Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2008-09

= Announcements = = Proposals =

New paragraph at top of page

 * See 12130: Edit form eats heading CRs on save/preview

There is a problem with the Proofread Page system in that The problem is apparently a "feature" of Firefox.
 * 1) if a new paragraph is desired at the top of the page, a first line must be a blank line, and
 * 2) once the page is edited again, the blank line disappears.

I think I have found an interim solution.

I experimented and started the page with nop (no-operation) on a line by itself, followed by a blank line. This looks wrong on Page:Equitation.djvu/240, but looks right on Equitation/Chapter 22. See how "Note" is not indented in this.

The template blank line is a more sophisticated technique which basically does the same, however it looks ok on both Page:Equitation.djvu/240 and Equitation/Chapter 22. The drawback is that it emits two empty "span" tags; one at the end of the prior paragraph, and one at the beginning of the new paragraph. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the nop is doing nothing; it's the newlines you've added with it that're causing this. See these two examples from the generated code;

Note, …

Note, …


 * Note (ya, I funny) that the second one has a br-element just inside the second paragraph. MediaWiki would seem to be attempting to mimic the amount of white-space in the wiki-text fed it by cobbling together a mix of paragraphs and breaks to get about what you gave it. I believe the same effect can be achieved by fussing with the number of blank lines between things. At least I've encountered this a few time here. This is, as John and I've talked about, all about the text-indent on the paragraph elements in the page namespace. I've not tried what I'm suggesting on the pages you give because I don't want to muddy the examples. Mebbe try two plain blank line before 'Note,'?
 * I believe the text-indent has to go and that some more subtle and more specifically selected CSS rule needs to be crafted to serve the current purpose, which is primarily user feedback. Mebbe we could kill the rule for a few days and review the world that way. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:54, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * ps Tomorrow is Galungan in Bali, so I'll be offline all day.


 * Hmmm… I may have been looking at this backwards. When the oldid was 'current' (but without the nop and newlines) were you getting the two paragraph run together with this all inline: '… continue the impulse. Note, now …'??? And so needing to do the namespace thing? Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Nop stops Firefox from slurping the blank line; and, I also used it on blank line as I thought that mediawiki was discarding empty span elements.
 * There are many other pages like this. You can play on Page:Equitation.djvu/241 :-) John Vandenberg (chat) 15:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I just made two tests there and this really is all about getting the indent in page-space, right? I know that a great many books are printed with paragraphs indented and this mechanism seems to be primarily about reproducing that look while proofing individual pages. There must be a bit of established feeling about this; people are used to it. But many must have also encountered the quirks, too. So, the text-indent is problematic for at least two reasons; it often throws stuff off center, and it often doesn't occur when a br-element gets inserted at the beginning of paragraphs (the indent only applying to the first line of the paragraph, visible or not). You mentioned the idea of a paragraph mark in lieu of the indent; that would involve a background image positioned to the top-left of the paragraph accompanied with a negative left margin and a matching positive left padding; 10px or 15px or so depending on the image. We would also have to be sure the rule did not apply to paragraphs inside center tags and probably some other cases; and we might have IE6 issues with the selectors. I'm not sure if I can test this with my local monobook.css; I don't think MediaWiki is too keen on user specified backgrounds. Anyway, I'll think on it and comment after holiday. Gotta go. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I do not understand the benefit of this template. It seems to produce the same result as inserting  at the top of the page, but it is more complicated. ThomasV 17:55, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The sequence " \n\n" does work well; I have used it on Page:Equitation.djvu/241 so we can discuss it.
 * The BR approach was discussed a little at Index talk:Wind in the Willows (1913).djvu, and in cases where I had used it, it was removed.  See Page:Wind in the Willows (1913).djvu/24 and The Wind in the Willows/Chapter 1;  our display of Chapter 1 is currently wrong - the lines of the two pages are merged.
 * Using the BR element means that it is then left in the transcluded result, e.g. Equitation/Chapter 22, which is no different to the empty span elements emitted by blank line. The benefits that I see in using a template is
 * a template tracks all instances of this workaround, so that when a better solution comes along, we can update all of our pages.
 * Scripts that post-process our raw pages to produce an etext can know what the template means. On the other hand, if we use " \n\n", scripts must remove BR elements in some cases, which might introduce errors.
 * John Vandenberg (chat) 01:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

More editing buttons
Formatting texts in Wikisource can be demanding depending on the original work, sometimes requiring additional code within the text to make it as accurate as reasonably possible. For a new user, this may seem overhwelming, and for a normal user it may seem tiresome looking for the right code. That's why I created this page: Tools and scripts/More editing buttons, which is a list of editing buttons you can manually add to your own Monobook page. However this is not available for IP addresses, and new users might not take the time to search for these buttons or the correct code to format a text. That's why I'm proposing expanding the standard editing toolbar in this Wikisource for more buttons for every user. I'd like to hear feedback on which buttons and codes should be added, and we could start by picking a few from the Wikisource page above. I'd suggest the following:


 * One for striking out text
 * One for underlining text
 * One for linking to an Author page
 * One for the "poem" format
 * One each for text alignment (left, centered, right)
 * One for indents
 * One for font size

All these have descriptions here, but we could add more, or take out some. Thoughts? - Mtmelendez 19:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * We could use a few additions. I think some of these (at least poem) may be more clear if spelled out in the edit tools (under the edit box) than they are with a button, but most do seem well illustrated.. -Steve Sanbeg 19:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I was having similar thoughts, maybe we could put the advanced ones in the "lists of special characters" drop down. I would also add -


 * Reference (for notes)


 * Jeepday (talk) 01:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I definitely support this idea. The current edit toolbar isn't very useful. Psych less  23:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * To be more specific, I think the strike, underline, alignment, indent & ref would be useful as buttons. Things like poem would be clearer under the edit box, but I don't have a preference whether they go in the drop down or above it. -Steve Sanbeg 18:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I missed this thread; maaf (Bahasa Indonesia for sorry). I've raise some concerns below, about some of the raw html these buttons would insert. In general, I think some more commands would be handy. The strike, underline, and center buttons would insert deprecated html into the wiki-text, and I don't see that as good; Steve has said that this is a non-issue, so I may be off here. For 'strike' maybe insert del-tags, instead? It's semantically cleaner. The font-tag is also deprecated and the absolute sizes don't play well with the idea of a flexible text size; relative sizing seems like a better direction. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to get a line going
I think we should formalise this feature a bit, get some kind of regular and standardised updating system in place, kind of like Wikipedia's Did You Know system. Why don't we attempt to add at least one new text to the template each day, and keep the line steadily moving. It seems like updates to this feature are very infrequent and all over the place, which is a shame as this particular piece of the main page has true potential. Perhaps we could also start an archival system preserving some of our best new texts? &mdash; Anonymous Dissident  Talk 12:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need to start introducing processes and requirements and stuff like that. It's already standardised, and if we just make a point of more regular updates (Thank you for volunteering!) it'll be much better. I'd rather this didn't turn into Wikipedia's DYK. I like the fact that any newly added text can be on it, rather than having to go through an 'approval' process. Jude (talk) 13:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess you make a good point. It would be nice, though, if we could have a few people volunteering to keep the page updated daily as aforementioned. I'd be happy to be a part of this, personally, and any other involvement would be appreciated too. &mdash; Anonymous Dissident  Talk 14:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The other point to be made is that projects like this don't get anywhere without a critical mass of participants. I don't oppose it, but then I'm not likely to be interested enough to get involved.  In that respect I'm confident that I express the sentiments of those who already have a full plate. Eclecticology (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

United States elections in 2008
United States elections in 2007 - I created that last year; something like it might be interesting for this year. I thought I would make a note of it here in case it might peak anyone's interest. Emesee (talk) 03:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't see how this proposal relates to Wikisource. Eclecticology (talk) 07:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nor do I. It appears to be more of Wikipedia's forte than ours. Jude (talk) 08:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Copyright law
All copyright laws (I think I've found them all) can now be found in the above Category, and has also been added to the See also section on the Help:Public domain page. Feel free to add any I might have missed. Kathleen.wright5 06:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I've already noted that Copyright Act 1709 and Statute of Anne are duplicates.


 * More importantly, this category points to a need to having a more systematic way of naming laws. We already have a systematic way of dealing with the United States Code, but we have not extended this systematization to the amending statues themselves.  I would suggest that adopted statutes be prefixed with "US Statute/", "UK Statute/", "Canada Statute/", etc., as circumstances demand. Eclecticology 18:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I would like to suggest cleaning up Copyright Act while we now have Copyright law.--Jusjih 02:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Before we dive into that, are we agreeing to my proposal about the prefixes? Eclecticology 12:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

remove the OCR button
The OCR button is often used by newer contributors who are unfamiliar with its capabilities and weaknesses, resulting in it being invoked on pages that cant be OCR'd, and garbage pages being created. This is has become more of an issue since WS:TP has been set up, which has encouraged use of the OCR text layer from DJVU's, and copy&paste from pre-existing transcriptions available elsewhere on the internet. As a consequence, there are fewer appropriate times when the OCR button should be pressed. I suggest that it be removed from the default interface, and perhaps reimplemented as a Gadget with documentation on when it is appropriate. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I propose that the gadget to be implemented before removing the OCR button, bacause it is still useful . Yann 09:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support. I've inadvertently pressed it once or twice resulting in lost time and waste of server load, considering it's a tool I've never used before. - Mtmelendez 14:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Support per Yann's suggestion.--Birgitte SB  16:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I approve; I always thought that you were supposed to just type it across from the "Image". 68.39.174.238 23:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. For those of you who still want to use it, you can enable it in Special:Preferences, under 'Gadgets'. Jude (talk) 23:11, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Proofreading paragraph marker
In the Page namespace we currently have the following rules to indent the first line of the paragraph:

body.ns-104 p{ text-indent: 2em; } body.ns-104 .poem p{ text-indent: 0em; }

This has the effect that a centered text is off-center. While investigating this Jack Merridew and I have been discussing replacing the text-indent with a paragraph marker in the margin to make it more clear that it is a visual clue for the proofreader that a new paragraph has been detected. Jack Merridew has created the necessary image, and devised the required CSS to replace the above.

body.ns-104 div.pagetext p { background: url("paragraph-mark.png") 0 .3em no-repeat; margin-left: -12px; padding-left: 12px; }

If we do that, centered text would have a paragraph marker in the margin, which is must less of a problem. To turn off paragraph markers in those circumstances we would add:

body.ns-104 div.pagetext center p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext *.center p { background-image: none; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0; }

or

body.ns-104 div.pagetext * p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext * * p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext * * * p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext * * * * p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext * * * * * p, body.ns-104 div.pagetext * * * * * * p { background-image: none; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0; }

As this turning off of the paragraph marker in IE6 can get a bit messy, another option is to only show the paragraph marker at the right time, achieved by adding a ">" in the selector:

body.ns-104 div.pagetext>p { background: url("paragraph-mark.png") 0 .3em no-repeat; margin-left: -12px; padding-left: 12px; }

That revised block does the trick beautifully in Firefox, but Internet Explorer v6 wont show the paragraph marker at all. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe the 12px offsets above will have to be adjusted to something more like 14px. The code was quasi-tested by posting to John's talk page and pulling in different, slightly smaller, images that are already in the css. The IE6 issues there are just artifacts of the implementation of the demo. The '> child selector technique is the cleanest and I prefer it. The intent of emphasizing the paragraphs in page space, at least as I understand it, it to highlight only the top level paragraphs and not any that are further nested and this is an ideal task for a child selector. Another issue, is the div-element with the id - it might be best to include  after  in the above selectors (as I've just refactored in). If there is a good way to more thoroughly test this before messing with common.css, I'm all ears. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC) it's late here, so I'll mostly comment in better than 12 hours
 * If you add the following to your monobook.css you'll get the idea. I believe the image is rather too large and that we should find another that is smaller with a less handwritten look. The second rule below is just to swat the current one in MediaWiki:Common.css

body.ns-104 div.pagetext>p { background: url(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Paragraph-mark.png) 0 .3em no-repeat; margin-left: -15px; padding-left: 15px; } body.ns-104 p { text-indent: 0em; }
 * Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI, this mechanism could be easily extended to other elements; center and li spring to mind. On;
 * Page:German Instrument of Surrender (May 7, 1945) - page 1.jpg and 2
 * I'm using an ordered list and, with my local monobook.css in gear, don't get marks next to the li-elements or the centered text at the top. But we could… Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

roll-out?
Absent any objections to this — it's been almost a week — I think it's time to take this mechanism for a ride. For a first go, I'd like to roll-out the child-selector version and worry about IE6 later. This will work fine for all browsers save IE6 which will simply ignore the whole thing; the off-center issue will be sorted for all browsers, including IE6. This will likely degrade gracefully on any other third millennium challenged browsers that may still be clinging to a fraction of a percent of market share.

