Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-07

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Proposals

Latest comment: 18 years ago70 comments12 people in discussion

Bot policy

I propose the Bot policy to govern automated or semi-automated processes that edit pages on Wikisource with reduced or no direct human supervision. Bots can be harmful in good-faith (or maliciously) if there are no guidelines to govern their use. All currently existing bots conform to the policy except the interlanguage link bot Zumg, whose username does not make it clear that it is a bot. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Implemented. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

PoliticalBot

I have created PoliticalBot, a Pywikipedia bot, to speed up repetitive edits. So far, I have used it to add the PD-USGov template to Bill Clinton's radio addresses. Other tasks that I plan to carry out are listed at the bot's user page. I'd like to request permission to run PoliticalBot as an automated bot along with a bot flag, so it doesn't fill up the RC list. --Politicaljunkie 21:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I support this. Another bot to do all our work. I see Pathoschild has proposed a bot policy above, I'd prefer to approve this one now rather than wait for the policy to be approved & then follow it. AllanHainey 12:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
This bot and the request are inline with the policy anyway, if it's passed. ;) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I also support this :) Jude (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I support this. Banjee 10:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've given PoliticalBot a bot flag.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. - Politicaljunkie 15:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Poems or Category:Poetry

We have two conflicting categories, Category:Poems and Category:Poetry. Which do people prefer? (Thanks to politicaljunkie for finding this.) - illy 20:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

What about a third option here. I would rather see us structure categories more like this:

Then we could use the portals like {{Portal:Poetry]] to tie togeter things like prose poems that are not in Category:Verse and exclude dramatic verse which are not really poems. Another example is treating things like "The St. Crispin's Day Speech" at Portal:Speech while it is just part of Shakespeares play categorized under Category:Dramatic Verse but not Category:Speeches. This way we can catagorize things more organically without feeling like we have to force something were it only partially fits and use the portal to tie together the things which are broken up by this method--BirgitteSB 16:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good proposal, but a bit of work. If someone would want to take it on that's great. But unless someone wants to take this on immediately, I don't think we should wait until something else gets implemented to solve the current problem. - illy 16:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
The real current problem is no one (myself included) really uses categories consistantly. The fact that there are some items at Poem and some at Poetry is just the tip of the iceburg. We need some plan of the larger scheme and to simply start adding Categories whenever we eidt a page. It does not need to be knocked out in a week, but I would like to see everything catagorized at least few weeks before Wikimania. We will hopefullly be seeing a surge of interest in Wikisource around then so we need to really get the infastructure set up and spare ourselves the clean-up later. I have an idea how I want poems set up as I have outlined. I have less firm ideas about other genres. I am sure others have firm ideas about thier favorite areas. I think we should get consensus on what we are certain we want, without setting out every possibility. Next we work to get what we agreed on categorized. Then run a bot to see what is left uncategorized. After looking at that list we should have a better idea how to organize it, and we can get consensus on the full category tree. Once everything is categorized, then we need to examine what Portals we will want. Then prioritze which portals are the most imperative to have (I think Poetry) and have at least 5 up and running by Wikimania. This of course is not something for one person to take on but a large collaborative effort. I think we are up for it, I think we better be. Up to now we have not gotten a huge influx of newcomers because it is so hard for them to figure out how we are set up. They do not find what they expect and move on. I believe if we do not take care this by Wikimania, we will have an influx of newcomers who will have the same issues, but will not move on. Worst case scenario, we find ourselves dealling with an w:endless September. The more we have done in regards to infastructure the more likely we can absorb the influx into the community rather than be absorbed by it. This is all pure speculation, but the work will still need doing in any case. So it would be nice to have it done by Wikimania. Illy you have done more for the consistancy of of this project than most (certainly more than me), so I would certainly appreciate your input on these ideas.--BirgitteSB 17:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have one major problem with the categories, they don't keep pages off of the orphaned pages reports. That makes it very difficult to find pages which are truely lost (i.e. not linked to anything else). Because of that, I'd personally rather put time into organizing the Index, where we can be sure that we don't have pages that have dropped through the cracks. I've been planning to start working on that, among all my other projects. But, I'd be happy to offer advice on organization for the categories. - illy 16:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe orphaned pages has already been compromised by people adding Template:Header. But I am sure there is some sort of query Jude could run on the toolserver to help you with the index. Please speak up here Jude if I am wrong. I like the index a great deal, but people coming over from other projects are expecting categories. Look through the archives of this page and you will see newcomers stopping by to tell us we need to get things categorized.[[Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2005-12-31#Desperate_Need_for_Categorization|[1]]
Mainly I would like to know if anyone else has ideas on how they would like a subset of categories orderd (Rather than an entire top-down category tree). Do any of those ideas conflict with my outline above? Does anyone otherwise dislike my outline? What about other categorical areas? How far along is Category:Speeches? We once talked about categories for original languages, how much was done with that? Does anyone have firm ideas of how they want Authors catagorized?--BirgitteSB 18:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

New author page template

I propose a redesigned and recoded version of the author page template. You can see the differences below for yourself by comparing Author:Saki to User:Pathoschild/Sandbox3.

  • Differences:
    • The interwiki links are no longer natively integrated. Instead, the style guide will be amended to recommend a Wikipedia-style 'See-also' section with standardised interwiki templates like {{wikipedia-inline}}. This is more aesthetically pleasing and more intuitively organised.
    • The standard header 'works' is no longer added by the template; doing so counterintuitively does not allow users to section-edit it, forcing them to edit the entire page. Adding it seperately corrects this problem.
    • The {{header}} template is now natively integrated and filled by the values given for the template. The backlink points to the relevant manual index page. The notes parameter explains what an author page is and links to the overall authors index.
    • The short author description is moved to the image caption.
    • The parameters have been entirely recoded and simplified; a few have been eliminated entirely.
Comparison of parameters
{{author}} Proposed template 
{{Author
|Name=Karl Marx
|Dates=(1818 – 1883)
|FileUnder=Marx, Karl
|FirstLetterLastName=M
|Wikipedia=Karl Marx
|Wikiquote=Karl Marx
|Wikicommons=
|MiscBio=An influential...
|TOC=
|Image=Karl Marx.jpg
}}

{{author
 |Surname      = Karl
 |Family_name  = Marx
 |Last_initial = M
 |dates        = 1818 – 1883
 |description  = An influential...
 |image        = Karl Marx.jpg
}}

If there is a consensus to switch to the new standard, a new template will be created and the pages switched over by bot with human oversight. Once this is complete, {{author}} will be redirected to the new template (or vice versa). The style guide's section on author pages will be appropriately updated. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 19:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I like this alot, it gives the emphasis to the works we have here rather than to Wikipedia. I wonder about using the notes so differently here than on other pages. But I reaaly like the overall look. --BirgitteSB 21:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know...I personally do not think that every single page needs to appear the same in presentation (i.e., certain groups of "special" pages can appear differently than the rest of the pages) although I do understand and am slightly sympathetic toward the arguments for site-wide standardization. I think I just got used to how the current template looks that I notice the differences for any proposed changes. I would like there to be a bit more real estate used up at top; the template just seems so...short. How would it look if we added the sister-project interwiki links up there?
And just one slight aside: I think we should change the name parameters to more common ones. I'd propose "First_name" and "Last_name" to get away from the ones in the proposed template. Especially since family names and surnames refer to the same thing (the person's last name).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to get rid of the wikipedia/wikiquote/wikicommons links (especially since they only show up when we have pages on those projects). I think that to do so would be sacrificing a lot of the benefit of the interconnectiveness of the wikimedia projects and removing an easy and useful reference tool.
On the names Surname would be Marx and Christian name would be Karl, you seem to have mixed these up. I'm not sure that there is any benefit to splitting the name up from 1 line into 2 & it could cause confusion with middle names/people with only one name (Kings, Popes, etc)/people with titles which are included in their names/etc.
I would keep FirstLetterLastName rather than Last_initial as initials generally refer to the first letter of a middle name so people with a middle initial could be easily misfiled.
What has happened to the fileunder line? How is the automatic filing done now is it purely by last & first name. I think it would be better to retain a seperate line for automatic computer filing as it'd retain a lot greater flexibility, for example filing of Lords under their Lordly name rather than their, frequently obscure, surname. For example "FileUnder=Salisbury, Marquess, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil " AllanHainey 11:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the WP/WQ/COM links are now at the bottom of the page with the new template. There is a link to Saki's author page if you look at the bottom of the example. The template uses the values from the two name parameters to use that to file the author in the category. I do agree with you, Allan, that the use of two names might be a bit confusing in the cases where our authors only have one (what about Kings and Queens of countries? emperors? pen names?). One-named authors would have to have the name put under the last name parameter (whatever it might end up being) or break the sorting in the categories.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I have no objection to changing the parameters to "First_name", "Last_name", and "Last_name_initial" or some such. The category sorting is automated as 'Last_name, First_name'; it would be easy to add an override for special cases, as is done with the {{header}} template. This may also be addressed by the to-be-proposed global page title style guidelines. Regarding the amount of visual space taken, I see the smaller impact as an improvement; it shifts the emphasis from the authors themselves to their works, which are the main point of the author pages. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

A problem I see with this is that very often authors have pages on the other wikis under different forms of their names (i.e. with or with out a middle name or initial, pen-name or not, etc.) without appropriate redirects on the other wikis. In addition, the other wikis very often differ between themselves with wikiquote having a different name than pedia and commons having yet a different form. Therefore converting to this new template will break a lot of the links. I know it doesn't seem like this would be very wide-spread, but with the amount of work I've put into the author pages, I know it is. - illy 13:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by breaking links. The links are added to a 'see also' section instead of being integrated directly into the author template; this increases flexibility by allowing users to list multiple relevant pages and link to wikis and websites not integrated into the template. The existing links would be moved, essentially unchanged, to the new section; I don't see how this would break links. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah. I understand now. So the links are not automatically generated by the template then? - illy 16:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Nope. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
OK. The only qualm I have over this is that the easier you make adding things in the template, the more like you'll get inexperienced user to add them. But I don't know if the group of inexperienced users who would know enough to use an author template but doesn't know how to link to the other wikis is very large at all. It's probably pretty small. - illy 17:53, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I've unfortunately arrived a little late to the party. While this conversation was going on unbeknownst to me, I actually made my own proposal at the Author template's talk page. It incorporates the inter-wiki links into itself, and doesn't require any change of variables. I was really just demonstrating the header's aesthetics, but have grown quite fond of it. It should be smaller than the current template, although not as miniscule as this proposed one. I'm hesitant to incorporate a "see also" section in the author's pages I think the three already provided links and their contents should provide plenty of extra information on the author, and I could see them getting out of hand (like some Wikipedia article's). Regarding the emphasis of the works: I think containing it all into a boxed header sufficiently segments it from the actual article content, even at my proposed size. The different colour-scheme of the box helps differentiate between an Author and their Works, while also standardizing the pages— something I'm greatly in favour for. – Quoth 14:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

What I most like about Quoth's design is using the notes parameter for the mini biography. It is keeping with how we use the notes on the actual works to hold "real world" background info. I don't know that we really need the disclaimer displayed in Pathoschild's design. Perhaps it can be shortened and displaed in the upper-box as it will not really vary nor require additional input. Maybe the caption of the image can include the sister project links if we can keep them small and uncluttered. Than we will not have to worry about the See Also encouraging linkspam. We could also put the sister links in Boxes below the Image as there is a lot of white space there.--BirgitteSB 21:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the disclaimer is redundant with the entire purpose of the author page, and we can safely remove it entirely. I do like Quoth's template a lot, as it has a bit more verticality to it. The only thing I think would need to happen with the template is for us to add a built in image parameter and an automatic TOC generator. The image I think is essential, and I can be convinced not to have one for the TOC. I don't know about colors, whether we want to keep them or not, but that is barely an issue.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
While I prefer the existing author template and think we should stick with it. I have to say I prefer Quoth's proposed change to Pathoschild's. Mainly as it is clearly distinguishable from the header we use for actual texts, though I do think the biog bit needs to be inside the coloured box. I've never been a big fan of images on author pages, I think if you want them it's easy enough to check commons or wikipedia. With the current page we have the option to include images or not, and TOC or not so I'd prefer to stay with it - especially as I have yet to see one reason why a new format author page is needed or what benefit either of the 2 proposed options would bring. Basically if it isn't broken don't fix it. AllanHainey 14:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
As I hoped to make clear earlier, the proposal I posted there was merely an example of what the header could/would look like. I didn't bother to incorporate some variables (namely TOC and image) which wouldn't be visable there. If I was to add the image however, I'd place it floating-right beneath the "Works" heading, as above would leave a lot of unneeded white-space. While at first I was indifferent, continued viewing of this template has possibly swayed me in favour of excluding the image altogether, as unnecessary and/or detracting from the works. That being said, I'm certain I could happily go either way. As to the reason for changing the template: I think the standardisation of pages through the box heading would bring a better over-all aesthetic to Wikisource, and this might just be because I arrived slightly after the incorporation of {{header}}, but the first time I saw the author template (and every subsequent viewing) I've found it very unpleasant to look at it — definitely more unpleasant than it needs to be. – Quoth 02:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the author template should be changed aesthetically. I find the author pictures valuable as they give me a better indication of where/when this person lived and 'who' they were than the date. Of the two samples, I prefer Quoth's. I like the clear differences from the header template. banjee 10:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Author page template

