Wikisource:Scriptorium

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Proposals

Adding copydumps to WS:CSD

There have been several discussions recently about copydumps, where texts are added to Wikisource with no proofreading and (usually) no source and (sometimes) no authorship or license information. Such texts often contain OCR errors that the contributing editor has no intention of fixing. Such texts frequently end up sitting in our system for years with no further action. You can see some really old ones at Category:Texts requiring OCR fixes.

It has been suggested that we add copydumps to our list of criteria for speedy deletion. Considering that these works are frequently nominated for deletion, and that all nominated copydumps have had full consensus for deletion, I propose modifying the Deletion Policy to allow speedy deletion of copydumped texts. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

 Support. Can I support my own proposal? I support this proposal. I would stipulate, however, that to qualify as a copydump, the text must be in such bad shape that it is easier to delete and start over than to match-and-split. Copydumps from curated sources like Gutenberg, where a scanned source can be clearly identified to migrate the text to, should be migrated rather than speedied. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:52, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

 Comment And what about postponed deletion? That means tagging such a text immediately as one that needs to be improved and the work will be deleted without further discussion if no improvement works start within 2–3 weeks after it was tagged. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 14:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "improved"? People are always welcome to start scan-backed copies, but that is not a reason to retain a copydump. We don't have the manpower to tag and watch garbage. If someone printed out a text copy of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica and left it on a desk in a library, there would be no reason the library should be obligated to hold onto that copy and "improve" it for the use of their patrons. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:35, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I mean that the tag will provide information to the contributors who added the work that the contribution is not in accordance with our standards a will give them a chance to improve it towards our standards. In this way we may get a new contributor. Quick deletion usually means loss of the contributor. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 16:36, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

We have already template {{standardise}} and its redirect {{cleanup}}, which never results in any clean-up. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

 Support, but not the qualified version. "Migrating" to a scanned text is a significant investment of time, and in my experience it is easier to start fresh than to match-and-split. For example, Gutenberg copies are often modernized, and have spellings standardized to US English, even when the source uses British English. Finding and correcting these many differences takes longer than working from the text layer of a DjVu, and requires a good and experienced eye for long periods of time. In the interim we have an inauthentic copy; and the extra time and work is not worthwhile. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I am rather surprised at this, as I have migrated many such texts, and found it much much much easier and far less time consuming than proofing from OCR (especially since most of these texts have crappy text layers and crappy OCR results). Fixing the occasional misspelled word or misplaced phrase is much quicker than re-typing every other word. I just now migrated Fishin' Jimmy which I had copydumped from Gutenberg when I was a new user in 2014, and it was extremely easy. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I validated The First Men in the Moon, and found it tedious to identify all the US spellings against the original British. It would have taken less than half the time to work from the text layer in the scan. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I guess it depends on the quality of the scan and on the quality of the text. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

That is one of the older ones; more than half of them have gone through Distributed Proofreaders, which doesn't change spellings. It's entirely possible that it was transcribed from an American edition; this is even possible for a DP edition. It wasn't until 2006 Google made PDFs available to download, so works were all scanned from copies available to random volunteers, which frequently were old American editions.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

 Support per EncycloPetey. I've completely given up on Gutenberg texts, and they are at least usually high quality for what they are. Stuff that has even more problems are not really worth the effort of fixing (vs. starting over from a scan). But since we're discussing speedy here, perhaps some stipulation along the lines of it being obvious the uploader is not planning to further improve the text to avoid new contributors getting their work deleted overnight by an overzealous speedy; which has happened more than once on enwp where the new page patrollers exhibit remarkable zeal(otry). enWS is probably a small enough a community that that won't be a problem in practice, but might as well codify it in case someone with +sysop feels hyper-efficient that day. --Xover (talk) 15:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

 Oppose fix it do not delete. it is a wiki. the fact that newbies view us as a dumping ground for gutenburg ascii text, is not a deletion rationale. and it is bitey. how will we recruit those newbies to higher quality standards if the first response is delete. and a backlog of low quality text is not a deletion rationale. will you now go through and delete all non-scan backed texts? put on a maintenance category, and i will work it. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 16:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I think Jan Kameníček's suggestion above is a reasonable compromise. We could have some kind of delayed-speedy process, whereby works that are not keepable in their current form are tagged with {{OCR-errors}} or {{no license}} or whatever relevant template, and if they are untouched by the uploader for a certain amount of time (a month would probably be best) they can be considered abandoned copydump and speedied. I guess the CSD category in that case could be called abandoned copydump. This would also cover my stipulation in my own support comment. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

enWP has something they call proposed deletion: you tag an article and if nobody objects in 7 days the article is deleted with no further process. Anyone can contest the PROD by simply removing the tag. It is, aiui, designed to be something midway between a speedy delete and a full on deletion discussion. It could work for this provided there is some consensus on what is eligible for this process. --Xover (talk) 16:32, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

importing process from english is a sign of failure. i can work a backlog, but not under a sword of damocles. my time is taken up by other events such as art+feminism, and i cannot be bothered to monitor an artificial deletion-clock. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 16:34, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

The point of PROD is that it leads to deletion only if nobody objects. Once a PROD tag has been removed—which anyone can do—it may not be re-added. Let's say we set the limit to one month: if someone thinks the text is worth saving they simply remove the tag. Admins processing PROD requests also have the option to decline the request on their own cognisance if they feel it is worth saving. This is in contrast with speedy deletion which leads to automatic deletion in a matter of hours (some times; depends on when an admin happens by to process it). --Xover (talk) 17:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

With our small community, the PROD approach does not make sense. we need a general solution that doesn't require a nomination and discussion for every single copydump. Creating yet another procedure would be counterproductive for the community. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:13, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Far be it from me to argue too assiduously for this, but I think there is confusion about what the "proposed deletion" process actually is. It's practical effects are this: anyone may propose a text for deletion if it meets certain criteria. These criteria can be less stringent than speedy criteria because it takes longer before deletion happens and it can more easily be challenged. To propose a text for deletion any editor may place a {{prod}} template on a text, including a brief reason in a parameter. The template displays some suitable boilerplate on the text, as well as place the text in a maintenance category ([[:Category:Proposed deletions from February 2019]] say). If anyone disagrees they simply remove the {{prod}} template. Once removed it may not be re-added, so if anyone wants to pursue it further it would have to be through the full deletion process. If nobody objects, admins will process the maintenance categories after a suitable amount of time (can be anything: a week, a month, ... whatever we decide is good) and delete texts that have been proposed and not challenged. Admins have latitude to decline the proposed deletion if they think it improper or that the text is worth saving. This is a very lightweight process, but it is midway between speedy and full deletion discussion. It's not so hard and fast as speedy, which means less risk of biting and the criteria can be laxer; but it doesn't require a full discussion and assessing of consensus. Speedy deletion is, of course, still the fastest and easiest process and preferable iff the category of text can be neatly fit into relatively stringent criteria. I suggested adopting PROD because the discussion here indicated that perhaps the category of text wasn't entirely clear cut, and there were concerns with using speedy. --Xover (talk) 05:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: I suspect the confusion is because "proposed deletion" is what we call our existing process at WS:PD which is completely unlike and unrelated to what you are describing. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 11:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Slowking4:, while I appreciate your willingness to work a backlog, we still have a backlog dating back 10+ years of untouched copydumps, and the backlog increases much faster than any single willing editor can keep up with. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 11:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

