Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/December

Missing Wikibooks policies
I know there is the little policy/vote thing, but I thought I'd bring it up here. We seem to be missing a few policies here at Wikibooks. Notably, , and. I am not positive which policies are really warranted here, but I thought I'd start building the Wikibooks policies. Please see my sandbox for an adapted start to the No original research policy. Any comments or tweaks are encouraged. Thanks. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

And wow, no policy about personal attacks. I have adapted the en.wiki NPA policy and have started a poll about enforcing it. Please see Wikibooks talk:No personal attacks. -- LV (Dark Mark) 19:59, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yet another missing policy important to Wikibook integrity. Please see Wikibooks talk:No legal threats for poll to enforce. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:50, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that bringing over all those policies quickly is critical to resolving some of the issues we've had here.--09:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC) this comment from Jimbo Wales


 * I've been so busy on my books trying to get content up to an acceptable level, that I havent really taken the time to cite everything. I try to list at least a partial bibliography, but it's hard to keep up with all the citations. I guess that's going to be one of the next projects I start working on. -- 14:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Feedback on my first wiki-book? ("Stuttering Therapy")
I've started moving my book "No Miracle Cures: A Multifactoral Guide to Stuttering Therapy" to wikibooks. The wiki-title is "Stuttering Therapy." Please send me suggestions or tell me what mistakes I made! E.g., I couldn't find how to move the book onto the "Medical: Clinical Medicine: Speech-Language Pathology" bookshelf (which I also created). I've moved the first chapter. I'll try to move the other chapters in the next week or two. Thomas David Kehoe 22:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * can you put a link to the book. I could not find it Juliusross 23:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Stuttering Therapy --Kernigh 15:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * You'd be better off splitting all of the chapters off onto their own pages. For example, the Introduction could go on and so on. Odd bloke 14:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC) unsigned comment by unknown user

Programming:Visual Basic .NET
Why is the VB .NET book located here, and not at Visual Basic .NET --Gerard Foley 02:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Because using the Programming namespace for a programming language makes eminent sense? Odd bloke 19:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Whether it makes sense or not (I don't particularly like it), the programming books are all located in the Programming: namespace. It's the way it's always been done here, and by having everything uniform, makes pages easier to find. All we need is a few pages to break the mould, and we will have total CS chaos. -- 20:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Ada Programming moved out of the "Programming:" pseudonamespace; that seems to be the trend. --Kernigh 23:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there a consensus yet on whether or not to drop the the "Programming:" pseudo-namespace? When I created Programming:Visual Basic Classic it seemed it was almost universal but now there is a drift away from it.  So what do people think?  As far as I am concerned it is perfectly reasonable to drop the pseudo-namespace but it will mean renaming a lot of pages.  As an aside: this illustrates perfectly why relational databases are not necessarily very good at manipulating hierarchical data (Wikibooks backend is a MySQL database I think, (alright MySQL isn't a classical Cobb relational database if you are a purist but it's close enough for engineering purposes :-)).  I made all the internal links relative so I shouldn't have to edit many pages, just rename them.  Does everyone use relative links? --kwhitefoot 11:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't like the Programming: namespace, but i can't see a reason why we would want to go out and rename all those pages. I mean, unless you had a bot to do it all, it seems like a huge waste of effort. Just leave well-enough alone I suppose. -- 14:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * With Opera and tabbled browsing you can rename about a 100 pages in one hour. With middle click you open about 10 pages at once, rename them, close them, next 10. --Krischik T 08:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Still, that's an hour that could otherwise be used to improve the pages, rather than shuffle them around, and I think even one good edit would be a better use of the time. Xerol Oplan 05:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If I start working on some book in the "Programming:" false namespace, then I might move it out of the namespace. --Kernigh 04:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

This book only has about 5 pages. I don't like it in the programming namespace when other books are not put into a namespace. I am going to rename the pages anyway so is it OK to drop the Programming bit? Gerard Foley 05:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Go ahead. After all if it's only five pages it can easily be undone.  --kwhitefoot 11:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Naming policy and Policy
There are two point to this. The Naming policy and Policy - chapter 4 and 5. The first considers all pseudo-namespaces as obsolete naming convention and while we have not jet agreed on WB:NP this particular point is undisputed. The later outlines a possible future of Programming: - a book to containt all the programming language which have not yet enough support to support a book of there own. I know this is harsh but live is harsh.

Then there is also wikistats which can only detect books which follow Naming policy. Statistics might not be all - however they can serve as a motivating factor. Especialy since the Stat is sorted by size ;-).

--Krischik T 08:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Raising Hell
I know it seems like I am raising hell, but I think I am going to nominate the entire Pokedex, and related pages for deletion. They are not a textbook, are not a source for academic information, and no class will be taught on Pokemon. There are about a billion modules connected and I just thought I'd give you all fair warning. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If someone wants a suggestion of where to send the material, please see the Pokemon Wikicity. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think that's a bit rash, especially considering that we havent come to a concensus yet as to whether or not to keep the game manuals. It might not be a bad idea to alert the people who have put so much effort into it that it might come under the proverbial axe blade, but i dont think we need to be rash. I would actually cast a solid vote to keep the game manuals, if it came to a vote. -- 21:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Game manuals are not textbooks. A book perhaps on Game Theory might be, but have you even seen modules in the Pokedex? They are not textbooks, and never will be. Wikibooks is not a place for random game's walkthroughs, cheat codes, or indices. It is for textbooks. Wikibooks needs to be more serious, and the Pokedex hurts our reputation as a valid resource for educators and students. This should be able to be used as a resource in low-wealth areas such as parts of Asia and Africa as well. What good is the Pokedex going to do a 12-year-old Nigerian boy trying to learn? What about that 8-year-old Thai girl? This just isn't the place. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * No, it is some people's beliefs that wikibooks should only be textbooks. That is not the original mission statement, nor has it ever been how wikibooks has operated.  Not even in its earliest days, when the point of wikibooks would have been well understood as it was just created.  There is no consensus at this time that wikibooks is textbook only-  if anything it seems to be the opposite.
 * Hell, if we go by 12 year old Nigerian boys and 8 year old Thai girls, we need to delete just about everything? What good is a book on Calculus or Quantum Mechanics to them?  We'd need to limit our wikibooks to "How not to starve" and "Working in a sweat shop".  Of course neither of those would qualify, as they aren't taught in classes and thus aren't textbooks either.  --Gabe Sechan 22:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think you know what I mean. This should be usefule for teachers and professors and especially students (no matter how old). And to quote the history of Wikibooks, "Wikibooks, previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks, is a sister project to Wikipedia and is part of the Wikimedia foundation, begun on July 10, 2003", so originally it was just for textbooks. Somewhere along the lines, the intent and purpose was corrupted. Saying it wasn't for textbooks is just a fallacy. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Example: I have many non-fiction books on my shelves relating to wolves, wolf biology, history, etc. Despite never having seen a textbook on them, I think I would get support for a Wikibook. But what about a book on something more specific, like the history of the wolves since their reintroduction to Yellowstone? I have books on that subject, but calling them textbooks would be an incredible stretch. Where do you draw the line? (I think without a very solid line very, very clearly defined somewhere, this discussion will be extremely difficult to advance.) --Telamon 22:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No, I don't. You have conflicting arguments, one of which is dead wrong, the other of which is asinine.  The dead wrong one is that this site is or ever has been textbooks only.  It is not, and never has been.  The purpose of the site is instructional books, not merely textbooks.  Textbooks are a major part of the site, arguably the most important part.  But not the only part.  The asinine part is that if an instructional book is not useful for third world nations, then it isn't applicable to wikibooks.  Even ignoring the fact that what third worlders need to know most would eliminate most wikibooks that both of us think should be here, this is still not a prerequisite for wikibooks.  Third worlders don't need english lit or US history-  yet we have wikibooks for each.  They also don't need instruction manuals on how to use obscure electronics-  yet we have those too.  The fact that they are unlikely to play pokemon does not mean that its a reason for it to be eliminated from wikibooks.  Hell, not even wikipedia would agree with you-  there are articles there on pokemon.  If you followed that line of thought, it would need to delete every article on every movie, game, book, TV show, musician, artist ever written from both sites-  a significant amount of material and time spent.  And much of it useful under the right circumstances.--Gabe Sechan 23:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, stop it. By this time, we all know what Wikibooks is for. It has specifically been outlined by Jimbo. As Jimbo has the right to speak for the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, I am inclined to agree with him on how their website should be run. And I quote, "This is for textbooks, not joke books, not random books on any subject you like. A textbook is a book which is actually usable in an existing class." (emphasis added). And I don't mean that only people in third world countryies should be able to use Wikibooks, and to try and paint my comments in such a light is dead wrong. I simply meant that the purpose of this project (to provide free', open-source textbooks) ties in with the overall mission of the Wikimedia Foundation (to provide the sum of human knowledge and to be accessible by everyone... even those in third world countries). Stop trying to continue this fallacy that any random subject matter is appropriate for Wikibooks. We get crap dumped on us from Wikipedia, and for too long we just said, "Hey, why not? We might attract more editors here if we had this. I know it doesn't really fall into line with was Wikibooks actually is, but who cares... we need more editors." Well this thinking has to stop. And if that means losing editors (even great ones) then so be it. This might not be the wiki for them. This is for editors who want to help write free textbooks. Everyone else is expendible. I know I am harsh and am probably losing any chance at adminship here, but someone needs to stand up for Wikibooks and it might as well be me. Sorry for the diatribe. -- LV (Dark Mark) 15:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Apparently we don't all know what wikibooks is for, as for some obscure reason you insist its only for textbooks. It isn't.  Its for non-fiction books that follow a series of other criteria (NPOV, no original research, etc).  This includes, but is not limited to, textbooks.  It also includes a variety of other book types.  Seeing as how Jimbo hasn't been back since saying three specific books ought to be deleted, the only one on a crusade to change the site and what it accepts is you.  Please just stop and go back to doing something useful for the site-  like contributing content.  Maybe even on a textbook.--Gabe Sechan 17:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

