User talk:Hesperian/Archive 15

The following text is preserved as an archive of discussions at User talk:Hesperian. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on User talk:Hesperian. No further edits should be made to this page.

Rename

Hi Hesperian, I'm posting this request on behalf of nl:User:Kukkie. There is a user registered with the same user name, but 0 edits. See here for confirmation. Could you please rename the old one? Thanks in advance. Sincerely, JurgenNL (talk) 14:48, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Also posted here. JurgenNL (talk) 15:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hooker's Flora Antarctica

Hi, just wondering your opinion on the practicality of doing The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror … as a proofread of the month. The botanist in my household says that Hooker's writing style can be quite dense, but it would be very useful to have it available. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

It would be extremely cool, but wading through pages of botanical Latin is pretty hard work. The OCR is usually not great. And usually there is complicated markup e.g. margin changes, hanging indents, etc. Having worked on similar botanical works, I'm inclined to think it is too much of an acquired taste. But don't let me talk you out of it! Hesperian 08:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Together or apart — similarity of disambig

Do we have separate disambig pages for Primrose and Primroses, or should we merge them? At the help page, we leave the distinguishment undefined. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:19, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Dunno. At present, my understanding is we merge "X", "An/A X" and "The X". If we also include "Xes", then we should include "The Xes" too. I'm not fussed, so long as it is documented so that we all do the same thing. Hesperian 10:46, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Daisy Miller in April

Daisy Miller: A Study (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1879) will be the featured text for April. As you nominated it, can you fill out the remainder of Template:Featured text/April. I was going to do it today but I've been ill and I'm not up to writing this right now. Thanks, AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I had a go. Hope you're feeling better soon, Adam. Hesperian 06:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

"OH YEAHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Congrats Hesperian! —Maury (talk) 23:51, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Maury. :-) And congrats also to you, who validated it! Hesperian 06:48, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't recall whether I edited any of those pages or not because often I jump from book to book editing and/or validating. I will tell you what I do remember and that's "teamwork". You could not get the big file off gobble. I got that and tried several ways to get it to you inc. IA. You downloaded that .pdf file but had trouble with it. Ineuw, and George Orwell III stepped in and also had problems with it. I mentioned sending it to you in parts to be reassembled which is what George Orwell III. I think Ineuw also worked with that. You reassembled those pieces and then the work was edited, proofread, and validated. This is what really what I focus upon and like--our teamwork! The conversations about this, or portions thereof, are on my talk page. Finally, your nomination and desire for the work to be nominated, backing your prize work brought to fruition as a featured text. Next came the supports which I recall came from myself, Ineuw, Gumr51 (I think) of Mexico, probably Clockery, and others. Then I enjoyed playing around with the title with Clockery--it was a flexible topic. But all said and done it was teamwork that got Daisy Miller and her author to become the featured text for April 2014. Think of this and ask yourself, would or could any one person have done all that was done? You were the driving force and George Orwell III was our usual WS problem solver of it all. Still, "teamwork", and imho that is better than any one person completing a work. It reminds me of that old saying, "United We Stand", or the Biblical scripture about "A House divided cannot stand". So, the wonderful story and gifted author are carried onward into the future, new once again for many generations, and as a featured text which in itself was a challenge that became a success through teamwork. It was your *strong desire for that work* and *request for help* that brought it all together. I love all of this! It is beyond just the work itself. —Maury (talk) 07:51, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I had an odd idea that that was a different work, that one you're speaking of. Hesperian 12:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Oops! Sincerely sorry. "IT HAPPENS", especially to old guys, but I'll remedy it by promoting my own work, "Comic History of England".

Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 15:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Heh. Hesperian 00:41, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

raw

Hesperian, a request please, would you be so kind as to run your "raw image" bot over the pages of the following book? I know this link isn't good but it is the correct area. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 15:46, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

• Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2 (1853)
  • Sure I'll hit it over the weekend. Hesperian 02:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

You might be interested in this

Wendell Phillips by your Fenian mate. 12:40, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks mate; interesting. I might get to it later.... Hesperian 12:55, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The Wild Goose

As far as I can find there isn’t a publicly accessible transcription of the entire 7 volumes. There is 68 images here which in could in theory be captured and transcribed. Do you foresee any issues if I was to do that, or is there an easier way forward? Moondyne (talk) 13:33, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like an awesome project. The only issue I can see is that OCR will not be feasible; it will have to be transcribed entirely by hand.

Happy to build a DjVu file for you, or tell you how to do it (pardon me if I've just taught you to suck eggs; I don't know where you're at in this area of Wikisourcering).

