Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2014-04

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Announcements

Wellcome images made available with Creative Commons licence

Over 100,000 images ranging from ancient medical manuscripts to etchings by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco Goya are now available for free download as hi-res images on our website.

Drawn from the historical holdings of the world-renowned Wellcome Library, the images are being released under the Creative Commons-Attribution only (CC-BY) licence. …
Read more ... Thousands of years of visual culture made free through Wellcome Images — billinghurst sDrewth 11:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

To also note the discussion Commons:Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2014/01#Wellcome_Images (PL)
See the longer term Commons batch upload project page where questions or suggestions are welcome. --Fæ (talk) 16:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

World Digital Library books available on Commons in many languages

After five years of discussion(!), I have boldly gone ahead and mass uploaded several hundred books from the World Digital Library collection. See Commons:Category:Books from the World Digital Library and the project page. There are many books hosted by the WDL that are single pdf files greater than 100MB, if you find any on WDL that you would like uploaded to form a Wikisource project, drop me a note/email. --Fæ (talk) 19:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposals

Main Page Improvements

In my opinion, there are a couple improvements that should be made to the Main Page:

  1. The top banner is too large, pushing actual content down the page - compare it to WP's banner. I don't want to get rid of our scribe mascot, just make him a bit smaller.
  2. We need to make the introductory and help content links more prominent. Currently, the user will need to click on the word "Wikisource" to find WS:WIW (not obvious), or "Community Portal" to find help and discussion pages (I also think this is not obvious). I would like to see more links such as "Help", "Proofreading Guide", "Add to the Library" and a more prominent "Community Discussion" link.

--Eliyak T·C 10:16, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

What about the following draft?--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 18:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikisource,
the free library that anyone can improve.
595,274 texts in English

What Wikisource includes
Community portal
Community discussion⁠News
Help⁠Proofreading⁠Adding texts
Sandbox

I like the smaller banner but dislike the collection of links on the right. How about this Main Page/sandbox? Main changes are: a) smaller banner; b) move explore links into banner; c) expanded new texts as discussed above. Moondyne (talk) 10:10, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Moondyne: Nice! I made some further adjustments (for reference, this was how it looked before I did so). --Eliyak T·C 03:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I added some nice modern effects to the sandbox via CSS that are visible in modern browsers. I tried to be understated. Getting carried away with special effects can be worse than being bland. --Eliyak T·C 06:25, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I've adjusted the widths of the right and left columns a bit, because it looked like the Featured Text was a little cramped. Hope no-one minds... —Clockery Fairfeld [sic] 07:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
...and do you think a separate column should be included for Poetry in New Texts, or is it fine to include it in Fiction? —Clockery Fairfeld [sic] 07:07, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Noice. IMHO, no to poetry; getting too busy. 54:46 is a good compromise. Moondyne (talk)
It looks like there's an empty space under the left-column which could easily accommodate something else, but for the life of me I can't think what... unless it's time to revive Wikisource:Song of the day? —Clockery Fairfeld [sic] 09:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
The columns look reasonably balanced to me at present (on my lap-top). If anything, the left is longer than the right, which I'll fix at the end of this month's PotM but reducing the list of recent works there. However, we don't have a lot of "songs" per se at present—not enough to sustain a daily one on the list. However, I've been thinking about the possibility of a "Poem of the day" as a way to commemmorate WWI. Many of the poems in A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919 are dated, and it would be good to feature those on the appropriate date in the next few years. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm oka with Wikisource:Poem of the Day. If no one minds, I'm making it. Any objections? —Clockery Fairfeld [sic] 07:48, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Help needed with page. I'll make an extra section below about Potd. —Clockery Fairfeld [sic] 08:52, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyone there?

There is a draft new-look Main Page at Main Page/sandbox. Seven regulars have commented or participated in the design. Is there consensus for this change, or are there elements shown which need adjusting? Or shall we continue with the existing? I agree that Poem of the Day needs a separate discussion, and this has already started here: Wikisource talk:Poem of the Day. Moondyne (talk) 10:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Discuss
I was wondering what had become of this...I'm fine with the page as it is now in the Sandbox. Poem of the day needs more discussion, but there doesn't seem to be anyone much else there to discuss with. ;-) Other than that, no worries. —Clockery Fairfeld [t·c] 10:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: If the new texts are to be divided, then it should be done as part of the template itself. Or is there to be a separate New Texts for fiction and non-fiction? —Clockery Fairfeld [t·c] 10:27, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
I envisaged separate F & NF templates. Moondyne (talk) 12:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
!Vote

Panel at Wikimania London in August

Continuing interest from Wikimedia UK in Wikisource, and I said I'd ask here first if there will be a quorum from enWS at Wikimania this year. If so, can we even agree on a working title for a panel discussion, and do something to apply for one? Lively knockabout debate actually can do more to attract an audience than earnest presentations. (My own interests are well known, and I'll be there.) Charles Matthews (talk) 12:08, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

yes, please. i would like to see a celebration of DNB completion, (with bickering on lessons learned, way forward) lack of WS beer fund adversely affecting probability of attendance, but still. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 13:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Scholarship? Charles Matthews (talk) 08:24, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

for conflict, i would like to see you and DGG fight it out over DNB v. ODNB.
or talk about outside transcription projects, i.e. https://transcription.si.edu/ ; http://blog.operationwardiary.org/
dunno if foundation will want to fund me, a friend of Stierch, and blocked on en. (mad bad and dangerous to know). Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 19:19, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

You should look into scholarships: not the WMF's decision, certainly. https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships. I met the guy, or one of them, at the recent London meetup. As for DGG: w:Talk:Mac and Mc together is pretty funny in its way, at least to me. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

ok, but the scholarship money appears to be long odds ~10%, and their money. i will try to polish my wiki loves capitol hill presentation. i was thinking of DGG’s comment here [1], it’s unclear to me that ODNB is that much of an improvement 70% of the time, but it would make a fine debate. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 00:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The DNB project on WP would basically agree that checking the ODNB is good practice. As is trying to find other sources: there are really large numbers of cases where the ODNB apparently confirms things that are in the DNB, but both turn out to be wrong. It all makes an interesting study, and some areas are much more troublesome than others. I found out long ago that the best way to fact-check an article is to expand it. (The ODNB also cuts out certain kinds of information.) Charles Matthews (talk) 18:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

feel free to put me on a panel, it would motivate me to cross the pond. i would have preferred a wine & cheese reception with the WS10 proceeds, but they sent me this kobo brick. hope it does not gather dust next to my palm tungsten & betamax. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 22:17, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
You could sell it, perhaps, and re-use the proceeds. I get the impression that WMUK are very paranoid at the moment about even the slightest appearance of yet another scandal; so no booze (their Christmas party was the same). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I have applied for a scholarship, and will be there if it is possible, so that would be a yes from me. I should romp through the first round, and will hold my breath for the second (and any subsequent rounds). I'll even sleep on someone's floor as long as I get cushions (and get stretching time in the morning). ;-) @Slowking4: we are known as the home of the dangerous, invite SS over under any username she desires within reason), we can put her to work smiley — billinghurst sDrewth 11:34, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I will probably be there but I won't be doing much other than spectating; it will be my first Wikimania. It would be nice to see some Wikisource presentations, although I expect it to be mostly the usual "Wikipedia and a bit of Commons" material. (I won't need a scholarship; at a push, I can probably walk to the Barbican). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    • good, i see we have a panel quorum. how puritanical, in our dry counties, we byob, or you could have the org buy food, and people pay cash bar, or hand check from org to people to bartender. dry events will drive folks to the nearest pub. [2] and there is nothing quite like editing while drinking. i sympathize about the paranoia, don’t need more asbos.
    • SS has her fellowship at UCBerkeley, and is consulting to small GLAMs, don’t know if transcription has ever interested her.
    • i would like to see more what we did, and where we’re going, rather than who we are. although recruiting is good, WMDC is always asking Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 14:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Title proposal is "Wikisource: From digitisation to data"

Working title. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Nice, works for me. Give us the scope to talk about a range of things: interaction with sister sites, metadata, tools, output forms, etc. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

So a submission should be made in March. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Just thinking aloud here, and bearing in mind the long-term need to get Wikisource a bit more on the Wikimedia map. There must be several aspects of "DNB land" that remain at the level of possibilities with the DNB "data", and could perhaps be elevated to demo status by August.

