Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-06

From Wikisource
< Wikisource:Scriptorium | Archives
Latest comment: 18 years ago by BirgitteSB in topic Other discussions
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Proposals

Latest comment: 18 years ago64 comments16 people in discussion

Fundamentally rethink categories

Currently, our categories are much like boxes containing works matching specific criteria. For example, we have the category Ancient poetry inside Ancient works. This type of hierarchical organisation is necessary if we treat categories as individual boxes without considering relations.

However, I propose that we fundamentally rethink our category system to favour a more flexible tag-like system, allowing extremely powerful crossreferencing. A toolserver script, Cat Scan, allows users to scan two categories (and subcategories) for intersection. A scan for "Ancient works" and "Poems" lists poems in the ancient era (much more efficiently replacing Category:Ancient poetry). This vastly simplifies categorisation and allows for very powerful searches. For example, I could very easily search for Featured ancient-era texts or spoken Culture-related works.

The source code is available under the GPL, so I'd like to derive a simplified Wikisource-specific script capable of searching multiple categories. For example, this would allow a user to search for [ Featured ][ spoken ][ elegies ][ originally written in Gujarati ] and [ released under a Creative Commons license ] in the [ modern era ]. This is somewhat more specific than a user would probably ever wish for, of course, but shows the advantages of a tag-based category system. The current equivalent would be Category:Featured spoken elegies originally in Gujarati and released under a Creative Commons license in the modern era, which is obviously unscalable.

Another advantage of this system would be the ability to have indexes that are fundamentally different from the categories. For example, Wikisource:Fiction/Middle English/Titles could refer to a scan of [ Medieval ] [ fiction ], effectively creating an automated category specific to that index, allowing users to very easily find unindexed works (instead of manually sifting through Category:Medieval works, for example). Such an index might even provide links to searches like [ Medieval ] [ fictional ] [ poetry ] and [ Medieval ] [ fictional ] [ short stories ].

Categorising a work would then be reduced to simply choosing from a list of appropriate tags. Select the genre, era, original language, and subject; the category system will automatically fill out the millions of possible virtual categories.

The Cat Scan script is somewhat complicated for the average user, but a Wikisource-specific script would be much more user-friendly. Before I create a proof of concept, I'm wondering if others would prefer this system. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

This is beyond my technical ability, so I don't see exactly how it works. How do we tag pages? Is there a proper syntax we must follow, or do we not directly tag the pages, but instead add the tags to some database (like for an entry "Hyperion" we would tag it "Romance poetry," "British poetry," etc.)? This seems promising, but I'd like more information on how it works. Also, would this replace categories in their entirety? How would users use the tag system to search? I know it's a lot of questions. Sorry.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
The system makes use of the existing categories. A poem written in 1915, for example, is tagged into Category:Poems and Category:Modern works. If a user wanted to find modern poetry, they would combine Category:Poems with Category:Modern works. The categories act as preset search criteria in that capacity.
We could facilitate normal browsing by placing links to preset combinations on the category pages for criteria that would currently be subcategories. For example, Category:Poems might contain a list of links that look like the below (using the currently-used era system). These lists could be implemented with templates, such that adding {{search by era}} would create a list relevant to the current category.
The systems aren't mutually exclusive; we can easily test-pilot the new system alongside the current one for as long as we want. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
So this system would, in most cases, eliminate the use of subcatagories?--BirgitteSB 15:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
It would eliminate those categories that exist as a combination of two parent categories, but not all subcategories are combinations. For example, "Modern poetry" (child of Poems and Modern works) would be eliminated, but not Science fiction (child of Fiction). // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 17:00, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
This sounds really good, and I'd like to see this go into development. My next question relates to interface. The current system (using the version on the Tool Server) is really nasty. If you create a WS-specific script for this, would you be considering changing the presentation of results of the CatScan, or would users have to use the fairly non-aesthetic page that comes up?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I would really like to see this implemented. It solves many of this isuues with the current standard category system. --BirgitteSB 13:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It also gives us immense freedom in tagging works and in finding works relative to certain tags. For this, all we need are some basic, general categories, and through combinations on one page, we can find more specific works. Like Pride and Prejudice. It's tagged "Romance" and "Novels," so we can search for "Romance novels" by searching the two words in tandem, and Pride and Prejudice will come up.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The script would be hosted on my server or the Wikimedia toolserver with a skin similar to Wikisource, most likely the skin I'm using in my monobook (screenshot of same skin on Wikipedia) with the usual Wikisource navigation menus. I'll probably move some of the search options to a seperate 'advanced search' section and simplify the basic form, and add in some basic instructions and help on choosing categories. Ideally, it should be quite newbie- and user-friendly. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 13:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Important change in the policy of de.wikisource

Important info for those who contributed German texts in the last years. --Jofi 21:27, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's the gist of the change from the multi-WS:
At de.wikisource there is a majority of those, who don't want to have texts without source or texts copied from other websites any longer (see here). So, if you contributed German texts in the last years, I strongly encourage you to add your source to the text. If you cannot do this or if you copied the text from another website and you want to keep your wikified version of it, then now is the right time to copy your text from de and to transfer ist elsewhere. It most likely will be deleted at de. --Jofi 21:24, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

New: Wikisource Statistics!

Wikisource Statistics have been updated by Erik Zachte, and they are now available for language domains for the first time! Enjoy. Dovi 05:18, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 12:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Deletions of unneeded redirects should probably no longer be speedy

