Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/March

Domains, Modules, Namespaces, Subpages
The identification of Wikibooks content, via domains & subdomains, modules & namespaces & categories, articles & subpages, is complex. Let's start with the lowest-level identifiers and work our way up.

Domains and transwiki from other projects
On the subject of links, can somebody tell me how to transfer articles from the wikipedia to here? KJ 06:51, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * (Transwiki) To link to the Wikipedia, use blah  . To transfer articles, check out Transwiki and Transwiki. It's not simple like "move a page", though. HTH Dysprosia 06:59, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I just read the transwiki stuff and it made my head hurt! I'm not going to try to do it because I don't understand the process at all :( KJ 07:14, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I think you just copy and paste the stuff between wikis, and just log the fact on the Transwiki page. I think ;) (By the way, on Wikipedia, it seems you are an Aussie too? Where you from?) Dysprosia 07:22, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I am indeed... I'm in Melbourne and spending my Sunday afternoon trying to figure this thing out :) KJ 08:11, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On rereading Transwiki, if you want to move a page from the English wp to here:
 * copy the text into Notepad
 * copy the edit history and the talk into another Notepad window (you can go Page History, select the history manually, copy and paste)
 * copy the article text into Transwiki:article name
 * copy the edit history text into Talk:Transwiki:article name
 * copy the talk after the edit history into Talk:Transwiki:article name
 * move Transwiki:article name into the name you want (eg Cookbook:article name).

If this all seems a bit overwhelming, let me know of one article to move over, and I'll show you one procedure by example - how's that? :) (I'm from Sydney btw... oooooo.... ;) Dysprosia 09:11, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I still don't get it. The moving bit's simple enough, but how do I access the transwiki namespace to find out what's there etc? It seems like the articles will just be going into limbo. KJ 23:42, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * You mean at step 3? All you do is create an article with Transwiki: or Talk:Transwiki: before, and them move them out to the proper name. For example, if you have an article at WP called "Pineapple Recipes", after you've copied the necessary info, create Transwiki:Pineapple Recipes, Talk:Transwiki:Pineapple Recipes, then just move Transwiki:Pineapple Recipes to Cookbook:Pineapple Recipes.
 * Afterward you can create a log at the Transwiki page to let them know you've moved the page. HTH Dysprosia

Subdomains on Wikibooks
In case you hadn't noticed, Wikibooks now has subdomains. I set up redirects from http://wikibooks.org/ and http://www.wikibooks.org/ to Wikibooks portal. --TimStarling

Migrating pages to subdomains: I wonder if there is the posibility to move a page completely to an other subdomain (including history and discussion). This would be a nice feature. I also do not know if there are legal problems, if we just copy the content.--berni 09:08, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

See Subdomains for more details.

Admins for the sub-domains: New projects get their admins created by the stewards. You can ask for their help with the new wikibooks wikis at Requests for permissions. Gentgeen 13:27, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Namespaces & Modules
I am puzzled by what sort of heirarchy we need to use in the books. Everyone seems to be doing something different. I want to work on the cookbook. So 'Cookbook' is a module with a : before it and everything else comes below it in the heirarchy. I get that. The mystery to me is, do we use more :s for the different levels? Or is everything all just jumbled in together so that zabaglione rubs shoulders with Mu-shu pork and how to sharpen a knife or make a grocery list? I started with Italian Cuisine and quickly realised that I need a subpage to index it or it's going to be the most godawful mess - should I use a colon and make a page cookbook:Italian cuisine or a slash and go with cookbook/Italian cuisine? KJ 06:51, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me try and address some of these concerns
 * (Hierachy) - Everyone does their own thing because a standard has not been set yet. I (naturally ;) prefer to create a namespace with the title or approximate title of the book - for example Learning the vi editor -> Learning vi:..., and instead of creating subnamespaces, just put everything else under that. You can create subhierachies and things at the contents page. Take a look at the [[Programming book for a fine example. Dysprosia 06:59, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Modules and subpages:

It would be fairly easy to enable subpages for modules. Each subpage would have an automatic link back to its parent and creating subpages would be as easy as typing /test. This would make it easy to link to TOC pages. Is there support for adding this functionality to modules? I'm sure it may also be possible to replace the somewhat ugly / character with : to make titles look nicer. What say you? --mav 07:23, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)~


 * I'm of two minds about it. I could see the usefullnes of the subpage autolink back to the TOC page.  I don't like either the "/" or the ":" as the symbol, the slash is ugly, the colon is used for so many other reasons already.  Perhaps a semi-colon ? Gentgeen 08:19, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Proposed naming change for articles See the April, 2004 Wikisource/Wikibooks discussion on Meta:Babel for Gabriel Beecham's module-naming suggestion... with subdomains, now mainly obsolete.


