Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion/Archive 2

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This is historical information, please do not vote here or otherwise alter its content. See votes for undeletion for a list of active undeletion votes.

Simply cut old sections from the main WB:VFU page, then paste them paste at the bottom.

Contents

[edit] A survival guide for people on the autistic spectrum or A survival guide for people with Asperger syndrome

This page was deleted because of a copyright violation of this page. The latter, however, says: Attention! This survival guide is continued as a WikiBook, and you can read and/or contribute it here. Survival guide WikiBook. It then links to A survival guide for people on the autistic spectrum, which was deleted as a copyright violation of the very same page. It seems we have some sort of a deadlock here: it seems the people hosting the book have posted it themself. The author, however, is no longer alive. IANAL, but is this an undeletion candidate? It is certainly suitable for a wiki to have such a book. Gerrit 19:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Whoever the rightful copyright holder is will have to give their approval to have it on wikibooks. You say the author has passed away, so perhaps his next of kin now has the rights? We need to be careful, because for all we know it could have been transfered to some other party who has the rights to it now. While it's probably their intentions that as many people read the book as possible if there is no permission given there's nothing we should do about it. MShonle 20:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Since it is a finished book this is Wikisource material. We must sort out the copyright woes before lumping it onto their shoulders however. I would say the next of kin will either have legal rights, or, failing that, will have been at the reading of his will and therefore be able to inform us as to who the copyright owner now is. GarrettTalk 00:58, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Manual of Crime

There was never consensus to delete this. The vote on Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/The Manual of Crime was 11-7 in favor of keeping it. Guanaco 22:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: Many of the votes below were copied from the comments to make them easier to count. Users' comments remain intact in the "Comments" section. --Kernigh 02:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Undelete - 4

  • Undelete Make that 12-7.  :) - Nyarlathotep 17:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Undelete: The consensus was in favor of keeping it. Wikibooks, like all wikis, is supposed to be predominately user-run. I fail to see why it was deleted. --Oburo 02:06, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Undelete (see comments below) Dolive21 16:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Undelete If you didn't think it was textbook-quality, restore it and fix it! That's why wikis are user-editable. And the "it doesn't belong here" argument is too broad to be a real policy. --AK7 20:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC) As of this vote on this user has 1 edit on wikibooks and 7 edits on wikipedia. Trödel 21:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Keep Deleted - 10

  • Delete --Whiteknight TCE 19:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Redelete. For me, this book is not worth moving off Wikibooks. Violates WB:WIW - Wikibooks is not a soapbox by promoting harmful activity. If you want a good text on crime, read the Wikipedia articles Arson, ... --Kernigh 18:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete -- Such a book has no place on a textbook project and never will. --MShonle 02:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, redelete, keep deleted, and drive a stake through its ugly heart. It's nonsense, it's silly, and it demeans Wikibooks reputation. It violates policy: "Wikibooks is not a soapbox"; "Wikibooks is not a free wiki host or webspace provider." And it is not a textbook. [Yikes, I didn't sign my votes. I'm sigining it now.] --JMRyan 18:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, the book in its current state will not be hosted by us again, period. GarrettTalk 20:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete (See comments below) --Derbeth talk 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete - existance is contrary to mission of wikibooks Trödel 17:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I'm a rabid inclusionist, but this must go. It is not a textbook in its current form. If it can be restructured to be more like something that would be taught in a counterintelligence course for spies, that would be about the only way it might remain, but currently it is nothing like that and should go. --Brian0918 19:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Gerard Foley 22:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep deleted. Speedy it until this VfU is completed. --LV (Dark Mark) 14:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

  • Delete. No matter how many votes it got, the Manual of Crime was against wikibooks policy, and therefore it gets deleted. Do not undelete, do not pass go, do not collect 200$. --Whiteknight TCE 19:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
    • How? What policy? I can imagine such a book being used in courses on writing a mystery book, but not unless I see the text. Maybe it violates NOR? - 81.97.155.10 10:36, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
      • It violates policy because it is not a textbook, nor will it ever be. Also, it cannot be used to teach a class, because no educational institution will ever teach a class on how to commit crime. Even if this book is nonfiction, official policy states that most nonfiction books are not appropriate here, only textbooks. that is how it violates policy. Read up on WB:WIW before you question it. --Whiteknight TCE 23:15, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
        • It is up to the users to determine wether it violates policy, and the consensus was not in favor of deletion --Oburo 18:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
        • The Manual of Crime is a textbook. It promotes crime, so anyone interested in crime can study it. However, "violates policy" is not a sufficient reason for deletion. I am voting redelete (see below), and I want a consensus to delete this book! --Kernigh 18:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • View There was no consensus to delete. Several of the votes on both sides were by anonymous users or users without much contributions, and admins were also split. If the book violates policy, it might need editing instead of deletion. However, I have never seen the text of this book, so I cannot decide wheter to support deletion or undeletion. --Kernigh 21:54, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I am viewing The Manual of Crime. I am not decided yet, but I will probably vote to redelete this, but only after it is moved off Wikibooks. --Kernigh 18:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Redelete. For me, this book is not worth moving off Wikibooks. Violates WB:WIW - Wikibooks is not a soapbox by promoting harmful activity. If you want a good text on crime, read the Wikipedia articles Arson, ... --Kernigh 18:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Thank you, this book is a detriment to the entire project. It, and books like it take away from our credibility, and make all of wikibooks look "less serious". People who vote to undelete this peice of garbage don't understand what wikibooks is, or what it could potentially become. --Whiteknight TCE 03:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Now that I have read it I can say that it does not violate the "wikibooks is not a soapbox" rule. It does not preach any ideology (unlike Steal This Book and others), nor does it self-promote. It does not encourage the reader to act on the instructions it contains. It cannot be denied that a person who already has a criminal intent may act on them, but the information is widely available even in libraries. Think, how safe would we be if citizens and law enforcement didn't know the tricks of average criminals? --Oburo 23:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I should say that it is presented in a less-than-desirable way (as a how-to) but how else would it be presented? --Oburo 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
        • It can be presented directly into the trash. I can't imagine a single benefit to keeping this book around. Current concensus is to keep this peice of garbage deleted, and if it stays that way, i will personally redelete this one myself. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 00:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Thank you for not responding to my actual comments. If you want to wage war on a book with no redeemable values feel free to smite How to Cause Havoc, but not a potentially valuable one like the manual of crime --Oburo 01:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment Its really a no brainer to undelete & keep. Consensus needs to favor deletion to delete. Original vote was 11-7. No more needs ot be said. Plus I'm amused by the anonymous post about courses on mystery books. - Nyarlathotep 12:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I think it's unacceptable. This is no study of crime, it's how-to of braking the law. We should remember that anyone reads Wikibooks, also irresponsible people who might want to test tips provided by the book. Wikibooks is not for everything, if someone wants to write such book, he can find another wiki. Even if there is currently no policy against this book, Manual of Crime is just against philosophy of Wikibooks. --Derbeth talk 23:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Undelete. This book is a useful tool for research. If some one falls in with a bad crowd and starts breaking the law then they will learn this stuff from their friends. If I want to learn this stuff I have to look here. If I want to learn how to blow someone up I can just take a chemistry class or take a chem book out of the library. Making this sort of info harder to find will not stop people who want to kill people or steal stuff or grow drugs finding it, but it will stop you and me. If i know that with x + y + z you can make a bomb, and I am working the till in a shop and sell someone looking all nervous these things I can tell the police so they can check it out. As a brit it occurs to me that if the person who sold the July 7 bombers 20 bottles of bleach and drain cleaner and nail varnish remover had know that those 3 chemicals make a powerful explosive I would have several more fellow citizens. Terrorists have chemists to tell them this stuff. Also if kids playing around with chemicals see this stuff they will know that it is dangerous and might not try it. The bad guys learn this stuff through experience or through going to the trouble to work it out. the book could probably benefit from being rephrased in parts , but should definatelly be kept. Dolive21 16:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
    Are you serious. This is contrary to human nature. A store clerk has no need to know such a piece of trivia and no duty to know it. It is more likely that those who want to make explosives (and have a motive to research) would have a desire to know - and find it here. The store clerk would want to know the best pubs between his office and home - but it is very unlikely that a clerk would think, "I should research explosives in case someone comes into buy common household items to make a bomb." Get real Trödel 18:55, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
    OK, the book is useful, but it promotes crime instead of describing it. Wikibooks is the wrong wiki for this book. --Kernigh 00:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    Trodel, you're taking his example too seriously. There are many other ways the information in this book can be used, from preventing common shoplifting tricks to knowing how to deal with being mugged and how to avoid it. --Oburo 02:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    A better example might have been the information on cannabis but the point stands. And the terrorists do not need to find it here, they have chemists (the english type of chemist, who have degrees in chemistry, not the american type with Pharmacy degrees). Kernigh has a point about the way it is phrased, but it can be reworded to correct that, as i have already suggested. The terrorists and criminals will go to the trouble to find out this stuff, but the general public will not. Almost every section has prevention advice at the end. Most of the guns Section of buying could be found on a Brady campaign website.Dolive21 11:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
      • To be fair, in america we call people with chemistry degrees "Chemists", and we call people with pharmacy degrees "Pharmacists". People who hand out prescription medications are never called "Chemists". --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 15:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I want to draw everybody's attention to some quotes from the manual of crime that got it in trouble in the first place:
Many rapists use a gun or a knife to threaten their victims with bodily harm to keep them compliant. You may hear things like "stop, please" but don't let that discourage you. Tonight is your night. Don't let anything stand in your way.

