Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2021-01

Feedback requested on font template

I have used {{Blackletter}} before for these Fraktur forms on Wikisource but I was surprised to see that there was no equivalent for w:en:Uncial script, so I made {{Uncial}}. I'm requesting others provide feedback for 1.) which fonts would be best to cascade and 2.) how to import those fonts to our CSS (is this via a phab: ticket?). Thanks and happy Public Domain Day! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Reminder: The Wikipedia Library Card Platform

Probably hasn't been said in a while, however, through Wikimedia we can get ready access to a range of research databases through your Wikimedia SUL where anyone with a modicum editing qualifies

• The Wikipedia Library Card Platform

There is also access to other resources based on an application process. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:56, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the reminder and link. I've often been stymied trying to fix an obviously mistyped quote over at Wikipedia. This will help. Shenme (talk) 00:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Animal Life and the World of Nature/1903/06/Notes and Queries

Please move file:Animal life and the world of nature - Notes and Queries - Alice Foljambe - 1903-06.pdf and the two associated pages to "Animal Life and the World of Nature - Notes and Comments - Alice Foljambe - 1903-06.pdf". Apologies for the error. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:04, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The Center of the Web, Part 1?

There is something confusing about this film, in that in the title card of this print it is labelled as "The Centre of the Web / Part 1" (not yet uploaded to Commons, I have requested another user upload it for me as I don't have the tools to edit it available to me). The print comes from the British Film Institute, and this title card is clearly one of two intertitles instated by the BFI themselves (the other being within the film, as a reconstructed intertitle). So, the title card is not the original title card (the original intertitle would probably look like the ones at A Dog's Love or Shep's Race with Death, both made by the same director in the same year). I find this claim of it being the first part of the film to be a bit dubious, but it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that there are more "parts" to this film that have now been lost, or perhaps were planned at the time but never made/finished.

The film does seem to leave you with a cliffhanger (see the letter at the end), suggesting that there may be more to the story ahead...although admittedly this film was a bit difficult for me to understand on first watch, so I could be wrong that that was a cliffhanger. There are no listings for a second part to the film, anywhere that I could find. The only place I could find where it is ever mentioned as a "Part 1" is on this print itself; elsewhere, the film is described as if it is a single work in and of itself; the plot summaries only describe the content of this print. So, I have no idea why the film preserver decided to place "Part 1" there. There's no way to know if it was present in the original film title. So I think I'm going to assume in the transcription for Wikisource, like other places are doing, that there is no Part 2. PseudoSkull (talk) 07:04, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

You can always include an abbreviated explanation in the "notes = " about the general doubt that a part 2 exists. You can also include full details of what you've fund on the Talk page. If you've already done the research, then summarizing it for future readers would probably be appreciated. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Upon some speculation, I have thought of the possibility that perhaps whoever compiled the print at one point separated it into parts, and once they combined the two parts later, they forgot to remove the title card containing "Part 1" and replacing it with a more generic title card. But we'll never know. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Index:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu

Proofreading is still needed on the index, and cross referencing it to the main work. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:02, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Just focus on proofreading and validating the text. There are bot tools to add in the links, but these are dependent on having accurate page numbers in the index, and must wait until the text is validated. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 16:32, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Can anyone comment on this website of LOC documents?

getarchive.net — Ineuw (talk) 01:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Appears to be some kind of database that wraps Pubic Domain data sources like LoC and Getty.edu's collections and then tries to get you to pay for access to high resolution assets and/or sell you some prints and/or hawk the company's other wares. Could be useful for search, but probably need to head upstream for the original documents. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 01:32, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I knew there had to be a catch. Thanks for checking. — Ineuw (talk) 01:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Google spreadsheet based tool to help TOC, chapter pages creation

I created a Google Sheet tool to help prepare content for TOC page,Chapter pages. I have tried it on Telugu Wikisource. Make a copy of the spreadsheet and run the google script, by accessing Wikisource menu on the spreadsheet. You need to authorise the script to access your Google Drive, display sidebar first time you run it. By entering basic book details like index filename, author,year,chapter prefix,chapter name and page number, you can easily prepare content for TOC, chapter pages. this content appears in a sidebar, from which the content can be copied and pasted into Wikisource. Chapter content is formatted for using with pwb's pagefromfile script. I request users to try it and give feedback. If any better tool is available, please share.--Arjunaraoc (talk) 07:22, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Impermanence of Sexual Phenotypes by I. A. T. Savillo

Authorship for this article and the article itself is requested to be added in Wikisource. This is to disseminate this information about the unchallenged content of this article (The recent finding that there is no gay gene). In fact, Regarding the recent rape slay case (if ever there is a rape) in the Philippines done by "gays" is of note that this article applies to. This article is linked in Phenotypic plasticity in main Wikipedia but it is much better if it is also in Wikisource so people will be aware of it. I do not have to expound on the article but this is for the people to read and judge themselves and to be careful. 110.54.251.176 22:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

We store modern free works, but this is very unlikely to be free, and I certainly don't appreciate issue pushing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikisource:What Wikisource includes — billinghurst sDrewth 01:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks.110.54.251.176

Not leaving redirects behind in moves

Is there an option to not leave a redirect behind when you move an entry. The entry will the old title will still show in the index, and I want to avoid that. --RAN (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators have that ability. For non-admins, you can tag the resulting redirects for speedy deletion. BD2412 T 23:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I started answering this a couple of hours ago, but then my wifi died spectacularly. Just got back to find the above response. I'll extend it a little with:

Only sysops can suppress a redirect when moving a page. If the old place is a recent page that has no on-wiki incoming links, mark it for speedy deletion using {{sdelete|M2 - unneeded redirect}}. If it's an older page that may well have external links to it, then change it to a dated soft redirect {{Dated soft redirect}}. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 01:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-02

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 choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [1]
• You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [2]
• Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
  • The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [3]
  • Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [4]
  • When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
• There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [5]
• Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [6]
• Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [7]
• CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [8]
• There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).

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

15:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

TOC templates

The templates {{TOC begin}} and friends have been updated following clarification at phab:T232477. This means that page numbers half-way though ToCs should now work (example).

There should be no changes to any page, but there is a new behaviour. Previously, whitespace between row templates was ignored. Now, it will be part of the last cell. One space between rows (including newlines at the end of the last parameter) is OK, but more than that will be added to the rows:

{{TOC begin}}
{{TOC row 2-1|This row is OK|1}}

{{TOC row 2-1|This row is OK|2}}
{{TOC row 2-1|This row is OK|3
}}
{{TOC row 2-1|This row will have extra space in it|4}}


{{TOC row 2-1|This row will also have extra space in it|5
}}

{{TOC row 2-1|This row is OK|6}}
{{TOC row 2-1|This row is OK|7}}
{{TOC end}}

This row is OK		1
This row is OK		2
This row is OK		3
This row will have extra space in it		4
This row will also have extra space in it		5
This row is OK		6
This row is OK		7

I believe that I have found and fixed any cases where this could have occurred. If you see anything that has not been fixed, please let me know. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:43, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Export links in the sidebar

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T255790

Hi everyone! Next week we (the Community Tech team, of which I'm a part) are going to roll out phab:T256392 which will move the functionality of the MediaWiki:Gadget-WSexport.js gadget into the Wikisource extension. The main change for English Wikisource will be that we can remove the gadget, but for other Wikisources it'll mean that have the export links (lots are missing the gadget, and quite a few have it but it's not translated into their language). I and the other CommTech engineers will be scooting around cleaning up scripts wherever we can, but if anyone notices anything amiss please let me know! This is a smallish change and is a precursor to the larger change that hopefully will come soon of enabling a 'download' button at the top of works (as some Wikisources already do). See phab:T266262 for more about that. —Sam Wilson 10:49, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Samwilson: excellent news! Thank you for this. I just added the "PDF (beta)" option to the enWS sidebar, because the normal "PDF" option is almost entirely useless for Wikisource works.

Can we have that removed as part of this, or should raise another Phab ticket? As well as the "Compile a book" link which is currently not working at all, as far as I can tell. It's confusing for users to have these two broken tools presented above the WS-export links. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Yes, good point: the Special:DownloadAsPdf link will be removed in this change (because it's replaced by WS Export; the function will still exist though, if people want to use it manually e.g. for Help pages), but the Special:Book link won't be removed (although I suspect it should be because it is pretty confusing… I can't find a task for this yet so will create one). —Sam Wilson 00:21, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

@Samwilson: I am guessing that the translations will be held at Translatewiki as part of the WM message kit. Are you able to send a list of the required labels to Wikisource-L so that those communities can start preparing, and also to ensure that the Tech newsletter has good instructions on how to complete the translations. [Many will not be transkatewiki aware.] — billinghurst sDrewth 14:48, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Yep, they'll be done (and some already have been) on TranslateWiki. Here's the full list. I've copied over all the existing translations that I could find on the various gadgets that are already in use, so those Wikisources that already had translations will continue to have the same ones. Here's the translation progress overview. I'll post to the list. I don't think it's worth putting a note in the tech newsletter because the missing translations will be done in due course, and we don't usually announce the existence of new interface messages. —Sam Wilson 00:21, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

This change has been completed. No more multiple PDF links for us! :-) Let me know if you notice anything odd. —Sam Wilson 23:03, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Manual addition of license categories to pages???

