User talk:Billinghurst

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[edit] Cromwell

Thank you for helping proofread Cromwell. Just to save your time if you want to help more, the full text of the preface is available proofread on Wikisource at Preface to Cromwell so it doesn't need to be proofread again. The text is identical. Thanks again.--Natl1 (talk) 12:25, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Thx. We could look to copy the proofed text over, and transclude the pages back. -- billinghurst (talk) 12:33, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Done -- billinghurst (talk) 04:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Horrid scan

No argument from me about this, but here we have a case where the alternate scan is just fine. So I added several more pages of text. There is the general underlying issue: the first pass posting of djvus having left these effectively useless images, is it worth just going to the PDFs of a better scan and troubleshooting? (I don't know the extraction technology, but presumably I could learn and substitute at Commons the ugliest customers.) The reason I hesitate is that some whole volumes might be better replaced, and that would call for automation. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, err. I am no expert on DjVu file formats, though do know that they are bundled pages, with an image and the text, such that they can be built and deconstructed, even to the point of extracting/inserting pages. Whether it can be done _on_ server, I do not know. One would hope that there was secret means to do rather than download, pull apart, reconstruct, reupload. We had identified that there were some craps scans, however, trying to resolve that discussion meant we sunk into a mire, and the idea of buying and scanning a set was just wishful thinking. {John Vandenburg or ThomasV are probably more around the DjVu technology.)

That said, we can do a level of cheating and get back to the complete (bundled) works per se at a later time. For our final outcome of transcluded pages we can transclude from anywhere and including multiple files, into the main namespace, and look at the stitching problem when we can. To this point, we can always scan individual pages (as a last resort), upload and work from those. Personally, for this project my major interest is the availability of the information contained, rather than worrying about the purity of each work.<shrug>

Plus apologies for no response to some other questions. I have been as busy as a blue-arsed fly, and getting to concentrate on DNB has been tough, especially when one nominated the WS:PotM. billinghurst (talk) 08:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

OK - my interest too is in the information, and in grabbing it to bump up WP. I shall proceed as before, and just proof-read somewhat from the PDFs to make the articles that most attract me. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Work to speedy complete

What Jarry1250 said! -- billinghurst (talk) 20:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Featured but not locked texts

The following texts are featured but not locked:--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 15:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

1. Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration
2. The Times/The Late Mr. Charles Babbage, F.R.S.
3. South Africa Act 1909
4. United States patent X1
5. ACLU v. NSA (District Court opinion)
6. The Wind in the Willows
7. J'accuse
8. German Instrument of Surrender (7 May 1945)
9. A specimen of the botany of New Holland
10. Fatal fall of Wright airship
11. Charles von Hügel

[edit] Not a bug ...

A curious artefact with DNBset, which I have been using. On pasting text from the rendered article, you can get this:

He disapproved of the introduction of Sunday schools (Polwhele, Reminiscences, i. 138-42), but in a sermon before the House [ 267 ] of Lords on 30 Jan. 1779 he advocated an extension of toleration to the dissenters (Hore, Church of England, i. 435-6).

as from Ross, John (1719-1792) (DNB00), second sentence of third para, where the transclusion crosses from one page to the next. This [ 267 ] doesn't appear on the page, but is in the "plain text" pasted version. What seems curious to me is that arriving at Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/272, what appears is the square brackets is not 272, but 267 which is the original DNB page number. Staring at the template code tells me nothig much. Is the original page number stored in some way in the djvu? That could be useful. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Page numbering in <pages> is taken from the <pagelist> on the Index:... file, which is why I have been slowly working through updating them.

Less welcome is the compulsory newline as in the references section of Lyttelton, Charles (1714-1768) (DNB00). I don't see how to get round that from the Page end. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Due to the formatting with {{smaller}}. I have copied text over and done includeonly and noincludes, which is a little ugly munge, though effective.-- billinghurst (talk) 10:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Awards

You ought to have them too! So if I may have your permission to give them to you, here they are:

Thanks again for all your tremendous work. --Zyephyrus (talk) 22:46, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I do have them quietly put on another page. <meek smile>-- billinghurst (talk) 10:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Another page? Which one? They are hidden very well! ;-) --Zyephyrus (talk) 20:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Celtic Fairy Tales

Hey,

I've been meaning to give you thanks for your work on Celtic Fairy Tales. I definitely appreciate some of the work spent on validating those pages.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Very welcome. I believe it is what we are all about.-- ab

[edit] Headers, footers and other goodies

Hi. Thanks for the info. Yesterday, I studied proofreads prior to mine, and went through all my work from #29 to #98 and corrected the missed italics, removed the headers, the last hyphens connoting continuance, and used two hyphens -- to indicate the em dash, for reasons I won't mention :-). I will continue from 99 and leave 29-89 for the 2nd proofreader if that's OK. Ineuw (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

One more excuse. I was using the beta skin which lacks page navigation and the header/footer [+] view. Now, I reverted to the classic editor which makes things much easier. Ineuw (talk) 14:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] My edit summary comment

My apologies about the confusion, the issue is not important - but thanks for asking! --Piotrus (talk) 16:55, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Apologies

Apologies for the confusion [1]. It is public at Commons but I can see how it would have been best, as you said, to allow Cygnis insignis (talk • contribs) to respond if he wished to. Cirt (talk) 17:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Template changes

I saw an extra category so investigated a bit! Have fixed the contributor category usage in the header template and added an expression for WP entries. mattbr 13:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, didn't see that. I have updated the documentation. Thanks, mattbr 16:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thank you for the awards. I appreciate them very much. :) Regards, Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 19:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

No expense spared! -- billinghurst (talk)

[edit] Advice: Vandalism or Good Faith?

