Wikibooks:Reading room/General

Welcome to the General reading room. On this page, Wikibookians are free to talk about the Wikibooks project in general. For proposals for improving Wikibooks, see the Proposals reading room.

Producing refereed academic papers on Wikibooks

For some time I have had the idea of using the internet to produce academic papers in the public domain. Wikibooks might be the place to do this. The idea is that an author submits a new draft paper. People can jump in to make additions and possibly add their names as co-authors. People can jump in to edit and add their names as editors. When the paper has sufficient content it can be frozen for refereeing. Suitably qualified referees can be invited (or maybe just drop in) to determine if the paper is suitable for publication. If it is suitable it can be sent to Wikisource and linked (if appropriate) to articles in Wikipedia. Wikibooks academic papers would need a special format.

The advantages of this system is that the papers would be created and remain in the public domain. Publication might also be faster than through the established printed journals. Academics like myself want the widest possible distribution of their work but this gets blocked because the publishers of academic journals normally take the copyright of the papers away from the authors.

I am new to Wikibooks and Wiki space in general, so I apologize if I'm way off track with this. It is just an idea, hopefully it can gain substance if other people are interested. Logicalgregory (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments. It seems that wikibooks is not the place for this idea. However, I will continue the thread for a moment longer, if only for the benefit of others who are lost in wikispace. At wikia I found a page that has been set up to do almost exactly what I proposed. It seems to have been in existence for some six years and, although all the infrastructure is there, there is virtually no content. It seems that an "academic publishing" page is just too general to attract participants. It needs to be more focused on a specific area of study. Also, I think it needs a strong group to start it off. I do not think it can be started by just one person with the expectation that others will just drop in (it will end up as dead space). I might pursue the idea further at wikiversity if I can put a group together.Logicalgregory (talk) 09:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

What you are describing sounds more like Wikia. We have a policy against original research here on Wikibooks. Recent Runes (talk) 09:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Please, I beg of you, let's not advertise for Wikia, as that is a conflict of interest with the Wikimedia Foundation board. As for the "policy against original research" here, I personally think that is something that ought to be reconsidered by the community. Having now carefully read that policy, I am wondering if this recent output is actually in violation of Wikibooks policy? -- Thekohser (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry about "advertising" on this level. It is traditional to suggest to people, before nuking their silly contributions, to point out other places that will take them, "this is better for Wikia" is quite a bit nicer than "get that crap out of here!" We could also point out, for example, MyWikiBiz. Just don't you point it out, okay! More to the point, though, is that Wikiversity is a great place for original research, it is explicitly allowed, just don't try to present it as a scientific consensus, for example, if it isn't. But you can put up a page on your Favorite Crackpot Theory, note that it's not accepted, and then pretty much say what you want as long as it isn't illegal or fattening. At least that's the theory, the execution of the theory gets a bit ragged sometimes, but we are working on that.

As to your brilliant paper, while one might quibble with some words at the end, one might also allow an author some flexibility, especially if the conclusions reached are obvious, and Wikibooks policy on Original Research seems far more flexible than that of Wikipedia. In the end -- in both places! -- the real standard is consensus, there is no way around that unless the Foundation wants to step in, i.e., no way, so my advice: remember to be nice! Now, if I could just take my own advice..... --Abd (talk) 19:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikiversity is a good place for this, which is still within the Wikimedia projects. --darklama 14:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes. My opinion is that it is possible that Wikiversity could establish a peer review process, and that it could become, effectively, a publisher of peer-reviewed papers. There are quite a few obstacles to overcome, though. I don't expect to see this soon. However, papers can be written there, just as students and teachers may present, in classes, original research. An exciting idea is the collaborative writing of papers that might be submitted for publication elsewhere, under normal peer review. I've even set up a lab resource at Cold fusion/Lab, something that would be completely inappropriate on Wikipedia or here. I work extensively on Wikiversity because of the great academic freedom that is the ideal there. It's largely realized, and there have only been problems arising from WMF critics using Wikiversity to criticize WMF projects, and then individuals criticized, often politically powerful within the WMF community, and their friends, also came to oppose, sometimes also in disruptive ways. The use (for "Wiki studies") is theoretically possible, but will require the establishment of ethical standards, and I wanted Thekohser to be unblocked there precisely so that he could support the development of those standards, from the critic side, and I assume that there will be others who will participate from the "defense." If, absent such standards, he abuses the relative freedom of Wikiversity to prematurely criticize, I will act to prevent it. But I don't expect it to be a problem. He's been very cooperative. --Abd (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Dear Logicalgregory,

