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request for bot run permission for AkBot

Purpose: adding interwiki for sequence(s) of subpages.

As this is accidental and non-massive operation, I do not request for the bot flag. The bot is running semi-automatically, under human control. The purpose to make this operation by a bot is to avoid mistakes while on various wikis different styles of subpage numbering are often used (eg. roman, per volume, etc.) and bot, if properlu instructed, can automatically calculate the appropriate subpage number to link to.

The only planned run at the moment are The Pickwick Papers subpages. plwikisource version has section numbers in words (in Polish). If there's another bot that can do it, I will withdrawn this request. But I cannot find it.

AFAIK, at least at the moment, subpages interwiki are not planned to be moved to wikidata (and they are often links to page subsections which are incompatible with wikidata) Ankry (talk) 23:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

 Oppose The subpages (chapters) of works such as novels should not have interwiki links. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Comment. If EncycloPetey is correct, we should remove existing ones instead.— Mpaa (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Question Question How extensions like DoubleWiki are intended to work on a novel text? They require interwiki on the text page, not on the index/disambig page. Ankry (talk) 23:56, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

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Automating creation of Index files for 800+ documents from UNESCO

Latest comment: 9 years ago13 comments4 people in discussion

Hi All

I am currently working with UNESCO to make their content available on Wikimedia projects. They have over 800 publications (in pdf) available under a Wikimedia compatible license.

I have a spreadsheet of the metadata so I can upload the content to Commons using GLAMwiki Toolset and I think almost all if not all the publications would be suitable for Wikisource.

My question is is there a tool to automatically creating index pages for these files so that they don't have to be added manually? If so is there anything specific I have to do when uploading the files to Commons eg using a specific template?

The fields I have to input (although not all fields are used on all documents) are:

  • Title
  • Added title
  • Series title
  • Series (vol/issue)
  • Other language series title
  • Authors
  • Corporate author
  • Imprint
  • Edition
  • Country
  • Year
  • Collation
  • Original language
  • Other languages
  • Other language title
  • Non-latin script title
  • ISSN ISBN
  • Document code
  • General notes
  • Main descriptors
  • Secondary descriptors
  • Identifiers
  • Name of person as subject
  • Corporate body as subject
  • Meeting as subject
  • Meeting
  • Meeting session
  • Meeting place
  • Meeting date
  • UNESCO Library Location Documentation Centre call nr.
  • Documentation Centre languages
  • Internet address
  • Nature of contents
  • Document type
  • Catalog number
  • Form of document
  • Source code
  • URL
  • URL Notice

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

John Cummings (talk) 08:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the {{Book}} template at Commons? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:59, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi ShakespeareFan00
Yes I know about that one, the reason I asked about templates is I wondered if there was an automated tool to create Index pages on Wikisource and if you need to use a specific template on Commons to use it. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Should I move this discussion to Requests for help? John Cummings (talk) 13:47, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
If you fill out a full {{book}} at Commons, there is a Gadget here to import the fields of that template to an Index page here. However the {{book}} template doesn't cover all the fields you mention as I recall. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi ShakespeareFan00, I think that missing some of the fields will be fine if it means all the files can be added to Wikisource. Please can you point me towards the gadget you mentioned? Would this be something I would use myself or would I need to find someone to do it for me? Thanks again for your help John Cummings (talk) 20:31, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Check Preferences->Gdgets-> And scroll down to the very bottom, you should see a worded check box that should be obvious in context. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:34, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi. If it is OK to host such works, once uploaded at Commons, I guess we can work out a bot to create the index pages here, given the list of files at Commons. If you could post one example, it would help.— Mpaa (talk) 21:40, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
@John Cummings: The above is all correct about use of the book template, and that the index: ns pages can be autopopulated. All that said, I would see that populating the data into Wikidata is of great value as the index template only takes a limited subset of data, and with all the extra stored it becomes extractable. With WD addition maybe chat to @Maximilianklein: as he has been doing bot work for open source texts to WD and to here. My only other commentary is about whether we are already talking pure electronic documents or docs that were published and were later scanned. If they are electronic documents then we should be looking to escalate them through our processes, and we could use a bot to get it done. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:29, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: Thanks very much, all the documents are already on the UNESCO website here, they are all electronic documents. I have a spreadsheet with all the fields for every open access publication UNESDOC currently holds however it will quickly become out of date as more publications are added. It seems that there are a number of steps and aims:
  • Upload the open license publications from UNESCO to Commons and include a template showing the data available, including a link back to the original source page, also and an attractive template, I think the British Library files are a nice example, e.g this.
  • Create Index pages on Wikisource for each document.
  • Add information to Wikidata.
  • Extract useful graphs and other resources from the documents into Commons.
Thanks very much for your help. John Cummings (talk) 10:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
@John Cummings: Thinking about this while I was away, and I think that we would probably want to build {{UNSECO header}} which will be based on {{header}} and I think that we will be able to build it completely on pulling wikidata as the default with ability to manually enter. Your project was admired within WMF. smiley — billinghurst sDrewth 02:39, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst:, amazing, what can I do to help? I'm not sure if I can be of any assistance I can be with the technical side. Are you saying that each publication would have its own Wikidata item? I think setting out a process of work that needs to be done would be helpful e.g:

  1. Create headers
  2. ??
  3. ??
  4. Create a project page to encourage people to check the OCR of these documents (I have already created project pages, just need to add the section for this)
  5. Encourage people to translate the transcriptions.

