Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/June

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

When reading the pages I wondered a bit about whether there should be a page mentioning the contributors of a book. I thought of something like an author-page telling "Author 1 made up the first three chapters as well as parts of chapter 7. Author 2 added chapter 4. Author 3 did some proofreading." and so on. Such pages could also mention some brief biographical information like "has written his PHD on this subject" or "works at the company XXX". Everyone who contributed to the text might feel free to add him/herself to this page and no one else should change such parts (despite obvious typos).

What do you think? --berni 12:26, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You can say that again. Giving appropriate credit can be a incentive to writers, and make documents more authoritative. Like many textbooks, we can make "About The Authors", "Acknowledgements", or "Contributors" sections. --envia 18:45, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Some books such as GCSE Science already have such pages. So I suggest you jest be bold and go ahead and do it.

All of MY books are already attributed to ME ... --Karl Wick

Yes, just requires creating an authorship page as at Authors for Botany. - Marsh 00:05, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am writing a wikibook on the guitar and I've avoided writing in any actual music long enough. ;) The thing is, a complete guitar book will require lots of examples of music, in both standard notation and tablature form. The wiki has facilities for mathematical formulae, but I'm unaware of any for music. Therefore, there are three possibilities:

• Use images for standard notation and ASCII tablature. (ASCII tablature universally used on the 'net, but nowhere else, and is ugly.)
• Use images for both standard notation and tablature. (This gets my personal vote, but makes maintenance a pain.)
• Upload files in a proprietary format such as PowerTab. PowerTab files can only be read on Windows machines, however, and the editor has a few (very minor) deficiencies and bugs.

Also, what programs might be used for writing standard notation and tablature images? I might use PowerTab, but while it's a great editor, the actual visuals can stand just a little improvement...

--Furrykef 10:23, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You could use lilypond for music. See [[]] for info about future support for musical notation in the mediawiki software. Perl 11:28, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

you can use http://jelmer.vernstok.nl/oss/ptabtools/ to convert from you ptb to lilypond and with some manual fixing the output would be even better. also look here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Music_markup Nkour

Should I use Unicode for note names? Like C♯ or B♭? Or should they be C# and Bb, since not everybody is using Unicode yet? What about using images for sharps and flats? --Furrykef 10:42, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why add extra overhead to get something that looks basically identical? Perhaps use the image once, and use # and b afterward, so a person knows how to write them. Dysprosia 02:04, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'd put this in the talk page for my guitar module, but since the article is so preliminary, I dunno if anybody would read it. ;)

Rhythm guitar and lead guitar are different ways to play and specialization in one is common (in bands with two guitarists, usually somebody is the "lead guitarist" and somebody else is the "rhythm guitarist"). Teaching somebody to learn both at the same time is kind of silly since many — though not all — people want to learn one at a time. On the other hand, the two have significant overlap (e.g., the use of tablature notation, mechanics of strumming or fingerpicking, the importance of understanding chords (even if the lead guitarist doesn't actually play chords), etc., etc.). I'm thinking of breaking it up. Maybe it could be divided like this:

1. Guitar (material common to both rhythm and lead)
2. RhythmGuitar
3. LeadGuitar

Alternately, the latter two could be subsets of the first. I dunno, what do you guys think? --Furrykef 10:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why not make the distinction at the contents page only? I don't know how to play the guitar but I'm sure that content will also be shared... Dysprosia 11:06, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Okay, this is my first day here and I haven't figured much out yet... almost nobody is making links! You come to a random page and there is usually no way to tell what bigger project it is a part of, or to get back to the higher levels of information. KJ 06:51, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Karen. Look at the books I work on: Botany and German. Each has a cover, a table of contents, and then a menu at the top of each article page that gets you around. The style need not at all be consistent between books, in my mind (I love diversity)—but should be consistent within a book. I think the Cook Book is pretty much wide open to arrange as you see fit. Do not even consider that it all needs to be in one book. There could be (but need not be) more or less completely separate books on various sub-subjects of cooking. Carve out a tome, or a more modest specialty, and write and arrange it the way you want. This place is soewhat different from Wikipedia in that respect. It is still not really only yours, but you can get the ball rolling and be the one that decides the early structure of the book. - Marsh 04:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've read the vi textbook and I wish there was a link to take me to the next page.

It has to be done manually. I prefer not to put the links in unless the section has been completed, though... Dysprosia 04:54, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[]

It would be great if we could automatically generate "next", "forward", "up", and "TOC" buttons based on the table of contents page. Maybe some new markup would have to be added? I think this is a pretty important feature for a book. It would also be nice if it would automatically add

<LINK rel="prev" href="section4.html">
<LINK rel="next" href="section6.html">

tags to the pages head so that people who use link toolbars can use it automatically.

The newer templates allow for parameters or something, but I haven't looked into it too much.

This looks promising: w:Template:Pope - Omegatron 17:35, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I have an example of a work-in-progress here with both a COT template and wiki categories. Davodd 08:10, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What is the correct way to cite Wiki pages when using information from them for reports and other school work? It would be nice to have a cite already on the pages for cut and paste. -Ivy Hernandez May 16th,2004

from Help:FAQ/Readers:

Cite it as you would any other web page in accordance with the normal citation practice the publication you are submitting the paper to follows. Because Wikibooks modules are constantly edited, it would be a good idea to include the URL for the specific version of the module you accessed. You can determine this URL by clicking the "Page history" link. Citing the individual authors is not necessary.

Wikipedia has more extensive instructions for citing them that might apply here as well. They can be found at w:en:Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Gentgeen 20:37, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[]

When Marsh and I branched German into three 'levels' back in March, we realized that the difference in our schemes was the age/experience of the reader. To prevent further confusion, I believe every textbook should have a 'Prerequisites' page underlining the appropriate age range of the reader, and what classes should be taken beforehand, if applicable. What do you guys think? - SamE 22:47, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yes I agree. --berni 09:28, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with some of this... But I don't agree however, that age should be a prerequisite. For example, I'm only in Year 10, but am working on ray-tracing and other computer graphics projects. Age really isn't the issue, more relevant is prior knowledge. So, I'd agree with saying that you should be able to list prior requisites (knowledge on quadratics and parabolas) but not of age (must be older than 15)... I'd also request that there be a tiny bit of information on where you might be able to get knowledge in those prior areas... Just my two cents!

