Wikibooks:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive2

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Contents 1 Page consolidation 2 Sockpuppet watch 3 What happened to ARM ? 4 I'm taking a break... 4.1 Alternate proposal 5 Request for block of User:Panic2k4 6 Administration Rights? Transwikis... 7 Integrating Transwikis 8 Transferring material from Wikipedia 8.1 video game books, continued (tabs reset) 9 Sock puppets 10 User:Panic2k4 is unblocked

[edit] Page consolidation

I want to merge this page with WB:VIP, and have a single source where users can get in touch with administrators. We had talked about this issue before and we all got sidetracked on it. I want to do this either today or tomorrow (i actually have alot of time in these next few days), if everybody is interested. I'm going to start a similar project on the staff lounge soon, to reorganize it all. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I've created a basic outline of my plan at User:Whiteknight/Admin. This page consolidates WB:AN, and WB:VIP. It also posts necessary links to relevant policy documents, and other discussion areas relevant to administration. Comments, suggestions, are welcome. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet watch

Panic has been making a bunch of sockpuppets and then using them disruptively. At least some of the IPs he's been using have turned out to be Open Proxies. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it, but we should keep an eye out, and perhaps hardblock the IPs used as well.

German Wikibooks had this sort of problem about a month ago, and pat of their solution was to semi-protect the pages in the book the puppeteer was interested in. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 17:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Disruptive is a bit of a overstatement, can you provide evidence of any disruptive behavior ? --Cinap(se) 19:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Panic :). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 19:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Open proxies are used by people for many reasons. I know it's Wiki policy to block these on sight (although I refuse to perform such tasks) they are a lifeline for people who lives in countries where Wiki sites are blocked or monitored extensively. Panic shouldn't be creating these accounts if he's going to use them to "disrupt" the project (the above comment is hardly disruptive though) but I know I'd be doing the same thing if I was blocked and there was no possibility of being unblocked. Xania ^talk 21:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This is hardly the place to argue about the policy on open proxies. Panic shouldn't be creating sockpuppets for any reason, he has been blocked from editing by general community concensus. That block applies to his person, not just to his primary account. All anybody wants from Panic, all anybody has ever wanted, is a little understanding and demonstration of good faith. People became very upset about Panic's actions, and he refuses to even allow for some wrongdoing on his part. Some people asked for an apology, that didn't happen. Now, all we want to hear is "I understand there were problems in the past, I will try to avoid such problems in the future". Instead of even providing such a non-commital statement as that, Panic decided to create these sock puppets to "prove" that he doesn't need to follow the rules, or be civil in order to edit here. Breaking a behavioral norm to prove a point (even if it isn't hard-coded into policy) is disruptive behavior, and is a remarkably bad-faith alternative to a very easy solution. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks_talk:Blocking_Policy#Sock_puppets will be a better place, but "he" must point something out, there was not community consensus in several instances, "he" didn't particularly approve User:Whiteknight interpretation of consensus and Sock puppets only prove that it can be easily subverted (also not the proper place but had to be said).

"His" patience (not "his" good faith) as "he" hasn't yet done anything wrong, may have run out but as "he" sees people referring to "his" situation as "a party" and talking about consecutive or even permanent block, a demonstration that it will not solve the problem was in order. --Cinap(se) 22:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place to spew your soapbox. You've been blocked nonetheless. -withinfocus 23:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to ARM ?

What happened to ARM ? The discussion at Talk:ARM/Introduction leads me to suspect there there used to be a page ARM/Introduction, but it has been (accidentally?) deleted. Is it possible for an admin to dig around in the archives and "un-delete" that page? And check the other red links at ARM, and un-delete them as well? (Although I suspect most of *those* red links were never created in the first place). --DavidCary 01:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I did some digging around for you. The original text of the page was a copy+paste copyright violation, and was deleted for legal reasons. We can't undelete the text of that page, because it's illegal. Unfortunately, you would do much better to just start rewriting it from scratch. I'll look around at some of the other pages, and see what I can find. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Whiteknight, for checking it out. Looks like we will rewrite it from scratch. I have no doubt it will end up better than that other non-shareable version. --DavidCary 18:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm taking a break...

After the sheer insanity of the past few days, I'm feeling a bit fried, and need to take a break for a few days. Since I don't think there will be much support for unblocking Panic this week, I assume my absence won't be a problem as far as the moderation goes.

