Book creator (disable)

Wikibooks:Reading room/Archive 2

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Jump to: navigation, search
Replacement filing cabinet.svg

This is an archive of past discussions. Please 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 discussion page


Contents

Board Election 2005

Hi, Board election has opened and we'll accept candidate from the next monday, July 7 on meta. The votes will start at the end of month. Further information is available on m:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2005/En in several languages. This election is very important: we vote for our own representatives to the Board. If someone put a link to this page on Recentchanges, it would be very much appreciated. --Aphaia 08:37, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Templates and Backlink Expert Wanted

In the books I've been working on I've been using a system where things left undone are noted in the text as a TODO item. Something like: [TODO: Insert figure of the nodes connected here].

What I'd like to be able to do is to change these suggestions into something that uses a template: {{:todo|Insert figure of the nodes connected here}}. The text itself would have some kind of nice, boxed rendering, and then the item (and the module name in which it appears, perhaps subsection too?) would appear on an automatically generated Todo List. That way, contributors can check the todo list for tasks remaining. When the template is removed, the item is taken off of the list. (Perhaps lo/med/hi priorities could be assigned to todo items, to also help contributors.)

Is this technically possible? Thanks, MShonle 00:03, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC).

Backlinks and categories can show which pages have a todo tag (see e.g. w:en:Category:To do) but not the content. To have an overview of todo contents each page can have an associated todo page, and a page has to be created transcluding all these todo pages.--Patrick 06:43, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Alternatively, the todo contents can be in the name of a page that is put in Category:Todo, e.g. User:Patrick/Wikibooks:Staff lounge:todo: discuss todo system with Mshonle, use category or backlinks, or perhaps pages with a long name like this one.--Patrick 20:38, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll test some things out. (When the time comes around to me again.) MShonle 15:25, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Breaking up particularly large wikibook modules

I'm currently in the process of writing some modules for a Wikibook that has become quite large. The example is the following Wikibook: Serial Communications

Where I'm having difficulties is that one of the sub-modules is currently 73KB in length. I would like to try put that into more bite-sized chunks to get that to be more manageable for editing purposes. The problem I'm encountering is that I would also like to keep this module as a "chapter", in terms of how the wikibook is going to be read, and from a reader's viewpoint (rather than a Wikibookian who is trying to edit content of the module) I would like to keep this material all together as one continuous chapter.

The question then is: What would be some alternatives to break down a module that is particularly long?

  • Break into sub-chapters. This would treat the module as the jumping off point to a bunch of sub-modules that cover a specific point of what I'm trying to cover. I don't like how that would breaks the flow of reading the "book" however, and turns it too much into something like Wikipedia, but corrupted. I am trying to write a book here, not encyclopedic articles loosely linked together.
  • Use Templates for "logical sections" and put the module together as a collection of templates. This would keep the material together, but I see that as an abuse of templates, and much more intimidating for a new user to try and make an edit. It does allow, however, for the "large module" warning to go away, and it makes the whole chapter fit together from the viewpoint of a reader.
  • Ignore the warning and keep the large module. This isn't satisfying in the sense that I think the 32K warning for module size is a legitimate concern. There are legitimate problems when you try sending large amounts of content through a web posting request via http, and the technical side does have some limitations that suggest large modules should be avoided if possible.

Any other suggestions? Added comments?

Break into subchapters. Yes you're writing a "book", but even if printed on A3 paper you still have to turn the pages once in a while! Therefore a digital equivalent can be similar. As long as the pages are seamlessly linked with whatever formatting standard you've chosen to go with at the top and bottom of each, it should not feel too disjointed.
An example of a navigation header would be my recent solution for the Turf Wars and 178 Territories Glitch sections of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game guide. I was forced to divide the Turf Wars explanation into two (with the additions I plan it will go way over 32kb), but the two pages are still clearly linked to each other and each refers to the other at various points. Also note the italicised disambiguation at the top so if you've come to the wrong section because it sounded very similar you can quickly find what you were really after.
A bit of math tells me your 73kb could divide into four nicely-sized 18kb pages (give or take). So it wouldn't be too hard to sacrifice the flow for a break, and it would still load nicely. Of course you could just divide it into three 24kb sections, but it wouldn't take many additions to put those close to the premium limit once more. If you're going to bear the pain of a split, at least choose a method where you only have to do it once!
Hope that helps! Master Thief Garrett 14:29, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Any template compilation page?

Is there a collection of Templates anywhere on Wikibooks? I know on Wikipedia there's a page listing all the various {{stub}}s and more pages listing other Templates. It would be useful to know what exists already, like {{cleanup}} and {{VfD}}, and to see what we still need. {{split}} comes to mind. --Everlong 12:20, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There is Special:Allpages/Template:, and Wikibooks:Template messages, showing some.--Patrick 07:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

21 Century Math

21 Century Math: This seems to be an obscure project. Please look to the webpage. I propose to delete it.

Can whoever proposed this actually tag the relevant article with a VfD tag and put up for discussion on the Votes For Deletion page? - Lynx7725 6 July 2005 07:13 (UTC)

Picture questions

A couple of questions about pictures...

  • Is there any way of linking to pictures on Wikipedia or do I just have to download them and upload them to wikibooks giving the correct credit and info as necessary?
  • Am I right in thinking that in general I should be ok taking screenshots from Microsoft Excel for a wikibook, under the fair use policy I think I can as it's for teaching purposes, can anyone confirm/deny this?

--PhysicsFan 18:07, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If the image is on the Commons you can crosslink it (visit the Image: page and you'll see "this is from the Commons) or whatnot.
Alternately, you can create a template on WP to make crosslinking to any other Wikimedia project possible, but I'll have to look that up again. I'll get back to you on that soon. :)
Remember, "fair use" claims is tentative at best, and it's supposedly the job of the uploader to assess the fairness of each and every item. Wikibooks currently has no fair use policy, at least not in words like Wikipedia does. In this case I would say it's fine claiming it for teaching purposes, and, as such, might even inspire sale of the software. And it's not like your reproduction is taking away from the value of the purchased item in the way an artwork would. People have already been adding screenshots to game guides here and no-one's tearing their hair out, so I'd say just go ahead until something's down in writing! Master Thief Garrett 00:54, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring of the Front Page of Wikibooks

I am providing a more detailed explanation on the Talk:Main Page, and please post comments there as well. The point I'm trying to make for people who don't frequent that page is that there is a need to restructure the bookshelves somewhat. The IT Bookshelf has been split between three different bookshelves, based on discussions at Wikibooks talk:Information technology bookshelf. It is something that has been needed for some time, but has created a few minor problems on the front page. I'm just asking for some advise on how to proceed, and advertising here in the Staff Lounge. Rob Horning 19:09, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Uploading BMP

I would like to know why I am not able to upload a BMP file to Wikibooks. I know that PNG is much smaller (in most cases), and there's JPG as an alternative for photos. These are the formats I normally use (apart from a very rare exception like this).

I understand that allowing people to upload BMP files could result in bandwidth issues, but I think it's not that hard to communicate that issue after someone is trying to upload a BMP file - much like it is now, only with an option to continue anyway, and of course instructions on how to convert to another format.

I raise this question because for my how-to, I instruct the reader on how to install an icon. Maya only excepts BMP files. Right now I have a PNG of that icon uploaded to Wikibooks, but I instruct the reader to download the BMP from my own site (I cannot garantee it will remain, unfortunately!). The PNG and the BMP don't differ much in size: BMP = 2100 bytes, PNG = 1419 bytes - both around 2Kb, so that should not be the problem I believe. I think it's even a bigger mistake that right now the image is doubly-hosted. 1983 6 July 2005 09:58 (UTC)

As you say, BMPs are huge! However MediaWiki doesn't seem to assess filesize--I've uploaded some greedy PNGs/JPEGs without complaint--and instead bans anything and everything with the BMP extension.
As for the solutions, I really don't know. The problem is that BMP support could be hugely abused and drag things down with unnecessary usage of things best shown in PNG, and to add support in would require special modification of the software... hmmm...
...what you could do is upload the image(s) to a free image host like Maj.com. Unlike your own hosting, they will certainly exist for the forseeable future. And if you're really worried about them dying off you could upload the image to more than one to increase your odds :)
But if you want the image to be displayed inline and have an Image: page and be directly saveable and all... well... I guess you could upload the image as a PNG and tell them to convert it in MS Paint. Yes that's annoying, but it would work. Or just upload the BMP with a PNG extension and tell them to rename it. That would also work, and I *assume* MediaWiki can display such a "bastard" image it's not supposed to support, but even so it isn't the ideal solution. Hmmm...
So, yeah. Try something like that. :) Master Thief Garrett 6 July 2005 11:47 (UTC)
The renaming trick won't work, but I was just hoping that someone could change the software, to enable the uploading of BMP below a certain filesize (let's say 50kb), AND extend the warning like I suggested. 1983 6 July 2005 15:24 (UTC)
You're in the wrong place. Try the MediaWiki development site. Aya 6 July 2005 15:35 (UTC)

Navigation

I noticed when trying to read some of the content here that you can't actually read any of the books here like you would an e-book. That is there is no next page or next section functionality. I suspect this has been discussed somewhere but I wonder if it was a conscious decision requiring excessive use of the back button to read these books or if it is a technical problem that is still looking for a solution, or perhaps I am missing something significant and this sort of thing can be done I just failed to figure it out. It strikes me that any page that requires the use of the back button for normal navigation/usage is a poor user interface, it prevents the user from becoming really involved in the books and acts as a barrier to the sections fitting together in logical ways. If this issue has been discussed could someone point me to it? Dalf 20:43, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

eeep ..... minor use of my browsers find feature and I found mention of this on this very page. Still no resolution just a few people asking the same question. From the looks of it its a technical/convention based problem at this point. But, one I think should be solved to differentiate wikibooks from being just a collection of related wikipedia articles on a single subject grouped together. If the pages are done by chapter and not section then its a simpler problem because you are less likely to have sections inserted between other sections which would require a more complex TOC based solution. Dalf 20:48, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You might want to review tasks in the Wikipedia Usability Project to make sure your problem is being addressed. AlMac 14:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Request for extra eyeballs

I'll be away from my keyboard for most of the coming week, because I'm going on holiday. So, would anyone who has a chance please look over recent changes list from time to time to eliminate any link spam and newbie tests that you find (not that you guys aren't doing that already ;). The more eyeballs we have looking the better, because it's easier to eliminate spam when it enters Wikibooks than it is to do it later. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 03:56, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do, but yeah, we need more eyeballs, preferably with a brain attached. - Lynx7725 04:59, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)
I don't mind pitching in too. Need a break from writing about Grand Theft Auto anyways. Aya 16:04, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Aya, but it looks like GTA tends to draw the hits.... ^_^; I've pretty much scanned all the way back to 01 July 2005, think most if not all vandalism has been caught. - Lynx7725 4 July 2005 11:39 (UTC)
Quite possibly the case. That Wikibook has been heavily advertised on the GameFAQs forum recently, and it seems for every sensible submission we receive, there are about ten newbie experiments or vandalism attempts. Not really much we can do about it, especially considering the GameFAQs forum is predominantly inhabited by young male teens, whose sexually-oriented vandalism attempts on this site (e.g. "[ suck | lick ] my <insert body part here>") can only be attributed to an excess of testosterone. I'm still keeping an eye on things there though. - Aya 4 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)
I did leave out a couple that should be deleted though... brain-fried. - Lynx7725 4 July 2005 11:39 (UTC)
If you're referring to new pages created with meaningless content, I've added some to the speedy deletion candidates, but I'm not sure it's worthwhile, since very few of the people who can actually do something about it seem to be active, and in the case of GTA, if the page names are correct, I'll probably fill in the correct info later on, and delete the spam in the process. - Aya 4 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)

HELP! I'm getting swamped by the large numbers of edit today. More eyeballs are needed on the ground! - Lynx7725 6 July 2005 07:08 (UTC)

I'm back. I really appreciate Lynx7725 stepping in to help out, along with Aya and any others that I have missed. I'm still pretty busy, so I won't be able to devote as much time to fighting vandalism as I used to. But, if we continue to share the workload, then there shouldn't be too many gaps in coverage. Again, if you are not already, then please lend a hand patrolling the Recent Changes list now and then. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 01:39, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Contributions not tracking correctly...