I believe the image above is too big and it gets clipped for short paragraphs; what I think would be best is something very much like '¶' in a vanilla sans-serif typeface at a typical line height. To get this, I could just do a screen capture, but I'm unsure of the licensing re the typeface. What typeface would be appropriate to use to avoid any issue? If someone does this, the image should probably be a png with a transparent background about 10-12 pixels wide and not much taller. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. There are improvements required, but now everyone can see and think about them. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Cool. Clear your caches, folks. As this will make the off-center noise go away, I should note that I've found that odd numbers of blank lines between lines of text has been a way to dodge the centering problem; and these tricks are no longer necessary. So, if there are any pages out there that have blank lines for no other purpose, they should be tightened-up.


 * And as I noted somewhere above, this could be done with elements such as li and center, too; presumably with distinct imagery (mebbe • and ↔). Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't notice this discussion. This sign is ugly. I uploaded a new version of the same sign, but it is too big. It should be a SVG file. Is there a way to have this optional? Yann 12:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I like your image better; and agree that it's still too big; the margin/padding values will need tweaking as the image is changed. To disable it, you could put;

body.ns-104 div.pagetext>p { background-image: none; }
 * in your local css. This whole thing was basically intended deal with the mess the old rule that indented was causing. An svg would be nice, but not me. Cheers, Jack Merridew 13:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I cropped and resized the image (and it's still too big). Anyone who takes a stab at this should work from the prior version. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I created a SVG file: Image:Paragraph-mark.svg. Yann 15:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I see; actually saw it on Commons. Can you change MediaWiki:Common.css? Here is where John added the code; FYI, the second bit is not needed. Following could/should be removed;

body.ns-104 p { text-indent: 0em; }
 * This was just an override of code that John removed. And the comment should say no IE6 support; IE7+ is fine. The url to use is;
 * http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Paragraph-mark.svg/10px-Paragraph-mark.svg.png
 * The 10px may need tweaking and the -15px and 15px should be tweaked, too (keep them the same except for the sign). Idea is to hang just overboard; the .3em is the offset from the top of the paragraph box; tweak by steps of say ±.05em if things look off. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Yann 19:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks; it looks good to me. Small is nice. I'm looking with Modern skin at the moment, and will look with others and other browsers. I do think we should do about the same for lists and centered elements with appropriate imagery. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it be pleasant to have this marker in some nice color? Isn't this black a bit sad? - --Zyephyrus 18:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Black is the typical colour used for paragraph markers, however they usually go at the end of the paragraph. Did you have another colour in mind?  This can be overriden by changing your monobook.css. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good, seems like you got just the right image for the job now. Jeepday (talk) 00:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The old image was just something at hand; I never liked it much. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

At some point, the url can become a simple one, just a filename.ext instead of a full-url. This would entail saving the image in some specific set of folders; this can be done on a by-skin basis and the code could be skin-specific, too, as needed. All after this gets nice and stable, of course. Some skins might look better with a different colour image and I wouldn't mind this getting nudged into gray a bit. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, for me gray would be perfect: useful and inconspicuous.- --Zyephyrus 13:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Does this new feature do away with the way the software used to tell whether there was a paragraph break starting a new page? What I mean is, before this change, leaving a blank line at the top of the page told the software that the last paragraph on the previous page is not the same paragraph starting the next page. Rather, they are two separate paragraphs. Whereas, omitting the initial whitespace on the page meant the two paragraphs are actually one. This has not changed though, has it?—Zhaladshar (Talk) 15:13, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Global IP blocking
We have had a user come forward who is caught up in a global IP block. I think I locally unblocked that IP which was associated with no contribs on en.WS. I went through the process of "unblock locally" but it doesn't show up in my logs. I would like to unblock more of these IPs that would not be blocked under local policy since more people may be unable to edit but are giving up. I would like if someone more technical look at these global blocks and see what they think. Are the ranges bein blocked really big or are the reasons really good etc.--Birgitte SB  14:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe most of these are open proxies being continuously abused for crosswiki vandalism and attacks against users. A global ipblockexempt group would be useful for users who need to circumvent censorship or surveillance. — {admin} Pathoschild 15:00:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Are they all open proxies or are you just speculating (there are only about 50)? Did I unblock an open proxy?  Also did you know that there is no local ipblockexempt available on en.WS?--Birgitte SB  15:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. A general "I believe..." is not at all informative in specific cases. Eclecticology (talk) 16:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you looking for this log? The reasons (while not verbose, which should change) are generally very good - the blocks are used to target our cross-wiki friends like Grawt, Johnny the Vandal etc. often on the basis of CheckUser evidence. Most of them are open proxies, but all are used abusively (and so should be blocked regardless of whether they are OPs). – Mike .lifeguard  &#124; @en.wb 19:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That link is not the same log I saw as it only shows my unblock. But I am concerned about the rangeblocks which are catching people who want to edit here.  Are they open proxies?  Why are people getting caught in the blocks?  Are the ranges too wide?  I am not knowledgeable enough to examine these issues, but we since someone has been caught in this we need to examine it.--Birgitte SB  20:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You asked for specifics, so here they are. The following IP addresses and CIDR ranges are currently blocked.


 * Every block listed above was made only when all other counterabuse measures failed. There is only one CIDR range currently blocked, which is the one you unblocked locally. This range is used by a vandal known as "Grawp", whose actions include:
 * Creating large numbers of sleeper accounts for later coordinated page move vandalism, bypassing administrator intervention by rapidly switching accounts. This vandalism can normally be recognized by variations on the word "HAGGER?".
 * Linking to shock websites that attempt to hack users' browsers and install malware.
 * Creating large numbers of global accounts with abusive names, such as "BirgitteSB's anus stretch by Grawp's massive cock!" or "Drini is a fat and ugly spic", and visiting as many wikis as possible to autocreate local accounts, spreading the attacks to logs and recentchanges on many different wikis before they're blocked.
 * Reversion of legitimate edits as vandalism, sometimes using scripts. These sometimes include the edit summary "for great justice and epic lulz".
 * Addition of massive image files or ASCII art that crashes some browsers (particularly Firefox).


 * They target all wikis, including Wikisource and non-Wikimedia wikis. They make heavy use of open proxies to circumvent intervention, and addressing indicates there are several persons operating these accounts (the IPs blocked because "gw", "gwp", "abusive used proxy", etc are Grawp IPs, usually open proxies.) Activity can persist for hours, tying up stewards and administrators in a continuous waste of time. They maintain a four-page sockpuppter bragging list on the Encyclopedia Dramatica.


 * I don't know; is this a good reason? — {admin} Pathoschild 23:48:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Is /18 a reasonable size range to block for over a month? What do suggest we do about the unblock I made to allow User:Suntag to edit since you find every one of these blocks is equally necessary? Are they all equally likely to catch editor like Suntag or is that only an issue with a CIDR range (I don't know what that means)?--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  01:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * A CIDR range is basically a range of IP addresses; "CIDR range" and "IP address range" can be used interchangeably. (More technically, a CIDR or Classless Inter-Domain Routing range is a range of IP addresses represented as the starting IP address followed by the number of suffixed bits in common when converted to binary form; see Wikipedia's article or mw:Help:Range blocking).


 * Whether a given range is reasonable doesn't depend on the size, but on the number of affected legitimate users. This /18 range affects 231-18 or 16384 IP addresses (71.107.128.0–71.107.191.255), but so far as I know there are few known legitimate users affected. Creating a global group exempt from global blocks would be a very good idea; I will try to have it created sometime soon when I finish other tasks. We could then include a message in the you-are-globally-blocked message that explains how to request exemption. This is particularly important for editors in China, for example, where the use of open proxies is critical to their access and safety. — {admin} Pathoschild 01:47:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Should we soft-block that IP for now locally or is it only used for sleeper accounts anyways? Do you know if account creation is blocked are SUL people visiting en.WS for the first time blocked or does it only block people signing up for the first time?  --<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  01:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It should be blocked anon-only with account creation disabled, which will prevent both autocreation and manual creation from that range. — {admin} Pathoschild 03:18:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Done--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  03:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Quotes in page mode
Hello, I created a class and a template quotes. Example of use: Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/48. This doesn't work when the quote is spread over two pages, see here (pp.63-64). Any idea? Yann (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC) .quote { color: darkslategray; padding-left: 3%; padding-right: 3%; }


 * I've been using the simple &hellip;  for all quotations, and it works perfectly for quotations that span more than one page.  See Terræ Filius p.96 and p.97, for example (and how they come together in Terræ Filius No. XI, a few pages down).  If nothing else, I'd suggest adding a   to quotes (which would mean you can get rid of the left and right padding from the   class).  Certainly we should add something about quotations to the style guide.  &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 00:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Poetlister
''This section is transcluded form Scriptorium/Poetlister discussion, due to the immense size of the discussion, and its ongoing nature. Please place all comments on that page.'' Jude (talk) 03:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It has recently been revealed at Requests for comments/Poetlister and Cato that the person behind the Wikisource accounts Poetlister (recently renamed to Quillercouch), Cato, Yehudi and Bedivere are the same person. There may be more evidence to become public from User:FT2, however I am aware of most of it and feel it is appropriate to set the ball rolling here; both Poetlister and Cato have edited since this became public.

At least the following accounts are accused of being operated by the same person:

There may be more accounts, as neither Pathoschild nor I have run a local Checkuser. I think this is necessary. The only way to avoid this is if a complete set of account names is provided by Poetlister, and that list is trusted based on how the person responds to the meta matter.

Wikiquote has to determine their own position regarding these accounts, and so do we. Poetlister was nominated to be a sysop here by myself, and was appointed in early May 2008 due to unanimous support. There has not been much abuse by these accounts on Wikisource.

Yehundi's only contribution was in response to a query by Poetlister on the Admin Noticeboard. That is very poor form.

Cato has been working extensively on Genesis of the Wiki Bible translation, despite having low Hebrew skills listed at meta:User:Cato. Poetlister has also performed a number of edits to this wiki translation project, both janitorial and opining. Also related is Hebrew University Bible Project, which was created by Wikipedia account Yehudi. After the person was aware of the ongoing meta matter, user Cato added one more verse to Genesis, implying the charade will continue if it is not addressed.

I dont think we have used our Restricted access policy procedure yet, other than at yearly reconfirmations, but now is the time. Quoting from the policy, "At least three established users must support the need for one before it can be called." I, for one, call for vote of confidence in Poetlister/Quillercouch, and request that the users involved state for the record whether the other accounts are their own, and/or what relationship the user has with the accounts, if any.

John Vandenberg (chat) 03:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I will second this. I would prefer Z to act as b'crat in any confidence vote of merit where I did the initial adminship just to preserve appearances.  So I am recusing as b'crat here anyway. I would most like to hear what Poetlister/Quillercouch can offer us as an explanation for these circumstances and see if that response can secure any confidence from the community for adminship.  A lack of response will not secure my confidence, as I have a very low opinion for the success that people generally have with stonewalling at en.WP and do want to see this community follow in that direction--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  03:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thirded. ++Lar: t/c 04:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

To provide a little more justification on why this situation warrants a recall, this user has obtained many sysop accounts on the same wiki (Wikiquote), and used them to advantage; but more than that, the obtention of 'crat and especially checkuser is an abuse of trust above and beyond having multiple sysop accounts, above vote stacking, above all the typical forms of abuse of trust and responsibility. As a result of the long history of insidious gaming that Poetlister has demonstrated, I can no longer trust this person. The Wikisource accounts were a part of a wider plan to "prove" that the original socking allegations by the English Wikipedia arbcom were unfounded, and restore the en.wp sock accounts to good standing. But that can not be! The people which the socks impersonated are real people, who are very unhappy that their name and photos have been used without their permission. It is unconscionable behaviour, and I feel it is inappropriate that Wikisource should have an admin who conducts themself online with such disrespect for others. For this persons own benefit, and so the community can move on, I think the sysop bit should be removed, all socks should be blocked and perhaps even the main account blocked too. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems a bit draconian to discuss removing, and even banning, a user who has contributed over 2100 edits to our project, and patrolled nearly a thousand additional edits - just because they used multiple personalities. There is plenty of unconsciousable behaviour on the internet, but this shouldn't devolve into a vote on Poetlister's character; but on his contribution to the project, and whether we can trust him not to misuse admin tools. I would urge caution against any lynch-mob mentality; what exactly would the definition be of "using the admin tools to his advantage" (on WQ)? Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Charles Spurgeon 07:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've commented at WS:ADMIN re. Poetlister's sysop status. As to the other accounts; any reason for them to remain unblocked since they are effectively sockpuppets? Giggy (talk) 07:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * (Link for reference: WS:ADMIN#Poetlister. FT2 (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC) )


 * As always I support the principle of project autonomy, and would look for abuse in this project before rushing into action. Having multiple accounts in itself is no offence; it is only an offence if they are used to further abusive behaviour.  That said, I did find one point of concern in Poetlister adminship vote.  There s/he "accept[ed] no responsibility for any other Wikimedia account" other than that of Poetlister, yet a supporting vote was cast by Cato!  Under the present circumstances, that is an anomaly that at least calls for an explanation. Eclecticology (talk) 07:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Cato and Poetlister also both voted in the requests for checkuser of both Pathoschild and myself. Thankfully we both have more than 25 votes, otherwise we would be de-checkusered as well (this happened recently at English Wikinews when they moved to an Arbcom style setup, but the successful candidates didnt obtain 25 votes of support). John Vandenberg (chat) 08:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, if the Poetlister photo, added in December 2007 with this edit, is of someone else without their permission, this is bordering on criminal behaviour on our wiki. I broached this topic with this person in Febuary, soon after I hastily tagged the image with Move to Commons, and I realised I had better be sure of whose photo it was.  And I quote:


 * If this image is not really you, it will eventually come under scrutiny, and could result in another controversy. I dont really care to rehash the past; you're a useful member of wikiquote and wikisource, and that is all I really need to know in order to want to avoid you becoming involved in a controversy.

