Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2023-02

Index:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf

First run through is done, and it's transcluded. Needs validation. Thanks in advance for any help. Jarnsax (talk) 18:13, 16 June 2021‎ (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:11, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Page:Civil Information and Education Section - 8 Feburary 1948.pdf/1

Hello, anybody hanging around who might give some advise? There is a typo in the file, should read February instead of "Feburary". Rename #3 as per commons? thank you for your time. Lotje ツ (talk) 08:36, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

• Lotje ツ: The file has been moved on Commons, and the index and the page have been moved here. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:34, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you ever so much :-) Lotje ツ (talk) 17:35, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 00:13, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

R. M. Gray

Hi, I couldn't find any information about this author, mentioned in Index:Gray, Parekh - Mahatma Gandhi, An Essay in Appreciation.pdf. Any idea? Thanks, Yann (talk) 13:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

That is going to be a tricky one to find, and take some pot luck. Common surname, no indicators of personal names, no indicators of where residing. M.A. gives some indicators though by that period of time there were plenty of universities through the UK and Ireland, and most of the alumni records for the institutions are finished. I would be checking Cambridge's ACAD search, Oxford Men publication. On my user page you will see some of the links that I use for those searches. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:33, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Don't see R. M. Gray in Index:Oxford men and their colleges.djvu — billinghurst sDrewth 00:54, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I notice that in the introduction RM Gray says they were asked to undertake this work by J.N. Farquhar, "now Professor of Comparative Religion in the University of Manchester", which to me suggests the original request took place before 1923, when Farquhar would have been a literary secretary for the YMCA in India. Gray also references "Dr. N Macnicol, of Poona" and "my friend, Mr. K. Natarajan, Editor of the Indian Social Reformer", so it seems likely to me that Gray would have been in India in the early 1920s.

Going on that, I found this document which mentions a "Rev. R. M. Gray" (page 31) who spoke at the annual meeting of the YWCA of Bombay in late 1913. Given Farquhar's history as a missionary in the same area, I think this is almost certainly the same R M Gray you are after, though unfortunately we still have no personal name. I hope this helps! — Dcsohl (talk)
(contribs) 19:12, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Google shows a R. M. Gray active in India at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The Directory of Protestant Indian Christians shows him having various responsibilities in Christian organisations in India. Yann (talk) 12:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: FIBIS https://search.fibis.org/ is a good place for British India stuff. I forgot that I had it bookmarked on my user page. — billinghurst sDrewth 01:46, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

And it is Robert M. Gray with a picture of him at https://archive.org/details/freestmatthewsch00phil/page/154/mode/2up?q=gray ordained in Glasgow in 1890, so you would reckon born c.1860s (a step closer), stick more research on the author talk page as I get to it — billinghurst sDrewth 01:49, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Robert Miller Gray (1862-1945)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Titles of UK Statutory Instruments

I've recently came with some UK Statutory Instruments, and contrast to most titles of legislation, their titles comes with the prefix "The" (such as "The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020" instead of "Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020"). Legal style manuals like the Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities, and "The" is also not needed to be used in citing UKSIs standalone unless it's within part of a sentence.

So, should we move these UKSI pages to get rid of the "The"s? Like to ask whether such moves are correct or not.廣九直通車 (talk) 05:49, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I prefer keeping "The" and using {{DEFAULTSORT to leave out "The".--Jusjih (talk) 20:43, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@廣九直通車: In the end it doesn't matter. We typically let the original contributor's decision stand where it is logical and reasonable. Plus we would encourage the creation of a redirect from the alternative version, so both naming versions are available to the search engines. Same thing occurs with the case used in the title, though we do discourage all upper case titles. As Jusjih says, we would always DEFAULTSORT without the preposition. Noting that with interwikis, and the use of Wikidata linking, the actual version of the name becomes less pertinent. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Thanks for your information, in accordance to your comments I've also created redirection for the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996.廣九直通車 (talk) 03:31, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-06

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

Recent changes

• In the Vector 2022 skin, logged-out users using the full-width toggle will be able to see the setting of their choice even after refreshing pages or opening new ones. This only applies to wikis where Vector 2022 is the default. [1]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
• Previously, we announced when some wikis would be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. These switches will not be announced any more, as the read-only time has become non-significant. Switches will continue to happen at 7AM UTC on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [2]
• Across all the wikis, in the Vector 2022 skin, logged-in users will see the page-related links such as "What links here" in a new side menu. It will be displayed on the other side of the screen. This change had previously been made on Czech, English, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. [3]
• Community Wishlist Survey 2023 will stop receiving new proposals on Monday, 6 February 2023, at 18:00 UTC. Proposers should complete any edits by then, to give time for translations and review. Voting will begin on Friday, 10 February.

