User:Wikijeff/Archives/-20060710

Hello, Wikijeff, welcome to Wikisource! Thanks for your interest in the project; we hope you'll enjoy the community and your work here. If you need help, see our help pages (especially Adding texts and Wikisource's style guide). You can discuss or ask questions from the community in general at the Scriptorium. The Community Portal lists tasks you can help with if you wish. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page. :)

—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Unicode fonts

Hi, Wikijeff.

First off, it seems that the document you imported is a duplicate or a pre-existing article, so I would advise you to compare what you did with the Unicode conversion on the newer on and transfer that to the older version. Now, about the font. I'm not an expert on fonts (aside from Times New Roman, I know of only a few, and most of them I'm only aware of that they exist. So, I can't suggest a new font that would allow for the surfs (although acquiring one would be good). If you can find one, however, let me know. As long as it doesn't differ from Ariel too much (preferably, it should be Ariel with the curl quotation marks), I don't think there will be much problem in changing the font.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:08, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm curious, did you already change the font? In my present browser, Firefox, it shows up with curled quotes. I've had the same desire in the past, and found the "classic" skin (see preferences) fixed the problem, but at the moment I'm using the default skin & it looks fine. Wolfman 01:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, haven't changed anything. Can't really explain why you see it. I us IE and can't. Probably a weird MediaWiki thing.

Hmmm, I see them in IE too, using XP. Odd, because I didn't used to with this same computer. Using the "classic" skin sets the fonts via a css. One possibility would be to figure out what font it sets under the classic skin, then hard-code that into the web page with the html font property. That way, it would show up under any skin. The wonders of css are, however, beyond my skill at the moment. Wolfman 03:33, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at Help:Special characters and the last sentence where there is a link to a WP page about unicode fonts and Mediawiki.It looks as though running IE causes problems, but there are mentioned Registry workrounds. I wish everyone would run Firefox :-). It also helps to run font programs like Code 2000 on your PC. As a non-user of MS Office and Word (I am a Lotus Smart Suite fan), I cannot access Ariel Sans Unicode at all, so have to run alternatives. There is also some stuff on this link about having Unicode instructions on a personal CSS. But much of it is beyond me, so far. If this browser/font compatability is going to be a problem for many users, maybe we ought to have a help page about it, since it might help prevent repeated moans that we have edited/coded something wrongly. In my conversations with —Zhaladshar ^(Talk), I know there are characters I have suggested for the insert bar that he cannot read, but I can using Firefox and my personal font set up. Apwoolrich 08:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Count of Monte Cristo

Thanks for working on adding The Count of Monte Cristo. I was wondering, though, especially since it's early on, if you could change the chapter links to something along the lines of The Count of Monte Cristo - Chapter ## instead of the way it currently is. With it being Chapter ## - Chapter title here, it's pretty ambiguous as to which chapter it's a part of. Thanks!—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure thing. Since there are so many texts that are split up here (most novels are split up according to their chapters), having the link read The Count of Monte Cristo - Chapter ## adds a bit of specificity as to which book the chapter belongs. It helps a lot of for some reason the book/chapters are orphaned or if they are dead-end pages. And when people peruse the Recent Changes, they know right away what exactly was changed (i.e. what chapter of what book). The main reason, though, is to add a bit of specificity to the chapter, as per our policy to be found at Wikisource:Style guide.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I don't think I was clear when I asked my request--my fault. On the actual display for CoMC, the chapter number and its title should be displayed, but the chapter page name should be changed. For instance, the chapter page name for the first chapter should be The Count of Monte Cristo/Chapter 1, but it should be displayed as Chapter 1: WHATEVER THE CHAPTER TITLE IS. So, in essence, the layout should look like [[The Count of Monte Cristo - Chapter 1|Chapter 1: WHATEVER THE CHAPTER TITLE IS]]. I'll change this later tonight to take some of the drudgery work off of you (unless you really would like to change it yourself).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Splitting up works

Hm, that questions a bit hard to answer. But the general rule of thumb I usually follow is if the work is 200kb or less, I don't see a need to split it up. Any larger, that might be a good idea--and the text should be split "logically" (i.e., by the natural division of the work, whether it be parts, or chapters, etc.), if applicable. There are still a number of users whose browsers crash trying to load very long pages, and some users who can't edit others because it would take upwards of 10 to 15 minutes to load it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

See also Help:page length. Apwoolrich 18:56, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Gutenberg

Honestly, I don't see why we need to cite Gutenberg if we import their works over here. As the work itself is PD (and I don't believe just OCRing a text and correcting it qualifies for copyright protection--although I might be wrong), I don't see it important to cite the text's provenance. However, if you want to do so, go ahead. I think there are a few templates (try looking at Wikisource:Template messages for it) that include the source of the text and would allow for a Gutenberg eText number.

