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The Scriptorium is Wikisource's community discussion page. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments. You may join any current discussion or start a new one. Project members can often be found in the #wikisource IRC channel webclient. For discussion related to the entire project (not just the English chapter), please discuss at the multilingual Wikisource.

Announcements

Changed default to ON for Gadget Header preloader

It has been talk about over the years, and always considered a reasonable idea, though not able to be done. Anyway, with the recent MW upgrade, we are now able to set a default state for gadgets, and for the header preload I have now undertaken this task. This includes IP editors, so it would be worthwhile watching this change of behaviour, and working out whether we want to do work in other namespace to look at default headers. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:48, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Well in little less than month's time since being set all I've I've seen come from this is the daily creation of several pointless mainspace articles that ultimately wind up getting deleted for no meaningful content or history. I think we should ask ourselves if this was really worth setting across the board in the first place before thinking about expanding the premise into other areas/gadgets. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

George has a good point, but on the other hand if it makes it easier for new people to edit, is it worth the clean-up? My first question would be what way do we have to identify these empty pages, and how much effort is required to clean-up?

<shrug> Turn it off a month from now and see who complains - completely new to WS editors or well-established WS editors unaware that such a setting existed in their preferences in the first place. My money is on the latter. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

As it continues to problematic for you, I have turned it off. To the notification message when a page is without a header in main namespace, I have added some wikitext to mention and link to one's gadgets. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I would think hundreds of pointless new creations with no content or meaningful history is problematic for the community in general & not just another cosmically assigned ax-to-grind on my part. Maybe this step goes too far in the other direction since I also believed having this as a default added value (well for the most part it could). Is it possible to setup a filter to tag such creations (new pages added by IPs that are under ~500kb or something)? Maintenance would become a far smaller issue that way imo. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Meant nothing personal by the comment, I was simply retreating to a space where we had less false creations and a working filter that both warns and captures pages without header template. Due to the size of pages being small when transcluded, that is a tad tricky and a fairly large cutoff. I have been thinking of how to have a filter where if just the header template was present that it would kick a warning, however at this point in time the inspiration hasn't got me. I'll probably get back to it. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Added what leaves here as formal gadget

Previously found only as a script to manually import, this User: Preferences-enabled Gadget now adds an extra Special-page called "What leaves here", and a link in the toolbox next to "What links here". This tool enables you a listing of all outgoing pagelinks, image links, external links, categories and transclusions found on most targeted pages. A bit like the opposite of WhatLinksHere which lists all incoming pagelinks, image links and transclusions. Can be filtered by namespace as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

OCR edit toolbar button restored

After repairing the toolserver installation of Tesseract (OCR software) and adjusting the OCR.js at oldWS, the toolbar OCR button that can process a single page at a time has been restored by Phe. If you don't see the button when editing in the Page: namespace, a hard-refresh of your JS should fix it. The current queue of the bot can be seen at http://toolserver.org/~phe/ocr.php. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 00:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

How can I hide the OCR button? I need the space to keep all my defined buttons and I don't use the OCR.— Ineuw talk 05:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Gadget! I would also think that we should ensure that this is OFF by default. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Well I'm glad to see this come back. I know I've got a couple djvus that have been halted because of no text layer or ability to OCR the page on the fly.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick note: if you need OCRing to be done or re-done for a whole work, you can request at WS:OCR. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposals

Parameter addition for Author template?

Would it be possible to add the parameter "source" to the Author template to place the source of information about the author? Noticed some "Notes" about the source on the Author: namespace, usually when it's from a genealogy site, which I find to be unreliable because there is no biographical information. I prefer something more reliable and specific. — Ineuw talk 20:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I now add SOURCES to the talk page, and have many such pages like that, for external links, or where I have copied the data. Can I say that being from a genealogy website does not make them unreliable, like any research, it comes down to citation. Always user beware. If you do find a good source and reliable resource, beyond a link to enWP, then you can add an ==External sources== or ==See also== and I have done that and for links with {{ADB link}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, External sources is the preferred solution. .... from slow to think and slower to respond. :-) — Ineuw talk 21:57, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: add Worldcat ID to template:author

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

That's a lot of authors.

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

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

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

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

But why?

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

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

Why this proposal?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worldcat linkfarm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WorldCat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VIAF Authority control data gadget

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

Direct links?

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

How to link?

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

Placement?

• Footer: Commons often places it at the top and Wikipedia places it at the bottom of a page. I think the footer is the best place on our project. Adding it to the header would increase the clutter at that point and might be intimidating to the reader. On the other hand, users may be more accustomed to see extra detail and external links at the bottom of the page. So far, I have placed it under the licence but I have no strong opinion about the preferred order. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Footer: These are external links and should come after everything we have on our home and sister wikis. I have followed the convention of placing under the license so far, but I also don't mind if others object. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• End of page—Placement at the end of the page is consistent with the way we manage external links in works. External links are generally in the footnotes and I think general users would expect to find such at the bottom of an author page. The main wikimedia exception I can think of is infoboxes in WP and as Author pages are a construct by us (rather than replication of a work), we could look at consistency with this layout and place it on the right of the page. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
• End of page: By that I mean after the pagetext mw-content-[language direction here] container ends but before the end of the #pageContent wrap itself (it should mirror the categories bar just below it in other words). The AC links should "look" something like that already in the Author: namespace if one follows the logical premise of adding it after the license bar -- not so pretty in the main namespace under dynamic layout 2 though (in fairness to the proposal, most everything header- or footer-like will continue to suffer the same fate until Dynamic Layouts are seriously 'overhauled' to be blunt about it).

  In theory, the placement of such templates within the edit box's content field should not matter as long as coding/scripting forces the output to where we ultimately decide it should be once the edit has been saved & rendered. There is too much going on already in the current header templates regardless of which namespace we're dealing with imho -- don't get me started -- but this AC bar, or any citation-like bar, could be slipped-in between the nav-tops and the blue-notes sections if displaying it at the top becomes a must for the community... fairly sure the latest mW release allows us to collapse that until asked for even! -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

A Worldcat related comment

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

Wikisource:Alternate accounts

I would like to propose that Wikisource:Alternate accounts be formally recognized as a policy or guideline (one or the other). It has been in draft form since 2009. I believe it accurately expresses the expectations of the community in regards to multiple accounts, as has been seen in several discussions. Giving formal status to WS:ALT offers clarify for those editors who are accidentally coming in conflict with these expectations of the community. Please indicate your desire to elevate to Policy, Guideline or other disposition. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy

• The third paragraph has the explicit "do not sock" and described potential blocking/banning. If it is going to be strong enough to be the basis for blocking, I think it should be considered a policy. Perhaps the softer, guidance elements can be spun off into a separate page or the wording in this one can be hardened? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Guideline

• guidance the document has should in the first line, which automatically makes it procedural or guidance. I have no issue with the overarching premise or the text. That said, the pertinentn guidance seems to be para 1 and 3, with the remainder information about how to comply. My question then becomes can para 1 and 3 be extracted and put elsewhere to keep the clear guidance separate, either as a lead in to this document, or separating guidelines from the instruction. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:52, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Concur with billinghurst, the bits about verboten behavior can be lifted and reinserted into blocking policy, with a reference, and the remainder promoted to guideline. Prosody (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with the above. Things that lead to blocking belong on the blocking policy page (but should be mentioned here too). Things which are merely best practice belong here. Being made into a guideline offers clear information to readers on the expectation that they follow at least the spirit, but doesn't rise to introducing a new set of hard policy rules. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• Assuming the elements regarding blocking are moved (or summarised here with reference to the blocking policy), I change my choice to guideline in line with the above. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
• I support making this a guideline. I'm a bit reluctant to make it a policy (I think users should have more freedom for account usage than making it a policy would grant), and with the fact we've got checkusers we can catch many of the devious uses of alternate accounts. But I do think making it a guideline would express our opinion that it's generally best practice to use one account, etc.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource:Portal