Can anyone think of a reason why we would manually categorise works, authors or portals by the categories subsidiary to Category:Works by license or Category:Authors by license? I would think that we would be looking for all additions to be by application of a license template (see Help:Copyright tags).

I am just doing some further configuration of HotCat and I would like to exclude all those categories from a search selection through HotCat; though seeking comment prior to actioning my thoughts. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:22, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

If you want to test, I have excluded both Category:PD-old-80 and Category:Author-PD-old-80 as a proof of concept, and you have to get to the 8 to do a decent test. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:29, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any reason.

I did a search to see if I could find a use case and found some interesting statistics:

• [[Category:PD has 989 hits
• [[Category:PD-USGov has 906 hits
• [[Category:PD-USGov-POTUS has 897 hits
• {PD-USGov.*[[Category:PD-USGov-POTUS has 888 hits

Seems to me like the latter group should be stripped of the category ({{PD-USGov-POTUS}} was deleted) and that'll fix 90% of the problem for PD tags. BethNaught (talk) 09:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Please join the English Wikisource Discord server

@Reboot01 and I a while back had suggested we create a Discord server for the English Wikisource, and now I've been bold and created it. Please join if you're interested in connecting with others on this project via Discord. I will give any administrators who join the Administrators role.

Invite link: https://discord.gg/g5UfBT6epz (permanent) PseudoSkull (talk) 18:25, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: Any particular reason this isn't a separate channel on the English "Wikimedia Community" Discord server? Mahir256 (talk) 18:30, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mahir256: Because we're a different community from Wikipedia, and their community etc. is very different from ours. The amount of chat that the server could (possibly) end up having might make it excessive for the two communities to be intertwined. For context, I also started the English Wiktionary's Discord server which is also completely separate from the Wikipedia server, and the server is successful anyway, as a large portion of the Wiktionary community is still active on that server to this day. I don't know how many users here at Wikisource use Discord, but I set it up in case they want a chat outlet through that service. PseudoSkull (talk) 18:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

there is also a wikisource telegram, but it is more indic wikisource. nice to have another channel, but unclear use case. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 03:26, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

How do I make corrections to the djvu file?

See for example History_of_the_Municipalities_of_Hudson_County,_New_Jersey,_1630-1923/Volume_3/Freudenberg,_Arthur_Oscar, how would I fix errors in the text? Is the text housed at Commons? I have only dealt with the text that is right on the page here. --RAN (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ):There are page numbers in square brackets to the left of the text. When you click one of them, you get to the page, e. g. when you click on [729] in the above mentioned article on A. S. Freudenberg, you get to Page:History of the Municipalities of Hudson County (1924), Vol. 3.djvu/461. On the right there is the scanned page and on the left there is the editable text. Then you simply click the edit button and the rest is easy. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Are we allowed to add in links to Wikidata and Wikipedia in djvu files? Can you remind me how to handle typos in the original printed text, mark them with "sic", but where would you show how it should read? Do you add a footnote? Do you just ignore it? For instance an article may say someone was born in 1900, and a more reliable source, like a birth certificate stored at Commons, may say that he was born in December 1899. We see that a lot in obituaries where they count back from the person's age, and can be off by a year. --RAN (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ): Unlike Wikipedia, we do not try to make here reliable articles but we just transcribe original sources as faithfully as possible. So, if a source contains a factual error, we reproduce it as it happened, because the error is simply an inseperable part of the original historical document. When the original text contains a typo, we keep it as well, although it can be pointed out using the template {{SIC}} (written in capital letters). As for e.g. mistakes in death years in obituaries, it can sometimes be considered to be just a typo as well, and so it is imo acceptable to indicate it using the SIC template too. We do not mark it in the printed document, only in the transcribed text. As for the footnotes, these are used only when there are some original footnotes in the original text. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to answer about the links. Many people consider placing hyperlinks leading to Wikipedia articles into the transcribed text to be a sort of annotation and avoid it, although from time to time you can see texts where such links were added. I personnally do not do it either. However, if the transcribed text is about the same topic as a Wikipedia article, such a link can be placed into the "wikipedia" parameter of the header, see the template {{Header}}. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:11, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

there is some limited wikilinks in the work header template. also Help:Contents is your friend. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 03:29, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Best practices for a magazine

I've started working on the first issue of The New Yorker and while I've searched the project pages, I don't really see a good guide on how to best transclude scans of magazines. Other periodicals seem to have individual articles broken up into text, which is probably wise for readability but it seems like there is also value in transcribing pages as a single document, too. Additionally, I seem to have screwed up the very simple task of trasncluding pages as well, so I guess I'm a total mess. Is anyone interested in helping me? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:28, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

that's very good work, 44 issues to go. you might want to cut each issue out from file:The New Yorker volume 1, numbers 1-19.pdf, and file:The New Yorker volume 1, numbers 20-45.pdf (thank you hathi and google books) in the future, you will want to combine single pages into a multipage pdf on commons to make it easier. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 02:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Slowking4: "in the future, you will want to combine single pages into a multipage pdf on commons to make it easier" It is: File:The New Yorker 0001 1925-02-21.pdf. What do you mean? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Page clean-up observation.

Sorry if this issue is known about already, thought I'd raise it just in case.
I have noticed that when I use the page clean-up button after I have created a table with a pad left entry in it, that my {{ts|pl2}} entry is changed to {{ts|p12}} which breaks the formatting. Not a major issue but just wanted to highlight it. The page I created is here Sp1nd01 (talk) 10:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Sp1nd01: This will be the rule .replace(/[il]([0-9])/g, '1$1'). I think generally it's better to run cleanup before adding templates, as it can be tricky to tell Wikicode from OCR mistakes, because Wikicode is not plain text, and the cleanup assumes it's looking at page text. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 11:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, I'll ensure that I only run page clean-up before I add templates from now on, I have been running it after I edit a page just in case I inadvertently add issues. Sp1nd01 (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I had not known this gadget which looks useful, so I searched for it and found out that it is provided by Wikisource:TemplateScript. So, I copied the code into my common.js as suggested there, but nothing changed, at least I do not see any change, no new button appeared, nothing. I tried clearing my browser’s cache, but it did not help either. Did I miss anything? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: The script is this one:

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

I also have a more in-depth one here, but it's pre-alpha in terms of reliability and it needs better config options:

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

Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Thanks! I have just tried it and looks really great. Can I update Wikisource:TemplateScript, replacing the advised code there? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: makes sense to me. Though I think really it's not a "templatescript" script (even if it uses it internally), so it could really go on a new page, maybe Wikisource:Tools and Scripts/PageCleanup. And then link there from Wikisource:Tools and scripts. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:15, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

If the whole page should be moved to Wikisource:Tools and Scripts/PageCleanup, then I will probably leave it to somebody else, as do not understand the page in detail and there might be more things to take care about. For example the other code mentioned on the page, which should enable some script dealing with typography, diacritics and letter case, probably needs to be updated too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:31, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: There is one more advice which does not work: "Go to Special:TemplateScript to disable scripts you don't use", but the provided link does not work. Where can I disable it? The gadget as a whole is very useful, but I do not like that it changes all curly quotes and apostrophes into straight ones, although the curly quotes have already been approved here, and so I would like to disable this particular feature. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:42, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Instead of using this sidebar version, use the toolbar pair mentioned on Wikisource:Tools and scripts. There's one for page cleanup and the following one for curly quotes. Once they're in, it's just two mouse clicks and done. The sidebar version is used by contributors like myself who don't have the toolbar switched on. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I can see it, thanks very much, I will use it. However, it seems quite redundant to turn all the curly quotes into the straight ones by one tool and then turn them back again by another tool… --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:57, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Not redundant really. I frequently get OCR'd pages with a mixture of curly and straight on them. Best to turn them all to straight first, which allows the correct pairings to happen with the optional second tool. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, true. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

For the sake of simplicity

Can I use this "<!-- -->" universally, regardless if table, or end of paragraph, or page?— Ineuw (talk) 19:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Or, can someone please suggest a single universal {{nop}} that is acceptable in a table structure and elsewhere?— Ineuw (talk) 04:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

html comment <!-- --> can be used for their effect anywhere within a page / page section that is html. Which means they cannot be used within themselves, they cannot be used in css or js pages, or where the html is interrupted, eg. with <nowiki>.

{{nop}} is a <div>-based interruption to wikitext rendering and {{nopt}} is a <span>-based version. Typically in a table we should use the "nopt", the span-based version, not the div, which is stuff that we worked out over the years and have discussed here. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:06, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-03

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).

Future changes

• The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [9]
• MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.

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

16:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Video games

I noticed there are no video game transcriptions here as far as I can tell, and I know there are freely licensed games that are popular and would probably meet our standards for inclusion. So I started this WikiProject/proposal page that explains my thoughts on 1.) why we should have video game transcriptions at Wikisource, to follow the same rules as for books or film, and 2.) some ideas on how transcription of games could be implemented. Video games are culturally significant and do count as works, so I think transcribing them here would be acceptable. As mentioned on the page though, a great majority of the video games we would normally include are going to be copyrighted in the US for 60+ more years (and in other countries much longer), but we should start now with what we have that's free if we're going to do it.