Hesperian 00:59, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Hesperian, (I am not sure how to ask this... ) Since you would "be happy to build a djvu file" for Moondyne, why not go ahead and explain it to all of us here and perhaps place it on one of our Help pages? I would love to know how you would build a djvu file. Kind regards, —Maury (talk) 03:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Your question prompted me to have a look around, and I see it is already all there at Help:DjVu files. I would have used the method described at Help:DjVu files#Images directly to DjVu. Hesperian 03:55, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for answering. I will go there and look it over. Respects, —Maury (talk) 05:15, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I expect I will be able to muddle my way through using a few tools I have; I also fully expect that it’ll be a manual transcription given the handwritten text. I was mostly interested to know if you knew of any other sources for this which it sounds as though you don’t. So onward ho! PS that link is interesting - I have used mogrify for batch image compression and resizing but never knew it could be used to create djvu. Another thing learned today. Moondyne (talk)

It can't, as far as I know. It can be used to convert a range of image file formats into the specific formats that the DjVuLibre binaries require e.g. pbm, ppm, etc. Hesperian 07:36, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Um, well, ImageMagick handles a lot of formats by delegation. I guess if you have a delegate set up.... Hesperian 07:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I misread that. Moondyne (talk) 12:24, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

File:The Wild Goose.djvu. My upload is too poor to be of any use: I went from imagemagick->multiple pdfs->merged->pdf2djvu. Happy to accept your offer of a build. Jpgs in an email. No rush. Cheers. Moondyne (talk) 14:47, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Received with thanks. Reprocessed and uploaded over the top of yours. I used default quality options in the encoding, which are usually pretty good. If the quality still isn't good enough I might be able to push it a bit harder.... Hesperian 02:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Much better, thanks. Moondyne (talk) 03:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm uploading a heavily sharpened grayscale copy over the top of the current copy. This should make it a good deal easier to proofread. Once proofread, we should revert to the full colour version. If you find it doesn't help you, then by all means revert immediately. (You might have to purge cache etc to see the new file. Hesperian 06:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Why am I not seeing a Source tab on The Wild Goose? Moondyne (talk) 06:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Because no pages are transcluded there. Hesperian 06:20, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed that there’s a zoomify link on each source page - to a hi-res image. eg. http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/_zoomify/2014/D24974/a9615057.html. Moondyne (talk) 04:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Do you know about dezoomify? If you care enough to run that 68 times to pull down 68 hi-res images, I'll be happy to rebuild the DjVu. Hesperian 10:37, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

That is very cool. Moondyne (talk) 10:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you.

Hesperian, I thank you in all sincerity for that consideration but I have defended myself for a very long time and especially come this May 12th. I have a very thick skin after so many trials. I just regret that it even started. It was absolutely useless and silly. In the year 1066 I conquered all of England.

On mouse over. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 03:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Galaxy magazine and image issues

Hey again...

Had some time and thought it best spent patching structural issues, etc. for source files tagged the same (I'm an idiot in short).

Anyway, I got your "note" on the 100 page "offset" for Index:The Galaxy, Volume 1.djvu and have verified as much since but I'm still not clear on one plate & image pair.

By my reckoning, the plate and image currently facing print-scan-page numbered 21 should be facing print-scan-page 37 instead. Can you verify either way before I attempt to rederive the PDF with the other missing pairs patched in as well? TIA. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:20, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Heh, I know the feeling — I feel like an idiot too whenever I have spare time and decide to spend it processing another few hundred missing images.

How do you reckon that? I'm intrigued. Based on binding gathers perhaps?

I thought I was onto something with this but that refers to the English serial edition not this American serial edition. I can't confirm either way. I won't object to you doing whatever you think you ought. Hesperian 01:08, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

A.) p. iv, List of illustrations lists no plate facing p. 21

B.) Caption of image facing p.21 matches entry facing p. 37 in same list of illustrations (p. iv)

C.) Both A & B match findings at alternative site provided by you for the other missing images. See here

... or am I off my meds again? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Well! Of course I'm not going to notice something as obvious at that, am I! Seems like you're right as usual. Hesperian 07:39, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Hay, missing the page number "18". —Maury (talk) 01:15, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

?? Position 24 (Page:The Galaxy, Volume 1.djvu/24) is page 18 the way I see it? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:31, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't want to butt into your conversation so I was brief -- obviously too brief. My sincere apology. Here is the link. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Galaxy,_Volume_1.djvu/291 —Maury (talk) 02:26, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

No worries. Hmmm... I don't know what the "18" at the bottom of that page "stands for" but I doubt it was meant to be the page number in the compilation (Volume 1). Position /291 is print-scan page no. 277 as far as I can tell (which matches the Index listing for the author/work as well). -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:40, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

The "18" on that page is the signature number for the collated work. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:52, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

This whole issue of collation is being interesting to me. According to my bibliography of Henry James, the first edition of A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales was

gathered and signed in 12's, *[i]² 1-20¹² 21⁶; signed also in 8's, [A]⁸ B-I⁸ J⁸ K-U⁸ V⁸ W⁸ X-2E⁸.

