Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations/Removal/US History (2)

US History
Thekohser in answer to a question about wikibooks voiced concerns about inaccuracies in this book and questioned what passes for featured status on Wikibooks. To be featured a book is suppose to be accurate, so I think its time to remove this book from featured status due to its inaccuracies. Wikibooks shouldn't be encouraging inaccuracies as the best Wikibooks has to offer nor as good examples. --dark lama  20:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol comment vote.svg|15px]] Comment This may be just a bit of coincidental timing. However, i had raised just this thought myself with response to the discussion to which i think this refers located here. I would like to say that WhiteKnight's points are well made. I would hate to see an over reaction to comments. Further if this action is taken What would then classify as a featured book? Barry (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A featured book is any book that overall is accurate in what it does cover even if it is still missing things. --dark lama  20:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Emblem-fun.svg|15px]] I agree because this book no longer meets our quality criteria. I was hesitant to vote at first because I was trying not to have some knee-jerk backlash against this book. However, on closer inspection yesterday and today, I have to agree that this book really doesn't meet our standards anymore. Even if we ignore inaccuracy and ommission&mdash;two things that we have never focused on as much as we likely should have&mdash;This book is still poor. Formatting in many pages is plain and boring, inter-page navigation is almost entirely missing. There is an obvious focus on current events and a complete dearth of information in earlier periods. Pictures, hundreds of which could be had from Commons immediately, are in very short supply. Since this book was originally made a featured book (originally a "book of the month" back in April 2005) our standards have increased faster then the quality of this book has. As a consequence, I think it's a natural result that this book no longer be featured so that we can focus on the higher quality of some of our other well-developed books. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This book just doesn't meet what the standard should now be for a featured book. The topic it tries to cover is huge (I wonder if perhaps it is too huge for wikibooks at the moment and whether this would be better as separate books, but that is a different discussion) and at the moment it doesn't deliver. It needs a serious reworking to bring the accuarcy back and improve the look and feel of the whole thing. Unfortunatley no small task... --AdRiley (talk) 12:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol oppose vote.svg|15px]] Oppose Having re-read the book after RobinH has removed the odd additions which were made since the book was first featured, I don't think this book needs to lose it's featured status.  I can't really comment on the accuracy as I am no expert on American history.  But there is no glaring craziness or obvious rubbish anymore.  I think the better reaction to the comments from Thekohser is to improve the standard of the book as RobinH has done, not just say "yes your're right it isn't very good we'll take it off the list."  --AdRiley (talk) 10:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support I agree the information in the book is inaccurate, the book would need some serious work to bring it up to the current featured book status Barry (talk) 14:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol oppose vote.svg|15px]] Oppose - strongly. I checked the text and found that there were indeed spelling mistakes but there are spelling mistakes in Wikipedia and in any jointly written text. I looked for errors of fact and could find nothing obvious. I did find an excessive emphasis on certain events.  The big problem here is that too few people are editing Wikibooks so the trivial mistakes and mistaken emphasis are not corrected.  This problem does not just apply to US History, I opened four featured books at random and found in the first page I looked at:  grammatical errors: "Cultural shifts (How it occurs)", repetition: "13.1.1 -- Where is the School/Community disconnect? 13.1.2 -- Where is the School/Community disconnect?", vandalism not corrected since 2007: "this stinks", comments in the main text: "RLittauer (talk) 19:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)".  Clearly Featured Book does not mean perfect or even nearly perfect!  Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here about the nature of a "Featured Book".  In practice our featured books are books with substantial content, not perfect books.  