Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-03

Proposals

Adding something to Mediawiki:Common.css

.hiddenStructure

Can we add the following to Mediawiki:Common.css?

/* hiddenStructure from Monobook - allows selective hiding of markup in templates */
.hiddenStructure {
   display: none;
   speak: none;
}

Basically, it allows us to added optional parameters to templates but without any hit on the server. Great if you could add it! - Ta bu shi da yu 07:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Since the link above is a redlink, note Help:User style on the MetaWiki: "The defaults for all skins are in MediaWiki:Common.css. Other CSS pages are separate per skin". // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 09:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The class has been added as requested. // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 19:02, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been added to Wikisource's collection of tools and scripts ("Hide if empty (template coding)")). // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 05:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Pilaf's Live Preview

Does anyone have experience of Pilaf's Live Preview? [1] This is a bit of JS which enables edits to be previewed in the editor's browser, instead of being sent to the server. An extra button is added to the Save/Preview/Show changes series. It has the great advantage of speed, a major consideration for those of us in dial-up with dodgy lines. It also saves server bandwidth usage.

It is possible for editors to have it on their own PCs, (that is those who can make head or tail of how to activate the program, which I have so far failed to do) but I feel it would be a better scheme to have it on the WS Media Wiki, See Pilaf's Live Preview page for reasons for this. Apwoolrich 20:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

It could be implemented site-wide with relative ease, but several limitations make it undesireable for new users. However, I'll set it up on Wikisource and add instructions to WS:Tools. When I'm done, users should be able to call it with two lines in their javascript file. // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 22:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to mention it here; for the sake of future reference, see Wikisource:Tools and scripts#InstaView. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:33, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Welcome template redesign

Current template

Welcome to Wikisource, Scriptorium/Archives/2006-03

Proposed template

A Cordial Greeting From the Wikisource community

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

Discussion

I redesigned and recoded the welcome template as above. The primary benefits of this proposed revision are listed below; discussion and suggestions are very welcome.

1. Much more user-friendly and welcoming, less imposing and confusing.
2. The green colour is more friendly than the current warning-like orange colour.
3. Eliminates use of the __NOEDITSECTION__ magic word. This suppressed the edit links beside the template's headings to prevent users from accidentally editing the template when they mean to reply to the message, but it also affected every other headings on the page. I edited the template instance above to prevent this on this page.
4. Replaces the confusing three-column list of links with a single inline link to the user-friendly Help:Contents page.
5. Doesn't assume that the user has contributed to the project, which is often not the case when users are 'autowelcomed'.
6. Fixes a glitch where substitution replaces "~~~~" with the signature of the user who substituted it, with rather amusing results.

   Always sign messages on talk pages with your user name. Typing Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 04:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC) will automatically add do this.

7. Invites users to contact the person who welcomed them if they have questions, instead of directing them to a list of possibly inactive users. This encourages interaction and humanises the community.
8. Vastly more lightweight in terms of coding. The current template makes use of complex HTML tables and weighs 3702 bytes, whereas the proposed version uses a simple CSS div box and weighs 747 bytes; compare the two templates above in edit view to see the difference.
9. Isn't a metatemplate. In the current version, any changes to the inner template will affect an exponentially increased number of pages, affecting server perfomance (see m:Help:Templates#Server cache impacts).

// Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 04:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks OK to apart from the colour, which I feel is too cold. The colour on the original is not a warning but meant to be a replica of the ochre -coloured box on the WS main page. Some while ago we began a discussion about the livery for Ws and Birgitte did some samples on her sand box. More recently I proposed that we had a page of sample colour schemes and made a choice.

Can we set this up please, or we going to have colours used with no consensus. Apwoolrich 09:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

"...discussion and suggestions are very welcome." At some point I viewed the pages you refer to, but I can't find them again. If you can link to those, we can draft several different colour schemes and see which we prefer. // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 17:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

See talk page on Wikisource:template messages. In my view we should aim for a WS-wide House Style that is consistent across pages. I suggest we use the main page scheme as a start and work from there. Apwoolrich 19:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks much better than the other welcome template. Especially since we've done some major rework with help pages, the new one would be better. I do agree, though, that the colors should be changed; these colors for this welcome template are very similar/identical to {{header}}.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

These are two new colour schemes based on BirgitteSB's proposal at Wikisource talk:Template messages/Sandbox.

1. Green/green (same):
   Hello, Pathoschild, welcome to Wikisource! Thanks for your interest in the project; we hope you'll enjoy the community and your work here. See our help pages (especially Adding texts and Wikisource's style guide) if you need help. You can discuss or ask questions from the community in general at the Scriptorium. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page. :)
2. Antiquewhite/tan:
   Hello, Pathoschild, welcome to Wikisource! Thanks for your interest in the project; we hope you'll enjoy the community and your work here. See our help pages (especially Adding texts and Wikisource's style guide) if you need help. You can discuss or ask questions from the community in general at the Scriptorium. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page. :)
3. Antiquewhite/border-left tan:
   Hello, Pathoschild, welcome to Wikisource! Thanks for your interest in the project; we hope you'll enjoy the community and your work here. See our help pages (especially Adding texts and Wikisource's style guide) if you need help. You can discuss or ask questions from the community in general at the Scriptorium. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page. :)

// Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 20:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Thanks for this. The middle one Antique white/tan is my preference. Question now is, do we apply this across all templates to replace the green, or do we devise a suite of complimentary colours for different kinds of templates? Useful to have input from others. Apwoolrich 21:15, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm more partial to having a suite of colors for different kinds of templates. I do like the antiquewhite/tan combo. I'm no good at devising colors, but it would be nice to have a number of colors to put forth for us to devise our "suite" from.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

We should first decide on a few basic categories of templates that would share colour schemes (informational templates, warning templates, system templates, et cetera). I think that goes beyond the scope of this particular discussion, though, and we should discuss it seperately. // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 21:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I have started a section to discuss a suite a colours for different purposes on the talk page of Wikisource:template messages. Apwoolrich 12:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I assume "my talk page" will be a link?Sherurcij 22:14, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

That would require expanded usage, such as {{welcome|~~~|~~~~}}. Shouldn't the normal signature suffice? // Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 22:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Buggered if I know, I was just trying to make it idiot-proof shrugs Sherurcij 22:34, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Back to a more on-topic discussion, I think the template should make a link to the Community Portal. This sort of helps "get people going" if they are unsure about what to do here. It also provides numerous links (which might have to be updated now) to other areas of Wikisource.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Updated with Zhaladshar's suggestion.

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

// Pathoschild (_editor / ^talk) 23:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This looks great and is a big imporvement over the older massive template--BirgitteSB 01:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks good, On the colours/style I do prefer the style of 1 & 2 to 3. I feel the new version is less comprehensive than the old but as the help pages have been updated this probably won't really matter as folk should be able to find what they need there. AllanHainey 12:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

If there's no opposition, I'd like to implement the change sometime tomorrow. Further changes can, of course, be made at any time. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 23:35, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I've redesigned and recoded the template per this discussion. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 17:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Very nice final product! I'm going to try to translate it for he: (the current one there is far too complicated for a "welcome"). Dovi 19:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

New pages link

In the WS Special Pages list is one for finding new pages added. I suggest this is added to either the Navigation box to the left, or to the Recent Changes page itself. Apwoolrich 20:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Standardise indentation and linebreaks

I propose agreeing upon a style guideline for indentation and linebreaks. Droll recently found issue with my use of wikimarkup indentation (:) as opposed to the use of hard linebreaks (<br />); I think it'd be best to form a consensus on this, one way or another.

• wikimarkup:
  • Simpler, especially for new users.
  • Allows manipulation of lines in the site or user stylesheets.
  • Translates into HTML definition lists, which is appropriate since poetry lines are indented in relation to rhyme, rhythm, and each other; this is what definition lists are intended to do.
• HTML markup:
  • Slightly smaller in filesize; in a 1500-line poem, this method is 4 kilobytes smaller.
  • "less prone to side effects".
  • The most common method, used by most users and administrators.

See an example of HTML markup and an example of wikimarkup. Discussion is welcome. Any agreed-upon standard would, of course, be a style guideline and not in any way a rule. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have always used HTML markup because I copied and pasted what I saw to learn how to format. However I HATE the &nastp; tag (I misspelled it) beacuse I can't remember how to spell it and it is quite hard to use. I now plan on using wikimarkup in the future after having a good example to work from. I do not understand the need to standardize as I don't see any difference out of the edit screen. It is not as if we expect people to be constantly editing our articles as WP does. Let everyone use what they know/like best. No need to get hung up over "consistancy for its own sake" :) --BirgitteSB 02:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need to have a standard guideline for formatting. That said, I should bring to attention that there is a third option. We have a div class defined called "verse". So, if you enter

<div class="verse"><pre>......</div></pre>

you get an as-is formatting. This won't work if you need to bolden or italicize any text, but for a good number of cases, this isn't a bad scheme. Personally I'm more of a fan of HTML markup than wiki for poetry, because the indentation of lines (using ":" for one line and then "::" for the next and then ":" for the one after that) causes there to be odd line spacing than using HTML markup. Also, for irregular poetry indentations (a good number of poems indent one line by four spaces, the next by six, the next by five, etc.), it is MUCH harder to get that to work with wiki markup than HTML. Birgitte has a point about the "&nbsp;" character--it's hideous. But that's why the div class was developed.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The div class forces 'normal' rendering in a hack-ish way that could have odd effects in some browsers; it's a good way to quickly fix texts, but I don't think it should be recommended as a permanent solution.

The line spacing can be very easily changed in the stylesheet, which is a powerful features of this method. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that wikimarkup is much harder to use for irregularly indented lines: :::: four indents / ... versus          four indents /.... Perhaps you're referring to another HTML method I haven't thought of; that looks rather confusing to me.

I think we need a 'preferring' guideline to prevent the type of dispute that occured between Droll and I over the formatting of poems in the volume Rhymes of a Rolling Stone. As Wikisource's community grows, this kind of dispute may become very common; it'd be best to agree on standards early on and tweak them as necessary as we go along. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 03:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with your last statement. It'll keep me from getting into too many disputes as well.

Here's what I mean. Take a look at this:

       Some text of a poetry line
   Some more text...
  Another line of poetry
Yet another line
   Another line with a different indent.

The first line is indented 8 spaces, the second 4, third 3, fourth 1, fifth 4. Using colons would not allow us to achieve this method of indenting poetry (unless I don't know about something, which is likely). That's why I'd rather not use that kind of wiki markup; it seems that the versatility is pretty low.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not like the use of &nbsp; "non-breaking space" for indentation. If you want to use HTML, use try <span style="margin-left: 1em;">indented line</span><br />. Example:

She lay like a saint on her copper couch;
Like an angel asleep she lay,
In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch
Past the Dead and sneak away.

It might be better to use colons. Maybe there is a way to edit MediaWiki:Monobook.css to make colons act nicer. --Kernigh 04:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

But can span styles work with the irregular indentation scheme I've given above?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 04:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The colons could easily be modified in the universal stylesheet to correct the line spacing, the amount of indentation, the font, and just about anything else we can think of. As a demonstration, following is the same wikimarkup modified using the stylesheet; I exaggerated the change to demonstrate how useful this could be.

First indentation

Second indentation

Third indentation

If the above looks no different, try refreshing your browser to update your cache. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem I have with HTML codings is that I don't use it, and I am more familiar with the Mediawiki markup. This causes a problem if I am trying to edit a text dump with has HTML in that I don't know enough about the codings to make sensible alterations. Its a great pity that we cannot acivate the keyboard tab button from Mediewiki. But I suppose this would need the means of having some system of setting tab stops for the document.

If we could get to grips with sorting this out in a rational and simple way it would greatly enhance the quality of what we do. IMHO we have far too many texts which are set left-flush, whereas the originals used indents in their typographical design. Also the ability to use tabs or indents would aid greatly the setting of simple tables or lists in a document, without the need to get into Template:Pretty table to begin with. Apwoolrich 07:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

So, we can manually change the indentation length of the colons? That'd be great. I guess if we could write a class that gave the colons a small indentation (for those odd poems which require it), that would be great. I'm still a fan of using   and <br>, but if colons can be manipulated, I'd be fine with them, too.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• I've done a little research on indentation in HTML in the past as I'm sure others have. This is relevant because currently Wiki markup is parsed into HTML and will be for some time in the future. At least into some flavor of HTML. (There is some talk about TEX markup.) The relevance here is that if it can't he done in HTML then it can't be done in Wiki. (I think.) There is no specific implementation of indentation in HTML that I know of. Generally it is implemented using &nbsp;, lists, <div> blocks and <blockquote> blocks as has been noted. (The Wiki colon markup is parsed a an HTML list.) These all work some of the time. In general I have used &nbsp; and <div> blocks. The nice thing about &nbsp; is that it is very flexible. The bad thing is that it is tedious and time consuming. <blockquote> can have an unintended effect on the right margin. Lists (colons) work but lack flexibility as has been mentioned. My thought is that, generally, we should leave it up to the contributor using the principle that if it looks good it is good. --Droll 06:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That's fine, but if another editor wants to come after him and touch something up (i.e., using different methods of indentation), defining a class where the colon has a far shorter indentation span could be great. I'm currently in a dilemma with The Devil's Walk, as it has unusual indentation in the copy I'm referencing, I want to preserve that. The only way I can do it, though, is using no break spaces or horrid colons. Now, if we change the colons around a bit, the wiki markup will look much prettier.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 06:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That works in the immediate, but doesn't prevent eventual conflicts between two editors who think differently about what looks 'good'. The lists are more flexible than the other methods, on the contrary; see my demonstration above. We're not trying to establish a rule that must be followed, but a style guideline or preferred method. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 06:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

• I think that changing the meaning of the colon notation would not go over big with developers because it is their way of implementing "Definition Lists", an element in HTML. A rule in developing computer languages is "don't changes horses in midstream" unless you have a really good reason. If we ask for a new syntax element in Wiki markup I think we would have a better chance with something entirely new like &indent2; or something and let them worry about implementation. --Droll 07:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I never suggested changing the implementation. What I'm suggesting is a simple CSS class effecting the HTML tags the colon syntax is converted to. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that is the best idea. Create a class in which the definition list has a smaller indent, and then surround the poem with a span of that class, so that a number of colons inside the span creates a certain indentation. We probably shouldn't be using definition lists for indentation in the first place, but since we are everywhere else, we might as well just modify their behavior a tiny bit where needed. Omegatron 17:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Most of this discussion goes way over my head. I don't know HTML markup (though I know enough to dislike the " "'s) & only a little wikimarkup but I pretty much learn by coppying the way things are written on wikisource & wikipedia & I would expect most new users unfamiliar with these markups to do likewise. Basically if we can't tell the difference from the article screen it doesn't really matter which method is used, or which we specify as being recommended. So I'm happy for anyone to use whichever method achieves the desired result (or parts of both). Rather than establishing guidelines for how text is markedup it might be easier just to say if you plan on amending the method of markup of an existing text leave a note on the talk page & discuss it with the person who originally added it. I'd expect that some resolution could be reached in individual cases on the best way to present the text on the edit screen. AllanHainey 15:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Should templates be protected?

The author template was repeatedly vandalised a day ago. I wonder if there is a case for establishing guidlelines for protecting templates. Apwoolrich 07:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is being repeatedly vadalized, then perhapt semi-protection for a while is in order. --Pmsyyz 14:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should permanently protect most templates; improvements are always possible, even if we standardise the colour scheme. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 16:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why we can't protect certain templates. Doesn't WP do that? I've stumbled across numerous templates that I can't edit while browsing that page. Since {{author}} is so widely used, any change will affect hundreds of pages. We need to be more cautious about these templates. And, as the author template is relatively stable, no one should be making changes to it without proposing them first. I think at least the author template should be protected.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that the author template should be protected. I think most others though won't need protection. AllanHainey 15:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

False copyright claims

WP has a very interesting discussion about the false copyright claims of some web sites for pre 1923 public domain images. There could well be insights here about texts of relevance to WS. Maybe we should think about incorporating some of this info into our copyright pages. Apwoolrich 19:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes! We should definitely mention this. I hate it when sites claim copyright to works that are clearly PD. Other editors/contributors/possible users might not know this and might get discouraged by it. We should clear this misconception up.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a few sites making claims like this, one is bartleby.com which mostly claims copyright on things published far too long ago for copyright to apply. At most all they could possibly copyright is the format of the text/layout, etc but that seems to be identicle to the original texts (for which copyright has expired) that they (falsely) claim copyright for. I've just been taking bits & pieces that I know are copyright expired. It might be worthwhile compiling a list of websites like this as it would save people from being deterred from copying texts from there & could also serve as a useful signpost to available texts. AllanHainey 16:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed non-English transwiki procedure

Currently, Non-English texts are manually added to Wikisource:Non-English works, where they should theoretically be identified at some point and transwikied. The problem with this method is that there is no notification on the article page, and it's rarely updated with either new texts or identified languages. When I proposed the page for deletion, Zhaladshar suggested I find or create an alternative method.

Thus, I propose the use of {{unknown-language}} and {{known-language}} , which make use of Category:Non-english works whose languages are not known and Category:Non-english works whose languages are known. The use is explained in the templates themselves. A user can very easily identify the language directly on the page; this encourages users to actually do so, in my opinion. Further, the categories are automatically populated as works are tagged and depopulated as they're transwikied. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 03:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a much better system than using Wikisource:Non-English works. I propose we implement this and get rid of the manual list. Great work.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Transwiki deadline?

