From Wikisource

← Community pages

Scriptorium

Archives→

Shortcut: WS:S WS:SCRIPTORIUM Scriptorium is Wikisource's community discussion page. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments. You may join any current discussion or start a new one. Project members can often be found in the #wikisource IRC channel. For discussion related to the entire project (not just the English chapter), please discuss at the multilingual Wikisource.See here for the historical meaning of "Scriptorium". Disscusions concerning Wikisource's involvment with Wiki Campus Radio are on a subpage Wiki Campus Radio

Contents 1 Announcements 1.1 Newly prepared set of copyright licenses 1.2 Upload file size limit increased 2 Proposals 2.1 Deletion policy: closure by uninvolved administrator 2.2 Wiki Money 2.3 Merchandise 2.4 Semi-protect for Canadian legislation 2.5 Wikisource:Works & Images 2.6 Subpage formatting 2.6.1 Subpage formatting: some more examples 2.7 Remove last_initial parameter from Template:Author 2.7.1 And the Wikipedia link? 3 Other discussions 3.1 CrankyLibrarian project 3.2 {{similar}} template in Author: namespace 4 Questions 4.1 Copyright Status of Posthumous Publications 4.1.1 Restarting the copyright clock v. transferring ownership 4.2 UK 'Hansard' 4.3 Royal Society Digital Archive only for 3 Months FREE 4.3.1 Fully downloaded 4.4 Transcluding Paradise Lost 4.4.1 [long s spinoff thread] 4.5 Derivative Works and Orthography 4.6 Line numbering 4.7 Template:Initials 4.8 Two alphabetical sorts happening in Author categories 4.9 Using anchors in the texts 4.10 Bios on author pages 4.11 DJVU help 4.12 how do I upload this file? 4.13 Dictionary of National Biography Poor Quality Scans 4.14 newspaper clipping of unknown origin 4.15 On the footer 4.16 Kipling copyright query 4.17 Google Frustration 4.18 Deletion of obscure works 4.19 Wikisource:Proposed deletions#Message to Scientology 4.20 Templates for Grammar 4.21 Speedy Deletion question 4.22 If 4.23 Wikilinks from articles 4.23.1 WP guidelines on links from WP to Wikisource 4.24 Hebrew vowels and cantillation 4.25 WP Search misses Author: namespace 4.26 Author disambiguation in header 4.27 Oregon Constitution 4.28 Usurpation of User:Jackie 4.29 Putting a letter on the margin 4.30 New Texts? 4.31 Edmeston and Otsego County 4.32 Images 4.33 English/US spelling 4.34 Sidebar 4.35 Completely off-topic 4.36 Help need with the Dictionary of National Biography project 4.37 Middle English Texts - letters 4.38 Extraction of photos 4.39 Testimony from a British courtroom 4.40 Arrays by selective transclusion 4.41 Typesetting a list with ditto marks 4.42 Polytonic Greek 4.43 FAL 4.44 Disambiguation pages - discussion 4.44.1 Annotation of errors 4.45 Anchors, links & transcluded pages: what is the solution? 4.46 Copyright renewals 4.47 When does a template stop being experimental and usable? 4.48 Biographical info about a translator 4.49 Estimated death dates 4.50 Redundance & coherence into header templates 4.51 For python addicts: scripts to extract text from Internet Archive djvu.xml files 4.52 Texts and proofreading

[edit] Announcements

[edit] Newly prepared set of copyright licenses

After I have had successful uses on Chinese Wikisource, I would like to introduce a newly prepared set of copyright licenses that will not require manual updating because authors have died for longer periods:

• {{PD-anon-1923}} is for anonymous and pseudonymous works published before 1923.
• {{Pd/1923}} is for works with known authorship published before 1923. Entering {{Pd/1923|author's death year}} will automatically pick {{PD-old-50-1923}}, {{PD-old-60-1923}}, {{PD-old-70-1923}}, {{PD-old-75-1923}}, or {{PD-old-80-1923}} depending on how long an author has died. Once died for more than 100 years, {{PD-old}} will be automatically picked. zh:user:Wmrwiki made the code Pd/1923 but I have been unable to merge the function to {{PD-1923}}, so I would like to request any experienced users to try if a merger may be made.
• {{PD-anon-1996}} is for anonymous and pseudonymous works public domain in the USA with the same reason as {{PD-1996}}. Entering {{Pd/1996|year when work was published}} will automatically pick {{PD-anon-60-1996}}, {{PD-anon-70-1996}}, or {{PD-anon-80-1996}} depending on how long an anonymous or pseudonymous work has been published.
• {{Pd/1996}} is for works with known authorship public domain in the USA with the same reason as {{PD-1996}}. Entering {{Pd/1996|author's death year}} automatically pick {{PD-old-60-1996}}, {{PD-old-70-1996}}, {{PD-old-75-1996}}, or {{PD-old-80-1996}} depending on how long an author has died. Once died for more than 100 years, {{PD-old}} will be automatically picked. zh:user:Wmrwiki made the code Pd/1996 but I have been unable to merge the function to {{PD-1996}}, so I would like to request any experienced users to try if a merger may be made.

My prepared set of copyright licenses has several advantages:

1. Copyright licenses regarding how long ago authors died will be automatically updated.
2. Most linked-to categories include {{PD-1923}} and {{PD-old-70}}. Both have more than 1000 members but neither is useful to users who would like to use any of them in the USA and elsewhere before my introduction of the new copyright licenses.
3. Combined licenses show the copyright status in the USA where Wikisource is hosted, as well as other countries and areas, to better comply with the world provisions of the Wikimedia Foundation mission statement, while acknowledging the different national and regional copyright lengths.
4. Excessive double license templates to show US and non-US licenses will be reduced.

Any improvements to my new copyright licenses are welcome, but please do not just push to delete them. If a work is known to be published before 1923, 1996 templates are unneeded. If unsure of publication year but a work is eligible for 1996 templates, please use them. Accommodating author namespace, which does not exist on Chinese Wikisource yet, will be better. Once accommodating author namespaces, both 1923 and 1996 templates may be used as needed.--Jusjih (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The biggest problem is that these templates try to mash together US rules with the rules of unspecified other countries. (We would probably also be doing better to have separate templates for authors and works.) One needs to remember that US copyright law is more irregular than that of most countries. The templates also seem to make assumptions about the application of the rule of the shorter term in other countries by progressing the term of the copyright as we get further from the author's death. For Author:Stephen Leacock, who died in 1944, his works are in the public domain in Canada, and every other country that accepts the rule of the shorter term. A reference to countries with a term of life + 60 years is misleading. Have either of the only two countries affected rejected the rule of the shorter term? Eclecticology (talk) 20:51, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

All templates beginning with "Author-PD", i.e. Author-PD-1923, Author-PD-none, Author-PD-old, Author-PD-old-50, Author-PD-old-60, Author-PD-old-70 are now redirects. Some of them were separate templates, but have been redirected to detect whether they are used in main or author namespace. For the rule of the shorter term, India accepts it, but I am unsure of Venezuela. My thoughts are to better serve as many users around the world as possible. Conversely, Project Gutenburg does not even bother with copyright status outside the USA.--Jusjih (talk) 03:08, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

This is not working altogether correctly. On the page on the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Japan-Korea_Annexation_Treaty, you read at the bottom: "This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago." The document translated on the page was issued in August 1910. How can the author of a 99-year-old document have died at least 100 years ago? Gary Schwartz

There are many cases of posthumous publication. In this case, someone put the wrong copyright tag on the document; nothing preventing that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Upload file size limit increased

That which was long promised has come to pass: Brion has "experimentally" increased the upload limit from 20Mb to 100Mb.[1] Hesperian 11:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposals

[edit] Deletion policy: closure by uninvolved administrator

Eclecticology has recently been deleting pages that he has proposed for deletion at WS:PD.

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Category:Mishnah_Berakhot_Translations - deleted after 10 days with no comments

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Contributions by User:125.163.2.95 - deleted after 7 days with one comment

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Benjamin Bowen Day

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#Remember Them - 9 days, 2 comments

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-11#America's Best Comics/subpages - 12 days, 1 comment

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-11#Lber AL vel Legis Persian Translation (Chap A) - 5 days, 2 comments, but fits within speedy deletion "author request" and "common sense"

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-11#Excerpts from study report of third battle of panipat headed by Arthur Wellselley for English east India co. - 2 weeks, 1 comment

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-11#Category:Academic journals and Category:Magazines - 2 weeks, 1 comment

Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-11#Auditory vs. Visual AD/HD: Deepening Our Understanding of AD/HD Complexities and Processing Disorders - two weeks, no comment.

Our Deletion policy indicates that deletion discussions will be open for at least a week, however it doesnt stipulate whether they should be done by an uninvolved administrator, or even that the nominator shouldnt also perform the deletion.

Except for one, Benjamin Bowen Day, all of the deletions are not only within policy; they are also very sound decisions.

However, deletions by the nominating admin has caused problems and bad feelings in the past, and it is not a pattern I think we should be returning to. We have a few admins (Giggy comes to mind, but there are others too) who routinely clean out backlogs and deletion discussions, and I think we have enough admins now that we can depend on another admin closing the discussions within a reasonable time frame. If we have backlogs, we need more admins, or we need to remind each other do the work.

I propose that we add a requirement to our deletion policy that the deleting admin should be uninvolved, or .. a weaker rule that they should not have proposed or substantially supported the deletion. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

While my initial reaction is full support, it leads to the issue that administrators may start "voting with the delete button" as sometimes happens on other WMF projects. If you find a 3D-1K vote ongoing, why lend your vote to the Delete side, when you can just close it and announce it deleted? Admins may prove less willingly to simply 'vote as one of the many editors of the project', if they know that voting also excludes them from making the final judgement call.

On that note, I wouldn't mind seeing it so there's an automatic extension of debate if there are any Keep votes on a nomination - so that it goes from one week, to two weeks - for example. It would also help solve the problem a little bit, since admins could still close something with four Delete votes even if they were one of them -- but they couldn't close it if there was also a Keep vote. Draw a line of sorts between "unanimous decisions" and "contentious decisions" and use that to determine what a nominator can or cannot close. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: e. e. cummings‎'. 09:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)}

My dream policy would be that any admin saying keep means a page cant be deleted. They must be convinced, or concede. If they stonewall often without acceptable reasoning, their annual reconfirmation will not be pretty. If they are obviously disregarding the law, reconfirmation can be called at any time. Non-admins need not worry - they can become admins soon enough - simply prove that you have a dream too. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see John acknowledge that he considers all to have been deleted within the bounds of policy, and it is only the Benjamin Bowen Day article that he considers unsound, though he does ignore that he put it into Category:Deletion requests/Unpublished himself in August. With the disputed article, the deletion nomination did remain there for a week. The only two comments during that time supported deletion. There were no Keep votes at all, or even Comments, so the automatic extension would not have applied. As a matter of practice, when there is a "keep" or "comment" I have consistently reset the clock to measure the week from the time of the last such comment. I treat nominations which receive no comments at all as having received implicit support. Also, I prefer to wait a further week after deletion before archiving the deletion proposal. The nomination for Template:Print version notice was not mine, but I did perform the related deletions. There were strong objections voiced by Nikola Smolenski, so I just left it there for someone else to archive or take other action.

Saying that any Keep by an admin means that the page can't be deleted unless he is bullied to change his mind takes things much too far. Having it sorted out with the next reconfirmation sounds too much like the kind of thing that you would hear from governing party politicians. Meanwhile ....

Sherurcij makes a good point about the effects of a too rigid policy. Admins will start looking for ways around it. They will avoid taking responsibility for the bold steps that are sometimes needed in the more divisive situations, where what is needed is to be both fair and decisive. Backlogs will grow because few new admins will be willing to accept responsibility when it means facing the whining wrath of senior admins. If we want them to be bold, they need to feel that occasional errors in judgement are no big deal. If a decision to delete is so awful, and the article so vital re-creating the article, or starting an undelete process is still available as a strategy. Eclecticology (talk) 01:39, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The only part that I disagree with is "I treat nominations which receive no comments at all as having received implicit support." - we dont have many people who are able or willing, for various reasons, to expend lots of time researching each case, so it can take a while for this to occur. I do understand where you're coming from; I'd be happy for us to adopt an implicit "delete" if we also allowed "* Comment, need more time. ~~~~"

While each deletion of a poor quality page may not mean much to us when we are adding hundreds of new pages per day, the idea of "acceptable levels of collateral damage" is scary. Each unjustified deletion is liable to turns away a contributor who would otherwise have learnt the ropes and contributed more. All deletion should be based on sound reasons to do so, or "too hard". John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I have absolutely no problem with using something like "Comment, need more time" in the way that you describe. In the Benjamin Bowen Day case that would at the very least delayed the deletion. When I said "no comments at all" that was intended to be interpreted strictly.

I don't think that this is a matter of scaring away cotributors at all. Most, though not all, of the articles are from contributors who are long gone. Active editors who object to a proposed deletion of their work are usually pretty quick to object, and that alone would result in a different set of circumstances. Eclecticology (talk) 04:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: This is an extremely good idea brought up by Jayvdb (talk • contribs). The initial nominator of a deletion discussion should never be the one to close that discussion, if that can at all possibly be avoided. Especially on a project with enough active contributors where such a thing can be avoided. In this manner we avoid any appearance of impropriety, whether or not it is actually there in a case by case basis. Better to err on the side of not closing where one was the nom as well. Cirt (talk) 02:24, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
• Comment, I support the change in policy as well. Having another person doing the deletion is for the best, as it puts another set of eyes on the request. If it is something outside of speedy delete criteria then the situation is too complicated to rely on one person handling the whole matter. We'll get better outcomes consistently if a second person makes the final call about the request. FloNight (talk) 10:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Not only is this change sound policy, it's common sense. Admins should not do things that question their motives or integrity. Eclecticology has also made shaky AFDs, such as Coker, which is now the FT of the month. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:23, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  • To say that the Coker nomination was shaky is plain bullshit. It was a series of private and personal documents about a person who was not particularly notable, and that were not previously published, and that alone qualifies at least to be nominated for deletion. It's value is on a par with writing about the family dog. People did in fact vote to keep it, and I did not delete it. Nominations for deletion are not deletions, and I resent your notion that anyone should be stigmatized just because he proposed something contrary to the Point of View that you have been championing. If you feel that I have been questioning anyone's motives and integrity, have the balls to express that directly, rather than through some vague inuendo. Eclecticology (talk) 09:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
    • He is not stating that you're questioning others' motives, but that your actions lead an uninvolved newbie to question your motives or integrity. Not that you lack integrity or have dishonest motives, but that by closing your own nominations, you needlessly make yourself stand upon a shakier pillar of public support. For normal users, it's up to them whether average passersby think they're grinding an axe or not -- but as administrators, people like you and regrettably I, we have a bit more of a responsibility to not be seen to be forcing our way on the project. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 09:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Money

it's 4am, if this idea is insane, I hide behind the "omg, so tired" excuse

A thought occurred to me today, while browsing the w:Wikipedia:Reward board; it sure would be nice if I could say "I'll give fifty cents for every text added to this week's COTW", or "I'd give $5 to have somebody copy/paste over this 100-chapter book".

So then the idea snowballed in my mind a bit, "WS is a fairly small community...why couldn't we create a Paypal account specifically for WS - and only the Bureaucrats would have access to its funds? It'd just be nickels and dimes, never more than $100 I doubt -- where people pay in to get little chores done. And then, when somebody sees an uncommon and interesting book on w:eBay that's $14.50 that would be great to have on Wikisource, they can throw up a proposal on the Scriptorium or something, and if four admins vote to buy the book, it's purchased with WS money and shipped out to some admin who has either a high-res scanner or digital camera, etc.

We could have a little template in the top corner of the Scriptorium;

Wikisource currently has $23.15, suggest ways to spend it?

Anyways, how crazy is the idea? It would only be Bureaucrats (Zhaladsar and Briggite) who had access to the money; and since we're dealing in tens of dollars...it doesn't seem like a risk any of us would be averse to taking -- if we agreed to chip in $5 to WS as thanks for somebody's help with a task. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 09:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• I remember a similar proposal at Wikipedia a year or two ago, but I just searched for the history and could not find it. Jeepday (talk) 11:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

  You weren't looking back far enough. This came up before Wikimania Frankfurt in 2005. During the year before that there were experiments of the kind to kick-start Wikipedias in Ossetian and Bambara. Nothing more was heard about these after the funds ran out. Eclecticology (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'll pitch in a $10 donation to the fund if we do this. I think it would be great to get some text that Project Gutensberg, Google Books, or Internet Archive don't have. That is my 2 cents (or should I say $10 :P ). --Mattwj2002 (talk) 12:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• While I would not vote against this, I'm a pessimist about its success. Work out a budget. That will give you a much better idea about the viability of the scheme. On the revenue side, if (optimistically) each of our admins were to give $10 that would still only total $400. On the expense side, after the eBay and shipping costs, how much would it take to make it worthwhile to do the work? A person with good high-speed equipment probably doesn't need the money, so if we estimate on the basis one page per minute and a minimum wage of $10.00 an hour we would need to pay 17 cents per page. With the pittance involved there is little need for any kind of formality for managing the proposal. As long as the pool is less than $1,000 the person who volunteers to do this should have a free hand in its administration, but it would be good if he makes regular reports. Eclecticology (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Presumably the person who says "Wow, facsimile copies of a bunch of personal letters housed in the w:Smithsonian by famous people...that's definitely worth $18, can we use the WS money to buy it?" would also be the one to volunteer his time transcribing them afterwards (and if they didn't get transcribed six months later, we'd hardly trust him in the future to suggest uses for our money - "finish those letters first") -- though others may interject to say "I support buying this book, and if you need someone to help you scan its pages, I'd be willing to do it". I'm not really sure why you think we'd be paying people to transcribe works they asked us to buy. Like most of my WS views, it would try to be focused on "interesting, little-known texts/letters/books" that would be of wide-ranging interest -- so hopefully nobody proposes buying something so boring that the rest of the project isn't willing to help them transcribe/scan/OCR it. But I've often seen things on eBay that would make a great addition to WS - but the thought process is "Well, I don't have $20 to spare on some facsimiles of letters" (Amusing story, Author:Leo Tolstoy has already cost me over $100 in fees from international libraries and universities sending me facsimiles of unpublished manuscripts and essays). This just fosters some more community "collaboration", while also opening a doorway to convince Jay to program his bot for me ("Come on, I'll give WS $20 if you do it this afternoon"), or for me to go help fill out texts related to some subject I don't particularly care about ("Hey guys, I'll pay $1 for every Scientology-related text added this week"). Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.}

Your revision to only pay for buying the books on eBay is certainly more workable than paying people to do the work. A budget would still be needed with reasonable funding projections. The Wikipedia Reward Board depends on individuals who make private offers that do not draw from a pooled fund. Eclecticology (talk) 23:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you misread something in the original proposal, I never suggested we pay people to do work. I said that, for example, I could ask Pathos to run his bot for me and I'd donate $1 to the treasury, or I could say that for every work on Author:Leo Tolstoy added this month, I'm paying $4 into the treasury. The treasury does not, and was never suggested to, pay members. It is used solely for things like "purchasing a text on eBay" or something similar. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 23:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• See: w:Wikipedia:WikiMoney/w:Wikipedia:WikiMoney accounts^[2] Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Although the same name, I think that is actually an entirely unrelated notion. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 19:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• This sounds like a great idea. I like the idea of giving money to the treasury if someone does a certain job. I also think it would be nice to have some texts Google Books/Archive.org don't. Psychless 20:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• We'll need a log-in eMail addres that's generic enough to fit WS. Any ideas what to use for this? Using freemail seems gaudy. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 00:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Money sounds like a great idea, Sherurcij. I would contribute $10 to this.

