Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2013-06

= Announcements =

= Proposals =

Tumblr update
The experiment with a Wikisource Tumblr continues. At the moment, it is limited to announcing PotM and featured texts. I have recently (that is, a few days ago) included the News headlines as part of the cycle. Another recent event is that the blog is now included as part of Planet Wikimedia, a blog aggregator that brings together posts from many assorted Wikimedia-related blogs. This might get more attention from other Wikimedians. We currently have two followers and have had three "likes" to date (two of which were for the announcement of the PotM for The Cycle Industry).
 * Nice job, can we at the end of the end month(ish) retrospectively note the completed texts from new texts from the month? Or we could note them when we transfer them to their archive at Works
 * I discovered it via the Planet. Thanks for getting it on there! Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Currently I am the only person with control over this Tumblr. Some organisation goes on via WikiProject Social media. I missed some things over the last two months as I was having various internet connectivity problems. There may be a problem in that everything we do runs on a monthly cycle, so it all updates on the same day. I am currently postponing the featured text announcement a little to (marginally) spread things out. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:30, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Spreading things out sound good, so what else an be considered for a rough schedule through the month. It may be worth looking to get some sort of text from the active projects at one a month, at least to spike some interest.  DNB and PSM are always good candidates. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Good Job Adam :) JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * AdamBMorgan's Tumblr work silently and beautifully continues to grow. —Maury (talk) 06:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC) http://englishwikisource.tumblr.com/


 * More on update: AdamBMorgan's project on Tumblr is beautiful and well-organized. The man cannot be perfect but one would not know it by looking at his Tumblr website. Go there and look what has been done and what more one can imagine that can be done. Leave a message so the area will not look empty as far as comments are concerned.

http://englishwikisource.tumblr.com/post/48383252175/news-update-1000th-index#disqus_thread

—Maury (talk) 21:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Password
Per this discussion "both Stewards and CheckUsers have wikis available where passwords can be stored for future recall as needed". I propose we make use of this solution, unless a better idea is offered. The best time for this type of housekeeping is at the beginning, else it gets put off until to late. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, and I have accounts at both. If you want me to create a page for it, I would recommend CUs.  Another alternative is that you email the detail to info@wikisource.org, and it will be stored in the OTRS system.  All of these have other eyes staring at them, so none of it is perfect security. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * In this case, Tumblr doesn't work that way. In order for the tumbleblog to, potentially, accommodate multiple people it is a "secondary blog" (personal blogs are "primary blogs").  The password protection is for the user account and not for any individual blog (the guidance mentions password protection for secondary blogs but this seems to refer to read-access rather than write-access).  Anyway, secondary blogs have members and admins.  Members can post and edit/delete their own posts; admins can delete anyone's posts, invite new members and remove them.  Admins can promote members to admin status but once they have that status they can't be demoted or removed.(Tumblr FAQ).
 * It would help to have other people posting (if nothing else, just to cover for the semi-annual periods when I randomly lose all access to the internet). This is easy from the Tumblr side of things but the process for arranging this is on the Wikisource side is a little vague.  Any such person will need a Tumblr account and I don't think they need to set up a primary blog if they don't want one.  Presumably, some Wikisource community approval will be required.  There is a voting section on WikiProject Social media but it doesn't get enough attention at the moment to fulfil it's own requirements.  Member status should probably be easier to acquire than admin status but this is yet to be determined. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well that certainly complicates my proposal. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * After thinking about this some more, I/we could create a new Tumblr account just for the purpose of recording the log in details somewhere. That way, if I should fall in front of a bus (or whatever), it can be revived, repaired or reclaimed using that account. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This comment is to keep this article up beyond April 30. ResScholar (talk) 08:44, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

WWI Analytical and artistic works
I have proposed a change to our policy concerning self published works. Wikisource_talk:What_Wikisource_includes JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for a WikiSource Project on Rees's Cyclopaedia (1802-1819)
I suggest this will be a suitable project, and will be interested to learn colleagues' views. The work is in 39volumes, and has 30,400 pages. The text is in double column with an average length of 1480 words per page, which makes it around 39 million words, allowing for short pages. There over 1000 plates and an atlas.

An edition was published in America from 1805-1822 with a number of the articles re-written to reflect American religious sensibilities, additional articles and more plates.

An account of the work can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rees%27s_Cyclop%C3%A6dia.

As George Sarton said : [Encyclopaedias] 'offer one of the simplest means of recapturing the educated opinion of earlier times', A Guide to the History of Science, 1952, 82-3. Rees appeared during the second half of the Industrial Revolution, and contains a wealth of material about evolving developments in science and technology. In addition, there is a mass of other topics, and the work will be an invaluable resource for quarrying for use in Wikipedia articles

In contrast to the DNB, the text includes tables of figures, mathematical and scientific formulae, as well as musical notation, both orthodox and plainchant. All the articles have references to the appropriate plates, and it would be good if these could be hyperlinked. The editorial work will be challenging, but the editing tools developed for the DNB will be of great help in getting the job done.

2020 will be the bicentenary of the publication of the last part of the British edition of the work, and I suggest this will be an appropriate date to target for completion of the bulk of the work. Apwoolrich2 (talk) 12:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

= BOT approval requests =

=Help=

= Other discussions =

Closure on bot confirmations
The 90-day warning to owners of idle bots has now passed. The discussion thread was archived to Scriptorium/Archives/2013-03, and rather than bring it back here I edited the outcomes straight into the archive.[//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource%3AScriptorium%2FArchives%2F2013-03&diff=4378789&oldid=4370117] No bot owner responded. With one exception, I have closed as not confirmed, and de-flagged the bot.

The exception is MediaWiki default. This is not a normal bot account. It is the default username to which content diffs are ascribed whenever internal changes to MediaWiki, or the running of internal MediaWiki scripts, result in apparent changes to content. It appears that we do have the ability as a community to determine whether we want to flag this account as a bot or not. However it has no owner/operator, so a 90-day failure to 'show cause' means nothing. I think this is a special case, outside our usual confirmation processes, and I would like further guidance from the community before I take any action.

Hesperian 01:28, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * No owner/operator = security risk.
 * No activity since 2007 = not all that much being ascribed to it, eh?
 * Last activity in 2007 = deleted everything it's ever contributed to Wikisource pre-2007; and I do mean EvErYtHiNg .
 * I would think the first point is enough and the crux of the matter for us in relation to the rest of the Wikiworld & it's practices / policies. Without an actual user to be held accountable for whatever reasons, I don't see how anyone can vote other than to adhere to the current standards in place - without exception - and de-flag the account. If this becomes the minority view - I'd rather see some activity on the account so at least we ascertain it is not an account who has had it's password lost to history before any action is sanctioned either way. If even that becomes tossed aside by further community consensus to still keep the Bot around - I'd say at least block it as a precaution until proof of an actual operator or the need-for-its-use one day magically materializes. -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe the account cannot be logged into. I believe that it isn't really a user account at all; it is a faux username that internal script edits get assigned to. So I'm not sure in this case that "No owner/operator = security risk".
 * I am happy to de-flag: presumably this would merely cause any edits to appear in RC. I would be reluctant to block without an assurance from the devs that this would not have the potential to disrupt internal database maintenance.
 * Hesperian 04:44, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ... and I believe that approach to update/add items to & for the local "MediaWiki" namespace is no longer done locally on a project by project basis via a Bot & its scripting. "It" comes "down" from code on the servers automagically. Need to overwrite the server dumped default? Then you, me or some bot would edit the local "MediaWiki" namespace's equivalent to override those "dumped" defaults, no? Anyway, if you can find me some evidence that bot has been used for anything since early 2007 for something positive rather the deletion of old static method in preparation for the current server based method on any wiki project never mind just en.WS, I might reconsider. Until then, all we are debating here is our own POVs and not the facts (i.e. - not a shred of activity - as far as I can tell - for over 5 years now). I say that means the account & its bot has been superseded by better coding and as a result was made obsolete sometime early in 2007. What you say amounts to the idea that not a single thing relating to the MediaWiki namespace has been refined, amended or improved by the higher power of the Wiki-developers for over 5 years now. We frequently joke about being left-out of the overall development scheme, but I don't think its been that bad. (or is it?) -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If I recall correctly, an old MediaWiki installation of mine (version 1.18 I think) had a user called MediaWiki Default (which set up the default main page during installation). A new installation (1.22alpha) does not have any such user – I think it can be safely blocked (although I see no use for that). Inkbug (talk) 06:03, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don’t see a reason for it to keep the bot flag, or block to block it. Removing the bot flag just makes the edits more visible if/when the account becomes active, at which time the community can decide what to do about it. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * NO requirement for a bot flag; remove, That aside I see no requirement for action, it is no different from hundreds of other quiescent accounts. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I will remove the bot flag for this account. Hesperian 00:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

