cluster; 3) VIAF data from offical VIAf partners such as LC, BNF, DNB, etc is fed back to wikidata; 4) the flow of data between viaf and wikidata is done on regular basis. That means that wikidata has the same up-to-date data as viaf and all its official partners. That means that wikidata data about a person is in no way inferior to any constituent part of viaf including LC, BNF, DNB and so on and so forth. Storing this data locally (at wikisource) means that the data is not updated. If you keep an eye on category:viaf different at wikidata you will see that all differences are due to wikisource having deprecated viaf data (I myself have deleted dozens deprecated viafs from wikisource in the past month or so!). So, I hope, this discussion can be concluded to everybody's satisfaction.
At the same time, I fully agree that the situation is very different in the main namespace. At least for the time being I think we should manage this on our own, locally. Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 08:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC).
Further detail about VIAF and Wikidata interaction can be found here. This is blog by Thom Hickey, who is the chief scientist at OCLC. So, please, no more about accuracy of viaf partner data in wikidata:) Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 09:15, 11 August 2015 (UTC).
I unconditionally withdraw my opposition, as my fundamental objection has been proven to rest upon a misunderstanding which I shall not detail in case taken out of context might add to any confusion. (Happy to discuss out of stream should any one happen to be curious.) Accordingly I also strike my comments above. AuFCL (talk) 10:26, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
@Captain Nemo: "wikidata has the same up-to-date data as viaf and all its official partners" is overstating matters. In many cases I've found, wikidata is altogether missing links to VIAF or any library partners of VIAF. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:50, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: 1) Are you sure you are not confusing your past experiences with the current state of things? If you have a look at the links in my prev. post you will see that the integration started in April 2015. Any past grievances are just private history. 2) If you have in mind situations i) when viaf has multiple clusters for one identity or ii) viaf bundles several people in one cluster, then integration is exactly the way to help to resolve it. Wikidata regularly creates data base dumps for these cases and they being resolved both by viaf and on wikidata. One recent example I aware of is viaf clusters related to popes. Those chaps used to have several viaf clusters coming from LC and DNB which are now (mostly) merged. I know of this because I cleaned up many of those stale viaf here on wikisource, there would be no need for that manual work if our authority control template just imported fresh data from wikidata. 3)If you referring to different spelling and birth/death years then again, viaf now actively seeks and imports this data from wikidata. I dont know exactly how viaf does that but this matching is not a trivial task so it takes time. 4) If you concerned with something else, please give specific factual examples and I will try to clarify. Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 02:01, 12 August 2015 (UTC).
@Captain Nemo: 1) I am raising concerns with the information on Wikidata that I encountered while editing in the past week. So, yes, this is a problem in the current state of affairs on Wikidata. (2) Yes, multiple VIAF for a single entity, often two or three. (3) No, spelling and dates have nothing to do with this. (4) I meant exactly what I said. I spent time last week going over the information for a small group of related data items. I found that most had no data for VIAF, LoC, or BnF. Where they had VIAF data, there were usually additional VIAF identifiers missing because of redundancy in the VIAF data for the same entity. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:56, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: I had a look at your edits for August on wikidata and failed to find any edit of the type you mention. Please note (maybe it wasn't articulated clearly before) but my statements is about author namespace only. The plays and its characters and so on is complete different issue, viaf is not doing those at the moment. If you referring to the wikidata items that you have not edited, please give specific examples and I will try to clarify. Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 05:55, 12 August 2015 (UTC).
@Captain Nemo: When you say "viaf is not doing those", I assume you mean that they are not cleaning up redundancy or errors. Sorry, but I did not understand that you were limiting your discussion of Wikidata and VIAF to author information only. With regard to authors, I have not seen any problems on Wikidata that would affect information we use on our site, but I have seen (in the past few days) an experienced Wikidata (and MW) editor who added grossly incorrect information to Author pages. It was the result of adding information that he did not understand himself, and had not bothered to source or check, which was rather ironic given that he was, at the same time, involved in a site discussion about sourcing and verifying claims added to data items. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello again,

I would like to reach a consensus on this topic. Please state with   Oppose or   Support if you agree with this proposal or not. My bot would do this:

  1. fetch entries of Category:Pages using authority control with parameters in namespace 102 (Author)
  2. compare the AC information to Wikidata
    • add claims if no information is available on Wikidata
    • keep the information on Wikisource in case of differences, malformed values etc. and skip step 3
  3. remove the local information from Wikisource

Please be also aware that you can inspect all future edits on https://tools.wmflabs.org/kasparbot/ac.php?select-project-enwikisource=1. All faulty pages will be available there. The current situation is:

count state
13557 template can be replaced
1023 malformed value
285 different value on wikidata
24 unknown template property
5 technical problems
1 more than one template embedded

I would like to close this RfC on 31st of September. -- T.seppelt (talk) 08:59, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

  1.   Support as proposer -- T.seppelt (talk) 08:59, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
  2.   Support -- Captain Nemo (talk) 11:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC).
  3. support. I have reviewed the first 1400 listed entries and would just say that the non-VIAF data is not worth transferring, nor remaining and would consist of little value, and we should just strip the author:ns AC templates of all paramters. Though the 5 would be worth manually eyeballing. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:25, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

closed I consider this proposal as accepted by the community even with a very small amount of participators. -- T.seppelt (talk) 13:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Removed Authority control/VIAF gadget

I have removed the VIAF gadget from local display. Magnus has developed an alternate version at Wikidata that is more suited to needs. You can add it to your common.js at Wikidata, or you can add it to your global.js file at meta. If you do edit Wikidata and wish to add authority control data and are stuck, then please talk to me and I can assist. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Author template now will pull image from Wikidata if not specifically chosen

I have tested and modified {{author}}. I have added the ability for the template to directly access the image data stored at wikidata if it is available. The specific use of the parameter in the template will override Wikidata choice, so the only difference noted will be that there will be some author pages with images without a parameter call. Once this has the approval of the community I will look to remove the empty parameter field from active templates, then we can talk about how we progress with comparing wikidata and how to populate where our data is not in Wikidata, etc. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

/me semi-struts. 1,596 total and still populating in Category:Author_pages_with_Wikidata_image. There may be issues if there are multiple images against an author, so we will have to manual override for the moment. With such situations we need to set a preferred image at WD and get Module:Wikidata updated to provide a single preferred result. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
Only 5 Author pages with [image?] script errors at this point. Tracked in Category:Pages with script errors. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Nice GOIII, and great that we already have a system to catch those errors, I was wondering how I was going to find them. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Fixed the errors, all due to the pages not having an instance set at WD. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:33, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
@George Orwell III: Can you think of a means to track where we have Author pages with red file links? Be they failed manual additions, file removals or by my update to the template. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Off-hand I'd say 'not easily'. The section Headings seem consistent enough to come up with a group of them to probe through with some reliability but the entries themselves are not always listed the same nor use the same syntax. If every entry were template-based, syntax, etc. wouldn't matter because we could poll the template parameters themselves to track what main or translation space works exist or are merely listed (red links). I'm not saying it can't be done but a deeper look on my part will have to wait until the weekend. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Additional thought: seems like the possibilities of doing something like that increases if going by what the What Leaves Here? gadget currently provides. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Hold on a sec -- did you mean red-links to the File: namespace for missing author portrait images or red links to works in the main or translation namespace? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
File namespace only at this point of time. I was thinking that we may be able to run a sql query from quarry:? — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Now I follow you. I'd think there would be a way but not sure how. Isn't it just a matter of determining whether or not the red-link contains something like &action=upload ? Isn't that what happens when you click on a File: link to a non-hosted file? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:37, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
@John Vandenberg, @Pathoschild: can either of you help here? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Unless I am misunderstanding, Category:Pages with missing files is what you are looking for.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 17:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
<facepalm> I was thinking something namespace specific, and losing the trees for the forest. I will fix up those images over the weekend. Fixed Thanks. — billinghurst 13:24, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Just a not-so-important remark: When choosing which image to rank as preferred, I base my decision on which image most featured Wikipedia articles have in their leads. See for example d:Q187982.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I have already had this argument discussion with WD about 'preferred rank' and image display, and the (easy) ability to return one result rather than many. To me the "preferred" will always be the one that best represents the person, whereas for what I choose to display at enWS will be what best represents them as the author, which for me will mean that I love to show any caricature if there is one available. It is exactly the argument over "preferred" that will always allow us to have choice in the header parameter, but call a default if nothing is chosen. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:54, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
Another issue I've seen that illustrates why "most common use" does not always offer the best choice. I've seen instances where there is a play and a sculpture with the same title, and so there is a disambiguation page to help users distinguish the two. But then the lead image for the play is an image of the statue, which visually negates the effort made to disambiguate the two items. And in many cases, I've found that the most commonly used image is used solely because it was used first, the original article propagated through translation to many wikipedias, and the lesser used image is a newer higher-quality image that is just beginning to be used. Again, in this situation, the more common usage in no way indicates a better selection or preference. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:46, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
Right, EncycloPetey. My approach could work as a rule of thumb rather than a hard and fast one.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 08:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikisource celebrates Public Domain Day?

