User talk:John Vandenberg/Archive/2008-4

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Kah-ke-wa-quo-na-by pagemove

• Thanks, I believe it's at the right spot now. WilyD 15:55, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Work for your bot (again)

Hi John, Again, I have some work for your bot: could you import the text to the pages of fr:Livre:Marchez pendant que vous avez la lumiere.djvu. Thanks, Yann 14:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

And also fr:Livre:Tolstoï - Correspondance inédite.djvu. ;o) May be it is better to wait that you have the bot flag. I think there is enough proof that your bot is useful. It would be long. Yann 16:14, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Navigasi ID

I'm at a good pause-point on the id issues and have just been nosing about here, again. I was peeking at

• German Instrument of Surrender (7 May 1945)

and see that a number of the 'paragraphs' are not really; they're divs or center or u-elements; all very non-semantic. I also looked at

• German Instrument of Surrender (8 May 1945)

which is built differently; an ordered list. I expect that the original document was formatted as the one from the 7th was, with indented paragraphs. There really is no reason wikisource documents such as these can't be maintained in a cleaner source form and render in a more semantically meaningful form.

CSS can format an ordered list with the number inline and indented as the doc from May 7 images show. Similarly, all true paragraphs of docs should actually be emitted as p-elements by MediaWiki and weird trick largely avoided; those divs are awful — they're not even closed.

The other thing I keep noticing is initial br-elements being generated as the first thing in a paragraph. This messes with the text-indent thing and is driven by the number of blanks in the wiki-text.

So, where would you like me to focus? Our chats from a few weeks ago are archived, but I can find them. I could make further centering examples… I think I'd like to stay-off navboxes for a bit. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Improvements to German Instrument of Surrender (7 May 1945) will be very appreciated, as it is being evaluated as a Featured texts. The other featured text candidates could also use your skills.

If I was to point you at any specific work, I would suggest you work on a few pages of our Proofreading project with an eye to review the HTML/style aspects. Correspondence should go on a central discussion page like Index talk:Equitation.djvu. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll have-at; already did with {{underline}} — which I just created. Seems to me that raw html should be avoided in wiki-markup where something else can do the trick. Templates such as the ones I just created can encapsulate the implementation rather than folks using disparate techniques that are hard-coded out there. And bot can always smack stuff about in a big way. I've seen a few things yours has done; your feed it regular expressions and it hits large numbers of pages, right? Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I also prefer templates over raw HTML, especially as a way of avoiding CSS styles being defined inline.

The bot hits large numbers of pages, either by category or by prefix, and performs replacements. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

←See this example;

• User:Jack Merridew/German Instrument of Surrender
• User:Jack Merridew/monobook.css
  (take the first dozen or so lines)

The idea here is to use a list to get the numbers but to get the indented look of the original doc. It would also avoid the p-element issues if it were in the page space. In a lot of xhtml documents, lists are formatted to match paragraphs well, so having body text in li-elements is fine. The live surrender instrument has point 5 on the second page and it still has a nasty div trick to dodge the text-indent rule. If the rule I used were the applicable one in the page-space and presentation space, we'd be good. One thing I'm not sure if we can do with wiki-markup is to establish a hook on the ol-element; basically I'd like to set a class on it such as <ol class="olIndented">. Maybe a wrapper div would be needed, or a more complex selector. Rules like this certainly can't be the ambient one as most pages will want vanilla behavior. You mentioned floating an idea for document specific style sheet and that would be worth pursuing. Is there any support for this sort of thing in place, yet?

Does you bot run on many wiki? Something I've seen tons of is code like width="140px"; the 'px' is invalid, only correct for css, but not in xhtml attributes. This mistake exists hundreds of thousands of times all over the small wikis. Someone made this mistake 4ish years ago on en"wp and and hundreds of wikis copied it endlessly. Mostly they're in infoboxes; td and table elements.

I created about 6 formatting templates. I ran into some name conflicts; such as with {{lowercase}} vs {{lc}}. I expect people will prefer the short-form for typing ease. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I can see how User:Jack Merridew/German Instrument of Surrender would work, but that approach depends on adding CSS to Commons.css, which isnt feasible in the short term. Can German Instrument of Surrender (7 May 1945) be changed to a numbered list without changes to Commons.css? Perhaps using the literal HTML OL element rather than "#"?

At present we cant add CSS to Commons.css for every work, otherwise it would become very big. Additions to the global CSS need to be generic, so that they are features that can be used by many works. Perhaps we need a big discussion about this on WS:S, to investigate current CSS inline usage and enhance the global CSS to minimise inline CSS.

Document specific style sheets hasnt been widely discussed, and it would depend on a software enhancement, or perhaps a mediawiki extension already exists.

I dont have time to run a bot elsewhere. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just hard-coded with inline css. There's an issue with the list being split on two transcluded pages. Can you move the closing </ol> on the first page into a footer and the opening <ol ...> into the header on the second page? The idea would be to glue the list into one list when transcluded together. If not, it needs to be reverted. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the close and reopen of the OL into footer/header respectively. I do that quite often to keep multiple pages of a Table of contents in the one wikitable. German Instrument of Surrender (7 May 1945) looks good. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw you do something like that before, so I took a go. It does leave the list looking funny on page two; people see a "1." when they're trying to get a "5.", so word needs to get out about tricks such as this.

This whole notion of splitting pages up per the original printed pages is issue-rich. I can see the pluses, too. I wouldn't be surprised if a TOC spanning 4-5 pages is not uncommon; and indices even longer. I also thought a bit about a template for this sort of thing, but there's the page-spanning issue, again.

Certainly pages such as common.css need to be generic enough for wide use. See my query above (now with the nowiki fixed). On things like an ol, the ol-element is generated; there's nothing in the wiki-text at all. So how would I specify a class (whatever style sheet it came from)? Another thing I've long though is that wiki-markup needs a div shorthand. Hard-coding works, but it's rather anti-wiki. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

London Gazette

You have new messages

Hello, John Vandenberg. You have new messages at Jefferyseow's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jefferyseow 10:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

thanks for the welcome! vandenberg may be the finest spaceport in the galaxy other than palmachim! :) ... 5768altalena 19:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

How I build up a dictionary of all words into a work

I'm pushing it.wikisource at the "edge of chaos", as you know, it's precisely where some new ideas find their appropriate environment to grow out (many disappear after a short life... no problem! It's evolution, baby!).

One of my projects is a python routine that gets a text as input, and gives a ordered list of all different words of the text (a dictionary). I posted the output of such routine, as first examples, here: it:Il cavallarizzo/Dialogo 1/Voc and it:Il cavallarizzo/Dialogo 2/Voc. If you like, take too a look at my it:Template:?, I'm very bold of it, even if it's so simple. it:Il cavallarizzo is a very difficult equestrian work of 16° century, written into ancient Italian, with images of pages online only, and any OCR is perfectly unuseful to read it.

If you think that the very primitive and rough python code I wrote could be of any interest here, ask me for it. I'll translate the comments and I'll post the code here where you like (I think, I'll post it into my user page, then any one could move it where most useful). Please use my it user account to reply if you like!--Alex brollo 08:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

a geegaw to the left of paragraphs

Hey! Look, a marker parked at the top-left of a paragraph and hanging into the margin. This paragraph, which is explicitly formatted with a p-element, an id, and style attributes, is just a demo.

I used the id to get an image; for the pagespace paragraph marker, we would use something else specified in the style sheet, probably with about 6 pixels of white-space on top to better align with the first line of text. I used this id because the selector is 'loose' — it doesn't care what element uses it (no element to the left of the dot). The id invokes the following from main.css (the name the css is served as, I don't know where this is in the MediaWiki:namespace).

.link-document {
 background: url("document.png") center right no-repeat;
 padding-right: 12px;
}

So, I've got a background and then use the style attribute to smack a few things, like the position and undo the right padding (which is now wrong as I want the mark on the left). I also set a negative left margin to extend the paragraphs block to the left and pull the text back the same amount with padding-left; but the background image uses the space I grabbed in the margin.

This will have all the same issues as the text-indent messing with centering, so the selector has to be a lot more specific than the thing that's in place for the indent. I'm thinking a basic rule that does all this and then a bunch of special cases where it's undone; like when we're not an immediate child whatever the div around the content area was called.

Jack Merridew 12:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Skip the bit about top-padding; we can just offset it as needed; probably best to use em units for the top offset

Jack Merridew 12:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not working in the retarded browser and I believe it is only because the selectors for the IDs I'm using are more complex than the snippet I gave above (full given below). IE doesn't understand attribute selectors and is ignoring the whole thing as a result. So, this is just an artifact of the demo. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

#bodyContent a.external[href $=".pdf"], #bodyContent a.external[href $=".PDF"],
#bodyContent a.external[href *=".pdf#"], #bodyContent a.external[href *=".PDF#"],
#bodyContent a.external[href *=".pdf?"], #bodyContent a.external[href *=".PDF?"],
.link-document {
 background: url("document.png") center right no-repeat;
 padding-right: 12px;
}

Looks like you are getting somewhere. I'm not worried about IE for the proofreading interface in the Page: namespace; we can tell proofreaders to use Firefox if they want to see the nice paragraph markers. If need be, a JavaScript gadget could be used to provide the paragraph markers in the right spot. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

So were looking at replacing;

body.ns-104 p{
  text-indent: 2em;
}
body.ns-104 .poem p{
  text-indent: 0em;
}

with;

body.ns-104 p
{
 background: url("paragraph-mark.png") 0 .3em no-repeat;
 margin-left: -12px;
 padding-left: 12px;
}

body.ns-104 center p,
body.ns-104 *.center p
{
 background-image: none;
 margin-left: 0;
 padding-left: 0;
}
(or)
body.ns-104 * p,
body.ns-104 * * p,
body.ns-104 * * * p,
body.ns-104 * * * * p,
body.ns-104 * * * * * p,
body.ns-104 * * * * * * p
{
 background-image: none;
 margin-left: 0;
 padding-left: 0;
}

The paragraph-mark.png image would need to be chosen and maybe a few values tweaked if it's not the same size as document.png.

If we blow-off IE6, we go with;

body.ns-104 div.pagetext>p
{
 background: url("paragraph-mark.png") 0 .3em no-repeat;
 margin-left: -12px;
 padding-left: 12px;
}

If somebody gets cute with styling paragraph elements, they could mess things up, but, hey, let'em. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. I think it needs to be proposed on WS:S, especially as there are options. If you have an image ready, the floor is yours. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

; tidy the license, please. How about you start the thread and I'll chip in; you know the terminology better. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. Can you upload that to Commons? Other Wikisource sub-domains may want to follow suit. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Silly me; I uploaded it here because I was thinking it was wikisource specific and the other languages did not occur to me. It's on Commons now; same name, and tagged, so please delete the local. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added comments and tweaked the code to also key off of #bodyContent; this is necessary for the child selector form and good form for the others. I think someone should pop this into place for a test and see what the issues are (if any). Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, wrong div — the div with class="pagetext". I've refactored here and at ws:s, but have not been able to get this working via my local monobook.css. Something silly a bir besar ain't helping. We'll see what overnight brings. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I've proposed rolling this out on ws:s — no one's chipped-in; time to get moving. I've also suggested a new image; something basic such as '¶'. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I was just thinking today I should put it into effect so we can see the next step, but I got side tracked by the Koran. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You added this;

body.ns-104 p
{
 text-indent: 0em;
}

but that was only to override the prior code, which you removed. Unless there's something else going on, it's not needed. The other override for poems was also only to undo the now-gone rule; i.e. I agree with it's removal. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, it's 'No IE6 Support'; IE7+ should do it fine. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Wind in the Willows (1913)

See these two edits; [1], [2]. I collapsed sequences of two blank lines down to one in the page headers. These double blanks were causing a br-element to be generated at the beginning of the first p-element on the page; these are p-elements that are actually the continuation of paragraphs from the prior page. Prior (ha) to the new paragraph marker technique, these blanks/br-elements caused the paragraph fragment to not indent which made it 'look' right. Now, it makes our paragraph mark float up a line. Either way, this has no impact on the presentation level; this is basically a bit of baggage from the old indent system. Be nice if your bot could smack all of these. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, these appear on The Wind in the Willows/Chapter 7. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki space

I've been nosing about and noticed a nit; in MediaWiki:Loginend, the <br clear="both" /> should be changed; <br clear="all" /> or, and better, <br style="clear: both;" />. or consider using {{clear}}. Cheers,    Jack Merridew 12:50, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Done John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:18, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

template wikisorcery

Dear John,

I looked at Template:hyphenated word start and I asked myself: "what's its purpose?" Forgive my ignorance, but it employs more text , implies another twin template and and is more difficult to remember than <Noinlcude>-</noinclude>. What am I missing? - εΔω 15:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

When two pages are pushed together, there is whitespace between them, so the work is broken. The two templates address this because only one of them puts the word into the transcluded output; the other is silent except in the "Page" namespace. Also, both of the templates also show the complete word when the user hovers over it in the Page namespace. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

proofreading

While proof reading, am I supposed to fix a minor problem, such as adding a missing dash or remove a space that shouldn't be there? - Epousesquecido 02:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please make any improvements you can. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

J'accuse

Hi. I just tweaked this and thought I'd let you know that this and w:en:Dreyfus affair are the backdrop to w:en:Papillon (autobiography); not the anti-semitic aspect, but a theme of injustice by the supposedly great nation of France and outing the truth of w:en:Devil's Island. Currently reading w:en:The World Is Flat. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:30, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Vote for it here: WS:FTC#J'accuse, or just leave a comment, or improve the note on J'accuse. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

FTC is where I found it; I've not finished reading it yet! I was thinking of moving it to "J'accuse…!" and possibly converting the horizontal rules to something more like the ornament in the original.

re the paragraph marker; if no one comments in another day or so, are we going go ahead? Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Go for it.

