Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2017-01

Announcements

2016 Community Wishlist Survey

The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is now open to receive proposals. Do you have an idea that will directly benefit active Wikimedia contributors? You can submit up to three. There's a whole category just for Wikisource! So we've got the next two weeks (until November 20) to write down all the great things that will make things better for Wikisourcerors.

(See also What's on your tech wishlist for the coming year? from the current Wikipedia Signpost for some more info.)

—Sam Wilson 07:16, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Just a reminder that there are now four days remaining for people to submit proposals to the WIshlist Survey. The voting phase will then start a week after that (to give the Community Tech team time to sort out the hundreds of proposals). Wikisource currently has 21 proposals from 33 contributors!

—Sam Wilson 06:54, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Voting has begun. You've got until December 12 to vote on the following proposals:

1. Add simple filters to Danmichaelo's CropTool
2. AJAX editing of nsPage content
3. Allow Wikisource pages to be cited correctly
4. Automated reader's portal
5. Create new Han Characters with IDS extension for WikiSource
6. Deeply review nsPage edit interface
7. Delete all NS:Page while deleting an index file
8. Fix Extension:Cite to allow tags and other functionality to work within ref tags
9. Improvement of Phe's Statistics and Tools for Wikisource: vector graphs and a sortable table
10. Integrate the CIS-LMU Post Correction Tool
11. Language links in Wikisource for edition items in Wikidata
12. Make Wikisource "book-based"
13. Semi-automated tool for importing wikisource data from standard header template into wikidata items
14. Spelling- and typo-checking system for proofreading
15. Support Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)
16. Upload wikisource text wizard
17. Visual Editor menu refresh
18. Add a 'clean' method for side-titles, and side notes to parser

—Sam Wilson 02:41, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposals

A plethora of cache controls

I propose to remove the duplicate purge buttons, simply because they confuse, aside from the fact that they do nothing. I can't figure out why we have so many cache buttons, icons, and menu items. What does each supposed to do? Is it useful? . . . And which is a duplicate?

On a book's Index namespace page, I counted five cache related controls:

1. The browser's page refresh
2. Clock purge, which I have been using for years, before someone went berserk and added more of the same, (not a rare event in this wiki).
3. The Wikimedia purge icon next to the book2scroll icon.
4. On the "More" dropdown list, there are at least two more purge cache options.
5. And of course my favorite, 'Null edit', whatever that is. — Ineuw talk 06:52, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Leave as is. The various types of purges are explained on w:WP:Purge. But in brief:

1. a browser purge is local to the device belonging to the user;
2. the purge via the clock gadget is a server side purge of the page;
3. the wikimedia purge icon at the top right purges the File: on Commons;
4. I don't have a "more" dropdown list (I use Monobook), but there are three purge buttons on each page. The first is identical to the purge via the clock gadget. This was added because not all users have chosen to turn the clock gadget on. The second forces an update of the recursive links as well as purging the page (in other words all pages this one links to will be reparsed as well); and
5. Null edit forces categories and "what links here" to update without needing to wait for the servers to catch up. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:38, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Beeswaxcandle: Finally, Thanks for the clarification and I am sincerely grateful. I tried to figure it all out from the displayed url, but didn't get anywhere. Though I was aware of the duplicate of the clock/purge. Thanks again. — Ineuw talk 17:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ineuw:

2. The clock purge is a gadget that by default is off. So it will only be present for those who chose and choose to have it on. There is also a different gadget tool for purge there too. User choice.
5. A null edit is edit/touch on a file, which is different from a purge. A purge is a soft touch refresh from the cache. Whereas null edit is shove that ensures that all the backend components are correct now, rather than background jobs that are handled by the queues. Really it is a save but not one that will show on the article history as there are no edit changes.

— billinghurst sDrewth 00:46, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Thanks. In that case, null edit is a good idea. — Ineuw talk 01:50, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Was something changed? I don't see purge options anymore? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: ??? Can you please be specific about the page, what you see, what is missing. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:32, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

On a sample Index: page, Index:Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms.djvu I've had the Clock and Purge gadget fail to load intermittently.

(I've had the same happen with Page:, which may be related to the non-loading of toolbar issues I've also had.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Removing NARA from the Main page Proofread of the month box

I propose that the mention of NARA in the current collaboration section of the Main Page be removed because as is, it is outdated and confusing. To this end I set up an example in my following sandboxes to show how it would look like:

• User:Ineuw/Sandbox5 is a copy of the {{Collaboration}} template wit NARA removed, and is displayed in:
• User:Ineuw/Sandbox4 which is a copy of the Main Page. — Ineuw talk 06:27, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

While I have no issue rotating out the NARA project, I do not think that we should be removing the projects from the collaboration template. We end up becoming very boring and static on the front page, and not enticing people in to sample our wares. We would become one dimensional. We could be utilising something like what I put in place for {{active projects}}. We should be leading people into where there is active work and/or long-term projects. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposals for changing the Collaboration should be made at Wikisource talk:Community collaboration. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh cool, (yet another) talk page to stalk; didn't know about that one. It seems to me that given our size in terms of permanent members (aka those who log in just about every day), the best place to post these sorts of things would actually be here. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps post a notice here, and refer to Wikisource talk:Community collaboration; I agree that discussion should resume there. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support I support this proposal as the NARA project is quite dead and unlikely to ever be revived. I would like to see other topic-based collaborations come about, and keeping the {{collaboration}} template free of stale/discontinued efforts would be a good starting point. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 14:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support Is there a place where we could accumulate a list of on-going collaborative projects that could be rotated through in the "Collaboration" box on the Main page? I know, for example, that we have efforts for EB1911, EB (9th ed.), the DGRBM (Dict. of Gr. and Roman Biog. & Myth.), and there are doubtless others of which many community members are not aware. It would be nice to accumulate a list of these efforts somewhere, so that we can draw upon them and keep the Main Page fresh, or even set up something that selects one of these listed projects at random from a template. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean something like WS:WP? Or possibly a version of {{active projects}}. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

Thanks for everyone's input which helped my scant knowledge. I don't want to discard anything. I meant that what would be considered as "{{recent projects}}" should not be given prominent display on the main page, superseding the current monthly project. I have nothing against placing as much information as possible on the main page. I just wish that the info be placed in order of importance and better clarity. I looked at the French Wikisource Main page which is endlessly long, but everything is clearly spaced.

• My post below, was the result of my confusion. Couldn't figure out how many Proofread of the month projects are in the works. Consider someone who is new to the site. — Ineuw talk 19:39, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Collaborations

@Ineuw: For years we have always tried to have three 'active' collaborations, with the current renditions being the sprint "PotM", the marathon "Project" and the tweak "Maintenance". Something for everyone!?! Though at this stage you would have to say that at a coordination level, two are moribund. You are totally correct that we should always have clarity, and we should be striving to improve our offering and looking to freshen our site.

It does take volunteers and some of us crustier admins/users have done it, it does take those less crusty to take the step, AND for those of us crusties to (try to) let go a bit, and let others have the opportunity to shine. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Truth be told, my reason for looking closely at the main page was to figure out what is it I can/dare to commit myself to, and contribute in the way of maintenance, since I don't do programming in javascript. — Ineuw talk 23:29, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Created a new sample in User:Ineuw/Sandbox4 where NARA was moved to its own frame below the current collaboration. The problem is that the NARA template contains the word "current" which should be "recent". Can I replace the the word? And, can this model replace the on the main page? — Ineuw talk 06:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Bot approval requests

Fluxbot

• Bot name: Fluxbot (talk • contribs)
• Bot operator: Xaosflux (talk • contribs)
• Automatic or manually assisted: Manually assisted / automatic^*
• Purpose of the bot: Cleaning of Category:Pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags periodically
• Edit period(s): About once a week, initial run will be several hundred pages - subsequent runs will be smaller. Edit rate will vary, 4-12epm.
• Programming language(s) (and API) used: AWB
• Other projects that are already using this bot: commons:, meta:, wikidata:, enwiki, eswiki, itwiki, nowiki, plwiki, ptwiki, rowiki
• Additional information: Running as a bot account will allow uses on user_talk pages to be cleaned with (nominornewtalk) to prevent the "new messages" trigger. T134423 is expected to be rolled out in early 2017, and pages with invalid tags may become garbled for readers.

^(*)Most edits will be manually supervised, if a very specific sting is found to be repeated with no false positives, that string may be automated for clean up. (e.g. A bad user signature).

Example edits can be seen on other linked projects, an enwikisource example is here: Special:Diff/6373078.

Please let me know if there are any questions or if you would like to see a trial. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Per the bot policy I will begin slow-speed trials. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:03, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Example edits (10) here. Will do some more later in the week. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:33, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Comment: This edit seems to have added an extra </div> tag. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:48, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The previous construction of <div/></div> already has an extra implicit </div>. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Which the bot then made explicit by the addition of </div>, thus failing to correct the problem. Between this issue and the small number of self-closing tags we have on Wikisource, I see no need to authorize a special bot to address the problem. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:29, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey. Whether we give a bot right or not is irrespective from the permission to undertake tasks. Our policy asks that bots request permission to edit in that manner, so I see that is the process. We should undertake the review and accept the editing or not, then work out our preferred rights. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

So, you're saying we might grant a bot right but not grant permission to undertake any tasks? That makes no sense. When a new bot is up for rights, it is always with one or more tasks in mind. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

No, a bot can do tasks without a bot right is my point. We can say do the task automated. It is how some of the interwikis bots worked for years. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:59, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, that latter point is true, that tasks can be performed without bot rights, but that's not what you said at first, and isn't relevant here either. The question here is about granting bot rights, so under what conditions would we grant a bot right without considering permission for tasks? --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

In that specific edit, I did not review the entire page - sometimes there are multiple nested divs, the first invalid self closing div was closed. There are currently at least 346 other pages with bad tags, and the tracking category can be slow to update and editors generally continue to introduce these errors over time. Any comment on the other edits? Once the parser is updated these will be stripped of the self close, leaving multiple open tags (e.g. never un-centering the rest of the area). I run this bot on numerous projects, was just offering to help over here on WS. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:16, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikisource relies for more on formatting and makes heavier use of <div> tags than other projects. I notice that this bot has not been run on any other Wikisource projects, but mostly on Wikipedias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:48, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

The vast use of our formatting be it divs or whatever is is inline using templates, that is one of our strengths. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:01, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Depends on the kind of work being formatted. I've been doing more poetical and dramatic works of late, where templates aren't a very good option most of the time—the template load upon transclusion would be too great—so, I've used lots of direct coding with <div> tags in these works. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:13, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Questions. Are you looking to run all namespaces? or just content namespaces? API or just pulling pages?

 Comment I see no issue with the bots edits, and you have run it elsewhere so it should be reasonably tested. As we don't have many such problematic coding issues, I am comfortable with the the editing, though feel that there is no need to grant bot rights unless you are hitting system limits. We can wear a one-off hit on recentchanges for the first major run, then the rest potters along. Any admin can grant autopatrolled to get through those hurdles. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:06, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: This would be for all unprotected namespaces (e.g. not mediawiki, not user .js's). The primary ask for a bot flag was to avoid the initial flood and to honor the rate limit here. If it has to run at 1epm or slower its really not worth my time. For usertalk: the benefit of the bot group is that it inherits (nominornewtalk) so it won't trip the "new messages" flag unnecessarily. I have not run this on any other wikisources yet, only wikipedia's, meta:, commons: and wikidata. phab:T134423 has more technical details about what will happen once the parser is changed, for pages that are not fixed yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Are you aware that we have namespaces not found on other projects, such as the Author:, Page:, and Translation: namespaces? --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, please keep in mind that all these edits are manually reviewed unless there is a highly specific syntax to run as a batch. I only see a tooling problem with the Index: namesapce - any edits there would be via the web interface not the API. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:43, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Here is another small batch of example edits 11 edits, @EncycloPetey: this includes Page: and Translation: namespaces. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:06, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

• Where to go from here? The examples above should help show this is a useful and non-controversial task. Adding enwikisource to my rotation is easy enough, after the initial batch will a batch every week or two. While I am new to enwikisource, I've never had any issues with my bot edits going "off task" on other projects. I fully respect the established communities prerogative to decide here. Note - if this will only be approved at 1epm I won't be interested in the task. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:52, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

  Request for closure left at Wikisource:Administrators'_noticeboard#Bureaucrat_requests. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

  Bureaucrats don't make the community decisions, they simply have the authorization to change permissions once the community has given its approval. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:10, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

  I believe the only complaint was resolved, so I was following through on the "After a week of reasonable operation, the operator may request that a bureaucrat grant the bot a flag" section from the bot policy. If the community doesn't want this done, that is fine just let me know one way or the other. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

  My understanding of the discussion above is that you can go ahead with the task without the botflag and we take the hit on recentchanges. Then, depending on how quickly that Category will populate, the next step can be evaluated.— Mpaa (talk) 14:38, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Repairs (and moves)

Author:Edward Stanley (1779–1849)

Move to Author:Edward Stanley (1779-1849). Move error. Also, the move text says "You should also update the associated Wikidata item to maintain language links on moved page." but that is no longer necessary--the changes are automatically made on d:. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Moved it over the redirect.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:30, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

The Wikidata component of the move message is a system message, and seems more aligned with connectivity to Wikidata. There is nothing we can do about it at this end, it is not within the scope of Mediawiki: namespace — billinghurst sDrewth 04:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: No, it is probably something in LocalSettings.php and would have to be changed with a ticket in phab:. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:44, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe that it is more likely to sit within one of the plethora of Extension: that runs Wikibase (Special:Version), and its alignment with the namespaces that Wikidata connects to and watches. Either way, it sits outside of our direct control. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

To be even more exacting the words will sit where WMF system messages reside and it will be in multiple languages, though its application will be through the extension. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:10, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Index:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu

Can someone patch this for the two missing pages, so I can restart the efforts i was making on it? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

HathiTrust has several copies, including this 1909 copy which at a very casual glance looks like it may be the same as the 1907 edition. It's an ugly scan, but will do for patchwork. I am concerned that pages 897 and 898 missing isn't the only problem; page 896 is present, but partially illegible, and some of that bleeds over to page 895. I'd like to know that that problem doesn't extend to any other pages.