Future changes

• Gadgets and user scripts will be changing to load on desktop and mobile sites. Previously they would only load on the desktop site. It is recommended that wiki administrators audit the gadget definitions prior to this change, and add skins=… for any gadgets which should not load on mobile. More details are available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 10:21, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Global ban for PlanespotterA320/RespectCE

Per the Global bans policy, I'm informing the project of this request for comment: m:Requests for comment/Global ban for PlanespotterA320 (2) about banning a member from your community. Thank you.--Lemonaka (talk) 21:40, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

PlanespotterA320 (talk • contribs) • activity • Global — billinghurst sDrewth 01:01, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Migrated more categorisation to Wikidata for pages in Author namespace

Background:
In late 2021, Inductiveload starting the process of having Module:Author query Wikidata to populate categories on author pages. This was in addition to the manual addition of categories, or the addition of categories through application of templates. At that time most of the work was done on populating nationality and occupational categories.

Actions:
I have put a bit of effort into migrating some of the categories in the past couple of weeks where they were sparsely/randomly populated, though that have been some of our favourites. Things in Category:Authors by awards and Category:Politicians by office are some examples as these have been present and typically well-populated data fields in WD, and sporadically added here.

Notes about populating categories:

• Inhaling WD data is more about factual data, than free-form expression, and the data needs to exist in the direct form in WD items, so "combined" categories like nationality or state-based occupations are missing or less robust.
• At this stage we are 1 to 1 in adding cats, there is no existing ability to combine categories from WD and build a composite here, so has a religion and has a role cannot be combined to religious role, that needs to be done at WD.
• That said we do have tools like mw:Extension:DynamicPageList (Wikimedia) installed that can manipulate and present data from multiple existing categories.

Notes for those who use the HotCat gadget:

1. you can identify a category manually listed on a page through it having the +/- next to it, and auto-populated templates that do not. The auto-categorised typically will be leading in the list, and the manual will lag.
2. If a category is both automatically and manually added, it will take the position of the automated category and also have the =/- indicators of manually added.
3. Feel free to remove a manual category where it is already automated.

Future:

• I am close to my current run on categories though there will still be some fiddling that I need to do to tidy up. My next batch of work will be to look at our "contributors to" works, though that is going to need populating of data into WD.
• If anyone has requirements or suggestions or needs for future automated categorisation of author pages then please put your thoughts at Module talk:Author

— billinghurst sDrewth 21:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

New details about the Private Incident Reporting System

We have an update about the Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS) development.

We have created an FAQ on the project page to help answer your questions. Please check it, and give feedback, or ask additional questions if you have more.

Best regards, Trust & Safety Tools team. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 11:31, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Just to provide some scope to those who may not be able to align this occurrence ...

“	About The Wikimedia Foundation wants to improve how people who experience harassment and other forms of abuse report such harmful incidents to provide safer and healthier environments for communities. The newly formed Trust and Safety Tools team has been tasked with building the Private Incident Reporting System (PIRS). We aim to make it easy for users to report harmful incidents safely and privately.	”
—m:private Incident Reporting System

— billinghurst sDrewth 21:29, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much @Billinghurst, the context addition makes it perfect. –– STei (WMF) (talk) 07:57, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Adding film portal to Highlights section on the Main Page

Quite a lot of work has been put into the film transcripts project on Wikisource in recent years. We are now up to an impressive number of around 226 transcluded film transcriptions according to Category:Film, and most importantly many famous public-domain films have been completed. Therefore, I think it might be time to consider adding Portal:Film to the Main Page. What do you guys think? Are we quite to that point yet?

I am aware that the film portal itself could use for some prettifying, but I'm not quite sure what that would look like. What Portal:Poetry looks like is pretty nice, clearly mimicking the Wikipedian model of portals. But then again, a straight list or table is okay too.

It'd be a good way to point some readers' attention over to the film transcripts that are collectively the product of endless hours of meticulous work. And the Highlights section has had the exact same text since I first arrived at this project, so it'd be nice to add another something to it. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: as it is a visual medium that you have reproduced, I think that it lends itself to a front and center random feature component. There are enough tools around that we can generate something random and different each time a visitor comes to that page. I would present an image, some text, and import some of the WD data from the movie to give it some context. It has to be an attractive landing page and have a reason for visitors to pop past it. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Noting that I added {{latest additions}} to the portal page which is one of our abilities to use the installation of DynamicPageList onwiki. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Should categories like this be hidden?