A problem I forsee with texts in Category:Non-english works whose languages are not known is that some potentially gibberish text will be stored there indefinitely. I think a good method to prevent this would be to delete Non-English texts that are unidentified after a set period of time; perhaps two weeks. Any thoughts? // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 06:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

There are only 8 texts in the category. Certainly they shouldn't stay there forever, but a deletion within 2 weeks is much too fast to give the (mostly very rare) speakers of a rare language a chance to identify the texts. BTW: Passio Christi was categorized as text in Kernewek. It has been removed. Was it the wrong language? --Jofi 23:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It was a purely arbitrary length of time; anything we can agree on will work fine. I seem it was categorised to Category:Kernewek at some point, then changed to Category:Non-English. The category doesn't exist, and the user probably didn't realise it was meant to identify the language. Feel free to update the language tag if you can identify it. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 23:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Passio Christi is a Cornish text, and should be moved to Multi-WS. In regards to the length of time we should wait, I would go more along the lines of a month. And then, if it's not been categorized I say we move it to Multi-WS. It might stand a little bit better chance of being noticed there.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• Sri Lanka Matha is the national anthem of Sri Lanka and is in the Sinhalese language.
• Origo Mundi is Cornish and can be found [http://www.freefind.com/find.html?id=9734373&map=0&page=0 here](blacklisted domain —{admin} Pathoschild 02:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)) --Inge 23:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
• Eu cantarei o amor tão docemente is by Luís de Camões (1524–80) and is in Portuguese. --Inge 00:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Sobolos rios que vão is also by Luís de Camões (1524–80) and is in Portuguese. --Inge 00:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Tregear Homilies and Resurrexio Domini are Cornish --Inge 00:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Autore: Cenne de la Chitarra is in Italian. It is from Songs of the Months by Folgore da San Gimignano. It is the song of March and seems to be misattributed (is that an english word) --Inge 00:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you; they've all been marked appropriately. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright re-visited

The Author:Robert E. Howard page has a link at the bottom to a very interesting account of tracing over 200 of this authors's post-1923 writings which are PD because copyrights were not renewed in time. I think the methods might be summarised and the information added somewhere to our copyright page, as it shows what can be done. Apwoolrich 08:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed style guide

I've drafted a proposed Wikisource style guide, which would replace the current placeholder page. Discussion is welcome. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice! Dovi 07:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

That's grand, I'd say its good enough to go live. AllanHainey 13:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it into place and removed the proposal tag, since there doesn't seem to be any opposition to it. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 14:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Prettytable classes

Would anyone object if I added the following classes to MediaWiki:Common.css? This allows much simpler table formatting similar to the one below. The table is the formatting currently provided by the {{prettytable}} template. Note that the classes are actually somewhat more attractive, since the stylesheet allows more advanced manipulation.

Title	Field
*poof*	This is an example.
*poof*	This is an example.

table.prettytable {
  margin: 1em 1em 1em 0;
  background: #f9f9f9;
  border: 1px #AAA solid;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

table.prettytable th, table.prettytable td {
  border: 1px #AAA solid;
  padding: 0.2em;
}

table.prettytable th {
  background: #f2f2f2;
  text-align: center;
}

table.prettytable caption {
  margin-left: inherit;
  margin-right: inherit;
}

For an example of the formatting with the CSS classes, see w:User:Pathoschild/Sandbox3. These classes are in use on the English Wikipedia. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Please add.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. Usage is much simplified; Now that it consists of a simple class, I think we should substitute {{prettytable}} . If the tables look unformatted to you, try refreshing to purge the page from the cache. Following is a before-and-after comparison.

Inline CSS (before)

CSS classes (after)

Title	Field
*poof*	This is an example.
*poof*	This is an example.

Title	Field
*poof*	This is an example.
*poof*	This is an example.

Excuse me; a vandalbot is attacking Wikipedia, don't have time to finish this comment. :) // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Pathosbot

I've created Pathosbot on the Pywikipedia framework to automate tedious or slow tasks on Wikisource. Primarily, I wish to use it to automatically tag blocked proxies, convert to-be-deleted templates, perform recategorisation, et cetera. The bot is currently running at an interval of two minutes between edits, tagging pages on my blocked proxy list. I'd like to request permission to run this as a fully automated bot (it's currently running under human supervision) with a bot flag, so that it will no longer flood the recent changes list. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. We need a bot here, and the only other is ThomasBot, but it's rarely ever used.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it is working great. I see no reason not to approve it. However it does not seem to be running under a bot flag. Or else there is a problem with RC as hiding bots has no effect for me.--BirgitteSB 18:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Pathoschild, please leave a request on meta:Requests for bot status and I will add a bot flag. Sj 19:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Pathoschild, could you request a bot flag soon for Pathosbot? It's getting reasonably difficult to do RC patrol when it leaves all the messages on the IP talk pages. Thanks.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for saturating the RC feed with its edits. Upon a previous request, I was told to wait the full seven days suggested. I'll pause the bot until it recieves a bot flag. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 20:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Bot-status will be granted if no objections by 2006-03-10 meta:user:Walter (steward)

Bot-status granted --Walter 12:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 15:16, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource News

There have been a lot of changes occuring on Wikisource recently, and not everyone has the time or interest to keep up with the discussions. I think it'd be a good idea to create a Wikisource News service in the spirit of the Wikipedia Signpost. I've created a general mockup of my proposal with example headlines at Wikisource:News. This page can be transcluded onto other pages using {{Wikisource:News}}; the size should be changeable. Following is the full-sized transclusion of the current proposal.

[removed. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)]

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 08:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm, yes, this is a good idea. I'd definitely think of writing some articles if this were implemented. It's a good way of allowing people to stop by, read what's going on, and then going their merry way.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree this would be a good idea. How about frequency? Is there enough going on to warrent it appearing weekly? I too could contribute, as I sometimes spot oddments of interest on the Web which don't warrent a Scriptorium note. Apwoolrich 21:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should make it too frequent. I do enough writing for school, that I don't want to be writing on a weekly (or probably even bi-weekly) basis. Once a month, unless something really major comes up, should probably suffice. Unless, of course, we get enough people willing to contribute to this.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we don't have enough editors with enough time to make this frequent, but it isn't very useful if it's only updated once a month. Perhaps we shouldn't make it regular; we don't have the limitations of a paper news source. If we get rid of the volume/issue counter, we can update the date when we add a new story. Ideally, the page would be transcluded in a place where users can come across it daily; a very good place would be the whitespace right of the table of contents on this page. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good. But, really, most of the time, not enough happens weekly or bi-weekly, that once a month would be no good, but we can always update it when something happens (i.e., on an irregular basis as you've suggested). With the very few returning contributors we have, we can only do so much as there are people to be active.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 04:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I've made a good start on the project. Feel free to edit any of the stories I've written or add your own. Would anyone be opposed to adding this to the top-right corner of this page, as I suggested above? // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 11:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, no objection. I think this is great! I love the Wikipedia Signpost, and it would be great if we had our own version. Actually, I tried to create a sort of "updates" page on wikisource.org, but it never took off, probably due to the fact that it was on a separate wiki. Also the format was far too complicated.

I would suggest that we encourage updates, in English of course, about things that go on in the rest of the languages too. Dovi 11:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we have links prominently displayed on both the main and community portal pages. Maybe also tweak the wording of the Welcome message template to mention it? Apwoolrich 12:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added it at the top-right corner of this page; feel free to remove it if you don't think we should do so. Perhaps we can work it into a future redesign of the main page? // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

why don't you merge this with Dovi's similar project? check oldwikisource:Wikisource:2006 ThomasV 14:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

If Dovi (or anyone else) is willing to write a story now and then about recent developments on other wikis, it'd be a much appreciated contribution. I myself have little interest in wikis I don't participate in, though. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 15:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, if we can work this into a new Main Page design that'd be great. We could then get our goingson right in front of everybody who comes across this site.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

ebooks

The standard format for ebooks seems to be PDF. Do we yet have any projects which aim to offer paginated, formated texts in ebook formats (I would suggest PDF and OpenDocument)? This could include a well-designed coverpage, contents, copyright page, etc. Ultimately, an automated server-side on-the-fly converter may be a better option but this is not currently feasable. Such ebooks could both be used for easy offline reading and for print. It may even be possible that we could generate funds for Wikimedia by printing and offering these texts for donation? The formatting necessary to an ebook would make WikiSource an invaluable resource for schools and festivals which do not wish to spend hundreds of pounds on traditionally published books of play transcripts (think small-town Shakespeare festivals), opera libretti (think school productions), poetry anthologies (in-classroom work), etc. --OldakQuill 10:43, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Well worth discussing, but the concept does impinge on what Wikibooks aims to do so they would need to be involved as well. I certainly feel having the ability to produce a typographically-pleasing text would be an immense boon to readers, and if there was the means of generating funds for Wikimedia as a spin-off it ought to be invesigated, unless it runs foul of Foundation policy in some way. Apwoolrich 12:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it does cover any WikiBooks territory since their aim is to produce original books, rather than simply presenting source texts in a book-format. However, this has given me further ideas in the vein of pan-Wikimedia collaboration. We could include introductions before the text which would essentially be an adaptation of the Wikipedia article on that work. As well as this, we could include a brief biography of the author. All these "bonus features" would be more suited for ebooks intended for print rather than ebooks intended for being read on a screen, I think. Does anyone have any feedback? --OldakQuill 13:45, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

someone created pdf ebooks from wikisource, using wiki2tex. it was a long time ago. check in the scriptorium archives of ws.org. it would be worth to revive this project. ThomasV 14:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert in this area but I read somewhere that in the not to distant future there will be TEX enabled web browsers. Then there is LaTEX witch is sort of TEX light. It might be a good idea to give TEX a good look before jumping on PDF. --Droll 21:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

FYI, LaTeX is a command-based word processor, that converts a LaTeX file into a dvi file. DVI can then be converted into postscript or pdf... ThomasV 22:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

How does wiki2tex work? To create a decent-looking e-book, page formatting, titles, authors, maybe introductory information (to create a context) must all be taken into account. Unless there's a good way of automating most of this process, it seems like it will take way too much time and effort to be a very plausible course of action. If there is a way of automating this process, looking into this would be great, as we could distribute/allow download of all kinds of works for interested people.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea. Also see Wikipedia's WikiReader project, which creates PDF's from the Encyclopedia. It might be easy to convert the WikiReader policy/project page over to a Wikisource version (SourceReader?). I wouldn't get hung up on file formats, PDF will be around and popular a long time, can always add TEX as another option. -- Stbalbach 03:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Zhaladshar : in order to automate this process, we would need something that, given the main page of a book, would be able to tell apart links tro pages that are subsections of the same book, and other links, that lead to pages not to be included in the book. this might require an architectural change.. or not : maybe we could achieve this by standardizing article names (eg enforce prefixes). the benefits would be great, because it would also allow us to write a software extension that renders a whole book on a single page, which can be useful sometimes. ThomasV 10:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a very good idea. It would definitely give us an edge on other projects. But doing more thinking about this, it shouldn't be that hard to automate most of the process. I mean, TeX can automatically create tables of contents for books, so whatever we use could detect header levels and use those for the TOC (which the softward does already). It could take the title page name and use that for the title (or a few parameters could be added to the MediaWiki software which would allow us to manually enter titles, authors, other info, etc.

For example, something like

<nowiki><tex></nowiki>\title{Some title here}
\author{Author's name}
\ANOTHERPARAMETER{PARAMETER DATA ENTERED}
<nowiki></tex></nowiki>

Would allow us to do most of the work for creating the PDF. We have a new tag created called "<tex>" (or whatever) where we enter TeX information regarding the book, and then when we create the file, it uses those parameters.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Re Tex I refer to my posting in Scriptorium above about the need to alter the type face and size of the version available to us. IMHO the way it is now set means we have very ugly mathamatical expressions and fractions, being being much larger than the type face and size used for the rest of Wikisource documents. Apwoolrich 07:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Poll: Activate relative links?

This poll is related to WT:IGD#Title format standard, which established guidelines for the use of a hierarchal title format (Work/Section).

In all but the main namespace, a special wikilink syntax currently allows relative linking. The three syntaxes are [[/]] (down one level), [[./]] (same level), and [[../]] (up one level). For example, the link [[../]] used on The Book of Martyrs/Chapter XXI will link to The Book of Martyrs. Similarly, [[/Chapter XXI]] used on The Book of Martyrs will link to The Book of Martyrs/Chapter XXI.

This behaviour was disabled in the article namespace after a decision on Wikipedia not to use a hierarchal structure for it's articles; this decision is irrelevant on Wikisource, which uses a hierarchal system by default, since the works are so divided. This poll is to judge whether there is community support to reactivate relative links. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Support

• Support, of course. ;) // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support As soon as possible please, as I am am working on a multi-chapter work that I wish to add using this. PS Can we have a Help: page setting out how to use it, please. Apwoolrich 07:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• ThomasV 11:44, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• This would make multi-chapter works a lot easier to code on the previous/next chapter templates & contents page. AllanHainey 13:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• —Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
• Useful tool for relevant texts. Dovi 19:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
• Support 4.227.133.149 04:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral / Discussion

• Random note: Evidently it's enabled on the English WikipediA. 68.39.174.238 06:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It's disabled in the article namespace. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 15:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Update

• The feature has been activated. I'll be implementing it on the United States Code to vastly simplify the organisation. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocking policy

I propose Wikisource:Blocking policy; suggestions are welcome. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 10:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I really can't see anything that I think needs changing or any way of improving this document. Good job.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

There being no apparent opposition, I've updated its status to policy. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 08:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed: Special template syntax for bot requests

Much work is involved in moving a page to a new title. To simplify it, I'd like to standardise a procedure to request that a bot perform a move using the template below. Ideally, the bot will automatically perform the actual move, delete the redirect (or nominate it for speedy deletion), and update all incoming links. The template is designed to be 'alert'-like, since it indicates that the page will soon be edited automatically according to the information filled into the template.

As a security measure against abuse, the bot should skip any article that was editted within the last 24 hours.

File:Next.png

This page has been tagged to be automatically moved to {{{1}}}. Please make sure that the new title is correct and follows Wikisource's style guidelines.

What do you think? // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 02:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Very nice, lets do it. Apwoolrich 07:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Good, will the bot automatically go into action when a document is moved or when this template is applied, or is it necessary to individually set it up for each move? AllanHainey 13:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It would perform the move and all related tasks (updating links, deleting the old page, et cetera) 24 hours after the template was placed on the page. To prevent vandalism, it would reset the 24 hour deadline every time the page was edited. Every page would need to be tagged individually, though that could be done by copy and pasting or with a semibot. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew Letter Ayin Missing

I noticed that at the bottom of an editing page there's a whole bunch of odd charachters to make editing easier. I really like this feature - particularly the Hebrew alphabet (which is not available on the English wikipedia. That said, there's a missing letter. It's ayin - ע - and needs to be added. It should be the 19th letter. I have no idea how to fix this - you prob. need to be an admin. Also, a few pairs of letters are out of order. They should be switched. They are:

• ך and כ
• ם and מ
• ן and נ
• ף and פ
• ץ and צ

Thanks, Reuvenk 16:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and if you need to contact me, please leave a message on my English Wikipedia User Talk Page

The letters "out of order" are non-final-form, and are therefore after a fashion the same ones. What should be disambiguated for users is that in final-form (the letters coming at the end of a word), the lines of the letter extend further downward, as seen on the left side of that list. The same letters on the right side are what they look like when coming at the beginning or middle of a word. --Chr.K. 16:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know that the final-form sticks below, but I think they should come second (remember, Hebrew is right to left), because they come at the end of the word, and are not the main form of the letter. Reuvenk 16:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixed it. Enjoy! Dovi 23:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. Reuvenk 22:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

New Logo contest on International WS

people are submitting their work, but the rules and voting method are still discussed. the discussion is taking months, and nothing's coming up. Would it be possible to advertise a bit more the existence of the contest? maybe by linking randomly to the submitted logos (being a newbie, I'm not too sure if it's possible...) -- Kcyclopedist, 1 March 2006

to contriibute a little bit, I made a pic to catch the eye about the logo question : oldwikisource:Image:WsLogoQuestioncorrected.png you are free to use it for the annoucement--Kcyclopedist 15:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I rather like that; I'll use it sometime to advertise the new logo. Would you mind uploading it to the w:Wikimedia Commons so that we can use it on the English Wikisource? // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I uploaded the pic and made a banner

I submit it here for further discussion, both about what it shall say and wher it shall link to--Kcyclopedist 02:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Time for change? Wikisources' logo is discussed. Now is maybe the time for change, shall we keep it as is, or launch a redesign process? please give your input on the whole affair the other polls by language de es fa he fr it ja pl

Moved the discussion from Talk:Main Page. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 11:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

what about starting to vote on the local wikisources on the necessity of a new logo, and then move the final vote up to the international section? this process was proposed by Francois on the original discussion --Kcyclopedist 08:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I've just noted on oldwikisource & on the WikiMedia Babel page that the creater of the iceberg logo has ceded his copyright to the foundation, thus obviating the need for a new vote. AllanHainey 13:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this, too. Can this be confirmed? If this can, then a vote should definitely happen (well, I think it should happen anyway, but this way we have more logos available to us).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:44, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

before deciding that a vote should happen, maybe you could ask informally to the contributors on this wiki if they want a new logo. kcyclopedist did it on fr, and (at least for the moment) it looks like a vote is not requested : fr:Wikisource:Nouveau logo pour wikisource. ThomasV 20:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but from my reading of the reasons originally given for having/trying to have a vote it seemed that the only reason was because the foundation didn't own the copyright. Now they do so I can't see a reason for a vote. I think it's clear from the lack of clamour for a new logo that most of the users here don't want (or can't be bothered to go through the process of) a vote for a new logo, though of course if I'm wrong I'm sure folk will comment here - though this is just one sub-domain of wikisource so I don't know how much weight a decision would have without running similar informal votes/discussions on every other sub-domain (& I'm completely incapable of doing this). I'll start a wee informal vote below though

Zhaladshar if you want to confirm that the copyright was ceded to the foundation it is noted on the original creators wikipedia talk page W:User talk:Kils. AllanHainey 08:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

My understanding was that the Foundation wants to own the copyright and that they do not want the logo to be GFDL. The ownership of the copyright does not seem to be a problem anymore. But the logo can still be distributed under the GFDL, we cannot change that. Maybe we should ask at the foundation mailing list if there still is need for a new logo. --82.212.68.183 08:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it as the foundation now owns the copyright they can stop the logo being distributed under GDFL, as they do with the wikipedia logo for example, by using the template

This image is copyrighted by the Wikimedia foundation. It is one of the official logos or designs used by the Wikimedia foundation or by one of its projects. Notwithstanding any other statement on this page this image has not been licensed under the GFDL. © & ™ All rights reserved, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc..

on wikicommons. Neveretheless it'd be a good idea to ask the foundation what their views are. I've noted the fact that the copyright was ceded to them on M:Babel but I don't know if there's a more direct way to talk to the foundation. AllanHainey 12:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, wikisource deserves better than this frigid, hermetic, and overall gloomy image. I am a rookie, and still taking much more than I'm giving, and to me that image is at the very least disconcerting (tirade here). Don't forget that a logo is 30% for the guys inside who feel good, and 70% for the guys outside who would like to... I am not so vain as to believe that a logo change is a kind of panacea, but its effects are certainly not negligeable enough to voluntarily take a handicap, that this -thing- that has its place on wikipedia as an honorable scientific illustration in the Iceberg article (or in the Titanic article if you like) certainly is. In my opinion. Kcyclopedist 15:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

by the way, how are you going to count the "neutrals?" Kcyclopedist 15:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Comment from Kernigh, in response to AllanHainey, who wrote "As I understand it as the foundation now owns the copyright they can stop the logo being distributed under GDFL..."