I have recently started the 2016 in public domain age on English Wikipedia and started a discussion on the Wikimedia Uk list. I think some Public Domain day events in January would be a good way of making more people aware of Wikisource and would offer the opportunity to provide support for newcomers. It would be great to hear of other peoples views?Leutha (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

There's not really much for us, since we use US copyright law, and nothing published before 2002 is going to go into the public domain until 2019-01-01. Unpublished or recently published material by all those authors dead 70 years is now PD, but that usually only has interest to scholars.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:38, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
in the US, the open access librarians tend to blog around January 1. [13] maybe some networking building on wikiloves libraries might bear fruit. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 01:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Scanned books from the Archaeological Survey of India

A good collection is available here, covering subjects from around the world on a multitude of topics. Hrishikes (talk) 05:55, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: Be sure to add it to Wikisource:Sources. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:16, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
  Done Hrishikes (talk) 11:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Upload to Commons: an innovation

Recently I have encountered an obstacle to Commons uploading; even when the file is below 100 MB (but contains a lot of pages), Commons says that the entity is too large when attempting importation from IA and shows internal API error when attempting direct upload. I have bypassed the objection by taking a roundabout route: I first uploaded a very small file with the desired file name and once Commons accepted it, I uploaded the full file as a newer version to the previously uploaded file. This time, uploads were successful. Examples: Index:Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage.djvu, Index:Dod's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage etc. of Great Britain and Ireland.djvu, Index:The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of the British Empire Part 2.djvu, Index:The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of the British Empire Part 1.djvu. This is for general information for others who have faced this kind of problem. Hrishikes (talk) 06:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Clever work around. I am told that the problem there lies with IA-upload rather than with Commons, and we therefore need to see if @Tpt: can tweak his upload tool. To also note that you can directly upload from a url to Commons, so you could just try that and put in place the {{book}} template afterwards. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
I had tried direct upload too. The file got uploaded, then I had to fill up file name, year, category etc., then the file got submitted. Then Commons refused to publish it citing internal API error. That's why I had to take a work around. Hrishikes (talk) 10:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
If you did use the direct upload on Commons and that fails, then we need to lodge that as a bug in Phabricator. I will see if I can find a big file to upload. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:13, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Finding a big file is not a problem; but you need to find a big file with the specific problem that Commons objects to. Every big file does not get refused. So the best option: download one of my files as mentioned above; change the name and upload --- then you will see the problem. Hrishikes (talk) 11:22, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
Just a little note that Hrishkes won't be able to upload by URL on Commons because that is restricted to reviewers, admins and GW users. Green Giant (talk) 01:26, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction … See what happens when they add new things and when you have advanced rights, you don't even realise that not everyone can do or see something! Anyway Hrishikes has uploaded so many things over the past months, they must be close to locking themselves away for a year and have a proofreading binge. :-) — billinghurst sDrewth 01:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
wow, i should think a request for GWtoolset rights would be a snowball, (they’ll let anybody have those) ;-) Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 03:30, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Author/section fields for anthologized works

Hi all, this got started on Captain Nemo's talk page, but maybe it'd be better to put here ...

I've been working on two books that are collections of short works in translation, Slavonic Fairy Tales and The Sweet-Scented Name. The first has many "contributers", while the second is drawn from various collections in Russian by Fyodor Sologub, and happens to bear the name of one of the individual stories.

To begin with the latter collection, I'd like to know which is more appropriate, to put the story titles into the headers in the title field, or into the section field. So here it's a choice between how I did it for Turandina or for Lohengrin. One thing that makes me feel uncomfortable is that the title "The Sweet-Scented Name" gets more prominence in the header than does the individual story titles. It already appears twice on each story's page, and I feel like its third appearance in the header is visually overkill. One precedent I am going by is Tolstoy's Twenty-three Tales and the individual stories, such as A Prisoner in the Caucasus which have the story titles in the title field. So far I see no serious problem either way, but when there are collections in which different sections are by different authors the handling of the header information gets very complicated, and I've seen some bad results, and complicated work-arounds. For example, in the story Best Russian Short Stories/The Cloak we read in the header "Best Russian Short Stories by Nikolai Gogol" even though Gogol is only the author of the one story "The Cloak". That particular problem is avoided in The World's Famous Orations/Volume 6/At the Bar of the House of Lords, but at the cost of filling in the section field with 

''At the Bar of the House of Lords''<br />by {{Author link|Isaac Butt}}

a format which would be difficult have everyone apply consistently. So what I'd like to propose is to explicitly allow for the option of placing titles of individual works from within an anthology book into the title field, in which case the author field should consistently give the author of the individual work rather than to the collection as a whole. Does that cause any serious problems in how the header data is handled? Mudbringer (talk) 11:22, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The "Gogol" problem is solved by leaving the author field empty and adding the "contributor" field. Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 13:33, 10 August 2015 (UTC).
With such works, I have carried through name of book with | override_author = (ed.) Author name (possibly leave empty <shrug>) then use the section and contributor parameters. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
And the example that you probably preate the contributor parameter, plus it was having to do hacks like that brought the change about. Well, that and that we have many journals transcribed that have many articles by different authors.
@Billinghurst: ... OK, I was having trouble with the spelling of "contributor"  . I tried reworking the first story in Slavonic Fairy Tales based on your explanation, so could you please check to see if I've understood everything: Carried Away by the Wind, vs. what I was doing before: Why is the Sole of Man's Foot Uneven?. The way I've done it leaves an extraneous space before a comma, but I'll not be fussy. Does bolding the section field cause any problems? One thing I couldn't have figured out from studying the help on the header template was the difference between "override author" and "override_author" ... the latter was leaving the author's name in the header, when I was trying to suppress it. Thanks! Mudbringer (talk) 14:50, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
I tried fixing The Cloak, and that seems to work ok, but the previous story in that collection, for which a translator is given, The Queen of Spades, winds up with T. Keane as the translator for Best Russian Short Stories, rather than just for that story. Mudbringer (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
You can use override_contributor for this. For example: The seven great hymns of the mediaeval church/Dies Iræ/Dix. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:07, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Re the underscore in parameters

We have had a legacy issue in the the underscore in the template has long been used, and we have carried on using it with new parameters to maintain consistency, however, it does catch people out in that it needs to be present in the parameter. I have just updated the template so you can use alternatively use override author and when I have a chance I will look to update so we can have "override editor", "override translator" and "override contributor". I am not even certain that the underscore needs to be mandated now (it did back then) and whether can be omitted in the template, so I will have a play in the sandbox first to see if we can simplify. As GOIII briefly discussed the whole Template:Header is showing its age and has significant legacy issues, and it probably due for a refresh, especially with Lua now being available, and with Wikidata being present, and the old microdata hack probably able to be case out. But not today. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:37, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • MediaWiki can now hide the signature button when you edit a content page. [14]
  • The "Your preferences have been saved" message has changed. You can now see more easily what was saved when you change preferences several times. [15]
  • You can now play Ogg video files in some browsers that don't support this format. This solution uses JavaScript and works on desktop browsers only for now. It will work on mobile later. [16]
  • You can now use the same tools to edit style in VisualEditor on mobile as in desktop browsers. [17]
  • It is now easier to see if there is a JavaScript error in a user or site script. [18]
  • JavaScript authors:
    • You can no longer use the Sajax library. You can see a list of pages to fix. [19] [20]
    • You can no longer use document.write on Wikimedia wikis. You can see a list of pages to fix. [21] [22]
  • The content translation tool now works better. It is easier to use math, and useless tags are no longer added. [23]