I'm also working with User:Metacladistics to explore extracting all the images from the publications so they can be added to Commons, discussion here. Not sure if the two bits of work can share certain tasks?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 11:12, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Brain is tired tonight so this list may not be complete. Outside of the commons and standard page ns components, I am looking at
  1. populate Wikidata (minimum of one work for proof of concept)
  2. create a parameter variation that works for subpages
  3. identify what extra data you want into your header template and then specially code those aspects into a form that displays in special header, and this then becomes manipulable over time to meet your needs (any time after, and this can be a work in progress)

For an example, have a look at how we manipulated {{DNB00}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:58, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Amazing, how can I help? Shall I start by writing a list of all the fields available from UNESCO (it has changed slightly) and any other information that may be helpful from UNESCO? --John Cummings (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

pdf downloads from Wikisource

Latest comment: 9 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

I am writing regarding the Wikisource side-bar "Download/Print", option "Download as PDF". I don't think this is working correctly. Formatting seems to be lost. --Outlier59 (talk) 01:24, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

@Outlier59: The whole Special:Book stuff is unhelpful and kept for legacy reasons. You would be better to use the other at toollabs (that is usually the EPUB link) that also generates PDF, see toollabs:wsexport/tool/book.php. We truly need to review that stuff. :-/ — billinghurst sDrewth 04:05, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, the built-in book tool doesn't really work for Wikisource. Is there some way to get rid of it completely, and replace its links with links to wsexport tool? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 05:24, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllMessages&prefix=Coll-download&filter=all&lang=en&limit=500 shows the messages, and we would need to poke our heads into mw: and peruse the Manual ns to see what is possible. Or maybe we just null the message, and then put an alternate form to the PDF for the ws export tool. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:49, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Hm, your 2nd idea sounds simpler! :) There would just be an empty link there then? (Would that be annoying for screen readers or anything?) And yeah, I'd love to see more pronounced placement of links to the export tool! :) So the sidebar print/export block could be:
  • Create a book — remove completely
  • Download as PDF — change to link to the tool's PDF... oh, umm... A4 or letter?!
  • Download as EPUB — as is
  • Printable version — as is, but of course a problem might be that this links to a single page's printable version, but the above two link to the whole work's.
Can't the Collection extension just be turned off all together? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:58, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand this technical discussion. I'm mainly worried that non-tech people like me will come to Wikisource, see a book or chapter that they want in PDF format, download the generated file, then see gibberish. The "downloads" numbers might look good for Wikisource, but that doesn't mean Wikisource is being useful to people. (That probably applies to e-books, too, but I haven't looked at them, so I don't know if they're gibberish or not.) If a side-bar option is generating gibberish for non-tech users like me, I think it's best to get rid of that side-bar option and replace it with anything more useful than the current side-bar option. Outlier59 (talk) 01:41, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Free EEBO

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

apparently ProQuest has stirred up some librarians. (see https://medium.com/@john_overholt/together-we-can-freebo-b33d39618f8#.6jfq4tbn5) is it possible to reach out to subscribers to EEBO to migrate to wikisource? anyone interested in some public domain liberation? Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:29, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

The strange case of William James Hickie

Latest comment: 9 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

I've been trying to find information about Author:William James Hickie‎, in particular his dates of birth and death. The only information about him (of which I am reasonably certain) is the date of 1853 for the publication of his translation of Aristophanes' eleven plays. But when I look at records in the Library of Congress, VIAF, LibriVox, and just about any other online source, I get very odd results. Most often, there are no dates of birth or death given at all. When dates are given, it seems he lived from 1888 to 1959, which places his translation of Aristophanes 35 years prior to his birth.

It seems that a later Wm. J. Hickie (1888–1959) published a Greek edition of the New Testament, and some cataloging librarian rolled that information into the same record for the 19th century translator of Aristophanes. This error has propagated from catalog to catalog, and now even the Library of Congress reproduces this error.

So, I'm running out of leads for tracking down the actual dates of birth and death for the earlier Wm. J. Hickie. The only possible leads I have are (1) the title page of his Comedies of Aristophanes identifies him as a "scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge", and (2) genealogical researches at the Victorian Wars forum, but this latter avenue is unsupported by any references and does not indicate any information about the individual beyond military awards received, so I;m not even sure that it is the same individual. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:43, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

With your botanical background I imagine you'll be intrigued by this connection. Hesperian 15:01, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
Also this and page 35 of same. Hesperian 15:29, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
His MA was conferred in 1859 [1] and seems to have published until the 1890s, if that helps anybody. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 15:51, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
May also see this page. Hrishikes (talk) 00:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
I can't access that page. Thanks, I got through after several tries. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:17, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
@EncycloPetey: William James Hickie b. Hawkshead, Lancashire 1819, d. 1892, St. Pancras London. Schoolmaster, can see at King's Lynn and Tunbridge Wells. There is plentiful detail for this bloke and will add the research to the author talk page after I have done a little more searching and sorting.

There is a list of external biographical tools on my user page, and we have components of good bio material internal too, especially for UK stuff. If you are stuck then buzz me, finding people and adding biographical detail of the (old) anglophone-world is a skill that I have. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and I appreciate it. In this case, we'll end up ahead of major libraries for sorting this out. I've already done a little poking around based on the "b. Hawkshead, Lancashire" and found that the school there had a headmaster named Daniel Banfield (Bamfield?) Hickie from 1829 to 1862.q.v. I'd be surprised if they weren't related. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:33, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Yep, that is correct, reported in his 1849 baptism with parents and birth date of 1819. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Book upload from Hathitrust

Latest comment: 9 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion

Hello, does anybody have access to upload download this book from Hathitrust? Benjamin Fisk Barrett, an Autobiography -- —unsigned comment by Jpez (talk) .

I don't have access to download the whole book from HathiTrust but it is available without restriction from GoogleBooks. This gives me the opportunity to try out my new subscription to Adobe Acrobat Pro - Document Cloud software (less than $20 (US) a month for full access to latest version of Acrobat Pro and then some).

