Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-05

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Proposals

Latest comment: 18 years ago153 comments15 people in discussion

Standardise the Bible

I propose that we standardise the entire King James bible per discussion in the IRC channel. This involves standardising the page titles, adding {{section}} for every verse, and adding {{header}} and {{footer}}.

The easiest to do will be the page moves; I'll create a table of auto-move links, so that an admin just needs to click them all and hit "ok" for each one. The addition of {{header}} and {{footer}} wouldn't be too hard, and a bot can do it with some programming. The addition of {{section}} will need to be done manually, probably using regex. This might be easy or extremely time-consuming, depending on how they're currently formatted.

Regarding the page titles, I propose the following renames. If we split them down a level, we could easily append the chapters to the page title (ie, "Bible (King James)/1 Chronicles/Chapter 1").

Current name Proposed rename Move link
[[Bible, King James]] Bible (King James) move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Chronicles]] Bible (King James)/1 Chronicles move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Corinthians]] Bible (King James)/1 Corinthians move
[[Bible, King James, 1 John]] Bible (King James)/1 John move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Kings]] Bible (King James)/1 Kings move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Maccabees]] Bible (King James)/1 Maccabees move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Peter]] Bible (King James)/1 Peter move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Samuel]] Bible (King James)/1 Samuel move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Thessalonians]] Bible (King James)/1 Thessalonians move
[[Bible, King James, 1 Timothy]] Bible (King James)/1 Timothy move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Chronicles]] Bible (King James)/2 Chronicles move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Corinthians]] Bible (King James)/2 Corinthians move
[[Bible, King James, 2 John]] Bible (King James)/2 John move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Kings]] Bible (King James)/2 Kings move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Maccabees]] Bible (King James)/2 Maccabees move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Peter]] Bible (King James)/2 Peter move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Samuel]] Bible (King James)/2 Samuel move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Thessalonians]] Bible (King James)/2 Thessalonians move
[[Bible, King James, 2 Timothy]] Bible (King James)/2 Timothy move
[[Bible, King James, 3 John]] Bible (King James)/3 John move
[[Bible, King James, 4 Ezra]] Bible (King James)/4 Ezra move
[[Bible, King James, Acts]] Bible (King James)/Acts move
[[Bible, King James, Additions to Daniel]] Bible (King James)/Additions to Daniel move
[[Bible, King James, Additions to Esther]] Bible (King James)/Additions to Esther move
[[Bible, King James, Amos]] Bible (King James)/Amos move
[[Bible, King James, Baruch]] Bible (King James)/Baruch move
[[Bible, King James, Bel]] Bible (King James)/Bel move
[[Bible, King James, Colossians]] Bible (King James)/Colossians move
[[Bible, King James, Daniel]] Bible (King James)/Daniel move
[[Bible, King James, Deuteronomy]] Bible (King James)/Deuteronomy move
[[Bible, King James, Ecclesiastes]] Bible (King James)/Ecclesiastes move
[[Bible, King James, Ephesians]] Bible (King James)/Ephesians move
[[Bible, King James, Esdras]] Bible (King James)/Esdras move
[[Bible, King James, Esther]] Bible (King James)/Esther move
[[Bible, King James, Exodus]] Bible (King James)/Exodus move
[[Bible, King James, Ezekiel]] Bible (King James)/Ezekiel move
[[Bible, King James, Ezra]] Bible (King James)/Ezra move
[[Bible, King James, Galatians]] Bible (King James)/Galatians move
[[Bible, King James, Genesis]] Bible (King James)/Genesis move
[[Bible, King James, Habakkuk]] Bible (King James)/Habakkuk move
[[Bible, King James, Haggai]] Bible (King James)/Haggai move
[[Bible, King James, Hebrews]] Bible (King James)/Hebrews move
[[Bible, King James, Hosea]] Bible (King James)/Hosea move
[[Bible, King James, Isaiah]] Bible (King James)/Isaiah move
[[Bible, King James, James]] Bible (King James)/James move
[[Bible, King James, Jeremiah]] Bible (King James)/Jeremiah move
[[Bible, King James, Job]] Bible (King James)/Job move
[[Bible, King James, Joel]] Bible (King James)/Joel move
[[Bible, King James, John]] Bible (King James)/John move
[[Bible, King James, Jonah]] Bible (King James)/Jonah move
[[Bible, King James, Joshua]] Bible (King James)/Joshua move
[[Bible, King James, Jude]] Bible (King James)/Jude move
[[Bible, King James, Judges]] Bible (King James)/Judges move
[[Bible, King James, Judith]] Bible (King James)/Judith move
[[Bible, King James, Lamentations]] Bible (King James)/Lamentations move
[[Bible, King James, Leviticus]] Bible (King James)/Leviticus move
[[Bible, King James, Luke]] Bible (King James)/Luke move
[[Bible, King James, Malachi]] Bible (King James)/Malachi move
[[Bible, King James, Mark]] Bible (King James)/Mark move
[[Bible, King James, Matthew]] Bible (King James)/Matthew move
[[Bible, King James, Micah]] Bible (King James)/Micah move
[[Bible, King James, Nahum]] Bible (King James)/Nahum move
[[Bible, King James, Nehemiah]] Bible (King James)/Nehemiah move
[[Bible, King James, Numbers]] Bible (King James)/Numbers move
[[Bible, King James, Obadiah]] Bible (King James)/Obadiah move
[[Bible, King James, Philemon]] Bible (King James)/Philemon move
[[Bible, King James, Philippians]] Bible (King James)/Philippians move
[[Bible (King James)/Prayer of Manasseh]] Bible (King James)/Prayer of Manassheh move
[[Bible, King James, Preface]] Bible (King James)/Preface move
[[Bible, King James, Proverbs]] Bible (King James)/Proverbs move
[[Bible, King James, Psalms]] Bible (King James)/Psalms move
[[Bible, King James, Revelation]] Bible (King James)/Revelation move
[[Bible, King James, Romans]] Bible (King James)/Romans move
[[Bible, King James, Ruth]] Bible (King James)/Ruth move
[[Bible, King James, Sirach]] Bible (King James)/Sirach move
[[Bible, King James, Song of Solomon]] Bible (King James)/Song of Solomon move
[[Bible, King James, Susanna]] Bible (King James)/Susanna move
[[Bible, King James, Titus]] Bible (King James)/Titus move
[[Bible, King James, Tobit]] Bible (King James)/Tobit move
[[Bible, King James, Wisdom of Solomon]] Bible (King James)/Wisdom of Solomon move
[[Bible, King James, Zechariah]] Bible (King James)/Zechariah move
[[Bible, King James, Zephaniah]] Bible (King James)/Zephaniah move

Any thoughts? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I support this wholeheartedly. We already have several translations of this work and we will continue to accumulate more over time. I think it is important to handle the organization in a standard manner. --BirgitteSB 02:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree, as well. This will bring the Bible in standard with the rest of WS.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Support. Danny 03:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Support Apwoolrich 03:29, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
One detail I forgot to mention is updating links. Links on Wikisource could easily be updated using a bot, and since Wikipedia has mostly templated bible links they would be easy to update as well. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Alternative template

Definite support, even though I'd prefer that something other than section were used. Something like {{verse|(chapter=)1|(verse=)30}} which would render <span id="{{{chapter}}}:{{{verse}}}">{{{verse}}}</span> and would alow a template akin to this (which looks like this) to link directly to the anchors for the specific verses. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 12:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I've come up with an alternative template which is currently sitting in my userspace (here), which does exactly what I suggested above, though also takes into consideration {{verse|1|32}}, where the first parameter is the chapter, and the second the verse. You can see it in use here. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 13:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
This template is a very nice one. I wouldn't have any problems with implementing this. One question: would it be possible to use this template to change the actual color of the verse numbers? For the Bible, World English, the verse are in blue, and I'd like to keep that color if possible.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
More than easy. It's just a matter of adjusting the "style=" tag of the <span>. It could even be customisable through different Bibles by using optional parameters. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 01:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation style

My first thought is that the name "Bible (King James)" is awkward. Why not use "King James Bible"? Then I noticed that "Bible (King James)" would allow Special:Prefixindex/Bible to work. --Kernigh 22:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

It is not called "King James' Bible" because the original title of that translation is "Bible", so it is disambiguated as recommended by the style guide. This style has several advantages: it clearly seperates the original title from the disambiguating text, is similar to the style used on other wikis (thus easier for new users to remember), and allows the use of the Prefix index to find all version of a text. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Add license status to {{header}}

It is good and I have copied it into Chinese Wikisource, but could we add a line called "license" to link to the appropriate copyright tags? As no one has answered me at Help talk:Copyright tags, I would like to propose something like: 

{{process header
 | title    = (Any law of China)
 | section  =
 | previous =
 | next     = 
 | shortcut = 
 | license  = {{PD-CN}}
 | notes    = Governmental source: (URL)
}}

--Jusjih 14:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I think you're referring to {{header}}, not {{process header}}. I see no problem doing so if the license templates are made much smaller. We might instead link to the license template with something like "This work is licensed as public domain (see details)." // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem giving a link to licence information in the header as long as the details of the licence are also available at the bottom of the work. Links are great for for those reading online, but we need to be sure the info stays with printed copies as well.--BirgitteSB 16:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not all that enthused about adding another parameter to the template, especially when it will mean having to go back and re-edit thousands of pages and the only information we're adding is the copyright status of the work (which in about 90% of the works, they are PD). If we decide to implement this, I'll of course use it, but I'm neutral.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I am referring to {{header}}, not {{process header}}. In case adding another parameter to the template will take too much time as Zhaladshar is concerned of, How about a link to the copyright tag with the notes?
{{process header
 | title    = (Any law of China)
 | section  =
 | previous =
 | next     = 
 | shortcut = 
 | notes    = License:[[Template:PD-CN|]]. Governmental source: (URL)
}}
←
(Any law of China)
→

License:PD-CN. Governmental source: (URL)

In this way we need no new parameter to the template.--Jusjih 09:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Having a template license is preferable, because they briefly explain the license status even if the page is printed out. Whether to link to the license and governmental source in the notes parameter is entirely up to the individual editor. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I have always included template licenses and governmental sources when adding governmental English translations of Chinese, Macanese, and Taiwanese laws while they are in the public domain. I just wonder whether template licenses should be on the top or bottom of an article.--Jusjih 16:01, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Typically it is placed at the bottom. It is most useful for categorisation and for providing license information in printed copies. It is not useful to the average reader to know what the license status is. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Form deletion notification

I generally notify contributors when articles they have contributed are deleted or nominated for deletion. However, this usually involves writing a new message for multiple identical occasions. This is time-consuming, repetitive, and frustrating; I also note that most administrators do not do this, perhaps for the aforementioned reasons.

I'm considering programming a template which allows administrators to place a form notification on a user's page with a wide variety of reasons. See the example below. 

