Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2009-07

Proposals

Bold button "edit"

Hello everyone. Do you have make bold "edit" button on top of all pages of Wikisource? This function enabled in different project of WMF (en-wiki, en-wikibooks, ru-wiki, ru-wikisource, etc.). Thanks for other ideas / comments. Innv (talk) 11:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You can put the following in your monobook.css

li#ca-edit a { font-weight: bold; }

Similar code could style the whole box with a background, for example.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• I don't think it really matters if it's not globally enabled. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

  I was thinking of it as a user wanting it for themselves. If we want do do this for all it's straightforward; it's been done elsewhere. Personally, I don't much like the idea. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Add |override_translator to {{Header}}

At Template talk:Header‎ I have proposed that we add the ability to override the markup of the translator by use of |override_translator, similar to the use of |override_author. I would like anyone who has an opinion about this to add the appropriate comment to that talk page. Thx -- billinghurst (talk) 12:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I tried but failed.--Jusjih (talk) 02:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Adding year parameter to Header

I suggest adding year = to Header, to allow for speedy categorization by year. Geoff Plourde (talk) 04:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, and it would save an amount of work. Not sure whether it was ever part of any earlier discussion around standardised header. billinghurst (talk)

Riders. Knowing that people will do more than a year (just because) it may need some flexibility, or some smarts to get around that, plus those who will put the current year. Wouldn't need it for subpages, which indicates some flexibility requirement. We also have the potential for spotting discrepancies between year of publication and the applied licence, which would have benefits. -- billinghurst (talk) 04:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

An interesting and workable idea. I'm sure we could do up some regular expressions that search through the summary parameter of the header template to see if there's a year included. If the parameter is also an optional parameter... or even if it includes pages silently in "Works without a year", which we could then use as a starting point for adding year parameters to all of our works. Interesting idea, but I think it needs a bit more discussion and clarification on exactly what it's going to do before we implement it. Jude (talk) 05:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

My idea is that if year=X, the page is added to cat:X works . If year=blank, page is added to works without a year Geoff Plourde (talk) 08:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Chinese Wikisource already has this function after an expert added it. I am testing the new change with Amy Foster, but I am unsure if the display is good enough. Dear fellow admins, please feel free to improve as I give everyone a head start.--Jusjih (talk) 23:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I just color-coded the year display modeled after Chinese Wikisource and formatted with the words like "in the year 1890" as at How the Other Half Lives while "1890" alone might not be clear enough. Hopefully someone can run a bot to integrate separate [[Category:xxxx works]] into the revised header.--Jusjih (talk) 02:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

While the general principle of having a year in the header is a good one, we still need to ask, "Which year?" Amy Foster shows 1901, and I presume that this is a reference to the original publication, but there is no information there about the origin of our version. There is no indication that it has been proofread by comparison with the 1901 publication or a later one. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 16:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

As envisioned, the year should be that in which the work, or specific edition of a work, was published. Geoff Plourde (talk) 07:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Separate page to propose moving works with no US license to Canadian Wikilivres

As WS:COPYVIO and WS:DEL are heavily backlogged due to complex arguments, I would like to propose a separate page like "Wikisource:Proposed moves to Wikilivres" as I have noticed several articles with no US licenses but eligible to be hosted at Canadian Wikilivres if we cannot. While I have tagged most of them, we need a more efficient way to determine the US license of these works and move them as needed.--Jusjih (talk) 19:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with that; it would take some of the weight off of WS:COPYVIO.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

As it is Copyvio, I would prefer that we kept it on that page, and suggest we create a separate section on the page where there is a specific thought about a work, and that has a tighter timeframe. Adding yet another page to watch, to upon decide where to list (which also means new templates) for no different decision loses some gloss with me. Part of the issue I have found is that there is no comment from the community, and the proposer is not allowed to either close the discussion, and undertake any such deletion, and yet we only have very light guidelines about the matter. As users, we need to get more active to the discussions, and resolve the matters. Those who are admins, need to get on and do the job (otherwise you will have your pay docked). -- billinghurst (talk) 07:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Keeping a separate section in the same page is fine to me, but I just wonder where a new section made with the "plus sign" on the top will be. Ideally, the proposer should avoid the conflict of interest by not closing to deleting, but if other admins take absolutely no actions for long time, I do not oppose the proposer from deleting or closing based on my Chinese Wikisource experience. As I just exported some articles to Wikilivres, we should how long the discussion should last. Are five days enough?--Jusjih (talk) 21:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

After deleting pages moved to Wikilivres, I would like to propose using Template:Bibliowiki page that I brought from Chinese Wikisource to post on affected pages to explain why we cannot display these texts right here. This template has worked well on Chinese Wikisource so a user in Greater China can readily transfer to Canadian Wikilivres to see the texts. In addition, Wikilivres allows noncommercial and non-derivative copyright licenses, so if we receive works with these copyright licenses, also send them to Wikilivres, but I am thinking of separate redirecting templates.--Jusjih (talk) 22:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Other discussions

A New Undertaking

Hey folks. A couple years ago I added a bunch of Wordsworth poems, but my account has been idle since. I'd like to undertake a new project for Wikisource, based on PD American Presidential material. While searching for a source for a quote in answering, ironically, Wikiquote/source/etc's email last night I was looking for a specific Kennedy quote from a specific speech. In the search, DMCDevit pointed me to this website [1]. The site contains hundreds if not a thousand publications by the Office of the President of the United States, which all qualify for PD. I would like to undertake about a month or two's work to get this material on the source, and could use all the advice/help that I get since I'm not familiar with the project. I plan on setting up a "to do" list in my userspace redlinking all that I can find to add, and then start adding it (the subpage will be what takes the most time). Once it goes live, any and all support will be much appreciated. Happy editing. Keegan^talk 20:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The site that you link, by its own admission, has more than 86,000 documents. I'm confident that most of them would qualify for inclusion here. My own preference would be to see a smaller number done well, instead of a large data dump. If you plan to devote two months to your efforts, that's great, but I would suggest that what you put on your "to-do" list remain in the realm of reality lest you be overwhelmed by unattainable goals. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 23:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, perhaps I should have been more concise. I have no time to upload 80+k documents, nor the desire, nor source the need. It's going to take me several weeks to sort through the several hundred if not more that are prioritized. It may take me months, years, however long. I didn't plan on flooding source with a database dump :) My hobby time is spent on en.wiki and dealing with email, this is to be a hobby from the hobby, to work at as I chose and hopefully others help in the project. I'd appreciate any ideas you or others may have in how to best start with a task like I propose undertaking based on Source experience and that these documents are eligible for Source before I delve into sorting the information. Thanks for the feedback. Keegan^talk 03:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Good! I would still say that the most important decision for you is to circumscribe the scope of your undertaking. Focusing on one president, or one policy area are possible ways of doing this. Given the nature of the proposed material, eligibility for inclusion on Source may not be as much of a problem as for some other kinds of material. From my perspective the most important characteristics for a work are being able to trace its provenance, and faithful reproduction of the source. If you have concerns add a handfull of relatively short (because they require less work) broadly selected articles, and ask for feed back on those. The bugs can be more easily sifted out when we have something to look at. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 03:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

User_talk:CORNELIUSSEON#Deleted Template:PD-USGov-Military-Army-USAIOH

Following a recent discussion on the deletion of a wad of PD-USGov+++ copyright tags, someone tried to create a new tag along the same lines, which I deleted. This person states that there is a requirement. Could I please get comment on the discussion, and the basis of the commentary. Thx -- billinghurst (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably a good idea to move this to WS:PD, where the whole community can discuss it without turning User_talk:CORNELIUSSEON into a chat room. Jude (talk) 11:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Donebillinghurst (talk)