I would like to propose removing deletions of "unneeded" redirects as speedy. I just noticed an appeal at WS:DEL regarding Rights Of Man. Currently, there is no clear definition as to what redirects are needed or unneeded. If at least two admins have conflicting opinions, wheeling wars are about to happen. Very persuasive deletions of "unneeded" redirects may also bite newcomers, which will be bad for our Wiki site. For these reasons, I would like to suggest any users, especially my dear fellow admins, to look at w:WP:RfD and reconsider allowing speedy deletions of "unneeded" redirects.--Jusjih 14:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you please elaborate on what the difference of opinion is about? I don't see why we need to alter the speedy policy, it might be better to add something about redirects to the style guide. As I said I really not sure what the issue is, but as far I am concerned redirects do no harm. If there is any doubt about a particular redirect we should probably keep it. I think most redirect deletions come from page moves which usually makes them "uneeded". I hope that we can avoid a large part of the contention that exists at en.WP (RfD or elsewhere) by simply listening to one another rather than complicated policy.--BirgitteSB 00:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikisource is not just a subproject of Wikipedia that is only linked from there. It is a project of its own and I should be able to link here from external sites and rely on that the links will work in the future. Therefor redirects left over from page moves do not become unneeded when all links from Wikimedia projects are changed. So don't just delete redirects without thinking. --82.212.68.183 10:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
That is a goood point. Lately, due to finally codifing naming conventions, we have had a larger number of page moves than we should hopefully ever have in the future. The resulting redirect from moving a recently created page should probably be deleted without any implications. But perhaps we should leave a soft redirect on pages that have existed for some time. "This page has moved, please update your link to X" Which could be deleted after three months or so. Does that seem acceptable to everyone? --BirgitteSB 11:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not think we should change our policy, just encourage editors to delete with caution. In terms of Rights Of Man, no Wikimedia project should be linking to that page (they should be linking to Rights of Man) because it is poor capitalization practices, and I think it would be a bad idea to try to cover every single different form of (improper) capitalization for every single page. But having thousands of redirects of chapter pages (e.g. BOOK_NAME - CHAPTER #) is no good because they bog down Special:Listredirects and do not allow us to see what beneficial redirects we have (the list cuts off after 1,000 for some reason). Also, the only thing that would possibly link to chapter pages would be interwikis on other WS projects--most sister projects would just link to the actual book page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Rights Of Man is needed for case-insensitive Go-button matching. With it, variant capitalizations of "Rights of Man" go to Rights of Man. Without it, they go to "No page with that title exists". The Go button is case-insensitive only for page titles with a certain form of capitalization. Because Rights of Man, being mixed-case, is not such a form, it needs a supplementary redirect to trigger the Go button's case-insensitivity—hence Rights Of Man. We don't need a separate redirect for each variant; Rights Of Man covers them all. See here for details about Go-button matching and redirects from other capitalizations. Tim Smith 15:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I did not know that. Thanks for clearing that up, Tim. That said, I still do not think we need to remove redirects from speedy; we just need to make sure admins know about the case-sensitivity issues regarding the "Go" button, so that when they see redirects like that, they will not delete them.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree this is an important issue for us to be aware of. I believe we should make sure these redirects are in place for any mixed-capiltilization main titles, while ignoring the issue with any subpages. I do not believe people will be using "Go" for a specific chapter. Does anyone disagree with this?--BirgitteSB 16:38, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Not at all. Redirects like these (which will be for just about every work) should be made, but only made for the main work.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
We should better define what can or cannot be speedily deleted. For chapter pages, I do not object speedy deletion after redirects, but for others, we should think carefully.--Jusjih 15:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Unneeded redirects defined
  • Redirect from a page within 24 hours after creation, or at any time for subpages only.
  • Soft redirect after it has existed for three months
  • Redirect from alternate mixed case capitolizations (One redirect for all first letters capitalized is all the is needed)
Anything else?--BirgitteSB 15:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Nope. Sounds good to me.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
This would only apply to redirects in the main namespace, correct? For that matter, I'd prefer if the redirects related to the Bible and the Book of Mormon were left (obviously they don't fit into the criteria) as these are used on Wikipedia. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 23:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I support the proposed definitions.--Jusjih 09:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

See "Clarify M2 (unneeded redirects)" on Wikisource talk:Deletion policy, where I've proposed the expanded criteria below. Further discussion would be more appropriate on that page, since it concerns an amendment to that policy.

2. Unneeded redirects created within the last week, or older redirects tagged with {{subst:dated soft redirect|"[[new title]]"}} for at least two months. Redirects to inexistant pages may be deleted at any time. Unneeded redirects include alternate mixed-case capitalisation (one redirect for all-first-letter capitals suffices), and redirects from page moves where the original title is incorrect.

// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Labeled section translusion

Hi, following discussions with developers over the past couple of weeks, I have created a new page for this. Please discuss, modify, comment, etc., feedback is very important on this.

Currently, this proposal is mostly relevant to the people who are working here on Bible in its various versions. I strongly recommend that those working on Bible in English consider the efforts that have already been made at Hebrew Wikisource, which point to the need for this proposal, and learn from previous experience. This is especially because similar efforts have begun in English.

This function has the potential to be highly useful not just for Bible, but for other types of literature as well. Technically it now is clear that it is possible, the next step is for Wikisource to consider how it might be used. Dovi 07:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I just voted for the bug. I had no idea that so much progress had been made over the last couple months! I'm not really sure what sort of things I can do to help discuss and modify this, it seems fairly comprehensive as to what our desires are and what it should accomplish.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you so much Dovi for sticking with this idea. I really did not understand it before and would have kept doing things the difficult way. One of my favorite sayings is a smart person learns from his past mistakes, but a wise person learns from other's mistakes. Thank you again for insisting we act wisely here.--BirgitteSB 15:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the positive feedback! I think part of the problem initially was that I didn't make it clear enough. And the reason I didn't make it clear enough was because I hadn't thought it through well enough myself. Discussing it with others helped a great deal.

Please register support on the bottom of the proposal page and vote for the bug. Dovi 19:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

CommonsTicker

As some of you may have read on Wikisource-l, CommonsTicker is a new feature that is currently being set up on WMF projects. I propose we get that here, as we will be using more and more Commons files (we already are using audio files on Commons) and we will want to know if anything will happen to them. If there is enough support for it, all contact Duesentrieb and sponsor getting one set up here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Support This looks to be a very useful tool--BirgitteSB 23:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Absolute support, this looks extremely useful. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 01:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Support This looks great. - illy 09:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Support! --Kernigh 21:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC) I just noticed that we now have it: Wikisource:CommonsTicker. --Kernigh 21:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
What does this actually do, I'm not on Wikisource-l(don't know what it is either) so I've never heard of it. AllanHainey 15:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Read the email to wikisource-l and MetaWikipedia:User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker, but in brief, CommonsTicker is a page on en.wikisource that would show when an image on Commons used by en.wikisource is overwritten or tagged for deletion. (However, I have never seen a functional CommonsTicker and do not know how well it works.) I think that it will be useful, because I store public-domain images for Wikisource on Commons. --Kernigh 21:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Proofreading in an organized fashion