(De-indenting) First, let me call your baloney. There are a few others trying, or even want, to hold up the integrity and reputation of Wikibooks.

Second, did you not even read what I wrote? What exactly do you think Wikibooks was founded for? As a retard-dump for out-of-place Wikipedia articles? I'm sorry that I am the one who has to be so vocal about this, but I'm not about to let you and your kind ramrod this crap down my throat. Let me quote again, since you apparantly missed it the first time: "This is for textbooks, not joke books, not random books on any subject you like. A textbook is a book which is actually usable in an existing class." (emphasis added) I think Jimbo knows a little bit more about the goals than you do.

Third, I am doing something constructive for this site. Do you have any idea how many missing policies are around here? You quote "no original research", do you have any idea what that actually means? No, because there is no policy defining it. Should we even be deleting anything? Porbably not, because the Deletion policy isn't even approved of yet. I could tell you to "die, mother fucker, i'm coming to stab you", because there is no "No personal attacks" policy. I could threaten to sue you if you even write on this board again, because there is no "No legal threats" policy. I seem to be one of the few that actually cares what happens here. I am trying to keep Wikibooks as a serious project that can be used as a useful resource. Sorry if you want this place to be shoddy, I don't. I can edit where I please, so don't try lecturing me on being useful. See you around, my friend. -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * So you continue to quote a page that was recently edited and under dispute. Much of the quote isn't even by your hero Jimbo (check the history).  It proves nothing.  Wikibooks is, and always has been, a repository of non-fictional books.  It has never been restricted to textbooks.  Its you who are undermining the integrity of wikibooks, by trying to change its definition and thus eliminate large amounts of good, solid content with your narrow views.  And you are the only one-  I don't see anyone else with you on your crusade.  If you want to bring it to a vote, try it.  You'll lose badly.  Otherwise drop it.  We get that you think that wikibooks should be textbooks only.  Your wishes doesn't make it so.--Gabe Sechan 18:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not even going to argue with you any longer. You are just the kind of person that will never get it. I get that Jimbo didn't say the entire thing, but obviously he didn't have a problem with it. Jimbo is not "my hero", but I think he knows a little bit more about this project than you and your ilk. Your wishes that Wikibooks should include shoddy pieces of crap like the Pokedéx and other general junk doesn't make it so either. I don't doubt there is a lot of content that we would lose, but this wiki might not be the place for it, or you. Try the Pokemon Wikicity... it might be more your level. -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Why Keep
If the Pokedex goes to VFD, then I will vote keep.
 * 1) The Pokedex is essentially a macropedia (banned by WB:WIW). A typical page like  contains tables, but it does not give instructions. However...
 * 2) * The module explicitly says that it is a part of . As part of the larger strategy guide for these video games, the macropedia is acceptable.
 * 3) * The main reason for the WB:WIW rule is to put encyclopedia information on Wikipedia, which has a Pokemon article. But Farfetch'd does not contain the tables from, and WB:WIW allows Wikipedia articles to be extended into Wikibooks in this manner.
 * 4) To quote  LV : They are not a textbook, are not a source for academic information, and no class will be taught on Pokemon. It is a textbook; the information might not be academic but it is useful to certain video game players. A school class might not teach this material in lecture, but could still use it as a textbook. Some schools have classes for video games (studying the games themselves in addition to making new ones).

I created the page Wikibooks talk:Game manual guidelines for a discussion on whether Wikibooks should ban game guides. However, most opponents of game guides only associated them with Jokebook, Naturism, and Getting a date, the three books that Jimbo Wales wanted to delete. Those three books had problems that the game guides did not; they were debated at WB:VFD and WB:VFU.

I had argued that game guides (1) are textbooks (2) are allowed by WB:WIW. --Kernigh 23:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The question is, are they allowed by Jimbo? He's tightening policy and all that. And here I quote from one of his diffs, "This is for textbooks, not joke books, not random books on any subject you like. A textbook is a book which is actually usable in an existing class." Judging by that line, game guides are definite goners, as they are certainly not the subject of classes other than being examples of game design or violence in media or whatnot. Hm. Wasn't someone (LV?) going to ask Jimbo about this? Anyway, we need an answer from him, and the policy page needs to be amended to reflect that. GarrettTalk 06:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I tried contacting him, but people here don't seem to care what Jimbo says. -- LV (Dark Mark) 15:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think you are getting a little too worked up about this. We still havent put the issue to a vote, and game manuals have not yet been officially declared to be against policy, not even by Jimbo. I do admit that perhaps the pokemon wikicity might be a better place for this, but until we lay it down as policy, there is no sense throwing a fit about it. Live and let live for now, we don't need to step on anybody's toes unnecessarily. -- 19:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

' A textbook is a book which is actually usable in an existing class' is a ludicrous definition of the word textbook. My personal library is full of books that I consider, and are often described by the publishers, as textbooks but which would definitely not be usuable in their entirety for study in an 'existing class'. A better definition is 'a book used as a standard work for the study of a subject' (from http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&field-12668446=textbook&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname), unfortunately for most of us that is in some ways an even more restrictive test than Mr Wales'. It does, however, have the advantage that it does not not tie you down to a narrow definition of study. To give one example: 'The Handyman's Complete Self Instructor' published by Odhams. This is definitely a textbook, it has theory, practice and exercises but what class would use it? It covers house building, decorating, radio receivers (theory and practice), the theory of internal combustion engines, and much more. It was published in the heyday of self-improvement when an enthusiastic person might expect to make serious progress through independent study. No class would ever have used it as its principal text and quite likely no one person would be interested in every chapter. If we are to take literally the constraint that a book must be usable in an existing class then we must have a description of the syllabus that the class follows in order to determine whether or not the book qualifies. For me a much more telling objection to the Pokemon modules is their lack of exercises, they read more like an operating manual than a textbook and the user is merely informed of facts, never challenged to use them to generate anything new. --kwhitefoot 22:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * A class might not be a class at school, nor one with a syllabus. It might only be "a group, collection, category or set sharing characteristics or attributes", for example, the class of all Pokemon users, instead of the class at school that studies whichever type of game includes Pokemon. --Kernigh 05:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Dispute resolution
I have started a page to discuss various methods of dispute resolution. Community input would be appreciated. -- LV (Dark Mark) 19:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Starting a Wikibook project
I am looking at the option of developing free-open source training materials for the fire service. I am trying to figure out how does one start a project. How do I do that and where can I go to read more about it?