all backlogs are small if the number of editors is larger. and it does not matter how many text dumps there are because it is not paper. the answer is recruit more editors by making it fun. deleting new low quality texts is not fun. i.e. you are creating a downward spiral by your gatekeeper behavior. we are increasing scan backed, and proofread pages. i do not see an increased proportion of low quality, rather, i see increased quality over time.[1] but you could show the statistics to support you fear based argument. you might well prefer we acted more like german wikisource, but we are bigger and growing faster. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 03:37, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Oppose. I'm with Slowking. Our barriers to entry are already too high. Let's not make them higher. Hesperian 07:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Oppose, per Slowking4 and Hesperian. --Zyephyrus (talk) 13:20, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

 Question How will this effect WikiProject US Code? For an example, I just sort of did a copy dump at United States Code/Title 39/Chapter 10. I like the modification that Xover where we implement a w:WP:PROD-like system (not WS:PD, but like EN-Wikipedia's version). This gives a chance for a contributor to contest the deletion. That's just me, though.–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: The text you linked to appears to be properly formatted and proofread, and is part of a larger project with clearly identified sources. Compare that to something like Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society/Volume III, which is the sort of text we are having trouble with. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Beleg Tâl, I didn't read your proposal thoroughly enough. In opposing, I was thinking about text copied from PG. Slowking4 also refers to PG in their oppose rationale, so possibly they were thinking the same. I would support speedy deletion of unsourced uncorrected OCR copydumps only. Hesperian 00:15, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl, @Hesperian: Ah... Yeah that would be something I'd want speedy deleted (especially under Hesperian's criteria if no one finds objections with it). Either way, I'm firmly going to say:  Support. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:52, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

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Repairs (and moves)

Designated for requests related to the repair of works (and scans of works) presented on Wikisource

Commentaries on the Laws of England

I noticed that the djvu files were renamed and moved so it is currently in an intermediate state of transition. I manually copied over volume 2 but it would great to have a bot do volumes 1,3, 4. I am fine to go through and update the links and transculions afterwards to point to the new locations but it would be great to not have it be internally inconsistent like it is now

Moves

• Index:Blackstone Commentaries Book 1.djvu to Index:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu
• Index:Blackstone_Commentaries_Book_3.djvu to Index:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu
• Index:Blackstone Commentaries Book 4.djvu to Index:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu

Removal

• Index:Blackstone_Commentaries_Book_2.djvu since already duplicated at Index:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu

MarkLSteadman (talk) 03:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Done mostly, only a few tweaks on Index pages left.— Mpaa (talk) 21:50, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Next time please do not duplicate pages, they can be moved.— Mpaa (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you!All set. MarkLSteadman (talk) 13:36, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Serial numbering of The Silver Cord

• Part 33, Part 34 and Part 35 of The Silver Cord should be respectively parts 34, 35, and 36. Please shift them... Levana Taylor (talk) 22:59, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

You can do it, got to More tab and move them. I would leave no redirect and fix the links that refer to them.— Mpaa (talk) 22:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Missing and duplicated pages in the Yale 3 Henry 6

In Index:Henry VI Part 3 (1923) Yale.djvu, pp. 122 and 123 are missing, replaced with duplicates of pp. 120 and 121. HathiTrust has two Google scans of this edition—#1 and #2—with the pages intact (if with Google's usual poor scan quality). Help? (@EncycloPetey: FYI)

PS. Apart from this snag, good progress is being made on Portal:The Yale Shakespeare. Most of the history plays have been proofread and are awaiting validation—*cough* hint *cough* :)—and a large part of the rest are already set up with an index, pagelist, some formatting guidelines, etc.; and EncycloPetey has done a near-miraculous job of finding good clean scans to proofread from. --Xover (talk) 08:56, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

@Xover:, no point in dropping hints here when we have WikiProject Validate/Noticeboard (WS:WPV/N). I actually do check to see what's posted there. I'd love if more people started using it, but that's just me. I'll get started on it now, but a post there to let others know wouldn't hurt! :D –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:57, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: Thanks, I wasn't even aware it existed. But in this particular instance I was just sneaking in a little nudge when the opportunity presented itself by way of having something else to post here. Your efforts at getting more pages here greened is very much appreciated! --Xover (talk) 15:17, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: I take whatever opportunity to plug WS:WPV that I can get! I totally feel you though. The struggle is real :D –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:23, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Replace OAW Vol 3?

The existing scan for Once a Week Volume 3 is pretty poor; would it be too much work to replace it with this Google Books scan instead? Levana Taylor (talk) 07:06, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) (Matthew Henry)

Further to Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2017-02#An_Exposition_of_the_Old_and_New_Testament_(1828)_(Matthew_Henry) I have just discovered that DJVU 1 skips from page v to page viii at [Page:An_Exposition_of_the_Old_and_New_Testament_(1828)_vol_1.djvu/15]. I'm surprised at this, as I did some checking of that section in Feb 2017. Can anyone help, or do I have to approach Princeton for the pages and then get someone to reorganize the text? PeterR2 (talk) 09:48, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Other discussions

Wikisource Community User Group representative vote

Dear all,

Sorry for writing in English and cross-posting this message.

Following the previous message, the vote for the representative of the Wikisource Community User Group to the Wikimedia Summit 2019 is now open.

There is two great candidates on page on meta to decide who will be the representative of the user group to the Wikimedia Summit. You can support a candidate now. All active Wikisource users can vote. The vote is ending on December 14, 2018.

Feel free to ask any question on the wikisource-I mailing list or on the talk page.

Thank you!

For the Wikisource Community User Group, Tpt (talk) December 8, 2018 at 18:53 (UTC)

Issue with the FI Template display.

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T209939

I am not sure if this a new problem or a local issue with my system, but thought I'd better raise it.

I've been using template FI to add images in "A general history for colleges and high schools" for a while now and everything has been displaying as expected, however tonight, the images I have floated left or right have all appear centered when I save the page.