Someone's reflection on WS

FYI A recent visitor has made these considered reflections. billinghurst (talk) 01:13, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions

The Anglo-Saxon Wikisource

The Anglo-Saxon Wikisource appears to be completely protected to users with no "promotions" like me; it says that only "stewards" may edit/create pages. It seems that there are 0 articles, and I would like to contribute. Could someone with autthority please do something about this? Thanks Gott wisst (talk) 00:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The Anglo-Saxon Wikisource was closed last year; see Meta:Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Old_English_Wikisource. You are welcome to contribute Old English material here. Hesperian 01:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. I stated that Old English material is welcome here based on a post by BirgettSB at the multilingual Wikisource.[2] But judging by the incomprehensibility of that portion of the ang.wikisource.org interface that has been translated, I disagree that this qualifies as English for our purposes; in my opinion Anglo-Saxon texts should be posted to the multilingual Wikisource. Hesperian 01:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Numerous English Wikisource editors stated in that deletion debate that old English works are welcome here, myself among them, and I continue to hold that position. They should be introduced with notes in modern English and placed in an Old English category, but I don't see any reason not to accept them. I think it makes more sense to host the historical (and now dead) version of our language here rather than with a bunch of small modern languages on the multilingual Wikisource. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 02:10, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed a few different times. Despite a few people being uncomfortable with broad acceptance of Anglic languages (I remember Pathoschild dissenting), most supported hosting Anglo-Saxon texts in the past. And we have never deleted and an anglic text because it was not written in modern English. I personally think en.WS would feel incomplete if it did not include the full literary tradition going back to Middle English and Anglo-Saxon. English literature includes Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales? And without them will we next exclude Auld Lang Syne and the "Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie" whose plans sympathetically "gang aft agley"? Or how about some hypothetical 1337 poem published under a free license. Poetry is eviscerated by "translating" it another version of English. You cannot match the sound nor the rhythm and often you have to drop some of the meaning as well. I don't understand why we would not host these texts.--BirgitteSB 02:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Scots should certainly have its own Wikisource, as a modern language, and if there's ever Scots speakers who want to open up a sco.Wikisource, I'd support it. Works in another language may be eviscerated by translation to English, but that doesn't make Anglo-Saxon comprehendable to English speakers. The full literary tradition of English literature includes most of French, Latin, and Ancient Greek literature; in fact, many works of great English literature have been written in French and Latin. Beowulf was unknown in English literature until the late 18th century and part of the German literary landscape as much as the English. Anglo-Saxon make be conveniently stored here, but the connection is a nationalist one as much as a linguistic one, and far more than any literary connection that could be made.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I really can't agree that anything I support is connected with any sort of nationalism, nor that the the literary connection between Anlgo-Saxon and Modern English is minor, whatever the provenance of one particular poem is. Although I am not sure where your nationalism worries come from; there is no basis in idea that because en.WS hosts a text that de.WS is then forbidden to host it as well. And you don't understand the point of subdomains at all. No language should have a subdomain. Subdomains are built upon communities not languages. The level of community required to get a subdomain up and running is very high and it is even harder to find the dedication to form a community when another subdomain that prospective members find understandable is already in operation. Considering that we host texts as written, and considering we host multiple variations of text, the only difference between having a text here or in another subdomain is language of the navigation and system messages. The arguments that support a proliferation of subdomains for other project do not apply to Wikisource. The sheer amount of maintenance work a subdomain requires makes it silly to think of using such a subdomain merely to make up words for computer functions in Anglo-Saxon. en.WS can only benefit from keeping the literary tradition together. Why exclude any anglic texts?--BirgitteSB 18:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

What effect has Anglo-Saxon literature had on Modern English literature? Virtually none. Modern English uses different poetic styles (no alliterative poetry); if there's allusions to Anglo-Saxon literature it's to Beowulf, which you've basically admitted is minor. The effect Anglo-Saxon literature as a whole has had on Modern English literature doesn't begin to compare to the effects that French literature has; heck, Italian, even Arabic and Norwegian literatures have had a larger impact. When writers of England have written in languages besides Modern English, they've usually written in Latin and French. Outside of Tolkien, I don't know if there's any major modern author fluent in the tongue. There is no unified literary tradition here.

I don't know where I would have got the idea that subdomains were based on languages; perhaps the fact that they limit what can be uploaded by language, are named after languages and use ISO 639-1 codes in the domain name? Wikisource is split by language for the exact same reasons that Wikipedia is split by language. It means that the readers can expect the documents they turn up to be in a language they find familiar, it means that editors know what language is acceptable to put up and to translate into, and it means that administrators (in the broad sense) can appropriately tell whether content is appropriate or not. For one example of the last, when I'm checking unpatrolled edits, I skip the ones that are bilingual Latin/English translations. I can't tell whether the Latin actually reads "nigra presidentus suckus", and I can't tell whether the English translation has anything to do with the Latin. Community is not separable from language, here or elsewhere.

Lastly, there's not many Anglo-Saxon documents to worry about, and no new translations*. Unlike a hundred years ago, a student of Anglo-Saxon unfluent in Modern English is quite unlikely, so putting them here hurts nothing. But such arguments also go for Cornish and Passamaquoddy, also languages in solidly English-speaking polities without sufficient communities to create their own Wikisources. As they are no more mutually incomprehensible with English than Anglo-Saxon and modern English are, why not let them shelter under en.Wikisource?

[*]Please no new translations in Anglo-Saxon. There's no value to them, and we have the same problem with reviewing them as the translations from Latin that were frustrating me above (which do have value to them). We can't object to translations into Scots, but I do wish if they start to appear that a sco.Wikisource is set up and Scots documents are moved there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems somewhat philistine to believe that the language of the material in this project should be dumbed down for the benefit of those who patrol new edits. If you can't understand Anglo-Saxon, maybe somebody else can, and that person will be happy to review those edits.

Anglo-Saxon is just as much a part of English as any modern dialect from any part of the world. Perhaps Beowulf is the only work of the period that you have heard of, but I can assure you that there is a rich assortment of Old-English texts available for anyone that cares to add them. For anyone trying to grasp the scope of what constitutes English in its earliest incarnations I would cite the following from A. R. Waller's first essay in The Cambridge History of English Literature:

'The literature of the beginnings in England, therefore, appears to be the literature of its successive conquerors: English ousting Briton, Christian suppressing Pagan, Norman over-ruling English. For a time, the works of Englishmen have to be sought in Latin; for certain periods of civil struggle, of defeat, of serfdom, they cannot be found at all But the literary spirit revives, having assimilated the foreign elements and conquered the conquerors. The "natural magic" of the Celtic mind, the Christian spirit which brought Greece and Rome in its train and "the matter of France" have all three become part of the Englishman's intellectual heritage.'

Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think this quote speaks to Prosfilaes' comment about nationalistic versus linguistic. No-one disputes that Anglo-Saxon is one of the languages of the literature of England, i.e that it is English in the nationalistic sense; but is it English in the linguistic sense? Hesperian 09:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I think saying that Anglo-Saxon is anything other than English is wrong. It's a Germanic language that predates Modern and Middle English, and is the language upon which the majority of Modern English is based. "Old English" is still a technically correct term for it, at least as far as I'm aware. However, I personally don't think we should be accepting translations into Anglo-Saxon, but I do believe we should accept works originally in Anglo-Saxon, especially those that are culturally significant.

