User talk:Hesperian/Archive 10


 * The following text is preserved as an archive of discussions at User talk:Hesperian. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on User talk:Hesperian. No further edits should be made to this page.

Vertical displacement so I can wrap text above?
If you could have a look at Page:Modern Parliamentary Eloquence.djvu/10 you will see that the box of text for the paragraph is displace two lines into the paragraph. I can float it left and wrap the text around, however, I am trying to float left and to vertically displace the box/span, and get the text to wrap over the top, however, I am unsuccessful in my exploits. Is this an impossibility with CSS2? I know that I can typeset the float left further into the paragraph, however, with the various possible screen widths it is problematic getting it consistent, hence my trying to do a relative displacement from the start of the paragraph. Is there a solution, or should I just do a float left at the start of the paragraph and move on. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Jack might have some dirty hack up his sleeve, but the basic principle of CSS floating is that you can only float left or right, not up or down. Hesperian 23:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

WS Technicalities
Where my understanding/knowledge of technical details is lacking, I set about trying to break apart every aspect of the thing, then try to put it back together again in ways that make sense to me. Much gets lost in the translation that way, however... Apologies that if in my attempt to understand a thing—where gaps exist in my brain—I exasperate some with my tireless questioning! Some things I'll get here, and the rest I'll just leave to those whose brains work differently than mine! ;) It can be freeing... Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no need to apologise. I'm not exasperated; and if I was it would be my problem, not yours. As you were.... Hesperian 04:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. (Forgive my seriousness here) I think we each have a responsibility to not exasperate others.  Actions have consequences, and if one is a source of exasperation—albeit unintentionally—the "problem" becomes shared. . . until worked out.  I just don't like being the source, even though I very often am (being stubborn and foolish)! :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 04:47, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps my perspective is overly coloured by my experience at the English Wikipedia, where people are expected to be courteous, but there is little expectation that people be thick-skinned. This has always bothered me. The "problem" is indeed shared, and usually it is the exasperatee who fails to shoulder their share of the responsibility. Therefore I try to take responsibility for my own exasperation. All of this is hypothetical, of course, as I am not exasperated. ;-) Hesperian 05:05, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a hypothetical case! :) And it's late... Over and out! Londonjackbooks (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

bureaucrat
Hi Hesperian,

You are now a bureaucrat!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:48, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, jolly good, thanks Zhaladshar! Hesperian 13:22, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Coates, Florence Earle entries
Thought to ask you for the reason why you prefer that versions page author/poem entries be made the way you did them as opposed to others before I get too far along in my reworking. As I'm sure you have a good reason, I'm likely to follow suit. Thanks! Londonjackbooks (talk) 19:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have always been of the view that a full citation is much better (i.e. more informative, more useful, more polished) than the
 * "The Raven (1845), a poem by Edgar Allan Poe
 * format recommended by the Style guide. But I've never bothered to proselytize that view, let alone test consensus on it. I suggest you do whatever you think best, and rely on me not to interfere. Hesperian 23:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Not looking for consensus, just your opinion—which you gave, and I appreciate, Thank you :) I do like the idea of having an instance of last name/first name on the page, however—sometimes I search for people/authors that way for it gives me more results (not more results than, but certainly supplementary results) than first/last—or even first/middle/last (esp. when placing search terms within quotation marks)... Thank you! I may use a mix of the two somehow... Londonjackbooks (talk) 02:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Help requested to resolve an inconsistency
Hi. I need your advice on how to resolve an original publishing inconsistency.

A series of articles (by several contributors) which began in volume 38 Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/157, the main title of the first nine articles is THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS followed by the subtitle according to the topic like I. EARLY STEPS IN IRON-MAKING. etc. Now, in volume 40 Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/157, with the tenth article, the title prominence is reversed although the series numbering is continuous.