I'm willing to create a prototype of a transcription for a freely licensed video game, just to show my thoughts on what such a thing might look like. Any thoughts/comments/interest? PseudoSkull (talk) 07:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Which games would be copyright-okay here, please?--Jusjih (talk) 05:08, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Jusjih: I started a list here. These are a few games that were self-released into the public domain. Note that any game we cover not only has to have freely licensed source code, but freely licensed data—that would include the text you see during gameplay. Some games are open source but the data is copyrighted. For more info, see also Wikisource:WikiProject_Video_Games#What_video_games_are_free? PseudoSkull (talk) 05:15, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Don Q, Son of Zorro

It has come to my attention that several people on here wanted a copy of the silent film "Don Q, Son of Zorro" (1925) in one part. I am currently uploading the movie (single part) to Wikimedia Commons. It should be available on there soon. (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 22:48, 18 January 2021 (UTC))

@SurprisedMewtwoFace: That would be me. Thank you so much for doing that! I will transcribe the Zorro series fairly soon then. PseudoSkull (talk) 23:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: The upload is now complete on Wikimedia Commons. Hope you find this useful! You can find it at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Don_Q_Son_of_Zorro.webm (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 04:47, 19 January 2021 (UTC))

Incredibly useful, and a good quality encode, thanks! PseudoSkull (talk) 04:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

(Keep an eye out for Don Q, Son of Zorro if you're interested in the movie) PseudoSkull (talk) 04:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much for all your work! I'm sure you'll do a great job transcribing it. (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 05:26, 19 January 2021 (UTC))

The Unholy Three (1925 film)

I have noticed that none of the pages on Wikipedia or Wikisource have the film "The Unholy Three" by Tod Browning, which is now public domain. I have found a high-quality no-music upload of this film on Internet Archive and am now uploading it to Wikimedia. I hope this is helpful and increases access to the film. (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 12:30, 19 January 2021 (UTC))

Nice! Thank you again! I hadn't even stumbled across that film yet and so it's not in the WikiProject Film list, so well done. @SurprisedMewtwoFace: By any chance, could you grab a copy of Stella Dallas (1925 film)? Here's a copy, for example, but the audio and unofficial title and ending need to be stripped. PseudoSkull (talk) 12:38, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

By the way, if you'd like, you could join Wikisource:WikiProject Film, a collaborative effort on Wikisource's film coverage, with a lot of resources on films listed. PseudoSkull (talk) 12:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: Upload is now complete. You can find it at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Unholy_Three.webm (SurprisedMewtwoFace} (talk) 18:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC)))

CSS help wanted

Page:The New Yorker 0001 1925-02-21.pdf/25. I spent hours on this unholy mess. I give up. Can anyone make this work? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

{{overfloat image}} is good in combination with plain text but much worse for combinations with table-like designs.

I suggest to upload images of single bags instead of one image of both bags. Then we can create a table with a cell on the left spanning across four rows and containing an image of the bag, a column of four cells in the middle, and a cell with the other bag on the right. Alternatively, it should be OK to use only one image of the bag twice. For the middle cells I would use {{dotted cell}}. If you agree with this solution, I can do it. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:07, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

There is a single bag image already on Commons but that is not tabular data, so it's bad semantics. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:44, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Can I ask the question "why?" We are here to represent the text in a way that reasonably portrays the publication. We are not slaves to an absolute facsimile. If something is an artefact, like that image, then stick in the image as a png/jpg, as long as people can see what the page contained, then so what that it somewhat differs in look, that will happen due to screen width and the toggle of screen layout. When it gets to be an epub, it will be different again, so why do we fuss beyond a representation? — billinghurst sDrewth 03:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah, i would be happy with a centered image in the middle of text in one column, and push corner image (not text) to bottom. - like side footnotes, verisimilitude is more trouble than it is worth. thanks for trying though. and only 44 issues to work on. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 01:05, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: The reason why is because accessibility is not optional. I agree that we are not obliged to have complete photographic reproduction, just typographic and as long as we can make the text appear in some logical fashion, that's what matters (e.g. I did not try to retain all of the pagination-related formatting such as arbitrary columns). The frustrating thing is that HTML and CSS can do this but I'm just failing to make it actualized on this page. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:30, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Koavf: Why can't you add the image, and add the text as alt=. That is generally what I have done when I have added pictures of monuments where the words are evident in the photographs. Or simply give a good alt description when it is an inconsequential part of the reproduction. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:45, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: That is also bad semantics: the purpose of alt text is to serve as an alternative to the image in cases where (e.g.) someone is blind or someone has images turned off or someone has bandwidth constrictions and the image won't load. Including alt text for a monument, grave marker, sign, etc. where the actual object has writing on it as an integral part is appropriate but adding it here would not be. That said, were someone to do this, where would you actually put the text itself for users who are reading it? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:55, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

It is a trade-off where we are reproducing a work from ages ago where the work is not envisioned to be presented. With these works, add the image, if there is text on the image then transcribe it; explain it. Trying to reproduce the text in a scroll box at an angle seems like a waste of good time and effort to try and facsimile. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Slowking4: Yes, unfortunately, there is still a lot to do in an ideal sense, such as converting line drawings to SVG and having transparencies instead of opacities, etc.) I'm reasonably happy with what I've been able to accomplish there minus this CSS problem. I'm not sure how motivated I am to personally go thru the Herculean task of the entire first year of The New Yorker but if I have assistance, I'd be motivated to continue. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:30, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

oh, it is not that herculean. just have to make some proofread compromises. should be all red, if not yellow, by year end, just in time for next year's batch. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 18:57, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Not at the rate it's going now: it's taken three weeks to do one issue and that's without all of the best practices I mentioned above. Plus, that has probably been c. 100 hours, so that would be two full-time jobs doing it by myself thru the year (which I will not commit to) and the fact that I've done a lot of the heavy lifting solo (altho, of course, I am very appreciative of any the work that my collaborators have added and continue to add). Additionally, the scans of subsequent issues are much lower rez and missing pages, which will require a decent amount of forensics and reconstruction. I would be pleasantly surprised if we were half-way done by the end of the year before an even bigger crop of issues drops. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Alice in Wonderland (1903 film)

As I was doing some maintenance on all films across the project, I noticed this film's encode was deleted from Commons (see the deletion discussion). Having a transcript with no film is not good. It could still be reuploaded here though, though it will be PD enough for Commons' standards in just a few years. PseudoSkull (talk) 04:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

on hold In the process of migrating the file, though pywikibot on toolforge is failing for me phabricator ticket in play. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:, task T272345 is resolved. Mpaa (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

PDF icon

Can we change our PDF download icon from to something like (which is what frWS uses)? Or something else from commons:Category:PDF icons under Public Domain. Using the FSFE "free PDF reader" graphic is a noble aim, but PDF icons are white with a red trefoil for the vast, vast majority of people, and the "f and green" means nothing to most people, so there's no instant visual recognition. If we really can't tolerate the trefoil, the icon should at least use a "red" metaphor. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 11:39, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Are you watching the work Community Tech is doing on export? At least one of the tasks covers icons and descriptions, and one way or another these two should be sync'ed. --Xover (talk) 14:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I am, but AFAIK there's not been much about icons so far. There are some very small icons on phab:T271869, but they won't be obvious at all without a label next to them. Perhaps if we just have a textual "download" button we won't need any icons, but I wonder how obvious that will be for passer-bys. And the front page especially is text-heavy (by necessity), so icons help differentiate from the content of the works.

And we can always swap it out for a really nice themed set later on if one appears. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Well, I was thinking more along the lines that it won't help if we find nice icons if they use crap ones, but… :) --Xover (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: that sounds like a bun fight for a future day? For now, it's just {{featured download}} and {{export}} (and the icon from Mediawiki:Mobile.css). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment I have no preference as long as it suitably indicative of what is being presented. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:48, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Share your feedback on the OCR improvements!

Hello, everyone! We (the team responsible for the Community Wishlist Survey) have just launched the project for OCR improvements! With this project, we aim to improve the experience of using OCR tools on Wikisource. Please refer to our project page, which provides a full summary of the project and the main problem areas that we have identified.

We would then love if you could answer the questions below. Your feedback is incredibly important to us and it will directly impact the choices we make. Thank you in advance, and we look forward to reading your feedback! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:35, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Public Domain Day 2021

A reminder that many works will enter public domain on Jan 1, 2021. We have a page Wikisource:Requested texts/1925 that lists some of these works.

Please keep in mind that:

• Some works enter public domain in their country of publication but not in the US, in which case we would not host them on Wikisource.
• Some works enter public domain in the US, but not in their country of publication, so scans of these works must be hosted locally on Wikisource and not on Commons. There are notes about the date an Author died on the page listings to make this determination easier. Most often, the issue is a UK publication, where copyright applies until 70 years after the author's death.
• And some works are entering public domain in the US, and were published in the US or were already in public domain in their country of publication. These works should have their scans uploaded to Commons.