There really, really needs to be a common organization for these books. Browsing the site you'll find book after book after book that has no basic table of contents, no "previous section - TOC - next section" links, impossibly horrid nesting, etc. and as a result are nearly impossible to browse. It doesn't even have to be an active effort on the part of the authors - if there could just be some templates or syntax to facilitate this, it would make the site so much more usable! Surgo 08:28, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This has been started by a new user who has built up a large resource that he would like to transfer to Wikibooks (he contacted Jimbo about this originally). Some of the content will need adapting, some looks ideal. He has transfered the contents page to How to learn to fly, but needs some help with layout, wikifying, and transfering the rest. He is very new to wikis, and will probably not find it that easy to use, so could really do with some help. Is there anyone interested in giving this guy a helping hand, and getting this going? I can put you in contact via email, his site is at http://www.whittsflying.com/ . -- Sannse 10:34, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Err, I took a look at the page, right now it's really just a very big mess of supposed content links. He does have the actual content right?

I suppose I can help to sort out the contents page and set up the book structure (rather slowly, I have my hands full with the wikibook I'm working on. :), but if there is no content forthcoming then it's kind of pointless... -- Lynx7725 03:13, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See the discussion tab at the Wikiversity School of Aviation (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity:School_of_Aviation) for an annotated list of public-domain and free sources of information about learning to fly that are already readily available on the Web.

I'm currently experimenting with using an almost authentic font for the headings a game guide I'm editing, for example this page, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Appendices/External Links.

Now right now I've used <font> tags, but higher up in the lounge (#Non-English Fonts) I see reference to using a div tag.

But isn't the font tag older and thus more compatible, or does MediaWiki automatically convert div into font or something?

Then again, is using tags for purely asthetic additions not a good idea?

Anyway, thanks in advance! Master Thief Garrett 04:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's not about back-compatibility. The font tag was deprecated a long time ago in favour of CSS, and is now removed from XHTML. The correct way of changing fonts is by using the style attribute. Typically...

<p style="font-family: something">paragraph</p> or

<div style="font-family: something">vertical division</p> or

<span style="font-family: something">horizontal span</p>

...although the style attribute is applicable to many other elements. It is also recommended that if you intend to use a specific font by name (e.g. a Windows TTF font), you should also specify alternatives, should the user not have Windows. See the source for this template.

Aya 23:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I noticed when trying to read some of the content here that you can't actually read any of the books here like you would an e-book. That is there is no next page or next section functionality. I suspect this has been discussed somewhere but I wonder if it was a conscious decision requiring excessive use of the back button to read these books or if it is a technical problem that is still looking for a solution, or perhaps I am missing something significant and this sort of thing can be done I just failed to figure it out. It strikes me that any page that requires the use of the back button for normal navigation/usage is a poor user interface, it prevents the user from becoming really involved in the books and acts as a barrier to the sections fitting together in logical ways. If this issue has been discussed could someone point me to it? Dalf 20:43, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

eeep ..... minor use of my browsers find feature and I found mention of this on this very page. Still no resolution just a few people asking the same question. From the looks of it its a technical/convention based problem at this point. But, one I think should be solved to differentiate wikibooks from being just a collection of related wikipedia articles on a single subject grouped together. If the pages are done by chapter and not section then its a simpler problem because you are less likely to have sections inserted between other sections which would require a more complex TOC based solution. Dalf 20:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Board election has opened and we'll accept candidate from the next monday, July 7 on meta. The votes will start at the end of month. Further information is available on m:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2005/En in several languages. This election is very important: we vote for our own representatives to the Board. If someone put a link to this page on Recentchanges, it would be very much appreciated. --Aphaia 08:37, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the books I've been working on I've been using a system where things left undone are noted in the text as a TODO item. Something like: [TODO: Insert figure of the nodes connected here].

What I'd like to be able to do is to change these suggestions into something that uses a template: {{:todo|Insert figure of the nodes connected here}}. The text itself would have some kind of nice, boxed rendering, and then the item (and the module name in which it appears, perhaps subsection too?) would appear on an automatically generated Todo List. That way, contributors can check the todo list for tasks remaining. When the template is removed, the item is taken off of the list. (Perhaps lo/med/hi priorities could be assigned to todo items, to also help contributors.)

Is this technically possible? Thanks, MShonle 00:03, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Backlinks and categories can show which pages have a todo tag (see e.g. w:en:Category:To do) but not the content. To have an overview of todo contents each page can have an associated todo page, and a page has to be created transcluding all these todo pages.--Patrick 06:43, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alternatively, the todo contents can be in the name of a page that is put in Category:Todo, e.g. User:Patrick/Wikibooks:Staff lounge:todo: discuss todo system with Mshonle, use category or backlinks, or perhaps pages with a long name like this one.--Patrick 20:38, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll test some things out. (When the time comes around to me again.) MShonle 15:25, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm currently in the process of writing some modules for a Wikibook that has become quite large. The example is the following Wikibook: Serial Communications

Where I'm having difficulties is that one of the sub-modules is currently 73KB in length. I would like to try put that into more bite-sized chunks to get that to be more manageable for editing purposes. The problem I'm encountering is that I would also like to keep this module as a "chapter", in terms of how the wikibook is going to be read, and from a reader's viewpoint (rather than a Wikibookian who is trying to edit content of the module) I would like to keep this material all together as one continuous chapter.

The question then is: What would be some alternatives to break down a module that is particularly long?