Problems

  • More edits have been rejected due to loss of session data lately. This is now fixed. [24]
  • Importing a Lua module sometimes didn't work. This is now fixed. [25]
  • Text was sometimes lost in the content translation tool. One part of the problem is now fixed. [26]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 12. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 13 (calendar).
  • UploadWizard is getting a new look. The look of buttons and checkboxes has already changed. This week, UploadWizard gets a new date picker. The other text fields will change soon. [27]
  • You can now test VisualEditor on mobile devices of all sizes. [28]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 11 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Some things in the watchlist will get a new look. [29]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

creating Special:MyPage/EditCounterOptIn.js

Hi. Just thought that it would be useful to remind (new) users that there is a useful count tool which we have linked from the bottom of your Special:MyContributions page. It is even more useful if users create the page Special:MyPage/EditCounterOptIn.js (or use m:Special:MyPage/EditCounterOptIn.js if you want counts globally) and content is not needed, just the creation of the page. Thanks, it helps me to work out when I can apply autopatrolled rights for users, and to assess users for admin rights. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer! I'd not noticed the opt-in thing. I think the global page should be m:Special:MyPage/EditCounterGlobalOptIn.js though? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 13:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: I have opted in globally, but the monthly stats are still invisible—a notice appears in their place. Is this normal?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 15:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
<grrr> Never work with children, animals AND SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS! It looks to be having issues. I will see if it part of the Labs current works, whether it will self fix, or we need to ping Max. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
It was working correctly the other day when I looked; now is broken. There seem to be PHP errors appearing in the HTML output, which are stuffing up the Javascript. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Author:Georges Perrott

Is this author the same as w:Georges Perrot? The PSM work listed would conform to the genre of the French author. The last "t" is a typo or real? Hrishikes (talk) 01:05, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

VIAF lists sol et le climat de la Grèce, leurs rapports avec le caractère de sa civilisation et de son art as one of the works of "Georges Perrot Archéologue et helléniste français" and the trailing comment on Popular Science Monthly/Volume 42/December 1892/The Environment of Grecian Culture reads Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes. My French is not all that good but this seems circumstantial evidence they are one and the same person? AuFCL (talk) 01:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Many Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Before they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [30] [31] [32]
  • Some auto-saving problems and other issues in the Content Translation tool are now fixed. Please report to the Content Translation feedback page if you still have problems. [33]

Problems

  • Older gadgets that are not using ResourceLoader are not loading anymore. They need to be updated. [34] [35]
  • On August 12 the machine translation servers and the Content Translation tool didn't work. This was fixed on the same day. [36]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 18. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 19. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 20 (calendar).
  • You can soon watch when something is added to or removed from a category. [37]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 18 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:17, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

New namespaces?

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T106177
Tracked in PhabricatorTask T31272

Anybody else notice the 5 new namespaces being listed in the various ns related input boxes?

  • Gadget (ns:2300)
  • Gadget talk (ns:2301)
  • Gadget definition (ns:2302)
  • Gadget definition talk (ns:2303)
  • Topic (ns:2600)

Anyone? Pointers to more info appreciated. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

On the "Gadget" set of namespaces I found the following: "The difference intended to be made as part of the ResourceLoader 2 project is moving these out of the prefixed "Gadget-" scope in the MediaWiki:-namespace (which is intended for messages, not actual wiki content (let alone executable resources). Instead move them to a new Gadget:-namespace only editable by users with the editgadget right" (mw:ResourceLoader/Version 2 Design Specification).--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 08:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
So does this mean Flow is coming to the Scriptorium? :) Am I too against tradition if I say that's a good thing? ;-) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
There is a "by request" model at Wikidata, and I would think that WMF will probably introduce it cautiously. @Quiddity (WMF): would you mind adding to this conversation, and pointing this community to pertinent information. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
Sounds sensible. I reckon it'd be nice to have here. :) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 03:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
If there is consensus, it will be very easy to have it enabled. Personally, I favor it for all talk pages plus the discussion pages in the Wikisource namespace (like this one), but it is possible to enable it on a smaller scale if wished.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 12:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst, @Samwilson: My apologies for the delay (I hadn't set my preferences here, to email me for mentions. :< ). What Erasmo Barresi wrote is correct - Flow can be enabled wherever each community would like it. Just come to a consensus, and let me or the team know, and they will convert pages.
The recommended process is to first enable it at project_talk:Flow/Sandbox (for local testing) and project_talk:Flow (for local feedback/discussion), and to also discuss what initial locations you'd like to try, beyond that. There's a table of existing locations/discussions at the top of mw:Flow/Rollout, and more details in mw:Flow/Request Flow on a page#For a community page.
In addition to that, there is an almost finished Beta Feature that will let each user "opt-in" (and out) to enabling Flow on their user talkpage. Each wiki can decide if they wish to use it (7 wikis are currently planning to do so or discussing it) - See phab:T98270 (the main feature) and phab:T108266 (Guided Tour, for editors who opt-in) for details. Trizek and I are also working on a basic userguide, which will be on mediawiki early next week.
Further questions welcome. (please do ping me :-) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Epubs produced from enWS

Following Tpt doing a post, it reminded me that he has stats for wsexport tool usage. I had a quick peak and here are the numbers of epubs that have been generated for 2015

Epubs produced from
late Mar to mid Aug 2015
Mar 3415
Apr 13234
May 98804
Jun 19480
Jul 48659
Aug 11215

They are stunning numbers, and thanks to @Tpt: for his magnificent tool, and I think that we can do better if we look at making that output format more dominant. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

That's amazing! So many readers! (and some bots?) Is it possible to get stats for individual works? And yeah, I agree, it'd be cool to make the epub download links much more obvious. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
@Samwilson: When I come in with a mobile to the main page, Template:Featured download shows big and bold, so it would be interesting to know how whacked that template/button is as part of the downloads; so yes, a breakdown of the stats would be useful. Personally I feel that the template could be useful in some format to highlight that the works are downloadable and would consider its use more liberally ESPECIALLY as in the mobile version there is NO sidebar, and ready means to even see that an epub version is available. Hmm, it may even be worth adding as part of Template:New texts even just as an icon. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
I think it would be a good thing to be able to identify the works most downloaded by our readers. The top three could be featured in main page in "Readers' Choice" category. Hrishikes (talk) 04:32, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I agree with you on the above Hrishikes. I also like to see the most {popular} downloaded categories, in order, from highest to lowest as well as the most popular download format. Respects, —Maury (talk) 07:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Ditto. We live in an island all by ourselves. A bridge with the readers is highly desirable, so that the community can ascertain what types of works the readers most want and community efforts can be based on that feedback, e.g., in POTM etc. Hrishikes (talk) 07:25, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Detailed statistics of ePub downloads (07 2015) I have published on User:Zdzislaw/stats/2015 07‎. Zdzislaw (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: "fresh" Top50 statistics of ePub downloads in August 2015. User:Zdzislaw/stats/2015 08‎. Zdzislaw (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

How can we improve Wikimedia grants to support you better?

