Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2008-11

Announcements

Edittools import

Just leaving a note regarding the updating to the MediaWiki:edittools. I have introduced a "standard suite", as well as a Wikisource-specific one. Admins, update and improve at will. And non-admins! Just request a change and it can easily be made by a sysop. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to work with these, but I found they mostly get in the way of editing. It's not even clear to me what the "plainlinks" one accomplishes.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are all useless, but in an environment where we are trying to wikify already existing text they are not as functional as when when we are filling in the material between the markers ourselves. A few I would eliminate completely from the list for various reasons, while the others could be moved into the drop-down menu with the other tools and symbols. I think too that it would be helpful on the edit page to have the toolbox moved up so that it immediately follows the edit box. This makes it possible to use it without having to scroll down, and makes it more likely that both the edit box and the tools can be seen at the same time. The copyright warning could move to the bottom; while the warning is important, but it remains more informational than functional, and thus does not need to be frequently accessed by busy editors. Eclecticology (talk) 21:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposals

Autopatrolled

I'd like to propose that we file a request (in Bugzilla) for the group permission right 'autopatrolled' to be allowed Wikisource, and that either Administrators or Bureaucrats be allowed to assign it to users after it has been requested (or suggested by an administrator). I have noticed that there are several trusted users whose edits do not require patrolling, and if they make prolific edits (which is wonderful!) in a short period of time, these edits can clog and (though not deliberately) conceal vandalism other such edits. Obviously, I support this. Jude (talk) 05:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I dont object to a flag being created, but the crats would need to be pro-active for it to be useful. OTOH, User:JVbot/patrol whitelist does the same job, but with more flexibility, and retrospectively patrols pages. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Even though it does say that all of the user's edits being patrolled is a hack... But you do raise a good point. How hackish? Jude (talk) 09:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I had similar thoughts to Jude a while back, but after thinking about it, I decided User:JVbot/patrol whitelist is a better choice. I do wish John would post some better directions for updating it though as I am always hesitant to update it for fear of breaking it. Jeepday (talk) 12:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is quite a good idea, and could be used like a "proofread", in essence. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Other discussions

Two character Author initial

Eclecticology (talk • contribs) has been making a large number of undiscussed changes to Author pages, placing two characters in the "initial" field, resulting in redlinks. As I understand it, this is being done because the category for each was overflowing, however I dont understand that motive as the categories is sorted by the full surname, see Category:Authors-S, but I'll not be surprised if he has a better justification as he has been doing a lot of work on author pages.

This was mentioned at Template_talk:Author#Last_initial_guidance.

A short term solution is needed to prevent readers seeing inappropriate redlinks, and I think it is as simple as creating a bunch of redirects for the time being, as I have done for "C". If this is acceptable, we should do that for the other ones that Eclecticology has left broken[1], and then discuss whether the initial field should be two characters. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

So far I have only worked on the letters B, C, M and S as these were the only ones with more than 200 authors. I have always felt that any category which exceeds that number should be subdivided if we are ever to have any kind of useful category tree. I had originally thought that I could make do by splitting off only the biggest sub-groups from the said letters, but the risk there is to forget which are or are not done. Three letter divisions are also a possibility when two letter categories get too big, but that is not an immediate concern.

For the most part I haven't bothered with the List pages, which I believe to be mostly unmanageable. It must be remembered that while Category pages are a bottom up structure where the category is identified from the item's page, List pages are a top down structure where the item's are identified from the list page. Both have their uses, but the List page is more suited to developing want lists because it must be manually maintained. My preference would be to eliminate the link to the List pages entirely from the Author pages, but even I do not see this as a realistic expectation.

John's fix is simple, and should satisfy the needs of those who object to the red links.

Another improvement to the Author pages would be to have a second (optional) last initial entry. One class of authors that would benefit from this would be married women who wrote under two different names. I would also suggest that "first" and "last" names should really be "given names" and "family name" to allow for such options related to Chinese names or other foreign language naming conventions. Eclecticology (talk) 08:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I have created redirects for B, C, M and S. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:20, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

In light of having spent a further four hours undoing 10% of Eclecticology's last 10 days worth of edits, I have requested that he pauses this structural change once the B's are completed, and wait for the community discussion. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 19:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

What's the problem with having over 200 pages in some of these categories? Is clicking the next link so much worse than clicking another category? The extra categories aren't more specific; they don't alphabetize further, since the pages are already alphabetized in the current categories. They're superfluous and create more work. If there were a category called "Fiction" that had lots of pages in it, more categories would make sense. In addition, I would like to note that making huge changes like these without community discussion, or notification even, was a poor judgment call. Psychless 21:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• I also don't see a problem with having more then 200 pages in a category. It is not unusual in Wikipedia to have thousands in a category. Jeepday (talk) 23:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking for a solution. What I think is the issue here is that solution should be technological. The Sa Sb Sc.. S surname message boards at RootsWeb presents a solution. Is there the ability to have that level of Index at the tops of the page? If we have multiple author page in letter S, I am just as likely to say forget it, then to want to hit page forward multiple times. Category pages are ugly at the best of times, and it would be good to make them easier. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

We could add a box like w:Template:LargeCategoryTOC, which would be similar to that. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:43:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't used it anywhere. In lieu of anything that is context sensitive to the letter (which would be sweeter), can we test it? Or is there feedback --billinghurst (talk) 04:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Eclecticology on this one. Once a category is over a page or two long, its usefulness is much diminished, and it should be split. I guess I prefer the more conservative approach of splitting out only those categories that really need it. I don't see "the risk there is to forget which are or are not done" as a problem; it simply means that some parent categories will occasionally need to be dispersed. Hesperian 03:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The LargeCategory template seems worth investigating, but it should not need to include all two letter combinations when a great number of them don't exist at all. See the link chart at http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ngcoba.htm#aim for an idea of those that are encountered or not. I prefer the more conservative approach too, and my comment about forgetting which ones I had done was more a practical consideration when dividing up a single initial page. I quickly realised that if I pulled out only the "Bl"'s from the "B"'s, The "Ch"'s from the "C"'s and the "Ma"'s from the "M"'s to bring the list below 200 things would get quickly confused. It is more a matter that if a category letter meets the criteria for division it should not be done in half measures. That said, I am continuing with the four letters mentioned above. The fifth place letter "H" now has 177 elements, and I see no need to proceed with it yet.

