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Archive 1Archive 2

Broken

This template does not work anymore.

Biblica web page will not return any information at all.

This is what the template produces for Genesis 1:4-5

https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:gen.1:4%E2%80%932:5

This is what they want now.....

https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:gen.1.4-gen.1.5

--JowlJames (talk) 15:46, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I tried and failed to get biblica links working. I am not a Lua programmer. It looks like a pretty basic fix, but it's above my skill level. The book abbreviation needs to be listed before the second chapter and verse, and it needs to use a hyphen instead of a dash. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:18, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
I believe the issue is:
{{Bibleverse|Genesis|1:4-5|NIV}} → Genesis 1:4–5 (bad en dash in URL)
I'll have a look at this but I'd like to sort out Template:Bibleverse/testcases at the same time. An error is displayed in the testcases due to 6 May 2017 by Jfhutson which replaced {{testcase table|Genesis|1:1|jp}} with {{testcase table|Genesis|i:1|jp}} (1 → i). Does anyone know what was intended? Should i work or is the idea to make a better error message? Johnuniq (talk) 02:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
"Genesis i:1" is not proper notation, so I would assume that it is a deliberate test case error and mark it as such.
Also, I believe that there are multiple format changes needed for NIV (biblica). The new URL for the above example should end in "gen.1.4-gen.1.5" (all periods for separators within verse specifications; name of book abbreviated; hyphen for verse-to-verse separator; name of book repeated after hyphen). – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:40, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Would someone please add some tests here which cover oremus and biblica for both when there is a chapter range (no verse) and when there is a chapter and verse range. Are the resulting oremus URLs correct? For biblica, what is an example of a chapter range (no verse) that works? From the module:

  • v_range is only used for oremus and biblica:
    oremus = 'https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=_book+v_range&version=_version'
    biblica = 'https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=_version:_book.v_range'
  • v_range always contains an en dash (–) (pretty unusual in a URL!)
  • v_range is calculated from:
if s_ref[2] == nil then
    v_range = s_chap ..'–' .. e_chap
else
    v_range = s_chap ..':' .. s_vers ..'–' .. e_chap ..':' .. e_vers
end

This is fixable but I need to understand more of what's going on first. Johnuniq (talk) 04:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Now I'm really confused. What template generates the (incorrect) URL in the first comment? Here is what Special:ExpandTemplates says:

  • {{Bibleverse|gen|1:4-5|NIV}} → [https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Genesis.1:4–1:5 gen 1:4-5]
  • {{Bibleverse|gen|1:4-2:5|NIV}} → [https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Genesis.1:4–2:5 gen 1:4-2:5]

The second example generates a URL which is almost the same as in the first comment, but the comment has gen where the URL has Genesis. Johnuniq (talk) 04:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

{{bibleverse|Genesis|1:4-5|NIV}} → [https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Genesis.1:4–1:5 Genesis 1:4-5]
The first unnamed parameter is repeated in the URL text, (roughly) as described in the documentation. I have added and described NIV (biblica, not working) and NRSV (oremus, working) examples to the test cases page. AFAICT, it looks like the biblica web site used to use the same range formatting as oremus, but it has changed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, that will be useful later, however it doesn't reduce my confusion. The first comment has a URL after "This is what the template produces for Genesis 1:4-5". I cannot find a template which generates that URL. Is the comment wrong or am I missing something? I showed a template with "gen" and its output which includes "Genesis". Your example just above has "Genesis" in the template and "Genesis" in the output. I've tested biblica.com and it requires "gen", not "Genesis". That requires quite a fundamental change to the module code and I'm wondering if anything else is broken. Johnuniq (talk) 05:24, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
From what I saw, Biblica wants "Genesis.1.4–Genesis.1.5" or "gen.1.4-gen.1.5" (no colons) --JowlJames (talk) 02:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Exodus