What does it all mean, and should I care?? Hesperian 07:39, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

In both sets the signatures in [] have the preliminary pages. In the first list most of the signatures contained 12 leaves each, with the first having only 2 and the last 6. 20*12+8=248. In the second list the signatures are all sets of 8 leaves. 31*8=248. To be able to collate the two versions in this way, there must have been two different print runs on different size paper. The second was on octavo i.e. 16 printed pages per sheet of paper (eight each side), which was then folded thrice and trimmed. The first was on duodecimo i.e. 12 printed pages per sheet of paper (six each side), which was then folded into thirds and trimmed. Quite why the octavo list of signatures has been divided up the way it has, with the J, V & W mentioned separately, I'm not sure. The fact that one set is in numbers and the other letters is another indicator of separate print runs from different plates. As to whether you should care, I leave the philosophy to those with wisdom—I'm content with knowledge. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:04, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I've been doing some research; this is quite interesting. Two points:

1. Pages such as Page:A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales (1875).djvu/103 are signed with both a letter and a number. It seems the plates were made up signed both ways, so that the printer could have flexibility as to whether to print octavo or duodecimo. In the end it was only printed duodecimo.
2. Most printers used the 23-letter Latin alphabet, in which I and J are interchangeable, U and V are interchangeable, and W doesn't exist. In this case, the 26-letter alphabet was used. If the collation formula simply said "B-2E⁸", then the reader would have no way of knowing whether the specified range included— I, J or both; U, V or both; and W or not. Hence the formula must be explicit when it comes to these letters.

Hesperian 13:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikisource needs an centralized quid pro quo validation exchange for active users

Hey, Hesperian. I responded to your post at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help#Getting_texts_validated. Personally I think Wikisource would benefit from a centralized quid pro quo page for active community members and was wondering what you thought of the idea. Abyssal (talk) 00:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Academic papers and excerpts

Hi, in the light of your comments on the T. rex paper on WS:FTC, what do you think about the newly created project (Wikisource:WikiProject Open Access) and one that's been around a bit longer (Wikisource:WikiProject Academic Papers)? They came to my attention because of the import from PubMed business and I wonder about the point of us hosting born-digital academic papers that are just a link away anyway. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Mixed feelings. The value proposition is very much diminished but not quite zero — they're within scope and I can see benefits in hosting them here where we can wikilink references to other hosted papers etc. Still I take your point about born-digital, and I find myself thinking "why bother?". But that's a reason only for me not to invest my energy in it. I don't see any reason to debar others. Hesperian 02:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/France hitting template limits

During some maintenance tasks, I came across the delight of 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/France. Opinion of how much we trim in the way of templated wikilinks? I was thinking that just leave the French regional place names, and obliterate the rest. And lots of tidy. <grumble ... time ... ugly ... waste> — billinghurst sDrewth 16:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The original work contains internal links. Look closely; they are marked with "(q.v.)". These internal links should be rendered with internal links, and nothing else. For us to internally link a heap of words that EB1911 didn't link makes this an unfaithful transcription. For example, EB1911 contains articles on "country" and "Europe", but the article about France doesn't begin "a country (q.v.) of western Europe (q.v.)". It begins "a country of western Europe". Since EB1911 did not link to their articles on "country" and "Europe", who are we to do so? Therefore, only around fifteen terms should be linked in this article. Hesperian 01:04, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I nuked it from orbit; it was the only way to be safe. Hesperian 01:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Swift

Thank both of you, EncycloPetey and Hesperian! Wikisource has actually saved my sanity. I was laid off from my job after 23 years, and found only part-time jobs that I enjoyed doing. I was quite bored with video games, and one can only search the Internet for so long. Fortunately, I was searching on Wikipedia one day, and found the sister sites -- something I did not know existed. I was intrigued by the Random Transcription site, and when I clicked, I found Swift -- first try! My favorite professor in college was a Swift expert, so I believe it was a sign. But don't worry that I'll leave when I'm done with the Swift work -- I've already found a Twain book to transcribe, and will search for more of my favorites when that's done. Susanarb (talk) 14:59, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Automated import of openly licensed scholarly articles

Hello Hesperian,

We are putting together a proposal about the automated import of openly licensed scholarly articles, and since you are an active Wikisourceror, we'd appreciate yourcomments on the Scriptorium. For convenience, I'm copying our proposal here:

The idea of systematically importing openly licensed scholarly articles into Wikisource has popped up from time to time. For instance, it formed the core of WikiProject Academic Papers and is mentioned in the Wikisource vision. However, the Wikiproject relied on human power, never reached its full potential, and eventually became inactive. The vision has yet to materialise.