One would be a wikibook, or other compilation, that scrapes data about the DNB authors from the author pages. NB that the Catholic Encyclopedia did produce such a handbook. It was suggested quite some time ago by User:Arch dude that we should think in those terms. The Fenwick handbook mostly just lists articles, and we have superseded it, and what is more corrected (very plausibly) one author, via the Grove project. The author research is not quite finished: a Victorian-era scholar might be interested, though. It would do no harm at all to call attention to the research that has gone into those authors, much of which is lurking on talk pages, or in hidden comments.

Another is a more recent and possibly wacky idea of my own: analyse all the endnotes. These are mostly semicolon-separated text. So a bot could plausibly scrape these together in one place, split at the semicolons; and alphabetise them. I initially thought this would help find the typos "colon for semicolon" etc. And it would. But we'd end up with a resource showing quite well what went into compiling the DNB.

Some such things might also apply to other works: EB1911 obviously. I don't want to imply otherwise. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure of what you are requesting here @Charles Matthews:. How specific do the submissions need to be? — billinghurst sDrewth 11:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, the main point would be to send in a panel title. That doesn't need to be coupled to anything so specific, I believe. I was thinking more of what sort of material could be projected up, if enough work had been done ahead of time.

Also, there is stuff going on in June, related to Wikimania advance work: Fringe/Open Scholarship Hack and Fringe/Open Data Hack. They are happening simultaneously with the Fringe/Future of Education Hack which I'm sort of marginally involved in, already. I may be in the building. The topics I mention have some relation to open scholarship, digital humanities, that short of thing. By working the system we could get into the Wikimania workshops with the specifics, I guess. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I intend to get the submission on the road this weekend. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:13, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Submission made

See https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Panel:_Wikisource,_from_digitization_to_data

What is needed is expansion of the abstract. Please weigh in over the next week, to bulk up the agenda to about five times the current length. What is there now is the "executive summary" version. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:40, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

I've added some brainstormy stuff, in the hope of generating debating points, and in response to some ideas from UK Wikimedians. Still needs a bit more. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

Help

Other discussions

Index:Catalogue of books suitable for a popular library.djvu

Procedural request - rest this to red, some large scale format consistency issues have been raised.

The concern is to do with period(.) symbols in titles as passed to the templates.

It needs someone to check for every single [DELETED] period. :(

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not neccessarily simple, but what about scripting the template to check for trailing period in title? If it's there, print it but strip it from the link. If it's not there, put it in, but keep it stripped from the link. The Haz talk 20:33, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
If you know how to do that feel free, otherwise someone needs to start adding them back..ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Think I got it. Not familiar with all the use cases of that template so I'd appreciate if you took a look through the text and confirmed that you're getting the right outcome everywhere. Prosody (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Page:Catalogue_of_books_suitable_for_a_popular_library.djvu/19 - Titles here have periods which aren't being addedd (partly because I tweaked the template after User:Legofan94's concerns.). Please amend the template and documentation such that there is ONE consistent approach.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:40, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I hadn't even noticed that second condition (adding periods in the anchor text where there are none). That's a little tricky, because it looks like some titles end in question marks and shouldn't having periods added. Are there any other similar edge cases? Prosody (talk) 22:01, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Bracketed titles, and diambig titles.. (Although that's why I added the link param..}}ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 01:26, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
Brackets are just normal square brackets, right? Can you give an example of a disambig title? Prosody (talk) 02:00, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
(outdent) Bracketed titles are ones like Lorem Ipsum (Latinate Questions), a disambig title is where there a multiple detsinations for a given title, but only one is the specfic title desired for the link (which could be a red-link.)ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm missing something, @ShakespeareFan00:, but the {{CBSPL entry}} template appears to allow you to put an alternate link for the title, but not for the author -- is that right? For example, the first author on Page:Catalogue of books suitable for a popular library.djvu/79 is listed as "C. C. Abbott". I have confirmed that this is actually Author:Charles Conrad Abbott, but I can't figure out how to fix the link.... Mukkakukaku (talk) 02:16, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
For an author were the name differs from the print verison use the a/d form of {{ci-author}} in the authorfield of the {{CBSPL entry}},
... I have no idea what that means, and {{Ci-author}} has no usage examples listed. Can you give an example to indicate what you mean? Mukkakukaku (talk) 03:31, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
You might be on the wrong template page as I see two usage examples listed. On a related note, a great way to see a template in action is to go to the template page and click What links here on the sidebar under Tools. You'll find every page that it's used on (though technically if another template calls it you'll get those pages as well). So for this one, you might wish to see Page:Catalogue of books suitable for a popular library.djvu/13. I hope that helps! The Haz talk 14:44, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
This good, @ShakespeareFan00:? Prosody (talk) 04:52, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00, Haz, Prosody, Mukkakukaku This is particularly relevant for Catalogues, Is there any automated process for Wikilinking everything on a page? For example see Page:A Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (1869).djvu/10. Copy pasting the [[ ]] code 60 or so times is very time-consuming and can be better done by a bot/automation of some sort. Solomon7968 (talk) 07:43, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What I usually do -- and what I just did for the page you linked -- is dropping the text of the page into a text editor and using regular expressions to insert appropriate templating or links as needed. Fixing the sanscrit catalog page took about 30 seconds. Mukkakukaku (talk) 14:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Renewed application on Commons

Hi Wikisorcerers,

If you wish to support my admin's request on Commons (to go on protecting djvu and pdf files), you can find it here. Thanks if you can help. --Zyephyrus (talk) 09:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Done — Ineuw talk 09:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Done —Maury (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm very very grateful. Non-wikisorcerers did not see why we need these tools so these tools have not been given. Sorry to have been unable to explain things to them clearly enough, and renewed and warmest thanks to the supporters nonetheless. :) --Zyephyrus (talk) 16:54, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
This is a very naughty post, and I have absolutely no sympathy for anybody caught out following these suggestions...
As I understand the discussion, one of your major critics was one Steinsplitter, and their opposition revolved around your not performing a quota of five sysop functions? So isn't the obvious answer for anyone facing a similar situation in future to block, then unblock, then block, then unblock, then block (STOP: five operations completed! Yay!)... Steinsplitter on Commons? You'd get my vote for hanging the pedantic sod by his own rules... AuFCL (talk) 00:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Google's present presentation (to AdamBMorgan, Erasmo, & anyone else creative & innovative)

I just saw Google's present Logo. It is very inspiring. It has thumbnails on each of its letters. Each thumbnail briefly shows a book image as it changes from a letter to the thumbnail image. Click on one of those thumbnails and the book is opened. I tried only the G and entered into a new world called Grapes of Wrath.