Hello,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback about how we can reimagine Wikimedia Foundation grants, to better support people and ideas in your Wikimedia project. Ways to participate:

Feedback is welcome in any language.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, Wikimedia Foundation. 05:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

New feature "Watch changes in category membership"

 
recent changes page view with categorization

Hi, coming with this week’s software changes, it will be possible to watch when a page is added to or removed from a category (T9148). The feature has been requested by the German Community and is part of the Top 20 technical wishlist. The feature was already deployed to Mediawiki.org on August 18 and it will be rolled out on Wikisource between 6-8 pm UTC today. It will be available on all Wikipedias from Thursday 20 on, likewise between 6-8 pm UTC. In this RFC-Proposal, you can find the details of the technical implementation. The feature was implemented via a new "recent changes" type for categorization. Through this, categorization will be logged and shown on the recent changes page. The categorization logg in "recent changes" is the data base for the watchlist: When you watch a category, added or removed pages from that category will be shown on the watchlist. The categorization of pages can be turned off in the watchlist preferences as well as recent changes preferences. If you have any questions or remarks about the feature or if you find a bug, please get in touch! Bugs can also be reported directly in Phabricator, just add the project “TCB-Team” to the respective task. Cheers, Birgit Müller (WMDE) (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T109707
For those of us not fluent in technobabble, does this feature track only explicit category membership, or also membership controlled by template parameters? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
The new feature will also log categorisation by templates, but it will limit the display to the template name and the number of pages embedding it. Kai Nissen (WMDE) (talk) 17:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
This feature is very boring in Special:RecentChanges on all wikisource because it shows three entry for any page validation with three identical diff links, so we get only 16 real change per page of 50 in RC. It's possible to work-around it through user preference but that preference should be to hide cat change in RC by default. — Phe 20:19, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
We've been asking for this on en.Wikipedia for years. It makes it possible to observe the removal of legitimate categories, by accident or by vandalism. BD2412 T 21:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
dontcha know categories are broken, and the answer is wikidata? maybe we could get GWtoolset as a top 20? Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 22:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
We can't use wikidata for Page:*, and Page:* is the only really problematic namespace. — Phe 00:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
The proofread extension use category to mark the state of pages and changing the state from proofread to validated generate three RC entry, one for the cat removed, one for the cat added and one for the page change itself. I don't think this is evil for any other namespace than Page:, but for Page: we have really a specific use of category. I was thinking first to ask than the default preference should be to hide cat change in RC by default on all wikisource, but it'll probably better to allow to blacklist namespace, sort of "do not generate cat change RC entry for this namespace". — Phe 00:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't find that problematic. It's not like pages will be going through category changes dozens of times. BD2412 T 02:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I've already turned it off for RC in my preferences. It's a right nuisance when trying to patrol RC. The five Page namespace categories (Category:Proofread, Category:Problematic &c.) are assigned automatically and there is no need to watch pages move between them as they move through the proofreading process. When these moves are appearing on RC, then it prevents clearly seeing the real changes. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@Birgit Müller (WMDE), @Kai Nissen (WMDE), @Phe: Totally agree that it will be problematic in/for our Page: namespace in its current methodology. So a wiki needs the ability to exclude a namespace, or maybe as part of a naming hierarchy (preferably by local setting rather than by a wiki configuration request through phabricator); or by the ability to [hide/show] the functionality in recent changes. I also think that we need to get this onto Phabricator prior to the rollout, as it is going to be problematic, and should have been tested in a broader wiki-space prior to implementation. An alternative would be that the categorisation change(s) are noted against the edit, rather than against the category, so it is all on one line per edit. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:47, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Flagged this as an issue for WSes on the Phabricator ticket above. I have asked if there is a means to halt rollout to the WSes this week. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst:I am probably being blind but I see no reference? To which ticket are you referring please? AuFCL (talk) 04:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Also, it already is rolled out. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks BWC, WPs! We are also going to see it added regularly to any subpage. Maybe we could have "ignored categories", cf. hidden categories which exists. @AuFCL: T9148 . To note that of 500 edits, 212 are categorisation changes in three categories, though switching to "Show page categorization" does tidy things nicely. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:20, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
D'oh! I really am going blind! Thanks. AuFCL (talk) 05:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
┌─────────────┘
The proposal seems to say that recentchanges will not be affected - "In order to prevent recentchanges from being flooded by high-usage template categorization, there won't be recentchanges entries for the pages embedding the template". "Possible to watch" sounds to me like editors being able to voluntarily add a category to a watchlist for purposes of keeping track of membership. BD2412 T 03:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Perhaps this is a little bit early to start noting bugs but I have observed this peculiarity: if some page changes to either enter or leave a watched category my watchlist throws up a '(changed since last visit)' link to the changed page which is nice. What is not so nice is that visiting that link does not reset it status in the watchlist but visiting the category instead does! So to de-flag a notified event one has to navigate to a page which otherwise you have no reason to access? Seems a bit odd. AuFCL (talk) 09:37, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi AuFCL, it is not too early to report bugs or comment on the feature, thanks! There is already a Phabricator task for the link issue you mentioned - T109688. We will collect all the comments on problematic issues, improvement ideas and reported bugs on the various project pages as well as in Phabricator and check through them within the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone here. Birgit Müller (WMDE) (talk) 14:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Note to the community, this change was rolled back (temporary suspension). I haven't found the conversation that lead to the rollback, just the comment on the initial phabricator card that states that the rollback has occurred. There were a number of issues identified, so one would think that there is some more work to do prior to the next version. So while we have been picking fault with our issues, we should not lose sight of the excellent initiative that WMDE has taken on board, thank them for their effort and wish them luck with their refinement of the change. @Birgit Müller (WMDE), @Kai Nissen (WMDE): — billinghurst sDrewth 23:37, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:, thank you for posting the update regarding the revert of this change. After it got deployed to the production systems it became apparent that under some special circumstances it may cause privacy issues: In case of some types of templates entries in the watchlist and recent changes were showing the IP address instead of the user name.
It's good that this came to our attention as the developer team can start to work on a solution for this now. Thanks to all who already tested the new feature and gave valuable comments. It is a big help for the next version of this feature. Kai Nissen (WMDE) (talk) 10:02, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Bug in WikiEditor?

From today morning, I am seeing three sets of Bangla script in the same box, one after other, in the WikiEditor. Not that I am facing any problem, but still, it looks uncanny. Hrishikes (talk) 04:46, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: Have you posted to phab:? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:10, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
No, as I am not having any major problem. No letter is absent; although there are three full sets. Hrishikes (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Follow-up: I think this repetition of sets is now a general feature: sets are repeated 2 to 4 times depending on the browser. I have checked Latin, Latin Extended and Bangla sets. Hrishikes (talk) 05:01, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

1901 work with 2000 copyright notice

In 2000 the uncensored version of Mark Twain's 1901 essay, "The United States of Lyncherdom", taken directly from Twain's manuscript, was first published in the journal Prospects. (It was first published in a censored version in a 1923 anthology of Twain's essays, Europe and Elsewhere.) I presume the work itself has entered the public domain because it was created more than 95 years ago and it has been more than 95 years since Twain's death. However, the journal printing of the essay contains the following disclaimer:

This previously unpublished essay by Mark Twain is ©2000 by Richard A. Watson and Chemical Bank as Trustees of the Mark Twain Foundation, which reserves all reproduction or dramatization rights in every medium. It is published here with the permission of the University of California Press and Robert H. Hirst, General Editor of the Mark Twain Project.

Is there any legal basis for this copyright notice, or may I freely transcribe this work? IvanhoeIvanhoe (talk) 20:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

If the uncensored version of the essay was not published until 2000, then it could indeed be under copyright. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
OK, the uncensored version is under copyright until 1 January 2048, it appears, and the censored version is under copyright until 1 January 2019. IvanhoeIvanhoe (talk) 21:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
@IvanhoeIvanhoe: As the first version was published in 1923 it falls under that copyright, presuming that it was renewed, which puts the work under copyright, and you are correct until 2019. I would venture that the same date would apply to uncensored version rather than 2048. My reason is that they could not put a new copyright date of 2000 as that was more than 70 years after his death,[38]. I don't know how they could claim a new start without special legislation, so it could only be a claim under the previous copyright. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't know what you're pointing to on the Cornell page. The life+70 rule was basically irrelevant until 2002. New editions of old works do get new copyrights, and if there's enough new text I don't see why it wouldn't. So the new text is under copyright until 2048, IMO, as is the rest of Mark Twain's unpublished stuff, as it was "published" in a ridiculous expensive microfilm edition in 2001, just to grab that copyright.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Genealogical works from Peter Crombecq

Hi,

After looking up one of our mayors from the 13th century, I stumbled across the genealogical works of Peter Crombecq, which I referred as a source. The PDF files he created are on the site of his provider though. This means that they will disappear if the internet account is suspended, which inevatibly it will be eventually.

So I asked him if it would be OK to host his works on Wikisource. The first question is, is this the right platform to 'publish' his efforts? He doesn't mind the works to become available to the public. In the PDF files he simply mentions that he wants his name to be mentioned when the material is used.

I asked a question about this on the Dutch wikisource Scriptorium counterpart a few days ago, but the site is relatively death... So it seems better to come and ask over here.

The next question is: Is it OK for me to upload the 'converted' books? Or would it be better he creates an account and uploads himself? He doesn't want to 'waste' too much time on it though. So I proposed I would convert the books to wikiformat and either he or I can then conveniently upload.

