Wikisource:Featured text candidates

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This page hosts nominations for featured text status in accordance with the Featured text guidelines. A featured text should exemplify Wikisource's very highest standards of accuracy. If you nominate a text, you will be expected to make a good-faith effort to address objections that are raised.

Any established user may nominate a text or vote (as long as it matches the criteria). Every month the nomination with the highest support ratio, weighted in favour of nominations with more numerous votes (equation forthcoming), will be chosen as featured text. All nominations with under 70% support after a week will be archived. The most promising nominations (up to 10) will be carried over to the next week, during which time established users may continue to place votes.

Featured texts edit
Date Text
Notes

Information[edit]

Nominating a text[edit]

  1. Ensure that the text meets all the featured text criteria and style guidelines. Nominations that are flagged as not meeting the criteria will be unlisted after 24 hours, unless the criteria are met in that time.
  2. Please ensure that "download option" from the sidebar produces a full work
  3. Note the nomination on the talk page by adding the template {{featured text candidate}}.
  4. Begin a discussion at the bottom of this page. Note your reason for nominating the text.
See also

Discussion[edit]

  • If you believe an article meets all of the criteria, write Support followed by your reasons.
  • If you oppose a nomination, write Object followed by the reason for your objection. Each objection must provide a specific rationale that can be addressed. If nothing can be done in principle to "fix" the source of the objection, the objection may be ignored. This includes objections to an text's suitability for the Wikisource main page, unless such suitability can be fixed.
  • To withdraw an objection, strike it out (with <s>text</s>) rather than removing it.

Closing a nomination (administrators only)[edit]

  • Failed nominations
    1. Add a comment explaining why the nomination failed.
    2. Archive it.
    3. Place {{featured text not passed|year|title}} at the top of the work's main talk page (adding the year and heading of the archived discussion).
  • Passed nominations
    1. Add a comment noting the selection.
    2. Archive it.
    3. Add the work to {{Featured text}} (inside the respective month) and {{featured schedule}}.
    4. Place {{featured}} on top of the work's main page {{header}} template.
    5. Place {{featured talk|October 2022}} at the top of the work's main talk page (changing the numbers to the appropriate date if not next month).
    6. Protect all the work's main namespace pages.
    7. Indicate the work's featured status on its associated data item at Wikidata.

Nominations[edit]

For older nominations, see the archives.

The Innocence of Father Brown[edit]

The first collection of mysteries featuring Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton. The character continues to be adapted for film, radio, and television. We haven't featured mystery fiction before, except A Study in Scarlet back in 2010. --EncycloPetey (talk)

Symbol support vote.svg Support —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:27, 1 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment - There was a significant transcription error in the 2nd sentence of the book. Not a great sign, but I haven't looked further. Kaldari (talk) 00:28, 10 July 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment The fpxxx page number in Index breaks the page number transclusion in Main ns. Mpaa (talk) 22:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Native Flowers of New Zealand[edit]

A well-known book by New Zealander Georgina Burne Hetley, with color illustrations by the author. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Probably not eligible (unfortunately) because I had to access a print copy in the rare books room at the library and write out the lacunae on a few pages and then type them into the Pages. WMIII was happy to validate based on that, but they are non-verifiable without access to a print copy. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's a shame, as this is a seminal work and beautifully illustrated. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:12, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, just confirmed print pages 2 & 4 from the Preface remain problematic. Should we be able to find another scan and swap those two in, then this would be good to go. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 03:18, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
IA has: (external scan) which looks like a clean scan. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:06, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes check.svg Done — Hrishikes (talk) 04:21, 23 April 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment - Beautiful book, but it's unfortunate that the images are blown out. Compare Page:Native Flowers of New Zealand.djvu/81 with the original. The background drawings aren't even visible. Kaldari (talk) 01:05, 10 July 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No problems with someone updating the images. Just upload new versions over the old ones rather than under new file names. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment I'd be happy to work on the images, but I don't want to interfere with anybody else's efforts. Is anybody else already working on this? -Pete (talk) 19:45, 30 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The First Part of King Henry the Fourth[edit]

Complete, validated and transcluded version of an important play by William Shakespeare. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:11, 1 October 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment 2023 will mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio. My inclination is to hold off featuring Shakespeare until that year, and then celebrate in a bigger way than we normally do, since Shakespeare's works are cornerstones of English literature. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:41, 2 December 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@EncycloPetey: I see. Do you have any idea what the celebration may look like? Feature several works at the same time? Or several works in several months one after another? Or alternate featuring several Shakespeare’s works with non-Shakespeare’s works? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:49, 2 December 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I'm open to any suggested plans. Since we have never featured a work by or about Shakespeare, I could imagine featuring one of each main category of play, as well as a biography or other works, either in consecutive months or weeks, or at different times throughout the year. The final decision would also depend upon what other works might have accumulated for FT. Our track record for nominations over the past year has been spotty. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some Cities and San Francisco, and Resurgam[edit]

