Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2005/November

Dump request
We want to move the Blender Noob to Pro book to a Blender dedicated wiki, as per request of Spiderworm, the person who originally created the book. I have looked into the possibilities of doing this with respect to the GFDL, and I understand that makes it necessairy to export with history. I see the importance of making the contributors aware of the fact that we are moving (or at least mirroring) the book in time. I already made a template to put on top of the pages that are to be moved: Template:Blenderwiki.

Now comes the question: I looked at the latest db dump, which is from october 29. We prefer the latest dump before 'lockup' (putting up a sign). Is it possible to get a dump that has a special select query, so that we can just get everything below Blender 3D: Noob to Pro? (or maybe even everything below Blender 3D)?

Another question is regarding the images, I don't see an easy way yet to transfer these aswell (apart from getting the upload dump, which contains a lot of files of course).

Thanks in advance!

--1983 15:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Does it really make sense to do this? Obviously you can, but it seems to me like it might be easier just to link here.  If you make a copy, then we'll end up with some people editing here, some editing there.  The result is two versions of the book, each missing some of the information of the other.  --Gabe Sechan 16:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I was actually talking about a move, I said that mirroring was an option, but we prefer not to do it and just move the thing.--1983 18:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there somewhere to read more about this (like other page, or external forum/ML thread, irc logs..)? I only found the big notice which pointed me here.. but no mention of any reason as to why this would be done. --Allefant 22:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately we do not have any IRC-logs on this, but I will ask Spiderworm to state this here himself. Apart from that, the main important reason is to centralise all the blender documentation. First there was just the English manual that was on the official site, but now we have french, german, spanish, italian translations being done in the same place! Before, all these things happened at different places (the german translation came from de.wikibooks!). Now these are 'official' manuals, but there's a tutorial section in the works aswell: it is becoming a huge Blender information centre. The Noob to Pro wikibook would fit perfectly in there and is most likely to be found and contributed to much quicker by all the users. It 'deserves' it, in my opionin. I hope you understand our reasons & that you agree! --1983 09:14, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Another thing; unlike wikibooks, the blenderwiki has the possibility of uploading blends, something that has been asked for a lot of times here on wikibooks, but apparently is not gonna be possible anytime soon... --1983 17:27, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, thanks. Makes all sense. If a link to wikibooks is out of the question, the best thing to do would indeed be to delete the book here then, and just have something like "This book has moved to ...". Also, right now, the sign to not edit is up now for some days already - I would suggest to remove the sentence "do not edit", and only add it back 1 or 2 days before the actual move is done. (I remember, about half a year ago when outdated statistics were displayed on the front page, it took wikibooks admins several months to react to requests to remove them.. so I wouldn't count on that export thing being available again soon.) --Allefant 19:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi :) I indeed would be interested in moving the Noob to Pro book and possibly other Blender books over to the blender mediawiki, for all the reasons mentioned here. Does the Wikimedia Foundation have a policy on handling requests like this?  I understand that the foundation is interested in always bringing more and more good content and of course bringing more visitors to wikibooks.org ... I can understand that moving a book FROM wikibooks.org does not help in this regard.  I can understand that the purpose of wikibooks.org is to develop an impressive library of quality books; I understand that the last thing the Wikimedia Foundation would like to develop is a reputation as a place for budding book projects until they find a more permanent home.  However, we do feel the need to have a bit more control over the editing processes, would like to centralize the Blender documentation, and most especially need a place where we can provide blends along with the tutorials.  Moving to our own wiki would make sense for us for all these reasons.  I can see pros and cons of having two versions of the book, one here and one there... one major con would be that, were there two Noob to Pro projects, the major authors would abandon the wikibooks.org one and focus on developing the one at the new wiki site.  The Blender documentation here might become stagnated and ignored completely.  An alternative that would make sense to me would be to find a way to get the content of the Blender books here to mirror the content in the new wiki.  This way, you still have the books in your library, you are still getting that traffic and interest, and the documentation is still constantly being updated and improved.  I would like to hear other possible solutions.  I am familiar with the Special:Export page, however, with it being disabled at the moment, what other possibilities are there for exporting content, history, and images?  --Spiderworm 16:42, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Own BlenderWiki is as logical evolution as was WikiBooks from Wikipedia. There was need for expanded Wikipedia articles. Here we have the same case. Again, we need dedicated Blender wiki site with official documentation writers, blend files, scripts, LaTeX modules, ...etc. included. All this will raise quality level of Blender documentation. Here are still some quirks in this books, not only because of writers knowledge, but also because of amazing Blender programers speed. Here we can make nice Blender WikiBook portal with highlights from Official BlenderWiki. Well, I am happy and proud that all this with Blender MediaWiki actually started here. So cheers guys! As we said: from Noob to Pro. It's time for Pro! :) --Popski 20:58, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Just go to Special:Export and enter the page names you want. Never mind, that's disabled at the moment. Keep checking back there though, I assume the disabling is short-term like when our search is replaced with Google's. As for images, I'm fairly certain this can do that too. Since I doubt the images have any history you can just dump them right away. GarrettTalk 12:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not legally permissible for you to take Wikibooks content and add it to your wiki. This is because you have chosen the restrictive and non-free Open Content Licence as your licence. Wikibooks content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence, which the Open Content License is not compatible with because of the restrictions on freedom that the OCL imposes. If your wiki had been licensed under the GFDL, like Wikibooks, then it would have been a simple matter to transwiki a copy of the wikibook over. But your wiki is non-free, so that is not an option. Uncle G 20:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Ahhhh where did you get this info from?!? We did not state anything about the license! Whatever you read on our wiki applies to the manual, nothing else! So no problems there :o) --1983 21:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The main page of your wiki has a link to a page on licences, which explicitly says that you use the Open Content Licence. Uncle G 11:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I can see the confusion here, and the need to state it more clearly (since it doesn't say anything about the non-manual things), however, to quote from that page: "Blender itself is released under the GNU General Public License. Blender Documentation is released under the Open Content License". This doesn't say anything about the Noob to Pro wikibook since that is not official Blender Documentation. I will make sure we make it clear that anything non-official is released under the GFDL. Thanks for the heads up! --1983 13:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, since they have some of the authors making the switch, those authors can choose to dual license the parts they wrote. But only exactly what they wrote-  any changes, additions, or content by other authors would need to be relicensed by their respective authors.  