Also keep in mind that some databases will have imperfect scans. It is always a good idea to give a new scan a thorough check to ensure no pages are duplicated, missing, upside-down, or otherwise problematic before starting transcription. Some scans entering public domain have not had many sets of eyes checking them. And a happy Public Domain Day to everyone. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I wish you a happy Public Domain Day, and TBH I care about that more than the actual "New Year" holiday. As a side question, do works all officially go into the public domain at 12:00 AM EST? Or is it when all US time zones have crossed to 2021? PseudoSkull (talk) 00:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

That's a tricky question, since the US publications were generally published in New York (EST) but the servers are in PST. I generally start once the scan of a work is available at whatever scan repository hosts it, which can be several days after. I do not know what timing Commons uses for this issue. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah, the copyright lawyers tend to go for date and year only, so no case law for time of day, either UTC, EST, or NZST. it's five o'clock somewhere. Great Gatsby and New Yorker have the most buzz, but hard to find first editions. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 01:13, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Please undelete previous versions of The Great Gatsby. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

We will want to do that when the clock hits 12 AM EST at least. That's 1hr8m from time of posting. (But we need to make sure there's a source DJVU or PDF first.) I'm hyped! PseudoSkull (talk) 03:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I took a look. Only one of the deleted Gatsby edits contains the text of the novel, as a single-page info-dump, from Gutenberg Australia. I do not know how reliable their texts are. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:17, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

that scan version. [10] has a 1953 renewal. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 21:25, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

As I understand it, renewals for 1925 works should not be relevant any more… Am I right? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Correct. And thus, our tags of 1925-not-renewed templates should just be changed to 1925-expired, as that trumps even the lack of renewal. PseudoSkull (talk) 21:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

it is not a first edition, so you should not put a 1925 on it. which may not matter for this work, but some authors revised considerably, and the general lack of firsts is a problem. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 01:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That is true. However, there is the original 1925 edition available too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 01:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

And the first edition is now available at File:The Great Gatsby (1925).djvu and Index:The Great Gatsby (1925).djvu, at the full resolution HathiTrust has (but won't let you download). Work is ongoing at Index:The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald - 1925.djvu using the post-1953 reprint, but I might actually be tempted to dive in on this one myself just so we have the first edition too. Time permitting… --Xover (talk) 03:26, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

it seems to be fully downloadable now. don't know that the editions are different enough to matter. we should really cultivate a wikipedia library / academic librarian with hathi access to work a download list. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 21:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Well let's make it official

Happy Public Domain Day, as it is now 2021 in EST, a time zone within the US! Please welcome our new handful of public-domain works, now freed of their needlessly restrictive copyrights. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

If we want to be generous, I suppose we should wait three more hours for PST to go into 2021, though. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

If you want to be really thorough, wait for Hawaii. BD2412 T 07:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I would like to wait for UTC-12 to enter New Year next time to be fully thorough, despite no one living on Baker nor Howland Island.--Jusjih (talk) 04:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. BD2412 T 17:41, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any point in being so careful. Even pedantically speaking, I can't see it being worse than filing in the federal courts in California, under PST, and even that I think would be tossed out as de minimis. It's cutting such thin straws to push it after that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:59, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Okay, then, on January 1, 2022 at 7:00 AM EST, several films from 1926, under copyright right now, will have transcriptions automatically added to Wikisource by PastLovingBot. By then no incredibly litigious lawyer with nothing better to do could argue that we uploaded something 1 hour before it technically went PD for all US time zones, because some EVIL SAILOR who is stranded on Howland Island might PIRATE the movie there via satellite Internet, and have it finished downloading 1 hour before midnight. What kind of HORRIBLE man that sailor would be, isn't that right, copyright lawyer? Shame on him! PseudoSkull (talk) 18:11, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC: HotCat and better customisation

HotCat is a gadget that enables easier categorisation of pages throughout the wiki. There has been customisation undertaken to make things easier for our needs, or to stop duplications, or to allow for finding categories after they have been moved. There is also possible customisation that users can do individually, and some of these we can do collectively.

I invite users to read the help pages at Commons => c:Help:Gadget-HotCat and consider should we be doing some better local configuration. Current local configuration at MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js/local_defaults.

At the moment we have it configured to traverse up and down hierarchies, to use its redirect functionality (present in {{category redirect}} and use the feature to not populate certain categories. We have not got any shortcuts in place globally, though I use a couple for some of my current project work.

Just putting it out there in case anyone can think of valuable changes we could discuss. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

'Birth of Burns' programme: typography

I have just created 'Birth of Burns' programme, 1859. The original has a border, dotted rules (like our dotted TOC) and other typographical features; can any of them be emulated? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I gave it a go with a CSS image border, I'll look at improving the dots in a little while. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: so there isn't a pre-made TOC row template for this, and my immediate efforts to make one didn't quite pan out, but the {{TOCstyle}} template can do the dots+undercut: Special:PermaLink/10868174. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 16:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-04

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

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on 28 January at 09:00 (UTC). [11][12]

Changes later this week

• Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [13]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).

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

18:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Moving Wikimania 2021 to a Virtual Event

Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language. Thank you!

Wikimania will be a virtual event this year, and hosted by a wide group of community members. Whenever the next in-person large gathering is possible again, the ESEAP Core Organizing Team will be in charge of it. Stay tuned for more information about how you can get involved in the planning process and other aspects of the event. Please read the longer version of this announcement on wikimedia-l.

ESEAP Core Organizing Team, Wikimania Steering Committee, Wikimedia Foundation Events Team, 15:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924)

Is there some reason why the US Gutenberg and other sites don't have public domain versions of this yet? It should have gone public domain last year, and I can find it on Gutenberg Australia, but the availability seems more limited than it should for whatever reason. (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC))

I have found a Gutenberg version of this book uploaded to archive.org, but it is strange that the scans of the 1924 original are not to be found anywhere. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 15:15, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I guess I could convert the Archive one if worse came to worse and upload it here, it just seems very strange that nobody has the original. I didn't have much trouble finding the Oz books once they went public domain, in contrast to this (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 15:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC))

FYI, if you do feel the need to use a PG source, there's no point uploading a PDF made from PG source material - you might as well just copy-paste the text directly. All a PDF achieves is wasting time matching up pages. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

it is not at all surprising that there are scan gaps. the scan effort tends to be at university libraries, and first editions are rare. have to go to library with book scanner and book, and upload to IA, to get a meaningful pdf. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 05:50, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

If all goes well, then leave it to me to search out a copy in my state's (FL) library systems, lockdown/curbside pickup or not. (My search only began a couple moments after I read this.) --Slgrandson (talk) 06:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

only reprints in worldcat. you might try here https://baldwin.uflib.ufl.edu/ but i'm not find it there either. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 14:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Looks like we just found a candidate (from the Dupont-Ball collection of Stetson University). --Slgrandson (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The WS:NLS has a copy too. They have an active WikiProject here. @Chime Hours: is it possible to request thing like this go onto a scanning queue of some sort? Lofting died in '47, so it's PD in the UK too. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Excellent! I assume this means we'll eventually be able to get a copy up. Question; if Lofting is public domain in the UK now, shouldn't the file be on Wikimedia when we upload it? And is there any difference between the US and UK edition? (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 04:39, 22 January 2021 (UTC))

Penn Library [14] has links to the other newberry award books, if we wanted to work the list, Portal:Newbery Medal. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 22:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Many thanks for your enquiry regarding the potential digitisation of Hugh Lofting’s Dr Doolittle. I have consulted with colleagues who ran your enquiry against the Library’s approach to selection for digitisation . Unfortunately, given the lack of a direct connection to Scotland and the fact that the publication is widely available, we do not see ourselves in a position to prioritise this work for digitisation under our existing programme.

However, if you wish, you could ask for the item to be digitised as part of our Copying Service. You can find more information about this service online here, and the site also includes a link to the digital imaging charges and more information on re-use permissions.

Please bear in mind that all of our staff are currently working from home and that the Copying Service is therefore currently not available. It will resume operations once we are able to work back on site.

One final note regarding the copyright status of this item: it might be worth investigating whether the item is indeed fully in the public domain. Should it include any illustrations then those might still be copyright protected, depending on the death date of the illustrator (or on confirmation that the rights in the illustrations have been passed on to someone else, such as the author or publisher). You might want to investigate this before deciding to pay for digitisation via the Copying Service. While we do not claim any rights over the digital images, the provision of such images through this service does not guarantee that the original item is free of all rights.

--Chime Hours (talk) 11:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924) problem

there is a problem with transcribing "Tarzan and the Ant Men". On a couple of pages there is a glyph that is not a letter in English or any other written language that represents the language of the people Tarzan encounters. I don't think there's a way I can make it as a symbol on the keyboard. What should I do? (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC))

Index:Tarzan and the Ant Men.pdf and I don't see any pages marked as problematic, so I can't see what glyph you're talking about.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I have now marked the page with the problematic glyph. It appears on only one page but appears twice. Hope this helps. (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 01:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC))

I think the only way is to upload it as a picture and then include this picture into the text.

However, the pdf file is very strange. I do not see the glyph when I look at the page here in the proofreading extension, I see it only when I open the pdf file from Commons and look the page up there. What is more, in the first line of the second paragraph I see something like 80034~2i, while after opening the file from Commons I can see there 800³+21. Really weird. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Project Grant Open Call

This is the announcement for the Project Grants program open call that started on January 11, with the submission deadline of February 10, 2021.
This first open call will be focussed on Community Organizing proposals. A second open call focused on research and software proposals is scheduled from February 15 with a submission deadline of March 16, 2021.

For the Round 1 open call, we invite you to propose grant applications that fall under community development and organizing (offline and online) categories. Project Grant funds are available to support individuals, groups, and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, from organizing a better process on your wiki, coordinating a campaign or editathon series to providing other support for community building. We offer the following resources to help you plan your project and complete a grant proposal:

• Weekly proposals clinics via Zoom during the Open Call. Join us for #Upcoming_Proposal_Clinics|real-time discussions with Program Officers and select thematic experts and get live feedback about your Project Grants proposal. We’ll answer questions and help you make your proposal better. We also offer these support pages to help you build your proposal:
• Video tutorials for writing a strong application
  
• General planning page for Project Grants
  
• Program guidelines and criteria
  

Program officers are also available to offer individualized proposal support upon request. Contact us if you would like feedback or more information.