My concern is not the originals but the main namespace where I would like to maintain consistency of multi-part articles and properly display them ON THIS LIST. Would it be OK to add the subtitles as an extension to the series name? I have done this with the New Chapters in the Warfare of Science series like this Popular Science Monthly/Volume 37/September 1890/New Chapters in the Warfare of Science: Anthropology I.— Ineuw talk 03:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi. It is also getting more complex in Vol. 42 Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_42.djvu/451 and Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_42.djvu/597, where article XVII-The Glass Industry is splitted into 2 parts. How should they be called then? --Mpaa (talk) 19:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm inclined to think that subtitles would be beneficial here, but for consistency's sake, you could probably continue to include the number as well. Personally I prefer colon separated titles, as in
 * /The Development of American Industries Since Columbus I: Early Steps in Iron Making

I could tolerate mdashes:
 * /The Development of American Industries Since Columbus I — Early Steps in Iron Making

I really don't like your use of hyphens, it looks all wrong to me, just as your stripping the trailing period from initials looks all wrong to me too. But these things are not worth quibbling over, it's your project, and consistency is important, so go with a hyphen if you must.

If you go with
 * /The Development of American Industries Since Columbus I - Early Steps in Iron Making

then I guess the issue of a split subarticle could be resolved as
 * /The Development of American Industries Since Columbus XVII - The Glass Industry I

and
 * /The Development of American Industries Since Columbus XVII - The Glass Industry II

Hesperian 00:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Your words of wisdom ("You don't really look at your watchlist, do you?") rings true when I happened to take a break just now, and came across your reply. After posting, I felt uncomfortable for not making the decision on my own and proceeded without revisiting this post.


 * Taking a second look, I agree with you that the hyphens should be replaced, and as usual, I will tackle the issue (like I did with the first 1,000 images) and will replace them as soon as I feel a sense of accomplishment in other areas of the project. Thus, would it be acceptable that wherever I used hyphens in an article title, I would replace them with a colon ? My original premise was based on not using characters outside of the ANSI 0032 to 0127 (ASCII 32-127) character range to help anyone not familiar with ANSI. Mdashes are problematic under this rule, and I also don't really see a dramatic difference between the mdash and a hyphen. On the other hand, colons were occasionally used in original PSM titles.


 * Final concern is the number of page deletions this change will generate. I will return here and post the number of deletions will be required by counting them in the titles database. Thanks for the advice. — Ineuw talk 04:24, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I placed the lists in User:Ineuw/Sandbox6. The upper table is as they are now, and the lower table as they would appear. There are 77 titles, (not all exist as yet), and matching redirects for the existing ones that will need to be deleted. — Ineuw talk 04:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Blank page check time
If/when you have some time in your day(s) would you please generate the blank page list for checking. Thanks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  21:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * User:Hesperian/Without text. Hesperian 00:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Done. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Three months since. Whenever you have a chance (not urgent) it would great if you could run your script. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It'll likely have to wait until late January; I went on holidays and left my scripts behind; but if I see an opportunity to drop in and grab them, I'll take it. Hesperian 10:50, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Verbally the emphasis was on whenever. Late Jan works fine, don't interrupt cricket or family time for this. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

