Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2016-03

Announcements

New feature “Watch changes in category membership

Hi, coming with this week’s software changes, it will be possible to watch when a page is added to or removed from a category (T9148). The feature has been requested by the German Community and is part of the Top-wishes of the technical wishlist. The feature has been deployed to all Wikipedias and Wikimedia Commons already, will become active on more Wikis today and on Wikisource on Thursday, Feb 11th between 4:00 and 5:00 pm UTC. Following the feedback we've got from several communities (especially Wikisource) during the last unsuccessful rollout & revert of the feature (mid 2015), we've configured the feature as “opt-in”. It is switched off by default and needs to be switched on individually in the watchlist and recent changes preferences. You can find a detailed explanation of the feature here. If you have any questions or remarks about the feature or if you find a bug, please get in touch! Bugs can also be reported directly in Phabricator, just make sure that the project “TCB-Team” is added to the task. Cheers, Tobias Gritschacher (WMDE) (talk) 14:53, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposals

A somewhat important link is missing

I think that it would make sense to include a link to Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help page, on the Help:Contents list, or anywhere. The link at the top of the Scriptorium page allows to post a new question, but there is no access to read/peruse the posts. Let's have a vote please and see who disagrees with this. — Ineuw talk 18:35, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Why not just add it, and show us the before and afters. Reverting is easy if it fails the page. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the confidence. — Ineuw talk 05:01, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

There already is such a link. Perhaps the problem is more one of inconsistent presentation? AuFCL (talk) 23:02, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes there are links but not in the right place. That is why I haven't touched it yet. — Ineuw talk 23:57, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

To delete {{Quote style}}

I believe that this template is doing nothing, and should be deleted as part of our regular spring cleaning. — Ineuw talk 23:57, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ineuw: it is no different than what we are doing at {{table style}}. In fact, we could merge that style into the template, and remove. Noting that this sort of discussion would normally take place at WS:PD. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Bot approval requests

RileyBot

• Bot name: RileyBot (talk • contribs)
• Bot operator: Riley Huntley (talk • contribs)
• Automatic or manually assisted: Automatic
• Purpose of the bot: Clean Wikisource:Sandbox and Template:Sandbox regularly
• Edit period(s): Every six hours, or as otherwise requested
• Programming language(s) (and API) used: Python, pywikipedia
• Other projects that are already using this bot: amgwiki, commonswiki, enwiki, enwikiquote, enwikivoyage, eswikivoyage, frwiivoyage, hewikisource, sawiki, simplewiki, sourceswiki, thwiki, ttwiktionary
• Additional information: Bot would delay if the page has been edited within an hour. -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 23:19, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment: Have you looked at the Sandbox edit history? It is edited on average about once or twice per month.I do not think there is a need for a bot to assist with this. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Indeed I have, it would still keep both pages clean when said edits occur. -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 23:48, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: seems to agree as shown. :P -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 00:39, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I wonder that there is not an essay on the topic of recognising underplayed sarcasm out there? It ought to be compulsory reading.

For the record, well-intentioned though the offer to launch this 'bot may be, I also  Oppose the proposal for numerous reasons, not all of which are appropriate for discussion on a public forum like this. AuFCL (talk) 10:38, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm curious to know what possible reasons you could have for not being able to discuss your opposing reasons appropriately. -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 05:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

•  Oppose — There is not enough 'traffic' that warrants such BOT maintenance in my opinion. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
•  Comment It used to be done by a bot ages ago, though it was probably more used then. I couldn't give a toss either way as it is such an insignificant request for something that it totally unbothersome. It doesn't require a bot flag to clean that page, so clean it without the flag. It won't bash the RC. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:24, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

• Will do, cheers. -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 05:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Other discussions

Kindle users: Please check mobi export form

I have created a link for the download/export of works in the MOBI format. It would be great if a Kindle user would be able to check that the link and export format are suitable, and report back here. Thanks to whomever can do so. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I've downloaded A History of Japanese Literature and will check it out when I get a chance. I'll note that if you have a smartphone, you can download the Amazon Kindle app and test out these files.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:25, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