I don't agree with the statement But such arguments also go for Cornish and Passamaquoddy. Cornish is a Celtic language in the same family as Welsh, Brythonic, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (at least, Celtic-p versus Celtic-q, I can never remember which is from which), while Passamaquoddy is a Native American language. They are neighbouring languages, yes, but Anglo-Saxon is a Germanic language, a direct antecedent of Modern English. I hope all of that made some sense; I'm personally for housing Anglo-Saxon texts here. Jude (talk) 10:48, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

A quick test; go somewhere in the English speaking world, Dallas, Toronto, Mumbai, Capetown, Johannesburg, Sydney or where ever, and try speaking Anglo-Saxon. I think that will prove that if by English, we mean the language exemplified by Shakespeare and Dickens and spoken all around the world, Anglo-Saxon ain't it. Part of the fuss here is the use of unclear terms (and undefined terms, like Anglic); Cornish is very much an English language in the geographic and political sense, while definitely not being part of the English family of languages. Note that in reference to the 43 pages in the Cambridge Bibliography of English literature, Waldere gets most of a page, maybe 100 lines, for an Anglo-Saxon poem that exists in a text of 60 lines.[3]. Anglo-Saxon probably can't support a Wikisource, but I'm not sure the appropriate solution is to merge it here. Or that it really matters much one way or the other, except that a better solution would provide an example for the host of other languages that can't support their own Wikisource, especially ancient ones where translating the interface is sillyness.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I like how you toss out "dumbed down", as if the knowledge of Anglo-Saxon was not a rare thing. If it's a matter of not dumbing down, why do we not include all the languages of the world here? There is a collection of Anglo-Saxon literature, that the Cambridge Bibliography of English literature spends all of 43 pages on; it's a tiny corpus compared to Middle English or any language that has a Wikisource.

The literature of England includes all the works of the Cornish language, as well as a huge volume of Latin and French literature. Anglo-Saxon is not a part of the English language, emphasis on the singularity of the word language. It is a member of the English family of languages. Why does that linguistic detail matter? It's probably easiest to have it here, but maybe just as wise to realize that Wikisource shouldn't need translate all the computer jargon; where exactly are we going to stick the Akkadian texts?--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes the Cambridge Bibliography has a full 43 pages of Old English material, and amazingly there is yet another 43 pages in the supplementary volume, a proportion higher than in the main series. This is not insignificant. No-one AFAIK has yet offered us any Cornish literature, and until that happens we would do well not to make any decision about that. We could in theory host works in Passamaquoddy/English pidgin, but I seriously doubt that the colonists ever produced such texts. Do you actually have an Akkadian text that you want to add? I too would question modern translations into Anglo-Saxon; I suspect that these would seldom be anything more than schoolboy exercises. We do better by remaining open to various possibilities. In large measure we do better to avoid hosting Latin and French texts, but we occasionally need to allow for exceptions. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Let's clear up some strawmen. I am unaware of anyone, now or in the past discussions on this topic, who is promoting the creation of new Anglo-Saxon texts through translation. There isn't anyone supporting the inclusion of Anglic languages who has ever suggested including Cornish or other languages which exist territorially adjacent to English languages. I personally have always intended "Anglic languages" to be in reference to w:English languages which was under that title during previous discussions. --BirgitteSB 19:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Why Anglic languages? My thoughts on this grouping are as follows: If you follow the linguistic history of English the group of "Anglic languages" includes all English related and ancestral languages which contain any literature. There is no Anlo-Frisian literature, no Germanic literature, no Indo-European literature. So it is a logical inclusive group to use for a project focused on English writings. Also I would point out that Anglo-Saxon became Middle English without exception. There is no branching at that juncture and most arguments over whether Anglo-Saxon really "belongs" with English can equally apply to Middle English. All the branching come out of Middle English which evolved from Anglo-Saxon, which is where discussions of English literature begin. Since this project is about English literature rather than English dialects, it is strongly apparent to me that it would seem incomplete if it excluded any of the Anglic languages. The pragmatic angle of the issue is that there has never been stronger consensus for any other inclusion criteria than "Anglic". Some who opposed Anglo-Saxon support Middle English here, others opposed both. From the latter, don't ever remember seeing an outline of how they propose to judge if a text is "English enough". I could be mistaken, but nothing comes to mind. So accepting the group inclusive is not only logical to my mind, but easier from a community perspective as well. As it is a well-defined group that doesn't require continual debate on texts with a mixture of Anglic languages; it satisfies those who work with the older texts while those who don't like them are much less dissatisfied than if the positions were reversed. --BirgitteSB 19:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Middle English belongs with modern English because people still read Chaucer in the original language without specialized training. Anglo-Saxon is opaque in any text without specialized training, every bit as opaque as Cornish (which by the way was spoken in what is English-speaking territory, crushed to death by English.) I don't see why the linguistic details are relevent, and it's no harder to tell whether a text is English (ISO 639-2 eng) than whether it's one of ang, enm, eng, or sco. Simple dates will usually answer the question, until at which point Scots gets its own Wikisource.