It was beautiful and innovative. Why cannot we have something similar on beloved WIKISOURCE? and on our front page. The transition from image to letter alone catches the eye of a passer-by. It is advanced in its effect! —Maury (talk) 23:09, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Technically speaking, I don't know how to do that. But you made me imagine a crossword where the words are book titles (we could also add the word "Wikisource")...--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Erasmo, I think we should do some brainstorming and come up with something that I have thought about and what your fertile young brain comes up with. You have wonderful abilities and a fertile imagination. Contact me via email if you are interested. —Maury (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Creating cover designs for WS is a personal interest of mine. Using book jackets with attractive color, stylish fonts and attention to layout may ease user navigation and improve readability. See samples of my User:DutchTreat/covers project. I started out doing a few covers for Rousseau to dabble with the idea. Wanted to see if there is merit in the approach. Recently I started working on a few for the Portal:Romanes Lecture. After I heard about the challenge of featuring so many volumes for the upcoming Featured Text in May 2014, I started turning my attention to that area. I noticed how Amazon featured covers when it announced their 100 best books a few month ago. The example you highlight from this week's Google Doodle is another indication that users will click on book covers to explore. Personally, I want our WS covers to appear non-commercial and lightweight to speed download. Many design trade-offs, but hopefully there is a place for more open-source graphics on our site. - DutchTreat (talk) 18:04, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I made a template based on your idea: {{cover}}. The following code: 

{{cover|1|Author:George Gordon Byron|George Gordon|Byron|The Corsair (Byron, 1814)|The Corsair|1814}}

gives the following result:

If you also add the eighth parameter, its text will appear at the bottom of the cover.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 14:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

@Erasmo -- Thanks for making progress with the idea by introducing the template. I like it. I was moving more in the direction of higher fidelity via SVG (patterns, background images, etc.), but there are merits to your approach. Having an easy to use, plug-n-play cover generator should ease adopment. Good work! -- DutchTreat (talk) 00:55, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Call for project ideas: funding is available for community experiments

I apologize if this message is not in your language. Please help translate it.

Do you have an idea for a project that could improve your community? Individual Engagement Grants from the Wikimedia Foundation help support individuals and small teams to organize experiments for 6 months. You can get funding to try out your idea for online community organizing, outreach, tool-building, or research to help make Wikisource better. In March, we’re looking for new project proposals.

Examples of past Individual Engagement Grant projects:

Proposals are due by 31 March 2014. There are a number of ways to get involved!

Hope to have your participation,

--Siko Bouterse, Head of Individual Engagement Grants, Wikimedia Foundation 19:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

If you really want to get nitpicky, it would cost something for software/web developers. The example above about the VisualEditor improvements included a grant for $4500 for developers. Mukkakukaku (talk) 02:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Mukkakukaku, I did not say, nor imply, that I really want to get "nitpicky". That's your thoughts. The area I cited above relates to something of simplicity that one of our volunteers here could handle. Have you forgotten that there are volunteers here with skills who do not charge for volunteer work? Neither is it about any need for "VisualEditor" and the money you show interest in. —Maury (talk) 02:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I get that Maury, but as a software developer I felt I should point out that what you're calling "simple" is actually not so. And this whole section is about money, so I don't really understand the point of the last part of your comment. Cheers. Mukkakukaku (talk) 03:34, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Mukkakukaku, I don't know if I want to debate you on this or just explain my thoughts further. I will simplify as advised by Ben Franklin. This whole area is not just *about money* although money is mentioned. All wiki areas are about *bettering wiki areas* including here. This space 5.46 is also about "Call for *project ideas*": (funding is available [if needed] for community experiments). Personally, I could care less about the money because I am retired and well-off. Now, let us try to get to the same thought level. My reference harkens back to 5.43 where I was trying to get an interest in what is stated there. It would be simple and cost nothing from wikimedia and yet enhance wikisource. More specifically my initial statements were about what Google had done. It is about using a program like .GIF (old program) Animator or Shockwave Flash to animate the letters of Google which can be done with wikisource. The letter "G" flicks to the letter "G" book entitled, Grapes of Wrath" Click on that animated letter to image and the entire book, Grapes of Wrath opens. It is a catch of the eye that leads to a book. Now consider doing similar with every letter in Google or better, WikiSource. Each animated .gif or shockwave flash letter in WikiSource does the same as Google did. Each animated Letter opens a book when it is clicked. Now, google and wikisource have only so many letters but consider animated images with letters from the books we do have. That is all I was thinking about. One would have to work out details, as Erasmo is so inclined, but it is not difficult. I applaud you as being a professional software developer, I sincerely do. I myself am far from that and I remember working on Internet when it started for people. I remember the first webpages. I was at U.Va. and on the Internet Technology Committee setting some of these (then) new things and I can prove that from an old FTP site that I still have a book on from about 1 years ago. Just ask for the link for proof. So you see the contrasts in our ages and education as technology has advanced over decades. There was never a school that taught what I did so long ago as there are "computer classes" in these modern times. However, your time will come too where what you do becomes decades old just as you will if you live that long. I mean no disrespect in all I have written. On the contrary, it is what I would liked to have had for learning and applying. Kind regards, —Maury (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
i’d like to swap punch cards with you some time. don’t underestimate the power of some prize money to motivate the volunteers. pretty soon, the grant funds "managers" will pick among the ocean of ideas. progress comes to the team builders, not necessarily the coders. we also have to make these grant outputs and tools, sustainable and supported, instead of thrashing. mind you the prizes are less than minimum wage, but have to pay for the free beer somehow. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 22:17, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
It’s not prize money. You get money to meet reasonable expenses for project that have some benefit. You are accountable for spending the money on the project. Jeepday (talk) 23:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
well, money is money. a grant proposal with hacker pay for wish list projects is prize money, with no contingency on results. the IEG accountability paperwork is perhaps responsible for the declining uptake. maybe they need a template, expedited process for the petty cash, not merely marketing their funding source at projects. Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 01:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Money can be a filip. Without money some things won't get done. Be it to fund someone getting funding to travel to an institution to talk about scanning a repository's works where they could be valuable to our collections, etc. It was great for us to be notified and if someone has a great opportunity then please run with it and good luck. Being negative about an opportunity is not of high value. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:22, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Wilhelmina FitzClarence, Countess of Munster

When could we ever make a page for requested works and/or their authors just like one requests a particular entry at Wiktionary? (My reason for that idea is the 1896 collection of ghot stories, Ghostly Tales.) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 19:15, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

There is Wikisource:Requested texts. However, a lot of Wikisourcers are doing their own thing and I don't know how often works are chosen from that page (except for the September Proofread of the Month task). You might make more progress if you started work on this yourself and asked for assistance from others. Either way, you can always start the author page first and set up any links you may need. If you have a scan, setting up an Index page would help a lot too. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:19, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Whoa I didn't know that page existed!
On an unrelated note, I took a quick look through both IA and Google Books and was unable to find the text of Wilhelmina FitzClarence's "Ghostly Tales". I wasn't even able to find a hard copy of it on my continent, so I won't be able to help too much there. Mukkakukaku (talk) 20:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Now I wish the community portal gives the link to the Requested Texts page. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
It does now. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Twelve Years a Slave wins Best Picture

