Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2009-09

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in September 2009, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Announcements

OCR Gadget

I recently modified the OCR service. User:ThomasBot is no longer used. Pressing the OCR button now results in a request directly sent to the toolserver. The textbox is disabled during the OCR. Once OCR is finished, the result is copied to the textbox.

On the server-side, requests are queued and processed in the order of arrival. It is possible to check number of jobs in the queue, and the usernames of the job owners, at this address: http://toolserver.org/~thomasv/ocr

This is still a bit experimental, please tell me if you encounter problems.

ThomasV (talk) 09:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I also moved the button to the toolbar : ThomasV (talk) 21:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. What is now the process for having a page re-OCR'd if the downloaded page has been poorly done? Is it still possible? -- billinghurst (talk) 07:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

it is possible if you are sysop and delete the page. should I enable this for existing pages too ? ThomasV (talk) 07:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

An ability to get the OCR to reoccur would be nice, though it does not necessarily need to be activated by the button, or by anyone. It could be via a template, it may be via the ability to have one's own button, I am not sure. -- billinghurst (talk) 14:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have a small feature request. Could we also add an option to pull text from the DJVU text layer. In Linux, this can be done using the following command:

djvutxt -page={{pagenumber}} {{filename.djvu}}

This way we can get the higher quality OCR from the text layer in cases that there is a text layer. This way in cases where there is no text layer, we can create it using the new OCR function. What do you guys think? --Mattwj2002 (talk) 02:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

this is already done, see the list of upcoming features at oldwikisource:Wikisource:ProofreadPage ThomasV (talk) 04:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I have enabled the new ocr button by default. it was disabled previously, because the older button was often misused and resulted in saved articles. this is not likely to happen now that the button is in the toolbar. ThomasV (talk) 18:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Edit to MediaWiki:Newarticletext

I have made an edit to the new article text that will show only in the Page: namespace. It basically says if there is no text layer, to click the OCR button on the toolbar. We may want some sweeter text, or a link to fuller info on OCR in that space. It is a start anyway. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I reopened a discussion on the talk, but it could posted here instead. Cygnis insignis (talk) 00:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Transclusion of pages between subdomains

... is possible using javascript, see oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Cross-wiki_transclusion.

Using this, multilingual books shoud have one single index page, and all their pages should be at one single subdomain.

ThomasV (talk) 16:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Readded MediaWiki:Histlegend

WP has had some nice page statistics available via a page's Revision History. Two of three are readily available to be customised for enWS, so I have done them. The third of the three (which is the one that Sherurcij actually wants) isn't customisable, though I have asked the script creator if there is capacity for us to have a WS version. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

Collapsible pages

I proposed this at oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Proposing_some_functions_for_all_Wikisource_domains, but as no one responds, I bring this proposal here. As we host works that are in the USA public domain even if they are still copyright-restricted in their source countries and many others, we should have collapsible pages if not yet enabled, so readers will know why they are enclosed in collapsible pages before opening them.--Jusjih (talk) 01:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Other discussions

Translation licenses

I left the following note on a user's talk page recently:

Thank you for translating ... for us. However, your translation is copyrighted by you, and we need an explicit license from you to use it, which you can add after translation= in the translation license I added to the bottom of the page. There are three licenses generally recommended here. If you want to contribute it to the public domain, add {{PD-self}}. (That's been the license I used for the small stuff I've translated for Wikisource, as it saves on big long licenses.) If you want to make sure you're attributed in any use, use {{Cc-by-3.0}}; if you want to make sure also that any derivative works are free (that no one can make a video using the text of your translation and stop other people from copying that video, for one thing), use {{CC-BY-SA-3.0}}. If you want to use one of the CC licenses, I suggest reading it to make sure it means what you want it to mean. There are other licenses we accept, but if you don't have a strong opinion on the subject, one of those are probably the best.

I don't know of a page that states this in a similar way for a new translator, nor of a convenient template, so I put this here if someone wants to make such a page or template, or just crib from it for their own messages on user talk pages.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

• There is another option to be considered. (This is always assuming that there are no copyright problems with the underlying original.) This would be PD-machine, or something similarly phrased. Machine translations are necessarily uncopyrightable because as a purely mechanical process they cannot provide the originality required for copyright. Furthermore, it avoids the problem of the first translation being influenced by what a human translator may have read elsewhere in another translation that is clearly protected, and inadvertently producing a derivative work.

  Most machine translations will remain of poor quality, but in a wiki anybody can edit these into intelligibility. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:36, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm doubtful that it would solve the problem much; the first human translator could certainly bring in copyrightable elements of a copyrighted translation over a machine translation. I think it questionable in many cases whether or not a human translation could usefully build on a machine translation. I think it would also encourage bad translations; it'll encourage people who don't speak the language to try and edit the original into intelligibility, which will improve the grammar but maintain or increase the number of mistranslations, and it'll encourage people to carelessly edit translations into existence, one random person taking one random section at a time, and producing a melange of styles. There's a rant about the style of translation Wikisource encourages coming up, but that's going to take editing.

In any case, PD-machine is irrelevant as a license tag; we may as well just leave it off, and if there is serious editing, we'd just get a dual-licensed CC-SA / GFDL licensed translation by default. (Which, annoyingly enough, I could find no simple license tag for.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:30, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

While there will no doubt be some people who are natives in the source language that will want to edit the English translation, I'm convinced that most people who would edit here significantly are primarily English speakers. There is a risk that we will have a melange of styles, absolutely. Will there be mistranslations? Most assuredly. But so too would that be the case with purely human translations. An old principle of Wikipedia was to leave something to build on. We can't expect translations to be perfect from the beginning. If you see an error in translation, fix it.