We plan to bridge the gap through automation. We are a subset of WikiProject Open Access (user:Daniel Mietchen, user:Maximilanklein, user:MattSenate), and we have funding from the Open Society Foundations via Wikimedia Deutschland to demo suitable workflows at Wikimania (see project page).

Specifically, we plan to import Open Access journal articles into Wikisource when they are cited on Wikipedia. The import would be performed by a group of bots intended to make reference handling more interoperable across Wikimedia sites. Their main tasks are:

• (on Wikipedia) signalling which references are openly licensed, and link them to the full text on Wikisource, the media on Commons and the metadata on Wikidata;
• (on Commons) importing images and other media associated with the source article;
• (on Wikisource) importing the full text of the source article and embedding the media in there;
• (on Wikidata) handling the metadata associated with the source article, and signalling that the full text is on Wikisource and the media on Commons.

These Open Access imports on Wikisource will be linked to and from other Wikimedia sister sites. Our first priority though will be linking from English Wikipedia, focusing on the most cited Open Access papers, and the top-100 medical articles.

In order to move forward with this, we need

• General community approval
• Community feedback on workflows and scrutiny on our test imports in specific.
• Bot permission. For more technical information read our bot spec on Github.

Maximilianklein (talk) 18:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

copy

[copy]

Speed validating

Please stop speed-validating. You are making errors. ResScholar (talk) 19:54, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Where are these errors? Which book/s? Yours? Beeswaxcandle's? One of mine? I want to see these errors and how many errors you refer to. If it is so then I will stop validating totally. We don't need more errors and I get nothing accomplished trying to help someone else by validating wrong. —Maury (talk) 21:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Maury. I assume by copying this here that you would like me to keep half an eye out for you while you're resolving it with RS. Happy to do so.

Your response above seems to be addressed to RS but I can find it only on my page, not on yours or his. Did you accidentally post it to the wrong page? I think your questions to RS are an appropriate next step to sorting this out, only I'm not sure that RS will see it if it is only posted here.

Hesperian 01:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh my, yes, I posted to the wrong person. I apologize for it Hesperian. I don't care one bit what ResidentScholar states, I do not trust him or her and I do not believe him or her. I validated Beeswaxcandle's book for many hours yesterday and some earlier this morning. Yes, I was going fairly fast but the book is an easy read with little material per page. I found BWC's mistakes and corrected those and noted it on the subject line but in way do I believe I was making mistakes by "speed-reading". He or she (Rez) sees a lot of material done over many hours and I believe he or she assumes there must have been mistakes by me. Too, the book was partly completed when I started. Also I believe Beez paused and watched me before he began again. Beez marked one square red and did his pausing because I was close to where he was working but I was watching out for where he was. I like Beez a lot and he has helped me a lot so I wanted to pay back a favor by validating the book he was working on. If someone accuses me of something I want solid proof. I even double-checked my validations for Beeswaxcandle. I read the outside and the inside where the editing is done and I format every page. I have done this with other books for Beeswaxcandle. I refer to his simple and easy to read at almost a glance books. I do not care what ResidentScholar says or thinks. I have never liked him or her since I came here to wikisource at which time he or she made a negative comment against me. I don't mind a critic as long as he or she can back it up with solid evidence and if so then I will apologize and move on. I also posted to Beeswaxandle who knows what I did on his book and when I was doing it. Your and Beeswaxcandle's word is as good as gold to me but not so one iota with ResidentScholar who I believe I remember already cost us an excellent Editor not very long ago and on a more vague memory it was the same issue but if that was ResidentScholar he locked that excellent editor out and that editor was raging angry, answered the charges and then quit wikisource after years of being here doing good work. I am going to let it go and ignore ResidentScholar. I distrust him or her from way back and with his actions against an excellent Editor that caused that editor to quit. There was a big and long argument between the two in Scriptorium I think it was. Respectfully, —Maury (talk) 02:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Maintaining standards is important. If there were a way to objectively measure validation quality, then I would support a process that gently prods proof-readers when their quality has dipped. I'm sure RS is acting in good faith in telling people when he thinks the quality of their work has dipped, but I am not comfortable with a process that involves any single editor acting as gendarme based on their own views, and I am not comfortable with an approach that some people take as a criticism or attack. If we maintain quality by a process that upsets and alienates people, then we've gained less by it than we've lost. Hesperian 02:52, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that maintaining standards is important. However, I know at a few easy ways to avoid situations like that one-time speed-validating where I supposedly was "making mistakes". I don't mind criticism or attacks if that is what they really are but the one who does that should be able to prove his statements by showing where such took place if only for my own benefit. If I were to make that statement I would have a collection of links to prove where I saw said "mistakes" which is often better than a growing argument. There is a time to walk away, a time to fight if one has to, also a time to totally ignore. I have chosen to let it go. —Maury (talk) 03:40, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Roger that. Hopefully that is as easy said as done and you can get straight back to enjoying your work here. Hesperian 04:06, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Hesperian, the vitriol of Maury's attack suggested to me that he might know an oversighter and may be trying to entrap me. Could you please look at Page:Bound to Succeed.djvu/16 and tell me if you see the two extraneous capital letters that I saw in the second sentence of the second paragraph? ResScholar (talk) 06:47, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I see two capital I's that should be lower case i's. Hesperian 09:32, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