Proofreaders and validators welcome at Index:Twelve Years a Slave (1853).djvu, as I’d expect a bit of interest in this. Thanks. Moondyne (talk) 05:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Done Nice idea @Moondyne: — billinghurst sDrewth 13:12, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks to all concerned for fast tracking this. Moondyne (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-10

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

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf16) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 27. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 6 (calendar).
  • When users enable web fonts by default, Universal Language Selector will now log if they don't have fonts to display pages correctly. This information will be used by developers to improve font support in the future. Read more about missing fonts. [3]
  • You can now use Guided tours on the Czech and Japanese Wikipedia. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [4] [5]
  • You can now use information from Wikidata in all Wikisource wikis. [6]
  • The multimedia team is now posting weekly updates on their mailing list. [7]

VisualEditor news

  • You can now change image size to default for your wiki. If you add new images to pages, they will also be default size. [8] [9] [10]
  • If you switch from VisualEditor to wikitext editing, your edit will now be tagged. [11]
  • Template parameters now have a bigger, auto-sizing input box for easier editing. [12]
  • VisualEditor now has Arabic, Finnish and Kölsch icons for text styling. If you want icons for your language, ask in Bugzilla. [13] [14] [15]

Future software changes

Problems

  • For about an hour on February 23, there were problems with page loading due to a MediaWiki bug. [23]

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

09:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Auto-generation of paragraph (pilcrow) markers message on my watchlist

Above has been on my watchlist for several weeks but there’s no option to mark as read or to hide. Can message be removed? Moondyne (talk) 02:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, done. Hesperian 04:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Moondyne (talk) 05:26, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

British Chess Magazine

By chance, I came across some early issues of BCM and began looking around for copyright information. The Magazine is monthly, and has been running since 1881, making it the oldest periodical of its kind. Although I suspect some of the earliest issues are now in the PD, could someone better versed than I am at copyright issues look into the possibility that we might work on some of these? --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:21, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you provide the link please?— Ineuw talk 05:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
As far as I know both the original authors and the publisher have a copyright under British law. The publisher's copyright term is Publication+25 years. The authors' copyright terms, however, are the normal Life+70. You would need to check when each author (both text and any artwork) died to be sure that an issue is completely out of copyright. Some Victorian copyrights are still in force (H. G. Wells, for example, still is for another few years).
That said, Wikisource is in the United States, so anything published in 1922 or earlier is out of copyright. I'm not actually sure where you are in real life, so there might be an issue with you uploading a file from (for example) the UK to the Wikimedia server in the US, and possibly with reading or downloading it again the other way. (I'm not aware of any case law about that but it remains a possibility.) The actual hosting in the US would not be a problem, however. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Those that are pre-1923 then upload them here with {{PD-1923}}, not Commons, as it is possible that someone will complain about a random article, and that would just be a bureaucratic argument. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:53, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-11

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

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf17) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 13 (calendar).
  • You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all Wikiquote projects. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [24] [25]

VisualEditor news

  • It is now easier to edit templates. Complex tools are now in the "advanced" mode. [26] [27]
  • It is also easier to edit images. You now have more options and they are explained better. [28]
  • VisualEditor adds fake blank lines so you can put your cursor there. They are now smaller and animated to be different from actual blank lines. [29]
  • We have improved the tool to add special characters. The buttons are now larger. More changes are coming. [30]
  • You can now use new keyboard shortcuts to undo the last action, clear formatting, and show the shortcut help window. [31] [32] [33]

Future software changes

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

09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Conversions to redirects

When I convert an unindexed Mainspace page (example) into a redirect to an indexed version, what should I do (if anything) with the Talk page/info? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:50, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

First point, you should be moving existing, non-indexed content to the expected pagename or sub-pagename that is to replace the content by transclusion-supported content before you actually "blank" the old with it's new, pages-command transcluded replacement content. That way, the entire history is preserved @ the new & supported article title. Converting the content to a redirect leaves the article-history up to that "point of blanking" stranded under the redirected title.

As for talkpages, first created along with the non-index supported content, they should be marked for speedy deletion if they contain no relevant info (i.e. just a textinfo template and the like) that pertains to the new content @ the new page (or sub-page) name after the move has been made. Otherwise both the old, redirected talkpage title and the new, irrelevant, post-move talkpage title should be marked for speedy deletion. — George Orwell III (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Correct? Immortality Talk Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:15, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply...

Yes. That is exactly what I was hoping to convey to you in the above. I'll just add one more thing -- personally, I think the best practice is that any related disambig pages, Author: works lists or similar should point to the new target page rather than the old redirect whenever possible. This, however, is ultimately up to the User: -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:37, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The Royal Society Library in London are looking for a collaboration

The library at the Royal Society in London are interested in doing something related to any item in their library, in particular something to do with items in their unique collections of manuscripts, personal papers, and other material. They are thinking of items that might be good targets, but any suggestions anyone else has would be very welcome. This might be in conjunction with Wikipedia (for an article), or not. Please let me know on my talk page on Wikipedia - [39]. Thanks! Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 18:24, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed optional changes to Terms of Use amendment

Hello all, in response to some community comments in the discussion on the amendment to the Terms of Use on undisclosed paid editing, we have prepared two optional changes. Please read about these optional changes on Meta wiki and share your comments. If you can (and this is a non english project), please translate this announcement. Thanks! Slaporte (WMF) 21:56, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

You can now access the data on Wikidata

Hey folks,

We have just enabled data access to Wikidata for Wikisource (except old-wikisource). This means you can now access data like the date of birth of an author or the ISBN of a book. You can do this in two ways. The first one is a parser function. You can use it like {{#property:capital}} or {{#property:P36}}. The second one is Lua. The documentation for that is at mw:Extension:WikibaseClient/Lua

If you have any questions you will find help at d:Wikidata:Wikisource and its talk page.

I hope you'll use this to do some kick-ass things on Wikisource ;-)

Cheers Lydia Pintscher 19:54, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow, wow, wow, a sabot in the machinery--KLINKITY-KLINK, rattle-rattle, no-whir, silence!

Revert to plain vanilla text (ascii).

I looked at the above including the links and that below and wonder what the heck is it all about for the average lay person. I have been busy editing books and have not kept up with "kick-ass" codes for books and images. So, what is the latest thingamuhjig kick-ass do for editors of books? Will it pull in books to WS and edit and transclude them? I am just wondering about what is so "kick-ass" in what I looked over. Headed back to sensible editing of books so there will be a wikisource books for some to play with "kick-ass" codes. What's it all about "kick-ass" Alpha? —Maury (talk) 02:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Well how to put it all in perspective?
Imagine there is this author who you have taken great pains in researching.
Realising that the person concerned was a bit of a rascal, a 'character' if you will, you realise after careful consideration that it is impossible to tie down their birth-year (they never were too straight about 'official inquiries'.)
So instead of filling out Author/birthyear (because for argument you have three different possible years: 1862, 1863 or 1866 for example) and instead have carefully recorded a note to that effect and used the freer-form Author/dates instead…
Got the image of this circumstance in mind? Well now WD has come along and extracted what it wants from existing records (it doesn't bother with free-form notes or that vague 'dates' thing you understand -- the machine only accepts pristine data) you may now have the pleasure of having a machine tell you -- confidently -- that that particular author was never born at all (Incidentally, you ignorant peasant you—do not Question the wisdom™ of the Machine.)
Oh, and also start to picture your little computer nook plastered with Think banners, and the toilet flushing itself automatically every 20 minutes. Or is this getting just a little too (Blue) corporate? AuFCL (talk) 06:53, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

[((Incidentally, you ignorant peasant you—do not Question the wisdom™ of the Machine.)]

