Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2006/February

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.

See this news article for more information

In short, Wikiversity is an intersting experiment, but remains to be seen if it will actually develop into a seperate project. I am curious about some of the quotes, especially as to Jimbo's attitude about the whole thing. Still, it is interesting that Wikibooks is starting to make some major ripples to become international news. --Rob Horning 02:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[]

Please, remember to add such news to Wikibooks:About#Wikibooks in the News (maybe we should create separate page?).

I'm a bit embarrased by Wikiversity, because it seems to aim to split from Wikibooks and become its competitor. If Jimbo Wales managed to remove all "non-textbook" content from Wikibooks, we would become actually a copy of Wikiversity. --Derbeth ^talk 17:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[]

I beg to differ on that point about Wikiversity, but that is a point of disagreement I can live with. While textbooks are a primary focus, I think Wikibooks can be more than that. I also think that Wikiversity could be doing somethings as a seperate project that are completely outside of the scope of Wikibooks, such as the original research proposals and critical review of Wikimedia projects, that could potentially compliment the rest of the Wikimedia projects as well. I will admit that the current organization of schools vs. Wikibooks bookshelves is almost identical and is in some ways a duplication of effort. Schools could potentially be much more than what we envision for bookshelves, however. --Rob Horning 13:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I want to create a wikibook on Chinese Tractor Maintenance. It seems to me that I need at least six levels of hierarchy to keep the individual pages from getting too long. For example:

Manufacturer

    Model
         System
              Subsystem
                    Component
                          Task

An instance of the hierarchy would be: Manufacturer: Kama Model Number: 554 System: Engine Subsystem: Head Component: Valve Task1: Adjust Valve Lash Task 2: Adjust Decompression Link Task 3: Remove and Replace Valve

Is a Wikibook a realistic approach for this kind of manual? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.165.62.3 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You would probably have page titles like [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance/Kama/554/Engine/Head/Valve/Adjust Valve Lash]]. This is a realistic approach for Wikibooks. Wikibooks will automatically make upward links to [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance/Kama/554/Engine/Head/Valve]], [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance/Kama/554/Engine/Head]], ..., [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance]]. On the [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance/Kama/554/Engine/Head/Valve]] page, you would have subpage links like [[/Adjust Valve Lash/]], [[/Adjust Decompression Link/]], [[/Remove and Replace Valve/]] to all valve tasks.

I suggest that you start with only one page. Pick a bookshelf (like How-tos bookshelf or Miscellaneous bookshelf) and add a link like [[Chinese Tractor Maintenance]]. Use that red link to start your book. Then, when ready, make subpage links like [[/Kama/]] and move everything to manufacturer pages. Repeat the process whenever you want to add a new level. --Kernigh 17:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[]

How can Wikibooks expect to be taken seriously with stuff like Wikiversity:School_of_Magic around? 84.69.5.63 14:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Apart from the fact that Wikiversity is not Wikibooks and Wikiversity in general are messing things up here at Wikibooks by adding dozends of empty books and/or adding articles more suitable for Wikipedia I also belive that Wikiversity:School_of_Magic has the same right to exist as Christianity or Islam. But then my idea of religious freedom goes further then that of most other people. If you now wonder what religion has to do with magic you might want to read w:Shamanism. --Krischik ^T 14:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I guess this is responding to a troll (not you, Krischik), but I don't see any harm from this in the least. There are professionally accredited Schools of Magic in many places, although you are never likely see them in Ivy League type schools, I would admit. As for the appropriateness of Wikiversity on Wikibooks, that is an argument that needs to be made with this VfD that has yet to be fully dealt with or meta:Wikiversity and its related discussion pages. The Wikimedia Foundation board has the opinion in substantial detail for what the general attitudes regarding Wikiversity and can make up their own minds from that information. --Rob Horning 16:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I did not know about Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Wikiversity. So I am not the only one upset with Wikiversity messing up Wikibooks. Good to know. --Krischik ^T 07:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Because Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Wikiversity is linked from Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Archive 1, I thought that the VFD for Wikiversity was archived. --Kernigh 16:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The whole issue is really in the hands of the Wikimedia Foundation Board at the moment, because a formal request was presented, with proper notification and Wikimedia-wide voting as well, to create Wikiversity as a totally seperate multi-lingual Wikimedia sister project. There is some give and take going on between those who want to get the project started and some of the policies that the board wants to see implemented before Wikiversity gets the green light. The Status-quo is to simply let Wikiversity remain here temporarily until the seperate domain is established. What will happen if the board simply says a resounding "NO" is speculative at best, but I think it might get ugly. Most Wikiversity participants are wanting to say simply "to hell with Wikimedia" and try to start their own project on an independent server with their own seperate fundraising and server farm. What to do with Wikiversity content if that happens is going to be certainly a subject of a huge debate. I would prefer that the board simply approve the proposal, which would make life easier for just about everybody involved. --Rob Horning 21:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Has there ever been a discussion about the pile-up of inactive administrators here? Many are quite old and haven't edited in quite some time. Others still stay active but rarely actually use their sysop abilities. To me this gives a bad impression of the role of admins here. Should there be a process for removing sysop access? I find it dangerous that some users have sysop abilities when they don't use them for the reasons the rights were given to them and simply stay isolated within their own book project. -Matt 01:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree. Sysops that have been inactive for extremely long periods of time should probably not keep the status. Even if they do come back to the project after a while, they would be so far out of the loop, and so ignorant of recent policy changes and discussions that they would not even be able to be effective admins immediately. If you don't use it, you should lose it. However, I think that deactivated sysops should get preference if they decide to become active, and apply for sysop status again. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 02:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

We do need to be at least a bit careful with sysops that are active authors but have not been using their sysop rights outside their own projects. I suspect that some of them have very sensitive toes. As good an idea as it is to do a little sysop housecleaning, I don't know that a royal brouhaha would be worth the effort. --JMRyan 19:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Actually, there was a substantial discussion about removing inactive admins that ended up with the concensus of the group of active users and admins that were involved with Wikibooks at the time to simply keep the admins who havn't contributed for a substantial amount of time as inactive admins. This distinction is only to let people who are trying to contact an admin to get a better idea of who is still doing stuff and who may not necessarily reply to any request for some time. Other Wikimedia projects have other policies, which vary to a large degree over what would be cause for deadminship. I had the opinion that inactive admins perhaps should be desysoped without prejudice, with it mainly being a formality to request sysop status.

The ugly part of this whole issue is that we don't have anybody locally who can remove sysop status from any user, and instead we need to appeal to a steward. That does involve other politics as well, but most stewards are willing to do actions they may even be somewhat against as long as there has been widespread community concensus about the topic. The Wikibooks user community certainly has changed somewhat since this discussion last occured. --Rob Horning 21:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

That discussion didn't seem to involve many users. I would like to hear what the community thinks of inactive admins now. A lot of those listed as inactive admins most likely wouldn't be up to speed on policy if they just came back suddenly. In a way I think they've become "obsolete" and should have their status removed just like how an old component upgrades (which they're not doing) or gets dropped. Also, some admins listed as "active" don't seem to actually actively use administrative privileges. I see that as dangerous because they have powerful features and don't use them for the good of the community, even sometimes possibly using them inappropriately solely for their own benefit. -Matt 22:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I think we could remove status from sysops inactive for a year - it's a practise used for stewards at Meta, so I think it would be fair to apply it here. When it comes to sysops that don't make use of admin tools, well, I think it would be hard to reach consensus here, although I also think that such users shouldn't have sysop priviledges if they don't help with cleaning up Wikibooks. --Derbeth ^talk 00:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree. There's nothing wrong (and indeed everything to be said for) a "if you don't use it, lose it" approach. Having inactive sysop accounts creates a security risk (someone could guess their passwords and hijack the account), plus when people return after a long lay-off, they will take a bit of getting up to speed on current practices. Returners can always be re-appointed sysops afterwards. Derbeth correctly comments that it is a good practice adopted on Meta, so why not apply it here. As far as active users with sysop privileges who don't happen to use them, there isn't the same risk of the account coming into the wrong hands, and having the tools may encourage them to help clean-up tasks at a later date. From my experience elsewhere in wikiland, I have a viewpoint that there really should be no problems with any active, reliable editor who wants sysop privileges having them, Jguk 14:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I made a list of sysops who haven't made any edit for more than half a year: Andreas Ipp, Karen Johnson, Lord Emsworth, Maveric149, Reytan. I think it is fair to remove sysop rights from them. And another list of sysops who hardly ever used admin tools: Eclecticology [1] (zero times, and 21 edits totally!), User:Marshman [2], Perl (zero times), Traroth [3] (zero times, no reverts, 141 edits), Cyp [4] (zero times, no reverts, 108 edits). From this list I would like to see sysop status removed from Eclecticology, Traroth and Cyp. --Derbeth ^talk 22:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I'd like to see sysop status removed from every single one of those users. I've looked at their recent edits and I definitely don't think they're using the tools appropriately or at all even. One seems to be using it to further his/her own book project and nothing else, which I think is a perfect example of power in the wrong hands. -Matt 02:34, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

On Wikipedia I have a move button. I never use it. Most people probably never use it, how much stuff is there to move on Wikipedia anyway? Should we all have the move button taken away from us because we never use it? Gerard Foley 03:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't think you've weighted moves to sysop status properly. Sysop tools can be very dangerous; users can easily delete pages and wipe out all status of a module. With the smaller (compared to something like Wikipedia) amount of activity here, that could go unnoticed. It's too dangerous to leave this laying around in my opinion. -Matt 06:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I think clearing out some of the "dead wood" is a good idea. I support removing those sysops with no edits in the last 6 months. I'll have to think about some of the others, but Eclecticology, Perl, Traroth, and Cyp should have their status removed for lack of use. To satisfy the stewards, we'll need to formulate a policy for sysop removal, and find a location to have these discussions (which might be at RfA). 71.131.226.180 09:43, 13 February 2006 (UTC) -- This was me, I got logged out. Gentgeen 09:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Oh dear, not another new policy. I think we won't do such "cleanup" more frequently than twice a year, so I think we can make a short discussion every time without introducing new policy and discussing about it for one month. --Derbeth ^talk 09:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Somehow I doubt that de-sysoping admins who have been inactive for more than a year is going to be controvercial, but I may be mistaken. The one danger to this is that I don't want to see this time limit be shortened substantially without some very serious thought going into why it must be shortened. Another thing to note is that we are not going to block these accounts but rather remove just the sysop privileges.