I just came across Category:The Popular Science Monthly Project, which appears to relate to a WikiProject. As a Project category, it seems like it should be visible only to editors, not readers -- yes? Maybe it could be turned into a hidden category? I'm not sure how to do this, it appears to be a category that is now assigned by WikiData, but thought I should check if this what should be done. -Pete (talk) 19:12, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Oops, I pasted the wrong category. What I intended was the subcategory Category:PSM contributors, which appears on author pages. -Pete (talk) 19:13, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

As far as I know, all the contributor categories for the author space are fully visible. They're not technical or back-end style categories (like Category:Authors with missing birthdates), so what would be the rationale for hiding them? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 04:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Peteforsyth, per BWC, no, it is not a maintenance category, it is a purposeful category of the contributors to a serial or multi-volume work, so it is appropriate to be visible to our users. Noting that we have multiple of these types of works, and their data is being populated to WD through the contributed to creative work (p3919) property.

Noting that we have {{maintenance category}} which purposefully labels and obscurely categorises (though can be overridden through one's css). — billinghurst sDrewth 06:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Index redirect

Hi, Index:The writings of Henry David Thoreau (IA writingsofhenryd08thorrich).pdf is a duplicate of Index:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v8.djvu. Since other volumes are in DjVu format, I think the best would be to delete the PDF index, and create a redirect to the DjVu one. Idem for volumes 9, 10, and 11. Yann (talk) 12:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

The format (pdf or djvu) chosen by our contributors is not the determinating factor, and makes no difference to the end product, we let our contributors choose. I personally prefer djvu and will set up djvu, though that is by my choice. To what we have, we would not duplicate the same edition, and can merge either to djvu or pdf depending on the request of the contributors and the quality of the scans and the OCR. If they are different editions, then we would not merge. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, these are for the same editions. My concern is that someone may start proofreading the PDF pages while there are also DjVu pages available. Yann (talk) 08:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-07

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

Problems

• On wikis where patrolled edits are enabled, changes made to the mentor list by autopatrolled mentors are not correctly marked as patrolled. It will be fixed later this week. [4]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
• The Reply tool and other parts of DiscussionTools will be deployed for all editors using the mobile site. You can read more about this decision. [5]

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [6][7][8]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Is it a problem when formatting templates are not used to span pages through the headers and footers?

I am proofreading the six volume series of Index:History_of_Woman_Suffrage_Volume_1.djvu which is a six volume project. They contain over 5000 pages of text, many of which have speeches and quotations which are to be formatted in a smaller font.

Can I start and end the template on each page in the Page namespace? — ineuw (talk) 05:52, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

We need to be wary about the use of the word "span" as it can be confusing in this situation.

If we are talking a div-based template (block) then we do need to use syntax specific formatting, so the "div-template" or "div-template/start" "div-template/end" pairing where they are incomplete on a Page: ns page and continue to the next page. If the text is contained to just the one page then it doesn't matter. If you are using a span-based template it doesn't matter, as it is just a span, though in this case you need to ensure that you have appropriate paragraphs. — billinghurst sDrewth 06:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Help:Block and inline elements — billinghurst sDrewth 06:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, for the refresh. — ineuw (talk) 07:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Poll regarding February 2023 Wikisource Community meeting

Hello fellow Wikisource enthusiasts!

We will be organizing this month’s Wikisource Community meeting in the last week of February and we need your help to decide on a time and date that works best for the most number of people. Kindly share your availabilities at the Wudele link below:

https://wudele.toolforge.org/qDEHHRJRNJLmwsi4

Meanwhile, feel free to check out the page on Meta-wiki and suggest topics for the agenda.