I agree that Category:Fiction (with its 264 elements) should be sub-divided, but that's more difficult than an author list where the alphabetical breakdown is obvious. If Wikipedia takes pride in having categories with thousands of elements that's their problem. We might do well to get down to basics and ask the simple question, "Why do we have categories?" Answers to that should make answering further questions easier. Eclecticology (talk) 07:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I like Pathoschild's idea of the LargeCategoryTOC. That way we can still have all the authors in one category without branching it down into many other sub-categories, yet it's still easy for people to pare down the range that they want to browse to whichever combination of two-letters they want. I think it would be interesting to try it out for some of our larger categories (like Authors-C or Authors-S).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm certainly willing to give that fair consideration if someone sets up a draft. The alphabetic breakdown model could be applied to any category that's big enough, not just authors. Eclecticology (talk) 17:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I added a demonstration to Category:Authors-A. It starts the category list at the given prefix, but it apparently isn't possible to hide subsequent prefixes (although it really should be). —{admin} Pathoschild 20:17:42, 04 October 2008 (UTC)

Using a sub-sorting method like that ("that" being {{LargeCatToc}}) is the way to go, in my opinion; it allows for a category to be more easily searched, while maintaining the basic naming scheme which allows the relevant interwikis to still work (of course, the fact that I'm heavily biased towards maintaining the existing interwiki structure isn't influencing my opinion at all, no sir...). EVula // talk // 23:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Pathoschild himself has identified the drawback in his proposal. I'm thinking more in terms of something that can be expanded or collapsed by following through a category tree. I haven't looked much at how this relates to interwiki structures, but I wonder if that is something entirely up to us. Eclecticology (talk) 04:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't think it's a particularly major drawback; it'd be nice if it displayed just the selected prefix, but just starting the category at that point is plenty sufficient in my opinion.
As for the interwiki relationship, that's entirely up to us to decide. There's no over-arching declaration that says we have to organize our stuff in a particular way, though I think it'd be a poor idea to abandon a system that is used by several other projects. Similar organization structures make cross-wiki information more easily accessed. EVula // talk // 09:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The drawback is trivial to fix, fortunately; we just need to add the following lines to CategoryPage.php. I'll submit a patch to the relevant bug when my connection is fixed.

if( $this->from != '' && $this->until != '' ) {
	$pageCondition = 'cl_sortkey >= ' . $dbr->addQuotes( $this->from ) . ' AND cl_sortkey <= ' . $dbr->addQuotes( $this->until );
	$this->flip = false;
} else

—{admin} Pathoschild 18:59:00, 05 October 2008 (UTC)

I see that the Category:Authors-A page now has the cutdown A-Z subset AA-AZ version, however, with that page not having 200 authors, it is hard to judge the effect and impact. I am presuming that this will not be case sensitive and that "AS" will actually be both "As/AS". Thanks for your work in the area. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I edited {{header}} to make the prefixes case-insensitive. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:13:51, 06 October 2008 (UTC)

I have just found a consequence of this change of case. If I understand the code change, it now forces the DefaultSort to consider all names in LASTNAME to be uppercase. One consequence of this seems to be there were |defaultsort or {{DEFAULTSORT}} are used then these are not affected, and hence they now sort to the end. I have tested this by adding a DEFSORT with use of UC and it now sorts correspondingly. Two questions spring from this.

1. What is the preferred means of DEFSORT, in the author header (new to me) or the traditional means?
2. Are we happy with consequences, and just need to go back and update those entries that are outliers?

-- billinghurst (talk) 02:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

United States Code/Title 22

There are a number of pages at "United States Code/22", which at part of of United States Code/Title 22. Should these be moved under that namespace? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Each section would then be in the format United States Code/Title 22/Section 3901, etc. Since the sections are continuously numbered within a Title there should usually be no need to include chapter and sub-chapter numbers in the page name though they should be shown in the header. Eclecticology (talk) 03:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be a unified official source for us to get the texts? I also wonder how to update in case of amendments. I need better guideline before I can jump in to add the United States Code while I am much more familiar with adding Chinese and Taiwanese laws on Chinese Wikisource.--Jusjih (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course there is. The Cornell University Law School has one of the more readable versions at www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ One can also link from there to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives. While it would be nice to host the entire US Code, keeping it up to date is a massive undertaking Code Title 26 alone has had 884 updates since the beginning of 2007. My own recommendation if this project interests you is to choose a very narrow part of the code and work on that. Eclecticology (talk) 05:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the US Code is too massive for us to maintain manually. One thing we should seriously consider is having a script crawl Cornell's site to copy and format the entire collection on Wikisource. Such a script, if well-written, could be adapted to do the same for other works on other sites. This should not be a terribly difficult project, but unfortunately I'm too busy to do it for the foreseeable future. I'd bet I'll have time to do it before we ever complete this work manually, though. —{admin} Pathoschild 06:18:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Questions

Braces

Do we have an easy way to add braces to a text? In John Hardy there is a reference to "State of West Virginia/vs./John Hardy." in three lines connected to the right by a brace to the single word, "Felony." I have tentatively used pre-formatted text with box-drawing characters, but I don't feel that satisfied with the solution. Eclecticology (talk) 17:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Try <span style="font-size:600%;font-weight:lighter">{</span> or similar (see Page:Scan of "Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 19 (1917-1920)" (English, page 35).png for an example). Note that most browsers do not interpret font-weight correctly.--GrafZahl (talk) 18:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It works, more or less, though the brace appears to be shifted down a little. Eclecticology (talk) 21:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You could also try placing the text in a blank/empty two-column table, with three rows in one, and only one row in the other, which might help to align the large brace. Jude (talk) 22:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

These images here, or here, perhaps may be useful.- --Zyephyrus (talk) 06:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There's also a scalable image on Commons for this purpose (used on To Margaret), if you want to use images. —{admin} Pathoschild 13:13:22, 03 October 2008 (UTC)

Double-barrelled surnames - guide to indexing

Can someone point me to an authoritative guide to how double-barrelled surnames should be indexed? (With and without hyphens if it matters) Then how we would apply it within the {{Author}}Example:

Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff

• Is the last initial D or G?