I can get copies of the pages from HathiTrust, but I can't patch the DjVu, and while I could probably figure that out, I don't know how to load it without breaking the current proofreading.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: I suggest that you just upload the two pages as a separate djvu file. Someone can create the index page, then they can be transcribed and transcluded into the existing presentation. The file at Commons can be fixed when someone has the time and skills, and that can be backfilled easily enough here. — billinghurst sDrewth 20:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Four pages are missing. After 896, there is a blank page, then an image, then 897-898. 1909 and 1915 versions are same as the 1907 version, at least in this portion. Yes, the 1909 version has an ugly scan in Hathitrust, so the pages should be taken from the 1915 version. Hrishikes (talk) 02:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Fixing the file at commons is straightforward. Re-aligining the local copy would need a block move of later pages (that were originally done when this work was in two chunks.), and a page list update.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:20, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Namely those higher than Page:Mrs_Beeton's_Book_of_Household_Management.djvu/1011 (inclusive), wasn't there a script for this? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:22, 5 January 2017 (UTC) (Ammended to say the range includes the mentioned page. 10:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I imagine an admin can take care of moving the pages easily enough . I can help with the djvu file. Do you want me to just insert blank pages or should I insert the pages from the hathitrust book Hrishikes mentioned? Let me know. Jpez (talk) 13:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Ideally, if the hathi-trust pages are identical between editions, insert the content pages, but there is certainly no harm in using blanks until edition compatible pages are found :). Don't forget to check if the text layer will also need re-alignment. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I've added the missing pages but the filesize is 118mb, and wikicommons won't let me replace a file with one that is larger than 100mb. I don't know if there is a way around this. Jpez (talk) 06:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Jpez: You can try chunked upload. You can copy it from my global.js (at Meta) to yours. Hrishikes (talk) 07:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Done Thanks to the awesome tool @Hrishikes: suggested. Now the pages after the new inserted pages need to be mass moved to there correct positions. Jpez (talk) 09:30, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Done— Mpaa (talk) 23:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Other discussions

Information about Presidential Electors and where to put them

I'm in the middle of compiling a list of Presidential electors at w:List of United States presidential electors, 2016. In the process of collecting this information, I'm getting a whole bunch of original official documents from the various state governments, and I'm trying to figure out how best to archive this information. In a few cases, I'm getting the information in the form of PDF files, spreadsheets, and other formats that are also being sent via e-mail, thus are off-line.... and I'd like to make them available for review and examination to interested parties. Wikisource seems like a really good place to dump this information. Even the stuff that is online (aka available via URL) is something that I think would be worth archiving anyway as this kind of data has historically gone away after the end of the election.

Is there any guidance for how I should proceed? This is likely to grow to an archive of several hundred documents and is a whole lot of work to upload and organize that has particular current interest as well. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

We are a library, not an archive, and as such documents need to be of a historical nature, rather than just relate to something preserved, so the first check is WS:WWI; depending on what the documents may be is whether we would host, there are also some criteria including their static nature. That they are state documents does not automatically mean that they are reproducible public domain documents, which is the next check (that they are public doesn't mean that they are without copyright). If they are PD then any text layered files (pdf/djvu) belong at Commons, and the transcripts here via our ProofreadPage extension. If they are straight text copies then they would go straight to the main namespace with sources cited. Noting also that it is complete documents, not partials, that we collect. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

The documents in question are mostly the formal declarations of the slate of electors for each of the candidates in each state who are running for the presidency of the United States. I can't imagine a document that is more historical in nature than that, although it is definitely a primary source by any measure as well. If anything, the nature of the documents (like a sample ballot for several states is something I'm using as a source here too) are likely in the public domain. This is complete documents that I'm talking about here too... in terms of individual certificates that are usually just a single sheet of paper but it can get rather complicated as well.

If you are suggesting it is better to upload stuff like PDF files directly to the Commons, I'm fine with that. This is in fact one of the reasons I'm coming here first before acting as I want to get that part of your project down first. I'd still like to organize some of that content here on Wikisource though. Some public examples of these kind of documents to be included are as follows:

• http://recorder.maricopa.gov/media/ballot/Visio-1-0001-00.pdf
• http://www.alabamavotes.gov/downloads/election/2016/general/gopElectors-amended-2016-08-29.pdf

The copyright status on stuff like this would be really ambiguous, even more so because we are talking official government filings in a federal election. Even if somebody asserted copyright, I really doubt it would stick... but that is the domain of copyright lawyers. Neither of these documents have copyright being asserted. I know that doesn't directly imply it is in the public domain. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:23, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

• @Billinghurst: I don't understand the distinction between an archive and a library. What do you mean? From WS:WWI: "Wikisource, as the free library that anyone can improve, exists to archive the free artistic and intellectual works created throughout history..." Can you give me an example of a work that belongs at an archive but not a library and vice versa? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:03, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  We have a scope, and as a library it is published works out of copyright, and as an archive it is important/historical documents to align with free artistic and intellectual works. Other archives will have collections outside our scope, and an example would be my great grandfather's will belongs in an archive, but as he is not of historical/writing importance and as such it does not belong within Wikisource. Libraries collect published works within their scope. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  @Billinghurst: To be sure, not all works which have been published fit our scope (even if they were all in the public domain) but I certainly think that documentation on candidates for electors for an American presidential election is a relevant enough work. I could imagine that being in a public or academic library, whereas your grandfather's personal papers would not be. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  You asked for an example of difference and I provided that distinction. Re my opinion of the fitness of a work, it hasn't been expressed. At this point I am seeing documents of unclear copyright, that are list-like in some circumstance, or they can be seen to be larger correspondence in the larger sense. Lists in their nature are not copyrightable, though they are not what we typically host. (Historical) Letters are more aligned with what we host, even where they contain lists, however, they do need to fit be suitably licensed from Help:Copyright tags (a reasonable statement of claim) and suitable demonstrated to be within scope. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  This seems like a really odd distinction of "historical", which sems to me that you are saying "old" instead. I'll agree that hundred year old documents usually don't have problems of distinguishing copyright. Wikisource was arguably started originally as an original source repository for Wikipedia.... which is sort of what I'm trying to do here. Content still needed to fit within the GFDL (now CC-by-SA) or be public domain, but there were many things generally fitting within that definition that go well beyond what you are suggesting here.

  Since I'm not the keeper of the flame to support this content, and particularly since I'm not really feeling welcome, I'll just go elsewhere. Sorry to waste your time. --Robert Horning (talk) 23:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  @Robert Horning: Your interpretation of my comments was not my meaning, I was simply contextualising how letters/correspondence fit but lists alone may not. Clearly I didn't express it to avoid ambiguity. I again point you to WS:WWI which covers our inclusions and mentions exclusions, and which I hadn't wanted to "checklist" point by point to whether your suggested works would fit. I look forward to a case proposing how your suggested inclusions fit within our criteria. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:54, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Robert Horning: I don't want anyone who is editing in good faith to feel unwelcome. I think there is a place for some of this documentation here and I want to help you find it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:01, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree! I think there's certainly scope here for at least some of the documents under discussion. Definitely, it sounds like most would be welcome at Commons (which is the first step to having them on Wikisource). The distinction of an archive vs a library is not such a well-defined one, in my opinion. It might be worth looking into the NARA material that is already hosted here, to see if there's any parallel. Sam Wilson 03:43, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Samwilson: Please don't hang up on my comments about an archive, it was illustrative to relate that WS is not a one to one relationship to an archive, as there will be much work in an archive collection that we wouldn't reproduce. Whereas we are very likely to wish to reproduce a library collection on a one to one basis. With regard to the NARA project, we are talking about a very specific subset of documents that have been released by NARA as they had historical significance. So yes it is an good example when comparing like to like, rather than as we have NARA documents that means we are open to all archive documents.

Yes, for sure, that makes sense, and I didn't mean to imply that you were making an extensive argument there. :-) I do think there is a place somewhere in the Wikimedia universe for the above collection of election-related material... maybe that place is mostly Commons though (and the larger text works can come here). With, of course, the caveats that they're free and open and someone wants to work on them! :-) Sam Wilson 01:48, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

i would not look to Wikisource:WikiProject_NARA/Completed about scope. it was an experiment, based on internal criteria. they have moved on to citizen archivist - they are transcribing military records and supreme court records at HQ building, not necessarily "most historical significance" but most convenient, by theme. their backlog is so vast, they tend to go where the researchers / curators lead them. your priorities may vary.

i would suggest that a list implies query, so wikidata property = 2016 US presidential electors. wonder if there is a political database with a complete list across time. [1] Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 16:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Maintenance backlog: Works with non-existent author pages

Category:Works with non-existent author pages has 2,423 works that need authors. It is a big backlog and more work that is reasonable for one person. I have found that numbers of those works probably should have override_author and other updates to the headers. Can I encourage the community to look to pick off works that they believe are in their area of interest so we can wheedle down that list. I am always comfortable with building author pages, just doing a lucky dip on those pages is a not a good use of time.

With Wikidata being good for searches to find authors in many languages, and also with Phe's WP author tool there is usually plenty of low hanging fruit for those who could pick of a few each day.

Thanks for your consideration, and any help that you can give. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

We are down to 1572 works, and big praise to Akme who seems to be chipping away magnificently on these. — billinghurst

sDrewth 12:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Down to 1433 now. I can usually only do a few authors at a time, but it’s great to see how the number is dropping when multiple people are tackling it. Great job! Marjoleinkl (talk) 13:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I notice that about 140 of these pages are from "Gems of Chinese Literature". Perhaps there is a member here with a working knowledge of Chinese who could assist with those pages? --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I love creating author pages and doing research to fill in the blanks, so I’ll certainly do my best to help out. Marjoleinkl (talk) 08:44, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I am wondering how these pages are included in the category? I’ve come across a few entries (see Everyday Luncheons) that do have an author page, but with a redirect since it’s a pseudonym. How should I do in these cases? Marjoleinkl (talk) 08:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

They look like artefacts of the creation of a page and will disappear in time, or you can undertake null edits (touch) them. I will get Wikisource-bot to touch them all, and hopefully that will fix the category. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:26, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

D'oh, I stuffed that edit check for category filtering. That category is going to be stuffed for several days after my clumsy as it rebuilds after that heavy-handedness. Apologies. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

To note what I have done (after fixes). I have amended the {{header}} template to only categorise main and translation: ns works into the category and ditch those in user and template: ns. I had the bot touch all the pages in the category so that any that had had author pages added reassessed. So all seems back to cleansed and normally populated. (If I remember) I will get the bot to run through on a daily basis to touch pages to push the category clean rather than rely on the normal slower queued jobs list to process. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:49, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

No worries at all, I have a 17-month old who decided he hates sleep, so I’m very sympathetic to the small mistakes we all make sometime :D I’ll keep an eye on the category, thanks for looking into it! Marjoleinkl (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

it is unclear if it is a big backlog, with multiple hits from chapters on same author (maybe 300 uniques?) certainly much smaller than EB1911 backlogs. happy to chip in - nice template gadget, need to fill in wikidata if there is a VIAF or wikipedia article, good opportunity to include OCLC author works list.[2] (last, first) Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 15:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Slowking4: there is no reliable way to know which it is, and it is probably a mixture of both. Ruling out subpages would rule out the compilation works, so that isn't going to work. As we prod the queue on daily basis where an author had multiple works/parts, then those should drop out. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Slowking4: by the way, I have adapted a ruWP/WX gadget that allows addition of wikidata from WS. See m:User:Billinghurst/WE-Framework_WS.js and my global.js at meta has how to include it. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:16, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

CIA on UFO

Hi, I didn't see this mentioned here, so just in case someone is interested. The CIA has released documents about UFO, available here: [3]. Does anyone want to transcribe a few of these here? At least, no copyright issue here. Regards, Yann (talk) 23:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Line spacing in main namespace

I've had an odd line spacing problem crop up in the main namespace for a transcluded text. I have routinely seen this sort of thing happen with the last line of text in the Page namespace, and accept it as a quirk of working there, but I have not previous seen this happen in the main namespace.

Look at line 675 of Tragedies of Euripides (Way)/The Phoenician Maidens (it is also the last line of page 38). The final line of the stanza appears lower than it should below the preceding text. It does not appear to be the result of {{gap}} used at the start of the line, or the result of the footnote at the end of the line, as neither of these features create this problem elsewhere in the text.

