Wikibooks talk:Naming conventions

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

I disagree with this system. I much prefer the Book:Title system for naming articles. There shouldn't be that many modules in a book that you'd need a 4X hierarchy. Gentgeen 11:17, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 interwiki 2 subpages 3 Real-Namespaces 4 Template naming conventions 5 category guidelines

[edit] interwiki

Doesn't the : seperater create a problem for inter wiki? Lets say I write a book on wikipedia, the chapters would be called wikipedia:something. This goes to wikipedia article something insted of the chapter on something. With interwiki growing and the likelyhood of a wiki named the same as a book growing, this may be a bad practice.

Yes, good point. I agree. Dan_AKA_Jack 17:10, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. We should be using subpages, but they are not enabled on the main namespace. Please, read my opinion about this topic on m:Wikibooks should use subpages. ManuelGR 13:26, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] subpages

Now we have subpages, I recommend using them. ManuelGR 18:17, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Do we agree on using subpages? If yes, we could put the recommendation on the "about" page itself, placed prominently on top, instead of recommending it only on the "talk" page and listing it as one of many many options. Is there a clear community opinion about this point already? Most of the new books still use the "booktitle:name" convention. I guess newcomers would also be happy about a clear directive for the future. (That does not mean that all existing books should be converted, but some would benefit.)

I would recomment:

• Booktitle/chapterdescription

that is, only one layer of subpages, and use the description of the content instead of the chapter number (which would make including new chapters hard) --Andreas 14:13, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While I am in favor of Sub-Pages I may ask: Is there actualy a way of converting pages without leaving hundreds of move pages. i.E. Ada has about 103 pages - I would not want to convert that by hand. --Krischik 16:06, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Would using subpages apply just to textbooks or to everything? I wouldn't want to see Cookbook/Rice pudding, for example, but Biology/Chapter 3 is fine. TUF-KAT 16:25, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any difference between the two, but I think that the first decission to take is wether to give a clear recommendation for new books to use subpages. I think we should. For current books, that is another issue, probably the best approach is to start promoting subpages and let the authors decide whether to change or maintain their current convention. Only if the new convention is widely accepted then we can regard it as a new policy. ManuelGR 00:09, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I still think that there may be more benefits to real namespaces for books. Other wiki software packages provide namespace specific recent changes, searches, stylesheets, etc. I can see a lot of benefits for each book operating as its own somewhat independent wiki. The only benefit right now for subpages is the automatic linkback to the main page. I have no objection to them being used, but to suggest that all new pages and books be forced to use them is simply not a good idea. Gentgeen 01:40, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The mediawiki software currently only allows for 256 different namespaces (it is a TINYINT(2) variable in the SQL database), so the number of books getting the real benefit out of it would be comparatively small. I think, a mixed approach would be best: For the majority of small and medium-sized books subpages are the optimal thing to do, large projects, like "Cookbook:" or "Programming:" could have their own name-space if desired. Let us move the further discussion to Wikibooks:Hierachy_naming_scheme.--Andreas 06:47, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Real-Namespaces

Just a thought: while 256 Real-Namespaces are not enough for all the books - they would be enough for Bookshelfes.

--Krischik 06:49, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Adding a new namespace requires minor changes to the software, or at least done on a developer level (developers also tend to be very Wikipedia-centric, and thus developments that would greatly help Wikibooks, eg. a way in the software to tell what book a given module is a part of, are held on the back burner). There was a large movement in the past of moving Cookbook and Programming (among others) to separate namespaces, but that idea largely died out - the idea however did transform into the ":" delimiter in WB:NC. As for bookshelves, part of the bookshelf overhaul was that they'd be moved under the Wikibooks namespace, to reserve the main module space for actual books. The bookshelves merely serve as an informal way of organizing books that exist. There are plans to have bookshelf management placed under the Wikibooks:Card Catalog Office, but this is a very new idea that is in serious need of discussion. KelvSYC 08:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Using real namespaces would make it more difficult to move books between bookshelves, should the scope of those bookshelves evolve. The current POV in the CCO-project is to use Categories as much as possible. This way we can classify books not only by our bookshelves, but also by Dewey codes and Library of Congress codes (and anything else we might want to add in later). To change a book's classification would be a simple as changing a single parameter of a template to be included on the book's main page. - Aya ^T C 19:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Template naming conventions

moved to Wikibooks talk:Naming policy#Template naming conventions

[edit] category guidelines

Are there any tips or guidelines for using category tags? (A category tag starts with "[[Category:", then the name of the tag, then ends with "]]". When a reader clicks on the tag, wikibooks automagically makes a list of every module that includes that tag -- this is often much more convenient than manually creating and maintaining such a list.)

Such category guidelines would say something like

• make sure the category tag "[[Category:Programming]]" is on the "main module" of a programming language book, but no other module of the book. For example, you would put it on "C Programming", but not on "C Programming/Control".
• Put the book-specific category tag on every module and template used in the book. For example, you would put the category tag "Category:C Programming" on both modules "C Programming" and "C Programming/Control", but not on any modules in any other book.
• make sure the category tag "[[Category:Programming]]" is on the book-specific category page. For example, you would put it on the "Category:C Programming" category page.
• It's fine to have a module or template have several different category tags. In particular, if a template is used in multiple books, put the book-specific category tag from each of those books on that template.

Is there a page for holding guidelines like this?

By the way, what is the difference between "Category:Programming" and "Category:Programming languages" ?

--DavidCary 18:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi David - you are so right (in my view) to bring this up. It's one that has been lurking in my mind for a while now. I see categories as very important and quite often badly handled. That said you are posting this in quite a remote backwater of Wikibooks which will probably not be seen by many. If you want to go to Category talk:Main page I promise I'll join it the conversation there (tho it will be tomorrow it being late in my timezone!). Browsing Category:Main page will give you some idea how good and bad things can be - personally the Wikijunior section is pretty good but the rest ...

Hopefully see you there and get some discussion going about an important topic. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)