Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/August

Has a non administrator put my wikibook up for speedy deletion?
Making an Island

The only info i can get is that someone who has a signature "member" with a red hyperlink seems to have put my book up for deletion but he doesn't seem to be an administrator of any kind. don't you have to be an administrator to put something up for deletion? Has this person just copied and pasted code to do this? whats going on - V2os 01:44, 27 July 2005


 * Anyone can mark a page for speedy deletion. If you challenge that, as you have, then it becomes a regular vote for deletion, as it has. You should express your concerns on that page. Please sign your posts in future with ~ . Thankyou. - Aya T C 16:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It should be noted here that with the "official" vote count on the Vfd page that it is of overwhelming support to keep here on Wikibooks. This vote will be kept in the archives in case anybody else will want to do the same thing in the future, and can be used as the basis to a request to undelete if some overactive admin decides to kill it in the future.  --Rob Horning 11:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibook Project: Card Catalog Office
Like many of the other sister Wikimedia projects, there are special areas of the project that are designated for doing more focuesed or specialized projects that can help the community in general. On Wikipedia these are called Wikiprojects.

I'm proposing a similar kind of effort here on Wikibooks called the Card Catalog Office. ...

--The Lounge is getting ungainly; this discussion will no doubt be long, so let's move it to the discussion page where it can serve as future reference for the project. GarrettTalk 12:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Server problems
FYI: There were some server problems (ran out of diskspace) just now, which are now fixed, but approximately 5 minutes worth of edits were lost. - Aya T C 23:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks branding for intro books
Many publishers have lines of introductory books such as "Blank for Dummies" or "Total Idiots guide to Blank" or "Blank Made Easy" et cetera.

Are there any clever names some wikibooks have come up with for this purpose? I want to start a "dummies" guide to economics (that is, easy to read; i.e. about the level of a magazine, no higher mathematics) and want a cool name. If it can fall into a name scheme that can give us some real branding, all the better. Perhaps something that shows the free, open community spirit of wikis; or perhaps something short, like FAQ or RTFM. (Would the name "RTFM on Economics" be a wise choice?) MShonle 04:29, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I like this idea, in fact, Wikibooks should perhaps always be written with such an audience in mind, without having to make it explicit in the title. Unless of course you mean 'really simple', in which case, perhaps they should go on simple.wikibooks.org. FAQ is a common internet metaphor. RTFM is perhaps less good, since there is some confusion as to what the 'F' can stand for. :-) - Aya T C 19:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking maybe "The Newbie's Guide to Blank" would be good. It would basically be a signal that you wouldn't need any pre-reqs, and all the math you need would be given instead of assumed. So, for example, the Computer Science:Data Structures book wouldn't be one, because it assumes you know how to program, while a book that teaches programming from the ground up would count. Perhaps a FAQ could be merged into an appendix, too: as a form of exposition, the FAQ format has many advantages.


 * There are already some places on the web that use "Newbie's Guide," but it doesn't appear to be anyone's brand. MShonle 17:45, 31 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay. I guess the huge gulf between books aimed at academics, and books aimed for non-english speakers, could warrant a book aimed at an intermediate audience. My only concern with using the word 'newbie' in this context, is it may be confused with the common definition as per Glossary. How about "A simple guide to X" ? - Aya T C 03:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, how about "An Introduction to X for People who Don't Know Much about X." Like "An Introduction to Programming for People who Don't Know Much about Programming." Since the branding would be applied to hopefully multiple books (I'd like to get behind the programming and economic ones) it should both be memorable and have large buy-in from the community. MShonle 15:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

(Also, for alternatives, is it ok to have "Wikibooks" in the title of the book? That could help branding, but maybe the wikimedia foundation wouldn't want to see its name used like that. MShonle 15:36, 1 August 2005 (UTC))

Should General Chemistry et al be subbooks of Chemistry?
I'm slowly working on cleaning up and catting the bookshelves to make the Card Catalog transition as easy as possible. However I've just come across this. Now I would say that General Chemistry should be under Chemistry as Chemistry/General/PageName (or similar).

The structure of the chemistry book(s) is a mess, and putting them all under Chemistry/ would definitely help. Gah, still a big job though.