deletions
A courtesy note to explain all these deletions, in case someone wonders what the hell I'm up to: We often disambiguate a page by moving it to a disambiguated title and then converting the consequent redirect from the original title into a disambiguation page. If the original page had a talk page, then that gets moved too, and usually we don't bother to do anything with the redirect that gets left behind in talk space, so we end up with the talk page for a disambiguation page redirecting to the talk page of a disambiguated work. I'm just going through cleaning up this mess by deleting all talk pages that are redirects, for which the corresponding work either doesn't exist or is not itself a redirect. (Except for USSC ones, which I'm project tagging instead). Hesperian 03:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * First, thanks for taking all of this head-on with all its twists and turns at hand.
 * Just an additional point - sub-page(s) & their related Talk(s) (both of which eventually redirect to the moved case name) are also being left behind in growing numbers. They've become newly orphaned in relation to their rootpagename, i.e. the new Disambig pagename. All those orphaned Disambig sub-pages, and their Talks, are pointless redirects if you can follow me here. You might be better off by supressing the creation of redirects altogether in certain work-flow instances (being that the rootpagename's talk page redirect is replaced by a banner that is). -- George Orwell III (talk) 21:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, I see what you mean; I'll sort it out. Hesperian 02:04, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Categories for pages from Index
Hi. I am trying to think about a way of monitoring progress on PSM. Pls refer to this discussion for some background. My question is: is it possible to understand that a given Page of a Volume belongs to the Category of the Index (e.g. Category:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40) without the specific Page being explicitly assigned to it? I mean, just for the fact that the page is originated by an Index belonging to that Category? My goal is to intersect Categories and obtain status of issues per volume. Bye --Mpaa (talk) 22:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that I fully understand your question, but I think the answer is: no, it isn't possible.
 * If you want, I can put together a script that outputs a table akin to User:Hesperian/Indices, but for PSM pages only, and with whatever columns you wish. It might take me a couple of days to get it right the first time, but after that, just poke me when you want me to re-run it. Hesperian 00:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi. I think you got my point. Ineuw and myself are thinking a bit on how to track progress on PSM. I am quite new so I am exploring which capabilities WS offers to do that. And your table is one example of what is possible. We are still in the process of defining what we need. We will come back to you when we have specified it. Or better, coud you teach us how to fish ...? Do you need super-powers to generate that table? So we can play around without bothering. Also because we might want to update data frequently (e.g. on a bi-weekly basis). --Mpaa (talk) 07:37, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You would need to install the python scripting language, and the pywikipediabot framework. Instructions are at Pywikipediabot/Overview. I would then email you a script to run at your leisure. If you wanted to make changes, you could have a go yourself, or ask me to do it. I would call this a steep learning curve, but not super-powers. But I have years of experience in this sort of thing; maybe you see it differently. If you want to learn to fish, I'd be delighted to support you through that. If not, I'm always happy to script up this kind of thing for my fellow Wikimedians. Hesperian 02:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. When I said super-powers I was thinking to Admin rights (it is how we use to call them at work, only after your answer I realised it was not clear at all). I'll give a thought wether to throw myself in the python world, which is new to me. New tools and environment to install and get familiar with = sleepless nights ... :-) but that's how one learns ... And learning is also one reason that hooks me on WS. --Mpaa (talk) 09:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The only difference being an admin makes is the ability to get the API to return 5000 results at a time, instead of only 500. The scripts will still work fine, but will run slower because they need to hit the API ten times as much. Hesperian 11:12, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. Waiting for the script then, hoping is not too complex. --Mpaa (talk) 13:09, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll start coding it up tomorrow (it is Sunday evening here). It isn't possible to mail attachments with Special:EmailUser, so you'll need to send me an email so that I have your email address to send it to. Hesperian 13:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi. Thanks. It's running now. I think need to adapt it to write output to a file now. In the DOS shell I can't get the whole output text, or I am missing something? One question on API:Categorymembers. Can you intersect categories? --Mpaa (talk) 19:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Did you get IDLE with your python install? Instead of double-clicking the file, I right-click, open with IDLE, then press F5 to run it in a shell. No, not directly with the API. You would do it in python by pulling the members of each category into a set, then intersecting the two sets. Something like the below (I haven't tested this). Hesperian 00:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

def get_category_members(category): members = set

data = query.GetData({'action':'query', 'list':'categorymembers', 'cmtitle':'Category:'+category, 'cmprop':'title', 'cmlimit':'max'}, useAPI=True) for entry in data[u'query'][u'categorymembers']: members.add(title)