Thanks


 * You may want to start here: Help:How to start a book. However, Wikibooks is under some dispute over what content should be allowed. Try to keep your book as academic as possible. That will probably disuade any argument. See you around. By the way you can Sign your posts by typing ~ . Helps with the reading a bit. See ya. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:20, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I am new to this snakepit of endless wrangling. I am interested in editing a crummy old public domain translation into a modern edition. (A novel by Tolstoy.) Obviously, a translated version of a novel by Tolstoy could be used in a classroom, so it appears to fit the definition of a Wikibook mentioned several times above. This could turn into a whole series of modernized, public domain translations of classic fiction (and non-fiction, later). As I explained when discussing this over at GP, this would involve changing the mode of expression of a translator, not editing Tolstoy. The Gutenburg folks try to faithfully reproduce old works, not create new ones, so they suggested I try here. Is this within the Wikibook concept of itself? ~ --Gene (sorry, I am not conversant with all these codes; I just got here.)


 * Well, annotated works are allowed, but if you want to put a full work, you might want to try Wikisource (another Wikimedia project). They are a repository for complete works. I hope this helps. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Another Language
Before I say anything, I just want to say that I love this site, it's so awesome and has great information...keeps me really busy at work when it's slow. I just find this part of your website, wikibooks and notice that you have an area on learning a different language which is cool. But you don't have an area on learning Latvian, which is strange considering you have an option to change the language format of Wikipedia to Latvian. My wife is a Latvian and I always wanted to learn how to speak her language to her as a surprise gift without her knowing I learned it. I was hoping that you could start including that language in the Wikibooks too. Well I hope that it happens, if not, I'll still keep this in my favorites.

Thanks

Craig


 * We don't have one because noone who knows both Latvian and English has volunteered their time to write one yet. It would definitely be welcomed content.  Unfortunately, my knowledge of Latvian is limited to the fact it exists.  Maybe you could talk your wife into writing it to help us all out :)  --Gabe Sechan 22:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Another controversial subject
I draw your attention to. Uncle G 00:01, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I was wondering what to do with this issue. I initially wanted to mark it for speedy deletion, but it seems to be... well, quite funny. I decided to mark it as controvercial with attention template.
 * BTW, should we discuss such issues here in staff lounge? There are already some pages for such cases (WB:WM). Maybe we should make a clear policy what to do with problematic pages, rethink pages like Accuracy dispute and their templates. --Derbeth talk 09:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If someone wants to fix this module, then I might change my vote at WB:VFD. It is current 6 delete, 0 keep. --Kernigh 23:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

User JackHagrit ask a question
User JackHagrit] Thanks for the swift reply back. Thank You.Jack Sorenson.

Proposed Sexual Health Wikibook
I threw together a proposed outline for a book on sexual health on my user page. I think that a book like this could be a wonderful resource where people with serious questions about the subject can come to get serious and helpful answers. I do realize however a few important facts:


 * 1) I am not exactly an expert on the topic myself
 * 2) Such a book would probably invite a higher-then-average amount of vandalism
 * 3) some of the topics (birth control, STDs, sexual education in general) are hot-button topics, and would bring in alot of controversy.

Despite the hardships, I think that this book could still potentially be an excellent resource, and the type of serious, helpful book that could really help wikibooks out in general. I wanted to get some feedback on the current outline (which i threw together pretty quickly) before any motions were made to actually introduce this book onto a bookshelf. Comments and suggestions are welcome both here and on the page itself. -- 20:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * We have a Sexual Psychology book with some of the same topics, but almost no actual content. --Kernigh 22:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have seen that book. Unfortunately, sexual psychology just can't cover all the same topics. Especially topics about hygene, contraception, disease, etc.. just can't be covered in a psychology book. Now, we could rename and expand that book to cover all these topics, but i dont know if that's the best idea. -- 22:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This book sounds like an excellent albeit difficult idea. I have some comments.


 * The "Transmitting disease via Anal and Oral sex" subtopic is misplaced under "Fertility and Infertility". I assume that that's basically a typo.
 * Consider adding material on circumcision and so-called female circumcision. The latter is not so relevant in the US where presumably it is rare&mdash;however, we have a world-wide audience.  Be aware that (male) circumcision is far more a hot button topic than you might expect.  There is an amazing amount of near-insane fanaticism, both pro and con, over this little snip.
 * Consider adding material on abortion and selective reduction. Well, out of the frying pan and into the fire concerning hot button topics.
 * Consider adding material on such abortifacients as Mifepristone (RU-486) and emergency contraceptives as Levonorgestrel (Plan B).

Note that, for the last three items, you should take the "consider adding" (as opposed to "please add") part seriously. I did not intend them as topics that need to be added, but rather ones that could possibly be worthing of adding. I could very well see you thinking some or all of them as too tangential to include, or too controversial to be worth the headache or whatever. --JMRyan 23:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I wanted to add a heading for abortion, but i realize all too well that that page could quickly get out of control. It would be hard to add a page that is completely non-biased. The emergency abortifacients could be mentioned, but we can't recommend them as good ideas: that would only start a flame war. Also, if you see any typos on that page, feel free to edit them out, or to add your own ideas. It's only an outline afterall, and the more pre-planning we do now, the better the book will be when (if) we introduce it -- 23:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Look at Amazon, there are dozens of fertility books (for women who want to get pregnant) and ZERO birth control books (for women who don't want to get pregnant). Seems like a big need there. The best birth control info I've seen is the chapter in "Our Bodies, Our Selves." I would be happy to let you use a section about STDs I wrote for my book "Hearts and Minds." My advice re. avoiding STDs differs from the "conventional wisdom," you might find it interesting. I can e-mail the chapter to you in MS Word format. If my signature doesn't appear, e-mail me at kehoe@casafuturatech.com.

Anon users can't create new pages
On wikipedia, Jimbo has established a new policy that anonymous users cannot create new pages, but are instead restricted to only editing current pages. This change was enacted after some amount of controversy involving a vandalized page that remained un-reverted for a very long length of time. I don't propose that wikibooks has all the same problems as wikipedia, but I am wondering if perhaps we don't need a similar safeguard. -- 23:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Absolutely not. We have to few contributors and anons are creating many pages. If more sysops watched recent changes, there would be no problems with vandals. --Derbeth talk 23:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with Derbeth, anything that discourages contributors is definitely not a good idea. I can easily imagine good reasons for a contributor wanting to remain anonymous (think about writing a book that discusses abortion, Scientology, etc.).  On the front page of Wikibooks it says 'Welcome to Wikibooks, a collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit.'  Let's cross that bridge when we reach it.  Also, did Jimbo Wales establish that policy unilaterally, or was there a consensus on Wikipedia for the change?  --kwhitefoot 07:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know all the specifics of the action, but i know that it was deemed news enough to appear on slashdot. I also did a quick test where i signed out and tried to create a new page on the 'pedia and i couldnt. I think Jimbo may have made that decision unilaterally. Also, nobody is saying that anonymous users can't contribute, they are only saying that an anonymous user can't create a new page. Why would we want a bunch of vandals being able to come in here and create a bunch of pages like or ? Ordinary users then can't help to revert this vandalism, it falls on the backs of sysops to fix this stuff. -- 13:49, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Not just slashdot, it was on the BBC too: . --kwhitefoot 07:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ordinary users can help. That's what the speedy deletion tags are for. Uncle G 18:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Jimbo's expressed intent with this change is to slow the new page rate at Wikipedia down to a level where the current level of new page patrollers can manage it. I disagree strongly with the notion implicit in the change that anonymity implies bad faith.  As someone who does New Page Patrol both here and at Wikipedia, I can report that there is no need for any such measure here, if reducing the new page rate is its aim.  Wikibooks does not suffer from the deluge of rubbish that Wikipedia does. Uncle G 18:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Wikibooks does not suffer Wikipedia's problems. -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, when this change was mentioned on foundation-l (which I now read), it was described as an experimental change. The most significant problem is that anonymous users now cannot contribute to Wikipedia through red links. Also from reading foundation-l, I get the idea that a few English Wikipedia users now think that it is OK to deter new users instead of welcoming them when the new users make mistakes.