This is the PDF file of the first book, I started to work on:

http://users.telenet.be/PeterCrombecq/Genea%20Stek/Crombecq/

It starts with a few chapters of introduction, then the bulk of the book with blocks about people that were involved in the city council of Leuven. I created a page with this introduction, then a page per person: 

book
introduction
Coutereel, Peeter an example of an entry

This does not follow the 'layout' of the PDF, which has the introduction over several pages and then in the second part several entries per page. Is that a problem? It is more logical this way and it's easier to connect the entry of 1 person to his/her wikidata item.

I'm adding the author template on each page of the book, does that make sense? It is in compliance with his request to have the source mentioned. I'm mentioning his name, because the way I see it, this series of wikisource pages will/would become the source.

Maybe I should refer to the PDF file on his provider's website, or would it be acceptable to upload that PDF to Commons? Of course, if that is acceptable, maybe I'm doing entirely too much effort by converting it to wikisource... The advantage of having it in this format on Wikisource would be that others can chime in and add to it though. --Polyglot (talk) 18:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I can only answer from the perspective of the English WS as there may be different perspectives on the Dutch WS. @Dick Bos:, if there are things that I've missed, could you please assist?
  • If these texts were in English, they would be welcome here. The copyright release in the text is compatible with us hosting them;
  • The pdfs should be uploaded to Commons, and it's fine for you to do so;
  • Including the author's name in the header template on each page you create on nlWS is the correct way to mention his name. You should also include a license template on the book's mainpage;
  • Yes, keep the print pages for the Introduction together into a single WS page;
  • I recommend that you use the Proofread extension to wikify the books rather than doing that before uploading
Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:50, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Disambiguation pages are now excluded from the random page function. [39]

Problems

  • There was a problem with CAPTCHAs in VisualEditor. This has now been fixed. [40]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from August 26. It will be on all Wikipedias from August 27 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on August 25 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Some maintenance work that I am considering

I am considering doing the following maintenance work over the next while, and thought that I would flag my intentions and allow for any discussion to take place

  1. update {{Author}} so we can determine which author pages where we have Wikipedia links, for which the WP link data is not recorded at Wikidata, I think that there will be none, however, just want to make sure. At that point I believe that we will be able to remove all Wikipedia links from Author templates (as redundant).
  2. remove all wikidata parameter fields from the Author template, they are redundant, and we have a ready means to identify where there is no WD linking, and that maintenance is being managed on a regular basis
  3. from Category:Index Validated (initially) and then Category:Index Proofread, identify the overarching works for each file and then look to put that appropriate badging on each of the WD links to WS. Once that is done, I propose that we amend / extend {{Featured download}} button to be displayed on any work that is proofread or validated (ie. has the label). We will also need to have some sort of watch function on the works that enter these categories so they can be badged systematically.

Any thoughts and ideas welcomed. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:36, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand your third point, but I agree with the first two. However, I have noticed that often, if a WikiData entry exists for an author, but the Author header does not contain a sister wiki parameter (or portal link or related author), then the sister wiki box does not show up. For this reason, I have often put a Wikipedia parameter in the template to force it to show up. The other option is to use {{plain sister}}, but if you add this template and then someone adds a portal parameter then you will get two sister wiki boxes. I think fixing this will need to be part of the maintenance work you describe. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:33, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
@Beleg Tâl:Re point 3. We have the template which we have been utilising on featured works only (big and bright as per Main page), whereas on majority of works we rely on the link in the sidebar to indicate alternate format downloads. 1) In mobile there is no sidebar, so you cannot see, and epubs are predominantly a mobile technology; 2) it is little link somewhat hidden away; 3) we have only utilised on a subset of works. My plan is to look to have it more widely available for where works have an elevated status with the newly available WD badges available for Wikisources[41]. These badges are to what I am referring with regard to the indexes and their corresponding works, and that work needs to be started prior to work on the templating, which I will bring to the community to discuss in detail.

With regard to Wikidata label visibility, we recently updated {{header}} to apply #if statements in a different way so those links should show without additional intervention. To my understanding with {{author}} it has been the case of either a direct link or a search link displays without any intervention, if that is not the case, then some examples would be useful. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: On your first point, you can already verify that there are no such pages at Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month/Wikidata/Wikipedia authors.
@Beleg Tâl: May you point to a page where this problem occurs?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 12:00, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Support 1 and 2. Would like to propose 2a. remove all remaining deprecated parameter fields from the Author template (commons, wikiquote, etc). Cheers, Captain Nemo (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2015 (UTC).
I am okay with that proposal to remove the sisters in author namespace. Are people comfortable now that as WQ and Commons are migrated to WD and the duplication finders/mergers have been at work that they are now superfluous to our needs? [Again Author namespace only at this point] — billinghurst sDrewth 12:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: It would seem that you are correct, and this behaviour has already been fixed since I last encountered it. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: First, the E-Pub icon in mobile mode is should be next to the pencil (edit) and star (add/rem to watchlist) icons per my tweaks to MediaWiki:Mobile.css. If its still "hidden away" for you, please let me know.

Second, I have no problems with your suggested maintenance tasks though I still think its only a dent in the larger issue when it comes to Wikidata. Unless ALL the key parameters in the various header-to-namespace templates are made into formal messages in the MW (ns:8) namespace so they can be translated and put in use by our sister language WS domains at the same time, in the long run, all we are managing to accomplish here is inadvertently creating an preference for English driven Wikidata over our counterpart's. Plus we are "doing" too much in our header templates as it is on the local level; if 'everybody was working from the same page' (i.e. applying formalized messages for key template parameters), much of the currently entrenched if... then... when... localized template jargon can be safely handled by wikidata &/or lua instead imo. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kaldari: is the sort of thing that we can look to the Community-Tech group to assist the Wikisource community to modernise and utilise better practices?

Noisy watchlist warning Author: namespace. With my bot account User:SDrewthbot I have started a run on cleansing redundant parameters from Author: namespace (parameters = Wikipedia · Wikiquote · Wikivoyage · Wikinews · Wikidata · Wikibooks · Commons · CommonsCat · empty image) for Category:Authors-A with 1 recurse (800 pages). Please put any feedback/issues here or my talk page. I will look to schedule the remaining works to start in 24 hours dependent on feedback.

To also note that I have also placed a notice on Special:Watchlist. If your watchlist is has plenty of authors upon it, you may wish to temporarily mask bot edits in your Special:Preferences. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:01, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

We should not remove category links to Commons at this time. Wikidata is still debating the "correct" way to attach Commons categories to items, and it's a bit of a mess. Please put back the categories that you have already removed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
We pick whichever methodology that they use and we pick up their multiple links, be it the interwiki link, or the separate commons category claim. We will pick up whichever changes that they make, it is no problem. [We don't pick up creator, but we don't need to as it is only a display layer at this point of time, and we can easily pick that up whenever.]

Proposing to only list top level of a work as a featured text

I am looking in Category:Featured texts and I see that the root page and the subpages for some works are listed as featured texts. To me, we should list the top level of the work, and not the successive cascading pages. So that would be things like Popular Science Monthly/Volume 1 and Doctor Syn and no subpages. Removing the {{featured}} template from the subpages will remove them from the categorisation. For some works it has only been the top level that has been done, so I propose to remove the template from the subpages of the nominated works where it has been added. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:18, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree. Subpages should be considered to inherit all categories of their parent and do not need them to be explicitly stated. If a category placed on a parent would cause a subpage to be implicitly in an inappropriate category, then the parental category is wrong. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
The text we used at WS:FT and WS:FTC was inconsistent, so I have aligned to top level only, and will look to do the resulting maintenance later. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
Job   Done, each work has the featured template once, at the level it was awarded. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Wanted: A really awesome tool for extracting images and uploading them to Commons.

I have been browsing through the thousands of pages with missing images (linked from {{Missing image}}), and it occurs to me that it is going to take an enormous effort to manually extract and upload all of these images to Commons (or, at least, all of the images that are eligible for listing there). What we need is a single tool that:

  1. Extracts the image on the page from the page;
  2. Associates the image with the publication information relevant to the public domain status of the image (which should be on the Index page); and
  3. Uploads the image to Commons if eligible there, with standard information, or here if only eligible here.