What I suggest is that if this image is not of yourself, or you do not own this image, or you dont want the image to move to Commons where it has greater visibility, then you should tag it with sdelete or ask me via email, and I will delete it without further ado. If it really truely is you, and you are comfortable with defending it as yourself via evidence to OTRS or similar, then I'll put my worries to bed. If you dont feel comfortable providing evidence to OTRS, let me know as I can arrange alternative means.

I am honestly sorry to drag this up; sadly it is better that I do it now as opposed to someone else doing later, probably with less patience and less care in how it is handled.
 * The response I received the same day was long, explaining her side of the story of en.wp, but here is a select quote regarding the image:
 * Frankly, calling my WS (and Meta) licensing of my picture a "false licence" is libel. Still, if you think that there could be any controversy then please delete it. I have no wish to damage my standing on WQ, the possibility of an unblock on WP or the distinct possibility that I will stand for WS admin in the foreseeable future.  It is grossly insulting to suggest that I am other than who I am, but of course most editors are completely anonymous so I am happy to be.
 * I gave this user plenty of opportunity to remain anonymous and disclaim that photo as their own, but the response was assertions that it was their photo. Given the revelations that one of the other photos used by this sock group is a very different and unhappy person, I am now naturally assuming that this one is also not the person, and that I was lied to unnecessarily.  Conduct unbecoming an admin. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * @Sherurcij: I am completely open-minded to hear an explanation about these circumstances that could have had the best interests of the project at heart. While there is nothing inherently wrong with having multiple accounts, the use of such accounts in a less than straightforward manner does need to be explained when the deception is uncovered. I don't think asking for a vote of confidence is acting as a lynch mob and I except people to not turn it into one. It is rather simple question if after hearing the explanation for these circumstances, do you still have confidence in this person that they will act in the best interests of the project?--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  13:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no apparent immediate danger to this project and, frankly, all this is going too fast for me. There is (for good reasons) no evidence. There are multiple assertions of multiple mostly off-project users the trustworthiness of whom I have first to get an idea of. Assertions which are probably as good as evidence for untrustworthiness of Poetlister. What else? Who knows! Yet, both de-sysopping and banning are already discussed simultaneously, two actions which differ vastly in quality (adminship is an assertion of trust, banning is only for preventing certain or highly likely disturbance). I therefore suggest to proceed one step at a time and complete the vote of confidence process first before voting on further restrictions. Maybe the dust has already settled a little until then.--GrafZahl (talk) 13:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. None of the accounts are active right now.  I am only concerned about the admin account so long as this holds true.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  13:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * @Giggy: I don't believe there is any precedent for blocking alternate accounts here. I don't know that I would support blocking such things on sight, although it is something to consider on a case by case basis.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  13:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I suppose at this point it's best just to keep an eye on them until we agree on something to move forward with. No blockages yet. Giggy (talk) 00:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I dont doubt Poetlisters intention was to do good at both Wikiquote and Wikisource, however the methods were very questionable. My suggestion that banning might be appropriate is for all to move on.  Food for thought.  I highly doubt there will be abuse of tools, so a little delay wont hurt. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * While Poetlister's actions certainly merit review this shouldn't be treated as a witch hunt. Some meaningful issues have been raised, and she should have the chance to respond.  Suggesting that innocently received double votes should have a retroactive effect when this is discovered much later to put somebody below a required threshhold would lead to absurd results.


 * I don't see why a private dispute about Poetlister's photo should now become a public issue so long after the fact. If Stephen Colbert sets up a user page where he represents himself with a photo of an elephant I would not ask if he has the elephant's permission to use the picture.