Looking at the image as transcluded in the chapters they still display as expected i.e. to the left or right side of the page.

i.e. a recently added image is Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/219

Could someone confirm if this a site issue?

Thanks Sp1nd01 (talk) 22:26, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

yes, it looks like another side effect of this change. Zdzislaw (talk) 20:03, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

FWIW {{img float}} is still working. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:06, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Only inside a single paragraph, not across paragraphs. See eg. here. Ankry (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ankry: Thanks for the phabricator link. They should probably be made aware as well (explicitly) of the issues with image placement and unwanted paragraph separation. We have also noted (above) that padding on the left and right margins in the Page namespace has gone to zero, which is not desirable. Until now the focus has been on the window resizing, and not the other issues that are now surfacing. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:53, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

It seems that {{rule}} is also no longer displaying from the header in the Page namespace. E.g.: Page:Richard II (1921) Yale.djvu/120 --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:38, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

This last, at least is readily fixable. Simply replace

width: {{{width|{{{1|auto}}}}}};

in {{rule}} with flex-compatible

width: {{{width|{{{1|100%}}}}}};

I would do it myself except for it being protected… 114.74.46.230 05:22, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• there is no need to make any changes. {{rule}} (and many other) will be visible again after reverting the changes - see: phab:T209939#4840870. Zdzislaw (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

@Zdzislaw: Agreed. In fact I have some sympathy for the frustration of TheDJ over this change… but the fact he has not edited here for over four years implies the :flex proposal was based more on a theoretic basis than actually thought out and tested?

And while on the topic of untested alterations, have you (O.K. not you—no insult intended—more precisely somebody with editsitecss rights would be needed!) considered putting in place something like

div.mw-parser-output{display:block;}

into (maybe)MediaWiki:Common.css as a stop-gap until such time as the Phabricator patch is backed-out or sensibly resolved? 114.74.46.230 04:38, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

{{block right}} is also behaving oddly now. E.g. On this Page it displays to the left of the screen, but in Preview mode, the same code displays to the right (where it should). --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:18, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

That is really strange: I have copied the code out of the page namespace to my Sandbox, where it is displayed correctly... --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:54, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. When the same content is placed in a different namespace, or transcluded to another namespace, it's fine. All of the issues appear to stem from use in the Page namespace when items are displayed side-by-side. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:58, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Related spacing issue?

If the extra blank line near the bottom of Page:Choëphoroe (Murray 1923).djvu/22 in the Page namespace a related issue? There should not be an extra blank line above the last line of the ending stanza, and there isn't one coded in the text, but the software inserts one anyway. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:55, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Most probably not related. It gets worse though: note just above Choëphoroe_(Murray_1923)/Text#19 the necessary blank line between stanzas is missing. Two thoughts: should <poem> have been utilised; and/or should each stanza have been forced into its own, individual, paragraph <p>/</p>? 114.73.65.234 00:30, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

The <poem> tag is notoriously unreliable and fussy, especially across page breaks. I stopped using it ages ago. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:37, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I've frequently seen the parser put the last line of a page in a separate paragraph, long before the above issues started. It doesn't happen when it gets transcluded so I've just ignored it. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 00:35, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

When I first began I was encouraged to always check preview before saving. Recently however I note that every time one previews, a blank line is added to the bottom of the page (yes, three previews equals three blank lines!). As I know about this, I always make sure to delete before saving. There may be some who have not noticed this. Esme Shepherd (talk) 10:49, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Greek and polytonic templates

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T208901Resolved

The templates {{Greek}} and {{Polytonic}} force the text to start a new paragraph when used in the Page namespace, see e. g. Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/18, but this issue does not occur in other namespaces. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 12:09, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Not the same issue. Looks like the TemplateStyles plugin is causing the parser to split the paragraph in two. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:15, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I found this problem affected not only in this wiki but also in Wikipedia. In w:Zhang-Zhung language I saw this problem also occur in main namespace. So I think TemplateStyles plugin has a regression. --Great Brightstar (talk) 16:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I found <indicator> tag can be used to avoid this behavior, and the problem is fixed. --Great Brightstar (talk) 09:45, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I found Wikipedia put an icon at the right top corner of the help desk while I saw it on my phone, I will see how they did it, and is it possible to make use of that. --Great Brightstar (talk) 13:21, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh that is not so suitable than <indicator> tag which can inject an element only once, don't use that. --Great Brightstar (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

This bug is fixed, so everybody will enjoy to use TemplateStyles anyway. --Great Brightstar (talk) 05:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Chart2

Is this problem related? The template {{Chart2}} is no longer working reliably either. In some cases, the text and the connecting lines appear in different parts of the screen, in two separate diagrams instead of a single one. The effect does not seem to be limited to the Page namespace. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Or can someone see what's wrong in this chart?

				Tros.
Ilus.								Assaracus.
Laomedon.								Capys.
Priam.								Anchises.
								Æneas.

--EncycloPetey (talk) 21:47, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Wow that template is massively complex. What I've determined so far:

• In between the two "separate" diagrams are hidden empty elements
• The hidden empty elements are tagged as class=mw-empty-elt
• The class mw-empty-elt is added by the parser to all empty elements in order to resolve some issues from when Tidy was retired [2]
• The class mw-empty-elt is set to display:none, see phab:T129375, phab:T150742, phab:T172896, phab:T49673
• When you disable the display:none rule, the chart displays properly.

—Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

With that information, despite having no idea what's going on, I seem to have fixed it. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. The really frustrating part was that the example on the Template consistently worked, but every other instance I located or tried myself wouldn't work. Glad it has been corrected. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Possible fix coming

Pinging some of the folks bitten by or who might otherwise be interested in this problem: Sp1nd01, Zdzislaw, EncycloPetey, Ankry, Jan Kameníček, Beleg Tâl, Esme Shepherd, Narky Blert.

According to the latest Tech News from WMF (in the section #Tech News: 2019-02 below), they will deploy the 1.33/wmf.12 version of MediaWiki "on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10." As I understand it, that means we'll get this version on either January 9 (most likely) or January 10 (at the latest). The release notes for this version is at mw:MediaWiki 1.33/wmf.12, and for the ProofreadPage extension (the module that provides the Wikisource-specific functionality, including headers and footers and other special features in the Page: namespace) it lists "Avoids to use display: flex for now". This is the reversal of the change (deployed around December 15 last year) discussed in task T209939, which is the one that appears to have caused the majority of the issues discussed in this thread (and several other threads here and at /Help).

So, short version: it looks likely that these problems will go away today or tomorrow.

