Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help/Archives/2024

Floating images to the right mid-paragraph with captions
I've been trying to float an image (along with a caption) to the right in the Sandbox today (see recent edits), but the image needs to float mid-paragraph, while allowing the rest of the paragraph to sync together despite that. Anyone know how to do this? PseudoSkull (talk) 16:02, 24 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Why FreedImg instead of Img float? The latter should work properly. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Good point, my brain needed a zap. PseudoSkull (talk) 18:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Floating images use FreedImg/span. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The Singing Fool by Barrows
The Wikipedia article on the film  (1928) claims that it is based on a short story called "The Singing Fool" by Leslie Barrows, a pseudonym of. The film itself also confirms the fact that the story was based on a work (but it doesn't specify short story) by Barrows. Can anyone find where this short story originated? Which periodical was it, and what year was it first published? PseudoSkull (talk) 00:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * PseudoSkull: I don’t find any mention of it as a story, but this source speaks of it as it was a “book” written for the screenplay, although I’m not sure if that’s necessarily true. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 01:43, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * This seems spurious to me: sources today call this a "short story" or sometimes a "play" and I can find several books from the 1970s that call it a "play", but from The National Board of Review Magazine, 1926, p. 8, they list it as "original screen story", which seems the exact opposite of being an adaptation. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It sounds like it was just the screenplay written for the film. Those things never end up getting released, so listing it as a separate work here doesn't really make sense after all. Thanks for confirming. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Helping converting a page to use overfloat image
I'm trying to convert Page:Salomé- a tragedy in one act.djvu/9 to use overfloat image like I did for Page:Salomé- a tragedy in one act.djvu/7, but for some reason I can't get it to work. Any help would be appreciated. Nosferattus (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ You can tinker with some sizing and spacing, etc., but this is at least serviceable, I reckon. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it doesn't work for the transclusion: Salomé. Nosferattus (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It works now. If you have very large overfloat images, then it sometimes doesn't work as well. If you want to tinker with some of the widths and spacing, you can maybe make it a little prettier, but again, this is serviceable. If you need help that, let me know. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Replacing a djvu file cancelled post
Installed this copy which is full of pencil underlining. and must replace it with this cleaner but identical copy.

I accept the loss, but are there other issues that I should be concerned about? &#32;— ineuw (talk) 22:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * What do you mean when you say that you "installed" that copy? Where?  What did you do, and have you done anything other than that? --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * My apologies, uploaded it to the commons, and linked it to wikisource here: Index:Jesuit education, its history and principles viewed in the light of modern educational problems.djvu.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 22:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * What about the text layer? Now that you have created all the 700 pages, you will not get the new one (which is why has been stated several times that is is not a good practice to create red pages in bulk). Or you created the pages because you wanted the old one? Mpaa (talk) 23:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi. For replacement, I uploaded to the commons the new cleaner version titled "Jesuit Education" commons:Category:Jesuit Education (book).


 * Please delete the Index:Jesuit education, its history and principles viewed in the light of modern educational problems.djvu and the related pages, including the book on the commons, if possible. Both books have scribbles and notations, but this copy is cleaner. I can reconstruct the text from either scans. I keep copies of both in text, jp2 and djvu. I have copies of the proofread text. Please don't be concerned about them.


 * Pages creation really helps to get my bearings. It is created in my own fashion with a Python macro on my desktop or laptop. Without it I am lost. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 22:24, 2 January 2024 (UTC) &#32;— ineuw (talk) 00:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Bars in titles
I have some poems, for example there is one here, whose title contains a long bar, such as.

When I transclude it, I'll have to create a subpage, but you can't put a template in a page title, right ?

Does someone know how these long dashes should be represented in subpage titles ?

Thanks, Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 15:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * If you really have to, use the emdash char directly (\u2014). Mpaa (talk) 16:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I know but, when you put two em dashes next to each other, they do not show up right, there is a little break between the two, like this: ——
 * That is why I was asking specifically about longer bars. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 17:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case, the page title will not match the way you want it to, but you can pipe the display form. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What does piping the display form mean ? Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 18:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There are hard technical limitations to what is allowed for page names, but you can pipe in any display form DISPLAYNAME . The character | is sometimes called a "pipe". --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, that pipe. Ok! Thanks for the help anyway, I guess I'll just settle for multiple em dashes. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 18:14, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If it helps, you can see various approaches to this at To — —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Complex endnote situation
I'm adding a book that is in seven volumes (Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews): The first four volumes are the text, volume five is the endnotes for volumes one and two, volume six is the endnotes for volumes three and four, and volume seven is the index. (I guess I chose a challenge for my first addition to Wikisource!)

I was reading H:REF, but it wasn't exactly clear what I should do. Do I copy in the references from the separate volumes with tags? Do I transcribe volumes five and six separately and then somehow put in appropriate links/transclusions in volumes one through four? (In which case, I suppose I should do the notes volumes first.)

Please advise.

(I imagine the index is a whole other can of worms I can ask about when I get there.)

-Dave314159 (talk) 16:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Also, if I need to do the endnote volumes on their own first, what's the appropriate format to use? A table?  Or is there a template for this? - Dave314159 (talk) 20:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dave314159: Tackling that work as your first project here and on your own is utter insanity, and I strongly urge you to find some easier works to start with before you go to the magnum opus. Your odds of getting any significant way on that one without burning out are slim if one looks at the history of such efforts here.But if you cannot be dissuaded, you are probably looking for authority reference. I've never had to use it myself, so I can't vouch for how well it works in practice, but it does seem to be made for this use case. Xover (talk) 20:08, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover, My plan is to get it started (and get some of the hard parts figured out, if not out of the way completely), then recruit some folks to help slog through the page-by-page editing of the main text. Is that still utter insanity?  I'm shooting for "attainably ambitious".
 * - Dave314159 (talk) 23:44, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As your first work I'd say it's still insane. You need some experience before you start seeing how it's smart to approach certain issues, and before that you'll be prone to make things more difficult for yourself and your would-be helpers than is necessary, to get pushback from the community on the ways you're doing some things, create a future cleanup need, etc. I am also curious where you plan to recruit your helpers from. It is rare to find people interested in contributing to Wikisource that do not already have their hands full with their own pet texts. It'd be great if you pulled it off, but if your plan depends on others I'd suggest recruiting them first.It'd be awesome if you pull it off, and it has been done before, but large text + complex text + contributor's first project equals an unsustainable combination in my experience. I'd like people to stay around as contributors for years and years, not burn out and quit in frustration on their first project. Xover (talk) 08:59, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

OCR shifted by one page
A few volumes of the text I'm working on (volume seven, for example) have the OCR text shifted by one page. How should I deal with this? Is there some fix? Did I do something wrong when I used ia-upload? (And would re-doing it properly fix it?)

- Dave314159 (talk) 17:08, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Have you tried purging relevant pages? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I just tried that on a few random pages, and it didn't seem to make any kind of difference. Good to know it exists, though. - Dave314159 (talk) 19:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Odd. When I pull up currently redlink pages, such as Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 7.djvu/19, the OCR text is appropriate and makes sense for the opposing page. Maybe you can logout/login again or close your browser and flush its cache, etc.? A kind of "turn it off, turn it back on again" solution should work. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I cleared my cache, tried multiple browsers on two different devices, and It's still shifted by one every time. I even cleared the cache on my router and also checked it on my phone with mobile data.
 * I suppose the solution may be to just re-OCR the pages.
 * - Dave314159 (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ia-upload has this bug. I have stopped using it long ago. The issue was reported but nobody cares. Scan lab is the right place to report these issues. Mpaa (talk) 20:52, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dave314159 I uploaded a new version and fixed Index accordingly. Hope everything is OK. Mpaa (talk) 21:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mpaa, Thank you!
 * It looks like volumes 2, 5, and 6 have the same issue. Could you please work your magic?
 * - Dave314159 (talk) 21:09, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dave314159 Done. Mpaa (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! - Dave314159 (talk) 23:47, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Index:The Valley of Fear.pdf
Anyone willing to complete this? I cannot proceed further. Thanks. Mpaa (talk) 22:02, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ Looks like a couple of editors are wrapping it up with validation as I'm writing this comment. Great work. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Koavf @ ‎TeysaKarlov Thanks! Mpaa (talk) 22:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Citations in the Scanned Encyclopaedia Britannica Pages
Does the encyclopaedia britannica have any citations? I was looking at the scanned page for Spes, and neither the book or the scan has any citations. Does it have any or are they just somewhere else? I'm not an editor or anything, I was just trying to find the origin of Spes as a nature goddess, and every website seems to be copy & pasting the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica 644 SPERMACETI—SPEUSIPPUS page, and I was wondering if the encyclopaedia cites anything. Thank you! 162.217.74.29 22:17, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Correct. The encyclopedia article you're probably referring to, located at 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spes, did not contain any citations in the form of footnotes. It does (loosely) cite a German book called Religion und Kultus der Römer (1902) for the statement at the end of it, though. The scan of the page, used as evidence of what's in the text, is located at Page:EB1911 - Volume 25.djvu/666.
 * Wikisource only aims to provide the material as it was written by the authors. If the original source didn't contain citations, we're obliged not to add any ourselves, to stay true to the original text of the work (even if the information in it is inaccurate, outdated, biased, or poorly substantiated).
 * I'm not knowledgable about Roman mythology, because classical works aren't my area. Maybe EncycloPetey can help guide your research. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There is an article about Spes on page 893 of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870 edition). The DGRBM is much more useful for citing its sources. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:54, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Two small things
Hi. I'v been werking on The Constitution of India, and I need help whith two desianing mesars. The one is crieting a ref tag that uses * instet of nombers (usefol in page 68 for exsempal) and the other is creating two laires of texst thet stay togaver in a formate similer to a mathe eqution (usefol in page 67 by 159). Thenks, איש עיטי (talk) 19:36, 14 January 2024 (UTC)


 * For the first issue, you might want to use reference groups. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 19:46, 14 January 2024 (UTC)


 * For the second, you want dual line. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:00, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
 * thenks, buoth of you. איש עיטי (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

What is the process for moving an author page to the portal namespace?
I created Author:Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798) to list works about Fitzgerald only to realize that he has not authored works available for inclusion in Wikisource. (I haven't found his archived letters published before 1929). The page Portal guidelines mentions moving pages from author to portal namespace but doesn't say how to do that. People who have not authored any works themselves can be represented by a portal. Example: Portal:Joe Hooper. […] These pages may move between the Portal and Author namespaces as more information becomes available.

Are only certain users able to move pages between namespaces?

Lovelano (talk) 01:03, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I've moved the page to Portal:Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798). I will also update the header for the Portal namespace. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:29, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for moving and updating the header!
 * Lovelano (talk) 01:36, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * (In theory, his letters could be included on Wikisource, especially since they're all PD-old. So eventually this can become an author page.) PseudoSkull (talk) 20:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Categorisation of authors
I am trying to wrap my head around how authors are categorised. In the Authors category, there is a subcategory called Authors by occupation. In this category, numerous occupation categories can be found following the naming scheme [occupation] as authors. This seems logical to me, although I am not sure why the categories are not simply named by the occupation, forgoing the as authors part.

There then exists a sister category called Authors by type. This seems to contain a mix of what may be considered a type (novelists, podcasters) but also what may be considered professions (governors, professors).