I have, however, asked a friend and fellow administrator from commons (Cool_Cat) to talk to him in my stead, since I think a truly outside point of view would be helpful here. Aside from being willing to become meat for the grinder, she is also better versed in copyright stuff than I am (most commons admins are... I'm the ignoramus of the lot around there). I'll check in, but for the most part I really need a week afk, because this has become way too much work! I think she's planning to start "from scratch" rather than readin through all the garbage, so please be patient.

Panic has said that he will not use sockpuppets outside of the puppets' user spaces, and I think we should take him at his word on that. In the meantime, I'm switching his block to indefinite (since that's the reality now), but I hope to appeal that block sometime soon. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 02:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

And an update on that: Panic is no longer blocked. If this yields no results, I will of course reblock, but I hope that won't be needed. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 03:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Panic cannot be unblocked based on his most recent actions as well as the community decision to keep him blocked until he completes a resolution process. I have notified Az1568. -withinfocus 03:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry that this has taken such a toll on you, Johnny. I really am. But I have to say that I oppose non-binding mediation as a method to solve this issue at this time. It has gone far beyond that. Whatever the next stage of resolution process it needs to be community sanctioned, fair, thorough and binding. Also, important decisions (like whether to unblock Panic, an action that was previously agreed to by community consensus in a very public forum) should not be made by a few individuals on IRC. There is no easy way out, and particularly this easy way out is destined for failure. One more failed attempt to resolve this issue is the last thing the community needs. I cannot see any resolution that some party or parties would not object to and various parties have already demonstrated their willingness to ignore previous mediation agreements and attempts at mediation. --xixtas ^talk 15:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate proposal

Since I do not want to criticize and not offer alternatives, I would suggest:

• using binding arbitration instead.
• using the existing proposed arbitration process in a trial run.
• Cool Cat be asked to be an arbitrator.
• Others be asked to join as arbitrators. A few people I can think of who are either uninvolved or only peripherally involved are Derbeth, Herby, Robin, Iamunknown, myself and Az1568.

As for myself, I would be willing to be one of several arbitrators if people would have me. I realize that some would think I've been too involved to arbitrate this but I believe I can be fair. My interest has always been in doing the right thing. --xixtas ^talk 15:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for block of User:Panic2k4

Sorry it's come to this, but Panic is violating the WB:CIVIL policy on too many fronts now, and it's time to call an end to it. The three blocks I imposed on him were for "trolling", by which I mean trying to get someone involved in an argument with him rather than being productive (such as contributing to Wikibooks), having a conversation with someone else, or just trying to avoid the person doing the trolling.

This has gone over the top this past week, Examples include:

• Using sockpuppet accounts without identifying them as such (and of course using them to go around a block).
• Naming sockpuppet accounts for the purpose of making personal attacks (User:NoJonny, User:WithoutFocus, User:FallenKnight)
• Composing a fictional story on his talk page which clearly implies that I am an evil person who gets his kicks out of oppressing innocent people
• Making legal threats against me

Until today, I was offering to moderate with Panic in the hopes that he might agree to get along, but I'm not willing to do that now. Unless someone else wants to try (which I don't recommend), I think he should be permanently blocked. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 00:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the feeling around here and Panic's recent actions which definitely overstep being civil I am willing to block Panic very soon. I would be interested in hearing what people think should be an appropriate length for such a ban.

(Xania had asked for opinions on IRC, and recorded the responses below. I was there, and he is reporting correctly.--SB_Johnny | ^talk

• user:Xania - 1 month ban
• User:SBJohnny - indefinite ban (to be unblocked if Panic agrees to change and addresses the previous problems)
• User:Darklama - indefinite ban until such time as there is community consensus is unblock him and he has addressed all previous problems.
• User:Az1568 - indefinitie ban (to be unblocked if Panic agrees to change and addresses the previous problems)
• User:Withinfocus - Infinite, but we can call it indefinite if we want. This is much more than a six-month issue now. Panic adds little to no value to the community here anymore and I'd say I would find him impossible to work with here. Maybe in a long time he can try talking to the community again.
• User:xixtas - I never agreed that Panic should be unblocked. His block should resume until he fulfills the stipulations the community has set for him. But not necessarily for the reasons described above.