Which trust me, is a nightmare to try and do.  --Gabe Sechan 20:52, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * We don't need to anybody license anything if we use the GFDL, do we? As long as we give the authors credit, which will happen automatically when we import the complete history, AFAIK everything is OK --1983 21:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * No, if you keep it under the GFDL there is no need to dual license, and all content is then transferable. I was going by the above comment that you were going to put it up under a different license. --Gabe Sechan 23:12, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand the desire to have all the blender related material in one place. And I'm not saying that I'm against it. But just remember, it's not always good to have all your resources in one place. What if something happens to the blender wiki? People could still come here. But not if it's been moved. I'm not taking a position here, just playing devil's adovacte. --205.174.143.2 21:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I personally strongly disagree with the idea to actually move (i.e. delete here) the wikibook. The editing process on blenderwiki has certain restrictions, which may be good for an official manual, but will slow the editing process. I think it's a better idea to leave the Wikibook where it is. --Soylentgreen 19:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Need to include some example C++ implementations to PADsynth article
Hi. I am Paul and I wrote the PADsynth_synthesis_algorithm article. I would like to include some source code (at least a complete class) into wikibooks. Now, I posted a link to sourceforge ( http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/doc/PADsynth/implementation/PADsynth_implementation.zip ) but I would like to be everything here: to avoid need of external source. I have seen that I cannot upload the .zip file and I need help (at least to post PADsynth.cpp and PADsynth.h) from that .zip arhive and link to the article (book). I consider that is a very good thing to show that example implementation into the article/book. Should I try to wikify the source code? (PADsynth.cpp+h) Thanks. Paulnasca 19:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I found the answer to my problem and I post here in case if another user has the same problem: you need to put the source between a and < /pre > tags. Paulnasca 21:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Fitness WB
I am currently working on a rough draft of a weight training book and I noticed that there are a very few wikibooks on fitness in general. Should I instead focus on a more general fitness WB? Would there be anybody willing to collaborate with me on this idea? I shall provide a link to what I have so far, it is mainly notes and not very beefed out yet. Any comments appreciated. --Robert Harrison 22:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Widening the scope is fine; even if there's no other content for a while it's still something that someone else can add later. As for other contributors the author of Folkstyle Wrestling might be interested. Anyway, hope that helps! GarrettTalk 15:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki Wikibook
Hi, I'm fairly new to the Wikibooks community, and have constantly been having questions about how to edit wikis. a lot of my questions can be answered by the How to Edit a Wiki page, but some specific questions (mainly about how to change the way tables look) are hard to come by. I was wondering if there is a "How to edit wikis" wikibook, or if there are any plans to make one. Thanks. DettoAltrimenti 22:41, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi DettoAltrimenti: I don't know if there is a "How to edit wikis" (how about "How to wiki-edit"?) wikibook - at least, I haven't come by one - but I'd volunteer to contribute to one as I've had thoughts along the same lines as yourself. (For starters I'd suggest reformatting the Editing help page - which I note has a "This page needs Cleanup..." message...) Anyone else? David Kernow 00:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hello, the MediaWiki Handbook might just what you are looking for. It continues to help me with tables and templates. As for an actual wikibook on the subject, the MediaWiki Handbook is on a bookshelf even though it links to another Wikimedia project. I guess one would say that that it is on permanent loan to Meta. Any additional thoughts would be appreciated. --Robert Harrison 13:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm the editor who put the "clean-up" notice on the meta editing help page. I did that right after another well-meaning editor took out all the useful "quick reference" stuff.  I and other editors put all that stuff back and then tried to streamline it.  The "cleanup" tag can probably come off.  But reformatting the information might still be useful.  I also started an FAQ over there for all the little obscure tips and tricks that were sneaking into Help:Editing or building up in the related talk pages.  You can continue to mine the help talk pages for tips and tricks that might make good material for the mediawiki handbook.  Or you could create more links from the mediawiki handbook to the help pages.  And links from Help:Editing to the mediawiki handbook. --SV Resolution 15:38, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Robert and SV. The MediaWiki Handbook might indeed be what I (and maybe DettoAltrimenti) have in mind. Although it's probably dealt with elsewhere, I'll ask this here: How would I download the current Handbook in (say) PDF form? Apologies in advance if I've missed the obvious. David Kernow 17:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey David, I know that it is possible to convert wiki to pdf, and I've even found a page that might b what you're looking for, but I can't make heads or tails out of it (over my head). Besides the link provided I know that you can create a printable view of most pages using MediaWiki. Hint: Look in the toolbox on the left. That's all I know. Hope it helps. --Robert Harrison 00:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again, Robert. I checked out the PDF export page you mention and downloaded a freeware version of the Htmldoc program mentioned (htmldoc-1.8.23-winfree.exe, available from various internet locations). The scripts in the rest of the page are to include in the freely-available source code for the program, to make it more wiki-friendly. Time plus a lack of experience has prevented me from trying to compile this version of the program, but I have been able to print a few MediaWiki Handbook pages using the basic Htmldoc v1.8.23 program. I think, however, your timely reminder re the lefthand-side toolbox is where I'll be heading - thanks! David Kernow 22:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Pegagogy
There is only a short wikipedia entry on this- the study of teaching. Would anyone be interested in writing a book about this- I am interested in both analyzing the current systems of teaching in seperate countries, and also theory behind teaching (I am writing a draft on pedagogy for my grad school application). first, would the history of pedagogy and current pedagogy be a different wikibook than pedagogy theory? And second, is anyone qualified and/or interested in this subject? please respond on my talk page if you're interested in collaborating with me on this. DettoAltrimenti 02:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC) Also, I just looked and found the wikibook Instructional theory, but there's no content. DettoAltrimenti 02:45, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks account - Separate from Wikipedia??
I have an account in Wikipedia, but I have to create a separate account in Wikibooks. This doesn't make sense to me since they're the same basic site - just different projects. Does anyone know why they haven't combined both account systems? I've also noticed theres no "+" button on wikibooks.. why... The way I see it, Wikibooks should be EXACTLY like wikipedia - except containing books rather than articles.


