Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2013-12

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Announcements

Wikidata to support language links in January 2014

Support for Wikisource language links on Wikidata is expected to be enabled on January 13, 2014.[1] The coordination/proposal page for Wikisource integration is here (on Wikidata), with discussions on the talk page. The Anonymouse (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked GorillaWarfare to look it over and to supply me with some examples to plug into the page, but I would highly encourage other project regulars to take a look at the planning page to make sure that there's no red flags on your project's end. Sven Manguard (talk) 22:44, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, I've looked it over, but all I see is a vague and incomplete draft of the sorts of things that might be supported with Wikidata coordination. So, what exactly of this draft is supposed to be enabled in January? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:43, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Over at Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), we have a single interwiki link to the German translation. But that German page lists numerous translations, for example the Spanish one, which points back to us but at The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Inconsistency. Mess.
Now I haven't RTFA, but if I understand correctly "Support for Wikisource language links on Wikidata is expected to be enabled on January 13, 2014", it means that Wikidata will begin to provide a single location for language interwiki links, which will then be imported by each language Wikisource, thereby guaranteeing consistency and simplifying maintenance.
Hesperian 01:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
An interesting idea, but the kind of interwiki link you describe is not one of the sorts discussed in the proposal!! Nor is there any indication that interwiki links between different translations of works could be supported, as each translation would necessarily be a different publication/edition. That is, there is no support for interwiki links between translations of works, and the current proposal and associated discussion suggests that there will never be support for direct interwiki linking of translations. Either that, or the client will need to be able to follow "translation of" pointer statements in the Wikidata between various data items. You might want to look at the proposal to see the shambles it is currently in. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Tenth Anniversary Contest

The Tenth Anniversary Contest is now open and will run for the next fourteen days. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposals

Make the PurgeTab gadget default

I propose that we make MediaWiki:Gadget-PurgeTab default. It's innocuous (most users won't realise it's there), stable and generally useful to have available when it's needed. My prompt for this is the current cache problems: it would be a lot easier to explain the easy fix if it were just two clicks away from every user. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:10, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll go one better - lets see if the coding gurus can make the action a permanent-feature/user-preference regardless of skin applied (like the "Move" action is for example) rather than just a lowly gadget. That way, it be even less susceptible to upates/changes affecting scripting as is the case currently. It never made sense to me why this hasn't been done yet - even at Commons - considering how much we/they deal with some sort of image on more than just a daily, casual basis... and how large our respective databases are nowadays (plus let us not forget the constant fiddling of the wikicode itself as reason enough to remove this from the mix as a gadget). Full support either way, however. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:14, 21 October 2013 (UTC)


  •  Support enabling the gadget as a new default at the very least and, at most, also support making the option a formal "action" rather than just a gadget as permanent part of the features found in every skin -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:14, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Done As there were no opposed votes or comments, I've gone ahead and made the gadget default. I logged out to check it and everything appears to be working (although, interestingly, IP's apparently get asked if they are sure they want to purge after selecting the command; when I'm logged in, it just purges the page no questions asked). I have no power over the core software, nor am I sure how to even suggest that (bugzilla, perhaps?), so I've made no action there. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:12, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Stop deleting redirects

The following discussion is closed:

Discussion moved to Wikisource:Requests for comment/Redirect policy

I think we should amend our policy on redirects. Currently we delete almost all redirects, especially in the main namespace, as unneeded. This generally occurs when we move pages. However, this may be causing a lot of broken links and general linkrot; potentially causing a lot of reputational damage to Wikisource. People following a link from a forum, blog post, reddit, tweet, or whatever should reasonably expect to find content at the other end. What they will often get if they use a pre-move URL is an error message. Most people arriving from off site wouldn't think to search, they just assume it was deleted or that our system is falling apart. We are making ourselves look bad for no good reason. I thought about this when we started migrating works to the Translation namespace (Catullus 16 is one of our more popular works) and I've read up on this a bit. Tim Berners-Lee himself has something to say about this. There is no need to ever delete any page. We are not going to run out of space (if anything, deletion uses more memory as the deletion action needs to be recorded too) and it doesn't obscure searches (redirects are generally omitted as standard). The redirects can happily sit in the background, allowing the project to run smoothly without ever getting in anyone's way. I think we should change our policy and stop deleting redirects, unless there is a strong reason to do so (for instance, it would still remain acceptable for very new pages or inaccurate/bad faith redirects). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

 Comment - With all due respect, the proposal makes claims of one thing or another with no factual basis given to support such claim(s). I've seen no evidence of 'lost traffic' due to broken-links, link-rot or anything else link-related - but that claim is just as unsupported as the proposal's. Yet it is one based on my limited personal experience in investigating WS 'traffic' to date (page views in particular) so I'm comfortable in making it here. Regardless, without some actual statistical evidence of the actual number of first click-ins landing on now deleted redirect pages or similar, I challenge the proposal's assertion that the current practice is indeed adversely impacting the total possible number of en.WS visitors as a entirely valid one.

The claim users landing on an once-existing re-direct only to find an "error message" is also not entirely the case. Even when I'm logged out and manually input an URL to a 2011 deleted redirect ( https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Statement_by_Prime_Minister_Tomiichi_Murayama ) I still get both the log entry for the target of the now deleted re-direct as well as the deletion log entry for the removal of said re-direct. So again, the assertion readers need to initiate a separate action (a search) to locate the desired content isn't exactly a full picture of the realities at hand. A careful reading of the given log entries frequently provides the target URL of the now deleted redirect entry.

