Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2017-09

Announcements

Free BabelPad editor for Windows

BabelStone.co are the folks who gave us BabelMap, the free Unicode character picker, is now offering a simple and free Unicode text editor known as BabelPad. This may or may not be very useful for here, but there are a number of editors from non-English wikis where this could me useful. i.e. Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Bengali, etc. . . . — Ineuw talk 23:23, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think this is particularly new software, but thank you for reminding everyone of it. It is especially useful because the name in Unicode of the character on the cursor is displayed at the bottom of the window, which is not true of any other piece of software with which I am familiar. Mahir256 (talk) 04:10, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Repairs (and moves)

Poems of the Great War and Index:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu

I blundered in to working on one anthology, not noticing that there was already a different anthology under the same title. I'm supposing that the existing one should be renamed to Poems of the Great War (Prince of Wales's National Relief Fund) or perhaps Poems of the Great War (1914). I'm willing to do it, provided there's agreement on how it should be done. So far I only have one poem of the Cunliffe anthology transcluded: The Island of Skyros Mudbringer (talk) 01:18, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

First proposal sounds good to me. I think you should create a disambiguation page Poems of the Great War pointing at the two pages.— Mpaa (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Other discussions

Is Khrushchev's secret speech in the public domain or not?

For reference, here are relevant links pertaining to this discussion.

• The Secret Speech, former location of this work on enWS
• Wikisource:Copyright discussions/Archives/2010-07#The Secret Speech, Deletion proposal on enWS (result = delete)
• ru:О культе личности и его последствиях. Доклад XX съезду КПСС (Н.С. Хрущёв), location of this work on ruWS
• ru:Викитека:К удалению#О культе личности и его последствиях. Доклад XX съезду КПСС (Н.С. Хрущёв), deletion proposal on ruWS (in progress)
• ru:Викитека:Форум#Is Khrushchev's secret speech in the public domain or not?, discussion on ruWS Scriptorium
• w:On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, article on Wikipedia

—Beleg Tâl (talk)

This website says that the translation given in it is in the public domain, but apparenly translations of this speech have been deleted over and over again from Wikisource. So can I add this translation to Wikisource or not? --Itsused (talk) 09:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Works that are copyrighted do not become public domain when they are published in the Congressional Record. Their publication in the Congressional Record is considered fair use, but fair use is not an acceptable rationale for hosting a work on Wikisource. The Record itself may be {{PD-US-no-notice}} as suggested by the website you linked to, but that license tag applies only to American works and not to works written in the U.S.S.R. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

The translation as such is PD-USGov if it was produced by the State dept., but the translation is a derivative work of the original and so would, for our purposes, inherit the copyright status of the original. The original is for copyright purposes considered to be simultaneously first published in all the former Soviet republics (the "source country" in policy terms), and subject to all the successor states' current copyright laws. For Russia, for example, the term here is effectively pma. 70 (so until 2041). And as a signatory to the international copyright treaties, that means it is covered by copyright in the US as well. So, in other words, no, this work is not suitable for hosting on any Wikimedia project. --Xover (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

yet another example to adopt fair use here. english accepts fair use, it is acceptable for hosting there right now. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 03:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Just a comment: the original text can be found on the Russian Wikisource.--Itsused (talk) 07:24, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@Itsused: Well, then it follows that either they know something we don't, or they have a different policy for this, or they simply haven't noticed that there is an issue. Perhaps you could raise the issue there and report back if any new information comes to light? --Xover (talk) 11:46, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I left a message on their Scriptorium (Forum) telling them to come here, let's see what happens.--Itsused (talk) 12:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, anyway, that's the copyright notice at the end of the text (О культе личности и его последствиях. Доклад XX съезду КПСС (Н.С. Хрущёв)): Это произведение не является объектом авторского права. В соответствии со статьёй 1259 Гражданского кодекса Российской Федерации официальные документы государственных органов и органов местного самоуправления муниципальных образований, в том числе законы, другие правовые акты, решения судов, иные материалы законодательного, административного и судебного характера, официальные документы международных организаций, а также их официальные переводы, государственные символы и знаки, а также символы и знаки муниципальных образований не являются объектами авторских прав.--Itsused (talk) 18:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Via Google Translate: "(On the personality cult and its consequences Report to the XX Congress of the CPSU (NS Khrushchev)): This work is not an object of copyright. In accordance with Article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, official documents of state bodies and local self-government bodies of municipalities, including laws, other legal acts, court decisions, other legislative, administrative and judicial materials, official documents of international organizations, as well as their official Translations, state symbols and signs, as well as symbols and signs of municipal entities are not subject to copyright."

Can we really consider a "secret speech" to be an official government document? I am highly skeptical of this. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

were the Pentagon Papers an official government document? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 00:13, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes. The Pentagon Papers were prepared by a government agency. They were declassified and released to the public in 2011. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:27, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

so a secret document can be an official government document. and written speeches are held to be copyright-able. is there any reason to confuse secrecy with authorship? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 08:59, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Following the copyright policy of ruWS is not of much use to us. Different wikisources have different local policies on copyright. For example, the various Indic wikisources follow the policy of PD-India, for the safety of editors. Plenty of works of authors who died in 1956 or before are present there, which are PD-India but not PD-US. Pre-1923 works of authors who died after 1956 get deleted there. Plenty of books are also present in Commons, which are PD-India but not PD-US. Commons used to delete them before, but not now. English Wikisource follows the policy of PD-US, so no use delving into what others do. Fair use also is not applicable here. English Wikipedia uses "extracts" of works or "downsized" images as fair use, Wikisource uses full works. Full works cannot be fair use; these should be explicitly copyright-free, and in our case, non-controversially PD-US. Another thing is that any change of copyright policy in the source country after the URAA date does not affect US copyright except in case of separate bilateral agreement; therefore, such copyright changes in source country are not useful to us for assessing the copyright of the original/foreign works. Policy as it stood on URAA date in the source country is to be considered, not the later and current ones. The current policy of the source country is for the wikisource specific to that country's language, not for us. Hrishikes (talk) 02:34, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: I don't think anyone here has suggested enWS should follow ruWS's policy. What I did suggest, however, is that the community on ruWS—by virtue of being closer to the subject matter, the history, and speaks the relevant language natively—may have been in a better position than us to correctly assess the copyright status of this particular work, and that therefore we may be able to use their assessment to determine what action our policy suggest we take.