Yes, incrementally probably. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Presenting...

The as complete as I could get it based on the first source, which I've now exhausted up to 1922-works of Author:Banjo Paterson! :-) (dare to compare) —Giggy 13:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Redundant page

The page in question is redundant to Westminster Confession of Faith, the deleted page was nothing but redlinks. Kathleen.wright5 05:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the header and its now on his Author page. Kathleen.wright5 06:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

User:CanadaCitizen

You do know who that it, right? Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw that global blocking has been rolled-out, so the fun may end for the nakal anak. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:08, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• too rich. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

OCR, with your bot, on fr.wikisource

Hi John,

Please, could you make some OCR with your bot on fr.wikisource:

• from fr:Page:Adam - Le Serpent noir (1905).djvu/14
• to fr:Page:Adam - Le Serpent noir (1905).djvu/418

Thank you :)

--LaosLos 16:03, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The ThomasBot works again, there is no need of the OCR now :) --LaosLos 22:45, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

On the Vital Principle

Hi John,

I have created an index and copy-pasted the OCR from the Internet Archive. What must I do next? Do I ask your bot to put the text into the pages, or do I go on by hand? Is this page the place where to ask ? I am new with this in en.ws and a bit lost. Thanks for your help!- --Zyephyrus 16:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

We do not need the raw OCR posted onto Wikisource, so I have deleted the OCR. In future, you should add it to WS:TP#DJVU files with a text layer, but I have started the text upload for this one; when it is finished, it should be added to WS:TP#Projects needing to be proofread. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Holly

There's a Italian girl/woman (I don't know, I only know her by web) that is translating into Italian "Equitation" of de Bussigny into a Google doc, so I can ensure you that she knows English and that she is willing and careful. I invited her to come here and validate Equitation, but I have been very surprised to see that validation is nearly done! I'm really happy!

No matter... I hope that wikisource would (perhaps) gain a good user. I hope that she would like this exciting environment. I presume, she will use the same nick that she uses into my forum: Holly.

About my "python wordlist generator": I just learned how to enter into Firefox dictionaries and to edit them. So, the first use of my routine will be, to produce lists of old words to edit those dictionaries. I guess, you know everything about, nevertheless if you don't I'll be happy to share with you (and with any other wiki user) my "discoveries". --Alex brollo 21:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I have welcomed her, and would love to see what you come up with for the Firefox dictionary. I do know how to create those dictionaries, but I dont scale, so it is great that you're discovering these things. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

OCR bot

Hi John, I heard you have a bot for amassive OCR; is it possible to have the code and run without asking, or is it a toolserver thing we don't access to? Thank you ve ry much for your kindness. Cheers --Aubrey 21:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

My bot does not do OCR; it uploads the pre-existing text layer that is held in a djvu file. The code is open source, and can be obtained by downloading m:pywikipedia. It is called "djvutext.py".

User:ThomasV has an OCR bot, User:ThomasBot, however that is a toolserver thing and can only be invoked from a Wikisource project.

Cheers, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think I counfounded 2 things. In italian Wikisource we have the OCR button for ns: Page, but I was wondering if there is some automatic produre (like a bot) to push a whole book in the OCR queue without doing by hand... Thank you anyway --Aubrey 19:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization in Henley's "Invictus"

The Wikipedia source text of Henley's "Invictus" shows Circumstance and Chance capitalized - is this correct? I think capitalization often suggests a metaphorical reference to God, dramatically altering the interpretation of the poem. Most renderings show lowercase - which is faithful to the original?

Thanks, gary merkel

This is a great question; thanks for coming over and asking on Wikisource.

The Wikipedia page w:Invictus is wrong now, but it once was good (how often do you hear that?)

The Wikisource page Invictus doesnt show Circumstance and Chance as capitalised, for good reason. Our edition was transcribed from Committed to Memory, and Google Books shows that circumstance and chance are not capitalised in that edition. The edition does show Pit as capitalised, and horror as lower case.

I havent quickly put my hands on scans of the original, but here it is in a PD anthology: Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/1045, and it appears unchanged in a new edition of the same: Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1043 and Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1044. (if you see red links here, you can still click them to see what I mean..)

The Wikisource page Invictus now is accurate to one fixed published edition.

I recommend removing the text of the poem from Wikipedia, as it is of unknown provenance, and many edits have messed up what was once good. If you replace it with another good version, it wont be long before someone thinks that the capitalisation which appears in a different published edition should be used.

Thank you for the very interesting query. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Equitation validation has been done!

I can't believe it... the validation of Index:Equitation.djvu hes been finished! I'm so happy (and bold)! Thanks you and thanks to all friends that did that work!

I hope, Holly will find something to do here.... I gave her a couple of suggestions ;-). Let we see if she will find this strange wikisource environment as exciting as I found it. --Alex brollo 19:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

ManOfAllah/Qassim

This user has been bribed to say nice things about Sherurcij's adminship.

Searching Qassim on the DloI I come up with the two books you list, but trying to view the pagescans in HTML, TXT or TIFF (PDF and GIF don't seem to work) both bring up a Foresty book from the 1960s; I assume you had the same trouble with both books? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon} 20:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I did see the Foresty book, while we are bitching about Indian resources, http://www.isical.ac.in/~library/ has a "Web based library catalog is now available" and the link is to http://192.168.54.38/ *cry*.

I was able to see pagescans of one book, and where I have said in my COPYVIO blurb that there is a 1930s dated preface I gave a link to the pagescan. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Re Statute of Anne

It was Eclecticology that noticed it was a duplicate, see - Wikisource:Scriptorium#Category:Copyright_law Kathleen.wright5 05:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Cinderella

Hi, could you please help me with something. I found another short, nice book to work on, but I can'r download the *.djvu for some reason. I can only download it as a Firefox Document. Could you please download it from here, and put it on Commons under the name Image:Cinderella (1865).djvu? diego_pmc 05:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

To download, you need to click on "HTTP" on the left, find the djvu file in the list of files, right-click and download.

If that doesnt work for you, keep the requests coming, as my bot does all the work for me: Index:Cinderella (1865).djvu --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Moved to User talk:Jack Merridew#The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to keep the discussion together. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• look now — 25, 26, 27, too. there has to be a more convenient way to edit the header and footer. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Page

It seems that this template often doesn't get the 'num' arg passed to it; the Blake page, for example. This is causing the default id of pr_position being assigned to every little positioned page link along the left; and IDs are supposed to be unique on a page. Naughty, naughty. Seems to me that the first bit below (from first line of template code) should be changed to something along the lines of the second. In these circumstances I don't think the IDs are needed at all, so it would be best to omit them entirely.

• id="{{{num|pr_position}}}"
• {{#if:{{{num}}}|id="{{{num}}}"}}

Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, id="pr_page" is being duplicated, too; not sure what it's for. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

They are needed by MediaWiki:Common.js, {{Option}}, and they are very brittle and could do with a ground up redesign. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That and the warning to not cavalierly edit the template is why I asked. When you get to that validator bot, hook it up to not allow saving edits that break validation. See these; [3] [4] [5]. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha! I have all three installed, at work!  :-) The bot will need to be requested at WS:BOTR, as I cant promise to be the one for tackle that. A dev mentioned that the sitenotice problem is unlikely to be fix with a high priority, especially if a bug isnt raised on bugzilla:. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

mebbe you need to pass those three links along to a few devs. oh well. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

and saw this? Jack Merridew 09:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Im not 100% sure about prefixing the anchors with "a" - it will break any existing incoming links from otherwikis and the internet, but the problem it fixes is important. We need a guideline on anchor names. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Another job for the before-you-save validator. I used 'a' for 'anchor'. On the Queensland page, I made up nice names, but SA had 150ish. I do most of that sort of thing with regex s&r. Any inbound links will still land on the same page. I've used 'n' occasionally (number). People change section headings all the time without realizing they're breaking links; and I've seen it done deliberately in a few cases. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I dont think we can require validation on save; the tricks being used on The Marriage of Heaven and Hell require invalid HTML on one page in order to have valid HTML on another. We can have a bot to check the validity of pages that are "finished". John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[butting in] Whatever tags you need to add to validate the page can be put inside noinclude tags, so that the transcluded pages validate too. Hesperian 14:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

We're discussing a deprecated 'start' attribute for ol-elements; and they are in the noinclude at the top. The invalid nature is only on the individual page, not the presentation page. The W3C validator is not picking-up on the deprecated attribute; somewhere along the line we'll get a warning. See post below with same timestamp. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I though of that as I was using the evil start attribute on the ol-element; it means this is a hack, not a truly good technique. I expect that start was booted because it is viewed as an encapsulation violation; messing with the internals of the list. It's not failing outright;^[6] the tool's not senseing the deprecated attribute (but it may someday). Local validator is not squawking either. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The page template of causing a ton of validation errors when there is a page number; it's creating id that are the number. These will have to change at some point and the easiest/cleanest change is to prefix the number with 'p' — which will break whatever inbound links to the page anchors. An icky option would be to change over the 'old' a-elements with a 'name' attribute, which do allow the first character (or all) to be a digit. Cheers, (or tears) Jack Merridew 14:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Hyphenated word