• • Again, including Anglo-Saxon here doesn't even start to solve the problem of what to do with these languages with small literatures that can't really support a Wikisource and definitely don't need a translated interface. Given the start of this thread, it obviously doesn't satisfy all those who want to work on Anglo-Saxon. There's no evidence in any case that it will require continual debate, as the number of these texts is few; and there are fewer texts with a mixture of Anglic languages, outside the Scottish question which is moot at this point, then there are with Latin-English and other macronic mixtures.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • People cannot simply read Middle English. While I understand Anglo-Saxon is further removed than Middle English is, by simply excluding Anglo-Saxon it will not follow that everything on en.WS is readable to Anglophones. I don't understand how your point that en.WS is not hosting the Gallic languages which were "crushed to death" by the English language has any relevance on whether or not we host texts in an extinct English languages. The Gallic languages aren't even close to English. On the rest I understand your arguments but disagree with them. It does start to solve the problem. It certainly doesn't finish the solution for all languages, but it does take care of all the English languages. And demonstrating it can work here may very well lead to further solutions if other Wikisources adopt our example. There is always continual debate where grey areas exist, and being inclusive of Anglic languages is clear definition that eliminates a lot of grey. Latin is always going to be a special case for European languages and it's large grey areas are indicative of nothing except that Latin is a special case which can't be treated exactly like other languages. That other problems will still exist is no reason not to resolve this as decisively as we can. I am not alone in seeing the benefit to being inclusive through Anglo-Saxon. You clearly do not agree that this has a benefit, but do you actually think it is harmful to be more inclusive than you would prefer?--BirgitteSB 18:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
      • People do read Chaucer in heavily annotated originals without formal training in the language. By excluding Anglo-Saxon, without or without excluding Middle English, we remove a set of texts that are incomprehensible to English readers. I don't see the relevance of the linguistic connection here; why does it matter to us the theoretical distance between languages? Cornish (which is a Gaelic language, not a Gallic language) is an English language, and if "[s]ubdomains are built upon communities not languages", then the fact that those who would contribute Cornish texts are English and would almost certainly also contribute texts in modern English should be a driving factor.
      • The grey area is a strawman. There are a grand total of two or three texts which could be ambiguous as to whether they are Middle English or Anglo-Saxon. That's not a lot of grey. Except in the line between Scots and English, there's not a lot of grey in any cut.
      • Demonstrating that Anglo-Saxon can work here still leaves many languages out in the cold. Cornish and Passamaquoddy speakers, by and large, have English as a second language, not some other Gaelic or Irquoian language. Trying to tie Egyptian into some Semetic language isn't going to be helpful.
      • I think this is a tempest in a teapot, given the small corpus of Anglo-Saxon text. Sixty pages here, there, or anywhere, won't matter much. I am concerned that the only one in this discussion to actually be interested in uploading Anglo-Saxon text has a German username, and as his only contribution here a request to open the Anglo-Saxon Wikisource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
        • Subdomains are based on communities which manage them - communities within Wikimedia- not communities on some island. That point was in reply to "Scots should have it's own Wikisource" I was pointing out that no language should have a subdomain - a interested language community should. There is no Scots community that is ready to support a new Wikisource subdomain, therefore it shouldn't be created. Sorry for being unclear before. The grey area is not a strawman, but I did not primarily mean confusion with Middle English. I doubt that there is an Anglo-Saxon text that is not available in various editions surrounded by English introductions, notes, and appendices. Along the lines of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader. It is not as if anyone simply prints Anglo-Saxon free-standing or ever has since the invention of the printing press. The initiator here is not the only person who uploads Anglo-Saxon texts. I am not willing speculate on his opioin with the minimal message he left here. But I recall the main contributors of the closed wiki came over and contributed here. The discussion archive on ang.WS is gone now but I had let them know the texts were welcome over here when it was first created and discussed the feasibility of maintaining that wiki with the. The creation itself was rather surprising, but that is a tangent. But anyways my memory of ang.WS discussion was that there were only handful of people contributing and I spoke to the two who had the majority of the activity of the wiki. They wanted to add texts rather than create a wiki. They were positive about coming here and being able to devote the overwhelming majority of their time to texts while the wiki-work is spread among a more proven community from what I recall. I wrote and deleted a long tangent on how a wiki starting out is so much more work than people who can't remember it can think of. And I don't count uploading texts as "work". It is just not feasible without a community. The guy who started the thread is much better off uploading texts here, where the texts are all he must worry about. Opening ang.WS would do him no favor. He probably doesn't understand what he is really asking and it wouldn't be supported for one person even if we refused to host Anglo-Saxon here. It wouldn't be supported for one person even if there 100,000 living speakers. The idea of creating wikis and then hoping and waiting for them to develop a community has been dead for some time. There are certainly some inactive wikis still hanging around, but even though they haven't been closed yet; they would never be created today. --BirgitteSB 03:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
          • There's lots of Anglo-Saxon text that's not surrounding by English introductions, notes and appendices; historically the Germans had dominion over all the Germanic language scholarship, and published many German editions. Ælfric's Grammatick is only available in an edition with German notes, for example.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
            • You have it backwards. I never said there are no Anglo-Saxon texts that are surrounded by non-English languages. Rather that there are lots of various English publications. If you still don't believe me check out google books. You said the grey area of publications with multiple English languages was a strawman and I was refuting that. I never questioned that German editions also existed.--BirgitteSB 20:11, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Having followed the discussion, without delving into its intricacies, my POV is that I would rather be more inclusive, than exclusive. So, as the language of English is derived from England(+) then I feel we should be inclusive of earlier derivations of the language, especially where they were within the physical and social landscapes. [It is a grey line, and if it sits on it, call it in] -- billinghurst (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, I'm going to shift my position. I now understand that it isn't possible to draw a line and say "this side of the line is English; the other side ain't". Any boundary we might draw will be linguistically unsound, and therefore more or less arbitrary, and since I am not personally pushing that boundary with my contributions, my new position is that I DGAF, and wish I hadn't started this thread. Hesperian 03:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• My knowledge of historical English is limited, so I can't really make an informed opinion, but it seems that all Wikisource subdomains accept all forms of their respective language: French WS accepts old French up to the Chanson de Roland, Arabic WS includes the Quran (7th century, ar:القرآن), Chinese WS includes the Tao Te Ching, etc. So separating old English from Modern English would be an exception. Yann (talk) 09:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll

I'm slightly confused as to the reasons why we're discussing how to define Anglo-Saxon. The question seems to be: will we accept Anglo-Saxon texts here or not? I dislike turning everything into a straw poll, but better to gauge the community's willingness to accept the texts based on a simple support/oppose methodology than to spend the next three weeks deciding on whether it's "English", "Anglo-Saxon", "Germanic", or "Goobledegook".

1. Support. Jude (talk) 14:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
2. Oppose; if the multilingual Wikisource doesn't work well enough for non-English texts, that needs to be fixed.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
3. Reject this poll. "Will" we accept Old English texts? We do accept them and have done so for some time. That fact is the entire reason why ang-ws was closed and locked up. Old English is also English, and this is the English Wikisource (not just the Modern English Wikisource). Angr 18:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

   English, in the English language, usually means Modern English. If not, I invite you to submit a correction to ISO 639-3 which labels eng as merely English, an individual living language separate from ang and enm, as if English was clear enough to define the language. Note also that it's also en.WS, which means that it's the Modern English WS.--71.232.127.37 19:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

   If English meant only Modern English, "Old English" would mean "Early Modern English" and "Middle English" would mean 18th- and 19th-century English. But it doesn't. "English" is the name of the language all the way back to its first attestation in the 8th century or so. Angr 05:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

4. Support. Questions about the validity of polls aside, it needs to be emphasized that "English" should be broadly defined. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
5. Reject this poll Polls don't lead to consensus. The more likely options here are: Propose a actual policy wording and get consensus. Propose a broad deletion discussion ala Reference data. Or else nothing concrete emerges from this discussion and we continue to accept Anglo-Saxon as long-standing practice. No matter what the result of the poll we cannot just stick "(un)willing to accept Anglo-Saxon texts" into WS:WWI without a broader discussion of what the limits of inclusion are.--BirgitteSB 19:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

   Perhaps I wasn't very clear. I was merely trying to gauge the community's opinion on Anglo-Saxon texts, as the discussion above seems to have turned into a complicated and confusing debate over whether Anglo-Saxon can truly be defined as English in both a linguistic and social sense. Most of the replies to this poll emphasize the fact that there is no one opinion that every agrees with: We have people who disagree with accepting Anglo-Saxon, people who believe the poll is pointless because we already do accept Anglo-Saxon texts, and people who believe English should be more broadly defined to include Anglo-Saxon.

   I think, based on this, that I agree with your comment: someone needs to propose an actual policy, with wording, and get consensus on that, as the tiny snapshot of the community seen here all have wildly varying opinions on our current policy--a policy which doesn't seem to actually exist. Jude (talk) 01:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

   That said, it should be sufficient to alter the first sentence in Wikisource:What Wikisource includes#Translations from "The English Wikisource only collects texts written in the English language." to "English Wikisource normally only hosts texts written in modern or historical English." Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 17:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

   Support such a change to the current policy. English Wikisource should be as inclusive as possible, encompassing the entire history of English literature. No definitions or distinctions are ever perfect in matters like these, nor can they possibly be expected to be. That being the case, let's let as many people as possible contribute literary texts in as wide a fashion as possible. In general Wikisource has always been a very inclusive place within reason, and historic forms of English are certainly at least reasonable here; I hope the inclusivity will continue, and that we do not ever reject texts based on a needlessly narrow outlook. Dovi (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

6. Support inclusion of Anglo-Saxon texts. Although I initially supported treating Anglo-Saxon as a foreign language, I agree that these (and Middle English) works belong in English Wikisource. My opinion changed as a result of following this discussion. — Alarob (talk) 16:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
7. Support Eclecticology's suggestion of "English Wikisource normally only hosts texts written in modern or historical English" seems appropriate to me. --Mkoyle (talk) 17:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Budget model

What ever happened to the idea of apportioning the project a budget to spend on purchasing texts? I thought it was a great idea. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'll assume nothing came of it, then...? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Question on Wikisource Text

Here is a question: On the [McCormack Dickstein Committee] page there are what purport to be the text of the Congressional Committee report. There are also PDFs of the actual report. Upon reading the PDFs it has become clear that the wikisource text leaves out much of what is in the PDF. The wikisource text doesn't mention that it is an abridged or edited version.

My question is this: Are wikisource text versions supposed to be abridged or edited?

