Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2006/June

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

I searched for doom "computer games" course and found that Doom is implicated in numerous academic courses. There can be no doubt that game guides would be useful subsidiary textbooks for such courses. RobinH 10:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[]

We have discussed above that a textbook on Doom is within the scope of Wikibooks, but a game guide for Doom is not. No doubt a game guide would be useful if studying Doom academically, in the same way that a copy of a Shakespeare play would be useful (essential) when studying it in English Literature. But just as the Shakespeare play is not a textbook, neither is the game guide. Neither fall, or should fall, within Wikibooks' scope. Shakespeare plays have a home on Wikisource. Game guides on StrategyWiki (and other wikis). Links through to these sites, where relevant, should be included in textbooks, but their content does not belong here, Jguk 11:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[]

Please point to the discussion where a consensus on this point has been reached. I cannot find any consensus, indeed opinion seems to be split 50:50. In previous discussions Jguk has been adamant that consensus is needed, not a 50:50 split.

Shakespeare's plays are not manuals but game guides are indeed manuals and fall right on the boundary of what constitutes a textbook. This really is a simple issue, game guides are usually manuals without a course, they cost little to host, are not outside Wikibooks' charitable status or charter and can be tucked away in the library. The move to ban them is unnecessary. I suggest that with an issue such as this, where there is no down side for hosting, we should just let it ride. Why worry? Leave the game guides in place and any other guide that is awaiting a course.

Jguk, are you sure that you are not simply running with a single statement by Mr Wales? He is a member of a board of trustees and can only give guidance. The board would need to pronounce on this issue for it to be irrevocable policy. But it is an issue that only has a down side if we ban game guides. There is no down side in keeping them tucked away in the back of the library. RobinH 12:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[]

Please see the following:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge/Archive_19#I_love_video_game_books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Game_guides_on_Wikibooks

In both the above references there are comments about game guides being incompatible with the charitable mission of Wikibooks but, on closer inspection, this does not seem to be the case. RobinH 08:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jimbo_Wales

Wikibooks:Comments from the President of the Wikimedia Foundation

These comments show that Mr Wales is aware of the complexity of the problem. Notice how, as the discussion progresses he finds the same difficulties as we have found. The solution is the no risk approach, just tuck the guides away, dont ban them. RobinH 08:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_II:_STATEMENT_OF_PURPOSE

There is nothing in this that bans or even addresses game guides.

As I pointed out above, nowhere is there a consensus that video games should be banned. I find video games a bit boring and have not written or contributed to a video game guide. However, despite this, I would not endorse banning bona fide guides and manuals. If there is not yet a course for such a guide then they might be placed in a bookshelf for "Manuals without courses in educational establishments". RobinH 08:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Jguk 15:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[]

Here are some US courses on video games (courtesy renmiri):

• [1] Interactive Arts and Media Course Diagrams Columbia College Chicago
• [2] Video Game Design Schools & Colleges
• [3] Video Game Design and Development at Northwestern

There are possibly even more in the UK:

• [4] video game design
• [5] Game design society
• [6] Awards
• [7] Yes, you can even be a producer

Notes on gameplay would seem to be as important for game design as annotated notes in English literature for writing skills. RobinH 08:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Wow, if I only had time at the moment to write a full response. Perhaps later tonight. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Hello! I am happy to advertise a new tool created by m:User:Duesentrieb to aid better integration between the Commons: and local projects.

At the moment if an image at the Commons is nominated for deletion or even deleted, local projects that might be using the image get no notification. Thus there can be some nasty surprises when a much-loved image is deleted seemingly "without warning".

CommonsTicker involves setting up a special page on local projects (that choose to take part) where a bot posts updates about these critical events (image replacement, image nominated for deletion and image deletion), but only for images that your project is currently using.

You can see it in action here: wikt:Wiktionary:CommonsTicker

It can also be translated (if you provide a translation): see de:w:Wikipedia:CommonsTicker for an example.

To set one up, Duesentrieb just needs a local admin to volunteer to oversee the tool (at least initially, hopefully it will catch on and more people will watch it once implemented) and set up the page. See the headline link for details about how to do that.

So, what does wikibooks think? I am a Commons editor primarily and I think it's a fantastic development. But it's up to the community here.

--pfctdayelise 13:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Why has the navigation bar changed? The one we had was pretty good, I think. DettoAltrimenti 22:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[]

A textbook is defined as a manual for a course of study. It seems that this definition would prevent someone from writing a manual for a new course of study and mounting it at Wikibooks until they have run and advertised the course. It would also prevent old textbooks for now-defunct courses of study from being mounted (ie: super-8 cinematography, Servicing the Triumph Bonneville etc.).

We seem to have a choice of whether to exclude manuals that have no courses (such as some video game guides and cutting edge guides and manuals), to allow them to be shown like any other textbook or to put them in a bookshelf called "Manuals without courses of study". Of the three options exclusion seems the worst. RobinH 13:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Don't be too quick to declare that certain topics don't have a course that is set up. And Wikibooks is not just oriented toward college textbooks either. Can you cite a specific book (on Wikibooks right now) that is not going to be covered? I see merit in a Wikibook about servicing a Model-T Ford, as it is something that would be both facinating from an historical perspective as well as being something current and up-to-date by noting modern machining methods and parts sources for trying to rebuild or recreate one of these historical automobiles. Otherwise, Wikibooks is simply too new of a project to have very old content that needs to be archived or depreciated (aka moved to Wikisource or something like that) simply because it has become obsoleted. Come back in 10 years and that may be a different issue altogether here on Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 04:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree with Rob here. A textbook does not need to be related to a particular course of study. It does need to adopt a textbook style (and I deliberately mean a rather than the here, as there is a multitude of textbook styles), and it has to have content worthy of study. Our scope is textbooks. (Indeed, Robin, you continue to use manuals as well, that is wrong. We should not have manuals unless.....they also fit the definition of a textbook.) Textbook should be given its ordinary English meaning (the one you think it means even though it's not written down in the dictionary and it's difficult to express exactly what it is). It should be given a wide, but not strained meaning. And that does not require the book to be geared up to a course of study, Jguk 08:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

In which case are we all agreed that video game guides are appropriate for Wikibooks? They are often manuals without courses of study. RobinH 15:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The fact of the matter is; Wikibooks right now has not defined Textbooks, yet so many books have been deleted because they are "Not textbooks". Those books did fit the criteria for WB:WIW. If you think there is a solid definition to be set here, then I think WB:WIW should be clarified before any further deletions take place.

Second; what the heck is a "textbook style" book? English 3200 consists of nothing but questions and exersizes. There are no explanations for the answers, no "text" to be read except exersize after exersize. Yet, it is used as a book for some college courses. Is "useable" for a college course good enough to be named a "textbook"? And if not, then why not?

JGuk, all your responces on WB:VFD consist of a single line: "Not a textbook". There is an issue here, and quite a big one too. There is no metric to decide what is and what isn't a textbook. All I have to do is say "Yes, it is a textbook" to any of those WB:VFD and you can imagine exactly how lively a debate on this will be.

I can label German as "not a textbook", and there is no contradiction to that. In fact, perhaps I should to just show exactly how bad this situation is on Wikibooks, and how freakishly bad the argument of "not a textbook" is. --Dragontamer 16:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would define a textbook as a manual or guide to an existing and recognised body of knowledge. It would include high school physics, a guide to the streets of London and motorcycle maintenance manuals. If we adopt this definition we will not be in danger of rejecting obvious textbooks such as "A guide to the mollusca of the New Jersey shore" but we will be in danger of accepting slightly dubious textbooks such as a guides to video games and small villages in Serbia. But disk space is cheap and "Wikibooks is not paper" so does it really matter if we go too wide in our scope? It will certainly matter if we go too narrow and reject important new fields of study or rule out books that would be excellent study companions or resources for courses.

The definition also includes blue collar books. If I was running a motorcycle garage and someone brought in an old bike I would be over the moon to find a "Maintaining the BSA Bantam" in Wikibooks. RobinH 16:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I'd like to ask for comments about the deletion of Transwiki:List of tongue-twisters. It was a Wikipedia article which was proposed for moving to Wikibooks, and the result of the debate was Transwiki (see [8]), which happened on 18:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC) ([9]), but User:Jguk deleted it on the same day (18:29, 29 May 2006, [10]). I'm afraid it would be unfair to act against community consensus since nobody proposed, supported or agreed on deletion on the discussion page. I asked him for reversion on his user page and I'm currently waiting for his response but in the meantime I'd be happy to hear your comments. This list was a considerable collection made by several people during years, something that is certainly of interest by illustrating the differences of languages in terms of phonology, morphonology and morphophonemic, and I really doubt how it could be "not suitable for wikibooks", as Jguk argued at the deletion. Adam78 15:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I have emailed Adam a copy of the deleted text and noted why it is unsuitable for wikibooks and should not have been sent here by wikipedia in the first instance. I am willing to extend this courtesy to others (provided they are not too many), but really an admin on wikipedia should undelete the content from there to allow the page to be transwikied to a suitable location. Unfortunately, this is an example of wikipedians not appreciating that wikibooks' scope is textbooks and not books more generally.

This will need to be sorted sometime. I think my Wikibooks mission for July might be to go back to Wikipedia to educate them about us, and encourage some of the WikiProject participants in particular, to come here and write good quality textbooks (particularly some directed at school syllabuses), Jguk 17:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I think this should be done sooner than later. One of the things I did on Wikipedia was fix up the {{movetowikibooks}} template on Wikipedia to explictly note that if the content fails to meet the WB:WIW criteria for accpetable content, that performing a transwiki to Wikibooks is essentially deleting it from all Wikimedia projects. I think this message needs to be hammered home more perhaps, and the warning issued formally on the Wikipedia Village Pump.