To complicate matters further, there is a third sister category called Occupations. This category seems to contain occupation subcategories but without the as authors naming scheme. The subcategories are empty of pages and contain a template declaring them to be meta categories. I have not found any good explanation as to why they exist and what they offer that the categorisation mentioned in the first paragraph does not. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 01:40, 16 January 2024 (UTC)


 * See H:CAT for more. However, you're looking at works categories vs author categories here. Category:Occupations is a works category. So, for example, works about shoemakers. Thus quite distinct from "Shoemakers as authors". Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:27, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Your comment has helped me realise that the Occupations category is being used for works, as you mentioned, but also authors, as I mentioned. After all it is a child of the categories Works by subject and Authors. Then each subcategory within Occupations will have its subcategories, Biographies of [occupation] (for works) and [Occupation] as authors (for authors).‎ It seems a bit circular but at least I am beginning to wrap my head around the logic of it. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Help is asked with my an image overlay
Can someone please look at these pages where I am trying to assemble this image and text as an image with a text overlay on this page. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 04:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Section transclusion
Hello (again). I'm trying to transclude the poem The journey of life by Author:William Cullen Bryant, which is spread across pages 225 and 226 of the source. I'm using the code, but it doesn't work — it just transcludes p. 226. I have added the necessary label to p. 225 and triple-checked the spelling on both ends to no avail. What am I doing wrong? Thanks, Cremastra (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Nevermind, I think I figured out the glitch: there was a centre template applied to the whole text, so that the section was inside the template... anyway, I believe I fixed it. Cremastra (talk) 23:01, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Sheet music in film


I need help transcribing the sheet music in this film screenshot. That one line is all that's shown. Any takers? SnowyCinema (talk) 06:39, 20 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Try this:


 * Score automatically centre unless you wrap them in a block alignment template. An initial repeat sign requires a lot of arcane fiddling to make it happen and still look okay, some of which is not permitted on MediaWiki sites because it requires Guile statements. Thus I haven't attempted to reproduce that. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)


 * SnowyCinema: I’ve added the repeat. Beeswaxcandle: You can just use  instead of trying to make an “actual” open repeat with   or somesuch. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 19:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay. Because I would never use an initial bar line before the first note (it's bad music typographic practice) when setting scores away from here, this didn't occur to me. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 21:59, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding links to Wikipedia/Wiktionary
I recently added links to WP and Wiktionary to provide context for obscure words, then realized this seems to be a pretty controversial issue. Should I a) undo these additions, b) leave them as is, or c) do something else? Here are the links I added: Thanks. Cremastra (talk) 22:13, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Special:Diff/13795333 — Hakim (title), seems obscure and is useful to the comprehension of the poem
 * Special:Diff/13795330 – Suakim (redirects to Suakin), and hubshee: both archaic words that are relevant to the poem.
 * I belong to those who believe such links should be used only very exceptionally, if at all. But if you have already added them, do not bother about it too much, you can leave them and if somebody will find them disturbing, they will remove them. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It's nonsense. I am using them for over 10 years. I regularly link words to Wiktionary and Wikipedia. The links exist for the benefit of the readers. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 06:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * My impression is that opinions vary both by user and possibly by type of work, I wouldn't worry too much one way or the other. MarkLSteadman (talk) 04:28, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * . Thanks. The words "controversial issue" worried me because I thought it was a technical issue. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 04:34, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There are technical components (e.g. how links display on various devices causing undue emphasis) but that is not really the main issue, which has more to do people's beliefs about their "value" and "cost" as well as faithfulness to the text. The particular example mentioned here is mentioned as acceptable in the policy: Wikilinks but that does not mean people find it desirable. MarkLSteadman (talk) 04:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Ineuw: That you've done something for ten years does not make it policy, it just means nobody has called you on it yet. Neither version of our links policy permitted linking words inside a poem to a Wikipedia article. Wiktionary links are permitted for cases such as the one asked about here, but only very sparingly. Xover (talk) 06:22, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Policy??? Please point to the "policy" in print. Until I see it, I prefer 's reply for it's rationality.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 14:10, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Ineuw: See the policy link in Mark's message above. Xover (talk) 14:24, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Specically: "With poetry or fiction, little or no wikilinking may be more appropriate.  However, archaic or obscure words may be wikilinked to their definitions on Wiktionary to aid the reader" There is the last passage about older works and cultural references, however ... MarkLSteadman (talk) 14:43, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I did read it earlier and doesn't apply to my use of the links.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Normal and CSS Styles
It seems the normal template cannot be used to override Styles formatting. See Page:Sunset Gun.pdf/15. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Is this meant to be Font-variant normal instead? The current implementation of normal is overriding the styles formatting by replacing the style with "wst-normal-body", no? MarkLSteadman (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Or are you proposing we turn normal into font-style|normal and only adjust the font-style attribute instead? MarkLSteadman (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @EncycloPetey: normal only resets italics, not small-caps or other formatting. For small-caps you want font-variant normal. You can also do custom formatting for a cell through Index Styles by adding a unique class to a table cell or row (choice depends on which approach is least tedious to do).PS. There are some naming conventions for CSS classes at Help:Page styles. You don't want to use "work_toc" as a class because it might clash with a class from a template, extension, skin, etc. Use  (yes, just an underscore at the beginning) or, if the underscore bugs you, use the actual work's name  . If you need a throwaway class name for a single thing use two underscores .@ShakespeareFan00: Think first, modify stuff later, ok? :) Xover (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we need to start a page indexing these templates, each with a short explanation of what they do. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I updated normal stylesheet to do the smallcaps escaping as well. It also meant I could migrate a vast number of uses of normalcaps which should be deprecated at as duplicate of . It would be nice if someone could look at all of these and others like nobold and noitalic/upright with a view to having ONE consistent naming approach.
 * For reasons normal doesn't cancel bold formating because of some specfic use cases in EB1911. If specfic uses cases can be resolved, I've got no objections to being a standard format canceller/"escape" template.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you can explain why Templatestyles DO NOT work for span based elements?
 * Page:Frank_Packard_-_Greater_Love_Hath_No_Man.djvu/13
 * This is despite setting up an "Appropriate" CSS rule in the TemplateStyles for normal
 * ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @ShakespeareFan00: normal is documented to only cancel italic formatting. That it is possible to do something does not necessarily make it a good idea to actually do it.I also do not understand what problem it is you're seeing in the linked page, so some explanation would be nice. Xover (talk) 06:46, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Page:Frank_Packard_-_Greater_Love_Hath_No_Man.djvu/13&oldid=13804138 the continued ends up being small-caps despite applying a tweaked normal to it. This shouldn't be happening as the CSS rules were set up such that a wst-normal-body inside smallcaps should revert to being normal formatting. I fixed it by converting it to use font-variant normal as suggested. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @ShakespeareFan00: TemplateStyles do not work when the first instance of it is inside a wikilink. If there is at least one invocation of the template outside a wikilink and before the one inside the wikilink, it works fine. It's a known issue with no easy solution (but an half-ugly workaround: put a dummy call to the template in the header). Xover (talk) 10:48, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What I was attempting to do was set-up 'escaping' rules in the style-sheets (see Italic block's style for one use case, where thanks to template Styles it's possible to use   as escapes (meaning a lot of calls can be eleminated. It would be nice if someone sat down and has a look at boldblock/nobold as well. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 10:56, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Further trouble with section transclusion
I'm trying to transclude the poem The Irish Guards from Index:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu, which is split across three pages, starting halfway through one and ending halfway through another. 242, 243, and 244. Once again, the entire third page (244) is getting transcluded, instead of stopping at the label. I'm using the code. Please, what is going wrong? Thanks, Cremastra (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)


 * It doesn't stop at the label, it transcludes the section between to the section begin and section end tags on the "to" page. So that would include only the new poem at the bottom of the page, and not the the portion above it. MarkLSteadman (talk) 19:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank-you very much, I have fixed it. Cremastra (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Lua error: Failed to deserialize data
I'm working on Module:WD version, and I'm getting this error when I invoke the module on Template:WD version/testcases and when I use mw.log in the debug console. Help? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 19:39, 21 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @CalendulaAsteraceae I think you have a problem here: --> local formattedStatements = mw.wikibase.formatValues(statements)
 * another way could be: local formattedStatements = item:formatStatements(args.prop, {mw.wikibase.entity.claimRanks.RANK_PREFERRED, mw.wikibase.entity.claimRanks.RANK_NORMAL}), skipping the getBestStatements before.
 * Mpaa (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, this was helpful! —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:32, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Mpaa (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC) OK, you mentioned it above :-)

Index page strange alignment
Does anyone know why Index:The Floral Fortune-teller.djvu has its information right-aligned instead of the usual layout? --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @EncycloPetey: Yes, I’m using it for experimentation. Feel free to blank the Index Styles page if you want to work on it and the weirdness is getting in the way. Xover (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As long as it's a deliberate thing for experimentation purposes, then I totally understand. My concern was that there might be some unintended cause at play. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * EncycloPetey, Xover Perhaps there could be something that prevents using a not nested html element (ie. table and not .contents table) in styles.css?--RaboKarbakian (talk) 20:49, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Progress bars
What happened to progress bars that showed the number of pages validated, proofread, not proofread etc? Are they coming back? I found them very useful Joannaszulcm (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * They stopped working and were generating errors. We're waiting for a code update soon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:07, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * and when might that update be? more or less? Joannaszulcm (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Sometime soon, but I do not know the exact day that the update will be implemented here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The underlying issue in Proofread Page should hit just about now if all goes according to plan. I haven't checked the state of our local workarounds so it may need further action here after that's done. Xover (talk) 17:39, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I've undone the local workarounds in Module:Index progress; everything should be back to normal now. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 22:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * thank you so much! Joannaszulcm (talk) 21:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Lua: for loop over pairs skips arguments
In Module:Citation, one of the first things I do with the arguments is this:

However, when I run this the logs are "contribution-url to contributionurl" "title to title" "contribution to contribution" "date to date" "publication-date to publicationdate" which shows that not all of the arguments are being processed. What should I do? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 04:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Adding fields while iterating is not allowed Mpaa (talk) 10:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * That makes sense; thank you! —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 16:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Index pages behind the scene: form data binding
I am working on an inactive Wikisource project and need to figure out how the information that appears on index pages (Title, Author, Year etc) is bound to the form that appears in the edit mode. I am attempting to update the messages (MediaWiki namespace) and modules that begin with Proofreadpage, such as MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template and Module:Proofreadpage index template, to be in line with the latest revision of this project (except localised) but it all sort of looks like magic to me.