I think we will have difficulties the feature text criteria if we do not address proofreading issuses. I propose to start Wikisource:Wikiproject:Proofreaders. Any one is welcome to join and list five texts they would like to have proofread. Each time a member proofreads a text from someone elses list they get to add another text to theirs. Of course this does guarantee anyone will proofread a particular text. In fact I imagine listing texts with scans on-line or ones more commonly owned will improve thier chances of being picked. Also I expect this will be more sucessfull with poetry than novels, howeever I think it is worth trying out. What does everyone else think?--BirgitteSB 23:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. It can also be useful for various encyclopedia articles, etc. Danny 23:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to get organized on proofreading and protection in order to become a reliable source that people go to first as a reference. The system above sounds like a good start to get us organized. I also think we need to decide what 'many users' means in our criteria for 100% & protection, so we know when to stop proofreading and move on. Banjee ca 01:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know that we should set a hard number on proofreaders. Somethings just require more care and proofreaders then others. For example I would want to see more proofreders approve The Canterbury Tales than If—. Although we do need to talk about some guidlenine, I think it could be hashed out at Wikisource:Featured texts. Anyone who thinks a text needs more proofreading can object that it should not be 100%.--BirgitteSB 03:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree that not all texts the same - I'll put further comments at Wikisource:Featured texts. Banjee ca 10:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I think a WikiProject for this would be a great step forward. We really need to coordinate proofreading works for a few reasons:
  1. We will actually get the proofreading done and will let us to implement our other policies (like text quality and featured texts) we've had here but never really used.
  2. It will make Wikisource a more reliable source to go to (as Banjee ca said) since we are making sure our texts don't have any errors (and there are some errors that have been caught that makes me wonder how they got there in the first place--outlandish mistakes really kind of detract).
I'm sure I can think of more reasons, but I think that's enough for now. Point 1 is really the most important of the reasons: just get the proofreading done.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree and think a WikiProject would also improve the efficiency of proofreading. For example, anonymous users found many likely typos on Talk:The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. These suspected typos were published on February 18. The suspected typos still remain as no one has edited the main page since January 31. Having a WikiProject would streamline the process.--Politicaljunkie 02:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


I created WS:PR. Feel free to edit the instructions and bring up any problems you see with this. And of course, Join!--BirgitteSB 05:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind, but I removed the second : and replaced it with a space, in line with the other Wikiprojects, which have spaces instead of :s. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 05:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

w:Anglic languages

I would like to explictly state in our policies that this project includes works from all Anglic languages. I would also like to write that we accept non-Anglic languages only to in comparision to an Anglic translation and when the non-Anglic work is the compsition that the Anglic is translated from directly or indirectly. These languages all share a common literary tradition and many of them have strong influences on English as a modern language. I feel this project would be incomplete if they were excluded. Anglic languages include but are not limited to:

These examples are taken from the WP article and some may not have noticible differences in the texts written people who spoke them. Others are different enough to need translation into Modern English for most all readers. This project has generally accepted such texts in common practice, this proposal is simply an effort to codify the situation--BirgitteSB 20:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Which policy would we be talking about? I agree, though, I will always add Middle and Old English texts here, and I don't see why we shouldn't accept the entire language tree beginning with Old English and extending through all of its descendants.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There are a few pages that probably need to be altered:

The last one says nothing of English explictly but a bit of a mess overall and it probably should mention we are a langauge subdomain. The only one that is official policy the Inclusion policy.--BirgitteSB 21:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: the above comments: I was somewhat surprised to see the new ang.wikisource.org set up within the latest wave of language creations. It only had one valid vote, and it contained a link at the beginning to our reservations here about creating it.[1] Actually, it looks like the developer simply set up the entire list of requests, period.

Now that it ang.wikisource exists, what should our mode of operations be? I personally lean towards Zaladshar's comment above, namely that we should continue adding all of them here regardless. In the future, however, that will probably raise further questions and discussions, even though a certain amount of duplication is not really so terrible. Dovi 06:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have spoken with the editors who voted for the ang.WS and encouraged them to simply use our infastructuce instead where they will have more time to devote to texts. User:Saforrest has been doing great work on Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader since then. However I do not know what thier ultimate plans for ang.WS are.--BirgitteSB 11:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I think we should make it clear that we will accept such texts here. Infrequent users could land in either en.wikisource or ang.wikisource and we don't want to make it hard for them to contribute while all the details are worked out. In the interim, while ang.ws establishes itself - which I understand takes a significant effort and may take some time - we should make it explicit in our help pages that we will accept such texts here. If and when ang.ws comes on-line, protocols can be worked out and these pages updated accordingly.Banjee ca 11:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I would personally like to see the Anglic subdomain populated properly. This will make it much easier to navigate and research texts in those languages, since a dedicated infrastructure will exist for them; here, those works are universally relegated to the single category Category:Old English, regardless of whether they're actually Old English or not. (Wasn't there more than one work in that category before?) The modern English subdomain could then host modern English translations, and link to the original on the other subdomain.
However, this depends on there being a community ready to build up the infrastructure. If there is none, or if it is too small to do the work, the texts would be better here. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Although I do not wish to see this myself, I would not work to prevent any community from forming. Besides of course sharing the reasoning for my opinions with them. But this has gotten a bit off-track. You misunderstand the actual proposal I think, or else the scope of www.ang.wikisource. ang.WS is for w:Anglo-Saxon it is not the "the Anglic subdomain." This language you are reading right now is an Anglic language. I take it you prefer we not have Anglo-Saxon ( which is the same as Old English) texts in this domain. I disagree. But I wonder where you would draw the line for which w:Anglic languages you belive we should include or exclude from en.WS? --BirgitteSB 02:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I spoke generally to include any work that may find a new host in the future, though I was mistaken in referring to the new subdomain as the "Anglic subdomain". I would like to exclude any non-modern Anglic languages that have a home elsewhere. A dedicated host for Old English texts now exists, and if it can get off its feet, it'd be nice if the English and Old English subdomains complemented each other instead of working seperately. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
BirgitteSB, thanks for the compliment. However, the reason Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader ended up here, and why I think it should stay, is that taken as a whole it is a not an Old English text, but a Modern English educational book about Old English which happens to contain a number of readings from Old English (and Latin) in its content. For example, I would also expect that an educational book on French aimed at English speakers should reside in the English Wikisource.
With regards to the Anglo-Saxon Wikisource, I'm must say I'm not quite sold: I agree that the infrastructure argument doesn't warrant a separate subdomain. And I will also agree that some older varieties of English ought to stay on this (English) Wikipedia.
However, we have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise we'll end up with a Pan-Germanic wikisource. BirgitteSB, you wish the draw the line with the introduction of Anglo-Saxon to Britain; myself, I would draw it between Old and Middle English. One can open up Middle English texts like the Canterbury Tales or Piers Ploughman and read them without enormous effort; however, to a modern speaker Old English is even more opaque than modern German. To conclude, I think that texts written in Middle or Early Modern English, or various regional dialects/languages close to English after 1066 (including Scots) should be here. Old English texts, with all other texts from small languages without a subdomain, should be at the multilingual wikisource.org. But I'm open to alternate suggestions or arguments. --Saforrest 05:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
My line of thought as to why the line need not actually be drawn was not in terms of "Is it understood, making it seem like the same language?" but in terms of "What culture is it a part of?" Anglo-Saxon literature is studied as English literature; most modern editions with help aids are in English, not German or French, etc.
Nevertheless, if a line is going to be drawn, then it shouldn't be too hard to discuss the various options and arrive at a reasonable decision (as has already begun to happen here). And I appreciate the usefulness of being able to Wikilink between ang: and its modern English (or other) translations.
Maybe the best way to do things at this stage is to leave them as open as possible: At this point, Anglo-Saxon texts will migrate to ang.wikisource. Other texts in older forms of English will remain welcome here at en.wikisource until a subdomain is open for them. If and when a subdomain is opened for one of them, those texts can move as well, etc.
(This suggestion is by the way similar to something done at he.wikisource: We wrote a policy that welcomes texts in all languages written in Hebrew letters, of which there are quite a few. But when a proper subdomain is opened - as happened in the case of Yiddish - then it becomes their proper home.) Dovi 08:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the an entire literary tradition should be kept together. What is English literature without Chauncer's works? I think Anglo-Saxon should be included as well. Although the langauge tradition goes back to Proto-Germaninc and Indo-European, this is were the literary tradition begins. That said if a community wants to set itself up with all the working language throughout the site in Anglo-Saxon, I do understand. However I would be against the deletion of any Anglo-Saxon text from en.WS regardless where else they exist. With section transclution abilities we really will need local copies, as the texts have been repeatedly interperted and studied by those interested in English literature.--BirgitteSB 13:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Good points. I guess Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader really illustrates your last point; most of the scholarly works in which you would find Anglo-Saxon excerpts are in English (or German). --Saforrest 01:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Do we all then agree that, as Birgitte put it, the entire literary tradition should remain together? Dovi 03:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer collaboration between the Anglic and (Modern?) English Wikisources, rather than a single language wiki for all Anglic languages, but it's not an issue I'll lose sleep over. ;) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 04:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Announcements

