Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/February

Can we rename "IT Bookshelf" to something more descriptive?
The IT bookshelf is poorly named. The term "IT" implies system administration or perhaps a focus on computers that excludes disciplines such as programming, graphics, networking, and compilers. What do people think of giving it a name that more accurately describes the range of topics that it includes? Maybe something like "Computing" or (more friendly) "Computer Technology"? &mdash; franl (talk) 19:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * There should probably be a sharper distinction between the academic pursuit of computer science (i.e., college-level textbooks) versus general computing how-to books (e.g., learning Microsoft PowerPoint). Perhaps the name could be "Information Sciences and Technology"?


 * I agree. While there is probably a spectrum of categories here, a simple two-way split between "Information Science" and "Computer How-To Books" (a lousy name, I know) is a good start.  We should find names that are not implicitly translated by the reader into "computer books for educated people" and "computer books for uneducated people".  The names should emphasize a focus on theory versus practicality.  I think "Information Science" or "Information Science and Technology" is fine for the theory end of the spectrum, but I can't yet think of a good name for the practicality end of the spectrum. &mdash; franl (talk) 21:29, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm confused about the organisation of the 'IT Bookshelf' and the 'Computer Science Bookshelf'. At present, the IT bookshelf seems to be the global repository for IT/Computer related topics. Within this, there appear to be several other bookshelves (Computer Science, Programming etc.). However, within the IT Bookshelf, the 'Computer Science' listing does not link to the Computer science bookshelf or contain all of the Computer Science books. In fact, it contains some books that are NOT listed in the Computer Science bookshelf.
 * I propose that the IT bookshelf is split into two as described above to distinguish between 'Information Science' and 'Computing' (or something more suitable). Within these two new bookshelves, further ' sub-bookshelves' would be created to house related books (such as Programming, Software Design', 'Operating Systems', 'Linux How-To's' etc.).

As I'm new to this, could someone explain how this might be undertaken? Presumably, it is not acceptable for one person to rearrange the site so substantially without consultation. Cheers, Robcowie 15:31, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Books all jumbled together and not distinct
I've been working on the cookbook. Every recipie has a link to "Catagories". Oh my. I click on that, and I see...


 * Abugida writing systems
 * Ada 2005 feature
 * Ada programming language
 * Algebra
 * Anthropology
 * Arts

That's just the letter A. While algebra may be useful for modifying a recipie, it really does not belong in a cookbook. Catagories from unrelated wiki books should not be leaking into the cookbook. I suspect that the Ada programmers have no use for Albanian recipies, but they can always just go to the cookbook if they get hungry. They don't need to be tempted by delicious Argentine recipies while trying to learn about Ada 2005.

Catagories should work within the cookbook and only within the cookbook.

Strange non-cookbook stuff also leaks into the "recent changes" page. I also get it if I use the "random module" link, which really should be "random recipie" and "random ingredient".

The only thing these wikis might reasonably share would be user accounts, and THAT is not working, at least between Wikipedia and the cookbook. Oh, the suffering. :-(

BTW, adding "Cookbook:" to all the links gets old fast. Because of this, and case-sensitivity being enabled, one is required to use the "|" to rename all links. This greatly detracts from the ease-of-use that wikis are known for. If the cookbook were more distinct, this prefix would not be needed.

I certainly do understand why things are the way they are. This does not change the simple fact that things are a great big mess.

The cookbook seriously does need a domain name for itself. Then some server-side bot can go through and rip out all the "Cookbook:" prefixes that are hurting usability.

The Special:Specialpages stuff is unusable too. For example, I look in the New Images gallery and see nothing about the cookbook. The cookbook gets drowned out by physics and biology. Everywhere I look, wiki features are unusable, with cookbook data being crowded out by unrelated stuff. Everywhere I look, there are links that take me to some generic place outside the cookbook. Even Main Page is misleading and wrong, and the reason why every cookbook recipe has to include an explicit link back to the main page of the cookbook.

AlbertCahalan 04:51, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I think you have follow the link to all the categories, instead of Category:Cookbook. Maybe is a bit misleading for the user to have a link to all the categories (Categories:) in all the pages. You should follow the link after Categories:, in this case Category:Cookbook. I think we should not use a different for every book ever written. We should instead improve the way we structure the books. For example I have been a proponent of the activation of subpages in Wikibooks. Fortunately you can now name the pages like Wikijunior Big Cats/Lion and you get an automatic link to Wikijunior Big Cats. About easy linking, at least you can use /Lion from Wikijunior Big Cats and you will get a link to Wikijunior Big Cats/Lion. Consider using this convention for the Cookbook and some problems will gone. To check the recent changes for Cookbook pages you can use the "Related changes" feature: . Hope this helps. ManuelGR 20:33, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I did follow the link to all categories, first because it was there in plain sight, and second because that is what I wanted... restricted to the cookbook of course. Going to Category:Cookbook would not get me all the cookbook categories. In fact it only has three (cooking techniques, ingredients, recipes). None of those are complete either, and they won't be unless each and every cookbook category is manually added. I want the full list, as it exists in the wiki database, not something maintained by forgetful humans. This is exactly what the Special:Categories link is supposed to do and in fact does, except that non-cookbook stuff is leaking into the list.

