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Announcing the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hello,

The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote results. We are following up with the results of the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election.

We are pleased to announce the following individuals as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a two-year term:

  • North America (USA and Canada)
    • –
  • Northern and Western Europe
  • Latin America and Caribbean
    • –
  • Central and East Europe (CEE)
    • —
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
    • –
  • Middle East and North Africa
  • East, South East Asia and Pacific (ESEAP)
  • South Asia
    • –

The following individuals are elected to be community-at-large members of the U4C, fulfilling a one-year term:

Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.

Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. Follow their work on Meta-wiki.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-23

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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

  • It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [1]
  • The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [2]
  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Kadazandusun (w:dtp:) [3]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [4][5]

Future changes

  • Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:34, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Index CSS applying to mediawiki layout

Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion

In Index:Eggless recipe book for cakes, cookies, muffins, and desserts.djvu, a table { width:100%; } is causing the index info table to take full width and wrap around.

I think that index CSS should not change the way the site displays, only the content, but is that possible?

For width, it's not that bad, but if someone had something like td { background-color:red; }, it would be a bit more problematic. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 06:39, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This appears to only apply to ProofreadPage layout, not Mediawiki.
Also, I guess we could just use classes for that instead of targeting elements. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 10:07, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
That's a limitation of the TemplateStyles extension, that the CSS will affect anything in the article (and the index info table is part of the index's article text), which is why one should always give elements one wants to style a class (see guidance at Help:Page styles#Classes_and_IDs). Arcorann (talk) 11:53, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I know. (I didn't do that index, just stumbled on it). — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 11:55, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

File:Original recipes of good things to eat.djvu

Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

On Commons File:Original recipes of good things to eat.djvu shows as 2,038 × 3,125, 200 pages (16.89 MB) on Commons, but Wikisource shows as 0 × 0 (16.89 MB). I am wondering what is the issue. Xeverything11 (talk) 18:22, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

It's a problem we often have these days, you have to purge it on commons (there's a purge clock gadget to do it).
I did it, it should work now.— Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 18:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-24

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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

Recent changes

  • The software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering. [6]
  • The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
  • The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [7]

Problems

  • There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed. [8]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [9][10]
  • The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [11]
  • On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [12]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now on Meta

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hi everyone,

The final text of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now up on Meta in more than 20 languages for your reading.

What is the Wikimedia Movement Charter?

The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.

Join the Wikimedia Movement Charter “Launch Party”

Join the “Launch Party” on June 20, 2024 at 14.00-15.00 UTC (your local time). During this call, we will celebrate the release of the final Charter and present the content of the Charter. Join and learn about the Charter before casting your vote.

Movement Charter ratification vote

Voting will commence on SecurePoll on June 25, 2024 at 00:01 UTC and will conclude on July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC. You can read more about the voting process, eligibility criteria, and other details on Meta.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment on the Meta talk page or email the MCDC at mcdc@wikimedia.org.

On behalf of the MCDC,

RamzyM (WMF) 08:45, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Page status selection fails on change

Latest comment: 6 months ago6 comments2 people in discussion

If I need to change the page status without saving it fails as follows:

Changing Non-proofread to Proofread and then to Problematic or, vice versa, cannot be a simple change. I have to save, close and retry again.

I tried the same steps in fr.Wikisource where it works as it should. I am using Firefox only for such tests. — ineuw (talk) 21:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what your problem is, can you detail, please? — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 11:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
On changing the page status to Proofread, I preview the results. On seeing an error, I want it to problematic, but the change is not accepted. I must save it as is (Proofread), then reopen it and change it to Problematic. — ineuw (talk) 02:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I am almost sure this is a Firefox browser issue. Don't waste your time on it. I know what to look for it happens again. — ineuw (talk) 04:53, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Also on Firefox, not having this issue. What OS are you on? — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 08:04, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I am using Linux Mint, but I know the reason. I emptied the formhistory.sqlite and the problem was solved. — ineuw (talk) 08:20, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Policy on adding illustrations?

Latest comment: 6 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I think I know the answer to this, but since I've had trouble finding an explicit statement anywhere, I thought I might ask. Is it acceptable to add one or more pictures representing a topic to an otherwise unillustrated text? Many texts, especially short ones such as stand-alone poems or newspaper articles, look like they would benefit from an illustration or two, but have none. For instance, an article about an event, or a prominent person who has just died, or some noteworthy achievement. If an appropriate picture or even a range of pictures depicting the person or thing exists on Wikimedia Commons, is it ever appropriate to add such pictures to transcriptions here? Would it make any difference if the caption or alternate text clearly indicated that the illustration was not part of the original text?

