Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2012-02

= Announcements =

Changed default to ON for Gadget Header preloader
It has been talk about over the years, and always considered a reasonable idea, though not able to be done. Anyway, with the recent MW upgrade, we are now able to set a default state for gadgets, and for the header preload I have now undertaken this task. This includes IP editors, so it would be worthwhile watching this change of behaviour, and working out whether we want to do work in other namespace to look at default headers. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:48, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well in little less than month's time since being set all I've I've seen come from this is the daily creation of several pointless mainspace articles that ultimately wind up getting deleted for no meaningful content or history. I think we should ask ourselves if this was really worth setting across the board in the first place before thinking about expanding the premise into other areas/gadgets. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * George has a good point, but on the other hand if it makes it easier for new people to edit, is it worth the clean-up? My first question would be what way do we have to identify these empty pages, and how much effort is required to clean-up?
 * Turn it off a month from now and see who complains - completely new to WS editors or well-established WS editors unaware that such a setting existed in their preferences in the first place. My money is on the latter. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As it continues to problematic for you, I have turned it off. To the notification message when a page is without a header in main namespace, I have added some wikitext to mention and link to one's gadgets. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would think hundreds of pointless new creations with no content or meaningful history is problematic for the community in general & not just another cosmically assigned ax-to-grind on my part. Maybe this step goes too far in the other direction since I also believed having this as a default added value (well for the most part it could). Is it possible to setup a filter to tag such creations (new pages added by IPs that are under ~500kb or something)? Maintenance would become a far smaller issue that way imo. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Meant nothing personal by the comment, I was simply retreating to a space where we had less false creations and a working filter that both warns and captures pages without header template. Due to the size of pages being small when transcluded, that is a tad tricky and a fairly large cutoff. I have been thinking of how to have a filter where if just the header template was present that it would kick a warning, however at this point in time the inspiration hasn't got me. I'll probably get back to it. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Added what leaves here as formal gadget
Previously found only as a script to manually import, this User: Preferences-enabled Gadget now adds an extra Special-page called "What leaves here", and a link in the toolbox next to "What links here". This tool enables you a listing of all outgoing pagelinks, image links, external links, categories and transclusions found on most targeted pages. A bit like the opposite of WhatLinksHere which lists all incoming pagelinks, image links and transclusions. Can be filtered by namespace as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

OCR edit toolbar button restored
After repairing the toolserver installation of Tesseract (OCR software) and adjusting the OCR.js at oldWS, the toolbar OCR button that can process a single page at a time has been restored by Phe. If you don't see the button when editing in the Page: namespace, a hard-refresh of your JS should fix it. The current queue of the bot can be seen at http://toolserver.org/~phe/ocr.php. Inductiveload— talk/contribs  00:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How can I hide the OCR button? I need the space to keep all my defined buttons and I don't use the OCR.— Ineuw talk 05:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Gadget! I would also think that we should ensure that this is OFF by default. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well I'm glad to see this come back. I know I've got a couple djvus that have been halted because of no text layer or ability to OCR the page on the fly.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note: if you need OCRing to be done or re-done for a whole work, you can request at WS:OCR. Inductiveload— talk/contribs  22:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

= Proposals =

Parameter addition for Author template?
Would it be possible to add the parameter "source" to the Author template to place the source of information about the author? Noticed some "Notes" about the source on the Author: namespace, usually when it's from a genealogy site, which I find to be unreliable because there is no biographical information. I prefer something more reliable and specific. — Ineuw talk 20:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I now add SOURCES to the talk page, and have many such pages like that, for external links, or where I have copied the data. Can I say that being from a genealogy website does not make them unreliable, like any research, it comes down to citation. Always user beware. If you do find a good source and reliable resource, beyond a link to enWP, then you can add an ==External sources== or ==See also== and I have done that and for links with ADB link. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:50, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, External sources is the preferred solution. .... — Ineuw talk 21:57, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

= BOT approval requests =

Request of approval for bots for PSM maintenance in the main namespaces
Hi. This is a (delayed and solicited, I apologise for this) request for the approval of the use of semi-automated bots based on pywikipedia scripts, launched manually via python and supervised. They are based on the following: Input to both scripts may vary over time, depending on day-to-day specific needs in the project.
 * replace.py + regex expressions for maintenance of PSM pages.
 * pagefromfile.py for the creation of redirects to PSM pages and creation PSM pages in mainspace.