April's Feature Text of the Month's odt file doesn't work
The ODT text for April's Feature Text of the Month is pretty well blank besides a table with some numbers and the copyright notice. I just thought I would report it. I don't know if any other text are affected. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 01:55, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * On a related note, Books is also affected including PDF, ODT, and MediaPress. I wish this worked because I would love to print on demand. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 02:05, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * EPUB is also affected. I downloaded War Pictures with EPUB and got it all, so presumable, the problem is just with A Jewish State (1917 translation)?
 * A bit more research… Same Problem with The English Constitution (1894) seem to be related to books with Parenthesis in the title. Jeepday (talk) 11:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Has someone chatted with Tpt? — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have only had conversations posted here. Just downloaded The Time Machine (Heinemann text) as EPUB. Seem to have gotten it all. Jeepday (talk) 14:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you check it now to see if it is the same or better. I added   to the ToC.  The work that Matt pasted seems fine to me.  Well except the fact that the titles and the poems are on different pages.  Seems that we are going to need to look at how we format works with a centred component, that then has stuff wrapped in other non-breaking type formatting. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Tried A Jewish State (1917 translation) as EPUB again, still getting the same little bit. Jeepday (talk) 21:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Can I start by saying how much I detest Template:Dotted TOC page listing and how it so bloats code on page, and anyone who uses it on any of the works that I start will be beaten about about the head with it. okay, got that off my chest. I have added  to that template, and it seems to have had the desired effect BUT the individual page numbers in the output, rather than chapter headings makes it less than effective. I really would recommend that we we look to chapter names as they they give good chapter headings. [Note that I am using the Firefox add-on EPUB READER for this checking]. So it should right now, and we will have to look at what frWS has done, or what Tpt said about this at an earlier time. — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Why don't we deprecate it before it spreads even more? I often use it but I am unaware of the nasty effect as it is not written anywhere. And who knows how many more I am not aware of. User assumption is: if the template is there, then there is no problem in using it.--Mpaa (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm no fan of the bloat that template brings with its usage either but it is only written up that that way because it has to "overcome" the issues with Dynamic Layouts & its execution in the load order to ultimately render pretty much the same for everybody @ 1st page click-in. Its overkill - no question about that - but the true fault lies elsewhere & deprecating it now imho wouldn't really solve anything in the long run. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I downloaded the two problem books with the WS EPUB tool and opened both in Calibre, the problem seems to be corrected. Jeepday (talk) 14:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I got Tpt in IRC, and subsequently added the class to MediaWiki:Proofreadpage header template — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

More Failed down loads

 * Equitation (via EPUB) gets just the title page and bit more as seen in others above. Jeepday (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Diary of ten years eventful life of an early settler in Western Australia and also A descriptive vocabulary of the language of the aborigines (via EPUB) arrives in in unusable condition with Calibre. Jeepday (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Hints on emigration to the new settlement on the Swan and Canning Rivers, on the west coast of Australia (via EPUB) arrives in in unusable condition with Calibre. Jeepday (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The Fremantle Wharf Crisis of 1919 (via EPUB) arrives in in unusable condition with Calibre. Jeepday (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I also created a book Books/The_Fremantle_Wharf_Crisis_of_1919, and down loaded as ODT still Neither Calibre Nor Microsoft could open it. Jeepday (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Odd that three of these four are works that I transcribed. Hesperian 11:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I had found a similar issue with other works, like The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders, R.N., and An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait on the south coast of New South Wales, in His Majesty's Ship Calcutta, in the years 1802-3-4 and had wondered whether it was my epub viewer, and had taken the issue to the hacker of the add-on. Seems that it is something more basic. or maybe something more intrinsic to what are doing, quite possibly a template. I suggest that we may need to try to see if we have a template in play.  Maybe we should try printing some individual chapters to see if we can isolate this by parts. In short this is a different issue to missing components. — billinghurst  sDrewth  23:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Note chapter 1 fails though chapter 7 works.
 * I am out of position for any significant assistance, for a at least 10 hours. I should be available do some testing later, just let me know where to focus. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I looked around and tried some stuff, still no idea, All of the ones I identified above came from Category:Indexes validated in December 2009.  I looked at ’The Fremantle Wharf Crisis of 1919’ again.  EBUP still fails to be readable, attempts to open as PDF only bring the title and license. Jeepday (talk) 21:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Tried some more stuff,, it did not work, but learned that even things like The Pilgrim Cook Book that work ok in EPUB don’t work in PDF, so that is not a good test vehicle.

Score extension (a big thank you)
It would appear that the Score extension has been deployed on this wiki. I would like to say a big thank you to all the people who picked up the threads where real life snatched me away from this project, as well as the folks whose threads I could pick up back then (most notably, Johannes, River, and Tim), and Mark and Sumana who helped me get into the Wikimedia development process. There are surely a lot of other people who should be mentioned here, and that they're missing is entirely my fault, for I haven't really been following. So, again, a big thank you to everyone involved. It always leaves a strange feeling to leave something unfinished, but then to see it finished in the end by the caring hands of such a great community made we weep tears of joy, literally.--GrafZahl (talk) 21:40, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I started a talk about hiding the vorbis player when using score with vorbis=1, feel free to comment if you think about a better user interface. — Phe 23:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Looking for an excuse to have a play? There are plenty of pages out there tagged as needing a score. Unfortunately their categorisation is a bit of a mess: you'll find them in Category:Pages requiring musical examples, Category:Pages containing sheet music and Category:Texts with missing musical scores. Hesperian 00:34, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A manual on the Lilypond notation language can be found at http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.16/Documentation/notation/index.html Hesperian 00:38, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Woohoo! Thanks to GZ we got through a major hurdle. To note that it was originally 189 and now we are up in the 45k range. We need to run around like headless chooks and fix up some of the bits that we have dismantled due to the lack of the functionality. It would be good to bring back the project, and we need to fix up our instructions. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * For reference Help:Sheet music. There have been people sharing information about how they use lilypond.  I will try to capture it and stick it on the corresponding talk page, and we can sort through what is useful. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:08, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I am delighted to see this. Thanks to everyone involved. If anyone wants me for anything I'll be playing with music. Here's my first page with 7 examples of it being used: Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/24 Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * FYI, an example on the French-speaking wikisource : fr:Page:Barzaz Breiz, huitième édition.djvu/641.
 * A question : what is the best place for language neutral scores ? (like fr:Suite pour violoncelle BWV 1007, not using the extension right now). Oldwikisource or the home-wikisource of the author ? Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 19:53, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The elements of musical scores are themselves a language. There might be a case for a new language domain: music.wikisource.org. In the absence of such, I guess oldwikisource would be the place. Hesperian 02:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Very interesting question! We can do some level of interwiki display, and it is one that we should investigate (and one to play).  We should also investigate #LST and ensure that this functions well, and whether it is possible in parts, both breaking and joining. Fun! — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:14, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be an obvious way to change the rendering size. Certainly "smaller block", "larger block", etc, have no effect. Hesperian 02:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Project for musical scores
What do you guys think about starting a separate language-neutral version of Wikisource for scores? The Muscogee Wikipedia was closed so I doubt there would be any objections about using the mus. prefix. Scores with lyrics in some specific language could be placed there and transcluded into their language version using iwpage.--Micru (talk) 12:55, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Objection for the prefix  (ISO code have to be ISO code ; the 5-6 projects with prefixes that aren't ISO code but looks like ISO code are always troubling/confusing me), why not with a simple and explicit   prefix ?
 * I see two ways to do it :
 * only the langage neutral music (and iwpage to import the others) ;
 * all the music (and iwpage to export the not“langage neutral”) ;
 * I don't know which one is best. In the second case, all the music is in the same place and the community could be specific and more efficient. But it doesn't seems logical to put everything there since there is books with only a few pages of music sheet. Eg. fr:Livre:Barzaz Breiz, huitième édition.djvu/br:Livre:Barzaz Breiz, huitième édition.djvu : this book is already on two wikisources with iwpages, is it really a good idea to add pages on a third wikisource for the forty last pages ? (I’m not sure but why not).
 * Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 15:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this should be discussed in meta and involve more users. It is not only about "books containing scores", but also about scores in general, like those in IMSLP. Books that have scores can be in both sites if seen appropriate. In the case that you describe maybe it would be enough having in the French version only. Anyway, here is the Request for comments in meta.--Micru (talk) 15:45, 24 April 2013 (UTC)


 * We only just got the score extension turned on. Also, the vast majority of works with scores are going to be predominantly written in some natural language. There will only be a very small number of works that are, first and foremost, a score, and cannot properly be hosted in any particular natural language subdomain. I think these should be hosted at the language-neutral Wikisource for now. Once we have a thousand such works, we might revisit this. Hesperian 02:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Before every project opening, there is a incubation test. There is no other possibility than waiting to have a active community on scores/music/songs/etc. Nonetheless, we could think about it and how to do it (eg. about the perimeter which is not clear to me). Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 15:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Help with a blog post?
I'd like to highlight Wikimedia's new usage of Score with a WMF blog post that points to specific scores on Wikisource, Wikipedia, and any other project that's using them. I hope this post will also be suitable for circulating to music teachers, music historians, and the musicology community to encourage them to come and use Score to share their knowledge and archives with us. And in this post I'd like to also link to LilyPond notation documentation, and thank volunteers Brian Wolff, GrafZahl, Markus Glaser, Beau, Anja Ebersbach, River Tarnell, Johannes E. Schindelin, and the WMF staffers who worked on this. Would one of you like to volunteer to cowrite this post with me? Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 20:44, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps writing such a post is not my forte, but I would like to cheer you on! This is awesome. -Pete (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of such a blog post, however with the parser choking on even relatively straightforward snippets (for example, Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/452 where I've had to comment out the lyrics so that at least the notes will show) it's too early to circulate an invitation to the wider music community. Once it's working as per the tin, then I'd be happy to assist. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Beeswaxcandle - ok, let's wait to publish the blog post until that bug is fixed, but will you help me write it and then hold it in readiness to publish? Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Anyone who wants to pitch in, please go ahead and add prose or ideas or links to this blog post draft on meta. Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 14:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Beeswaxcandle: Thanks for reporting this here! The problem you are reporting sounds like an issue in the code of the MediaWiki software or the server configuration. I have copied the issue to the Bugzilla bug tracker at 48779 (anybody can do this, see How to report a bug for more info). This is needed to make developers of the software aware of the issue. The link and number of the bug report is on the right, so everybody can inform themselves about status and progress. --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 13:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but this is the same bug as 48465 and 47534. Hence my not bothering to report it separately. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