I am not sure why you so emphasise the URAA date. The last relevant change (aiui) to the Russian copyright terms was in 1993 when the pma. term was extended from 50 to 70 years, and so this was the applicable term on the URAA date.

In any case, the English translation qua translation is PD-US (PD-USGov), so it all boils down to whether the Russian original is PD or not. I can't see that it is, but the ruWS community may have more information or better understanding. --Xover (talk) 06:19, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

or the culture is more inclusionist. the propensity of defining who we are by what we exclude tends to drive away newcomers. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 08:25, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Khrushchev's speech as document of government body

Arbitrary break because nesting was getting hard to follow...

So… ruWS asserts that this work, hitherto referred to as a "speech", is exempt from copyright in the Soviet Union and (all) its successor states because it is considered to be some form of official document of a government entity. They do this by reference to Article 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the relevant part of which reads:

6. The following are not objects of copyright:

1) official documents of state bodies and bodies of local government of municipal formations, including statutes, other normative acts, judicial decisions, other materials of a legislative, administrative and judicial nature, official documents of international organizations, and also their official translations;

The question then becomes, can the speech in question be considered an "official document of a state body"?

I can think of three immediate arguments in favour of that position:

1. In the above copyright assertion, the document is titled "On the personality cult and its consequences Report to the XX Congress of the CPSU (NS Khrushchev)". That looks very much like the "Title—Subtitle (Authoring Entity)" format of any typical government report; any number of which are first, and most officially, presented in the form of a speech to a parliamentary body, even though a printed version makes a lot more sense. In fact, this becomes even clearer when you consider the title page for the 1956 printed edition: "Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 20th Party Congress" (with "N. S. Khrushchev" as author). In other words, I think the term "speech" may be misleading here; it could entirely plausibly be a report from the Central Committee (in modern US terms, think "White House"), by Khrushchev in his formal role, to the 20th Congress of the CPSU (modern US, the Congress). In other words, it's no more unusual in that sense than a State of the Union speech in the US, or a Queen's Speech in the UK.
2. In a lot of jurisdictions (including, aiui, the US and UK; and presumably Russia), even a more typical (scripted/written; not necessarily off-the-cuff remarks) "speech" by a government official, like a minister, is considered an official document of the relevant department or ministry, and so subject to the same copyright terms or exceptions as printed documents.
3. Even off-the-cuff remarks etc. in a parliamentary body, by members of that body (i.e. Representatives and Senators in the US Congress), are, when included in the record of that assembly, covered by the same copyright terms or exemptions as the overall record. Unless the words had a prior copyright (i.e. a Senator reading a copyrighted work aloud in the Senate), and the record includes them merely as "fair use", the speech of the members in the assembly becomes part of the record and covered by the same copyright. Since Khrushchev was First Secretary (General Secretary) at the time, he was definitely a member of the party and its Congress, and there is no doubt that this particular speech was made in his role as the effective leader of the Soviet Union (if he wasn't, he would most likely have disappeared mid-sente…).

Based on this reasoning, I actually find myself somewhat persuaded that this speech is in fact in the public domain, through a copyright exemption, in the Soviet Union and its successor states; and that its English translation is therefore in the public domain, as a PD-USGov translation of a public domain Russian original, in the US.

Thoughts? What'd I miss, misunderstand, fail to take into account? Does this reasoning hold up? --Xover (talk) 07:19, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

I'll just point out that this document has a Wikipedia page with the history of the document, which may be useful to determine its official status. It looks to me like you may be right. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Apparently things are a bit more complicated than this. See the discussion at the Russian Scriptorium.--Itsused (talk) 06:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

┌──────┘
Ok, having trawled through the thread on ruWS and one of the previous deletion discussions linked from there, the summary seems to be thus: Khrushchev made the speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the governing congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and he did so in his role as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (in fact, he held no other relevant offices at the time of the speech). These are not, in fact, entities of the Soviet state, but are all part of the political party. The fact that the Soviet Union was formally a one-party state, that government in practice was controlled by the party, and that the General Secretary of the party was the de facto Leader of the Soviet Union, are all immaterial as far as the copyright laws are concerned. The formal Government of the Soviet Union, whose products the copyright exceptions mentioned above apply to, was the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, led by the Chairman (Premier), and the "Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet". Even the version eventually published in the Soviet Union in 1989 was actually published by the Communist Party, and not the Soviet state.

In other words, the speech does not fall under any of the "official documents of government"-type exceptions. The matter then becomes one of Khrushchev's copyrights, which, through various steps, ends up not expiring until the end of 2041 (pma. 70). enwp can use it under fair use, but neither Commons nor enWS can, as it's not actually public domain. And ruWS has nominated it for deletion as a result of our raising the question. --Xover (talk) 10:49, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

next thing you will say: he was not head of state, because he did not hold "relevant offices". triumph of "de jure" over "de facto". Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 08:53, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of who had the original copyright to Khrushchev's secret speech, it expired fifty years after 1956, and so are the translations. Also, the US in not the first translator of the document. — Ineuw talk 04:31, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@Ineuw: As we established above, the copyright to the speech vested in Khrushchev personally. The term of protection is then also relative to the date of the death of the author (pma) and not the date of publication (date of publication comes into play only for anonymous works). And while Russia did previously have a pma. 50 copyright term, this was amended in 2004 to be pma. 70. In other words, the relevant reference is 1971 when Khrushchev died, and not 1956 when the speech was made. And the term of protection therefore lasts until the end of 2041. --Xover (talk) 07:51, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@Xover: If the amendment was of 2004, it does not have U.S. cognizance, so not relevant for this site. Except in case of bilateral agreement, if any. Therefore it would be date of publication + 95 years, i.e., 2051. Hrishikes (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: Russia is a signatory to the Berne agreement and a WTO member, and so their copyright terms are valid in the US. And even a pma. 50 term would not expire until the end of 2021. --Xover (talk) 08:17, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@Hrishikes: Xover's information is correct. If it is considered to be Khrushchev's personal property, then perhaps we should ask Khrushchev's son what is the status of the document. P.S: Who will compose and send the email? :-) — Ineuw talk 09:07, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

That's not how the Berne Convention works. Each nation sets its own copyright terms and honors the copyright of other signers within those terms. Those terms have to be at least life+50, but while the copyright length in the US is publication based, the w:Marrakesh Agreement apparently means there's a multinational agreement that the US copyright law, as of the w:Uruguay Round Agreements Act satisfies that requirement. "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States" from Cornell University gives a fairly detailed description of the durations of US copyright law.