OK, I'm still having trouble looking at this current template, so I'm going to initiate a vote on the recently proposed templates. As the general consensus was that we do want to change it, yet only two proposals were made, feel free to contribute a vote of Other template instead of Quoth's template (A/B) or Pathoschild's template. – Quoth 04:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I withdraw my proposal; Jude's proposal looks much better. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I want to propose a variant of Jude's template. —Antireconciler 18:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I've fleshed out the page that Allan is using for the existing template so that we have a better comparison. - illy 14:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm not making a vote yet, but I like aspects of both templates, though the colours of none (we need to differentiate between authors and works, in my opinion), so I've attempted to meld them with a different colour scheme at User:Bookofjude/sandbox 2. The colours at the minute, however, are completely disgusting. :-) Jude (talk) 07:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    Actually, I've become quite partial to Jude's synthesis of the two. It avoids Quoth's bulkiness with the three Wikimedia links being in the upper right corner of the main part of the header template, and it's not as thin as Pathoschild's. It's a good complement of the two (except for the colors, of course :-) ).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    Agreed; it looks much better. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I like it, too, much for the same reasons as Zhaladshar's. One thing, though: you seem to mimic a level 2 heading: 
    <p style="font-size:1.5em; border-bottom:1px solid #AAA; text-align: left;">Works</p>.
    What if someone changes their personal style CSS? I don't know the MediaWiki CSS internals very well, but is it possible to say something like 
    <div class="foo">Works</div>
    where foo is our h2-class? Or maybe we shouldn't include the works heading at all and let the user do it? --GrafZahl 08:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    (I've also reverted the colours to the previous olive-green, as I like that a bit more :))
    I was inclined more to just remove the "Works" heading; it's somewhat redundant, as there shouldn't really be much more in the page other than the actual works. Jude (talk) 09:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    I agree that the 'works' header is redundant. Headers are used in other indexes to distinguish between multiple lists (such as on the index of works), but there is only one list on author pages. I'd support removing it. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    I've removed the 'works' header, and also restored the plum colour after a quick poll in IRC, where the majority of people seemed to prefer plum over olive. Jude (talk) 04:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry for my absence, I went away for a week. I've changed the colour of my proposal to the apparently much preferred plum :) and also shrank the size to that of Jude's proposal. How do people feel about this new version (A/B)? The white background some might experience behind the icons would be IE6's lack of support for alpha transparency in PNG images, which has been fixed in the forthcoming IE7, and can be viewed correctly in any other updated browser. – Quoth 08:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC) One version includes the currently used "Works" section, the other uses the notes-like field and does away with the "Works" header. – Quoth 14:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Announcements

Latest comment: 18 years ago64 comments10 people in discussion

Spam whitelist

Brion added functionality a few minutes ago that allows administrators to override the m:Spam blacklist using regex on MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. I don't think this will be useful to Wikisource, but one never knows. See "bug 6321: Limiting the effect of entries in the spam blacklist to some wikis only". // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

So, does this mean, if we add a site to the "MediaWiki:" page which appears on the Spam blacklist, it will be allowed to be posted on the site (does it override the Wikimedia-wide blacklist)?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 02:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's exactly it. If we add a url (regex) to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist, and it appears on the m:Spam blacklist, we can still use it on this project... Jude (talk) 04:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Why do you guys use "regex"? Is there a certain syntax we have to use when we add the links?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 12:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Regular expressions ('regex') are a special syntax used for matching patterns. Regex allows for such searches as "blah[0-9]+\.(ca|com|net|org)"; this matches any domain containing 'blah' followed by at least one digit and one of the four specified extensions. In most cases, you just need to remember to escape certain characters (for example, "blah.com" would be written "blah\.com"). If you're interested, regular-expressions.info provides plenty of information. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. That makes a lot of sense of some of the syntax I've seen with regex.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 11:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:Unlinked

As it turns out, the Orphaned Pages report is about to be completely overwhelmed by soft-redirects. So that we don't completely loose track of current pages that are not linked to by any other pages (or categorized, though this doesn't keep pages off of the Orphaned Pages report) I've created a Unlinked template. I've added this to Category:Wikisource process templates. I am going through the current report and tagging all the pages that are not categorized. Then people can go through the unlinked category at a later time and decide what to do with these pages. If anyone has any comments on the template, I would appreciate hearing them. - illy 16:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a script could maintain a wiki list of soft redirects; that would remove them from Lonelypages. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
That would be great, but it's beyond my area of expertise. If anyone could set this up I could continue using the orphaned pages reports. However, I think that the template still helps raise the visability of these pages. - illy 13:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by their visibility; they're all categorised to Soft redirects under Wikisource maintenance. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 14:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I was referring to the unlinked (orphaned) pages. I've added some guidelines for linking to the Category and was planning on adding a link to the Category from the Community portal under maintainance. This should increase the visibility of the unlinked pages and hopefully bring others in to get these pages linked to the appropriate places. - illy 16:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Script: WikilinkDeleteTable

I wrote WikilinkDeleteTable to streamline the occasional long list of pages to delete. Given a list of wikilinks and an optional delete reason, it will create a formatted table with delete links. It ignores unlinked text, so any text with links somewhere in it will be processed correctly.

It will automatically fill in the deletion field on the delete form (if the delete reason is given), and the two columns of wikilinks make it easy to check for talk pages (bluelinks). The table is output in either HTML (displayed directly on the page) or wikisyntax (for copy and pasting to a wiki). The script is set to compensate for the most common special characters, so you can use pretty much anything in the wikilinks or delete form. If you find a special character that isn't compatible, please contact me and I'll add it in.

For example, given the first five links of the Openstar discussion and the reason "Proposed deletion ("Articles under Category:Deletion requests/Reference data")", it outputs the following table.

wikilink talk delete
Openstar talk main talk
Openstar\includes\language\blocks\spa\big.php talk main talk
Openstar\includes\language\blocks\spa\category.php talk main talk
Openstar\includes\language\blocks\spa\ephem.php talk main talk
Openstar\includes\language\blocks\spa\finclude.php talk main talk

I think I'll modularise the code so that I can easily make similar scripts for page moves and other such operations. The source code will be posted after I clean it up a bit. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that a bug prevents this script from correctly processing talk pages outside the main namespace. I'll fix that sometime. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:17, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I just tried out the page, and I got this error (I was having it output HTML because it wouldn't put out wikisyntax--it just gave me the beginning syntax to start a table):
Processed values:
error: URL-encoded delete reason not defined.
error: HTML-encoded delete reason not defined.
delete actions defined as "action=delete".
error: wikilinks not defined.
Just for your information, I used "Barnaby Rudge," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 1," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 2," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 3," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 4," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 5," "Barnaby Rudge - Chapter 6."—Zhaladshar (Talk) 00:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
After some more tweaking, I get the message "Error: wikilinks not defined." Do you know what's causing this?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 00:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Ignore my comments; I realized what I did wrong. It's essential that you put the links in brackets, or it won't work properly. This is great, Pathoschild! When it finally comes to mass deletions (like getting rid of the soft redirects), this will be very useful. This is a bit off-topic, but have you given any thought to using the tags to help create categories? Once we've finished this mass infrastructure development, I've got a number of discussions that we need to address, and tags are one of them.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean my proposal at "Fundamentally rethink categories" (archives, June 2006)? If so, it's on my long-term to-do list; it's a rather more complex undertaking than this script. Hopefully, I'll get around to it and have it done before the end of summer. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Yep, that's the one. Thanks for finding it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

This table is going to be really useful in a months! Is there anyway to setup an additional column for "what links here"? That should probably get a final check before deletion. --BirgitteSB 11:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

poem extension

A poem extension has ben activated on teh Wikisource projects. You can now use poem tags (<poem></poem>) to format poems and other texts where line breaks and leading spaces are important. Within the tags line breaks are preserved and leading spaces are transformed to non-breaking spaces. Here is an example:

 "The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
     All on a summer day:
  The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts
      And took them quite away!"

—unsigned comment by 81.229.37.221 (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2006.

Wonderful. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I foresee a new task for Xenophon. Jude (talk) 07:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Huzzah! I've been waiting for something like this since I arrived. – Quoth 08:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
You read my mind, Jude! :-) I'm very glad we have this extension as our current method does not allow any kind of text formatting.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 11:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The extension seems to render headings as plaintext; is this intended? See the example below taken from the Tao te Ching:


=== Chapter Nine ===
It is better to remain reserved than to linger overflowed.
   He who reveals the sudden Menace cannot endure for long.
   One cannot keep in eternal hiding a hall brimming with riches.
   The man arrogant from enormous wealths buries disaster upon his road.
   To succeed and then remove, that is the true Way of the world.

// [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

brion indicated this was intended as it is neccessary to force heading outside of the tags for the TOC to work properly.--BirgitteSB 12:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Well it's not exactly intended, it's just that it would break either way. :) --brion 19:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

DjVu uploads enabled

.djvu files may now be uploaded to the wiki. Currently there's no inline rendering (eg for thumbnails), but this will be added in the future. For archiving scanned books and documents DjVu should be significantly more compact than JPEG; at least the German Wikisource has been requesting this, so people here may be interested as well... --brion 08:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Can we convert files to this extension? Or must we scan them in as DjVu images? Also, how easy is it for people to view DjVu images (it seems like they can't do it on a browser, but if they download it, can they view it)? I've never heard of it, and I don't know how we use it.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 11:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
You can convert files to this format, yes. I'm not sure what's the best software for it (but there are open-source and other packages available).
There's a browser plugin for in-browser viewing. See the linked article for background. --brion 17:45, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I found a good online converter, and an in-browser viewer.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Featured text and new main page

The Gettysburg Address[1] is the first featured text since the main page redesign[2] and featured text guidelines[3] were approved. I just moved the main page styles to the site stylesheet, and will implement the new main page design sometime tomorrow after regular users' browsers have had time to refresh the stylesheet. This is the perfect time for last-minute adjustments. ;) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 03:41, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I may be the only one who thinks so but, against our best expectations & hopes, the main page looks ugly. The lack of the coloured blocks for the text make it look unstructured, especially for the items at the top of the page & the stuff down the righthand side. Also the line "Wikisource is an online library of free content publications" is running over 2 lines because of the picture forsome reason. AllanHainey 11:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Also the "new Message" banner makes it look funky for some reason.--BirgitteSB 12:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Try refreshing the browser; the styles were moved to the stylesheet, so some users may experience broken display for a day or two depending on how long their browser caches pages. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah! Yes, I'm very glad that we finally got this implemented.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Belated, but it looks wonderful. :-) Jude (talk) 10:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi. At Hebrew Wikisource we are currently discussing a serious copyright matter. I would very much like to get feedback here at en:, because so many people here are familiar with these issues, and have already discussed them in the past.

The issue we are facing is the use of typed digital versions of public domain texts in commercial packages. I am aware that the "common wisdom" on this is that simply typing in the text of an old public book that has fallen into the public domain does not in any way make the digital version protected under copyright laws, unless the new version contains added elements not present in the original version. But just to represent the original version in digital form means that even the typed digital text is public domain. Legally, this is even true if a person or company invested significant sums of money to have the book typed.

So far, that is what I have thought to be true. So the first question is: Is that correct?

As of today, yes... except if there some other points I don't see here. --Soufron 16:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Assuming that it is correct, I will add the additional element we are now dealing with at he:. Namely, that digital texts of this sort (typed versions of old books with no new elements) are normally copied to English Wikisource from versions available on the internet.

However, at he: we are dealing with something else. Not online versions, but commercial text collections sold on CD-ROM as part of complex programs. There is absolutely no intention to copy any new element of those programs to Wikisource, nor any of the copyrighted texts found there (there are some), but only parts of the CD-ROM that are exact typed versions of books published a century or more ago with no added elements.

Let me once again clarify what is unique about the question: The only typed versions of these old books currently extant are on these CD-ROMs. They are not available online or anywhere else. And it should be added that the companies involved apparently have sued in the past. (With unclear results; in one version of the story I saw, they actually agreed in court to drop lawsuits against each other with the condition that they agreed not to sue each other in the future.)

So the only way to get typed digital versions of these texts currently is to buy the CD-ROM. Does that matter legally?