"Tonight is your night"? This isnt a textbook, and this isn't going to teach anybody, nor is it going to make anybody any more safe by knowing this stuff. This book is disgusting, plain and simple. Now, I would not be against a book entitled "How to Avoid Crime", or "How not to be a victim of crime", or "how to survive a violent attack", or something like that. This book however is a blot on the wiki project, and needs to be deleted. So help me, I will get jimbo in here to delete this one personally if the vote here doesnt reach a delete concensus. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 18:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

    • I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that that section was deleted with consensus a while ago, and that it is not typical of the rest of the book --Oburo 01:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
      • "Not typical"? This entire book promotes crime, and the entire book was written in a similar style, and with a similar focus to the passage I listed above, even if that particular passage is no longer included. Let me reiterate: This book actively promotes crime. It is not a manual to help people understand crime, nor does it help potential victims avoid crime. This book is completely unacceptable. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 15:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep deleted. Speedy it until this VfU is completed. --LV (Dark Mark) 14:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Whiteknight (talk) (current) has deleted the page prematurely. I have copies of most of it and will send to any one who asks. Could an admin undelte it again so that this can be debated. Also it cannot be improved while it is deleted. If it were reinstated it could be improved to make it more aceptable. Dolive21 16:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • The proper action is to leave it deleted until this VfU has been completed. The deletion policy states that modules that were recreated after being deleted are subject to Speedying if they were not recreated through the VfU process. --LV (Dark Mark) 16:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • LV sugested a policy that admins should only use their powers where they are not involved in a dispute over the subject matter. Yet he asked whiteknight to delete the manual even though he as expressed strong views.Dolive21 17:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • True, Admins should be wary of taking action where they are active participants, but we trust Admins to make tough decisions. That is why they are Admins. In this case, the module was undeleted in violation of the policy, therefore Whiteknight took the correct action in redeleting it (in my opinion). Even though he is involved with the discussion, he still has the right to uphold policy. And I never specifically asked Whiteknight to do it, it could have been another uninvolved Admin. If you feel Whiteknight's actions were an abuse of his power, there is actually not much in place at the moment to object to him. This is the main reason I think we need to have some kind of dispute resolution process on the table for touchy situations. --LV (Dark Mark) 17:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This is a vote for undeletion, implying that the module in question should have already been deleted. It was deleted as per a VfD discussion (albeit a disputed one), and was temporarily undeleted so that the users here could read the book and therefore make an informed decision as to whether or not to undelete. The time that this book was made available again was for reading only to make an informed decision here. Also, that brief time could have been used to transfer the manual of crime to a more appropriate host. However, the time that this module spend undeleted was not a time that should have been used to edit the book, or to foster further contributions for this book: It was in a state of limbo. By actively editing and contributing to the manual of crime during this period, the contributers violated the good faith under which the module was temporarily undeleted in the first place. I redeleted this book--in a manner that is 100% in compliance with policy--until these VfU preceedings have ended. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 18:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Also, policy states only that the admin that originally called the VfD vote should not perform the actual deletion, to try and avoid conflicts of interest. I didnt call the original VfD, nor did I call this VfU, and therefore, have not broken policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 18:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Results & Refactoring

Currently, by my count, the vote is 10-3 in favor of deletion. One of the delete votes wasnt signed, so i didnt count it. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 21:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I refactored this discussion to make the votes easier to identify. Note that if there were responses to the vote I left it in the Comment section but removed the bold on the vote text. It should be easier to follow now. Please review to make sure I didn't miss anything. Trödel 21:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Did you do it correctly? Whiteknight (talk) (current) said 10-3, excluding the unsigned vote, but in the current form I see 9-3, excluding the unsigned vote. --Kernigh 03:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Observing the refactoring, I count 11 delete votes on the left and only 10 on the right, so possibly Trödel accidentally dropped one. --Kernigh 03:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I may have miscounted. To err is human. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 14:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I reviewed the chagnes and can't see any that I missed - I did them 1-2 at a time so that it would be easier to spot changes by looking through the sequence of revisions - I can't find any that didn't get moved. Trödel 16:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I was the guilty party who forgot to sign his vote. Mea culpa. It's signed now. --JMRyan 18:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment. Current concensus is to keep this book deleted. Concensus has stood, with a very good voter turnout, for over a week. The book will remain deleted. I will archive this discussion in 1 week. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 13:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Naturism