The GNU Free Documentation License states in section 1, "This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein." (Emphasis is added.)

Any attempt by the Wikimedia Foundation, or anyone else, to revoke the GNU Free Documentation License from Commons:Image:Wikisource-logo.jpg is illegal. There is now way to revoke the license. In any case of termination, "parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." --Kernigh 04:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Informal poll on the need for a new wikisource logo

No

1. - Loving the Iceberg, though the part that's above water doesn't look very... lifelike
2. I've seen no good (non-subjective) reason to change the logo other than the fact that the foundation didn't own the copyright & as they do now I don't see a reason to go through the hassle, again, of voting for a new logo. AllanHainey 08:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
3. I am a college professor and I often retrieve reading assignments for my students from wikisource. I have to say that I LOVE the logo, and always take a moment to admire it every time I go to wikisource for work. The proposed logos below, on the other hand, are in extreemely bad taste. They are an example of the same aesthetic that has destroyed our traditional colonial and victorian townscapes and replaced them with strip malls and parking lots. Furthermore, being a photograph, the logo is educational in and of itself. Let's take a stand for taste and intellectual content and keep the iceberg logo!added by 68.160.158.91
4. ThomasV (1221 edits here). here are my reasons:
   1. - An iceberg is a very good representation of culture.
   2. - The iceberg picture is beautiful. It is by far the coolest logo of all the Foundation's projects. It looks like a real camera picture, but it is not one, because we can see both air and underwater. This creates a first sense of mystery. This makes this picture extremely original. It is a great gift made to us. It would be foolish to throw it away.
   3. - I read somewhere that the iceberg picture conveys a feeling of danger. Indeed. And this is very good! It reminds you that what you do not know is much bigger than what you know. It reminds you that you should be aware of this, and it invites you to learn more. It acts like a warning : if you ignore the hidden part of culture, if you believe you know everything, you might know the same fate as the Titanic. It calls for respect and humility from those who enter our library.
   4. - Some people expressed the concern that a picture cannot be a logo for the Foundation. wait... why not? did the Foundation ever officially complain about that? not to my knowledge. Those who propagate this idea should make clear that they do not speak in the name of the Foundation, but in their own name. Since we are a website, I do not see why we could not use this picture as a logo. We can even print the iceberg picture as is on tee-shirts and on mugs. Of course, the situation would be different if we were in the business of selling physical goods (cars, TVs), because in that case you want to incorporate your logo into your product in a less visible way, so that your product is more than just a support for your logo. But we are a website, we are not making cars. If we ever sell mugs, we'll do so because they will be a physical support for our logo.
   5. - there is another symbol closely related to the iceberg : the penguin! the Linux penguin! we should definitely stay in this symbolic field. The penguin is a symbol of free software. So let the iceberg be a symbol for free culture.
5. I am not very active in the Wikipedia, and not at all in the wikisource, but my opinion as an innocent bystander is: keep the logo. It shows that there is a lot to be found in the Wikisource, a great size and volume.(Sean Heron) 84.164.89.67 13:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
6. Im a Wikipedia user, but feel the Wikisource logo should be kept per Tom's arguments. 83.5.207.168 22:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
7. I'm a Wikisource user, and I like the iceberg. Change for the sake of change, takes away from brand recognition. There needs to be an compelling reason to change, because once we change, we can't keep changing. The arguments for changing the iceberg could be used for the new logo as well... -- Stbalbach 19:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
8. As the questions asks, no; there is no "need" to change the iceberg. However, a separate logo can still be made. With some touchup to the iceberg, the new logo can be added as an overlay or used without the iceberg in other documents. Dzonatas 18:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
9. the iceberg is perfect, conveying exactly what WS is about. If you must, touch it up, retouche it, whatever (along the lines of Image:Wikiberg3.png, Image:WikiSourceLogo-mtr.png, Image:150px-Wikisource vignette circle.jpg), but there is no reason to look for an entirely new logo. Dbachmann 18:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
   1. Many of us like the redone iceberg. But in order to implement something like that there needs to be support for a vote. Otherwise it remains entirely unchanged. Dovi 19:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
10. I like the iceberg. I prefer no change.--Jusjih 20:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
11. I have never been active on this project, but I've done some small work on wikipedia. I often follow links and see this site. Personally, I think the iceberg is a really cool looking picture, and as one of the posts above mentioned, there is various meaning that can be seen, danger of not knowing, etc. However, I think it's worth keeping simply because it looks cool, and it's going to be hard to get any logo to concisely express any idea while still retaining its elegant simplicity. I would support keeping this logo just because it's already established, and that's one of the most important things for a logo. --64.122.35.56 02:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes

1. The current logo was derived from the original name of Wikisource, "Project Sourceberg" (a play on Project Gutenberg). That derivation is now obsolete. The symbolism is supposed to be that Wikisource reveals knowledge which was previously inaccessible. But the picture shows a remote, foreboding iceberg. The submerged portion is visible, but hardly accessible; it's not being brought to the surface, but is immersed in black, frigid water, frozen and unreachable. It's a desolate image. Wikisource is a library, not an iceberg—our logo should be warm, friendly, and inspiring. Tim Smith 15:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
2. The current logo was designed while WS was still Project Sourceberg, and it was designed to give that impression (Sourceberg-iceberg connection). A new logo is necessitated for a few reasons: 1) We are not Project Sourceberg anymore, so the connection doesn't stand as strongly (really, the connection is only known to those either involved in WS or who've been around for the past couple years and saw WS evolve to what it is today). 2) Image is a key factor. The current logo is ugly, hands down. If the WMF ever distributes their material, would they really want to put our current logo on their documents—especially when they're compared to all the other projects and their nice logos? That said, I'm not saying we need a completely new logo, but a stylized version (such as Zanimum's) would be much better than this.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Yes, for the same reason as Zhaladshar: The present one is unstylized and ugly, and therefore does a poor job representing Wikisource. Just look at the "Sister project" logos listed at the bottom of every Wikipedia Main Page, and it is immediately evident that our current logo doesn't really do the job. On the other hand, is changing it the most important thing in the world? Of course not, it's just a logo after all. Nevertheless, if someone to whom this is of serious importance will take it upon himself/herself to run a well-organized vote (something like the one Thomas put together for subdomains), then I will vote to change it. Dovi 18:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
4. I'm changing my vote from don't care. Tim Smith presents a thought I've had rather eloquently and convincingly. Along with my previous arguments and those presented above, it doesn't follow the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines, which is a serious fault. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 19:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
5. I'm not per se active on Wikisource, so feel free to remove my vote from the continously numbered ones, but I think that the current logo does not adequately represent what wikisource is about and that it sticks out like a sore thumb among the other Wikimedia logos. (Well, Wiktionary's "logo" isn't really anything to write home about, either, but... meh.) —Nightstallion (?) 15:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
6. A change is undoubtely needed, but I am far from impressed with the aesthetic quality of the alternatives. Is there anywhere where we might discuss the ethos of the logo - what it is meant to represent - before we get down to the design detail? As I see it the present logo has three roles. The first is to link with previous projects - Project Gutenberg>Project Sourceberg>Wikisource.That role is not bad, it shows continuity. The second role is to portray what we do - we house texts, so a book/library theme might be appropriate. The present logo with the vast amount of ice below sea level reminds me of a hidden resource but the colour is cold and unfriendly. The third role is to show the familial link with the rest of the Wikimedia empire. This might be achieved by the colours used and to a lesser degree by the design itself. And a last thought that it might be witty - this is definitely not a cartoon, but a quality design with subtlety. Apwoolrich 19:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
7. I agree with many of the points above, especially Dovi's one about looking at the sister project logos. All the others are simpler, yet seem so much more elegant.--Politicaljunkie 20:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
8. That Iceberg is simply ugly. Some people voting for keeping wantś to keep the concept, and not the actual image... I would like to see a new concept, and specifically I would like to see a concept that shows how wikisource is different from wikibooks!... -- Nwerneck 03:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
9. Agree with above. A stylized iceberg is nice, but some other logo would be nice, too. Wikipedia User:HereToHelp
10. It's not a "logo", it's a photo with bad JPEG compression. Instead of participation in Wikisource, the requirement for participating in this poll should be to have read, and understood, the Wikipedia article "Logo", particularly the section on logo design.--Eloquence 05:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
11. Absolutely agree with Eloquence, above. While I like the iceberg, it's extremely ambiguous. it looks like someone's just put a little jpeg in the corner. Amateur. --Sammysam 15:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
12. Yes, change the logo. Our current logo is under the GNU Free Documentation License, which allows anyone (not only Wikisource) to use it. However, I disagree with those of you who criticised the iceberg. Our iceberg represents the preservation of content in The Free Library. From The Adventure of the Dancing Men to The Star-Spangled Banner, the iceberg has associated itself with many documents. Therefore I suggest that our new, trademarked logo use the ice as its theme. --Kernigh 04:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
13. I have no problem with the current logo/image, but I think the idea of establishing a copyrighted, stylized logo to match the other projects makes sense. My main concerns would be avoiding too much abstraction, the use of letters that may not translate even into other Latin-based names for Wikisource, and logos that look too much like other projects' logos. ~ Jeffq 02:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
14. I have a lot of problems with the current logo. Aesthetic problems. It's ugly, dark, and looming. It needs to be changed. Preferebly to something that relates at least slightly to the content in a more serious way.
15. The current logo is awful. It's scary, and meaningless with the current name. It's got to go.--131.111.193.120 20:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
16. I'm a professional designer and a good part of my day is spent on developing logos and imaging for companies. The Iceburg image is, no offence intended to the creator, lacking in qualities that any good logo or branding image should have. First, other than copying the digital image or printing it out there is no easy way to reproduce this image. Also, the hue is a dark and depressing blue not at all appropriate to the idea behind Wikimdedia. The image also looks as if a 14 year old picked it out. "Oh look daddy! A pretty iceburg!" I understand the 90% underwater bit, oh I get it! Very clever. Now how about picking a logo for this project that conveys a better since of business and professionalism? [March 21, 2006]--Del

    so the logo stands out from the other wikimedia logos. is that bad? sure, it could be thinned to a hip pastel thingy fit for corporate letterheads. By "business and professionalism" you mean, of course, "sleek & boring corporate-identity cruft". I don't know what you imagine is the idea behind Wikimedia, I would say it is, among other things, educating people so they can spell iceberg. The image may look like a random snapshot of an iceberg for a second, but you'll note it isn't since, as you say you get, the underwater bit is visible. That said, of course it can be vectorized etc. for purposes like printing, cf my vote above. Dbachmann 19:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

17. An iceburg just doesn't seem to fit. I'd like to see something more of an illustration as with Wikipedia and MediaWiki.
18. Need something along the same lines as the other main wiki logos
19. I am not very active on Wikisource, but I see the logo often on the Wikipedia main page and it is an eyesore. Whenever I come here, the obvious JPEG artifacts are annoying and it seems to interupt the page. A logo should fit with a page and, while I like the symbolism and story behind the logo, this current 'logo' fails at that. I like this proposal logo, however.

Don't Care

• The current image isn't a logo at all, and it's subjectively ugly to me. I'm rather fond of a few of the proposed logos, one of which I used for the Wikisource News logo. Although I favour getting a new logo, I disagree with the title of this poll ("...the need for..."). I'd like a new logo for purely aesthetic reasons, which isn't a necessity. ;) // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

1. It doesn't matter much to me.--Politicaljunkie 13:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

• may I suggest to change the title to : Informal poll on the need for a new wikisource logo ? Kcyclopedist 09:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  Done AllanHainey 12:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  huh? Kcyclopedist 13:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  Sorry I just noticed the the, I didn't notice the absence of vote at the end. AllanHainey 13:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  Sorry, I didn't notice I had corrected the "the" (really)Kcyclopedist 13:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick comment on Pathoschild's comment about the foundation:Wikimedia visual identity guidelines, this seems to deal only with the wikimedia logo itself, it doesn't refer at all (or even imply it applies) to the other wiki project logos. Infact given the level of detail in which it deals with the wikimedia logo it is clear it isn't intended to apply to any other logos. AllanHainey 08:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Er, oops. :p // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I propose that the poll be closed; we have a pretty comprehensive sampling of the regular community with input from a large number of less active or new users. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 16:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Let's do. We don't need anymore input at this time.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Slightly new idea

Based on the comments just made, the following occured to me. Maybe instead of asking whether the specific logo should be changed, we should ask whether the iceberg concept should be changed. We already know that there is significant support and opposition to the concept, i.e. numerous people like it and numerous others don't. But we don't know how many are on either side.

If such a poll would say "no" to changing the concept, then we would go about reconsidering the exact current logo versus numerous similar but new icebergs.

If such a poll says "yes" to changing the concept then we go about choosing among the myriad new logos available at oldwikisource:New Wikisource logo (minus the icebergs).

Does this make any sense? Dovi 19:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. It makes sense to me. As I said earlier, nit-picking about particular designs is not sensible until we have established what we want the logo to do. I must confess that I have a fondness for the iceberg, but can see it means nothing to a new user, and the colours are too cold. On the other hand blue seems common over all Wiki-empire logos, so we might have to live with it. Apwoolrich 19:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I want to challenge this concept of the iceberg having no meaning to a new user. I introduced someone to wikisource a few weeks ago and her response to the logo was "Neat logo. I like how it implies the hidden depths here." Illy 15:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that is exactly what I meant: to let people say what they think of the concept itself, just like your friend. If most people want to keep it, then to discuss variations of it. If most people want to change it, then to decide on an alternative. But first of all to discuss the current concept instead of the current logo. Dovi 19:22, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Ahem.oldwikisource:New Wikisource logo is an empty page, with no history tab so I can't see what has become of it. Apwoolrich 19:45, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

it's oldwikisource:Wikisource:New Wikisource logo Kcyclopedist 23:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Community template guidelines

I created three block templates, {{block1}} , {{block2}} , and {{block3}} . These are the flag prototypes of the Wikipedian WikiProject on user warnings' standardised templates project. The guidelines used in their creation can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject user warnings/Documentation.

I strongly believe that we should have a set of guidelines and standard community templates, such that there's one series for each message (block1-3, test0-3, spam0-3, etc). Wikipedia is currently in a state of critical template creation; the count is at 205 categorised user warning templates and skyrocketing, with numerous uncategorised templates. Setting guidelines now would prevent that mess from happening here.

This would also allow us to integrate the warning templates into a standard colour theme. Every user is welcome to have their own favourite user templates, but I don't think we should have more than one set of community templates.

Discussion and comments are, of course, welcome. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 23:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• In favor – I like the idea of having standard templates where possible. I believe look and feel is important in any product. Having too many templates would make it hard to tailor look and feel as time goes by. In most endeavors early agreement on good standards leads to success. At least that's my opinion. --Droll 23:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

• In favor - This is excellent. Go for it. Apwoolrich 19:36, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• In favor - Although I don't think template creation will run rampant here, as there are very few people who work on that aspect of Wikisource, I can't agree more with Droll's comment. We should pre-emptively keep this from happening.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

• In favor I have heard that blocked users can only edit their talk pages in the English Wikipedia. It is certainly true on Wikisource as I blocked myself to test. So the third template should be changed.--BirgitteSB 00:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

• In favor - Good idea; standards help editors focus on what matters. Sj 08:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Announcements

New logo vote

I wanted to announce that there will soon be a new vote for a new Wikisource logo - please visit Wikisource:New Wikisource logo for all the necessary details. Please ask any questions on that article's talk page. Datrio 22:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Switched link on Main Page for this. Dovi 09:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Who decided that there would be a new vote for a new logo - didn't we have a vote some time ago & ended up keeping the existing logo? AllanHainey 11:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

There was never a vote, just lots of suggestions and comments. But the talk page at the new "vote" already has discussion as to whether there should be a vote at all, how it should be done, etc... Dovi 12:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe its a fait accompli and a vote is not needed. I have just seen the Zanumum design is in use on the Meta page about fundraising that is linked to WP's main page. Apwoolrich 16:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, boy. This is going to turn out to be a mess; the multitude of users on other projects who have no interaction with WS will flood the vote and possibly overrule what we as a WS community decide to encourage the Board to adopt as a new logo. I hope it gets more structured in terms of voting procedure/method, or this will be a ride...—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I just looked, Apwoolrich. You're right, that was an interesting surprise... Actually, it links from "Donations" on every Wikipedia page, and every Wikisource page too... If people here would like the process to be done differently, the way to make that happen is to simply change its terms on the relevant page and state how you would like it done on the talk page. Nothing is engraved on stone. Go be bold! Dovi 22:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

A_Quick_Survey_of_Languages

See oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#A_Quick_Survey_of_Languages and feel free to add your own feedback. Dovi 19:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Author:Henry James

This week Wikipedia's article on w:Henry James was promoted to featured status. This means it is likely to be shown on the Main Page at Wikipedia in the upcoming months. Many of his works also have full-fledged articles on WP. We do not currently have a single one of his works, so I want to encourage everyone to help retify that. He wrote a variety of stories, short and long on both American and European topics. I set up the Author page with links to the texts at Project Gutenburg. It would be nice if we could set our best foot forward when this gets to the Main Page. Especially the short stories as people will more likely check them out on a whim.--BirgitteSB 21:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll begin moving them over. Thanks for noticing this! People probably will visit us through him. Nothing better than actually having works by him.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Insert tag for header template

I've just added to my monobook.js the code that will add the header template link to the edit screen toolbar (just like some of us have for the author template). If you guys want it, just copy the necessary code to you own monobook and clear your cache. It should work.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

If someone can find where those little square images that show up on the editing toolbar are and find an image that won't get confused with the current author template button (they're both currently the "A"), that'd be great.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Noncommercial licenses prohibited

I've asked Jimbo Wales to say something quotable concerning noncommercial licenses on Wikisource. The conversation below, although joking, confirms what other users have said in the channel and what Jimbo Wales himself said on the English Wikipedia mailing list ("Use of noncommercial-only images" Thu Apr 15 18:46:10 UTC 2004) concerning how this applies to other Wikimedia domains. I think the following quote should suffice, but I'm willing to ask for a more serious quote if necessary. I think we should draft this and other such policies into a comprehensive copyright policy. Any thoughts?