While the Bureaucrats attempt to set up a Paypal account, a budget, funding projections, etc., I encourage you to be bold, go ahead and start a project at a wikipedia: fund and release website -- perhaps http://www.pledgebank.com/explain or https://www.fundable.com/ -- and post a link here to your project there. --DavidCary (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Initially I must confess I was reluctant, but now I think I'm being won over. I'd like to see something like this happen. We could get some really interesting books out of this (and if we shop smartly, we can get them for not exorbitant fees, either). Why not just use an address like Wikisource@something.com? Or WikisourceMoney@something.com? What service money would we even use for this?—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Paypal seems to be the most widely-accepted currency for online purchases, so I'd suggest we get a Wikisource@something.com (avoid hotmail? technically it's allowed) account going -- though I think we need somebody to front a new bank account, or credit card or something similar to get the account set up to make purchases...not absolutely certain on that. I could go to my bank in a month or so and see if they'll let me open a new account without overdrafts Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 15:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Somebody would need to run the idea past the foundation, and get approval, and probably a foundation email. I suspect there are multiple tax and legal considerations to accepting donations. Jeepday (talk) 00:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Right, so we just call it "the Zhaladshar fund" instead and make it clear that no, you don't get tax receipts for your donations. Voila, problem solved - as long as it officially doesn't have "Wikisource" in the name (or eMail address), we should just handle this internally among ourselves. WMF isn't going to mire itself in liability for $40. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 04:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I've already stated that I'm neither a supporter nor an optimist about this proposal. On this last point though acting boldly on the plan is most likely to bring success. Bogging the proposal down in search of permissions would be far more effective in bringing it to a grinding halt than any negative expressions on my part. Eclecticology (talk) 07:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• (unident) What if you create a list of books you want, and set up some process so the granter can purchase online and send the book to someone with a scanner. That way instead of collecting "donations" without offering a reciept, you have two volunteers contributing to the project. One donates the book, the other donates the time tools. The book can then be donated to a local library in the name of Wikisource or something. Jeepday (talk) 11:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Merchandise

While we're talking about money, I notice that the Cafepress Wikipedia page offers merchandise for Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikimedia itself, but not Wikisource. Does anyone know why not? Is it the responsibility of this community, or a foundation issue? If I could get that iceberg on a stein, I'm sure if would keep my beer damn cold. Hesperian 01:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I asked them about this years ago back when we had the photo version of the wikisource logo. They didn't provide it on a t-shirt because the foundation hadn't ordered any (due to copyright, technical & different look issues). I guess none of that applies now we have the wikistyle logo & its just a case that noone's gotten around to getting the foundation to print some up and make them available. AllanHainey (talk) 17:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

m:Talk:Store#Wikisource. Hesperian 10:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protect for Canadian legislation

We currently host Canadian legislation (thank goodness) based on the {{Legislation-CAGov}} template which cites the Reproduction of Federal Law Order. This order requires that anybody hosting such a copy may do so only "provided due diligence is exercised in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced". To me, this suggests we much take an "extra" step to ensure this, and I suggest cascading semi-protect on these texts, allowing registered users to edit them, but rejecting attempts by anonymous IP addresses (the bulk of our vandalism) would help "satisfy" that requirement, and show that we actually "went the extra mile" to meet our obligations specific to the RFLO. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 07:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I recall cascading semi-protect was a short-lived bug; while it was around, it was technically possible for registered users to use that to semi-protect pages, but it was fixed, since that wasn't the intention. I'd think semi-protecting the page should be sufficient, or we could consider implementing flagged revisions, which should have a similar affect. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 22:46, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, I may have used the term "cascading" incorrectly then -- I was simply referring to embedding the semi-protect code into the template, not the {noinclude} part of {{Legislation-CAGov}} so that pages with that template will be automatically semi-protected. It seems easier than flagged revisions - though perhaps in the future they could work in tandem or replace each other. Right now though, I think a simple semi-protect would be a nice touch. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 22:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You should probably consider the same protection for documents covered by {{UK-Crown-waiver}} since it has a similar requirement for accuracy (see point 12(b) under Guidance)--T. Mazzei (talk) 00:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

While I don't have any objections to the being polite and going the extra mile, I feel I should point out that {{PD-EdictGov}} also applies and does not require the protection. Jeepday (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point, but I agree that if it just takes a little bit on our part (and doesn't result in any lost texts), then we should always try to be "accomodating" to foreign countries - both for the sake of people in Canada who upload Canadian legislation (and are not protected by its American PD-nature), and simply to show and gain experience in "dealing with issues arising in specific circumstances" in the hopes it'll help us in the future as well. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 01:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. How much vandalism has there been on these pages? This is more like a solution in search of a problem. Using Nostradamus to divine "due diligence" only generates further confusion on this concept. A Wiki should limit page protection to where it is absolutely essential. Flagged revisions would be acceptable. Eclecticology (talk) 09:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting the pages are more heavily vandalised than any other text, but that while we may decide the risk that Tom Sawyer will be vandalised, whether for ten minutes or ten days, resulting in 1-100 readers seeing the corrupted version, is "worth the risk" to us. However, that decision is not in our hands for Canadian/UK legislation, the Crown has already dictated that such vandalism occurring would basically invalidate our right to host the works -- so the suggestion is to show due diligence at preventing vandalism, even moreso than we do for regular texts. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 15:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Raising the matter of UK legislation only serves to obfuscate this discussion, which is about Canadian legislation. Where have the Canadian government or Canadian Courts made such dictates about vandalism? You clearly just made that up for the sake of winning an argument. The standard for "due diligence" is that of an ordinarily prudent person in the conduct of his own affairs; the kind of descent into paranoia that you propose is not a part of this. Eclecticology (talk) 19:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It may, in the future, behoove you to actually read the legislation being referenced, in this case I think it's quite clear that the phrase 'provided due diligence is exercised in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced" implies that I did not "just make this up" - and I see no evidence to suggest this is any kind of "paranoia". If you insist on a court finding, perhaps this 2003 ruling that clarifies "due diligence" to mean " the accused to avoid liability by proving that he took all reasonable care...or if he took all reasonable steps to avoid the particular event." Clearly, adding a simple semi-protect to such legislation would be a step towards proving that the Wikimedia Foundation took reasonable steps to ensure the integrity, rather than simply saying "we did nothing to ensure the integrity, screw off". Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 21:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Your proposal goes well beyond reasonable care. Reasonable care does not require to generally anticipate willfully offensive behaviour such as vandalism, and even there the extent of the damage needs to be considered, as should the ability to recover from the damage. The case that you cite had to do with a broken pipe, and the court was merely ruling that the defence of due diligence was available; it did not rule whether that defence would be successful under the circumstances. The real damage caused by having a vandalized statute here is minimal because we still state that our version is not official. Also, where a statute has been vandalized we still have an archive of all past states of that page to allow for a quick recovery when required. Given all these other options, there is no need for this oppressive proposal. Eclecticology (talk) 22:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"avoid the particular event", not "correct the particular event some hours, days or months after it happens". Semi-protect is a reasonable step to prevent vandalism, rather than correct it after-the-fact. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 23:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't we already apply diligence to all our texts? There is a policy regarding that at WS:PROTECT#Preservation of integrity. If we believe this text is accurate, then the policy allows them to be fully protected. If they aren't accurate, then I don't think protection would help, since anon edits can fix problems as well as introduce them. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 18:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikisource:Works & Images

Following on from comments below on WS:Works and my question on images I noticed in Wikisource:Image guidelines we say "Most images are not useful on Wikisource, since text is the primary purpose; images should not be added simply because they bear some indirect relevance to the subject." This would seem to rule out pretty much all the images on Wikisource:Works. I think that we should get rid of all - in particular the moving - images there but I wanted to raise it here first for comment as I appreciate some are likely to prefer the large number of images there. Personally I reckon they make the page too cluttered and in a lot of cases don't provide any real illumination as to what the link is to without reading the link itself. AllanHainey (talk) 16:13, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I very much agree. I did raise something like this in the last couple days on another thread, and was properly chastened for being off-topic. I find that whole page to be one big muddle, and the images there don't help when they spread the links out even more. The bigger difficulty is with our top level organization. What's really needed is a more systematic approach to our top level organization, and a more co-ordinated view of the way in which we employ the Wikisource: and Category: namespaces. This needs a far sighted approach that takes into account what this project can be and what it can include. Eclecticology (talk) 18:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Unlike Wikipedia, Wikisource lacks any "colour" - so the use of graphical depictions in our index headings help make us a little more txt-based - at least in my opinion. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 03:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subpage formatting

I'm new to wikisource so forgive me if this has come up before. I like the idea of rooting a single work as a page and then its contents in subpages of that page, but I don't like how page titles are then displayed in Monobook and presumably other skins. It means we end up with page titles like this:

Treaty on European Union/Protocol on the convergence criteria referred to in Article 109j of the Treaty establishing the European Community

I think it would be much more aesthetic and useful if this displayed more like:

Treaty on European Union > Protocol on the convergence criteria referred to in Article 109j of the Treaty establishing the European Community

(This would require a small change to the software which I could write myself and propose over at bugzilla.)

This way subpages would automatically build a tree and highlight the title of the relevant page. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 14:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to know what the implications of such a change to the software would mean to other unrelated pages, and what this would do to the way we link to the page. We would probably do better to encourage people to make page titles less verbose, thus "Treaty on European Union/Protocol on Article 109j". The header in the article could still show the full title. Eclecticology (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we change how pages are titled or how we link to other pages, just how we display the titles on pages. On the related point, I'm not sure we should really rename protocols. We're not meant to be re-writing them after all. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It looks like we don't have subpages enabled in the main space. That configuration change would add the links to parent pages, although it would still display the full title. Maybe it would then be sufficient to add {{DISPLAYTITLE:{{SUBPAGENAME}}}} to the header? Although that would still require a small software change, it would be fairly self contained. I think it would be ideal if we could set the display title of a page like Bible/Titus/1/1 to something like "Titus/1/1" or even better "Titus 1:1". -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 20:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The Bible pages are not really a problem, because no book of the Bible has a long-winded name; most are readily recognized by a single-word name. When we break many other publications down into chapter based sub-pages, we promote the use of page numbers only and actively discourage adding chapter titles. Our "page" titles need not be identical to what the original used, though our page should show the original title prominently near the beginning of the article itself. Our headers are not a part of the original article; they represent metadata that allow the article to interface with other material that we host. Disambiguation, and easily linked short titles are all a part of that interface. If a person is really interested in protocols to the E.U. Treaty we need to make the linkage as easy as possible. Eclecticology (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to make a specific point about EU protocols or "long winded" names. I never liked the way Wikipedia displayed subpages, but there it doesn't affect articles. A slash makes perfect sense with urls, but little with the titles displayed on pages. Compare:

United States Code/Title 35/Chapter 27/Section 267

with

United States Code » Title 35 » Chapter 27 » Section 267

'/' just looks too much like a terminal prompt. This is a standard way of displaying hierarchical lists. Open Directory do it this way. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 00:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I like it. Hesperian 00:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I can see the point, and it does have aesthetic benefits. IIRC, I even think that I played with something of the sort in the days of old wikisource. Assuming that there is support for the idea, it would be unwise to proceed in a hurry without a thorough analysis of what the change might break. Our sub-page system is used extensively, so caution is advisable. Eclecticology (talk) 01:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Getting the software written and approved will probably take a while. There should be pleanty of time to figure out any name changes that need to be made. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 13:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

This is one of those chicken or egg problems. Human nature being what it is, very few people would be inclined to work on this massive number of name changes without some prior assurance that the software change will be implemented. I'd like to see it debugged on a test wiki first. Eclecticology (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

It would be good to see a mock up for complete pages where we have a complex subpage levels. The url will still display a 'slashed' hierarchy. My one concern is that I regularly used the copy and paste the displayed slashed hierarchy on a page to enable easy builds of page links, so that will mean that people will either retype (which is subject to errors) or copy and paste and then have to replace the ' >> ' with '/'. --billinghurst (talk) 11:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

One book that I have worked on in the past is The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. Besides being a fine collection of stories, it is difficult to capture how each story fits into the broader scheme of the work. Eclecticology (talk) 17:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The first thing I think we could solve quite easily. A little bit of Javascript could add a menu beside the page edit links which would copy the full article name to the clipboard. Or if the clipboard is too difficult, a popup layer of the slashed page title.

The second is a bit trickier. The software needs to be changed first. Once this is done however we should be able to tinker around with how it displays on a test site. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 13:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

• It may make sense to consider this as three separate changes:
  1. enable subpages in the main namespace. Currently, we name the pages as though this feature were enabled, but it's not; if it was, we'd already see the links to the parent pages, i.e. user:sanbeg/test/sub. This should be non-controversial.

     Curiously it was enabled for all subdomains recently. See oldwikisource:Wikisource:Scriptorium#enable subpages in main namespace on all subdomains. Actually it is already enabled here since long. I removed some "tweak" which prevent displaying that. Yann (talk) 23:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

  2. relax the rules for DISPLAYNAME, which currently only allows alternate names if they'd normalize the same as the real name. We'd need to modify it to allow displaying only part of the name without the basename, and possibly use an alternate separator. This is more controversial, since it would allow a page to have a displayname that is the name of a different page, which isn't currently allowed, so there would need to be some agreement here & with the devs.
  3. Modify the skin to place the hierarchy before the title (in monobook, that would'nt make much sense in, say, modern) and to allow replacing the pipe separator with something else. IMHO, this seems less important than 1 & 2 for the affect we want. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

• • This sounds like a useful breakdown of the task.
    1. Disabling of subpages in the main namespace of Wikipedia was already being implemented when I first became involved in 2002, and I never did grasp why this was being done. I would like to see what happens if we turn this on, before going ahead with the other. It could seriously affect the way we work in other ways. It would be nice to see a more consistent use of the "previous" parameter in the Header so that it would only apply to a page of equal rank, and not to a page that is higher in the hierarchy.
    2. This is certainly consistent with my point above about names: Our page name need not be identical to the name that appears on the original work. The most important reason for the difference is to resolve ambiguities, but there are others.
    3. I'm less supportive of this one. Skin-specific changes may not work at all with other skins. This is something which those who have grown up knowing only monobook often fail to notice. Eclecticology (talk) 18:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

In the interests in stimulating the technical site of this debate, I have just created {{title path}}, which will display the subpage hierarchy, pretty much as illustrated above, for any mainspace page upon which it is placed. It works for subpages nested up to ten deep, and can easily be extended to more if necessary. If I could be bothered I'm sure I could extend it to other namespaces too.

To demonstrate, I have (temporarily) stuck it at the top of United States Code/Title 35/Chapter 27/Section 267. Check it out.

The significance of this is that we don't actually need to hack the software, and we don't need to enable subpages. Presumably all we need to do is relax the DISPLAYNAME rules to accept this. Alternatively, we might accept the DISPLAYNAME as is, and merely hack this into our standard header template.

Hesperian 23:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

It looks awfully big. I like the more modest display made visible by Yann's tweaks. That also addresses my concern about the "previous" parameter. It should now be safe to blank that parameter when the contents are at a higher level in the hierarchy.

It also makes me wonder how we might handle having articles that belong to more than one hierarchy. Eclecticology (talk) 08:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Well shrink it then. I don't think articles should belong to more than one hierarchy. Hesperian 10:09, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I've written a javascript demonstration of my proposal. (Not as difficult as I'd thought). if you add:

importScriptURI("/w/index.php?title=User:Blue-Haired_Lawyer/hierarchy.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript");

to your monobook.js (that User:[Your name here]/monobook.js for the unfamiliar) and it will display page titles in line with my first example above. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 11:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Any feedback? In the meantime we might consider enabling subpages in the main namespace. It would only require a small change to MediaWiki:Monobook.css. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't noticed that this had already been done. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

We've been discussing a similar issue, here: Talk:Oregon Constitution#Top level header. At first glance this proposal looks like a very good one, and like it would (at least partially) address our difficulty. However, I hesitate to speak with much certainty, as I'm still pretty new to how things are done on Wikisource. I'll try installing the sample code. -Pete (talk) 17:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subpage formatting: some more examples

I've been using my javascript for a while now and as far a subpage naming problems go we'd have to rename short titles, for example those which are just numbers. The Bible is a decent example. An article which is now named "Bible/Titus/1/1" would display a rather unfortunate:

Bible » Titus » 1 » 1

however a rename to "Bible/Titus/Chapter 1/ Verse 1" results in a better: (hopefully we could get a bot to do this kind of thing)

Bible » Titus » Chapter 1 » Verse 1

and with more flexible naming:

Bible » Titus » Chapter 1 » Titus 1:1

Any thoughts? Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 01:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep it all on one line. Hesperian 03:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

We already have had people working on Bible projects, and it would not be wise to start using bots for making changes there without having those people onside. Eclecticology (talk) 05:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. I was just giving it as an example of how page titles might be written. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk)

The problem with every thing on a single is that on longer page titles instead of this:

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II » Volume I » Constantine » The Life of Constantine » Book II » Chapter 23

we get this:

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II » Volume I » Constantine » The Life of Constantine » Book II » Chapter 23

Then again maybe it's not so bad. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 18:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

And when you consider that "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II" isn't even showing up in your examples ... :-) Eclecticology (talk) 20:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Upps... point proven. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 02:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

If we relax the displayname rules to allow displaying any number of subpage components from the right side of the title on subpages, then we shouldn't need to rename anything; especially if we can use an alternate separator. It seems like this would be useful on any project that has subpages in article space, and wouldn't affect other projects. I think that would be preferable to using javascript, as long as we can push it through, although if it's complicated to implement, it may be worth checking on bugzilla or wikitech to see how others feel about it. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 23:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The main problem was displaying pages with '/' in the titles. Whatever the result we wouldn't have to rename anything. We could rename certain articles if it made sense to do so. Arguably it's better to have more self-explaintory pages name (ie "Page 2") instead of ("2"). Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 02:09, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Remove last_initial parameter from Template:Author

I would like to propose that the last_initial parameter be removed from Template:Author. The author's last name is already provided in the lastname field, and we can use wikicode to extract the first letter of the last name without an additional parameter. Take Author:Nikola Tesla for example. The code:

[[{{padright:Wikisource:Authors-|20|Tesla}}|{{padright:Author Index: |19|Tesla}}]]

produces Author Index: T. The secret is that the padright function uses only the first letter of its third parameter, and the first letter is exactly what we are looking for.

This method prevents users from making a mistake when copying the last initial, and also means less menial work in general. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

If other people agree with this, I would propose making the change. Making things as automated as possible I think is the best approach, and one less parameter we have to add is preferable.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Only issue is that I typically use "al-Hami" as the "last name" for an Arabic author, and that would automatically categorise as A, not H - which isn't ideal. And adding the al- onto the "First name" would seem weird...any chance you could code an exception to ignore al-? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 17:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

This is an important point. Not all names are as well behaved as modern western names. This is normally not a difficult parameter to fill in, and it's just as easy to fix an error here when it does happen. It's also my understanding that the "padright" template would not work properly with non-US-ASCII characters such as in Author:Ælfric. I do think that "Last Initial" is misnamed and thus misleading, and would prefer something like "Filing Initial(s)" to better account for other possibilities, but there is no immediacy about that. Eclecticology (talk) 20:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, those are very good points. We'd want to leave a parameter available to override the default categorization if necessary. Also, thanks for pointing out Ælfric. I just tried it and including {{padright:Wikisource:Authors-|20|Ælfric}} anywhere on a page blanks the entire page. Not very helpful. That bug would have to be fixed before this could be deployed. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I filed bug 16852, please vote for it if you're interested. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] And the Wikipedia link?

If we are modifying the Author template to not enforce that field, could we also have something done for the WP link for when it is left blank. Its current default when left blank is ungraceful. Not all our authors are going to have WP articles. -- billinghurst (talk) 11:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other discussions

[edit] CrankyLibrarian project

CrankyLibrarian has kindly decided to assist us pull his collection into Wikisource. I have created a page listing all of the books with links (the links dont work yet, ..) to the pages on the crankylibrarian website.

Wikisource:WikiProject_CrankyLibrarian

We will probably be slurping these pages in via bots so to assist the bots get it right the first time we will need author pages to be created, page names disambiguated, and copyright checked.

If we already have an edition, it would be good to spot check that they are the same, and that our edition is better quality - any that we dont want imported can be removed from the list. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 03:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is quite the collection we'll be getting! (Too bad there aren't pagescans to go with it, but oh well. :) ). It's going to take forever to do those author pages, I must say.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 16:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it help if I rebuilt the page as a table? Then we could have a "notes" column, or an "action" column to record whether we want to import it or not, or whether it needs to be manually merged into our copy. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 22:37, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it matters much, one way or the other. Simple notes after each entry should suffice.I presume that this is all happening because he wants to get out of the text hosting business. It would, in either case help to add letter headers for ease of navigation. Are we working to a time limit? Comparing two editions can involve a whole raft of problems; if we can't be sure of the source of either we can't know which is the better. Eclecticology (talk) 23:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I corrected a bit this wikiproject page. I think most of these works where copied from Gutenberg. That way, I even found an error where Gutenberg attributes a work to the wrong author, and Cranky most probably copying the error with the text. I have found a few works in the list which are copyrighted in USA, and were deleted from WS, notably The Great Gasby, so copyright has to be carefully checked. Yann (talk) 20:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

To the extent that the Cranky list includes material copied over from Gutenberg with the usual lack of sourcing, we would do better to remove them from the list because we can copy them directly from Gutenberg if we want. The list would then be left with only those works that are relatively unique to the Cranky site, and these could be given greater priority in our efforts. Eclecticology (talk) 21:15, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{similar}} template in Author: namespace

The {{similar}} template needs some tinkering to work successfully in the Author: namespace. I was hoping that someone could code some magic, so that the {{similar}} works like {{disambiguation}} and {{PD-old}} in putting in the alternate text for the appropriate namespace.