while data.has_key(u'query-continue'): cont = data[u'query-continue'][u'categorymembers'][u'cmcontinue'] data = query.GetData({'action':'query', 'list':'categorymembers', 'cmtitle':'Category:'+category, 'cmprop':'title', 'cmlimit':'max', 'cmcontinue':cont}, useAPI=True) for entry in data[u'query'][u'categorymembers']: members.add(title)

return members

def category_intersection(category1, category2): members1 = get_category_members(category1) members2 = get_category_members(category2)

return members1.intersection(members2)
 * No, I do not get IDLE. I run the script in the shell but the out put is too long and cannot copy-paste. --Mpaa (talk) 01:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh! I thought it came bundled with all Windows distributions! Well, I suppose you can open up a command prompt and run it as
 * python psmprogress.py > output.txt
 * Hesperian 01:12, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added output file support; testing it now; will email shortly. Hesperian 01:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way, the apihighlimits right is given not only to admins but also to bots. So one way for you to get it is to create a MpaaBot user account, arrange for it to be flagged as a bot account, and then do your API querying under that account. You need community approval to make bot edits, but there's no problem with using a bot account simply to query the API. Hesperian 01:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

extra lines, again
I have just been doing some validation of a chapter you put up, this caused an extra line to be inserted at every page I went through. :( CYGNIS INSIGNIS 07:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Those who do not learn from history...." Hesperian 23:42, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Those who learn from history …" CYGNIS INSIGNIS 01:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

[Cygnis needs to stay if only for the benefit of being able to continue to read the back-and-forth between you two! :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 12:48, 4 November 2011 (UTC)]

Outing
Still proposed? Is policy?

Not sure I need a backstory for this one; just wondering if 'delete' status still applies. TIA -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:58, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Misgovernment of Cities etc.
Received your note regard the deletion. Myself had doubts but left it up to you. Also, I was checking through the earliest articles which may or may not be multi-part. I will place them in a sandbox and ask you to decide.— Ineuw talk 03:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I placed two sets of article titles, HERE both are two part articles each - by the same authors - but their name is slightly different. My setup for generating multi part articles depends on identical article titles followed by Roman numerals and these differ. Perhaps you have an idea how I could fit these in my scheme, so that they will be included in generated lists. — Ineuw talk 05:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi. Please ignore this post. I figured out what to do, and decided to talk it over with User:Mpaa whose input in PSM has been most helpful, as well as he is far more knowledgeable than I in many areas. Thanks.— Ineuw talk 06:14, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, I forgot all about this. I'm glad you've got it sorted. Hesperian 06:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Titles listed in Project Homeschooling
Hesperian, I have noticed some titles being subpaged to StateofAvon's User page... Could you please take a look (or refer to someone else) at some of the titles listed at WikiProject Homeschooling (which StateofAvon created after I inquired at the Scriptorium back in March about the possibility of having some sort of Homeschooling "page") and see how they might/could/should be affected/handled by some of the moves going on? I was not familiar with most of the titles/works that were placed there (some were initially redlinks), and am not a good judge as to whether they should remain there or not (or even if the page itself should remain there). I haven't been vigilant about overseeing it anyhow. Sorry and thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 00:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ineuw has userfied some Popular Science Monthly article excerpts. From what I can tell, the only PSM articles listed at that WikiProject page are complete articles fully incorporated into the PSM article tree. So the WikiProject should be unaffected by these or any further such moves. Also, Ineuw can be relied upon to consider the impact of page moves and deletions, and follow up by fixing links etc., so I don't think there is any need for concern on that front.
 * Have a nice day!
 * Hesperian 01:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for checking on it for me... You have a nice day too :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 01:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of SBDEL redirects
Hi Hesperian, whether or not redirects like A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Ward, Artemus are needed is debatable, but they are intended to represent/record real entries in SLDEL. In the printed form it says "See Browne, Charles Farrar". They are mentioned on the talk page. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:21, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh! I've been going through gradually deleting all redirects that live within work subpages, on the grounds that there is never a good reason to have subpages that are redirects, and they are pretty much always loose ends left behind after bulk page moves. This is the first cogent rationale I've heard for keeping any of them. Even in this case, I disagree; I think that if the printed text says "See Browne, Charles Farrar" then we should honour that with a page that says "See Browne, Charles Farrar", appropriately linked of course. But the first rule of speedy deletion is that deletions must be unchallengeable. I will restore, and maybe, maybe not, start a community discussion on the matter. Hesperian 02:31, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Nada
9 November 2011 06:15 	(Deletion log). . Hesperian (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "The British Medical Journal/1924/Obituary/Alexander Charles O'Sullivan" (WS:CSD M2 - Unneeded redirects: content was: '#REDIRECT British Medical Journal/1924/Obituary/Alexander Charles O'Sullivan' (and the only contributor was 'Billinghurst'))