• Break into sub-chapters. This would treat the module as the jumping off point to a bunch of sub-modules that cover a specific point of what I'm trying to cover. I don't like how that would breaks the flow of reading the "book" however, and turns it too much into something like Wikipedia, but corrupted. I am trying to write a book here, not encyclopedic articles loosely linked together.
• Use Templates for "logical sections" and put the module together as a collection of templates. This would keep the material together, but I see that as an abuse of templates, and much more intimidating for a new user to try and make an edit. It does allow, however, for the "large module" warning to go away, and it makes the whole chapter fit together from the viewpoint of a reader.
• Ignore the warning and keep the large module. This isn't satisfying in the sense that I think the 32K warning for module size is a legitimate concern. There are legitimate problems when you try sending large amounts of content through a web posting request via http, and the technical side does have some limitations that suggest large modules should be avoided if possible.

Any other suggestions? Added comments?

Break into subchapters. Yes you're writing a "book", but even if printed on A3 paper you still have to turn the pages once in a while! Therefore a digital equivalent can be similar. As long as the pages are seamlessly linked with whatever formatting standard you've chosen to go with at the top and bottom of each, it should not feel too disjointed.

An example of a navigation header would be my recent solution for the Turf Wars and 178 Territories Glitch sections of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game guide. I was forced to divide the Turf Wars explanation into two (with the additions I plan it will go way over 32kb), but the two pages are still clearly linked to each other and each refers to the other at various points. Also note the italicised disambiguation at the top so if you've come to the wrong section because it sounded very similar you can quickly find what you were really after.

A bit of math tells me your 73kb could divide into four nicely-sized 18kb pages (give or take). So it wouldn't be too hard to sacrifice the flow for a break, and it would still load nicely. Of course you could just divide it into three 24kb sections, but it wouldn't take many additions to put those close to the premium limit once more. If you're going to bear the pain of a split, at least choose a method where you only have to do it once!

Hope that helps! Master Thief Garrett 14:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is there a collection of Templates anywhere on Wikibooks? I know on Wikipedia there's a page listing all the various {{stub}}s and more pages listing other Templates. It would be useful to know what exists already, like {{cleanup}} and {{VfD}}, and to see what we still need. {{split}} comes to mind. --Everlong 12:20, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is Special:Allpages/Template:, and Wikibooks:Template messages, showing some.--Patrick 07:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

A couple of questions about pictures...

• Is there any way of linking to pictures on Wikipedia or do I just have to download them and upload them to wikibooks giving the correct credit and info as necessary?
• Am I right in thinking that in general I should be ok taking screenshots from Microsoft Excel for a wikibook, under the fair use policy I think I can as it's for teaching purposes, can anyone confirm/deny this?

--PhysicsFan 18:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If the image is on the Commons you can crosslink it (visit the Image: page and you'll see "this is from the Commons) or whatnot.

Alternately, you can create a template on WP to make crosslinking to any other Wikimedia project possible, but I'll have to look that up again. I'll get back to you on that soon. :)

Remember, "fair use" claims is tentative at best, and it's supposedly the job of the uploader to assess the fairness of each and every item. Wikibooks currently has no fair use policy, at least not in words like Wikipedia does. In this case I would say it's fine claiming it for teaching purposes, and, as such, might even inspire sale of the software. And it's not like your reproduction is taking away from the value of the purchased item in the way an artwork would. People have already been adding screenshots to game guides here and no-one's tearing their hair out, so I'd say just go ahead until something's down in writing! Master Thief Garrett 00:54, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See Wikibooks:Project Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

• Restaurant Guides
• Language learning
• Universal dichotomous key
• Manuals for free software
• Print and send (charity and non profit education to request printouts from old printers)
• Voting on ordering of arbitrary links of a wide choice such as on the freeware in Open_Source
• Songbook with sheet music

See Wikibooks:Bookshelf Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

• Social Science
• Game strategy guides
• Merit Badges
• Geography
• Interactive books using Flash, Java, javascript or Curl

The IT bookshelf seems to have grown to a point where it is becoming disorganised and difficult to navigate. My opinion is that all books contained within the current IT bookshelf should be assessed and classified as either non-academic 'computing' topics or academic 'IT/IS' topics. The former should then be moved to a new bookshelf 'Computing' (which already exists).

With a clear description of each bookshelf, and decent cross-referencing, I think it would make things more logical. Any opinions?

Robcowie 11:37, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Robcowie. In general I like the idea of cleaning up bookshelves and organizing things. I'm just not sure, if there are already enough "Computing books" out there to justify a splitting. What helps nobody, is to have a lot of empty bookshelves, with 2 or 3 books in there each (like somebody opened a bookshelf for law, with only 2 books in it now..). To my opinion, it would be a better procedure, first to open a new section within IT bookshelf (called "Computing") as you proposed, and see how many books actually go in there. As soon as there are more than, say, 10 serious books in there, I would consider splitting the bookshelf, but not before.

A good and transparent way to easily assess the progress of books, by the way, is to give development stages to the books within the IT bookshelf, using the new templates . Then one can easily see how old an estimate of the progress is.

I would refrain from opening new subsections within "Computing bookshelf", if there are no books for that yet. Books are written much more slowly than articles on wikipedia, so in general the idea would be, to organize well what is already there, not to try to organize something, that has not been written yet. --Andreas 09:05, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See Wikibooks:Book Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

• DBQ How-To
• French (for anglophones; see later chapters)
• Programmation (started Dec 2003)
• C Windows programming

Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is not very well fleshed out. Here are some ideas.

I am not sure what Wikibooks is not. But from my experience, it is hardly enough to teach a course with book sources only. I have seen textbook publishers having web sites to provide all of the following types of resources (except for #5), and more (some online communication functions).

1. Syllabi
2. Assignments/ Exercises
3. Case study collection (for certain subjects)
4. Handouts, files for transparencies and presentation applications (such as powerpoint)
5. Multimedia and/or interactive materials, including small programs
6. Reading lists, including hyperlinks.

I would not be surprised if Wikibooks is aiming at really a comprehensive instructional resource repository, but would also not be surprised if it is specialized in books and similar forms of materials only.