GLAM Boot Camp workshop
Doug and I may give a presentation this weekend on Wikisource, which may involve teaching how to edit in Page space. Just a heads up, if there are bizarre edits and such, and not to get involved in proofing/validating a work or anything. We may pick a short work to be validated in the given time or maybe pick up on an abandoned index. I'll post which one here if it gets to that. Thank you! - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

A short work considered to edit is The Yellow Wall-Paper, depending on the number of attendees and the nature of the presentation. A nice scan is here, with cover and all (unfortunately at the end of the work). If someone has a chance, could you remove the Google pages, put the cover in the front for me and convert to DjVu? - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll get on that for you folks. Check back here for progress. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- see File:The_Yellow_Wall_Paper.djvu. I didn't create an Index: 'cause the whole thing might get proofread before your presentation even starts if I did. Good Luck. -- George Orwell III (talk) 11:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much George. - Theornamentalist (talk) 14:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No worries... & a "shout-out" would be nice. :) -- George Orwell III (talk)
 * Shouted :) I also had a chance to talk with a board member who was interested in holding an edit-a-thon for wikisource, I suggested the city because there are a few of us in the area that came to mind. I mentioned you and LJB to maybe be trainers, and I apologize for not consulting either of you beforehand for your interest :) - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This event was reported on in the 29 April 2013 Signpost and we actually got a one sentence mention and linkback to the index, see the fourth paragraph at 2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp. There is also some interesting discussion with Asaf Bartov (head of the WMF grants program) questioning the work we chose and whether we discussed the value to the project of a work already at PG.
 * BTW, for anyone who hasn't noticed, the work is now complete and has been transcluded to The Yellow Wall Paper and added to the main page New Texts.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:13, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I left a big note on Ijon's talk page. - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow, that is a big note. BTW, that missing line, as well as several other errors and the use of ALL CAPS in stead of italics, were all errors in the Gutenberg version that Ijon linked (I hadn't caught the missing line but I checked it following your post); it looks like someone just copy pasted that over from PG in 2006 - basically the version he linked is a prime example of why Wikisource is better for a reliable text. ;-)  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

OED1
The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, actually having the title "A new English dictionary on historical principles : founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological Society", was published in 12 volumes between 1888 and 1928, with later supplements. Several of these volumes can be found at the Internet Archive, e.g. the last one vol. 10 part 2. Would it be legally okay to import them to Commons and Wikisource? Are they now considered to be in the public domain? And if so, would it be a good idea, or has someone else already proofread the text? --LA2 (talk) 18:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks to me like the works published prior to 1923 could be placed on en.ws as they are PD in the US but any of the volumes that Craigie (d. 1957) or Onions (d. 1965) were editors of cannot go on Commons as they are not PD in the UK (and won't be until 2035 in the case of Onions). The Volumes that are post 1923 publication would have to be evaluated separately for US copyright but most likely could not go here (though they could be placed on Wikilivres).  This breaks up the work, so it might be preferable to put the whole thing on Wikilivres.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The extra consideration of the copyright law is whether the works were commissioned. If they are commissioned works of the organisation then they just had 50 years from the year of publication, not posthumous. Issue is knowing the contractual arrangements, so look to see who is claiming copyright. Though to stop any fuss on the matter and arguments at Commons, if they are needed, then would say upload them to Wikisource and tag not to be moved. One wonders how many volunteers we would get to edit the work, those sorts of work usually need someone to drive a standard formatting type, and if it has lots of quirky formatting that tends to make things not happen.  It would definitely need a project to manage it and someone willing to drive it. If that isn't there, I wouldn't be hurrying to do it. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Is there any chance that we could get in touch with the OED editors and have their approval, or at least a comment? --LA2 (talk) 20:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think they are much interested in free competition from themselves. I concur with Billinghurst, I wouldn't put the 1923 to 1928 volumes on here until we have a strong claim that the copyright has expired on those volumes.  You may want to discuss with Dan O'Huiginn on GitHub who seems to be interested in such a project.  --Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Besides the OED people themselves, I don't know of anyone who has transcribed it. There's at least one person at PGDP who has had it on his to-do list for years, but they're monsters; they have their own phonetic alphabet and ridiculous amounts of text per page. The general opinion was that the copyright on the post-1922 volumes was not something that needed to be worried about; by the time you reached them in the transcription process, they would be out of copyright. The 1928 volumes will be PD in the US in 2024. OED cites a now missing page on the OED website for "According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to "key in" text to convert it to machine readable form which consists a total of 59 million words of the OED second edition, 60 years to proofread it, and 540 megabytes to store it electronically." The OED1 is a bit smaller, 12 or 13 volumes instead of 20, so only 30 or 40 million words.
 * I think it would be incredibly cool to have, but it's not something I'd start without serious consideration.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Goody Two-Shoes (1881).djvu
In the scans pages 136 and 137 appear to be transposed. It would be appreciated if this was resolved quickly, as most of the text of the book is complete. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 15:06, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- I wish they were all that easy to fix. -- George Orwell III (talk) 17:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Update- The text for this is now transcribed, but needs proofreading/validation. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:31, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Warning on leaving edit page with unsaved changes
The implementation varies with mw. software updates. I noticed the following combinations of behaviors after updates:


 * 1) No warning when leaving a page edit view without editing - which is correct (previous versions but didn’t track which).
 * 2) Warning is not triggered when leaving an edited header or footer - which is incorrect (previous versions but didn’t track which).
 * 3) Warning is triggered by opening the page in mode and then leaving - current behaviour in the current version (1.22wmf2 (506e233)) - which is incorrect.

Could we/should we, bring these to the attention of the developers for future releases? Thanks. — Ineuw talk 22:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Page warnings are configurable to be on or off in your editing preferences. From my experience it tracks a change of of url  and I am unaware of any recent change. Personally mine is set to off, and I hate that wretched default is on. — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with the nuisance factor and it’s setting in Preferences\Editing. However, the option was probably added for people like me (but I won’t elaborate). Previously, it was implemented differently. After software update, the implementation is altered and currently it’s incorrect. In this particular case, I check pages validated by others and even when I don’t touch anything it is triggered which is wrong.— Ineuw talk 02:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Anyone else lose customised buttons old toolbar?
Today I have found that my customised buttons situated in the old toolbar are no longer functional/visible. I just get the old unmodified toolbar, very inconvenient. WMF say that they cannot think of things that have changed in the past few hours to break things. So anyone else having issues? When did your's start? — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I lost them a long while ago and posted about it here several times. In one of the posts (archived), I also mentioned the version number when the failure began. Experimented by removing everything (all code), and then added a single customized button and this worked, but only one. The addition of more caused the disappearance of all. The presence, or the absence of the unrelated code which hides some of the standard buttons did not affect the customization, so re-added them. Please see my common .js. — Ineuw talk 02:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Mine were all there last night when I went to bed, but are not there now. Very much a nuisance. My guess is that someone has played somewhere with the monobook skin. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:38, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Same as BWC.--Mpaa (talk) 06:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ahem, My problem mentioned above was in the Vector skin and the old toolbar.— Ineuw talk 06:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Interesting. The consolidation and elimination of the various "skins" available to Users has slowing been progressing now for more than just the last few WmF releases -- but most negative changes are typically weeded out in testing long before roll-out or are quickly identified & reverted post roll-out, so I don't think the root of the problem will be found there. By chance however, I've been deep diving into the .CSS and .JS revisions & developments ranging from some of the more recent WmF releases as well as those from back in the old .svn hub days in an attempt to try and make sense of it all before addressing our own little mess of settings. About a week ago (maybe less), I took the liberty of spitting up our rather stupidly huge single Mediawiki:Common.css file into seamlessly loading sub-sets with the aim of testing & eliminating of some of the more redundant/obsolete crap we still manage to have lying around in there. The only real difference now is that Common.css now loads these "sub-sets" ( Mediawiki:Common.css/Tweaks.css, Mediawiki:Common.css/Mainpage.css, Mediawiki:Common.css/Boxes.css, Mediawiki:Common.css/Lists.css ) in addition to anything still being set within Common.css itself. Nearly all the previously defined settings and values were kept on; but everything -- whether reorganized or not -- has been reformatted in the process to provide some resemblance of consistency across all the pages affected. I tested it all & at every stage against the W3 "JigSaw" tool to make sure it wasn't just CSS 2.1 complaint but CSS 3.0 compliant as well. It is possible something I did while making these modifications is only now being exposed for what it is with the latest WmF upgrade being rolled-out on top of it. Please take a look at those files and smack them around around some until they talk to you - I hope nothing comes back to implicate me here. Thanks & let me know asap if "trouble" is indeed found. -- George Orwell III (talk) 11:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