That sounds like an excellent idea. However, as Darklama and Recent Runes pointed out, other wiki exist that would be an even better place for it than Wikibooks.

If you are thinking about publishing some particular paper, perhaps it would be even better to post an outline on a wiki dedicated to whatever particular field you are interested in. A few such narrowly-focused wiki are:

• Science of Spectroscopy wiki
• OpenWetWare wiki: biology
• Renewable Energy Design wikia
• SklogWiki dedicated to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
• BioMineWiki: biology and hydrometallurgy
• UsefulChem Project wiki
• Pretty Science Wikia

--DavidCary (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As someone who recently repurposed a small portion of his undergraduate honors thesis here on Wikibooks (perhaps unwittingly in violation of policy!), I would like to say something. I can attest that there were at least 100 honors papers coming out of Emory University every year in the late 1980's, and one would estimate with near certainty that easily half of them never reached a "digital age" reformatting. It seems an utter waste of talent and labor to not reach out to people with honors research "collecting dust", and ask them (plead with them!) to consider scanning the work for OCR, then releasing it under a free license to share with the rest of the world. Multiply my experience at Emory by at least 200 (or 400, or 800!), to cover the many outstanding universities worldwide that have featured honors papers, etc. We're talking about a great deal of content and information that really should be gathered up and made digital. If not on Wikibooks, why? And where? -- Thekohser (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Not peer-reviewed, but this material would presumably be fine for Wikiversity, no question, and some of it might be okay here as well. It's likely to be of better quality than the average. Great idea, Thekohser. The problem with great ideas is, frequently, too many Chiefs with great ideas and not enough Indians. I'd suggest this as a project on Wikiversity, to get the papers in a place which is pretty safe from deletion based on arguments of POV, etc., and then review them for transfer to Wikibooks. But I have no problem with placement here first, and then a move to Wikiversity if that seems more appropriate at the time. What I don't like is the raw deal of you do all this work on a page or set of pages and then they are deleted because Randy from Boise and a few drive-bys thought it wasn't notable or was something else Bad. (It's hard to imagine a submitted degree thesis or an honor paper that wouldn't be appropriate, at least, for Wikiversity. But the world is big.) --Abd (talk) 19:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Concerning Thekosher and Abd remarks on undergraduate honors thesis, I am very confused about where papers can be uploaded on the various Wiki Foundation sites. I have a lot of papers that I would like to make more available to the general public. These are undergraduate thesis, Masters thesis, PhD thesis, a collection of working papers published by University Departments, an even larger collection of papers published in academic journals. The copyright of the published papers have been hi-jacked by various publishers, so there seems to be nothing that can be done about these - they will be locked away in print libraries (where nobody will ever read them) until long after I'm dead (which is why I suggested academic papers could be produced on a Wiki). Going one step back, there are the working papers upon which the published papers are based. They are not as polished as the published papers but are a valuable research resource that could be placed in the public domain. Working papers are peer reviewed within a University Department. When I brought up the question publishing these at Wikisource I was told "We would only look at the papers following peer review" by which I understand them to mean that the working papers would have to be peer reviewed again. This requirement would, I think, be difficult to meet because I know of nobody that would be prepared to spend their time reviewing a paper that has already been reviewed. Now Thekosher suggests collecting undergraduate thesis (I do not think this is a bad idea), when papers that are far more developed, and only one step away from being lost for 100 years, have nowhere to go. Logicalgregory (talk) 07:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If you prefer to stay within the Wikimedia Foundation wikis, then Wikiversity is the only place that original research is acceptable. – Adrignola talk 12:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Having been peer reviewed means the work isn't original research per say. The existing peer reviewed journals where the work was previous published and polished up could be cited as sources. However the papers are probably most useful if preserved as papers, so Wikiversity would be the place for that since papers are a type of educational resource acceptable there, while non-book materials are not meant to hosted at Wikibooks. Anyone could use the papers when made available at Wikiversity as a bases for developing books at Wikibooks, if they cite the journals where the work was peer reviewed. Since copyright seems to be a concern I think confirming permission with OTRS should be done before making the papers available at Wikiversity. --darklama 15:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

