Disputatio Usoris:UV

Vide etiam disputationes annorum 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 et 2022.

Welcome to 2023

Hi, UV, and welcome back! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:24, 9 Ianuarii 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Glad to be here again! --UV (disputatio) 22:11, 9 Ianuarii 2023 (UTC)

You will see that I have listed some categories at Vicipaedia:Automata/Petitiones de categoriis movendis. I don't know whether you have time to do this currently, but the requests I have made are not urgent -- just hoping to tidy up the category names when possible. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:14, 11 Ianuarii 2023 (UTC)

No problem! I have now renamed those categories. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 22:38, 12 Ianuarii 2023 (UTC)

Modest request

Hi, UV. I have a request for you and UVbot if you are willing. It would be good to replace the remaining instances of Formula:Capsa universitatis (total 64?) and Formula:Capsa universitatis 2 (total 182?) with Formula:Capsa scholae Vicidata. I have already proposed merging these formulae, and no one has commented. Their continued existence tempts unfamiliar users to create pages with no significant text and to waste time filling in the boxes, when most of the information will be available in more up-to-date form at Wikidata. What's your opinion? If you're in favour, UVbot could perhaps replace these formulae with the new one. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:12, 7 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

No problem, done! Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 23:13, 7 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

That's great! Thank you, UV. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:06, 8 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Something different

I don't know if this is possible or impossible. When one hovers over a footnote number, the text of the relevant footnote is outlined with a border. This is very good. Could the same or a similar thing be made to happen when one hovers over a "span id" link? The requirement would always be, when the cursor hovers over a link in the text or in a footnote [[#Example]], to highlight the entry in the bibliography or external links that contains <span id="Example"></span>. At present, what happens if one clicks the link is that the page scrolls down: where possible, the relevant entry will be seen at the top of the window. This is not so helpful in reality, because it is only possible when there is sufficient text below the relevant entry to fill the window: often, there isn't. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:40, 9 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

When I read your message, at first I wondered because I did not see the border just when hovering over a footnote number – I needed to click on the footnote number to see the border. Then I realised that the functionality you describe comes from a gadget you have enabled in your user preferences, the "Reference Tooltips" gadget.

I have now updated our "Reference Tooltips" gadget here on la.wikipedia to its current version that is available and in use on en.wikipedia. (I did, however, not enable this gadget by default for everyone, as they do on en.wikipedia. On la.wikipedia, only those users that have explicitly enabled "Reference Toolkits" in their preferences will be using this gadget.)

I am not proficient enough in JavaScript to adapt the "Reference Toolkits" gadget so that it will also work on [[#internal_links]], but for "User:Jack who built the house" = "User:JWBTH" who rewrote this gadget in 2019, it would probably be quite easy. You might want to contact Jack and ask him if he would be willing to add this feature to our "Reference Tooltips" gadget here on la.wikipedia.

Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 23:15, 9 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I had forgotten that I had enabled reference tooltips. Thanks for updating the gadget. I'll ask JWBTH if he could do this for us. I think it would also be worth mentioning reference tooltips on the Taberna: there could well be users who hadn't thought of it and would find it helpful. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:02, 10 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have asked JWBTH about this. See m:User talk:Jack who built the house and add any comment you wish! If he'll help us, I suggest that we might then enable reference tooltips by default: what do you thinbk about that? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:08, 13 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Great! No objection against enabling Reference Tooltips by default once it works as desired on [[#internal_links]] as well. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 20:28, 13 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have a sort of feeling that Jack is no longer active. You may be able to think of someone else; or we (I) may have to look for another route. On en:wiki a tooltip appears (and a tooltip would be a good solution for us too) when the cursor hovers over an internal link in the citation template system: it seems that CITEREF is used to alert reference tooltips to these links. It can be done manually, as we might do it, according to en:Template:Sfn/doc#Using CITEREF directly, but I haven't yet been able to do that in a test case here. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:09, 15 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

In fact, Jack replied this afternoon. In order to test what he proposed, please take a look at Special:PermanentLink/3748664. What do you think? Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 20:33, 15 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have resolved to be an optimist in future! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:39, 15 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

It works fine! Perhaps the tooltip is more useful than the highlighting, in fact, because it gives the reader the information without the need to scan the whole page -- but, as with footnotes, both methods can be helpful in different ways. Jack suggests that we might try to remove CITEREF from the coding, but I feel that would be unwise, because others use it the way it is: we want to be able to copy new versions across without having to adjust this detail each time.