Is there any ongoing concensus or personal opinions? Tomos 23:58, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's one of the reasons I thought that a name change to Wikiversity would be a good idea. Then it would be very natural to have all of the above. Also the name "Wikibooks" isn't something that is really trademarkable - too generic and way too much prior use of the term. --mav 10:51, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree that wikiversity would be more appropriate. As it is, "wikibooks" imply that we can't use any multimedia. I know I'd like to put loads of sound files on the foreign language learning wikibooks! GoodStuff 13:49, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think that if the goal is textbooks, some of the content that exists should be split; In economics, for example, there is room for a 10th grade textbook, in addition to a college freshman textbook, and then more in each subfield. The other thing that I noticed is that textbooks tend to have 2 things wikibooks seem not to have; the first is examples and problems, and the second is those stories and examples that go in the boxes on the side. I'm not sure how this would work in terms of the code and such, but it would be nice to be able to add them, especially if they are categorizable. David Manheim 6:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes those are strangely lacking, except in rare exceptions like the Blender 3D guide (or whatever it's called). I guess it's just because Wikibooks are written without a sole application (in this case to be sold as a textbook for teaching purposes, thus self-learning elements would be mandatory).

As for the technical side of things, there are no real boundaries to this. Layout is not a problem, you can do almost anything with images and div tags. And if it is useful for several pages to share a sidebar, it can be done as a template rather than a module entry, and then in turn you can create a category as a hub of related items for speedy finding and insertion.

BUT the problem is that someone has to write such examples and things to begin with... hmmm... certainly I hope things get more illustrated, right now most of the modules are text-only. Garrett^Talk 12:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I completely agree with the examples thing. I know I've said this before, but wikibooks tend to read more like encyclopedia entries than books. No examples, explanations, proofs, sample problems, etc. And too much rammed into 1 book- take the calculus book, it attempts to cover 4 semesters in 1 book. The end result is a good refresher, but a poor teaching guide. Which is, I believe the purpose of wikibooks.

THe solution is a lot of work- write your own book. Fork the existing one if absolutely necessary. For myself, I picked a math topic that didn't yet have a book, and am writing a proof and example heavy version. Its going to take a few hundred pages (if printed) to do the same topics the calculus book does in a dozen, but it will teach the subject.

The problem with this solution- it takes a lot of time. On a good day I can get 1/8-1/4 of a lesson done. At this rate it will take me 6 months to a year to do it if I'm forced to do so solo. GUess what- thats what real books take. Wikibooks are no different. Not many people are willing to put in the time.

What may make things easier would be better functions for connecting collaborators. Right now, one starts a module and hope people add on. It would be nice if there was a page somewhere you could say "I'm willing to spend x hours a week writing topic Z. Anyone want to hook up?" and allow people to divide the work from the get go. Most books tend to be 90% written by the same person or small group anyway, may as well make it easier to form those groups. It also gets peer pressure working for you- "Well, I don't want to write tonight, but I promised my partner I'd get chapter 2 done by next week- I guess I have to".--Gabe Sechan 22:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia has "Wikipedians by interest" and "British Wikipedians" and similar things which would (potentially) make it easier to find help. Certainly I think it is very possible to find others willing to help, but first it requires some sort of hub or "tasks for xyz subject" system of pages.... hmmm... as for peer pressure that's good too! :) Garrett^Talk 23:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I feel there is a real distinction between Wikibooks and Wikiversity, of purpose. Wikiversity should not be about producing text books. It should produce courses. It needs to raise questions, and be able to lead students to further material to allow them to answer those questions critically. The problem, as I see it, is that people have not understood the purpose of the Wikiversity. Wikiversity editors have unfortunately reproduced what is in Wikibooks (and countless other internet and print sources). There should be a big focus by moderators to get editors to move away from text books when producing their Wikiversity pages. Abc123 07:35, July 22, 2005 (UTC).

Although the Eng. WB is going well, there is hardly any content on the Simple English version. The project needs content urgently, and also to set at least one person up as an administrator. There is currently no admins and so no control.

Could we get some textbooks written, as well as some other essential features such as:

• Community portal
• Help desk
• Ability to block vandals etc.
• Wikiversity

If anyone could start on this project it would be great. Thanks! Charlie123 14:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Erm. Why do we need another wiki for this? Books on this site ought to be in simple english too, if they are to be at all accessible. You can always devote subpages of your book to go in to more detail for those who are interested. I vote for transwikiing anything of reasonable quality back to here, and even add them to Category:Books in simple English or similar, if you think it's really necessary. These sites have too much scope overlap to not end up becoming inconsistent mirrors of each other anyway (q.v. simple.wikipedia.org). And who's gonna define what 'simple' is in this context. We're having enough problems here just defining the word 'book'. Remember all these wikis run off the same servers, so there's no performance advantage in splitting them. - Aya 13:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Actually. A better idea, since there's nothing of much use on that site. Why don't we move the Wikijunior stuff there, since the Wikiversity stuff is due to be moved to <countrycode>.wikiversity.org. Better that it gets its own site with its own policies (i.e. educational fiction would be tolerated). Although this is not really the point of the site, this will end the debate on the subject. I don't mind admin'ing the site to get this all set up. Does anyone have a problem with this? - Aya 13:55, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I apologise for my ignorance. What is "Simple English"? - User:Abc123

See w:Basic English - Aya ^T C 16:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[]

See what you think of this. Using the new inputbox extension, the user can create a subpage. Unfortunately, they *do* have to do a little themselves. Try it out and see what you think.

---

To ask a new question, do the following simple steps.

1. enter "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here" in the box below and click "Create article".

If you're taken to a page that already exists that means someone has already used that particular wording. That page may in fact answer your question; if it doesn't, hit your browser's Back button and rephrase your question name.

2. Follow this edit link and paste in the line you were told to copy; it will look something like {{Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here}}. Then click Save page and you should see your question listed at the bottom of the Staff lounge.

---

So, what do you think? I've tried to make it as foolproof as possible, but I wish I could predefine the directory as part of the textbox's target. Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 12:12 (UTC) Oh and if you want to alter the welcoming message you'll find it at Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Template. Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 12:16 (UTC)

I tried typing "Testing" in the box, then I got this:

But before you ask, please ensure that the name of the page you're editing right now

Wikibooks:Testing

Fits the comment naming standard

Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here

I assume that's not quite right? - Aya 7 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)

Well as I said, you need to enter something like "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here". You have to enter "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/" yourself as there's no way I can configure that, and otherwise the page won't be a subpage of the Staff lounge at all!

