Wikisource:Scriptorium

SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 3 days and sections whose oldest comment is older than 30 days.

Proposals

Request that English Wikisource be added to Commons deletion notification bot

Per an earlier discussion, it sounds like it would be useful for Wikisource to be notified when files in use here are nominated for deletion on Commons. The Commons deletion notification bot run by the WMF Community Tech team provides such a service. We just have to have local consensus for using the bot and then make a request on Phabricator. If you have any opinion about this, please make it known below. Nosferattus (talk) 02:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support - not only useful for copyright reasons but for the fact that for almost every Index, there are hundreds of page namespace pages that would have to get mass-deleted / mass-moved etc. every time something is deleted, so better to know ahead of time to prepare our admins for that in advance. SnowyCinema (talk) 02:40, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

provisional support—provided that the notifications are restricted to files that are relevant to enWS and that the notifications are prior to deletion rather than post-deletion. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support, would be useful to be able to import files. @Beeswaxcandle: From what I can see of this bot's edits, it only makes "file has been nominated for deletion" pings, which are pre-deletion. Also, it only notifies a Talk: page when a file used on it or on its item is getting nominated, so I don't think we're going to get flooded by irrelevant files. — Alien  3
3 3 06:29, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support per all above. We should not be caught unawares by actions on another project. BD2412 T 05:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support --Jan Kameníček (talk) 18:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support - Very useful. The bot notifies by posting a message on the first 10 talk pages of a page where a Commons file is being used, upon the file being nominated for deletion. Ciridae (talk) 16:53, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support —Tcr25 (talk) 22:44, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

 Support and prepare to move things here accordingly.--Jusjih (talk) 00:58, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

 Support per the above. (User:CommonsDelinker does a similar thing but for already deleted files, which is also quite useful.) Duckmather (talk) 23:04, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I have posted the Phabricator request here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T384484. Nosferattus (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: Another discussion here: Is the Index talk page the best place for this notification? Talk pages often go totally unnoticed on smaller wikis like this one, or the editors involved with those indexes may have left 10 years ago. Should the bot give the Scriptorium, Copyright discussions or some other main discussion space, a notice instead, so the entire community can become immediately aware? SnowyCinema (talk) 15:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

That is a great question. Feel free to open a new discussion about that so that we can collect more input. Nosferattus (talk) 15:58, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Bot approval requests

• See Wikisource:Bots for information about applying for a bot status
• See Wikisource:Bot requests if you require an existing bot to undertake a task

Repairs (and moves)

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

See also Wikisource:Scan lab

The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe

This is currently a combination of a versions page (listing a number of versions printed in the 1850s) and a top-level page for two volumes (1 and 2). However, the two volumes are actually from different editions (vol. 1 is from the 1850 ed., vol. 2 is from the 1859 ed.). I can clean up the versions page afterwards, but I need The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe/Volume 1 to be moved to The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (1850)/Volume 1 (with sub-pages) and The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe/Volume 2 to be moved to The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (1859)/Volume 2 (with sub-pages). TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:07, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Index:Pamphlet of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, vol 23–24.pdf.djvu

The name of this Index is incorrect. This should be moved to Index:Pamphlet of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, vol 23–24.djvu. ToxicPea (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:11, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Index:Maryland House Bill 705-2023 Regular Session.pdf and Index:Maryland Chapter 247-2023 Regular Session.pdf

Please move to Index:Maryland Chapter 245-2023RS.pdf and Index:Maryland Chapter 247-2023RS.pdf respectivly. I've already requested the files be moved on commons. ToxicPea (talk) 02:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Done for both. — Alien  3
3 3 20:21, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

A Critical Examination of Dr G. Birkbeck Hills "Johnsonian" Editions

This needs to be moved to A Critical Examination of Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill's "Johnsonian" Editions. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 04:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:05, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Great Expectations

This should be moved to Great Expectations (1890) (with all of the chapters), as a disambiguation page is needed for Great Expectations (1st edition). Ideally, it would be moved to The Works of Charles Dickens/Volume 29; however, The Works of Charles Dickens also needs to be disambiguated, as it currently refers to a different edition (the 32/36 volume Gadshill, as opposed to the 30 volume of whatever this set is). The latter move doesn’t need to happen now, as there is still bibliographical information needed for it. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:08, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Cane

Can this page and all its subpages be moved to Cane (Toomer)? That way it can be converted into a disambiguation page. Thanks, prospectprospekt (talk) 19:21, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:04, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Home-Made Toys for Boys and Girls (Hall)

Not sure what specifically to ask here, but can everything related to both the index and the transclusion of a Home-Made Toys for Boys and Girls please be corrected to "... Girls and Boys". Sorry for my mistake. I have already requested that the file be moved on Commons, which has been completed. I can also manually adjust the ToC and any other fixed links throughout the text if need be. Also, and more for future reference, is there any benefit to a move request, compared to moving the pages manually, besides time saved and/or a reduced likelihood for errors? Thanks, TeysaKarlov (talk) 20:37, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

It's mostly time saved. Admins can move all subpages in one click, which takes much less time than if you'd done them all manually. — Alien  3
3 3 17:37, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Alien333 Thanks for clarifying. Could these all be moved then, or am I missing something? Thanks, TeysaKarlov (talk) 20:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

They can be moved, yes, just hadn't taken the time to yet.

The move itself, of the mainspace pages and the index and the Page:s, is Done.

The pages tag have to be updated in mainspace. — Alien  3
3 3 20:25, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Pages tags ought to be Done too. — Alien  3
3 3 20:31, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

@Alien333 Many thanks. I will start updating links now. Also sorry if my second comment rushed things (and for naming the work incorrectly in the first place), but I wasn't sure how serious "in one click" really was. Regards, TeysaKarlov (talk) 20:33, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It's fine. I'm postponing too much stuff these days, and I was about to put this as well to later. Your comment made me tell myself "oh and why not actually do it while we're at it".

(There is a caveat to the "in one click", which is 100 subpages per click. Then, rinse (move root back to original title) and repeat (had to do it thrice for this index). Theoretically, Page:s would be more annoying to do, as the index isn't actually their parent page, but I just create a temporary dummy parent page to move them, and then delete it.

So here in the end it was moving the mainspace root once, the index once, and the dummy Page: root three times, to move in total about 300 pages.) — Alien  3
3 3 20:37, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Dombey and Son

This needs to be moved to Dombey and Son (Gutenberg) to create a disambiguation page for Dombey and Son (1848). The Gutenberg copy is from a later edition, so it is not superfluous at this time and should not be deleted. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 17:35, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Tussock Land; a Romance of New Zealand and the Commonwealth

This should be moved to Tussock Land seeing as that's the actual title of the book. Norbillian (talk) 09:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 12:57, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:Works of Aristotle - ed. Ross - 1932 (djvu, workstranslatedi02arisuoft).djvu

Asking to move Index:Works of Aristotle - ed. Ross - 1932 (djvu, workstranslatedi02arisuoft).djvu + pages to Index:Works of Aristotle - vol. 2, ed. Ross - 1932 (djvu, workstranslatedi02arisuoft).djvu (adding the vol. 2). The djvu should be updated to the correct name at Commons. Thanks, Overthrows (talk) 23:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Done MarkLSteadman (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Repeat of request to move pages in Index:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu

As per previous request of September 2024, could you please undertake the following moves:—

• Index page name = Index:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu
• Page offset = 1 (i.e. text on /115 moves to /116)
• Pages to move = "115-274"
• Reason = "realigned pages"

• Page offset = -1 (i.e. text on /409 moves to /408)
• Pages to move = "409-454"
• Reason = "realigned pages"

• Delete = /705 & /706

Thanks Chrisguise (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't have (yet) the tools to deal with that sort of request, so can't help you here. @Xover: perhaps you could do this? — Alien  3
3 3 17:07, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

The Weary Blues and The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1)

Requesting that the former be moved to The Weary Blues (collection), since the collection shares a name with a poem inside it, and all the subpages under the latter to The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen/Volume 1, to convert to title case and remove the parenthetical disambiguation for the volume. prospectprospekt (talk) 15:02, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Done for both - please check and update accordingly Special:WhatLinksHere/The Weary Blues, and other links. — Alien  3
3 3 20:18, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Fanny

There are currently two works that use this title, Fanny by Edgar Allen Poe and Fanny by Fitz-Greene Halleck. I'm requesting that Fanny be moved to Fanny (Poe) so I can convert it into a disambiguation page. Norbillian (talk) 15:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Done - but please note that this section (move requests) is mainly for mass actions that would take a long time to most users. You can move single pages yourself. — Alien  3
3 3 16:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Poems Sigourney 1827

Preferably move this to Poems (Sigourney), seeing as there's no evidence that the book is actually named that. Norbillian (talk) 15:39, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Moved to Poems (Sigourney, 1827), as Poems Sigourney 1834 exists (will move that to Poems (Sigourney, 1834)). — Alien  3
3 3 16:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

And that's Done too. — Alien  3
3 3 16:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! If you have time, could you also rename Tamerlane and other poems seeing as every source I've seen refers to it as Tamerlane and Other Poems? Norbillian (talk) 16:53, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Will do, is listed as that on w:Tamerlane and Other Poems too. — Alien  3
3 3 17:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Done. I left redirects, though, because there are many links. — Alien  3
3 3 17:35, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:Rebel rhymes and rhapsodies (IA rebelrhymesrhaps00moor).pdf

Please move to Index:Personal and Political Ballads (IA rebelrhymesrhaps00moor).pdf. File renaming has been requested at Commons. —Tcr25 (talk) 15:47, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

File renaming at Commons is complete. —Tcr25 (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Done. — Alien  3
3 3 20:03, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! —Tcr25 (talk) 22:07, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:The Appari News, Volume 1, Issue 45.pdf

Please move it and all related page to The Aparri News, instead of The Appari News. I've already requested a renaming on Commons. Norbillian (talk) 19:55, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Done — Alien  3
3 3 20:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Autumn (1892) Thoreau

This should be moved to Autumn (Thoreau) in line with style. In addition, the main page should be probably be divided into sub-pages, as it is very large, but I am not sure how it should be done. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

 Comment That assumes that, among the various on-going transcriptions, there will only ever be a single edition of the Autumn collection, which is an unwarranted assumption. There is also no agreed-upon style for disambiguation titles. We can simply create a redirect. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

• EncycloPetey: In the absence of another edition, there is no point in disambiguating, and the current title is clearly wrong. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

  One person's opinion is not reason enough to move an entire work and change all the links. And in the absence of a community policy on disambiguated titles, this is merely an opinion. My opinion is to disambiguate editions of well-known authors with many works in anticipation of future editions, so that massive moves and linkage repair isn't necessary. In that regard, I sympathize with the creator of this edition. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

  It isn't mere "opinion." Per Wikisource:Versions#Naming_conventions "usually with an identifier in parentheses/brackets after the title." is the naming convention, although that isn't an absolute prescription, it is guidance and my impression is that proper disambiguation style would be Autumn (Thoreau, 1892) or Autumn (Thoreau) or Autumn (1892), or Autumn (1892, Thoreau) etc. not to dismabiguate a title Autumn, as Autumn Thoreau or, Autumn 1892, etc. MarkLSteadman (talk) 16:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

  There is no stipulation that identifiers must only be in parentheses. In the current example, there is an identifier in parentheses after the title. And there happens to be additional information after the parentheses.

  But more importantly, the page you cite has never been agreed upon as either policy or as a guideline; it has no official standing at all. The cited page fails to consider situations in which the naming of versions pages must themselves be disambiguated from other works. There is no standard and even this page says "usually". There have been a few comments to start a discussion about creating standard preferred disambiguation naming standards, but no such conversation has ever started. It will be a very big discussion, because there will be so many possible edge cases. Hence, "usually" allows for exceptions.