A quick look didn't reveal many problems. The only one I caught was the cover says "Exported from Wikisource the 01/07/16".--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. The additional page with the download timestamp is standard for the WSExport tool. Consider it a book cover. If the mobi file opens and is accessible, I will call that success. I plan to add a link to the tool to that series, it is no good having the tool completely hidden. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't complaining about the page, but rather "from Wikisource the 01/07/16" being bad English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah, okay, then ping Tpt with a suggested text change. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:48, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Just noticed this as well and submitted a pull request, feel free to discuss changes there. – Jberkel (talk) 12:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Merged. Jberkel (talk) 10:22, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst, where is the link for export as MOBI format? Moondyne (talk) 12:17, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Moondyne: LH sidebar in the Download/Export section "Download as MOBI" — billinghurst sDrewth 14:44, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I dont see that, just Download as PDF. [1] Moondyne (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

@Moondyne: I almost guarantee you have the option "Add a print/export link to download pages as EPUB files using the WSexport tool." un-ticked in your Preferences (Gadgets tab, Interface section.) Turn that on, save preferences and refresh the original page and you should see a couple more alternatives. AuFCL (talk) 05:57, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

You are right, all good now. Thanks AuFCL. Moondyne (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Bible

I feel there is a lot of improvement that could be done to Bible and related pages. Since WS:BIBLE doesn't appear to have been touched in a while, I thought I'd post here. Here are the improvements that I was thinking of doing:

• Remove the colourful tables at Bible and replace it with a normal list like every other translations page
• Overhaul {{biblecontents}} so that it includes all books and doesn't default to the Protestant canon
• Move Tanakh to Bible (Mechon Mamre) and have Tanakh redirect to Bible#Tanakh
• Move Bible (Wikisource) to the Translations namespace (done)
• Make sure that all Bible versions have a title or redirect in the format Bible (Version) so that {{biblecontents}} will work - currently Tanakh, Biblioþēce, and The Holy Bible, containing the Old & New Testament & the Apocrypha are missing this
• Disambiguate further Bible (King James) and Bible (Authorized Version) since both of them are authorized version and both of them are King James

Those are just some things I thought of while looking at the state of things currently, and I wanted to run them by the community before I start making huge changes :) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's quite a lot of major change to dump all at once. How about we pick one of those (Move Bible (Wikisource) to the Translations namespace) and start with just that for now. That particular move would also be uncontroversial, as it would be in line with current policies. Once that's done, then let's talk next about how we want to handle the mess that is the KJV/AV/etc. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:57, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Hooray, I like uncontroversial edits :) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

This is now done. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:39, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I support your first proposal and was actually going to propose getting rid of the tables and replacing them with a normal list as everything else is myself. Jpez (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I support some sort of change to that page, but given the different versions / date / etc. that people are likely to be looking for, I think some form of table should be retained for this page. It's one reason I suggested tackling one item at a time, rather than opening discussion on everything at once. I know that a couple of other individuals have already done a lot of work to clean up the "Bible" pages here at Wikisource, but as far as I know, none of them has asked before making their changes. Some changes have definitely improved Wikisource, while others have left new problems in their wake. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:31, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that a table should be retained; that level of data is easily handled by a list as on other pages. Observe:

Tanakh

Contemporary

• The Holy Scriptures, according to the Masoretic text, Jewish Publication Society, third impression, 1917 (incomplete).
• The Hebrew Bible in English, Mechon Mamre HTML edition, 2002 (incomplete).

The Holy Bible

Historical

• Biblioþēce, collection of Old English translations dating from ancient to modern times (incomplete).
• Wycliffe's Bible, translated by John Wycliffe, 1380s.
• Tyndale Bible, translated by William Tyndale, 1526.
• etc

—Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's where I disagree. It will be much harder in the long run to keep track of editions, impressions, versions, and the like, by collapsing everything. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: If that's the case then KJV for example could have it's own page with all it's editions, versions etc there and then we can link to this page from the main bible page. Jpez (talk) 05:47, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I do this frequently: one translations page to list all the translations, and each translation gets a versions page if necessary to disambiguate between editions. One example I have worked on recently is Adeste Fideles vs. O Come All Ye Faithful (Oakeley). Interestingly, Authorized King James Version already exists as a versions page. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:06, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

The whole Bible scene is old and could do with a complete review (IMNSHO) as it is a very early set of work in WS space, still mostly incomplete and not backed by scans. We could do with some recommendations about the works and whether we should complete them, or ditch them if they are never going to be progressed. I do agree that we should progress in phases, though do see an overarching plan of attach would be useful. Also as part of that review, it would be good to see how our guidance stacks up in helping contributors to edit in line with our style. This is also in regard to the very small page sections, which in itself is not conducive to reading. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:58, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