I suspect that the answer is probably "no, we don't do that here", although I certainly think it would be desirable for there to be some circumstance in which adding pictures would be acceptable. Obviously this practice is typical in Wikipedia, but also sometimes on Wiktionary, and usually on Wikiquote; author listings on Wikisource usually take a portrait from Wikidata, and there would probably be no objection to additional pictures in long entries, since author listings are understood not to be transcribed texts themselves. So, is my first impression correct, or is there a firm policy on this issue? P Aculeius (talk) 11:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

As you suspect, adding illustrations to texts is not permitted. Specifically, the policy WS:ANN states: "The following are currently banned on Wikisource: [...] Purely decorative illustrations and images. (Known as grangerisation or extra-illustration)".
What I would recommend, where possible and if you are willing, is to try and find an illustrated published edition of the text you are interested in, which you can then upload along with the illustrations that were originally published with it. This would be especially helpful for texts that are not currently backed by a scan. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:21, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
I also want to add that this applies to transcribed works themselves. As you have noted, images are routinely added to Author and Portal pages. I also personally like to add images to Versions and Translations pages where applicable. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 13:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-25

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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

  • People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details. [13]
  • The new Community Configuration extension is available on Test Wikipedia. This extension allows communities to customize specific features to meet their local needs. Currently only Growth features are configurable, but the extension will support other Community Configuration use cases in the future. [14][15]
  • The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page. [16]

Problems

  • Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center. [17]
  • Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here. [18]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar). [19][20]
  • Starting June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable. [21]
  • Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software. [22]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

What images of the original text should be uploaded for a newspaper article?

Latest comment: 6 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

So I'd like to transcribe some old articles from newspapers—say the New York Times. I see a variety of different methods being employed, from whole issues apparently being available to transcriptions not backed up with any images. Suppose I just want to transcribe one article appearing on one page, or perhaps across two pages. What is the best procedure to follow? Should I: A) upload the entire issue of the Times (234 pages) to Commons, B) upload just the section in which the article occurs (12 pages), C) upload just the page(s) containing the article, D) upload just images of the article text, cropped from the rest of the items, or E) something else?

I note that the full issue is available at Internet Archive, but our help page on Internet Archive speaks of uploading .djvu files, which it also says are no longer being produced by IA—I don't see a clear explanation of what to do for materials for which there is no djvu file. And lastly, the images are from a microfilm, in negative. I know how to process images myself to create a positive, but I don't want to download a high resolution scan of 234 newspaper pages just to transcribe one article! For text it may not matter that the image is a negative, but when pictures are included a positive would be greatly preferable. P Aculeius (talk) 15:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