Where the real danger comes from is if the main password database on the Wikimedia servers is compromised by a vandal, who then gains access to potentially several inactive admins' accounts, blocks the active admins, and then performs widespread damage on the project. This happened on Distributed Proofreading's website, which led to a strong recommendation of all users to change their passwords. The MediaWiki software seems to be slightly more secure, although I'm sure some attempts to hack into the password database have occured. MySQL (the db that is running the Wikimedia servers) uses a password encryption hash that is difficult to reverse and has been publicly scrutinized and widely implemented on many websites besides just Wikipedia and Wikibooks. This doesn't mean the passwords can't be compromised, just that it would be very difficult to do so and requires more than even developer access to the database. It would be easier to capture passwords through spyware instead.--Rob Horning 15:48, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Two points. (1) Are you saying we should wait for one year of inactivity rather than six months (as suggested by some above)? (2) An admin blocked by another admin still has admin powers, and can therefore unblock himself - only a steward or developer can remove sysop powers. A compromised sysop account would not be pleasant - but could be dealt with by getting a steward to block (which would happen on anyone's request if a sysop was unambiguously creating havoc) - and then there would be lots of tidying up of the damage done by the compromised sysop account. Maybe we'll have a brief discussion on 6 or 12 months, and about whether active sysop accounts where sysop powers are not being used and make it official policy. My take on this is 6 months, and I have no problem with an active account having sysop powers that are not, in practice, being used, Jguk 16:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I do advocate a full year of inactivity, at least for an initial policy. If there are further problems this time period can be shortened, but there are several admins who have not been on Wikibooks for well over a year (some for more than two years). As far as one admin blocking another admin, I've never tried this out to see what might happen. Can you even log on when you are blocked and access sysop functions? If so, you could in turn block somebody who blocked, you... not too pleasant of a problem if you are trying to fight a rougue admin who is clearly violating policies for whatever reason and is willing to crash and burn his account and can still cause havoc with his admin status even if he can't edit pages. I would hope that you could block another admin during a very heated edit war for a couple day "cooling off period" at the very least, with some strong explaination of the action on the user page and hopefully the Staff Lounge and mailing list (an avenue of reply if blocked). So far the admins here have been rather reasoned and "professional" about their status, but this may not always be the case in every situation. --Rob Horning 00:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I was in such situation, when someone blocked an IP which was afterwards assigned to me. I could not edit pages but I unblocked myself without any problems. There are not many admins inactive for a year (only three). Should I understand that you are against de-sysopping admins who were active recently, but haven't done any deletions or reverts (see my list)? --Derbeth ^talk 00:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I'm just suggesting that we start with a minimum standard that everybody can agree upon and then if there doesn't seem to be much of a resistance to tighten the standards later with a subsequent policy vote. That anybody can be removed from the list at all with even the most loose standards (like not a single edit for more than a year) indicates that some problems exist and this minimum standards can be effective. UncleG was particularly against even this minimum standard, and I see he hasn't joined into this current debate either. As far as being blocked, was this IP address blocking (which can be overridded by design through being a registered user) or was your user account blocked. This sounds like something for Bugzilla to deal with as a potential issue in the future.

BTW, I would like to point out that at least two people on the current inactive list, Maveric149 and User:Brion VIBBER are very active Wikimedians, but generally participate on other Wikimedia projects and not here. Eclecticology is very active on Wiktionary and Meta. I'm almost certain if these were de-sysoped that some very loud yelps would come from these individuals and would be heard all the way at the top of the Foundation board. It would be meaningless anyway to de-sysop Brion as he is a developer who has direct access to the server farm on an OS level with root access at that. Indeed he is the one you run to when all else fails. Something to consider at least with some of these individuals. In the past some people became admins on Wikibooks simply because we were short on even having anybody experienced capable of serving in this capacity, and some admins from other projects were brought in to help out from time to time. Being an admin on another project is no longer a major advantage to becoming an admin on Wikibooks anymore. There are also some people who collect adminships like souviners and try to become admins on all Wikimedia projects for some reason. --Rob Horning 02:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I hope we can agree that we don't want to give out sysop powers to souvenir hunters! Also, I hope we can agree that where there is a specific reason why a non-active editor may need sysop status (possibly because they are a developer), we should respect this. Maybe after 6 months of complete inactivity we ask the individuals via email whether they have any reason for wishing to retain sysop status. If they don't reply within a month, say, or if they reply to say there is none, then desysop them. If there is a reason then leave them with sysop status until a year is up and if they haven't become active again by then, desysop them, unless there are special reasons (eg required for development, which even then could be confirmed every six months - after all, if we make a mistake here, it can be quickly rectified by a bureaucrat). Also, maybe declare "inactivity" to be fewer than 10 edits, Jguk 08:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Rob, I wasn't talking about Brion Vibber, I don't know why are you pointing him. I showed 8 people who in my opinion should be de-sysopped - and I'm talking only about these 8 people. I'm completely not interested who are Maveric149 and Eclecticology and you are unfair talking who they are, not what they have done here. Eclecticology has done completely nothing and I'm convinced he/she is not familiar with our policies. Maveric149 has been inactive for 10 months - I think that's enough. --Derbeth ^talk 10:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I mentioned Brion only because he is currently on the list of inactive admins, not because he was on your particular list. The others I mentioned only because they are well known and will likely protest a desysop move unless this policy is affirmed clearly by the Wikibooks community as a whole and enforced for all admins. We may be surprised, however, and have them not object to being desysoped as well, and it is possible to get their attention at the moment on other Wikimedia projects. Mav was very instrumental in building Wikibooks before I got here, and helped to build many of the structures on Wikibooks that make Wikibooks largely what it is today. He is now doing many other things for the Wikimedia Foundation, but Wikibooks does need to thank him for what he did accomplish. BTW, Wikiversity was also substantially his idea as well, to cite another significant contribution of his. Why he hasn't made a contribution to Wikibooks for more than 10 months is something I can only speculate about. --Rob Horning 20:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

After noticing an admin's inappropriate comments on a user's talk page, I wondered how admins regulate themselves. Is there any place where discussions happen to remove admins who are not just inactive, but violating other "expectations" of a sysop? I'd like for this discussion to actually turn into something, so do we contact someone on Meta regarding removing rights or what? Should we hold a tally for each person we wish to remove or not? -Matt 05:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Although I don't know of a single case where an adminship has ever been removed during the whole history of Wikibooks for any reason (even self-nominated), there is a process to nominate an admin for deadminship on the Wikibooks:Requests for adminship, where you can mention the user and state your case why you think they are abusing their role as an administrator. I don't know why the deadminship section was removed, and that is just an oversight from some cleanup. See this archived page from July 2004 that shows the deadminship section was always intended to be on this page. Nomination can happen from any user on Wikibooks (although a registered user is likly to be taken more seriously). Mind you, deadminship does not necessarily mean having the account blocked as well, just that you feel the user is abusing their position as an admin. Once community concensus about the issue has been reached and the conculsion is to remove the sysop privileges, it is a trivial act to get the attention of the Stewards, any of which can remove the status as a formal procedure. This can be done on Meta:Requests for permissions#Admins for Wikibooks. Note the Meta page is for notification of discussion resolution, not a place to carry on the debate, although you can certainly request assistance from the Stewards if you think things are getting very out of hand and you are being stoped and blocked from even being able to add a nomination (or having it reverted) to the request for deadminship section. I put up a request for deadminship earlier but it was removed due to the previous discussion, and I accepted that decision at the time. You are certainly welcome to add those names or other back for the same reason. --Rob Horning 23:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Section created. -Matt 01:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I want want to know is are the books for free and if so can i order for a free book?if not can it be down loaded for free.my adress is tedkroft@yahoo.com

Our books are online only (though a few random pdf versions have been constructed). We do not have a facility for ordering them. You can copy them, see Wikibooks:GNU Free Documentation License and Wikibooks:Copyrights. There is a description of how to produce print versions, see Help:Print versions. There has been talk about improving our capabilities in this area. See Wikibooks:Wikibook Press and Wikibooks:Staff lounge#The management of book publishing - a policy suggestion. Basically, obtaining one of our books as a print or digital copy is pretty much a do-it-yourself affair. There is no fee for such copying, but there are restrictions as stated in the licensing and copyright pages. --JMRyan 19:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Is it safe to remove redlink titles from bookshelf pages? I wouldn't think that a bookshelf would be a place for proposed books. I checked through VfD's for one of them (Time Management) without finding it. Maybe some of these are speedy deletes. I was going to remove some, but then I wondered if there was reason I didn't know (that happens often) that I shouldn't. --JMRyan 21:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

If I find the red link and I know the book was deleted, I remove the link. Otherwise, I sometimes move the link to Wikibooks:Requested Wikibooks.

I know that at least one bookshelf had a "suggested books" suggestion, but other than that, bookshelves should not have red links. --Kernigh 21:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I would say, however, it would be safe to remove those red links that appear on the Main page. I try to get them when I have dealt with a VfD or some other action that has removed the book from Wikibooks, but if anybody else wants to deal with that, you are welcome. You don't need (yet) any special admin privileges to do this although it can sometimes be a little tricky for a total newcommer to deal with. --Rob Horning 22:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I started a VfD earlier regarding the deletion of the redundant help pages that are also found on Meta. The resulting VfD discussion has been rather divisive of the whole community, although it seems to break down on older vs. newer users. I'd like to try and reformulate the whole discussion into something a little bit more pro-active and talk about what we would like to see on Wikibook for the user help system, including the "Editing Help" link that appears on the editing page.

