Wikibooks:Reading room/Administrative Assistance/Archives/2008/April

Request for Template Protection
I request that the WikiBooks Template:Dropimage be protected. I made it recently, and it is important to the Editing Wikitext/Pictures page, which makes use of it throughout. It might be as well to protect Template:Droplist at the same time. I hope that this is the right way to get this done, as I am a bit new to all this. Thanks in advance for your help, Hyundai (talk) 10:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Why should nobody be able to edit these templates? Wikibooks doesn't normally protect templates much, as anyone should be able to edit them and improve on them like any content. --dark lama  16:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * darklama, Hi!,
 * It is all about reducing the exposure to vandalism for those who have already invested their time.  Also, if a template were to be modified adversely, then not only would others be denied its use, but any work which then depended on it for correct functioning, would fail to work.


 * As you know, it takes hours of work for even quite simple pages, and it is best not to tempt providence.  In any case, when it is protected, the code is still available for all to copy and use in modified versions.  Regards, Hyundai (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Please assume good faith, that the majority of people here have good intentions, and any changes are for the better. Wikibooks doesn't usually protect pages and templates due to what could happen. If someone is willing to put the time in to fix any usage of a template because there modifications broke it, then they should be welcome to do so. If someone makes a change you don't like, discuss it with them and find a compromise both of you can agree with. Someone could of invested as much time trying to improve a template as you did originally to make it. Everyone's time is of equal worth and importance here. If someone vandalizes it, someone will block them and revert them. If the template breaks, someone will fix it. --dark lama  15:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again,
 * After a period of assuming good faith, I can can tell you that it is a waste of time!  I am even more determined for important work to be protected.   An entire page of Editing Wikitext/Pictures/The Quick Course  was deleted today: You can see the history record on the site.   It is too easy to do!!!

Armchair (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism: Lots on the one page
The entire page of Editing Wikitext/Pictures/The Quick Course was deleted. Since there was a lot of it on the one page this would seem to qualify for a comment here.

The history page extract reads:

(cur) (last) 16:56, 2 April 2008 Madhumohan (Talk | contribs) (empty) (Removing all content from page) (undo)

I have restored the page from a backup, but frankly, it causes me to reiterate the need for restricting access to some pages; it is even more important for some templates. (See elsewhere in admin notes).

Armchair (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, we store copies of all old revisions specifically for this purpose. Dealing with vandalism and Wikibooks:Rollback might be of interest to you. The user in question has been warned, and has stopped blanking pages. If they continue, a block would likely be in order. If you continue to experience problems with page blanking from this user, come back here & let us know so an admin can take action. Please try to assume good faith, and remember that "you can edit this page" is at the heart of what makes our projects strong - it's a core philosophy of wikis. Have a good day! – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 18:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-Free Images Deadline
I just wanted to alert people that the deadline for deletion of images under the board's licensing policy is coming up on March 23. The policy is here:
 * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy

We here at Wikibooks have been in very good compliance with this policy so far. However, We still don't have an "official" licensing policy (called an EDP in the resolution above). Media seems to be the best proposed candidate, and we have been following that policy (or nearly following it) as a de facto standard for some time now. Maybe the time has come for us to give it a final look-over and accept it as an official policy.

According to the resolution, all fair use images must be deleted by March 23rd 2008, unless there is a policy that specifically allows certain fair use images to be kept. I don't know how the foundation is going to enforce this, I haven't heard any mention of this resolution for some time now. However, in the worst case scenario (and I don't expect this at all), members of the board or the developers could have all fair use images automatically deleted without our input. Again, I stress that I don't think this possibility will happen. Maybe nothing will happen and the resolution will not be enforced at all. However, I still this this is a good opportunity for us to look at Media and see about making that (or a derivation of it) an official policy here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, we need to approve an EDP (presumably WB:MEDIA). I've been slogging through the fair use categories & the only real problem is missing rationales - unfortunately they're a lot of work to write. I've looked at maybe 30% of the categories, fixing as much as I can, but there's plenty of work left. Despite the fact that our grace period ends on the 23rd, I also assume we'll have an extended grace period after that. We should aim to be in compliance as soon as possible, so let's all pitch in (both on approving a policy and on the cleanup required). – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, Monobi's bot has finished it's work; we now have lots of images that have no rationale, but should. I've emailed users who have more than a few and who have an email set, so hopefully we won't lose too many of the images. Any user reading this can go through Category:Images with no fair use rationale and start putting up rationales. They're not hard to do; the template leads you through it and WB:MEDIA spells out what's needed in detail. I would also like to suggest that we hurry up and approve a fair use policy before the March 23rd deadline so that we can keep the fair use images that do have a rationale. Let's turn our attention to Wikibooks talk:Media :) – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 04:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * So the deadline is March 23rd - that's Sunday. Monobi has written a script for me which will delete problem images, and log images which might be ok. I'd like to run it on Sunday, but I'm hesitant to do so when there's been basically no effort to fix the images missing rationales. I don't know how much can be done between now and then, but if you have time, there's many images that need rationales written for them (nudge nudge). That said, the images aren't in compliance (and won't be even if we put lots of effort into writing rationales), so they should be deleted on Sunday as applicable. As well, we have no EDP/fair use policy, so we need to discuss that, presumably at Wikibooks talk:Media, since that's our defacto policy. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 15:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol opinion vote.svg|15px]] FYI:: WB:MEDIA is now a policy, per discussion on it's talk page. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 00:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Lost my A+ card and need my ID number for job
How do I get this information? 206.243.134.73 (talk) 12:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)David L Lane206.243.134.73 (talk) 12:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's best that you explain what an A+ card is?? --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 20:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A+ networking certification. -within focus 22:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Picture heavy book inclusion criteria...
I am interested in composing some Wikibooks that are picture heavy. They would have some factual learning and then also be meant to spark the imagination of readers. A question for those in the know, and to avoid having my work deleted, is this within Wikibooks' scope? Is it something for the user namespace? How should I proceed? Thanks. --Remi (talk) 06:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * G'day Remi, we in fact already have some in Wikijunior, for example Wikijunior:World at work and Wikijunior:Animal Alphabet. Some of the computer graphics textbooks can be quite picture heavy too, for example Blender 3D. If your images are correctly licensed and your book complies with WB:WIW, then you should have no problem. Please consider uploading images to Commons instead of Wikibooks, so that they may be more easily reused (e.g. in a translation of your book!) or, better still, utilise some of the images already there. What will your books be about? Webaware talk 06:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiBooks Format
I am starting my own wiki and I would like to have the same kind of structure of Book--> Module or even better Book--> Chapter --> Verse. Any advice or extensions that might help me. I have looked through the extensions on MediaWiki and others that have shown up in searches, but nothing really helps.