If they are generally so edited and abdridged on wikisource , I think we should state that they are in the interest of clarity and accuracy. All it says presently is that there may be some grammatical errors. Thanks! - Capitalismojo (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Expectation is that it is a reproduction of a work, or a standalone component. Summaries and abridgements are not our reason for being. We may need to check whether there is an official abridged version, though we would then identify it as such, and most likely set up a {{disambiguation}} page. billinghurst (talk)

I assume that the abridging was due to the great amount of time it would take to transcribe all the committee testimony. It is possible that some was left out to strengthen the editor's arguments on the related "Business Plot" article on Wikipedia. Either way, I believe that all the actual source material should be included. - Capitalismojo (talk) 14:11, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A second question, an editor has added material (in red print) to the wikisource text that was not in the original congressional report, but was reported later as material that had been removed from the congressional report prior to publishing by committee staff as hearsay. It is interesting and historically valuable but should it (the added material from a magazine article) be in the wikisource text of the congressional report or in a second article or version of the text? - Capitalismojo (talk) 12:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would use refs and notes to annotate the work. {{ref}} at the point of inclusion. {{note}} as a footnote with the text that you wish to include, and transcriber note why it has been done. Anyway, that is how I would approach it, and others may have valid alternatives. billinghurst (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, no... I haven't included or added anything. Travb, the editor who created the article, has added this other material to the source document's text. He has made the additions clear by formatting the additions in red print. Capitalismojo (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Travb has not made a single edit since he worked on the McCormack-Dickstein material in July 2008. Your points are prima facie well taken. What this comes down to is a question of who will be implementing what you suggest. Unlike you, I, personally, have no interest or background in the subject material, and others who regularly contribute would also prefer to work on projects that are of interest to them. So unless you are yourself volunteering to clean-up the material that work may remain undone for a considerable time. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess I could... I would definitely need some advice and guidance on how to find and use the OCR tools etc., but sure I'll volunteer. I'd also hope a senior editor could check it over after I was done to make sure it was correctly. - Capitalismojo (talk) 22:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

As discussed on my talk page, I will happily show you the ropes. Let's hope that it is just the start of a number of works of interest to you and others. FWIW we encourage questions here, and we truly try not to bite (unless you ask REALLY nicely). We have no expectation of perfection, and there are a number of tricks and shortcuts. billinghurst (talk) 23:23, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

rename Category:Leaked Classified Documents to Category:Leaked classified documents?

Is there a centralized page for the maintenance of categories?

Anyways, Category:Leaked Classified Documents should be renamed to Category:Leaked classified documents. The former is not a proper noun. --Ixfd64 (talk) 18:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

No, there isn't a category maintenance page. Bringing this up on the proposed deletion page or the administrator's noticeboard is probably best, but here's fine too. Anyway, problem solved; thanks. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 01:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Or if it is going to be an uncontroversial matter, then you can add some of these types of tasks to Wikisource:Bot requests. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Theodore Kaczynski/Unabomber

Howdy,

I am on a visit from en.wp. We are having a discussion about Theodore Kaczynski's article here with regard to linking to his writings. There is a list of them in the Bibliography section here. We are trying to work out if we can take copies of his works and host them here, alongside the ones already here at author:Theodore Kaczynski or add links from ws to the relevant website. Could someone do some hand holding and tell me what is and isn't possible please? Bigger digger (talk) 15:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

To host them at WS works need to meet the criteria of In vs Out and the major hurdle that I see will be whether they are Public Domain or not, and the resultant licence to apply. If they are published and covered by copyright, then OUT. If they are published and not covered by copyright, then probably IN. If they are historical documents, we then would look to see if copyright would apply, and that would depend on the nature of the article. His shopping list is not in, unless it is the parts around notability.

If they are hosted on a WMF wiki, then links to them is generally okay. If external to WMF, then we start a discussion phase about balance and context, as our author pages are focusing on the relevant content, not looking to be link factories. At the same time, we are not looking to block links to relevant texts that are freely available. Author pages have WORKS ABOUT THE AUTHOR, and a number have an EXTERNAL LINKS. We are supportive of WP articles and the interlink with those articles is a focus. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

We had a pretty big discussion about "Ship of Fools" at Wikisource:Possible_copyright_violations/Archives/2008-09#Ship_of_Fools The outcome was delete.

Our author pages are intended to support a more expansive bibliography than a Wikipedia article would permit, given that Wikipedia sticks the bibliography and links down the bottom. We dont care about importance - we are greedy and want to know about every single doodle they did.

For example, Author:Eben Moglen links to a lot of external websites, including his own.

If we did have a link violation policy, I suspect it would be stronger than w:WP:LINKVIO, but that has yet to be seen. If you think that a resource is a copyvio, you could still add the link on the talk page. This case is a bit special because he is incarcerated.

As with Wikipedia, Be bold, and dont look over your shoulder :-)

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, both of you, very comprehensive. I'm not looking to do to much of the leg work myself (if you guys are greedy for info, I'm plain lazy!) but am trying to help out with the discussion at w:Talk:Theodore Kaczynski on his bibliography. I'll point the others over here and hopefully you'll get a few more links. Cheers, Bigger digger (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I never got any confirmation my letter even reached Mr. K -- might be worth sending a follow-up from somebody else? But I'm always in favour of more works, not less ;) Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung.} 20:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Would this be useful?

I've just scanned in a little booklet/brochure made by "The Metallic Valve Company" in 1911 hawking their wares (Valves) and describing their use. Would it be of any use here? 76.117.247.55 16:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC) (nee 68.39.174.238)

"Useful" is a subjective concept that depends on the person who might be using it. I, personally, am not likely to find it useful, and it is likely that none of the currently active users would find it useful. That, however, is not the criterion by which to judge a contribution. As with the material that was added some time ago about corsets we merely hope that someone in the future will find it useful. I would still hope that if you go ahead with your project you include the entire "little" brochure. A difficulty with such ephemeral material is that if incomplete the opportunity to complete it may never arise again. Incompleteness could be a factor some years hence in any discussion to delete the material. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me rephrase that: Do people here think it would meet the inclusion guidelines and be worth adding? 76.117.247.55 19:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I see no apparent problem with such a work meeting the guidelines. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 20:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Ec about meeting our inclusion criteria. Comment about usefulness. The more thought and effort that is put into the work: in terms of scanning; uploading the work to Commons: in DjVu format and then Side by Side formatting; isolating images; and then having a Wikisource: namespace page like Wikisource:Spirella increases the usefulness. -- billinghurst (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, we are dealing with two distinct but equally important aspects of usefulness. It seems to me that Aristotle had something to say about this. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 00:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Isn't he some old geezer who rote in a funnie langwich?

nonniemouse

A little confused about something

I am a little confused about the wikisource idea as a whole. I found some incorrect information that I deleted. You can find it in the history and discussions of this page:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Intelligence:_A_history

Apparently, I cannot remove incorrect information that is unreferenced. (At least according to one user). Can someone explain this to me? I'm not trying to start an argument ~ I am just wondering why or if I'm allowed to edit the page to explain why the information above is incorrect.