Example of now Author:John Brown (reverend) says

I was thinking that the Author text could say See authors with the same name. Thanks. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It now says "See authors with similar names." See your John Brown page for an example. (I accidentally made the edit as an IP, btw.) Psychless 00:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

[edit] Copyright Status of Posthumous Publications

Since there is a wealth of community knowledge and experience dealing with copyright issues here at the English Wikisource, I would like to solicit some advice regarding texts we are dealing with in Hebrew. It is quite likely that the essential question is relevant to many texts (or potential texts) here too.

We are dealing with the writings of several nineteenth and early twentieth century authors, all of whom published important works during their lifetimes, but who also left substantial works in manuscript that were later published by their descendants or disciples. The works published during their lifetimes are all of course in the public domain, and we are publishing many of them at Hebrew Wikisource. All of them were already published during the early part of the twentieth century or before then, and more than 70 years has passed since the deaths of all of the authors being discussed.

However, when it comes to the works they left behind unpublished, the matter is less clear. Most of these works were eventually published in the decades following the deaths of their authors, in simple editions that are nothing more and nothing less than transcriptions of the handwritten manuscripts they left behind. A few, however, were subject to some editing, which usually involved the re-arrangement of chapters and their combination into essays or books based on shared topics. Some also were subject to serious editing, i.e. thorough annotation, and it is obvious that this latter group has copyright protection in the favor of the editors who did the annotations.

The real question is regarding the former groups: Does typing up a manuscript and sending it to press grant copyright protection to the editor or the publisher? I emphasize that the only work going on in this question is transcription. No notes are being added, no editorial elements are being added, the manuscript is simply being typed up exactly as its author wrote it. And the author died more than 70 years ago. Is such a work in the public domain or not?

It should be added the courts have already dealt with a seemingly related question, but one that at least to me seems not truly relevant. When scholars produce critical/scientific editions of pre-modern works based deciphering ancient or pre-modern manuscripts, comparing them, and reconstructing a reliable edition based upon the available evidence, it is clear that these works have copyright protection even if the text being edited is 3000 years old. There have been many court decisions confirming this, and the reason is obviously that such work (both reading extremely difficult and sometimes fragmentary manuscripts and weighing all the available evidence) involves a great deal of creativity and subjective judgment.

In the discussions of this matter in Hebrew these court decisions have been raised, but it seems to me that to bring them up is to compare apples and oranges: For the posthumous publication of manuscripts from the 19th or early 20th century that we are discussing, absolutely no originality is claimed, and the opposite is actually the case: The books purport to represent the manuscripts exactly as they were written, and are even published in the same format as the books which were published during the author's lifetime.

So the two major questions seem to be the following:

• Does the physical possession of a manuscript by the author's descendants or students give them copyright over the content when those manuscripts are published?
• Does the simple transcription of a manuscript (basically just typing it) grant copyright to the transcriber or to the publisher (as if he has "deciphered" the text)?

If the answer to the above questions is "no" then we will be able to host a large number of very important texts. But even with a "no" there is still the further question of the borderline case, namely when manuscripts have been published posthumously but their chapters have been re-arranged by topic. Does that sort of re-arrangement grant copyright status?

One last question: If transcribing and publishing a manuscript does grant copyright, then when does that copyright expire? Seventy years from the death of the editor/transcriber? Seventy years from publication? It can't be from the "death" of the publisher, because all of these companies are still around...

If anyone has any solid information to share on this matter I would be very grateful. Dovi (talk) 07:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

In short, it depends of the country: each law has some specific rules about unpublished works. For USA, see this table which describes that quite clearly. For what I know, Indian, Canadian and French law are each different on that point. Yann (talk) 08:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Yann, that is a very informative link. There are some things there that are pretty complicated, but the first line seems extremely clear: Any work not published during the lifetime of its author goes into the public domain 70 years after his death. (Which seems to mean that the inheritors of the author's rights or their publishers cannot retain their rights for any longer than that 70 year term. That is extremely important.)

Have I understood this point correctly? Could you give me any concrete examples of countries that differ on this point, and how they differ?

Also, is there basic agreement that Wikimedia projects follow U.S. law in this regard? Dovi (talk) 09:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it sould - the copyrights are usually according to internation convensions - in which case the copyright law of the domicile of the author should apply. Deror avi (talk) 10:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, US law takes into account all international conventions which the US has signed. This is reflected numerous times in the chart that Yann linked to. Dovi (talk) 11:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Subdomains of Wikisource follow different rules on copyright matters: see oldwikisource:Wikisource:Subdomain coordination. As examples, French law gives a 25 years new copyright to the publisher for any unpublished text ; Canadian law gives a 50 years new copyright for some unpublished texts, and Indian law gives a 60 years new copyright for unpublished texts. Yann (talk) 12:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The copyright law Wikimedia has to follow is the law of the US, which means that works published between 1923 and 1978 anywhere in the world are copyrighted for 95 years from publication, no matter what the law of the domicile of the author, with some exceptions. While Wikimedia projects can choose what they don't host, they can't choose to host works that are under copyright in the US, as that could get Wikimedia fined or shut down.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously when talking about other countries, it is a further restriction in addition of USA law. Sorry if I was not clear. The rule you mentioned applies to published works, but we were talking about unpublished works. Yann (talk) 18:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's distinguish between two things: The issue of jurisdiction (which country's laws need to be followed), and the issue of the law itself. Regarding the law itself, the main issue is this:

The copyright law Wikimedia has to follow is the law of the US, which means that works published between 1923 and 1978 anywhere in the world are copyrighted for 95 years from publication, no matter what the law of the domicile of the author, with some exceptions.

Is this correct for books published between 1923 and 1978 whose authors died before 1923 (or even before 1938, seventy years ago)? From what Yann wrote and the link he provided, it seems that such works are not copyrighted in the US, but I'm not absolutely sure I've understood this correctly. Dovi (talk) 17:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Published works are mostly copyrighted, but unpublished works are PD if the author died before 1938. Yann (talk) 18:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm still not clear on what you mean (this stuff is really confusing, and I think there is an ambiguity about what "unpublished" means in the first line of the chart). Above you wrote:

As examples, French law gives a 25 years new copyright to the publisher for any unpublished text; Canadian law gives a 50 years new copyright for some unpublished texts, and Indian law gives a 60 years new copyright for unpublished texts.

Is the implication that US law, unlike these countries, does not give added copyright years to the publisher for any (previously) unpublished text? Such that for a text whose author died at least 70 years ago, and someone published his work in Canada or France, that publisher would have sole rights to the content for a certain number of years in those countries, but in the US he wouldn't have rights over the content? Dovi (talk) 18:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's essencially true. As an example, a unpublished work of Alexandre Dumas was published in 2003. It is in the public domain in USA, but not in France, where it got a copyright for 25 years after its publication, i.e. until 2028.

Another example, five unpublished works of Jules Verne were first published between 1989 and 1994. These books are still copyrighted in France, and are copyrighted in USA until 2048 (3rd row of the same table: Unpublished works created before 1978 that were published after 1977 but before 2003). Yann (talk) 20:42, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The relevant law here, to the extent anyone is interested, is Section 303 of the Copyright Act. Tarmstro99 (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Things are maybe easier outside of the US, since you have the basic life+X years as a copyright term, with the addition of a limited term for the first publication of an unpublished work. In the US, the issue hinges on two things. First, one has to ask whether the unpublished work was published with the authority of the copyright owner. If the copyright owner did not authorize it, publication may not have occurred and the work would still be unpublished. Second, one has to look at the time of publication, with 1978 and 2003 being the key dates. An unpublished letter from John Adams from 1800 published under the authority of his estate (which owned his copyright) in 1975 would technically receive an additional 95 years of copyright protection. That same letter published in 1980 would be protected through 2047. And if the letter had been published in 2005, it would be in the public domain now. (The reason for this is the transition from perpetual copyright for unpublished material prior to 1978 to our current system which protects almost all works, regardless of format.)

As to whether a transcriber can claim a copyright in her transcription, most of the cases I know suggest that this sort of "sweat of the brow" effort does not have sufficient originality to be eligible for copyright. Pure transcription is too clerical (even if paleography is a specialized skill). PHirtle (talk) 22:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Restarting the copyright clock v. transferring ownership

I would like to seek clarification on a point. It is my understanding that posthumous publication can 'restart the copyright clock' for a work, but I do not believe that it can result in the transfer of ownership of copyright to the publisher. I think that it works like this:

I obtain an unpublished work by a deceased author. The first question I have to ask is: has the deceased author's copyright been transferred to a living party, e.g. by inheritance?

• If yes, then copyright in the unpublished work belongs to them, and only they have the right to publish it. If they do choose to publish it, copyright will continue to subsist in the work for a certain period of time.
• If no, then I am free to publish the work. Discussion of the duration of copyright is meaningless, since there is no-one to claim the rights of ownership of that copyright.

Any suggestion that I obtain copyright in a work simply by publishing it, implies not only that the copyright clock was restarted, but that I have effected a transfer of copyright to myself. I don't believe any copyright law supports the latter reading. Indeed, I think the latter reading violates that basic principles underpinning copyright law.

Hesperian 00:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• <IP lawyer> You can not obtain the copyright to a previously unpublished work by publishing it. Period. If you have inherited ownership in the copyright in an unpublished work (say, written by your great-grandfather, of whom you are the only living descendant), that copyright may still be enforced for 70 years from the year of the author's death. Obviously, this means that any unpublished work written by a person who died before 1937 is in the public domain. However, note that for works written before 1977, but published between 1978 and 2002, the work expires in 2047, or 70 years after the author's death, whichever comes later.</IP lawyer> BD2412 T 04:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be a contradiction here. You write: "If you have inherited ownership in the copyright in an unpublished work (say, written by your great-grandfather, of whom you are the only living descendant), that copyright may still be enforced for 70 years from the year of the author's death. Obviously, this means that any unpublished work written by a person who died before 1937 is in the public domain."

But above, Peter Hirtle wrote: "An unpublished letter from John Adams from 1800 published under the authority of his estate (which owned his copyright) in 1975 would technically receive an additional 95 years of copyright protection. That same letter published in 1980 would be protected through 2047." Does publication in the mid-20th century revive what would already be an expired copyright today? And if so why? Dovi (talk) 04:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

John Adams's estate still existed in 1975? The rules about unpublished material going into the public domain 70 years after the person's death only applies to US works. The term of copyright is primarily set by the originating country, which may very well be the country of first publication. If the purported rejection by the US of the rule of the shorter term is to have any meaning, that rejection must also apply to previously unpublished foreign works. Eclecticology (talk) 08:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

This statement is correct: You can not obtain the copyright to a previously unpublished work by publishing it. Period. It follows from the rule that copyright vests in the creator, not the publisher, of a work. (Of course, the publisher may obtain the copyright by assignment or under the work for hire rule, but unless they do so, the copyright remains where it always was: with the original creator and his/her heirs at law.

This statement is incorrect: Obviously, this means that any unpublished work written by a person who died before 1937 is in the public domain. To the contrary, Section 303 expressly provides for copyright in some previously unpublished works by authors who died more than 70 years ago. An example is Louisa May Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase. Work created in 1866, but not published; author died 1888. The life-plus-70 rule would have led to the conclusion that copyright expired in 1958, but because the work was subsequently published (in 1995), Section 303 provides that it remains under copyright in the United States until December 31, 2047. Tarmstro99 (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No contradiction there - you say yourself the work was subsequently published in 1995. If the work had never yet been published (as of today, 2008), then the work is now in the public domain. I will repeat exactly what I said above, "for works written before 1977, but published between 1978 and 2002, the work expires in 2047, or 70 years after the author's death, whichever comes later". Which is, I think, what you were trying to say, except that apparently you stopped reading what I had written halfway through the paragraph, and ended up repeating me. And making me repeat myself. BD2412 T 06:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The generally stated rule is that prior to 1978, copyright in unpublished works in the US was eternal. The clock didn't start until the work was legitimately published. In practical terms, I've seen quite a few older previously unpublished works published in that pre-1978 period, and can't recall one that gave copyright to anyone but the publisher, but crossing the wrong estate--like Louisa May Alcott's--would be legally treacherous at best.

I don't know why you say "the term of copyright is primarily set by the originating country, which may very well be the country of first publication"; except for the rule of the shorter term, and the return of foreign non-renewed works to copyright only if they were still in copyright in the originating country, it's just not true, under US law or anywhere that I know of.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:17, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Louisa May Alcott was a US person, so there is no problem with applying US law in her case. If another country grants some reasonable rights to the first publisher or editor of a previously unpublished work what outlaw country would fail to respect that? Eclecticology (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What country would? If you taken a public domain book and retypeset it and publish it, you get a 25 year copyright (or effectively the same--I don't remember the details) in the UK, but the US isn't going to honor that copyright. Why would the US give a copyright to the typesetting of an manuscript?--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I have found certain countries copyrighting posthumous works for several years since publication. w:List of countries' copyright length based on publication and creation dates has some examples that may be found by searching "posthumous", but the list is not yet complete. The specific provisions may make certain posthumous works copyrighted for life plus much more than 100 years, then our {{PD-old}} statement "This work is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago" is somewhat incorrect. When I found cs:Šablona:Licence PD-old-140, I first wondered why life + 140 years, but when considering posthumous works, copyrighting for life + 140 years is possible in certain countries. Some countries also have perpetual copyright for unpublished works, so never published posthumous works are indefinitely copyrighted.--Jusjih (talk) 03:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Due to concerns here, I have decided to reword {{PD-old}} to limit its use to works published before 1923 and create {{PD-old-100-1996}} as deaths for more than 100 years alone are not fool-proof PD even in the USA.--Jusjih (talk) 03:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UK 'Hansard'

Hi, In trying to compile material (see above re Armistice Day), I have noted the absence from Wikisource of an important historical source, being the UK 'Hansard' records of Parlimentary debates.

Does anyone have access to a suitable copy of this for transcription purposes? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 13:07, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't dispute the importance and great value of hosting Hansard, but I have been working with the Dictionary of National Biography and the mere 63 volumes of the original have been a daunting task. More people have worked with the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, and its paltry 29 volumes are far from complete. Hansard makes these two look small. Unless you have an army of volunteers available to do this iconic work, I wouldn't express great hope for getting very far. Eclecticology (talk) 17:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, But I felt it was defintly worth asking, as Hansard's almost certainly a publication University Libraries keep. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Very much, but do the UK libraries allow these volumes to be taken home so you can scan them at your leisure? Eclecticology (talk) 17:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably not :( 62.56.124.53 10:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

There does appear to be a project to digitise it here, but the copyrights notes appear to preculde use of that site for use here on Wikisource. 62.56.124.53 11:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Where the Crown Copyright has expired the digitisers would have no copyright in the material. Eclecticology (talk) 17:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I will note, as with the Statutes at Large, that a large number of 19th Centry Hansard's appear to be on Google Books, you just have to know the right search terms. 62.56.67.207 14:07, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I think some of my friends are already working on digitizing and making publicly-available all of the Hansard. See http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/ – Kaihsu (talk) 13:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Would you be willing to liase with them to see if it possible to host this on Wikisource? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You can get in touch with them yourself, but I am not sure whether putting it onto Wikisource would be what they would like to do, or are paid to do. Cheers. – Kaihsu (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Royal Society Digital Archive only for 3 Months FREE

"The Royal Society Digital Archive is easily the most comprehensive journal archive in science and contains some of the most significant scientific papers ever published. Covering almost 350 years of scientific research across the disciplines it is a priceless academic resource. The Royal Society Digital Journal Archive, dating back to 1665 and containing approximately 52,000 articles, is available online and is FREE for a three month period."

http://journals.royalsociety.org/home/main.mpx

PD articles should be copied to Commons (please no database protection paranoia) --Historiograf (talk) 00:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This looks like an interesting resource, will check it out. Cirt (talk) 15:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Can we just raid the archives en masse? I guess that would make it the Wikisource equivalent to World of Warcraft... EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

A three month binge on the royal society sounds like a good thing! Suicidalhamster (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This needs somebody to take the time to create a formal "Wikiproject" (with three-month period, after which we'll archive/scrap it) so that we can coordinate efforts to raid this as efficiently as possible and back each other up. Definitely' worth doing...somebody get started! Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: e. e. cummings‎. 18:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)}

And when one proceeds to the url and finds that work already has a subscription. Sweet. -- billinghurst (talk) 22:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting, and there are several issues:

1. Certainly many files are more than 20 MB. What do we do with them?
2. The URLs use computer generared codes (session specific?). Can we get this around with a bot?

Otherwise I can run a bot and upload files to Commons. Yann (talk) 00:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I could have sworn we (and be "we," I think it was GMaxwell or some other Wikimedian) raided this site when it first got up and running and uploaded all the PD Philosophical Transactions articles. Am I just making this up, or does someone else remember this? If I am just making this up, that's a good place to start.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That was the journal I was eyeing, but I don't remember any previous raids. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: e. e. cummings‎'. 01:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)}

I was right. It didn't turn out to be a raid, but there are some of the Phil. Trans. on Commons. Definitely could be added to. Unfortunately I don't know how to get a bot to do all the downloading.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 02:04, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Now that the upload limit is 100MB, the first point is no longer a problem.

I have set up a project page at Wikisource:WikiProject Royal Society Journals. And is it possible to have a bot upload all the files? Psychless 19:21, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've done a rebuild on Wikisource:WikiProject Royal Society Journals in a way that I think is more easy to track downloaded contents/texts avaiable on anothers places. Fell free to comment (or revert ;) ) Lugusto 22:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It is certainly an improvement, but I don't think we should use the 18 volumes on archive.org. It says "abridged" on the title page, and that's not what we're looking for. I don't mean to be impatient, but has anyone figured out how to get a bot to do this? If not, then we have to organize a manual way to do it. Psychless 00:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I didn't noticed the "abridged" term :/

Since apparently no one is working in a bot to download the files, I've started some days ago to manually download all .pdf files from The Royal Society website. I've finished the first 9 volumes from Philosophical Transactions and now I'm uploading those files to Wikimedia Commons as-is (including the JSTOR notice about page numbering errors on some files; IMHO the notice is PD-ineligible and the JSTOR watermark is PD-textlogo). See commons:Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Wikisource_WikiProject_Royal_Society_Journals (I will be updating the project page with those files and removing the 18 IA files shortly).

I think that I'm unable to download all PD content before the trial period ends, so I will be grateful if anyone is interested to help on it ;) Lugusto 17:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Did the abridgement in IA shorten individual articles, or was it just selective about what articles is chose to include? Eclecticology (talk) 09:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I've begun manually downloading the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, but am not making very much headway into it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a limit on how much I can upload/download (satellite internet), so I can only help so much. But I can certainly help some, so I'll work on the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Math. or Phys. Character" (1896-1922). In case any of you don't already know about it, I suggest using Commonist for mass uploading. Psychless 00:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

After some problems I've finally found a way to semi-automatically download all journals issues using an w:offline browser. Until now I've downloaded Philosophical Transactions from v.27 to v.106 (my most recent upload on Commons is the v.26). Since I'm on holidays until the end of this month, I think that I will be able to download all pre-1923 issues. I will resume uploads on Commons when I finish downloading all PD volumes. Lugusto 16:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fully downloaded

Thanks to the Teleport Ultra and some patience on creating one project file for each volume, I've successfully downloaded all pre-1923 content (8,9GB of Abstracts/Proceedings and 23,5GB of Philosophical Transactions). I will try to upload on Commons at least four volumes per week and to poke the tech guys on the bugzilla:11215 on wikitech-l. Lugusto 20:51, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

It might be worth converting these to DJVU (due to some of the pros of that file format over PDF). I'm sure there's a way to write a script that can either query Any2DJVU and convert the entire bunch or can at least do it all with DjvuLibre.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 21:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

It is possible, but:

1. I've downloaded more than 25k of pdf files and I don't keep my PC running 24 hours a day; it can delay months to finish;
2. djvu is a lossy format and some 1800's volumes have high quality pictures;
3. Teleport Ultra has downloaded all files with the random names from the Royal Society website. I need to browse the offline copy of htmls and pdfs files to save /random-characters/fulltext.pdf as p[first page number-last page number] (and after it I need to run the Rename Master to add the <publication> - Volume <number> - prefix). Converting the .pdf files to the djvu format before it may broke my offline saved set of files.

