Help talk:Beginner's guide to proofreading

Fig 2
Hi, newbie here. Main page has been updated questioning Fig. 2 location. I'd like to second that thought.

Humbug26 (talk) 01:29, 19 July 2015 (UTC)


 * That was first mentioned here. I assume that the screenshot needs to be created and uploaded, but User:AdamBMorgan may remember.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:15, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I missed that as well and it's a long time since this issue has been open. Anyone know where it is or how to create it? Fairflow (talk) 09:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Page numbers
What to do with page numbers and suchlike?

"columns of text are not necessary"
I think you mean "text should not be broken up into columns just because the original was in columns", but when I first read this, I thought it mean "don't bother transcribing tables of numbers or other data that's formatted in columns" which doesn't make as much sense. — Omegatron (talk) 23:07, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your suggestion @Omegatron. I have made this change.  (Feel free to improve on what I've tried.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Punctuation
Disclaimer: this is my first contribution to Wikisource though I've edited on Wikipedia. So please be gentle in responses! We are told on this Beginner's guide page that "Spaces before punctuation should be removed (when the mistake is due to the OCR, and not in the original text)". Which is what I would have thought and which I would prefer when reading a transcription of an original. However, I just started proofreading pages of The Works of the Rev. Jonathon Swift, Volume 1 and the only issues I've seen so far are punctuation issues. In the work above, semi-colons and colons are presented with a single space after and before like this : or like that ; just typed. The extra spaces are in the original text and are not OCR mistakes; yet they have been consistently removed. I checked the relevant Index discussion page but punctuation isn't discussed there. So my question here is: have I missed something obvious or is it worth raising the issue on the Index discussion page? Fairflow (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point, you have probably come across one of examples where the current practice has diverged from an advice written in the guide far back in the beginning of Wikisource. The current practice is simply to remove the space before dots, commas, colons and semicolons. See also more general Style_guide, point 7. The advice in the Beginner’s guide should probably be re-written. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 10:32, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks for that Jan, saved me from possible embarrassment. Adding the link to the Style guide would help beginners like me.  I'll leave that for a more experienced editor! Fairflow (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to further adjust and/or clarify. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to further adjust and/or clarify. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)