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

CommonsTicker

Just yesterday Wikisource got a CommonsTicker set up here. The page is located at Wikisource:CommonsTicker. This page allows us to keep track of major changes (or potential changes) that might affect our project (such as images being deleted). This way we are not surprised when we notice an image is gone, we can actually know to go and contest a deletion vote, and have time to save any information that might be deleted.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good! :) I see you already fixed the tagging of those oggs, too. I'm glad we didn't suddenly lose them :) Jude (talk,contribs,email) 05:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Latest comment: 18 years ago52 comments19 people in discussion

All the works of Charles Fort have verifiably passed into the public domain in their entirety ("Note on Copyrights" section). On the Book of the Damned page, I would like to know the footer to use to explain the universality of this fact, instead of just "70 years after author's life" footer. Apologies if this has already been answered recently, and haven't seen it. --Chr.K. 12:33, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Is something like {{PD-US-no-renewal}} what you are looking for?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes and no. Fort's works are public domain universally; "Fortean" organizations exist likewise in Britain, as well as internationally. --Chr.K. 04:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Nursery Rhymes

I'm not completely sure where to put this, since it's a suggestion that doesn't really merit the title of proposal but is also not exactly a quesiont. Anyway, where should we put nursery rhymes? If there isn't a place right now, it would definitely be beneficial to include one. Foxjwill 13:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

What nursery rhymes are you talking about? Like Mother Goose? Without knowing the specifics right off the bat, I'd suggest placing each nursery rhyme on its own page, categorizing the page with something like Category:Nursery rhymes. I'll help out some if you need it once you've begun adding the pages to help with more specific concerns.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

New logo?

There is a request at Wikipedia's Main Page talk to change the sister logo for Wikisource. It looks like the image linked to is from your newsletter, but some confirmation there about the status of your logo would be appreciated. Thanks, BanyanTree 15:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I've responded to this. AllanHainey 07:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting developments. It seems the German wikisource has decided that the debate on a new wikisource logo has gone on too long & just chosen their own logo. An anonymous user on wikipedia seems to think that this is to be used for all wikisource language domains, though there is nothing on it on the old wikisource talk page. AllanHainey 12:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that. de.ws probably held their own discussion and just changed their logo accordingly (I think--I haven't browsed de.ws to verify). I don't exactly blame them: we've been having an on-and-off logo vote for years.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

English translation of Cuban laws

I am new to Wikisource, but I have an urge to put together English translations of Cuban law. Is Wikisource an appropriate place to do this? Also, I would appreciate some pointers to tips or tricks to efficiently get me going on this project. Also, I wonder if perhaps anyone would like to collaborate on this project? BruceHallman 15:33, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource would certainly be glad to host this. However there are some copyright issues that may be a problem. If the Cuban laws themselves are copyrighted & aren't compatible with the GDFL copyright licence or doesn't comply with our Wikisource:Copyright policy we can't host it. As these works will be translations into English the translations themselves will be copyright of the translator so the same issues will apply. If you are translating these yourself & want to release it to wikisource under the GDFL then please go ahead. I'd suggest you read Help:Contents and its associated pages to get an idea of how to add/edit texts & the policies/formats we use. If you need any help just ask, here or on an admin's talk page, someone'll be able to point you in the right direction. As to collaboration I can't help you with this but watch this space someone might. AllanHainey 12:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
If Cuban laws are in the public domain, then please post their Spanish texts at Spanish Wikisource, not here. Unfortunately I cannot help you on this project as I do not understand Spanish.--Jusjih 17:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living

Not sure this is the right place for admin requests, but... The book Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living (which is a beautiful book which needs some help btw) recently was restored since its copyright status was clarified. However the talk page has not been restored, which had a neat summary of where to find the original text. Can an admin please restore the talk page. It was originally at Insects. Thanks Pengo 09:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. --BirgitteSB 11:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks.Pengo 11:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Scriptorium

What happened to the navigation menu's Scriptorium link? —Newbie 21:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what happened. Maybe it's just a glitch. All the code is in the right places, so it should be working. Maybe it will fix itself in a little while.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reason why Scriptorium is no longer listed in the sidebar? Have I missed something?Dovi 19:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This has happened before and brion just gave me the solution on IRC. So for future reference: make a nulledit to MediaWiki:Sidebar to fix it. Right now it should be fixed once you clear you browser's cache.--BirgitteSB 22:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Template for Current US Senators