Anyway, according to bugzilla:11215#c13 and [3], the PdfHandler will be enabled soon on test.wikipedia [and after it, on all Wikimedia wikis; I will poke Brion about it monthly ;-)], making the .pdf files proofreadable. Lugusto 03:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

If you particularly want any of these djvu'd immediately (i.e. so you can get started with transcription), I would be happy to do it for you. I've become fairly adept at processing these, and routinely produce documents containing both photographic quality plates and bitonal text. Hesperian 05:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Transcluding Paradise Lost

I'm having some problems transcluding Paradise Lost. There's an unnecessary line break between each page. Can someone take a look here and advise me how to fix it? Psychless 12:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's doing it; my only guess is your formatting is causing a new paragraph break somewhere (either at the end of page 25 or the beginning of page 26--or both).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 17:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks like some interaction between the parser and the poem tag that's inserting a paragraph break at each poem. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I think I found the problem, and fixed it in rev:43773; hopefully that will do the trick. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 20:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, it did not fix it. Psychless 21:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It usually takes a few days before code changes become active. To test it, you'd have to wait until special:version shows a version number >= 43773, then see it's fixed when you preview/purge the page. At this moment, it's at r43634; I hear they may start regular Tuesday updates, so you may want to check back then. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 21:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, it does look more complicated than I thought, so it may take awhile. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 00:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the transcluded pages result in

<poem>
page 1 content
</poem>
<poem>
page 2 content
</poem>

whereas what you want is

<poem>
page 1 content
page 2 content
</poem>

You can achieve the latter by putting all of of the <poem> and </poem> tags in the headers and footers (which are no-included), except for the first page's <poem> tag and the last page's </poem> tag. Hesperian 04:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

That didn't work when I tried it. Perhaps you could try to make it work. Psychless 17:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

It would seem that the poem tag breaks the noinclude tag. :-( I have tried a few things, and ultimately failed. I've left my changes there for you to have a look at—you might pick a few ideas out of what I did—but I shall not object if you decide to discard it. Hesperian 04:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I ran into pretty much this issue with the Dickinson poems. See The Grass so little has to do — and the pages it pulls in on the left. Funny thing, though; it's now broken. A few weeks ago, the left side looked good, now it's not working right. The idea was to use <onlyinclude> inside the poem tags in both the pagespace and in the transcluding page. I wonder if the fix mentioned above broke this... Lot of discussion of this at User talk:Sanbeg#interaction between poem extension and transclusion and Index talk:Emily Dickinson Poems (1890).djvu#Consistency. Jack Merridew 15:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] [long s spinoff thread]

Split into separate section by Hesperian 04:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm also amused to see the long s's which were respected on the separated pages have not transcluded into the book. :-) Eclecticology (talk) 20:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

This is intentional. Ideally, there would be a setting in "Preferences" that determined if the long s's showed up in the main space. The current compromise is: it's important that the long s's are preserved, but they make it difficult to read, so the long s's only show up in the page namespace. Psychless 21:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I've only noticed this, and I must say that it is a very good compromise to the issue. Even if turning long s's on/off is put in the preferences I would still choose this current practice! I am also pleased to see this being fixed as it seems to be issue in various places (e.g. Anticipation). Suicidalhamster (talk) 22:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Derivative Works and Orthography

I've recently bought a book, published in 2006, that contains the text of various Pierre Corneille plays, in French, and I would like to upload these texts to the French Section of the Wikisource. However, I'm not sure if the text is copyrighted or not. It is noted in the book that the texts are from 1683, and that the punctuation and capitalization are intact, however, the orthography has been standardized.

Is this a sufficient change for this to be deemed a derivative work and to be under the copyright? Or does this not add any new creative content, or sufficient change to what was there to merit a new copyright?

I understand that the notes, bibliography, introduction, etc, are all copyrighted, it is only my intention to upload the texts themselves.

Thank you for your help

The text would remain in the public domain, but it could very well be that the publisher retains certain rights in relation to formats, layout and typography. This would imply that page scans are protected, but OCR text could be freely used.

More important in response to this question is that you have asked it in the wrong place. French Wikisource is separately managed, and the people here have no authority to decide such things for them. You would do better to ask the question on their Scriptorium. Eclecticology (talk) 17:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

In US copyright law, there is no copyright on typography or typesetting. Besides illustrations, I don't think there's any point where you'd be safe to use OCR but not page scans. I wish there was more orthography-updating done by Project Gutenberg and Wikisource, in addition to posting the original text, as that would be legally beyond question and provide a useful resource.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Line numbering

Do we have a template or something that adds line numbers every 5 lines to the left margin of a poem? Angr 08:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, we don't that I've ever seen - but it is a nice idea. You'd insert {{poem-numbers}} after the <poem> and before the </poem> tags I assume in theory? And perhaps accept a parameter of "5", "10" or "25" for example, so that it puts a marker only on every 5th, 10th or 25th line? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 22:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Or indeed any integer, for people who are perverse enough to want to number every 7th line or something like that. I don't have the remotest idea how to make such a template, though. Does anyone else? Angr 18:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Latin wikisource has one, but it interferes with page number when page transclusion is used, so I don't much like the idea of importing it. Hesperian 03:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It should still be OK if it's used on non-transcluded pages. Eclecticology (talk) 05:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Initials

This template was created and is now being used across a large number of author pages. I object to its usage. For many articles at en.wikipedia, the bio article on the individual uses an abbreviation for the middle initial, and does not spell out the entire name. In cases where the full name/middle name cannot be verified in secondary sources, this obtrusive template will simply sit at the author page indefinitely, and that is not good. Cirt (talk) 22:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what your definition of "large number" is, but it's sitting on approximately 2% of authorpages at most. Libraries do not work the same as encyclopaedias, libraries need to catalogue works, and thus need to use the full names of authors; otherwise when I type "John Jacob Schmidt" in the |author heading of a text I add, for example, it will appear as a red link because we currently host his page at "John Schmidt" or "John J. Schmidt". Using the full name of authors is the internationally-recognised standard for libraries, and means that WS will not only conform to those standards, but will be on the forefront of helping to "find" the names of authors where WP may not care. In a year, if we've been successful in fixing 98% of author pages, and a few outstanding issues remain, we can always simply edit the Template to be invisible -- but for now, it makes sense to be visible, alert people to the problem and push them to help solve it. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 22:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Initials - It is being used on quite a number of pages already, all added by the creator of the template with zero discussion on something that will affect a large number of author pages. If the middle name is known, the author page could be moved to that full name, but there is no reason for such an obtrusive template to obstruct the author pages simply because there is an abbreviated middle initial. This is not the norm on en.wikipedia, and it is not the norm on many secondary source documents and government documents. I do not think it should be used. Cirt (talk) 22:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

A) It is not without discussion, just because you were not involved in the discussion. I broached the idea last night on IRC, and it met no resistance as a collaborative project to work towards.

B) It is used on 23 author pages currently, if that is your definition of "large number" then perhaps you need to re-evaluate your use of superlatives.

C) It may not be the norm on WP. Or on Government documents. Notice that neither WP nor the governerment are a library. WS is a library, thus we catalogue works, thus we work in the framework of international libraries - where protocol says that full names are used. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 22:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

IRC is not an acceptable place to gauge community consensus for new proposals that will affect multiple numbers of pages, and yes, you have added the template to 23 pages so far, that is a large number. On-wiki discussion in community forums is the way to gauge community consensus. Cirt (talk) 22:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Now only 9 pages left with the template so hopefully less of an issue. Personally I don't mind whether this stays as template or changes to a category. As an aside it would be nice if wikisource had a page equivalent to w:Wikipedia:Maintenance to list templates/categories like this. Suicidalhamster (talk) 00:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I have a number of mixed opinions on this one. I agree with the underlying principle that we should strive to expand missing initials, but I don't think that yet another big obtrusive box is the best way to go about this. Some of these initials may be found by a little research, but I'm sure that a good portion will remain indeterminable. In the latter case the box could remain forever. A simple category without the big box could be a compromise. I also agree that an impromptu IRC discussion should not be the basis for what happens here, nor do I feel that Wikipedia's view of a situation should necessarily apply here. The maintenance page idea is good, but it warrants a separate discussion about how it coukld be best implemented. Eclecticology (talk) 01:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Talk on the template discussion page seems to suggest that if research has no hope of finding the name, then the template be moved to the author's talkpage - which is a nice compromise. We have a couple of maintenance pages, unfortunately I think attempts to merge them were messy and met with resistance -- though this is the sort of thing that belongs on the third page of {{welcome}} perhaps. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 02:07, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with everything said in this comment by Eclecticology (talk • contribs), and in the comment above here as well. Cirt (talk) 03:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• My view: delete the template; create a category. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • This comment by Anonymous Dissident (talk • contribs) is the best idea I have heard so far. Fully agree. Cirt (talk) 06:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • The problem is, categories almost never get worked on by the community as a whole, whereas templates (as proven by the 23 fixed in the past 24 hours) strongly encourage people watching those userpages to take the twenty seconds to fix the problem -- and show newbies and unregistered users how to contribute in a meaningful way, taking a couple minutes with Google. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 06:34, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
    • What evidence do you have to support that claim? How many of those 23 were fixed by newbies? You like to complain about people who don't take 20 seconds to research sourcing articles that were long ago tagged for deletion; maybe this is somewhere that you should take your own advice instead of generating make-work projects for everybody else. The average user, who does not edit articles, does not need to be assaulted by obtrusive process boxes about things that he may not be equipped to fix. Eclecticology (talk) 09:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
      • As you allude to, this issue is bigger than this one Template:Initials. We have a large number of templates which do a similar job (e.g. Template:Clean up djvu, Template:Standardise, Template:Populate). We may reasonably question whether the average user needs to see any of them. What I am convinced of, is this Template:Initials actually falls within the range of templates currently used.

Secondly I believe templates are useful in showing the new or inexperienced editor of what our best practices are. Even if they do not fix the problem they will find out what you are meant to do, so hopefully they will not make the same mistake themselves. Suicidalhamster (talk) 12:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the comments by Eclecticology (talk • contribs) and Anonymous Dissident (talk • contribs), above. Please see Template talk:Initials#Update. Cirt (talk) 05:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two alphabetical sorts happening in Author categories

Having a look at Category:Authors-Co one can see two alphabetical sorts occurring in situ. I would not have thought that is desirable behaviour. What is differentiating the names escapes me. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly the same problem that I raised above at #DEFAULTSORT. Eclecticology (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Using anchors in the texts

Hello.

I have this page, which is divided into "chapters" (I, II, III, ...) and verses (1, 2, 3, ...) Each chapter corresponds to a section (second level), and thus is linkable (for example this is a link to chapter IV); I would like to link also the verses, so that I can point to II.11, how to? I thought to add an html anchor (<a name="II.11">), but I discovered it does not work. Any suggestion? --Panairjdde (talk) 15:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

You may want to look at template:verse, which is intended for biblical verses, but seems to use the same format as your page. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Hum... it looks like that template inserts links in the form "C:V", where C is the chapter and V the verse; I need something in the form "C.V". --Panairjdde (talk) 12:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You can use <span id="anchor">text</span>, or <div id="anchor">text</span>, or indeed {{anchor}}. Hesperian 00:57, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bios on author pages

I have been adding biographical info to author pages from Bioguide (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress). This text info is public domain as a product of the United States Federal Government, and is directly pertinent to the authors in question, so it is most appropriate info for the description field in {{author}}, for individuals that have existing biographical entries in Bioguide. Cirt (talk) 20:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Public domain issues are not a factor here. It is more a question of where biographies belong. Except where the text qualifies as an article in its own right, biographies belong in Wikipedia, and our author header provides a link to Wikipedia where a person can usually find the desired biographical information. Our biographical notes should be limited to what is necessary to place the author in a literary and historical context. Allowing any more than that leads to much longer headings that detract from our primary purpose of hosting an author's works. Strictly limiting what goes into the header also avoids most of POV debate that we are happy donate to other projects. Eclecticology (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, well in this case where the public domain nature of the text is not disputed, and the usage of the text is already commonly done in Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for a concise good summary of pertinent info, I feel it is appropriate. But is there a policy or guideline page on Wikisource that describes the usage of the {{author}} template, specifically the description field? Cirt (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not taking sides in the debate (yet?), but just because I was curious and I'm sure others are as well, the biographies in question are - for example - MARKEY, Edward John, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Malden, Middlesex County, Mass., July 11, 1946; attended Immaculate Conception Grammar School, Malden, Mass.; graduated from Malden Catholic High School, Malden, Mass., 1964; B.A., Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1968; J.D., Boston College Law School, Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1972; lawyer, private practice; United States Army Reserve, 1968-1973; member of the Massachusetts state house of representatives, 1973-1976; elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-fourth Congress by special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative Torbert H. Macdonald, reelected to the sixteen succeeding Congresses (November 2, 1976-present). - which does seem a tad wordy for our |description= section, but it's better than nothing, surely? What if a bot did it only where the |description= field is currently blank? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Nikola Tesla‎.} 23:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Balance and focus. Author pages are about the author and their texts and {{Author}} says description to be brief ... So, if they have WP then link and a small paste should suffice; if no WP page, then we should add value. For what Sherurcij has pasted, I would agree it is too wordy. Include what is in context to the publication and author page that demonstrates their skill/knowledge/competence/expertise for the publication. If more is required, then it can be a separate article that becomes works about the author link on the page, and if necessary subpages to a collection-- billinghurst (talk) 00:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Eclecticology (talk • contribs) and Billinghurst (talk • contribs) for explaining this, but surely we can have some compromise with something less than the bioguide text, but more than simply: "A Representative from Massachusetts." ? Cirt (talk) 02:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That is your example, not mine. I said ... skill/knowledge/competence/expertise for the publication, which I would think is broader and states add relevant details that add specific context. When I asked a similar question I was pointed at Author:William Shakespeare. One of my pages is Author:Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff -- billinghurst (talk) 04:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I've always thought the description field has been underutilized. I think it would be nice to have a brief (and I do mean brief) biography of a given author. I, unfortunately, have few thoughts on the matter right now, but I think whatever (if any) material is added as biographical needs to be relevant to understanding the nature of the works that we are listing (like what Ec said). Something like what is given for Edward John Markey is a bit too much and, in my opinion, too irrelevant.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 03:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to Cirt's point about policies and guidelines, I don't think that this has ever been formalized in any way. I did find Wikisource talk:Style guide/Archives/2006-06 where the matter was raised toward the end of 2004. Both Zhaladshar and I commented in favour of brevity at the time in the context of a wider discussion about author pages. The topic didn't get a lot of response then, but brevity has tended to be practised by most editors since, as it was before. Eclecticology (talk) 05:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay well no objections to having something shorter than Bioguide, but I think it could be longer than just "A Representative from Massachusetts." For example, their prior education and degrees and also prior noted work experience is also highly relevant to the authors' writings and their expertise. Cirt (talk) 15:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DJVU help

Is there free software I can download to edit DJVU files? I've been using DjVu Solo 3.1, but lately most files are saying that version is too old and they can't be read, so I should update. But I can't find a more up-to-date version of DjVu Solo. So does anyone know where I can either get a recent version of DjVu Solo or a recent version of some other DJVU editing program? Angr 16:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I use DjvuLibre to edit the DJVU files I have. It's a command-line utility and can take some time to learn (it at least took me some time) but it's not a bad set of programs to use for DJVU manipulation. Unfortunately I know of no DJVU editing software that has a nice GUI provided with it.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I use DjVuLibre too. Its encoders are not the best, but overall it is very useful. It encodes from PBM/PGM/PPM format, so for most purposes you would need to use it in conjunction with ImageMagick. Hesperian 22:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you seen the corresponding help page? → Help:DjVu files

Hesperian, I'm afraid I don't even understand your answer. I don't know what "It encodes from PBM/PGM/PPM format" means, nor what ImageMagick is. I've seen the help page, but it doesn't tell me what I want to know. Basically, what I (used to) use DjVu Solo for is removing individual images from a package. For example, I often download DjVu files from archive.org, but they often have a front page written by Google pretending Google has the right to limit use of the file to non-commercial purposes only or whatever. Since these front pages are not part of the original book (not to mention being blatant copyfraud), I want to remove them from the package before uploading it to Commons. If I download DjVuLibre, will I be able to figure out how to do that without first getting a degree in computer programming? Angr 07:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

DjVuLibre does simple things simply. For Windoze, if you are just looking to trim the front or back pages, then it does that well; SAVE AS operation. If you want to do more complex bits, then it is a linux-centric application. If you are wanting to convert pages to .djvu form, then you may wish to consider the website Any2DjVu. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about a SAVE AS operation. I use DjVuLibre in Windows, from the command line. The first page of a djvu file can be removed with the command

djvm -d file.djvu 1

Hesperian 13:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how do I upload this file?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1255985/the_reality_of_communications_diluted.html?cat=4

You don't.... as long as it's copyright protected. You would need to get its author to release it under a free licence. Eclecticology (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dictionary of National Biography Poor Quality Scans

We currently have problems with poor quality scans for the Dictionary of National Biography Project. We have scans that were the text is barely or totally unreadable, some of the volumes are missing pages, and quality of the Google scans are in just poor quality. Some of the volumes have all ready been botted. I am proposing that we delete all of the existing volumes and get higher quality scans off of the Internet Archive. I propose we start with the University of Toronto scans even though they don't have the complete collection and we find alternatives when necessary. I also suggest we create a list of the files that will need used before we actually do any uploading. I would appreciate everyone's input on this. There has all ready been some discussion here. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead and work on it. Nobody is likely to argue against improved scans. Still deleting all the existing volumes before adding any new ones seems a little hasty. Delete the old one only when you are ready to replace that particular volume. Perhaps you might start with those volumes where the old scans are of the worst quality. Personally, I mostly avoid using the scans, and I proofread all the articles that I add by a comparison with the hard copy of the reprint edition. This allows me to also note the changes that took place between the original and reprint editions.

I will set up a most wanted page, and link to it from the head page of the DNB. As someone who is working on the DNB project the order in which I add articles is immaterial, but I would certainly attach greater priority to a wanted article. Eclecticology (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] newspaper clipping of unknown origin

Ref: Wikipedia: User talk:Stephen2nd/Mr. Wimberley Lecture: Doncaster: 1841:

Hi. I've typed this clipping (verbatim) into my user talk page. May I creat a Wikisource article, so that I may refer to this (complete text) in an accosiated Wikipedia article: Regards: Stephen2nd (talk) 13:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can't find where you have typed this in. My first impression is that this is likely the kind of thing that would be acceptable in Wikisource as long as you clearly show where it comes from. How you use the material in a Wikipedia article is a question for Wikipedia's rules, and cannot be answered here. Eclecticology (talk) 18:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The actual article is here: w:User talk:Stephen2nd/Mr. Wimberley Lecture: Doncaster: 1841:

Thanks. This is probably something where a scan would help. Adding a scan of the back may even be useful in helping to identify the newspaper. Eclecticology (talk) 01:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On the footer

It currently states that "Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License", yet we carry alot of non-GFDL content here that is still free as such. Anyway, I think it should be amended to say something to the effect of "All text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License unless otherwise noted", which gets the word across well about the variety of different text licenses we use here. Anyone agree? ViperSnake151 (talk) 00:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, most of our text is public domain (we can't even go so far as claim that it is GFDL). I would support emending the footer to reflect a more accurate picture of our works.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 01:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we also take out "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!"? After all, we don't actually allow copyrighted work here even with permission, unless that permission is in form of the GFDL or a similar free license. Angr 06:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't it just say, then, "DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK!"? BD2412 T 11:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be a much more appropriate message.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

But we DO allow some copyrighted work when we allow copyrighted work under a free licence, so that shorter statement would be inaccurate. The existing statement is just fine as a reminder to inexperienced editors, who have not looked much into the issue. Having the person promise that he wrote it himself is even more contrary to our usual approaches. Eclecticology (talk) 08:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

We have a lot of copyrighted material, under various license; e.g. Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PermissionOTRS. The cliffnote version of our copyright is "public domain in the US unless otherwise noted", but we cant relicense the project pages without permission, .. which introduces complexity into what should be a nice simple copyright statement. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kipling copyright query

There are three stories by Kipling that I'm having trouble pinning down the rights situation for. "An Unqualified Pilot", "The Way That He Took", and "The Parable of Boy Jones" were published in the US in Land and Sea Tales in 1923 (copyright on that collection has been renewed). They had previously appeared in British periodicals in 1895, 1900, and 1910 respectively. I haven't been able to find any mention of them having a US copyright prior to their appearance in the collection (but they may well have, almost everything of Kipling's did). Can anyone help clear this up? (And am I right in thinking that if a story's first US copyright is in 1923, it's still covered here, even if previously published elsewhere?) --Levana Taylor (talk) 01:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're absolutely certain they were all published pre-1923 even outside the United States, then the United States recognises them as Public Domain and they can be added with {{PD-1923}}! Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 01:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

• • "(Boy Jones) First published in The Rifleman of 15 July 1910," Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 01:42, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

"An Unqualified Pilot" in Windsor Magazine for February 1895; "The Way That He Took" in Daily Express of 12 and 13 June, 1900. Thanks! --Levana Taylor (talk) 02:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

You're good to go, just add {{Pd/1923|1936}} to the bottom of each work Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 05:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Google Frustration

I found these great Popular Science scans here. These great scans are before 1923, but are not available for download. Even the 1800s editions, which are available on Internet Archive, are not available for download. Hopefully, this won't be a growing problem. I would appreciate everyone's opinion on this and what if anything we can do. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I might have found my own answer here. I just hope Google adds the download button in the near future.