I'm missing the point of this. For words broken across the page, I get it, but for ones within a page, why bother preserving this artifact of the original layout? There is such a hyphenated word on Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/13, and when I worked on that page, I simply removed the hyphen. There are probably few other pages I've done this one; maaf. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Preserving the original line breaks makes a text much easier to proofread. The Page namespace should display these line breaks, so that proofreaders can quickly compare text and image in a line by line process. I thought I had raised this on WS:S but couldnt see it quickly just now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm… I can see that, sort of. It would seem to imply that you expect all of the original line-breaks to be preserved. Most of the pages I've seen don't do that; I've glued consecutive lines together by replacing newlines with a space. This is pretty standard stuff with wiki-text. Not doing this rather makes some assumptions about the user's screen width. If I edit Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/11 (which has the original line-breaks intact) with the browser window at a less than large size, the line-breaks in the editbox look terrible; merging the lines and letting them wrap as appropriate makes the editbox a lot more readable. And none of this is respected when looking at the preview, which is what editors really should be checking. I've found proofreading tedious because I have to scroll up and down to compare the preview with the scan. From this perspective, the scan should be displayed alongside the preview, not the editbox. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I dont expect much at the moment, except that we are starting to put our thinking caps on. The thread "getting my wikisource bearings" explains my experimentation so far. It sounds like you have come to the same conclusion as myself: it is the preview that needs to be different, and I threw some ideas about that in the WS:S(2008-08)#retain line breaks in the proofreading output thread I was looking for earlier. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that bending over backward to preserve the original line-breaks is a good idea. The span wrapping you mentioned there is doable, but massively snots-up the wiki-text. I'm thinking you would want to have scripts rewrite the UI to hide them in the edit box? — I'm cringing at the thought. I make most non-trivial edits in an external editor; many do; you must. And all the gore will be right there in front of you. The whole page space is a tool to compare with the scan. Another tool, used late in the game, could strip such spans out and glue-up the lines, but that would rather preclude going back for further proofreading (unless tool2 forked the content, which has its own issues). I don't see the page space as really ever dispensable; that's where further edits will be made. See my query above at #Wind in the Willows (1913); if I'm right, thousands of pages will need to have the double line-breaks in the header removed. I've done some more; Horace/13, for example — stuck the {{hw}} in, too. Comment before I do too many more. I'm not sure where to begin with that gmane thread, but will scan it further. Cheers. Jack Merridew 10:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah! I hadnt thought of a bot creating&maintaining the mainspace pages. We could lock those pages to prevent people editing the main space. That would allow us to break free of the limitations that transclusion imposes, and add "Page:" semantics that the bot understands. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

So you like the content forking idea. Would this be rather like de:wp does with their vetted pages (not quite the term they use; but pages are 'draft' until some admin approves the edits). Cheers, (before we ec again) Jack Merridew 10:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

See this, based on Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/11;

In the present edition of Smart's Horace, the trans{{{3}}} has been revised wherever it seemed capable of being rendered closer and more accurate. Orelli's text has been generally followed, and a considerable number of useful annotations, selected from the best commentaries, ancient and modern, have been added. Several quotations from Hurd on the "Ars Poetica," though somewhat lengthy, have been introduced, as their admirable taste can not but render them accept{{{3}}} to readers of every class.

look at it in the editbox; assume that the p-elements came from MediaWiki and the style for the span from a style sheet, but that the spans really were in the wiki-text. 1) ick. 2) this has hopelessly broken the {{hw}}. Mebbe a pair of templates could be used. There's also the narrow screen user to consider. If things do go anywhere near this, avoid span; use some rare element to avoid selectors matching all the ones on things like {{sc}}. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you are assuming that the span tags would be added before the templates are called. For starters, I am pretty sure that the templates are evaluated first, and then the HTML is added. But, I dont care whether the templates or HTML conversion happens first at the moment - if we are going to get a dev to add build something specifically for our Page: namespace, they are going to have to do it in the way that works for our needs. The main issue is we dont yet know our needs; we need to think it through and come up with something that works. When I posted that idea to WS:S, I was thinking that the templates must be go first, and then the span tags, which means the first two lines are:

In the present edition of Smart's Horace, the trans- lation has been revised wherever it seemed capable of

That approach may have other problems. I'm not sure.

Fixing our proofreading so that the interface is as usable as the w:Distributed Proofreaders interface is important enough that I'd develop it myself, or put a bounty on it for someone else to do it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Ya, I was assuming you meant that the spans would be permanently in the wiki-text. You're talking about a later phase; Steve Sanbeg made mention of this to me on ws:s and I'd like to read more about this; got a link? You mentioned this to me once, too. Something along the lines of MediaWiki massaging the wiki-text on its way to web pages. Obviously it's generating a lot of code, but the idea of it running transforms and doing replacements is interesting.

re rare elements, even post template processing, there may be other spans present; hard-coded in the wiki-text, generated for some other reason. So using some weird tag might be better; a class would help assure correct selection of what to apply block to, but bulks-up the code. Possibly a normally-block tag could be used, which would obviate the need of a css rule that targeted the element.

I just created The works of Horace, which needs a bit of TLC; a bit premature, I know.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This email is where I was at when I was posting WS:S(2008-08)#retain line breaks in the proofreading output (and just earlier I realised I had sent the list the wrong URL; no wonder there was no follow up:/) The wiki text eventually comes out as HTML. We can build extensions to do this transformation any way we like. Somewhere and when in the gutvol-d list we discussed using our own tag (i.e. not a HTML tag) to mark the start and end of a line, and that has also been discussed on wikisource-l. No need to go looking; there wasnt much to those discussions, and I'll prolly remember where I filed them while I am asleep :-). Basicly you are independently confirming what most of us have been thinking, which is not bad for someone without many mainspace edits :-) The more difficult part is doing it, esp. as that probably requires improvements to either core mediawiki code, or an extension. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I considered mentioning a custom xmlish tag, but we've enough validator issues. Good to see you saw the narrow window issue (or that I saw it, too.) See w:Microformats; basically a span with a class; pick its name well. fyi, I ran the tool you used on Giggy's RfA and I didn't have edits to the 25 mainspace pages it cuts off at. I ran it for id:wp, too, and found out that 40% of my edits there are to templates. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Hyphenated word end

See this, which is undoing an imperfect fix to show you an issue. Of course, one won't encode this way under normal circumstances. If you look at;

• The works of Horace/First Book#32 — an invalid id="32"

which is the same text in mainspace, you'll see that the colon is causing indenting; I'm not sure why, as it's not really at the beginning of the line. When I had the fix in place, it fixed the indenting but introduced a space between 'Sardinia' and the colon; this is what I suspect may have something to do with Template:Page. I'll keep marinating on it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Gosh. That is interesting; I've not seen that before. It looks like {{Hyphenated word end}} is introducing a new blank line. I dont think it is {{Page}}s fault, but it could be. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

When using the encoded ":", we can see that it adds a whitespace, which does exist, which is evidence that there is a newline character in there. Well at least that is my educated guess. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I stand corrected. Back to wiki school I go. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think I missed your comment above white composing mine one below posted 6 minutes later; I've just re-removed these space characters from both templates and, so far, things look ok. We will see. Also, I wasn't in anyway arguing for those accounts and IP to get unblocked; I rather expected dude was reading the ws:an discussion; And, as usual, more dirt lurks in the deleted edits. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried removing the apparently-extra space in the template, but I saw no effect; undone. I suspect{{page}} because of odd behavior I saw when I highlighted the extra space with the mouse-pointer; the page number highlighted, too. Hmm… Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• The works of Horace/Second Book#46 — "Pompey ,"

Here we're getting the extra space and there's no colon encoding or indenting involved; I'd like to know why that extra space is in {{Hyphenated word end}}. See its history; I removed it and it didn't seem to help. It's back for now. Select the text "Pompey ," right on the screen (not here, there); you get "Pompey [ 46 ]," — which implicates {{Page}}. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm also wondering if the space is per the newline at the very end of the #63 page (after </noinclude>); the page with "Pom-" displayed. The generated source looks like;

Italian air, Pompey</span> <span id="46" style="position: absolute; … [snipped]

or — the space is the newline between the invocations of consecutive {{Page}}; I could make them all one line; no newlines at all (saw that done somewhere), or do the html-comment trick on the newlines (as in templates). Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I had another thought; what would you think of swapping the behavior of the two in mainspace; i.e. having the word from the end template appear in mainspace and the one from start evaporate? We could try this out with alt templates and paste them into the regular ones if it worked-out. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like it will work better. I think it should be done to those two templates, as it will at least expose whatever issues there are in that approach. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Done — I tweaked them both and all seems ok; I also got rid of the colon-encoding. Will go look at some other usages, too.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

See also; diff; I found an unbalanced usage and there may be others. This displayed 'pend' instead of 'depend' in the mainspace, but it would have been right before I tweaked the templates. If there are unbalanced usages the other way, end but no start, they'll be broken now. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:23, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I found more usages that are incorrect; see especially [7] and [8]; also a bunch of others that also are used on Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 10/On the Proteaceae of Jussieu. In these, the 2nd arg to the end template was missing. Mebbe it was added later mostly for the title-attribute. Anyway, any other such omissions will now be broken. In the two diffs I gave, I had trouble with italic text; at first I moved the wiki-markup to outside the template, but that resulted in an extra ' character, so I moved them back inside and also had to do it to the end arg 2 for mainspace and this puts them into the title balloon, too. We need a bunch of eyes to look at more of these and to get the word out that end arg 2 is required. There's another italic word (Rhopala) with an extra ' character on pg35/36 that need to have the wiki-markup tweaked; I'm leaving it for now for you to review. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

People do not know how to invoke these templates; I've seen a lot of cases where the 2nd arg is omitted from the end template; this was 'ok' before as it only broke the title-attribute; but with the swap, it broke many mainspace transculsions. It may be a case of knowing too much about how the template worked and knowing that it used to do only minor harm. I've fixed about 50 usages today, but have not checked them all yet. On works where I saw things done right, I skipped along to another work without reviewing all pages. I found assorted other oddities that I tidied-up; punctuation in the args, &c. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:35, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the "end" template to detect errors and report any cases to Category:Invalid template invocation. It looks like you have found and fixed them all. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I was explaining to a friend — whom I was chatting with last night while reviewing the usages — that something like what you've implemented would be next; real, in person, chat, with a mate from Melbourne. I did finish reviewing after my last note above, but I'm not sure if I balanced all the usages; i.e. for every start, there's an end usage. I believe the same arg 2 required code should be in the start template; it will at least get the title-attributes working. I see this as requiring adherence to the interface and maintaining flexibility of implementation; we may want to swap the mainspace transclusion back at some point. fyi, I'm trying out Google Chrome, today. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I added the detection to the start template and smacked the stuff that perked-up; this is still not covering the unbalanced usage cases. I'm finding these by capturing the what links here in the page space and sorting it in Excel; whatever SQL is spitting this should sort it automatically. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Humans, and later bots, can find those. We can also set up a toolserver tool to find any unbalanced cases. In due course.. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe I've sorted all the currant usages (+see below). I have also goosed the doc to say to balance usages. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Rhopala and Franklandia

Homestretch now. On;

• Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 10.djvu/51, 52 and 53 which appear at;
• Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 10/On the Proteaceae of Jussieu

the words Rhopala and Franklandia are broken across pages and they are styled with wiki-markup to be italic; further, they are lone-words that are styled so that, in the current scheme of things, the styling around the start template was styling a nullstring when the template evaporated in mainspace (and the whole word in the end template appeared with its own set of apostrophes and behaved). MediaWiki was presented with something along the lines of;

• ''''''Rhopala''

to render and it blew it (the start template would have been between the second and third apostrophes); I was seeing a lone leading apostrophe with spaces on either side before the correctly italicized word (with i-tags). Anyway, I have re-removed the extra spaces discussed above and added a space to the start template outside all of the braces but before the noinclude; this gives the wiki-styling something to munch on besides a nullstring and it seems to get culled completely as I'm not seeing it in the generated xhtml at all. Next.

fyi, v0.2.149.27 Google Chrome is nice, but has a few odd nits and bugs. I'm sure my friends there will sort them out soon enough. I'll not be abandoning Firefox anytime soon. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

History of Iowa OCR

It looks like the proofread text here was more incomplete than I thought. Could you please upload the OCR text of leafs 591–660 of Index:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu? Psychless 22:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This is in progress now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Links to Australian Copyright Act 1968 and Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000

I've just posted links to these acts at Wikisource:Scriptorium#Announcements. Kathleen.wright5 02:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Bot work

Hello,

See Wikisource:Bot_requests#Importing_text_from_DJVU_to_pages and the same book in French: fr:Livre:Au-dessus de la melee.djvu. Thanks, Yann 23:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

fr:Livre:Au-dessus de la melee.djvu is underway. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

One more: fr:Livre:Tolstoï - Correspondance inédite.djvu. Thanks, Yann 10:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Done John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Horace footnotes

• Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/330

about the most lopsided ratio I've seen. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Did you see the lovely present that just appeared on my talk page? Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:03, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• The works of Horace:

<!-- 
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 14829/1000000
Post-expand include size: 2039496/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 36894/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500
-->

Obviously the thing should be split-up in to chapters. This whole expand limit is annoying. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

We dont want pages to be that large. On that page, you are building a logical reconstruction of the text, and it should be split into smaller units such as chapters, etc. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I know; I wanted something to preview for now — a way to find the logical divisions. And what's up with the page numbers and the paragraphs overlapping? Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

My objectives: Documents for WBTS

I'm glad to be here. My objective is simple, and it is to systematically capture all public domain documentation of the Confederate States of America, particularly it's government records and proceedings.