To also note that the way that Bibles were interlinked happened well before we had portals and that avenue should be explored to how and why bible works are outside of our standard practice, and whether comparative components can be handled off the work, out of main ns. Our more recent approach is to have the work be the work, and manipulation and comparison and annotation to be added on, and not impact the work itself. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

In the interests of continuing this discussion, and of "pick one of those [...] and start with just that for now", I have created discussion threads for some of these at the respective talk pages. If you want to have your opinion heard, here's where to go:

• Remove the colourful tables at Bible and replace it with a normal list like every other translations page: see Talk:Bible#Page formatting and also User:Beleg Tâl/Sandbox/Bible/proposal.
• Overhaul {{biblecontents}} so that it includes all books and doesn't default to the Protestant canon: will post to Template talk:Biblecontents when User:Beleg Tâl/Sandbox/biblecontents is complete
• Move Tanakh to Bible (Mechon Mamre) and have Tanakh redirect to Bible#Tanakh: see Talk:Tanakh#Disambiguation
• Disambiguate further Bible (King James) and Bible (Authorized Version) since both of them are authorized version and both of them are King James: see Talk:Bible (King James)#Disambiguation and Talk:Bible (Authorized Version)#Disambiguation

—Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:38, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Discourse (software) for the Wikisource mailing list?

There's a discussion happening at the moment on wikisource-l about whether to switch that mailing list to use the Discourse software. See https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikisource-l/2016-January/thread.html#2673 for more, if you're interested. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 12:05, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems to be up and running. See https://discourse.wmflabs.org/ — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 05:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Automatic image extraction

Hi enwikisource, maybe some read about the project http://blog.gdeltproject.org/500-years-of-the-images-of-the-worlds-books-now-on-flickr/. Does your Wiki use this software directly or indirectly? Or do you do image extraction from text books by hand? Thanks in advance, --Aschroet (talk) 13:28, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

they’re on flickr, so c:Commons:Flickr2Commons will work. here is the category of images uploaded so far - c:Category:Files from Internet Archive Book Images Flickr stream (only 25000 so far) in my experience the books scans tend to be at a lower resolution than is best for images. Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 04:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikisource looks to host whole works, not excerpts, nor image extracts, which is the aegis of Commons. If there is a whole work that is not at Google or Internet Archive, or one of our other usual sources of works and is within the public domain, then please prompt us to review and to work out what is possible. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

However, as this software helps in extracting images from scanned books, it might save a lot of manual work done today cropping images manually, so to me it is worth to explore. Maybe @Hesperian: has already addressed this issue.— Mpaa (talk) 08:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Mpaa, that is what i ment. For smaller projects with several images it would be great to have a version of this tool that works on the local computer without archive.org. --Aschroet (talk) 09:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

<facepalm> I missed the point, thanks both for clarification. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know whether this renders redundant the image extraction bot work that I do i.e. if people are finding it more convenient to search for illustrations on flickr that to tag and wait for upload, then it would be time for HesperianBot to retire. Hesperian 02:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I have not analysed what is available on flickr. As the tool above crops an image based on what it is assumed to be an image by the OCR tools, I expect cropping not to be accurate in some cases (so that the image cannot be used). I see the script useful for someone who wants quickly identify and crop images in a book. But they need to be reviewed, renamed, uploaded to Commons etc.

So I do not think you should stop your bot (on the contrary, it could be a source of inspiration to improve HesperianBot, to include the automatic cropping of pages).

BTW, I had not succeeded in running it (but I do not know perl and I had no time to debug it). In my case it fails to create the $INFILE dir under CACHE. If someone succeeded, please let me know. — Mpaa (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I tried the text in the user manual. It is very quick and useful. From what I could see, it tends to overcrop images at their very edge or does not consider shades around an image, but I think the script might be tweaked to add a little bit of margin around an image. However, nice!— Mpaa (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Mpaa, back to my orginal intension: Have you been able to run that script locally, i. e. without archive.org etc.? --Aschroet (talk) 10:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

No. But my understanding is that it needs info in files stored at archives.org. What would be the benefit of running w/o archive.org? What I managed to do is to get cropped pictures stored on my PC.--Mpaa (talk) 10:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not so familiar with enwikisource but in dewikisource we have lots of projects that are not on IA. --Aschroet (talk) 10:52, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Warning boxes at top of page