Hello. I set up an account on Wikipedia, and then I made some changes to a WikiBook here that didn't show up in my list of contributions until I created an account here also.

My contributions all show up in the history as coming from my static IP "24.87.56.253." How do I go about getting this fixed so that:

1. These changes (all done today) will show up in the "my contributions" section; and, 2. The history of the book will show "Randolf Richardson" instead of "24.87.56.253?"

The Book I've been making changes to (as I follow the tutorial) is Blender 3D: Noob to Pro

Thanks in advance.

Randolf Richardson - randolf@inter-corporate.com

Pardon me for asking the obvious, but have you logged into your named account yet? If you are not logged in (or logged out previously, or did not ask the computer to remember your login), the system would automatically put your contributions under your IP.
And I'm grateful that you got a named account; patrolling the edits for vandalism and newcomer tests is a lot easier when you see a name instead of an IP. - Lynx7725 6 July 2005 07:11 (UTC)

This page is too long + possible bug

This page is now 350k, and I think it's causing problems. The last 7 diffs in the history list are somewhat bizarre, and I received a conflict warning when there was no conflict. I think there may actually be a bug in the new v1.5 database schema code, since two consecutive diffs on this page imply different content for the same revision.

Perhaps in future, each new issue to be discussed should be given its own subpage, and just linked to from here. Simply cutting out old text and sticking it in an archive page seems a little primitive.

Aya 6 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)

The easiest way is to create subpages and link to them, not with [[ ]] but with {{ }}. So any page can be inserted into another. Then when the page gets old you just change it to [[ ]] and it'll "vanish" to be a mere link. However how to guide someone asking a new question to use this method, hmmm... Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 11:19 (UTC)
Again, I was already aware of this, but I found problems with transclusion, in that a modfication to the transcluded page will not show up in the containing page automatically, unless the transcluded page is part of the "Template:" namespace. Furthermore, this still doesn't remove the fact that the page being downloaded, each time a user requests it, is still massive (saving bandwidth is still "a good thing (tm)"). All in all, transclusion is too flaky for my tastes. Pity really, it does have great potential.
I'm currently looking at alternate solutions for these "forum-esque" pages. My first idea was simply to create a new page called, perhaps, "Wikibooks:Forums", then link to several sub-forums, one of which would be this page, and a few others. Then by trying to classify what sort of queries should go on which pages, we could reduce the total size of each page.
Then it occurred to me: perhaps all the questions asked here are already answered elsewhere on the site, but it's just too damned disorganised to find anything. So I'm taking on the challenge of indexing/merging/reorganising all the appropriate content, as well as implementing some provisional standards (e.g. what to do in the case that this page reaches 350k). It's also about time some of the existing provisional standards became official (whatever that means in such an anarchic system). I had hinted at the possibility of doing this before, but was put off by the general apathy of other users, so I came to the conclusion that if I want it to happen, I'm gonna have to do it all myself. This will all take time, however, but luckily I'm between programming contracts right now, and I have about 3 weeks I can work full-time on this.
If this all sounds a little radical, don't worry. I shall be soliciting opinions from all active users before I make any major changes. In fact, most of it will be based on opinions of other users.
Aya 7 July 2005 17:12 (UTC)


business & economics

I think the business bookshelf ought to be moved. Bussiness is not a part of humanities. it should probably go under artsz& sciences, but, since we don't have that bookshelf, maybe it should go under the Sdiences one.

There are separate topics:
  • Science and Technology
  • Humanities and Arts
  • Business and Industry
  • Government
    • and International Institutions that are supported by governments, like UN agencies
  • Non-Government organizations
  • Economic Theory
  • Medicine
  • lots more

AlMac 14:48, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Game guides?

Is it straying too much from the idea of a text book to host wiki guidebooks to games (e.g. zelda) on the site? I think that these would be really helpful and would attract a lot of people as these type of guides are typically on pay-subscription websites or are simply humongous text files. [anonymous submitter, 17:05, 15 Mar 2005]


I guess what you are looking for exists already on the Miscellaneous bookshelf:
and so on. Is this what you were looking for? Please add your game wisdom there as well! --Andreas 13:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is now a dedicated Games Category and Games bookshelf; it has been removed from the Miscellaneous bookshelf. I've spent the last few days working on replacing the messy template organization system that was formerly used for organization. The video games can now be found on the Computer and video games bookshelf, and the extensive categorization system created for them allows sorting by either genre or platform of release. --Poiuyt Man 00:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm impressed! Well done, Poiuyt Man, these are really very tidy bookshelves! --Andreas 15:45, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm hoping it will encourage more game-related books to form now that they are easier to find and navigate. --Poiuyt Man 15:58, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Broken Namespaces?

I wonder why I can't make link from Wikibooks to sl:Wikipedia like this [[:sl:|Slovene Wikipedia]], but on Commons the same thing work? Is this a bug?--Popski 16:51, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Peruse this:

In other words, just using :sl: links to the Slovenian wikibooks, which doesn't exist, so the link doesn't work. You can use :w:sl: or :sl:w: to link to the Slovenian Wikipedia (:w: stands for Wikipedia) but you need to specify an article name. You can find the main page name by going to http://sl.wikipedia.org and taking the article title. r3m0t (cont) (talk) 19:04, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

navigation bar to the left misses "Community portal"

I would like to have a "Community Portal" page on the left. Who has the power to change "Wikiversity" back to "Community Portal"? It must be a person with developer abilities. Who is the right person to talk to?

We need a "Community Portal" (like Wikipedia, Meta, Commons, ... all have) to coordinate projects like Wikibooks:Hierarchy naming scheme, Wikibooks:Manual of Style, Wikibooks:Collaboration of the Month, Help:Development stages, and so on. There already exists a German Wikiversity, why not the English one? There is no reason for the English Wikiversity to take away Wikibook's "Community Portal" any longer. --Andreas 10:19, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The "Study help desk" link links to Current events which redirects to Wikibooks:Community Portal. I don't really see the reason for that, why not call it "Community portal" and link it directly to Wikibooks:Community Portal? Or am I missing something? RoceKiller 23:14, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

How to revert?

Hello,

I would like to be able to easily revert pointless edits and strange deletions done to the Blender 3D wikibook, is there a simple-to-use revert button somewhere that I'm not seeing, or do I have to figure out the differences, and copy and paste the previous version every time? The process of figuring out where edits went wrong, then copying and pasting from one browser window to another is eating up my book development time. Thanx. --Spiderworm 23:20, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Click on "History" on top of the page (next to "edit"), choose the old version you want to see (by clicking on its date), and if you see it, press edit and save (You will see a warning that you edit an out-of-date revision and any newer changes will get lots.) Hope this helps. --Andreas 07:26, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Or become an admin, and get a handy single-click rollback button. I don't know why it isn't just given to everyone after they've been here a while...
In other news, nominate me to be an admin! Wikibooks:Requests_for_adminship#Omegatron - Omegatron 13:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Seriously? Arrrrrgh!!! (watch out for multiple vandalism edits though) I have an admin request too, being ignored even though I've had a majority in favor for some time now. Do I need more votes or what? User:Gumba gumba got to trash things for over 90 minutes while I tried to find an admin. Non-admins trip over edited redirects too, being unable to move an article over an old badly-chosen redirect in that case. AlbertCahalan 16:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
multiple vandalism edits? it takes care of consecutive edits by the same user. i guess you mean two different people vandalizing one after the other. sadly, wikibooks is so poorly-watched that that probably happens a lot... - Omegatron 19:13, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Open Source

It seems to me that for something as complicated as a textbook you might want to take a lead from projects like Firefox and Openoffice and look for a commercial textbook that someone is willing to donate to the open source market. I'd imagine a textbook no longer in use from 1990 or so could be donated and used as the basis for an updated open source project. Has anyone ever tried anything like this? 68.42.24.89 20:17, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Encarta-Style Electronic Library

This somewhat ties into what someone asked earlier, about converting books to PDF files. Would it be plausible to make an encarta style program for searching and reading text books in there, or a ready-made cd with an index linking to all the files, etc. I think that would be a very good idea, for people to not only test out Wiki Books, but to use them on a daily basis, wherever they are, regardless of an internet connection.

Organization of categories/bookshelves

What's with the default organization of Science - Mathematics - Information Technology - Languages - Humanities - Arts etc.? I changed it to alphabetical on the All Bookshelves page, now I'm wondering if there is a reason behind this order (before I change anymore pages). --Poiuyt Man 12:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Special page formatting

While logging in I noticed a few errors in formatting - but there's no specific talk page for the login page, so I'm bringing it to the attention of an admin here. Specifically the problems are related to display of links - you can see the html! Sheridan 22:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

there's no specific talk page for the login page — False. There is. It's MediaWiki talk:Loginend. Uncle G 12:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

edit bait

When I type in an a name in the prompt on this Wiki project, it doesn't offer people to make an article with that name. Wikipedia has that Wikivention, why dosen't Wikibooks have that? --Wikamurai 02:03, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if you're serious or what, with your "edit bait" title, but this is not Wikipedia. Here we have book-like things that we call books, even though they mostly don't work like books. Adding a missing page doesn't make any sense unless you specify what book it belongs to. Please don't add Wikipedia-style top-level stub articles like Doom. AlbertCahalan 02:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Solutions to textbook exercises?

I'm thinking about starting a wikibook of solutions to textbook exercises for which no official solutions exist, for example to "First-Order Logic" by Raymond M. Smullyan, but I'm not sure whether this is a violation of copyrights. I'm also wondering if it's legal to include the original exercise texts. What's your opinion on that? FlorianMehm 14:57, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks projects

Project Ideas

See Wikibooks:Project Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

  • Restaurant Guides
  • Language learning
  • Universal dichotomous key
  • Manuals for free software
  • Print and send (charity and non profit education to request printouts from old printers)
  • Voting on ordering of arbitrary links of a wide choice such as on the freeware in Open_Source
  • Songbook with sheet music

Bookshelf Ideas

See Wikibooks:Bookshelf Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

  • Social Science
  • Game strategy guides
  • Merit Badges
  • Geography
  • Interactive books using Flash, Java, javascript or Curl

The IT bookshelf seems to have grown to a point where it is becoming disorganised and difficult to navigate. My opinion is that all books contained within the current IT bookshelf should be assessed and classified as either non-academic 'computing' topics or academic 'IT/IS' topics. The former should then be moved to a new bookshelf 'Computing' (which already exists).

With a clear description of each bookshelf, and decent cross-referencing, I think it would make things more logical. Any opinions?

Robcowie 11:37, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Robcowie. In general I like the idea of cleaning up bookshelves and organizing things. I'm just not sure, if there are already enough "Computing books" out there to justify a splitting. What helps nobody, is to have a lot of empty bookshelves, with 2 or 3 books in there each (like somebody opened a bookshelf for law, with only 2 books in it now..). To my opinion, it would be a better procedure, first to open a new section within IT bookshelf (called "Computing") as you proposed, and see how many books actually go in there. As soon as there are more than, say, 10 serious books in there, I would consider splitting the bookshelf, but not before.
A good and transparent way to easily assess the progress of books, by the way, is to give development stages to the books within the IT bookshelf, using the new templates Development stage: 100% (as of Mar 10, 2005)(Mar 10, 2005). Then one can easily see how old an estimate of the progress is.
I would refrain from opening new subsections within "Computing bookshelf", if there are no books for that yet. Books are written much more slowly than articles on wikipedia, so in general the idea would be, to organize well what is already there, not to try to organize something, that has not been written yet. --Andreas 09:05, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Book Ideas

See Wikibooks:Book Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:

  • DBQ How-To
  • French (for anglophones; see later chapters)
  • Programmation (started Dec 2003)
  • C Windows programming

Wikibooks v. Wikiversity

Wikibooks:What Wikibooks is not is not very well fleshed out. Here are some ideas.

