Wikibooks:Reading room/Archive 10

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This is an archive of past discussions. Please do not edit the contents of this page.
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Contents

We have Cookbook namespace

hashad has just informed me at the IRC channel that Cookbook namespace had been created. You can browse it here: [1].

I'm not sure what for do we need such namespace, but have fun :) --Derbeth talk 22:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It's funny that the main page of the Cookbook is not in the Cookbook namespace but in the main namespace. By the way, many people could start to complain "if Cookbook has its own namespace, why me not?" ManuelGR 22:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Who is moving the Cookbook talk pages from "Talk:Cookbook:" to "Cookbook talk:"? --Kernigh 22:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much time it takes to create one, but it might not be a bad idea for an admin or someone with a lot of knowledge of Wikibooks' structure to request that several namespaces be created to house bookshelves (such as a "Programming" namespace be created, etc.). It wouldn't be a bad idea in my opinion to add this to help organization. -Matt 00:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the current trend in naming policy is to not put books in bookshelf namespaces. For example, Programming:Ada changed its name to Ada Programming. The bookshelves themselves live in the "Wikibooks:" project namespace. --Kernigh 02:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Creating additional namespaces requires that a developer alter the configuration of the MediaWiki software. We can do without creating any further new namespaces. Stick to the naming policy and use sub-pages. It's simple, and it doesn't require developer intervention for every single module. Uncle G 13:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

A Bookshelf namespace might make sense (Bookshelf:Computer science), in the same way of Portal: namespace in Wikipedia. But regarding books, they are the content of this wiki and therefore should be on the main namespace. Cookbook is an exception and will always be. ManuelGR 20:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. A look on wikistat and you see that Cookbook is our largest book. Apart from The Golden Bough - but hat has been transwikied to wikisource and should be deleted.--Krischik T 13:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Textbook layout

I've been looking across the site but haven't found a page that includes any sort of suggested layout/template/design for a Wikibook. Most Wikibooks do have a slight resemblance with each other, but many features vary e.g. some have a title page, a contents page and an inroduction page; some have these three all on one page. Is there any sort of suggested layout at all?

No, there's no strict policy about it. Book authors are free to decide if a book should contain a title page or not, how to make navigation in the book etc. --Derbeth talk 20:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Personaly, I think that having at least standard navigation buttons would be an advantage (at least a nextpage/nextchapter button). I dont know how many times I've been reading a book and lost the ability to go to the next chapter. You shouldn't have to be using the browser "back" buttons to get back to a table of contents to get anywhere. - Jason

It would be a good idea to have a standard navigation method but it should be optional, not compulsory. It would be especially useful to have a standardized way of tagging pages so that single page books could be automatically created for printing (and converting to PDF, PostScript, etc.). --kwhitefoot 11:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Think free. Learn free.

Is there any chance of having this slogan changed to Think freely. Learn freely.? Using adjectives when you mean to use adverbs is non-standard English, silly, wrong and annoys me no end. --Greg K Nicholson 17:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The "slogan" that is used in the logo was simply something that was established to help give an initial start to the project. The Wikibooks logo certainly hasn't had the kind of attention that the Wikipedia logo recieved, and the slogan on the bottom IMHO is irrelvant as well. There were a bunch of logos that were proposed back at the beginning of the project, but perhaps it is time to make it more up-to-date in terms of what we are doing here right now. Mind you, designing a logo is not a trivial task, and can take a whole log of time and arguments back and forth over what it should look like. Do you have any other suggestions? --Rob Horning 18:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Beginner's Guide to Wikibooks

To me, the links on the main page and community portal and recent changes are all helpful, but when I first started looking around Wikibooks, I didn’t really pay attention to all the links. I didn’t know what was more important to read, in what order I should read it, or where to find answers to questions without having to ask them. I propose a Beginner’s Guide to Wikibooks, that will do the following:

  • Explain every link in “navigation” and “toolbox” in the sidebar
  • Explain the difference between enforced policies, proposed policies, and guidelines
  • Explain the use of templates and categories
  • Explain different places to ask different questions (staff lounge, talk pages, IRC, study help desk)
  • ”What Can I Do?” Links to pages involving active discussion (vfd, NPOV and accuracy disputes) and explanations on how to do small editing jobs (double redirects, orphaned pages, stubs, naming policy)