In this case, presuming that the copyright wasn't owned by a government (a complexity not covered by Cornell's chart), and it is considered published in 1956 (that would be a pretty broad limited publication), then 2051 is right. If it is considered published in 1989 (the first time it was openly published in the Soviet Union), then it will be under copyright in the US until 2048 (70 years from 1978, as a grandfathered protection for unpublished works).

It's certainly one of the points where the law and the practice don't come particularly close. Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev, who, as the surviving heir, is probably the copyright owner, doesn't seem to act as the owner. The Soviet Union didn't have international copyright relations until 1973, and the laws in the US left most foreign works in the public domain, including this one, so the rules have changed a lot.

Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev is at Brown University, so someone might be able to get a OTRS clearance on the speech.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

"a complexity not covered by Cornell's chart" i.e. you are manufacturing complexities not covered by the gold standard of practice of libraries. do we have any evidence that the Khrushchev heirs have claimed copyright? yes, let’s email everyone to confirm their non-action. what if they use a PD mark, or general statement, which commons won’t accept? it is a Gordian knot of your own making, devoid of any risk assessment. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 11:35, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

The gold standard is the law itself, and then the Copyright Office; third parties can at best offer a silver standard. In any case, the complexity not covered is that the URAA does not restore certain government-owned copyrights, so ignoring it just makes it more likely this is under copyright.

Do you see any evidence the heirs of Lord Dunsany have claimed copyright over War Poems? At least in my world, very well known works that have a known heir with a good case for copyright have a decent risk associated with them; perhaps less than the works of Harlan Ellison™, but more than a lot of works I know were copyright-renewed.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:10, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

a law is not a standard. the copyright office can be captured. i have been to the copyright office as they "consulted" with the author’s guild as they vented on hathi trust. it did not inspire confidence. we can look to the standard of practice of the best third parties as to what our standard of practice should be. being more sophistical about edge cases, is not a higher standard. we have guidance from legal about URAA, would you care to follow it? "ignoring it just makes it more likely this is under copyright." - no, our assessment of the risk does not increase the risk. "decent risk" - clearly we have different views as to what the risk is. if they have not enforced the copyright at russian wikisource, does it exist? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 06:58, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Why are you grumbling like that? Every site needs some rules, otherwise the site cannot run. Strictly speaking, PD-source country is the required item. If it is PD-source country but not PD-URAA, then, yes, it can be uploaded, WMF will turn a blind eye till someone complains; and usually, there will be no complaint. But every Wikisource has locally made some policy. Usually each WS follows the copyright term of the country to which the language primarily belongs. Indic WSes follow PD-India, ruWS likely follows PD-Russia, we at enWS follow PD-US (including PD-URAA). Obviously, following PD-Russia or PD-India and other such foreign rules will lead to lot of confusion, a site cannot run this way. Moreover, the item under discussion is not yet PD-Russia, that's why it has been nominated for deletion (as noted above) at ruWS. So wherefrom comes the question of its inclusion here? Our copyright policy, as it currently stands, is quite sound, IMO. We require PD-US on its own, or PD-US by URAA, or copyright-release by CC, OTRS etc., or Edict-Gov of any country. Except Edict-Gov, it is totally US-centric. Concentrating on one country's rule won't lead to much confusion. Yes, our servers are US-based, even then, allowing PD of other countries won't legally lead to much problem, as Commons is already allowing it. But the point is, this will lead to much confusion and disarray. We cannot just opt for PD by copyright rules of any country. No WS allows this kind of broad-spectrum thing. So, irrespective of WMF's legal advice about URAA, as you noted, our policy of following the URAA should be continued, if we want to run this site in a cohesive way.Hrishikes (talk) 07:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

because russian wikisource has an interpretation of russian law, and everyone here knows better. do not tell me copyright office is better than cornell. they are not. they are political hacks. cornell are librarians. there is a reverence for legal scripture that sounds like the MPAA. risk assessment is not turning a blind eye, rather it is an acknowledgement that the law is not black and white or right and wrong. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 07:56, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

@Slowking4: Then what is your point? Copyright Office and Cornell librarians are useless, so let's just disregard them and allow all books here on fair use doctrine and let the copyright go hang? If you have some new policy in mind, please put up a separate and detailed proposal for discussion of the community. That would be a constructive contribution. Hrishikes (talk) 14:48, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

so what is your point? - that you are still right and everyone else is still wrong? i have dealt with the WMF legal team, they are reasonable, and the amateur lawyers on commons are not. actual legal practice is much more that the sum of all the documents. i offered up a policy; you lot are too attached to your "live free or die". see also Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2016-10#Exemption_Doctrine_Policy_.28EDP.29 and historically Wikisource:News/2006-03-08/Debate over fair use on Wikisource. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 21:37, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Which everyone else? I am not seeing anyone else supporting your points. You are proposing fair use and disregarding of URAA (claiming support of WMF Legal), as I understand. If you can provide supporting evidence and rationality, I have no problem with that, that's why I requested you to put up a separate and detailed proposal. To prove your point, you will need to