Give me some time to process the .PDF from GoogleBooks with my new toy so I can upload it for conversion to .DjVu afterwards. I'll report back afterwards. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:06, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Worked out nicely. See File:Benjamin Fisk Barrett, an Autobiography.djvu. Please add/edit info and categories on commons as needed. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:14, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @George Orwell III:! I had a look in Google Books but couldn't find it. How did you find it? Jpez (talk) 03:29, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Just did a search using "Benjamin Fisk Barrett, an Autobiography" (the book title wrapped in quote marks) and the GoogleBooks link was 4 or 5 hits from the top. My ISP is in the US so if you are physically logged in elsewhere, you might not be "searching" the "same database" as I am and that's why our results are different (Google is funny like that sometimes). -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Wierd, I also tried searching within googlebooks and came up with nothing but physical books. Would me being in Europe have anything to do with it? Jpez (talk) 04:25, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Here is the exact URL given in the search results...
... If you are not able to open it, then it must be because of your location. If you can open it, then I can't say what is preventing you from "searching" for it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep I came along this link before but only the cover is available for me. So it seems the reason I can't see the contents of the book must be location related and not a search engine issue. Good to know, since I've come along many books that weren't available for me. Maybe if I'm lucky other people can access them and upload them to wikisource for me, Cheers! Jpez (talk) 15:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Best practice and status of support for TEI

Latest comment: 9 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I have 1) a set of high-resolution scans of a PD work in JPEG format, 2) a high-quality (manual, not OCR) transcription in highly semantic TEI XML markup, (and 3) some technical knowhow).

I've experimented a bit with using the DjVuLibre tools to generate a DjVu from the images (which seems to work fairly well) and am now starting to look at ways to get the text layer in there.

  • What is the current status on Wikisource of support for TEI as an input?
    • I'm guessing Mediawiki here can't magically slurp in raw TEI and do something sensible with it, right?
    • Are there any known good tools for converting TEI into something suitable for use on Wikisource?
    • If so, are there limitations regarding what profile or subset of TEI is supported?
  • Are there any best practices for how to map a TEI input into Mediawiki markup?
    • Did anything come of the discussions (in 2013, I think?) regarding a set of common templates etc. to represent TEI here?
    • What would be the preferable thing to have in the DjVu text layer; plain text or wikimarkup or raw TEI?
    • Can MediaWiki even handle a DjVu with the "end result" wikimarkup in the text layer?
    • Since the wikimarkup on the Page:-page can be edited, but the .djvu not so much, would it make more sense to have raw TEI in the DjVu and the output of the conversion (however it's done) on the Page:-page?

Also, I suppose, if the previous TEI effort didn't go anywhere; is there any interest in starting it back up?

Apologies if the questions are ill informed; I'm pretty new to Wikisource and still trying to find my way around, learn the tools, the conventions, idioms, etc. Any pointers would be much appreciated. --Xover (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@Xover: The page at mulWS, to which you linked, provides the state of knowledge at this point of time as far as I am aware. There has been no specific discussion about TEI at enWS.

The question may be more pertinent to poke @Micru, @Aubrey: for the Vienna conference on the third weekend of November. [To which I don't even know that anyone from enWS is attending, I know that I am unable to do so, though know that numbers from WMF SF will be.] Here at enWS the volunteers have had a less technical involvement/approach, and have been more operational- and transcription-focused types. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:04, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 Hmm. I see. That suggests I'd be somewhat on my own inventing this particular wheel then, particularly since @Micru, @Aubrey: haven't edited on en.source since 2013.

Trying to recast based on this state of affairs and narrowing scope…

I have JPEG scans of a book, and alongside it I have a very high quality transcription of its text; and I'm hoping to use this to essentially automatically generate a work on Wikisource (the underlying DjVu file, with both image and text layers, as well as everything in the Page:-namespace). The text is currently in TEI format, an XML-based format used in digital humanities for marking up texts. The format is designed to be used with profiles (subsets) for various specialities and fields, and in this particular case, a collection of plays, that includes structured tagging down to marking which character speaks a given line, and stage entrances and exits of characters, and so forth. I'm planning to write a script that takes the TEI data as input and spits out a complete DjVu and that creates all the pages in the Page:-namespace.

Now, there are a couple different ways I could approach this. I could put the raw TEI-format XML in the DjVu file so that it's stored there, which would allow the page contents in Page:-space to be easily re-generated later (for whatever reason). I could also generate wikimarkup directly and store that in the DjVu text layer, which would make the DjVu and Page:-space data identical (until someone changes the Page:-space data). I could also just extract plain text and stick that in the DjVu, but I'm not entirely sure what advantage that would be.

On the formatting side (what ends up in Page:-space, regardless of how it got there) I could just use physical markup (bold, italic, etc.) so that it looks more or less right, but this loses all the semantic data (distinguishing a stage exit from an emphasised word, even though both are presented as italic text) and makes automatically updating it in the future impossible. Alternatively I could try to make templates that mirror the semantic tagging in the TEI file, but this would require quite a bit of manual work, would probably result in quite a few templates being created, and is not guaranteed to be directly in line with Wikisource's semantic model.

On both these issues I am looking here for some feedback and opinions before I start this project. I have some thoughts on what I think are the sensible approaches, but I'm too new to Wikisource to trust my ability to reason correctly about the tradeoffs, and especially if I'll end up autogenerating a lot of pages or templates I would like some community feedback first (preferable to a lynch mob after ;D). --Xover (talk) 10:08, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Index:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (Part 2).djvu

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I've found a possible problem... Does the work identify the additional 1907 editors? Still PD-US-1923 in any event, but it might have to be made local. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

A little bit of research would have resolved this matter as [2] being the complete 1907 edition, and it has no additional information on editors or authors. It would predominantly then relate to initial copyright, and unnamed people for the remainder, and would be more akin to a organisational copyright for the subsequent edition on top of the original Beeton copyright. Personally I would be more concerned with the state of the edition/scan, rather the copyright status. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:56, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Help someone fix a small bug in your code project: It's Google Code-In time!

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • Are you a developer and have small, self-contained, "easy" bugs in your Wikimedia/Wikisource code that you would love to get fixed?
  • Would you enjoy helping someone port your Wikisource template to Lua?
  • Does your Wikisource gadget use some deprecated API calls?
  • Does the documentation of your code need some improvements?
  • Do you enjoy mentoring to a new contributor fixing small tasks?

Google Code-In (GCI) will take place again in December and January: a contest for 13-17 year old students to provide small contributions to free software projects. Wikimedia will apply again to take part and would like to offer a wide range of tasks. Just one example: Multimedia saw some impressive achievements in last year's contest!