For example, https://www.biblica.com/bible/niv/exodus/1/ is a working link to Exodus chapter 1 at biblica. We need examples of working links to chapter:verse and the possible ranges, for each book! After various guesses which gave errors, I found that Exodus:1.4 is at https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:exod.1.4 Is there a systematic way to find more? Johnuniq (talk)

I was thinking that we may need a new table, like book_aliases, to translate book names into their biblica abbreviations, but then I stumbled across this "read the bible in a year" list, and it has links that use the full book names. Here's Revelation 14:14–20, for example. I think that with slightly different formatting for the v_range, biblica can work with full book names. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:37, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, that's exactly the list of examples I was hoping for. I'll get on it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Sandbox

I tried a small fix in Module:Bibleverse/sandbox which can be tested with {{Bibleverse/sandbox}}.

There are other things I would like to tweak. I now understand the point of #Template-protected edit request on 13 June 2020 above. As I mentioned, it is very unusual for a URL to contain an en dash and it should probably be replaced with an ordinary hyphen (-). However I'm starting with minimum changes and the en dash works in at least one browser. I want some better tests, also I need to test oremus because I made a slight change to its URL. Johnuniq (talk) 05:21, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

If you need more test cases added on the testcases page, let me know what flavors you want, and I'll set them up. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

For anyone wondering what's happening, I have put a major refactor into the sandbox and have done a lot more tests. Several problems remain. I'll ponder them and post again later. Johnuniq (talk) 10:50, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Jude and Obadiah

These consist of a single chapter so presumably the following wikitext in articles needs to be fixed.

Ideally the module should not produce these results. Perhaps it should show an error? I don't like the idea of having the module assume that 9 should actually be 1:9. Thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The other one-chapter books in the Bible, at least in my paper RSV version, are Philemon, 2 John, and 3 John. The receiving sites render Jude as "Jude 1". I would be in favor of accepting "Jude|9" as input for these five books and rendering the URL as if "Jude|1|9" had been entered. "Jude|9|9" is an error, though, as far as I can tell. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
The module has a table (no_chapters) which lists: obadiah, epistle_of_jeremiah, prayer_of_azariah, susanna, bel_and_the_dragon, prayer_of_manasseh, philemon, 2_john, 3_john, jude. I was confused by {{bibleverse|Jude|9|9}} but have now looked at what is going on. The second 9 is an alias for kjv which results in a link to the King James version on wikisource. For most books, the first 9 would be the chapter. However, for a book in no_chapters, the chapter is always 1 and the first 9 is the verse. That means it is working as wanted.
However, while investigating, I found a problem in how the module handles something like {{bibleverse|Jude|1:12}}. The module ignores the 12 and uses 1 as the verse. I fixed that in the sandbox.
Johnuniq (talk) 09:07, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Dashes

If the template wikitext uses a hyphen (-), the display uses that same hyphen. Many templates use an en dash instead which requires more effort than seems necessary. I plan to have the module replace all hyphens in the output with an en dash. To be specific, I'm talking about the hyphen character (hyphen-minus) on a normal keyboard. For example, the following displays 29:10-13 (hyphen) but would display 29:10–13 (en dash).

Is this a problem? Johnuniq (talk) 01:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

We should display an en dash, as in the sandbox example, per MOS:DASH. Thanks for catching this. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:06, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Bibleverse update

I've finished tweaking the sandbox for now and plan to update the main module soon. The table below shows some differences. The third column has fixed wikitext so it won't change in the future—that records the URLs as at 4 September 2020. The first two rows (biblica.com and usccb.org) have URLs which no longer work in the main module.

