User talk:Kowey

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[edit] Welcome

Hi Kowey! I welcomed you to wikipedia, now I'm welcomminmg you to wikibooks :-)

Things work much the same here as in wikipedia, except it's a much smaller community here. We've only been going a little while, but we've done a lot already. I don't think we have amunal of sytle yet, but take a look at some of the books already started to get ideas about layout etc.

Check out Wikibooks:Staff lounge and post any queries you have. You'll find things slower and friendlier here. I hope you like it and decide to stay. Theresa knott 13:48, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

thanks for the second welcome, Theresa. 152.81.15.98 11:27, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Can you not log in either ? 217.204.254.211 12:43, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC) -Theresa
I can log in, but staying logged in when i click on "new messages" is a whole different story 152.81.15.98 14:19, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC) (eric aka kowey)

Re NPOV - I happen to agree with you (For example, in the Programming:C book, it's important to point out bad techniques in programming in C that lead to awful code). But out-and-out plugging one product over another is hardly in the general "spirit" of NPOV - plugging a product isn't in the spirit of teaching, it's in the spirit of promotion...

But I think perhaps some changes need to be made to Wikibooks:Neutral point of view, but exactly what to change will be a sticky area. Strict NPOV works well, but once you relax the restriction then you get a lot of grey area. What if someone is coming to write about the history of Palestine for example, and they add a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment, or vice versa...Is that in the spirit of teaching the correct things? Does that adhere to the "spirit" of NPOV? Very sticky...

Anyway, thanks for your response :) Dysprosia 23:18, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Computer programming/Types got additions by AlMac effectively doubling the size of the article since prior folks like you last worked on it. I just thought you might like to see what I did to it. AlMac 23:49, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Understanding darcs

I've just read wikibook Understanding darcs and it really helped me understand the concepts behind that software. Thanx for that piece of work.

arno.

Thanks for the feedback! It feels good to hear that this actually helps people -- Kowey 09:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Type basics' feedback

Re our discussion today, I added some notes and a log to the Talk:Haskell/Type basics page. Cheers, DavidHouse 19:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VFD pages

Regarding the pages that you nominated for deletion at WB:VFD, I am going to delete those pages soon, as per your request. Since these pages constitute your own work, perhaps you would like to keep a copy before it disappears? Since these pages dont represent a violation of policy, I am in no hurry to delete them, and I am inclined to offer you the chance to save this material if needed. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Haskell book

I noticed a lot of the new pages were commented as "tex extraction/import"... does the licence from wherever they're coming from require noting the source? (It's a good idea to do so anyway, but not required under certain licenses). I just want to make sure it's all in good form :-). --SB_Johnny | talk 18:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for your concern. I spoke with the author personally at a conference, and he gave me his permission to import his book into wikibooks (knowing that implicitly, this would pass it under the GFDL). After a few friendly reminders, he sent me the TeX sources, which have never before been released. Otherwise, the book has been available as PDF under the terms, which I quote here:

Copyright (c) Hal Daume III, 2002-2006. The preprint version of this tutorial is intended to be free to the entire Haskell community, so we grant permission to copy and distribute it for any purpose, provided that it is reproduced in its entirety, including this notice. Modified versions may not be distributed without prior concent of the author, and must still maintain a copy of this notice. The author retains the right to change or modify this copyright at any time, as well as to make the book no longer free of charge.