Tasks should take an experienced contributed about two-three hours ("beginner tasks" also welcome which are smaller) and can be of the categories Code, Documentation/Training, Outreach/Research, Quality Assurance, and User Interface/Design. Can you imagine to be a mentor? Check the wiki page and if something is unclear, please ask on the talk page!

Thank you! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 12:26, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-45

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can now see how many editors are using a gadget on a wiki on Special:GadgetUsage. [3]
  • If you are using the mobile version of Wikipedia, you can now see Wikidata descriptions under article titles in search results. [4]
  • Editing conflicts are now detected when you edit on a mobile device. Before, this did not work properly on mobile. [5]

Problems

  • On October 26 the Wikimedia sites went down for ten minutes. [6]

Changes this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 4. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 5 (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • A help link will be added to Special:Search. Administrators might have to update the MediaWiki:Search-summary message to avoid two help links. [7]
  • Empty list items could be allowed in the future. If so, this could affect some templates. [8]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Code fix

Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Does anyone know why Module:Userbox does not produce a right-hand border? StevenJ81 (talk) 17:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

It look as though it was imported neat as the template and the module from enWP. So maybe there is some difference in the class attributes that were not imported/applied. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 23:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Check it again. Seems like this scheme was developed prior to the CSS3 standard so it needed a little table tweaking. -- George Orwell III (talk) 06:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Looks ok now. Thanks to all. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Update on long standing problem with large corrupted files

Latest comment: 9 years ago15 comments8 people in discussion
Tracked in PhabricatorTask T104056Resolved
Tracked in PhabricatorTask T117013Resolved
Tracked in PhabricatorTask T107664Resolved
Please refer back to previous discussion one sub-section below and discussion(s) archived in:

Tomorrow's code update should resolve many of the affected files thanks to the efforts of many over time finally resulting in a fix. Pinging @AuFCL, @Billinghurst, @Mpaa: and I'm sure there are others who need a heads up so please reach out to anybody who I can't recall at the moment. -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Partial list of possibly affected files currently no longer in "trouble"

Good news!— Mpaa (talk) 23:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Index:EB1911 - Volume 25.djvu appears fine (now) but File:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu and File:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu both still await tomorrow's update. @DutchTreat: does this resolve your issues reported previously? — billinghurst sDrewth 23:06, 3 November 2015 (UTC) & @Slowking4: -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:20, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Fixed for me, my thanks to all those involved for working to get us going again. Cheers, DutchTreat (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Verified affected files; all listed now OK. This particular issue is Resolved.

Other issues still exist that also cause file thumbnails not to be rendered at the same time the file's dimensions are reported as "0 × 0 pixels" despite the file size in MB being nonzero. These instances appear to be rooted in file corruption itself however. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:15, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

after a delay, works for me. Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 15:19, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

EB11, vol. XXVI

Something's hinky with Volume 26. Anyone know how to fix it?

[If the problem doesn't display on your end, what I'm seeing is Error: Numeric value expected in red text instead of any of the pages. When I try clicking on individual linked pages from the djvu file's page, I can see them but there's no button forward or backward into the other pages that haven't been edited yet.] — LlywelynII 04:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Good grief! This issue has been reported, and fallen into the archives pending action(? As if?) many, multiple times. Either nobody cares or nobody has the sense to mark items "not to be archived until finally addressed." Something might be done one day but for now it appears nobody has the authority or the ability to fix this issue locally. It has been established as being a system problem of scope beyond merely Commons/WikiSource. AuFCL (talk) 05:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
And since it does not directly affect Wikipedia, nothing will ever happen to fix the problem. At least that's my experience. So the way to get it fixed is to add broken links and faulty citations all over Wikipedia referencing the content from EB1911 until the Wikipedians start griping about it. . . I'll stop snarking now. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:40, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Pardon, LlywelynII if you are feeling picked upon. It is not intentional—you merely happen to be about the dozenth person to ask about this matter. Seriously, let's make this item a mini-index and leave it tagged not to be archived until such time as this particular issue is fixed or otherwise goes away?
Accordingly: See any of (please add any I've missed): AuFCL (talk) 07:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the apology, but nah I don't feel picked on. I can understand your perspective but our EB material is going to be some of the most-used material on the entire site, so it's just something that is going to continue being a problem. Does no one know what the issue is? or we do and we just have to wait for the WikiMedia code monkeys to get around to that particular typewriter?
(And actually there was a complaint I made somewhere about a similar problem in the EB9 and it actually did get fairly promptly addressed so I was assuming it might be something easy.) — LlywelynII 08:32, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Looking at this conversation, it looks like there's some problem with large numbers of text chunks in the scan? Couldn't we just cut the .djvu file into two pieces? — LlywelynII 10:15, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
@Llywelyn: The issue (as I read it) is that the <pagelist> componentry calls the API of the djvu file for the number of pages, and what it is bringing back is not in a format it comprehends (presuming that it is an error message rather than a number), such that proofreadpages api spits out that error message. So it is fails for the full page span, and it fails for a partial list (I tested.)

With regard to the commentary, if we are wanting to get work done, sometimes we have to be the squeaky wheel, and if we don't make our needs obvious, and clearly state the problem, and the effect, then it often won't get traction. What we had on the phabricator ticket about the issue is not enough to get anyone' interest of it being a specific issue that needs speedy resolution, it gives indication of the size or impact. Phabricator is the avenue to the developers, and lots of foot traffic, votes, and helpful noise across a ticket will bring it to attention. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:13, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

having made the other 26 volumes match and split ready, i’ve been mulling copying over all the articles in vols 26 & 27, from IA ocr. the side by side could be stitched later. (the articles in the volume would be findable in a search and linkable from WP). Slowking4♡Farmbrough's revenge 23:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
 See update one section-level above. DO NOT COMMENT HERE; PLEASE COMMENT ABOVE -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:54, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

epub export

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hello everyone, I exported a text to epub today that I wanted to read on my ereader and noticed the text is left aligned. I would prefer it to have been justified myself and I think many users probably feel the same. Would it be possible to add an option for the text to be justified for any user that wishes it to be so? I don't know if this is possible and if anyone feels the same but I thought I'd ask. Jpez (talk) 17:09, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@Jpez: Within Firefox I utilise "epubreader" add-on and that displays it in fully justified, so maybe it is something that you can look to in your reading tool. Beyond special formatting, we purposefully do not put in 'forced' general formatting and allow the user's (css) styling to take effect, so if a user has css for justified in their local special:mypage/common.css or their reader, that is what takes effect. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:47, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Replacing a page scan in a book?