Jimbo was smart to try the experimental change on English Wikipedia, which has almost no need for new users and new pages when compared to other wikis, such as this one. --Kernigh 21:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

User styles and monobook.js
I think that perhaps we could use a guide for creating style changes using monobook.js and monobook.css. for that matter, maybe we could just use a good guide to the skins here on wikibooks. on the 'pedia these kinds of tools and things are relatively popular, but on here they are unheard of. -- 23:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should invent something already exists. We can just give links to Wikipedia articles. --Derbeth talk 23:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I was thinking more along the lines that this topic could go into a "how to wiki" wikibook. This way, we could cover lots of topics. -- 23:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If the scope of the book would be using wikis in general, and not just editing in the wiki-project style, it could be VERY helpful. In the last few weeks I've help set up a few wikis for certain communities, but a good portion of the users aren't using the wiki markup to anything near its potential, and so far I've only been able to link to scattered wikipedia/meta pages. I'd be glad to help out with this. Xerol Oplan 05:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem is that meta is essentially the "how to wiki" handbook. It doesnt make alot of sense to reinvent the wheel. I admit, however, that meta can be a little difficult to navigate, it doesnt have the format of a good textbook, and it requires users to navigate over to the other server. -- 05:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The difference is that it's not really organised as a handbook, merely a collection of syntax references, and is also specific to the style guidelines of wiki-projects. As such, a lot of the material is only relevant to that, and you have to slough through that material to get to the general wiki-editing information that's useful on ALL wikis. Xerol Oplan 05:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Backing up and working offline
Hi. After spending a not insignificant amount of time on a wikibook that I am largely running, I am scared about the possibility of a wikibooks crash and the loss of all my painstaking work. Is there an easy way to locally back-up a wikibook (without going into edit for every page and copying the text and pasting it into a word file and saving it). Also, is there a way for me to make and see the results of wiki on my computer when I'm not online (obviously I can write the mark-up, but I can't see what it looks like). If there is a way to make a wikibook locally, is it possible to have the images all ready locally and then upload them all in one go? At the moment the image upload page is a one at a time job, which is a little labour intensive.

May I also take the opportunity to say thank-you to whoever it is that deserves my thanks in making and maintaining this site. It is truely amazing and beautiful. Demipomme 21:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know of a way to locally keep specific modules, but you can get all of them from a database dump. That's probably not what you are looking for. I don't think there is a way to view wiki programming outside of a wiki. If you are really worried, perhaps create a user subpage on Wikipedia or another wiki much less likely to crash. But saving them as a word file would work too. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help... it may have been better if I had just let someone who could explain better tell you.


 * As to the thank you... everyone maintains this site (even you, so thanks). Just keep up the good work. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You might want to look at Mirrors and forks; there are some sites that have copies of everything from Wikibooks. Also Wikimedia servers describes the servers, which are the same ones that host Wikipedia. There are at least 100 servers in different parts of the world, so this wiki does not fail easily. --Kernigh 21:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

is there a way for me to make and see the results of wiki on my computer when I'm not online? Well, in theory you could install MediaWiki on your personal computer. There are a *lot* of people who install wiki software on their own personal computer ( http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PersonalWiki ) -- most wiki software is fairly easy to install. Unfortunately, the MediaWiki software is (according to rumors I've heard) too complicated for most people. (Is there some other, simpler-to-install wiki that uses MediaWiki-style markup?)

''image upload page is ... is a little labour intensive.'' Unfortunately, that's true on most web sites -- but people are coming up with some clever ideas to simplify the Visual:LongImageIncorporationProcess.

--DavidCary 05:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll feel a little safer knowing there are "at least 100 servers"! And I'll create a back-up page as per the post below to back-up the html. Cheers.


 * I use a local cacheing proxy server called SmartCache to keep a local copy of all my web browsing (well, not quite all, just the important bits). When I want to keep a snapshot of part of a web site I use HTTrack.  SmartCache lets you browse the pages you have visited just as though you were on line, HTTrack can copy entire web sites or parts of web sites to your local disk and rewrite the internal links so that the site works just by opening the files in a browser.  I haven't tried HTTrack on WikiBooks yet so I'm not sure how easy it is to confine it to a single book.  You could also use wget.  These techniques will give you the rendered pages so they aren't exactly backups of the source but they would be enough to recreate the content. Please use common sense when using such mirroring tools so that you don't overload the servers. --kwhitefoot 21:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

easy way to locally back-up a wikibook
There is an easy way to back up the rendered HTML output for an entire book in one fell swoop. For example, you can go to Programming:C_plus_plus:All_Chapters or Python/Print version and tell your browser to save that one page, which contains the rendered HTML output for the latest version of every page in the entire book.

I'd be happy to help you set up a similar page for any other book. ([ Check out how] the w:Wikipedia:Transclusion "transclusion" is done if you want to do it yourself).

Alas, I don't know any way to back up the raw Wikitext other than going to each page manually, hitting the "edit" button, and copy-and-pasting it into a local text file.

--DavidCary 05:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There is a datadump service somewhere... here it is: http://download.wikimedia.org/ That includes all wikimedia projects. --Dragontamer 02:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

What language is en.wikibooks.org?
I ask, because I've just had a completely valid Australian english word (Glycaemic) repeatedly corrected as being a 'typo'.

Is there a policy as to the language to be used? I looked but couldn't find one. Thanks. Irrevenant 11:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The language is english, although there is no specific rule on which english is being used. There are many differences (although most are small) between the "english" spoken in australia, the UK, and America. A general guideline is people should be tolerant of these differences, but many people don't even know that a word is from a different dialect. The problem is that the word "Glycaemic" might be spelled correctly in Australian english, but the corrected version might be correctly spelled in British english, or American english. no sense getting into an edit war about it, maybe just provide a footnote or something. -- 13:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, Thanks. Irrevenant 20:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I say there should be no "official" dialect in wikibooks, else we would have to have 3 wikibook sites for German, some 100 dialects for the phillipeno one, etc. etc. --Dragontamer 23:05, 26 December 2005