So, if I am right there, and if I understand correctly, we have to do two things:

1. To adapt the internal link so that it includes "#CITEREF" rather than "#". My guess is that we could do this by piping, and that a bot, if asked nicely, could deal with the existing examples all at once. Thus [[#Example]] would become [[#CITEREFExample|Example]]. (Since we are piping anyway, we can hide the hash as well: the font colour alone shows that it's a hotlink.)
2. To adapt the anchor in two ways: so that the id includes CITEREF and so that the span includes the text of the bibliographical reference. Theoretically this is simple, it means moving </span> to the end of the line, i.e. just before the linebreak. Could a bot do that too?

... and what's your opinion? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:05, 15 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have the impression that "Reference Tooltips" distinguishes whether the link target is currently shown on the viewport/screen or is currently not shown on the viewport/screen (because it is far up or far down the page and would only be seen when scrolling the page). In the former case, "Reference Tooltips" does (only) the highlighting (without showing a tooltip); in the latter case, "Reference Tooltips" shows a tooltip (because highlighting would not be noticable at all unless scrolling).

I support your plan! I am quite sure UVbot can do the tasks required. A search tells me that there are currently about 865 pages in mainspace where <span id occurs within the page source. Within the next days, I will try to instruct UVbot to perform these tasks. In case I forget, please do remind me in a week or two! Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 17:41, 17 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Since I wrote the above, I am wondering whether simple templates would be better. This is (a) because asking editors to write something like "CITEREFExample", with no punctuation or spacing, is unusual in wiki formatting: (b) {{qc|Example}} is much easier than [[#CITEREFExample|Example]]: (c) {{ec|Example|Text of reference}} is easier than <span id="CITEREFExample">Text of reference</span>. I could type these things easily enough, and until now no one else has used this system, but with simple templates like this it could be recommended to others. (I imagined "qc" for "Quaere citationem" and "ec" for "ecce citatio".) Do you think this could work? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:05, 17 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Yes, sure. UVbot could just as easily convert the existing occurrences to the template system you propose. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 19:37, 17 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll make the templates, test that it all works, and report back. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:01, 17 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have made the two templates as projected, {{qc}} and {{ec}}. They can be seen at work on the page Martius panis: please check that they do what we need. It looks fine to me. It is nice to see that the toolips stack -- i.e. you can move the cursor into the footnote tooltip to hover on the internal link, and the internal link then expands as well. Beautiful piece of work.

Whenever you have the time, I think we could now replace existing "span id" internal references with these. I have considered possible errors that may be encountered:

1. Within an article it is possible for anchors to be duplicated (e.g. if an author produced two relevant articles in the same year and I didn't notice the problem). This will be very rare: if cases are listed I will correct them.
2. Because of human (i.e. my) error, there could be internal links that point to a non-existent anchor. Most likely this will be because the internal link contains a typo; rarely, it could be because I intended to list the item in the bibliography and didn't do it. Again, if cases are listed I will correct them.
3. If an anchor exists but has no links to it, that's not a problem, in my opinion.
4. There are many anchors, some of them probably duplicated, in my working page Usor:Andrew Dalby/Fontes. These could be converted, but there is no point in listing apparent errors: or the page could be excluded from the bot's work.

Can you think of other possible sources of error? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:06, 18 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have adapted the two templates {{qc}} and {{ec}} a bit and added documentation, please check and change/improve as you deem appropriate!

UVbot has now made a test edit on each of the following six pages:

• Almanach des gourmands
• Capsicum (fructus)
• Cervesia
• Grimod de la Reynière
• Socolata
• Usor:Andrew Dalby/Fontes

Are these test edits fine in your view? If yes, UVbot could go ahead and have a go at all the other pages in mainspace.

Concerning the possible errors you mentioned above:

• Regarding point 3, I agree that this is not a problem at all.
• Regarding points 1 and 2, I fear that (although it would in principle be possible for a bot to detect these problems) I cannot be of help with UVbot here. UVbot will not detect these problems and will just convert these pages with the errors contained therein. Note that, by chance, I found occurrences of problem 2 both in the pages Grimod de la Reynière, Cervesia and Capsicum (fructus) (and I tried to correct these problems within these three pages after UVbot had converted the pages, please check my edits), and in the page Almanach des gourmands (I did not attempt to fix the problem here): At Almanach des gourmands#Notae, the first footnote starts with an internal link "Almanach des gourmands" that points to a non-existing section within the page. These problems existed already before UVbot touched the page.
• Regarding point 4, I made your page Usor:Andrew Dalby/Fontes one of the six testcases, but was unable to check whether it contains duplicate ids.

Please feel free to revert any or all of the test edits if you think we should go a different way!

Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 20:51, 18 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the work you have done so far. I think UVbot's work is exactly what's wanted. Let's continue if you're willing.