Perhaps the help files already available just need to be revised, or they need to be put in better order, but I think that a Beginner’s Guide to Wikibooks could really draw more people into the community- I know that everyone I tell right now feels overwhelmed. Let me know what you think, and if you’d like to help me write this book, leave me a message on my talk page. DettoAltrimenti 20:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I think that that could be a useful tool. I might like to work on something like that. (I know this isn't your talk page, but I hope you see this anyway.) --LV (Dark Mark) 20:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The help already has all of those. Uncle G 03:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, the way that Wikibooks introduces itself is a mess. My idea is to improve the Wikibooks:FAQ, but I have not started work on that yet. Do look at Help:Contents as Uncle G suggested; it links to several useful pages. We do have several important rules in the policy Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks; we only allow certain types of books. --Kernigh 22:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Centralized development status proposal

I have a proposal for centralizing the development stages of books inspired by the current usage in Spanish Wikibooks. See User:ManuelGR/Centralized development status proposal. ManuelGR 21:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a really good idea, but is it not a problem to create so many templates? DettoAltrimenti 22:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. In Spanish Wikibooks we use the main namespace for /Development pages and we haven't experienced any problem. Does it change anything in using the template namespace? I think it doesn't because the transclusion is still made. Is it a performance penalty for the server for using transclusion? I don't know, but I think the maintainability would be greatly improved. ManuelGR 17:12, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! Gerard Foley 16:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you mentioned the development stages, I will mention that our current status images - 00%.png 25%.png 50%.png 75%.png 100%.png - are copyright violations. These images violate policy at Special:Upload which requires that all images have copyright tags. Normally, one would put Template:image copyright on the talk page of the uploading user.

I was hoping to tag the images with {{no license}}, because I thought that someone would know the correct license and replace it with the correct tag. But the image descriptions seem to be protected against vandalism, so I cannot add the tag. --Kernigh 22:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

All of these images are not copyright violations... they were created and uploaded by Karl Wick. Commons has them listed as being released under the GFDL. See commons:Wikibooks book development for more details. Perhaps the images here on Wikibooks should be deleted instead so the images are drawn directly from commons? BTW, the reason they are protected is because of their widespread use and the fact that vandals have overwritten these images in the past with... well... unsavory images instead that showed up all over Wikibooks simultaneously. These images will need to be protected on commons if we draw from there instead. --Rob Horning 05:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the {{GFDL}} tags. I thought that someone would know the correct license. --Kernigh 18:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Law Issues

I think that perhaps wikibooks dealing with Law should have a tag at the top, saying perhaps something along the lines of "This information is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have a legal problem you should consult a lawyer for specific legal advice. Do not wait since there may be a deadline which affects your legal claim. If you need immediate legal advice involving political opression, or other free speech violations, contact your local American Civil Liberties Union." Just a bit of thought, for the author and webmaster's protection. CaladSigilon 15:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

So be bold and do it. It seems like a reasonable addition. However, some will have a problem with the ACLU bit. I would support something like "This information is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have a legal problem you should consult a lawyer for specific legal advice. Do not wait since there may be a deadline which affects your legal claim." That way there is a warning, but not an advertisment for a specific organisation. --LV (Dark Mark) 15:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm a Brit, so couldn't really add this, but could someone with the appropriate knowledge compile a list of all the major organisations which offer legal advice in a similar vein to the ACLU? Odd bloke 16:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:InterWiki

Wikibooks-logo.svg

Reading room/Archive 10 edition of Wikibooks.
Wikibooks-logo.svg

French language edition of Wikibooks.

This is a new template for linking to other language editions of Wikibooks. To link to the irish wikibooks type {{InterWiki|code=ga}} Gerard Foley 15:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

IMO this template is rather useless. You have standard interwiki syntax, so what's the sense in introducing new template? --Derbeth talk 18:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I added a call to this template. It says "Staff lounge edition" instead of "French edition" of Wikibooks. This tag might work at module French. --Kernigh 18:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It's only copied from wikipedia. See w:Template:interwiki Gerard Foley 22:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I added an optional parameter "edition" to this template. The {{InterWiki|code=fr|edition=French language}} code makes the second box seen here. --Kernigh 02:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Learning Circles, Learning Communities

I am interested in collaborating on writing/gathering information on the history of education, the politics of education, best practices and a call and challege to action for families to be empowered to learn how to learn life long for every generation.