I think that turning the 'offending' word into a link to a footnote or to the Wiktionary entry would be better than correcting it unless it is wrong in all the dialects and variants. Not sure that British, American and Australian English are different enough to qualify as dialects though; most of the differences that people mention are simply variant spellings. I agree with Dragontamer that there should not be an official dialect. This is especially so in English because we do not have any equivalent of l’Académie française or Norsk Språkrådet, the language belongs to the people who use it. Perhaps this lack of policy should be made official :-) --kwhitefoot 11:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes question
As an active member of other Wikis and a newcomer to the Wikibook, I'm having a really difficult time orienting myself around here. My main problem is that I'd like to contribute to the Cookbook, but not the other areas of the site. I guarantee there are plenty of other folks out there like me who feel discouraged because there is too much to wade through before you can find what you're interested in. Specifically, I'd like to use the Recent Changes page to look at Cookbook specific changes. The problem is that there seems to be only a handful of Cookbook related changes per 500, making it near-impossible to selectively follow the Cookbook's progress. Is there some way to access a Cookbook specific Recent Changes page? Kneague 22:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... you could always watchlist each Cookbook module. I don't think there is another way to just see Cookbook changes. -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 22:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there some way such a feature could be programmed, then? Having a single Recent Changes page is a real limiting factor because it means so many new contributions and edits will fall under the radar. Looking through the Cookbook now, there are numerous things that need to be better streamlined, and I think that could be achieved if there a better mechanism for tracking Cookbook specific changes. On a more global scale, having Book specific Recent Changes pages could cultivate a sense of community on those pages, encouraging people to contribute and providing a newcomer with the necessary attention to keep them around. Kneague 22:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * On the top of the page, when you are logged in, there is a tab that says "watch". When you click that button, the page will go onto your personal watch list. Then, to see your watchlist, you can click the "My Watchlist" link in the upper right-hand corner (near your user name). Alternatively, when you edit a page, there is a check box labled "Watch this page", which has the same effect. If you want to automatically watch every page you edit, you could click on the "preferences" link (right next to "my watchlist"), and under the "editing" button, click the checkbox called "Add pages you edit to your watchlist". Then, every time you edit a page in the cookbook, it will add that page to your watchlist. If you have any other questions, you can feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. -- 23:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I think it's not exaltly what Kneague was looking for - this function lets you watch only single pages. There's another feature I think will meet your needs. In every article, you have "toolbox" left to the text of article. On its top you have "Related changes" link - it shows changes in every article current article is pointing to. You can watch related changes of Cookbook or Cookbook:Recipes. --Derbeth talk 08:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Another way of monitoring pages is to use a program like Colin Markwell's WebMon to periodically check the pages you are interested in and alert you when the have changed. I do this for the pages that I edit most often.  You could tell WebMon to monitor the Related Changes for the contents page of the book.  Of course you might need to monitor several Related Changes pages if there is no comprehensive contents page.  As with any automated web client please don't overload the servers by careless use, that is, don't check too often.  --kwhitefoot 22:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The idea of watching the related changes pages sounds good, but i'm having trouble getting it to work. when i click on Cookbooks, it gives me the option of watching the Cookbooks page. that works fine. However, when I click on "related changes" to the Cookbook, suddenly the watch button disappears. am i doing something wrong or this feature removed for a reason? if its not possible to add those pages to my watch list, i could always bookmark them in my browser, but i thought i should check here first. Kneague 05:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Looks like the related changes don't provide for watching; it isn't just the Cookbook that behaves that way. WebMon works though and gives you essentially the same feature.  In fact it could be argued that it is better as it will pop up a messge saying that the page has changed (WebMon Windows only I'm afraid but Unix users can probably throw a shell script together to do the same trick).  --kwhitefoot 22:41, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Spoiler info?
Being a location for rather in-depth discussion, do we care much for spoilers in regards to Wikibooks on popular culture? I honestly think it's getting in the way of editing the book. Nifboy 03:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't recall who first came up with the spoiler-free idea (it's on several guides here), but I don't think it's really necessary. I just try to avoid unnecessary spoilers like "don't bother attacking the fat man, he's invincible until you take out the reactor in the final mission" or whatnot. GarrettTalk 23:11, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There are templates available to indicate spoilers. Write what you want, just put in a warning. -- 02:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no official game guide policy, but there are some drafts of one if you wanna help out making them. Personally speaking, there should be no unmarked spoilers to the storyline, but cheats and so forth are easily forgotten or ignored if you don't want them. So spoilers should only pertain to the storyline. --Dragontamer 22:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Japanese Vandalism
The book Japanese (book of the month for December, no less) has been completely vandalized by someone claiming to be "Wikipedia is Communism". Just thought I'd make sure everybody knew about this so it can be taken care of, seeing as it's a frontpage book and all. --MasterSheep 04:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Nevermind! As far as I can tell, it's been restored. Thanks! --MasterSheep 04:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The correct place to report vandalism is Vandalism in Progress. If you mention it there, you will get a quicker response. -- 13:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting Web Page
I figure that the Wikibooks community ought to hear about it here before it becomes something else. Check out this website:

http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/

In some ways I want to say "Bring it on!!!"

I guess that Wikipedia has grown to the point that as*$$$$ want to screw up a perfectly good project. BTW, The Juriwiki List is already discussing this issue and trying to come up with a legal solution to this. If you are a paralegal or otherwise involved in the legal profession, please feel free to join this list and help us all out from the scum that would kill us all with a thousand razor cuts. It looks like they may be going after admins as well as the Foundation board, which should be fun. --Rob Horning 00:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The webpage says that wikimedia has a "flawed business model", but considering that wikimedia is a not-for-profit organization, i hardly doubt we have a business model at all. What pisses me off the most is the fact that a few screw-ups on the 'pedia have created a situation where some people are being libeled. Beyond that, attempts to correct obvious cases of libel have been reverted, or discouraged. wikimedia needs to be far more careful on this subject then they historically have been. However, i don't think that this particular lawsuit will hold water. Wikimedia is a not-for-profit, and the contributers are not affiliated with wikimedia in any business sense. Saying that wikimedia should be responsible for the actions of it's contributers is akin to saying that ISPs should be responsible for the content on rented webspace, or that telecom companies should be responsible for terrorists who make phone calls. -- 02:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * On a side note, i personally am against the practice of allowing anonymous users post anything at will. I know that such a sentiment is against the general wiki-spirit of things, but i can't see any benefit to allowing anonymous users to post anything that their hearts desire. Further more, people should be legally responsible for the content that they do contribute. By disallowing anonymous posters, and making vandals legally responsible for their contributions, i think that would cut down on alot of the bullshit and nonsense that does happen. Either we should make the vandals responsible for their vandalism, or we have to drop that responsibility in the lap of the wikiemedia foundation itself. I don't think that one bad remark should ever have the power to shut down this project. -- 02:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's interesting in that it makes this section outdated. Personally, I think it doesn't have much merit. I'm no expert on the law but I've had a couple courses, and WikiPedia shouldn't be liable because it wasn't wikipedia or any of the main people involved making the statement, it was the statement of the editor in question. Xerol Oplan 06:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The GNU Free Documentation License does not have such a clause, but the GNU General Public License has no-warranty and no-liability clauses. Not only do the authors of everything GNU GPL (the KDE desktop, the GNU Compiler Collection, the Linux kernel) feel that they are not responsible for their products, but most other software licenses have similar clauses. Even Microsoft disclaims warranty and liability on most stuff.

And yes, we have a General disclaimer, and Wikipedia probably has one too. Which makes "Wikipedia Class Action" seem like a bad joke. And even if the Wikimedia Foundation becomes asleep, there are always volunteers who can fix untrue or libelous articles if someone notifies them. Or should Microsoft and everyone else "be held responsible for their" software? --Kernigh 05:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Do we need CheckUser?
Probably some of you have heard of CheckUser interface - allowing to find IP address of suspicious registered users. As you can see, we are having some cases of vandalism, there also were claims that people voting for BOTM or COTM were sockpuppets (not confirmed). Use of CheckUser is very restricted - only stewards have CheckUser rights on every project, and as you might know, it's not always easy to reach a steward. I think that we should have users with CheckUser rights, in order not to be dependant on stewards.

Choosing users with such rights will be similar to giving sysop rights, except that at least two users must have such rights (in able to control themselves). But before we can start discussion in WB:RFA, we should decide whether we need ChecUser-s. What do you think? (Preceding comment unsigned by User:Derbeth)