Anyway, I'm here for your opinions not mine... so, what do you think? Can a General Chemistry book exist in its own right? Should it be part of the Chemistry ultra-book? Or, alternately, should it merely be under Chemistry/ for organisational purposes? GarrettTalk 00:46, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, Chemistry is just a redirect to, which should perhaps be renamed Wikibooks:Chemistry bookshelf. It looks like all of the links there were originially intended to be books in their own right. Whether they stay that way, or be merged into chapters of one big uber-chemistry book is pretty arbitrary. Personally, I'd keep them as separate books, cos it requires less page moves. The other reason is that the three traditional sciences (Phys/Chem/Bio) have some overlap in places, so maybe smaller books would be better. If you were to roll up every book into one uber-book, would you in fact be left with an encyclopedia? - Aya T C 01:37, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * An encyclopedia? Well, possibly. We should not have sub-shelves, we've already got sections within the existing pages to do that--it's an all-or-nothing thing. Problem is there's already at least two naming conventions in play in each of these books, so a change between conventions would no doubt be the same amount of work as a mass-relocation. GarrettTalk 02:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * This overlapping content issue is a problem that should be addressed perhaps as some kind of guideline. I'm more in favor of books having some replication between them (such as how the data structures book and the algorithms book both have subsections on big-O notation). Naturally, the programmer in me wants to create some kind of "subroutine" that both books could invoke, so there'd be no replication, but taking big steps to avoid replication in this context creates its own problems. Even though we are taught that redundancy is to be avoided, sometimes it's an asset.


 * Realistically, if we want people to read the books we can't have them jumping around too much: it's a bad user interface, because then they won't know if they will ever reach "the end". Thus, it's probably better for a book to list the prerequsite materials in the beginning (and link to the correct wikibooks, or perhaps wikipedia entries if no such book exists or would be overkill as a book) and then include everything else the reader would need in the exposition. MShonle 04:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Personally, I'm against the "Giant book that does everything" approach. First off, its not how the real world does it- you don't have one book called "Math" that covers addition through graduate level math.  Secondly, it isn't good psychologicly- if I was to want to study chemistry and saw one book with all that info, my eyes would glaze over and I'd hit the close button.  Too much info, too much work.  Now break it into smaller chunks, and its easier to do a targeted study of just what I want.  Easier to get info, and not nearly as daunting to a new student.


 * I'd also say replication of data (such as 2 books doing Big-O) isn't a bad thing. Two ways of describing it has twice the chance of reaching someone that one way does.  It also means that both sections will fit in the writing style of the individual books better, and that you won't be forrced to backtrack or read parts of a second book in order to understand the one you really want to read.  Redundancy is only to be avoided when it adds no extra value.  Here, I think it does.  In fact, it may be a nice idea to cross-link to redundant sources within wikibooks.  Book A and B both talk about subject foo?  Link to each other, so that people reading it can see an alternate explanation.  Link to the wikipedia entry too.  Sometimes the wording used to explain a concept can make the difference between understanding a subject and coming up short.  --Gabe Sechan 20:37, August 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * Just to be sure, because I think you're replying to me, I'm not avocating a "Giant book doing everything" approach. When I said "list the prerequsite materials in the beginning" I meant simply saying the name of the topic. For example, "we assume you know Newtonian mechanics." That is a book in and of itself. But, if the idea is "we assume you know these five relational operators" it might be best to just quickly re-cap those operators (because it would only take, say, 700 words to do so) instead of sending the user on a link scavenger hunt. (One danger of using links to small topics that should be replicated instead is that there might be notational drift between the two versions, confusing the reader more.)


 * In fact, I favor smaller wikibooks that can be navigated by the user. I don't want to put on any page limits, but 128 pages is plenty long for a wikibook: something longer than that might be better put into separate volumes (for example, a large Economics book might be better as A First Course in Economics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Econometrics-- in addition to special topics like Industrial Organization and Marxism and so on). As for linking, I'm certainly in favor of providing links to pre-requisit materials, and I'm in favor of providing links to "further reading" in an appendix. But having too many links within a book can lead to lazy writing. For example, instead of writing the big-O definitions, you just provide a link to the wikipedia, and then without realizing it you use the set notation for it, which the wikipedia doesn't cover (say; or perhaps has been deleted recently by a vandal)... and then you will have lost half your readers.


 * My whole point is that studying a single topic is what you read a book for. Providing a whole bunch of links should not be the primary experience of it... that kind of undirected learning is much better at the wikipedia (which I like because it has so many rich links!-- though the extreme case of every noun or verb being linked to something is clearly too far). The reader always has the option of looking up things in the wikipedia as they wish. We need not optimize on "the number of wikipedia link," we should only optimize on writing good books that educate readers on topics. MShonle 20:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Major policy changes
I have made changes to the following pages:


 * Policies and guidelines
 * Deletion policy

I am now seeking feedback from the community before these new policies become enforced. Please direct all comments to the talk pages of those page, not here. Thankyou. - Aya T C 01:25, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Since you took out WB:WIN, then you should remove the shortcut to it and create a new shortcut WB:DP for Deletion policy. WB:DP should be enforced, while the issue of single delimiter needs to be resolved before WB:NC be promoted.  KelvSYC 02:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Done, but Angela reverted the change to WB:WIN. This is fair, since my new summary in WB:DP doesn't contain as much information as WB:WIN did. I think it might be better to, instead, merge WB:WIN into Wikibooks:About, and have that page as the canonical location for defining the scope of the project, acceptable content, and commonly excluded content as per WB:WIN, as we had previously discussed in Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines (which now has the shortcut WB:PAG). - Aya T C 16:26, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I've now done the merge. See About. The community should feel free to change it, re-word it, or just comment on its talk page. Although it's not marked as such, this document should serve as our fundamental policy document to be written by the community, for the community, whilst our actual policy documents listed at WB:PAG should serve to help implement it, not override it. This should help us clear out one or two lingering candidates in WB:VFD and WB:VFU. - Aya T C 19:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I think in addition to these policy changes, we should rework the guidelines for contributors. This will standardize what books should be like (while, of course, allowing much variation in application). For example, a guideline like "have a prerequest section if you need to assume material, and then provide links to wikibooks or wikipedia entries, or external links, that cover that material." MShonle 21:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a link to this "guidelines" page? - Aya T C 19:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity
A general discussion of Wikiversity and its role on Wikibooks is currently under discussion. The following e-mail was sent by Angela Beesley to the general Wikimedia Foundation mailing list:

Despite claims to the contrary, Wikiversity was certainly _not_ protected at the advice of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Perhaps it was advised by one member of that foundation, but other Board members were not consulted. I am disgusted this approach would be taken with no consensus from the community.

Wikiversity has been running for a long time on Wikibooks and I see no agreement whatsoever for it to be suddenly shut down like this.

Protection is a defense against vandalism, not a way of expressing one person's point of view on whether or not a sub-project of Wikibooks should exist. Please remove the misleading statements about protection and explain why you ever thought the Foundation would propose such an awful measure on a popular set of pages like Wikiversity.

Angela.

Commentary on this message can be posted here, and will be relayed to Foundation-l, particularly any comments by Aya. A general discussion about the future of Wikiversity on Wikibooks should be directed to Talk:Wikiversity. --Rob Horning 04:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * After having put some more thought into this, I would say that my protecting the page was the wrong thing to do in this case, since, although I feel that knowingly using Wikibooks as a free content-provider to host texts which are not part of the Wikibooks project (Wikimania05 is another example), are tantamount to vandalism, there should be some formal clarification. I will not do it again, and I strongly recommend that others do not, until we have some sort of official Vandalism policy, which states when page protecting and IP/account blocking are justified. The correct action would have been to mark it as a VfD, but I didn't really want it all to be deleted, since a lot of work has gone into it already, and it seems a shame to delete it all. I shall start work on such a policy when time permits. - Aya T C 16:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Introduction to Probability textbook
It turns out that there's a 520-page textbook on probability which has been GPL'd and made available as a free download. The text is by Grinstead & Snell, published by the American Mathematical Society. It can be downloaded here. Perhaps parts of it would make good additions to the Probability wikibook, or perhaps even the entire thing should be wikified? --NeuronExMachina 06:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that there is a difference between the GPL and the GFDL. Someone else might know how significant those incompatibilities are. However, given that all of the work is done, it might be a better candidate for wikisource instead of wikibooks. The wikibook on probability of course could cite G&S as a reference or recommended reading. I know for myself the more math books on a subject I have, the more likely I'll understand it. MShonle 15:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Also note that unless you have the intentions of significantly changing, or annotating the text, this content should be housed on Wikisource, not Wikibooks. To clarify - Wikibooks is for creating new texts, whereas Wikisource is for housing existing texts which are compatible with the GFDL. I suspect the GPL is compatible with GDFL (many open-source documents used GPL prior to the existence of GFDL), but check on Wikisource first. Once it's on Wikisource, it can easily be linked from the Probability Wikibook. - Aya T C 16:31, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, it can be easily linked from the Probability wikibooks even if it isn't on wikisource. MShonle 17:12, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The one distinction you need to keep in mind about Wikisource is that once it is put there, you can't change the content on Wikisource. That is, Wikisource puts more emphasis on fidelity to the original text than necessarily being up to date...even to fixing punctuation or spelling errors.  Placing the content here on Wikibooks would allow you to modify the content and/or update the content.  This is one of those policy decisions that is sticky to work with, although I would have to agree that the initial place to put something like this would be to Wikisource, then moving one part at a time over to Wikibooks as you update and change the content, with links to Wikisource where you havn't.  That would allow a more liberal policy toward e-texts like this. Another e-book that I love is Light and Matter by Ben Crowell.  With a little bit of sweet talking and some minor effort, I would venture that he would be willing to allow that e-text to be moved to Wikisource and/or Wikibooks.  And this is and honest to goodness textbook that is currently in use at a University.  Dr. Crowell has been very cordial when I've e-mailed him in the past, and is very approachable.  He started this particular text book before things like Wikibooks got started, and some of his early discussions were how to coordinate collaborative editing of content like this.  There are a couple more textbooks I can think of that would be similar kinds of candidates for inclusion into Wikibooks and/or Wikisource. --Rob Horning 09:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
 * An update to add a little bit more here...If you do "move content" from Wikisource to Wikibooks, leave the old stuff at Wikisource... don't transwiki it as it is a "historical" document that needs preserving on its own terms. I don't think there is any explicit policy of forking content from Wikisource, but we should not push our way around over there to suit our needs here.  Just copy the material and then add the content as needed. --Rob Horning 18:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Request to alter the protected page : Wikibooks portal
Request to alter the protected page : Wikibooks portal and substitute the former paragraph FR by this one : - Bienvenue ! Wikilivres s'est donné pour but de mettre gratuitement à la disposition de tous, des textes pédagogiques au contenu libre. Voir À propos de Wikilivres pour en savoir plus sur le projet. - Greudin