I have now blocked Panic indefintely. Please can someone check that the block was made correctly as I usually mess up somehow. Panic's block can be reveresed at any time if he changes his ways, agrees to work with others and there is community approval. --Xania ^talk 14:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In light of Panic's recent comments in response to questions posed by Whiteknight, I would support the unblocking of Panic once again. I'd like to hear what other Wikibooks users and administrators think about this. Xania ^talk 00:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

How many rounds does this need to go? If you're going to take action on something then stick with it. His most recent block occurred two days ago and was set to infinite. People need to take a break and stop scrambling for new solution after new solution. I don't support an unblock whatsoever and don't think this issue should even be discussed for at least two weeks to a month. The more switch toggling that happens the less useful the block tool becomes and with things like this it has little worth. This is not a game. Leave it be for a little while until something new and substantial actually happens. In this short a time period and by what I've seen Panic say, not much has happened and there's no reason to change the block. -withinfocus 00:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Panic's recent comments have certainly been a good (and surprising) change in attitude, and I do agree that there is progress being made. However, I agree with Matt that the block tool is not a toy, nor something to be taken lightly. People need to step back and cool off from the issue because it is through rash decisions that mistakes are made. I don't necessarily think however that a month needs to go by before we start making changes (sorry withinfocus).

Give it a week, and if everybody is cool and calm by then, we can work to get the block lifted. A week of everybody being nice and good-natured will be a good sign that the problems are all solved and that we can get back to business as usual. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to wait... Panic's current attitude is indeed promising, but has he acknowledged what it is about his behavior that has cause harm in the past? How can he avoid that behavior if he's either unaware of it or thinks there's nothing wrong with it? While I certainly support as speedy a resolution as possible, the issue needing to be resolved is not the block, but the issues that brought the block about. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Administration Rights? Transwikis...

Among other things, I am interested in developing Introduction to Psychology. It seems the best way to do that would be to integrate a variety of articles from Wikipedia, at least to start.

How is it that I can gain rights to Transwiki items from Wikipedia? Do I need admin rights or could I simply be granted just that privilege? I don't believe I am already able to transwiki with my privileges as they stand. I was looking on the request for administartor rights page and the administrator page and did not see any references to transwiking. I also looked at Transwiki and pages to be transwikied.

So if the community trusts me, for the sake of efficiency I would like to be granted rights to transwiki pages from Wikipedia. If I need to request admin rights, then I will do that, but I thought I would check it out here first. Thanks. --Remi 07:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If the pages are coming from wikipedia, we have a special tool called "Import", that allows us to bring pages from wikipedia to wikibooks, while preserving the page history. Only administrators have the ability to use import, however.

Towards the top of this page there is a heading "Requests for Import", and you can list the pages you want to bring over, and the admins here will take care of it for you. If you are frustrated by how slow we do it, you can nominate yourself for adminship at WB:RFA. Good luck with your project! --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Better yet, use WB:RFI to make the request... a couple of us keep a close eye on it. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 15:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the rational for making Import an administrator privilege? Is there a danger in allowing non-admins to do this? -- Jim Thomas 16:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea, to be honest with you, it's a software thing. Ask the developers why they wanted it this way. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think there are some bandwidth issues where the developers are concerned that if too many non-admins start to pull pages between projects, that the whole server farm could collapse. While an individual admin might experiment a few times, they quickly tire of the experimentation and only do requests or page imports where there is a geunine need. It does suck up quite a bit of bandwidth in the server farm in order to do a real page import. In addition, the tool was experimental and tempermental, and the developers didn't think that the page import tool was "ready for prime time". In fact, I didn't get to use it at all until Wikiversity finally was approved and the number of pages that needed to be imported was so large that the developers felt that Wikiversity was a good pilot project to see how it would affect the current server configuration. --Rob Horning 21:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The tool actually still is quite tempermental, and is prone to hicupping half-way through an import. One advantage of having the other admin tools handy is so that you can delete the half-imported pages before trying again (though I've learned through experience to check #wikimedia-tech on irc before retrying... if they're talking about problems with squids (or any gastropods for that matter), don't bother trying again for a while). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 22:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Another Strange thing with import: Was just transwikiing Transwiki:Gypsy moth, and got the "wikimedia is having problems" page. I went to the page to see how much of the history had been brought over, and it was only up to October '06. I then reloaded that page and it was up to November. Reloaded a third time and the entire history was there. Just another thing to keep an eye on, I guess :). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 15:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Integrating Transwikis