Pathoschild	jwales: Could you say something quotable concerning noncommercial licenses on Wikimedia projects besides Wikipedia (notably Wikisource)?
[...]	[...]
jwales	Pathoschild: not sure how quotable I can be :)
Pathoschild	jwales: Make sure it's great and movingly epic. :p
jwales	"Noncomercial-only license are basically the same thing as torturing kittens." not really :)
Pathoschild	jwales: I can go with that. :p

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 05:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think we need to drastically expand/revise the copyright policy so that this stuff is made explicit. As admins, we need to know this, and we need it for the sake of being able to cite to new users what is and is not allowed here. This is something that should be cleaned up soon.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Talkpagetext

A new system message, check it out! The design I used is a little crap, but you get the idea. Gerard Foley 00:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Special characters revisited

On Mediawiki Edittools talk page a discussion has begun on an alternative way of getting special characters. [talk:Edittools#Replacing_charinsert_with_dynamic_JavaScript] This seems to involve users having their own set of characters on their personal JS pages. I have no idea if this might have applications on WS, but having found what a boon Instaview is, which does run from my JS page I wonder if it might. Apwoolrich 19:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource Stats

Note that useful, up-to-date stats can be found at Meta:

• m:Wikisource#List_of_Wikisources_by_size

This is especially useful since Wikimedia Statistics still doesn't include Wikisource languages. Dovi 07:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

New Logo Vote Starts on Wednesday

Just a wee reminder here, as the original notice is lost in the mists of time further up the page, the 'discussion' period ends on the 28th & the vote for a new logo starts on Wednesday 1st of March. The same originally proposed (flawed, in my view) voting system is still in force. The vote page is Wikisource:New Wikisource logo and discussion is attalk page, as many of you know already. AllanHainey 13:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

New template: {{new text}}

Per the discussion at WT:IGD#Requested template for new texts and the recent completion of Wikisource's style guide, I've created the following template as {{new text}} .

This source text has recently been added to Wikisource, and may need to be conformed to Wikisource's style guidelines. If you'd like to help, feel free to review Help:Adding texts and format this page.

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

What Wikisource includes

I've created a rough draft (with heavy editing thanks to Dovi) that I think accurately describes our policy here for including texts. However, I want to run this through the community for ideas; is our section of what we don't include adequate enough? Is what we do include adequate enough? Any feedback/help would be great.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This is odd. I'm trying to add comment to the Wikisource:What Wikisource includes section but all its coming up with is a blank screen, without Zhaladshar's previous comments. Nevertheless I just wanted to say that I spotted the WS:WWI link to that page on recent changes & thought Wikisource:World War One, what's that? The use of acronyms can be really quite confusing, especially for new users, I'd propose that we avoid the use of acronym links & instead use the full name of the page, for greater clarity. AllanHainey 12:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The use of shortcuts really are only for people who float among certain project pages a lot. For most editors, they need not worry about that; the most they'll ever go to would be the community portal or the Scriptorium, both of which have links on the sidebar. That's why the shortcuts only redirect to pages, so that the full link (if that's what people know) still work.

And I think other Wikimedia projects chose "WWI" for their inclusion pages, so I just modeled after them, despite the fact that it really does look like you're saying World War One with it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:Chap and Template:Chap simple

Today I edited these templates which I created so that their look is very similar to Template:header with the thought that much work might be avoided this way. At least it is a temporary fix. --Droll 01:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

No longer "The free library" II

Good morning!

The discussion has, for all practical purposes, moved to:

• Wikipedia Sister template talk,

which is in any case a more appropriate place for it.

Please keep an eye on this, so that I don't end up being the only person representing us there! Dovi 07:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

{{section}} for section linking

I just created this template to create anchors for section linking. These can be used within a page, from another page, or even another wiki to link to a specific section (such as the United States Code, Title 2, Chapter 2, Section 2a, Subsection b). It may be a good idea to create a second template to link to it, so we can apply a separate css class to section links.

The usage is {{section|anchor_name|anchor_text}}, which outputs <span id="anchor_name">anchor_text</span>, resulting in anchor_text. The template is documented on the talk page. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:38, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Il canto d'amore di J. Alfred Prufrock

I marked this as {{Unknown-language}}. I think it is Italian. --Inge 00:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

It is. I've deleted it as it's already on the Italian WS.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 05:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Free ? ... or not ?

This text ? Kelson 20:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be effectively the manifesto & statement of beliefs of a political party/organisation. I doubt whether it is copyrighted as such as such documents are usually published with a view to as wide a dissemination as possible, at least in their own countries. I would expect fair use to apply to this document in any event, as with (mostly) all documents originally intended to be widely (& freely) disseminated or freely read/considered/acted upon by the public. I doubt Hamas would seek to enforce any copyright on this document (if it exists) in any event. That said if this is a translation of the original the translator is likely to hold copyright of it & we couldn't host the document in its English translation. Frankly I don't know if Hamas issued an English language version of their Covenant or not. If they did we can host it, if not not. AllanHainey 11:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

See the bottom of the page at this site where it mentions that this is Hamas' own English version. I take this to mean that they did write it in English. I did a cursory comparison of the two texts, and they seem to be identical. So, all things considered, I would imagine that it's a free text.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Hy, I don't want to be an Ayatollah, but for me a text without a free license is not a free text, consequently the Hamas Covenant doesn't have to be in wikisource. The problem is for me : people cleams that if the text is in wikisource, it's free, and so they can make a free translation of it on fr.wikipedia.org (fr.wikisource.org)... I'm definitly not agree with that. Best regards. Kelson 21:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure I understand what you mean. If you have reason to believe it's not a free text, post it at the copyright violations page.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm very sorry for my bad english. I do my best ;-). Kelson 19:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

NSW legislation

I just wanted to ask about New South Wales legislation - the copyright notice permits free republication, subject to certain conditions. Would someone be able to advise as to whether these pieces of legislation may be reproduced on Wikisource? Note that in Australia, government publications and documents are not in the public domain like in the US. enochlau (talk) 00:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you should be able to include NSW legislation here. There are some non-GFDL texts here such as Free Culture (freakin' non-commercial even). Just create a license template for it that states the text is copyright NSW but can be used in any way provided the conditions listed on that copyright page are adhered to. The license seems pretty liberal with few restrictions. --Pmsyyz 05:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

"State reserves the right at any time to revoke, vary or withdraw the authorisation if the conditions of its grant are breached and otherwise on reasonable notice." This could be a problem. If New South Wales notifies its citizens that it is revoking the license, then Wikisource would have to delete the legislation. --Kernigh 01:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but until they do this (which to me appears to be an extreme approach) it seems that we are able to accept this legislation. They're reserving the right that the copyright still holds with them, and they are allowing others to publish it so long as the State's good graces last.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:06, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

So after ye olde accident last time...

Somebody want to reassure me that I could post up the 1906 publication (by Putnam, of NY) of Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread? Would appreciate the nod to go ahead. Sherurcij 19:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Perfectly acceptable--BirgitteSB 21:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Great, it's a great book, and it gives me the chance to re-read it as I edit it and add in WP links to who the hell he's referring to when he says "Graves" or some other surname. :) The Conquest of Bread Sherurcij 03:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Pages marked as possible copyright violations

I have noticed that pages marked with the Template:Copyvio and have had their text removed can be viewed using the history function. I am wondering if in these cases Wikisource could be held liable for publishing copyrighted material. When it comes to legal stuff I am not at all well informed. Just asking. An example is Humanist Manifesto I and this page[2]. --Droll 07:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

This is sort of the way WP works. They add the template and blank the page until decision is decided. In terms of us getting sued, this is a lot of work on both parties (us and the ones who would be suing us). Probably the first thing we'll get is a "cease and desist" letter telling us to remove it. But, if they see that we are acting upon possible copyright infringements (even if the text is still available through the history), I highly doubt any sensible person would go after us. And, of course, once deleted, only admins can see the text anymore.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

"*Thanks for the clarification. --Droll 20:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Monobooks

I just edited my Javascript monobook, and for some reason it got all screwy. The same thing happened a while ago when I edited my CSS monobook. Does anyone know why it's doing this? Is anyone else having this kind of problem with theirs?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You mean you lost the visual formatting on the page? That's a known glitch; it doesn't affect the code itself. A good way to work around it is to force formatting using wikisyntax in comments. MediaWiki will parse them when you view the page, but they'll be ignored by the code itself.

• /* <pre> */ ... CSS or Javascript ... /* </pre> */

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 18:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I couldn't figure out what was going wrong. It wasn't the visual formatting that was bugging me. For some reason all the Javascript in the monobook was just not working (it wasn't adding the links to the edit screen toolbar). It's working now, though.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

CC-NC license?

Are books like Free Culture which use a CC-NC license acceptable for Wikisource? I wouldn't have thought so. Phr 19:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource's policy is that we accept any work that we can legally display on the site. We are pretty much open to anything other than fair use documents. Of course, this isn't a blanket statement, and there still might be some works which have licenses incompatible with WS. We just haven't found them or are unaware of their incompatibility.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about noncommercial works on Wikisource. I asked Jimbo Wales a little while ago, and the general response was that we don't want noncommercial licenses on any of Wikimedia's projects. This is because although we ourselves don't commercially distribute these works, our license allows other people or organisations to redistribute our content in that manner. I'll ask if he can say something quotable next time I see him. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 20:48, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll cede my response to Pathoschild. I know nothing about the CC-NC and its relation to Wikimedia as a whole. I just figured it was similar to CC license itself. Someone with more information on the matter can take this one.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

CC is a family of licenses, not a single license ([3]). CC licenses designated "NC" (non-commercial) are incompatible with the GFDL and with the notion of Libre content ([4]) which is one of the guiding principles of the Wikimedia projects. Also, this book wouldn't really belong on wikisource even if the license were compatible. The author encourages modification ("remixing") and so a compatibly licensed version would go on Wikibooks rather than here. I think the book should be removed from wikisource. Phr 22:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering if many of the works on WS are in fact under the GFDL. If a work is PD then we might be able to claim it is under GFDL but it would still be PD and it would IMO be unethical to make such a claim. In fact I don't think WS makes any such claims. If the CC licence is incompatible with the GFDL, again IMO, that should not prevent the work from being here. Consider the case of copyrighted work that the copyright holder allows to be freely distributed. Such things exit here. WS in this case is restricted because such works usually cannot be modified. Something that I have been thinking a lot about is that a Wiki is a strange way to collect documents. Documents are artifacts. Thinks form the past. They can be edited to make them more perfectly conform to the past but not to make them "better". WS is always restricted in this sense. Of course this has been talked about before. Maybe I'm missing the point. --Droll 23:52, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

For content to be acceptable on Wikisource, it doesn't necessarily have to be relicensed under the GFDL. However, it must be compatible with it; ie, we must have the same rights under that license than we do under the GDFL. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm failing to see how CC-NC is incompatible with GFDL. I mean, WS isn't using the text for any commercial purposes. But then, I don't know much about these licenses, either.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource itself isn't using the texts for commercial purposes, but other organisations that redistribute the texts under the GDFL license, which permits them to do so, might. That's where the incompatibility problem arises; for example, Wikipedia is purging noncommercial content to prevent legal issues with the upcoming print and DVD releases. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The point is that the GDFL on WS, IMO, applies mostly to original material on WS. That is, things like user pages, help pages and this page. Most documents in the WS library are either PD or some other licence. Maybe a few library documents are GDFL if that was the licence that applied on their arrival. The licence does not change just because they are on this site. If someone copies such a document to somewhere else then, IMO, their copy is still PD or under whatever licence allowed it to be here in the first place. Being on WS does not change the nature of the licence. --Droll 02:12, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I see your point. If this site is to result in a commercial product your right. I hope your wrong. --Droll 02:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

That's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, see "Wikipedia:Pushing to 1.0", which aims to release a printed and DVD version of Wikipedia. The content can be redistributed by any organisation or person, and not necessarily noncommercially. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 03:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Song Lyrics

Are song lyrics subject to the same copyright rules as books? If so what is the latest date that they enter the public domain? Yorktown1776 00:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, song lyrics are subject to copyright rules as well. Any song published before 1923 is automatically PD. If it's published after that, it might be PD, but you'll have to investigate it's copyright status; sometimes the author will release them from copyright, they'll license them under CC or GFDL or some other like license, or they might be PD because they copyright wasn't renewed.

A good rule of thumb about songs is to be careful--almost all current day songs will be quickly deleted from Wikisource unless there is explicit permission which allows us to post it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It is my impression that a transcription of how you heard a song over a broadcast, is different from a copying of song lyrics from a printed sheet. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Wjhonson 20:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

changing submitted article that appears locked

HI

Recently I submitted an article on dideridoo player charlie mcmahon After having a think about it I realised parts of it needed to be rewritten to make it clearer and also to add some omitted information but when I submitted the rewrite it appears to have been locked. How do I unlock it to hold this rewrite?

tobalwin

What's the page? I highly doubt it's locked, since the protect log has no entries in it regarding McMahon.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried this morning seven hours ago and a few mintues ago and it still refuses to take my changes. The page is called "Charlie McMahon" . I had no trouble with it yesterday.

tobalwin

Well it isn't coming up from the search box. That doesn't necessarily indicate much though. You say that this is an article - is it one you have writen yourself, as you seem to imply, or a published article? If it is the former then wikisource isn't the appropriate place for it in any event, you should try wikipedia. AllanHainey 08:19, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It was one I wrote myself in the Wikipedia section. I thought what happend there was relevant for over here [and to be honest it's far easy to get answers to questions here,folks] anyhow it is now working again and I have been able to made the changes I needed to make.

Just for the record when I wrote the first "I tried this morning" post above I added another couple of lines to what is there now and got hit with the same full screen "Editing Error" notice I kept getting on the Wikipedia section when I tried to make changes to my McMahon article earlier today. The "Editing Error" notice here was a bit different in that it also said the posts here needed to be broken up as the total was exceeding memory length !!! Another of life's little mysteries.

tobalwin

Wikisource is a completely seperate entity from wikipedia (though both sister projects) & do not share articles. Infact we collect different types of information: wikipedia encyclopedia entries & wikisource original primary source texts. All the wiki projects are linked & run in the same general manner but the articles are completely seperate (apart from a few links to other wikiprojects with related material).

The Editing error message has been a big problem today (& at other times) it usually means there is a problem with the wikimedia servers. AllanHainey 15:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

German diploma thesis in English language at de.

At de.Wikisource "The Biology of the Aardvark" has been added in PDF format. It is from a german university, but in english. I don't know what to do with it. --Jofi 00:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

You should probably delete it from your site, as it's probably protected under copyright. I don't know how German universities work, but American ones usually register the dissertation with the Library of Congress and get it copyrighted. If German universities do a similar copyright protection, then we'll need permission to post it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, with dissertations in general, we should probably require that it be submitted by the author, who both grants personal permission for it to be made available here, and also shows that the university allows him/her to do so.

My own university, by the way, allows the author of a dissertation to choose to make an electronic version of it publically available, and if I am not mistaken (though I have not checked it carefully) the copyright remains with the author. For instance, if the author of a disseration wants to have it republished as a book, the university has no say in the matter, though it is of course acknowledged. Dovi 05:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

re Aardvark, don't we alredy have this on En.WS. I recalls having seen it about a month back. Apwoolrich 07:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thought it looked familiar, too. We have it at Image:Aardvark.pdf. Concerning Dovi's remarks, I agree that the user should submit it himself (another exception to the self-pub rule?), but should we require a document granting us permission to post it? With copyright laws nowadays, I'm sure countries automatically grant copyright to written works, whether they have been formally registered or not, similar to what the U.S. does.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

PDF format? Sounds a but iffy to me. I think we should seriously consider having a category for theses and also academic articles that have been published where the writer is the WS editor. There is a great deal of useful stuff locked up in theses that never see the light of day outside research libraries. Also the economics of academic publishing means that good articles are published in short print runs at high prices, so many potential readers never get to see them. The last journal article I wrote was in a print run of about 300 at a price of UKP70, so most British libraries did not buy it. It effectively 'disappears' the work.

This is why I like WP, for I can write articles within my field field expertise and get them published knowing they will be there for readers when needed. Readers who would never dream of looking out any of my printed stuff otherwise.