The critique that has prompted this call for the removal of US History is really expecting featured books to have undergone the sort of checks that were being proposed in Editorial_board. RobinH (talk) 09:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol comment vote.svg|15px]] Comment I have just re-read the original critique and I am worried that it is a thinly disguised cover for a desire to see US History from a particular slant. Thekohser in answer to a question about wikibooks writes that there is "no mention whatsoever of the Flying Tigers, the Doolittle raid, Aleutian Islands campaign, Rosie the Riveter, the Tuskegee Airmen...". Now, I am not a historian but I know enough to understand that knowledge of economic capacity, military strategy and alliances etc. is more important in the historical analysis of the Second World War (or any war) than accounts of "derring do". RobinH (talk) 09:53, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think your comments are a bit extreme. The only thing expected here is accuracy in what the book does try to cover, not perfect spelling or perfection. Vandalism that has crept into featured books is trivial to fix in comparison to inaccuracies. I am only concerned about inaccuracies in the book which Thekohser also pointed out, not in what it fails to cover. I assume that anyone who comments on making a book (un)featured has at least reviewed it or was already familiar with it, but I don't expect any kind of editorial review unless people choose to take the time to do so. I also like to assume if people are critical of a featured book that it means that people who commented overlooked some things, the book has sinse gotten worse, or people's standards and expectations have become higher. I think this is a case of people's standards having become a little higher since US History was made a featured book. I think its good for people to expect more from featured books as time goes on. I think it means that overall people expect a higher level of quality from books on Wikibooks in general. I think FlaggedRevs will help aid in this process as well. After having criticized this book, Thekohser has since registered here and taken it upon himself to try to improve it some. --dark lama  12:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What are the inaccuracies? I looked at Thekohser's comment and he does not refer to any specific inaccuracy. He criticises the spelling and scope but does not mention any specific inaccuracy. My comments are not really extreme, look at Thekohser's comment again, he is really criticising the slant of the book. I checked several items that I was only 80% certain about (yes the Great Crash was 1929, not 28 etc) and could not find any inaccuracies. Can you tell us what is inaccurate in this book? RobinH (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right Robin, we've never really judged a featured book based on it's factual accuracy, or it's citations, or it's comprehensiveness. However, even on the other criteria that we could use, this book fails on all points. It's no longer a good example of a book that should be used as a model for other books. It's not currently a demonstration of our potential to produce quality textbooks. Our standards have been raised, and this book has not kept up with the pace. Don't look at the facts then (and I think we are getting to a point here at Wikibooks where we should put more of a premium on accuracy), look at the formatting, organization, presentation. Look at the complete lack of images, the unappealing mish-mash that are the "keywords" pages. The book is basically abandoned, and yet there are no notes or guidelines to help other authors get started working on it, no manual of style either. Of course, these aren't prerequisites, but they would be nice. Think of all the possible criteria that we could use to judge a featured book and answer truthfully: Does this book satisfy any of them? If it fails factual accuracy (and I don't even assert that it does), then it must excel somewhere else, and this book does not. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see your point given your definition of "featured book". This raises a wider problem about how we offer books to readers and I have offered a suggestion at Reading_room/General RobinH (talk) 14:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I have gone over the book and cut out most of the odd accretions that have occurred since the book was first classified as "featured" and which have caused this problem. Thekohser seems to have also been active in this respect. Can people have another look and reconsider? The problem of maintaining books when the original authors have lost interest deserves further discussion - see Reading room. RobinH (talk) 08:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, this was what prompted my suggestion that we should check through our featured books on some sort of regular basis to do the sort of clean up that you have done and keep the standard up. I will re-read the book when I have some more time later and I also have some thoughts to add to the discussion at the reading room.

--AdRiley (talk) 08:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it should be deleted, although it can be improved, I would suggest having the work cited and verified from authorized and trustable sources like Encyclopedia Americana (not Wikipedia, Wikipedia is reliable but not always trustable, as it is editable by anyone). One thing that I think should be added are the 15th (or was it 14th) century african empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai, the events there, including the salt and gold trade, influenced the forming of America. --Bookworm01 5:54 PM, 18 August 2008 (GMT)

Not done Just to have some closure on this issue. No real consensus on this issue for a very long time, although I still believe that this isn't one of the better books we have here at Wikibooks and I'm not particularly happy with this being up on the main page. That's just me, however. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)