 * The accounts is a shortcoming of the MediaWiki software- every MediaWiki project has its own set of user accounts.  I think they're working on it, but there are several technical (db load) and non-technical (what do you do if 2 different people have the same name, one on each site?).


 * I'm not sure what you mean by a plus button. Never seen one on Wikipedia, but I don't contribute there much.  Likely one of the two is on a slightly newer version of MediaWiki, or has an extension the other doesn't.  --Gabe Sechan 04:04, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The "plus" button is something that depends on the skin you are using, and sometimes appears on talk pages to add a new comment section. Since this isn't a talk page, you don't get that generated automatically either on the "edit this page".  As far as having to create seperate accounts, this isn't just for Wikibooks but for all other Wikimedia projects as well.  Just as you have said, there is an effort to try and get the accounts coordinated with a universal login, but that may prove to be harder than it seems on the fact of it.  The huge issue is mainly to create a seperate db for just user login entries and making changes to MediaWiki to take advantage of the change.  Also, the existing projects are heavily integrated with the current setup and MySQL in particular (the underlying db running the servers for Wikibooks and other Wikimedia projects) doesn't take too kindly with accessing a secondary db for some queries.  Not impossible, but it does make life harder.  Also, each of these projects like Wikibooks has its own enforcement policies, and deciding to block an individual user on one project doesn't mean at the moment that you are blocked everywhere.  --Rob Horning 16:02, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If someone is evil, aren't they universally evil? --Zephram Stark 22:19, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but perhaps stalin could offer interesting input on methods of torture, but he'd probably not be best to consult on social integration (for example). 134.219.167.53 22:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * For more information on the attempt at making it possible to use a single login, see Single login. The discussion's been going on for some time.  It's a tough problem.  -- Kowey 23:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Table of Contents
I want to add a chapter (a module?) to the wikibook on learning vi, vi Reference. I understand how to add this to the Contents in the first module, but there is an instruction there to also change. Where do I find this TOC? Jonathan Webley 15:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