Even if we have the surname as Grant Duff or Grant-Duff. Thx -- billinghurst (talk) 01:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I would set the "initial" to "G", which will automatically add the Author page to Category:Authors-G. And if I was not lazy, I would also manually add Category:Authors-D for good measure, and list the person on Wikisource:Authors-D and Wikisource:Authors-G. But I'm lazy, and much more interested in creating missing author pages or researching missing birth/death dates. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

That would work as a short term solution. Admittedly it is not always easy in such cases to determine what the real surname is when it does not include a hyphen. Even when the hyphen is used by the person himself, that does not imply that secondary sources have been consistent in maintaining it. There are similar situations for women's maiden names, mediaeval names where the proper entry is under the given name or prefixed names such as "bin Laden" that should be categorized under both "B" and "L". An additional and optional "Alternative initial(s)" parameter would help in this regard. Eclecticology (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

We do not need a new parameter for every exception. The guideline (which hasnt been written afaik) can simply tell people to add additional categories to the page. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I went to look at some reputable sites and of the period. General Registry Office categorises his birth under D and G, and the National Archives categorises under D. I talked to my transcriber friends (FreeBMD and LDS) and they say TWYS (no hyphen then Duff, hyphen then G-D). So ...

Possible solution. Create author page 'Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff' and have as last_initial D and create a redirect at 'Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff'. Poke in the appropriate 'Category:Authors-G' and a 'DEFAULTSORT' statement on the redirect page. Seems to maintain the integrity. Downside consequences? -- billinghurst (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The remarkable thing about some of these header templates is their inflexibility. The series of situations that I outlined above is more than just isolated exceptions. The use of "first" and "last" name is misleading, and it sometimes takes considerable effort to work around this when certain languages use the family name as the surname.

The redirect is, of course, essential when either name might be viewed by the entry name. Your transcriber friends are in a position to be more authoritative because of their experiences, but we can't be sure that every periodical editor who has published an article by these persons has got it right. I have always been under the impression that a redirect page could include the redirect instruction and nothing else; has this changed? For the "Grant-Duff" situation the secondary category might better be Category:Authors-D|Duff because you want that one to sort properly among the Ds where people are searching. Eclecticology (talk) 04:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, not. The Duff entry lists it on the Authors-D, and the redirect with Cat puts it on Authors-G though alphabetically, not at the right place as it would be Author... A DEFAULTSORT on the redirect page should do the job. Allowable or conventional? You would need a greater expert. It would work. --billinghurst (talk) 04:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The page has not yet been set up. I'll wait until I see it before making specific comments. Eclecticology (talk) 10:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is one that I prepared earlier

• Author:Emily Tennyson Smith → Author:Emily Tennyson Bradley; hence
• Category:Authors-S & Category:Authors-Br

Hmm, looking at that, one can note the downside of forcing authors to Category:Authors-Sm through the template. billinghurst (talk) 10:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Tricky stuff. This one changed her name on marriage, while Grant-Duff had the name all his life. I've added the Sm category to the actual author page, and now she shows up as Bradley on the Sm page. Is there any benefit to having the main entry as "Bradley Smith"? Eclecticology (talk) 17:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Bradley She published as Bradley. Her community at that time considered her name a chattel following her marriage and referred to her as Mrs Alexander Murray SMITH she did not publish as this name. I propose that that the name in which published is the name we use, so the author page reflects those letters, ie. B or Br. I reverted the author page to Br, and the redirect now has Sm, so the listing are now among their peers.

The What. We have one page for the author with listings, so the primary goal is achieved. So it becomes, do we offer/handle alternate names, whether by marriage, reference or whatever. If the community decides YES on the principle, then the detail goes into guidance on what and how.

The How, this was an example of a redirect, adding a DEFAULTSORT (worked) and adding a category (worked, esp. with the change to Author-Sm). To that aspect we can tweak an entry to get a second listing, and in the place where we want it. I presume that it is now for this community, or admins, to decide whether this is a suitable adaptation of a Redirect page in the Author: namespace.

--billinghurst (talk) 23:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all this in principle, and it may very well be that even with guidelines for double-barreled names the specifics remain subject to individual attention. I look forward to hearing about any alternative ways of doing this. Eclecticology (talk) 00:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Sources provided for indexing

Following further enquiries, I have been provided with the following links as guidance

• Further Comments on the NCA Rules for Indexing Names
• Naming Names from Da Vinci to Du Maurier citing National Council of Archives (UK)

(Further reading) That said there is some pertinent guidance about indexing in general, whether it be for periodicals or other components, eg.,

• Indexing of Periodicals - Introduction

Conclusion is that, the right and wrong way will depend on who you ask. Action: I will try and write some guidance that munges all that, and present for comment. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Good luck! This is an undertaking that requires a great deal of foresight. Our categories come closest to resembling traditional indexes. Not being paper gives us some flexibilities not available in traditional works, but does not completely exempt us from logic. The task is do-able if we approach it in small chunks. Eclecticology (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Author pages

This discussion arises as a by-product of the deletion discussion for Abraham Lincoln Brigade. That article is a list of people who participated in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. Each item in that long list of items on that page has been turned into an author page link. This is an abuse of the notion of author pages. Simply put: Author pages are for authors. The term "author" is interpreted broadly to include translators, editors, illustrators, speechifiers and others who have produced works which are physically capable of being included on this site. There may still be copyright or other restrictions preventing those works from being hosted, but at least those persons produced something.