1st ResidentScholar, if you are going to chat about me I feel somewhat willing to reply but not for long. I had hoped you would let it go as I wanted to, because I think it is too silly to argue over. Besides, I don't intend to do anymore validating fast if at all. Beeswaxcandle had a book with some slang. If I went slow I may still make mistakes. Would you be perfect every time? I don't mind speed validating as long as there are no mistakes that I have made. I may miss a couple of letters but I could do that going slow and so too could you. That is not an impossibility for anyone. If you wish to continue this please take it to your talk page. I myself dislike being drawn in by conversing about my 2 "errors" you have mentioned and I don't know but I think Hesperian doesn't want this on his talk page which is my mistake due to my coming to him so often for advice.

2nd Look at Beeswaxcandle's talk page where he thanks me and uses other kind words such as, "There will probably be some upper case I characters that should be lower case i—this was the most common OCR problem—but not to worry, the meaning of the words isn't changed. If someone else cares to fix any we've missed, they are welcome to do so." So there you have it.

I am not trying to "entrap" you nor anyone else but I now feel it may be the other way around as with MODCHK who left us. I have validated and edited several of Beeswaxcandle's books. He helps me and I try to return the favor as all people should do in my way of thinking. I do not really even know you and have no interest in wasting my editing time to even consider "entrapping you". That would be a goofy waste of time and effort. I never considered any such thing -- you came to me not I to you. BTW, the area where it is stated, "little sleeping chld.", is where Beeswaxcandle marked it as 'SIC due the book misspelling. The speed validation I did but I would like to know where there are so many mistakes than an issue has to be made of it. Again, read Beeswaxcandle's talk page where he is so opposite of you in tone. Just be friendly and "let it go". No use in kicking a dead horse. —Maury (talk) 10:41, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Seeking an opinion of transclusion variation for 2 vol. work

I am back to one of my on-again, off-again works My Life in Two Hemispheres, and just starting the second vol. On the root page of the work, I have 'co-set' the vol. 1 and vol. 2 ToC and frontispiece with variation, so it is [v1 frontispiece ... v1 title page ... v1 ToC ... (label on the page break) v2 ToC ... v2 frontispiece]. I would like your opinion one whether you think that there is value in including both the title pages; at this stage I have only included the first, so that would be including [v2 title page] somewhere. Also I have moved the v2 frontispiece to after the v2 ToC, to keep the ToC as being continuous. Do you think that works, or do think that something that directly replicates the two distinct volumes is more appropriate.

As background, the work is in two volumes, with subsidiary 'books' within. I went with keeping the book/chapter words, though have set it with running chapters (I dislike stacking hierarchies especially as it leaves the first subdir level nude as there is nothing at the 'book' level), so it is set to be Chapters 1 through 32. I think that when finished that I will do redirects for the book/chapters to the relevant chapters, and would appreciate a comment on whether that grinds your teeth, or not.

If you would mind looking, that would be appreciated. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:40, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

{{poke}}

You do well to come to me, grasshopper. Many years did I wander, captive in samsara, before the path to enlightenment was revealed to me. My child, you are lost in confusion and doubt, yet wisdom is but a three-fold path away.

First, you must waste hours in fruitless search for an elegant solution that does not exist. It is a long path. There are no shortcuts. You will know that you have attained your first step when you have learned the renunciation of perfection. Do not search for perfection, grasshopper; perfection will find itself when the searcher is at peace.

Second, you must fiddle around, try a few things, then change your mind and undo what you tried, only to try something else and something else again. Mastery of this second step will bring you to the mental and spiritual state of being stumped, or suññatā.