Which also means that any issues that still remain this coming weekend were not caused by this change and will have to be looked into and if necessary reported separately. Specifically, the whitespace / paragraph splitting issue discussed in #Greek and polytonic templates and #templatestyles inserting paragraph breaks does not appear to be fixed in the version under deployment now. --Xover (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Based on phab:T208901, the devs are still debating how to address the paragraph-splitting issues with templatestyles. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:28, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The 1.33/wmf.12 version of MediaWiki is now live here, and based on a quick check it fixes the missing horizontal rule issue, returns the header and footer fields to a reasonable size, and makes them resizable again. It would be a good idea for anyone who have experienced problems suspected to be related to this issue to test whether their problem is now resolved. Re-pinging previous list: Sp1nd01, Zdzislaw, EncycloPetey, Ankry, Jan Kameníček, Beleg Tâl, Esme Shepherd, Narky Blert. --Xover (talk) 20:54, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I can now see and (I trust) edit the header and footer boxes in English WS in both PaleMoon and WaterFox, which I could not before. They are still absent from multilingual WS; but that's a lesser problem, and it's always possible that the fix will percolate through slowly. Narky Blert (talk) 21:28, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Grrr. Problem solved. Preferences/Editing "Show header and footer fields when editing in the Page namespace" is disabled by default in multilingual WS. I've enabled it, and can now see and edit the header and footer boxes. Narky Blert (talk) 08:01, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

To confirm that I see the images are now floating left and right as expected, thanks. One other issue that I spotted on a random page proofread was that the blackletter font wasn't displaying, I thought it may have been related to this issue, but on just rechecking the page blackletter is still not displaying. i.e. Page:Vaccination a delusion.djvu/7 Sp1nd01 (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

@Sp1nd01: I can see the blackletter font from the computer I am currently using, so it may be a browser, OS, or personal skin issue, or something similar. Try a different browser or computer, I you can, and see if the problem persists. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I should have thought of trying that before! I confirm that if I use the Edge browser it does show the blackletter fonts fine, but my default Firefox browser still does not. I'm 100% certain that it used to display fine, maybe its caused by a recent update either to the browser or OS. Sorry for the false alarm. Sp1nd01 (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The blackletter font renders for me in both PM and WF. Oddly, in both browsers the blackletter line, unlike the other formatting, initially appeared in a plain font and only turned into blackletter at the very end of page loading. That suggests a coding issue of some sort. Narky Blert (talk) 04:53, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I can edit headers and footers again at my own desk - that's great! Esme Shepherd (talk) 22:33, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Cleaning up Once a Week namespace

Right now the namespaces for Once a Week are chaotic, because in the past some of the articles were created stating the volume number in Roman numerals and some in Arabic numerals (the existing parts of Volume IV are half-and-half). I think they should all be Roman numerals, since that is how the magazine itself does it. I started trying to clean it up but I was just making myself confused and introducing errors; so can a bot fix this? Change all pagenames and links using an Arabic-numbered volume to Roman-numbered? (Or vice versa, even, it just ought to be consistent.) Levana Taylor (talk) 03:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The preference on Wikisource is usually for Arabic numbering, unless there is some reason to do otherwise. Arabic numbering will sort properly, and be more easily handled with linking. Roman numerals have the disadvantage that they sort alphabetically, not numerically, so for large works with many parts or sections, Arabic numbering is probably the better way to go. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it would make the pagenames easier to handle if they were numbered in Arabic numerals. What is needed in that case is for someone (a bot?) to find and fix pagenames and links that currently use Roman numerals. Some of those I created myself (sorry) but some were there before me.

Nonetheless, all the existing headers (whatever the numbering in the pagename) are piped to display Roman numerals for the volumes. I think this makes sense.

The only remaining thing needed, in that case, is a modification of {{Once a Week link}}. It should display volume numbers as Roman numerals even though they would be entered as Arabic numerals. (Plus, unrelatedly, that template needs to be modified to allow displaying the "article" parameter as the visible title rather than having "link" override "article" the way it does now.) Levana Taylor (talk) 05:14, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Can I offer a time swap? If someone will take care of finding and correcting all Roman numerals in Once a Week, I'll spend a few hours on some tedious task you don't want to do. Levana Taylor (talk) 16:03, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The best place to seek Bot help is to post at Wikisource:Bot requests, because that it where people expect to see requests for help that requires a Bot. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Also check the sandbox for {{Article link/sandbox}} , I put something there that may be of interest. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:35, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey:: Thanks, will x-post.

@ShakespeareFan00:: Is that intended to display the volume as a Roman numeral? It doesn't seem to be working. Levana Taylor (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Did you specify the additional option? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:23, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks - Template:Article_link/testcases#Volume/issue ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:26, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The "roman_vol" parameter is great! (Just what I was thinking of.) Did you intend to change the quotes around the title to curly, though? Levana Taylor (talk) 23:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The template code changes are in the sandbox because it would need an interface admin to review and update the main template. did you want roman_iss function as well?ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:45, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

That'd probably be a good idea, although it's very rarely used. I can think of just one magazine offhand that didn't have volumes but did number its issues I, II, etc.Levana Taylor (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

(later) Can someone with the authority to do so please implement that very useful roman-numeral parameter? Thanks. Levana Taylor (talk) 06:45, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
   1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
   2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
   3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
   4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
   5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you.

Trizek (WMF) 15:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

I've signed us up. Please proceed to discuss discussions. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the subject:

• Due to the small number of regular editors, and the large number of content pages, discussions on most talk pages will not get any response. More experienced editors will know to post on the Scriptorium directly, but this is not obvious to new users. I continue to find old unanswered questions asked by new users on talk pages throughout the site.
• Sometimes the flow of a discussion is confusing, especially when editors don't consistently indent their comments. I've heard that the Flow extension resolves some of this, but I haven't tried it. I assume we've discussed using this extension, and had good reason for rejecting it.
• The biggest pipe dream for me regarding discussion is to more easily include other projects (particularly other wikisources) in discussions. Maintaining parallel discussions on two separate wikis is possible (and we've done it many times) but too clunky for general use. And I think there is a lot the wikisources can learn from each other.