The lack of an earlier request is due to a misunderstanding as I thought that bots based on pywikipedia modules did not need approval but only the creation of a Bot account. I will be off-line for several days now, so if I will not answer promptly to your comments is not for lack of courtesy or interest. Bye --Mpaa (talk) 20:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Forgot to say that BOT account is User:MpaaBot. --Mpaa (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Reflections from an initial and quick glance. Some of the lessons I have learnt (been taught?) when using a more ad hoc process is that we need
 * good edit summaries — that/they can either be descriptive, pointing to a page with a few lines of text, or even a complete page Special:Contributions/sDrewthbot. The higher the complexity, and/or the less obvious the "why" calls for a higher level of control.  If you think that there is going to be any hint of disagreement or controversy with the edits, then at a bare minimum discuss at Bot requests and wait a few days before undertaking, or do some and pause.
 * rate of edits expected and any ideas of number per batch?
 * do you expect that the bot will only be PSM-related or do you see that it might branch out to other areas?
 * — billinghurst  sDrewth  21:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi
 * about Summary, I tried -summary: but it did not work with a sentence, took me a while about thinking to _ as a workaround for blanks. Sorry again.
 * Try -summary:"This is a sentence". Hesperian 00:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Rate: cannot say really, will depend on needs currently under discussion with Ineuw, probably once per volume for each task. Qty: now there was a big bulk of pages on several volume due to cleanup of headers info, for future needs will be comparable to number of articles in a volume (100).
 * for now it will be PSM, if other needs in future will come, I will post it.
 * I will update MpaaBot with more specific info.
 * Bye --Mpaa (talk) 07:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi. Does the lack of further comments means that I can consider this approved? Bye --Mpaa (talk) 16:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * support bot seems to be working as proposed. Running well, and we should be looking to get this under cover of a flag.  I would suggest that the bot is approved for these tasks for these sorts of larger runs, but restricted to those large runs without further discussion at WS:BR.  I am comfortable with small ad hoc runs when they are all noted somewhere with appropriate, descriptive edit summaries. — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * to clarify the mention of large runs: I mean a new task on large batches, not the existing (to-be-approved) task on the next sub-batch

✅ MPAABot now carries the bot flag. Hesperian 00:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Defaultsort for Authors with prefix
With reference to the investigation related to this post, I would like to run a bot also in Author name space, to insert or uniform defaultsort key for Authors with name such as Author:Thomas de Quincey or Author:Alexander von Humboldt. Defaultsort convention would be: "Quincey, Thomas de" or "Humboldt, Alexander von", which is quite used on WS and WP as defaultsort. Number of edits would be about a hundred and bot would be run slowly and monitored. Bot is based on basic.py with a customised section for the processing of text. You can see a couple of test edits (done as Mpaa) here and here. --Mpaa (talk) 01:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm cautious about this as some authors are known under the prefix. E.g. Vincent van Gogh or John L. DeWitt. There are also several other prefixes in common use such as 'ap', 'mc', 'mac', and 'st.' Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Additional clarifications to evaluate the above request.
 * 1) the script is not meant to run on all authors, taking decisions automatically. The list of authors would be manually selected, mainly targeting already present discrepancies between the Surname (or defaultsort if present) and the field "last_initial". The script does not change the field "last_initial" which is the one under which the author is categorised. Anyhow, I agree that there should be consistency between the defaultsort and such field.  E.g. in the case of Van Gogh, if the initials are Va, it would not be selected by me for change. BTW, in WP Van Gogh has , so one of the two wikis should be aligned if we seek consistency.
 * 2) the script would act where the prefix is separated from a space. I.e I would not apply to "DeWitt". It is meant for an hypotetical "de Witt".
 * 3) I would do the same work manually, as I have done to fix most of defaults sorts for Popes in the past few days. It is just to avoid manual work.
 * 4) for the list of prefixes in common use, I will act if there is a consensus on how such prefixes should be ordered.
 * 5) the status today is that the sorting is anyhow mixed and inconsistent for a set of Authors, so leaving the status quo does not mean better quality. --Mpaa (talk) 18:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