As the machine translation becomes replaced by human edits, some kind of free licensing will come into play. Nevertheless, if I choose to start an article with a machine translation it would already be in the public domain; I don't own the rights so I do not have the right to either put it into the public domain or to otherwise license it. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 22:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I must be having a blond moment Prosfilaes, what exactly do you think that we need? The attributable licences exist, and are applicable for translations. Is it the guidance for translators that you think is missing or do you think that the information at Wikisource:Translations just needs enhancing to cover part of your discussion?

To Ec, for machine translations couldn't we just utilise {{PD-ineligible}}? If more text is needed or a pointer, than let us do that rather than create yet another licence. Or maybe just do a redirect for PD-machine to PD-ineligible. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

That would work. Often it's not clear why a particular text is ineligible, and that can render the text suspect. So perhaps that template warrants a parameter for why the text is ineligible. I agree that having yet another licence just means that they are more easily ignored. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

All machine translators that I know are copyright-restricted without license compatible with CC or GFDL, unless someone can find otherwise. We should not use PD-machine for copyright-restricted machine translations as they may also have poor quality.--Jusjih (talk) 00:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

WS:CotW needs some love

Just see that Wikisource:Collaboration of the Week has not had a change since June. Anyone more familiar with that space able to give it a bit of love? -- billinghurst (talk) 05:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Categorizing Indexes

I started categorizing the Index pages because I believe that it will make it easier to navigate through them to find what you are looking for as it continues to grow. I have finished Category:Index Proofread and Category:Index Validated. I went through the full index to find those that were completed but not listed on Transcription Projects.

I removed the works listed under "Proofread" and "Validated" under the Finished Projects on the Transcription pages and linked to the categories [1]. Do you think that this should be continued for the projects that haven't been proofread [2] or do you think we should keep a small list on that page as a starting point? --Xxagile (talk) 04:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Questions

Elections Notice

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you may be aware, there is concern that the sitenotices regarding submission of candidacy for the Board of Trustees election were not seen anywhere but Meta after the 11th of this month. Because of the potentially massive consequence of this, and to encourage a full and active election, the election committee has determined that:

- Candidacies will be accepted through July 27th at 23:59 (UTC)

- The period for questioning candidates begins immediately. Candidates that are "late to the party" will, no doubt, be scrutinized by the community. The Committee hopes that the community will work to actively ensure that all candidates receive equivalent questioning.

- The dates of election will not change. The election will begin on 28 July and end on 10 August.

Please know that we recognize the radical nature of altering the schedule in the midst of the election and would not do it if we did not absolutely believe that there was a possibility that others may be interested and qualified and may not have known about the key dates.

For the committee, Philippe (talk) 09:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Candidates presentations are here and when you wish to vote, press the button "Go to the voting server" here. --Zyephyrus (talk) 19:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Here are the results. --Zyephyrus (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Seeking opinion re Crockford's Clerical Directory

w:Crockford's Clerical Directory was released on a regular basis (example), and I have been using it for some of the Author: namespace building for DNB project. Due to the nature of the work though, I have been backing off transcribing detail. The issue is that when building author data, one wishes to use the latest version (year) for a person's bio, however, with different extracts from different vols. this makes it hard to compile works, so I haven't been. Now I feel that it is a little wasteful, so I am here seeking the opinion of the community. Options that I see are

1. Build (slowly) a work for each volume published. Never will be completed, and will be difficult to manage.
2. Build a consolidated work, and where we get multiple versions of the same people then we can differentiate them on the page
3. Forget it, too hard.

-- billinghurst (talk) 14:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd be quite interested in a per person approach. But I have a secondary question relating to disambiguation: how to handle disambiguation of people to whom various articles relate? That is, rather than disambiguation of works with ambiguous titles. This goes further, clearly, in that there will be people who will have Catholic Encyclopedia and DNB and EB 1911 and ... articles. To take a specific case, John Henry Newman. In the article namespace there are already Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/John Henry Newman and A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Newman, John Henry; there is also an author page, but that won't always be the case. So, old Crockford's entries for Newman I wouldn't rule out at all, but they should hang off a person dab page? I take the point about lack of potential closure for such a project, but there is something to be said on the other side, also. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:11, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I too favour the per person approach, which is close enough to Billinghurst's 2nd option. I believe that birth and death years are the most useful disambiguators, because they are less likely to give rise to new ambiguities or to POV disputes about what may be an individual's primary basis for fame. For authors, knowing when they lived can also be helpful for attributing newly added works by the generic author of that name.

What is most important about any article is the contents, and it is most instructive to be able to compare how those contents were treated by rival works, or works at different times. It may be interesting to know that Newman, John Henry (DNB00) is preceded by the architect Newman, John (1786-1859) (DNB00), and followed by the 17th century concordance maker Newman, Samuel (DNB00), but that interest does not extend far beyond the navigational. The old Cockford volumes have a place, but for now there are better things we can do with valuable personal time than to upload articles about deservedly obscure clerics. Still I would not impede anyone who wants to add them. In some respects this brings us back to the question of whether it is more valuable to format article names as [[Encyclopaedia/Article]] or [[Article (Encyclopaedia)]], and what are the long-range implication of either approach.

I'm not convinced author pages will die out any time soon, but again, this is a matter for very long range planning about how we handle bibliographies for authors, and person pages that could also be about non-authors. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 00:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Per person

When I talk about a per person approach in the main namespace, I only mean per work, eg. Crockford's, not for a combination of works. If we want to build a per author approach of details that we have, I would suggest that each part of each work exists in situ in the main namespace, and we could then look to transclude the bodies of a relevant of pages as a subpage of an Author: page, maybe something like Author:Charles Dickens/biographical, though you would only want to transclude small works/snippets, not large works. [Work would need to be done to set up the requisite pages in main namespace, and Author space, plus appropriate sourcing]

Disambiguation or whatever we call it

In the main namespace, if we are looking to collate information about non-authors, then we should be able to do something similar to {{versions}} or {{disambiguation}} where it lists works held that have a specific component about the person. If in the long term it further develops, such pages could have their own namespace, but I wouldn't recommend that we go there yet (simplicity against steep learning curve), though feel that we should consider that as a possibility in our design.