Always question, don't you watch the Science Channel? "the Machine" has been known to have moth of a bug since the beginning and now it often has bugs of all kinds -- that's "bugs" (plural). Apple products suffered from this very recently.

[Or is this getting just a little too (Blue) corporate?] I think it is good enough for your government job, agent (blue), or any of the other agents because blue isn't the only one of the "rainbow agents" such as agent orange), especially you flushing your toil-et so often. I myself wouldn't go near it because I don't trust the government that far. It always has too much overflow, especially in human blood, that harms "We The People" who are always kept in a war. It's a military tactic under the government to always keep an alert military for the people back home. You cannot just allow an army to sit around and become rusty. Have a bloody good day —Maury (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Alternative Authority Control template works now

See the old (current) and the alternative (sandbox) based on Wikipedia's approach in practice at the bottom of Author:Edward_Augustus_Freeman#Works_about_Freeman

We probably still need to add/remove some databases so we should probably take care of that prior to proposing a switch from old to new. Thoughts? -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

My view is that 1. a Wikidata bot should import in Wikidata databases available in Wikisource Author pages and not in Wikidata; 2. a bot should replace VIAF=nnn in our Author pages with {{#property:Pxxx}}, fetching VIAF info from Wikidata.--Mpaa (talk) 20:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean "import in Wikidata ... and not in Wikidata". However, I think we should go ahead with the alternative version (with some fiddling to match our aesthetics and possibly some other functions. I've read through, but haven't seriously examined every line of, the code; I don't know it this does already but it's possible to locally override Wikidata in any other use, I think being able to do so in this template should remedy most objections. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
I meant: port to Wikidata info not available there yet, but available here instead; and after that, fetch data from there.--Mpaa (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
I have no idea why but the automatic filling in of birth year and death year is not working for me (See also this). I tried with the red link Author:Edmond Herbert Grove-Hills. Solomon7968 (talk) 07:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Does not work for me as well.--Mpaa (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
That's javascript reading data from Wikipedia's API and not (currently) Wikidata's. I confirm that it isn't working for me but, as I only barely understand either javascript or APIs, I can't tell why. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Yet another gadgets no longer working (HotCat being another ...)--Mpaa (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

??? Since when does the Authority Control template import birth and death years? I've only seen it pull the various national library codes assigned to specific works or people. please start another discussion for the gadget. Its clear that the gadget has not been "maintained" for some time now never mind during the recent Wikidata port over changes. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:26, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It most certainly does not. Confusion over sub-discussion regarding idea for {{author}} to populate non-local values from wikidata? Also a good idea to apply similar logic to authority control and/or integrate the two of them. (Does anybody know of an application of {{authority control}} except within {{author}}?) AuFCL (talk) 00:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
There are only a handful of cases where specific works have AC data associated with them - which is sad in its own way since works are frequently keys to filling out author info and vise versa.

There are a couple of things that need to be addressed now that pulling data is possible and that means addressing templates like plain sister and author in addition to authority control. For instance, our author template is based only on the birth & death year whereas wikidata stores birth (#property:P569) & death (#property:P570) dates -- that means month, day & year whenever established. Our Author template would "kick" such dates as an invalid parameter while displaying the full month, day & year at the same time. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:44, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


I'm in agreement with Mpaa's approach however - making sure what we've currently built up as a database re: AuthControl template parameters are imported into Wikidata first and once that is done, then let Wikidata fill in what we still have missing.

PS. - See Ineuw for his dealings with HotCat failing above. Drop me note if you still can't figure it out. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:44, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

 Comment The whole purpose of the Wikidata is that we don't add data here, just a reference to it another site. Having just the template {{authority control}} on a page with zero parameters should be enough. In time, we should be able to build in other components like birth year, death year, images, WP links, etc., and just have these by blind parameters within {{author}}. The purpose is to make life easier, and to edit one place with the hard data. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:12, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Propose to update Authority Control

I propose that we move to the authority control mechanics where the presence of the template alone is sufficient to call the wikidata for the item. If I am running AC data at WD, I don't see the need to run it again here. The discussion for me is which form of the template do we want? Traditional: {{authority control}}


WP-like {{authority control/sandbox}}


My (lazy) thought is to just go with WP-like as that makes updating easier. If we want our existing view, then we should look to split out the css, and the code so it is easier to update in time. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The current AC template has entities (ids [or source sites]) that the sandbox version does not recognize and vise vera. Since the sandbox version (primarily a copy of the current Wikipedia version) is based in Lua, somebody familar with Lua needs to reconcile the old with new and finally compare the newly compiled list of possible identities to what Wikidata actually holds (property# wise) at the moment as well. Until then, we are pretty much wasting our time by "importing" less-than-complete authority info be it surped from Wikipedia, from Commons or from Wikidata itself or, once again, vise versa. -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:47, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Can you give an example of an individual where there is a discrepancy? I am presuming that we are talking design and range of outward links, rather than a data issue. The authority data can be more easily added at WD than here, and if you need a script for there, then poke into d:User:Billinghurst/common.js for the script that you need. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:40, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Our current authority control is a merger of three authority control templates from Wikipedia and Commons (as they were at that time) and includes more than just author-related authorities, including LCCN, OCLC, ISBN, ARC etc. That's probably going to be an issue here. Wikidata doesn't list all of these, but it does have some we don't (in either the current or sandbox version). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
NB: ARC appears to be on the Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control page, so it will probably be available eventually. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
The example is the same as it was at the begining of this overall section -- Author:Edward_Augustus_Freeman#Works_about_Freeman. I surmise most of us are still missing a key point; thanks to LUA, the sandbox template can pull all the existing entities with just the VIAF indenties (much like the gadget would but on its own). So we need somebody fluent in LUA to modify/expand the sandbox's Module:Authority control to reflect acomplete listing all round.

Internet Archive is just one entity that the current AC template has, Wikidata has assigned a property# for but the new sandbox template does not list (recognize). -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

This is bordering on cargo cult programming but I think I can do this. I've just added support for the Chinese CALIS authority control, which is neither in the current authority control template nor the en.wp version. You can see it in action with Author:Deng Xiaoping or Author:Confucius. Does that work for everyone else? If so, adding a new code seems to just require (1) a linking function, and (2) adding a link for it in the big block under the comment that starts "In this order:". I'm pretty sure I can go through the other possible codes if this hasn't caused a problem. (On the other hand, I'm still not sure how to make it look like our current authority control template but, if no one else solves it, I'll try to figure that out too.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I thought as much; Nice Job! CALIS is coming through here A-OK. I don't know how many entities we should be displaying however though I fully agree that tracking as many as possible would provide the most accurate of information possible. Also, I'd like to see WorldCat displayed very last if possible - otherwise the "order of display" should mirror the existing as much as practical imo.