Anthony D.Pfeiffer visioncoach@hotmail.com

You can find alot of our current modules on education by doing a search for "education". If you plan on being a frequent contributer, it would also benefit you to create an account. Accounts are anonymous and free. Plus, with an account, you will get a number of features, and you will also get attiribution for your work here. If you need any thing at all, leave me a message on my talk page. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 22:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I would add that you should also look at the Education bookshelf for some content about learning strategies, especially the Instructional Technology wikibook that was put together by grad students at Wayne State University and has a number of unique ideas for instructional theories. You are also welcome to add books to this bookshelf and help expand edcational theory discussions. --Rob Horning 16:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Vfd-survived

A template for books that survive vfd, to try to stop other people listing the same book again. It should only be used on talk pages. It also needs some work! Gerard Foley 22:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Made some changes to make the template consistent with VfD. -Matt 18:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I changed its look - I don't think it should be as big as vfd template. --Derbeth talk 01:15, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it is time to nail the Game Manual issue on the head

A good amount of my contributions are going into game manuals, and there has been at least 1 other contributor who doesn't know the state of his book because this debate is still in the air. As far as I know, people have agreed to include Game Manuals as long as they are somewhat "high quality"...

And if anyone has a link to any other pages where the Game Manual question thing can be answered, please tell me :) --Dragontamer 23:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I should add that incompleted policies like this one deteriorate the image of Wikibooks even more] than any game guide would do to the image of Wikibooks (caution, my opinion hidden in last statement :-p) So I say, we need to close this issue within 2 weeks. Tell the editors if they are welcome here, instead of telling them when their books are done.--Dragontamer 23:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Strange pattern of vandalism suggesting that commercial script has targeted page

One wikibook discussion page that happens to be on my watchlist is being scrubbed and replaced by a commercial link every few days. History here. DNS lookup shows that the IPs attacking the page come from all over the map--Madison, Ann Arbor, Hicksville ... Typically, each IP is making its first edit with this vandalism. Could some kind admin please protect this obscure page? Is there some general way of dealing with such an attack on wikipages? Betsythedevine 15:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

IMHO this is a page (the Wikimainia page and related ones) that should never have been on Wikibooks in the first place, precisely for the reasons you are mentioning. The policy wasn't all that clear in the past, but after a considerable amount of discussion we have made it abundantly clear (with general concensus from people on other Wikimedia projects as well, not to metion the Foundation board itself) that Wikibooks is not to be a seed wiki for new Wikimedia projects. What really needs to happen here is a trans-wiki of this page to Meta and a complete deletion of all the content... perhaps even a deletion/protection from recreation as well. Any takers on trying to do the transwiki? --Rob Horning 18:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Permission error "deletedhistory"

In the past, I could read edit histories of deleted pages, but now, I am being blocked from such pages with message like:

The action you have requested is limited to users with the "deletedhistory" permission assigned. See Wikibooks:Administrators. [2]

I cannot find anything at en.wikibooks.org, meta.wikimedia.org, www.mediawiki.org, bugs.wikipedia.org, or foundation-l that mentions "deletedhistory" permission. Thus I assume that this is a bug, and that I should be able to read histories of deleted pages.

Has anyone noticed this problem on wikis other than English Wikibooks? Also, is bugs.wikipedia.org the correct place for me to complain about this? --Kernigh 02:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that the developers are experimenting with a few ideas, but I thought that was supposed to be on test wikis before it went "live" on major Wikimedia projects. I havn't heard about this on Foundation-l, and yes, the MediaWiki bugzilla is an appropriate place to complain about this and other similar kinds of problems... or Foundation-l if it is really annoying changes. I just tried it with my admin status and I'm able to get the history with sysop status, but when I'm logged in anonymously I get the same message you just listed above. In the past I have had only the edit history show up without sysop status (you still can't undelete), and this may be a new "permission" the developers are experimenting with. Let's see what else is going to happen with this in the near future, and bureaucrats ought to be able to "grant" this permission to individual users. --Rob Horning 07:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
After some review, you should read this e-mail message on Wikitech-l that discusses this very issue. I guess it is a new permission for now. --Rob Horning 07:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I created Bugzilla:4414. While I was there, I voted for Bugzilla:939. --Kernigh 00:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well we had this same issue just this morning. After trawling the Internet and the MediaWiki Forums with no answers, a Google search pointed us to this link http://dimer.tamu.edu/simplog/archive.php?blogid=7&cid=0 You have to edit LocalSetting.php and add this: $wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deletedhistory'] = true;


All of the lists on the category pages are empty! Bugzilla:4443 --Kernigh 21:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

References and footnotes?