{{deletion message
|article = [[CROWDING EFFECT]]
|reason  = A2
}}

"Hello {{subst:PAGENAME}}. Please note that I've deleted an article you contributed, CROWDING EFFECT, under the terms of our deletion policy which states, as Criteria for speedy deletion A2, "not significantly peer-reviewed or previously published in a significant edition or forum". Please see our inclusion guidelines for help determining what Wikisource will accept, and feel free to contact me if you have questions or wish to discuss. Thank you for your contributions, and I hope this will not affect your interest in our project. // ~~~~"

This template would make it easy to tweak or update all notifications at once, and would include messages for either nominations or deletions. Before doing so, I'm wondering if other administrators think this would be useful to them. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 19:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

This would be useful. It'd take me a while to get used to it, I think, as I'm not one to notify contributors that I've deleted their contributions. But to keep users from wondering "Huh? What? Where'd my work go?" after coming back to WS from an extended break, it might be beneficial for them to get a notification that an admin has removed it. Would this just be used for speedy deleting, or would we use it for consensus deletions, as well?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
It would include any common reason for deletion. At the moment, the reasons I can think of are the Criteria for speedy deletion, Proposed deletions, and Possible copyright violations. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:07, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding template to protected works

Since we are protecting more and more works here on WS, I propose we add a template to each page, which puts a note up in the title that the work is protected. I have thought of using something like a lock that would go on the far right side of the page name. It would be used in a manner similar to the star that WP puts in the title of prior "Featured articles." That way there is a more explicit way of showing that our page is protected than just having the "view source" link up top. Any thoughts?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

How about this tiny template placed above {{header}}?
This text has been locked from edits to protect its integrity according to the protection policy.
// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:29, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking using something more along the lines of w:Template:Featured article on Wikipedia. That way, the message is out of the body of the main text. Or, we could put the information in the notes parameter of {{header}}. But I'd prefer not to display any text/template/message above the header template if we can avoid it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem with the icon in the corner is that readers have no idea what it means, and most probably won't even notice it. Those icons are mostly intended for advanced editors, users who are familiar with the workings of the community. Since we accept anonymous edits, we should make the template immediately noticeable, but small and out of the way. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:17, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I prefer the padlock as well. All texts eventually will be protected so I would like to see the notice as unobtrusive as possible. Perhaps we could have the padlock link to a page explaining our protection policy when it is clicked on. Of course the ideal techinical solution will be having protect section enabled so that editors could still edit the header while actual text is protected. --BirgitteSB 03:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Having the padlock link to a page explaining what is going on would be very good. It's looking less and less likely that ProtectSection will be enabled, so having an indication that the page is totally locked away would be courteous to users here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

A small amount of text beside the icon in the corner would be useful to the editor. This text would provide a succinct explanation, and users are more likely to know a text is linked than an image. For example:

Locked

How does that look? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 04:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Just saying "locked" may be too short.--Jusjih 16:06, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Test
Not necessarily; users can click the text link to find out why. I've added it to the top-right corner of this page to demonstrate how it would look (it can easily be commented out later). // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I actually like the template the way it is. The template is fairly self explanatory, and all the person has to do is click on the link (or observe the "view source" tab) to get an inkling as to what is going on. I also made two slight changes to the template to make spacing look a bit better.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Plan on phasing out reference data

Following on the decision to exclude reference data, I've outlined a general plan on how to phase them out while minimising broken links and waste of contributor's efforts.

  1. Completed: identify all reference data by placing {{refdata}} at the top of the pages. This template places works in Category:Deletion requests/Reference data, which is categorised to Category:Deletion requests. The text of the template explains that the page will soon be deleted, links to the relevant discussion, and requests that they go back and remove the ncoming link. The template is shown below.
  2. Remove incoming links from other pages on Wikisource (using whatlinkshere) and other language subdomains (using the interlanguage sidebar). We should also visit any relevant Wikipedia article and remove incoming links.
  3. Find a new home for some of the data. Any data which is easy to find elsewhere (lists, constants, mathematical tables, etc) can be deleted. Others could be submitted to Wikibooks or various external websites. We could also move them to wikilivres, if they want it.

The template I've placed on reference data pages is shown below:

This page has been marked for eventual deletion.

It has been identified as reference material per the exclusion guidelines, which the community has decided to exclude from Wikisource (see "Inclusion of reference data on Wikisource"). These works will be phased out gradually; if you have found this page by following a link from another page, please go back and remove that link.

The easiest method to do the above is to list them at Proposed deletions, perhaps fifteen at a time. Each one will be processed in the manner outlined above at that point, and we will be able to discuss them individually. After seven days, they will all be deleted and the next batch added. Judging from the number I've founded (195 pages), it will take 13 weeks (roughly 3 months) to eliminate all reference data at this rate. This delay will also help eliminate many incoming links from other projects and websites, as they will have some time to see the {{refdata}} warning.

What do you think? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:40, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a good plan. I wish the multi-WS would have waited more before nixing it all, but I think we should definitely phase it out gradually, that way as many links as possible could be corrected. I've been browsing WP and WB, and so far I haven't found any pages that link to WS for reference material. It's odd...seeing as they fought tooth and nail to keep the material on WS.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I've also left a note at w:Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) notifying people of the change, as well. If there's a better place to put it, feel free to mention it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Great plan. I have been keeping an eye on what is being tagged as "Move to Wikisource" on WP and alerting people who think we accept ref data of the change. I know of some places on WP I would like to alert people but I would like to have our inclusion guidelines formally changed first. --BirgitteSB 02:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Will we apply this to multilingual Wikisource or language subdomains?--Jusjih 16:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
It looks like it's too late to apply this to multi-WS, but if other language sub-domains choose to exclude reference material, I highly recommend they phase it out of the course of weeks/months, as we are doing.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion policy

I've (finally, I hope) finished writing our inclusion policy. I can't think of anything more to add or change, so I am opening it up to the community for discussion. Any ideas on what to add/remove?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

In regards to the reference data I would like to see sometihing added about tables of data that are unaffiliated with a larger work (i.e. elections results). --BirgitteSB 02:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I think I'm unsure of what you're requesting. Do you want me to explicitly state that we exclude election results...?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I think BirgitteSB is referring to data contained inside a work; for example, a chapter containing a table of mathematical constants inside a mathematical textbook. I think this is already clearly stated; the guidelines state, "Note that reference data that is published as part of a source text is perfectly acceptable." // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I misread. I would think that those would be excluded as reference material, but we could perhaps state it as "tables of data or results", which would cover similar pages. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I added it. This will not only take care of election results, but scientific material.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll (inclusion policy)

Administrator votes of confidence

I propose that Wikisource create a standard process for removal of administrator access (desysoping). Specifically, I propose annual votes of confidence for administrators. One year after an administrator's original election, a poll would be opened to confirm that they still have the community's trust. Established users would have the ability to express any opposition, although all users are welcome to comment and make their opinion known. Administrators inactive for a period of six months would automatically lose administrator access, but be able to apply again through the normal process at any time.

This is primarily aimed at streamlining the administrator list for users who need to contact an administrator, decreasing the chances of an account hijacker gaining administrator access, and creating a process for the removal of administrator access with minimal conflict in potential future cases of abuse.

Administrator access should not be a lifetime status; it should only be maintained as long as a user is trusted by the community. In the vast majority of cases, administrators would experience no trouble whatsoever maintaining administrator access. However, the process would provide an excellent way to remove access from abusive administrators; these are a problem which deeply troubles the English Wikipedia at the moment, which has no such de-sysop process.

A similar process is already in place on the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (see Meta:Administrators/confirm), where it is considered traditional and necessary. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of an automatic vote of confidence after a year or any other period, I think it would be better to just provide a procedure whereby if someone loses confidence in an admin they can propose them for demotion, giving their reasons and starting a vote on that admin. I'd support the loss of admin priviliges/responsibilities for those inactive for greater than 6 months though. AllanHainey 07:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I like this proposal a great deal. I don't think people should have any problem passing a vote of confidence. I see the advantage of having it done regularly as well. It would be good to get some feedback. --BirgitteSB 11:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I kind of agree with AllanHainey's comments. It would be much more expedient if we just allowed users to come forward and propose votes of no confidence if they feel it is necessary, than if we annually held votes of confidence for every admin. That said, I'm not opposed to the idea--I mean, with this we make sure that admins are actually trusted and not just "well, he's had admin rights for ages so let's just let him keep it"--but it will be a bear to remember when each admin's vote comes up. I do strongly agree, however, to shortening the time of inactivity to 6 months (I think it's currently a year) before removal of admin access.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I like the proposal also. Though I agree with Zhaladshar that it will be difficult to remember when individual admins are due for a vote, I see two problems with votes of no confidence. First, how transparent will the process be? Will new users have the knowledge that the process exists and have the info on how to initiate a vote? Second, how do we prevent someone who just has a fued with the admin for calling for votes of no confidence as a harrasment tactic? Both of these can be solved by careful crafting of the process, but then we may be up to as much of an effort as trying to time the annual votes. And the timing problem could be solved by holding the annual votes at the same time for all admins, with perhaps giving someone who became admin in the last six(?) months as pass on their first vote. - illy 14:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

We could easily hold annual votes simultaneously (see various possibilities below). Such a process would be prominently mentioned on the list of administrators as well as the informational page on adminship; both of these pages will be easy to find in the Index, once that is complete. The annual votes would also be announced through Wikisource News, and the results announced there upon completion.

Allowing users to initiate an unscheduled vote could indeed be used as a harassment tactic. However, an administrator who is trusted would have no trouble passing a vote despite that user's harassment, particularly if the user is not established and thus has no weight in the vote. As a measure against such harassment, we could require arguments in favour from the nominating user, and require that at least two other users support the need for a vote. This would make it much more difficult to call a vote as a harassment tactic, and would also be a viable method of desysop'ing if we decide not to have scheduled votes at all.

Regarding the difficulty timing votes, I do not really see this. We could simply note the next confirmation vote on the administrators list; for example, "Pathoschild (to be confirmed February 2007)". Using the previously proposed system of votes a year after original election, this would be the upcoming vote schedule:

Date Scheduled votes
September 2006 Yann, Dovi, Jusjih
November 2006 Ambi, Apwoolrich, GregRobson, ThomasV
December 2006 BirgitteSB, AllanHainey, Wolfman
February 2007 Pathoschild
May 2007 Illy


An alternative system would be to hold votes every month, with each user sequentially assigned a date depending on chronological order. In that case, the schedule would be:

Date Scheduled votes
January 2007 Yann
February 2007 Dovi
March 2007 Jusjih
April 2007 Ambi
May 2007 Apwoolrich
June 2007 GregRobson
July 2007 ThomasV
August 2007 BirgitteSB
September 2007 AllanHainey
October 2007 Wolfman
November 2007 Pathoschild
December 2007 Illy


A better system might be to hold votes every three months (January, April, July, October), with each user confirmed in the nearest scheduled date. This would require less time and effort from everyone involved, particularly since there is no need to vote in support at all unless there is opposition (the default with no consensus being to stay). In that case, the schedule would be something like this (somewhat arbitrarily divided near the middle line). This is quite grouped towards the fourth and first quarters, but it would even out over time as more administrators are elected.