Also the auto-reporting {{PAGENAME}} tag cuts off the Wikibooks: namespace when it displays the name so I had to add it manually, which means you could create a non-Wikibooks: page but the page would still tell you it was named correctly. Hm...

I just hope the inputbox code is expanded soon so it can be configured more like an HTML form. That would solve this problem. Hm... Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 20:56 (UTC)

Is wikibooks just for textbooks? Can it be used for fiction books? --170.35.208.20 18:37, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the past, fictional works written by any Wikimedia user have generally been refused, due to the general rule that Wikimedia sites should contain 'no original research'. The only exception would be a book by a well-known author that's also out of copyright, although these should be put on the site at wikisource.org.

See also: What about fictional Wikibooks?

Aya 19:44, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikicities just opened a new section for original research, btw, called http://academia.wikicities.com. I am not sure that they take fictional work, though. But if they can create one for original research, why not for original fiction as well? Just email them.

--rck 14:49, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I'm going to bring this up in the staff lounge as well, but there has come to my attention that there needs to be a general restructuring of the bookshelves in general. I've noticed (unfortunately) that some books are appearing in multiple bookshelves, and multiple times on the front page under different bookshelf topics. I'm proposing that some thought go into how this can be fixed.

This issue has been brought to a head by the restructuring of the IT bookshelf, which was admittedly getting very large. This Bookshelf (for good or ill... the discussion about the reorganization can be found on the IT bookshelf talk page. This has been discussed since February, so it isn't exactly something new, but it is now affecting all of Wikibooks, so I'm bringing it up as a general issue.

What I'm asking is that people who work with the other bookshelves, particularly the Science and Games bookshelves (the ones most affected) take a look at what they need to accomplish in order to fix the problems and make a clean taxonomy for the identifying of what category or bookshelf a given book should be on.

This isn't to say there can't be cross links between bookshelves (there should be), but a book shouldn't be listed multiple times on the front page. I don't want to arbitrarily rearrange things on the front page without at least some discussion.Rob Horning 19:02, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

The system of cataloguing books is in need of attention. See User:Aya/Wikibooks/A critique of Wikibooks#Bookshelves out-of-date for my current thoughts on the subject. - Aya 13:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

In my how-to "Render a SolidWorks Model in Maya" I instruct the reader on how to create an icon within Maya. This icon needs to be a BMP file. Now I have uploaded the icon as a PNG to wikibooks, because the upload module wouldn't let me upload a BMP. I understand why I get the error, but after that I still can't upload the BMP. The files really don't differ in size that much... Any1 with a solution to this? 1983 4 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)

Erm. Convert it to PNG first? Why d'ya need a BMP anyway? BMP is a Microsoft proprietary format IIRC, whereas PNG is an open standard. Aya 4 July 2005 19:28 (UTC)

Erm. Have you actually read what I wrote? I even write that I have the PNG here at wikibooks... BTW, BMP is free of patents (although I know the benefits of PNG) 1983 5 July 2005 05:28 (UTC)

Actually I did read it, but you never specified why you needed a BMP. However, I checked the page in question and I now see why. I'm guessing that you can only use BMP files for internal icon images for that program. As far as I can tell, you can only use PNG and JPG images on Wikibooks (see Wikibooks:Image use policy). When I try to upload a BMP, I get ".bmp" is not a recommended image file format.. I even tried renaming the BMP to PNG before upload, hoping I could rename it later on Wikibooks to get the right HTTP Content-Type, but then it complains my file is corrupted. BMP may be unpatented, but it's still not an open standard, and consequently, they may be unsupported on non-Windows systems. I suspect this is the reason that they are not allowed on Wikibooks. I even checked Wikicommons, but they seem to have the same policy (although they do allow animated GIF files in addition to PNG and JPG). I'm afraid you'll have to host the file elsewhere. Aya 5 July 2005 15:13 (UTC)

No, there is no specific requirement for just PNG and JPG images with Wikibooks, or for that matter any other data image format. The only requirement is that 1) it will work with most web browsers and 2) The image format is compatable with the GFDL, being that it can be redistrubted without any legal entanglements that would violate provisions of the GFDL. BTW, some instances of the JPG (JPEG or Joint-Photo Experts Group) have some patent issues that do have some problems with the GFDL. It is not as bad as the GIF/LZW patent issues are concerned, nor is anybody rigorously enforcing them either. PNG was designed from the beginning to be patent and IP-free from the beginning, and is wholly compatable with the GFDL. It also compresses slightly better than GIF files, has added features, and is non-lossy (does not lose data during compression like JPG images do). The reason why GIF images are accepted for animated images is because the "more free" MNG format is still not widely used in most browsers (hurting requirement #1 above). It would be recommended that BMP images be converted to PNG using a program like GIMP [1] that will do the conversion. Simply renaming a file from BMP to PNG is not going to work for many reasons, and of course it would be considered corrupted. These are two different data formats. Keep in mind that server storage space is precious, and uploading an uncompressed data file (which is what the BMP data format really is) is a waste of resources. If you need help with the conversion, please feel free to e-mail me. Rob Horning 5 July 2005 16:03 (UTC)

nono, the point is that the image is supposed to be an example that readers download and use in Maya, and it (apparently) can't use PNGs. That is the problem. Garrett^Talk 00:49, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[]

This page needs to be protected. It's the page you see on requesting "www.wikibooks.org" or just "wikibooks.org", so it's a high-profile page, and as you can see from the history, an obvious target for linkspammers. - Aya 20:24, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I just noticed this log entry:

07:01, 14 July 2005 KelvSYC protected "Wikibooks portal" (prevent vandalism)

My thanks to KelvSYC. I've updated Wikibooks:Protected page. I'll leave this here for a while for informational purposes, but I consider this issue is now resolved, and can be removed from this page a week from today. - Aya 15:23, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I'm not one to squash creativity, but is Computer Magazine really a Wikibook? It's got (prospected) reviews and all which will surely become Original Research no-nos. Maybe there's a Wikicity it could move to? Garrett^Talk 00:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Can people please forget about the phrase 'no original research', and mentally revert it to the original 'no primary research' (less vague), or even something even less vague. See also: User talk:Aya/Wikibooks/A critique of Wikibooks#Be bold. I'll wait to see if KelvSYC wants to sort it out before I change anything.