Regards PMenon-WMF and KLawal-WMF

PMenon-WMF (talk) 07:08, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

More unknown authors

Hi, I got more unknown authors:

• Index:Bryant - Gandhi and the Indianisation of the Empire.pdf: J. F. BRYANT, M.A., F.G.S., I.C.S. (Late Member of the Legislative Assembly in India). At least here, we have a complete name, and some precise information, but I can't any mention of this person apart from records for this book.
• Author:Shakuntala Masani
• Index:Raju - A Critical Study of the Non-cooperation Movement in India.pdf: J. B. Raju

Thanks, Yann (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Ad Shakuntala Masani: According to NLA Catalogue born in 1920, if I read it correctly. For more works by this author see Masani, Shakuntala in WorldCat Identities. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 00:24, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

For Bryant: he is in ACAD: https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur=&suro=w&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=BRNT890JF&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=5 MarkLSteadman (talk) 00:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

For Raju: I believe it is John Bangam/Bangaru Raju, studied at Pachaiyappa College (Madras) and Oxford (New College, 1914), professor of Philosophy at St. John's College (Agra) and Nagpur University. MarkLSteadman (talk) 01:06, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

 Comment @Yann: Author talk:John Forbes Bryant for the information that I can find. I hope that you can populate WD with that data. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: Thanks, that's useful. Could you add the links please, as WD requests references. Yann (talk) 08:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@Yann: WD is shit for primary records as references, and they don't make it easy to do so. If you need to add anything just use the property imported from Wikimedia project (P143) and cite enWS. I don't typically even bother going that far with them. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library to me seems to be more a portal than a work. Then with the works that are in the series to be the works as root pages, and pushed to subpages and instead to be listed by their title, rather than as some code. Wondering what others were thinking. @Inductiveload: as this is some of your early work here. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-08

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

Problems

• Last week, during planned maintenance of Cloud Services, unforeseen complications forced the team to turn off all tools for 2–3 hours to prevent data corruption. Work is ongoing to prevent similar problems in the future. [9]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
• The voting phase for the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 ends on 24 February at 18:00 UTC. The results of the survey will be announced on 28 February.

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [10][11][12]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Index:Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule.djvu

Hi, One page to validate please. Yann (talk) 12:30, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Yann done. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 05:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: Yann (talk) 16:31, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Editing news 2023 #1

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:

1. The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
2. They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

Some of the upcoming changes

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for Discussion tools.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "Add topic" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion. Please tell them what you think.

Daily edit completion rate by test group: DiscussionTools (test group) and MobileFrontend overlay (control group)

An A/B test for Discussion tools on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with Discussion tools. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "Publish changes". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Jo Pugh, RIP

I'm sorry to report that my friend, and an incredible Wikimedian, Jo Pugh, User:Mr impossible has died ([13]). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:07, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

My deepest condolences, Andy. We have lost some great ones of late. BD2412 T 21:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Curation of external links to scans and media

In order to try and identify 'incompatible' scans on external links I created Category:Pages linking to external media needing verification of source copyright status, However I need some help of experienced reviews on Wikisource to slowly move items here into the other categories the {{copychecked}} uses.

It would be appreciated if other contributors could carefully review the links on the pages in this category adding, verified=yes to the relevant link template usage if the scans at the external link can be uploaded to commons.

The vast majority of the media/scans linked are without issue, but by adding the tracking categories allows the 'good' items to be removed when looking for problematic ones...

The other values for verified are as follows: no - The linked scan/media is still potentially subject to copyright protections. (such as being published after 1927, or by a living author) and there is no compatible license evident. ( such as CC-BY-SA, PD-US-Gov, PD-US-no notice).

localok - The linked scan/media is PD in the US but not necessarily globally.

islocal -The linked scan/media is already uploaded locally, and the link is on the relevant File: page.

pdscan - The linked scan is of a work that would be PD globally, but is subject to a licensing or ToU clause (typically the work is PD but the scan is under an NC style license.)

I plan on adding some logic to {{copychecked}} to add question mark/tick box icons if anyone has suitable ones in mind. Currently the template only adds hidden tracking categories.

This should be a one time curation effort in terms of mass-efforts, as in the future the tracking categories could be put on watchlists so a curation backlog doesn't build up over time, as it has previously. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Abandoned, due to concerns expressed ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

When there is no ToC

Hi, What to do when there is no table of content? In Index:Fischer - A Week with Gandhi.pdf, 136 pages in one single work seem to be quite a lot. Should I create a ToC? Yann (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Finally, I made a ToC here, as there is a clear subdivision of chapters. But the general question remains. Yann (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi. We use the {{Auxiliary Table of Contents}} template in such cases. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Code review for RunningHeader templates

I've been working on a Lua module, Module:RunningHeader, to implement the various templates based on {{RunningHeader}}, and I'd appreciate some additional sets of eyes on the code before I go full steam ahead with the migration. Notes:

• I've added support to {{RunningHeader}} for choosing how many cells there are. No need to make separate templates like {{Rh/5}}! The default behavior is still 4 cells if there's a 4th parameter and 3 otherwise.
• Roman numeral handling is more robust, and I've moved it into the core recto-verso functionality. This allows merging {{Recto-verso header}} and {{Recto-verso header2}}.
• Test pages:
  • Template:RunningHeader/testcases
  • Template:Recto-verso header/testcases
• Updated stylesheet, which combines the existing stylesheets into one: Template:RunningHeader/styles-sandbox.css

—CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 04:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

See also WS:AN#Edit requests for Template:RunningHeader. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:56, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Standardizing links to scanned works on external sites...

