Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006-12 - Wikisource, the free online library

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This is a discussion archive first created in December 2006, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date.

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Announcements

Latest comment: 18 years ago28 comments7 people in discussion

Automated deletion of old soft redirects: script available

A new bot script to delete old soft redirects and update links pointing to them has been requested on bot requests. Such a script is now available under User:TalBot/rm-soft-redir.py using the pywikipedia bot framework. As the script, if run, would delete possibly thousands of soft redirects, changing thousands of links on thousands of pages every month, I feel the community should be given the opportunity to discuss the mode of operation and other things about the script here first, before the beast is unchained. Improvement suggestions are especially appreciated.

The intended mode of operation is as follows:

Get a list of soft redirects for a specific month.
If requested, create a list of pages linking to these redirects. This list may then be posted by the bot operator.
Update links pointing to a soft redirect to point to the new target. If the old link was relative, the new link should be relative to.
Log the soft redirect as to be deleted. The script can also delete the redirect by itself, but this requires sysop privileges. Nevertheless, due to the vast number of soft redirects to be deleted, this may be the preferred choice.

There is some trickiness involved with 3. because there are dozens of ways to link to a single pages. Pywikipedia already has some logic built in to normalise page titles, which has been expanded in the script (the function make_search_replace_list()). It would be greatly appreciated if an experienced python user could audit the script and especially this function (unfortunately it seems to be very difficult to test bot scripts on anything else than the real wiki). On the other hand, this same function could be used in other scripts, e.g. page move scripts, to avoid breakage of links, which has happened recently with the UN Security Council resolutions.

No. 4 raises the question of which bot should run the script. There is one bot with sysop privileges, Xenophon, but I'm not sure if Jude is still around. If someone is willing to delete the redirects manually when provided with a list, then of course TalBot can do it itself. Otherwise, another bot whose owner is an admin would have to be nominated for adminship first.

--GrafZahl 14:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You can test it on the Test wiki; for example, have an upload bot add a dozen fake soft redirects and a page that links to them, and then run rm-soft-redir.py. I'd suggest taking the category name as parameter, instead of the date. This is more flexible, and doesn't require that we (or any other wiki that may use the script) stick strictly to the current standard. Running it isn't really a problem; there are several easy options available:

I or another administrator could run it through our main account. This will flood recent changes, though.
I could run it through Pathosbot. As far as I know, it is the only bot owned by an administrator that uses pywikipedia; alternately, any other administrator who has a bot account could download and learn pywikipedia.
You could request administrator access for yourself and your bot. I don't think a non-administrator should run an administrative bot. Xenophon can be desysoped if you do; it was supposed to be temporary, and was only kept so the bot could keep deleting (which it hasn't).

Great work on the script. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 05:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Using the testwiki as a bot playground sounds like a good idea, I'll look into that. Right now, I'm doing some dry-runs, that is, I let the script run directly on Wikisource, but without the changes actually being committed. I'll change the -month parameter to -cat, so that any category can be specified.

I had a peek at the admin list and realised that Xenophon doesn't have sysop privileges any more, i.e. no bot has sysop privileges at the moment, so I'll post a nomination when testing is finished.

--GrafZahl 16:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

United Nations resolutions found to be in the public domain

As WS:COPYVIO has more debates about the copyright of the United Nations resolutions, paragraph 2 of ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 has been discovered to release official Records and United Nations Documents, including resolutions, into the public domain. This has ended the major copyright turmoil that has troubled English Wikisource since November 2005. However, as previously deleted resolutions have been undeleted with the old format "UN Security Council Resolution (number)" with a space before the number, they should be moved to the new format "UN Security Council Resolution/(number)" with a slash before the number. Anyone with a bot to make mass page moves would be greated appreciated.--Jusjih 16:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Administrative Instruction ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 is now available on Wikisource. I will add the related instructions on Monday. Physchim62 15:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I run such a bot and created an entry on the bot requests page. I've seen that you already did a number of page moves yourself. It would be great if you could me give some information about the extent of this request, i.e. a rough estimate how many pages still need to be moved (if any). Thanks.--GrafZahl 13:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Is that the best nameing scheme for these resolutions? To me that would imply that the numbered resolutions are only parts of a bigger work that is named "UN Security Council Resolution". Maybe some other scheme is better, "UN Security Council Resolutions/<number>" or "UN Security Council/Resolution <number>". Regardless of wich naming you choose, I think you should keep the redirects on "UN Security Council Resolution <number>" and not make them into soft redirects. /82.212.68.183 15:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Being distinct works, I've always thought that they should just be "UN Security Council Resolution <number>" (no slash or anything). The point of the subpages is to group closely related pages (like chapters, volumes, parts, etc.) together into a nice, easy-to-link to method. We've got radio addresses, executive orders, presidential proclamations all with a very generic title ("Executive Order" for example) followed by a number. I personally don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to use the subpage naming for pages which are all distinct. However, if it is decided to keep the subpage naming, the name should be changed to "UN Security Council Resolutions/<number>" (it should be pluralized).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that U.S. executive orders are placed at Executive Order 12844, with no slash anywhere. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 16:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not originate the idea of having a slash. It was User:Bookofjude's action to move many pages by bot after most resolutions after 1989 were deleted, so I was moving pages to be consistent with others. However, if you object such a format, please tell Bookofjude why. As I do not know how to use a bot, it has taken me so many minutes to move them manually, so if we consider that there should be no slashes, please have a bot to revert these moves as I cannot waste my time to do this back-and-forth moves while administering eight Wiki sites.--Jusjih 19:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

TalBot can do such work, one way or another, so no need to worry about that. Now that I think about it, I'd also prefer the version without a slash. However, we should also think a little about the other direction. If we continue to add many texts with such generic names, we might face substantial namespace pollution in the future. For example, what if we have, at some point, several texts with title "Proclamation 6789" from different countries/entities? Maybe we should make the base title a little more specific, for example "US Presidential Proclamation 6789" instead of just "Proclamation 6789".--GrafZahl 21:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