It was first deleted by Uncle G and now undeleted by Guanaco who complained there was "no consensus". All right then, let's make a vote. I suggest speedy deletion, this is a soapbox and does not serve any educational purpose (Is "where to practise naturism" practical? For most of us, not). --Derbeth talk 22:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I was the admin that delted this Wikibook. Here are my reasons:
  1. Until User:Guanaco undeleted this Wikibook, there was absolutely no opposition to removing this, and the speedy delete tag has been on there for several days.
  2. User:Jimbo_Wales, whose opinion counts a whole lot more than just about anybody else here, was the one who put the speedy delete tag on here in the first place. I figured that he was going to delete this anyway, so why wait for the inevitable.
  3. Of the three Wikibooks that were announced by Jimbo as being against Wikibooks policy, this was the most recently created and the smallest of the bunch.
  4. This Wikibook violated WB:WIN policy from even before the changes that Jimbo added, and by that criteria this Wikibook was subject to a speedy delete status, particularly because it is a political soapbox, and has content that could be also considered illegal in some English speaking countries (particularly the child-pornography, from some interpretations).
If the point is that if there needs to be a fair hearing about undeleting this Wikibook, please put that discussion in Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion and state your case there. If this gets into a deletion edit war, I will personally start a campaign for de-adminship and get the Stewards involved in this issue. This book will stay deleted until there is clear community concensus that it should be here. I did state in the logs that the reason for deletion was because of the fiat decision by Jimbo, because it is. I know that is not a neutral point of view position, but until you become the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation you don't have the position to question that opinion. If you want Jimbo to change his mind, take it up with him and get him to reverse his position as stated on Staff Lounge.
I'll be the first to admit that Jimbo should have made these all VfD discussions instead, but he didn't. Keep this Wikibook off of this project. --Rob Horning 00:51, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  1. Wikibooks is a relatively small project. Very few people frequently check the deletion-related pages.
  2. Jimbo Wales is not an unquestionable GodKing, nor is he trying to be. My opinion counts as much as his in this matter. This is not an Entmoots of Trolls banning decision or a Wikimedia board vote.
  3. That's irrelevant. Junk pages can sit unnoticed for months, and excellent material can appear in a matter of days.
  4. This book is not pure soapbox material. The child pornography issue applies only to the images, not the text.
  5. Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion is for pages that originally were deleted through some sort of process, such as this VfD page. If there is a case to be made, you can make it here in this section of this page. (skipping over petty threats) Jimbo did not make a fiat decision, but if he did, it should be challenged. I will question any opinion whenever questions are due. Guanaco 07:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Jimbo did not make these VfD discussions, but we can. Let the Wikibooks community at large decide whether to keep this Wikibook off of this project. Guanaco 07:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The simple solution to this is to leave this book undeleted and treat it as a standard VfD listing. Jimbo has stated that he is not issuing any orders and that his recent edits are based on his interpretation of current policy. He is not trying to override or bypass consensus. Guanaco 07:25, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Send to Wikibooks:Pages needing attention. This is somewhat soapboxish, but it contains valid book information that could easily be refactored. The images should be judged individually if there is a child pornography issue. Guanaco 07:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Can you point out what practical information this book offers? It's just a manifesto "hey people, practise naturism!", nothing more. We do not need such books. --Derbeth talk 08:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I have no idea how you can overcome Jimbo's objection here in particular. Blatantly fighting against Jimbo on this issue is going to be major heartburn all along, unless we are willing to unite completely as a project and be willing to even fork all of Wikibooks elsewhere outside of the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella. As far as issuing orders here, he did so by coming onto the Staff Lounge and doing what he did, especially making blatant policy changes on WB:WIN without community concensus in the manner that he did and making himself an admin here on Wikibooks. He did bypass concensus and has not made clear why he did what he did, dispite many attempts to ask him to clarify what his actions were all about. I posted information about this action on Foundation-l, and the "regulars" there are very surprisingly absent from the discussion, except a few saying "wow, that is a huge policy change, isn't it." Is Jimbo going to really let us get community concensus here, including reverting his change on WB:WIN if we want to? --Rob Horning 13:47, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Whatever other issues there are concerning Jimbo's fiat, Naturism is not to place to fight it. Where can naturism be practiced? At home, at clothing optional beaches, at nudist clubs. Is there anyone so cut off from the real world as not to know that? As Virginia Woolf once said in another context, "There is no there there." Fight Jimbo (or not) over computer game manuals, but not over Naturism. --JMRyan 18:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
        • On the positive side, if we are squabbling over the deletion of Naturism, it should be patently obvious that things like Jokebook should be kept as well. This whole thing was not handled in the best way possible. Like I've been trying to say here, I deleted this book because I thought there was no opposition to it. If there is a sold argument to keep this Wikibook, I'll consider it and support its undeletion. I just didn't like having my action second-guessed for no apparent reason, and none given either on the votes for Undeletion page or even on the talk page, other than it should have been up for a VfD first. IMHO that is not sufficient. Had User:Guanaco added that argument first or complained about my deletion here with rational reasons before getting into an edit war with me over this, I would have been quite a bit more cooperative to get it undeleted. Generally I'm an inclusionist, but there are some unique issues with this Wikibook. --Rob Horning 19:18, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
  • No idea If its about the variation in the community, I'd say keep or transwiki to wikipedia.. and definitely keep if its too big to enhance wikipedia's articles on the subject. OTOH, If its just a list of places, yes delete would be fine, or transwiki to wikicities, or even transwiki to a subpage of a wikipedia article.
  • Keep Deleted. This was not a textbook, and never will be. Also it violates the soapbox clause, and was pretty close to violating the NPOV clause as well. Plus, Jimbo hates it. In addition, this book served no possible educational interest, brought no benefit to either individual readers or the wikibooks community as a whole, and was frankly an excuse to show nudity on wikimedia servers (which violates the "wikibooks is not a webhost" clause as well). If this was a paper book, I would light it on fire. --Whiteknight TCE 19:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
  • View text. I had believed that the main purpose of Naturism was to show photos of nudity. But since User:Guanaco has suggested that the entire book was deleted only because of its images, I would like to view the text (not the images) again. --Kernigh 21:39, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
    If there is even one other user that wants to see the text besides admins (Admins can see the deleted text without undeletion), I would be willing to do a temporary undeletion. Like I said, very temporary, but with the understanding that without strong concensus to keep it will be deleted again. --Rob Horning 22:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Deleted. I hadn't actually voted when I made an earlier comment about Naturism and I suppose some actual votes are needed. Note. At Wikibooks talk:Policy/Vote, there is a lot of consternation about vagueness and ambiguity in some proposed changes in Wikibooks. I'm afraid there will, of necessity, be ambiguity and vagueness whatever policy is adopted. At some point, you have to rely on the most vague coda of all: When all else fails, use common sense. Naturism was just silly, the Wikipedia article Nudism is much better, and the topic is much more appropriate for a Wikipedia article than a booklike treatment. PS. IIRC, the only specific nudism/naturism venue mentioned in the book was der Englische Garten—I suspect that even Pope Benedict knows about that one.
    • Yes, ongoing inferiority to a wikipedia article should be grounds for deletion.  :) Comon sence and quality shold ultimately trump other concerns. - 81.97.155.10 10:33, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Common sense? In this context, that means consensus, no? Then our policy is common sense. In fact, WB:WIW says that Wikibooks is not an encyclopedia, so I would delete modules that were inferior to Wikipedia articles. The only exception is more modules that are expanded into books that are not inferior to Wikipedia articles. --Kernigh 15:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • keep deleted - no educational value --Derbeth talk 00:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep deleted. Textbook Rule. --LV (Dark Mark) 15:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep deleted. Obvious WB:WIN issues. Trödel 18:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment Concensus is to keep this one deleted, and (if i am counting correctly), there aren't actually any votes at all to bring this one back. This book will stay deleted. I will archive this discussion in 1 week. --Whiteknight (talk) (current) 13:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimania 2005 proceedings

These proceedings had been suggested for transwiki'ing via the addition of a transwiki template on the main page. They were deleted without a VfD listing. Hundreds of sites (a naive Google search turns up 250) reference or link directly to these wikibooks URLs. Researchers concerned with preemption in the scientific literature care about being able to prove the original online publication date.