Help:Wikibooks has a good collection of useful links to Wikibooks specific content, and I was thinking that perhaps this ought to be the primary page for all other help content on Wikibooks, including links to content on Meta and other Wikimedia projects as well. Other Wikimedia sister projects have their own customized help pages, particularly Wikipedia.

Most of this content I would like to see kept in the Help namespace, as it is to be useful to new users. I would also like to see this to be original (to Wikibooks) content. My feelings about Help:Editing and other similar pages I hope are well known enough by now. This can be improved, and I would like to perhaps get a group together that could help with the development of this (very much needed) content. --Rob Horning 15:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Check the example of Wikisource:Help:Contents. Wikisource recently upgraded their project-specific help. There is a link from Wikisource:Help:Contents to MetaWikipedia:Help:Contents; the mirror help pages at Wikisource are mostly ignored and they seem to be forming a walled garden. There are also conflicts: Wikisource:Help:Introduction is an introduction specific to Wikisource, but it occupies the space where one would mirror MetaWikipedia:Help:Introduction. If you edit an English Wikisource page and click "Editing help", you arrive at Wikisource:Help:Editing Wikisource, not any Meta page, mirrored or not.

I think that some books would benefit from having their own editing guides. For example, Guide to X11 would give the wiki markup for Unix commands, while NetHack would give the wiki markup for keyboard presses and NetHack characters. I have started a version of this at Guide to Social Activity/Style. However, it is only a beginning which does not demonstrate much of what I wanted to do, and it is also unrealistic to expect that every Wikibook has its own style guide. --Kernigh 05:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Can anyone tell me how to link from a book to an audio file in ogg vorbis format? The file is here: File:Modern greek vocab 1.ogg. I'm not sure why the result of the upload process was to make something with image: on the front, or whether that's a problem. Should it be media:? Does it matter? Looking at examples on WP, people seem to be using certain templates that don't exist here on wikibooks. I would like it to show up the way you see sound links on WP, with a speaker icon, so that clicking on the link plays the sound in your browser. Also, I'd be interested in opinions on whether what I'm doing is even a good idea. This for the modern greek wikibook, and the recording is me saying some Greek words that are introduced in the first lesson. I'm not a native Greek speaker, but I think my pronunciation is at least understandable, and reasonably correct, although accented. My philosophy would be that the recording could be explicitly marked as being made by a non-native speaker, with an invitation for native speakers to replace it with something better. However, my wife is a language teacher, and is scandalized that I would do this, since I'm not a good enough speaker, and she feels it will mislead people. Any opinions?--Bcrowell 17:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[]

WB:TM is your friend - there's a template for audio recordings in Media section. You can also use a direct link to download file, using [[Media:]]

When it comes to sense of such recording - for me, it's better to have anything than nothing. I'm surprised that there are no files in commons:Category:Pronunciation, not even Greek alphabet. In my opinion your pronunciation examples can be useful. --Derbeth ^talk 17:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[]

However, when I put "salad" in the search bar and punch the "search" button, I only get one link (and it's a plant, not a salad), although it claims "Results 1-20 of 210".

Then I see that the "Search in namespaces:" at the bottom of that search results page doesn't have the Cookbook namespace enabled. If I enable *every* checkbox there, and punch the "search" button there, I get another search results page. This page still claims "Results 1-20 of 210", but now it gives me 5 links.

Yes, "5" is certainly *closer* to "20" than "1". Is it obsessive to want these little bugs fixed?

-- User:DavidCary --70.189.75.148 02:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Strange, when I only select Cookbook and Cookbook talk namespaces, I don't receive any results. Has anybody idea what's going on or should we report it to bugzilla? --Derbeth ^talk 08:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[]

To be honest, when I do a search for content on MediaWiki servers, I prefer to use google using the site: tag, such as this URL:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=salad+site%3Awikibooks.org

The MediaWiki search tool is rather limited, and it doesn't really get the attention from the developers that it deserves. Still, it works fairly well in a limited context. --Rob Horning 15:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[]

What do you think of adding link to Google and maybe Yahoo to search page? Anyway, should we report this search problem to bugzilla or not? --Derbeth ^talk 16:03, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Do you know what the variable name is that is used for the search term? That would make it almost trivial to make one of these search strings for a link on the search pages, and that is something that the admins can do here without having to go running to the developers. --Rob Horning 04:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[]

You say that.

'Remember: the magnetic field must increase or decrease in intensity perpendicular to the wire (so that the lines of flux "cut across" the conductor), or else no voltage will be induced:'

If this is the case how does a transformer work when all then lines of flux are in the Iron core and do not 'cut' the conductors?

Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_talk:Study_help_desk%3Dedit"

I am quite new to Wikibooks, and really think that it is an excellent initiative. I am busy writing a book, Western Music History, and would like to know if there is any way of requesting or 'advertising' for someone to submit pictures or other multimedia content, or am I to simply await another's own compulsion? Also, as I am progressing through the exercise of creating this wikibook, I am finding that it may eventually become suitable as a textbook for Wikiversity. Am I able to add this book to wikiversity as well as having it under the Arts:Music bookshelf? Ralfe Poisson 09:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)Ralfe[]

You are doing just fine. I see that you have put the name of the Wikibook up on the New Wikibook list, and have also put it on the Art bookshelf. A few suggestions for further "advertising" on Wikimedia projects could include:

• Sending an e-mail out on the Textbook-L mailing list
• Adding links on related Wikipedia pages, connecting those pages to your new Wikibook. Just make sure it really is a related link, for example don't add a link on w:George W. Bush.
• Don't forget other Wikimedia projects like Wikisource or Wiktionary. You may want to request help for adding links in their main project discussion areas.
• I would strongly suggest that you post some message on the Wikipedia Music Wikiproject, where a fairly large number of people interested in music related discussions. There are several "sub-projects" related to that main Music project, so you may be able to focus your audience even further there.

Other than doing all of this, I would simply recommend that you work on developing the content of this Wikibook as best as you reasonably can. I know this seems like a lonely job, but the better Wikibooks eventually do start attracting their own audience and get additional assistance once you have been able to get over the initial "hump" of having just a Wikibook stub, people will start coming in to help you out. Ironicly, once you have quite a bit of useful content, it is easier to get more people to come and join in the effort to add even more. It is simply getting that initial bunch of coherant text together in the first place that can be difficult. Just don't assume that "if you write it, they will come" and leave just an outline for others to come and fill in the details. Still, welcome to Wikibooks, and I hope that your Wikibook will succeed. --Rob Horning 14:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I've been watching with interest the new books that pop up. However, Rosacea appears not to be a text so much as a Wikipedia article at best. But I'm new here; does this book really represent what Wikibooks is about? DSYoungEsq 17:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[]

While it does have some similarity to w:Rosacea, this is just fine for the beginnings of a well developed Wikibook, but only a beginning. I wouldn't nominate this for Book of the Month (even with some of the poor quality books that have won there, unfortunately), but this is certainly something that could become that valuable with time and effort.

Keep in mind that if there is something that is a copyright violation that we can't have that on Wikibooks. Copying content from Wikipedia is not necessarily a copyright violation (as it can be copied under the terms of the GFDL), but we generally discourage that practice unless you have added a substantial amount of new information here on Wikibooks. This attempt at writing a book about Rosacea does seem to try to make that extra push to go beyond the Wikipedia article, although I would admit it needs even more work. --Rob Horning 22:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Rosacea appears to be too large for a Wikipedia article. Edit summaries acknowledge that much of the material is copy from http://rosaceagroup.org/wiki/. (A vandal blanked their main page; use http://www.rosaceagroup.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=7832 for now.) --Kernigh 04:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I guess my question goes to the heart of the concept; I'm still trying to figure it out. I understand Wikibooks as a place for books that teach you about a subject, e.g.: mathematics, or C#, or Quenya. I see a book like this one, and I think that all it is is an expanded WikiPedia article; it isn't really a "subject" about which one "learns." But, then, I see more than one WikiBook about which that can be said. Do we care about this? If not, goodness knows there are a lot of things that I find interesting that I can write a "book" about.  :) DSYoungEsq 14:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks for the note about this material coming from the Rosacea Group. I had forgotten about that, and the fact that this Wikibook was put together by several of the contributors to that website you mentioned. GFDL license was explicitly mentioned somewhere for this content, but I would have to dig around to find the mention of that. --Rob Horning 18:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Can anyone tell me how I can rename Modern_Greek/Reading to Modern_Greek/Lesson_1? Thanks! --Bcrowell 00:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[]

You can use this page to move the page to that location. All links to the old page will redirect to the new one automatically. -Matt 03:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Keep in mind that the MediaWiki software doesn't automatically grant to privilege of moving pages to new users. There is a time and edit count limit before you have access to that feature, although it is something that is available to any registered user once you have been on here for some time. I am not sure what the specific limits are on that at the moment, however, and when you can use the move page. This was disabled from brand new accounts due to malicious vandalism in the past that really made a huge mess that was also hard to cleanup for admins. This affects all Wikimedia projects. --Rob Horning 13:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Having come anew to this site (I've just started a book on Taxation in the United Kingdom, I have a number of, what I trust will be taken as, constructive comments on the site:

1. I can't immediately see what books are complete (or near-complete), and therefore particularly useful for readers.
2. The Main Page isn't particularly helpful - it doesn't really say what Wikibooks is, doesn't tell you what books are complete - doesn't highlight the true textbooks (eg GCSE and A-Level guides). I'm sure it can be redesigned in a more user-friendly way.
3. It's not easy to find out what wikibooks really is. The page that describes it does so in negative terms (Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not rather than actually explaining what it is (WP makes this mistake for almost all its policies, which never say what you should do, but what you shouldn't).
4. It's not obvious to me how you are meant to find a book. Would it be useful to divide books up into "complete" and "in development", and then subdivide them into, say - "For young children", "UK study guides for students" (GCSE and A-Level), "University subjects", "Professional", "Business", "Adult-Learning"?