Not really... the main point is to know if they own a copyright or some other right (database, etc.) --Soufron 16:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Can these texts be put on Wikisource while acting in a legally responsible way? Dovi 20:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it looks like it's quite possible to do. There will be no new copyright on these texts. It would be important to check their database rights, but this is likely to lead to the same solution. There were similar problems with Britannica when people kept asking if their trademark rights could forbid the use of their public domain publications. --Soufron 16:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
There are far too many things I don't understand that are going on here for me to give a good answer. The best advice I can give you is to ask Soufron on IRC. I wish I could be of more help.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi. The only unique thing about the question here is that the digital versions are only available on commercial CD-ROM programs. Does that give them some sort of extra legal control over the texts?
I don't have IRC accesss, but if someone could draw Soufron's attention to the question here, that would be great. Dovi 02:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer, thankfully, but I don't see that there is any legal distinction between text available in a digital form & that available in a non-digital form, that is in print. There is no new copyright created by typing/scanning/transcribing/etc any PD work into a computer file, or onto a written document (though some companies do falsely claim such copyright - www.Bartleby.com & Kessinger Publishing hang your heads in shame). So regardless of where the digital (or printed) text of a source comes from it isn't possible for anyone to assert a copyright over it unless they have altered it in some way - not in the format of its presentation though - such as adding footnotes, itallics, introductory notes, etc. If they have done so I believe they can only copyright the changes as a part of the whole, so if you leave out their alterations you can legally reproduce the original source.
That said if they are asserting a copyright over the source they either know they are doing so falsely & may rely on their legal muscle to stop you adding the source; or they don't know they have no copyright over the works & may sue you in any case. Without knowing all the details I'd have to say I think you'd win any court case (provided wikisource foundation doesn't get chicken & knuckle under). AllanHainey 11:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, you picked up on what I was thinking: I don't know all the information going on here (when/where/by whom were all the texts the he:Wikisourcerors want to copy written--I think dates and location might be the biggest factor in determining whether a work is actually copyrightable or if someone just "copyrighted" it. Given, the layout and the order of presentation is copyrightable, but he:ws doesn't want to copy that anyway.
Dovi: when I'm next on IRC, I'll go look for Soufron, but I don't know how much help I can be since I don't know any more than the last few paragraphs of information. If this is important to you, you might want to get an IRC client (even just one-time) and hunt him down, since you have a lot more needed information than I do.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
For anyone who does not want to get an IRC client downloaded, there is a web-based option. You can use IRC via your browser using this CGI interface, just fill in the details as you would normally (ie. Nickname: Foo, Channel: #wikisource, Server: irc.freenode.net). Once it has connected type "/join #wikimedia" to find people like soufron, "/join #wikitech" for developer help. Thank you to Jude who gave me this information. I also will keep an eye out for someone to ask on IRC in any event--BirgitteSB 13:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania 2006

I'm just wondering if anyone from en.wikisource is going to this? AllanHainey 12:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

As it's unfortunately on the other side of the world for me, I won't be there. (Also, if anyone is getting distracted by that site notice, go to Special:Mypage/monobook.css (or name.css, where name is the name of the skin you use) and add: /* <nowiki> */ #siteNotice { display: none; } /* </nowiki> */ , then hard-refresh (Ctrl+F5 in most browsers), and it shouldn't ever appear again. :-)). Jude (talk) 12:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I am. I am putting together a workshop regarding Wikisource as well.--BirgitteSB 12:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Whoa! Are you really? That's cool! Unfortunately for me, I won't be going. It falls at a bad time for me, and I'm a cheap little thing, to boot, so I'd like to keep my money for school. I'd really love to go, though. Stupid logistics...—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Birgitte - nice, let us know how it goes. Like Jude geography gets in my way (the Atlantic) so I won't be going. AllanHainey 14:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I am actually behind my schedule for the workshop, or I would tell you more. The program comittee requested I make it more "beginer's guide" than what I had originally submitted, which is a good suggestion since there are few current Wikisource editor's attending. I will certainly be sharing details with all of you soon. So this is also my ulterior motive for all the category and index talk, as I will be showing off the project myself at Wikimania. For everyone with geography issues, apply for the scholarships. The fact that there are few Wikisource related attendees might be in your favor (although I know nothing in particular). The money will be spent to help someone attend in any case, why not someone from Wikisource?--BirgitteSB 14:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Automatic archivation

Hi all! I've finally perservered and gotten User:Xenophon (bot) to be able to automatically archive sections of the Scriptorium. It needs to be refined a bit more, but it currently runs off the Toolserver, and checks every few minutes to see if there are any sections that are tagged with <!-- <bot action="archive" /> -->. If it exists, it'll move it into the current archive (/Archives/2006/07).

It will only archive sections which have been tagged by that, so this means we can just tag stale discussion, or discussion that no longer has any purpose, with {{subst:Archive}}, and it should be archived a few minutes later. I'll leave it running for the time being, but if anyone has any complaints, please let me know. If anyone would like me to stop it, leave a message on my talk page, and I'll stop it.

:) Jude (talk) 07:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Great work; I tagged a discussion and it was archived in seconds. However, I think you mean "archival" rather than "archivation". ;) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 15:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Great work, Jude! This will make archival a much quicker task. Just a few questions: does it also add the name of the section on the Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives page? Or does a real person have to keep doing it? Also, how does this scale to WS:DEL and WS:COPYVIO? If we could archive these, it would be very nice as well.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I've been working on it for a while, actually, it just took me a while to get the Pywikipedia side of things working... I haven't coded a function to update the summaries, but it shouldn't be too difficult: The core part of the program actually creates an array of headers and their corresponding text, so it should be easy to automatically update the summaries of things archived.
Scaling to WS:DEL and WS:COPYVIO won't be too difficult, either, though it will require a tweak of the tag... With WS:DEL, <!-- <bot action="archive" status="kept/deleted/no consensus"> --> (or even "k/d/n" for shortcuts), which would archive each section into the respective subheading of the archives. It'd obviously ignore a straight archive tag; I can even tweak the template to use ParserFunctions to check for an optional parameter.
WS:COPYVIO would be identical, but with just a "kept/deleted", as there obviously can't be any no consensus keeping of copyright violations.
As an aside, one of the main parts of the code is adjusting header levels; for example, when a new section is added to the Scriptorium, it's automatically added as header level 2; the bot notices these sections and re-sizes the header level to level 3, but it only corrects these when it's actually archiving something. I'll put a check in to increment a counter if an incorrect header level is found, and then have it update with a different edit summary ("BOT: Adjusting header levels on x sections", perhaps?) I'll add some more notes to its archivation (Yes, Pathoschild. Archivation.) info in regards to these few current short-comings... Jude (talk) 01:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Author and Portal namespaces

Hi there! Just a quick announcement this time: One of the shells has created "Author", "Author talk", "Portal" and "Portal talk" namespaces for us. You can read more about the bug here. There was one confliction, which I've just resolved (duplicate pages for one author, I deleted one of them), but other than that, it all seems to've gone well.

If nobody has any complaints, we could change the namespace button text for normal works of text to "work". Jude (talk) 23:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I've missed a discussion. What namespace button text are you talking about?
Also, there's one pending task which needs to be addressed. All the "Talk:Author:" pages were not converted to "Author talk:" upon creation of the "Author talk:" namespace. Some authors have discussions on their talk pages, and we need to move them to the appropriate pages. Could Xenophon move all existing "Talk:Author:" pages to their respective "Author talk:" pages? That would save a lot of manual time, if it could happen.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 00:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
It was a bit further down the page at #Article/Page, I believe. :-)
I'll go have a look at those Talk: pages now... it shouldn't be too difficult to move them. :-) Jude (talk) 02:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Xenophon has done this. :-) Jude (talk) 23:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Just seen that Author: & Portal: are now seperate namespaces. Hurrah. I'll take a look today & see if I can switch the speeches portal over to Portal:Speeches & get all the links working & stuff updated. AllanHainey 07:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
There shouldn't be much of a difference if all the pages at Portal: were moved over. Those at Talk:Portal won't have been moved, so if you'd like Xenophon to do these, let me know. Jude (talk) 09:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Something's gone very wrong to both User:AllanHainey/SpeechesPortal and User:BirgitteSB/Portal:Poetry/1. The formatted & organised text boxes have disappeared leaving only red links but looking at my watchlist the templates the redlinks should be displaying are still live. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this, it was ok about a month or so ago when I last checked it. I've been playing about trying to get it back to the way it was but I've had no luck. AllanHainey 11:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
It's ok now I think I've got it. AllanHainey 11:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Regex tool: Poem formatting

I've written PoemFormatting to convert poems to the new <poem> standard. The script parses HTML, wikiML, {{indent}}, and most illogical formatting (such as italicised linebreaks). It also converts dash entities to the literal dashes, and replaces "--" with the correct "—". Please notify me if you encounter incorrect output or errors. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 02:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Latest comment: 18 years ago27 comments12 people in discussion

Farsi page

The page Liber AL vel Legis Persian Translation is not English but Farsi and thus, I understand, doesn't belong here. But before it is deleted it probably should be transwikied to fa. Could someone with the appropriate language skills do that? (Is this the right place to ask this question?) Thanks!--GrafZahl 22:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not necessary to understand Farsi to initiate a transwiki move, although a browser capable of dealing with right-to-left text is needed. This is the basic procedure I use, based on m:Transwiki, when moving a work to a project without an existing Transwiki structure. I can't do this myself in this case, since my browser is completely incapable of dealing with right-to-left text.
  • Create the transwiki structure
    1. Create fa:Transwiki as a redirect to fa:Project:Transwiki (the local users will eventually translate the title and text).
    2. Copy and paste Wikisource:Transwiki log to fa:Project:Transwiki, removing the entries relevant to the English Wikisource, and uncommenting the interlanguage link to the English Wikisource.
    3. If possible, find the relevant category to categorise it. For languages that are totally incomprehensible, try finding the top category; a local user will subcategorise it.
    4. Add the interlanguage link to Wikisource:Transwiki log and, optionally, to the other interlanguage-linked transwiki logs.
  • Transwiki
    1. Copy the page to fa:Transwiki:Liber AL vel Legis Persian Translation. If possible, list the contributors in the edit summary ("main contributors: [[:en:User:Sepand|]], ..."); otherwise, list them on the talk page.
    2. Update the local interwiki log.
    3. Place {{sdelete|Moved to [[:fa:Transwiki:Liber AL vel Legis Persian Translation]]}} on the page here.
The procedure above is a bit long, but the structure need only be created once. After that, transwiki moves take much less time to do. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, I tried to do all that. It's a very strange feeling to transwiki a text where you don't even know the glyphs! Unfortunately I messed a few things up, I believe:
  • I was unable to find a category on the Farsi Wikisource, I asked for categorisation in the edit summary.
  • I moved the subpages as well… only to later realise they weren't really subpages and are now lacking the Transwiki: prefix.
  • I accidentally deleted the text in some of the pages I planted the {{sdelete}} on.
Hopefully everything turns out all right nevertheless. Thanks for explaining the procedure to me.--GrafZahl 09:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
:-) I've deleted the local pages in accord with CSD criteria A1. Jude (talk) 09:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Privacy Policy???

Shouldn't the Wikisource:Privacy policy (the link at the bottom of every footer) point to meta:Privacy policy? Right now it doesn't point anywhere, and I'm not sure if that's intentional, or if it just slipped through the cracks. –Pakman044 16:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out; I've corrected the link. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 21:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Question

ok, i'm new here and there is so much information here that it's completely overwhelming; therefore, i'm having a bit of trouble. you see, i've tried reading the help pages and some other things but, they are no help and just confuse me more. all i want is a simple translation for the word amber into japenese. is that so hard? (or am i too dense to figure it out???) so, i was wondering if anyone could help me on that particular subject. that would be wonderful. if anyone has anyinformation or tips on how to find that out, please please message me or something. ciao! ;) —unsigned comment by Scorpiongrl (talk) .

First of all you're looking in the wrong place. Wikisource is a collection of primary sources and is extremely unlikely to have the Japanese word for Amber. I would suggest you try W:Amber and look down the list of foreign words/names on the left side of the page. If you see one in Japanese click on it & it'll take you to the Japanese wikipedia article for Amber. The title of the page it takes you to should be the Japanese for Amber. AllanHainey 11:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Just tried this and the name is コハク AllanHainey 11:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Licensing templates

Why do we have both {{License-template}} and {{License}} doing the same thing? Unless there's something I'm missing, surely we could pick one and remove the other. – Quoth 15:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I say we redirect {{License-template}} to {{License}}.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
{{License}} was created later when I was standardising the license templates. I eventually forgot about the task, but it's back on my to-do list. {{License-template}} will eventually be deprecated. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

WikiSource

I just wanted to feel for opinions from people on this subject, or see if we had an already existing policy for/against that I wasn't aware of. Things like the Flight 93 Transcript with CARTC, the September 11th FDNY Radio Transcripts and my current project of the 9/11 Dispatcher transcripts...these are chiefly done through legwork, actually getting ahold of the recordings, then spending several hours listening intently to each sentence and transcribing it faithfully. (The problem with media-released transcripts is that they not only make a lot of errors in their rush to get it out fast, but things like the Melissa Doi transcript are edited and chopped up so that it sounds like she died a hero while talking to a hero dispatcher...when really listening to it, Doi was incredibly frustrated and angry with the dispatcher who was more interested in being able to file her nightly report, then help her. It sucks, but the fact is that was the truth of the matter. Anyways, my question that I'm finally getting around to, is whether there's a way to host wav or mp3 files on Wikimedia and point to them in articles, so the actual recordings can be present for transcripts if possible? I'm not sure if it would work the same way for recorded speeches, or if a media recording is likely copyrighted (unlike a cockpit recorder or firefighters' radio discussions), so that'd be useful information as well I supposel.

Not that it makes any difference, but for the record, no, I am not "one of those" people about 9/11, trying to use WikiSource to push an agenda of any type - I'm simply somebody who hates ignorance, on every side of the fence. There are people discussing the final moments of Flight 93 who have no idea what the cockpit recorder actually picked up, people who say that 9-1-1 dispatchers told people to evacuate the towers (Out of 130 people who got through to 9-1-1, 128 were told to *not* leave the towers, as was standard procedure, for the record) - so yeah, I'm just here to record unbiased history so that people in the future have a collection of important stuff to read relating to the time.