No disambiguations of that sort should be done parenthetically, e.g. "Proclamation 3792 (United States)", that way editors can use the pipe-trick, typing "[[Proclamation No. 3792 (United States)|]]. To disambiguate every page (as is currently done with US Public Laws) is a nightmare for correct linking. Physchim62 15:17, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Since you are generally against having slashes, I would suggest either "UN Security Council Resolution <number>" or "United Nations Security Council Resolution <number>". I prefer the first one as "UN Security Council" is widely understandable while "UNSC" is not obvious. After having a consensus, a bot may revert page moves. I just notified User:Bookofjude and hope for further replies.--Jusjih 09:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I have checked with the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library web site. ST/AI/189/Add.9/Rev.2 is available in English only. Translations are compilations, so this should also spply to UN translations, right?--Jusjih 10:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

As I would like to edit UN resolutions not only in English but also in Chinese and French, I have a very strong desire to know the standard article names as this matter will affect interlanguage links.--Jusjih 16:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

English Wikipedia names "United Nations Security Council Resolution <number>". Wikisource:Style_guide#Page_titles says nothing about abbreviating the titles, but English Wikipedia prefers spelled-out phrases to acronyms. To make reciprocal links between Wikisource and Wikipedia easier, I would like to suggest "United Nations Security Council Resolution <number>" as the standard article name here as well. Existing "UN Security Council Resolution <number>" will be made regular redirects while "UN Security Council Resolution/<number>" will be made soft redirects. The same thing should also apply to UN General Assembly resolutions. If there is no objection to my thought, I plan to move pages within three days unless someone with a bot does it.--Jusjih 15:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Jusjih: I think that's a good way of going about this (in regards to the names). I would agree to this name change. However, I know page moves are an intensive procedure, so instead of doing it by hand, let's make a request at Wikisource:Bot requests for what we want done (page moves and soft redirects made). That way it can be automated and take far less time, and the Recent Changes won't be flooded with mass moves and soft redirects.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Zhaladshar, thanks for your reply. Basic procedures will:

Move pages so "United Nations Security Council Resolution <number>" and "United Nations General Assembly Resolution <number>" will be the standard article names without slashes.
Existing "UN Security Council Resolution <number>" and "UN General Assembly Resolution <number>" will be made regular redirects, but fixing double redirects may also be needed.
"UN Security Council Resolution/<number>" will be made soft redirects. We have no "UN General Assembly Resolution/<number>" here.
Links to the previous and next resolutions and other related internal links will also require updates.
Once these bot moves are complete, Wikisource:UN Security Council Resolutions will require link updates as well. As someone has asked at its talk page why a project page, I will try to move editorial comments to Wikipedia so it can eventually to moved to an article namespace like a base directory. I would like to name it "United Nations Security Council Resolutions" eventually.
UN General Assembly Resolutions should also be renamed "United Nations General Assembly Resolutions". I would like to propose making subpages for each session, so instead of something like "UN Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during its first session", "United Nations General Assembly Resolutions/1st session" should be simpler. There are too many UN General Assembly Resolutions to be indexed in one page.
As I anticipate that using Template:PD-UN in potentially thousands of pages will be too many, I would like to make separate copyright tags to show that an article is from the UN Security Council or General Assembly Resolution.--Jusjih 14:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above regarding naming conventions. Where should Category:United Nations documents fit into the scheme of things? This category currently contains the administrative instructions on copyright. Another thought: we also have the possibility of creating [[Author:...]] pages for the different UN bodies (and even for different sessions of the General Assembly), which might be a way round the cataloguing problem. I sort of agree with the comment made at Wikisource talk:UN Security Council Resolutions: a page such as Wikisource:United Nations documents would be useful to archive the policy discussions, but catalogues do not really seem to fit in the Wikisource namespace. Physchim62 14:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually we geanarally set up catalogue pages like this in the index. We do not make Author: pages for organizations. A similar and detailed discussion is at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2006/07#UK Acts of Parliament--BirgitteSB 19:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with number 5. I think the catalog page should not be in the main namespace. Almost every other catalog page we have is in some namespace other than "main" (usually "Author:" but we still have a few in "Wikisource:"). It doesn't really make sense for it to be in "main" since United Nations Security Council Resolutions is not a work in and of itself (as far as I know of).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems more logical to have catalogue pages in the Author name space even for organizations and other corporate authors; I would like to propose the creation of such pages. Physchim62 08:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

In response to Zhaladshar's disagreement with number 5, please see Wikisource talk:UN Security Council Resolutions#Wikisource namespace?. As of now, French Wikisource has the equivalent catalog page (a new term to me here) as an article while Chinese Wikisource has it as a project page. The UN General Assembly pages in English, Chinese, and French are all articles now. It would of course be better if all of these three language subdomains have the same way for better coordination. If the majority of the users here prefer project pages for both types of UN resolutions, I can then pass this reason to Chinese and French Wikisource. (English and French Wikisource have a namespace for authors, but Chinese Wikisource does not while I am unsure how to make one.)--Jusjih 16:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Today Pmsyyz just moved Wikisource:UN Security Council Resolutions to United Nations Security Council Resolutions, out of Wikisource namespace. I would like to request comment as to which namespace we should use for catalog page that is not a published work by itself. I now find English, Chinese, and French Wikisource with different practices and it is getting confusing.--Jusjih 16:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Propose strongly a move to Author:United Nations Security Council. Author space seems (IMHO) the best place for this sort of bibliographic information, keeping the Wikisource namespace for pieces which concern the administration of the project. Bibliography is not simply administration, it is at the heart of a library (again, IMHO). Physchim62 16:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe these page belong in either the main namespace or the author namespace. I think that those two options are a the worst fit for this information. I would prefer we make use of the Portal: namespace for this, but would also support the Wikisource: namespace or some new "catalog" namespace.--BirgitteSB 17:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that just because other subdomains handle catalogs one way in no way implies that the English one must do the same. This does not in any way destroy coordination, since interwiki links can be made from the English catalog (in the WS namespace) to any other namespace in any other project (be it main namespace, some newly created namespace, etc.).