Only the truly stumped can take the final step to enlightenment, which is to make a decision and do something. But do not ask me the nature of your something, grasshopper; you must reveal this to yourself. You already know that we will be blessed by harmony only if your something is not completely indefensibly stupid. Now you must further discern that this will be achieved when you choose whichever option is least worst.

Hesperian 14:49, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Two tablets too many, or the best root in history that your eyes are bulging. Well done. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:00, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users

Dear Hesperian,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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Scripts

Hello!

A few weeks ago, the layout of my editing pages changed. All of my scripts disappeared, and the tools at the top (e.g. Special characters) and bottom (e.g. Wiki markup) were gone too. I scrambled to create separate lists of the codes. After a few days, I found that some of the problems had been fixed, and found hints at how to get the scripts back (involving going into Preferences and clearing caches). I followed the suggestions, and got most of my functionality back. Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, everything has been disappearing again, more and more often, and now my scripts only seem to appear when I don't really need them (such as when I’m correcting a simple mistake - and as I’m typing this). Fortunately, the scripts don't help much in the proofreading I'm doing right now (an index), so it isn't so bad at the moment. Sometime, though, I hope to return to regular proofreading. Can you please help me get the scripts back again? Maybe it’s as simple as clearing the caches again?

A more disturbing problem I’ve been noticing is the breakdown of the {{Mc}} code. For some reason, "Mr. {{Mc}}Aulay" appears as "Mr.c MAlay". I’ve tried it several times, and can't fix it, so I've been substituting "Mc" instead. Has the {{Mc}} code been replaced with something else?

Thank you for your help! Susan Susanarb (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Template:Mc looks unchanged, so can you point to where it is playing up? To the script I will leave that to Hesperian, though @Pathoschild: may be able to have a poke for you as he is transferring users from one variation to an improved regex function. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:41, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. Here is a page where I put the template back, and the "c" comes before the "M": Mc Page. Susanarb (talk) 03:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Fingers crossed I've fixed the Mc issue;[1] I will get back to you regarding the scripts but it might take me a while as I am very busy in real life at the moment. Hesperian 03:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing the Mc! That one was really bugging me. I can wait for quite a while for my scripts, as this index I'm working on is very long. So thank you in advance (and for giving me all of the scripts in the first place! Susanarb (talk) 03:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Fixed? To me it now sits above the M, and sticks out like a sore thumb. Not fussing about it now, but it would seem to need to have some review across browsers and fonts if we are getting discrepancy? — billinghurst sDrewth 15:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Partial revert. Okay now? Hesperian 23:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The Mc’s still look good to me! (I love how computer fixes sometimes have unintended results.) Susanarb (talk) 00:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Markedly better for me. Thx. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello Susanarb. I updated and refactored your scripts as requested above. I tried to make sure everything still works the same way as before, but you may notice some changes since you're using a new script framework. If anything broke or no longer works like you want, chastise me accordingly and I'll look into it. :) —Pathoschild 02:28, 06 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! Hesperian gave them to me some time ago, and now I pout if I don't have them! Again, many thanks. Susanarb (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I've just started a new page, and the scripts still aren't there. Is there some other clue to get them to show up? Susanarb (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I’ve completed 6 more pages, and haven't seen the scripts yet. I’m guessing I need to do something else to make them show up in the left frame, but I don’t know what to do (I’m an English major with limited computer skills). Could you please help? Susanarb (talk) 04:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I hope to get a block of time later today to have a poke at this. Hesperian 04:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@Susanarb: I tried editing Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/408 with your scripts, and they showed up for me. Did you clear your browser cache first? What gadgets do you have enabled? —Pathoschild 13:27, 06 October 2014 (UTC)

I cleared the cache, and I now see the scripts again. Thank you! Susanarb (talk) 15:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Stale?

Noted in passing: might be controversial if a non-administrator closed this? Meant kindly. AuFCL (talk) 10:30, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

G'day mate. I'm not sure what you're saying/asking. The votes of confidence were closed long ago, by me. Certainly I agree that such discussions are best closed by a 'crat. But what you're linking to is merely a request for an administrator to do some housework on the matter. I don't see that it needs closing? Apologies if I'm missing the point; today I have a head cold and am therefore particularly stupid.... Hesperian 00:32, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

My misunderstanding. Coming in cold it looked (from my perspective) like something which ought to have been removed when the votes were resolved/filed away; I guess this sort of thing just waits around for some kind of periodic archival process instead? Either way, clearly a non-event—pardon disturbing the progress of your recovery. AuFCL (talk) 01:27, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

No worries. I overlook things all the time so prods are never unwelcome. All I know about archiving of that page is: it happens. Hesperian 01:43, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Problem with page numbers

Hallo Hesperian,

do you know what's wrong with - for example - the chapter about Saratoga in Henry James' "Portraits of Places"?. The highlighted text passages when moving the mouse over the page number on the left sometimes do not correspond to the proofread pages, and page number 328 is missing altogether.