  And where there is no agreed upon standard, any choice is necessarily an "opinion". --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:32, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Renascence and other poems

This should be moved to Renascence and Other Poems. In addition, the poems themselves need to be moved to title-case. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

 Oppose Moving the main page of the work, since sentence case is explicitly allowed by policy. We can move the pages of the individual poems, since all-caps is not recommended. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:The Poetical Works of Thomas Tickell (1781).djvu

Following deletion of two duplicate pages, could you please undertake the following moves:—

• Index page name = Index:The Poetical Works of Thomas Tickell (1781).djvu
• Page offset = -2 (i.e. text on /104 moves to /102)
• Pages to move = "104-175"
• Reason = "realigned pages"
• Delete pages /182 & /183 Chrisguise (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

When you say "Following deletion of two duplicate pages..." do you mean that two pages will need to be deleted as the first step, before completing the items on the list? or do you mean that two pages have already been deleted, and the items on the list can now be completed? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development.djvu

Merge Index:Mythology among the Hebrews and its historical development.djvu (file 1) into the existing index file Index:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu (file 2) as I accidentally created a duplication. For content pages, use pages from file 1 as they contain links. And for other pages, use those from file 2 as they are proofread. --1F616EMO (talk) 15:18, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

The two pages have already been deleted. Chrisguise (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

A few figs from thistles; poems and sonnets

This should be moved to A Few Figs from Thistles (Harper & Brothers, 1922), to distinguish it from A Few Figs from Thistles (Frank Shay, 1922). The current title (which is doubly bad, as it is incorrectly capitalized and includes a subtitle) is independently bad as that title and subtitle are shared between the two 1922 editions. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 06:04, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Other discussions

Dark mode compatibility and Template:author

It is, as-is, having trouble with dark mode compatibility (reported by @Reboot01). E.g. try to read Author:Nora May French's header in dark mode. It hardly is possible. I have tried, at {{author/sandbox/styles.css}}, to use codex colors to make it work. A problem, though, is that the tints of maroon used by the template are if I understand correctly not available as variables in codex. So, I have used redder colors. This is what it looks like:

Nora May French

What do you think? — Alien  3
3 3 19:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

This is completely subjective, but I unironically like the way that red looks in dark mode, it's very pleasing to look at and adds a bit more than black, grey, and blues. Reboot01 (talk) 21:03, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Note: A similar issue exists with {{process header}} (also using unavailable colors, here yellow-/orange- ish ones). I was thinking maybe gray for that one? (As red is taken). — Alien  3
3 3 11:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to try out an alternative, not using codex variables but @media screen. — Alien  3
3 3 11:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Forgot about doing that, and Matrix has done it before I remembered to. So all good now. (normally) — Alien  3
3 3 10:09, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Transclusion of multiple or all subworks on a single subpage

As is done e.g. at Poems (Pushkin, Panin, 1888).

Arguments that I know of, feel free to add:

For: can be construed as simpler (less pages, reduced/no need for section tags)

Against: prevents attaching information to one specific subwork ({{similar}}, wikidata items, &c); can result in unwieldy pages; searchability a bit reduced (with the title not being in a pagename)

Where do you all stand on that?

I personally would be rather against. — Alien  3
3 3 20:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

As far as attaching information to a specific subwork at wikidata, there is no longer a hindrance, since wikidata can support redirects now. I am not aware of any reduced searchability; searches are already hit-or-miss, even when the title of a subwork is in the pagename. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Our works are not always so cleanly divided into subworks. We have a lot of gray area with some of our works. Consider Bibliography of the Sanskrit Drama/Names of Authors. Should we treat that as a single section because it is so listed in the ToC, or do we need to split it up by letter of the alphabet because there are clear divisions in the text pages? Should The Poems of Sappho/Chapter 3 be divided into 122 separate pages because fragments of 122 poems are identified? even if some consist of a single line? Is The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot a single work, or a collection of subworks? In The Souls of Black Folk, should the song at the head of each chapter be placed on a separate page because it is a song and not part of the essay that forms the chapter? I do not think a single answer can be applied to all our many works hosted here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

LJB preferred to do poetry books that way for two reasons: a) to keep the poems that followed a theme together (bibliographic); and b) to not need to use sub-subpages (practical). When I did Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1882) I went the sub-subpages route and ended up having to create intermediate subpages that aren't in the text just to parent the sub-subpages.

In general, I agree with EP that there is a lot of grey. The philosophy should be to ask what is going to be most useful to the reader. How will the work or page be used? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 17:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to to both for the info! — Alien  3
3 3 10:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Beeswaxcandle@EncycloPetey Whilst I agree that there are grey areas, in most cases where poems are grouped under a heading, it's still clear—from typography if nothing else—that they're separate poems, not the equivalent of stanzas or cantos of a larger piece. In such circumstances, I think the poems ought to be transcluded separately. Lumping stuff together just looks like a half-hearted job. I've broken up a number of poetry collections that were lumped together, although I don't intend to make a habit of it; it was a tedious process. Chrisguise (talk) 00:08, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

While things are sometimes grey, we shouldn't confuse things, and say well we should just transclude the whole DNB or EB1911 onto one giant page because hey, what are chapters with epithets anyways? We can provide some prescriptive guidelines that things like having a 1000 page transclusion of a book that lists 100 chapters in a TOC is generally bad and should be broken up. magazine should be broken up into issues and articles etc. There may be leeway in interpretation, but it isn't all grey. And then we can provide more suggestive guidance, where I would incline to agree with @Chrisguise that for poems listed in a TOC and titled individually we should favor breaking them up in general over using anchors and deep-linking, especially if we think it is worthwhile to have an independent WD entry. MarkLSteadman (talk) 01:22, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

My work on Punch/Volume 147 may be a good model for the way I like to transclude these mixed works.

Each issue of Punch is (generally) 16 pages of cartoons, short articles, and miscellaneous jokes. I transclude these as a single page. I feel this best preserves the feel of Punch, rather than it being ghetto-ised into 500 paragraphs each on a separate page. However, for all the material in Volume 147 I then went through and also individually linked every named item (e.g. Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3817/The Watch Dogs). This took an immense amount of work, and I don't think I will be doing this linking for future issues unless there are particularly significant articles or series that I would like to refer to elsewhere (it did make the index amazing, though).

 

I'm following the same process for the issues of Notes and Queries/Series 1/Volume 1 that I'm working through. In the 14 years that page images had been available on the site, 1 of the 30 weekly issues had been transcluded. We're now up to 7. If people want to go through, add section markers, and individually split up the major articles, in addition to the whole magazine view, then they are welcome to, but it's not something I'm going to do in the near future. Note that having all of the issue on the same page makes it much easier to hyperlink the inter-issue page references which are a feature of Notes and Queries.

 

The Strand Magazine, on the other hand, makes much more sense to be split into individual article pages. Qq1122qq (talk) 09:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@Qq1122qq That Punch volume work is truly amazing. I agree, it seems almost impossible to scale up without automating part of the process. But I think it's totally feasible to add some kind of markers during proofreading and let the robots handle the tedious work of splitting and generating individual articles. I actually wrote a similar script myself last month. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 02:36, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Two help requests

Hi folks, it's been a while! Hope everyone's well. Please can I get help on a couple of things:

1. Can someone remove my "abuse filter editor" right? I'm not using it, so should drop it for security.
2. I'm interested in maybe proofreading this work from Google Books. Unfortunately it has the Google front page which needs removing, and it's not on the Internet Archive. What's the easiest way to strip the front page nowadays without using dodgy software/websites?

Thanks! BethNaught (talk) 23:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Done Rights change. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

For page removing, I'd personally recommend w:PDFtk, which should be available to everyone.

Removing the first two pages can be done with pdftk source.pdf cat 3-r1 output result.pdf. — Alien  3
3 3 07:49, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you both :) and I will look into that software. BethNaught (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

If you need me to remove the page, I can and upload it to c:. Just ping me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

If you desire a non-command line option for pdf editing, I use the remove pages function of w:PDF24 Creator for dealing with Google Books. I will warn that with very large (1000+ pages) books it sometimes crashes if you let too much of it load in. But it’s a relatively simple option. Penguin1737 (talk) 21:24, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Dashiell Hammett's works from Black Mask magazine

Starting in 1927, Hammett published several series of related stories in Black Mask, which he then reworked into novels. The first of these is at The Cleansing of Poisonville, which was taken from a scan of just that story. I have not been able to find scans of the full magazines, and I understand that there are very few copies of the magazines still in existence. Should these works be left as standalone works, or should they be treated as sub-pages of the relevant issues of Black Mask even if we are unlikely to get the rest of the issue ? -- Beardo (talk) 02:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I would group them under the periodical title, and create a page listing contents we have. We do this for newspapers and periodicals, in the eventual hopes of getting a scan, even if we do not currently have such a scan. They may need to simply be under "Black Mask/etc" without volume or issues numbers, unless we have the means to be sure of that information. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't have the volume and issue numbers - the nearest that I have are 5 years before and 5 years after, and the issue numbers aren't quite consistent. I have the date and have used that. -- Beardo (talk) 02:59, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Decline and Fall

Currently serving as a redirect page to The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But Evelyn Waugh has a book called Decline and Fall that is famous and well-loved, entering the public domain last year. It's № 37 in the BBC’s 100 Greatest British Novels .

I'm working on a transcription now. When I'm done, would anyone have a problem with me replacing the page with the 1928 book? I don't think a full deletion discussion is properly necessary. FPTI (talk) 07:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I wonder whether it would be better to have this page as a dismbiguation page. -- Beardo (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

DAB sounds like a good idea to me, especially since the title of the novel is a reference to the history. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 04:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Coming to the party a little late, but I agree that "decline and fall" is a name associated with the history book pretty commonly, so a disambiguation page is best. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:17, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Difference between WS:CSD#G8 and "categories for an author's works" (precedent-based criterion)

It seems to me, that what falls under this "categories for an author's works" precedent criterion, also falls under WS:CSD#G8 as a person-based category.

Is there a difference I didn't grasp? If so, can someone explain it to me?

If there isn't one, we might as well remove the weaker precedent criterion, if they overlap. — Alien  3
3 3 20:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Are there nuances here around, for example, file-based categories? E.g. Category:The House at Pooh Corner (1961). Are we making a distinction between "pages" (which should be linked from Author or the TOC) and "files" (which are generally not)? 22:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)~ MarkLSteadman (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The House at Pooh Corner category is an exception rather than the norm, as it is about keeping files together for a work that can't be transwikied to Commons. The precedent criterion provides legitimacy for PROD nominations of works categories to be deleted. G8 is a more recently agreed speedy deletion reason, which puts the onus on the deleting admin to be completely sure about it and to do all the work required to remove it from all locations before deleting it. If it's done through PROD, there's the opportunity to share that load. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:41, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

My point is that it might be slightly broader under precedent-based under PROD, since it provides a chance for people to see and object? So categories with files or the administration / regnal period exemption might apply go to PROD, and then closed quickly instead of CSD. MarkLSteadman (talk) 11:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

The verbage about "Categories for an author's works" exists because such categories are allowed or expected on some other language Wikisources. It is therefore useful to preserve this particular situation to explain to persons arriving from other Wikisource projects. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:54, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

" and '

We have the template {{" '}}, {{' "}}, etc., which put a space between the " symbol and the ' symbol. But I struggle to think of a scenario where it would be desirable for the " and the ' symbol to be scrunched together, ever, if an alternative exists. And we've been having to add these templates manually for quite a while. Is there possibly some way to just make the Wikisource software, itself, possibly in global CSS and/or Lua/MW site code, handle this for all text across Wikisource automatically? In other words, if I simply typed "'text'" in this very discussion thread, the resulting display would show:

"'text'"

SnowyCinema (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

From the purely technical side of it, it is very easy, with this bit of JS:

mw.hook("wikipage.content").add((el)=>{ // run on page load
	el.html(el.html().replaceAll(/(?<=\>([^<]*)|^)(["']{2,})(?=[^>]*<|$)/g, // make sure the quotes aren't inside tags
		(s, m1, m2) => `<span style="letter-spacing:.2em">`+m2.slice(0,-1)+`</span>`+m2.slice(-1))); // put {{lsp|.2em on all chars except last
});

The question is rather, do we want this? We tend to prefer to stick to how it is done in the source; not all works used such spacing. — Alien  3
3 3 11:48, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I would argue for it even in those cases, since it increases readability significantly; and there's a significant argument to be made that if this gap isn't used in the source text, technical limitation as a reason is likely (to save paper, to justify the text, etc.). SnowyCinema (talk) 13:07, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

In stating that the technical side is easy, are you considering situations where " and ' are placed next to each other but the ' is actually part of a doubled single-quote used for italics markup? --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:01, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, because this changes the HTML output, and in the html the ''italics'' have been replaced by the parser with <i>italics</i>.

Other technical info that may be worth mentioning:

• It doesn't match stuff like <span onclick="window. x = 'these quotes are in a tag attribute'"> thanks to the (?<=...) and (?=...) parts, that prevent anything of the form <[not >s][quotes we matched here][not <s]>.
• Normally this should work cross-browser (safari supports (?<=...) since 2023), but we should still test it on all browsers before implementing (you never know). I can confirm it works on Firefox, Chromium and Opera. Testing still needed for Edge and Safari.
• On using JS vs something else: we can't apply lua to the whole site. CSS could be used along with JS, e.g. by adding class .ws-double-quotes or similar to the span instead of directly adding the styles, which would allow customisation (might be a better idea than inline styling, in fact), but these quotes by themselves can't be targeted in CSS. Altering the MW source would take a while, and they might not like it in the end, so I think it's better to do this locally.

— Alien  3
3 3 16:03, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-05

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

Weekly highlight

• Patrollers and admins - what information or context about edits or users could help you to make patroller or admin decisions more quickly or easily? The Wikimedia Foundation wants to hear from you to help guide its upcoming annual plan. Please consider sharing your thoughts on this and 13 other questions to shape the technical direction for next year.