 * I may have preliminary personal view about how this discussion should go, but I would prefer giving Poetlister every opportunity to respond before taking action. Eclecticology (talk) 16:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * When users who joined two weeks ago and have a total of 1 mainspace edit start saying they "feel sick" at the thought of somebody using sockpuppets, we either have a posterchild for hypocrisy or a bona fide witch hunt on our hands. I'm not saying everybody is voting with a lynchmob mentality, but clearly "internet justice" does lend itself towards villifying and casting out random people from communities; and I think that vote is an indication it's having at least a minimum impact here as well. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 22:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * User:Ottava Rima is the user, on en:wp, who provided the base text I'm working from for The works of Horace; see w:en:User:Ottava Rima/Wikisource.
 * I'm familiar with the w:en:WP:LynchMob and don't see that as what's going on here. I've not yet looked at whatever turns the meta and WQ discussions have taken in the last 24; off to do so. Mebbe there's been some response. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I was involved in this investigation. It's very very convincing and shocking that this went on so long. I support a desyssop and ban. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 21:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Desysop is a justifiable argument, though one I am against, but a ban? We are a small community, and giving out punitive bans when there is no risk of damage to the project through the users' actions is ridiculous and short-sighted. Poetlister has improved over 1,100 separate texts on the project, and proofread nearly a thousand diffs as well, and that's in only six months. Do we really want to sacrifice that just so we can say "aha, we sure taught him!"? It seems like a terrible direction for our community. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 22:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not seeing the good that a ban will do. Especially considering who we're dealing with. Let them contribute if they like; just be extra careful with future adminships. Giggy (talk) 00:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I'm a bit reluctant to call for a vote of confidence at this time. I generally tend to not care how a user conducts him-/herself on another project but how they conduct themselves on this one.  Aside from many of these accounts voting in the same elections on WS:ADMINS I can't find any other evidence of possible deception.  Are there any other examples I'm missing that might be relevant to this discussion?  I think the best course of action is to evaluate how Poetlister and the sockpuppet accounts have been handled on this wiki and deal with it according to that basis.  That said, this doesn't mean we shouldn't be observant as to how these accounts are used in the future on this project and others (so as not to establish credibility on this project and use that as leverage to abuse others--if this has been the case, please tell me and I may give a different response, but I don't have the time to dig around WP to figure this whole thing out) and proceed with desysoping/banning if there is rampant abuse.—<font style="color: #000000; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold">Zhaladshar <font style="color: #FF0000; font-size: small; text-decoration: none">(Talk) 02:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I hadn't checked WS:ADMINS when I wrote this. Since the vote's been initiated, I agree with BirgitteSB's request to delay voting until 15 September 2008.—<font style="color: #000000; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold">Zhaladshar <font style="color: #FF0000; font-size: small; text-decoration: none">(Talk) 02:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You dont need to dig around on WP; the information is here, and it is very clear. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * While I understand that focus needs to be given to how these accounts were conducted on this wiki, some consideration also needs to be given to the overall picture. Sherurcij and I have both used multiple accounts on en.WP, mine for a clean watchlist to track deletions longterm and his to conduct an experiment. We both have explainable reasons for how we believe these uses will benefit en.WP.  I don't think it is enough that Poetlister and affiliated accounts merely did not edit poorly on en.WS for me to have confidence in their adminship.  I think I need to hear a plausible reason for using these accounts that would benefit en.WS.  The fact that the accounts Cato and Poetlistet, who both have contributed significantly at en.WS, both accepted adminship nominations at en.WQ is really what makes me need to understand the reasoning for this situation rather than just not see harm accomplished within the confines of en.WS before the deception was uncovered.  It is hard to ignore that if Cato continued contributing regularly here John would have likely asked if they would accept a nomination for adminship as he does for most long-term regular editors.  So I don't think we should ignore the entire history of activity from outside of Wikisource, because frankly outside events overtook a the en.WS situation from playing out fully. A year of posistive editing by mulitiple accounts and a declined adminship nomination offer would give me a greater confidence for considering the local situation alone.  However as it stands, the most I can offer is to be open-minded to having my concerns about the these accounts discounted with some explanation that is beyond my current ability to imagine. I can't offer to ignore the existence of the en.WQ situation because the main difference between the activity here and there was simply time.
 * @Z Yes there are allegations that these accounts were used on smaller wikis (including en.WS) for re-establishing previously lost credibility at en.WP. I am confident in saying the en.WQ Poetlister account's adminship was used in this way, however what role the en.WS accounts directly played in re-establishing credibility is less obvious.  Certainly there was an indirect relationship.  I am not sure the extent that other accounts were used across wikis in this way, but the Cato account achieved local checkuser access at en.WQ and meta OTRS access before the relationship with the Poetlister account was uncovered.  As I said before this requires and explanation to secure my confidence.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  18:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * BirgitteSB there is huge difference between your use of socks W:User:BirgitteSB and the charges against and history of Poetlister. Your use is posted clearly and is specifically allowed by w:WP:SOCK, neither of these can be said about Poetlister. Jeepday (talk) 02:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nothing can be said about Poetlister's explanation for the use of multiple accounts because none has yet been given. Some of comments in this thread seem to imply accounts should automatically be blocked because they are run by the same person and others imply that nothing should be done about multiple accounts that did not directly harm en.WS.  I think we need decide what to do based on the reason for creating multiple accounts. Perhaps you and I are just splitting hairs in the end, but let up give this a chance to be explained.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  13:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. There's no reason to act like a pack of sharks smelling blood. Eclecticology (talk) 15:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not a wikisource person, though John vdb has spent the last year trying to convert me by doing deals where I dig up source information in return for help with wikiscripting. I forget how many obituaries I owe him. Thousands by now I think. So I will not tread on this project with a view or opinion, but I am posting here simply to add factual information to the communal debate of what has taken place elsewhere related to admin access and other actions. On English Wikipedia, Poetlister's first admin sock was used to ban someone who tried to argue with him, claiming untruthful things about them. They were quickly unbanned by another sysop who stated it was "spurious", without merit, but the attempt was real and the user could have easily left after being indef-blocked with a bad block log reason, or the reason given could have been trusted by any reviewing admin and become "official truth". This was a user who did right, tried to address abuse, and was blocked by the abusers' admin sock. The sock was also used to close deletion and RFA debates according to an agenda, and to add the weight of an "independent" admin to other debates where other socks were involved. On Wikiquote, Cato was used to test an improper open proxy and the sock that used it, prior to proposing that sock for RFA in Spring this year, and on Wikipedia Runcorn was used during 2006-07 to quietly change hard blocks of proxies to soft blocks for months, and then the socks used those proxies. Finally although not an admin matter, evidence that the attitude about abuse is unchanged: Poetlister argued badly with a user on a separate website in August 2008. After this argument, he used two sock-puppets to both oppose that person's article on English Wikipedia in retaliation.  FT2 (talk) 01:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I am no Wikisource person, so I give no comment here except that I feel sorry to see it happen here and there. I just would like you to give a look to the meta central page where we've accumulate the recent communications between PL/Cato in response to the call of FT2. Thanks. --Aphaia (talk) 08:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Ban?
I have read much of the public documents related to these charges and if true, would seem to be cause for admin recall, with no chance for re-adminship. There is little doubt that the person has added value to this project and others, and I would like to see the ability to continue adding value remain if we could be relatively sure that there would be no future recurrences of the behavior. If this user is a sockmaster and if they are banned or not, how would that impact their ability to create another sock? According to the charges the user has been rehabilitated from being a sockmaster before. Jeepday (talk) 01:44, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well obviously they haven't been "rehabilitated from being a sockmaster before" since here we are dealing with yet another revelation. – <font color="Indigo">Mike .<font color="Indigo">lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">@en.wb 04:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Can we handle to vote of confidence first before moving on to other aspects? Is there any reason to rush?--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  13:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * After giving it some thought, I think an immediate indef block or longish timed ban (90 days?) is for the best. The deception was deep and massive with the intent to manipulate other users. If the user is allow to edit clear editing restrictions need to be spelled out. Some crosswiki collaboration is likely needed still to set this all straight. For example, one user name and persona needs to be picked for use on all wikis so users understand who they are talking with on different wikis. FloNight (talk) 21:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * How would banning Cato/PL for 90 days improve Wikisource? Punitive bans are not an acceptable response - and we have zero reason to believe he'll do anything harmful to the project - aside from possibly vote-stack. Since we'll all likely ignore his votes (and those we suspect may be puppets) in the future - it seems ridiculous to believe that we should ban a long-term contributor to thousands of texts...so we get revenge. And no, "one user name and persona" does not "need to be picked for use on all wikis", that is not a rule, never has been a rule, and never will be a rule. If he wants to be Cato on WS, Poetlister on WQ and ThaddeusSockSmoker on WP, that's his right. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 22:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Removing PL/Cato from WS will decrease the potential that harm will come to one of our editors from encounter him on this website. PL/Cato has admitted to engaging in unseemly conduct. While not as harmful, PL/Cato played users against other users sowing discord between editors. By convincing PL/Cato to disengage from editing WS and other Foundation wikis, these communities will not have further discord between users caused by PL/Cato agitating users to take his side against other users. If PL/Cato moves on with his life and leaves, then our checkusers will not have to look suspiciously at users that PL/Cato works with on this wiki. Having our new editors be checked to look for PL/Cato socks will be an invasion of their privacy. I'm not convienced that his quality contributions are worth more than the ill feeling and distress that he caused. Having PL/Cato to agree to move on with his life and leave Wikimedia Foundation projects has considerable potential to  prevent ongoing problems. FloNight (talk) 02:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Our project is about adding quality texts; not about getting along nicely with everybody. We're a taskforce, colleagues and co-workers, not a neighbourhood. It is, in my opinion, definitely worth any aggravation that "may" arise between Cato/PL and another member over some petty argument, to keep him welcome and active here. This is a good project, and he's a good contributor. I'd be loathe to ban even vandals who have shown one or two good edits, since warnings and counselling could "bring them back to the right side" if we try hard enough; in Cato's case, we're talking about thousands of such good edits. Nothing else matters. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 02:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not a light matter that will resolve itself if ignored. We are talking about serious misconduct. I've seen no petty arguments between this user and other people. What I've seen is users giving PL/Cato the benefit of doubt over and over again and seeing it abused by PL/Cato. PL/Cato approached good users and tried to deliberately stirred up trouble between them and other users. And being sneaky, especially in ways that PL/Cato did by stealing other people's identities, in order to get your way is not acceptable. Allowing him to edit here, especially without any restrictions, is inviting him to abuse our policies and users here as he has done on other wikis and in real life. I feel I would be irresponsible if I did not let this community know about the longterm massive problems that this has person caused. FloNight (talk) 04:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that banning is an appropriate answer to this issue. Banning doesn't bring any positive result to Wikisource. Our role is not to punish someone for wrongs he has done elsewhere. Yann (talk) 23:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * While I firmly believe that wikis should be a welcoming places, no one has the right to edit this or any other wiki. Under normal circumstance, the users ability to make good contributions should be the main consideration. But on some occasions, other considerations are important as well. If a person engages in activity that is malicious and perhaps even criminal I think we need to strongly consider whether their contributions are worth risking harm that could come from their continued presence. And if allowed to stay as an editor, are restrictions needed to decrease the potential for criminal or malicious activity on or off wiki toward our editors. This user has a well documented track record of very poor conduct that caused harm to people in real life, on wikis, and on internet sites affiliated with Foundation wikis. It would be wise for this wiki's users to familiarize themselves with the evidence before the decision is made to allow this user to contribute without any restrictions. The depth of the deception and degree of harm is hard to fathom unless you've seen the evidence. Myself or John can explain the situation more fully to those interested in more detail. I recommend an indefinite block until a decision is made. FloNight (talk) 02:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I too oppose a ban. Removing the admin tool would be appropriate because deception was used in acquiring it.  Whether it may be reacquired will depend on what happens between now and the time of some future application, which, of course, would require a new vote then. I do think that a single user name across all projects would be a good practical idea, but I do so in the form of a srong recommendations rather than a requirement. Eclecticology (talk) 00:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've opposed a ban on Wikiquote, and would do so here for the same reasons. Basically a productive editor. Who knows the psychology that goes behind the desire to engage in sockpuppetry, but I've seen no vandalism from this editor. <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 02:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think any call for a ban is ridiculous. This user may have abused his tools as an admin, but his good contributions, which greatly outweigh his negative, seem to be being overlooked and nullified when it comes to consideration of this user. &mdash; Anonymous Dissident  Talk 05:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I support a desyopping but oppose a ban. Giggy (talk) 08:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd also oppose a ban, at least for the time being. Jude (talk) 09:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Desysop and ban. It's taken me days to read about this at meta and elsewhere. As I said here we could forgive a bit of sockpuppetry to get his own way in a content dispute, but this is something sinister. This is someone who stole the identities of several women and uploaded their photos on Wikimedia sites (with a free licence!) without their consent, as well as linking one of the identities to supposed interest in BDSM topics, which caused embarrassment and distress to the victim (that was on the admin's noticeboard at Wikipedia - I can find the diff later). He grossly violated the trust of several communities. At Wikiquote he set up a sock to annoy and impersonate someone from Wikipedia. The sock was blocked by a WQ admin, and he then unblocked his own sock, and used his two other admin socks to agree with himself and to publicly chastise the admin who had blocked. There's no doubt he used the trust he undeservedly gained on here and at Wikiquote as a means of regaining respectability on Wikipedia. He was caught before and given a chance to reform. He abused that chance. Why the hell would we trust him now? We'll be sending a terrible message to the young women whose identities he stole right here at these sites, if we accept him back on the grounds that he made some improvements to the site and that those improvements matter more than the damage he has done to people in real life. We have no evidence that he has reformed. Surely we're not going to enable a creepy stalker, liar, and identity thief just because it's good for Wikisource to have more Matthew Arnold poems, or whatever. If we're that desperate for Mathew Arnold, or Shelley, or whatever, give me a list, and I'll add the poems myself without putting the photo of an innocent stranger as "me" on my userpage beside a list of "my" supposed interests in sexual fetishes. Stratford490 (talk) 09:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * If I could soley determine what happens with this issue I would ignore this person, after seeing their admin rights removed, in the spirit of denying recognition and see what they do from thers. But I suppose we must have this discussion. I don't see how a ban benefits this project.  A ban puts us on a path of possibilities, which if I am to believe some the worst of Poetlister, gives them  an enourmous ability to harm this community.  I will follow the advice of w:WP:BEANS here but I think the people who are advocating a ban are the ones most clued in to how similar patterns have played out elsewhere.  However not banning under the worst possiblity of Poetlister doesn't mean we are still open to the same risk of abuse we had a month ago.  And if the worst is true of this person's motivations, I don't think that once the public attention on them dies down that they will continue to edit here. If on the other hand I am to believe the best of Poetlister, that regardless of other motives they truly wish to contribute to the sucess of Wikisource, I would ask them to take a wikibreak and return to editing in the future under a single account that has been acknowlded as belonging to them but was never associated with misappropriated identies. Not instituting a ban now does not mean we cannot revist the issue if this person begins to cause any disruption.  If we ban them now, they not only have nothing to lose by causing us problems but also greater ability to cause disruption. I am not sure that banning ever makes sense unless there is really widespread support for it throughout the community, and that is not evident here.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  16:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with BirgitteSB and FloNight; a long break is required. A 30-90 day block may be required to enforce this.  Stratford490's point at WS:ADMIN is well made, and I go further: the time that has already been spent investigating this socketry to the point that a proper admission of the extent of the problem has been provided, both onwiki and offwiki, is not redeemable.  There is no undo button; the time is lost, and no amount of editing by "Poetlister" will ever give back to us the edits we have lost in the meantime.  If he is to return here, it should be because he has made appropriate reparations in the real world and is thus able to join our ranks again without bringing this project into further disrepute, and so I am waiting for FT2 to provide an update before considering whether we going down the path of a permanent ban. John Vandenberg (chat) 19:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Since there's so much going on here, it can be difficult to sort through. But I think discussions about any block/ban should really focus on offenses on this site, rather than everything that happened on other projects (which I think would be more relevant to discussions on desysopping or single account restrictions).  AFAIK, that would leave us to judge the merits of 3 infractions:
 * vote stacking
 * copyvio/identity theft
 * creating this whole timesink
 * I agree that Stratford490 makes some good points, which would imply that #2 is the most serious of these. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No Ban, Sherurcij makes some good points in the edit Revision as of 22:22, 15 September 2008 and combined with the desysop voting trend at Wikisource:Administrators, any ban would be punitive and counter to wikiculture. Sherurcij is also correct in that a user can have separate ID's on each wiki, SUL is not a requirement it is an option. I am also not convinced that a ban would have any significant impact on the users ability to edit, if they want to edit, a ban is not going to stop them.  Because of the miss use of socks, and the recent edits to WS by Cato, I recommend that we block all but they Cato account on WS as I mentioned in this edit.  As for new socks, there is no power permitted by wikiculture to prevent new socks by this user or any other user, talking about preventing sock action is pointless, all we do is address it when we find it.  Jeepday (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
 * no bits, one ordinary editor -- I believe the appropriate thing to do here, and WMF wide, is to limit this person to one account with no bits set for quite a while; the road back is as an ordinary editor. I hope to find an explanation of 'why'. Without that, trust will be a long time coming. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * extend; I've found no explanation out there, a link anyone? The view that some time off is required has merit. This user may have further useful contributions to make, but the various wiki communities need time to digest this, to let the dust settle. And given the nature of the impersonation by several of the accounts, i.e. the women, those should not be available for further use, including post-rename. So, no bits anywhere, a break, and a new account that reasonably acknowledges the whole cloud of others. Mebbe rename Quillercouch back to Poetlister and create a new SUL Quillercouch; or another username of the user's choice. And an explanation. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't believe there is any explanation to link to from this person. I think the statement on socks below is the most they have said anywhere since this all came to light.  Speculation is certainly out there. But I haven't seen any speculation that ties up all the lose ends.   If there was one specific thing they want to accomplish by this, they sure spent a lot of time and effort off target and increased the risk of getting caught for no good reason. So I tend to think they just want to see how far they could with the deception, the whole "because it was there" motivation.  Of course they also used their influence to aggressively work against anyone they perceived as an enemy along the way.  And that tangent (if it was a tangent) greatly increased the risk of getting caught, so nothing adds up completely.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  12:20, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe I'd have found it if it existed. I'm not seeing much in the way of implication that any sort of explanation has been offered privately, either. I did see the sock list, when it was further south, and find it minimal; in no way amounting to a 'statement'. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * To repeat what I said more fully here, allow him to keep the name User:Quillercouch but indef-block all the other names he's used. Angr 22:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Statement on use of socks
I have used a variety of names on different Wikis. The following are cross-wiki (including ones created by SUL but never used), but the unattached ones are not me.


 * Bedivere
 * Cato
 * Londoneye
 * Poetlister ; some accounts renamed to
 * Quillercouch
 * Runcorn (no SUL) is on en:wp, en:Wiktionary and Meta (the ones on arwiki and enwikiquote are not me).
 * Whipmaster
 * Yehudi
 * Crum375 is on en:wq

The following are on en:wp with no SUL:


 * Brownlee
 * Habashia
 * Holdenhurst
 * Newport
 * Osidge
 * R613vlu
 * RachelBrown
 * Runcorn
 * Simul8
 * Taxwoman (also Commons)
 * Wqlister