 > The mwCustomEditButtons interface has been deprecated in favor of > mw.toolbar.addButton, which [was] created especially for the legacy toolbar users > last year to address the many declined bug reports for mwCustomEditButtons > which could not be otherwise addressed because mwCustomEditButtons is beyond > repair, it is a flawed concept and it keeps breaking for many reasons.
 * Sorry GO3, tried to blame you, but FAIL!. It is a wikilove fix that fouls other things 47457; fix is at 47872.  I am told that they are looking for a fix ASAP, though it may be days. Keyword that I was looking for and couldn't think of was mwCustomEditButtons.  — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:36, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I had thought as much but my doubts kept creeping along in spite of all the "care" I took in the break-out. I figured better to speak up now and have others put my mind at ease instead. Thanks. Some interesting stuff going on in the various bugzillas -- the most important point being...
 * In the same "loading order" vein as the custom toolbar buttons now face, I'm wondering how many other preferences and/or gadgets we have in use around here that are only "working" by happenstance rather than by design. I know its probably unpopular to say so but I'm putting out there anyway - the loading and expansion of All editmode tools for WS members is contrary to nearly every other sound practice being observed on the sister sites. As if initially expanding the entire set of tools only to have folks force them closed again [closed is the default every place I checked btw] wasn't potentially problematic enough, it seems like loading only the essential tools via the selected skin will become the new standard some day soon. Folks who want any of the extras (and any overhead & junk that may come with them), would then opt to activate it/them in their individual preferences as needed rather than the current 'all of them on and on all the time' defaults. Some of the other scripts and gadgets we've had around for good amount of time now probably should be vetted against the current coding environment as well. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I also lost my buttons. What to do? Without i cannot work! --Aschroet (talk) 19:47, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Solution — mw.toolbar.addButton

It has obviously escaped our notice previously as this has been addressed and is covered as updated scripts at Tools and scripts/More editing buttons. Rather than show the code here, it is probably more prudent for those who need to code update to copy and paste their requirements from the list on that page. I will be adding more of my more customised components to the list, and would encourage others to add their custom fixes to the list. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's nice, but it hasn't worked for me. Any other solutions available? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC) Got it to work now, but I've had to wrap each button in an if statement. No idea why it works. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Possibly because you have it in monobook.js, I long ago moved mine to common.js. You should just be able to wrap it in one all encompassing if statement, rather than one per statement.


 * Anybody know of a domain or sister site that sets WikiEditor as the default for all (annon. & Users)? That would be one way to see if you our your settings are effecting the basics being provided by the wikicode on the servers. I tripped over just such wikimedia site roughly a week to 10 days ago while poking around where I remember I was suprised to see the WikiEditor come up by default . . . but damn if I just didn't spend nearly and hour trying to re-trace my steps in looking for it! Anyone? -- George Orwell III (talk) 08:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I am pretty certain that the Wikieditor (so called beta) toolbar is the default. — billinghurst  sDrewth  16:02, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It is default ON, new wiki at which to and play at Wm2014: — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

 &#160;NOTE&#160; : that changing to this methodology appears to resolve the issue of the buttons not working in headers and footers in the Page: namespace. Please try it and let me know if it doesn't work for you, as I will need to hit the corresponding bugzilla request. — billinghurst  sDrewth  01:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * some days I really want to fly down there and give you a long overdue slap Obviously a recent patch has chipped away another small nugget of our mountain of accumulated shit and [re]balanced the "load order of things" back across the virtual line that lets that old "focus" problem resolve itself somehow, yada, yada, yada..... embrance & enjoy it while you still can . More importantly, the WikiEditor the rest of the planet seems to be using has finally got their menu overflow/overlap bugs straightened out in that same batch of patches as well - now there really is no excuse not to try moving over and using it some so you won't have to go 'cold turkey' when the current house of cards finally collapses (no-pun intended) & gets removed for good.  My previous still stands, however - we have  too much junk  standardized, gadgetized, or what-not, loading as part of our so called defaults and nobody has kept up with their routine maint. nor the pace of the now bi-weekly code changes. I bet if we removed the redundant Edit-mode Characters/Tools from the below the edit summary & save button for the ones embedded in the drop-down menus in WikiEditor, that problem would have been resolved weeks ago instead of yesterday. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:53, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

[en] Change to wiki account system and account renaming
Some accounts will soon be renamed due to a technical change that the developer team at Wikimedia are making. More details on Meta.

(Distributed via global message delivery 03:31, 30 April 2013 (UTC). Wrong page? Correct it here.)


 * To note that this only applies to those who do not have global accounts, which is only one or two. If you are not sure if you have a global account check Special:CentralAuth — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Which brings to mind a little title/emblem prejudice I have noted. "Global" accounts, pretty limiting if you ask me, also notice that several WMF logos appear in the shape of a globe, even though the claim is that "anyone can edit". What about the other inhabitants of the solar system, the galaxy and the universe? Not to mention cross dimensional  and parallel universe entities. Then there are also the souls caught in different astral planes, the list goes on (Limited list; failure to mention does not discount importance). I say it is time to stop the hidden bigotry, the wiki-world is not just one world or one existence, embrace them all! JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:36, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Doing interwiki link updating across multiple dimensions is a pain in the ass. Trust me. EVula of Earth Prime // talk // &#9775;  // 18:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Every link has it’s issues, at least with multiple dimension linking you don’t have to contend with light speed issues. You either have to initiate the link prior to the link be requested (significant timing issues, don’t get me started), or you have to use faster then light communication, and talk about bandwidth issues. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

[en] Change to section edit links
The default position of the "edit" link in page section headers is going to change soon. The "edit" link will be positioned adjacent to the page header text rather than floating opposite it.

Section edit links will be to the immediate right of section titles, instead of on the far right. If you're an editor of one of the wikis which already implemented this change, nothing will substantially change for you; however, scripts and gadgets depending on the previous implementation of section edit links will have to be adjusted to continue working; however, nothing else should break even if they are not updated in time.

Detailed information and a timeline is available on meta.

Ideas to do this all the way to 2009 at least. It is often difficult to track which of several potential section edit links on the far right is associated with the correct section, and many readers and anonymous or new editors may even be failing to notice section edit links at all, since they read section titles, which are far away from the links.

(Distributed via global message delivery 18:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC). Wrong page? Correct it here.)

Index:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf
A new contributor has transcribed the Tchertkoff translation of Tolstoy's The Relations of the Sexes, based on a PDF file that is itself merely a print-to-file of a modern transcription. I think this defeats the purpose of transcribing against a source... but I don't want to scare this new contributor away. How should we proceed, please? Hesperian 01:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Obviously the source file should be replaced for one that is made up of actual scans of the original book as first published. Unfortunately, after a quick look, this particular Tolstoy-related work seems to be an "exotic" one and not so easy to find a free on-line equivalent so far. Google Books gives me all the specifics. ...


 * Title: The Relations of the Sexes . Transl. by V. Tchertkoff and A.C. Fifield Principally from Private Letters, Diaries, and Unpubl. MSS. Volume 20 of Free Age Press ed. of Tolstoy
 * Authors: Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj, Vladimir Grigor'evič Čertkov, A. C. Fifield
 * Published: 1901

... but no full-view download [USA]. Maybe another region will have full access.


 * Without a replacement (and strctly in my humble opinion) - the best accommodation I would offer up here (since it seems to be all proofread already) is to subst:itute the existing content into a new stand-alone & non-transcluded mainspace work, delete the Index: and related Pages, delete the incorrectly WS domain uploaded PDF file and explain to the User why all that is being done. -- George Orwell III (talk) 03:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I presume that your subtext is that creating a faux scan of text is of no real value, and we may as well just have the text. Agreed that substituting the text is the way to progress, and remove the index and page ns after that. I don't see a full text version at Google, and presume that Hathi Trust doesn't have it. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've just looked on Hathi Trust and can't find a copy there. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Can I suggest moving the last item suggested by GO3 to the top? i.e. tell the user what is up first then tell them we'll gladly do that all for them if they don't know how.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Button icons required
If there are any image button makers out there, it would be great if someone could make some in the same style as Commons:Category:MediaWiki edit toolbar formatting buttons. I would like buttons Then we can add these to the scripting tools. Thanks if anyone can. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * hws or similar for hyphenated word start
 * hwe or similar for hyphenated word end

✅ — Ineuw talk 03:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Ultra Kool, but how do I attach them to my toolbar and get them to function? Add a script? —Maury (talk) 04:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Done it for you. I have also updated Tools and scripts/More editing buttons.  Thanks Ineuw, you are a champ. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You’re most welcome. This, being my first attempt at using Inkscape, didn’t want to promise until I succeeded. But now, I’m on a roll. :-) — Ineuw talk 23:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ineuw, thanks! :)  --Zyephyrus (talk) 23:07, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Transclusion of text from within "poem" tags
I recently found that text labeled within tags cannot be transcluded. The text that is called simply doesn't appear.

A simple experiment here makes the behavior clear.

To say the least, this is a major practical limitation on the ability to transclude sections of text in Wikisource. Does anyone know if this behavior is intended? Can it be fixed? Is there any way to work around it? Dovi (talk) 06:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you will find the problem to be the placement of section tags within poem tags. If you place the poem tags within the section tags, I bet they transclude just fine. Hesperian 06:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your quick reply, and yes that is precisely the problem. If you have a poem or a song within tags, and need to transclude specific stanzas from it that are labeled with section tags, nothing appears. Why don't section tags work within poem tags? Dovi (talk) 06:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Something to do with tags not being re-entrant in their "<" forms—the same problem as discussed in w:Wikipedia:REFNEST. Therefore it may be possible to solve the problem by replacing the " Blah " tags with " ". Hesperian 07:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict)Due to the nature and shortcoming of custom s. I bet that it will work if you use the form ... . Read more about Magic words. As an aside, same reason why templates inside many &lt;ref> tags don't substitute. Also why I use #tag for my refs, though I do substitute. mw:Extension:Cite is the most problematic tag in that sense. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:17, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much to both of you for the suggestion!