I think the catalog should be in the Wikisource namespace since the catalog of UN resolutions is, in a sense, meta-information (all lists like this are meta-information; I don't seen how a list of links for UNSC Resolutions is really any different than a list of links of historical/constitutional/etc. documents). It is a way of organizing and presenting data that is useful to people and is used because of the many deficiencies of the "Category:" namespace. The main namespace should not be used for the mere organization of data, but should convey actual content--let data presentation be reserved for a different namespace.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Title 17, United States Code now uploaded

The full current text of Title 17 is now available. I have also uploaded the version which was in force immediately before the Copyright Act of 1976, which is relevant for some older copyright questions. There are still a certain number of redlinks to be fixed, but I am working on this... Physchim62 15:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Great work. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 05:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Still working on redlinks (and various other little projects). I have two weeks holiday starting from tomorrw so we will see how that sorts things out! Physchim62 14:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Czech Wikisource has 1000 pages

On December 18th in the evening we have 1000 pages (congratulations will be accepted on our Scriptorium - thx. -jkb- 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC) and the team of the Czech Wikisource

Proposals

Latest comment: 18 years ago29 comments9 people in discussion

Wikisource:What Wikisource includes/new draft

I have done a re-write of WS:WWI, which has long been on my to-do list. I do not believe I have made any substantive changes to the policy. However, I have made major changes to the presentation. There has recently been work at Wikipedia to develop ideas about how to write good proccess. I tried to use these new guidelines in this re-write and have asked the editors in that disscussion to comment on my draft's use of those guidelines. Of course, the opinion of community here is what will determine if this change is adopted. I encourage everyone to read the above linked page at Wikipedia and improve the new draft to make this policy as understandable as possible.--BirgitteSB 19:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Implemented, no opposition or feedback. —{admin} Pathoschild 08:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Orphan Works

Please read Wikisource talk:Copyright policy#Orphan Works. I have been looking into orphan works and I think that non-PD orphan works are not something we can include as part of Wikisource. I think we should start gathering these materials together for deletion. There is a Category of Orphan images, which all have corresponding transcriptions, and there are probably more orphan works around we are unaware of. We will have to look for these carefully and check that they are are not PD. To get through the most obvious orphan problems, I would suggest that we add a speedy deletion criteria for any works created after 1923 where real authorship is indeterminable. By indeterminable, I mean either no author is given or else a pseudonym is used which is not able to be connected to any real author.--BirgitteSB 19:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we export the orphan works we can't keep to WikiLivres.info? It's a Canadian-based site and isn't under the umbrella of the WMF, so doesn't have the same requirements a WMF project would. Since (correct me if I'm wrong) the majority of the problem with orphan works is that the license is unclear--meaning even though we are pretty sure we can't be sued for hosting such a work, since it's not as "free" as the WMF requires we can't keep it--there shouldn't be a problem with putting them on WikiLivres. It seems a much better alternative than up and deleting the whole bunch for good.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 22:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

That seems like an acceptable solution to me. That way the works are still accessible without violating the Foundation's mission. —[admin] Pathoschild 23:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Definately. I was assuming we would do this for anything deleted for these sorts of reasons. --BirgitteSB 23:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've tapped off a quick eMail to the US Copyright Office's "Have a question about a specific work?" address - mentioning two works - the Anthrax letter delivered to Senator Leahy, and the 1963 JFK death threat (since works prior to 1976 largely had to bear copyright notices). I doubt they'll respond, given the tendency not to "offer legal advice", but thought I'd mention that at least it got sent off. Will mention any response from them. At the very least, I strongly oppose a "speedy deletion" category for such works, since I think the bulk of discussion they have generated indicates that an anonymous work published post-1923 isn't exactly likely to bring a horde of lawyers on our heads the way publishing a Michael Crichton book might. Go through Proposed deletions as always. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 06:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I support the creation of a new speedy deletion criteria. It has nothing to do with hordes of lawyers; the works simply are not libre. I do not support using proposed deletions for this. Possible copyright violations is for violations of our copyright policy, not just copyright law. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 13:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

See, you're glibly stating "they're not free" again - without actually examining the works. All works published without copyright notice in the United States prior to 1977 are automatically public domain, so that certainly clears up a number of works - including most notably, the Zodiac Killer letters. Now, with some of the works, you can dispute what the term "published" means - the Zodiac Killer had the letters published himself, so he definitely falls under the criteria...but with say, the John F Kennedy death threat, it was published prior to 1977...but by newspaper editors, without the express permission of the author...does that make a difference? Simply because an author is unknown, does not immediately and irrevokably make a work "unfree" for 120 years.

