For everyone :

Plus, the problem is not *better* indexing (that would be great of course), the problem here is that a lot (if not most) Wikisource pages are *not* indexed!
If you type "when men went up in balloons" or "The banners rustle in the breeze" in Google (taken from the previous examples), Wikisource doesn't appear at all (and for other examples, when it does, it's incomplete and with a long delay of - at least - several months, the first example was done last week, the second was created in February!).
That's why some of us suspect something is wrong somewhere (maybe because of the proofread extension ? and that Google doesn't "see" our pages.

I've tested a bunch of non-indexed pages (some of which are from 2011) across multiple Wikisources, it shows up as "URL is available to Google'' (indicating that Googlebot can see the page). I am pretty sure that there is no issue wrt to this specific thing on ProofreadPage/Wikisource extension's side (there could be one on Google's end?)

More gadget you use, more unreadable is the pages to the machines.

Try to have a blind person reading the Wikisource pages with their own
tools. Will it be difficult for them? Found the problem.

You want to create pages which are more user friendly? But you do it for
people having eyes. Machines doesn't have eyes.

I agree with this on principle, but Wikisource pages are by default readable without any javascript. And testing with Google bot (on the search console) shows that it is able to read the associated content.

I think this is a good opportunity to discuss with Google's Search Team here in Singapore in 2 weeks time.

This would definitely be great :)

Regards,

Sohom Datta

---

Open-source contributor @Wikimedia

On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 3:18 PM Nicolas VIGNERON <vigneron.nicolas@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Ilario,
That's very good general advice but would you have more concrete and specific ones?
For instance, what would you change on https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Baltimore_American/Volume_192/Issue_34,925/Travel_by_Balloon or https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Poetical_Works_of_William_Motherwell/The_Crusader%27s_Farewell ?

For everyone :
Plus, the problem is not *better* indexing (that would be great of course), the problem here is that a lot (if not most) Wikisource pages are *not* indexed!
If you type "when men went up in balloons" or "The banners rustle in the breeze" in Google (taken from the previous examples), Wikisource doesn't appear at all (and for other examples, when it does, it's incomplete and with a long delay of - at least - several months, the first example was done last week, the second was created in February!).
That's why some of us suspect something is wrong somewhere (maybe because of the proofread extension ? and that Google doesn't "see" our pages.

Cheers,
Nicolas

Le mar. 1 août 2023 à 11:24, Ilario valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com> a écrit :
To better index, you must follow as much as possible structured page.

More gadget you use, more unreadable is the pages to the machines.

Try to have a blind person reading the Wikisource pages with their own
tools. Will it be difficult for them? Found the problem.

You want to create pages which are more user friendly? But you do it for
people having eyes. Machines doesn't have eyes.

KInd regards

On 01/08/2023 08:47, Bodhisattwa wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Apologies for cross-posting.
>
> For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any
> Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which
> practically means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which
> are being created in these years, are not searchable on Google and
> hence largely remain invisible on the web.
>
> This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the
> existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our
> past and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM
> partners and any potential new editors. We already have a very low
> awareness and visibility about Wikisource among general internet users
> due to lack of organized support in these years but the invisibility
> on Google search engine could become the last nail in our coffin,
> unless it is fixed soon.
>
> There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December
> 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607.
>
> Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work
> upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs
> some very basic care, after all.
>
> Regards,
> Bodhisattwa
> (Bengali Wikisource volunteer)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikisource-l mailing list -- wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikisource-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

--
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario
Skype: valdelli
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch
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