• • demonstrate that works reproduced in entirety passes test-3 of the four-balance test given in the Fair Use Rule, in accordance with Finding-3 of the US Supreme Court in Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises.
  • demonstrate that WMF Legal has supported disregarding of URAA in a legally valid way. As stated by WMF Legal, they did go for a legal fight against URAA in w:Golan v. Holder, but lost in court. So their stand does not have legal validity. So they have advised for a case-by-case analysis of every work for URAA assessment, citing complexity of the law, and also advised to wait till a take-down notice is received, for deletion of the work.(1, 2) This is suitable for Commons, not Wikisource. In Commons, your labour consists of uploading the work. If it is deleted, that labour is lost. In Wikisource, a work is proofread, validated, transcluded, sometimes selected for Featured Text. All that labour by multiple editors is lost when the work is deleted.
  • So if you take the fair use stand against URAA, you need to demonstrate that the "lost-in-court" stand of WMF for waiting for take-down notice is suitable for Wikisource.
  • In addition to point 1 above, the Fair Use rule also stipulates use of the reproduced work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, validity of which needs to be demonstrated in case of Wikisource.
  • As for EDP, it has a very narrow spectrum within the fair use rubric, and not applicable to whole works. Within its narrow spectrum, however, I consider it supportable in this site, however, site-specific policy needs to be developed, preferably with some input from a lawyer.
  • Without point-by-point logical argument with supporting evidence and rationale, only inserting some random comments about fair use, corruption of copyright office etc., in any copyright-related discussion, as you have been recently doing, is not sufficient for convincing the community. And claiming support of "everyone else" also requires evidence. Hrishikes (talk) 01:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I see Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2016-10#Exemption_Doctrine_Policy_.28EDP.29, and feel it's a little limited; my need for fair use would be for NTSB reports, which needs more than images. But it in no way covers this case. I gave you a risk assessment; "very well known works that have a known heir with a good case for copyright have a decent risk associated with them". I have deep problems with risk assessment; most people can't defend even modern work from copyright infringement whereas the Doyle and Christie estates can harass legit users of PD work. Frankly, risk assessment feels wrong; if it's okay to copy stories from the pulps of the 1970s, then we shouldn't worry if they have the name Harlan Ellison™ attached to them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

you raise a good point that the MLK heirs are different from the Khrushchev heirs. do we have any evidence of these heirs claiming copyright? any Russian government officials? any European officials? are we not projecting american legal practice upon foreign legal systems? as we know the law is more than the sum of the texts.

you raise a good point about copyfraud. does not PRP give a license to pre-emptively enforce a fraud? or modify a CC license by writing a stern letter? have not items been deleted with only a stern letter, and not a DMCA? do we agree there are some risks we would undertake, if we had a consensus the item was PD? have not Swedish and German uploaders taken those risks?

"demonstrate that WMF Legal has supported disregarding of URAA in a legally valid way." now you are questioning the legal judgement of WMF? really? where did you go to law school?

"All that labour by multiple editors is lost when the work is deleted." some of us have more labor to be deleted than others.

"demonstrate that works reproduced in entirety passes test-3 of the four-balance test" to who? you? i do not have much confidence in a consensus, given PRP argumentation. there was little interest in a tighter standard. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 13:28, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

In the US, does the heirs of Khrushchev have a copyright on the Secret Speech? The answer is apparently yes, and you have made no real attempt to argue otherwise. Are there current exceptions to the rule that we don't post anything that's not in the public domain that we don't have a free license to? No. If you want to argue for an exception, this is not the topic for it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:29, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

on the contrary, i have given up reasoning, that it is PD russia, which wikisource russia agrees with. even if i agreed that we should "consider the heirs" (which i do not), those heirs apparently agree it is PD, since they do not enforce their "rights". this is not a private letter, but a public speech with historical implication, regardless of the security. no exception here, merely your tl;dr sophistry. you do not address points about evidence, rather you shift ground and shift burden of proof. "risk assessment feels wrong" - no deleting items that very well could be kept, and diminish the texts available, is wrong. it is not a way to collaborate: it is not dictation. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 23:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@Slowking4: As you do not believe in consensus and continue repeating the same points without going through the discussion properly, it seems futile to discuss with you. Anyway, you have raised some allegations against me and repeated some wrong assertions.

• I have not questioned any "legal judgement of WMF". I could not have, simply because I am not aware that WMF is a court and that they have passed any "legal judgement". I have cited the "legal judgement" of the U.S. Supreme Court. If you read carefully, hopefully you will be able to discover it.
• I have never asked you to demonstrate anything to me. Please refrain from this kind of allegation. I have repeatedly requested you to give a detailed proposal, containing your points, to the community. The matter of demonstrating pertains to that proposal.
• The item under discussion is not PD-Russia; nobody has claimed so. It is hosted in ruWS under RusGov, i.e., EdictGov-Russia. This has been challenged in ruWS deletion nomination (1).

Hrishikes (talk) 01:25, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

do not put words in my mouth - i have never said i do not believe in consensus. rather i do not believe in toxic non-leadership. what would you know of consensus? how should i report this incident at wikimania: "out of an abundance of caution Khrushchev's speech was repeatedly deleted, on english, out of concern that his heirs would sue us" - does that summarize your views? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 01:35, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Your exact wordings were "i do not have much confidence in a consensus ...". Anyway, this item (original version) is not PD-Russia, or EdictGov-Russia or PD-URAA. It is not PD of any kind. Neither is it CC or OTRS. So the author's son appears to not claiming the copyright. So what copyright tag, according to you, should apply to it? {{Copyright-unclaimed}}? Hrishikes (talk) 02:16, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

thanks for the quote - it is a paradox: i have very little confidence in copyright discussion here or the sub-optimal "consensus" they produce. and yet i abide by them. just look at this discussion; it does not inspire much confidence in copyright determinations. widespread use of tautology and parsing of foreign texts, not evidence or context. "winning is the only thing": we have a generation of admins who would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. continue with this behavior and it will be wikinews everywhere. how about {{PD-Arse}} Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 12:39, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

You claimed that it is "PD russia". How is that not either parsing of foreign texts or pulling something out of your ass? US law is basically "works first published between 1923 and 2002 inclusive are in copyright for 95 years from first publication." Once you cross that line, you're dealing with a work presumed copyright and need to actively justify that it's not.