This list is as complete as I can make it; I have double checked and believe that there are no omissions. I sincerely and thoroughly apologise to everyone and beg their forgiveness. - Cato (talk) 23:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * List corrected.--Cato (talk) 14:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Poetlister2 inadvertently created on WQ while renaming Poetlister to Quillercouch.-- Poetlister 11:31, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds weird: the log reads you renamed your account from Poetlister to Quillercouch, created Poetlister2 and blocked Poetlister (not 2). Your words may read you tried to create Poetlister again but there was something unknown to you, but as far as I understand it is unlikely to happen. If you tried to create the account named Poetlister again, you may have gotten a message instead: "Username entered already in use. Please choose a different name". So this Poetlister2 is unlikely to be created inadvertently as far as I understand, besides your former statement to FT2, whose content I don't mention here. --Aphaia (talk) 12:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I got a mail from him and explanation of details. While it doesn't look inadvertent though, it sounds much likely happen. --Aphaia (talk) 12:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Note - If you are not familiar with it see above. Jeepday (talk) 11:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for this information. In view of the general chaos spawned by your activity I would be pleased to hear suggestions from you about the future of specifically your Wikisource accounts. Eclecticology (talk) 02:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * We've got a here, who appears to be SUL, see Special:Log/Whipmaster. Is it correct then that they are not you?--GrafZahl (talk) 08:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Whipmaster is indeed SUL and is linked to the enwp account noted above. Thus it's the same person. Giggy (talk) 09:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC) What, PoetGuy lying?
 * Whipmaster has no edits on WS, the account was created automatically when Cato browsed WS with the profile. Whipmaster does have Commons edits.  For future reference we should probably tag all the SUL and active accounts with a sock tag and link back to the the history of this page. As he is using the Cato profile for this entry, that would appear to be the choice for a primary profile.  I suggest we label Cato as the primary, when tagging the socks, Addtionally block the socks indefinately pending some rationale from Cato to re-open one or more of them, and leave Cato open pending any other action. Jeepday (talk) 11:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * We can wait until the owner says which account they would prefer to continue to use here. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Having Runcorn/Poetlister/Cato choose one user name to be referred to in discussions will be helpful, I think. Many people who do not know the full background will be less confused. FloNight (talk) 12:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Real name? It's known to those who've been tracking him, from public information sources. Better it be revealed voluntarily than by the life-destroying psychotics of Wikipediareview, who are currently upset he jerked them around similarly. (Wikimedia just wants the guy to stop being a jerk, and it's clear from the above that many projects would be fine with having him edit in a non-jerk manner.) - David Gerard (talk) 14:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but given the degree of copycat vandalism and worse that is likely to happen (already is in a small amount) I think it should be his decision to publicly confirm his identity. Many users hold on firmly to the idea that anyone that can make good contributions should be allowed to edit Wikimedia projects. This situation challenges that point of view of a growing number of users since he has exhausted the patience or offended many users to the point they want him to leave forever despite his quality contributions. Whatever decision is made, some users are not going to be happy, I think. It is important that we acknowledge this upfront and do our best to make everyone know that we value their opinions even if we do not completely agree with them. FloNight (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This seems to frame the question in an "us vs. them" mode, or winners vs. losers. What the copycats do should have no bearing on what we do with the offending user in these circumstances.  While a clear decision by Cato about his future identity is important, there is no reason to believe that a negotiated agreement between him and Wikisource about his future participation in Wikisource cannot be reached.  If that agreement differs from the conclusions reached on other projects, so be it. Eclecticology (talk) 16:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Revealing his real name could make his life much worse if copycats or vandal decide to do mischief in his real name on wiki or anywhere else, right? Giving Cato/Runcorn/Poetlister proper respect as a human and a fair chance to respond, despite his lack of respect of other users, has been a concern by the people involved with investigating this case. Truly believe that there was no rush to judgment done. And we are having individual discussions on various wikis, yes, but at this point, completely ignoring the cross wiki aspect of the case will not work. This episode brought users from various wikis together as they collaborated about what to do. This is a good example of how wikis can work together to solve problems. Given the massive problems with socking by using several personalities to deceive and gain advantage, if Runcorn/PL/Cato stays, I strongly recommend one name is used on all wikis. FloNight (talk) 20:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly not advocating that the name he chooses should be his real name. Keeping one name across all wikis may be a practical necessity.  Many of the socks in this case are a by-product of the SUL system. As long as SUL creates accounts automatically when someone only browses another wiki, having different names on different wikis would perhaps make it difficult to manage a range of accounts without creating unintentional socks. Eclecticology (talk) 23:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What was the purpose of using the different accounts on en.WS? Would you have accepted an adminship nomination on a second account if it were made?--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  15:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The first question is a fair one, but the second is a purely hypothetical that invites a self-serving response. :-) Eclecticology (talk) 16:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is an unfair question. Of course let me add that I want to know why or why not more than just yes or no.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  17:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The second question has already been answered, as best we can infer, over on Wikiquote where this person used social engineering to ensure that a second and then third (, and maybe more) account was given sysop. A deep and meaningful explanation of the motives for doing it over on Wikiquote will be far more important and enlightening than answering a hypothetical question about what they might of done here. John Vandenberg (chat) 21:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with John. For the record such explanation of his motives I haven't seen yet. --Aphaia (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the account list, while I urged him to review and verify it again two days ago, no update has come. I think at least one account which was created this month is still missing. It is not SULed, registered on 15:28, 05 September 2008 to WQ and found there alone. Although it was already blocked when he posted that list, and he just said he posted "crosswiki" and "enwiki without SUL" accounts so logically he may argue he made no false statement, but I think it as omission and hence I think we should not take this omission light: he was give the chance to correct but didn't. --Aphaia (talk) 22:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My goodness, somebody with 178 socks forgot to mention one of them!? I say this calls for harsh punishment, are we allowed to involve the police, or are we limited to ruining his contributions to the Wikimedia projects? Honestly, let's form a lynchmob, head down to [city] and castrate him! FFS, who gives a shit? I've logged out to make specific edits I didn't want attributed to my username (not vandalism), I think I may even have a sock on WP (not used in years); it's nobody's business but his own - as long as those socks don't have sysop. Those socks that do, obviously should be desysopped - and we can make sure admins know to keep an eye out for votestacking, but having socks (and not telling you about them!) is hardly a crime, nor is it punishable. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 04:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sherurcij thank you for your input but I take your argument pointless in regard to two things:
 * The sock I mention on the above might be the newest of his creation: registered nine days before he published his list. It might be hardly forgotten, specially in consideration of the situation: he renamed his account and then registered two accounts, User:Poetlister and User:Poetlister2. The former was blocked by himself permanently to prevent a further re-creation and thus disruption. It is acceptable by our custom, but I find no rationale for the latter and for lack of mention.
 * The second point is one of the biggest matter is now for us his vote stacking. You said that we can make sure admins know to keep an eye out for votestacking: but if the admin don't know which accounts belong to him, how can we "know to keep an eye"? On the other hand, you said picking his sock unmentioned is harsh punishment. I think your sayings are inconsistent and pointless. --Aphaia (talk) 04:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Reorganizing some copyright tags
After going through Help:Copyright_tags, I have found that more and more articles with US and non-US copyright tags. If I propose combining some commonly used templates or add combined categories when the co-existence of US and non-US copyright tags is automatically detected, how would you think? For example, a work that is PD-old-50 and PD-1923 could be described in a combined tag coded PD-old-50-1923 reading:

"This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923, and in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 years or less."

I propose this as two tags coded PD-old-50 and PD-1923 look user-unfriendly in my opinion and the separate categories are unfriendly to those who may wish to use the works in and out of the USA. My proposal is to provide much more user-friendly combined copyright tags. If approved, I would like any users to have bots to combine some copyright tag coded.

As I see Template:No_US_license, I would like to ask where to nominate articles to be moved to Canadian Wikilivres. WS:COPYVIO or WS:DEL?--Jusjih (talk) 02:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I had some thoughts about this even before you posted, and have been inclined to the opposite view, i.e. that they should be more clearly separated. In the present state of things PD-1923 puts a different box on an author page than on pages in article space, and this is not documented in the template description.  The author version tends to the unintelligible.


 * Templates should avoid conflating the notions of public domain and licences. If something is in the public domain no licence is needed.


 * When using separate templates there should be no need for a template about the US copyright status to say anything at all about the copyright status in other countries. The second template serves that purpose well enough, and may easily be applicable over a significant range of countries.


 * United States copyright law is noticeably eccentric when compared to the copyright law of other countries. It includes concepts that are alien to the law of other countries.  Delving into US copyright law involves complications that are unimaginable in any other country.  Thus trying to develop unified templates may involve trying to account for a lot of combinations that may not be realistic.


 * Most nominations for transfer to Wikilivres have taken place on the Copyvio page. Wikilivres, by-the-way, is not hosted in Canada, but in France. Eclecticology (talk) 05:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikilivres is hosted in Canada. Yann (talk) 10:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with a Wikilivres that is hosted in Canada. When I did look this up using "whois" a few months ago it resolved to a French ISP not a Canadian one.  If this has changed who is the new ISP? Eclecticology (talk) 16:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What is important here is not the whois, but the IP of the server, which is located in Montreal, Quebec. Before it was somewhere in Ontario, but Wikilivres has always been hosted in Canada. Yann (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * When there are potential legal questions we need a little more factual certainty than that. Is a French ISP going through a Canadian proxy server doing enough to make it Canadian?  A person seeking to attack the situation will look for the weakest link in the chain of ownership, and if any part of that chain is subject to the more restrictive French law that will be his point of attack.  Eclecticology (talk) 17:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The domain is registered in France, but the ISP hosting the site is Canadian only, and has always be. I will probably move the registration to Canada, but I was waiting for other issues, including the formation of Wikimedia Canada and a possible renaming. Yann (talk) 17:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * As we have so many US and non-US copyright tags, I will not pursue combined tags if no wide supports, but Chinese Wikisource with simpler copyright rules is making combined tags for more efficient copyright audit. Please let me know when Wikimedia Canada is to be formed and whether Wikilivres will be renamed.--Jusjih (talk) 03:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Discussions about Wikimedia Canada have gone on intermittently for a couple years now without accomplishing much. If I were more dictatorially minded I could push the thing through, but that has its consequences, and I'm not sure if I'm ready for such risks.  Being bold has its limits.  Although I am currently the registered owner of several of the wiki****.ca domains (They are only available to Canadian residents.), I am extremely hesitent about taking any actions which might be viewed by WMF as hostile.  I'm certainly open to hearing renaming suggestions, keeping in mind that the name Wikilivres is also already being used by the French Wikibooks. Eclecticology (talk) 06:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Renaming Wikilivres involves a language issue (it was originally a French only project), a purpose issue (the system was upgraded, and it can now host images), and a management issue (should it be linked to a chapter?, etc.). The community there is still very small. The number of readers increases steadily, but I would like the project to have more contributors. Yann (talk) 11:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Domain aside, it's really only a language issue. Whether the project can host pictures should not affect the name at all. If at some later time it becomes the property of a chapter, that chapter can make adjustments then. Eclecticology (talk) 16:54, 19 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If it contains only books, a name like *books* is OK, but may be not if it contains also images. In this later case, a more generic name may be better. Also should it be a .ca, .com, .net, .org, .info, etc. or it doesn't matter? Yann (talk) 17:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikibrary? Wikiarchive?
 * Since the purpose of this initiative is to take advantage of the life + 50 copyright term the advantage of the ".ca" domain is that the rules say that it must be registered in Canada. Once that is done finding a Canadian ISP becomes a matter of finding the most bandwidth for the least money. Eclecticology (talk) 20:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Registered in Canada is different from hosted in Canada. EVula // talk // 20:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course. Both should be in place. Eclecticology (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

= Other discussions =

font-size formatting templates
I have created a number of new formatting templates. Before these get too widely used, I'd like some comments. The templates wrap the css font-size property and 'can' the stock values; this is distinct from usages where you invoke an explicit size such as 16pt or 1.5em.


 * absolute sizes
 * xx-small
 * x-small
 * small
 * medium
 * large
 * x-large
 * xx-large


 * relative sizes
 * smaller
 * larger

The primary concern I have is that the absolute sizes of 'small' and 'medium' are counter intuitive in the context of the ambient sizes coming from the wiki css. 'small' doesn't render any smaller for me; medium renders larger than ambient text. I expect to redirect small→smaller and medium→nop. There will be similar issues with user settings that significantly change the rendered text size.

I've seen a number of usages of these css styles hard-coded into pages and those should likely be migrated to use one of the above. The absolute ones may be best avoided completely in favor of the relative ones. We could also craft templates that double or triple wrap such as;


 * larger
 * x-larger
 * xx-larger

If this is preferred, we would craft single templates to do it.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * While these may satisfy the techno-geeks, it's important to remember that there are many of us who are more interested in supplying content with no more arcane mark-up than necessary. For those of us who do not have an intense computer science background, and who are completely mystified about the effect of the css on a Classic skin it is quite enough to put the HTML for "small" or "big" as the situation requires. Adding a whole new family of forgettable templates does not simplify anyone's editing experience. Eclecticology 17:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not necessary to understand the template to use it. And in my experience, the "big" tag isn't enough. I welcome the addition of these templates as a way to make our texts better match the original texts. Adding content constitutes the majority of the editing process, but formatting is needed, too. <font face="Verdana"><font color="ForestGreen">Psych <font color="DarkGreen">less  00:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * By the same token, it's not necessary to understand taxes to pay them. Sure, some formatting is needed, but the law of diminishing returns applies when increasingly arcane templates produce only minor differences in formatting. Eclecticology 06:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I for one would like to see a slightly wider range of relative sizes, and I see no need for the absolute ones. I've moved away from trying to exactly match formatting, towards roughly approximating the formatting with a small set of relative font sizes. For example, virtually every line of Page:Appendix to the first twenty-three volumes of Edwards's Botanical Register.djvu/7 is in a distinct font; I'm not going to waste my effort trying to match it exactly. I've just converted it over to use your templates, and have an adequate representation using only smaller, normal, larger, and a single " ". Hesperian 01:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The idea behind templates such as these is to use them where you would otherwise hard code the same css into wiki-text. If 'big' and 'small' suffice, stick to them. For nesting such as I did for the x-larger and xx-larger examples above, we could create x-larger and xx-larger. Ditto, x-smaller, xx-smaller. I, too, see the relative versions as most useful. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * new relative size templates
 * xx-smaller
 * x-smaller
 * x-larger
 * xx-larger