 * Yeah, I think it might be helpful to give access to a select few users, but I do not know how much it will need to be used. Over at WP, where this is much more needed, a very few of them currently have access to it, and there are a lot more of them than us. I don't know the necessity of this, quite yet. For votes and such, there should be some limit (say 30 edits) before their vote gets counted. That would rule out most socks. But when in doubt, I'd say assume good faith. Just my 2 pennies. -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 17:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have stayed out of the whole Check User debate, but IMHO this is something that should be given to all admins. I really don't understand the whole issue of "privacy" for a given user.  The Wikimedia Privacy policy clearly states that this information is available and can be used against somebody, like the current Siegenthaler case on Wikipedia, if they are caught saying something liabelous or illegal (like the notorious White Heritage Society Wikibook mentioned earlier, if the contributor was a German citizen).  This is merely another tool to help keep vandalism under control, and for some exceptionally rare circumstances can be used to identify sock puppets.  I have seen things like this on MUDs and IRC servers for decades (yes... decades) and if you are connected to the internet, there is no reason for your immediate connection to presume anonyminty unless you are specifically going through an anonymizer service.  Even then, your physical location could in theory still be traced, but you are relying on the policies of the anonymizer service to protect you at least for a brief period of time.  Only under the most exceptional circumstances could I see that this sort of feature could be abused, and the administrator vetting procedure alone IMHO is sufficient to keep this from going too far. BTW, can a bureaucrat grant Check User status?  --Rob Horning 01:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * No. You have to use special meta page after being accepted by the community. --Derbeth talk 18:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Upon further review of CheckUser Policy, it seems as though Wikibooks will be a couple of years before we can even get the 30 or more active users to approve somebody for the CheckUser status, and it can only be granted by a Steward or Developer. I really don't understand the privacy concerns here, but the only way I see the policy being changed is to run for the Wikimedia Foundation board with this issue as one of my platform planks.  This is something to keep in mind if there is a problem, but for now I don't see anybody getting this "authority".  --Rob Horning 02:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * After recent vandalisms, I am going to candidate for CheckUser for English Wikibooks. There are some vandals who use registered accounts and CheckUser will help me blocking their IP's and notifying their ISP's in serious cases. But I need at least one more person wanting to become a CheckUser (there have to be at least two at a project). I think we are able to have CheckUsers - f.e. Polish Wikipedia has four. --Derbeth talk 18:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you want to put your name up on the Requests for adminship page and add a section for CheckUser status, you got my vote right now. And a standing offer to support any current admin on this project (baring any discussion for abuse where a vote for deadminship if it is currently occuring).  As for the requirement for two CheckUser privileges as a minimum, I think that is just simple paranoia from the group that wrote the CheckUser policy, not anything that came from actual experience (and a bad reason to write any rule of that nature).  The number of people with this "privilege" on all Wikimedia projects is appallingly small.  They aren't even giving this status to Stewards (although Stewards can give it to themself... if they can find a "justification").  Since this option can also be given to non-admins, I would consider supporting other users here as well, but you would have to go through a vetting process that you might as well become an admin here too.  We could use the help even if done on a small scale.  Let's see if we can get the required 30 votes of support.  We might as well try.  --Rob Horning 13:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll wait for another user wanting to become a CheckUser before I sign my application to RFA. --Derbeth talk 13:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Can it be just any user, or does it need to be a sysop? I don't think i'm right for the job, so that's one admin out. -- 15:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no particular need to be a sysop prior to the CheckUser privilege, but at the moment there are far fewer people with CheckUser than sysop privileges, and CheckUser can only be granted by a stweard, so the process involved in actually getting the status is much more involved. I pity people who work in non-English Wikimedia projects that have to deal with this issue as communication with stewards is much harder in that situation.  That is why I suggest that you become an admin first if you want CheckUser privileges. --Rob Horning 17:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I wish we could at last begin voting for CheckUsers, but there are still no candidates. I can be one, but I need at least one more sysop who also wants to be a CheckUser. --Derbeth talk 01:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Colon Convention Usefulness
I hope to get a little more attention to the policy since it's been quiet for a while: discussions over the naming policy (specifically obsolete styling) here at Wikibooks really needs to be solidified. I'd like to get some people over there to vote on the issue and see what they think of my ideas on removing the acceptace of the colon convention. The best place to talk about it is over there I would say. -Matt 23:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms of Wikibooks
I thought that the Wikibooks community might be interested in this exchange I had with one of the early pioneers of e-book publishing, Ben Crowell. I personally value his opinions considerably, perhaps even more than Jimbo's in many ways, and he does know how to organize collaborative e-book projects, with one GFDL'd Physics textbook he helped co-write that pre-dated Wikibooks by over three years. You can read the full discussion at:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=170873&cid=14234478

which is attached to an interview review that Jimbo gave earlier for Wikinews.

There are a number of interesting points brought up, including a very low S/N (signal to noise for non-techies) to be able to find a high quality Wikibook, and the quality of the stages icons. I know there are many other areas of Wikibooks that need work, but some effort perhaps should be done to fix up the front page for those visitors who are perhaps not familiar with Wikimedia projects and editing styles. I'm comfortable with Wikibooks, but I've been here for some time now. The front page is the "public personna" of what we expect visitors to see.

His website, http://theassayer.org/, is one that people on Wikibooks should also be aware of, as it lists free (as in speech as well as price) e-books, many of which can be used as resources for Wikibooks as well. It may be wise to have some of the better quality Wikibooks be reviewed there as well. --Rob Horning 02:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * With en.wikipedia (if not other languages as well), it can be generally assumed that if one user starts an artical, other users will quickly come in and add to it. There are enough users on wikipedia, that you can assume that each given area of expertise can be well covered by contributers. Unfortunately for wikibooks, there simply aren't enough contributers to get any new project up and running (to a reasonable degree of completion) in any amount of time. Some books are started, but there aren't enough knowledgable contributers to complete it. Once a book has been dropped to the bottom of barrel, it is unlikely that potential contributers in the future will be able to find it, and they won't be able to coherently figure out what previous contributers had in mind. Textbooks require much more planning then a single encyclopedia artical, and it can be very difficult coming in the middle of the creation of the book. I know that I spend a good amount of time planning each new book I introduce, although i don't always leave enough notes around to aid future contributers in my absence. It's just a fact of life that we will need to deal with here until our numbers get larger. -- 04:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is an abnormally large project.


 * But even when comparing Wikibooks to Wiktionary, for example, many users (including myself) contribute to the Wiktionary, but few users contribute to any Wikibook (except very large books like Cookbook). Wikibooks is split into many individual books. Sometimes I work on one book, then switch to another book (or to Wiktionary or some other wiki), and when I come back, no one has edited the first book except for me and the anonymous IP that fixed the spelling and grammar.


 * Wikibooks also includes many abandoned stubs and incomplete books, which are only useful when some Wikibookian comes and restarts work on them, as I sometimes do.


 * Some users confuse Wikibooks or Wikisource with a project like Wiktionary. AccidentalLinking (just putting brackets around words that you like) fails here when it succeeds at Wiktionary. In fact, sometimes I change red links into Wikipedia interwiki links. When I have time, I would like to work on the Wikibooks FAQ at WB:FAQ and explain some of this. --Kernigh 06:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That's exactly the problem. When you walk away from a particular book, and come back to it, nothing substantial will have changed. I would say that our ratio of Active Contributers-Per-Book is incredibly low. I know that I personally am the primary contributer to 6 books. Most contributions to those books by other people are usually (but not always) limited to simple fixes. -- 15:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I really think we need a better method of either


 * 1)Getting contributors together to coauthor books. Books with 1 author stall easily, books with 3 or 4 authors have peer pressure working for them.  It might be a good idea to push people to get at least 1 co-author before starting a book.
 * 2)Groups of people willing to move from book to book within a subject, improving one at a time. THis way books get concentrated resources for a while.  Probably best done within bookshelves (a math group, a CS group, etc).  Anyone else interested?


 * I agree, we have way too few editors/book on most books. I've written the differential equations wikibook, and other than a few typos corrected, I have had 1 correction and a short intoduction to the idea of a solution added.  Thats it.  No example problems, no content additions, nothing.  Its currently stalled since I moved in September, due to my lack of time.  Unless my life changes again, or hell freezes over and someone else contributes to it, it will likely stay that way for another year at least.  --Gabe Sechan 18:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

http://theassayer.org/ now links to http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/infrastructure.html where Ben Crowell discusses infrastructure for free textbooks, including Wikibooks....

I would have to check the text of the GFDL and CC-BY-SA again, but I believe that images at Wikimedia Commons which use these licenses are not restricted to only free textbooks as Ben Crowell claims. Instead, a free image may be aggregated to a non-free book. I can also put a CC-BY-SA image on a GFDL wiki page, even though the two licenses are incompatible. --Kernigh 02:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hijacking a Bookshelf
Hello, my name is Paul, and I've been looking around Wikibooks for a few months, but haven't really contributed anything. I have a great interest in adding things to the economics bookshelf and changing the way it looks, but I can't seem to find any activity on the whole bookshelf. Should I just start making changes, or is this rude? Thanks, DettoAltrimenti 04:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I was able to make lots of edits to Computer software bookshelf. I had posted proposals at the talk page with almost no response. It seems that the best choice is to just start making changes. It should not be "rude" because other users are free to make their own edits improving the bookshelf, and to revert bad changes.