If it is in the Public Domain and has been published in a "verifiable, usually peer-reviewed forum", it is welcome at wikisource. The Wikiproject can be found at s:Wikisource:WikiProject Academic Papers. -Arlen22 (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think, thought I could be wrong, that wikisource requires the material to be published elsewhere before they will accept it. I suppose this keeps people from posting their rejected papers there straight away without correcting the flaws. Thenub314 (talk) 18:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Goodbook

Please see Talk:Main Page. Thanks. Kayau (talk | email | contribs) 10:26, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

We need another bureaucrat

Wikibooks could certainly benefit from another bureaucrat. I think any wiki with only one bureaucrat will suffer from a problem: if a bureaucrat decision is challenged, there is nobody to reverse it. (No really, I know bureaucrats cannot uncheck admin rights, and I don't know if a renaming can be reversed but...) Also, if there are two bureaucrats the bureaucrats can keep an eye on one another to see if they made any 'crat mistakes. However I won't nominate anyone in case the nominee refuses, and other admins who are also, IMO, eligible to become a 'crat take offence. If you think you can become a 'crat, please self-nominate. :) Kayau (talk | email | contribs) 01:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

A bureaucrat decision naming a sysop can be questioned and reversed at meta, with a showing of local consensus. I do agree, though, that it's better to have two. It may be more important, though, that a 'crat be highly trusted to remain neutral. --Abd (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Thenub314's bureaucrat nomination

The comment above inspired me to nominate myself as a bureaucrat. As per policy I am advertising my nomination here. Thenub314 (talk) 02:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Placement of HTML tags: Wiktionary or Wikibooks?

Hello. I am a Wiktionarian administrator, interested in seeking feedback and opinions from Wikibookians, to solve an issue directly related to both projects.

There is an ongoing discussion about the existence of individual entries for HTML tags. As notable examples, on Wiktionary, there are Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/img, Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/h1 and Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/title, to define, respectively, the tags img, h1 and title.

However, especially since the creation and maintenance of HTML tags at Wiktionary is a fairly new project, it depends on further consensus. All these pages may conceivably be kept or be deleted from Wiktionary, according to the development of possible discussions and/or votes.

One particular argument for deleting these pages from Wiktionary is that there are already pages on Wikibooks, including HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/img, HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/option and HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/table for similar purposes, therefore Wiktionarian versions would be redundant.

Since the particular message "Given this book is a user guide, it is organized around topics from the user's perspective, not around the names of the tags." is displayed at the top of HyperText Markup Language/Tag List, am I right in assuming that individual pages for each HTML tag would be better placed in Wiktionary? Or, perhaps, there are reasons for keeping them at Wikibooks, that I am unaware of?