If I had two or more articles transwikied here from Wikipedia that need to be integrated together for a chapter, how would I go about doing that properly? Thanks. --Remi 22:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. I'd like to know the proper way to integrate transwikied pages into an existing Wikibook chapter. I ended up moving a transwikied page, chopping it down to the essentials that I needed, and transcluding it into my chapter. I anticipate the future need to split a transwikied page into multiple parts, but have no idea how to cobble that together. I'm coming to the opinion that it would be a lot easier to just paste the history into the talk page. The current import approach appears to assume that you are using a Wikipedia article as a starting point rather than as a source of additional information. -- Jim Thomas 22:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transferring material from Wikipedia

I am planning to transfer a significant amount of content from Wikipedia as part of an annotated reference on the game series Xenosaga. This will probably involve the transfer of somewhere from 20 to 40 pages. While there is a procedure for import here, imports take up the time of admins (and to my understanding, a significant amount of server resources as well). Meta provides an alternate procedure, which preserves GFDL compliance by copying the previous edit history to the talk page. Would there be any objections to transferring material directly using this procedure? Seraphimblade 22:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I can tell you to stop before you even begin. Unfortunately it is against practices here to house video game guides. If that content were moved here it would be deleted. Thanks. -withinfocus 22:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't be so much a guide, as an annotated reference of the storyline (much like Harry Potter and such). Also, the series is an anime as well as a video game, and has a fairly developed story. Seraphimblade 23:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Role-playing games are 40-60 hour games, and at least 1/3 of that is spent in cutscenes and dialogue. The books would be plot guides, not video game guides. If you guys don't accept plot guides, then we'll just work with the Wikias. Deckiller 23:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

You'd be much better off working on one of the Wikias. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there some type of guideline as to what type of fiction annotations are allowed? Seraphimblade 23:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure where this whole argument is going here. I think the comparison to the Harry Potter book is perhaps reasonable, although this suggestion is rehashing the video game book arguments all over again. One thing you should remember, Seraphimblade, is that the decision to remove the video game books was not completely without opposition, and it may be something that will be considered again in the future. Given the current makeup of active Wikibookians and administrators, I don't see that happening any time in the very near future, unfortunately. This is a very arbitrary policy regarding video game books, and as such the only reasonable rationale for it is to keep Wikibooks from becoming a major hang-out for people who want to create websites for cheats, walkthroughs, game hint guides, and other material about video games where it may become something of a major emphasis. Or perhaps to put it another way, serious educators would view such content with contempt and have their opinions tainted with other content such as more traditional subject textbooks like a foreign language or mathematics. With a huge number of video game books, it was perceived that you would think that is all there is to Wikibooks.

My counter argument to this is that the video game books were a very good "training" place for new users, as it was usually quite a bit harder for a serious game fan to make content mistakes that couldn't be easily corrected and verified, and it was a subject that younger contributors not only could relate to, but also were interested in reading about. Several very active Wikibookians, including formerly active administrators, started with the video game guides and later moved on to other projects with Wikibooks. I would also argue strongly that the growth of Wikibooks, both in terms of the number of new pages of content generated, the number of new users who join the project, and the amount of general internet traffic coming to Wikibooks has suffered significantly since the video game books have been deleted in large numbers. It hasn't really dropped, but the "spark" that seemed to generate growth seems to be lost now. --Rob Horning 15:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I can see that...I also saw that you had the Half-Life Fact File here, and to be quite blunt, anything I write would be done a lot better than that. It would be more in the style of Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter. Also, if one were teaching a video game design class (and those most certainly exist, even at several major universities now), a simple "cheat guide" would not be used, but I could certainly see a summary of successful games, their plot, studies of what's unique about them, and such, being used in class, just as a summary of the plots and unique style of fictional works would be used in a writing class. Seraphimblade 18:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the arguments for removing video game Wikibooks are quite a bit harder to make if you try to make critical commentary about the game design elements, and include aspects that are outside of the direct realm of the game play itself, such as a short history of the game and its influence on subsequent games, the historical impact of the game designers themselves, and what sort of algorithmic strategies have been used within the game (such as AI concepts and UI design). All of those would clearly be used in a game design class.