I am not sure what Wikibooks is not. But from my experience, it is hardly enough to teach a course with book sources only. I have seen textbook publishers having web sites to provide all of the following types of resources (except for #5), and more (some online communication functions).

  1. Syllabi
  2. Assignments/ Exercises
  3. Case study collection (for certain subjects)
  4. Handouts, files for transparencies and presentation applications (such as powerpoint)
  5. Multimedia and/or interactive materials, including small programs
  6. Reading lists, including hyperlinks.

I would not be surprised if Wikibooks is aiming at really a comprehensive instructional resource repository, but would also not be surprised if it is specialized in books and similar forms of materials only.

Is there any ongoing concensus or personal opinions? Tomos 23:58, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That's one of the reasons I thought that a name change to Wikiversity would be a good idea. Then it would be very natural to have all of the above. Also the name "Wikibooks" isn't something that is really trademarkable - too generic and way too much prior use of the term. --mav 10:51, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I agree that wikiversity would be more appropriate. As it is, "wikibooks" imply that we can't use any multimedia. I know I'd like to put loads of sound files on the foreign language learning wikibooks! GoodStuff 13:49, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I think that if the goal is textbooks, some of the content that exists should be split; In economics, for example, there is room for a 10th grade textbook, in addition to a college freshman textbook, and then more in each subfield. The other thing that I noticed is that textbooks tend to have 2 things wikibooks seem not to have; the first is examples and problems, and the second is those stories and examples that go in the boxes on the side. I'm not sure how this would work in terms of the code and such, but it would be nice to be able to add them, especially if they are categorizable. David Manheim 6:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes those are strangely lacking, except in rare exceptions like the Blender 3D guide (or whatever it's called). I guess it's just because Wikibooks are written without a sole application (in this case to be sold as a textbook for teaching purposes, thus self-learning elements would be mandatory).
As for the technical side of things, there are no real boundaries to this. Layout is not a problem, you can do almost anything with images and div tags. And if it is useful for several pages to share a sidebar, it can be done as a template rather than a module entry, and then in turn you can create a category as a hub of related items for speedy finding and insertion.
BUT the problem is that someone has to write such examples and things to begin with... hmmm... certainly I hope things get more illustrated, right now most of the modules are text-only. GarrettTalk 12:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I completely agree with the examples thing. I know I've said this before, but wikibooks tend to read more like encyclopedia entries than books. No examples, explanations, proofs, sample problems, etc. And too much rammed into 1 book- take the calculus book, it attempts to cover 4 semesters in 1 book. The end result is a good refresher, but a poor teaching guide. Which is, I believe the purpose of wikibooks.
THe solution is a lot of work- write your own book. Fork the existing one if absolutely necessary. For myself, I picked a math topic that didn't yet have a book, and am writing a proof and example heavy version. Its going to take a few hundred pages (if printed) to do the same topics the calculus book does in a dozen, but it will teach the subject.
The problem with this solution- it takes a lot of time. On a good day I can get 1/8-1/4 of a lesson done. At this rate it will take me 6 months to a year to do it if I'm forced to do so solo. GUess what- thats what real books take. Wikibooks are no different. Not many people are willing to put in the time.
What may make things easier would be better functions for connecting collaborators. Right now, one starts a module and hope people add on. It would be nice if there was a page somewhere you could say "I'm willing to spend x hours a week writing topic Z. Anyone want to hook up?" and allow people to divide the work from the get go. Most books tend to be 90% written by the same person or small group anyway, may as well make it easier to form those groups. It also gets peer pressure working for you- "Well, I don't want to write tonight, but I promised my partner I'd get chapter 2 done by next week- I guess I have to".--Gabe Sechan 22:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia has "Wikipedians by interest" and "British Wikipedians" and similar things which would (potentially) make it easier to find help. Certainly I think it is very possible to find others willing to help, but first it requires some sort of hub or "tasks for xyz subject" system of pages.... hmmm... as for peer pressure that's good too! :) GarrettTalk 23:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I feel there is a real distinction between Wikibooks and Wikiversity, of purpose. Wikiversity should not be about producing text books. It should produce courses. It needs to raise questions, and be able to lead students to further material to allow them to answer those questions critically. The problem, as I see it, is that people have not understood the purpose of the Wikiversity. Wikiversity editors have unfortunately reproduced what is in Wikibooks (and countless other internet and print sources). There should be a big focus by moderators to get editors to move away from text books when producing their Wikiversity pages. Abc123 07:35, July 22, 2005 (UTC).

HELP NEEDED FOR SIMPLE ENG. WIKIBOOKS!!!

Although the Eng. WB is going well, there is hardly any content on the Simple English version. The project needs content urgently, and also to set at least one person up as an administrator. There is currently no admins and so no control.

Could we get some textbooks written, as well as some other essential features such as:

  • Community portal
  • Help desk
  • Ability to block vandals etc.
  • Wikiversity

If anyone could start on this project it would be great. Thanks! Charlie123 14:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Erm. Why do we need another wiki for this? Books on this site ought to be in simple english too, if they are to be at all accessible. You can always devote subpages of your book to go in to more detail for those who are interested. I vote for transwikiing anything of reasonable quality back to here, and even add them to Category:Books in simple English or similar, if you think it's really necessary. These sites have too much scope overlap to not end up becoming inconsistent mirrors of each other anyway (q.v. simple.wikipedia.org). And who's gonna define what 'simple' is in this context. We're having enough problems here just defining the word 'book'. Remember all these wikis run off the same servers, so there's no performance advantage in splitting them. - Aya 13:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Actually. A better idea, since there's nothing of much use on that site. Why don't we move the Wikijunior stuff there, since the Wikiversity stuff is due to be moved to <countrycode>.wikiversity.org. Better that it gets its own site with its own policies (i.e. educational fiction would be tolerated). Although this is not really the point of the site, this will end the debate on the subject. I don't mind admin'ing the site to get this all set up. Does anyone have a problem with this? - Aya 13:55, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I apologise for my ignorance. What is "Simple English"? - User:Abc123
See w:Basic English - Aya T C 16:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Subpage-creation proposal

See what you think of this. Using the new inputbox extension, the user can create a subpage. Unfortunately, they *do* have to do a little themselves. Try it out and see what you think.

To ask a new question, do the following simple steps.

1. enter "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here" in the box below and click "Create article".


If you're taken to a page that already exists that means someone has already used that particular wording. That page may in fact answer your question; if it doesn't, hit your browser's Back button and rephrase your question name.

2. Follow this edit link and paste in the line you were told to copy; it will look something like {{Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here}}. Then click Save page and you should see your question listed at the bottom of the Staff lounge.

So, what do you think? I've tried to make it as foolproof as possible, but I wish I could predefine the directory as part of the textbox's target. Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 12:12 (UTC) Oh and if you want to alter the welcoming message you'll find it at Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Template. Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 12:16 (UTC)

I tried typing "Testing" in the box, then I got this:
But before you ask, please ensure that the name of the page you're editing right now
Wikibooks:Testing
Fits the comment naming standard
Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here
I assume that's not quite right? - Aya 7 July 2005 19:16 (UTC)
Well as I said, you need to enter something like "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/Your Question Name Here". You have to enter "Wikibooks:Staff lounge/" yourself as there's no way I can configure that, and otherwise the page won't be a subpage of the Staff lounge at all!
Also the auto-reporting {{PAGENAME}} tag cuts off the Wikibooks: namespace when it displays the name so I had to add it manually, which means you could create a non-Wikibooks: page but the page would still tell you it was named correctly. Hm...
I just hope the inputbox code is expanded soon so it can be configured more like an HTML form. That would solve this problem. Hm... Master Thief Garrett 7 July 2005 20:56 (UTC)

What about fictional Wikibooks?

I'm newe to Wikimedia, but I have a few great ideas! First one is, how about starting fictional Wikibooks? In other words, someone starts a book with a general plot in mind, and then anyone who has an idea can continue the storyline and expand it! Wouldn't this be a wonderful idea for some joined writing?
I have quite a few ideas for sci fi and fantasy stories that could be written by hundreds of different writters on the web! My problem is that I don't know how to contact the Wikimedia guys and tell them this idea. Anyone here can help out?
Thanks alot- Technogiddo

Some works of fiction are already being developed wiki-style. A few of them are listed at

Also http://www.orionsarm.com/ looks interesting. Do you know of any others? --DavidCary 19:17, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

W:wikipedia:wikistory - one word at a time , w:wikipedia:once upon a time... murdur mystery. Bawolff 02:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

SOMEONE WITH ADMIN PRIVELEGIVES PLEASE GET RID OF THE PICTURES

Blender 3D Namespace

Someone changed namespace for Blender 3D modules, before was (and still is on most modules) naming, Blender 3D: ModuleName and now is Blender 3D/ModuleName. But there are many existing links from outside and all those redirections are annoying. How can I change this back without losing last useful changes? Thank you. --Popski 16:56, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Using the move function (in one of the tabs at the top of the page) to retitle a page does not change the content of the page, so simply moving the pages that have been changed to the old titles should do what you want. If there are any problems with doing this, for example, a cut and paste move can't simply be fixed, let an admin know the specific pages you're having problems with, and we'll fix it. Gentgeen 17:42, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Most of the modules have been moved back okay. But, Blender 3D: Noob to Pro is missing the history that is sill attached to Blender 3D/Noob to Pro. I don't see how it can be restored to its proper place easily. Once that is done, and the single link to it changed, then Blender 3D/Noob to Pro can be removed. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 01:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I believe I can do this by deleting one, moving the other on top of it, and then undeleting. I will look into it... - Omegatron 18:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There. How's that? - Omegatron 18:52, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Much better.:) (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 00:38, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

recent changes misspelling

Special:Recentchanges has a misspelling of "accepting". I am not sure how to edit the header on that page, or if I even can as a regular user. Kellen 05:08, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Only textbooks?

Is wikibooks just for textbooks? Can it be used for fiction books? --170.35.208.20 18:37, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the past, fictional works written by any Wikimedia user have generally been refused, due to the general rule that Wikimedia sites should contain 'no original research'. The only exception would be a book by a well-known author that's also out of copyright, although these should be put on the site at wikisource.org.
See also: What about fictional Wikibooks?
Aya 19:44, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Wikicities just opened a new section for original research, btw, called http://academia.wikicities.com. I am not sure that they take fictional work, though. But if they can create one for original research, why not for original fiction as well? Just email them.
--rck 14:49, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring of Bookshelves

I'm going to bring this up in the staff lounge as well, but there has come to my attention that there needs to be a general restructuring of the bookshelves in general. I've noticed (unfortunately) that some books are appearing in multiple bookshelves, and multiple times on the front page under different bookshelf topics. I'm proposing that some thought go into how this can be fixed.

This issue has been brought to a head by the restructuring of the IT bookshelf, which was admittedly getting very large. This Bookshelf (for good or ill... the discussion about the reorganization can be found on the IT bookshelf talk page. This has been discussed since February, so it isn't exactly something new, but it is now affecting all of Wikibooks, so I'm bringing it up as a general issue.

What I'm asking is that people who work with the other bookshelves, particularly the Science and Games bookshelves (the ones most affected) take a look at what they need to accomplish in order to fix the problems and make a clean taxonomy for the identifying of what category or bookshelf a given book should be on.