Hello, again.

Before I revert an edit by some non-registered user I wanted to be sure not to do so in a manner contrary to WS practice. I only ask because the edit, while completely inappropriate for what amounts to "locked" content in the form of an Act of Congress, is not of the Azz-Puss or whatever variety but one that raises valid points better hashed out in the typical Wikipedia manner rather than here. TIA. George Orwell III (talk) 22:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

(Sorry for butting in!) Whether or not the text is vandalism, it's not part of the original text, and definitely doesn't belong there. If anything, it should be discussed on the talk page. Regardless, Wikisource is not really the medium for discussing the legality of laws and by-laws. Jude (talk) 23:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

What he said. In short, the work belongs in the body; and commentary, source, etc. belong in the Notes or on the respective talk page. Similarly, if there are subpages, most categorisation belongs at the top level, not at sub-level unless there is a point of difference to make. -- billinghurst (talk) 04:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I assumed as much but simply reverting things without any explaination given (not even in the comments field) in light of the apparent "good faith" some edits are made in does not always sit well with me. The closer I observe the happenings around here the more it becomes clear that things like this are more the norm than the exception. Again, my two cents is worth exactly that - two cents - but I really came to you here only because you tend not to overlook the reader/editor, be it a new-comer or a well-known regular, as something more than just another intrusion or annoyance (IMHO) in somebody's project or whatever. In this case, it was just a one-time-IP-address-only type user so I can grudgingly live with it. Thanks. George Orwell III (talk) 05:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see the hint of a question of "How do I handle it". Generally I will undo with a comment along the lines of

1. quick summation in Summary field of why undone, then
   1. (for named user) a {{welcome}}, quick note on User page of what I have done, and sometimes further explain why
   2. (for IP address) put {{subst:welcomeip}} and as above
2. if less than good faith, then I also add {{test}}
3. if vandalism/vulgarity where they know it, then I just rollback.

Commentary can be along the lines of

• Works at Wikisource are replicas of earlier published works and are reproduced as they were at the time of publishing
• Reverted. Changes were unsourced, uncommented.
• Your note has been moved to the Talk page.

etc. Keeping tone neutral. If they have a question, they will get back to you. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No need to tap-dance around the fact I specifically wanted to know what you recomended here - I thought I alluded to that point in the very first sentence - so there's no hinting involved at all. The fact the edit was inappropriate was already a given and NEVER the question & NEVER considered not reverting it either >long sigh<. Thank you for your time and, of course, the requested feedback I was looking for. George Orwell III (talk) 06:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

And there is the difference between just and legal. Also, try to remember what is the purpose of Wikisource. It is not to record verbatim every conversation, nor every speech, nor to record every item about US law and US presidents, it is to reproduce published works in the public domain. So when NBC loses its copyright on the work, we can reproduce, so our task is to work hard at being here for that time. :-)

With all due and utmost respect :-) I don't believe you or anybody else speaks as the absolute voice of an ongoing collective collaboration that's normal state should be one of constant flux. The reality in the Super Bowl instance is the White House transcript satisfies WS """Standards""" via the Creative Commons 3.0. I raised the point and nobody acknowledged or dismissed such licensed work as meeting or missing qualification for WS. Since the general effort, in my limited observances on an almost daily basis since at least February, seems to be geared more toward repressing entities such as branches of government and any sub-divisions under it including other "entities" who aren't so much individuals in any rational mind, rather than actually completing the listing of what's acceptable under which license, there is little point in proclaiming this or that is there?

Forgive the inappropriate place this is posted George Orwell III (talk) 21:28, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Huh? Never claimed that I did, nor that I wanted to be an absolute voice, and not sure that how what I said could be seen that way. Not sure that conclusions that you are drawing from my statement are what I was attempting to say, as there was no thought of criticism either implicit or explicit. <shrug> -- billinghurst (talk) 05:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thx for the update. I have been using your template and I notice that if I change the page range then it still works. Have you thought of leaving out the page range entirely and rely on it finding the correct sections? I'm not sure if there is a performance hit but it would be simpler and have one less thing for a human to get wrong. Victuallers (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll try and catch the developer and have the discussion.-- billinghurst (talk) 20:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: recording the page numbers has quite a number of advantages, though. I wouldn't be happy with having them omitted: for example any time you want to make a small text correction, or check back against the original, or suspect there might have been vandalism, you want a quick reference to the Page-space version. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thomas said it is too expensive in cycles anyway. Note that if a whole page is inhaled (within the page range) that it doesn't need to be section'd. If the from= ... to= is omitted it will still display the page numbers as that is what the script does, and they are toggled on/off on the LHS of the page.