A). We prefer having whole works than only parts of them (and regarding not backed up texts, we tend to not avoid these nowadays).
You'll rarely, if ever, find a djvu file on IA, but there is nearly always a PDF, and there are many tools, of which I think this is the best, to convert PDF files to DjVu. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 15:56, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
The main page for The New York Times says, "Most of the work on The New York Times is on individual articles", and I can see why. Formatting and transcribing the column I wanted to make available took around half an hour. Downloading the whole issue from Internet Archive took an hour and fifteen minutes, and the resulting PDF file was 872.9 MB, far larger than any file I would have chosen to download. Uploading the file to PDF2DJVU only took thirty-six minutes, and it began converting automatically. But nearly five hours later, it's still not done, and I've never received any update on its progress, or whether it's actually doing anything. I'm afraid to do anything that might interrupt it, in case it ever finishes.
If it does, then the best result I can hope for will still be a negative. I was unable to invert the pdf file before uploading to PDF2DJVU, though inverting individual pages might have worked if they'd been separate. But I don't want to spend all evening inverting 234 pages and then trying to combine them back into a single document—something I doubt I would be able to do easily. And if I successfully uploaded the finished document, it'd be suboptimal in appearance, noticeably different from all other media of its kind, and virtually none of it would ever be transcribed—most other issues that have been partly uploaded have only a handful of articles transcribed, and nothing else. Few have index pages, and those that do show almost nothing proofread or validated.
I considered trying to upload the PDF to Wikimedia Commons, on the understanding that files bigger than 1 GB are hosted, though it says that at 1 GB PDF's can start to cause issues. 872.9 MB might have squeezed in under the limit. But all of the other issues uploaded were on the order of 1/10 that size; some of that might be the .djvu format, but at the same time almost all of them are from 1900, and state in the masthead that the issue is "sixteen pages" (plus magazine, in some instances). At this point it seems unrealistic to upload the issue in question, at 234 pages, even if I can ever get a finished djvu from PDF2DJVU, which seems unlikely. The time and effort involved just for the sake of transcribing a single column probably explains why we have relatively little content from The New York Times. P Aculeius (talk) 01:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
  • P Aculeius: Our general practice is to have an entire published unit—a whole book, or a volume or an issue of a periodical—for various reasons which generally relate to cataloging and copyright principles. Newspapers, however, are a major problem in this regard, as there is often a great amount of content unrelated to the actually valuable portion. As an example, I have been working recently on scan-backing a collection of the works of Louisa May Alcott which were recently discovered. Several of these were from newspapers; in all cases I have obtained the entire issue. For just one issue of a magazine—eight pages only—and ignoring most of the advertisements—it took me four months of on-and-off work to finish. Of the different options you listed above, (A) is technically correct, though rarely actually employed (e.g. here and others listed therein, and another of my works here), but (D) is the most common (e.g., here) and (E) is common historically (although now officially disfavored) (e.g., here). Another practice, of which I do not personally approve, is to upload a scan with each column as a separate page—although this is also usually done at the issue level (e.g., here). As for conversions, it is probably best to either use the PDF without DJVU conversion or to download DjVuLibre and run the conversions locally. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 02:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
    It looks as though the size of the file was the issue. Most other sites promising the conversion of PDF to djvu indicated that files should be smaller than 50, 100, or 200 MB; some suggested that larger files could be converted with a paid subscription. PDF2DJVU did not mention a size limit, but it did not seem to be able to finish the process on a second attempt either. Finally I found this site, and was encouraged by the presence of a "donate" button, suggesting that it was non-commercial, and no size limit was mentioned. It worked! I just had to wade through a couple of dozen others before finding it. So the issue is now uploaded to Commons, though I don't think I'll be adding any more Sunday editions in the near future...
    I should probably make an index page, though the prospect of naming the pages of the different sections of a newspaper seems daunting. Before I was able to produce a djvu, I did upload and add a positive scan of the specific article from a different source (where I could not have obtained the full issue as a single document), though I didn't create an index page for it, as I thought the whole issue might still be possible (and it was). Should it also have an index page? P Aculeius (talk) 14:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

"Invalid interval" error on creating page index; unable to create pagelist for the source file

Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I've tried to create indexes for two works, carefully following all of the instructions, but I keep getting these errors that prevent me from working on either of them. I did find the explanation on the help page that said that the "invalid interval" error has been happening since earlier this year. It mentions a workaround: purging the caches for the source files on Wikimedia Commons. But I've done that multiple times, and nothing has changed. The index pages I created also show a prominent warning about the need to creating a pagelist, but despite following the instructions to the best of my ability, and following the examples in other, working index pages, nothing changes. I can see a list of other works that have the same problem, at least one of which has been in index purgatory since February. I can't see anything wrong with its pagelist, either. What am I doing wrong? Is there a solution? I can't express how frustrating it is to have to abandon projects almost as soon as they're begun. P Aculeius (talk) 03:10, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

You need to purge the file at commons (simplest way is with one of the gadgets that do that, such as the purge clock).
Sometimes, you may also need to purge the index here after purging the file.
Since the server switch a few months ago, it happens sometimes.
Note that we're not sure that purging the file works, it did in most cases but maybe not always.
I purged the two files you worked on most recently, they work now.
As for the "need to create a pagelist" warnings, you need to remove them manually by changing in the index page to "to be proofread" once you've got a pagelist. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 07:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for fixing the two "invalid interval" errors for me. Purging the files here or on Wikimedia Commons did not work for me. Could that indicate that the method of purging is involved? I have an older computer with an older browser that can no longer be updated. In any case, I was able to fix the pagelist issue thanks to your explanation. Thank you again! P Aculeius (talk) 12:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
For purging (the cache), you can either go to https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=(filename)&action=purge, or use one of the gadgets that provide a quick link to that from the file page. If it did not work for you, it might have been because you did not purge the index after, as it needs to be updated too. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 13:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