As far as having WikiProjects becoming involved with individual Wikibooks, this is already happening in a number of instances. The Harry Potter Wikiproject, for example, dealt with the Muggles' Guide quite effectively, and the Astronomy Wikiproject has also added some substance to the Astronomy Wikibook as well. This is something that should be happening more, and it would be appreciated if there are some people on Wikipedia who are experts on a topic to come to Wikibooks and help flesh out some of the Wikibooks as well. I've had some drive-by (minor proofreading and technical review) of the book I've written, Serial Programming, which has several links on Wikipedia as well (most that have been put in by others than myself). In this case it would be useful for specific Wikiprojects that might be able to help out a particular Wikibook to come in and join with the effort. A general appeal to Wikipedia WikiProjects, letting them know that Wikibooks is something that can help out with their efforts, is something that might also have some merit as well. --Rob Horning 04:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Why so keen to delete? Surely this list can be classified suitably along with similar lists such as reviews of cliches etc and merged into a single book about the peculiarities of English by someone at some time in the future. RobinH 16:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree. Pages should stay in the transwiki pseudo-namespace until needed by a book. "Glurch", for example, could have been added to Wikijunior Big Book of Fun Science Experiments. --hagindaz 16:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I started my Accounting Interactions fragment specifically *because* it ran opposite to common courses currently running, but yet felt more useful because it was based on working world corporate practices. As one of the most stolid subjects, Accounting shouldn't be close to deletion, but I would be unhappy if my particular volume were marked to delete "because no course" yet runs the subject. Shouldn't we encourage innovative texts, and *then* inspire professors to try the subject? --TaoPhoenix

This is rather amusing. Wikiversity is currently in danger of activating with a mandate for "no courses". Meanwhile some people are rather insistent that "textbooks" created at Wikiversity must absolutely be transferred to Wikibooks when ready. So under currently proposed Board mandated/approved policies at the two Wikimedia sites, Wikibooks and Wikiversity, a popular learning trail at the impending Wikiversity could be running a few months or years have the "textbook" transwikied to Wikibooks and then the active studiers at Wikiversity be shocked to find their locally created textbook deleted from Wikibooks because no "course" is using it. I hope you guys have been around long enough for Roberth to vouch for your handles or the special committee and/or the Wikimedia Foundation Board is likely to suspect I made this up to back up a point I have been pounding on regarding local autonomy and policy making. I go now to stash an electronic copy of all pertinent text and provide the link to the powers that be appointed. Hopefully they will enjoy presenting it too Board Members at an appropriate times. 8) user:lazyquasar

Hi, I'm new from Wikipedia - so I'm not sure if you guys work the same way. I recently added this addition to an article. Is it appropriate to add a source in Wikibooks like it is in Wikipedia? Is footnotes appropriate, because I can't really do anything else in an infobox. Thanks, --DanielBC 04:00, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This is really not working. Genuine contributors are being forced to work around bookshelf edit protection, which was instituted due to there being no objections. Several contributors have added books that they started to Wikibooks:Requested books and others have added {{cleanup-link}} to their own books. I'm sure many other users think they either can't create new books or have to go through some requests process (no one reads help pages). I have every bookshelf watched and usually check my watchlist once a day, so I'll be able to revert any requests or vandalism fairly quickly. --hagindaz 03:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Any comments? As protection was instituted due to no objections being raised, could it be removed until some discussion occurs on the issue (as I am now objecting to the policy). Protection seems trivial and insignificant, but I believe that the growth of Wikibooks is being stunted severly due to the policy. --hagindaz 22:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

As a future Wikiversitium Alumi I favor as many Wikibooks as possible so in my ignorance I think it should be removed as per request until at least two votes can be found for retention. [[user:lazyquasar]

One other idea I would like to throw out is to add preselected red links to books on core, foundational topics to the bookshelves, like I have done on Wikibooks:Biology bookshelf. Many of the requests on Wikibooks:Requested books aren't about traditional textbook subjects taught in universities, and I think a greater focus is needed (though other books should also be encouraged). One way this could be done is by adding <small> Key uncreated books: [[Book 1]] - [[Book 2]] - [[Book 3]] - etc. </small> to the end of each section instead of lists with comment tags explaining that requests should not be added there. --hagindaz 03:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I will weigh in on the issue, for what little my opinion is worth. I do agree with the initial presumption that the bookshelves are especially prone to anonymous users adding in junk. Even if those additions are in good faith, they are contributions that either need to be rolled back (which is hard to justify if the edit was in good faith), or will to sit around as a red link forever. On a broader note, I do assert that high-traffic and "Wikibooks:" pages especially should be blocked from being edited by anonymous users. Pages that are highly visible, such as the policy pages, bookshelves, main pages, etc are as much of an advertisement for us as a community as they are functional navigation pages. Allowing people, even in good faith, to post any garbage they see fit to one of these pages makes the pages look bad, and makes the community look bad by extension. The {{cleanup-link}} was instituted just for this purpose, and anonymous book authors are encouraged to use it when possible. Creating a new book here, as we all have discovered, is a large task, and I have to question whether an anonymous user--who can't even be troubled to register a free username--would have enough dedication and motivation to properly start and nurture a book here. If they don't have long-term intentions to contribute and nurture a book that they are starting, those books are essentially doomed to become eternal stubs, which then becomes a cleanup problem later. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Garbage will simply be reverted. If a new user goes to a bookshelf, see the page locked (even after registering), and only sees a "suggest book" link, what is he supposed to think? I have seen quality books created by both newly registered and IP users. Wikibooks certainly never would have grown at this rate if protection had been instituted on day one. Wikinews has a "start a new article" form right on the main page, and while we shouldn't go that far, I do think full protection is not conducive to the growth of Wikibooks and does more harm than good. I think stating in either comment tags or small text that red links and stubs should not be added would discourage most users from posting garbage, which would solve the situations you described. Once Wikibooks has the level of "completeness" in textbook topics that Wikipedia has in encyclopedia articles, I agree that protection should certainly be instituted again. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but the {{cleanup-link}} tag was instituted in order to aid in cleanup. Users will never know about the tag unless they perform general cleanup tasks, which is unlikely for a new user to do. One alternative I would support would be the system I described above, which would "guide" new users into creating books on traditional textbook topics. --hagindaz 13:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would appreciate some assistance with a dispute I have having with User:Jguk. He has begun changing the Wikijunior Ancient Civilizations module from the original BCE/CE notation to his preferred BC/AD notation, and when I changed it back he threatened to, then, blocked me (ip: 65.115.220.89). The BCE/CE notation is more appropriate for textbooks and academic texts, and is preferred when dealing with non-Christian subjects.

He also tried to hide this message. All in all very disappointing behavior.

Appaling behavior if this is the whole story... input from admins please! Johnny 00:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Actually, it's beyond appalling. I would ask all concerned folks to please look at the history of this page. User:Jguk is way out of line! Johnny 00:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

To be fair, BC/AD year convention may be more appropriate for textbooks and academic texts, but it adds in an extra dimension of confusion for younger readers. Children, oblivious to the nuances of the politico-religious impetus behind the change, are more commonly exposed to the BC/AD scheme. That said, User:Jguk may be out of line here (i don't know from the evidence), but entering into an edit war, especially if you are contributing from an anonymous IP account, is highly suspect. The correct response to this situation would be to raise the matter on the appropriate talk page, and attempt to reach community concensus on the matter. I will look over the records and see if the block on IP:65.115.220.89 is appropriate and warranted. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

After looking at things more closely, I feel that User:Jguk acted correctly, although perhaps too quickly. First off, an anonymous user from an open proxy entered into an editwar, without ever once explaining the reasoning for repeatedly changing User:Jguk's edits. Also, this IP has been known as a vandal on Wikipedia. Entering into an edit war without explanation, especially from an IP address with a vandalism history, was a bad move on your part, and hence the proxy was blocked. For future reference however, such a case should not be labeled as vandalism so quickly, at least not without some sort of confirmation from a second user. I will start a discussion on the talk page concerning the use of the BC/AD or BCE/CE naming conventions. Community concensus on the matter will determine the way the dates are written in that module, in the future. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:47, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I will apologize if I've done something wrong, but I don't believe I have. It does take two to engage in an edit war after all, and if certain standards of behavior are expected from anonymous users, then surely admins should be held to the same standards (or maybe even higher). I hope that you can agree that labeling edits you don't agree with as "vandalism", and issuing threats are definitely not appropriate behavior. Attempting to hide complaints about your behavior is even worse, as well as using admin tools to win in a dispute. I have been editing here for many months without problems until now, and when I saw that something that I had previously contributed to had been changed for the worse (without explanation), I changed it back. User:Jguk then proceeded to change it back (without explanation), and then proceeded to threaten me.

As to BC/AD vs. BCE/CE, I feel that it would be a disservice to children to insist on using archaic terminology, and the are likely to be even more confused when they encounter the appropriate terminology used in other textbooks (as the majority of textbooks and academic papers use BCE/CE).

This is an example of a user who has previously vandalised wikipedia coming over here with a series of open proxies to make disruptive, trolling edits (as easily shown by the complete lack of discussion by the user prior to my blocking, and then using open proxies to post the old wikipedia complaints of "administrator abuse" as soon as the disruptive account is posted. Wikimedia also has a policy of blocking open proxies on sight. Please don't feed the trolls, and please someone block this "Julie", who is clearly the same person as before. Meanwhile, I will block all the open proxies on the list I posted to WB:VIP (which may have the same effect) Jguk 06:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Wikibookians may be interested in my response to a query Whiteknight asked me which can be found here. Some may be unfamiliar with the concept of open proxies, which this user was using. An open proxy essentially allows someone on the internet to be entirely anonymous, with no easy trace back to themselves. They are also used to circumvent censorship. Although internet users may use open proxies for entirely bona fide reasons, Wikimedia has found that in practice the overwhelming majority of edits made by users using open proxies are disruptive - being vandalism, trolling or spamming. Accordingly (and see m:WM:NOP) editors to Wikimedia projects are not allowed to use them.

Here we had an instance of a user using open proxies in order to try to disrupt wikibooks by introducing an issue that has proven very controversial on wikipedia. Once warned to stop, the user continued, resulting in a ban. That user then, instead of following the instructions on MediaWiki:Blockedtext which they would have seen, chose to use another open proxy to come straight to the staff lounge complaining of the usual things trolls complain about. I accept that I could have been slower and more definite that this user was up to no good before banning them, and will be slower in the future, but my initial suspicions have certainly been proven correct.

