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Welcome to the General reading room. On this page, Wikibookians are free to talk about the Wikibooks project, and all sorts of related subjects.

To facilitate ease of browsing and replying, please:

  1. Place your question at the bottom of the list;
  2. Title the question (by placing the title between equals signs thus: == title ==);
  3. Sign your name and date (by adding four tildes thus: ~~~~).

General References:

Newest Books:

[edit] can u help me to settle up my C++ programming assingment

Actually I have a problem to do my new one assingment in c++ programming for my study...can anybody help me to settle up that assignment? I really don't know how to do it because I fresher in this C++ programming and not expert in this subject.. The question are like this:

A company runs it bussiness by selling houses.The company will get a commission of 7% of the ttal selling price of the house of the month. The house type sold is given code 'A' for landed house and code 'B' for apartment. The company has asked you to develop a computerized list of sold houses. Assume that the total number of houses sold everymonth is at most 30.Write a C++ program to:

i) read the input data from file; ii) display the input data in an output file; iii) sort the data from the lowest to the highest selling price and then display the sorted list in the output file; iv) calculate the number of houses sold, the total selling prices, the average of the houses selling price and the company commission; v) display the calculation results in (iv) above in the output file.

The program should be develop in modular form. The program should at least include the following function: a) void read_data (...) to read the input data from a file; b) void display_list (...) to display the input data; c) void sorted_list(...) to sort and display the input data; d) void compute_result(...) to calculate the items in (iv) above; e) void isplay_result (...) to display the calculation result in (iv) above.

The input data must be stored as arrays.Display the output in an output file.The program must read the input data until the 'end of file' is false.Make sure the program is not interactive and do not use global variables.

Thanks a lot to anybody who help me to complete the answer for my question...Thanks a million..

[edit] A comprehensive book on world history

Hello ALL I am new reader of world history. i wanted to know if any body knows about any comprehensive book about world history. Some one has proposed me the BOOK HUMAN HERITAGE Teacher version, i found it quite interesting but still i want comments and views of other readers. If some one can forward the e - version of the world history, it will be a favour. regardsMedia:Example.ogg

[edit] help regarding bca

i m a student of bca 4th sem from ignou. i want some help about my studies and assignments. if u will provide some help and give the better solutions i m very thankful to u if u provided me by e-mail

my email is priya_khanna2006@yahoo.com

[edit] Mathematics Shelf Reorganising

I have posted this message on the Math discussion page but I don't know how much it is frequented, and so I'm asking here.

I feel that some books (Algebraic Geometry,Crystallography,Topology,Combinatorial Topology and Differential Geometry) that are currently in the geometry shelf under 'basic math' definitely belong to higher mathematics. Should I move them?

SPat (talk) 03:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, but perhaps wait & see if the math-y people agree too. Pretty much anything seems like advanced math to me :D  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 19:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'll wait. I've one more question, the first half of the book Topology, titled Point-Set Topology is quite developed whereas the second half titled Algebraic Topology is sparse. Does it make sense to split the book? SPat (talk) 01:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Two points: First, we're slowly phasing out the bookshelves, so eventually we won't be using them at all. Changes that you make to the bookshelves are only short-lived, and therefore unimportant. You should feel free to change them as you see fit.
What we are slowly moving towards are the Subject pages, which are similar to bookshelves but more general and automatically-updated. See, for instance, Subject:Mathematics. A better long-term solution is to categorize books properly, and create new subject pages for the different subsets of mathematics. If you could give me a good comprehensive plan about how to organize all our existing books, I could handle the implementation for you.
As for the Topology book: If you think it would be better to split it into two books, that should be fine too. We can create a Subject:Topology to link to the new books. Let me know what all you want to do, and I can help you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL

Ok. There are some complications with GFDL.

Pursuant to the Text of the GNU Free Documentation License:

"The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License ..."

and reusers are obliged to

"Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers"

Use of the disclaimer is problematic because it adds an additional restriction which we are obligated to preserve per GFDL license itself.

Template:GFDL on en.wikibooks have underwent several changes.