Thank you for solving the problem! --ABrocke (talk) 13:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@ABrocke: I see p. 328, and I don't see an issue with the highlighting. Maybe purge your page. Generally we would encourage these sorts of general questions to either WS:S or {{WS:Scriptorium/Help]] as anyone can address them, and usually more quickly than just one person. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:36, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:Dear billinghurst, I thought that Hesperian as the creator of the Saratoga chapter was the appropriate addressee for my question which I didn't regard as general. Anyway: Thank you very much for answering my question nevertheless! --ABrocke (talk) 15:03, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain?

Special:Diff/5119846

What did I do wrong? -Pete (talk) 23:53, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

If I understand you right -- you prefer to keep a redundant copy here at Wikisource? What's the purpose of doing that? Sorry if I misunderstand your system -- not trying to cause problems. -Pete (talk) 00:16, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that this is a raw page scan. It is not a clean image and should not be moved to Commons. Instead, a clean copy should be made, then uploaded at Commons, then this raw file should be deleted. Raw page scans should never be transferred to Commons. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:19, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, OK. Well, I did that -- apparently just not in the expected order. So I'll restore the speedy delete template now, I suppose..? (As a Commoner I strongly disagree with this principle, and would be happy to talk it through. I believe it is important to keep the original file in the edit history at Commons, as a reuser may wish to reference something closer to the original printed work for reasons that are difficult to anticipate -- e.g., they may be better at image restoration than me.) -Pete (talk) 00:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

[e/c] Sorry I was too rushed/lazy to write a proper edit summary. What Petey said. You can do it your way if you want, but when you do please choose a different name. When you clobber my namespace, my bot breaks. Then replace the raw image template with the fixed image. And then nominate the original for deletion. See User:HesperianBot for as much detail as you could possibly want. Hesperian 00:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I'm sorry for missing that. I thought you were objecting to the deletion request (which is what you reverted), not the move entirely. Also I thought it was preferred to use the same name. I'm curious about all this -- I like using Commons Helper to facilitate the move, so I don't have to waste download a copy locally and upload it, etc -- I had thought I could use CropTool on Commons, but unfortunately it doesn't handle PNG yet (but hopefully it will some day). Is there a way to bring these various tools into closer alignment, to reduce the amount of human intervention needed? -Pete (talk) 00:41, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The whole point of the bot is to reduce the amount of human intervention needed: thousands of highest-available-resolution images extracted from where they are hidden away in jp2 format in zip files on the Internet Archive, and uploaded here where they are at your fingertips. If I could have seen a way to make it even easier for people, I would have. But at some point a real person has to step in, perform the restoration, verify the copyright status, choose an appropriate name, etc. There are reasons behind the limitations: e.g. there is a reason these are PNG not JPG; there is a reason these are uploaded here not on Commons; etc. But your ideas for making it better are very welcome. (Oh, I don't like that word 'reverted'; my intent was to decline the request, rather than reverting it as though it should never have been made in the first place. I really should have provided an edit summary; I apologise for that.) Hesperian 00:58, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Just to reboot this discussion, the process should be:

1. Clean the image up e.g. crop, colour-balance, etc
2. Save the final image as JPG, which is much the better format for the final image. The only reason the raw images are PNG is because PNG is lossless. JPG uses lossy wavelet compression, and cropping, in particular, introduces artefacts. But once cropping and cleanup is done and you have a final image, conversion to JPG is ideal.
3. Choose the right copyright license. I'm deliberately dodging responsibility on this one. I don't want to be responsible for a bot that makes copyright assertions by the thousand.
4. Upload the image to Commons, under a different name. The change from PNG to JPG will suffice as a name change for my purposes, but best practice is of course to choose the best possible image title. Sadly it is impossible to have a file history that contains both a PNG original and a JPG derivative, so your laudable plan to retain the original in the file history is unattainable.
5. Go to the Page: namespace page where the image is displayed. Replace the {{raw image}} template with [[Image:...]] code to insert your new, restored image.
6. Nominate the raw image for deletion

As you have pointed out, this process is unfortunately not supported by CommonsHelper. Hesperian 01:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the very clear description. And first and foremost, I want to clarify -- I very much appreciate that the whole purpose of your bot is to reduce the need for human intervention -- sorry to imply otherwise.