Note that we don't have to use <pages> we can still use {{Page}} to inhale the page. If I was going to write a script, I just wrote it so that it could manage multiple pages scenarios. Part of the issue was that we had carried on with the original style that others had used — and I hadn't wanted to rock the boat — and in the end I thought that it was antiquated and as the personnel had changed I was more prepared to suggest the change. billinghurst (talk) 07:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking about the section marking on entire pages. I suppose I don't know the precise aim, in getting a final text version segmented in various ways (into articles, pages, volumes). More precise question, therefore, example running over three pages. Say I start on page 100, put in my "section begin" marker there, place "section end" at the end of p. 100, omit section markers on p. 101, place "section begin" and "section end" on p. 102. It all probably works if the "section end" on p. 100 is omitted; but this seems bad practice in terms of a style in which "parentheses" once opened should be closed. (The "section begin" on p. 102 is presumably vital.) In some applications parsing the text in the future, would the absence of the mark-up be felt? Like some other DNB issues, it is still kind of fuzzy to me what we want. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I generally try to keep all tags on a page complete, things just seem to get screwy when being too smart especially with transclusions. I work on the premise that I want the whole page, or a part of it, and mark the partials as such. billinghurst (talk) 11:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Simple Wikisource

I added the underconstruction tag to the page. Negano (talk) 11:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Munich

Thanks for the heads up. - Mtmelendez (talk) 20:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Disambiguation pages for share Dictionary entries

Yes I think pages with links is the way to do it. Eclecticology had some experiment going where entries from several works about a person were welded into one page with separate headers for each entry. I found this was confusing, and I thought a better approach would be a page, like your disambiguation pages, with links to pages devoted to a single entry, not corresponding entries from several works welded into a single page. One wrinkle was there were entries from works without projects, like Encyclopaedia Americana. I think stub projects should be created for these, and for now everything can be listed on one index page since I don't think there are very many entries. Hopefully with links to facsimiles as well. Something like this was started for Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. A search doesn't seem to turn up the pages with Enyclopedia Americana entries anymore. Seems a shame to lose that work.

Thanks for dealing with these. I extracted the Britannica component from all the ones I could find, and even DNB entries for a few of them. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 22:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The entries can be grabbed by links to their templates EAm06 so we can look to generate pages and deal with them, though it is a little about finding the time for all of those things. I could probably add them to a category. Probably start up a TO DO list rather than just wing it. -- billinghurst (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

My other thought, and this is another stab at dealing with the issues Eclecticology was going after, was to have a Subject name space in addition to the Author one. So a person, or other topics perhaps, could have a Subject page with links to Wikisource articles about them or mentioning them even if they never wrote anything, and perhaps even people with an Author page could also have a Subject page to handle the "Works about ..." sections of what are now put on Author pages. Thanks for the tip about using the template. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 21:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I had similar thoughts, at least in terms of handling this with some new namespace. There does seem to be a bigger issue, namely the handling of reference material generally. When it comes explicitly divided by topic, then the text as such (the volume, whatever) is seemingly not the unit, since it is unlikely that the reader treats the continuity by page order as very significant in most cases. The case for doing something about organisation by identical topic is very strong. The case for doing something about related topics is also there, but some application of the category system might be suited to that. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Not against the thought, it is partly the issue of delivery, and how it is to be scoped, and how usable it is for the punters. Beyond the standard namespaces (Template: Category:, Help:, Mediawiki:)

• Main namespace is for Works, (and to disambiguate works); we also have newspapers in the same zone, though they are sometimes more than a specific edition/volume
• Author: namespace for Authors
• Index: namespace, Page: namespace, File: namespace for organising copies of works
• Wikisource: namespace for WS material and to enable collections of data
• Portal: namespace, pretty much unused.

The Wikisource: space does have some subject type material, eg. Wikisource:Biographies. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, some adaptation of the Portal namespace is a kind of interesting thought in this context. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:54, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

So how do I get from Wikisource:Works to EB1911 and NSRW? I couldn't find a route. The Wikisource namespace seems like the answer for the subject pages. This seems like the route to go for an individual who doesn't have an author page, but some number of articles on them. So for a topic or individual it would be a matter of creating the page and fitting it into the hierarchy rooted by Wikisource:Works. I guess there is a corresponding template to link to them from Wikipedia? I'll try this when I feel like I've overly cluttered some Wikipedia page. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 22:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I would have said that we can build a disambiguation page in the main namespace with a page called John Smith where it has articles Smith, John (WorkA) ... (WorkZ). We are disambiguating between similarly named articles, not showing what is available on the person.

So I installed Wikisource:Reference Works on Wikisource:Works. I notice the Special:Search seems to pick up on the disambiguation pages even if an author page is around, so it probably is a good idea to put a link to any author page on the disambiguation page. I found this happening with Frederick Douglass, so I put an author link on that page. It actually might be better to make it a redirect to the author page in those cases. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't be doing cross namespace redirects. If they are an author, we can and should disambig page Author pages from the main NS in the method you described (SEE ALSO). There is also a conversation at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Portals that followed on more generally from what we had here.-- billinghurst (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question on proofread articles

Billinghurst, what happens with pages like Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/690 once they have been proofread? Do they stay in the format they are in or are they used to create articles for wikipedia or wikisource? There are manny grand articles in the Popular Science Monthly. I enjoy reading them as I work to proofread them. But I don't think they should stay isolated page by page in the area they are in now once they have been proofread. What are we allowed to do with these articles? Can we place them together as an article and use links as well as appropriate illustrations for them?