Nomenclature for works.

Yes, it is a revisited topic, and now that I better understand subpages and how they work, they are my preference, especially when we are encouraging the placement of a work in Page: namespace. A work is a work, and I like that it can be nicely built as such. There is flexible technological means to transclude text as required around the site into other pages, namespace, so I encourage us to keep a work intact, as that is one of our great strengths and opportunities.

Value of works.

I know that you weren't having a dig, though, value is in the eye of the beholder, and the purpose of the research. I am not advocating that we build a complete copy of Crockford's, however, sourcing information about obscure authors (who may or not be clerics) has value who are looking at the social and everyday life of people and their contribution to society at that time. For that purpose, and as an adjunct to WP, I believe that our site design needs to incorporate these aspects. In their times, many were notable under WP criteria, and as historical records they count as valuable source material. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that more people do not participate in these discussions.

If someone wants to add a complete copy of every Crockford, I'm not about to complain. But the value of articles about those listed therein is a relative matter, and there should be no hurry to add articles about those who were mere local clerics that never authored anything.

I prefer to completely avoid the use the page namespace, and whenever the matter arises would encourage others to find alternatives to the bizarre inflexibilities of transclusion. These other approaches are just as valuable, and the efforts put into them should not be deprecated. The entire page:namespace approach is stunningly short-sighted, and favours form over content. It misleads the user into believing that the one edition that was lucky enough to receive that treatment is definitive. The reality is far more complicated.

I have no problem with your proposal that disambuguation and version templates should eventually lead to greater things, and I agree that we are not there yet. Unless more active people are recruited, it's not likely to happen soon.

The tautology that a work is a work does not lead us very far. For me the individual articles in an encyclopedia are works. We haven't even begun to look at dictionaries. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'd like also to emphasise the banal flexibilities of transclusion. We are adding to a database, and it allows the summoning of pages concocted according to various prescriptions, from the same elements. (And is not in any case tied to one namespace, as a tool.) As I get further into the business here, I'm starting to see its applications. For example, there can be errata to include (very relevant to the DNB, for example); and in time that inclusion can become a transclusion behind the scenes. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

In working with DNB articles I have already been taking into account changes between the two editions. These went further than the simple application of errata. Bottomley, Joseph (DNB00) involved completely rewriting the article to fit the space available. The correction to Bourchier, John (d.1660) (DNB00) was a matter of a single digit; that's hardly worth two separate scans when what really needs to be highlighted is that one small change. In Bourchier, Thomas (1404?-1486) (DNB00) I chose to strike out the old text and follow it with the new text in brackets. It needs to be noted that if the errata involved significant additions text had to be removed elsewhere on the same page, sometimes in an article about a different person. What was most avoided was to have the corrections cascade onto a different page. To say that transclusions can handle this "in time" is entirely speculative. While waiting for that to happen I would much prefer to show the changes directly in the article so it is clear to readers just what those changes were. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

In some 90+% of cases, that one edition is indeed definitive; not many books get a second edition. In many of the other cases, we should be keeping them separate; mixing the two editions of Frankenstein or different editions of Hamlet is unhelpful. The Page namespace makes it possible to match the original text in a Wiki way, unlike the random uncheckable edits we currently get to texts.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

This comment is worthy of w:Darrell Huff's most famous book. Much of what is in the 90% is there deservedly. For the foreseeable future we are more likely to draw disproportionately from the 10% that is not limited to a unique edition. Having "the two" editions of Frankenstein is fine, but it does little to account for subsequent reprints of the story and all the variations that they would have introduced. The huge variety of Hamlet editions may require a different approach. There is something to be said for having a hundred different editions of Hamlet, but at some point we are faced with the law of diminishing returns. How is the reader to choose between these editions when all he wants is an elementary reading of the play? Perhaps we may want to have a reference edition taken from some scholarly version; minor changes in others may be noted in relation to that.

One work on which I have put some effort has been Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. We have a scan of this. When I looked at a random page from the scan and compared it with the corresponding page in my hard copy they didn't match, yet both were Burton Club editions. This suggests to me that they were differently typeset, and each new typesetting implies a new crop of errors. In fact the Penzer bibliography shows several such Burton Club limited editions; I am not convinced that they are all identical. I am not a supporter of "random uncheckable edits", but checking against a real book is just as good as checking against a page scan. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

And that first sentence is worthy of w:Denis Leary's most famous song.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:37, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I concur with Leary's calling things what they are. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 00:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I like this quote: "It's unfortunate that more people do not participate in these discussions." Both of w:Theodore Sturgeon's adages can be applied here, helpfully or pointedly :| Cygnis insignis (talk) 00:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Having a copy of Hamlet is a complete waste of our time. Physical copies are plentiful, as are electronic copies, ranging from four distinct copies at Project Gutenberg to authoritative copies at University of Pennsylvania, Bartleby, and MIT. Sure, be Wikisource and grab a few eyeballs that way, but your copy adds no value to anything. As you point out, checking against a real book is not just as good as checking against a page scan, because unless you have a book with one and only one edition, there's no guarantee that you can find a matching page, or even if you find the page that it won't have been edited differently. Furthermore, it takes me ten seconds to check a change on a page versus the scan. Even if it happens to be one of the books on my shelf, it'll take me several minutes to find the book and find the appropriate place in the text; if not, it could takes hours, days or even weeks to get a hold of a copy. As it is, if a non-autopatrolled user makes a change in an established text without being very clear about what they're doing, it's likely to get reverted on the assumption it's vandalism or at least wrong instead of carefully checked. If they make a change in a rough text that isn't obviously vandalism, then it's likely to get left alone, because it's not worth the trouble to check it. That alone makes it worth having page scans.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I won't edit your comment anymore; I'll just leave your blatant mischief in place. The record above shows that I said: "checking against a real book is just as good as checking against a page scan." You said "As you point out, checking against a real book is not just as good as checking against a page scan". Disagreeing is one thing; wilful misrepresentation quite another." Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