Time will probably help; sooner or later, most of the PD scans on Google Books should be downloadable. It would be nice to have a link to the page on the Internet Archive, since almost everything there is downloadable. With lots and lots of elbow grease, screen capture will get you the scans on Google Books.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately the Google Book Search inserts on the page footers the watermark copyrighted material in this Sep 1872 issue... I think that those will never be downloadable. Lugusto 16:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

See this related discussion. Very briefly, the disclaimer is false and that material is public domain. Prosody (talk) 18:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I known it, I've already uploaded some works from Google Book Search on Commons to proofread on pt.wikisource (and one here too... I need to remind to work more on that book) and I've simply removed the Usage guidelines before converting from .pdf and uploading ;) The problem is: if Google believes that it is a copyrighted work the download option will never be avaiable until he change his mind. Lugusto 00:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Disregard the above, for some reason I thought Google Books added the "Copyright material" watermark arbitrarily. I'd swear I've seen it before on downloadable material. Guess not. Prosody (talk) 18:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the Popular Science stuff came from the company, so they put the copyrighted material labels on there. An unusual case for them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of obscure works

(Copied from Proposed deletions Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC))

[...]What I find unacceptable is the tendency of some to attach personal blame to a mere proposal; there's a big difference between proposals and actual deletions. If nobody considered this obscure text worth the effort of fixing it himself, then deletion would be a perfectly valid outcome for this discussion. Eclecticology (talk) 18:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm a big believer in deleting things with questionable copyright, but not things that are clearly public domain. I think telling our editors that if they work on obscure articles, and step out for a while, they may find their work has been summarily deleted, is not acceptable. It's not a perfectly valid outcome; trashing the work of an editor that may have taken hours because someone couldn't do a 15 second search is appalling and demoralizing, and if editors feel this is going to happen to their work, they're going to stop contributing.

And, no, "it's just a proposal" doesn't fly. Before proposing something for deletion, at least do the 15 second search. Proposing something takes up the time of other editors, and makes people who work on these things feel like they're not appreciated.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I strongly echo Prosfilaes in every sense (except I would say I believe in deleting things that can be shown to be violations, not "questionable"). We do not remove access to materials simply to "punish" editors for going inactive. If something is a violation, we will delete it. If it is not, we will not. The activity level of the contributor is immaterial. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 01:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I stand completely behind what was quoted of me. In all likelihood the discussion in this case would have resulted in the subject text being kept, and that's fine. Copyright is not a factor in this case, but copyright violation is not the only reason for deleting material. The ones who argue that this could have been fixed with a 15-second search have spent more than that time in abject whining when they could have done the search they want themselves. If the supporters can't do that work it only shows just how much the article is worth. And when we are talking about contributors who haven't been here for some considerable time, they just aren't here to be demoralised.

"Punishment" does not enter into the picture. A nomination is about content, and not about the person who posted it. Arguing that a nomination should not be made in the first place is nothing but a bully tactic. Eclecticology (talk) 04:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

"If the supporters can't do that work it only shows just how much the article is worth." - not true in the slightest. A work's value to the project is in absolutely no way determined by the amount of effort specific editors are willing to afford it. A text should not be nominated for deletion unless the nominator has valid reason to believe it meets a criteria for nomination, and has spent ten seconds checking Google to make sure Tom Sawyer isn't indeed quite clearly public domain. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 07:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If it's only a nomination, good faith is a sufficient criterion. Eclecticology (talk) 08:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

We did do the search. And just because a contributor steps out for a few months, doesn't mean they won't be back; nor is it only contributors that will notice if works seem to be disappearing on them. It's perfectly valid to say that a nomination should not have been made, that there is a minimal standard of checking that should be done before a nomination is made and the whole community is asked to stand in on something.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikisource:Proposed deletions#Message to Scientology

This debate is very heated, but it needs closure. To make a consensus more clear, I'd encourage as many community members as possible to voice their opinion. However, I would encourage a review of policy before doing so; we don't want pile-on for the sake of it. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The policy review is indeed warranted. I take particular note of Birgitte's comments in this debate. I also grant that the debate about Message to Scientology is not about copyright; if it were only that the article would likely have passed without a lot of argument. This is about what criteria other than copyright that should be applied in addition to copyright.

Although we do derive the year 1923 out of copyright considerations, I am satisfied that it provides us with a practical criterion for using older works. While I could imagine possible areas for improving this point, I see no immediacy to doing so.

The other three criteria can only make sense when evaluating works created after 1922. Two points need to be addressed at this point: We should tighten up exactly what we mean by documentary sources, and we need to make it clear that free licensing alone doesn't imply that the work is worth including. Eclecticology (talk) 09:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Or we need to accept that things that get published in mass media should have a home here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:37, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Bad time to mention that I still support JonBenet ransom letter being allowed here? I agree though, it's definitely a policy case, not really copyright -- how to "avoid being a mouthpiece for people wanting to effectively self-publish through the viral nature of the internet", while still hosting historically notable works. I believe that 4chan works put on Youtube do not meet the same standards as something such as Charles Whitman suicide letter, but obviously there is disagreement. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 14:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not going to comment either way on this debate, but I'd like to note that this issue brings to attention a hole in policy - that of pure notability. Perhaps such a policy was not required here in the past, but maybe we should look at and have a review of whether it is applicable to this wiki. Should texts have to meet a certain notability criteria to be included, and how will we define this? Is our bare "documentary source" inclusion policy not complete in that the relative importance and notability of these documentary sources is not prescribed or regulated? Because, from where I'm standing, this could be a policy we should look at implementing in some shape or form; I think some of the arguments and evidence presented in this debate are prime testimony to this, and I think the text itself holds a light up to the fact that WS:NOT does not actually indicate limitations on the overall significance or noteworthiness of the texts we're uploading here. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 15:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that policy does seem a bit too open. Documentary sources may be better as Notable Documentary sources, even if that does mean that we need a working definition for notable. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 23:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• I think there are two questions here;
  1. Should WS have a notability policy?
  2. If so what should it look like?

Jeepday (talk) 23:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

In a certain, rather ill-defined, sense we do have a notability policy, though not a good, explicit or thorough one. We say in What Wikisource includes that we don't want original contributions, advertisments, anonymous works & evolving texts & this, to some extent, serves to exclude a lot of non-notable works (particularly self-publications). Obviously though it doesn't exclude everything which is non-notable, though thats a subjective term in any event, and it may be worthwhile tightening it up & making it more explicit. I do think I remember that in the past we worded the exclusions differently & may've made explicit reference to notability. Not sure where we may've said this though. AllanHainey (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Can't find it in the usual places, though back in 2006 [[4]] we were a bit more clear about our requirement for previous publication than we are now & explicitly listed certain circumstances in which a text would be accepted (prrer reviewed, delivered to an audience, published on paper). AllanHainey (talk) 17:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I certainly have an intuitive sense of what is notable, but it is likely to differ significantly from the intuitive sense of others. We cannot help but see the endless debates that have occurred at Wikipedia over what is "notable". We would do well to avoid falling into that pit of subjectivity.

There are two changes that I would propose:

1. The section on documentary sources should provide a stricter definition of such sources. There are two criteria that can define a document. It must be official, or it must be informational or evidentiary in nature. Opinionated rants are not documentary. Such non-documentary writings or transcriptions of other media into writing could conceivably be allowed under one or more other clearly defined headings, but they are not documents.
2. I would completely delete the "Free content" section. It is misplaced. We really want to say "Anything we allow must be free content;" having this here suggests that we are saying "Anything that is free content must be allowed." Attention to copyright law has always been a serious concern of our regular participants, even when we differ wildly about what that means. All that needs to be done on this page is to provide a link to copyright policy, and a statement that contributions must satisfy the requirements both on this page, and on the copyright policy page. Redundant policy declarations do not serve to clarify or emphasize; they merely provide breeding ground for ambiguity.

Eclecticology (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates for Grammar

I am experienced in Wikipedia, but don't have much experience at Wikisource.

I started transferring Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar here. As i see - and correct me if i'm wrong -, Wikisource currently has very few grammar books.

Grammar books have a lot of peculiarities: they incorporate passages in several languages, intricate formatting, strict paragraph structure, etc. This probably should be done with templates, which will make formatting easier for the editors, and hopefully will make the meaning of the book more semantic (so it can be queried for Bible verses, examples, etc.)

The few grammar books which i found here, i grouped in Category:Grammar. I didn't find a lot of clever formatting in them; does it mean that i can simply be bold and start creating my own templates or is there somewhere else i should before i reinvent the wheel?

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Can't answer you about formatting, but I listed those books as well now at Wikisource:Languages, and urge you to do the same in the future. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 19:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

So far I've just been formatting linguistics books the way the original book was done. Any ideas for making life easier are welcome! Angr 21:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Grammar books clearly are a desirable class of contents, but this kind of project is prone to youthful mortality. RTL languages such as Hebrew carry their own difficulties, and the templates may very well be specific to an individual book editor's practices. If they work, so much the better. Feel free to experiment in this difficult area. Eclecticology (talk) 21:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the realistic attitude :) I am aware of the fact that it's not easy.

Per se, right-to-left is not a big problem for me personally - i write Hebrew every day. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy Deletion question

Hi, On the Wikisource:Deletion policy it says just tag a page for speedy deletion with squiggly brackets sdelete. I've done this and it puts up the template: "This page may meet Wikisource's criteria for speedy deletion for the following reason: {{{1}}} If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page. If this page obviously does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself.

Administrators, remember to check if anything links here, the page history (last edit) and any revisions of CSD before deletion."

How do I note the reason for nominating it in {{{1}}} as there isn't anywhere in the edit screen to note this? Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 12:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, just do {{sdelete|reason for deletion}} and the template will do the rest. :) —Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] If

I am totally lost when it comes to MediaWiki parser functions such as if:.

Can anyone please help me with this in {{Lang}}?

I want it to work like this:

• if the "dir" arg is not present, then nothing should be written
• if the "dir" arg is present, then this should be written: 'dir="VALUE_OF_dir" '. (Note the space in the end.)

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Done You were just missing a "|". -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 16:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks from articles

At the moment, our wikilink guidelines talk about linking to relative (in a work) or contextual pages (at WP/WIKT). We don't particularly talk about links from the main namespace to Author pages, or how we might be building refs/bibliography to people (articles).

• From the body of an article, do people link to author pages? Do they link to author pages only if the link itself relates that person's writings?
• If we link to a WP: article about a person who is an author, is there the means to find the pages that we link to from WS.

An example ... Charles Darwin. Do we link 100% to Author:Charles Darwin or 100% to w:Charles Darwin or does it depend on the context of what we are linking? Is there an easy way to find and collate all the WS links to w:Charles Darwin? Could this be something that we could build into an author header to easily generate?

-- billinghurst (talk) 11:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

What links here shows all the wikipedia links on wikipedia to any page so I would expect that there is the ability to extend it to show links from other wiki projects, though this is probably turned off by the developers.

As far as links from wikipedia goes there is already an automatic link at the bottom of the wikipedia page to the wikisource author page. If you mean links from wikipedia pages that just mention an author rather than the authors wikipedia page itself I wouldn't bother to link directly to wikisource author page. I'd say its better to link the wikipedia reference to the wikipedia page for that autor, which will automatically have a link to wikisource. If you're talking about a particular work referenced in a wikipedia article I'd link to the work itself here.

AllanHainey (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

An example of a page is Obit. BD Jackson. I have added light links for the people. Where I know that they are an author, then to author page, where unsure, to WP pages.

With the DNB project, most of what I am working on is biographical, so we are going to have lots of these sorts of link. Within the DNB we will have the ability to x-link to those who appear within volumes, sometimes we can link to Author pages too.

I suppose that I see that WS is building a whole lot of parallel data without an agreed or acknowledged means to link together, so for biographical items we may be considered a satellite of WP, without a specific locus of our own. -- billinghurst (talk) 22:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we try to leave it up to the person adding the wikilinks, personally I usually link to the WP article (I wouldn't like Afghanistan, but I'd probably link Transvaal - wouldn't link Mountain Lion, but would probably link "the scandal of 1874" to its appropriate wiki article). Authors, I tend to link to WP unless the text is speaking about "the works of Charles Darwin". When books are mentioned themselves, I almost always just put a link to the WS text (or a red-link if it doesn't exist yet). But I think many people vary from that "loose standard". As long as there are wikilinks (they're what make us better than PG, IA or Google), we're good :) Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 23:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, though my issues had been more on to where to link, rather than what to link. I feel that we lose something for our own site when we cannot capture our links off-site, especially with regard to authors. It would be nice to easily be able to identify sister wikilinks, primarily WP, where they link to our pages. If we have the link to the WP:Biography from the Author: header, is it possible what we capture and identify our links from elsewhere on the site? Therefore for Authors, you can find where on WS the author is mentioned. billinghurst (talk) 07:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that. Personally, I would link to WS for authors or public domain works (that we have or might have), and to WP for other words. Yann (talk) 11:08, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP guidelines on links from WP to Wikisource

Can I ask this question the other way around? We're arguing over language at w:WP:Layout. How would you guys prefer we link from Wikipedia to Wikisource? Some editors of historical articles like to link directly to Wikisource from the text; some people prefer to link to the references section, then in the references section they'll give the historical reference, "as found at (link the Wikisource page)", and other people like to put Wikisource links in the External links section. Dank55 (talk) 02:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

(Personal do) Use Wikisource-author on WP if there is an WS:Author page, and I put it in preferentially External Links, if that does not exist, I put it in References. Premise is that I don't create a new section just for link. I will follow any guidance. If I have done a transcription and placed it on WS, then I will inline reference using relevant cite template, and put in the WS url. So:

• General link to general page
• Specific article use <ref> and cite to direct WS:page from the reflist. An issue is that the cite templates don't allow sister links, just full urls.

-- billinghurst (talk) 07:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

When a text mentions another text or an author, I always link to the Wikisource page for that text or author, irrespective of whether it exists or not. In my opinion, our job is to build a cross-linked repository of sources. The links are our raison d'etre. Hesperian 10:04, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The difficulty that comes out of this question is that everyone works differently, and emphasizes different aspects of what needs to be done. Like Billinghusrt, I spend a lot of time on the DNB project, but very, very little of that time on making sure that WP has links back to WS. On the occasions when I do, my tendency would be to put simple in-line links in the form "WS:Article title|visible text"; others may do this differently. I may personally be irritated by contributors who add humongous numbers of page scans without ever proofreading anything, but I can't insist that they do more. Hesperian is absolutely right about our raison d'être, but, however desirable these links may be, and as long as contributors are making some kind of positive additions we cannot insist that they go very far out of contributory comfort zone. Someone who is comfortable with what he does is likely to be seriously inefficient when he goes very far from that zone; if we insist that he regularly do much more than that, his participation is likely to diminish. We can only insist on what is absolutely essential. Eclecticology (talk) 17:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

If a page on Wikisource hasn't been locked yet, does that mean no one has vouched for the accuracy of the text yet? Dank55 (talk) 03:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. It just means that the person doing the vouching didn't feel the need to lock the page. Locking completely discourages further beneficial changes such as linking to other pages or sister projects. Eclecticology (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

We're happy for people to link to Wikisource, but I've think we've got consensus that we don't want to do the linking in-line, as if Wikisource were the reference for the article text, both because Wikipedia articles should reflect the opinions of secondary sources, rather than the interpretations made by Wikipedians of the meaning and significance of primary sources, and also because wikis (including Wikipedia of course) are never treated as reliable sources. I'm asking around to see if everyone is okay with "Wikisource has original documents on..." once at the proper place in the article, with specifics in the External links. Dank55 (talk) 16:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Whether there is a consensus about linking in line is a matter of debate. The small number of people who have an orgasm about bullying through policy changes and calling it "consensus" appear to have an inflated idea about their own importance. If it seems appropriate to me to make an inline link to a Wikisource article from a Wikipedia article, that's damn well what I'm going to do. If some Wikipedia policy wonk takes objection to my doing that he can damn well do the work of moving the link to where he thinks it belongs.

Your interpretation of what Wikisource is about makes no sense at all. Some of our texts may be from primary sources, and some from secondary sources. They are NOT the interpretations by Wikisource editors of those sources. I'm sure that every Wikisourceror believes in the principle that our texts should accurately reflect the originals, even to the extent of repeating its spelling errors. Eclecticology (talk) 18:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

My "of" was ambivalent; sorry about that, I hope my rewording clears it up. What I said is right out of w:WP:PSTS, and if you'd like to make the argument to change that policy on Wikipedia, head over to w:WP:OR. In practice, at GAN and FAC, whether the primary documents are coming from Wikisource or from anywhere else, an article that relies chiefly on primary sources and the editor's description and interpretation of the meaning of the primary sources won't pass the review. Dank55 (talk) 00:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

What are GAN and FAC? Please explain your jargon. Eclecticology (talk) 07:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

w:WP:GAN and w:WP:FAC Dank55 (talk) 15:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Primary and secondary are irrelevant; the point is to avoid drawing original conclusions from the sources at your disposal. If you only have primary sources, then your article will be limited to stating what the primary sources say. You can't include analysis or interpretation of those sources unless you can draw such things from secondary sources.

So there's two separate issues here. 1. Is this source an appropriate citation for what I want to say? and 2. How should I lay out the citation? Please try not to conflate them. Whether or not to permit inline links to Wikisource documents is all about 2., and irrelevant to 1.

Personally, I prefer to provide a full citation in the usual way, but to link the title text in the citation to the Wikisource document (unless the title has a wikipedia article of its own); e.g. w:Banksia sessilis#cite_note-Fraser_1830-17. Hesperian 00:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Is that a fair representation of everyone's opinion? If so, I can ask around on Wikipedia to see if we can get agreement. Dank55 (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

No, that's my personal opinion. Clearly Eclecticology holds a different view. Hesperian 02:39, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this is really two issues, and I would be happy to avoid the opaque muddle that Wikipedia's policy wallahs have made of the distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary sources. It wouldn't surprise me if some there supported the view that one could not cite the U.S. Constitution as a reference because it is a primary source. :-) Eclecticology (talk) 07:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) To me it sounds like there is so much blurring of the issue. I think the summation is

1. Where there is a citation that specific inline reference is required, and the citation and appears in the reference list, and points directly to the article in the namespace
2. Where there is collation or general reading, then use of the box "more information about ..." is appropriate. If WP provides guidance on placement of template for box, that is helpful.
3. Wikisource information that appears in the mainspace should be, or will be, considered a replica of the source, whether that source may be primary, secondary or tertiary information and that status doesn't change once it has been through multiple proofreading for veracity against the source.