Previous publication and also thesis validation must count as peer review, and ought to be the grounds for acceptance. It cannot be called self-publication. Also I think that work like this should be automatically protected, as it will be coming fully finished. Apwoolrich 18:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Since the text is also here, I can delete it at de. It's your decision if you want to keep it here. (Remember: deleted is deleted, you can't restore it.) --Jofi 00:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we should have dissertations. It's not as though these things appear out of the blue, and usually they are published and held on record by the universities. So, we should keep them (and I think we have someone else's master thesis here--he did a study of Wikipedia). The only thing we need to do is OCR the PDF and upload it in text format. Jofi, go ahead and remove it from "de" (if the copies are identical, it seems to be in the wrong language over there anyway).

My only question, though, is who did the translation? Since it's from a German university, it would probably have been written in German, right?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not really unusual to write a diploma thesis at a German university in English. I don't think it's a translation. --Jofi 22:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Really? Huh. I would have just figured they'd have written the thesis in their own language. Okay, well, then, once this thing is OCR'd and placed on here, we can delete the PDF.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Unpublished manuscripts

What is the situation? Do works have to be previously published in any form to be then made part of wikisource? Or can unpublished works, such as letters, diaries, images be made part of wikisource? Does publishing on a webpage count as previously published ? Wjhonson 20:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Publishing on a web page does count as being previously published if that web page if accessible to the public. Unpublished manuscripts have a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years in the United States or 120 years from creation for anonymous/pseudonymous works. If the unpublished work is in the public domain or we have the appropriate licence from the copyright holder for the work then it is perfectly OK for unpublished works to appear on Wikisource. Per recent discussions on the foundation-l mailing list that licence must either be GFDL or GFDL-compatible. David Newton 22:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please upload it here (if it's either PD or GFDL-compatibly licensed). The previous publication is to keep people from uploading tripe to the Wikisource servers, and is a good indicator of text integrity and quality preservation. Of course, some things must be taken on a case by case basis, and this sounds like it still fits our mission.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:57, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Image missing

Peace_Sign.svg is part of the Zodiac letters. Whether it wasn't creted, or deleted by mistake I can't tell. Rich Farmbrough 22:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've left a message on the contributor's talk page.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Annotated classic books?

What is the recommended method for creating an annotated version of a classic book? For example, "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

1. Wikisource allows inter-wiki links to Wiktionary and Wikipedia, but that is not really full annotation in the scholarly sense. Full annotation has more specific details about the word/phrase related specifically to the book, author and time period, not just a link to a generic article.
2. What is the footnote method used? Are annotations kept in a separate page, on the bottom of the page, or inlined in the text? Consider there may be 1-10 annotations per page and each annotation could be up to a paragraph in length.
3. Would a fully annotated version be part of Wikisource or Wikibooks?
4. Has anyone created an annotated version of a classic book? As an example on another sites, here are annotated versions of Gulliver's Travels, The Diary of Samuel Pepys and The Waste Land, the last two are group-editable.

-- Stbalbach 06:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

A full annotation made by wiki-contributors would be placed at Wikibooks and not here. A full scholarly annotation published before 1923 would be put at Wikisource. I am not sure of the footnote method used a Wikibooks. As to the sort of annotation accetable here, I would look at how the annotations were done originaly (In an appendix or at the bottom of the page) and try and replicate that. --BirgitteSB 15:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

First of all, see Wikisource:Annotations and b:Wikibooks:Annotated texts. Feel free to discuss/improve both of those pages. The issue is not really so much how "full" the annotation is, but what kind of annotation it is. If it is new instructional material designed for classroom use, or in preparation for tests on literature, then it clearly belongs at Wikibooks and not here. But if it is more scholarly in nature and of less interest to a wide audience, then it more likely belongs here (and would probably be rejected at Wikibooks since it is not instructional).

There are different ways of doing annotations. One thing to make sure of is to leave a "clean" source text, which may sometimes be accomplished through the use of templates, but would be harder in terms of footnotes. Perhaps, for the latter, a parallel annotated version is better.

I think this is a prime example (of equal importance to translations) of how Wikisource can provide added value to source texts as a wiki; people indeed suggested this from the very first discussions of the project, but it has rarely been actually implemented. Good luck! Dovi 17:48, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the links! I've (re)-started conversation about annotated texts at Wikibooks Annotated texts -- Stbalbach 00:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Embarassingly simple problem

Can someone tell me how I indent the first line of a paragraph in wikicode where there is no blank line above it(only the text of the paragraph before). I've never needed to do so before & can't find any examples to copy from. AllanHainey 12:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

   The easiest method of doing so is using the em space, which is a non-breaking space equal in length to 1em (1 standard 'm' width). A 2em indentation is accomplished using two   HTML entities. The standard indentation in newspaper design is 10% the width of the body text, or between 1em and 2em. I'm not familiar with standard book indentation, and this text only exists to extend the paragraph in such a way as to demonstrate the indentation. ;) // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 13:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just been trying it out.I'll bear it in mind for the future - unfortunately here it doesn't seem to recognise new paragraphs in the text & just leaves gaps & continues everything on the same line. Only way I've managed to sort it is to create a new paragraph (which creates a blank line above the new paragraph) so I've just stuck with this & left the original indentation. (creating & deleting the paragraph & using   just carries on the line with a wee unicode box character. Thanks anyway. AllanHainey 12:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a non-breaking space, like   (which actually stands for non-breaking space); it doesn't break a paragraph off from the last. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 02:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to be circumventing standard wiki formatting this way? Why not just accept the default "blank line between paragraphs, no indent" style (especially since someone is likely to come behind you and remove the special formatting anyway)? - dcljr 03:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Such formatting is useful because indentation in poetry is often deliberate and part of the text. This is less often true in prose, but there are a few that are so. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 21:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I did, in the end just go with the standard wiki formatting. I wanted to see if there was a way to replicate the actual formatting og the text, it turns out there isn't so the default is fine. AllanHainey 13:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Obviously they're not for all Wikisource files (likely even "few"), but are templates like Template:Nuremberg useful? The best place to see it in use would be Interrogation of Erich Kempka, which is the 'tidiest' Nuremberg article we have, since I spent 30 minutes formatting it nicely tonight (pat self on back). Anyways, just wondering since I find them one of the most under-rated facets of Wikipedia, whether they might be the same here. They visually show the reader other "related" documents from the same event - where a non-Wiki-ian wouldn't know to check categories or such. Sherurcij 10:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think they are useful. Once all of Baum's Wizard of Oz books are placed on WS, I was going to create a template that linked them all together. It's just a nice way of tying related works together.

Questions

Hi there,

I'm just new here (though i'm familiar with wikipedia), and find the lay-out kind of confusing. Just a few questions (which might also be good for the FAQ):

• Are there wikiprojects on here? Is there some kind of listing?
• Do articles get tagged with categories? If so, where is the list of categories?
• Author is a seperate namespace? Weird.

Thanks in advance! The Minister of War 14:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

We have a few projects listed at Wikisource:WikiProject, also we are starting to organise a few portals (poetry & speeches so far) which could be considered as quasi-projects. If you're looking for other things to do see Wikisource:Community Portal which has a big list of things to do.

We do categorise, see Special:Categories for the, long, list, or just dive into an are you like the look of & follow the category links. Although I think our categorisation isn't nearly as thorough as wikipedia's due to the lack of people working on this & a lack of people who know how to get bots to do this work.

Have a read of the archived Scriptorium pages, we've had a lot of discussion on this. Basically it helps to distinguish author pages like Author:Winston Churchill from actual texts like Winston Churchill. The author: bit isn't actually a seperate namespace, due to IT issues, but part of the whole name, there are plans to get it switched on as a seperate namespace (along with portal:) but I'm not sure when. Hope you like it here & decide to stick around & help out. AllanHainey 15:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I was thinking of populating the place with European Union treaties, as there seem to be few here. Then again, I have no idea yet how to navigate the place, so i'll just browse through some categories first.

Cheers! The Minister of War 16:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This page might be the most help for you: Wikisource:Historical documents. We have used lists here to a greater extent than categories.--BirgitteSB 17:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

For recent discussion of author pages and namespaces, see here. A big problem currently is that author pages do not work with the Go button. "William Shakespeare", for example, goes to "No page with that title exists" instead of Author:William Shakespeare. I filed a bug report here, but the change has now been "pending" for over a month (there's a 1528-bug backlog).

Collisions between authors and texts named after authors are presently limited (5 at last count, plus 15 redirects), and could be resolved by parenthetical disambiguation, moving, for example, Winston Churchill to Winston Churchill (speech). We already use parentheses to distinguish works with identical titles, like Love and Death (Teasdale) and Love and Death (Yeats).

Whether or not we decide to drop author prefixes, I hope we can resolve the Go-button situation soon. Author queries should go directly to author pages, no prefix necessary. It's too basic a search to accept anything less. Tim Smith 18:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of author pages and the go button...A little while back, I thought of an idea where our search bar have a check box so that a person can explicitly state they want to search for authors or not. I mean, go to ANY site that has a search feature and contains texts; you can do author searches and text searches. WS really should have the same feature here. Of course, this will only work when "Author:" becomes its own namespace. And I've been holding my breath for the new namespace manager to come out (otherwise I'd have proposed a bug to make "Portal:" and "Author:" namespaces already). Any comments?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I am also hoping for the new namespaces, as Zhaladshar said it standard to keep author and title searches seperate. I also think we need the confine the main namespace to actual texts just as Wikipedia insists on the integrity of the article namespace. If we did get rid of Author:, I would encourage it being replaced with Wikisource:. Not that I think we should change Author: right now. Lets be honest here the entire search function is crap. Something is slighty misspelled or you some of the words, you will not find it. I think we just need to a better job of directing readers to the author index, rather than change all author articles to better utilize the go feature which only works under near perfect conditions.--BirgitteSB 03:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I think we do need to get new namespaces implemented for portal: & author: (& possibly some others if anyone has any suggestions) fairly soon, just to simplify some of the problems we have with author pages & so we can progress further with the portal pages & open them up to wider wikisource collaboration. Is it just a matter of putting through a bug request to get these switched on or will we have to do any work once this is done (eg moving all the author: pages, etc) if only limited work is required I'd suggest we put the bug request through ASAP & get it sorted (I have no idea how to do this though).

Zhaladshar what do you mean by new namespace manager, what is this, what would it do & is it planned for/expected any time soon.

I'd prefer to keep author: as a namespace (a proper one) rather than wikisource: as we'd have greater flexibility to make later changes just to author pages & to identify them using the special: pages. I agree with Brigitte that the search facility we have is rather poor, but I don't suppose there is much we can do about this ourselves as I assume it's the same system as is used throughout wikimedia. A facility on the search bar to just search for author pages would be welcome though. AllanHainey 08:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the search feature sucks terribly, and why they can't improve it, I don't know. I guess it takes a lot of work to develop decent searching algorithms? Anyway, in reply to Allan, I'm not sure how simple it will be to get the namespace activated. I would like to think that it would be a simple flick of a switch and everything with "Author:" will be in the "Author:" namespace. My gut tells me, it won't be that easy. If you go to the bug that Tim Smith submitted, Brion mentions a namespace manager. Basically, it allows the local community to create its own namespaces without having a developer do it for them. This way it's pretty much instantaneous, and if we decide to later remove the namespace we can do it ourselves. I believe it's supposed to come out with MediaWiki version 1.6, although I don't know when that will happen.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm open to the main namespace containing not just texts, but authors, topics, genres, and other classificational pages of use to readers. The project namespace (Wikisource:) helps editors organize their efforts to maintain and expand the wiki, but it's not really for readers just browsing for content. I think Category:Fiction, Portal:Speeches, Wikisource:Authors, etc., should eventually move either to the main namespace, or to a new namespace created for them.

I agree that author and title searches would be nice. That's not quite what namespaces would provide, though. An Author: namespace could be searched separately, but that's more than an author search—it's a full-text search of author pages. A true author search would return only authors whose names contained the query. The namespace property I requested on MediaZilla would connect authors to the Go button, but that's not an author search either—just a check for a more-or-less exact match.

True author and title searches are desirable, but would require further work by developers. Another nice feature would be to search by category. Then with supporting categorization we could search, say, Romantic poetry, or State of the Union addresses, or all works by a particular author. But again, development is required. (In fact, it's bug 2285.) Regarding discontent with the "near perfect conditions" required for searches, that's bug 974. (See what I mean about a backlog?)

Regardless of what checkboxes we put on our search bar, the default should be to search everything. Queries for authors should go to author pages, and queries for texts should go to text pages. Look at the IMDb: they have a dropdown for common searches, but the default is "All". That's what we want. Tim Smith 06:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that all pages should be searched unless something else is specified. But ideally, by checking the "Search authors" checkbox and typing "William Shakespeare" into search box, it's going to do what all searches do, find if there's a page named "William Shakespeare" in the "Author:" namespace and go to it automatically. If not, then it will do a search of all the pages in that namespace which contain the search query. The search-this-namespace feature is only so people can choose to search for pages in a certain namespace (i.e., so author searches will automatically go to the author page and not the search page with the author on top of the list).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Instead of checkboxes, it might be better to use radio buttons or a dropdown with three options: "Search authors" for the Author: namespace, "Search texts" for the main namespace, and "Search everything" for both. The default should be "Search everything".

So first, the Go button should check for exact matches in the selected namespace(s). If there is one exact match, it should go to it; if there are two exact matches, it should probably go to the one in the Author: namespace, since the user is more likely to want an author page than a work named after an author. If there are no exact matches, it should show full-text search results from the selected namespace(s).

We'll need developer assistance to do this, though. The Go button will have to dynamically check particular namespaces depending on what the user selects; that's a little different than the namespace property I requested on MediaZilla, which would be a static setting.

On the other hand, by dropping author prefixes we could implement "Search everything" right now, without developers. That would also give us fine-grained control over precedence, because we could choose, for each collision between an author and a work named after an author, whether the author or the work should get priority. Of course, "Search authors" and "Search texts" would be impossible without author prefixes, unless we could search by category. Tim Smith 19:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Just discovered some vandalism on one of the pages I'm watching (Porn links added by someone not signed in). Just wondering if there's any standard procedure to deal with something like this. I removed the changes, is there anybody to report this stuff to for further action (i.e. blocking the IP or such). Or is this the way to do it? - illy 17:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The best way is to leave a message at the administrator's noticeboard; it'd be a good idea to have a navigation template between important discussion pages to help users find them. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 18:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd run across the administrator's noticeboard before and even noted the note about reporting vandalism there. I just didn't think about it today. - illy 19:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I’m new here, but I’m sure I speak for all constructive positive people; we have to work together. Not only to keep this site up, but to preserve the consciousness of peace and intelligence. There is ignorance in the world which does lead to destruction (vandalism, war, suppression, etc.) It’s not physical, mental, or emotional force that will solve the deepest source of any problem. The answer to destructive ignorance, unfortunately, is more than just persistent knowledge. It always has been and always will be an extremely strong and stable multi-dimensional productive awareness (spoken or unspoken), which is constantly being re-invented within the subjective and objective human experience.--Dre.velation 10:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Historical Documents

Where would one place a historical document, in this case a Aircraft Accident Investigation Summary Report distributed by the Department of Transport for the Commonwealth of Australia, in Wikisource? It is not a document that "affected the course of history" in the sense of treaties between nations and empires (or both, as the case may be), but it is certainly...intriguing...material regarding events that took place on the afternoon of 21 October 1978 south of Melbourne, Australia, and by definition public domain. In other words, there doesn't seem to be a section for international civil government documents; correct me if mistaken, please. --Chr.K. 06:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You're correct, we don't quite have a page for that. However, you could still add the document, and ask on Wikisource:Requests for assistance to have it placed in the appropriate place. This might require a new page to be created, and I think we've had other works which were civil documents but currently have no other place to go.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Links from Wikipedia

Looking at Wikipedia, I saw that pages on U.S. presidents such as George Washington, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush all had links to their State of the Union addresses. However, these links were to external sites, such as the official White House site and the American Presidency Project. Then, there is also the sidebar saying "Wikisource has original text related to: (category) ". Wikisource has the State of the Union speeches up. The question is where the Wikipedia links should lead to, or if the sidebar is sufficient, or if it matters at all.--Politicaljunkie 21:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

That wikipedia box link to wikisource can only link to the wikisource page with the same title as the wikipedia page its on (or at least I haven't been able previously to find a way to link it to other pages). generally I'd say that it is sufficient, though it might be worthwhile adding a link to the wikipedia page for W:State of the Union Addresses or leaving a message on the wikipedia page of someone who's obviously involved in their presidents pages letting them know about our collection (I'm not sure if they have a Presidents project or American politics project though I think it likely given the vast amount of info they have on Presidents). If you feel like it you could change all the external links to wikisource links but thats really up to you, as the texts are all the same I don't see a pressing need though.AllanHainey 08:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Protection against automated spam links

I was over at wiktionary today & they have a clever wee system for preventing automated vandalism, like bots adding links to porn sites that has been happening here & on wikipedia. On wiktionary if you add an external link to a page it won't let you save the change to the page unless you can read one of those bent out of shape words in a funny font & write it properly in the wee box. Once you type it in & click ok the edit goes through ok. It is probably better suited for wiktionary than here as they don't have as many external links but it does seem a good way to cut down on industrialised vandalism adding links on our pages. If we think its worth pursuing I'm sure someone on wiktionary could advise how they went about it. AllanHainey 16:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That system was activated on all Wikimedia wikis some time ago. So we do not have to do anything about it (unless we don't want it). --82.212.68.183 16:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I had to use it here about a month ago. Apwoolrich 18:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

You learn something new everyday. I've never seen it on wikisource but I don't think I've added any external links. AllanHainey 13:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of this feature. This is great--it'll put a stop to a lot of link spam (hopefully).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Two things: I don't think it's on WikipedA, and secondly, it forces me to save URIs as drawn out things with spaces since I absolutely cannot get whatever "image" is there to display. 68.39.174.238 21:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

What to do when a page is too large to be saved?