Please undelete all proceedings pages so that a) the world at large can verify the original date of publication, b) individual history diffs are preserved, and c) third-party links from the web at large to Wikibooks pages do not break. After undeletion, pages can be replaced with transwiki redirects to meta, if necessary. Thanks, Sj 20:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Some questions, if I may: (a) How important is it to know the precise date. The year is 2005, do you really need to be more precise than that?; (b) How important is this? If it's to know who has contributed, we could recreate, allow someone to paste each history page to a new page on meta (or wherever the Wikimania 2005 proceedings are going to live) (give it 2 months, say) and then delete the pages again; (c) if anyone ended up on a dead link to Wikibooks (and google does come up with some pages that I guess are very infrequently visited nowadays), wouldn't they then search for "Wikimania 2005" on a search engine and find the goods quickly enough anyway? Jguk 20:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Any form of 'proof' of publication is necessarily forgable. A live history is better than a cut-and-pasted history-which-anyone-can-edit; which is better than no history. Research ideas spread pretty quickly in this community; so July or August 2005 is significantly different from February 2006.
As to "wouldn't they then search for 'Wikimania 2005' and find the goods" -- they might or might not; link death is an easy way to lose an audience; and it would certainly take them another few minutes, which would lose a furthe portion of said audience. Breaking links on the web is never good form; if you are aiming to provide access to information, it is unconscionable; and in this case, there is furthermore no benefit to not preserving redirects. Sj
The history of each page is posted in the talk pages, which was added immediately after the transwiki. --Rob Horning 00:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Deleted - (Obvisouly... I deleted it in the first place). See my main objections here: Wikibooks:Staff lounge#Wikimania proceedings, transwikiing, and related issues. As for external links, as I mentioned elsewhere, add them. These pages aren't protected and anybody, even at the moment anonymous users, can recreate the content at least so far as any necessary redirects are concerned. An admin does not have to do that. As for losing the history, don't hang me up to dry... yell at the developers instead, file a Bugzilla report (or vote on one of the various import bugs that still need to be fixed). This has all been covered elsewhere with Transwiki issues that relate to all Wikimedia projects. All of the content is still available and can be found here: Meta:Transwiki:Wikimania05. Most of this content is duplicates anyway on Meta, as there were many translation requests that also copied verbatum entire pages that were hosted on Wikibooks earlier prior to this transwiki. Those pages will need to be merged, and there were some "orphaned" pages that also need to be dealt with. If Meta is not the place to host this content, then it really needs to be decided somewhere, prefereably by the proceedings contributors and the project it is going to be finally staying in.
    BTW, not all content requires a formal VfD before removal, especially when it blatantly violates established policies. And none of the policies which this content violates were especially new to Wikibooks either. On top of all that, what notification about this move that could have been done without making a major issue on Foundation-l and inappropriately involving Foundation Board members about this discussion was done. See also the discussion on Meta:Talk:Transwiki:Wikimania05. I agreed with the opinion of two other Wikibooks users and simply removed the content, after making sure all of the content had been moved to Meta. I was even "nice" and fixed as many links on Meta as were reasonable, especially within the proceedings content itself. The proceedings are still available, just not now where some individuals were expecting it and thinking it would remain "forever". --Rob Horning 00:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
    As I mentioned on the staff lounge, this content was very clearly not a 'speedy deletion' candidate when it was first put up. It was neither "original research" nor use of wikibooks as a soapbox, though it contained bits of each. A discussion about how to improve the book, or how to coordinate a freezing of the content and a move of that frozen content to Wikisource, would have been enlightening and useful.
    As to what notification about this move that could have been done without making a major issue on Foundation-l and inappropriately involving Foundation Board members about this discussion was done -- could you please elaborate on this? I don't see what Foundation-l or Foundation Board members have to do with it; how about a post to the Staff Lounge, or to the wikibooks mailing list, or to one of the active book-contributors' talk pages on this or one of their other favorite wikis?
    Noone is trying to hang you up to dry. I'm certainly not. But I do hope that administrators would feel a responsibility to be polite and to inform others of major changes they make; informing more widely, the more broad the changes -- and not only to do as they please within the restrictions of 'the letter of the law'. I see you condinuing to say that the notification that took place was sufficient; which I feel strongly it was not. And I don't want this to set a precedent in that regard. Sj 00:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
    You are entitled to your opinion on this matter, and this is a proper forum to bring up all of these points if you want this fully restored, or to suggest a proper place for this content. For some time now, administrators on Wikibooks have been operating under the assumption that the VfD forum is to gain community opinion, and to help bring up policy points that either support or deny particular content to remain. Once a clear course of action is apparent, action is taken. We don't count votes on the VfD forums but consider strongly reasonable opinions for both sides of keeping or removing content. That is why move VfD discussion end up quoting specific policy point to support or reject the content, to prove the point through appeal to policy.
    As this content is clearly original research, by definition (it is a publication forum for original research... the whole point of going to places like Wikimania in the first place), that by itself is clearly a candidate for removal from Wikibooks. If you want specific papers for me to point to within the proceedings that show statistical and educational research that took place at Wikimania, I will provide those specific links to demonstrate that. The whole reason everybody is complaining about removing this content is precisely because this is original research, and people, like Thomas who raised the original stink about this whole thing, was complaining about the fact that he couldn't use Wikibooks any more on one of his patent filings to document his "original research" and date of original publication. How more explicit can I get on this point?
    As far as a soap box is concerned, I know that if I went in and did massive changes to some of the papers, rearranged the content, combined papers and added substantial new content, that there would be many authors of those papers who would be screaming their heads off at me and others would would do that sort of rework. I'm not talking minor spelling checks, but a major overhaul of the content. Yet that is precisely what we do here on Wikibooks in many cases, and whenever an author adds their paper here (outside of Wikimania) that has been published elsewhere, one of the criteria I always ask that author is if they are willing to have the Wikibooks community tear the paper apart and rework it into something they might not recognize as the original content. In every case the answer has been a resounding yes, or they instead donated the work to Wikisource instead. A soap box is intending the content to remain exactly from the POV (another enforced policy on Wikibooks that we exclude) of the original author, without any changes. Come on, tell me you've heard about NPOV policies before, SJ. Yet that is precisely what we have with the Wikimania content.
    I mention the Foundation-l, because I think it is inappropriate to bring up this issue in that forum. I am waiting, however, for some of the individuals who are complaining about my actions to do exactly that, as they apparently have brought in Brion, Anthere, and Jimbo into this conversation. Jimbo is staying surprisingly silent about this whole thing, BTW. More to the point, I am willing to trust the Wikibooks community to come to a reasonable conclusion on this topic, and note that others will either come to my defense or suggest I screwed up here. I have seen a total lack of interest in even involving the Wikibooks community at all in any of the discussion by those who oppose this action of deleting Wikimania, except of course yourself, SJ. I've answered reasonable questions as I could about why I did this, as I am still doing. I felt it was inappropriate to demand that I drop everything and do certain actions, sometimes conflicting at that (from different people). I insisted that this was the appropriate forum to discuss this issue, and only one person, you SJ, has even responded, dispite at least 8 other people that I'm aware of that have expressed some sort of opinion to me about this matter. Let the Wikibooks community decide the ultimate fate of this issue, and don't beat me up personally about my actions. And work within already established procedures to restore this content that would also alert other Wikibooks administrators (there are 30 of us BTW, I'm not the only administrator here... although I am quite active) who could have helped to restore the content if any one of them cared to. Brion did, but Kernigh reversed his decision. Let's decide this for once and all, and let this be the place to make the arguments. My talk page or somebody else's talk page is the wrong place to do this. --Rob Horning 08:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep the redirection to meta (or to whatever future place) as full deletion will result in breaking of hundred of external links. This should be avoided as much as possible. I do believe the proceedings belong here, but I can understand the local community thinks differently. To settle the issue, I only ask that the links be not deleted but redirect to each individual pages. This does not *deface* wikibooks and I am sure the Foundation will be glad to support the extra-financial cost of preserving the traffic related to this less than 100 pages from their original location to their new location :-) Anthere 19:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
    • While the financial cost of server time is trivial, who is going to patrol the redirects to make sure they remain redirects and not some sort of vanity page or pure vandalism? (See Bugzilla:5040 for a partial solution to this, however). Also, what is redirected and where? Every page? Even when the pages where moved due to simple renaming? Even stuff that was marked "please delete me" by the Wikimania participants? Talk pages even? My main objection to the complaints sent my way was that not only did they object to my removing this content, that they were also expecting me to make these decisions and demanding that I add these redirects. As I've pointed out repeatedly, you don't need sysop privileges in order to create and add redirects. You don't even need to be a registered user at the moment. If you want the redirects.... add them. That is not the point of this VfUD or conflicts with the reasons why I deleted this content. I think it is unreasonable to expect me to to do that work as well if you are not willing to help in the process of creating the redirects. As I pointed out as well, please make note in a very public forum on Wikibooks (which you have, Anthere, finally) why the links need to remain. I am still warning the Wikimania participants that even if I accept the logic to keep the links here, without engaging the Wikibooks community as a whole they are likely to be deleted again by future administrators. I am not the only person you have to convince. --Rob Horning 12:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I think Robert, that a couple of words in your comments above should not exist (such as implying that I FINALLY accepted to discuss the issue HERE). I discussed the issue on your talk page from the very moment I was told of the deletion of all the pages; Not on *any* other public forum. I think you are not assuming good faith from me at all. I find that rather unpleasant. I have no problem with you having an opinion different than mine, but please try to "argue" with arguments only, rather than trying to belittle those who disagree with you. And please do not pretend they did things they did not do. As for fixing the redirect without restoring the pages, I mostly see it as a quite unpleasant proposition. It costs nothing to restore those links. But it will cost me (or others) a lot of time to guess where the pages should redirect to. I feel as if you are trying to impose us a very unpleasant and unecessarily work load just so that we give up. Why are you doing this ? I will give time to help "fix" the redirects if necessary, but not from scrap. If a work already exist, it is stupid to do it twice. Ant
        • The redirects weren't added until much later. My objections have always been that I was expected to create those redirects. Not just put on a list of "things to do" by the Wikibooks community, but that I, myself, personally, under diress and fear that something would happen to me that would be somehow unpleasant, had to undelete and restore the content or at least add the redirects or face that punishment, what ever it may be. My talk page, BTW, is not a public forum, nor is my talk page on Meta. Wikibooks:Staff lounge is, but unfortunately not all of the discussion about this issue has taken place either there nor here. Other public forums like Foundation-l, Meta, or the Wikimania mailing list are inappropriate as it will not involve the Wikibooks community to help with the ultimate goal: To restore Wikimania content to the status it had before I deleted the content. If that is the goal, this is the most appropriate place to make that discussion. The rest is posturing and a personal attack against me. --Rob Horning 13:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
    • User has 41 edits. --Kernigh 04:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep the redirects, obviously, as with Florence's reasoning. James F. (talk) 22:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Redirects are okay, but do not undelete. The "Wikimania05" book was WikiSquatting. Unlike the instructional textbooks on this site, "Wikimania05" was not a book that I could edit. The book is now eligible for speedy deletion because it was transwikied. (User:Brion VIBBER had undeleted the book to restore external links; I redeleted it because this poll for undeletion was in progress, and because I dropped redirects to Wikimania05.) --Kernigh 04:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
    • You may not at the same time oppose undeletion but accept redirects AND tell us to do the job ourselves. We are not sysops here, so it would give us a lot of work to guess to which pages the pages should redirect. An alternative would be for Brion to again undelete them so that we can restore and fix the redirection. At a minimum, it would be a good gesture from you to prevent us spending hours to figure where the redirections should go. Of course, at this point, you have two choices. Either you let the pages undeleted till we have time to fix them all. Or you could also decide to re-delete again the pages before we have time to do so. So that we earn time in the process, can you tell us what you intend to do if the decision here is to keep the redirect ? Anthere 15:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
      • If you want to see what pages are involved, you can look at: Special:Log/Delete. An undeletion is not strictly necessary if you want to simply add the redirects. --Rob Horning 13:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Just a note to say I agree with Rob and Kernigh on this one. Wikimania 2005 did not and does not belong on Wikibooks. Hopefully it can find a nice home elsewhere and those who wish to review it can find it easily, Jguk 17:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FAQ for alt.internet.wireless