Respectfully,
William Maury Morris (talk) 05:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Books/articles in the Page: namespace are proofread there, and then transcluded into the main namespace. An example of that I am working upon at the moment is Index:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu being made into Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. One would think that PSM will get the same treatment.

So from your point of view, you can join the project or you can help proofread, and watch the pages appear.-- billinghurst (talk) 06:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] q

Are you doing what I think you're doing? :-) Hesperian 06:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Umm, I dunno. I am doing three things at the moment as everything is taking so long to load

• Derivatives of Index:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu
• Cruising through Cyg's contribs and ticking off DNB & SBDEL stuff in Page:space
  • and thinking (and groaning) can I be bothered aligning SBDEL text and images
• Patrolling

Is that what you thinking I should be doing? <shrug> billinghurst (talk) 07:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Mate, I wouldn't dream of telling you what you should be doing. I stalk Cyg—use a script to identify his proofread pages, then validate them. Within a few minutes of me updating my list at User:Hesperian/C, you had validated several of its pages; e.g. [2]. I rather got the impression you were making use of my list yourself. Wrong again, I guess. Hesperian 07:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Crap! Looks like I have been doing it the hard way. That looks like a better sorted list then I have been using, except it isn't showing the full Page: namespace doings. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If you use pywikipedia, I'm happy to throw my code at you. Hesperian 09:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I made a quick stab at {{Active projects}}, if you want to take a look and tinker with it; ideally I'd like it to be smaller to be the same size as CotW and PotW for the welcome template to not "resize" when it's selected; but keep an image (that one, or a similar one showing "collaborative writing"). Thoughts? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din.} 17:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Greek Unicode

Thanks for that great link. The character is not there, so, I will search for someone later. Ineuw (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] On Knoxville manifesto

Hi, I want to assert that the Knoxville church shooting manifesto is not a copyrighted document, but a manifesto or open letter in a style similar to that of the Unabomber; in particular, he addressed this "to whom it may concern", meaning that it was to all who had an interest in his ideals and motivations, rather than to one person. If there is no coverage of this letter's contents on Wikisource, then some of it should at least be included in Wikiquote. --Toussaint (talk) 04:49, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

To whom it may concern does not make it public domain nor what would be a published open letter and therefore copyable to WS. If there is evidence that the American courts and law would see that the document is in the public domain, then happy to hear that evidence. billinghurst (talk) 05:01, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Florence Earle Coates

Thanks for all the touch-ups to the FEC pages... Much more refined! Wondering if you might have an answer to a question posed on my Talk page...? Thank you, Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

That was fast, thank you! Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:40, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Kansas Senate Prayer

Thanks for the correction in title. --TheMandarin (talk) 05:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

.

[edit] uplaod

Hi

My english not so good. my Language is Hebrew. I uploaded that file because I want to create someing like this. can you help me.

I don't now how to found the fole the I uploaded. --Israel.M (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm meaning to be here at English Wikisource because only over here you can create something like this.

do you can create that for me?

I would have thought that it was possible at Hebrew WS, the Index/Page: environment is not special to English WS. Your English is far better than my Hebrew. :-) billinghurst (talk) 09:11, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The pool is deep

Thanks for your most informative message, and grateful for permitting to dip my toe and allowing to experiment. The concern is that I am taking up too much of the resources by moving, deleting, and thus giving the admins additional work, as well as sucking up resources.

The namespace concept is self-explanatory, but I need to digest a lot of information. I am compiling a list of answers as to where I was heading and why, posting them from now on the TPSM discussion page, rather than the Scriptorium.

[edit] Template:The Parson's Opinion of "The Parson's Cause" (Rev. Jas. Maury vs P Henry)

Maury, Reverend James vs Henry, Patrick -- "The Parson's Opinion Of The Parson's Cause" Billinghurst, I placed some history on a page and for the first time it shows the above, "Template", preceeding the title. I don't know what caused that and I have never seen it before minutes ago. Can you, or rather will you (or anyone who has the authority and know-how) be so kind as to remove "Template" from the title? William Maury Morris (talk) 18:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Done here. You put it inside double braces {{ }} which is the code for a template. -- billinghurst (talk) 20:57, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

BIG NOTE. I have also done further editing (diff). It would seem that you are over-coding your pages. This is a wiki and there is lots of CSS code that automatically gets applied to pages when they are rendered to the reader. Hence there is no need to put text inside <p> </p>, that is assumed as part of the rendering. See how the above Diff to see what I have done. There are also lots helping templates that can be used, for example see what I did with {{right}}. You are doing a great job and bringing interesting sources to Wikisource, I think that we can do a little more to get the same result with a little less effort. :-) billinghurst (talk) 21:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

- Thank you so much! I don't know how those braces got there. I sure don't recall placing them there. Everything looked fine to me except having "Template" at the top. I honestly think a wiki gremlin did that. In reference to over-coding I always want a full justification just as a book has. I cannot stand a "ragged" right side of the page and books are not that messy. I don't use and this is the first time that I have ever typed that. I always look at the source so I did notice your {{right}} but I don't see much difference than my use of p align="right" -- they both worked just fine. I do leave extra spacing because I am an old fellow and my eyes get weary as text bleeds to a point of a blur. Someday I may have to get eyeglasses but not yet. I have learned a lot from you regarding what to do and not to do and I appreciate it. You have an almost thankless task and yet you are always helping others aside from what you prefer to work on. William Maury Morris (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Page:Plato or Protagoras.djvu/19