We already have a copy of Hamlet, but I don't claim it to be mine; I haven't worked on it at all. The Shakespeare plays used to be in Wikibooks and were transferred over in the earliest days of Wikisource. If you really don't think we should host Hamlet feel free to start a deletion proposal. I do not begin with the assumption that a change in a text is vandalism; that would be assuming bad faith. The change may be wrong, but there are any number of good faith reasons for such errors. A common one is correcting an obvious misspelling. Sure there may be no guarantee that you can find a matching page, but nobody is offering such a guarantee. The person can be asked to source his changes, and if it's from a different edition than the scanned version to give a proper citation for his version, and account for the difference between the two. If anyone wants to use the page:scan system they should be free to do so; they just need to avoid imposing this as though its correctness were "always absolutely so". Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

An excellent point [i.e. Prosfilaes]. In a recent contribution I found text being changed to what a user 'knew' was correct, or had in front of them. When I checked it against an online source (10-15 minutes) I found they were correct, but that it was frequently misquoted and misprinted. If another user changed it back I could not revert that either, but if there was a page scan ... Crockford's may be 90% crud to some eyes, but an indexed djvu can contain low-grade machine-read text; any snippet or chunk can be improved by whoever is motivated to do so. I have found and improved small sections of Page:space here from google, and don't find it hard to imagine that many passers-by could do the same. We can transcribe and organise the parts of document we are interested in, someone else, somewhere, sometime will be interested in fixing the bit relating to their special interest: an animal, and uncle, a theory, a poem, an ad, or some cleric who only authored betting slips. Page space makes this more 'wiki', not a clique with personal libraries who need to be lobbied for any improvement. I'm glad I don't have to approach Gutenberg contributors about the transcriptions I know are inaccurate, I can see it and fix it; someone who spent weeks typing something would not appreciate me challenging their decision to omit punctuation or sentences. Nor do I have to request a fascimile be sent across the country to validate something; with rare exceptions, if somebody wants it there is somebody willing to scan it. I wish I could make a stronger case for page:space, because I'm utterly convinced that it is the way forward for this library. Cygnis insignis (talk) 03:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC) [clarified after interjection] 15:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

If the online source showed him to be correct in sourcing the change a footnote about the change would be more appropriate than simply reverting to match the page scans. I strongly disagree with your claim that persons with personal libraries form a clique. I do agree that the Gutenberg material is of not reliable; in their earliest contents they often failed to state what edition they were using. Still they are fine for a rough first draft if you make clear that that is what you have. In the long term it may very well be that everything here will be supported by scans, but that doesn't mean we need to host them when there's a perfectly good scan in Internet Archives. If you really need a missing scan you can still get it from a library to scan for yourself, and there is nothing wrong with asking someone else to check it. An obsession for perfection could be the undoing of Wikisource; it obscures the real need for the value added that would make this project great. By mucking about in such minutiæ we lose our perception of the bigger picture. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yay, another Gutenberg slam. Given that you're arguing against clearly identifying Wikisource texts with one edition, to ding Gutenberg for that is hypocritical, and nor is it fair to judge a project merely on its early works. If we're talking about reliability, Gutenberg has thousands of texts that have had four or more sets of eyes compare every line to the original, whereas I don't believe Wikisource has any long texts that can meet that condition in-house. The Birds' Christmas Carol, for one example, was proofread from new OCR of new scans independently from any other version, and after it was all done, compared to the early Gutenberg edition to find only one error in the body of the text, corrected before posting. There is good reason to believe the story is letter-perfect. Moreover, again, it's hypocritical to ding Gutenberg for reliability and then disclaim an obsession for perfection. Frankly, as someone who has done a lot of work for Gutenberg, and continues to do a lot of work for them, I find these attacks very off-putting. Even if I weren't a volunteer for them, projects that spend much time bashing other projects are pretty unattractive. (Which is not to complain about Cygnis's comment, which was narrowly directed and fair.)