We are excited to see your grant ideas that will support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Put your idea into motion, and submit your proposal by February 10, 2021!

Please feel free to get in touch with questions about getting started with your grant application, or about serving on the Project Grants Committee. Contact us at projectgrantsTemplate:Atwikimedia.org. Please help us translate this message to your local language. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

| portal =

How do I link an article to two different portals using "| portal =" at a transcription? --RAN (talk) 18:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

For example, "| portal = Comedy film/Silent film" PseudoSkull (talk) 18:52, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks! --RAN (talk) 20:11, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

  Noting that the same trick applies to | related_author = as we use the #titleparts parser to separate them. Obviously this won't work well when the page is portal/subpage or author/subpage. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:36, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Proofread?

I would like to ask if it is possible to unmark contributions by Ewarusin from "proofread" to "not proofread". An example is Soldier's return, with his kind reception.pdf/3. These pages look like raw OCR, the individual verses of poems are not on separate lines, long es’s are replaced by ef’s, there are gaps before punctuation and others… If there were only couple of them I would do it manually, but it seems they are really many. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I presume you are asking for a bot request. Yes, that can be botted.

To the issue, if the text is right, and it is a formatting issue, then I would more typically not mark not proofread, as someone can fix it next time round. I would also be helpfully addressing the corrections with the contributor, showing them the corrections that I have made to get it to the standard and you will often find that they will go back and update to that standard. I have a bot script for conversion to {{long s}} so any work that has that should just be listed for that replacement as a bot request. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Cf. Wikisource_talk:WikiProject_NLS#Formatting_and_proofreading (and the prior section, actually). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I mean. I can discuss it with the contributor, but at the moment there are a lot of pages such as the one linked above and I doubt the contributor will go through all of them again. So I would like to know what the general opinion of this is. As far as I could see, this sort of proofreading was happening for quite a long time without much attention of other contributors. One reason could be that simply nobody noticed, but another possible reason is that people consider it OK, and in such a case I will leave it as it is too.

Ad if it is formatting issue, I would not mark not proofread. Well, raw OCR is sometimes quite good as for character recognition, but not perfect, including problems with long s, gaps, punctuation etc. Proofreading imo means removing these issues left after OCR process and "proofread" imo means that the contributor tried to do it thouroughly. The only step following after proofreading is validation and validated works should ideally contain practically no problems, but if this is left for the validator only, we cannot expect good results.

Ad script for conversion of f to long s. That is definitely a useful tool, but 1) it is only one aspect of the issue, and 2) I still think that every page should be marked as proofread only after a human thouroughly checked each of them and that bot intervention is not enough for rising a page’s level to "proofread".--Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

In this case, the answer is NO, the proofreading is not suitable. My answer was general with new users that we talk about the proofreading being okay, but sometimes the more complex formatting for poetry is where they need guidance. If the proofreading of the text is good, and it is not transcluded, then I would not be reverting. This is social reasoning in that I want to encourage new users and guide them along the way with encouragement, not slap them in the face with a "not good enough" approach. Yes, patrolling this earlier is the way to address the matter. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks for explanation. I definitely do not want to slap a new contributor in the face, I also remember how hard the beginnings can be. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 00:00, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to convert usage of header "categories" to proper categories—ongoing

Hi to all. The use of categories as a parameter within {{header}} is painful as they are not recognised by any of the tools that manage/manipulate categories (eg. hotcat, cat-a-lot, autowikibrowser, etc.), meaning that any maintenance of categories needs to be done manually. At this stage I am not proposing that we remove the ability for categories in this manner, though I am proposing that where this style of addition is used, that there is a bot replacement to convert those categories into traditional style cat, and that this bot be run as an ongoing tool. [Detail not yet worked out just wish to propose these changes and seek agreement first.) — billinghurst sDrewth 04:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

 Support having two ways to add categories is silly and there's good tooling for "normal" categories (perhaps there wasn't when category-in-header was invented), so we should standardise on that. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:12, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Strong  Support per Inductiveload. BethNaught (talk) 23:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Categorisation of occupations (continued)

I have been trying to build a nice hierarchy for occupations (something like medical occupations > surgeons > ophthamalogical surgeons), and in the end I have abandoned it in favour of flat categorisation. It is just ugly and too much personal point of view, and a flat structure just takes away all those aspects, and allows for articles to have as many categories as they require.

I am going to end up with

• Category:Occupations (parent, contains categories of occupational type only) ^[1][2][3]
  • Category:Authors by occupation—all occupational author categories (contain author: ns pages)
  • Category:Biographies by occupation—all occupational biographical works or subworks (contain main ns pages or subpages)

1. currently set to not allow HotCat additions, and to be flagged if non-empty
2. currently set to have two subcategories Authors by ... and Biographies by ...
3. These categories are what are Wikidata matched to occupations and interwiki'd; and I would think that we would avoid if possible subcats being their own items, or at least accepting that the will not match much.

What I would like to hear is people's opinions to how we categorise the following:

• Fiction works that are about an occupation? (could be main namespace pages or subpages)
• Non-fictional works that are about an occupation? (main namespace pages or subpages)
• Portal pages about people? (portal: ns pages)
• Portal pages about occupations? (portal: ns pages)
• Files that we host onsite, be they book, image, or video(file: ns files)

Are these new subcategories of occupation? Are they to be placed in existing subcategories

To note that I am still unfinished on moving and tidying the authors by occupation categories. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• why don't you do a listeria from wikidata, and roundtrip the categories based on the query? in larger sense, what do you want categories to do? as we know, search on WS for works or subjects is so bad no one does it.Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 23:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

  Re Listeria, as people are generally shit at putting stuff into WD, so it is not only under-populate, but often those that populate there are under-detailed. We have some hope on the biographical works, especially compilations.

  Re categories, we have been okay out of main ns, and I want to get it somewhat sane and functional. You are right though, to have structured categories we need a structured approach and filling here is going to be a killer. I will push something into Wikisource:WikiProject categorisation and try somewhat to start that. I can see some deep dives into the archives here, as we have been around this maypole a few times previously. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

  if you are going to build out category ontology, i would suggest doing it on wikidata - about the same amount of work, but easier maintenance. and you can round trip using wikidata queries such as listeria. they are doing a lot of this at commons. (creator ~ author) creator template; [15] Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 23:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• So what happens to books about the occupation? Books that are not biographies but treat the profession? For example, a book about what an Astronomer does, how they train for their profession, and such? Where would those books go? --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Lapitch translation

After Doctor Dolittle's Circus, time for another one in the "has a '90s family movie (and franchise) based on it, and we can't believe no scans are around for it yet" department. That's right: I'm referring to Čudnovate zgode šegrta Hlapića, a 1913 children's adventure by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić. (Disclaimer: I was a major contributor to this topic's WP articles back in my heyday.) Brlić-Mažuranić passed away in 1938, which already means we're in the clear so far.

Hlapića may be available in the original Croatian these days, but its first English translation anywhere didn't arrive until 1972. (I remember borrowing that edition, entitled The Brave Adventures of Lapitch, as part of my WP research.) Which makes it officially off-limits at Wikisource, along with CroatiaFilm's cute, brilliant, but highly underrated animated adaptation (the one with the mouse) from 1997--of which I have been a fan since its blink-and-miss airings on Disney Channel at the turn of the millennium.

The HR Wikisource version isn't scan-backed, and our usual go-tos--GBooks, IA, Hathi, Europeana, and Gallica (the latter two EU-based)--offered us no help on a first-edition copy. Beyond that, a 1921 reprint is floating around in the University of Pittsburgh's shelves. (With special thanks to WorldCat, our last resort in times like these.) Once I get that via ILL where I am, it's about time we got Translation:The Adventures of Shoemaker Lapitch (tentative title) going. Any volunteers or feedback? --Slgrandson (talk) 04:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Slgrandson: I'm afraid I can't help with Croatian, but if you need help generating a DjVu with an OCR text layer from scan images I can help with that. Do also please let us know if you need any help with setting up the index and transclusions etc. for this (our documentation isn't great for this use case and it can be fiddly). Interesting project and I look forward to seeing how it turns out! --Xover (talk) 06:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

The Monster (1925 film)

@PseudoSkull: Sorry the last upload wasn't really usable in its current form. In the meantime, please take a look at this other 1925 film I found, The Monster, featuring Lon Chaney. You can find it at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Monster_1925.ia.webm (SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC))

Title of an executive order

There is an edit war on how to name a United States executive order. The long-time practice on Wikisource is using "Executive Order + number" as the title (see Category:United States executive orders). But KamranMackey seems arguing to rename all the executive orders to the "full title" ("actual name"). I hope that the community can reach a consensus on this issue first. Any thought? --Neo-Jay (talk) 13:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I didn't mean to start an edit war; I didn't know that was a longstanding practice to do that formatting, but I should've, judging from prior precedent with Obama-era, Trump-era, etc Executive Orders. I apologize, but I do have the opinion that this should be changed, as I don't currently agree with the naming scheme. It's not very explanative when it comes to searching them. E.O.'s have a name for a reason; this should be used over the number in my opinion. That's my stance on the matter, as I think it'd be easier for users to search for the Executive Orders by name instead of number. To further my point, and to clarify: This should only retroactively apply to Trump-era Executive Orders, and perhaps older Executive Orders over-time, but not done all at once. This would be a very daunting task, considering the total amount of Executive Orders posted on Wikisource. - Kamran Mackey (talk to me · my contributions) 13:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The titles of the executive orders are both in the header templates and the content itself, so it handily comes up in searches anyway. The actual name of the wiki page is not as important as the gigantic font size suggests - it's basically a handy title for putting in [[double square brackets]] that's primarily unique and secondarily suggestive of the content.