You'll notice our copyright policy doesn't say anything about Orphan Works, so your point is moot anyways. Simply because somebody uploads a work with an unknown author, does not mean you should be able to automatically delete it without consensus, discussion and fact-finding. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 02:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The copyright policy states that a contributor must demonstrate that the work is compatible with Wikisource's license, and that works whose compatibility are not established will be deleted. It does not state that any work will be kept until their incompatibility is demonstrated. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Which overlooks the fact that a very substantial amount of our texts, if not indeed the vast majority of it, is not originally uploaded with a specific template explaining why it is PD, those are added later, when the original contributor remembers, when another editor peruses it, when it's discussed during a call for deletion, or any other similar scenario. "omg, he uploaded a work without including a template" is not a criteria for speedy deletion, nor should it ever be. We can afford to take the bare minimum of effort and list it at either Wikisource:Possible copyright violations or Wikisource:Proposed deletions. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 03:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It is permissible for a new user to omit the license information, and when we find such works we immediately blank the page with a possible copyright violation notice. It is not permissible for an established user who knows better to do so, and in fact this is a blockable offense as specified by the blocking policy: "If there is doubt, editors should err on the side of caution and remove the text. Editors who persistently insert disputed material, after having been warned, may be blocked to protect the project." —{admin} Pathoschild 04:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Which is complete bollocks, we don't immediately blank pages without license templates, instead we tend to find license templates for them. We only blank them if we have reason to believe they could be modern works still under copyright. Way to go completely off-base and just bring up "{admin} Pathoschild can block you" which has absolutely no relevance or bearing on what I said, which is that there is no reason to speedy-delete something just because a user didn't include a template. Instead, assume good faith, and go find the appropriate template. Create bots that add PD-100 to all works listed on Author:pages in certain categories, strive to helpful if chiding, rather than overbearing.

If you have a good reason to delete a text (such as, it is clearly a Michael Crichton book), then go for it. But if there's room to argue, to fact-check, to check dates, to check for copyright renewels, to check on what country it was published in, the author lived in, when the author died, who the author was, who the translator was...then we should be doing that, and listing the works under Wikisource:Possible copyright violations or Wikisource:Proposed deletions. "OMG, the contributor didn't list the author's name!" is neither a call for deleting the text, nor blocking the user - it is a call to google the text and see if you can improve it yourself...and if not, to list it on a WS: page to allow others to help you determine its status. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 04:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if my response seemed overbearing. I'm weary of debating copyright, as I imagine you're weary as well. If my comment seemed threatening, it's likely the accidental result of this.

There is no need for a user to look up copyright status for a work he has not contributed. A user is free to tag a blatantly public domain work with no license information as a possible copyright infringement if they so wish. However, it's more efficient and friendly to add that information oneself if it is easily available, and I personally do not blank pages unless I cannot find the information myself.

However, the subject of discussion refers to orphaned works, not works whose status is unknown. Orphaned works are not compatible with the Copyright policy, as I explained in another of these endless debates: "The works to which I am most opposed are unfree but exploitable works. By unfree I mean that we do not have the legal or moral right to distribute, use, or exploit them in every way and for every purpose (commercial or noncommercial) without the accepted restrictions I mentioned above. This includes cases where we do not have said right, but may be able to do so anyway by exploiting loopholes, gray areas, or legislation that does not change the status of the work (such as orphaned works legislation)." —{admin} Pathoschild 19:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Free to list it as a copyvio, yes. Not free to SpeedyDelete it - that's all I'm saying. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 19:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Work which are known copyright violations can already be speedily deleted as of February 2006 (see the Deletion policy). —{admin} Pathoschild 21:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Which doesn't include Orphan Works - just because something was published by an anonymous author, doesn't mean it's automatically a copyright violation - as mentioned, anything pre-1923, anything post1923/pre1976WithoutCopyrightRegistration, anything 125 years after first publication (which won't be an issue for unregistered works until 2102), hence why we shouldn't just "speedy delete" things because they happen to have unknown authors. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 04:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Works whose authors are unknown that are in the public domain are not orphaned works. 'Orphaned work' refers to the status of a work that is copyrighted but whose author cannot be contacted to obtain permission. A public domain work with an unknown author is in the public domain, and should be categorized with the appropriate public domain license template and not an orphaned work license (which is not allowed). An orphaned work is thus still a violation of our copyright policy and should be deleted, either speedily or after discussion. —{admin} Pathoschild 18:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

From the notice that people click when they submit material:

"You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!"

If you don't believe me, read it when you reply to this comment. It is for the uploader to ensure that their work is public domain, not for Wikisource to prove that it is still under copyright (however helpful experienced users may be in particular cases). Physchim62 17:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Labeled Section Transclusion

This was proposed at project:Labeled section transclusion; I've been working on this for awhile, and will continue on it when I have time, so I'd like to propose a project for that. At the moment, this is mainly to generate comparisons of different Bible versions.

My extension, mw:Labeled Section Transclusion is now in the SVN, so we should work on getting that installed here.

I've created an account User:Sanbeg (bot). This would basically be the same code I used to create Bible/Philemon, but enhanced somewhat; and on a larger scale, since the extension shouldn't have the scalability issues inherent in the template.
- Mostly written with pywikipedia
- Uses a short perl script to add < section > tags to existing articles, and can normalize existing section markup to use verse.
- Will use labeled section transclusion to generate comparisons, similar what I did before with regular transclusion and my template.
- may temporarily stage some foreign language (i.e. latin, hebrew) documents in user space, in order to substitute those sections into the page, if someone can help me find them.

I don't have a time frame for it yet (the feature was only just released today) but since there's still a fair amount of work, I may as well post it now. -Steve Sanbeg 23:50, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the work you put in to getting LST written and actually put into the SVN! This might be a stupid question, but what do you mean by normalizing existing section markup to use verse? Is "verse" a specifically Bible-oriented use? Also, could you write a short documentation on how to use the extension (i.e., how to label and make calls to the different sections, because at least I am unsure of how to do so).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 00:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; it was quite an experience, and good to see that it seems to be coming to fruition. When I did those, I found there were two main variants to check for to find the sections; some verses start with a number and end with a paragraph, with no wiki markup; others use the verse template, without whitespace. It seems verse is the newer method, so it makes sense to make these consistent when the section marks are added. I think that's mostly Bible-oriented, but I'm not the best person to ask about that.

There is some documentation at mw:Labeled Section Transclusion, which was partly copied from here and updated; that can be expanded as needed. -Steve Sanbeg 00:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic work, and thanks from all of us! What is the next step we need to take towards getting this implemented?