Thank you! not signed: User:MattThePuppetGuy

This is not Wikipedia; that is a copy of a original document (one, I suspect, that doesn't fit our policies and should be deleted) as it was originally printed. You no more would edit it than you would edit Hobbes' Leviathan because the Leviathan makes claims that are unsourced and incorrect.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The page was added in October 2006 by someone who worked on nothing else. Unless someone can determine where it's from it should be deleted. It can't be fixed. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 04:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok. How do I go about petitioning for it to be deleted? not signed: User:MattThePuppetGuy

It has been added to Wikisource:Proposed deletions. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 19:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

PD-tags

I am trying to add the proper PD tags to author pages, and was wondering what would be the proper tag for living author like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Would it be the {{Copyright author}} tag? Thanks Wild Wolf (talk) 15:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In his case, it would be {{PD-Iran}}; in many cases, PD-*Gov would be the right answer. I'm a little uncomfortable putting {{Copyright author}} on anything that has works; it doesn't help that it says that "some little-known early works may be in the public domain" for authors (both born post-1963 and non-US) where that's not true.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, is there an equivalent tag to the {{PD-USGov}} for members of foreign governments (such as Canadian Members of Parliament)? Wild Wolf (talk) 17:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

No; in the general case, unless it's {{PD-GovEdict}}, the works of foreign governments are still under copyright. In the case of Canada, that would be crown copyright, and you could use {{PD-Canada}} for old enough works (though a PD-CanadaGov should be created, as PD-Canada doesn't indicate in the general case that it's PD in the US) and {{PD-UKGov}} for the British version.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Typography, Orthography & Other Points of Style

I am in the process of proofreading and wikifying the 1696 essay An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, which I have transcribed from a reissue presenting a complete facsimile of its 1697 edition. Before I get to the point of posting it at Wikisource, however, I would like to seek the community's input on a few points of style.

Firstly, I did the initial transcription preserving the long s (ſ) character wherever it appears in the original text. While I would like to preserve it in the Wikisource version, I am conscious of the fact that it makes the text unwieldy for reading and searching text, in addition to the fact that the ſ is not particularly attractive in Wikisource's sans serif. In one of my previous contributions, I dealt with this by including both versions on the same page. As this is a much longer work, I am considering creating two versions of the book under the common heading, An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex—one to preserve the original typesetting conventions and orthography, e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Preface, and one to modernize the typography and some of the spelling for ease of reading and searching, e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Preface (modern orthography). What is your position on this?

Secondly, the 1697 edition includes three "letters" before the main text:

1. James Drake to Mrs. — [Judith Drake], undated, written in verse: "To the Moſt Ingenious Mrs. — or her admirable Defence of Her Sex."
2. J[ames] D[rake] to Madam — [Judith Drake], undated: "To Madam — on the Occaſion of her Eſſay in Defence of her Sex."
3. [Judith Drake to James Drake], dated 15 Feb 1696: "The Lady’s Anſwer."

How should I title these? Specifically:

• should they be collected onto one page, e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Letters; or
• should each comprise its own page within the book, e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Letter 1, etc.; or
• should each comprise its own Wikisource entry, e.g., James Drake letter to the most ingenious Mrs. — or her admirable defence of her sex, but be included in the previous/next sequence in the header template?

I'm leaning toward the second option. You may also have noticed what appears to be a typo in "...or her admirable Defence..." which probably meant to read, "...on her admirable Defence..." This is not a defect in the facsimile (it was obviously typeset with an "r"), but I intend to correct the apparent error, noting the change in the talk page.

Lastly, the essay itself spans 145 pages without section breaks. However, there are several logical places, roughly every 10 to 30 pages, where the book could be divided, many of which have pseudo-headings in the form of sidenotes, e.g.:

... I hope therefore the burthen of this good Quality will not hereafter be laid upon us alone, but the Men will be contented to divide the Load with us, and be thankful that they bear leſs than their Proportion.

Impertinence.Impertinence comes next under Conſideration, in which I ſhall be as brief, as I conveniently can, in regard I have been ſo long upon the preceding Head. ...

Do you suppose it would be prudent and acceptable of me to break the essay into sections, e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Section 1, etc.? Also, the sidenotes appear to the right or the left of the text depending on whether it is printed on the front or the back side of a page. I preserved their original positions in my transcription, but I am considering moving them all to the left, since the side change would appear rather arbitrary on Wikisource.

If you have any strong feelings on any of the preceding points, I am eager to hear them. --Ivanhoe (talk) 03:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

regarding point 1, template {{s}} will automatically display "ſ" on the "main" page of the work ( e.g., An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex), and "s" if you transpose the page to a subpagename "modern" (e.g., in An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex/Modern type {{:An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex}}. I created the template a while ago, but haven't yet used it other than to test it at A Little Pretty Pocket-book and A Little Pretty Pocket-book/modern. The benefit is not having to maintain two pages with the same text.--T. Mazzei (talk) 03:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Whether to preserve the long "s" is largely a matter of personal choice. My own preference is to modernize typography, but the last time this came up I was in the minority position on this. The same could be said of other typographical (but not orthographical) conventions such as using "u" for both "u" and "v". It has been customary to include prefatory material as part of the larger work when one is in fact editing the larger work rather than emphasizing the works of the person who wrote the preface. Your proposals to keep all sidenotes on the left of the page, and to divide the work into sections are both sensible ones. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts.

• If you have images, and we can upload them to Commons: then we can do side by side work in the Page: namespace, and there we can definitely have the long S. Transclude to the main namespace, and look to convert long S to normal s (if you so wish), and I thought that there was a template to do this already. If note, it should be easy to do.
• Agree that individual letters belong on individual subpages, as they are each a sub-work, and it keeps it as an entirety.
• Left and right sidenotes. When in the Page: namespace, I like to represent as shown, and then force them to the one side when transcluded to main namespace. To assist doing that, I munged {{force sidenote|left}} to such. Compare Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/21 and Notes by the Way/Joseph Knight
• I like logical breaks in the work, and one just has to work out a realistic and continuous logic, and it really changes from work to work.
• Keep spellings as they are in the work, and utilise {{SIC}} to have both versions, so {{SIC|admirble|admirable}} gives admirble <- hover here for full effect

billinghurst (talk) 09:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. I don't have the capability to scan the whole work, unfortunately, though I agree that is a much better way to improve the accuracy and quality of Wikisource content. Does transposition to a Wikisource:Scriptorium/Modern page work with any other templates besides {{s}}? For example, will it convert {{SIC|or|on}} from "or" to "on"? --Ivanhoe (talk) 20:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, no, or not yet. It took me a while to find the specific code. I don't have SIC do that in its code, though that is not to say that it couldn't, but it possibly beyond this little black duck. Maybe User:T. Mazzei may be able to share their magic. :-) Otherwise we will add it to my ATTEMPT TO TRY list. billinghurst (talk) 13:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I have modified SIC for that functionality.--T. Mazzei (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice and thanks. It may open the general discussion about whether we represent texts in modern means, or not. However, I am not going there at this ugly hour. -- billinghurst (talk) 16:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic! I went ahead and stole T. Mazzei's code to create another template, {{Modern}}, which does the same as {{SIC}} without the underline or hover text. It's proving invaluable for things like relative linking, since the subpage /Modern thinks the links in the transcluded text were intended for it. I uploaded the title page of my text and created the subpage and everything looks good, so far. All of you have been very helpful!--Ivanhoe (talk) 10:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:TextQuality on subpages

If I'm working on a text with subpages, should there be a {{TextQuality}} tag on each page describing the state of that page, or just one on the main page describing the state of the whole text? - Htonl (talk) 18:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if there's a general policy or not, but my practice is to put a {{TextQuality}} tag on all subpages, and on the work's main page as well. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 21:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

That's practical, especially for a long work. Individual subpages can reach an advanced state long before the work as a whole. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 22:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That's what I've (mostly) been doing so far, so I'll just keep at it. - Htonl (talk) 22:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

One of the neat features of scanned works in the Page: namespace is that they all have PageQuality, to assist with the Proofread and Validated stages, so when transcluded into the main namespace it is already handled. This month's proofread is nicely advanced and a reasonable example-- billinghurst (talk) 00:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

New categories

I have posted a couple of documents that fit into the general category of arms control and I'd like to add a few more. I tried to stimulate some discussion about this on Category talk:Treaties, but got only one response and the suggestion to post here. I would like to create a new category, linking not just to the category Treaties but also to International relations and perhaps elsewhere. I couldn't find any guidance on how to do that. I'd also appreciate any discussion about how to link this to additional categories.

