Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2005-12-31

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created on 31 December 2005, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

The Librarian Project

Nice idea, though isn't this just saying these are the principles of the wikisource project now join a sub-project to support these. I may be missing something but isn't this just the same thing that wikisource does as standard (& attracting only those wikisource users who are already highly involved in adding documents). Unless it's split up into separate areas (eg speeches, electoral data, poetry projects or specific author projects) I don't see a benefit or purpose to this. AllanHainey 13:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

How do I get out of this wee box? - it looks like any edits below this point are going to end up in this coloured box. AllanHainey 13:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Copied from AllanHainey's talk page.

I created this project with that initial purpose. I knew that it was already the expectations of high users. Zhaladshar had the idea of adding the policy pages on the project and use it as a policy page. Its final use is not yet decided. I have just added one assignment. I think that this project may be used to adress the most important modifications that need to be made. The Scriptorium can also be used for that purpose. Therefore, the final decision for the main purpose of the project has not yet been decided.

Sincerely

J.Steinbock

I think another invaluable function the Library Project could use would be to help categorize pages. On this wiki, categories are really under-utilized. It could also help with such things as the Wikisource:Poetry and Ancient and Classical texts:Titles, etc. These pages are pitiful at best. And we can delete them (which will probably be the best course) and instead categorize the pages which fall under those respective "meta-pages." We really don't have a way of coordinating such large-scale projects, except by doing it through the Scriptorium or the Community Portal (neither of which I see are that suited for this kind of project).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been thinking about the problems in Categories as well. It really is quite a mess right now. Maybe we could use Portals to sort these things out. Such as a Poetry Portal, Religous Text Portal, Historical Documents Portal, etc. I need to poke around Wikipedia and look for well designed portal to work off of.--BirgitteSB 21:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Portals might be a good idea. I'm not too familiar with them, but the few I've visited at WP look really nice. If we do implement them, we might want to turn "Portal:" into a new (real) namespace. And while we're at it, we should go ahead and have "Author:" turned into a new namespace as well.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think portals would be a good idea & a good way of organising the various sub-sections of Wikisource (literature, poetry, historical documents, etc) especially when used together with categories. I've seen a few categories on wikisource & some aspects of them could be copied wholesale (things you can do, wikiprojects, categories) while some are irrelevant for wikisource purposes or not suited to the size of wikisource (featured articles & pictures, did you know). W:Portal:Europe is a good one as is W:Portal:United States, (largely due to the number of people who work on them I suspect).

I think the use of categories would be worthwhile as we would then be able to use bots a lot more for general maintenance/page reorganisation, though it would be a big job initially (certainly on the speeches page very few of these are categorised as speeches & I think most other pages would be similarly uncategorised. I wouldn't want to use the categories as a substitute for general subject pages (Wikisource:Poetry, Portal:Speeches) due to the fact that as pages can have multiple categorisations very easily it would increase the number of places where pages were listed & lead to increasing clutter on the category pages making it harder to find things.

Also while categorisation would be useful it generally breaks things up into lots of sub-categories & can make things harder to find (especially but not limited to those incorrectly categorised or not categorised). Also with categories it'll only show the name of the document or author rather than EG name, author & date delivered for the speeches; which would make it harder to find some things & to find out information on them without opening & reading them. That said increased use of categories would help improve the constitutional documents & historical documents page but I don't feel it should be used as a substitute for proper listings of the documents we have. AllanHainey 15:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I entirely agree. We should not get rid of the bigger subject pages. But we should use categories to help supplement them. Categories can be entirely cluttered (especially with sub-categories and whatnot), and trying to navigate those category trees can be pretty difficult. The subject pages allow us to offer small "summaries," if you will, about each item listed, which the current category system does not. I think it would be best to use the two together. And I think that portals will definitely help in that project.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I have been wondering is a better course to devising Wikisource categories might be to simply copy an existing library classificiation, such the Library of Congress, and allocate texts to the classses as they are posted. The disadvantage of our own classification is that it is liable to lack an over-riding logic, as it will tend to depend on the mix of pieces being posted, so whole areas of knowledge will be missed.Also it will need very dedicated work to make sure that stuff is not mis-categorised. There is something of a problem now on EB1911, where articles are being categorised arbitrarily, overlooking the fact that a comprehensive categorising scheme and index of articles keyed to it already exists in the Index Volume and needs entering in WS. I had it part done, then had a hard drive failure, so need to start again in the New Year :-( Apwoolrich 19:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure what is the best way to approach Catagories. First remember that systems like the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress are devised to allow finding of books in a library. They were made with the parameters that one text could only belong in one place. Perhaps those systems are still a good place to start but we shouldn't be too "hidebound" so to speak. No one is going to use catagories to look up a text they know the name or even the author of when can use the search feature. So maybe we should first brain storm about how catagories are going to actually be used by the readers on Wikisoure. Here are a few things I can think off hand, please add anything to the following list that crosses your mind:--BirgitteSB 20:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• To find more texts of the same style
• To find more texts with similar themes
• To find other texts from the same period
• To find texts which agree or disagree with the first
• To find crictism of the text

The Library of Congress scheme was implemented here for a while by an old user over at the multi-WS named Eclecticology. He was, really, the only person who used it, as none of us truly understood the different sections of the LoC classification. I would propose that we not use them, and instead use categories with actual words; I think that would be best for helping people surf the different categories and find things they are looking for.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:English

I believe this category is left over from before the split. If so can someone have a bot remove this category from the many articles found there. It is classified under Category --> Categories --> English. I can't seem to make a wikilink to a Category page at all--BirgitteSB 17:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been slowly removing them myself. If I had a bot, I'd do it. But the one thing is, there are a number of articles under the English category which need to be categorized (I'm specifically referring to the hymns). A bot would not take into account which ones were hymns and which weren't. And since about half the hymns have been categorized, and half have not, I'd rather we finish off the rest. I can undertake the rest of this task. Finals are almost over and it'll be Christmas break soon, so I'll have much more time to do it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll get it sometime in the next month. Haven't set up the remote bot yet. Right now, i'm focused on making some javascript tools. Wolf ^man 20:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Updated translations

Discussion moved to Wikisource talk:Translations.

fa.wikisource

Just to let everyone know: there is a bug report at bugzilla (go here) for the creation of fa.wikisource. If you want, go show support for the creation of this subdomain by voting for the bug!—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:13, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

while you are at it, you guys may also vote for my patch : here. I previously advertised it on ws.org but I guess many people have not seen it. brion said he would review it this week, but it will not hurt to show some support. ThomasV 15:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep, already voted for it. I really hope it's implemented.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Welcoming Committee?