I would like to propose that Wikisource:Portal be formally recognized as a policy or guideline (one or the other). It has been in draft form since 2006 with a significant upgrade in Feb 2011 to reflect current expectations. Please indicate your desire to elevate to Policy, Guideline or other disposition. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy

policy level with guidance, at this point in time I feel it should be split as it extends from policy to guidance. Policy = principle, guidance = implementation and instruction — billinghurst sDrewth 06:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the guidance elements to Help:Portals for now. The remainder should all be policy. - AdamBMorgan (talk)

• When I re-wrote this page I intended it to eventually be policy. (It needs to be reviewed by others, of course. Otherwise it's just an essay I made up.) I've amended the page as described above. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
• Policy (mostly) The purpose of the namespace is definitely policy, and the top-level classification schema could be counted too. I'm unsure the explicit "there are five levels" belongs in policy, as that could easily stretch over time for large portals. Perhaps this could be moved to the help page to keep the policy light? Everything else, I would call policy-level expectations of how it is done correctly. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 06:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

  I've amended the Wikisource:Portal. Is this better? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Other

• I'm not too sure what making this a policy would do. I view policies as prescriptive documents telling readers some of the basic mores of this site which must be followed. Some pertain to users, some to admins, some to bureaucrats, etc. But they express clear behavior for some group of users. (E.g., our inclusion policy, blocking policy). I don't get that kind of vibe with this document. A document about portals (especially with the way in which it is written currently) seems like it would be best as a general process page: it gives background information, explains what the definition of a portal is (and so what things go into it). I'd support making it a process page, but not a policy.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Constitutionality of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act copyright restoration

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOT approval requests

Request of approval for bots for PSM maintenance in the main namespaces

Hi. This is a (delayed and solicited, I apologise for this) request for the approval of the use of semi-automated bots based on pywikipedia scripts, launched manually via python and supervised. They are based on the following:

• replace.py + regex expressions for maintenance of PSM pages.
• pagefromfile.py for the creation of redirects to PSM pages and creation PSM pages in mainspace.

Input to both scripts may vary over time, depending on day-to-day specific needs in the project.

The lack of an earlier request is due to a misunderstanding as I thought that bots based on pywikipedia modules did not need approval but only the creation of a Bot account.
I will be off-line for several days now, so if I will not answer promptly to your comments is not for lack of courtesy or interest. Bye --Mpaa (talk) 20:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Forgot to say that BOT account is User:MpaaBot. --Mpaa (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Reflections from an initial and quick glance. Some of the lessons I have learnt (been taught?) when using a more ad hoc process is that we need

• good edit summaries — that/they can either be descriptive, pointing to a page with a few lines of text, or even a complete page Special:Contributions/sDrewthbot. The higher the complexity, and/or the less obvious the "why" calls for a higher level of control. If you think that there is going to be any hint of disagreement or controversy with the edits, then at a bare minimum discuss at Wikisource:Bot requests and wait a few days before undertaking, or do some and pause.
• rate of edits expected and any ideas of number per batch?
• do you expect that the bot will only be PSM-related or do you see that it might branch out to other areas?

— billinghurst sDrewth 21:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi

• about Summary, I tried -summary: but it did not work with a sentence, took me a while about thinking to _ as a workaround for blanks. Sorry again.

  Try -summary:"This is a sentence". Hesperian 00:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• Rate: cannot say really, will depend on needs currently under discussion with Ineuw, probably once per volume for each task. Qty: now there was a big bulk of pages on several volume due to cleanup of headers info, for future needs will be comparable to number of articles in a volume (100).
• for now it will be PSM, if other needs in future will come, I will post it.
• I will update MpaaBot with more specific info.

Bye --Mpaa (talk) 07:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Does the lack of further comments means that I can consider this approved? Bye --Mpaa (talk) 16:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• support bot seems to be working as proposed. Running well, and we should be looking to get this under cover of a flag. I would suggest that the bot is approved for these tasks for these sorts of larger runs, but restricted to those large runs without further discussion at WS:BR. I am comfortable with small ad hoc runs when they are all noted somewhere with appropriate, descriptive edit summaries. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

  to clarify the mention of large runs: I mean a new task on large batches, not the existing (to-be-approved) task on the next sub-batch

Done MPAABot now carries the bot flag. Hesperian 00:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Defaultsort for Authors with prefix

With reference to the investigation related to this post, I would like to run a bot also in Author name space, to insert or uniform defaultsort key for Authors with name such as Author:Thomas de Quincey or Author:Alexander von Humboldt. Defaultsort convention would be: "Quincey, Thomas de" or "Humboldt, Alexander von", which is quite used on WS and WP as defaultsort.
Number of edits would be about a hundred and bot would be run slowly and monitored.
Bot is based on basic.py with a customised section for the processing of text. You can see a couple of test edits (done as Mpaa) here and here. --Mpaa (talk) 01:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm cautious about this as some authors are known under the prefix. E.g. Vincent van Gogh or John L. DeWitt. There are also several other prefixes in common use such as 'ap', 'mc', 'mac', and 'st.' Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional clarifications to evaluate the above request.

1) the script is not meant to run on all authors, taking decisions automatically. The list of authors would be manually selected, mainly targeting already present discrepancies between the Surname (or defaultsort if present) and the field "last_initial". The script does not change the field "last_initial" which is the one under which the author is categorised. Anyhow, I agree that there should be consistency between the defaultsort and such field. E.g. in the case of Van Gogh, if the initials are Va, it would not be selected by me for change. BTW, in WP Van Gogh has {{DEFAULTSORT:Gogh, Vincent Van}}, so one of the two wikis should be aligned if we seek consistency.

2) the script would act where the prefix is separated from a space. I.e I would not apply to "DeWitt". It is meant for an hypotetical "de Witt".

3) I would do the same work manually, as I have done to fix most of defaults sorts for Popes in the past few days. It is just to avoid manual work.

4) for the list of prefixes in common use, I will act if there is a consensus on how such prefixes should be ordered.

5) the status today is that the sorting is anyhow mixed and inconsistent for a set of Authors, so leaving the status quo does not mean better quality. --Mpaa (talk) 18:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Addihockey10 (automated)

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

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

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

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

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

Help

• See Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help

Bodinayakanur History

I want to know about any History or notes about bodinayakanur Zamindar under British rule in India. Any info or books or any notes during british rule pls inform me to bnrskp@gmail.com

I doubt that anyone here has that expertise. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:26, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Author header autofill & WP info linking

Whoever had the great idea to auto-fill Author page headers, thank you! Especially as it links with info from a WP page... One less step in the process for us! Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: duplicate text?