Also a general observation from a newcomer: The current category templates seem very ad hoc, reflecting the idiosyncratic interests of a few dedicated users. I don't see any coherent conceptual structure. As a newbie I hesitate to make suggestions where I don't know the history, but my impression is that revamping the categories into something more logical would greatly help all users and make this a more user friendly wikispace. To put it another way, I think Wikisource could use a librarian's touch. NPguy (talk) 09:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I very much agree with the principles that you outlined, but see Wikisource:Proposed deletions#Category:Acts of the Parliament of the Province of Canada. The ad hoc approach is rampant, and attempts to incorporate a broad conceptual structure tend not to gather a sufficient critical mass of participants to bring about implementation. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the resistance is willful; it is more an all too common human inability to step back and look at things in a broader context. The computerese mentality is often more about making data fit the templates than about accommodating templates to varying data sets.

Sometimes the most effective way to do things is to do them, and wait for people to object, but, understandably, there are drawbacks to that approach. The critics will claim that you are contravening some consensus, but that consensus was never anything more than inertia.

Your specific proposal is interesting, though my preference would be to look at the entire category of treaties to see if a broader approach can be developed. In theory, you were right to post where you did, but the downside of that is that few people watch these more specific pages to know what is going on; it can often be years before there is any activity. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 10:49, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Extensions

Do we have a page which documents which MediaWiki extensions have been implemented? —Mike 18:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC) special:version lists what's active here, with links to each extension's documentation. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 21:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Problem with a djvu file

I need help with a djvu file that is not working on the Swedish wikisource. The file is uploaded to commons here: File:Lärobok i schack.djvu and works perfectly well there. The side by side view does not work however. See sv:Index:Lärobok i schack.djvu and click on any page. No side by side page appears. Would really appreciate any help! // Wellparp (talk) 19:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

it works for me. you might have encountered problems due to the code update. reload the page with Shift-Ctrl-R ThomasV (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! It works for me too. // Wellparp (talk) 19:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

code update

The code of MediaWiki was updated today. Proofreadpage has a few new features. See oldwikisource:Wikisource:ProofreadPage ThomasV (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

What should the new "without text" page status be used for? Marking pages that have no text or marking pages that have not been OCRed? // Wellparp (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Marking blank pages. Personally I think it is a misnomer, because pages with illustrations but no text should not be tagged with this status. Hesperian 23:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

the 'no text' status should be used for all pages that do not require double proofreading. ThomasV (talk) 05:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone messed up the page status help link (added in a question mark). Psychless 01:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks like that message is sanitized, and HTML is escaped. that may need to be fixed in the code. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 04:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can fix it in the code; the lack of html escaping was pointed out as a vulnerability. ThomasV (talk) 05:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I won't blame you, but that doesn't make a lot of sense since the same permission to edit that message would allow modifying site scripts like the extension does. Anyway, I've added the link back to the site javascript for until that get sorted out. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 21:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

thanks for adding this. I don't think it's ever going to be sorted out. ThomasV (talk) 21:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. But do you think it'd be OK to escape the message text when the variable is set, instead of when it's used? If so, then it would be simple to override the variables from the site js, without copying part of the extension over. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 15:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

this is Tim's comment about it : "Also, in proofread.js generally, please escape all text bound for innerHTML or similar using escapeQuotesHTML(). It would be very easy to slip up and introduce an XSS vulnerability with the current style of code. Everything needs to be escaped before output, even text from trusted sources." I am not sure if what you propose is within the bounds... but overriding the variable locally would not be very different from what you are currently doing ThomasV (talk) 17:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It would be better if that was more specific. My guess is that he wants to insulate if from the translation messages, so that something weird in the translation couldn't cause a vulnerability for that language, since they probably aren't checked for that, and there's really no way to protect against vulnerabilities in the site scripts. If that seems likely but we're not sure, I guess we can file a bug, then fix it if nobody complains. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 23:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

{{blank page}} versus "without text"

The new "without text" status doesn't work unless the page text is completely empty. It won't work, for example, if a page contains "{{blank page}}". Does this mean that the {{blank page}} template should be deprecated? Hesperian 05:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

yes, the template should be deprecated. however, I think that this status should also be applied to pages that only contain an image, which is not possible currently. I'm going to change that. I think we want to apply this status to all the pages that do not require double proofreading. it is intended to save proofreaders time. ThomasV (talk) 07:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

But an image might require double "proofreading". I mean to check that the image is transcluded correctly. // Wellparp (talk) 09:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

to check that things are transcluded correctly is different from proofreading ThomasV (talk) 10:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

On reflection, {{blank page}} should be retained because djvutext.py uses it. Since bots are not supposed to change the page status, it is hard to imagine how djvutext.py might be updated in light of the new "without text" status. It seems to me that {{blank page}} should be retained as the method by which OCR bots may tag a page as putatively blank. A human editor can then validate the page as blank, set the status, and remove the {{blank page}} tag. This line of reasoning suggests that {{blank page}} should now categorise into a maintenance category such as Category:Putatively blank pages awaiting validation. Hesperian 05:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC) ...though these OCR bots are rendered largely redundant by the thread below. :-) Hesperian 07:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

djvu text layer extraction

...has been enabled, finally ! Example here : Page:Light waves and their uses.djvu/104 (I deleted the page for the purpose of the demonstration) Note that the file description page might need to be purged if the djvu file is old. ThomasV (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This is broken over at la. See la:Pagina:Prodromus florae Norfolkicae.djvu/11 for an example where it is loading the text of page 12 into the edit box for page 11. I used DjVuLibre's djvutxt to check the DjVu file, and the text is embedded correctly, so this is definitely a layer extraction bug. Hesperian 00:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

this is a bug that we had for some files. it is fixed now. if you see it elsewhere, all you need is to purge file page ThomasV (talk) 14:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

edittools

Anyone else having an issue with the edittools not collapsing? It seems to have some issue and I'm wondering if it is related to the code update mentioned just above. I've looked for recent changes that might be involved, to no avail. I don't believe my or Billinghurst's recent edits to MediaWiki:Edittools are involved. I'm getting the tools all expanded in all my browsers. I've cleared all the caches, too. en:wp and commons seem OK. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:50, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry my bad; it's fixed now. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 15:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Seems OK to me. fyi, there's a similar problem on en:wp that's specific to Safari v4. I saw some mention of it over there a few days ago. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

A problem with ProofreadPage, transclusion and special indentation

I'm working on the Report of the Board of Inquiry into the Helderberg air disaster, of which there is a pagescan at Index:Report of the Board of Inquiry into the Helderberg air disaster.djvu. I've come across a bit of a problem and I'm wondering how to handle it. On, for example, page 22 there's the section with the numbering "1.5.1" and the text indented to the right of that label - and that section and indentation carries on for several pages. I'm wondering how to replicate that appearance on the Page in such a way that it also transcludes correctly into the mainspace text. - Htonl (talk) 19:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure of the look that you want, however, I would recommend that you utilise sections and look to transclude multiple sections into the main work. When I have done such, I put section marks inside the formatting of that done on the Page: namespace, and then transclude it into new formatting in the main namespace. Here is an example of a page in columns, that is single rows in main namespace.

• Page:List of Carthusians 1800-1879.djvu/296
  • List of Carthusians, 1800–1879/1827
  • List of Carthusians, 1800–1879/1828
  • List of Carthusians, 1800–1879/1829

Note that in the main namespace pages, that I use different types of #LST transclusion so that I only get the page marker once.