OK, I'm trying to revert the Alabama State Constitution of 1901 since it was vandalised (Someone removed about 200 amendments), however the entire thing is well over the 2MiB limit on pages (Which was NOT there when I initially committed it). What can I do, since it's obviously not it any complete form? 68.39.174.238 05:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

This document should definitely be split up.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Split into the intitial and amendments sections. 68.39.174.238 04:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Astronomical tables on WS

A discussion is running on WP Village Pump about whether WP should have astronomical tables. [5]]. The final post there quotes something from WP which states that WS excludes material like this. (Its at section 1.5:3 of the WP document it quotes). I recall we had a discussion about this last autumn and decided it ought to be included, and as far as I am aware this is now policy. We certainly now say we will have mathematical and scientific reference stuff like this, but we do not specifially mention astronomy. All these tables are over my head, but they have been very competently done and have images and masses of links - lots of Added Value. If I have got the right end of the stick on this, the WP statement must be corrected. Can we confirm my recollection, please. Apwoolrich 12:55, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

You're entirely right, Apwoolrich. We did agree that scientific and mathematical data ought to be allowed as reference material. I'll leave a message on WP that they are in fact incorrect with their statement.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Audio files

Should WikiSource have audio files??? 169.244.143.115 15:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

As recordings (audio versions) of source texts, yes, they should be listed here. The question is where exactly they should be uploaded, here or at the Commons? If they might have uses on other projects too (or on Wikisource in other languages), then probably the Commons is better. Dovi 16:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandals that arn't really Vandals???

???? 216.220.231.226 17:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

discuss? 216.220.231.226 17:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

(This comment is related to "Possible vandals?" on the Administrator's noticeboard.) Please be a little more specific in your comment or question. I'm willing to help you if you'd like to contribute to Wikisource. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 20:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

US Code

I've begun standardising and uploading the US Code, but I've become rather confused about which title standard should be adopted. The top page is U.S. Code, most of the subsections are US Code (a few are U.S. Code), and Wikipedia uses United States Code. We should pick one of these and stick with it; I prefer United States Code because it's the complete title. I'll move through the sections, standardising and uploading as appropriate, as soon as I know what title to use. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I also prefer United States Code per the offical govt website. Is the moving something you can delegate to your bot?--BirgitteSB 00:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll begin moving pages to United States Code as I go along, then. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the bot, the script to automate page moves is somewhat complex and nowhere near ready. For the time being, it'll need to be done manually. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 16:39, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Poems and haikus

A good site for poems or haiku's before 1900? 216.220.231.226 14:25, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Where can I request poems haiku's or other speechs death notes??? HaikuMan 14:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

If by "death notes" you mean w:Suicide notes, then I have good news, Category:Suicide notes was just added to Wikisource less than 24 hours ago! :Þ There are only 4 on here currently, though any search engine would likely help you find plenty more :) Sherurcij 07:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hungarian Wikisource main page link

Rodrigo, A Hungarian wikisourcer asked me if I could add a link on the mainpage to the Hungarian (Magyar) Wikisource, I went on to do that but I noticed our interwikilinks are all in 2 letter format but the Hungarian Wikisource appears to be just a series of pages tacked onto the old wikisource namespace http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page:Magyar. I don't know the best way to proceed here perhaps someone with more knowledge of sub-domains & policy on national wikisources can help on this. I left the following response to Rodrigo:

"Hi Rodrigo,

I gather that you want a link added on the English main page to the Hungarian language sub-domain of wikisource. I went on to do that just now but it isn't as easy as I thought it'd be. All the language sub-domains have a 2 letter identifier such as en (English), fr (French) etc on their address, for example http://en.wikisource.org. The Hungarian address you give is just the old wikisource address http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page with a bit tacked on to create a Magyar page. I'm fairly certain that the best way to proceed would be to create a proper Hungarian sub-domain rather than try adding a link to an unofficial or non-standard page. I'm not really sure of the best way to proceed or what the wikisource policy is here so I'm going to post this to the Scriptorium for discussion by people who are likely to know more about this than me. AllanHainey 15:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)" - AllanHainey 15:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you'll want to have a Hungarian sub-domain created first. That way, the link won't be ugly (we can put it on the sidebar instead of smack dab in the middle of the Main Page).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Simple question

This is a simple question that I have not figured out - is there a short-cut to linking to Wikisource? ie. wikipedia can be [[:w:anarchy]] (short-cut for [[:wikipedia:anarchy]] .. is there a short-cut for [[:wikisource:anarchy]] ? -- Stbalbach 19:59, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, on non-Wikisource projects, use "s:". For example, to get to the work Oliver Twist, do [[s:Oliver Twist]].—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi sorry, I actually meant Wiktionary, not Wikisource. I've tried [[:t:anarchy]] and [t:anarchy]] - what's the Wiktionary short-cut? -- Stbalbach 01:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[ [wikt:anarchy] ] should work. --82.212.68.183 08:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

wikt:anarachy - thank you, and thanks Zhaladshar. -- Stbalbach 16:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikification and Annotation

What is the policy on annotation or wikification of source documents. I was working on some short stories by O. Henry and noticed that some of them had been edited in the past with links to Wikipedia and Wikthonary. I know this has been discussed and that there is a project to create annotated texts separate from source documents. Is this the only context in which this should be done. --Droll 05:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

See Wikisource:Annotations -- General sentiment seems to be to keep a plain-text version at all times with no annotations. Annotations would be done on a separate version. This seems to be an evolving concept and open for discussion, and it's not totally clear what annotations are allowed in a "plain text" copy, since there are section headers and TOC's and such. My opinion is wikification is an annotation. -- Stbalbach 05:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favour of wikifying the *occasional* term which is likely to require understanding, such as when a speech says "like we had in Bulgaria last year", that should be wikified to point to "1843 Bulgarian coup". But there's a borderline, I mean, it's not wikipedia, you don't want to go just wikifying the word "Bulgaria", we can assume people know what it is. In the case of O'Henry though, you meet the question, does the average reader know what a Magi is, or should the first instance of the word be wikified if O'Henry doesn't explain it? (I can't remember the first context :) ) Sherurcij 05:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There has discussion of this in the past and a script was developed to hide any wikilinks which is also possible by going to the "printable view". Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2005/12. I believe we should wikify in order to point readers in the right direction for more information as well as define obscure words. It depends on a numbers of factors such as the age of the text and the type of work. In general older works will need more clarification, and poetry will more likely contain wikilinks than prose. I believe it is important that wikilinks point to specific places like in Sherurcih's example of Bulgaria. Another example is queen wikilinked to Victoria of England and not to a definition of queen. People have often asked why we replicate the work of Project Gutenburg and besides the ability to have Greek text and accents, wikilinks are a good reason.--BirgitteSB 20:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Include Sheet Music?

Should sheet music be inclueded? It is easily scanned and can also be entered easily into programs like Finale or Sibelius. Plus, if the copyright laws are the same as for books, a large percentage of the music would be in the public domain. Anyway, most libraries have collections of sheet music. Foxjwill 22:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes there was discussion before as to the best method of transcribing it but it is definately acceptable.--BirgitteSB 01:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

To clarify further the scans would be acceptable themselves and it would be ideal if they could also be transcribed below each actual image to make them more accessable to people who have older computers and slower connections and therefore don't load images. Also tranciptions should hopefully be easy for people to copy and paste for their own use.--BirgitteSB 15:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Two questions

Wartime correspondence between Nazi officials is fairly considered Public Domain enough for WS? (Letters sent from a captured SS agent back to SS headquarters from his prison camp in Britain). Secondly, would it be "nice" to actually include the original German text, and then the translation underneath, or just the translation? It's a fairly short series of letters, but unfortunately unlike I did with the Zodiac Killer letters, I'm not able to just include a scan of the original along with transcription, hence my asking. Sherurcij 18:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. This issue is particularly tricky. I know that the man who holds the copyright for Mein Kampf will never enforce the copyright (hence, it is in a virtual public domain), while the translators of the work will enforce their copyright. I'd like to say the same is true for other Nazi writings, but I can't. I would have to be cautious and say odds are they are not generally considered PD; we would have to do some digging. (And that would be such a wonderful addition to WS, too.) If it does turn out that we have the ability to publish those letters here, I'd say just add the English works here, and the German over at "de:" as we are not posting any scans of the letters.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

If something is copyrighted, it is copyrighted even if not actively enforced. A copyrighted work enters the public domain only if the protection expires or the copyright holder expressly releases the exclusive right. Non-enforcement is not automatically releasing something into the public domain.--Jusjih 07:20, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the question is more whether or not correspondence between officers of the 1940 German army was ever considered copyright at any point. Sherurcij 07:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

If a person dies without a will and there are no living relatives (like a spouse or child) who inherit things due to case law and generally accepted precedent then the estate of that person becomes bona vacantia. That means that since there is no one around to claim it the state gets jurisdiction. There are still living Hitlers around, but I don't know whether they are close enough relatives of Adolf Hitler to claim the estate, or whether it is bona vacantia (whether they'd want to claim the estate is another matter entirely). The same would be true of those like SS soldiers. The interesting thing is that since the bona vacantia estate goes to the state, and the state in this case was Nazi Germany, I'm not sure what has happened. The four power control over sovereignty of Germany meant that copyright of dead Nazis with no heirs would have fallen to those four powers. I suspect that, subject to legislation being made to the contratry, any bona vacantia Nazi estates are held by the German government to this day.

Establishing who would hold copyright would be a very interesting exercise involing a lot of archival work and reference to statute law. Just because something is published by the Government Printing Office does not mean that it is automatically public domain. Remember that the US Government is not prohibited from holding copyrights assigned to it by others or that have come to it through licence or bona vacantia. It is merely the case that the works of US Government employees in the course of their duties are automatically public domain.

The safest thing to do would be to wait until 2039 when the work comes out of copyright in the US. Alternatively if the rumblings about orphan copyright works that are currently happening produce something substantive follow the precepts laid down there. David Newton 15:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Letters and Question

I have just put what seems like a zillion documents (actually, about 50, though I was just editing most of them, added in 2004, to make them more consistent). These are from my collection of family letters and papers, the bulk of which date from the 19th century. I have added a text quality template to some of the discussion pages, and am wondering if it is relevant to these sorts of documents. Mathsinger 23:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Well no one else will be able to proofread them besides you but it is useful info to share all the same.--BirgitteSB 01:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Since these are private documents, they are a bit borderline for Wikisource. But let us nevertheless assume that they have a place here for their historical value. In that case, it seems to me that since they are private documents, the digital texts should be accompanied by uploaded images of the originals for the sake of verity. Dovi 04:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would be glad to upload the images. I find them very interesting, myself. Right now they are pretty large and in .bmp format, so I will have to at least change the format. Any suggestion as to quality/size would be welcome. Mathsinger 12:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The images definitely need to be converted to PNG format. There's a feature out there called PNG OUT which is an updated version of PNG Crush. It has a better compression rate and sacrifices very little quality. I suggest you use that program to hack some of the size of the images once you compress them. I use a program called IrfanView; it's free and is very good quality, and it has PNG OUT automatically in it (if you download its plugins as well). The quality and size is up to you, but we don't need crystal clear quality if it means the file will be very large.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Odd search engine behavior?

I've been helping another user to add pretty interesting Vietnam War combat mission transcripts. However, if I try to find them through the search engine it doesn't find any of them. The first one of these was added 3 days ago, so I would've expected it to be searchable by now. Or am I missing something? The articles are:

• Wild Weasel mission transcript
• Wild Weasel mission transcript part 2
• Wild Weasel mission transcript part 3

Thanks! Emt147 06:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately the search engine sucks. I am sorry this has been a difficulty for you. I personally use google to do all my Wikisource searchs by adding site:en.wikisource.org after my search criteria.--BirgitteSB 15:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Trouble uploading an image

I uploaded a new image for this purpose. I just made a minor improvement, but I can't seem to upload it over the old version like I've done on other wikis. The instructions indicate that this should work. Also, why doesn't the image use policy page exist? Thanks for any help. Newbie 03:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please address my concern regarding the image upload? I'd like to replace this attempt with my slightly improved version, but the site doesn't seem to permit this. ("A file with this name exists already; please go back and upload this file under a new name.") Newbie 15:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

When uploading an image over another, you should get a message like the one in this off-site screenshot. If so, click the "Save file" button. However, I disagree with the change you implemented; the discussion is focused on using one logo for Wikisource News, and you've changed that logo to what is essentially a different version of the current Wikisource logo without discussion (22:57, 20 March 2006 Newbie (new image)). I don't think we should be looking for alternatives until we decide whether we're using the first choice. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 15:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, this is the message that I'm receiving. Could this possibly be because my account is too new?

Are you going to answer my question? If you don't know, please just say so. Newbie 19:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Secondly, my understanding is that the previous image was inserted without discussion and removed by someone who complained that it had no connection to the current Wikisource logo. This is the concern that I've attempted to address. I don't see why the first attempt should be deemed sacrosanct, nor do I see how mine is any less valid. How can we fairly discuss whether to use the first image if alternatives aren't considered? Why not discuss both images (and any others that someone might create)? Why should we pretend that the choice is between the original image and none at all? Newbie 17:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I just noticed that you created the other image. Is that why you wish to suppress the consideration of alternatives (the thumbnails of which you reduce to a much smaller size)? Newbie 17:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The previous logo was part of the original proposal and was discussed as part of that proposal, at which time there was no opposition. It's not considered sancrosanct; however, unilaterally changing it to another without any discussion whatsoever while the previous logo is still under discussion, then implying that one of those discussing is biased and unfairly 'suppressing the consideration of alternatives' is a less than civil attitude. The first was discussed along with the original proposal; the second was unilaterally placed on all the pages which still used the first. Since you seem fond of ad hominem arguments, which of us is acting most without discussion?

The size of the thumbnail was reduced because it extended halfway into the next topic. As the discussion was lengthened, you enlarged it. Make of that whatever attacks you will; when you're done, we can discuss the images themselves instead of each other. -.- // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 18:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You stated that you "don't think we should be looking for alternatives until we decide whether we're using the first choice." How, if not as an attempt to suppress discussion of other images, can that be interpreted?

I created and implemented the new image because yours was removed from its primary location by someone complaining that it didn't match the current official Wikisource logo. This being a wiki, I felt that it was fair to give my idea a try. If, in doing so, I violated some sort of protocol, I apologize. I assumed that boldness was encouraged here (as it is at Wikipedia).

My intention certainly wasn't to unilaterally circumvent the ongoing discussion, and I attempted to expand it to cover both images. You responded by acting as though I was an intruder. I'm going to assume that this is not representative of the treatment typically received by newcomers (particularly from admins). Newbie 19:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The chronology, as I see it, went something like this.

1. Yann removes the logo from the main page, but not from the story pages.
2. I discuss the removal with him on IRC, and begin a discussion on the Scriptorium.
3. You create the account "Newbie".
4. You upload a new logo for Wikisource News, and replace the old logo everywhere it's used.
5. You create your user page with the text "I'm new here. Please don't bite me!  ;-)".
6. I reduce the size of your proposal to prevent overlap and reply to your proposal.
7. You accuse me of bias, unfairly suppressing alternatives, conflict of interest, and newbie-biting.

My interpretation of this chronology is that you unilaterally replaced the previous logo with your own without discussion, added a "Don't bite the newbies" message on your user page to excuse any and all behaviour, then attacked my credibility in the discussion. If I misunderstood, I apologize for causing offense. However, there's no point further discussing said chronology at this point; you have placed your logo, and I have no intention of reverting until we make a decision here.

I propose that we put this argument aside and discuss both proposals on equal terms. Whether my interpretation was correct or not doesn't particularly matter to me, as long as we can come to a consensus. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 19:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, from the above discussion, I was under the impression that your image was no longer in use. (I didn't realize that the template was active.) My intention was to introduce a new logo where there wasn't one, not to replace one that remained visible. Nonetheless, I've replaced images at Wikipedia on many occasions, and this has never been regarded as an act of bad faith.

Secondly, the message on my userpage is nothing more than a play on words. (I haven't gotten around to composing anything of substance, so I typed that to change my signatures from red to blue.) I am a "newbie" here, but I'm not new to wikis in general (including some of the sister projects). The username is a reference to "Scrubs" (one of my favorite television shows).

Thirdly, I'm sorry if I read too much into the image size reduction. I was attempting to display the new logo for direct comparison to yours, and this seemed like an attempt to diminish the quality of its presentation. A better solution would have been to have placed the two images side-by-side (as you've done since).

Finally, you responded to my proposal by opining that it shouldn't have been made at this juncture. You've retracted that stance, so this no longer is an issue. I agree that we should move beyond this disagreement and return to the original issue of which logo (if any) to use for Wikisource News. If you could do me the favor of overwriting Image:WikisourceNews.png with Image:WikisourceNews2.png (and deleting the latter), I would sincerely appreciate your assistance. Newbie 20:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Image overwritten. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 21:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much, and sorry again about the misunderstanding. Newbie 21:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

12th Palestine National Council, Political Programme of 9 June 1974

I am currently reworking the article w:de:1974 and it would be nice to have a link to the 10-point-programme issued by the 12th Palestine National Council (web link). I thought about adding it to wikisource, but first I'd like to be sure there would be no copyright problems. What is the policy regarding public declarations? --Mkill 17:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

As this is a public declaration by a political body we should be able to host this as it generally wouldn't be considered to be copyrighted (unless there was a specific copyright over it which was enforced - doubtful). The only problem is if it wasn't originally issued in English. Once a foreign language work is translated the translator holds the copyright of the translation so it is possible that this translation, if it is such, is copyrighted already. However if it was issued in English I see no problem with adding it to wikisource as it is a public document issued with the intention that it be widely disseminated to give the views/decisions of the PLO. AllanHainey 13:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The text can now be found under Political Programme of the 12th Palestine National Council. --Mkill 21:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Why won't you answer?