Has something changed recently that would affect the way transclusion text is displayed? --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:46, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

{{nop}} at end of page? Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:02, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

No, there is not an {{nop}} there, and there shouldn't be. There is a <br /> at the end of the page because the poetic format continues onto the next page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for being vague, it was a hit-and-run reply. I tried placing an {{nop}} at the end (after the <br /> on new line), previewed it, and the spacing went away. Not sure if it would also positively affect spacing in the Main. I didn't want to edit your page to find out... I won't pretend to know the technical wherefore and why, shoulds and shouldn'ts. Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:44, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Happens at line 238-ish as well ("For Apollo's dells")... same situation, with {{right}}, etc. ("Str. 2") beginning on page following. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:10, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

An {{nop}} does not help in the main namespace. The oddity of end-of-page line spacing is what you corrected, and I'm used to seeing that behavior there with regards to the final line on the page. Normally, however, such oddities in the Page namespace do not transfer to the main namespace. This occasion is the first time I've seen line spacing problems transfer over.

But you are correct that the same problem appears around line 238 (I had failed to spot that). However, that doesn't help narrow down the problem, as this location has all the same possible culprits: {{gap}} at the beginning of the line, a footnote in the line, a <br /> at the end of the line, the fact that it is the last line on a transcluded page, and that the first line of the following page begins with {{right}}. It could be any of these or the result of some combination of them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:30, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

New information: I was getting the same effect at line 800 (end of page 45), and the only factors from before that are in common with this instance are (a) the line-terminating <br /> and (b) the {{right}} at the start of the next page.

I now have verified experimentally that {{nop}} clears the problem here. And it is also clearing the problem now with the other pages, where it wasn't doing so before. Not sure why. In any event, the problem seems to be resolved. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:30, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, I've been having a similar problem with <ref follow> at the end of pages. I've just tried putting in a {{nop}} both before and after. The only solution seems to be to move the ref up the page somewhere else and not have it at the bottom. In terms of the effect not showing: a simple page refresh doesn't seem to do it. I've had to purge the page cache to have my changes show through. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:54, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-45

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

• Victoria Coleman is the new Chief technology officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. [4]
• First release candidate for MediaWiki 1.28 is now available. [5]
• .gitreview for MediaWiki branches and extensions switched from targeting a specific branch to using track=1. [6]
• Section numbers in Table of Contents boxes will use grey to improve readability. [7]

Changes this week

• The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 7 November.
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 8th. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 9th. It will be on all wikis from November 10th (calendar).
• Special:ActiveUsers will allow users groups selection. [8]

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 8 November 2016 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are Image Thumbnail API and allow SVG files uploaded on MediaWiki to have XHTML namespaces. The meeting will be on 9 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• RevisionSlider will be enabled by default on all beta wikis, on testwiki, testwiki2, mediawikiwiki and de.wikipedia.org. [9][10][11]
• Upcoming holidays will impact deployments. The schedule has been published.

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

23:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Font on work

I'd like to change the font-family of The Time Machine (Holt text) to Georgia. Kn8Fury (talk) 21:24, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Is Georgia a 'freely' licensed font? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:29, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Why? --Mukkakukaku (talk) 20:10, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

If you just want a serif font, might I suggest checking out 'Layout 2', which I believe uses that by default? --Mukkakukaku (talk) 20:11, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I think that just solved the issue. Kn8Fury (talk) 06:04, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

• The above is not a proposal. — Ineuw talk 06:52, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Index:The Church hymnary (1893).djvu

Can someone move the underlying file to be local?

I transfered this from Ia to Commons using Ia-upload in good faith, and then found there may be an issue with some contained works. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:20, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

being the underlying file. File:The_Church_hymnary_(1893).djvu ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:24, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Not required. Published in 1893 in the US is Public Domain. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The work is a collection, in which some works may have different copyrights (owing to a non-US source.). The concern was that some of the Hymns might still be in copyright outside the US. Hence the local mirroring request if Commons decides to be "difficult." ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 01:07, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

i don’t know why you are being paranoid about our diligent friends at commons. give it a year or two. we should really have a automated deletion alert for files in use so we can automatically carry them over. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 01:45, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Have you made a proposal for that in the tech-wishlist? I am up to my 3 proposal limit already. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:37, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

me too, it would work like wikipedia article alerts [12]. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 14:44, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Password reset

I apologise that this message is in English. Help with translations!

We are having a problem with attackers taking over wiki accounts with privileged user rights (for example, admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, checkusers). It appears that this may be because of weak or reused passwords.

Community members are working along with members of multiple teams at the Wikimedia Foundation to address this issue.

In the meantime, we ask that everyone takes a look at the passwords they have chosen for their wiki accounts. If you know that you've chosen a weak password, or if you've chosen a password that you are using somewhere else, please change those passwords.

Select strong passwords – eight or more characters long, and containing letters, numbers, and punctuation. Joe Sutherland (talk) / MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:59, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-46

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

• When you edit with the visual editor you can use meta + shift + k to add a reference. The meta key is often the control key or command key. [13]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 16. It will be on all wikis from November 17 (calendar).
• In Special:Preferences you can choose which language menus and buttons will be in. If there is no translation for that language, MediaWiki has a list of fallback languages. A fallback language is a language many will understand better than English. MediaWiki will now use English when there is no Ukrainian translation. [14]

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 15 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Magic links might not work in the future. [15]

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

19:17, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Search template question

Search a book It seems like having a template to search a given text is really useful and I'm sure that we must have one here but I'm not seeing it. I'd like to add it to books that I have helped to transcribe here. Something like b:en:Template:Book_search. Where is this located on Wikisource? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:16, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The {{Engine}} template is used for this. I have no idea why it's called that! Perhaps it could have an alias of 'book search' or something? :-) Sam Wilson 05:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I would support moving it to {{search book}} since I can't quite figure out what that template is supposed to do anyway.... Mukkakukaku (talk) 20:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good. The google search thing isn't very widely used, it won't be hard to update. Sam Wilson 23:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I use it on occasion to search for information within the PSM project and found it very useful. (. . . usual disclaimer) — Ineuw talk 17:38, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

And I moved it back. Always better to have a little conversation about such moves prior to moving. It is known by this name crosswiki, and some level of uniformity has value. There is a redirect there, and often that can be sufficient. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:22, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure, good to be consistent. I'm not sure the redirect couldn't go the other way (engine → search box) though, so as to make the more understandable template name take prominence. Do you know the history of why it's called 'engine' anyway? It's not very intuitive. Anyway, if it's to be 'engine' that's fine, but the documentation should at least match. Sam Wilson 06:46, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Maybe from "search engine"? Mukkakukaku (talk) 15:59, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2016-11

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Notifications, Flow and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

Our quarterly goal is to add filters to the Recent Changes page, that show ORES good-faith and damaging tests and filters around new users. The work on this is proceeding mostly as planned. We hope it shall be available as a Beta feature (only on wikis where ORES is available as a Beta feature) before the end of the quarter.

Edit Review Improvements [More information]

Recent changes

• The filters design prototype for Special:RecentChanges is now stable. Development of these filters will now start. [16][17]

Flow [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Notifications concerning Flow are no longer all grouped together in your preferences. The "Edits to my talk page" category will now include Flow notifications about your user talk page (if your user talk page uses Flow), and the "Mentions" category will now include mentions on Flow pages. Previously, all notifications related to Flow were grouped together in the "Structured Discussion" category. [18]
• The orange bar will now also be displayed when a message is posted on a your user talk page if your talk page uses Flow; previously, it was only displayed if you had a wikitext talk page. [19]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:32, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-47

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

Recent changes

• Administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers can now use two-factor authentication. This makes their Wikimedia accounts more secure. This can be turned on in Special:Preferences. There are discussions on how to best turn it on for everyone. [20]
• You can now search for file properties. For example you can search for media type, how big a file is or what resolution it has. [21]
• The latest Collaboration team products newsletter has been published. It has more details about their work than Tech News has.

Problems

• A hacker group is hacking Wikimedia accounts. They can probably do this because users have the same passwords on Wikimedia wikis as on other sites. Please have a password you use only on the Wikimedia wikis and nowhere else. This is especially important for administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers. These users can also turn on two-factor authentication. [22]

Changes this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
• RevisionSlider will be a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia. This will happen on 22 November. It will come to other wikis later. [23][24][25]

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 22 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• It will be possible to do cross-wiki search. The developers who work on this are looking for communities that want to test this. [26]
• Hovercards will leave the beta stage. The Wikimedia Foundation Reading Web team wants communities to set Hovercards as a default option for readers who are not logged in. Communities that are interested can say so on the Hovercards talk page. [27]

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

15:32, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Family records related to Charles McMicken and the American_Colonization_Society

I am not active in Wikisource, but as an OTRS agent I fielded an inquiry from a family member of Charles McMicken, Who has family records possibly of interest to this project. He apparently was involved in the American Colonization Society, a group involved in the founding of Liberia. Is thre someone who would be willing to look into this to see if the material is appropriate?--Sphilbrick (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: With regard to family records, it is not an easy IN or OUT decision (covered in WS:WWI). We are not a historical archive, so any old record is not automatically IN. So we have tended to look at a notability criteria (and somewhat akin to Commons and Wikidata) in that if supports an article at another site, eg. Wikipedia article, then it has sufficient notability to be hosted.

It would be best to point the person here and we can discuss specifically, though my initial thoughts are records that are directly related to the article and are citable, are YES; those that are indirectly related are probable/possible; those that are just scant documents are probably not something we would host. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

typically a local university will agree to accept into their special collections, i.e. University of Cincinnati [28] then, we help digitize and transcribe public domain items. i would suggest going there first. footer has their email [29] - and then GLAM [30] / Wikipedia Library [31] person could follow-up. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 23:55, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

New template for "ditto"

Hi, i come from Spanish Wikisource; there i had created a template that (as far as i know) it isn't in any other Wikisource. It is es:Template:Ditto. It is useful for lists with ditto marks. It reserves the space a word would use, and center a ditto mark of choice there. Copy and paste great, also works with WSexport. I know this can be achieved with tables, but sometimes that makes the code cluttered and more difficult to read, with all the aligns and stuf. Would you check it out? For any bugs, comments, etc.? Do you think it can be useful here? --Ninovolador (talk) 13:06, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure, but I think {{ditto}} achieves the same purpose? —C. F. 13:56, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Oops, i tried searching, i think i didn't found it. Thanks! --Ninovolador (talk) 14:07, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ninovolador: Gracias por tu trabajo. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Open Publication License compatibility

Is Open Publication License of The Cathedral and the Bazaar compatible with wikisource to host the text here? --Wesalius (talk) 19:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

No. Well technically the OPL can be compatible with Wikisource requirements, but not always. The last time this was brought up it was noted that Raymond sold the exclusive commercial printing rights to this work which indicates that it is probably not hostable. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:33, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-48

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

Changes this week

• When someone tries to log in to a blocked account they will be blocked by a cookie. This means their browser will be blocked even if they change their IP address. This makes it more difficult for returning vandals. [32]
• When you use Content Translation to adapt a template to a new translation it will work differently. You can adapt big templates such as infoboxes. Translators will have control over the template parameters. A first version of this is released this week. It is possible it will not work correctly with all templates. There will be more updates for this soon. [33]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (calendar).
• Gadgets will have a new option called "hidden". This means you can register gadgets that can't be turned on or off from the preferences page. Hiding gadgets was already possible by using [rights=hidden]. You should now use [hidden] instead. [rights=hidden] in old gadgets should be changed to [hidden]. [34][35]

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 29 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Tool Labs could get two new policies. One would be to be able to adopt tools without an active developer. The other would be a right to fork. There is a request for comment on Meta.

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

21:16, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Done removed rights=hidden from gadgets file. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:12, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

A template conundrum

I can't fathom the why the template {{sp}} was created instead of a redirect to {{letter spacing}}. The difference is that the the shorthand version requires the spacing value to be placed after the text, while the original was designed to place the spacing value before the text. I wrote a clarification on the shortcut version, and will add the relevant info on the original, but I am not happy with the solution. Is there a way to standardize the two templates? — Ineuw talk 09:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

{{letter spacing}} is only used on a handful of pages; it wouldn't be too hard to manually replace all uses with {{sp}} and then merge the two. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

That sounds good. I only looked at the shorthand use and there is a lot. I filtered the "Page:" namespace but after changing a few, the link remained. Are the two linked in some other way? — Ineuw talk 19:04, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: I can't correct this mess because {¥{tl|sp}} is based on {{letter spacing}} with an addition of a 3rd parameter. It should be considered as two separate templates where the latter is based on the former. If you look at the history of {{letter spacing}}, and that of {{sp}}, whereby the original concept of the latter template was thoughtlessly modified without thinking of the consequences.

Where {{sp}} was used prior to modification, the property had only a fixed parameter of .15em. The addition of the 3rd parameter is what messed it up. The redirect {{ls}} cannot be used for the {{letter spacing}} shortcut because it is already in use as the shortcut of the {{Long s}} template.