Is there a reason why {{missing score}}, {{image missing}}, and other similar templates are being displayed at the top of the page instead of in the correct location within the text? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I have no answer to this one except to observe that this behaviour has been noted elsewhere. The common factor appears to be message boxes which are generated via {{ambox}} and there are quite a few templates rely upon this as a common "helper." AuFCL (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

One would presume that it occurred with a (universal or local) style change at some point and that it conflicts with a style used within {{header}}. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:43, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm technically behind the change in behavior now render banners at the top and am actively searching for some middle ground solution. Unfortunately, a lot of these missing ... type messages were consolidated to point to (e.g. redirect) to a single template regardless of the namespace in question back in 2011 in addition to switching to a LUA based configuration around the same time -- making the positioning for some uses while not for others all the more complicated. I did manage to get the protection (padlock) indicator portion up and running however.

I guess I'll revert it all if I can't find a better way in the next week or two so please be patient until then. TIA. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:25, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Style clarification on the mdash requested

I noticed that some people use two hyphens -- in place the mdash —. Do we have any info elsewhere on using this style? — Ineuw talk 23:05, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I think using two hyphens went out with the typewriter. Word converts two hyphens into an emdash. In my non-technical opinion, I think it should be discouraged, as it looks ugly ;) Anxious to hear more educated responses! Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:39, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it is practice encouraged by PGDP and habits once instilled tend to die hard? AuFCL (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

It's my understanding that -- is only used if you actually can't use a proper dash, and is not correct punctuation even in that case. I would replace any -- with — if I came across it in a hosted work, as an error. On the other hand, I've seen people use it on talk pages, which is no big deal. --Beleg Tâl (talk) 00:24, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

According to the PG link, -- is not merely encouraged, but is the "correct" method—even when the original is rendered with an emdash. Curious as to their reasoning behind the practice. Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:32, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I always replace them, and made two assumptions, one is that it's a measure of laziness because we do have the {{--}} available to make the substitution, I will add this and the other possibilities, like HTML, Hex, etc to the manual of style. The other is that while in Windows one can always type Alt+0151 on the numeric keypad. however this option becomes very complicated in Linux and Apple iOS.

As for the PGDP, it's because they have strictly geared the characters to plain ASCII and anything complicated has been defined with their own coding, to stay compatible in all of the Latin languages.  — Ineuw talk 00:52, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

P.S:one can look at these codes.  — Ineuw talk 00:56, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

On Ubuntu, CTRL+SHIFT+u (release when you get u) 2014 SPACE to get — — Mpaa (talk) 08:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it may be correct for that project, but I'm quite certain that it isn't correct for regular English usage. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Revered shape?

I believe the first line on this page of a letter is rendered as "revered shape", but I do not know what that means if anyone can venture a guess. Looking online, I found a reference to what I assume is architectural, where "revered shape" refers to "shape not produced by construction technique, but construction technique invented as best means to reproduce the shape." The same reference uses the word "familiar" for "revered". Mrs. Coates is referring to the following poem. Could it have something to do with the structure/construction of the poem? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I am no handwriting expert but that looks to me like "revised shape" (and I think better fits the sentence flow i.e. "put into verse…in a somewhat revised shape, in my new volume.") Just a thought? AuFCL (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

It is possible. Would that she had dotted her i—but maybe it got caught up in her v. What I took to be an r could very well be an s in comparison with other samples of her writing. What do we do in cases where a word is in 'dispute'? How do we make note of it? {{illegible}} comes to mind, but seems inappropriate somehow. Thanks for the input! Londonjackbooks (talk) 16:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Would it make things simpler if another read it as 'revised'? Compare her 's' in 'trust'. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 16:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you happen to know if she was sinistral? CYGNIS INSIGNIS 16:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I have not come across that. It would be an interesting fact to know. What do you see in her handwriting? ... Shall we agree that it is 'revised' then? I am nearly convinced (comparing to 'wish' on the same page puts me over the top—if that's the right expression). Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Excuse me while I take a crash-course in joined-up writin', so I can pretend to know what I'm talking about. I can read just about any handwriting that is put in front of me, though no one can read mine. I think I see another error, will let you know if it is. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 17:21, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