In closing, I'm opposed to the proposal in its current form without tangible evidence to support its assertion(s). I am open, however, to narrowing the scope and/or instances where deletions of redirects are no longer recommended practices if that helps any. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to expect visitors to be able to understand the deletion log message. Web design frequently emphases the skittishness of your average internet user--if they can't get what they came for immediately, they'll back out and go somewhere else. Prosody (talk) 05:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Point taken but I can't fix stupid nor force anybody to read carefully - the message further down from the log entries, however, does a fairly good job of explaining things. The part about "Was the text deleted? Occasionally, texts have to be deleted. This usually happens because they infringe copyright, or violate our inclusion guidelines. Check the deletion log (emphasis mine) for deleted pages. " seems applicable in the case of a deleted redirect. I'm all for Users landing where they expect to but I just don't believe deleted re-directs are the primary factor in those cases (at least not without some 'proof'). -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:03, 16 November 2013 (UTC)



I am the one deleting most of these redirects. The issue is, when we disambiguate a work with twenty chapters, we move the entire subpage structure — thus creating numerous redirects from subpage to subpage; and then we turn the base page into a disambiguation page. Thus, for example, The Europeans becomes a disambiguation page, but The Europeans/Volume 1/Chapter 1 becomes a redirect to a particular chapter of a particular volume of a particular version or disambiguated work. If that subpage has any right to exist at all, it should be a disambiguation page, not a redirect. After all, "The Europeans/Volume 1/Chapter 1" is an ambiguous title. Would anyone like to volunteer to create disambiguation pages for every single chapter of every single disambiguation page? No? I didn't think so. Therefore they should be deleted.

I am of the view that there are no valid reasons for us to retain our massive mess of invalid redirects in subpage space. Thus I go around deleting them. I never delete one of these redirects if it has internal incoming links. But I don't think it is feasible to extend that policy to external incoming links — which we are powerless to fix. I do feel very strongly that this is an awful mess that should be routinely cleaned up, and I don't have a problem with that cleanup occasionally breaking the rare deeplink from elsewhere in the internet. Hesperian 07:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I share Hesperian's view. Let me add that useless redirects are also a burden when searching for "start with prefix" pages, for a clean-up work of a bot.--Mpaa (talk) 09:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
This is already getting to element of TL;DR, on an otherwise long page.

There is already evidence and strong opinions presented on what should stay and what should go. I would prefer that we split this discussion to a separate page (as close as we get to an RFC), structure the argument so that comment can be made and determinations can be made contextually.

There are three decision groups when faced with the decision on a redirect 1) clearly delete, 2) clearly keep, and 3) let us think about it, so let us separate to groups, and then argue over the middle group, and give some guidance. To me half the argument is not about the redirects but what we provide to people who land on a 404 page to give them some sensible result that helps them find the page of interest. To me, presenting a short search result, and the ability for the user to get a larger search result seems to cover those that land on mislinks or deleted redirects. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I only expected a few oppose/support bullet points. I start a separate page. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 15:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

BOT approval requests

Help

Other discussions

Approaching 1 million content pages at enWS

Special:RecentChanges's count says that we are approaching one million content pages. I would think that we pass it sometime within the next week (my guess). For us content pages is the namespaces: Main, Page, Author, Index, Translation; interestingly not Portal, which I believe we should consider to be an accidental omission. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Cool! Nice timing with the tenth anniversary on 23 November too. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:16, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Morwen created Wikisource's Main Page in English on November 23rd, 2003, and Yann added a 7th section: Other Languages, on November 24th.
Some worry about the counting of these million pages, French wikisource gets: {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} 1,416,269 when en.ws gets 994,642, but I don't understand where it comes from. Surely en.ws have more texts, haven't they?
en.ws
  • 1 457 343 pages
  • 994 645 articles
  • 9 162 files
  • 4 653 928 edits
  • 870 162 users
  • 39 admins
  • 329 active users
 fr.ws
  • 1 492 915 pages
  • 1 416 269 articles
  • 6 895 files
  • 4 431 470 edits
  • 37 259 users
  • 20 admins
  • 160 active users
--Zyephyrus (talk) 17:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Billinghurst's Bookmarks Book List. IF Billinghurst would pick out some of the shorter # of pgs on his booklist and we paused our present works to work together and do these works then I think we can take the French on and in doing so hit that 1 million mark mentioned above and soon pass it as well as pass fr.ws I don't know if he reserves those books for himself though. I have looked them over and not only is it a vast list but an interesting list. I refer to his page with his bookmarks found on www.archive.org I think it would serve his purpose, the purpose of en.ws and us. Competition is good. —Maury (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
-- Meh... I guess its all in the way the measurements are being made; you'll get a different picture @ https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/Sitemap.htm for example. -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

-- Bogus!? Humm... Bogus as in fake, spurious, false, fraudulent, sham, deceptive; counterfeit, forged, feigned; make-believe, pseudo, phony, pretend, fictitious!? So, where did you derive Meh -- extracted from soMehow? I did get a different picture from the Wikisource Statistics page and now I wonder if that is bogus. But George, you don't work on books. You work with stats and codes, so books (specifically books - proofreading and validating), don't make the same difference to you or do they? Humm... stay kool in NJ. Kind regards, —Maury (talk) 19:11, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
'Bogus' as in 'another bogus quest to reveal the actual traffic/contibution picture for WS once & for all'. Again, its nothing deceptive on anyone's part, its just the way "articles" are being added then counted up.

Sometimes a sub-page is the next chapter in a single book & sometimes its an individual work from a book that is made up of many other works as well. Do we count chapters in a single work the same as individual conributions from a single compilation? (both will typically be found on a sub-page in the main namespace so you tell me how to count that?)