It has been argued that because w:Template:Wikisource author refers to works both by and about a person it somehow means that we must have author pages about these people, whether or not they wrote anything. Wikipedia may very well have drafted that template wording in 2004, but it does not represent any obligation on this site at all. If an author page exists here I absolutely agree that it can carry links to pages about that author, but housing such links alone cannot be a justification for having that author page in the first place.

We have a lot of biographical writings about non-authors. Housing encyclopedic works will certainly multiply the number of these articles, but categorizing these may require approaching the question with considerably more sophistication than has heretofore been the case. A mere passing reference to a name in a list, or in another article may not even be enough justification for any page solely devoted to the person. Eclecticology (talk) 23:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikisource author pages are a place to build an extensive bibliography for a person. I see no reason to say who is worthy of a list of works that mention them, provided those lists are limited to "published" or documentary works. In Wikipedia's books, it is roughly that the person must have been given significant coverage in two works. I think we should be setting the bar much lower, and use a method that is simple and definitive.

At present, I think that bar should be that if a person has been mentioned in any works, that is a good approximation of whether they are likely to warrant an entry in our person database. At present we also require that either the person is dead or they have published works that are public domain. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about having an author page for any person mentioned in any work. Many such people are profoundly non-notable. What about acknowledgement sections where the author says "I would like to thank my son-in-law, Joe Bloggs, for assistance with the maps"; or dedications "to my daughter, Sophie"?

I would prefer that author pages be restricted to people who are likely to have authored something, but in a very loose sense of the word authored. I would anticipate, for example, that anyone notable in any field would potentially have items of personal correspondence archived in a library or private collection somewhere; this would suffice to render them an author for our purposes. But there can be no such expectation for Sophie and Joe, so they should be left unlinked.

Hesperian 05:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I dont see any harm in having a catalogue entry for Joe or Sophie, and would rather on the side of being permissive. Author pages should be subject to a policy on their content, so that they cant contain random facts and so forth (i.e. I agree with this removal). Also, the requirement that people are dead helps to prevent people cataloguing living non-notable people; and lack of interest helps prevent people cataloguing dead non-notable people. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not a question of whether such articles cause any harm, but of whether they do any good. Original biographies are Wikipedia's role, not ours. What we can include on an author page and whether that page should even exist are two different questions. The requirement that people are dead has not been helping us. In my recent review of author pages I have found quite a number for people who are not dead. I think that supposing that presuming that because a person is famous for something he must have an archive of personal letters somewhere is not a very solid supposition. Those archives have never been published before, and that opens a new range of problems. Minimal positive evidence that the person has authored something would strike me as more reliable than mere supposition. Eclecticology (talk) 07:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and no doubt there are a great many famous illiterate people; point conceded. I believe I may have to retreat to some kind of "notability" policy <shudder />; e.g. only notable persons should have an author page; a person is notable if they have authored, or are the subject of, a published public domain work. Hesperian 11:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I said bibliographies rather than biographies. If you have found living people who do not have any "free content" works, then they probably fall outside the scope of Wikisource as discussed in January. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Proving that persons do not have free content works would require proving a negative. Like Hesperian I shudder at the notion of a notability policy, but an insistence on author pages for non-authors could drive us to that. The mentioned January discussion was about whether an author was living or dead, not about whether he was or wasn't an author. Eclecticology (talk) 17:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The other angle is our topic indices, which at present (unfortunately) reside in our meta namespace. Wikisource:Australia is for works about Australia; Wikisource:Banksia spinulosa is for work about Banksia spinulosa; Wikisource:Suicide notes is for suicide notes. If I put together a page about someone who has been written about, but has never themselves written, is there not a strong argument for treating that page as a topic index rather than an author page? After all this is, prima facie, the obvious approach. But if we follow this line of thinking to the bitter end, we find ourselves with author pages containing naught but authored works, and corresponding topic pages for the author as subject; e.g. both Author:William Shakespeare (for stuff Bill wrote) and Wikisource:William Shakespeare (for stuff written about Bill). The ugliest case would be a person whose sole output is an autobiography. :-( Hesperian 12:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The state of our indexing and categorization leaves much to be desired, but I don't think we can solve that on the back of author pages. In 400 years the accumulated writings about Shakespeare are far more extensive than the number of works that he wrote, and even a list of the commentary on a single one of his plays could fill a volume. At the other end of the scale there are other authors with a significant corpus where any biographical material at all is hard to find. We have had a significant effort to categorize authors, (even if I disagree with some elements in it) but that level of effort is really needed on the material itself. Some of your projected results are are indeed possible, but I think we're far from that situation, and there are far more authors where we are unlikely to ever reach that point. Eclecticology (talk) 17:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

"mentioned in any source"?! I've got a copy of a two volume set on the Knights of Columbus in a box of PD material to be scanned (hopefully not by me), and the second volume is three hundred pages of names. Quite a valuable work to genealogists, I'm sure. That's probably more author pages from that one work than are in Wikisource right now. It's not alone; the local library has all sorts of volumes containing a list of everyone in XXX, Massachusetts in 18xx, again, very valuable works that could be put on Wikisource. That's just not useful or sane.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

(As a newbie, not sure that I fully comprehend the whole argument of topic indices and namespaces.) I wonder whether we are trying to be all things, the scope would be enormous. I thought that if it was biographical, it links to WP if sufficiently notable. If someone starts getting multiple references that indicates a rise in notability. I didn't think that we wanted to start being historywiki (event-based) or genealogywiki (person-based), where there is interpretative operations occurring. I see things like wills & probates, bankruptcy reports, mentions in dispatches, Queen's Birthday Honours as articles that could be transcribed, though would seem problematic to Author pages. An old parish register of BMBs transcribed would be worse than problematic. It has been hard enough differentiating and disambiguating authors for DNB, and I have very proficient genealogy skills and references and DNB authors are narrowly focused approx. a 100 period and mostly in England, Scotland and Wales.