Notable changes from a legal standpoint are:

  • 04:42, 16 July 2004 version by Guanaco. Links to a "[[Wikipedia:general disclaimer]]" which links to the article on English wikipedia about disclaimers in general. There is still an indirect link to the general English wikipedia license on the linked page.
  • By 04:51, 16 July 2004 Guanaco corrected the little error by changing the disclaimer link to Wikibooks:general disclaimer.
  • On 09:44, 26 May 2005 a User142 has altered the license template copying the one from English wikipedia. This page linked to the article on disclaimers in general. There is still an indirect link to the general English wikipedia license on the linked page.
  • On 01:14, 2 January 2006 Kernigh unintentionally removed the disclaimer by copying the commons template.
  • No disclaimer had been introduced since.

So...

  • all uses of the license from 04:42 to 04:51, 16 July 2004 should use Template:GFDL with English wikipedia's disclaimer or the wikipedia article on disclaimers in general. (I seriously doubt anything got uploaded in that 9 minutes)
  • all uses of the license from 04:51, 16 July 2004 to 09:44, 26 May 2005 should use Template:GFDL with English wikibooks' disclaimer.
  • all uses of the license from 09:44, 26 May 2005 to 01:14, 2 January 2006 should use Template:GFDL with English wikipedia's disclaimer or the wikipedia article on disclaimers in general.

The issue with English wikipedia is complicated and I do not know how it would go in a court. Never the less all uses of the GFDL template between 04:42, 16 July 2004 to 01:14, 2 January 2006 have had some sort of a disclaimer and should be retagged accordingly.

-- Cat chi? 21:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

This is all well and good, and I understand the legal issues here. However, unless you can suggest a way to find the times that all images were tagged with {{GFDL}} automatically, there is no reasonable way that we can fix this issue. Further, I would suggest that all pages have always been linked to our Wikibooks:General disclaimer, because a link to that exists in site footer. Whether the disclaimer link is preserved in the text of the GFDL declaration, or whether it is linked at the bottom of every content page should be irrelevant. The GFDL says only that we must preserve all disclaimers, not that we must preserve the way in which those disclaimers are referenced. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Election Notice

The 2008 Board election committee announces the 2008 election process. Wikimedians will have the opportunity to elect one candidate from the Wikimedia community to serve as a representative on the Board of Trustees. The successful candidate will serve a one-year term, ending in July 2009.

Candidates may nominate themselves for election between May 8 and May 22, and the voting will occur between 1 June and 21 June. For more information on the voting and candidate requirements, see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008>.

The voting system to be used in this election has not yet been confirmed, however voting will be by secret ballot, and confidentiality will be strictly maintained.

Votes will again be cast and counted on a server owned by an independent, neutral third party, Software in the Public Interest (SPI). SPI will hold cryptographic keys and be responsible for tallying the votes and providing final vote counts to the Election Committee. SPI provided excellent help during the 2007 elections.

Further information can be found at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/en>. Questions may be directed to the Election Committee at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2008/en>. If you are interested in translating official election pages into your own language, please see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Translation>.

For the election committee,
Philippe Beaudette

[edit] =ADENO CA of the stoamch

I would like to seek your assistance because my mother was diagnose with adeno CA of the stomach. But the major complain of the patient is jaundice and ascites with on and off abdominal pain. All diagnostic exam are normal except for the blood that was found very high in CA 125 and biopsy which is positive for ADENO CA.Pls give me an enlightenment regarding this matter. we just went home back to province because the doctors cannot answer us at the same time cannot treat us beacuse of the query we gave.

This isn't the right place to ask these kinds of questions. I suggest you try another website like WebMD.com, or contact another expert. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WMF Board of Trustees Election, Suffrage

The elections committee has released a list of requirements for all wikimedians who wish to vote in the upcoming board elections. To vote, you must have at least 50 edits on one project since January 2008. I don't know when the cutoff date is. If you've been mostly inactive this year, but want the right to vote, you should make a few quick edits here and there to fill the requirement. Of course, Wikibooks benefits from every edit, so the more the merrier! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The page with all the information is here: meta:Board elections/2008/en. It's 50 edits between Jan 01 and June 01 (which gives people 1 month to comply), and 600 edits total prior to March 01. If you haven't met the march requirement, you're out of luck. However, you should make 50 good edits here anyway! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone know Greek?