'Primary research' refers to the sorts of theses published by graduate students to propose a genuinely new theory. It would be used, perhaps, to refer to, say, Newton's Laws of Universal Gravitation, at any point prior to it being commonly accepted in Physics. These theses often involve coining new words and word-phrases which are not commonly used elsewhere, in order to refer to the new concepts they describe. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but if everyone did it, then the language use could easily become too confusing to be of any practical benefit. (q.v. Neo). This is the primary reason that these things should not be allowed. Surely, devising a strategy for a mission in, say, GTA:SA, is 'original research' and 'primary research' in the sense that you have devised it yourself. The important distinction is that it is done using commonplace terms (within its own scope), and is focused on a very popular computer game (the bestselling of all time IIRC), rather that some wacky new theory that someone like Eddie Izzard might come up with, say, that bees are actually made of jam.

Personally I don't have a problem with this stuff either, and arguably it has sneaked in to a lot of other documents already. In fact, I'd go as far to say that I interpret almost everything I read as 'primary research', unless it clearly fits in with 'common sense', which I will define as the sorts of things commonly taught in schools. So Physics is almost certainly not 'primary research', whereas the mission walkthroughs section of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas almost certainly is.

Maybe the policy should be phrased "this site should only contain factual infomation", with the standard dictionary definition of 'factual', then allow memetic evolution to allow the users to decide what that actually is. The policy would allow any user to correct/revert/delete anything which has been agreed to not be 'factual'. I've tried to avoid using the term 'fictional', since this has different connotations than simply being the antithesis of 'factual'.

Back to the page in question, it seems a bit silly to have a 'news' section. This should go into Wikinews. 'Tips' we've done already in GTA:SA. If computer game guides are considered okay, the perhaps each game deserves its own Wikibook containing tips. As for 'reviews', I guess they're okay as long as they are NPOV.

It's actually a good idea to bring suspect pages into 'Staff lounge', rather than just adding them to VfD. If something is contentious enough to warrant a VfD, then perhaps it needs to be discussed first to ensure everyone interprets it in the same way.

Comments? - Aya 13:13, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I'm sure you're right. I'm not bothered by it, but it's kind of on the border of the current rules so I decided to take it here in case someone wanted to vehemently accuse it. As it is, your reasoning sounds logical. Then again I haven't had lunch yet, so who knows? :) Garrett^Talk 01:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[]

The precedent is that computer game walkthroughs is considered to be textbook worthy, as it teaches the user how to finish the game. Disjointed other data maybe useful but certainly does not comprise instructional material by itself (see the ASCII table in Programming).

As for the NOR policy, I have to admit that part of the crackdown was my doing. Still, it is less strict compared to that of Wikipedia's policy (to the point that the community hasn't drafted WB:NOR yet), but suffice to say that we allow original content to teach a lesson, whether it be a suggested game strategy or a general method of solving algebraic equations in two variables. However, we wouldn't allow stuff like OR according to Wikipedia's policy, nor using Wikibooks as a center for, say, a place where users can gather to finish a school project.

As for reviews, I'm not convinced they are instructional material.

Above all else, Wikibooks is not a place where users can just write a book on anything - it must be instructional in nature. KelvSYC 04:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[]

What is the difference between posting a comment and discussing a page? Abc123 11:48, July 15, 2005 (UTC).

Depends how you define 'comment' and 'discussion'. If you're referring to dictionary definitions applied to wiki talk pages, then a 'comment', I suppose, is posting what you think about something. If someone else posts a 'comment' contrary to yours, then, I guess it's technically a 'discussion'.- Aya 12:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Hi! In my Wikipedia description of myself, I use the Wikipedia:Babel template; is there something similar on Wikibooks? --rck 13:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I don't believe these templates/categories have been copied to Wikibooks. I'm not sure they should be either, since, like all forking, it will slowly become out-of-sync with the Wikipedia version. I'm guessing they're left-over from when the Wikimedia projects were all multi-lingual, making it slightly redundant now, but I could be wrong. In the interim, there's no reason you can't list the languages you know (if you think it's relevant) on your user page in another format. See my user page for an example. Danke sehr. - Aya ^T C 16:38, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Hi guys. 69.50.184.220 has left us a present of link spam on How to search/Yahoo. Would someone please revert it when they get a chance, because the so called spam protection filter is blocking my attempts. (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 12:01, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[]

It's not just your attempts. There must have been a change in the latest beta that disallowed the use of URLs in 'pre' tags in certain conditions, with the apparent goal of preventing linkspam. Consequently, some pages that currently exist in the DB are no longer legitimate pages according to the software. It's ironic that this means we now can't remove real linkspam as a consequence. This ought to be brought up as a bug report. In the interim, I've fixed it by changing all the 'pre' to 'code' instead. Looks better anyway. - Aya ^T C 14:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Thanks Aya.:) I just didn't have the time to look at it more carefully. (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 01:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Given the comparison between the Wikipedia page in question and the how-tos bookshelf here, all Wikibooks editors are encouraged to go to w:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Savoir-faire and express their opinion. Uncle G 18:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)[]

See also the eHow wiki, for entertainment; and a place to add how-tos that are about to be deleted. Sj 17:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)[]

We are getting very close to 10,000 Wikibook modules, which can be given a huge round of thanks to all contributors on here so far. My question is more along what lines should be do to publicize this accomplishment to the Wikimedia sister projects and/or a general press release via the Wikimedia Foundation?