Sincerely, The Grayghost01 23:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me know if any of these titles interest you. We can set them up as transcription projects. The 12 volumes of "Confederate military history; a library of Confederate States history" look interesting. I have just now set up Index:Confederate Portraits.djvu ; you should start seeing the pages of text appear shortly. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Listen, if you can get the Confederate Military History uploaded ... then you are the man. That would be the cat's meow to have that. Listen, I've created a category under the American Civil War called Confederate States of America documents, can you categorize your materials to that? Eventually I'd like to set up some sub-categories, perhaps after more stuff is available. Thanks. Grayghost01 01:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Great to hear. The first step is to expand Confederate Military History so that it looks roughly like SBE. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:42, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like we have some volume that are not available from Internet Archive. Anyway, the text of Volume 1 is being uploaded now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Another duplicate and non English works in Category:Index

I've found the following for the national anthem of Serbia - Boze Pravde and God of Justice. I'd like to delete Boze Pravde because the other version has more detail. What should be done about this non English work in Category:Index? - Index:Explications sur le droit de propriété.djvu - French. Kathleen.wright5 06:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The index to the French work was created here because a new user was going to translate fr:Livre:Explications sur le droit de propriété.djvu into English, but that didnt eventuate. I have deleted it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Boze Pravde

In regards to Bože pravde, "God of Justice" contains three editions, which should be separated onto separate pages, and it contains Serbian text which is also on sr:Боже правде. In order to put each edition onto a separate page, we will need more than one page, so we should retain the current page histories if possible.

I have created "Author:Elizabeth Christich". Boze Pravde and God of Justice both contain the Christich translation. As Boze Pravde is the older of the two, its page history is the one which should be kept under the Christich translation.

The Wikipedia translation at w:Bože pravde is user created, and the history there is extremely messy (as is often the case on Wikipedia).

The "Wikisource" translation at the bottom of God of Justice came from 121.210.88.127 (talk • contribs) [9] with explanation at Talk:God of Justice, and was cleaned up a little by Nikola Smolenski (talk • contribs). The lines that appear to have been changed are, ignoring the differences between the Republika Srpska and Serbia versions, these:

God of Justice; Thou who saved us	God of Justice;
when in deepest bondage cast,	Thou who saved us from annihilation,
...	...
Our young tree of freedom grace;	Flourish with the freedom grace;
God, our Master! guide and prosper	God of justice, guide and prosper
...	....
When our host goes forth to battle	When the days of battle come,
...	...
On our sepulchre of ages	From the deepest grave
Breaks the resurrection morn,	Serbian glory is born anew,
From the slough of direst slavery	A new era has just started
Serbia anew is born.	Lord, we pray to you for happiness anew!
Through five hundred years of durance	Protect the serbian fatherland,
We have knelt before Thy face,	the fruit of five centuries of battle,
All our kin, O God! deliver,	God save, God protect,
Thus entreats the Serbian race.	so prays to you, the Serbian people!

So, it is a viable Wiki translation. I will invite Nikola Smolenski (talk • contribs) to come chat about this, and I think that God of Justice should be have the Christich removed from the top, and be moved to God of Justice (Wikisource) or God of Justice (Wikisource translation), or even Bože pravde (Wikisource) or Bože pravde (Wikisource translation).

To summarise:

1. Boze Pravde should be updated with translation info to reflect the fact it is the Christich translation, and possibly moved to Boze pravde (Christich), in order to reflect it is a translation.
2. God of Justice should become solely the wikisource translation, be be moved to an appropriate name.
3. A dab page created, and Bože pravde, Boze Pravde, Boze pravde, and God of Justice all point to the same dab page.
4. The text on the Wikipedia page should be removed; the translation there is too difficult to trace the authorship of.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. First, there is no need for Serbian text to be kept here when sr:Боже правде exists. Elizabeth's translation should be preserved in its original form, and a Wikisource translation might be made too, when people are obviously willing to work on it. IMO, both translations should be named God of Justice, for example God of Justice (Christich) and God of Justice (Wikisource).

A question arises if Wikisource should have all the variants of the anthem (the two variants relevant today are those of Serbia and Republika Srpska, but more exist, see the Wikipedia article). IMHO, that wouldn't have much purpose and would better be explained on Wikipedia, as is the case right now. Nikola Smolenski (talk) 20:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

es.wikisource

hi John I found a text on the spanish wikisource that has scans : es:Historia de las sociedades secretas, antiguas y modernas en España y especialmente de la Franc- masonería: 1 maybe we could ask them about moving it to page namespace. ThomasV 07:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

minor mop-job on Main Page

The main page includes the following as line 4;
|align="middle" width="20%"|
This is just the empty table cell in the top-left of the header; align can not be 'middle', but valign can.
This could be changed to valign="middle", align="center" or this bit could be omitted entirely as the cell is empty.
It generates a validator error. See also^[10]. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Please tidy this, too;

• Special:Contributions/Swollen bremery

Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Done John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing - List of Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament, 1960-1979

The above is a duplicate of List of Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament, 2000-Present. I've notified the User in question at John Cross here at Wikisource, and his Wikipedia page John Cross. I did this on 22nd August and 23rd August respectively, still with no reply. What can be done about this? Kathleen.wright5 07:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I have tagged it with {{Expand list}}, which I will start using on lists like Weird Tales. There are many Wikipedians who love lists; hopefully we can encourage a few of them to come help us. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Transwiki:Constitution of Republika Srpska

Just a nudge - you tagged this as {hangon} but never left a reason for this anywhere.... what's the status of the page? Feel free to do what you like with it. —Giggy 23:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

See where the deleted talk page leads you. :P (p.s. congrats for finding a use for the tools so quickly) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

So where does the deleted talk page lead you? And note that w:Republika Srpska isn't the same as w:Serbia/w:Republic of Serbia — which I expect you know. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

It is mentioned in the deletion log: Talk:Constitution of Serbia --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

ok. The speedy tag should simply be removed; they are different places with different constitutions. Follow my links above. (the page may have other issues; no idea, really) Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

What to do about non - existent users?

What should I do about Special:contributions/Freeloaders. The warning on my User talk page is about spam external links (the only external site that might be considered as spam is about Lobsang Rampa because it lists his books) see Talk:The Rampa Story but it could'nt be linked. Kathleen.wright5 14:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It is a disruptive user. Yann has blocked it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hope I got this all right

Is this what you were hoping for? Index:Washington - State of the Union.djvu Durova 04:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've tweaked the index page. The djvu is having problems displaying thumbnails, but I think it is a problem with the servers. Once that has been sorted out, it will be ready for transcription to begin. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, turns out the Commons file wasn't affected by that data loss. Please let me know if there's any problem. Best, Durova (talk) 20:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Death intervention specialist

Do you have any idea what the above is about, and should it be deleted from Wikisource? It was written by an Anon IP and is the only page written by them. Kathleen.wright5 08:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

ACLU v. NSA Opinion, redux

I want to thank you for your efforts several months ago that resulted in ACLU v. NSA Opinion being resurrected and then raised to Featured Text status. Several of us put in a lot of effort learning how to make that text better. The one suggested change that still likely needs fixing is the main title of the text. We never got an exact consensus but I believe that ACLU v. NSA (District Court opinion) is probably the best of the suggestions offered. Since ACLU v. NSA Opinion has now had its one month of glory and is out of the spotlight we might think about changing the main title to a more correct description. Can you open up the locked page and go ahead and make that change or lead me to the proper forum so that we can do this together? The subtitle, "ACLU vs NSA judgment" directly below the main title also needs to be updated from its 2006 origin.Jmcneill2 11:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I have unprotected it as it is no longer on the front page. I agree that ACLU v. NSA (District Court opinion) is a much better title, and will let you do the move and other edits.

Also, WS:S#US Appellate and (possibly Supreme Court) opinion index might interest you. Lots of new infrastructure added there. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Accomplished. Thanks for the easy implementation. Should the page be locked again?Jmcneill2 (talk) 07:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that it needs to be protected; if you think it is desirable, request it at Wikisource:Protection requests. Vandalism rarely occurs here. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

subpage

{{subpage-header}}, any reason it couldn't pull the |author= variable from the parent work, or even sexier...take the subpage title ("5"), and view what follows $pagetitle+| prior to ]]? So that instead of saying "Section:5", it would say "Section: Chapter V. On Towards Camelot" ? I have never touched a bot or automated process in my life, so am admittedly unsure how possible that would be - but it would certainly improve the subheaders which currently don't even list the author of the work. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon} 21:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

We could improve {{subpage-header}} to obtain the author from the parent page, however that would require changes to {{header}} also. I mentioned this as a possibility in the last discussion about taking the next step forward for headers. That discussion petered out without action, so {{subpage-header}} is still only an experimental template. I see it as a quick and nasty template, aimed to add very basic navigation where there is none, and that all invocations should eventually be replaced with a proper {{header}}. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, Help:Header preloading script gadget does a better job than {{subpage-header}}. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Much thanks, using it now. (poorly disguised attempt to bring the new CotW to your attention) Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Isaac Brock} 16:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done my bit: Author:Isaac_Brock#Transcription_projects and Wikisource_talk:WikiProject_DNB#CotW John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Blocked users

Is there an existing Category for the above or should I create Category:Vandals? Kathleen.wright5 08:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added it to Category:Users. Creating a category called "Vandals" would only encourage them. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Missing validate button

Why is the Validate button missing from Index:Q Horati Flacci Carminum librum quintum.djvu? Kathleen.wright5 00:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I was able to validate Page:Q Horati Flacci Carminum librum quintum.djvu/11. Perhaps you cant validate it because you were the person who proofread the pages. The system prevents one person from proofreading and validating. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OCR bot on Index:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu, please?

I’m not planning to proof the whole of this volume (still have plenty of unfinished tasks already on my plate), but one of the cases in the book (White-Smith v. Apollo, 209 U.S. 1) is on my to-do list, and having the OCR will speed that particular project along. Thanks! Tarmstro99 (talk) 19:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

In progress. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 19:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Done (while I slept). John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

WS:COPYVIO#The Religion of God

Hello, your input is requested on the page WS:COPYVIO#The Religion of God, as there are still some uncertainties about the copyright status of this text. Jude (talk) 00:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes in Greek

• Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/325

All of the Horace footnotes are hell, but the ones in Greek are extra special. I'm going to need help with the Greek characters; I'm having a hard enough time reading the Latin ligatures. I'd love help with the footnotes in general as this is going to take weeks. The OCR text is full of junk and I have to attend to each one in turn. Then throw in the fact that the footnotes are sometime elaborately formatted. Anyone who participates in proofing all this is going to have a hard time with the footnotes that span pages; some have several thousand characters that spill onto the next page. I've not notice one yet, but I would not be surprised to find a footnote that reaches a third page. This 'book' is text and footnote complete;

• The works of Horace/Second Book of Epistles

Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Add {{greek missing}} where there is Greek missing, and we will recruit Greek Wikisource people to help with the transcription. :-)

I've been using {{blink}}; I can retrofit them.. See this last edit from hell. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The Pilgrim Cookbook

Now that I finally understand (thanks for your patience) how to move the header (PILGRIM COOK BOOK #), I noticed that on every other page that is validated or proofread the header has been deleted. Not sure which way to proceed. - Epousesquecido (talk) 04:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Some people prefer to just remove the header, as it is easier. That is fine too. All that really matters is that what is left in the main edit window is the actual text without the header & footer. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks! just when I thought I finally had it all figured out, you go and mention a footer, oh no! :) - Epousesquecido (talk) 05:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Ask Jack about footers, or see directly above. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

WS:TP#unsorted_projects

You invited AD to sort them, but I sorted all but one of them a couple days back. Just thought I'd let you know. Psychless 00:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

We have also been lazy at times, and not added new index pages to the WS:TP list. We need to reconsile Special:Prefixindex/Index: and WS:TP. That should give us more to sort. :-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

???