On my sandbox page, I copied the Wikipedia template for current U.S. senators and adapted it to redirect to the appropriate Wikisource author links. Although a minority of senators, only 12, are represented, that number is likely to grow over time. The template provides for an easy navigation among people sharing a common trait. I would like to propose putting the template on all current US senator author pages.--Politicaljunkie 20:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally I really dislike these large templates at WP. Really I feel the limit needs to be about twelve items before I start hating them. And they never end. If we do senators, why not congressmen? That one would be a real monstrosity. Most of the navigation demands can be met just as well with catagories, albeit one click further away. That said if other people see a need for these, I do not expect my perference to carry much weight. --BirgitteSB 23:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I heavily agree with your point concerning the congressmen. However, a template gives an easier, more visual representation of the senators and their political parties than a category.--Politicaljunkie 23:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Have you experimented with how this would look on an author page? From the size and colors of the template, it seems that it would not fit well with the layout of an author page. I might be wrong, though. I, too, have to agree with Birgitte about templates with many elements in them; they begin to get too bulky and unwieldy and begin to detract from the pages they are included on instead of helping them.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I changed my sandbox page to an example author page. The colors can be changed, but the size seems to shadow the actual author page. See what you think.--Politicaljunkie 01:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, the template looks terrible on the author page. What if you create a category for all U.S. Senators. On that category, list the template of current U.S. Senators. That way, people who visit that link will be able to see the group as a whole, but also only those who are currently serving as senators (meaning the ones who served in the 1800s won't keep people from seeing the ones who are serving today).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, I'll do that now.--Politicaljunkie 20:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Bot flag for User:Xenophon (bot)

I created the account User:Xenophon (bot) to post the results of several queries that I ran on the toolserver, and with the eventual purpose of tagging articles which have no {{header}} template, {{author}} template on Author pages, etc. More recently, I've been doing quite a few page moves, and I've flooded recent changes several times while converting the Bible. If it's possible, I'd like to have this account flagged as a bot so that I can make these repetitive changes (always supervised) without flooding recent changes. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 02:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Just updating on its intended task, there's still about 1400 pages of Emily Dickinson poems that need to be converted, and then all of the titles need to be fixed to change --s to —s, which would involve quite a few page moves, and then the headers need to be fixed so that they point to the correct titles. I've been slowly working through the Emily Dickinson pages on my own account, but after glancing over recent changes and seeing that it was mostly my changes, I've stopped for the time being. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 04:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Bot status granted to Xenophon.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
:-)! Great! I'll start working on some of these tasks... Especially Dickinson :) Jude (talk,contribs,email) 06:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

b:Purpose

The author of this book has recently added his text to Wikibooks. However, it doesn't really fit as it isn't really a textbook. So it's currently listed on Wikibooks' Votes for Deletion. It is an already published work that the author has released under the GFDL. I was wondering, is this suitable for transwiki to Wikisource? If so, I'll move it here, Jguk 17:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you give us author information or information regarding where it was previously published? I can't find anything on the matter.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The book appears to be written by the contributor, and is most likely not published in a notable forum. If that's so, it doesn't meet the criteria of our inclusion policy. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there no category or page that lists all the material that has ever been featured? I can't find one. 128.250.37.103 13:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't currently have featured texts displayed on the main page, therefore we have no list of featured texts. We are working on introducing a featured text facility however, as we are very rigorous in insisting on a high standard of quality of the texts we feature, we have sort of run up against a treacle wall in choosing texts we can feature as none of our texts have been sufficiently proofread or meet our requirements (100% text quality). Thake a look at Wikisource talk:Featured texts, Wikisource:Featured texts & Wikisource:Featured text candidates & feel free to suggest some solutions/proofread some 75% texts. AllanHainey 15:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
See Category:Featured texts, though it's currently empty. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

How to deal with excerpts

I've been wondering what the policy is on small excerpts of larger works, such as Modification of the CIA Act of 1949. Are these canidates for deletion? Do we just add an expand to them? Is there another option? - illy 15:46, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I really dislike excepts. I believe we should include fragments, where the complete work is lost, however I do not think we should have excerpts. I would probably propose deletion for such a small excerpt as this one, provided it wasn't recent and a likely "work in progress". Abridged works on the other hand I would tag for expantion. I don't think we should permanently host anything that is abridged, but it is a good start on the complete work. These kinds excerpts are usually just abandoned. If there is a good reason to keep any specific one, it will come up in debate at Proposed Deletions.--BirgitteSB 21:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I would go for deletion as well. The common name ('CIA Act of 1949') could be redirected to the appropriate section of the larger work, as is done with common names for some United States Code sections. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

United Nation texts

Sorry for my very poor English. I am a sysop and bureaucrat from Portuguese Wikisource. Texts from United Nations are copyvios? According to this, the portuguese version of Universal Declaration of Human Rights is copyrighted and cannot be hosted in that wiki. But I discovered the Template:PD-UN. Is possible to use this license in Portuguese Wikisource or this is restrict to English Wikisource and English version of UN texts? Lugusto 555 04:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I would imagine you could use this over at pt.wikisource. I believe that the UN tries to get as many translations of its works out right after it writes one, so the duration of the copyright on the original version and the translated versions should be very near the same length. Basically, what I'm trying to get at is any English work here that has {{PD-UN}} should be allowed to be hosted on the Portugues WS with the same template.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Please note where the translations have been made. For works published at the UN Headquarters in New York, the US Copyright Law applies. NOT all UN works are in the public domain, so be careful.--Jusjih 18:41, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

How can I change wikisource logo in local site(zh wikisource)? I have uploaded the new logo and replaced the old one, see [2] . But It seems not work. Thank you! --vipuser11:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It has worked you just need to clear your cache. Try holiding down F5 and clicking refresh. --BirgitteSB 13:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
In IE, F5 is the refresh button. To clear browser cache, hold Ctrl + F5. That should do it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
You can also clear your cache completely by looking somewhere in the options menu. I haven't used IE in a while, so I forget exactly what the option is. In Opera, I believe that it doesn't cache pages, and that simply refreshing the page with destroy the cache. I could be wrong, however. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 13:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
"Tools > Internet Options > Delete Files"—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's the business of the IE. Can you see the new logo of the zh wikisource as this?--vipuser15:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I see the stylized iceberg logo just fine on zh.wikisource. The logo I see has English text and not the Chinese; if you want the Chinese text logo to be displayed, you need to have a developer change it for you.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello there,

I am Hashar, one of the developer / sysadmin. The logo for zhwikisource is currently hardcoded to use the default source logo. The switch to image:wiki.png is done by developers in the server configuration file.

