Wikisource:Scriptorium

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Endorsements now open for Wikimedia Foundation Board

The Wikimedia Board Election Steering Committee invites all community members to endorse candidates they support. Endorsements may be submitted on meta now till next Saturday, 23:59 June 23, 2007.

Each qualified community member can submit up to three endorsements. Please note several things:
- Only confirmed candidates are listed, so the list can be updated during the endorsements phase.
- You need an account on meta, not just the project that you are qualified to vote under, unless you meet the criteria on meta too.
- Please link your meta user page and your home wiki page. Detailed procedure can be found on the meta endorsement page.

All information is available on meta at:
On endorsements: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements/en
On candidates each: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
Election general: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

Questions about election are welcome at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2007/FAQ

Thanks to devoted volunteering translators, those pages are also available in some languages other than English.

Thank you for your attention, we look forward to your participation.

For the election committee,
- Philippe | Talk 00:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposals

Recent major proposals (support/oppose/neutral)

End date	Subject	Votes	Result
March 22	Collaboration of the Week	—	stalled
March 22	Overhaul author template	4/0/0	to be implemented
March 22	New copyright policy	2/0/0	implemented
June 22	Three JavaScript Tools	—	stalled

Sidebar link to the Scriptorium

I've renamed the Scriptorium in the navigation menu to 'Community discussion', since 'Scriptorium' is only meaningful to experienced Wikisource users. Any thoughts on the change? —{admin} Pathoschild 05:57:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, so long as the page is still internally referred as "Scriptorium" - I don't think anything is lost in renaming the navigational link. Sherurcij ^{COTW:Harriet Beecher Stowe} 14:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It shows up on two lines for me, unlike all of the other links, so if it could be shortened somehow (maybe "Project discussion" or something) that would be great. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 18:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This page is not only for project discussion, but I can't think of a good shorter label. —{admin} Pathoschild 14:33:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I just realized the problem only exists in Internet Explorer. Apparently the normal text size in FireFox is a bit smaller than in IE. Since a sizable chunk of our visitors use IE, I think this is worth discussing.

What about simply "Discussion"? Or, in the spirit of places with lots of books, what about something related to the concept of a bookstore's cafe or a library's talking room? Maybe "Discussion cafe" or something like that. Just some thoughts... --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 05:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Soft redirects

I propose that the use and deletion of soft redirects be eliminated in favor of regular redirects that are kept permanently.

Deleting redirects causes broken links both within our own Wikimedia projects (such as links from the Commons) and, more importantly, from outside pages. Tim Berners-Lee puts it this way:

"When you change a URI on your server, you can never completely tell who will have links to the old URI. They might have made links from regular web pages. They might have bookmarked your page. They might have scrawled the URI in the margin of a letter to a friend.

"When someone follows a link and it breaks, they generally lose confidence in the owner of the server. They also are frustrated - emotionally and practically from accomplishing their goal."[1]

The preservation of links is even more important here than on other websites due to the nature of our content. Since this is a repository of books and other writings, consider how often these pages will be referenced as sources in other published material. If we aim to be a useful and reliable source, we can't keep moving our content around in an untraceable fashion. -SCEhardT 22:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the abolition of soft redirects in general but I see your point. For me, soft redirects are primarily an internal device enabling users to change a page title without leaving a redirect behind for too long. This feature is more important for Wikisource than for other projects because, unlike e.g. in Wikipedia, a title change can leave a massive trail of redirects (and possibly double redirects) behind. A single work can have dozens or even hundreds of pages in the main namespace, and thousands of pages in the Page namespace. Indeed, one of the first tasks of TalBot was to move the title of but two works, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism and Experimental researches in electricity. More than a thousand page moves were needed. Extrapolating, an unmanageable number of redirects would build up over time. This is not a problem for sister projects as they are unlikely to have hundreds or thousands of links to a single work. Instead, they are likely to link to the front page of the relevant work. Therefore, I propose we discuss liberalising the soft redirect policy of front pages, not the existence of soft redirects in general.