I tried it, but things didn't go smoothly and I may be making some silly mistake. Please glance at my example again: "Part Three" and "Part Four" still don't transclude. However, strangely, during one edit "Part Four" did briefly transclude (at least during the preview), but I wasn't able to reproduce the behavior again. Can anyone suggest a fix? Please feel free to edit the example. Dovi (talk) 13:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That looks like a NADA to me. — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, thanks anyway. If anyone else has suggestions please let me know. Is it worth filing a bug? Dovi (talk) 05:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, I found the bug. It is also mentioned on the page for the LST extension. Please vote for the bug. Dovi (talk) 05:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

button button whose got the buttons ?
AE, ae, OE, oe, (n-dash but I don't use this), m-dash are missing. I haven't changed anything and only started editing a short while ago for today. What happened? It sure would be nice if we could remove some buttons and replace them with things more often used (like the English pound symbol) -- a personal customized toolbar instead of useless buttons and having to scroll down and look around to get a British pound symbol, etc.. —Maury (talk) 07:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed this one. If anyone else wants intervention, please ask. — billinghurst  sDrewth  07:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's still kaput. I think it's the fuse. I must go to bed now. Will B Back asap. "Calling out, "Mayday, Mayday...  —Maury (talk) 08:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fixed it. My not recognising }} against })


 * I have done [//en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AZyephyrus%2Fmonobook.js&diff=4414945&oldid=4380412 this], copied from French wikisource: it works, though I don't understand how  :)   --Zyephyrus (talk) 10:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The first part is sets the framework, and the second part is the respective definitions. The syntax omits the individual labels as they are set out in the framework. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:09, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Can I please see a link to the code? Thanks.— Ineuw talk 15:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's back! I never noticed before but my button gives me the English pound sign -- something I use often. Thanks fellows! Ineuw, who are you asking about a link to code?

Thanks again fellows, I figured it would be the fusebox. Americans should have kept the British spellings and the metric system! ££££$ —Maury (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment on the (new) edit link
The new [edit] link to me is a fraction on the small side. I was wondering on others' opinions. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It is small, but not overly small. I would say it is net improvement. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The previous method was to define .editsection to universally appear far right regardless of the level of the section heading and the word ( [edit] ) itself had font settings in proportion to the particular heading's font size. Obviously they've done away with pushing the term all the way to the right (conflicted with too many settings where topicon or collapsible feature were in play at the same time), but I'm not so sure going with that single font size for all the heading levels was best. Currently, it does seem 1 variant too small to me personally but maybe all it needs is a 1px letter-spacing to make it more obvious while keeping it just as "small"? -- George Orwell III (talk) 19:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Change to section edit links suggests that the "mw-editsection" class can be adjusted via Common.css if we want to do so. I have no personal problem with the size of the new edit link, I just keep looking to the right and have a moment of confusion before remembering that it has moved.  As a project, it probably isn't that important either way as most content pages don't seem to use sections. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 20:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Moot point as it turns out - there is already a request to merge a change from 'x-small' to 'small' in place. [//gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=commitdiff;h=HEAD;hp=2c53fe056a0c2edc9376e8b896a5b601559ac7fe See Here].

It should go from...
 * [edit]

to...
 * [edit]

... at some point. The server cached stuff has been mad slow to refresh of late so it might be awhile before we actually see the change. -- George Orwell III (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

New button images added and an old unresolved issue
I created three new toolbar images, , and implemented them in my Common.js. I caution anyone using my functions as they are, because I am using the Vectra skin with the legacy editor toolbar, and the code termination is a bit different from the Tools and scripts/More editing buttons.

The old issue is that toolbar actions still don’t work in the headers and footers whereas some versions ago they did. Should I file a bug report?— Ineuw talk 07:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Ineuw, the code is different for the Wikeditor toolbar (described at mw:Manual:Custom edit buttons) which is itself used within Vector skin and I am surprised that you have some functionality. Headers and footers are a separate problem and there is a bugzilla, see via [//bugzilla.wikimedia.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=35925&hide_resolved=1 bugzilla4WS]. From my reading it will be a won't fix in the current form, but yes as part of other rebuilds requested. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:11, 3 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info. The fact that it suddenly works is a great surprise for me as well. Complete functionality was restored only in this mw release. With various versions, either nothing worked, or only a single button functioned and when I added more everything died. After reading the above discussions, tried again with nothing to lose, and now all my custom buttons work, albeit the function termination is different. This code style was copied from Inductiveload’s custom toolbar buttons.
 * As for the header/footer I will wait for the solution whenever it happens. [Ineuw's sigature missing] (—Maury (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Dynamic image sizing unlocked?
For as long as I can remember, we've been limited to manipulating the following image file parameters to try and get images to display as desired....


 * Name Type Border Location Alignment Size Link Alt Caption

Well there is one more parameter that I don't recall being documented anywhere (last one)....


 * Name Type Border Location Alignment Size Link Alt Caption CSS class

After playing around some and defining a css class for it, I think I've found a way for images to re-size themselves on-the-fly based on their container's size. See the image in Temp Image Testing for the re-sizng in action as you play with your browser's settings or change the dynamic layout.

All you need to do is slap  at the end of your   statement to help start testing the feature.

So if you normally type ....


 * Amazing Stories April 1926.jpg

... to render image files, now you'd type...


 * Amazing Stories April 1926.jpg

... instead. Feedback is welcome as this is still in 'beta' testing. -- George Orwell III (talk) 09:40, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Not working as expected for Firefox, on Layout 2 I have a huge image left aligned that extends way beyond the right margin. Should we really be playing with an article that recently was written up at enWP's Signpost? — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 

What about now? I created a new temp test page at Temp Image Testing. -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't work for me in Chrome, unless I'm late to the example. I have a (potentially) related question to what you're working with: there are times where I want an image to define the width of a box that also holds text. If you can indulge my preference for a moment and look over my reasoning for using "frameless." I was wondering if there was basically a way to set a table to "frameless" as well; take a look at this page, currently I use breaks so that the cell with text doesn't create a wider border around the image. Defining the box width as 220px wouldn't be good either, cos I like to believe that if the image is too small for someone (or too large, in theory) that they would simply go into their preferences and change the thumbnail size, and I'd want the text below it to reflect their desired image width.
 * And only marginally related, I think most editors (and in most cases, not all for sure as it pertains to formatting) would like to remove our preference for sizing the images and really are concerned with how it looks for the reader. Would it be possible to set our sites "frameless" parameter to something larger than 220px by default? I mean, most editors don't use frameless because it is small, but I imagine if it defaulted to say, 300px, it might be more attractive for editors to free up the hardcoded image widths. A simple -/+ Image size in the display options could make us one of the best sites for viewing images on any device. - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:56, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You mean like...
 * The fall of Ulysses pg 6.jpg
 * ?? -- George Orwell III (talk) 13:26, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No.. I am trying to avoid using a defined width. I like using frameless only with the knowledge that someone can make it larger or smaller by going to their preferences. It seemed that since you were working with sizing images based on their containers, I was hoping there might be a simple way to size a text cell based on its container. So for the page you edited, the frameless image parameter (default 220px) sets the width of the text box beneath it. Currently, if I were to remove the breaks from the text cell, it would expand the image cells border too; instead, I hope that when removing the breaks the text will wrap by the border set by the image size, which is dynamic from use of frameless. - Theornamentalist (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Then I don't understand why you are pining your hopes on any table or series of tables acting as a functional container - that has not been my expierence with tables at all. And Users are generally stuck with the default (220px) unless "we" override the defined values of the various divs involved (which was what I thought I was working towards but it seems only IE loads the class= last and the alt= firt in the resulting HTML img tag line). -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for introduce my request amidst your work, what you were trying to do with image width I believe would help me with limiting text width too. Like if you succeed with having an image width span by the container its in, I believe that I could too use something similar to have a text cells wdith limited by some other factor too, essentially limiting it to the width occurring in another cell, an image.
 * I know most people don't go in and change their thumbnail settings, but that they can has always erred me towards using frameless. - Theornamentalist (talk) 14:59, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * but text that shrinks and grows with the image is the built-in thumbnail caption! -- George Orwell III (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

"Ulysses was now ready to begin his literary researches."
 * The page in question has those green borders which I wanted to include... I know, it's not necessary, but I like how it looked in the book and wanted to reproduce it. I couldn't get them with the use of the thumbnail caption. - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

More buttons for edit custom toolbar
I’ve uploaded additional extended Latin character buttons which may be of interest to Wikisource users:

I also offer my services to provide other custom character buttons at a special very low introductory price. :-) — Ineuw talk 15:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * fyi... it seems you can "steal" all the buttons you want from the Special Characters menu in WikiEditor. You'd just need to paint? them Vector Tab blue (like the above) afterward.
 * I wish somebody was up on modifying WikiEditor instead of finding limited new ways of preserving the past; it would make the entire bottom edit menu & gadget thing-ys redundant for example. -- George Orwell III (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would like one of each please and Master-charge it to George Orwell III. I see ae AE oe OE in text at the top and I have one that shows as the number symbol # that produces my beloved English Pound symbol £ that I encounter often. I don't need the # button but it connects to the £ symbol. Why cannot these be color coded? There is a large yellow Trumpet that I never use as well as several other symbols I dislike and never use. Having the correct symbols is an advantage. Those buttons George mentions could be placed at the top, or some of them, instead of buttons we do not use. Useless to me for years are the symbol for square root $$Insert formula here$$, Embedded file, Horizontal Line, Red circle around letter W (ignore wiki formatting) and n-dash, and signature with time stamp, and [poem], and [br/] where useful buttons could be placed. —Maury (talk) 17:00, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Your redcoat Pound button should be straightened out by now but thats not what I'm talking about when I mention "WikiEditor". To see WikiEditor, visit [//wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page WikiMania 2014] page, click edit like you normally would and give it a few to load - once it does, you should get the WikiEditor interface. I've had it on for a few days now and it actually learned to load just as fast as the button-o-rama thing ever did for me. It depends upon an internal resource loader rather than the java[script] installed with your operating system that the current toolbar needs to work. Still has its bugs and nobody seems to know how to easily customize it --- but I've seen ones that were and they look & work just as good as the old button bars ever did for me. -- George Orwell III (talk) 17:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * GO3, I agree. Until there is a true user customizable toolbar available, all these attempts are just patch jobs. I also forgot that my setup is different from the standard Vector skin/Vector editor setup which allows me to use the above buttons. These characters (+ a few more that I didn’t upload) are based on the PSM project which uses these extended characters extensively - and little else. That’s why I made the above collection.
 * Also, I am teaching myself the basics of Inkscape, because of the need for occasional diversion from proofreading, and because haven’t had any luck in finding additional employment in the PDF split and merge & upload industry. — Ineuw talk 19:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Missing authors
I don't know if people will find this useful, or if it's redundant with some other mechanism I don't know about, but I have created Category:Works with non-existent author pages to help locate red-linked author pages from headers. It is based on this edit to the header template, which places texts in that hidden category if the author page being linked to does note exist. There are nearly 800 of these, mostly some combination of truly missing authors, "authors" which probably do not merit links, or variant spellings/phrasings of existing author pages. It's worth perusing. Dominic (talk) 07:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, it's still actively populating. I just noticed it is over 2000 now. Dominic (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In the case that we can't find information on the author, is there a preference to leave it redlinked or to use override_author= ? - Theornamentalist (talk) 21:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Leave them red. I am pretty good at finding Aus & UK 19thC and early 20thC authors;  and reasonable for US authors of the same period.  If anyone needs a hand, I have yet to refuse a reasonable offer.  To also note that the VIAF search tool is helpful, though can need you to manually invert names.  Also Phe prepared a script to check and pull available data from enWP (needs sane use), and you can get that from my common.js file.
 * The category approach based on an within the header template is going to be problematic. Basically the category populates as  changes, they are removed from the category when the individual files are updated, not due to the redlinks being converted to active links.  There is benefit in the condition as it has shown up a whole lot of misapplied headers parameters, but isn't really going to solve the redlinks. — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:51, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

What to do about employee authors?
While having a thump at reducing this list of missing author pages, it highlights a bit of a conundrum with regard to press releases, and works of primarily corporate authorship. On pages like E-3 damaged while landing at Nellis the page has been prepared by an employee of the defence force, as part of their duties, and the article in itself is not a view/opinion of the author. We can try to look to maintain author pages for people for whom we may not get any data, or we can look to a different approach. I am thinking and would like to propose that we can just list these in the portal namespace noting the author's name, and use  parameter to nullify the author's wikilink. None of this would later prevent an author page being created if there were more works, or the person became 'notable' for other works. — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:26, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That works for me, though I think I would redirect the author page to the portal, and include the rationale. Jeepday (talk) 00:22, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Though our rules say that we don't do cross namespace redirects. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:42, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, forgot about that. Soft redirect, maybe? (probably not).  Does not seem like a big enough issue to be making rule changes, so barring some other idea, your solution seems best. Jeepday (talk) 12:39, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Highlights
The "highlights" box on the main page doesn't contain highlights at all; it merely gestures at our scope. I would like us to start using that box for genuine highlights. But first we have to figure out what our highlights are.

For example, and so on. But these examples are made up; we haven't actually achieved any of these.
 * Shakespeare's entire First Folio, fully validated
 * Fully validated first editions of every Dickens novel
 * Over fifty years of Popular Science Monthly
 * All 63 volumes of the original Dictionary of National Biography
 * The complete works of Byron, Goethe, Poe and Swift

So... what are our biggest, boldest, most significant achievements? What should we be proud of? What should be we celebrating on our front page? I'm thinking bold projects of epic scope and great significance, completed to a very high quality.

Hesperian 08:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The DNB bullet point is valid, I think. I'm not sure about the state of the PSM project but some variation on it could work, eg. "The first X years of Popular Science Monthly".  The classics don't appear to be very popular here (they are a lot of work for little gain as they are already widely available, so not a very fulfilling activity to pursue).  I'm not sure if it's what you want but our translations of Catullus seem to get some attention online.  Otherwise, I can't think of any complete "epic scope" stuff at the moment. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * (ec) Oi! We do have all 63 vols of DNB, + all three vols of 1901 supplement completed. Sure not all yet validated; that said, I get your point. I care not about Dickens, nor Shakespeare, nor Byron, ... the pig swill iggorant that I am; though I still get your point. I have proofread poetry, but not read any of it; but I see your point. There are many reasons to be here, sometimes it is not the features, but the benefits. — billinghurst  sDrewth  11:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Can we randomize things deemed by the community as highlights? So that quality and complete high brow works can be mixed with pig swill... Yeah, it is another thing to keep track of for us, but I think that's what we're getting at anyway. - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:34, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * For example, Author:Florence Earle Coates to me is worthy of highlighting; I think LJB has cataloged all her works. - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Rotating components through is definitely possible, the pun on my user page does that daily; so does ; and it is one of the things that we do during validation month with texts Proofread of the Month/Coding. The biggest issue that I have found is ensuring standard formatting and sizes. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Chrome shortcut manager
I searched talks and I didn't find any mention about Chrome Shortcut Manager. If you are using currently Chrome browser, and you are not afraid about some javascript, you'll love it: you can link keyboard shotcuts for any existing or new js script, and you can import or export them to share them with other users. I use it too as a fast and simple tool to test new scripts. --Alex brollo (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would think that such information could be added to Tools and scripts — billinghurst  sDrewth  00:46, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Please open a thread there - presently I'm unfamiliar with en.source and its style rules; then I'll be happy to share some scripts if any of you is interested. --Alex brollo (talk) 06:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't use Chrome at WS, not sure what the manager is about, so it isn't something for which I will be starting a thread. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is precisely why I posted only here a brief mention of such tool. I'll not mention it any more but someone is interested about. :-) --Alex brollo (talk) 08:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Some Score issues
I've encountered some problems with Score and I don't think I'm the only one. I've already mentioned this on Extension:Score but it's worth repeating it here in case anyone has similar problems or can think of a solution. Complicated or just long pieces of music appearing to be hitting an error. Initially I thought I might be doing something wrong but now I think it's software related.

I started Index:National Anthems of the Allies.djvu as a way to learn Lilypond notation (it was a short work with a few different pieces, so I thought it would work well). However, pretty much every page I've tried hits an error message eventually. For example, Page:National Anthems of the Allies.djvu/16 shows this error (in other pages I have commented out the error-causing elements). However, at a wikimeet over the weekend I talked with someone who has a non-Wikimedia wiki with the score extension enabled and found out that the same code, when copied and pasted over, worked properly: WikiTranslate. I've tried the code in a sandbox on Wikipedia and I get the error again. Therefore I think the problem is not necessarily with Score itself but with Wikimedia's handling of Score; possibly some incompatibility or maybe WM is capping the extension's resources in some way.

I have mentioned this on the extension page, as I said above, but I haven't filed a bugzilla bug report yet. I want to see what's happening with other people first. Has anyone else had the same, or similar, problems? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:24, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * NB: I anticipate another problem but haven't got far enough to actually test it: I can't see a way for the extension to continue over pages. This is not a big problem but it will cause a discontinuity (the extension breaks and wraps bars automatically, so multi-page pieces are likely to awkwardly and obviously break at the end of each transcluded page) and it will prevent complete midi/ogg generation (again, just a page at a time). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm having the same issue with scores in Index:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu. A straightforward snippet of a few bars is fine, but once there are more than 2 staves or more than 3 systems or several instances of split voices or lyrics or a figured bass line the parser seems to choke. wrt to the multi-page issue I don't know how transclusion is going to work yet (as I've hit the same barrier as Adam) but I wonder if the midi/ogg generation issue would be best solved by uploading to Commons as a file and transcluding from there. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * BUGZILLA them. Adding comments to the extension talk page is going go next to nowhere.  The only means to get some action is to bugzilla these pieces. If the examples are long, then add them to the talk page and link to them from bugzilla. Have you tried it without Vorbis turned on?  I am presuming that it is some part of the Timed Media Handler extension. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I haven't even tried to apply vorbis to these scores yet. I'll file a bug report later today (I need to find my bugzilla log in details, which are not at my current location). I was hoping there was something I missed or was doing wrong after all but it doesn't look like it. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There are a number of issues already reported, feel free to check the list of open Score bugs. If the specific problem that you face is reproducible, it would be great if you could send the software bug to Bugzilla by following the instructions How to report a bug. This is to make developers of the software aware of the issue. If you have done so, please paste the number of the bug report (or the link) here, so others can also inform themselves about the bug's status. Thanks in advance! --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 48465 reported. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * After re-reading the other bugs, 47534 might be the same thing (although the description is slightly different). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 19:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Page numbers for works with no scans
I was wondering what the best practice is for including page numbers in works with no scans (for example, if I were to want to add Todd v. Thompson). The page numbers are valuable, but it doesn't seem like it would make much sense to use the Page namespace if there aren't any scans. Is there an existing template to emulate the auto-generated page numbers, or would it be worth creating one? – GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I like the variation of that was set up., though it does require that one use &lt;div class="indented-text">. And from memory I believe that the anchors are also there for direct linking. — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:58, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ooh, thank you! This is exactly the sort of template I was looking for. Unfortunately, it would appear that the anchors were removed from the template a few years ago. Perhaps I'll look into why that happened—they would be nice to have. – GorillaWarfare (talk) 12:05, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Examples of big jpg-indexes with content?
I have some problems with the view of index-pages built by many jpg-files on svws. I am now looking if the same problem is found in other projects. Do you have any examples of large indexes made by many jpg/png-files, where the pages has content? -- Lavallen (talk) 10:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have many indexes based on images alone. Even where they do exist, they are usually only 1-2 pages long.  I tried searching for an index that matches your requriements but couldn't find anything. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * How about this? - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The pages on svws I have problems with, have 700-1000 pages. I have seen a jpg-index here with 2000+ pages but the pages had no content. I guess it's the rendering af the matrix of colors that gives a hiccup in the javascript. But I cannot verify if it is limited to svws or if it can be found on other projects. It was when the computer installed IE10, that the problems came. -- Lavallen (talk) 13:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Second eyes requested
This was a recent US ruling I transcribed. Index:11-796_c07d.pdf I'd appreciate some second eyes and category assistance. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