Depressing... you OK, mate? Giggy (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Greetings from Italy by Alex

Hi John, my boldness is severely worrying my new Italian friends. ;-)

My last "discovery" is a novel use of selective transclusion; t.i., any page can be used as a "record" containing any number of "fields", identified by a named section tag. This could perhaps be a key to manage in a polite way some "user-defined variables", or better some "user-defined constants". Take a look, if you like, to it:Utente:Alex brollo/Gaio Giulio Cesare and to its code; I hope, it will be self-explanatory for you. The problem is that section tags are to be written into the page; it would be great if they could be put into a template, but wiki software doesn't seem to see sections coming from the code of a template; therefore I can't find a way to help an unexperienced user to use this trick. Nevertheless, perhaps some use of this trick could be found - some to think about in my opinion. --Alex brollo (talk) 06:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The "section" tags are evaluated before templates are evaluated. This does limit its usefulness.

You will probably enjoy Page:College Songs (Waite, 1887).djvu/22 used on Oh My Darling, Clementine#College Songs (Waite, 1887), and Template:Bible/Joel which is used on Bible/Joel/1/1

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Pretty examples - I have to admit, difficult to understand at a first look. About the order of evaluation for sections and templates: OK, I understand the reason why my tries failed. But - there's a deep-rooted reason I suppose to follow that order - or could it be changed? --Alex brollo (talk) 12:32, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Sanbeg is the man to talk to about the ordering. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:06, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks I got a clear answer by Sanberg. Nothing to do! nevertheless, I found something different running: a template written do be substituted, exactly with same parameter than the original one. You can see the output of this test template into the "Data box" of it:Autore:Gaio Giulio Cesare. The test template is at it:Utente:Alex brollo/Autore1, written to be called with a subst: prefix, with the same parameters of it:Template:Autore --Alex brollo (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I have created it:Template:Autore-data and played with your idea. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

;-) I had to look and look again to that page to catch the result... because the page is so much similar to the old one! Well, I see vaguely some interesting "database-like" emerging features (I'm deeply convinced that wiki is a "complex adaptive sistem") from such "costants/fields/variables"; it.wiki has much redundance inside, and I know from experience that redundance is the worst enemy of consistency; I'm waiting the opinion of an esperienced "bot driver", it:Utente:Pietrodn, to see if some more automation is possible; I think it's really possible and far from difficult. --Alex brollo (talk) 14:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I edited back it:Autore:Gaio Giulio Cesare to the original content ; as you probably know, any Autore:Nome autore page has a matching "Template:Nome autore" page, and I thinke that the better place for my "databox" is a subpage of the latter. So, databoxes for Gaio Giulio Cesare and Claudio Corte are now in: it:Template:Gaio Giulio Cesare/Dati it:Template:Claudio Corte/Dati. I'll edit your template to point to them. --Alex brollo (talk) 06:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Finally. I edited your it:template:Autore-data so that now it accepts a single parameter, the name of author, and it reads data from the present location (i.e. it:Template:Gaio Giulio Cesare/Dati).

Tell me please if you, or some other en.s user, will found any unpredictable practical use of this idea! Thanks --Alex brollo (talk) 08:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. I tried a similar trick once before on Index pages with {{DJVU page link}}, and failed to make it work. Maybe I will have more luck when I try again. I will let you know when I get around to it. In regards to Author pages, I'll let it.ws develop the idea and eventually sell it back to us when it is implemented there. :-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Final push for the Proofread of the Month...

This month's Proofread of the Month, Index:The Pilgrim Cookbook.djvu, is still a ways away from being fully validated. However, we're within striking distance.

If all ten members proofread just two (but preferably three) pages a day, we'll be able to finish the book before the end of the month.

We can do it. :) EVula // talk // 01:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

ping

fyi, flight left a day early. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

\o/

:-)

http://www.wikilivres.info/wiki/Desire_Under_the_Elms

:-(

interwiki sync

Discussion at User_talk:White_Cat#interwiki_sync John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:19, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to make sure that I'm doing these properly...

I did a couple of images from pages, and want to make sure that I'm doing them correctly before using the same process on additional images.

• Page:A Kentucky Cardinal.djvu/8 // Image:Subimage of scan of "A Kentucky Cardinal" (English, page viii) showing "The Audubon Drawings".jpg
• Page:A Kentucky Cardinal.djvu/22 // Image:Subimage of scan of "A Kentucky Cardinal" (English, page 8) showing "my rain-crow".jpg

Thanks. :) EVula // talk // 05:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

They look fine to me. Regarding the naming, I think that is a question better raised over at Commons. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for undeletion

per your suggestion. Since no one commented at the RfU, I decided to folow my gut and carry out your sugegstion. The split still needs to occur. Just thought you should know. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 16:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Ta. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 17:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Yom Kippur

I thought we were doing something on the main page for Yom Kippur? Did I misunderstand? - Epousesquecido (talk) 04:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sherurcij is organising it, I think. Listing it on Wikisource:Holidays should be enough to spur him into action. I'll be adding mine shortly. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Databoxes

dear John, my idea of "pages as records" is running into it.s, would you like I implement something here just to test the idea with some data? I'll add my databoxes into a subpage Data of Author: pages, and a couple of templates to write and manage them. I'll add to a Category:Author databoxes, just to list existing boxes. --Alex brollo (talk) 08:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Has the community approved of the idea? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I just presented the idea at local Village Pump, they worry about the impact on newbies, but... it's difficult to believe, nevertheless all the procedure to write databoxes can be done by a bot, and all is perfectly hidden for a newbie. No running procedure, nor existing help page, needs any change. I'll tell you how discussion will run. --Alex brollo (talk) 10:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see signs of enthusiasm about such an unexpected "emergent feature" of databoxes, mainly for the possibility of automation by bots. If databoxes will be implemented here, just to test them, I think that a Data subpage of Author: pages could be a good location. Do you agree or there's a better location in your opinion? --Alex brollo (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

A "data" subpage would be a good location for this. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Last question. I'd like to tell to en.s community, step by step, what I'm doing. Is the main Village Pump the best place to speak about? --Alex brollo (talk) 11:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We have a couple of ongoing Author related discussions at the moment. I suggest reading those, and then starting a new section and mentioning how your voodoo will solve a number of the problems. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

'Migrate to djvu' template?

You probably know the answer to my question on Template talk:Migrate to djvu.  :-) Thanks! — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. I used the wrong template. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Old Wikisource

Please, read my message in the scriptorium (about "Spanish Wikisource adopting Proofread Page") Thanks, --LadyInGrey (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

w:en:User:Apcbg/Sarandi-Rapid-1833

Yes, the text is in Spanish. --LadyInGrey (talk) 14:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

awww, shucks

Thanks for the welcome. :) Emeseee (talk) 05:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Dryden and his translator

Dear John,

I'm going to transcribe this Italian translation of Alexander's Feast by John Dryden. I noticed that Dryden's English text isn't here, so I thought about transcribing it too (well, my grasp of English language would suggest as advisable any external contribution about it). But as GoogleBooks gave me many instances of that text before taking a random one I'd like to know if there's an authoritative, a better, an established edition to choose from GoogleBooks. Or maybe there's an already typeset one on Project Gutenberg and I didn't see it... If you can help me on the English side it would be a treat. - εΔω 17:14, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I will set up a transcription project today or tomorrow. Cheers, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Warmly. When I'll be don with the Italian translation I'll drop you a line here. - εΔω 08:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Done here: The Power of Music on the Human Heart. - εΔω 09:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is one edition of it as a distinct work; I will look for the originals.

• Index:Alexander's Feast - 1904.djvu

With a little digging, you will find good copies in the following first editions of important collections:

• Index:Lyra heroica.djvu - text at Project Gutenberg
• Index:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu - text at Project Gutenberg

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow! The first looks like an Evangeliarium, or a Missale Romanum. I'll proofread it with great pleasure. Then I'll point the interwikilink down there. Once again, thank you for your lightspeedy constructive advice.

By the way. I'm setting up a wikisource-wide campaign to achieve a complete census of translations from Italian language lacking their original text on it.source, and a somehow more esoteric quest for works written in Italian language by non-Italian authors... This is an absolute sneaking preview and I haven't put anything online yet (the current sandbox is here, but I thought you should like having a look at a "trailer".ß

I am not sure of the history of the 1904 edition, but we will learn it.

Your project is interesting. The Italian project is a fountain of good ideas ;-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

• Done here's the result. Just two remarks about MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template

  Template:HideIfEmpty and Template:IfEmptyDo are maybe obsolete and could be replaced with parser functions.

  I wanted page 6 to appear as "cover" instead of page 1, but I couldn't have it done by the template

  Again, thank you for your kind attention. - εΔω 20:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

  P.S. If Pietro Yon died on 1943, may we still have any texts of his on Wikisource?

I have placed the 6th page as the cover.

Any works of Pietro Yon that were published prior to 1923 are PD in the US. Most Wikisource sub-projects have chosen to allow texts that are only PD in the US. see oldwikisource:Wikisource:Subdomain coordination column "Pre-1923 works copyrighted at home". John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

News about songs

Here's an update: as I write this, "I'm Just Wild About Harry" is on Wikipedia's main page. That makes 4 DYKs so far for the songs project with 3 more in the queue and another expansion underway. Am sending queries to the Foundation for information on how many readers that's actually sending over to Wikisource.

As long as the team keeps finding and restoring wax cylinders and 78s, I'll keep up the DYKs. Meanwhile planning to flesh out the Irving Berlin material. Still have 14 songs in my system ready to upload, with literally hundreds more in archival sources. Might be a good idea to organize his composition list into table format before this grows much bigger. Any ideas? Best, Durova (talk) 10:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I've a few things on the queue at the moment. When you're close to running out of Irving, give us a bell and I'll trawl through the copyright renewals (If I dont to it first). It would be nice to make his collection as complete as we possible can, as "featured author" is something we havent done yet, and I see that as the next big thing for wikisource.

Stats will be great; fingers crossed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

No chance of running out of Irving anytime soon: the fellow wrote between 1200 and 3000 songs. What we could feasibly do is a less prolific artist such as James Scott. 38 of Scott's 39 songs are out of copyright and we've already got 22 of them. In the short term could use your experienced eye for Antonín Dvořák: the media project has enough material to start up a page for his work. I'll be creating it today. If you think it needs adjustments please advise. Durova (talk) 17:50, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

woops

I downloaded the PDF from the page that I linked to. Is this (http://financialservices.house.gov/essa/summary_of_the_eesa2.pdf) sufficient? Thanks. Emesee (talk) 18:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

But, is it published? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Page:The Pilgrim Cookbook.djvu/163

The reason I was struggling with the underline on this page Page:The Pilgrim Cookbook.djvu/163 was because I think the original intention of the underline was to separate the two recipes, not to underline the ladies name. This is trivial, I know, but what do you think? - Epousesquecido (talk) 19:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense to me; I've changed it to a horizontal rule wrapped in a div to control the width and set the margins; tweak if they're too big; or small. --Jack; 125.162.164.138 09:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

alignment templates

Hello,

full set of alignment templates?