Portion of deletion log

I was stunned to find that all pages of this book were summarily deleted by Jguk as "not a textbook", apparently without discussion, warning, or notice! I built these pages here after being advised at Wikipedia that this was the appropriate place. They represented a great deal of work which hadn't been saved in any other place. Please at least send me the last content. I'd also like an explanation of the reasoning behind this kind of summary execution, and ask that they be considered for undeletion, since I believe they are valuable resources that reasonably fit the definition of texts. Thank you. --John Navas (User talk:Jnavas) 05:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I have left a note to John to say that I am happy to either email him the content of this book (if he provides an email address), or alternatively to temporarily undelete the book to give him the opportunity to copy it himself. As far as its content was concerned, it seems that unfortunately it is another case of Wikipedia directing non-textbook content to wikibooks as many of its users don't understand what we're about. I wish John every luck in finding a suitable place in wikiworld for his work, Jguk 07:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Precisely where in WikiWorld does one post a technical FAQ? Wikipedia is obviously inappropriate. A technical FAQ is about as close to a text book as I could imagine. It supplies content, facts, and references, but not in the conventional textbook style and format. If you insist that the form of the FAQ follow a textbook style, I can easily rewrite it to resemble a textbook. The content is there.
Hopefully, I read the "not a textbook" to be a complaint about the style and not the content. If there is a problem with the content, and not the style, please indicate exactly which section is the problem. As the content provider for part of the FAQ, I would also like to receive a copy of the entire FAQ as I didn't expect a unilateral deletion without an opertunity to recover many days of work. Email to Jeff Liebermann. Also, I would like to insert a place holder in Wikibooks redirecting the numerous readers of alt.internet.wireless to an "appropriate" replacement location as there are probably hundreds of references in the newsgroups and mailing list to deleted FAQ pages.
Lastly, if you plan to continue unilateral deletions of other peoples work, kindly insert a place holder detailing why it was deleted, how to protest the deletion, and where it may have been moved. This can be boiler plate if necessary. I wasted quite a bit of time trying to figure out what happened assuming that the pages had been vandalized. It never even crossed my mind that it had been unilaterally deleted without notification or comment.
--Jeff Liebermann (User:JeffLiebermann) 09:04, 19 May 2006
I agree with Jeff here. The deletions that have been going on here in Wikibooks are too sudden; too unilateral. We bearly even reach consensus on WB:VFD anymore before someone decides to force an author/editor to leave Wikibooks.
I understand that we are trying to "clean house" here, but this is seriously destroying Wikibook's reputation. I doubt Jeff or any of the other editors who did so much hard work here expected their work to go deleted, especially when the topic is informative and clearly constitutes the "learning" metric on all levels. Heck, as much as I'm against the "Accredited institution" metric, I am positive that a FAQ on wireless internet would pass everything in WB:WIW. I'd seriously like to see the argument against this FAQ to see why it doesn't belong here.
Breaking the Reputation and slapping the editors in the face is the easiest way to destroy the good spirits in this wiki. --Dragontamer 19:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Response to Jguk by Jnavas:
My strongest objection is to the seemingly cavalier and insensitive way in which this deletion was done: summarily and without warning, discussion, voting for deletion, or even notification.
  • This summary deletion seems to me contrary to Deletion policy:Guidelines for admins 1, 4, 5, and 6.
  • I think the action is also contrary to Etiquette:Votes for deletion:
    • "Good faith effort to start something useful" that "might benefit from discussion."
    • "If the author is a registered user, leave a message on the user talk page."
    • "Treat users politely."
  • I don't believe these pages fall under What Wikibooks is not.
  • There would seem to be no other grounds for immediate summary deletion.
  • I think the more appropriate action would have been to list these pages in Votes for deletion, or at least as Speedy deletions.
  • It's important for those responsible for the various Wikimedia projects to be clear and consistent. We contributors shouldn't be caught in the middle.
  • Some consideration should be given to the scale and age of a book when choosing a course of action, and objections should be raised in a timely manner. This material was extensive and several months old.
I also object to the characterization of this material as "not a textbook" because I believe this material does fit within the definition of "instructional resources", which specifically includes "manuals and other texts".
For reference, the deleted pages in this book were:
My immediate questions:
  1. Why weren't primary contributors contacted or notified in advance?
  2. What was the specific objection to this book? Content? Style?
  3. What was the objection to at least using Speedy deletions?
  4. What is the objection now to using Votes for deletion?
  5. Why haven't these pages already been undeleted, as asked, at least temporarily?
  6. Are other pages originated by me also in danger of summary deletion, specifically:
    1. Cingular Wireless FAQ
    2. Cingular Wireless MEdia Configuration
    3. Converting AVI to MPEG-2 with AviSynth and TMPGEnc Xpress
--John Navas 20:20, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I could answer a few of those. Speedy deletion is used when a user isn't an administrator and is requesting an admin to immediatly delete it. JGuk is an admin here, so he can simply hit delete. Personally speaking, I don't think any of your works should be (or have been) deleted, and vote undelete ASAP. --Dragontamer 02:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment There may well not be any place for your FAQ for a newsgroup in the 'wikiworld'. As a FAQ for a newsgroup, the document isn't really appropriate here; it's not really a collaborative document that you'd want to invite other users to edit (users outside the newsgroup). The FAQ could be redefined and reworked into a technical HOWTO about wireless networking, and that may well be appropriate. Kellen T 02:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Response I take it then that your objection is to style rather than content? It is in fact a "collaborative document" to which anyone is invited to contribute (not just newsgroup participants), and in fact there have been contributions by more than one person, with undoubtedly more to come. Title wording aside, it's actually a FAQ, tutorial, reference text/manual, and/or HOWTO if you prefer, for Wireless Internet in general, not just the newsgroup, which simply serves as a complementary discussion forum. Given all that, what specific redefinition or reworking would satisfy you? --John Navas 05:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I haven't read the module, so I can't make suggestions based upon anything except the name, but it seems to me that the content could be rolled into a book about wireless networking generally, removed from the context of the newsgroup. Kellen T 21:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Rant A bit of background here. A few of us decided that it was time to draft an FAQ for alt.internet.wireless. I stupidly volunteered to do the task and then procrastinated for months. John Navas thought that things would go better if others were able to contribute freely. Instead of the traditional static FAQ maintained by a cabal, this was going to be an open FAQ maintained by the readers and contributors to alt.internet.wireless. John built the template and I did my best to adapt it for an FAQ. I failed. It turned into a tutorial covering technical topics that often appear as questions. Expected wireless speeds, expected range, path loss calculations, potential interference sources, confusing wireless terms, ad nausium. It's also not organized in the manner of a typical FAQ with it's question and answer style. For example, some of the sections have become large enough to deserve their own pages or chapters. Except for the title, it's not really an FAQ. However, changing the main title is tricky and I didn't think it was really a problem, until now.