I'm curious to hear what others have to contribute. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree about the indenting issue. The biggest thing I see, however, that's specific to Wikisources is that it'd be great to have a single place for discussion for each proofreading work — i.e. a unification of all the talk pages from the Index, Page, and main namespaces (and for all of the 'discussion' tabs on all those places to go to one single place). Obviously there are exceptions (newspapers, encylopaedias, etc.), but most works don't have very much discussion and it'd be nice to make it easier to follow (e.g. a 'watch this work' button). It could even include the work's Wikidata item. Sam Wilson 05:43, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Sam, this idea came up at the German Wikipedia as well (under the modest proposal that talk pages just be abolished, and everything redirected to Portal_talk:  ;-). Can't that be done now, though? It seems like a bot run to redirect all of the subpages would be sufficient. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

yeah, veterans know to go to index talk about work format issues. but some threading together would be better. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 02:39, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

I've tried conversing with the Flow extension and find it to be non-intuitive and frustrating. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:50, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

As I just signed myself up for closing the En:Wikipedia discussion, I will express my Wikisource only issues with communication here. There is no convenient way to be reached when I am not on the computer at home. (Text message alerts or SOMETHING would be really nice in this regard). If I can reply to a person on Twitter via text then getting direct messages on here (instead of email) should be equally as possible. I don't want everyone knowing my gosh dang email. We don't have an app that I am aware of. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 17:32, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

well, there is wikisurfer, but it seems to be broken. we need a good reader, and off line reader, but that would require some dev time. i have been communicating on FB, Telegram, twitter. the dysfunction of talk tends to impact the other projects more. if we had a more VE non-wikicode interface with more newbies, then talk might get used here more. to the extent people are helpful, then it is useful; when they are not, then not so much. -- Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 12:31, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

• Most of wiki contain information that are partially complete and grammatically incorrect. As a suggestion, we can talk to content writers, editors to edit the pages. Being a Language Verifier myself, I can do editing for pages wherein I have knowledge with. —unsigned comment by Dhamayanthi Sivaram (talk) .

  Wikisource doesn't have "content writers". We're not creating original content on Wikisource. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Issue: Wikipedia does not allow edits from people - logged in or otherwise - via VPN proxies.

• I understand Wikipedia's desire to avoid bot-spam or malicious content from people who block their IP address.
• The other side of this issue is that there my be people - like me - who may not want to comment with an un-blinded connection. In my case, I spend a fair amount of time abroad, in Moscow Russia, and it is well known that the Russian government loves to spy on what people do. Right now I am using a VPN connection to an endpoint in NYC, and - according to Russian law - I can be heavily fined and face a significant prison term for using a VPN. However, I really hesitate to communicate, e-mail or otherwise, without a VPN connection to an endpoint outside of Russia.
• Maybe there is a person in China who wants to create and post an article that is not as flattering to the communist Chinese government as they would like? He can't do it without some way to get past the Great Firewall.
• I know that I can request an exemption, but I've already done that and had it turned down because "I don't contribute enough" And how am I supposed to do that when I can't contribute at all? Now that I've retired, I have more time to participate and would like to do so. In fact, this page - and my two talk pages I just created - seem to be the only pages I can post on.

May I respectfully request a reconsideration of a blanket ban on VPN connections? Perhaps a ban on people who haven't logged in, or have been members for a short time? Maybe edits/articles from that source can be subjected to heightened moderation before being posted?

Jharris1993 (talk) 14:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains

Why is this deleted?--115.27.198.88 15:49, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

(1) no source, (2) no license, (3) no formatting, (4) no author, (5) drive-by copy-paste dump with no verifiable page scans, per this advice:

"While a djvu file at Commons is not currently a requirement, there has been discussion of making it a requirement. Your work will have a better chance of standing the test of time, if it can stand the test of validation to an available scan. Because Commons is a sister site under the same organization as Wikisource, as long as Wikisource, Wikipedia and related sites exist, your work is likely to survive if the page images are stored at Commons."

Drive-by unformatted copy-paste dumps do not add value to Wikisource. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:21, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

here is the IA [3] and gutenburg [4] shouldn’t be too hard to create an index. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 01:55, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would have been so quick to delete, but Project Gutenberg is a major project that is not going to just go away any time soon. There's no value in just cutting and pasting the text and dropping it here, especially if you're not adapting it to wiki formatting.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:08, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it came from Gutenberg, and maybe it didn't. No source was given. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:28, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

This edit comment for the creation was "http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5337/pg5337.txt". That's pretty clear.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. You might infer that it's the source from the edit comment, but it's not clear whether it is the source, or that it is the full work, part of the work, a citation, or what. None of this justifies drive-by copydumps. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Should we add drive-by copydumps to WS:CSD? Otherwise, a discussion at WS:PD would have been preferable. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:20, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Every discussion of IP drive-by copydumps ends in either (a) deletion or (b) someone starting a new project with a new scan and Index, which means the original copydump is done away with in favor of the scan-backed version. No discussion has ever resulted in retaining the copydump. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:23, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: I have officially proposed it above: see #Adding copydumps to WS:CSD. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

here is the index Index:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu. -- Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 16:12, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

IA Upload bot is down

@Phe, @Samwilson, @Tpt: the IA upload bot is down, FYI —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:54, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

• @Beleg Tâl: Do you mean toolforge:ia-upload? It seems to be up again now, and has been used recently. Might have been a random transient error. —Sam Wilson 22:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
  • @Samwilson: yes it came up since. Thought you fixed it. Sorry to bother you over just a little hiccup. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:23, 25 February 2019 (UTC)
    • @Beleg Tâl: No worries! Ping me anytime. I've also added an uptimerobot tracker for ia-upload, so will be notified of any downtime (I thought I'd done that ages ago, but it seems not). Sam Wilson 23:26, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-09

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

Recent changes

• There is a new version of the iOS Wikipedia app. It has for example syntax highlighting and new toolbars to make it easier to write wikitext. It also has night mode, a find-on-page function and other things. You can give feedback and suggestions. [5]

Changes later this week

• When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [6]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 February. It will be on all wikis from 28 February (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:17, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Phrase Books and Other Multi-Lingual Documents

What's the Wikisource policy or guideline for side-by-side English-Other Language documents? Multi-language documents such as those listed below, which were published New York. Should they be transcribed here in English Wikisource? If not, where?

• Side-by-side translation -- e.g. (1852) "Freibrief und nebengesetze der Deutschen gesellschaft der stadt New-York".[7] The document language on archive.org is "German," the cover is in English, the document is bilingual, side-by side, English-German.
• Phrase book -- e.g. (1855) "English, French and German Conversational Phrase-book: For the Use of Students and Travellers, etc."[8]

-- Outlier59 (talk) 03:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Multilingual works in which the target language is English are welcome at English Wikisource. Normally we handle side-by-side translations by proofreading the English parts on English Wikisource and the other language parts on the other language Wikisource. For an example of this, see Index:Aida Libretto English.djvu and it:Indice:Aida Libretto English.djvu. Phrase books, dictionaries, and similar works targeted at English speakers can be placed here in entirety. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Beleg Tâl. That's very clear. How is the "iwtrans it.wikisource.org." note on the no-proofing pages added -- such as on the top of Page:Aida Libretto English.djvu/8? -- Outlier59 (talk) 16:53, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Outlier59: you use the template {{iwpage}}. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: So half the document is transcluded to namespace in each language Wikisource? Or can both be transcluded here? -- Outlier59 (talk) 17:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Outlier59: The English section is transcluded to English Wikisource, and the other language section to the other language Wikisource. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl:, thank you again. I'll try to add some of this information to Wikisource:Multilingual texts. --Outlier59 (talk) 17:27, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl, @Outlier59:I strongly diasagree with the view that only the English part of side-by side translations should be added here.