Thanks in advance. --Daniel. (talk) 17:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I would consider that page more of an alphabetical index of tags and the note is indicating that the chapters shown at the root of the book will use those tags as needed based on the functional organization of the book. The book as a whole is based around what kinds of things you want to do with HTML rather than going through each tag in turn. HTML tags are not anything close to what I'd imagine being hosted at Wiktionary and it seems like that's a reach for Wiktionary's scope. I compare HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/img with wikt:Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/img and the former is far superior. – Adrignola talk 17:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Since Wiktionary is already more reference-like, it makes sense in that view to put them there. But Wikibooks would be a more logical choice given the content and purpose of Wikibooks itself. I can't, however, imagine that a separate book would be created for the reference of each computer language. Which, in turn, means that if they were to be placed on Wikibooks, they'd necessarily have to form part of some sort of appendix within each wikibook on their respective subjects. In either case, a reference list for HTML as well as for other computer languages is certainly extremely useful. I really think we should at least have references for computer languages somewhere on Wikimedia. But where, I don't know. CodeCat (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict, above comments by Adrignola and CodeCat not yet read.)That is an interesting question, and one I don't know I have a quick answer to. My feeling is that the tag list you point out is certainly appropriate for the book it is in, that is as an appendix to the textbook on HTML. As to the individual structure of the book, one entry per page seems a bit cumbersome but I usually defer to individual book contributors for how they like to structure their books. So I imagine that the pages are reasonably covered by our scope. I am less familiar with wikitonary's scope, but roughly speaking traditional dictionaries have appendices on all sorts of things (how to convert cups to tablespoons, etc.), and I am not surpirsed that wikitionary has such an appendix. But then again, it really becomes a line as to where the scope begins and ends, this wouldn't be covered in a more traditional dictionary... so, to summarize, I don't know how to feel about these pages at wikitionary, but the pages pointed to in wikibooks are well suited to our scope. I am not sure how to handle the duplication of effort problem. Thenub314 (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think "HyperText Markup Language/Tag List" with all its subpages should be separated again into a standalone book, named along the lines of "HTML Reference". I do not think a reference book should be presented as an appendix of a guidebook; these should be two standalone books instead. On the other subject, this seems to be a Wikibooks material rather than a dictionary one. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think "which project" is the wrong thing to focus on. A dictionary explains how to pronounce words, there definitions, and correct grammar uses. Books may have a glossary, which usually only include unfamiliar words that people in the field should know without details usually found in a dictionary. Books should have glossaries. I think what Wiktionarians should focus on is if explaining how to pronounce words, there definitions, and correct grammar uses for programming terms is relevant to Wiktionary's scope. --darklama 18:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Re Dan: Maybe, but the implication is that there will be more than just one reference book. If there is a HTML reference, then we'll also want a reference book for C, Python and so on for every other computer language with a sizable collection of names. CodeCat (talk) 20:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary has developed a consistent format to organize morphemes of multiple languages. I believe it may as well be consistently expanded to include commands, tags and other characteristics of computer codes, that may in turn be further organized by categorization and indexes. For example, once this project reaches a certain level of maturity, a page called wikt:Appendix:Control flow statements could explain "go to", "for" and "while" of various languages together.

If one particular goal of Wiktionary is to explain the grammar of many natural languages, it may as well conceivably explain the syntax of programming languages similarly. Since Wikibooks has Subject:English language, in addition to the coverage of English from Wiktionary, I assume each project may treat the same subjects from different approaches, without them becoming redundant to each other. --Daniel. (talk) 20:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Five-year WMF targets

There was a thread on the foundation-l mailing list on five-year Wikimedia Foundation targets excluding non-Wikipedia projects. Below are some highlights that would be most relevant for those concerned with Wikibooks. The full postings are linked. – Adrignola talk 15:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

“	The vast majority of our users are using Wikipedia and not the other projects, which means even a small improvement to Wikipedia is likely to have more impact than even a large improvement to one of the other projects. Sue was very clear that prioritising Wikipedia only applies to the WMF. The community can, and should, continue to improve the other projects, the WMF just feels that its limited resources are better used where they will have more impact.	”
—Thomas Dalton, foundation-l mailing list

“	It's absolutely not clear to me (and I don't think anyone) that a focused investment in, say, textbook development is actually going to result in predictable payoff in a transformatively larger number of sustainable content contributors. That doesn't mean that there isn't a potential for such an investment to be successful, and it doesn't mean that it's not a risk worth taking.	”
—Erik Moeller, foundation-l mailing list