If anyone is interested in starting a welcoming committee please contact me and we will set up some ideas. A welcome template can be found here. Please note that the template is written in a format that is deceiving. It looks as if it were credited to myself, but instead it uses the ~~~ format. Furthermore, you only need to type {{welcome}} to place the text on a user talk page.

Sincerely,

J.Steinbock (Discussion Page)

I've made a few wee changes to the template, I've noted these on the talk page. Incidentally, I tested the template out and it does come out as credited to yourself rather than using the ~~~ format. I've amended this anyway, I don't think the welcome should be specifically from any 1 user, rather from the whole wikisource community (though of course if the person who applies the welcome template wants to sign it I see no problem). Personally I don't see the need for a welcoming committee, just make sure that people are aware of the welcome template & I think you'll find that people will use it. AllanHainey 12:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

A welcoming committee would be a good idea if Wikisource weren't so small. I'm sure most of the people who create an account here never visit again. A few who do and who contribute something never come back after their initial contribution. Only a very few actually stay and get involved with the project. So, unless WS becomes far more active over that little bit, a welcoming committee--while a great idea--will never be truly utilized. But of course, if you would like to take it upon yourself to welcome new users, please do so. I've done a little bit, but I just never think to do it. And it is nice to welcome people to this project; it just might get some of them involved.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Projects Template

Here is a new design idea for the template. The colors do not exactly fit the main page, nor does the format. However, I have been told that a new main page is under construction (Not True: See message below - J.Steinbock). This may also be placed horizontally rather than vertically to save space. J.Steinbock

Wikimedia Projects

File:Wikimedia without text-35px.png Meta-Wiki

Wikimedia Project Coordination

File:Wikipedia without text-35px.png Wikipedia

The Free Encyclopedia

Wikitionary

The Free Dictionary and Thesaurus

Wikibooks

Free Textbooks and Manuals

Wikiquotes

Collection of Quotations

Wikispecies

Directory of Species

Wikinews

The Free Content News Source

Wikicommons

Shared Media Repository

The main page was recently changed, a few months ago, as far as I know there are no plans to redo it & get another new page. On the above sister projects bar I would prefer to stick with the current one as (colours aside, as these can easily be changed) the layout of the main page is such that a horizontal block will fit in the main page better than a vertical one which would leave a big block of unused white space. I think that there is a good case for putting the sisterproject icons & links on the existing template in a big box like those already on the main page for the other stuff & possibly changing the colour (something unobtrusive & muted like the other box background colours). You seem to be good designing things like that perhaps you could work up something on those lines. By the way who told you we're getting a new main page? AllanHainey 14:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Copied from J.Steinbock's Discussion Archives (One)

What renovations did you have in mind? Is it a big change, or just a minor one? I suggest you create a test template, make your changes, then post it on the Scriptorium (since if we're going to change the layout of a portion of the Main Page, this should be a community decision). Thanks.——Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC).

On second glance, he did not mean that we are going to change the main page, rather, he was stating that we would be modifying a portion of the main page if the Wikimedia Projects Template was edited.

--- (In response to AllanHainey) - J.Steinbock

As much as I like the above template, with the current layout of the Main Page, such a template would not work. Our Main Page, as Allan pointed out, is best suited for a horizontal layout. Sorry about any confusion, though, I only meant that we'd be changing the template layout, not the whole Main Page (it was a pain enough to get a bug out of that layout--we should keep it for a while :-) ). Is there any way to make this template a horizontal one? That way, it would stand a better chance of being approved (not saying that it will, but it at least stands a chance).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I will make a horizontal template and make other modifications. However, I will be unavailable for the next two weeks (See Special Message). When I find the time, I will make the necessary changes. - J.Steinbock ^(Talk)

Sidebar

What about adding the Sandbox link onto sidebar? (where the navigation and toolbox sections are located)

J.Steinbock

Does anyone actually use the Sandbox? I mean, people who actually get involved with the project? Usually they just use their own sandboxes on their user pages, as no one but them will edit those.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

True. I suggested this because I had noticed the unintentional vandalism of pages used by inexperienced users. I thought this would eliminate the issue. (See Proposed Deletions). J.Steinbock ^(Talk)

Soufron on UN

Wikipedia's copyright lawyer wrote a blog piece on our UN dilemma. As I read this, he approves of posting protected versions of these and similar documents. Been gone a few weeks, so I may have missed it if this was posted. If so, please just delete this section. Didn't spot it on a scan of the Scriptorium archive. Wolf ^man 18:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

This commentary seems to cover our concerns. The only thing I would add, is that we must be much more rigorous on ensuring that texts are locked once they are posted and edited. Apwoolrich 19:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