Also, a minor question: What do you mean by "temporarily stage some foreign language (i.e. latin, hebrew) documents in user space, in order to substitute those sections into the page"?? This wasn't clear to me at all. But if you need help finding any texts, I would certainly be happy to help with that! Dovi 21:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that's the simplest way to include non-english texts in these comparisons. We can't simply transclude sections of those, since I assume they won't allow transcluding across wikis. So, suppose I want to work with something like la:some_article; I could grab that doc, hopefully plug in the sections automatically (if they aren't there already) and write it to something like user:sanbeg_(bot)/tmp1. Then, I could link to it as [[la:some_article]], but transclude like {{subst:lst#user:sanbeg_(bot)/tmp1|c1v1}}. Since the subst would be resolved in the post save tranform, once all the pages that transclude it are saved, the temporary doc could be overwritten with the next one. So it should be simpler than having the bot resolve the sections itself, and neater than mirroring all of the docs here at the same time. Not that I've tried it yet, but it seems like a reasonable thing to do. -Steve Sanbeg 16:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Comparisons between different language versions are possible with ThomasVs DoubleWiki extension. It would be nice to be able to use that extension for different versions of a text in the same language. /82.212.68.183 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've filed a request to install this at bugzilla:7995. Feel free to watch that, and follow up on wikitech-l email or IRC if needed. -Steve Sanbeg 16:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've added Hebrew to the installation request. I will follow up on wikitech if need be, and it would be great if others who have the capability would use IRC. Once again, I think it would be simplest and easiest to have this installed across-the-board in all language, but individual language requests are fine too.

Steve, now I understand what you meant about other languages and sure, it could be done that way. I was actually imagining something much simpler: Transcluding various English versions of a text on its English page, and simply using the interwiki language links (with the optional addition of Thomas's extension) to see, for instance, the multiple versions of that same text in Hebrew. That way, each language wiki maintains the multiple versions of a text in its own language, which will probably be the best way to keep things up-to-date and well-maintained.Dovi 08:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, and will certainly simplify things for me. -Steve Sanbeg 18:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for all the work you have put into this. I hope we can get this turned on shortly. I personally feel we need to have the various non-English text at the verse level rather than relying on side-by-side because there are more than one languages involed and it is doubtful if the Greek or Latin will ever have an equivelent edition to make side-by-side possible at the verse level. Of course side-by-side will be the best option at the level of the entire book. I am not entirely sure what you mean in describing the tasks for you bot but it think you mean to populate out the verses of the Bible with each edition. I am wondering how this is being done exactly. Are you going to be taking one verse (Genisis 1:1) and pulling in each version or are you going to take one edition (King James) and fill in all verses? Do you have an idea where you will start? We still need to upload some of the text so knowing this would give us an idea of what the priority is. --BirgitteSB 15:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Birgitte. Actually, in Hebrew we are planning to devote single pages on the verse level. Obviously there is nothing wrong with cutting and pasting verses in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew to the English version if needed or useful. It's just that the side-by-side idea offers an additional option if and when it becomes possible. In Hebrew, I hope it will be possible fairly soon. Dovi 09:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'd like to add all of the section markers to an article with a single edit, so I don't have to edit an article that already has section marks. I'd also prefer to create the comparison page in a single edit, but we may want to put the list of editions in a template, so we can add another edition without editing all those generated pages. It's probably best to generate a complete verse at once, i.e. add all the section marks then generate the Genesis 1:1 comparison. Are these pages mostly done in a single edit? Or will I need to know which ones are complete? -Steve Sanbeg 21:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

They are added as a single edit.--BirgitteSB 21:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Font classes

(Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask...) Over on Wikipedia the MediaWiki:Common.css has classes defined to invoke commonly-available fonts which render IPA, Latin-Extended, Polytonic Greek etc. in IE. Any chance of having these over here? I have the odd word of polytonic Greek in Encyclopædia Britannica articles and would like them to be legible to as many users as possible. (Somebody set up Template:Polytonic here but it doesn't seem to work...)--Laverock ( Talk ) 19:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if anyone understand exactly what you want us to do. Could you link to any documentation on this?--BirgitteSB 15:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Can't you just use the w:Unicode:Unicode characters? There are various special characters below the "Save page" and related buttons when editing a page. --Benn Newman 00:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a matter of display, not editing. In w:MediaWiki:Common.css there are defined classes .IPA, .Unicode, .latinx, .polytonic and .mufi, specifying widely supported fonts giving good support for respectively IPA, Unicode generally, the Latin-extended block, Polytonic Greek and Medieval Unicode Font Initiative. Then a template can specify eg class="polytonic" (see w:Template:Polytonic) and the source editor can write {{polytonic|Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς}} and behold it appears (I hope) Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς. At present I have worked round this by specifying style="<list of fonts>" in the template, but I was conscious this might be thought non-standard and hoped it might be made to work the same way as in Wikipedia. Personally I'm happy the way it is now, but others may differ.--Laverock ( Talk ) 11:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Latest comment: 18 years ago26 comments9 people in discussion

Guam Laws

Is this PD?