Dealing only with works that were published at least 95 years ago would leave a huge body of valuable works open for us. There are other sites that don't care about copyright nearly as much as us, or at all. PD-Arse is a tag appropriate for the Pirate Bay, not us. That is one of things that makes Wikimedia wikis different.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:50, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

no - wikimedia is renowned for the lack of adult supervision. library professionals are appalled by the "cultural buzzsaw", and they are building their own transcription websites, where the volunteers are run-off wikimedians. the fact that historical documents are stuck on internet archive, and academic blogs and google docs is no loss to you. it’s all good, because you are large and in charge. i can link off wiki as easy as wikisource. i wonder what the wikimania audience will say as i raise this issue? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 20:27, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Nothing screams adulthood like ignoring standard English orthography and explaining that copyright problems go away with {{PD-Arse}}. I think you'll actually find that libraries prefer proper English and careful copyright checks.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:12, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

nothing whispers adulthood like having to have the last word. guy kawasaki is a smart man, and it is funny his parting shot is "You feel surrounded by incompetent idiots – and you can’t help letting them know the truth every now and then". i wonder what prompted that? i’m just reporting what actual librarians say about this place, and it is not "my, aren’t they so diligent about their copyright checks"; but then why don’t you ask a librarian, if you can find one? i guess i will say at wikimania: "copyright hysteria = lost opportunities" how’s that sound to you? Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 01:10, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I support m:Legal/Wikimedia Server Location and Free Knowledge not to actively delete works that are still copyright-restricted in the USA even if now in the public domain in source countries, usually due to URAA and American non-acceptance of the rule of the shorter term, but we have remind users that deleting them is possible to discourage posting. I have sometimes consider moving these works to Canadian Wikilivres problematic if too many pages at a time or if missing some templates, meaning that I prefer to move those with simpler layouts.--Jusjih (talk) 03:02, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't believe we should be making up our own copyright rules. US law is US law. If we were to talk about using Canadian law, that's not backed by our servers or nation of our non-profit, but it would be a set of actual laws. If we do make up our copyright rules, why be entangled by the complexities of every nation? Life+50, or 50 years for works that are anonymous. If we are to take the law as is convenient for us, why not actually make convenient for us?--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation would like to reduce our burdens while able to allow some leeway. I would prefer soft enforcement per m:United_States_non-acceptance_of_the_rule_of_the_shorter_term#Statement_from_Wikimedia_Foundation as I agree your opinion that no active enforcement is too lax.--Jusjih (talk) 02:17, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Update: It hasn’t been deleted yet from ruWS

--Itsused (talk) 00:14, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Did the Swiss constitution provide the model for the solution by the League of Nations to the Aaland Islands Dispute?

The Aaland Islands is a group of some 6000 islands situated between Finland and Sweeden approximately at the hieght of Stockholm. The Aaland Islands Dispute was the first of the issues not directly arising out of the WWI that was settled under the auspices of the League of Nations. Finland and the Aaland Islands were part of Russia from 1809 to 1917. Piror to that they were part of Sweden. At about the time when Finland i December 1917 declared itself independent the Aalanders expressed their wish to rejoin Sweden, basing that wish on their Swedish language and culture. Sweden strongly supported the Aalanders wish and Finland opposed it. The dispute eventually ended up with the newly formed League of Nations. A group of three rapporteurs was appointed and visited Stockholm, Helsinki and Mariehamn on the islands. One of the rapporteurs was former Swiss federal president Felix Calonder.

Finland had offered an autonomy to the Aalanders but that was rejected by the islanders. As a substitute to secession the rapporteurs in their report proposed that to the autonomy offered by Finland should be added certain guarantees such as: There should be restirictions in the rights of inhabitants of Main Land Finland to purchase land in the Aaland islands; franchise (in local elections) should be granted to newcomers after a stay of five years; Swedish should be the official language and the only language taught at school. The rapporteurs also sugested an extension to the demilitarisation which the island had as a result of the peace agreement in Paris after the Crimean War in 1856. Now, they suggested, the islands should also be neutralized during war time. The proposals by the rapporteurs were adopted as such by the League of Nations i Geneve in june 1921 and has remained more or less unchanged until today.

I would like to compare the gurantees proposed by the rapporteurs to the laws govering Swiss minorities/cantons in 1920. Is there a resemblance? Did these ideas come from the Swiss representative Felix Calonder?

J.R. Orjans Skarvgränd 4, AX-22100 Mariehamn, Åland

Useful Wikidata tools

I've just discovered the Authority Control script for Wikidata, which semi-automatically searches VIAF for an item and adds a whole pile of authority control links. Look how well populated the authority control template for Author:Aemilius Probus is—it literally took me two clicks to add all of them. What useful tools have other editors found for editing WS-related data in Wikidata? —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:46, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

'Mark Proofread' gadget no longer beta

The MediaWiki:Gadget-mark-proofread.js Gadget has been in operation since 8 May 2012. I'd like to move it out of the "Development (in beta)" section of the Gadgets' list. Perhaps we could rename the "Editing tools for Page: namespace" to "Proofreading tools" and add it there? Or are there existing problems with it? Sam Wilson 02:17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

@Samwilson: It is broken, and hasn't kept up with modern query methods. I had to stop using it as it was causing some issues (forget what) and never got around to seeing if it was fixed elsewhere. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Why is Wikisource showing the wrong picture???

I find one of the pictures used in Wikisource (File:Euclid's Elements 1714 Barrow translation.djvu-19.png) has some excess information so I edited the file. But, I have edited it 4 times, and it just shows the original one, not my edited one. Why is that the case??? Albert Micah Hang (talk) 22:59, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

please, stop editing it, and clear you cache. you have a drop down menu next to history with purge / hard purge / null edit.

please follow the directions = "Upload the edited image - In nearly all cases, fully restored images should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, not the English Wikisource." this is clearly public domain and should go to commons. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 23:18, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Editor Looks Strange

Does the wiki editor look strange to anyone else? The font and typeface is very difficult to read and nothing changed on my computer, it must be something with the server. Is there anyway to go to the editor typeface that was here just yesterday? -- Jasonanaggie (talk) 02:01, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

@Jasonanaggie: This was mentioned in the Tech News just above. I quote: "The default font in the edit window will change for some users this week. Instead of using the browser default, it will be monospace. Users can change this in their preferences. This should only change this for some users on Macs and iOS devices." The section of Preferences to go to is "Editing" where you'll find a dropdown menu of font options. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, it was just quite a jarring change that seemingly came out of nowhere. Best! -- Jasonanaggie (talk) 07:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Is Wikisource beyond accepting copy and paste of Gutenberg works?