Probably worth checking the "What links here" before deleting. Have you also checked what links there from outside of Wikisource? I am pretty certain that I linked to it from RootsWeb, but that may have been another article. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I check the "What links here" every time. ;-) And of course it is impossible to check for incoming links from outside Wikisource... isn't it? Hesperian 12:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Missed this one somehow, but not to worry I updated them here. I know that it is difficult to check incoming links, but isn't that why redirects are left in place for many files at Commons so that incoming links are still effective? It adds an element to the process. — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:11, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh bugger. My bad, I was only checking for "What links here" from the main namespace. I assume the links you fixed were from other namespaces? I'll fix that. The problem is that one of us moves a page with a hundred subpages, and then converts the root page to a disambiguation page, and we end up with a disambiguation page that has a hundred redirects in its subpage space. We now have thousands of these messes, and if they never get cleaned up then they'll never get cleaned up. Yes, that has to be balanced against the danger of causing damage by breaking incoming links. But we're not talking about links to works; we're talking about deeplinks into work subpages via old subpage redirects. I think there are only going to be a very small number of them, and I think the prospect of breaking them shouldn't forever prevent us from cleaning up a horrible mess. Do you want me to stop and bring it up for further discussion? Hesperian 00:05, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I am all for the greater good (simplicity not spaghetti), so no need to stop or take it broader from my perspective, we found the issue and won't have redlinks in non-ns, which was my concern. In this space I have generally been substituting the dated soft redirect, and letting TalBot fix it in the three month window, however, I am not overly concerned as I now would link to an author page rather than to a main ns article just as it usually has more information anyway. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Deletion: bad for an incoming link
Hi Hesperian, I noticed that you deleted Index:Presidential Daily Diary, compiled 01-1969.pdf in favor of the DJVU file a while back. This makes sense, but unfortunately the PDF version had already been linked from a prominent blog post: http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=5054 Might want to take a look. I'm not sure if it's possible to make a redirect on an Index page, but if so, maybe that would be the best solution? -Pete (talk) 21:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Restored as redirect. At some point when NARA has well archived the entry, we should make it a (dated)softredirect on en.WS as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:03, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks George! -Pete (talk) 06:04, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Premptive to a WS:S proposal
Hi,

