User:Biggins
I started puttering around on Wikisource way back in 2004, then got distracted for a decade and a half. But now: more puttering!
Current Projects[edit]
[Nothing in particular at the moment]
Past Projects[edit]
Updating The Confessions of Nat Turner[edit]
I noticed that The Confessions of Nat Turner didn't have page scans, so I uploaded a copy of the book/pamphlet from the Internet Archive and transcluded the text. I used the text from the earlier version of the work (obtained from Project Gutenberg), but didn't count it as proofread because I believe PG was using the 1832 printing, not the 1831 first edition, and there were a few small typos in it, but it is probably at least 95% proofread.
Revamping {{w:LDS}} Template to Link to Wikisource[edit]
I revamped the {{LDS}} template on Wikipedia (completed August 20, 2020), which is used to link to LDS Scriptures (e.g., the Book of Mormon). The previous version of the template linked to the the LDS Church's webste, but it was proposed that linking to these documents on Wikisource instead would be preferable for a number of reasons. I agree wholeheartedly, so I'm trying to implement that.
A few bigger picture issues I ran into and am still thinking about are:
- Quality of texts: only The Pearl of Great Price is transcluded from an image, as is ideal
- The first two pages of Genesis are transcluded, but the rest of the KJV of the Bible appears to be traditional wikitext (though at least all the images are uploaded)
- The Book of Mormon and The Doctrine and Covenants are entirely traditional wikitext
- There's also the question of whether the current official text of the PoGP has any substantive changes from the 1913 version we have on Wikisource (which I don't believe to be the case but ought to confirm)
- Availability of texts: Wikisource hosts the 1981 editions of both the Book of Mormon (among others) and the Doctrine and Covenants, which after some copyvio debate have been kept since the only changes from the much older (and clearly PD) editions are so minor as to be uncopyrightable (and the LDS Church has confirmed this explicitly re the Book of Mormon). (For the record, I agree with this approach.)
- That said, this makes it impossible to really upload images of these texts (as the published versions also contain chapter headings etc that are under copyright), so it's a bit messy and not ideal
- I don't have any solution to this, it just makes me a bit uneasy?
- Nitpicking on format: As of now, the {{chapter}} templates for all of these works come after the Chapter heading:
Chapter 4{{chapter|4}}
- This means that when following a link, the first verse is at the top of the screen, which I find slightly disorienting as a reader—I'd prefer to jump to the actual text that says "Chapter [N]" with the verses appearing below it
- But there's no way I'm going to do that manually, and I don't even know if writing a bot would be worth the effort (not that I have ever done that, so maybe it's easy)—and anyway, this is, after all, just a nit :)