In the past, I've acted as a newsgroup and mailing list moderator. I know what's involved in terminating undesireables and censoring content. I've done my share of unilateral deletions and judgement calls. It's not easy, but has to be done. However, I always give the author the oportunity to clean up their postings or modify their actions. I always initiate a dialog informing the author of what I found offensive and what actions are expected. If the author is anonymous, I post a contact request. In other words, I don't pull the plug without recourse. I generally expect the same courtesy from other moderators, something which seems to be lacking here. I can accept this as colateral damage from a necessary cleanup effort. I cannot accept the manner in which it was performed.
Reminder. I would like the contents emailed to me. -Jeff Liebermann
Now emailed to Jeff, along with an explanation of why the deletion was as it was, Jguk 19:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Jguk; I received the web pages in 7 parts. I received nothing that resembled an explanation or responses to any of the many questions that I and others have asked here. I do not consider it proper to post other people email, so I'll summarize. You appologized for not providing a warning or comment. You claim that the cleanup was large and that it was not possible to add explanations to pages deleted. This is not an explanation or even a bad excuse. Kindly find a few minutes and explain why you found the form, content, or authors to be so offensive that common courtesy and established proceedures cannot be followed. Incidentally, searching Wikibooks for "FAQ" results in 399 hits. Are planning to drop all of them? -Jeff Liebermann
Jguk; I'd also like to know why the deletion was as it was. I think an explanation here to the rest of wikibooks would be most useful. You know as much as I do that since Jimbo last visit here, WB:WIW is now on shaky grounds, and I'm one who doesn't see *anything* wrong with a Usenet FAQ on Wikibooks, let alone why it would be so incorrect to bypass the WB:VFD page.--Dragontamer 01:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I emailed Jeff the content when I had a few spare minutes as I felt it was unfair for me not to have made the content available to him earlier. I didn't really have enough time then to offer a fuller explanation - and I really should stop trying to give brief comments to hold an issue at bay, rather than to allow for proper time to write a full response. I now add this by way of explanation.
There are a number of points that need to be noted first as background:
Wikibooks is for textbooks
For historical reasons, Wikibooks has had content that does not fall within the textbook definition
This means that whilst our written policy restricted content here just to textbooks, in practice more was allowed
We are now becoming more focused - this was after Jimbo Wales, the President of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikibooks, made it clear that we should only be hosting textbooks
This has left us with much content that needs to be removed - some by transferring to another non-WMF wiki beforehand, some not
The aim is for Wikibooks to be an excellent resource for textbooks as quickly as possible
Having noted that, I trust it is clear that as the FAQ were not in the format of a textbook (they are FAQs) they do not meet Wikibooks inclusion criterion. That is why they were removed.
I appreciate that it would have been more courteous to have noted full reasoning for this on the authors' talk pages - perhaps even giving a while for content to be copied directly from Wikibooks before removing it. This, however, would be time consuming - and in many cases somewhat fruitless as the authors have either long since left or have added content from anonymous non-static ips. There would not only be time in doing all this, but also time in maintaining a list of which books are potentially going to be removed after this process. Against this is the time it takes in deleting text that clearly does not comply with our textbook requirement and offering, if the authors so wish, to email copies of the content to them if they do not already have personal copies of their work. I accept the former way is more courteous. I also note that we all have a finite amount of time we can give the project. I do, however, apologise for any offence I may have caused, Jguk 07:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The author is willing to convert this into a classic textbook (maybe not anymore. I know that if I were in his position, I probably wouldn't come back here). If this was noted first in WB:VFD or maybe if the author was contacted before the deletion, he would have converted the text into a textbook. Given the speed in which this undeletion request occured, I'd say that that there was not even an attempt to contact the authors beforehand.
And what is wrong with taking your time on Wikibooks? Finally; while I have not read the page itself; I'd gauge that the judgement was passed purely based on its title. As said before; great textbooks such as "The Little Schemer" and "C++ a Dialoge" are written in a question/answer format, akin to an FAQ. A wireless FAQ easily fits inside the current metric you've been using. (Aka, useable in an accredited institution). It almost seems as if you didn't use the metric now just for this special case, or have stopped using it completely.
You also say it is "Clearly not a textbook", but the only thing that seems to be clear is that this isn't a "clear" issue, given that at least 2 users who've been here for longer than 6 months (Me and Jnavas), are totally confused here. --Dragontamer 08:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Given the title of the module (and again, just by the title) it's not a textbook; it's a technical FAQ for a usenet group. Whether technical FAQs/HOWTOs are acceptable is still a vaguely open question. I think Jguk jumped the gun on this one and the module should probably be undeleted and rolled into a book on wireless networking, rather than being set as a newsgroup FAQ. Kellen T 12:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
      • My question is simple: How the heck does this not qualify as a textbook/manual ? I haven't seen the FAQ myself, but it seems like it holds useful information, and I've seen plenty of sucessful textbooks in the question/answer format. (The little schemer, C++ a dialog, etc. etc.) --Dragontamer 15:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Further response to Jguk by Jnavas:

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, like others that have responded here, I still don't agree that your actions were justified -- I still think they were capricious, unwarranted, and unnecessarily harmful. You also failed to respond to all of my questions, including my request to undelete the book (as you had offered), much less submit the issue to Votes for deletion, which is what you should have done originally. You also failed to address the issue of other Wikibooks I've created. Please do so now. I'm seriously considering a formal complaint to Wikimedia. --John Navas 16:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

First I'd like to note that no-one, including me, takes kindly to threats. Additionally I'd like to note that I am certain that if you were to take the issue to WMF they would reaffirm that Wikibooks is for textbooks and not for FAQs and that any FAQ pages should be speedily deleted. Incidentally, if you wish to check this, you're probably most likely to get a response on Jimbo's Wikipedia user talk page (although that cannot be guaranteed). I have, however, acceded to the request to undelete these pages and I have added them to VfD to allow further discussion. Doing this will allow users who are not admins, such as Dragontamer, to see for themselves that this content was not a textbook and so should not be on wikibooks. It will also allow anyone who wishes, not just Jeff, to take a personal copy of the text if they so wish.