In RL I read scans of hand-writing of varying quality. This hand is very neat in comparison to many that I read. The word is definitely "revised". Beeswaxcandle (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you all :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 18:52, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow! If I knew I could cause this much chaos with so little effort…I'll try to be good. Sincere apologies for throwing everybody off-kilter. AuFCL (talk) 00:19, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

What are you apologizing for? I note no chaos, but further confirmation of what you saw... Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm Australian. Therefore I can cope with cultural cringe, irony, rhetoric, sarcasm and satire. AuFCL (talk) 02:18, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm just being my overly cautious and occasionally unwitting self (detecting, but not always understanding)... Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:07, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Index pages, with no/redlinked Author(s)

Is there a list, of Index pages with no outgoing Author links, or redlinked authors? In reviewing some of my previous efforts over the least 8 years or so I found a couple and with some help from Wikipedia and a search engine was able to update them.

I could continue to scan my own contributions, but a list of the more obvious ones across the whole of Wikisource might be of use to other contributors. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

No list. I believe that the only way to do that would be to get a query from Quarry identifying pages that did not have a link to the author namespace. I don't think that it is worth the worry, it is a nicety, not a requirement. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:23, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-05

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

Problems

• Sites with a wikimedia.org address were by mistake redirected to the Wikimedia Foundation wiki on 26 January. This included Meta and Wikimedia Commons. The mistake was fixed after an hour. [2]
• Some users had problems logging in and out around 22 January. Bots also had problems and edit previews did not work properly. This was because of problems related to the new component SessionManager. It was undone on 23 January. [3][4]
• Because of new problems with SessionManager the latest version of MediaWiki was removed from the Wikimedia wikis again on 31 January. The new version this week will be without SessionManager. [5]

Changes this week

• The page history will get a help link. This will go to Help:Page history on Meta. Wikis can exchange it for a link to their local pages. [6]
• Notifications will only show part of a page name if it is very long. You will also have another way to mark notifications as read. [7][8]
• The Universal Language Selector input methods are now available with the visual editor. This means many who write in non-Latin scripts can now use the visual editor. [9]
• The visual editor will now give you more tools to edit tables. You can move rows and columns in a table and copy parts of tables to make new ones. You can also copy and paste more than one cell at the same time. [10][11][12]
• The visual editor has a new warning message when you leave a page you are editing without saving. Non-English wikis might need to translate it. [13][14]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (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 2 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is expiring watch list entries. The meeting will be on 3 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The rest.wikimedia.org domain will be shut down. This is planned to happen in March. You should use /api/rest_v1/ at each individual project domain instead. [15]

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

21:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

wikisource template on Wikipedia

Knowldege fades when you don’t use it. The Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_R._Stockton has the wikisource template on it, which takes me to https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Frank_Richard_Stockton which is a dead link, it should take me to https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Frank_Richard_Stockton and I have no idea how to fix it or what the problem might be, I could have made a redirect to the author page, put that does not seem like the best solution. Jeepday (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Done—it's a different template —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jeepday: When I forget which Wikipedia template I need, I look for an example on another page to refresh my memory. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Figure extraction

Index:UK Traffic Signs Manual - Chapter 3 Regulatory Signs. 2008 (Second Impression 2008).pdf - I made a very cursory start on the diagrams in this, but would appreciate someone else assisting.

Mostly the figures/diagrams can be extracted as groups into seperate SVG files. In extracting:- Text which is nominally in Frutiger will need to be converted to into 9 point sans-serif, and converted to paths for reasons to do with the way SVG font rendering is handled.

Any takers? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

It would appear that Commons is cracking down upon images containing non-free Frutiger fonts. @ShakespeareFan00: In light of this, are you still confident that this remains a viable transcription project? AuFCL (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I found an alterantive font, Fira Sans which I am substituting. The crackdown in the Category was in fact due to a discussion I had about the font issue at Commons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Sample chapter Traffic_Signs_Manual/Chapter_3/3, It looks good to me, apart from hyperlinking, want to oblige? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm also now workking from an official set of EPS the Department for Transport supplied. If you e-mail me I can send you further details. ? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

you’re the expert, but have your checked out https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SVGEdit or LaTeX? Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 21:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I was using Ghostscript->Inkscape-> Commons :) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Relocating figures between pages when proofreading -

Page:UK Traffic Signs Manual - Chapter 3 Regulatory Signs. 2008 (Second Impression 2008).pdf/19 has some diagrams, yet the digrams relate to content on Page 20.