Really, though, there are no currently existing rules for citing a Gutenberg text (or a text from any other source, for that matter). So aside from a template, I don't think there is any more conspicuous way to do it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

no, neither ocr nor formatting nor "typographical flourishes" qualify for copyright. there must be a "modicum of creativity", something qualifying as an "original work". at least that's what the us govt says. (all the quoted phrases can be googled with copyright & site:.gov to find the links). i do think it is useful to list the provenance. credit where credit is due. Wolfman 03:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

But there is an outfit with the full EB1911 online claiming copyright not on the text but on the HTML coding used to make the web pages! Apwoolrich 08:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

that's pretty questionable. however, i've looked before and been unable to find a precedent or rule explicitly addressing html tags. i suspect that falls under the category "typographical flourishes". i'll google around a bit more on that one. Wolfman 16:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not about copyright: it's about giving credit where credit is due. In this way the original source of the work is knwon to all (wich will assist in finding errors in the etext). Also, this should increase the confidence of the average user of Wikisource that the wikified copy of work X is a good copy. Finally, if said user wants a hard-copy, they can get it by tracking down the source. —Wikijeff

Spoken Hebrew

Hi! I'm glad you want to learn modern Hebrew. I'm no expert on the materials available, but I do know that there are thousands: books, recordings, online courses... The best thing is to do a Google search.

If you really want to learn, of course, then the real way to learn a language is to live it. Come to Israel someday and do an Ulpan!Dovi 21:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Greek in Utopia

I suggest you add a request in Help:Requests for assistance and see what happens. I was moved to write this help page after noting your problem. Kind regards Apwoolrich 08:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Rashi

Hi, I once thought about that too, and when I checked it out I came to the same conclusion you did: They are too new, including the classic Silberman translation (which is the best one).

In Hebrew we are working on he:Mikraot Gedolot, which includes a newly edited edition of Rashi, but it is very slow, verse by verse, and will probably take many years. Dovi 20:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Talmud

w:Talmud says:

There are four (emphasis mine) contemporary translations of the Talmud into English:

   * The Soncino Hebrew-English Talmud Isidore Epstein, Soncino Press. In this translation, each English
page faces the Aramaic/Hebrew page. Notes on each page provide additional background material. See also:
Soncino Talmud site.
   * The Talmud of Babylonia. An American Translation, Jacob Neusner, Tzvee Zahavy, others. Atlanta:

1984-1995: Scholars Press for Brown Judaic Studies. Complete.

   * The Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud, Mesorah Publications. In this translation, each English

page faces the Aramaic/Hebrew page. The English pages are elucidated and heavily annotated; each Aramaic/Hebrew page of Talmud typically requires three English pages of translation. See also: Mesorah Talmud site.

   * The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition Adin Steinsaltz, Random House (incomplete). This work is in fact
a translation of Rabbi Steinsaltz' Hebrew language translation of and commentary on the entire Talmud.

Tallit

Not aware offhand of any book in English that does that and is in the public domain. But I will keep my eyes open! Dovi 19:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Tallit

Not aware offhand of any book in English that does that and is in the public domain. But I will keep my eyes open! Dovi 19:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sanhedrin

Hi, please forgive me but summarizing Hebrew articles is beyond what I have the ability to do in the near future. It would be easier if I had some expertise about the Sanhedrin, but unfortunately I don't. If you'd like me to check any specific info in the article I'd be happy to! Dovi 19:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Talmud

Hi, saw your comments on my talk page. If you can get more info on this it would be great! You don't especially need admin assistance at any point, that has nothing to do with it.

What you really need is not an admin, but a copyright expert. I suggest you look at the Scriptorium, where there was recently discussion about the copyright status of UN documents, and Wikimedia's legal eagle, Soufron, gave his opinion on the issue. Maybe you should turn to him for this too?

I also would advise looking, to be sure, at other editions. The "classic" Soncino all-English edition is the one that seems to have no copyright notice. But they also published very popular English-Hebrew versions, which should be checked too.

Good luck! Dovi 06:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

FUDGE

Hi, Wikijeff! Thanks for messaging me. I've looked over their license and due to certain WMF (and hence, Wikisource) policies regarding copyright licenses, I don't believe we can publish this work. The problem lies in the last paragraph, where it allows for distribution of their material free of charge so long as we do not do any commercial distribution. Obviously no WMF project distributes its content for a price, but we do, however, allow people who use our material to do so, which in this case would violate the license given by the creators of FUDGE. I cannot see any feasible way we could host their material on WS given the current license for the game. Sorry about that.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)