Your edit notes indicated that you did something with the Greek passage, but I didn't see any change there in the diff. Did you mean to make any corrections there? (I figured you must have, since I don't know Greek--I transcribed that purely by eyeball.) --LarryGilbert (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

um, no, I squealed like a pig, and went and dumped it on the talk page for WS:PotM with a plaintive whine for someone with Greek skills to finish the beastie off. Which Zeph kindly did. :-) With only a couple of pages left, I thought it best to pull it out of the rotation. BTW you do great work. billinghurst (talk) 20:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --LarryGilbert (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Info@wikisource.org

Billinghurst, is there someone at this address who actually hands out OTRS tickets? I have been directing people to permissions@wikimedia.org. ResScholar (talk) 06:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Bookofjude, well so he says. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] SBDEL link

Hey, here are all the relevant templates which I can find (more than I first thought!):

• Template:SBDEL link
• Template:EB1911 Link
• Template:NSRW Link
• Template:CE Link
• Template:Appleton's Link
• Template:DNB link
• Template:Oxon link

Consensus roughly seems to be: article name, encyclopedia, publisher, date. Only Appletons' and Oxon put the Author at the beginning. If these seven templates all follow the same pattern any new templates are likely to also follow (making more formal presecription unnecessary in my opinion).

Personally I would prefer to see the first link to be to the actual article as this seems most intuitive. For example Author:Alcuin looks reasonably smart! I am less concerned with what comes after the first link.

Suicidalhamster (talk) 22:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Oxon link is mine, and it is that way as I copied and amended SBDEL. That said, same author did all the entries, whereas some of the others had contributors. Feel free to go and update it, it is why I made it a template anyway. :-) -- billinghurst (talk) 22:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

and can I suggest that an apostrophe in Appleton's is an irritation waiting to happen. -- billinghurst (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I may have a go at getting them to all look the same; but make any changes you want to make. Not sure how to treat a contributor who wrote an individual article compared to someone who wrote the whole work - will have a think. The Appleton's situation was a bit messy as we had two identical templates which only differed in apostrophe position, so I redirected one to the other. We could now make a third without an apostrophe and redirect the other two! The joys of trying to organise a wiki! Suicidalhamster (talk) 23:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't fuss about individual contributors. In DNB we add them onto the sub-work example, and have been creating author pages for contributorss and listing them, and EB has taken that up too. Seems to work fine, and adds some nice spice to Author: pages. [Hmm, mind you it is only documented per project at this stage] FWIW I am hands off those templates at this time, other fish are frying. BTW look at what you got me into!!! I used to plod away quietly contributing! billinghurst (talk) 23:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha! I do apologise. But you are doing a great job so I don't feel too bad! Suicidalhamster (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I know from where my son got his "... and what does this button do?" <eyeroll> billinghurst (talk)

[edit] Re:Script to force UC to Nice Sc

That would be amazing (I just did page 318 manually)! But you would have to really walk me through it; I have no idea how to do scripts or anything.. Thanks so much, Wrelwser43 (talk) 03:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Why didn't you just use a double bracket at the beginning, and a closing double bracket at the end of the entire list? ResScholar (talk) 05:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Great! This will save me a lot of time in the future, thanks! Wrelwser43 (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The gap

Many thanks. I was about to dump my creation. :) 16:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: {{rule}} and all your help and guidance

Thanks again for the guidance. It will take me some time to get to know all previous template efforts. Some, I find fascinating. Therefore, the aim is to template everything so that a bot can find and replace. Last night, I had to go offline and couldn't finish as promised. A component of this unfinished effort is copied from the {{rule}} template and I am studying this. Ineuw (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Editing button javascript

Hi. I would like to take you up on your offer made last evening^[1] about a custom edit button, with the js placed on my user page. I could really use one for the most tedious of tasks, which is the insertion of the {{gap}} at the start of all paragraphs, (with the exception of the first,) in every chapter. This would also give me a chance to rekindle my long dormant and limited knowledge of js. Ineuw (talk) 19:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sdrewthbot edit

On Wood, Robert (1622?-1685) (DNB00), with the updating of the transclusion, the final parenthesis of the section field was lost. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

That would have been an operator error in the copy and paste. Thanks for the pickup billinghurst (talk) 21:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Another diff: this time the WP lk was truncated. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Index:1911 Encyclopedia Britanica vol-1a-ad valorem .djvu