For example, to consider things like military people who were mentioned in dispatches. The only reference you may have to them is the dispatch and the dispatch puts them at a time and a place, and you will have an age +/-20 years. Ready access to military records to nail then down? Good luck. When your luck is in. then maybe in a parish register a reference to a birth, a marriage, and/or a burial. Even if you do, the only authoring that this bloke may have done will have been the X on the marriage certificate, or the IOU they tried to slip the barmaid. --billinghurst (talk) 13:25, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Would "has been mentioned in any works" include the obituaries, school year books, and phone books? Jeepday (talk) 00:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think it is a good idea to use the Author namespace in this way. There has been previous discussion of creating an "Index" namespace separate from "Wikisource". If we did go that route, this might best fit inside that sort of namspace. But putting such things in the Author namespace is a problem to me. Random Author should give you and author. The guidelines for the composition of pages in the Author namespace are designed around covering authors. Not just people. What about w:Seabiscuit or Traveller? Are they any less worthy of a list of works that mention them? They are certainly more widely written about than the names found at Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but I can't imagine someone hitting "Random Author" and getting a horse to be a good thing. So in short, I support the experimenting with bibliographies but oppose using the Author namepace for them.--BirgitteSB 04:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Linking to Author pages?

I was just perusing A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Gardiner, Samuel Rawson and see that he is an author. Is there a protocol whether this should be linked to Author:Samuel Rawson Gardiner? If so, from where on the page would it be linked? I had thought to add something in the header Notes field, however, it isn't covered by the Style Manual. Similarly, when the page is created, I presume that within the body of the Author page, we can just add the link back from a subsection Works about ... -- billinghurst (talk) 04:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It should definitely be linked, as should references to other works, including allusions. One of my pet peeves about this place is its sometimes failure to leverage the benefits offered by the fact that this is a wiki. Some examples that might convince you of the benefits of doing so: An introduction to physiological and systematical botany/Preface#xiv, The Paradisus Londinensis/Volume 1/Part 2/98, second paragraph of A sketch of the vegetation of the Swan River Colony.

Personally, I would link from the first occurrence in the text. Hesperian 04:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be great to see all of these biographical entries link to an Author. As these are biographical entries, I think it would be more appropriate to add a short message in all "notes" fields. As there are hundreds of entries, we should formulate a plan, and then request a bot operator to put the plan into action. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Done on the bold title (for what Hesperian said). Nodding at Jayvbg Yep, aha, I get the concept, I will now step back and watch. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Gardiner case is fairly easy; just change the section parameter in the header to a piped link. Linking from the first entry in a text is great, but a bot would not be able to know which names in an article are authors, and which are not. Furthermore, a bot would not be able to detect ambiguous author names. In working with the Dictionary of National Biography Billinghurst and I have already discussed several same name authors where even reliable sources have misattributed works.

Hesperian makes a good point about leveraging, but achieving that leveraging requires a lot of vision and careful painstaking work. The Dictionary of National Biography and the Encyclopædia Britannica both have reference lists at the end of articles. It would be nice to link all those articles, which must virtually all be in the public domain, but it is also wasy to see that at some point the task would overwhelm our systems. Eclecticology (talk) 07:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Composers and songwriters

Question about presentation of author pages and author credits: I'm preparing to start up a page for the 1921 song "Ain't We Got Fun" (music written by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn). What's the best and clearest way to set up the page and say who did what? I'll go ahead and try to do this; please feel free (welcome and invited) to fix it up. Best, Durova (talk) 04:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

And btw I've been expanding the article over on Wikipedia for the main page at "Did you know"; it'd be interesting if you have traffic stats for these song articles to see whether this effort is actually succeeding at sending readers to Wikisource. So far we've had "That Mysterious Rag" (Sept. 27) and "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" (Sept. 23). "Frog Legs Rag and "I'm Just Wild About Harry" are in the queue. Durova (talk) 04:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

How about amending the {{header}} to allow optional parameters for songwriters of lyrics and composers of melodies? I have The Internationale, The Internationale (Kerr), and many national anthems in the queue. Translated lyrics have to note their translators as well.--Jusjih (talk) 03:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this is important. As things stand, the rigidity of the header format makes it difficult to append such qualifiers to an author's name. Eclecticology (talk) 16:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

When I've added hymns, I've listed only the author of the words. This is partly because the words are all that's hosted at Wikisource (unless you upload a sound file, in which case the image information page is the place to specify the author of the music), and partly because hymns (more so than most other songs) are frequently sung to different tunes at different times and in different places. In fact, hymnals often list the same hymn with two different tunes, and sometimes one tune is better known in America and another is better known in Britain (O Little Town of Bethlehem being a salient example of that). Angr 14:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's wrong to say that Wikisource doesn't host the music. While it's true that most of us would have technical difficulties in adding the music, there is no policy to prevent music from being added. When this is done it's mostly as an image of the musical score, but more editable formats would also be welcome. Having the composer listed on the image information page is fine, but it's also useful knowledge to also show this on the text page. Where a hymn is sung to more than one tune it would be to our advantage to show the composers of all tunes that have been applied to those words. Eclecticology (talk) 16:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Or at least all tunes that have been applied to those words in print. (Just because I like singing Away in a Manger to the tune of The Streets of Laredo, or random poems by Emily Dickinson to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas, that doesn't mean our entries on those songs need to mention those tunes!) Angr 11:02, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) What I've been doing is adding musical scores in .jpg or .pdf format, plus audio files when it's possible to obtain them under free license. The team I'm working with has been restoring historic recordings and creating MIDIs. When I have time (which isn't with every single upload) I've also done a restoration on the sheet music, particularly cover pages. The long range vision is to make Wikisource a good resource for historic music: the Web is full of lyrics sites and YouTube fills a function, but how many places bring lyrics and sheet music together with audio? See Author:James Scott for an idea of where this is headed. Still a bit rough around the edges, but we've got all 38 of the public domain songs he published. Durova (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Your example is very good. Wikimedia Commons has many media files that we may add to the source texts to enhance their values. As a fan of The Internationale (but I am against communism), I would like to add English translations of non-English versions here. Wikipedia has English translations of The Internationale in French, Russian, and Chinese. Commons has a valuable Russian audio file. If the header is not changed to show songwriters and composers, we may simply show the songwriters as authors in the header and attribute the composers in the sheet music and audio files.--Jusjih (talk) 03:18, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed about translations; the challenge is get those under free license. I usually find it's necessary to do that myself (when it's something I'm capable of translating). Durova (talk) 06:26, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I have made The Internationale disambiguation page with links to different versions. I made two Chinese-English literal translations on Wikipedia then brought them here. I did not make the French- or Russian-English literal translations on Wikipedia, so when copying them here, I have noted which historical version of the Wikipedia article I copied from with regard to GFDL. As the header does not support "Wikipedia translation", I have marked them "Wikisource translation" while GFDL allows subsequent edits here and Wikipedia may have different edits later. Please comment if any improvement is desired.--Jusjih (talk) 03:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