As for the template's formatting, I'm in favor of moderate tweaks, if any, to the sandbox's current rendering for the only reason that it keeps us "close" to what WP & Commons have - making maintenance & upgrades easier to apply in the future. Otherwise I'm against keeping/matching the current rendering. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Any authority additions that we make to our template, we should be replicating into enWP's version. Keeping them aligned has real value, and is well-able to be argued as reasonable and practicable. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Don't you mean all domains should at least mirror the entities that can be tracked and pulled from VIAF before trying to mirror what wikidata recognizes in addition to what VIAF normally has? This wikidata authority control gadget seems to have the full list of source-info entities properly assigned a property# value & assume will be recognized if detected. I think THAT many sources is way beyond what works best for us per namespace in question vs Commons' needs the same vs. Wikipedia's needs the same, no? -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Keeping the new rendering is fine: not doing stuff is easier than doing stuff. I'll try moving the WorldCat link and adding other authorities later. I will try for as much as Wikidata can support and then we can prune the list to just the ones we want later. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
OK, I have added 23 additional items based on the existing template and browsing Wikdata's properties. Some of these are only relevant to works (see Twelve Years a Slave for an example) and should not show up on an author page. There will be more to add later, as Wikidata adds more on their side. I may have also missed a few on Wikidata (I noticed a few were not properly documented). We can start pruning now; I haven't tried but simply commenting out the ones we don't want to use should work and will leave them there in case we change our minds. I also figured out how to move the WorldCat link to the end. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
There might be a problem but it will be rare and manageable. In the non-Lua template the code could, for example, use either LCCN or LCCNbook or LCCNid, as appropriate, to switch between author or work control. I'm not sure how to do that in Lua. I say rare as this only really affects instances of the template in the main namespace (where the Lua module will try to link LCCN to an author rather than a work) and it is not currently used often in that namespace. (I'm afraid I didn't realise this right away as I didn't realise what part of the code was doing at first.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Simple IsLinkedToWikidata function

I thought this would be a simple task with which to start using Wikidata but I'm getting nowhere. I wanted to just return the item ID (Q number) of the attached data item, so I could (trivially) automatically fill plain sister and (more importantly) populate tracking categories such as Category:Author pages linking to Wikidata or Category:Author pages not linking to Wikidata. We could then use the tracking categories more flexibly than Special:UnconnectedPages. Does anyone know how to do this? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:12, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I misunderstand, but why wouldn't you do this in a similar fashion to the (say) Wikipedia link tracking categories, currently implemented by this fragment near the bottom of {{author}}:
{{#if:{{{wikipedia|}}}|[[Category:Author pages linking to Wikipedia]]|[[Category:Author pages not linking to Wikipedia]]}}

with the obvious substitutions giving: 

{{#if:{{{wikidata|}}}|[[Category:Author pages linking to Wikidata]]|[[Category:Author pages not linking to Wikidata]]}}
Surely testing whether the link contents starts with an actual "Q" would be needless overkill? Its presence or absence should be quite sufficient surely? AuFCL (talk) 12:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
It's not the "Q" that's a problem. I don't want to manually enter the number at all; I want the author header to automatically fill that in depending on whether or not the page is connected to a Wikidata item. As it happens, the next task I wanted to try was for the header to automatically pick up the Wikipedia link from Wikidata (as well as Wikivoyage and Commons) but I'm not sure if that is possible either and I've already fallen at the first hurdle. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
I observed much the same when looking over the AC template & related modules. The nuance is much of the "coding" doesn't refer to Wikidata but the term wikibase instead. So the issue with the above is probably due to detecting the wrong type or name of some string typically generated by the MediWiki namespace (MW messages, etc.) Fwiw, these are the simple LUA cals to invoke the generation of the "Q" id, label and page...
{{#invoke:Wikibase|id}}

Script error: No such module "Wikibase". 

{{#invoke:Wikibase|label}}

Script error: No such module "Wikibase". 

{{#invoke:Wikibase|page}}

Script error: No such module "Wikibase".

I tried adding the call to generate the id to {{Plain sister}} but I don't know if that was wise or not. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:34, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
FWIW: The mediawiki extension module which implements the Wikidata interfaces is called "wikibase." Perhaps this explains the confusion a little? AuFCL (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Oops, I really meant mw:Extension:Wikibase Repository, but the other link may be of benefit as well. AuFCL (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
That's what I needed, thanks. I've added that to {{Author}} directly (which is the only related edit I mean to make directly to any template without discussion, FYI). Please see Category:Author pages connected to Wikidata and Category:Author pages not connected to Wikidata. Adding a call to plain sister is great, that's part of what I planned to do next. If I manage to scrape together enough time I think I can make automatic sister links for the three other connected projects; assuming my programming is up to it. One thing that will have to be amended is the call to plain sister in the first place: it is only activated if one of the sister link properties are used in the header. If everything is automatic, and the call is left as it is, the links may never be shown. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:32, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
ABM, have a look at this edit. The information about how to do this at WD is simply crap, and something about which I give them continuous criticism. Tehre is so much more that can and should be done to get it all used properly — billinghurst sDrewth 14:32, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
(e/c) That looks good, although I might amend a few bits like the dates. I was going to try working on this with the {{author/sandbox}}. I think some functions will have to be moved to Lua eventually (or would be best there) and they are called more than once and it would be more efficient to use a variable to store the data rather than query Wikidata each time. Still, we can start with what we've got and move functions later. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:32, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I've converted the French Wikisource interproject template in Lua (see this module). I believe it should be easily reusable for the Plain sister template. Feel free to ping me on IRC (or on my talk page) if you need some help with Wikidata/Lua. Tpt (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I've migrated the part of {{Plain sister}} that manage sister project links to a Lua module that uses Wikdiata as fallback for Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and Commons links. Please revert if I've made any mistakes. Tpt (talk) 21:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Commons' VIAF data-importer now available

... but needs some love to become optimal.

After "toying" with both our version and Commons' version of the VIAF data-importer gadgets, it became clear the Commons version is superior to our's so I copied it (MediaWiki:Gadget-VIAFDataImporter.js & MediaWiki:VIAFDataImporter.js) to Wikisource as the first step on the route to replacing our version MediaWiki:Gadget-addViafData.js

After managing to un-cripple the new gadget enough to run based on our namespaces & not the ones on commons, one issue became paramount...

  • The current Authority Control template needs to be replaced with the LUA based variant being used on Wikipedia & Commons asap. It seems in order for wikidata to completely "surp" all the info we already have in place on-the-fly here on en.WS and vise-versa, we need to match the scheme already in place.