King James Version of the Bible

Latest comment: 6 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I saw this page: Bible (King James Version, 1611). I believe the King James Version of the Bible is in the public domain, so it can be freely shared on Wikisource. Why are so many books of the Bible missing (red links)? The Bible is probably the most widely read book in world history and I believe the KJV is the best known English translation. It seems like these could just be copied from some other online source. 2601:644:907E:A450:DC8E:E069:FAA3:40C5 17:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This is just one of the editions of the KJV bible, another one, Bible (King James), is finished, although not sourced, so no one gave time to do another edition.
Also, we could copy it from other sources, but here we try to stick as close to the source text as possible, meaning not modernizing spelling and other things.
This means that we do not take second-hand transcriptions anymore, such as from Project Gutenberg, because they often make changes to the text. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 20:23, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
older books don't work well with OCR, has woodcuts, and are not a priority. although as OCR improves it is easier. we don't add any value by copy pasting websites. the value is transcribing and linking to ground truth scans. --Slowking4 ‽ digitaleffie's ghost 23:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

PDF Page:s not loading

Latest comment: 6 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

I’ve been having this problem on-and-off over the past week or so, and it doesn’t seem to be limited to one computer (I’ve tried other public computers). The Page:s of an Index:….pdf will sometimes load, but then sometimes won’t load, and when they don’t load the “Image” tab will give a “Too Many Requests” error. The actual PDF (on Commons) loads fine. This happens with multiple PDFs. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I am having the same issue, although it seemed better this morning. MarkLSteadman (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-26

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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

  • Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage. [23]
  • The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode. [24]

Problems

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [26][27]
  • Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [28]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:32, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now open – cast your vote

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion
You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language

Hello everyone,

The voting to ratify the Wikimedia Movement Charter is now open. The Wikimedia Movement Charter is a document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including the creation of a new body – the Global Council – for movement governance.

The final version of the Wikimedia Movement Charter is available on Meta in different languages and attached here in PDF format for your reading.

Voting commenced on SecurePoll on June 25, 2024 at 00:01 UTC and will conclude on July 9, 2024 at 23:59 UTC. Please read more on the voter information and eligibility details.

After reading the Charter, please vote here and share this note further.

If you have any questions about the ratification vote, please contact the Charter Electoral Commission at cec@wikimedia.org.

On behalf of the CEC,

RamzyM (WMF) 10:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to join June Wikisource Community Meeting

Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello fellow Wikisource enthusiasts!

We're excited to announce our upcoming Wikisource Community meeting, scheduled for 29 June 2024, 7 AM UTC (check your local time). As always, your participation is crucial to the success of our community discussions.

Similar to previous meetings, the agenda will be split into two segments. The first half will cover non-technical updates, such as events, conferences, proofread-a-thons, and collaborations. In the second half, we'll dive into technical updates and discussions, addressing key challenges faced by Wikisource communities.

Simply follow the link below to secure your spot and engage with fellow Wikisource enthusiasts:


Event Registration Page

Agenda Suggestions: Your input matters! Feel free to suggest any additional topics you'd like to see included in the agenda.

If you have any suggestions or would just prefer being added to the meeting the old way, simply drop a message on sgill@wikimedia.org.

Thank you for your continued dedication to Wikisource. We look forward to your active participation in our upcoming meeting.

Regards,

KLawal-WMF, Sam Wilson (WMF), and Satdeep Gill (WMF)

Sent using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:17, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

SodiumBot

Latest comment: 5 months ago12 comments5 people in discussion

The following discussion is closed:

SodiumBot Task #1 (Wikisource stats) and Task #2 (Match and Split) are approved as permanent tasks.

I'd like to request community approval (bot permissions) for SodiumBot to continue Phebot's matchandsplit task (The server for using the match and split service is at matchandsplit.toolforge.org). I am aware that this is somewhat late since SodiumBot has already been doing this for a bit (since the last Wikimedia Hackathon), however, better late than never :) Sohom (talk) 14:11, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