I would add that none of this has anything whatsoever to do with the underlying content/style issue this user is now mentioning - the blocks are for using open proxies and trolling. (This has nothing to do with vandalism, I only added it to WB:VIP as I was unaware of Wikibooks:Problem users, where this user would more properly belong.) There can, of course, be no problem with bona fide Wikibookians discussing any content issue they see fit - but that discussion must be between those acting in good faith with the aim of improving Wikibooks, with those who seek only to disrupt excluded, Jguk 17:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Contrary to what Jguk says this was his first message to me before he decided to block me:

Please stop coming to Wikijunior, a project that is there for children, and making edits that will only serve to confuse them. There is no need at all, as far as I can see, to swap one very common system of notation for one used only a fraction of the time and which has proven controversial almost everywhere where it has been introduced to the general public. If you do this again, you will be blocked. On the other hand, if you would like to assist in improving the book, bearing in mind its target audience of 8 to 12 year olds, that would be welcome. Kind regards, Jguk 19:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Notice that there is nothing about proxies, but more along the lines of "agree with me or be blocked". When I did disagree, he blocked me. I will also note that in each case it was user Jguk who unilaterally changed from the original notation to his preferred format, without discussion or explanation.

As for the proxy, I have to use one to edit from work. I did not know this was against the rules and will stop editing from work from now on.

This Jguk fellow also appears to be banned from en.wikipedia for this same type of behavior and for harassing other editors (particularly Jewish and Muslim ones). Should he be allowed to continue the same type of behavior here? What effect should the ban on en.wikipedia have here, especially when he continues in the same pattern of abuse?

It is most troubling that people of his character are put in positions of authority. He has also, again, threatened to block me for no reason whatsoever.

First off, we are not wikipedia, and what happens over there has very little bearing on what happens over here. Second, there is a standing policy against the use of open proxies for accessing wikimedia projects: this is a safeguard against spam and vandalism and is a valuable safeguard at that. User:Jguk has stated his reasons for blocking your proxy very clearly on WB:VIP. Also, you never disagreed. According to the page history, you didn't engage in any kind of discussion on the topic whatsoever. What User:Jguk saw was an anonymous user from an open proxy engaging in an edit war without discussion. It is a shame that you no longer want to contribute from work. This problem could have been avoided if you had a valid account, or if you gave us some kind of indication that your intentions were good. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

We are Wikipedian when Wales says so, here is a WP quote which pertains to certain obsessive behavior which might be frowned upon: My own opinion is to allow the people who go through Wikipedia changing BC to BCE and the people who go through changing BCE to BC free reign. It keeps them off the street, and the devil makes work for idle hands. Rick (WIKIPEDIAN) 14:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC) - Athrash | ^Talk 00:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Hello,

Mastering pronunciation is obviously one of the vital first steps in learning any language. There are quite a lot of pronunciation files stored at the Commons (for example, over 800 files just for German), but I have a bit of a feeling they are not widely utilised here.

I had an idea that we could create a "flash cards" style program/tool for language learners to use, based on picking random files from the corresponding Commons category. (Either that - or the textbook writers here could supply lists for appropriate levels, e.g. first level just basic alphabetic sounds, vocab lists for each week.) The program could display the word on the screen and after a short display/hitting a button, play the sound.

What do you think? The interface could probably be translated pretty easily. Then the same tool could be used by people learning language X no matter what their native language was (assuming someone supplied a translation for the interface). For example, there are over 1000 English files. It just seems like a great potential resource for language learners.

What do you guys think? A useful idea, or not really? If there are some people here who think it might be useful, I'll follow it up and try to find some techy-types who might be able to write such a tool. :)

--pfctdayelise 13:16, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Sounds like a great idea - particularly for our larger or more active language books (although I confess I am not a contributor of these). I know the person editing Modern Greek would be particularly interested in samples from a native speaker, Jguk 16:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

To me sounds like an ideal tool to help create content at Wikiversity if it is approved as well. Could become the effective basis for an entire introductory languages department. Go for it! Can not succeed big if you do not try. user:lazyquasar

Thought you might be interested in this article from the Rocky Mountain News: "Free online textbooks":

Free electronic textbooks for underprivileged college students in far-flung lands. That's the aim of a University of Denver professor and three colleagues who are using the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia as a model.

They've launched a venture to develop a Wiki-based system for producing online college textbooks free to students in developing nations. Wiki refers to software that allows users to freely create and edit Web pages. The four have sent out a call to thousands of professors seeking content for Globaltext.

"Our primary targets are students in countries where a typical college textbook can amount to 20 percent of the average person's yearly income," said Donald McCubbrey, professor at DU's Daniels College of Business.

Students could print the textbooks at a low cost.

For the project, McCubbrey has teamed with professors at the University of Georgia, City University of Hong Kong and Ohio University.

Their goals may not include licensing that's compatible with ours, but it might be worth communicating with them at least. Here is McCubbrey's contact page at University of Denver: https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?portfolio=dmccubbr

Good luck! Catherine 17:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

If they know about wikipedia, and they have done their research, I would wonder why they haven't heard of wikibooks? at the very least, mention us as a model instead of wikipedia (which is not about creating textbooks). I'll send the guy an email telling him about our existance here. If we could enlist the help of academia, it would be a great help to us at wikibooks. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 17:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Actually, I see now from reading a bit of material, that he is familiar with wikipedia, and that he is a driving force behind the XML book here. The main idea of his project is to utilize corporate sponsorship as a means of driving book production towards a state of completion, and therefore maintain prolonged interest among contributors. By securing corporate sponsorship in this manner, he is able to provide payment for valuable contributions in a manner that wikibooks would be unable to do. interesting project. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 18:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The nice wiki sunflower-resembling background image which is a part of the default 'mono-book' skin is quite a lot larger than what is actually displayed on any wiki page I have seen.

Since probably the wast majority of wikis users use the default skin, and wikis bandwidth seems limited, I wonder how much it would improve the load on the wiki servers if the image was reduced in size and cut to only fill the visible region of the wiki pages. I at least often see that image load somewhat slowly filling about 1/3 of the page height, for then to be covered by the page content and wonder if it could be consuming a major part of the wiki bandwidth. (I've chosen another skin now where this doesn't happen).

(I'm not even sure this is the forum for this question since its more general than wikibooks - but couldn't find a obviously suitable place to put it. KristianMolhave 19:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC))[]

I think you're referring to the image at http://en.wikibooks.org/skins-1.5/monobook/headbg.jpg, which is a closeup of the binding of a book that's open on a flat surface. It's 7881 bytes long. I think there are two reasons it's not a burden on the Wikibooks servers:

1. It's not a very large file. It probably takes only four or five IP packets to send the file to a user's browser.
2. Every browser caches images, so it is very rarely downloaded more than once every few days or weeks for the typical user. In fact, a user that visits Wikibooks frequently, may never reload the image, since it will always be fresh in his or her cache.

Hope this helps. — franl | talk ✤ 20:27, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

yes - sounds very reasonable - thanks KristianMolhave 23:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[]

In a not-very-related-idea, can we change the favicon to the Wikibooks logo? Commons: has done it so I presume it is possible. I'd hate to think I'm on Wikipedia when I'm not. ;) (Probably if you make a bugzilla: request the devs can do it pretty easily.) pfctdayelise 14:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Well, the response was overwhelming, once again. I made a bugzilla request anyway. pfctdayelise 12:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Please... I encourage all Wikibookians to subscribe to the Wikibooks mailing list. You can see more information and sign up here. For some (including Jimbo), it is easier to discuss things there. Just thought you should know. Hope to see you all there soon! --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

How is it easier to discuss things on a mailing list? --kwhitefoot 11:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[]

There is a single unified source for the discussion instead of 15-20 seperate discussions. Jimbo lives in email much more than on the wiki, so if there are things he or other WMF people should know about and participate in the discussion of, then the mailing list is the place to go. Kellen ^T 11:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Would interested admins please try and resolve some of the modules in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. It's getting rather large. I may have a go at some later this evening. Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I'll do what I can for now. Let me know if there is anything else that I can do. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[]

There are a couple I dunno what to do with. So I just left them as they were --Dragontamer 22:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would like to revive this request. There are 39 pages, 5 categories, and 118 images currently at WB:SD, some of which have been there for over six days. --Think Fast 23:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Is there a way for me to watch an entire directory, including any new pages that are created within that directory in future? Thanks, --DanielBC 10:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[]

No. If you have a single table of contents, though, you can use the "Related changes" link in the toolbox in the left hand menu to see changes on pages linked from that particular page. Kellen ^T 11:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Okay, so how do you do the TOC so that it reflects any new chapters added? So far I've added them by hand to the book I'm working on. Johnny 17:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[]

You can type in {{Special:Prefixindex/Booktitle}}, assuming the book complies with the naming convention and is not really, really large. This will give an alphabetical listing (using the Wikimedia alphabet), not a chapter order listing (unless you start each page with 01, 02, 03, etc.), Jguk 18:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I came across this website today: http://mitworld.mit.edu - it is an online database of lectures, and there are a pretty large amount of them. If anyone is still working on classes at Wikiversity, this might be a useful tool. DettoAltrimenti 21:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I am testing it out now. It requires download and installation of a "free" basic executable "Realplayer" which also has a 19.95 premium download available. If the free tool works well with the site content and it looks useful I will add the link to the online resources at the engineering area and start looking for appropriate places for some of the videos as I crash test the "free" capability. Thanks a lot for bringing this to our attention! I think I will go establish a Wikiversity Lounge link on the front portal page. Maybe we can get some indication of how many people are still interested and dropping by to chit chat. Lazyquasar 03:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

WUPS! It has spyware embedded to enable online tracking of DMCA enable content. From the license agreement while you are installing:

"e) Secure Content Consumption: The RealPlayer client may be required to send statistical data to servers regarding the consumption by an end user of content secured using the digital rights management technology contained in this Software to protect the integrity of the content ("Secure Content"). This communication serves to enable the content provider to calculate usage-based royalty amounts needing to be paid to owners of such Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners")." This has large potential hassles for our participants as the free culture/micropayments online DMCA issue heats up. They could be incurring charges from unethical or clumsy providers unbeknownst to themselves. Sure it could be staightened later and fixed but who needs the hassle of arguing over a couple of buck royalty with an American Megacorp? I am going to recommend against its use. Lazyquasar 04:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Try RealAlternative instead. And pester the people who issue files and streams using proprietary encoding to use OGG/Vorbis or some other open standard. Unfortunately a lot of the biggest players have already refused to change (BBC for instance started a test stream using ogg but dropped it). --kwhitefoot 10:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I created this template to help provide a service that seems to be commonly in demand: an automatically generated table of contents for a particular book. This template takes a single argument, the prefix name of the book to list subpages of. The template transcludes the "Special:Prefixindex" special page to do the dirty work. I've thrown together some lousy CSS formatting to make it look pretty. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I've created a guide for the creation of new wikibooks, based on my experience here. It's just a collection of my thoughts and ideas, so it shouldn't be taken too seriously. These are the general guidelines that I follow when I create books, and since I have created many (and intend to create many more), This will give some insite into what I do and how/why i do it. comments are appreciated. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

An editor, called "Primetime" on en.Wikipedia, has been revealed as a serial plagiarizer and liar. He was banned by Jimbo Wales himself and has also been banned from Wiktionary, and perhaps other projects too. His first contribution to Wikipedia was "Letter writing", which was eventually transwikied here. After he was banned several admins begain checking his contributions and we found that all substantive contributions were plagiarized. "Letter writing" was copied from World Book Encyclopedia, available online by subscription or free through libraries. I marked it as a copyvio but user:Trgj56 has been reverting it. He is undoubtedly a sock puppet of Primetime.

Here is a list of his known sock puppets on various projects. Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Primetime. The WP:AN/I page is still here [11] for the moment. And there's some on his user page and plenty on his talk page, for anyone wanting more information.

Could a Wikibook admin help with this vandal? Cheers, -Will Beback 07:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Thank you for this. I have now deleted the page. If you're aware of him adding any more copyrighted material to Wikibooks, please let us know (either by adding {{copyvio}} or by reporting it in WB:VIP), Jguk 08:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I left a notice on the discussion page of User:Trgj56. Not that I think it will matter. Now that we know there is a problem, we can be more vigilant about it. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 19:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Wikibooks has three years and we still do not have decent promotional media like web banners and buttons. I am convinced that there are people on Wikibooks who know how to prepare such graphics and I hope we can cope with it. We should make Wikibooks more recognised, start writing about it in the Internet, promote at school or university. Having banners and buttons which users can put on their websites and blogs would be really useful.

It would also be great to have our own "favicon" - a small image displayed on the web browser's list of bookmarks or on tabs in browsers using tabbed browsing. Now we are using Wikipedia icon, but I think we should distinguish ourselves from Wikipedia and prepare our own icon. The problem is that current SVG logo of Wikibooks does not look well when scaled down to 16x16 pixels: . We need to find somebody who will do it better. --Derbeth ^talk 21:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Scaled down, that favicon doesn't look that bad. I used to try and make pretty ones for my old website, and they never look great. It's 16x16 pixels, there is a limit to how nice it can possibly be. I have photoshop, and I can start to make some banners or buttons or something, but i'm no artisit. I'll give it a best effort attempt, however. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 22:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I take that back, I'm heading off to vacation, and wont have any time to work on this for another week. If nobody else takes up the challenge before then, I'll try to make some quick images. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I am skilled at photoshop, but that is about all so I can create graphics, ect. someone else will have do to the work after that. --Je suis 00:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I invite all Wikibookians to consider my proposal at m:Wikibooks/logo. Ramir 04:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I like it because it is easy to translate to a new language for the other (international) wikibooks, which are currently using the English logo, except the Spanish "wikilibro". --Je suis 00:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I've been working on and off on http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Choosing_The_Right_File_Format and I've now been asked to put it on a bookshelf. I can't see one that fits. One option is to add a category 'file formats' to the Computer Software Bookshelf http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Computer_software_bookshelf . Ideas anyone? --DuLithgow 11:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would probably recommend the Wikibooks:Computer software bookshelf for this. Seems like a good fit to me. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 12:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

There was another wave of Willy-on-wheels style page move vandalism today. This causes me to raise the question, why do we allow all users to move pages? Moving pages, like deletion, is an action that can fundamentally alter the structure of wikibooks. Page move vandalism also, is more difficult to undo then other types of spam or vandalism. Not only do we need to move a page back to it's original location, but we also need to delete the new page, which usually has a very obscene title. I can't think of a possible reason why move operations shouldn't be restricted to sysops, especially in this place where we have plenty of sysops to handle move requests. In a similar manner to the deletion process, regular users could request page moves through use of a {{moveto}} template, or something similar. Because a deletion operation is required to fix page-move vandalism, ordinary users can't even clean it up! they have to request that a sysop clean the vandalism, so a sysop always has to be involved anyway. And i know people are going to say things like "Oh but it isn't a big problem here now" or "but it just doesnt happen enough to warrant a restriction". What do other people here think? --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 15:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I think that there should be both time and edit number restriction for new users; they should not be able to move pages immediately after registering. I have heard from people fighting vandalism at English Wikipedia that new users aren't able to make page moves there (as far as I know, an user is considered "new" by the software for some time, I don't know how long it is). I hope we can quickly gain consensus here and ask developers from #wikimedia-tech to introduce such restriction here too. --Derbeth ^talk 17:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Yeah, I'm all about the whole "freedom of editing" thing, but i can't think of a reason why a new user would need to be able to move pages, and I can't think of any way to justify giving all new users that kind of power. If new users were prohibited from moving pages, that would cut down on the number of willy-on-wheels sockpuppets (and workalikes). If people don't need to log in to vandalize, they will more likely do it anonymously, and we can easily block the IP addresses. It just makes more sense to me. Maybe we should start a new proposed policy page or something? --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 17:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I am curious. I am not a Wikibookean. I intend to work primarily at Wikiversity when it activates. Obviously occasionally our notes will turn into a product worthy of Wikibooks. More often we will have groups and lesson plans and learning trails pointing at Wikibooks. Has it ever been considered at Wikibooks to add a group tag to the user accounts such that the existing authors of specific books can acknowledge each other as contributors to that book and be given editing priveleges? It would seem to me that most people probably work on a few books at a time and this might be a useful characteristic to add to the site. Might hamper free ranging editors and typesetters types if you have such. Just a thought I will check back for reactions. Thanks. user:lazyquasar

For most established wikibooks, it's probably not useful to allow brand new users to move things. For more loosely-organized books, like the Cookbook, moving pages isn't such a big deal and doesn't need to be restricted (though it wouldn't hurt either). Also, for new books, reorganization is more likely and probably okay even for new users. Kellen ^T 12:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I was under the assumption that brand-new users couldn't do page move immediately. This seems to be something that is inconsistent and apparently buggy with the MediaWiki software, and a reason why these sort of page move attacks have been cut down quite a bit from the past: a vandal can't waste the time necessary to build up a reputation of good edits on an account in order to kill the account with such nonsense. If this is something that needs to be "turned back on" for Wikibooks by developers, I strongly support that decision and would like to add my name to a petition to put that restriction back in for Wikibooks. Or make that something tweakable by admins & bureaucrats. --Rob Horning 11:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

To me this seems categorized incorrectly. If I were a new author making great progress on a text or had just uploaded a draft used in my college classes that needed final polishing I would find it disconcerting for someone new to the material or text to be able to shuffle it and then find I could not fix the damage but must consult an administrator. Are the regular contributors to wikibooks really routinely so friendly and reasonable with newcomers that such an expert could easily talk to the shuffler and have the damage reversed easily? Has wikibooks evolved a configuration management and change process to protect known excellent material or is that still for the future as it is in Wikipedia? user:lazyquasar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.110.43.185 (talk • contribs) .

What the hell is this strikethrough of my signature tag bullshit? If I choose to sign the old way and let the automation tracking software record one of varying IP addresses that is my business is it not? Lazyquasar 04:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Interesting, the link to the Wikipedia explicitly states it is a guideline preferred by some participants not a binding policy: "This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct that many editors agree with in principle. Although it may be advisable to follow it, it is not policy. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page."

---

I looked at my own contributions, Special:Contributions/Kernigh. Now I am one of those users who read wiki much before editing it, and my edit at 1 October 2005 was my very first edit to any wiki - logged in or not - except for one wiki running UseModWiki which I edited in 2004. Yet at 2 and 3 October 2005, I was already moving pages! I think that new users should be able to move pages because page moves are common on Wikibooks. In particular, a user that wants to move pages to satisfy the Wikibooks:Naming policy should be able to register an account and immediately start moving. --Kernigh 03:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I just thought this was already built into MediaWiki software and an unofficial "policy". While I can see some value into "allowing" a user to move pages, it was felt (and I agree with this idea) that reverting page moves is somewhat more difficult of a task than simply reverting a page edit. It can also cause a huge amount of confusion when it is done like the WoW attacks. By requiring a minimum number of days and edits (not necessarily something like being added to a special user group like being a sysop), it would help in cutting down the blatant forms of abuse. Generally speaking, what we are encouraging is that people help us out with adding and editing content. Doing a page move should require at least a little knowledge of site policies and standardized naming conventions.