Examples of differences between the current module and the sandbox.
Template Current output Fixed wikitext from Special:ExpandTemplates
{{bibleverse|Exodus|3|niv}} Exodus 3 [https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Exodus.3–3 Exodus 3]
{{bibleverse||John|3:16|NAB}} John 3:16 [http://www.usccb.org/bible/John.3:16 John 3:16]
{{bibleverse|Jude|1:12}} Jude 1:12 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Jude+1:1–1:12&version=nrsv Jude 1:12]
{{bibleverse|1 Chronicles|29:10-13}} 1 Chronicles 29:10–13 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1+Chronicles+29:10–29:13&version=nrsv 1 Chronicles 29:10-13]
{{bibleverse|Exodus|3|NRSV}} Exodus 3 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Exodus+3–3&version=nrsv Exodus 3]
{{bibleverse|1 Corinthians|4:2|JUB}} 1 Corinthians 4:2 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1_Corinthians%204:2–4:2&version=jub 1 Corinthians 4:2]
{{bibleverse/sandbox|Exodus|3|niv}} Exodus 3 [https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Exodus%203 Exodus 3]
{{bibleverse/sandbox||John|3:16|NAB}} John 3:16 [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/John/3?16 John 3:16]
{{bibleverse/sandbox|Jude|1:12}} Jude 1:12 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Jude%201:12&version=nrsv Jude 1:12]
{{bibleverse/sandbox|1 Chronicles|29:10-13}} 1 Chronicles 29:10–13 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Chronicles%2029:10–13&version=nrsv 1 Chronicles 29:10–13]
{{bibleverse/sandbox|Exodus|3|NRSV}} Exodus 3 [https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Exodus%203&version=nrsv Exodus 3]
{{bibleverse/sandbox|1 Corinthians|4:2|JUB}} 1 Corinthians 4:2 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1_Corinthians%204:2&version=jub 1 Corinthians 4:2]

The module uses the following tracking categories which record problems in articles.

Johnuniq (talk) 07:14, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for these updates. I just took a quick look at the error categories. It would be helpful if the template with the error would display an error message so that an editor can determine which template needs to be fixed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:22, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

For testing the module, I extracted all bibleverse templates from articles in the 1 July 2020 Wikipedia dump. From that, I can tell that at that date there were:

  • 45 templates with Category:Pages with Bible book errors. These are due to parameter 1 or 2 (book) being incorrect. Examples: "Proverb" instead of "Proverbs"; "{{bibleverse|John 15:13}}" instead of "{{bibleverse|John|15:13}}".
  • 104 templates with Category:Pages with Bible version errors. These are all due to parameter 3 (version) being either JP or JPR. The module has special-case code that changes these versions (no others) to HE with the comment "chabad doesn't work so reroute". For example, these all have the same link:
    • {{bibleverse|Ruth|1|HE}} → Ruth 1
    • {{bibleverse|Ruth|1|JP}} → Ruth 1
    • {{bibleverse|Ruth|1|JPR}} → Ruth 1
  • 1539 templates with Category:Pages with numeric Bible version references. These are due to parameter 3 (version) being a number. Table version_num_codes at the top of the module has a table of recognized numbers with comment "codes from bvf". For example, 9 = KJV (normally entered as KJV although the table uses lowercase). So {{bibleverse|1 John|1:4|9}} adds the category whereas the equivalent {{bibleverse|1 John|1:4|KJV}} does not.

The 45 book errors are a problem that should be fixed (and there are a fixable number), so a strong error message in the article would be appropriate. I'm not sure about the others—perhaps ignore them for the moment? Regarding an error message, I've gone off displaying subtle messages with a private tracking category because editors rarely see the problems and there are many tracking categories that don't get attention. Instead, I would be inclined to generate an error in the article and omit the category. The articles would then be in Category:Pages with script errors and articles with that error would be seen in this link. People regularly clean out that category. Thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 01:58, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

In my experience, some editors get annoyed when low-priority errors like these end up in the script errors category, and prefer that templates use their own categories. I would just add a simple Template:Bibleverse with invalid book error message after the rendered text and also continue the use of the category. I suspect that because there is no error message, no interested editor has fixed these rare errors. I have found that it only takes one or two editors to notice an error and clean up all 45 problems by looking at the category, and then the category stays empty or nearly empty. The ISBN error categories work like this, and they tend to stay quite small relative to the number of ISBN templates in use. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:24, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
OK, I've updated the main module along with a visible error message which will start appearing in articles at Category:Pages with Bible version errors. Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Version causes error in Sirach