This could get confusing. The Russian and Chinese versions should not be designated as original versions; that can only apply to the French version. English translations from these should be marked as second generation translations. I have already made one change to the Russian-English version. Eclecticology (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It.s approach to Authors: something about present setting and running developments

It wikisource is not so large, but has a fine-tuned approach to some subtle quality issues; one is Authors data management. While waiting that Proofread extension was implemented there, I worked here some weeks as a absolute beginner (thanks to all of you! I found a very kind, encouraging and stimulating community) then I went back home; and I found lots of complexity and new, unexpected tricks... I'm just studying and trying to master them. :-(

I discovered that individual, specific Authors data are used in a lots of derived pages (lists - manteinance tables - chronologic tables....) where they are, as a rule, to be written by the user. I know some basics about databases and data management, so I saw much redundance and high risks of poor coherence (the latter a logical result of the former), so I thought if some plain trick could enhance the coerence by lowering the redundance, and I found it. :-)

I'm going to implement here some tools just to show you as my idea runs. I'll add a couple of templates and one subpage Data to a short list of Author pages. Then I'll show you how to manage and use the whole thing. I'll tell you step by step what I'm doing. You can find some preliminary talk about into User_talk:Jayvdb#Greetings from Italy by Alex and User_talk:Jayvdb#Databoxes pages. --Alex brollo (talk) 09:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. I wrote Template:Adbx (that means Author Databox) and I used it into Author:Henry Abbey/Data. Now I can write this:

Author:Henry Abbey/Data Author:Henry Abbey/Data is born in Author:Henry Abbey/Data and is wiki link is [[:w:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|w:Author:Henry Abbey/Data]]

The code for this is:

{{#lst:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|firstname}} {{#lst:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|lastname}} 
is born in {{#lst:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|birthyear}} and is wiki link is 
[[:w:{{#lst:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|wikipedia_link}}|w:{{#lst:Author:Henry Abbey/Data|wikipedia_link}}]] 

--Alex brollo (talk) 10:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Then I added template:AuthField. This template gets field content from the databox into Data subpage of the autor's page.

Here an example:

Henry Abbey is Template:AuthField and it is born in Template:AuthField

comes from:

'''Henry Abbey is {{AuthField|Henry Abbey|description}} and it is born in {{AuthField|Henry Abbey|birthyear}}'''

--Alex brollo (talk) 11:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

This idea is similar to the metadata approach of {{author}}; see the metadata discussion under "The 'header' template" above. If we can get the labeled section transclusion extension to work using {{#tag:section}}, the {{author}} template could do this automatically with no change in usage. You'd simply fill out the first name field as usual, and the template would make it available for labeled transclusion. —{admin} Pathoschild 12:33:48, 02 October 2008 (UTC)

Gadget bug

Hello,

I found a bug in the gadget "Add a sidebar menu of user-defined regex tools, with a dynamic form for instant one-use regex". If I enable this, no JS works in my account, whatever the browser used (3 browsers tested). If I disable it, everything works fine again. Yann (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

We discussed this on IRC; it is fixed now. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:53:02, 03 October 2008 (UTC)

Doctrines to be Rejected

I did not look into to it hard but, it seems like this Diff should actually have been made into a different version, rather then a redo of the current. I have not look into the copyright status or anything this is a technical question.

Q If a user overwrites a version to an article to create a new article, how can we separate them into two articles and maintain the edit history? In this case the Revision as of 20:51, 2 April 2008 should remain untouched and the Revision as of 21:44, 2 October 2008 by 81.96.196.186 should be a completely new main space entry with only the single edit. Jeepday (talk) 11:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We are not in a position to decide which version is "more correct". We should be able to identify the origin of each version, but to do more than that could draw us into unpleasant POV disputes. In some cases where the differences are quantitatively small in relation to the whole text we may be able to deal with the question with footnotes. Eclecticology (talk) 19:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

To answer the technical question, here's the procedure:

1. delete the article
2. restore the version(s) that should have a different name
3. rename the article to the new name.
4. delete the redirect (or just revert it later)
5. restore the original content.

-Steve Sanbeg (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

• Split Completed, followed Steve's directions for the split, no problem. Then posted a note at the IP's talk page. IP has edited under same address several days running so should see the message. Also left a link to the opposite on each pages "see also". The original Doctrines to be Rejected may need a move to a more specific name and build of a disambig page, but lets see what happens after this move first. Jeepday (talk) 00:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Orson Welles

Found an interesting cache of New Deal federal theater material, including documents from productions of Macbeth and Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus that list Orson Welles as director.[2] It would be fascinating to house copies of this here. Any ideas for formatting and setup? Durova (talk) 18:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Start a wiki-project, and take it from there. There's also a lot of good "Commons" material there, like art-deco posters. It's next to impossible to suggest formats without knowing where you want this idea to go. It isn't just a matter of Welles, but the collection, only a small part of which is digitized, includes a lot of obscure plays that could be revived. Eclecticology (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm just not sure where to begin. Has anything like this been done at Wikisource before? Durova (talk) 23:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