BTW, the same arguments are being offered for even allowing page creation (adding the first edit on a new page) for new users. I for one support that same argument here, but that is something that we, as a Wikibooks community, should debate and shouldn't be up to just one person. --Rob Horning 16:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Can an admin please copy this over to WikiKnowledge for me please. It looks like I forgot it when I moved the Wikibooks Pokédex. Thanks, Gerard Foley 17:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Done. I used the "old" version, not the one it redirected to later. --Derbeth ^talk 18:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks very much! Gerard Foley 18:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I forgot this one too. Can someone copy it over to http://www.wikiknowledge.net/wiki/index.php?title=Template:PokemonOldIcePsychic&action=edit please. Gerard Foley 18:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Done. --Derbeth ^talk 18:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks again. I'll let you know if I find anymore missing templates. Gerard Foley 19:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This is the last Pokémon-related template I could find. Doesn't look like it will be that useful to you, but maybe it needs to get transferred over too. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 19:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't think that one will be needed. Delete away. Gerard Foley 12:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I have imported this template from wikipedia. Mirtone

On this wiki, blocked users cannot edit any pages – they cannot edit their own talk pages. So this template is useless. --Kernigh 01:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Have blocked users always been able to edit their own talkpages on wikipedia? Mirtone

With all the arguing over inactive administrators over at Wikibooks:Requests_for_adminship#Requests_for_de-adminship, I thought it would be a good idea to add some guidelines to the role of an administrator. The general concensus from the discussions was that a period of twelve months of inactivity could be used in order to be sufficiently inactive for de-adminship. This inactivity would also include spare random edits. For example, if an admin made three edits (administrative or non-administrative) six months ago but was inactive for two years, the "period of inactivity" would still hold as two years. The only solid opposition towards blocking the current de-adminships was in reference to there not being any set guideline for inactivity. I'd like for a discussion to develop here and get someone to add the decision to the WB:ADMIN page. Discussing how often de-adminships could be listed is another important thing I hope can be decided here. Once a decision is rendered I'd like to clear the old de-adminship listings and re-vote within the appropriate time period using the established guidelines. -Matt 21:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This is a good point, and it's something that we definately do need to nail down in policy. I think that 1 year of inactivity, or 1 year of sparce activity without using any admin actions (page deletion, user blocking, page protecting, etc) should be ground to start de-adminship proceedings. I would say that "sparce activity" would entail less then 5-10 edits per month, especially if all 5 edits happened on only a single day each month. 1 year of active contributions without using any admin actions should probably raise some kind of flag, and perhaps we could request the user to voluntarily relinquish adminship in that case, but we wouldn't put it to a vote. Once de-adminship votes are called, the admin in question should be notified by email, if available, and on their user talk page as well. If, during the vote, the admin in question comes in to defend themselves (hopefully with a good excuse, and a promise to be more active in the future), the vote can be terminated. That's my solution to the problem, although it might not be the best. suggestions? --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 22:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I see this as good reasoning. At the rate of which this place changes policy, anyone inactive for an extended period of time would be behind in policy. :-/ Overall, that sounds about right. --Dragontamer 22:17, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I like all of that but think a little clarification on returning admins is in order. If an admin comes back to defend his/her adminship, appropriate evidence towards becoming active should be provided. I don't like that if an admin simply comes back to argue the de-adminship that everything will go away. The admin will be listed there for a reason and shouldn't get a ticket out just because they came to comment. -Matt 00:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would like to point out that several admins have been de-sysoped as a result of the various requests. Those that were more or less unanimous in the support to remove sysop status have been dealt with by the stewards. At this point we are dealing with the other admins whose support for deadminship was mixed.

On the whole, I think somebody who has not been participated at all for a very long period of time should not have admin privileges, or should have to "reapply" to get them back. We are not talking about blocking these users, just that they need to spend some time getting reaquainted with Wikibooks before making decisions like deletion of content or other potentially controversial actions. In addition, if somebody was inactive for two or more years but came back and asked for adminship again in this situation, I would ask why and what they plan to do with the privileges, but being an admin previously would go a long way in terms of proving responsibility. They should definitely have a lower bar to pass to become admin again than somebody who has never been an admin before.

As far as what the formal standard should be for deadminship, that is up to interpretation. I recommended the 1 year of inactivity as a reasonable term, but this is certainly something that should be discussed further. There were people with much more experience than I have which argued that admins should never be desysoped, and that it was silly to even try. See the archives of the Staff Lounge for details, but there were some strong reasons given to not do the deadminship ever, at least for inactivity reasons. Certainly deadminship is something that shouldn't be rushed except on a temporary basis if there has been some blatent wheel warring, and that to help calm down the situation. --Rob Horning 13:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[]

What the previous de-admining discussions showed was that for some inactive users, there was clear support for de-admining where there was inactivity - but some required a clear rule. May I suggest that for all admins inactive for 12 months (inactivity to be defined as 20 or fewer edits in the year, 5 or fewer of which are in the month of the nomination), that they would be de-admined on nomination of one Wikibookian unless within 1 month they gave a good reason to keep it (which was then agreed to be a good reason by the community). For others with similar levels of inactivity but not meeting those requirements exactly, they can be nominated but without an automatic bias (ie there has to be a separately shown consensus for them to be de-admined for that to happen). All those nominated for de-admining to be notified on their usertalk pages and by email (if activated). Users de-admined in this way may then apply to be an admin again at a later stage without prejudice. The other case where we should have de-admining automatically are where a user requests it, or agrees to it - last time round we had a user so agreeing, but he remained an admin because (really as part of some wider issues) others opposed the de-admining (possibly without being aware of that user's assent), Jguk 21:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I have added the consensus of this discussion to the administrators page. We now have a clear standard for activity requirements now. -Matt 16:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[]

The how-tos section has come under attack last time I was active here, has there been a conclusion on this subject? IIRC, the issue was that the majority of how-tos were... how to say, unprofessional. I personally think that how-to should stay under the idea that they are stubs and can be easily integrated into a future textbook. --Dragontamer 22:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't think that there ever was a gigantic issue about it. There did happen to be alot of garbage on the How-To bookshelf, just like there is on every other bookshelf. However, the How-To bookshelf doesnt really have a "patron saint" to look over it and clean out the bad parts. The ones that were garbage got removed, and general concensus is that the rest are fit to stay at wikibooks. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 23:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[]

As far as I'm concerned, this is a silly topic to even discuss in terms of a wholesale removal of content. Any How-to books that are being removed without a VfD (or removed for other policies unrelated to being a how-to book) is a violation of trust by the Wikibooks community and admins doing that are abusing their power. This should not be happening, and I don't see why these books should be removed. Period. Certainly not without an extensive discussion about the topic, and perhaps the creation of a whole new Wikimedia sister project. The experience that I've had with Wikiversity would make me not want to go that course anyway, at least for a very long period of time. Besides, how-to books seem like instruction books to me, and fit within the definition (perhaps loosly) of what could be considered a textbook. It is a topic book that covers instruction about how to perform a task.

I would agree that there are some How-to books that are incredibly poor in terms of quality, however. Many of these started out as Wikipedia articles, and never really fit on Wikipedia, which is exactly why they are here on Wikibooks. Admins on Wikipedia "felt good" that content was moved to Wikibooks and that they didn't have to completely piss off the How-to guide contributors, considering that at one time How-to guides were a major Wikiproject on Wikipedia. This is yet another reason to not move them again without a very good cause, but I do believe that standards can be improved.

To help with raising standards for how-to content, I propose that we establish some guidelines that would go into depth and help us cull the very poor quality How-to guides, but provide consistent policies that would encourage new how-to books to be created that would be of higher standards. To do this, I have created the following project page:

Wikibooks:How-to book guidelines

I would encourage participation in developing these guidelines, and I hope that we as a community can come up with what sorts of how-to books would be considered acceptable here on Wikibooks. There is trash here, unfortunately, and I say that we get rid of that junk. Let's be consistent, however, and give a positive message that how-to books can be on Wikibooks provided that you meet reasonable quality standards and are not using Wikibooks as a vanity press. A one-page book on how-to build a bomb is not going to be acceptable. --Rob Horning 13:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Brion in a mailing list post announced that deleted images can now be undeleted. This only applies to images that were deleted after he added this feature. According to one of his later posts, "Undeletion links are provided on the description page if the page is altogether missing, and on the history tab if it has any deleted history." In addition to being really cool, it also means that all admin actions can now be undone. We should probably also update the various policy pages that mention the inability to undelete images, to reflect this change.--Cspurrier 23:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I posted the following on the discussion page of the main page of Wikiversity. I have since calmed down and tracked down the person who made the change, apologised for strong language and reaction and asked them to change it back or to compromise phrasing while we discuss our differences. I have no way to tell who protected the main page and why and it really does not matter as we should have a resolution of Wikiversity's status as an independent project within a few months. The point is an admin is necessary to back this large error out of the Wikiversity front page as soon as possible because I do not wish to lose ANY student activity or participation from random browsers. Thank you. user:lazyquasar —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.110.43.185 (talk • contribs) .

Administrator Needed to Correct Horseshit or Large Error on Front Page

• Publish your course notes (note that we're talking to instructors here, not their students), lesson plans, topical essays, or reference works for others to review, modify or fork.

Either above or under the above I attempted to add a bullet and found the page protected, any admin is requested to add the bullet while any interested can debate with me here why we want "students" to become "participants" at Wikiversity by "participating" in any way they please. Modifying electronic bytes to improve the product is cheap and easy way to help people learn something and is what Wikiversity is all about.

• Publish your course notes (note that we're talking to students here, not their instructors), lesson plans, topical essays, or reference works for others to review, modify or fork.

and

• Publish your course notes (note that we're talking to participant here, not their parasites or naysayers), lesson plans, topical essays, or reference works for others to review, modify or fork.

or simplify the entire bullet list by changing the damaging sabotage in the original bullet to:

• Publish your course notes, lesson plans, topical essays, or reference works for others to review, modify or fork.

The entire point of Wikiversity is to start with whatever participation we get and evolve towards effective materials and participants. Participants means however someone wants to use the site. Students, mentors, professors, teachers, cub scout leaders, self improvement clubs, entrepreneurial cliques, whatever. Discouraging student participation is a very bad idea on the front page.