So, opinions on the wav/mp3 thing? Able to host on Wikimedia? Have to toss onto Sherurcij.net and externally link? Not at all? Sherurcij 15:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Currently we have been putting audiobooks up on Commons. If you look at the chapters of Pride and Prejudice you can see how it was done. However I believe there is a preference if not a requirement of using .ogg files because proprietary software issues. I am not aware of any policy regarding these sorts of documents, but I think transciptions of recordings should be within are scope. I really like having recordings available in one way or another for proofreading, but still be sure and specify your source for these recordings on the talk page or somewhere. That would have to be done anyways if they were put on Commons.--BirgitteSB 16:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Sherurcij: you're contributions here are fairly well known as being of high quality, interesting, and being unbiased. I don't think anyone would consider you "one of those people."  :-) Remember, source texts are inherently POV, but the issue is how we present them. And you're presenting them exactly as they should be: unedited and exactly how it happened. That said, placing the audio recordings on Commons is probably the best thing to do, as it might be interesting for other projects to link to it if it helps them. And if InstantCommons ever gets off the ground, people all over the world will have access to it. There are two things to note, though. One, the need to be in Ogg Vorbis, since they're audio files. And two, there is an upload cap of 20 MB. I would even think that if they approach upwards of 15 MB, they should be split into smaller files.
To point to the files in a WS articles, I recommend using the {{audio file}} template in the "notes=" section of {{header}}, as that is standard for all the other audio files we have. To directly access the file (using the URL "http://upload.wikimedia.org/...") use the [[Media:FOOBAR]] where "FOOBAR" is the exact name of the file (including extension) on Commons. Hope this helps!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

What Wikisource includes

This question is from Wikisource talk:Scriptorium and from Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

On the page Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes, a few of us were apparently unsure and it was proposed the discussion move here. So here is my transferred statment: "Again this goes to the heart of my latest blurb above, under Letters. Does certain media of historical significance, but yet unpublished, belong on wikisource? Perhaps the exception could state that *you* the transcriber cannot also be the *author* of the media. Personally I'm not really sure how to address this, but at the moment it seems a bit murky." Wjhonson 22:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

If you mean sources like private letters, diaries, etc that were privately authored and not publicly published then yes of course this belongs on wikisource (provided otherwise copyright free & either by a notable person or of other significance). AllanHainey 11:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Alright, I'm going to see how to word this on the Wikisource:What Wikisource includes page, right now it's not really very clear. Thanks for your input. Wjhonson 16:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Allan, I reworded slightly in order to make this position more clear, and my changes were reverted byZhaladshar without his/her offering any discussion or alternate wording. Right now the policy is unclear on this point and I am trying to make it clear. Thanks. Wjhonson 21:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not we should be making changes throughtout the policy as you made. One of your alterations tried to redefined "publication" so primary sources could be included. Most letters and journal are not published, we should not redefine the word to include them. Rather we should make a new subsection called "Primary Sources" and explain that we make an exception for these is most cases. I would suggest that you draft such an addition on the talk page and ask opinions on the specific wording beforing altering the official policy.--BirgitteSB 21:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have started the discussion on the specific issue of hand-writen manuscripts here. I hope many people will participate so we can clarify this unclear situation. Wjhonson 21:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Set operations?

Is it somehow possible to perform set operations on Wikisource articles? Such as "please display all texts which are both in categories X and Y" or "please display all texts in the main namespace which are neither subpages nor in the categories X, Y or Z"?--GrafZahl 08:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this tool can do some of the things you are asking for. /82.212.68.183 11:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Merci bien.--GrafZahl 15:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I've encountered a small problem that I'm not sure how to deal with. Jules Verne wrote one book, called Voyage au centre de la Terre. The problem is, it was translated twice into English under two different titles. The most common version carries the title above, but it is considered to be more of a rewrite than a translation (according to the "redactor's note" in the PG version). The more accurate version (faithful translation) carries the title A Journey into the Interior of the Earth. Personally, I think both versions should be added here (they're both on PG right now), but the question is, how? Do we use the same title (presumably the more common one) and link to both of them from there, do we set up a disambiguation page, what? Suggestions? --Spangineerwp (háblame) 22:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I would definately set up Journey to the Center of the Earth as a disambiguation page as that is commonly know English title. Then you could either:

Either way would work in my eyes but I probably would prefer the second. --BirgitteSB 23:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think I like the second one better too. I'll get to work. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 23:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Other discussions

Latest comment: 18 years ago167 comments31 people in discussion

About myself

I am just regular girl with big dreams in my magical brain.I like Linardo di Vinci's paper works and draw.which is left in this world.I am still studying everyday, by seconds to secons,munites to munites,times by times,days by days until i leave this world. - 24.19.82.11

Very nice, I would suggest that your user page is a more appropriate place for this than the Scriptorium though. I'd also advise you to create an account and read our help pages for information about wikisource & how to participate in it. AllanHainey 06:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Allan... Perhaps you'd like to create a userpage and move this there? Jude (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of reference material at Wikisource

I would like to call the community's attention to and personally protest a decision at Wikisource to exclude and delete a significant portion of the material that was part of its original charter. Prior to April 29 of this year, Wikisource:What is Wikisource? listed the following as included material:

"Some things we include are:

  • 1. Source texts previously published by any author
  • 2. Translations of original texts
  • 3. Historical documents of national or international interest
  • 4. Mathematical data, formulas, and tables
  • 5. Statistical source data (such as election results)
  • 6. Bibliographies of authors whose works are in Wikisource
  • 7. Source code (for computers) that is in the public domain or compatible with the GFDL"

On that date the project page was changed to explicitly exclude:

  • Mathematical data, formulas, and tables
  • Source code (for computers) that is in the public domain or compatible with the GFDL
  • Statistical source data (such as election results)

Obviously, this represents a major change in the scope of the project. It is based on a single poll conducted between April 4 and 27, 2006 Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/04. Previous discussions had been held with opposite results Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes. A primary reason given for the new change is that the editors participating do not feel competent to maintain this material and have little interest in it. However apparently no effort was made to notify participants in the previous discussions, nor to recruit new editors that might have an interest. Note that there are many active projects pages in mathematics and the sciences where such people might be found.

There was also no discussion of methods for reducing the load on editors, such as locking material after review. In general, reference material does not need or benefit from frequent edits.

I certainly respect the efforts of the regular editors on Wikisource and agree that their views should be shown some deference. However the process they chose is not sufficient. At the very least, I think there needs to be broader community input into such a massive change in the scope of a Wikimedia project. Even if this material is best excluded from Wikisource, I believe it deserves to be part of an encyclopedia and that any material already contributed should be moved elsewhere rather than be deleted. The simplest solution would be to move mathematical and scientific reference material to Wikipedia, where there are large communities to evaluate and protect this information. An argument could be made that mathematical data belongs in Wikicommons because it is, or potentially can be, language neutral. Or perhaps there should be a new Wikireference project. Computer source code deserves a separate discussion, since there are so many other open source code repositories available.

At this point hundreds of articles have been marked for deletion. See Category:Deletion requests/Reference data Some material has apparently aready been deleted. There is nothing left in Category:Mathematics. I would propose that all article deletions on Wikisource based on this change be frozen until a fuller, community-wide discussion can be held.--ArnoldReinhold 15:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The poll you linked to was quite decisive; lasting nearly a month, it received unanimous support from every or nearly every active member of the community. Giving weight to established users, the result couldn't be swayed without materialising a previously unknown, active segment of the community. Further, discussion at the multilingual Wikisource seemed to tend towards the same decision, although I didn't follow it and don't know what conclusion (if any) was reached.
Note that we are not simply deleting pages wholesale; we are doing what we can to find a new host for those pages we consider valuable, notably pages which require effort to compile. Of the 82 pages deleted thus far, 27 have been moved to Wikibooks. Various communities were invited at some point or other to consider taking any relevant content. We've simplified this transwiki'ing process by deciding to list reference data for deletion in batches over an estimated 13-week period. With minimal effort, this allows users from other projects to check Proposed deletions once a week for interesting pages.
If you know of any community or WikiProject that may be interested, please do notify them; any page that a community expresses interest in is removed from the proposed deletions. Alternately, you could propose a Wikireference project on Meta and move pages to the Wikimedia Incubator. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


(Edit conflict)I would like to quote my own remarks on opening up this disscusion back on April 3:

I realize this has been discussed several times in the past, to the agreement of accepting such material. However, the current state of reference data on Wikisource is unacceptable. The community members who are active on this site have little interest, and in some cases understanding, of the data we have been hosting. Although there have been editors that were adamant that this material should be included here, they have not remained active in the organization nor matainance of it. Much of this material is beyond the active administrators ability to even distinguish vandalism from corrections. Because of this current state of affairs there have been nominations for deletion for some of this data. However I feel we need discuss the larger questions of the place of reference material on Wikisource before we make any deletions.

It is disingenuous to suggest we ignored previous discussions or made no efforts to find other solutions short of deletion. In fact I opened up the discussion back then to put a stop to this material being brought up piecemeal at Proposed Deletions. In all honesty, at the beginning of the April disscussion I expected that we would arrive at a solution for keeping a portion if not a majority of this material. No one who was interested in this material bothered to even suggest any alternatives much less volunteer to implement any solutions in over 2 months since then. As for calling this to the "community's attention", you imply we are trying to hide it or be secretive. This is false. I personlaly have left notes on WP talk pages of people showing recent interest, as well as mentioned the decision in passing on foundation-l. Not to mention the write up done by Pathoschild in Wikisource news during and after disscussion. The decision was also mentioned on wikisource-l. The idea that this was "based on a single poll" is also misleading. It is based on consensus taking into account ideallistic comments made in prior disscussions as well as the pragmatic reality of maintaining this site. My negative opinions about inviting in the entire Wikimedia community into these sorts of decisions are given in much detail at the foundation-l archives. The thread begins with this post (Note this thread is not about Wikisource, but deals with the subject of alerting other Wikimedia projects to dissucions of policy changes within one sister project). I will quote myself from a later email in that thread:

I think [Ec has] hit the nail on the head with "Good rules support existing practice rather than shape it." The problem with the original suggestion is such advertisement would atract people who have no understanding of existing practice. That is my concern. I feel anyone familar with existing practice will be aware of policy disscussion through the normal in-project channels.

The deletions are proceeding slowly and carefully with any wanted info being moved to other sites. There were no mass deltions on April 29th. If you can find a home for anything we could not I will restore the pages for your access, please give me a list. I think the topic of this post is out of line and your proposal has little merit. Especially the idea that we should hold this material until and new sister project of "Wikireference" gets off the ground.--BirgitteSB 16:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


Yes, I would like a list of the material that has been deleted. I think it is totally reasonable to expect some notice and time for us to decide what should be kept and where. I get the message that this material is not wanted at Wikisource, but that is no excuse for simply deleting it without informing anyone who might be interested. The fact that no supporter of the material spoke up during the April discussion should have been a clue that there was not adequate notice. --ArnoldReinhold 20:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstood me; I was asking you for a list of articles you would like access too. If you go to your watchlist and click on "display and edit the complete list" any deleted pages will be redlinks. If you will provide me with titles I will temporalily restore any articles so you may backup the information. To your other comments, I do not believe we are "simply deleting it without informing anyone who might be interested." And the rest of your statements would only be true if time and notice were interpreted very narrowly while interest is meant in the broadest sense. I am sorry you are upset by the shift in consensus, but everything was handled appropriately and in a reasonable manner. --BirgitteSB 22:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How am I supposed to know what mathematics articles previously existed on Wikisource? I did not put them up or edit them, so they are not on my watch list. Note that I am not objecting to the shift in consensus. That appears to be a done deal. I am objecting to the deletion of articles without notice to others who might be interested in the broader Wikimedia community. What steps were taken to notify others outside of the Wikisource regulars? I don't see what the cost to you is of allowing some time for others others who are interested in these subjects to review what is being deleted and trying to find other home for the material. --ArnoldReinhold 00:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Well whenever I saw a registered user posting about this material I alerted them to the disscusion. And whenever someone at WP suggested moving material of this nature from WP to here, I left them a note about the change in policy. I also left some notes on WP deletion disscusions where it was suggested that WS might be appropriate this sort of thing. Then we put these massive tags over all the pages, and left them there much longer than for standard deletions. Besides all the common area notices I mentioned above. In all honesty if an editor of any experience cares about what is deleted on any project they would know to watch proposed deletions. In this case I think we went beyond reasonable expectations. We are allowing a great deal of time for people to reveiw these things under the phase-out plan. The only thing lacking is interest. We cannot be faulted that people do not actually care about this. I am really surprised you came here to complain about the deletion of articles you neither put up, edited, nor watched. --BirgitteSB 00:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm a registered user. I participated rather vigorously in the earlier discussion on Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes. I was never alerted to the new discussion. To this day there is no indication the question has been reopened on the What Wikisource includes page, which, by the way, I had been watching for additional developments. I think I had every reason to assume the matter had been settled. I am not asking for the change of scope to be reversed, just for a list of math articles that have been deleted and some time to evaluate other material for possible new homes. I don't think that is unreasonable. This is not an ordinary AfD situation, it's a major change in scope. Other projects had relied on Wikisource as a repository for this material. People need to be made aware of the change and have some time to consider what to do with articles that no longer has a home here.--ArnoldReinhold 03:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Arnold, You can find a list of the deleted pages by perusing the deletion log at Special:Logs. I believe this is the only way to get this information.
While I didn't participate in the reference data discussion I can confirm that it was certainly widely discussed and 'advertised' on wikisource and I believe elsewhere. I don't know what you mean by saying "People need to be made aware of the change" & "To this day there is no indication the question has been reopened on the What Wikisource includes page". This page has been updated to reflect the change in policy, and the new policy is clearly noted atWikisource:What Wikisource includes#Reference material. AllanHainey 09:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

"I believe elsewhere" is the rub. Where exactly? Were people on other projects who might be interested in finding a new home for the material made aware of the policy change? Also Special:logs is only accessible in 500 entry chunks and those cover about two days. If there is no practical way to recover this information, then that is a strong reason for a moratorium on further deletions until this matter can be resolved in the broader community.