What is the plan with respect to Phebot and this task? Is SodiumBot going to pass the task back to PheBot or will SodiumBot now take this on as a "permanent" task? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
@Xover might be able provide more context here about the plans regarding phebot, but my understanding is that this task is going to be hard to setup using Phebot's old architecture (because unlike wsstats a lot of the code depends very very heavily on the now deprecated grid engine). Sohom (talk) 20:39, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
My plan is to try to resurrect phetools at some point when I have the time for it, and at that point I will probably try to fix all of it (at which I may or may not succeed). The likelihood of my finding the time to work on it in any kind of reasonable time frame is very small, and the urgency of doing so is much much reduced now that we have an alternative for the Match&Split functionality in SodiumBot and toolforge:matchandsplit (not to mention the stats that Sohom has also set up). In other words, I wouldn't recommend holding your breath waiting for phe-bot to pick up this task again. Xover (talk) 07:37, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
In that case, let's treat this Bot Approval Request as a request to change the six-month flag to indefinite provided that SodiumBot remains doing just the Stats update and Match&Split. I'll keep the request open for a week to allow for community input. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:48, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree. Permanent bot flag for the user account, plus authorization for the two specific tasks it is already performing.
@Sohom Datta: It is a bit overkill just now, but it's generally a good idea to document each distinct task the bot is authorized for on its user page, including linking to the discussion where that task was authorized, and to link to the documentation in the edit summary for edits the bot makes under that task. That way anyone that comes across an edit by the bot can easily find out a) what the bot is doing and why, and b) who authorized it to do so. It's convenient for other contributors and staves off unnecessary drama. Xover (talk) 08:05, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Updated the userpage, I'll deploy a update for the match and split server to use better edit summaries in a bit. Sohom (talk) 14:40, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
  •  Support, and thank you so much for doing this Sohom! Match&Split is an important tool for the community so your stepping up to the plate here is very very appreciated!
    I've checked some of the bot's recent edits and see no problems. This should also have pretty much the same risk profile as Match&Split in phetools, except that Sohom is actually around and responsive (which Phe hasn't been since 2016). --Xover (talk) 07:45, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 Support Thanks for your efforts here! MarkLSteadman (talk) 18:24, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Just realised I have let this run for an extra week than intended. Community approval has been given to add the Match and Split process to the normal functions of this bot and I have changed the bot flag to indefinite. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:24, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

 Support. I see no trouble.--Jusjih (talk) 16:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
This section was archived on a request by: --Xover (talk) 08:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Community collaboration

Latest comment: 5 months ago16 comments5 people in discussion

Hey Oh! (Yup, I'm still here kind of, dropped by and decided to poke around and do a couple things, maybe I'll stay a while <shrug>)

A couple issues seem to be converging here.

1. Wikisource:Community collaboration is kind of dead. Nobody has commented (until me today) since January 2021. The last substantive change to the collab posted to Template:CotW was in March 2021 to put Portal:Eminent Women Series back up again, which was first put up in 2017 and replaced with three other projects for less than a year each.
2. Coincidentally, in May 2021, the community collaboration was removed from Template:Collaboration and replaced with Monthly challenge, apparently due to a misunderstanding of what CotW was for (it's neither a Collaboration/Challenge of the Week nor of the Month). This occurred with no apparent discussion.

I say coincidentally, because, the Community Collaboration is now really only advertised in Welcome messages. Community Collaboration was always intended for long term projects involving a lot of research and other work. I think it should go back into Template:Collaboration so that it shows up on the main page. I could easily fix this; however, there is no recent nor meaningful discussion as to what should be on it now. Also, there is a cumbersome process of updating templates that are included in other templates that seems less than ideal. We should have a way for the template to grab the source without having to edit multiple templates. Additionally, Template:Collaboration/COTW is protected with hardcoded text about it being for proofreading a text, which is never what the community collaboration was for. Template:CotW/base contradicts this but is only slightly better, it is protected and hardcoded for collecting works related to the project. The latter is more likely to be true to the purpose of Community Collaboration but not entirely.

So, I ask that

a) Template:Collaboration/COTW be unprotected, it's not even currently used and I'd like to do some interim tweaks to it with an eye towards at least restoring it to the main page. Done
b) Template:CotW/base be unprotected, it's used in a template that is barely used and I'd like to tweak it further. Done
c) We toss around some suggestions on a better way of getting data from the various "of the month" type collabs to the main page other than a series of 3 or 4 nested templates.
d) We have a discussion about the future of Community Collaboration. I think it has value, but it has to be advertised and considered in its context.

I'm willing to do some basic maintenance on these to get them into shape and participate in discussions on concept/content, but I will need help from someone with a bit. Honestly, there's a ton of restructuring we might consider (like community collab should be a kind of portal with several subpages/links to all the collabs) but I think we need to start small with just a few fixes and I can come back with some more suggestions later. If y'all want to dive into a big rethink of the structure of all this now, I probably don't have time for that and y'all can have fun. DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 19:56, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I've unprotected the two templates for you to tweak. Let me know when to re-protect them. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 22:07, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks! DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 23:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
Beeswaxcandle, could you also unprotect Wikisource_talk:Community_collaboration/2007 please, there's an unarchived discussion on Wikisource_talk:Community_collaboration from that year for some reason and I can't archive it.--DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 01:43, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Done Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:38, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Beeswaxcandle, Thanks. I'm done with it. Since these are archives and nothing else should be added, please re-protect Wikisource talk:Community collaboration/2007, and also protect
(there is no 2019, 2022, or 2023). Thanks. - DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 04:59, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
NB, I'm not done with the templates, yet, though. Thanks. - DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 05:00, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