This isn't to say there can't be cross links between bookshelves (there should be), but a book shouldn't be listed multiple times on the front page. I don't want to arbitrarily rearrange things on the front page without at least some discussion.Rob Horning 19:02, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

The system of cataloguing books is in need of attention. See User:Aya/Wikibooks/A critique of Wikibooks#Bookshelves out-of-date for my current thoughts on the subject. - Aya 13:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

uploading a BMP

In my how-to "Render a SolidWorks Model in Maya" I instruct the reader on how to create an icon within Maya. This icon needs to be a BMP file. Now I have uploaded the icon as a PNG to wikibooks, because the upload module wouldn't let me upload a BMP. I understand why I get the error, but after that I still can't upload the BMP. The files really don't differ in size that much... Any1 with a solution to this? 1983 4 July 2005 18:30 (UTC)

Erm. Convert it to PNG first? Why d'ya need a BMP anyway? BMP is a Microsoft proprietary format IIRC, whereas PNG is an open standard. Aya 4 July 2005 19:28 (UTC)
Erm. Have you actually read what I wrote? I even write that I have the PNG here at wikibooks... BTW, BMP is free of patents (although I know the benefits of PNG) 1983 5 July 2005 05:28 (UTC)
Actually I did read it, but you never specified why you needed a BMP. However, I checked the page in question and I now see why. I'm guessing that you can only use BMP files for internal icon images for that program. As far as I can tell, you can only use PNG and JPG images on Wikibooks (see Wikibooks:Image use policy). When I try to upload a BMP, I get ".bmp" is not a recommended image file format.. I even tried renaming the BMP to PNG before upload, hoping I could rename it later on Wikibooks to get the right HTTP Content-Type, but then it complains my file is corrupted. BMP may be unpatented, but it's still not an open standard, and consequently, they may be unsupported on non-Windows systems. I suspect this is the reason that they are not allowed on Wikibooks. I even checked Wikicommons, but they seem to have the same policy (although they do allow animated GIF files in addition to PNG and JPG). I'm afraid you'll have to host the file elsewhere. Aya 5 July 2005 15:13 (UTC)
No, there is no specific requirement for just PNG and JPG images with Wikibooks, or for that matter any other data image format. The only requirement is that 1) it will work with most web browsers and 2) The image format is compatable with the GFDL, being that it can be redistrubted without any legal entanglements that would violate provisions of the GFDL. BTW, some instances of the JPG (JPEG or Joint-Photo Experts Group) have some patent issues that do have some problems with the GFDL. It is not as bad as the GIF/LZW patent issues are concerned, nor is anybody rigorously enforcing them either. PNG was designed from the beginning to be patent and IP-free from the beginning, and is wholly compatable with the GFDL. It also compresses slightly better than GIF files, has added features, and is non-lossy (does not lose data during compression like JPG images do). The reason why GIF images are accepted for animated images is because the "more free" MNG format is still not widely used in most browsers (hurting requirement #1 above). It would be recommended that BMP images be converted to PNG using a program like GIMP [1] that will do the conversion. Simply renaming a file from BMP to PNG is not going to work for many reasons, and of course it would be considered corrupted. These are two different data formats. Keep in mind that server storage space is precious, and uploading an uncompressed data file (which is what the BMP data format really is) is a waste of resources. If you need help with the conversion, please feel free to e-mail me. Rob Horning 5 July 2005 16:03 (UTC)
nono, the point is that the image is supposed to be an example that readers download and use in Maya, and it (apparently) can't use PNGs. That is the problem. GarrettTalk 00:49, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks portal

This page needs to be protected. It's the page you see on requesting "www.wikibooks.org" or just "wikibooks.org", so it's a high-profile page, and as you can see from the history, an obvious target for linkspammers. - Aya 20:24, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed this log entry:
07:01, 14 July 2005 KelvSYC protected "Wikibooks portal" (prevent vandalism)
My thanks to KelvSYC. I've updated Wikibooks:Protected page. I'll leave this here for a while for informational purposes, but I consider this issue is now resolved, and can be removed from this page a week from today. - Aya 15:23, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Computer Magazine a Wikibook?

I'm not one to squash creativity, but is Computer Magazine really a Wikibook? It's got (prospected) reviews and all which will surely become Original Research no-nos. Maybe there's a Wikicity it could move to? GarrettTalk 00:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Can people please forget about the phrase 'no original research', and mentally revert it to the original 'no primary research' (less vague), or even something even less vague. See also: User talk:Aya/Wikibooks/A critique of Wikibooks#Be bold. I'll wait to see if KelvSYC wants to sort it out before I change anything.
'Primary research' refers to the sorts of theses published by graduate students to propose a genuinely new theory. It would be used, perhaps, to refer to, say, Newton's Laws of Universal Gravitation, at any point prior to it being commonly accepted in Physics. These theses often involve coining new words and word-phrases which are not commonly used elsewhere, in order to refer to the new concepts they describe. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but if everyone did it, then the language use could easily become too confusing to be of any practical benefit. (q.v. Neo). This is the primary reason that these things should not be allowed. Surely, devising a strategy for a mission in, say, GTA:SA, is 'original research' and 'primary research' in the sense that you have devised it yourself. The important distinction is that it is done using commonplace terms (within its own scope), and is focused on a very popular computer game (the bestselling of all time IIRC), rather that some wacky new theory that someone like Eddie Izzard might come up with, say, that bees are actually made of jam.
Personally I don't have a problem with this stuff either, and arguably it has sneaked in to a lot of other documents already. In fact, I'd go as far to say that I interpret almost everything I read as 'primary research', unless it clearly fits in with 'common sense', which I will define as the sorts of things commonly taught in schools. So Physics is almost certainly not 'primary research', whereas the mission walkthroughs section of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas almost certainly is.
Maybe the policy should be phrased "this site should only contain factual infomation", with the standard dictionary definition of 'factual', then allow memetic evolution to allow the users to decide what that actually is. The policy would allow any user to correct/revert/delete anything which has been agreed to not be 'factual'. I've tried to avoid using the term 'fictional', since this has different connotations than simply being the antithesis of 'factual'.
Back to the page in question, it seems a bit silly to have a 'news' section. This should go into Wikinews. 'Tips' we've done already in GTA:SA. If computer game guides are considered okay, the perhaps each game deserves its own Wikibook containing tips. As for 'reviews', I guess they're okay as long as they are NPOV.
It's actually a good idea to bring suspect pages into 'Staff lounge', rather than just adding them to VfD. If something is contentious enough to warrant a VfD, then perhaps it needs to be discussed first to ensure everyone interprets it in the same way.
Comments? - Aya 13:13, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm sure you're right. I'm not bothered by it, but it's kind of on the border of the current rules so I decided to take it here in case someone wanted to vehemently accuse it. As it is, your reasoning sounds logical. Then again I haven't had lunch yet, so who knows? :) GarrettTalk 01:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

The precedent is that computer game walkthroughs is considered to be textbook worthy, as it teaches the user how to finish the game. Disjointed other data maybe useful but certainly does not comprise instructional material by itself (see the ASCII table in Programming).

As for the NOR policy, I have to admit that part of the crackdown was my doing. Still, it is less strict compared to that of Wikipedia's policy (to the point that the community hasn't drafted WB:NOR yet), but suffice to say that we allow original content to teach a lesson, whether it be a suggested game strategy or a general method of solving algebraic equations in two variables. However, we wouldn't allow stuff like OR according to Wikipedia's policy, nor using Wikibooks as a center for, say, a place where users can gather to finish a school project.

As for reviews, I'm not convinced they are instructional material.

Above all else, Wikibooks is not a place where users can just write a book on anything - it must be instructional in nature. KelvSYC 04:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Comments vs Discussion

What is the difference between posting a comment and discussing a page? Abc123 11:48, July 15, 2005 (UTC).

Depends how you define 'comment' and 'discussion'. If you're referring to dictionary definitions applied to wiki talk pages, then a 'comment', I suppose, is posting what you think about something. If someone else posts a 'comment' contrary to yours, then, I guess it's technically a 'discussion'.- Aya 12:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Using wikibabel coding in wikibooks

Hi! In my Wikipedia description of myself, I use the Wikipedia:Babel template; is there something similar on Wikibooks? --rck 13:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe these templates/categories have been copied to Wikibooks. I'm not sure they should be either, since, like all forking, it will slowly become out-of-sync with the Wikipedia version. I'm guessing they're left-over from when the Wikimedia projects were all multi-lingual, making it slightly redundant now, but I could be wrong. In the interim, there's no reason you can't list the languages you know (if you think it's relevant) on your user page in another format. See my user page for an example. Danke sehr. - Aya T C 16:38, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Help reverting page

Hi guys. 69.50.184.220 has left us a present of link spam on How to search/Yahoo. Would someone please revert it when they get a chance, because the so called spam protection filter is blocking my attempts. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 12:01, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

It's not just your attempts. There must have been a change in the latest beta that disallowed the use of URLs in 'pre' tags in certain conditions, with the apparent goal of preventing linkspam. Consequently, some pages that currently exist in the DB are no longer legitimate pages according to the software. It's ironic that this means we now can't remove real linkspam as a consequence. This ought to be brought up as a bug report. In the interim, I've fixed it by changing all the 'pre' to 'code' instead. Looks better anyway. - Aya T C 14:05, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Aya.:) I just didn't have the time to look at it more carefully. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 01:16, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Savoir-faire

Given the comparison between the Wikipedia page in question and the how-tos bookshelf here, all Wikibooks editors are encouraged to go to w:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Savoir-faire and express their opinion. Uncle G 18:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

See also the eHow wiki, for entertainment; and a place to add how-tos that are about to be deleted. Sj 17:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

10,000 Wikibook Modules on EN

We are getting very close to 10,000 Wikibook modules, which can be given a huge round of thanks to all contributors on here so far. My question is more along what lines should be do to publicize this accomplishment to the Wikimedia sister projects and/or a general press release via the Wikimedia Foundation?

Certainly Meta:Wikimedia News needs to be updated, but quite a bit more can be done as well. Wikibooks is accused of being a dead project, so I'd like to see if Wikibookians want to get involved and be proud of this milestone. What other sort of announcements can/should be done? --Rob Horning 20:21, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it correct to say the 10,000th article is SM64:Wet-Dry World? (which seems to be a walkthrough for the Super Mario 64 game) --Azertus 18:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the changes to Meta:Wikimedia News. But as Rob Horning said a lot more can be done... (I'm moving my comments to the "thread" he created. --Azertus 18:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Disclaimer, copyright notice, and info for Print editions of Wikibooks

I just did something that is going to cause a few short-term headaches for me. I just published the First dead-tree version of a Wikibook (unless somebody else has a link to prove otherwise). Here is my dilema:

I would like to know what copyright information & disclaimer notice should go onto a print version of a Wikibook, particularly if it is going to be "officially" published in dead-tree format (or in this case as a PDF file for widespread publication). In short, I'm seeking some standards of publishing when a Wikibook is extracted from these pages and sent to a printer.

The GFDL gives me permission to do this without permission of anybody here at Wikibooks, but I would still like to get some community input before I start doing anything else. Since Wikibooks doesn't have a separate disclaimer from Wikipedia, I may try to start writing one specifically for Wikibooks. This is the "Disclaimer" link often at the bottom of each page.

Also, in terms of copyright, who is the copyright authority here? Wikimedia Foundation? Jimbo? Wikibook admins? The "Community" as a whole? I.E. who actually owns copyright, and what can be put down for authorship? The nicks of all the contributors from the history page could be a good list, but I don't know if you want to list IP addresses for anonymous contributors (I guess simply adding a line... "and several anonymous contributors" would be sufficient.)

In all seriousness, I would like to take a few copies down to a local swap meet and see what I can get for them (mainly to cover printing costs), not to mention placing a copy in some libraries of local schools (assuming that the quality of the modules improves a little bit more before hand).