I propose to add the proper information to the {{letter spacing}}/doc file, and create a redirect named {{lspc}} to it. Your comments would be most appreciated. — Ineuw talk 04:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I already created a template shortcut {{lp}} (for letter pitch) a few years ago. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:11, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It still seems feasible to me to add a 3rd parameter to {{sp}} and merge the templates, converting uses of one to uses of the other. I've modified {{sp}} to no longer use {{letter-spacing}}. However, I'd like to see what other people think as well. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: Thanks for pointing out the {{lp}} shortcut. I wonder if there is a list of all redirected template shortcuts for reference? @Beleg Tâl:, I support your solution. It's the only way to reconcile a confusing situation. — Ineuw talk 18:18, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

P.S: Please let me know when the change to the templates are done, and I will update the documentation to both. — Ineuw talk 18:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Help test offline Wikipedia

Hello! The Reading team at the Foundation is looking to support readers who want to take articles offline to read and share later on their phones - a use case we learned about from deep research earlier this year. We’ve built a few prototypes and are looking for people who would be interested in testing them. If you’d like to learn more and give us feedback, check out the page on Meta! Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Transcludable list of index pages

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T114346Resolved

Special:IndexPages is now transcludable. For example, {{Special:IndexPages|key=Gissing}} results in:

1. Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu [324 pages]
2. Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu [308 pages]
3. Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu [320 pages]
4. Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. I, 1890.djvu [320 pages]
5. Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. I, 1884.djvu [316 pages]
6. Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu [399 pages]
7. Gissing - Born In Exile, vol. I, 1892.djvu [294 pages]
8. A Life's Morning by George Gissing (volume 1).djvu [332 pages]
9. In the Year of Jubilee (1894 Volume 1).pdf [256 pages]
10. In the year of jubilee (IA inyearofjubilee00giss).pdf [456 pages]
11. Veranilda, by George Gissing, 1904.djvu [384 pages]
12. A Life's Morning by George Gissing (volume 2).djvu [320 pages]
13. The Odd Women (1893), vol. 2.djvu [348 pages]
14. The Crown of Life by George Gissing, 1899.djvu [388 pages]
15. Gissing - Thirza, vol. I, 1887.djvu [308 pages]
16. Gissing - New Grub Street, vol. I, 1891.djvu [322 pages]
17. Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. II, 1880.djvu [419 pages]
18. Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. II, 1884.djvu [330 pages]
19. Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. III, 1884.djvu [318 pages]
20. Charles Dickens (a Critical Study) by George Gissing, 1898.djvu [332 pages]
21. In the Year of Jubilee (1894 Volume 3).pdf [289 pages]
22. Gissing - New Grub Street, vol. 3, 1891.djvu [348 pages]
23. Will Warburton by George Gissing, 1905.djvu [344 pages]
24. Gissing - Thirza, vol. III, 1887.djvu [314 pages]
25. Gissing - Demos, vol. III, 1886.djvu [308 pages]
26. The Odd Women (1893), vol. 3.djvu [344 pages]
27. Eve's Ransom by George Gissing, 1895.djvu [396 pages]
28. Gissing - Denzil Quarrier, 1892.djvu [354 pages]
29. The Paying Guest by George Gissing, 1895.djvu [200 pages]
30. Gissing - Born In Exile, vol. 2, 1892.pdf [278 pages]
31. Our Friend the Charlatan by George Gissing, 1901.djvu [452 pages]
32. Gissing - In the Year of Jubilee,1895.djvu [454 pages]
33. The Town Traveller by George Gissing, 1898.djvu [376 pages]
34. Gissing - Born In Exile, vol. 3, 1892.pdf [276 pages]
35. Sleeping Fires by George Gissing, 1895.djvu [252 pages]
36. Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. II, 1890.djvu [320 pages]
37. Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. III, 1880.djvu [484 pages]
38. Gissing - Isabel Clarendon, vol. I, 1886.djvu [306 pages]
39. The Whirlpool by George Gissing, 1897.djvu [500 pages]
40. Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. III, 1890.djvu [320 pages]
41. A Life's Morning by George Gissing (volume 3).djvu [352 pages]
42. Gissing - Isabel Clarendon, vol. II, 1886.djvu [340 pages]
43. The private papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing.djvu [322 pages]
44. Gissing - Demos, vol. I, 1886.djvu [328 pages]
45. The Odd Women (1893), vol. 1.djvu [314 pages]
46. By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing, 1901.djvu [211 pages]
47. In the Year of Jubilee (1894 Volume 2).pdf [285 pages]
48. Gissing - New Grub Street, vol. 2, 1891.djvu [332 pages]
49. Gissing - Thirza, vol. II, 1887.djvu [332 pages]
50. Gissing - Demos, vol. II, 1886.djvu [308 pages]

(Thanks to @Billinghurst for raising this.) —Sam Wilson 05:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

And for a more advanced usage (numbers of piped parameters) {{Special:IndexPages|key=DNB|order=alpha|sortascending=1|limit=100}} see Wikisource:WikiProject DNB/Progress. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:17, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-49

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 choose to see users from specific user groups in Special:ActiveUsers. [36]
• Everyone can now see Special:UserRights. Previously only those who could change user rights could. Other users got an error message. [37]
• ORES can now show how likely an edit is to be damaging to the wiki with different colours. This only works for languages that have trained ORES to recognize damaging edits. [38]

Changes this week

• You will now see categories with 0 pages in Special:Categories. Previously you did not see empty categories there. [39]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (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 6 December at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey will decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year. You vote for wishes on the survey page until 12 December. You can see what has happened to last year's wishes on the 2015 results page.

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

18:06, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Looking for an ordinary user who wants to make things better

Hi everyone,

Editing Design Research is desperately seeking at least one editor (preferably two) to run a formal user test for a new editing mode. You don't need to be an admin or a technical person – this is just about ordinary editing. Probably everyone who reads this will qualify.

Users must:

• be able to speak English,
• have access to Google Hangouts (for screensharing and talking),
  • You don't have to be videotaped yourself, but you must be able to share your screen via Hangouts, so they can see what you're doing.
  • You must have access to a working microphone (either external or built-in is fine), so you can tell them what you think.
• have access to quiet place for 30- to 45-minute-long research session,
• be willing to sign a standard research release form (I can get you a copy), and
• have access to Chrome, Firefox or Safari (I believe this must be on a desktop system, not on a smartphone).

And I'd personally like:

• Someone who doesn't think that Wikipedia is the only project, which is why I'm posting here.  ;-)

If you're interested, or if you think you might know someone who is interested, then please click here to leave a note on my talk page. Thanks for considering it! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The Grammar of Heraldry could do with some TLC

I have found this work that has a mix of scan transcluded pages and straight text. I haven't a chance to do more than play with one chapter. It needs some section markers, and other checks. If someone has the chance to give the work a cuddle that would be great. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:26, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I've transcribed most of the TEXT now.. Someone else up for doing the images and sections? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Images inserted (apart from Fig 181. which didn't seem to be on Commons).ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

If someone can do the last index page... ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-50

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

• Users who have Yahoo email addresses could not use Special:EmailUser to send emails. This has now been fixed. Emails will now come from a @wikimedia.org address. Users who get an email from you will still reply to your email address and be able to see it. [40]
• You can now see how many categories and pages there are in the categories in Special:TrackingCategories. This is to help you find pages that could need attention. [41]
• Markup colours for reviewed and pending revisions in the page history and recent changes and logs now match Wikimedia standard colours. The "You have a new message on your talk page" notification will have a slightly different colour. [42]

Problems

• Because of work on cross-wiki watchlists global renaming is not working. The plan is to turn it on again on 16 December. Global renaming was turned off for a while in late November and early December as well. [43]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (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 December 13 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

19:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The_Grammar_of_Heraldry/Index

Won't format nicely in respect of the final page for an inexplicable reason, can't see which template invocation is deciding to be a pain.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Solved. Proved to be an issue to do with where to put the |compact=yes paramater, needs to be in header, not the body. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Also the formatting used for the drop initials hadn't allowed for a W being widerShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Index:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu

Uploaded this in good faith, only to find a LOT of the map plates were missing, can someone find a KNOWN GOOD version of this that has the maps? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

is this one a match? https://archive.org/stream/ageneralhistory17unkngoog#page/n4/mode/2up here is a list https://archive.org/search.php?query=A%20general%20history%20for%20colleges%20and%20high%20schools unfortunately IA metadata and quality is trial and error Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 18:53, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

The first one is ex-Google which I tend to avoid because of past quality issues.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:29, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

{{missing image}} floating to the top of the page again

At The Awkward Age (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899), the {{missing image}} box has floated up out of its proper position, to above the header.

I seem to recall this problem occurring a few months ago, but cannot find a discussion.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Hesperian 03:22, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I brought it up in March: Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2016-03#Warning boxes at top of page. George Orwell III said: "I'm technically behind the change in behavior now render banners at the top and am actively searching for some middle ground solution. [...] 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." I haven't seen it work since then. I get the impression that it can't really be fixed unless we split the ones that shouldn't float to the top from their basis on {{ambox}}. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 03:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Not good enough. Since when are we so blasé about things being broken in mainspace. I've fixed {{missing image}} myself. It looks like shit but that's better than just plain broken. Hesperian 04:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

{{missing image}} is far from being the only template with this problem; there are quite a few. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 11:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know enough css to unbreak it, and when we had the splitting and rederiving of the common settings into different components (without comment), would make me undoing it dangerous to total corruption. I am presuming that it had something to do with the framework, and things sitting inside or outside it. There was no discussion about the changes prior to their implementation. <shrug> — billinghurst sDrewth 12:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've fixed this properly. Any ambox that you want to look like an ambox but NOT float to the top in mainspace, should be changed to a pmbox. Hesperian 07:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

New way to edit wikitext

Summary: There's a new opt-in Beta Feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. Please go try it out.

We in the Wikimedia Foundation's Editing department are responsible for making editing better for all our editors, new and experienced alike. We've been slowly improving the visual editor based on feedback, user tests, and feature requests. However, that doesn't work for all our user needs: whether you need to edit a wikitext talk page, create a template, or fix some broken reference syntax, sometimes you need to use wikitext, and many experienced editors prefer it.

Consequently, we've planned a "wikitext mode" for the visual editor for a long time. It provides as much of the visual editor's features as possible, for those times that you need or want wikitext. It has the same user interface as the visual editor, including the same toolbar across the top with the same buttons. It provides access to the citoid service for formatting citations, integrated search options for inserting images, and the ability to add new templates in a simple dialog. Like in the visual editor, if you paste in formatted text copied from another page, then formatting (such as bolding) will automatically be converted into wikitext.

All wikis now have access to this mode as a Beta Feature. When enabled, it replaces your existing wikitext editor everywhere. If you don't like it, you can reverse this at any time by turning off the Beta Feature in your preferences. We don't want to surprise anyone, so it's strictly an opt-in-only Beta Feature. It won't switch on automatically for anyone, even if you have previously checked the box to "Automatically enable most beta features".

The new wikitext edit mode is based on the visual editor, so it requires JavaScript (as does the current wikitext editor). It doesn't work with gadgets that have only been designed for the older one (and vice versa), so some users will miss gadgets they find important. We're happy to work with gadget authors to help them update their code to work with both editors. We're not planning to get rid of the current main wikitext editor on desktop in the foreseeable future. We're also not going to remove the existing ability to edit plain wikitext without JavaScript. Finally, though it should go without saying, if you prefer to continue using the current wikitext editor, then you may so do.

This is an early version, and we'd love to know what you think so we can make it better. Please leave feedback about the new mode on the feedback page. You may write comments in any language. Thank you.

James Forrester (Product Manager, Editing department, Wikimedia Foundation) --19:32, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

UGH! —Maury (talk) 22:49, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

yeah, wonder who dreamed it up. all the load time of VE with the wikitext fun. some better UX would be a better use of resources, but check it out and see if you agree. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 04:01, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

ACK! Somehow some of these features are enabled for me, even though I HAVE NOT ACTIVATED THEM. I want them to go away, but I've no idea how to make that happen. None of the boxes for any of these horrid atrocities has been selected in my preferences, yet they assault my senses while editing. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

if you go to your preferences > beta features your can deselect "New wikitext mode" and deselect " Automatically enable all new beta features" , hope that does it. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 19:39, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2016-12

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Notifications, Flow and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

A decision has been made about how the Recent Changes filtering scheme will affect current ORES beta feature users. When this new filtering system rolls out as part of the beta, it will replace the current ORES display on the Recent Changes page. That means the automatic color coding, the red “r” symbol and the “hide probably good edits” filter will go away, to be replaced by the new, more nuanced set of filters and user-defined color coding. All other pages that have ORES features, like Watchlist and Related Changes, will remain as they are now for ORES beta users. We think those pages could also benefit from the new filtering system. But we'll wait to see how users react to the beta test—and make any necessary changes—before we start spreading the new UI around. That's the plan as it currently stands. As always, please let us know if you have any thoughts, in any language.