Bike-shedding (I was tempted to use a more graphic verb) over the page names for controversial and political topics might be a popular pastime at enWP, but IMO it's rather a waste of time.

Numbering also has an advantage in that it's easy to link with template parameters without needing n redirects from [[EO 12345]] to [[The President Says Jump, Federal Minions Say How High (US EO 12345)]], and easy to link forwards and backwards. Plus we have how x thousand EOs in the numbered schema already.

If you really must have the titles on hand, you might consider a project to ensure the numbers, titles and dates are set correctly at Wikidata, and then create a Template/Module to pull that data in so you can have {{EO link|1234}} come out like "Executive Order 1234: The President Says Jump, Federal Minions Say How High, 1st January, 1978 (26 FR 508)." Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

While this muddies the waters, I 100% think that the best title for these is "Executive Order [Number]: [Title]" (possibly omitting the colon). This is a machine-readable/sortable title that is also human-readable without being too long or unintelligible. They should be sorted in most categories by number. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:14, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

+1 Inductiveload - do not rename, until you have a broad consensus. warn the editor to stop, until they have a consensus. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 21:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, but at the same time, "Executive Order on <subject>" more strictly follows the long-standing naming of Executive Orders on the White House website so that might still be better, in my humble opinion. - Kamran Mackey (talk to me · my contributions) 15:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

you realize that the whitehouse.gov changes every four years? [16] better would be federal register [17] and those are by EO xxxxx. why don't you revert your moves until there is a consensus? Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 00:05, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

As a compromise for everyone's suggestions, why don't we add alternative naming schemes to the Manual of Style? E.g. have the current naming system in place for older Executive Orders, but for Joe Biden's administration and later administrations in the future, have "Executive Order on <subject>" as an alternative? As the Executive Orders for Joe Biden's administration are already titled "Executive Order on <subject>" and it wouldn't be that productive to move 20+ executive orders to the older naming scheme at this point. - Kamran Mackey (talk to me · my contributions) 15:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment redirects are a useful means to add alternate names; they are cheap to the system and used intelligently can be really helpful. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

further  Comment Look to set up some customised uses of {{engine}} and look to utilise some dynamic categories to generate specific data. You can be a lot more adventurous in Portal:Executive Orders of the President of the United States and have a whole string of search engines, and categories. We started doing things like Portal:1903 and it is something that we could truly look to do better. If all your data is over in Wikidata then we can consider Listeriabot, see d:Wikidata:Listeria — billinghurst sDrewth 23:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

IOW think of this holistically on what can be achieved, not solely at the level of the name of each executive order. What are you trying to achieve, what is the largest scope that you are trying to achieve? — billinghurst sDrewth 23:15, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

a listeria from https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1338798 would be useful, and better than the list article on english. but changing the naming convention is not useful. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 02:38, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment I would vote to keep the orders as "Executive Order ######" as that is one of the official titles and the main title they are cited by in other documents. The government thought it best after about 100 orders or so to start numbering them, and I think we would be wise to keep following along with that. I wouldn't be opposed to User:Koavf's suggestion above of a dual title though (e.g. "Executive Order ####: Title"). FWIW #1: I don't think it makes sense to think about how much work it takes to implement one standard vs. another, the standard itself should be as strong as possible and cleanup work can always be done on a rolling basis. FWIW #2: I just looked at the page view counts for both Executive Order 13985 and Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, and Executive Order 13985 as a name is beating out the full title with a ratio of 9:1. Not sure how much of that is template bias (since the headers are set to link to the EO numbers and not names), but it seems that people are able to find the order by number. Clay (talk) 21:24, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Older Executive Orders

Just as a heads-up about this whole discussion, many older Executive Orders have no numbering scheme (prior to Lincoln in 1862), so to be clear, any scheme we come up with needs to have some comprehension of that and is flexible for those hundreds of non-numbered ones. Additionally, these will need to be categorized somehow and will overlap in chronology with numbered ones (i.e. the category of Abraham Lincoln EOs needs to be able to be sorted somehow). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Just an idea, we could title these by date (e.g. "Executive Order of MMMM DD, YYYY"), since there will invariably be different title formats (or lack thereof) from one president to the other, and this seems like a safe bet to catch all these cases. Alternatively, we could use their titles, but if we look at the list [here], many of the early orders weren't titled, so that doesn't seem like it will be too viable of a solution. Clay (talk) 21:24, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Clay: Sure but as you can also see, there are many that were issued the same day. Are suggesting that it's only the ones around Lincoln's first numbered one that gets this treatment? If so, Lincoln has two unnumbered ones from 1862-02-18. Would those be "Executive Order of February 18, 1862 A" and "Executive Order of February 18, 1862 B"? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:31, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Koavf: What I am suggesting is a different standard for all the unnumbered ones than the numbered ones going back as far as possible, not just limited to around Lincoln's presidency. In this case, the two different standards wouldn't be sortable against each other, but I can't really see a way to do that with any of the proposals so far. As for the example, a little confused because I can see 4 orders on that date, but yeah, I don't see a way around doing it like that (or "Executive Order #1 of February 18, 1862", (#2, etc.)). 2 of those lack proper titles, too, so not sure what could be done to organize them any better. Clay (talk) 21:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, I think that is even more confusing as there actually is an Executive Order #1. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Then we could use the letters, it doesn't really matter to me in that regard. Clay (talk) 22:27, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Collaboration with Google around Children's literature

Hello everyone,

Wikimedia Foundation is planning a collaboration with Google Read Along for a project around illustrated children’s literature. While the entire project is being scoped out, in the first phase Google Read Along will take works from Wikisource and integrate on their platform. This will allow younger audiences to access works from Wikisource in a mobile-friendly platform and also learn how to read the language, which, as the name suggests, the Google Read Along platform is basically designed to do.

We have shared the Portal:Children's literature with Google so far. There are certain books here which match the expectations and requirements of Google, such as the poems in The Real Mother Goose. It has good illustrations and short poems. I would like to request your help in transcluding this book.

Additionally, it would be really helpful if you can help identify other children’s books that have short tales, poems, stories etc. accompanied by good illustrations. Perhaps you can add those in the portal itself.

You can read more about Google Read Along here: https://readalong.google/

Feel free to ask any questions that you might have. Thank you so much!

--SGill (WMF) (talk) 07:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@SGill (WMF): What does Wikisource get out of this? Step one basically sounds like "help Google slurp our content". Of course our mission is to create high quality, open source digital books, but I don't want to let Google take the credit. Or, why don't they hire or train a Wikimedian to improve the content they want to reuse, instead of asking us to do that work for free? BethNaught (talk) 08:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Seconded. At the very least, I hope they put a nice big pretty notice saying (paraphrased) "This comes from, and was prepared by, Wikisource. They'd love for you to get involved in preparing more Public Domain books for children and adults alike. Come on over and have a chat :-)".

I'll be thrilled if it genuinely gets us more exposure, but less chuffed if we're just a cost-saving on a Mountain View management spreadsheet to avoid them having to pay an intern to transcribe a couple of hundred poems (a task that would be substantially easier if the millions of books they've scanned weren't scanned in bottom-drawer quality, and compressed so hard the words literally fall out). If that's their aim, I might suggest Portal:IWW instead! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 09:48, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikisource gets someone else getting access to these works, which is the point of site. You won't find many who dislike FAANG/Frightful Five companies more than me but 1.) they are undeniably good sources for getting our work out to the public and 2.) free licenses mean free licenses. I second Inductiveload's proposal for more I. W. W. works being propagated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@BethNaught:, @Inductiveload: and @Koavf: Thank you for your comments. The idea here is definitely to get more exposure to Wikisource and its content. We have been talking with other organizations regarding the same as well and hopefully we will share those with you soon. There will definitely be attribution for Wikisource, perhaps even a separate section on the application, but exactly how this happens still needs to be figured out. The first phase essentially is to integrate existing content which meets their specific needs (good illustrations and relatively short pieces of text). We are already discussing the idea to hire/train a Wikimedian to help them in this in the next phases. The questions before the next phases can be envisioned is: Are there a lot of works on Wikisource that would meet their requirements or are there only a handful one?

It would be really good if you can help surface some of the proofread/validated texts that you feel might fit into these requirements (good illustrations and relatively short pieces of text).

Also, what do you think would be the best way to search for texts on Wikisource that have illustrations and are written for a the age group 3 to 8?