I'm not really familiar with this project, but it doesn't seem correct that The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is displayed on its main page as well as (partly) on its subpages. --Anypodetos (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

You're right, it doesn't make sense for the entire play to be present on the main page when there are also subpages. It also doesn't seem correct that The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet/Act I. Scene I and The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet/Act I. are identical. Angr 21:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Re Number of Edits

Hi, Firstly please excuse and allow me to apologise for this question which I am unable to find an answer by myself. If the question is too basic please direct me to the area I can put the question. How does a person know how many edits they have done on Wikisource? Now I'm talking miniscule in terms of the prodigious efforts of many many people; nonethless I would like to monitor this item. I went to Wikisource, User contributions, and Preferences and found '0' edits. Yet since September I must have done 60 or 70 up to the end of December. Not much to brag about I realise but I'm just beginning and hope to do better. Can you please help. Victorbyron (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Go to Special:Contributions/Victorbyron and scroll to the bottom of the page. You should find a list of links. Click on the right-hand one "Edit Counter". This will take you to a page that will give you a total count of your edits and a pie-chart with the number of edits in the various namespaces. (Don't worry about the two sections at the bottom about opting in—these are more useful for people with thousands of edits to track what's happening and where they've been.) Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Note that the Contributions is also the link at the top of the page "My contributions" and sulutil:Victorbyron for all WMF — billinghurst sDrewth 23:41, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Than you for responding Beeswaxcandle and your advice solving this dilemma of mine. I'll go see now. Happy New Year to you and thanks ````

Thank you for responding billinghurst. Prior to seeking help and wanting to check my meagre (but exciting for me) efforts for 2011 I went to the Contributions link at the top of the page and it came up with nothing. I then linked to Preferences and the total number of editors is '0'. That explanation aside which I don't understand, I will now go and have another go and try to see what sulutil:Victorbyron is. Happy New Year to you and thank you. More though, billinghurst, thank you for leading the path way that I was able to follow the last months to December. I was stuck with no editing to do and you went into the text I am editing and made sense of some of those difficult pages. And although I don't know what I am doing yet, I was able to follow your editing, coyping it, and some magic in editing took place. I wasn't able to sort out the pieces of editing that did not work; nor although I copied your editing to the letter/to the mark, did I understand why it didn't work. That made me realise I must find the user manual that will explain all of this. But a big thank you for keeping some pages going for me so I could continue to edit the text. Victorbyron (talk) 05:02, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Beeswaxcandle - Thank you for tracking me to the Special:Contributions/Victorbyron, Edit Counter (edits and pie-chart) pages. Useful information because it encourages competition with oneself; and the good oil on the opting in setions. Victorbyron (talk) 07:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

billinghurst - I revisited the top link Contributions and low and behold it worked; there was some info on that page this time around. I'm not sure what sulutil:Victorbyron is all about but that page indicates SUL is not part of my radar at present. So I'll check the meaning out a little later. Thank you very much. Victorbyron (talk) 07:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Re markup skills

Hi again, I have been editing my first book on Wikisource by Dawson, James.(1881)'Australian aborigines : the languages and customs of several tribes of aborigines in the western district of Victoria, Australia' Publisher G. Robertson. When I began my markup skills were zilch and I was able to sort of get away with that because every word edited was a new experience. However, while I am receiving very kind assistace from an established editor on Wikisource, whose example I have used (copied) in the editing I am doing, I'm really not sure why I am using a certain or particular markup, simply because I have little knowledge on it. I am now concerned that my markup skills desperately need a huge learning curve if I am to continue with this book, which I would dearly love to do. I have no idea how to progress with this book and I have nothing else to edit, not that I want to go to something else, I would like to properly finish this book, which I enjoy immensely. Can you please advise me where I can search for a Wikisource guide/manual that will contain all the possible markup (I'm stuck on columns presently, and they appear sideways on the page) I can learn that I might be using on editing books on Wikisource. I'm stuck with nothing to do by way of editing, and have to carpe diam the time as it presents itself between busy times. Your help would be very much appreciated. Thank you. Victorbyron (talk) 22:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I recommend you start with Help:Editing Wikisource. It gives a good summary of basics. Then move across to Help:Templates, Help:Page breaks, Help:Proofread#Formatting conventions and m:Help:Table. Cheers, Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Beeswaxcandle, I will gather all these 'help' documents and read voraciously and learn. Thank you for helping to open the door to knowledge for me and to clear away the land of the unknown. I have found that the small amount of editing that I can claim as my bit is nonethless an incredibly peaceful task, and I just absolutely love it when I want some time for thinking space and there it is, enter the world of editing a text, enjoy the interaction with the book with all its amazing story line (it is a 19th century text) at the same time receiving peaceful contemplation in return. So thanks for helping me improve my knowledge so I can be more fruitful in my endeavours.Victorbyron (talk) 05:02, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Beeswaxcandle lots of informative and interesting reading here; terrifically helpfuul. Victorbyron (talk) 07:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Please excuse the typo errors in these messages. The problem stems from a new keyboard that has individual keys sticking and also a keyboard that can't keep up with my typing speed so even words get left out because the keyboard is behind my keystrokes. It's only weeks old and I have purchased badly so back to getting another brand that will keep up with me!Victorbyron (talk) 07:35, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Proofread error: "no such file"

Hi, technical question.

I've tried to install Proofread on a fresh MW site, and it gave the error above every time I tried to make and index page (source came from archive.org and uploaded fine, even though no thumbnail on the File description). I've done this several times in id.wikisource too, so I'm stuck with this error for more than a year now. Anyone can help me?

Specs:

MediaWiki       1.16.0
PHP     5.2.10 (apache2handler)
MySQL   5.0.77

CheckUser (Versi 2.3)
Collection (Versi 1.4)
Cite
ParserFunctions 
Poem 
PDF Handler 
ConfirmEdit 
ProofreadPage (Versi 2009-04-20)
SpamBlacklist

confirmEditSetup, pr_main, wfRssExtension dan wfSetupParserFunctions
<pagelist>, <pagequality>, <pages> dan <rss>
expr, if, ifeq, ifexist, ifexpr, rel2abs, switch, time, timel dan titleparts

I've added new namespaces (100-103) and updated the database, but I've got the following error when I saved the index page:

Ada kesalahan sintaks pada permintaan basis data. Kesalahan ini mungkin menandakan adanya sebuah bug dalam perangkat lunak. Permintaan basis data yang terakhir adalah:

   (Permintaan SQL disembunyikan)

dari dalam fungsi "". Basis data menghasilkan kesalahan "1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '0,0,0,0,0)' at line 1 (localhost)".

Even though it generates error, the index page was saved sucessfully. But it gave the "Error: no such file" message like the one in Index:Federal_Cases,_Volume_19.djvu. While the File:Federal_Cases,_Volume_19.djvu was corrupt in this case, mine was okay. So again, I don't know what's wrong with my installation.