Need better use of categories for organization
Obviously, some of the Wikibooks cover extremely different topics and are of interest to different people at different times. For example, I recently stumbled on History of Elven writing systems/Foreword (that's the Lord of the Rings writing system), which seems surprisingly detailed and informed, but it really should be separated from books on calculus and the like. I think that the first division of books should be by the broadest possible genre; split them into fiction, reference, and textbooks ("textbook" is loosely defined as any book that tries to teach, reference books provide data). I think a such a sweeping division could help keep wikibooks organized. If books are not put through several layers of categorization, they will become quite disorganized. By "several levels of categorization", let me give you an example of what I mean; History
 * prehistory
 * world
 * primate to primitive man
 * development of tools
 * development and spread of ethnicities
 * prehistoric civilizations
 * early development and spread of writing
 * Africa
 * Asia
 * Australia and Oceana
 * Europe
 * Americas
 * ancient to medieval
 * Mesopatamian civilization
 * Asian civilization
 * Egyptian civilization
 * Greece
 * Rome
 * Medieval Europe
 * Medieval-era Asia
 * modern Europe

….ect each of those items can easily be a book, and it would be horrendous to pile each of the sub-categories into one giant index that improperly acts as a directory. The Dewey system is great, but it looks almost entirely unused. No matter what way wikibooks uses to organize, we need to start doing it quickly. Visitors have good reason to assume this site is organized as well as a library, and we shouldn't dissapoint them. -Chris Edwards 23:43, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Chris, I also agree with you that a good organization of Wikibooks would help readers quickly find the book they like to read. But I would refrain from adding a new layer on top of everything: Rather, categorize the books that already exist.
 * Wikibooks develops quite differently from say Wikipedia where a one-page stub could in principle be easily filled. Not so the books - they need time for writing, and during the next two years, maybe there will be somebody writing about your Mesopotamian civilization, but for years to come, say, Asian civilization, Egyptian civilization and Medieval Europe as some books you suggested will just stay empty.
 * Therefore I would suggest to categorize the books that already exist, assigning development stages to make it easier to see how "complete" a book is, and present the more complete books as prominently as possible on the bookshelves.
 * As to your suggested division into fiction, reference, and textbooks: Wikibooks was originally meant to be for textbooks, which does not allow for newly created fiction. Reference would go to Wikisource, as well as would old fiction that falls out of copyright. Of course, some books here on Wikibooks go beyond what would be taught at schools, that's why there is the Miscellaneous bookshelf.
 * I would put the major focus of categorizing books into the bookshelves, since they are the broadly used and an easy way to categorize the existing books of Wikibooks. Both the Dewey system and the (Wikipedia) categories didn't find the crucial mass yet, but you are more than welcome to fill those gaps as well.
 * But if you ask me, for the current stage of Wikibooks, the bookshelves are the best alternative, like in a small village library: You sort the books you have, and place them tidily - you don't buy empty shelves, put labels on them, and wait for a few years until somebody will come to write a book for that shelf... --Andreas 09:44, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Special:Wantedpages not being updated, and raw wikitext
It says "The following data is cached and may not be completely up to date", and no kidding! Nothing is said about how often updates occur, when the last update was, or when the next update will be. I think at least a week has passed since I noticed the problem. When I saw the note about caching and all, I figure there is probably a continuous or frequently scheduled (like, every 5 minutes) asynchronous update. So, what is it, monthly? Yearly?

I could really use this data. Better yet, I'd like all the non-cookbook stuff filtered out.

As an alternative, is there an easy way to get raw wikitext data? With that I could do lots of useful stuff, like generate a proper index.

AlbertCahalan 03:07, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Candidates for Speedy Deletion
Will an administrator please visit this page post haste? Some of the pages there have been around the list for a year or more.--Naryathegreat 04:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I have a few procedural questions though - the whatlinkshere on VfD needs to be absolutely clarified. Why is the Get rich quick book a speedy?
 * Some can't be deleted because the revisions are block-compressed. Admins can't do anything about that. I've cleared out what I could.
 * Dysprosia 09:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "get rich" is there because it should be moved to wikisource? MShonle 14:45, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm working on a solution. --Naryathegreat 01:25, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Important Change! Done! Now you just you the following format: }. Hopefully this makes it easier.--Naryathegreat 01:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)