As for what I meant by the second sentence you quoted, there was an extensive discussion on Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes on this very topic which ended in a consensus that reference material should be retained on Wikisource. When the matter was reopened a few months later in April, the new discussion took place on a different page (this one). I believe it is common practice that when a discussion is moved, some notice be placed at the end of the old discussion alerting editors who might be watching the earlier page of the new venue. That did not happen in this case.--ArnoldReinhold 11:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

If you go to the bottom of the deletion log click on the 500 there & it shows the previous 500 before those show. You can keep doing this perpetually I believe.
I had said "I believe elsewhere" as I didn't know for certain but Birgitte & others have replied above that a range of people were notified of the discussion/change. AllanHainey 11:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Arnold: we did everything we could to notify people; we left the entire discussion open for a month. We are not, however, going to hunt down every single person to notify him that a policy is up for change. There is some responsibility on the part of the user that if he has content he likes on a particular project, it might be good to occasionally come by and lurk the relevant discussion pages to see if anything's taken place. Even if you only did it once a month, that's only twelve times where you'll be spending up to an hour tops to see what is going on in the discussion world of WS.

For some odd reason, Wikibooks has agreed to take some reference material. Other of our reference material is merely duplicated content from what occurs on WP and WB. I know, because I hunted all over on those projects looking for WS links to remove; much of our source code content looks like it could have been duplicated from either of those two sister projects. We're not deleting nearly as much original content as even I thought (which actually make me kind of glad).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I did lurk the relevant discussion page: Wikisource talk:What Wikisource includes. That's where the previous discussion took place. Nothing was posted there about the new policy.--ArnoldReinhold 14:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Notices

I've posted notices at:

informing members that material that may be of interest to them is about to be deleted from Wikisource. I think it is reasonable to give them a little time to respond.--ArnoldReinhold 16:08, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

According to our Plan on phasing out reference data there is some election data listed at Proposed Deletions since the 16th and due to be deleted on the 23rd. Nothing else will be on schedule for deletion sooner than the 30th. If you bellieve this is unreasonable please suggest some specific time frames to discuss.--BirgitteSB 16:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
The full list of affected articles you requested earlier is easily given; see Wikisource:Proposed deletions/Archives/2006/06#Reference_data for deleted pages, Category:Soft redirects/May 2006 for moved pages, and Category:Deletion requests/Reference data for pages that remain to be considered. You can check Category:Soft redirects/June 2006 as well, but I don't think any content was moved this month. There's also a smattering of relevant discussion all over the place if you're interested, from Talk:Main Page to Category:Mathematics. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Article/Page

Shouldn't the word 'page' be used instead of 'article'? It is confusing to refer to them as articles, since they are not. 'Page' seems more accurate, although there may be better alternatives. Dbmag9 19:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I typically use the words 'work' or 'text'; are you referring to a particular page that is using the word 'article'? // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 19:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe this is in regards to the tabs as in article; discussion; edit; history. I do not think article is very appropriate it is probably a holdover from WP. I am not sure what synonym would be the best replacement, although I dislike page.--BirgitteSB 20:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
The word article is used in many places. You have "articles" in the categories on category pages (although Category:Categories is correct, it says that it contains 0 articles), the list of all pages list all articles, you have special pages for articles with most revisions and most categories, and in many other places (see the system messages). /EnDumEn 21:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
It's easy to change most of these if we agree on a new noun; I'm not sure about the special pages, though. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 22:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps this should be moved to proposals. I'm quite happy to change the "article" MediaWiki to "work", which sounds a lot better than article... would we want to change all the MediaWiki messages to use "work" over "article", though? Jude (talk) 00:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, we probably wouldn't want it on Author pages. Can it be changed per-namespace? – Quoth 00:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, if the Author namespace is created (I believe User:Pathoschild is filing a feature request for this), and the Author: pages are moved there, then it would use a different MediaWiki for its name--possibly even hard-coded into the site. Obviously we'd want this namespace to be created before we change the MediaWiki: for "article". Jude (talk) 00:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Poll

I have (or will be shortly) setting up a straw poll under #Proposals, in regards to this matter. Jude (talk) 23:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Corrección en "pagina prima"

Madrid, 6 de julio de 2006
A los redactores:
El título que preside esta página es "Vicifons, fontes liberae!".
Sin embargo, "fons" es del género masculino, por lo que debería ser "Fontes liberi!"
Ésta es mi sugerencia, al tiempo de felicitarles calurosamente por la iniciativa. Ha sido estupendo sobre todo encontrarme la Patrología Latina en red.
Saludos cordiales,
Prof. Alicia M. Canto
Epigrafía
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (España)
e-mail: <email obfuscated in case of spambots>

I think that this was perhaps posted in the wrong place. A translation from a free online translator:
Madrid, July 6, 2006 TO the writers: The title that presides this page is "Vicifons, fontes liberae!". Nevertheless, "fons" is of the masculine gender, for which should be "Fontes liberi!" This is my suggestion, al time to congratulate them warmly by the initiative. It has been stupendous above all to find me the Patrología latin american in network. Cordial greetings, Prof. Alicia M. Autonomous University Epigraphy Song of Madrid (Spain) e-mail: alicia.canto@uam.es
Is there a Spanish Wikisource? Jude (talk) 09:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
This seems to pertain to the Latin Wikisource. I've dropped them a note. Hope they get it, it's been almost a decade since I last read (not to mention write in) Latin.--GrafZahl 09:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Fixed!
Thank you very much!
--Francesco Gabrielli 10:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Your Latin is certainly much better than mine. :-) Jude (talk) 11:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I notice we don't have any works by w:Beatrix Potter here. Now, she died in 1943, less than 70 years ago, but most if not all of her famous children's books were published before 1923. For The Tale of Peter Rabbit, for example Gutenberg says, "Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook." Is that good enough for inclusion here, since the Wikimedia servers reside in the United States? Or do we have to wait until 2014? Angr/Talk 12:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Anything published before 1923 in the United States is public domain, and I believe that a lot of texts we have are based on this. Beatrix Potter's pre-1923 works should be fine. Looking at Beatrix Potter, the only incompatible work would probably be The Tale of Little Pig Robinson. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 12:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I know that anything published before 1923 in the United States is public domain; the potential problem is that the books were published in the United Kingdom. Angr/Talk 12:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Were any of Potter's books published in America? If we can't find an edition printed here, (which it sounds like we did with Gutenberg's text) then we have to rely on when she died. Potter's works won't be PD in England until 2013 (Life + 70). But that's all a moot point since we've got pre-1923 texts published in America.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm having a weird week. I found a 1913 copy of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Pigling Bland with just one page missing (didn't know that when I bought it) and I've been busy scanning images to add it to Wikisource based upon an assumption that the 1923 US copyright law applied. Based upon the above concerns (talk about timing) I doublechecked with the Library of Congress [1] and found that the 1913 book was published in both New York & London. Therefore, copyright is okay for this to be added. I assume the pattern holds for all of them.Banjee ca 23:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
For pre-1923 works, US copyright law does not care where the book was published. If it was published in the UK before 1923, it is in the US public domain, even if it is not in the UK public domain, and even if it was not published in the US before 1923. US copyright law only starts caring about where it was published for post-1923 works, for which US authors could lose copyright if they did not renew copyright or properly register the work, but foreign authors were later retroactively exempted from these requirements. 74.136.204.17 21:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

After I did all the work of finding the above link and checking - it occurred to me. Just look at the book. If you want incontrovertible proof, here's the scanned image of the appropriate page: Pigling Bland pg 4-5.jpg Banjee ca 00:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yep. That works. Were you able to find the missing page somewhere else (maybe another source)? That would be very frustrating to do all that work and realize a few pages aren't there.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I figure the missing page is long gone. Actually - it's only a bit annoying. Gutenberg has a copy of the text with no images and I still have about a hundred little pictures to post with it. Do you know of any good examples on Wikisource of books with a lot of pictures? This book has almost as many pictures as text. I'm just trying to figure out how to do this. Banjee ca 01:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks great, actually! Do you intend to OCR the text? There's quite a few good, open-source OCRs around... I was playing around with a few, but unfortunately I a) have no really good public domain texts, and b) have a rather bad quality scanner. I intend to drop by my local second hand book store, however, and see what I can find.
Speaking of copyright questions: Texts published before 1954, and whose author died in or before 1954, are public domain in Australia. Obviously these texts aren't necessarily public domain everywhere else, but if a text was published before 1923 in Australia, and its author died before 1954, would this be incompatible with the United States' public domain pre-1923 law? Jude (talk,contribs,email) 01:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Edit conflicted, sorry! The New Student's Reference Work has quite a few images, and I believe the one about Insects, though I can't remember its exact title at the minute, also had some wonderful illustrations. Perhaps we could just display them inline to the text? Jude (talk,contribs,email) 01:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what would be the best way to do this. I've never OCR'ed anything. I've uploaded some of the scanned images and put them into Category:Pigling Bland to give you a better idea of what I do have (remember the 1 missing page.) I do have all 15 colour plates Banjee ca 02:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

On the Australia question, I believe that if you are pre-1923, you are fine. If you have a work never published elsewhere, but published pre-1954 in Australia and the author is dead pre-1954 - you are fine. If it is published in the US after 1923 but before 1954 you can't use it as the US copyright law takes force. (I am NOT an expert on this-just an opinion)Banjee ca 02:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Banjee ca: OCR is by far the best way to go. You will spend inordinate amounts of time just transcribing it all, and it will probably drive you nuts in the process :-). That said, Jude, do you know of any good and free OCR software? I've got some OCR projects of my own which have been put on hold because I'm not going to transcribe them.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

GOCR is not so bad, though I've not had any success with Beatrix Potter--I've only used it a few times and still haven't got the hang of it. It's worked quite well on some texts, but perhaps I'll have to resize and otherwise adjust the Beatrix Potter images before it'll pick them up corrently... Searching Sourceforge for "ocr" turns up several pages of results, though I haven't tried all of them yet. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 01:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I'm lucky on this one - Gutenberg has the text - but no images - so I don't think I need to OCR it. I've started adding them to The Tale of Pigling Bland. I'm still working on format - so all suggestions very welcome!!! I also am very interesting in a good OCR tool - so, please let me know if you find one. banjee 03:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the best idea would be to convert the images to greyscale and improve and resize them, much like we've done with NSRW. It would definitely be good to have all the pages though--that way we could proofread them and possibly get them up to a 100% text quality... the next featured text? :D Jude (talk,contribs,email) 06:22, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to focus first on uploading all the pages as suggested - just as I scanned them. That way we've got them to play with. Please feel free to try different things on the page to try to get a good look. At the end of this, I'm hoping we'll have a style guide for children's illustrated books. One new question-I've got a request to load them to the Commons instead of here. I don't really care where - but does the Commons really want fully scanned books? I was thinking I should dump the colour plates & cover there and leave the book here. banjee 10:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It's possible that other projects might want to use the entire text pages for some reason... It's not too difficult to reupload the images later, to Commons, though. Do whatever's easiest, I say. Jude (talk) 12:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Be warned if you upload them to Commons. People don't really like the idea of scanned books. I've gotten into a debate about WS adding scanned books (of course, the scans were not personally done but were from a German database). But I get the feeling the sentiment is still roughly along the lines of "Wait...how can Wikipedia use this? It can't...Delete!" At least here we've got control over the pages. But it doesn't matter, I peruse Commons almost daily to make sure nothing useful for Wikisource is nixed.
I recommend not converting the images to greyscale until we can remove the illustrations (those should definitely stay in color).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
The scanned pages from the books are probably not much use for any other project, so there is no reason to upload them at commons (even though they should be accepted there since they are of use to a Wikimedia project). But I think all the illustrations (with or without color) should be on Commons, so there is no need to upload them on Wikisource. /81.229.37.221 11:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be nice if there were a new project devoted to scanned books. It doesn't really seem to be up Commons' alley to host entire scanned books (that's not the kind of media I think they refer to when they say they are a free repository of multimedia). And our page naming conventions are not quite what Commons would like, either. It would be safer for our project (especially with this nasty toolserver lag) and keep Commons from getting so cluttered.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
I think Commons is the best solution for scanned works as they may be used for multiple languages for a base of translation. Other subdomainss will not neccessarily know we even have this on en.WS. Of course we should do something about naming conventions, perhaps starting with the author's last name as that is pretty language neutral. I don't see why we can't upload what we wish in a manner that Commons will be happy with.
The scans could be put on wikisource.org as part of a new book scanning project; if Commons will not collaborate with us. However we will need to setup WS.org with the coding Commons already has to allow transclusion of these pages for the set-up being used for "in progress" texts (ie A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism: Volume I/028). In that case we should keep all our images and sound files on WS.org as well since it will be set-up for it. Then we won't have to worry about anything being deleted or replaced by people who don't understand what we are doing with it. If Commons desires any of the illustratios etc. they are welcome to copy it over themselves if it comes to that. I would of course prefer to simply use Commons as it is already set-up properly for what we desire. All this other talk is only about options if Commons starts deleting the scans.--BirgitteSB 14:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Based on the above I checked the commons policy on what they include. It reads:

Wikimedia Commons is targeted at media files including photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text and video clips. Wikimedia Commons does not contain text articles like encyclopedia articles, textbooks, news, word definitions and such. Each of these other kinds of content have their own projects: Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wiktionary and Wikiquote.