On Author and Portal pages there are a number of external links to sites like archive.org , HathiTrust and Google Books, for which linking templates such as {{IA}} , {{IAl}} & {{IA small link}}; {{HTl}} & {{HTlink}}; and {{GBS}} respectively.

In places these links are raw http:// style links. It would be desirable to attempt standardization/conversion of these if possible, using the linking templates to permit tracking of site specific links, and potentially easier maintenance if the URL structures of these external sites changes.

Generic templates like {{ext scan link}} also exist, and it would also be desirable for this template to also support having (site specific?) tracking , or ways to better support the generation of semi automated reports and lists of 'compatible' scans for upload.

Whilst it is possible to use an insource: style search to find raw links, a regexp on a given URL pattern, is not necessarily reliable in excluding links which are included as template parameters. A Negative look-behind (?<[^=|]) (for an = or | preceding the link in a regexp seems to be one possible way of working around this, but I wasn't sure if that was supported by the search tools used locally or by AWB.

I will also note that {{scans available}} also potentially needs a redesign so that it can be used as a 'staged' template, giving different advice and guidance to contributor at each stage of the process of migrating works to scan backed versions. I recently added some additional functions to handle IA style links to it. However, it would also be nice to have that for links to Google Books, Hathi Trust, and other sites with standardized link formats. Both of these redesign points would suggest that migration to some kind of module to support them is desirable.

What are the views of other contributors? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:42, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

BTW - insource:/[^|=]https:\/\/archive.org/ gave around 940 entries, which would be a couple of days effort, once a standard template to convert these to is decided. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the point of the change. Why would we want to track these? Why would we want to search these? The application of the template is specifically related to the point and place of the link. The added links are of their time and place and the person adding them; they do not indicate the best available scan at the later time of grabbing a work. They have only ever been indicators of something at the target, nothing more, nothing less. To go through and make these changes puts us in no better position at the end of the day.

When I am thinking of large scale changes, I always stand back and think "at the end of all these tasks, does this achieve something in the bigger picture of making the site better, easier, etc." And I don't see that with this proposal. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:14, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, so I am starting to wonder if my conversions were thus in the wrong direction...

In terms of templated links, do you consider it desirable to have one standard way of linking to external scans?

Thoughts on having one ext scan link template with identifier support

On something related to the actual templates for linking...

If we ignore any tracking categories, How easy would it be for ext scan link to be updated to treat it's inputs as a series of identifiers for a specific site, with a site or siteN paramaters, telling it to generate a link from a set of known patterns? The thinking is that you could then specify as URL directly as at present, or as identifiers only, which have pre-defined patterns. What's actually displayed would be "external scan" or what ever displayN title was specfied. The additional function I added in {{IAl}} are to some extent what {{ext scan link}}'s displayN does, and there's {{ext scan link}} can handle multiple volumes better. Doing this would also mean that {{IA small links}} and {{ext scan link}} could effectively be merged! (The thinking here is the patterns for external links and modes would be in a /Data page, not unlike a sort of interwiki map but for scanned documents rather than other wikis.). Adding a new site, would only mean adding a new set of patterns to the /Data rather needing to implement an entirely new template for each new site (allowing sites British Libray, Biodiversity Heratige Library, NLS to be added) with the added gain of being able to handle multiple volume works.

An example link in /Data would look something like...

{IA, 'https://archive.org/details/$1', 'IA', '/page/$1'},

The first is a shortID followed by the link format, text to suffix to a 'Via' indication text, and the format to apply if a deep link to a specfic page is given. If tracking is needed, then an additional tracking category could also be in the Data?

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

The edits were unneeded at the time, though once they are done, there is also little value in undoing them. It is all noise. Reverting/undoing something also has to have a value proposition.