So, shall we go about proofing all the UN resolutions and do a mass protection? It's high time we started implementing this policy.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll have a go at it over the holidays. Probably should go up for admin, so that I can protect. Wolf ^man 17:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll start proofing them, too. That way we can begin the very arduous process.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It might be worth seeing if we can find a compilation at the UN site, or maybe US State Dept. Just doing a clean upload might be easier than going through by hand. I can bot that, if we can find such a convenient source ... need an inspiration to spend a couple hours setting up the bot again anyways. I'll poke around and see what's available. Wolf ^man 18:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't find a complete repository (I haven't been looking that hard, though). And I'd prefer to not do a complete text dump, because then all of the interlinks (linking one resolution to all the others that are mentioned in that resolution) won't be there. And that is one thing I do like about the wiki software: we can do that. Of course, I guess once we've text dumped it all, we can go through and add those links manually. That might save us some time. But what about the italics that are in the originals? Could we bring those over, too?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:03, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

never fear, i can do wonders with perl. italics, bolding, interlinks, whatever -- automatically. basically, if there's a systematic way to describe the process, i can do it pretty easily. for a project this large, it might be a big timesaver. of course it's moot unless we can find an official repository -- haven't looked yet. Wolf ^man 23:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

ok, the U.N. has a full repository of pdf's. the pdf's since about '95 are layered text, which can easily be extracted for flawless reproduction. we are completely missing most of these anyway, so there's nothing pre-existing to proof. the previous ones are image pdf's which would have to be OCR'd. these of course would need to be hand-proofed. i googled selected phrases from random resolutions ... the majority are not available in text form anywhere on the web. so, it's going to be a big job proofing these. I've got some pretty good OCR software, I'll see how it fares on the pdf's, unfortunately many are low quality scans. obviously we shouldn't waste time OCR'ing the ones we've already got.Wolf ^man 00:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

We should probably update Wikisource:About to take into account that we have copyrighted works.--BirgitteSB 20:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Also a section on this page Wikisource:General disclaimer claims everything on Wikisource is available under GNU licence.--BirgitteSB 19:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I suggest that we should consider producing a template explaining the copyright status of the UN Resolutions.--Jusjih 11:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I have created Template:UNCopyright and Template:UNESCOCopyright. Please comment if these copyright tags should be improved.--Jusjih 06:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The templates look good, Jusjih. We can have a bot (probably Wolfbot) add them once we've added all of the resolutions. Then we can protect them. Birgitte, would you mind updating the pages that you noted that deal with copyright issues (if you haven't already)? I won't be available too much for the next couple of weeks, otherwise I'd offer. Someone else, if they want, can do it, too.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

this is a bit offtopic, but I do not like copyright templates. I made a proposal at ws.org, to use tabs instead. there is an example. please check it out (see oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium ). I can set it up here if requested. ThomasV 20:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

If I read your example right, as my french is horrible, you are just leaving link to where a reader can find out the copyright status. I do not beleive that would work. Whether the readers here want to see the copyright notices or not, I believe we are obligated to make the aware of the status without clicking on a link. Obviously we have no real need to tag public domain text, except to note for ourseves that someone has checked into it. So public domain test could be noted on the talk page, but the UN and crown need to tell the reader the explicitly the terms of the waiver. I also think it should show up in print if someone were to print it off. I don't claim to know that we are legaly obligated to do this, but I suspect we might be. And I do think we are morally bound to let readers know under what conditions they can reproduce and or alter the test they find here, especially as many coming from Wikipedia will believe they are free to do as they like with it. With that said I think we can try and make the template as unobtrusive as possible.

Zhaladshar, I'm not sure which pages you are talking about updating, but I will look at my contribs and see if I can find what you talking of. I have been doing a good deal of maintanence over at Wikipedia regarding Wikisource links and I have stumbled across some things that need work or looking into , but it is all blurring together at this point.--BirgitteSB 02:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. You just said up above that we should amend Wikisource:About and Wikisource:General disclaimer.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I fixed Wikisource:About but Wikisource:General disclaimer is a less trivial change. Do we know if there was a lawyer that worked on that orginally? I am going to put a draft on the talk page and encourage some dicussion first--BirgitteSB 16:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection

There is a discussion & poll on wikipedia about semi-protection. The idea is that new users are prevented from editing some pages, in hopes of reducing vandalism. This will require a software change, which apparently the developers are willing to do. Of course, wikisource uses the same software, so this discussion concerns us too. Have a look. I also noticed Jimbo saying that he was going to implement "stable" and "development" versions of pages. There's been a bit of discussion about how to do something like this on wikisource. Seems like it may soon be supported by the software. Wolf ^man 02:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

This isn't a bad idea to help prevent vandalism. It will definitely keep the AP vandal away (for the most part). The only problem here though, is that if users have to wait a while for their account to be pushed out of the lower percentage where they can't make any edits, on this wiki, wouldn't that take a while? (I'm sorry, I haven't yet read the entire page--I'm only going on glances here). It would not, however, help Wikisource preserve the integrity of our articles, since even good-natured users can make changes that would compromise the historical accuracy/integrity of our works. Still, it seems like (at initial glance) to be a good policy to implement on this software.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:18, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree for the most part about semi-protection, it could be useful in limited ways. Just to be clear, we can set the percentage to be arbitrarily low, and the protection could be selectively applied ... for example, to Author pages which should probably never be fully protected. Jimbo has officially approved this now. The stable / testing page setup Jimbo is talking about would be more appropriate for long term protection. We would probably need to have a discussion page for any updates from testing to stable articles under that proposed system. Wolf ^man 18:18, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Portals