It seems ambiguous enough that it is likely the pages might be deleted. Therefore I have continued adding them here. Since I'm using some photography software to remove the aging and repair some of the images, I'm uploading BOTH the original scanned image - and a cleaned up version of images for actual reading. I do think it is worth pursuing setting up a project since we now have three examples that I'm aware of. banjee 15:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Recently I transwikied several constitutional and legal documents from Wikipedia to Wikisource. Some of these have been "published" since 1923. Do they automatically fall under public domain here? Additional questions: some of these legal documents are not in English. Are official translations by the government in the public doamin? Are unofficial translations considered public domain? Thanks! TheProject 02:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

That depends on the government that published it; documents by the United States government are public domain (see {{PD-USGov}}). I'm not sure about the status of unofficial translations. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Okay, a bit more research turned up the following:
  • Constitution of Egypt is an official translation by the Egyptian government, whose works are in the public domain.
  • Transwiki:Constitution of Greece was a translation from an unknown source; it has now been replaced with an official translation by the Greek government, whose works are also in the public domain.
  • The Hungarian government's works are also in the public domain, but I am unaware of an official English translation for its constitutional document. The translation at Transwiki:Constitution of Hungary is, as far as I can tell, an unofficial translation by a private citizen.
  • Transwiki:Constitution of Belgium is an official translation by the Belgian government; there are no statutes in Belgian copyright law, however, that deal directly with governmental works.
That leaves the constitutions of New South Wales, North Korea, Nigeria, Republika Srpska, and the Interim Constitution of Iraq. No idea as to whether or not copyright law in Iraq still exists. TheProject 06:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
That is great you were able to find some of this info. I know it involves a lot of reaearch. Would you mind giving us the links you came acros in your research that say for example the Egypt release goverment l works into the public domain? I am sure someone will need them again in the future. --BirgitteSB 14:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, this site has a summary of some governments. Hope that helps. TheProject 16:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I am going to have to keep this in mind for future reference. Thanks for finding it!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 18:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Another update: CPA in Iraq says that the Interim Constitution there is public information and may be distributed or copied at will. I've got a list of transwikis I've done that still need their copyright status clarified at my userpage. TheProject 05:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Another update! All legislative documents by any government in its original language is non-copyrightable, according to the U.S. Copyright Office's Compendium II on Copyright section 206.1 (available here) -- something I was expecting by common sense, but anyways... Belgium and New South Wales both have very old constitutions so they would fall into PD anyways. Nigeria has an official translation, Republika Srpska has an official translation, and North Korea's already was on Wikisource (I'll just sidestep that here). That leaves six potential copyright problems on my userpage; only one constitution, that of Hungary, is a potential problem due to its translation status. TheProject 05:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
In a related idea, I decided to add a template that handles this issue (since I'll probably want to use it soon): Template:PD-EdictGov. Trouble is, I didn't really create it properly when I set up the template and in moving it from my userspace at User:Pakman044/Template:PD-EdictGov to the main namespace, the License templates category didn't update with the "new" page. So I have to thoroughly admit to being lost at this point--can anyone help fix this for me?(fixed) Thanks! –Pakman044 11:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Please note, that both the Copyright Office and the person who compiled the document both admit that it is horribly out of date. See here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Even though the US Copyright Compendium is not legally binding, the US Copyright Office DOES NOT register state or local laws. Whether foreign governments can sue in the USA for unauthorized copies of their laws seem questionable. Section 104 of the US Copyright Act does protect United Nations works. Even though earlier resolutions are out of copyright for failure to have copyright notified or renewed, I now wonder if footnotes are later additions and therefore copyrighted. If there is no one objecting, perhaps the footnotes of UN resolutions should be removed while not GFDL-compactible.--Jusjih 02:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I am currently working on the Bush v. Gore case, where I am doing work on the opinions themselves and the maze of supporting/related documents. I have a couple of copyright questions on two of the supporting types of documents:

  1. I thought it would be a good thing to add a copy of the transcript of oral arguments, since they are often related to the decisions handed down. The problem is that the transcript itself is not directly a product of the US Government–it is a contracted product made by the Alderson Reporting Company. These transcripts are published on the Supreme Court's website fifteen days after oral argument for free (before then, you have to pay out the wazoo to pay for them). It does not appear to me that the company claims copyright on them (which I doubt they can), but what I'm wondering is whether they can be redistributed under the GFDL?
  2. I would also like to add some copies of a number of Florida statutes from the time of the decision that were cited pertaining to conduct/resolution/protests in Florida elections. These statutes are public records, and as such anyone may view and copy them. However, Florida's Statute's website is part of the State of Florida website system, and as such falls under the State's copyright policy, which says, "No material...owned...by THE STATE OF FLORIDA...may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way. Materials may be downloaded on any single computer personal, non-commercial use only providing all copyright and other proprietary notices are kept intact." I don't really think there is much of an issue with being able to redistribute the statutes–lots of people do it over the Internet and in hard copy for profit (and not-for-profit)–I think the issue is whether they can be copied straight from Florida's website, or whether some hard copy intermediary would have to be used. –Pakman044 22:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I think the above revelation on "edicts of government" kills the issue about the Florida statutes, irregardless of the distribution method. I'm still unsure about the Supreme Court transcript of oral arguments. –Pakman044 11:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

GOVT EDICTS NOT AUTOMACTICALLY ALLOWED

The edicts of goverment reasoning disscussed above will not work out. We have been through this all before and if I could explain exactly why this idea is invalid I would. However in order for me to do so copyright would have to make sense to me and that is not the case. I can only give the links to old disscussion about this. Scrictorium archives and Copyvio archives. Please excuse the caps in the heading, I just want to be sure I can find this easily once it is archived as I had trouble finding the above links.--BirgitteSB 18:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What is the policy then about U.S. State government edicts and U.S. local government edicts? Both of those discussions pertained to edicts of foreign governments--I would think that the Copyright Office's rules would be at least be authoritative on issues where it only involves governments inside the United States? –Pakman044 21:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe states and local governments have the right to copyright their works or not. The federal government can not do so. To publish another state's edicts or another country's government's edicts requires a bit of research to discover whether they copyright such edicts or not. You might be able to find such information on the state government's website. Hopefully, most governments will allow you to publish their material online, but I'm sure some will not.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
The issue of copyright in the U.S., is squarely a policy set by the federal government--if the copyright office's policy is that no U.S. State or local government "edicts" can be copyrighted, than they squarely cannot be (because they are the arbiters of that policy). On the other hand, if such edicts are copyrightable, then every single edict-type document would have to be verified. Currently there are 29 State Constitutions on Wikisource; I am doubtful that we have definitive evidence one way or the other if they would fit the GFDL. We also have several State legislative documents as well as State judicial decisions. Maybe this is the time to do some research on the issue to see if there is an official Copyright Office regulation (besides the Compendium II from 1984), and/or to contact the Copyright Office to see if they have an answer. –Pakman044 04:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
The Compendium II is very much out of date, so I do not want to reference it. My experiences working at WS and specifically with government works is that the federal policy is that states do have to ability to copyright their work, and the federal government will uphold it. This means that some research is in order (I agree with you that we cannot guarantee the copyright status of a lot of our current state legislation) to determine what we can and cannot host from a given state.
One of the best (or most efficient) might be to contact the Copyright Office, as they have about nine billion documents regarding copyright, so surely one of them would have which states copyright their works and which release them into the public domain.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Image Policy

Does anyone know of a policy about cleaning up scanned images. On The New Student's Reference Work/Africa I downloaded the animals image, ran some standard filters and uploaded it to a new file name (so that I didn't touch the original) and linked it to the page. You can compare both images using history. When I ran the filters I may have removed details that would allow a better upgrade of the image. My approach has been to leave the scanned image and use the cleaned up image. This approach uses up a fair bit of server space, but keeps all the data. banjee 13:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the newly supported DjVu format will help with page size? Cleaned up images would be nice, but keeping them along with the originals is best.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh my gosh. I think I just found the ideal solution to it. Convert it all to .djvu format. I took the 1.33 MB file that you uploaded, Banjee, and converted it to .djvu...it's now 88kb. I'll upload it to show you what it's like (go here). Note that there isn't any thumbnail renderring support yet, but Brion believes there will be in the future. It's also a bug report, so if you want it, go vote for it. The important thing is that we can take enormous files and hew them down to just small percentage of what they would be without losing any (or very much) quality.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Some of the sharpness of the picture is lost, but not much. It think the fact that it's only 6% the file size of the png, though, far outweighs this.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 16:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I went to look and can't see it at all. I also downloaded it & tried to open it with some photography software. Do I need an add-in or something? banjee 18:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Here, install an in-browser viewer here. Then go to the actual image link (not the Image page) here. You'll be able to see it then, and it will look very good for only being 88 kb.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks good - but, I am concerned about our ability to edit images and about more casual users. I'd rather not force users to install an add-in. The .djvu format isn't acknowledged by the image editors I've got. I downloaded the latest Corel Paint Shop Pro X for a try and it didn't know the format. The .djvu tool doesn't appear to allow saves in other formats. Is it easy to convert back and forth??? That way we can save the scanned images, but use something like JPEG for images imbedded in the final product. banjee 02:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I use a free program call IrfanView for my image viewing, and it loads DjVu format just fine. I haven't looked much into conversion, but there are a few web-based conversion tools (to convert images to DjVu) and a few command-line programs to convert them from DjVu to other formats (TIFF, JPEG, and a few others).
I think if we clearly point out where a decent browser plugin is, we should use the DjVu plugin, especially if we are going to do a lot of book scanning (harddrive space on WM servers unfortunately isn't infinite). After all, to view the EB1911 scans, people have to download AlternaTIFF in order to view the complete encyclopedia. Also, no one has to view the scans, so I don't think requiring a plugin to view a format is a very big deal.
Once I get back from vacation, I'll give more effort to looking into conversion tools for DjVu files that might be a bit easier for the average user (although initial research hasn't turned up anything hopeful).—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
That does make sense for boo scans, but should we be using it for illustrations like the African animals?--BirgitteSB 14:55, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that illustrations in-line in our texts should be in formats that common browsers can handle without add-ins. I expect that it won't be long before they can handle this small file size format - but until then, we can't make life hard for casual users. I do think we should use it for scanned texts - most of our contributors can handle loading a plug-in & if not, know how to find help. banjee 16:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree about the in-line illustrations: they're fairly small as it is so there's no need for more compression. Page scans--well, I am assuming that the only people who would use them would know a bit about computers and plug-ins or wouldn't mind installing a plug-in to view a fully uploaded book. Also, with just the sheer number of scans, it would be best if we didn't suck up all of Wikimedia's server space.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

UK Acts of Parliament

I'm a new user and was hoping to build up a list of Acts of the UK Parliament with lists initially populated from Wikipedia (List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600) - the initial discussion is at User_talk:Hacienda and BirgitteSB has already given me some helpful pointers there. Is the best approach to have a Wikisource:Legislative documents/UK page, with sub-pages for time periods, and then the Acts?