 * Done. - Aya T C 00:13, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

More policy amalgamation
I've amalagamated WB:NC and WB:HNS into Naming policy. Comments to Wikibooks talk:Naming policy. Thanks. - Aya T C 00:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks World Records
This is a project proposal. I have have noticed that we do not have any type of book about world records. such information is readily available on the internet and in books. Why do we not have a book about this? --Sb2k4 21:10, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like the kind of book that could get a lot of users. Just like the jokebook and the cookbook, you can add an entry that's high quality and doesn't need to be coordinated with anything else other than being put in the right category. However, with all three of these: the cookbook, the jokebook, and a records book, it would be hard to say that any of them were instructional reasons. As we're changing our policies I think we should absolutely be clear on where we draw the line. MShonle 21:49, 6 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You might want to look at Proposals for new projects, where a project just like this is being proposed. There already is a wiki server that has been established, although it is not currently a part of Wikimedia.  The intention though is that they do want to move the content over to a Wikimedia server, if they can get enough support.  Something like this really doesn't belong on Wikibooks because it is not instructional material.  --Rob Horning 01:56, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I would agree that both the joke book and the proposed records book don't really count as instructional resources. But, the cookbook definitely is instructional, because each recipe is a set of instructions used to accomplish a particular cooking task. Geo.T 02:03, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * To make this instructional, then, maybe we should add a section on how to break these records - maybe chronicaling Wikibookians' previous attempts. Possibly we could even get the Record Holder's advice on trying to beat it - but probabaly not as they wouldn't want their record broken! I suggest we discuss this on World Records' talk page. --Sb2k4 08:09, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If we wanted to have some fun, we could of course have "records" for the most number of edits, the most number of sock puppets, worst vandals (most edits before being banned), longest time to become admin, shortest time to become admin (Aya comes close here), largest flame, most edited wikibook page, etc. Of course that would just be for Wikibooks, but we could still have some fun with it. --Rob Horning 10:19, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

IRC
Note that the Wikibooks project has its own IRC channel on  called. I shall try to be available in there for real-time discussions. I suggest that other users, particularly other administrators, might like to do the same. If you don't know how to connect to IRC, please drop me a line on my talk page (click 'T' in my sig). Thankyou. - Aya T C 20:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Another IRC-related note to administrators, or other users, who like to keep an eye on recent changes, there's another IRC channel on  called , which shows edits/moves/uploads as they happen in real-time. Ideal for quickly spotting vandalism. - Aya T C 04:18, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks:List_of_all_books is now obsolete
Today I've been bold and labelled this page as defunct. People have been adding books to it up until very recently, but it has to stop, there is no way to keep it updated. It's bad enough trying to ensure books end up on the correct bookshelf without trying to put them in two different places at once.

If we still want an uber-list we can use transclusions, and that will perfectly list all the books without manual duplication.

My new purpose for this page is to ensure that each of these books is also on a bookshelf; once that is checked it can be removed. Also I'm trying to get the foreign stuff transwikied. Any help doing this would be greatly appreciated. GarrettTalk 10:04, 9 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I think this is a wise move. The Card Catalog Office is where you ought to go to in order to have your Wikibook placed on a bookshelf, if you are having problems trying to figure the system out.  That perhaps should be updated on Help:How to start a book, which should also be a part of the guidelines/policies umbrella of pages. In many ways the whole process of starting a Wikibook should be more along the lines of starting a Wikiproject on Wikipedia.  There are a whole bunch of random Wikibook modules laying around that really don't have any coherant organization, and there is also a mistaken belief on the part of some new contributors that they can add "articles" here like Wikipedia. Anyway, thanks for trying to clean things up Garrett. --Rob Horning 13:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Overridding images with wikicommons images
I put up File:Jupiter Earth Comparison.png and found that wikibooks does not show the NASA tag like wiki commons does. So I put up the picture at commons at and used the tags. The commons version is not overriding the wikibooks one. I want to use the NASA tag and import the picture from commons, so how do we get rid of the other picture?--StarryTG 02:55, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I deleted the local copy for you. That seems to have solved your problem. Geo.T 03:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you. --StarryTG 04:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Local images always override Commons images, not the other way around, so until there's a differentiation attribute the WB filename always has precedence. GarrettTalk 05:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