I made a mock-up of a Portal for Poetry to be found as User:BirgitteSB/Portal:Poetry. I would really appreciate if everyone could take a look at it and post opinions on using Portals like this for the Meta-Catagories (i.e. Speeches, Biographies, Court Rulings, etc.). I tried to make this mock-up as useable as possible, but I know some links aren't valid. I just wanted show an idea of how it might work. If we decide to set-up Portals , I don't not think we would neccessarily need the Portal namespace like Wikipedia. We could just put them on the Category page, since there should only be a limited number of portals neccessary. In fact I think the mock-up I made is still too Wikipedia based, as we are looking at using portals for a different purpose in my mind. But I thought it would be better to show everyone more than we really need, since it is easier to cut something out than to describe what else might be added.--BirgitteSB 06:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I really like this idea, the different texts on WS all have completely different contexts (legal is normally sorted by time, science fiction by style, encyclopædias by article or area of knowledge etc), and portals are far more effective at showing the context than categories or basic lists. We definitely need to work more on this, as I believe it will really help put some structure into WS and turn it into a better tool for browsing and research. – GregRobson 14:35, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this is really nice, Birgitte. This would definitely help give a "backbone" to this project. We really should think about exploring this issue for all of our meta-sections (speeches, poetry, etc.). You say that it's too "Wikipedia-based." What sort of differences are you having in mind? So, shall we get a list of all the things that would need a portal page (that way, we can sort of get an idea for the work that needs to be done)? I can think of

1. Poetry
2. Speeches
3. Court rulings
4. Historical documents
5. Religious documents
6. (Should we split texts into the time period in which they were written. E.g., medieval, ancient, etc.?)—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Fantastic! (a tiny thing: I do find the yellow on light blue a bit hard to read). Wolf ^man 18:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

What I meant by too Wikipedia-based is that they usePortals there to build communities primarily and a secondary benifit as a navagation aid. If we want to keep all the tasks and did you know sections that is great I wasn't sure if everyone would want that. I really did it by cut and pasting and trial and error than any real knowledge. If anyone knows how to fix Template:Ed2 so the edit links within the boxes would actually work I would appreciate it. About splitting text into time periods I think we can have several subcategories boxes. One for style, another for period, one for topic, etc.--BirgitteSB 19:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent idea.I think they should on WS be more navigation aids. I would like to add extra portals for Science, Mathematics and Technology, if possible. There are bits and pieces in WS for all of these now, and I hope they will expand in time. I must confess that the 'Do you Know' and similar boxes on WP have always irritated me. In the example you have of Poe, is the list of poems kept up to date automatically or are they maintained manually. If we are going to have this kind of thing the more automation the better IMHO.Apwoolrich 20:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't necessarily have a problem with the "Did you know" sections and whatnot, but I don't see them as integral to the site, either. They can go or stay--whichever WS decides to do. Aside from making the list of poems for the featured author and such all templates, what ideas do you have in mind for automating those lists (all I can think of is turning those into templates similar to what we have for our new texts on the Main Page)? I do hope that these portals will help contributors see what needs expanding and will help flesh this wiki out where it is deficient.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice work Brigitte, it looks good. I think that I would prefer keeping the Portal: namespace, just to delineate portals from other types of pages & to make them easier to find (we'd be able to get a special page to show all portals) & I think it'd be easier for bots to work on them if they all have the portal: name (someone who knows more about bots may correct me on this if I'm wrong). I'd avoid putting them on the category pages, though there should be links, as the categories can already get too cluttered.

On the specific things to be included in the portal pages we'll have to decide if we want them all to be standardised with the same boxes (or relatively similar - did you know, featured page, author, etc). I think this might not suit all pages, such as court rulings or religious documents (certainly in terms of featured author & DYK). I know that the categories box currently wouldn't be needed for speeches as we've only got the 1 category page for speeches, though I've been planning to expand this when there's time.

I'm not sure whether or not it is worth going down the road of having a featured author or did you know, as that seems to be straying onto Wikipedia's turf a wee bit & outside the scope of Wikisource. I'm doubtful as to how often it would be updated too.

Over the holidays I'll try & work out a portals page for speeches (I'll probably just blatantly copy the poetry page & then start editing) & see if there are any practical or display changes that need to be made. AllanHainey 08:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I suggest the colour scheme of the Portals matches that of out main page, which I find very handsome. As a suggestion maybe we migtht standardise on the this livery for the other pages we have such as the Welcome to New Users page that has just started running. Apwoolrich 13:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I don't see how having a "Did You Know" section is really straying onto Wikipedia's turf. We aren't giving encyclopedic explanations of anything, just little snippets of trivia. Wikisource has been giving "background" information on certain pieces since its inception. I think having a DYK (and leaving it solely at that--i.e., not taking it any further) would be fine. The question is who wants to update it? (And this question can be applied to the "Featured author" section and the rest--although, I do think it would be beneficial to have one of those sections, too. Let's try to get some of our authors added publicity.)

I agree with Apwoolrich. The color scheme should try to match our Main Page--or, the color scheme should be pretty standardized among the portals. I don't like browsing WP's portals and getting very different colors for different portals. And some of those colors really butt heads, too. We should try to make them pleasing to the eye.

And I think if we create a new namespace for Portals, then it will make maintenance a bit easier, and it will differentiate them from normal pages. I think these are good reasons to make it a real namespace.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 13:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I would definately like to see the color scheme standardized it would actually involve less templates. I began working on a second version and hopefully I can have it done by tonight. I'm going to try and get it to match the Main Page, if I can figure it out. I actually was missing template earlier that told it what colors to use so I'm not sure where the blue and yellow came from --BirgitteSB 17:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