Is there anything specific you think I should do to clarify this? I have thanked the author on the main page of Haskell/YAHT, but if you think I should do something more formal, please let me know. Cheers, -- Kowey 20:14, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
"we grant permission to copy and distribute it for any purpose, provided that it is reproduced in its entirety, including this notice. Modified versions may not be distributed without prior concent of the author"
hmmm. The boldfaced sections actually create a rather serious problem, since they don't jibe with the GFDL. Are you sure he understands fully what the GFDL means? Neither of those conditions could legally be applied to a GFDL document. I'd say hold off adding more until he gives consent... sorry about this, but these things are better nipped in the bud. Hopefully he can just change that notice on the copyright, but until he does, it can't be on a GFDL copyrighted server. --SB_Johnny | talk 23:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm sure he understands the implications of this, if nothing else for the fact that he was willing that it be put onto a wiki. -- Kowey 05:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. If you get a chance to talk to him again, just ask him if he can remove those 2 clauses, or just change the copyright to GFDL. The problem is that the modified versions of this document will in theory be under the GFDL, but if it's based on a document that has a copyright with those clauses, the GFDL would actually violate his copyright. Again, it's all a pain in the butt at first, but it pays off in the end to take care of these things at the beginning, rather than later. If for some reason he (or his heirs, etc.) objected to a later publication of the book, we'd have a deep doo-doo situation ;-). --SB_Johnny | talk 14:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Will do! I really appreciate the care that you guys (wikimedia admin volunteers) are taking in covering our collective butts. Will report back. -- Kowey 14:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. If you just leave a link somewhere to where he has the GFDL licence, that will do the trick :). --SB_Johnny | talk 13:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi. How about this official pdf which the author links to from his home page? It includes the sentence:
"Note that this tutorial may alternately be distributed under the terms of the GNU Free Document License, as permission has been granted to incorporate it into the Wikibooks projects."
Is that enough? -- Kowey 13:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Yup :). --SB_Johnny | talk 13:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I noticed you mention that a scientific calculator should give an error and to contact you if it does not. I am using an HP (50G), and I was easily able to calculate the factorial of 1,000. I did have problems in Haskell though (using ghci) with a stack overflow.

[edit] Wikibooks Newsletter, Volume 1

(Wikibooks gazette home | Discuss | Bulletin board | Subscription list)

This is a short newsletter that is being distributed to all active wikibookians. You are getting this message because you are recognized as an established contributor to the project. This newsletter will be distributed on a regular basis to help share news, information, and tips. It comes from a bot account, User:The Staff. User:The Staff is currently operated by a team of wikibooks admins, the complete list of which is available on the user page of the bot. If you would like to not receive this newletter anymore, please remove your name from the list at Wikibooks:Active wikibookians.

The work you do at Wikibooks is greatly appreciated. However there are plenty of other opportunities for you to get involved and help us to create a thriving Wikibooks community. We are sure that there are things we can do to help you and your understanding of Wikibooks and similarly there are certainly things you could do to help Wikibooks become a better place.

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If you have general questions or comments about Wikibooks, you are welcome to post a message on The Staff Lounge, a free discussion area. Your input would also be welcomed in the Votes for Deletion and Requests for Adminship discussion pages. These pages are all active discussion areas that help to shape the Wikibooks community as a whole.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that the Wikibooks community is much larger and more diverse then the people who work in a single book, or on a single bookshelf. Hopefully, together we can all make Wikibooks a better place, and a more valuable educational resource.

The staff at Wikibooks 13:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unused Haskell templates

Are the seven Haskell templates at Special:Unusedtemplates needed anymore? --Iamunknown 05:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No, thanks for pointing them out. -- Kowey 06:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Assuming you read the staff lounge! May good karma stay with you - regards --Herby talk thyme 11:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chapter titles in [Linguistics]

I didn't revert your changes. I changed the visible text for two of the sections. An anonymous editor had changed "How we make words" to "How you make words", and "Speech sounds go to work" to something like "Speech sound to go work" (I forget the exact change, but it was just pranksterism, regardless).

Your changes seem completely appropriate to me. ACW 17:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake. I did revert your changes, but I didn't mean to. Look at the diffs and you'll see what I had in mind. I'll try again, and this time I'll do it right, leaving the titles as you had them. I apologize for the goofup. ACW 17:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Books and other Work

I just wanted to let you know that i've seen alot of the work you've been doing around here, especially with the featured books templates, and i just wanted to personally thank you for your effort. It's always nice to see new faces working on the same old projects.