The Internet Archive is not good enough. I want to be able to blow through unpatrolled edits quickly, not stop and look up the file on Archive.org and try and figure out which page the edit occurred on. Looking them up in a library should rarely be necessary. You're taking checking that can be done by anyone able to look at a scan in 10 seconds and making it take 10 minutes (if the scans are on Archive.org) or 10 days (if the book has to be gotten via inter-library loan). For most books, I'm not going to ILL the book to check the edit, and few people are going to ILL the book before they fix an "obvious" mistake. You're increasing the time and trouble to check an edit by orders of magnitude; that's rarely good enough.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The fact remains that the early version of The Birds' Christmas Carol did not show where the text came from. That is enough to make it unreliable, because no-one can know what text was used as a source and be able to check it if he so wants to. I have no reason to doubt your claim that there was only one error in that first version. Anyone who wants to verify the text should have the opportunity to do so; whether it's with an online scan or a hard copy original doesn't matter. The number of eyes that have looked at a text is not my measure of reliability. PG recognized and fixed the deficiency when they provided a revised version. I can't see why you would want to take simple valid criticisms of PG so personally as to turn them into such drama. Comments like "I want to be able to blow through unpatrolled edits quickly" suggest that your convenience is more important to you than accuracy, or any recognition of documentable textual variants. I prefer accuracy to haste, though that still does not imply that I catch every OCR or transcription error that exists. I fully expect that others will check my contributions at some time in the future using whatever means are at their disposal. If on occasion ILL is the only way to go, perhaps that wor should be checked by someone else; if the situation in a work really draws my concern I can leave a note somewhere about that concern. Mostly though, I can choose easier tasks. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you criticize Ford cars based on the Model T, too? The early version of the The Birds' Christmas Carol is a 13-year old etext that has been obsoleted. If we're to judge sites by how they were 13 years ago, I demand that we compare Project Gutenberg to Wikisource in 1996, a comparison in which the non-existent Wikisource will fare poorly. You don't issue valid criticisms; you sweep all the Gutenberg texts together and dismiss them as rough first drafts, even the most meticulously checked works; you accuse them of being unreliable for reasons for reasons that apparently don't include actually having errors. If you can't see why someone who has spent years working on a project might have trouble with broad indiscriminate dismissals of that project, then I might suggest some psych classes.

Producing a critical edition does not start by having a lousy copy-text and then randomly editing in differences with whatever edition happens to be at hand when you're looking at an arbitrary edition. It starts by producing an perfect copy-text of one edition, and then carefully comparing the entire text of that edition with selected other editions, the oldest, the most significant, the ones the author worked on, ignoring untrustworthy editions, random modern editions, There's no point in trying to document textual variants unless we already have a seriously awesome base text, and someone willing to put a huge amount of work for a feature that not many people care about.

You fully expect that others will check your contributions at some time in the future. I don't. I suspect the number of times someone has actually set down with a novel and compared Wikisource's edition (that they didn't upload) to the text of the novel at length can be counted on one hand. You say that you can choose easier tasks; why do you expect that others will take a different route? Convenience is not opposed to accuracy, if an inconvenient task means that it won't get done. Giving the patrollers a trivial way to check whether an edit actually is correct means that the edit will get checked; if it is difficult to do so, the edit won't get checked.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I largely agree with Cygnis and Prosfilaes here. The copy of Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae here is going to draw me into working on it. But I think we don't need discussion of the tools as much as the work. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, well, as you can see with that work that I did start it, then I found Fasti, so I put it on the backburner. billinghurst (talk) 12:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Non free scan?

Can scanning make a work non-free? Check out this page: Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/4. Is this really free? // Wellparp (talk) 11:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there artistic merit? I would not have thought that scanning alone would do so. About the only thing that I could see being possibly copyrightable is their logo and the typeset of it. It would seem a bit like how HMSO copyright English BMDs, through the paper that they are printed on, not the information contained.

To the claim ... each of us can make whatever claim we like, doesn't necessarily make it legally enforceable in a court of law. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I've actually done work for the Internet Archive, so I can assure you (off the record?) that the scans are considered free; that page was included as part of our funding contract with Microsoft; but last November that contract was severed - leaving us struggling to find a way to remove it from future and past scans. I have copies of eMail correspondence with w:Brewster Kahle, the founder of the organisation, in which he discusses his intention to remove all proprietary claims from the files and that they are an unfortunate hang-on from the Microsoft bursaries; I can send them to OTRS if necessary. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Galileo Galilei.} 16:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The position of the Wikimedia Foundation is stated at Wikimedia Commons; at least, I have a hard time imagining they would take a different position on scans then on photographs.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Woodstock

How can i get video or audio copy of woodstock 69 with all the stage announcements intact? My name was called from the stage.—unsigned comment by woodstock (talk) .

Who knows. Good luck with your search. -- billinghurst (talk) 00:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

HOYT'S NEW CYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL QUOTATIONS (1922)

Can someone import HOYT'S NEW CYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL QUOTATIONS? This was published in December of 1922, making it the last major quotations book published in the U.S. that has fallen into the public domain. My plan is that once it is uploaded here, I'll copy it over to a temporary project space in Wikiquote and fish out all the particular quotes by author and subject for the respective pages, so we will get complete coverage from it on two different wiki projects. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

A neat idea. There is a [large] djvu file at this directory, books in the Help:Public domain can uploaded to commons for use anywhere. It is wise to choose a full or unambiguous title, with the year of publication, for the upload. A work like this, welcome here, would be valuable to the sistersite; for verifying the content and notability of quotes. Cygnis insignis (talk) 00:36, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll grab it and upload it, though it may not be a quick thing, depending on how kind Commons upload facility is behaving. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Done Index:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu billinghurst (talk)

Excellent, thanks - I'll see if I can round up some editing help to get it fully edited! BD2412 T 17:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Question about copyright

Most of Eugene Field's poems are listed on Wikipedia, and all most all are listed as being in public domain. However, The Sugar Plum Tree is not listed in public domain. Is this an oversight? Or it truly is not in public domain, and if it is not, why?

We have The Sugar Plum Tree at Wikisource. Since Eugene Field died over 100 years ago, everything published during his lifetime is public domain worldwide. Angr 18:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Proofreading next page arrow

In the Page: namespace, when working on an incomplete work, the forward arrow goes to the 'this page does not exist' page. Is there a per-user preference for this to go to an edit window the way redlinks do? If not, might it be feasible to add this as a feature? With the auto-OCR filling in the text of each page as you progress it would save some time to not have to click and then create for each new page. --Mkoyle (talk) 21:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the introduction of the OCR button and text layer loading, available in edit mode, this would be an advantage to the reader too. I suppose this could be viewed as confusing or hazardous, if they save it we lose the one click and add to 'incomplete texts'. I would weigh this as a net profit as the site gains a bit of converted text. I support this feature, if it's possible, as the default or a preference. Cygnis insignis (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Zotero translator

There is a request for a Wikisource translator for Zotero. Maybe we can help by improving {{header}} to embed a microformat.