Many thanks before. Bennylin (talk) 13:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm crossposting this to mw:Extension talk:Proofread Page. Hopefully someone know the answer. Bennylin (talk) 12:07, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The same problem is currently in evidence at Index:United States Statutes at Large Volume 45 Part 2.djvu, FWIW. Tarmstro99 20:30, 6 January 2012 (UTC) Uploading a new version of the underlying file (created with the pdf2djvu tool) fixed my problem. Tarmstro99 22:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Question on Copyright

I want to add the text for the Gregory Deal. For those not familiar with Irish Politicial History, the Gregory Deal was a confidence and supply agreement negotiated between the leader of Fianna Fail Charles Haughey and the T.D. for Dublin Central, Tony Gregory. The agreement was reached in the aftermath of the February 1982 Irish General election. In return for supporting Haughey as Taoiseach Gregory demanded a massive £100 million Punt cash injection for Gregory's Dublin Central constituency which at the time was the poorest in Ireland. The agreement was made public when Gregory entered it into the Dail record. I currently have a copy of the deal. It's in the form of an appendix in Gregory's biography. I'm just wondering would a document like that be subject to copyright rules or can I put it up on this site? Exiledone (talk) 20:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Tricky one, and one that I would need to think about. We cannot publish under fair use, so it is looking to see what is justifiable (Help:Copyright tags). My first question would be what is the copyright of the Dail record? How does Irish legislation deal with that and parliamentary records? — billinghurst sDrewth 22:06, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd assume there's no copyright on something said in parliament (Dail Eireann). I should add that the following was entered into the Dail record by Gregory. The actually copy of the deal which I have is much longer. Though there is a superscipt reference to it in the debates which I think means the entire document was entered into the Dail record. Ill forward you the link.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1982/03/09/00004.asp Exiledone (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Tabular data OCR?

I just resumed work on Richard Nixon's 1969 Presidential Daily Diary. It's essentially a giant tabular appointment book, which we represent with some excellent templates made by T. Mazzei. However, between the repetitive nature of the text, the uselessness of the scanned by column OCR which has to be scrapped entirely, and the work one has to put into arranging everything into the templates, it's pretty slow going, and with around 2000 pages that's a problem. If it were possible to have it automatically formatted and populated with the OCRed text, the job would be substantially faster and less tedious. Does anyone have access to OCR software which could handle that? Not asking anyone to see it through to the end, rather any output which could potentially be transformed into the formatted end would be tremendously helpful. Prosody (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Advanced search

Is there an advanced search facility on this wiki? For instance, could I search for "to be, or not to be" in author "William Shakespeare" and discover that that phrase is in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark/Act 3. Spinningspark (talk) 12:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If you just click the search button with an empty search field, it will take your through a configurable search criteria. Instructions are similar to at Wikipedia, ie. w:Help:Searching. The difficulty will be that as the work by Shakespeare is so familiar and so quoted, that it is reviewed in many literary works, or commentary works. If you are just looking to dig up a quote and narrow it down then our sister site wikiquote: may be more efficient for the purpose. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that's useful, but it does not really help here. The sort of data I am looking for are, for instance, a search <horse inauthor:Shakespeare> to discover what Shakespeare had to say about horses. It's the sort of search I do all the time on Google books. Many other sites have an "author" field (Amazon, Worldcat, Google Scholar, Internet Arcive) and I am mildly surprised it does not exist here. Perhaps it should be suggested. SpinningSpark 18:02, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the functionality for that type of search doesn't exist on MediaWiki wikis.  :( We have very basic searching with not a lot of sophisticated features. I've been hoping for a really good search engine to be written, but it's not likely to happen soon.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

When you say "hoping", does that mean there is a proposal open somewhere. If it is on Bugzilla, please point me to it and I will go over there and add my vote to it. SpinningSpark 10:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

In meanwhile you can always use Google and restrict the search to WS. It works pretty well, even if not invented here ... If you try this search "to be, or not to be" "William Shakespeare" site:"en.wikisource.org" it will bring you right there. Maybe just luck … --Mpaa (talk) 10:59, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I found this proposal in the Bugzilla database. If you want to see this implemented, I encourage you to go over there and vote for it - but please don't leave comments unless you have something significant to add, it causes the mailing list to get spammed and annoys a lot of people. SpinningSpark 11:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, got the drift of your question, it is a question about metadata. Unfortunately mediawiki does not have a strong ability for the use of metadata, though we have been looking to utilise the components available. When Mediawiki does better allow for this, we will have the capability to better include it. With regard to searching, that is a separate process that sits over the top of the text itself, and will lend itself to better results, however, I am not certain that it is going to completely solve the problem. Again, all I can reinforce is that the means that we have look to utilise within our headers should better allow to adapt these components when extra functionality exists. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Roughly, a third of our first click-ins originate within en.WS itself, another third from our sisters (well wikipedia really) and the last third completely from Google search results. I get the feeling we're too preoccupied with giving "each other" reach arounds, translation abilities and other types of atta-boys to even capture any of the basic metadata found in most simple PDFs, get that seemlessly up onto Commons & finally over to our mainspace on Wikisource once something has been properly transcribed. We need to Pick an established standard already and inch our stuff over to actually utilizig it instead of the current series of starts, stops and other assorted fits when trying to craft "our own" variation on that same theme. -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Bugzilla update. I was advised there to open a completely new request which now exists at bug 34011. At least someone is listening. Same message - if you want it implemented, go over there and vote for it. SpinningSpark 20:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Page number links in main space

At The International Cricket Match I can see the page number links on the lhs up to p30 but the expected p31 link isn't appearing. What am I doing wrong? Moondyne (talk) 01:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Nothing. Its a known issue that tables spanning one or more pages in the Page: namespace do not "let" the interim page-break(s) & number(s) to render neatly, if at all, in the finished product when those pages w/the entire table is transcluded to the main namespace. Can't offer you more than that at the moment. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Strange because the tables are complete on each page:. Meh. Moondyne (talk) 02:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Ooops - I realized that afterwards so I took a closer look. After moving the <poem>'s inside each table cell holding a list of names rather than around the entire table itself, I realized the tables were indeed per page rather than spanned across breaks. The only thing I could think of was that stupid highlight thingy plus the use of extra pagebreak template(s) causes the last real pagelink to be "removed rather than refreshed". I added a blank nop to the next page and extended the range by one in the mainspace so it deletes a page without text instead of p.31. Not a pretty fix but it worked. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Separate issue

What's the story with all the redirects in the Page: namespace related to/for that work? Do we still need all that? -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No, they can all be deleted. Moondyne (talk) 05:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Done - all superseded re-directs deleted. -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Other discussions

Template subdocument Category doesn't sort

When the Category is in the subdocument of a template, the index feature of the category doesn't work. Is there a solution to this? Here is an example: Template:PSM link/doc.— Ineuw talk 03:44, 27 December 2011 (UTC) To rephrase the question, should the category be in the Template or the sub document? — Ineuw talk 05:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you are meaning. The document that you point at is <includeonly>'d into Template:PSM link and that sorts properly in L at Category:The Popular Science Monthly Project templates. I see things working as expected. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

On the first try with Template:PSM link/doc, it didn't show up in L where it was supposed to, even after clearing all page and browser caches, so I created this post. After adding other templates under the same letter, everything showed up. There was some unknown delay which mystified me.