I looked at I.W.W. works but they don't look like works written for children that Google Read Along can integrate as it is basically a platform for children, ideally between 3 and 8 years of age. --SGill (WMF) (talk) 10:18, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@SGill (WMF): To be clear, the I. W. W. reference was (partially) a joke: I don't think that anyone would seriously expect that Google would make a bunch of union songs available for children. (But we can always hope!) That said, I think the best way to find relevant texts is thru the portal linked above, which also includes some suggested reading levels. There is also Category:Children's literature and the related portals here. I suppose I would be concerned that kids just may not be interested in older material but I'd be happy to be proven wrong (I loved The Box-Car Children when I was nine.) Additionally, a Wikisource-adjacent project is Wikijunior which has some original works intended as reference volumes for children. I'm not sure if Google are motivated to include those as well but I figured I would point it out as specifically kid-friendly Wikimedia content. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@SGill (WMF): Yes, that was supposed to be a joke. I'm not against free use of Wikisource content. Indeed, that's the whole point of WS. And I'[m CERTAINLY all for exposing Wikisource more, because awareness of Wikisource is near zero in the general public. Even people who know Project gutenberg don't know us. I just don't want to end up having WS users faffing about to help Google scrape up content, for free, to put into a walled-garden Google-branded mobile-only app without some kind of reciprocity. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

hardy hardy har. really laughing at the google bashing, smdh. as someone in the room, when author's guild said "hathi trust is just a pirate like google", i regret i did not respond: "arrrrgh". the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 02:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

There is also Portal:Children's fairy tales and Portal:Children's poetry. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@SGill (WMF): The Real Mother Goose is done. It may not be the best example since some of its formatting is awkward and the images relatively low resolution, but it's probably roughly representative. @Inductiveload: Could you give it a "Ready for export" check?

Also, since this is a relatively novel application for us, it would be interesting to get feedback on our markup structure, metadata, and visual layout from the perspective of the Read Along project. What makes it hard for them to reuse our content and what made it easier? What would be their wishlist for what we should provide? Does connecting our pages to Wikidata help them at all? Are they able to reuse our formatting or will they end up having to do a lot of transformation?

Let me also take the opportunity to echo Inductiveload's comments regarding Google Books. If an opportunity should present itself to channel feedback in that direction there are a number of issues that makes Google Books close to net negative value for our purposes, and we would love for the opposite to be true. Scan quality is the biggest issue (and without decent scans we can't add works with nice pictures for the Read Along guys!), but there's also things like lack of stable URLs, arbitrary copyright practices, hard to download scan images, bad bibliographic metadata, etc.

@Xover: Done; a few tweaks were needed (an align=center; the first few poems were using blank lines to separate lines), but it now renders well in Koreader and "OK" in Moon+Reader. The images are actually pretty nice and big at Commons (e.g. File:The Real Mother Goose pg 5.jpg is over 1000px wide), we just don't embed them at a very large size (in this case, using the default "frameless" size of 180px). Presumably Google has enough nous to get the originals for processing into whatever internal format they need for their app. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah, +1 picking picture books which is a wikisource>gutenberg, but a single book of fifty pages is not much of a challenge. rather they should double down with a list from Category:Children's books or https://ufdc.ufl.edu/juv, or Roller Skates or Newbery Medal, with some prizes to get some traction. (we need better tools to generate list of works by subject with status; now that all the IA books are at commons, a work list would be helpful ) Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 02:30, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

FYI, Roller Skates' copyright was renewed (Renewal: R341460), so it's not PD until 2031. Though Google can probably license the rights from Saywer's grandkids, we can't host it yet. In fact, every Newbery winner from 1926–1950 was renewed. :-( Now, if Google really cared about providing full access, they'd buy the rights to them all and donate them to the PD. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 11:19, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

i see 9 texts on Newbery 1922-25. but they are older more text than pictures. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 00:57, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• SGill (WMF): How long is the longest individual work that is desired? Certainly, short, multi-page poems would be appropriate, but for stories, how long would be too long? I am interested in adding new works for this project, but I don’t want to add any work which would be too long to be useful. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 01:46, 20 January 2021 (UTC).

Apologies for the delayed response and thank you for the useful feedback everyone. @Slowking4: Better tooling for building various lists is definitely required and a challenge with related books sounds really good. @TE(æ)A,ea.: Ideal works on Google Read Along have 170 to 220 words. Longest work can be of at-most 450-500 words. If there are even longer works that have really good illustrations then Google might take it and split it in parts. I will share more details once there is some progress. --SGill (WMF) (talk) 02:58, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: and @Inductiveload: Thank you so much for your support. --SGill (WMF) (talk) 03:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Category:Professors is not an occupation

As Professor is a title rather than an occupation, I was thinking that this may be better described as "Academic" though would like to hear the opinion of others of what to do with this category. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:55, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

that is a German view: for Americans, titles are a job description. but i leave the ontology fight to you. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 14:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Hm, does it mean that in American English all titles including PhD etc. qualify as "jobs"? I also would not include "professor" or any other academic title into the category of jobs or occupations, but I admit that my native language connotations interfere here too. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it kind of does double service in English. "Sam is a professor at the university" kind of implies Sam works there and performs certain duties (and might be an answer to "what does Sam do?"), whereas "Sam is a professor of geology" speaks mostly to the title rather than the occupation (and might be an answer to "is there anyone who can comment at length on this rock?"). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, Billinghurst’s suggestion of making it a subcategory of Academics in fact admits them as a sort of occupation too, as Academics are a subcategory of Authors by occupation. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

My recommendation is that wherever we see occupation listed as "professor" that we are replacing it with "academic". So authors who are professors will be "academics as authors" and where we have biographies they will be "biographies of academics". I was not planning on retaining an open active category for professors, that would become a category redirect. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:46, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Across the parts of academia that I'm most closely associated with (NZ, Australia, UK), Professor is a title of a senior academic. An institution only has a certain number of professorships and it is rare to grant a professorship to someone who does not hold a doctrate. A family member's academic career saw them move through the ranks of Tutor, Senior Tutor, Junior Lecturer, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, and Professor. The whole way through, they regarded themself as an academic. From this perspective, I agree with the proposal to convert any "Professor" categories to "Academic". [I am, of course, aware of the American way of calling most of those ranks "Professor", but regard this as a regional quirk.] Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:45, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's correct to say that professor is a title rather than occupation. w:Professor describes it as an occupation; arguably without that title, academic is just a job. w:Academy#Academic_personnel puts academic as a larger, somewhat fuzzier category (sometimes including academic librarians). For me, using "academic" reminds me of the way that the Library of Congress uses "cookery" whereas LibraryThing users use "cooking" or "cookbook" As for regional quirk... 64.3% of the world's native English speakers live in the US. I'd be interested to see what India uses, but even tossing Ireland into the countries Beeswaxcandle mentioned, you still haven't hit 1/4 the world's native English speakers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: I will agree that it can be a labelled position/rank which may be more accurate than my original statement of title, eg. Professor of English. It is a title that shows a rank (there are of course further subdivision these days within professorship). We don't categorise someone based on "Reverend", we call them clergy or similar. I will also see that I have seen the title used by people heading up 19th century schools, though no clarity on how or what it portrays, beyond a leadership role. Someone may achieve the rank of professor, however, what is it as an occupation? They all start out in a profession at a lower rank and work their way up.

Maybe we are missing classification based on "rank" or "position" at Category:Authors though in a tenured sense it is hard to capture that and would hate to have to manually assign. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:31, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

As a general note that WD item you linked to is professor (Q121594) academic title at universities and other education and research institutions and the article lede is => Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.') is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors are usually experts in their field and teachers of the highest rank — billinghurst sDrewth 23:38, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

professor tends to imply a tenured faculty, academic implies that plus adjuncts, non-tenured teaching assistants, etc. but not "Herr Professor", as Americans really don't do titles. "Is professor a formal title or just an academic qualification? Neither. It is a job description. Like a military rank, you only have it while you are doing the job." [18] but if you insist on imposing UK/German nomenclature,[19] go for it. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 04:56, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

As a practical matter with respect to the category tree itself, one can be employed as a professor without being an author. Although it is almost impossible to land a professorship without at least writing a thesis and dissertation along the way, one need not be either publishing or recognized for one's writing to get such a position. I suppose that professors who aren't authors will be of little interest to this project. BD2412 T 23:59, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Not certain where that is leading. I am currently working on author pages, so all are authors while redoing the framework for occupations so we can list "as authors", "biographies of"—later we can work out what to do with portal namespace pages. I am currently adding new hierarchy, moving pages, and converting the occupations to utilise {{meta category occupation}} making them unable to be automatically categorised with HotCat. If "Professor" is an occupation it should be dealt with, if it fits elsewhere then it will be moved and reviewed at another time. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:24, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I see what you mean. We don't have as a subcategory of Category:Authors by occupation people whose occupation is "author". BD2412 T 01:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Well ... whoever as a paid author has just ever been a paid writer? Authors will typically do something else whilst they create or supplement a literary career. If you are looking for classifications of "professional" writers then you typically see them sorted into Category:Authors by type or Category:Authors by genre; again these are a different issue. I am trying to resolve our issue where main namespace works are sorted into author: namespace categories. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:12, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

At the risk of falling into something of a more philosophical discussion, we have, for example, Author:Benjamin Disraeli in Category:Novelists because he wrote novels, but this was by no means his occupation; we similarly have Author:Victor Hugo in that category, and this was very much his profession, the labor that was the source of his income. We should have some way to delineate people for whom writing was their occupation from those in other occupations who wrote works of a particular type or in a particular genre, but not as an occupation. This is, of course, completely tangential from the question of professors. BD2412 T 06:54, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@BD2412: Novelists is category:authors by type not by occupation. That said there are other problems that I have been tripping over and fixing. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:25, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

call me lazy, but i would just import the values from wikidata. this is the kind of ontology wrangling, and maintaining that should be done at a central location, rather than deciding on each wiki. Slowking4 ⚔ Rama's revenge 20:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Slowking4: Sure, however, the categories are still in a built hierarchy, and that is what needs fixing, and what I am fixing. The populating is just an artefact, and what I am working towards. The categories also still need to exist. I have also reached out to someone in d:Wikidata:WikiProject and occupations to discuss what they are doing and helping fix our mess. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment for the moment, I have moved Category:Professors to by Category:Authors by type and I am thinking on whether we have a by title or by rank or by position criteria missing,or something like that. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:17, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Add export/ebooks links to {{new texts}}

I think it would be a good idea to take a leaf out of frWS's book and add export links to the {{new texts}} list. For example, see Template:New texts/item/testcases for a comparison.