Latest comment: 9 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

Hi all. @ShakespeareFan00 has pointed out that a page in a book I uploaded a while back, Page:Roman_Manchester_(1900)_by_Charles_Roeder.djvu/187, is mostly hidden by a emendations list. I've got a physical copy of the book from a library, so I can upload a scan of just that page, but I'm not sure how to integrate this into the book. Any suggestions? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

See here: Help:DjVu_files#Manipulating for some hint. Or upload the page as a file here locally and someone will take care.— Mpaa (talk) 22:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
Some specific guidance to assist with the general stuff at Help:DjVu files:
  1. Scan your page
  2. Convert it to .ppm format. This is an unusual format that is not often supported. If you can't do that with the programs you already have installed , then I recommend you install imagemagick, which is super-useful for many many image conversion and manipulate tasks. Converting to ppm is as simple as "convert scan.png scan.ppm".
  3. Install djvulibre
  4. Use c44 to encode your image as a single-page djvu file.
  5. Use djvm to insert your page into the original djvu at the correct location.
It seems complicated the first time, but once you've got everything set up and are familiar with the programs, it isn't too hard and you have another feather to your Wikisource bow.
Hesperian 02:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
If at Commons we have a bot that can rotate an image, why can't we have a bot that replaces the first page of a djvu file for a another one? — billinghurst sDrewth 11:09, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
@Billinghurst:, we can. Something like archivebot.py is feasible with relative effort. For something on tools, I am looking into that but still borderline for me.— Mpaa (talk) 19:38, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
@Mpaa, @Hesperian: Thanks for your guidance! I've tried installing djvulibre, and can get all the way through to the last step, but unfortunately it fails at that point saying "[1-15108] Corrupted IFF file (Illegal chunk id).". Checking through the book, there was more than one page that hadn't scanned properly (there's actually 25, including a missing last page), so I've scanned in the problematic pages and put a copy of the PDFs at [9], with the file names indicating which page in the djvu file they should replace. Would either of you (or anyone else) be willing to merge these into the djvu file please? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
Done. Please give a look if everything is OK. Several images linked as files, have now a poor quality or apper incorrect compared to the new images you provided. Files at Commons should be updated as well.— Mpaa (talk) 22:23, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
That's fantastic, thank you! I've uploaded the new images to Commons, and I've run through and updated the image links for the new pages. Thanks again! Mike Peel (talk) 20:36, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-46

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • Superprotect has been removed. [10]
  • You can now switch between the wikitext editor and the visual editor without saving. You will not lose the changes you have made. [11]
  • JSON dumps of the production search indexes are now available. They can be imported to Elasticsearch. [12]

Problems

  • Some translations for the Thanks and Echo extensions were missing. Translators have been asked to help and this should be solved soon. [13]

Changes this week

  • Thumbnails of 16-bit TIFF files will be displayed properly. Before, this didn't work. [14]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 10. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 11. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 12 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 10 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:18, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Report from University of Oxford Transcribe-a-thon

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

It's been a while, but now we have the participant feedback, it's time I reported what happened at this (first?) Wikisource training event last month, held by Oxford University IT Services and the Bodleian Libraries.

The session was three hours, including a guest speaker talking about women in science, so about two and a half hours of learning and doing Wikisource, which participants said felt exactly the right length.

There were eleven trainees, four who had edited Wikipedia before; seven who were new to wikis in general. We started with a discussion of the advantages of electronic text, writing up the benefits on on a flipchart. Then I brought up Wikisource and talked through the different kinds of text that are available.

My demonstration of EPUB export wasn't as impressive as I'd planned: the app on my phone (Google Play Books on Android) temperamentally shows a blank screen sometimes when returning to a book, so people just had to trust me that my phone has Ada Lovelace's notes on the analytical engine.

I handed out post-it notes with page numbers on, and I'd set up a URL-shortener so that we could rapidly get to the transcriptions. The page numbers were spaced two apart, the idea being that each person would proofread a page, then another page, then validate a page that had been proofread by someone else (though I came through and did a more thorough check afterwards).

They picked up the basic formatting conventions pretty quickly, just from the premise that the purpose is to make text more accessible. With a very mixed group, some of whom are very non-technical, it's not really feasible to go deeply into templates, but I did point everyone to the Help index, and especially Help:Templates. The more IT-confident attendees picked up quickly how to do recurring headers and so on. Those people got to grips with the site more quickly, and so did more validation of others' work.

We didn't do a huge amount of pages on the day, but then that's the nature of a training event for people who are new to the site, and which has to make sure everyone is keeping up. We completed one eight-page paper and about a quarter of a short book by Mary Somerville. One of the texts that I prepared for the event was a book chapter about Florence Nightingale which we didn't end up using on the day, but was later transcribed by ShakespeareFan00 to whom I'm very grateful.

We didn't have many comments on the interface, though some of us had a problem with dragging the page-image around with the mouse. This would work the first time a page was being created (though it's not obvious that you can do this- people had to have it pointed out) but when they saved, then clicked "edit" again some found that the image wouldn't move. This happened more with Internet Explorer, but to be honest we didn't detect a pattern to this problem.

There was an online evaluation form. We only had four responses out of eleven, but they were mostly very positive ("Fantastic activity. I loved it." "I was impressed with the whole Wiki thing."). I recommend reading all their comments. In-person responses on the day reinforce that, in general, they found it fun and relaxing- this is a big contrast to the Wikipedia training that I more usually give. Writing a Wikipedia article that won't be deleted is often a scary experience for a newcomer- with Wikisource they make visible improvements more quickly. I felt that they could become regular contributors but that they'd like to do it with in-person support- they liked working together as a group, while also being conscious that they were taking part in a global community. The hosting organisations were also pleased to run an event which gets good feedback, and which teaches a novel set of skills relevant to research and education. Hence I'll push for other events like this.