(Interesting, it looks like the last time I posted on Scriptorium was December, 2013! DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 20:01, 23 June 2024 (UTC))

Question from someone who wasn't around last time this was active: Are you sure it's not a proofreading issue? I mean, the page does say Projects typically involve [...] finding and adding relevant texts. What does that mean if not proofreading, and more generally, what would you make of it? — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 09:53, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Alien333, It means actually going and finding scans, if they aren't on commons, then going and finding them on places like archive.org or the Library of Congress, or various similar sources, or even finding or writing a bash or python script to scrape them from a university website. Rarely, people even find the physical text and scan it. Then creating OCRs, turning the files (which are usually a set of JPEGs or TIFFs) into a .djvu file for purposes of the Index/Page space, but also pulling out the highest quality (often very large TIFFs) of any pages with images and using tools like ImageMagick and GIMP (or commercial alternatives if you're a heathen) and processing those images to make them suitable for placing on a Wikisource page, removing background interference, etc. Proofreading often makes up zero parts of this work. Proofreading belongs to Wikisource:Proofread of the Month and works that are fully proofread but need to be validated go to Wikisource:Validation of the Month. In general, the Community Collaboration is for quite long term projects, involving a topic or an author, not a single work. - DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 05:14, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification.
WS:VotM is mostly dead, only changes in four years were Inew queing some works. It was apparently proposed five years ago to merge it into WS:WPV, but that is also dead for two years). Works wanted for validation are usually put in WS:MC.
The problem also is that WS:POTM only takes a work at a time, and tries to be diverse (see discussions at Wikisource talk:Proofread of the Month), as well in topic as in authors, so we couldn't really fit a group of linked works into that, except if you put them all at a time, but then we'd never finish it, as POTM struggles to finish 200 pages. For such groups, I believe practice is currently to put it, again, into WS:MC.
About the change of {{collaboration}}, even without a discussion (although there probably was one in one talk page somewhere), you can hardly blame people for replacing a project that had at the time been dead for 2-3 years with a new, more successful project. The MC's creation was I think not led by a misunderstanding of what CotW was for but rather by a desire to do something else, with the idea taken from frws's mission 7500.
But, to come back to your point, most of that type of work (finding scans) is nowadays done by WS:RT, and requests may as well go there, which will make reviving Community collaboration, though you're welcome to try.
(Also,to answer your edit summary, answering does send a notice to people). — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 06:11, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
@Alien333, WS:RT is for a somewhat more specific purpose, both historically and it still seems that way on review. It's for asking someone to help you find a text. Community Collaboration has always been for the much broader purposes I outline above and not normally for individual texts, although sometimes it would devolve into that.
I wasn't really blaming anyone for removing community collaboration from the main page template without discussion, and I don't think this was a bad exercise of boldness, I was merely noting that this was done without a lot of input. But to your suggestion that "there probably was one in one talk page somewhere", you didn't look, because there's not a lot of "somewhere" for it to be hiding, there are 4 discussions on the entirety of Template talk:Collaboration in 14 years (and the edits were commented as "bold", which is generally a straight up admission of edit without discussion - still, no blame but I think they didn't realize what community collaboration was intended for or I think they would've discussed it).
I also wasn't suggesting that the creation of MC had anything to do with a misunderstanding. I know very little about MC.
Most importantly though, it had not been dead for 2-3 years at the time of the edit at all. It had been changed only a two months earlier to put Eminent Women back up, but that was replacing Slavery in the United States, which had been placed up about 5 months prior to that. My point was in fact this, it was taken off the main page template 2 months after it was last updated, it was then, surprise, surprise, never updated again. Likely because nobody saw it anymore unless they happened to see a Welcome message. - DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 07:02, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Alien333, This is several years out of date but the texts linked here are examples of texts that I was particularly searching for at one time. User:DeirdreAnne#Texts_I_am_Looking_For Note that some of those works aren't in English. I was active on en.ws, de.ws, la.ws, and a couple others, not to mention mul.ws where this is interwiki-transcluded from. Though I haven't been on active on any for almost a decade. - DeirdreAnne(talk • contribs) 05:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

When and why to use running headers

Latest comment: 5 months ago11 comments4 people in discussion

I'm a little confused by the "running header" template. I understand how to use it on individual pages, but not why: if the header has only one item, such as the book or chapter title, or the footer has only a page number—especially if these are centered, and their alignment doesn't vary from page to page—wouldn't it just be easier to use the "center" template, or other alignment as appropriate?