 * You can find it at Template:Learning_the_vi_editorTOC. In general, a template with no namespace indicator refers to one with the namespace indicator "Template:" so that  is  . --JMRyan 22:02, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If you click "edit this page" and scroll down below the edit form, you will see the "Templates used on this page:" with links. --Kernigh 15:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Tomeraider3 format
Would it be possible to do tomeraider3 dumps similar to how wikipedia does it?


 * Please elaborate a little bit more. I don't understand the question or what feature you are refering to on Wikipedia.  If you can provide a link to Wikipedia that can demonstrate what you are discussing, perhaps I can give you some more insight.  --Rob Horning 01:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

GFDL violation
Discussion moved to Mirrors and forks (new page). --Derbeth talk 18:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks as a bulletin board for exchanging game passwords
An article that was an attempt to create a wiki bulletin board for exchanging passwords for Golden Sun between players of the the game was deleted from Wikipedia. See w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Golden Sun Password. A Wikipedia editor is now claiming that it should be transwikied to Wikibooks, because it belongs in the game guide. I am arguing, by reference to our official What is Wikibooks policy, that Wikibooks is no more a free wiki host or a resource for conducting business (i.e. for storing files and data generated by players as they actually play the game) than Wikipedia is, and that the wikibook on the game has no need for this content, which is not instructional in any way. Please contribute to the discussion at w:Wikipedia:Deletion review. Uncle G 19:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Odd Question
In the games section on here there is a stub for a guide for Magic: The Gathering which has had relitivly no change since started in the spring. I've been playing the game off and on since it came out(more or less). Anyway what i have in mind that i would like to do would involve moving that pages material into a subpage on the history of the game and making the main page a table of contents. My question would be is there any valid way to do this that would keep the history intact? Thanks in advance for all your help. --Unformed 19:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The main page's history would still show all the old information, but i think once you move that information to subpages, those new pages won't have any history at all. Just be sure that when you move the pages, you dont make many mistakes, so you wont need to rollback anything. --Whiteknight T C E 20:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Will this be a good wikibook?
I want to create a how-to wikibook on converting Windows XP to look like OS X. This will have screenshots of various programs and have links to the programs (both freeware and shareware). I don't know the policy on linking to other sites, especially commercial. I don't know if WB sees it as advertising or anything like that. Does it need to be all free programs, or what? Thanks in advance. Gflores 00:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, is it ok if I post information on how to patch the uxtheme.dll for WinXP?


 * As far as I know there is no bar to linking to other sites. Of course you should use common sense and not link to sites that encourage anything criminal.  The mere fact that another site is commercial is not a problem. As for information on how to patch a program in some jurisdictions that might fall foul of a ban on reverse engineering.  Perhaps someone with a bit more legal expertise could comment, especially on the trans-national aspects of this sort of thing.  --kwhitefoot 10:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Generally talking about the existance of patches, and about using a program to install one doesn't create an issue in all but the most restrictive countries, but talking about how to manually change the dll then use those changes to make a patch could be an issue. It should be noted in the text, though, that installing these kinds of patches violates the licence for Windows, and as it is technically creating a derivitive work, its copyright.  --Unformed 15:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think you need worry about violating the license for Windows as it purports to be part of a contract. As far as I can tell in most jurisdictions you cannot be bound by contract terms that you couldn't read before agreeing to them (the US might be an exception).  The copyright question surely only arises if you publish the derived work; by analogy: I can take any of the books in my private library and rearrange the pages as I see fit, delete pages and add my own.  --kwhitefoot 17:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It does sound like an interesting topic for a book, although I worry that the scope could be far too narrow to fill an entire book. You could make the book "How to Mod Windows", and then show all sorts of cool uxtheme.dll (and other graphical module) hacks as well: How to change the log-on picture, how to change the loading screen, etc. --Whiteknight T C E 16:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikijunior
Was the Wikijunior project ever moved to wikijunior.org or some other site? The page said it was going to be it's own project, but whatever happened to that idea? Thanks. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark)  18:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Easy way to go the next page/chapter?
Is there some sort of easy, standardized way of going to the next page or chapter? Like having a previous and next link or picture in the bottom (and maybe the top) of the page? Gflores 19:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The easiest way is to put something like this at both ends:

<< Back to ABC | ^ Up to Table of Contents ^ | On to XYZ >>


 * We don't have any definite premade examples of navigation so it's really just up to each book's contributors to sort something out. You should have a look around at how some books similar to your subject matter have done it. GarrettTalk 20:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The wiki software has no idea how which page is the next or previous one; some editor must add the links. There are some templates at Wikibooks:Templates for "Navigation". --Kernigh 21:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you, I found them Template_messages/Navigation. That will work perfectly. Gflores 02:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The easiest way would probably be to create your own template that will handle the task. You could call it something like or something, and pass 2 parameters to it: the previous page, and the next page. However, when you do something like this, you can't just add a new page in the middle, you will have to go back and edit a few listings to make things flow again. I personally think the best way to go about navigation is simply to have a single, comprehensive TOC, and have every page link prominently back to that. --Whiteknight T C E 21:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Einstein's "holy geometry book"
Hello Wikibooks Staff,

I was wondering if Wikibooks might be able to make Einstein's school geometry book (that inspired him when he was 12 or so) available online (in both German and English) for all the world to enjoy. (And maybe you might just inspire some future Einsteins not yet born ;) Thanks!

E. Heis and T. J. Eschweiler, /Lehrbuch der Geometrie zum Gebrauch an hoheren Lehranstalten/. Du-Mont and Schauberg, Cologne, 1867.

And might you make it available online a la the British Library:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

UNIV OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY                 CUY

EU    INSTITUTE OF INFO SCI, IZUM            IZ$

NY    NEW YORK PUB LIBR RES LIBR             NYP     (2nd Edition)

Title: Lehrbuch der Geometrie zum gebrauche an höheren Lehranstalten. Author(s): Heis, Eduard, 1806-1877. ; Eschweiler, Thomas Joseph, ; joint author. Publication: Köln, M. DuMont-Schauberg, Edition: 4. verb. und verm. Aufl. ... 1. theil. Year: 1867 Description: 1 v. diagrs. 21 cm. Language: German Contents: 1. theil. Planimetrie. SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: Geometry -- 1801-1900. Class Descriptors: LC: QA445 Responsibility: Von Dr. Eduard Heis ... und Thomas Joseph Eschweiler ... Document Type: Book

Ron Fox wrote: E. Heis and T. J. Eschweiler, /Lehrbuch der Geometrie zum Gebrauch an hoheren Lehranstalten/. Du-Mont and Schauberg, Cologne, 1867.

Thanks for your input! Uncle G suggests you consult the policy document Wikibooks is not Wikisource. Uncle G 01:35, 10 November 2005 (UTC), amended David Kernow 03:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

'Austrian' does not exist
I'd like to draw attention to the article about so-called Austrian language and would like to clear up information that simply is false.

When you read articles and books by linguists discussing the heterogeneous language German, you will find out that they don't talk about 'Austrian', but rather 'Austrian-German' (or the Austrian variation of German, which differs from German spoken in Germany or Switzerland) a bit in pronounciation and specific vocabulary). It is NOT a dialect, but rather German, spoken by Austrians with their specific Austrian accent (as in different parts of Germany and Switzerland people also speak with their specific regional accent). In school Austrians are not taught a dialect but German.

Next to the so-called Standard-German people speak dialects as well (as they also do in Germany and Switzerland). This is colloquial language and it is rather widespread, BUT it is not Austrian. Besides, there is not one Austrian dialect but many that differ from each other.


 * It would have been nice if you had included a link to this section of whichever book its from so the context and language of it could be looked at easily...then again personally I would have put this in the talk section of the relevent page. That said, I don't think it is intended any diffrently from the way some Americans like to call American-English American, or think of it a seperate language instead of a dialect, though personally I'm not sure where the demarcation line between dialect and derived language 'officially' is for modern languages.  (BTW I'm putting a full copy of this in the relevent talk page, once I find it)--Unformed 16:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Taking from wikipedia
When we take material from wikipedia it seems we have to reference it. Can this be done in just one place per book or does it have to be done on each book module that uses material from wikipedia? Is it Ok to just add a link like this one:  Parts of this page have been taken from Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. Juliusross 14:00, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * See transwiki and GNU Free Documentation License. Uncle G 16:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I like that box alot. you should make it a template. I would probably use it. --Whiteknight T C E 17:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * UncelG: I can not find the answer in the two links you suggest.  Is there anywhere else I can ask?Juliusross 13:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest you look around at how the sites on w:Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks give credit. Many of them use a footer not dissimilar to the example above. GarrettTalk 00:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is now a template called WikipediaCredit

Admins and fighting vandalism
Take a look at mess made by "Psychonaut". It took a long time to revert his page moving, they may be next attacks.