Thanks Lazyquasar

See my reply at Talk:Wikiversity. - dcljr 08:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This matter has been resolved to my satisfaction. User:Dcljr and I are in effective communications about appropriate revision of the bullet in question and he has correctly pointed out that registered users can edit the page. This is satisfactory to me, this issue can be erased or archived from the Staff Lounge as per your community's standard practice. Thanks! Lazyquasar 03:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This discussion is now at Wikibooks talk:CommonsTicker ... please consider leaving a comment! --Kernigh 22:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This tag is appearing at various places in the Wikiversity pages:

Is it really appropriate to be shuffling Wikiversity pages now when it is about to be approved as an active project? Many of the newcomers returning upon receipt of the good news it is a go might be irritated to find their content or materials or structures familiar to them have been shuffled a few weeks prior to receipt of authority to proceed after a couple of years of negotiation with opponents of the project. Lazyquasar 04:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Do you disagree with the message? If anything, clearly separating Wiikibooks content from Wikiversity courses will facilitate Wikiversity's transition. And as Wikiversity has effectively been dead for the past few months, I doubt contributors will remember anything they wrote. With the exception of a few courses, no great deal of work has been put into Wikiversity, so I doubt contributors will cherrish any of their content (which is all still there, so I don't see what your complaint is). --hagindaz 04:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I do not disagree with the message. My concern is that Wikiversity materials should remain accessible from the existing link mazes. Certainly it is useful to identify them explicitly. Particularly if strays have gotten disassociated. What will not be useful is if material which should move to the new Wikiversity domain is delinked from the Wikiversity main page and shuffled off to another virtual organization. Fairly empty looking pages that serve an organizational placeholding function get deleted leaving a bunch of empty links. Material on Wikiversity is already spread out between meta and Wikibooks as a result of the chaotic stretched out project evaulation with impacts evolving new project procedures. Many of the people who spent time setting the current links and initial outlines of courses were essentially newbies like myself without a clear understanding of how meta or Wikibooks was organized. It is just an another potential obstacle which should not be tossed at a fragile overdue project. Might also want to consider that the initial activists at Wikiversity will set much of the initial tone towards Wikibooks. Do you wish to risk initial alienation of your natural customer base and source of proof reading and comments regarding your textbook products and even new text authors? Certainly there is nothing (with a few exceptions, a couple of schools are currently active) that cannot be easily recreated with participants. The interface between two emerging communities might be harder to repair. Perhaps my concern is overblown. I do not use Wikibooks with the exception of a couple of books linked to from elsewhere so I am not really familar with your organization or implications of this "tidying up". It sounds a bit ominous given some of the serious opposition I have seen towards a successful Wikiversity over the past year and a half. Lazyquasar 09:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

If I have done something that has hurt Wikiversity, I sincerely appoligize. But what is it that have I done that "risked initial alienation" of Wikiversity participants? I certainly have not been adding extra obstacles for Wikiversity, nor have I deleted any Wikiversity content. And as far as I can tell, you agree with me on that. --hagindaz 18:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

My apologies Hagindaz. My absolutely did not mean to imply that you were personally by intent damaging Wikiversity or its material that Wikibooks has hosted. I was trying to raise awareness of how the total activity of the Wikibooks community members mixed with the currently confused state of the initial Wikiversity implementation could have large future impacts on both community projects. My biggest specific concern would be Wikibookeans finding fairly empty pages with a few links (there are a huge number of them) and decide to "tidy up" by deleting them. People returning to the Wikiversity project after waiting for a year for it to get a serous start could receive a negative impression. Much of what is there is "trash/building scaffolding" and will be modified and updated by the Wikiversity community rather rapidly as long as it does not get sidetracked. Roberth has proposed a brilliant plan on the textbook-l mailing list to simply duplicate the Wikibooks initially on the new Wikiversity wiki and allow each community to delete or modify material it does not want in the database. I think your tags will be useful no matter what approach is used. Thanks for your assistance. Lazyquasar 09:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I think it is important to Wikibooks to regularise its content and tidy these things up. As Hagindaz notes, if anything this should also aid the set up of Wikiversity. I am concerned, however, at the eagerness to say that anything with "course" in it is Wikiversity. It is not - we have textbooks, and should have textbooks, linked into particular courses (GCSEs, A-levels, SATs, etc). Also, every textbook has its own scope, and "course" could be synonymous with textbook. Wikibooks wishes to be left with whole textbooks - not extracts of them because elements are duplicated by a new Wikiversity project.

The other question is what Wikibooks should call its (future) bookshelf for university-level books. "Wikiversity" would be confusing - maybe "Wikiuniversity"? Any other ideas? Jguk 07:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I agree. The material should be duplicated at both sites where it is not easily left in one and the content managed in a way that works for both. Regarding the name perhaps "Undergrad Library", "Graduate Library", "Research Library", or "Undergrad Electromagnetism", "Leading Edge Supercollider Reports", "Peer Reviewed Advances in Chaos Mathmatics", etc. Personally I picture Wikibooks as eventually larger than the Library at Alexandria or the U.S. Library of Congress. Indeed, if Wikiversity and Wikibooks work together effectively it is certainly possible the Library of Congress will insist on mirroring Wikibooks so as to be complete in their mission. Lazyquasar 09:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

You misunderstand, Jguk. I agree with your comment about courses. Indeed, I have called my French Wikibook a "French Language Course." Wikibooks regularising its content and tidying these things up is not a concern or an issue for Wikiversity. Anything with the "Wikiversity:" prefix belongs to Wikiversity. But some Wikiversity schools have had links to Wikibooks mixed in with links to Wikiversity courses on their "Courses available from this Wikiversity school" lists. (As an example, imagine if Wikiversity:School of History had its "references" section mixed with the "course listings" section, with no clear distinction on what was what.). Solving that problem would help Wikiversity become an autonomous project.

On the subject of what to call the bookshelf for university-level books, I think that Wikibooks should have one "books by audience" (or possibly "books by age level") link in the sidebar, right below "books by subject." On that page, there should links to pages entitled for example "Wikibooks:University-level bookshelf." I don't think we should be wikiprefixing everything. That will only lead to unnecessary confusion (and our existing bookshelves would then have to be renamed for consistency, such as a "Wikihistory" page). --hagindaz 18:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I disagree that everything with a Wikiversity: prefix belongs to the Wikiversity project - many of these are textbook pages. See, for example, Wikiversity:High School Physics/Motion - Kinematics. Is that not a page in a textbook which therefore belongs on Wikibooks? There are Wikiversity project pages with a Wikiversity: prefix, of course there are - but not everything with the prefix is a Wikiversity project page.

As far as how the reorganisation of Wikibooks (including what is in the sidebar) goes, you may well be right. As we reorganise, classify and categorise, we can expect to change our look to highlight the various ways of searching for things, Jguk 21:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I think its up to Wikiversity to decide what to do with its own content. If Wikiversity does not want the content or the content violates policy, then Wikiversity should tag it for either {{transwiki}} to a sister project (namely, Wikibooks) or deletion. --hagindaz 21:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't disagree with the point that Wikiversity can decide what to do with its own content - it's more the point that Wikibooks can decide what to do with its content - and we should keep textbook pages currently prefixed with Wikiversity:. If Wikiversity wishes to duplicate content, that is up to it - although I guess the WMF may be concerned if Wikiversity is to a large extent intending to host textbook material, Jguk 21:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

How is Wikibooks able to decide what to do with the content of a sister project? If content was created for Wikiversity, by Wikiversity, then Wikiversity has control of it, rather than Wikibooks. If a page is not suitable for Wikiversity, then Wikiversity contributors (including you and me) should either delete it or transwiki it to a sister project (which in this case would be Wikibooks). --hagindaz 22:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Hagindaz has summarized my position on Wikiversity nicely. However, there have been vocal participants in the proposal/scope definition who are adamant about no duplication of materials. Whether they have a significant prescence in the soon to be active Wikiversity community remains to be seen. Regarding the page as per Jguk's query. This is precisely a page of notes not a page in a textbook unless someone does some work preparing to insert it. It has three links only, all of them to defining articles at Wikipedia regarding fundamental concepts. Since it is FDL'ed material there is no problem forking it into a page in a textbook with appropriate credit back to its originator at Wikiversity. There is a severe problem from someone grabbing this unilaterally (editing boldly) and moving over to the middle of a Wikibook in the middle of a small group of students trying to study asynchronously over the internet and leave a valuable learning trail behind. It would not take much disruption from activities like this for student/participants to decide the overhead is too high, Wikiversity is non viable concept, that they should study in private elsewhere. Lazyquasar 09:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[]

In 2002 I wrote a book about designing books on a computer. At the time there were no such books. There were a few old, pre-computer-era books about book design. There were a few newer books showing examples of radical, cutting edge book designs. But there was nothing showing you how to take the manuscript you wrote in MS Word and turn it into a professional-looking book.

Many, if not most, books I see that are designed by pro book designers are badly designed (e.g., a bibliography instead of referencing sources, or type too small for an average person to read without eye strain). Self-published books often look really awful. I saw a statistic that something like 12,000 new publishers registered with R.R.Bowker last year. The self-published/small press market is exploding. There's a real need for a book about designing books.

But I'm not a pro book designer. For example, under "choosing fonts" I more or less said to use serif fonts for text and san-sarif for headings. An expert would have far more to say on that subject.

Also I showed how to use MS Word. Pro book designers were shocked&#151;SHOCKED!&#151;when I said that MS Word can do everything, and more, and easier, than LaTEX, PageMaker, etc. It was like I'd gone to a Harley rally on my Kawasaki. The book could really use some LaTEX and InDesign experts expanding sections to say, "Here's how you do this in MS Word, and here's how you do it in LaTEX, and here's how you do it in InDesign" etc.

I shopped the manuscript around to several publishers, and they said "good idea, but it's not the kind of book we publish." Yes, I knew that. That's why I write books different from they publish. If I wrote books the same as what they publish, I wouldn't be writing new books. Speaking of which, I'll post another topic with some ideas for books that no one has written.

IMHO this is a perfect project for a Wikibook. If anyone has way too much time on their hands, please download the manuscript from my website. If you like what you see, feel free to reformat it and start a WikiBook. Is there a form I should sign to release my rights?

In the next few days I'll post a similar request regarding a relationships book I wrote that no one bought.--Thomas David Kehoe 18:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

It would be great if you are willing to donate this book (essentially by releasing it under GFDL. All I think we need to do is ask you to confirm a few things:

1. Do you own all the rights? For example, if your company has exclusive publishing rights, it would also have to waive these.
2. Are you willing to release the book under GFDL? (This could severely restrict your ability to make money out of the text in the future)
3. Are you willing for the text, once on Wikibooks, to be edited mercilessly by others (potentially in ways with which you may disagree)?