Certainly Meta:Wikimedia News needs to be updated, but quite a bit more can be done as well. Wikibooks is accused of being a dead project, so I'd like to see if Wikibookians want to get involved and be proud of this milestone. What other sort of announcements can/should be done? --Rob Horning 20:21, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Is it correct to say the 10,000th article is SM64:Wet-Dry World? (which seems to be a walkthrough for the Super Mario 64 game) --Azertus 18:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I've gone ahead and made the changes to Meta:Wikimedia News. But as Rob Horning said a lot more can be done... (I'm moving my comments to the "thread" he created. --Azertus 18:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I just did something that is going to cause a few short-term headaches for me. I just published the First dead-tree version of a Wikibook (unless somebody else has a link to prove otherwise). Here is my dilema:

I would like to know what copyright information & disclaimer notice should go onto a print version of a Wikibook, particularly if it is going to be "officially" published in dead-tree format (or in this case as a PDF file for widespread publication). In short, I'm seeking some standards of publishing when a Wikibook is extracted from these pages and sent to a printer.

The GFDL gives me permission to do this without permission of anybody here at Wikibooks, but I would still like to get some community input before I start doing anything else. Since Wikibooks doesn't have a separate disclaimer from Wikipedia, I may try to start writing one specifically for Wikibooks. This is the "Disclaimer" link often at the bottom of each page.

Also, in terms of copyright, who is the copyright authority here? Wikimedia Foundation? Jimbo? Wikibook admins? The "Community" as a whole? I.E. who actually owns copyright, and what can be put down for authorship? The nicks of all the contributors from the history page could be a good list, but I don't know if you want to list IP addresses for anonymous contributors (I guess simply adding a line... "and several anonymous contributors" would be sufficient.)

In all seriousness, I would like to take a few copies down to a local swap meet and see what I can get for them (mainly to cover printing costs), not to mention placing a copy in some libraries of local schools (assuming that the quality of the modules improves a little bit more before hand).

In short, I'd like to work cooperatively on a common copyright page template that can be included in print version of Wikibooks, including what may have to be included if formal copyright registration were to occur. Any ideas? --Rob Horning 08:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I don't think copyright matters. Providing you stick with the rules of the GDFL, you should be legally covered. But I'm no legal expert. You might get a better response by pretending you wish to publish parts of Wikipedia, and posting a similar comment in one of the Wikipedia forums, since it has far more active users. - Aya ^T C 18:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[]

All content on all Wikimedia projects (except for Wikinews, and that is only considered a temporary exception) is indeed copyrighted. The GFDL grants permission to recopy and reuse the content, but the content does indeed have copyright. Under copyright law it usually rests with the original author, unless it is a work-for-hire, which does not apply in the situation for most contributors to Wikibook. The other category that is applicable to published works from Wikibooks is a collaborative work, which certainly almost everything here qualifies for. Details as to what qualifies in the United States and is needed can be found at:

http://www.copyright.gov/ (The United States Copyright office)

If you can identify what similar entities in other countries are, it would be appreciated.

It would be my intention to file a formal copyright registration when something gets to a "1.0" status. This does a number of things, including considerable protection for all participants from idiots who dispute ownership of the material (it becomes a legal document in terms of legal validity and datestamping effort), as well as invokes some much tougher criminal and civil penalties, including up to a $150,000 fine+court costs (that goes straight to the Wikimedia Foundation in a situation that violates copyright...or to the "authors", if that can be straightened out). A copyright violation would be when somebody else "think" this is freeware and republishes the content as propritary content without GFDL provisions. Unlikely (don't pray for this lotto to come your way), but it more than likely will happen eventually. The registration certificate I feel should be sent to the Wikimedia Foundation, as it is an official legal document. The cost for formal registration is only $30, and it also "gives" a copy to the Library of Congress in their stacks.

Although a literary work is not specifically required to have a copyright notice page, it is strongly suggested in the case of registered works. There is also the "catologing in publication" provision that essentially suggests a library catalog code and all of the information needed for a "card catalog" entry for a librarian (so they don't have to make stuff up themselves).

Standard disclaimers should also be inside the front page, usually on the copyright notice page. As of now there is no "standard disclaimer" for Wikibooks at all, although an assumption is that we are using the Wikipedia standard disclaimer. I think that is a mistake at this point, considering how Wikibooks really is maturing as a full-fledged project in its own right. I personally prefer a simpler disclaimer, but a full one like Wikipedia should be in order. I'll try to spend a little time on that tonight and put something together for Wikibooks that is adapted from the other Wikimedia sister project disclaimers (there shouldn't be copyright violations if I do that, should there?) Discussion about the disclaimer itself should be on the talk page of the disclaimer.

From looking at the registration forms that the U.S. Copyright office has, the #1 problem I see is that the sheer number of authors for a typical Wikibook is going to be incredibly huge. In addition, there is no provision with MediaWiki software for recording the month and year of the birth of the Wikibook contributor, which is a required for the formal registration. Remember that copyright status is life of the author + 75 years... all authors in this case. In addition, you need to declare for each author the citizenship status (who claims them as a citizen), as well as the current residential location for that author (just the country...which can be different countries). In truth, I think this is going to be giving some major headaches to the Library of Congress if they have to deal with this issue as well. I can see some new rules being formed by the Library of Congress if formal registration is a common thing.

The reason why this issue hasn't come up before at Wikipedia is because there hasn't been an effort to formally "publish" Wikipedia in the past. Everything over there is still essentially in a "beta" state, although there is an effort right now to make a "Wikipedia 1.0" release of quality articles on Wikipedia that have reached a mature state. I am suggesting that due to the nature of Wikibooks we are going to reach that point much sooner than they are going to get there, with admittedly much smaller works. --Rob Horning 22:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Right. I've finally read through some of the more pertinent material on the GNU website, and I now understand what you mean. You are correct in that there is a serious copyright attribution problem with Wikimedia projects, and even if we did have all the relevant personal information for the contributors who are listed in a page's history, there's still no way to guarantee that it was that user who owned the copyright on the content they submitted. It is common GFDL-compliant wiki practise to users to copy, verbatim, sections of other GFDL-compliant wikis or other GFDL-compliant sources, for which no copyright attribution exists at all.