New enhancement request for MediaWiki
I have just created new enhancement requents in Mediazilla which I think are very needed in Wikibooks, specially now that the proposed Naming policy recomends using subpages. They are:


 * 3113 2308 - Provide a way to watch all the subpages of a page
 * 3114 845- /Subpage to be converted to Subpage on saving
 * 3115 - Provide a quick syntax for linking to sibling subpages
 * Along with this one already existent: 233 - Provide a list of subpages of a page

If you think they are important you can vote for them in order to attract the developers attention. ManuelGR 00:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. The one was a dupe though, you've got to really watch when you start new bug things, people have thought of virtually everything already! :) I'll certainly be voting at some point. I think the subpage auto-TOC is the only one that's immediately useful. The others would be but can be worked around with a little more typing. GarrettTalk 02:32, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * In terms of Bug #3115, I find that this seems to work fine right now. Check out my user page to see some links just as this feature request seems to request be added.  In particular check out my sandbox.  It is a part of Wikibooks even now.  As far as the rest of the new feature enhancements are concerned, I think they are good ideas and I have voted for them as priorities for fixing them up.  --Rob Horning 13:54, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * About Bug #3115 I thought I tested it and did not worked. Maybe I did it before someone implemented the feature. In any case, the feature is not (was not?) mentioned on any editing documentation I have read. It is great in any case to have this one! Subpages are now more useful for internal book linking. About searching bugs before submitting, I did it, but my searches always included the subpage word and this one did not show up. ManuelGR 16:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Solved, I added those kind of links to m:Help:Link. ManuelGR 16:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Regarding bug 3114/845 - Also note that  is equivalent to (but not transformed to) , which is even better IMHO. This makes subpage links really minimal. I'd prefer it if   was not transformed to  , but just interpreted as such. - Aya T C 04:11, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * This syntax doesn't follow the principle of minimal surprise and AFAIK is not documented anywhere. For the subpages the pipe link should work equally than for namespaces, whether or not this kind of syntax is expanded on saving (I'd also prefer not). But at least we have a concise syntax, which was my primary missed capability. ManuelGR 17:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Time Limits for Admins on Wikibooks
I have a discussion on the Administrator's info talk page regarding a policy change for how long an inactive administrator can keep their admin status. I am posting here on the Staff Lounge mainly to "advertise" that this discussion is ongoing, but the discussion should take place on that talk page. --Rob Horning 12:03, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Art Tutorials?
I administrate an online art community and have been having members write instructional tutorials and articles for my site. The articles and tutorials are more "fine-art" oriented and mostly on drawing technique and photography techniques. Most contributors have shown interest in using these articles for a wikibook. Would a general how-to manual on art be in the realm of wikibooks?

If so, would anyone be able to mentor me a bit on how to go about starting this? I have done editing for wikipedia, but not wikibooks.

email : blaine@blainegarrett.com aim and yahoo : zombiediv msn : garmark3@hotmail.com icq : 2976110


 * I think this sounds in-line with Wikibooks, provided it's geared for "instructional use." It would be particularly great if there were lots of pictures, too! MShonle 23:43, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I would love this. AND I'll help you get started! Kellen T 05:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I started the book Art_Tutorials yesterday. Thanks to Kellen and Aya for the help and suggestions. Blainegarrett 17:33, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Namespace listings
Does anybody know how to get a listing of all namespaces in mediawiki (including the extended ones)? Do I have to do a database dump? Kellen T 05:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well. If you just want the ones on Wikibooks, I have a list at User:Aya/Wikibooks. I forget exactly where I got that from, but I have a feeling it was when I downloaded a DB dump. If it's for another wiki, then I suspect the drop-down list on Special:Allpages ought to list them all. - Aya T E C 14:43, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. Well I know mediawiki 1.5 is supposed to have 'extended' namespaces (such that the cookbook would get its own) and I wanted to see if anything else is in there already -- this might be in 1.6 though. The ones you point to are the standard ones of course and I believe you can find a listing on wikipedia when you look up namespaces. Kellen T 19:19, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity "Relaunch"
This is an FYI for all interested people. I have relaunched as a new project Wikiversity with a proposed timetable for when it can be started as a formal sister Wikimedia project. There is some activity with the Foundation Board over this issue as well. If you are interested in this project succeeding, please add your name to the votes on those pages and voice conerns/opinions on how Wikiversity ought to be organized, and lets do this the way it should have been done in the first place. I am trying to "go by the book" on this project, and the items I listed should make that happen in the manner it should. --Rob Horning 14:58, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
I just created this. If you come across something which makes you laugh, but is obviously inappropriate for the site, add it in before you send it to oblivion. - Aya T E C 22:28, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Special:Recentchanges page update
The Special:Recentchanges page still has a notice about open registration for Wikimania 2005. Maybe this could be changed to link to some information about what happened at Wikimania 2005. --JWSurf 14:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki errors
I've been getting a ton of these this morning:


 * Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Database.php on line 1667

Anybody else? Kellen T 18:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
 * The stylesheets for me are all messed up, too. MShonle 18:46, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that no-one who fixes these things watches this page. Try http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ - Aya T E C 19:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Savoir-faire : Wikipedia didn't want it, but do we?
This seems to be one of those feel-good tree-hugging we-can-change-the-world-with-only-$1-a-day guilt-trip websites. It does not look to me like a book.