Now, regarding incoming links and page moves. If we strictly adhered to your suggestion, we would never delete any redirect, ever (were this policy applied to a "normal" web site, this would mean html files would never vanish). This can't be the solution. We are looking for something more practical. It should be noted that broken links on a wiki aren't that bad to begin with. Instead of the dreaded four-oh-four, a friendly page appears giving the user the opportunity to search the wiki and the deletion log (note that the bot leaves the new link in this log). Another possibility would be to keep soft redirects around longer. On the other hand, if, after two months, no one has realised the link is broken, is such a link needed in the first place? These are my thoughts based on what you have written above. Maybe you could give us some examples where these measures failed, so we can understand your situation better.--GrafZahl (talk) 10:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with GrafZahl. I have no problem leaving "front page" redirects, but I really think it is necessary to eliminate the redirects on subpages. Eventually we will need some sort of subpage directory feature and redirects will make it useless.--15:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the subpage directory feature. Could you please explain what it does and how redirects will effect it? (Or just point me to a link where it is discussed). Thanks! -SCEhardT 23:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There isn't a directory currently, but I think it is logical that such a feature is needed on any wiki which use subpages as heavily as we do. Basically a feature would be like "What links here", but would be a list of all subpages of given page. For example "Foo" would show "Foo/Chapter I"; "Foo/Chapter II"; "Foo/Chapter III" etc. If there had been page moves with redirects such as "Foo/1: A beginning"; "Foo/2: the next part"; "Foo/3: the story continues" they would still exist in such a directory even though they are not a real component of "Foo". --BirgitteSB 15:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I am glad there is some agreement for keeping front page redirects; I think this will go a long way to solve the current problem.
However, I don't understand the need to eliminate redirects to subpages. I fully agree with the assertion that a huge number of redirects will build up if books are moved and the resulting redirects are not deleted. However, I don't see how this will create a problem. I wouldn't say that the redirects will become 'unmanageable' because there really isn't much to manage. Redirects don't take up space (any more than deleted pages) or slow down the site. They also don't appear in categories, and in general they remain invisible unless they are needed. If vandalism is a problem, the bot could protect the redirects rather than deleting them. For comparison, the most recent English Wikipedia statistics show a 1:1 ratio of redirects:articles.
One example of the current system causing problems are the images from pages of The How and Why Library I uploaded to the Commons. When I uploaded them, I linked the images (such as this one) to their pages at this project. However, those links now lead to dead pages such as The How and Why Library: Geography: Section III. Granted, this will not be a huge undertaking to fix, mainly because I didn't get very far along in the book before the pages were moved.

The most important reason I am proposing this change, however, is not for the contributors or regular users of this site. It is for the infrequent users, hopefully our largest audience. While the meaning of our error page is clear to experienced users, it will not be clear to many Internet users. Examples of links include:

• Published works such as books and papers that reference our pages
• News articles that link to our copy of a recent political speech
• Educational websites that links to our pages as part of a reading list

In the sidebar, we offer a "Permanent link" as well as a method to "Cite this article." Both of these are preserved if the page is moved but broken if the page is eventually deleted. I hope that Wikisource will be seen as a reliable and permanent collection, but I believe that deleting redirects hampers that view. -SCEhardT 23:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Permanent links work as long as the content exists, even if the redirects are deleted. (A weird bug breaks links if the deleted title is specified; I've filed a bug report. This bug has already been fixed in r23445, so all permanent links will work on Wikisource as soon as the rNumber reaches r23445: 1.43.0-wmf.3 (b671e57) —pathoschild 01:19:25) For example, clicking this permanent link to the deleted redirect The How and Why Library: Geography: Section III works. We should more prominently encourage the use of permanent links in infrequently- or never-updated external documents, maybe with a visible-but-not-intrusive box under the title. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:59:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This would certainly be a big improvement, but I think that many people would still just copy the URL (which is the convention) rather than noticing (or understanding why they should care about) a permanent link. I wonder if there is a way we could change the default URL to the permanent link? (Such as http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&oldid=397759 rather than http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III) -SCEhardT 06:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This would certainly be possible with JavaScript, but I don't think it is desirable. In most cases, we want to link to the current version. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:54:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point - too bad there isn't a way to link to the current version and automatically bypass deleted redirects. Maybe something can be developed for http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_How_and_Why_Library/Geography/Section_III&oldid=397759&version=current to work :-) -SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd call redirects "unmanageable" if the community cannot keep up with the usual edit reviewing and vandalism detection. The situation is somewhat different here than, say, on Wikipedia, where the average editor is unlikely to create many redirects (or indeed, pages) in a single strike. The English Wikipedia has two pages per registered user; the English Wikisource has nine. Granted, such figures must be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a fact that the number of pages which are not watched at all is daunting given that there are less than twenty admins. These kinds of things just tie up too much time. I'm also against page protection to forestall vandalism except as a temporary response to an acute threat. There are enough legitimate reasons to edit a redirect (the existence of two different works with the same title is a typical example) so that frustrating too many non-admin users is possible. There is also the feature of semi-protection, which would at least prevent anonymous vandalism. However, the fact that Wikimedia projects assign equal value to good anonymous contributions as to non-anonymous ones is one of the things that set them apart from other projects, so I see semi-protection as a last resort measure only.