In short, I'd like to work cooperatively on a common copyright page template that can be included in print version of Wikibooks, including what may have to be included if formal copyright registration were to occur. Any ideas? --Rob Horning 08:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think copyright matters. Providing you stick with the rules of the GDFL, you should be legally covered. But I'm no legal expert. You might get a better response by pretending you wish to publish parts of Wikipedia, and posting a similar comment in one of the Wikipedia forums, since it has far more active users. - Aya T C 18:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
All content on all Wikimedia projects (except for Wikinews, and that is only considered a temporary exception) is indeed copyrighted. The GFDL grants permission to recopy and reuse the content, but the content does indeed have copyright. Under copyright law it usually rests with the original author, unless it is a work-for-hire, which does not apply in the situation for most contributors to Wikibook. The other category that is applicable to published works from Wikibooks is a collaborative work, which certainly almost everything here qualifies for. Details as to what qualifies in the United States and is needed can be found at:
http://www.copyright.gov/ (The United States Copyright office)
If you can identify what similar entities in other countries are, it would be appreciated.
It would be my intention to file a formal copyright registration when something gets to a "1.0" status. This does a number of things, including considerable protection for all participants from idiots who dispute ownership of the material (it becomes a legal document in terms of legal validity and datestamping effort), as well as invokes some much tougher criminal and civil penalties, including up to a $150,000 fine+court costs (that goes straight to the Wikimedia Foundation in a situation that violates copyright...or to the "authors", if that can be straightened out). A copyright violation would be when somebody else "think" this is freeware and republishes the content as propritary content without GFDL provisions. Unlikely (don't pray for this lotto to come your way), but it more than likely will happen eventually. The registration certificate I feel should be sent to the Wikimedia Foundation, as it is an official legal document. The cost for formal registration is only $30, and it also "gives" a copy to the Library of Congress in their stacks.
Although a literary work is not specifically required to have a copyright notice page, it is strongly suggested in the case of registered works. There is also the "catologing in publication" provision that essentially suggests a library catalog code and all of the information needed for a "card catalog" entry for a librarian (so they don't have to make stuff up themselves).
Standard disclaimers should also be inside the front page, usually on the copyright notice page. As of now there is no "standard disclaimer" for Wikibooks at all, although an assumption is that we are using the Wikipedia standard disclaimer. I think that is a mistake at this point, considering how Wikibooks really is maturing as a full-fledged project in its own right. I personally prefer a simpler disclaimer, but a full one like Wikipedia should be in order. I'll try to spend a little time on that tonight and put something together for Wikibooks that is adapted from the other Wikimedia sister project disclaimers (there shouldn't be copyright violations if I do that, should there?) Discussion about the disclaimer itself should be on the talk page of the disclaimer.
From looking at the registration forms that the U.S. Copyright office has, the #1 problem I see is that the sheer number of authors for a typical Wikibook is going to be incredibly huge. In addition, there is no provision with MediaWiki software for recording the month and year of the birth of the Wikibook contributor, which is a required for the formal registration. Remember that copyright status is life of the author + 75 years... all authors in this case. In addition, you need to declare for each author the citizenship status (who claims them as a citizen), as well as the current residential location for that author (just the country...which can be different countries). In truth, I think this is going to be giving some major headaches to the Library of Congress if they have to deal with this issue as well. I can see some new rules being formed by the Library of Congress if formal registration is a common thing.
The reason why this issue hasn't come up before at Wikipedia is because there hasn't been an effort to formally "publish" Wikipedia in the past. Everything over there is still essentially in a "beta" state, although there is an effort right now to make a "Wikipedia 1.0" release of quality articles on Wikipedia that have reached a mature state. I am suggesting that due to the nature of Wikibooks we are going to reach that point much sooner than they are going to get there, with admittedly much smaller works. --Rob Horning 22:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Right. I've finally read through some of the more pertinent material on the GNU website, and I now understand what you mean. You are correct in that there is a serious copyright attribution problem with Wikimedia projects, and even if we did have all the relevant personal information for the contributors who are listed in a page's history, there's still no way to guarantee that it was that user who owned the copyright on the content they submitted. It is common GFDL-compliant wiki practise to users to copy, verbatim, sections of other GFDL-compliant wikis or other GFDL-compliant sources, for which no copyright attribution exists at all.
Having read http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/, it seems that this is an area of copyright law currently being re-examined. At the moment, you must make a 'reasonable effort' to determine the copyright holders. I'd say it would be reasonable to only attribute individuals where they have explicitly added the necessary information in the wikitext, and even then it's arguable as to whether they maintain the copyright if that wikitext is subsequently changed by another user. The method in Wikibooks:Copyrights#Use in hardcopy is technically illegal, since you must credit all explicit sources rather than just the first five. I'll need to check this out further.
There are also special clauses in the GFDL regarding cover-texts, but I don't think this applies to any of the books on this website. If the Wikibook has an image intended for use as a cover, I don't believe you have to also use this image as the cover of the book, but it would probably be easier to do so anyway.
Other than that, you can do what you like with the actual text. Modified work is fair game as far as the GFDL is concerned. - Aya T C 06:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Bug in the "search" page

Repeat by:

  1. Enter "ARGUMENTGOESHERE" in the search box
  2. Hit "GO"

Note that the output page has:

For more information about searching Wikibooks, see $1.

And

No page with [[/w/index.php?title=ARGUMENTGOESHERE&action=edit|this exact title]] exists, trying full text search.

Both of those look like templating failures.

--Randal L. Schwartz 04:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Has a non administrator put my wikibook up for speedy deletion?

Making an Island

The only info i can get is that someone who has a signature "member" with a red hyperlink seems to have put my book up for deletion but he doesn't seem to be an administrator of any kind. don't you have to be an administrator to put something up for deletion? Has this person just copied and pasted code to do this? whats going on - V2os 01:44, 27 July 2005

Anyone can mark a page for speedy deletion. If you challenge that, as you have, then it becomes a regular vote for deletion, as it has. You should express your concerns on that page. Please sign your posts in future with ~~~~. Thankyou. - Aya T C 16:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted here that with the "official" vote count on the Vfd page that it is of overwhelming support to keep here on Wikibooks. This vote will be kept in the archives in case anybody else will want to do the same thing in the future, and can be used as the basis to a request to undelete if some overactive admin decides to kill it in the future. --Rob Horning 11:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

10,000th module?

Moved to Wikibooks:Staff lounge#10,000 Wikibook Modules on EN

Software Q

Is there a way of checking how many contributions I have made, or is it merely a matter of manually counting through the entries in "my contributions"? Abc123.

I'd been wondering the same thing, as I can't see an obvious way to do it. My best solution so far would be to study the MediaWiki DB format, write an SQL query to work it out, and submit it to m:Requests for queries, but that seems unnecessarily messy. - Aya T C 21:42, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Here is a link to kate's tool from w:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. Type in your user name and select enwikibooks from the list, here are my stats for Wikibooks. You will then get a nice summary of your contribution to the various parts of Wikibooks (you may have an unusually large number of edits in your own user space, for example ;)). (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 00:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Nice one. Go kate! Abc123.

Disasters book

I would like to start a book that would list various disasters, one per page; each page would include information on the disaster and list information on the victims of the disaster. Such lists would not be source texts (which would be appropriate on Wikisource), but would be lists compiled by users and added to by users as they find new information on victims. In this way, the Disasters could eventually be the most complete educational reference on disasters and their victims. Of course, for this textbook to remain legitimate, any new information would have to provide citations for the sources, so this book could end up having more citations than any other Wikibook. Does anyone have any objections before I set about doing this? If so, please reply on my talk page at Wikipedia where I frequent. If you're alright with it, please reply here so I know that someone reads this page :) Thanks! --Brian0918 16:29, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this personally, but there's a lot of talk going on at the moment regarding what actually constitutes a 'textbook'. For the most part, any non-fiction work seems to be allowed, but be prepared for criticism. ;-) - Aya T C 01:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, on what bookshelf would a book on historical disasters belong? --Brian0918 16:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Good question. For now, just stick it in whichever one makes the most sense to you. We can always shift it later. Also add it to Template:New as a new Wikibook. Thanks. - Aya T C 01:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
If the new bookshelf policy goes through, Wikibooks:Reference bookshelf would be it, as it is of questionable instructional value. However, as it is also on history, try putting it in Wikibooks:Humanities bookshelf. KelvSYC 19:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikibook Project: Card Catalog Office

Like many of the other sister Wikimedia projects, there are special areas of the project that are designated for doing more focuesed or specialized projects that can help the community in general. On Wikipedia these are called Wikiprojects.

I'm proposing a similar kind of effort here on Wikibooks called the Card Catalog Office. ...

--The Lounge is getting ungainly; this discussion will no doubt be long, so let's move it to the discussion page where it can serve as future reference for the project. GarrettTalk 12:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Login problems

I created an account and it said that the account was created but I have cookies disabled. I exited my browser and came back in. I made sure I have cookies enabled. When I came to the main page, I was logged in, but when I went to another page, I was logged out. I attempted to log in but it again told me I have cookies disabled. I tried on IE and Firefox. What do I do? 68.211.54.128 20:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC) (Hermione1980)

I guess it's possible your ISP is blocking cookies, but it seems unlikely. It's also possible that you still haven't configured your browser correctly. If you're using IE, a little warning will appear when it blocks cookies, so check for that. Other that that, there's not a lot I can do. Try your ISPs technical support number if this continues to be a problem. - Aya T C 20:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm having pretty much the same problem: If I enter wikibooks from outside (using a bookmark or typing the URL in the address field), I show as logged in. But follow links within wikibooks, I usually show as not. I don't think my ISP could do that if they tried; rather I think that you have a bug in your cookie detection software. I use MS Internet Explorer 6.0; my privacy level is set to Medium; and I have explicitly set cookies on domain wikibooks.org to Always Allow. Just how do you determine if cookies are enabled? -teb728 23:40, 4 September 2005 (UTC) Oh!! I think I found it: If I stop ZoneAlarm before trying to login, I get logged in. I'll bet it has something to do with my ZA privacy settings. -teb728 00:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Server problems

FYI: There were some server problems (ran out of diskspace) just now, which are now fixed, but approximately 5 minutes worth of edits were lost. - Aya T C 23:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks branding for intro books

Many publishers have lines of introductory books such as "Blank for Dummies" or "Total Idiots guide to Blank" or "Blank Made Easy" et cetera.

Are there any clever names some wikibooks have come up with for this purpose? I want to start a "dummies" guide to economics (that is, easy to read; i.e. about the level of a magazine, no higher mathematics) and want a cool name. If it can fall into a name scheme that can give us some real branding, all the better. Perhaps something that shows the free, open community spirit of wikis; or perhaps something short, like FAQ or RTFM. (Would the name "RTFM on Economics" be a wise choice?) MShonle 04:29, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I like this idea, in fact, Wikibooks should perhaps always be written with such an audience in mind, without having to make it explicit in the title. Unless of course you mean 'really simple', in which case, perhaps they should go on simple.wikibooks.org. FAQ is a common internet metaphor. RTFM is perhaps less good, since there is some confusion as to what the 'F' can stand for. :-) - Aya T C 19:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm thinking maybe "The Newbie's Guide to Blank" would be good. It would basically be a signal that you wouldn't need any pre-reqs, and all the math you need would be given instead of assumed. So, for example, the Computer Science:Data Structures book wouldn't be one, because it assumes you know how to program, while a book that teaches programming from the ground up would count. Perhaps a FAQ could be merged into an appendix, too: as a form of exposition, the FAQ format has many advantages.
There are already some places on the web that use "Newbie's Guide," but it doesn't appear to be anyone's brand. MShonle 17:45, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Okay. I guess the huge gulf between books aimed at academics, and books aimed for non-english speakers, could warrant a book aimed at an intermediate audience. My only concern with using the word 'newbie' in this context, is it may be confused with the common definition as per Wikibooks:Glossary#newbie. How about "A simple guide to X" ? - Aya T C 03:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, how about "An Introduction to X for People who Don't Know Much about X." Like "An Introduction to Programming for People who Don't Know Much about Programming." Since the branding would be applied to hopefully multiple books (I'd like to get behind the programming and economic ones) it should both be memorable and have large buy-in from the community. MShonle 15:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

(Also, for alternatives, is it ok to have "Wikibooks" in the title of the book? That could help branding, but maybe the wikimedia foundation wouldn't want to see its name used like that. MShonle 15:36, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

Should General Chemistry et al be subbooks of Chemistry?