I hope this is interesting and that other Wikisourcerors get a chance to run similar outreach events. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey - Phase 1

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi everyone!

The Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is focused on building improved curation and moderation tools for experienced Wikimedia contributors. We're now starting a Community Wishlist Survey to find the most useful projects that we can work on.

For phase 1 of the survey, we're inviting all active contributors to submit brief proposals, explaining the project that you'd like us to work on, and why it's important. Phase 1 will last for 2 weeks. In phase 2, we'll ask you to vote on the proposals. Afterwards, we'll analyze the top 10 proposals and create a prioritized wishlist.

While most of this process will be conducted in English, we're inviting people from any Wikimedia wiki to submit proposals. We'll also invite volunteer translators to help translate proposals into English.

Your proposal should include: the problem that you want to solve, who would benefit, and a proposed solution, if you have one. You can submit your proposal on the Community Wishlist Survey page, using the entry field and the big blue button. We will be accepting proposals for 2 weeks, ending on November 23.

We're looking forward to hearing your ideas!

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

endorse especially VE for WS, vote early and often Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 04:41, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikimania 2016 scholarships ambassadors needed

Hello! Wikimania 2016 scholarships will soon be open; by the end of the week we'll form the committee and we need your help, see Scholarship committee for details.

If you want to carefully review nearly a thousand applications in January, you might be a perfect committee member. Otherwise, you can volunteer as "ambassador": you will observe all the committee activities, ensure that people from your language or project manage to apply for a scholarship, translate scholarship applications written in your language to English and so on. Ambassadors are allowed to ask for a scholarship, unlike committee members.

Wikimania 2016 scholarships subteam 10:48, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Line number display error

Latest comment: 9 years ago12 comments3 people in discussion

What's going wrong with {{pline}}? The line numbers generated by this template now appear on the following line, instead of the line where the template is placed, whenever the line numbers are right aligned. There is example text on the template's doc page that demonstrates the problem. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:15, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting. I recently noticed a similar effect when {{float right}} was used within <poem> tags; but did not know then whether this was new behaviour—I think this now proves that it is! AuFCL (talk) 02:29, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
What's interesting is that the behavior does not appear in two newly created pages, but does appear in older pages. Not sure yet if it's a temporary display glitch, a bad interaction with the <poem> tag, or what. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:36, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Oh that truly is mad (pointers please? I've got to see this one!) At least in "my" observed instance the problem always appeared to occur whther the edit be new or old. (Here is a fairly clean example of the solution I resorted to in case it is of use.) AuFCL (talk) 02:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
It works fine in this page, and also when that page is transcluded. The tricky bit is that the new pages make use of several things not used in combination elsewhere: {{dent/s}} with an extra 1em margin on the left; hard line breaks with <br />; and the transcluded version uses a page layout. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:07, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Oops. I misreported earlier; the failure case I intended was {{block center}} wrapping <poem> wrapping {{float right}}. Apologies if I mislead anyone. EncycloPetey's example does not have that outer wrapping layer. The Ruddigore pointer I gave was the correct one, however. AuFCL (talk) 04:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if this is useful? More or less on a whim I tried substituting <poem compact> for <poem> and guess what? The issue just "goes away." Thus:
{{block center|
<poem>
Things to do{{pline|7|r}}
</poem>
}}

should fail per:

Things to do7

but: 

{{block center|
<poem compact>
Things to do{{pline|7|r}}
</poem>
}}

works like a bought one!

Things to do7
Does this get us anywhere useful? AuFCL (talk) 05:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Two other points.
  1. phab:T54061 is almost (squint hard) relevant. May be an opportunity for bringing developer interest to bear, and our own dear user:George Orwell III is a recent contributor there.
  2. I just duplicated {{block center}}, {{pline}}, {{gap}} and the above test block from here to test2wiki:User:AuFCL/sandbox and neither case fails over there. There is definitely something rotten in the state of CSS class="poem" here and here alone. AuFCL (talk) 07:55, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
@George Orwell III, @EncycloPetey: I believe I have isolated this thing. In MediaWiki:Gadget-enws-tweaks.css there is a CSS definition to the effect:
.poem p {
	margin-top: 0 !important;
	margin-bottom: 0 !important;
	text-indent: inherit !important;
	white-space: nowrap !important;
}
The highlighted line (white-space: nowrap !important;: first introduced in this edit—second line of first added block) appears to be the cause of our little problem and may (crudely) be verified by entering your personal Preferences and toggling OFF Gadgets/Interface/Site and reloading this page (remember to turn it on again later!) Now can anybody recall why this line is essential, because otherwise getting rid of it seems like a Good Idea™? AuFCL (talk) 09:03, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I just rem'd the line AuFCL has targeted above. Any better? -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:24, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Works for me. AuFCL (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
It's working for me at the computer I'm at now. If it doesn't on my home computer, I'll say so later today. (I won't bother if it too is working.) --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of an Index

Latest comment: 9 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I have requested a Speedy delete of an Index on its Talk page, for I was not sure how else to make the request. The scan was missing a whole chapter of pages. I have requested deletion of the File at Commons as well. I left a note about it at ShakespeareFan00's Talk page, for I noticed they were working on the Index in some fashion. I have already begun proofreading a new Index that I have uploaded, with all pages intact. Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:21, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Are you not planning to upload a corrected file, then? There is no need to delete the Index page unless the transcription is either (a) to be completely and irrevocably abandoned, or (b) falls afoul of copyright issues. If you can find a better source file, just upload it over the one at Commons and proceed from there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:24, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
A new one has already been uploaded to Commons. I did not think to overwrite. The Index should be deleted at this point, in my opinion. As I said above, I have already begun work on a new scan (Index). Sorry if I failed to follow protocol correctly in my haste, Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Done --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and apologies again, Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:54, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking for advice regarding Index:The Condensed Vocal Parts to the Carols for Christmas-tide.djvu