G'day John,

I've been thinking about creating a full set of alignment templates, i.e. {{center}}, {{right}}, {{float left}} and {{float right}} to assist with text alignment. I use these rather a lot because I do a lot of journal and newspaper transcriptions. It strikes me that the code for

---

VOL I]

[No I

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5th 1833

---

which presently looks like this

{{rule}}
<div style="float:left">[[The Perth gazette and Western Australian journal/Volume 1|VOL I]]<nowiki/>]</div>
<div style="float:right">[<nowiki/>[[The Perth gazette and Western Australian journal/Volume 1/Number 1|No I]]</div>
<div align="center">SATURDAY, JANUARY 5th 1833</div>
{{rule}}

would be much easier to write, read and maintain if it were

{{rule}}
{{float left|[[The Perth gazette and Western Australian journal/Volume 1|VOL I]]<nowiki/>]}}
{{float right|[<nowiki/>[[The Perth gazette and Western Australian journal/Volume 1/Number 1|No I]]}}
{{center|SATURDAY, JANUARY 5th 1833}}
{{rule}}

The main problem with rolling this out is that you've already created {{right}}, but as a float rather than an align. I had a quick look at its uses, and

• in most cases it is irrelevant whether the template was implemented as an align or a float
• in some cases the template is wrong for what it is trying to do
  • For example, on Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/7, the text ends up left-aligned but floated to the right, whereas it should be right-aligned; plus there are all those spurious carriage returns to get past the floated text; this would be far better implemented with align="right" rather than style="float:right"
• in very few cases is the template right for what it is trying to do.

Therefore I propose to

1. Create {{center}}
2. Create {{float right}}
3. Convert calls of {{right}} that really should be floated to calls of {{float right}}
4. Convert {{right}} to use align="right" rather than style="float:right"
5. Create {{float left}}

Any thoughts? Hesperian 04:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:34, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Done. Crikey, it took me longer to talk about it than to actually do it! Hesperian 05:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

When I do this sort of thing, I usually include some automagic bits such as some clearing and margins; for example (w/css):

div.divFloatLeft,
img.imgFloatLeft
{
 clear: left;
 float: left;
 margin-left: 0;
 margin-right: 24px;
}

div.divFloatRight,
img.imgFloatRight
{
 clear: right;
 float: right;
 margin-left: 24px;
 margin-right: 0;
}

div.divFloatLeft,
div.divFloatRight,
img.imgFloatLeft,
img.imgFloatRight
{
 margin-top: 3px;
 margin-bottom: 6px;
 padding: 0;
}

/* automagic borders */
div.divFloatLeft img,
div.divFloatRight img,
img.imgFloatLeft,
img.imgFloatRight
{
 border: 1px solid #999;
}

So {{float right}} would get clear: right; margin-left: 24px; margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 6px; padding: 0; border: 1px solid #999; added. The specific values and units might well vary, and the borders possibly omitted. Jack Merridew 09:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I dont think we would want a border by default on these templates; more oft than not we want to position something, but the original didnt include a full box around the text. Some default margins could be useful, however we would need the ability to override them simply. A "clear=yes/no" param to the templates {{float right}} and {{float left}} sounds like a good idea. If there are meta templates which already provide similar functionality, we should consider adopting their calling convention. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy with you guys doing whatever is sensible, so long as you err on the side of minimalism. For example, putting a clear:left in a left float would be a disaster for the example I started this section with. Personally I'd prefer not to complicate these templates with a clear parameter; we can either lock it in if it is always appropriate, or leave it out and use {{-}} to clear when required. Hesperian 12:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Struck: sorry, my misunderstanding. Hesperian 12:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This would be a typical sidebar with some bit of text that is related to but not part of whatever body text.

It may be that floating very small bits of link-text as in the example at the top of this thread may be a common use of this sort of template. However, these templates are encapsulating fundamental layout mechanisms and they should be general. The css utils I gave as examples are general; a floated div can contain a lot and the behaviors I suggested have proven, to me, to be quite handy. Making some behaviors optional might work, and a style attribute can override anything. Another option would be to have a suite of templates for different tasks, and to implement them using floating (or aligning, but the two don't always play nice together). Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

When I say I want to err on the side of minimalism, I'm saying that I don't want the stylesheet to be mandating stuff that doesn't apply to most if not all situations. If we omit the border from the stylesheet, it is easy to add it on a case by case basis; but if we put a border into the stylesheet, it will totally suck for people who want to float something without having a border. As you say, these templates are encapsulating fundamental layout mechanisms... but we won't even have any fundamental layout mechanisms to encapsulate if we whack a lot of bells and whistles on our layout tags, thereby making them highly specific rather than general. To put it another way, this is not the kind of website that benefits from a well-defined distinctive look-and-feel. Every text is different, so we requires a very general common style.

I'm going to have to claim the high ground on use cases. I've given an example of a layout that requires floats, which I use in the mainspace very often indeed. Your sidebar example looks great, but I doubt if m/any of our transcribed texts contain such sidebars. I guess my position is that these templates should be as general as necessary but no generaller.

Hesperian 13:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If I were to make a template out of the hard-coded stuff in yon box, I'd name it something like {{sidebar right}}. I guess my core point is that you seem to be targeting a specific task; i.e. the above masthead; and they are common. I'd still suggest adding the clearing and inside margin. Note examples @right:

TEXT1TEXT2TEXT3

{{float right|TEXT1}}{{float right|TEXT2}}{{float right|TEXT3}}

TEXT1

TEXT2

TEXT3

<div style="float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT1</div><div style="float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT2</div><div style="float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT3</div>

TEXT1

TEXT2

TEXT3

<div style="clear:right;float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT1</div><div style="clear:right;float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT2</div><div style="clear:right;float:right;margin-left:1em;">TEXT3</div>

Anyway, your implementations are core in that they're wrapping the attribute and nothing more; any other behaviors can always be implemented in higher-level templates as needed. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Lest I be misunderstood, let me add that I have absolutely no objection to filling {{float right}} et al with stuff like {{#if:{{{border|}}}|border:{{{border}}}}}. By all means lets make the template flexible. What I object to is fancy defaults via either the css file or the template implementation. A basic call to the template should yield a basic layout — no border, no margin changes, no padding. Hesperian 14:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I (ec)'d with you; I only gave the stylesheet fragment because I had it handy; some of that could be used if needed, but that would be for a higher-level construct; I'm wondering if a a standard masthead would be useful. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Good news

Hi John, Author:James Scott is nearly complete. The entry for Evergreen Rag is cover page only (the hosting site linked to a different work by another artist for the content). I've never checked for orphaned works, but maybe his posthumous Calliope Rag has lapsed? Shoemaker's Holiday would like to make both .pdf and .jpg available for every composition. That would be some work, but doable.

I was looking over at featured content candidates and noticed someone had nominated a song. Could you advise regarding that? The featured content guidelines seem to be set up mostly for text rather than music. I was thinking of I Want to Go Back to Michigan, which probably needs proofreading but has a restored audio file and all pages of the sheet music have been restored.

All the best, Durova (talk) 05:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

He had no offspring, and his unpublished works will be PD at the beginning of next year (70pma). It is difficult to determine what is "published".

I couldnt find any related records in Copyright.gov, and the U.Penn collection of CCE doesnt include scans of the records pertaining to music. I'll keep digging.

We havent featured a song yet, however we have two on the cards; I'm guessing we will pick on for January to celebrate the Wikisource sheet music project being a year old. It is important to note that it is the printed elements of the song which are being featured here; as a result I would dearly like to see Lilypond sheet music notation for the one we eventually feature, however I wont oppose if it doesnt happen this year. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:26, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

May I make a special request? Could you see whether Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has lapsed into public domain? I've found a public domain portrait of him and he might not have bothered renewing the copyright (he was like that). Durova (talk) 18:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The song has indeed slipped into the public domain.[11] EVula // talk // 19:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Too late; I've already done it: This Land Is Your Land

See also 10 of the Woody Guthrie songs/This Land

Your careful touch wouldnt go astray. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Awesome. :) I've found a good quality portrait at LoC. Time to start restoring. Durova (talk) 05:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Around again with indentation

I want to do the same again with indentation, to simplify the page code for pages like Page:A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland.djvu/6, which has both indents and hanging indents, which really do need to be preserved. The plan is to create {{indent}} for the usual indent; that is:

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

and {{hanging indent}} for hanging indents; that is:

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

My problem is similar to the last. There is already a template named "indent", and unfortunately it gives a hanging indent instead of an indent. It is deprecated, and is preserving backwards compatibility with an ancient, horrid implementation.

So the solution is similar to the last too. 1. Create {{hanging indent}}; 2. Deal with uses of {{indent}}; e.g. convert them over to calls to {{hanging indent}} where appropriate; 3. Reimplement {{indent}}.

Insert "Sounds good" here. Hesperian 12:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The new (and default) implementation of {{indent}} does give a normal indent rather than a hanging indent. I started replacing all old invocations of {{indent}}, and it made it onto my reminder list, and then I pushed it to WS:BOTR#Template:Indent.

Creating a matching {{hanging indent}} does sound good. :-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right, sorry; don't know what I was thinking. I'll subst: out the old invocations using AWB. Hesperian 23:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Ajax sysop (new version of obsolete script)

Hello Jayvdb. You were using "Getmoredata.js", which adds a list of subpages (and a block log for user pages) on the deletion form. That script has been replaced by the better-written and more extensible Ajax sysop. I switched you to the new script (see a screenshot comparing outputs); if you prefer to use the old script, I'll add the source code directly to your script file since it will no longer be maintained.

You'll need to refresh your browser (CTRL+R in Firefox) to see the new version. If you find any bugs or have suggestions, please let me know. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 00:02:20, 07 October 2008 (UTC)

Search log

Dear John, I just wanted to ask you if there is, somewhere somehow, the possibility to view the search log of Wikisource. It would be really useful, for every project, to watch it and study users' behaviour. I know there was a pseudoMediaWiki extension, but I don't know if is the solution. In general, I'm really interested in every statistic about it.wikisource:we actually need it to improve findability and navigation. --Aubrey (talk) 10:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I can see why that would be useful, but there are privacy concerns. All requests are being logged, and the foundation has this information on disk, but it is deleted after a few months in accordance with the "data retention policy". You could ask the foundation for a sanitised extract of this data. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I didn't know of this policy, know I understand the reason of non-availability of certain data. I'm a bit disappointed, actually, but that is. Thank you again. --Aubrey (talk) 11:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Administrative aid requested

John, this is ResScholar. I understand that you are an administrator on Wikipedia, so I would like to ask for your assistance.

While using my anonymous account, I have been the target of a case of wikistalking and vandalism with two other users (not admins) on Wikipedia, and in the process of defending myself and an article, one of the users has now resorted to abusing the vandalism warning system in an effort to silence my objections. I would be asking you this on Wikipedia, but if one of these users were to see me requesting assistance to deal with the situation, they might escalate the situation further in an effort to conceal their behavior.

Would you be willing to hear a narration of the facts (which all took place this week and might be confusing to follow if you only used user contribution lists and article histories), in order to help you to decide whether you wish to take up my case? (I would place it on my own user page, so as not to clutter up yours). In my opinion the situation simply calls for a removal of the false warnings I mentioned and an appropriately-lengthed punitive block. But you never know how people are going to respond, so I'm not clear on what further action might be appropriate afterwards. Thank you, and your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

ResScholar (talk) 20:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Answer

I tried to answer your Thai language questions. — Jojo • Talk • 15:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I put a link to the Thai wikisource version here Talk:Phleng_Chat. Can we link it in the article somehow? — Jojo • Talk • 00:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Proofread

Hi, could you point me to an appropriate place to seek a couple of proofreads? I'd like to nominate I Want to Go Back to Michigan for featured status, if it's ready. It has fully restored sheet music, a restored historic sound file, and I think I've transcribed the lyrics accurately. Thanks again for all your help bringing me on board at Wikisource. :) Durova (talk) 07:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You could arrange to "swap" proofreading with someone, or you could package up a list of songs that need to be proofread and suggest the bundle on WS:POTM.

As you want to propose it to be featured, you could list it on WS:FTC; that usually attracts a proofread or two. Before nominating it, take a look at K-K-K-Katy which is a current candidate, as that might give you some stylistic ideas. Also, you should fill in the header "notes" with a description of the work, usually an excerpt from Wikipedia. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ack, you deleted the guide...I wasn't aware it violated any policy here. Would it be possible to obtain a copy? (and where did I err?) Durova (talk) 08:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the redirect "Durova/Sheet music loading guide". The guide is fine: User:Durova/Sheet music loading guide --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I went afk for a few minutes and realized. Thanks. :) Durova (talk) 08:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Letter of William J. Haynes, II opposing SCOTUS access for troops

• As suggested I transcribed and proofread each of the three pages on "Index:Haynes letter" Can you glue them together for me so that they correctly appear on the page? (And if there is any particular formatting that is required could you assist?) Thank you! Mattwashdc

Index:Wisconsin Rapids directory (1921).djvu has some broken pages due to bot errors.