It doesn't matter if the extraction process gets more from the page than necessary, because images can fairly easily be refined once they are uploaded; it is the initial uploading that it is most time consuming, in my experience. Now, how do we get this done? BD2412 T 17:40, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you'll find that @Hesperian: is already partway there with his {{raw image}} process. The problem really comes with step 1, in that the quality of the images in .djvu and .pdf files is not good enough. For IA files, we can access the jpeg2 images (which is what the raw image process does). For files that are hosted elsewhere we have problems. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
My concern is with with the next step - the process for uploading the image as an image file with the categories of copyright information required for uploads. A better version of an image can always be uploaded, but it's a pain to input, for example, the work name, author name, publication date, description of the work, and category information (which, for images from a specific work should include an "Images from [work]" category), when these steps must be repeated for dozens of images from a given work. We currently have over 10,000 image files that need such an extraction. BD2412 T 21:21, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
My issue is with the idea of a bot that makes bulk copyright claims. I won't go there. If someone does want to take this on, then please PLEASE ensure that your bot plays nicely with HesperianBot. That means talk to me early and often about what HesperianBot does, and why, and how not to break it. Hesperian 01:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
Bulk copyright claims would be an important part of the process. If a DJVU file exists on Commons, and you have a hundred or so images {{extracted from}} that DJVU file, you should be able to simply apply the copyright of the source file to all of the images at once. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
sorry about adding a bunch. the missing image template links to a page, on commons. could there be a way to snip images as a derivative on commons, and serve up in a semi-automatic way on source? Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 01:52, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
@Beleg Tâl: Unfortunately, that isn't always true. Sometimes the copyright on the images is different from the work, and almost always the illustrator / painter / photographer was NOT the same person as the author of the text. And even if the copyright and creator information is the same for all the images in a work (which often isn't the case), each image needs its caption and text placement information included in the Commons description. Besides which, sometimes the source of the image files is Hathi Trust, when the DjVu came from IA. There are a lot of factors involved in setting the image description at Commons, and I frankly do not see any way that most of the information could ever be handled by anything like a bot, unless the bot were loading information from a prepared file for all the images. It couldn't simply be duplicated from other image files, because the image information will vary from image to image. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:47, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I do realize that the illustrator and the author are separate people with separate copyrights. However, if the DJVU file contains the works of both, then its copyright needs to reflect the copyright of all its contents, doesn't it? If the DJVU file license does not account for the copyright of the images, then the license is already incorrect. In that case, it would be better in my opinion to leave it to Commons to correct the licenses, maybe with a bot of their own to assist.
With regard to images from HathiTrust, these would not be impacted because they're not extracted from the DJVU file.
A simple yet reasonable automated description would also be possible, like "Illustration from page $page of $djvufile" - which is no different than what I manually put in the description of all the illustrations I upload to Commons myself. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:09, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
Further thoughts, just brainstorming:
  • Commons already allows you to bulk-upload files with the same license tag. So even if we don't want it to pull the license from the DJVU file, we can still simply specify the license once for all.
  • What if we create a tag on Commons that transcludes the license tag from the source DJVU, with a short message saying "this file was extracted by a bot from $source.djvu, the license for the source file is {{#section:File:source.djvu|License}}"
  • We could also have the bot tag the image for human review after upload; it would still be less complex than the current system but still ensure that the file is manually checked for problems
—Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:30, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I would also note that to some degree the author can be irrelevant. We have some illustrated works that were published 150+ years ago. For those works, the illustrations will be in the public domain, period, due to their age. We also have a number of government documents that include government-made maps, which are uncopyrightable government work product, regardless of who drew them. BD2412 T 02:58, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • VisualEditor will now automatically create a link when you type in or paste an ISBN, PMID, or RFC. [42][43]
  • The link editor in VisualEditor is now a bit wider. It's now the same width as the automatic citation tool. [44]
  • VisualEditor gadget authors can no longer use the backwards-compatibility module ext.visualEditor.viewPageTarget.init. Use ext.visualEditor.desktopArticleTarget.init instead. [45]
  • Gadget writers can now use mediawiki.ForeignApi to communicate between different Wikimedia wikis. [46]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 1. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 2. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 3 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 1 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Wikidata API will be updated with breaking changes. This will probably happen on September 9. [47]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

New typography: Am I going blind?

A new month, a new software release: Special:Version now reports

1.26wmf20 (5a73576)
02:34, 1 September 2015

Is it just me or is everything which previously was normal text, now bold; and everything which used to be bold now even bolder? (This is certainly not the case on wikipedia; so is this change an accident or is this the new normal?) AuFCL (talk) 06:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Please ignore above. Turned out to be a local browser cache issue. Senility? AuFCL (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Enclosure Act for Shifnal

 
Enclosure Act for Shifnal, 1793

Hello, Please let me know if this text is on en.wikisource. I, for myself, didn't find it. Thank you very much. --Bel Bonjour ~ Ambre Troizat (talk) 10:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

No. If you can't find something like that, it's probably not here. You can add it to Wikisource:Requested texts, or upload a scan to Commons and start working on here if you'd like.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:36, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Updated links to WSEXPORT (WS reader export)

“ TL;DR: please migrate to https://tools.wmflabs.org/wsexport/tool/book.php that uses ePub 3 by default and supports PDF.

Hi everyone,

As a lot of you already knows, there is a new version of Wsexport running on Wikimedia tools labs that support PDF [1].

It is up and running since last May and I believe it is now time to migrate our on-wiki links to it and deprecate http://wsexport.wmflabs.org. So, please, update the links to Wsexport in the templates and JS scripts of your wiki.

I have also made one big change to the tools.wmflabs.org version: switch the default ePub format from ePub 2 to ePub 3. This change will allow us to provide better ePubs by default, with nice features like footnotes displayed in popups (works only with some readers like iBooks). I believe it should not break most of reading devices but this is an assumption that should be verified. So, if you could download your favorite books in ePub 3 and test them on your good old ereaders it would be very nice in order to don't break the reading experience of our readers. If you encounter any problem, please open a bug on GitHub [2].

Cheers,

Thomas (Tpt)

PS : I have also updated the stat page of the tools.wmflabs.org instance: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wsexport/tool/stat.php

”

—Tpt, Wikisource-L

Accordingly I have updated our sidebar gadget to the new URL with epub-3 as the new format. I have also updated {{featured download}} — again with epub-3 — and I have switched back in the PDF format which had been rem'd out while non-functional. As there are now a range of options at the tool, we probably would do well to determine whether we wish to have the plain link itself available for users. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Introducing the Wikimedia public policy site

Hi all,

We are excited to introduce a new Wikimedia Public Policy site. The site includes resources and position statements on access, copyright, censorship, intermediary liability, and privacy. The site explains how good public policy supports the Wikimedia projects, editors, and mission.

Visit the public policy portal: https://policy.wikimedia.org/

Please help translate the statements on Meta Wiki. You can read more on the Wikimedia blog.

Thanks,

Yana and Stephen (Talk) 18:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

(Sent with the Global message delivery system)

Open call for Individual Engagement Grants

Greetings! The Individual Engagement Grants program is accepting proposals from August 31st to September 29th to fund new tools, community-building processes, and other experimental ideas that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds (up to $30,000 USD), Individual Engagement Grants can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

I JethroBT (WMF), 09:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

There is less than one week left to submit Individual Engagement Grant (IEG) proposals before the September 29th deadline. If you have ideas for new tools, community-building processes, and other experimental projects that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers, start your proposal today! Please encourage others who have great ideas to apply as well. Support is available if you want help turning your idea into a grant request. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-37

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now mention up to 50 users in a post and they will get a notification. Previously you could notify up to 20 users. [48]
  • A new version of the Wikidata Toolkit has been released. It now has Wikibase API support. [49]
  • You can now use Wikidata to find all good or featured articles in a Wikipedia version. [50]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Tool Labs due to kernel issues. This has been fixed. [51]
  • The Content Translation tool published some pages with the same reference repeated several times. This has been fixed. [52][53]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 9. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 10 (calendar).
  • The maximum character length when you search for something on the Wikimedia wikis is now 300 characters. [54]
  • The notifications list has been split into two lists. As a first step, notifications about messages on your user talk page will be placed in the second list. Feedback is requested at the Echo talk page. [55][56]