At the page Writing_Adolescent_Fiction/Character_names/Greek, someone made an edit. It added the surnames "Res", and after the surname "Siannas", added "poutsogliftra": Siannaspoutsogliftra. What does this mean? The word "Siannaspoutsogliftra" gets no Google hits, but there are a few for the word "poutsogliftra" (nowhere telling you what the word means though). Is there anyone around here who speaks Greek? Cilantrohead (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About being adminstrators and Wikibookians

I have known that no everyone can be adminstrators , but I'd like to know how. Also, in fact, what are wikibookians? Can I be one of them?

A wikibookian is a person who participates at Wikibooks. Anybody who comes here to author, edit, or even just to read is a "Wikibookian". Administrators are a rarer breed, however. To be an administrator, you must be elected. Create a nomination at WB:RFP for yourself, and people will vote on it. However, successful administrator candidates usually need some qualifications first:
  • Experience editing: You seem to have about about 10 edits so far, we typically like to see administrators with several hundred or even a thousand edits. We also like to see members who have been active here for a long time, such as several months. This way, we know that you will be familiar with all our policies. These numbers are just a guideline, not a strict requirement.
  • Experience in maintenance. There are lots of jobs to do here at Wikibooks, and since administrators are primarily used for maintenance tasks, we ask that candidates have experience with them. See Wikibooks:Wikibooks maintenance for some idea of the jobs that need to get done around here. Vandal fighting, new page patrolling, book organization and categorization, and answering questions here on this and other discussion pages. If you demonstrate a need to be an administrator, we will elect you to be one.
I hope this answers your question. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Wikibookians are people who contribute to Wikibooks in some way, or can refer to someone whose a registered member of the Wikibooks community. You become a Wikibookian or a member of the Wikibooks community simply by contributing to Wikibooks. Administrators are Wikibookians with a few extra tools. A Wikibookian becomes an administrator by showing there willingness to have the extra tools and other Wikibookians showing there general willingness to let that person have the extra tools. Anyone can become an administrator provided those two things are true. --darklama 15:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations

I just wanted to draw people's attention to the three open nominations at Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations. That page hasn't been particularly active lately, and I want to make sure that people aren't forgetting about it entirely. Also, I do know that Wikibooks has been a little quiet lately. Hopefully, as the current semester draws to a close, things will pick up again. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Does activity usually pick up over the summer? I'm never really sure. But yes, with less new books comes less FB nominations unfortunately. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 02:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how to determine if content conforms to license?

I'm planning on publishing several wikibooks in physical book form, and I've read the terms of the license quite thoroughly - still is there a way to have someone view a PDF of the book to verify compliance with all license terms? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.119.237.32 (talk • contribs) .

I would be happy to view your PDFs to check them for compliance, and I'm sure other Wikibookians would be happy as well. If you upload them here to Wikibooks, it will have the dual benefit of allowing us to look at it, and other readers to download them as well. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FlaggedRevs Extension Live on DE.WP

The FlaggedRevs extension is gone live on de.wikipedia, and it's an extension that I think we should bring here as quickly as possible. There are many possible configurations available for this extension, although I think we can copy what the Germans are doing for now, and make tweaks to our implementation later if we decide we want them. Here, in a nutshell, is what FlaggedRevs does:

  1. Allows certain users to be able to "flag" a particular revision of a page. We can choose the user group that we want to give this privledge to (all users, autoconfirmed, patroller/rollbacker, admin, etc). I would venture to guess that giving flagging rights to autoconfirmed users (users with an account more then 4 days old) should be given this right no problem.
  2. When users come to the page, they can be shown the most current "development" version, or they can see the latest "flagged" version instead. There will probably be an extra tab or extra button or something that would allow people to change between them. We can set it (as I recommend) for readers to see the most recent flagged version, and logged-in users (editors) to see the current development version. Pages which are not flagged will always display the current development version by default.