=Help=

= Other discussions =

Template subdocument Category doesn't sort
When the Category is in the subdocument of a template, the index feature of the category doesn't work. Is there a solution to this? Here is an example: Template:PSM link/doc.— Ineuw talk 03:44, 27 December 2011 (UTC) To rephrase the question, should the category be in the Template or the sub document? — Ineuw talk 05:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you are meaning. The document that you point at is &lt;includeonly>'d into Template:PSM link and that sorts properly in L at Category:The Popular Science Monthly Project templates.  I see things working as expected. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * On the first try with Template:PSM link/doc, it didn't show up in L where it was supposed to, even after clearing all page and browser caches, so I created this post. After adding other templates under the same letter, everything showed up. There was some unknown delay which mystified me.
 * After checking through other documented templates, I noticed that some do have categories (and some don't), hence I rephrased my question.— Ineuw talk 18:45, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The /doc generally doesn't get categorised as the parent is there and the text is transcluded. The categories there are &lt;includeonly which specifically means that thse doc will not be categorised.  I see things working as expected, and I am not sure why you would want to separately categorise the document when the parent is done. Where there is categorisation on a document, then I would say that they may need a review as it is not evident that they need to be categorised. — billinghurst  sDrewth  22:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I figured out where the error was. I wasn't trying to put categories into the document. They were there before I ever looked, and there were/are none in the Template:PSM link template itself. If you are still curious, you can find the "problem" by analyzing the histories of the Template:PSMLayoutTop/doc and Template:PSM link/doc.— Ineuw talk 00:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The recommendation is to add documentation and to put the categories and interwiki links inside the documentation, in preference to being in the template itself, as I modified at [//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template:PSMLayoutTop&diff=prev&oldid=3558456] & [//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Template:PSMLayoutTop/doc&diff=prev&oldid=3558457]. The reasoning is that this allows templates to be protected from modification for whichever reason yet allow for updates to the documentation and the addition of categories and interwikis by general editors. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you (X3). This is the information I sought, to understand and learn. I hope you accept that when I find a discrepancy and my knowledge is "0", I prefer to ask questions. Except in this case I didn't know where to begin because of the various implementations (i.e: some templates had categories and some didn't, and the docs used different &lt;include codes. May your universe be at peace as mine. Thanks #4. :-). — Ineuw talk 04:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

US National Archives Citizen Archivist Dashboard—Request for help
I'm pleased to announce that the new Citizen Archivist Dashboard on the US National Archives' website has rolled out, and we're making Wiksource an important component. This site is a major development for the National Archives, bringing it into the 21st century with a more collaborative environment; you can read more about it here. Transcription is one of the main tasks where the public can get involved, and on the dashboard's transcription page, we are piloting the transcription of documents by non-Wikimedian visitors to archives.gov by pointing them to Wikisource. If you take a look at the page, you'll see there is a set of linked pages that the user can click on, and they will be taken directly to the page namespace to transcribe. The first two have already been done! These will be rotated out once so there are always fresh ones.

This is a great opportunity for Wikisource to expand its content and participation, but it requires the assistance of the community. In order for it to work best, the Wikisource community should monitor these pages to welcome the newcomers and encourage them to stay, to help validate new transcriptions, and to create index and mainspace pages for new transcriptions so they don't get lost in the page namespace. I'm working on how to maintain a synced list on Wikisource of the currently displayed documents at any given time on the dashboard, which should make the monitoring easier, and any help with that would be appreciated. In sum, this is a major institution providing a platform to spread the word about Wikisource to researchers—one of our natural bases of support—so I'm really hoping that some Wikisourcerors can take ownership of this project and try to figure out how to make it go smoothly. It will only be as successful as we make it. Dominic (talk) 21:37, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that the announcement and the progress that NARA has had in making their records available digigally is something that you may wish to publicise to the Latter Day Saints genies[mailto:FHL-PublicAffairs@ldschurch.org] and probably a genie blogger like Dick Eastman   Both will have specific and separate interests in what you have to say.— billinghurst  sDrewth  10:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Epub
FYI oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium. Pyb (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Fantastic news! It seems to be a zero-configuration tool that just needs the front page of the book. I am not sure how it handles works with multilevel linking or unusual structures, but for "normal" books, it appears pretty robust.
 * Here is a little JS snippet that will add a "download ePub" link to the sidebar. If people agree that this tool is functional enough for everyone to see, it could be added as site or gadget JS.