 * uses

I've added the above; an alternate implementation would be to repeatedly invoke the base template; these are nested wrapping spans. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

takes two parameters; a size and some text; absolute or relative sizes may be uses with relative giving the best results in most cases. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * font-size
 * (same effect)

there are others
Please note that I've created other new templates in Category:Formatting templates;


 * letter-spacing
 * word-spacing
 * letter-spacing-normal
 * word-spacing-normal
 * UC
 * lc
 * capitalize
 * blink
 * overline
 * underline
 * teletype
 * font-weight-normal
 * and this list is incomplete

Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sure there are many more. The test for their utility remains how many different editors actually use them, and how long before someone who is not aware that they exist re-invents them. Eclecticology 06:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, part of why I opened this thread was to publicize them. I would hope that editors that are aware of them will use them in lieu of hard-coding pretty much the same thing into pages and that some will refactor extant code to use them. I am not seeking to encourage formatting where it is inappropriate. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I take that in the spirit in which it was intended. But the reality of publicity is that it can only be addressed to those who are present at the time the publicity is presented. Eventually this thread will go into archive, and all the current publicity will be lost. It's much easier to promote single templates over an extended period than whole families of not-so-easily-remembered templates. Eclecticology 17:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Eclecticology here: having some templates is useful, having too many makes a problem, not a solution. Yann 18:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It does seem like a like a bit much. Several of these seem to use CSS to emulate existing tags or parser functions, and others don't seem generally useful.  Maybe a better approach would be would be to have a help page, like help:advanced formatting or something that lists formatting that is commonly used here, and which tag/parser function/template implements it. -Steve Sanbeg 21:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * (reply to all)
 * Most of these templates are thin wrappers around css properties and I have been copy-pasting the obvious ones to build a set for general use. The category:Formatting templates had about 50 members when I started ad is at 90 now, so it might be a good idea to split-off a subcategory 'Text formatting templates'? I've not looked at all of the others, but some are more along the lines of page structure templates.
 * Yesterday I formatted;
 * Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/9 — book's title page
 * making use of a number of these templates and I'm curious how others might format it. I am aware that a bit of the centering is 'off' — see above; I'm running the proposed code so I don't get the off-center bits (the words 'the' and 'by').
 * Some of these templates are duplicative of parser functions or html tags. Tags like  and are deprecated, as is, and we would be best off not using them; css offers these alternatives and I feel we should move in this direction. Parser functions such as LC exist, too, but does anyone want to see much of that in body text? I see functions such as that better suited for use in the implementation of more complex templates.
 * A help page for templates such as these is a fine idea, although I'm not sure these really are all that advanced; mebbe just Help:Text formatting templates. I've not looked at many of the help pages here (and I will), so I'm not sure just where this would fit in, but I would be happy to flesh-out the documentation for these.
 * Finally, the 'absolute' font-size templates really are not such a hot idea; we could redirect some and blank the others. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There are no deprecated tags. It's not like we're working in a format like HTML which has multiple implementations.  There's only one MediaWiki, which has the features that are intended to be used here.  I don't think it's a good idea for us to second-guess the design here.  Yes, it does allow a subset of HTML to be sanitized and passed through, or otherwise transformed into the output; if you feel that MediaWiki is producing deprecated HTML in response to certain wiki markup, it would be better to discuss that where more developers can participate.  In body text, it makes more sense just to hit caps lock to produce upper case text, rather than type what you don't want and have to transform it into something else.  But between something like text and text I think the latter would be better, since it doesn't depend on CSS, so there would be one less dependency to view the text properly. -Steve Sanbeg 18:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm… I was referring to raw html that editors place into wiki-text that MediaWiki passes along to the final xhtml that appears in browsers; if I use Web Developer to highlight deprecated tags, it outlines any u, s, or center tags that made it through MediaWiki to the final page. I'm intrigued by what you're saying about what can happen between the wiki-text and final output, but don't think this thread is the place to get into it.
 * You may be right about the two lc options, but there are other cases; take the common small-caps in a Table of Contents (not the wiki ones; the ones in a work). See;
 * Page:Equitation.djvu/17 and 18
 * which use a lot of small-caps (and I just checked; there's no ). The original scan produced all-caps, and if these had originally been hand-typed, whomever might have chosen to do so in caps-lock. But to get small-caps, the text needs to be in mixed-case and then transformed. This could be approximately done with a series of transforms; from upper-case, to lower-case, and then with capitalize and, finally, small-caps; but that would hit minor words like 'of' as well, which is typically wrong. I see the best value in the raw text being in mixed case; if an original document was ALL-CAPS, well, that's just the original formatting, and (the fidelity to original issue, again) I'm trying to find the consensus on the appropriate degree of formatting and fidelity to the original document. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, we can talk about it in more detail elsewhere; but basically any HTML typed in the document is cooked by running it through both a whitelist and an external tidy program. I think small caps are technically mixed case, so that would be the most faithful way to type that; that's a case there a template would be the best way to render it; either to render its argument in small caps, or just switch the rest of the document to small caps.  I think it also helps with things like small caps & redacted text if there's a relatively small number of formatting templates, to make them easier to find. -Steve Sanbeg 18:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * So if someone entered <tt> not-a-link  </tt> into wiki-text, MediaWiki could transform it to <tt> not-a-link  </tt> (say if a browser or doctype cut support for the u-element) or to yet something else if it was desired to avoid confusion with links; mebbe bold and italic. I expect this is the mechanism that is stripping out things like background-image in a style attribute.
 * There are a bunch of works where I've seen the Table of Contents formatted in small-caps per the original scan and believe a class to cut the large number of sc usages would be a good idea. It could use colgroup to hit only the middle column or we could make an undo template for non-sc exceptions. I'll go slow with this. I saw that you're a developer, so I'll have a further talk with you as time permits. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

content vs formatting
One of the things I've been trying to get a better understanding of on this project is the trade-off between fidelity to an original and the clean output of web pages. And in some cases I expect the texts from this project will end up displayed on all manner of devices besides traditional machines; ebook readers, hand phones, Dick Tracy's watch. I've seen a lot of css hard-coded into wiki-text and this is less than ideal. The core idea behind these templates is to offer a means to extract the techno-geek stuff from the wiki-text. This is a non-issue when it's not there to begin with and I expect many documents need little formatting. But for pages that do need more formatting, or that editors have formatted anyway, it is better to encapsulate the details in a template. Further; sometimes the details can be centralized all the way to a style sheet. At some point someone may wish to extract a truly clean text that has all, or most all, formatting stripped out; that could be done by rendering the pages with templates nulled-out; all of them or some of them. And standardizing on some formatting templates opens the door to later making large scale changes to the project by, for example, reimplementing larger to force a font-size such as 125% instead of whatever some particular browser chooses to do for that property. The CSS spec doesn't say what, exactly, a user agent should do. My phone will do something different than my laptop. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I had been thinking about that; I think that people who don't want to see formatting would mostly look at the printable version, so we should just try to make that appear correctly, i.e. with fixes like this. Printable format already hides links, edit section, etc, so we should do the same with things we add. -Steve Sanbeg 16:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This all begs a very important question: What formatting is essential? Can we put all the available templates onto a priority list?  At what point does the list of templates become so overwhelmingly long that the templates are just ignored. Eclecticology 17:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(to all)

A lot of this would be the targeting of different media types, which are; class editsection invokes <tt>display: none;</tt> for printing. teletype would likely be redundant on a tty device. handheld is generally analogous to small screen i.e. cut frills; the differentiation between font sizes narrows, color use scales back; in general the text is plainer. The truly clean version of text I was referring to would be someone wanting to fork a version of the whole project, or at least a large chunk. For example, to put all of some author's work into an ebook format. This would be a piece of code parsing everything in some very different manner. This could start with the raw wiki-text, or be a further parsing post-MediaWiki. Who knows? Futuristic.
 * all, braille, embossed, handheld, print, projection, screen, speech, tty, tv

Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Library of copyrighted materials
Some libraries have systems where you can checkout a book digitally. Might we ever have a similar system for books in some manner? Emesee 20:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Checking out material implies ownership, and anyone can already "checkout" everything we have at no cost. Expanding our holdings to include copyright protected material could lead to what we suggest, but that strikes me as contrary to the principle of providing free material to those who use this or any other Wikimedia Foundation project. Eclecticology 22:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it might be like... putting them here in advanced; the copyright would likely run out eventually. I assume we would not want to use DRM (I could be wrong, but probably not).
 * Suppose Wikimedians have books to donate. They donate books, the books are scanned, and then destroyed or put somewhere secure. People can checkout books online; and only one person can check them out at a time. When checking a book out, people agree to delete the ebook with in a certain period of time; after this time, someone else can virtually checkout (download) the book. So we might have a digital copy of some book, and it only is downloaded 26 times a year. I would be curious what a lawyer would say about this ideas feasibility. Some libraries do something quite like it, but from what I understand, using DRM. Eventually, after 50 or 70 years, or however long, everyone could download the book all they like. But like I said, I don't know what a lawyer would say about this. Does that all make sense? Emesee 17:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * While there are certainly legal issues involved, I don't think that feasibility for this proposal depends so much on lawyers as on technical developments. To be sure the support that most of us have for DRMs is closer to hostility.  A rule that someone must delete material within a specified time is only as good as enforceability, and that raises some very serious questions about the rights of others to control what happens on our individual computers.  Instinctually, my reaction when I see something like that is to ask, "How do I get around it?" Eclecticology 18:00, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * So if technical concerns were not an issue, then Wikisource as a community might be gung-ho? Emesee 05:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not at all. The other issues would still be there, but there's no point trying to answer them on a hypothetical basis as long as the technical issues appear insurmountable. Eclecticology 16:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The technical issues may seem insurmountable to you, but not so to myself. I must not be sure what you are referring to with respect to the technical issues. So if you would indulge me with an exploration of the other issues or the technical issues that you find insurmountable (are there any you do find surmountable? there is more than a few technical issues here, yes?), I would be hooked. Emesee 18:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The technical issue is how do you ensure the borrower has deleted the borrowed copy on their computer, without installing some kind of Spyware. Additionally you have the problem that posting copyrighted materiel on Wikisource, Wikipedia or any other in the same family is counter to the most basic premise of the project that everything is free. I doubt that you will find anyone interested here. Jeepday (talk) 00:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That is why I would be interested in the input of a lawyer. If upon downloading these works, someone has an option of choosing how long they would like to check a book out, and then they can agree to that in some legally binding way, it might relieve the Wikimedia Foundation of liability. That is really for the legal people to say. Based on the response over the last few days, it doesn't sound like there is strong interest here, which is fine. I hope anyone who might be interested in developing this idea would feel free to contact me or bring it up on Meta or something. Emesee 03:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Template standardisation
As someone who knows a bit about template coding and website design, I have considered starting a new template standardisation program. If anyone is interested in helping I would be interested in getting feedback. Thanks, AC aka --Sunstar NW XP 14:56, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What exactly do propose to standardize? I can think of a lot of possibilities, but what is most needed here is a standardization of the documentation and help pages for templates.--<font color="#9966FF">Birgitte <font color="#CC99CC" size="2">SB  16:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed! We currently have about 1800 templates, 134 of which appear in the list of unused templates, and most of these unused ones are probably useless or forgotten.  Something like  is used a lot, but if I go there all it shows is 'Class="prettytable"'; that tells me nothing about what it does. So a standardisation program as proposed would do best by starting with a review of the existing templates with a view to purging and/or documenting. Eclecticology 19:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

<tt> class="prettytable secondtableclass" </tt> instead of the improper: <tt> class="prettytable" class="secondtableclass" </tt>). Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * is a rather dubious shorthand for invoking <tt> class="prettytable" </tt> (and the case there counts). That class, in turn, formats a table in a more pleasing manner than the raw table syntax. From the history of this template, it seems to have acted as a vandal magnet and served has a means of diddling some hundreds of pages in one poke. Versions of this template exist all over the wiki-verse and generally are not a great idea. I'd be all for hard-coding the class into the individual pages. This way, should we ever what to have another class that extends or overrides bits of prettytable, we can do so on a case by case basis without impacting all generically pretty tables (would take the form:


 * I would be happy to write some documentation as a subpage for the template, and as for Jack's suggestion, prettytable could be a template still, but subst'ed where it needs to be used.


 * Deletion templates could be redesigned, although I wouldn't know what's the best type yet without discussion. --Sunstar NW XP (talk) 10:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The speedy deletion templates at issue were more a matter of overkill with a separate template for each criterion that supported speedy deletion. Eclecticology (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Speaking of, it should probably be protected. Likewise with that table, a subst: run via a bot or AWB might be a good idea if we're attempting to deprecate it. Jude (talk) 10:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * substing that thin template would be good; it really does nothing beyond save a few characters in the wiki-text (and serve as an attractive nuisance). The class, in commons.css, is already protected. Templates like that are primarily about canning some code in lieu of putting it in a css class, which is far better. Such usages are inherently inflexible and problematic as they invite editors to mix them with other hard-code table attributes and styles and can easily lead to multiple instances of the same attribute on, in this case (and hopefully), a table-element. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree; if nobody objects, I'll have my bot substitute instances of the template. When the code is extremely simple, we should not obscure it with templates. — {admin} Pathoschild 20:05:19, 06 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Great! That's more than what I would have hoped for on this one.  I would have been satisfied with understanding what it does.