It is a half-hearted translation of w:fr:Wikipédia:Portail Savoir-faire (note even the ! is still there).

Wikipedia doesn't want it, with the leaning be to transwiki. You'll notice my voice there among the transwikiers, but the more I think about it the less I think it's going to be anything more than a World Vision fluff site.

Its scope is ill-defined and as wide as the milky way. The goal of a wikibook is to have as narrowminded a goal as possible to ensure it actually gets written. This won't.

Anyway I'm tempted to just dump it as both a half-hearted translation project and a "we don't want it so let's dump it on Wikibooks" case. GarrettTalk 11:26, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The "book" describes itself as a project and/or a portal. There were similar "projects" before that we've deleted, and this one seems no different. Perhaps we can keep a sliver of a page up to redirect them to Free markets, which is what they really need to be reading about if they really want "[...] to allow the largest number of people to fulfil their basic human needs."


 * Note: the last comment of mine is just to be snarky. I think we've found yet another wikicity... perhaps it can be renamed wikidump? (as in WP dumps on us what they don't want, and we dump on WC what we don't want-- hey, perhaps that's the whole purpose of WC in the first place, to allow WP and WB to be well edited and clean, guilt-free) MShonle 01:41, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Book about Linux Kernel
I don't know for sure where to put it, but I would like to see a book about the Linux Kernel that explains something about it structure, what this and that file does, the most important functions, etc. A more deep dive in the Linux Kernel, so you can actually understand the stuff that comes up when you boot Linux. I don't know nothing about it, anyone who would like to this? I, and many with me I think, would like it.


 * This is a general FAQ-type item: If you want to start a new Wikibook, please just add it to the "New Wikibooks" section, even if you don't know what bookshelf it belongs on.  We'll try to help you out in terms of relocating the book or if it should be merged into another Wikibook as a subsection.  For now, just add the content that you think would be appropriate and feel free to create a new Wikibook subject if one doesn't already exist.  Don't just create a Wikibook, however, if you are not willing to put some effort into adding some content.  For the Linux Kernel, you might want to look at the Computing Bookshelf and other similar Wikibooks about Linux before getting started, including Linux kernel, which has already been on Wikibooks for some time but is in serious need of reformatting and reorganization.  --Rob Horning 13:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

w:Wikipedia:Experimental Deletion
Considering the amount of arguing that seems to go on in WB:VFD, maybe something like this could help us out? - Aya T E C 22:59, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It sounds interesting. Perhaps we should see how it plays out at WP first, which is more seasoned in terms of other policies. MShonle 01:28, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually I think my method of bringing questionable modules to the Lounge works quite well. People can discuss without a deletion deadline causing them to make up their minds on the spot, and when consensus is reached we can then shove that module on Vfd and pass it through probably without complaint. This temporary blanking thing could get confusing, and also eliminates "What links here" for pages mentioned within, making things appear orphans when they aren't. I also agree with Mshonle, let's not be Wikipedia's guinea pig; if it works well for them, then we can accept it with open arms. GarrettTalk 02:32, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll have to check out more what is being discussed. One of the things that I do think is positive from all of the discussions on the VfD pages is that it helps to clarify policies in much the same manner that appellate court decisions can help to define law and court procedures.  This analogy can go too far, but it is something to think about.  Essentially what is being asked is a community judgement on a particular set of pages and asking what should be done to them.  Keep in mind that the easy stuff is deleted automatically (usually with a speedy delete or even out right manual deletion by WB admins). I've also suggested that perhaps a "heirarchy" of article problem markup tags should be enhanced, with perhaps a note that a VfD discussion should really only happen on the most unusual or troublesome kinds of decision.  Currently the VfD also seems to serve as a "court of appeals" when somebody does a speedy delete (as is the VfU page).  Right now we are cleaning out a bunch of cobwebs in the hidden recesses of Wikibooks that have accumulated over quite a bit of time, and that is bringing its own resistance.  Frankly I see the VfD page as a healthy sign of life for this wiki project and that people actually care about what is happening.  If there were no arguments, it would be a crying shame indeed.  Try to start a VfD discussion on Wikispecies and see how far you get (I doubt you would even get a response, but I can be surprised sometimes.)  --Rob Horning 02:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statistical Info about Wikibooks:
I've been doing some searches using Alexa and trying to find just how popular Wikibooks has become for 'netizens, and I found an interesting fact:

Wikibooks is the #2 most popular E-book website, behind adobe.com. And I can't seperate out the statistics for just e-books (and the acrobat reader) from the rest of adobe.com, so it is a very unfair comparison. For the rest of the e-book websites that Alexa compares, the #2 site is quite a bit below Wikibooks. See the comparison between Wikibooks and eBookPro.com en.wikibooks comprises about 78% of all Wikibook traffic, according to Alexa. And folks on Wikipedia said that Wikibooks was a dead project nobody cared about.... Keep up the good work, and it appears that even the most recent efforts to clean up here have made a significant difference, at least from people coming by to visit and look around. --Rob Horning 22:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Interesting! And I do think the news of our death has been highly exaggerated. It takes time, but we're showing results. :-) (And I'm trying to figure out why wikispecies was made? wasn't the 'pedia meant for that?) MShonle 23:12, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 'species was made to [eventually] have a different, very formalized structure; and to serve as a reference for species articles in the 'pedia. the project as it stands today was set aside for the enthusiasts to work out what it would become.  But they grew a bit tired of discussing that before reaching a firm conclusion...  Sj 23:38, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Idea: Audio production techniques from beginner to producer
For several years i've written interactive multimedia CD ROMS for schools and universities based around music technology varying from how to get started (plugging in a microphone) right the way up to "perception of augmented sound" and i was thinking to myself since i dont do it anymore why dont i make other people who do it work twice as hard by creating a wikibook incroperating all this knowledge. What this book is looking for is people genuinley interested in showing and instructing others on the nuts and bolts of music technology from scientists to bedroom musicians.

wiki idea
a wiki school that you could get a diploma from. currently you can only say you learned something from this but have no way of proving it. I don't really know who i should contact and give this idea to. It wouldn't be much of a wiki but it would use a copy of wikibooks and other wiki articles, and restrict editing to the version on their site to make sure they are free of errors. (i'm aware that the only diploma that you could probably get from the content currently on wikibooks is a highschool diploma and there aren't enough completed college subject books for a higher diploma, and that you could only use completed books.) On the plus side it would be good for people who can't afford to go to college.--V2os 02:05, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It's a nice idea, but Wikibooks is only for textbooks, and not for courses (see the recent discussion about removing Wikiversity from Wikibooks, Votes for deletion/Wikiversity). There is no reason why a real school couldn't use books from Wikibooks as part of their courses though. Geo.T 03:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * There have been some on-line schools that give some sort of diploma after taking so many courses and doing some work that can be considered academic in nature. As far as a current effort with Wikimedia projects, you might want to check out Wikiversity for such a school-like approach.  Right now it is still being organized, but they certainly could use any help you can give to them.  Right now it appears that it is going to be more of a non-accredited adult education center.  I think developing a GED curriculum wouldn't be too diffiuclt for Wikiversity, and moving toward a junior college level of education in the future would be a reasonable goal to shoot toward. As far as trying to get a Wikibook to a publishable state, that is certainly something we have been working toward as well.  The Collaboration of the Month effort is specifically about improving standards of various Wikibooks, and trying to get these Wikibooks to a publishable state.  At the moment I don't think any Wikibook really is in that condition, although many of the books listed as a Book of the month come as close as what exists here at the moment.  Writing a book is a very labor intensive work, so give us some time before you pass judgement on what is happening here.  I think in a couple of years there are going to be some outstanding Wikibooks that are going to make the publishing industry turn their heads.  --Rob Horning 14:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If you want to make a GED (or any other similar program for another school type) for wikiversity it'd be well appreciated. But you'd still have to get issued the GED... however GEDs are issued (I think the state does it?).  There's a lot of problems involving accrediting a school.  Its slow, expensive, and difficult.  And the work of giving diplomas afterwards is not easy either-  how do we prove you did the work and not your friend you paid?  Thats why I doubt wikiversity will ever try to accreditize itself. --Gabe Sechan 22:36, August 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * wikiversity doesn't want to be an accredited school- one solution is to go around this since wikimedia sites are international thus the diploma, degree, etc would be good internationaly. (it would have to be comparable to people with college education. you probably would have to charge a small fee for making and shipping the diploma. as for proving they did it you could allow people to take tests and have their future employer watch for cheating, probably some better ways though. --V2os 01:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

WikiSpam in Talk:Computer Programming
Talk:Computer Programming is currently hard hit by WikiSpam. It might be that some Bot-Progammer is currently using the page to debug his/her programm.

The pattern is always the same - the first page is completly replaced by a link. The text above the 1st chapter is left alone - so if the bot hits next time the former 2nd chapter is replaced. I suspect that this will continue until all pages become spam links.