 * However, your idea of adding things to the bookshelf gave me attention. Note that bookshelves, in general, only hold existing books (the top-level Wikibooks modules, see Naming policy). So if you were planning to add many red links for proposed books, put red links at Requested Wikibooks instead of a bookshelf. --Kernigh 06:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Where to report vandlism
because someone has vandalized the front page. DettoAltrimenti 15:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

well, no one's around, but users 207.253.115.170 and 68.215.139.117 have been vandalizing, don't really know where to report it and can't stop them- they just keep doing it.


 * Please use Vandalism in progress. --Derbeth talk 17:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't ask the school librarian
I noticed that sometimes instead of linking straight to the study help desk, it's a link to Wikibooks:Ask the school librarian- Does anyone else think all of the links to this page should be changed to a link straight to the study help desk, and this redirect deleted? DettoAltrimenti 04:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The problem was that it was a double-redirect: redirected to which redirected to Study help desk. I fixed it. I also bypassed some of the links around the redirect, but not in all places. --Kernigh 23:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Bureaucrats
Is there any active bureaucrats around here? Nobody has yet to reply me... -- WB 07:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Looking through <>, apparently this user (signs as "WB") had posted to User talk:Aya and User talk:Dysprosia asking to be renamed to User:Watter Bottle. I recall that only bureaucrats can rename users. --Kernigh 22:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * That's me. And those two are named bureaucrats in the admin section.


 * I havn't seen any seriously delayed actions that require specific action by a bureaucrat so far. If there needs to be some action in that regard, it may be time to start the nomination process of a new bureaucrat... there are plenty of admins now that finding an admin who is doing a good job might be reasonable to "promote", so to say.  Aya has been doing a pretty reasonable job, even if he hasn't been particularly active in the forums lately.  --Rob Horning 02:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I must say Wikibooks is not so active recently... -- WB 22:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm also wondering if perhaps we need to have a formal page for name change requests? I don't know of any, and the usual forum so far is to simply ask a bureaucrat directly on their user talk page.  This shouldn't be a huge issue, but it is something that with multiple bureaucrats could become harder to deal with, and we should have a central place to put stuff like that. BTW, if you compare Wikibooks to Wikipedia, yeah, we are as dead as your mother's web page.  But there are many things that show up in Special:Recentchanges that will indicate a very active community here... it just doesn't always show up in the usual places you would normally expect.  --Rob Horning 04:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea. -- WB 19:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The only two references to "Qrai" that I can find are the module at Wikibooks and http://www.geocities.com/qrai_dreamer/ at a free web host. It seems to me that one document is a derivative work of the other, which makes it either a copyright violation or an original work (candidate for speedy deletion). See my post at Talk:Qrai where I explained my copyvio tag on the Qrai page.

Recently, anonymous users edited the page and removed my copyvio tag. One anonymous user (posting as an IP address but signing as "User:David", which is a user that never contributed to Wikibooks) posted to, claiming that these edits resolved the copyright-violation problem.

I would like someone other than me to examine the page and determine whether we have a GFDL license for the page and whether this page can remain at Wikibooks. --Kernigh 23:22, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

We have Cookbook namespace
hashad has just informed me at the IRC channel that Cookbook namespace had been created. You can browse it here:.

I'm not sure what for do we need such namespace, but have fun :) --Derbeth talk 22:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's funny that the main page of the Cookbook is not in the Cookbook namespace but in the main namespace. By the way, many people could start to complain "if Cookbook has its own namespace, why me not?" ManuelGR 22:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Who is moving the Cookbook talk pages from "Talk:Cookbook:" to "Cookbook talk:"? --Kernigh 22:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much time it takes to create one, but it might not be a bad idea for an admin or someone with a lot of knowledge of Wikibooks' structure to request that several namespaces be created to house bookshelves (such as a "Programming" namespace be created, etc.). It wouldn't be a bad idea in my opinion to add this to help organization. -Matt 00:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, the current trend in naming policy is to not put books in bookshelf namespaces. For example, Programming:Ada changed its name to Ada Programming. The bookshelves themselves live in the "Wikibooks:" project namespace. --Kernigh 02:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Creating additional namespaces requires that a developer alter the configuration of the MediaWiki software. We can do without creating any further new namespaces. Stick to the naming policy and use sub-pages. It's simple, and it doesn't require developer intervention for every single module. Uncle G 13:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * A Bookshelf namespace might make sense (Bookshelf:Computer science), in the same way of Portal: namespace in Wikipedia. But regarding books, they are the content of this wiki and therefore should be on the main namespace. Cookbook is an exception and will always be. ManuelGR 20:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Indeed. A look on wikistat and you see that Cookbook is our largest book. Apart from The Golden Bough - but hat has been transwikied to wikisource and should be deleted.--Krischik T 13:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Textbook layout
I've been looking across the site but haven't found a page that includes any sort of suggested layout/template/design for a Wikibook. Most Wikibooks do have a slight resemblance with each other, but many features vary e.g. some have a title page, a contents page and an inroduction page; some have these three all on one page. Is there any sort of suggested layout at all?

No, there's no strict policy about it. Book authors are free to decide if a book should contain a title page or not, how to make navigation in the book etc. --Derbeth talk 20:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Personaly, I think that having at least standard navigation buttons would be an advantage (at least a nextpage/nextchapter button). I dont know how many times I've been reading a book and lost the ability to go to the next chapter. You shouldn't have to be using the browser "back" buttons to get back to a table of contents to get anywhere. - Jason

It would be a good idea to have a standard navigation method but it should be optional, not compulsory. It would be especially useful to have a standardized way of tagging pages so that single page books could be automatically created for printing (and converting to PDF, PostScript, etc.). --kwhitefoot 11:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Think free. Learn free.
Is there any chance of having this slogan changed to ''Think freely. Learn freely.''? Using adjectives when you mean to use adverbs is non-standard English, silly, wrong and annoys me no end. --Greg K Nicholson 17:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The "slogan" that is used in the logo was simply something that was established to help give an initial start to the project. The Wikibooks logo certainly hasn't had the kind of attention that the Wikipedia logo recieved, and the slogan on the bottom IMHO is irrelvant as well.  There were a bunch of logos that were proposed back at the beginning of the project, but perhaps it is time to make it more up-to-date in terms of what we are doing here right now.  Mind you, designing a logo is not a trivial task, and can take a whole log of time and arguments back and forth over what it should look like.  Do you have any other suggestions?  --Rob Horning 18:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Beginner's Guide to Wikibooks
To me, the links on the main page and community portal and recent changes are all helpful, but when I first started looking around Wikibooks, I didn’t really pay attention to all the links. I didn’t know what was more important to read, in what order I should read it, or where to find answers to questions without having to ask them. I propose a Beginner’s Guide to Wikibooks, that will do the following:


 * Explain every link in “navigation” and “toolbox” in the sidebar
 * Explain the difference between enforced policies, proposed policies, and guidelines
 * Explain the use of templates and categories
 * Explain different places to ask different questions (staff lounge, talk pages, IRC, study help desk)
 * ”What Can I Do?” Links to pages involving active discussion (vfd, NPOV and accuracy disputes) and explanations on how to do small editing jobs (double redirects, orphaned pages, stubs, naming policy)

Perhaps the help files already available just need to be revised, or they need to be put in better order, but I think that a Beginner’s Guide to Wikibooks could really draw more people into the community- I know that everyone I tell right now feels overwhelmed. Let me know what you think, and if you’d like to help me write this book, leave me a message on my talk page. DettoAltrimenti 20:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that that could be a useful tool. I might like to work on something like that. (I know this isn't your talk page, but I hope you see this anyway.) -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 20:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The help already has all of those. Uncle G 03:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, the way that Wikibooks introduces itself is a mess. My idea is to improve the FAQ, but I have not started work on that yet. Do look at Help:Contents as Uncle G suggested; it links to several useful pages. We do have several important rules in the policy What is Wikibooks; we only allow certain types of books. --Kernigh 22:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Centralized development status proposal
I have a proposal for centralizing the development stages of books inspired by the current usage in Spanish Wikibooks. See User:ManuelGR/Centralized development status proposal. ManuelGR 21:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a really good idea, but is it not a problem to create so many templates? DettoAltrimenti 22:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know. In Spanish Wikibooks we use the main namespace for /Development pages and we haven't experienced any problem. Does it change anything in using the template namespace? I think it doesn't because the transclusion is still made. Is it a performance penalty for the server for using transclusion? I don't know, but I think the maintainability would be greatly improved. ManuelGR 17:12, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! Gerard Foley 16:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you mentioned the development stages, I will mention that our current status images -     - are copyright violations. These images violate policy at Special:Upload which requires that all images have copyright tags. Normally, one would put Template:image copyright on the talk page of the uploading user.