More than anything it depends on where you as project "leader" would want it to go. I can look at the material, and say "Wow!" it would be great to have thi8s in the wiki, then reality sets in and I remember that I have another 20 interesting irons in the fire. I think that a lot of wiki-projects fail mostly because people take on tasks without appreciating how beg they are. You may want to severely restrict the scope of your project, or recruit others who have similar passions. Eclecticology (talk) 04:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, for now I think I'll keep this on the back burner. If there were an established format for doing this kind of thing it would be a lot easier; that's basically what I was asking. The music project is turning out to be an armful. Thanks. :) Durova (talk) 05:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Arilang1234 asking for help

Hi everybody, I am new here, can anyone tell me if I contribute an article to wikisource and got accepted, how soon can I cite and link to it?Arilang1234 (talk) 20:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• Right away, assuming that your question is an a technical level. Whether you are allowed to cite it depends on the rules of the place where you are making the citation. Eclecticology (talk) 22:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• Wikisource isn't really the place to write an original work; you might want to consider Wikibooks instead. EVula // talk // 22:34, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Citation tool for WS for use in WP?

Is there any capability for having a citation type tool built into the header of WS page? As we start to build pages, we are more readily able to use as sources over at Wikipedia. It would be really convenient if we could easily produce an accurate citation that could be copy and pasted over at WP that links back to the article. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you asking for a pre-populated citation template?

Wikipedia existing - Web cite

<ref Name="NAME">{{cite web
  | last =
  | first =
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | title =
  | work =
  | publisher =
  | date =
  | url =
  | format =
  | doi =
  | accessdate =  }}</ref>

Wikipedia existing - Book Cite

<ref Name="NAME">{{cite book
  | last =
  | first =
  | authorlink =
  | coauthors =
  | title =
  | publisher =
  | date =
  | location =
  | pages =
  | url =
  | doi =
  | id =  }}</ref>

Not sure how that would happen is it is often challenging just to get the header populated on many entries, and the WS header has less fields then a good citation. Though it does seem like a good idea to maybe expand the header, then build a citation template at Wikipedia that would allow you to copy and paste the header into the citation in one swipe, you would probably still need to fill in page number and URL.

Proposed Wikisource Reference Cite,

<ref Name="NAME">{{cite book
  | last =
  | first =
  | authorlink = 
  | title    = 
  | author   = 
  | section  = 
  | publisher =
  | date =
  | location =
  | pages =
  | id =  
  | url =
  | doi = }}</ref>

Proposed Wikisource Reference Cite,

{{header citation 
  | last =
  | first =
  | authorlink = 
  | title    = 
  | author   = 
  | section  = 
  | publisher =
  | date =
  | location =
  | pages =
  | id =  
  | previous = 
  | next = 
  | notes = }}

This would allow for easier copy and paste exchange, as well make more info (like publication date) available in the header of the WS work. While increasing cross wiki support. I am thinking we could probably figure out how to put some more improvements in the idea. Jeepday (talk) 11:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, something along those lines, and I was thinking of having a pop-up or similar that generated the text on the fly. An example of a page would be that I would easily wish to cite the following pages Author:Mountstuart_Elphinstone_Grant-Duff and Obituary: Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff. You will see in the second that the reference info from The Times is sitting in the notes field. Often what I am wishing to quote is information that I have transcribed from source, so I can sort of guarantee that the fields will be completed. -- billinghurst (talk) 12:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

These templates could easily be edited to provide internal/interwiki links rather than external links. There is also {{sourcetext}} and associated templates on Wikipedia. Jude (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

While I can see what this is trying to accomplish it only serves to make things more complicated than they already are. It is optimistic to believe that anyone would be any more enthused about filling in all these additional parameters than they are about the comparatively fewer that we already have. We need to make it easier for people to contribute, rather than increase the difficulty as this would do. Eclecticology (talk) 18:37, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Sheet music loading guide

For those of you who upload sheet music (or know someone who wants to), I've put together an instruction page at User:Durova/Sheet music loading guide. The guide includes tips for organizing related filenames and an introduction to the relevant Wikimedia Commons category structure, as well as Wikisource information that should be obvious to this site's regulars. Feel free to update, format, or fix any part that can be improved.

The aim is to make entry easier for new contributors. I wrote this up after chatting with a prolific en:wiki editor who might be persuaded to join us. Best wishes, Durova (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Treaty of Utrecht

Hi all, I'm planning to upload the text of the so-called Treaty of Utrecht signed between Great Britain and Spain. The Treaty of Utrecht is not a single one, but instead a set of treaties signed between the parties that had took part in the War of the Spanish Succession. There is currently in wikisource a so called Peace Treaty of Utrecht that includes only the treaty signed between Great Britain and France (obviously a treaty different to the one I'd wish to upload, however under the same umbrella of the "Treaty of Utrecht"). Could you please suggest which names should I use? For instance Treaty of Utrecth between Great Britain and France for the current text (involving a movement) and Treaty of Utrecth between Great Britain and Spain for the text I'm planning to upload. Any suggestion is welcome. Best regards --Ecemaml (talk) 10:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving Peace Treaty of Utrecht to Treaty of Utrecth between Great Britain and France sounds like a good idea. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully with "Utrecht" spelt correctly. :-) Eclecticology (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Another alternative is to disambiguate by the dates of the Treaty. We've used this method for a few other treaties and laws. That way the titles don't become too wordy and can still retain their original name.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 12:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, something of this sort should be done first when this kind of ambiguity is anticipated. Dates may or may not be the best disambiguating term, but setting up the page which lists all the possibilities will make that decision clearer. Eclecticology (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that dates are enough to disambiguate. The problem is that all the treaties were signed in 1713 and there is no real meaning in using the exact date (it's not a known feature of the treaties). I've set up a disambiguation page (Treaty of Utrecht, with right spelling ;-), please add the right categories), moved Peace Treaty of Utrecht to Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht between France and Great Britain and created Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht between Spain and Great Britain. Please, feel free to rename them if you think it's not appropriate. All necessary information is, I guess, in Treaty of Utrecht. Best regards --Ecemaml (talk) 21:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The disambiguation puts it all into perspective. (Except for the 1474 treaty. ;-)) I would probably have put them in a different order beginning with the treaty name, but that's not a point that I would be too concerned about. Eclecticology (talk) 00:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Which categories should I include? I'm a beginner in the English Wikiquote and I'm not aware of all the conventions here yet. --Ecemaml (talk) 11:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry about Category tags. There has been very little effort to put a coherent system of categories together. Eclecticology (talk) 17:01, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, I won't worry :-) --Ecemaml (talk) 22:45, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Problems transcluding