I imported {{COinS journal}} when we discussed this back in April 2008, but it is not in use at all.

Another option is for an improved version of Special:Cite that extracts information from the {{header}}. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

<acronym/> and <abbr/>

Using these tags is recommended by accessibility guidelines. I've run into several occasions where I could have used them but on preview the angle brackets get escaped, so a reader of the document would see the code rather than the proper rendering of the markup.

I can't get this to work using a template or something myself, can I? What would need to be done to get them working, and is it feasible? --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 10:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There's a whitelist of allowed HTML in the software; anything else will be escaped. The only way to get them to work would be to file a bug to see if they can be added to the list. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Ugh, that's much harder than I thought it would be, I was thinking it would be configurable at some level. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 20:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Markles' work

I have today (or was it yesterday?) deleted Markles' user and user talk pages per his request. I assume he has retired. I had a quick look into the situation and it seems that he was in a lengthy dispute, or perhaps a series of brief disputes, with George Orwell III.

All of a sudden CAT:CSD has an unprecedented 73 pages in it, all of which appear to be pages created by Markles and nominated for speedy deletion by George Orwell III.

I smell a rat. Is anyone across this situation?

Hesperian 10:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Nothing beyond differing opinions, though that is no reason for speedies.-- billinghurst (talk) 11:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The speedy deletions of the user and user talk page seem highly inappropriate. Those pages, especially the talk page, should be restored. The talk page likely has one side of the argument that led to this development, along with comments from others on other unrelated topics in the past. It is not a page to which Markles was the only contributor, and for that alone fails the CSD criteria. Markles' dispute with George Orwell III may have been intense, but there seems to have been little mention of it by anyone else. There's certainly not enough there to warrant a user suddenly going into anonymity. The other 73 proposals may or may not be valid, depending on what the rest of the dispute was about. They appear to result from the renaming of articles, and if that's a part of the dispute speedy action would not be justified. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 23:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about "highly inappropriate", but since these two deletions have been challenged, I have restored them for now, pending consensus. Hesperian 03:16, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I would think that an experienced user should have the ability to have their user page deleted, and I don't think that we should make them jump through hoops. It is another matter with the talk page, and a normal process should follow if there is significant comment. -- billinghurst (talk)

User pages are a part of the record, especially for an experienced user. They help to contextualise the totality of his contributions. It would be more justifiable for a new user who didn't understand what he was doing or had compromised his own privacy. Blanking, perhaps with a notice that the user is no longer active, would keep the archival record. Allowing users to delete their pages on a whim or in a fit of anger is not far removed from giving the right to any person to have his biography removed from Wikipedia. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I deleted some of those pages - any other admin please feel free to restore them if that is deemed appropriate. Cirt (talk) 00:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

<tsk> Really folks??? If you looked at the legislation itself you'd see that that there is no such sub-directory (or sub-page) named ""Section #"" and those were all, what, 20 to 30 characters per pages that basically redirected to the front page anyway because Markles did not follow the orginal folder tree for the bill and somebody renamed/split them into the appropriately titled pages at somepoint. George Orwell III (talk) 03:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

HERE's the orginal exchange between Markles and another User that apparently created the dozens of pointless redirects, fwiw George Orwell III (talk) 03:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

George Orwell III please don't mistake this discussion. To be Speedied they need to meet our criteria for {{sdelete}}, otherwise they should be fed through {{delete}}. From having a quick look, they don't readily meet our speedy criteria, though would think that we could look to utilise {{dated soft redirect}} so that the bot can clean them up and dispose of them in a couple of months. Plus, there is nothing wrong with having a review of any discussion/decision in an open and polite manner, and asking for an opinion on one's actions.-- billinghurst (talk) 04:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

No mistake. You all smelled things one way and decided best not to ask me anything directly - that much is clear. At any rate, my apologies - I was misled on the proper use of sdelete it seems or maybe the amount of 'work' involved was too much to address under that area - I don't know anymore. I just guess restore everything and I'll play the redirect game too and point them at some other neglected junk pile that won't confuse the redlinking and citing of the proper names of previous legislation when new ones get passed. George Orwell III (talk) 05:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

George, I apologise. Try to imagine how it looks from the outside, for you to nominate for speedy deletion 70-odd pages, all created by someone with whom you have been in dispute and who has just stormed out, with edit summary "editor request" despite you not being the actual editor of these pages. It looks dodgy. And as well as figuring out what the heck was going on, I also wanted to forestall anyone else deleting them in the meantime. Therefore I decided to bring this straight here rather than taking it to you first. It was wrong of me not to have notified you of this discussion. Hesperian 05:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

<shrug> It's my fault for not knowing the procedure around here - no harm, no foul I suppose. I was given the impression that sdelete was the avenue to delete all extraneous clutter once anything that linked to it in error or was duplicated by mistake was resolved no matter the orginating ""author"" -- kind of hard to tell when its all a bunch of redirects and renames, one on top of the other, and that was basically the problem with those two (as well a few others). Since it seems that one must pentition for such large cleanups, I will just fix what I need at that moment and wait for the authors to return to rectify anything else that's in ""conflict"" since created if it matters to them. George Orwell III (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Most of the underlying argument seems to have been about naming legislation pages, though I still find it difficult to understand how this got to the point where Markles would slam the door on his way out. He did start Wikisource:WikiProject Acts of Congress, and that would seem a better place to hammer out such problems. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe arguement is a bit much in this case - or at least in my view. As time went on and as new articles were added under the category of United States federal law, it became abundantly clear that sloppy naming conventions had made most attempts to redlink back to previous legislation cited within the newly passed legislation almost as much of chore as creating the pages themselves. Now I'm late to this party so I don't know all the details but as I understand it, a concensous was reached at some point to abandon/delete the updating of the United States Code pages and make redlinking back to any earlier law articles the standard way to show the evolution of ""law"" as events dictate (Stimulus Bill for the Economy, the Omnibus Appropriations that the previous Administration negleted to finish and now we have the Health Care reform proposal for example) all the more important.