A contributor has added Lord of the World as a copy and paste from Gutenberg as one slab of text. I think that as a community that we are beyond just receiving such texts in that form. I would prefer that we link to such a gutenberg work from an author page than have a work added in such a crude fashion. I feel that the community is now mature enough to look to how we now manage such works added at this time. I feel that we should politely delete them and have an explanatory page about why, and what we prefer to see. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:10, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

If someone wanted to work from a scan - https://archive.org/details/lordoftheworld00bensrich ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:14, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

• @Billinghurst: If the problem is that it's all one page, that is easily solved. If the problem is that there isn't an associated scan, that's another issue. Which problem do you have in mind? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:19, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree that copy/paste works such as those hosted at Gutenberg should be a thing of the past here at WS when a scan is readily available—with some exceptions such as poetry, single articles or short stories that appeared in periodicals which may never get hosted here as a whole work. But even those should be clearly sourced. I even hesitate to link to Gutenberg from the author page. Londonjackbooks (talk) 15:38, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we link to another free ebook provider from the author page?--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree that poetry and articles from periodicals are an important point, especially considering PD articles within an otherwise copyrighted publication. I wouldn't necessarily delete a PG work though; if a scan is available then I'd tag it with {{Migrate to djvu}}, and if a scan is not available then the PG version may well be the best version we can get. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

yeah, it is a little 2009. just suggest migrating to side by side. not deletable though, merely suboptimal if the text layer is good. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 17:31, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I also think we shouldn't have non-scan-backed works. Especially with GP copy-and-paste jobs, I think these are really annoying because often they're not based on just one edition and so even if we wanted to convert the text to be scan-backed it could actually be more work than normal, because it's really hard to see where things are different. So yeah, delete this one (but with an encouraging message to the uploader of course!) Sam Wilson 00:37, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Virtually every work since PG's #10000 is based on one edition, and probably the vast majority of those before. It's possible but unlikely that this is not based on one edition.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Status Enquiry - PatternDraftingAndGrading (Rohr - 1961)

https://archive.org/details/PatternDraftingAndGradingByMichaelRohr1961 claimed as PD on Archive.org dated 1961 and I can't find it on Stanford's renewal database. Does anyone have access to more detailed records to check if this is in fact out of copyright? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

My edits on "Craftsmanship"

Some of my edits on Craftsmanship were revdeled for copyvio; as subsequent edits make clear that was a false accusation. However, the fact that the diff and oldpage links are still greyed-out creates the impression that I was guilty of such an act. Please will someone restore the edits? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata RFC: Allow the creation of links to redirects in Wikidata

d:Wikidata:Requests for comment/Allow the creation of links to redirects in Wikidata

I think this is a fantastic idea. I see this as an elegant solution to the problem of works vs. editions. If English Wikisource has only one edition of a work, it is common practice to create a redirect from the work page to the edition page, e.g. from s:Ave verum corpus to s:Catholic Hymns (1860)/Hail to Thee, true Body. Per established consensus, the Wikidata item Ave verum corpus should be linked to the work page at s:Ave verum corpus, and NOT to the edition page at s:Catholic Hymns (1860)/Hail to Thee, true Body. Allowing Wikidata to link to a redirect will resolve this issue nicely. Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

And I think that it is a daft idea. We don't have a works page unless it is a versions page. We simply do not have a consistent approach to redirects being works pages and it is a nightmare to manage. What are you solving? How does it make anything better? What can be done with the result? — billinghurst sDrewth 13:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

It makes things better because it allows Wikidata to interwiki to Wikisource when no versions page exists yet. Then users of Wikidata and other resources that pull from it will have this information that a Wikisource page exists that can link to the item. In future when a versions page is created the Wikidata iwlink will be already present. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Global preferences – do you want local overrides?

Hey everyone, m:Community Tech are working on global preferences, to make it possible to set preferences for all Wikimedia wikis instead of for each one individually (which you’ll still be able to do – global preferences will be optional). You can read more at m:Community Tech/Global preferences.

The developers are now investigating how important it is to override global preferences locally, which would mean you set a preference for almost all wikis but still have different settings on one or a few wikis. Maybe because you’re more active on one wiki, maybe because you edit in different ways there. If you want to be able to set exceptions to global preferences it is important that you tell the developers this now. Tell them what, how you’d use it and why it is important on this talk page.

This is only necessary if you want global preferences and exceptions to them. If you only edit one wiki, or are happy having the same preferences everywhere, you can ignore this.

The reason they’re asking is it’s technically complicated to build. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-35

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

Recent changes

• Syntax highlighting is now a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It will come to right-to-left wikis later. This beta feature is based on CodeMirror. [1][2]
• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can turn this off or choose to get an email notification in your preferences. You can also turn on to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address. [3]

Problems

• Some pages show the error Lua error in mw.wikibase.entity.lua at line 34: The entity data must be a table obtained via mw.wikibase.getEntityObject. This problem happens on pages with a Lua module that use Wikidata. This has now been fixed and no new pages will get this problem. You still need to fix pages that were broken before and still show the error message. You can see how on this page. [4]

Changes later this week

• You can block users from sending you notifications. [5]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 August. It will be on all wikis from 31 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Technical Committee. The topic this week is Migrate to HTML5 section ids. The meeting will be on 30 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• In the future you will have global preferences. This means you could set something in your preferences to work in the same way on all wikis. You will not be forced to use global preferences. The developers are now asking if editors need exceptions. This is where you want to use global settings on almost all wikis, but have some wikis where you want it to work in a different way. If you want this you need to tell the developers now. You can do so on the talk page. [6]
• New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September. [7]
• The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 in September 2017. Wikis can ask on Phabricator to get it early, so they can help find and solve problems now.