I am nominating this work as it is an interesting view following San Francisco's earthquake in 1906. Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier (talk) 13:57, 23 December 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment "Interesting view" is not worthy of featuring an item. There is no special significance in the work that I can see; it is not among the best offerings at Wikisource. The speech seems to be a bit of a ramble, and the publication provides no context. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:22, 24 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment (Caveats: I am new to the FT process, and primarily interested in learning about it. Along with @Thatoneweirdwikier: I'm one of the primary editors who worked on this text.)
@EncycloPetey: I'm curious about your comment. It seems to me that the significance of whether something is an "interesting view" is not covered by any of the FT criteria. Am I correct in understanding that this is where subjective judgment comes in? Seems sensible enough if so, but if I'd be interested to learn what are the proper criteria for determining what texts are worth featuring, in your view. I'll comment that as a student of U.S. west coast history in this period, and as a former resident of San Francisco, I found Bancroft's view in this piece quite striking, and I am glad to have encountered it. I found a brief contemporaneous review which summarizes the thesis. -Pete (talk) 21:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It is the result of previous discussions. A featured text is considered "the best of what Wikisource has to offer". For example, we had Jane Eyre nominated for FT, but it was not featured because the nominated edition was a later, unremarkable edition, neither the first edition nor the authoritative one, nor a richly illustrated one. Jane Eyre as a novel was considered worth featuring, but not that edition, on the basis of unremarkability. The proposed pair of speeches are not remarkable in any way, and do not showcase what Wikisource has to offer. I lived in the Bay Area for a long time, and I know who Bancroft is, but beyond that very local interest, there is no anniversary to mark, nor lasting historical impact of the work, nor anything to recommend them for featuring. It certainly ought to be listed in a Portal somewhere, but I don't see it as a featurable text. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you -- very helpful. -Pete (talk) 22:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would still argue it meets the criteria. When I wrote 'interesting view', I assumed that the fact it met the criteria was a given. Hopefully that clears it up. Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier Say hi 06:04, 31 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Thatoneweirdwikier: If I'm understanding correctly, nobody has argued that it does not meet the criteria; but the criteria here on Wikisource, I think, are a minimum qualification, not a reason to promote. Unlike English Wikipedia and probably some other sites, "featured" status is not something obtained in the abstract, but something that indicates an item has been selected to be featured on the front page for a month. So, note that [[ping|EncycloPetey}} merely commented, but did not vote against; I think they are (tacitly) acknowledging that the criteria have been met, but skeptical about whether this item is worthy of featuring on the front page (in relation to other works, which may have more topical interest etc.) Of course, please correct me if I'm wrong. I do think this could use some more spelling out in the text introducing "Featured texts", which would help newcomers like us form more realistic expectations; I'm happy to work on that, but I'd like to be sure I understand it well before I start making suggestions. -Pete (talk) 17:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Indeed. Meeting the criteria (item 1) is considered prerequisite to nomination, not a reason for being featured (item 4) in and of itself. The process description should be clarified and updated to current norms. I will try a draft when I have the time to spend doing so. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:27, 1 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A History of Japanese Literature[edit]

Nominating to feature in July 2020 to coincide with the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan. The author William George Aston was a leading British scholar of Japanese, the first translator of Nihongi into English, and a diplomat in Japan. His survey of Japanese Literature might even be the first such volume published in English, though I cannot find a definitive statement to that effect. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:49, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Poems (Pushkin, Panin, 1888)[edit]

Alexander Pushkin is considered "the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature". I nominate his book of Poems translated by Ivan Panin. This would be only the second work we've featured by a Russian author (the previous one was the nonfiction The Russian School of Painting, featured in in 2015). --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Symbol support vote.svg Support. It seems well proofread, I have checked 10 random pages from various parts of the book and found no problem. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:32, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Symbol support vote.svg Support.Worthy author, and in 20 randomly selected pages I found only one error. BethNaught (talk) 19:31, 11 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Symbol support vote.svg Support checked several pages and seems good

Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019[edit]