Now the idea of presenting a linearly designed video game as a form of literature is certainly an interesting idea. And Wikibooks does allow annotatation of even fictional literature as you have mentioned above. I guess I would strongly suggest here that you try to stick with the more literary aspects of the story of the game rather than trying to turn this into a cheat guide, or even a "how to win" guide. The literary value of most video games would be something that I would also question, but that is something which could also be discussed in such a Wikibook. --Rob Horning 18:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was certainly not planning a cheat guide. I will stick to the literary aspects, as you suggest, and hopefully it'll be acceptable. Thanks for your help! Seraphimblade 19:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, please don't get me wrong, but you're really better off writing this on a site like StrategyWiki. The Harry Potter book is a reader's guide to a culturally signifigant series of books that are read in classroom environments. RPGs (computer-based or not) are perhaps addressed as a phenomenon, but aren't focused on in that way. We recieved some rather clear instructions from the Wikimedia foundation about writing these sorts of books here, and while some users have been vocal objectors to that decision, it's pretty much the law of the land now.

StrategyWiki is a great project, with a very supportive community, and your project will be well-supported by SW's active and enthusiastic community. While I hate to discourage any potential Wikibookian, I do want to encourage those who want to make good free content available to all, and I think SW will be a more welcoming and appropriate place for your project. Ask around here for more opinions. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 19:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright...I guess I'm not understanding the issue here. I can understand you don't want game guides, walkthroughs, or tip manuals. I wouldn't blame you a bit for deleting that stuff. You want content that might get used in a class. That's exactly what your main content policy says. It's exactly what I'm planning to write. SW really does tend to be more for game guides and stuff like that, I just don't think the work I'm planning to do would be fitting there. I guess I can try it, I was hoping to help out one of WP's sister projects instead. I think I could write quality, appropriate material, but I certainly don't want to step on any toes. Video game design classes and classes which cover fiction do exist, I could certainly write something that would be appropriate for such a class. Seraphimblade 23:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If the book will be as you have described it then I don't see a problem. Lately people have been nominating things for deletion just for the sake of it which has resulted in the disappearance of some good game guides, many stubs which could have been expanded and other books. Just because the Wikimedia Foundation told us something doesn't mean we have to stick to it - Wikibooks is owned by the community who use it and without us it would be an empty shell. It's time people stood up to arbitary decisions by Wiki foundation and took back the community for its users. I could never bring myself to use StrategyWiki as it is a commercial site and therefore run for profit. People, especially outside of the USA, don't want yet another commercial website which makes money from your efforts. Xania ^talk 01:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I should note it wasn't even the Wikimedia Foundation. It was just Jimbo and a few administrators here (I wasn't one of them!) that felt the books needed to be removed. There was never any official action on the part of the WMF on this issue, nor was there even any effort to gain "community concensus" other than on a very, very informal basis.

I'll admit that Jimbo's words do carry more weight than other users, but even he said this was to be a community decision. Unfortunately this for me has been a losing battle that hasn't been able to get any traction. Please don't give this any more official aire than this really has... and check the back archives of the Staff Lounge if you don't believe me.

There were some efforts prior to the video game guide culling to try and establish guidelines for video game books, but those efforts were completely ignored after the original debate. --Rob Horning 06:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo's concern was over the tax status of the foundation as a non-profit, educational organization... the fund drive didn't even meet it's goal, and the last thing we need is to owe 30% of what was brought in to the tax men. I personally wouldn't mind gameguides here, but then I wouldn't mind fiction either. It's not so much an issue of stepping on toes, but rather running contrary to the foundation's mission.

Aside from all that, StrategyWiki is also just a very good place for writing game guides (they have other RPG books there as well). Working on them there has the advantage of a community of contributors who have written game guides, and can help you create a better book. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

This had absolutely nothing to do with the 501 (c) 3 tax status of the United States Internal Revenue Code in regards to the Wikimedia Foundation. It was entirely an issue of perception with the educational community and that Jimbo thought that this was merely something that would be "embarassing" and was a criticism of a certain number of individuals outside of the Wikibooks community. When the tax status issue was raised in the first place, it was refuted immediately. I challenge you or anybody else here to point out a specific legal case where a book about a commercial product written by a non-profit group voided their non-profit status. We are all volunteers here, and we do not even accept advertisements. There is no profit to even be made or money exchanged at all except through the voluntary donation system. If the issue really is about writing books about commercial products, the ban should go way beyond just video game books as well and be invoked against all commercial products, including Microsoft Office or even Linux (which is a commercial product too!)