Also, in relation to the more recent Acts, there is a Crown copyright waiver (see particularly paragraphs 8 and 12). Is material within this waiver, and the conditions it imposes, acceptable on Wikisource? Hacienda 09:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

No Crown Copyright is not acceptable as it is npt compatible with GFDL--BirgitteSB 11:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Surely, as these acts where made before the 1600s, they would not be copyrighted? Jude (talk) 11:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not too familiar with crown copyright but my understanding is that we can't have anything after 1988 but anything before then is fine. I don't believe there should be any problem with Acts from before 1600. AllanHainey 11:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks: I assume then that pre 1955 Acts are OK under the 50 year rule and the licence waiver is not acceptable for wikisource. What then about the structuring of the Acts? Obviously it's something one would want to get right before embarking upon populating any contents pages. Hacienda 12:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes this is what I meant as Crown Copyright expires on leglislation after 50 years. We cannot have documents currently under Crown Copyright.--BirgitteSB 14:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Is the Wikisource:Legislative documents/UK page, with sub-pages for time periods, and then the Acts structure a satisfactory one? Hacienda 16:47, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Silly question, but how many documents are we talking about? If it's not too many, then I think it should just be on Wikisource:Legislative documents. If there are a lot of texts, then a believe a sub-page would be appropriate, so long as a link were created on the Legislative documents page pointing to the sub-page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
OK I have thought about this more. First to Z we are talking about a lot of documents {See List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600). I think the page should be a little more formal as in Wikisource:Legislative documents/United Kingdom (I know I orginaly suggested UK but I don't like it anymore). With the Acts being given their common name in the main space. I do wonder if the Statutes given at Merton and some of these other older Acts were one document for the dozen or so seperates Acts involved. If they were I think we should keep the document together with Acts under headings. There is no reason to force older docs to follow modern conventions IMHO. But this honestly needs more research. I would check out the British Library's website, if no one else can I can do some research into it after the 5th. --BirgitteSB 00:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know any numbers but even if it only includes pre 1600 Acts from England that is still a large number (had been passing Acts for over 4 centuries at that point). Incidentally I note the page List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600 is a complete lift from W:List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600(as well as being superfluous in its wording - it could just be "List of Acts of the English Parliament to 1600"). What is the purpose of this page if we're going to be listing them in Legislative Documents. I think we could just move the list to the relevant page on legislative docs and remove the superfluous wikipedia stuff.
On the naming of the wikisource page I'd advise against Wikisource:Legislative documents/United Kingdom because the Acts we're talking about don't relate to the UK but to England before it was united with Scotland, Ireland & even, for some of the earliest Acts, with Wales. I'd either go with Wikisource:Legislative documents/England and have a seperate Wikisource:Legislative documents/United Kingdom for post 1707 docs; or Wikisource:Legislative documents/United Kingdom/England. I prefer the former.
I don't know for certain but I would doubt if the dozen or so Stat. Merton were one document as I believe traditionally each seperate Act has to receive Royal Assent and be fixed with the Great Seal seperately. If they were one document they would only be one Act. They may well all have been sealed at the same time (& at the same place) but that isn't important as at that time Parliaments sat irregularly & Acts would, I exect, have been sealed at the end of each session. AllanHainey 07:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
AllanHainey's point regarding the naming and jurisdiction of the successor Parliaments seems sound - there was a similar discussion (of a lengthy and perhaps tedious nature) on Wikipedia. "England" (up to 1706) and "United Kingdom" (1707 onwards) seem obvious conventional names. I assume that a priority in determining a sub-page structure thereafter is to avoid excessivily long 'contents' pages, while not creating too deep a tree of sub-pages; I'm sure people can see just how many documents there are. I suggest that the first sub-division thereafter is determined by monarchs, rather than centuries or decades (the initial list demonstrates the problem of collections by long time periods). It would also be more historically intuitive, especially for older legislation, and look more presentable. If a consistent sub-page structure is definitely required thereafter, then sub-divide by decades and then years. If not, sub-divide by what is appropriate for the historical period (I'd prefer the latter). (It may be that the monarch-delineation becomes less appropriate for more modern texts.) For example:
And...
Any thoughts? Hacienda 13:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Hacienda in that after the first sub-page, any subsequent sub-page divisions should be organized according to monarch (probably something more people are going to know) than by time period (which people probably won't know).
I propose a slight change to the proposed sub-page tree, though. From the currently proposed one, I get the feeling that the actual names of the statues/acts/etc. are going to have the entire tree's path in it. I think the trees should only contain links, where the links point to pages in the main article namespace and do not have any subpages.
So, I guess it would like something more like
and each of these pages contain links. For example, the directory for Henry III contains a link to Statute of Merton, instead of Wikisource:Legislative documents/England/Henry III/Statute of Merton.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
That seems to be a rather more attactive way to arrange the actual statutes. There will be the occasional different statutes of the same name passed by different legislatures, but, say, a "Finance Act 1920 (United Kingdom)" title would deal with them.
In respect of the question of whether the earliest statutes (of Merton, Malborough, Westminster primus etc) should be combined or separated, I would suggest separated, as they have their own titles (e.g. County Courts Act 1235), their own pre-ambles and statute references (e.g. 20 Hen 3 CAP 10). There is some discussion of the ancient statutes by Sir Matthew Hale on the Avalon project. There are four examples of the Acts on the current list. Hacienda 15:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I don't see any real benefit in listing or sub-categorising the Acts by the name of the monarch who reigned when they were passed. It seems an unnecessarily confusing & convoluted method. Most people if they are looking for a specific Act will know either the general time it was passed (such as the century) or the proper name. To list/categorise by Monarch would require them to either browse through all the monarch sub-pages or to find out who was on the throne at the general (possibly lengthy) time they have for the Act. I would also say that the monarch's name isn't at all relevant, it offers no benefit in categorising the Acts or in finding a particular Act, for example no one is going to know that Act X was passed while Richard III was on the throne (and if they did they'd be uncommon & able to find it by other means like name & time) or want to see all Acts passed while James I and VI was monarch. People (especially non-British people) just aren't going to know who was monarch at a particular time, apart from a vague knowledge of the order they came in most Britons couldn't tell you off-hand the dates of Henry II's (pick a monarch) reign.

I had thought that as Hacienda created List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600 it would just be used, minus table & wikipedia stuff, as a listing page (possibly moved to Wikisource:Legislative documents/England) providing links to all the Acts once they get their own pages under their own names (Eg Court of First Fruits and Tenths Act 1540, Buying of Hides Act 1549, etc). We don't really host texts on sub-pages unless they are genuinely a sub-set of a larger work (eg collected works of poetry, short stories originally published in a single volume, etc) as, I believe, it makes it harder to find the specific work through the search facility (& it is convoluted & unecessary of course). It seems to me the easiest way is to create pages for each Act, under it's name, and create a seperate chronological listing page (as you've already done with List of Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1600) providing links to the Acts. AllanHainey 14:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My monarch suggestion had been based upon a couple of premises: firstly the current list is far too long; secondly any front page with the list of monarchs would contain their dates of reign (and a pointer on the UK and England parliament pages to the other). Presumably the success of a search for an Act on the whole space would not be affected by the contents page structure, as none of the Acts themselves would be in a sub-page. Does that answer your concerns? Hacienda 15:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
A possible solution to Allan's concern is just have the subpage (Wikisource:Legislative documents/England--or United Kingdom), and then using headers for all the different monarchs. That still might be a bit too bulky, but then it would save us from an entire sub-page tree. I prefer to have a tree than the entire mess all on one page, but I'm willing to go either way here. But, it should be noted, that not act will be in the subpage tree; it will have its own page.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I had thought you were meaning to have the texts as sub-pages; as this isn't the case I'm happy enough. Personally I don't mind the long list as it has the table of contents & it is comprehensive, consistently & well ordered. It's up to you whether to break it down into sub-sections (essentially sub-contents pages) by Monarch or century (I would favour by century if it has to be broken down) but I don't think its necessary. AllanHainey 11:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Bible Update

As I mentioned on my user page, I have been extremely busy with two projects at he:. But at least one of them has potential ramifications for English as well, and so here is an update.

As an initial experiment, and after very involved discussions that raised a great many possibilities, one he: contributer has used a bot to upload the entire text of Genesis according to its masoretic spelling not into a text page, but into a template. This template uses Parser Functions to allow the direct citation of any verse, without having to reproduce the text.

Please see the example here. Click on the edit box, because no text actually appears. Though if you don't know Hebrew you won't be able to read the actual text in the edit box, you should still at least be able to see how it has been entered into the template.

To call up any verse, you do something simple that translates roughly to this: {{Genesis|38|4}} and the verse appears exactly as typed into the template.

The same function could be used here in English as a tool as well: {{Genesis KJV|38|4}}. Chapters or any other combination of verses can easily be cited in any context.

What do people think of the idea? Dovi 11:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Didn't we file a bug about this sort of functionality? I'm really opposed to using templates for this sort of presentation and would much rather see partial page transclusions created. This could potentially drastically increase the number of templates we're using here, and I think it would be best if we could keep source texts out of the mix--we've got too many templates as it is. Is your proposal on Bugzilla not getting a good response from developers?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 23:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
We did indeed file a bug, but these things can take a very long time (sometimes years) as we all know.
"I'm really opposed to using templates for this sort of presentation" - I think you are confusing two different things. When we discussed this a month or so ago, we all agreed that using "text templates" was a bad idea, because it would mean tens or hundreds of thousands of separate pages, each for a small snippet of text, and would either clutter of the template namespace or else require an entirely new namespace of its own.
However, this is something completely different. This presents an entire book in a single template, and the template really is a template with a function, not just text. There is no needless, painful clutter here at all, nor any abuse of the template namespace. Dovi 04:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Except that we're still putting a source text on a template. And we'll be doing this for all 66 books of the Bible and all the different translations of the Bible. The ease of the functionality of this template (which I do think is quite a crafty one) could easily be replicated for many different kinds of works, with some minor tweaking to the template. That's the part I'm wary about. Even with just five different translations, that's 330 templates all containing text. But, I might have been to quick to put in my comment, that I forgot to add a bit more. While I hate the use of templates as any kind of source text presentation, this is a good alternative while we bide our time for the desired functionality we want. I mean, what we want could take over a year to be actually implemented, and waiting will not be fun for those Wikisourcerors who are currently active in a given Bible project. So, having a template with a parser function will give us two things: (1) We can actually present the selected verses that we want, and (2) when our feature request is implemented, it will be very easy to switch from the use of a template to an actual partial page transclusion (a bot could probably do it).
Now, I just have a question about actually using the template. One of the things we wanted with our page transclusion was to easily transclude a range of verses. Can we do that with this template, or do we have to use a new template for each verse?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I see this more or less the same as you do: As a functional (but not ideal) solution to be used until we get the full functionality we are looking for. The truth is that at he:, I personally was perfectly willing just to let this hang, because I have plenty of other Wikisource things to work on in the meantime (like for the next couple of years, no exaggeration), but the "grassroots" pressure of a couple talented contributors who didn't want to wait just made it happen. Besides them, other people simply found it strange that Hebrew Wikisource didn't have the most basic Hebrew text of all.
Agree with you on templates and bots. You are right that even if this is not an insane number of templates, it is still a lot. (I didn't realize quite how many, because at he: we are so far dealing just one version of the text for 24 biblical books, not a frightening number at all.) I suggest that these be tightly categorized, so that when the time comes to switch them to plain text with section labels, it can be done cleanly.
If the numbers get larger than I imagined (until just now), maybe there is a reason to request a special namespace for this. For Hebrew we have requested it (the request went in before the current idea won the day), but maybe from what Zhaladshar says it is still useful, because we will probably make the text available in a variety of formats.
As to your question: This is extremely versatile. Obviously, the basic way to get a range of verses is to "cite" them one after the other (which can be done fairly automatically). However, it can easily go beyond that: Once you create, say, a chapter page (which displays each verse in that chapter), you can easily call it up as well automatically. In fact, you can predefine any particular range in its own "cite" template as well, at call it up easily as a group wherever you want. Dovi 09:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
This can be done without the use of templates; for example, {{:Genesis KJV (ParserFunction)|38|4}} (with the colon) will call up a section of the workspace page Genesis KJV (ParserFunction). This would be more appropriate than cluttering and misusing the template namespace. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 16:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
That is true. The only problem I see is that you are then misusing the Main namespace by including a page that shows no visible text. Dovi 06:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The misuse is less, especially if you add a default text explaining how to use the page. Depending on the particular ParserFunction being used, this would probably be easy to do. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I like that suggestion, especially the idea of a transcluded message about "how to use this page" (we didn't do that at he: but we should). Do others like it as well? If we do decide to go with this, the creation of "coded" Bible pages using parser functions could probably be done automatically with a bot, and our current pages for books of the Bible would call up that text, showing exactly the same text that they show now (which could also probably be done with a bot). Dovi 12:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds fine to me.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 13:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Page Count

OK, then here is a related question we are dealing with at he:, but it would be great if it could be decided together with en:, since hopefully the pages on these projects will be linked!

Now that we have uploaded Bible texts in templates, we have the option of automatically creating pages with a bot for books, chapters, and individual verses, all in various optional formats. The question is: page count. There are lots of chapters, and a huge number of verses. The coolest thing possible to do with this would be to link all versions of a verse in each language with each other, as in Bible/Obadiah/1/2. But if we do that automatically, then the number of pages in Hebrew Wikisource will become meaningless. Even in English the number would jump by tens of thousands.

Possible options:

  • Who cares? Wikipedia doubled when articles on US towns were added by a bot, but eventually that didn't matter anymore.
  • Find a technical solution that would avoid counting pages added automatically.
  • Put pages on individual verses and such in a separate namespace.

Any other ideas? —unsigned comment by Dovi (talk) .

I believe someone suggested that subpages be ignored in the page count, which would count single works with multiple chapters as a single work. I'm for the idea, if it's ever proposed. Jude (talk) 07:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Indent templale

There are big problems with Template:Indent. Has something changed to make the software collapse multiple instances of any type of space into a single space? See the template's use at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/04#{{indent}}, for example, and look at the HTML source of that section. You can see (I hope) that the server isn't even spitting out em-spaces (not the entities, anyway, and not multiple instances of them). See also the discussion at Template talk:Indent about the best way of implementing the intended effect. I get the feeling most people aren't seeing what's intended. - dcljr 06:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue is moot at this point. The template existed as a workaround to a problem that existed at the time: wikiML indentation has very odd linespacing, while HTML indentation is ugly and unreadable. Both of these have been corrected by the new <poem> tag. This template should be orphaned and deleted; PoemFormatting should help quite a bit. I'll do so over the next few days. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 06:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
So, has the software been changed to collapse multiple spaces of any type to single instances? - dcljr 06:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Bug 5569 replaces nonbreaking spaces with (collapsing) ordinary spaces on pages that uses the pre-tag. /82.212.68.183 08:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
But the indent template is used on many pages that are not poems. Examples of this are Criminal Code Act 1995 (Australia), Gettysburg Address (only one line, so the template is not really needed) and An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. So formatting all poems will not orphan the template. /82.212.68.183 08:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I looked at some of the pages to see how to replace the template (if yoy want to delete it). In Criminal Code Act 1995 (Australia) and its subpages it seems to me that colons can be used (like in this diskcussion), one : for {{indent|1}}, two : for {{indent|2}},…. There are some texts where, like in Gettysburg Address, the indent is used only in a single line so it is easy to do the indentation without the template. In the sections of The Doctrine and Covenants all lines use {{indent|0}}, the purpose seems to be to get line breaks without starting new paragraphs. That does not look like the intended usage of the template. I think that <br /> should be used on those pages. /82.212.68.183 18:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I remember that this has been discussed in the past, can anyone refer me to the discussion?