In particular regarding the first point, f I were, say, to develop a new Main Page design to illustrate some of what I meant, would that be helpful? Jguk 14:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree with you that main page is not very friendly for newcomers. I think that we should make a serious selection, leaving only best books available from the main page. It's not discrimination - all books, includings stus, will be still available in bookshelves. But lists like Template:Mathematics bookshelf should be reduced only to books which provide real help and are useful for readers (I would remove entries like Applied Math Basics and Real analysis). Because main page consists of list of such templates for all bookshelves, cleaning up these pages would also simplify main page.

I'm thinking of lanunching a special page to gather completed books from all bookshelves. By completed I mean either having development stage of 75% or 100%, or being significantly larger than other books. Such list will serve as a separate page (useful for Card Office Catalogue and links from navigation bar) and base for templates like Template:Mathematics bookshelf. --Derbeth ^talk 16:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[]

It's a major problem that potential readers have to sort through a massive list of books that aren't really books in hopes of finding books that really are books. One problem I'd foresee with using a cutoff at 75% development stage is that it would encourage even more inflation of the development stages, which are already extremely inflated. I don't know how helpful it would be to launch a separate page, either, since the typical potential reader will probably never see that page. The real problem is that the main page makes it extremely difficult to find useful content. I think we should encourage Jguk to create the mockup of a new main page.

One really simple change I'd suggest would be to move the New Wikibooks section down to the bottom of the main page. Every book on that list is guaranteed not to be useful to readers.

In general, a lot of this boils down to the problem of having to evaluate which books have reached the stage where they're complete and of good quality. I don't think Wikibooks has a viable mechanism for doing this, since it lacks a critical mass of people. Maybe it would make sense to have some kind of mechanism for linking to the very best wikibooks from someplace on Wikipedia, and asking WP's membership to see if there's a consensus, in a process similar to what happens when a WP article is nominated for FA status. --Bcrowell 16:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree 100% with Jguk. Couldn't have said it better myself.--Bcrowell 17:54, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Is this valid as a separate book, and if so can it go in the list of new books if it is moved out of the Japanese book? Gerard Foley 17:54, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[]

A point to look at with this is that the "Readers" are intended to be for beginning Japanese students. I love how the full vocabulary is listed and a cross translation between Japanese and English. Content of this nature would also be fairly easy to translate into 3rd languages simply by the nature of the format.

As far as being a seperate book on Wikibooks, I would like to discourage that idea, but mine is just one voice here so don't take my word as law on the subject. This is something that compliments the Japanese Wikibook, and is a part of the curriculum for learning the Japanese langauge. In that regard, it really needs to stay together and not get lost or misunderstood as something which needs to be put into Wikisource or removed from Wikibooks. It should also be discouraged to simply add raw Japanese texts to the "Reader" section simply to have them somewhere. All text for these readers should have some sort of instruction component to them that is meeting some sort of learning objective for people using the Japanese Wikibook as a textbook. --Rob Horning 19:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I've written a fairly large part of the "squid user's guide" book, available at sourceforge, and would like to release the book "into the wild". The current process of editing the book (docbook-sgml) is way too arduous for any users to actually contribute.

The document is already released under the gnu free documentation licence (see the copyright under the index page.) However, it has invariant sections that credit my previous and current employers, both of whom have given me full consent to make the document available under the GFDL - so long as the invariant sections are included.

Is there any way to release this onto wikibooks? Can I include the invariant sections in the copyright? Or is this against policy?

Thanks!

Oskarpearson 00:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

No, we don't allow any invariant sections. See Wikibooks:Copyright. --Derbeth ^talk 02:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I suggest that you look at → Wiki:WikiFarms ← to find a place where you can start a wiki for your book. Choose a wiki host, read their terms of use, and check that they allow you to control the copyright of your wiki. For example, http://pbwiki.com would probably meet that requirement. --Kernigh 03:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Is it possible to do footnotes in wikibooks? I couldn't find any templates, or anything in the help pages, that seemed relevant. If there isn't already a provision for it, should I just copy some of the footnoting templates from WP? (I'm not completely clear, however, on some of the technical issues, like how namespaces work for templates. Also, WP has a whole bunch of different footnoting systems, and I'm not sure what's the best one to emulate.)--Bcrowell 17:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

See Wikibooks:Template messages/General#Footnotes. --Derbeth ^talk 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[]

D'oh! Thanks!--Bcrowell 00:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[]

hey all ! I have started editing the book of Oceanograpy. You can read about my motivation and me at my userpage. I would like to change the name of the book the "Introduction to Oceanography" and also move it to active bookshelf. please join me, Oz.

Done. Good luck with it! Jguk 10:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Hi! Having a bit of trouble finding my way around here... rather a different structure than the wikipedia. Are there project pages here? How do I go about creating a gardening category?

My main interest is writing "how-tos" about gardening techniques, such as growing particular plants, soil improvement, etc. I'm not sure if these should be all chapters in one book, or just a bunch of books within a category. I've recruited some people from web forums to help write these, so it would be nice to know what structure they should follow before starting.

I noticed on one of the archival pages that some folks don't want to be a "dumping ground" for the 'pedia's how-tos. Are wikibookians hostile to how-tos? Maybe rename them "practical guides," instead? Johnny 12:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Welcome to Wikibooks! I'm glad to see that you are interested in helping us out. For now, you can add books of this nature to Wikibooks:How-tos bookshelf, and once there have been several that have been added we can discuss trying to create a seperate gardening bookshelf. If you want to create a seperate section just for gardening right now within the How-to bookshelf, feel free to add it right now. As can be seen from this main bookshelf page (not necessarily from the front page of Wikibooks) there are many How-to books already on Wikibooks.

From personal experience, it is generally better to start a books with a strong focus and theme rather than try to write a general purpose book that can include a huge number of items. For example, "How to Grow Roses" would be better than "How to Garden". Especially for the first book experience on Wikibooks, a narrow themed book seems to do better, and gives you a focus on where to proceed. Portions of it may end up in the more inclusive Wikibook in the future anyway.

As far as the "dumping ground" aspect from Wikipedia, there is a tendancy to take all content removed from Wikipedia by a VfD and dump it on Wikibooks if they can't find a place to put it. How-to guides in particular have had this occur, as this is something which seems to come up as a regular item on Wikipedia for some reason. As long as it fits within our guidelines (see WB:WIN for details) and as long as the material can be used under the GFDL license (no copyrighted material without permission for redistribution) you should be fine to add it here. In general, how-to books are welcome on Wikibooks and have been a part of this project for most of the history of Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 14:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks, Rob. Still figuring out how it works here, though. Are there project pages for discussing templates, etc.? Or should that just be done on the 'pedia project pages. I was just thinking it might be nice if "how to grow daylilies" had a similar layout to "how to grow foxgloves", etc.

Also, I'll ask here rather than look for somewhere else to ask: is there a shortcut tag to link a book from the 'pedia? (Similar to the w: shortcut here, I mean.) Johnny 18:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Not only is there a tag for Wikibooks (it is b:page_name for Wikibooks, and b:xx: like b:de:page_name for other Wikibooks langauges when linking on other projects), but most other Wikimedia projects also have specialized templates that also include the cool stacked books logo for Wikibooks to provide a link. See w:Template:Wikibooks for an example, and look at some of the articles that have included this template. This is a method, BTW, to add a highly visible link to some Wikibook that you are working on from Wikipedia that is also accepted on Wikipedia without looking like linkspam. --Rob Horning 19:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

See also: User talk:Kernigh#m:Transwiki:Wikimania05, User talk:Robert Horning#Wikimania redirects, MetaWikipedia:User talk:Eloquence#Wikimania on Wikibooks, Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion#Wikimania 2005 proceedings

The Wikimania 2005 proceedings were being collected here on Wikibooks. They were nominated for transwiki to Meta (though it is unclear that this is where such a collection belongs) by Kernigh; and recently Rob Horning in a flurry of activity moved over all of that content and deleted the original pages.

Whether or not this is the right way to dispense with that content, there are a few points here worth noting:

1) This was a large effort, yet the many people who cared weren't notified about it ahead of time. For a few reasons... transwikis out of Wikibooks are rarely applied to bodies of content this size, and mainly applied to interlanguage transwikis or transwikis of fledgling content. The procedure for suggesting modules for transwikiing is far less formal than that for deletion. In this case, almost no one on Wikibooks was made aware that this move was taking place; there was no note on this page or on VfD.

This was not some random book or project; it was very directly associated with the Wikimedia projects and with free knowledge. A dozen editors had worked on over a hundred pages associated with the proceedings project, over the course of months. None of these editors was contacted via talk page or email or mailing-list about the move-without-forwarding-address. It might help avoid future confusion to have some sort of sanity check re: notification when large-scale changes are made.

2) There are many hundreds of external links to the pages that have now been deleted, which links are completely broken; with no record that any page ever existed there, and no simple way to find the new location; not to mention no way to access the old page histories.

Can we please minimize this chaos?

• Simply undeleting the pages would be simplest, until we can work out where such collections should go. I do not know if Meta is the right place any more than Wikibooks is... but they've already been moved there.
• Second easiest: undeleting the pages in question, and replacing them with redirect links (so as to both avoid breaking old external links and to preserve the diffs between historical revisions of pages), would resolve the most immediate issues.

Cheers, Sj 07:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Note that the Wikimania content violated at least several Wikibooks policies, including the following:

• Wikibooks is not a place to publish original works
• Wikibooks is not a mirror or a repository for source texts
• Wikibooks is not for developing new Wikimedia projects
• Wikibooks is not a soapbox
• Wikibooks is not a free wiki host or webspace provider
• Wikibooks is not a general repository for nonfiction works

Unfortunately, you do not seem to be joking... the only points here which seem to apply are the second and the last. Both apply to some degree, although neither is violated in the canonical sense.

Violating even one of these is grounds not just for deletion but a speedy delete, although we do try to take some time to remove content that has been added in good faith.