After checking through other documented templates, I noticed that some do have categories (and some don't), hence I rephrased my question.— Ineuw talk 18:45, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The /doc generally doesn't get categorised as the parent is there and the text is transcluded. The categories there are <includeonly which specifically means that thse doc will not be categorised. I see things working as expected, and I am not sure why you would want to separately categorise the document when the parent is done. Where there is categorisation on a document, then I would say that they may need a review as it is not evident that they need to be categorised. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I figured out where the error was. I wasn't trying to put categories into the document. They were there before I ever looked, and there were/are none in the Template:PSM link template itself. If you are still curious, you can find the "problem" by analyzing the histories of the Template:PSMLayoutTop/doc and Template:PSM link/doc.— Ineuw talk 00:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The recommendation is to add {{documentation}} and to put the categories and interwiki links inside the documentation, in preference to being in the template itself, as I modified at [1] & [2]. The reasoning is that this allows templates to be protected from modification for whichever reason yet allow for updates to the documentation and the addition of categories and interwikis by general editors. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you (X3). This is the information I sought, to understand and learn. I hope you accept that when I find a discrepancy and my knowledge is "0", I prefer to ask questions. Except in this case I didn't know where to begin because of the various implementations (i.e: some templates had categories and some didn't, and the docs used different <include codes. May your universe be at peace as mine. Thanks #4. :-). — Ineuw talk 04:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

US National Archives Citizen Archivist Dashboard—Request for help

I'm pleased to announce that the new Citizen Archivist Dashboard on the US National Archives' website has rolled out, and we're making Wiksource an important component. This site is a major development for the National Archives, bringing it into the 21st century with a more collaborative environment; you can read more about it here. Transcription is one of the main tasks where the public can get involved, and on the dashboard's transcription page, we are piloting the transcription of documents by non-Wikimedian visitors to archives.gov by pointing them to Wikisource. If you take a look at the page, you'll see there is a set of linked pages that the user can click on, and they will be taken directly to the page namespace to transcribe. The first two have already been done! These will be rotated out once so there are always fresh ones.

This is a great opportunity for Wikisource to expand its content and participation, but it requires the assistance of the community. In order for it to work best, the Wikisource community should monitor these pages to welcome the newcomers and encourage them to stay, to help validate new transcriptions, and to create index and mainspace pages for new transcriptions so they don't get lost in the page namespace. I'm working on how to maintain a synced list on Wikisource of the currently displayed documents at any given time on the dashboard, which should make the monitoring easier, and any help with that would be appreciated. In sum, this is a major institution providing a platform to spread the word about Wikisource to researchers—one of our natural bases of support—so I'm really hoping that some Wikisourcerors can take ownership of this project and try to figure out how to make it go smoothly. It will only be as successful as we make it. Dominic (talk) 21:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that the announcement and the progress that NARA has had in making their records available digigally is something that you may wish to publicise to the Latter Day Saints genies[3] and probably a genie blogger like Dick Eastman [4] Both will have specific and separate interests in what you have to say.— billinghurst sDrewth 10:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Epub

FYI oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Wsexport : an automatic export tool for Wikisource fr. Pyb (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Fantastic news! It seems to be a zero-configuration tool that just needs the front page of the book. I am not sure how it handles works with multilevel linking or unusual structures, but for "normal" books, it appears pretty robust.

Here is a little JS snippet that will add a "download ePub" link to the sidebar. If people agree that this tool is functional enough for everyone to see, it could be added as site or gadget JS.

importScript('User:Inductiveload/epubExport.js');

We may also want to consider setting some ePub-specific CSS at MediaWiki:Epub.css. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 21:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Wonderful! Seems stable and brilliant for the few books I've tried. It'd be great to see it rolled out for everyone to use. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 05:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Screen capture

Reaching out to the community for recomendations here.... I'm looking for an easy (& cheap!) utility that can take a snapshot of what is up on my monitor screen or top-opened window at the moment and make a good quality image file from it (based on actual user experience, not hearsay). Thanks for any reply/feedback you folks might have on this. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what browser your running, but you should be able to take a screen shot of your page. - Tannertsf (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

On Windows I generally use ctrl-PRTSC (whole screen) or alt-PRTSC (active window), then paste the clipboard into IrfanView. IrfanView allows one to clean-up the image and then save in a variety of formats. I haven't done this on a Mac for so long that the version of MacPaint I have only runs on System 6! Linux I can't help with. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 00:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

THATS IT!!! I could not recall that for the life of me though I must have done it hundreds of times (my holiday spirits consumption must be behind it!). -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

In Windows PrtScr and it's variations with Alt or Ctrl pasted into Irfanview is by far the best, in my experience. All the PSM images were trimmed cleaned and and adjusted with IV. It can use Adobe filters and the IV forum is full of very helpful participants for problem solving. — Ineuw talk 00:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Public Domain Day

I guess you are aware of this, just a reminder. Emijrp (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Emijrp. Very nice. We would do well to look to add that to some of our Public Domain section.

As we have a simple rule of {{PD-1923}} rather than double rules, at this point of time it probably just serves as information for us. Though if we host any images of the work of those authors then we should be looking to move those works to Commons if possible. I am not sure that we currently have a decent means to identify works in the File: ns, where they are by a specific author, and the author's work are entering the public domain. That said, one would hope that we identified the works by use of {{PD-1923|1941}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Bot for SUBPAGENAME

Does anyone know if there is an existing bot which would add |{{SUBPAGENAME}} to the categories assigned in PSM? — Ineuw talk 05:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC) :There are a number of bots that work in ad hoc basis, and requests should be placed at Wikisource:Bot requests. Also give an example of what you are wanting to achieve, as I don't understand. A manual change with a diff would be appreciated. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind direction. I will define it tomorrow, as it's really late and becoming slowly incoherent.— Ineuw talk 08:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Please consider this post resolved. Unnoticed by me, User:Mpaa has been working on this issue.— Ineuw talk 19:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple sort keys & Categories

Hi. Assume to have obituaries for several persons in the same article. In case one would like to add such article to the Category:Obituaries, is it possible to have multiple sort keys and the article repeated under the initial of each person? If not, any suggestion on how this case could be handled? Thanks --Mpaa (talk) 22:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mpaa. One solution would be to create redirects at something like Albert Albertson (Obituary), and categorize the redirects. Another solution is to use labeled section transclusion to transclude each obituary to an appropriate page while keeping the actual text on the original page. --Eliyak T·C 03:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I am presuming that it is a PSM issue, so what I have been doing is something like [[Popular Science Monthly/standard year bit/standard volume bit/Obituary: name of deceased]] and in that have a redirect to [[Popular Science Monthly/standard year bit/standard volume bit/standard identifier bit#name of deceased]] and repeat this for all the obituaries in the article with a default sort for each redirect. Just need to ensure that you put in the respective {{anchor|name of deceased}}. I am less likely to do as Eliyak suggests as we have many obituaries that are part of a serial, and 1) barely none have redirects, 2) the more famous have multiples (eg. Charles Darwin), and then we start to run to disambiguation problems, and lose a standard approach (blah blah). The advantage of this way is that we already have ready means to quick link to PSM articles through {{PSM link}}, and it takes an anchor argument. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. A few clarifications needed.

• If I understood correctly, the soft redirect will be categorised, right? What is the exact meaning of: default sort for each redirect? Shall I use the default sort tag or better to "hard code" the name in the category?
• In case you have already done this in the past, would you be able to retrieve an example for me to follow, so I can try to match naming conventions as such as possible? --Mpaa (talk) 09:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: add Worldcat ID to template:author

Moved to Proposals. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Runic like characters — a guide?

Anyone got a good unicode type guide to runic-like characters like at Page:Irish Lexicography.djvu/20 ? — billinghurst sDrewth 01:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

From w:Gaelic type#Gaelic script in Unicode: "Unicode treats the Gaelic script as a font variant of the Latin alphabet." Hesperian 02:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

At Graiméar na Gaedhilge I type Gaelic script in teletype to show how it's different from regular text. Angr 11:20, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Should the text be entered in the old form (náċ) or the new form (nách) though? In this book, it's in old form but it's been proofread into the new. Should the characters be as close to the original as possible, or is readability by modern speakers of the language more important? Lankiveil (talk) 11:24, 8 January 2012 (UTC).