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm looking for some advice regarding Index:The Condensed Vocal Parts to the Carols for Christmas-tide.djvu. The volume itself appears to be called Carols for Christmas-tide, and makes no reference to date of printing; it is a two-works-in-one publication containing The Condensed Vocal Parts to the Carols for Christmas-tide (1854) and The Condensed Vocal Parts to the Carols for Easter-tide (1855). I started out with the idea that I would keep the two included works as sub-pages, but now I am thinking perhaps they would be better hosted as individual works. What do you all think? And if they are hosted as individual works, should I keep the volume page Carols for Christmas-tide as is, with date unknown? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

If they are published as a work with subsidiary parts, they should stay that way. You can still put in redirects from the root to the works. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:23, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-47

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes this week

  • You can use TemplateData to indicate how you want a template to be displayed in wikitext. Tools like VisualEditor that edit templates will soon use this information. [17]
  • Echo notification icons in MonoBook will look more like other icons in the theme. [18]
  • The Community Tech team is doing a community wishlist survey to understand what they should be working on. They are now accepting proposals in all languages. You can create your proposal in the small box above the blue button and click it when you're done.
  • Wikis can make the welcome notification link to a specific page. [19]
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from November 18. It will be on all Wikipedias from November 19 (calendar).

Meetings

  • You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 17 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Internet Explorer 8 will no longer have JavaScript support. You will still be able to browse and edit Wikipedia, but will not be able to use some features. This can be solved by upgrading to a newer version or switching to a different browser. The change will happen in January 2016. [20][21]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Unified watchlist feature??

Latest comment: 9 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion

When clicking on my Wikisource watchlist, before displaying the local list, a list of wikis flash by and disappear. These wikis are where I am minimally active and created watchlists. How is it possible to view this list in a fixed mode here in Wikisource and not have it disappear? (Unfortunately, it flashes by too quickly to take a screenshot.) — Ineuw talk 17:52, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Do you have the sidebar flatlist gadget enabled? I do, and the sidebar flashes across the watchlist until the watchlist finishes loading, then it collapsed up again. You should be able to use the "Sister projects" link on the sidebar (now top bar) to get a list of these wikis. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Beleg Tâl:. There is now light in the tunnel. This is what happens when one implements a trouble-free feature and then forgets why it was selected. I use GO3's gadget which collapses the side menu and hides the logo which never gave me any problems. But then, it seems that at a later date I also selected the horizontal feature, and hence it just flashed by. Now everything is OK and hopefully this corrected another problem which I did not report as yet. — Ineuw talk 22:39, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that "flashing" has gotten worse since the Flatlist's roll-out thanks in some degree to various core updates since but the "Sister Projects" addition isn't helping matters either.

On top of needing an overhaul from age to begin with, I'm sure there is a more elegant way of having "Sister Projects" load than the current approach -- if there was no objection to making it formally part of the "default" side-bar menu and agree on what [not] to list once and for all. Or; it can be redesigned to each User:s tastes as long their custom list of sister sites was always found on a fixed User: subpage (like User:Your Username/ProjectList or something). Or; it may be a candidate for conversion to utilize User:Pathoschild's Template script somehow instead. Suggestions? -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:52, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I like the ease of jumping to my watchlists on other projects (although I don't think Test2 needs to be there). I think it should be made part of the default side-bar for all users. As for the 'flashing', would it be possible to set the list as display:none initially, and then re-show it via JS only after it's been moved to the sidebar? (Not that I'm au fait with how it's done at the moment, so should be probably butt out.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 06:37, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks @Samwilson:. Your idea of the layout and the display process is exactly how I would want it to look, including the removal of Test2. To those who use the collapsible sidebar, the current flash by menu is useless.— Ineuw talk 07:00, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
The list of sister sites is curious indeed. Does anybody know how it was derived? Personally I find the inclusion of test2 useful (though I do not expect that to be a common choice) however the inclusion of "Wikiversity" and "WikiSpecies" I find utterly baffling as I have certainly never visited those sites. Clearly the list is centrally controlled rather than constructed from browsing history. It would be nice to be able to personalise the list...or to do away with it altogether at choice. In short: nice, clever but at the same time sort of Meh? AuFCL (talk) 08:15, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure it's completely odd: it's just a list of (nearly) all sister projects (which is why test2 is an odd one out). The list is lacking Wikivoyage and Wikidata, and could perhaps also have Incubator (I use that these days). Should it have Labs? Anyway, so I don't reckon it's coming from elsewhere; it'll be defined here somewhere. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 08:52, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
FYI... test2.wikpedia.org is the only meta-sanctioned test-space where the ProofreadPage extension is enabled. Its useful (at least for me) to make mock-ups and/or examples for Phabricator tickets but the need for Wikisource-like extension test-space is obvious if not just under utilized at the moment.

Like I said earlier, I can try to make it a per-user displayed list if User:s agree to a particular User:Name/sub-page name to host their own customized list but that would also depend on being able to find a way to split logged-in users from non-logged-in users at the same time (I think).

As for where the list items came from, it was the original listing of all the Wikis at that point in time plus my addition of Test2 a few months ago. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:47, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the whole list can just be replaced by a link to https://tools.wmflabs.org/crosswatch/ ? Pretty cool new tool by the looks of it. :) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 08:22, 19 November 2015 (UTC) ┌───────────────────────┘
 How's that Watchlist "load-bounce" with Sister Projects thing behaving now? If its no longer so easily detectable (if at all), you can thank Sam for putting me on the display:none; idea track which ultimately led to this incarnation. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Is "Scan resolution in edit mode" working?