And as I pointed out when the issue was brought up, invoking the WMF charter was a very weak argument as well, as Wikibooks (and many of these video game books) existed prior to the charter even being written. The charter, as it was written, was to try and explain what it is that we were doing to people (notably the IRS... since you brought it up) that were outside of the Wikimedia Family of projects. It was never intended to restrict or confine what materials ought to be culled from a project... certainly to the magnitude that the video game guides were removed.

While I have nothing against the StrategyWiki personally, it is not a Wikimedia sister project and does not deserve the same consideration or to be treated as a sister project. It is a fork of Wikibooks perhaps, that was caused because this issue about video game guides did become controversial. There have been other Wiki projects that have tried to "capture" Wikibooks content by way of a fork and then trying to stealthily modify policies to remove a category of content. The "How-to Wiki" was another one that didn't succeed here.

The real point I'm trying to make is that the existance of StrategyWiki is irrelevant to determine if a certain kind of content is considered acceptable here on Wikibooks. They certainly are free to "borrow" and even fork Wikibooks content. At the moment, you might even be able to argue that they do a better job with video game guides, and they share many users with the Wikibooks community. I would argue that the reason for that is because they (StrategyWiki) has taken some of our best users and content, and with the cooperation of but a few admins that weren't challenged had that content removed here as well.

I also challenge that anybody can find a formal policy vote that conceeded the removal of well over 10% of all Wikibooks content that had widespread support. You can't find it, because the policy changes never really happened. The books were voted off in piecemeal fashion, and it was assumed that this was policy with several individuals acting under the name of Jimbo doing this. I would say that this certainly qualifies as a high impact decision as defined by Wikibooks:Decision making, yet it was treated as a low impact decision whose final resolution was already met. --Rob Horning 15:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] video game books, continued (tabs reset)

It was Jimbo, not I, who brought up the tax exemption problems. He certainly knows more about that than I do, and I suspect he knows more about it than Robert does.

It wouldn't matter if we had 100% consensus for including fictional works, how-tos for astral projection, manuals of crime, or video game guides: the foundation defines our mission, and what they say goes. If the foundation decides to ban fair-use images on all projects, we can't include them. If the foundation decides that using wikimedia resources to write textbooks isn't a good idea after all, then we'll just have to go start our own wiki elsewhere. The VGG writers did just that: they started their own site, and good for them! They've been actively preserving all that's been written here, so no efforts have been for naught. They're not a wikimedia foundation website because their mission doesn't fit into the foundation's mission, but that doesn't make them any less our sister project, nor does it mean they deserve any less respect than our foundation sisters.

This horse is dead, please stop beating it. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 16:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I'm getting a bit frustrated here by a lack of response to a point which has been made several times. Video game guides are not at issue here. No video game guide is planned. What is planned is a book regarding the plot, design elements, unique characteristics, and the like, of the game and anime series. I understand video game guides are forbidden. Can someone please answer the issue at hand, which has not a thing to do with video game guides? Seraphimblade 18:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

From Wikipedia: "Xenosaga (ゼノサーガ Zenosāga?) is primarily a series of video games developed by Monolith Soft and published by Namco. Xenosaga's main story is in the form of a trilogy of PlayStation 2 video games" (See w:Xenosaga).--SB_Johnny | ^talk 22:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Any text written by about a video game is not inherently a video game guide by default, as you seem to be implying by pointing out that Xenosaga is, as is obvious, a video game. --Iamunknown 03:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Video games have plots nowadays, especially RPGs with 30+ hours of story cutscenes, two plot databases, an anime series, and so on. The goal of this book will be to cover the plot of Xenosaga and its influences, which are rooted in the works of philosophs like Nietzche, Jung, and others. However, I think the main problem is the length of time it will take to hone the cruft from Wiki into a polished gem here. Deckiller 06:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Johnny, this is not something that was formally determined by the Wikimedia Foundation. This was Jimbo acting on his own, although his status as the Chair of the WMF board of trustees did play a part in the way his words were interpreted. And while Jimbo did say that he thought there might be some tax problems, that wasn't even the main focus of his argument for deleting the video game guides.