I used "ch" rather than "ċ" because it's been the custom in Irish for centuries to use the dot-above diacritic in the Gaelic script but the postposed "h" in the Latin script, and what we read here is in the Latin script. Angr 22:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no HTML support for the Gaelic type used in this book, unless there is a way to generate a Typography template to replicate the Insular script. Is this possible, or just fanciful thinking on my part? ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The only way would be to force the use of a Gaelic-script font (Michael Everson has developed some that are for sale on his website; they're the only ones I know of that are even Unicode-compliant, i.e. that put the character for "c with overdot" at the code point for ċ (U+010B) rather than at some ad-hoc location like the code point for ç), but they would only work for people who have them installed on their computer, which of course most people don't. At User:Angr/Gael I once tried out some code that would tag text as being in the Gaelic script, but I'm not using it since I don't know how to make it actually change the appearance of the text. Angr 11:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I cannot say that I have looked further into the pages this work (yet, to see what I am letting myself in for) though I was thinking either get all the letters as file images, and add them, if that wasn't available them try to get them as a font, type the words, make them into images and insert them. All less than perfect. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth

I've gone through the whole work and added Gaelic letters (in monospace) and Greek letters wherever I could find them. Angr 15:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Tut, Tut. You forgot to put your β in italics :p

I looked into using unicode characters, but they don't really work on two levels. Firstly, the user has to download the font for them to rendered properly (e.g. User:Angr/Gael does not work for me), but secondly I get the impression that most documents that use Insular script don't use a standard font in any case - they are always written in a mish mash of Insular and Latin variants. There is a category of Insular manuscripts that suffer from the same issue: they have been written using letter forms that are too bespoke or irregular to be represented with any consistency. In order to give the reader a chance to make up his own mind as to which typographical script is being used, my idea is that the letters could represented as Typography templates that could be inserted into the text to give a more realistic rending of the letters. I am thinking along the lines of creating a set of besoke templates along the lines of the character " ye " but I don't think anyone has anyone has attempted to transcribe Insular script in this way. I would love to have a go, but I am not sure if it is feasible. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't forget; you don't italicize Greek. Some fonts render Greek letters to look quite oblique, but the Greek alphabet doesn't distinguish upright and italic/oblique forms as such, so it's always written in plain upright form. The reason User:Angr/Gael "doesn't work" for you is that all it does now is tell your browser "this text is written in Irish using the Gaelic script" (and labeling it class="script-gaelic"), but there's no CSS definition telling your browser what to do with that information. I'm not sure how to go about telling browsers to do something with the information; would it mean adding a line to MediaWiki:Common.css? If we defined class="script-gaelic" to actually do something, of course we could make a template (e.g. Template:Latg or Template:Gaelic) to use in these cases. Angr 18:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

 :-) --Eliyak T·C 07:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

That is, see {{insular}}. --Eliyak T·C 07:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, didn't realize templates were that expressive. Great work. Regarding using fonts, it's possible with modern browsers to reference a remotely hosted font file and use it. Would still need an info box linking to the font for download for older browsers though. I remember last year someone asking about I think Berber in connection with this and hosting the font file on Commons. Dunno if anything came of it. And if there are any libre Gaelic type fonts, even if they aren't properly Unicode compliant, they can be modified. Prosody (talk) 09:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to Eliyak, that is most interesting. Can this template be adapted to include other typefaces? The reason I ask relates to point I made earlier that Insular manuscripts tend to be written in a mix of font types, so one standard typeface does not fit all. If I understand this new template correctly, it can adapted to for other typefaces. Instead of using a free use Gaelic type font, it might be possible to create a bespoke font by making images of the insular script used in the Irish Lexicography itself. We are all typesetters now. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've extended {{insular}}'s functionality to make it expandable to other scripts and image file extensions. You would need to generate an image for each letter in the script, and some letters might still need to be programmed in at Template:insular/chr/list. svg's are a good file type, since they are vector images, but others could work too. --Eliyak T·C 18:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You can admire the effects of {{insular}} live at Page:Graimear na Gaedhilge.djvu/7. Angr 11:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure this works, even though I can see what you are trying to do. Here is how it appears:

.

Firstly, the type or style of the insular letters is different from that used in the original cover: for instance, the "s" used above differs from the long "r" used in the original; this goes back to my earlier point that every insular typeface is bespoke. Secondly, the letters that feed into the template don't line up, and they are too far apart, which makes the text look like it was written by a drunken monk. Lastly, the original cover employed lots of embelishments that cannot be rendered using this template. Overall, I would say the original latin typeface which you replaced was better. But it is interesting from an experimental perspective. ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I am moving things forward with {{Gaelic}}. See the page now for an example. I still have to do the capital letters and punctuation, but this is already an improvement, no? --Eliyak T·C 19:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Definetly an improvement. You get some idea of what a complete set of letter is from the file Gaelic-text-Duibhlinn.png:

A slightly smaller sub-set is all that is needed to illustrate Page 25 & Page 28. My intial analysis of the document indicates that the following are needed: vowels with a "fada" (like an acute accent), (lowercase letters with dots over them that denote that a h follows them (i.e. b, c, d, f, g, m & s), capital e (for Eireann) and a symbol equivalent to an ambersand ("&") that looks like an italic seven ("7"). ----Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Featured texts

Wikisource:Featured text candidates needs some care and attention. I only noticed recently but there haven't been any new featured texts for a while. In fact, we are now into the fourth month without one. There is one ongoing nomination and I came up with some more candidates last month but there hasn't been much activity at all. So this post is intended to advertise the page and boost the process a little. Suggestions, votes or new nominations should help get the ball rolling again. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Index:United States Statutes at Large Volume 18 Part 2b.djvu

On this index, would it be possible to transclude it on a page where it is not transcluded under Volume 18's name? I want to track the progress of it myself without having it connected to Volume 18, yet. Tannertsf (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource:Authors-xx update

Hi. As possible area of improvement, I would suggest the automatic update of Wikisource:Authors-xx pages, based on input from respective Category:Authors-xx. It is my understanding that some of you has already addressed this in the past.
It would be convenient to share views on this topic and pro and cons to see if/how address this issue, balancing requirements vs. implementation. Just to mention one of many issues, is an automatic refresh of the page acceptable or is it mandatory that only the delta is added? Comments welcome. --Mpaa (talk) 23:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

How could it be done? JeepdaySock (talk) 11:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

One way could be:

• query the either the Author namespace or the different Category:Authors-xx
• query the author pages to retrieve name, surname and birth/death years in order to construct the proper listing with format Surname, Name (xxxx-xxxx)
• then we need to decide whether compare with the content of Wikisource:Authors-xx and add only the delta in the right position or brutally overwrite the whole section (the latter probably the easier).

Something that might hinder us is the sorting criteria of the Author to sort by surname. If you look at the Author namespace, there are many flavors on how the information are added, esp. in cases such as John Doe Jr., John van Doe, etc. Use of defaultsort parameter in {{author}} is not very popular but needed in such cases. --Mpaa (talk) 19:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Prototype is now implemented (to be reviewed and tested). You can see here the outcome (e.g. letter G) that would be obtained by this script.