You have done half the work, you just need to resize the image to roughly the same size as the default one : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/sources/b/bc/Wiki.png ( which is 123x154 pixels) and reupload the file.

Once done, either:

o)

-- Ashar Voultoiz 08:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


CGI630 on irc told me the logo got resized. I configured the servers to use the image:Wiki.png :o) -- Ashar Voultoiz

Other discussions

Latest comment: 18 years ago42 comments18 people in discussion

Standardise eras

Categorising works and authors by era (see Works by era and Authors by era) was rather confusing and vague, so I created a system with specific dates based on several (sometimes contradictory) Wikipedia articles on the eras. This system is stored as {{eras}}, shown below.

Eras
Era Period
Ancient Before AD 600
Medieval 601–1420
Renaissance 1421–1630
Early modern 1631–1899
Modern 1900–present
Contemporary living

The indexes (which are not part of a navigatable structure; see the Prefix index) use a similar system, though it is undefined and very incomplete.

Index eras
Era Period
Medieval n/a
Renaissance n/a
Modern n/a

I'd like to expand the standardised eras, tweak them as necessary, and then use them as a foundation to create the manual indexes and categories. Is there anything that should be changed about {{eras}}? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of anything to suggest. From my research, it seems that this index has just about everything covered. Tweaking the indices would be quite nice, as it would then allow us to properly (or at least standardize) the categories in which we place our documents.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
We could quibble over individual datings but it looks ok to me, the only thing I'm not keen on is the period "Early Modern" (or rather the phrase, the period itself I quite like) but all I can think to replace it would be enlightenment & the Industrial revolution which is really bolting together 2 time periods. AllanHainey 11:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I think this is good overall. As far as "early modern" - the phrase itself is pretty standard and seems appropriate. However, the dating is not standard. Early modern usually includes only up until the late 18th century (i.e. roughly until the American and French Revolutions), but not the 19th century (and not, as Allan pointed out, the Industrial Revolution), which is already part of Modern Literature. Dovi 12:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Are you guys making sure you're not talking about Early Modern in terms of history and not literature? I seem to remember that the dating and the era naming for literary works does not closely follow the names of the actual historical periods they are in (meaning Early Modern and Modern eras in literature do not necessarily 100% correspond to their time periods in history). I don't know the answer to this, but I'm just bringing it up to maybe clear up some possible confusion (and I might be the one confused, as well).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I did quite a bit of research on literary eras when I revamped the Category:Fiction page. The main results that I came up with is 1) most of the sources disagree (i.e. there is no consensus on what the era's are) and 2) all the sources differed from standard historical eras. I came up with the division I used on the Category:Fiction page by trying to stick with sources that were mainly dealing with English literature and by using the eras that seemed to be most common between the various sources. I came up with the following:
Category:Fiction eras
Era Period
Ancient doesn't apply to Fiction
since most literarture
is poetry
Middle English
(as opposed to Medieval) 		1066-1500
Renaissance 1500-1660
Neoclassical 1660-1785
Romantic Era 1785-1830
Modern 1830+
Some sources listed a Enlightenment Era between Renaissance and Neoclassical which I didn't use since it would have just split 2 small indexes into 3 smaller indexes. And I combined Victorian (1830-~1900) and Edwardian (~1900-1915) Eras with Modern simply for expedience, so that I did not have to move large numbers of authors and titles. - illy 14:55, 15 May 2006
Good work with all of that research, illy. Since the dates differ so much, I think we should pick a set of dates we like, and use those site-wide. I think the fewer we have to use, the better, but I like the list that you have used. Also, in the context of these large eras, we will also tag pages according to what specific era they fall into (e.g., Victorian literature, Edwardian literature, etc.).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:59, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the research; I've combined the two era systems. The resulting table is a bit long, though; perhaps we could merge the Neoclassical and Romantic eras. Since these eras will be applied to works from all points of the globe, we should remain as general as possible. The Philippines, for example, may not have had a Neoclassical era. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Combined eras
Era Period
Ancient past–599
Medieval 600–1065
Middle English 1066-1500
Renaissance 1500-1660
Neoclassical 1660-1785
Romantic Era 1785-1830
Modern 1830–present
// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 18:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. I was of course working stictly from a english literature viewpoint. Therefore the Category:Fiction table would not necessarily apply to works from other lanquages. - illy 18:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