In terms of a standard way? Meh! While somethings are nice, for something like an external link on an author page, sometimes I am just wishing to drop it, format it and move on with minimal effort. Others may have their preference, and in the end it doesn't matter. The target and looking neat on the page is the purpose, not the mechanics to create a link. So we can play with our style on the templates, and let the users make their choice. Plus why do you think that we need to update those links? What is that doing? They are all point in time things and not essentially unique. All these links are a convenience, and a flag, not much else. When any of us come to upload a work, we should always go and check the quality of the work to upload, do we want that edition, are its pages complete, is it a quality scan, etc. Don't overthink this. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:07, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

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Duplicate book

Hi, Index:The Ramayana Of Tulsidas.djvu is a duplicate and inferior quality of Index:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu. The index is also in the old WS ([17]), but it is mosty in English. What to do in this case? Thanks, Yann (talk) 17:18, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Do we need both djvu files to proofread here? Should proofreading be done here or on old WS? Ascertaining which djvu and where to proofread is the key to answer your question.--Jusjih (talk) 20:40, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

 Comment If they are the same edition, then two versions are redundant, and the transcriptions can be merged, and one of the files nominated for deletion at Commons. It takes a little more coordination if there are transcriptions on two wikisources, though I would think that isn't a barrier. If they are different editions, then that should become a discussion at WS:PD which is where those conversations are pertinent. Where we have a preferred edition, then just put a note on the index page directing them to the other. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:43, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

AFAICT, there are the same edition. This book is mostly in English, with a few pages in Hindi, so it should be done here. Yann (talk) 22:23, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for the note on my talk page. I am not familiar with the technical details on how one would go about doing a merger; if there is a better quality scan available, I have no objection to anyone going ahead on that. Since the book is mostly in English, I agree this is the right project for it. regards, TryKid (talk) 11:57, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

 Comment@Mpaa: are you able to script move these? They are not /1 to /1 as the early scanned pages are different, so we are going to need to offset to get the content to content to align. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:18, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: done. I had to fix the djvu as pages were missing, cannot crosscheck due to caching. Mpaa (talk) 23:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Undeleting 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (God)

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (God) page was created by me, then probably renamed while leaving a redirect behind. The putative redirect was deleted in 2019. The problem with that deletion is that it is no longer clear to which page the redirect was targeted. Ideally, the redirect ought to be restored together with its talk page. The database storage will not be saved anyway (deleted pages remain in the database), and the readers, especially me, will have the traceable evidence of history of the pages, that is, what text there was on the page and to which page it was redirected. I contributed many pages on philosophy to the 1911EB project, and restoring the redirect would be a minor courtesy toward a contributor of substantial content, that is myself. I will be grateful for a restoration. I will try to respond to any inquiries unless I get lost in my other wiki activities. Thank you. Dan Polansky (talk) 05:59, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: Undeletion requests are best made at Wikisource:Proposed deletions. Not that it can't be discussed here too, but it's best to use the established process. For reference, the above page was first moved to 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (Moon-god), and then to 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (moon-god) where it now lives. The reason for the moves was alignment with our page naming standard for the EB1911, and the reason for deleting the redirects was presumably our established practice of avoiding sub-page redirects (just guessing based on the logs). Xover (talk) 06:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Can you please direct me to that "page naming standard for the EB1911" from which it follows that the disambiguator should be "moon-god" rather than "god"? And is the choice of "moon-god" based on that term's use in the first sentence in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (moon-god)?

Furthermore, can you please point me to evidence that there is an established practice of avoiding subpage redirects? Since, these seem to be potentially very useful, as much as non-subpage redirects.

Thank you for any information requested above that helps establish traceability. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: For the naming, the most apposite links would seem to be Wikisource:Style guide#Page titles and Wikisource:WikiProject 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Style Manual#Entry titles. But we're not all that great on expressing community practice in the form of actual written policy so I'm not sure I'm able to accommodate the essence of your request very well. Xover (talk) 08:27, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

All right, then. I created a redirect from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin (moon-god) for convenience. Since no argument against these kinds of redirects has been presented or linked to, nor has a reference to a collective editor decision on the matter been given, I consider the utility of the redirect trump various subjective whims or preferences not traceable to anything like a discussion or a vote showing strength-of-the-argument-augmented consensus process. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I understand your thinking, but it's rather pointless: eventually someone will run across it and delete it again. It is annoying that we're not better at documenting things in written policies, but that's a separate issue. The bottom line is that it's established practice that we do not use subpage redirects like this. Xover (talk) 15:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