What this extension does is make it so that readers can see "good" vandalism-free versions of a page. This is a must-have requirement for us if we want to be making inroads into schools. Teachers do not take kindly to textbooks for young children being filled with vandalism over night. Showing students a vandalism-free version of the page by default would help to reduce many of these concerns. In addition, having "stabilized" versions of pages would help in the construction of PDF versions and published books, which we haven't really gotten involved with yet (but I hope we will!). I would like to get some opinions on configuration settings, and if people do't have too many major complaints I would like to ask the devs to install this extension for us ASAP. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to note that there are two user groups introduced by this feature. Editors may sight a version - I think patrollers or emailconfirmed is fine for that. Reviewers can review a version (ie a higher level of quality) - this, I think, should be done by admins, as the highest level of review will be used only for Featured Books; there is no great need for many users reviewing stuff.
There are tons of config options. I will make a page outlining the exact configuration I'd like to see. It'll be lots of info, and somewhat technical, so it'll be over there.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 17:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I would disagree with you a tiny little bit about user rights. Assuming we want to differentiate between "sighted" and "reviewed" at all (which we probably don't since we don't have the critical mass right now to be making multiple passes over every page), I would say that Sighted abilities should be given to all autoconfirmed users, and Reviewer abilities should be given to anybody with +patroller, +rollbacker, or higher (admins, etc). Many books are overseen by authors who are not admins and are not particularly interested in the politics here, and they should be given the tools to sight good pages in their own books without having to jump through hoops (hence, autoconfirmed). The people that we already trust to oversee content and make decisions about quality (rollbackers and patrollers) should get better tools as well. I definitely look forward to seeing your writeup on all the config options. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I think we do want to differentiate between sighted and reviewed. If you look at my suggestions, we can autopromote users to Editor (ie they can sight pages). That plus the ability to autoreview in certain cases boots the level at which flagging will happen. I think if we autopromote users to Editor and give all patrollers & admins Reviewer we'll have enough hands to make this work. Editors may flag up to the stable level (Editors are autopromoted, so there is not much load). When autopromoting users to editor status we allow the people who know a book best (it's authors) to flag it up to stable level. The threshold for autopromotion should be relatively high (certainly higher than autoconfirmed) so we don't have users doing this who are unfamiliar with how things work. Admins and patrollers may flag up to the featured level (this would be after a FBN, so not much workload, therefore not much need for many to have those permissions). Stable and Featured are "quality" revisions (ie shown be default whenever possible).  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 20:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Available Options

I want to list out some of the possible configuration options here, so we all understand exactly what decisions need to be made.

Namespaces
Flagging revisions will only happen in certain namespaces. Mike suggests main, cookbook, wikijunior, image, and template namespaces. I'm tempted to add the "Wikibooks:" namespace too, just because most of those pages are important and shouldn't be messed around with by most users. Then again, partial page protection could serve the same purpose over there.
How Pages Are Reviewed
We don't just say "yes" or "no" to a page being stable, we also have the ability to grade the page against certain metrics. Mike suggests we have metrics like, "references", "prose", "spelling & grammar", and "structure". For sighting pages, this is fine because it can be done on a per-page basis. However, if we want to use the reviewed state to denote our featured books, we will want the whole book to be featured and not be giving bad grades to one or two pages.
How many levels of page quality are there?
Mike suggests 4: useful, good quality, stable, and featured. I might even be willing to drop this down to 3 and do some rearranging (stable, good, featured) or even just 2 (good, featured). The more levels we have, the more of a hassle it could be determining where boundary cases go. Featured books are determined from WB:FBN, good pages can be a person opinion of the reviewer. Adding additional levels seems like overkill to me for now. Of course, as our system is currently, non-admins can promote a book to featured. If we require +reviewer rights to set this on featured books, then normal users cannot do this anymore.
What should people see when they go to a reviewed page?
When a person goes to a page, should they see the current development version, or the current sighted version? We can split this up according to user group. I suggest that "readers" (people who are not logged in) should see the current stable version by default. Logged-in "editors" would see the current development version by default.
Should we allow user comments?
There is an option to allow comments from the reviewer. These are like an edit summary, but when you review a page. I say yes, Mike agrees.
What flags can different user groups give out?
If we have reviewer and editor groups, we need to determine which flags each group can distribute. In a 2-level scheme, editors can hand out the "good" rating on personal opinion, Reviewers can hand out "Featured" in response to WB:FBN. If we have three levels, an editor can mark pages as "stable", a reviewer can hand out "good" (on personal opinion or nomination) and "Featured" (in response to WB:FBN). I don't think that more levels buys us anything in terms of usability.