Updates for editors

• iOS Wikipedia App users worldwide can now access a personalized Year in Review feature, which provides insights based on their reading and editing history on Wikipedia. This project is part of a broader effort to help welcome new readers as they discover and interact with encyclopedic content.
• Edit patrollers now have a new feature available that can highlight potentially problematic new pages. When a page is created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted, a tag ('Recreated') will now be added, which users can filter for in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. [1]
• Later this week, there will be a new warning for editors if they attempt to create a redirect that links to another redirect (a double redirect). The feature will recommend that they link directly to the second redirect's target page. Thanks to the user SomeRandomDeveloper for this improvement. [2]
• Wikimedia wikis allow WebAuthn-based second factor checks (such as hardware tokens) during login, but the feature is fragile and has very few users. The MediaWiki Platform team is temporarily disabling adding new WebAuthn keys, to avoid interfering with the rollout of SUL3 (single user login version 3). Existing keys are unaffected. [3]
• View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• For developers that use the MediaWiki History dumps: The Data Platform Engineering team has added a couple of new fields to these dumps, to support the Temporary Accounts initiative. If you maintain software that reads those dumps, please review your code and the updated documentation, since the order of the fields in the row will change. There will also be one field rename: in the mediawiki_user_history dump, the anonymous field will be renamed to is_anonymous. The changes will take effect with the next release of the dumps in February. [4]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:14, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to adopt the arrangement of presidential documents used on the Federal Register

I suggest we follow the arrangement here: https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents Lists of EOs from presidents who served multiple terms are all put into a single view, with the exception of Donald Trump - who has two lists of EOs, of proclamations, and of other presidential documents, because his terms are/were non-consecutive.

• Donald J. Trump 14
• Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 162
• Donald J. Trump 220
• Barack Obama 277
• George W. Bush 291
• William J. Clinton 364
• George H.W. Bush 166
• Ronald Reagan 381
• Jimmy Carter 320
• Gerald R. Ford 169
• Richard Nixon 346
• Lyndon B. Johnson 325
• John F. Kennedy 214
• Dwight D. Eisenhower 484
• Harry S. Truman 906
• Franklin D. Roosevelt 2023

Also, the Federal Register lists the documents in REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL order, whereas we tend to list them chronologically. This motivates my recommendation because the recent presidential documents are getting buried and are comparatively hard to find by browsing. However, I think we should discuss/debate that change in a separate topic so as to not overly confuse the two related but separate questions of how to organize these author pages.

See the history of Author:Donald Trump and its subpages the current status of this discussion, which until now has mostly happened in edit summaries and speedy deletion requests.

Notifying @Koavf and @ToxicPea who have been making constructive contributions on this subject matter, and may have informed opinions. Also discussed here: Wikisource_talk:WikiProject_United_States_Executive_Orders#Proposal_to_divide_EOs_into_subpages_by_presidential_term

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 04:29, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

If adopted, my proposal would result in three new subpages.

Author:Donald_John_Trump/Executive_orders (2025-2029) The President of the United States manages the operations of the Executive branch of Government through Executive orders. After the President signs an Executive order, the White House sends it to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR).

The OFR numbers each order consecutively as part of a series and publishes it in the daily Federal Register shortly after receipt. For a table of Executive orders that are specific to federal agency rulemaking, see the ACUS website. Executive Orders are available back through 1937.

Author:Donald_John_Trump/Proclamations (2025-2029) The President of the United States communicates information on holidays, commemorations, special observances, trade, and policy through Proclamations. After the President signs a Proclamation, the White House sends it to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR).

The OFR numbers each proclamation consecutively as part of a series and publishes it in the daily Federal Register shortly after receipt. Proclamations are available back through 1994.

Author:Donald_John_Trump/Other Presidential documents (2025-2029) The President of the United States issues other types of documents, including but not limited to; memoranda, notices, determinations, letters, messages, and orders. After they are signed, the White House sends it to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR).

The OFR does not number these documents but does publish them in the daily Federal Register shortly after receipt. They are grouped into four kinds of documents: Presidential orders, Memoranda, Determinations, and Notices. Other Presidential Documents are available back through 1994.

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 04:35, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me. I think splitting Grover Cleveland and the current president just because they were non-consecutive is not helpful for readers. And listing them reverse chronological is the opposite of how we typically do most lists of works here (in fact, are any lists reverse chronological?), so I'm disinclined to do that, but I wouldn't try to insist that we can't. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:46, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The current list makes it very difficult for me to find recent presidential actions and announcements, and I have almost given up on using Wikisource for the purpose. For reading, I'm now typically using the lists on http://www.Whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions, http://www.Whitehouse.gov/news, http://State.gov/press-releases which all distinguish the 47th presidency from the 46th, the 45th, and all other previous presidencies whose websites are archived, and which all have their lists in reverse chronological order, and are much, much easier to browse. In so doing, I lose the benefit of wikisource annotations, but its much easier to find out what is currently happening. I expect many other readers will have the same experience.

Jaredscribe (talk) 03:34, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

 Oppose for mostly the same reasons as Koavf. Redoing all the executive order lists to be reverse chronological would make them inconsistent with all our other lists and it seems like alot of work for little to no benefit. As for splitting Cleveland and Trump, I also don't feel like it would be helpful for readers plus it might mess with some of our templates like Template:Potus work table. ToxicPea (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it is best to keep these lists in chronological order - that's how we normally do things, and to change would mean going back to Abraham Lincoln.

On the other hand, I can see an arguement for separating the two terms - after all, their presidencies have two separate numbers. -- Beardo (talk) 02:17, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Rather than making an all-or-nothing decision, I suggest we separate the two terms into two subpages only for Trump, and revisit the question in 4+ years whether or not to make a Roadmap for systemic change going back to Abraham Lincoln.

Not only do the presidencies have two separate numbers, the presidential websites are separate - 45th is in the archive at https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/

whereas 47th is the current incumbent of http://whitehouse.gov It remains to be seen what the National Archives will do with this in four years, but Obamas two consecutive terms are on one website:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/speeches-and-remarks

On all these current and archived websites, the lists are in reverse chronological order, with January 2017 being page one of Obama's archive, and January 2009 somewhere around page 473. This makes it much easier to find things, given the recentist concerns of most people who are naturally more concerned with events recent in time the present than in events further in the past.

Note that the Federal register is also in reverse chronological order, as is any stack of newspapers or magazines found at your local library.

Reverse chronological is how I'm currently ordering Author:Marco_Antonio_Rubio#Works_as_Secretary_of_State_(2025-2029),

breaking my earlier chronological precedent on Author:Antony Blinken (which article I created and primarily contributed to). I don't think there is any fixed policy about this, and sometimes precedents can and should be overturned.

Even if we maintain the current "chronological order" for the Donald and his predecessors' author pages, I maintain that we should separate the subpages of 47th from those of 45th, and give each term its own H1 section on the Author page.

Separating terms is a fairly easy refactor and its low-difficulty will remain constant and is independent of the X-number of presidential works involved, only depending on the number of subpages, which is low and constant.

Reordering to reverse chrono would be considerably more difficult as a function of the number of presidential works, and will only grow progressively more difficult on a polynomial basis. (for that reason I don't advocate re-ordering for any but the current president, and only if we do it in the next few weeks). That said, I will accept the consensus of the community either way, and we can all have four years to evaluate how it works in comparison to the alternative that I hypothesize. The question could be reconsidered again November 2028 and at latest few weeks before 20th January 2029. Jaredscribe (talk) 04:09, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Something you've not given a good reason for, is, why would it be better

1. to split Trump's page, and
2. to list in reverse.

Indeed,

• "They do it like that over there" is not a reason to change how we organize our content.
• "2. would make it much easier to find things for recentists" is not accurate, as they have the brain to scroll down to the bottom of the page, which takes about a second.

Moreover, consistency in the formatting of non-content pages is important. Just like we wouldn't, for one disambiguation page, suddenly decide to list it in reverse alphabetical order, unlike every other disambiguation page, except if a very good reason for it is found, we should not choose list one author page in reverse chronological order, unlike every author page. So yes, consistency requires often "all-or-nothing" decisions.

Could you explain that? Than you, — Alien  3
3 3 06:33, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Splitting would be to have the 45th and 47th presidencies separate. -- Beardo (talk) 00:53, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

And why would we do that? Splitting author pages is usually not something we do, and a reason for it has not been given. — Alien  3
3 3 08:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I didn't think he was proposing to split the actual author pages. Just splitting some of the sub-pages. We separate Joe Biden's works as senator, as president and as vice-president, why not separate Donald Trump's works as president 45 and as president 47 ? -- Beardo (talk) 14:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

What is proposed here, (as far as splitting EOs is concerned) is to separate Author:Donald John Trump/Executive orders into two separate Mediawiki pages, Author:Donald John Trump/Executive orders (2025-2029), and the old page for EOs of the first term (possibly moved under another title, this has not been detailed). These pages would be hosting exactly the same kind of works, and would be split on a chronological criterion.

This is not what is done at Joe Biden: if you look at Special:PrefixIndex/Author:Joseph Robinette Biden, you can see that the EOs are not split by date. And splitting by date in general, besides not being our usual way, does not make finding works easier; it's arguably simpler to scroll up or down a page, than to go to another page (and the headings will clearly show what is what). — Alien  3
3 3 15:13, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Biden's works are not actually split by role (see prefixindex); it's only in the headings that they are (not split as in they're on the same pages).

Also, it appears that the VP works, as much less numerous, do not appear in the subpaes. — Alien  3
3 3 16:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Exporting to commons and large files

I've started tackling the backlog at Category:Media now suitable for Commons (16). There are in there files, which are too large to use Special:Import, notably the Strand magazine volumes. Using pwb's imagetransfer.py didn't work either. Any ideas on how to move them? — Alien  3
3 3 20:38, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Give me about 30 minutes to try. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

c:File:The Strand Magazine (Volume 24).djvu was uploaded by using a chunked upload method. Uploading by URI may also work, but I didn't try. If you don't want to bother with installing the script and uploading them yourself, I'm willing to do the rest. Just ping me and I'll finish them off. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:54, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I know about chunked upload, and I've used it in the past, but oughtn't we actually move the file, as in keep the revision histories, as opposed to merely reuploading it? — Alien  3
3 3 20:56, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess that's nice if we can do it, but if we can't, I don't think there are any attribution issues. To the extent that there are, I mentioned in the edit summary that I ported it over from here and someone could check the file logs if he really wanted to know who originally uploaded it, but yes, that does mean that the original uploader will have one fewer logged actions locally and globally across that person's SUL account. Maybe there's some other issue that I'm missing here, but sufficient attribution can be made in the edit summary and the talk page if you really want to cover your bases somehow. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

About catchword

I'm still quite new so I'm not familiar with the consensus here. Should catchword be added or not? After reading Help:Formatting conventions, I thought it's like binder mark, so it shouldn't be added. Then a more experienced editor added it back to the Page that I was editing. Now I'm not so sure. Ivan530 (talk) 14:50, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Most of us leave them in, even though they won't show up in the Mainspace, because they are a part of the text on the page. The editor who put it in did so automatically as part of other edits they made to that page. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 17:53, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

The case could be made that they are printer marks. In a way, they are printer marks that include parts of the work, instead of letters and digits. I'd say it's a bit of a grey area. — Alien  3
3 3 17:58, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with the comparison. Printer's marks are for the printer and binder to use in assembling the book. Catchwords are for the reader. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

There is no consensus to include or exclude them. They exist not for the bindery, but for the reader. Some modern books (especially choral music) still include them because it allows the reader / singer to know what is happening while they turn the page. They do not transclude to the Mainspace copy, so they provide no benefit there, nor is Mainspace harmed by their exclusion. If the transcriber has chosen to include them, and has done so consistently, I leave them there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:24, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Squab Culture

There are two indexes which seem to be the same edition - Index:Squab culture (IA squabculture00wood).pdf and Index:Squab Culture.djvu - do we want to have both ? -- Beardo (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

No. Since they're the same edition, they should be merged. SnowyCinema (talk) 02:29, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Further than being the same edition, I'm pretty sure it's the same physical book. (Compare the two notches below the "W" of "Wood" here and there.)