I needed to cite Sirach with the following code {{bibleverse|Sirach|50:1-7|nrsv}} The link returns an error, since the generated link is https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Ecclesiasticus%2050:1%E2%80%937&version=nrsv. The expected content can be seen at [1]. Omitting "&version=nrsv" results in a working link. However, if the version info is omitted in the template, the generated link still has the version specified.--Auric talk 23:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The error message on the Oremus site is telling you the problem: "The selected bible version does not contain this book: Ecclesiasticus". The regular (non-Anglicized Edition) NRSV on the Oremus site does not contain the book you have requested. I suppose that this template could display an error message if someone requests a book that the site does not have (or did not, the last time we checked), but it currently does not. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:55, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
I can add an exception so NRSV is silently changed to NRSVAE for Sirach. It looks like the exception should also apply if Ecclesiasticus is requested. These currently fail:
but these work:
Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
Ecclesiasticus and Sirach are the same book (here at WP, the first is a redirect to the second). I will let Auric comment on your suggestion, and perhaps let us know if there are other books in the apocrypha that should also be treated this way. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:09, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

I made Sirach and Ecclesiasticus exceptions in the sandbox and these now work:

Johnuniq (talk) 04:53, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Adding AE does work. Thanks.--Auric talk 10:57, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
OK, I updated the main module so now {{bibleverse}} will work. Johnuniq (talk) 02:02, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 October 2020

This template is not working in the iPhone Wikipedia app. Test case: go to The_Astonished_Heart_(film)#Plot and click on the Deuteronomy 28:28 invocation of the Bibleverse template that you see there in the 2nd sentence. On my home PC, it works correctly. But on my iPhone, it doesn't work; I get an error message "Bad title -- The requested page title contains invalid characters: '%20'." Mksword (talk) 05:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mksword: That's strange. The template is as follows. I have included the output from Special:ExpandTemplates which shows the wikitext generated by the template.
Please say what happens when you click the first of the links above, and the second. Are you using the iPhone Safari web browser? Or the Wikipedia app? Something else? I disabled the edit request because we don't know what to do until the problem is investigated. Johnuniq (talk) 06:23, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
Johnuniq: In the iPhone Wikipedia app, when I click on the first of the links above, it successfully displays the proper scripture. And when I click on the second of the links above, it also successfully displays the proper scripture.
As to your question "Are you using the iPhone Safari web browser? Or the Wikipedia app? Something else?" -- I'm not certain that I understand your question, but let me give a more detailed description of what I see, and maybe that will answer your question. On my iPhone, in the Wikipedia app, I go to The_Astonished_Heart_(film)#Plot and click on the Deuteronomy 28:28 invocation of the Bibleverse template that is there in the 2nd sentence. The Wikipedia app then hands me off to Safari which displays "en.m.wikisource.org" in the URL field; below that it says "Wikisource", and below that it displays the error message "Bad title -- The requested page title contains invalid characters: '%20'." Mksword (talk) 07:10, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
@Mksword: In the iPhone Wikipedia app, when looking at a page with "Explore" highlighted at the bottom, I see a gear icon at top right. Tapping that goes to Settings. At the bottom of that is "About" where I see "Wikipedia 6.7.2 (1780)". Do you have that version? If it is significantly older, perhaps try updating it. In the app I tried, tapping the "Deuteronomy 28:28" link at The Astonished Heart (film)#Plot worked and correctly used Safari to show the correct 28:28 at en.m.wikisource.org. There is no point activating the edit request because nothing can be edited until a problem with the template is known. You say above, and I confirmed, that the iPhone Wikipedia app correctly opens Deuteronomy 28:28 at both of the links I gave above, and the first of those is generated by this template. In other words, output from the template is good. If you find there is no app version problem, it might be worth asking at WP:VPT whether anyone else experiences the problem at the article. Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Johnuniq. As you speculated, I had an older version of the Wikipedia app. What I had was version 6.6.2 (1745). And 1745 was 275 years ago! After updating it to the current version, the problem is gone. Mksword (talk) 04:44, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
@Mksword: Thanks for the info. It's a shame that your old version (which wasn't very old) was broken; that will affect many people. I have seen a number of editors say they prefer to use their phone's browser rather than battle with the ridiculous app (I had to do some weird stuff to find this page and try the examples). Johnuniq (talk) 05:40, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