I was hoping to see if you're willing to undertake the various maintenance tasks that have been in progress for a while now to a formal BOT account. When you make changes under your User: account that exceede 100+ or so in a relatively short amount of time, it makes it kinda hard to patrol a day's acivity when 90%+ of what is the default watchlist Recent Changes comes up as your moves/and or deletions for the past hour or two. Thank you for any consideration in advance. If not, I think a formal WS:S proposal on batch edits over 50 at a pop be done under a BOT account is warranted. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi George. Sorry for taking so long to respond; I really needed to take a wikibreak but kept putting it off. My initial response to your message was to stop what I was doing while I gave your request some thought, and as soon as I did so my wikibreak took hold.
 * Obviously I've had plenty of time to think about your request, and my answer is no, I'm not willing to create a bot account. I've had the same Wikimedia identity for years. I've never felt the need to create a sock or a bot account or edit anonymously. I like the fact that everything I do on WMF sites is part of the same single, global, unfragmented identity, and I want to keep it that way.
 * I think those deletions and other maintenance tasks are worthwhile contributions, else I wouldn't have been performing them in the first place. I propose to resume them soon. I realise that I'm inconveniencing you by swamping RC, and I'm sorry I'm not willing to be more accommodating. If you're still not happy with my edits swamping RC, then, as you've already said, your next step is to test consensus at the Scriptorium. Obviously I'm abide by consensus, and there'll be no hard feelings at my end either way.
 * Hesperian 05:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Well in hindsight, and with the benefit of observing patrolling activity overall since your runs had dropped off, I'd much rather get any lingering maintenance out of the way once and for all than go down that proposal-route to be honest with you (though I still believe it had merit regardless). Apparently, the vast majority of patrolling being done now & at some point prior to granting the autopatrolled right itself on a per user basis, is relegated to a bot-like function(s) rather than being done, as I'm familar with, by peers/individuals over time, on their own and reviewed in aggregate in the end when warranted. As a result, not much (if anything) would be gained by implementing such a proposal the way I see it now - there just aren't enough people focused on what amounts to a boring non-rewarding task for the proposed changes in policy to have resulted in any postive impact that could have been easily measured (other than at a personal level of course). If you're appeased by my withdrawl of an almost-formal non-propsal - all the better. Your not 'blowing me off' has been well recieved here & any percieved lateness in your response is forgiven as well.
 * In a somewhat related matter, I do remained concerned over the up-tick in 'pointless' pages being created since the preloaded-header gadget that was made default a month or so ago which included the option even for annonymous IP contributors in the process. I welcome the change, since imho it encourages contibutions to the mainspace, yet it did require hundreds of pages being deleted on my part alone last month - with little to no benefit that I can discern coming from the change so far. I only bring it to your attention here in hopes this "area" can somehow be made a part of your regular maintenance-routine(s) as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll carry on as before, with my apologies for the inevitable impact on your RC-patrolling. Hesperian 02:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * One can click the toggle that hides patrolled edits. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

RecentChangesLinked available for 29-vol-wide search (Index:pages) available?
Hi, Hesperian! I brought my question over from the Scriptorium, for I think it got lost in the shuffle. Thanks! :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 11:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Special:RecentChangesLinked worked! Thanks, Hesperian :) Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:21, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Hesperian (or anyone), How can I (can I?) get similar results (as above) for recent changes related to Index:pages? Preferably with search terms that would cover changes made to any one of the EB1911 29-Vol Pages (I tried playing around with the search options, but couldn't figure it out)... Thanks, Londonjackbooks (talk) 14:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

User rename request
Hi, I'd like my account "White Cat" be renamed to "とある白い猫". Thanks. -- Cat chi? 11:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That account exists already. Is it yours, or are you asking to usurp it? Hesperian 00:20, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Both accounts are mine yes. It was created accidentally by SUL and I want to merge my contribution under a single account. :) -- Cat chi? 16:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Hesperian 00:07, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