I think that we aren't properly prepared to fight vandalism. How many admins watch recent changes? Only a few. IRC channel for talk and with anti-vandal bot are empty. Every sysop should watch WB:VIP - are do sysops remeber about it?

I think we need some more admins devoted to fighting vandalism (in fact, reverting and deleting pages are main duties of the sysop function!). Admins should be easy to contact - they should watch VIP and be available at IRC. --Derbeth 15:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Ummm... I just want to say, crap. That is Willy on Wheels. Check him out on en.wiki. He's a pretty bad vandal. You should block him permanently. He's a trouble maker. Just thought I'd clue you in. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark)  19:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I've heard about him. I blocked him indefinitely, but, as I wrote before, this case can repeate at any time, so we should be ready to react instantly. When this guy was vandalising pages, an user reported this at WB:VIP and sent him message with warning. But no sysop was there, so "Psychonaut" had time to vandalise VIP and do more mess. --Derbeth 19:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's really the main reason I asked about what standards are set for Admins... There doesn't really seem to be very many, and something like this can be fairly disruptive, if not destructive. On a side note, why are there so few Admins here? Just not really necessary because of the lesser volume? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark)  19:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, less people think Wikibooks are cool than do think it about Wikipedia We have less users, less edits and - logically - less admins. I haven't seen rejected request for adminship, so I would say that we take anyone who's eager, ha ha. If they were more RFA's, they will be more sysops (and we wouldn't have to take everyone who's able to write in Wikicode). Ok, just kidding ;-) --Derbeth 19:57, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Instead of criticizing the response of the sysops, or even the dwindling number of active sysops, we instead should worry about how easy it for a vandal to move pages, and alter the page structure here. Moving pages can be very destructive, there is even a warning to the effect on the moving pages page. I suggest then, that perhaps moving pages should be restricted to admins only, because page moving really can affect the shape and structure of books. --Whiteknight T C E 20:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I object. This is a wiki and should be open to any registered editor. We can trust most people with the page move button, because we can always move it back. Admin tools are a totally different matter. Some tools (image deletion, etc.) cannot be undone. We can trust good faith editors to move pages responsibly, but some may not be ready to handle adminship. -- LV (Dark Mark) 20:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not possible - such kind of restriction would require change in software settings - and Wikimedia Foundation will not agree to it. Apart from it, this is very bad idea. We have lots of cases of pages that do not follow naming policy. You have to move them and administators can't do everything. I think the solution is to make more sysops (of cource, we should use normal procedures and do not lower requirements for future admins) and watching recent changes - with help of bots. --Derbeth 20:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Meh, it was just a thought. I didnt mind doing the cleanup work, it gave me something to focus on for a morning. More sysops i think, would be a good thing, although through small contributorship, there are few people to pick from. Maybe we should host an open call? --Whiteknight T C E 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there anything like a list of editors by number of edits? That would be a good place to start a search for editors who have been here awhile and are willing to contribute. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


 * That is a good question. For a long time, i've wondered if they even maintain a count of edits per user. Try as i might, i just can't seem to figure out exactly how many I have (save for counting my entire contributions page). --Whiteknight T C E