There are a few other options that we can manipulate, but I don't think any of them are too important. I default to Mike's suggestions on all additional options. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't mind a three-level scheme in some places, but as a whole I think it is too much maintenance and overhead for something simple. Here's what I want: anonymous users will see the stable or featured version by default, and logged in users the development copy. Only admins can be reviewers and thus mark pages as featured. Patrollers / rollbackers (and by default admins) can sight and mark pages as stable. This allows a quality crew of people to make the real content decisions and leaves only the high-level featuring of work to the admins (which is relatively rare). I absolutely don't want any autoconfirmed user coming into my book and making decisions on what quality is, and ideally I'd only want my team of editors to flag my book but that's not possible. This feature deserves little usage on the production side and heavy usage on the reader side, so I'd like to keep it tight. -withinfocus 21:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I certainly don't mean to lecture you or anything, but it doesn't really seem like the "wiki way" to limit decision-making to only a select core "team". I definitely understand your motivations for that, and I don't entirely disagree with it either. A three-level scheme that was essentially "vandalism-free", "good", and "Featured" would probably be acceptable. Any ordinary autoconfirmed joe-schmoe user can verify that a page does not contain vandalism. Being able to call a page "good" is a judgment call that maybe should be reserved for established wikibookians. "Featured" of course is only granted in response to an actual vote on the matter at WB:FBN. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not possible to have sub-groups so discussing the matter won't do us much good, but although I definitely believe this place should be free for editing, if we want to really establish ourselves as professional we need to limit access. I think the stable revision goes along with what the expectations of a patroller are, even higher actually since the flag should be given not to just a vandalism-free page but a revision that is clearly finished in some regard and not caught up with loose ends. If we wanted to have a third group for "vandalism-free" that's fine with me, but I don't really want that to be the version displayed to readers as it's only the first level of editing. A more respected member of the site, ideally one of the book's editors, would know how to best mark the page as "eligible for reading". -withinfocus 22:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you, but even amongst admins we can't limit what books people mark as what. As a matter of courtesy I probably wouldn't go marking "good" pages in the Muggle's guide, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't if the whim so struck me. I agree entirely about the need for a stable version, teachers absolutely won't use our books unless we have some measure of stability (and this extension is probably just one of many steps we would need to take to get to that point). Readers in general have gotten along just fine looking at pages that are generally free from vandalism, and where that was the only option, it would be better then nothing. Books which are well watched-over and well cared-for would obviously reach higher levels of stable quality, and those higher levels would be shown to the reader instead. We simply don't have the manpower to raise every page of every book to "good" level and require that only "good" pages be shown to readers by default, we are going to need some gradiations, I think, and we are going to have to live with the fact that the majority of our pages will never be sighted anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rescuing and forking off the cookbook

For background: the cookbook was once one of our most successful collaborations, and in some ways helped us learn how Wikibooks should work. However, activity on the cookbook has been slowly decreasing over the last couple years. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with a lot of reasons, but the four that I can think of off hand are (1) User:Kellen is not very active any more, (2) there are a lot of websites out there allowing recipe sharing now, (3) the cookbook above all other books has served as a "dump" for the Wikipedians (who despise recipes as unencyclopedic), and (4) it's a big mess and no-one has dared clean it up.

I was a bit alarmed by this discussion, but after thinking about it for a few weeks, I think I might have an idea. Kellen has a good point about remaking the cookbook as a textbook about cooking methods, ingredients, etc. Deleting all the recipes seems a bit over the top.

I propose we transwiki the recipes of the cookbook to Wikiversity. There we could poll for yumminess, collect/collate/rate infinite numbers of variations on each recipe, and link it into other Wikiversity content related to availability of local foods, etc. The cookbook, as textbook, could then have content related to the history and "basics" of a recipe, and allow the back and forth of "whose mom's meatloaf recipe is the best" take place on Wikiversity (where participation is at least as important as content).

My agenda is just this: I want to do outreach for the cookbook through churches and folks I know in the restaurant industry. It would be a lot easier to sell if we could have "research projects" where people try recipes, rate them, and make improvements towards recipes they don't like.

