Wikisource:News/2014-09

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

Improvements requested for the English Wikisource
While attending Wikimania 2014 in London, Billinghurst, an administrator on the English Wikisource, had the opportunity to talk to Nik Everett, co-author of the CirrusSearch extension, about possible improvements to the local search functionality. Billinghurst has opened four bugs about this so far; the improvements have been requested for the English Wikisource, but other language communities can have them made as well if they like.


 * Refining typeahead search results for subpages at English Wikisource – Currently typeahead in the site search box only shows pages that have the string of characters typed by the user at the beginning of their page title. When the requested improvement is made, it will show pages that have the string anywhere in their title. This will allow to find pages like Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Abbot, Henry Larcom more quickly.
 * English Wikisource specific request for tweak to search results elevating weighting for a specific namespace – Currently the main namespace is predominant in search. For example, if one searches for "Jules Verne", the first 22 search results are main namespace pages (Jules Verne's works); Jules Verne's author page ranks 23rd. When the requested improvement is made, the author page will rank first.
 * Exploring tweaking of English Wikisource header templates for better search results – This bug is to ask how to improve header templates—specifically header, translation header, and author—for the sake of better search results.
 * User preference for number of search results displayed – This bug is to request that users be able to indicate in their preferences how many search results at a time they want to be shown. However, it turns out that this feature was once available and then disabled.

Billinghurst had also opened a bug, which has already been resolved, for the re-enablement of webfonts on the English Wikisource. Webfonts are used in the blackletter template.

Collaborations for September 2014
This month's Proofread of the Month we are working on requested texts. These are books that are referenced on Wikipedia and having them available here will make references simpler. The first selected work is Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine (1885) by Edward Hull, a narrative of a scientific expedition to the areas of Arabian Petræa, the Valley of the Arabah and Western Palestine.

In September the Maintenance of the Month project continues its effort to resolve orphans, that is, pages that are not linked from or transcluded into other pages. In August virtually all the orphans in the Author namespace were de-orphaned, while all the orphans in the Page namespace were found to be either non-functioning or outside the scope of Wikisource and thus deleted.

Administrator confirmations
Two administrators were confirmed in August 2014:


 * GrafZahl (talk | contributions)
 * Inductiveload (talk | contributions)

An administrator was not confirmed in August 2014:


 * ResidentScholar (talk | contributions)

In the cases of Inductiveload and ResidentScholar at least three established users opposed the confirmation, which triggered a vote of confidence; Inductiveload's and ResidentScholar's continued access was then decided by simple majority.

Four administrators are having their confirmation discussion in September 2014:


 * Chris55 (talk | contributions)
 * EVula (talk | contributions)
 * Sanbeg (talk | contributions)
 * Wild Wolf (talk | contributions)