If it's possible to use the "running header" template to populate headers with their contents, then I could see using it instead of alignment templates. But I haven't figured out how to do that, if it's possible, and so far most of the books I've worked on don't use the same header from page to page—of course the first page of a chapter usually doesn't have a header, nor do some pages with illustrations (and both sometimes have different footers, as well), and in poetry collections there's often only a header if a poem continues onto a second page, and then whether it's the title of the book or the poem depends on whether it's the left page or the right. So each page with a header has to have it formatted separately, although the page numbers in the footer are more consistent in the books I've been working on. Is there a particular reason to use the running header template in these cases? P Aculeius (talk) 13:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

First, {{rh}} has been used to make TOCs and for title pages and any other purpose which requires 3 different elements to be displayed in a line. I suspect that the (original) purpose is for the header portion of the edit window. Also, I highly discourage its use for tables of contents because it is making a separate table each time it is used.
Second, and most important, is the way to toss a "fully-loaded" {{rh}} into the header (or footer) of each newly created page. Towards the bottom of the index page are two blanks: "header" and "footer". {{rh}} in that header box will put a left side page number and the book title into the headers of each new page. And better yet, {{rvh|{{{pagenum}}}|Chapter title|Book title}} will put the number on one side if the page is an even number and the other for odd numbers and switch out the printed text for each also. {{rvh}} is a little futzey to get working properly, but is the best thing since sliced bread!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 14:21, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Here is an example of rvh being installed to the form on an Index page: installing into the form. This diff is actually of a typo capable of breaking it being fixed.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 15:50, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that "running header" was being used for tables of contents. I've only seen, used, or modified it in the header and footer sections of a page. What I was asking, however, was not how to create headers and footers, or alternate headers and footers on even and odd pages—though that probably will be useful to know moving forward, provided there's a way to skip or override it on pages that shouldn't have headers or footers.
The main question is, why use a running header template for a header or footer that contains only a single item, such as a centered title that varies from one page to the next, or page numbers that always occur in the center? Is there some purpose in having {{rh||3|}} instead of {{center|3}}, and is it worth going through a book that just uses alignment tags and changing them into running headers? Does it make any difference if something uses left, right, or center tags and looks identical to how it would with a running header? P Aculeius (talk) 16:50, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
If there is only a single item, such as the title in the header and the page numbers in the footer, then yes, just use center. I've done so in setting up Index:Margaret Wilson - The Able McLaughlins.djvu. I expect that some people learn the practice of using {{rh}} for headers / footers before learning the reasons, and so it never occurs to them that using {{center}} would be perfectly adequate and less complicated. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:45, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
The reason some pople use RH over C, is to ensure consistent formatting. Rh lets you set up CSS 'classes' meaning you don't have to continually add emboldining, smallcaps on each page.
Technically single items header/page numbers should be using {{rh/1}}
ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:34, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Even if the page number is nothing more than just a centered number? For what purpose? --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
And you are aware that {{rh/1}} is a redirect, and is not a template? --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:48, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Redirects to templates work just like the templates themselves; they're sort of shortcuts, like {{c}} instead of {{center}} or {{sc}} for {{smallcaps}}. They're already widely used in the texts I've been validating, and I haven't noticed any issues with those or when I've tried them myself.
As for {{rh/1}}, I'm going to have to experiment with that to do it right, but it could indeed save time and effort when you want to format headers and footers consistently. I found a book that uses this template to make the header title larger and bold, and another that makes the page number smaller. That would be a nice way to avoid accidentally placing them in different sizes or formats from page to page, which was a constant worry on a book that I recently validated. On other books, there seemed to be no special formatting, in which case the template would offer no particular advantage over {{c}}, except that you wouldn't have to edit every page if you later decided that the headers need to be in italics or the page numbers a little smaller. If you already have one or more {{rh/1}} templates in place, you can change how the headers and footers look without editing each page that includes them separately. P Aculeius (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
I also see that the {{rh/1}} has no explanation of how to use it. It has a clear warning about how not to use it; and there is information about the syntax. But there is no explanation anywhere in the documentation of why this template would be used at all; nor is there any information about how to apply the CSS in using this template. There is also a note that "if the work only has one kind of centred page number/header, you don't need this", which could mean extra classes aren't needed, or that the template itself isn't needed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:24, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
That sounds like a good reason to improve the documentation! I'd appreciate more information about how to implement CSS styles, being far from an expert on them. I think I can do it by copying the styles from the book I mentioned, and modifying them. But CSS is a step beyond my realm of expertise, so I'd just be tinkering with it! And as for the "you don't need this", that would be technically true, if there's no chance that you'd want to change the formatting of the header and footer as you go, or in the future. I find myself making these changes fairly often, so if I understand how {{rh/1}} works, it'll be a great time-saver! P Aculeius (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Files missing machine-readable data