I'm working on a stuttering therapy book. I have a couple hundred references, myself to studies in peer-reviewed journals. What's the best way to put in the references? Using [3] looks nice but how do I replace http://www.website.com with an internal link to the final section of my wikibook? unsigned comment by Tdkehoe at 00:06, 29 December 2005

For footnotes, try using the "ref" and "note" templates as explained at Wikibooks:Template_messages/General#Footnotes. For example, if I write "{{ref|gnu}}" it makes a number.[4]
^  http://www.gnu.org (To make this footnote, write "{{note|gnu}} http://www.gnu.org". Put the footnote at the bottom of the page, not here.)
The part between "|" and "}}" must be the same for both the ref and the note, else they will not link together. I used "gnu" for this footnote. --Kernigh 00:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, works great! I added a section about this to the "Manual of Style."--Thomas David Kehoe 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hide table of contents?

Is there a way to permanently hide the table of contents on a page? I have a page with many headings, each with a short paragraph of text. The reader can see the contents at a glance, no need for the TOC.--Thomas David Kehoe 23:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure. Put __NOTOC__ on the top of the page. Juliusross 23:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked.--Thomas David Kehoe 00:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

In Memoriam: September 11, 2001

I am adding a link to MetaWikipedia:Meta:Requests for deletion#Sept11 Memorial Wiki to this staff lounge. It is a request to delete the http://sep11.wikipedia.org/ wiki. Because the request suggests moving pages to Wikibooks, and because we already have a page In Memoriam: September 11, 2001, this discussion concerns English Wikibooks. I invite Wikibookians to participate in the discussion. --Kernigh 01:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Linking to subsection in a page?

"How do I make links?" explains how to make links to pages, but it doesn't say how to make links to a subsection of a page. In HTML I would put <a name="MyTag">Heading</a>, then link with <a href="#MyTag">.

[[the/whole/page/address#heading]] . Section headers automatically create shortcuts. For example:
 [[Wikibooks:Staff lounge#Linking to subsection in a page?]]
Wikibooks:Staff lounge#Linking to subsection in a page?
See how it works? Usual stuff apply. [[blahblah#blah | blah]] would display "blah" in a link. --Dragontamer 02:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

You can make links to a subsection of the same page like this: [[#name of subsection]].

If you link from one page to a subsection of a different page, the wiki software sometimes drops the subsection. For example, fr:Project:Le Bistro#Livre d'humour links to the top of the page, not the "Livre d'humour" section. --Kernigh 21:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Navigational map for books

m:User:Nigelk has implemented an extension for structuring a set of pages in a book or slide-like manner, providing a TOC and previous-up-next links to pages. I think this extension would be useful to Wikibooks, so I invite all the contributors to discuss it: m:User:Nigelk/Nav. ManuelGR 18:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Navigation Bar Thoughts

I've considered trying to update/change the navigation bar that appears at the left (or whereever on the skin you are using) that appears on all page views of Wikibooks. What I'd like to get is some input from the community as to what should go there.

Some thoughts on the subject would be to add a link to this page (Staff Lounge) as well as possibly Wikiversity as well. I'd also like to get rid of the Random Module link as it seems silly and not really useful for new users (although a cute play toy to put on the Community Portal page perhaps). It is easier for us as admins to replace existing links with something else, but if we come up with a solid plan we can also get some developer support, including reording the links as well. These should be links that would be useful to general users, but also keep in mind that we need to offer support to new users and visitors to Wikibooks as well. --Rob Horning 17:12, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Yeah, the random article is nice to have on 'pedia, when you just want to look up something random, but not as useful here(especially since a lot of modules by themselves aren't too useful or interesting, and a lot of individual articles don't have navigation links back to the whole book), so I don't really see any use for it. Maybe a link to All Bookshelves would be more useful there, although you can get to that from the front page. (My entry point is on Recent Changes, since I tend to look at that more than any other page, and the front page doesn't change too often--perhaps something else that could be taken into consideration.) Xerol Oplan 17:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually you don't need developer support for changing the navigation bar. Admins can customize MediaWiki:Sidebar and add or delete links, although the possible set of links seems limited. ManuelGR 18:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • A link to Staff lounge is a good idea. Many MediaWikis already have links like this.

    Adding a link to Wikiversity is also a good idea. There is now a modified project proposal to create a wiki for Wikiversity. Until that happens, Wikibooks can encourage contributions to Wikiversity by adding it to the "navigation" box.

    As for "Random module", it might be appropriate to move this from "navigation" to "toolbox". I occasionally use it to find random broken pages to fix or delete. --Kernigh 21:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I've made the changes to the sidebar. It is really easier than I thought, and this is a feature that is not used too often on other projects as well as it could be. Well, if there are any other thoughts on what to add/remove from the sidebar, make sure you note it here on the Staff Lounge. --Rob Horning 11:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

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