OK Check out User:BirgitteSB/Portal:Poetry/1 I removed the featured text becuase that will seldom actually fit. Made Categories more prominent since we want this primarily as a navigation aid. I was thinking it would be nice if we could have a link to show only the author the have poetry on Wikisource. I guess we could do that as a category on the author pages, right? I think that would be useful for other portal like Speeches and such. I think wwee come up with Subcategories that would be nice for every portal (i.e. Speeches might have subcats for date delivered, topics like religon, foriegn relation, taxation, etc.). Even though they aren't in use now it would give people ideas as to what catagories to add to a text. With that said poetry was probably a poor choice to use as an example as it is notoriously diffcult to catergorize.--BirgitteSB 18:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick comment on colors ... I totally agree we should have a standard scheme. But, I just want to register my opinion that the color scheme on the main page is unattractive. Personal preference; others surely differ. Wolf ^man 20:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wolfman has a point. How would it look of the colours were reversed, the heading bars being the grey and the text panels being ochre? Apwoolrich 21:23, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I just did that and I don't think it is much of an improvement. The color scheme is based off Template:Portal:Scheme. Let me encourage all of you to alter that template in the strongest terms possible. I know myself to be a poor judge of aesthetics. Is there any navigtional aids besides the organized Catergories we could add here. I did change the Top Browse bar to reflect Wikisource namespaces instead of categories.--BirgitteSB 22:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, I don't like the grey heading bars. I'm trying out light blue heading bars on User:AllanHainey/SpeechesPortal (under construction) but the colours are easily amendable. Does anyone know where there is a list showing the colours of the various different colour codes as this'd probably make it easier to choose a consistent colour scheme.

HTML manuals sometimes have colour charts. An excellent online one is at Visibone.com [[1]] They also publish a manual about it. Apwoolrich 19:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not keen on using the categories, as they are as navigational aids - as theyare quite sparse in some categories, though its probably the easiest option (though it will need a lot of gnome work, or bot work, to make it comprehensive. Wolfman, you seem to know a bit about bots any idea how easy it would be to get bots to improve & increase the categorisations. Would it need a lot of watching/input from people? One thing I'm thinking of is categorising all the speeches by nationality of the orator & by subject (war, foreign policy, etc). Manually it'd take a lot of work but could bots do it easier, what info/guidance would the bots need? AllanHainey 15:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering if the links on the Main Page that go to Wikisorce namespaces (Speeches, Non-Fiction, etc.), are those Wikisource pages maintained manually? Some of them look in better shape than others and some only show a list of Categoies. Is there any other ways to navigate Wikisource besides Catagories and lists?--BirgitteSB 16:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Re Colours, I have just discovered I have been running on 16 colours instead of 256. (Due to using a spare machine following a hard drive failure 3 weeks ago) Changing the dislay to 256 converts the handsome yellow ochre and pale gray to two different shades of sludge brown!! Apwoolrich 12:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Birgitte, right now I believe those are the only two ways to navigate Wikisource. The portals will be a third, and they will hopefully spur us to revamp both the list pages and the categories so that navigation can be much more improved.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, despite barely getting a chance to get on-line over the holidays (AOL connection error every single time) I've come up with a version of a portal for the speeches User:AllanHainey/SpeechesPortal. Let me know what you think. I was toying with the idea of putting, yet to be written, guidelines (format of speeches, bit on wikifying policy, adding infoboxes, naming, etc) in a seperate box but I don't like the look of too many wee boxes sitting below the necessarily bulky featured speech box. I'm not too sure about the intro either, so comments please. Happy New Year. AllanHainey 13:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Allan. The speech portal is a great start! It looks really nice. I might suggest, though, that we fix the irregular spacing of all the boxes; the big gaps mixed in with the small gaps is sort of off-throwing (well, it at least throws me off a bit). Also, you mentioned you wanted to put some documentation in the Portal. What if you add a link—or a series of links—in the box "Things you can do" as "Read: Read this document for speeches, Read this other one, Read this one" etc. That way we don't clutter up the Portal with more boxes but we can still get the documentation out there for people to read.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed up the spacing now & added a link (still red) to the things to do box. I think that I'll make all the items in that box link to a seperate page as we'll be able to include a longer list of things to do on those pages than in the wee box. AllanHainey 13:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just stumbled on Template:Portalpar which provides a wee box giving a link to the relevant portal page, this will be useful once we get the portals up & running. AllanHainey 15:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Talmud Copyright Issue

Greetings;

I, and some others, would like to see an English copy the Babylonian Talmud on Wikisource. However, some issues currently prevent us from doing so:

1. The 1819 Babylonian Talmud translation by M.L. Rodkinson is available on-line, primarily via the well-known <Sacred Text Archive>. However, despite assertions to the contrary by the author, it appears to be abridged. Having an abridged copy available is less than fitting, if a full-and-complete translation is otherwise available for our purposes.

1. The Soncino Babylonian Talmud translation, published by Soncino press is another option. It is unabridged, and therefore preferred over an abridged edition. However, its copyright status is not clear.

The 1961 edition was, allegedly^{[come-and-here-copyright]}, published without a copyright notice. Another user User:Nevuchadnezzar found himself with physical access to a Soncino Press Talmud, of a different printing. He asserts, it is indeed lite a copyright notice. Also, the polemic <http://www.come-and-hear.com> maintain an electronic copy of the text on their site.

I emailed Soncino press on the issue, politely requesting clarification on the matter: I received no reply. So, I did a little bit of "googling" on the subject of works published without a copyright notice. It seems, certain conditions met^{[publications-wo-copyright-notice]}, such works become public domain.

These things being as they are, I'd like to know if it is — ahem — kosher to post the Soncino Press Babylonian Talmud on Wikisource.

Any assistance on this matter others could lend, would be much appreciated.

^1.↑  http://www.come-and-hear.com/p_copyright.html.
^2.↑  http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.html.

Thank you, —Wikijeff

Invitation: Distributed Scanners

http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/1297398/ --172.182.245.13 00:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Frequently re-added copyrighted works

I noticed on the copyright violations page that some popular copyrighted texts are deleted & re-added again. Following advice on that board (& copying wikipedia templates) I've created Template:Deletedpage. I'd say this should be added to frequently re added texts (Lord Of The Rings, The, 1984, etc) & the page can then be protected & save us the problem of having to delete them again when they're re added. AllanHainey 12:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a really good idea. In the past we've just added a message saying "Don't add this." This way we can insure that it doesn't get added.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Ditto, great idea.Dovi 16:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to keep Google from picking those up? We don't want to have searchers coming here for something we don't have. Wolf ^man 20:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably can be donne by a special directive into robot.txt 83.199.179.109 17:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Namespaces for Author, Subject ...