Do we have a policy about relocating figures to where they logicically make sense provided the text and so forth is reasonably faithful? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:42, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a policy, but you have some leeway to rearrange images to be located near the subject in the main namespace. In PSM, I relocated portraits of scientists to be above their biography. Otherwise it would make no sense. — Ineuw talk 17:37, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

In the case of this specific work I recommend you do not bother. It is written in a "bureaucratic" style with references to images far away from the supporting text, and clearly the assumption is that the reader has scanned the entire brochure at least once previously. Providing copious anchors and internal links (as you appear to have done/are doing) ought to suffice. AuFCL (talk) 20:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Some assistance with extraction of the figures/ diagrams would be appreciated, they needed more than a bit of cleanup to render nicely for Mediwiki/Commons/Wikiosurce. They can be taken as SVG direct from the PDF, but will need cleaning up subsequently due to font rendering issues. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Sound file placement

What is the accepted practice regarding placement of sound files on Mainspace pages? Should they be located in header notes or as a thumbnail to the right of the piece? What about in this instance, where the poem shares the same page with other poems in a section? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:07, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

In the particular instance you've linked, it would make more sense to have a link to the sound file floating at right. But I would recommend putting in the notes (in the header) that fact that "some poems in this work have sound files available". --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:51, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

How would I place the following beside "The Call" in particular (or would it have to be placed at the top of the page; in which case, it might be overlooked): Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

"The Call," read by Jannie Meisberger.

there is a template:external media; but better to have a commons clip to link to. Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 01:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

When I add {{listen}} I add it to the notes section. It is not part of the work we are transcribing, it is adjunct to the work. We also have {{media}} for use on the author page to indicate the sound files. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Being that several poems share the same Mainspace page, I would need to add the specific file name to {{listen}}, which would make it look rather bulky in the notes section. Then, if more audio files become available, it would really start to get ugly. Perhaps it would be best to come up with another option in cases like this. Maybe link to the sound files on the author page? or should the author page be strictly for WS links? Londonjackbooks (talk) 13:16, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I tend to avoid putting sound files in works themselves, and only put them on versions pages. My reasoning is that a sound clip is (essentially) itself a version of the work. But that's just me. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:24, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

"Put them on versions pages" by floating a sound file or as a citation (or both)? Wondering what opinions there are about citing .ogg files on versions pages?—perhaps with a citation template— Would that be beyond the scope of what we do here? Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

For example, some or all content at Not Yet my Soul? Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:13, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

@Londonjackbooks: We have always tried to give best guidance, rather than hard rules. With that, any person can explain how their work differs when they except themselves from the guidance. My experience with works and narration has been with longer works, not poetry, so versions doesn't work for me either, though I also see that if we have {{versions}} page that sounds like a nice neutral solution. I can see how with your pages that you would want to look to place it somewhat inline with the piece, and think your explained approach of floating to the right of the work sounds a suitable means to manage an exception. That has been an approach taken with some illustrations of works where the cover, or similar has been added. If you think that floating them to the right alone is not sufficient and that extra formatting needs to be done, then let us work in the sandbox of {{listen}} to see what we can do. For neater formatting GOIII or AuFCL are more our specialists in that area, though numbers of us can probably make first or second level improvements. Requirements to improvements to the template should be added to the template's talk page. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I think keeping things simple is best. I agree with your initial statement way above that the audio file "is not part of the work we are transcribing", and thus should not be floating along with the text. I also agree with Beleg Tâl that an audio file is yet another version of the piece. In the case of indexed poetry, most titles have redirects which can easily be converted into versions pages... I just want to make sure that listing links to the .ogg files on versions pages and/or author pages (see Rupert Brooke/Audio files) is not beyond scope here (as a library). Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think they're out of scope there. While sound clips are out of scope for hosting, and I wouldn't list them with the other versions that are hosted here, I think they're illustrative and worth linking to :) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:26, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Publishers

Has there been any consideration of creating a namespace for publishers? I tried a work search but found nothing. Leutha (talk) 19:40, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

We have Portal:Publishers. Londonjackbooks (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

The current system is that there's a Portal for each publisher. See Category:Book Publishers (and I'm pretty confused about that category vs. Category:Publishers; the latter seems to be full of authors, not publishers). — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:15, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Category:Publishers is for authors whose profession was as a publisher. Category:Book Publishers is for publishing companies. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:35, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