Way-forward and consequences:

• mistakes detected in this page should be fixed directly in Author:ns, an indication should be inserted at top of the page.
• names of important authors, as stated today in the header of the page, is not implemented and then that sentence should be removed.
• description field is excessively long in some cases, {{Author}} template should be modified to have: 1. description = very short statement about the author and 2. an additional notes field for the rest of the text
• description field needs to be processed to remove additional formatting or templates that might be problematic outside Author ns, to be further improved depending on your feedback.
• prefix and suffix in lastname and firstname in author template might give a strange when author name is written as: "lastname, firstname". To be evaluated if needed to insert additional parameters for prefix suffix.

Opinions welcome whether this could be something to adopt automatically to have such lists always updated. --Mpaa (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I support the general idea for automatically generating these lists, as it rarely, if ever, gets done manually, and just looks tatty and outdated as a consequence. Author pages are where we store all our author-related information, and it makes little sense to maintain this in two separate places, as is done currently.

• As you say, there are ways to make the author template code more friendly to automatic processing. In my opinion, it is important to try to use our templates so as to maximise the usefulness to automated tools of all sorts. I support the splitting of the author description into a brief one-liner and an expanded notes area for further details that aren't required on the listing page, as well as templates, botanical author citations, names under which they contributed to collective works, etc.
• I also support the prefix/suffix fields, as we currently have no standard way to add things like "Sir" when this is often included in that author's common name (Sir Isaac Newton, for example), and it means that if people do add this to the template, it doesn't have to "pollute" the semantics of the "firstname" field.
• As for important authors, that could be a separate list that is inhaled at generation time and used to highlight the correct entries. I am neutral-leaning-support of this concept, as an "important author list" (hopefully those who have many blue links) could be a nice little starting point for visitors, rather then throwing them into a 10,000-string pool of all authors ever. Implementation-wise, this would be a manual process either way, and could either be an actual list of names (more effort to add an author, easy to track changes to the list), or a category system (easier to add, harder to track changes). This can always be added later, and I personally wouldn't bemoan the loss of the current highlighting in the meantime.

In summary, I support the idea of making these lists automatically, but there are some issues to be resolved first with how we maintain and present author data in the author templates. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Book creator tool works!

The book creator tool has had the <pages /> bug fixed, which is brilliant… but now there's a new problem. :-( Still, that's progress, yes? Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement for a moment about the prospect of printing WS books! Huzza for that, eh?! — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It works now! Load a book from Category:PediaPress books and see it in action. There's still some bother with labelled section transclusion, and maybe with footnotes, so give it a go and send feedback via https://github.com/pediapress/mwlib/issues — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Also note... a simple export to a plain-old PDF file for mainspace pages using the standard <pages /> method/line that sets a from & to Page: range seems to work as expected now. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Announcing Mediawiki 1.19 beta

Wikimedia Foundation is getting ready to push out 1.19 to all the WMF-hosted wikis. As we finish wrapping up our code review, you can test the new version right now on beta.wmflabs.org. For more information, please read the release notes or the start of the final announcement.

The following are the areas that you will probably be most interested in:

• Faster loading of javascript files makes dependency tracking more important.
• New common*.css files usable by skins instead of having to copy piles of generic styles from MonoBook or Vector's css.
• The default user signature now contains a talk link in addition to the user link.
• Searching blocked usernames in block log is now clearer.
• Better timezone recognition in user preferences.
• Improved diff readability for colorblind people.
• The interwiki links table can now be accessed also when the interwiki cache is used (used in the API and the Interwiki extension).
• More gender support (for instance in logs and user lists).
• Language converter improved, e.g. it now works depending on the page content language.
• Time and number-formatting magic words also now depend on the page content language.
• Bidirectional support further improved after 1.18.

Report any problems on the labs beta wiki and we'll work to address them before they software is released to the production wikis.

Note that this cluster does have SUL but it is not integrated with SUL in production, so you'll need to create another account. You should avoid using the same password as you use here. — Global message delivery 00:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Wsexport: an automatic export tool for Wikisource

Hello, and first sorry for this automatic delivery message.

An export tool for Wikisource books, Wsexport, is currently in active development. It is a tool for exporting Wikisource's texts in EPUB, ODT and other file formats. It was created for French Wikisource, but it's also available for the other Wikisource subdomains. It can be used directly from its page on Toolserver.org (for texts in all languages, use "www" for oldwikisource), or browsing http://wsexport.fr.nf (currently only for French Wikisource's texts).

In order to work, the tool need some configuration from your Wikisource subdomain, This page explains how to do it. Currently French, Italian, English, and German Wikisource does it.

You will find more information on The global Scriptorium. Ask here for all question.

This message was distributed to all Wikisources using the Global message delivery system. If you want to use it to send your messages, ask for permission here. Tpt (d) 21:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

WorldCat

Moved to Proposals. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Golan v. Holder

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2012-January/000323.html announces that :

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the seminal case of w:Golan v. Holder http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/golan-v-holder/

..

Today’s decision marks the first time that the Court has ever indicated that Congress not only has the power to extend the life of a copyright, but take works out of the public domain and place them back under copyright protection. Works like Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” have been taken out of the public domain as a result of this law and this decision. This newly declared power that Congress now wields threatens the stability of the public domain and puts those who rely on it at risk.

We should create Golan v. Holder.

• I uploaded the PDF of the opinion ( File:Golan v. Holder (2012 slip opinion).pdf ) but my DjVuLibre isn't up to the task for converting it to DjVu at the moment. I'm hoping that somebody picks up my fumble and gets the opinion to a workable DjVu index sooner rather than later. This ruling is a big one & agree it should be hosted as it will be referenced over and over again. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

We will need to audit Wikisource to identify any other works which have been 'taken' out of the public domain.

I was surprised to see the assertion that w:The Hobbit (published 1937, by British author) "was" in the public domain. I was pretty sure that it was copyright in the US until 2032. I can't see a renewal for it[5]. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:35, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing you probably shouldn't see a typical renewal filing for something "restored" as a result of the URAA (circa 1996) then transfered upon formal request soon afterward as outlined by that same law. Fwiw... there are several post 1966 & post 1996 entries for The Hobbit at the Copyright.gov database - all attributed to Tolkien's estate/heirs - so the assertion appears to be a mistake the way I see it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

For all European WS-projects this decision is a catastrophe. Please discuss here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/All_files_copyrighted_in_the_US_under_the_URAA --Historiograf (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Haven't we (that is, English Wikisource) been working on these terms already? I know the URAA has come up both here and Wikisource:Possible copyright violations. We could probably make the policy and help pages a little clearer but I don't think this really changes anything in the main namespace. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

After (re)reading the opinion, it seems the only thing that "we" need to make note of is that the court has finally spelled out what was once a gray area-- (paraphrasing) anything once or currently in the Public Domain does not mean that it will always remain safely in the Public Domain. Congress, thru legislation enacted into law, can "place" ('limit' might be a better term here) works in (or out) of Public Domain as it sees fit and still remain consistent with the Free Speech and Copyright clauses of the Consitution at the same time.