 * One year later and still we don't have subpages. I don't want to force others to use them, but why I cannot? See Wikibooks should use subpages. ManuelGR 23:46, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Categories
Not many people are taking advantage of the Category feature yet (see Special:Categories), but it might be useful for at least the title/main pages of books and chapters, or as a way of collecting all Table of Contents instances in one list, or as a way of gathering together all pages about a book -- those in its formal ToC, those by critics/reviewers, planning pages for extensions... Sj 21:46, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * True. It does make a nice hirachical TOC feature: Category:Ada_programming_language and indeed more should use it --Krischik 16:24, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Trying to Determine the Appropriateness of Creating a Wikibook
I'm brand new to wikis (this is my first edit), but I want to convert a concept paper to a wiki book so that others may contribute. I've been following various links to get some answers to my questions, but this website is overwhelming and I have to pick up my children soon. My questions are pretty basic:

1. Can wikibooks be used to publish a concept paper or project proposal (that's related to the development of an educational curriculum development project)? 2. Could a user of the content download the wikibook or wikicurriculum to be used in instruction when there is not internet access? 3. Oftentimes a professional wishes to share information anonymously (such as a doctor who has experience curing cancer without surgery or drugs and would risk losing his/her license by announcing the methods used). How can contributors be sure their participation cannot be tracked back to them?

Thank you


 * 1. Wikibooks probably isn't the best venue for a proposal, and I'm not sure what a concept paper is. However, curriculum development would be great for a wikibook. For example, you can create a Lesson Plan as a book.


 * 2. You can save the web-pages to a USB memory stick or a CD-ROM. Also, you can print out the pages.


 * 3. Free speech is more powerful than you think. You can tell stories all you want so long as they are not calls to radical action. You can be indirect and relay the information as coming from some anonymous source and put a warning on it. Just be sure to make room for plausable deniability, though you really have nothing to worry about. I'd recommend legal council if you really are that worried. MShonle 20:15, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * On point 2, I think it would be a good idea to allow some sort of single-click download of an entire book. Some of the more mature texts could take quite a bit of time to download completely with the current system. =P --Aurochs 20:28, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation in Cookbook ingredients
Shouldn't ingredients in the wiki cookbook be in lower case? For example, if I'm adding a recipe and want to create a link to flour, I need to use a capital F, which results in the syntax:
 * 100 grams of flour.

instead of the simpler
 * 100 grams of Cookbook:flour.

I created Cookbook:sugar as a redirect to Cookbook:Sugar, thinking this was an error, but I've realised that most ingredients suffer from this problem. I suggest moving all ingredients to their lower-case versions, but this might be controversial. Thoughts? --HappyDog 01:00, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * No, nearly the opposite should occur. We should be using title case: "Beans and Rice", not "Beans And Rice" or Beans and rice" or "beans and rice". The names do indeed get used as titles for the pages. I fully agree that it sucks to need the funny syntax. This is because the wiki was set up as case-sensitive, and because the Cookbook is currently stuck sharing a wiki with unrelated stuff. AlbertCahalan


 * HappyDog, capitalisation would work as you expect if Cookbook: were upgraded to be a real namespace. ManuelGR 22:52, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * True, it would, but for the time being it isn't, so I guess we're stuck with it. Out of interest, why do you suggest that 'Beans and Rice' is the correct capitalisation for ingredients?  It is the complete opposite of Wikipedia naming convention (names are capitalised, other items are in lower case).  I understand why this should be the case for named recipes, but not for the individual ingredients.  --HappyDog 00:38, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is fairly irregular about capitalization. Anyway, whatever you use will become the title of the page. It is normal to capitalize everything except the little words (articles and conjunctions and such), except to capitalize the first work in any case. So, some examples:


 * A Nice Cup of Tea
 * Corn Oil
 * Cream of Tartar
 * Moqueca de Peixe
 * Toad in the Hole
 * Favorite Beans and Rice
 * Eating for Health
 * Herbs and Spices
 * Ceviche of Shrimp and Sea Bass
 * Coq au Vin
 * Crab Quesadillas with Mango Salsa
 * Frog's Legs à la Parisienne