I don't try to count these things, George. The count is whatever it is and I know stats can be manipulated but that doesn't bother me. I just enjoy working on the books.—Maury (talk) 07:31, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

--

And yes my concerns are more over the "coding" than the "transcribing" of late, but that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion/position on the way things have been developing or how they will unfold in the future does it? --

You are totally correct, George. I was in a playful mood. I am certainly aware of the importance of coding which affects every book and page the rest of us who don't work with coding do. What I do is easy and you can easily do the same. What you do is complex and few here can match your kind of work and the importance of it. I am keenly aware of this and it is why I sometimes state that you are smart. This is the serious side of me typing now. —Maury (talk) 07:31, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

-- There are vastly better ways to do all "this" and I guess I'm waiting more and more for that day to arrive is all. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC) -- Sir, I have always admired your abilities and I still do even when you get grumpy sometimes at me, or others, I just smile inside just a little. But that never negates your abilities and your helping others which are outstanding qualities. Kindest regards, —Maury (talk) 07:31, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

By my count, Wilkinson, George Howard (DNB12) was the millionth content page according to that metric. Congrats on the get, Charles Matthews. Prosody (talk) 09:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
I counted it as Will, John Shiress (DNB12) as the millionth content page, because right now the counter reads 1,000,016.
Now I'm off by one from Prosody's result. I will figure this out tomorrow. ResScholar (talk) 11:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
If you're looking at Special:New pages with all namespaces selected, there are two new User talk pages which would throw it off. Prosody (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Aren't they included in the count? I don't want to experiment on a new user's talk page.ResScholar (talk) 06:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I wrote a nice welcome on a new user's talk page and the page count didn't go up. Only one user talk page was originated close to the time I started my backwards count, so that one origination accounts for the difference I spoke of. ResScholar (talk) 03:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
The 1,000,000th content page Wilkinson, George Howard (DNB12) new page origination edit by Charles Matthews took place at 09:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC). It had 408 bytes. Congratulations Charles! ResScholar (talk) 03:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Ugh!, heck, and en.ws-phooey. The rest of us lost. Not even an award or honorable mention for the rest of the 999,999,999.999 of us. Well, it was a good, long race while it lasted. We can all quit now and go back into the real world now. Be sure to leave all editing tools behind since they belong to the company. —Maury (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your 30920 edits, Maury. Much appreciated. :) Hesperian 04:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for thanking me, Hesperian. I can walk again! However you didn't count my Brother Officer edits when I started here in 2006. Also, I want more. I want a new suit, a gold plated shovel, a white construction boss hardhat, a gathering of the masses, television (on recall, it was invented by Philo T Farnsworth. If not Philo T Farnsworth then don't "recall" the television) and radio reporters, a red ribbon strung out and a pair is scissors to cut the red, red ribbon. I am starting a new project and photo ops are always important. I am booking a new project and booking a new agent named Booker Tea Washington. BTW, thank you good man Hesperian for all you do here in edits and far beyond those. Playfully, —Maury (talk) 05:03, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Armistice Day

It would be appreciated, now that this work has been checked, that i) A revision deletion takes place in respect of the pages that were found to have confirmed renewals. (The pages are blue flagged currently, and an appropriate note has been inserted in the transcription) ii) The source scans are appropriately redacted in the scans in respect of the confirmed renewals. (this has already taken place in respect of one item.)

The work can then be put back on the Main page in November Thank you to all who took the time to make sure it was acceptable. :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:12, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll take care of any further redacting needed but I'd like to be sure "we" are done & done x2 via peer verification first (I'm so tired of "fixing" this file only to wind-up "fixing" it again a couple of weeks later). -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:25, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I second your comment about needing peer verification of the renewals.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
Well without question I concur with the Harper's Monthly & N.Y. Herald Tribune periodical renewals as likely to protect those two marked editorials but not with the one over Lest We Forget by Curtis Wheeler starting on page 188. That poem (with more, not less stanzas) was published in the NY Times (1920) originally & reprinted in 1921 but under a different title -- Armistice Night--1920. The 1926 content is exactly the same, though with a couple of stanzas less than the original, and I don't think a title change and what amounts to omissions from the 1920 publication qualifies as a "new creation" and subsequently "new" copyright protections. It seems PD-1923 to me but I'd like to hear from others regardless. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:27, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Eldridge #8 and NY Times #22 are incomplete. ResScholar (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
DoneResScholar (talk) 12:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Are we mixing and matching #8, #16 and #20 inadvertently here? -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
DoneChecked and corrected where appropriate. ResScholar (talk) 12:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
According to my own peer review, there were completions and corrections, but I discovered no new copyright renewals that called for any more removals of text than what is already marked. ResScholar (talk) 12:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
So "we" are in agreement - pages currently marked as Problematic did not meet Copyright exemptions and now need to be readacted (Note: 1 out of 3 contributions currently marked is already done)? -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
If so, redaction could still take quite awhile - one of the remaining 2 works in question spans across almost 30 pages. In light of this (& my time constraints), would anyone object to "true" redaction of just the first & last pages of that work; the pages in between simply blanked (or replaced with blanks to be more accurate)? -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't have an objection to that. ResScholar (talk) 03:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Maintenance Reports

Our Maintenance Reports haven't been updated since 10 September. I vaguely recall reading something about the cycle changing, but surely it wasn't to "occasionally" or "rarely". Can anyone elucidate? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:30, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The Special: reports or something else? Does this align with a rollout of WMF. If yes, then see what has changed in mw:MediaWiki 1.22/wmf16. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the Special: reports. I've checked enWP and theirs have the same date. I don't know if aligned with a rollout. However, I can't see anything in wmf16, wmf17 or wmf18. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't find anything in the recent WMF/MW revision updates that would indicate any effect or change to the scheduled refeshing of those key lists either. Who handles stuff like the maint. lists wiki-wide anyway? -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
bugzilla:53227. Update Matter is now resolved. There is now a rolling log generated at http://noc.wikimedia.org/~reedy/updateSpecialPages.log — billinghurst sDrewth 11:48, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Collection extension in Translation namespace

I think we should file a bug to get the the "Print/export" sidebar tool visible & working in the Translation namespace. I would have done so already, but thought I should check for any dissent first rather than later. --Eliyak T·C 04:50, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Just to add some technical detail we are wanting the parameter wmgCollectionArticleNamespaces to include ns 114 for enWS (set in InitialiseSettings.php) — billinghurst sDrewth 11:12, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
 Support Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:27, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
 Support —Clockery Fairfeld (talk) 12:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
closed, being requested at bugzilla:56899 — billinghurst sDrewth 11:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Done and operational. Links now appear (I checked one work in vector and monobook). — billinghurst sDrewth 00:41, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Index:Sheet Metal Drafting.djvu

Anyone else concur this is missing at least 2 pages? (ie Page 1 of the main text and at east one page of the contents.