I eagerly await your fruity missiles :) --SB_Johnny | PA! 22:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Forking is fine, but reducing the cookbook to only "basic" recipes doesn't sound so hot to me. I think a decrease in contributions is not a good reason to discourage recipes or to reduce its size. Maybe the cookbook has reached a point where there is enough coverage that there isn't much left to add, but variations. The cookbook could become a multi-wiki project if that is what's wanted, but I don't think anything needs to change in its scope or coverage. People seem to still be contributing to it, and someone may come a long at some point with the motivation to take over where Kellen left off. Nothing has to change here in order for the cookbook to be forked on another project and for you to achieve what you wish on WV, this isn't a WB issue, but a WV issue. --darklama 23:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a clear idea of what your fork concept entails would it be a duplication of content (no deletion), and then reformat the relevant parts of it on Wikiversity? I don't see a particular need for this as the content can be referenced here and extended there and later synchronized, (I think I remember some proposal, not on Wikibooks, of Darklama on a similar solution for translation that addresses a similar synchronization problem, but can't find the link), but most of this we already do it here with articles on Wikipedia, we transwiki them here completely, partially (with attribution), or link to them and at least I try to maintain both (on Wikipedia I don't edit articles, but use the discussion pages to reference updates,etc...). One should keep in mind that one of the problems with forking is that it not only fragments the work but the contributors, and increases work for all, even to users, ultimately the optimal outcome of a fork is a merge and that is even more work...
Moving the content out of Wikibooks doesn't seem to me the best path and the rational that it would fix the problem of new contributions is debatable. As a user it would upset me since I'm not and active on Wikiversity and so having the content forked there would have some impact, since I do use that book from time to time.
The expressed needs to have a "research project" does seem suitable to Wikiversity but if it is not, you can even do it on your and other participants user space, since ultimately the content would be volatile and intended to be merge to the book.
I haven't contributed content to that particular book, only minor edits but I would support any decission that users that have/are working on it to reformat or even fork the book (on the Wikibooks project) if no loss of content occurs. I strongly object to deletion of useful content from the Wikibooks project. For the rest the users that are willing to do the work and have been doing it should have a free hand on implementing any changes they come to agree upon. --Panic (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I do like the idea of the cookbook becoming more textbook-like, it's been a little bit of a sore thumb because it stands out as such a large example of a book which isn't textbook-like but is allowed to stay here anyway. I think the cookbook is great and valuable, but if it sets a bad example for new books and leads new authors into thinking the wrong things, then it hurts us more then it helps. That said, I definitely do not want to delete it.
The point about there being an infinite number of recipes is also a problem, because it's a violation of our requirements that books have a finite scope. If I make a recipe and add paprika to it then I have a second recipe which is almost exactly the same except for a small variation. Trying to be a mere collection of recipes, then, is not good for the cookbook to do.
Better would be to talk about how to cook and cooking utensils/techniques, and use select recipes as examples of those ideas. It's the same way we show particular programs as examples of vague computer science topics.
Doing it this way, a central narrative with copious examples, would seem to suggest a massive reorganization. For one, it probably doesn't need it's own namespace if it's going to have a more concrete organizational structure like ordinary books. As a collection of unrelated articles a namespace is fine, but as a traditional textbook about cooking this method is far less then ideal and probably would encourage people to write articles instead of chapters.
I'm also not interested in "moving" content to Wikiversity, although I am highly interested in "Sharing" content. If WV could use it's magic to rate and improve recipes, WB could discuss them. It would be a great way for us to work together. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Whiteknight, can't find a policy that defines that books must have a finite scope. I understand the intention but don't see how it would be enforcible, and it wouldn't be a good wording for a scope limiting policy, a book on mathematics, physics, languages (even computer languages) could suffer the same problem of never ending additions of "recipes", examples and updates. --Panic (talk) 18:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right, the passage that I was referring to is actually part of Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks/Unstable, which is not yet policy. Regardless, the scope is just one problem from many that could justify deletion of the cookbook under it's condition. So far we've avoided the issue for many reasons, but that doesn't mean it's really the model for aspiring textbook authors. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, what I had in mind was more what Whiteknight was referring to: judging by my experiences over the years and the most recent discussions by the main editors, it seems the recipes have been a distraction from the core goal (keep in mind that the vast majority of them are transwikis kicked our way by the wikipedian deletionist cabal, bless their hearts). As an "outreach project", it would be a bit easier to point to one project as a starting point, and the cookbook as it is now is not such a great thing to point to. Adding a bit of paprika/lemon juice/marijuana/whatever is probably a minor thing, but not necessarily a trivial thing to the person who comes up with the idea. Wikiversity's scope is much more slanted towards community participation than end results, and while we of course want as much participation as we can get on Wikibooks, we're really aimed at an end result (i.e. textbooks). My hope is that this could take advantage of the strengths of both projects and communities by enticing people to edit and contribute in the "come what may" atmosphere on Wikiversity, and use the Wikibooks cookbook as a textbook (to be improved as often as possible and necessary). --SB_Johnny | PA! 23:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm against any moving of the recipes to Wikiversity (why move it to a virtually dead project?) or making it more textbook like. It's a cookbook and that's what's good about it. It still needs massive improvement. Creating a Cookbook recipe (or any type of wiki book or article) is very difficult. Wiki software and markup is not user-friendly and creating attractive pages is not easy. I'm talking personally here and I have many years experience of the IT industry so if I find it difficult and time-consuming to make good wiki pages then ordinary non-geek editors probably won't even try. Look at some of the other cooking and recipe websites out there. Notice how they incorporate far more images, animated flash pictures and instant conversion from American measurements to standard metric measurements. Notice how some of them include alternative recipes on the same page and how the presentation of the whole page is clutter-free and easy to read (why do Wikibook pages have to have the annoying wiki bar on the left, another bar at the top and then a copyright section at the bottom - so much wasted space and not relevent for people unless they are editors as opposed to readers). We need to get the opinions of those who 'read' the Cookbook rather than the very small number of people who edit on Wikibooks (and rarely on the cookbook). --ЗAНИA talk 22:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with most of what you've said. However I don't understand why you would think that anyone who contribute to other books, cannot be a reader, or doesn't read the cookbook. While I can agree that the opinions of readers need to be considered, I don't agree with the implication that people can't be both readers and contributors, that there opinions don't represent the views of a reader, or that anyone whose responded so far doesn't read the cookbook. --darklama 01:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
My point was that we need the views of the readers. Most views and decisions on Wikibooks are expressed by us (the editors) but the vast majority of people who visit Wikibooks visit only to read (the same applies to all wikies, us editors are probably only a small part)--ЗAНИA talk 20:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I would disagree with what Xania said about Wikiversity. Wikiversity isn't a "dead project" by any means. By my measurements, WV has edits at about 1/3 the frequency as Wikibooks does. It's also significantly younger then WB is, and is growing at a steady rate that is similar to the growth Wikibooks experienced when it was the same age. Of course, Wikibooks hasn't been particularly lively in recent months either, maybe we're becoming the "dead project".
As for the stuff about the user interface, I agree, although it's an issue that affects more books then just the cookbook. The user interface is significantly more cluttered then it needs to be for either readers or writers. A solution may be to create a javascript that removes, for people who are not logged in) a number of unnecessary links and tabs from the main interface. That could be something we discuss in more detail at the Feature Requests page.
The issue about difficulty editing wikitext is well-understood, but there is nothing that we can do about it from our end. The developers are going to have to create a better editing interface if we are going to have it at all. There are, I think, some things that we could try to do locally like creating better templates or boiler-plate text for Cookbook pages that insert all the necessary templates and categories automatically.
Regardless, the cookbook really isn't a "textbook" as most of our other books are, and while I don't disagree that recipes have their place here as examples, the cookbook should really be a textbook first and a recipe book second. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to dis wikiversity (well reading what I wrote it appears that I was). The aim of Wikiversity has been explained to me many times but I still don't see the need for it and defining the difference between text books and courses seems unnecessary - if editors have trouble knowing where to put their work and understanding the differences then there's little hope for ordinary editors. Can we have a good definition of 'text book' please? I'd assumed it was simply an instructional book which includes text. --ЗAНИA talk 20:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
My definitions to explain the differences goes something like:
  • Wikipedia explains what something is
  • Wikibooks explains how something is done
  • Wikiversity explores why and the many ways how something can be done
  • Wiktionary defines what something means
  • Wikisource documents something previously published
--darklama 21:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help: Typo

I'm working on the book Real analysis and in several places, I have misspelt Riemann as Reimann. Is there any efficient way to fix this?

SPat (talk) 13:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

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