 * Again echoing Birgitte's point, we could stand to have documentation. Perhaps this could have two aspects.  First, either on the template page itself or on its /doc page (depending on the complexity) we should have detailed explanations of how the template works, and how to use it.  Second, an index of templates with a one sentence description of just what that template does would be very helpful to those of us who are puzzled when we run into a template with obscure application. Eclecticology (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Considering I suggested subst:ing it, I see no reason why User:Pathosbot shouldn't go ahead and do so. There's no reason for such obfuscation, after all, and it does appear to be a vandal magnet. Jude (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. — {admin} Pathoschild 00:02:39, 07 September 2008 (UTC)

= Questions =

A nice "Licence"
This site has me puzzled: http://franklinpapers.org/ If you click on the 2nd line (The "Extended licence", it says that it's all in the public domain and can be used as such, but "...you will be responsible for ensuring that you are not violating any rights of the publisher or the people who provided some of these documents."

What is this saying? Is this PD-old for us, or copyvio? 68.39.174.238 18:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * These writings are more than two hundred years old, and the content of the original texts should be considered in the public domain. Nevertheless, if you wish to reproduce any of these materials for commercial purposes or on a scale beyond "fair use" you will be responsible for ensuring that you are not violating any rights of the publisher or the people who provided some of these documents.
 * Obviously, papers originally written by Benjamin Franklin would be in the public domain due to PD-old. I am interested in the comment about previously unpublished papers--I'm not sure whether the copyright would be public domain (as Ben Franklin's dead over a hundred years), or whether it would lie with Yale University Press, as the document has previously never been published and is only now being published (coming under modern copyright).
 * However, anything originally published by him during his lifetime, with any new footnotes or comments removed, and so long as the text has not been altered from its original state, should definitely be acceptable on Wikisource. Somebody else might know about the other unpublished stuff. Jude (talk) 23:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The quote is at best ambiguous and simplistic. Whether something is protected depends on when it was first published.  Anything that Yale published that was previously published depends on the status of that previous publication. If it was first published before 1923, in Franklin's time or later it is in the public domain.  If it was first published after 1922 and before 2003 the status depends on that other publication.  If Yale was indeed the first publisher during that period it has the copyright, but if that publication took place before 1964 (the first 7 volumes) the copyright had to be renewed.  If the work was never published before 2003 (and did not have its copyright registered before 1978) it is not copyrightable; this is the case for volumes 37 and later.


 * Ownership of the physical document has no bearing on copyright. The reference to fair use is a red herring, since it does not depend on one being licensed to use the material.  It is also important to stress the words "you will be responsible for ensuring that you are not violating any rights" above; this is not an outright prohibition.  Clicking to accept the licence is only valid to the extent that they have the right to license; if they do not own the rights, as with a work in the public domain, they do not have the right to license. Altering the text from its original state does not necessarily spawn a new copyright, especially if those alterations do not constitute original work.  Their own comment, "We have attempted to make the web version as accurate as possible," suggests that there has been no intentional alteration of the texts anyway. Eclecticology 04:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * According to WS:FORM, every drop of ink by Benjamin Franklin (and people of his era) is PD, whether it has been published before or not, written anonymously or not, except works first published between 1978–2002 (inclusive).
 * That said, the site has a click through license which is atrocious but has legal basis in contract law (not copyright law):

I agree to use this web site only for personal study and not to make copies except for my personal use under "Fair Use" principles of Copyright law.
 * The simplest approach is to not use that website, instead use archive.org. If any of those titles look interesting, let us know, and we can set up a project to clean up the OCR. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It appears that if you go to the "Expanded licence", you can agree to that, which has different terms. Anyway, my principal reason for looking was to turn up the old "Pennsylvania Gazette"s; I don't know if they're on A.O or not. 68.39.174.238 16:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that John is quite accurate in his interpretation. The policy refers to "created before 1978 and later published." Anything already published between 1923 and 1977 inclusive would not be "later published."  Whether contract law would apply to that click through is questionable since a contract would fail for lack of consideration.  I do agree that the Internet Archive solution is the most practical for getting around the problems of the Yale site.  The Pennsylvania Gazette was in fact published in the 18th century so it should not have copyright problems at all. Eclecticology
 * Ec. is right; I had missed the fact that the contents of this website is largely The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, which were first published in 1959-63, and are all copyright. As these volumes predate 1978, any words of Benjamin Franklin found within those volumes are PD.  Care is needed to ensure editorial comments on that site are not reproduced here on Wikisource. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Pennsylvania Gazette
Wikipedia has some info at Pennsylvania Gazette, and Wikisource currently has one article from this publication: Apology for Printers.

Gazette publications (1806) looks useful, and there are 67 hits for "Pennsylvania Gazette" on archive.org, and 44 hits for "Pennsylvania Gazette" "Benjamin Franklin". Chapter 10 of Benjamin Franklin Printer (1917) is dedicated to "Pennsylvania Gazette", and has facsimiles of many articles, including the one on the right which comes from Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, on Project Gutenberg; I havent found that edition on archive.org. Extracts from American newspapers (1894) contains 70 mentions of "Pennsylvania Gazette", with over half of those being distinct reproductions of articles which appeared in it. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyright question
I would like to add some pages from Eilert Ekwall's Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. He was about 88 when he wrote it in the 1960s and is dead now, but I am not certain about the copyright of actually adding the text here. I would appreciate some help on this, since I do not want to post copyright infringement. Copyright is an area of personal interest to me; I am actively interested in learning all about it, even though I did a bit about it in university for 2 years (2005-2007).

All help is appreciated. Thanks, AC aka --Sunstar NW XP 12:32, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The works of Eilert Ekwall are copyright in the UK for 70 years after his death, which means it is copyright until 2035. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

A Report on the status of pages within a project
Over at WikiProject DNB we have been transcribing biographies. In some there is standard [q.v.] referencing, and we will be adding wikilinks. The issue is that as we increase the number of subscribers, we won't readily know whether the wikilinks have been been added or not. Is there an convenient means to have an annotation or mark that assists to track which pages have been done within the project?

On that track what sort of tools are available for projects? I plan to recruit transcribers, and I know that they will not necessarily be wiki savvy, and some may well be 'type and paste only' people. What tools exist to help manage the data, progress with works, etc. Thanks for any help that can be given. :-) -- Billinghurst 12:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * As I expressed on the talk page for the project, I think our current method of rating completion is wholly inadequate. Eclecticology 2008-09-01T04:49:40

Customise use of textinfo and textquality for projects?
[excuse any ignorance of the deep dark wikiarts] Is there means to utilise either textinfo and textquality as checking items with projects? I am looking to see if within a template you can run a report or some way to investigate where the templates are used, or not, and the various stages of the use against the number of pages in a project. My idea is that I could look to have a report that shows me the pages in my project, then the application (or not) on the pages of the templates, and the state of those pages, eg. phases 1/2/3/4. At the moment a visual tool that you have to visit is visually useful, it is not a systematic tool and not productive. -- Billinghurst (talk) 14:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for bringing attention back to this point. As I see it textQuality doesn't do much.  It inserts a comment into the summary box, and puts a do-nothing template at the top of the edit box (which may or may not be a whole article).  Adding an icon to the article tab is a skin-dependent effect, and even then it requires calling up the article to know its proofread status. For a person working at proofreading the articles in a project this is not at all convenient for determining which articles still require work. A scheme that would carry the icons to an index or table of contents page would be more useful.
 * Bingo! Category page for a list, or a ToC, something!
 * Yes, the icon is just an easy way to show the status. The main purpose was to add to page to a category. It works that way on fr.ws and I find this useful. I added that in the template. Yann (talk) 19:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure, but where does the icon appear? Using the categories is a step forward. Putting a project name or abbreviation (before or after the percentage) in the parameter would create a separate category for that project. Eclecticology (talk) 04:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Textinfo at first glance seems useful, but that usefulness is diminished by being parked on the talk page; in some situations a more abbreviated and modest version right on the content page might encourage more people to use this feature. Eclecticology (talk) 16:44, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I would have to agree on the 'parking' on a talk page aspect. If it can be discretely added to the bottom of the article page, that would seem useful.  Even if could set some distinctive flags that can be used and set.  I see aspects like proofread, wikilinks, author. -- Billinghurst (talk) 17:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure that edition should be placed on the completed works page in order to direct readers to the talk page if they wish to read ifnormation about the edition (eg, textinfo. For an example of how this works, please see K-K-K-Katy. In regards to the templates, perhaps it would be a good idea if someone could run a query (perhaps on the toolserver, though now that I think about it I believe the databases are all down) to cross-reference which talk pages have textinfo as compared with which article pages have edition, and perhaps even these results could be fed into a bot to automatically add edition. 22:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Does edition really accomplish what it sets out to do? One cannot presume that a passive user knows why that is there.  Information of public interest should be on the content page, but details of which Wikisourceror  did what should remain on the talk page. Eclecticology (talk) 04:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Community Curated Works (CCW)
Hi, I think Wikisource contributors will find this blog post to be an interesting read. It focuses on the more philosophical side of what we are doing here. Enjoy! Dovi 17:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting way to describe it. I personally prefer "maintained" because "curated" makes me think of a curator, a paid professional. <font face="Verdana"><font color="ForestGreen">Psych <font color="DarkGreen">less  19:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting approach, and I'm somewhat favorable to it. To be a curator is to be a guardian or caretaker.  The narrow application to museums is a more recent development.  There is something noble about the idea that we taking care of the world's knowledge for the benefit of future generations. Industry, which has wrapped ideas in proprietary protective coatings, has not done a very good job.  Eclecticology 00:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * For Wikisource, "Community Curated Works" very apt for what we do with typical pages, however it gets complicated with Annotations and even more dubious for Wikisource translations, where we publishing shiny new works. I do think of us as "digital curators", some amateur and some professional, but the intentions of all are to faithfully bring and preserve works into the digital era.  The term "curated works" does not seem so apt for other wiki concepts;  lolcat Bible isnt preserving much of the original, but it is a lovely use of wiki technology all the same. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The point he makes about a heightened sense of quality and reliability does indeed ring true; here, the problems that follow the creation of user-generated content are almost nullified. We hope. ;) But, yes, a very interesting read. &mdash;  Anonymous Dissident  Talk 13:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Mein Kampf
I have two doubts in general. I am presently reading the aforesaid autobiography and I think a simple English annotation or gist for every page/section would be helpful to those who wish to read the autobiography but cannot associate to the heavy English used. I want to write my own gists/annotations accompanying the autobiography and am excited by this prospect. So my two questions are


 * Can Mein Kampf be published on wikisource?
 * Which is better for the gists/annotations? Wikisource or wikibooks?

--203.199.213.131 09:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * re 1st point; follow the link. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * re 2nd point, see "Annotations". John Vandenberg (chat) 10:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The English Mein Kampf is still protected by copyright. The Murphy translation in particular was first published in England, and will go into the public domain at the end of 2016. See  where I looked at this in detail in 2004. Eclecticology 17:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Mohammed 2010
Between May 16 and 18 this individual managed to upload a large quantity of material related to Islam. Some of it had previously been deleted as copyvio. See Proposed deletions/Archives/2007-04. Has there been a change of view about this stuff? Eclecticology 18:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, this should be deleted. I have seen this new pages, but I didn't know that there were previously deleted. This is already discussed here: Possible_copyright_violations. Yann 18:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Assistance
Hello, thanks for the wonderful site! I uploaded some primary sources from the web onto here but do not know proper syntaxing and format. Can someone please have a look at my recent contribs and fix them. Your help would be most appreciated! --penubag 02:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've cleaned up The Monroe Doctrine a little.
 * Abraham Lincoln: A History and History of the United States, Volume 1 are too big - pages that big are not functional, and we do not want Gutenberg syntax in our pages. They need to be split into subpages.
 * Archive.org has pagescans for Abraham Lincoln: A History, and they have many similar titles for History of the United States; who is the author of the one you are working on? John Vandenberg (chat) 04:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * What's still missing from the Monroe Docrine piece is its source. Eclecticology (talk) 22:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Linebreaks in middle of paragraphs with
Would someone be able to have a look at (for example) the linebreak/paragraph that is appearing in the middle of the first letter in Terræ-filius: or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford/Terræ Filius No. XI? I can't figure out how it's doing it: most pages are fine, and a line that is broken across two pages is continued seemlessly on the book page, but sometimes it doesn't work. I've noticed the same thing at the end of the first page of Speeches and Writings of M. K. Gandhi/M. K. Gandhi: A Sketch. Thanks for any help! &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 09:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I am not seeing the problem, could you be more specific? Jeepday (talk) 11:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Umm... Well: on this page, about halfway down, there is a letter, in which the following lines are broken, but shouldn't be:

onely that John Fulkes the tailor scores me upp a penney strong a moost every day; but I'le

put a stopp to it shortly, I worrant ye: I beleave I sholl do vary well, if

if that makes sense? It should come out like:

onely that John Fulkes the tailor scores me upp a penney strong a moost every day; but I'le put a stopp to it shortly, I worrant ye: I beleave I sholl do vary well, if

or something (I've added the hard breaks). The "but I'le" is at the end of one page; the "put a stopp" is at the top of the next. Thanks! &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 11:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This edit fixed it. I think you just have to watch for errors like this when you're stitching together the pages.