As I understand it, MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template is the backend for index pages, but how it all comes together I can not say. Our current version of that message has some localised parameters but I can not figure out where they are coming from and how they bind to the information that appears on index pages and the form that appears when index pages are being edited. I attempted to copy-paste the English versions into our project and then localise them but that just broke index pages completely and the binding between form fields and index information. I also got seemingly nonsensical Lua errors about Module:Proofreadpage index template not existing, which it very much does. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 13:16, 23 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson: It's not magic but it's not at all easy to understand how it's all connected, and there are several moving parts here.The main piece you're missing is probably MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index data config.json. It's what actually configures the Index fields Proofread Page knows about. It then wraps these fields in a call to MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template for storage (it's stored as wikitext, but with a custom extension-provided editing interface), and its output is what gets rendered on an Index: page. On enWS Proofreadpage index template just calls Module:Proofreadpage index template, but you could just use template code for it directly. Our module is a bit awkward just now because we're in the middle of a slow transition, but ignoring that it should mostly just work on any other Wikisource given the other pieces of the puzzle are in place.Other important pages are: MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality0 message, MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality1 message, MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality2 message, MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality3 message, MediaWiki:Proofreadpage quality4 message (for the text describing the quality levels); and MediaWiki:Proofreadpage header template (the template Proofread Page calls when you give a  parameter to the   tag).Good luck getting everything running, and do feel free to ask for help here. Xover (talk) 14:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover: I have faithfully copy-pasted the English messages, templates and modules that begin with Proofread in their names to my local project. I have only localised MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index data config.json. Some of the messages, such as the ones beginning with Proofreadpage quality need not be created as they appear to exist on translatewiki.net.
 * Before I updated MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template, I could notice that on index pages, the localisation was taking place, but the binding between form fields in edit mode and index properties (or values or whatever they are called) was severed. I hoped that once I updated MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template, the binding would be restored and everything would work, but alas, when I view index pages I get: "Lua error in mw.text.lua, line 25: bad argument #1 to 'match' (string expected, got nil)." I will share some links with you to my local equivalent of the pages we have discussed.
 * is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template
 * is:Template:Proofreadpage index template
 * is:Module:Proofreadpage index template
 * is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index data config.json (localised)
 * is:Special:RandomRootpage/Index (random index, Lua error)
 * Any help would be much appreciated. I realise that a foreign language project is an extra challenge. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 02:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson: I'm looking into it. I'm pretty sure I know what's going on, but there're some tricky issues related to this being an existing Wikisource that I need to figure out before pinpointing a fix. In the mean time it's best not to edit any pages in the Index: (Frumrit:) namespace. Xover (talk) 13:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover: You will have my eternal gratitude if you manage to fix it. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson: Ok, I think I've got a handle on this.What's going on is… When you edit a page in the Index: namespace, Proofread Page reads the configuration in s:is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index data config.json and constructs an edit form with fields based on that config. It populates the fields with the values it reads from the Index:. Before the field configuration was moved to a JSON file Proofread Page used s:is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index attributes for this configuration. Once you're done changing the edit form and hit the "Publish" button, Proofread Page grabs the current values of the fields, wraps them in a call to s:is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index template, and writes that to the database. When MediaWiki goes to display a wikipage in the Index: namespace it (grossly simplified) finds a more-or-less normal wiki page, calls the template with the arguments and values provided, and returns the results to the web browser.The existing Index: pages on isWS were created before you imported s:is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index data config.json, so Proofread Page used s:is:MediaWiki:Proofreadpage index attributes when constructing the edit form, and then saved those key names as parameters. The reason it's blowing up when displaying the Index: now is that s:is:Module:Proofreadpage index template isn't getting any of the parameters it's expecting (i.e. those with the same names as the JSON config), because what's actually saved are the Icelandic parameter names. When you try to edit an Index:, Proofread Page uses the JSON config, not the template, and hence it doesn't blow up, but since there is no data saved in those parameters it just displays an empty edit form. If you save an empty form you'll get an Index: with the new parameter names but with no data in any field.The quickest fix is probably to just delete the JSON config and revert the template to the previous version. If the Index: pages look ok then, then it is probably also safe to edit them.The more involved fix is to have a bot convert all the old parameter names to equivalent parameter names that exist in the JSON config (and that the module knows to look for). I can run a bot through for you, but you'll need to tell me the correct mapping for the following parameters (I can guess some of them, but better if you provide the mapping):
 * Afnotaleyfi
 * Ár
 * Athugasemdir
 * Bindayfirlit
 * Bindi
 * Frumrit
 * Höfundur
 * Mynd
 * Ritstjóri
 * Röðun
 * Síður
 * Staða
 * Staður
 * Titill
 * Útgefandi
 * Þýðandi
 * All of these have been present at some point and exist in the existing Index: pages, but not all of them have been used and not all of the ones that have been used are sensible to preserve. e.g. one of them is a general comment field (that sort of thing should go on the talk page), and one of them is "Original source" (that should go on the associated File: description page).Once the existing Index: pages have been converted you'll have… Index: pages showing with English-language labels, because I haven't made the module internationalized yet. It should (I hope) be fairly straightforward to make the visible strings configurable, so that you can localize them in the /config, but it might be a while until I have time to sit down and get it done. Whether you want to go the simple route or the more involved route is up to you. Now is not the greatest time to be importing the enWS module because it's in the middle of a migration so it contains a lot of mostly duplicate code, and some stuff that's just cobbled together temporarily. On the other hand, you are certainly going to want to move to a JSON config and a module-backed index template eventually, so it might be just as well to take the pain now while you're getting the project up and running again rather than later on down the road. I'm happy to help either way, but I can't guarantee my response time. Xover (talk) 21:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover: On the Icelandic Wikisource there is an agreement to simply copy-paste English-language templates and modules and only make the necessary changes to localise what the reader sees, not what the editor sees (such as template names and parameters). We reached this conclusion late last year due to the low activity in recent years and the added work of translating everything. I have deleted nearly all the native templates and replaced them with the current revisions of the enws ones. This way we will be able to update things as they are improved here and adopt new features with the least amount of re-engineering.
 * I have posted a notice on the local noticeboard about the index namespace being currently out of order as things are updated. I think we should carry on with the more involved route. Better to future-proof the project once and for all.
 * As I understand it, the list of parameters you gave me are supposed to map onto values in the JSON file. The problem is that I can not find corresponding values for all of them. Here is my translation with notes:
 * Afnotaleyfi = License
 * This means license, or more literally, usage license. There does not appear to be any such value in the JSON file.
 * Ár = Year
 * Athugasemdir = Remarks
 * The JSON file contains both Remarks, which this most likely maps onto, but also Notes. The word can mean either really.
 * Bindayfirlit = Volumes
 * Since volume in Icelandic is uncountable, this is probably supposed to correspond to Volumes in the JSON file. It literally means volume overview.
 * Bindi = Volume
 * Frumrit = Source
 * This can mean original (noun) and I suppose source too. For some reason the original editor of the project also chose to use this word for the index namespace. Maybe index sounded too generic to them for source material.
 * Höfundur = Author
 * Mynd = Image
 * Ritstjóri = Editor
 * Röðun = Sorting
 * This is most likely the key value in the JSON file which is used for sorting.
 * Síður = Pages
 * Staða = Progress
 * This literally means status but I can see why they would use it for progress.
 * Staður = Address
 * This literally means place. I think it is the Address value in the JSON file.
 * Titill = Title
 * Útgefandi = Publisher
 * Þýðandi = Translator
 * I notice that some of the values in the JSON file are not there. They include: Type, Language, Illustrator, School, ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, BNF_ARK, ARC, DOI, Transclusion, Validation_date, Width, Header, Footer, Notes. Maybe they were added to enws in a later revision, after the translation took place on isws. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 04:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson: Ok, I've migrated the existing Index: pages so they use English parameter names under the hood, and it looks like it's working now. Index: pages should be safe to edit again now, and should now use the parameters from the JSON file. When you edit an existing Index: now you may see "phantom" changes in the diff. This is because the JSON config provides default values for some parameters that are not present in the old Index: pages. This should be entirely harmless.I didn't preserve the Afnotaleyfi parameter, mainly because that would require editing the JSON config which in turn requires +sysop. I also strongly suggest you do not put this information on the Index: page, in favour of using licensing templates on the mainspace where it is transcluded. If you do want to have this field you can just edit the JSON config to add it (let me know if you need help with this).Also, as mentioned, all the user-visible field names in Index: pages are in English now (they'll be in Icelandic when you edit it). I plan to make these strings configurable so you can localize them, but I make no promises about when I'll get around to it. At the same time I'll look into making the various automatically added category names configurable too, but those might be harder to do.Other than that you should be good to go. Feel free to grab me if you find something broken (or if there's anything else I can help with). If you drop a note on my user talk page on isWS I'll get a notification, which might be more reliable than a ping. Xover (talk) 21:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover: Is getting the categories/fields localised not just a matter of localising Module:Proofreadpage index template and/or Module:Proofreadpage index template/config? Is there some way to view Index: pages in a raw form?
 * It's the "just" that's the problem. If you edit the module directly it'll get overwritten the next time you import from upstream (here). So the plan is to internationalize the module here, so that you (and any other project that wants to import it) can localize it using configuration that stays unchanged even if the code changes (i.e. either in /config or in a separate /strings, or some other suitable way). Internationalizing the code is a middling large job, complicated by the fact the code is in the middle of a migration here (lots of duplicate code etc.), which is why I'm saying I can't commit to any particular timeline for it. I realize it's annoying to have English labels for the fields when the Index is displayed, but there's no quick fix for that.There's no on-wiki way to view the raw markup for Index: pages that I'm aware of. You have to do it through the API (which was why I had to use a bot to migrate the indexes on isWS even though there are just 19 of them). Xover (talk) 10:51, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover: I see what you mean. It would be very nice and thoughtful of enws to structure its templates and modules in such a way as to make them easily importable. I created a template to be included on /doc subpages of templates and modules explaining that the page in question was imported and should be changed as little as possible during localisation. In most cases, nearly nothing has to be done other than change strings which can then be copy-pasted back into later revisions when an update is brought in from enws, with the help of diff. This works in most cases and only a few things such as Module:Author need to be modified as the code for processing birth and death dates for categorisation is very English-specific. The template I created states that any further modification behond string localisation should be documented in the /doc subpage of the page in question. I think that this approach will have to do for now. I just figured out that I can use AutoWikiBrowser to view the row content of Index: pages. Thank you so much for all your help. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 11:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Lua equivalents of #time and #dateformat?
Working on Module:Citation, one issue I've run into is that citation is doing some things with parser functions that I'm not sure how to replicate in Lua. Specifically, I'd like to accomplish the following without resorting to frame:callParserFunction: —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 22:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Maybe https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto/Lua_reference_manual#mw.language:formatDate Mpaa (talk) 21:54, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @CalendulaAsteraceae:
 * But… Why are you faffing about with a citation template that 1) we generally shouldn't use (there are very few legitimate use cases for citation templates), and 2) we certainly shouldn't base on citation if we were to use it, since it was obsoleted by the CS1/2 modules on enWP years ago? Xover (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mpaa: Thanks!
 * @Xover: Thank you! TBH this was mostly a Lua-learning exercise for me. I wouldn't have wanted to sink too much time into it, but a couple days was fine and I actually think I learned a lot. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 23:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Mpaa: Thanks!
 * @Xover: Thank you! TBH this was mostly a Lua-learning exercise for me. I wouldn't have wanted to sink too much time into it, but a couple days was fine and I actually think I learned a lot. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 23:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Download/print sidebar
I am trying to find where the source of the sidebar "Download/print" is located. I know that MediaWiki:Sidebar stores the source for the navigation section above it. I need to make a modification to the sidebar in a sister project. Stefán Örvar Sigmundsson (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Blank ppoem throws a stray DIV.
Specifcally:- Generates:- ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)


 * What is the purpose of such call? Mpaa (talk) 21:23, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, and…? Xover (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The blank call was found in reference to code in Tpp where a blank ppoem call had arisen in the absence of a quoted portion. tpp should be made substable and removed. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I updated it to keep it from generating empty poems, if it helps. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 16:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Rapunzel
The WD author does not work in the third row of the list in Rapunzel, with the message "Lua error in Module:WD_version at line 41: attempt to index field 'datavalue' (a nil value)." Any ideas what is wrong? -- Jan Kameníček (talk) 19:20, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I suspect that the data values at Wikidata are incompatible with the needs of the template for displaying information here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The documentation for WD author states it's for Author pages. Rapunzel is a work page, so there may be something odd going on there. [Doesn't mean I agree with it's use, but that's a different debate.] Beeswaxcandle (talk) 21:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Beeswaxcandle you are right, Rapunzel is not an author page and normally would use WD version. WD author does not display the author name and it was decided to use it for Grimm versions as all of these have the same author.  This was not my idea, however, I did agree with it.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 12:58, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Images don’t center in PDF export
(Tagging RaboKarbakian, who found this.) If an image is marked with “|center|” it doesn’t center on PDF export (it sits at the left). See, e.g., Millions of Cats. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Artemis Accords doesn’t export
Trying to download a PDF of Artemis Accords leads to a lengthy error message. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 16:34, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks like a problem with the execution environment. Phab filed, plus ping @Samwilson. --Xover (talk) 17:45, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Looks like T357242 is a dupe, but I saw that task first (because I have the bad habit of going from bottom to top in my emails!). It was an issue with the temp directory filling up. It's cleared now and the exports should be working again, and it will hopfully not happen again (have put a fix in place). Sam Wilson 09:41, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

error messages
what's going on in A Pickle for the Knowing Ones? ltbdl (talk) 12:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Ltbdl: Thanks for the report. It should be fixed now.@CalendulaAsteraceae: It was an undeclared variable tripping up 'no globals'. Regression test added here. Note also that this shows up an issue with handling "c." (it gets doubled). Xover (talk) 12:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I have also fixed the "c." issue now. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 18:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Opposite of Template:Pageonly
Is there any template that does the opposite of Template:Pageonly, i.e., that shows a particular text only if it is on a page with a namespace different from "Page"? -Dziego~enwiki (talk) 17:44, 11 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Dziego~enwiki: Uhm. "Yes"? But maybe you could describe your use case in a little more detail (concrete examples are good), so we can better help you? Xover (talk) 10:21, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
 * For example, the footnotes in Page:Holy Bible Berean Standard Bible.pdf/119. In the page, the numbers shown only refer to the verse number (e.g. 12, 18, 22, 28). But if I try to transclude the page to the main namespace, for example, to Bible (Berean Standard)/Exodus, ideally the footnotes should include the chapter number (e.g: 34:12, 34:18, 34:22, 34:28) for ease of reference. The template would be like:  Dziego~enwiki (talk) 13:17, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * have you tried Page other? For example  shows 18 in the Page: and 34:18 in other namespaces. M-le-mot-dit (talk) 15:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @M-le-mot-dit That's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you. Dziego~enwiki (talk) 15:27, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dziego~enwiki: That wikipage is 75 printed A4-sized pages. Instead of getting fancy with templates and making custom navigation that doesn't exist in the text as published it would be better to rethink the structure. If you put each chapter on its own (sub)page the need for navigation and dynamic verse numbers goes away. Generally, and as a rule of thumb, whenever you go looking for a template that changes output based on namespace you should step back and rethink your approach. There are valid uses for such templates, but in most cases the need for one is a red flag that something in your approach needs a critical assessment. Xover (talk) 15:48, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover I was trying to follow the same structure of other Bibles in Wikisource, like Bible (American Standard)/Genesis, but I think that you are right about adding subpages for each chapter. I'll probably create them when all pages are proofread. Dziego~enwiki (talk) 15:31, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Scan page link links the wrong page. What am I missing?
The first entry of this table of contents | places me on page 2. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 23:12, 13 February 2024 (UTC)


 * From the first (bold line) of the documentation, scan page link uses an offset for the second parameter. So, for indices where the offset never changes, like in your example, you would use, , etc., as the djvu number is always offset from the page number by 22. If the offset is not constant (depending on how blank pages/images are dealt with), or if you find this confusing, you can use  , which has the parameters flipped around, but is perhaps more intuitive, i.e.  , would put a link to djvu/23 and display a "1" in the table of contents. Hope that makes sense. TeysaKarlov (talk) 03:44, 14 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Much thanks for the excellent explanation.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 05:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

== Executive Order on Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government to Provide a Unified and Effective Response to Combat COVID-19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security ==

Why does Lua run out of memory on what should be a simple document? Did someone change an extensively used template in this over to Lua? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Looking for formatting template
Sorry about vague title but my problem is precisely that I do not know how I should call it.