These were long and complex pages. It's disturbing that there were one or two errors on each, but (to be positive) it's much better that these errors are coming to light now! So, thank you for fixing them in these cases. But how did you find them? By hovering over each link in turn? If so, that's what I'll have to do. Or did they show up in some other way?

Thanks also for creating and writing the /doc pages. When more pages have been done I will suggest this referencing method to others for use on longer pages: I think the potential benefits will be evident. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:35, 18 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Great! I deliberately chose long and complex pages as test cases, in the hope to catch technical problems, if possible, already during the test run.

I am sorry that (although it would in principle be possible for a bot to detect these problems) UVbot cannot detect these problems or create a list of the problems and the affected pages. I found these problems when I examined the Notae section after UVbot had done its work, hovering over most of the links with my mouse and observing whether a popup came up (good), an external link showed up in my browser's status bar (good) or no popup came up and a section link starting with #CITEREF showed up in my browser's status bar (bad). I do not think that it is necessary for you to do any such check on 800+ pages! As you said, these were long and complex pages, and probably only a small percentage of references are affected, leaving a bit of intellectual exercise to our readers  :-)

I will then start running UVbot tomorrow, and will report back once done. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 22:00, 18 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you think I don't need to check them all! In fact I am currently working on a large group of pages including most of these, returning to them often, so I will often notice such problems myself: with the popups (or rather, the unexpected absence of a popup) it is much easier to spot them. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:01, 19 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

UVbot is done! If you encounter any problems that can be fixed by tweaking the templates or running a bot, please tell me! Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 21:27, 19 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

That's much quicker than I expected. I'm back at my desk now, after some travelling. I'll sample the results and mention this method on the Taberna.

[In sampling, nearly all examples are correct but I have found an error that I didn't predict: at Theodorus Mayernius a bibliography entry ended with <!-- because the next line was commented out. I guess this might possibly have happened elsewhere. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:11, 20 Februarii 2023 (UTC) ]

Do you feel now that it is a good idea to make reference tooltips the default? [If this is done, then instead of saying in the documentation that broken internal links can't be found, we can say that the links can be tested by hovering over them.] Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:24, 20 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for spotting the error with the <!-- at the end of the line. I had already found a similar error in Stanley Kubrick the day before. I guess that there is an easy way for me to find out whether more than these two pages were affected – I will check and report back in a day or two.

In my view, it is a good idea to enable reference tooltips by default for everyone, because it improves the usability of la.wikipedia for all readers, and experience on en.wikipedia shows that there have been no major issues. Perhaps we should do this roughly at the same time when you will announce our new features at the Taberna? --UV (disputatio) 22:02, 21 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have now checked, and there should be no more pages affected by the problem with the <!-- at the end of the line. (If there had been any more such pages, they would by now have shown up at Check Wikipedia at high priority, Template without correct end.) Check Wikipedia reported no other errors related to the {{qc}} and {{ec}} templates either, so the mission seems accomplished successfully! Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 22:54, 25 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. I have meanwhile found some cases of 'human' error (no {{ec}} to correspond with a {{qc}}) but not many. In the next couple of days I will finish a Latin translation of the documentation of {{ec}}, and then write an explanation on the Taberna.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I'm writing an article on William Turner (but not in Latin!) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:23, 27 Februarii 2023 (UTC)

I have completed the translation of {{ec}}: please check that I have got it right! I preferred simply to discourage the use of = because more than one editor might eventually complete the internal links, so it is best if all editors avoid using this character inside the parameters. OK?

I intend to explain this use of footnotes and internal links on the Taberna tomorrow. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 21:31, 2 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Great! --UV (disputatio) 22:17, 2 Martii 2023 (UTC)

I've done that now: see Vicipaedia:Taberna#De nexibus intra paginam ad bibliographiam iunctis. If you could now introduce "Reference Tooltips" as default, the full effect of the example I've given (largely copied from the {{ec}} documentation) will be seen by all. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:28, 3 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Done! Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 22:16, 3 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Regarding points 1 and 2 you mentioned above, I finally wrote a small computer program that analyzes a Vicipaedia:Dump to find possible sources of error. If you have time (no need to hurry!), you may wish to look at Vicipaedia:Dump/qc and ec. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 23:00, 4 Martii 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad you were able to do that. I will gradually work through it. After checking, I predict that a residue may remain of cases where {{qc}} has more than one parameter, and only the first parameter is needed. Let's wait and see, but in such cases maybe UVbot could eventually remove the second parameter. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:45, 5 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Sure, just tell me when help is needed. Greetings, --UV (disputatio) 10:37, 5 Martii 2023 (UTC)