biblica.com no longer offering NASB?

biblica.com has removed NASB choice from their drop down. Can any query for NASB be redirected to biblegateway.com please? --2600:1700:AB00:26D0:54EE:7058:10AB:250 (talk) 19:17, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

My mistake: the format is https://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/genesis/1/1 --2600:1700:AB00:26D0:54EE:7058:10AB:250 (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
I need a specific example of a template that is doing something wrong. The following seem to work:
There is no mention of "biblia" in the template or module that implements it. Johnuniq (talk) 00:18, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Parentethical citations

A message in the documentation says:

Usage of this template inline in the body of an article is discouraged
This template creates an external link. The external links content guideline states that "external links should not normally be used in the body of an article". Place external links to the Bible in parenthetical citations or footnotes.

However Wikipedia:Parenthetical citations says:

As of September 2020, inline parenthetical referencing is deprecated on Wikipedia.

The documentation should be corrected. --Error (talk) 16:14, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I came here to make the same point. Since nobody's responded to this, I'll change the documentation and see what happens. DanFromAnotherPlace (talk) 09:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Okay, I've changed the documentation at Template:Bibleverse and Template:Bibleref2 (diff 1, diff 2). I also removed some redundancy from the notice (which used the phrase "external links" four times in three sentences), and strengthened the wording slightly (from "Usage of this template inline is discouraged" to "This template should not be used inline"). DanFromAnotherPlace (talk) 09:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Numbered books aren't handled perfectly

I noticed on that someone made a mistake using this template on Sons of David trying to link to 2 Samuel, like this bibleverse|2|Samuel|13:1-22|NKJV. This actually goes to the correct section if you click the link but I fixed it (removed the | after the "2") so it became bibleverse|2 Samuel|13:1-22|NKJV. However, if you actually click on

2_Samuel 13:1–22

it generates a link to search=2_Samuel%2013:1–22 which looks like "2Samuel 13:1–22" in the search bar instead of there being a space, like this: "2 Samuel 13:1–22". This should be fixed to use a %20 instead of a _ and an example of this numbered books edge case should be added to the documentation. Akeosnhaoe (talk) 00:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I tried doing this here but it didn't seem to have any effect. Akeosnhaoe (talk) 03:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
@Akeosnhaoe: Your edit would fix the search bar appearance. You would need to test using {{bibleverse/sandbox|2 Samuel|13:1-22|NKJV}} or {{bibleverse/sandbox|2_Samuel|13:1-22|NKJV}}. Please try your edit at Module:Bibleverse/sandbox again and test the result. If there is a problem, show the result here and describe the issue. Johnuniq (talk) 07:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
It works, thanks. Do I just wait for someone to come across my changes and merge them? Akeosnhaoe (talk) 08:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
I can add your changes but I would need to first think more and check my notes to see if I've got anything else to be done. If I haven't posted again within 48 hours, please remind me. Johnuniq (talk) 10:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Done, I updated Module:Bibleverse with your change. Johnuniq (talk) 05:02, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: I noticed that you can also use +s. I think it looks nicer in the URL so I made another slight change, could you copy it over please? Akeosnhaoe (talk) 02:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Done. Johnuniq (talk) 04:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

