Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2004/September

Changing to the german site wikibooks
Hi, there is a new german site "wikibooks" and the german titles will be copied from the english to the german site and than deleted here in the english site.

For the book "Photoschule Großformat" has 130 pages and more than 100 images it should have its place in the english site in future. So I will be thankfull if you have a look that it will not be deleted here. bye and good success lars 12:00, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * my opinion is, that the german sides here shouldn't be deleted, because the GFDL demands that the history of the document should be saved. as the transwikisystem is not working yet, we put a message (see Outdoor - Klettern for example) on the copied sides. so people know that the side is now located in the german wikibooks, but the version history is saved. --Moolsan 13:11, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The GFDL doesn't require that the page history be saved, just that the authors be properly attributed. This can be accomplished easily by use of an authors page for the entire wikibook or the talk page for individual modules. Additionally, a credit line can be added to the edit summary when the text is moved, or can be added to the text in the main namespace module page.  Finally, if the interwiki page move feature ever is finished, the page can be undeleted and the history moved at a later date (not the prefered option, as it requires functions that may never be implemented).  However, I have seen some of the German modules changed to interwiki redirects to de:.  This is not acceptable, as interwiki redirects are very hard to deal with after they are created. Gentgeen 14:53, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * To deal with the page history, there is an interesting solution: Have all of the editors to that page do the exact same edits to the de: page as they did to the original en: page, using the timestamp from the en: page and their original summary as a summary. It's tedious and complicated, but it gets the history in the right order and shows exactly who wrote what and when. - SamE 18:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The question is if there is really a need to transfer the English page history. As a matter of fact there are links in other wikipedia articles or somewhere else in the web, e.g. Google search results, referring the German en.wikibooks.org pages. To keep the consistency of those links and avoid dead links the original German en.wikibook.org pages have to be available in future. Otherwise all websites refering the German en.wikibook.org pages will contain dead links. I know it's not our problem to keep other peoples websites up to date. But it's a matter of good manner to offer and guarantee that service that content of wikibooks offered once are available in future when using the same URL / URI which once was valid. Even if there is just a sign redirecting you. So if this service should be offered the older page history will be still available. No need to transfer this one. --Merkel 13:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * i think that would be a fine pratice, as it saves the history of the document and the old URL, as you said. and as it doesn't look like the transwiki-system will work in the near future - and if it would, there would be the next problem of merging the old and the new histories together - it seems the best way to go. and once all german articles are transfered, we could delete all the pictures which are used only in german articles, to reduce the disk-load of the english system. --Moolsan 13:22, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hi, the first problem seems to be cleared. If there is a sign as (outdoor - Klettern) it is ok - for there are links in wikipedia and elsewhere to the old place. I was afraid that someday the book is NOT copied to the german part (for it seems to difficult to do it) but deleted in the english site. best wishes lars 10:27, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * i'm sure that it will be copied some time, but for myself it's that i'm currently working for an math-exam and so i haven't that much time to copy such a big article. greetings --Moolsan 11:14, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I think, that after a while (e.g. at the end of 2004) we should delete the german pages in en, that have been copied. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure, that the GDFL is not a problem in this respect and I think that some tidying up is a good thing. Links on external webpages should change to the new location anyway and google will soon find the german wikibooks. Then it is preferable, that google doesn't show the old pages. Maybe I'll find the time to copy the book of Lars, maybe I'll even find a way to let this do a bot automatically. Can't say at the moment. --berni 15:23, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It´s done - so I say bye, lars 06:58, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No I don´t - there is an other plan. I will translate the old version in the english wikibooks to english, so I can learn a little about this language. For there is NO history it´s not a problem. And to find a new english title there can be amde a direct line. And after that may be there is somewhere who can translate my english in english. lars 07:43, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Collaboration with FHSST
I've had some contact with Free High School Science Texts about potential collaboration with Wikibooks. They are developing GFDL textbooks in Africa.

They are intending to upload their books onto wikibooks but not until they have finished their drafts since they find the getting the format they need for the South African syllabus easier to do outside the wiki.