Definitely should move pages of one to another. As the PDF is an overcompressed IAPDF, I'd say move to the djvu. The move would be (as the djvu includes some pages from scanning that aren't really part of the work):

• pdf/1 → djvu/2
• ...
• pdf/76 → djvu/77

Going to try and do that this afternoon. — Alien  3
3 3 06:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

@SnowyCinema, @Alien333 - oh, great. I didn't realise that was possible. -- Beardo (talk) 02:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

And of course, I forgot. (and then remembered). Should be Done. — Alien  3
3 3 13:45, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Global ban proposal for Shāntián Tàiláng

Hello. This is to notify the community that there is an ongoing global ban proposal for User:Shāntián Tàiláng who has been active on this wiki. You are invited to participate at m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Shāntián Tàiláng Wüstenspringmaus (talk) 12:22, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

For the record: threefour wikisourcers, namely TE(æ)A,ea, Cremastra, Prosfilaes, and I, have all opposed the proposed global ban. Duckmather (talk) Duckmather (talk) 23:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Although, for the record, my home wiki is enWP since I'm not super active here. Cremastra (talk) 00:44, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Standardization of encyclopedia based nav templates?

Hey i want to start this discudtion becuse there are many tempaltes that are basicly the same and i am thinking about thes type of templates https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:EB1911, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:EB1922, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/IndexPage. THess templates are basicly the same.

• Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Volume_1
• 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vol 1 A to ANDROPHAGI

Johshh (talk) 15:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Two of those are templates for article headers, but the other is Index formatting in the Mainspace. They are not doing the "same thing". --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Ahhh. I see you are right. I was thinking about this thingy{{:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/IndexPage}}. OK i mean IndexPage like that. Johshh (talk) 22:10, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what you're asking. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:42, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/IndexPage and 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/IndexPage are doing the same thing. Why can't there be a singe template for this operation. Johshh (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Because they're separate publications? These are far from the only publications to have such navigation pages.

Why would we want or need a single template? Are you aware of how Wikisource content and goals are different from those on Wikipedia? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:10, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Sure, I know. What is the main difference between these two templates? The only difference is the titles, right?. so why do we need more templates than necessary? Johshh (talk) 23:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It's purely historical. The 1911EB template was imported when we were set up as a separate entity to old wikisource. The CE (1913) was brought in by importing all the articles from another repository (we don't allow this any more), but was not organised usefully. The IndexPage template was created to allow for rational organisation by volume. It was modelled on the 1911EB template. There are very few other works like this here in this situation. I did the Grove DMM in a different way and other encyclopaedic works are also being organised differently. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:17, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Reminder: first part of the annual UCoC review closes soon

Please help translate to your language.

This is a reminder that the first phase of the annual review period for the Universal Code of Conduct and Enforcement Guidelines will be closing soon. You can make suggestions for changes through the end of day, 3 February 2025. This is the first step of several to be taken for the annual review. Read more information and find a conversation to join on the UCoC page on Meta. After review of the feedback, proposals for updated text will be published on Meta in March for another round of community review.

Please share this information with other members in your community wherever else might be appropriate.

-- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces/Three Battles

This page comprises three parts. There are three separate pages which transclude the same content as this:

• War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces/High Wood
• War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces/Beaumont-Hamel (Three Battles)
• War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces/Victory and Failure

Two of those don't seem to be linked from anywhere else, and one of them is only linked directly from the author's page. Are these three of any use ?

Tagging @Xover and @Victuallers as creators of some of the pages. (a long time ago) -- Beardo (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• The poems from War, the Liberator, and Other Pieces were all originally stand-alone pages with all-capitalized titles; I moved them under the collection a few years ago, and they were scan-backed some time later. Originally, the three poems of “Three Battles” were separated, but when the work was transcluded it was decided that “Three Battles” was one poem with three parts. I’m not sure which approach is correct in this case. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:29, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I think it's one poem in three parts, as the TOC presents a typical style of sectioned poems within collections for the period. SnowyCinema (talk) 05:05, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-06

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

Updates for editors

• Editors who use the "Special characters" editing-toolbar menu can now see the 32 special characters you have used most recently, across editing sessions on that wiki. This change should help make it easier to find the characters you use most often. The feature is in both the 2010 wikitext editor and VisualEditor. [5]
• Editors using the 2010 wikitext editor can now create sublists with correct indentation by selecting the line(s) you want to indent and then clicking the toolbar buttons.[6] You can now also insert <code> tags using a new toolbar button.[7] Thanks to user stjn for these improvements.
• Help is needed to ensure the citation generator works properly on each wiki.
  • (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page MediaWiki:Citoid-template-type-map.json to include entries for preprint, standard, and dataset; Here are example diffs to replicate for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'.
  • (2.1) If the citoid map in the citation template used for these types of references is missing, one will need to be added. (2.2) If the citoid map does exist, the TemplateData will need to be updated to include new field names. Here are example updates for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. The new fields that may need to be supported are archiveID, identifier, repository, organization, repositoryLocation, committee, and versionNumber. [8]
• One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Central Kanuri (w:knc:) [9]
• View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the OCR (optical character recognition) tool used for Wikisource now supports a new language, Church Slavonic. [10]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Questions re #SafeguardingResearch

Hi all - first time posting here. I'm Henrik Schönemann - the one coordinating the efforts of #SafeguardingResearch on Mastodon and beyond: https://fedihum.org/@lavaeolus/113921816307826784 & https://safeguarding-research.discourse.group

We are a team of ~12 core-'members' and more people in the second row. We got a lot of publicly available data backed up already & are working on even more things.

I got 3 questions:

1) Are people interested in contributing/organizing?

2) Is it possible to chat with people on an institutional level? (We're looking at mirroring **a lot** of data.

3) Is this a place to upload parts of our collections? Especially sources/books (not datasets or articles)?

Thanks a lot!

Henrik Schoeneh (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

What do you know about Wikisource, and what research did you do prior to asking? Did you look at our FAQ documents and policies? Or are you asking blind?

With regard to question (3), are these sources/books things that your organization published, or that were published elsewhere? Are these original scans, or digitized copies? Are they public domain, or are they protected by copyright?

There are a lot of points that need to be clarified before an answer can be given, because there is a lot we don't yet know. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Right now I'm doing dozens of outreach-threads all at once, that's why I'm asking kinda blindly. I know Wikisource for some years now (have used it for my own research), but haven't contributed anything, except for a few corrections over the years (without an account).

We got publicly available scans from the Digital Collections of the National Library of Medicine for example, including the OCR-text (quality is meh). Books about racism, slavery etc. - all not research but primary sources. Those seem to me to be a good fit here. Schoeneh (talk) 18:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

For scans of print publications that are in the public domain in their country of origin, those scans can be uploaded to Commons and to the Internet Archive. If they are in English, we could then create transcriptions from those scans here. Without knowing more about the books, I couldn't say. We do not host self-published works for example, or works published without editorial review. I also can't tell from your response whether you mean scans of books, or some other kind of content. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I get that - no worries. But re Wikisource I'm taking about "publicly available scans from the Digital Collections of the National Library of Medicine for example, including the OCR-text (quality is meh). Books about racism, slavery etc. - all not research but primary sources" 185.238.219.108 18:59, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

But "publicly available" does not tell us whether they are protected by copyright, or how they were published, or where they originated. The fact that they are "available" publicly is irrelevant for Wikisource. Many things are available that we would not host here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

They would still need to be in the public domain (publicly available isn't exactly the same thing). So works of the U.S. federal government or books printed before 1930 or whose authors died before 1930. If they aren't in English, then they would need to go into the respective language version of Wikisource, which may have different inclusion criteria. —Tcr25 (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

They are printed before 1930 and in English. 176.0.131.40 21:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Then they are in scope. — Alien  3
3 3 06:25, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Also note that OCR dumps (works where only the OCR has been uploaded and the creator does not intend to correct it) are heavily frowned upon, and are likely to get deleted quite fast. — Alien  3
3 3 20:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I get that, that's why I wrote "meh" - I'm not going to dump not usable things here. 176.0.131.40 21:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

"Too many" fonts on page: What to do?

I'm actually working at Swedish Wikisource, but it has waaay fewer active contributors than here, so it's hard to get a consensus. Hopefully you folks on "en" will help me with this.

There's this book I'm considering proofreading, but it has a lot of fonts, and I'm not sure what's a decent way to treat them. Here is a sample page. It's in Swedish of course, but that's not actually relevant. What is relevant is the number of fonts that appear on the page. (1) The book is set in "Fraktur", as were many books from that era (1700's). It is my belief that this is not nearly as common in English-language works, but perhaps I'm mistaken about that. (2) Some words are "highlighted" by using the "Schwabacher" font. That's the somewhat darker and more widely letter-spaced words. The individual letters are mostly similar to Fraktur, but a few are different, especially the capitals. (3) Some words, mostly of "foreign" origin, use a font similar to monospaced text (much like <tt></tt>) but this font is actually proportionally spaced. It looks a lot like "Times New Roman" actually. (4) And some of the text is in Italics.

So my issue is: How should I represent all these? (1) The base font I have no control over, it shows as the usual Serif, and I'm fine with that. (2) The Schwabacher is a problem (for me), from two points of view: a) while it is somewhat darker than the base font, I think that just bolding it makes it too much in-your-face and does nothing for the wider spacing; b) the standard recommendation (in Swedish anyway) is to italicize it, but the text contains other stuff that's already in italics, and I don't want to mess with that. (3) The "foreign" words are actually in something that used to be called Antikva (which I find somewhat ironic, since it basically means "antique", but is now used a lot). But that's the 1700's for you.

So that's the issue I have. And my question(s):

• Does anyone know of a similar issue? And how it was dealt with?
• What do you think I should do to represent all these is a reasonable way?

Thanks ... Bio2935c (talk) 02:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@Bio2935: If I were doing this, what I would do is

• Use Fraktur for the Fraktur text (make and invoke a template for that if there isn't one already)
• Use Schwabacher for the Schwabacher text (make and invoke a template for that if there isn't one already)
• Use the base font for the proportionally-spaced text
• Italicize and use the base font for the italicized text

How does this sound to you?

Duckmather (talk) 05:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

"How does this sound to you?" Do not like it. The whole point of working on these texts is to make them more accessible to a wider audience. Writing it in the same very-difficult-to-read-for-some font as the original feels totally wrong. We're trying to make things more readable. Did I mention that I (personally) am also not comfortable with "overly technical" solutions; especially things that might not work with "every" browser (or your phone, even). "KISS" if at all possible. So, for now, perhaps there will be other opinions later in the day/week. Bio2935c (talk) 06:36, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Or your phone, even? I'm pretty sure that there are far fewer people on phones using archaic versions of browsers than people on computers.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:43, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Interesting problem. I would use small caps to represent the Schwabacher font and set the "foreign" words in the opposite to the base font (serif vs san-serif). Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:56, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Hmmm. I was going to say that your proposal to use small caps to represent the Schwabacher font felt too hacky, since Schwabacher is its own font after all. Then I realized that my browser (Firefox) doesn't seem to natively support a Schwabacher font. However, there also doesn't seem to be a way to list all the fonts my browser natively supports. We could use JavaScript to piggyback off of someone else's version of the font (by adding in an appropriate <link> tag with a bit of DOM manipulation), but it's unclear how doable or ethical that is.

Until we figure out something, I don't actually know what y'all should do. Duckmather (talk) 06:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

If you need fonts, https://fonts.google.com/ will usually do the job, letting you link to any of their fonts from your website, ethically and doable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:47, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

English / French WS generally don't have much to say on this as we stopped using blackletter for body text in general ages ago so even Shakespeare's First Folio, Hakluyt etc. is printed in Roman type. If it is used it is generally redone in modern editions anyways (such as the King James Bible, or Caxton), or explicitly for effect. English WS readers looking for a text from, say, the 1570s, know it isn't going to take effort. German WS might be reasonable to ask as they I am sure deal with it regularly as it was in common use up to the 1940s. Converting it all into roman type with variants (e.g. using italics and serif / sans-serif) for legibility or keeping in Fraktur / Blackletter and using different font variants. I suspect that going with Roman + variants is better because that is what your readers might be familiar with as opposed to German text where are likely familiar with both forms. MarkLSteadman (talk) 09:11, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Executive Orders with annexes

Some executive orders come with annexes. Should these annexes be placed on the same page as the rest of the order or should they be placed on their own subpage? Pinging @Koavf, @Jaredscribe, @TheSubmarine, @KINGDM76, and @TE(æ)A,ea. for comment. ToxicPea (talk) 15:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

They should be posted together. I think it's reasonable to make a subpage. See, e.g. how Supreme Court opinions are structured with Dissenting opinions as subpages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:43, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

There's an example of how it would look on Executive Order 14077. Does this work fine or is there anything that should be changed about it? ToxicPea (talk) 17:39, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I think the "List of Parties" is a little subtle, but altogether good. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:51, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, I think sub-pages are good, but wondering if there's a way to make the annexes more prominent than on EO 14077. Someone reading it would easily miss that there is an annex. TheSubmarine (talk) 14:19, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikileaks

I notice a couple of documents that are sourced from Wikileaks. Is that acceptable ? -- Beardo (talk) 01:26, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

We have classified documents from the US Embassy Tehran, ran them in the monthly challenge and no-one objected... MarkLSteadman (talk) 02:34, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Should be fine as long as the documents in question are public domain which is true of all works by the US federal government regardless of their classification status. ToxicPea (talk) 18:14, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

That was my concern - are the documents public domain if not officially released by the US government ? -- Beardo (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

While works from the federal government are generally public domain, there are some exceptions that can apply:

• Congress has the right to unilaterally take anything out of or put anything into the public domain
• A federal agency can redact information and leave it out of the public record for an indefinite period
• A work of the federal government can contain other works which are themselves protected by copyright (e.g. photos embedded in a PDF)

So a lot of Wikileaks document dumps from the United States federal government could be public domain or would be assumed to be public domain, it's not necessarily the case that everything is ipso facto public domain purely by virtue of having been a document from the feds. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:31, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it was officially released by the US government. The copyright law says "A “work of the United States Government” is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties. ... In General.—Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." w:Copyright status of works by the federal government of the United States should cover most of the gritty details.