Text is sometimes presented sort of turned, like the line above the image there.

Does someone know if there is a template to do that (or if it should be done) ?

I looked around but did not find it.

Thanks, Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 13:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC)


 * CSS doesn't do text along a path. Wikimedia doesn't (yet) have a post-script module, so LaTeX/pstricks is not available here either.  You can use an image for this, but a non-silent majority of the editors here would prefer just simple xxx-larger text.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 15:44, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll settle for xxx-larger - Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 18:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Template for factotum initials
Is there a way to use Template:Dropinitial or similar to produce factotum initials?

For instance, I scanned and cleaned up the factotum initial to the right with the letter T, for a text I'm transcribing. I put the T in the SVG and used the whole thing like an ordinary drop cap image.

I'd prefer to have the SVG with an empty frame, and have Dropinitial superimpose the letter over it. Is that doable? Marnanel (talk) 22:56, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I'd love to try to help with this, but your link to Category:factotum initials doesn't link to anything, so I'm not sure what you are referring to. —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 15:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * According to commons, they're (c:Category:Factotum initials) Cremastra (talk) 22:12, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No, there's no way to do this with di. It's also excessively complicated. Just use a regular image for these. If MediaWiki ever allows that level of dynamic content for SVG it might be possible in a sane way, but for the foreseeable future the answer is no. Xover (talk) 08:20, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Search help
What do I need to enter in the search box that will only find specific values in the header template author field, in my case John Keats? Thanks Chrisguise (talk) 01:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Depending how much precision you want,
 * filter for mainspace pages at Special:WhatLinksHere/Author:John Keats
 * PetScan search for pages that have header template and link to Author:John Keats
 * search for pages with header template and insource:/author[*=[ ]*(John )?Keats/ ]
 * —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:21, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @CalendulaAsteraceae: Be very very careful when using insource:// searches. They are extremely expensive and only one can run on the site at a time, so unless you know what you're doing the odds are you'll end up with a query that times out and in the meanwhile blocking others from such searches. It's not something I would recommend casually to most normal users. Xover (talk) 05:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @XoverThank you. I'd been trying to figure out how to do something with the 'insource' approach based on the search link from disambiguation pages, but I'll keep away from that. Chrisguise (talk) 07:32, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Drop initials sit too high?
I'm trying to create a drop initial that is only *slightly* larger than the surrounding text (here). However, when I set the font-size of the drop initial to "larger", it also shifts it up higher than the surrounding text, instead of dropping below. Does anyone know why this is? —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 15:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Ok, I did some experimenting at User:Beleg Tâl/Sandbox and found the source of the problem: the template style sheet Template:Dropinitial/styles.css hard-codes the line-height of the dropinitial at 1em, which is smaller than the default line-height of 1.6em in the Vector skin.
 * So now the question is ... why are drop initials hard-coded to a smaller line-height? —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 15:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I remember this happening for a reason, at the time, but I cannot recall the details. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:08, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Drop initials are a horrible hack. You can do one drop initial with every aspect fixed fairly reliably, but generalising it is impossible (one major reason is that the "correct" value for several aspects is relative to the computed font size and line height of the surroundings, which is not exposed to CSS). So di is and will always be for "rough approximation" that will fall down when things around it change.The only way to get really reliable drop-initials is for browsers to implement them natively. There's a draft spec and several of the big browsers support it, but Firefox has zero support and the support in other browsers comes with several caveats. We're a lot closer now than e used to be, but there's at least several years left before we can do these properly.In the mean time, my strong recommendation would be to futz as little as possible with di. Setting the size of the initial is fine, as is using an image. But all further tuning you do is essentially going to turn into a backlog at some point, potentially one that needs to be dealt with manually, and the more tweaking you do the harder it will be to migrate once we get a real solution for it. Xover (talk) 08:37, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, you may sub like this $undefined$ONGS ( $undefined$ONGS ) M-le-mot-dit (talk) 10:21, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I tried this adjustment. If it is not what you meant, feel free to revert it. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 00:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Or just like this. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 01:00, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Beleg Âlt, I changed the letters with an image for a closer facsimile. If you want to see two different implementations with the same result,  see this sandbox User:Ineuw/notes7&#32;— ineuw (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Add a listing of subpages
I have moved many standalone pages that are part of The Works of Henry Fielding into subpages, e.g. A Sailor's Song (Fielding) to The Works of Henry Fielding/A Sailor's Song. I then created a base page: The Works of Henry Fielding. I'd like to make the base page automatically list all subpages (pending somebody creating a proper Auxiliary TOC or transcribing an existing TOC, etc.) This behavior exists in header periodical but I do not know template scripting well enough to create something similar. Help? -Pete (talk) 05:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Peteforsyth: you can add  to the base page. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 19:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Precisely the solution I was looking for. Thanks ! I'll see if I can improve the Help:Subpages page and make it easier to...eh...parse, around this stuff. -Pete (talk) 07:13, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Freeimg template FI is not transcluding properly to the main ns.
The images of this work display template code in the main namespace - on an orange background surrounding the image.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 23:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The image you linked looks fine to me in mainspace. Could you post a screenshot? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 03:49, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Apologies for not uploading earlier (but did consider it). Here is the image Subsequent images have the same issue. I will try it with other browsers because of possible issues with Firefox 123 and my traditional longstanding modifications for editing on the web.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 03:22, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The same in the Vivaldi browser, which was spawned from Chrome/Chromium. However, Google Chrome displays it correctly.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 04:52, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Should this be filed as an issue?&#32;— ineuw (talk) 11:26, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Solved. This is caused by vector.css.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Ragpicker and ragcleaner
I see these two "contributors" (which I think are actually some sort of OCR correction tool rather than a human contributor), referenced in a lot of our non-scan-backed works from IA. An example: Talk:Scribner's Monthly/Volume 3/Number 1/The Mullenville Mystery. So what exactly is this technology? I've looked across the web and Wikisource many times and can't find what this refers to. I'd like to figure out exactly what "rag" is because I'd like to see if I can use bits and pieces of this technology for my own work. SnowyCinema (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * These are 's contributions. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Akme is one of our most long-standing, prolific, and skilled proofreaders (it's a crying shame that they have an aversion to using Proofread Page, but their transcriptions are excellent all the same). The "ragpicker" stuff is just them having a bit of fun in the textinfo template. Xover (talk) 18:57, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Help uploading: The Land of Fetish
I would like to work on |The Land of Fetish, author: Ellis, Alfred Burdon, 1852-1894 and I need help uploading from IA it to Wikisource. Stamlou (talk) 16:52, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Stamlou you can use https://ia-upload.wmcloud.org/ Mpaa (talk) 17:57, 9 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you
 * @Stamlou: Index:The Land of Fetish (1883).djvu. But, yes, as per Mpaa you can use IA-upload for this (just clean up metadata etc. afterwards). Xover (talk) 18:52, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

How to download the Wikisource-markup contents of a book?
Is there a way to download the Wikisource-markup contents of a book? i.e., including all template tags and other Wikisource markup, in order to do a global search for use of certain templates/etc in a book, rather than searching the contents one page at a time (in page Edit view). Harris7 (talk) 19:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Harris7: No, not really. But depending on what you're trying to do there may be other ways to achieve it. Xover (talk) 06:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover - ok, thanks. I found part of my answer just a few questions above, in Wikisource:Scriptorium/Help#Search help:  using PetScan to find all Wikisource pages by a specific author, and using 1 or more specific templates. Harris7 (talk) 18:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Global css
Does anyone know where I could find where the global css ? (I think that is where the classes starting by wst are) Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 08:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Alien333: Your question is not clear. Could you explain a bit more what you're trying to do? Xover (talk) 10:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I was just wondering if wikisource had classes that were not located in template css. I thought about that because some templates used custom classes but did not have the templatestyles mention. After looking closer, it looks like even those had a css subpage. I was wondering if there was a page containing wikisource-specific classes for templates that were not in a styles.css subpage of a template. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 12:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * There are some global styles that used to live in MediaWiki:Common.css, but which have now been moved to default Gadgets. These are being actively reduced wherever possible, and are generally not used to style template output. Legacy templates use hard-coded inline style attributes, but we're migrating as many as possible to use TemplateStyles (there are issues with using TemplateStyles inside wikilink markup that prevents us moving some templates). Proofread Page also supports per-work styles in subpages of the Index: namespace. These and some naming conventions for classes are documented in Help:Page styles.As a rule of thumb, for new code,  is a class added by a template;   by a Gadget;   is a global style. Per-work styles use   class names, or   for once-off styling (things you might otherwise put in inline style attributes). On the Main Page we also use a   prefix but that's somewhat of a special case. Also note that some templates may add classes for which they do not specify styling. There are several reasons this is so, one of them being to provide something for user or per-work styles selectors to target. Xover (talk) 12:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks for the info. Alien333 (what I did and why I did it wrong ) 13:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

[SOLVED] Unable to construct a wiki link to our main page
The instructions from this page work only from that meta page but not here. How can I construct an interwiki link in my userbox to our Main page? &#32;— ineuw (talk) 21:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Double-spacing
Hello,

Can we change the download function so it creates double-spaced PDFs? I like annotating 2603:7000:D03A:5895:F97F:B5AA:FCA9:B1C0 18:51, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * How would the Download know when to double space and when not to? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