Why won't you answer? 130.111.98.244 22:05, 22 March 2006 (UTC) z pathos and all hwelp t

Hello. What question are you asking? If this is related to your messages on my talk page, please note that I responded there. :) // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 23:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Titling of Pages

If I wanted to put up the floor statements of senators and congressmen, would I include the senator/congressman's name in the title. For example, would I title it "Senator A's Floor Statement Regarding ..." or "Floor Statement Regarding..."?--Politicaljunkie 21:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by floor statement, is this the equivalent of an interjection into anothers speech or a parliamentary question or short response? I've seen one which was added here, can't find it now, I decided not to add it to the speeches page as it wasn't a speech, just an interjection, & was non-notable but I think if you're going to add these (& I'm not sure if the speeches page is appropriate for them or not) with a standard title format I'd go with "Senator A's Floor Statement Regarding ..." just because 2 different politicians could easily (& probably inevitably would) make statements on the same subject. AllanHainey 11:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Politicaljunkie: I'd say we might want to add the politician's name to it, since there might be numerous floor statements regarding a similar topic. This will just help us avoid any confusion and ambiguities.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 20:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Lining up text without table

This is probably a silly question. Is there a way to line up text in columns without using a table? Or can we make an invisible table? To see what I am trying to do check out Author:John Donne#Elegies and Heroic Epistle--BirgitteSB 02:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Tables should be invisible by default. For example:

Column 1	Column 2
Example	Example

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 02:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. My new problem is the wikilinks worked inside the table but the markup for bullets didn't. Any ideas? --BirgitteSB 03:45, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

My knowledge of wiki markup isn't extremely advanced, but the bullets might work in div tags, so long as the bullets are still on the very far left side of the text screen. I can't guarantee that this will work, but it might be worth a shot.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 04:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the list symbols must be at the start of a new line. This can be done by inserting a new line at the beginning of the cell.

This will *not* work:
{|
|-
|* list item
* list item
|}


This will work:
{|
|-
|
* list item
* list item
|}

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Strange hyperlink problem

I am trying to put this link (Google Books) as the source in the textinfo box at Talk:Poems of John Donne (1896). It will not work. Right now I have the target as the search box till I could figure this out. Whenever I put the correct target in it acts a though I have deleted a |. It does not display the link and lists the contributers in line for source, the text quality in the line for contributors, etc. Any ideas why this is happening.--BirgitteSB 17:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem was that the equals symbols (=) in the URL escape the unnamed parameter syntax of the template. I added a named parameter ("source") which allows such URLs, and added the link.

Note that much of the Google URL can be stripped for simplicity, as it serves only to store information about your browser. For example: [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q6qApTAcL2YC&vid=OCLC13840599
&dq=poems+of+john+done&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&jtp=iii Google Books] can be reduced to [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC13840599&dq=poems+of+john+done Google Books]. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 19:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks that fixed it--BirgitteSB 19:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Time

Who sets the wikisource server time, as I've just noticed since British Summer Time started on Sunday & the clocks went forward 1 hour the edit times are all one hour behind when they actually took place. I'm assuming that those of you outside Britain see your own standard times & not Greenwich Mean Time, but on preferences it shows the server time at 11.08, rather than 12.08, is it should be possible to get this set forward automatically for regular clocks forward/back changes without every user having to go in & amend the offset box on preferences date & time every time. AllanHainey 11:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The server should be on GMT, AFAIK. And then each user can define the difference between is own time and GMT. Yann 17:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

In that case it needs to be put forward an hour as GMT moved 1 hour forward on Sunday with the start of BST. Anyone know who can deal with this? AllanHainey 07:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure but is BST the same as UTC. --Inge 08:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok no need to change anything, I just checked the wikipedia articles &, though they aren't at all clear, now see that BST moves the UK ahead of GMT (& UTC) but doesn't affect GMT or UTC. AllanHainey 12:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Other

Vatican copyright

A thread has started on Wikien-l today quoting a CNN story that the Vatican has claimed copyright on all Papal speeches and encyclicals for the past 50 years. Implications for us? Apwoolrich 18:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This [London] Times report is very detailed.[6] looks as though it could be serious. Apwoolrich 18:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems that we might want to find any Popes within the last 50 years and discuss removing them. Do you know the link to the Wikien-l article? I'd like to see the CNN article myself. But if the Vatican is taking this approach, we might need to remove anything within the last 50 years. It sounds like they're very serious, and Wikimedia doesn't need a major lawsuit filed against them. Fortunately we don't have that many Popes here.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

We don't have any speeches by any Pope for the past 50 years, or any Pope for that matter. I don't know anything about Vatican copyright law (& presumably they can just write their own - don't know how valid it'd be outside Vatican City though) but can any organisation claim copyright on the works of their former employees (or leaders depending on how you want to define the papacy) after their deaths, doesn't some general principle of law prevent this unless copyright was assigned to the organisation before their deaths? AllanHainey 09:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we have at least one encyclical. See also on User:Essjay's WP page. [7] Apwoolrich 19:50, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Was there (before this news story) some reason to believe that works by popes was not protected by copyright? To me it just seems that the Vatican was not enforcing their copyrights as strictly as they intend to do from now on. Not actively enforcing ones copyrights is not the same as not owning the copyright. /82.212.68.237 22:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The word of the pope is law. Laws are generally not protected by copyright. See e.g. § 5 UrhG (German Copyright Act). German legal literature counts pastoral letters of bishops as official works in this sense - why not see the official encyclicals in the same way? --134.130.68.65 02:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This is German copyright law. We need to know Vatican copyright and how it relates to copyright status in America.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Any speech that is broadcast, would fall into a conflicting area of copyright. A transcription of the broadcast, would be subject not to the underlying speaker's right to copyright their own mouth, but rather, to the broadcaster's right to copyright their broadcast. So as long as you didn't take shorthand at the actual speech event, a transcription, from a tape, of the broadcast would be subject to the broadcast copyright. Am I right here? Or wrong. Wjhonson 20:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Small fonts

I have an issue with using small fonts on our pages and in headers because a large percentage of the population (usually those forty and over) have presbyopia. A common condition which requires these people to wear reading glasses. The small fonts are often make reading uncomfortable for people with this condition. I think it would be good to have a sort of informal policy to discourage small fonts except for special circumstances such as signatures and small caps often used for the first word in a poem or the first word of a chapter. While this is not a life and death issue, it is an accessibility issue and so something we should be sensitive about. --Droll 23:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The font sizes are defined in relative units. Most browsers allow the user to increase or decrease the size of text; all modern browsers (except Internet Explorer) allow relatively-measured text to be increased almost infinitely. If users have difficulty reading small text, they can easily increase the size. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 00:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you show us some examples of what you consider excessive small font use? I always try to copy the form of the original published text. I am hesistant to encourage doing anything contrary to the original form, without seeing some examples of what you find problematic. --BirgitteSB 02:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think Droll is particularly referring to the {{header}} template. For example, see the previous and back links in this example. As I've said above, though, the font-size is relatively defined and can be scaled almost infinitely in most browsers.

← Chapter I.

The Book of Martyrs (Chapter II.) by John Foxe

Chapter III. →

// Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 02:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Specifically I was referring to a page I found where almost the entire page was in a small font. I was going to edit the page but then I thought it would be better to discuss it first. The question though might have broader implications. This is about older people and acceptability. Sorry, I didn't bookmark the page in question. --Droll 05:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

5000 digital texts

Hey guys ! I have around 5000 books on my computer. Most of them are either rtf or .txt and I don't know if I should post them on wikisource hence I have them from a guy that has them from some either guy oyu know the drill...The thing is that I could send around 10 megs per day to one of you that has a gmail account(the only mail I know that allows 10 mb attachements) and you guys could change the format to ocr and check if it's ok to put them online and so forth. I apologize for not doing this myself, but I very much lack the necessary time/ however, I find it very important to develop wikisource. Please write to me on ivoryspoon@yahoo.com. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.247.44.29 (talk • contribs) 05:43, 8 February 2006.

Comment moved from Help talk:Contents to the Scriptorium. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 21:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

What's the copyright status of your books? That's a lot of books, and it's intriguing, but we must make sure we can actually post them here. I'm not opposed to you sending me the files, should they be deemed acceptable according to WS guidelines.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• I have emailed 84.247.44.29 he gave me a list of Authors, and quite a lot of them are not yet public domain. But there are some that are not (though I think most of these are from Project Gutenberg and some are already here at Wikisource). It is a long list of Authors and I don't know quite a lot of them, so I will put up the list on User:Konstable/5000 texts author list shortly so we can all sort our which are in public domain and which are not. I will cross out the ones that I know are not in the public domain. --Konstable 01:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

IRC link

I'm not an IRC expert but shouldn't the link at the top of this page be [8] and not [9]. --Droll 07:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I can fix it if there is no objection. I would like another opinion though as I'm not sure. --Droll 22:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Either one should work, but [10] is the correct syntax. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 22:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

• I edited the link on this page. The prior link would not work with mIRC. Thanks Pathoschild --Droll 23:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 01:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Resources for copyright law

The following message has just appeared on the Book People user group. It looks to be a useful resource. Apwoolrich 07:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Jan. 26, 2006 | blog.SearchEngineWatch.com

askSam Now Offering Searchable Databases (Free) Containing U.S. Copyright Law, The DMCA, and Every State of the Union Address Back to 1790

On what is a growing number of occasions [[11]] we've been highlighting the good and very useful work that Phil Schnyder and his team at askSam [[12]] are doing by are providing free searchable and browsable (online or download and use offline) to classic books, government and legal documents, speeches, and more utilizing askSam database software.

Today, we've learned that ask Sam has just released three new databases (what they call eBooks) that might be of interest to some of you, especially those with an interest in copyright issues.

First, U.S. Copyright Law (title 17 of the US Code) [[13]] "Search and analyze the full text of the Copyright Law of the United States of America & related laws contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of 'original works of authorship,' including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works."

Second, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) [[14]] "Search and analyze the full text of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Passed in 1998, the DMCA is a bill designed to bring the Copyright Law up to date with digital media."

<snip>

A complete and rapidly expanding list of askSam books, all free, can be found here [[15]].

Btw, to view offline you'll need a free copy of the askSam reader [[16]].

<Snip>

Ghana National Anthem

Moved this to National Anthems page Apwoolrich 18:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Verse numbers

I see that in books of the Bible, they are using

<small><font color=#0000FF>1</font color></small>

for verse numbers. This should really be done with a css class (like <span class="versenumber">1</span>), and maybe even a css class inside a template (like {{vn|1}}). Then the number is marked in a semantic way, uses less markup, could be removed from visual display if desired, the style can be changed for everywhere all at once, etc. Omegatron 03:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright debate at mailing list

People may be interested in knowing that there is a major discussion of copyright at Wikisource going on at the Foundation Mailing list. I personally have not participated, but I found reading the comments valuable, and what I personally think has mostly been said by others there already.

In particular, I want to quote a comment by a contributor well-known here at Wikisource as User:Eclecticology:

Asking for a definitive statement is asking for the impossible. The law is simply not as clear as you believe it to be. The best policy would be to use common sense with support for neither flagrant copyright infringement nor copyright paranoia. As a whole the Wikimedia Foundation needs to look after its own interests to be sure, and it needs to determine how much risk it is willing to accept. I suppose that accepting that there is a wide grey area is a form of policy statement. How wide that grey area should be will vary according to specific circumstances; it's a pragmatic approach.

I agree with Ec 100% and thank him for his comments. I think some "definitive" and highly stringent statements about copyright that have been made recently are actually far less clear than they sound.

In any case, the debate at that mailing list is something we should all be aware of, and it should have an echo here at the Scriptorium. Dovi 18:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out, Dovi. This is going to be a mess for us; either we're about to get royally chewed out by the Foundation or they'll once again leave us in peace and "expect us to know everything about copyright." From what I could gather from the discussion, the parts pertaining to us is that WS can't post anything that's not compatible with the GFDL. This means all UN Resolutions—of any kind—are gone; all Crown Copyright are gone; all CC-BY-NC are gone.

The problem I see that stemmed this is the fact that the users here don't know what licenses are compatible with GFDL. We see that we can legally post it here, so we do, even though it's inherently incompatible with the WMF's policy of GFDL-compatibility.

I thank and completely agree with Ec, but I think he's fighting a losing battle; I think we do need to get in line with WMF's policy, as reluctant I am to do that. Does anyone know where we can get information on what licenses are compatible with GFDL? That way we know what we're allowed to post and what we aren't.

And we should get ready to purge 1000+ documents from WS now...—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What happened to Soufron's opinion on his blog? Why do they keep changing their minds on us? Obviously we'll do as we are told, I don't know some people think we won't. But it would be nice if someone told us what changed.--BirgitteSB 02:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

For reference's sake, here is the link to Soufron's blog: [17]. And here are links to an explicit statements by Angela regarding all WMF projects regarding licensing: [18] and [19].

In regards to Birgitte's comment, I can only guess that since he does not make WMF policy, his opinion only goes so far. I don't think we were notified, because no one takes any notice of our project. We always seem to slip under the radar. In another thread, Angela said that she saw nothing about anything concerning a Wikisource policy in any of the mailing lists she subscribes to; meaning, if we don't advertise in the mailing lists, we get no feedback from the people who matter.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Angela is incorrect about that. As I mention in the mailing list debate I deliberately raised the issue back in November on foundation-l. I didn't say about actually changing the policy but foundation-l was certainly alerted to the confusion that was happening here. David Newton 22:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I think everyone agrees we need to be in line with WMF policy. The issue here is highly stringent ideas about that policy, for instance the assertion that it doesn't include UN laws, even though laws are intrinsically public domain. This is what Ec's comment refered to.Dovi 04:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

We are going to need a very explicit addition to the Copyright page setting out what is and is not permissible, giving reasonsd and examples. It won't be good enough citing acronyms for the different licences involved.

I am a little concerned by the implication in Zhaladshar's post above that decisons affecting WS are arrived at on mailing lists which we don't get to hear about (remember the new logo spat?). Its all I can do to keep up with work on WS and sometimes on WP without having to keep an eye on other areas of the Wiki Empire as well. I wonder if we need something a bit like the WP Signpost where news like this can be posted. But who might organise it and how is a question I will not even begin to think about. Apwoolrich 07:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

After doing some digging around, I've found a site that will initially help us compile a list of GFDL-incompatible licenses. Go here.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I cannot understand why we have been advised that we can post UN resolutions without modifications but now a debate is going to limit texts here to GFDL-compactible. Our Wikisource:Copyright page says that there are three bases under which we can claim the legal right to add material to this database. They are, in priority order, 1. Public domain; 2. Fair use; 3. License. I am unsure why fair use has priority over license. Should the Foundation finalize its decision to disallow GFDL-incompatible licenses, then it slould also disallow fair use at ALL of its Wiki sites, including but not limited to English and Chinese Wikipedia. It is going to become very disastrous and people will be discouraged from contributing. Unfortunately, should the Foundation decides the sad move, I will also have to delete several articles from Chinese Wikisource as well.--Jusjih 08:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems like it's been a policy forever, it's just that since the Foundation doesn't get drastically involved in the projects and dictate everything, certain things have been overlooked. I will say, that there are competing views regarding GFDL-incompatible licenses, as seen with Soufron's blog. But we will need to completely revamp Wikisource:Copyright since we've decided to disallow fair use as a community (that is, without Foundation involvement). But the thing is, because of the way the Foundation uses/distributes the project, the works must be GFDL-compatible, otherwise there will be potential legal messes for the them.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It has been Wikimedia Foundation policy for ever. That was what I initially thought back in November when the latest round of this whole mess started. It was lack of a clear policy statement confirming what I thought that got me going on revising things to bring Wikisource: Copyright into line with reality rather than dogma. We now have a clear statement of policy.

Regarding fair use I don't actually recall a community decision to ban its use on Wikisource. If there has been one could someone point me to it please. My own feelings on the subject should be perfectly clear from the mailing list conversation linked to above! David Newton 22:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding a template to each page deleted for being copyright-unacceptable is technically possible, but that will tag more than a thousand pages should WMF finally limits Wikisource to public domain and GFDL-compactible materials so UN resolutions will have to be deleted from this site. Therefore, may I suggest a list of what will be copyright-unacceptable here and any relevant external links to find these things to discourage others from adding them here? The page Wikisource:Requested texts shows copyrighted items not acceptable here.--Jusjih 04:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As I use Wikisource, Wikipedia, and Wiktionary, all of them say "Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License." However, the recent copyright debate has made me consider the wording sometimes misleading because Wikisource does have copyrighted works with GFDL-incompactible licenses and Wikipedia even has copyrighted works with fair use but no other license. Maybe WMF should consider whether "Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License unless otherwise noted" would be better.

As French Wikisource now hosts copyright licensing information of an article in a separate "license" tab, why can't we have the same thing here yet? It seems that downstream users may miss copyright tags placed on the bottom and reuse them improperly, therey exposing WMF to more legal risks. After all, I have to be kept posted of what exactly is going on with the WMF debate while I have to stop posting UN works once again.--Jusjih 08:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think seperating the licence information from the text itself it a greater risk. What happens when a user just prints off a document from the french wikisource instead of reading it online?--BirgitteSB 16:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You are right. The page "Help:Copyright tags" does not say where to put copyright tags. I have seen a symbol at the article tab where 75% is used. After all, as WMF debates, we have to find out how to show license status more efficiently. The license tab at French Wikisource does not show any symbols. This is a serious concern for UN copyright.--Jusjih 09:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Picking up on an earlier comment by David Newton I'm not aware of any decision to do away with fair use either, though I've seen it stated elsewhere that we have, does anyone have a link to where this was decided. I wouldn't be keen to get rid of the fair use rational for keeping sources as it could mean we'd need to delete almost every speech we've got for the past 70 years & of course a range of other sources such as laws, etc. I may've missed the decision but I'd appreciate the chance to read over the comments & views expressed. AllanHainey 13:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to dig up those old discussions later. But the thing about fair use, though, is if we're publishing a complete document, the odds are strongly not in our favor that we can claim fair use. Fair use was designed keeping in mind such things as literary critiques and scholarly essays (I know there's more, but I'll just list these two), so that a writer can quote someone else's work to aid their own piece of writing without having to get permission from the actual copyright holder. But if a scholar reproduced someone else's entire work, then they must seek permission to print that.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand that view in respect of published works & reproducing the whole of a published work but I feel it is a seperate issue for speeches, as they are given with the express purpose of being heard/read & understood (unedited & unabridged) by as large a number of people as possible, so to advertise the views of the orator (& to enhace his reputation). It is very rare for anyone to seek to enforce the copyright on a speech (even the estate of Winston Churchill, who've made a bit of money selling editions of his speeches, have never taken any action to enforce copyright against the many sites on the web with text of his speeches), as far as I'm aware it has only ever happened when someone else fraudulently claimed copyright over someone else's speeches. If we are sure that the speeches we have are accurate I see no reason not to retain them, & I can see no reason to scrap all speeches given in the past 70 years simply because of a decision made locally in wikisource, rather than overall policy of wikimedia re: acceptance/copyright, when there has been no instance of a problem caused by us holding this material.AllanHainey 13:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Font size in TeX

I have been bugged by the oversize figures that result from using TeX in Mediawiki. There are numerous articles in EB1911 that need this to render mathematical formulæ properly. The results are very ugly, being bigger than the font size of the rest of the text. To be even more picky, it would also be nice if the font face could be changed to sans-serif. It looks like Times Roman now, and so does not match the rest of the text we use. I have just noted on a user's talk page on WP [talk:Mbeychok] that the font size in the Wikicities version of TeX is smaller.