NIV / Biblica is broken

All Biblica links to the NIV translation are broken, as of tonight. Elizium23 (talk) 05:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Judging by your edit, an example of the problem is:
That currently gives "There has been a critical error on this website." That might get fixed in a few hours or days. I think it is too early to start making a lot of changes. Johnuniq (talk) 09:20, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
It looks like they have changed their URL scheme, and I don't see a way to retrieve a range of verses or chapters. I have commented out the Biblica sites in the sandbox, and the fallback to Bible Gateway appears to work, at least on the existing test cases. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:28, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

mechon-mamre.org

I am 100% certified clueless on matters pertaining to templates. That said, while browsing the article for Malachi, I visited a reference in the article which then took me to https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2401.htm#1 - however, their SSL certificate is only for https://mechon-mamre.org/ without the 'www', so it throws a security error, and rightfully so. However, I haven't the slightest idea how that would be fixed. Perhaps someone with cluefullness can attend to this? Cheers. Anastrophe (talk) 22:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting and working out what needs to be done. I fixed the module and the links should work now. Johnuniq (talk) 00:01, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Latin numerals

Hi, could 6 lines from the code be updated as follows, to allow use of Latin as well as Arabic numerals in Hebrew Bible book references? Thanks! Ar2332 (talk) 21:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC) 

	['1_samuel'] = {'1sam', '1sm','isam','isamuel'},
	['2_samuel'] = {'2sam', '2sm','iisam','iisamuel'},
	['1_kings'] = {'1kgs','ikings'},
	['2_kings'] = {'2kgs','iikings'},
	['1_chronicles'] = {'1chron', '1chr','ichron','ichronicles'},
	['2_chronicles'] = {'2chron', '2chr','iichron','iichronicles'},
I know very little about the usage of this template but I have updated Module:Bibleverse in the last year. Those changes look fine but my preference is to not add aliases without good reason because features have a habit of growing and growing. For example, there are several more items such as 1_corinthians and 1_peter where someone might use an unsupported abbreviation. Another consideration is the effect on readability for others. There are currently no books or aliases that start with "i" other than isaiah (isa, is). That means people used to gnoming with this template might be perplexed to see "isam" or "ikings". However, if there is support for this and a reason for using these aliases, I'm happy to make the change. Johnuniq (talk) 05:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
OK, thanks. The point is not to write ""isam", but rather "I Sam" which the module condenses internally to "isam". So hopefully the ambiguity with Isaiah is avoided. In general, the use of Latin numerals for the "split" Bible books is pretty common - see this Google search for examples. Ar2332 (talk) 09:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to use sefaria rather than mechon_mamre for English/Hebrew

While for years Mechon Mamre was the preferred way to view a side-by-side English/Hebrew online Tanakh, Sefaria has largely become more relevant than mechon mamre so I am proposing the following code changes: 

118c118 (Change Line 118)
< 	he = 'mechon_mamre', jps = 'mechon_mamre',
---
> 	he = 'sefaria', jps = 'mechon_mamre',
135a136 (Add L136 after L135)
> 	sefaria = 'https://www.sefaria.org/_book._schap._svers?lang=bi'
321c322 (Edit L321 which is now L322)
< 	if site == 'mechon_mamre' then    --special case handling for components of the url
---
> 	if site == 'mechon_mamre' or site == 'sefaria' then    --special case handling for components of the url