I regret the use of the royal we here, and your framing of this discussion as between people in different universes. As of August 7, when the first Wikimania ended, this was not speedy deletion policy. Sj

With very, very few exceptions, none of the participants of the Wikimania content contributed to Wikibooks outside of the Wikimania content, and very few Wikibooks regulars participated in the development of Wikimania content. In this regard it really is two totally seperate universes of users that are involved... which is precisely why there is such friction going on between these two groups. --Rob Horning

Plenty of time was given to the content for the Wikimania proceedings, and dispite efforts to convince the contributors that the content didn't belong, it was expanded anyway.

What kinds of efforts were made to convince "the contributors" that the content didn't belong? Sj

The nail in the coffin, for me anyway, was that the content had no internal links from within Wikibooks, either from the main page, or from inside any of the current list of Wikibooks. There was absolutely no attempt whatever to integrate this content with the rest of the content on Wikibooks, and all participation on the Wikimania content was essentially acting as a seperate project, including the adding of non-english content that also would have normally been removed and added to the other language Wikibooks projects.

This was unfortunate, and a result of not refining the goal of the resulting wikibook (is it to be a straight publication of abstracts accepted to Wikimania, by alpha of the author? a review of that literature, with bonus multimedia content of people giving audio and video presentations?) It was difficult to figure out where to link to the proceedings from other bookshelves, as well. The "adding of non-english content" [eventually with translations] is something which certainly should be acceptable for any sort of compilations. Is there currently a policy against that? (link?) Sj

As compilations of this nature are inappropriate for Wikibooks in the first place, this point is moot. This is English Wikibooks, and there are other languages that are available for non-English content if you want to have it on Wikibooks, and it was from this perspective I made the preceeding comment. I have no problem with the use of foreign langauge material as instructional content for learning another language. That was not the point of the Wikimania content, however. --Rob Horning

I wanted to also send a clear message that we don't want to have the Wikimania 2006 content on here either, and I hope that message has been sent loud and clear. Wikimania is a cool concept, and I hope that the proceedings can be developed. Wikibooks is not the place to do it, however, and it should never have been here in the first place. The admins were earlier bullied into keeping this content here, and that was a wrong decision. --Rob Horning 18:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

If you have a policy point to make, please make it directly -- you have not spoken loudly or even softly in any public forum about the placement of Wikimania 2005 or 2006 content in the past months until after you moved quickly to delete vast amounts of content and edit history. I don't know what kind of bullying you are talking about when the content was first added, or how you think "the admins" on Wikibooks were as a whole subjected to it; please elaborate. If such a thing happened, it too seems not to have been discussed openly in any wikibooks forum. Sj

Since you have interrupted me several times... I complained about this on Foundation-L when this content was first added, and was bullied into leaving the content alone. Mainly on the condition that Wikibooks was just a temporary place to put this. I will openly admit, however, that my current actions were prompted by Kernigh who started the transwiki process... and I agreed with him completely. --Rob Horning

Can you just please undelete the pages and give us a deadline (for instance something around/before Wikimania 2006). We're going to finish and tidy it and afterwards some kind of redirects or warning signs could be put at the most important pages. Thank you for your effort to keep Wikibooks tidy but this was just a bit too rash and uncoordinated. There are editors who submitted content and now they have to sign in with a new account at meta and all relation between user and pages via edits is lost. Wikimania proceedings have always been a bit chaotic - this incident is a good kick behind to the editors to finally finish it but having to work without the old location and the version histories is a pain. We just need some additional time! -- JakobVoss 10:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

There are also discussions about this here.

I want to thank Jakob for at least bringing this up in the Staff Lounge instead of trying to fight this outside of the Wikibooks commmunity. The appropriate forum for trying to undelete content is here: Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion If you think that an admin has deleted something when it should have remained, this is the appropriate place to hold that discussion. Content has been undeleted in the past, and sometimes even policy changes have happened to accomodate the undeleted content. It should say something, however, that there is currently not a single Wikibook at the moment where the decision to remove has been questioned and is going through the undeletion process. Typically, the discussion there can last for months before resolution although this situation is a little more unique.

As far as giving you time... the content is all on Meta at the moment. We havn't actually removed any content at all... just changed where it is located at. And this wasn't a rash decision either. The notice that the content was going to be transwikied was up for more than a month, with some considerably older comments that the content didn't belong in the first place going back over six months. And the relationship between the users and the page edits is not lost, although it is harder to revert the content to an earlier version. As for having to create a new account on Meta... I agree, that is unfortunate. And that is something the Mediawiki developers are working on right now (and think they have a solution which might work to make this a thing of the past). --Rob Horning 18:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Transwikis by their current implementation remove granular histories. You can cut and paste the history page html, but you lose the diffs and actual knowledge of what content each author provided. How can we fix this? Sj

We can fix this by simply getting the page import/export feature working the way that the developers claim it should be working. Presumably you should be able to get the full XML of a page including its full edit history and complete set of page diffs on each edit. Just like a raw CVS dump can be done. Unfortunately, we need to put a bug into the ears of the developers to get this feature working correctly. See Special:Export for some example of how it might work, but the current export feature is just a joke. Also note the results of accessing Special:Import, which ideally would allow you to complete a transwiki including page history. --Rob Horning 17:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

There is a general question about where, if anywhere, one should work on producing an educational resource from the papers, talks, and tutorials given at a conference. Either they are source materials to be left at wikisource; or digests of source materials -- sourcebooks -- which can be edited and refined over time. In the latter case, do they belong on wikibooks?

The Wikimania proceedings are not a sourcebook, but the latter question about collections of sources has relevance to general Wikibooks policy. Sj 15:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

It's out of question that they don't belong on Wikibooks. Wikimania 2005 proceedings are a special case and they have never meant to stay on Wikibooks forever. -- JakobVoss 10:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Who decided this was a special case? It certainly didn't get widespread support from the general Wikibooks community, just from a few active contributors and "senior Wikimedia" individuals. I have repeated asked on Foundation-l about this topic, and the resounding concensus from that forum (including from at least 3 different Foundation board members) is that Wikibooks is not to be a development site for a brand new Wikimedia project. Wikijunior and Wikiversity are explicit exceptions and moves have occured to remove both of those sub-projects from Wikibooks as well. If you want to start something that doesn't fit on a Wikimedia project, you have three choices:

I believe Jakob was suggesting that this was a special case on face value, because it contains content developed by dozens of contributors to many wikimedia projects, for a purely wikimedia-focused goal, involving many editors who are obviously well-meaning. I still have no idea why you were so eager to get this done without activating a discussion; it was a fair bit of work, as you noted; and you recognized ahead of time that there would be an outcry. Sj

And what would have been the appropriate forum for discussion of this, where Wikimania participants would have been aware of what was going on? --Rob Horning

• Create a new proposal on Meta
• Create a new Wikicity
• Buy your own computer and static IP address with internet connection and start your own server.

Wikibooks is not to be a place to start new projects of this nature, and everybody participating with the proceedings knew this. This is not a web hosting service here at Wikibooks, and that has been policy for several years now. The only difference between this content for Wikimania and other similar documents that have been removed from Wikibooks is merely the visibility of this content on other Wikimedia projects and the political pull of some of the participants. By your own admission, Jakob, Wikibooks was only a temporary place to host this content. What is temporary? A few months? A few years?

There are no 'similar documents' that have been removed from Wikibooks. (Truly not. Try coming up with one.) Your repetition of 'political pull' notwithstanding, the differences with this project have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with community identity and spirit. You do not seem to feel any association with Wikimania, and have been treating anyone who was working on the proceedings here as though they were some sort of invading force. I regret this; and hope you will come to see things differently.

Given the very high visibility that Wikimania held and the fact that a Wikimania wiki was established anyway (see http://wikimania.wikimedia.org ) why could it not be started for the proceedings as well? I'm certain that as as new proposal this would have been fast-tracked through the new project proposal process and could have been started very quickly.... much easier and paltable for the Foundation board than apparently Wikiversity has been. If you think the new project proposal process is dying due to bureaucracy and needs to be circumvented, I would have to agree. Dispite Jimbo's personal assurances that no project is given special status due to its association with board members, the whole of this proceedings Wikibooks is proving that to the contrary. --Rob Horning 17:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

"Producing Wikimania Proceedings" is not a Project in that sense. It is a project on the scale of producing a single book; similarly easy to begin and difficult to complete. Please do not project your sense of the new project proposal process onto this discussion. I concur with the idea that we could start a separate wiki for academic content; this is probably a good idea. The question of the moment remains, why was this content removed with so little politeness or sense of perspective? Why did the work of dozens of people on hundreds of pages disappear overnight without any of them receiving a polite talk-page message? How can we improve on the process in the future? Do we need a process for searching google for inbound links when deleting pages, to avoid breaking popular outside-world links? Sj 00:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The Wikimania Proceedings is a serial scholarly journal (serial, because it is an annual event). In some regards, this IMHO would have been a perfect addition to Wikiversity, especially if Wikiversity is given "permission" from the Wikimedia Foundation to allow some limited original research. These proceedings, together with other similar scholarly content, need to have a specialized team of people who are capable of doing that scholarly review of original submitted abstracts and published papers with a point of view. From this perspective, I consider this to be an attempt to start a new Wikimedia project, however. It is precisely this major restraint on Wikiversity at the moment that I think Wikiversity needs to move out into its own space. As far as trying to make Wikiversity a seperate project... I've done as much as I or any ordinary Wikimedia user can do to get it up and running. --Rob Horning 14:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The *main* problem that you are entirely missing Robert, is that hundred of links have been broken. These proceedings were linked a lot by outside websites or blogs. Those following the links have absolutely no chance to find them back. All they get is an empty page. I think this is really something unfortunate. Since the beginning of the projects, we have tried very very very hard for this to never happen. When I joined wikipedia, the address was www.wikipedia.com for the english speaking wikipedia. When we turned www.wikipedia.org, links followed. When we later created the general portal page, the pages moved to en.wikipedia.org but redirection were always preserved so that our readers will never find a broken link, something very unpleasant on the net. In deleting even the redirections, you ruined many hours of activities, you ruined the chance to find an article which was linked only 6 months ago. On the net, this is a disastrous occurence imho.