The specific question at hand is the text of a speech given when receiving a Nobel Prize in literature. Thanks, Dovi 18:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't remember a specific disscussion but I have asked about this myself. The best answer I got was that speeches cannot really be copyrighted until they are published in tangible form. That there was a distribution of copy of the "I have a dream" speech to the press as a "publication" was the argument made by the King family. However it was settled out of court without a real decision being made. It is basically a very unclear area, worse than most areas of copyright. My opinion is we should put speeches up, treating them as uncopyrighted non-publications, and be aware that someone could come to us claiming copyright. And if that happens we should follow the whatever legal advice is given without protest. I do not believe we should refuse speeches because a third pary believes there might be a copyright issue however. The truth is there might be, no one really knows, but until someone actually complains we are infringing on their copyright I think we should procede as we are.--BirgitteSB 19:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I remember talking about Nobel speeches, but I believe it was back on the multi-WS when Ec was still very active. I can't remember what we said about it, but I believe we said that anything before the 1923 was definitely okay. Anything after that I don't think we gave a real pronouncement on. But for 1923-speeches and on, I agree with Birgitte's statement.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 01:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
One of the prior discussions was at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/03#Fair use & Speeches, another was at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/05#Fair use and speeches. These don't deal with our Nobel acceptance speeches but I think these are all pre-1923 in any event so ok to keep (I don't see any attempt to enforce copyright, validly or falsely, on these as likely anyway). I would agree with Birgitte's comments that this is an unclear area of copyright law but that we're generally ok to host speeches, though if anyone specifically complains of a copyright violation we should of course investigate. AllanHainey 07:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
The Nobel lectures are published each year in Les prix Nobel, is that not tangible works and eligeble for copyright. Pre-1923 is only relevant for users in the US, shouldn't the nation of origin of the laureates be considered? I assume you only want versions i English of the lectures. Many of the old lectures were originally in other languages and translated into English by Elsevier in the 1960s and 1970s. Does that make any difference for the copyright? (I assume you are not making your own traslations).82.212.68.183 13:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Importing pages

Is there anyone here who can import page history from another Wiki site?--Jusjih 02:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe so, but it shouldn't be hard to request the import permission for people on this wiki. I imagine some transwiki'ers would find it extremely useful... and we tend to get a lot of texts coming from Wikipedia, too. I think asking for Special:Import, etc, would be a good idea. Jude (talk) 04:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Now that the feature works, I definitely think we should get it set up here.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 04:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I have asked at meta:Talk:Requests for permissions and a steward may grant importing privileges. We have no stewards here, so I think that we have to apply at meta:Requests for permissions. I would like to have importing privilege.--Jusjih 02:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Import privileges appear to be a purely temporary thing. I believed that the developers had to enable the interface before the permission could be assigned, but I'm perhaps incorrect about this matter. As it is, User:Danny is a sysop and also a steward. The steward policy restricts stewards from desysop'ing unless by request, but as this is simply a matter of import permission, I'm not sure there's an issue with it...
Perhaps we could set up a quick "Request for import permission" on WS:ADMINS, that grants a user import permission for a week? Jude (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
With all the transwiki'ing that seems to happen, it's a shame that permissions are only temporary. But I agree, if we know of a lot of pages that need to be imported, we probably should set up a "Request for import permissions" for when we need to use it. I hate it when edit histories are lost because of cross-project page moves.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
I spoke to Brion on IRC earlier; not only do we need to have the permission assignned by a steward, but the Special:Import interface has to be enabled, and the target wiki (where the revisions are coming from) needs to be specified. Perhaps having a request for this permission page would be the best... somewhat like an administrator nomination? Jude (talk) 23:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
The only Wiki site where I have importing privilege is Chinese Wiktionary. It is not temporary.--Jusjih 01:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

May I put a following ?

May I put the judicial precedent, the certificate of incorporation, and the diagram or record of a game(example chess,etc) on Wikisource?--Forestfarmer 08:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Have the documents you want to add been previously published? Are they currently out of copyright, or licensed under a GFDL-compatible license? I don't really know what you are asking, but if you give more information, I might be able to better help you. Thanks!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 17:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Heh, probably not what you were asking about, but it just occured to me that it would be awesome if somewhere somebody made diagrams showing every move made in the game between Kasparov and Deep Blue. Sherurcij 17:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
No.No.This writeing don't have deep meaning.This is written on Japanse wikisource.and It is reference as for English Wikisource wikipedians thinking.Do I only ask What English Wikisorce wikipedians think ? If it was previously published.Is There no problem especially ?.I only asking it.and I like Japanese chess as well as chess,if It was ok,I would like to put old diagram of a game on.--Forestfarmer 03:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
My question is have these diagrams been published? And, if so, what is the copyright of the source in which it was published?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Under the rule for transcripts, it would seem like you could transcribe the chess moves from a video-tape of the game. Wjhonson 15:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

reply:about copyright of recourd of game is no problem.I would put record of a game published 1~200 year ago.May I put the judicial precedent really? and a present certificate of incorporation will not be put. I would put really a certificate of incorporation of the company that doesn't exist now(like Dutch East India Company). --Forestfarmer 04:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I question about the inclusion of the game, but the other additions would be welcome. I would like to see a sample of how you would transcribe such a game and what the source is. It is certainly posible that it would be included but I am not sure what you are really proposing--BirgitteSB 14:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the "final" answer we can give you on the game is "Don't waste 12 hours putting it on WS all at once, but if you can spend a bit of time creating it (perhaps in User:Forestfarmer/sandbox, which is where we commonly put our projects, such as User:Sherurcij/sandbox), with maybe one example of what sort of images you're talking about, and a note about the game, or link to a Wiki article or other website discussing why the match was important, then it would be a lot easier for everybody to decide whether or not it fits - but it definitely sounds like it's worth a try! :) Sherurcij (talk) (CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN) 14:48, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
sorry.the record of game about igo,shougi is kifu in japanese.it is very historical common material.and may be chess too.Because I do not have a very old kifu,I ask for kifu. but I would paste samle to my sandbox soon.--Forestfarmer 03:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

there is a sample [2] and User:Forestfarmer/sandbox.Is there a rebuttal?--Forestfarmer 17:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you have made a msitake in the formatting of the chess game in your sandbox, but that should not be difficult to fix. I have another chess exampel in my sandbox. /82.212.68.183 22:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thank you.The game record of chess is not detailed for me.I would rewrite it.--Forestfarmer 08:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Babel category unused?

The Babel category seems to be mostly unused. It contained only one babel template which I just removed from this category. Only a handful of pages link there. Generally, the babel templates seem to reside in the user categorisation templates while the user language categories are in Category:User languages. To have the extra category is somewhat confusing. I suggest to either

  • remove the category, and follow current practise of adding language templates to the aforementioned categories, or
  • make Babel a subcategory of Category:User categorisation templates and put all babel templates there. This might be the better long-term solution when we have a really large number of user categorisation templates.

--GrafZahl 13:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

"Babel" is a catchphrase; I prefer the more informative "user languages". It seems that the original Wikipedia:Babel does as well, as it uses "User language templates" rather than "babel templates" or "babelboxes". If we subcategorise the language templates, I'd suggest we do so to "user language templates". // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 04:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph breaks (technical question)

Hi. Can anyone explain why paragraph breaks do not show up here and here? Dovi 02:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have an exact explanation why this happens. However, when you remove the <center><big> stuff, the problem does not occur. Instead, you could use something like <div style="text-align:center;font-size:x-large"> instead. HTH, GrafZahl 09:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Maybe one of the developer don't want us to use the deprecated center tag, and broke parsing of it. The problem seems to be linebreaks inside the center-tags. So you can use a div instead (like GrafZahl says) or use open and close center tags on each line you want to center. /81.229.39.187 09:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
It's also possible that it has something to do with HTML Tidy... I might poke around in the developer channels on IRC and see what they say. Jude (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

searching for a poem....am new to this site

Your help would be deeply appreciated! Does anyone know of the poeem entitled "Grandmother" by Victor Hugo? I would be very thankful if someone could please email it to me at <email obfuscated>

I have searched everywhere for this poem. I had given it to my mother and granddaughter many years ago and it holds a special place in my heart and did my mothers as well, who passed on some years ago.

I know this isn't the right spot to ask such questions, but as I said, I am new to this site and in a hurry to get to work. So forgive me my ignorance.

Thank you for your time in this matter.....sincerely, Dawn from.... <email obfuscated>

I've just put the English contents of the poem up at The Grandmother, the translation is by Rev. Francis Sylvester Mahony who died May 18 1866. The French wikisource may have the original French text if you prefer. Sherurcij (talk) (CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN) 22:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a U.S. Senate study from the 1950's that I'd like to upload. I.e., it's a document of 100 pages or so, written by an academic professor at the request of a Senate subcommittee, and published by the Senate. My guess is that the professor got paid by the US Govt but was not a govt employee, more like a consultant or something. What's the rule about uploading something like that? Thanks. Phr 06:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

According to this Wikipedia article, works produced by contractors are not automatically in the public domain. However, have a look at Copyright and Wikisource. You might find a different reason for this work being in the public domain, such as missing copyright notice or failure to renew copyright.--GrafZahl 15:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Experiment

Hello. I have just posted a ToC for a new book, Tales of Italy, by Maxim Gorky. It contains 27 short stories from the Soviet era, and is a very important work. Rather than type the book, I have decided to try an experiment. I will scan it story by story and send a pdf file to people who ask for it. All you have to do to sign up is to contact me on my Talk page or to put your name down by a story. A story will appear in your email withini 24 hours. Let's see how this works. Danny 22:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course I'll sign up! :) Jude (talk) 23:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District et. al.

What is the copyright on these pages? 86.41.136.127 14:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a federal court case, so it should be in the public domain (see Copyright and Wikisource and Template:PD-USGov for details).--GrafZahl 08:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose move of unicode articles

I don't know why articles such as Unicode 0000-0FFF was moved to Wikibooks under Windows Programming section. Unicode is indepedent to a certain Operating System and these were obviously wrong moves. If no one can convince me why they were moved to something like Windows Programming, I WOULD CONSIDER COPY THEM BACK (I AM SERIOUS.) --Hello World! 10:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

They were transwiki'd to Wikibooks. The place to take this up would appear to be b:Wikibooks:Staff lounge, on Wikibooks. Please don't copy them back, as they are excluded from Wikisource in accord with our inclusion policy, and will likely be deleted. The relevant passage from the inclusion policy is:
Wikisource does not collect miscellaneous information unless they are part of a source text, as such information has not been previously published, is often user-compiled and unverified, and does not fit the project's goals of archiving the artistic and intellectual works created throughout history.
Hope this helps! Jude (talk) 11:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, I acknowledge that this is user-compiled, but please remove them elsewhere and remove the Windows Programming wordings.--Hello World! 11:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Since they are now on a different project, you should propose changes on Wikibooks at the community discussion page or the relevant discussion page. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 11:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Transcriber's Notes

I started working on a page here The Occult World, not finished of course, just started... but my question is I'm unsure of how to add transcriber's (my) notes. Maybe there's another page I can refer to where someone has done this? Wjhonson 18:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Editorial notes are added to the notes parameter of the standard {{header}} template:
{{header
 | title    = The Occult World
 | author   = A. P. Sinnett
 | section  =
 | previous =
 | next     = [[/Introduction|Introduction]]→
 | notes    = Editorial notes...
}}
I found an online source at theosophical.ca; copying this text and proofreading from your hard copy should be much less effort on your part. :) // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 01:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
I am concerned that doing that would be a copyright violation, since I would be essentially *copying* their format, then stripping it of formatting, but starting with a copy. The other point to note, is that my work actually is an earlier edition which preserves certain *now controversial* sections. While it's true I could edit those sections back in, I just feel better about doing the work from scratch. No one can then acuse me of doing something improper. And thanks for the header information on transcribers notes. Wjhonson 01:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but for adding small notes, such as explaining a statement, or pointing out something small to notice, when it's at a certain point in the text, it's best to use <ref>Despite Sherurcij's claims to the contrary, WikiSource is not comprised of man-eating dandelions</ref>, and then add ''==Annotations== <p> <references />'' at the very bottom, and it'll automatically format things. An example can be seen in Aysel Sengun e-Mail.Sherurcij 01:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

World Clock

Please can anyone tell me where on Wikipedia I can find information pertaining to the World Clock. I need the time zones specifically across America and those across the Soviet Union. Thank you. I don't know how this will be treated but here is my private email address if it is required: <email removed (unneeded, spam concerns)>. I am not a computer whiz-kid and I am too old to learn now so, a reply to my email address, if possible or, exactly how I get to the correct page on Wikipedia would suit me just fine. Thank you.

I think you might be looking for Image:Timezones_optimized.png? 83.44.191.27 00:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
You can find encyclopedic information on what you're looking for in Wikipedia's article on Timezones. The image 83.44.191.27 linked to above graphically superimpostes all the timezones on a map; see the full size for details. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 00:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
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