An update: Not long ago we had some unresolved discussion about the "Author:" namespace, which is currently just a pseudo-namespace. Same if we do "Subject:" etc., as well as the possibilities that were raised about a namespace for mathematical material, computer code, and all sorts of other special texts.

I just noticed this on the Wikitech mailing list. It seems that technical implementation of all this stuff is not too far off. When it is finally implemented we can finally make decisions about what we actually want to do with it... :-) Dovi 13:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I can't wait until this actually gets implemented. Does that mean that we as a community will have the power to create new namespaces?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's what it sounds like.Dovi 16:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Question about a reversion

A small portion of text I entered to Olney Hymns was recently reverted by BirgitteSB. I think she mistook me for a vandal, as near the same time, someone had vandalized a religious poem contributed by Zhaladshar. I assume she checked Recent changes to help determine the extent of the vandalism and saw my contribution (while logged in as a different anonymous user) as suspicious. But the authenticity of the text can be verified by this link to "Olney Hymns" at www.ccel.org where it exists in a different format. I don't wish to have that IP address blocked, so can someone please tell me how I can clear its status? I replaced the text and added a bit more using the IP address to which Birgitte reverted back, and which I am using now. Thank you for your help. 64.154.26.251 06:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if mistook you for a vandal. I did do some research before reverting. I was referencing the hymns from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/newton/olneyhymns.pdf which don't seem match up with what you are adding. As far comparing hymn 36 on both sites and I also did a text search for a line on that site and didn't find a match. This seems to be the same website you are refencing above, can you show me a link to hymn 36 as it matches what is on Wikisource?--BirgitteSB 12:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The 1893 Olney Hymns edition I am transcribing contains only the Cowper poems. The edition on the CCEL site contains both the Cowper poems and the Newton poems. So the 1893 Cowper hymn #36 is the same as the CCEL edition book 3, hymn #16 (which is where I linked above).

Looking to the future, the "Olney Hymns" title probably ought to be changed to "Olney Hymns (Cowper)". Especially since someone else has contributed a lot of the Newton hymns to Wikisource. I didn't realize the Olney Hymns even had hymns by Newton till I saw the CCEL version, and since a combined version exists, I think the most valuable contribution I could make would be to continue with the separated version (although the CCEL combined version in TML is a little hard to read!) 216.119.139.2 02:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. Again I am sorry for reverting your work. I didn't look much beyond the title of Hymn #16 on your link to realize that was the one we were discussing. If you were thinking of registering for an account, I would add that I would have left a message on your talk page before reverting if I could have. Also by using the history tab at the top of the page you could have undone my reversion leaving a message on the talk page attesting that your edits are sincere and saved the work of re-transcribing the text. If you have any questions about using Wikisource or any help I could give you to make amends in the future, please let me know at User talk:BirgitteSB--BirgitteSB 03:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Some Main Page cleanup.

I have done some Main Page cleanup. I divided the list of "community" links into:

1. "Community" (for real community-related pages)
2. "About Wikisource" (for pages on general policy and guidelines)

As far as the policy pages go, some duplicates have been merged, talk from Scriptorium and other pages has been moved to the appropriate talk pages, and now all of the most important info pages for Wikisource have direct links from the Main Page. These include:

• What is Wikisource? - Did some rewriting, and made sure that every policy that is briefly explained on this page has links to the appropriate detailed policy page with its associated discussion.
• Copyright
• Translations
• Annotations
• Page protection

I.e. all the basic modes of operation for Wikisource that people continually ask about and discuss - now all have clear links from the main page. Another on is the page to explain how we relate to Project Gutenberg, which has been asked several times since September. The duplicate pages on this are now merged and there is a clear one-word link from the main page.

Everyone should of course feel free to clean up this material even more. Please note that many of the policy pages are still stubs that need to be written up based on the discussion on the talk pages. Dovi 10:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikisource Wikistats

Also: I asked Erik Zachte if the Wikisource language subdomains could be added to Wikistats (currently only the old wikisource.org is there) and he said he hoped to do it in the next update over his holiday break. Dovi 10:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussions on topics concerning all Wikisources

I'd like to have oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium used for international discussions. There are some topics (especially software problems) the same for all Wikisources. Maybe you could add a link at the top of this page. --Jofi 00:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes! And also don't forget project updates in all languages at Wikisource 2005 | Wikisource 2006. Dovi 06:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Desperate Need for Categorization

I'm a recent visitor (don't even have an id on this project, who regularly uses wikipedia. I think it has great potential, though. The admins here need to do something to encourage the use of categories. Lists are much harder to maintain, particularly when, as here, there aren't as many people to do the job. Lists of articles in categories update themselves. sjsilverman --68.23.36.38 05:53, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Lists are limited in use here, texts on their own don't benefit from categories, as they tend to fall into chapters or some sort of order (which may not be alphabetical). Texts also are very static in nature and most changes are not structural. We could do with a better category system in all honesty. GregRobson 17:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

GREETINGS

Greetings to all for a Happy Christmas and a Wikisource-full 2006 from Apwoolrich 19:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I second the sentiment of the above message. Merry Christmas & a happy Hogmanay to you all. AllanHainey 12:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Useful resource for online texts

The 0nline Books page [2] is a valuable resource for discovering what is avialable. Not all the titles listed are public domain and suitable for Wikisource. A usergroup, the Book People Mailing List [3] is also associated with this site, and is worth signing up to. Apwoolrich 16:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