Hey Jayvdb,

Index:Wisconsin Rapids directory (1921).djvu has broken pages starting at page 4. It isn't showing images and the text seems off too. I need your help to fix it. Please let me know.

--Mattwj2002 (talk) 08:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I dont see any problems now. Whenever there are problems loading images, it is a server software problem, and those problems should be reported to the folk on #wikimedia-tech. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

IRC

I appear to've netsplit off. What server are you connected to so I can come find you? Jude (talk) 12:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

w:en:In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=In_the_Heart_of_the_Sea%3A_The_Tragedy_of_the_Whaleship_Essex&diff=241025221&oldid=234234728

:(

http://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/heartofthesea/

Lar fixed it, and I'm off to bed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 18:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Greetings from Alex (WIP: XML conversion of Author template data)

I hope you'll appreciate some update from one of your pupils... :-)

I'm approaching to python bots now. My new bot - Alebot - reads lots of data, but so far writes almost nothing. I found some codecs related problems, now I solved them I'll tell you if I'll do something good. --Alex brollo (talk) 14:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I recommend you come and join us on #wikisource, as many bot operators hang out there and will be able to assist you. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 21:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I joined; I've no previuos experience about chat software nor about "chat netiquette"... just the begin of a new trip! Thank you. --Alex brollo (talk) 10:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't waste your time with my published python routines.... consider them just like first tests (and put tests by Alebot) . I'll post my new routines when they will run consistenly. Presently I'm working about simple XML data structures and XML->lists->dictionaries translations. Consider that my approach is a really primitive one (no classes, no regex, no high level modules) :-( --Alex brollo (talk) 11:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It sounds very interesting, but I will wait until you have polished it and made it pretty. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Happy to let you know that Alebot can write both the "databox" (i.e. sematization of data by selective transclusion) and a primitive XML structure of them (I hidden it into a HTML comment, so it is visible in edit mode only). My tests are presently done into authors with "Z" initial (i.e.: it:Template:Émile Zola/Dati). Be careful if you edit Italian Autore: pages... that playing by you about it:Autore:Gaio Giulio Cesare caused some fuzzy behavior of the bot browsing those pages! ;-)

Alebot scripts are listed into it:Utente:Alebot/Scripts, but it's not the last running version coming out from hard night work ... --Alex brollo (talk) 07:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Proofread of the month (Aristotle)

Hi, I notice people are ignoring the numbers at the bottom of the pages when proofreading Aristotle's On the Vital Principle, for instance here [12], the 16—2 is missing and the page has been validated. Is this correct? Thanks. Epousesquecido (talk) 01:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I consider the header and footer of the page to be entirely optional. I havent checked the previous WS:POTM, but I would put a fiver on finding pages in those that have been validated without the header and footer. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:09, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess you have told me that before, maybe it will sink in one of these days. Thanks, Epousesquecido (talk) 03:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

indent

The current {{indent|text|size}} calling convention really really sucks, man. {{indent|size|text}} is heaps more intuitive, and much easier to use when paragraphs span pages breaks. I would like to convert it over, and drop the em unit assumption while I'm at it. That is,

{{indent|Lorax itchy dolores...|2}}

would become

{{indent|2em|Lorax itchy dolores...}}

This would, in addition, be consistent with my johnny-come-lately templates {{hanging indent}} and {{left margin}}.

It would also mean that one can no longer omit the size parameter, but I see that as no great loss: who are these people who want an indent but don't know how big they want it?

Hesperian 05:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I won't be bugging you about these formatting templates for too much longer, I promise.

Have we replaced all existing usages? If so, we may support both, by using {{isnum}} to determine if the second param is a number, and if that fails, expect a size in param 1. I dont mind much about templates, provided that nothing is broken. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

That would cause problems if the text to be indented consists entirely of a single number e.g. {{indent|2em|66}}. I'll think upon it some more, then possibly take your "I don't mind much about templates" as your blessing to go ahead and stop bugging you. Hesperian 06:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I like backwards compatibility, since we cant say "show me this page as of revision x", because the software does "rendered page of revision x using the latest templates".

Alternatively we could look for a number in the first param, which is understood to be in em unless the second param is a different size measurement that is accepted by CSS, such as px.

i.e. the following can all be supported, as the set of acceptable size unit identifiers is finite, and if someone wants to position a paragraph consisting of "px", there is a solution for that too.

{{indent|2}}
{{indent|Lorax itchy dolores...|2}}
{{indent|2|Lorax itchy dolores...}}
{{indent|2|em|Lorax itchy dolores...}}
{{indent|2|px|Lorax itchy dolores...}}
{{indent|2|em|px}}

But, meh ... John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:48, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

First and second endings

If you're going to edit music lyrics, you really need to know some basic music reading. For instance, in I Want to Go Back to Michigan, the words "I want to farm" should not appear, because the notation around them means it's actually "I want to [repeat chorus from "go back, I want to go back..." to "Down on the"] farm." This is basic knowledge you evidently do not have, and which means you cannot edit the lyrics effectively.

I don't want to criticise you, but if you can't read music, you at least need to check with people who do before you revert their fixing of your misreading. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up; yup I dont know much about reading music (I stopped at Three Blind Mice), and was only paying attention to the text in order to get that right. (I did make some useful corrections I think) Dont worry, I'll learn, or at least I will learn my limits quickly. Cheers, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

It's alright, just a little frustrating, as I fixed that about 3 times now, and had to explain it to Durova too. One thing that's a good red flag: See how above the music there's something that looks a bit like

________________________   ___________________________
|1.                        |2.

That's a first and second ending, and is a sign that the lyrics below them won't actually appear together. It also usually indicates that some text is repeated - this may be the whole song, in order to get a second verse in, or, in the case of this piece, the chorus (the initials D.S. [[[w:Dal Segno]] - from the sign] at the end tells you to go back and sing the second verse, but that's a bit more complicated than you need to know about just now.) Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Honestly I thought it was weird that you had left it off, and I couldn't see it in the other transcriptions on the 'net. So you are spot on when you say that I should have asked, or investigated more, esp. as you had already proofread it.

Thanks for the clues. I'm going to go find a good book on musical notation (we have some related texts on Wikisource, and there are other public domain ones), and I'll get busy learning. If you can recommend some PD works about musical notation, I'll try to find those first. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:31, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I learned most of the basic stuff while learning to play the piano, and later singing in choruses. I don't know of any simple books, though for the purposes of this, just learning the flow direction modifiers - w:Coda w:Dal Segno Da capo and knowing what Repeat signs and first and second endings are would probably be enough.

One warning, though: Sheet music is not very reliable in several ways. Particularly, the punctuation is usually massacred, compared to any printed version of the lyrics. Now, with the Victorian English theatre I tend to work in, I can usually check this against a libretto. However, this is not possible with a lot of the Tin Pan Alley stuff we're working on here, so I'd encourage a certain amount of correction.

Secondly, you mention a desire to have a Lilypond version. We don't have enough musicians here to proofread it, and the last thing that you want to do is a slavish reproduction of the original score, because, frankly, I've worked with these scores. The Author:James Scott scores we have tend to have 2-3 obvious errors per song. (And they're only 4 pages long!) The most notable one was Broadway Rag, where I started making a synthesized version, but had to stop because I couldn't figure out for certain where a repeat should start, which led to me abandoning a partially completed synthesized version. [I later accidentally saved over it when trying to copy some settings I use for the Ragtime midis that make the synthesized versions. Pity, as soon after that I found a recording that clarified the point.]

This is rambly. I'll go get some breakfast and coffee and come back. the long and short of it is, if we don't have some trained musicians to proofread the scores, I don't think we can make a new score. If we're going to slavishly copy the current scores, it really isn't worth the massive amount of work involved, and will just take the score's current mistakes, and add in some new ones the untrained proofreaders don't catch. Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

That said, I think I'll have to make one for K-K-K-Katy. All the scores I can find are really low-res. Good thing it's short. Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Aristotle

I checked this page; tell me how it looks.[13] I'm not certain how we deal with footnotes.Proabivouac (talk) 02:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your assistance. I did another page,[14] but I can't figure out how to mark it as "proofread" - I see the source in the difference, but it disappears in the edit window.Proabivouac (talk) 04:41, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You'll like this trick

• User talk:Jack Merridew#float:center!

Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

• click*, *click*, *click* ... please template that!! John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking the cleanest implementation would involve a style sheet rule to apply the tweak to the div generated by that weird poem-element. There any doc on that thing? Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, there are probably non-poem circumstances where this could be handy… Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:51, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

mw:Extension:Poem has a bit of old documentation. I'm not going to have time to follow this through, so if you want Commons.css changes, harass Hesperian .. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

refactored to {{float-center}} — but there are issues in a few circumstances I've been previewing without saving. I'm getting a horizontal scrollbar in some namespaces; not sure just what's up at this point. A solution more focused on specific cases — poems! — may be better. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If it works well in main space, that is all that matters; if it doesnt work in Page namespace, we can add a note to say "we are not miracle makers; it does its job once transcluded to mainspace". John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I was toying in my userspace; I'm not sure if it works in mainspace; yon poem doesn't have a presentation layer, yet. Fancy positioning gets complex. Cheers, User:Jack Merridew aka david 08:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

There are serious limits here; things are only working-out when the content is fairly narrow, as the poem is, due its embedded line-breaks. When the content is longer, we get page-widening horizontal scrollbars. If the content is more than half the width of the content area (a function of your viewport size), the scoot-left leaves the original position of the positioned block hanging-off the right side of the screen and you get a scrollbar. There's nothing over there to see, but the positioning of the outer element expands the area of the viewport and the position of the inner elements isn't pulling it back. I briefly reverted to using l/r margins on the inner elements instead of rel-positioning, but it didn't help and utterly hoses the dumb browser.

When I've used these techniques in real-life, it's been for far more controlled things where the width of stuff is also under tight control, so I'm stretching into new territory. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I dont mind if the result looks like crap. I like declarative statements (templates) which say how things should look, bugger the consequences. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I just smacked this around some more and it plays a bit nicer. One weird thing; I've added a max-width:50%; to reign in the damn box and this is interacting with the 2-up configuration of the pagespace. See the page with you browser not-too-wide; i.e. poem getting pinched in narrower column. Then do an edit-preview and note that in preview, which is wider, it is not pinched. This will confuse folks in page view, though. It also, ah, limits things half-width. Thing still does some weird shite in old IE, though. It often goes screwy with positioning (I care only a little). This should behave well in all namespaces; there was nothing to that concern, 'twas just that the other tests I was running were with wider stuff.

So, how ya gonna indent a reply to this? Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:58, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) im lazy :P John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

w:en:Cascading Style Sheets

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cascading_Style_Sheets&diff=247747321&oldid=246768422

too many folks paying attention to the drama-boards. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

hehe. You me and a few others should form our own CSS club ... and then .. umm .. profit. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I am available for occasional consulting work. ;)

someone who might benefit from being adopted

It would appear that all of the image uploads by w:en:User:Swidagdo are copyvios, which is a shame, as they're nice. My sense is that this is someone associated with Museum Puri Lukisan here in town. If they did things right, a bunch of stuff could be properly licensed. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:38, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

You could drop down to the organisation and ask them. We need a permissions note sent to w:OTRS w:Wikipedia:OTRS. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Waa! That's hundreds of metres away!

It was this new article — w:en:Ida Bagus Made — that made me suspect a connection to the above museum. Many of these images are by famous artists, over a longish time; back to pre-war. Whomever this is would appear to be taking photos of such works and tagging them as 'self-made' as in I-took-the-picture. I've looked again and the metadata on the images varies a lot (different cameras and different photo editing software) and a bunch are tagged as from private collections. Art is big here; running joke is a hundred paintings per tourist. And it's not just paintings; the Balinese carve every bit of wood and stone in sight.