Now, why not preserving the redirection ? What are the arguments for not keeping them and preserving flow of information ? Even if the proceedings are kept on meta (which I personnaly find a very stupid place to keep them), all the connexions to access them will be lost. For those who put a lot of time to organise wikimania and to have these proceedings, this is entirely heartbreaking. And I am not sure the benefits wikibooks gets in kicking out the proceedings outgrows the loss for our organisation. Anthere

I think Robert is hitting the main point spot on. The Wikimania 2005 proceedings are not within Wikibooks purview and do not belong here. Wikibooks at the moment needs some organisation so that it is clear what is on offer, how to contribute, what to contribute, etc. Re-introducing lots of text that is entirely inconsistent with the project's aims will not help in that task.

I'm also mindful that those who wish to find information about Wikimania 2005 should be able to find it. Is there any evidence that people are in reality clicking on those links, or, if not, is it possible to look for this evidence? For instance, to give one example of the items shown in a google search sj did, there was a mailing list post six months ago. Realistically, is anyone (1) going to read that now; (2) then choose to follow a link to Wikimania? In other words, is there a real problem or just a perceived one? Jguk 12:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

BTW, see also the VfD Discussion at Wikibooks:Votes for deletion#Wikimania 2005 proceedings --Rob Horning 14:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I want to add that I am not against a "general" redirection, just that adding such links would be a major pain in the a** and needed somebody with a lot of extra time... time I didn't have. If half of the effort to complain about this content and get senior Wikimedia people involved was spent instead to create those redirects in some reasonable fashion, it wouldn't be a problem. The main reason to delete all of the content is to keep vandals from making a mess of all of this content, and have somebody that actually cares to monitor and maintain the content. I still strongly object to people telling me what __**I**__ must do with my time as a volunteer. I am not an employee who can have his chain yanked whenever somebody "higher up" feels I'm being lazy. That is not a way to deal with volunteers in any organization. If there is a percieved need to recreate some links with a redirect to where the new content can be found at, OK, that seems like a reasonable request. Put it on a list of things to do by Wikibooks volunteers or people interested in helping out with Wikimania content. Just don't demand that one individual must do it or somehow lose karma, adminship, or money. --Rob Horning 14:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The interesting thing is that you apparently spent hours over a couple of days deleting hundreds of pages; so I'm guessing you do in fact have some free time. :)

If you used an automated bot to do the deletions, making a redirect instead would have taken pretty much no additional time.

If you did them manually, a little cut-and-paste shouldn't have taken much longer -- and it would take less time still to ask someone who does operate a bot to run redirects over them instead. --Brion VIBBER 20:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

And automated 'bots are absolutely perfect as well? On your undeletion spree, you undeleted several "images" that only included very minor text in the comments, and didn't return the images themselves. You also undeleted several pages that were clearly marked "please delete me" and double redirects. Furthermore, where should the redirect point to? One page on Wikibooks or individually to the page where the content was moved to? I was hoping that the VfUD would take care of deciding this issue as well.

I hate 'bots for the most part, as I think they tend to really screw things up, especially when there is a lot of personal judgement that needs to take place. And the transwiki of this Wikimanian content was fraught with a bunch of little decisions and stuff hid away in various namespaces, some orphaned content, and pages that weren't even named Wikimania for any part of the title. By going through this process, I also discovered some content on Meta that perhaps should be merged into the Wikimania proceedings content as well that was never on Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 11:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

---

The impression that I have so far is that most Wikibookians did not know about the large number of external links pointing to Wikimania05, while most Wikimania05 editors did not know about the transwiki notices that appeared on the Wikimania05 for about two months.

Some of you seem to be confused about what "speedy deletion" means. At this wiki, any exclusion listed on WB:WIW, such as the "personal essays" of Wikimania05 (WB:WIW#Wikibooks is not a soapbox), is eligible for "speedy deletion", which means that it can skip the Wikibooks:Votes for deletion process. At some other wikis, for example at Wikicities:Wikicities:Candidates for speedy deletion, a page does not enter "speedy deletion" status until after it is transwikied. --Kernigh 06:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I edited WB:ICT to discourage users from use of GFDL license for images. GFDL requires full text of the license to be always provided with the image, so if you want to use only one image from Wikibooks in your paper, you'll have to print the whole license (which is not short). Creative Commons licenses don't have such problems and I gave them reccomendation. I also created {{CC-self}} tag (CC-BY-SA-2.5 license) to be a friendly substitute for {{GFDL-self}}. Also, there finally is {{GPL}} template. --Derbeth ^talk 09:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 2.5 is the recommended license at Wikimedia Commons, so I see no problem with recommending it here also.

But the requirement to provide the text of the license is not the only difference between CC-BY-SA 2.5 and GFDL 1.2. Minor differences cause the two licenses to be incompatible, thus one cannot combine a CC-BY-SA work and a GFDL work into a derivative work (unless one work was multi-licensed). --Kernigh 05:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The problem with the GPL license for images is that the definition of "source code" is not apparent, hence the need to rework to make the GFDL. Unfortunately, the GFDL and the GPL are mutually exclusive and can't be used with each other (unless you dual license the content right from the start... and even that causes problems).

I was not aware of the issues of combining CC-BY-SA with GFDL into a derivative work, as that is precisely what Wikipedia is doing... Wikipedia is GFDL and as you point out Commons has substantial quantities of CC-BY-SA images. I was under the assumption that you could use CC images within a GFDL work but not the other way around. The GFDL does need some serious rework from what I've seen. --Rob Horning 11:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

AFAIK, images are separate from text. You can use any license for images and GFDL license for text - combining CC images with GFDL text is ok (and, as for me, should be normal). I wrote a note discouraging use of GPL for your own work - this template should be used only for screenshots. I hope anyone is aware that screenshots of GPL software can be only licensed under GPL, not GFDL?

When it comes to GFDL, I don't like it. German Wikipedia is trying to move away from it (some kind of dual-licensing, I don't know), describing its clauses as "idiotic". I'm not so much radical, but in my opinion GFDL license applied for images is not a free license, as it forces unreasonable restrictions (printing the whole license with the image). --Derbeth ^talk 11:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Hi all ! I started editing the book Oceanography - An Introduction. I base my book on lectures given in the university. The course was based on various books. I wanted to know about inserting pictures to the wikibook. First, if I redraw pictures with a vector graphics program based on the pictures of those bookes, do I violet the terms of use in the book ? Second, what about copying pictures from other websites ? thanks Fisheye 12:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I think redrawing is ok as long as these images are not something exclusive and uncommon. You have to decise whether an image is just a schema or original work (second one may cause problems). And copying from other webistes - don't do it unless their content is available at free licenses. I reccomend you using Commons, our media repository. The advantage is, you don't have tu upload any images from there here - they are treated as they were present here. --Derbeth ^talk 12:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks alot. for the quick answering. It is giving me alot of motivation to know I am not alone here :-). Anyway how do I know if a picture is original ? I guess they mostly use schemas in sceince book, no ? Fisheye 12:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

You must judge it by yourself. If something is simple and does not show anything new, I think you can safely redraw it. --Derbeth ^talk 12:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Please, if you upload a picture, include an attribution as to where you obtained the image, including if you took the image yourself. A good weblink to the source of the image is usually sufficient to verify the copyright status of an image and there are some people who are very good at tracking down the licenses. If you were the original photographer, you would clearly know if the work is truly original. As far as redrawing images as a scaleable vector graphic image (doing a free-hand sketch or something similar), I've seen various ideas suggested in multi-media ethics course and several legal theories about that topic. The real trick is to make sure that the content is somewhat different from the item you are trying to roughly copy, or is trivial by comparison. Doing an SVG of the French Flag, for instance, would be a trivial exercise and copyright would be hard to prove (except by the French government). Generally courts are more friendly to individuals who show creative expression, so if you do a starfish, for example, that is somewhat abstract even through you used the proportions and position of that starfish from an oceanography book as source material, you are fairly safe. --Rob Horning 11:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I think that non-loged in users should not be alowed to create pages in the main namespace except subpages of existing pages. The reason is that new users seem to get it wrong, and pages can get lost. Comments? Gerard Foley 16:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Sounds like a good idea to me. RC constantly has anonymous (and new, but that's a different issue) editors dumping all their book pages on the root, and it would be great to block it. -Matt 17:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

As it is trivial to create a new user account, I don't see what the problem is. By stopping anon users from creating new Wikibooks pages, it provides a speed bump for new contributors to try and take notice about what they are doing and make sure that they intend to create the content and keep it maintained. It would also stop the creation of pages like red-linked content that was copied from Wikipedia without giving any thought about how the book should be organized.

Question: If we agree to do something like this, who do we turn the request in to? I know this is being done "on an experimental basis" with en.wikipedia at the moment, but is this something we need to get general support for and throw on Wikitech-l? --Rob Horning 17:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't think that fact of registering would change user's behaviour. I'm opposed to such plans, because I patrol recent changes mainly looking for anon changes. I don't have time to check all registered users changes and it's easier for me to spot an edit by an anon. --Derbeth ^talk 19:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

This would be for root-level page creation (assuming it can be specified). You can still see anonymous edits of sub-pages where a lot goes down anyway. I think this is useful because it makes people think before creating some random entry somewhere. With restrictions to sub-pages, the editor has to at least put it inside something already existing. -Matt 04:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't think that fact of registering would change user's behaviour.