Date Scheduled votes
October 2006 Yann, Dovi, Jusjih, Ambi, Apwoolrich, BirgitteSB
January 2006 AllanHainey, Wolfman, GregRobson, ThomasV, Pathoschild
April 2006 Illy

Timing the votes would be quite easy; we just need to decide on a system to use. I personally prefer votes by quarter, since that requires the least effort to keep up with. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:07, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I agree that the timing would not be much of an issue anymore. It looks like it would not take much effort to bring around the votes, and everyone but the users who are inactive should pass with flying colors. I personally like the first schedule better, as it is based off when the user actually received his/her rights, but I'm not opposed to any schedule.
About initiating votes of no confidence, I think we should have a mechanism in place for editors to start one. But (I was already beaten to this) in order to keep the system from being abused, I think there must be at least two Wikisource editors who agree. This way, a disgruntled editor can't besmirch the good name of one of our admins. But if it does turn out that the admin was a poor choice and used his powers wrongly, there should be a mechanism to remove the rights.
Also, for the votes of confidence/no confidence, I think preference should be given to Wikisourcerors. This way, we can keep sockpuppetry down (in case the no-confidence vote is brought up by a contributor on a different Wikimedia project because of actions on a different Wikimedia project--this might be a rare case, but with thousands of people working together on many different projects, each with their own views and opinions, I won't rule it out) and make sure that the vote primarily stays with the established community in which the vote is taking place.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I think voting in any important decision (including such things are proposed deletions) should be limited to established users. What exactly constitutes an "established user" is typically decided on a case-by-case basis; we should perhaps define that seperately through discussion, and maybe draft a global policy on voting that would cover everything from proposed deletions to motions of confidence, both globally and with specific points. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Summer's coming up in a week, and I'll have plenty of time to write a draft then. I agree, a global policy on voting, covering everything, would be great.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Too big a deal?

I am a big believer that being an administrator should not be a big deal. What this means that that an administrator is given certain tools to help build the wiki (deletion, protection, banning, etc.) and absolutely nothing more than that. Ordinary users don't have those tools simply because of the damage they can cause in the wrong hands. But when a user shows that he has a good sense of judgement and makes positive contributions to the wiki, he should be given those tools. It's as simple as that, which has three ramifications:

  1. It should not be overly difficult to appointed as an admin. The requirement should be no more than a good understanding of how the wiki works and a decent history of positive contributions.
  2. It should not be overly difficult to remove an admin, if and when other users think he has abused the tools he has been entrusted with.
  3. There is no problem having a lot of administrators - the more trustworthy people using those tools well, the better off the wiki will be. In my opinion, there is no point to "streamlining" the list.

Therefore, on the one hand, if there are complaints against how an admin uses his tools, there should be an agreed-upon way to set up a vote for desysoping. The need for this was proved recently on Hebrew Wikipedia, and has been becoming evident on English Wikipedia too. In such a case, I lean towards saying that an admin should require a supermajority to remain, i.e. only those who are using their tools positively in the eyes of most of the community.

However, on the other hand, regular votes of confidence are a needless beaurocratic procedure. Admins should not be an exclusive club in the first place, and when problems arise they should be voted on case-by-case. I don't think this needs to be done like on Meta. Dovi 18:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I'd like to move this to the poll phase. There's been quite a bit of discussion in the few days so far, and it may of course continue during the poll. Further, this poll will simply determine the direction taken in a to-be-proposed administrator policy, the discussion of which will explore the implications and possibilities more deeply. Please consider the following two questions (the specifics of which will be codified in the to-be-proposed policy afterwards). For the sake of disambiguation, "support" will be taken to mean 'yes'.

  1. Should users have the option to call a vote on an administrators' continued sysop access (with any applicable caveats, limits, and processes)?
  2. Should there be regular, yearly votes using a to-be-determined schedule?


Clarifications following poll

Previous discussion ("Administrator votes of confidence", May 2006 archives) unanimously supported yearly votes of confidence and the ability for users to begin desysop votes. This discussion aims to gain consensus on the specifics in preparation for a final discussion on the overall Administrator policy. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 05:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Annual votes of confidence

The current version of the proposed Administrator's policy states the following; the "other subsections below" provide for requested votes of confidence, emergency desysoping, et cetera.

Administrator access depends on the continued support of the community. Established adminship is granted for a period of one year, after which point it must be confirmed by an automatic vote of confidence. If the user passes a vote of no confidence as described by one of the other subsections below, their scheduled vote is postponed to one year after that vote. The full schedule of confirmation votes is available on the administrators page.

Following this clause, the schedule would be as follows.

Date Scheduled votes
September 2006 Yann, Dovi, Jusjih
November 2006 Ambi, Apwoolrich, GregRobson, ThomasV
December 2006 BirgitteSB, AllanHainey, Wolfman
February 2007 Pathoschild
May 2007 Illy, Danny

Two additional questions remain.

  1. How long should each vote be held? I think the usual week should be fine.
  2. How should the outcome be decided? Must an administrator obtain supermajority support (perhaps 75%+) to retain access, or does a simple majority (50% + one user) suffice? For example, say I get only 55% support in my next vote; should I retain access, or lose it? I'm rather ambivalent on this question, so I'll decided after some discussion.

// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 05:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Requested votes of confidence

The proposed Administrator policy currently states the following.

A user may lose administrator access if there is community support to do so. This is determined by a proposed motion of confidence on the administrator page.

Any user may propose such a vote, but at least two established users (besides the proposer) must support the need for an election. Any user may then discuss the user's administrator access, but only established users may cast a vote. Due to the serious nature of the discussion, the user may not use administrator access for any non-trivial action at any time until the vote is closed. A bureaucrat (see the admin list) will eventually archive the discussion and, assuming consensus, request removal of administrator access by a steward.

// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 05:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Support. I like it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll

Previous discussion ("Administrator votes of confidence", May 2006 archives) unanimously supported yearly votes of confidence and the ability for users to begin desysop votes. A subsequent discussion regarding the specifics failed to attract much participation, so I've finalised the proposal for a final poll.

The proposed administrator policy addresses administrator access on Wikipedia, delegating codification of administrator tools to existing policies. The primary aspects of the policy concern obtention and loss of administrator access. It covers current practice and adds provisions for temporary and self-promoting administrator access. Most importantly, it outlines five cases where an administrator may lose administrator access: annual votes of confidence, consensus, inactivity, emergency desysoping, and special cases (including self-request and temporary adminship).

I support, as proposer. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Automated archival

Archival is becoming increasingly more tedious to perform, especially with the updates to the topic listings (such as at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives). I propose that we implement automated archival with Pathosbot, using bot syntax to correctly archived sections. Each page would contain two types of bot tags: a 'configuration' tag which would tell the bot how to archive the page, and several 'action' tags telling the bot which sections to archive. These pages would be categorised to Category:Bots/Archival, which would list pages for the bot to process.

The configuration information would be placed on a seperate, protected page (to prevent vandalism or accidental misconfiguration). The configuration tag would be placed at the top of the page and would look something like the following code. ("{config}" is a variable for the location of the configuration pages, so that pages don't need to be updated if the configuration pages are moved.) 

<!-- <bot type="archival" configuration="{config}/Archival#Wikisource:Scriptorium" /> -->

Once I set this up, users will simply need to add a line of code to a section they wish to archive, where the "section" value would be the section to archive to ("Proposals", "Questions", et cetera). 

<!-- <bot action="archival" section="Proposed" /> -->

The bot would remove the bot tag, archive the tagged sections once per day, and automatically update the topic listing. I'll be operating it semi-autonomously for the first few weeks to perfect the script, after which point it would run autonomously once per day.

(I posted a similar proposal on Proposed deletions, where Zhaladshar posted a comment. Since I've expanded the scope of the proposal considerably, it would be unfair to consider it a response to this proposal: "Oh, this would be great. I put off archiving as long as I possibly can, because it takes so much time (especially updating the headers on the copyvio archives main page).") // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 17:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

This sounds great. I have always found archiving to be very confusing. I don't understand exactly how it will work but I trust you do. --BirgitteSB 21:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
To match the expanded proposal for automated archiving, I reiterate that this will be a very useful addition to WS. For the Scriptorium and Proposed deletions this is almost a must (it cuts a half hour's worth of work down to mere seconds). For copyvio archives it's not needed (although having it will by no means be opposed) as much, as the copyvio page is not used all that often.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Main page redesign

I'm working on a possible redesign of the main page based on en-Wikipedia's new design. It is still a very rough design, but I'd like some input from other users. Below is a summary of the main differences between the proposal and the current version.

  • Removed
    • The page title.
    • The blurb about Wikisource.
    • The unorganised list of community and process pages.
    • The 'index of authors' template.
  • Changed
    • The portals are displayed more prominently.
    • The statistics were moved from the blurb to the footer.
    • The new texts list is displayed more prominently in its own section.
    • The colour scheme is changed from brown/purple/white to green/brown/white.

Any suggestions or edits are welcome. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a very nice redesign. Here are a couple suggestions I can think of off the top of my head:
  1. A link to the Scriptorium would be nice. It's a very commonly used page that deserves to be added to the Main Page. Even though it's on the sidebar, the lesser used Community Portal is also on the sidebar while still having a link on the new design.
  2. Would it be possible to make the featured article a template? That way, it would be much less code to have to slog through to change our featured article. Actually, on second thought, something like Featured work might be better (since article is more in line with an encyclopedia, whereas work is more in line with what WS collects).
  3. Wikisource News and Recent Articles get a lot of real estate on the front page. Editing them down a bit would (I think) be a bit more aesthetic.
These are the only ones I can think of right now. But, again, this is excellent. Having prominent links for such things as Category:Fiction, Wikisource:Poetry, etc., will force us to do a lot of work in making those pages nice and fleshed out.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 22:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestions. The Scriptorium is already linked to from the subheader as "Community discussion". A modular organisation (templates for variable text) is intended for the final version, but it's easier to work on the single page until we have a reasonably completed version. The featured section is currently titled "Featured text", not 'featured article'; either "text" or "work" fit well, so we can just use whichever more users prefer. I've edited down the new texts and Wikisource news sections quite a bit, and expanded the "Main categories" section to balance them out. Does that look better?
Concerning the portals, perhaps we should reconsider how we approach them. Instead of having incomplete lists, we might consider having portals in the style of Wikipedia's. For example, see w:Portal:Mathematics; it provides a definition, featured articles and images, links to related pages in other wikis, et cetera. This format is much easier to maintain, more useful to the user, and infinitely scalable. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry about that. Yeah, I clearly wasn't as observant as I should have been (it's been a long week and I'm flat tired, in my defense). Yeah, the Scriptorium is already linked, and it is feature "text" which is just fine (where did I get "article"?). But the display for News and the new texts looks much better. Good work.
Concerning portals, that was the idea for portals: to replace the lists and have a centralized "hub" of sorts to access everything. (Like a portal for speeches, one for poetry, etc.) But for various reasons (mostly waiting for the namespace manager to be released for use on MediaWiki) we've never gotten the Portal namespace (which I think we should just file a bug). But phasing out many of those lists I think would be a great idea and replace them with a more organized portal. The concept behind the portals on Wikisource would be closesly based off how WP does it, just altered for our purposes and to match our content. But yes, we should definitely move to portals.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll draft a few portals separately at some point, then. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, we've already got a few to work with. I'll notify Birgitte and AllanHainey to post the links here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the redesign is really nice! It is already a major improvement, and from my perspective could be implemented already. Great job!