AlbertCahalan 02:12, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I understand that the names of dishes should be capitalised, but surely 'corn oil', 'herbs and spices' and 'eating for health' (and possibly 'cream of tartar') should use standard lower-case capitalisation? Also, I see what you are saying about first word capitalisation, which is how the software would treat the words if Cookbook was a real namespace (although it would in reality be case insensitive, so there would be no problem about making the links lower-case). I find it a little odd, but if that's policy for the cookbook, so be it.  Roll on cookbook namespace!  --HappyDog 14:09, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Importing already-written textbooks?
Is there precedence for importing into Wikibooks already-written, never-before published materials? Such materials would be subject to further editing, as people see fit, but both the structure and contents are pretty much set (heroic reorganization not withstanding). Already-written because it was written before Wikibooks came into being. The book I have in mind teaches people Taiwanese. A-giâu 22:01, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * If you are the license holder, that's fine. Of course, it would be nice to make sure your book is in wikitext. (i.e. properly formatted.) In what form is this book? DOC, PDF, TXT, other? r3m0t (cont) (talk) 00:01, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Currently .doc and .pdf. I'll have to find a suitable doc2wiki converter or else format it by hand.  A-giâu 00:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Development stage icons
Hi. The development stage indicators are brilliant and I'd like to use the icons on Wikiportal on Japanese Wikipedia. Could you tell me the license of the icons to reuse there? PD or GFDL? Thanks, e-Goat 12:47, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi e-Goat, (please, other wikibook users, correct me if I am wrong), since the icons have been changed by many people already (including Flonejek, Boit, Robbyjo, Karl Wick, Mshonle, Frazzydee) and NOBODY ever cared to put a license restriction on the icon, the default license applies which is GFDL. I guess you could even use the less restrictive PD, but in that case it would be safer to ask all the people mentioned above first for permission. You can upload the pictures to commons.wikimedia.org and automatically use them in the Japanese wiki. If you do so, all other language versions could use the images too.
 * What I would recommend you, is to use the corresponding template (as described in Help:Development stages) as well: or . You can translate them to Japanese, and they provide a "tooltip": automatic information if you place the mouse above them (try it out here:  ) which you don't get, if you just include the image. Additionally, the date is recorded when the development stage was assigned. This will help in future updates, and will help the reader to see how old an assessment of a page is. I'll gladly help with any questions about the templates. --Andreas 13:25, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for you infromation, Andreas. The icons have already been uploaded to Commons under GFDL. The template is also smart, so I will introduce it and its document. Thanks again. e-Goat 15:12, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My browser does not interpret chinese letters.
I have a mozilla firefox webbrowser. Can I download some extra stuff for it to read chinese?

Please, help me. I really want to learn chinese.

regards, PB

New consistent naming convention recommendation
How many people think that we should officially recommend the use of sub-pages for new wikibooks? The page Wikibooks_talk:Naming_conventions lists several possibilities how books are organized so far, but I would really like to put a prominent recommendation on that page, that future books are strongly recommended to use subpages in a specific way. In some cases namespaces might make sense, but I think for the vast majority of wikibooks and wikibooks to come (we have several new books every week), I think that subpages would be the most natural choice. I'd like to know about other people's opinions before spreading a definite recommendation. --Andreas 15:08, 12 Mar 2005
 * Most books use "Bookname:chapter" (either real namespace or quasi-namespace). Note that the maximum number of real namespaces is currently limited by the software (TINYINT(2)) to 256. Also there is no software support for sub-sub-structure.
 * Some books use "Looooongbookname" and "shortbookname:chap1" "shortbookname:chap2". This is really difficult to organize for any kind of automatic book listing (like I do with the Top active). It would be really better to have literally the same title on all pages
 * Very old wikibooks use "..(Bookname)", but I guess this is clearly outdated. Some study guides use "Lord of the Flies", some use "Study Guide:Shakespeare", others "A Tale of Two Cities/Study guide/Themes"? I can not find the logic behind this, and neither do my SQL scripts...
 * Subpages would force the author to use the same Book-Title on ALL pages, making it easy later to tell books apart. If one uses chapter descriptions instead of chapter numbers, one can also easily insert chapters into existing books (after all, wikibooks is expected to be a growing process).
 * Subpages would automatically come with a link to the parent.
 * The best thing to do would be to have a number of schemes and then to put it to a vote. I'll open up a dedicated page for this at Hierachy naming scheme.
 * I'm not necessarily opposed to the subpage method, apart from using the ":" method adheres to the principle of least surprise. However, the / method may encourage a bit more hierachicalization than would be actually desirable (we may end up having subpages where the subpage only covers a small amount of content, which would destroy the linear nature of the book, and make things difficult to print, etc.)
 * Dysprosia 06:12, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Dys, I've updated your Hierachy naming scheme significantly. Let us move future discussion about this point there. --Andreas 09:49, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Module-izing: Request for Advice
I started a book on the How-To shelf: Down'n'Dirty Blacksmithing.