The glitch appears to be at Page 13/14 in the scans/djvu.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:05, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks like you're right. :-( After that point all seems okay though. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

EPUB download produces broken files?

Hello all! I just wanted to download The Count of Monte Cristo to read on my tablet. Validation of the file at http://validator.idpf.org/ failed with a ton of error messages (and the file could not be uploaded to my Google Books account). Is this a known issue? Any suggestions? --Dschwen (talk) 17:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Working on fixing the errors by hand. XML IDs must not start with numbers, & symbols must be escaped in XML. Where can I file a bug report? Those are obviously bugs in the exporter. --Dschwen (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Bugs can be filed at bugzilla:, the EPUB export tool is called "WSexport" and it's held on Wikimedia Labs. You could also try leaving a message on the talk page at oldwikisource:Wikisource:WSexport or trying to contact the developer User:Tpt (although he is mainly on the French Wikisource as far as I am aware). I'm afraid I don't know anything about the technical side of the tool, so I can't answer your main point. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Reported at bugzilla:56294. --Dschwen (talk) 20:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
I've fixed the issues reported by the validator. Please reports other issues directly in the "issue" section of the github repo. The exported epub for The Count of Monte Cristo is now valid. Thanks for the report. Tpt (talk) 09:03, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like we would do well to have a local support page. Tpt — Thanks for the fix. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
A wsexport-tool page would be good, I think. There is Wikisource:eBook, perhaps? Somewhere for information for editors too, such as (a thing Tpt taught me today) the way to get it to included pages in an ePub that are not subpages of the page that the ToC is on: enclose the ToC in <class="ws-summary">...</div> (e.g.). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 04:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Return of polytonic Greek

Greek letters rendered the way they are found in 19th and early 20th century representations of ancient Greek manuscripts have reappeared! These types of characters are produced when the "polytonic" template is used. Rest of en:Wikisource: "We didn't notice they were gone." ResScholar (talk) 06:21, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

If it's easier to remember, then the template {{Greek}} has the same effect. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:50, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
A little different--they use different fontsets. I'm not sure if there's any behavior difference with the UniversalLanguageSelector extension's webfont thing. Prosody (talk) 20:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
For those who didn't realize, templates for Ancient and Modern Greek won't necessarily be the same. However, the {{Greek}} template is coded to grc, which is the language code for Ancient Greek, and this is important because the ancient language contains a number of characters and many diacritical marks not present in the modern Greek language (code el). Personally, I have an easier time remembering {{polytonic}}, since that was the older name of a template used on Wiktionary and Wikipedia, and since "Greek" is ambiguous as a designator (as it does not distinguish the different character sets for the ancient and modern languages). --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:27, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

November is Validation Month

The 2013 Validation Month has begun. This is the month when the Proofread of the Month project focuses on Validating works. To begin with I've selected works over a wide range of subjects and of various lengths. There are eight works running at a time and each work appears on the Mainpage and at WS:PotM for about three hours at a time. As we complete the works, they will be taken out of the cycle and replaced. The best place to list works that you would like to have validated as part of Validation Month is in this queue. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-44

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

New features

  • The style and colors for warning boxes, error messages, and success messages in all skins of MediaWiki has been changed. [2]

VisualEditor news

  • You will soon be able to switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without having to save the page. You can't yet switch from wikitext to VisualEditor but developers hope to make it possible in the future. [3]

Problems

  • There was a problem on October 31 during the activation of MediaWiki 1.22wmf2 on test wikis. mediawiki.org was also broken, and if you had problems logging in, it was probably because of this as well.

Future

  • Because of the problem with MediaWiki 1.22wmf2, the calendar has changed. It will be added to mediawiki.org and non-Wikipedia sites on November 4, and all Wikipedia sites on November 7.

JavaScript / Gadget developers

  • Due to a recent change, gadgets and user scripts that use jQuery UI should explicitly load the appropriate modules, as they may not be loaded by default. [4]
  • Developers have started to remove long-deprecated methods. You should check the JavaScript console (in debug=true mode) and look for deprecation warnings and their stack trace. [5]

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

10:37, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Index:FizeauFresnel1859.pdf not displaying correct status

The above index is not displaying the correct status which is Validated but is instead displaying Unknown progress. Could someone please have a look at and correct it. --kathleen wright5 (talk) 21:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It might have something to do with the fact that the cover page has important content, even though it was marked as "does not need to be proofread".
I've tweaked that page, and have added some information to the Index file, but have also noticed that the Progress listing for the Index page isn't giving the usual drop-down set of choices, so there may be something else going on here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:43, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Don't know why it's not giving the drop-down list of translations. However, I've entered the code directly and it's now in the Done status. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:20, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Hello folks. I am desperately afraid this is going to make me look like I know what I am talking about, but believe me I really do not!
I checked a few Index pages and none of them seem to have the drop-down menu on "Progress" any more, irrespective of whether "Scans" is set to 'pdf', 'djvu' or even 'jpg'. I am wondering whether MediaWiki:Proofreadpage_index_data_config] might be at fault, in that there is no "values" sub-clause of the "Progress" field to match the values listed in MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template?
My local (i.e. offline) experiments indicate changing this works (at least on out-of-date mediawiki 1.21wmf12), or at least does no harm, but maybe somebody with greater knowledge knows why this apparent discrepancy exists?
Oh and in any case, please note "Dictionnary" should only have one "n"! Viewer2 (talk) 12:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Introducting Beta Features

(Apologies for writing in English. Please translate if necessary)

We would like to let you know about Beta Features, a new program from the Wikimedia Foundation that lets you try out new features before they are released for everyone.

Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming software and give feedback to help improve them. This special preference page lets designers and engineers experiment with new features on a broad scale, but in a way that's not disruptive.