At the same time, the new gadget needs an expert to make it fully Wikisource compatible. I already left a note with User:Inductiveload but I figure the more eyes looking into this, the better. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:59, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

fqm vs. shift left

Is {{fqm}} the 'new' {{shift left}}? See [40]. Wondering which I should use from now on, because I use shift left a lot with poetry. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Nevermind. I am getting educated on this. Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:07, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Aid to linking authors to Wikidata

If anyone is interested in project maintenance and linking up with Wikidata, I've created this page: Wikisource:Wikidata/Wikipedia authors Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month/Wikidata/Wikipedia authors. It lists up to 300 author pages that are unconnected with Wikidata but have a Wikipedia link. This is meant to work on the assumption that most Wikipedia articles already have a Wikidata item, so it should be relatively easy to find that item via Wikipedia and just connect it to Wikisource too. Not all Wikipedia items have data items, however, and some of the Wikipedia links appear to be invalid, but it tends to be good enough most of the time. About 5,000 authors (roughly one third) are not currently connected to Wikidata and this should help find the low-hanging fruit in that number. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam. Very useful. There are a few false positives for WP links, but makes the task more focused. I'm thinking that it would be helpful to have a chart showing the progress over time. We won't be done in one month. The chart may help keep up the energy toward closing the gaps. --- DutchTreat (talk) 11:05, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I started a table to collect progress data at Wikisource_talk:Maintenance_of_the_Month#Marking_Progress_on_Wikidata_Integration. I welcome input or changes from anyone. There could be a better page to keep this data outside of the discussion page, so your thoughts? -- DutchTreat (talk) 11:07, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
@DutchTreat:It think that it would be worthwhile looking to start a Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month/Wikidata page at least as either a central place for WD-related maintenance tasksif not the full listing of tasks, though probably works well for a place for WDians to collect, and to drop jobs. We can reverse link to it at d:Wikidata/Wikisource or a subsidiary page. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Thanks for the suggestion. I started the page. - DutchTreat (talk) 22:52, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I've moved the list mentioned above to the MotM page to group everything in one place (there are only 2 names left on it anyway; we've cleared a few hundred authors already). I've also made some new lists that might help clear new batches of authors, for some non-anglophone authors, Popular Science Monthly authors, and authors with authority control. These sets will probably require a lot of new data items, however. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:13, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
@User:AdamBMorgan: Thanks for these pages! They're very helpful, and they break things up nicely so it doesn't feel like you're tackling 4000+ items. Tertiaryresources (talk) 13:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm glad they're useful. I've also just added a Wikidata search link to unconnected author pages, which might make this part of the process slightly easier. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Fwiw... these three cats are derived from Template:Authority control. Again, can someone please run a bot on Wikidata to import the VIAF data we have researched and added manually before its lost to one of the other routines that may or may not be made thru an equivalent manual input. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I have added {{authority control}} without parameters when: 1. no authority control was present on WS, 2. VIAF was present on WD, getting what was available for free. I do not think it is needed to fix such cases, we should just rely on WD. Not sure if you meant that we should fix this status though ...--Mpaa (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
All that does is pull the VIAF id with the most "matches" and populates any others associated with that id from that point. More often than not, this VIAF is the desired one by happenstance; otherwise all we've accomplished is furthering the wrong info. The AC template should have at at least one verified major parameter input by hand (VIAF ranked at the top of course). -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
One comment on this last category. Mismatch is quite tricky. In some cases, Wikidata has more than one VIAF entry (all valid) and sometimes a VIAF entry is automatically redirected to another VIAF, so the mismatch is only apparent. See for example wikidata:Q473421 and Author:Dinarchus. Not really sure what to do in such cases.--Mpaa (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
For cases with false-positive due to multiple IDs: Find the addition of (1) the claim for an previously added item and (2) the addition of the item (extra VIAF id in this case) itself in the WD article's history and undo each pair until only ONE VIAF remains.

Automatic redirects/reassignments are not desired. Only "good" VIAFs have ISNI test-supported ids btw. And it is not our job to prune or compile multiple ids pointing to the "same" person or entity on VIAF; our [stored] singularity speaks volumes when it comes to resolving these. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

But multiple IDs might be legitimate as long as VIAF org does not merge clusters into one single entry. And I am not sure on how Wikidata bots work. Will they learn from errors? Or will same same bots will run again and again and re-add the same information once again?--Mpaa (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
That's not how I understand it. Authority data should be singular per person, place or thing as far as I'm concerned (ala Library of Congress). The fact there are many ids in flux or have multiple entries is a symptom of progress towards ultimate verification. I guess we'll just have to muddle along until some rationale is made universal. Nevertheless, I don't believe applying the AC template for the sake of applying the template without a single verified resource is worth the trouble -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:59, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Most of the VIAF data are imported from other wikipedias/wikisources, i.e. a certain level of reliability might be, safely enough, assumed. I do not think it is either our data or nothing. Showing that data is IMHO better than nothing. If it is wrong, well, it can always be fixed. I bet that not all VIAF info on WS are correct either, same as not all wikipedia links are correct, birth dates and so on ... With the help of the Categories above, blurry ares can always be spotted and analyzed if deemed necessary.--Mpaa (talk) 00:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
??? You seem to be confusing the functionality of the Authority Control templates, modules and scripts (now with Wikidata & Wikibase acting as everybody's hub) with the consortium behind VIAF -- which is made up of LC, DNB, BnF, and OCLC starting in 1998. Only these 4 sources matter in the grand scheme of things for us right now -- moving us & everybody else toward the ISO 27729 standard (ISNI = International Standard Name Identifier (ISO 27729)) in the future.

Everything went to pieces when DNB (German national library) revamped their database and deprecated their BND ids for GND ones - causing the bot creation of a bunch of false positives and duplicate entries in all the other authorities out there - including VIAF - as a result. This is why manually selecting the "best" entry for at least the VIAF id is key afaict. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:21, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I am not confusing anything. What I meant is that what you say should be done manually here has (probably?) been done already on some other wikis. And that those data have been used to populate the wikidata property P214 for a given author. So the P214 value in wikidata for an author might be OK to use, if we have nothing here. Nothing more. But this discussion is becoming moot, so nevermind.--Mpaa (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
No this is kind of important - others seem to be of like mind.

Look, even the add-Viaf-gadget ignores an existing {{tl|authority control} template -- even though it may be displaying a few authority entities with id #s in view mode but has no existing [manual/gadget/bot] parameters [entities w/ids] in edit mode. The gadget will add a 2nd {{authority control}} template that is populated upon gadget execution & save. Its the same when "outsiders" and their gadget-equivalents are used on en.WS

So I'm not saying ignore wikidata - just add & save at least something to the AC template. Otherwise, it can't be properly polled and modified (if need be) when the entity (or wikidata) "looks" to see what we have at any given moment. Just copy the "unverified" VIAF string from lord-knows-where its being pulled from & displayed for us in view mode manually if you can't be bothered with [re]verifying it (or use the Gadget to do that). -- George Orwell III (talk) 10:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Hang on. Since the "no arguments" version of {{authority control}} popped up, in cases where I have noted missing references I have updated Wikidata directly (i.e. no edit at all on WikiSource; e.g. Author:Alice Bolingbroke Woodward/d:Q4725732.) Are you saying that author edits must be either:
  1. performed in two places—on either wiki—which is wasteful and error-prone; or
  2. performed purely locally on enWS, which relies upon the whims of the next robot run—and raises all sorts of ambiguity ("the VIAF reference I found is less/more trustworthy than the one somebody else found") issues.
—unless these sort of issues become better clarified I am concerned the whole Author: space model will rapidly become a complete farce. AuFCL (talk) 11:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Pretty much the way I see it. The idea nobody seem to grasp was for Wikidata to import all the authorities we've collected per author prior to attaching 'instances of' that author (found on Wikisource) to their database and let that id info filter through the machine awhile. They just went ahead and added our author names (along with anything else #proprties were in place for) making most of what we had a 'secondary source'. Having witnessed all the hard work folks have put into making the Author: namespace as robust & accurate as possible; I'd trust our data over most Wikipedia article's data without question. Too late now.