Wikisource is what it is, we are just transcribers and presenters of information that has been prepared earlier. WPians can use and interpret the information the replica as if it was the P/S/T source of the original. -- billinghurst

From the Obit. BD Jackson page the links look fairly inconsistent, no offence Eclecticology, nothing inherently wrong with linking some to WS author pages & some to WP & some as redlinks but as time goes by and we get more authorpages and less redlinks (on WP as well as WS) it'll seem increasingly inconsistent and confusing & may need, at some point in the future, to be edited to ensure a consistent form of linking. Leaving aside redlinks (& assuming in time they'll all eventually be replaced with actual pages) I'd say that the simplest thing to do with authors is to link to a WS author page - which in turn contains links to WP,WC, etc - rather than linking to wikipedia. Even if we don't have any works by that author at the present time it could be used as a 'link page' until we can include their works too. Personally I've tended to link to wikipedia rather than wikisource but I think we need to consider what people are looking for in a link & whether we want to send them out of WS to WP each time & then hope there is a link back to the WS author page from WP.

As far as links to non-authors like events or places I would tend to link to WP & think this is the way to go. AllanHainey (talk) 14:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

How would I take offence when I didn't even participate in that article? :-)

I have no problems with redlinks, and I do believe that links in this project should be internal whenever there is a reasonable probability that we will have an article about that subject. This primarily applies to authors, but there are other circumstances. The link to Charles Darwin in the obituary cited is currently to Wikipedia, and it seems to me, at least, preferable to have it to our author page. The problem isn't limited to authors. A person working on the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica project should be linking to the other page in the 1911EB when such an article is referenced. A similar problem arose in the early days of Wiktionary. Having determined that the en:wiktionary would include all words in all languages, but with English definitions, we had to determine where to link everything in the translation list. The links best worked as internal ones. Thus where might translate as hvar in Danish, nerede in Turkish, and где in Russian, but best practice was to make the links to those words in en:wiktionary. The cross wiki links could then be added at the page for the foreign language word. This also made it easier to deal with unrelated words in separate languages which also happened to be homographs.

Premature drives toward consistency can be very short-sighted and ignore how potentially enormous Wikisource can become. For now, I would not fault anyone for making the wrong link. It's best to leave contributors to muddle through constructively. If better links can be made it's no big deal for someone to come through and change them later. Eclecticology (talk) 19:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

When I poked around Category:Works_by_type, looking especially at journals, books, magazines, instructional, and research categories, I found only secondary sources more than 70 years old (with expired copyright), and what I've heard (but I don't know) called "primary documents" by article reviewers. Granted Wikisource has great promise, but can someone point me to something currently in Wikisource in the nature of something published within the last 70 years by a major publishing house or in a peer-reviewed journal, for which copyright has been voluntarily surrendered? If not, how about something within the last 70 years in the nature of peer-reviewed commentary, or commentary on something by an acknowledged expert? Dank55 (talk) 00:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a trick question of some kind. I have some concerns about that category having become too much of a grab-bag, but that point is beyond this discussion. Being a primary or secondary source is not a big issue here. That has nothing to do with our criteria for inclusion. I am happy to leave the definition of an "acknowledged expert" to your own subjectivity. Eclecticology (talk) 01:30, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, I think most of the speeches by American government representatives & legislators would fall within what you're looking for. I don't know that they've had copyright surrendered but I understand that all U.S.A. government works, within which speeches fall, are considered as copyright free as a matter of course. We've certainly got pleanty of those from the last 70 years.

Eclecticology, I recognise the problem of 'pre-mature drives towards consistency' but I'm not sure in this case its necesarily pre-mature - and there are other problems with continuing lack of consistency -, of course I wouldn't criticise anyone from making the wrong link but that shouldn't stop us from setting out what we think the right way is & the way we want to see used in the future (partly the right links is a wikignoming issue too). Those who're bothered enough to read and use the policies would use them and help to keep the links in good order, while those who don't wouldn't do anything different whether there was a set standard or not. AllanHainey (talk) 18:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

My impression is that Dank55 is approaching the issue with Wikipedian preconceptions that Wikisourcerors have not made. They are bound to seem strange when someone tries to patch them in here. Beneficial as it may be for us to have links from Wikipedia back to this project, I admit that I do very little of it. When I do I will approach it from a more intuitive perspective that may not fit in with the most recent thinking on such matters; there are always plenty of people there who are more up-to-date on this kind of thing, and who can fix it more easily. Otherwise, when I add a text here within Wikisource parameters, it can be just as time consuming making the links fit in Wikipedia. I still try to be true to the underlying premise for "Transwiki": that those working on one project who see that something belongs on another cannot be expected to know the other project's rules and practices.

The best consistency is achieved by people following an established process because it's good, not because there is a rule somewhere saying that that is the only way to do things. Guidelines can describe a way of doing things that has largely worked well in the past; for a newbie they are a good place to start in the absence of any other reference point. For the more experienced person other or innovative techniques should be encouraged when those guidelines leave something to be desired. If nobody else adopts that innovation it will simply die a quiet death, and may eventually, after a long period of disuse just be deleted. Eclecticology (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Which takes us back to why and where I started the conversation. This wasn't meant to be about individuals' practices, and it wasn't about the rules, as we don't have any. I really would like us to discuss the principles. If we get the principles right, then rules/guidelines can be written and suggested, where the rules don't meet a scenario, people are able to measure against the principle. So let me make a start at this, and others can adapt and build. In Wikisource, to build we wikilink ... (outdent follows)

Main namespace

1. Internally link to works
2. Internally link to authors
3. Externally link to definitions, events, etc. (to sister projects) ¹

So?

1. Internally link to publications?
2. Specific mention of people, who are non-authors, though not major focus of a work.

^1 Where sufficient works relating to a subject matter are collected, they are to be considered a collection at Wikisource:Works -- billinghurst (talk)

This seems like a good outline, but it seems as though this thread has made the whole question seem more complicated than it really is. I don't find Wikisource:Works to be very useful; it's all very higgledy-piggledy and unsystematic. The pretty images only add to the clutter. We have yet to find the happy middle ground between the pages in the Wikisource namespace and categories. Eclecticology (talk) 00:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The thread only gets more complicated when people put in extraneous matters and split/fray the thread, like whether we find WW useful. That is another thread, and can be tackled separately I would hope. -- billinghurst (talk) 03:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. :-( Eclecticology (talk) 05:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of links from WP to WS: shouldn't we systematically add links in WP authors and individual books pages to the text in WS? A template like "Original text on Wikisource" would do nicely for the book pages. For the author pages, I can see two possibilities:
-a WS icon next to the titles in the author's bibliography (that could be used on the individual book pages as well).
-a template, similar to the {edition} template, that would read "Texts available for this author on WS", and would lead to a list of the works on the discussion page.
Of course, this discussion might be better on WP?(De fideli (talk))

I may be misunderstanding, however, there are already some existing, eg. w:Template:Wikisource-author which is used at w:Aldous Huxley; w:Template:Wikisource and w:A Modest Proposal -- billinghurst (talk) 09:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Billinghurst. I had never seen it. Maybe cross-referencing could be made the special focus of a month? (De fideli (talk))

[edit] Hebrew vowels and cantillation

Is it possible to add Hebrew vowels and cantillation to MediaWiki:Edittools?

See MediaWiki talk:Edittools.

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 13:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP Search misses Author: namespace

When one undertakes a WP search it does identify pages in our wiki, however, it seems to not find then in the Author: namespace, eg. Search for David Hume or Search for Charles Darwin. I am presuming it is a namespace issue, however, it would be good if we could get have that changed. Who talks to the developers at that level, or is it something that we can amend on our side? -- billinghurst (talk) 01:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Author disambiguation in header

Not sure whether people have seen the result of a disambiguation as it looks in a mainspace header, example John Brown's Speech to the Court at his Trial. I was unable to pipe the author field to have John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown the pipe name is ignored. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:05, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

In order to pipe a line, you have to use the full [[Author:AUTHOR NAME (DISAMBIG)|AUTHOR NAME]] style of linking to do it. Just doing "author=John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown" will not allow the header to recognize what you did.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 13:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. Thanks. billinghurst (talk) 14:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oregon Constitution

Athelwulf and I have been working on the Oregon Constitution recently. This important document is not displayed in a very accessible format by the state web site, and we're working to build one with web-friendly annotations, etc. See Oregon Constitution/Article I for an idea of how we're approaching this.

Since we're both fairly new to Wikisource, I thought it might be good to ask for some guidance here about how this sort of project is typically approached. Any feedback would be appreciated. -Pete (talk) 06:17, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, for what it's worth, I've written a blog post about the Constitution project, and about the importance of Wikisource more generally. Again, your thoughts or feedback are welcome! -Pete (talk) 01:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks pretty good so far, but a quick note that we use {{sic}} instead of just saying [sic], so that the reader can still easily read the original text - but if they go to the "Edit" page, they see the notation telling them not to "fix" the "error". Cheers. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 13:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! I'll keep that in mind about the "sic" template. -Pete (talk) 20:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

The way you used "[sic]" is perfectly correct. (I usually put it as "[sic!]", but that does not make your variant wrong.) I would strongly avoid using the template despite Sherurcij's royal "we". When you use the template the notice appears only on the edit page, and not at all on the page that the public normally sees. What's the point of having it appear only on the edit page? We want to inform the reader as well as the editor. I did notice that you applied it to "offence" and "defence" when these words are used correctly, though contrary to current American usage. Eclecticology (talk) 00:30, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

The point of having it only on the edit page is that it doesn't litter up the original text of the document with modern inline notes that are hard to distinguish from the original text but hopefully prevents editors from changing the text. Inserting [sic] inline is confusing as to who wrote that; if information about errors in the original are to be given to those who aren't going to edit the text, it can be given at the end in a clearly labeled section or on the talk page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:17, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

As Prosfilaes correctly points out, it questions whether the translator, the original author or the wikisource editor added the [sic], hence the use of {{sic}} instead which makes it clear enough so the mistake is not "fixed", yet doesn't confuse the reader or clutter up the text. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 23:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't consider the occasional [sic] to be clutter or to cause confusion at all, and I would prefer having this information in line when I'm reading the text. In the case of "religeous" in the Oregon Constitution, I'm sure that the average reader would be happy to know that this archaic spelling was actually used in the document. Most "[sic]'s" will be added by our own editors. The few instances when this notice is already there in the text that we work with can receive an additional. We'll have to agree to disagree on this, since I have no intention to change my practice, nor to systematically go about changing your usages. The one of your usages that I did look at was changed because the misspellings were not misspellings. Eclecticology (talk) 07:13, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

What if an author included a quotation in their work and one of the words was misspelled? If the author noted the misspelling, they would use [sic]. But what if the misspelling was not noted? Would we also use [sic], giving the reader the impression that the author noted the misspelling? This isn't a huge deal, but we (I hope not just the royal "we") want to maintain text integrity.

And if you want to also let the reader know that the word is misspelled, perhaps you could use a template that displays in alt text the correct spelling of the word when you hover over the misspelled word. You could also have the word be dot-underlined.

Psychless 03:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Of those two options the dot-underline seems preferable. Otherwise, readers with poor spelling skills especially will never know where to hover. The hover note, as well as showing the correction (not limited to spelling errors), could also show who originated the [sic]. Eclecticology (talk) 06:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate what all of you are saying, it's a healthy debate. I just checked back on our source document, it turns out the [sic] marks were there before we started to work on it. There are, as I see it, two layers of "authority" with this document: there is the official text, as passed by the people of Oregon, and then there is the supporting stuff added by the w:Oregon Legislative Counsel. This includes the notes at the ends of sections as to what ballot measure passed what section; some section numbers and lead lines; and the [sic] remarks.

I think we're comfortable adjusting the LC's work to make things more wiki-friendly, much moreso than the underlying text of the Constitution. So I'm not opposed in principle to using something like the {{sic}} template. However, I think I'll focus on other improvements (we only have about 5 articles even remotely wikified thus far) until it becomes really clear what the best way to approach this is.

Thanks again! -Pete (talk) 19:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Good. Each contributor is master of his own contributions, and is in the best position to judge what is most important to emphasize in the course of those efforts. The material that we work on often has a lot more rough edges than we would like to believe, and does not always fit into neatly pre-defined pigeon-holes. Eclecticology (talk) 21:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Usurpation of User:Jackie

Old inactive account without edits for my SUL. --ru:Jackie 9:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

If I can get confirmation that the person really requesting this is I'll usurp the account (but I want to make sure that this isn't a hoax by some anonymous user).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 13:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Did you see the confirmation notice at w:ru:Обсуждение участника:Jackie#SUL confirmations (diff)? Angr 10:43, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. Didn't see that. I've now moved "Jackie" to "Jackie (usurped)".—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Putting a letter on the margin

Take a look at any page of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (for example page 65), which i am proofreading.

Notice the letters numbering the paragraphs on the margins. In addition to numbering the paragraphs in the main flow of text with letters or numbers, all paragraphs are also consistently numbered on the margin and this is the main system of cross-referencing in this book. One of my most important goals in its proofreading is to make this cross-referencing convenient using hyperlinks, but also to preserve as much as possible the original display of this numbering.

Is there a convenient way to put a letter on the margin in the proofread text? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 12:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know of a convenient way to do that. Using tables is the only method I can think of (and depending on how savvy you are with table syntax, that might be anywhere from simple to abhorrent).—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 19:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Tables would definitely be suboptimal. Elsewhere on this page I asked about a way to put a poem's line numbers in the margin; now we have another reason to want to add a marginalia function. Over at de there's a template de:Vorlage:Seite Rand that puts page numbers in the margin. Perhaps some tech-savvy person (i.e. not me) can look at the code for that an adapt it so that line numbers and paragraph letters can be made to appear in the margin. If you also want it to be possible to link directly to these lettered subsections without them being headers, I believe (but am not positive) that {{anchor}} does that trick. Angr 10:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

About the only thing that springs to mind is Sidenotes. Have a look at {{Sidenotes begin}}, {{Sidenotes end}} which get used with {{Left sidenote}} or {{Right sidenote}}. Nothing automated, and you would need to put in your own numbering. One of the pages that I have done with this is Page:Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae Vol.1 body of work.djvu/48 -- billinghurst (talk) 10:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Use of {{number}} (with div class="lefttext" or with sidenotes begin/end) will create anchored (linkable) text in the right margin of the text.--T. Mazzei (talk) 07:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks: {{number}} helped! --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 20:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New Texts?

Could someone varify with me on how to find and correctly format new texts like poems, novels, etc? Thank you. --CartalksYXZ (talk) 03:57, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

You can find works by browsing through the sub-sections of Wikisource:Works, or else through the categorisation system. If you're looking to help format new works that still need work, these are books that need to be split into chapters, these are texts we've only had a machine "read" and need human eyes to correct obvious errors, and these are authors whose full names we can't find. Best of luck! Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 09:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edmeston and Otsego County

Edmeston History

Schools

Churches

Houses

Businesses

People

References

1760 – 1769

1770 – 1779

1780 – 1789

1790 – 1799

1800 – 1809

1810 – 1819

1820 – 1829

1830 – 1839

1840 – 1849

1850 – 1859

1860 – 1869

1870 – 1879

1880 – 1889

1890 – 1899

1900 – 1909

1910 – 1919

1920 – 1929

1930 – 1939

1940 – 1949

1950 – 1959

1960 – 1969

edit

What is to be done with the numerous Edmeston meta-pages in the mainspace? The template on the right lists some of them. From a random sample I can't figure out what these pages are about. Some seem somewhat encyclopedic; others more like a collection of quotes and notes on primary sources. Clearly none are themselves published documents, and I don't think any of them qualify as Wikisource index pages. Sure, some do link to Wikisource documents, but there are typically only a few links sprinkled through a page full of other material. And some pages don't have any document links at all; for example History of Edmeston, New York/1800s is full of Wikipedia links and crosslinks within this Edmeston project, but not a single Wikisource link outside the walled garden. My first priority would be to get these pages out of the mainspace, but first we have to figure out whether, how and where we want them. Hesperian 12:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The Edmeston history pages exist in full over on Wikibooks. Mike.lifeguard transwiki'd them a while ago. I say we list the ones we have here on WS:DEL.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 14:14, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I generally agree. They probably should have been deleted near the time they were transwikied. One still has to do this carefully since there are some documentary pages within that complex. Eclecticology (talk) 18:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Please delete them with care because at least two of them have been deleted on Commons after they were transwiki from here. I restored them here. Yann (talk) 18:56, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, though I think that Zhaladshar and I had the transwiki to Wikibooks in mind. In any event, I always have been and continue to be critical of putting everything into Commons, and being victims of their rules ... but I'll save that fight for a more propitious time. Eclecticology (talk) 19:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that they even existed on Commons. But Ec was right: I'm only talking about WB, where they (and their history) exist in full at b:History of Edmeston, New York.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:18, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I'd appreciate some advice on how to show an image on a page, specifically Author:James Gilmour where we have an image on the wikipedia page, but not on WS. Is it necessary to upload it onto wikisource too (which seems to me to be an unecessary duplication of bytes) or is it possible to present the image on WS by linking to WP or WCommons? (that is taking it from WP and presenting it here) The latter seems the most economical but I can't work out how to do it. AllanHainey (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The image on English WP should be moved to Commons, so that it can be used there and here. Yann (talk) 16:08, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but how do we use it once its on commons, is it the Image: prefix before the filename? AllanHainey (talk) 16:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Just as it is already used now. Once it is uploaded to Commons, it will appear on Author:James Gilmour. Yann (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Basically check the copyright on the WP image, and if PD then able to go to Commons. I find it easiest to use the tool [5]. Also using the {{nowcommons}} button will mean that an orderly tidy up will occur. I have undertaken over the image/file Gilmourjames.jpg. -- billinghurst (talk) 11:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 16:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English/US spelling

I'm a very rare visitor here, but just popped in to search for a copy of Great Expectations/Chapter IV. However, I notice it uses American spelling (parlor, favor etc) instead of English (parlour, favour). As this is a British work, should it not use the latter? I've had a search to see if Wikisource has an equivalent of Wikipedia's National varieties of English guidelines, but without success. Tivedshambo (talk) 23:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

There are no such guidelines; the spelling used in the text being transcribed should be kept. In practice, with works like Great Expectations many of them came from old etexts that were made with whatever book was at hand, in practice frequently an American edition that used American spelling. I believe this one came from Project Gutenberg; there is, of course, no source given which might give appropriate credit or verification of authenticity.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

That's true enough. I puzzled over this myself when I worked on Kipling's Kim, which I was proofreading against the American serial publication in McClure's. It uses American spellings. This has also been the case with a number of other short works by UK authors. The Project Gutenberg version is fine as a safe PD space-filler, but I think that in due course we should be able to relate each of these texts to a real paper copy. I would have preferred to work from the first UK serial publication, but that's not what I had available. In Kipling's case he also considerably edited his works when he republished them in book form. If you have an important version of the book, and you want to proofread our text in conformity with that, that would be great. A simple replacement of all the American spellings with UK spellings would not be acceptable. Eclecticology (talk) 05:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

When I first uploaded The Turn of the Screw, it was from a Project Gutenberg text that used American spelling. Then I found a djvu that used British spelling, so when I made the pages in Index:Two Magics.djvu I had to make sure to change all the spellings. In this case, it's hard to decide which variant is more "authentic" anyway; Henry James was an American expat living in Britain, and (as far as I know) the book was published in both countries simultaneously. Angr 11:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I think as an ideal we should aim to host the original version of a work, or the version utelising the same national spelling conventions as the author originally used. Of course this won't always be achieved as folk will upload whatever they have to hand, and may not know that a different spelling was initially used anyway, but I would say where an original - or as-author-intended-version - of a work becomes available we should seek to add it possibly replacing the existing latter altered-spelling version with it.