Beta Features is now ready for testing on MediaWiki.org. It will also be released on Wikimedia Commons and MetaWiki this Thursday, 7 November. Based on test results, the plan is to release it on all wikis worldwide on 21 November, 2013.

Here are the first features you can test this week:

Would you like to try out Beta Features now? After you log in on MediaWiki.org, a small 'Beta' link will appear next to your 'Preferences'. Click on it to see features you can test, check the ones you want, then click 'Save'. Learn more on the Beta Features page.

After you've tested Beta Features, please let the developers know what you think on this discussion page -- or report any bugs here on Bugzilla. You're also welcome to join this IRC office hours chat on Friday, 8 November at 18:30 UTC.

Beta Features was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Design, Multimedia and VisualEditor teams. Along with other developers, they will be adding new features to this experimental program every few weeks. They are very grateful to all the community members who helped create this project — and look forward to many more productive collaborations in the future.

Enjoy, and don't forget to let developers know what you think! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery (wrong page? Correct it here), 19:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Getting scans from Hathi Trust

Hello,

I would like to get scans from Hathi Trust, however downloading whole books is restricted to "Partner institution members". I am specially intersted by all books relalted to Mahatma Gandhi. AFAIK these 13 scans of "Young India" are not available elsewhere. If you have access, please help. If not, please spread the word to find some one who has access. Thanks a lot in advance! Yann (talk) 12:53, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

You can request this at the Wikipedia Resource Exchange (assuming no one here has access to it since this got unnoticed). Solomon7968 (talk) 13:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, done. Yann (talk) 13:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Folks here should think about making a help page pointing to public domain sources and how to access them (like pointing to Wikipedia Resource Exchange for future). Solomon7968 (talk) 13:59, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

This page might be at least a starting point for such. I am also getting together lists of highly regarded reference sources on the net, many of which might not be PD, but might be useful for informational purposes and links anyway. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Have you been to Wikisource:Sources yet? This page lists public domain resources that we have already identified. ResScholar (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

You can download one page at a time as I sometimes do and then add them together. You can download .PDF files one at a time or an image one at a time and then put those together.—Maury (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I am getting tired of this situation

For some reason en.ws can't seem to handle all pdf files - why not? I have been using them in the not distant past. So, en.ws apparently loves .djvu files (which compresses images far too much and makes them distorted) So, what is the name of the best djvu download program -- please point me to the thing. I have a program that shows djvu at the top left and Lizard on the right and it opens a file just dandy. But I need to download from archives.org aka Internet archives and then upload the djvu file back up to wiki commons. So, what program is used to do that? I don't even mind if I have to pay for it. I just want to get some work done! Commons should be able to pull any file over to commons anyhow! —Maury (talk) 22:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Help:URL2Commons Hesperian 00:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Hesperian. —Maury (talk) 03:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Searching for Hawthorne - Suggestion to Improve Search Autocomplete

In the search bar, the Author name space is not used for search suggestions in autocomplete. When using the search bar for Hawthorne, the work Hawthorne (1864) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is returned. Changing to Nathaniel Hawthorne returned the work by George Edward Woodberry. I was looking for Author:Nathaniel_Hawthorne. It would be useful if autocomplete suggestions included hints from the Author name space and other portals. This would allow more users to find author portals and to discover the broad scope of WS. Do others agree? Would this change be possible? Thanks. - DutchTreat (talk) 17:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

After a bit of research, I believe "Author:" is a pseudo namespace on W/S. Using the list of indices to namespaces on the parameter to action=opensearch will not help make it easier to find author pages. Only using "Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne" in the search finds the expected suggestion during autocomplete. Is there a better way? - DutchTreat (talk) 11:46, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Author is a proper namespace; see this list. Not sure what that means for searching though. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 12:21, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
To get author pages in the autocomplete one needs to type the namespace, eg. author:nath… as it is doing a page name lookup and then the autocomplete. Different in search where it prefers a name title component as a search. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:36, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Reference wish list

At User:John Carter#List of public domain reference sources I listed most of the reference sources now in the public domain that were included in a 1986 guide to reference books, omitting some purely bibliographic works and I suppose some governmental publications. Several of them are in foreign languages, but they might serve as at least a reasonably good basis for development of some content here. John Carter (talk) 18:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Layout of Young India Pamphlet, September 1919

Hello,

Could you please review the layout of Young India Pamphlet, September 1919?

I didn't contribute here for some time, and I forget what are the standards. And there might be new ones...

And there are only 4 pages to validate. ;o)

Thanks, Yann (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I found a couple of small typos, and mucked about with the formatting somewhat. I hope you find it an improvement. I could not find an acceptable symbol for the "horizontal leaf" logo on the first page, and so have not marked that page as validated. Also, a nice dot-leader solution to the coupon fields on the last page would be a definite improvement to my crude effort… Viewer2 (talk) 16:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Much better than mine anyway. Thanks a lot! Yann (talk) 20:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Mentions in the Wikipedia Signpost?

I just looked over the archives of the Wikipedia Signpost, and honestly I don't see much mention of this sister project at all. I would think, maybe, some sort of interview with someone here might be useful, and there hasn't apparently been one of those for years, and maybe, if they can be persuaded to do so, maybe we could get the collaborations of the month listed in it as well, which might in at least some circumstances get some more people involved in at least the collaborations. Particularly considering the effectiveness of the Military history WikiProject over there, if we could somehow get some sort of cooperation with them, or any of the other functional WikiProjects over there, that might help improve some of the related content here rather quickly. Anyway, thoughts? John Carter (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