• If it were true, the template {{bilingual}} would not have been founded.
• The main aim why the original publishers decided to publish the work bilingually was that they wanted to provide the readers who can read both languages with the opportunity to compare the translation with the original. If we add only the English translation here, we strip the work of this possibility and destroy the publishers' intentions.
• As for "target language is English": with side by side translations the target language is also English, only the book is also enriched with the possibility of comparison to those who can read both languages.
• Bilingual publications are categorized at Category:Bilingual publications. Only a few have been added here so far, but it will be great if some more follow. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I understand that contributors who do not speak the original langugae of the translated work add only the English translation: it is absolutely understandable and it is better to add only the translation than nothing. But it some contributors are able and willing to add both language sides of such publication, it would be a pity not to allow them to do so. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: you can disagree if you like. This is the way that is preferred, and which is accepted on all the various language Wikisources that we have dealt with on this issue. Sometimes it must be done this way, such as Index:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu which has no English translation and is therefore out of scope on enWS, but which has an English introduction which is not permitted on Greek Wikisource. Some works are bilingual for convenience of publication only, such as Index:National anthem act Canada.pdf, and in such cases the non-English text should not be hosted on English Wikisource. In some cases you can use your discretion and host a parallel translation here—but this should only be done where the author clearly intends for the English and non-English to be viewed in parallel, and even then splitting between wikisources is an acceptable alternative. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 20:12, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I do not know if it is preferred or not (I remember a similar discussion some longer time ago where somebody adviced adding it to mul instead of here, you adviced splitting it among two wikisources and somebody other agreed with placing it here entirely, with no clear preference of the community as a whole). Here I have just provided arguments why it would be a harm not to allow side by side translations in their entirety, and showed three examples which had been added in this way and nobody had objected against it. To sum up my opinion: if only translation is added–well done, if both language versions are added side by side–even better. Jan Kameníček (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that side-by-side works should be side-by-side somewhere. If they are out-of-scope at English wikisource, there should be somewhere else to put them. What happens to the principle of reproducing the original text as it was originally published, if you leave out the part of it that's not in English? Levana Taylor (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

In most cases, the English is transcribed here, and the other language text on its home WS. There is a tool developed that allows texts from two WS projects to appear side-by-side, or at least there used to be. I'm uncertain whether the tool has been maintained and still works. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

If such a tool exists, I would be really interested. However, the biggest problems with transcluding content from other wikisources that I see are: 1) other wikisources have different formatting templates which are not compatible with en.wikisource environment, 2) some wikisources even do not have templates for some specific kinds of formatting that we are used to do here. For these reasons it seems easier to store everything here at en.ws (which does not mean that it cannot be stored at some other language ws as well). --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Some comprehension of a foreign language (or use of Google Translate or a translation dictionary) is necessary to discuss documents and do edits using a foreign language interface on the various language Wikisources. But I don't think comprehension of a foreign language is necessary for all editorial work in foreign languages -- and in some cases "knowing" the language might lead to "corrections" to the original printed text -- which we don't usually do on Wikisource without indicating it's an annotation.

What Wikisource editors should know before editing are the individual characters of the edited written language, not the necessarily the words. From my experience, typefaces such as Fraktur can be converted to UTF-8 Latin characters -- with some uncertainties (such as "J" and "I", which render the same, or "B" and "V", which often look very similar). I don't know the character sets of most non-Latin-based languages, so I don't edit those documents.

My point here is that many people who edit any language Wikisource in good faith -- in many languages -- are not polyglots. I greatly appreciate the assistance of people proficient in multiple languages. I am not myself proficient in multiple languages. I simply edit Latin characters as I see them.

That said, "discussion" and "interface pages" might be a problem on Wikisource for those of us who don't understand a foreign language well enough to be confident that we are understanding and writing appropriately. I can't speak for others, but for me I am hesitant to join discussions in foreign languages. -- Outlier59 (talk) 03:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Small admin fix needed

See Template_talk:Author#Bibliowiki_has_changed_its_name_back_to_Wikilivres. This should take 30 seconds. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:08, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Done —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: Still not showing up after 24 hours and purging the cache. E.g. Author:John Ernst Steinbeck. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:58, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Koavf: that's not what I thought you were asking for, thanks for pointing it out. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Nice. All Done now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Slow contributions...

I seem to have slowed down in proofreading, not by any design though. Is this a good thing? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

There is no deadline here; there is no minimum requirement for a daily/weekly/monthly contribution (nor is there a maximum); some works require more mental energy than others; some works are messy and complex, while others are straightforward; real life needs to happen for all of us. In other words, a slow down in contributions just happens sometimes and it's not something to worry about—or even spend much time thinking about. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

? template

In February 2018, {{?}} was changed by @Χ from a redirect to {{Symbol missing}} (as it had been since 2008) to a template which doesn't seem to fit any purpose that {{Symbol missing}} or any of the {{* missing}} templates currently provide. Given how few pages currently use it (14 at time of writing), and how only one page attempts to use the tooltip, what should be done with it? -Einstein95 (talk) 21:22, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Huh, I like what they've done to it. Maybe I'll start using it more. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind, few pages use it because its purpose is to be replaced by the missing text asap ;) χ_chi (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

There should be a rule demanding that authors of templates should provide documentation to their templates together with or immediately after their launching. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:52, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@Χ: could we trouble you to fill out Template:?/doc ? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:31, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: Done, and thanks for the reminder. χ_chi (talk) 09:58, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

CSS not displaying

On Optimism (Keller), the CSS for the horizontal rules does not display. It does work on individual pages but not the transcluded work or the index. I've searched the Help: namespace and don't see the solution. Can someone break down how to resolve this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

If you mean what I think you mean, it's not CSS; it's that you need {{nop}} before wiki syntax like tables, headers, rules, and so forth, if that syntax is on the first line of the page in pagespace. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: This is actually not the problem. First off, if I have {{nop}} at the end of a page like 11 and then start the page with a horizontal rule, such as at 13, that will not fix the problem. I have to still move the horizontal rule from the first line. (See the edit history of Page:Helen Keller - Optimism.pdf/13: I had to insert a line break to make this page transclude properly, even with {{nop}} at the end of Page:Helen Keller - Optimism.pdf/11.) The problem is that if you see the transcluded pages at Optimism (Keller), the horizontal rules are standard black. If you look at individual pages, such as Page:Helen Keller - Optimism.pdf/13, the rules are a dark orange color because at Index:Helen Keller - Optimism.pdf, I have included the following CSS: hr {border-top: 1px solid #fd4027; }. Do you know why horizontal rules are dark orange on individual pages but are black at the actual page itself? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:52, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