Yes, Congress has broad rights to take things in and out of the public domain. It doesn't happen in practice, and there's no more reason to worry about it in this case than in any other.

If you have a copy of a Federal Agency document, it doesn't matter whether some other version is redacted, or even if your version is redacted but you can remove the redactions. There is no copyright for works of the United States government. I don't even think there's anything for general security stuff; w:Born secret notes that nuclear information is the only field where it can be illegal to discuss publicly available information. If Wikileaks has released stuff by employees of the US Federal Government prepared as part of their official duties, it has no copyright restrictions.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:20, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Even the law you quoted immediately gives preemptive exceptions, which explicitly refer to defense and intelligence, which is exactly the sort of material that Wikileaks published/publishes. Did you even read the law itself? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:00, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The exemption listed grants the copyright of work by faculty at federal universities to the faculty member which has almost nothing to do with diplomatic cables between embassies. Note the State department is not listed. The point is that, say, a professor of history at West Point can collect royalties if he writes and publishes a book just as a professor of history at a non-government university. MarkLSteadman (talk) 08:48, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Which is true about almost any modern PD / free-licensed work that cites any other work, even Wikisource. If someone forwards a news article it doesn't magically lose it's original copyright or includes, same if it is in a free-licensed book. But no-one was arguing that it magically didn't need to remove non-free images or non-free text just like every other government publication or report. MarkLSteadman (talk) 09:03, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Presidential pardons

Do we have a standard way that presidential pardons are titled? --RAN (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Do we even have any presidential pardons on here yet? ToxicPea (talk) 15:04, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

If it's just a standard proclamation I'd just call it Proclamation XXXXX ToxicPea (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

• Here is the one I want to bring over: File:Presidential Pardon of Charles Frederick Lindauer by Ulysses S. Grant on 21 March 1873.jpg --RAN (talk) 16:03, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  I suppose you could just call it Pardon of Charles Frederick Lindauer. ToxicPea (talk) 02:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Does @Koavf have any comment on this. ToxicPea (talk) 02:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for pinging me. I agree that "(Presidential) pardon of [Name]" is probably best. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:45, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  I also wanted to ask what we should do when there are multiple recipients. File:Full and unconditional pardons=pardon-warrant-7-19-jan-2025 1.pdf for example. ToxicPea (talk) 02:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Ah, yes, that could probably be something arbitrary like "Presidential pardon of [characteristics of group] by [politician]" or if there is no single defining characteristic of them, "Presidential pardons by [politician] of [date]". —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  That's not particularly helpful in this case because there isn't really a single defining characteristic for these people and this isn't the only pardon issued on this date. ToxicPea (talk) 02:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Well, it is useful actually because (as I recall), the other pardon that Biden issued that day did have a common characteristic of politicians who may face retributive investigations by the incoming administration. Finding the best way to name that one may be a bit of an open question, but you name that one with the defining characteristic and then you name this one "Presidential pardons by Joe Biden on January 19, 2025" and then link the two together to disambiguate. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  They were actually six other pardons and it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to name them. I am unsure about how to name File:A FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON-Jan6 Committee, Staff, Police=pardon-warrant-1-19-jan-2025.pdf however. ToxicPea (talk) 03:04, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  At a bare minimum, we could just have one "work" that is "Presidential pardons by Joe Biden on January 19, 2025" and transclude multiple documents. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:10, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  I have Pardon of General Mark A. Milley about a third done if you want to look at it. You can probably figure out how to format this better than I can. ToxicPea (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  I think that Page:A FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON-GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY=pardon-warrant-3-19-jan-2025.pdf/1 is pretty close to the best it can be now, but there may well be better ways to float the images and text at the bottom. I certainly think it's usable. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:29, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Sorry about waiting so long and hijacking your thread. Did that sufficiently answer your question? ToxicPea (talk) 04:09, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Making images available to "Proofread of the Month"

I made the un-watermarked, de-logoed images for the current proofread of the month available at Category:Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier) (they are still there). They cannot be uploaded to commons so they are here. Also, the images will be needed for the work. A few are my work, but the originals for those three can be provided if necessary.

What is the correct category name for this? I used the name of the djvu file; but that was apparently wrong.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The category name is correct, but the category should not be created. We use un-created categories for image sorting. The categories get created on Commons when the Do-not-move notice expires and they are shipped over. We do not use such categories here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

See this: Category:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 1? That was part of a group effort to categorize all of the images that were here. It seems they were all dumped into Category:Images. User:Xover asked that we all consider helping and some software was also involved (iirc). While I cannot find the entry here (Scriptorium) for this group activity, I can find that you were around then. Does this rule only apply to me? Or is it a new rule?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 15:06, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

New Texts bug?

For some reason, the items in the new text is abnormally spaced. Is there a reason why? Norbillian (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

See WS:AN#Template:New texts/item. In a nutshell: after module migration, there were a few styles to be corrected. Everything should be good to normal now. Feel free to comment there if you've got suggestions. — Alien  3
3 3 19:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Potus-eo bug

The template Template:Potus-eo is supposed to put works in Category:Executive Orders of year but is instead putting works in Category:year works. Anybody know why that is? ToxicPea (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Ought to be fixed. The issue was that it made the assumption that {{yesno|...}} returns no when ... is falsy, whereas it actually returns nil (an empty string). — Alien  3
3 3 06:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Transcluding a part of a work into another work

I've just transcluded some of A History of American Literature into The Wild Honeysuckle. Is this the correct way to scan-back the latter entry, which itself has a redundant, not scan-backed copy at The Wild Honey Suckle. Norbillian (talk) 04:40, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd say that no, putting an extract of a book as a top-domain work isn't the right way to do it. These two non-scan backed ones should be speedied under WS:CSD#G4, and then a redirect may be created from one of these two titles, or another one, to the history of american literature. — Alien  3
3 3 06:53, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Norbillian (talk) 12:32, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Source book that combines two books

Chinese and Arabian Literature (Commons file) contains two sections, each with its own title page, contents and separate page numbering. Is it fine to have both as one index here ? -- Beardo (talk) 04:41, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Both having been published in the same physical book, I don't see a reason why not. — Alien  3
3 3 06:55, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I will have a go. -- Beardo (talk) 13:33, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, one index. Invoke the pagelist command twice, once for each section. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 17:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Aha ! I will have a go at that. Thanks. -- Beardo (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

That seems fine - thanks again @Alien333 and @Beeswaxcandle. -- Beardo (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Index:Englsih and Bengali Dictionary, for the use of Schools - James Sykes.djvu

This has English misspelled in the name - also on Commons. Does that matter ? If so, what is the best way to deal with it ? -- Beardo (talk) 06:22, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Given it doesn't have pages yet, so the move on our end is still simple, I'd say put in a move request for the file at commons, put this work on hold until it's accepted, and then move the index. — Alien  3
3 3 07:49, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I have made the request at Commons. -- Beardo (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Moved it here too, all good now. — Alien  3
3 3 20:13, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikisource:Translations is now policy

For information: it now is officially {{policy}} following the proposal, which was archived before being properly closed. — Alien  3
3 3 20:17, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-07

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

Weekly highlight

• The Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has published a draft of their recommendations for the Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology department. They have recommended focusing on mobile experiences, particularly contributions. They request community feedback at the talk page by 21 February.

Updates for editors

• The "Special pages" portlet link will be moved from the "Toolbox" into the "Navigation" section of the main menu's sidebar by default. This change is because the Toolbox is intended for tools relating to the current page, not tools relating to the site, so the link will be more logically and consistently located. To modify this behavior and update CSS styling, administrators can follow the instructions at T385346. [11]
• As part of this year's work around improving the ways readers discover content on the wikis, the Web team will be running an experiment with a small number of readers that displays some suggestions for related or interesting articles within the search bar. Please check out the project page for more information.
• Template editors who use TemplateStyles can now customize output for users with specific accessibility needs by using accessibility related media queries (prefers-reduced-motion, prefers-reduced-transparency, prefers-contrast, and forced-colors). Thanks to user Bawolff for these improvements. [12]
• View all 22 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the global blocks log will now be shown directly on the Special:CentralAuth page, similarly to global locks, to simplify the workflows for stewards. [13]

Updates for technical contributors

• Wikidata now supports a special language as a "default for all languages" for labels and aliases. This is to avoid excessive duplication of the same information across many languages. If your Wikidata queries use labels, you may need to update them as some existing labels are getting removed. [14]
• The function getDescription was invoked on every Wiki page read and accounts for ~2.5% of a page's total load time. The calculated value will now be cached, reducing load on Wikimedia servers. [15]
• As part of the RESTBase deprecation effort, the /page/related endpoint has been blocked as of February 6, 2025, and will be removed soon. This timeline was chosen to align with the deprecation schedules for older Android and iOS versions. The stable alternative is the "morelike" action API in MediaWiki, and a migration example is available. The MediaWiki Interfaces team can be contacted for any questions. [16]

In depth

• The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: Updates about the "Contribute" menu; details on some of the newest language editions of Wikipedia; details on new languages supported by the MediaWiki interface; updates on the Community-defined lists feature; and more.
• The latest Chart Project newsletter is available. It includes updates on the progress towards bringing better visibility into global charts usage and support for categorizing pages in the Data namespace on Commons.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:11, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Before and After at the Department of Education

This afternoon I expanded and improved the Portal:United States Department of Education more than all other wikisource editors combined have done in the last 20 years. Here's my work, and here's how it looked before, and here's the differential.

In the process I also happened to run across Author:Jimmy Carter, and decided to improve and radically reorganize it, having already added one of his notable works last week, the The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal that he'd signed with Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution Omar Torrijos (7 September 1977).

How's that for efficiency? What did you guys do today?

If anyone would like to help out, you could start by blueifying this link, which now exists on both pages:

• Department of Education Organization Act Pub. L. No. 96-88, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979

And then blueify the others. Transparency and accountability are lacking in the US government, in many respects, and we have an opportunity to bring the transparency both to the government and also to the current effort at its radical reform.

Collegial regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 05:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Note that copy of the Panama treaty is proposed for deletion. We need to find a better source. -- Beardo (talk) 00:57, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Phetools-based Gadgets removed (OCR and Match&Split)

Since Phetools went down during The Great Toolforge Grid Engine Migration™ last year, the OCR service and Match&Split service that it provided have been non-functional. I have now removed (disabled) the two respective Gadgets (ocr and robot) so that the user interface artefacts of a non-functional service doesn't show up any more.

This does not affect any alternate or replacement service; only the ones that used the Phetools service on Toolforge. Xover (talk) 07:38, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Help wanted at P:USAID

You may have heard that the D.C. offices of the United States Agency for International Development have been shuttered and its staff furloughed, subsequent to POTUS's * Executive Order 14169 of January 20, 2025 Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.

Nevertheless, we at WikiSource are Hiring[sic] editors to contribute to it's page. We can't pay you, and your contributions will be in the public domain, but your work will improve the transparency and accountability of the U.S. government and its reformers, and you might learn something. :)

There are about 20+ redlinked documents that could be blueified; here are a few notable ones:

• Oversight of USAID-Funded Humanitarian Assistance Programming Impacted by Staffing Reductions and Pause on Foreign Assistance Feb 10, 2025, [1]
• Memorandum: Challenges to Accountability and Transparency Within USAID-Funded Programs Jan 28, 2025, by Inspector General Paul Martin,[2]
• Review and Potential Reorganization of USAID's activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with national interest, 3rd February Letter to Portal:United States Congress from Secretary Author:Marco Rubio
• Advisory Discussion regarding USAID by Elon Musk and associates in the United States DOGE Service, 3rd February, audio discussion held on X.com. Presumably in the public domain, according to the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Currently overseen by Deputy Peter Marocco of the Acting Director, U.S. Secretary of State Author:Marco Rubio. It's current website is oig.usaid.gov, and it's Inspector General is Paul K. Martin.