When I was fleshing things out last weekend I got a message that the page was now at 40(KB? I think) and larger than most browsers could edit.

"Time to break into modules," I thought.

But I'm not sure how, or how best to go about this.

I can think of a couple of possibilities, but I'm not sure how to do them or which would be 'best".

My ideas:

1) The core of the book is about setting up a simple workspace for blacksmithing. Excercises and projects with that basic workspace could get really bulky, but are also in demand. My first thought then is to make two books: "Down'n'Dirty Blacksmithing" and "Down'n'Dirty Blacksmithing: the Workbook". Then put an outline of excercises and projects in a recommended order and link to the workbook from the outline with redirects.

Downside is that there will likely be enough information to fill more than one Workbook.

Upside is that it would make the first book more focused and managable.

2) Put excercises and projects in Wikipedia under "How To" and link to those articles, similar to #1.

Downside: this could put a lot of fairly specialized stuff in a Wikipedia area that seems to be about simple procedures for the "lay person". Not sure this stuff is appropriate for there.

Upside: really keeps things in smaller modules that can be pulled together into larger things. I like the apparent efficiency of this and using the right sections for the right work.

3) Set up a "sub-bookshelf" if possible and put the excercises and projects as small books in there. I don't want to clutter "How To" with a bunch of small stuff on one topic, that seems less than tidy.

Downside: not sure how to create a "sub shelf".

4) Just make links to non-existant books and follow the links and build the books. If they aren't listed in the bookshelf they aren't seen.

Upside: simple

Downside: some might want to go straight to the specifics ... that could be useful. Somehow seems "untidy".

5) Something I haven't thought of???

Thoughts?


 * Hi Erraunt aka Timothy. You put much effort into your book, and it is nice to see it growing so quickly. Here are my suggestions:
 * Have a look at how other books on Wikibooks are organized (for example the quite new Hamster Care: The main page of the book only contains an introduction, and then a table of contents which links to the subpages of the book.)
 * The table of contents leads to so-called "subpages" of your book (they belong to your book), and there are 2 ways of doing it currently: Either bookname:subpagename or bookname/subpagename . My personal recommendation is bookname/subpagename because it gives you automatically a link back to your main page, but this matter is still discussed at Hierachy naming scheme
 * Keep the book together: Have all in one place. You can organize your book though into different chapters and sections. Be careful not to make too many subsections: Create or split a new chapter or section only if it is necessary, avoid having many "red links".
 * If you have separate exercises you might put them into an "Exercise" chapter, or into an "appendix".
 * If you want, I'll help you to set up the first couple of pages. --Andreas 10:18, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I took your advice -- actually, started taking it before you posted it -- and I'm with you on your suggestions.

A bit busy this week actually doing some blacksmithing (weather got warm enough) so it might be next week before things start changing again.

Thanks again, both for the advice and the encouragement. erraunt 00:23, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiBooks Spammer
I was just editting, and it said that I had a new message then I noticed that someone spammed me. I went to that user's page and figured that he does some spamming. Visit my talk page's history and read 221.196.99.2's contribution page. I hope you can ban him or something. thanks (and yes, I also posted on the Vandalism on Progress page) -- WB 08:46, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Annotated works" and "Study guide bookshelf"
This discussion has been moved to Wikibooks talk:Annotated texts.

Two Copies of Why use open textbooks
Why_use_open_textbooks? And Why_use_open_textbooks

The first one with ? at the end of it is a superior version in my opinion, but one needs to go.

-Arckanghel 03:33, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Communications Category within Humanities
I'm not quite sure how to add one so I can place the textbook I started on it. Instructions appreciated because I cannot seem to find the help page regarding this.

--67.176.243.104 04:00, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

no-results-found page says "For more information, see $1"
If you search for a term that doesn't appear in any titles, e.g.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=cyanobacteria

the "no-results-found" page says:

No page with this exact title exists, trying full text search. For more information about searching Wikibooks, see $1.

Looks like a bug where some variable isn't being interpolated correctly?