TartarTorte 15:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Please give examples of how the template works now and an example of what external links would be preferable. Add a brief explanation of why that would be an improvement. Then we can wait a few days to see if anyone has comments. If no problems, re-activate the edit request and I'll look at the technical side. Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Currently using {{Bibleverse|Deuteronomy|6:4|HE}} you'd currently get https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0506.htm#4. I propose that instead that goes to https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.6.4?lang=bi. Mechon Mamre has been an invaluable resource for years, but it has been stuck in its very old formatting for years and it is much harder to navigate that website. I think that if one wants the 1917 JPS translation it makes sense keeping JPS as an option to link to Mechon Mamre, but for the preferred English–Hebrew form of the Tanakh, it makes sense to go with sefaria. Johnuniq, is this sufficient for how the template works now or did you want more in the way of details? TartarTorte 15:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion except that a few days should pass to allow others time to notice and think about this. I don't think how a template works should be changed without notice. Johnuniq (talk) 22:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, thanks for the help! TartarTorte 03:01, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
I have wondered about whether we should do this, but I'm not convinced the change is preferable. I can think of some advantages to Mechon Mamre: 1) its Javascript-free code is faster and more resilient and in my subjective opinion less clunky, 2) it does not place cookies on the reader's computer, 3) it does not have cantillation marks which confuse the reader unfamiliar with them, 4) Mechon Mamre's translation is public domain. So I would like a fuller discussion before changing this. Ar2332 (talk) 21:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for the insight, Ar2332. From doing some testing, it does seem like if you load Sefaria without JS enabled, it still works fine (the commentary does not load but the text and all is still there), but the slowness/clunkiness argument is very valid. The cookies argument I don't really have much of a retort against other than some of the other sources also have cookies, but that does not necessarily make it a good idea to switch from no cookies to cookies. With regards to arguments 3, we could add the &with=vowels URL parameter to not have cantillation marks appear by default. For argument 4, according to their GitHub FAQ it seems like all of their text is in the public domain but the language is a bit confusing. Maybe it would be better to add sefaria as an option instead of defaulting hebrew to it to allow for the author of an article to provide a link to it without changing many links? TartarTorte 21:51, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Mechon Mamre uses the old JPS translation which is public domain. Sefaria as an organization generally values freedom of texts, but for the Hebrew Bible they use new JPS which is copyrighted (presumably they considered it a better translation and decided that translation quality was more important than text freedom in this case). I think it is a good idea for us to provide Sefaria as an option, but I think we need more discussion before making it the default for HE. Ar2332 (talk) 18:24, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree that Sefaria should be implemented as an option. I see it being especially useful in passages on Wikipedia that mention Midrash or commentary on the cited verse, so that the reader can more readily refer to them. Not really buying any of the arguments for switching the default from Mechon Mamre at this point. I also don't think cantillation marks matter: I would assume that most users who can read Hebrew at least know what cantillation marks are. Ibadibam (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Needs actual Greek version

Biblehub's interlinear is an obvious choice, although if there are more scholarly options, gravy. — LlywelynII 21:12, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 January 2023

On line 120 of Module:Bibleverse, "nasb" is forwarded to "biblica"; the NASB doesn't exist on the Biblica website anymore. The "nasb" definition should be removed so that it can be forwarded to the latest version on BibleGateway. VistaSunset (talk) 21:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

 Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 06:18, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

proposed "mormonverse"

There is a proposed mormonverse in parallel to this template at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Latter_Day_Saint_movement#Book_of_Mormon_citations . The following questions are currently being considered.

  • mormonverse vs. BoMverse
  • Source, wikisource (in which case a link that is a redirect or possibly a small wrapper from sourcetext) or lds.org (in which case something that is a stripped down copy/change of Bibleverse is probably the way to go)
  • using a specific religion's source. Is it a problem that lds.org is for a specific faith *and* is that inappropriate given the fact that other Book of Mormon believing groups exist. (though the versions in wikisource are either prior to Smith's death or from the largest. the Salt Lake city group)

Naraht (talk) 15:57, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Punctuation removal

Following this TFD there are a few templates that are being merged/replaced with this template. {{Bibleref2}} and its relations are being somewhat problematic mainly because of an issue noticed in the final support of the TFD, namely that multi-verse ranges are not supported by {{bibleverse}}. Ex:

In the second example, the verses are shortened from 1:1-5,3:1-8 to 1:1–5:3. From what I can tell in the source code of the module, it looks like in line 300 "any punctuation can be used to separate chapter from verse", which means that the comma (which should be separating multiple extracts) is instead assumed to be a "verse separator" and being converted to a colon, which also hacks off the rest of the code.