If you create pages with the wrong name it will be wrong in every redlink back to it that follows. At that point where the ""mistakes"" became clear enough to warrant being addressed by the ""original author"", instead of correctng the issue the discussions became more and more about styles, line-breaks, indentation, paragraph spacing and other petty points of bickering that amounted to subjective form over meaniningful substance in my view. I have no grudge with the individual, sorry to see him abandon the effort actually, but accuracy in the naming in this area not only goes to Wikisource's overall credibility in as a valid resource but more so when it comes the creatiion & subsequent redlinking of the new amendments back to available law pages that are found in the current and future legislation passed into law. George Orwell III (talk) 09:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that there was a consensus one way or the other about deleting the United States Code pages. A significant number did support deletion, but there was some support for deleting at least some of the pages. The proposal went into stagnation. The proposal was so sweeping and involved so many pages that it really should have been broken down into a number of smaller proposals.

The meaningful substance about any laws is the actual content, what the law says or purports to say. The stylistic points are indeed secondary, but so too are page-naming conventions. Both should serve the purpose of better understanding the substance of the law. Characterizing the previous contributor's naming schemes as "sloppy", "wrong" or "mistakes" does not help to advance anything. While I don't doubt that the initially chosen approach began to show certain failings in their results, that should not be the basis for retroactive judgement.

The proper representation of laws, and how they change over time is extremely complex and difficult to maintain, yet I see very little having been done to bring focus onto common conventions for dealing with these naming and stylistic issues. A convention is not necessarily right or wrong; it finds common ground between two or more alternatives, any of which could work. Driving on the left or right side of the road works either way; choosing one of those ways is a matter of convention.

Whatever is to be done about naming these pages, it must be usable by those who follow and who are unlikely to be aware of the present discussion. This is why there needs to be work done at a page like Wikisource:WikiProject Acts of Congress, so that there can be something there for future contributors to work with that does not depend either on user talk pages or on pages for specific laws. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 05:11, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with most of what you say Eclecticology, it's pretty hard to rationalize the omission of something as large as placing the Titles, Sub-Titles, etc. under the clearly designated Divisions found in the original or to name pages something other than what is typically stated in the first few lines of major bills (" This Act may be cited as the ``Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009´´ " for example - kind of hard to screw that up, no?). I agree the naming conventions are secondary to the actual content - this is why I really don't care if the original is published as a statue at large, a public law or a slip-law as long as the content reflected here is accurately transcribed. Breaking up extremely long bills into the pages that match the section designations just makes sense from an editorial and citation standpoint at some point down the road. So much of the content on here is under-utilized because the cause and effect connections (easily noted by simple redlinking) must be manually piped to whatever naming was used instead of the originally given short titles or designated sections within the piece. Anyway - I think this is enough on this topic in this forum I guess and really should be discussed at Wikisource:WikiProject Acts of Congress like you suggested if at all. George Orwell III (talk) 20:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Murphy's law always overrides Acts of Congress. Just when you start to believe that something is hard to screw up is when the screw up happens. I still tend to prefer that the primary naming for these pages should be in the "Public Law CC-nnn" format with the short titles redirecting to that. The Public Law format is more stable since short titles can be changed by later Acts, or can apply to only part of an Act. That also allows predictable linking to Acts that do not yet appear. There should be a reasonable expectation that those links will turn blue when the material is added. How large bills are broken up should be viewed flexibly, but breaking down to the section level will not always be necessary.

Moving the discussion to the noted wikiproject page makes great sense. The problem is that so few people pay attention to that page. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Getting a new document independently reviewed

How do I get my document, which is now at 75%, reviewed by other users here? Is there a formal request system, like peer review at Wikipedia? The document is Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions. Thanks in advance. UpstateNYer (talk) 17:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of disappointing you, getting past the 75% level depends almost solely upon someone else being interested enough to do the work. That work mostly involves checking your proofreading. The hard reality is that very little of this gets done in the small amount of time that editors have available, even for popular works. I have added the translator to the header to insure that he is properly credited. The author parameter in the header should go to the "author" page in this project, where a list of the author's other works can also be shown. We don't yet have many foreign language corporate authors, so there may yet be questions about whether this should be in the original Dutch form, or the modern English. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, gotcha. Thanks for the response and for the help on the page. I will add the translator to the other documents I've added as well. I'd add the Dutch versions, but since I can't read it, I probably won't be able to do it right. I need the English versions hosted though, because they are primary sources for articles I'm working on at Wikipedia. UpstateNYer 17:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

if you want this to be proofread and validated, please provide a djvu file of the scans, and create an index page. it will also protect your document from vandalism ThomasV (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

ThomasV's comment is one that I would wholly support. Many of us won't have access to a document, so putting a copy onto Commons as .djvu allows even a more casual drop past. I will regularly validate a document that I see appearing in Recent Changes and if someone is making an effort, then more than willing to chip in. -- billinghurst (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

And I'd be happy to do all that, but it doesn't seem there's freeware to convert a pdf to djvu for Mac? Correct me if I'm wrong. I have a link to the first page of the relevent text in my source on all my wikisource texts (you can see a list of them on my user page). UpstateNYer 01:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