If you can answer all three of those questions in the affirmative, then just say here that you are releasing the book under GFDL (in view of your existing history here at WB, I think we have enough to go on to confirm your identity! :) ). It would also be useful to know what sort of review has been done on the text - is it just you, or has it been peer reviewed (and if so, details of this review would be helpful)?, Jguk 21:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Yes, yes, and yes. Except that the chapter on fonts must say that Times Roman is the greatest font ever. Just kidding. :-)

I read the GFDL but I can't say that I understand all of it. What happens with parallel books? Let's say that I hand over "Basic Book Design" to Wikibooks and a cadre of geeks rewrites it recommending LaTEX. Then I buy a bunch of Adobe stock, rewrite the book ro recommend InDesign, and sell a zillion copies to get more people to buy Adobe products. Meanwhile, the original version, which recommends MS Word, develops a cult following and is passed hand to hand, as a cherished object, among devotees who find hidden messages in MS Word. They annotate my manuscript with these hidden messages. Three versions are then developing and circulating in parallel. Is anyone violating any license?

For reviews, I posted on a Usenet newsgroup for desktop publishing how to download the book from my website and send me comments. One woman was very helpful. Someone else was extremely offended that I recommended Times Roman and MS Word. The usual response from the Usenet.--Thomas David Kehoe 03:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I've started importing this on Basic Book Design. It would be useful, if you've got the time, to go through it and make sure that it looks out to you in wikitext format. I'm also (through incompetence, I think) to mimic some of the formatting you use in your examples. Where this is happening, I'm placing the books in Category:Formatting help required. If anyone knows how to sort this out - please do so! :) Jguk 07:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

"I read the GFDL but ...". If you mean 'can I stop that happening?' then the answer is yes but only as long as you don't publish it here. The 'solution',if it is one, would be to use invariant sections to fix certain parts of the book. But the rule here is 'No invariant sections, no front or back cover texts', see Wikibooks:Copyrights. --kwhitefoot 10:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The GFDL uses copyright law to assure that anyone else who modifies your material and publishes must also use the GFDL. However, you are the original copyright holder and you can put it out under parallel licenses. If you do this the book will essentially fork and begin evolving in different directions. The GFDL'ed version here at Wikibooks could be downloaded and forked to a new version using the GFDL with new materials added but only you can put out a fork using a different license on the original material. Lazyquasar 04:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

As a small publisher I notice subjects about which no books exist. Some of these may be good Wikibook projects. I haven't checked if there are good Wikipedia articles on these subjects.

• Birth control. There are zillion fertility books, for women who want to get pregnant. There are no books for women who don't want to get pregnant. The closest is an excellent chapter in "Our Bodies, Our Selves." My guess is that publishers are afraid of getting boycotted by Catholics or something.
• Scientific research into astrological phenomenon. There's been excellent research in this field, disproving some astrological claims (e.g., that newspaper Zodiac columns are non-fiction), yet proving other astrological claims beyond the shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a doubt (e.g., that champion athletes tend to be born after Mars rises or passes overhead).
• A book (or website) about videos children can make. E.g., how to make your own horror movie. Or simple special effects, such as climbing along a fallen tree with cross-fades of a standing tree making it look like the kid is climbing high in a tree.--Thomas David Kehoe 19:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[]

All of these are interesting topics. I would urge caution with the astrology book as it would skirt very close to the original research prohibition on WB:WIW, and I have extreme skepticism that there is anything at all to astrological research. Newspaper Zodiac columns, from my viewpoint, are fiction. While some famous astronomers also were published astrologers, that was more than 400 years ago when it was widespread. If you (or anybody) could show a published research paper on astrological phenomena that was published in A) the last 50 years or so and B) was in a major respected scientific journal such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, or even Sky and Telescope, I would be very much interested in reading that research. It doesn't have to be these exact journals, but certainly something that is widely recognized within the scientific community as a respected publication. The Russian Science Academy may have some articles on the topic now that I think about it. --Rob Horning 19:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Do you have any children? Do you remember how you thought when you were one? Not sure encouraging them to make horror movies would be a good idea just think how realistic they could get :-)) . On astrology and the Mars effect etc, you could start by going through the weekly New Scientist magazine for pointers, I think that the Mars effect has actually been discredited or at least it is certainly not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt (not even one shadow let alone three), take a look at http://www.skepsis.nl/mars.html for a discussion of the various experiments that have been performed in this field. As the effect is still very much disputed it would hardly be a suitable topic for an astrology text book but it would be very suitable as a case study for an advanced statistics text. I can't see any wikibooks policy reason why a textbook of astrology as such should not appear on Wikibooks. After all there are astrologers who do the various arcane calculations and presumably they don't all invent them for themselves so there must be texts that treat the subject, that is textbooks. "astrology classes" gets 19k hits on Google so there are classes and presumably textbooks too. Is there a rule that says that the claims made for an activity must be true before a textbook in that field can be created on Wikibooks? This could be an interesting dicsussion. --kwhitefoot 10:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Actually, yes, I do have children. Six of them to be exact. And yeah, I guess there is some reverse psycology that could be at play here. Still, my arguments that we should avoid cranks and unproven research still should apply to such a book. As has been pointed out, the gravitational pull of the doctor (or nurse midwife) was greater at your birth than that of Mars. I have extreme skepticism on this particular topic being anything other than pure fiction, and I would consider it such if a bunch of horoscopes appeared on Wikibooks proporting to be anything else. As far as a solid book to discuss astrology as a Wikibook topic, I have no problem for such a book to exist. I might not contribute, but it would be interesting to see a book on the history of Astrology. It would be very difficult, from my viewpoint, to maintain NPOV or no original research standards. --Rob Horning 16:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The 'do you have children' question was really addressed to Thomas David Kehoe; I often fail to make it clear to which of the participants of the conversation I am addressing a remark, sorry. How do you have time to do any Wikibooks stuff with six, I only have three and that's plenty. --kwhitefoot 18:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I wasn't intending to start a flame-war about astrology. What I've read is the Gauqulin book on the Mars Effect, the article in the Skeptical Enquirer (winter 1991-92) by Suitbert Ertel about the Mars Effect (the quote I remember from the editor was "astrology is the only field of the paranormal that, when scientifically investigated, is vindicated"), plus the Center for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOPS, founded by Carl Sagen) study of the Mars Effect.

Regarding children and horror movies, I was thinking of fun cheesy horror movies. E.g., how to make a coffin out of cardboard boxes, how to make a vampire costume and fake blood, what lines Dracula always says ("I vant to drink your blood!"). But introducing play therpy is also possible, i.e., making a horror movie about what really does scare kids. E.g., your grandpa who always wants to show you his heart surgery scar, show you how he takes his insulin shots, show you his false teeth, etc. could be a zombie who wants to show you his heart surgery scar, etc. Or a kid is scared about moving to a new town and starting in a new school. What if his fears are justified -- the kids at the new school really are vampires and werewolves? :-)--Thomas David Kehoe 20:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would like to transform Conic Sections into a more organized, complete module. I would like, at least, to dedicate myself to it until it's done enough. With the approval of any who read this, I propose to do the following:

1. Send the current page to Conic Sections/Old Page by copying the Wiki source code
2. Set up another main page, with the following basic contents (in any order):
   • Planes though Cones
     1. Circles
     2. Ellipses
     3. Parabolas
     4. Hyperbolas
   • Features of Conic Sections
     1. Eccentricity
     2. Foci, Loci, Directrix
   • In Analytical Geometry
     1. General Equation Form (Ax^2+Bxy+...Ey+F=0)
     2. Translation of Axes
     3. Horizontal/Vertical Scaling
     4. Rotation of Axes
     5. Rotation of Axes: Examples

I know a fair amount about Conic Sections, mostly from individual work.

Also, I have much experience with WikiFormatting, so this shouldn't be a problem. I've read several of the WikiBook editing and content guidelines. Unfortunately, I'm not that good at LaTeX, Although I'm proficient at a half-similar language (Open Office Math). I've picked LaTeX up easily before, and then forgotten it, so why shouldn't I learn it easily again?

So that's my situation and proposal. Any good? Gracenotes ^T § 01:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The wiki already saves old pages in the history, so I would not make an "/Old Page". Just begin editing the main Conic Sections page! --Kernigh 02:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Can someone delete Study Guide for CFA Exam Level III and "Study Sessions" section of Study Guide for CFA Exam Level 1? These modules were mentioned as copyright violation by a CFA lawyer writing to Wikipedia's OTRS, which was reported to me at IRC by Amgine. At the moment I don't have time to do it. --Derbeth ^talk 19:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Done. Gentgeen 20:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Can somebody explain why this wasn't done through the normal copyvio process on Wikibooks? While I understand that lawyers and others want to make official cease and desist letters and threaten the WMF, it should still be something that is investigated and the user who added the content allowed to defend why the content was added. At the very least, and something that Amgine could have done was to simply add the {{copyvio}} tag to the page. Is this an unusual process for other Wikimedia projects?

I can understand, however, that the OTRS didn't want to make a big deal out of this on the Staff Lounge. I also don't want to do a knee jerk deletion of all content simply because somebody has asked for it to be deleted. It is at least possible that some content on Wikibooks is being copied onto other websites or places first, or that it may be "politically incorrect" to have some Wikibooks content that the contributors here are just fine with. In addition, I would question all of the edits of known copyvio users. --Rob Horning 17:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

At present, there's no single list of completed books or books usable in a classroom in use. I have attempted to combine {{Highlighted}} and Wikibooks:Book of the month bookshelf / Wikibooks:Book of the month on Wikibooks:Featured books, which I modeled after w:Wikipedia:Featured articles. The page has forty-two books listed (fifteen books of the month and twenty-seven other books), about the number of one bookshelf. The inclusion criteria I chose is that a listed book should be:

1. Usable in its current state to effectively teach the subject in a classroom
2. Near completion (few red-linked chapters or stubs)
3. Organized effectively by chapters, following Wikibooks style rules and naming convention, and containing no confusing pages, encyclopaedia articles, or orphans
4. Accompanied by a PDF version of at least 100 pages

Voting on a book would be needed in order to bold a book. As the number of quality books grows, I see the featured status criteria becoming more strict, and books that haven't improved to meet the new criteria being removed. I have also included a list of good Wikibooks that should become featured in the near future. I would like the page to replace the {{Highlighted}} template and to be listed on the sidebar, like the Wikipedia version. So what does everyone think? --hagindaz 00:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Some of those requirements (like having a 100+ page PDF) are pretty steep, but it seems like it could be done over time. I just don't think too many books will become featured as of now if we stick to those requirements. A good goal for books perhaps. I'm positive some of the listed books don't meet all the requirements, but maybe you listed them as future possibilities. -Matt 01:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I plan to create PDFs for books already listed that don't already have them sometime soon. If a book doesn't meet any other requirement, then please remove it or move it down to "Good Wikibooks." As for the criteria, if anything, I thought that there would be comments on them being too lenient. But my view is that they should start at "barely passable as a textbook" and slowly improve, so please lower them if you like. --hagindaz 02:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

This is very useful and will help readers. It is a shame there are not more high school books in the list. RobinH 17:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Can someone help me? How do I link to wikibooks when editing a page? If I use Whatever, it links only to pt.wikipedia. How do I link to that page in wikibooks?