importScript('User:Inductiveload/epubExport.js');
 * We may also want to consider setting some ePub-specific CSS at MediaWiki:Epub.css. Inductiveload— talk/contribs  21:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Wonderful! Seems stable and brilliant for the few books I've tried.  It'd be great to see it rolled out for everyone to use.  &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 05:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Screen capture
Reaching out to the community for recomendations here.... I'm looking for an easy (& cheap!) utility that can take a snapshot of what is up on my monitor screen or top-opened window at the moment and make a good quality image file from it (based on actual user experience, not hearsay). Thanks for any reply/feedback you folks might have on this. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what browser your running, but you should be able to take a screen shot of your page. - Tannertsf (talk) 23:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * On Windows I generally use ctrl-PRTSC (whole screen) or alt-PRTSC (active window), then paste the clipboard into IrfanView. IrfanView allows one to clean-up the image and then save in a variety of formats. I haven't done this on a Mac for so long that the version of MacPaint I have only runs on System 6! Linux I can't help with. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 00:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * THATS IT!!! I could not recall that for the life of me though I must have done it hundreds of times (my holiday spirits consumption must be behind it!). -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * In Windows PrtScr and it's variations with Alt or Ctrl pasted into Irfanview is by far the best, in my experience. All the PSM images were trimmed cleaned and and adjusted with IV. It can use Adobe filters and the IV forum is full of very helpful participants for problem solving. — Ineuw talk 00:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Public Domain Day
I guess you are aware of this, just a reminder. Emijrp (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Emijrp. Very nice. We would do well to look to add that to some of our Public Domain section. As we have a simple rule of PD-1923 rather than double rules, at this point of time it probably just serves as information for us.  Though if we host any images of the work of those authors then we should be looking to move those works to Commons if possible.  I am not sure that we currently have a decent means to identify works in the File: ns, where they are by a specific author, and the author's work are entering the public domain.  That said, one would hope that we identified the works by use of . — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Bot for SUBPAGENAME
Does anyone know if there is an existing bot which would add | to the categories assigned in PSM? — Ineuw talk 05:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC) :There are a number of bots that work in ad hoc basis, and requests should be placed at Bot requests. Also give an example of what you are wanting to achieve, as I don't understand. A manual change with a diff would be appreciated. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind direction. I will define it tomorrow, as it's really late and becoming slowly incoherent.— Ineuw talk 08:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please consider this post resolved. Unnoticed by me, User:Mpaa has been working on this issue.— Ineuw talk 19:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple sort keys & Categories
Hi. Assume to have obituaries for several persons in the same article. In case one would like to add such article to the Category:Obituaries, is it possible to have multiple sort keys and the article repeated under the initial of each person? If not, any suggestion on how this case could be handled? Thanks --Mpaa (talk) 22:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Mpaa. One solution would be to create redirects at something like Albert Albertson (Obituary), and categorize the redirects. Another solution is to use labeled section transclusion to transclude each obituary to an appropriate page while keeping the actual text on the original page. --Eliyak T · C 03:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I am presuming that it is a PSM issue, so what I have been doing is something like Popular Science Monthly/standard year bit/standard volume bit/Obituary: name of deceased and in that have a redirect to Popular Science Monthly/standard year bit/standard volume bit/standard identifier bit and repeat this for all the obituaries in the article with a default sort for each redirect. Just need to ensure that you put in the respective .  I am less likely to do as Eliyak suggests as we have many obituaries that are part of a serial, and 1) barely none have redirects, 2) the more famous have multiples (eg. Charles Darwin), and then we start to run to disambiguation problems, and lose a standard approach (blah blah).  The advantage of this way is that we already have ready means to quick link to PSM articles through, and it takes an anchor argument. — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. A few clarifications needed.
 * If I understood correctly, the soft redirect will be categorised, right? What is the exact meaning of: default sort for each redirect? Shall I use the default sort tag or better to "hard code" the name in the category?
 * In case you have already done this in the past, would you be able to retrieve an example for me to follow, so I can try to match naming conventions as such as possible? --Mpaa (talk) 09:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal: add Worldcat ID to template:author
Moved to Proposals. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Runic like characters — a guide?
Anyone got a good unicode type guide to runic-like characters like at Page:Irish Lexicography.djvu/20 ? — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)