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 8 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join the Wikitech ambassadors mailing list. The list is for Wikimedians interested in spreading information about Wikimedia technology news. See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia mailing lists will be moved to a new server and the software will be upgraded. This will happen on September 9 at 14:00 (UTC). The mailing lists will not be working during the move. It can take up to four hours. [57]
  • Wikidata will soon be able to store measurements, such as a mountain's height or the distance between two places. [58][59]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-38

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now use the Wikidata query service. [60]
  • Belarusian-Taraškievica Wikipedia was moved from be-x-old.wikipedia.org to be-tarask.wikipedia.org. This caused some issues, but most of them were resolved. [61]
  • Language preferences might not be changed immediately when you adjust them. Language selection might work slower. Please report any problems. [62][63]

Problems

  • There was a problem when editing International Standard Book Numbers in Visual Editor. This has now been fixed. [64]
  • The Wikimedia mailing lists should have been upgraded on September 9. It didn't work as planned and will now happen later. [65]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 16. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 17 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on September 15 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • ContentTranslation will show more data on the Special:ContentTranslationStats page. For example, it will show translation trends and information about deleted translations. [66]
  • The first version of the translation suggestions feature will be deployed soon. [67]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Labs: Possibility of broken tools

There is an issue with the security certificate at Toollabs: having expired. As many of the links to that server, from where we call scripts, are https: (secure) they may fail *unless* you do go to the tools server and accept that the no certificate is current/exists/secure. I am told that it may not be until tomorrow that this is resolved. @Pathoschild: FYI as this affects m:TemplateScript. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Hopefully they'll improve their renewal process to avoid this in the future. —Pathoschild 03:17, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah cool, thanks for the explanation. I was wondering why no scripts were loading! :( —— Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 04:25, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Oh, it's tools-static.wmflabs.org as well (of course). So one must go to https://tools-static.wmflabs.org/meta/scripts/pathoschild.templatescript.js?_=1442291482747 and accept the bad cert to get it to work. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 04:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

WS:FTC

Can we get some more participation for our featured texts? It seems like it's right now just EncycloPetey and me working on it. I don't believe we're getting as good a representation of validated works as we could if more people were involved. We have such a wide array of validated works and a decent-sized group of volunteers that I'd like this to feel more than just EncycloPetey and I promoting each other's works.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:07, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

ProofreadPage support in pywikibot

Hi. Just to let you know that pywikibot supports ProofreadPage (which allows, for each page, the capability of splitting header/body/footer and separately treat them) and IndexPage (which maps djvu page numbers with book pages, which can be useful when handling indices). They are quite new, so feedback from pywikibot users is welcome. The file is pywikibot/proofreadpage.py.— Mpaa (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-39

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • There is now an experimental Wikimedia maps service. You can give feedback here. [68][69]
  • Last week a few issues with UploadWizard were fixed. Before this was done, UploadWizard would stop you from uploading your files if something went wrong. [70][71][72][73]
  • More Wikipedias can now use information from any Wikidata item in any Wikipedia article. Previously they could only use the Wikidata item that matched the subject of the article. [74]
  • The VisualEditor welcome dialogue has been changed. The intention is to make it more helpful for new users. [75]

Problems

  • Wikimedia Labs' HTTPS certificate expired for most of Tuesday 15 September. To reach Wikimedia Labs and Tool Labs securely you had to ignore your browser's security error message. There was no risk to data security during this time. [76]
  • Last week the notification system was split into two parts. This was temporarily undone because of a bug and performance concerns. It will return to two parts this week. [77][78]
  • UploadWizard couldn't upload files larger than 5 MB when using chunked uploads. This has now been fixed. [79]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 22. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 23. It will be on all Wikipedias from September 24 (calendar).
  • The page move tool has been switched over to the new standard look for forms. [80]
  • You can now choose whether to extend a link or not when editing one in VisualEditor. This means it is easier to choose how much of what you type before and after the link is part of it. [81]
  • Wikibooks can now use data from Wikidata. [82]

Meetings

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:29, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Display issues of our works in mobile view

I have just had a look at The_Amazing_Emperor_Heliogabalus in mobile view https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Emperor_Heliogabalus and see that our dotted TOC templates look butt ugly. I am also seeing some issues with alignment of images and the like. It would seem that we should be doing some fixing and some reviewing of our mobile output. Not certain whether the solutions are in our display coding, or in getting fixes in the overarching mobile code.

I certainly think that we need to put some notes to transcribers and constructors to think to look at the mobile view when completing a work (addition to instructions). There is probably some value in looking to have a sidebar link to the mobile view to make our review process easier to undertake. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:57, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. I often keep ereaders in mind when formatting works, but yeah certainly forget a bit about mobile viewers. There are some good tools around (e.g. browserstack.com) for previewing pages on different browsers. The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus looks like this: https://www.browserstack.com/screenshots/990daee54efe51c2291f230c8d263a40f2dfe5cb (By the way, is there something odd going on with the chapter list on that page? They get progressively larger left margins.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 01:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
The list of issues between 'desktop' and 'mobile' view is too long to list here but I believe it all starts with revamping the design and layout of the traditional header template so that is "functional as well as consistently viewable" under either mode. Discussions have been started along the lines of what a header template redesign would entail but have been slow to produce "results" to date.

Once the header redesign is well on its way to becoming the new standard, the next hurdle is what to do about dynamic layouts - which will never work for mobile mode as it is geared to progressively resize margins at different max/min viewport widths as Sam alluded to. To see what I mean, when in Mobile View, shrink your browser window's width and you should see the left and right margins shrink until nearly gone accordingly. I'm pretty sure we need something similar for desktop view to replace dynamic layouts -- the main hurdle being what to do with the ever present side-bar on the left under most current skins; the Winter prototype being the last attempt to reconcile this 'viewport to window size with a side bar present' question (it has stalled as well). -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:02, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

To me header and body components align, though are separate issues for us to manage; images realigning, table formats, etc. are floating components in the body with continual refinement and vigilance; whereas the header is the static component that leads into a page and contains our metadata, navigation, etc. and we hardly vary.

To note that I have asked a WMF developer if they can identify someone who can give guidance to enWS on mobile, and how we can do things in desktop to lessen any impact on mobile;, plus whether these types of issues are managed through a person, or through phabricator. To note that "Winter" was only ever a proof of concept piece, and never designed to be a replacement skin. It would seem from recent discussions in wikitech-l, that skin development will predominantly be incremental and transactional. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Aside from the technical issues being discussed here, I wouldn't worry about driving away readers because it's impossible to read an article (even on the 'Winter' skin, which by the way, I really like). I am using an android cell phone with a 5" screen, (and tomorrow will try to borrow a pad). The most difficult issue is that just touching the screen to scroll down in an article, it's unavoidable to touch a wiki link and end up elsewhere — from which the return is not where I left off and then trying to find the point of departure is impossible. We should try to create a faux main namespace test format along the clean screen of the 'Winter skin'. One of the problems will be to tuck the navigation sidebar somewhere. — Ineuw talk 04:45, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
At enWS in the mobile screen I have no such issues with following stray links. For enWP, I usually have the android app for those occasions. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Validation request

This work is four pages away from being completely validated... anyone who might like to take on the task... Thanks ahead of time, Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:50, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

  Done... Thanks BD2412. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:06, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Cheers! BD2412 T 15:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Interlanguage link?