@Koavf: AFAIK the CSS on the Index page does not affect mainspace. (I could be wrong about this.) To my understanding, you'll need inline styles or TemplateStyles for that. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Hm. Seems kind of silly to have CSS that just displays for the Page: namespace... What could be the point of that? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:58, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-10

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You can give feedback on the future of talk pages.
• The mobile website will use the standard fonts on your computer or phone instead of a generic font. This will make it easier to read text in many scripts. [9][10]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Copyright of An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature

I would like to ask about the copyright status of An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature. The archive.org page states that the book is out of copyright, but I cannot find out the reason, as the book was published in 1929 and the editor and translator (Paul Selver) died in 1970. Does anybody have any idea, why it is allegedly out of copyright? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 17:16, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks as though it was uploaded from India, which has different copyright laws. It is likely that IA will restrict access and amend the copyright once someone points out this issue. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

doubt it. they might well keep it, until the DMCA comes, not that any but wikimedians noticed. wikimedia copyright enforcement is out of the mainstream. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 19:22, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I have actually seen IA take down or restrict access to items before, but in cases where the works were higher-profile than this one. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:21, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I see, thanks. I was just curious if there is a way of adding the text here... Apparantely there is not :-( --Jan Kameníček (talk) 22:59, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

HathiTrust has a baker's dozen of Selver's books. I can retrieve those that can't be downloaded from HathiTrust or Archive.org. I suspect at least part of that volume was first published in Anthology of modern Slavonic literature in prose and verse.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:22, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

yeah, you might go to https://wikilivres.org/wiki/Main_Page which is +50. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 22:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. The biggest obstacle for me is that I did not find there anything similar to our proofreading extension :-(

Honestly, what I do not understand is, why the independent Wikilivres need to exist. It would be much better if the WMF did not keep all the servers in the US and were transformed into a more international organization based in various parts of the world. It is a pity that works of European authors which are in public domain in their home countries, cannot be added here because of different US copyright laws. I believe that the problem would be solved if part of our servers were placed somewhere in Europe and such works were stored there. It does not apply only to Wikisource content, but to the content of Commons as well. It does not make much sense that e. g. a contributor based in Hungary, adding works of Hungarian writers (originally published in Hungary in Hungarian language) to the Hungarian Wikisource, has to follow US laws, the only reason being that the servers are placed solely in the US :-(

(By the way, some smaller language wikisources silently ignore the fact that the servers are in the US and follow only their national laws instead. If somebody points them out one day, half of their content will be deleted, unless something similar to what I have suggested above is performed). --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:12, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The ProofreadPage extension exists at Wikilivres also; it's just temporarily broken at the moment. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

I see, thanks! --Jan Kameníček (talk) 13:30, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

International copyright is complex, but note Project Gutenberg got sued in Germany over Thomas Mann books even though those works are PD in the US, Project Gutenberg has no non-US servers and it is solely a US organization. If Wikimedia had a official German presence, I don't think they could escape a legal obligation to avoid offering works PD in the US but not in Germany to German citizens. They might have to selectively region-lock files and pages or remove them altogether.

Wikilivres is probably the safest way to do this. It's no more vulnerable than Project Gutenberg is, which is about as good as you can get.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikilivres needs to exist because US does not have w:Rule of the shorter term. US is the best of a bad lot, but not the best of all possible copyright regimes. and our sharing copyright community is constantly under siege by the copyright rent seekers, i.e. SOPA and EU w:Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. we need a flexible response among many jurisdictions, so that money cannot buy the entire internet. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 20:24, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

{{nop}} not working

This has been going on for a while now. It was reported at Help but I'm posting it again here. Can't what was done be undone? Cheers, Zoeannl (talk) 07:56, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not see any problems with {{nop}}, checking it in Firefox and Chrome. Can you provide a link to a problematic place? --Jan Kameníček (talk) 09:05, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: The problem is not with the {{nop}} template, but rather with the MediaWiki:Gadget-NopInserter.js gadget. I've suggested a fix for it, but don't have rights to edit it. —Sam Wilson 04:38, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Roman volume numbers in Article Link template

In the course of this this past conversation (18-19 February), I requested a parameter that would display volume numbers as Roman numerals in the {{article link}} template, and ShakespeareFan00 created "roman_vol." But it hasn't been implemented in the template yet, and although I requested further comment no one has replied.

I do think this parameter would be useful; roman numerals are a very standard way of stating volumes. Disagreement or agreement? Can someone implement this? Levana Taylor (talk) 16:32, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

As you know I implemented this in the sandbox, you would have to ask someone else to swap in the code to the actual template.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:34, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

True; I'm wondering why no one who is able to do so has commented. I guess I must be posting in the wrong place. Where should I put this message, then? Levana Taylor (talk) 16:25, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-11

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

Recent changes

• Pages can use geocoordinates from Wikidata with the mw.wikibase.entity:formatStatements Lua function or the #statements parser function. If they do, they will now be shown using a Kartographer <maplink> if the wiki can use Kartographer. You can report bugs or ask questions on Phabricator.
• There is now an EventStream to see when links are added or removed on Wikimedia wikis. You can read the discussions and plans.

Problems

• Some wikis will not be able to edit for a short period of time on 19 March (UTC). This will start at 15:00 UTC. It will last up to 15 minutes but probably shorter. You can see the list of affected wikis. This is because of network maintenance. You can still read the wikis.
• Editors who use Firefox to edit with the visual editor had a problem with copying text. When they tried to select text that included footnotes, templates or block images in the middle they would often only get part of the text. This has now been fixed. [11]
• Some maps didn't work for a while on 8 March. This has been fixed. [12][13]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:29, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

You may now become 'Wikisource — A Wikipedia project'

According to this discussion at Meta, Wikimedia Foundation is considering rebranding. This means for you, that rather than Wikisource being a Wikimedia project, it would become a Wikipedia project.

The proposed changes also include

• Providing clearer connections to the sister projects from Wikipedia to drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to all movement projects.

While raising such awareness in my opinion is a good thing, do you think classifying you as a 'Wikipedia' project would cause confusion? Do you think newcomers would have a high risk of erroneously applying some of Wikipedia principles and policies here which do not apply? If so, what confusion? Could you please detail this. I have raised a query about that HERE in general, but I am looking for specific feedback.