No, I don't know about any EB1911 material at Wikimedia Commons. I was grateful when I found Tim Starling's scans as the graphics in my source are pretty wretched although the photographs are better. I have admired the DNB project and will probably dip in here and there if the OCR texts and pages are readily available, like I do with NSRW. And I have borrowed some things, mainly {{EB1911 contributor}}. I am not familiar with the djvu format. I got to use things like that in de.wikisource.org, but someone else always set it up. I was never very successful setting up all the details myself. Point me to documentation and I might learn myself. I've seen something like that going on at NSRW with that project's pages of OCR text. But it doesn't seem to work very well with my Firefox browser, at least the version I use. I did better with the German version of the technology, but even there the images would get clipped awkwardly as I remember. NSRW does look nice on Internet Explorer at the library. I'll have to try it on their Firefox. When I get a chance I will look over your links you provided and look into what you are doing at DNB. Thanks for the tips. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 01:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Your example is interesting, and I saw this setup when browsing another Wikisource document, though I forget which. On the Cologne Blue skin, the page numbers run into the menu commands which are also in the left margin. This makes it difficult to click on a page without hitting a random menu command. In the German version the page numbers were embedded in the text. But maybe that's just because I don't use Cologne Blue there. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 02:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Blake, William

Where is this going? Is the intention to dab dictionaries and encyclopaedias that style their entries 'Surname, Jane'? Cygnis insignis (talk) 07:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It is the bud of an idea, especially where there may not be an author page where we add Works about. We need a means to disambiguate like entries, and that was a means generated. Whether that should be at William Blake, and then have a redirect from Blake, William, dunno. Happy to hear your opinions.-- billinghurst (talk) 11:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Also we need issues like

	(Move log) . . Charles Matthews (Talk | contribs | block) Lowe, James (DNB00) moved to Lowe, James (d.1865) (DNB00) (dab is required) 

which are going to force disambiguation places, so then it becomes one or more? billinghurst (talk) 11:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Scottish Record Society Volumes

Hi sDrewth, have you thought of creating a project for the Scottish Record Society Volumes that you want to download? It would be cool if we could have another complete series like the PSM project. I saw it on your talk page. What do you think of that? Please respond on my talk page. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 07:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No, sir, it isn't supposed to be under "Author"

I had just started working on it and needed to add a lot more information plus re-arrange some things. You are fast! I have to figure out how to un-fix this now...... —Brother Officer^Talk 20:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, someone else moved it, and I just deleted the redirect. What needs to be (un)fixed?

If you wish to develop works, one of the means for doing this is as a subpage to your account, eg. User:Brother Office/John Smith and it is less likely to be touched. As an established user, you would be able to move the work into the main namespace, or wherever at that time. The other means to get people to leave more alone is to look to utilise the templates {{inuse}} or {{under construction}}. billinghurst (talk) 21:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no big deal except when it was sent to "Author", for whatever reason, I could no longer use the same header of "Marin H. Jansen" The system showed a warning that I was recreating a topic that had been moved.I did have this though "1893; under construction starting Nov 11, 2009 by Brother Officer" and that's close to {{under construction}}. I didn't know about "{{under construction}}", someone didn't look before they assumed "Author" and I usually try to finish a page as much as I can but I was trying to work on several things at once this time. I don't post little scraps and leave them as such. I always work into an article, page or book. Anyhow, no harm done, thank you for the tip, and Happy Veteran's Day —Brother Officer^Talk 22:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] DNB gaps

I have done a trawl to find the gaps and duplications in the DNB page sequences, by the only quick method that is obvious to me (check the offset near the beginning, middle and end, and see if these are consistent). I have entered up the results in the Progress table, which I hope now registers most of the problem. (Clearly this isn't going to catch page permutations, which do happen, and if there are compensating errors then I might not have spotted those.) Charles Matthews (talk) 21:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Slowly working my way through them. Thx. billinghurst (talk) 22:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Non-transcluded validated pages

Half an hour was about right. It's running now. There are a lot of them. The bulk of them occur in big contiguous blocks, which is good news. There are also a lot of deliberately excluded individual pages — e.g. Page:Celtic Fairy Tales.djvu/10 — I don't know what you plan to do with them.

No idea. I hadn't preplanned a response. I wanted to know whether we could first (WINNER HESP!); then the extent of the issue; and what it might mean. Gut feel would be to add an exclude tag/cat, something simple that works.

Do you have a place for me to put the output, or shall I find somewhere in my user subspace?

Hesperian 00:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Results at User:Hesperian/V. 1802 pages. It took just over two hours to run. Please feel free to copy it, move it, edit it, whatever. Also feel free to request another run at any time, or to suggest changes or tweaks. Hesperian 02:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks. That seems as good as any place for the start, and we can then work out what we should be doing on an ongoing basis. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries mate. I fear that I've done the easy bit, and doing something useful with the list will prove a pain in the backside.

One concern is I see a lot of recent stuff on the list: stuff that people are working on as we speak. I guess you want to clean up the forgotten and abandoned bits; you don't want to get under anyone's feet if they are still working on something. So it might be good to provide output as a table that can be sorted into validation order, so that the oldest pages can be dealt with first. Or maybe set a cut-off date; e.g. only list pages validated before 2009. Hesperian 03:43, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Next time around, I have now created Category:Not to transclude which I will add pages to, and allow us to exclude. billinghurst (talk) 08:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I've got no idea what this is about, but I assume it would be trivial for someone to correct this index and show where I am up to. Ta. Cygnis insignis (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that you are talking about a different matter. I presume your issue is that some of the pages that have been validated now show as being red on the Index page. That issue has been identified and resolved with a fix waiting in SVN for the next code update. From discussion last night it was explained to me that what is happening there is ... that the Index: page has been identifying where pages have changed, and it has drilled down to where templates used have been updated too, so our changes yesterday to {{hws}} and {{rh}} are now identified. For the moment we need to null edit the pages, and I cannot get my bot to null edit. :-/ billinghurst (talk) 22:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I click edit, add a summary and save it - will that not stick? Cygnis insignis (talk) 22:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

It should. As you will have seen, I add null edit (minor) and save, as if it still has {{PageQuality}} it will convert that to <pagequality> and make a real edit. billinghurst (talk) 22:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

When is the next update? Cygnis insignis (talk) 23:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

How long is a piece of string? :-( billinghurst (talk) 23:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Protected/cascaded pages prevent changes to template documentation, but not source pages.