It's also relevant that, as early as last November, another admin, Krischik, was warning you on Talk:FAQ for alt.internet.wireless that this content was not appropriate for wikibooks - so my actions, given that the book had clearly not transformed itself into a textbook in the intervening six months, should not be a surprise.

Finally, I would like to note that, although in retrospect I agree that it would have been better to have checked whether the book was active, and if so dropped a note to the main authors before any deletion, I very much acted with Wikibooks' interests in mind. Just because some users disagree with me is not justification to attack me. I hope any discussion on VfD is in the right spirit and discuss the only relevant issue - whether the pages do or ever will constitute a textbook (and so are suitable for retention on wikibooks). I also sincerely hope that you are able to find an alternative wiki that is suitable for the FAQ content, Jguk 17:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Response by Jnavas:
  • What you're calling a "threat" was simply a polite fair warning, a courtesy you didn't extend to those of us working on this book.
  • Issues raised by Admin Krischik (in a timely manner) were promptly addressed, concluding with "that is fine", "your book name is well within the current policy", "OK", and "you indeed seem to have broader aim: so good luck to you".
  • Your immediate summary deletion of this book was contrary to Deletion policy:Guidelines for admins (1, 4, 5, and 6), and Etiquette:Votes for deletion.
  • To be clear, my objection is only to your actions, not you personally. I apologize if it seemed otherwise.
  • I'm still waiting to hear if other Wikibbooks I have originated are in similar danger.
--John Navas 15:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Response by Whiteknight:
I agree with User:Jguk completely on this issue: This page was given fair warning well in advance, it failed to become suitable for wikibooks within a 6 month timeframe, and so it was deleted. The content of WB:WIW is currently undergoing a number of changes, and Jimbo himself has stated that wikibooks should only contain materials that could be taught in an accredited institution. The wikibooks community is working to reach concensus on this matter to determine exactly what metric we should be using in the future, but until we reach such a concensus, the "accredited institution" metric stands as the measuring stick against which all pages are being measured. An FAQ concerning a particular website/newsgroup/knitting circle is not, and can never become a textbook capable of being taught in an accredited institution. So, to answer your earlier question, it is clearly the content of these pages that warrants deletion. the fact that User:Jguk deleted this pages unilaterally is only due to the fact that I, or another admin, did not find this page first. It would be a bad move on your part to lodge such a complaint with the WMF: because of Jimbo's recent statements, WMF is more likely to speedily delete these pages then we are. At least Jguk was kind enough to undelete these pages for you and to start a discussion on VfD to determine the fate of these pages. Jimbo never does the same. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Response to Whiteknight:
  • In fact there was no warning or even notice. Jguk admits that he didn't even check to see that the book was active.
  • Another Admin (Krischik) did find the book first, and issues he raised (in a timely manner) were promptly addressed, concluding with "that is fine", "your book name is well within the current policy", "OK", and "you indeed seem to have broader aim: so good luck to you".
  • This content of this book isn't confined to a newsgroup, which simply serves as a complementary discussion forum -- it's a general reference on Wireless Internet access that falls within "instructional resources", which specifically includes "manuals and other texts".
--John Navas 15:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Comments on use of FAQ in an accredited institution:
  • It would appear from this discussion that there is no place for FAQ's in public instruction. I sent a short email to 4 local college instructors, asking them if they used FAQ's in their classes. Three have so far replied that FAQ's are part of the course and curriculum in technical fields and are used heavily to avoid the chronic repetition of common questions. They have largely replaced the addenda section of most printed textbooks. A quick Google search of any university plus FAQ will yield numerous FAQ's on many varied topics.
  • I find it rather entertaining that the content is what's offensive. I've recently granted permission for a trade skool instructor to use my section on wireless link budget and range calculations for instructional material in his classes. I'll presume that you really mean the form and not the content. Parts of the content are apparently quite suitable for classroom instruction material.
  • I will give the moderators credit for consistency. I pointed out 4 days ago that there were 399 hits for FAQ in the Wikibooks search. Two days later, there were zero. FAQ's are apparently so revolting to Wikibooks that a wholesale deletion is the only way to prevent contamination of the purity of traditional instructional textbooks. Are the various moderators sure that they're doing the right thing? I'm not so sure.
  • Update ...and today, all 399 hits for FAQ are back. Amazing. --Jeff Liebermann 10:19, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The issues for the authors is currently whether the effort of converting the FAQ's into book format is worth the time and effort. It's still being debated as we look for a more liberal home for the FAQ. As I do most such work on weekends, and the following weekend is Memorial Day in the USA, I would appreciate it if you leave the FAQ's in place for at least another 10 to 14 days.
--Jeff Liebermann 6:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
And college students may look up information in an encyclopedia, but encyclopedia entries do not belong at wikibooks (see: wikipedia). Wikibooks is for textbooks: we have lost alot of material recently because of this rule, and we will most certainly lose more in the future. A stand-alone FAQ is not a textbook, although an FAQ appendix to an actual textbook would be acceptable. My vote on VfD tells me opinion of this: Merge this FAQ into an appropriate text, or delete it. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 18:04, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect to Whiteknight (and Jguk):
  • There is no (written) "rule" against FAQ format. Wikibooks currently encompasses "instructional resources," including "manuals and other texts," and there is no exclusion of FAQ format in what Wikibooks is not. If there is to be some narrower definition of permitted Wikibooks that specifically excludes FAQ format, then the written policies should first be updated to make that clear. Otherwise the process is inevitably subjective, unreasonable, and unfair.
  • There is no generally accepted definition of "textbook" that clearly excludes FAQ format, much less FAQ content. Instructional books can and have been written in question and answer (FAQ) format.
--John Navas 18:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • May I call to the attention of those participating in this discussion that the pages in question are an FAQ in name only. If you would kindly look at the various pages, you will note that they are NOT in the traditional question and answer format considered to be the hallmark of an internet FAQ. I just looked at all the pages and found no questions and answers. Change the title and a few references to alt.internet.wireless, and it could easily be construed as instructional material for a class in wireless internet access.
--Jeff Liebermann 11:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't a standalone FAQ then fall under the catagory of stub? --Dragontamer 19:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Undelete Is there a reason to delete this that I missed? I think that being in FAQ format is not a sufficient reason for deletion; a textbook can be an FAQ document. It is like stating that Cryptography is not a textbook after looking at several humanities textbooks. Actually, it more like saying that a wiki is not a textbook because textbooks are printed documents. However, I dislike that John Navas originally obtained advice from Wikipedia to put the FAQ here on Wikibooks; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a wiki advice service, and many Wikipedians have not much idea about what Wikibooks is for. --Kernigh 18:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your support, even though it's now too late.
  • Regarding advice:
    1. I didn't seek advice from Wikipedia -- it was simply given to me.
    2. My presumption was that sister projects in Wikimedia should have a fair amount of clue about each other -- do you think that unwarranted, and if so why?
    3. I obtained the blessing of an Admin here shortly after starting, but that wasn't enough to protect my material from summary deletion without warning or notice by a different Admin. How do you feel about that?
--John Navas 07:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Undelete - I would have to add my voice in here with this. I totally concurr with Kernigh that many of the people on Wikipedia are clueless over what is happening on the other Wikimedia sister projects, where they consider the Wikiprojects on Wikpedia itself to be the real sister projects and things like Wikibooks are simply alien hangouts. And there have been many visions over what Wikibooks should be and can be.

    The most disturbing thing about this action is that it was deleted under the guise that it was transwikied to another place. Actions like this really need some notification and warning well before it will be deleted. Not some general generic note about non-textbook material on the staff lounge but a notice that a specific Wikibook is going to be deleted. I had briefly considered fighting this by wheel-warring over this issue, but I felt it was better to try and let those who were deleting content to get it out of their system and have flames from other people first.