I'm genuinely not sure how to fix this issue, but I do note that two of my favourite module editors Johnuniq and Jonesey95 have worked on this module before, so if they or someone else has any ideas that would be great. Thanks! Primefac (talk) 14:29, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I have a dim memory of being perplexed by line 300 a year or two ago. The problem is that we would need to examine how this template is used to see if a new syntax would cause a mess. I had a go at doing that two years ago from an article dump I happened to have. For example, the following is in Jacob:
It probably is not doing what the editor wanted. Perhaps they thought the bibleref2 syntax worked? Fixing that would be good, but there are probably other cases where the current wikitext would give an undesirable result if changed from the comment on line 300. Johnuniq (talk) 03:15, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a secondary issue - only biblica and biblegateway even allow multi-chapter searching, while the others either point to the first line on the page as an anchor or pull the specific (first) range given.
There are two ways I can think of to deal with this (or maybe both?):
  • Recode so that any multi-chapter requests get sent to biblegateway, regardless of requested translation
  • Recode so that any multi-chapter requests get two returns, e.g. John 1:1–5, 3:1–8
Downside of the first is that it forces a website (though biblegateway does allow for translation options), downside of the second is that it creates two elinks. I'm leaning slightly more towards the first as the better option, not really digging the dual-elink idea. Primefac (talk) 07:27, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Merges

All of the various bibleref templates have been merged in and I have updated the /doc, for any watchers that are interested please let me know your thoughts (if you have any) on how things could/should be better shown. Primefac (talk) 15:27, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Arimathea

Hi, Not sure what the problem is but over at Arimathea it's showing a red error, Could someone who understands this template fix this please?

I've come across this via WP:WPCleaner which lists the page as containing errors, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 14:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"I Kings" is what it's complaining about. I'm headed out the door but adding it as a valid alternate book name will fix the issue. Primefac (talk) 14:44, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
I fixed Arimathea, there was no need for a Bibleverse template there anyway. Adding an alternate book name may still be useful if this is a common error. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 15:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Many thanks @Primefac and @Sojourner in the earth for replying and for fixing this error it's greatly appreciated,
I'll be honest I don't understand the template and didn't know where to even begin in attempting to fix it so I greatly appreciate both of your help today thank you,
Thanks, Warm Regards, –Davey2010Talk 16:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Well, to add a bit of further mystery, I tested the same code in my sandbox and it showed no error (without any changes). I can't think of why that would be happening, so with Sojourner's fix I think I'm going to stop worrying about it. Primefac (talk) 08:10, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Template no longer works properly for at least one mode, possibly many

I had reason to try to call this template recently during unrelated cleanup: Special:MobileDiff/1188429077. Turns out the version cited in the article (New International Version) is hosted at a place that must have changed their html GET structure and site contents since the template was written, because {{bibleverse|Matthew|28|niv}}, at time of writing, produces Matthew 28, which after a bit of a loading time takes me to a site called Biblica.com (expected per documentation) titled "Genesis 1 – New International Version" (not great) reading "This chapter is not available yet in this translation." (uh oh).

I don't have any particular interest in this topic area, so I haven't tested other translations or hosting services, but some work looks like it needs doing here. Folly Mox (talk) 10:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Works for me. I get Matthew 28, verses 1–20 when I click on that link. Maybe just a temporary outage, or something more subtle on Folly Mox's end? – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:34, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
I was experiencing a similar problem when I first saw this post, but I am also now seeing "as expected" behaviour, so I suspect a search algorithm issue on Biblica's end. Which is good, because I really didn't want to rewrite the module code to accommodate it. Primefac (talk) 16:42, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
I see it in DuckDuckGo. Must be Firefox. Apologies for the false alarm 🙏🏽 Folly Mox (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
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