Considering the issue more generally I think we're likely to see a good number of these types of texts as, as far as I've seen, U.S.A. authored works published in the U.K. tend to retain U.S.A. spellings - at least a number of presently published works do, not sure about 70 year old+ copyright expired works - while I believe U.K. works are more frequently rendered into U.S.A. spellings when sold there (Also I've seen a number of copyright expired old speeches republished with American spelling conventions used where its almost impossible to find an original British spelling copy). As I'd expect a higher proportion of U.S.A. to U.K. based wikisourcerers I'd expect us to have a number of texts where this issue is relevant. That said, in the copyright expired texts with which we deal there may not've been as much 'translation' of the spellings as there is now with 'Microsoft American English' on spellcheckers. AllanHainey (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

When I proofread something I avoid using spellcheckers, and prefer using the more tedious visual comparison method. I had a bit of an edit war with former user Poetlister over Kipling's The Bell Buoy (comparison), where he (then in good-faith) argued in favour of the version in the "Definitive" edition of Kipling's works, and I argued in favour of the 1897 publication in McClure's Magazine. Kipling regularly revised his works for republication in book form, but both versions are as-author-intended. Unfortunately, I have not seen the Saturday Review version, published in the UK a month before the McClure's version. The old 30-day copyright rule in US law was an important factor in those days. We cannot host every version of every publication, and document all the typographical variants that were introduced into every new version of a popular work, or every extract that was put into an anthology. PG or anthology versions are fine as placeholders when we know that there are no copyright problems, but I'm honestly afraid that many of our colleagues just don't grasp the nature of this issue. Eclecticology (talk) 20:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

We can host every version of any publication that anyone is willing to put the work into doing so.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware of the mantra: Wiki is not paper. Nevertheless, an ambition to host every version is highly impractical when we can't even get a single version that has been properly sourced and proofread. Eclecticology (talk) 08:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that for old enough works, the original spelling as a largely gratuitous barrier to understanding, and that for not-so-old works, it's largely irrelevant.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes yes, but I haven't had any success convincing the supporters of the long "s" of that. Eclecticology (talk) 08:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Allan Hainey wrote, "I think as an ideal we should aim to host the original version of a work, or the version utelising the same national spelling conventions as the author originally used", but my example of The Turn of the Screw shows even that isn't always possible. Without having the author's own manuscript, there's no knowing whether Henry James followed the spelling conventions of his birth country or his adopted country, and the work was published in both countries using both spellings simultaneously. That said, I know that works by American authors are published with British spelling in Britain, and vice versa - I've read Stephen King books that used British spelling, and I've read E. F. Benson books that used American spelling, and I find both highly distracting. Angr 08:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sidebar

Can anyone tell me why "What links here" no longer appears in the sidebar for the Classic skin? I've always found that the most useful place; now I have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to have it! Eclecticology (talk) 08:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Completely off-topic

Does anyone know the import of the "2 E—2" at the bottom of Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/437. I notice these constantly while transcribing, and have become intrigued to know why they are there. Hesperian 12:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what the proper name for them is, but they are used to identify the signatures of a book so that the binders can collate them in the proper order. They almost always appear on odd-numbered pages. Note that page 435 will be marked "2 E". Page 419, 16 pages before that, will be marked "2 D". The first "2" indicates that they are going through the alphabet the second time; other books might have it as "EE". The second "2" tells me that there are two quarto (4to) sheets folded together to form that signature. Eclecticology (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Much obliged! Hesperian 12:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help need with the Dictionary of National Biography project

Hi guys,

We need some help to get a list together of replacement text for Dictionary of National Biography project. The link to text can be found here. We need this list so we can start putting up better quality scans. Everyone's help is appreciated. Thanks. --Mattwj2002 (talk) 07:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Middle English Texts - letters

To add Middle English texts properly one needs more letters than the 26 of modern English. Can we get those added to the sandbox letters?

The letters required are:

• Ȝ, ȝ (w:yogh)
• Þ, þ (w:thorn)
• Ð, ð (w:eth)
• Ƿ, ƿ(w:wynn)
• Æ, æ (w:æsh)

Of those; æ, ð, þ can be found hidden in the "Ligatures and symbols" drop-down if not the main screen. Unavailable are ȝ and ƿ. They are all native English letters. ȝ and þ are amongst the most common letters in Middle English.

How do we get them all added?

Howard Alexander (talk) 20:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It sounds as if you are wanting them in the EDITTOOLS section, so if you have a look at Wikisource:Scriptorium/Archives/2008-11#_Announcements there is the information needed to whom to approach. -- billinghurst (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added both upper- and lower-case yogh and wynn to the Edittools. They appear under Ligatures and Symbols.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 15:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Marvellous! Thank you. Howard Alexander (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

So now we have a Ȝ at our fingertips, but no £. Go figure. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Hesperian 03:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I also ask for poem open and close tags for the standard suite. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course the squeaky wheel gets the grease; you can't expect people to know what you want if you don't tell them. And people using British-layout keyboards already have £ at their fingertips. I'll add £ and <poem> and </poem> tags, but the better place to ask is MediaWiki talk:Edittools. Angr 13:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Extraction of photos

When at Page: places, there are photos on some of the pages, and by the Side by Side instructions it says to use {{Use page image}} which then gives red text "This page consists of an image that needs to be cropped or cleaned up, and uploaded to Commons." Is there any process to get these done? Or do we need to learn for ourselves to crop? No one knows of some people who enjoy that side of the operations?

Beyond finding what links to that template, it seems that we don't have a ready means to clean up that space. Currently b/w 200 and 250 images linked. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

If you've got an interesting book with less than a hundred images needing to be cropped and uploaded, I don't mind wasting an hour or so of some lazy afternoon doing it. But randomly cropping 100 frontispiece floral decorations might get put on my backburner of "some day around 2012" as opposed to "next week" or something :) Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 23:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Photographs, of authors. Definitely NOT floral emblems (eww! at the thought) and hadn't realised they were tagged. Probably worth a category for such images. Many thx. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Works needing image cleanup -- billinghurst (talk) 03:18, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Testimony from a British courtroom

The transcript of testimony from a British anti-terrorism case is released...what license would that fall under? Are we able to host it here? Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 01:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• {{PD-EdictGov}} Jeepday (talk) 12:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I imagine it's crown copyright, but it should be ok to republish it here one you acknowledge this and indicate the source. Blue-Haired Lawyer (talk) 16:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

{{PD-EdictGov}} seems to apply to the judgments, not the testimony, based on the wording of it currently. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 16:55, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

One first needs to determine whether this material is copyrightable in the first place. If not, the question of licensing doesn't matter. The other issue for our hosting is one of verifiability. Where can a reader go to verify that we have an accurate report of the testimony. Eclecticology (talk) 18:40, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm asking the question about the licensing, on the assumption that verifiability is a separate issue. I'm not worried about verifiability, and I would assume testimony is copyrightable unless there's a clause I'm forgetting -- so it comes down to a question of what exemption we use. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 19:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that verifiability is a separate issue, but it does need to be kept in mind. Your "assumption" that it is copyrightable does not make it so. The section to look at is the general one that makes anything copyrightable. If the testimony cannot fit into those provisions in the first place one need not look into the exceptions. Eclecticology (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

...which would be why I'm asking people for help. Not for "You have to find out if it's copyrighted", I'm asking if it's copyrighted/ableToUseHere/etc. Anyways, court transcripts are hardly a concern to be verifiable; shouldn't really be an issue on any front -- just the outstanding question of copyright. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 21:25, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course if it's copyright in the first place is the most important question. Your neologism "copyrighted/ableToUseHere/etc." would also depend on it. It seems quite clear to me that courtroom testimony cannot qualify as an "original work of authorship". A tag that says "PD-not copyrightable" would likely be appropriate. Eclecticology (talk) 07:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I would definitely agree that in principle, courtroom testimony ought not to be copyrightable, and I certainly hope that there is some British law that rules so, but I feel compelled to point out that there seem to be many precedents of transcriptions of things in general being copyrighted. The various forces that pursue establishment and enforcement of copyright law in general, which have successively and continuously been getting laws changed all over the world in the past several decades, have unfortunately been extremely invasive into the fabric of international society and law. They have been successful in shifting what was once the practical (and legal) default assumption of "not copyrighted unless otherwise stated" to instead be "copyrighted unless otherwise stated". (Which really sucks and amounts to a major demolition of property within the public trust - basically the ultimate grand theft of intellectual property in history - but that is what has happened.)

So it seems to me that we would need to be able to point to some very firm legal precedent or code to declare any category of works as not being copyrightable as well as establish what criteria is necessary to document that a work is within a given non-copyrightable category. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 14:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

But here's an idea if we were going to skip that: we could describe a courtroom transcript as a "derivative work of a creative act of speech that occurred in a public venue." --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 14:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) It is nearly impossible to base a successful strategy on the premise of self-defeat. Copyright is a creation of statute, and, at least in common law countries, that means that if copyrightability is challenged it is easy to shift the burden of proof to the person claiming the copyright. Hoping that a direct British precedent will come out of the woodwork is not likely to be helpful if none exists. Speaking of "many precedents of transcriptions of things in general" is exactly what makes this approach defeatist. It is not the quantity of such precedents that matter, but their direct relevance to the matter at hand. I agree that vested interests have become extremely invasive in recent decades in protecting what they consider to be their rights. Commercial interests can afford to put money into protecting their economic rights; for those of us who act in the public interest the legal costs can be disproportional. Those who would normally be defendants in copyright case also do not go around starting cases; there would be no benefit to doing so. A lot of these precedents don't exist because they involve processes which, until recently, were not practical for a member of the general public. Before the internet age, transcribing, printing and freely distributing a thousand-page court transcript was not economically feasible; now, only the first of those three steps remains a significant barrier.

Of themselves, speeches are not copyright, because of the lack of fixation; only their later fixation generates copyright. (There have been cases dealing with this.) Viva voce courtroom testimony comes down to a series of speeches which do not become "fixed" until a transcript has been published. The transcriber may receive a limited copyright in the compilation, but that does not give him a copyright in the individual speeches; if it exists at all it likely belongs to the witnesses themselves. Perhaps there, only perjured testimony may meet the test of originality.

Thus, waiting for a definitive precedent on this and many other copyright issues is a loser's strategy. It capitulates to the very activities you purport to oppose, and ensures their perpetuation. Eclecticology (talk) 19:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess I don't see this as a matter of strategy at all; in response to the question posed I attempted to determine the copyright status of the work, not play some game or fight some battle.

If declaring that courtroom transcripts are non-copyrightable is some sort of strategy on your part to accomplish a goal related to the way you think copyright law should work, rather than a genuine effort to assess the actual legal copyright status of the work under current law, I guess we just had different interpretations of Sherurcij's question. But in any case we're talking about different things.

As you say, "The transcriber may receive a limited copyright in the compilation"; this would appear to completely controvert your assertion that this kind of thing is not copyrightable. It's not defeatism or any sort of gambit, it's an attempt to factually assess the claim that it's not copyrightable.

You yourself are the one who said above, "Your "assumption" that it is copyrightable does not make it so." By the same token, our desire that it should belong to a category of works which are impossible to copyright does not make it so. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 17:22, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not the one engaging in political rants about what copyright law "ought" to be. Strategic considerations are about how we can best deal with the copyright law that exists, or how we can best deal with things that are not clearly addressed in the law. "May receive a limited copyright" is not contradictory at all because a compiler does not receive any copyright in the individual items he puts into his compilation; he only gets it on the way he puts them together.

The reality of law in general is that very little is black and white. With copyright law in particular electronic communications has raised a large range of questions that were unimaginable in a purely dead-tree era. In that era it was impossible to legislate about what could not be imagined. In court, particularly when there are no significant factual disputes, it is customary for each party to propose the most favorable interpretation of the law as it exists. In the absence of clear legislation the interpretation gap is especially wide.

My argument in this case is simple. The testimony is not an "original work of authorship", and it has not been "fixed" under the authority of the putative copyright owners, the witnesses giving the testimony. What is your counter-argument to that? Eclecticology (talk) 19:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

If, as you say, very little is black and white in law (which I would agree with), then that would seem to support exactly what I'm saying: declaring a category of works to be non-copyrightable is an extremely absolute statement. We ought not to make such a declaration entirely upon our own cognizance if very little in law is black and white. As I said above, we ought to establish a firm basis external to the Wikisource project before declaring a category of works non-copyrightable.

I wouldn't object to some language that says we think something hasn't been copyrighted, but declaring it non-copyrightable (without prominently stating that this is our own personal conclusion) seems to me beyond our purview and not especially honest. I think that AllanHainey has the right sort of idea trying to track down analogous situations. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 16:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Stating that something is in fact copyright can be just as absolute. Non-copyrightability is only one of several possible reasons why some writing is in the public domain. I have no problem with stating that we have taken a position that something is not copyright because is is not copyrightable; that would certainly be consistent with the non-declaratory position that I have been taking all along. With this issue and many others the "firm external basis" simply does not exist. If you know of one, let us know too. Eclecticology (talk) 09:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

These seems like the essence of extemporaneous speech, with the exception of exhibits and speeches and other prepared material. I think it would fall under the existing rules Wikisource has for stuff like that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Sherurcij's original question was phrased in terms of "What licence ...?" If something is in the public domain no licence is needed. Eclecticology (talk) 19:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I've done a little bit of research on UK copyright law, I can't find a definitive answer but some info indicates that the transcript is non-copyright (unless copyrighted by the transcriber). [[6]] doesn't include court records in the list of types of work which can be copyrighted by UK law. This site [[7]] states

"“A work can only be original if it is the result of independent creative effort. It will not be original if it has been copied from something that already exists. If it is similar to something that already exists but there has been no copying from the existing work either directly or indirectly, then it may be original.”

UK Intellectual Property

This would seem to rule out claiming of copyright on transcripts. It would certainly be ruled out in USA law because the only grounds would be "sweat of the brow" which has been deprecated. Again, of course, any commentary added would be an original work."

To obtain a transcript what seems to happen is that you contact the Court concerned with details of the case, parties, dates etc. You then select a transcriber, the Court sends the tapes to the transcriber and you pay fee. It may well be that the transcriber creates a copyright over the work (though I think this is unlikely from the above comments), though they could have a copyright over the format/style of their transcript if not the actual text taken from the text. AllanHainey (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I thought it'd be helpful to see if those UK court transcripts already on-line are noted as copyrighted, Unfortunately those at the British and Irish Legal Information Institute [[8]] all seem to be noted as crown copyright & the site notes"

The copyright in the text of legislation and judgments displayed on BAILII's website may belong to courts, other government bodies, judges, and/or to commercial publishers. BAILII cannot authorize any copying of such material, and users of BAILII's website are referred to the copyright policy of the relevant copyright owners. BAILII endeavours to indicate the existence of third party copyright on the pages of databases and individual judgments, but users remain responsible for checking whether their use of the materials is authorized. AllanHainey (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at that further leads to this, where the third paragraph discusses Crown Copyright in a way that we would likely find acceptable. Eclecticology (talk) 08:42, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Arrays by selective transclusion

I put into my user page this code:

* <section begin="1.1" />Frontespizio. <section end="1.1" /> <section begin="1.2" />Frontespizio<section end="1.2" /> <section begin="1.3" />Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli<section end="1.3" /> * <section begin="2.1" />Nota dell'editore.<section end="2.1" /> <section begin="2.2" />Nota<section end="2.2" /> <section begin="2.3" />Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli/Nota dell'editore<section end="2.3" /> * <section begin="3.1" />Narratione ai lettori.<section end="3.1" /> <section begin="3.2" />Narratione<section end="3.2" /> <section begin="3.3" />Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli/Narratione ai lettori<section end="3.3" />

That gives this output:

• Frontespizio. Frontespizio Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli
• Nota dell'editore. Nota Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli/Nota dell'editore
• Narratione ai lettori. Narratione Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli/Narratione ai lettori

As you can guess, these codes (pointing into my user page):

• {{#lst:User:Alex_brollo|1.2}}
• {{#lst:User:Alex_brollo|3.3}}

give the second element of the first row, and the third element of the third row:

You guess that both indexes into the code can result from a parameter, or from an expression too.

I used this trick to a test aiming to build some interesting templates for testual versions of a proofred book: it:Trattato dell'imbrigliare, atteggiare e ferrare cavalli, see the code of any chapter following the main page. Please feel free to move this message otherwhere (into a "exoteric topics" talk page ;-) ) if needed. --Alex brollo (talk) 10:16, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Typesetting a list with ditto marks

At Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/67 I have used <poem> tag hoping that it would help to get around collapsing spaces around ditto marks' and in (eventually) finding guidance on the tag that it only works for linebreaks and leading spaces. Beyond adding lots of (ugly) non-breaking spaces or char #160 is there another suggested means to get the right typeset in this scenario?

As a request, can we also add some means to help send people to Help:Editing poetry for help in the use of <poem> tag. Trying to find it by searching is difficult. Thx. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You could get exactly what you want by the use of a table:

Evans, John.
{|
|-
| Farren, || Elizabeth.
|-
| align="center" | "
| Henry.
|-
| align="center" | "
| William.
|}
Farren, Elizabeth.

or, if you don't care about preserving the alignment of given names, you could use

Evans, John.
Farren, Elizabeth.
<span style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em">"</span> Henry.
<span style="margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em">"</span> William.
Fawcett, John.

Hesperian 03:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Polytonic Greek

I don't know Greek and i would appreciate it if someone could check whether i copied the Greek letters and diacritics correctly in the beginning of this page:

• Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/88

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, but it appears you got them wrong. One thing to watch for in Greek diacritics is whether they are accents or breathing marks when the are on an initial vowel or the second vowel of an initial diphthong. Thus the straight diacritics on έ and ὲ; the curly ones on ἐand ἑ represent whether there is an "h" sound at the beginning of the word. All of the proclitics listed there appear to have aspirations indicated.

At the risk of seeming too critical about what is really your project, I do find a tendency to an excessive use of templates. A lot of the italics could be handled just as easily with simple wiki-markup, but their use does make sense when superscripted letters are involved.. Eclecticology (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I have fixed the Greek letters. --Zyephyrus (talk) 12:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

See also {{Greek missing}} and Category:Pages with missing Greek characters. Hesperian 04:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Eclecticology, there's certainly no need to apologize about the Greek - i had a feeling that i got them wrong. Now let's see whether i got this straight: έ and ὲ are straight and ἐ and ἑ are curly, right?

As for the templates - it is possible that i overuse them a bit, and i am willing to hear detailed criticizm. I use templates for book titles, which may be over the top, but i think that i may use them in the future for cross-referencing. (Maybe i am too optimistic about that.) I hope to use {{GHGterm}} for preparing an index. The templates for Bible quotes, Hebrew passages and paragraph references are certainly needed. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Addition: after i saved the previous message, i noticed that έ and ὲ have different letter shapes. Is it OK? I used the Edittools for inserting them. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

You have the straight and curly right.

For all practical purposes the letter shapes should be considered identical. Modern Greek is far more parsimonious in its use of diacritics than its scholarly ancient counterpart. Only "έ" (with tonos) is from modern Greek and is represented as U+03AD. The polytonic counterpart U+1F73 "έ" (with oxia) should look different with the accent at a slightly different slope, but Unicode tends to view them as equivalent. While you are certainly free to consider these differences, I think that the benefit of that distinction may be more trouble than it's worth.

In the first paragraph of the passage cited above "Maqqēph" could have been done as easily using the edit tools without the template, and "seventeen" and "atonic" could have been espressed with standard wiki italicization. The Greek also could have been represented without the template. On the other hand the Hebrew, the particular way that biblical passages are represented, and the superscripted reprsentation of phonology almost beg for templates. I would still be disinclined to use the templates for book titles. The referencing purpose is a good one, but our approach to cross-referencing is seriously underdeveloped. There are likely a number of ways this could be done, but I am loath to predict how that will develop over the years to come. Ideally, your reference to the Merx book in German should be able to bring us directly to that work on de:Wikisource, but we are a long way from that. Eclecticology (talk) 21:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

You say Unicode "tends to view" U+03AD and U+1F73 as identical, but it's more than that. If you enter the character for U+1F73 (or any other Greek vowel letter with an oxia) into the edit window and click save, the MediaWiki software will automatically replace it with U+03AD (or the corresponding Greek vowel letter with a tonos). If you really want U+1F73 to appear, you have to enter it as &#x1F73; (or &#8051;) (and then hope that no bot or well-intentioned other use comes along and converts it to a character). Angr 10:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

One little trick with Greek fragments is: I don't read any Greek myself but in working on English texts with fragments of Greek in them, if the fragment is a quotation from a classical work and you can make out at least a few of the words clearly I've had pretty good luck simply Googling with whatever I've got, then cutting and pasting the whole phrase in Greek out of the original work itself that Google serves up. (Sometimes I even get hits on Greek Wikisource and can cut and paste already-wiki-marked-up text!) --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 16:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

That can work....sometimes. But neither this, nor my recent exchange at Wikisource talk:WikiProject 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Style Manual is a matter of quoting from a classical source. The most common sort of fragment seems to relate to the Greek origin of ‎an English word. OCRed works containing these fragments do their best to manhandle these letters into their closest Roman equivalents. Eclecticology (talk) 18:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know about {{Greek missing}} and Category:Pages with missing Greek characters until this thread, but now that I do, I'm going to check the category regularly and add Greek text (I do read Greek) as I can. (I can't fix 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhetoric because I can't see the original image at. If anyone can see the pagescans listed at Talk:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhetoric and can make PNGs or something from them, I'll be glad to add the Greek.) Angr 22:21, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I finally got the images and have added the Greek to 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rhetoric. Angr 21:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Er.. pardon. If some ancient Greek typing or proofreading is needed I'm avalaible. My grasp of ancient Greek typography (and lanaguage) is much better than my knowledge of English. Just drop a line on my it.source talk page and (without haste) I'll run here. - εΔω 00:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FAL

I built {{FAL}} Based on {{GFDL}}, Could someone check my work, I don't think I got it exactly right. It is posted on Cold Fusion Hypothesis, and seems to be putting the article in Category:GFDL and I am not sure why. Jeepday (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

A null edit on the page on 'Cold Fusion' has cycled the templates. I don't know why it works, but it does. :-) -- billinghurst (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation pages - discussion

Hi. Jayvdb has created a person disambiguation for a work A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Forster, John. The question is do I then create another Disambig page for the name John Forster, or do I convert the existing page to be more generic (more than just the specific work). If the second, we could move the page and leave the redirects. The decision that we make likely has flow-on effects to other projects with biographical data (EB1911, DNB come to mind) Note: no author pages yet exist for either John Forster, though one of them mentions throughout WS. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:39, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly go for the more generic version using dates (rather than area of fame) as the disambiguator. Dates are less likely to generate new ambiguities in the future. Eclecticology (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Annotation of errors

(SPLIT and MOVED) "In reference to John Forster EB11 and DNB both list the one who died in 1876, but not the other, though they do have a John Foster with the same dates as the other. It looks as though there was a typo in the original; this is supported by the fact that he was not in proper alphabetical order. Eclecticology (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Good get Ec. I checked at Archive.org, and it is you suggested. In the book: no index, no ToC.