Regarding external permalinks and their use, I don't think we should always assume the laziest credible user. Instead, we could provide a little user education ourselves. I'm thinking about spicing up the Noarticletext interface a little to notify users of the permalink feature and make the other options more understandable.--GrafZahl (talk) 09:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

All excellent points! I hadn't fully considered the consequences of protecting redirects. Also, it would certainly not be a good idea to put a heavy burden on the admins with regard to maintaining redirects. I posted a revised proposal that takes all the helpful feedback I've gotten here into account. -SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Soft redirects (2)

Based on the above feedback, I am revising my proposal to the following changes:

• When works are moved, a redirect from the old front page to the new front page should remain.
• Modify Noarticletext to make the message more clear for novice wiki users.
• More prominently encourage the use of permanent links in infrequently- or never-updated external documents. (Place instructions in Help:Reading and possibly a link under the page title).

-SCEhardT 19:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Reform month

My main contributions to Wikisource are to its structure (policies and guidelines, templates, processes, et cetera). I've essentially memorized the entire structure as a result, so I'm not well-positioned to simplify it for new users and find confusing aspects.

To help develop this structure, I would like to add a box on the main page and above the page title inviting all users and readers to leave feedback at Wikisource:Reform month (there is no featured text for this July, so the relevant box on the main page will be empty). This will let us collect feedback from as many users as possible in view of improving the entire structure over the next few months. At the end of July, I will read through all the feedback and propose changes to the structure, one page at a time.

I will set up the structure and add the notices at 00:00 on the first of July UTC if there is no opposition. If all goes well, this might be a productive annual event. What say you? —{admin} Pathoschild 02:30:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• I say you crazy. —Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 02:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
• I like this idea as I do not understand everything about Wikisource templates and such. Wabbit98 02:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support - —Wikijeff 04:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Structure as in what? Structure as how the reader sees it (author pages, books divided into subpages, linking words within works, use of templates, etc.) or structure as the editors see it (copyright policy, process for deletion, image uploading guidelines, etc.), or both? To me, I think pursuing the second would be less valuable, because people familiar with editing probably know (or soon will) that nothing is set in stone, and that anything confusing/silly can be challenged. That's not to say that we shouldn't go it; I just don't see a main page advertisement doing much for us in that respect (after all, it's designed for readers, not editors--I know I never look at it).

  I say it's a good idea to encourage readers to give suggestions on how to make Wikisource a more user-friendly tool, and, separately, make sure that editors (especially new ones) know that we don't do things because it's the Only Right Way, but simply because it's the best thing we've figured out so far. Do the first on the main page, and the second in a variety of places, such as the "you successfully created a user name" message and the template welcome message. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 05:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

  By 'structure', I mean 'policies and guidelines, templates, processes, et cetera'. This includes the division of books, for example, because that is described by the Style guide. Both readers and editors are welcome to comment. —{admin} Pathoschild 09:13:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the same position you are in that I'm not at a good spot to judge how confusing or not our structure is.  :( It all seems pretty straightforward to me, but we generally get a ton of new people who have a hard time getting settled with our structure, so I support this move. It will be a good data-gathering exercise.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Great idea.--BirgitteSB 15:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
• Support - a good method to gather user suggestions -SCEhardT 19:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Other discussions

Main Page at High-Resolution

No disrespect to the persons who worked on the main page, but at high resolutions e.g 1920x1200, the page gets all out of whack. This is apparently not a problem at lower resolutions. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there any chance it will be fixed in the near future? Thanks. —Wikijeff 04:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You're the first to report the problem. Could you take a screenshot, so we can determine the problem and likely cause? —{admin} Pathoschild 02:04:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Tool for creating Index: pages