I wanted to add the w:Guam Organic Act of 1950 to here, but I can find it at http : // www . law . cornell . edu/uscode/html/uscode48/usc_sup_01_48_10_8A.html , which has an ambiguous (To me) copyright notice. Is this legit, or will it get deleted if I add it here? 68.39.174.238 22:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

That is in the public domain as a work of the United States government (see Template:PD-USGov). You should upload it to United States Code/Title 48/Chapter 8A/Subchapter I, with a redirect from Guam Organic Act and Guam Organic Act of 1950. Thanks! —{admin} Pathoschild 08:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply

As a U.S. territory, the texts of the laws of Guam are public domain in the United States. As the U.S. is responsible for Guam's external relations, and "texts of a legislative nature" are subject to national legislation under Art. 2.4 of the Berne Convention, this effectively applies worldwide. Cornell claims copyright on the HTML markup of the text, not the text itself. So yes, you can add it: try to link bank to the main United States Code page, or drop me a message if you want help with formatting or linking. Physchim62 13:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

British and Canadian laws

I would like to request comments on whether Template:Legislation-UKGov and Template:Legislation-CAGov are compactible with GFDL as we deleted British_Statutes_After_1955. Only if Template:Legislation-CAGov is compactible with GFDL will I translate it into French to be added at French Wikisource.--Jusjih 15:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, we have explicitly forbidden Crown Copyright, haven't we? With the restrictions placed on how a text is used and on redistribution, it's incompatible with the overarching WMF goals and vision. Which means, I think both templates (and the works released under these waivers/licenses) will have to go. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong.)—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It's unfortunate, but true, that Crown Copyright is not in any way free use - and such texts cannot be hosted on WS. As I recall, not every work produced by the Canadian (and presumably British, though I'd be less certain) is automatically under Crown Copyright - they seem to state specifically on documents that are Crown Copyright, and if a document does not give any indication of Crown Copyright, it could be looked at individually to decide its status - but by-in-large, unlike the United States, neither Canada nor the UK make their publications PD by default. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN)} 19:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

My personal view (although I fear that I am in a minority) is that this sort of "accurate reproduction" license is compatible with Wikisource, where we aim for, well, accurate reproductions of texts. There is no reuse restriction either in the UK or Canada. An "accurate reproduction" allows for changes in format: these are obligatory for UK laws, where the Queen's Printer imprint must be removed before redistribution. To say that we cannot infinitely modify the text is, IMHO opinion, beside the point: apart from the fact that an infinitely modified law is worthless, there are many restrictions on the modification of images of real people which are not deemed to be conflicting with the GFDL. Physchim62 09:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The British Crown Copyright waiver may not fit here though I am not 100% sure, but the Canadian one may be okay for Federal Orders as the restrictions are to ensure the accuracy without claiming the copies as official. These are just what I think.--Jusjih 14:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

See here for the license to reproduce UK Acts of Parliament. What we cannot do (in either case) is state that the Act itself is released under the GFDL: the question is whether the license is acceptable. Physchim62 14:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I think most people in the community here believe there is a place for "accurate reprodutions" on Wikisource. However bringing this issue up again will cause all sort of people at Foundation level to run around saying "OMG that isn't FREE". Then they will tell you how people will want to write a play derived from British legislation. IMHO this stuff has already been deleted and we should continue to enforce that Crown copyright is not allowed. Let's just avoid the ordeal for now. I think it is only commonsense that this stuff will someday fit under the Wikisource umbrella, however I do not believe this will be a battle won now nor by en.WS ever. I encourage everyone to speak up if they ever see this possibility being cut off by any proposal, but to otherwise watch and wait for a trail to be cut by someone else.--BirgitteSB 18:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I see your point entirely, although it is not usually the Foundation who are the most vociferent about "semi-freeness" (see meta:Do fair use images violate the GFDL?). I would suggest that it is a policy decision for English Wikisource rather than an overwhelming legal problem. On the other hand, someone, somewhere, will object... Physchim62 08:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia allow fair-use only to media files. Lugusto 18:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not technically true: (short) citations are fair use under U.S. law, but allowed on all projects (as they are specifically permitted by the Berne Convention) Physchim62 10:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You have talked a lot why British law copyright waiver is not good enough. Now, how about the Canadian laws? Please comment more on Canadian laws before I add a template at French Wikisource.--Jusjih 16:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Section 12 of the Canadian Copyright Act copyrights Canadian governmental works for 50 years since the first publication. We should look at the Canadian Reproduction of Federal Law Order to determine if we can post Canadian laws newer and older than 50 years.--Jusjih 17:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The two cases seem to be similar (although Canada goes a little further in expicitly permitting consolidations). The consensus still appears to be that we do not want these Crown copyrighted texts on Wikisource. Physchim62 14:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, then do not post British or Canadian laws while they are under Crown Copyright since whether derivative works are permitted remain questionable. Shall we keep Template:Legislation-UKGov? If not, then let us consider whether to delete it. For Template:Legislation-CAGov, I would like to suggest keeping it while I have added to the template that Canadian laws are under Crown Copyright for 50 years since publication. Even after the Crown Copyright expires, the Reproduction of Federal Law Order still applies indefinitely.--Jusjih 15:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

CC 2.0 License

I saw all the works should be GFDL compatible, so is the CC-BY 2.0 acceptable for Wikisource? Thanks!

Probably. The Wikinews people think that Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 is compatible with the GFDL, but not the other way. That is, CC-By licensed works can be added to GFDL works, but not the other way around. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 21:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Though not quite clear for me what do you mean by CC being compatible with GFDL and vise-versa, I'll ask again if it is ok to publish works under the CC BY 2.0 license? I've got a permission to publish and use some text and I still doubt if I shall leave the texts on my local Wikisource. Thanks!

Sure, use the template {{CC-BY}}. If you obtained the permission individually, exemplia gratia by e-mailing the author, you should forward that to permissions at wikimedia dot org with the work specifically stating the license. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 02:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

CC-BY-2.5-CN

I would like to request comment on whether CC-BY-2.5-CN is compactible with GFDL while there is an unsettled copyright dispute at Chinese Wikisource. There are only four admins there. One of them thought that Wikisource would not use CC, so he marked the concerned page as possible copyvio. Another admin and I thought that CC-BY-2.5-CN should be fine, but we could not decide, so please advise.--Jusjih 15:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC) (admin at English and Chinese Wikisource)

I do not know Chinese, but I don't know why it wouldn't be. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 15:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Unless the Chinese license is significantly different from the English license, CC-BY-2.5 is compatible. I've created the license template at Template:CC-BY-2.5. Note that we only accept published works, as explained by out inclusion policy. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

This CC-BY-2.5-CN external link that I hereby repeat from above is in English so you need not know Chinese language to understand it.--Jusjih 17:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Transwikiable book on Wikibooks?