 * From Gaelic type: "Unicode treats the Gaelic script as a font variant of the Latin alphabet." Hesperian 02:38, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * At Graiméar na Gaedhilge I type Gaelic script in to show how it's different from regular text. Angr 11:20, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Should the text be entered in the old form (náċ) or the new form (nách) though? In this book, it's in old form but it's been proofread into the new.  Should the characters be as close to the original as possible, or is readability by modern speakers of the language more important?  Lankiveil (talk) 11:24, 8 January 2012 (UTC).
 * I used "ch" rather than "ċ" because it's been the custom in Irish for centuries to use the dot-above diacritic in the Gaelic script but the postposed "h" in the Latin script, and what we read here is in the Latin script. Angr 22:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no HTML support for the Gaelic type used in this book, unless there is a way to generate a Typography template to replicate the Insular script. Is this possible, or just fanciful thinking on my part? Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only way would be to force the use of a Gaelic-script font (Michael Everson has developed some that are for sale on his website; they're the only ones I know of that are even Unicode-compliant, i.e. that put the character for "c with overdot" at the code point for ċ (U+010B) rather than at some ad-hoc location like the code point for ç), but they would only work for people who have them installed on their computer, which of course most people don't. At User:Angr/Gael I once tried out some code that would tag text as being in the Gaelic script, but I'm not using it since I don't know how to make it actually change the appearance of the text. Angr 11:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I cannot say that I have looked further into the pages this work (yet, to see what I am letting myself in for) though I was thinking either get all the letters as file images, and add them, if that wasn't available them try to get them as a font, type the words, make them into images and insert them. All less than perfect. — billinghurst  sDrewth 
 * I've gone through the whole work and added Gaelic letters (in ) and Greek letters wherever I could find them. Angr 15:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Tut, Tut. You forgot to put your β in italics :p
 * I looked into using unicode characters, but they don't really work on two levels. Firstly, the user has to download the font for them to rendered properly (e.g. User:Angr/Gael does not work for me), but secondly I get the impression that most documents that use Insular script don't use a standard font in any case - they are always written in a mish mash of Insular and Latin variants. There is a category of Insular manuscripts that suffer from the same issue: they have been written using letter forms that are too bespoke or irregular to be represented with any consistency. In order to give the reader a chance to make up his own mind as to which typographical script is being used, my idea is that the letters could represented as Typography templates that could be inserted into the text to give a more realistic rending of the letters. I am thinking along the lines of creating a set of besoke templates along the lines of the character " " but I don't think anyone has anyone has attempted to transcribe Insular script in this way. I would love to have a go, but I am not sure if it is feasible. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't forget; you don't italicize Greek. Some fonts render Greek letters to look quite oblique, but the Greek alphabet doesn't distinguish upright and italic/oblique forms as such, so it's always written in plain upright form. The reason User:Angr/Gael "doesn't work" for you is that all it does now is tell your browser "this text is written in Irish using the Gaelic script" (and labeling it class="script-gaelic"), but there's no CSS definition telling your browser what to do with that information. I'm not sure how to go about telling browsers to do something with the information; would it mean adding a line to MediaWiki:Common.css? If we defined class="script-gaelic" to actually do something, of course we could make a template (e.g. Template:Latg or Template:Gaelic) to use in these cases. Angr 18:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * :-) --Eliyak T · C 07:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That is, see insular. --Eliyak T · C 07:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, didn't realize templates were that expressive. Great work. Regarding using fonts, it's possible with modern browsers to reference a remotely hosted font file and use it. Would still need an info box linking to the font for download for older browsers though. I remember last year someone asking about I think Berber in connection with this and hosting the font file on Commons. Dunno if anything came of it. And if there are any libre Gaelic type fonts, even if they aren't properly Unicode compliant, they can be modified. Prosody (talk) 09:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Eliyak, that is most interesting. Can this template be adapted to include other typefaces? The reason I ask relates to point I made earlier that Insular manuscripts tend to be written in a mix of font types, so one standard typeface does not fit all. If I understand this new template correctly, it can adapted to for other typefaces. Instead of using a free use Gaelic type font, it might be possible to create a bespoke font by making images of the insular script used in the Irish Lexicography itself. We are all typesetters now. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've extended insular's functionality to make it expandable to other scripts and image file extensions. You would need to generate an image for each letter in the script, and some letters might still need to be programmed in at Template:insular/chr/list. svg's are a good file type, since they are vector images, but others could work too. --Eliyak T · C 18:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You can admire the effects of insular live at Page:Graimear na Gaedhilge.djvu/7. Angr 11:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure this works, even though I can see what you are trying to do. Here is how it appears:


 * Firstly, the type or style of the insular letters is different from that used in the original cover: for instance, the "s" used above differs from the long "r" used in the original; this goes back to my earlier point that every insular typeface is bespoke. Secondly, the letters that feed into the template don't line up, and they are too far apart, which makes the text look like it was written by a drunken monk. Lastly, the original cover employed lots of embelishments that cannot be rendered using this template. Overall, I would say the original latin typeface which you replaced was better. But it is interesting from an experimental perspective. Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am moving things forward with Gaelic. See the page now for an example. I still have to do the capital letters and punctuation, but this is already an improvement, no? --Eliyak T · C 19:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Definetly an improvement. You get some idea of what a complete set of letter is from the file Gaelic-text-Duibhlinn.png: A slightly smaller sub-set is all that is needed to illustrate Page 25 & Page 28. My intial analysis of the document indicates that the following are needed: vowels with a "fada" (like an acute accent), (lowercase letters with dots over them that denote that a h follows them (i.e. b, c, d, f, g, m & s), capital e (for Eireann) and a symbol equivalent to an ambersand ("&") that looks like an italic seven ("7"). Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Featured texts
Featured text candidates needs some care and attention. I only noticed recently but there haven't been any new featured texts for a while. In fact, we are now into the fourth month without one. There is one ongoing nomination and I came up with some more candidates last month but there hasn't been much activity at all. So this post is intended to advertise the page and boost the process a little. Suggestions, votes or new nominations should help get the ball rolling again. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Index:United States Statutes at Large Volume 18 Part 2b.djvu
On this index, would it be possible to transclude it on a page where it is not transcluded under Volume 18's name? I want to track the progress of it myself without having it connected to Volume 18, yet. Tannertsf (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikisource:Authors-xx update
Hi. As possible area of improvement, I would suggest the automatic update of Wikisource:Authors-xx pages, based on input from respective Category:Authors-xx. It is my understanding that some of you has already addressed this in the past. It would be convenient to share views on this topic and pro and cons to see if/how address this issue, balancing requirements vs. implementation. Just to mention one of many issues, is an automatic refresh of the page acceptable or is it mandatory that only the delta is added? Comments welcome. --Mpaa (talk) 23:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How could it be done? JeepdaySock (talk) 11:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * One way could be:
 * query the either the Author namespace or the different Category:Authors-xx
 * query the author pages to retrieve name, surname and birth/death years in order to construct the proper listing with format Surname, Name (xxxx-xxxx)
 * then we need to decide whether compare with the content of Wikisource:Authors-xx and add only the delta in the right position or brutally overwrite the whole section (the latter probably the easier).
 * Something that might hinder us is the sorting criteria of the Author to sort by surname. If you look at the Author namespace, there are many flavors on how the information are added, esp. in cases such as John Doe Jr., John van Doe, etc. Use of defaultsort parameter in author is not very popular but needed in such cases. --Mpaa (talk) 19:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. Prototype is now implemented (to be reviewed and tested). You can see here the outcome (e.g. letter G) that would be obtained by this script.
 * Way-forward and consequences:
 * mistakes detected in this page should be fixed directly in Author:ns, an indication should be inserted at top of the page.
 * names of important authors, as stated today in the header of the page, is not implemented and then that sentence should be removed.
 * description field is excessively long in some cases, Author template should be modified to have: 1. description = very short statement about the author and 2. an additional notes field for the rest of the text
 * description field needs to be processed to remove additional formatting or templates that might be problematic outside Author ns, to be further improved depending on your feedback.
 * prefix and suffix in lastname and firstname in author template might give a strange when author name is written as: "lastname, firstname". To be evaluated if needed to insert additional parameters for prefix suffix.