 * On a side note, you should be marking the pages you've proofread with the colored buttons on the edit screen. See Help:Page Status. Also, is the Journal of Leo Tolstoy the source for Index:Terræ-filius- or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford.djvu? <font face="Verdana"><font color="ForestGreen">Psych <font color="DarkGreen">less  20:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for fixing it. And I do know about the page status colouring; I just forget sometimes... :-) And no, the Journal of Leo Tolstoy is not the source for Terræ Filius — does it say that somewhere?  It shouldn't. They're completely separate works, with a century or so between them.  :-)  &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 23:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Featured text candidates

 * "This self-reference category contains texts that have been nominated to be featured texts, and is populated by {{featured text candidate} on the talk page. See also the discussion at Wikisource:Featured text candidates."

This page appears to have been mostly self generated from user Talk Pages and a possible duplication of other works.Jmcneill2 (talk) 09:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's populated by talk pages because the featured text candidate template is placed on the talk page rather than the article itself (due to it being a slow process to elevate featured texts, we want to place the templates in a non-obtrusive part of the article). (diff)

Two questions
Hi there, I'm new to s: and would like to start participating a little more in it. Thus, I have two initial questions about helping out at s:: Thanks! It Is Me Here (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Do you feature song lyrics and/or sheet music?
 * 2) What is your equivalent of Redirect? I was going to add it to WS:CP but discovered at preview that it doesn't exist here.


 * Song lyrics and sheet music are certainly welcome subject to the same rules about copyright and previous publication as anything else. There has been some recent inconclusive discussion about how best to handle musical notation.  There are few if any of us who would not appreciate seeing those problems soved.
 * This seems to be an omnibus template that brings together a number of other templates with more limited application. A detailed discussion would probably be required to determine if each of these elements are applicable. Perhaps then we could discuss an omnibus template that incorporates those that remain. Eclecticology (talk) 16:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

publishing email from a GI?
If I receive a letter from a GI, which states it is for attribution, is it in the public domain, and can it be published here?

If I receive a letter from a GI, in performance of their official duties, that does not state it is in the public domain, under which conditions can it be published here?

Back in March I received a request from a Captain in the Guantanamo Public Affairs Office to make what I regarded as an insignificant change to material I had contributed to the article about Patrick M. McCarthy. That request contained an explanation that a policy prohibited him from making the edit himself.
 * {| class="wikitable" border="1"


 * Per policy concerning “Interactive Internet Activities,” I am unable to make corrections to stories on Wikipedia nor am I able to engage Weblogs. I am, however, able to offer responses or factual information to Web sites and Weblogs, hence my email to you.  My concern deals with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._McCarthy and is as follows...
 * Per policy concerning “Interactive Internet Activities,” I am unable to make corrections to stories on Wikipedia nor am I able to engage Weblogs. I am, however, able to offer responses or factual information to Web sites and Weblogs, hence my email to you.  My concern deals with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._McCarthy and is as follows...


 * }

I know the Captain is no longer at Guantanamo -- email sent to his address triggers an autoresponse with the email address of his replacement. So an OTRS is not an option.

I'd really like to see a copy of the “Interactive Internet Activities” policy.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 20:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Officially, if an officer wrote to you on his "work account", then it's presumed to be in commission of his duties and thus PD -- but it could be a minefield if he was gabbing with you about how his family's doing back home and what he thinks of this damned island. On the other hand, it sounds like you're asking if you can add JTF-GTMO Interactive Internet Activities; which I assume he sent you? That could definitely be added, his personal commentary might be a bit more difficult depending on people's moods. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Albert Schweitzer 20:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I would love to have access to the "Interactive Internet Activities" policy. I emailed the Captain's replacement, asking him where I could find it.  I suspect it is online somewhere, but maybe not under that name.


 * I suspect it is a generally important policy. And it would be personally important to me, because there are a couple of cases when I have come across GIs who are almost certainly in breach of this policy, in ugly ways.  And frankly I would like to turn them in to a DoD webmaster senior enough to keep them honest.


 * I guess the answer is the letter from the official spokesman who explicitly said "for attribution" could be wikisource material. But perhaps it would need an OTRS ticket for verification?  While the letter from the Public Affairs Officer, who asked me to amend a passage about a Guantanamo officer that someone (the officer himself?) considered in error, can't be put in the wikisource main space because, while it was part of his official duties, the young officer has been reassigned and mail to him bounces, so no OTRS ticket is possible.


 * It is an interesting letter. If some of you were interested, would it be out of place for me to put it in a subpage under User:Geo Swan?


 * Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 01:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * This is not primarily a copyright issue. One can put one's own private correspondence into the public domain (subject to authentication), and previously published US Federal Government documents are automatically put into the public domain. More important to us is whether the material has been published before.  Except in the case of some very ancient material, restricting ourselves to material that has previously been published avoids many subjective disputes about which materials are worth publishing. Correspondence in the performance of one's government duties opens up the question of whether the person was authorized to make the information public.  Whistle-blowing may be a very worthwhile activity, but I don't see Wikisource as being the appropriate conduit for the release of what might otherwise be privileged information. Eclecticology (talk) 20:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Do US Federal documents have to be previously published to be in the public domain? I thought that works of US Federal employees were born PD, even if they were unpublished, or classified?  I thought this is why the New York Times was able to publish the Pentagon Papers.


 * The Abu Graib images are widely republished, as if they were PD. I am not sure if the images should be considered PD -- under the "work of a Federal employee in performance of their duties" rubric.  If the Abu Ghraib guards were following orders, or pretty strong hints, to "soften up" the captives, but they weren't directed to take pictures, I am not sure those images should count as PD.  And it is my impression that at least some of the cruelty depicted was spontaneous -- not in response to direction from their superiors.  This would not comply with the "in performance of their duties" aspect.


 * Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 01:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe EC is referring to Wikisource's scope, ie. that which is included, regardless of the issue of copyright. If you have a look at What_Wikisource_includes, Works created by Wikisource users or otherwise not published in a verifiable, usually peer-reviewed forum do not belong at Wikisource.. Jude (talk) 01:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiquote:Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers
Hi. Just a heads up that I'm importing this PD quotation book into Wikiquote from Google Books page by page. My purpose there is to copy all the worthwhile quotes into the pages on the authors, and perhaps to topical pages as well. Since Wikiquote does not host entire texts, I figured you might want to transwiki it over here once I have finished assembling it and cleaning it up. If you have any particular local preferences with respect to formatting, please let me know (and of course, please feel free to help out). Cheers! <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 04:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * We cant currently import from Wikiquote. I have filed 15571 to add English Wikiquote to our import list. John Vandenberg (chat) 04:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, well, there is that, then. I can simply copy and paste the whole thing over when done. I'm not so concerned with having my every typo and cut-and-paste addition attributed. Cheers! <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 05:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The ability to import from Wikiquote has been set up. Let us know when you are ready for it to come to Wikisource. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * However we import, this should include the prefatory material. The Library of Congress listings also show an earlier edition from 1883 with "Dictionary of" omitted from the title, but it has identical pagination which suggests very little if any change between the two. The publisher was D. R. Niver of Albany, NY. I'll set up Author:Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert to ease linking.  The work also appears at archive.org as Three Thousand Selected Quotations From Brilliant Writers with an introduction by Charles S. Robinson.  Unusually, Archive does not show a title page, but its write-up does show the copyright owner as S. S. Scranton Co., and that edition as published in 1909. If I go to the last substantive page (p.625), the contents are identical to the Wikiquote page of the same number. Eclecticology (talk) 17:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Adding the prefatory material is no problem. By the way, on Wikiquote, I've started splitting the book into sections of 25 pages, which makes blocks of around 32k apiece, although some are a bit larger. Don't know if that's what would be preferred here - does pagination matter, or just having the text? <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 00:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * My first inclination would be to break this material up by topic rather than by arbitrary numbers of pages, or at least I would avoid breaking up a topic. "Beneficence" runs from page 24 to page 27, and it would make more sense to have it all together. Break up the page if need be. In my view the pagination doesn't matter, but others may see this differently. Eclecticology (talk) 04:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I do agree with that, for purposes of Wikisource presentation. For Wikiquote, I'm just trying to get them all copied and proofread first, and then sorted to the proper authors. <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 02:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers has been set up. I am automatically creating the pages of which are not in the Wikiquote transcription, but they can all be imported too if the Wikiquote text hasnt been proofread yet. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose we could work in either direction. Are you copying these by hand, or do you have a faster way? <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 02:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * A bot imports the OCR text, and the process takes about an hour; I just peek at the progress occasionally. Then we need to clean up the OCR-quality text. John Vandenberg (chat) 02:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I see no sense in duplicating efforts. I've copied up to page 175 225 manually (just the quotes, nothing prefatory). Should we split the labor, or should I just keep going (or wait for you)?
 * As you have divided the wikiquote into sections for each page, I'll be able to manipulate them to bring them here quite easily. I didnt think of this last time I replied. I'll import them all today, and report back when it is done.  Cheers, John Vandenberg (chat) 01:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've divided the Wikiquote layout into separate pages for each group of 25 pages, and each of those pages into 25 corresponding sections. I have not done any of the formatting yet (I was planning to begin that once all the pages were copied in). I'd be glad to divide that labor up (or come over here to do the proofreading)! <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 02:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have started uploading the text here at pagescan 400 to avoid overlapping. I will now get started on uploading the pages from Wikiquote. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, then I'll format the pages I upload, and you format the pages you upload, and we'll sort of cross in the middle. One concern - I see your pages are all caps so far (in the original work they are small caps, in the scans of the later edition I'm copying, mixed case). How do we resolve that? <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 03:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, never mind, the pages from 400+ are in mixed case here as well. Perfect, thanks! <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 15:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The pages from Wikiquote are now being uploaded. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:40, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes_check.svg|20px| ]] Done John Vandenberg (chat) 09:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Partial transclusion
I am trying to follow the directions at Help:Side by side image view for proofreading on the article page The Pilgrim Cook Book/Soups and am not making it work. Can anyone fix it so I can see how it should work then I can do it on the rest of the book. Jeepday (talk) 21:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm confused. You're partial transclusion of page 12 is working just fine.  You just need to do a partial transclusion for the first page as well.—<font style="color: #000000; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold">Zhaladshar <font style="color: #FF0000; font-size: small; text-decoration: none">(Talk) 20:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Psychless for fixing it at 13:23 on 14 September. Diff. Jeepday (talk) 22:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Pedigrees
I'm working on transcribing a book that includes a number of pedigrees. What's the best way to include these? On en.wikipedia I found a template which I have used to construct the first pedigree from the book here. Is there any equivalent template on wikisource? Other options that I can think of are to upload scans of the pedigrees from the book itself or to draw out the pedigrees in Adobe Illustrator and upload them as SVGs. Thanks, —JeremyA (talk) 13:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Couldn't you just copy the contents of w:Template:Familytree into a new Template:Familytree here at Wikisource? Angr 14:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I tend toward a whatever works attitude, but it would be nice if the results didn't require side-scrolling or overlap the side bar. Eclecticology (talk) 17:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I meant to add copying the template over here as an option. I didn't want to do that if there was already something similar implemented (+ as Eclecticology points out, the template doesn't produce ideal results). —JeremyA (talk) 19:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have imported familytree and chart John Vandenberg (chat) 00:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States‎
I propose to import An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States‎, a 1913 work of political sociology. The original work has fallen into the public domain in the U.S. I have found a copy that someone has uploaded onto the Internet here, but the uploaded version is apparently a 1962 printing of a 1935 edition of the book. However, the author states in the preface that the "text of this edition remains unchanged" from the 1913 (but for the preface itself, obviously, which I do not propose to import for the obvious reasons). So far as I can tell by sitting this next to a library copy of the original, it is indeed a faithful reproduction of the 1913 work, and even has the exact same page numbers (all prefatory materials added being numbered by Roman numerals). Does that meet all the criteria for adding the work to Wikisource? <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 02:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. The copyright on the 1935 edition was renewed in 1962 (R300652), but that would only apply to anything new in that edition. Eclecticology (talk) 04:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I'll work on it this week. Cheers! <font style="background:lightgreen">BD2412 T 04:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)