Second, a possible suggestion for now or for the future: Let's also consider design alternatives besides the English Wikipedia (which this is based on). Specifically, I would suggest the portal model of the Hebrew Wikipedia, which is based upon icons, and was recently adopted in part for the new redesign of the German Wikipedia Main Page. It should be possible to come up with good icons for most of the topics and categories on the Main Page (author, title, ancient, modern, news, subject, audio...) Dovi 03:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


Just spitballing, but a beloved feature of the en-wiki is the DidYouKnow section on the front page. We could modify that for WS, by instead including 4 or 5 single sentence excerpts that link to the greater document.
...I had a daughter born in lawful wedlock who grew up amid the fields and pastures...
...after one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone...
...O Death! who makest all knowledge to vanish away, and raisest so many tears and lamentations...
..."Cause mermaids is fairies, an' ain't meant to be seen by us mortal folk," replied Cap'n Bill...

Sherurcij 08:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

This looks really great! I had started on a portal but the coding got a bit over my head. I am actualy surprised I could do as much as I did, as I only as much html as I have been able to copy from other's work. This is mainly copied from portals at En WP. I killed all the "edit" links for the boxes as I couldn't get them to work. Also the current colors are quite bad. But I do like the content of it a this point. I also like your idea Sherurcij to replace the DYK.--BirgitteSB 11:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked at your proposed version yet, not much time & I'm on a library computer which doesn't let me open 2 windows simultaneously but when I do I'll comment on it. I worked up a Speeches portal & apart from a bit of time consuming but relatively simple changes it's good to go whenever we set up the portal: namespace. I agree we should file a bug for this, I don't know who's able to do this though. The link to the speeches portal is User:AllanHainey/SpeechesPortal. AllanHainey 13:43, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Building of Sherurcij's comments, I say we add the one-liners in addition to the DidYouKnow stuff. I am a fan of that section, and I think it would be nice to offer some interesting little tid bits of particular works. But definitely having excerpts (especially funny, witty, interesting ones) definitely would be a good idea.
I do like the portal model of the German Wikipedia over the Hebrew. The Hebrew model takes up too much real estate for my tastes, and I don't think we would have enough portals anyway (I could be mistaken; maybe someone could come up with a massive list of portals that would fit WS). However, we have to ask ourselves this question (which I think will focus our design of the Main Page a bit): What role do we want portals to play? Are they to have a primary role on the new WS or a secondary role? I'm not opposed to the English WP design at all, but I also wouldn't mind one which had a more focused part for portals, either. If we decide to stress portals, then I think our main page should give them a major role, but if we want them to be complementary to the rest of WS, I don't see why just having links from the main page would be a bad idea. What are everybody else's comments?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've taken a look at it now so here's my comments. Firstly I don't see the reason for a new main page, the justification seems to be that wikipedias got a new format so we should change to match it. Incidentally I'm not a fan of the new wikipedia main page & I certainly prefer the old wikisource main page (only 6 months old though) to the proposed new version, as it seems rather bland in comparison with a lack of pictures & the coloured boxes. I think I would prefer to keep the, general, format of our current main page & amend it to add new features rather than completely overhauling it just 6 months after it was introduced to keep pace with Wikipedia.
I like the featured text idea & the did you know & one-liners sound promising, my main concern with these ideas though is whose going to update them & how frequently. There is a danger that the main page could become stagnant (like the new texts box frequently is) & this wouldn't reflect well on the project.
I'm not sure that we need the community news right there on the main page, I see the main page's main purpose as greeting new users & those who don't know theur way about wikisource yet. All the news links are aimed more at experienced wikisourcerers & are only really relevant to them. For that reason I'd prefer to do without the news part, though a link to its own page would be a good idea.
On the categories, this could be useful but we do have some significant problems with the completeness of our categorisations & the frequency with which they're updated. I don't know what our primary method of catalogueing authors & works should be - lists like Wikisource:Authors-R or categories like Category:Authors-R but I think we should discuss this before adopting a particular form on the main page. It may be that the use of bots makes categories the better method to use but I've not been convinced of this so far.
On portals I'm very much in favour of bringing these on-stream. I'm not deterred by the fact that we only have 2 at the moment as we have to start somewhere & once those go live it'll provide the impetus for others to start working on other portals. I don't see portals as replacing the lists of sources like Portal:Speeches but as supplementing them (at least for the speeches portal), though I think having links from the main page would be a good idea as the portals can be like little min-main pages for the various sections introducing people to our holdings & trying to dragoon them into helping out. I think getting the Portal: and Author: namespaces turned on should be something we should look into having done. I don't know if its as simple as filing a bug but if someone who's logged in at the Wiki IT bit could do that it'd be useful.
On Sherurcij's idea of the one-liners, I quite like the idea but I think it'd be better suited to some types of source than others & could introduce an element of selective bias into the sources we present (eg poetry is more likely to have snappy one-liners that'll draw attention than non-fiction; speeches have snappy one-liners but are frequently either too long or make no sense out of context; mathematical sources, election data & court rulings/laws are out of the picture entirely).
On the Did you know - again we may have a problem with collating & updating the info, though it's a promising idea. One possible problem is it sounds like it could stray into the banal & repetitive very easily if we're not careful, that is it is possible we'd end up with did you know X said Y, Z was published in PPPP, etc or that we'd end up with a lot of DYK info about works by a relatively few authors who happen to be well represented here.
It seems I'm pouring gloom & problems on everything, that's not my intention I'm just thinking though possible problems & difficulties we may face, it's not enough just to design a new main page we need to be as sure as we can that we've thought through the implications of any changes we make & can cope with the future demands arising from those changes. AllanHainey 12:07, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with User:AllanHainey that a root and branch re-design is not necessary, especially as the present one is only six months old. I think the wishy-washy pastel colours common on WP and being used on WS in various places are just horrible, and just because they are used there is not a good enough reason for us to have them. In about last December/January we had a discussion on establishing a house livery for WS, and though there was no vote I recollect the consensus was that the Antique white/brown combination on the present main page was right for us. The picture of the gent up the step ladder gives the page a bit of class IMHO. Why change them?

Maybe this is the time to revive the discussion on colours and reach an agreement. Somewhere in the archive ( I expect it will take me all night to find it, so don't expect a link in a hurry) is a page drawing together all our templates in the hope we could agree a definitive set of them, and the colours to be used. This is with the object of making WS more cohesive with a recognisable 'house style' of page presentation. Apwoolrich 18:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Alternate proposal: synthesis

I've put together an alternative proposal merging the current design, the afore-proposed content, and points raised in comments above. Following is a list of the primary changes:

  • Content and layout
    • The new header box replaces Wikisource.png and the page title "Main Page".
    • The new section "Main categories" and the list of portals replace the lists of major topics, genres, periods, and types, as well as the index of authors.
    • The subheader index links replace the current inline lists of links.
    • The blurb about Wikisource is slightly rewritten.
    • New section "Featured text" (pending a seperate proposal for featured texts).
  • Design
    • The inline bold titles are replaced with brown heading boxes.
    • The purple box is now white.
    • The total page length is reduced.

Any thoughts on this alternative version? (Please discuss the previous proposal outside this section.) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

This looks very good (I would prefer something like this over the previous design). I think the nine links will eventually change to something else once/if portals go into effect (like, "Biographies" will be merged with "Non-Fiction" as biographies are a subset of non-fiction), but I believe other portals will be created to fill the gap. I would have liked to see WS:NEWS on it, though. While one of the functions of the main page is to welcome visitors, new users, and inexperienced users, I believe that veteran Wikimedians should be able to find the most recent goings-on at WS (assuming we promote WS:NEWS from its proposal phase). Over all, good work. I really like this design.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Excellent Much better. We must take care we do not lose useful link on the old page, though. As an example Other digital libraries needs a home somewhere, probably on the Community portal. Maybe we should have a re-design of the latter (colours in particular) to match the new main page, please. Apwoolrich 05:39, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I really, really, really like this one. I liked the other one, but I actually like this one the most. Insert support, etc, wherever necessary so that I'll see that every time I click on Main page. ;-) Jude (talk,contribs,email) 07:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Other digital libraries should ideally be linked to from the new Index, which is still too new to be complete. I'll be working on expanding that, which is linked to from the proposal as "Index of process pages". // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I like this design a lot. It's much cleaner than the current Main page but isn't too sterile. In respect to both versions, I really appriciate the improved access to the categories. - illy 14:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll (Synthesis design)

This poll concerns the implementation of the synthesis design as the new main page. I propose the poll be held a week, but there's no reason not to extend that if someone disagrees. I support as the proposer. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Featured texts play a major part in the main page synthesis design proposal, but there's no structure for selecting and developing them yet. I've drafted Wikisource:Featured texts along with {{featured}} to that end. I'd like to get a consensus on the page in general so that we can launch it before the new main page design. This page can of course be changed at any time, including during and after the poll. I support, as proposer. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Publisher

I've created a new template to do for publishers what the Author template does for authors. The reason is that we've got a whole group of orphaned pages by unknown authors but by know publishers such as Publisher:Harper's Weekly (which is an example of the template in use). I'd like to get any feed-back on the template and would like to propose a structure such as we have with Authors with the Wikisource:Author-char and the Template:Authors-char pages. What do people think? - illy 00:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have much time this week to explore the topic, and I'll have to wait until the weekend. But I have two things I want to throw in to spur on discussion. Firstly, in the history of WS since I've been here, no one but authors have ever been given author pages (while the proposal is not prefixed with "Author:" this is in essence and "Author:" page), at the exclusion of attributing authorship to such things as governments and organization bodies. It was just never seen that they should have an author page even though they technically "write" works. I am not defending this position, merely stating what the implicit assumptions have always been, and suggesting that maybe we need to think about this assumption and about the effects of relaxing some of the requirements on who/what should get distinguishing-type "author" pages.
Secondly, this is just merely a question: do we really have that many different publishers represented here? Or would they all fall under just a few? (I find it very hard that we have a number of orphaned pages which are done by many, many different publishers, but I do not know, so I am asking). Hopefully, Friday, I can join the discussion with my own opinions on the matter.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
First to answer your question, no, currently we don't have orphaned pages from lots of different publishers, mainly from Harper's Weekly from what I've seen, though a few are obituaries from various newspapers (the example I gave in my entry above is actually an obituary). However, I can see the future need for pages for many more publishers as we get more items from older magazines or newspapers that don't have a byline (they were written by the editorial staff for example). This would be a way to organize these articles where the author is unknown, put we know the source of publication. Otherwise, I'm not sure how we could organize these articles. We need to organize somehow, since we don't just want them to be hanging around as orphaned pages. If someone has an alternative proposal I'd be glad to hear it. - illy 17:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Author pages are useful for users who wish to read works from a particular author; publisher pages would not be useful in the same way, since they merely distribute the works, and many publishers can distribute the same work at various points. We have a categorisation system which organises works by genre, subject, and type, along with less used (and arguably less useful) categories by country, language, original language, and license. I don't think manually organising them by publisher as well is useful. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I see the usefulness of this. For example if we had all the public domain National Geographics on Wikisource. Such a page for National Geographic Magazine would be quite useful. Maybe "publisher" isn't the best term to use. But I can see the point in having such pages.--BirgitteSB 18:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that this would be a useful concept. I'm still unsure about having the prefix "Publisher:" (still need to think about that), but I have been planning on adding periodicals to Wikisource. I'm currently creating a skeleton of links to other digital libraries, many links of which will contain serials. Organizing the serials according to their title would be a very beneficial concept. So, at the outset, I think this is a good proposal, but more time is needed to determine how we should approach. (Oh, and the serials are going to be years down the road, so I'm not thinking of adding mass pages tomorrow or anything.)—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Both Birgitte and you bring up a good point. I'm also unsure whether "Publisher:" is the best prefix, it's just the first term I stumbled upon. I think "Periodical:" would be better, since it seems that this would really be used for magazines and newspapers. It seems like this may need a modification to template:header to add something like a "publishedin" option (but that name sounds clunky, does anyone have better suggestion?). The header would then automatically add "published in xxx", which could be linked to "Periodical:xxx" if the editor desires. - illy 14:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I prefer to organise publications by title. For example, National Geographics/2005/01/Some article, where National Geographics is a comprehensive list of volumes, National Geographics/2005 a list of issues in 2005, National Geographics/2005/01 a list of articles in January 2005, and National Geographics/2005/01/Some article is an individual article. This method has the advantage of making the entire periodical very easily navigable using relative links, making their organisation immediately intuitive to the reader, and grouping the works in the Prefix index. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