How to create a placeholder page?
Hello, I'm from Wikisource Indonesia. I'm courious, for missing pages it says, "Placeholder should be inserted....". If the proofread has been done, how to create a placeholder page? Thanks. Mnam23 (talk) 01:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Two steps are generally required: 1. The actual insertion of placeholder images into the scan file and then reuploading to Commons / Wikisource. 2. The movement of the pages to reflect the updated source file. The first depends on the file format, for example djvus are typically easy while PDFs are trickier. Help:DjVu_files is an example of how to do that. The movement of large numbers of pages can be automated by requesting a bot / admin to bulk move as not to lose history. For help you can ask in the Scan_Lab. MarkLSteadman (talk) 01:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just making sure, if the placeholder page is already inserted, the template should stay on the Index page, just changing the parameter, right? Mnam23 (talk) 07:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Copyright question
Does this thesis (https://doi.org/10.7907/KW0Z-FQ64 / https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/10468/) meet the copyright requirements to be added? Nobody ( talk ) 12:17, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to note, I was unable to access either of the sites linked, so for anyone else who had this problem, here's a working version of the Caltech link, and the PDF file of the 1951 thesis. The thesis is "Design and Calibration of a New Apparatus to Measure the Specific Electronic Charge" (1951) by (1921–2010).
 * My personal opinion is that this is in the public domain in the US, since it does not contain a copyright notice and it was published before 1977. I think academic papers generally count as published, but I'm not 100% sure. What do you think? SnowyCinema (talk) 12:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It's also Q119716034 for some additional info. On The Caltech page, it says, "Thesis Availability: Public (worldwide access)", which I don't believe means the copyright status. It also says "Default Usage Policy: No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided." Which sounds more like a copyright status, but I'm not sure. Nobody  ( talk ) 13:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Nobody, SnowyCinema: We had a lengthy discussion about this in the past, see here. The result of that discussion, as stated, was that there was no precedent, but that the thesis in that case was not copyrighted. I do not see how the decision is not precedent, as the arguments in that discussion were general and not relating to that thesis in particular. My opinion, and the sources of that opinion, are stated in more detail in that discussion. In sum, the publication is voluntary, and it is “general” because anyone can access the copies which are available in the university library’s collection. Because there was a general publication, and there was no copyright notice, it is in the public domain. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation TE(æ)A,ea., then I'll go figure out how to add it. Nobody  ( talk ) 18:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I created this, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing something and I can't figure out what. Nobody  ( talk ) 19:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I fixed the quoting which was why it wasn't rendering. MarkLSteadman (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Help with index page
Still very new to Wikisource, so sorry if my question seems dumb. After creating NOAA Storm Events Database – 2023 Matador tornado, I tried following the Index directions to create Index:NOAA Storm Events Database – 2023 Matador tornado, but the “Index” tab still doesn’t seem to show up on the text source. I’ve been working with another editor to add works of NOAA (U.S. government) (Category:PD-USGov-NOAA), and I’ve been struggling with figuring out how to do the Index pages with the few texts we have up. Can someone give some Index page assistance for the Matador tornado’s text as well as with the couple of other pages in that category. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong exact. Thanks. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:11, 26 March 2024 (UTC)


 * An index works with a file. It is mostly a handy way to organize pages of that file.
 * The source for this appears to be a website. There is no point having an index without a file.
 * You can put a textinfo on the talk page and put in "source" instead. Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 17:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Page:I will repay.djvu/285
Could someone please validate this page? Mpaa (talk) 15:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ SnowyCinema (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Formatting assistance on Statistics of April 3-4, 1974 Tornadoes
Can someone assist with formatting Statistics of April 3-4, 1974 Tornadoes like it is on the government website? It also need a quick proofread. Thanks! WeatherWriter (talk) 16:07, 1 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @WeatherWriter Since it's a PDF (as opposed to an HTML webpage), it's best to upload it to Commons and use the Index: namespace. I'll upload it to commons on the understanding that it is a U.S. federal government work. Cremastra (talk) 16:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ...and here's your index page. Cremastra (talk) 16:19, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

DjVu file with blanked page
This is a bit of an odd case and I have no idea how to fix it. Page 155 (153 as numbered in the book) of File:The Salticidae (Spiders) of Panama.djvu appears to be blank. However, in the actual book it has text and in the file there is a text layer on that page that has the correct text correctly laid out. But for some reason the image for that page doesn't show the text. I was able to track down the physical book and scan the page in question, which is now at File:The Salticidae (Spiders) of Panama page 153.jpg. Is there any way to either integrate that file into the Index or repair the faulty DjVu file with it (preferably without losing the existing text later)? I have not been able to find any other scan of the book other than the one at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which is the source for our scan. Nosferattus (talk) 22:08, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅. Another scan is available at . This type of help is usually posted there: Scan Lab. --M-le-mot-dit (talk) 11:01, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * pages 44 and 267 were also blank. ✅ --M-le-mot-dit (talk) 12:34, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you!! Nosferattus (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Validation/Feedback Request
I've been working on Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews as my first Wikisource project. (And yes, I understand that it's a massive, probably foolhardy endeavor for a first project. But here I am.)

I've just finished with the first chapter of volume 1 and the corresponding endnotes in volume 5.

I'd really appreciate one or more experienced editors looking over what I've done so far and giving me constructive feedback. (And it seems reasonable to validate what I've done along the way.)

Is my error rate acceptable for a "proofread" text? Am I using the template correctly? Am I inadvertently making more work for myself or others down the line? Heck, is there anything I'm doing straight-up wrong? Any feedback, positive or negative, is much appreciated. If I'm going to invest the time and effort to complete this project, I want it to be good, not just good enough. And I'd like to hew as best I can to Wikisource best-practices.

A few notes on what I've already done:
 * The endnotes are chock-full of abbreviations, and I found that preserving the distinction between word spaces and sentence spaces there improved readability a fair bit. I've kept the sentence spaces to 0.5 em, so hopefully that won't bother ardent single-spacers too much.
 * I have not done the same in the main text, as it didn't seem necessary. But if that consistency is important, I can certainly do the wider spaces in the main text as well.
 * There is a fair bit of German, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek in the endnotes. I've studied the first three languages formally and have confidence in my ability to edit/proofread the snippets of those languages.  Hopefully, relatively few errors have slipped through.  I am completely self-taught in Greek, however, and would certainly appreciate someone who has formally studied Ancient Greek to scrutinize those bits.
 * Is it normal for endnotes to take quite a bit more effort than the main text?

Thank you for any help/feedback you can offer! - Dave314159 (talk) 19:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * A few things (though I haven't been around for that long and am not that experienced) :
 * I saw while looking at a random page that you used SIC for an outdated spelling (marvellous). It is not for that, but only for typos. Outdated spelling and other things that seem wrong but intentional should be kept as they are.
 * Section titles should not be using ='s and the like, because they make formatting as it is made on-wiki and that was not in the original text. For example, on Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/49, it should only be centered and sc'd, as ='s put in in bold and that was not in the scan.
 * Keeping formatting of titles includes line breaks and all, for pages like Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 1.djvu/26.
 * Rather than raw wikitable formatting, you have TOC row r to take care of the titles in TOCs (the formatting you did also did not display after the second |+).
 * A maximum width is sometimes put in TOCs with, although it is in no way an obligation, to make it more easy on large screens (It can become hard navigating a max-width ToC when the line number is far to the right). Example taken with random page : Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers
 * Apart from that, you're doing well, and you've already learned most important things. Keep going ! — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 20:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, and : there's no problem starting with a large work, I did too, and anyway there are no constraints on time or on the quantity. Every page helps! — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 20:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I generally recommend table wikimarkup over TOC templates. None of the ones we have are technically sound, and using raw wikimarkup for table gives you both more flexibility and more robust results. The main downside is the learning curve, but when you figure it out it can be reused across all works. But if you insist on using ToC templates, at least stay away from the ones that try to fake dot leaders. They're oh so tempting, but they are also oh so broken and will create problems.Also, width is set on transclusion with dynamic layouts ("Layout 2" is a common constrained-width layout). Setting the width of the table directly is a bad practice and should be avoided, unless there is a really pressing need for it. Xover (talk) 20:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, so much for me. Could you just tell me, for the sake of curiosity, how the dot-leaders are broken? Maybe it should be put on the TOC templates page. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 06:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Web standards do not support dot-leaders natively (there's a proposal that's been floating around for ages, but no forward motion). That means we have to fake them using other mechanisms, and all those mechanisms end up being directly contrary to how the standards are supposed to work. The result is that the implementations we have are very ugly, hard to support, have many problems even when they seemingly work, and are very prone to break when things around them change or they are used in a different context.For example, since there is no way to generate a dynamical-length line of dots one implementation spits out something like a hundred period characters and spaces and uses styling tricks to hide the overflow. That breaks on very wide screens (add more dots and spaces, and everyone pays the cost on every page load). The hiding uses a white background color, which breaks in dark mode and in ePub exports (can somewhat be worked around with ever more special-case styling). Hacking around web standards also leads to incredibly complex markup, which combines with stuff like the 100+ dot characters, and leads to those implementations outputting huge amounts of data that we pay for every single time those features are used. I posted a particularly egregious example in WS:S#Orley Farm Contents+Illustrations Lists.Note that my harping on about this is in the vein of advocating that these templates be deprecated. They aren't actually deprecated, so nobody is going to chide you if you do use them and this all is strictly speaking just one contributor's opinion. But I intend to keep bringing this up every chance I get in the hope that the community will eventually get tired enough of it to deprecate them just to make me shut up already. Xover (talk) 09:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I feel a but stupid asking this and there is probably an obvious answer, but how does the table markup you gave on that page do dot-leaders? To me it seems it only does the alignment. Or is it intentional, are you saying we should just omit dot leaders? — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 10:29, 5 April 2024 (UTC)


 * The dots are drawn first, over the whole area; maybe the whole page. I know this because I tried to use it in the AuxTOC and changed the background color to Transparent, which exposed them.  And then, the table elements have a background color to hide those dots.


 * The complicated templates, those using TOC begin are not as "bad" as the easier to use like Dotted TOC line and kin. The latter make a whole separate and different table for each entry (row).  There is a category here, filled with indexes that use those (truly, much much much easier to use) templates where several of the pages just simply will not draw due to the heavy requirements upon the computers here.  Unfortunately, my links to that discussion and category are elsewhere, so you will just have to take my word for it. They are worse than uncrunched pngs for processing time and *terrible* for small dedicated devices (like ereaders and maybe phones).


 * Being an avid and devout lover of the dotted tocs, I have been trying (and succeeding) to avoid them for Table of Contents use, but, the occasional small table found within works -- well, I indulge, feeling guilty like eating French Silk Pie for breakfast (which is technically scrambled eggs). But really, don't use the simple templates ever.  And if you do -- Inductiveload has a script/tool which will convert the simple ones into complicated ones.  My link for that is somewhere else also -- perhaps Mr. IDL will show up and drop it here.


 * The advice about manually making the tables is very good and the sooner started to learn the sooner learned. TOCs, while many are simple, several have a fineness and uniqueness of character which will improve anybody's skill level.--RaboKarbakian (talk) 11:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * (I'd never heard of dotted TOC line before this discussion)
 * And then what about the 's? They are less problematic, but how problematic are they? I have been using more or less only them since coming here.
 * Is there a guide about tables? I know how html tables work, but what else is there to learn? — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 12:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The best guidance we have right now is slightly camouflaged inside Help:Page styles. The most flexible, powerful, and robust way we have of doing tables right now is table wikimarkup combined with formatting applied through per-work page styles (the "Styles" tab on Index: pages; the CSS there is automatically loaded on all associated pages in the Page: namespace and in mainspace when transcluded using PRP). We need to make that approach more user friendly and reusable (ready-to-use snippets that can be copied), and create better documentation, but apart from the learning curve I heartily recommend it.And compared to general HTML tables we have some unique problems stemming from the fact that we don't write HTML directly; we write wikimarkup that gets parsed and rendered into HTML by MediaWiki, and which is presented inside the skin and site chrome, etc. Compared to your typical CMS we also do far more advanced formatting than, say, a journalist banging out a news story or whatever. And then there is the added complication for Wikisource that we have to split these already twice-abstracted tables across wikipages in the Page: namespace and make them work together when transcluded together. Put together this means tables are one of the most difficult areas for contributors to deal with (which is why the lure of TOC templates is so great: it seems obvious that there must be an easier way to do this). Xover (talk) 12:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * To come back to the point, how does CSS do dot-leaders? It's not mentioned on Help:Page styles, and they even appear to be voluntarily left out, as two of the three examples have dot leaders and they are not taken into account. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 12:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Alien333: Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. I am saying to simply not try to do dot-leaders, using any method, until web standards and web browsers actually support them natively. Everything else I write above is about tables and TOCs in general. Xover (talk) 13:13, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The example omits the style sheet applied and other stuff. It's just meant to illustrate that the output from the templates is completely unreasonable. Xover (talk) 12:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Dave314159 It seems the responses above are drifting a little off topic, when it comes to the original question, which I will do my best to stick to. That said, so it is on record, I favor TOC begin, TOC row etc. While I have avoided validating anything for the moment, accuracy wise, the proofreading is good, and a few tips follow.
 * If you are doing anything with either strange formatting, or strange references, I strongly recommend transcluding the work as you go. In your case, I am not sure the endnotes are working, except those endnotes that you have specifically set the |transclude= parameter for. Because the endnotes are in a different volume, you may be forced to always use |transclude=, and may have to add this to every endnote thus far... That said, I am by no means an expert in endnotes. My main 'experiences' were with The History of Witchcraft and Demonology, which ended up working out eventually, endnote wise, but is far from finished, even with help. But yes, endnotes take an annoying amount of time. Other than that, if you need help with transcluding, ask away, although you seem to have a reasonable grasp of things so far.
 * Also, your headings do not seem to conform to wikisource styles, as far as I am aware. For example, I believe ====== should just be, and similarly  instead of == I: THE CREATION OF THE WORLD == . Note that I removed the colon ":", because it isn't there in the first place, but thought I should finish this response before doing anything else to the text.
 * I also believe that manually setting sentence spaces is against wikisource styles (as in, do not force a double space at the end of a sentence, even if the original text does). As you can see in the example for the wsp template, it is for poetry and the like. To save you the trouble, a bot request can probably remove all of these, when the time comes.
 * I haven't formally (or informally) studied ancient Greek, so can't really help there (or with Hebrew), but otherwise, good luck with the project, and happy proofreading.
 * Regards,
 * TeysaKarlov (talk) 03:52, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point about the manual spacing. I was also unsure about it. We in general do not preserve variable spaces; but in my quick scan it looked like they were here used to separate a headword from the rest of the paragraph. It is possible that this is an exception to the general rule. On the other hand, several of the cases did not appear to correspond with such use (extra-wide spaces at seemingly-random places within a paragraph?). But I didn't have time to look closer into it so I can't offer anything specific. Xover (talk) 07:19, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