On that note, both systems above are heavily biased in favour of Western literature. Periodisation is rather arbitrary and fuzzy; perhaps we shouldn't used general eras at all. One possibility would be to group works into a more rigid structure, such as by century. This avoids the problem of biased historical eras (there is no early modern Japan, for example), and provides a global historical overview of literature at all points of the world. It would allow us to easily compare the literature of Japan to that of England in the 14th century, for example. This is more appropriate in part because literature often changes much more quickly than over periods of 600 years. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 19:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I think having this structure would be very beneficial. We will have to realize that these eras are created for Western literature only, but since the vast majority of literature we will be dealing with is from the West, there's no point in throwing it all out because a few works won't fit this system. Having the literary eras gives more information (to the people knowledgable about such things) than simply giving the century in which it was written, and I think it would be an additional help to people who want to find works only in one literary era if we kept this. For non-Western works, we can use a system more appropriate for that work or we can list it by century as Pathoschild suggested.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 20:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Overall this is fine. But even if we adopt these cutoff dates, I still wonder whether it wouldn't be a lot simpler to simply combine the three shorter periods (1500-1830) into one. Dovi 21:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Every category should ideally contain every applicable page. To that end, the categories should be simple enough that a page can be completely categorised by a single user with little or no knowledge of the category system, given a short guide to doing so. We should try to avoid any redundancies to that end, such as categorising using two different time systems. Categorising by eras cannot scale well unless we decide to exclude the entire world except the Northwestern civilizations. Deciding which of several hundred local historical and literary eras a particular page belongs in is way beyond the average user.
However, I'll develop the infrastructure for this if others disagree. Merging the categorisation by era into the categorisation by century would simplify the task somewhat, since the user would only need to select from the dozens of eras in the particular century a work was written in. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
We will never have many works from outside the Western world, so I don't see a need to categorize things according to their century. There is no information contained in saying something is a nineteenth century work. Such a broad, catch-all structure doesn't seem to be all that useful in the first place--it seems that we would just be categorizing for the sake of categorization. There is a lot of information contained in whether something was a Victorian, Elizabethan, or Jacobean work.
I don't think the average user will use any system we devise, whatever we eventually create, but distinguishing the era in which a particular work was written will give the social climate and a lot of historical climate. For people doing research or just wanting to put the work in some kind of historical context, I think distinguishing by era would be the most helpful.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
A few scattered comments:
-I believe this is a valuable exercise.
-If you focus on categorizing authors by era first, you will achieve 90% of the result and have it more reliable and consistent because their are a limited number of authors. Somebody will look at 'Renaissance Authors', they will by default get Renaissance works. An author could cross eras if they had to.
-If you want to categorize documents: add'Year Published' to the header (if possible). I expect most newbies (like me:) try to follow the header template. It'll save the more knowledgeable users time later to add the era.
-I would not recommend collapsing the last three eras together. More books were written, speeches recorded etc. in those periods, so the categories will probably end up with far more content than all of the others combined.
-Consider starting the Renaissance in 1450. That decade saw the end of the Black Plague, the invention of the printing press, Constantinople fell, the Hundred Years War ended. Not much of anything happened in 1500. Banjee ca 11:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
In response to Zhaladshar, I disagree that categorising by century is less useful. If anything, it is more useful than the generalised eras; for example, works written in the early Middle ages (7th century) are very different from those written in the late Middle ages (11th century).
The idea of merging the two system seems increasingly useful and scalable to me. To use the above example, Category:Medieval works would be categorised to the 7th–11th century categories. The works would be automatically categorised to the appropriate century per Banjee ca's suggestion, and users could then manually subcategorise works to the relevant era, be it the middle ages or the Belle Époque. This would allow users to see works written in a specific century, or go down one level and see all works written in a particular era. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 13:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm just wondering what usage we're intending for these categories. Are they intended purely for literature or for historical documents too as I don't think classifications like, for example, "Romantic era" or "Neoclassical" are as appropriate or useful for historical or constitutional documents as they are for poems, novels, etc. AllanHainey 14:54, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

In response to AllanHainey's comment: yes, it will only really work for literature (at least categorizing them according to "Romantic" or "Neoclassical" eras).
In response to Pathoschild's comments: synthesizing the two systems is seeming to be the best of two worlds. It will allow us to first of all categorize all works, including non-Western ones, while at the same time giving us the flexibility to add the specifics to a particular work and a particular author which would be of great importance (the specific literary era in which it was published, if applicable). (Unless I've completely misunderstood the last few posts--but I think I got it correctly.)
This seems to be a perfectly scalable system, to me, since we can optionally go as in-depth as we need. The only thing truly required is the century. After that, we can choose how much more information we can/want to add to a particular work. We'll still have to agree on dates, but that's just a minor consideration.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Unicode Table

We should have a unicode table someplace on the wikimedia projects, so that the projects are self-sufficient. (Ie, if we burn the lot to dvd, and keep a printout of the unicode table around, future generations can still decode our work. Not an imaginary problem, think EBCDIC! :-) )

I noticed the unicode tables at Wikisource are slated to be removed. Where will they be moved to? 80.126.238.189 (Kim Bruning) 21:14, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you know of another project that wants them? They'll be deleted without moving them elsewhere if we don't find one. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:18, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Possibly Wikipedia. They have Periodic table already, so my guess is that there would be room for Unicode tables. --Kernigh 23:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
As a wikipedian (visiting as it were), I'm very surprised (even Alarmed) at the above intent, if I understand it. Chances are something like that was the topic of a wikipedia Afd action, or a consensus decision in another formal talk page and the consensus recommendation was to move it over here. Seems like some references like that should be kept around somewhere. For example: w:HTML element. OTOH, The Commons might be a another repository for such cross-cultural reference materials, I don't know they'd agree.<g> If all else fails, or perhaps immediately, a presentation to the Foundation on such asking them to set policy might be in order before anything is deleted!
I would hope and pray, that if you are deleting such, you co-ordinate with some of the wikipedian Admins of long and vast experience. There is a page that lists users by edit counts, that should and could be consulted to ID such power-admins and get their historical perspective: Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits
I'm similarly alarmed at an an above notation about eliminating speeches, as I got a few lumps over at wikiP trying to incorporate FDR's Arsenal of Democracy speech into the article I originated on same... I'd also planned on doing some more of his fireside chats as time permitted. Or am I just getting confused by some local housekeeping nomenclature, so called shop-talk and insider would know the context of, unlike myself? i.e. You're changing where and how you're archieving these, but not eliminating them, I hope!
Which brings me to the observation that I came in through this page, expecting a Q&A page for the casual customer-user, and the page seems dedicated to shop-talk. So I'd like to suggest you provide such customer page prominently displayed on your Help:contents page. It'd probably be good to have a similar Help page for those of us visiting on business, with some quick orientation stuff (I still have no idea how to find things here) for those of us looking to possibly add, or access materials (my reason for coming here, now an hour ago!).
Must run! Best regards, Fabartus 14:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello Fabartus. There is no intention to delete speeches (except perhaps those that are in violation of copyright). There is no 'shop-talk' either, as far as I can tell (as one likely familiar with any jargon that may be used ;)). The terms used on this page are typically real, commonly-used terms; references to guidelines or policies are typically linked.
There have been many efforts to find a new home for the reference data and to update incoming links. Reference data has been excluded from Wikisource, Wikipedia, and the Wikicommons. However, users on Wikibooks have expressed an interest in the data and have begun moving text over. In order to allow users on other projects to update links, these are temporarily soft-redirect; for example, see Calculating the number e.
I'm not certain what you mean by the Foundation 'setting policy'; inclusion guidelines are decided at the project level, not by the board of trustees. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
The whole page is nothing but 'Shop Talk', in my lexicon. Not a help page for the casual visitor, as seemed to be implied. Secondarily, OOooopsie, I made an redcall-error: I didn't come in through help:contents, but accessed that a bit later, and instead via this main boxed phrase on your 'Main Page':
You can ask questions about Wikisource at the Scriptorium and experiment in the..., I see your Help is better organized, but you might consider removing that line in the greeting box.
So apologies on the wrong 'red-flag'. If you are correct on what sites are exluding references, it really highlights my belief the board needs to be setting up some integrated policy. Wikibooks makes little sense for reference tables like unicode, or the maps I'd come over to offer. Some Library! A disappointed, but hearty Thanks, // Fabartus 18:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Formula Referencing

I'm currently having a little trouble with the layout of formulae on the EB1911 Wave 1 article. In the original, each formula has a reference like this:(1) on the right, in line with the edge of the column. You can see this on the scanned pages here. Currently , the best I have managed to do is a set of fullstops, but this igives a ragged edge, as thry do not stretch to the right hand edge.