I'm slowly working on cleaning up and catting the bookshelves to make the Card Catalog transition as easy as possible. However I've just come across this. Now I would say that General Chemistry should be under Chemistry as Chemistry/General/PageName (or similar).

The structure of the chemistry book(s) is a mess, and putting them all under Chemistry/ would definitely help. Gah, still a big job though.

Anyway, I'm here for your opinions not mine... so, what do you think? Can a General Chemistry book exist in its own right? Should it be part of the Chemistry ultra-book? Or, alternately, should it merely be under Chemistry/ for organisational purposes? GarrettTalk 00:46, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, Chemistry is just a redirect to Chemistry bookshelf, which should perhaps be renamed Wikibooks:Chemistry bookshelf. It looks like all of the links there were originially intended to be books in their own right. Whether they stay that way, or be merged into chapters of one big uber-chemistry book is pretty arbitrary. Personally, I'd keep them as separate books, cos it requires less page moves. The other reason is that the three traditional sciences (Phys/Chem/Bio) have some overlap in places, so maybe smaller books would be better. If you were to roll up every book into one uber-book, would you in fact be left with an encyclopedia? - Aya T C 01:37, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
An encyclopedia? Well, possibly. We should not have sub-shelves, we've already got sections within the existing pages to do that--it's an all-or-nothing thing. Problem is there's already at least two naming conventions in play in each of these books, so a change between conventions would no doubt be the same amount of work as a mass-relocation. GarrettTalk 02:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
This overlapping content issue is a problem that should be addressed perhaps as some kind of guideline. I'm more in favor of books having some replication between them (such as how the data structures book and the algorithms book both have subsections on big-O notation). Naturally, the programmer in me wants to create some kind of "subroutine" that both books could invoke, so there'd be no replication, but taking big steps to avoid replication in this context creates its own problems. Even though we are taught that redundancy is to be avoided, sometimes it's an asset.
Realistically, if we want people to read the books we can't have them jumping around too much: it's a bad user interface, because then they won't know if they will ever reach "the end". Thus, it's probably better for a book to list the prerequsite materials in the beginning (and link to the correct wikibooks, or perhaps wikipedia entries if no such book exists or would be overkill as a book) and then include everything else the reader would need in the exposition. MShonle 04:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm against the "Giant book that does everything" approach. First off, its not how the real world does it- you don't have one book called "Math" that covers addition through graduate level math. Secondly, it isn't good psychologicly- if I was to want to study chemistry and saw one book with all that info, my eyes would glaze over and I'd hit the close button. Too much info, too much work. Now break it into smaller chunks, and its easier to do a targeted study of just what I want. Easier to get info, and not nearly as daunting to a new student.
I'd also say replication of data (such as 2 books doing Big-O) isn't a bad thing. Two ways of describing it has twice the chance of reaching someone that one way does. It also means that both sections will fit in the writing style of the individual books better, and that you won't be forrced to backtrack or read parts of a second book in order to understand the one you really want to read. Redundancy is only to be avoided when it adds no extra value. Here, I think it does. In fact, it may be a nice idea to cross-link to redundant sources within wikibooks. Book A and B both talk about subject foo? Link to each other, so that people reading it can see an alternate explanation. Link to the wikipedia entry too. Sometimes the wording used to explain a concept can make the difference between understanding a subject and coming up short. --Gabe Sechan 20:37, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
Just to be sure, because I think you're replying to me, I'm not avocating a "Giant book doing everything" approach. When I said "list the prerequsite materials in the beginning" I meant simply saying the name of the topic. For example, "we assume you know Newtonian mechanics." That is a book in and of itself. But, if the idea is "we assume you know these five relational operators" it might be best to just quickly re-cap those operators (because it would only take, say, 700 words to do so) instead of sending the user on a link scavenger hunt. (One danger of using links to small topics that should be replicated instead is that there might be notational drift between the two versions, confusing the reader more.)
In fact, I favor smaller wikibooks that can be navigated by the user. I don't want to put on any page limits, but 128 pages is plenty long for a wikibook: something longer than that might be better put into separate volumes (for example, a large Economics book might be better as A First Course in Economics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Econometrics-- in addition to special topics like Industrial Organization and Marxism and so on). As for linking, I'm certainly in favor of providing links to pre-requisit materials, and I'm in favor of providing links to "further reading" in an appendix. But having too many links within a book can lead to lazy writing. For example, instead of writing the big-O definitions, you just provide a link to the wikipedia, and then without realizing it you use the set notation for it, which the wikipedia doesn't cover (say; or perhaps has been deleted recently by a vandal)... and then you will have lost half your readers.
My whole point is that studying a single topic is what you read a book for. Providing a whole bunch of links should not be the primary experience of it... that kind of undirected learning is much better at the wikipedia (which I like because it has so many rich links!-- though the extreme case of every noun or verb being linked to something is clearly too far). The reader always has the option of looking up things in the wikipedia as they wish. We need not optimize on "the number of wikipedia link," we should only optimize on writing good books that educate readers on topics. MShonle 20:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Major policy changes

I have made changes to the following pages:

I am now seeking feedback from the community before these new policies become enforced. Please direct all comments to the talk pages of those page, not here. Thankyou. - Aya T C 01:25, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Since you took out WB:WIN, then you should remove the shortcut to it and create a new shortcut WB:DP for Wikibooks:Deletion policy. WB:DP should be enforced, while the issue of single delimiter needs to be resolved before WB:NC be promoted. KelvSYC 02:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Done, but Angela reverted the change to WB:WIN. This is fair, since my new summary in WB:DP doesn't contain as much information as WB:WIN did. I think it might be better to, instead, merge WB:WIN into Wikibooks:About, and have that page as the canonical location for defining the scope of the project, acceptable content, and commonly excluded content as per WB:WIN, as we had previously discussed in Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines (which now has the shortcut WB:PAG). - Aya T C 16:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I've now done the merge. See Wikibooks:About. The community should feel free to change it, re-word it, or just comment on its talk page. Although it's not marked as such, this document should serve as our fundamental policy document to be written by the community, for the community, whilst our actual policy documents listed at WB:PAG should serve to help implement it, not override it. This should help us clear out one or two lingering candidates in WB:VFD and WB:VFU. - Aya T C 19:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I think in addition to these policy changes, we should rework the guidelines for contributors. This will standardize what books should be like (while, of course, allowing much variation in application). For example, a guideline like "have a prerequest section if you need to assume material, and then provide links to wikibooks or wikipedia entries, or external links, that cover that material." MShonle 21:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to this "guidelines" page? - Aya T C 19:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity

A general discussion of Wikiversity and its role on Wikibooks is currently under discussion. The following e-mail was sent by Angela Beesley to the general Wikimedia Foundation mailing list:

Despite claims to the contrary, Wikiversity was certainly _not_ protected at the advice of the Wikimedia Foundation. Perhaps it was advised by one member of that foundation, but other Board members were not consulted. I am disgusted this approach would be taken with no consensus from the community. Wikiversity has been running for a long time on Wikibooks and I see no agreement whatsoever for it to be suddenly shut down like this. Protection is a defense against vandalism, not a way of expressing one person's point of view on whether or not a sub-project of Wikibooks should exist. Please remove the misleading statements about protection and explain why you ever thought the Foundation would propose such an awful measure on a popular set of pages like Wikiversity. Angela.

Commentary on this message can be posted here, and will be relayed to Foundation-l, particularly any comments by Aya. A general discussion about the future of Wikiversity on Wikibooks should be directed to Talk:Wikiversity. --Rob Horning 04:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

After having put some more thought into this, I would say that my protecting the page was the wrong thing to do in this case, since, although I feel that knowingly using Wikibooks as a free content-provider to host texts which are not part of the Wikibooks project (Wikimania05 is another example), are tantamount to vandalism, there should be some formal clarification. I will not do it again, and I strongly recommend that others do not, until we have some sort of official Wikibooks:Vandalism policy, which states when page protecting and IP/account blocking are justified. The correct action would have been to mark it as a VfD, but I didn't really want it all to be deleted, since a lot of work has gone into it already, and it seems a shame to delete it all. I shall start work on such a policy when time permits. - Aya T C 16:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Introduction to Probability textbook

It turns out that there's a 520-page textbook on probability which has been GPL'd and made available as a free download. The text is by Grinstead & Snell, published by the American Mathematical Society. It can be downloaded here. Perhaps parts of it would make good additions to the Probability wikibook, or perhaps even the entire thing should be wikified? --NeuronExMachina 06:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Note that there is a difference between the GPL and the GFDL. Someone else might know how significant those incompatibilities are. However, given that all of the work is done, it might be a better candidate for wikisource instead of wikibooks. The wikibook on probability of course could cite G&S as a reference or recommended reading. I know for myself the more math books on a subject I have, the more likely I'll understand it. MShonle 15:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Also note that unless you have the intentions of significantly changing, or annotating the text, this content should be housed on Wikisource, not Wikibooks. To clarify - Wikibooks is for creating new texts, whereas Wikisource is for housing existing texts which are compatible with the GFDL. I suspect the GPL is compatible with GDFL (many open-source documents used GPL prior to the existence of GFDL), but check on Wikisource first. Once it's on Wikisource, it can easily be linked from the Probability Wikibook. - Aya T C 16:31, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, it can be easily linked from the Probability wikibooks even if it isn't on wikisource. MShonle 17:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
The one distinction you need to keep in mind about Wikisource is that once it is put there, you can't change the content on Wikisource. That is, Wikisource puts more emphasis on fidelity to the original text than necessarily being up to date...even to fixing punctuation or spelling errors. Placing the content here on Wikibooks would allow you to modify the content and/or update the content. This is one of those policy decisions that is sticky to work with, although I would have to agree that the initial place to put something like this would be to Wikisource, then moving one part at a time over to Wikibooks as you update and change the content, with links to Wikisource where you havn't. That would allow a more liberal policy toward e-texts like this.

Another e-book that I love is Light and Matter by Ben Crowell. With a little bit of sweet talking and some minor effort, I would venture that he would be willing to allow that e-text to be moved to Wikisource and/or Wikibooks. And this is and honest to goodness textbook that is currently in use at a University. Dr. Crowell has been very cordial when I've e-mailed him in the past, and is very approachable. He started this particular text book before things like Wikibooks got started, and some of his early discussions were how to coordinate collaborative editing of content like this. There are a couple more textbooks I can think of that would be similar kinds of candidates for inclusion into Wikibooks and/or Wikisource. --Rob Horning 09:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

An update to add a little bit more here...If you do "move content" from Wikisource to Wikibooks, leave the old stuff at Wikisource... don't transwiki it as it is a "historical" document that needs preserving on its own terms. I don't think there is any explicit policy of forking content from Wikisource, but we should not push our way around over there to suit our needs here. Just copy the material and then add the content as needed. --Rob Horning 18:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Request to alter the protected page : Wikibooks portal

Request to alter the protected page : Wikibooks portal and substitute the former paragraph FR by this one :

[[:fr:Wikilivres:Bienvenue|Bienvenue]] ! '''[[:fr:Wikilivres:Wikilivres|Wikilivres]]''' s'est donné pour but de mettre [[w:fr:gratuité|gratuitement]] à la disposition de tous, des '''textes pédagogiques''' au '''[[w:fr:contenu libre|contenu libre]]'''. Voir [[:fr:Wikilivres:Wikilivres|À propos de Wikilivres]] pour en savoir plus sur le projet.