The export links being visible drive a lot of downloads: the featured texts get around 4000 downloads each: https://wsexport.wmflabs.org/statistics (which, if I'm reading that page right is about 2/3 of all epub downloads) and nothing that's not a featured text gets a look in. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: (CC Samwilson) I think the current plan at Community Tech puts a big honkin' download button right next to the title of every single mainspace page. However that ends up we should rethink our own strategy in light of that.

PS. Sam: I've not had the cycles to think this through, but it occurred to me that that "in your face" download button is a bit of a different beast than the sidebar links. On enWS we have typically put download links front and center only on featured texts, and more recently we've been trying to surface texts that are ready for export. My gut tells me we may want to be able to control when that Download! button appears, possibly in the form of only showing up on pages in a given category. Or, you know, something smarter. In any case, throwing it out here for lack of a better way to raise the issue. --Xover (talk) 14:15, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: I think the current plan at Community Tech puts a big honkin' download button right next to the title, sure, but that still needs a click-through, whereas this is about getting some download links on the front page as a "hook". Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:19, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: Yes, thank you for raising this, we've been thinking about it a bit. One idea was to add the download button on every page but make it possible to remove (e.g. via a magic word). The current task for it is phab:T271869. One issue with hiding it by default is that for lots of wikis it may never be enabled, and so readers will be less likely to know they can download epubs etc. Very happy for any suggestions of course! And there's always scope for per-wiki differences. :) — Sam Wilson 01:58, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I made the change. Let's see what happens to https://wsexport.wmflabs.org/statistics. @Samwilson: can you see the most downloaded books for a given language in a given month? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 18:53, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: You mean e.g. filtering the 'recently popular' list to only show a given language? Very good idea. (By the way, the current top three in that list are from here: The First Men in the Moon, The Life of the Spider, and The Vampyre.) I don't think there's a phab task for such a thing yet (there's phab:T267963 but that's only for access data; still interesting). I'll create one. The whole stats page needs an overhaul I think; not sure if CommTech is going to have time to do all that this month, because we're trying to move on towards the OCR stuff. — Sam Wilson 23:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Samwilson: yes, exactly. Even better, show a complete list of ebooks by title and type for a given language, and maybe an hourly graph so we can see the patterns (i.e. we can know if we get hits after we change things, etc). Or just make the stats available by REST (or even DB read access for tools?) and let people fill their boots that way, then upstream any useful analysis into the stats page later. Might be worth tracking downloads from OPDS vs Website too? I don't really have great ideas for what highly granular data is for other than stats porn, mind you! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: The database is readable by anyone with a toolforge account, and nightly dumps are available at https://wsexport.wmflabs.org/logs/ if anyone wants to go the DIY route. But I agree: better graphs and tables would be great. Feel free to open tickets for specific reports that would be good. They don't all have to go on the same statistics page. Maybe we could make stats feed that could be displayed on works' talk pages (just a little thing, similar to the XTools info line)? You might be right though, and overly-precise statistics might look good but not be completely useful all the time! —Sam Wilson 00:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: The change you just reverted was proposed and discussed (such that there have been no objections and mostly tangential conversation) over a week ago. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 18:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I looked and found no links to the edited template, nor discussions in the Scriptorium using the word "Main Page" on the subject. I point out that while there were no objections raised, there was also no support. I am now objecting. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:03, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

The current listings of new texts include films, for which the proposed download icons do not function. Having brightly colored buttons next to each work listed on the Main Page, that do not do what they are supposed to do, is not a good idea in my opinion. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:07, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

They do work, they download what is essentially a script. Perhaps not incredibly useful since 1926 was still very much the silent film era, but not useless. Better might be to add some kind of indication that the item is a film. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:12, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

As the main person working on film here right now, I can attest that a film transcript in print is not useless. For example, what if someone were to hold an event where they were to show the film in public, and wanted to print out copies of the transcript for the audience to go along with as they watched? I myself have actually thought about having paper versions of these film transcripts to give to family members as I showed them some silent movies. And as for sound films, which have transcripts that include who says each line of dialogue, they are even more useful, because those can be used as full-on scripts and can literally be used to conduct a play or something with the exact same storyline. So I support the inclusion of download tools supporting film transcripts at Wikisource. I also support having PDF download links within the New texts section, if we are going to also have them there for books. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Re: "They do work". No, they do not. I tried grabbing a download and got only a title page. Nothing but a title. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: Which one doesn't work? Because in general, they work for me. There some ongoing snags with a few works (e.g. phab:T270367) but the majority of works have functional exports, including all the films currently on the front page. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:19, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Epub is not working for the films currently listed on the main page. If they are working for you, there may be platform-specific issues. I am using a Mac. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: The Epubs work for me in Koreader, Moon+Reader, FBReader and Nickel (the Kobo stock reader), as well Evince, XReader and Okular and any WebKit- or Gecko-based renderers (Firefox EPub reader extension and Calibre). Are you sure it doesn't work on whatever software Macs have? For example in Evince, it doesn't change page on scroll-down. Can you change section manually? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:45, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: you're a Mac user, are you not? Do you see technical issues with the epubs like this one? If so could you report at Phabricator for eyes on while the tool is still being worked on? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 23:59, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

 Comment May want to double check whether this is a {{page}} issue. Dim dark memories that the template caused some weirdness at some point. @EncycloPetey: do you get the same issues with the pages if you try and create your own ebooks using the export means from the page? — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I do not have difficulties if I pull from the Epub link on the page itself. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

The link is the same either way, AFAIK. All the new texts work via the {{export}} template for me. Does this work for you?    Inductiveload—talk/contribs 01:52, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: I'm not a big ePub user so I have limited experience for comparison, but so far as I can tell all the Little Nemo links in this thread produced ePubs that look fine to me in Apple Books on macOS 11.1. Ditto the PDF, but I don't have anything that can read the mobi file so I haven't checked that. --Xover (talk) 06:54, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Xover: thank you for checking!

@EncycloPetey: is it still not working for you? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The Little Nemo test above works for me at this time, yes. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: and are there any now that are not working? {{export|The Title}} will generate the same links that that fail for you. The only difference between that and the new links in the sidebar is that {{export}} uses + between works (using the {{urlencode}} magic word and the sidebar uses "_". @Samwilson: is one better than the other? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 08:48, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: No, they function the same. We could use {{urlencode:The Title|WIKI}} to produce slightly more readable URLs with underscores, but it doesn't really matter. —Sam Wilson 09:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Samwilson: OK, I've updated the templates so the URLs are the same to keep the links consistent. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 10:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any that aren't working now. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:57, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Animal Life and the World of Nature/1903/06/Notes and Queries

The following discussion is closed:

All files moved as requested.

Please move file:Animal life and the world of nature - Notes and Queries - Alice Foljambe - 1903-06.pdf and the two associated pages to "Animal Life and the World of Nature - Notes and Comments - Alice Foljambe - 1903-06.pdf". Apologies for the error. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:04, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I can find no indication of why the above request was removed from this page; so I've restored it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The file is on Commons, so you should make your move request there. Once that's done let me know and I'll move the Index and pages here. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Put a simple TO DO note at my talk page at Commons for move FROM => TO and I will get both done. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:46, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

@Beeswaxcandle, @Billinghurst: Conflicting instructions (but thank you). I have now moved the file on Commons (I thought this should not be done unilaterally). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Alternative, not conflicting. I have advanced rights at both sites, so can offer different alternatives. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:07, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

changes made Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:54, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Inductivebot

The following discussion is closed:

Bot flag granted.

Hi! Could I please request the bot flag back for User:InductiveBot? I'm starting to thing about making a fix for the {{TOC begin}} family and that might need a bit of bot finagling to remove things like blank lines that will cause issues after the fix is made.

Also I'd like to use it for general maintenance task, moves, replacements, etc., like it used to do 10 years ago.

None of the tasks it would run are run constantly, they're started manually and supervised. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 17:09, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

•  Comment Just noting that since this is a request for reactivation of a previously approved bot—and one with an extremely low potential for controversy or disruption at that—the bot policy allows for an abbreviated approval process rather than a full minimum 4 days discussion + 7 days trial period. It does require the flag be granted by a `crat though (so ping Hesperian and Mpaa). original (2010) authorisation, 2013 confirmation, and I think the flag was removed when we purged the inactive bot accounts in 2017 or thereabouts but I couldn't be bothered to dig it up just now. --Xover (talk) 09:47, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Flag set. I did not wait long, given the history of Inductiveload and their bot here. In case of disagreement, please continue the discussion and the outcome will be considered, as per process.Mpaa (talk) 18:31, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 23:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Xover (talk) 18:31, 3 March 2021 (UTC)