Talk:Wikimedia/The History of Wikibooks

Suggestions
This book is definitely a good undertaking, but it looks a bit like a blog at the moment... Maybe the chapters/sections sould either be chronological (2003, 2004, etc.), or topical (what kind of books were being written in the beginning/middle/lately, policy evolution, etc.) rather than the "Direction lost and rebirth" and "Upheaval and redefinition"? It seems to be focused heavily on the problems, but even while those problems were going on, there has always been steady growth in the background. -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course you are only looking at it from a very early stage of development. I disagree that the sections should be isolated by year, as events that have taken place here on Wikibooks have trancended arbitrary time breaks.... even though I have seen relationships between academic school years and activity here on Wikibooks.  Major surges in interest tend to happen about May and September of each year, and January tends to be a period of time when people get either burned out or concentrate on other aspects of their life.  This tendency is not nearly as pronounced as it was for say the USENET news groups in the early 1990's.


 * Perhaps this book could discuss what kinds of book were being written in various periods of the history of Wikibooks, but I am pointing out that there have been some very major controversies that do need to be covered (from of course an NPOV). My argument is that much of the history of Wikibooks has been an examination of what kinds of content would be considered acceptable on this project, and that attitude has been reflected by the personalities of the active participants during each of those time periods.  Of course, this is a POV as much as anything else.  There certainly can be what I would define as "generations" of users that have been working on Wikibooks over the past four years, and I can define loosly (not completely) some of those participants based on "political upheavals" where the newer users sort of revolt against the old hands and push the project into new directions.  And this is happening even today.


 * I find it especially interesting (and revealing) that even the notion of NPOV was strongly questioned at the beginning of this project, and even Jimbo conceeded some rather interesting viewpoints about that topic. I can also point out that there are what I would call three sorts of concerns in the early history of this project that from a historical perspective are interesting to explore:


 * Perrenial Concerns - This would be issues of things like copyright licensing and fair use. These issues appeared in the very beginning of Wikibooks and simply seem unsolvable.


 * Resolved Issues - Several major categories of content have been removed (even if I am fighting to get video game book back... it is gone for now). Most notably is that the issue of fiction is so completely agreed upon that except for a few gadflys it isn't even being mentioned at all as an issue any more and hardly controvercial.  This was a major issue in the beginning of this project.


 * Non-issues - Some worries simply have not even been raised at all, or have been resolved because existing structures in Wikibooks has dealt with them. Most notably the issue of Pornography on Wikibooks.  It simply isn't here.  Why that is the case is something that perhaps could be explored.


 * One of the very interesting little tidbits of the history of Wikibooks that I've discovered (and didn't know about until this past week) was a completely different Wiki that was absorbed into Wikibooks. A user named April on Wikipedia created a science textbook wiki on her own (and independent of the WMF.... the relationship between the WMF and Wikibooks is very interesting and a revelation to me as well... but moving on.)  This Wiki pre-dated Wikibooks by nearly a year, and developed its own separate community, many of which did end up bringing nearly all of its content (that Wiki was licensed under the GFDL) over to here on Wikibooks and provided one of the critical seed groups that helped to develop some of the early science textbooks.  This Wiki is unfortunately down now, although you can go through some of the content pages with the internet archives.  I have not seen this group mentioned anywhere on any other short history of Wikibooks.  Much of the culture of Wikibooks can be attributed to this original science textbook wiki, including a certain attitude of independence from Wikipedia (as it was a completely independent group).


 * I would like to do a chronlogical book, but am open to any reasonable suggestions on how to accomplish that task. As I said, I want to avoid the use of dates but any other reasonable suggestion, including the titles of the sections, is very most definitely up for discussion.


 * Before I even commit to the outline, I would like to do some significant research in terms of gathering what will end up as bibliographic resources and original documents. I've started that process and in doing so has changed the direction I would like to go with this book.  There are resources such as Textbook-l and Staff Lounge that provide some very interesting backgrounds into this project, but I don't want to be shaped by those discussions either.  And some of the early and prominent users with their user talk pages are also something that might be fun to try and cull some interesting historical tidbits.


 * This trancends nearly all of the Wikimedia projects, and I've found important resources on Meta and Wikipedia that are also very interesting. Gathering that information is going to take time, as it certainly is not laid out in any organized fashion.  That is precisely what this book is going to try and accomplish.  --Rob Horning 16:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Good comments there, but what I was really getting at is the way the suggested initial outline seems to be more about trauma and drama, rather than the evolution that has gone on continually despite the trauma and drama :). It's also a bit misleading, since it sort of lays out the history as "we had some hard times, but now we're moving forward". Wikis always have hard times, while at the same time having good times... Wikipedia is constantly undergoing small revolutions, and the only reason (IMO) that they happen more often there is that there are just a heck of a lot more people there. I guess the only historical period we could really point to (on our project or any of the other WM projects) would be that short but sweet "age of ideals" that happens when they first get started (Wikiversity seems to me to be in that phase now), which gradually comes to an end as opinions come to the fore on inclusion/exclusion, structure, user rights/behavioral policy, etc (personally I think we all need to keep a close eye on Wikipedia for easy lessons, rather than learning them all "the hard way" here).


 * I guess rather than dividing the issues into the solved, unsolved, and perennial, I'd rather pursue a more "content-oriented" approach. -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I slapped something together at History of Wikibooks/Topics, to demonstrate what I'm suggesting. -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The above link was broken at some point and the page orphaned. The page exists at Wikimedia/The History of Wikibooks/Topics.