Happy to play if that helps. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Htonl, you're probably aware that the [+] button at the top of Page: pages allows you to edit headers and footers, which appear on the Page: page but are not transcluded into the mainspace. Put the formatting commands that you want to appear in the transclusion in the body, and use the header and footer sections to apply the remaining formatting to the individual pages. For example, you could mark up three Page: pages as

• Page 1
  • Body:
    • Start formatting
    • Text
  • Footer:
    • End formatting
• Page 2
  • Header:
    • Start formatting
  • Body
    • Text
  • Footer
    • End formatting
• Page 2
  • Header:
    • Start formatting
  • Body
    • Text
    • End formatting

Since the headers and footers don't get transcluded, the mainspace transclusion ends up looking like

• Start formatting
• Text
• Text
• Text
• End formatting

Hope that helps. Hesperian 03:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. This has given my some ideas which I'm going to play around with and see what I can get. - Htonl (talk) 12:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Interlanguage links and PDF generation

Interlanguage links, such as this

[[fi:Punapäiden yhdistys]] [[fr:L’Association des hommes roux]]

Which can be found at the very end of the source for this story The Red-headed League end up being made visible when one generates a PDF using the link on the left. This is very annoying, how can it be stopped? If you download the PDF for the article I gave above and go to the bottom of page 15 you will see the problem. Daemonax (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource iPhone App (Sort of)

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you know that I found an iPhone/iPod Touch app called Wiki! pro (and Wiki! lite) that supports searching various Wikimedia projects including Wikisource. It supports searching Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikispecies, Wikipedia, Wikitionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquotes, and Wikiversity. It crashes a lot and is only version 1.0.0. It is nice to see that Wikisource has finally hit the iPhone and iPod Touch. What do you guys think? --Mattwj2002 (talk) 21:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

to link or not to link?

Hello wikisource!

I've been working on Member_Briefings_on_Enhanced_Interrogation_Techniques_(EITs),_2009_May (that list of torture briefings the CIA says it gave to congress). My dilemma is this: Do I link everything in there to wikipedia or not? I have linked a bunch of senators, some offices of the CIA, etc.

My problems with this are as follows:

1. Sometimes you have no idea where something should link. IE, the CIA says their "ADMA" was present at the briefings. What the hell is an ADMA? It took me hours of searching to even venture a guess (Assistant Director of Military Affairs), but I'm still not sure.

2. In the process of trying to figure this out I wound up gathering and uploading CIA organizational charts to wikipedia and editing some of the CIA articles on wikipedia. Now I have the weird case where I am hyperlinking to something I wrote, which seems like an inherent conflict of interest, no matter how careful I am writing the wikipedia stuff.

3. Is linking to wikipedia somehow making the text 'unpure', and possibly biased? Numerous people believe wikipedia to be biased, so linking to it might taint wikisource with the aroma of bias.

4. The document might be wrong! There have been news stories that some of the people the CIA said were at the briefing, were not at the briefing. But by linking those people off the wikisource page, it almost seems to be implying that the document itself is accurate.

5. It seems almost pointless to have the document there without any linking, as 99% of people will have no idea what the 'HPSCI' or 'SSCI' is... so why not link to it? Then again, I'm implying that I know what the HPSCI is, without even having to list a reference for how I know that. But if I include a <ref>, then it puts a stupid footnote mark into the text, which was not in the original.

6. It's very easy to link to the wrong thing. IE, they list 'David Boren' as a member of the House... actually that should be 'Dan Boren', though his name is legally David, everyone calls him Dan, and his father is the famous David Boren, who ranked very high in the Senate in the 1980s. There are similar problems with Jay and John Rockefeller. So.. just blindly making a link without researching things can lead to problems... but again, how do you prove that you linked to the right thing?

7. I looked around the wikisource instructions here a bit, (didnt see a FAQ), but couldnt find guidance on this. Surely this has been discussed before? But where?

Can anyone guide me through this morass of conundrums?

Thank you. Decora (talk) 19:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

WS:STYLE may be relevant; i.e. "Context links: Words or references that may be difficult to understand should optionally be linked to their Wikipedia or Wiktionary entries using the syntax word (Wikipedia) or word. Commonly used words or well known references should not be linked."

First, you should try to make it as faithful to the original, and not try to judge whether the information is correct or not. But it's also useful if people can understand the document; appropriate linking is helpful for that. Sometimes footnotes are used, sometimes even two sets, one for the originals and one for annotations, but links avoid the ambiguity of the same markup for things from the original document and local annotations. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Most of your questions fall in the realm of "use your best judgment". When you are adding links to a text, you basically assume the task of clarifying most of the things you note for future readers. I would suggest making notes in the header that describe your concerns/dilemmas. Something like

notes = There have been claims that some of the people listed below were not actually present (for example see external link...). Footnotes have been added to indicate the meaning of CIA acronyms. <br/><br/>Original: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/briefings.pdf<br> Transcribed 2009/5/8<br>

As far as linking to things you created on Wikisource, if you are not doing it all the time, it probably isn't a problem. If you are concerned, a short post here like "At this page I think x should link to w:y... but I created w:y could someone else assess whether that is a useful link and add it if it seems appropriate?"

Finally, just be careful what you link to at wikipedia and if you see something that is obviously wrong delete it or correct it as best you can. --Mkoyle (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Using one's best judgement is about as much as can be expected of anyone here. Good linking takes an awful lot of work. To know whether you have linked correctly you need to test your links, and on each use when the same link is used more than once; this also works for catching typos in a link, as in the one to w:Russell Feingoldl. The link to w:Dan Boren works just fine. but if the documents you are working on show him as David something like [[w:Dan Boren|David Boren]] may still be needed. If at some future point Wikipedia decides to disambiguate these two in a different way there's not much you can do about it. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 22:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Poe's The Raven

For some reason, when I try to open Poe's The Raven, a totally blank page opens. Other Poe poems open fine. The same applies to The Raven and Other Poems. {{{1}}}. Any idea what the trouble is? --Mkoyle (talk) 20:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to have something to do with using Firefox... or perhaps one of my extensions. It does work in Internet Explorer --Mkoyle (talk) 21:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting the same using FF 3.0.11, I noticed earlier as well that proofreading Page: namespace was especially awkward...something's not right. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Galileo Galilei.} 21:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I removed {{tl:listen|En-The_Raven-wikisource.ogg}}, which causes any page to blank. The similar {{listen|LibriVox - The Raven - Chris Goringe.ogg}} seems ok. Cygnis insignis (talk) 05:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

A search on the name gives the same result, a blank page. The second link is a redirect to the same page. A bad file name? It was the only contribution from that account. Cygnis insignis (talk) 05:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I have no explanation for why that file should have been a problem, but the pages appear in Firefox for me now. The strange behavior in the proofreading interface mentioned by Sherurcij is an unrelated, but ongoing problem. --Mkoyle (talk) 06:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Beginner's how-to for DjVu uploading

At Help:Side by side image view for proofreading, I added a how-to for uploading DjVu files. It is simplified to 'general internet user' ability. Does this look like the right place for this how-to? The heading / content could be changed as others see fit. I'd appreciate just a bit of input. While I have someone's attention looking at things like this, could I get comments or suggestions on User:Mkoyle/How do I...?

I often see new users post questions about how to do such things here and wonder if there is any place where such information could be housed. Help:Formatting text, perhaps? --Mkoyle (talk) 21:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. That's a much needed howto. Yann (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I've done quite a few additional changes at H:Side... a few reviews by those experienced with the proofreading interface would be exceptionally useful. --Mkoyle (talk) 06:48, 27 June 2009 (UTC)