• The U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Inspector General was established on December 16, 1980, by Public Law 96-533, an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
• Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 by U.S. Congress

Collegial regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 17:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Many of these documents are cited by the secondary sources which are used on the relevant wikipedia articles. After the primaries are added here, they can be added to wikipedia on articles where secondary sources have already established relevance and notability, and will help to improve the encyclopedic coverage and context.

• w:USAID
• w:Department of Government Efficiency#United States Agency for International Development_(USAID)
• w:USAID#Allegations_of_wasteful_spending
• etc.

If you use primary sources on wikipedia without a secondary source alongside it, you must do so carefully, sparingly, and without w:Template:AEIS "Analytic, Evaluative, Interpretive, or Synthetic" statements that could be considered w:WP:Original Research.

Original Research, non-neutral editing, and forking of articles are allowed on Wikiversity, such as at the research project on the United States DOGE Service, provided that you practice scholarly ethics, as explained on that project.

Collegial regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

JUmp to file script

The script being User:Inductiveload/jump_to_file

This has an issue with IA links as detailed on it's talk page.

It's also apparently not retrieving scans from HT links either examples being the Statutes of The Realms volumes, (that also hit thumbnailing issues due to size).

The script needs re-writing , and InductiveLoad seems to be somewhat inactive.

Perhaps someone here is able to provide an alternate to the back end the script needs, to let Wikisource contributors use the hi-res function of the script as designed with scans from IA and HT again? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:03, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Portal guidelines proposed as actual guidelines

Hello WikiSource community,

An administrator here has recently informed that that Wikisource:Portal_guidelines are not actually guidelines, but merely an essay by @AdamBMorgan. (This person's user page says that he "organised the Portal namespace into a system based on the Library of Congress Classification system, after migrating them from index pages". I thank him for that, and hope we all do. This is a very impressive and helpful accomplishment that benefits us all.)

Apparently he wrote what was originally an essay, and was then promoted to a guideline by @Erasmo Barresi. I too use the Portal:Library of Congress and its collections, and the Portal:Portals here on wikipedia, and have been contributing lately to the Portal:Federal Government of the United States and its sub-portals, and encourage other good-faith contributors to assist, because alot of work remains to be done, especially since the US government produces public domain documents all the time, and the government changes every four or eight years and the pages need to be regularly updated.

Now in this discussion, User_talk:Jaredscribe#Library of Congress, Portals, and Cross-namespace redirects, @EncycloPetey has twice stated his opinion that the Wikisource:Portal_guidelines are not guidelines and that I am at fault for relying on it.

Therefore, lest there be an doubt, I propose that the Wikisource:Portal_guidelines be confirmed and established as guidelines and effective policy on Wikisource.

Collegial regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 17:06, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

•  Oppose This is an Essay. I see no reason given to add it to our list of Policies. However, we may wish to confirm it as a Guideline, or we may wish to confirm that it is not. The process by which it was elevated from Draft to Guideline involved one person nominating it for elevation, the same person voting, and then that person elevating it, with no other discussion or votes from anyone else. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  We should not accept @EncycloPetey's criticism of the earlier promotion process, until he provides a link to the discussion; we shouldn't take his criticism on faith. There were at least two people involved earlier, who I've named above and pinged. If many others gave their silent assent, then it is a broader consensus. Also, @EncycloPetey should state particularly what his dispute with the Wikisource:Portal_guidelines are, or propose an alternative essay. Otherwise his opposition is merely argumentative, and he fails to elucidate a positive account of what Portals are or should be.

  Jaredscribe (talk) 17:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  The two people you pinged have not been active here in years. One last edited here in 2016, and the other has only a single edit here since 2017. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  I take it that this edit made during this discussion concedes that the page is not an official Guideline or policy, since you have made the edit in your favor during this discussion? In any event, altering such pages during a discussion about their status is bad form. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:57, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  That edit concerned an entirely different, although related Guideline' page. Wikisource_talk:Red_link_guidelines#Portal_Namespace. Both of this and the WS:Portal guidelines are Guidelines, as they claim to be, and I do NOT concede that they are not, as you suggest, and as you continue to maintain. My addition did not substantially change the meaning, I don't think, but expanded and explained it so as to clarify the expectations for Portals, since we are both apparently in need of guidance on what ought to be done. I genuinely did not realize that this was controversial change, but if it is, we can discuss here:

  Wikisource_talk:Red link guidelines#Portal Namespace

  That is a better forum than my talk page or the ANI, because this issue concerns everyone who is involved in the projects of adding public domain government documents, and not just me and you.

  Jaredscribe (talk) 22:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  No, it isn't. Discussions that general should occur here in the Scriptorium, and not on various Talk pages scattered across the site. Unlike Wikipedia, Wikisource prefers centralized discussions. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

U.S. Federal Departments, Secretarys, and Annotations of Government documents

See Executive Order 14196 (2025) by President of the United States, A Plan for Establishing a United States Sovereign Wealth Fund addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce.

This raises a question on how to best annotate the documents. I chose to create redirects to the Departmental Portals, as you can observe, because the executive order is not directed to Bessent and Lutnick, per se, but to the Secretary of the Department, including all holders of the office until and unless a future POTUS rescinds the order. (which sometimes happens, other times not).

Before I'd worked out this convention, I had, on some other orders addressed to the Secretary of State (Portal:Secretary of State) linked to Author:Marco Rubio, but I have changed my mind and will correct those in the future, linking instead to the Portal:United States State Department, to where the P:SoS ought to redirect. There do not exist portals such as Portal:United States Secretary of the Treasury, or Portal:United States Department of State and I don't think that such portals need to exist, so I'm adding redirects for such Portal links to the respective departments.

However if other users choose to add those Portals, then I will defer and we could go back and make the necessary changes. They could, for example, include a list of all past office holders, importing and modifying this w:United_States_Secretary_of_the_Treasury#List_of_secretaries_of_the_treasury. That would be a worthy project, it's just not a project I have time for or intend to do in the foreseeable future. Instead, I will list past Secretaries on the Departmental Portal, and probably only on an ad hoc basis.

I encourage other contributors to expand the Portals with the history of these departments, for as "wisdom is more precious than gold", as Author:Solomon says, who was also reported to be wealth. there are many notable works that could be scanned, upload, and linked, some already have, and many of the Author pages already exist. There is more work than I could possibly do alone, although I'm apparently the only one here consistently laboring in this content area, although I thank @Norbillian and a few others for the constructive - if occasional - contributions, and I thank those others working on the WS:USEO project, and invite them to discuss. @Koavf and @ToxicPea and others whose names I can't spell.

Collegial regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 20:41, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Making portals for government agencies is a fantastic idea, but as you point out, a lot to add to and maintain. As for adding internal links, I generally avoid it unless I'm actually making an Annotated edition, e.g. at What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?/Annotated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for that annotated version! Once upon a time in 2021 I cited Author:Frederick Douglass's speech - on the wikipedia article for 4th of July and/or w:United States Declaration of Independence or w:What to a Slave is the Fourth of July. I'll go back someday to see how much remains.

Most of the Portals to government Departments and some bureaus and agencies, already exist. The lists of former Secretaries, Directors, and Chief officers, do not exist.

Portal:Treasury Secretaries doesn't exist, maybe there is a Category:Treasury Secretaries or Category:United States Treasury Secretaries or something, but apparently not. That's why I propose listing them on Portal:United States Department of the Treasury, until and unless someone makes a more complete index list, as a Portal, or categorizes the Author pages. Author:Alexander Hamilton, for starters.

Please add that, if you will. I've been recently arraigned at the Adminstrator's noticeboard over my Portal redirects, and don't wish to incur a block by making controversial edits to the Portal in question, until I've been cleared.

Jaredscribe (talk) 22:08, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Here it is: Category:United_States_Secretaries_of_the_Treasury.

I just threw caution to the wind added this notable fact to Hamilton's byline: and first Secretary of the Portal:United States Department of the Treasury.

Jaredscribe (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Embedding dust jackets in the header template

We have several options on how to handle dust jackets of books, such as: not worrying about them at all, transcribing them with the book, or transcribing them under a different title. I propose another one, which is to just include a picture of the dust jacket in the "notes" section of the header template, like what is done here. I want to do this, but I am afraid of getting reverted. prospectprospekt (talk) 20:41, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I think this is a bad idea for three main reasons (1) it pushes content of the book further down the page in favor of the header; (2) it places content that is not part of the scan into the work; (3) it puts potential content into a place that would not be available in the Download. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:48, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

1 and 2 are also arguments against transcribing the dust jacket in the main (un-subpaged) part of the book, and I can make it collapsible by default if that is necessary. Also, it would not make sense to attach the scan of a dust jacket to the scan of a book because a book and its dust jacket are separate things. prospectprospekt (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2025 (UTC) edited 22:40, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

On 2, that isn't true if it was included as part of the scan of the book. If the dust jacket is part of the scan, and I believe it should be, then it should be transcribed along with the internal portions. However, a large number of our scans come from libraries where the dust jacket was not bound with the rest of the book, and so is not present in the scan. And for1, that's only true if the dust jacket is placed at the very top of the first Mainspace page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:58, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I think including the dust jacket (or cover images, for books without dust jackets) in the Index page would be best. It's part of the work, and should be transcribed along with it. I also think it or any nice illustrative image of the work should be allowed to be included optionally in the mainspace page. Perhaps not in the header notes field, as that results in a fair bit of empty space, but floated to the right as we do for author images. It's good to give readers a visual clue as to what the original worked looked like physically. Sam Wilson 05:04, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, you do not mean any nice illustrative image as in "any decorative image which seems to fit the theme of the book", but as in "an image of the physical object that was scanned", right?

Besides whether it is desirable, we would have the issue that often the closest we have to that is a scan of the cover, with borders cropped, which, well, doesn't bring anything in msot cases. — Alien  3
3 3 07:37, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely! I didn't mean any random apposite image, but specifically a cover or first page (or whatever is most appropriate) of the work. I think especially for manuscripts it could be very useful to give a feel for the work. Sam Wilson 01:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

But that's not what the |notes= field in the {{header}} template is for, and adding it outside the header would be an annotation. If the dust jacket is included in the scan it can be treated like any other part of the book (title page, frontispiece, etc.), and if it is not then our readers will have to do without it as with any other lacking element of a scan. And even when the scan includes the dust jacket we should probably generally avoid it as it has limited value in the majority of works, and at the same time takes up space and gets in the way of the content in our texts (unlike in a physical book). General media related to the work can be found on Commons, as linked in the sisterlinks in the header template provided the connection is set up on Wikidata.

Also keep in mind that the actual author in most cases had no or minimal input on the dust jacket. Like other artefacts of the publishing or printing process we very explicitly make the distinction: it is the author's work we try to reproduce as faithfully as possible, and everything else is either of secondary importance or explicitly excluded (library cards, ex libris, letters, clippings, etc.). Xover (talk) 07:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

In my opinion, a dust jacket is "information that adds value to the reader" so it fits in the |notes= parameter (edit: and AFAIK we don't have strict guidelines on how that parameter should be used. Some people use it to quote book reviews, which are not part of the book either). I don't see any problem with adding it as an annotation in the body either; then, it could be moved to the very bottom of the page instead of taking up space at the top. Perhaps the best solution is to transcribe it in a subpage, so both its connection to book and the fact that it is a different object is made clear. prospectprospekt (talk) 15:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC) edited 16:18, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

We have a policy when it comes to Wikisource:Annotations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:22, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Seeing that there is no consensus against it, I will begin doing this (1) only for books I proofread and (2) with some modifications: I will float the image to the left, put the caption inside the image and decrease the width to 250px (though I am willing to decrease it further). prospectprospekt (talk) 17:32, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

To review: only three people have commented. I was explicitly against. No one was in favor. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:27, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Sam Wilson is kind of in favor, with his concern being that the dust jacket would take up too much space. That, however, can be mitigated with not centering it and making it smaller.

From what I've observed, we generally give users wide deference over their stylistic choices and what they can include in the notes parameter. How to include dust jackets is something we don't have a clear guideline on (and I oppose including them in the scan), so I think that any method a user may choose to use should be respected. prospectprospekt (talk) 19:04, 23 February 2025 (UTC) edited 19:11, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Third-level headings

I just replaced all h3s by h2s on this page (there were only in bot requests and move requests), because as it stands, the skipping of a level (from h1 to h3 directly) prevents the bot from archiving. Do you have a reason to oppose that? Maybe it was intentional to have only manual archiving there? If so, I'd argue that it reduces efficiency more than it helps. — Alien  3
3 3 07:45, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello and a question

I hope that I am in the right place. I am new, on here, and it looks like a site I would greatly enjoy with my hobby; that is restoring old literature.