Having read http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/, it seems that this is an area of copyright law currently being re-examined. At the moment, you must make a 'reasonable effort' to determine the copyright holders. I'd say it would be reasonable to only attribute individuals where they have explicitly added the necessary information in the wikitext, and even then it's arguable as to whether they maintain the copyright if that wikitext is subsequently changed by another user. The method in Wikibooks:Copyrights#Use in hardcopy is technically illegal, since you must credit all explicit sources rather than just the first five. I'll need to check this out further.

There are also special clauses in the GFDL regarding cover-texts, but I don't think this applies to any of the books on this website. If the Wikibook has an image intended for use as a cover, I don't believe you have to also use this image as the cover of the book, but it would probably be easier to do so anyway.

Other than that, you can do what you like with the actual text. Modified work is fair game as far as the GFDL is concerned. - Aya ^T C 06:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Repeat by:

1. Enter "ARGUMENTGOESHERE" in the search box
2. Hit "GO"

Note that the output page has:

For more information about searching Wikibooks, see $1.

And

No page with [[/w/index.php?title=ARGUMENTGOESHERE&action=edit|this exact title]] exists, trying full text search.

Both of those look like templating failures.

--Randal L. Schwartz 04:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Moved to Wikibooks:Staff lounge#10,000 Wikibook Modules on EN

Is there a way of checking how many contributions I have made, or is it merely a matter of manually counting through the entries in "my contributions"? Abc123.

I'd been wondering the same thing, as I can't see an obvious way to do it. My best solution so far would be to study the MediaWiki DB format, write an SQL query to work it out, and submit it to m:Requests for queries, but that seems unnecessarily messy. - Aya ^T C 21:42, 28 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Here is a link to kate's tool from w:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Type in your user name and select enwikibooks from the list, here are my stats for Wikibooks. You will then get a nice summary of your contribution to the various parts of Wikibooks (you may have an unusually large number of edits in your own user space, for example ;)). (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 00:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Nice one. Go kate! Abc123.

I would like to start a book that would list various disasters, one per page; each page would include information on the disaster and list information on the victims of the disaster. Such lists would not be source texts (which would be appropriate on Wikisource), but would be lists compiled by users and added to by users as they find new information on victims. In this way, the Disasters could eventually be the most complete educational reference on disasters and their victims. Of course, for this textbook to remain legitimate, any new information would have to provide citations for the sources, so this book could end up having more citations than any other Wikibook. Does anyone have any objections before I set about doing this? If so, please reply on my talk page at Wikipedia where I frequent. If you're alright with it, please reply here so I know that someone reads this page :) Thanks! --Brian0918 16:29, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[]

I don't see a problem with this personally, but there's a lot of talk going on at the moment regarding what actually constitutes a 'textbook'. For the most part, any non-fiction work seems to be allowed, but be prepared for criticism. ;-) - Aya ^T C 01:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Also, on what bookshelf would a book on historical disasters belong? --Brian0918 16:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Good question. For now, just stick it in whichever one makes the most sense to you. We can always shift it later. Also add it to Template:New as a new Wikibook. Thanks. - Aya ^T C 01:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[]

If the new bookshelf policy goes through, Wikibooks:Reference bookshelf would be it, as it is of questionable instructional value. However, as it is also on history, try putting it in Wikibooks:Humanities bookshelf. KelvSYC 19:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[]

Someone changed namespace for Blender 3D modules, before was (and still is on most modules) naming, Blender 3D: ModuleName and now is Blender 3D/ModuleName. But there are many existing links from outside and all those redirections are annoying. How can I change this back without losing last useful changes? Thank you. --Popski 16:56, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Using the move function (in one of the tabs at the top of the page) to retitle a page does not change the content of the page, so simply moving the pages that have been changed to the old titles should do what you want. If there are any problems with doing this, for example, a cut and paste move can't simply be fixed, let an admin know the specific pages you're having problems with, and we'll fix it. Gentgeen 17:42, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Most of the modules have been moved back okay. But, Blender 3D: Noob to Pro is missing the history that is sill attached to Blender 3D/Noob to Pro. I don't see how it can be restored to its proper place easily. Once that is done, and the single link to it changed, then Blender 3D/Noob to Pro can be removed. (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 01:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I believe I can do this by deleting one, moving the other on top of it, and then undeleting. I will look into it... - Omegatron 18:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There. How's that? - Omegatron 18:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Much better.:) (_Donovan|Geocachernemesis|^Interact) 00:38, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Special:Recentchanges has a misspelling of "accepting". I am not sure how to edit the header on that page, or if I even can as a regular user. Kellen 05:08, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm newe to Wikimedia, but I have a few great ideas! First one is, how about starting fictional Wikibooks? In other words, someone starts a book with a general plot in mind, and then anyone who has an idea can continue the storyline and expand it! Wouldn't this be a wonderful idea for some joined writing?
I have quite a few ideas for sci fi and fantasy stories that could be written by hundreds of different writters on the web! My problem is that I don't know how to contact the Wikimedia guys and tell them this idea. Anyone here can help out?
Thanks alot- Technogiddo

• Well, see Wikibooks:What_Wikibooks_is_not#A_place_to_publish_original_works. I'm not sure what that says about collaborative fiction. -Omegatron 15:29, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[]
• If you have an idea for a new WikiMedia project, the correct place to bring it up is Meta, where you will find that you are not the first to have had this idea, and where what you can do should be clear. Uncle G 17:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[]

Some works of fiction are already being developed wiki-style. A few of them are listed at

• http://oddwiki.taoriver.net/wiki.pl/Ishtar/WikiNode
• http://writehere.net/moin.cgi/WikiNode
• http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Storypedia

Also http://www.orionsarm.com/ looks interesting. Do you know of any others? --DavidCary 19:17, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

W:wikipedia:wikistory - one word at a time , w:wikipedia:once upon a time... murdur mystery. Bawolff 02:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

SOMEONE WITH ADMIN PRIVELEGIVES PLEASE GET RID OF THE PICTURES