If you need any help with your projects or in general, let me know. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for that! I feel very lucky to always stumble upon the friendliest communities of the net (Haskell, darcs, wikibooks). I'm actually just looking out for the Haskell wikibook, but trying to do it in a way that benefits everybody as well. Best, -- Kowey 06:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
It's always good to get more programmers around here. Even though wiki is just a text-markup tool, programmers just seem to "get it" more quickly then other editors do. The kinds of things that you are doing with that featured book template are typically reserved for the oldest and most experienced editors, and even many of them can't quite figure out how to use a named template parameter properly. Of course, it doesnt help that some of the wiki syntax is so complicated. Anyway, keep up the good work! --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Control Systems

Yeah, i'm fine with the space shuttle for now for the book blurb here. I'll look through commons and see if i can find something a little better, but if not this is okay. --Whiteknight (talk) 14:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] languages bookshelf

Good morning, Kowey. I'm a bit concerned my latest comment on the discussion might get lost on the page, which is starting to look like an overgrown garden, so I'll repeat it here to make sure you see it as it's important:

"Yesterday I placed a request on the template's talk page with intructions for the change. There has not been any response yet. If we decide to implement my and Kowey's proposal for disambiguation pages/templates (for languages with multiple textbooks), the bookshelf template will subsequently need to be updated to reflect that; or if Junesun's alternative proposal of leaving multiple books in the bookshelf template itself is opted for, again that will entail modifications. In this respect, what I have requested (#4) can be considered as "provisional", but I think it's a step in the right direction. Kowey's disambiguation strategy sounds good to me but it does require "technical" implementation (i.e. somebody still has to make those pages or templates). Kowey, could you yourself either: (1) create them and incorporate them, or (2) failing that, at least create ONE of them for me to see exactly what your proposal looks like, and I can try to do the others following that model if you prefer it that way? Alan"

I also noticed this morning that Xania has reorganised the list of English books on the bookshelf. Quite a list it is too. That might be a good place to start if you would like to try out your idea about the transcluded list strategy. I'd like to see an illustration of how that is going to work... Cheers, Alan --A R King 08:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable links

Hi Kowey. Would you take a look at the question I've raised at the bottom of Wikibooks talk:Languages bookshelf and at the links in question? What do you think? If you agree with me, since you've been involved longer than I have with the project perhaps you'd like to say something on the matter? --A R King 21:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello again. I see you still haven't responded to/about Lutonia. I didn't incorporate Lutonia's book into the individual-language bookshelf system we recently developed because I wanted to wait and see what would be decided (and avoid any additional work that might have to be undone afterwards). Any thoughts? Cheers, Alan --A R King 10:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, yeah, sorry about that. I've been meaning to look into ways we can import his work into wikibooks and find means for him to work with us. That's the only barrier, really... technical stuff. The books have no place here until this work is done, however. If only we could state this in a very positive way that keeps him with us -- Kowey 15:18, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I also happen to think that content-wise his books are methodologically highly unsound, although that is probably irrelevant since "censorship" of books on such grounds is not contemplated in Wikibooks. If I were to agree with encouraging him to stay "with us" it would be for purely "ethical" reasons, rather than because I see his work as a useful contribution to the quality (or eventual prestige) of the series. It's not a valid reason for turning him away, either; it's also not, therefore, the reason why I have called the books into question. Given all that, I would explain as delicately as possible the technical problem, but wouldn't go as far as bending over backwards or in any sense "begging" him to "stay". My opinion for what it's worth. --A R King 17:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the welcome!

Hi Kowey, Thanks for the welcome to the Haskell wikibook project! I've been looking for a way to contribute to the Haskell community, and at the moment I've found that the wikibook is a place where I can contribute productively. You can expect to see lots of edits from me in the near future. =) I already hang out in #haskell-books some, but I didn't know about the mailing list; I will go subscribe to it. --Byorgey 15:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you + LaTeX

Hi Kowey!

Thank you for your welcome message. I have added an answer to your comment on my Wikibook Collaborative Writing of LaTeX Documents


on my talk page.

Arne

[edit] How did you make those diagrams?

I admired the diagrams in your Haskell book. How were they made?

rfrankel

Hi, I used the MacOS X program OmniGraffle (see also the Haskell/Zippers chapter with some nice diagrams by User:Apfelmus). Some of our diagrams (Haskell/Category theory) were made using Inkscape, which David House reports to be nice as well. -- Kowey 04:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Sign Language

Still interested in contributing? I've transwikied some useful content and started an outline of how the lessons might progress. – Mike.lifeguard | talk 03:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't actually know any ASL (and my LSF grows rustier by the minute). But always open for discussion from our experiences with the French LSF book. -- Kowey 21:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
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