I was hoping to add a cut'n'pasteable code sample to Template:Hyphenated word start, but for plebians like me, it's locked for editting with the message:

You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason:

This page has been protected from editing, because it is included in the following pages, which are protected with the "cascading" option turned on:

    * Descriptive account of the panoramic view, &c. of King George's Sound, and the adjacent country
    * The Fight at Dame Europa's School 

The history of those page shows Billinghurst as having done the lock. Given you're an administrator, can you please unlock the documentation? Thanks in advance!

(I'm impressed that there've been two edits on The Fight at Dame Europa's School since the protection; hopefully that won't mess up the reason for the protected status.) -- SoftlySaid (talk) 17:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

{{documentation}} page created. Thanks for the request. billinghurst (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for splitting out the documentation for me! -- SoftlySaid (talk) 01:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] DNB and Persondata

You might want to amplify what the project pages say about Persondata. So far this hasn't seemingly entered the consciousness of participants in a serious way. Just occurred to me as I was working over what was posted in the project's early days. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I cannot say that I am fully around what is happening with metadata. I will see what I can find. That really might be a good question for Magnus when you meet him. billinghurst (talk) 09:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Spoke to Pathoschild and he said Persondata is ugly, and we should be able to do it better. I will let him add his own comments. He said that Magnus probably would have some good input into this. billinghurst (talk) 10:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Metadata was one of the main motivations for creating standard {{header}} and {{author}} fields, with explicit text-only fields. Implementing metadata sitewide for works and authors should be fairly easy once we decide on a good format.

The approach taken by w:Template:Persondata is to add an HTML table with cells identified by classes. This will work now without any software changes, but it's not an elegant solution; it depends on CSS to hide it from users, confuses screen-readers, presents data in a one-dimensional format that works well for indexes but little else, is difficult to extend, and cannot contain metadata about metadata. An example of this format on Wikisource, with some simplifications for machine-only parsing, would be:

<table class="metadata author-metadata">
    <tr class="author-metadata-first-name"> 
        <td>First name</td>
        <td>Abraham</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-last-name">
        <td>Last name</td>
        <td>Lincoln</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-birth-year">
        <td>Birth year</td>
        <td>1809</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-death-year">
        <td>Death year</td>
        <td>1865</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-description">
        <td>Description</td>
        <td>16th President of the United States (1861 – 1865), with Hannibal Hamlin (1861 - 1865) and <a href="/wiki/Author:Andrew_Johnson" title="Author:Andrew Johnson">Andrew Johnson</a>, succeeding <a href="/wiki/Author:James_Buchanan" title="Author:James Buchanan">James Buchanan</a>; succeeded by Johnson. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_(United_States)" class="extiw" title="w:Whig Party (United States)">Whig</a> House Representative from Illinois (1847 - 1849). Illinois militia (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War" class="extiw" title="w:Black Hawk War">1832</a>)<br /> <i>The icon&#160;<a href="/wiki/File:Speaker_Icon.svg" class="image"><img alt="Speaker Icon.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Speaker_Icon.svg/20px-Speaker_Icon.svg.png" width="20" height="20" /></a> identifies that the work includes a spoken word version.</i></td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-image">
        <td>Image</td>
        <td>http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_head_on_shoulders_photo_portrait.jpg</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-link-wikipedia">
        <td>Wikipedia link</td>
        <td>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-link-wikiquote">
        <td>Wikiquote link</td>
        <td>http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="author-metadata-link-commons">
        <td>Commons link</td>
        <td>http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</td>
    </tr>
</table>

An idea I discussed with Billinghurst is to have XML data tucked into a CDATA comment. This is ignored by browsers and screen-readers, is very easy to machine-parse, can contain multidimensional data, and can contain any data (even images, if we really wanted to). The example below presents the same data (with added metadata), but is 17% shorter. MediaWiki strips comments before outputting to HTML, but a very simple extension could add a <comment> or <metadata> tag (and there would be no obstacle to implementing it, since there should be no performance issues).