That makes sense. But if so, then Category:Book Publishers shouldn't be a subcat of Category:Publishers (because it's a subcat of Category:Authors by occupation. Anyone mind if it gets moved? (Ideally, it'd be renamed 'Publishing companies' or something; that's more work though.) — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 03:15, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

@Samwilson: may as well do what makes sense rather than something not quite right. Put a request to Wikisource:Bot requests — billinghurst sDrewth 21:59, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Request filed. Thanks! I've also moved it from Category:Publishers and added some notes to a couple of these categories. Will try to do more documentation. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I've tried to standardise things thus:

Category	Namespace	Purpose
Category:Publishers	Author	Authors whose occupation is 'publisher'
Category:Publishing companies	Portal	The companies that originally published the works hosted here
Category:Works by publisher	Main	Works categorised by the name of their original publishing company
Category:Publishing	Main	Works about the publishing industry, a new subcat of Category:Works by subject

Does this sound ok? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 01:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks good to me, thanks for taking care of this :) A thought: would it be wise to move Portal:Publishers to Portal:Publishing companies to avoid confusion? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 02:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Done Good idea; I've done so. Will we want Portal:Publishers to be about publishing-authors? Or leave it as a redirect? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 02:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm, possibly. Is there any benefit to having a portal for publishing-authors? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

No, perhaps not! :) Let's leave it as a redirect for now. Anyway, I've a niggling feeling that most publishing-authors actually publish as a 'company' (e.g. Virginia Woolf → Hogarth Press). Thanks for reviewing this stuff. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-06

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

• Syntax highlighting support is now available for 53 more computer languages. [16]
• When you get a notification that an edit has been reverted, the notification now quotes part of the edit summary. [17]
• RESTBase is now using scrub_wikitext instead of scrubWikitext. [18]

Changes this week

• Wikidata will have a new data type called "math". It will be used for formulas. [19][20]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (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 9 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is per-language URLs for pages of multilingual wikis. The meeting will be on 10 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Other sites will be able to tell when visitors come from links on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. They used to be able to do this until we started using forced HTTPS in June 2015. This is planned to happen on 15 February. [21][22]
• Wikidata will have a new data type called "external-id". It will be used for references to external resources. It will be enabled on February 16. Some properties will be changed to the new data type. [23][24][25]

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

18:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Does anyone know anything about the ability to watch page categorization? On Wikiversity it's possible to have one's watchlist include changes to pages' categories by only watching the category itself (rather than the individual pages). Is this possible on Wikisource? — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 09:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

This is planned for Wikisource for today between 4:00 and 5:00 pm UTC. See here for the announcement. Tobias Gritschacher (WMDE) (talk) 10:40, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! That's great. I'm not sure how I missed your announcement on Monday. Looking forward to the new feature. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 22:57, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Diary of Anne Frank takedown

the diary has been taken down here [26]; with reasoning at WMF blog. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/02/10/anne-frank-diary-removal/ not an office action yet; not a DMCA takedown request. it seems WMF legal has changed their mind about URAA. Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 14:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think they have. meta:Legal/URAA Statement says

The community should evaluate each potentially affected work using the guidelines issued by the Legal and Community Advocacy Department, as well as the language of the statute itself, and remove works that are clearly infringing.[3] However, if a work’s status remains ambiguous after evaluation under the guidelines, it may be premature to delete the work prior to receiving a formal take-down notice, because these notices often contain information that is crucial to the determination of copyright status. Due to the complexity of the URAA, it is likely that only a small number of the potentially affected works will be subject to such notices. These guidelines differ from the more proactive systems currently used by the community for other copyright violations, but the complexity and fact-intensive nature of the URAA analysis makes a more active approach imprudent.