If anyone has any ideas on hows to acheive this, I would be grateful to hear them. Also, this article is another example of where inline formulae need to have a smaller font. (See this post.)

Thanks,

Jjbeard 23:37, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

You can do this with tables by right-aligning the right column. I've set an explicit width in relative units below to account for the fact that Wikisource pages are much wider than Britannica pages. 

{| style="width:25em;"
|-
| <math>\ddot{y}=c^2y^{\prime \prime},</math>
|style="text-align:right;"| (1)
|-
| where <math>c=\sqrt{}(P/\rho).</math>
|style="text-align:right;"| (2)
|}
(1)
where (2)
// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, if you would prefer that the numbers are right-aligned, you could try this: 

{| style="width:100%;"
|-
|  <math>\ddot{y}=c^2y^{\prime \prime},</math>
| style="width:3em; text-align:right;" | (1)
|-
| where <math>c=\sqrt{}(P/\rho).</math>
| style="width:3em; text-align:right;" | (2)
|}
(1)
where (2)

HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Bursch Groggenburg

This piece is online since Dec. 15, 2005 and no other edit since then --84.60.203.167 01:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC).

I'm not sure what you are trying to say; we have many works that have not been edited in a while. Could you be a little more explicit? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Captcha image

Hi, I was trying to create an account. The form asks for some Captcha confirmation code. Only there is no image, all I'm getting is an "Internal server error: Bogus captcha" or something.--134.155.87.42 09:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The captcha image shows up fine for me when I access the signup form. Can you try a hard-refresh in your browser to see if it's a dodgy client-side caching issue? Are others experiencing this problem? 86.133.244.5 10:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
It's still not working. I'm using Firefox and shift-reloaded the signup form. Firefox shortly displays the image rectangle but then in it vanishes. Right-click-"Page info" gives me http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Captcha/image&wpCaptchaId=1161491410 as image URL. Dragging the URL into the browser returns <html><body>Internal Error

Requested bogus captcha image

</body></html>.--134.155.87.42 11:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I signed on with a different browser (konqueror) now. There were no problems. I still don't know why it didn't work with Firefox. Anyway, thanks.--GrafZahl 12:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
The captcha images often cause mysterious problems; a text-based captcha system would be nice. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Test

This is actually just a test post. I'm attempting to work out User:Pathoschild's archivation system, in an attempt to build a bot capable of automatically archiving this page! So, you can ignore this. :-) Jude (talk,contribs,email) 05:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

:D! // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 05:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Tim Selwyn

Tim Selwyn's pamplet needs to be move to Tim Selwyn's pamphlet. Spelling is currently wrong

Movie scripts

I would like for someone to add at least one movie script to WikiSource. I was about to do Nosferatu but I'm new and without an example I am very uncertain as to what the format would be like. Here is a script I found, and if someone could transfer it that'd be great. --SeizureDog 06:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe we have any film scripts here yet so we don't have a set format for them, other than our general guidelines for any new sources at Help:Adding_texts & Help:Contents. I would suggest that if you're intending to add a few film scripts (copyright expired of course) then you create a listing page for them, say Wikisource:Film Scripts with links to the scripts & the year they were released. This'll make them easier to organise if it grows. AllanHainey 07:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Here are a couple options I'm throwing out that could be possible. I would suggest either putting the script in a table with a small width so that you can effectively center text in the table without it looking bad. And I would suggest making the names of the characters bold to offset them from the rest of the text. You can always try to look at how we formatted some plays (like Shakespeare's) as well.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 12:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that one of the main ways to generate interest in Wikisource is through links in Wikipedia which has a larger user base. I just did a quick scan of upcoming featured articles to see how Wikisource fits in. w:Parliament of the United Kingdom has three unlinked public domain sources cited. One is 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Parliament. ((I added the page and started to edit it - it needs a lot of work before linking it)). The other two are available on-line and could be added. In w:Western Front (World War I) the link to Wikisource is a page being considered for deletion. Not a great first impression. I think we may be missing an opportunity here, but it would take a concerted effort to take advantage of it. What do you think - is it worth trying? Banjee ca 10:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the fault here, if it can be called a fault, is just a lack of connectiveness between those working on different wikis. I think this is probably inevitable as folk tend to gravitate to the area they prefer working on & don't do as much on other wiki projects (certainly the case for me) so those regularly who work on & decide on wikipedia featured articles are unlikely to be familiar with the sources we have on wikisource, or excessively concerned with linking to them from wikipedia.
I suppose it'd be easy enough for a wikisourcerer to add wikisource links to the wikipedia featured articles, & if someone wants to do so good luck. it's really just a matter of working out what texts are most appropriate to link to. On the specific examples you give I couldn't see the UK parliament pd sources (only a link to a gutenburg text of the riot act - which isn't really relevant to the article). As to what we have that could go on this article I don't think we have much apart from various Parliamentary speeches which aren't really relevant. On WWI we have a range of treaties (more suited to links on the wikipedia articles on the treaties themselves) and colliers encyclopedia entries.
I don't think there is any way of preventing the odd interwiki link from linking to pages being considered for deletion/being corrected/redirects, etc as that's just part of the nature of an on-line resource - links to particular pages will never be updated/removed or amended as frequently as pages themselves. AllanHainey 11:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I personally used to stay on top of upcoming Main Page WP articles and find any possible links to Wikisource. I would also "groom" the articles here at Wikisource before they the big day. I have let that task fall by the wayside, as I have been stretched very thin lately. It really does not take a great amount of effort, I would only check it about once a week and make neccesaary updates. I never brought in new texts wholesale for the event, but made sure any existing ones were updated. The only time it was difficult is when WP went through a period of not assigning the Main Page articles till the last minute. I definately think it is worth trying to be more consistant about it, and I hope we can eventually make a full sweep of all WP's Featured articles and not just the current Main Page ones. However there is a great deal of work to be done with the infrastructure of Wikisource at the momment which I see at a greater priority right now. I don't mean to discourage you, I just cannot help you with the effort at the cuurent time.--BirgitteSB 20:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-06&oldid=14004779"