As for the phrase "apposite links", Google finds low number of hits and I have only a vague idea of what it is supposed to mean; can someone please translate this into a clear, simple, unambiguous and in general reader-friendly English? --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:04, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

 Comment @Dan Polansky: Redirects at subpage level have been found to be problematic, so the general process is to not have them. When we are moving works at the root level, especially when disambiguating works, the presence of a string of redirects as subpages is a right devil. The clear and easy solution that is everpresent for subpages is that the subpages are all listed on the rootpage of each work, and they should be listed on the preceding and succeeding pages, so are readily findable. Also, as we encourage encyclopaedic articles to have their corresponding wikidata items, these contain and maintain the links, hence making the requirements for redirects essentially redundant where people appropriately use the WD as the base for links. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

And please do not recreate deleted redirects. There had been {{dated soft redirect}} in place so links had been checked and fixed. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

And to give some feedback about the original contribution. You created the article in 2010 as a free text contribution, and it was similarly created from a scan-backed page in 2011. A soft redirect was created in and place for a period of time prior to being checked for links and removed. The article's item is Sin (Q84653266) and can be referenced from enWP with {{cite Q|Q84653266}} with all its mobility. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:51, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Added some text to Help:Redirects about when not to do redirects, focusing on not doing subpage to subpage. We give suggestions about where we do redirects, though as usual in positive guidance, we talk about where and what we do do, rather than focus on the negative of what one shouldn't do. Plus every time we are pushed to blackletter style guide we always seem to get the declaration, that we don't say that you shouldn't do such and such. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

As for "it's established practice": citation missing. Where is the debate or the vote? That rule still makes no sense to me.

As for "Redirects at subpage level have been found to be problematic": this statement is too general and vague and comes with no substantiation.

In any case, a policy or guideline page ought to be created where subpage redirects are discoraged, and a proper rationale is provided. Anything else turns the project into a playground for elders rather than a broad-editor-base governed wiki project.

This thread has been a disappointment. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:24, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

As for the part of the user signature reading "sDrewth", what is that supposed to mean and why does it point to a talk page? Is the real user name "Billing Hurst"? If so, would not a rename of the user name be in order? These were some usability asides. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:26, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Established practice does not necessarily come from a debate nor a vote, it also comes from our experiences and our resolution There is commentary in the archives of these pages and other places about the problems. We are a wiki with subpages in the main namespace, which is different from most wikis, and there are clear problems we have found with having subpage to subpage redirects. Also do not take that in isolation the other commentary around subpages with rootpage, and that they are different from rootpages which will be your experience at most wikis. Our approach for subpages and root pages is different, we typically have all the root pages with redirects. You can either take the word of experienced administrators or not, expecting me to run around doing a song and dance is not going to happen.

I don't need to explain my signature nor my username, the links are appropriate and unambiguous, that is actually quite a rude approach and not one I find becoming of an experienced user like yourself. And I don't think that a former steward and an editor of over a million edits should truly be applying for a rename, nor even need to consider one. I mean really, where do you get off? — billinghurst sDrewth 06:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Open\Close header script in Preferences\Edit?

In Preferences\Edit, there used to be an option which on opening of a page in edit mode, it opened the header/footer, if they were closed. Is this script still available for use in my vector.js? — ineuw (talk) 07:23, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@IneuwI don't think that particular feature has gone away. The preference is definitely still availiable if you don't use the 2010 WikiEditor editing interface. (If you do use the WikiEditor interface, there should be a icon in the Proofreading tools section that should do the same thing). Sohom Datta (talk) 02:45, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, I am using the 2010 interface, but will re-try the other skins. It's interesting, because the manual control group of closing and opening the header, and selecting the edit options of over/under or side by side editing still exists. So I thought it can add it the my vector.js — ineuw (talk) 20:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Is there a bot or script to harmonise the names on Wikisource from WCommons?

Hello.

There is apparently a problem for the "Page:" pages when the name of the file on WCommons and the one on Wiksource do not match. This problem consists in the left and right arrows not being displayed. It also prevent synchronisation with transcluded text. So, is there a bot or script which could be used to have the Wikisource item being moved along with all its pages, and the transclusions, to the current name the WCommons file has? Veverve (talk) 11:00, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@Veverve: The requirement here is to simply create the Index: and Page: namespace pages to match the File: ns page at Commons. The requirement at Commons is that when the file is used at Wikisource to not move it.