What am I doing wrong?! :( My link to a non-existing page on Spanish Wikisource doesn't work on Author:Rosendo Salvado. I'm doing e.g. [[es:Page name]] which results in: . — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:05, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I will be the first to admit if this turns out to be a silly suggestion but instead of [[es:Memorias historicas sobre la Australia]] does [[s:es:Memorias historicas sobre la Australia]] (i.e. this link) achieve what you are trying to do? AuFCL (talk) 09:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
You need to prepend the link with a colon to stop it being an interwiki language link (which is what it became), similar to how you prepend a category with a colon to make it visible link, rather than categorisation. Or you can force it as AuFCL using a sister link — billinghurst sDrewth 09:39, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Oh of course! Thank you both. So without the initial colon (or 'S:') it gets slurped off into the sidebar (and these days with Wikidata that's not required, of course). I really have never done many interlanguage links (being a blasted monolingual myself). :) Thanks again. (I'm compiling a list of Noongar language sources, by the way; not that there will ever be a nys Wikisource I shouldn't think hehe.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 10:15, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
mul:WS! though I am not sure of the number of printed works that we will have. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:44, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
Good point about mul, thanks. :-) And no, there's not going to be many printed Noongar works — but there is the whole question of oral histories and their transcription. We've got transcriptions of animations etc. so an oral history (assuming appropriately licenced) could perhaps end up there. Not really sure. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:57, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
That is a question for there, rather than here. That said, it isn't a published work, so it would come down to is it equivalent of a historical document. Personally, I think that I would support it, though would like to see some more rationale than "oral history", and would like to see the context of what is an oral history, how it represents a culture without printed material, and its reproducibility, if not as a transcript, but as a consistent narrative. All that said, are we really the place to hold such works, within the cultural and copyright structures. With such a subject, it is always good to hear from the truly knowledgeable on the topic, and it would be good to see it capture on the wiki or on the mailing list, and for the community to be notified. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:00, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

What's hidden by the local Watchlist

This is really a minor issue, and falls under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Department of Idle Curiosity. When clicking my Watchlist link, a link list to other wikis (in which I was minimally active) flash by, never to stay except once. Do other users see this list, and what controls the list display? — Ineuw talk 19:01, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

You are not completely crazy (or at least not alone in this particular manifestation.) I get the same effect and the bulk of those links wind up being later available under the "Sister Projects" tab (in Vector at least.) What bothers me a little more is that the "Mark all pages visited" button also puts in a brief appearance and then hides apparently never accessible thereafter. Thus far I've not needed it but one day who knows? (Besides if desperate this last function is also accessible via Preferences/Watchlist. I also claim "special blindness" for missing the same option presented as a standard link just below the "Watchlist" heading.) AuFCL (talk) 20:26, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I've done a bit of digging and found the logic which controls display of the above-mentioned "Mark all pages" button. It is at the bottom of MediaWiki:Common.js/watchlist.js, in particular the #mw-watchlist-resetbutton { display: none; } fragment. The button reappears if you edit your Preferences and turn off all of the check-boxes below "Advanced options" on the "Recent changes" tab. (Kindly remember what you turned off so you can restore them after experimentation. This last reminder is a special service of the Curiosity Related Feline Extermination Investigations sub-unit of the PDoIC™. Your tax dollars at work.) AuFCL (talk) 20:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
@AuFCL, @George Orwell III: The missing button is a local issue only, presumably due to our watchlist display component. Let us null it from the file to see the impact of its positioning. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
@AuFCL: Moved it back and it looks fine in monobook in Firefox. Anyone seeing button issues? — billinghurst sDrewth 00:26, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Personal opinion. I would hope that we wouldn't default hide buttons that are wiki-default on without having a community consensus, especially when we can give instruction to users on how to hide such components through their personal css files, and especially through use of their m:Special:MyPage/global.css — billinghurst sDrewth 00:31, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
I had an edit conflict asking for clarification which of several alternatives you were proposing. That is moot now as you appear to have answered the question as well as restoring the button under Vector too. AuFCL (talk) 00:41, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks all -- I've been overriding it locally for some time now. AFAICT -- the only reason it was in there in the first place was because Wikipedia's variant had added all begun all sorts of additions we didn't follow as a community (such as green bullets instead of bold text to indicate changes among a few others) and our version was never vetted to remove those influences. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Grant submission

Hi, here is a message to inform the Wikiversity community about my grant submission on Meta-Wiki. You are welcome to correct mistake, give opinion or endorse it. A nice end of the day for every one. Lionel Scheepmans ✉ Contact (French native speaker) 22:52, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Action: Purging Index: namespace pages

It has come to our attention that Special:IndexPages is not properly updating the progress of a work —in that it is not properly taking the data from its Index: ns page — when people are editing the corresponding pages in the Page: ns. To help keep a work's progress up-to-date on Special:IndexPages would editors please purge [(page url)?action=purge] each index at the end of their editing section. I will look to run a systematic purge of the edits, and we are looking at a more permanent solution for this issue.

For those who use the clock gadget, clicking on the clock will purge your current page. It may be possible to put an interim means to purge the index page, onto each index page. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:59, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

From what I've been led to believe: that won't always cut it; you need to utilize the forcerecursivelinkupdate aspect the API provides to truly "refresh" everything linked/changed on any given Index: page. A "regular" purge won't always accomplish that and sometimes a null edit is also needed. The other purge gadget (enabled for everyone by default the last I checked) has ability to select a "regular" purge plus either of the other two types by design (found in the More tab of vector or *, **, *** tabs in monobook). -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:40, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-40

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • In UploadWizard, the dialog to see an image preview has been removed. You already see the images in the thumbnails when you upload them. [83]
  • UploadWizard dialogs look a bit different now. They have been updated to the new OOUI look. [84]
  • You can now edit music scores in VisualEditor. You can add new sheet music scores and get live updates when you edit one. [85]
  • When you send an e-mail to another editor using Special:EmailUser, that user will now get a notification on the wiki as well. [86]
  • You can now see 500 images when you upload images from Flickr with UploadWizard. Before this change the limit was 50. [87]
  • The Wikimedia mailing lists have been upgraded. [88]
  • MediaWiki developers spent a day looking at proposed code changes in Gerrit. The goal was to clean up the backlog and give feedback to volunteer developers. [89]

Problems

  • Some visitors had problems reaching the Wikimedia sites for an hour on September 24. [90][91]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from September 29. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from September 30. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 1 (calendar).
  • There will be a new beta feature that allows editors to use Flow on their user talkpage if they want to. Each wiki can decide if they want to enable it. [92]
  • The Content Translation tool can give translation suggestions. This feature will now be available in more languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, and Catalan. [93]

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia Foundation developers want the community to decide who can use OAuth in the future. You can discuss it on Meta.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:15, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Reimagining WMF grants report

 

Last month, we asked for community feedback on a proposal to change the structure of WMF grant programs. Thanks to the 200+ people who participated! A report on what we learned and changed based on this consultation is now available.

Come read about the findings and next steps as WMF’s Community Resources team begins to implement changes based on your feedback. Your questions and comments are welcome on the outcomes discussion page.

Take care, I JethroBT (WMF) 17:02, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Toolbar button for curly quotes

(I rather suspect that this has been done before, but I couldn't find it anywhere so I've reinvented the wheel. It spins reasonably well.)

I've made myself a little toolbar button that converts quotation marks, apostrophes, and twin-hyphens to their curly or dashy forms. To use it, just do this in your common.js: importScript('User:Samwilson/CurlyQuotes.js');

This is based on the list of transformations used in the Gitenberg project's punctuation-cleanup script (for converting PG texts to curly-quoted asciidoc).

— Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 00:45, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Curly quotes are present in the Bangla character set in WikiEditor. Hrishikes (talk) 02:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
@Samwilson: Do you mean the curly quotes that we say not to use in the Wikisource:Style guide? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:07, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
Yep, those ones! ;) Actually, my understanding from some discussion last year or sometime (sorry, can't remember when) was that some works are done with curly quotes, and that this is acceptable (so long as things are consistent within the work). I use this toolbar button when I'm editing in a work that is already using curly quotes; I never add them to works that use straight quotes. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 03:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
The discussion was incorrect then, at least to some degree. Curly quotes are a product of font style, and not a separate character. Using them is like choosing one style of lowercase "a" or "g" over another; there are indeed variations between different fonts but they carry no significance.
The Style Guide is not absolute, and there are sometimes situations where specific points may not apply, but the SG is the general guide to how things ought to be done. Curly quotes cause problems, especially in older browsers, and note that many libraries and schools worldwide continue to use long-outdated software for budgetary reasons. Besides which, works that become Featured Texts must first be found in compliance with the Style Guide, so use of curly quotes automatically disqualifies any work from attaining Featured status. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:39, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
The discussion was at Wikisource talk:Style guide#Curly/straight quotes. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:38, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Announcement: [Wikidata] Input requested for 'editing on a client' project

“

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on a concept to improve the current editing situation of Wikidata's data on a client (e.g. Wikipedia & co.) in collaboration with Lydia Pintscher, in the scope of my Bachelor's thesis.

It would be very appreciated if you could add your input and comments to the page below and pass this info to the other Wikis and their editors since their input is crucial to this project.

→ → Wikidata:Client editing input

”

—Charlie Kr, via Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list

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