This is not incompatible with what I'm proposing, and in fact I think this organization makes a lot of sense and neatly solves the problem of how to organizes the articals under the periodical pages that I started thinking about when I was writting my last entry. My proposal is that we institute some method to make the access to the top level a little easier, as we do with authors. Again, I'm not sure we have a large need for this now, but there is some need now which will grow quite large in the future. This will ensure a uniform look to the periodical pages as our system for authors does. Also, I'm willing to do the work on fleshing this out, once we reach a consensus on the direction. - illy 14:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Standardise the Quran

There was discussion a few days ago, at the bottom of this page, which talks about integrating a reference template for the Quran. After the recent standardisation of the Bible, a reference template for Wikisource texts was created on Wikipedia (Template:Sourcetext), I felt that we could do the same to the Quran. Currently, the format is "Quran surah:starting ayat", with a range of verses/ayat (for example Quran 2:1 contains ayat 1-7 of surah 2, Quran 2:8 contains ayat 8-20, etc), which is quite different to Bible (King James)/Esther#1:1.

My proposal to standardise the Quran would be to move the current version to Quran (Modern)/Surah name, which shouldn't be extremely difficult with transclusions and substituting, as it appears to have a somewhat standard of its own at the minute. This also means that we could implement Gutenberg's George Sale and John Medows translations in the same format (Quran (Sale)/Surah and Quran (Medows)/Surah).

I'd also suggest that we use the Surah name, as per this list.

Anyone have any thoughts or objections? Jude (talk,contribs,email) 08:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it this a great project to work on inserting anchors andstandardization. Our general style of naming translation has been to use the year of the translation unless the Quran is regularly used to being called that way. --BirgitteSB 11:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Hm. Well, I was looking for a date of translation, and it appears that it's the Free Minds translation, and while I can't find a date for it, I imagine that it was somewhat recent and definitely isn't public domain. They have no copyright notice, but the bottom of their website says "Articles and materials on this site may be reproduced, or copied and posted to other sites as long as a link is provided to www.free-minds.org or www.progressivemuslims.org". Possible copyright issue? Jude (talk,contribs,email) 13:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that this kind of licence should be allowed on Wikisource, as it is similar to CC-BY-SA. Yann 18:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
According to Qur'an, we're also hosting The Holy Qur'an, which, according to the discussion page, might also have copyright issues, and Qur'an (English translation), which, again, appears to have copyright issues. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 13:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
There don't appear to be any complaints in regards doing this. I'll start combining and renaming sometime this week, then. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 10:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

"Author:" and "Portal:"

I know there's been a lot of talk about having four new namespaces created ("Author:", "Author talk:", "Portal:", "Portal talk:") but nothing has ever become of it. Mostly we've been waiting for the new namespace manager, which has yet to be released. I think it will be stifling if we wait any longer, so I propose that we go ahead and file a bug for the new namespaces. Any thoughts?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:40, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I asked brion on IRC and he indicated the namespace manager should be relased in July with 1.7. I don't see any reason not to file a bug however. It may not be filled much before then, but then again the release could always change--BirgitteSB 20:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
It was supposed to be released with 1.6, but it obviously wasn't. I realize the developers are busy people and have many things (including real life) that require their time, so I'd rather not wait. Besides, waiting two months to get some projects rolling just seems too long now. But I'll do whatever the consensus is.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm happy for you to raise the bug, no reason to wait any longer with this. AllanHainey 07:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Can someone provide a link to the earlier discussion? I understand the use for "Author" and "Author talk", but I have no idea what "Portal" is or why we would want a namespace for it. Special:Prefixindex/Portal: has nothing but one page which is a double redirect. --Kernigh 18:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

One of the previous discussions is at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2005/12 (2)#Portals, I think it originally developed from discussions at some earlier point, I can't find it though. Portal is basically a hub or focalpoint for all activity on a certain topic, take a look at the draft portal page links below in Wikisource:Scriptorium#Main_page_redesign, or some of the portals on wikipedia. AllanHainey 11:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The Portals are to be used to phase out many "Wikisource:" pages (like Fiction, Non-fiction, Speeches, etc.). Following suit on many other projects, we'd request "Portal:" for a namespace.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Re-reading the old discussion phasing out the wikisource: listing pages wasn't the original intention of the portal pages. I don't think its such a good idea either, at least not for all sections, as the draft portals we've got at the moment are designed to exist alongside the lists.
If we used the portals simply as a replacement that'd mean either just copying the wikisource: listings to the portal page - pointless; or moving over to using categories as the main method of navigation/categorisation. I have real problems with solely using categories on their own (they're cumbersome, confusing - sources can be listed in multiple locations, easy to lose/de-list sources without realising, all you can see is the often uninformative title - rather than title, author & date, etc; lack of any order other than alphebetical). I think, at least for the speeches, where the wikisource pages are in good order & frequently updated, that we should continue to use these alongside the categories & the portal page (similarly for other areas where more would be lost than gained by moving to a solely category based catalogueing system). AllanHainey 15:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Looking back on my comment, speeches was a bad illustration. I was meaning more stuff like poetry. There's just too much poetry to effectively list it on one page. There must be other pages among which we can split them up. And the portal is to bring all those pages together. I agree that phasing out Portal:Speeches is not needed, but we need something other than Wikisource:Poetry so that we can delete this page.

above unsigned comment by Zhaladshar

I agree Wikisource:poetry is very poor, and unlikely to get better unless there is a major drive to improve it, categories may work for it but it shouldn't be assumed they'll work well for everything. AllanHainey 15:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
And I'm not. I have a distinct hatred of categories. But manually upkeeping WS:POETRY will never work. Too much poetry is added too quickly (it's a hot topic here--speeches are added far more slowly and in more moderation) for the manual page to be of any help. Maybe manual pages of poetry by era would work, but that should be a discussion on the portal page for poetry. I see the portal bringing together manual pages and categories into a nice blend that will complement each other. But I still think that most of the very broad Wikisource pages (e.g., Wikisource:Fiction) would be better off as Portal:Fiction, where we link from that pages to more specific manual and category pages.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Announcements

Latest comment: 18 years ago18 comments9 people in discussion

Checkuser permissions

Voting has begun at WS:ADMIN to request Checkuser perimssions. Wikimedia policy is there must be community support for at least two people for this access to be granted to any. I very strongly support having available checkusers here. I would like to point out that according to the Meta policly page we need at least 25 votes of support for each checkuser. As that is and an unprecedented voter turnout for the English Wikisource, we need to encourage everyone in the community to vote. Granting checkuser is a serious amount of trust so it is completely understandable if there are users here who simply do not know a nominee well enough to support them. So I want to encourgage everyone to support whomever you feel you can, do not feel hestitant to vote if you only can support one nominee. I also want to say that by granting this access we are giving whomever are a large responsiblity. No one should expect miracles from this often the answer to a request may be "Inconclusive", also details cannot be shared to protect privacy.--BirgitteSB 17:02, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

25-support rule

Answering a question about the 25-support rule in #wikimedia, steward Datrio stated "Pathoschild: yes, if your Wikipedia is smaller it may be changed, of course". Regardless of how we run the vote, thank you for your trust. :) // Pathoschild (admin / talk)
Oh, that's good. If we even have 25 regular contributors, that'd be amazing.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
BTW, this is an issue that we have faced on Wikibooks as well, where we have two users that are up for a vote for checkuser privileges. Several stewards have been turning down requests explicitly because of the failure to get the 25 votes. IMHO this is a repugnant attitude coming from people used to the larger Wikipedia projects. I have no idea about how to even change this policy of a minimum of 25 users that is a Wikimedia-wide policy at the moment, or why the policy was even set up in this way. --Robert Horning 17:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The user who stated that the 25-support rule was malleable was a steward; if need be, we can request that he do it for us. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 16:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Closing date

I propose the polls be closed at 13:00 on April 11th, giving them the full two weeks usual for important decisions. Any thoughts? // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 03:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I second the proposal. After two weeks, it's unlikely that anybody who hasn't already voted will. Any longer would just be delaying any decision.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Since there there's been no opposition or discussion over this proposed close date, I'll contact a steward to request that Zhaladshar and I be promoted. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 21:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Rejected

I see our request has been rejected. That is a pain! Apwoolrich 18:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource-l mailing list

The Wikisource-l mailing list has been created. To any interested in subscribing, information can be found here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:26, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Subscribed. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Bot flagging now a bureaucrat task

Bot flagging has recently been made a bureaucrat task. On the English Wikisource, Zhaladshar who will be doing this in the future, instead of a steward from m:Requests for bot status. The special page to do so is Special:Makebot, only visible to users with bureaucrat access. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Public domain works in Canada and non-commercial licences

Hi,

There is no a new wiki called Wikilivres hosted in Canada which can host public domain works in Canada (author died more than 50 years ago) and works under a non-commercial licence. It is a multilingual site. There are now works in German, English and French. Free Culture is moved there. Yann 19:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. I have added it at Wikisource:Other digital libraries --BirgitteSB 03:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
This could be a problem... I normally associate the name "Wikilivres" with a Wikimedia project, http://fr.wikibooks.org --Kernigh 19:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Community templates

Hi there, I've just created Wikisource:Template_messages/Community, mainly because I couldn't find a welcome template anywhere - but found it (with a bit of help :-)), and added it here. I've also added a user list, as they're the only other community-type templates I could find. However, I'm not so involved with Wikisource, so I'll leave it to others to decide whether it should stay or change or what to do with it. Cormaggio 10:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Poem extension

I just thought I'd bring to people's attention a bug on Bugzilla. This bug will add a new tag to MediaWiki which will allow us to format poems a lot easier. We won't have to use <div class="verse"> anymore, all interwiki links should be preserved as well. It looks like it's ready to be committed to SVN soon, so I expect it to be operational in not too long.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Whee! // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 23:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Uncategorised templates

Pathoschild has asked me to run a query to find all templates which have not been categorised. There are 449 templates, and the complete list may be found on User:Xenophon (bot)/Results. As noted on that page, this does include anything in the template namespace (including redirects), that has not been categorised, even if the template redirects to a categorised template.