 * Opinions welcome whether this could be something to adopt automatically to have such lists always updated. --Mpaa (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I support the general idea for automatically generating these lists, as it rarely, if ever, gets done manually, and just looks tatty and outdated as a consequence. Author pages are where we store all our author-related information, and it makes little sense to maintain this in two separate places, as is done currently.
 * As you say, there are ways to make the author template code more friendly to automatic processing. In my opinion, it is important to try to use our templates so as to maximise the usefulness to automated tools of all sorts. I support the splitting of the author description into a brief one-liner and an expanded notes area for further details that aren't required on the listing page, as well as templates, botanical author citations, names under which they contributed to collective works, etc.
 * I also support the prefix/suffix fields, as we currently have no standard way to add things like "Sir" when this is often included in that author's common name (Sir Isaac Newton, for example), and it means that if people do add this to the template, it doesn't have to "pollute" the semantics of the "firstname" field.
 * As for important authors, that could be a separate list that is inhaled at generation time and used to highlight the correct entries. I am neutral-leaning-support of this concept, as an "important author list" (hopefully those who have many blue links) could be a nice little starting point for visitors, rather then throwing them into a 10,000-string pool of all authors ever. Implementation-wise, this would be a manual process either way, and could either be an actual list of names (more effort to add an author, easy to track changes to the list), or a category system (easier to add, harder to track changes). This can always be added later, and I personally wouldn't bemoan the loss of the current highlighting in the meantime.
 * In summary, I support the idea of making these lists automatically, but there are some issues to be resolved first with how we maintain and present author data in the author templates. Inductiveload— talk/contribs  20:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Book creator tool works!
The book creator tool has had the bug fixed, which is brilliant… but now there's a new problem. Still, that's progress, yes? Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement for a moment about the prospect of printing WS books! Huzza for that, eh?! &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 23:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It works now! Load a book from Category:PediaPress books and see it in action.  There's still some bother with labelled section transclusion, and maybe with footnotes, so give it a go and send feedback via https://github.com/pediapress/mwlib/issues &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 02:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Also note... a simple export to a plain-old PDF file for mainspace pages using the standard  method/line that sets a from & to Page: range seems to work as expected now. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Announcing Mediawiki 1.19 beta
Wikimedia Foundation is getting ready to push out 1.19 to all the WMF-hosted wikis. As we finish wrapping up our code review, you can test the new version right now on beta.wmflabs.org. For more information, please read the release notes or the start of the final announcement.

The following are the areas that you will probably be most interested in:
 * Faster loading of javascript files makes dependency tracking more important.
 * New common*.css files usable by skins instead of having to copy piles of generic styles from MonoBook or Vector's css.
 * The default user signature now contains a talk link in addition to the user link.
 * Searching blocked usernames in block log is now clearer.
 * Better timezone recognition in user preferences.
 * Improved diff readability for colorblind people.
 * The interwiki links table can now be accessed also when the interwiki cache is used (used in the API and the Interwiki extension).
 * More gender support (for instance in logs and user lists).
 * Language converter improved, e.g. it now works depending on the page content language.
 * Time and number-formatting magic words also now depend on the page content language.
 * Bidirectional support further improved after 1.18.

Report any problems on the labs beta wiki and we'll work to address them before they software is released to the production wikis.

Note that this cluster does have SUL but it is not integrated with SUL in production, so you'll need to create another account. You should avoid using the same password as you use here. — Global message delivery 00:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Wsexport: an automatic export tool for Wikisource
Hello, and first sorry for this automatic delivery message.

An export tool for Wikisource books, Wsexport, is currently in active development. It is a tool for exporting Wikisource's texts in EPUB, ODT and other file formats. It was created for French Wikisource, but it's also available for the other Wikisource subdomains. It can be used directly from its page on Toolserver.org (for texts in all languages, use "www" for oldwikisource), or browsing http://wsexport.fr.nf (currently only for French Wikisource's texts).

In order to work, the tool need some configuration from your Wikisource subdomain, This page explains how to do it. Currently French, Italian, English, and German Wikisource does it.

You will find more information on The global Scriptorium. Ask here for all question.

This message was distributed to all Wikisources using the Global message delivery system. If you want to use it to send your messages, ask for permission here. Tpt (d) 21:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

WorldCat
Moved to Proposals. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Golan v. Holder
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2012-January/000323.html announces that :
 * This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the seminal case of Golan v. Holder http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/golan-v-holder/
 * Today’s decision marks the first time that the Court has ever indicated that Congress not only has the power to extend the life of a copyright, but take works out of the public domain and place them back under copyright protection. Works like Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” have been taken out of the public domain as a result of this law and this decision. This newly declared power that Congress now wields threatens the stability of the public domain and puts those who rely on it at risk.
 * Today’s decision marks the first time that the Court has ever indicated that Congress not only has the power to extend the life of a copyright, but take works out of the public domain and place them back under copyright protection. Works like Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” have been taken out of the public domain as a result of this law and this decision. This newly declared power that Congress now wields threatens the stability of the public domain and puts those who rely on it at risk.