Hi - I was doing some housekeeping on WB when I came across Freedom of Information Act 2000. It was marked for transwikying in July this year but seems to have got "lost". No idea about the technicalities on this but is it something you folk here would want? Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Actaully Crown copyright makes this a problem. We don't host any UK legislation until it enters the public domain.--BirgitteSB 17:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that & makes sense. I guess it is a copyvio wherever it is. I'll go back and mark it as such. The prompt help is appreciated regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandal at work

64.113.184.11 (talk • contribs) has created a page which I marked as speedy. They have now stated on the talk page that it should not be deleted - if you look at the content you may well not agree! Could find a "report a vandal" page or indeed a "user warning" template - apologies. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

These seem to have been long deleted. There are some basic warnings against vandalism (such as the test template), but generally you'll need to write a message yourself. Vandals can be reported on the Administrator's noticeboard, accessible through the index of community pages. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Other discussions

Latest comment: 18 years ago26 comments9 people in discussion

New pages by anon. users

The English Wikipedia currently does not allow anonymous users to create new pages. Is this something we would want to adopt here to? If someone wants to add a new text, I don't see how creating an account is really an impairment. Anonymous users could still edit already existing pages. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 03:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Why do we need useless bueacracy? If people are going to create nonsense they will create nonsense, this will not change that. We will just delete it afterwards.--BirgitteSB 03:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose such a policy, we commonly see anonymous users adding valuable edits to Wikisource, including bringing texts we don't currently have. What's attractive to "your average netizen" is that WMF is not "Members-only", they don't have to sign up anywhere. Requiring them to do so to add a text may not dissuade many of them, but it would dissuade legitimate texts just as much as copyright violations. In the past week, pages created specifically by anonymous users include Areopagitica, History of the United States 1801-09/The First Administration of Thomas Jefferson/I:12, Out to Old Aunt Mary's, United States patent number:X1, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Arms and the Man, Tales of the Jazz Age/The Jelly-Bean and Colbet 2006 White House Press Correspondants' Dinner (the last of which raises an interesting slippery slope). Now, some of them may not be stellar texts, but on the whole, that is a positive contribution towards WS that I would hate to see shut out. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει)} 06:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Sherurcij; unlike the English Wikipedia, we are more than able to keep up with new page vandalism (in fact, it's almost inexistent here). —{admin} Pathoschild 06:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanx... 68.39.174.238 06:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC) (PS. Nice job with Patent One!)

Unless there are temporary major problems like I have seen at Chinese Wikipedia, I am against closing ordinary edits to anonymous users. Chinese Wikisource sometimes gets useful anonymous page creations as well.--Jusjih 17:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

States without copyright relations with the United States

We are currently assuming that works from states without copyright treaties with the United States are in the public domain. Why this is probably true, at least in the United States, do we want to host these works? At the very least, I think they should be labelled. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 14:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know that we are doing this. There have certainly been works we deleted despite being from countries with no copyright treaty with the US (Those poems from Sudan, I think others as well). I do not believe we should host works solely because of the lack of certain diplomatic relation with US gov't. I think the works currently under disscusion are gov't works from pre-war Iraq. No one has suggesed what the copyright status is for these works in Iraq even. The discussion is still open as far as I am aware. So I don't know of any case where we decided to host a work only because it was produced in a nation without copyright relations with the United States.--BirgitteSB 14:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

When the question arose on Wikipedia, the response from Jimbo was pretty clear: "We should generally respect [all copyrights] as best we can". I assume that this is still Foundation policy. Physchim62 17:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't disgree with the sentiment, but Jimbo alone does not set foundation policy. There is no board resolution stating this that "foundation policy" I am aware of. So I have no idea how it could be Foundation policy. But still I don't disagree with the principle. I just want it to be a principle the community adopts through consensus rather than setting WS policy to imitate en.WP without the consensus of the WS community. I think the semantics of this are important and as I said above we already have a history of following this priciple.--BirgitteSB 18:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We should respect all copyrights, even if there is some legal or pseudo-legal way to circumvent them. —{admin} Pathoschild 19:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Take it to the Board if you really want to waste their time with it: the message appeared on the Foundation mailing list, so Board members are doubtless aware of the policy's existance. Saying that it is not Foundation policy is simply another way of attempting to get round a policy you don't like. Physchim62 10:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Saying that it is not Foundation policy is simply another way of attempting to get round a policy you don't like. This is really not true. I actually want us to respect many UK copyrights etc. as well as Iraninan or Sudanese or whatever. But I don't think that is a Foundation policy, because of multiple discussions on foundation-l about the role of the foudation and how it acts through committees and resolutions etc. Because of discussions abouit the en.WP arcom election and the clear statements that Foundation!=Jimbo on that matter. I can't agree with your reasoning just because I agree with your conclusions.--BirgitteSB 21:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have created {{PD-Iraq}} as an interim solution (for Iraq). I still believe that we should not include works that are public domain (in the United States) solely because they were published in a country without a copyright treaty with the United States. For one thing, a retroactive treaty could be made. I think it is just another legal loophole. At the very least, we should tell people (in addition to the general disclaimer) that they should really check their local laws! --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 23:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

We should not have these works as a treaty may make now public domain work in the USA copyrighted therein. Claiming fair use at English Wikipedia will still survive any such a treaty, but we cannot claim fair use here.--Jusjih 15:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Two retroactive treaties already exist, they are the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement: for U.S. application, see 17 U.S.C. 104A. The moment a country signs one or the other, the works which are copyrighted in that country become copyrighted in the U.S. (unles U.S. works of the same type would not be copyrightable). Physchim62 15:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