It never says anything about what Wikimedia will do, and arguably it says that we should have deleted the Diary ourselves as clearly infringing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

i think they have wandered by and speedy deleted without community consultation, having made a considered judgement that it crossed a bright line, where the previous URAA photos did not. and they did not do an office action, since there was no DMCA takedown request. and why be consistent, it would be a first. if the WMF thinks the community should delete something, maybe they should ask, rather than be bold and write a blog post. but hey, it lives on at wikilivres [27]. the moral is, this is why we upload to Internet Archive. Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 03:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

The DMCA protects WMF from the consequences of illegally hosting copyrighted material, but only so long as WMF doesn't have "actual knowledge" of the infringement. This allows the WMF to leave these matters to volunteers. So long as these matters are being evaluated and dealt with by volunteers, the WMF doesn't have "actual knowledge" of infringement, and can't be held responsible. However, this approach only works until some clown decides to email WMF legal council for advice, laying out the facts and asking for an opinion. As soon as this occurs, the WMF have "actual knowledge" of an infringement, and they must act. Such an email effectively strips the WMF of their DMCA protection, and forces them to act contrary to their (our) culture norms. Hesperian 06:13, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

What makes you think it will stay at the Internet Archive? They have to follow the DMCA too.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

This sets a major precedence for non-English wikisources. The work was not PD-URAA, it was being hosted in Dutch Wikisource under PD-Netherlands, from where it has been exiled to Wikilivres. This has a dangerous impĺication for the 10 Indic language wikisources (plus Hindi, Pali etc. floating in mul) which have a substantial quantity of works under PD-India. If these works are potentially deletable, that makes many of these wikisources potentially non-viable. Clear policy guidelines in view of this incident is in order. Hrishikes (talk) 11:54, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

The "Dutch wikisource" is hosted in the US and subject to, and only to, US copyright law. Templates like PD-Netherlands are merely providing information and/or addressing Commons policy. In a legal sense they are irrelevant. Hesperian 04:02, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

A takedown due to a legitimate copyright claim is a legitimate request, and we follow a similar process when we find a work is under copyright. Different process due to how and where the complain is lodged. If you read WMF's report on this sort of thing, most requests usually don't succeed. If you want more information, then go and ask James Alexander at meta. The WMF allows the wikis to set their copyright policies within the legal framework of the US, the fact is that it has to be within the legal framework. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:04, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps the time has come for the non-English wikisources to be moved to servers outside of the US? It's frankly absurd that US copyright laws apply to them. Prevalence (talk) 00:37, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

except if you read the blog, they decided that they had "actual knowledge" it infringed before receiving a DMCA, contrary to previous memos, where they left it to community consensus. and wikilivres is on a canadian server, so now we have our URAA fork. disappointing process, which ever way you want to decide. Slowking4♡RAN's revenge 02:10, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me. They are happy to leave it to the volunteer community, unless-and-until "actual knowledge" is forced upon them, at which point they have a legal obligation they can't ignore. Hesperian 04:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

On black holes...

I understood there was a project to import Open Access Scientfic papers :

Any thoughts on this one: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:14, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata infrastructure: DNB case, state of the art

I have just posted at WikiProject DNB on what has been opened up over at Wikidata, since items for articles here have been created systematically there. I.e. over the past nine months. This all should be of some general interest, in terms of topical search of Wikisource(s), going forward.

This stuff is still new, bots have been required so far and will be in future, and much of the burden is about developing bot-created Wikidata items to the point where they actually do a useful job. It all may appear opaque, still. The available tools run ahead of the familiar workflows.

I would just like to say, to that: the infrastructure being put in place is heading in an important direction. If one wants, for example, to pull up a list of biographies here for a given occupation, then it is much clarified what you do first, in terms of once-for-all data entry over on Wikidata. And people do want to do that now, all the time, for editathons.Charles Matthews (talk) 18:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Propose WSexport gadget is turned on by default

We have the gadget for export to EPUB/MOBI/... within the print/export section. At this stage the default installation is OFF, so users don't see the options. As this is an important part of how users can see our works in alternate forms, I would like to propose that we make the default setting be ON for IP users.

We have tended to not have the default settings for our gadgets to on, however, this seems to be one of the components that we clearly want to advertise and have readily available to IP users.

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets > Add a print/export link to download pages as EPUB files using the WSexport tool

Or we add it for everyone as a permanent fixture, and they cannot turn it off. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:24, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm confused. According to MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, WSexport.js is already loaded as a site-wide default. Are you talking about some other gadget? -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:13, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-08

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

• Phabricator has been upgraded. [28][29]

Problems

• There was no new MediaWiki version last week. Changes that were planned to happen last week will happen this week instead. This is because of a bug that made saving pages take longer time. [30][31]

Changes this week

• After February 23, you can use Wikidata for inter-language links on Wikiversity. [32]

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 23 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is Assign RFCs to ArchCom shepherds. The meeting will be on 24 February at 22:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

18:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)