If you categorise a template, please feel free to remove the template from that list. Xenophon (talk,tasks,owner) 06:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll run Pathosbot to sort out redirects and tag templates into Category:Uncategorised templates, and I'll begin sorting them into the appropriate categories sometime soon. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Featured text proposal

The first featured text has been nominated at Wikisource talk:Featured texts. I invite all users to watchlist the page and participate in the weekly nominations, the most popular of which will be prominently displayed on the main page. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 07:14, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Latest comment: 18 years ago40 comments13 people in discussion

Greetings, I would like to add MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism to Wikisource but I'm not sure what the copyright legalities are to do so. How might I go about determining if this particular text can be legally added to Wikisource? Thanks in advance, Netscott 23:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

First you find the original source of the text. You might try getting hold of the person who orginally added it to help you. Then you need to find out the copyright status which hopefully will be stated on the original source. Please be sure you find out the copyright for both the French text and the English translation. If the copyright allows for free distribution even for commercial uses and the French copyright allows for derivatives, then it is most likely OK to put here (be sure to put all your research on the talk page). However, from my experience researching these things my gut says that that article is most likely a violation. --BirgitteSB 00:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually I believe there was in fact no translation (I'll have to confirm this) but all of the authors are known to write in English while the same can't be said for French. I am the editor who originally added the text to Wikipedia but now I'd prefer to have it on Wikisource. I honestly doubt that any of the authors of that letter would have a problem with the free spread of that letter, it was written as an "open letter" and it was not written for financial gains. How have you previously conducted your research when looking for copyright status on similar texts?
Similar but every situation is unique. Where did you get the text from originally? And where was it first printed? I will see what I can find. --BirgitteSB 01:03, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
The text of that letter comes from Jyllands-Posten's web page of it found: here. Thanks for your assistance. Netscott 01:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I just asked m:User:Soufron who happens to be a French lawyer (and knows a great deal more about copyright than me) about putting up open letters published in a French paper. He said "No way." We would have to get explict permission from the author(s) to not only post it on Wikisource, but to freely distribute for any use as compatable with GDFL. --BirgitteSB 01:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, again thanks for your assistance, I've just written Jyllands-Posten inquiring about the copyright status of the letter relative to republication on Wikisource. Hopefully they'll get back to me shortly with a means to pursue publication here. Thanks! Netscott 01:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
When requesting permission to host texts here, please note:
  1. The work must be released under a free license compatible with the GFDL, according to our copyright policy. An exemption from their current license for Wikisource will not suffice, since it will not cover redistribution.
  2. To confirm their agreement to the above point, they should email permissions@wikimedia.org. When this is done, please notify me and I will confirm that we received permission.
// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Historical Documents?

It is difficult to tell exactly what sort of sources are welcome here. I see a lot of original works by early authors, but what about inclusion of historical documents about these authors? I'm intending to put up a transcription (currently only in Old French) of a document seemingly placing Chaucer in Spain in 1366, but I have no clue where exactly it would be welcome. I'm posting it at User:Diabolic.Insidious/FreePass for current reference.

I'm not sure what is ambiguous about this. A primary source document that contains information about Chaucer clearly belongs in Wikisource. The only question is what language. It probably belongs in French (you can ask the people there about Old French), and it is also welcome in English in translation. Dovi 08:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Documents in Old French are welcome on French Wikisource. See Textes médiévaux. Yann 08:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Anonymous Works?

Hi,

How to use the {{header}} with anonymous works? f.e. The Rig Veda Yann 11:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You can override the author with "| noauthor=" A page that uses this construct is Paris Peace Accords. Also I think there are other overrides listed a Template talk:Header.--BirgitteSB 12:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Purging the database?

For some reason, our database has not refreshed itself in some time. Special:Shortpages, Special:Listredirects, and Special:Lonelypages all contain entries which have been deleted or corrected, and now that they aren't disappearing, maintenance is more of a chore than usual. I know there's some expression you can append to the URL that will purge the database and actually give accurate results. What exactly do I need to add to do it?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:59, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. I found the answer.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Brundtland Report

Hi,

Can we publish the Brundtland report here? A poor copy is available on the Swiss government web site. Yann 08:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The new Wikisource:Copyrights policy is very explicit how everything here must follow the GNU Free Documentation License, be public domain, or otherwise be FDL-compatible. However, in many cases there is no way for me to determine whether a particular document on Wikisource is public domain, FDL-licensed, FDL-compatible, fair use (not allowed), or a copyright violation (also not allowed.)

For example, I noticed links to these three documents from the Main Page:

My guess is that the cockpit transcript en:National Transportation Safety Board, which would place it into the public domain (for lack of US government copyright), but I am not so sure about this as to edit the Flight 93 Cockpit Transcript and state that it is in the public domain. However, the declaration-translation and the constitution seem like attempts at fair use to me. Are these documents somewhere indicated as public domain or FDL-compatible? --Kernigh 22:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I've tagged them as {{PD-manifesto}} (new template) and {{PD-USGov}}. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Let me begin by saying that I find copyright a continual source of bafflement, continuing with that of the above article. It's a clear case of something that I think should be in Wikisource (in theory, at least), but I fear its copyright is incompatible. Considering that Wikisource excludes non-commercial licenses, what is the (technical) justification for keeping this in Wikisource? Cormaggio 15:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The UN only began realeasing its works under a non-commercial licence only after 1989. The documents tag still needs to be migrated to Template:PD-UN This what I believe from previous dissusion, if you have reason to doubt this let me know I will do more reasearch. We are quite particular about hosting only what is acceptable to our Copyright Policly which does forbid non-commercial documents.--BirgitteSB 15:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I have no idea of what the original discussion you're referring to said - however, the UN's general copyright notice says that we need express permission from them to publish UN material. I don't think even their terms of use for material on their website allows us to publish it - I think this is to "redistribute" the material, and it seems to violate their policy. Cormaggio 16:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
A large part of the disscusion is here. However the disscusion spans several months and does not explain decisions reached on other pages which affected that disscusion. At any rate the fact that any webite terms of use in 2006 are descibed in some way can not overrule the copyright of the original publication in 1946. It is common practice for websites to claim copyright over everything they contain, even public domain material. As there is no penalty to anyone for falsely claiming such copyright, it generally considered easier to make such claims than to undertake the work of sorting everything out. This a regular practice even when people are aware they could not backup any such claims. At any rate I will bring this up with people who are actually lawyers and find out what they think.--BirgitteSB 16:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks a lot - that makes sense. I was also going to say that, even if we needed permission, I think they would grant us it - and for cases like this, I'm sure there's a pretty standard letter that could be drafted to ask copyright holders to grant us permission. It would be best if this came from an official channel - though i'm not sure which WMF committee would be the right one to handle this - another one to ponder :-) Cormaggio 17:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
If we need permission to put the work her I don't think they will grant us the permission we need. It is not enough just to let us have it here. We also need permission to let others redistribute the works without asking for permission. If they granted such a permission they could just say that anyone can redistribute the text, so their terms of use would not be useful for that work anymore. /82.212.68.183 18:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Technical Question: "Bookmarks"

In reference to the discussion above on Tanakh, I have the following technical question:

When linking within a single page, we use the "#" mark to direct the reader to section headings within that page. The automatic table of contents reflects this.

However, what about a link to a spot in the text that is not the beginning of a new section? I.e. is it possible to place a sort of "bookmark" at some point within a considerably long text, without starting a new section using ===, and link to that point from elsewhere on the same page? If anyone knows the answer, it would be a very valuable tool for the division of texts that for which multiple division schemes are employed.

Furthermore, if such a wiki markup tool does exist, is it possible to optionally hide the bookmarks?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can supply the answer. I suspect the feature does exist somewhere in the wiki markup. Dovi 06:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

You can do like this <span id="bookmark"></span>. This link should link to my reply here. --82.212.68.183 07:42, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Also User:Bookofjude has written Template:Verse which is used throught Bible (King James) and will be added to other translation for easier linking from WP by #. --BirgitteSB 07:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
To anon, very cool and thanks! To Birgitte: I saw that in King James, but didn't understand until now that it could be linked to. Also very cool and useful. This should solve all possible problems with multiple systems for dividing the texts in Jewish Bible translations. Thanks, got to go now. Dovi 07:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it's possible to use {{section}}, {{verse}}, or {{chapter}}. The latter two have the respective documentation on their pages (or if not there, on their talk pages). I was actually intending on writing a script to convert the Tanakh (similar to the one I used to convert the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and similar to the one I need to tweak to use on the World English Bible), which would probably be a lot quicker than doing it manually. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 08:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

More radical technical bookmark question

Thanks, all of that was extremely helpful, and I hope to be using it soon for the Targum to the Song of Songs.

Here is a further question about an even more radical function: If we can insert these kinds of place markers into long texts and link to them, such that when click the link it calls up the page scrolled to that exact spot, perhaps it is possible to do even more, namely to call up just part of a text.

What I mean is this: Let's say we have the entire Book of Genesis on one page (50 chapters), which seems to be how things are being planned now, and is probably the best way to do it for a whole variety of reasons.

But would it be possible to have a page entitled Bible/Genesis/45 (i.e. Genesis chapter 45) which rather than containing its own actual text, would show the text from Bible/Genesis, from an id marker at the beginning of chapter 45 until a marker at its end?

If such a thing is possible (basically, transcluding a pre-defined part of a page, rather than a whole page), then it would prevent a lot of duplification of text. Does such a Mediawiki function exist? If not, does anyone have any idea if such a thing could possibly be implemented? Dovi 20:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if this exactly what you mean, but Jude is working on writing something that is I think similar. Although he will need a toolserver account to run it. The idea is if some one on WP wishes to link to Obadiah 1:3-6. You have seen all the individual verse pages we have been working on. Well this would take Bible/Obadiah/1/3, Bible/Obadiah/1/4, Bible/Obadiah/1/5, and Bible/Obadiah/1/6 magically parse them together and give out a page format like the Obadaih pages but with all four verses under each translation heading instead of just an individual verse. This does not exist yet, but it is the goal. Would that be able to do what you are thinking of? The text wouldn't actually exist at Genesis 45 but all of the text within the 45th chapter of Genesis would be produced on request, saving us the duplication. --BirgitteSB 20:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I quite understand what you're getting at. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you mean having Bible/Genesis/45 getting content from Bible/Genesis (from marker at the beginning of 45 until the end of 45)? With actual Wiki markup, this isn't possible; it's possible, however, to have Bible/Genesis get content from Bible/Genesis/1, which gets content from all of it's verse subpages.
In regards to Birgitte's comment above mine, yes, I'm working on a script that's very similar to the one that powers enwiki's {{bibleverse}}, only that actually works with the Bible/Genesis/1/1 etc format. I could run it outside of the toolserver, but it would be painful on my bandwidth if it were to become regularly used. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 07:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, in response to Jude: What you describe (having Bible/Genesis pick up text from from Bible/Genesis/1) is basic transclusion. It is a very serious tool, and in fact this is the way we have built some Bible texts on Hebrew Wikisource: By transclusion of individual verses (and commentaries to individual verses) into larger texts. This opens up a whole world of possibilities, but it has a very major drawback: It requires an enormous amount of manuel work for even a very small text.

