User talk:Gavin.collins

— billinghurst  sDrewth  14:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

History of Tom Jones
There are a plethora to choose from at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=History%20of%20Tom%20Jones%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts. You would need to work out whether you want an earlier edition, something that may have annotations or images, a better quality scan, all one volume rather than parts, etc. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Addendum. Always useful to ensure that all the pages are present. The University of Toronto had a quality scan job so I often choose them as it makes the proofread easier. If you find a copy and needs a hand to get it all into place, give me a hoy. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I will give EncycloPetey time to respond to my query at Talk:The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling before taking up your offer, as he may have a good idea as to which scan may be best to use. --Gavin.collins (talk) 15:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The mysterious Header toggle button
When proofreading in the Page: namespace and one has their toolbar turned on [ Gadgets, one will see the button button_category_plus.png, and clicking it toggles the header/footer on and off. In this space we put the relevant components for top and bottoms of pages by use of the template RunningHeader, so for example produces I personally have my header/footer set to open in the Page: namespace and I achieved this by activating that option in my Gadgets. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Though I would agree that the use of center is appropriate in this circumstance. Do note that you are quite welcome to advance the page status of the work if you have proofread it. I have been through and proofread a few, feel free to go through and validate them. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to me either these settings in my preferences are either fiendishly complex or I am a bit dim (more likely). If I have understood you correctly, I go to Preferences/Gadgets (tab)/Editing tools for Page: namespace (section), where I should tick the "Show header and footer fields", after which more Wikimarkup will become visible. It will take a while before I understand this addtional layer of markup, so don't hesitate to tell me if I am doing something wrong. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That sounds right, it is used to 'noinclude' the bits we don't need: page numbers and the repeated titles at the top of each page. CYGNIS INSIGNIS 18:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Sister links
Gavin, fyi, here are a few more opinions on sister links that were offered in a recent (and brief) discussion. —Spangineer (háblame) 16:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to be random to me. On another matter, how do you insert, remove or position line breaks? I don't see any markup for them. I can't seem to be able to create them using carraige return. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Standard practice is to use line breaks to separate paragraphs, not indented text. That's what you get when you hit carriage return twice.  One carriage return won't create a new line.
 * If you want additional space between paragraphs (perhaps the book uses both indentation and space between paragraphs to indicate a break in thought, for example), you can add carriage returns. The "markup" is the number of blank lines between lines of text.
 * If you want additional space at the end of a page, use nop. This adds a line break and ensures that it is preserved when one page is combined with the next page in the main namespace.  For example, see the bottom of Page:No Treason, v1.djvu/16, and what it looks like the main namespace: No_Treason/1.
 * Let me know if this answers your question; hopefully I didn't miss it. —Spangineer (háblame) 17:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I still don't get it - I am getting page breaks where I don't want them and getting no page breaks where I need them. I tried all of this at this page, but the line breaks just don't seem to go where I want them too. For some reason, I am getting page breaks a the begining of the page, even though there is no space at the beginning of the text to put them into. Could you edit this page for me in the way you think best, and I will see if I can replacate your page breaks in the pages that follow. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * George Orwell edited that page, so I edited Page:Problems of Empire.djvu/14 to show you how I do it. There's no need to preserve indentation, so div tags are unnecessary. That may have been what was causing your line break issues. Also, I removed two of the very basic links to Wikipedia, and replaced two others with links to the Author namespace and the Portal namespace.  I simplified the running header (it doesn't appear in the main namespace, so careful formatting isn't really necessary). Finally I used the standard reference notation, along with smallrefs, to show the reference at the bottom.  I could have aligned the reference in the center, but again, it's not really necessary since that's not how it will appear in the main namespace.
 * In any case, the important thing is consistency, so feel free to change the page I edited to match the others if you decide you prefer some aspect of them. —Spangineer (háblame) 13:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I take your point about there being no need to preserve indentation, which I agree is merely a formatting rather than a substantial presentational issue. I have consistently applied this throughout the text as you suggest.
 * There seems to be various ways to use links to sister Wikiprojects, but where they add useful context, I feel they are justified. For instance, I think the link to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is the term that the author is refering at the time the book was written, whereas the Portal uses the term United Kingdom in relation to its more recent history (i.e. after the creation of an independent Irish state). Either way, the use of links is subjective, but where they add value, I think they are justified.
 * Another question I have relates to the typographical form of apostrophes (and quotation marks), of which there is the ‘curly form’ or 'neutral form'. What is common practice? Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right about the portal link for the UK; in the future that portal could be split by era in order to make it possible to link to an appropriate UK portal.
 * As for quotes, straight ones are more common here than curly ones. The latter have their supporters, but for reasons of simplicity the former are usually preferred. —Spangineer (háblame) 15:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)Gavin, there are a level of variation in the application in some of the peripheral stylistic matters, so we prefer to state to follow the style of the primary contributor. If the major contributor is doing things in a way, then continue that style. Many of us generally will just use standard single and double quotes of the keyboard, though for some works where there are many and close together or stylistically it seems necessary to emphasise their direction, I have used specific and different typographical forms. With regards to sister links, again there is a range of approaches, though we would encourage lighter linking rather than heavier linking, and not linking to the more obvious, only where it gives specific and necessary help. So generally not for kings and queens, though sometimes for lesser people where their linking adds really really good value. We are also trying to tidy up the plethora of interwiki linking means, it was getting nasty/messy. Guiding principles &hellip; text is king, WYSIWYT; typography and layout need to be considered that we are on the web, not in the 19thC. The author wrote the books from quills to ballpoints, they did the narrative. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

As an fyi regarding this edit, once the book is in the main namespace, you'll be able to link to the appropriate place in the main namespace. So the first of those two links could be replaced with Problems of Empire/Imperial Government, and the second with Problems of Empire/Australia and Imperial Defence —Spangineer (háblame) 12:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI indexes
Thanks for starting Page:The Art of Bookbinding, Zaehnsdorf, 1890.djvu/221 though some even better news. has some magic scripts that he will run once we have finished the work (and ask him very nicely) and it will put active links that will point to right pages from the lines in the index. Makes it so very sweet not having to do it manually. Billinghurst (talk) 02:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Insular script
You should like this:

insular

--Eliyak T · C 07:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * . ! Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)