Anyway, I think the guy needs a friendly talking to before someone seriously rains on the show. It can probably be worked out; if not there are a fair number of such museums in town that could be approached for proper permission.

Also, a personal friend of mine is the widow of one of Indonesia's most famous artists. Wikipedia, of course, has no article on this fellow and no images of his paintings. But Mary has said she'd give permission for some of Abdul's work; she specifically mentioned the pieces on the home page of http://www.artistabdulaziz.com/ (One of his most widely known, and knocked-off, works; original is on permanent loan to the Neka Art Museum; http://www.museumneka.com/ && [15].) Abdul Aziz is a common Muslim name; w:en:Abdul Aziz, not the one who died in 2001.

There are some other problematic local editors; the various redink SPAs behind w:en:Museum Rudana and w:en:Nyoman Rudana, an id:Senator, are pretty clearly promoting the guy's businesses. See the old chat on my en:talk page for background on how many such 'museums' are really commercial galleries (w:en:Museum Puri Lukisan^{needs creating} is a whole lot more legit than Museum Rudana; Puri Lukisan was founded by w:en:Rudolf Bonnet). The Rudana-marketing-campaign is going strong on id:wp, too; w:id:Museum dan Galeri Seni Rudana and w:id:Nyoman Rudana.

I'd be posting this on another project if a pesky bit were cleared… Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Senang Hati

You recall this?

• Wikisource:Proposed deletions/Archives/2007-12#Wikipedia:Smile Foundation of Bali and Wikipedia:Senang Hati Foundation

The log you linked to extended the day after your post in the above. There were many such impersonators and most have been sorted; Lar's gonna get whatever's been missed. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:55, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank-you spam

Thank you for luring me into this place, John. And thank you for being my nominator. :) I'll try to make you glad you did it. So here's a belated Nadezhda "Harry S. Truman" Durova campaign song. All the best, Durova (talk) 05:39, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• 

Running into something I've never come across before

So I was spending some idle on-the-phone time hitting up random pages in the Index namespace, and doing very simple work (like tagging {{blank page}}s) that doesn't make me go "uh huh, that's nice dear."

But I came across a couple of indexes that had absolutely no content in them whatsoever to review. (for example, Index:The Parson's Handbook - 6th ed.djvu) What can I do to automatically/automagically extract the text so there's at least a first pass for someone else to review? I've never done anything with texts other than proofread the output text, so I'm at a loss for generating it myself (without manually typing everything, which while I'd be able to, probably isn't the most efficient method). EVula // talk // 06:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We can upload the OCR, but ... I neglected doing this because according to w:The Parson's Handbook, this is a transcription of the 1st edition. So, I uploaded the 2nd and 6th edition (listed on Author:Percy Dearmer). My thoughts were that the first edition text could/should be copied onto the 2nd edition pagescans, and then we evaluate our options to determine which is the best approach to do the 6th. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm run across a few others that have huge spans of redlinks, so the need is still there (for example, Index:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson - Volume 4 - 2nd ed.djvu and Index:Pierre and Jean - Clara Bell - 1902.djvu). Is there any (free) software I can use? (I'm on a Mac, but can run Windows easily enough) EVula // talk // 07:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

We dont want the OCR for those two, as proofread text already exists. When this is the case, I usually note the desired source in the "Source" field (e.g. this), or if we already have the text in the mainspace, we want to migrate that text into the Page namespace so we can track improvements to our text (e.g. this). Sadly, this is manual and mundane copy&paste work. Index:In Flanders Fields and Other Poems.djvu took about 2.5 hours; Index:Nietzsche the thinker.djvu was about 8 hours. We list those projects at WS:TP#Projects with text available, but empty pages (needing manual copy-paste)

Where there is no viable proofread text for a work already floating around the internet, we use m:djvutext.py, which I havent tested on OSX.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikisource:Sheet music

I'm confused; what function does this serve that the sheet music category doesn't fill? Best, Durova (talk) 00:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

In our project namespace we have a topical index that starts at Wikisource:Works. These pages are a mix of "Portal", "Wikiproject", "catalogue of existing works in the library", etc. While categories are used akin to a catalogue system, these pages are a way to present the reader with a readable index. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Then I should be adding everything manually? Durova (talk) 01:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It isnt a big deal, so dont feel obligated to spend lots of time on it. The song of the day project is going to bring far more eyes to these pages, so the time is better spent there, me thinks.

My suggestion is that you create Wikisource:Ragtime, as we suddenly have plenty of works in that narrow topical area (which is great), and mention your new index on Wikisource:Music and Wikisource:Sheet music. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Frame for table

Hi, I just started working on Modern Money Mechanics, and I don't know how to place a frame around this table. I want to put a frame around it, preferably on only three of the four sides (top, left, and right), but I don't know how the source code should look like. You would probably understand better if you looked at the table from page 7 of this PDF file. If you know, please tell me. diego_pmc (talk) 11:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I've done a simple yet close replica. It should be possible to do an exact replica, but the voodoo might get quite complex. When you have finished, I suggest you ask User:Jack Merridew to tweak all of the cases that are in need of some finishing HTML touches. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't want them to be 100% exact copies—shadows and other such cosmetic details aren't really that important. diego_pmc (talk) 08:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Clean-up on columns 1 & 2

About this should be done to the other sections of the main page, which I can't tweak. If you don't like the line-height bit, just remove. Something really should be done about the poor contrast of that link with its background, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

WCR Co-operation

• http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium/WCR ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikiversity dissucion page conerning Armistice Day material

• http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Wiki_Campus_Radio/Active_audio_stream/11-11

In respect of histories, Are there any official ones? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Along the Potomac (Dickinson) and others

• Along the Potomac (Dickinson)
• Page:Emily Dickinson Poems (1890).djvu/153

I've been working on the POTM and have just realized that you've got some of these pages transcluded to standalone mainspace pages, too. They will, presumably, also be transcluded to another page as a collected work. I see an issue with how the titles of the poems are to be done; per your stuff from March (I think) the title needs to be in the header; the new presentation layer for this work would rather they be in the trancluded text, and absent this, it seems they will have to be in the trasncluding page. Hmmm…

• See also; Wikisource:Scriptorium#Template:Dropinitial-span; the centered table here will impact the others, too

—Jack Merridew 10:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

• Resurgam, too. Jack Merridew 10:10, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is easier if the title is put into the header, so that transcluding the page grabs only the interesting parts. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's harder on the page that will collect the work together; it's also a gross encapsulation violation. There should be some way to make the titles evaporate in some circumstances; either by a template parser func or a css rule; would have to look into it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I dont understand how it is any harder.

Also, there will not be a page that collects all of the pages together. Could you take this to the Index talk page, as the discussion on how we proofread this is one that everyone should participate in. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm still looking at the wider-picture. I'm beginning to see why you say there will be no presentation layer collecting this all together; there's a broader concept of collecting her works together, not just specifically that set of scans. I say it's harder because the titles would have to be in the page doing the tranclusion. There was a tread on WS:S about a week ago where I said that the pattern of things needs to be set before folks just dive in and follow their instincts (as I'm doing). The encapsulation I referred to would mean keeping the titles inside the transcluded page (such that they were transcluded and display, at least sometimes).

FYI, I'm familiar with The Belle of Amherst; I was the production designer for a run of a one woman piece on her (not one of the NYC runs and no connection to a former username). Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

• The Brain, within its Groove like? Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Very much! Can you add provenance for the recently added one - (See Bell Buoy). And .. heck ... why not ping the contributor of the old edition to see where it came from (they will probably be keen to help us anyway...). --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 15:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank. Not really sure what the details are; User:Khaldei? 3 edits in 3 years; none in 6 months. It's late here; about to knock-off. I'm watching for the ball… Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Waltzing Matilda

As parody is nominaly protected in the US :

Once a Wiki-median tried to find a status file,
So to check on a tune , you see.
And as said Wiki-median sat and tried to find he sang...

Who'll come a searchin?, Who'll come a searchin?.
And as said wikimedian sat and tried to find he sang...
Who'll come a searchin with me?

First they by Stanford went to check for a re-new-al,
but no record they found
So as said wikimedian went on to LOC he sang...

Who'll come a searchin, Who'll come a searchin
So as said Wikimedian went on to LOC he sang...
Who'come a searching with me?.

LOC file said claim of '41
and then Google books thusly confirmed
So as back to Stanford they deaprted they sang

Who'll come a searchin, Who'll come a searchin
So as back to Stanford they de-par-ted
Who'll come a searchin with me?

Stanford reffered to yet another site,
But the scans there music exclude...
So with no options, Wikmedian sang

Who'll come a searchin, Who'll come a searchin?
So with no options Wiki-median sang
Who'll come a searchin with me?

And there i shall end this tale,
Not sure how to proceed.
And as Wiki-median sits and ponders still they sing..

Who'll come a searchin, Who'll come a searchin?
And as Wiki-meian sits and ponders still they sing..
Who'll come a searchin with me?

Basicly there appears to be a possible 1941 claim on an arrangment of Waltzing Matilda by Carl Fischer Inc., The scans of renewals don't currently seem to include music, so I am unable to check further.. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 03:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Template:UC and co.

Hey, I saw you deleted and restored, seeming just for now, the above template (the uc redirect, specifically, but I'm worried about were you're headed). Ya, I know there are parser functions for this and they have their uses. I see value in maintaining a template interface to this functionality; a number of reasons, really. First would be flexibility; the template provides a point of control, i.e. options for the future. Second, using client-side css is better than server-side parser functions in a lot of circumstances. When someones copy-pastes text off the screen that has been somehow UPPERED, what should they get? With the css approach, they get the, presumably, mixed-case that was passed to the template; with the parser function, they get ALL-CAPS, all the time. I see case conversion as a presentational artifact; in circumstances where you truly want to lock the case, ah, UP, use raw uppercase characters and omit any level of text transformation. Most of the above would apply to other such templates, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I alraedy said almost exactly what you're saying here, over at the Scriptorium. You might like to go over there and say "me too". Hesperian 05:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I need your help again

• Index:1960 FBI primer on Nation of Islam <- This can be deleted and has been replaced by Index:1965 FBI monograph on Nation of Islam.djvu Please help me to delete this text. Thanks! --Mattwj2002 (talk) 08:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I redirected it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Zara

See [16] lots of stuff like this, people changing what the book actually says into modern English. I think it should be exactly what's in the book. ??? — Rlevse • Talk • 02:35, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The original text posted to Wikisource was "hangs", so it probably was modernised by someone else. Our text needs to be copied to Index:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu so that it can be proofread back to the original text. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:25, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

So you agree, it needs to match the book version. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes; our texts need to accurately match a printed edition. We want to move all text from the mainspace to the "Page" namespace, so it is readily provable that we have an accurate text. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Song of the day

Did I break anything? I tweaked that a few days ago so it would play nicer in the {{welcome}} template. See my talk and Sherurcij's. I thought I checked that the main page was still ok, but I see it broken in the old versions; is this just due to an interaction with your tweak to the template? fyi, that welcome template falls all apart in IE6. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The main page looked shocking, at all resolutions, on Firefox. The float:right was needed for some reason.

The welcome template looks good though. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Maaf — I'm sure I refreshed my cache and it looked fine (in FF). However, I expect that it was the mediawiki cache that needed purging. FWIW, I've found that it is best to make a null-edit preview and save it to fur-sur flush things out. I'll be sure to do that with edits to the main page in the near future ;) I see things to do in there. You didn't put the float back on the template, you just moved it into that div and overrode the other style (namely the 50%). Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

See also Talk:Main_Page#Page_layout_today. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:29, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like what I saw in the page history. I'm still trying to parse this. I'll certainly tread more carefully (I was a wee less-bold here). I got interested in this when I tweaked {{Song of the day}} to adjust the line-height. Note that the teal header is a bit taller and the text doesn't crowd the bottom; compare with the other headers on the main page; they should all be tweaked. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:29, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

wrt {{Page}} and any template that is on our main page, be very careful. Test in a sandbox; be sure you understand all invocations before altering the template. {{Page}} is used on a large percentage of our "most viewed" pages. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:11, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

ok; note that I saw this after I made this edit. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)