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

Vandalism 209.62.94.50
Can an admin block this user and delete his new page creations please. I have rolled back the other vandalism already. Thanks --AdRiley (talk) 10:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Done --dark lama  14:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

wikibook usage
I'm the primary contributor to the Introduction to Sociology Wikibook. I request that people who adopt the book make note of that, but I'm not sure if everyone does. Is there anyway to find out how many views the wikibook gets? --Rcragun (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe the hit counter is down at the moment. As for attribution, you should be attributed in accord with the GFDL. You can create an authors page for the book if you like, to recognize certain authors who add their name there. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 23:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Australian On-Line Catalogue
Hi I am in the throws of completing an Australian On-line catalogue, your site was posted to the All Nations Stamp Club, so I found your site interesting, can the catalogue I have created be loaded (created in Microsoft FrontPage) be loaded direct to your site? I can be contacted at lasaboy@tpg.com.au Larry Bailey aka lasabailey Manager AAA Australian Stamps
 * No, we use a markup language specific to MediaWiki. You can see the help files at Meta. The content would need to be suitable for Wikibooks too - I can't tell from your description whether that's the case. Perhaps a more detailed description should come before worrying about the technical challenge of getting the content on Wikibooks. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 23:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Autoconfirmed user and Modern Greek
I am a newcomer to wikibooks. I am interested in studying Modern Greek and other languages. I started my lessons and got blocked when I tried to listen to the pronunciation of Greek phrases. By clicking the button I do not seem to get anywhere. In the first attempts I got a message that I should be and Autoconfirmed user to be able to make downloads and play the sound file.

I tried to find out how I could become an Autoconfirmed user... By reading a comment somewhere I got the impression that I should wait for 4 days and all doors would be opened. To no avail.

Now, when I click the button I am referred to a page that relates to uploading files.

Can someone help me on this, please?

Silvio (talk) 15:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What page are you looking at, what link? I wasn't aware that a user needed to be autoconfirmed in order to download files or listen to audio. What page did you get directed to? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No, you don't need autoconfirmed to listen to media. You should be able to press the play button and listed to the file without downloading it. I'm not sure why you're being redirected like that - a link to the page would be helpful. Some broswers choke on the Cortado player which handles our audio and video, but that doesn't sound like the problem you're having. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 16:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Modern_Greek/A1/Lesson_1 maybe? Perhaps the above person is trying to upload, all the audio's are red links, missing, it might be a good idea to remove the red links if that is the problem. SunCreator (talk) 01:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, yes. Redlinked media will take you to the upload page, which requires autoconfirmed. I'll remove them. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 10:33, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Unauthorised merge
See http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Talk:Modern_Greek#merging : a user who developed the initial (very raw) version of the book several years ago has suddenly come back and "merged" the ongoing lesson re-write effort as well as some unrelated alphabet lessons into his old pages, resulting in chaos. The other currently active contributor and I are against this merge and would like to keep restructuring the book to comply with current international standards in language teaching. What should we do? Junesun (talk) 19:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I would say that the user was being bold, but what the user did was not agreed with. I suggestion discussion, as seems to be already taking place, and try to reach a compromise that you all can agree with. If the user appears to be unwilling to compromise, let us know again and someone may try to step in as a neutral third party to mediate the situation. In the meantime avoid undoing what the user has done and try to assume good faith and keep a cool head. With the user being the initial developer, I think it can be important or can help to try to understand what their intentions for the book are/were. However the fact the user was the initial developer should not be seen as carrying any greater weight in deciding what to do next or taken as final. --dark lama  23:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Darklama is right, when you have multiple authors on a single book you must discuss changes and seek consensus on important issues. The best thing you can do right now is to start a discussion about the issue. You can talk on the user's talk page, or on the book's talk page, but make sure you invite all interested people to join in. If the changes made are not agreed upon and are highly deleterious, you should revert them until consensus is reached. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandal
Check out User talk:212.219.59.241 SunCreator (talk) 11:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

✅ Blocked yesterday. --dark lama  12:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

New (professional) Book
I am a heart surgeon. My hospital has gone though quite an extensive process to generate "evidence based" guidelines for our junior staff. To date two other hospitals have taken "copies" to use

My vision ... a wikibook. Because I want to encourage users to update / suggest content etc. However for quality reasons I absolutely must restrict visitors to suggestions, that my editorial team then accept / ditch.

If we begin to post our book, will we have the necessary editorial control ? If not may I suggest that such a feature would open up the wiki concept to many other professional groups.
 * No you'll not get editorial control, wiki's can be edited by anyone. Sounds like you want your own website to put your information. Most likely your own hospital has a website, perhaps you use that? SunCreator (talk) 11:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, SunCreator is right. There really isn't any way to maintain strict editorial control here. Besides being technically infeasible, it's against our policy. However, I do want to take the time to assure you that the decentralized wiki model can be used to develop high-quality materials despite the lack of editorial control. I know it's a little bit of a leap of faith, and I know that many people are hesitant to make the jump.
 * One thing worth noting is that wikibooks isn't exclusive, books that you write here can be copied and used in other places as well. You can use wikibooks to create the raw material, and then copy it to your personal computer for editing and then publishing and distribution.
 * As a final note, I want to point out that authors tend to stick to their own projects, and you are likely to be the primary, if not the only, author for your book for a good portion of it's development. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hard to find help pages
At present it is difficult for newcomers to find the Editing Wikitext series of pages.

Starting from the home page of WikiBooks they need to find their way to Special Groups then How-to Guides then WikiBooks Help then Editing Wikitext, to get there.

How improbable is that?

We should be making this and similar pages easier to find if the intention is to encourage new writers.

Any comments from admin? Armchair (talk) 15:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we should consider making space on the main page for these textbooks about Wikibooks (etc.) as well as placing links on the various "getting started" and FAQ pages. I will perhaps do that shortly (or you can do so!) – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 15:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Its difficult for people to find anything really, as has been discussed before. This lead to discussion to discontinue the bookshelves and was agreed to eventually phase them out in favor of Subject pages. As Wikibooks moves away from bookshelves this issue should resolve itself. For instance Subject:Help is a top-level subject area which contains Editing Wikitext along with other help books. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)