Help:Miscellaneous FAQ
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
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feel free to file questions from this page into the above categories, as appropriate
[edit] Can you tell me anything about the Wikibooks logo?
- A temporary logo was originally submitted as a Wikipedia logo design concept by User:Magnus Manske. See Original Wikipedia logo suggestions for more details. The current and final logo was based off of a different logo revision and was created by Alexander Plank (User:Perl).
[edit] Where can I get the Wikibooks icon used in favorites or shortcuts?
- Right here: favicon.ico
[edit] Is allowing everyone to edit pages safe? I could start defaming people. Then the legal implications of this could become a problem to the provider of this service.
- Such a problem has not come up in the wiki world, so it's currently a theoretical matter. In practice, any sort of illegal material gets removed from active wikis quite quickly. See this discussion on Ward's Wiki for more thoughts.
[edit] What is the best way to link into Wikibooks from another site?
See Help:Editing
[edit] What is the best way to link from Wikibooks to another wiki, such as Wikipedia?
See Help:Editing and Wikibooks:Template messages/Links.
[edit] I'm worried about scalability. What happens if Wikibooks is invaded by hordes of new people who don't understand what's going on here, and mess it up?
- Wikibooks has a large number of dedicated volunteers who welcome newcomers, edit their contributions and point them to appropriate help pages to get them started. Our software maintains a complete history of page revisions, so Wikibookians can quickly undo any accidental (and intentional!) damage. Wikipedia, for example, has been Slashdotted twice, and yet handled the influx of newcomers with no problems.
[edit] Is there a place where people ask for new entries?
- There are three places:
- the study help desk aims to function like a real library's reference desk: people are invited to ask questions on any subject. If you can answer something there, why not start a module on it?
- on the Wikibooks:Requested Wikibooks page you can ask for a new book.
- the Special:Wantedpages page lists inexistent modules that other modules have link to.
[edit] Is there any peer review process to validate the data that is displayed?
- We are all peers here and we all review each others work. In some specific cases, for example in the case of the Wikijunior project, certain articles are peer-reviewed, but this is not applied to all projects.
- Some people have plans for formal peer review or module certification systems to work on top of Wikibooks. We'll be sure to point them out if and when any get up and running. For more information, see Wikibooks:Wikibooks approval mechanism.
[edit] How is Wikibooks backed up? Is it possible that an accident could destroy all this data?
- Database dumps are made periodically; off-site storage is do-it-yourself.
[edit] Is there a standard way to find guidelines for authors about the span and actual topic of a book?
- Not easily. The original author has hopefully laid out the audience the book is intended for (indicating the language and depth ideal for the instruction) and also the scope of what it will or will not cover, but there is no form for the author to fill out so any information of this type is entirely optional.
[edit] Some books seem to lack orientation and look a lot like normal "wikipedia" entries (e.g., computer programming entries); are we not missing some point here?
While some portions of Wikibooks do indeed seem to follow along the lines more like Wikipedia, it is up to the users of this site to see that there are distinctions.
Where Wikibooks really does its best is that it can go "in depth" into a subject with considerably more detail than a similar entry in Wikipedia. This isn't to suggest that a wikipedia article on the subject isn't well written, but wikibooks encourages breakdowns in multiple chapters, and more organization in multiple wikipages.
There are also "mini-wikipedias" that are appropriate for Wikibooks as well. This is either project that are trying to get established, or something so specialized that it otherwise wouldn't have a "home". A good example of this is The Unicyclopedia.
Keep in mind the original goal of Wikibooks: To provide free textbooks for educational purposes. There (generally) is no censoring of material here, in terms of what could be deemed educational, but you should try to see that the material at least could be collected and physically published as something you would like to see in a bookstore.
[edit] I wish to contribute text about a subject, but in a completely different orientation than the existing 'textbook' about it. Shouldn't for example the target-audience of a book be stated? Some standardization is due.
- As with an earlier question, there is no rule that an author must stipulate the audience. You could try leaving a message on that book's main page or contacting one of its main authors.
- In some cases content will just not fit in an existing wikibook; for example a comprehensive wikibook covering the C++ programming language will not be covering the extremely similar C# language; this would instead be a book all of its own.
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