Please translate this message to other languages. --Gryllida (talk) 23:03, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• Agree that rebranding would cause confusion. In my experience, most WM projects have a policy "X is not Wikipedia" to explain to participants that the project operates independently and with different community norms and standards. Making everyone a "Wikipedia" project would increase the confusion. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:59, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you for this comment and for sharing it at Meta. How would you feel about rebranding from 'Wikipedia' to 'Wikimania' umbrella? Perhaps this sounds more colorific (thus resolving the concerns from Wikimedia) and does not cause as much confusion as 'Wikipedia' umbrella name. Gryllida (talk) 01:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

  Wikimania would be fine with me. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:19, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Please leave notes here at Meta if you like: there is a brainstorming section, where people have an opportunity to leave their opinion on each suggested name. Gryllida (talk) 00:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Downloaden epub

Hi, something strange is happening by downloading the epub of Bevan - Sir William Petty (1894). Only the preface is in the epub, not the rest of the book. When I download another book by instance The New Carthage then there is no problem. Can anybody tell me what is wrong with the book of Sir William Petty or what is wrong with my action?WeeJeeVee (talk) 13:15, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

This happens when the Table of Contents is not included on the first page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:06, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

f x ſ in United States Reports/Volume 1

I looked at some pages of the United States Reports/Volume 1 and it seems that none of the original long ſ which were wrongly replaced by f by the OCR software were corrected during the proofreading process (see e. g. Respublica v. Roberts), although the pages were tagged as "proofread"! It seems like to much work to correct everything manually, could some bot do the job? I also think that this has raised considerable doubts about the quality of the proofreading work in these pages generally, so I suggest the bot could also set the status of all of these pages to "not proofread", until somebody proofreads them again. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I have just realized that it cannot be corrected by the bot, as it cannot distinguish where the "f" is correctly and where not :-( So it probably could just untag the "proofread" pages. I have not checked the other volumes. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

A bot could correct certain patterns, like the Britiƒh mentioned below. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks to me that the proofreader chose to use 'f' deliberately (otherwise how would one explain Britiƒh) without relaizing that there was a separate character for 'ſ'. If the rest of it is fine, you might consider simply leaving a note on the Index talk page and leaving it for validation. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Template:SPARQL

Please can someone who holds the necessary permissions import d:Template:SPARQL and any sub-templates, from Wikidata?

It's necessary to allow Wikidata queries to be posted here. An example of its use can be seen at species:Wikispecies:Biographies with no identifiers, which I intend to replicate for this project, at Wikisource:Biographies with no identifiers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:38, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I can import the template for you. Does it do anything besides document and link to an external tool? If not, then it seems to me that a dedicated page in Wikisource-space isn't the right place for it—wouldn't it be better to place the template under your own User page? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: It's a formatting template for use on talk pages or project-space pages, used to pretty-print w:SPARQL code and provide a link to try the query out on Wikidata. It will be useful in, e.g., discussions about how to implement various bits of Wikidata integration in other templates (like {{author}}, which currently gets confused if a Wikidata item has multiple dates of birth or death etc. and could use a better query for these things). Not sure there's a lot of SPARQL hackers on enWS, but it will do little harm and will be very useful in those instances when it is needed. --Xover (talk) 13:38, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I can see how it would be useful on talk pages and similar places. I still feel that pages like species:Wikispecies:Biographies with no identifiers are unnecessary on Wikisource, but if the larger community is okay with them I will not oppose them. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Done I have imported the template. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:46, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

OCR bot not running

Seems the OCR bot is broken: when clicking the OCR button, you get the message: ws_ocr_daemon robot is not running. :-( --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:11, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It is already OK. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:36, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Biographies with no UIDs

The page I have created at Wikisource:Biographies with no identifiers contains a Wikidata query which returns a list of people with a Wikisource page, but with no UIDs (VIAF, ISNI, ORCID, etc) on Wikidata - in other words, if {{Authority control}} is used on their biography, it will have no content.

There are currently 2,230 people in the list.

[Caveat: a few of those pages are in the form Woman of the Century/Ada Iddings Gale; not in Author: namespace; should they be linked from Wikidata, as on Ada Iddings Gale (Q41171030)?] Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Works on Wikisource, including subpages of Woman of the Century, should not be linked to Wikidata items representing people. Wikidata has properties that can be used for connecting the person-item to the work-about-person-item, that should be used instead. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 20:57, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I've raised the issue on Wikidata: d:Project chat#Incorrect Wikisource links. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:51, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: That link points to a page that does not exist. I believe you meant d:Wikidata:Project chat#Incorrect Wikisource links --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:51, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

the fact that wikisource has individuals without authority control id’s is good. (author or subject of a biography) need to add them as notable wikidata people, even if they never produced a work in a library. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 11:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I can't parse half of that, but why is it good to not have authority control IDs? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

because you have to gather in the messy data before you can improve it. and need to clarify the ontology of depicted people. the fact that depicted people do not have authority control ID’s means they are not in someone else’s database, but we are now constructing an id in our database. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 13:05, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

The fact that no Authority ID is present in Wikidata does not mean there is no authority data in any database. The point here is that we need a means to (a) identify which persons have a biography on WS, but lack an Auth. ID on Wikidata, and (b) determine whether or not there is an Auth. ID to be found in the various online databases, which can then be added. This requires (c) some means of correctly matching persons with records in other databases. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:18, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry with my first (or 2nd) question on Scriptorium but maybe this is the place where my question should be posted. (I'm never sure) So, an author does not exist on Wikidata or here and where should he exist or be created first? See my discussion with myself about it here on my talk page. Thank you.--Level C (talk) 16:45, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

If the person is an Author, then you create the Author page here first, then create a Wikidata item. Once the WD item exists, you link to the WS Author page from Wikidata. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

OK. Thank you much! I'll try to create it here soon. --Level C (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-12

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

Changes later this week

• When you use rollback you will be able to get a confirmation prompt on most wikis. It asks you if you wanted to do the rollback. This is to avoid misclicks. You will have to opt in to get it. On German Wikipedia it will be an opt-out feature from 28 March. [14][15]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Admins will be able to block someone from editing a page or a namespace. This already works on a few Wikimedia wikis. You can read more. If your wiki wants to be an early tester of this, you can tell the developers. [16]
• Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:44, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Problem with Once a Week volume 10 index

The index page for Once a Week volume 10 seems to be damaged -- what happened to the file? Levana Taylor (talk) 02:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

It got deleted from Commons by commons:User:Túrelio because it "has nothing to do with Betty Bossi AG" (whatever that means). I have requested undeletion. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)