brace2 and math tag rendering
MediaWiki has multiple ways of rendering TeX math markup, which is used by brace2 to make nice looking squiggly braces in used in early modern table typesetting. In this use-case, the behavior of these different rendering methods produces different output. Rendering it as PNG produces the expected output for the input described in the template's documentation (one unit per table row). Rendering it with MathJax makes it much smaller (about 1/3 expected size). Dunno if there's anything we can do about this and it doesn't seem like this is a known issue. Prosody (talk) 21:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Putting aside the fact it clearly states experimental right next to the option in User preferences to enable MathJax in the first place - a quick look pretty clearly showed that when MJ is applying whatever that stuff was zooming by in the bottom left corner of my screen, is forcing a change in the .css line-height setting upon submit (looked like a 0.3 difference before vs. after - just can't tell if the value went from 1.5 down to 1.2 or went from 1.2 up to 1.5. Either way - MJ is caluclating one value and rendering with the other .. apparently & imho, that is. Good luck. :| George Orwell III (talk) 22:25, 19 May 2013 (UTC) .... should have been a bit more clear  It is the direct containing element that seemed to get 'reset' - not anything with a TeX or IMG class or id. I'd try forcing that container & it's line-height value so there is less of a chance for deviation (just remember - anything sitting by itself on a single line in the edit box jets the paragraph tags slapped on it unless its already somehow part of another block in the document tree (a div & its display:block; span with display:inline-block; and the like - though you mentioned tables earlier and a table-cell should wrap it just as well as anything else. now apply that said it with a straight face 'Good Luck' from before. -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:48, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Tech newsletter: Subscribe to receive the next editions
Latest  Tech news  from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.
 * Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)


 * The latest version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf4) was added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 13, and to the English Wikipedia (with a Wikidata software update) on May 20. It will be updated on all other Wikipedia sites on May 22.
 * A software update will perhaps result in temporary issues with images. Please report any problems you notice.
 * MediaWiki recognizes links in twelve new schemes. Users can now link to SSH, XMPP and Bitcoin directly from wikicode.
 * VisualEditor was added to all content namespaces on mediawiki.org on May 20.
 * A new extension ("TemplateData") was added to all Wikipedia sites on May 20. It will allow a future version of VisualEditor to edit templates.
 * New sites: Greek Wikivoyage and Venetian Wiktionary joined the Wikimedia family last week; the total number of project wikis is now 794.
 * The logo of 18 Wikipedias was changed to version 2.0 in a third group of updates.
 * The UploadWizard on Commons now shows links to the old upload form in 55 languages (bug 33513).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe • 20:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Future software changes:
 * The next version of MediaWiki (version 1.22/wmf5) will be added to Wikimedia sites starting on May 27.
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 * The final version of the "single user login" (which allows people to use the same username on different Wikimedia wikis) is moved to August 2013. The software will automatically rename some usernames.
 * A new discussion system for MediaWiki, called "Flow", is under development. Wikimedia designers need your help to inform other users, test the prototype and discuss the interface..
 * The Wikimedia Foundation is hiring people to act as links between software developers and users for VisualEditor.

 Important note: This is the first edition of the Tech News weekly summaries, which help you monitor recent software changes likely to impact you and your fellow Wikimedians.

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You can also become a tech ambassador, help us write the next newsletter and tell us what to improve. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. guillom 20:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Clear, concise  and  useful info all in one. subscription as part of WS:S. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:34, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ We'll receive it here every week.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 14:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I want my available screen space back
How does one get excluded from the faux Edit Notice system? You know the one telling me... This page should include a process header template along the top of this section as I type....

OK - here's your header....


 * why won't it release me screen :( arrrrggggg..
 * why won't it release me screen :( arrrrggggg..