I was hoping to tag the images with no license, because I thought that someone would know the correct license and replace it with the correct tag. But the image descriptions seem to be protected against vandalism, so I cannot add the tag. --Kernigh 22:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * All of these images are not copyright violations... they were created and uploaded by Karl Wick. Commons has them listed as being released under the GFDL.  See Wikibooks book development for more details.  Perhaps the images here on Wikibooks should be deleted instead so the images are drawn directly from commons?  BTW, the reason they are protected is because of their widespread use and the fact that vandals have overwritten these images in the past with... well... unsavory images instead that showed up all over Wikibooks simultaneously.  These images will need to be protected on commons if we draw from there instead. --Rob Horning 05:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the GFDL tags. I thought that someone would know the correct license. --Kernigh 18:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Law Issues
I think that perhaps wikibooks dealing with Law should have a tag at the top, saying perhaps something along the lines of "This information is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have a legal problem you should consult a lawyer for specific legal advice. Do not wait since there may be a deadline which affects your legal claim. If you need immediate legal advice involving political opression, or other free speech violations, contact your local American Civil Liberties Union." Just a bit of thought, for the author and webmaster's protection. CaladSigilon 15:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * So be bold and do it. It seems like a reasonable addition. However, some will have a problem with the ACLU bit. I would support something like "This information is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have a legal problem you should consult a lawyer for specific legal advice. Do not wait since there may be a deadline which affects your legal claim." That way there is a warning, but not an advertisment for a specific organisation. -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 15:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm a Brit, so couldn't really add this, but could someone with the appropriate knowledge compile a list of all the major organisations which offer legal advice in a similar vein to the ACLU? Odd bloke 16:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:InterWiki
This is a new template for linking to other language editions of Wikibooks. To link to the irish wikibooks type Gerard Foley 15:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * IMO this template is rather useless. You have standard interwiki syntax, so what's the sense in introducing new template? --Derbeth talk 18:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I added a call to this template. It says "Staff lounge edition" instead of "French edition" of Wikibooks. This tag might work at module French. --Kernigh 18:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It's only copied from wikipedia. See w:Template:interwiki Gerard Foley 22:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I added an optional parameter "edition" to this template. The code makes the second box seen here. --Kernigh 02:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Learning Circles, Learning Communities
I am interested in collaborating on writing/gathering information on the history of education, the politics of education, best practices and a call and challege to action for families to be empowered to learn how to learn life long for every generation.

Anthony D.Pfeiffer visioncoach@hotmail.com


 * You can find alot of our current modules on education by doing a search for "education". If you plan on being a frequent contributer, it would also benefit you to create an account. Accounts are anonymous and free. Plus, with an account, you will get a number of features, and you will also get attiribution for your work here. If you need any thing at all, leave me a message on my talk page. -- 22:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I would add that you should also look at the Education bookshelf for some content about learning strategies, especially the Instructional Technology wikibook that was put together by grad students at Wayne State University and has a number of unique ideas for instructional theories. You are also welcome to add books to this bookshelf and help expand edcational theory discussions.  --Rob Horning 16:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Vfd-survived
A template for books that survive vfd, to try to stop other people listing the same book again. It should only be used on talk pages. It also needs some work! Gerard Foley 22:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Made some changes to make the template consistent with VfD. -Matt 18:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I changed its look - I don't think it should be as big as vfd template. --Derbeth talk 01:15, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it is time to nail the Game Manual issue on the head
A good amount of my contributions are going into game manuals, and there has been at least 1 other contributor who doesn't know the state of his book because this debate is still in the air. As far as I know, people have agreed to include Game Manuals as long as they are somewhat "high quality"...

And if anyone has a link to any other pages where the Game Manual question thing can be answered, please tell me :) --Dragontamer 23:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I should add that incompleted policies like this one deteriorate the image of Wikibooks even more] than any game guide would do to the image of Wikibooks (caution, my opinion hidden in last statement :-p) So I say, we need to close this issue within 2 weeks. Tell the editors if they are welcome here, instead of telling them when their books are done.--Dragontamer 23:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Strange pattern of vandalism suggesting that commercial script has targeted page
One wikibook discussion page that happens to be on my watchlist is being scrubbed and replaced by a commercial link every few days. History here. DNS lookup shows that the IPs attacking the page come from all over the map--Madison, Ann Arbor, Hicksville ... Typically, each IP is making its first edit with this vandalism. Could some kind admin please protect this obscure page? Is there some general way of dealing with such an attack on wikipages? Betsythedevine 15:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * IMHO this is a page (the Wikimainia page and related ones) that should never have been on Wikibooks in the first place, precisely for the reasons you are mentioning. The policy wasn't all that clear in the past, but after a considerable amount of discussion we have made it abundantly clear (with general concensus from people on other Wikimedia projects as well, not to metion the Foundation board itself) that Wikibooks is not to be a seed wiki for new Wikimedia projects.  What really needs to happen here is a trans-wiki of this page to Meta and a complete deletion of all the content... perhaps even a deletion/protection from recreation as well.  Any takers on trying to do the transwiki? --Rob Horning 18:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

References and footnotes?
I'm working on a stuttering therapy book. I have a couple hundred references, myself to studies in peer-reviewed journals. What's the best way to put in the references? Using  looks nice but how do I replace http://www.website.com with an internal link to the final section of my wikibook? unsigned comment by Tdkehoe at 00:06, 29 December 2005


 * For footnotes, try using the "ref" and "note" templates as explained at Template_messages/General. For example, if I write " " it makes a number.


 * http://www.gnu.org (To make this footnote, write " http://www.gnu.org ". Put the footnote at the bottom of the page, not here.)


 * The part between "|" and "}}" must be the same for both the ref and the note, else they will not link together. I used "gnu" for this footnote. --Kernigh 00:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, works great! I added a section about this to the "Manual of Style."--Thomas David Kehoe 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hide table of contents?
Is there a way to permanently hide the table of contents on a page? I have a page with many headings, each with a short paragraph of text. The reader can see the contents at a glance, no need for the TOC.--Thomas David Kehoe 23:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure. Put  on the top of the page. Juliusross 23:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked.--Thomas David Kehoe 00:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

In Memoriam: September 11, 2001
I am adding a link to MetaWikipedia:Meta:Requests for deletion to this staff lounge. It is a request to delete the http://sep11.wikipedia.org/ wiki. Because the request suggests moving pages to Wikibooks, and because we already have a page In Memoriam: September 11, 2001, this discussion concerns English Wikibooks. I invite Wikibookians to participate in the discussion. --Kernigh 01:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Linking to subsection in a page?
"How do I make links?" explains how to make links to pages, but it doesn't say how to make links to a subsection of a page. In HTML I would put <a name="MyTag">Heading</a>, then link with <a href="#MyTag">.


 * the/whole/page/address . Section headers automatically create shortcuts. For example:

Staff lounge
 * Staff lounge
 * See how it works? Usual stuff apply. blah would display "blah" in a link. --Dragontamer 02:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

You can make links to a subsection of the same page like this:.

If you link from one page to a subsection of a different page, the wiki software sometimes drops the subsection. For example, fr:Project:Le Bistro links to the top of the page, not the "Livre d'humour" section. --Kernigh 21:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Navigational map for books
m:User:Nigelk has implemented an extension for structuring a set of pages in a book or slide-like manner, providing a TOC and previous-up-next links to pages. I think this extension would be useful to Wikibooks, so I invite all the contributors to discuss it: m:User:Nigelk/Nav. ManuelGR 18:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)