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• The Filters for Special:RecentChanges description page is now finished and ready for translation.
• On wikis that use ORES, new colors have been chosen for damaging changes displayed on a list of changes. [44]

Notifications [More information • Help pages]

Problems

• Sometimes, after marking an important number of cross-wiki notifications as read, the counter remained at 1. This is now fixed. [45]

Flow [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Due to a bug, it was not possible to activate Flow on user talk pages as a Beta feature. This is possible again for wikis that have that feature. [46]
• Flow boards can be moved without constraints. However, this requires the move-Flow-board right. [47]

Miscellaneous

• The MoodBar extension has been removed from all wikis. [48]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:08, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

PD recorded books

Stupidly, I started a discussion elsewhere about maybe hosting somewhere on the WMF some of the PD recorded audio books for the blind. I have no clue whether this would be the right venue for such, so anyone who knows more about that than I do or otherwise has an opinion is more than free to comment at wikipedia:User talk:Jimbo Wales#PD talking books for the blind?. John Carter (talk) 16:52, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

commons should be the venue. i see user:smallbones is advising you. you might have to upload to internet archive, to convert to ogg format. i see only 21 works there now [49] and there are 155 files at commons already Commons:Category:LibriVox recordings Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 22:06, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@John Carter: As said the recordings themselves belong at Commons, that said ... I would believe that our Portal: pages should be utilised to build a library to list recorded files. This could either be as unique portal pages, or sections specifically on existing portal pages. We already utilise {{listen}} and {{media}} on works, and author pages where we have recordings. I think that it is a marvellous idea as it is a part of our mission, just not one that we have progressed well. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Tech News: 2016-51

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2017.
• The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2016? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!

Recent changes

• Administrators and translation administrators can now use Special:PageLanguage on wikis with the Translate extension. This means you can say what language a page is in. The Translate extension will use that language as the source language when you translate. Previously this was always the wiki's default language. This was usually English. [50]
• Wikis connected to Wikidata can now use the parser function {{#statements: }} to get formatted data. You can also use {{#property: }} to get raw data. You can see the difference between the two statements. There are also similar new functions in Lua. [51]

Problems

• Some abuse filters for uploaded files have not worked as they should. We don't know exactly which filters didn't work yet. This means some files that filters should have prevented from being uploaded were uploaded to the wikis. MediaWiki.org and Testwiki have been affected since 13 October. Commons and Meta have been affected since 17 October. Other wikis have been affected since 17 November. [52]

Changes this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.

Meetings

• The next meeting with the VisualEditor team will be on 3 January at 20:00 (UTC). During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is done. It decides what the Community Tech team will work on during 2017. You can see the results.

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

20:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Watch

With identified Wikidata related introduction of the #statements we need to keep an eye on the updating of the related module: ns scripts at enWP (usually). We will want to update these scripts (Wikibase/Wikidata/...) to the most recent when we can. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:41, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Note: default Popops activated by mistake, now deactivated

Hi to all. While updating our gadget definitions to apply a new setting code to fix existing errors, I by mistake changed a gadget to default to on. I have resolved that situation, and those who don't wish to have the popups should be back to their preferred setting. For anyone still getting them, please refresh your cache. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Maintenance/cleanup of Wikisource:Requested texts?

Is there a process to cleanup or archive (or maybe can we run a bot on) Wikisource:Requested texts? This page goes on forever and is a mix of open, completed, and partially completed requests. Open requests are buried in the middle of the page and pretty much invisible to the casual viewer. I'd be willing to lend a hand (in 48 hours when I finish traveling), but since there doesn't seem to be an archival policy already in place I didn't want to just go hacking away piecemeal.... --Mukkakukaku (talk) 15:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It is manual archiving on that page, based on sensible thinking and state of resolution. You will see archive links in the header.

Noting that it is a very old page, and could do with some modern thinking, modern uploads from IA, etc.. The age and design of the page pre-date archiving bots, so if restructured we could look to ensure that we have it more readily archivable by bots. It is an issue at numbers of our pages where we have long term discussions that cannot be archived based on time alone, or need to be placed into specific sections once archived. I will ask the owner of SpBot whether their code is available as that seems to archive based on a resolution status. [Noting that Wikisource-bot is the only current archiving bot, and that does time-based for last edit in a section]. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mukkakukaku: Operator of SpBot will set up his bot in the next week or so to operate here. I have imported Template:Section resolved and ‎Template:Autoarchive resolved section with related sub-components. We should look to configure that page to utilise the bot, and ensure that the archives are suitable, or whether changes should be made.

I will go through the bot approval process (above) once I have a few more things undertaken. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

One change I think would be very helpful would be to rearrange the sections according to the type of source document, rather than according to the site where a copy may be found. That is, instead of having a grouping like "books.google texts", have instead groupings like "Poetry", "Science", and "Government documents". Volunteers are more likely to dip in and help if they can more easily find requested works in their own area of expertise. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:23, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I went through the page and tagged the obviously completed sections with {{section resolved}}. I agree with EncycloPetey that we need a reorganization of the page in general. I will be back in a few hours to manually check if any of the remaining sections were resolved and tag them as needed. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 19:10, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikisource-related updates made at English Wikipedia

Hi to all. At English Wikipedia I have amended

• w:Template:wikisource author; and
• w:Template:wikisource author-inline

to now use data from Wikidata by default (unless parameters are forced). The update pulls the Wikidata label (en) and the wikilink, so there will be a little visual change though it should still be sensible link.

This should fix up the few broken links, mean no requirement to update, and make it easier to apply. I am slowly pulling out the parameters in the existing templates where it is functional to do so without changing contexts. Please let me know if there are any issues identified, either here or there. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Ligature templates: failed substitutions

Hello all. A while ago, I seem to remember that Ligature templates (e.g. Template:ae) were encouraged for (unnamed) accessibility reasons rather than using the actual unicode ligature characters (e.g. æ). Looking over some of my previous work, there seems to have been a bot (or a very studious editor!) which has tried to substitute (e.g. using {{subst:ae}}) all instances of these ligature templates, so that they're all rendered as the unicode characters. This is all well and good, but for whatever reason, substitution seems to fail inside other templates or other tags (most commonly <ref></ref> tags), leaving hundreds of plaintext instances of {{subst:ae}} etc. (for failed substs for Template:ae alone, see this search). Please could someone run a bot to replace these failed ligature substs (or all failed substs more generally if possible) with the actual character? Thanks! --Yodin^T 15:38, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

See also Mediawiki:Manual:Substitution#Limitations. Same is true for <poem></poem> tag and I suppose others. I started to clean-up Page: ns.— Mpaa (talk) 21:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Search For what it's worth, I think that this search will bring all of the instances, which are 258. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

My bot timeout on that search. I covered (most of) diacritics in Page ns up to Page:N. I did not cover {{ebreve}} or similar as my bot did not include those forms. Looking at that search result, many of them seem manual mistakes, like e.g. Nep{{subst:^a}}l. These need to be fixed mostly manually.— Mpaa (talk) 23:25, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks both, I'll have a go fixing up some of the case-by-case ones. :) --Yodin^T 23:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Bah humbug. I will redo the bot. Change change change! Thanks Mpaa and Yodin. And to curse that AWB fails on "insource" searches with subst: — billinghurst sDrewth 01:32, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

A simple question about the {{anchor}}

I noticed that the {{div}} is a redirect for {{anchor}}. What is more puzzling is that {{anchor}} is a <span>. Can someone care clarify this? Thank you. — Ineuw talk 22:16, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Travels through time! especially when the code used has not been standards compliant. What are you trying to do apart from put in an anchor point? If we need to undo the redirect, then we can. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Nothing to do with {{anchor}}. I was looking at {{div}} to match {{div end}} because {{div end}} is usable in a footer, but </div> is not. Interestingly, <div> is usable in a header. And the only reason I would be interested in {{div}} if I can modify it to use the {{ts}} parameters. Just a thought. — Ineuw talk 05:19, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

"div end" was set up as a common close for other templates; it was an attempt to not have so many .../e}} templates. "Div" opened and closed itself in a non-compliant means, and didn't take parameters. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:59, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. — Ineuw talk 22:26, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Why don't we delete {{div}} and replace it with {{anchor}}? Its name is unrelated to its use and it is a very few entries.— Mpaa (talk) 14:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

If we delete {{div}}, someone will recreate it sooner or later, and we'll have redundant duplicates again. Better to keep the redirect and avoid duplication. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:S

We need to correct {{S}}. This is supposed to display a "long S" ( ſ ), and it will do that as long as the template has no parameters or has a first parameter of 1.

But the creator of the template set this up so that a first parameter of 2 inserts the mathematical symbol for integral ( ʃ), mistakenly believing that the Unicode character was an italic variant of the long S. In fact it is not, and no characters have separate codes for italic versions. Rather, the italicized version of the long S appears when the regular ſ is placed in italics markup as ſ, and provided that a font and browser are used that preserve the traditional distinction between the italicized and non-italicized versions.

Fixing the template itself is easy, but there are going to be a lot of template calls out there with parameters, and so a bot would be useful for replacing all instances of {{s|1}}, {{s|2}}, {{S|1}}, and {{S|2}} with a simple call to {{s}}. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi @EncycloPetey:. Wouldn't it be better to just replace {{S}} with {{Long S}}?Jpez (talk) 06:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jpez:. No, because that supplies only a long-S or a capital S, and never a lowercase s. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

{{s}} is ultimately when simiplifed substable, s isn't. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Will also note {{ss}}, and {{f}} etc here. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought that the community has decided that we do not want to have long s displayed in the main namespace, it being perverse, hard to read, and a PITA for search engines. Per Jpez I would be more inclined to replace with "ls", though maybe send it to WS:PD and see what the community decides (again). Our task is to reproduce works from the past to a modern readership, not to produce facsimile copies, so unless there is a reasoned argument (per work) to retain ancient character sets, let us not. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I also would support replacing {{s}} with {{ls}}, but would warn that there are some places where a long s is necessary in mainspace (e.g. a treatise on the forms of letters) so please ensure to check for this when replacing. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:58, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I'm not aware of any such decision as applying in all situations. To my mind, there are some historically significant texts where preserving the long-s is desirable, even in the main namespace, although I would concur that it is only occasionally so. For example, in the First Folio of Shakespeare, or the first edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, or Robert Potter's translation of Aeschylus into English (the first translation ever done in English), I would want to preserve the use of long-s. But were it to appear in works by John Locke or translations of Voltaire, I would not see any reason to preserve the form without some additional compelling reason. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: I believe that is covered by my statement reasoned argument (per work), and for those works which are widely available, and they have special characteristics. If, then, am I right in saying that your argument for retention of the template is that for these special works that we need an easy way to add the character? That sounds reasonable, though why maybe we also need a means to better document the usage of the template. Which do we prefer the application of the character with the template, or the direct application of the character from unicode etc.? — billinghurst sDrewth 22:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I prefer direct use of the character from Unicode, but it's tricky to add in some situations. Without a template, I sometimes have to hace a second browser window open so I can copy-paste, which slows down my typing. A template can make inserting the character easier from some devices and browsers. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:56, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: At the risk of being pedantic, you know that you can get it from the special characters menu in the edit screen, correct? I think we should convert this template to being just the character and encourage substitution. Every x days, we can have a bot replace transclusions with substitutions. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Koavf: I can get it only when the special characters menu loads, and if I have a large enough screen to have both the edit window and the special characters screen in view at the same time. The first of these two conditions is only true about 50% of the time on one of the computers I use, and the second never is. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:15, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

New template to replace magic words

Template:ISBN I have ported over w:Template:ISBN and w:Module:Check isxn from en.wp. Magic words as links are being phased out and although we don't have to replace all instances of them now, they will all be removed from MediaWiki in 2017. See mw:Requests_for_comment/Future_of_magic_links. We have about 100 entries in Category:Pages using ISBN magic links. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:28, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

If someone fixes Template:Citation that may make a dent in the list. I don't entirely understand the syntax being used there so I didn't make the attempt myself. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 17:06, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Done. I notice that {{Citation}} also uses PMID, another magic link, but I don't know how to use these modules to make {{PMID}} and {{RFC}} to complete the transition. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 18:41, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: Thanks. This module wouldn't apply to PMID or RFC as those are just normal sequential numbers but ISBNs/ISSn/etc. have checksum digits and are allocated in a specific order. We also don't have a page like Special:Booksources for PMID or RFC, so those can just be replaced with inline links such as pmid:1234. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:22, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Beleg Tâl: I just fixed the RFC links (note that one of them was accidental anyway). The former title may need to be fixed further as it has text like "RFC1918" in it (which does not produce a link) as well as "RFC 1918" (which does). In the future, if someone inputs "RFC XXX" and these magic links are totally disabled, it will just show text without a link. That's not the worst thing in the world, especially in these documents at Wikisource. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:37, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Perfect. I've updated {{Citation}} with the [[pmid:(PMID)]] syntax. Thanks for the update on RFC pages; I agree with you completely regarding future updates. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 20:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Didache: opinions on what this has morphed to

Didache originally a disambiguation page, though has morphed over time. It was not a traditional disambig page, as it was about a subject, which is more related to our Portal: namespace. I have just converted it to a {{translations}}, though it may be better to be in portal: ns, or we split to a disambig page, and a translations page. Stepping back through the history is a little informative (especially as I have cut out a little information. Thanks (the things we stumble upn when working on disambig page maintenance! — billinghurst sDrewth 07:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Are you referring to the "works about" section? It is my understanding that "works about" shouldn't be listed on a translations page. So, there should be a translations page for the Didache work itself, and if desired a Portal page listing works about the Didache, and if there are other works on WS called "Didache" (which there don't appear to be) then a separate disambig page would be required. (On the other hand, if we want to begin to allow "works about" sections on versions/translations pages, I would support this change.) —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, the conversation is the morphing from where it started to where it ended. Part "translations" but also with works about, then the sections that I rem'd. I was after an open conversation about where we are taking things (diambig/versions/translations/portal), rather than imposing my own point of view while on a maintenance tramp. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Understood. My position is that the current "way we do things" is to have a translations page for only the translations, and a portal page for the "works about", and the references and external links on the Talk page of the translations page; but my position is also that having a "works about" section on a versions/translations page (such as Didache has currently) should also be acceptable. It should never have been a general disambig page (i.e. as opposed to a translations page), and regardless of the presence or absence of a portal page a translations page in mainspace is a must. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Category:Author pages with no gender