Style fulfills all applicable style guidelines (and the format is quite loyal to the original one), well-proofread, scanned from the official gazette, and also inflicted significant importance/controversy worldwide.廣九直通車 (talk) 04:41, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment What is the reason for nomination? You say "inflicted significant importance/controversy worldwide", but I have not heard of this act. Could you elaborate? --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:47, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • @EncycloPetey:See this. Due to alleged unfairness to Muslim refugees, the enactment of this act inflicts mass protests around India, some turned violent. Should have some plenty Google search results.廣九直通車 (talk) 07:17, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
      Part of the nomination process is to provide a summary reason for the nomination. This helps both with voting and for the person who has to write the blurb for the main page. Telling commenters to look elsewhere or search the web is not a reason for nomination. The nominator should give their reasons why they think the nomination should be featured. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Updated explanation:"Section 2 of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, allows 'any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014' become refugees, while implicitly excluding Muslim refugees. Such treatment leads to criticism of religious discrimination and international concern, and later fueled a prolonged series of protests among India, some turned violent." I'm new to FTC, and so I need to describe why the information of the text should be featured?廣九直通車 (talk) 02:56, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    Yes. You are nominating this work to be Featured. This means you should present your reasons for nominating it, and not ask people to figure out those reasons for for themselves. Why do you think this work deserves to be Featured for a month on the Main page? --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:01, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    See the bolded reasons above. Nominated for significant local social and international importance.廣九直通車 (talk) 04:08, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    It might or might not be enough to warrant Featuring. What I see is that there were some protests in India over this, and people of Indian descent protested elsewhere as well. Responses to nomination may take weeks or even months. We won't know until people begin voicing their opinions about the nomination. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment I'd lean towards support, as it's certainly a document with uncommonly strong links to real and current events (we have lots of works that relate to historical events, but not a lot from the modern world, disregarding the drama from the US). However, I think since it's a fairly small work, the associated documents of this one (including the associated NRC documents) should be added before this capstone is featured. From a skim of the enWP articles, perhaps Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003 and the other amendments back to Citizenship Act, 1955, Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, The Foreigners Act, 1946, etc? Hopefully there might also be some court ruling or something non-legislative to mix it up a little bit. And then perhaps have a section of Portal:Law of India or a sub-portal or something to tie it together thematically? Without some kind of librarianship, I don't find simple replication of short documents that are already publicly available electronically (http://egazette.nic.in and https://indiacode.nic.in) particularly thrilling.
Also, I'm a little wary of featuring a text that uses sidenotes that don't work on mobile browsers and don't work if the user is using Layout 1 (though it's defaulted to Layout 2, users can turn of defaulting). But I know sidenotes are an everlasting pain in the backside, so maybe it's just tough. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 15:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart (1901)[edit]

The Labyrinth is one of the most important and influential works of Johan Amos Comenius. In November we are going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his death, and so I am nominating this work for November 2020. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment The text uses the {{Greek}} template to display quotations from Ancient Greek, which is polytonic, but the template is explicitly designed for modern monotonic Greek. The {{polytonic}} template should be used. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah, I did not know it, thanks for explanation, I will remember it. Now it should be OK. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 21:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Symbol support vote.svg Support --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
This is clearly the kind of text worthy of Featured status! I have done my usual approach of flitting over the text checking for errors, and I've found 28: [1]. However I can't say for sure how many pages I checked. Given that I'm still finding errors I'll say Symbol neutral vote.svg Neutral for now. BethNaught (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Move to Symbol support vote.svg Support, after fixing some more errors I think this text is in a better place. BethNaught (talk) 15:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region[edit]

As the mini-constitution of Hong Kong, it is often argued that the Basic Law is currently facing increasing violation of its contents by the Chinese Central Government. Given that 2020 is the 30th anniversary of the enactment of the law, all criteria have been made, and Hong Kong is currently embroiled in the political crisis about the Hong Kong Liaison Office, it is nominated that the text to be a featured text.

  • Note: In April 2020, the Hong Kong Liaison Office (中聯辦), a office of the Central Government, has claimed that it has the authority to oversee Hong Kong internal affairs and is not bounded by Article 22 of the Basic Law, which prohibits Mainland Chinese authorities"(interfering) in the affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law."廣九直通車 (talk) 07:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment why is the "Get involved Get to know the Basic Law" logo not included on the back cover Serprinss (talk) 05:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (1847)[edit]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's much-beloved and hugely influential epic poem about the expulsion of the Acadians; this is a transcription of the first edition. As far as I can tell, there aren't any particular upcoming anniversaries to schedule this for, and we haven't featured and long-form poetry since November 2017. BethNaught (talk) 19:46, 11 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Symbol support vote.svg Support Well done, I checked 10 random pages and did not find any typos or other errors to be corrected. As there are curly quotes used in the transcription, I just suggest to replace also straight apostrophes by curly ones to make it more consistent. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:13, 25 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nationalism[edit]