Greudin

Done. - Aya T C 00:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

More policy amalgamation

I've amalagamated WB:NC and WB:HNS into Wikibooks:Naming policy. Comments to Wikibooks talk:Naming policy. Thanks. - Aya T C 00:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks World Records

This is a project proposal. I have have noticed that we do not have any type of book about world records. such information is readily available on the internet and in books. Why do we not have a book about this? --Sb2k4 21:10, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like the kind of book that could get a lot of users. Just like the jokebook and the cookbook, you can add an entry that's high quality and doesn't need to be coordinated with anything else other than being put in the right category. However, with all three of these: the cookbook, the jokebook, and a records book, it would be hard to say that any of them were instructional reasons. As we're changing our policies I think we should absolutely be clear on where we draw the line. MShonle 21:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
  • You might want to look at meta:Proposals for new projects#Almanac, where a project just like this is being proposed. There already is a wiki server that has been established, although it is not currently a part of Wikimedia. The intention though is that they do want to move the content over to a Wikimedia server, if they can get enough support. Something like this really doesn't belong on Wikibooks because it is not instructional material. --Rob Horning 01:56, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
I would agree that both the joke book and the proposed records book don't really count as instructional resources. But, the cookbook definitely is instructional, because each recipe is a set of instructions used to accomplish a particular cooking task. Geo.T 02:03, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
To make this instructional, then, maybe we should add a section on how to break these records - maybe chronicaling Wikibookians' previous attempts. Possibly we could even get the Record Holder's advice on trying to beat it - but probabaly not as they wouldn't want their record broken! I suggest we discuss this on World Records' talk page. --Sb2k4 08:09, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
If we wanted to have some fun, we could of course have "records" for the most number of edits, the most number of sock puppets, worst vandals (most edits before being banned), longest time to become admin, shortest time to become admin (Aya comes close here), largest flame, most edited wikibook page, etc. Of course that would just be for Wikibooks, but we could still have some fun with it. --Rob Horning 10:19, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

IRC

Note that the Wikibooks project has its own IRC channel on irc.freenode.net called #wikibooks. I shall try to be available in there for real-time discussions. I suggest that other users, particularly other administrators, might like to do the same. If you don't know how to connect to IRC, please drop me a line on my talk page (click 'T' in my sig). Thankyou. - Aya T C 20:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)


Another IRC-related note to administrators, or other users, who like to keep an eye on recent changes, there's another IRC channel on irc.wikimedia.org called #en.wikibooks, which shows edits/moves/uploads as they happen in real-time. Ideal for quickly spotting vandalism. - Aya T C 04:18, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks:List_of_all_books is now obsolete

Today I've been bold and labelled this page as defunct. People have been adding books to it up until very recently, but it has to stop, there is no way to keep it updated. It's bad enough trying to ensure books end up on the correct bookshelf without trying to put them in two different places at once.

If we still want an uber-list we can use transclusions, and that will perfectly list all the books without manual duplication.

My new purpose for this page is to ensure that each of these books is also on a bookshelf; once that is checked it can be removed. Also I'm trying to get the foreign stuff transwikied. Any help doing this would be greatly appreciated. GarrettTalk 10:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I think this is a wise move. The Card Catalog Office is where you ought to go to in order to have your Wikibook placed on a bookshelf, if you are having problems trying to figure the system out. That perhaps should be updated on Help:How to start a book, which should also be a part of the guidelines/policies umbrella of pages.

    In many ways the whole process of starting a Wikibook should be more along the lines of starting a Wikiproject on Wikipedia. There are a whole bunch of random Wikibook modules laying around that really don't have any coherant organization, and there is also a mistaken belief on the part of some new contributors that they can add "articles" here like Wikipedia.

    Anyway, thanks for trying to clean things up Garrett. --Rob Horning 13:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Overridding images with wikicommons images

I put up File:Jupiter Earth Comparison.png and found that wikibooks does not show the NASA tag {{PD-USGov-NASA}} like wiki commons does. So I put up the picture at commons at Commons:File:Jupiter Earth Comparison.png and used the tags. The commons version is not overriding the wikibooks one. I want to use the NASA tag and import the picture from commons, so how do we get rid of the other picture?--StarryTG 02:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the local copy for you. That seems to have solved your problem. Geo.T 03:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. --StarryTG 04:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Local images always override Commons images, not the other way around, so until there's a differentiation attribute the WB filename always has precedence. GarrettTalk 05:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

New enhancement request for MediaWiki

I have just created new enhancement requents in Mediazilla which I think are very needed in Wikibooks, specially now that the proposed Wikibooks:Naming policy recomends using subpages. They are:

  • 3113 2308 - Provide a way to watch all the subpages of a page
  • 3114 845- [[/Subpage|]] to be converted to [[/Subpage|Subpage]] on saving
  • 3115 - Provide a quick syntax for linking to sibling subpages
  • Along with this one already existent: 233 - Provide a list of subpages of a page

If you think they are important you can vote for them in order to attract the developers attention. ManuelGR 00:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. The one was a dupe though, you've got to really watch when you start new bug things, people have thought of virtually everything already! :) I'll certainly be voting at some point. I think the subpage auto-TOC is the only one that's immediately useful. The others would be but can be worked around with a little more typing. GarrettTalk 02:32, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
In terms of Bug #3115, I find that this seems to work fine right now. Check out my user page to see some links just as this feature request seems to request be added. In particular check out my sandbox. It is a part of Wikibooks even now. As far as the rest of the new feature enhancements are concerned, I think they are good ideas and I have voted for them as priorities for fixing them up. --Rob Horning 13:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
About Bug #3115 I thought I tested it and did not worked. Maybe I did it before someone implemented the feature. In any case, the feature is not (was not?) mentioned on any editing documentation I have read. It is great in any case to have this one! Subpages are now more useful for internal book linking. About searching bugs before submitting, I did it, but my searches always included the subpage word and this one did not show up. ManuelGR 16:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Solved, I added those kind of links to m:Help:Link#Subpage_feature. ManuelGR 16:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
Regarding bug 3114/845 - Also note that [[/Foo/]] is equivalent to (but not transformed to) [[/Foo|Foo]], which is even better IMHO. This makes subpage links really minimal. I'd prefer it if [[w:Foo|]] was not transformed to [[w:Foo|Foo]], but just interpreted as such. - Aya T C 04:11, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
This syntax doesn't follow the principle of minimal surprise and AFAIK is not documented anywhere. For the subpages the pipe link should work equally than for namespaces, whether or not this kind of syntax is expanded on saving (I'd also prefer not). But at least we have a concise syntax, which was my primary missed capability. ManuelGR 17:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Time Limits for Admins on Wikibooks

I have a discussion on the Administrator's info talk page regarding a policy change for how long an inactive administrator can keep their admin status. I am posting here on the Staff Lounge mainly to "advertise" that this discussion is ongoing, but the discussion should take place on that talk page. --Rob Horning 12:03, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Art Tutorials?

I administrate an online art community and have been having members write instructional tutorials and articles for my site. The articles and tutorials are more "fine-art" oriented and mostly on drawing technique and photography techniques. Most contributors have shown interest in using these articles for a wikibook. Would a general how-to manual on art be in the realm of wikibooks?

If so, would anyone be able to mentor me a bit on how to go about starting this? I have done editing for wikipedia, but not wikibooks.

email : blaine@blainegarrett.com aim and yahoo : zombiediv msn : garmark3@hotmail.com icq : 2976110

I think this sounds in-line with Wikibooks, provided it's geared for "instructional use." It would be particularly great if there were lots of pictures, too! MShonle 23:43, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I would love this. AND I'll help you get started! Kellen T 05:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
I started the book Art_Tutorials yesterday. Thanks to Kellen and Aya for the help and suggestions. Blainegarrett 17:33, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Namespace listings

Does anybody know how to get a listing of all namespaces in mediawiki (including the extended ones)? Do I have to do a database dump? Kellen T 05:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Well. If you just want the ones on Wikibooks, I have a list at User:Aya/Wikibooks. I forget exactly where I got that from, but I have a feeling it was when I downloaded a DB dump. If it's for another wiki, then I suspect the drop-down list on Special:Allpages ought to list them all. - Aya T E C 14:43, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm. Well I know mediawiki 1.5 is supposed to have 'extended' namespaces (such that the cookbook would get its own) and I wanted to see if anything else is in there already -- this might be in 1.6 though. The ones you point to are the standard ones of course and I believe you can find a listing on wikipedia when you look up namespaces. Kellen T 19:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity "Relaunch"

This is an FYI for all interested people. I have relaunched as a new project Wikiversity with a proposed timetable for when it can be started as a formal sister Wikimedia project. There is some activity with the Foundation Board over this issue as well. If you are interested in this project succeeding, please add your name to the votes on those pages and voice conerns/opinions on how Wikiversity ought to be organized, and lets do this the way it should have been done in the first place. I am trying to "go by the book" on this project, and the items I listed should make that happen in the manner it should. --Rob Horning 14:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense

I just created this. If you come across something which makes you laugh, but is obviously inappropriate for the site, add it in before you send it to oblivion. - Aya T E C 22:28, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Special:Recentchanges page update

The Special:Recentchanges page still has a notice about open registration for Wikimania 2005. Maybe this could be changed to link to some information about what happened at Wikimania 2005. --JWSurf 14:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki errors

I've been getting a ton of these this morning:

Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Database.php on line 1667

Anybody else? Kellen T 18:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

The stylesheets for me are all messed up, too. MShonle 18:46, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Note that no-one who fixes these things watches this page. Try http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ - Aya T E C 19:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Savoir-faire : Wikipedia didn't want it, but do we?

This seems to be one of those feel-good tree-hugging we-can-change-the-world-with-only-$1-a-day guilt-trip websites. It does not look to me like a book.

It is a half-hearted translation of w:fr:Wikipédia:Portail Savoir-faire (note even the ! is still there).

Wikipedia doesn't want it, with the leaning be to transwiki. You'll notice my voice there among the transwikiers, but the more I think about it the less I think it's going to be anything more than a World Vision fluff site.

Its scope is ill-defined and as wide as the milky way. The goal of a wikibook is to have as narrowminded a goal as possible to ensure it actually gets written. This won't.

Anyway I'm tempted to just dump it as both a half-hearted translation project and a "we don't want it so let's dump it on Wikibooks" case. GarrettTalk 11:26, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The "book" describes itself as a project and/or a portal. There were similar "projects" before that we've deleted, and this one seems no different. Perhaps we can keep a sliver of a page up to redirect them to Free markets, which is what they really need to be reading about if they really want "[...] to allow the largest number of people to fulfil their basic human needs."
Note: the last comment of mine is just to be snarky. I think we've found yet another wikicity... perhaps it can be renamed wikidump? (as in WP dumps on us what they don't want, and we dump on WC what we don't want-- hey, perhaps that's the whole purpose of WC in the first place, to allow WP and WB to be well edited and clean, guilt-free) MShonle 01:41, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Book about Linux Kernel

I don't know for sure where to put it, but I would like to see a book about the Linux Kernel that explains something about it structure, what this and that file does, the most important functions, etc. A more deep dive in the Linux Kernel, so you can actually understand the stuff that comes up when you boot Linux. I don't know nothing about it, anyone who would like to this? I, and many with me I think, would like it.