-Bennett (bennett@peacefire.org)

Project Ideas
See Project Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:
 * Restaurant Guides
 * Language learning
 * Universal dichotomous key
 * Manuals for free software
 * Print and send (charity and non profit education to request printouts from old printers)
 * Voting on ordering of arbitrary links of a wide choice such as on the freeware in Open_Source
 * Songbook with sheet music

Bookshelf Ideas
See Bookshelf Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:
 * Social Science
 * Game strategy guides
 * Merit Badges
 * Geography
 * Interactive books using Flash, Java, javascript or Curl

The IT bookshelf seems to have grown to a point where it is becoming disorganised and difficult to navigate. My opinion is that all books contained within the current IT bookshelf should be assessed and classified as either non-academic 'computing' topics or academic 'IT/IS' topics. The former should then be moved to a new bookshelf 'Computing' (which already exists).

With a clear description of each bookshelf, and decent cross-referencing, I think it would make things more logical. Any opinions?

Robcowie 11:37, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Robcowie. In general I like the idea of cleaning up bookshelves and organizing things. I'm just not sure, if there are already enough "Computing books" out there to justify a splitting. What helps nobody, is to have a lot of empty bookshelves, with 2 or 3 books in there each (like somebody opened a bookshelf for law, with only 2 books in it now..). To my opinion, it would be a better procedure, first to open a new section within IT bookshelf (called "Computing") as you proposed, and see how many books actually go in there. As soon as there are more than, say, 10 serious books in there, I would consider splitting the bookshelf, but not before.
 * A good and transparent way to easily assess the progress of books, by the way, is to give development stages to the books within the IT bookshelf, using the new templates . Then one can easily see how old an estimate of the progress is.
 * I would refrain from opening new subsections within "Computing bookshelf", if there are no books for that yet. Books are written much more slowly than articles on wikipedia, so in general the idea would be, to organize well what is already there, not to try to organize something, that has not been written yet. --Andreas 09:05, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Book Ideas
See Book Ideas for more.

Proposed by various editors:
 * DBQ How-To
 * French (for anglophones; see later chapters)
 * Programmation (started Dec 2003)

Wikibooks v. Wikiversity
What Wikibooks is not is not very well fleshed out. Here are some ideas.

I am not sure what Wikibooks is not. But from my experience, it is hardly enough to teach a course with book sources only. I have seen textbook publishers having web sites to provide all of the following types of resoureces (except for #5), and more (some online communication functions).


 * 1) Syllabi
 * 2) Assignments/ Exercises
 * 3) Case study collection (for certain subjects)
 * 4) Handouts, files for transparencies and presentation applications (such as powerpoint)
 * 5) Multimedia and/or interactive materials, including small programs
 * 6) Reading lists, including hyperlinks.

I would not be surprised if Wikibooks is aiming at really a comprehensive instructional resource repository, but would also not be surprised if it is specialized in books and similar forms of materials only.

Is there any ongoing concensus or personal opinions? Tomos 23:58, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * That's one of the reasons I thought that a name change to Wikiversity would be a good idea. Then it would be very natural to have all of the above. Also the name "Wikibooks" isn't something that is really trademarkable - too generic and way too much prior use of the term. --mav 10:51, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree that wikiversity would be more appropriate. As it is, "wikibooks" imply that we can't use any multimedia. I know I'd like to put loads of sound files on the foreign language learning wikibooks! GoodStuff 13:49, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Annotated sources v. Wikisource
Initial discussion of annotated texts at Wikibooks was here. It has been moved to Wikibooks talk:Annotated texts.

Broken Namespaces?
I wonder why I can't make link from Wikibooks to sl:Wikipedia like this Slovene Wikipedia, but on Commons the same thing work? Is this a bug?--Popski 16:51, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Peruse this:
 * German wikibooks German wikibooks
 * Slovene wikibooks Slovene wikibooks
 * Slovene wikipedia "Predpona" Slovene wikipedia "Predpona"
 * Slovene wikipedia "Predpona" Slovene wikipedia "Predpona"
 * Slovene wikipedia Slovene wikipedia
 * Slovene wikipedia Slovene wikipedia

In other words, just using :sl: links to the Slovenian wikibooks, which doesn't exist, so the link doesn't work. You can use :w:sl: or :sl:w: to link to the Slovenian Wikipedia (:w: stands for Wikipedia) but you need to specify an article name. You can find the main page name by going to http://sl.wikipedia.org and taking the article title. r3m0t (cont) (talk) 19:04, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)