Only one way to find out. The second point about the recent changes patrol; have you tried using Special:Contributions/newbies? Gerard Foley 22:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Wow, that's really cool. Thanks! --Derbeth ^talk 22:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I added link to it to Wikibooks:Wikibooks maintenance, creating "Patrolling" section. I hope every of administrators has read this page. I also encourage normal users to take a look at the page. --Derbeth ^talk 12:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

User:Gmcfoley/CVG Books
What do people think of the idea? Feel free to edit this page Don't use the edit template link! Gerard Foley 22:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

There's a problem, because such templates are used twice: in normal size in bookshelves and in smaller size on the main page. Font size can be easily changed but the image won't resize. Apart from this, I think that if we insert image to every bookshelf on the main page, it will start to look like a christmas tree - even now it's a bit messy with all the development stage icons around. If there were any icons of bookshelves, I would rather like to see all bookshelves on the main page look like top of French Wikipedia, without development stages. --Derbeth ^talk 22:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

What's wrong with christmas trees? lol Gerard Foley 22:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Well, for one thing, a christmas tree might interfere with the next section. :-) --JMRyan 00:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Point taken! :D Gerard Foley 01:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

---

I thank that adding such images is a good idea, and that we do not need to shrink such images for the Main Page. --Kernigh 21:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

User:Brion VIBBER has posted a note on Foundation-l that may be of interest to the admins here on Wikibooks:

I've changed how the Special:Undelete view works a little bit. The last deleted page text is no longer displayed above the revisions list; it tended to be rather annoying for big pages and could make things hard to deal with if the page had hostile CSS (eg obscuring the buttons).

The revisions also now display the wiki source code by default, making it easier to examine the code of a deleted page or copy-and-paste if necessary. Rendered preview from there is optional.

Please copy this notification to whereever your wiki's curious sysops may be hanging out.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Just an FYI... --Rob Horning 22:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks Rob, but I wonder if WB:BB is not better place for such notices. --Derbeth ^talk 23:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks for the heads-up, I've now updated MediaWiki Administrator's Handbook/Page Deletion to cover this change... aren't wikis wonderful? :) As for WB:BB that seems a little under-trafficked compared to the Staff Lounge. Garrett^Talk 04:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

A new system message, check it out! The design I used is a little crap, but you get the idea. Gerard Foley 00:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I liked it so much that I moved the example here to Wikibooks. Thanks. If Wikibooks users think it should be tweaked or fixed up a little bit more, add discussion below. --Rob Horning 14:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

MediaWiki:Talkpagetext contains a link to Reading room/Archives/2006/February; thus it is broken when you edit a talk page outside of the "Talk:" namespace. For example, when editing "Category talk:XXX", the link to the article goes to "XXX" instead of "Category:XXX".

I know of no easy way to fix this. One solution might be to make the link go to [[{{Document {{NAMESPACE}}}}:{{PAGENAME}}]]. Then create a "Template:Document Category talk" containing "Category". We would also need "Template:Document Talk", "Template:Document User talk", "Template:Document Wikibooks talk", "Template:Document Image talk", "Template:Document MediaWiki talk", "Template:Document Template talk", "Template:Document Help talk", and "Template:Document Cookbook talk". We would need to protect these nine templates from edits. It is already reminding me of template nightmares surrounding the MediaWiki Handbook!

Maybe we should make it {{PAGENAME}} without the link. --Kernigh 21:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

This was pointed out to me on simple.wiktionary. I just deleted the end of the line. Gerard Foley 00:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I have matched that, and deleted the end of the line at English Wikibooks MediaWiki:Talkpagetext also. --Kernigh 05:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[]

There is an ongoing vote that folks should participate in. I have tried to make the brief summary below as neutral as I can. However, I am a partisan in the vote and cannot guaranteed I have succeeded. Here is the summary.

• We have been evolving toward a naming policy where only the slash convention (“Book/Chapter/Page” or “Book/Page”) is accepted in the main (wiki) namespace. A proposed policy was written up and a vote was taken. The policy was not approved, but the policy was amended in light of the objections. A version still recognizing only the slash convention in the main namespace remained a proposed policy.

• Offense was taken at cleanup notices for one or more books that did not follow the proposed policy. A long discussion broke out. The current policy statement now contains two competing proposals.

• In an effort to start the decision making somewhere, the page Wikibooks:Policy/Vote/Naming policy was started. This is not a vote on the policy as a whole, but on whether to require the slash convention for new books. Existing book names can, with some minor restrictions, remain unchanged.

You are encouraged to vote at Wikibooks:Policy/Vote/Naming policy. Voting ends at March, 1st 00:01 GMT --JMRyan 22:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Is it considered OK for people working on a book to change the development stage, or is that supposed to be done by a third party who's impartial? I think the Modern Greek book should be moved up from 25% to 50%, and I've done that on the bookshelf. Couldn't figure out how to do it for the main page, however.--Bcrowell 19:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

The box that appears on the Main Page is the template called Template:Languages bookshelf. This box also appears at the top of the Wikibooks:Languages bookshelf. The easiest way to change the status of Modern Greek is to use the edit template link in the lower-left corner of the box.

I have already changed the status of Modern Greek to 50%, to match the status that you put on the bookshelf. Book authors can change the development stage. I think that every user knowledgeable about the book should be able to edit, so I do not want a rule that requires third parties to adjust the development stage. --Kernigh 20:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks!--Bcrowell 20:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[]

"A redirect where it is unlikely that anyone will inadventently search for a page under that name ... is a candidate for speedy deletion." -- Wikibooks:Deletion policy

I, Kernigh, recently reduced the number of pages in WB:SD to 83 from more than 200. Many of these pages which I speedily deleted were redirects left behind after a page move. Deletion of such redirects creates the danger of broken links. Some users seem to have the impression that preserving redirects is always important. I counter that our old URI at http://textbook.wikipedia.org/ is broken.

In particular, I am deleting redirects when the module name does not include the book name. Many of these redirects were chapter names, thus they were confusing and misleading, for example [[Index]] (to Wings 3D: User Manual/Index) and [[Good coding procedures and adherence to standards]] (to Web Development/Good coding procedures and adherence to standards).

However, some redirects are a result of name change in a book, for example, A-Level Computing*, Guide to UNIX, and the subpages of those two redirects, and the obsolete hierarchies of A Neutral Look at Operating Systems/Open Source OSs* and A Neutral Look at Operating Systems/Proprietary OSs*. There are also "shortcut" redirects like BSD, DBT*, and LD*. (The * indicates modules listed in WB:SD.)

I do not think that we can keep so many redirects in our current state. I think that we have two options concerning redirects cause by name change in a book:

1. Delete such redirects - but we need to be careful whenever a user opposes a naming change to a book.
2. Establish a registry for allowed redirects, but delete the others. For example, DBT, LD, and the subpages of A-Level Computing and A Level Mathematics might be listed as allowed redirects.

Should we delete these redirects, or do we allow some of them? --Kernigh 06:03, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I'd ask for caution. Unfortunately "what links here" only lists links in WB, not on the other WM areas. Deletion of redirects here might end up causing red links on the other sites. Johnny 12:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

That is psuedo red link. Interwiki links are always blue (at the moment) because it takes too much computing power to check the link within the MediaWiki software, and some interwiki links (like uncyclopedia:Main Page) don't even go to Wikimedia projects. Still, see my remark about broken links from external sites below: --Rob Horning 12:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

This is an issue where the culture and practice on Wikipedia is running into a brick wall here on Wikibooks. On Wikipedia, it doesn't really matter if a complete nonsense page name like Contents is redirected to somewhere else. Indeed, it is the nature of Wikipedia that encourages redirects and the more that an article has... either misspellings or related terms to a topic the better "connected" the article becomes.

On Wikibooks, however, the seeming range of possible links soars to unmanageable numbers and it is difficult to try and determine just how far to go and be reasonable. The other issue is that redirects really do need to be watched and maintained just like any other page on Wikibooks. That is fine if you are talking just 5 redirects to one article, but if you do a title change on Wikibooks with a 50 module book (not uncommon), that one rename (even if just to change naming conventions) is now 50 or even more redirects that have to be added to a watch list, or vectors that a vandal can deal with. Indeed this is a vandal vector that is being completely ignored at the moment, and something our current tools can't deal with. (See bugzilla:5040 for a suggested change that would help here.)

There is a point that redirects become simply absurd, and at that point it seems to be obvious that they should be a speedy delete candidate. At the same time, it is very hard to determine (just as the recent uproar over Wikimania content has shown) if a particular page or redirect actually has something linked to it from outside of Wikibooks. It is especially these pages that are linked which we need to be careful with, so people coming to Wikibooks will know where the content has been moved to, with the usual double redirect issues as well.

I'm not so sure what to do with pages like Periodic Table that point to modules within a Wikibooks as a redirect. This is really where the difference between Wikipedia and Wikibooks is huge. We may not have a single periodic table on this project, and some minor forking of content like this is reasonable under the circumstances where two different Wikibooks would have very different goals for what they want to emphasize on this same subject. Wikipedia deals with this through disambiguity pages, although this has been seldom done on Wikibooks. Generally the approach here has been to jump to Main Page and try to choose a Wikibook, or run through one of the bookshelves instead to find the content you are looking for. Randomly typing in a word to get to a page is not done too often, as you are unlikely to actually get an article hit on the term. Modules having the word within the text, but not the word itself as a module name. Yeah, this is a tough issue. I need to give some more thought on it as well. --Rob Horning 12:42, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I'm sorry if i don't know well your procedures, I promise will learn them soon. The page Symptoms and Signs in Endocrinology has been copied from W:Ximelagatran an is absolutely off topic. bye The Doc 11:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Speedy delete? (I don't know how to mark for that...) Johnny 13:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

You can mark it with {{delete|state your reason here}} if you want to speedy delete something on Wikibooks. It will then get a quick review by one of the administrators and likely deleted if they agreee with your reasoning. Blatent forking of Wikipedia content is grounds for deletion, unless you are adding substantially new material or the Wikipedia page is going to be cut down to get below the 32K limit of articles. I'll look at this page, however. --Rob Horning 14:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

"Symptoms and Signs in Endocrinology" contained no useful content, so I deleted it. Next time, use the delete marking that Rob Horning gave above. --Kernigh 05:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I started this page in response to a huge discussion on Foundation-L about copyrights and specifically fair use issues on various Wikimedia projects. In particular, this reply from an administrator at the Italian Wikipedia got my attention as something that perhaps we ought to consider here on Wikibooks as well. The actual Italian Wikipedia policy can be found here: w:it:Aiuto:Copyright immagini#.28d.29_Fair_use

Doing some digging around, here are some other "policies" that are related to this to consider perhaps where to take this policy, and some things to consider with regards to this policy:

• Wikibooks:Image use policy - where a small section on fair use is already present
• w:Wikipedia:Fair use - the current guidelines on en.wikipedia. Note how unlike it.wikipedia they only make this a guideline and allow much more freedom to the authors.
• w:Wikipedia:Fair use criteria - going into more of what policy actually is on en.Wikipedia for fair use content

We've had a bit of discussion about this on the VfD pages as well, and I think there is a basic misunderstanding of the role of fair use within this project. You can't simply copy a bunch of stuff from other web page elsewhere on the internet and claim to use them within a Wikibooks module under fair use considerations. This is an attempt to narrow the focus of what is acceptable, and to make the content of Wikibooks more universally available, especially to countries other than the USA.