On that note, I am currently working on The Count of Monte-Cristo. Your site uses the 1888 version of the text, which is also the version available through the Library of Congress. I have both side-by-side, and I am noticing some discrepancies, mostly due to OCR.

My question is, after I fix these, how would I submit the corrected text? I will have both the Word documents and the PDFs.

I also was able to restore the wood etchings and have restored the initial letters of the chapters.

Furthermore, I also have other works I have done. Most notably I had restored around 60 stories by Lovecraft, with help of his original manuscripts available through Brown University, and I restored 1984 to its first edition, using the original British English. I know there will be copyright issues with some of these, but I am will to work around what I can and cannot submit.

To all, have a great day, and I am hopeful that I am not alone on this crazy endeavor. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 15:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Can you please identify specific locations of the discrepancies you have found? Our copy of the 1888 edition is the one published in London, so the differences might be between the UK and US editions.

The 1888 text we have is supported by a set of scans. See Index:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu for volume 1. You can there compare the text we have side-by-side on any page with a scan from the 1888 London edition.

As far as Lovecraft, what do you mean by "restoring"? Wikisource hosts published editions, and for some works we host multiple editions, because multiple editions have been published. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:18, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I haven't been recording them as I go, just correcting them. I just found one in the first paragraph of Chapter 10. It was supposed to read "Louis XVIII.", it instead it read "Louis XVIIL". I remember quite a few instances, in Chapter 8, that Dantès was just Dantes, without the accent mark. I also believe that it was in Chapter 4, where the word "he" was reproduced as "lie".

Again, these are all common mistakes that come about from using OCR software. I'm used to it. That's why I go through afterwards an check it by hand. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

That would correspond to page 109, I believe. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Page 112

"Most willingly, count; under your auspices I will receive any person you please, but with arms in hand. M, le Ministre, have you any report more recent than this, dated the 20th February, and this is the 3d of March?"

This should read

"Most willingly, count; under your auspices I will receive any person you please, but with arms in hand. M. le Ministre, have you any report more recent than this, dated the 20th February, and this is the 3d of March?" Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

And, I just noticed the Lovecraft question. A lot of his work was altered, mostly after his death. I used his original manuscripts, found the original periodicals that they were published in, and have them as a personal collection. I even used the original covers from publications such as Weird Tales, all the way to finding the cover of Pine Cones, which was only hand published.

That was years ago.

I do these for my daughters and grand-daughters. I am trying to preserve history for them. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I'll try to post more errors as I find them. It takes me a while, as I have three screens open and reading each paragraph three or four times to make sure it is correct. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:45, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Page 113

"I wish to consult you on this passage, Molli fugis anhelitu; you know it refers to a stag flying from a wolf. Arc you not a sportsman and a great wolf-hunter? Well, then, what do you think of the molli anhelitu?"

"I wish to consult you on this passage, Molli fugis anhelitu; you know it refers to a stag flying from a wolf. Are you not a sportsman and a great wolf-hunter? Well, then, what do you think of the molli anhelitu?" Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Page 114

"No, but strongly recommends M, de Villefort, and begs me to present him to your majesty."

"No, but strongly recommends M. de Villefort, and begs me to present him to your majesty." Mjhopkins76 (talk) 23:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Page 114

"Noirtier the Grirondin? — Noirtier the senator?"

.

"Noirtier the Girondin? — Noirtier the senator?" Mjhopkins76 (talk) 00:03, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Page 114

.

M, de Blacas returned with the same rapidity he had descended, but

.

M. de Blacas returned with the same rapidity he had descended, but Mjhopkins76 (talk) 00:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I'll wait until someone can look all of these over, as I am finding multiple mistakes on a single, random page. There is no use in posting a new comment every time a C is in place of an E, or a comma is in place of a period. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 00:12, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Can't you just correct the mistakes yourself instead of making of new comment every time you find a mistake? ToxicPea (talk) 01:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Am I able to? I thought they were locked? Mjhopkins76 (talk) 03:27, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mjhopkins76 - as @ToxicPea says, you go to the underlying page, for example Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/129, check that the transcription does not match the scan, then click "Edit" and correct the transcription. I have changed L to I. there, but you can do the rest. I am not aware of any locking. -- Beardo (talk) 03:36, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

(We very rarely lock stuff.) You can find a complete listing of the pages at Index:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu. — Alien  3
3 3 07:54, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mjhopkins76: Welcome to Wikisource. It sounds like we're the perfect project for you, as making older works of literature accessible is pretty much our raison d'être. However, be aware that the learning curve for the project can be kinda steep: we have lots of hard-won experience that led to fairly specific community practices (not all of which will seem intuitive, or even logical, to newcomers) and more technical quirks of the site and our tools than you can shake a stick at. The saving grace is that we also have a fairly large community that is interested in broadly the same things, and which also happens to be very friendly and willing to help. To start with you may find it useful to peruse Help:Beginner's guide to Wikisource for lots of information to get you up to speed.

The short version is that we work from scans of a specific edition of a given work, and try to reproduce that specific edition. We don't combine editions of a work, nor do we "correct" what has been published. But everyone can contribute: most pages have an "Edit" button, and our texts should have a "Source" link that takes you to where you can see the scan and the transcription side by side to compare. Lovecraft's original mss. are "advanced subject matter" (for several reasons) so I don't suggest you start there, and a fully validated (which means at least two people have checked it) text of a prominent work like The Count of Monte-Cristo is probably not the best place to start when you're completely new to the project. I would suggest you first read up a bit on the Help: link above, and then start by looking around the site (to get a feel for how wikipages in the File:, Index:, and Page: namespace function together) for a bit before trying your hand at editing. Once you have a better idea of how this works, pick something where we don't already have a finished text and start working on that. And don't hesitate to ask the community for help. Xover (talk) 08:12, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Xover: validation appears to have been not very rigorous here, and we could hardly call it finished: for instance edits like this still have to be made. Given @Mjhopkins76 has found many mistakes in it, why not let him correct them?

Also, what they meant by "correct" (if I got it right) is not correct the source text, but correct a transcription of the source text; the Louis XVIIL was really a Louis XVIII. in the source, and the others do look a good lot like scannos. — Alien  3
3 3 08:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Alien333: Because Mjhopkins76 is so new to the project (and wikis in general: they have a grand total of 13 edits to any Wikimedia project) that they have not yet even discovered the Index:/Page: namespace or fully mastered how to use talk pages. If they start in on a high-profile already-completed text they are going to inadvertantly make mistakes that will make other more established contributors bite. That's not fair to them (or any other newcomer). It is much better for everyone to guide newcomers towards a smaller, simpler, less high-profile, and—above all—unfinished text where they can learn and make mistakes without stepping on others' toes and without needing to worry too much about breaking something that's already existing.

I'll leave "what they meant" up to Mjhopkins76 to specify, but based on long experience with what misconceptions newcomers tend to have and their statement that they had "corrected" Lovecraft's published works based on the original unpublished manuscripts (vs. the scan of the specific edition the text is backed with), I think it's fairly likely that there are some basic concepts they need to assimilate before we set them to make large-scale changes to a validated text (irrespective of the relative quality of the validation). Xover (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Xover- Mj clearly has an interest in The Count of Monte-Cristo and has found several scannos that have manged to get past the proofreaders and validators (most of which were only days after their accounts were created). I have checked three and they were all scannos which I have now corrected. I say, let Mj work on what interests them - they seem thorough.

I agree that Mj should explain a bit more what they mean about Lovecraft - that work may not be what is suitable for wikisource. -- Beardo (talk) 21:41, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@Beardo: It's not about what we "let" anyone do. Anyone can do almost anything on the project. It's about not pushing newcomers into deep dark waters in the middle of a storm with no life vest. It's not fair to new contributors to do so, and has a very high risk of making them run away screaming rather than turning them into a long-term contributor to the project. It is much better to gently nudge them into safer waters to learn the tools and assimilate community practices and values, and then let them graduate to more complicated tasks as they feel ready. How long that will take varies significantly from person to person, but nobody starts out as an expert on Wikisource no matter how skilled they otherwise are. Xover (talk) 08:01, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

For what it's worth, fixing obvious typos is not what I would consider deep dark waters. Arcorann (talk) 23:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm just going to jump right into the middle of this conversation...

.

CoMC is only the book I am working on, right now. Well, one of them; but it is what led me to this wonderful site. I am actively working on a bunch of books (The Millennium Trilogy, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, The Expanse Series, and I was thinking about doing the Divine Comedy, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, or the Sherlock Holmes series next) I just finished a fourth edition reproduction of 1984, in its original British English, for my daughter. And, I also have just found a "Lost" book of René Descartes, which unfortunately has only one horrible English translation. I have the original Latin text, and I am trying to get with a retired Latin teacher to help me translate it (I most only know Ancient Latin, not Modern.)

.

As far as the website goes, I plan on starting small. I want to learn the methodology and use of the programs required. I was going to try some of the monthly challenges, and some shorter works. I have two jobs, both in IT, so I only have a few hours during the week, to devote to my hobby, but I usually spend all weekend working on stuff.

.

I have two main goals, the first is to preserve the material in the exact form that it was published, typos and all, for the public; and secondly, to create my own private collection that I am creating for my family, with corrections, footnotes, changes of typefont, etc. Those are for my grandkids, for when they want to read something from my personal library.

.

I should probably also let the community know that I have degrees in Mathematics and Statistics. That being said, I am not trying to make myself sound smart, only that I have one, very unique, ability... I can type in Math. I used to help write textbooks and solutions manuals. I can also make all the little, pretty pictures, graphs, and diagrams that go along with them. If you are looking to preserve some related material, like say Principia Mathematica or something along those lines, I can do that.

.

But, as I said... I want to start small. Learn to procedures and programs first.

.

I look forward to helping out, in any way that I can. This is a passion of mine. And, as I always say, give back to the world more then you have taken from it. Mjhopkins76 (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Quickest way is to find the page links on the left-hand side of the page. That'll take you straight to the Page: namespace, where you can see the original text and fix the error (double-check the scan page first, though, to make sure it really is a error). Arcorann (talk) 23:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-08

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

Weekly highlight

• Communities using growth tools can now showcase one event on the Special:Homepage for newcomers. This feature will help newcomers to be informed about editing activities they can participate in. Administrators can create a new event to showcase at Special:CommunityConfiguration. To learn more about this feature, please read the Diff post, have a look at the documentation, or contact the Growth team.

Updates for editors

Highlighted talk pages improvements

• Starting next week, talk pages at these wikis – Spanish Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia – will get a new design. This change was extensively tested as a Beta feature and is the last step of talk pages improvements. [17]
• You can now navigate to view a redirect page directly from its action pages, such as the history page. Previously, you were forced to first go to the redirect target. This change should help editors who work with redirects a lot. Thanks to user stjn for this improvement. [18]
• When a Cite reference is reused many times, wikis currently show either numbers like "1.23" or localized alphabetic markers like "a b c" in the reference list. Previously, if there were so many reuses that the alphabetic markers were all used, an error message was displayed. As part of the work to modernize Cite customization, these errors will no longer be shown and instead the backlinks will fall back to showing numeric markers like "1.23" once the alphabetic markers are all used.
• The log entries for each change to an editor's user-groups are now clearer by specifying exactly what has changed, instead of the plain before and after listings. Translators can help to update the localized versions. Thanks to user Msz2001 for these improvements.
• A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to mass delete pages, to enable users to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. [19]
• Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. Thanks to user MolecularPilot for this and the previous improvements. [20]
• View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the configuration for the AV1 video file format, which enables these files to play again. [21]

Updates for technical contributors

• Parsoid Read Views is going to be rolling out to most Wiktionaries over the next few weeks, following the successful transition of Wikivoyage to Parsoid Read Views last year. For more information, see the Parsoid/Parser Unification project page. [22][23]
• Developers of tools that run on-wiki should note that mw.Uri is deprecated. Tools requiring mw.Uri must explicitly declare mediawiki.Uri as a ResourceLoader dependency, and should migrate to the browser native URL API soon. [24]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Fixing broken links to whitehouse.gov after Presidential Transitions

The works of Author:Joe Biden as 46th U.S. President are available at bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov. I've added that link in the header of his author page, because the links to the sources for most of the presidential documents, have recently broken. Currently they point to whitehouse.gov, but they should now be reconfigured to point to the new location at bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov.

we need to comprehensively go through each of his presidential documents and make this change. Only the executive order, proclamations, and memorandums are listed in the Federal Register and backed by scans. Nearly all the other presidential speeches and remarks, and briefings and releases, etc., are copydumps from whitehouse.gov.

Since this will need to be done every 4 years, could someone write a script or a bot to apply a find and replace operation across all documents that have such-and-such as Author, and that contain a link to such-and-such URL in the "notes" field of the header? Most likely, the filepath will remain the same, and only the domain name needs to be changed. Ideally the bot/script, after the find-and-replace, would check each newly created link, verify it, and report any broken ones that may need to be manually investigated.