Bonafé 22:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Well, from Wikibooks in a different language, you can do it like this Wikijunior. This will provide an interwiki link to the English wikibooks, but not on the sidebar. For the one above (from a different language Wikibooks to the Portuguese Wikibooks), you could do whatever. Or did you mean from a different language Wikipedia to English Wikibooks? Clarification? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 01:37, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Try pt:Whatever. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 13:41, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Improvised munitions? I don't want to turn this into WikiAnarchistCookbook, but I would like to write a guide or two on various improvised explosive devices.

A book on fireworks would be amusing but be careful of modern anti-terrorist legislation. In many countries you could be jailed just for having a book on how to make munitions. (What has the world come to?) RobinH 08:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The jails will be full of physicists (one of the standard exercises for undergraduate physics sudents is to determine the necessary quanties of plutonium or uranium required to make a small nuclear bomb) and chemical and automotive engineers (details of explosive mixtures are rather important if you want to make sure that an internal combustion engine goes or want to make sure that an oil refinery stays). --kwhitefoot 11:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Cyclonite synthesis, and thermite synthesis, as well as another explosive synthesis are on wikibooks, under chemical synthesis(I have still not got the hang of linking on wikibooks). They were controversial, but are now accepted. Try to avoid stuff looking at it from the point of view of the wrongdoer. Expressions such as 'enough to blow your hand off' are probably ok as a safety warning, 'enough to blow up a car' probably not ok. I have taken an interest in what ssort of stuff like this has been allowed. If you want to contact me please leave message on my talk page here, or on the English wikipedia(Dolive21), which I use more.Dolive35 18:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Hi, I'm new. I'd like to add my vote to a proposed wikijunior book about the alphabet but the page for current voting on this (3rd) quarter seems to be locked?? and no one can edit? to add their vote. I'm I missing something or did I do something wrong? Thanks. Christystockman 07:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[]

It was meant to be protected to prevent unregistered users from editing. However, I tested this with a new account, and it was preventing that from editing too. I have therefore unprotected the page - so you should be able to edit it now. If the problems that gave rise to the initial protection recur, we will need to consider reprotecting, Jguk 08:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[]

There are a number of books in the Automotive Engineering bookshelf that don't actually have anything to do with engineering. Some of these books can certainly stay, but alot of them are simply shelved in the wrong place. I have considered moving some of them to the How-To bookshelf, but not all of them can go there. I would like to keep the entire body of automotive materials together, but I need a good home for them. Should I move them to the Miscellaneous bookshelf? Here is a list of books that I am talking about:

• Automobile repair
• Car maintenance
• Choosing a Car
• Engine repair
• Ford Escape Hybrid
• Nissan 240SX Performance Modification
• Suzuki UC125
• Toyota Prius

--Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 05:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[]

"Automotive books" in the edit summary made me think that these should be lively books. Methinks a "transport" category is necessary at least (we also have books on bicycles that could go in that category too). I'll start one. Anyone who wants to help me turn Category:Transport into a bookshelf is welcome, Jguk 07:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[]

That makes good sense to me, Wikipedia does have a "transport" portal for topics like this. I am thinking perhaps that this solution is short-sighted. Howabout the creation of a "technology" bookshelf, for things that are technological in nature, but that dont fit the definition of "science" or "engineering"? We could certainly include a Transport section on that bookshelf. I'll snoop around a bit and see if there are enough technology-related books on other shelves that could be moved to a new technology bookshelf. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 14:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Being Bold. I created such a bookshelf at Wikibooks:Technology bookshelf. I don't know what all headings to include on it, but we can work on that later. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 15:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I am trying to fond out if it is permitted to blank image pages that are allegedly copyvio. I found some who blanked an (alleged) copyvio, and do not know if this is allowed. the page is File:Servalcat.jpgDolive35 18:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I now see that it has not been blanked, and that I have made a complete idiot of myself.Dolive35 18:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I don't know the answer to your query, but well done. Oh and you can simply link to the image by putting a colon in front of it, like so: [[:Image:Servalcat.jpg]]. Which looks like Image:Servalcat.jpg Kellen ^T 20:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[]

The current version is at Category:Main page. I think it needs some tidying up (or is the current organization acceptable?), so here's my attempt, based on w::Category:Categories.

• Categories
  1. Bookshelves and departments

     A simple listing of all bookshelves and departments

  2. Books by topic (or subject)

     (Possibly list bookshelves here)

     All immediate subcategories would be named only after bookshelves

     • Arts

       All immediate subcategories would be named after level two headings of the bookshelf

       • Visual Arts

         All pages in this category would only be books listed in the bookshelf section (under the L2 heading)

         (Possibly: All subcategories would only be named after books and contain book pages for books that wish to use categories)

       • Perfoming Arts, etc
     • Biology, etc
  3. Book categories

     All subcategories would only be named after books and contain book pages for books that wish to use categories

  4. Books by other organization schemes

     Includes alphabetical classification, books with print version, books by reading level, Wikistudy, and Wikiprofessional

  5. Wikibooks administration
  6. Wikibooks maintenance
  7. Wikiversity (temporary)
  8. Wikijunior

Numbers 1, 2, and 3 could possibly be combined. Comments? --hagindaz 01:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I like the way it is now, to tell you the truth, although maybe it can stand a little tidying up. I guess it doesn't make sense to have some subjects listed up there at the top level, however. Here is my suggestion:

1. Wikibooks
   • Bookshelves
   • Books with Print Version
   • Books with PDF Version
   • etc...
2. Wikijunior
3. Wikiversity
   • Schools, Courses, etc
4. Users
5. Subjects
   • Art
   • Science
   • Computing
   • Games
   • etc...

After this rearrangement, we could essentially keep all the lower-level categories the same. Categories for individual books (as far as i am concerned) can just stay inside their respective categories. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 01:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Thanks to Jguk for working on my Basic Book Design. As I said last week, I'd also appreciate help putting my book "Hearts and Minds: How Our Brains Are Hardwired for Relationships" up as a Relationships wikibook. I put up the table of contants and the first chapter up.

You can download the book in MS Word format or in text format. Don't upload the photos. Most are public domain but some I had to pay for. I'll upload the public domain photos.--Thomas David Kehoe 22:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I have a draft rewrite of WB:WIW at Wikibooks:Inclusion criteria/Proposal. I have already exposed it on the WIW talk page and on the mailing list, and some amendments have been made in response to comments offered in response.

I'd now like to highlight it here. It is not intended to change Wikibooks' scope at all in practice. Instead, it is meant to define what Wikibooks is for in positive terms - and make it easier for new readers to understand what content is and is not suitable for this wiki.

All constructive comments are welcome. I'd like to see all of those dealt with and then make the page live, Jguk 11:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[]

So now my book is going through it's second vfd (which according to the policy and votes it would seem to have been long enough to take it off the vfd list. There doesn't seem to be any solid policy on that anymore though.) unless someone actually tries to do it that book wont make much advancements into a textbook. All that can be done for that is simply to wait until someone does it. If it's deleted some one that actually does it could come back and have to rewrite the wikibook from scratch. I have to ask why the user Jguk has posted 11 vfds on that page, many of them resonable, but still that is a lot, it seems like someone looking for stuff to delete.--V2os 19:05, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I think an overall deletion run is okay (but not optimal) for Wikibooks, especially when there were a couple of changes in policy (Jimbo did mandate for video games to leave, so they are in the process of going by now). So I guess Making an Island was just part of that. I'm kinda in "waiting" to see what happens with that book and policy in general right now, to see if the concensus changes. Either way, I think that book is a boarderline case, and arguments can be made for both sides. --Dragontamer 20:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[]

I would like to point out that what Jimbo asked to be removed was video game walkthroughs, not simply just video game books. And the video game guidelines that were being developed before Jimbo stirred up the pot had discussed and even recommended that books which concentrated on just a walkthrough were not really acceptable on Wikibooks. As for this specific Wikibook, that is a discussion better left for the VfD page itself. As a general rule, I beleive that a book which has survived a VfD had better have a very good reason such as a policy change that has achieved project-wide concensus. The narrow textbook-only policy certainly didn't do that or even what that meant had achieved concensus. And if you are going to cite an ambiguous policy such as not being a textbook, it helps if you can prove the content violates other policies as well in order to remove the content, such as being a soapbox or containing copyright violations. There are many reasons to remove content from Wikibooks, and not being a textbook is way down the list of priorities. Content that has serious NPOV problems is something that I think deserves much more attention before you remove it for non-textbook reasons. --Rob Horning 12:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[]

V2os, I do a lot of adminny, tidying up type things. During the course of this I come across a lot of content which is or may be unsuitable for wikibooks. That explains why I have nominated much to VfD - to allow a discussion as to whether some of the material where I am not sure whether it is suitable or not should remain, Jguk 21:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[]

Template:New says: "When you create a new book, you should add a new entry to the TOP of the list."

Uh, what list? The page doesn't have a link or anything to indicate what list is referred to.--Thomas David Kehoe 00:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[]

The list that's after the <noinclude>. At the bottom of the module. The list that gets transcluded with that template. Kellen ^T 01:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[]