No gender value "Authors" like Author:Annie Roe Carr and the other Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonyms need to have an option to be removed from Category:Author pages with no gender. I have added gender: no value at d: which we should interpret in such a way as to remove them from this tracking category. Similarly, Author:Pseudo-Clement has gender: unknown since we can't really establish it and there's no point leaving this author in a tracking category that it can never leave. (Note that these are the only two special values in Wikidata.) Thoughts? Can anyone implement this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Follow-up It seems that Author:Victor Appleton is not in the tracking category by virtue of having no value at d:Q3557128 but the entry above is still in there. Maybe it's just waiting in the job queue? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:41, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure why we would want to remove them from the category. It is to show "author pages with no gender", under your plan they won't show. Why would we want that? — billinghurst sDrewth 13:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I can see the benefit of having a category listing essentially "authors who have a gender which has not yet been entered in the system". However, I feel that Category:Author pages with no gender would also be a correct categorization for authors with unknown or null gender. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I was removing them from a tracking category: the problem is that no gender has been specified, not that there is an author but that author has no gender. If you want the behavior to change, then we can make it so that there are categories for authors on d: who have no value and unknown but we should also have the tracking category for authors which have no value at all set on our sister project. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The meaning of hosting

In view of the latest discussion on my talk page with User:Koavf, can someone please explain the scope of the term hosting as it pertains to Wikisource? Does it only include transcluded works or does it cover the transcription projects too? Hrishikes (talk) 04:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: I have no idea why Koavf is going about that task, and in that way. To me it seems unwarranted, lacking in value, and not in line with current practice in use of the {{populate}} tag. If that was a task that was going to be undertaken on a broad scale, I would have hoped that it would have been discussed with the community, not undertaken unilaterally. Generally we have only been adding that tag to a +Works+ section when it has been empty of lists, not when we do not have works transcribed and readable. It is a generally an ugly tag. I am not even sure why we are even trying to come up and argue about the literalist definition of hosting. I say let the current practice and convention guide us, and where someone wants to undertake a good idea maybe float it past the rest of us. If someone is bored, then we have Wikisource:Maintenance and there is usually a stream of valuable maintenance tasks that would add value. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I was working on de-populating the {{populate}} category by creating transcription projects for all the authors I can find. Do you mean to say that I should instead be transcribing the front matter, transcluding that, and then moving on? Seems like all that will do is clutter up the main name space. (Personally I've been considering "has transcription project" to be functionally equivalent to "has a work on wikisource and therefore should not have this tag.) --Mukkakukaku (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mukkakukaku:Personal opinion, I much prefer what you are doing, especially if we are adding {{ext scan link}} or where we have works so adding {{small scan link}}. Way better! IMNSHO. So, no, I don't think that we should create front pages and then no content. We have far too many pages of that sort of incomplete crap. I believe that we have been trying to get away from such a process, it is so misleading. It is not much different from ugly copy and pastes of archive.org texts with ugly OCR errors. No one wants to wade through that garbage, we may as well just link to the archive.org pages. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:33, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I saw several author pages which had no works, so I tagged them with {{no works}}. Makes sense to me. The template reads "There are no works on Wikisource by this author." so why was it removed from Author:Joseph Gregory Martin—a page which has no works here? Isn't this a classic example of a page that should have this banner? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I believe that the template is and has been called {{populate}}, prior to that it was "empty", where the "no works" redirect was someone's later creation. If I recall correctly, the discussion is that we can encourage people to add works to the page, it did not mean that we have to have the works onsite, though that is obviously our preference. To note that author pages here can link to full text works at any sites/domains, with Wikilivres being our prime example, though we have {{ext scan link}} for Google Books and IA as appropriate. On the page that you indicate there are clearly works listed, rather than an empty section, and it hasn't been the practice to add the template. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:41, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Then I suppose you now have an idea of why I added that, no? If the template shouldn't be used for its obvious purpose, then change the text and add some usage notes at the documentation--don't act faux-shocked at why someone would add a template that says "Wikisource has no works by this author" on pages where we have no works by this author. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Amended the text to "There are no works listed on Wikisource for this author." and hopefully that better clarifies the situation. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Wehrmachtbericht question

I am new to Wikisource and I have a question regarding the Wehrmachtbericht. Unsure where to post this question (see also Wikisource_talk:What_Wikisource_includes#Wehrmachtbericht_references). Please allow me to repeat the question here. I was wondering if it is legitimate to place the translations of the Wehrmachtbericht on Wikisource? Wehrmachtbericht was the daily Oberkommando der Wehrmacht mass-media communiqué and a key component of Nazi propaganda during World War II. As said, the Wehrmachtbericht is propaganda with a definite historical revisionist or denialist effect. Nevertheless, its wording is public domain, just like Adolf Hitler's Address to the Reichstag (4 May 1941). I want to avoid infringing any policies here so I am asking beforehand. Thanks in advance for any feedback and thoughts. Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:00, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The best place for this kind of discussion is WS:Copyright discussions. Translations of the Wehrmachtbericht are welcome provided that both the original and the translation are in the public domain in the United States. Can you confirm that this is the case? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

My question specifically is centered around the question does Wikisource allow me to put the Wehrmachtbericht text on Wikisource even though it is considered propaganda. Are there guidelines which prohibit information to be placed on Wikisource which are propaganda. I verify again if the original German text is public domain. I would be providing the English translation. Example below

Date	Original German Wehrmachtbericht wording	Direct English translation
10 February 1945 (addendum)	Der mit dem Ritterkreuz zum Eisernen Kreuz ausgezeichente Hauptmann Rath schoß in der Nacht zum 8. Februar sechs feindliche Flugzeuge ab.	The recipient of the Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross Captain Rath shot down six enemy aircraft in the night to 8 February.

Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:40, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Propaganda is welcome on Wikisource provided it is free content. We can host your own translation in the Translations namespace, see WS:Translations#Wikisource original translations. However, note that a scan-supported copy of the original must be also uploaded to German Wikisource. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Or the Multilingual Wikisource, in case the German Wikisource won't take it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you please point me to an example of how this Multilingual Wikisource works? Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It is the same as other Wikisources, and located at http://wikisource.org ; it's used for documents that don't belong on any particular-language Wikisource. You could post it at mul:Wehrmachtbericht (multilingual) if it is forbidden to post it at de:Wehrmachtbericht (German). —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:48, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Why is this author disambiguated?

Minor in the greater scheme of things, but I'm now curious why Author:Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) is not at Author:Elizabeth Robins. As can be seen, the author name without the years is a redlink. The only authors we have with similar names are Author:Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Author:Elizabeth Robinson. All of the links to Author:Elizabeth Robins appear to be for Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) (I repointed some.) Even the Wikipedia article is just at "Elizabeth Robins" (no years.)

I didn't want to move Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) to Elizabeth Robins if there was something I just wasn't seeing. Is the similarity to Elizabeth Robins Pennell too great, and should Author:Elizabeth Robins be a disambiguation page instead? --Mukkakukaku (talk) 16:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Elizabeth Robins Pennell was named Elizabeth Robins until she married Joseph Pennell. She had already published books under her unmarried name prior to that marriage. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:57, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

So... we should have a disambig page there? --Mukkakukaku (talk) 17:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually she was married in 1884, the same year she published her first book. I'm not sure if it had her maiden or married name on it though, since we don't seem to have scans. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Names used of married women has always been an interesting choice on which way to go, and whether to include the maiden surname into a blended name. I have always tended to do more than less, as I have found that these women writers seemed always to write in some forum (before and after marriage), and there name usage is changeable or pseudonymous. So for someone like Elizabeth Robins Pennell, I would have created a redirect from Elizabeth Robins (adding a DEFAULTSORT and a Category:Authors-Ro). Then when faced with the current situation I would have disambiguated. So with the current situation I think it is better to disambiguate with pointers. It is definitely accurate.

Some views from my experience. If someone disambiguates prior to necessity, we can always add a redirect from the plain and know that the ultimate target will be good forever. Of course some names are next to never likely to have to be disambiguated, so we can move them with a redirect. Even then we won't always get it right. — billinghurst sDrewth 20:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I think either way is fine; in this case I have created the disambig. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

as we build disambigs, there will be trial and error. as long as the links to WP and wikidata work, it should be fine. although you could move the author page as well (without the dates). the viaf for Elizabeth Robins Pennell should be a guide. maybe we need to think about a wikidata generated author template? Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 18:27, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

This month's featured text of the main page, and proofread of the month

Just trying to clarify a minor confusion. Are the two the same? — Ineuw talk 14:29, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Nope. The featured text is a completed work that we consider to be "the best" (kind of like Wikipedia's featured articles), plus that we also consider to be exemplary or important or whatever. Those articles are nominated on WS:Featured text candidates, then argued for/against, cleaned up if necessary (eg. inconsistent formatting), and so on.

Proofread of the month is a monthly collaboration to proofread, validate, and transclude new works. It's usually themed -- so one month we'll do poetry, another month may focus on a particular topic (eg travelogues, dictionaries, history, etc), another month may feature women authors, and so on. You can find those at WS:POTM.

So featured texts showcase finished work, PotM invites collaboration. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 15:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

+1. @Ineuw: If you look at the Main Page, this month's Featured text is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and if you look at that work's index page, you'll see that it has been completely validated.

But the current PotM is either A Treatise on Soap Making or Church Seats and Kneeling Boards (depending on which listing you go by), but neither work has been fully proofread or validated.

FT shows what we've accomplished, whereas PotM is a work in progress. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all for clearing it up. Does all our POTM works related to NARA? This is what got me really confused. — Ineuw talk 18:29, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I want to say 'no' but I don't know what NARA is.... --Mukkakukaku (talk) 19:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikisource:WikiProject NARA no, user:dominic has moved on. they have their own citizen dashboard transcription project. we do need some project organizations to want to get and use mainpage space. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 20:46, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

No, they are not the same, but they are both listed under "Collaborations" because both involve the coordination of many individuals for each project. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

we should take NARA out of rotation since that was an active project years ago, and all the tasks are stale. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 21:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

My thanks to everyone. Everything is clear. — Ineuw talk 23:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-02

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 use datasets on Commons. You can see an example that is using this source. [53]
• There is a new opt-in beta feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. You can try it out.
• When you update a page with translations on wikis with the Translate extension the existing translations will be marked as outdated instead of removed. [54]
• The new version of MediaWiki was released to all wikis last week (calendar).
• MoodBar has been removed from the Wikimedia wikis. [55]
• The live option for the Tipsy notice tool has been removed. Gadgets and user scripts which use it need to be updated. [56]

Problems

• Editors who use Firefox 50 might get logged out or fail to save their edits. This is because of a browser bug. Until this is fixed you can enter about:config in the address bar and set network.cookie.maxPerHost to 5000. Firefox 50 is the current version of the Firefox. [57]

Changes this week

• There is no new version of MediaWiki this week because of the Wikimedia Developer Summit.

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

19:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Request: Update to Special:Import wikis

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T155922Resolved

The following discussion is closed:

will lodge a phab ticket

Background: Administrators can import pages from other wikis where those wikis are predefined in our configuration. To have a configuration change we need to demonstrate a consensus at our wiki, and submit a phabricator request. Both these below requests to update should be non-controversial, and are administrative at best.