A plan for posting WWI material here that is public domain would be good, and consistent with what you are saying. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Given WP's proclivities, proofreading a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships would seem ideal. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a copy already available (a chapter could buy and scan one but I'm not sure if they would be willing to do so). I've been thinking about a WWI project for 2014. There hasn't been a lot of interest to date but that might change closer to the centenary. I was thinking abouyt just modelling it on POTM to make it easier to grasp for casual visitors.
One problem with the Signpost is that it's a Wikipedia newsletter for Wikipedians and so largely ignores non-Wikipedia content. I've suggested the occasional thing on their suggestions page but nothing happened. The only significant exception to the Wikipedia focus has been a string of attack pieces over the last few months (attacking Commons, Wikinews and Wikivoyage so far; the last was especially tabloidy).
I would like some co-operation with Wikipedia. Anecdotal evidence tells me they often take one look at the Proofread Page system and run away screaming (metaphorically). A gentler introduction might help. When I get it going, I will mention the WWI project to the MilHist project on Wikipedia and see where that goes. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:00, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Also, there are at least a few reference books relating to the military, I think unfortunately almost uniformly the American military, in my list of PD reference sources at User:John Carter. Some of those sources might be ones the editors dealing with the US military might be interested in developing. John Carter (talk) 23:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
A WWI project might work because it is "old" enough that most would consider it static & non-controversial nowadays.

Otherwise, Ickypedians don't care much for contemporary / reference works [in my experience] - largely because they'd rather bicker over the various pseudo-facts in play on any given day through the writings of third-party (and frequently far removed) surrogates & their take on any given subject or point than simply let folks "read the record" (i.e. reference/serial works) for themselves. The bulk of such content is dismissed a la Original Research and thus never accepted as citation worthy - possibly depriving WS of many, many pointers to a good swath of the works we can or already host.

Get some stay-at-home "blogger" to mention the same work in their rantings/reporting and it becomes OK to include - but they don't take the time to cite both the "blogger" & the work; just the blog. So whatever gets picked, make sure its old enough and out-of-the way enough not to entice vested interests from poo-poo'ing Wikisource as a WP approved citable reference source. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

John, I like your idea of cross pollination between Wikipedia and Wikisource. The next step would be to get WP editors on specific projects informed of WS and how articles on WP can be enhanced by source text. One starting point would be asking project members to find any missing interwiki links. As Adam points out above, a gentle introduction is needed. Goal: get people involved in the WS mission. Joint efforts will be beneficial for all. Great candidates may come from projects with topics like WP Literature, WP Novels, WP History of Science and others. Finding sponsors to proofread text directly related to their WP article of interest is another opportunity for involvement. May I suggest w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature may want to expand works by Author:Ezra Pound or w:en:WikiProject Fisheries and Fishing may help us find and scan a work like w:en:Floating Flies and How to Dress Them. Demonstrating the value of citing source documents is part of the challenge of outreach. As George Orwell III pointed out, we have many potential source texts to offer the Wikipedia. A study to understand why they are not used may help us understand the adoption hurdles. In the opposite direction of information flow, we can learn from WP editors at places like w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies. The work w:en:List of years in literature has educated me on which works are culturally important. Are there other examples on the WP that can help curate the collection on WS? Sharing and collaboration must be two-way and jointly beneficial to be successful. - DutchTreat (talk) 02:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
I frequently use WP biographies when setting up author pages (and sometimes I've created the biography at the same time). As to citation: a while ago there was a brief project to work on it. I created {{cite wikisource}} to standardise the assorted citation template coming our way, but a lot of that was reverted. I might try again at some point but I don't have time now. Part of that template was an option to link to the page scan (Page:Foo/x) as well as the mainspace text itself. Many Wikipedians have very odd ideas about what Wikisource is and does. Occasionally editors there have rejected Wikisource as a reference because we're a wiki, which is banned under their Reliable Sources policy. The page scan should reinforce our reliablity (and possibly increase awareness of one of our USPs) if it's used. Another problem is that a lot of citation templates are used for merely external links, which I think cheapens the concept of linking to Wikisource as a reference. Some WP articles have little WS linkfarms at their footer. I've removed a few of these as I go but I'm sure there are more (creating a portal out of the linkfarm and placing the {{wikisource portal}} template instead looks a lot better for both projects). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:25, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
an interview with User:Charles Matthews about the completion of DNB would be a nice story. (also a wikiproject. would fit in that section) Slowking4 (talk) 17:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-45

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

New features

  • You can now use the "Autonym" font of the Universal Language Selector (ULS) to display the name of languages (for example in navigation templates) in their correct script. To do this, add the CSS class "autonym" to the elements that include language names. Note that this font only works for the name of languages, not for any other text. [6]

Problems

  • There was a problem with Parsoid (the program used by VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML) on November 4, between 19:40 and 20:40 (UTC). Encoding issues caused non-ASCII characters (including those with diacritics, like "é") to be broken when converted to wikitext and saved to the page. [7]

Future

  • The Beta Features tool is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. With it, you can test new features before they're added for everyone. The plan is to add this tool to all wikis on November 21. [8]
  • MediaWiki 1.23wmf3 was added to test wikis on November 7. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 12 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 14 (calendar). [9]
  • The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [10]
  • The button of the Search page will soon be changed to be blue and bigger (see the difference). [11]
  • You will soon be able to add a page name as parameter for {{REVISIONID}}, {{REVISIONUSER}} and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} and similar functions, by writing for example {{REVISIONID:Apple}}. [12]
  • In the future, when you hide a CentralNotice banner on a wiki, it will also be hidden on other Wikimedia sites. [13]

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

13:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

10th anniversary proofreading competition

A contest to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Wikisource has been suggested on the Wikisource mailing list. I don't really follow the list to much (because I don't like mailing lists and don't see the value in even having one), but I caught this while idly browsing. Wikimedia UK have actually stated they are willing to support it:

If there are volunteers interested in taking the lead on this, Wikimedia UK are prepared to provide prize(s) and people outside the UK would be eligible.

It's meant to start on 24th November, so we have just over a week left. I've created the page Wikisource:Tenth Anniversary Contest as a focal point.