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

22:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Notes

• I am finding that the syntax highlighting setting blocks the addition of the {{author}} template to Author: ns pages. We will need to see whether it has the same impacts in the other namespaces. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:13, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
  • @Billinghurst: The preload gadget seems to work fine for me, with syntax highlighting turned on. Are you getting any JS console errors? Sam Wilson 02:25, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

    it was another issue of slow or very slow rendering, now seems resolved. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:23, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

    Hmm, yeah, we really need to sort out these weird resource loading things! :-( Sam Wilson 04:26, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Standard eBooks

Hi, I learned about https://standardebooks.org/ recently. I was wondering whether any kind of connection or collaboration has been sought between that project (which as far as I can see focuses on English books in the public domain) and Wikisource. For what is worth, the info pages of their books point to us, being "us" the related article in English Wikipedia. I don't have specific ideas and I do realize deep collaboration would not be simple (as they use HTML and GitHub for publishing, vs Wikitext and MediaWiki in our case). Still, I thought it was worth asking here. --QuimGil (talk) 05:51, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

@QuimGil: I've done a little bit of volunteering there, and they list us (along with Project Gutenberg) as good sources of texts to work with. I think they have a really interesting approach: basically they're saying that the only way to get really great epubs is to build them more or less manually. They're also doing things like standardising punctuation and (to a lesser extent) spelling, and adding blurbs and nice cover art. On the other hand, they have no support at all for side-by-side proofreading, let alone any capability of linking back to individual scan pages for any part of a work. This makes sense, because they are effectively creating new editions, and sometimes will even merge previous editions I think (e.g. US vs UK published versions). So yeah, they do some things better than us I think, but we do some things better than they do! :) Sam Wilson 06:50, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Proposed change to Template:New texts/item

I would like to propose this change to the {{New texts/item}} template. It will stop the author line wrapping back to the left margin when the front page is viewed on a small screen. There's a demo of sorts on Template:New texts/item/testcases. Sam Wilson 04:47, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

•  Support seems a sensible way of managing the problem. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:38, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
•  Support —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:42, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
•  Support --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:15, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Done Looks a bit better in MinervaNeue now. Sam Wilson 01:16, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Featured candidates feedback

We currently have three Featured text candidates that have received no comments at all. We're nearing the end of the year, so I encourage all community members who can to comment.

It's also time to gather more nominations for next year. We have a selection ready for January, and will be working on a February selection (as the PotM for September), but we're still very short of noms for the coming year. A good five or six selections of varied style, origin, content, and period would be welcome now so that there is ample time for comment and to make any needed corrections or improvements before being featured. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikisource at Metrics meeting

User:Londonjackbooks gave a good briefing at the WMF monthly metrics meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ7voHFIhRQ (about 35 minutes in) Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 00:38, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah! Great work! (vid starts at 34:33). Everyone should watch this. :-) —Sam Wilson 01:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-36

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

• We are asking Tech News readers five questions to make the newsletter better. You can answer the questions here. We are grateful for every reply we get.

Recent changes

• The RevisionSlider user interface has changed. You can now select revisions by clicking on the bars. You can move the blue knob past the yellow one and the yellow one will move along, and the other way around. [8][9]

Problems

• Some users have problems loading very large watchlists. It is working better than earlier but the problem has not been solved. The developers are working on fixing it. Until it has been fixed you can turn on "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" in your preferences and see if it helps. [10]

Changes later this week

• New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September. [11]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 September. It will be on all wikis from 7 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 5 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can see a presentation about and discuss the new Technical Committee on 5 September at 17:30 (UTC). There will be a presentation on YouTube and a discussion in #wikimedia-office on Freenode. You can use the web chat. [12]

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

22:14, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Page status radio buttons missing

Tracked in PhabricatorTask T175304

@Tpt, @Samwilson: and others. When I go to a page that I could edit yesterday and have the page status radio markers, today I have no markers, eg. Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/26 — monobook and vector alike. Do others see the same that page status components are missing? (Unfortunately no time to investigate more widely at this time.) — billinghurst sDrewth 23:30, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Yup. See Scriptorium Help. Londonjackbooks (talk) 23:38, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

yes, great, across all skins. french report VE working, i it does not work for me on english. will stop progress on potm. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 01:03, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

buttons are back, phab tickets seems closed. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 13:35, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

"Not the forum..."

Perhaps this is "not the forum", but I was thinking Wikimedia needs a Wikiconvo or Wikilogue sister. Information is good, but static. Our society needs a dynamic open access conversation about information. Has anyone else read/edited a WP article or proofread a WS work and wished to bounce related ideas/questions off another interested party? What if one could link to such a conversation by clicking on a "Converse" button from a WP article, WS work, etc.? Granted, admins/moderators, etc. would be needed to keep things from getting off-topic... It might be a bit crazy to start, but would it not be a great way to engage in dialogue as opposed to merely amassing information? I am sure I am not considering many factors, and may be naive in thinking this could even be a civil process given the climate of things... Just thinking out loud, even though this is "not the forum..." But if not here, then where? Londonjackbooks (talk) 19:22, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

See meta:Proposals for new projects.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:37, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Daunting. Londonjackbooks (talk) 22:46, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

or you could set up a wikiproject at meta, and use buttons across wikis to open a talk page there. start a new m:Grants:IdeaLab, maybe a hacker would be interested, and you might get a grant. we need all the fresh ideas for comms, since they are dying, and people have gone off wiki in general. Slowking4 ‽ SvG's revenge 00:33, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I proposed Wikinexus after much stewing. Still to be further developed (it is late), but we'll see how it flies. Criticism/suggestions welcomed at my Talk page or at the proposed project page. Londonjackbooks (talk) 03:52, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Validation button missing on Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/146

Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/146 Maybe it's just my browser quirk today. But this linked page, and only this one, seems to be missing the green validation button in the edit window. Maile66 (talk) 00:17, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Done -- Hrishikes (talk) 00:33, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Maile66 (talk)

@Maile66: You were recorded as the proofreader, so you don't get the validate option. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:41, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Didn't think to look in the page's history. Thanks for checking. Maile66 (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft strategy direction. Version #2

• 
• 

In 2017, we initiated a broad discussion to form a strategic direction that will unite and inspire Wikimedians. This direction will be the foundation on which we will build clear plans and set priorities. More than 80 communities and groups discussed and gave feedback^{[strategy 1][strategy 2][strategy 3]}. We researched readers and consulted more than 150 experts^{[strategy 4]}. We looked at future trends that will affect our mission, and gathered feedback from partners and donors.