A proposal on multi WS

Go to oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#partial protection of pages and read the discussion there. This relates to an old discussion we've had here (about using templates to contain the text which are then protected so that any user can still format the actual page). This way, though, seems to be the best method discussed for protection of pages.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:45, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Go vote here for a bug ThomasV proposed that would allow a beneficial/efficient method for protecting pages.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

New Wikisource Project started on the writings of Samuel Smiles

Just announcing I have begun this.The writings of Samuel Smiles Hope I live long enough to see it completed! Anyone interested in joining in? Apwoolrich 20:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI: I'm reviewing/revising templates

I've been looking at the current state of the templates, and I'm going to try revising some of them as I believe some are duplicates. See [4] Hopefully they'll look better as well if I add some icons to them like Template:WikiProject Samuel Pepys. GregRobson 11:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Could you explain why you changed the templates? Because on The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi/Volume I/1884-1888, you also changed the document. I reverted it. Thanks, Yann 12:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, sorry if I changed the document. It was only my intention to take two templates that are identical in function and replace with one to avoid having to transfer lots of documents to one version in the future.

I believe the current version [5] is not clear at all if it were printed. There is no way to correlate the numbers of the footnotes with what is at the bottom. Also, I believe it is clearer to have the start of each footnote to begin at the left hand side, just as in printed works. GregRobson 16:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't like the new Note template. The ^ symbol is small (difficult to target) and misleading (looks like the text was not cleaned from Windows carriage returns). maybe you could let people choose which template they like to use. ThomasV 12:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

The link is automatically targetted when clicking the reference in the text. I don't believe it is the best possible symbol either, but it is used extensively (over 7000 pages) over at Wikipedia, and I would rather strive to have us using one coherent (and maybe not perfect) template, than two and have to fix the problem later by manually changing half of them. GregRobson 16:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

And I would like that the note number be displayed. Yann 12:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I always have done (in the text and at the bottom) in whatever style is currently in use (Roman or Arabic). GregRobson 16:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

well, in the link above, to quote you, "there is no way to correlate the numbers of the footnotes with what is at the bottom". I think that this is the point made by Yann. He want to see those numbers displayed at the bottom (and so do I). Previously they did appear because they were displayed by the template. now we get this ^ instead, and the numbers are removed. Did you plan on adding them manually to all the pages that you modified?

the ^ symbol might be in use over at wikipedia, but we are not wikipedia. We are supposed to be faithful to original texts, and inserting unnecessary extra symbols does not follow that line. It was much better before.

Now, if you disagree, if you think your template is better, why did you delete the previous one? why don't you let both systems co-exist, so that people can choose? When there is diversity, the best solution tends to be used by the majority.

ThomasV 18:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I suggest that we have a Help page which lists the templates for WS ordered so that they can readily be found. The present Help:Template page is a copy from Meta, and rather complex. I suggest that, for example, all the templates needed for placing a new document are grouped with brief notes on how they are used. I certainly waste a lot of time finding a template I recall seeing but don't need at that time. Templates seem to be much more widely used here than on WP, so we need to get it right and encourage editors to use them.If you agree I will draft an outline ready to be filled in. Kind regards Apwoolrich 18:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, to try and resolve this, I have restored the old templates until some agreement can be reached, it is unfair to make comparisons when old versions cannot be shown correctly. If a decision is made to revert to the original, then I will accept this. I do not want to start an edit war over footnotes!

ThomasV: I don't know whether I've missed something, but as far as I can see the version I created had the numbers, just as the previous one did, only they were to the side of the ^ in bold. See [6] and [7]. Regarding adding the numbers manually: we have too anyway and with a decent text editor takes very little extra time to put them to the side.

On a matter of style, at the very least can we have each footnote starting on it's own line? It's much more time consuming on the eyes to have to scan every line to look for the number. If you do a print preview you will see that the footnotes do not fall at the foot of the page. This is very disconcerting to the reader, who may not want to read the footnotes (they contain supplementary information), and breaks the flow of the text. Taking this page as an example, when you print preview you get all the footnotes at the end, so at least you can have the last couple of pages to one side when reading. Perhaps later versions of the Wiki software will be able to solve this flaw in representing texts?

I have a "golden rule" that I stick to in these matters: Change the formatting in whatever way improves the text, but never make changes in the semantics/meaning of the text. Therefore I do not consider my edits unfaithful to the original text, the authors weren't to know that we would put store them in a form that could be browsed in any order or searched, books are purely sequential, the web is not, and we have to compensate adjust to that.

Apwoolrich: I had started this here: Wikisource:Template_messages (link is at the very bottom of the Community Portal). Yes we do need to monitor template creation, especially in the area of naming. Any ideas are welcome :) GregRobson 23:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Greg that we need to revise our templates. I don't see why we need to have many different templates floating around that do the exact same thing when one will suffice. I know for footnotes, there at one point were many different templates, and I'm sure that we have other templates that have the same functions (probably templates that involve navigating the different chapters of a novel). I think it would be in our best interest to consolidate them into one template. That way we can keep Wikisource more consistent with itself and we aren't being cluttered up with a million templates that we have to slog through to find a template that we do need.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Greg: it took me a while to understand what happened with your edit of the ghandi document. this is because you modified both the document (and I guess something went wrong here, because you changed the text) and the templates. Yann reverted your edit because of the changes in the text. once he had done that, the new template was used by the old document. this is why the numbers were not visible anymore. well, maybe you guys knew that already, it just took me some time to understand... Anyway, I am not against trying to consolidate redundant templates into one. However we might not agree on which template to use. I already explained why I do not like the ^ symbol. I know you are not unfaithful to authors when you use it, sorry if I used too strong a word. but I keep thinking that this ^ looks like an OCR error, or like something we would have forgotten to remove after converting text from another format. In addition, having the link on the note number makes things simpler, because you display one symbol (the number) instead of two (the number folowed by this ^). Isn't that more elegant? Finally, other ws subdomains do not use this ^ symbol; this should matter to those who want to consolidate things. ThomasV 19:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No worries, I was getting a little lost in the edit history too. I still like the ^ as it gives an indication towards the action it carries out, but I see it is still being actively discussed at WP. If other WS areas are not using it then we might have to think about this some more. There must be something we can use... GregRobson 19:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but I don't see why it exactly matters what other sub-domains are doing. As far as I know, we are the only sub-domain with the "Author:" prefix (or at least one of the only). Nor do we utilize categories like other WS sub-domains. So, I don't see why it's exactly necessary to scrap the "^" just because other sub-domains don't use it. Now, I can see where ThomasV is coming from with thinking it looks like an OCR error. But I think the context in which that symbol is used is clear that it is not an error (since it is a purple link that goes to an anchor elsewhere in the text). Also, the caret, with its current use, seems to be a good choice because it "points up," if you will, to a previous point of the text. It indicates a "go back to a previous part of the text" feature (at least to me).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