double ?
Hi, please see my question at Template talk:Nop. Thanks, Hamaryns (talk) 19:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You can place two empty lines ahead of the nop. We also have the dhr template to accomplish this. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Proofreading Paragraph Problem.
Sometimes while proofreading, I finish a page where the lines are not joined, but then the last editing "line breaks" in a page create new paragraphs. I don't know why this should be- my usual workaround is just to have no line breaks on the source page for the last paragraph. But this looks messy and it is annoying. Is there some obvious reason that this happens that I can avoid in the future? @Mpaa, perhaps you know the answer, I know sometimes you prefer that lines not be joined, so you have likely run into this problem.

Example page. The last line should not be its own paragraph.

Sorry if 1. The question doesn't make sense or 2. There's an obvious solution. -- FPTI (talk) 06:33, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * The nop template needs to be on its own line. Once you've done that, then the problem will go away. However, it is most preferable to remove line breaks within paragraphs as leaving them in is known to cause problems with transclusion. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:17, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies, but I don't think that's it. Example page. This one has no { {nop}} but there's still a line break for that last line. @Mpaa? FPTI (talk) 07:59, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @FPTI@Beeswaxcandle I have experienced the same issue before. What seems to happen is that there are extra carriage returns in the text, which are not visible. If you turn on "Generate paragraph (pilcrow) markers, ¶, in the left margin of the Page: namespace to indicate HTML paragraph tag starts." in Preferences-Gadgets they can be seen. I had to log out and log back in to activate the gadget. I don't have this gadget activated normally but it shows what the problem is. After proofreading text I usually run a tool that cleans-up the OCR text, which removes these in-paragraph line breaks Chrisguise (talk) 09:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @FPTI I do not know what the problem is, but I am fine with it as it is transcluded correctly. As the problem is only in Page ns, it might be some glitch in ProofreadPage Extension. Mpaa (talk) 09:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It is not specific of Page ns. In Page ns it happens only when in the footer there is some content inside a div block. The same can be reproduced in Main ns appending a div block to the last line, e.g. something like  Maybe it might be the parser that, when it finds the div block, insert a paragraph break at the beginning of the line ... who knows .... Mpaa (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed. This is p-wrapping and a rather dumb regex-based (essentially) parser. The parser thinks that all text has to be wrapped in a p tag, so as it parses the wikitext it is looking for various triggers for when to add an opening p tag, and when it needs to add a closing p tag. The parser sees Page: namespace pages as a single blob of wikitext, with the header and footer merely marked as noinclude sections. When there is a div (i.e. what c spits out) in the footer the parser notices, and since div elements are not valid inside p elements it decides it has to close the currently open p. To do that it backtracks and guesses at where the paragraph it just closed should start, and decides it's at the first line break character it comes to (i.e. the one between the last and penultimate line). In other words, whenever you have anything in the footer that isn't permitted inside a p element, the parser will put the last text line into its own paragraph hanging loose at the end of the page.The even better news is that the shiny new parser (known as Parsoid) has been designed to be bugwards compatible with the old parser, so it will blithely reproduce this bug in exactly the same way as the old grotty parser. Oh joy!But the moral of the story is the same as the advice given by the old-timers from the beginning: always remove hard line breaks inside paragraphs! Xover (talk) 12:42, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! FPTI (talk) 07:21, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually over the time I tend to preserve new lines as printed. It makes Validation much easier. The page break is just a cosmetic issue in Page ns with no relevance when transcluded. Mpaa (talk) 16:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello, can you tell me what tool do you use for cleaning the OCR? The same issue is happening in every page to me. HendrikWBK (talk) 11:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @HendrikWBK: For unwrapping hard-wrapped lines I use a custom user script. You can add  to your common.js to try it out. It adds a link in the left sidebar (in Vector 2010) or to the tools menu (in Vector 2022) labelled "↲ Remove hard line breaks" that does what it says on the tin. This was a hacky little thing I threw together for my own use, so no warranties. The source is in User:Xover/unwrap.js if you want to check what it does. Xover (talk) 12:55, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you, the issue is fixed. It also adds a link in the left bar in MonoBook HendrikWBK (talk) 13:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

font-feature-setting:'hist'
I am experimenting with using CSS for long-s instead of ls—essentially treating it as a glyph of  rather than as the separate character. I've set up the CSS at Index:1644 Anabaptist Confession of Faith.djvu/styles.css but it doesn't seem to work (loading Page:1644 Anabaptist Confession of Faith.djvu/4 in Chrome on Windows, anyway).

Normally I would assume that it's not working because of some limitation in MediaWiki. However, I have used the exact same method for insular, and it seems to work fine there, so I am stumped. —Beleg Âlt BT (talk) 18:03, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Beleg Tâl: Fonts are hard. Xover (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ha, thanks—so it was just that the Junicode documentation was wrong, I guess :D —Beleg Tâl (talk) 19:50, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Page moves, etc.
Over time I've made a number of requests for moves in support of fixing scans with missing pages, etc. These used to be dealt with promptly but more recently the response has been quite slow or they are still waiting (people are doubtless busy). I came across User:Inductiveload/Scripts/Page shifter.py recently. If someone can explain to me how to run this script where it is, or how to incorporate it and run it from my .js (if that's what's required), I'll happily do the fixes myself. Thanks, Chrisguise (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Chrisguise: If you have to ask I generally don't recommend you try to run this yourself. The script you link is a pywikibot script, and requires the technical chops to operate 1) in a *nix command-line environment, and 2) a big complex bot framework. It's not something you run on-wiki or in your browser, and it isn't really an interactive tool. Page moves due to updated source files in an existing index are especially challenging because there are so many factors you have to take into account to avoid messing stuff up.Page moves and a few related tasks have indeed slowed to a relative crawl lately. Inductiveload isn't active any more, and I am too busy IRL to be able to pick up the slack (and usually my head is too fried to take on anything complicated), and we used to take care of the bulk of these. If you have any such tasks that are especially bad in blocking your progress then please feel free to try bugging me on my talk page and I'll try to prioritise them.PS. If you want to make it require fewer brain cycles to run a page move request like that, specifying the necessary moves in the way the software expects (vs. what's logical for a human being) can help. The moves are specified as "page range to be moved" (123-345) and "offset" (+4, or -3, or...). And the destination page cannot exist, so when it's not a single unified shift you'll need to give these in batches with, typically, the last pages in the first batch: that way you make room for the later page moves. This way of thinking about it is really non-intuitive for humans, but it's what the computer requires, and it's often what takes the most time and effort when doing bulk page moves. Xover (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. I was clearly led astray by the 'Anyone can run this script' comment on User:Inductiveload/Requests/Move pages or indexes; it sounds as if 'anyone (with a computer science degree) can run this script' would be nearer the mark. Chrisguise (talk) 14:41, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's a bit more that than plain "anyone". Don't get me wrong, it's not rocket science, but the "computer geek" factor is pretty high. Xover (talk) 14:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Help with getting clickable pages for Index:The Intense Mississippi Tornadoes of March 24, 2023
There is about 40-ish pages that I still need to upload for the document, but I can’t get the clickable pages to appear on the Index page and I keep seeing “Error: No such file” when I try to fix that. Can someone get the 40-pages red linked down there? WeatherWriter (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @WeatherWriter: Why are you uploading this as individual image files? Proofread Page is designed to work with multi-page media formats like PDF and DjVu. Xover (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Because it isn’t a PDF document, but rather a StoryMap. NOAA is weird and doesn’t like to create standard PDF-style documents. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:48, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @WeatherWriter: If you have the images and can throw them up on Google Drive or something I can probably make you a DjVu of them. Xover (talk) 18:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Index page not displaying any pages
I recently created this index page - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Methods_of_Operating_the_Comptometer_(1895).djvu - which is just giving me an Error: Invalid interval rather than displaying any pages. The djvu file itself looks fine - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Methods_of_Operating_the_Comptometer_(1895).djvu

Any clues on what I should do to get the index page working? Qq1122qq (talk) 14:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * As always, posting about seems to have fixed the problem :). Looks like I was having the same problem as many of the people in an earlier discussion. In the same way as discussed there, I tried purging everything possible multiple times, and after about half an hour of nothing happening the pages suddenly appeared! Qq1122qq (talk) 14:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Had you also purged the file on Commons ? (For the sake of understanding if it actually fixes it) — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 16:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes - I purged and hard purged (not sure of the difference) everything I could, and crossed my fingers. I imagine there's some very slow running process buried somewhere which only runs intermittently. I've never had this issue with .PDF files so I wonder if it's a .DJVU only issue? Qq1122qq (talk) 18:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, since Chrisguise reported that he had mostly had that problem with PDF's.
 * But had you purged it on commons, specifically? asking because there there is no easily accessible "purge" button like here, needs to be done through a gadget or some other things, and you could have missed it. Sorry for insisting, but it looked like we finally had a solution, and I want to be sure before abandoning it. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 08:31, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I purged on Commons, then purged in WS, and the page fixed itself. This has also fixed 3 more projects I've created in the last few days.
 * I was given the magic incantation to purge a file on Commons via someone helpful on Discord - if you want for example to purge File:Methods_of_Operating_the_Comptometer_(1895).djvu
 * then go to the URL https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=File:Methods_of_Operating_the_Comptometer_(1895).djvu&action=purge
 * and it will give you the option to purge the cache. Qq1122qq (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Qq1122qq: If you go to the Gadgets section of your Preferences, down under the heading "Interface", you'll find a dedicated "Purge" Gadget that does just this for you (and which exists due to this kind of problem). I see the description talks about a purge "tab", but that's just a holdover from when Monobook was the default skin. It really appears in either the sidebar or the Tools menu, depending on which skin you're using. Xover (talk) 05:10, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * (side note: we're still talking in the "old discussion") — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 18:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that - I find the threaded wiki-style comment pages like this one very hard to parse so I had no idea it was still a live discussion. Qq1122qq (talk) 18:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No problem, and we are having a discussion about simplifying the structure at WS:S, that ironically appears to have been lost in the flow too. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 09:20, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Invalid interval error on creation of Index:Yiddish Tales.djvu
Can someone please help to correct this linking error? I am unfamiliar with it. It is much appreciated.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