Mediawikiwiki

I wish to import the graph templates from Mediawikiwiki and then continue maintain them as updates happens there. At the moment we have to manual copy them over. It is a PITA and this can be resolved by addition of the wiki to our configuration, so I propose that

1. mw: is added to the list of source wikis available for English Wikisource

Update Oldwikisource

We had a recent issue where we could not import Oldwikisource pages as the interwiki connection was broken due to a configuration matter. This has been resolved, however a more robust solution is to have the configuration amended to utilise the term "mul" in the source list, rather than "oldwikisource". Accordingly I propose that

2. the source list for wiki add "mul" and remove "oldwikisource"

Here endeth the request. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:10, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Support/Oppose/Comment/Questions

•  Support as nom. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:10, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
•  Support —Beleg Tâl (talk) 01:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
•  Support these two wikis. Any other wikis would need to be discussed separately. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support We should use mul in every context and deprecate oldwikisource (although support it for legacy reasons). (In fact, https://www.wikisource.org/ and https://wikisource.org/ should be landing pages like all the other projects and the content should be moved to https://mul.wikisource.org/ but that's another issue.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:36, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Index:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu

Does anyone want to help out on this? I estimated about 500-600 remaining pages, which is just within the reach of getting finished by the end of April if enough people pitch in ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: Is this correct? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:17, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

This appears to have been a pragmatic addition by another contributor. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: Is it acceptable? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure, I won't object if you want to be text faithful. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-03

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 upload WebP files to Commons. [58]

Problems

• video2commons was down for two weeks. This was because of a problem with Commons video transcoders. It is now back up. [59]

Changes this week

• There is a new magic word called {{PAGELANGUAGE}}. It returns the language of the page you are at. This can be used on wikis with more than one language to make it easier for translators. [60]
• When an admin blocks a user or deletes or protects a page they give a reason why. They can now get suggestions when they write. The suggestions will be based on the messages in the dropdown menu. [61]
• You will be able to use <chem> to write chemical formulas. Before you could use <ce>. <ce> should be replaced by <chem>. [62]
• You now can add exceptions for categories which shouldn't be shown on Special:UncategorizedCategories. The list is at MediaWiki:Uncategorized-categories-exceptionlist. [63]
• The "Columns" and "Rows" settings will be removed from the Editing tab in Preferences. If you wish to keep what the "Rows" setting did you can add this code to your personal CSS: #wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; } You can change the number 50 to make it look like you want to. [64]
• Sometimes edits in MediaWiki by mistake are shown coming from private IP addresses such as 127.0.0.1. Edits and other contributions logged to these IP addresses will be blocked and shown the reason from MediaWiki:Softblockrangesreason. This should not affect most users. Bots and other tools running on Wikimedia Labs, including Tool Labs will receive a "blocked" error if they try to edit without being logged in. [65]
• When you edit with the visual editor categories will be on the top of the page options menu. [66]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (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 January 17 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

23:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Thoreau turns 200

I've mentioned in a few places this July will mark the 200th birthday of Author:Henry David Thoreau, who is one of the greatest 19th-century American writers. It would be wonderful if our community could celebrate that in a big way.

We already have a PotM planned (his Maine Woods) that month, so that's something. It also would be nice to feature one or more of his works that month (more on rotation would be better than just one), however we have almost none of his works. Walden seems to be the only complete volume, and currently it is unsourced.

I've set up several transcription projects linked from his Author page. I'm working on his "Wild Apples" essay, and am halfway through Cape Cod, but perhaps there are other editors here interested in working through some of the other volumes, or in validating pages.

Thoreau's prose is easily managed, with little formatting other than italics and archaic hyphenation. He seldom uses footnotes, although some of his editors do. He does occasionally quote Greek, but we have several members who can help with that.

There are also several works for which I or another editor have linked to clean copies at IA, but have not yet uploaded to Commons or established an Index page.

I've no idea how many people would be interested, but this seems like an opportunity for many community members to work together and showcase our effort come July. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I see he has an "Index of poems" here, but few or no poems linked to any indexed source. If someone could recommend a comprehensive text (hopefully without too many notes or footnotes) of his poems from IA, I would be willing to work on it. I am not well versed enough in Thoreau's works to critically choose one myself (if one exists... it looks as though many if not most of his poetic works are within essays, etc.). Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I could work on transcluding poem extracts from essays once transcription of indexes are completed (or even in process)—linking the unindexed poems to their sources... Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:18, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

As far as I know, all of his poetry occurs within his essays and other writings. But sometimes he quotes the poetry of others, so you're not guaranteed that a poem within his writings is one of his. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Good point. I'll look into it further. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:27, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Index:Bukvar staroslovenskoga jezika glagolskimi pismeni za čitanje crkvenih knjig.djvu

This is a non-english work which the uploader is translating. I've suggested they moved it to the Multilingual Wikisource ( it's an obscure dialect), but wondered if other more experienced contributors could also provide the uploader with advice. ( They suggested the Croatian Wikisource, but expressed concerns about the markup being different.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

If they are translating into English utilising the Page: namespace, then the work belongs here. We would transclude it to our Translation: namespace. Pretty sure that this is covered at Wikisource:Translation — billinghurst sDrewth 06:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Further to this, you are correct that an original-language transcription should be present in the appropriate-language WS as well. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikisource meeting in January?

(As mentioned on wikisource-l yesterday.) Is anyone interested in getting together on Google Hangouts sometime at the end of January to talk about Wikisource stuff? There will be things to report back about from the MediaWiki Dev Summit, and maybe we could talk about how to best proceed with the Wikisource items on the Wishlist survey? (Or anything else, of course!) There's a schedule-proposer thing here: http://beta.doodle.com/poll/g3svqgdmekmcy6tx to try to get an idea of what time/day would be best. —Sam Wilson 07:25, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Cool. What's the technical requirements other than having an internet connection? (Have never used Ggl Hangouts before....) --Mukkakukaku (talk) 15:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mukkakukaku: Not much I think; all modern browsers should work. Hm, actually, it sounds like non-Chrome users have to install a browser plugin. You'll need a Google account of course — which is not a very "free and open" thing, but still I think it's worth trying this experiment :-) . (And sorry for the slow response by the way.)

It's looking like Saturday 28th Jan at 1400UTC is the most widely convenient time. Will add a confirmation here in a couple of days though. Sam Wilson 03:54, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I've created meta:Wikisource Community User Group/January 2017 Hangout with details. Sam Wilson 03:46, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Enhancing PDF output

Hello everyone, it is my first time here :). My name is Moushira, and I am part of the community engagement team at Wikimedia Foundation. The Reading team is currently working on enhancing the PDF rendering output of printed articles and books, for more information, please check the page here which explains the changes, and please, add comments or questions, if any. Thank you! --Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Melamrawy (WMF): This is a change to the Collection extension isn't it? That extension isn't used much on Wikisources, because we've got the wsexport tool that works better for the sorts of books that are usually exported from Wikisource. I imagine that the new HTML-based rendering will work a lot better than the LaTeX-conversion system, given that a lot of proofreading here is non-structural and relies on CSS to indicate things like headers etc. However, it's always seemed strange to me that we should have two different export methods on Wikisource, and my personal opinion is that it would be better to not have the Collection extension here at all — or for it to complete replace wsexport (which seems very unlikely, as that tool does a wonderful job and is very much built for Wikisource). Sam Wilson 04:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2017-01

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Notifications, Flow and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

Our goal to add filters to the Recent Changes page is going well. We will contact soon some communities - the ones where ORES is available as a Beta feature - to plan a possible trial.

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• Edit Review Improvements' Glossary is ready for translation.

Notifications [More information • Help pages]

• Revert notifications were not received on Wikidata. This is now fixed. [67]

Flow [More information • Help pages]

• We plan to change Flow's URLs to make them more human readable. Your feedback is welcome.
• Communities which have allowed Flow trials with manual enabling (Hebrew Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia) will be asked if they want to switch to Beta feature activation. [68]
• A small maintenance on Flow database will happen during week 4. No impact is expected. [69]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:16, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-04

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 see a list of the templates on a page you edit with the visual editor. [70]

Changes this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).

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

20:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Regarding portals

I recently added some links to pages here from True Stories of Girl Heroines to wikipedia. In the process, and going over the portal guidelines, I noticed that there seem to be perhaps quite a few topics here which might reasonably qualify for portals which don't have one. The w:Church of England comes to mind, as does w:Henry VIII. Particularly given the number of entries in the British DNB and other reference works which we have and might have dealing with the same topics, some of these perhaps specific small portals might be useful, particularly for links to be used in wikipedia articles. For others, like w:Jane Lane, Lady Fisher, who so far as I can see is maybe the topic of only two pieces here, maybe not so much. Is there any clear indication as to exactly what sort of minimum standards should be generally observed here? John Carter (talk) 16:33, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

The guidelines are at Help:Portals#When to create a new portal. Specifically:

• Portal:Church of England exists and has for some time
• Author:Henry VIII does not need a portal because you can list relevant works under Works about. The same goes for any other author.
• You (or anyone else) can create a portal for Jane Lane if you believe there are enough works to be indexed—unless she is an author in her own right, in which case an Author page should be created instead.

—Beleg Tâl (talk) 17:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. FWIW, I actually searched for the portals first, and didn't find them, but thanks for the links. And I saw the relevant text on Help:Portals, indicating "However, at least having the number of works in the high single figures, if not double figures, is recommended." I'm guessing that means, maybe, six or seven sources is preferred? And, maybe, this might be the most important follow-up question. Is there any indicator when to opt for "portal" or "author" pages when a subject is both a writer and written about? Henry VIII, who is probably more notable and more written about as a subject of works written by others than a writer himself, might be a good case here. John Carter (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd say yes, six or seven, but it doesn't really matter. If you think it's high single figures, and are willing to the bother of creating a portal, go for it. The indicator of Portal vs. Author is incredibly simple: if any works by that person exist at all, they go in Author space; otherwise they go in Portal space. This is true even if the person's authorship of a work is disputed. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Would it be easier to instead of creating portals create categories named after biographies of individuals which could then be added to some other category? We have at present two biographies of Abercius of Hierapolis here, and I think it would be a lot more functional to just create a category for him or anyone like him to be added to other categories than to create a portal of maybe just two entries, or turn a portal into an endless document with hundreds or thousands of entries. John Carter (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

We have frowned on the creation of people-based categories in the past, for a multitude of reasons. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

^^^what he said. For so many of our people subjects, a portal or a category will have very limited number of entries, and difficult to navigate at any level. So yes, if we are having a significant number of entries then we can have a portal or a category, so that becomes prominent people. And no, if it is one or tow or three to a category/portal. I believe that we said that search was our best friend, though I don't know. Data on searches undertaken would be interesting, if there are any. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:08, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Links to wikisource in wikipedia

I've been looking over various wikipedia articles related to topics here and am finding actually not all that many articles over there that have many particularly useful links here, which probably doesn't help that much. As I am, maybe, one of the most hybrid, or bi-site, or whatever term, complementary or otherwise, editors around, I guess I could try to improve that, although it might take awhile. Do we have anything around here which basically just lists all the transcriptions or works, including I guess all the articles and such? John Carter (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@John Carter: I don't make it a point to add links to works as such but I very frequently add w:Template:Sisterlinks to articles and end up linking here to portals, author pages, and categories. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, right, my mistake in phrasing there. I generally add that too, where such exist. I still don't see that many links over there, although, in at least a few cases, we have good useful small links in the bibliographies or other reading to specific works here. I'm guessing what I was thinking of was, for instance, wikipedia:Joseph (Genesis) and the like, where I don't see much at all, because religion and history is the stuff I look most often at. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

My own area of emphasis here is Athenian Drama, and I have made certain that the authors, plays, etc. are linked. And links have been made using w:Template:Wikisource (or author), via Wikidata for the plays themselves, or by linking cited sources in the bibliography section (such as at w:Ajax (play). Linkage will vary by subject area and by involvement of the editors who specialize there. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

If there is already an {{Infobox book}} template on the WP article, then a Wikisource field is available to link to the work here. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:14, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

But the {{Infobox play}} template has no such field. Several other non-book boxes also lack this field. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

And w:en:Template:Infobox writer could also be modified to have links to our Author pages. Sam Wilson 02:34, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

AWB/bot Request

Does someone have a "conversion therapy" bot for apostrophes and quotes? (i.e makes them all straight.)

Was considering suggesting as a potential FT: Index:The_pilgrim's_progress_by_John_Bunyan_every_child_can_read_(1909).djvu

but another contributor expressed a concern about curved vs straight quotes.

Index:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu is what I was working on at the moment, and was wanting that to be consistent as well. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:25, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry for causing confusion. I have not noticed a problem in "Every Child Can Read". The mixture of straight and curved apostrophes/quotes is in the "Grace Abounding Chunk1". BethNaught (talk) 13:31, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: The nice thing is that it's easy to change <‘> and <’> to <'> since the curly quotes versions are almost only used for one purpose but an apostrophe is used all over the place for all kinds of purposes. Similarly, <“> and <”> to <">. It would require some discrimination for a very few cases but someone could easily do it with a replacement rule. If you need me, let me know. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:39, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Let's do the obvious cases first. The apostrophes may be have to done by a manual check. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Although our style guide says we should use typewriter quotes, I understand there are some dissenters from this. I don't think it is a good idea to unleash a bot on this until you are certain of consensus support for it. Hesperian 02:30, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

There are some cases where it's appropriate to use curly quotes, such as when the original work goes out of its way to intentionally do so. I ran into an example a while back which used straight quotes for quotation, and then the curly versions for nested quotations. Eg. "The man said to me, “Hello!” and then ran away."

Personally I just clean up the curly quotes manually as part of validation. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

e.g. Page:EB1911 - Volume 22.djvu/665 Hesperian 04:34, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

The style guide permits the use of curly quotes—provided that they are applied consistently throughout a whole work and a note to that effect is placed on the Index Talk: page by consensus of the proofreaders. If this is so, then validators are expected not to change to straight quotes. A bot that overrides a consensus on a particular work would be unacceptable. (Note: this is not a support of the use of curly quotes). Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:35, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Once you have finished the style discussion, any bot requests belong (weirdly) at Wikisource:Bot requests. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:56, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Requested move

Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Care Act Pending Repeal to Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal. Can't create due to blacklist. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:59, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Done --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

To note that I have amended the global title blacklist. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:35, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Request moves of Certain U.S. Presidents

Donald John Trump --> Donald Trump: Similar to the vein of Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump is mainly referred to by his first and last names, not usually with his middle name like "Donald John Trump". It is like having a page named "Barack Hussein Obama" or "Ronald Wilson Reagan". Yoshiman6464 (talk) 04:44, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

William Jefferson Clinton --> Bill Clinton: William Jefferson Clinton is known mainly as "Bill Clinton". Yoshiman6464 (talk) 04:50, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

@Yoshiman6464: Per Help:Author_pages#Page_name, we are to include authors' full names. Why some pages lack this is beyond me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:44, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Sub-request

Per above Please move Author:Barack Obama to Author:Barack Hussein Obama II--it is move protected. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:50, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Are there any works by his father? If not, then don't need the "II" disambiguator. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Moved though to expanded name, not with suffix. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:46, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Categories and {{plain sister}}

Should it be our practice to put {{plain sister}} template in each of our created categories? This means that once they are in Wikidata that they are interwiki paired by that system. Where we do have the template in place, then we can look getting them into WD as I don't think that we have many that are currently in that system (said without checking at all). — billinghurst sDrewth 22:42, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 03:41, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It's certainly worth doing a trial run to see what we get. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:51, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this seems like a sensible thing to do. We need better descriptions on category pages, and this could help with clarifying what particular categories are intended to do (by linking them to their equivalent concepts elsewhere). Sam Wilson 04:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Perish the thought, are we wanting to have {{category header}}. It enables a continued development, especially if we have wikidatafied. —unsigned comment by Billinghurst (talk) .