there maybe better symbols for "go back", such as ↑ or ↺ ... but I would put them at the end of a note, rather than at its beginning...

considering what other subdomains do, my position has always been to favour diversity, because diversity allows us to explore more than one solution, and eventually to find good and elegant solutions. this is why I said above that we could very well have more than one template for notes and let the users choose which one they like to use (or let them create new ones).

ThomasV 19:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The up arrow is a good alternative. I can't see the second symbol in IE (I had to pull up Firefox to view it), but it might not be the best choice, since IE users won't be able to see it. I will agree, though, that placing it at the end of the footnote (especially if the note is long) would be better than at the beginning.

In regards to diversity, diversity is good, but once an elegant method has been found, shouldn't all the "diverse" pages (that is, ones not "elegant") be changed to the elegant method? That way, all pages can be made elegant, and we can then wait for a new elegant method to come about, but while we are waiting and experimenting, all pages will be "up-to-date."—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The first of the Gandhi reference links at the top No [6] uses a blued-out reference number, not ^. I think this is more elegant, and the Wikijump back to the text is obvious from the colour. Another area we need to look at is templates for chapter navigation. I have been adding them to Men of Invention and Industry. The one I have used is not elegant but works. There are at least three designs in use on WS, and maybe more. Apwoolrich 08:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Sourceberg

Hey everyone, I'm not sure if this pertains to the discussion, so you will have to excuse my ignorance, but I was wondering if there is any way to set the sourceberg image as a background on my computer without making it all squikly.

Bug

Do a search for "bible", item 3 is "Bible, English, King James", now try clicking on it - it comes up with "this does not exist". So why does it turn up in the search?

I just tried it. It doesn't show up for me.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 05:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

New-domain shenanigans

Copied from User talk:Wolfman#Deleted user page:

I see you slapped a welcome message on my talk page on Oct 27, 2005, even though I didn't make any edits around that time and I've been a registered user for far longer, as can be seen by my contributions. I came to check my user page just now and it was gone! Any ideas about how it got deleted? I assume it happened sometime shortly before you "welcomed" me. My preferences are also gone (reverted to defaults), BTW. Weird. - dcljr 00:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah-ha! I just figured out what the problem was: I have one user page on wikisource.org and (now) one on en.wikisource.org! Damn... have I been editing both wikis this whole time without realizing it? Or are items being moved from one wiki to the other and my user contributions ([8], [9]) reflecting the changes as they're made? - dcljr 03:26, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for all the messages, but I just checked the other Wikimedia wikis that have separate language domains and this is the only one for which domain.org/wiki/User:Dcljr didn't redirect to en.domain.org/wiki/User:Dcljr. Witness: [10]. Is this a bug? - dcljr 04:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

End of copied text

Okay, so apart from the fact that I'm a little slow, does anyone have any comments about this? I've read/scanned through all the archived Scriptorium discussion and it looks like this post is the only relevant one; however, neither it nor the pages it links to are very helpful. - dcljr 06:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Sigh... okay, I've now found relevant discussion at oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/Aug 2005 - Sep 2005 and oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium. Obviously I'm too tired to be thinking about this now or I would have checked there before posting here. Let's see if I can be less useless tomorrow... - dcljr 06:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, first: about the user page. When we moved to all our smaller sub-domains, the user accounts did not come with the move. This means the account you created while Wikisource was one multi-lingual whole is still on that Wikisource. You must create a new one on this wiki.

Also, with the move, we moved all English articles here along with their histories. Since the histories have moved, clicking on the "My contributions" at the top of the screen will show you dates from before this wiki was set up. This is because you're entry in the history of the article is dated to a time before this wiki was set up. So, with the move of the articles, your contributions will reflect it. If you go to the multi-lingual Wikisource, you'll note that your contributions are much smaller over there.

Lastly, about the domain.org/wiki/User:Foo not directing to en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Foo, this is because Wikisource is the only wiki which has a "multi-lingual" component. This is not a bug. Unlike any of the other Wikimedia projects, www.wikisource.org is entirely edit-able by you or me (try to edit www.wikipedia.org or www.wikiquote.org—you can't). So, naturally, the user page on wikisource.org should not redirect to en.wikisource.org.

I hope all this helps! Ask for any more clarification.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 06:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I have just started my first Wiki-Source Article - The Ultimate Chance

I guess it is worth a read.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Chance

I would like to get some feedback -- qweet

Has this work been published elsewhere, or is this something you yourself wrote and are publishing it here for the very first time? If the latter is the case, it will probably be deleted, as Wikisource does not allow for contributors to self-publish their works. We only collect works that have been published elsewhere.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Guidelines for adminship

Hey, all. For anyone interested there is a set of beginning guidelines for adminship at Wikisource talk:Administrators. I feel that we should get this established and set in stone before too much time goes by. Please comment/critique those guidelines.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)