We should create Golan v. Holder.
 * I uploaded the PDF of the opinion ( File:Golan v. Holder (2012 slip opinion).pdf ) but my DjVuLibre isn't up to the task for converting it to DjVu at the moment. I'm hoping that somebody picks up my fumble and gets the opinion to a workable DjVu index sooner rather than later. This ruling is a big one & agree it should be hosted as it will be referenced over and over again. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:05, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

We will need to audit Wikisource to identify any other works which have been 'taken' out of the public domain.

I was surprised to see the assertion that The Hobbit (published 1937, by British author) "was" in the public domain. I was pretty sure that it was copyright in the US until 2032. I can't see a renewal for it. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:35, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing you probably shouldn't see a typical renewal filing for something "restored" as a result of the URAA (circa 1996) then transfered upon formal request soon afterward as outlined by that same law. Fwiw... there are several post 1966 & post 1996 entries for The Hobbit at the Copyright.gov database - all attributed to Tolkien's estate/heirs - so the assertion appears to be a mistake the way I see it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * For all European WS-projects this decision is a catastrophe. Please discuss here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/All_files_copyrighted_in_the_US_under_the_URAA --Historiograf (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Haven't we (that is, English Wikisource) been working on these terms already? I know the URAA has come up both here and Possible copyright violations.  We could probably make the policy and help pages a little clearer but I don't think this really changes anything in the main namespace. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * After (re)reading the opinion, it seems the only thing that "we" need to make note of is that the court has finally spelled out what was once a gray area-- (paraphrasing) anything once or currently in the Public Domain does not mean that it will always remain safely in the Public Domain. Congress, thru legislation enacted into law, can "place" ('limit' might be a better term here) works in (or out) of Public Domain as it sees fit and still remain consistent with the Free Speech and Copyright clauses of the Consitution at the same time.
 * Other WS wikis do seem to take the worst of this new ruling but we should wait to see what the Wiki Foundation legal team comes up with before freaking out. Images, music and performance arts do seem to be affected more so than anything we're doing here on WS currently the way I read it. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Requesting someone more experienced to transfer a file from Commons
Hullo. This (Alexandre Arsène Girault (1928) - Some new hexapods stolen from authority), is currently up for deletion in Commons for being out of scope. It's a rare paper already in the public domain and I'd hate to see it disappear. Can someone please ensure it gets transferred here correctly? You can contact me in my English Wikipedia talk page here: w:User talk:Obsidian Soul. Thank you.--Obsidian Soul (talk) 08:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ❌. Instead speedily closed the file deletion request at Commons. Clearly within scope of Commons through use at enWS if in the public domain in US and Australia. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I thought Ices2CSharp was nominating it because it was "Out of scope" as a book. Now I know books are hosted at commons, that's even better.--Obsidian Soul (talk) 13:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Who really knows why the thought was in that place. As a pointer, we have been encouraging the use of  over there for books rather than . — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For not knowing any better, and just as speedily, it was I who placed that category just to keep it from deletion. The deletion notice was already there and doubt that Ices2CSharp even saw it. Is not ignorance an excuse? aka "who" :-D — Ineuw talk 18:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Proposed Wikisource policy
For those who only read the bottom... There are 14 pages in Category:Proposed Wikisource policy, I picked the two which seem the easiest to reach closure on, and added them above. Please take a look and share your perception of the community consensus. JeepdaySock (talk) 16:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Scriptorium
 * Scriptorium

Thanks for a fix, and an email notification question
My thanks, to the anonymous wizard or wizardess, for the custom toolbar fix to work in headers and footers.
 * It would be to one of the mediawiki wizards that perform work in bugzilla, and it is good to know that a fix is in place, and pushed out to the sites. I hadn't noticed, so thanks for bringing it to the communities attention.

I am having a continual problem of intermittent notifications by WS email. I've been assiduously monitoring my watchlist for changes, ever since missed replies were brought to my attention. Without email notifications, it's impossible to track the numerous topics & issues I am involved in, and I shudder at the thought of time loss, if I have to manually track my questions & posts. In a concession to ignorance, what am I doing wrong? — Ineuw talk 21:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Mail issues? Hmm, it could be that not all things are noticed, or a ton of issues at play here. No answers from me. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This reply is a good example. Should I not have received a notice that a response was posted?— Ineuw talk 15:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)