Why does this page not transclude right on History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/1/25? It seems to be ignoring the <small> tags. Psychless 20:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I have tried this; it's a temporary solution only. There might be something that would need fixing in the template but I don't know what it is.- --Zyephyrus (talk) 07:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Variant editions

I've been uploading sheet music and got to Author:Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Noticing significant differences in the lyrics between editions from different years. Not just a line or two. What's the convention for handling that? Do we notate and list multiple versions on a single page or create separate Wikisource texts for the editions? Durova (talk) 00:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It's up to you. I prefer separate pages for large works and single pages for short works (like O Canada), but it's a matter of preference and there are various exceptions. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:10:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This is a difficult, but still very important question. I've had it come up in relation to the Dictionary of National Biography, and it's 66 volumes published between 1885 and 1901. This was followed by a 300 page volume of errata in 1904; these errata were incorporated into the 1908 and subsequent reprints, which were not considered to be new editions. The question then comes up about whether we should be using the original or the reprint as our version. The corrections to many of the biographies may involve only a single word. Still, recognizing and documenting these differences requires a lot of work that would not come into play for works that only had one printing.

Life can be somewhat kinder if there is a wiki-project, even one with only two interested and active participants. Bouncing ideas off each other can be tremendously helpful.

While I don't think that it's necessary to upload the sheet music for every version when it's only the words that differ, documenting the evolution of the words can provide a very interesting study. Child's Ballads are an excellent example of this kind of work. Good luck. Eclecticology (talk) 07:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, in this particular instance there are a couple of questions. One is that the version I've located might have been pirated: it doesn't list Julia Ward Howe as author and is published under a different title, although the Library of Congress classifies it as the song and lists her as author. Another is that the song itself has had multiple titles. In its early years it was often known as "John Brown's Body". Being somewhat new to Wikisource, I was wondering if there's a guideline or customary practice. The version I've uploaded comes from 1861, but I could get another from the 1890s that exists in a version more familiar to modern eyes and ears. There was an existing page for the song already, unsourced with lyrics only, that seems to be asserting it's taken from the original publication (but gets the publication date off by one year). I suspect the Wikisource text comes from a later reprinting, but don't know which one and don't have access to the original to check its fidelity. Durova (talk) 22:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it is a pirated version, at least not from Julia Ward Howe. It would seem from w:The Battle Hymn of the Republic (which includes a scan of the "Atlantic Monthly" page) that John Brown's Body predated Howe's words. Some might even suggest that she was the one who was a little too free in the way she borrowed. I don't think that you help yourself by making the situation more complicated than it actually is, and Wikisource guidelines aren't going to be much help in dealing with a one-off situation. Keep it simple, and my apologies if my response seem evasive. Eclecticology (talk) 01:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I apologize if that's the way it comes across. As a relative newcomer I'd rather ask questions and see how questions have been resolved before, rather than drive off on my own. Could you link me to that Atlantic Monthly scan please? I didn't notice any scan yesterday when I added the material I had uploaded. Durova (talk) 05:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The scan is on the Wikipedia page w:The Battle Hymn of the Republic#Lyrics cited above, and has been there for at least two years. Eclecticology (talk) 07:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Multiple editions are welcome. I would suggest (and I think this is common practice) placing each edition at the title used in that edition, preferably linked to from a disambiguation page. If you have the different editions on a single page instead of multiple, you'll have to forge your own way. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 06:11:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a case of multiple editions. Julia Ward Howe did NOT write John Brown's Body NOR did she invent the "Glory hallelujah" found in the chorus. She wrote the verses for The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The music was by w:William Steffe, and that existed before she wrote her famous poem. What we have here are multiple and distinct songs to the same tune. Solidarity forever uses the same music as did a cadet camp song about a "sergeant-major who got a hell of a case of syph from the girl next door." Eclecticology (talk) 07:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

All right then, how would you recommend classifying the related songs? Durova (talk) 17:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Based on the information that we have the entire structure leads to Steffe's association with "Say, brothers, will you meet us" a.k.a. "Canaan's Happy Shore". Our WP article still says that he "collected and edited a camp-meeting song", and that the chorus was "traditional" www.secondhand songs.com/song/43760 mentions that the song had already appeared in Henry Ward Beecher's "Plymouth collection" in 1852, and that the music was "traditional". As yet, I have not been able to find anything else of note done by Steffe. In the absence of any system for classifying musical tunes separate from their words we could start with Steffe's author page and link from there. Eclecticology (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks to the regulars at Wikisource for being patient with my oddball questions. Here's a new one that's fascinating, yet even odder. I've uploaded a 37 page manuscript copy to the overture of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. Only it isn't in Wagner's handwriting; it's in John Philip Sousa's. Sousa did an arrangement of Wagner's work. Now I'd prefer to have Wagner's manuscript in an ideal world (and have found it, but only the first page), but this document is...to say the least...interesting. I'm just not sure how to notate an arranger's contribution, though, within a Wikisource text. (Wandering back to the forest to sniff for more truffles, and slightly confused). Best, Durova (talk) 00:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

My first reaction to this is that in a broad sense Sousa is the musical equivalent of a translator. Don't you love it? What could be happier than a pig in truffles? :-) Eclecticology (talk) 00:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Campus Radio - Nov 11th -Armistice Day

The main disscussion here has moved to Wikisource talk:Scriptorium/WCR

transcription projects before Armistice

• Image:NYTimes-Page1-11-11-1918.jpg