Latest comment: 4 months ago31 comments7 people in discussion

Hi all,

The categories…

…have a bit of a backlog that it would be nice if the community helped out with. The two overlap so it's not quite as bad as at first glance (889 + 675), but it's still enough that it's a "dip in, do a few" kind of task that's easy work if enough people help out. Xover (talk) 08:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

105 of the Files with no machine-readable author are volumes of Blackwood's Magazine. What do we even put as an Author for such volumes? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
I would probably simply put "multiple". Or...?
PS. if there are a hundred of them that should all get the same value it's probably better to have a bot add it. Xover (talk) 21:44, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
The same 105 files are also in the other category. Someone who knows what data to add, and can run a bot, could clear those 105 files from both ctageories quickly. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:45, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Ok, all the Blackwood's Magazine volumes have now been cleared out of those categories. Xover (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@TE(æ)A,ea., do you still need the images in Category:Millions of Cats images? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 20:25, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Another sizeable set of images that could be handled by bot are the illustrations to "The House at Pooh Corner (1961)", and whose filenames start with that phrase. The illustrator (author) for these images is E. H. Shepard. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:31, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
The Pooh Corner ones are Done. Xover (talk) 08:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
One more bot-suitable task would be setting the author to "multiple" for the DJVUs in Special:PrefixIndex/File:The_Strand_Magazine_(Volume. (The illustrations often have signatures and so should be handled manually.) —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 21:02, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
The Strand djvus are Done. Xover (talk) 09:34, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
I've done few, and I thought we could make the Maintenance of the Month for July, since it's easy to step in and fix two or three. Cremastra (talk) 11:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
@Xover Could you give the files starting with "Whenwewereveryyo0000unse" in Category:Files with no machine-readable description the description {{en|1=Illustration from ''When We Were Very Young''}}? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 16:18, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
@CalendulaAsteraceae: Done Xover (talk) 11:15, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
  • There are 46 files with names of the form "FigNNdescription.png" (with or without a space after the NN fig. number) are from the 1910 A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture by Author:Friedrich Justus Knecht. No illustrator is credited. These files can be exported to Commons, since the work was published more than 95 years ago and the author dies more than 100 years ago. However, the files should probably be renamed to include the source work title. Since there are 46 images requiring a similar rename, addition of the same author and description, and a similar export, this task might be best handled by bot. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:05, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
    Well, that took longer than planned, but… Done All images have been reextracted and now live in c:Category:A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture (1910), and the old ones have been deleted here. Xover (talk) 13:42, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
  • There are 56 illustrations with names that begin "File:The Strand Magazine . . . " that might be given basic data by bot. Many of these apparear to be illustrations for Sherlock Holmes stories. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:45, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
    I've whittled these Sherlock Holmes illustrations down to about a dozen, and for those the illustrator is not clearly stated. The illustrations that I've processed were all from two illustrators. However, I've noticed while doing these that all were tagged with the {{book}} template, but the files aren't books. The template should be swapped out for an appropriate template, preferrably by bot, in order to switch the information in each field to a suitable corresponding parameter in the new template. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:36, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Using the book template at commons allows all of the information to fill in from wikidata, including the scan image which then can be "opened", via "|Image page" to the page in the scan that the image came from. Template names are not a "law" are they? If so, the {{book}} template could be renamed {{book and everything in that book}} for the pedantic among us. A more elegant solution is to get the book template here working and then maybe share it with commons, as that template makes great use of the Art module which then complains because the books there don't seem to be two dimensional objects and throws them into several maintenance categories. The {{information}} template is very very 2004!--RaboKarbakian (talk) 12:00, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
The {{book}} template is fine, as long as the object is a scan of a book. It should not be used for files that are extracted illustrations, which are not books. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:02, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Among wikisource screenshots, the following files should be deleted as they were added as "temporary" multiple years ago:
These others, although not marked as temporary, were manifestly made to be used in a discussion and are now used nowhere:
EDIT: Other temporary files that have been there for a while:
— Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 15:07, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
File:Screenshot 2021-05-19 Eminent Chinese of the Qing Period.png states that it exists for the creation of Author pages. Do we know whether that task was completed? --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
It was three years ago, and most names on the list are blue links, so I think so. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 15:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
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