However, they would like the Wikibooks community to be involved and are open to further suggestions on how best to do this. It might be useful if they could have a page here that lists the sections they need help with, so that people could write content here and then that could be incorporated into their books.

Does this seem a good idea? If so, what would be a good place to put a page about this?

Angela 14:37, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * My only thought is that the needed sections should probably be written after the drafts are visibile, to avoid repeating what has already been said or using different terminology (just for example). Similarly, to bootstrap their efforts, they could try copying from related wikipedia and wikibook content; if for none other than to start with a somewhat vetted placeholder. MShonle 13:43, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Extra namespaces for Wikibooks
MediaWiki now has support for the addition of arbitrary namespaces. This could be used, for example, to put all the bookshelves into a "Bookshelf:" namespace. Let me know if you want me to set up any namespaces for Wikibooks (you can contact me on my Wikipedia talk page).--w:User:Eloquence
 * "Cookbook:" would be good :). Gentgeen 18:12, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I have proposed a namespace policy at Help:Namespaces. TUF-KAT 00:55, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Moving pages from en to other subdomain
I've written a bot (=computer program), that is able to copy pages and images from en.wikibooks.org to an other subdomain. I've used this bot to transfer about 300 german pages in 2 days. If you want me to help you copying to other subdomains, please contact me at http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Berni --berni 10:21, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jokes and humor
Experienced Wikipedian, newbie Wikibookian here. I'm wondering about the lack of jokes, humor, and so forth here at Wikibooks. Is there a consensus against the addition of such content, or has no one thought to add any yet? What Wikibooks is not doesn't mention humor, though some humor qualifies as fiction.

My question is this: would it be acceptable to create a "Humor" bookshelf and start filling it in? Or would this not be academic enough? Personally, I have no desire to see Wikibooks become a ribald joke dump. I'm only asking because I'm a fan of "architects vs. engineers vs. physicists vs. mathematicians" type jokes, having fed on them throughout college. They might have a place here, but there may need to be some strict limits set on what types of humor is acceptable &mdash; not an easy task, lots of grey lines. Thanks, &bull; Benc &bull; 05:02, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Try the Nasrudin page I started as a way into adding your jests Lobster 18:17, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Counting of Chapters/Books, Naming Convention
At the mainpage it's nice to give a number, that shows the size of the wiki. Therefore the variable has been invented. Unfortunately this variable fits the need of encyclopedias, but not of libraries. What I mean is, it would be nicer to have a variable that counts books, not chapters. But even with the chapters, this variable gets wrong, because it count only chapters, that contain a link. I checked this for the german wikibooks, about 20% of the chapters are missed there. It is possible tho switch the software to count only pages that contain a komma, but still about 20% of the articles are missed.

I will soon write a bug report/feature request at mediazilla, so that it is possible that the string, that has to be contained in a page, can be set arbitrary, even the empty string, which would result in counting every page.

It would still be nice to have a variable let's say, that does not count subpages. There we come to an other problem: Is there a convention on how to name subpages? I know books that use different conventions, namely: "Blah: blub", "Blah:blub" and "Blah/blub" each having advantages and disadvantages. The doublepoint-versions may interfere with namespaces that might cause trouble in the future, it might also confuse new users ("There is a book called Wikibooks?!?) The slash version has the disadvantage that it is not breakable and that it looks odd (at least some people say so).

Have some of this topic been discussed earlier? Does anyone has a suggestion? If there is a consensus about the naming convention I can include this in the bug report, so I will wait some answers, befor I'll go on.--berni 09:12, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * We're moving to a namespace-based system (see Help:Namespaces), so everything should soon be Blah:Blub. TUF-KAT 16:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Well yes. What I don't understand is: How are the new namespaces created (in case I want to start a new book)? As far as I know, normal users can't do that.--berni 08:30, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Normal users can create namespaces, but you can pretend. For example, if you write a new textbook on Swahili, use namespaces so that titles are like this: Swahili:Verbs, Swahili:Nouns, and leave a note at Eloquence's talk page on en.wikipedia.  He (or any other developer) can create the namespace.  TUF-KAT 21:55, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)