To get to the point here, I am not beating a dead horse here. I conceeded back elsewhen that video game walkthroughs should be deleted, or at least didn't find a compelling reason to keep them here. But I did make a very compelling justification that I thought had community concensus for when a book about Doom could be written that would not be a walkthrough, even though Jimbo mentioned that book explicitly by name as something he would delete on the spot based on the title alone. In the case of this planned book by Seraphimblade, I think what he is suggesting is indeed something that would help to make that sort of distinction by somebody who is willing to make the effort to write such a book. --Rob Horning 05:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• reset again!

Guys, is this a notice board or a talk page? Why are discussions about the history of Wikibooks starting to take over all the functional pages of Wikibooks? Can we please move historical and policy discussions to discussion pages, where they belong? Webaware ^talk 23:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Becasuse this is a policy that has not achieved concensus, yet actions have been taken on it as if that concensus has been achieved. And furthermore, this particular user is being told to "go away, we don't want that stuff here" based on the concept that nearly everything having to do with video games is considered taboo here. I'm also pointing out that the justifications for this policy are on about as shaky of ground as you can get, even if you can claim that such community concensus was achieved in the first place, and the "Jimbo says" turns this into a religious fight on top of all of the other problems with this concept. I just don't believe you need to tell people who are trying to add content here in good faith, particularly when there is no formal policy that says you can't have the content here, to pack your bags and move to another Wiki. --Rob Horning 05:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The question was asked here, so I tried to steer him in the right direction. Regardless of the history of the dispute, the de facto policy has for a long time been to delete this material after it has been transwikied (the StrategyWiki folks list them on VfD after they copy, and watch our VfD page for new material). Doom, for example, is now at SW as well. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 12:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course the question here is to ask what is the defacto policy? To delete any content that even resembles a book about any kind of game? This is why even Chess was suggested for a VfD discussion. As far as Doom is concerned, this goes back to a comment I wrote that used that particular video game as an example to try and divine just what Jimbo was thinking here. As can be seen by the rest of the discussion, Jimbo only made one comment which was nearly immediately refuted by concrete example. I still think a book about Doom would be a very legitimate Wikibook, just not the version that was here on Wikibooks earlier. --Rob Horning 07:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I've started a stub policy at Wikibooks:Game Books... perhaps it's about time we decided on a policy regarding this and other books about games. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 16:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rob Horning writes:

I think the arguments for removing video game Wikibooks are quite a bit harder to make if you try to make critical commentary about the game design elements, and include aspects that are outside of the direct realm of the game play itself, such as a short history of the game and its influence on subsequent games, the historical impact of the game designers themselves, and what sort of algorithmic strategies have been used within the game (such as AI concepts and UI design). All of those would clearly be used in a game design class.

Now the idea of presenting a linearly designed video game as a form of literature is certainly an interesting idea. And Wikibooks does allow annotatation of even fictional literature as you have mentioned above. I guess I would strongly suggest here that you try to stick with the more literary aspects of the story of the game rather than trying to turn this into a cheat guide, or even a "how to win" guide. The literary value of most video games would be something that I would also question, but that is something which could also be discussed in such a Wikibook. --Rob Horning 18:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As a contributor to Wikiversity, I know we do have The School of Game Design and such a book could be used as a textbook and could be very useful to projects like CisLunarFreighter. Anyhow, that is just an aside. --Remi 05:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sock puppets

This is getting ridiculous: User:McEwenW00774086 User:McEwen_00774086 Is it just a coincidence we have two pople who's only difference in desired user name is an "_" and a "W"? Many similar names have been created. If you look at the user creation log this trend can be seen, and when Java displayed recent changes are activated, it becomes even more apparent. I can only think of nefarious reasons for having a bunch of usernames that appear to be script generated (considering all the numbers afterwards). However... maybe they are all in a class together and there is some logic behind the number scheme. I just think this is something the admins should definitely take notice of if they already haven't. --Remi 05:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Those accounts did seem a bit odd at first, but it looks like they all belong to a class project that’s working on Ethnomedicine. And, I think the numbers might be the students class/school ID. Their edits seem ok so I wouldn't worry too much about it (they do have some image tagging issues though). Thanks for the heads up. -- Az1568 ^(Talk) 06:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Panic2k4 is unblocked

Panic agreed to a conditional unblocking... see his talk page for details. If he returns to bad habits, any admin should apply a brief block to enable a cooling off period, but hopefully this will not be needed. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 19:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)