What has been done for previous presidential transitions?

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 23:28, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I've checked half a dozen from Author:Barack Obama, and they are all broken too, no one bothered to fix these back in 2017. Most of them are unformatted copydumps, not backed by scans, and could be proposed for deletion and deleted anytime by politically motivated administrators. (Currently deletion has been proposed for a presidential memorandum of prez Trump that is not backed by a scan, even though the source document is available on whitehouse.gov, and the link is given in the notes field of the header, and the link is working. This appears to be a case of unequal enforcement, possibly motivated by political bias. That is a problem that should be addressed separately, but it's speaks to the need for both a technical solution, and for a policy that explicitly legitimizes Wikisource documents that are not backed by scans, but that are available on whitehouse.gov or on archives.gov. If we don't have that, admins may just cherry pick the ones they don't like and delete them.)

Regards, Jaredscribe (talk) 00:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Jaredscribe: Generally speaking, Wikisource does not host digital items which are not in PDF format; that is the reason why the WhiteHouse.org copies of Trump’s recent executive orders have been deleted in favor of the Federal Register copies. Is there a PDF source for the Imposing Maximum Pressure document? If not, it should be deleted. (Also, your comments should be limited to that discussion, not spread elsewhere.) I don’t think that there has been any policy for previous transitions; the effort of politically active users is generally spent on adding what the new administration is doing, not saving what the old one did. You say “unequal enforcement,” but do you have a comparator? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Cursive font support

Hi all, dredging up a previous discussion here from ~7 years ago, and reading the sordid tales of woe on Phabricator T166138, I'm just checking in if there is still an appetite for adding Petit Formal Script as a web font for CSS "cursive" support. I've been editing Wikipedia for years but I am new to Wikisource, and stumbled upon this issue when transcribing the French instrument method, Méthode de Serpent. I'm thinking that adding this font (as a single static WOFF2 file) to the Wikisource extension will mean it gets deployed along with the JS, CSS, images, etc. into the production static delivery, neatly sidesteps all the cited issues around Google, privacy, performance, admin burden, and "polluting" the Universal Language Selector and/or other sister projects with unnecessary extra fonts. Thoughts, @Beleg Tâl, @Beeswaxcandle, @Billinghurst, @Koavf? Have I missed something? Cheers — Jonathanischoice (talk) 00:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, there is still an appetite for Petit Formal Script. Please. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, you're missing the fact that the WMF has not a single developer assigned to Wikisource, nor a single team whose responsibilities include the software stack that Wikisource relies on. This problem isn't technically all that hard to resolve, but it's effectively impossible when nobody owns the issue. I think our best bet is still waiting for T166138 and its anciliary tasks. It might be possible for volunteers to get Petit Formal Script into the Wikisource extension, but once there it needs to be maintained; and once it's there all the other language Wikisourcen will want additional specialised fonts for their needs that it will be very hard for an ad hoc contributor to be responsible for. We either need the Language Team to take responsibility for web font support (as the team was originally intended to before the WMF rescoped them to i18n) or we need a Google Fonts proxy in production so we can use anything available there without having to involve the WMF. Xover (talk) 08:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Black Panther (newspaper)

A cursory check in the U. S. copyright office revealed that issues of the newspaper was never registered, meaning that they could be in the public domain. Are there any other factors I need to take into account? Norbillian (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

{{PD-US-no-notice}} only is for works published between 1933 and 1977. — Alien  3
3 3 07:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

You want {{PD-US-1978-89}}, there was no registration with the USCO. --RAN (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Redlinks caused by page moves

I noticed a number of redlinks in the list of works completed at Wikisource:WikiProject NLS. On investigation, all but one were caused by the works having being moved without redirects. I amended the links on that page, and also a couple of the index pages which linked the now non-existent page. I also noted that there were several now-redlinks from User or User talk pages. Should anything be done about those ? (The user that I saw is no longer active). -- Beardo (talk) 02:33, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

publication date of federal register vol 90 issue 31

Is the publication date for this the eighteenth or the fifteenth? The document says it was published on the eighteenth but was actually made available on the fifteenth. ToxicPea (talk) 17:59, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• The listed publication date is correct. It is the same issue for Executive Orders; the text is announced in advance, although the formal printing happens later. It is the Executive Order No. __ of January 20, 2025, even if it published on January 28. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

  But the formal printing for this issue happened on Feb. 15 even though it was supposed to happen on Feb. 18. You can see that File:Executive Order 14211.pdf was uploaded to commons on Feb. 15 even though the order wasn't supposed to be published until Feb. 18. You can also see here. None of the other issues are like this as far as I know. ToxicPea (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

  My question is essentially, do we use the intended date of publication or the actual date of publication? ToxicPea (talk) 03:15, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

  • ToxicPea: The issues are drawn up and released in advance of their formal date of publication. Technically, you’re just looking at a draft, but the text of the presidential materials generally remains unchanged. The formal date is when the physical issue is published, which is in any case the date we use. To go back to my example, we use the listed date of publication for Executive Orders as the date, despite the descriptive text which gives the date of signature. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Spaced out OCR

The automatically generated OCR on this volume has a space between each character:

Page:The Public General Acts of the United Kingdom 1973 Vol 1.pdf/116

I'm not seeing this on all volumes when creating a page, e.g.:

Page:Ruffhead - The Statutes at Large - vol 12.djvu/107

Is it something to do with the particular volume, or a bug with the software? Technolalia (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Technolalia: I don't think that there is "automatic OCR" here, unless you pushed that [OCR] button in the tool bar. The PDF brought its own OCR with it. If you do not like the OCR that your PDF came with, feel free to push the [OCR] button and receive "semi-automatic" OCR from some cloud associated with wikimedia. This button can only be seen if you have set your preferences to display the toolbar which contains a lot of other tools that I have never found to be useful in the slightest here.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 15:54, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

As they said, it's an issue with this particular volume. I uploaded it, so I'll see if I can do something to fix the OCR text layer and then reupload the file. If not, I might just have to run through the whole file and use the OCR button on each page to redo it. I'll try and check on this with future uploads, but just mention it on the talk page if you see any other files of mine like this. Penguin1737 (talk) 20:05, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Successfully able to redo the OCR layer on that file, currently doing it for 1973/2 and 1973/3. Will check for this issue on other volumes in this series. The OCR certainly isn't perfect with the sidenotes, but it's at least a workable base now. Penguin1737 (talk) 03:06, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Please delete my redundant Black Camel index.

I inadvertently created a redundant index for The Black Camel (1929) by Earl der Biggers that is inferior to and uses the same source as an older one. Could someone please delete it? It can be found here: Index:The Black Camel (1929).djvu

SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

• SurprisedMewtwoFace: I added {{sdelete}}, which populates a category which administrators regularly review. In the future, you can either add that template or post a request at Wikisource:Proposed deletions. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

  To add, I am informed "If an Index page has other pages attached to it, then either those pages need to be tagged "speedy" as well, or the whole set should be listed at Wikisource:Proposed deletions, so that [administrators] know there are multiple pages involved, not all of which are tagged." -- Beardo (talk) 20:14, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I was recently informed that the administrators have a tool which will find all of the subpages. I wonder which information is correct?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 19:25, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

The issue is not finding the subpages. The issue is knowing that those pages are being requested for deletion too. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

So, can we mention "and all subpages" in sdelete's 1=comment?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 12:51, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Either all the requisite pages should be tagged, or a deletion nomination should be posted at Wikisource:Proposed deletions with full information. A speedy deletion is a marker used to indicate an uncomplicated deletion, not requiring additional action. It is for only a single page. The 1=comment is for stating the reason the page qualifies for speedy deletion, so that it does not need to go through the full official process at Wikisource:Proposed deletions. If you have to put something alse in that comment, that is an indication that it does not qualify for a speedy deletion. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

EncycloPetey: Is there a situation where the Index: is deleted but it's Page:(s) are not?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 19:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes. There are instances where the transcribed pages are tranferred to a new Index. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

So, there you go. I was told not to bother with tagging all of the redirects after I moved the pages. I've had a few months of very good and not too "talk about it talk about it talk about it" administration. So, my final question is this: If I mention that all sub-pages are redirects (which would be the case if I hadn't requested help with the moving of the pages); does the administrator doing this mass-deletion have a problem finding the sub-pages? And is it so terribly wrong to mention that in the template?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 20:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

"Mass deletion" is something entirely different; and no one but you seems to think there is a problem with finding the pages. I've already explained earlier in this conversation that finding pages is not the issue. At this point it looks like you're repeating the same questions, and turning cartwheels to avoid using the procedures we have in place. Why are you so averse to using the procedures we have? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd say it's not in all cases that {{sdelete}} containing something else than a reason means a page should not be speedied. For example, for indexes getting G4'd as duplicate scans of same physical books, deleting the sub-Page:s makes sense, and could be done without a PD. — Alien  3
3 3 17:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

We have Wikisource:Proposed deletions for multiple reasons: To ensure that a page is properly deleted; to allow for discussion because sometimes the Index and pages should not be deleted. The purpose in listing an Index with pages is to be sure that all the pages are also removed, in the event that the Index page is deleted. So that no stray pages have to be hunted down afterwards. In an Index is indeed a duplicate (and not every duplicate has turned out to actually be a duplicate), and if there are multiple pages to be deleted, then either the full set should have every page tagged, or a request should be opened at WS:Proposed deletions. If the Index is a duplicate, an admin may then choose to proceed with the deletion and close it as "speedied", but adding a {{speedy}} tag should not involve a reading exercise with information about other pages to be deleted placed into a comment inside the template. Note also, that requests for deletions should not be made in the Scriptorium. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:11, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Upcoming Language Community Meeting (Feb 28th, 14:00 UTC) and Newsletter

Hello everyone!

We’re excited to announce that the next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC! If you’d like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.

This is a participant-driven meeting where we share updates on language-related projects, discuss technical challenges in language wikis, and collaborate on solutions. In our last meeting, we covered topics like developing language keyboards, creating the Moore Wikipedia, and updates from the language support track at Wiki Indaba.

Got a topic to share? Whether it’s a technical update from your project, a challenge you need help with, or a request for interpretation support, we’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reply to this message or add agenda items to the document here.

Also, we wanted to highlight that the sixth edition of the Language & Internationalization newsletter (January 2025) is available here: Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter/2025/January. This newsletter provides updates from the October–December 2024 quarter on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects and support efforts, details about community meetings, and ideas for contributing to projects. To stay updated, you can subscribe to the newsletter on its wiki page: Wikimedia Language and Product Localization/Newsletter.

We look forward to your ideas and participation at the language community meeting, see you there!

MediaWiki message delivery 08:29, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Transcluding Tarzan and the Lost Empire

On the Index page for Tarzan and the Lost Empire, we have a minor controversy. It appears some people don't realize that the Ace edition of the book (1962) was published without a copyright notice. On the Index page there's at least one user that seems confused and thinks there might be a seperate copyright for this edition. This is one of the editions Ace published while thinking the original Burroughs texts were out of copyright (they were still under copyright in 1962). Since edition has no copyright protection, I don't see why it would not be a good choice for transclusion. Is there anything else I should do to clear up possible confusion over this issue? SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 13:52, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay, I cleared up the copyright description on the Wikimedia Commons file a bit more here. This should eliminate any remaining confusion. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tarzan_and_the_Lost_Empire.pdf#%7B%7Bint%3Alicense-header%7D%7D SurprisedMewtwoFace (talk) 15:23, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Potus-eo on dark mode

The text on the bottom bar of the Potus-eo header is extremely difficult to read on dark mode. It appears to be peach on white, though I can't really tell. ToxicPea (talk) 02:31, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

• If dark mode is causing problems (again, of course), it should just be disabled. It is not a priority here, in any case. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 03:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Fixed. — Alien  3
3 3 12:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-09

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

Updates for editors

• Administrators can now customize how the Babel feature creates categories using Special:CommunityConfiguration/Babel. They can rename language categories, choose whether they should be auto-created, and adjust other settings. [25]
• The wikimedia.org portal has been updated – and is receiving some ongoing improvements – to modernize and improve the accessibility of our portal pages. It now has better support for mobile layouts, updated wording and links, and better language support. Additionally, all of the Wikimedia project portals, such as wikibooks.org, now support dark mode when a reader is using that system setting. [26][27][28]
• One new wiki has been created: a Wiktionary in Santali (wikt:sat:) [29]
• View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed that prevented clicking on search results in the web-interface for some Firefox for Android phone configurations. [30]

Meetings and events

• The next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC. This week's meeting will cover: highlights and technical updates on keyboard and tools for the Sámi languages, Translatewiki.net contributions from the Bahasa Lampung community in Indonesia, and technical Q&A. If you'd like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:41, 25 February 2025 (UTC)