Each hit is done with a new ip address - so IP blocking won't help when this bot ever goes live. I suggest we start looking into combating this bot before that happens. --Krischik 14:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Bots are allowed on Wikimedia projects, but it is strongly recommended that anybody attempting to write such a beast should raise the issue first with the community, and create a user account for that bot, together with special "bot" flags that can be turned on by administrators. See also Requests for permissions  --Rob Horning 14:07, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You missunderstand - I think there is a Spam-Bot in the making. And I don't think a Spam-Bot programmer will "raise the issue first with the community" - no matter how nice you ask him/her.

--Krischik 14:25, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Krischik, Wikispam is a common problem at Wikibooks. As you say, blocking has little effect on this Spam-Bot. The best we can do is to watch the page, and to revert the spam soon after it happens (I've just added it to my watch list). Geo.T 01:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * The websites have been added to the global spam block list. Any edits including those urls will now be blocked. --Cspurrier 01:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks Cspurrier.:) BTW, how did you do that? I'm new to this whole admin thing. Geo.T 01:45, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I added it on meta to Requests for addition to the spam blacklist Meta:Talk:Spam blacklist, and I also asked on IRC :) --Cspurrier 01:49, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * What I was trying to point out is that sometimes a person trying to "legitimately" start a bot project on a Wiki that might actually do some good can also screw things up royally.  This is the sort of experimentation that I was trying to talk about, and it would be better to simply download MediaWiki and try out the stuff on a box of your own first (perhaps even downloading the db for one of the active wikis as well).  This can also be mistaken for a "Spam-bot" and the results are often the same.  On the other hand, somebody designing a bot for pure malicious purposes (what you seem to be implying here) is a minor concern, but all we can do is try and fix the damage.  The worst that could happen is that the whole wiki would be down for some time, but most damage can be fixed if we care to really deal with it.  There are also technological protections that can be done to stop bots, but I think the best thing to do is let the idiot who is making it have their fun for awhile and they will eventually go away.  Ignore the whole thing and it won't become a harder problem and turn into a "game".  --Rob Horning 10:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Page broken
After adding a navbar to, the module renders incorrectly in Firefox. Every other page with the template renders fine. Can someone help, maybe? &mdash;Snargle 17:16, 21 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what's wrong. Could you describe what it should look like, or provide a screengrab or something? I can't see any difference except that it's a few pixels wider than the others (for some reason). You could try clearing your cache (Ctrl+F5 on Windows), that might work. GarrettTalk 04:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I think I see the problem, it's one of those niggling MediaWiki rendering bugs. I'll try rearranging the template code to see if that works. GarrettTalk 04:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * That did work. Thanks.&mdash;Snargle 09:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Rendering problems
The HSME book seems to be having problems. It's centre justified. What is the problem? Xiaodai 04:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh it seems to have fixed itself. Xiaodai 09:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

download pages
Isn't there something that lets you download books, and if there is i would like the link. --V2os 21:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I tried an "experiment" and it seemed to have worked for me. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you earlier though.  Take a look at a sub-page from my user page for an example of a whole Wikibook being available at once.  '***__WARNING___*** Be aware that this page has many image resources, so it will take a very long time to load on most web browsers.  I did this throught the use of templates and grabbing sub-pages to connect the book together as one complete Wikibook.  Going this route even allows you to reorder content, and even add stuff from other Wikibooks that may be appropriate as needed.  The problems I am encountering right now is that I'd like to have a "higher level" category separation, or at least some way to "demote" the heading levels for the sub pages.  In short, yes you can have a whole Wikibook assembled and put together for your favorite Wikibook, but it will take a little more effort on your part in order to get that accomplished.  You just have to be creative on how you get it accomplished.  Any other ideas on how to accomplish this or to fix the "problems" in this page?--Rob Horning 03:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)


 * You could try indenting sections to show hierarchy. You should be able to do this by drawing a table as follows...:


 * Then you can fiddle with the table's formatting pixel-by-pixel, and even define backgrounds and fonts and whatnot, and the transcluded text should then obey it. You can then draw a table inside that table to make the next section obey both tables, and so forth and so on. GarrettTalk 13:42, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Qualification for a Wikibook?
I was looking at a video game article at Wikipedia, have a look. Beneath A Steel Sky I think the section "LINC codes" probably doesnt belong in an Encyclopedia, could this go in as a Wikibook article or does it not qualify? - 202.7.176.134 21:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, it's certainly not encyclopedic. However we try to discourage moving content if there isn't going to be a modest-sized book built around it. If you are going to start some sort of BASS game guide, then by all means go ahead!
 * If you're only looking to move this one section and not really expand upon it, I would recommend you copy these onto the Gameinfo Wikicity instead, it's just the home for codes and things like this. I don't know if they have an entry for BASS yet, but you could always make one if they don't.
 * Anyway, hope that helps! GarrettTalk 03:05, 25 August 2005 (UTC)