A group of community volunteers and representatives from the strategy team synthesized this feedback into an early version of the strategic direction that the broader movement can review and discuss.

The second version of the direction is ready. Again, please read, share, and discuss on the talk page on Meta. Based on your feedback, the drafting group will refine and finalize the direction.

1. Cycle 1 synthesis report
2. Cycle 2 synthesis report
3. Cycle 3 synthesis report
4. New Voices synthesis report

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:14, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-37

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 get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. You can choose to get these notifications in your preferences. Some wikis already had this option. It is now available on all wikis. [13]
• The Newsletter extension is now on mediawiki.org. The newsletter extension is for newsletters where you can subscribe by getting a notification when a new issue has been published. It will come to more wikis later. [14]
• The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. There is now a new high-priority category: tidy-whitespace-bug. This usually affects templates with horizontal lists. You can read more about using Linter and the Tidy whitespace bug. [15]

Problems

• Tech News 2017/36 reported about new filters for edit review coming to watchlists. This was planned to happen last week. It will happen next week instead. [16]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 September. It will be on all wikis from 14 September (calendar).
• OOjs UI will be updated. This could affect some icons. You can read more about the changes.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You can't use OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can use Electron instead. Most PDFs are already created with Electron. Electron will get missing features before 1 October. You can create books but they will not have all planned features until November or December. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
• New filters for edit review are available now on recent changes as a beta feature. Some of those filters and other features will be deployed as default features in the coming weeks. Users will be able to opt out in their preferences. [17]

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

19:15, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Byte change indicator

When reviewing one's watchlist/RC, etc., we know that the indication of (0) byte changes is no guarantee that character changes have not been made (full stop to comma, etc.). Is there a way, or could there be a way, for indication to be made of text/formatting changes without resorting to viewing the edit history of every page? Londonjackbooks (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how to find out that information without actually clicking. What I do when I want to check on a lot of pages, is control-click on the "diff" link for ten or so items on the list to open them all up in tabs, then go to the first of those tabs, and then when I close that tab with control-w it brings up the next tab. So at least with Firefox on Windows it's possible to get quickly through a lot of pages. Mudbringer (talk) 02:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Personally I use the popup gadget, as it allows you to hover over a diff to review the edit. Even hover over the pop'd link, then hover over the differences in subsequent lists (if that makes sense). It is imperfect, however it works for me as it pulls it by the api, rather than having to physically open each page. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:42, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all. I updated my preferences. Londonjackbooks (talk) 09:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Indexing journal

https://www.theindexer.org/ All issues older than three years are available freely. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:48, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence they're free content, just free as in beer.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:07, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

See https://www.theindexer.org/pub/copyright.htm - Not "free" (Creative Commons sense).ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:59, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Correct, they are not. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:39, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Apache License

Is the Apache License (specifically the latest version 2.0, but also older versions) and any work licensed under it, compatible with Wikisource? The Apache License is mainly used for software code which would be out of our scope here but the License text itself is licensed under version 2.0 of the Apache License. So would it be okay for the Apache License to be included (the license and any in-scope work licensed under it)? Has anyone had a look at other popular licenses such MIT License, Eclipse Public License? Ciridae (talk) 17:35, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

They're allowed on Commons (commons:Commons:Copyright tags#Other free tags). For that reason alone I'd say it's probably fine here unless it is obviously in violation of the WS:Copyright policy. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Can someone who has the knowledge import the Apache copyright template from Commons so it can be used here? And maybe update the Help pages too? I have created the page for version 2.0 of the License. Ciridae (talk) 08:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Ciridae: Done Template:Apache 2.0, and added to Help:Copyright tags — billinghurst sDrewth 23:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Tech News: 2017-38

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

Recent changes

• You can now see contributions from an IP range at Special:Contributions. Before you could only see contributions from single IP addresses. Some older contributions from IP ranges could be missing at first because it will take some time to add them. [18][19]
• Flow has been re-scoped to become Structured Discussions and the development has restarted. Phabricator projects and repositories have been renamed. [20]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 September. It will be on all wikis from 21 September (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 September at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• We are replacing Tidy on Wikimedia wikis. Editors need to fix pages that could break. You can read the simplified instructions for editors. Some wikis have already switched. If your wiki would like to switch to the new format now, you can file a task.

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

15:31, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Comment

For people wishing to check IP ranges, an available guide is one designed for admins at mw:Help:Range blocks, and skip down to how to calculate ranges. Easiest checks are xxx.xxx.0.0/16 and xxx.xxx.xxx.0/24 eg. Special:Contributions/129.45.0.0/16 and Special:Contributions/129.45.117.0/24 will show edits, whereas Special:Contributions/129.45.128.0/17 will not. We do not have a whole lot of edits from IP addresses, so its pertinence is lesser for our community. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Problem in fa.wikisource

Hi. When I try to create or edit a page in fa.wikisource.org the proofread plugin does not work. See an example for yourself. Can anyone help, please. --Yousef (talk) 20:57, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

@Yoosef Pooranvary: You will probably have to post a ticket at phab:. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I have found out that when I login with my user name the proofread plugin does not work. Does anybody know why? --Yousef (talk) 18:43, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

It's probably a problem with your preferences then. We identified an issue with the "Two column edit conflict" beta feature that caused problems; make sure this is disabled. If you still have the problem, you'll have to disable your other preferences until you find which one is causing the problem. Beleg Tâl (talk) 20:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)