What I am suggesting is the opposite (and you understood me correctly): Instead of loading Bible texts in bit-by-bit so that individual verses can be displayed in various contexts through transclusion, to rather be able to upload the entire text with the id markers you so helpfully described, and be able to call up, say, the KJV version of Numbers 9:3, or of Numbers chapter 9, or even of Numbers 9:3-6, in any other context. Without this function, the text needs to be duplicated in various contexts. Let's say one wanted to display the KJV of Numbers chap. 9 with commentaries, or parallel to other translations, or along with its original languages. Without such a function, the text needs to be duplicated time and again, and all the various places have to be updated alike manually. With a "partial transclusion" function a great many possibilities would be openned. Instead of building a large text out of millions of smaller texts (through regular transclusion), small text could be cited from larger texts and rearranged.

In response to Birgitte: When you write that what I suggested sounds very similar to Jude's idea, I think you are correct. You wrote that the idea is to "call up Bible/Obadiah/1/3, Bible/Obadiah/1/4, Bible/Obadiah/1/5, and Bible/Obadiah/1/6 magically parse them together and give out a page format like the Obadaih pages but with all four verses under each translation heading instead of just an individual verse."

But if that is possible, i.e. if a tool is created to call up several wiki pages but to rearrange predefined parts of their texts when they are transcluded, then the kind of "partial transclusion" I am describing should be equally possible, because it is basically the same thing. If, using Jude's tool, you can call up Bible/Obadiah/1/4 and put its KJV part into one specific place, and its other parts in other places, then you should also be able to call up the KJV part alone. Does that logic make as much sense to others as it does to me? Dovi 13:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Partial transclusion of text

Based on the above, I have entered a Mediawiki extension request for:

Please vote for this bug. If something like this is implemented it could be enormously useful in many Wikisource areas (not just Bible). For instance:

  • Selections from Featured texts (as in the new main page proposal) could be transcluded, rather than copied and pasted.
  • A proofreading question could be referenced by calling up the relevant chapter, rather than the whole book (when the whole book is on a single page).
  • Later texts that cite earlier texts could link to the precise passage in the original (and vice versa), in order to do easy comparisons of the citation with the original.

And of course, relating to the above Bible discussion, any verse or series of verses in any version could be automatically cited in any context. So please go vote for the bug. And anyone who can contribute knowledge on a technical level - please do! Dovi 09:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

On receiving permission to post a modern author's work

I have sought out, and received, permission to post essay material that the author has penned on another site. What is the PD-template necessary to make clear that the author has given permission for someone to do so on wikisource? --Chr.K. 23:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Before we can accept the work, confirmation of permission should be emailed to permissions@wikimedia.org. The works must be released under a license compatible with the Gnu Free Documentation License, as described by the copyright policy. Please note that permission for Wikisource only is not acceptable; the work must be equally useable by redistributors of our content. Finally, please note that our inclusion guidelines require that works be previously published in some medium involving peer review (published books or magazines, important speeches, et cetera).
It may all seem a bit complicated, but it prevents copyright problems for the Foundation. If you have any questions about any of the above, feel free to contact me on my talk page or respond here and I'll clarify or explain. :) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:15, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages & editorial comment

I'd always thought that our policy was any editorial comment on authenticity/accuracy/consistency with other sources/etc of any texts should be noted on the talk page rather than the article page. I had thought that this was noted in our guidelines but given the recent revamping it looks like this has been lost. Can someone please confirm, or deny, my recollections. The issue this query relate to is discused on Talk:Cast off the Yoke of Bondage. Any comment on that page would be welcome too. AllanHainey 07:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem putting it in the "notes=" parameter on the main page. It should not be in the body text by any means though. However, I don't think it's necessary at all. As we are collecting source texts, everything will be POVed in some direction. We should not "balance" them out--that will destroy the entire purpose of the work. The most NPOV rules we should follow is on our part, not the part of some author and what he writes. In terms of talk pages, I've only ever used them to discuss possible changes are questions of clarification for what's contained on the actual page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Registration Page

Could the tabindex on the registration page be fixed? Right now, hitting tab in the captcha entry box doesn't take you to the username field. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johnsu01 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 15 May 2006.

That would require a developer; administrators can't change that. You should try asking in the #wikimedia-tech IRC channel on Freenode. If you do, remember to be specific in your suggestion. :) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Multiple editions

I have two newbie questions relating to w:Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities which do not seem to be covered elsewhere. 1) Baird died in 1917 but the copyright has presumably been renewed for later editions, the most recent of which are 1978 and 1991. Are, say, the 1879 or 1915 editions suitable for posting to Wikisource? 2) If so, what is the proper way to distinguish the two different editions, which also have different names (the original was simply American College Fraternities)? - Choster 22:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

1) Both the 1879 and 1915 editions are in the public domain by definition. It is perfectly fine to upload them here.
2) If there are noticeable differences between what we currently have and what you have, then by all means upload them here. This is not something that is very common, but I would suggest putting them all on one page, under one name, and using "==" or "===" headers to separate the different editions.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. No edition is yet in Wikisource, so I figured it would be a good place to start.-Choster 01:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Other discussions

Latest comment: 18 years ago56 comments17 people in discussion

Non commercial texts

What should we do with Bahá'í texts that are under a Non-Commercial license ("The Content must be used solely for a non-commercial purpose." in en.wikisource? (such as Hidden Words). According to the copyright policy, they should be deleted. Bogdan 17:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Sadly, we'll have to delete them.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
However, I was browsing their site, and someone could try to e-mail them for permission to use under a commercial license.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:40, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
How about asking the guy who put them there. As I recall he was very knowledgable about coding matters. But I have not seen him around recently. Apwoolrich 20:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
They've apparently updated their copyright statement, which no longer places a restriction against noncommercial use. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 21:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that's nice. But it still fails to reach our standards, because it only allows reproduction, not derived works. I am not sure, but I thought that allowing derived works is part of the meaning of "free" on Wikipedia. I know that you are not allowed to upload pictures under CC-ND licenses. Bogdan 23:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
This is not Wikipedia, we do not make derived works as they do. We host already existing and published documents. We also protect pages when the work is complete and free from errors which is also contrary to what Wikipedia would do. --BirgitteSB 02:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Prohibitions on modifications or derivative works should be okay. Even the GNU Free Documentation License has a provision for Invariant Sections. --Kernigh 21:29, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone with a PDF extractor?

Would love to see the Flight 93 Cockpit Transcript reproduced on WikiSource. The translation is all courtesy US Gov't, not CNN, so copyright is not an issue. Sherurcij 19:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I ran an OCR over the PDF and put it here: Flight 93 Cockpit Transcript. I had not checked the text. 83.103.181.182 09:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Much love, I made a few wikilinks and removed the tag. Sherurcij 21:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Should footnotes be converted to wiki format?

I recently dropped a chapter of text into The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments/Part_IV and, as I am used to doing with wikipedia articles, I used the <ref name=thing>the text in the footnote</ref> format to make the footnote jump to the appropriate part of the txt and vice versa. When I looked at some of the other chapters in the work I noticed the footnotes had been put in as plain text.

My question is: should I use the more dynamic wiki footnote system or leave the text in its original form? --Dmoss 10:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, always endnote, please. Some PG texts had the endnote embedded in the course of the text, so the <ref name=thing>the text in the footnote</ref> works fine. In others they are grouped at the end, so this method will not work. Instead the protocol: {{ref|*}} and *{{note|*}} will need to be used instead. But don't leave the notes as plain text. Apwoolrich 11:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by plain text. It might be possible you happened upon a page with bad formatting and it needs work to be brought up to WS standards. But I agree with Apwoolrich; usually the {{ref}} and {{note}} works fine (or even the <ref> tags work fine, although they aren't as widely used right now.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that the <ref> syntax is preferable, with all notes output in one place using <references />. The {{ref}} and {{note}} syntax is an older method preferable on pages where the notes should be listed in multiple places, such as listing notes at the end of each chapter on a page with many chapters. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 14:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
It's not likely, though, that the same footnote needs to be in more than one place? Should we, then, transfer all istances of {{ref}} to <ref>? I like the appeal of doing notes automatically (it avoids some problems that have popped up over the years of using template footnotes).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:22, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I see no reason not to do so. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 14:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
The ref and note templates are much more variable than the other method. I have no problem with people using the automatic reference where it will work, but please don't convert the other style. It allows you to use any marker you want to recognize a footnote such as * for example. I know I have used that in particular. There were other reasons these templates were made to be so adjustable that I need to look up.--BirgitteSB 16:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Some PG texts have notes inserted in the texts where the reference numbers appear, others are grouped at the end of the text. I think we should be free to use the most appropriate referencing system depending on which kind of text we have. Don't forget the <ref name=thing>the text in the footnote</ref> was developed to automatically update reference numbers on WS where an editor inserted a new reference and note. The texts we work on have the notes written and placed before we get them, so there is really no need for the auto-update feature, unless the text has embedded notes as noted above. Apwoolrich 19:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Audio

An editor recently brought up audio files at Talk:The Hunting of the Snark. I don't know if any of this is new anyone else, but LibriVox.org has a library of public domain audio recordings including books and poetry. I looked at Help:Audio, but all that information is for creating audio files not adding them. I believe during talk about the Weasel Flight Transcript it was mentioned that we have an 18 MB limit on audio files. Well it seems that The Hunting of the Snark is 19 MB according to LibriVox, and that is not an very long work. How should we handle these files? I have no expertise in this. I can't even get my computer to play .ogg files, but I think it is important to intergrate these files on Wikisource somehow. --BirgitteSB 00:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Integrating audio files would be fantastic. I believe the limit is, in fact, 18MB on uploaded files. So for anything larger, it will have to be split into two files or some editing will have to happen to shave it down into the appropriate limit. However, smaller files are more preferrable (from my perspective) just because they cut down on the bandwidth usage (should the entire file not actually be used, but only a portion). I'll give the site a look tomorrow, but this could be a major boost for us.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Would appreciate any help

Just trying to make a Template:911 similar to my earlier Template:Nuremberg, but curious whether there were any other documents on Wikisource at this point related to the issue. (I'm avoiding Presidential Addresses, I think) Sherurcij 01:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: WikiMLConvert

I'm considering the creation of a public <format>-to-wikimarkup conversion script hosted on my server. This script would accept input from a user in various formats and output perfectly formatted wiki markup. The specific conversions to wikimarkup I've thought of, in the general order they'd be developed, are HTML, badly formatted wiki markup, Microsoft Word, and plaintext. The input form would probably be similar to that of listips (another tool), albeit better documented and with more options.