<div class="metadata">&lt;!--<![CDATA[
<metadata topic="author">
    <names>
        <name type="first" label="First name">Abraham</name>
        <name type="last" label="Last name">Lincoln</name>
    </names>
    <dates>
        <date type="birth" label="Birth year">1809</date>
        <date type="death" label="Death year">1865</date>
    </dates>
    <profile>
        <description>16th President of the United States (1861 – 1865), with Hannibal Hamlin (1861 - 1865) and <a href="/wiki/Author:Andrew_Johnson" title="Author:Andrew Johnson">Andrew Johnson</a>, succeeding <a href="/wiki/Author:James_Buchanan" title="Author:James Buchanan">James Buchanan</a>; succeeded by Johnson. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_Party_(United_States)" class="extiw" title="w:Whig Party (United States)">Whig</a> House Representative from Illinois (1847 - 1849). Illinois militia (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War" class="extiw" title="w:Black Hawk War">1832</a>)<br /> <i>The icon&#160;<a href="/wiki/File:Speaker_Icon.svg" class="image"><img alt="Speaker Icon.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Speaker_Icon.svg/20px-Speaker_Icon.svg.png" width="20" height="20" /></a> identifies that the work includes a spoken word version.</i></description>
        <image>http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_head_on_shoulders_photo_portrait.jpg</image>
    </profile>
    <links>
        <link target="Wikipedia" label="Biography on Wikipedia">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</link>
        <link target="Wikiquote" label="Quotes on Wikiquote">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</link>
        <link target="Commons" label="Media on Commons">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln</link>
    </links>
</metadata>
<!]]>--></div>

Either format could easily be output by {{header}} and {{author}}, although the Persondata-style table would appear at the top of the page and confuse screen-readers even more than it does on Wikipedia (that is why {{persondata}} is placed at the bottom of the article there). Whichever format we choose, we can set up an API that extracts the data from the page and displays it in any of various formats. —Pathoschild 11:49:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

For my sake, a link to w:CDATA billinghurst (talk)

[edit] User talk page categorized as a typography template.

Looking at Category:Typography templates, I observe to my surprise that User_talk:Parrot_of_Doom shows up as a typography template. I did a quick check, and there doesn't appear to be any template on that page (although you've made 6 of the 7 updates, including an interesting one about schliff-s.) Would it be possible for you to please remove the (mis-)categorization from that page? —unsigned comment by SoftlySaid (talk) .

Fixed. I left out a leading colon where I used the category in the body of the text. D'uh. billinghurst (talk) 22:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! -- SoftlySaid (talk) 16:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] My first go at a transclusion

Hi, I've just had a go at transcluding Nature (1836) from Page space. Would you mind having a look at it to make sure I've done it correctly? I basically copied what had been done for A Study in Scarlet.

The Table of Contents looks a bit odd on my screen - over to the left. I'm also not sure how to put the work onto Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson given that there is already a copy there with the 1836 date on it. The notes on the Index to this copy indicate that that copy is probably not the 1836 edition.

Thanks, Beeswaxcandle (talk) 01:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proofreading problem

Hi, Just spotted that new user Kees has been proofreading pages that are already validated and marking them as proofread. Presumably this is because his browser is showing the pages as not proofread. Is there a way of gently disposing of these or shall I go back in and validate them along behind him? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I have modified to the newest variation of the Proofread layout with <pages ... />, then through the edits I have demonstrated a variety of formats readily available (look through edit history), and while we remain true to the content, we do need to remember that this is the web, and our page needs to reflect some of that. Choose one that you like and restore it.

I modified the ToC on the Page:/9 to be a centred table, and that seems to work better.
With relation RWE, is he the editor or the author? You might find that you simply have listed as linking to Nature as the journal, have some commentary there, that links to each volume, rather than link to each volume from the author page. Otherwise, we would just disambiguate Nature by some means, eg. Nature (1836 - vol. 1); Nature (1836 - vol. 2); Nature (1836 - vol. 3), etc. or Nature (1836), Nature (1837), ... billinghurst (talk) 03:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it. I'm not keen on the multi-column version as it doesn't work very well on the small-screen laptop I'm using.

For the author - RWE is the author of this book. The periodical didn't appear until 1869. Nature is a disambiguation page. I think I'll list the two as a sublist. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Good call, then disambiguate the title of each work and add them to the {{disambiguation}} page. Distinct and specific names however your logic applies, and list them individually on Author page. billinghurst (talk) 04:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Just spotted that new user Kees has been proofreading pages that are already validated and marking them as proofread. Presumably this is because his browser is showing the pages as not proofread. Is there a way of gently disposing of these or shall I go back in and validate them along behind him? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I should be able to undo to your version, and that should be sufficient. billinghurst (talk)

Fixed, and I have been through and null edited all the pages as they needed forcing to renew their status with the Index: page, which is the overarching problem. billinghurst (talk) 03:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Meetup magic

So Magnus had these two things to say. About automated link piping, he said it could be done in javascript in a browser. On persondata he thought that the template, as used systematically on deWP, was a bit too "floppy" in dealing with technical data issues such a name variants to be something really serious. The idea he liked for here with this, relating to our disambiguation problem for people, was this: a template for a person designed with a clickable part. If you clicked you could have revealed to you, transcluded, the various relevant biographies.

Beyond my scope. There is a bit of that available via one of the WP tools, however, I couldn't get it neatly configured, and the developer didn't deign to reply to my plaintive cries.

Actually he had something of his own to suggest. Namely, that a DNB biography article (say) should display somehow links back to the pages from which it is built up by transclusion. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It does, look on the left hand side under toolbox for the toggle. This is for all transcluded pages/

display options
   * links to scans

billinghurst (talk) 10:54, 15 November 2009 (UTC)