This then leads to what do we do with identified errors, especially where they have this sort of misleading consequence. I have double checked

• Annotate the specific page; or
• Move the page from Forster to Foster (with annotation), leaving text in our index page and specific page; or
• Move page, annotate, edit text in index page of work, just leave the text in situ

Personal choice is the second. We leave the specific textual information as it is, and clarify all around with regard to facts. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking of a hybrid between two and three. The index page is our own creation, so we have more flexibility there. We link here under the correct name, but with a note like "Forster in the original is a typo". The page itself should be titled with the proper name, but the text should show the original marked with a "(sic!)". DNB00 has 4 John Fosters and a John Leslie Foster. My 1906 Americana adds a John Gray Foster, a John Watson Foster and a John Wells Foster; WP has 22 assorted John Fosters. This is why naming pages sometimes needs a lot of forethought, and we need to be prepared for situations where different sources express the same name in different ways. Eclecticology (talk) 03:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anchors, links & transcluded pages: what is the solution?

I have a work in Page: and in it there is a text ref that says (see Person A). I have put the anchor on the appropriate page, however, building the respective link within Page: and then when I transclude the page of text it is going to be problematic over in the main namespace.

In Page: I can build it to work in the main namespace (presuming that I know to which page it will be linking) or I can build the link to the Page namespace (again presuming that I know on which scan page it appears). I cannot see how I can build the anchor to work in both namespaces. About the only solution that I can see that will work is that there is some surgery to {{anchor}} so that it becomes namespace aware and allows for multiple parameters. I do hope that there is a simpler solution. -- billinghurst (talk) 11:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you want to keep both namespaces separate; i.e. page links to page; mainspace links to mainspace. I don't see it that way. People in the mainspace (i.e. readers) should not be presented with links into the page space; but people in the page space (i.e. editors, proofers) may be presented with links into the main space. So just create your links so that they point at the mainspace anchor target. Hesperian 11:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I had been prepared to do that though it looks butt-ugly in Page.

• Page:List of Carthusians 1800-1879.djvu/17
• User:Billinghurst/List of Carthusians (1800–1879)/A

The issue is that putting a relative link like [[../C/#anchor]] in the Page space is that it doesn't provide a wikilink, it shows it like <nowiki>. If we are happy with that, then okay with me. :-) -- billinghurst (talk) 13:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be fine with it, but I'd also be fine with making a template that is namespace-sensitive and shows something different depending on the ns. That way the display and the link are as they should be in the main namespace, for people working in the Page: space they have easy internal linking, and it's not too technical (knowing the basics of how to use the Page: space would mean using the template is doable--we've already got Page-specific templates anyway). But I'll go either way, so long as all the linking is as in should be in the main namespace.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I always use absolute links in these circumstances. Hesperian 01:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The alternative, of course, is to do without the ../ notation and type the full name of the mainspace entry in Page namespace. That way you get a proper link from the Page to the mainspace location, and in mainspace it doesn't hurt. Angr 21:33, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The little edge of perfectionist in me would like to see {{anchor}} carry both properties and be namespace aware, then we can have win-win. If people only do one link, then it is to mainspace, and the public is unaffected. I am not doing the scripting, so I limit myself to expressing an opinion and indicating a preference. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to create something of the sort at Template:Self reference (may very well be brittle, I would appreciate if other people versed in template magic were to look it over to confirm its correctness). In doing so I've found something of an odd problem: relative links do not appear to work in the Page namespace. Prosody (talk) 12:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently it doesn't recognize subpage link syntax in namespaces that don't have subpages. A link like [[{{NAMESPACE}}:C#anchor|]] should work everywhere, and you can use parser functions to remove the : where it's not needed if you call that from a template, to make it look a little neater without needed to specify anchor text. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright renewals

Hello,

I could not find a renewal for this book: wikilivres:Image:Plato's theory of knowledge.djvu. Can I can import it on WS? I also would like a confirmation regarding the The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. Sherurcij wrote here that the renewal is for the 1952 edition. However the Registration Date is 22 March 1951. Can someone explain this further? Thanks, Yann (talk) 15:17, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused myself what I was using at the time, I would assume pagescans of a 1950 edition, though I can't find that online right now; so I can't really "back up" my November claim since I don't remember what my reasoning was at the time for believing "the renewel is specifically for the 1952 "enlarged" edition, not the original 1950 edition. IA is erroneously hosting the 1962 copy of the 52 edition, which would not appear to be PD". Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Nostradamus‎.} 16:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Plato's theory of knowledge was originally published in 1935. This included US publication by Harcourt-Brace. Cornford died in 1943, so maybe there was no-one there to renew it. This should be good to import.

The original 1948 Origins of totalitarianism was renewed, R620089. It does not appear to be usable here. Eclecticology (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

On the same suject, here is a study [9] by Peter B. Hirtle, from Cornell University: "Copyright Renewal, Copyright Restoration, and the Difficulty of Determining Copyright Status" which has far reaching consequences for WS. Dozen of works may have to be deleted. Yann (talk) 14:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just read through this very interesting article, and also checked to see what the announced abridgements were that he mentioned. See [10]. Hirtle give a lot of fine intellectual and throretical analysis of the law involved, but next to nothing in the way of court decisions one way or another. The average judge may have little patience for some of his hair-splitting arguments, absent real courtroom precedent.

Perfectionistically "doing the right thing" comes with a cost. Not the least of that cost is the time and effort required to properly investigate each individual situation. We really need to analyze the point where we transition from a pure adherence to the letter of the law, however absurd, to a risk management approach. A risk management approach accepts that there is a remote possibility that bad things could happen, but that the costs of protecting oneself are greater than the probable costs of harm.

The omitted portions of the essay were from the risk management section. Thus:

"Settling such an unlikely suit might be less expensive than conducting the incredibly thorough analysis needed to establish copyright status with the highest degree of certainty. The experience of the Internet Archive in this regard may be instructive. It, and in particular the Universal Digital Library found in the Archive, contains some titles that may havehad their copyrights restored. Yet to date there have been no reported actions against the Internet Archive for copyright infringement of restored works, nor have there been any actions for contributory infringement reported against a library that provided the volumes. An institution might decide, therefore, that while the issues described in this paper are a theoretical possibility, they are unlikely to be an issue in practice. After careful analysis, the institution might conclude that digitization of some works can be risked even when it cannot be established with 100% certainty that the work is in the public domain."

What remains is to know where to cross over between absolute certainty and sane risk management. Eclecticology (talk) 01:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I, too, would favor such an approach. It is very sad that many Commons admins adopt a prove-or-delete standpoint of fundamental principle, which mean that these scans can't be hosted on Commons. I have several times proposed there a more pragmatical approach, without any results up to now. Yann (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] When does a template stop being experimental and usable?

I have been using some templates, as per our instructions, and found that they are still sited in Category:Experimental templates. Do we have a process for moving them out, or an expectation that the templates there can or cannot be used? Or is the category just more an indication that one should expect change when using the templates there? -- billinghurst (talk) 04:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

LOL. It's the usage that makes something more than experimental. I haven't looked at them in detail, but it wouldn't surprise me if many of them have just been forgotten. Try not to assume any prevailing excess of diligence about maintenance. :-) Eclecticology (talk) 08:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no real official way of removing that category, short of simply being bold. Some of those templates are used so often that they probably can't be called experimental (e.g. {{Page}}) and many others are common maintenance templates (e.g., {{Use page image}} and {{Page contains image}}) that they can probably be moved out of experimental territory.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 18:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We don't really disagree. I'm sure that we could also find many experimental templates that were just never marked as such. Sometimes the maintenance categories need maintenance themselves. Cautious boldness should be encouraged for both removing maintenance category tags, and even deleting abandoned experiments outright. When some of these are brought up for discussion, even if they haven't been used for a long time, defenders arise from the most unexpected places. Eclecticology (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The fact "defenders rise" to argue in favour of keeping "abandoned" templates is not a reason to "boldly" delete them without discussion, just to clarify. Nothing short of clear vandalism ("Greg is a poopy-head") should be deleted without discussion. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Bahá'u'lláh.} 18:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I would find it useful if these antagonistic by-plays between the two of you did not pepper every second conversation that took place. It is neither helpful nor enlightening. It also gets to the point where it is becoming a deterrent to asking a question. Maybe we can set up WS:Scriptorium/&#%^#$% and leave it to last man standing. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I think experimental would signify to the user that it may change and to the maintainer that they don't need to worry about breaking too much. We can never really expect maintenance categories to be 100% accurate; boldly removing a template from that cat would seem tantamount to saying that experimenting there will break things. Abandoned/failed experiments could probably be moved to category:deprecated templates -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 23:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes removing the cat just means that that template has gone into the mainstream. "Deprecated" suggests that it was at one time more broadly accepted than experimental. Under sane and reasonable circumstances, what's wrong with simply deleting the unused clutter? Eclecticology (talk) 01:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess the main problem is that there's no policy to allow that easily and consistently. Maybe we should start one; say, "An unused template maintained by a single editor which has not been edited in two months may be moved into that editor's user space, and the resulting redirect speedily deleted" seems consistent with current policy (cross-namespace redirects can already be speedily deleted) -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Biographical info about a translator

Dear Librarians,

I need some information to put up some translations of Italian poems here on en.source: Let me explain.

Here I found some Carducci's poems translated by some M.W. Arms and published in 1908. By googling around I discovered that M.W. Arms i a nom de plume for Mary Arms Edmonds, but I couldn't find any information about her birth or death day. As a 20th century writer these data are critical. Can any American bibliophile discover when this mysterious lady bade farewell to mortal life? - εΔω 15:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

As an aside on a matter of English usage, I notice that you changed "bid" (in the past tense) to "bade". Some would prefer your change in these circumstances, while others would say that "bid" is correct in all circumstances. I would say that you were right with either word. Eclecticology (talk) 18:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your gentle words. I hate my mixing of poetical memories with puerile solecisms, but my approach to English language is comparable to that of a classical language... Thank you again. - εΔω 16:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The 1986 book "Neither Angel Nor Beast" preface says it's dedicated to the memory of "Mary Arms Edmonds 1881-1966", and makes it clear she is the translator M. W. Arms later in the preface. Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Bahá'u'lláh.} 15:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

If I understand the rules en.Wikisource uses correctly, this data is moot. We can post it so long as it was published before 1923 and hence is in the public domain in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Eclecticology (talk) 18:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind answers. In such an instance, here on en.source (on it.source we have many more problems with the mix of USA and Italian laws) does the more than 70 years from death of translator principle hold true or false? In which latter case I'll start transcribing... - εΔω 18:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC) Err.... maybe I'm a victim of the proverbial copyright paranoia, but I had very bad experiences before...

Unfortunately here on en.ws, we require that it also be Public Domain in the United States, which would mean that death+70 only works if her home country recognises that rule and the 70th year of her death was before 1996, which would require her to have died prior to 1926. However, any works published before 1923 are automatically Public Domain, no matter what country/translator/author is involved.Sherurcij ^{Collaboration of the Week: Author:Bahá'u'lláh.} 18:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

That 70 year rule in US law applies only to US authors who died in 1976 or later. Eclecticology (talk) 18:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The simplest summary of US law is that anything published before 1923 is in the public domain, and that anything published after that is quite possibly copyrighted. Things published after 1922 that weren't filed and renewed by American formalities are the biggest case of death dates being important, as that's based on the copyright status in the home nation in 1996. (US copyright law is a baroque set of exceptions and grandfather clauses. I could perhaps strike the US and copyright from that statement.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Estimated death dates

I was going around cleaning up some of the licensing tags, and I came upon Author:Arthur Aikin Brodribb (born 1850). Naturally, we don't assume that the author of Beowulf is still running around out there, but do we need a rigid assumption on when people like this died? If we assume that he died by 100, that would allow us to put him in life+50 category. The oldest person documented lived to 122, the list of the 100 verified oldest people gives 113 as the bottom of that list (so roughly one in ten million people exceeds 110ish) and a modern government report gives him 25 years from the last known publication date (at 55) and says that 2.5% of those born will reach 100. I like somewhere between 100 and 115. 100 may be a little low for certainty, but it's nice and round and very probable; 115 should appear on lists of very old people and even without that is nigh certain. 115 would mean that anyone born in 1843 can be assumed to have died in 1958 and hence good to have a life+50 template added.

Author:Marian Edwardes is another point in question; if we start assuming, should we assume she was 20 when she first published? 15? 5? It doesn't help in this case; Google Books indicates she started publishing in 1901, (with an possible 1898 college publication) meaning it will be a long time before we can just assume she's clear in an life+50 environment. But if we assume that publications by preteens will be heavily marked and take 15 as our assumed earliest publication age, if we take 115 (100) as a death date, any books published 115(100)-15+50 = 150 (135) years ago can be assumed to be free in life+50 copyright regimes, even without further author information.

(Have I mentioned that publication based copyright lengths rock recently? Unfortunately, I don't see a change to that system, even if the copyright lengths were to be rolled back...)--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Sufficient biographical detail? For someone like Marian Edwardes, it would be useful if there were any biographical data known was added to the Notes section. My research skills for finding people in 19th and early 20th century is reasonable so base details of who, where, flourishing dates all help to isolate and tie a person down. Happy to do that research if people leave a note on my talk page. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Tracking down some of these may be next to impossible. For Edwardes, her translations seem to all pre-date 1923 so there should be no problem about copyright. In a more general situation I would be inclined to treat these people as effectively unidentified authors. Many illustrators, translators, etc. produced work for hire, and did not acquire copyrights. Even when the copyright was renewed it had to be done by the author or his descendants, and he would not have the right to renew the copyrights for these supplementary people. Eclecticology (talk) 06:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I cannot say that I have ever looked at the discussion/evidence base for published in the US which we need for the 1923 rule to apply and I would be happy for someone to point in the direction. -- billinghurst (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The article at w:United States copyright law#Duration of copyright gives as good an introduction as any. Eclecticology (talk) 09:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It was not the copyright definition or duration to which my question was directed, it is relating to the act of publishing (which presumably is legislatively defined). If a book was printed and published in England in 1916 and there is no evidence that it was sold in the US, therefore not published in the US, then it would seem that only the 70 year duration post death rule would apply, and the 1923 rule would be hard to apply. Do we need evidence that the book was published in the US for us to make pre 1923 claim. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

"Publication" (the act) is defined in Section 101 and does not depend on national origin. Application by national origin is treated in 104(b), especially (1) and (2); this, in effect, allows the US rules to be applied no matter where a work was published. The years 1922 or 1923 are not themselves specified anywhere in the Act. They essentially are inferred from 304 which deals with copyrights already subsisting in 1978 when the US adopted a life + 70 regime. Again, this section makes no mention of national origin. Prior to that time copyright with renewal lasted for 56 years, and any work whose copyright was already expired did not have its copyright further extendeed. I hope this answers your question. Eclecticology (talk) 18:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Like Eclecticology, I would be inclined to treat these people as effectively unidentified authors. I think it is better to have "unknown date" that a template based on a wild guess which wouldn't mean anything. Any way I never met any author of that time who lived more that a 100 years, and the life expectation was more something like 60-70 years for people having an high standard of living, and much less for manual workers. Yann (talk) 12:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Two things: first, I was speaking purely for the life+n jurisdictions that we note on author pages, not the primary copyright consideration. Renewal is less than interesting, as some jurisdictions don't use the rule of the shorter term (Germany on American works, for one example) and even if the non-renewal applies, doesn't mean that other countries will consider the US the source nation.

Secondly, there are a lot of authors in Category: ? deaths. I'm all for adding in dates of death where available, but it's not trivial at best and an extensive research job at worst. I'm interesting in something that be quickly done to add the information contained in the life+50/70 templates to these authors. It could be done in a new template, but I think it would be redundant with the category; just add the latest possible death to Pd/1923 and go on.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

If we are looking to assign a presumed dead by date, then I would suggest that we use either 100 or 110 years as our cutoff from the year of birth. My gut feel from family history research is that the former period would be adequate on the balance of probability, the latter if we wish to be very conservative. Of all the author pages that I have built, I have come across zero authors who have lived beyond 100.

I wouldn't want to see another template have to be added, I would rather see some smarts built into the author template where it utilises the existing BD date fields and the absence of data. With all of that, when it is Author pages it is only ever indicative, it should be the Works that have something more definitive. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

So far the Pd/1923 template requires the death date be added in by hand anyway. If there are no objections, I'll add 110 to the birthdate and 95 (110 - 15) to the first publication date for the Pd/1923 template, with an appropriate note. For example Author:Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer would display a life+50 license that way. Actually, I tried it, and Pd/1923 says he died in 1958, which is inappropriate, so it would need a new template.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Redundance & coherence into header templates

I learned most I know about wikisource here, and even if I'm presently working into it.source, I'm linked to this project by real friendship. While working into it.source, where things are really more complex that here, I built some tricks to simplify the building of textual pages from proofread procedure; it's a little complex to explain that stuff without a running example, so I implemented here the needed templates into my first work, The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses. Take a look to the code of first chapters; i.e. the code building Chapter 6 is simply:

{{The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses/Schema|8}}

.... list of translcuded pages ....

while the original code looked like that of Chapter 16:

{{header
 | title      = [[../]]
 | author     = John Solomon Rarey
 | translator = 
 | section    = Chapter 16
 | previous   = [[The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses/Chapter 15|Chapter 15]]
 | next       = [[The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses/Chapter 17|Chapter 17]]
 | notes      = 
}}

.... list of translcuded pages ....

This result is obtained with two templates:

• Template:The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses/Index
• Template:The Modern Art of Taming Wild Horses/Schema

Tell me if you are interested about. The advantage is that all header data, and all chapter data, are written once, with a good low redundance/high coherence goal; if you have to fix a mistake, you can do it once and you'll will fix all. --Alex brollo (talk) 08:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] For python addicts: scripts to extract text from Internet Archive djvu.xml files

Here: User:Alex brollo/Python scripts you'll find some scripts I'm presently using to extract text from ...djvu.xml files listed into Internet Archive. I posted here such scripts "as they are", and as I use them in an interactive IDLE environment, that is my way to use Python and pybots; take a look and catch anything useful if you like. --Alex brollo (talk) 08:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Texts and proofreading

The idea is to validate texts, not books, to be sure that the text is in accordance with the edition of reference, not with everything in the edition of reference, only the text.

I will explain what I mean: on fr.ws we have validated a novel of Honoré de Balzac, the title is Eugénie Grandet. We have proofread it from a book where there were three novels, this one and two other ones. Of course the two other ones are not Eugénie Grandet.

Same thing here: we will validate the Lays of Marie de France, from a book where there are two texts which are neither of Marie de France nor Lays so I think it is right to validate this page without the two texts at the end of the page. We could create a template for this, and the template would explain things and would create the right categories. We could put this template on the Discussion page of the text.

What do you think of this idea? -Zyephyrus (talk) 13:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)