The script is intended to surpass other similar tools available in terms of:

  • user-friendliness and simplicity of use;
  • conformance to Wikisource conventions;
  • extended options for experienced users;
  • Much greater variety of accepted format on a single page;
  • open source code with full documentation;
  • open development (suggestions, examples, and code from editors all welcome).

Everyone is welcome to help find badly-formatted texts on Wikisource and text from various other sources and formats. Users knowledgeable in regex and/or PHP are welcome to help with the coding. The documentation and discussion would probably be located at Wikisource:Tools and scripts/WikiMLConvert.

Any comments or discussion are welcome.

Postscriptum: In case anyone wonders, "WikiMLConvert" is short for Wiki Markup Language Conversion script. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource-I mailing list

I've been looking at the mailing lists that the Foundation currently has. I've noticed that most of our sister projects have a mailing list going yet we do not. I would like to know how receptive the people here would be to having a mailing list for WS. This would allow us some cross-language coordination (or, at the very least, we would know the goings-on at other projects), and it would allow other people not involved in WS to see some things that are going on here. It's another way to make people knowledgable about what's going on here.

I'm going to bring this up at the multi-WS, too, but I want to use the English sub-domain as a test case before I bring it up with the full WS community.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to propose it, but I personally don't see a need for it. Such discussions can easily be carried out at the multilingual scriptorium without overwhelming it. It seems to have less discussion than this page does, though I imagine plenty of discussion occurs elsewhere. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 04:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea. I would certainly join the list. --BirgitteSB 11:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
The problem is, few people check the multi WS and discuss there. Most discussions will stall and die if put there as most contributors (minus a few admins from the multi-WS) stick to their own language sub-domain. And the purpose of the mailing list would also be to allow non-WS contributors to see what's going on. Many WP editors have quite a good knowledge of technical issues and general, good ideas for improvement (i.e., ideas for improvement that don't relate to the content of WS, but to other matters).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I would join too. Apwoolrich 17:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I would join as well, although I'm more active in on-wiki discussions. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 19:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I would join as well... I feel that it's often easier to demonstrate concepts within the message posting than wiki-syntax allows here. GregRobson 21:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
How so? Wikimarkup is quite flexible. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

EB1911 categorization scheme

Discussion moved to "EB1911 classification" on the the WikiProject 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica talk page. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair use and speeches

As I have found User:AllanHainey requesting protection of several speeches and some are copyrighted with licenses possibly incompactible with GFDL, such as British Crown Copyright, I would like to continue Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/03#Fair_use_.26_Speeches and say that since our latest Wikisource:Copyright policy has disallowed fair use and non-commercial licenses here, I consider fair use of speeches unacceptable. Please reply with what you think.--Jusjih 14:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair use of copyrighted speeches is not acceptable. However, most speeches are not copyrighted, or are copyrighted without restrictions. I suggest these fair use speeches be considered on a case-by-case basis, unless their license is clearly incompatible with our license. Many may be available under a free license, or may be made available by requesting permission from the copyright holders. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:24, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't assert that these speeches are 'fair use', in the U.S.A. copyright law sense at any rate. We've discussed this before in the archive link Jusjih gives & taken the view that, though they might be copyrighted, political speeches verbally given by political figures for the purpose of disseminating widely their own point of view on a particular issue of interest to the public are acceptable for wikisource & wouldn't be protected under copyright (though they may be posted in written form after they were given on sites which claim it). AllanHainey 15:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
A speech is only copyrighted if it is fixed in tangible form. That means it can be copyrighted if the sound is recorded, if someone is videoed giving the speech or if someone takes down the text of the speech in written form. However note that in many jurisdictions the people who give speeches have a right to refuse permission to record a speech under the concept of performers' rights. David Newton 20:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

What copyright tag are we placing on modern speeches that are not given by a US federal offical as part of their duties?--BirgitteSB 20:41, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Currently we don't put any copyright tag on modern speeches, whether by U.S.A. federal employees (& most of our American speeches are at least by politicians - whether they're considered federal employees I don't know) or by non-American politicians (most of out speeches are political in any event). AllanHainey 12:11, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I've created {{PD-manifesto}} below for unlicensed public manifestos and speeches. Does this seem appropriate?
This work is a public manifesto or speech which is not known to be licensed, and is assumed to be in the public domain.
If the work is found to be licensed, the work should be blanked and reported at Possible copyright violations. This template should only be used after a reasonable effort has been made to verify that the work is unlicensed.
// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
This looks great, only thing I'd suggest is instead of writing "blanked" we have "tagged Copyvio". Will your bot be able to apply it to all the speeches listed on Portal:Speeches since 1936? If it can I'll manually remove it from those few it doesn't seem appropriate for. A rather round about way but I think it'll be quicker than manually adding as it'll apply to most, if not all, from the last 70 years. By the way is it possible for your bot to read the dates on author pages & apply the appropriate PD templates like Template:Author-PD-old & Template:Author-PD-old-70 to the relevant author pages. If so could you add this to the bots to-do list. Thanks. AllanHainey 07:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Reading the dates from the author template would require a new extension to Pathosbot. There are a few other extensions I want to write when I have time, so it may be a while before I get around to that. I think Bookofjude is writing a new bot to tag pages without the author or header template; he may be willing to expand that bot to cover the task.
On the other hand, tagging the speeches is well within its current scope. I temporarily disabled Pathosbot for troubleshooting, but I'll do it as soon as the bot's back up. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Qur'an integration

The English Wikipedia template wikipedia:Template:Quran-usc was created to link to a good source of the Qur'an when it is quoted. My first thougths were is linking to an MSA website (althought it is very limited in non-Qur'an advertising on those specific pages) NPOV... furthermore why should we link outside if Wikisource can do the job? Is there a way that we can anchour all of our Qur'an verses to make it easiky linkable from Wikipedia? Also, the USC-MSA has four translations and I don't knwo the copyright statuses... Also, if those four don't all come from one public domain source could we even add them together on Wikisource? I just wanted to test the waters on this because further Wikisource integration would allow us control over the content instead of linking to an, albeit faster and more stable, outside site. 128.175.29.115 12:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to do as you like with the sources as long as the copyright allows it. You might want to read Wikisource:Translations and Wikisource:Annotations. The main issue with combining several PD translations is that is titled in a way that lets readers know what you did. Also I don't know how your template works, but you could always insert html anchors into the text here to make linking easier.--BirgitteSB 13:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

EB1911 orphan pages

I have re-jigged the EB1911 main page and listed all the volumes with details of the start and finish article names. There are a number of orphan EB1911 articles on WS, and I ask that anyone finding one lists it on the appropriate volume page. Apwoolrich 15:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Statistics: author categories versus templates

I compiled statistics comparing the alphabetical author categories to the templated authors index. I fully expected the categories to best the templates by far; surprisingly, the templates are slightly more complete than the categories (discounting redlinks). The templates catalogue 797 author pages (average 31), whereas the categories catalogue 777 (average 30). That makes for a total difference of 3% in favour in the templates. You can see a complete side-by-side comparison for each letter at User:Pathoschild/Statistics/2006-05/Comparison between author templates and categories. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this study. How on earth are the templates more complete than the categories? I would have expected it to be the other way around, with the templates only providing the benefit of listing meta material that categories as we know them cannot present. Odd...—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the reason for this is User:Illy Good work Illy! --BirgitteSB 04:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Illy's extremely hard work is a major result of this, you're right!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. It's not that hard. Just have to scan the New pages for Author: pages every few days, and make sure they're added. And a lot of the editors here always make sure that they add the authors to the templates. That helps a lot. - illy 16:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Illy, the work is appreciated. I assume the reason for doing the statistics of category vs templates was probably to aid in deciding which should be our main method of catalogueing authors. The results don't seem definitive either way but I'd go for the templates just because they provide more information and are better presented. Categories are a useful secondary resource, and are exceedingly useful for other pages, but I think templates should remain in force & active use. AllanHainey 08:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Vandal Fighting Tool

On wikipedia I found this W:User:AmiDaniel/VandalProof, it is a tool which seems to have a lot of features which could be useful in identifying & dealing with vandals. The user page says "VandalProof allows users to peruse recent changes, watch lists, and user contributions; if they find vandalism, in one click they can revert it, post the appropriate warning template on the vandal's talk page, add that person to their blacklist and add the revert to their automated vandalism log". This seems to simplify and cut down on the time spent dealing with vandalism. I don't know how easy it would be to use on wikisource or whether any changes would need to be made to its code but I thought I should bring it up here. AllanHainey 14:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Note that there's a new IRC channel dealing with vandalism at #vandalism-en-ws. A bot in this channel lists new usernames, all edits made by users that aren't whitelisted, can track blacklisted users, and has a wide range of other options (see the bot documentation). It is hosted on the same IRC server as #wikisource, the official Wikisource channel. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

New TeX Font

I have been editing some mathematical and scientific articles from the EB1911, and I have come across a problem with the current PNG rendering of TeX formulae. The PNGs are fine for display equatons, but for inline equations, they are awful - the font is far too big, and the equation then really messes up the layout of the paragraph. You can't use the HTML version either, as this is too small, and alos the characters somtine run together, especially if you have powers. Obviously, if you have fractions or integrals etc., then you don't even have the choice of HTML.

A solution to this problem is to change to rendering of the PNGs. Wikia, formerly WikiCities, has a version of the TeX renderer that makes the equation more compact, more, in fact, like the original EB1911.

A proposal has been put forward on Bugzilla to provide this renderer to WS, in addition to the existing version, perhaps using tags like <maths>NEW STYLE EQUATION</maths>, and I have added a comment and a vote to this. If anyone else thinks that this is a good idea, please add you voice to those at the Bugzilla page: (you need to register, but it take less than a minute) Bugzilla Bug 4915.

An comparison between the two is found here, and an example of where this would be useful is Infinitesimal Calculus. The example is located just after the start of §6.

I think you will agree that this version will make the inline equations on WS much better.

Thanks,

Jjbeard 19:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Please support this and vote. Mine made it the fourth and more are needed. Apwoolrich 07:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Page Linking

On author pages, some dates are linked to their respective Wikipedia page like 2004, and others aren't. The Author:George W. Bush page shows this as some dates are linked and some aren't. Is there a standard policy?--Politicaljunkie 20:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not aware of any policy, but I think that linking to Wikipedia year articles is a waste of effort. Linking to Wikipedia:George W. Bush and Wikiquote:George W. Bush was useful because some readers will be interested in those articles. In Wikipedia:2004, Bush is not mentioned until the timeline reaches August 29. --Kernigh 23:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This is often done by Wikipedians who misunderstand date linking; dates are often linked because the software recognizes relationships between linked dates and converts them to the user's preferred date system. However, the software most likely does not recognize interwikilinked dates. Further, this is entirely pointless on orphaned year links, since there are no relationships possible.
Less often, dates are linked to provide context relevant to the subject at hand. This doesn't usually apply on Wikisource. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that year linking is pointless. The links from WS to WP articles should help provide context for the actual work in question. More often than not, the page on WS that links to a year on WP will not even be mentioned once on the year page. I would suggest we just go and remove all those interwiki links on the basis of irrelevancy.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
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