Thanks, Greg


 * You just need to enable subpages for the Main namespace. Add the following to your LocalSettings.php file:
 * <tt>$wgNamespacesWithSubpages[NS_MAIN] = true;</tt>
 * See mw:Manual:$wgNamespacesWithSubpages for details. Webaware talk 03:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Greg

Boilerplate text was lost, please help me find this lost page
Where is the new page with a "similar" or equal content to the old one ? Txs for any information you can provide, no reward will be given :)... --Panic (talk) 00:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Template_messages might have what you're looking for. The page you requested redirected to a page that redirected there. Νεοπτόλεμος ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 01:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Txs for the help. Some of the templates are still there, found also "a direct link" WB:ICT but I don't get the hole image centric thing, the templates were also to catalog other content (and/or it's source) but they seem mostly dedicated to images now even the page name (what I think is an error). Well I'll point users there... --Panic (talk) 01:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The templates are divided on subpages based on where they go... WB:ICT is only one of those subpages (for the image namespace); this is not an error. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 01:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Are either of these what you're looking for? WB:TM; Help:Boilerplate request for permission Νεοπτόλεμος ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 02:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't exactly remember what was on that page but the objective or the reason why I linked to it was that it provided information or templates on usable content and covered specific licenses, can't remember if dual license only or Public Domain as tags for imported content. That image stuff page does have some and will serve the purpose I guess.  --Panic (talk) 02:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * User:Mike.lifeguard What I call an error is to the name of the page and multiple references to "images" (since not all tags deal with images) and I think it also lost the rational for the use of the tags, some do state the information but aren't clear about the use one should give them. --Panic (talk) 02:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Wording to create a new page
When you [go] to create a new book(or page), an info box comes at the top. Is this a template (something I can view the code for), or it something admin only type of hard coded thing? ChessCreator (talk) 00:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, answered my own question. It's here MediaWiki:Newarticletext
 * Both. That template at the top of the page is only a default, you can actually do a lot of modifications. When you go to create a new page, you can (if your wiki-foo is strong):
 * Edit the template at the top to display a specific message for a new page
 * Edit the template at the top to display a different message if the page already exists ("I already exist, check before saving!")
 * Preload the edit box with custom text.
 * Check out some of the work that I've done on my book creator page. It's as close to automation as we can get around here without having to use javascript. If you think something like this could be adapted for your use on the chess books, let me know and I can try to set something up for you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That gadget looks impressive, but I'm wonder how it would ever be used.
 * Is it possible that you can say apply gadget if the URL for creation is in the Opening_theory_in_chess section? If not I can't see how the tool will get used. ChessCreator (talk) 14:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed user
Kindly help me as I wanted to post some pictures for my wikibook page. What would be the procedure for it?
 * You aren't able to upload images until your account is 4 days old. Until then, please read our media policy, so you know what you're doing when the 4 days is up. If your images are freely licensed, you can upload them to Commons (where you do not have to wait to upload). If you need other help, come on back. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 17:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Import vs. rename bug
I ran into this last night, and not sure what to do about it. Turns out that if an account has edits here (through the magic of import), the username can't be registered! The account came up on listusers, but had no account creation log.

My seat of the pants solution was to move "User:Username" to "User:Username (wikipedia edits)". I then blocked the wikipedia edits account. We might want a template for the userpage or something as well ("this user is a transwiki ghost of..."?), but at least we should try to do the same thing for each case. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 10:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps crats should be permitted to override the software with Extension:User Merge and Delete . Even so, this is a problem, so I'll make a report at bugzilla for you. I think the desired behaviour here is that the user is uncreateable (to avoid users registering an account that already has edits, which could attribute those edits to someone who didn't make them) but that this is possible to override. Alternatively, all imported history might use the User@xxproject format for attribution (which is not a username that can be created), but I seriously doubt that'd be possible retroactively. Realistically, I think the ability to override the software is necessary here (similarly with renaming someone to an account which has been merged - though there is now a method to do this is a slightly more roundabout way). – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 12:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems you can create the account, which is (IMO) a bug, as it allows the imported edits to be attributed to anyone who registers the account. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 13:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of using User@xxproject for the short run. With SUL just around the corner, whenever they fix the outstanding problems though, the entire issue of someone being able to hijack contributions will become moot. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * For reference: 13798
 * I meant that when edits are imported, they should be attributed to User@xxproject - not that we rename the ghost accounts to that (as there may be more than one project which has edits of that user imported, and we can't split it into more than one user; also, there are many many users with only imported contribs, and we can't rename them all) – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
Radiation_Oncology/Lung/SCLC/Limited_Stage page was just vandalized from IP 131.123.184.49 I am reverting this one, but there may be more to come. Tdvorak (talk) 17:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)