“ There doesn't seem to be a reason why the format alone would change the normal linking considerations. Priority of linking. This hits the broader issue of what the hypertext is trying to do: to lead the reader to specific information, to a navigation page for enWS, or the "best" information (which might for example be a good enWP article) . I propose a slogan like "everything within two clicks" as a rule of thumb. A link to a specific (I mean mainspace) page is OK, provided that page is itself provided with links to the relevant Author:, Portal: or Wikipedia pages. ”

“ Volume 35 As of today, volume 35 has been replaced with an improved quality source file on Commons. No need for a series of bulk-moves or tweaks to the main namespace line as the less-than-a-hundred pages currently created (out of some 450 total) lined up perfectly. This was more about replacing a 5-year old embedded text-layer with one generated with the software available today. No OCR routime will ever produce perfect results but the amount of flaws per text-layer page were most certainly reduced based on my spot checks. ”

“ I intend to start with the index for volume 1, and use it as an experiment. My approach will be to first proofread the scanned pages in page space, and then create an "article" in article space, just as we do with biographical articles. There are two major differences:
There are a huge number of mainspace links (i.e., one per line!) There are a huge number of pagespace links (i.e., also one per line.) I intend to link to the resulting "article" from the volume page. The intent is to give readers access to the raw images for articles that we have not yet converted. ”

“ And I have another question. Would it ever be possible to create a layout that is entirely defined by the viewer? Like, the person clicks to a Layout 4, and then a number of fields are given to allow him to define width, justification, and various things like that (maybe it would save everything in the user's monobook) ? I only ask because people might want to customize their own layout on this site and might not want to (or know how) to chop up their monobook with the appropriate CSS classes/ids to do so. ”

“ My idea is to have a link from the VOL article to an "image description" article, that tells the reader where to fined the images and specifically the original index pages within the images and that describes how to navigate and what to expect. This provides the reader with a much better access to the images that they can get at the original locations at e.g. archive.org. Remember that our goal isto make these sources available to readers, and our project has a much longer time to completion than most, so a worthwhile interim step is to provide easy access to the images. ”

“ To him that confidence was of the highest possible importance, as he could never have got through the work so far as he did if he had not known Mr. Smith was prepared to give him a perfectly free hand to let him save the ship, and to do everything that was necessary, not with a view to commercial profit, but to make it what they announced their intention of making it at the outset, an indispensable work for all serious students of English history and literature. (Applause.) It was impossible for any man to be better backed up than he was in the undertaking. ”

“ Each upload generally has a comment with a link back to the source web site. Some of these volumes have subsequently been replaced with better copies, with or without updating the backlink to the new source. The "best" volume is not necessarily the best for any particular page. Some page-by-page repair work has been done or is being contemplated: this would involve downloading the whole volume, using tools to replade image pages, and uploading the result. There (is or is not?) a system for logging the changes made by this method, including which pages came from which alternate sources. ”

“ Keyword categories are indeed more useful, and some of the issues that arise with shorter publications, are no longer a factor, especially sourcing issues which is a global one for the entire project. They should unambiguously specify what needs to be done instead of what has already been done. The problem with the word "proofread" is that the past and present tense are spelt identically. More than one category may be used on the same page. May I suggest: Category:DNB Add text - The article has a header and needs a text. This is roughly equivalent to the current 25% category. ”

“ Where articles are transcluded, you can get to the page from the article (either directly by clicking in the margin, or by editing the article, depending on transclusion method. With page numbers to 'bracket', bisecting the range gets you there quite quickly. We are though moving to ability to look up. Author subpage listings should have the page number in the original volume added, and knowing the "offset" you can go to the exact page directly. (I have been lent a handbook, but unfortunately it is based on the 22-volume edition so I can go directly, but at the cost of some mental arithmetic.) ”

“ This would allow the mass creation of articles that are of some use. Trivially there can be a template on the page of any dummy article explaining that "text for this DNB article that is proofread is not yet available, but you can read the original pages". It is also quite attractive to think that we could complete the author listings with such dummy articles, just flagging them there in some way. This approach would seem to address a point Magnus was making, about separating "listing" and "proofing" as activities: proofing would go on at its own pace. ”

“ I was more interested in the coding possibilities for example like a textbox that has a special functionality like a button that enables a user to move or cycle between different versions of the same paragraph. Or even an expandable and collapsible pop-out functionality like some cataloging applications have so people can expand different paragraphs in their view on the one page. I am more interested in inspiring our coders to create new forms to maximize the medium. ”

“ I think we need some sense of priorities. Where there is good-quality text to add, it makes more sense to be fussing about getting the glitches straightened out, since certainly bad scans (where there is no alternative) aren't conducive to getting to work (unless like me you really want a given article right now) . The scans I mark "good" are the Toronto scans, which (as a rule of thumb) are much superior to the Google scans. Charles Matthews (talk) With the recent mediawiki update, a fix has been put in place to the issue of certain djvu files not purging and updating the under text layer. ”

“ If we are not trying to help the casual reader, then why are we here? These pages are currently in main-space, not because they are sourced from the DNB, but because they are intended as navigational aids. This is similar to the volume pages themselves. As to the direct links, these are useful to contributors, but are fairly scary for a reader who has never seen our strange deja vu system, and this is precisely why I want to interpose a simple-minded explanation. For a direct link, I propose to add a trivial transclusion. ”