PSM Sketch category
Hi. I was suggested by Ineuw to ask for your expertise on Category organization for projects. What do you think about the creation of a "PSM Sketch" category containing all Sketches from PSM? In this way, it would be very easy to find out which persons have an article, if someone is looking biographical information. This could also be extended to other areas as well. Opinion welcome. --Mpaa (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that makes sense, but we already have Category:Biographies, so I would make a subcategory called something like "Biographies in Popular Science Monthly" or maybe "Biographical articles in Popular Science Monthly". I wouldn't use the term "sketch" or "sketches"; that might be PSM terminology but that doesn't mean we have to adopt it. Hesperian 03:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I copy this to PSM project discussion page, where the discussion started. --Mpaa (talk) 08:01, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Editing help, please
Hi, H. I don't do very much here, and have run into a little problem at this page. It's a blank page but had some misplaced content which I successfully removed. I then saved it as "without content" but was unable to remove the hidden header with page number and title. (The edit page briefly shows the hidden stuff but promptly vanishes before it can be tackled!) OK, I was able to see and delete the header (and footer) after changing My preferences. But please tell me whether my edit is OK, or should I leave headers and footers alone? Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 03:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * G'day mate. You are free to edit headers and footers, including removing them when they don't make sense. What you've done looks okay to me. Hesperian 06:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommended PSM Biographical article title changes.
Hi. I've placed a new list HERE for your comments and approval. — Ineuw talk 07:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia redirects
To explain: the current listings calling themselves vol 1 to vol 15 of the Catholic Encyclopedia are catastrophically useless. I'm just beginning to get a feel for exactly how useless, but the problems include any number of arbitrary decisions taken way back when (for the site which the initial bot postings mirrored). The only way we are going to get a reputable set of volumes in line with current standards is to use the djvus we have posted. To give you just a flavour: there is actually a supplementary vol 16 involved, which no one has ever mentioned here, and those articles have been stuck in with the rest, opaquely interpolated. (There is a great deal else to be concerned about.)

Before there is "migration to djvu" there need to be a few things done to get the articles at the right titles in the right order, and that means many, many edits and page moves. The batch of redirects you have just deleted was from a prototype, honest index I was developing in my user space for vol 11, based on some information that is commented out on the existing volume ToCs. Since deleting redirects doesn't actually save resources, could you hold off the housekeeping? Besides my schemes here, I am concerned that broken links on WP that are references to the articles here may result from tidy-mindedness. Not to labour the point, but the current CE state of play is bizarrely awful, and I should prefer not to be looking over my shoulder at other worries. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, no worries. Hesperian 23:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki sorting order
Hi, the interwiki sorting order config is currently changed, so that all bot frameworks will use the same data. That is the order that interwiki bots must use when adding interwiki (languagelinks) to page source.

The pywikipediabot currently uses "alphabetical order by native name" for enwikisource. That's the same order as used on enwiki. But your bot policy doesn't contains any information about the sorting order that should be used here. That's why other frameworks would use the default order by language code. So which order should be used by all bots in future? Can you add this information to the bot policy page? Thx. Merlissimo (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Index:Arctic Researches, And Life Amongst the Esquimaux - 1865.djvu
I agree that different editions are not necessarily redundant to each other, but, except for the title page picture, this is redundant to the two-volume version. Just looking at the table of contents of each will prove it.  Clay  Clay  Clay  00:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry Clay, admins can only unilaterally delete stuff under very strict criteria, and this doesn't meet them. The next step is to seek community consensus to delete at Proposed deletions. Alternatively, the original uploader of the work, Inductiveload, is an active administrator, so you could simply ask them to delete it. Hesperian 01:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The criteria need to be rewritten for clarity then, as I see no exception for this text under the General #4 speedy deletion criteron (unless you argue the different pagination of editions that can be proven the same constitutes a significant difference, which seems absurd at best).  Clay  Clay  Clay  02:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah well. As in many areas of life, we're guided as much by convention and history as by the letter of the law. Once upon a time when Wikipedia was tiny and Wikisource didn't exist yet, the only way you could get anything deleted was by starting a discussion and obtaining community consensus. Then some members of the community suggested that it was a waste of time having to have the same discussion every time some vandal created a garbage page, and it would be better if administrators were authorized to delete certain classes of page on sight. Some other members of the community were extremely reluctant to accede to that: they didn't want to put so much power in the hands of so few; they said it was the thin edge of the wedge, and administrators would become a law unto themselves, unilaterally deleting whatever they saw no value in. In the end, the proposal passed, but only under assurances that the criteria for unilateral deletion would be strictly defined, and anything that didn't clearly meet those criteria must go before the community. Those of us who remember that discussion understand that the spirit of the speedy deletion policy is that an administrator may only unilaterally delete a page if the result of a community discussion on the matter is a foregone conclusion. I don't see that that is the case here. Hesperian 04:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Old index files
Last year you gave us a suggestion of some old Index: files that we could look at to complete. Anyway that you could run a query and give us the top ten files of a reasonable size for proofreading. Thx — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:26, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Can do. But I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for. Is it indices that have been around a very long time and still haven't been proofed? Hesperian 13:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Apostrophes
Hi,