 * The big problem with trying to get just a count of the number of edits per user is that it takes CPU bandwidth on the MySQL servers running the whole thing. The developers are lothsome to allow anything that increases CPU bandwidth at the moment for any purpose, even if the consequence is you writing a spidering bot that does the same thing and sucks up even more bandwidth as a result.  I know, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but that is the current attitude right now on the developer side.  There are many "features" that have been turned off as a result, even if they would be useful for admins or for article preparation.  New ideas for presentation of content does get quite a bit of attention, especially if you can simplify the user interface and even better if you can cut down on the server storage of information.  Those ideas seem to make it onto Wikimedia projects. The only way I know at the moment to count edits is to simply look at the contribution list.  Sometimes switch to the 500 edits view and then count how many pages (roughly) that I need to see the whole history of an editor.  Talk about sucking server bandwidth as well, but it does work as a general rule of thumb.  Vandals usually have less than 50 edits, even when they are done with their damage. As far as dealing with vandals, I've had some sinister thoughts about the subject, like even going back to the vandal directly and... well... perhaps doing something back.  At the very least try to get their ISP account dropped or do some harder fighting.  I've had some limited success doing this with e-mail spam, but the best success I've had is with things like http://spamcop.net  It would be nice to get something similar as an inter-wiki policing group that would monitor the ISPs that seem to have problems with vandals or to keep track of potentially who is doing the vandalism. The problem with raising the bar through technical challenges like this is that the vandals eventually do overcome the obsticles and still get through, making a technical arms race and giving the vandals a challenge.  The other approach, and usually followed by most Wikis as well, is to give a mile to the vandals, let them have their fun in the sun until they get bored as vandalism on a Wiki is hardly any challenge, and then they move on.  At that point you can clean up after them.  The way to really make things suck for a vandal is to automate cleanup to the point that cleaning up after vandals is a trivial exercise.  Automation like a single click to "revert all changes by user:vandalx1" would IMHO be the ultimate weapon against vandals.  A sysop could then simply revert everything they have done almost immediately with no effort.  Only when somebody has subsequently gone in and added content to a vandalized page would there be a conflict, and those tend to be the most difficult types of reversions for me anyway.  --Rob Horning 01:35, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, Rob, for your thoughts. Re the very last, I suppose the single-click "revert all changes by X" could at the same time send a standard warning/apology message to any other users who'd contributed to a page without spotting X's vandalism, inviting them to review the page and restore any of their work lost. (Or would this make too much demand on the software?) Meanwhile, in response to the cry for more admin, I volunteer myself - although (a) I don't know if I qualify; and (b) I could make no promise as to how regularly I could patrol. Best wishes, David Kernow 03:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't be surprised if you end up patrolling more than you expect. I mainly wanted to be an admin so I could speedy-delete edited redirects. Without admin rights, a reorganization that requires page moves can turn into a complicated mess that must be carefully planned to avoid getting stuck... if it's even possible. I guess I was also pretty upset about how got away  with posting a sick poem everywhere for 93 minutes. I wasn't planning to do anything else, but somehow I ended up patrolling the recent changes (often) and the list of requested speedy deletes (occasionally). AlbertCahalan 05:44, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I strongly suggest all admins should watch #wikibooks-en-vandalism IRC channel with anti-vandal bot. I also would like to see more people at our IRC channel #wikibooks - we could discuss many things easier then. --Derbeth talk 19:07, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Warning
In the next 24 to 48 hours, I will delete a variety of pages from Wikibooks which are a clear and simple violation of our charter. Jokebook, Getting a date, Naturism are all not textbooks and need to be moved to another site. There may be more.--Jimbo Wales 17:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't we give authors of these books a bit more time to move them? Because normal user cannot view deleted book, book authors will be asking administrators to get source of these books again and again. --Derbeth talk 18:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy to give more time, but these books are already candidates for speedy deletion. The point is that, to give on example which was thankfully already deleted, a racist white-power book is not a textbook, never will be a textbook, and should have been deleted on site and the creator banned for vandalism on site. --Jimbo Wales 21:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I was shocked to find a racist white-power book in Wikibooks, but looking through the definition of what makes a Wikibook, the concept seemed to match our mission of conveying information that some people would find pertinent in the most concise manner possible. Along with the information of what definitions and resources existed, there was some persuasive writing, but no more than other Wikibooks.  For me, the only objection to the book was content.  I'm sure that many of us would feel uncomfortable being associated with a resource for neo-Nazis.  Yet, we have to be honest about our objections.  We object to the content, not the format.  I strongly suspect that no book on racist white-power will ever be acceptable to Wikibooks regardless of how tightly it conforms to our definition of a textbook.  --Zephram Stark 15:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't see how that's reasonable at all. A neutral textbook on the white-power movement and its history would be perfectly acceptable&mdash;indeed, there are plenty of proprietary textbooks on the subject already available, and there exist many university courses specifically on that subject, since it is an important cultural and historical issue.  Now a non-neutral textbook explicitly promoting white power would be another matter. --65.182.51.67 02:16, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * For administrators: help cleaning up Wikibooks and mark pages that do not fit What is Wikibooks rules. Add notices like in Naturism. --Derbeth talk 19:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Who was responsible for making this decision? Was there ever a discussion or a vote, or did Jimbo Wales just decide to order this today? Guanaco 20:51, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It isn't an order. It's 100% consistent with policy. These sorts of things are clearly listed as exceptions on what wikibooks is not, and therefore are speedy deletion candidates already. I do think policy needs to be clarified, because Wikibooks is having a problem with excessive off-mission stuff.--Jimbo Wales 21:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * All I can find that applies to any of these on What is Wikibooks is the sentence, "Wikibooks is not a place for users to publish content unrelated to our main objective." I agree that much of this needs to go, but we need to have a clear policy on what is acceptable and what is not. "Wikibooks is a collection of open content textbooks, manuals, and other texts, with supporting book-based texts that are being collaboratively written." (About) Where do we draw the line? What topics may we have manuals on? What "other texts" are okay? We need to either form extremely clear criteria for speedy deleting these or discuss each of these books individually on Votes for deletion. Guanaco 21:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

"Wikibooks is not a free wiki host or webspace provider" and "Wikibooks is not a place to publish original works" and "Wikibooks is not a soapbox" are all violated. I do agree that the criteria could be made clearer, but these three books aren't difficult cases. Niether was the white power book which someone already deleted. If there are borderline cases, these can be discussed, and policy can be clarified, but we don't need to wait for clarification of difficult cases to say, ok, let's deal with the easy ones promptly.