With my usual attentiveness, I noticed that others posted the same issue. I will wait for the solution. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Ineuw: It's an ongoing flakiness in MediaWiki and the integration between Commons and other projects. This file should be fixed now through black magic and dread incantations to the technology deities (or something to that effect). Xover (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * It displays correctly for me after a hard purge. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies. After posting, I remembered that this is happening everywhere on the web. Systems and software are constantly being updated. I gained patience, understanding, and acceptance. In the meanwhile, I am sure to find something else to do.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 12:07, 20 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Lo and behold, I posted before looking. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 12:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Trouble with file from commons
I have uploaded on commons a djvu file. It looks fine over there, but here and the file is registered as being 0x0 (not as empty, though), and trying to link it just gives a link, not the file. Am I the only one having this problem, and can someone tell me how to fix it? — Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 19:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing a problem with the file. Do you want me to create the Index: for you? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 02:13, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, apparently now it works. When I tried to create the index yesterday the pagelist did not work because the file was 0x0 pixels. I can take care of the index, thanks. Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 06:35, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I had the same exact problem with an Index yesterday: File:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf. It is extremely weird, and I believe it's an issue on Commons' end. I was able to fix it in a few minutes, though. SnowyCinema (talk) 06:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * What did you do? Or did it just fix itself? Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 07:10, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So here's exactly what happened. I uploaded the file (revision 1) and it appeared as 0x0 just like you described, and the Index page's pagelist threw an error that I can't remember now. So, what I did was I uploaded another version of the same PDF, just directly taken from IA instead of modified by me in a certain way, and then uploaded that with chunk upload (revision 2). It initially seemed to be a working file, but then I deleted and recreated the Index again, to find out that this revision was now broken. So I reverted to the previous revision (revision 1) as revision 3, and somehow that worked.
 * TLDR: Revision 1 was broken and when I uploaded revision 2, that revision appeared to work at first. But then it reversed out of nowhere, to where revision 1 was working now and revision 2 magically broke in its place. . . . If this is confusing to you, it's exactly as confusing to me so don't worry. I have no idea what the issue was. ☹️ SnowyCinema (talk) 07:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The error was "Invalid interval" (at least for me). What I think is that the file got broken during some sort of transfer from commons to here (since it was also broken on wp). On top of being 0 x 0 pixels, Invalid interval probably meant it was 0 pages long (even an empty pagelist got an error). The file was still registered as being 1.something MBs long (here, on commons, and wp). I do not think it was an issue with the file I uploaded, as on commons everything looked good. That's what I know. I also had a vague suspicion of it being linked to the server switch on wednesday, but it might have nothing to do with it. Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 07:29, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Servers and backends and deployment are quite finicky, and there are a million mysterious things that can go wrong all of a sudden. It's hard to really say exactly what happened without talking to someone who has the keys so to speak. Our global multisite system is bound to be quite complex on the backend, I'll say that much... SnowyCinema (talk) 07:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @SnowyCinema It's just happened again with File:The Poems of Sir Thomas Wiat, volume 2.djvu. If this becomes a recurring problem, we should maybe ask about it to the commons people. Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 09:58, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, I've "purge" the caches of the file in Commons and of the Index, and it seems to have fixed the issue. M-le-mot-dit (talk) 10:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I tried purging the caches on thursday, and it didn't help. I guess this just fixes itself with time. Alien333 (what I did — why I did it wrong) 13:04, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Alien333@Beeswaxcandle@M-le-mot-dit@SnowyCinema I have experienced (and reported) the same issue. Although the problem sometimes seems to fix itself, I have a number of cases where it has not (>6 months, which I assume means never), and a number of cases where random pages in an otherwise functioning PDF are completely unreadable on WS. I've basically given up uploading PDF files (even though I have paid-for PDF editing software - Foxit) and default to DJVU. Converting PDF's to DJVU with 'Pdf 2 Djvu Converter' generally works OK. Chrisguise (talk) 13:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I just had this same problem with Index:Florula Mortolensis.djvu, where the pagelist is broken and the file appears as 0x0 on WS (but works fine on commons. I used the IA upload tool.) Purging the caches didn't help, but hopefully it fixes itself, as it seems to. Cremastra (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * When I had the problem (here) I purged the cache on Commons first, then on Wikisource, and that seemed to work. Arcorann (talk) 08:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Indeed, after having the problem with Index:Poems Coolidge.djvu, clearing the cache on commons and then here fixed it. Maybe doing it in the other order doesn't work.
 * @Chrisguise: I'd be curious if you could try to do this on those indexes you mentioned that did not fix themselves, to see if that method works. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 19:12, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Alien333@Arcorann@Beeswaxcandle@Cremastra@M-le-mot-ditI know I've seen something on here about how to purge Commons files (you add something to the address), but I can't find it. Could someone remind me please. Chrisguise (talk) 03:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I just use the "purge clock" gadget, but I think it would be with something like "commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=[page title]&action=purge" — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 07:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I hadn't previously delved around the gadgets section on Commons. Doing the two purges has fixed one of my problem files (a DJVU, unusually). I'll try it on a PDF. Chrisguise (talk) 08:18, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * In my case, I've first purge the Common file, then the Wikisource index.--M-le-mot-dit (talk) 08:19, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, my first attempt with this approach worked. Need to dig out some more of my problem files to try. Chrisguise (talk) 08:22, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I looked around and the people in fr had the same issue, and found the same solution (there among others), purging on Commons. It's not sure, though, if it is also needed to purge here. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 14:39, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Abuse filter
Could someone explain why this filter is triggered when creating pages in Main ns? E.g. this edit? Thanks, Mpaa (talk) 20:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Mpaa: It's looking for  in the HTML output of the parsed page, and header et al are no longer outputting that id. I've now changed it to look for the common class name  instead, so it should no longer be tagging edits like that. Xover (talk) 20:46, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Xover Thanks Mpaa (talk) 20:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Redirect an author page
I would like to redirect Author:Armitage Trail to Author:Maurice R. Coons, because Trail is a pen name. How can I do that? This is for the book Scarface, which I just finished validating. -- FPTI (talk) 06:28, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @FPTI: You follow the red link, delete the pre-filled content of the text box (the author template), go to the Advanced section of the editor toolbar, pick the button with the icon of an arrow swooping down and to the right, and then fill in the destination page. OR, you can simply type in . Xover (talk) 06:52, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Help is asked for with a CSS selector
I am trying to configure my User:Ineuw/vector.css to view the main namespace text with the following selector, and I am unable to get it right. Can someone in the know, help me with this? /* main namespace page */ font-family:FreeSerif !important; font-size: large !important; } &#32;— ineuw (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) mw-page-base #bodyContent{


 * FreeSerif is a great font, you have good taste.
 * Adding a comma in between the two ID selectors should get it to work, but in all namespaces. I'm not sure how to select for a specific namespace. Cremastra (talk) 21:35, 1 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @user:Cremastra Thanks for the help, but like you said it affects everything. I tried every selector of the main namespace just to target the page content. I am now trying other selectors.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that ws-page-container is only in Main. This should target only the pages tag. (In the page namespace, it's prp-page-container instead). — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 10:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @user:Alien333, Hurrah, and thank you! It is as I hoped. Interestingly my vector.css uses .mw-editform for page namespace selectors and not .prp-page-container. &#32;— ineuw (talk) 20:02, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this is what you were wondering, but prp-page-container is for viewing (in page ns, next to the image and all) and mw-editform is for editing (in all namespaces). — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 20:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is exactly what I wanted to understand. I must return to the Wikimedia kindergarten. Thanks again.

Apparent 'overloading' of Template:RunningHeader
https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&ns100=1&ns102=1&ns104=1&ns106=1&ns114=1&search=insource%3A%2F%5C%7B%5C%7B%28rh%7Crunningheader%29%5C%7C%5C%7C%5C%3Cmath%2F

I updated MathForm2 and these uses should be migrated over, using  or suitable equivalent to obtain the same rendering as the RH approach.

The objective desired is to de overload uses RunningHeader, so that pending changes to it are potentially easier to do without unexpected side effects. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @ShakespeareFan00: I have no idea what it is that you're saying here. Quite possibly that's just me being dumb, but could you try explaining again with a little more detail; especially as regards what is the problem that exists now, and what is the outcome you're looking for? Xover (talk) 11:11, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The current problem is that RunningHeader is used in some works for formatting a three-cell table, or even more specfic an equation+number format. (something it wasn't technically designed for.).
 * The desired objective is replacing these usages with something more appropriate ( I'd updated MathForm1 and MathForm2 as they were intended for the use case concerned ).
 * An example replacement:-
 * https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Page:Aerial_Flight_-_Volume_1_-_Aerodynamics_-_Frederick_Lanchester_-_1906.djvu/147&diff=prev&oldid=14147459
 * I can work through these slowly but would appreciate a joint effort.
 * ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @ShakespeareFan00 And then there is Numb form, and then there is .... I think these template are known by 0.1% of the users and used by 0.01%. I would like to see pro/cons of the different solutions before spreading templates. I think we already have enough. Less templates and more general-purpose is the way to go IMHO. Mpaa (talk) 21:12, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * So which one should I be converting to? I am more than happy to standardise on ONE usage across a work or works. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 06:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As I said, I do not know. So for now I would not do anything.
 * It seems to me that rh is the more natural choice for a user, it is short, written as the text flows, anybody is familiar with it, etc.
 * This syntax is verbose and not intuitive: and I do not know if that template is a good implementation or not. Mpaa (talk) 08:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * For whatever that's worth, I have on my todo list to look into MathForm1 and MathForm2 and Numb form and disp right as well as the several other templates that are used for this kind of thing, with a view to finding one sensible replacement for all of them. numbered equation is a very embryonic first draft of an approach to explore what would work well (not a proposed solution/replacement; just a start at figuring out what the replacement should look like). And hopefully we can usefully abstract out some of the generic parts of rh to reuse for this and a couple of other use cases (quoted letters with salutations and dates, signatures, etc.). Xover (talk) 09:10, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * These are some possible uses of Running Header outside of Page namespace that should be taken into consideration:-
 * https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&ns1=1&ns6=1&ns7=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&ns14=1&ns15=1&ns100=1&ns101=1&ns102=1&ns103=1&ns106=1&ns107=1&ns114=1&ns115=1&ns710=1&ns711=1&ns828=1&ns829=1&search=insource%3A%2F%5C%7B%5C%7B%28rh%7Crf%7Crunningheader%7Crunning+header%29%2F
 * ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:27, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Transcluding a work - index has quotes in the page name
I was trying to transclude Index:"Red"·Fed·Memoirs-Hickey-1925.pdf.

I get an "Error: No such index" when I try. I think that is because of the quotes as part of the index page name.

Is there a way to transclude it as it is, or is something else required, such as renaming the index. David Nind (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Quote it in single quotes: index='"Red"·Fed·Memoirs-Hickey-1925.pdf' MarkLSteadman (talk) 01:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * That worked! Thank you, very much appreciated! David Nind (talk) 02:46, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you ever have to transclude an index whose name has both single and double quotes, you can replace the quotes in the name with  or   as appropriate. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 20:07, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Unspaced page end for references
Hello all,

While transcluding Index:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu, there are a few places where a ref-follow has no text on the page where the reference tags are placed, e.g. Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/62 and Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/63. For the moment, so that the tags on the former page are not empty, I have used noinclude within the ref tags, which leads to a space being included just before the first word in the reference text, once transcluded (see the last reference of Early Western Travels, 1748-1846/Volume 1/Croghan to the Governor of Pennsylvania for an example; and yes, I realise this space is not the end of the world, but it would be nice to remove). Thus, my question, how troublesome would it be to convert the template to something that would work in references (or to allow hws/hwe to have an empty first parameter), unless anyone has other simple suggestions for how to deal with this?

I also wasn't sure if I should modify it myself, but when looking through the help on footnotes, I read the following ''Other parts of the footnote should use the "follow" parameter with the same name. The position of this text does not matter to the footnote but adding it to the bottom of the page, where the footnote would normally be, is the most obvious position. Make sure that it is a part of the page that will be transcluded with the rest of the footnote: ie. not in the header or footer of the Page, not in tags, and—if sectional transclusion is being used—in the same section as the rest of the footnote (so all parts are transcluded into the same page in the main namespace).'' While perhaps correct that the position of the ref-follow does not matter to the footnote, unless I have misinterpreted something, a ref-follow placed at the end of a page with paragraphs created in the conventional sense (i.e. pressing enter), will incorrectly insert a line break at the start of the transcluded page. Thus, ref-follows should be placed at the top of the page body section (which also helps with sectional texts, as the ref-follow would typically be transcluded with the first section on the page).