Thanks for any insight on this - I don't think its the "real" Notice System system - apparently, I'm a new visitor everytime I edit when a filter shuld be detecting me as N/A (not applicable) by now. -- George Orwell III (talk) 04:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * mw:Help:Edit notice. I don't believe that it is collapsible or dismissible, though someone, somewhere may have a clever means to achieve that. — billinghurst  sDrewth  06:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah I've read up on all that already. Figuring to exclude at least the sysop group - I tried to apply that as per the documented filtering. Only then did I realize its nothing more than a forced banner with no brains behind it being applied. Somebody familar with the system should be able to tell us what is missing and then "filtering" is much like detecting what namespace a work happens to be in, then, depending on that - do A (or if not) - do B in templates. -- George Orwell III (talk) 08:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ... and it case it matters, I haven't found any evidence of it being acknowledged let alone preventing the no header abuse filter tag from being applied either. -- George Orwell III (talk) 08:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Copyright tags for presidential debate transcripts, among other things
I noticed that there's a lot of presidential debates transcribed here without a proper copyright tag. As far as I can tell from case law, speech is not copyrightable unless it is from prepared remarks, so I've just been applying to them all. But I think that live debates and interviews deserve a special tag explaining the situation. I'd appreciate any input, seeing as IANAL, and not a particularly good template-maker either. Phillipedison1891 (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You are right about unprepared speech generally being exempt from copyright protections, but Presidential debates might not fall under "unprepared" in the expected sense. Not that I can point to anything specific or in writing that says as much to "prove" any of what is to follow but, fwiw, my personal notes on this to date pretty much goes like this.... The modern era Presidential debate(s) (and in most cases - any primary debate(s) leading to the Presidential ones) are run (or hosted?, maybe sanctioned?) by a special debate commission per a series of agreements secured from both among the more well-established & formally recognized political parties & the respective candidates at the time that hope to participate in such debates. These agreements can be negotiated long before the start of any given "election season" but are frequently re-visited & refined during the process of securing a party nominee (which typically includes those inter-party 'primary' debates), as it whittles down the number of possible Presidential debate participants over time. Once the Presidential debate participants materialize for sure, a final (and rather specific) agreement is made between the debate commission, the political parties affected and, of course, the candidates who will be participating. This "final" agreement covers everything from the proverbial coin flips to see who goes first and for what or when, all the way up to the debate topics that may, may not and/or won't be addressed along with many other similar "nuances". The possible problem re: copyright lies within these supposed negotiated agreements. Apparently, the debate commission is typically "given" the rights to any of the content generated during a debate by all the concerned. The political parties in turn look to the Debate Commission to "authenticate" as well as "provide" that debate content freely and equally for at least that campaign season (if not beyond) as needed. The candidates are also believed to mutually waive any claim to content, etc. regardless of whoever wins for the benefit of the expected Presidential Library's archives after that person has left office. So while the debate content may seem to be made available (online) by the Debate Commission to the public at large and is frequently re-produced by the press, etc. there is no concrete statement by the Debate Commission saying the content is in fact PD or OK for re-use per CC 3.0 (that I know of). The opposite seems to be true (all rights reserved) and all tangent inquiries to anybody even remotely credible as an authority on any of this pretty much believes the way I do: any content generated in one of these debates, be they prepared or otherwise, was assigned away by the candidates, etc. via an operation of law (final agreement = a legally binding contract) prior to the debate, the Debate Commission is indeed likely to be the "lawful" copyright holder unless negotiated otherwise in that "final agreement" and the content won't technically fall into the PD (in a manner that WikiSource can [re]use) until the establishment of the President-in-question's, NARA affiliated Presidential Library takes place some time after that person has left office.  So while I can't point to any specific source to back this up as worded nor in full, I've come across enough supporting evidence to make me believe the possibility is indeed valid. The lack of any specific & supportable replies by the Commission, the RNC, the DNC and similar to date only makes me more concerned that the Commission is indeed the "technical" rights holder in these narrow election debate cases. The fact they don't seem to profit any by reproducing or packaging the debate content only means they are staying within the tax laws they must operate under while bolstering their credibility, etc. in the process - it is not evidence contrary to the idea of the Commission being the legitimate copyright holder.  In conclusion, I've always gone by the rule that [Presidential] debate material is the exception to the unprepared speech rule thanks to the role the pre-debate agreements may (or may not?) play in them and most likely not PD' until at least the winning candidate (the President) has his or her own Presidential Library setup by & affiliated with our National Archives after they've left public office for good (and the percentages for PD go up in my view when such persons are no longer among the living as well). To the best of my knowledge, and without any additional support/dissent being provided by the so-called experts or by any of the parties involved to verify, only inspecting such agreements on a case by case basis by the WS community would put this inclusion or exclusion matter to rest for sure (well, at least in my humble opinion it would).  -- George Orwell III (talk) 02:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But can otherwise uncopyrightable material be magically made copyrightable by agreement or contract between two private parties? I don't see how any contract can override the requirement that content be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression", as the Copyright Act puts it.  At any rate, we have Presidential Libraries up until Bush Number Two, so anything up until then should be uncontroversial. Phillipedison1891 (talk) 02:57, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Since all of the concerned in this particular situation are not interested in exercising any of the profit motive type of rights here but primarily the protection from possible future infringement and exclusivity of distribution type of copyright rights - it boils down to your word against theirs about what exactly was fixed in a tangible medium, by who and when. Plus they have an agreement of some sort signed by the major concerned parties before the supposed first fixation - all you have is the incredible assumption that every question, answer and/or statement made during such debates were mentally created and orally delievered on the spot for the very first time ever. Not very convincing imo. The case law that I've read pretty much makes this a work for hire-ish type of copyright scenario - though no monies were paid to create/participate/perform the content (the debate). The agreement secured prior to the actual content "creation" only means some content was expected and no matter what that content wound up being in reality, the actual creator(s) of the content had already agreed to waive / share the rights to it via some agreement. In these narrowly defined debate cases, the transcription can be construed as a derivative rather than any first fixation - which is also fairly outdated premise in the paperless digital age. Basically, copyright is secured upon creation and not so much the first fixation in some medium any more- the trick is to have registered the work before somebody tries to infinge upon it. Of course only the copyright regulations can dictate what is and what is not acceptable re: medium if any one in this situation has bothered to it take it that far that is. -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My draft for this template may be found at User:Phillipedison1891/Sandbox/PD-transcript Phillipedison1891 (talk) 22:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ahem... if a work becomes part or property of the National Archives and Records Administration per the Presidential Records Act & similar statutes (or even by private agreement/donation) - it should be tagged PD-USGov not whatever this new license may or may not be. A federal worker just happens to be the one securing the transfer of that copyright to the Federal government per some pre-established operation of law either way (just as good as if he/she created it during the course of their official duties). -- George Orwell III (talk) 05:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't favour a licence .  We have tried to keep it as simple as possible, and   covers the criteria where it is applicable for a transcript. If the licence text in the latter tag is insufficient, then I would favour a review of the words to ensure that it suitably covers the topic matter; and/or further explanation at Help:Copyright tags to elucidate on the matter. — billinghurst  sDrewth  10:12, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how anything has changed - the specific debates in question were not exactly spur-of-the-moment or unrehearsed exchanges but planned for well ahead of the actual event, mock debated during the run-up and coordinated/sponsored via the agreements with the third party specialized committee & political parties (i.e. these particular series of debates can hardly be considered unprepared speech). Agree on the point about not really needing another banner that amounts to the same rationale as the existing  one however. -- George Orwell III (talk) 10:35, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, this discussion on the English Wikipedia seems to indicate that just because something is in NARA collections, doesn't mean it's necessarily in the public domain. (Has to be created by a government employee) Can someone show conclusively that presidential debates of past presidents are committed to the PD? If not, should we use my previous rationale? Should we burn them with fire? Phillipedison1891 (talk) 01:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not familiar enough with the relevant copyright laws. However, looking at NARA's website, ARC 59652 (ie. one of the 1984 Reagan-Mondale debates) states, under Use Restrictions, "Restricted - Possibly | Public Law 101-246 | Issued February 6, 1990, this law provides for the domestic release and distribution of USIA motion pictures, films, videotapes, and other materials 12 years after initial dissemination overseas, or, if not disseminated, 12 years from the preparation of the material."
 * The "Restricted - Possibly" element apparently means that it is not automatically PD-USGov (which would be "Unrestricted"). The rest, however, implies a 12-year copyright term, which may actually require a new licence template after all. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Note that the record you have linked to is a video of the debate, not a transcript. Additionally, the "Public Law 101-246" cited has nothing to do with copyright, it just mandates that the content be released to the Archives after 12 years. Which seems to me to imply that the "Restricted - Possibly" means that the content is/was "Classified" (meaning it is a crime to leak it out, highly unlikely for this material) or "For Official Use Only" (means that, as a federal employee, you can get fired for releasing it, but it's not a crime).  Neither provide any impediment to inclusion on Wikisource, provided the content has already been made public, which it has.  Phillipedison1891 (talk) 12:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The stuff donated by a President to his Library is PD because the Library is $etup in conjunction with NARA (a Federal agency that only holds the stuff (~20 years) covered by the Presidential Records Act then that goes public as well). That former President dies and all bets are off except of course the truly classified national security stuff. All that other jazz on Wikipedia had nothing to do with Presidents. The regulations concerning the Records Act were returned to the Reagan "standards" by Obama in 2009 so the 1990 restriction was legit at the time - too bad its no longer in effect. -- George Orwell III (talk) 14:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Index:The Holy Bible, containing the Old & New Testament & the Apocrypha.djvu
Where are the subsequent volumes? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Holy crap. I knew work was being done, but I didn't expect it to be so fast. I can upload the other two later tonight. - Theornamentalist (talk) 20:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Here you go: Volume 2, Volume 3. - Theornamentalist (talk) 23:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * VOlume 3 has missing pages :(, Can you confirm this? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:55, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Music-Hall Selection...
Hi, it would be appreciated if the knowledgeable people here would be able to assist in suggesting poems and items that could be used to re-construct a music hall like revue. I'd be really interested in developing this is as an offshoot project assuming there is material available?

Inspired by a poem I found, which I found myself trying to figure out how it might be sung!ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:18, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Natural History Museum transcription project
Hi all

I'm working on something with the Natural History Museum in London where I am currently the Wikimedian in Residence.

The museum is scanning huge drawers full of species at very high resolution and I want to set up a transcription project for the labels, I'm thinking there are 2 options. I'd like to know, is there an automatic way of transferring pages of a transcribed pdf from wikisource to commons as seperate files? Also is it possible to add custom fields to a page or a document as a whole? The other option is to upload them straight to commons and use hidden categories to for unread proofread and validated. As far as i know this would be first citizen science project on a Wikimedia project.

Any advice would be appreciated

Many thanks

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 13:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * @Mrjohncummings Sounds like some fun you have got yourself into there. It is post pumpkin hour, so I am probably a bit slow, however, I am not catching the gist of your example of work, or what you are looking to do. Generally for works that are out of copyright, and in the public domain we put the scans at Commons, only hosting scans here where they are not in the public domain in their home country, so cannot be at Commons.  Are you talking specimen images alone, or specimen and text?  How many pages are we talking to the PDFs? I would think that it would be worth getting the opinion of  as he did Wikimedian in residence at NARA and has plenty of experience in the field. — billinghurst  sDrewth  15:32, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Index:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf Text complete
Any one want to play hunt the hyphen? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:13, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Could you be a bit more specific? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:20, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It need's red (Non-proofread) pages turning into green (validated ones). I've spent a while cleaning up the OCR, but I don't

trust my ability to spot every typographical or ocr error. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:36, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-23
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes.


 * Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)
 * The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf5) was added to non-Wikipedia wikis on May 29. It will be enabled on the English Wikipedia on June 3, and on all other Wikipedias on June 5.
 * The Tamil Wikipedia shared a Lua module they created to automate their Main Page.
 * There is now a test wiki to test new features in right-to-left languages.
 * The Thanks feature was added to the English Wikipedia; users can now thank others for individual edits.
 * The new interface for account creation and log-in is now the default on 30 wikis, including the English Wikipedia, Commons, Meta, and Wikidata. The feature will be added to all wikis after June 5. Users can return to the old look by [//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin?useNew=0 adding ?useNew=0] to the web address.
 * Videos are now played in pop-up windows if their size on the page is smaller than 200 pixels (800 pixels on the English Wikipedia).
 * Opening your talk page now marks notifications as read, for wikis using the Notifications feature. (bug 47912).
 * All autoconfirmed users can now reset transcoding of video files; previously only administrators could do this.
 * The Nearby feature allows people who use mobile devices to see Wikipedia articles about objects and places around them.


 * Future software changes:


 * The PostEdit feature is now part of MediaWiki, and will work on all wikis. (bug 48726)
 * The Narayam and WebFonts extensions will be replaced by the Universal Language Selector extension.
 * MediaWiki will now be updated every week, starting on June 6. Thanks to this, bugs will be fixed and features will be added faster than they are now.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Trademark discussion
Hi, apologies for posting this in English, but I wanted to alert your community to a discussion on Meta about potential changes to the Wikimedia Trademark Policy. Please translate this statement if you can. We hope that you will all participate in the discussion; we also welcome translations of the legal team’s statement into as many languages as possible and encourage you to voice your thoughts there. Please see the Trademark practices discussion (on Meta-Wiki) for more information. Thank you! --Mdennis (WMF) (talk)