Latest comment: 9 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Working on Index:Amazing Stories Volume 07 Number 08.djvu, the page scans when proofreading are too blurry/small to proofread from. The Djvu file is readable, and with the text being in two columns, I was hoping to be able to change the "Scan resolution in edit mode" (never tried it before) on the index page, so that the page scan images would be big enough to read (ideally twice the size of the viewing area, so I could move the page to the left / right column as I went). I've tried editing this (based on the help given here: Help:Index pages), but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Is there any other way to get the same result? Cheers. --YodinT 16:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The best that I know how to do is to zoom in on part of the text. Otherwise, you might have to open a separate window directly to the page at Commons and choose a higher resolution there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:43, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks :) Zoom's just zooming in on the blurry version, so I'll use another version as you suggest... maybe the "Scan resolution in edit mode" is only for making the scans smaller, not for increasing them? --YodinT 01:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Scan says Amazing_Stories_Volume_07_Number_08.djvu ‎(419 × 568 pixels, file size: 5.02 MB, MIME type: image/vnd.djvu, 97 pages) which is not the highest quality so you won't be able to force it bigger than 419 pixels. You should still be able to zoom the image from there. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:19, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Ahhh, I think it's a rendering issue then, as the djvu itself is fine to read, but the page scan in edit mode is 419 pixels as you say. Cheers. :) --YodinT 16:47, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Tech News: 2015-48

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • A new Pageview API has been announced. Feedback is requested to help decide which data to add to it next.

Changes this week

  • There are no MediaWiki deployments this week (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • From 1 December, the MediaWiki API will no longer support the dbg, txt, and yaml output formats. [22]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:26, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Your input requested on the proposed #FreeBassel banner campaign

This is a message regarding the proposed 2015 Free Bassel banner. Translations are available.

Hi everyone,

This is to inform all Wikimedia contributors that a straw poll seeking your involvement has just been started on Meta-Wiki.

As some of your might be aware, a small group of Wikimedia volunteers have proposed a banner campaign informing Wikipedia readers about the urgent situation of our fellow Wikipedian, open source software developer and Creative Commons activist, Bassel Khartabil. An exemplary banner and an explanatory page have now been prepared, and translated into about half a dozen languages by volunteer translators.

We are seeking your involvement to decide if the global Wikimedia community approves starting a banner campaign asking Wikipedia readers to call on the Syrian government to release Bassel from prison. We understand that a campaign like this would be unprecedented in Wikipedia's history, which is why we're seeking the widest possible consensus among the community.

Given Bassel's urgent situation and the resulting tight schedule, we ask everyone to get involved with the poll and the discussion to the widest possible extent, and to promote it among your communities as soon as possible.

(Apologies for writing in English; please kindly translate this message into your own language.)

Thank you for your participation!

Posted by the MediaWiki message delivery 21:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC) • Translate • Get help

Molluscs at Naturalis metadata

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi all, metadata transcription has become a thing for some natural history institutions. we have a mass upload recently of Molluscs at Naturalis. is the community interested in transcription of metadata of natural history collections? should it go to wikidata instead? could we help them with error correction?

here is an example of off wiki transcription https://transcription.si.edu/project/6950 into a database. Slowking4♡Richard Arthur Norton's revenge 14:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

This looks like it would be well suited to Wikidata, if all the necessary properties exist. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:04, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Clearing the Wikimedia commons caches?

Latest comment: 9 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

SOLVED

Is there a fixed schedule for clearing the caches on Wikipedia servers, especially the image caches on Wikimedia commons? Uploaded some replacement images to the commons two days ago, but the old images are still displayed as the primary images. The caches which are accessed by web page refresh and the clock purge gadget have no effect on commons site. All my browser caches are clear. Perhaps there is a user activatable toolserver tool to achieve this? — Ineuw talk 19:20, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Found the info on the Commons Help:Purge. Adding "?action=purge" to the page URL seems to get the job done. Although I only tried it with images uploaded two days ago. Will try it later with fresh uploads. — Ineuw talk 20:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Please correct me if this is wrong but I thought selecting "Hard Purge" on the page here propagated the purge right throughout referred items. Is the forcerecursivelinkupdate=1 parameter named misleadingly? AuFCL (talk) 22:17, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
I can't get anybody with any "authority" come down on this one way or the other but my gut tells me executing any of the three types of "refreshes" available in our PurgeTab gadget only affects "local stuff". So purging/etc. an Index: on en.WS will go through and refresh the PR status, transclusion status and the pagelist defined range of associated Page:s but it won't necessarily refresh the relevant thumbnails for those Page:s since those [technically] come from the File: hosted on Commons. Executing the API equivalent on Commons should cover all our collective asses when it comes to this...
-- George Orwell III (talk) 02:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
I thought the middle icon (two arrows) on the top right of an Index page purged the associated Commons file. I know that when I click it I'm taken through to Commons with a purge action happening. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:55, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
That is absolutely correct -- a 'basic' purge on the File: hosted on Commons is executed from that "icon". The issue is whether or not a 'basic' purge there refreshes anything other than thumbnail [re]generation here (if that at all). The API also offers a more intense "purge" that can 'force recursive-link updates' at the same time. In light of that (apparent) availability, we wonder why we bother doing a basic purge when the more complex variant (apparently) exists & does more (Its been part of the non-UTC Purge Tab gadget for some time now). -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Index:The chemical history of a candle.djvu‎

Latest comment: 9 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion
Resolved for me, Cache lag? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Page 144's scan is clearly not page 144 of the work. Suggestions? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any problems. What makes you think it isn't the correct page? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:03, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Page:The chemical history of a candle.djvu/146, shows a scan that is clearly not page 144 (as the index would suggest), but weirdly when I click image directly it shows the correct scan. Something is clearly wrong here.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:32, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
It must be something glitchy in your cache. The scan is clearly page 144 to me. Hesperian 14:14, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm seeing what ShakespeareFan00 is seeing myself. Jpez (talk) 15:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
What image says SHOULD display - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/The_chemical_history_of_a_candle.djvu/page146-2054px-The_chemical_history_of_a_candle.djvu.jpg
What is actually being displayed - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/The_chemical_history_of_a_candle.djvu/page146-1024px-The_chemical_history_of_a_candle.djvu.jpg

Someone needs to give the Commons thumbnailer a laxitive I think. ;) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

lol, those two images look identical to me :) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Strange because they are NOT identical to me, and I cleared my local cache.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:12, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
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