This is a general FAQ-type item: If you want to start a new Wikibook, please just add it to the "New Wikibooks" section, even if you don't know what bookshelf it belongs on. We'll try to help you out in terms of relocating the book or if it should be merged into another Wikibook as a subsection. For now, just add the content that you think would be appropriate and feel free to create a new Wikibook subject if one doesn't already exist. Don't just create a Wikibook, however, if you are not willing to put some effort into adding some content. For the Linux Kernel, you might want to look at the Computing Bookshelf and other similar Wikibooks about Linux before getting started, including Linux kernel, which has already been on Wikibooks for some time but is in serious need of reformatting and reorganization. --Rob Horning 13:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

w:Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion

Considering the amount of arguing that seems to go on in WB:VFD, maybe something like this could help us out? - Aya T E C 22:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

It sounds interesting. Perhaps we should see how it plays out at WP first, which is more seasoned in terms of other policies. MShonle 01:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Actually I think my method of bringing questionable modules to the Lounge works quite well. People can discuss without a deletion deadline causing them to make up their minds on the spot, and when consensus is reached we can then shove that module on Vfd and pass it through probably without complaint. This temporary blanking thing could get confusing, and also eliminates "What links here" for pages mentioned within, making things appear orphans when they aren't. I also agree with Mshonle, let's not be Wikipedia's guinea pig; if it works well for them, then we can accept it with open arms. GarrettTalk 02:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
I'll have to check out more what is being discussed. One of the things that I do think is positive from all of the discussions on the VfD pages is that it helps to clarify policies in much the same manner that appellate court decisions can help to define law and court procedures. This analogy can go too far, but it is something to think about. Essentially what is being asked is a community judgement on a particular set of pages and asking what should be done to them. Keep in mind that the easy stuff is deleted automatically (usually with a speedy delete or even out right manual deletion by WB admins).

I've also suggested that perhaps a "heirarchy" of article problem markup tags should be enhanced, with perhaps a note that a VfD discussion should really only happen on the most unusual or troublesome kinds of decision. Currently the VfD also seems to serve as a "court of appeals" when somebody does a speedy delete (as is the VfU page). Right now we are cleaning out a bunch of cobwebs in the hidden recesses of Wikibooks that have accumulated over quite a bit of time, and that is bringing its own resistance. Frankly I see the VfD page as a healthy sign of life for this wiki project and that people actually care about what is happening. If there were no arguments, it would be a crying shame indeed. Try to start a VfD discussion on Wikispecies and see how far you get (I doubt you would even get a response, but I can be surprised sometimes.) --Rob Horning 02:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statistical Info about Wikibooks:

I've been doing some searches using Alexa and trying to find just how popular Wikibooks has become for 'netizens, and I found an interesting fact:

Wikibooks is the #2 most popular E-book website, behind adobe.com. And I can't seperate out the statistics for just e-books (and the acrobat reader) from the rest of adobe.com, so it is a very unfair comparison. For the rest of the e-book websites that Alexa compares, the #2 site is quite a bit below Wikibooks. See the comparison between Wikibooks and eBookPro.com en.wikibooks comprises about 78% of all Wikibook traffic, according to Alexa. And folks on Wikipedia said that Wikibooks was a dead project nobody cared about.... Keep up the good work, and it appears that even the most recent efforts to clean up here have made a significant difference, at least from people coming by to visit and look around. --Rob Horning 22:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Interesting! And I do think the news of our death has been highly exaggerated. It takes time, but we're showing results. :-) (And I'm trying to figure out why wikispecies was made? wasn't the 'pedia meant for that?) MShonle 23:12, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
'species was made to [eventually] have a different, very formalized structure; and to serve as a reference for species articles in the 'pedia. the project as it stands today was set aside for the enthusiasts to work out what it would become. But they grew a bit tired of discussing that before reaching a firm conclusion... Sj 23:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Idea: Audio production techniques from beginner to producer

For several years i've written interactive multimedia CD ROMS for schools and universities based around music technology varying from how to get started (plugging in a microphone) right the way up to "perception of augmented sound" and i was thinking to myself since i dont do it anymore why dont i make other people who do it work twice as hard by creating a wikibook incroperating all this knowledge. What this book is looking for is people genuinley interested in showing and instructing others on the nuts and bolts of music technology from scientists to bedroom musicians.

wiki idea

a wiki school that you could get a diploma from. currently you can only say you learned something from this but have no way of proving it. I don't really know who i should contact and give this idea to. It wouldn't be much of a wiki but it would use a copy of wikibooks and other wiki articles, and restrict editing to the version on their site to make sure they are free of errors. (i'm aware that the only diploma that you could probably get from the content currently on wikibooks is a highschool diploma and there aren't enough completed college subject books for a higher diploma, and that you could only use completed books.) On the plus side it would be good for people who can't afford to go to college.--V2os 02:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

It's a nice idea, but Wikibooks is only for textbooks, and not for courses (see the recent discussion about removing Wikiversity from Wikibooks, Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Wikiversity). There is no reason why a real school couldn't use books from Wikibooks as part of their courses though. Geo.T 03:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
There have been some on-line schools that give some sort of diploma after taking so many courses and doing some work that can be considered academic in nature. As far as a current effort with Wikimedia projects, you might want to check out Wikiversity for such a school-like approach. Right now it is still being organized, but they certainly could use any help you can give to them. Right now it appears that it is going to be more of a non-accredited adult education center. I think developing a GED curriculum wouldn't be too diffiuclt for Wikiversity, and moving toward a junior college level of education in the future would be a reasonable goal to shoot toward.

As far as trying to get a Wikibook to a publishable state, that is certainly something we have been working toward as well. The Collaboration of the Month effort is specifically about improving standards of various Wikibooks, and trying to get these Wikibooks to a publishable state. At the moment I don't think any Wikibook really is in that condition, although many of the books listed as a Book of the month come as close as what exists here at the moment. Writing a book is a very labor intensive work, so give us some time before you pass judgement on what is happening here. I think in a couple of years there are going to be some outstanding Wikibooks that are going to make the publishing industry turn their heads. --Rob Horning 14:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

If you want to make a GED (or any other similar program for another school type) for wikiversity it'd be well appreciated. But you'd still have to get issued the GED... however GEDs are issued (I think the state does it?). There's a lot of problems involving accrediting a school. Its slow, expensive, and difficult. And the work of giving diplomas afterwards is not easy either- how do we prove you did the work and not your friend you paid? Thats why I doubt wikiversity will ever try to accreditize itself. --Gabe Sechan 22:36, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
wikiversity doesn't want to be an accredited school- one solution is to go around this since wikimedia sites are international thus the diploma, degree, etc would be good internationaly. (it would have to be comparable to people with college education. you probably would have to charge a small fee for making and shipping the diploma. as for proving they did it you could allow people to take tests and have their future employer watch for cheating, probably some better ways though. --V2os 01:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

WikiSpam in Talk:Computer Programming

Talk:Computer Programming is currently hard hit by WikiSpam. It might be that some Bot-Progammer is currently using the page to debug his/her programm.

The pattern is always the same - the first page is completly replaced by a link. The text above the 1st chapter is left alone - so if the bot hits next time the former 2nd chapter is replaced. I suspect that this will continue until all pages become spam links.

Each hit is done with a new ip address - so IP blocking won't help when this bot ever goes live. I suggest we start looking into combating this bot before that happens. --Krischik 14:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Bots are allowed on Wikimedia projects, but it is strongly recommended that anybody attempting to write such a beast should raise the issue first with the community, and create a user account for that bot, together with special "bot" flags that can be turned on by administrators. See also m:Requests for permissions#Requests for Bot status --Rob Horning 14:07, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
You missunderstand - I think there is a Spam-Bot in the making. And I don't think a Spam-Bot programmer will "raise the issue first with the community" - no matter how nice you ask him/her.

--Krischik 14:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Krischik, Wikispam is a common problem at Wikibooks. As you say, blocking has little effect on this Spam-Bot. The best we can do is to watch the page, and to revert the spam soon after it happens (I've just added it to my watch list). Geo.T 01:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
The websites have been added to the global spam block list. Any edits including those urls will now be blocked. --Cspurrier 01:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Cspurrier.:) BTW, how did you do that? I'm new to this whole admin thing. Geo.T 01:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I added it on meta to Requests for addition to the spam blacklist Meta:Talk:Spam blacklist, and I also asked on IRC :) --Cspurrier 01:49, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
What I was trying to point out is that sometimes a person trying to "legitimately" start a bot project on a Wiki that might actually do some good can also screw things up royally. This is the sort of experimentation that I was trying to talk about, and it would be better to simply download MediaWiki and try out the stuff on a box of your own first (perhaps even downloading the db for one of the active wikis as well). This can also be mistaken for a "Spam-bot" and the results are often the same. On the other hand, somebody designing a bot for pure malicious purposes (what you seem to be implying here) is a minor concern, but all we can do is try and fix the damage. The worst that could happen is that the whole wiki would be down for some time, but most damage can be fixed if we care to really deal with it. There are also technological protections that can be done to stop bots, but I think the best thing to do is let the idiot who is making it have their fun for awhile and they will eventually go away. Ignore the whole thing and it won't become a harder problem and turn into a "game". --Rob Horning 10:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Page broken

After adding a navbar to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker/Master Sword, the module renders incorrectly in Firefox. Every other page with the template renders fine. Can someone help, maybe? —Snargle 17:16, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's wrong. Could you describe what it should look like, or provide a screengrab or something? I can't see any difference except that it's a few pixels wider than the others (for some reason). You could try clearing your cache (Ctrl+F5 on Windows), that might work. GarrettTalk 04:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I think I see the problem, it's one of those niggling MediaWiki rendering bugs. I'll try rearranging the template code to see if that works. GarrettTalk 04:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
That did work. Thanks.—Snargle 09:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Rendering problems

The HSME book seems to be having problems. It's centre justified. What is the problem? Xiaodai 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh it seems to have fixed itself. Xiaodai 09:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

download pages

Isn't there something that lets you download books, and if there is i would like the link. --V2os 21:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried an "experiment" and it seemed to have worked for me. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you earlier though. Take a look at a sub-page from my user page for an example of a whole Wikibook being available at once. '***__WARNING___*** Be aware that this page has many image resources, so it will take a very long time to load on most web browsers. I did this throught the use of templates and grabbing sub-pages to connect the book together as one complete Wikibook. Going this route even allows you to reorder content, and even add stuff from other Wikibooks that may be appropriate as needed. The problems I am encountering right now is that I'd like to have a "higher level" category separation, or at least some way to "demote" the heading levels for the sub pages. In short, yes you can have a whole Wikibook assembled and put together for your favorite Wikibook, but it will take a little more effort on your part in order to get that accomplished. You just have to be creative on how you get it accomplished. Any other ideas on how to accomplish this or to fix the "problems" in this page?--Rob Horning 03:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
You could try indenting sections to show hierarchy. You should be able to do this by drawing a table as follows...:
{|
|{{Wikibooks:Votes for deletion}}
|}
Then you can fiddle with the table's formatting pixel-by-pixel, and even define backgrounds and fonts and whatnot, and the transcluded text should then obey it. You can then draw a table inside that table to make the next section obey both tables, and so forth and so on. GarrettTalk 13:42, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Qualification for a Wikibook?

I was looking at a video game article at Wikipedia, have a look. Beneath A Steel Sky I think the section "LINC codes" probably doesnt belong in an Encyclopedia, could this go in as a Wikibook article or does it not qualify? - 202.7.176.134 21:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's certainly not encyclopedic. However we try to discourage moving content if there isn't going to be a modest-sized book built around it. If you are going to start some sort of BASS game guide, then by all means go ahead!
If you're only looking to move this one section and not really expand upon it, I would recommend you copy these onto the Gameinfo Wikicity instead, it's just the home for codes and things like this. I don't know if they have an entry for BASS yet, but you could always make one if they don't.
Anyway, hope that helps! GarrettTalk 03:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Reading_room/Archive_2"
In other languages