I've made a tool for creating index page tables. Hopefully it will be easier (and much faster) than creating the tables by hand. I'm looking for feedback about how it can be improved and where it might be linked on Wikisource. Thanks -SCEhardT 20:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions

question on works released into public

If a communiqué is found in a place and then printed in a magazine, who holds copyright law for that work? Isn't a communiqué a message that is considered to be a release inherently of public domain, in which there is no possibility for demand of copyrights? I would like to put a communiqué that is under this conditions, with the proper reference of the magazine where it was published.89.155.14.81 14:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Communiqués are not inherently released into the public domain. While their authors may have intended them to be widely read or viewed (and release into the public domain helps), the same reasoning does not allow them to be used, modified, and exploited by anyone, in any form, and for any purpose including commercial exploitation without exception and without limitation (as is the case with works in the public domain).

This is tangentially demonstrated by Estate of Martin Luther King versus CBS: "The district court granted summary judgment to CBS on the ground that Dr. King had engaged in a general publication of the speech, placing it into the public domain. [...] We now reverse." —{admin} Pathoschild 15:31:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, press communiqués are usually in the public domain, although there could be exceptions. This court case is not about a communiqué... Yann 17:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The relevance of that court case is that it disproves the argument that general publication implies automatic release into the public domain. That decision is not only applicable to spoken communiqués. —{admin} Pathoschild 00:45:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

New text

Hey, Just uploaded 10_May_2007_Tony_Blair_resignation_speech. Any suggestions/comments?

Knowing a bit of Crown copyright law, is this protected under it. Or because of it being a speech that it is public domain even though it was made by a British PM still in office at the time? Wabbit98 02:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Would someone mind...

...uploading Image:Marryat.jpg to Commons? eN WpA needs a pic of him as well. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 04:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it if you can supply good provenance for it. Commons only allows free images. Almost certainly it's PD due to age but without a source for the image it's hard to tell. (If i forget, remind me on my talk page, here or on commons). ++Lar: t/c 00:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be from here. If Marryat died in 1848 and this was painted during his lifetime, the author would have have died sooner then 1937 and been old enough to paint almost 100 years previously. 68.39.174.238 01:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Help me out

I was wondering if a few people would proof read this 4 line document so it can be completed. Thanks. Chris 02:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a complete layman when it comes to US matters but I'd suggest you put 'state' or 'government'(or something equally specific) instead of 'the'.

This series will be used to direct that reviews and analyses be undertaken by ** departments and agencies.

Labeled Section Transclusion installed

This function has been activated across Wikisource languages!

Many thanks to Brion for testing it, making final changes, and installing it.

Many thanks to User:Sanbeg for taking so much time and trouble to write it and refine over a period of several months.

Some initial test pages I have done:

• Bible (Jewish Publication Society 1917)/Song of Songs (sample of labeled text; look at the edit page)
• Bible/Song of Songs/1/1 (the very first simple transclusion of a sample section from a text)
• User:Dovi/Partial transclusion of pages (more tests)

A full description of the function may be found at:

• mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion
• Bug 7995 has been resolved closed. Dovi 19:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added another example at Bible/2 John -Steve Sanbeg 18:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I probably should start using my bot account, since there are a lot of these. The request was posted here for a few months without objection, but nothing was done with it since I couldn't edit without the exension. -Steve Sanbeg

Question about Formatting in Religious texts

I do some minor fixes in various works when I see the need for them, but for the most part, I have been adding religious texts of the Jewish and Christian variety. I was told once that all texts must be both Human and Bot readable. Which brings up an interesting question: When the Bible is cited LORD and Lord do not indicate the same thing. LORD is a euphemism of sorts for the Divine Name. In the texts I've uploaded, when I came across LORD I used a capital 'L' and used the small-caps font variant in a span tag for 'ord'. Even though Lord looks better (to my eye, at least) than LORD is this a bad idea? Is it likely that Bots will pull the text and not properly distinguish between the two. Should I instead use CSS psudo elements to transform 'ORD' to lower case (instead of doing it by hand as I have previously) and then use the small-caps variant in a span tag. This way any Bot that pulls the text down will still have LORD and Lord if it should strip the formatting for its own purposes? Thanks. —Wikijeff 17:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Where did you hear that texts have to be bot readable? I've never uploaded anything and formatted it keeping a bot in mind. I say don't worry about the bots, unless there is a compelling reason we shouldn't, so I say format the text any way you want.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Pathoschild made such a comment regarding the header / header2 template here: WS:FTC#History_of_the_Ten_Lost_Tribes_-_Anglo-Israelism_Examined. However, that comment may have been limited that template alone, not the text. —Wikijeff 01:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that comment was only for the header template, and not the body of the work. So, you can do the formatting for "LORD" any way you want.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello from Wikibooks