“	But let's not kid ourselves -- transformatively increasing the productivity and success of efforts like Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikisource is not just a matter of tiny injections of bugfixes and extensions here and there. It's a matter of serious assessment of all underlying processes and developing social and technical architectures to support them. I hope that we'll eventually be able to make such investments, but I also think it's entirely reasonable to prioritize lower risk investments.	”
—Erik Moeller, foundation-l mailing list

Wow, how extraordinarily depressing. Thenub314 (talk) 17:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It's not surprising to me, however. It just gives me all the more motivation to prove them wrong. Also, a relevant slide from Wikimania 2010, where Erik Moeller above took a look at the other Wikimedia projects besides Wikipedia: Slide 23. Slides before and after cover the others, for comparison. – Adrignola talk 19:47, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I should get to work again! -Arlen22 (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought Moeller founded Wikinews... Anyway, but how can the WB community prove them wrong? It's not like WB will get much more traffic even if we make it 100% perfect... Kayau (talk | email | contribs) 10:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Quantity matters as much as quality. -Arlen22 (talk) 13:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I would think that high quality textbooks would attract more readers due to gaining higher rankings in search results. The moral of the above is that if we want to succeed, we have to do it ourselves and the WMF cannot be relied upon for support. We prove them wrong about our prospects by not giving up even if the head honchos have forgotten where Wikipedia once was compared to where it is today. It's apparent that they have not heard the idea that the greater the risk, the greater the reward. As Wikipedia has matured, the potential for greater percentage of growth lies in the other projects. – Adrignola talk 13:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the biggest reason why WP is popular is because it's comprehensive. Whenever I want the basic info about something, I use WP. It's what makes WB less likely to succeed than WP... Kayau (talk | email | contribs) 13:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

But that is offset by the fact that textbooks are way different than encyclopedias. Something like Excel, PHP, or HTML wouldn't exist on Wikipedia. -Arlen22 (talk) 13:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well one thing we have going for us is price, the text book for the course I am teaching at the moment is $209 from the book store. Multiply that by the 140 students I am requiring to by the text, times the number of years the course has been running, it is really quite a lot of money. And the book is required, I would love to convince the department to require something free (modulo printing costs) but we have to get the books there first. On the other hand I have seen many departments print and sell notes developed by the faculty, so if we had something that was a suitable replacement it would be possible to convince them. Last I checked university departments are not so in love with publishing companies either. (I mean really! They make minor tweaks every two years so there can be a new edition, which means students cannot by the old books used as easily. It is an amazing racket.)

Of course, secondary education and below is a whole different ball game, it would be much more difficult to get a wikibook adopted at that level in the US. Thenub314 (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

http://www.ck12.org is our main competitor on the secondary education front as it is aiming for approval by California's schools. Their licensing was changed to noncommercial a few months back, but I was able to pull content from their site under the cc-by-sa license before that and upload the PDFs to Commons. There are Creative Commons licensed books and material at http://cnx.org, another competitor. The advantage Wikibooks has over these two is that anyone can improve upon the content easily because this is a wiki. – Adrignola talk 16:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

It's out of the question that secondary schools use learning materials from free sources such as WB, in a truely commercialised world, except for 'non-traditional' subjects such as Liberal Studies. However, if the education bureau actually allows such materials to be used (which is highly unlikely), I believe it will be extremely popular. There are repeated complaints about book publishers realeasing a new edition every now and then. Sometimes it's necessary. For example, when we were learning planets in primary school, they had to make a new edition of the science book. However, most of the time the changes can be rather trivial, and like Thenub said it can be rather irritating that old books cannot be used. Also, books can be hard to find, especially 'non-traditional' subjects such as Liberal Studies. That's something they are also complaining about. I think using materials from sources such as WB has neither of these advantages and therefore has potential.

One major problem we may face is CC-BY-SA. I read in some paper a few years ago that it has been proposed to let CC-BY-SA become an alternative to public domain in Hong Kong law. I'm not sure if they have implemented it though...it was implemented. Kayau (talk | email | contribs) 09:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposing new deletion process

This has been moved to the proposals reading room. – Adrignola talk 12:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Regex

What regex would I use to remove every ref on a page? -Arlen22 (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)