User talk:AleatoryPonderings

Welcome to Wikisource

Hello, AleatoryPonderings, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for joining the project. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• Help pages, especially for proofreading
• Help:Beginner's guide to Wikisource
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Again, welcome! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:13, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Law works

I don't know if you're actually interested in legal works - I'm only guessing based on your latest edit. But if you were, Portal:Periodicals#Law and accountancy has quite a lot of material to play with! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Definitely interested! Although not sure how much stamina for proofing I have … AleatoryPonderings (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

The great advantage of Periodicals over books is that you get to pick short and easy articles! Have a poke about if you like and if you'd like to proofread anything that we do not have scans (or do have scans and don't have an index page) for, ping me and I'll try to get it uploaded for you and I can assist with things like front matter (title pages, tables of contents, etc, etc). Anything to sucker in a new editor. 😈 Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:47, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@Inductiveload: Ha, thanks! One quick Q: I've done a bit of transcription for the Bentham Project and they have a very exactitude-minded approach to transcription (e.g., replicating line breaks in HTML exactly where it they in the manuscript, replicating misspellings and typographical errors, etc). What's Wikisource's view on this? If I'm transcribing text, do I have to keep the line breaks the same as in the manuscript, for instance? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 19:59, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

No, we don't replicate line breaks. Not necessarily that we don't want to, but they can upset the software in unpredictable ways and we get stray paragraph-breaks once the text is put into the main space. The end result is supposed to be readable over hyper-accurate, and we're mindful that printed material does not always translate 1:1 onto the web (or into ebooks, which are technically also HTML). If you need a line break because it's a poem or something, you can use <br/> (c.f. H:POEM).

We do retain typographical mistakes and misspellings. You can use {{sic}} or {{SIC}} to indicate that these were noticed and aren't the transcriber's fault (and provide the correct text if wanted). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:14, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

We also have quite a few works needed at Jeremy Bentham if he's a person of interest and I'll be happy to upload any scans that you want from that list! Inductiveload—talk/contribs 20:24, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

FYI: seemed like a good opportunity to sort out a decent set of scans. Funnily enough it's edited by someone I've run across before! — The Works of Jeremy Bentham (1843) (transcription volumes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Inductiveload—talk/contribs 22:29, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Wondering ... The Whistle Maker and Other Poems

Hi. Looking at the work, and wondering whether it may be better to have each of the works on transcluded to their own page—subpage of the work—and build an {{auxiliary Table of Contents}} for the front page. That would enable us to then list each work separately in Wikidata and link easily to the works by name. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:15, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Works for me! This was my first transcription, so I'm not familiar with all the options. Do I just create subpages on the model of, e.g., [[The Whistle Maker and Other Poems/The Whistle-Maker]] and transclude the relevant pages there? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 22:45, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, exactly like that. 👍👍👍 The one thing to note is that we use relative links, eg. The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Hutton, Captain Frederick Wollaston so to navigate between pages, and to link to parent. So then on the parent page something like

{{auxiliary Table of Contents
|title=Poems
* [[//The Whistle-Maker/]]
* ...
}}

Should give you the listing of subsidiary pages. Never be afraid to ask on the WS:S there are plenty around willing to help. We try to be friendly. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:49, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

And congrats on completing your first work. When you are ready please add it to {{new texts}} and it will appear on the main page. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Will do, @Billinghurst! Thanks for all your help. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 00:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Chapter titles

Hi, per the Manual of Style we change chapter titles to Arabic numerals rather than use Roman. This gives us a standard approach for linking references. Aaaand just as I write this, I find that you've already found that out. I'll deal with the redirect. Cheers, Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:20, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Beeswaxcandle—yeah, I saw the tag show up on the initial page and realized my mistake. For future reference: are speedy tags a thing on WS, or should I just request admin assistance with unnecessary redirects like this? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we have speedy tags—use {{speedy}} and put in a brief description of why it needs deleting. The list of accepted reasons is at WS:CSD. I just happened to notice the page creation when I was looking over Recent Changes. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 18:29, 5 February 2021 (UTC)