Other WS wikis do seem to take the worst of this new ruling but we should wait to see what the Wiki Foundation legal team comes up with before freaking out. Images, music and performance arts do seem to be affected more so than anything we're doing here on WS currently the way I read it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Requesting someone more experienced to transfer a file from Commons

Hullo. This file (Alexandre Arsène Girault (1928) - Some new hexapods stolen from authority), is currently up for deletion in Commons for being out of scope. It's a rare paper already in the public domain and I'd hate to see it disappear. Can someone please ensure it gets transferred here correctly? You can contact me in my English Wikipedia talk page here: w:User talk:Obsidian Soul. Thank you.--Obsidian Soul (talk) 08:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Not done. Instead speedily closed the file deletion request at Commons. Clearly within scope of Commons through use at enWS if in the public domain in US and Australia. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought Ices2CSharp was nominating it because it was "Out of scope" as a book. Now I know books are hosted at commons, that's even better.--Obsidian Soul (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Who really knows why the thought was in that place. As a pointer, we have been encouraging the use of {{book}} over there for books rather than {{information}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

For not knowing any better, and just as speedily, it was I who placed that category just to keep it from deletion. The deletion notice was already there and doubt that Ices2CSharp even saw it. Is not ignorance an excuse? aka "who" :-D — Ineuw talk 18:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Proposed Wikisource policy

For those who only read the bottom... There are 14 pages in Category:Proposed Wikisource policy, I picked the two which seem the easiest to reach closure on, and added them above. Please take a look and share your perception of the community consensus. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

• Wikisource:Scriptorium#Wikisource:Alternate_accounts
• Wikisource:Scriptorium#Wikisource:Portal

Thanks for a fix, and an email notification question

My thanks, to the anonymous wizard or wizardess, for the custom toolbar fix to work in headers and footers.

It would be to one of the mediawiki wizards that perform work in bugzilla, and it is good to know that a fix is in place, and pushed out to the sites. I hadn't noticed, so thanks for bringing it to the communities attention.

I am having a continual problem of intermittent notifications by WS email. I've been assiduously monitoring my watchlist for changes, ever since missed replies were brought to my attention. Without email notifications, it's impossible to track the numerous topics & issues I am involved in, and I shudder at the thought of time loss, if I have to manually track my questions & posts. In a concession to ignorance, what am I doing wrong? — Ineuw talk 21:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Mail issues? Hmm, it could be that not all things are noticed, or a ton of issues at play here. No answers from me. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This reply is a good example. Should I not have received a notice that a response was posted?— Ineuw talk 15:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Ink removed from footnote

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

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

Requirement to back up texts with scans?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

List of author page hits

I noticed Project Gutenberg had a top 100 authors list. Of course we have author pages so I wondered how often they were frequented. So without further ado, here is a list of the top 96 author pages visited at Wikisource on January 1st, 2011 (UTC), followed by the number of hits.

1. Author:H._P._Lovecraft, 101	---------------------	47.Author:Herman_Melville, 11
2. Author:Robert_Ervin_Howard, 78		47.Author:Jonathan_Swift, 11
3. Author:Edgar_Allan_Poe, 52		47.Author:Leo_Tolstoy, 11
4. Author:William_Topaz_McGonagall, 36		47.Author:Lyndon_Baines_Johnson, 11
5. Author:Arthur_Conan_Doyle, 35		47.Author:Plato, 11
5. Author:Emily_Dickinson, 35		47.Author:Jane_Austen, 11
7. Author:William_Shakespeare, 33		57.Author:Benjamin_Franklin, 10
8. Author:Alfred_Tennyson, 27		57.Author:Charles_Darwin, 10
9. Author:John_Donne, 26		57.Author:Charles_Wesley, 10
10.Author:Bret_Harte, 25		57.Author:Florence_Earle_Coates, 10
10.Author:John_Keats, 25		57.Author:Herodotus, 10
12.Author:Ambrose_Bierce, 22		57.Author:Theodore_Kaczynski, 10
13.Author:Gilbert_Keith_Chesterton, 21		57.Author:Theodore_Roosevelt, 10
14.Author:Oscar_Wilde, 20		57.Author:William_Butler_Yeats, 10
15.Author:Jack_London, 17		57.Author:Woodrow_Wilson, 10
15.Author:Robert_Louis_Stevenson, 17		57.Author:Abraham_Lincoln, 10
17.Author:Charles_Dickens, 16		67.Author:Arthur_Schopenhauer, 9
17.Author:O._Henry, 16		67.Author:Bertrand_Russell, 9
17.Author:Mark_Twain, 16		67.Author:Michael_Faraday, 9
20.Author:Aristotle, 15		67.Author:Fyodor_Dostoevsky, 9
20.Author:Herbert_George_Wells, 15		67.Author:George_Gordon_Byron, 9
20.Author:Mahatma_Gandhi, 15		67.Author:Henry_David_Thoreau, 9
20.Author:William_Blake, 15		67.Author:John_Milton, 9
24.Author:Agatha_Christie, 14		67.Author:Montague_Rhodes_James, 9
24.Author:Honoré_de_Balzac, 14		67.Author:René_Descartes, 9
24.Author:Lewis_Carroll, 14		67.Author:Robert_Browning, 9
24.Author:Robert_Burns, 14		67.Author:Sax_Rohmer, 9
24.Author:Voltaire, 14		67.Author:Sigmund_Freud, 9
29.Author:Emily_Brontë, 13		67.Author:Thomas_Frederick_Tout, 9
29.Author:Friedrich_Nietzsche, 13		67.Author:Thomas_Hardy, 9
29.Author:Guy_Wetmore_Carryl, 13		67.Author:Thomas_Hobbes, 9
29.Author:Percy_Bysshe_Shelley, 13		67.Author:Walter_de_la_Mare, 9
29.Author:Rabindranath_Tagore, 13		67.Author:Adolf_Hitler, 9
29.Author:Robert_Frost, 13		84.Author:Bram_Stoker, 8
29.Author:Saki, 13		84.Author:Elizabeth_I, 8
36.Author:Alexander_Pope, 12		84.Author:Gottfried_Leibniz, 8
36.Author:Barack_Obama, 12		84.Author:Beatrix_Potter, 8
36.Author:Dante_Alighieri, 12		84.Author:Guy_de_Maupassant, 8
36.Author:Francis_Scott_Fitzgerald, 12		84.Author:Immanuel_Kant, 8
36.Author:George_W._Bush, 12		84.Author:Napoleon_Bonaparte, 8
36.Author:James_Joyce, 12		84.Author:Polycarp, 8
36.Author:Lysander_Spooner, 12		84.Author:Thomas_More, 8
36.Author:Rudyard_Kipling, 12		84.Author:Victor_Hugo, 8
36.Author:Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge, 12		84.Author:William_Henry_Davies, 8
36.Author:Thomas_Gray, 12		84.Author:William_Prideaux_Courtney, 8
36.Author:Virginia_Woolf, 12		84.Author:Xenophon, 8
47.Author:Clark_Ashton_Smith, 11
47.Author:Edgar_Rice_Burroughs, 11
47.Author:Edna_St._Vincent_Millay, 11
47.Author:Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow, 11

More statistics

On that same day users visited 122,000 different pages and 2.09 gigabytes of text were returned to users. ResScholar (talk) 11:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC) updated 11:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking for properly typeset poems

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

A call to all coding wonks

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

• TalkPage for MediaWiki:PageNumbers.js (OldWikiSource).

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

Template clean-up

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

epub export and its about page

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

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

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