Rather than talk generalities, please identify the problem index: and file: names and one of us with suitable rights here and at Commons will fix it up. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

FYI, Veverve was blocked on French Wikisource and Commons for disruptive editing. Yann (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I have indeed been blocked on WCommons (by you). However, my block on French Wikisource was unjustified and was lifted after 10 days by the administration. I am not sure what this had to do with anything, but whatever. Veverve (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@Veverve: you haven't responded to my query above, so did we resolve your issue? I will note that there is a delicate interaction between Commons files, and our Index:/Page: pages, and do suggest cautious approach and eyes wide open when things need to be moved/amended. With regard to the personal commentary, it is a little unfortunate, as we do try to assume good faith and act according to what happens locally, though naturally we do keep an awareness of problem editing elsewhere. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Billinghurst: I have solved the issue I had on Wikisourcefr with a WCommons file I had moved. To fix it, I simply made an automation process on my computer, to move all the Wikisource 'Page:' pages to the new name of the WCommons file. Veverve (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Veverve: Okay, though here we would typically move the Commons file back to where it was, unless there was a true need to have the Commons file elsewhere. There is a specific exclusion for file renames at Commons for files in use like this. It can become very messy for any work advanced in transcription and transclusion. AND AND AND the filename at Commons is never particularly a killer issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:17, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

History of Costume

https://archive.org/details/ost-history-historyofcostume00khle

I'd like some more information on the author lifetimes, before adding it to the list of requested works which expire in a few years time. Anyone got more information? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00 Carl Köhler has a Wikidata item. I haven't been able to find anything on Emma von Sichart. Alexander K. Dallas has a Wikidata item but not a death date. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 05:12, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Emma von Sichart seems to be described here: Google Books as living from 1879-12-08 to 1954-02-03. I suspect that was Rev. Alexander Kennedy Dallas, a German master at George Watson's College and died in April 1932 http://www.ecclegen.com/ministers-d/#DALLAS,%20ALEXANDER%20KENNEDY. MarkLSteadman (talk) 21:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

So another 2 years at least.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:18, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Although that identification is tentative, the birth date seems to be the right time frame and she is described as a writer, anyways Emma was described as an artist and lived in first Würzburg (1904) and then Munich, she also apparently translated Jesse Fothergill into German in 1903, wrote in the Volkische Beobachter in the late '20s and is listed as being active until 1942 in the DNB. MarkLSteadman (talk) 22:08, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth.) cleanup required

I'm recently starting to deal with the Australian Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth.), but the page of Criminal Code Act 1995 (Australia) is preoccupied with a later version of the text, and it seems to be difficult to properly transcribe my works once everything's completed. Can someone help to move the pre-existing pages to a suitable name, so that the original paper-backed version can be transcribed? Many thanks.廣九直通車 (talk) 11:28, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Done @廣九直通車: I have moved the pages and left a redirect in at the root level. I will note that at this stage we would say that the root name would be a {{versions}} page and point to the respective versions of the work (see Help:Versions for more info). I would suggest that your title is going to need to need to find a way to uniquely identify the version that you are transcribing. — billinghurst sDrewth 21:52, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

The legislation gov.uk approach (albiet in respect of revised UK legislation) is to have a subpages for the revised versions. This is done by appending /yyyy-mm-dd after the title to indicate a specific revision. Ideally specific revised versions should be back by an authoratative source for the version at the date concerned. It would also be worthwhile coming up with something to put in the header to indcate a "point in time" transcription. as opposed to an "as enacated" one ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I did attempt this for some New Zealand legislation, and was approached about doing it a different way: User talk:ElDubs#one_header_template_per_page;_versions_are_separate,_not_subsidiary, in my discussion with billinghurst, he suggested the preference is that each version should sit at the top level rather than as sub-pages. Potentially you could do something like "Criminal Code 1995 (Australia) (yyyy-mm-dd)". Here in NZ, legislation.govt.nz gives a unique "version (#)" to every change.

Outside of that, I have been struggling to figure out "point in time" versions of Acts, while fitting how Wikisource works. I think a key thing is that if two versions some 50 pages long are substantially the same bar one amendment to one paragraph, we should find a way to avoid duplicating all that content. Ideally we should find a way to make use of transclusion to copy from the "as enacted" where possible and then copy changes from amendment acts. But... wikisource generally avoids syntheses of works, which such an approach would be.

I think a community discussion on a best practice for this would be exceptionally helpful. ElDubs (talk) 03:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)