Basing it loosely on POTM was Charles Matthews' idea; most of the rest I've just made up myself. Other people need to look at this to see if it makes sense, if it's workable, or if they have better ideas. The period, just the week from 24 Nov to 1 Dec, is from the original proposal that other Wikisources may be using but I'm not sure that's a good idea. It might be better running it for a month or so. I've left space for ten texts (which should all be fairly simple to proofread) to match ten years but I'm probably going to trim them down; it might be thematically appropriate but possibly also counter-productive. I'm not even sure about the scoring, which I just made up as an example to begin with. Wikimedia Australia appear to have talked about this but I don't know if they are going to do anything. They did bring up that there should be other win conditions (because after the first day there is no incentive for anyone to start when they are already behind). The original suggestion of a prize was an e-reader but I don't know how Wikimedia UK feel about this.

I think this was a very late notice idea and it really hasn't been thought out in any detail. However, we might as well try. If nothing else, we can use this as a foundation for a proper contest when the English subdomain anniversary comes up in 2015. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Contests are a nice idea, if only for the pleasure of contesting. ;o) But why admins would not be eligible for a prize? Yann (talk) 14:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
Everything in red, like that clause, is even less sure than the rest (or simply a temporary note). I thought it might look suspicious if admins won prizes, as they technically have the power to affect the results. It isn't set in stone. It isn't even set in blancmange. So, if it seems a little overzealous, anyone can edit it out (or just argue against it). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I have ten texts now and I've currently set it to run for two weeks (I'm not sure if one is enough; a month might be too much). I have continued to make things up as I go along. I need to check with WMUK if they can confirm support. I believe WMAU, and possibly WMDC, might have been thinking about supporting this but I haven't seen any actual agreement so far (although perhaps I've just missed it). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Can you explain what you mean by "admins technically have the power to affect the results"? Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I can delete, block, revert & hide, etc. The admin mop can, in theory, be used to cheat. There is also the perception issue of anyone with that ability winning, even if they are absolutely clean. I've removed that rule now, however, and stolen a few from Italian & Catalan Wikisources. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 09:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
While on the surface it would appear admins can cheat, they would be unable to hide the cheating. Also being an admin on Wikisource is more about staying around and not doing anything really annoying on a re-occurring bases. But as Adam has removed the rule, my argument becomes pointless. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
well, the bad karma from other projects would be that admins would be incapable of competing, editing in article space; but happily it’s not the case here. also, defer discussion of quality of proofing which get points. unfortunately not much enthusiasm at WMDC, maybe i can wrangle a meetup, salon at a pub. Slowking4 (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-46

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

Problems

  • There was a problem caused by too many requests to the database on November 14. [14]

Future

  • MediaWiki 1.23wmf4 was added to test wikis on November 14. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 19 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 21 (calendar).
  • The new Search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added to *.wikimedia.org, Wikimania and Wikisource wikis on November 19, and Wiktionary wikis on November 21 (except where it's already available). Once it is added, you can test it by adding &srbackend=CirrusSearch to the address of the search results page. It will become the main search engine on Wikivoyage wikis on November 21. [15]
  • The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 19 instead of November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [16]

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

08:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Ruskin & al.

Hello,

I uploaded all scans of Works of John Ruskin‎ (12 vol.), and some more works of John Ruskin. I’ve noticed that some works previously available at Google Books are not anymore, at least outside of USA. Probably a result of settlements with copyright holders in Europe. I am more confident that these scans will be available on the long term on Wikimedia servers than anywhere else.

Some more works are available for validation: Index:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu‎ (from Wikisource:Requested texts‎), Index:Forty Thousand Followers of Gandhi in Prison.djvu (17 p.), Index:A Brief Study of Mahatma Gandhi.djvu (9 p.), Index:Holmes - World Significance of Mahatma Gandhi.djvu (16 p.). Thanks, Yann (talk) 14:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

highlight-area div initializing over top of categories

This is kind of finicky to reproduce, probably dependent on window size and font sizes and such. Go to a page that uses page namespace transclusion and has a few categories, like Republic of South Africa Constitution Second Amendment Act, 1981. Immediately scroll down to the bottom and try to hover over some of the categories in the middle/right side of the page. The highlight-area div, which is used to highlight the text of a particular page when its link is hovered over, is transparent and above the links, making them unusable. Prosody (talk) 03:13, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe I just fixed this bug. I've been fiddling with the code that governs the pagenumbers, and while I tested out all changes with private userspace code first, I wasn't aware of this issue. Thanks for noticing the problem and reporting it. --Eliyak T·C 03:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Well that just broke the perfect behavior I was seeing. It was finicky to reproduce because it was a non-standard application of the pages tag (in addition to the lack of a end nop on the last page?). Something else is not quite correct with that particular example - the default 'next, prev, return to top' footer is also not generated and that is usually the utimate stop-gap for last page transclusions running long (or having the last page highlight run into areas outside of the Dynamic Layout wrapper(s)).
Please revert the 2 last .js changes and let's first troubleshooting the example before touching the .js -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:06, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Made the reverts to the .js and now cannot reproduce any highlight intrusion into the category bar at all after adding the closing "tosection=" to the pages tag & the "section end= " on the last Page: of the page-namespace range being transcluded. Anyone else still see the highlight intrusion? -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts on formatting

I'm curious about opinions on replicating the formatting on Index:Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) by Barrere & Leland.djvu. (Example page)

Its part of the upcoming contest and I am trying to get the images and formatting notes ready. I was going to say that the formatting can be replicated with {{hanging indent}} but I'm not sure if that's necessary or useful. Possible objections include: there are some fully indented quotations that don't work quite as well for this; it will be unnecessarily awkward for any potential new users; the number of resulting templates on one page in the mainspace might cause problems; and it may not be needed. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

My reaction: dangerous choice for a competition. Based on my short experience, few new editors even realise the header/footers (so that {{rule}} won't be replicated, unless it is specified by the Index:/header pre-fill field; more subtly, footnotes are lead by another rule, but only when present), let alone cross-page elements like {{hanging indent/s}}. I wonder if there are any candidates for other block types crossing pages? (Answer: Yes, see Page 24—25 transition.) The opportunities for one competitor to "creatively derail" other pages (in the sense of picking up points for "correct" pages which have to be entirely reworked at point of later transclusion) is pretty devilish.