Hello, I'm Whiteknight, and I'm a Wikibookian. I would like to open up lines of communication between Wikibooks and Wikisource, considering that the two projects are very similar (in that we create books), and that we have a certain amount of overlap (annotated texts, in particular). In some public forums, such as on foundation-l and on Meta, I have heard the occasional suggestion that perhaps Wikibooks and Wikisource projects should be merged together, although I haven't heard anybody give this suggestion any serious thought. It is, however, something that is worth worrying about.

Some things that I think we can do immediately are work out things like where annotated texts belong, or how to handle situations where people "donate" books to a free license, a situation that has risen several times on Wikibooks with decidedly mixed results. If we have a better idea of what Wikisource is all about, it will be easier for us to direct traffic to your site, because we do get a lot of people who want to contribute things that really don't belong on Wikibooks, but which may very well find a nice home here. --Whiteknight 03:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource is for things already published that have lost copyright. Think of Gutenberg[sic]: It's about the same thing and several works here are straight off of PG. For example, The Privateersman, or One Hundred Years Ago. 68.39.174.238 04:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC) (PS. I note that someone suggests moving your page on Nasareddin[sic] over here. You may want to move it to Wikiquotes instead)

What about something more recent that has been published, but was later released by the author to the GFDL? We've had a number of instances where authors want to donate their books to the common good, long before their copyrights have expired. --Whiteknight 19:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Whiteknight,

The above comment (by the anon) needs clarification. We don't merely collect works which have fallen out of copyright, but any previously published work which is "free." In your case, any work that has been licensed under the GFDL or a compatible license is welcome here at Wikisource and we would take any such book.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I would add that self-published books will not be accepted.--BirgitteSB 20:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, hence my emphasis on lack-of-copyrightness, as that is how almost everything that's here (That I've seen) is here. Granted, there may be others, but the field of "published at large and then released as "free"" is perilously small compared to the vast amount of PD stuff we have. I would venture to say it's more the 98% of all that's here. 68.39.174.238 05:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggest adding Lausanne Covenant and Manila Manifesto

You might choose to include Lausanne Covenant http://www.lausanne.org/lausanne-1974/lausanne-covenant.html and Manila Manifesto http://www.lausanne.org/manila-1989/manila-manifesto.html in the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

Suggest adding these major documents

You might choose to include the following. They are major historical document that shaped the thinking of millions of people in the past and have ripples into the present. They fit in the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

Luther’s 95 Theses http://www.carm.org/creeds/95theses.htm

95 Theses already, Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week}have you done your part? 00:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Heidelberg Confessions http://www.carm.org/creeds/heidelberg.htm

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy http://www.carm.org/creeds/chicago.htm

Suggest adding this major document

Baptist Faith and Message http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp to the section about major religious texts http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Religious_texts

There are many Christian denominations. All of them have some kind of summary statement of faith. However Southern Baptist are one of the largest and most actively influential.

According to their website http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/default.asp Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has grown to over 16 million members who worship in more than 42,000 churches in the United States. Southern Baptists sponsor about 5,000 home missionaries serving the United States, Canada, Guam and the Caribbean, as well as sponsoring more than 5,000 foreign missionaries in 153 nations of the world.

But is it out of copyright? 68.39.174.238 05:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Question about ToC

Is it possible by means of some template to orient the ToC of a given work Horizontally instead of vertically? Perhaps listing 10 sections at a time and then dropping a line and doing it again? —Wikijeff 16:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Locking of Template:New texts

I can understand why the main page is locked from editing, but I do not understand why the "New Texts' Template is locked. How are we going to list the latest new texts? I request that the lock on the "New Texts" template be removed or direction be given to a page on which we can add the new texts that have been added.--Drboisclair 22:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)