Is there any chance of our being able to have this version of WS, please. If we get mathematical and scientific texts posted here, being able to produce a neater result than we can now would be a great boon, I feel. Apwoolrich 20:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

We can do two things, I think. We can propose a bug on Bugzilla to import Wikicities TeX text size to WS. Or, we can propose a but on Bugzilla to allow some of LaTeX's math features that allow in-text mathematical formulae (it drastically reduces equations to be the same size as the text we have here and doesn't screw up line height at all--I can upload an example if people need a visual example), which I'm not sure if MediaWiki software supports. I'd rather propose the second bug, though, as it will expand the typesetting capabilities of the software as a whole.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Old English text?

I'm not sure, but Creation of the World seems to be Old English. If anyone can confirm this, I'll do my best to wikify and source it. We should definitely be keeping this kind of text; this is something you can't find in your local library. I'll also make a template to place at the top of Old English texts so readers who stumble across them won't be confused. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 03:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Might be Middle Cornish

It is highly unlikely that this is Old English. There are numerous letters that don't even show up (which are fairly common in old English) in this text. Unless this is a very bad OCR'd version, I'd say it's a different language. Something along the lines of Cornish (as the user above me pointed out) seems a bit more appropriate. Also, for some reason, the fact that there are Latin and clearly Modern English spelling of words in the text is slightly disturbing.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 05:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The text seems to be an older text annotated later: "Heare endeth the CreacÜn of the worlde wth noyes flude wryten by William Jordan: the XIIth of August 1611." // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 06:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be heavily annotated, but none of it makes sense. I'm trying to see if this document is online, but I'm not coming up with anything to cross-reference it with.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 06:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Definitely Cornish, see [20] I will amend the piece's template message Apwoolrich 07:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

There does not appear to be a Cornish Language Wikisource, and I am sure there are no Cornish-speaking editors (though no doubt I shall be soon corrected). There has been a modern rivival of spoken Cornish and editors might start workong here. In view of the fact there are very few pure Cornish texts surviving, I feel it would be best to treat this as a sub-set of English as we would deal with Middle English. There are a number of texts such as ther works of Venerable Bede whose language is similarly difficult and I feel we ought to collected them all under the main En.Ws umbrella so they won't get lost, at least in the short-term. Maybe one day if we get a lot we might think about splitting them away but not yet. Apwoolrich 08:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC).

There is this oldwikisource:Main Page:Kernewek --BirgitteSB 23:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think it should be moved to Multi-WS. Cornish is far too different (different branch altogether) from English to justify keeping it at the English WS. But moving it to Multi, where there is a Cornish Main Page would be the best move. We should probably (if at all possible) try to touch this work up, though.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 23:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Interview of Dick Cheney by Brit Hume

Someone had best check this. --Inge 09:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I see that it has been repaired. Thanks --Inge 05:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Annotated classical texts - please join in!

Hi, the discussion of annotated texts mentioned above has become quite serious and detailed, but so far only two people have participated (perhaps since it is at Wikibooks). I strongly urge all Wikisource people who are interested in this to join in discussion of the issues, which are really not nearly as simple as they seem). The discussion may be found here:

• b:Wikibooks talk:Annotated texts#New_discussion.

Hope to hear some new ideas. Dovi 14:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Article on source texts

Hi. I have written a Wikipedia article for "source text". This will make it a bit easier to explain Wikisource to newcomers, including with a direct link from the Main Page and other explanatory pages. It is only an itital stub; please come and improve it. Dovi 09:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Good work, I'm surprised they didn't have an article already. I've made a few wee changes to it. AllanHainey 11:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, Dovi! This is really great! Thanks a bunch for doing starting this. I should have time later today to be able to sit down and have a go at it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Annotations again: Call_for_discussion_and_a_decision

All major discussion of annotations from both Wikibooks and Wikisource has now been combined at Wikisource talk:Annotations. Those with enough patience are invited to read through it all... :-) (Seriously, it is interesting and important despite the great length.)

But for those who are less patient, I have tried to sum up at least my own position here:

• Call_for_discussion_and_a_decision.

One thing recent discussion has made clear is that a good decision on this is very important. I have included a "Concise proposal" that is (I hope) a reasonable and practical way to deal with annotations, and one that will add good, appropriate value to both projects (Wikisource and Wikibooks). Please let me know what you think of it, and I will take a look at the reactions when I get back from a long weekend on Monday. Dovi 20:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Preview

This is a minor matter, but concerns the shortcuts for previews on an editing page. On a mouse over of the preview button, it says "You can edit this page. Please use the preview button before saving. [alt-e]" Then, when you go the bottom and mouse over "show preview", it says "Preview your changes, please use this before saving!" [alt-p] Alt e refreshes the page and alt p successfully previews it. --Politicaljunkie 15:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what preview button you're talking about. On the edit screen there's a "Show preview" button, but it only says "Preview your changes, please use this before saving! [alt-p]". Where is the [alt-e] showing up?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, sorry about the confusion. --Politicaljunkie 17:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I see where the confusion might be coming from; the title for the edit tab mentions the preview button, so one might accidentally assume [alt-e] is for preview instead of edit. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 04:21, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

No longer "The free library"

We are no apparently longer "The free library" in the Sister links on the Wikipedia Main Page.

Even though the slogan "The free library" was discussed and implemented in the Sister projects template at Wikipedia months ago, it has been changed back to "Free source texts" on the new Wikipedia Main Page; see here.

Please leave your disgreement with this on the talk page of w:User:David Levy, on the Main Page talk and the template talk. Just like we choose are own logo, which also appears at the bottom of the Wikipedia Main Page, we also choose our own slogan/description. "The free library" has achieved an unusual across-the-board consensus in all language versions of Wikisource. No reason it should be any different in Wikipedia. Dovi 09:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, to make things simpler, the discussion is now here. Dovi 10:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

"free content source texts" is really cryptic. it does not help wikisource...

I always thought that the name "wikisource" is a bad choice. it is not at all self-explanatory; at least the slogan should try to be simple...

maybe we could rename wikipedia on our main page, eg "a collection of free content knowledge articles" instead of "the free encyclopedia"

(I know, that would be pretty extreme... please do not take this proposal seriously, unless they do not want to discuss)

ThomasV 11:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I (humorously) suggested that: "Free-content articles". But seriously, it is important to register your displeasure here. Dovi 11:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

done. ThomasV 15:26, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. The new phrase is business-speak gone mad!Apwoolrich 16:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Left a message. I think we need a more official consensus building mechanism to carry weight. --Stbalbach 17:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC) -- Stbalbach 17:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Left an appeal. Has anyone found the original place they discussed the change? Perhaps we can convince some the the others who supported the change the reconsider. --BirgitteSB 21:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

At this point we have gained the concession of "The free content library" or "Free-content library". Although this may not be what we want either phrase is at least accurate and not misleading. I suggest we let things be unless someone new from Wikipedia enters the disscusion, as it is unlikely to succeed at this point. I think it is important to end the discussion on a good note, regardless of our satisfaction with the outcome. Obviously we should correct any further errors that anyone mught suggest about Wikisource. I want to congradulate everyone as I believe we represented Wikisource well in a situation that could have easily turned very uncivil. I also believe we should leave our local sister project template unchanged. --BirgitteSB 15:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

---

At Wikibooks:Main Page, it had always identified Wikisource as "free source texts". Recently Wikibooks:User:Dovi changed Wikibooks:Template:Sisterprojects to say "the free library". I hope that Wikipedia:Main Page will say "the free library" too. We have tables of data like Astronomical events; our free library is more than source texts! --Kernigh 17:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use & Speeches

The following is copied from Wikisource talk:copyright -

---

Would anyone mind me changing this page around to reflect our policy of not accepting fair use documents?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I cannot think of any reason not to make that clear. Jkelly 22:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The project page says: "Fair use will not apply to most Wikisource material. Fair use depends on using no more of the text than is required for the purpose; our efforts to include whole texts is what usually makes it less likely to apply here." Therefore, fair use is already discouraged here. As I have reviewed the project page, I have not found notations expressly forbidding non-commercial licenses, including Template:UNCopyright. Has the Wikimedia Foundation concluded its copyright debate?--Jusjih 00:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

As I've said before I can't remember when this decision was made & I'd like to review the discussion before stating that we flat out won't take any fair use documents. AllanHainey 12:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is "an aspect of United States copyright law that provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test" (w:Fair use). Fair use doesn't apply here under any circumstance. We're reproducing works in their entirety, not citing or incorporating them. Further, works on Wikisource are freely redistributed and our license allows users to use the content commercially if they so wish. If you think this should be discussed, I think the best place to do so would be on the Scriptorium. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 15:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I can't remember if the discussion was on WS or on IRC. If we need to, we can get a general consensus from the community regarding fair use material so that we can definitively point to something showing our decision. Such a vote should be held on the Scriptorium, however. But the biggest reason fair use doesn't apply here is the reason Pathoschild just mentioned. Fair use was never meant to be a reproduction of a complete work, but only portions insofar as it helps newspapers/scholars/etc. with their daily/academic work.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

---

I've taken Pathoschild's suggestion & moved this discussion to the Scriptorium. As I've said further up this page I agree that fair use isn't appropriate for most of wikisource but my main concern is that if we go ahead and no longer accept fair use documents that'd mean deleting all Speeches we've got for the past 70 years. That is over 176 speeches (not including U.S.A. Presidential Inaugurals & State of the Unions - I'm not sure of the copyright situation with these either though). If there is, somehow, another way that we can keep these that'd be great but otherwise I see no option but to defend the continued acceptance of fair use inorder to defend the retention of recent speeches on this site. Also as I've mentioned above I can't remember any discussion or decision in which it was agreed to no longer accept fair use documents as such I'm extremely reluctant to change our policy without seeing this discussion.

Dealing specifically with Pathoschilds comments on Fair Use: it states in U.S.A. Copyright law ch 107 that "the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." It makes no mention, there, in the other chapters dealing with copyright exceptions or on the U.S.A. Copyright Office of the need for a document to be only reproduced in part, cited or incorporated in anothers works for fair use to apply.

On the 4 factor balancing test for deciding if fair use applies it says "In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Dealing with them each in turn:

1. The purpose & use of the speeches we host is that originally intended by the author, that of informing an audience & disseminating the author's views. We are serving a non-profit educational purpose, as the author did when giving the speech (for the most part). The fact that others can take sources from wikisource & use them for a commercial purpose is neither here nor there as the liability would fall on the commercial user, not on us. It is possible that we'd get a request to remove a speech from the author, & we would of course do so, but any lawsuit would be directed at the commercial user not us.
2. The nature of speeches is that they are intended by the author to express his views to as wide an audience as possible. This is the reason most are available on the internet originally (though often hard to find & ephemeral in nature). In making modern speeches available we are only serving the purposes of the author in disseminating his views (especially as most are political speeches and the dissemination of political views is likely to be considered inherently fair use) in context, unedited & in a complete form (as we ensure they are). To the best of my knowledge there isn't a single case where the author of a publicly given (or legislative/governmental) speech has attempted to enforce the copyright against someone freely disseminating that speech in an accurate & unedited format. Even the estate of Winston Churchill (who've made more than most by selling volumes of speeches) haven't attempted to restrict the free dissemmination of his speeches.
3. I think this one actually supports our claim to fair use for speeches, as there is no requirement for fair use to only apply to excerts of works and, as we are ensuring that all speeches are presented as originally given by the author, unedited & in context, thus giving his political (most frequently) views on the subject in question in a complete form, as he originally intended it. Therefore we ensure that there is no chance of misrepresentaton or selective quoting as could occur if only excerts of speeches were given, as in newspapers.
4. Speeches are nowadays not sold singly but as volumes of The Collected Speeches of.... As we host only a few speeches for each author over the past 70 years the few speeches we hold for any individual author would make a relatively minor part of any such volume & would not detract from its value or marketability. Especially as the vast majority of the modern speeches we host have been originally, or are now, on the internet on other sites (all of which are less permanent than wikisource & generally not grouped together).

I feel this is an extremely important issue which could greatly affect the holdings we have on wikisource & I don't want to rush into something which would mean we'd have to delete over two thirds of our collected speeches, & those that are the most modern & likely to be of the greatest interest. Please post your comments & lets have this issue properly considered. AllanHainey 13:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think fair use applies in any circumstance, but neither do I think that most speeches are copyright. Public manifestos and speeches are usually assumed to be released into the public domain, so that they may be recorded, transcribed, and redistributed as widely as possible without legal restrictions. As such, I don't think we'll have to remove any speeches if we decide not to accept fair use.

You stated that The fact that others can take sources from wikisource & use them for a commercial purpose is neither here nor there as the liability would fall on the commercial user, not on us. I don't think that's true, though. We host our texts under the GNU Free Documentation License, which is totally incompatible with copyright material. We take legal responsibility for ensuring that all our works are compatibile with the license we distribute under, which allows commercial use. If we distribute copyright material under a copyleft license, we are knowingly distributing works which cannot be used commercially under a license which allows commercial use. Whether we distribute it ourselves or not doesn't matter; we'll be legally liable for the distribution.

As described by the Amount and substantiality clause of fair use, reproducing whole works is not fair use. Most importantly, see the legal precedent set in Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises (1985); as stated by Wikipedia, the US Supreme Court "determined that fair use is not a defense to the appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure's account of an historic event." Most importantly, "the use of less than 400 words from President Ford's memoir by a political opinion magazine was interpreted as infringement because those few words represented "the heart of the book" and were, as such, substantial." We are providing entire texts, which represents "the heart of the book" along with everything else.

You argue that As we host only a few speeches for each author over the past 70 years the few speeches we hold for any individual author would make a relatively minor part of any such volume & would not detract from its value or marketability. However, this argument is not scalable; we aim to host all such works, whether we do at this point or not. Following this argument leads to a legal paradox: we aim to host all such works, but we can only do so if we don't host all such works.

We must be very careful to respect any copyright that may apply. As I've said previously, I think we can safely assume most speeches and public manifestos are not copyright. However, where copyright applies we cannot claim fair use as a defence for our infringement. Copyrighted works may be available elsewhere on the Internet, but these are largely ignored because they are ephemeral and reach a very small audience. As part of the Wikimedia Foundation, we have the potential for intense media attention and can cause major legal trouble for the Foundation.

There's a gigantic reservoir of public domain texts which we've barely begun to tap; I don't think we should endanger this mission by tainting our database with incompatible works. // Pathoschild (_admin / ^talk) 14:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I also think that by disallowing fair use texts we'd not have to delete our speeches which are younger than 70 years. Most of these speeches are political, so due to their nature (public) probably would not be protected under copyright. At least in America, all speeches done by federal employees in the execution of their duties are automatically PD. Do other countries have such laws? We might have to delete some, of course, but I would guess we'd still be able to keep most here, even non-American ones.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you think that copyright doesn't apply to the speeches, hopefully we'll be able to keep them all. I don't know about laws that make all speeches public domain, generally I'd consider them public domain anyway but I don't know which countries have specified it in law other than the U.S.A. (by the way are congressmen, etc really considered as Federal employees, that is employees of the Federal Government?). Mainly the speeches for the past 70 years we have are British & American with a smattering of German, Afghan, Soviet (Soviet & Nazi speeches should be safe in any event) and the odd French, Australian, Canadian, Egyptian & African. As you say the vast majority (probably 98%ish) are obviously political or by political figures or Royalty & so can be kept. The only ones I think we may have a copyright problem with are Lou Gehrig's Farewell to Baseball, Whiskey Speech & Broadcast Over Radio Hanoi and hopefully they'll be ok too. AllanHainey 13:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the only speeches we need worry about are speeches done by non-politicians. Case in point is King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It's still protected under copyright and cannot be reproduced without permission by King's estate holders. But I think the political ones, at least, should be fine.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous IP addresses leaving welcome messages

I've noticed 216.220.231.226 has been doing this. Given his previous contributions & those of his sock-puppets I don't want him, or those like him, to be the first point of contact for genuine new users. Anyone have any ideas if its possible to stop anon IP addresses leaving welcome templates. AllanHainey 12:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Ban all Anons? Apwoolrich 13:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I would assume he personally knows the new users since he wasn't blanket welcoming all new users. Lets just keep an eye on them rather than anything rash. Is there a special page for all anon contributions somewhere? Also to bring up an old subject everyone knows I am a strong supporter of getting the Patrolled Edits enabled.--BirgitteSB 13:57, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

If you go to Special:Newpages/Newbie, this is the best page MediaWiki has right now to list contributions by anons (since usually anons are newbies, this is a decent guide). There might need to be a special page created just to list anon contributions, though. Maybe we should list this at bugzilla? And see what the users here think about patrolled edits and maybe file a bug report for that, too? I agree with Birgitte: patrolled edits would be great, because then we aren't all going over pages that another admin's checked and so we're not wasting our time by triple-checking everything.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:53, 26 March 2006 (UTC)