Thanks, TeysaKarlov (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I just tried using a nop, but that didn't work. The solution I would use is to bring the footnotes back from /63 and leave that page blank. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 01:28, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * noinclude and includeonly tags don't work in a ref. I've replaced it by a comment.--M-le-mot-dit (talk) 08:45, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with Beeswaxcandle: this is just exactly a case for a pragmatic solution rather than chasing a "perfect" one. Move the contents of the ref to the page where it's referenced, and leave a comment on both pages to explain what you've done ( before the repeat doesn't seem to override the   bar. Do you know if that can be done with some more complicated syntax? —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 21:38, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Some questions

 * 1) JS scripts seem to be imported (or executed) in a inconsistent order, which, when multiple scripts add sidebar buttons, causes fumbling every time to find where exactly this time are the buttons. Is there a way to change that?
 * 2) For poems, it can be hard to determine if there is or not a stanza break on a page break, when there is: a) no clear stanza pattern, b) no special tendency for stanzas to end with sentences, and c) no other edition of the same poem. The first two tend to disappear for more modern poetry and the third is rarely available (and disputable anyway). Is there another way to find it?
 * 3) Policy says to always implement footnotes and endnotes with ref tags (or something to that effect). Often, footnotes use asterisks and I couldn't find a way to make ref use them. It could be done by manually putting an anchor on the footnote, and a link to the anchor, and transcluding the two separately, but it's quite a bother. Someone probably has encountered the same issue before, so there must be a better way to do it lurking around somewhere.

Thanks, — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 13:30, 8 May 2024 (UTC)


 * For (2), you have to use your best judgment; there's no way around that. I face the same issue in poetic dramas I've transcribed.  The points you've listed are the same ones I use to make that call when it's unclear.  The fact that you're giving it thought and attention is what's most important.
 * With regard to (3), we do not attempt to reproduce the symbols used for footnotes / endnotes in the original copy, for multiple reasons. If you hunt around, there have been several essays written on the subject over the years.  Simply let the software generate a number. from the ref tags, and don't spend time fretting over the displayed number versus an asterisk. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to mention that large numbers of references all marked identically with * isn't a good UX, considering the way we transclude entire chapters as flowing text with the notes at the end, typically. For situations like see Note * on page ... it is possible to link etc. MarkLSteadman (talk) 17:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Regarding #1, the short answer is no. There is a longer answer involving using custom events to chain them or manually coordinating menu position, but they're not good solutions. Xover (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Using fromsection correctly
At the following page, I am trying to use fromsection to limit the included section on the starting page, but for some reason nothing is included from the first page. Can I get some assistance on how fromsection should be used correctly?

Weird Tales/Volume 1/Issue 3/The Haunted and the Haunters

Klaufir216 (talk) 13:28, 10 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Found the problem, it was due to the c, not fromsection. You opened it before the section break and closed it after. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but having the section break included in a template probably causes it not be parsed correctly, so the pages tag resorts to the usual method with unknown begins, it starts at the end of the page (which is why you still had the [70] pagenumber on the left, because it techically includes something from that page, it's just empty). — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 13:50, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Score music needed
Could someone familiar with how score music works here please add a short one at the end of Page:Fiddler's Farewell.djvu/101? (despite the fact that it's not straight, it is part of the work as I also found it when the poem got published in a magazine) Thanks, — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 07:24, 11 May 2024 (UTC) EDIT: I cobbled up something that seems to work, but I'd still appreciate if someone could take a look. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 09:31, 11 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Done! —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 21:38, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 08:24, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

How to delete a page created by mistake?
I have created Weird_Tales/Volume_2/Issue_1/ by mistake. Since then I have created the correct page Weird_Tales/Volume_2/Issue_1 with the same content. How can I correct my mistake and remove Weird_Tales/Volume_2/Issue_1/? Klaufir216 (talk) 17:44, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Put  at the top (for more info about this, see WS:CSD and Template:Sdelete). Note: When you create a page at the wrong place, instead of deleting the old one and creating a new one, you can move (rename) it by going in the "Page" menu at the top right. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 18:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If you do move a page like this (i.e. quickly after creation), please mark the old title as . That way we can delete the wrong title. This criterion only applies within a week of creation. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 10:12, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Will keep in mind, thanks a lot! Klaufir216 (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Failing page parser when creating index
I wanted to create an index of a file in Hebrew Wikisource, but the server fails to parse the file for the list of pages. It seems that there's the same error in English: Index:Ketav Sofer al haTorah.pdf. What is my mistake? Drkazmer (talk) 17:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The pagelist is a tag and must therefore be opened with . In your case, there was </ pagelist >, which doesn't work (technically, it'd be a closing tag, and then you're missing the opening tag). I fixed it, normally, though you still need to put a pagelist (as of now, it's empty). — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 18:24, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing it! It may be a bug due to the right-to-left nature of Hebrew, because in case of my previous upload I didn't have such problem at all. Drkazmer (talk) 18:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Huh, so much for me. I also, as a matter of routine after that discussion, purged the file on commons, and it might be that, though it didn't appear to have immediate effect. EDIT: Could you translate me the error message? (I don't speak Hebrew). If it's that whole purging thing, the error should be "Invalid Interval" — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 18:45, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks like the Index at Hebrew Wikisource is working fine, and proofreading has started. Cremastra (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Some piece of the voodooing I did to it fixed the pagelist. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 05:23, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

DOI help
The DOI links for Monthly Weather Review, Volume 1, Issue 1 are weird and are not actually linking properly on Talk:Monthly Weather Review, Volume 1, Issue 1 or Index:Monthly Weather Review, Volume 1, Issue 1.png. Can I have some assistance with fixing that? Also, I'm still newer to the whole page/index aspect on Wikisource, so can someone check over Page:Monthly Weather Review, Volume 1, Issue 1.png to see if I did it properly? WeatherWriter (talk) 21:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As far as the index: You've transcribed library annotations from the bottom. Typically, we don't transcribe writing added after the work was printed, whether library markings, stamps, book plates, etc. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:17, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I fixed the first and second link on the page (missing the l in xml and escaping the [ and ]). MarkLSteadman (talk) 23:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Triggering quality change
I've been trying to find an event to trigger from JS to change the radio buttons for quality. $("input[value=3]").trigger("click") and $(".quality3").trigger("click") are the only two that appear to work, but they do not really, as the proofread button gets checked but the other buttons not unchecked and on saving the page is still red (or whatever it was before). $("div[aria-activedescendant][tabindex=5]").attr("aria-activedescendant", "14") didn't help either, so that's not what actually changes something. The relevant file appears to be there, and it even looks (from the comments ~l.5400) that it is plainly impossible to .trigger it. Maybe there's a way to bypass the radio buttons, and directly call some underlying function. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 19:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Alien333: What is it you're trying to do?In any case, those radio buttons are not plain HTML radio selects, they are an OOUI RadioSelectWidget. You're probably looking for something like For normal HTML radio selects you should use jQuery's  method. --Xover (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I was trying to find a shortcut to mark the page as proofread, instead of having to scroll down.
 * Since clicking changed it, I figured faking a click would do it.
 * Thank you for your solution! — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 17:04, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * isn't the same as interactively clicking the UI with a mouse, it's the event that gets triggered under the hood by that UI interaction. Sometimes these are the same thing, but often they are not. To actually simulate a mouse click you would have to use accessibility APIs and it'd be pretty hacky, probably.But if you're in edit mode the quality buttons are right next to the save button anyway. Are you trying to replace both perhaps? Xover (talk) 17:28, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * For save, there is already the alt-shift-S shortcut, that is sort of useless if you have to scroll anyway to change the quality, so I thought I might as well make another shortcut for that. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 17:33, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * You can probably just  (not tested, may be more OOUI weirdness involved) and assign your own accesskey to kill both birds with one stone. Xover (talk) 18:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough (no OOUI weirdness). Thanks. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 18:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

add 1939 report of the commission on the palestine distrubances of august 1929
i was wondering how to best start putting https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Report_of_the_Commission_on_the_Palestine_Disturbances_of_August_1929_cmd_3530.djvu&page=2, resp https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/Cmd5479.pdf here. in 2 aspects, first how to put at all, and second, how to handle the rather comlex formatting. ThurnerRupert (talk) 00:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)


 * To add the text here, begin by creating the Index:Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929 cmd 3530.djvu. Then proofread each page to match the original.  If the formatting is complex, then this might not be a good choice for creating your first work here.  You might try some of the community collaboration works listed through the main page before starting a challenging work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Question about updating PDF later
So I am working on scanning a large U.S. government online document into a PDF. I currently have 47 pages. I know the Commons allows you to post a new version of a image/PDF. My question is would that screw up stuff over here on Wikisource? So say I uploaded the PDF as-is right now with 47 pages to work on transcribing those (basically 3 chapters done of it). If I then later go back and scan in more images, should I upload that as an entirely separate thing on the Commons or just upload a new version of the PDF? Basically, what should I do in this circumstance. Note, there is probably 200-ish (or more) pages of the document. WeatherWriter (talk) 20:36, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It's best to transcribe from a complete PDF. Yes, altering a PDF during transcription can create problems.  This is one reason we have a setting option on the Index page to indicate a scan needs to be repaired before proofreading. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * WeatherWriter: If you’re just adding pages at the end of the document, then there shouldn’t be any problem. It is not best practice, however. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 21:52, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Deciphering bl capital
Sort of silly question, but there, I can't manage to understand what the first letter of the title is, it's in a bl variant I'm not familiar with. (there is no TOC in this book, so can't use that). It's not a common word either, ending in "idigeigi". Google OCR says it's an H, but it doesn't look like that. A G, maybe? — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 15:23, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Ha, that's a tricky one, but there's an identical character on page 26 which confirms that it's an H. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Good find, thank you. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 15:49, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Wrong text layer and OCR
On this page, the text layer is offset (for some reason). However, when I tried to generate OCR for the page, it generated OCR from the same (wrong) page! TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * It's not offset for me, at least as far as I can tell. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've created the text from what I see. If it is the correct page, then you may need to clear your browser cache to see the correct page. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * EncycloPetey: What does this page look like to you? To me it looks like the start of the next section. If that is the case, then the text layer and OCR generation bases are both correct, but the images are offset. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 01:19, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * To me it's just page 389, and no new section. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:33, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Something is very weird here. When the page first loads it shows one page scan, and then the page image reloads and shows a different page. The text layer loaded into the editor seems to be the one for the page that was briefly displayed, and so does not match the new page image. Since I've never visited this page before it can't be a browser cache issue. But it could still be a MediaWiki thumbnail cache issue, or that Proofread Page is getting stale text data from the API. @Sohom Datta: You may be interested in this issue. Xover (talk) 06:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * But that's not happening to me, so it's not occurring universally for everyone. FWIW, I'm running Firefox on a Mac OS. --EncycloPetey (talk) 07:25, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For me, I get the image of page 391 and the OCR of page 389, though I'm not sure which is offset. (Firefox Ubunto) — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 07:58, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm also seeing page 389 for both the text and image (which matches the downloaded PDF, for the record). Arcorann (talk) 12:18, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I’ve tried from Edge and Google Chrome on two different computers—neither of which has a cache for the page—and both show the right OCR (p. 389) but the wrong page (p. 391, which is the beginning of the next section). This makes it rather difficult to proofread. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 15:02, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Was this resolved? &#32;— ineuw (talk)

Tilted manually scanned pages
This book was manually scanned and the resulting text layer is needs to be retyped manually.

I can straighten the page One of the many but then, so what? What options do I have? &#32;— ineuw (talk) 04:04, 16 June 2024 (UTC)


 * @Ineuw: I don't understand the question. Why do you want to straighten this page? If you're asking how to straighten all pages in this scan then I advise against it: it's a lot of manual work, and the benefits are limited. Xover (talk) 06:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's what I thought, but needed an experienced opinion. I will retype it when needed.&#32;— ineuw (talk) 06:33, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Help fixing Index:Tropical Cyclone Report – Hurricane Katrina.pdf
I am unsure what I did, but the pagelist for the PDF is not displaying. I tried to display commons:File:Tropical Cyclone Report – Hurricane Katrina.pdf. WeatherWriter (talk) 16:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Fixed. In general, you can try purging the file page on enWS (e.g. File:Tropical Cyclone Report – Hurricane Katrina.pdf) by adding  to the end of the URL, then purging the index page. —CalendulaAsteraceae (talk • contribs) 17:43, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it works better to purge it at commons, and also the ?action=purge only works (I think) if you're already in index.php, so it's simpler to use of of the gadgets that do that. — Alien333 (what I did &amp; why I did it wrong) 07:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)