A note had better be made also of the "unwrap the columns" convention, as I am sure somebody will try to replicate the two-column layout and then become frustrated at their efforts not being appreciated.

I realise this is a late thought: but why not extend the competition to include the final page assembly step. I would suggest a fairly high number of points be awarded per successful transclusion with no undesirable artefacts in the result, perhaps with loss of points for overlooked issues?

Enough quibbles to be going on with? On the other hand, I extend congratulations upon making a careful choice full of pitfalls and traps. I do not envy the judges of this competition (and am neither qualified nor volunteering for such rôle!) Viewer2 (talk) 23:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

O.K. Things I forgot to mention before: Please include a statement as to how "continuation words" are to be handled (or omitted) at the foot of pages. They seem to be rare in this work, but are present on some pages. And please also make a clear statement regarding handling of binder marks (I haven't seen any in this work so far, but probability is that they are there.) Viewer2 (talk) 23:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I've done some of this. I've ignored the hanging indents for now (they can always be put back later if necessary). I didn't include the transclusion step because people appear to find that the most confusing part—I don't know why but there it is—and I wanted this to be straightforward. I'm still working on getting all the illustrations ready and the contest is already open, so I will just file any other ideas and any problems that come up under "Lessons Learned". - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:16, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for div align=center-justify option

Can we get the option of center-justified text available on Wikimedia projects? That is, justified paragraphs with the last line centered? This formatting appears in some texts I am involved with such as Translation:Tales of Rabbi Nachman but is most important in the title pages to make them look nice and like the originals. By the way, regular justifying with the last line flush left works, with the code 

<div align=justify>

but for some reason does not seem to be publicized on Wikimedia Help pages. Anyhow, to return to my request, center-justify is available in CSS:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4704896/how-to-center-justify-text-in-css

<div class="center-justified">...lots and lots of text...</div>

Thanks! Nissimnanach (talk) 00:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC)Nissimnanach

The main reason you're having trouble is that the align= attribute in ...
<div align=justify>
... has been deprecated and will "work" less and less as time passes while the new standard becomes normalized (e.g. Stop Using It).
I've made the corrections I think you wanted so the title is centered but the text body is justified. If you need this effect a dozen times or more we can either templatize it or add it to the main CSS definitions. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, will use <div style="text-align:... , however, what I want is 'center-justify. It should appear like this simulated example:

Justified text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text
justified text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text
and the last line is centered, not flush left!

Nissimnanach (talk) 02:36, 24 November 2013 (UTC)Nissimnanach

Ok - all you "need" in that case is to fix the width to some value or percentage, the margin:0 auto 0 auto; will then handle the centering no matter what width you set, but in hindsight -- were you thinking of a way to force layout 2 from the left hand display options instead of all this?
And you just need to move the closing DIV tag to the point where you want text justification to stop (like right before the rule in your linked example) so it can return to the centering set by the 1st DIV. -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:05, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Dear George,
I tried that, namely 

<div style="width: 100%; margin:0 auto 0 auto">

but it did not produce the desired result of center-justified paragraphs. To clarify, what I want looks like this:

Start parag 1 justified text text text text text text text text text text
still parag 1 justified text text text text text text text text text text
last line of parag 1 is centered, not flush left!

Start parag 2 justified text text text text text text text text text text
still parag 2 justified text text text text text text text text text text
last line of parag 2 is centered, not flush left!

Start parag 2 justified text text text text text text text text text text
still parag 2 justified text text text text text text text text text text
last line of parag 2 is centered, not flush left!

Start parag 3 justified text text text text text text text text text text
still parag 3 justified text text text text text text text text text text
last line of parag 3 is centered, not flush left!

etc. Nissimnanach (talk) 15:03, 24 November 2013 (UTC)Nissimnanach

Thanks - now its more clear to me what you are looking for. Try....
<div style="width:400px; margin:0 auto 0 auto;">
<p style="text-align:justify; -moz-text-align-last:center; text-align-last:center;">{{Lorem ipsum}}</p>
</div>

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Hope that does the trick - not all browsers support text-align-last: however. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't work by me -- Windows XP: Chrome and Firefox both have last line flush left. Nissimnanach (talk) 23:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)Nissimnanach

I looked into it further and the newly modified above should now work for IE8 and up as well as FireFox. There is a "bugzilla" filed for the feature to work in Chrome as well according to this page (bottom). I don't know what or how long that means but if there if is a place for you to vote or escalate the fix - I'd do it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Version of South Devon Atmospheric Railway ... failed images

Unfortunately a Google version of a work taken from IA has blank pages where there should be images (hindsight!). If someone would mind having a look at South+Devon+Atmospheric+Railway and see if any of these have all the images, that would be fantastic. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

BETA ( "Media Viewer" )

"Media Viewer information discussion

10 users have enabled this feature.

Improve your multimedia viewing experience with this new tool. It displays images in larger size on pages that have thumbnails. Images are shown in a nicer Lightbox overlay, and can also be viewed in full-size."

I enabled this and realized we don't use thumbnail images here. Aside from that I make my images large enough on Commons that by clicking on the image it can be made larger to see in detail. The Media Viewer is useless for en.ws as far as I can tell. —Maury (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Temporarily hijacking Community Collaboration for the contest

If no one objects, I'm going to change the Community Collaboration to advertise the currently ongoing Tenth Anniversary Contest. It should be mentioned on the main page and, while I should have thought of this earlier, Community Collaboration seems the best place for it. I'll put NARA back when everything's done and dusted, so it will only be off for two weeks. If anyone does object, I won't do it. Option B is adding an extra box to the page structure. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 22:45, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. NARA is presumably pretty stale. I wonder what else is out there to spark some interest. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Scroll Bar on Scanned Image

Topic moved to Reading_or_Page_namespace_issues section

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