I just see that you reverted the renamming on Grimm's Household Tales (Edwardes) with the “we use simple apostrophes here”. Is it only for the titles or for the texts too? And what about others typography signs : " or “” ? ... or … ? and so on. I've look into Help:Contents but I didn’t fint anything… (only a little discussion on Wikisource talk:Style guide).

For the titles, you still have some renaming work to do : (good luck).

Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 09:56, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * VIGNERON, I don't believe there is any agreement on straight vs curly quotes/apostrophes in text beyond straight quotes being easier and consistency being paramount. I commonly use slanted/curly quotes in works that I begin.  Quotes and apostrophes should be of the same type (and a single right curly quote and a curly apostrophe are the same unicode character).  There is some discussion that these deviations from the Style Guide should be noted on the index page as is done on de.ws and I generally support that idea.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

ThomasV edits on wikisource.org
It's actually there but not where you might expect: wikisource.org, there is no "mul.wikisource.org" domain and probably never will be, though "mul:" as an interwiki language link is an issue on bugzilla. For some reason mul.ws is not listed on the luxo tool as www.wikisource.org but as simply wikisource.org, though mw is listed as www.mediawiki.org. The inconsistency is maddening. :-\ --Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Heh, right you are again. In that case I have no idea how I missed that. My modus operandi is to load that page and then search the text for successively longer date strings — "2012" (fail), "2011" (success), "2011-1" (fail), "2011-09" (fail), and so on until I've established the last month in which an edit appears. I have no idea how I missed the hit on "2011-06", and can only assume it was operator error. ;-) Hesperian 02:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't think it was much of a big deal, that edit was somewhat of an anomaly and still a long time ago. Just thought I'd point it out so you could make sure you weren't missing something.  Pathoschild's tool will organize last edits and last log actions, so the most recent are on top, so I prefer that tool for this purpose.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 07:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That's useful, thanks. Hesperian 08:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Category:Obituaries in Popular Science Monthly
I have closed the discussion on the deletion of Category:Obituaries in Popular Science Monthly as Keep, no consensus for delete. You may want to work with User:Mpaa towards a proposal to post on Scriptorium‎ that will gather wider community involvement towards a solution. Jeepday (talk) 10:44, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks mate. Hesperian 04:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Please remove my admin rights on wikisource
Hesperian,

I have been far from an active member of the Wikisource community. I would like you to please remove my admin rights.

I don't plan to totally step away from the community, but for security and fairness I would like to give up my adminship.

I have been quite busy with my real life, but still believe in the Wikisource mission.

Thanks,

--Mattwj2002 (talk) 01:59, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that Hesperian. It wasn't an easy decision, but I think it was the right one.  Have a good day. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 14:30, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

manually patrolled lsit from API
Trying to get a list of manually patrolled edits from the API, and I can only seem to get all of them, though the API result has data that addresses this in the patrol component of auto=0/1, example    
 * quick example [//en.wikisource.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=logevents&leuser=billinghurst&letype=patrol action=query&list=logevents&leuser=billinghurst&letype=patrol]

Can you think of a ready means to just show where auto=0 ? — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:44, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope, I reckon it can't be done; at least, not directly using the API. You'd have to scrape the lot and then filter the auto-patrolled ones out. Easy enough to do with a script. Hesperian 12:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


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