I am nominating Tagore’s work Nationalism. It is transcribed from original scans and has been fully proofread. This work is relevant especially today with a rise of Nationalism in India and many countries around the world. If featured next month, it would coincide with India’s independence day on 15 August. I am happy to make improvements to the work wherever necessary. —Prtksxna (talk) 09:09, 25 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Symbol support vote.svg Support I checked around 10 random pages and everything looks perfect to me. Only 1 page was not validated and I have done that. I completely agree with Prtksxna (talk • contribs)'s rationale behind selecting this book as next month's featured text. On another note: The text in itself is complete, however the index contains some advertisements and we might want to do something about them which could be as simple as mentioning on the talk page that they haven't been transcluded or can actually be included in the text since they are about other works of Tagore. Check this for more info: Wikisource:What_Wikisource_includes#Advertising --Satdeep Gill (talk) 12:42, 25 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes check.svg Done I decided not to include the advertisements. I've made the changes as per the documentation you linked to. —Prtksxna (talk) 09:47, 26 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment In order to feature a work, it needs to have a blurb to accompany it on the Main Page. What is the history or circumstances specific to the creation of this work as opposed to the many others on the subject? What influence or legacy come from this work? I am not familiar enough with Tagore or his works to draft a blurb with any competence. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I could take stab at writing this. How long does this blurb need to be? 50-100 words? —Prtksxna (talk) 03:59, 29 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Pictogram voting comment.svg Comment Also, this work has many minor transcriptions issues that will need to be corrected. There should not be spaces around em-dashes. That is instead of spacing — like this; there should be no spacing—like this. This will require a careful check against Wikisource:Style Guide for any other similar issues before it can be featured. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
What other issues have you noticed? FWIW I've looked at a few pages. The quality of the proofreading seems pretty good, except for the spaced emdashes you mentioned, and the inconsistent use of both straight and curly quotes. BethNaught (talk) 22:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks for pointing these out. I've tried to correct the dashes and quotes at most places. —Prtksxna (talk) 04:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A History of Japanese Literature[edit]

I notice on the talk page, after getting a welcome link from an ad in another work, the proposal that this be an FT. An admittedly quick perusal sees no problem with that, so is there a reason not to? Cygnis insignis (talk) 14:40, 5 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Oh yes, it's right there, cheers :/ I will read through it, maybe skim some bits, but doubt there is anything reason not to support its promotion. Cygnis insignis (talk) 15:14, 5 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

De-featuring The Time Machine (Heinemann text)[edit]

The work was featured in 2011 as one of the first featured texts, without being scanbacked. Now the scanbacking process has started, but the work is still far from being fully proofread and validated. I believe that the work should be defeatured and after the proofreading and validation processes are finished it can be renominated. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:50, 19 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It was actually featured in 2006 before on-Wiki proofreading was available and was done to the high standards of the time (including two pairs of eyes). While it wouldn't achieve featured status today, it is still fine. Defeaturing it now would remove the historicity of what the Community did back then. By all means get it fully scan-backed, but let's not play with history. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:56, 21 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@Beeswaxcandle: In general terms I agree with that reasoning. But, what is the purpose of the Featured Text process? Is it to bestow an award on the contributors for their hard work, or is it to highlight to visitors and readers our very best texts? English Wikipedia has struggled with this question over the years, but has landed squarely on the "Featured Article" being a quality check designed to produce and highlight the very best articles on the project to their Main Page visitors. And in order for that to work, it means old Featured Articles have to be re-reviewed and de-featured when they no longer meet current standards (either because standards were raised, or because constant drive-by edits have deteriorated the article). The dynamics on Wikisource are slightly different, but for non-scan-backed works in particular the entropy issue remains; and the underlying "What is the purpose of the Featured process?" question is the same.
I've always considered it to be about the content and about our readers, rather than about our on-project contributors, primarily. The way I read Jan, that's their starting assumption too. Xover (talk) 08:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That is exactly how I have meant it. The status of a featured article is meant to inform our readers about the quality of transcription of an important work. It should be kept only there where we can guarantee the quality, which is not possible without the finished validation process. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 11:22, 21 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Semi-Symbol support vote.svg Support Featured status implies it is the best Wikisource has to offer now, not had to offer in 2006. The archives of WS:FT will record the history, the current status should be the current status.
On an operational level, ideally, the work would be scan-backed and validated first and then the text replaced seamlessly in mainspace, and then re-reviewed to ensure it's still FT-quality. But I can see that's not what has actually happened, which I don't think is a very tidy way to do it. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 09:12, 21 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]
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