    I appreciate that Jimbo is trying to "raise the standards" of Wikibooks, but there have been existing structures in place on Wikibooks for removing content that seemed objectionable, and much of that content has been deleted that really doesn't past muster. The objection I seem to be hearing from Jimbo and a few others is that it isn't being removed fast enough. I have repeatedly said that if you are going to admin here on Wikibooks, you need to be very, very patient and let discussions last more than a week. I know that on Wikipedia it seems as though discussions run their course after just a few days, and they are archived after about a week. Discussions here on Wikibooks sometimes have gone on for several months, with meaningful and significant comments added several weeks after the thread was started. I could go on as to why this is the case, but the point is that it takes time for Wikibooks contributors to get into the discussions. This Wikibook in particular did not go through the normal VfD process, and was deleted inappropriately. That two admins are voicing their opinion that it should be undeleted says volumes over the fact that this was not properly done. --Rob Horning 10:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Undelete - It's format is close enough to a textbook, if this place keeps on rising standards, it will be a fall of Wikibooks. --Je suis 02:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BDSM

BDSM in deletion log

When I first encountered BDSM, I did not know what the text was about. Wiktionary saved me; wikt:BDSM refers to "sexual practices or activities involving bondage, discipline, sadism, or masochism". At the time, I was concerned that the text described mostly as a repository for documents outside the scope of Wikipedia.

However, Jguk (who deletes much junk from Wikibooks) deleted it with the reason "not suitable for wikibooks". Since I do not know any apparent reason to delete it (maybe I should have read the text closer?), I ask for a better explanation of the reason of deletion, or possibly an undeletion. --Kernigh 06:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain. This book stated its aim as follows: "This WikiBook is created so that people in the BDSM community can work collaborativly on documents which have value to the community, but which don't satify the Wikipedia criteria of "Having been published"." As such, it was not intended to be a textbook, having the appearance for being more like an online magazine or discussion forum, and it was intended solely to include material that breached wikipedia's no original research (and also verifiability) policies. Section 2.6.2 of Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks states: "Wikibooks hosts instructional resources. Wikibooks modules are not...primary research in any field — Wikibooks is not a place to publish primary research such as proposing theories and solutions, original ideas, defining terms, coining words, et cetera. In short, Wikibooks is not for original research. If you have done primary research on a topic, publish your results in normal peer-reviewed journals, or elsewhere on the web, such as at Academia Wikicity."
As a secondary point (and as noted above, I believe it clearly meets the deletion criteria without this point), there is also the question as to whether it would really be appropriate for us as a website to have such material (as outlined in the aim of the BDSM wikibook) when we are also preparing material directly targeted at 8 to 12 year olds (in Wikijunior). To my mind a serious academic textbook on sexology would be ok to have on wikibooks (it would meet all the WB:WIW, it would cover subjects studied by accredited learning institutions) and it would also be of limited interest to non-adults, who would be put off by the style of the academic text!). The proposals for the BDSM wikibook fall far short of this, and set it out more as a discussion forum for members of the BDSM community to share experiences, Jguk 07:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I endorse the deletion decision. The BSDM page was not intended to be a textbook or instructional material, and therefore falls outside the scope of Wikibooks. Gentgeen 09:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • View. Jguk's first reason sounds like a sufficient one for deletion. I'm at least mildly suspicious of his second reason. Assuming the first reason applies, the second is unnecessary, suspicious or otherwise. However, as I have never seen the book, I can only vote to view it. --JMRyan T E C 17:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
At JMRyan's request I have restored the page pending completion of this discussion, Jguk 18:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I have restored the one subpage, BDSM/Guidelines for BDSM Conflict Resolution, for viewing. --Kernigh 22:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I've seen this and voted below. --JMRyan T E C 17:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Let me elaborate: This might be instructional material, but i cannot possibly imagine an accredited institution teaching a course on BDSM. Except perhaps a course that teaches about the societal implications of BDSM, or the dangers of BDSM, or the effect of BDSM porn on children, etc. What we have here is a How-To guide on participating in a particular sexual fetish. This is not appropriate for any classroom, and is not a textbook so much as it is a wayward entry to Penthouse Forum. As per wikibooks policy and statements by jimbo, both recent and past, this book should remain deleted, and off wikibooks servers forever. The BDSM pages have been temporarily undeleted for 1 week now, and I am going to re-delete them, hopefully forever, pending a decision here. I hope that the other admins agree with my reading of policy on the matter, and act to keep this one deleted regardless of the outcome of this vote. --Whiteknight(talk)(projects) 14:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Deleted First, I will mention that I am not familiar with the Wikipedia rule "Having been published", because I rarely edit Wikipedia. – Second, the concerns about original research do not seem valid to me. After examining the content (again) it appears that the BDSM confederation of modules was intended to be a how-to guide, targeted toward BDSM participants, starting with BDSM/Guidelines for BDSM Conflict Resolution. It is evident to me that BDSM is not a new idea, not a newly coined word, and it does not seem that the BDSM modules were inventing new forms of BDSM. "Original research" is more of a problem at Bourne Shell Scripting/Cookbook than it is here. — However, even though I am dissatisifed with Jguk's main explanation, by now I have read enough documents to know that BDSM is always dangerous, and the only goal is entertainment. (I did not understand it so well when I requested this VFU.) I can say that there are things in the s.s.b-bdsm FAQ that I might not want to see on Wikibooks. Also, with most of the BDSM information on Wikipedia, it seems to be that editors will add the best content only to Wikipedia, as happened with Doom and some of our other computer game books. --Kernigh 22:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep deleted Although I cannot believe that BSDM is "always dangerous" and do not believe that Jguk's second argument flies, I do agree that the book as it stands is a textbook. As such it does not fall within our guidlines. Theresa knott 05:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak keep deleted. I'm not convinced that this couldn't be made into a textbook. What I saw had a cover page plus one content page. The content page was written from the POV of a BSDM participant, but that aspect of it didn't seem unfixable. This is different than "How to Cheat" and some other books documenting disreputable behavior. "How to Cheat" offered such gems as don't do it when the proctor is looking. The whole thing was just silly. But here, we could, given a lot of work on the book, get a window into a world most of us never glimpse outside really bad jokes. That's not the kind of book the cover page says they are trying to create, but that is the kind of book it could become. The original research issue could be a problem depending on how well or badly the BDSM world has previously been documented. In short, I don't think it is worth keeping in its persent form, but I see the possibility of someone taking it under his/her wing to make it worth keeping. I see that Kernigh left a message for User:Sbower, the creator of this book; I have left a message for its other contributor. Perhaps they can convince us that they can make this into a textbook without serious problems with the no original research rule? --JMRyan T E C 17:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment This is (yet another) book that falls outside our "textbook" mandate, but may fall within a mandate that includes howtos. BDSM is a (generally) legal and consensual activity that could benefit from documentation of this nature. I am concerned about our vague policy in this area, and especially the vague instruction from wikimedia besides the mighty hand of Jimbo meddling with a VFD or two. If we're just doing textbooks, we should just do textbooks and get rid of the howtos. Otherwise we need better criteria over what sort of howtos we allow, as it is inconsistent to keep things like How_to_beat_a_speeding_ticket, but not this (or what this could become). Kellen T 22:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Undelete - It can be formed into a textbook or how-to, although the books contents might not be "family-friendly" that does not matter. -- Je suis 02:56, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rip a karaoke cd

See Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Archive 8#Rip a karaoke cd. The recent VFD (from last month, April 2006) had 4 keep votes and 1 delete vote.

User:Jimbo Wales suddenly deleted this at 8 May, claiming that it was "manifestly wrong" and "junk". I wonder whether Jimbo Wales read the module. This appears to be an accident of some sort (though it is spawning rumours that we will delete all how-tos) ... what was so manifestly wrong and junk about the module? It seems like Jimbo Wales did not bother to read the module before deleting it. If it was manifestly wrong and junk, we at Wikibooks would have easily put a pile of Delete votes during the VFD.

There was no reason to delete this, and it should be undeleted – unless Jimbo Wales can explain the reason for deletion that I and others missed during VFD. --Kernigh 01:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)