This is just a call to review what I've put down here. Feel free to completely overhaul this page as you see fit, as nothing is sacred on this at the moment. I would like a serious discussion about this topic, however, and you are welcome to be critical on the Wikibooks talk:Fair Use Policy page. --Rob Horning 15:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Hi! Would be good to get more feedback and ideas from a range of Wikibooks users to the ongoing discussion here. This concerns the grey area or fault line between Wikibooks and Wikisource. Hope to hear from you. Dovi 14:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Can anyone tell me where my book Coding Divert Sockets be shelved? I'm a new editor, heheh. --Nessup 14:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I'd think the programming bookshelf makes the most sense. By the way- can you look up my talk page and explain what I divert socket is? I've done some networking work and a decent amount of unix programming, and I've never heard of them. I'm curious. --Gabe Sechan 17:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[]

hi. I posted at the main page discussion regarding this. I have been eyeing wikibooks for a while now, but i can never get past the main page. Frankly, i understand that essentially what has happened is an organic sort of start up. But it looks like disordered chaos. Rather than just make noise, I copied the main page to my user talk box, and there, proceeded to make a list of reasonable headings for new "book Shelves", Considering what your content actually is.

Obviously, I am talking about a very serious re-organization of the main page. I was able in my early game to cut and paste away most of the books in the environmental sciences area in only about a half hour or less. This won't take a lot of time, and could be mostly painless, especially if done elsewhere and then troubleshot and then "moved" in.

Prometheuspan 02:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I like the french wikipedia main page. The little icons the compact layout etc. pp. It would mean reducing the front page books dramaticly. I think that would be good - but can only be sustained if the template are protected so new books can only be added by the administrators. But are we ready for such a step?

--Krischik ^T 07:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[]

---

We certainly need a major overhaul of the main page. I was going to propose one myself, but found things so cluttered already, that I couldn't really see how to structure a new main page without finding out what is really in Wikibooks. I have begun some re-ordering, and started a new list of all books on Wikibooks:List of all books. I'm going through all pages on here, tidying things up so that all book pages start with the name of the book, and marking the redirects for deletion. It's taking some time, but only then will I be sure of where to go.

Incidentally, it seems odd that if you type in http://www.wikibooks.org the first thing you see is link to the Old English wikibooks. We probably need to change that page à la what happened with http://www.wikipedia.org, Jguk 10:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I note that Agile Programming Language claims to be a Wikiresearch project (and also that wikiresearch is a red link). I thought we dealt in textbooks rather than research. Am I wrong, or should this book go to vfd (or be speedily deleted)? Jguk 07:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[]

No discussion is necessary, this is a perfect example of original research (being by definition candidate for speedy deletion). We are not a place to discuss and develop new programming language. I will write to the contributors to copy source of the book because we are deleting it. --Derbeth ^talk 11:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[]

This is an ideal opportunity to invite the development or project team to move their documents or discussion or whatever to Wikiversity's School of Computer Science! If it is a serious team that develops useful standards, introductory material, tutorials, etc. it could really help launch Wikiversity. Particularly if they start comparing and contrasting with other local materials for the eddification or input of other participants. If it is actually an original language development in progress and they succeed at the Wikiversity .... well every innovation and gold rush in human history requires a few visible successes to reach critical mass or a tipping point. If they are not the initial critical mass for us, then at least they will be ready and waiting to help absorb the public web traffic when some other participants at Wikiversity achieve fame, utility and slash/dotting. Thanks in advance for your valuable assistance in launching Wikiversity while avoiding the ire and bad press of spurned contributors at Wikibooks. 70.110.35.3 11:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[]

There is some discussion going on with the Wikiversity proposal to include original research under some limited conditions. As I suggested above with the Wikimania content, I think having a Wikiversity sponsored set of pages for some topics of this nature might be the one thing that can really set Wikiversity apart from Wikibooks, and realisticly require a completely seperate server with a seperate group of administrators and editors. I mention Wikimania specifically because it is common for a University group to sponsor and organize scholarly conference proceedings. I was actually involved at one point in developing a CD-ROM full of hyperlinked conference proceedings for CALICO about 10 years ago, and even presented a couple of papers there as well.

I realize that the real reason for the "no original research" is mainly to get rid of the UFO and alt.science groups (like free energy and perpetual motion machines) from contributing. A bureaucracy of some sort needs to happen if formal reasearch is to occur, mainly to weed out the really silly and far out proposals. When Wikipedia (and Wikibooks as well) was just starting out, the project participants simply weren't ready to deal with these issues and justifiably tried to stay away from the whole mess in the first place. There are enough legitimate scientists and scholars participating now that it may be time to get something like this going. It is however going to require some new policies that I think are better left alone within the context of Wikibooks, and we should simply stick to writing textbooks here. --Rob Horning 04:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[]

I noticed recently that there are red links on the Natural Sciences bookshelf:

• M-theory
• Quantum mechanics
• Quantum chromodynamics
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Quantum field theory
• String theories

Since these links are red, I suppose they belong in Wikibooks:Requested Wikibooks, but I'm going to claim that they don't belong there either.

I'm sorry if I come off as a naysayer, but we just can't write these books. We're struggling with introductory texts as it is. Leaving them on the bookshelf or the requested list implies that we might write them in the near future, and they might distract people who would otherwise work on more feasible projects. These books would need writers with an almost unrivaled understanding of physics. I'm going to be bold and delete these links entirely. Brian Brondel 03:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Please be extremely careful deleting Quantum mechanics .... in fact perhaps you should run some searches on modern physics or related keywords. There is a very comprehensive modern physics book with links to other volumes such as what you list above. It would be unfortunate if you deleted some University Physics Department's efforts to join or utilize Wikibooks as a collaboration zone for textbooks or class notes. Please keep in mind that a single student or instructor eventually talks to most of the people in his department or specialization over a period of a few years. Apparently related links:

• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_Physics:Quantum_Mechanics:Contents
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_Physics:Symmetry_and_Quantum_Mechanics
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quantum_programming
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Quantum_Mechanics
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cryptography:Quantum_Cryptography
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_quantum_atom_%28General_Chemistry%29
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Physics_in_English:Quantum_Mechanics
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/String_theory

There were another ten pages of links resulting from a search on quantum but you get the idea. About one link in five had significant text and equations that did not look trivial to code in html. Maybe when we get the en.wikiversity.org domain operational incomplete materials can start there and copies fork to the bookshelf when texts are ready for general public use. user:lazyquasar

By the way, there are also red links on the Mathematics bookshelf. These might be less impossible to write, but I wouldn't know. I'll leave those for someone else to work out. I think I've been enough of a wet blanket for today. Brian Brondel 05:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Red links are not allowed on the bookshelf templates and are only allowed in "suggested books" sub-chapters on the normal bookshelfes. It is better to move them to "suggested books" less some other inexperienced anonymous user adds them or something similar again. Please fell free to fix as soon as you see them. --Krischik ^T 14:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]

There is nothing inherently difficult about writing an introductory quantum mechanics textbook for someone with a PhD in physics, in fact anyone who has studied physics at bachelor level in the last ten years must surely have passed a number of exams in the subject (I did and that was nearly thirty years ago). Surely it should still be on the requested books list. If I were a student and I wanted a book it would seem strange to me to have my request removed simply because there was no one currently willing and able to write it. I agree that it doesn't belong on the bookshelf but there is nothing in the requested books list that implies that the books will be written. --kwhitefoot 17:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]

If you're talking about a book aimed for beginning undergrads or nonscience majors, I agree that's something we might be able to do. I consider writing any textbook to be a difficult task, whether it's about quantum chromodynamics or basketweaving. I've taken a quantum class and passed tests myself, but that doesn't at all mean that I can write a textbook on it. I think writing even a low-level quantum textbook will be a major challenge, even for a Physics PhD. I'll believe we can write a QCD textbook when I see it. --Brian Brondel 18:39, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[]

I have no problem with deleting red links on bookshelves, they ought to be gone. But I disagree that those topics can't be done. Quantum mechanics is only a sophmore level class. I had to take it as a computer engineering major. In fact, anyone who passed the Physics C (with calculus) AP test generally took it their first or second semester of college. Its not simple material, but it hardly requires a phd to produce. --Gabe Sechan 17:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]

Most red links on bookshelves date back to when Wikibooks was still trying to come up with a basic structure about what kinds of books might be written here. It is still a good idea in terms of trying to come up with some potential areas of growth, but I think Template:New has plenty of nice book ideas now that the need to completely make up nothing but new book titles is more something in the past. Often now on the various bookshelves have red links in part because the Wikibooks in red are deleted content rather than a suggested title, and those should have the red link removed. The bookshelf is usually the very last thing to be deleted when removing a Wikibook (due to a VfD or whatever), and is (unfortunately) often neglected by admins. If you see this happening, help us out, please, and simply delete the book title! --Rob Horning 19:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[]