“ People see and preserve some archaic and redundant page element, then insist on keeping it when they finally work out how to render it, no matter it is pointless and unrelated to getting more text, or how much noise is generated as texts get claimed for one idea of correct width. The assertion was in a comment from User:Jack Merridew, that other sites restrict the width. I suggested this is one of the reasons why, it is advertising real estate, because similar site to ours don't. I doubt they get complaints "I came to get a source and the page filled my window with text, I'm never returning!" ”

“ The upside is that I can link an entry to a work or author when they get added, because it sometimes turns up in a search of the site, but I have become wary doing this at DNB for the reasons given above. Expecting others to detect my more trivial edits seems like an unkind burden to those who undertake this complex task, at least I can see the changes and deletions turn up on my watchlist. Strictly speaking, and certainly from the pov of politeness, we should move any valid contributions. I have done this when an error was in the file was realised, a dozen or so pages was fiddly enough. ”

“ I think it is wrong to say that the project depends "fundamentally" at this time on the remedial work. The approach that has operated (well) so far is like this: get on with the work, carry a machete, help map out the problems. For example, there are pages that are simply missing: my guess is that this may be around 60 out of 30,000, or 0.2%. There is a "bad quartile" of scans that have no alternative at archive.org, and are the Google-sourced ones that are basically a disgrace to the human race. ”

“ It should be pointed out that the errata volume is 300 pages long, and since the corrections for each of the 66 volumes always start on a right-hand page this results in a number of blank pages in those 300, and an average of four pages of corrections per DNB volume. Few of the corrections are more than two sentences long. Most frequently only a single word is changed in an article. The majority of articles remain completely unchanged. I agree with using annotations or footnotes. When I began working on this project I scanned articles from my paper copies, and put them through OCR software. ”

“ I don't waste my time removing blankspace that doesn't appear on the final copy when transcluded anyways - though I don't mind that validaters do so -- but I do find it quite obnoxious and bad-faith for a fellow editor to accuse me of sabotaging Wikisource, or proofreading pages without even reading them, especially when it's clear I do a substantially larger amount of work, even just within the PAGE namespace which I personally believe is over-rated, than he does. ”

“ We are not yet settled on the precise scans, since one scan can replace another, and sometimes should. The numbering of the djvus is settled in many cases, not all (not all volumes can stay as they are for all time, since for example there is missing text) . We could indeed try to set up links anchored somewhere and linking to text somewhere else. Though adding 27000 links (or anything) is a major undertaking. I think you are suggesting that the volume ToCs should link directly to the starting djvu of an article, by a link sitting by the article name in that listing. OK, can be considered. ”

“ If everyone just keeps doing whatever seems to be useful, we will continue to make progress. There is no particular reason for anyone else to cater to my obsessions about provenance unless you just want to. Let me summarize the situation as Charles outlined it: Scans of many volumes from many different sets of volumes, by Google and others, are available on the web. Many of these are in fact the correct edition of the DNB 1885-1900. A Wikisources editors/contributors/project people/whoever (thanks!) have uploaded the "best" instance of each of the 63 volumes to commons as .djvu files. ”

“ And if you decide to use a template, it costs nothing to include more than one div ; I figured out that three divs are necessary for the kind of layout used at the German Wikisource, this is why I put three of them in the template. Now, since this is using javascript, another option would be to use no template at all, and to detect the presence of page numbers with javascript; whenever page numbers are detected, the bodyContent can be wrapped in an additional div for indentation. The advantage of this method is that most pages will not need any change ”

“ Generic nature Tommy Jantarek (talk • contribs) brought up an interesting point about these footer templates based on {{DNB footer initials}} in whether they could be used for other encyclopaedic material. The answer is yes, presuming of course they are the same person. What makes the initials specific for the project is that a set of initials (which of course can be widely used) identify specific individuals (or numbers of people as we have found) working for a specific publication. Apart from making it easy and standard to link with the template, the value is that we can use it for audit. ”

“ Some people notice things different than other people, as Hesperian suggests, for example the first thing I always tend to correct is the "br- -oken" words in an OCRed text; yet trailing spaces are almost always ignored as mentioned. He may never notice the broken words, but always notice the whitespace, it's the reason we the damned "Proofread" and "Validated" stages. Neither are indications of any level of perfection, only that multiple users have tried to fix the page as best they can. ”

“ Most displays have a wide aspect, users know how to control what is presented. The only reason presented is the user won't or cannot adjust their display, how do the millions of readers at wikipedia get by? This should be removed, and let us focus on the reasons we are here. The only complication we have is the display of the page numbers, solved by the indented page class. ”

“ I see it as tidying up the ramshackle Wikisource: namespace, and giving it a more navigable logical structure; a place to undertake resource and information building for a subject matter (person (non-author) , place, organisation) ; and finally a place to align portals between sister sites.
Some may not want it overly formalised, and while that is okay for their needs where they work within a tighter zone of interest, some of us are more nomadic and eclectic in our work, and would like some assistance. ”