Indeed! I have been wanting {{category}} for years!! :-) To specify interwiki links, and what namespaces files should be in a category, and most importantly a good highly-visible description of what the category is for. Sam Wilson 10:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-05

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

Recent changes

• The OAuth management interfaces now look slightly different. [71]

Changes this week

• ElectronPdfService will be enabled by default on Meta and German Wikipedia. This is a new way to get articles as PDF files you can download. It will come to more wikis later. [72]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 31. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from February 1. It will be on all wikis from February 2 (calendar).

Future changes

• The Community Tech team will develop more tools to handle harassment of Wikimedia editors. The goal is to give the communities better tools to find, report and evaluate harassment. They will also work on more effective blocking tools. [73][74]
• The Wikimedia technical community is doing a Developer Wishlist survey. Developers can propose ideas before 31 January 23:59 UTC. This is soon.

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

18:45, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Some custom Wikidata queries about WS

I'm gradually learning how to write queries for Wikidata, so my work might duplicate work elsewhere, but I've found these useful:

1. Dead people with a Project Gutenberg ID but no English Wikisource profile, whose main language isn't English (source): a source of people who are very likely to have public domain English text, but no WS author profile. Including people with no language defined captures a lot of people who definitely didn't write English, but also many who did. The first several entries in this are Chinese, but keep scrolling.
2. Wikisource items with no statement of what they are (no "instance of" or "type" statement) (source) ordered by number of statements Wikidata has about them.
3. Number of Wikisource entries of each type (excluding Wikimedia internal stuff), along with the number in each category that have a publication date attached (source)

Hope these are useful to somebody. Is there a central place on WD or WS where relevant WD queries reside? Are there queries like this that people would like created? MartinPoulter (talk) 22:47, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

SEARCH: Subphrase matching

There is now an advanced search feature within user preferences that enables subsidiary phrase searching. This phrase matching is very useful for finding subpages of works. For example typing Adamson, He into the general search field will show in the typeahead function the two biographical works Adamson, Henry (DNB00) and A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Adamson, Henry.

To activate this search function go to special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions and select the option Subphrase matching (recommended for longer article titles) and save the preference. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:20, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Index:Paper and Its Uses.djvu

I can't find anything on the author in Google, other than this work, which is making it hard to track down the dates. Also it seems this work is an update from a much earlier on by a different author who I've also been trying to trace with little success. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:37, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Suggest this might be his pedigree: Edward Arthur Dawe (house painter and paper-hanger; 1884-1970)?

I truly doubt that assignation. Did you read the small print of the title? Public servant with office at HMSO at the age of 25 who progresses to be a house painter and wallpaper. Doubtful. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:49, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Edward Arthur Dawe (1875–1963), occupation shown as clerk with knowledge in printing @HMSO (1911 England census). Born Exeter, died Wallington.probate. Father was a photographer. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Author:Edward A. Dawe created, What license to use? (And I note based on the dates the scans might need to be localised from Commons.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Why you never ever indent your comments? It's not that difficult.— Mpaa (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: file moved here, and deleted at Commons. Please update local file. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:45, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

You shouldn’t use initials for an author page. If you aren’t sure of the middle name, just leave the initial out and note on the author’s page.Zoeannl (talk) 00:07, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation: merge these?

//unarchiving 2017-3-29 to continue discussion//

Thoughts on whether these are the same or different in terms of disambiguation

• Dialogue
• A Dialogue

I know that we have merged certain variations of "(The|A)? Word ..." see Cry, or another including plurals Fan

Our page Help:Disambiguation doesn't cover such, and it is probably a time we can work through that guidance. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support. I see no reason not to merge these pages. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support. There are so few items, I can see no reason to separate them into two lists. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:41, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

While on the matter

Something like A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Butler, Samuel which is a pretty old page.

Do we really wish to disambiguate to that level? (especially as it can be captured on a table of contents). Would something like that belong at a collective "Butler, Samuel" or "Samuel Butler"? Noting that we could be building a for our backs as with that approach as we start to build biographical works are we just making lots of names to add, for example the number of John Smiths in the Alumni Oxonienses will be non-trivial. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Noting that we already determined that works about author's belong on Author pages rather than being separately listed in main namespace (disambiguations/versions). Also noting that we have talked about persons in Portal: nsamepsace. Though that will never cover all circumstances, thoguh they will generally all be subpages of a work. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

If I may, can someone point to the conversation where this has been "already determined" so I can think through this? Also, what was the primary concern within that conversation with regard to creating redirects/versions pages for titles with people's names? Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:14, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I do not think that disambiguation at this level is useful at all. I would just use the work's TOC for disambiguation, or if they are entries in an anthology, I would use a top-level disambig page between those entries and any other pages with the same title. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Edmund Clarence Stedman is an author. "Edmund Clarence Stedman" is also the title of a poem by Florence Earle Coates with two versions hosted here. A letter from Stedman to Coates—(also hosted here)—references and wikilinks to the poem (see text "sonnet"). It is my opinion that it would be (and was) quite useful to have a versions page entitled "Edmund Clarence Stedman" to link to from the letter as opposed to redirecting to an anchor at Stedman's author page. Also note "Robert Browning", which in my opinion is also useful. Perhaps make "Edmund Clarence Stedman (Coates)" a versions page? as is Robert Browning (Coates). Londonjackbooks (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Edmund Clarence Stedman should be a versions page listing versions of the poem called "Edmund Clarence Stedman" by Coates. If another different work called "Edmund Clarence Stedman" is added (or if there is a reasonable argument to be made that the letter is entitled "Edmund Clarence Stedman") then Edmund Clarence Stedman should be a disambig page linking to the new work and also to Edmund Clarence Stedman (Coates) which would become the new versions page for Coates' poem.

In either case: Edmund Clarence Stedman can link to Author:Edmund Clarence Stedman, either in the notes or related_author fields, or (if appropriate) in a "See also" section below. The letter of course should link to the poem's version page. By no means should Edmund Clarence Stedman point to an anchor in Author space. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: did you think these were separate works? These are clearly versions of a single work; your comment "community position is that these works are added on the target author's pages rather than separately disambiguated" suggests that you misunderstood the nature of this work, as it is my understanding that community position is precisely the opposite. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Outcomes

This slipped through to archives without an example and a confirmation of what the results of the discussion would be

I have created

• Samuel Butler as a disambiguation page and link from there to
  • "Samuel Butler ..." (main namespace articles)
  • "Butler, Samuel ..." (main namespace articles)
  • "(parent)/Butler, Samuel..." (main namespace articles)
  • "Author:Samuel Butler..." (author namespace pages)

so is that what contributors are expectations?

I have also created a redirect from the existing A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Butler, Samuel though wonder whether we should more delete that as it isn't going to be a needed page, and would be hard to find to edit anyway.

With a question. Would contributors expect or find it useful to see {{similar}} at the tops of all these biographical subpages linking pack to the disambiguation page? — billinghurst sDrewth 05:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I personally think that disambig pages are not appropriate for encyclopedia articles just as they are not appropriate for chapter headings. However I think that this opinion does not necessarily reflect that of the community. If such disambiguation is acceptable, then my only objection is that the articles are not called "Samuel Butler" but are instead called "Butler, Samuel", therefore Butler, Samuel should be the disambig page and Samuel Butler should only exist if works called "Samuel Butler" are added in future. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Category:Christian authors

Move to Category:Christians per other categories in Category:Authors by religion and the fact that they are all authors--it's redundant to say. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:33, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support, why not. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support Sam Wilson 01:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

•  Oppose My understanding is that it is a category for our Author: ns pages only, so we run the risk that we will then start having all the biographies added to it. There is some evidence of that approach in some of the other categories. When one uses the categorisation tools, one does not see the parent categories so the name needs to be fully evident. If that means we fix the other categories, then we can do that. So that is my counter proposal. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

 Support. This would also bring them inline with other author categories such as nationality or time period. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

 Comment I would like to point out that the other religions do not have the word "authors" in them. For example, Category:Buddhists, Category:Hindus, Category:Druids, and so forth. We should be consistent, whatever we decide. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

We definitely need to make a decision and do something in this space. We are either categorising author pages in among the articles or we are not. I went to add A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen/Ballantyne, John to Category:publishers and it is all author pp. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure articles within an encyclopaedia (or dictionary, as it may be) should be categorized. Like we have a Category:Cookbooks but we don't put individual recipes in there. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 02:23, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I am not wishing to tag the individual article as "biographical article" nor "people from Scotland" which is the equivalent I believe that you suggest. This is a point of differentitation for each subpage. We have always allowed categorisation of subparts of works where the subpart differs from the parent. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

 Comment On further thought, I would like to perhaps raise the question -- what even is the purpose of these categories? Because statistically speaking, almost all of our 19th century English/American/Canadian/other European authors is going to be Christian, plus a large number of our encyclopedia articles in (for example) the DNB -- if we go that route. What does it matter the religion of the author? If the author writes religious works, cool -- put their works in a "Christian young adult fiction" category (or similar). But generally speaking religion is irrelevant to our purposes here, just like a categorization based on the fact that a person is blond, nearsighted, divorced, or male would be. --Mukkakukaku (talk) 02:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

If we address the nomenclature issue here that would be great as for many categories whether we differentiate between authors and articles. The issue of whether a category makes sense or not, is kept or not may be better in WS:PD, and presumably part of that is matching with other categories in other wikis. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposing to close, and to specifically rename categories for authors, with the word authors. I will create any categories that require splitting. This will mean that author ns pages in authors pages, and all main ns works in those categories otherwise named. Please object now and propose alternatives. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:22, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I have no objection, the only thing I've been thinking about in relation to this is that we could do what French Wikisource does, and assign the occupation & religion categories based on these authors have at Wikidata. The flow is: the author item has a religion statement, and the target item of that (e.g. 'christian') has a "topic's main category", which is the item that links to our Category:Christian authors. Hence, we can add that category autmatically. Whatdyareckon? I can make some unit tests for it all. Sam Wilson 00:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I was more about fixing the category nomenclature/schema, for this set and there are others where the mix occurs. The means for the population into the future is neither here nor there for me, and the more that we can look to autopopulate through WD I see as an advantage, especially with our works. The biggest challenge is to think through the creation, and probably getting SPARQL output to guide us on category creation. I am the worst to do the curatorial! — billinghurst sDrewth 03:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: yes, good point! Go for it then, I say. I'll bring up the other stuff again later. Sam Wilson 03:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Done though some may wish to play with the hierarchy. To note that some of the subcategories had articles populating, and they have been retained with the authors split out. In doing this, we now been able to better differentiate at WD where they had just been swept up in the larger generic labels. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

A Woman of the Century

user:Zoeannl i belatedly found this work A Woman of the Century after uploading duplicate scan Index:A woman of the century.djvu after Index:Woman of the Century.djvu. the new scan looks cleaner, but thoughts ? delete new scan ? copy over OCR to old ? Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 05:00, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

It would take a lot of effort, but it would be worth looking through every page before making a decision, in order to make sure that the scan is complete and of quality throughout. I have occasionally found "better" scans at IA or Google, only to later discover missing pages, duplicate pages, pages blurred beyond hope of reading, etc. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Cleaning up that work is not going to be that problematic, most of it was bot applied, so we can work out which is preferable, move the requisite pages in whichever direction, and then clean up. — billinghurst sDrewth 09:59, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Addendum. The reason that the pages are bot applied is that often one wishes to work on a specific biography from the complete work, so this makes finding them easier. For some biographical works even adding a search on the index page for the Page: ns is advantageous. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:01, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

ok, i will start in with index (found at separate prospectus) and then start in on new scan. we can bot copy over if decided later. Slowking4 ‽ RAN's revenge 20:47, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Okay, we can leave it with you. Do we prod you in later in Feb. so it is not forgotten? I would hate for work to get done on one of the variations and get lost/confused/wasted. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I missed this. Where are we at? I have no real preference re scans, I just would rather not see proofreading go to waste. I am hoping to use as this book as a beginners project but still working on a Proofreaders guide atm. Zoeannl (talk) 00:04, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Zoeannl - i have started transcribing your scan and inserting images from my scan. about 1/4 the way proofread. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 01:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)