Moving forward, say we expand an author's initials to a full name here on ws - sure Wikidata needs then to point to the new Author article and not the redirect - but how would VIAF et al. eventually get that "additional" info? The up-down stream is broken because only one side has any 'anchor' to ping off of and then realize something has changed (e.g. middle initial to a middle-name) when the robots gott around to it. Thats why adding authority control data must be in pairs - one is the authority entity w/ id# itself - the other is the instance of the declared source supporting (the claim) to the id's association (German Wikipedia, French Wikisource, and the like)

Right now, the only way Viaf & crew has any chance of slurping our "original research" is if Wikipedia's article mirrors our authority control data - not article titles or naming conventions (Not Likely). -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:16, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. At least I am more in synch. now with your thinking. Every other issue is (language carefully chosen for accuracy not diplomacy here) bloody depressing. AuFCL (talk) 12:26, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Not all is lost. Before all this Authority/wikidata jazz, "we" thought to make micro/meta data part of the normal header & author templates to serve as a repository of useful & verifiable info one day & that is all still there...
<div id="ws-data" class="vcard ws-noexport" style="display:none; speak:none;"><span id="ws-article-id">1596501</span><span id="ws-wikibase-id">Q4725732</span><span id="ws-name" class="fn">Alice Bolingbroke Woodward</span><span class="n"><span class="given-name">Alice Bolingbroke</span><span class="family-name">Woodward</span></span><span id="ws-key">Woodward,_Alice Bolingbroke</span><span id="ws-birthdate" class="bday">1862</span><span id="ws-deathdate" class="dday">1951</span><span id="ws-wikipedia">Alice B. Woodward</span><span id="ws-description" class="label">English illustrator</span></div>
...see? -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

So for authors in Wikisource where the VIAF data is pointing to the less popular/authoritative of two VIAF records, should we edit the Wikisource page to point to the more popular/authoritative record instead? I'm looking at Author:Herod the Great d:Q51672 as an example. Tertiaryresources (talk) 13:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

@Tertiaryresources: -- A clear screw-up; a bot imported an additional [weak] VIAF id with only 1 authority to support it. If you go to the article history on Wikidata, you can "undo" [remove] this useless addition by 1st removing [undoing] the reference to claim followed by the addition [creation] of the claim. This will leave you with the single VIAF entry pointing to the "popular" (authoritive) id#.

Here on wikisource, you must amend the AC template to point to said VIAF id & just that VIAF id. It will still show all sorts of associated authorities (we don't care about them since they were surped via the "bad" VIAF id most likely). Only time (robot runs) will re-align the data based on the new & accurate ID. Since that has been manually amended by one of us here on en.WS, the new new & correct associations (if any) will eventually appear here (& on wikidata in theory) in the authoriy control template. <Note: I did this already for Herod the Great as an example, please review article histories/diffs here and @ wikidata>

The real issue in this example begins with the great being applied as a proper last name. If anything, this Author: article should have been title Herod I or Herod (the Great) but I'm not quite sure how we've been handling people like Herod who lived long before the arrival of the printing press. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

@George Orwell III:Thanks, this is helpful! I also found a spot to report problems with VIAF records, which is the real root of this problem -- w:Wikipedia:VIAF/errors#Parallel_VIAF_clusters_for_one_identity Tertiaryresources (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I just want to underline that in my mind {{authority control}} with no other info means:

  • look, we have not verified anything here, we just display what's on wikidata. If your bots try to scrape something, there is nothing reliable here ...
  • if we added any "unverified" VIAF string to the template, a WD bot might think: wow, they have some good data there, let's use it as source in wikidata as well, just reenforcing the "unverified" source loop.

That is why I would not add a parameter, unless locally verified here.--Mpaa (talk) 15:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It seemed worth making official, permanent note of this, so I have added sections on both {{authority control}} and Wikisource:Authority control. Please amend and correct as appropriate. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-12

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

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf18) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 20 (calendar).
  • You can now view smaller versions of PNG images bigger than 20 megapixels. [41]
  • You can now use the new search tool (CirrusSearch) on all small wikis. You can now enable it in your Beta options. [42] [43]
  • You can read a summary of the Wikimedia technical report for February 2014. [44]

VisualEditor news

  • Searching for template parameters in now case-insensitive. [45] [46]
  • Required template parameters now have an asterisk (*) next to their edit boxes. [47]
  • Several template dialogs are now smaller, and their insert buttons have changed wording. [48]

Future software changes

Problems

  • VisualEditor was slow to load on March 13 because of an API issue. [52]

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

07:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Is the PDF generator broken again?

Following a comment posted here, it looks like the PDF generator is not recognising transcluded text. Again. I've tested this with a few random texts. Before I take it to bugzilla, can someone else confirm this is a general problem and not just me? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 10:53, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

 Verified -- No matter how I approached the prospect of "printing" to a PDF file, -- both 'Save as ...' as well as directly opened to a browser -- it processed all the way through but the PDF was empty except for the title and some WS footer info. Might this have something to do with Inductiveload's ToolLabs account being closed for what appears to be inactivity (if I'm looking at the right script n' stuff that is)? -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:42, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Index:Chronological Table and Index of the Statutes.djvu

The first half of this The table is now Transcribed, I would appreciated some eyes proofreading.

Any volunteers for the second part, The Index?ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 01:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Add authority control gadget security block

Hi. With Firefox 27 I get the following error:

Rather than allow mixed content in the browser (there must be a reason if by default is blocked ...), shouldn't the gadget use https instead?--Mpaa (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I switched the 'AutoSuggest' call to https and no more mixed content bangs in IE - should be the same for you now too. Still, I hope Inductiveload comes around soon. The gadget could use a "refresh" considering all the deprecated modules & junk over the last 3 years since the script was really revised. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:06, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Its OK now. Thanks--Mpaa (talk) 17:24, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Tech News: 2014-13

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

Recent software changes

  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf19) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on March 20. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on March 25, and all Wikipedia wikis on March 27 (calendar).

VisualEditor news

  • You can now double-click or press the ↲ Enter key on an image or template to change its settings. [53] [54]
  • Pages that don't exist will now show as red links in the edit mode. [55]
  • You will no longer be able to try to use VisualEditor on pages translated using the Translate extension, and you will see a warning if you try to edit pages marked for translation. [56]
  • You will now see a full warning, including the most recent log entry, when you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor. [57]

Future software changes

  • Typography Refresh will be enabled for test wiki and MediaWiki.org users who use the Vector skin on March 27. For users on non-Wikipedia wikis, it will be enabled on April 1, and for Wikipedia users on April 3. If you don't use Vector as your skin, you will not be affected.
  • You will be able to use the Hovercards tool as a beta feature on all wikis from March 26.
  • You will soon be able to include the Whatlinkshere special page in other pages. [58] [59]

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

18:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Translate English to English?

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Mehalah:_a_story_of_the_salt_marshes_(1880)/Chapter_1

says that Constance Garnett was the translator. Since this is by an English author about an English subject, it seems a little odd. Reasonable to remove the name? Rich Farmbrough, 05:18 26 March 2014 (GMT)

I can't see why Garnett would have been involved with this work particularly as she was 19 at the time of publication and studying at Newnham College (Cambridge). Go ahead and remove her name from throughout this work. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 04:40 29 March 2014 (GMT)

Wikidata search link on unconnected Author pages

This is just a quick note that I have added a new element to {{plain sister}} that should be displaying a special link to Wikidata's search function for all unconnected Author pages. This should not be appearing in any other namespace so, if it does, can you mention it here. I've tested this, both in my sandboxes and live, and I cannot find any bugs or errors caused by this. However, if anything does go wrong, again, can you mention it here. Thanks, AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

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