The one piece of your reasoning I would question is in #4. It seems to me that retaining a lossless version of the original file on Wikimedia servers, rather than buried in a tar archive on the archive.org servers, is important and valuable. You are of course correct that this goal is at odds with the conversion from PNG to JPG. It seems to me that there is more benefit to retaining the original scan in a lossless format, than there is in providing a smaller file to the end user by using JPG. This is a principle that has been explored by, for instance, User:Dominic in the work with the U.S. National Archives; he has designed a system in which a TIFF file is uploaded; it can be used in its raw format, or an additional JPG can be uploaded to Commons as an "other version."

So my suggestion would be that your system support moving it to a PNG (which I see it does, just not with CommonsHelper). If the editor using it -- or another editor -- wants to take the additional step of uploading a JPG, great; but it doesn't seem to me that should happen at the expense of also uploading the original PNG to Commons.

In the long run, as an end user, it would be really nice to have this tool work seamlessly with something like CommonsHelper. That might require some tweaking to both systems to make them coexist nicely -- or even a separate-but-similar tool to CommonsHelper. It would be interesting to know what User:Magnus Manske, who I think created CH, thinks of all this.

All your other points make very good sense. In particular I appreciate your reluctance to mass-tag stuff with copyright notices that might not be accurate. And yes, of course a diligent Commons user should add a copyright tag, add categories, add a description, etc.

For the moment, I'm happy to adjust my approach to play more nicely with your system. In the longer term, though -- I'm curious what you think about what I've said. -Pete (talk) 02:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

We're very much in accord in our broad perspective on this. For example, when I first started this little project, it was suggested that I pull lower resolution lossy JPGs, which are much easier to get at than the full-res JP2s. But I didn't see the point in going to all this trouble to upload something downsampled and lossy. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it properly; i.e. make the best possible imagery available. I infer that you firmly agree with my stance on that, just as I firmly agree with you that retaining the original scan is excellent practice.

However. I do not want to set myself up as arbiter of image restoration quality. I make the raw images available, and then I 'let it go'. Some people uphold best practice, like yourself. Others degrade images by using inappropriate grayscale conversion, overstretching, even thresholding. The results are sometimes disappointing, but I don't see that I have any role in controlling what happens to these images after I've made them available. All I really ask is that you choose a title that doesn't conflict with my naming convention. Everything else I said above was merely advice. And my advice was misplaced because I now see that you have thought this through for yourself and know exactly what you are doing.

What is the issue with CommonsHelper? I've never used it, but I just had a look, and it seems you can specify the target name. Is the problem that CommonsHelper automatically tags the source file for deletion? If so then that wouldn't be a problem if you immediately replaced the {{raw image}} usage.

Hesperian 03:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks -- I have some thoughts, but will be tied up with work today. I'll get back to you ASAP. -Pete (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

 Comment The six list points about the actions to take have been added to Template:Raw image/doc#What needs to be done to move to Commons and replace image in work as is. Please feel free to update. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:34, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

So, @Hesperian: I appreciate your thinking around what the tool requires, vs. what you advise. It's an important and subtle distinction, and I think your rather cautious approach is commendable.

The part that seems important is this: you have gone to the trouble to develop a system that results in non-lossy images. Wouldn't it be best to guide users (note, I'm not saying require users) in a direction that preserves that non-lossy copy, rather than having it speedily deleted?

I think some people don't think too much about image quality, and don't have strong opinions; but if they are following clear instructions, they could work in a way that preserves the high quality version. Other people want to do it "the right way," but might not understand the system well enough to make their own informed judgments. In both cases, it would be nice if the instructions and/or prompts were to guide them in a direction where the PNG is preserved.

If you agree, I'd propose changing the text of bullet #2 that sDrewth copied over (and bullet #4 to match), advising the editor to move the entire PNG over (and noting that CommonsHelper can be used), and then crop/color balance/etc. and overwrite the original OR upload as a JPG, decision to be made by the editor. -Pete (talk) 21:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree; So long as the lossless PNG is renamed on transfer to Commons. Hesperian 01:36, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: The template can probably have some principles that discuss what we are trying to do with the situation of a placeholder quality image from a work that is out of copyright. Prior to clean up of:—

• image — trim, colour, cleanse, ...; and saving in the most appropriate format with an appropriate name
• data — copyright verification of image, data cleanup, templatisation

Then when all of the principles are met, then the mechanics of transfer to commons (where appropriate) and deletion of the placeholder image. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:22, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

The above text is preserved as an archive of discussions at User talk:Hesperian. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on User talk:Hesperian. No further edits should be made to this page.