There is the online service Any2djvu, or some of us have been known to do conversions when all else fails. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I created the PDF of the document, then sent it to Any2djvu. The uploaded version is here, but it's not displaying correctly. What did I do wrong? UpstateNYer 01:33, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind; I think it was because I chose OCR to be active, which I didn't want. Anyway, the document is uploaded. What's the proper way to link to it from the Wikisource page? UpstateNYer 01:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Index:Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions.djvu

Additional comments. If you have a project interest, then I would encourage you to do a couple of things. Start a project page for your interest, and also to start a page like Wikisource:New Netherland where others interested in your topic matter can see and contribute. We try to foster special interests. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I filled out Index:Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions.djvu. How do I incorporate it into the article page? Can you show me an example? UpstateNYer 02:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be such a bother, but I uploaded 3 other documents: File:Charter of the Dutch West India Company.djvu, File:1622 Amplification to the Charter of the Dutch West India Company.djvu, and File:1623 Amplification to the Charter of the Dutch West India Company.djvu, which go along with Charter of the Dutch West India Company, Amplification of the Charter of the Dutch West India Company (1622), and Amplification of the Charter of the Dutch West India Company (1623), respectively. When I try to make an Index: page, it doesn't give me what it gave me when you gave me a red link (there are no field to fill out). What am I doing wrong? Again, sorry to be such a bother; this is new to me and I want to do it right. UpstateNYer 02:26, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

One still needs to go through a normal creation process, it just presents a separate form below so, try

• Index:Charter_of_the_Dutch_West_India_Company.djvu
• 1622 Amplification to the Charter of the Dutch West India Company.djvu
• 1623 Amplification to the Charter of the Dutch West India Company.djvu

BTW it is no problem, help is one thing that we can give and it isn't a problem -- billinghurst (talk) 00:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

UpstateNYer: I recommend to create one single djvu file per book, that contains all the pages of the book. Even if you are not interested in the other pages of that Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts, some people in the future might be willing to have them, and having one unified file will ease their work a lot. otherwise they will need to rename all the pages you are working on. ThomasV (talk) 10:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay; when I get some more time, I'll do that. UpstateNYer 19:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Auld Lang Syne

I was going to move Auld Lang Syne to Auld Lang Syne (Wikisource) and move the original text back to Auld Lang Syne, but being hard to undo, I figured I'd bring it here before doing it. The theory is that separating translations makes it easier to accurately categorize and mark the license on texts, and puts various translations on an even level; I have a translation by Alexander Corbett I'll put up shortly.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:37, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

How about use {{versions}} at the basic page Auld Lang Syne, and then split to multiple pages that use the authors as the disambiguation identifier. What has been done where I have been looking. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that it's accurate to call the appended version a "translation" since the original was already in English. A modernization verging on a series of annotations would be better. Why can't it just be in two columns; that would better show how things have been done. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:00, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The original is not in English; it's in Scots. Why should the Wikisource translation be in two columns, and not any other translations?--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It's obvious to everyone that the Burns' poem is in English Scots dialect, and not in a separate language. Your so-called translation is nothing more than a dumbing down. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 04:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

From w:Scots language:

"Since there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Scots. Although a number of paradigms for distinguishing between languages and dialects do exist, these often render contradictory results. Focused broad Scots is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with Scottish Standard English at the other; consequently, Scots is often regarded as one of the ancient varieties of English, but with its own distinct dialects or Scots is sometimes treated as a distinct Germanic language, in the way Norwegian is closely linked to yet distinct from Danish."

Hesperian 05:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there an English translation of that text Hesp? <evil g> Personal opinion is that we have different versions, and we should utilise the template. The introduction of the newer template was discussed, and the argument for its creation was strong enough to pass muster. While showing the variety of version side by side is possible, and should not be excluded as an idea, I would think that it would be an added extra rather than the base representation of this work. -- billinghurst (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, my personal view is that of Eclecticology: this is not so much a translation as a modern paraphrasing; and therefore it would be better to handle it with annotations. Hesperian 13:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The status of Scots is very much a debated point, so it's not "obvious to everyone". Picking up the New Oxford Book of English Verse, I'm having a hard time finding a line as obscure as "And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,", even going back to Middle English, which is pretty much unquestioned as another language, so I have no problem accepting this text as being in another language. I suspect speakers of Norwegian or Croatian or Slovak or Portuguese would have no problem recognizing it as a separate language, at least as distinct from English as their language is from another. Even if it is modern paraphrasing, I don't see why that must be done as annotations, instead of putting it on its own page, especially as we do have other outside versions that, be they translation or modern paraphrasing, are not annotations. Oh, and Eclecticology, all translations are dumbing-down, for people so ignorant as not to be fluent in Ancient Egyptian or Latin or Chinese or, in this case, Scots.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If Burns' poems are not in English, what are they doing in the New Oxford Book of English Verse, or in any major anthology of English literature? Burns' own Kilmarnock edition of 1786 was titled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. If Auld Lang Syne is so obscure does it not merit having clarifications on the same page to guide the reader? This is arguably the best known Burns poem; others are both less known and more difficult. Keeping the Wikisource version on the same page as the Burns still leaves the opportunity for other credited versions to be on separate pages. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Because the New Oxford Book of English Verse also includes the work of the non-English poet Ezra Pound. Go figure. (And, yes, that is the sense in which they use the word English.) And as I said above, the issue is not clear cut; the question of whether the poems are in English is a matter of definition, not fact. If we have a version disambiguation at Auld Lang Syne, why bother having just one--and not even a published one--translated version on Auld Lang Syne (Burns)?--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)