We should not have these works for the same reasons we deleted the Sudanese poems. Am I missing something, where is the support for keeping these? Why are we making new "no treaty" templates? There are to many conversations goings on about to many slightly different copyright issues. As I said in my first reply, we have deleted these sorts of works (no treaty with US) in the past, and I know of no case where we have decided to keep them. Reading this thread I see no support for keeping them. Is there another conversation about this happening that I have not registered? --BirgitteSB 03:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Question about a possible Volapük project

Hi everybody. I have recently created an account here in order to be able to add texts to the English wikisource. My main interest is old books on the 19th-century artificial language Volapük. There are several English original texts on this language -- one of them, Charles E. Sprague's A Hand-book of Volapük, is even already online (look here). I would like to transfer this book to Wikisource, and also to add other ones. I've been doing this in other wikisources, thus far with good results. I have, however, a couple of questions:

- Can I simply transfer a text like Sprague's above here, or do I need to ask first? Do I simply follow the guidelines in Help:Adding texts, cut and paste the original, and save it? Also, for other sources, not yet online, I have done scans (e.g., for the Italian wikisource; see here, with a link to the scanned pages - placed in the Commons - in the discussion page); in other wikisources (German, French, Italian), I was told that a 'rereading' of the text, to check for accuracy, would soon take place. Is this also the procedure here? I didn't see here "InfoBoxes" with details on the originals of texts, whether or not there are scanned pages online, and where they are.

Thanks in advance! --Smeira 03:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, welcome to Wikisource. As long as the text meets our inclusion policy, feel free to add it. The goal is to proofread everything, but we're busy enough as it is! We use {{textinfo}} on a work's discussion page to provide various information about the text. You can include a link to the originals there. --Benn Newman ^(AMDG) 04:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Periodicals

I've found a few Periodicals and made a new section on works index for them. But they're extremely inconsistant. can we have some kind of Newspaper and magazine style conventions. There are or will be tons from a given publication, normally this kind of thing would be organized under an author page, but a periodical and an author are not the same thing. What to do? I tried to get some ideas from other-language wikisource but couldn't find periodicals on them. This article is the best I could do. Is this header the way to go? What about subheadings? --Metal.lunchbox 02:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made a change to the presentation of {{header}}. This is normally how pages are formatted with the the header, but I want to know what you think. Usually, a lot of information is added to the "notes=" parameter, whereas the other parameters only convey the "barebones" amount of information (basically enough to get the point across).

The biggest (and I think most important) change is what I did to the "section=" parameter. Pretty soon, the header will be updated, so it automatically adds parentheses to the content that is placed inside it. Which means the content you added into it might appear a little strange, which is why I added it to the notes section.

Comments/suggestions/questions, of course, welcome.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I thinks it's really strange to put the title of the content in parentheses, that is after all the most important bit of the header on that page. If you're going to put the publication in the notes than let's just have the title of the article as title and just have the name of the paper in notes. That work? I see you removed the previous going up to periodicals. is there some reason i shouldn't include it. I just like the idea of being able to browse the periodicals without having to go back each time.--Metal.lunchbox 03:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Since most of what we do is host books, the header was designed to collect/present the information for those. So when we get material that doesn't quite fit the grain, we have to improvise a bit. :-) I think everything is fine with this display, but I'm removing the backlink to the periodicals from the article page, as [[Wikisource:Periodicals]] (or I guess [[Wikisource:Collective works]]) does not link to the article in question. The logic for this, is that the backlinks have been used to provide a "heirarchy" of sorts, by linking back to a page that links to it. (Like laws will link back to Wikisource:Legislative documents but not Wikisource:Historical documents even though this Historical documents page includes legislative documents, but does not link to them.) Since the page that has all the periodicals doesn't link to the articles themselves, it doesn't make sense for the articles to link back to them.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

right. the backlinks are nice but I've changed the way the newspapers and such are organized about 10 times and most of those links don't even work now. I agree with what you say about the rest. I do have a NY times index page and any NYTIMES articles will be listed and linked to there and the articles will then have backlinks. it will take me a moment to do all of this as I have to fix the headers to comply with what we've decided concerning them--Metal.lunchbox 22:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey I've now got a list of NYTimes articles sortable by date, or title. This seems like a pretty useful way to organize things. I'd like to put all the other newspaper articles on this same page and have a column on the table for name of publication. what do you think? its kind of silly to have such a fancy table for just a few articles.--Metal.lunchbox 23:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

is this a good way to organize the newspaper articles?--Metal.lunchbox 04:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

At the very least, it's an interesting way of presenting the articles. My concern is scalability. I have been collecting links of many newspaper articles that are public domain. I have probably thousands of potential articles to be added to WS when/if I or someone interested ever gets time. But it would be very cumbersome (I think) to have a table of two or three thousand newspaper articles. Browsing and sifting through a few thousand links would be tiresome, and the page Wikisource:Collective works would become extremely long.

But, I do think such a presentation is very interesting. Maybe it would be worth it to move this table to a different page (at some point when we start getting numerous newspapers and numerous articles of each paper) so that Collective works doesn't become too large?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

the good news is that the whole table can be very easily moved to a page like wikisource:Newspapers once we feel like it weighs down the collective works page (maybe 50 articles?). accomodating hundreds of articles is a differenct task. That would depend of the organization of the material itself, like if most of them were from only a few publications or if they were all different publications would determine whether breaking it up by publication would be sensible. I personally don't see much value in that. I think dividing them chronologically would have the most meaning. Anyways i'd still like to keep the functionality of the sorted table as much as possible, but scaling is not obvious. lets worry about getting articles for now though. Newspapers are hell, absolutely the most heavily protect public domain text ever.--Metal.lunchbox 19:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)