One very simple thing we can do is ask ourselves: is this a textbook? If it is, if we can easily point to a course which uses this sort of textbook, then fine. If not, then some kind of extraordinary rationale has to be there in order to keep it. Take a look at the VfD debates -- many people seem to be confused about the purpose of the site. I think getting rid of this stuff is a major positive step in the right direction. --Jimbo Wales 23:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * We have to change our guidelines for new pages. To see what is valid, check What is Wikibooks - this is Jimbo's opinion on our mission. I understand that this will cause major changes to Wikibooks - it is possible, that we will have to move away all computer games bookshelf (but not through speedy deletion as much of this material shows high quality). Now we should be more careful about new pages and discuss future changes. --Derbeth talk 21:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Unless we can define objective measures of what will be allowed at Wikibooks, I think we should have a concept submittal process for new books. Nobody wants to spend a lot of time writing a book for it to later be deleted.  Wikibooks would get a lot more action if speedy deletion were not always hanging over author's heads.  --Zephram Stark 22:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think the soulution will be increasing number of admins. If admin sees a page that is not suitable for Wikibooks, he will notify the author instantly. As I wrote before, we have problem with too little number of admins and admins not watching recent changes. --Derbeth talk 22:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree. I am thinking of creating a book, but I'm not sure if it is an acceptable book for Wikibooks.


 * I am sure more admins would help. But I just want to point out that anybody can watch the recent changes and at least suggest pages for speedy deletion. Juliusross 02:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I have a lot of time tomorrow where i can help with a cleanup effort of this scale. Maybe we should have a single list of changes that need to be made, so all the sysops can work together. --Whiteknight T C E 22:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we should prioritize tasks. Firstly we should tag for deletion books that are not-NPOV or are completely non-educatonal. I wouldn't delete them instantly, authors should receive some time (1-2 days) to move them. IMO computer game tutorials and serious how-to's can wait for our decision on what to delete and what to keep. We can also use Special:Shortpages to delete some nonsense pages now. --Derbeth talk 22:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Jimbo, you should have a look at Wikibooks talk:Policy/Vote if you haven't already. We've already discussed this issue to death there, and it is a major point of contention between the two camps--especially the videogame guides, which no doubt fit within what you're saying. I have no idea what will have to be done, but entire shelves are going to be emptied in this transition! On the plus side it will give us a good excuse to do some Naming policy-related housecleaning... but I think that regardless of your status and officialness all that razz you may have some opposition. GarrettTalk 02:36, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

This is an important discussion. This could affect almost all of Wikibooks. So under this new enforcement of policy, what are we to do with How-tos bookshelf, for example. They are not really textbooks. This needs to have more attention. Can we have this discussion on it's own page, and have some sort of notice at the top of every page, sort of like when we are doing fundraising, etc.? This affects all of Wikibooks and more attention needs to be paid to this. -- LV (Dark Mark) 15:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Important Comment - I would strongly suggest that Jimbo try to trust the Wikibooks community a little bit. We did delete the White Power Wikibook, and most other patent nonsense does need to go as well. We do tend to be a little more lax on some things, and perhaps some of these non-books need to go as well. Several other Wikibooks have been deleted recently, so it is important to note that we have been doing some policing of content here as it is. I also want to thank Jimbo for coming into Wikibooks, and if he wants to "clean house" he is certainly welcome. My own philosophy is to encourage new Wikibooks and give them plenty of time to prove themselves. Most of the time books like the White Power Wikibook cut their own throat through multiple policy violations, which in that case was most obvious a copyright violation that had nothing to do with content at all otherwise. It was also a Wikipedia entry that was also out of place. If we can find a good reason to remove content that avoids dealing with the controvercial issues that the book module may raise, it makes it much easier to remove it in the first place. I'm sorry if you feel I'm being too lax in my administrator duties and letting people like the books you've mentioned slide by. --Rob Horning 18:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Developing A Universal Religion This book was written to be used as a textbook (that is, all of the parts together were written with this in mind, see the Introduction section, or see below). But, if it should not be in Wikibooks, please remove it. Since the earlier parts refer to it, and since this part rounds out what they are suggesting, is there another place that Developing A Universal Religion could go? Or, could a PDF copy of this part be offered? Alternatively, I could send anyone a PDF copy, if it was permissible to offer to do so within Wikibooks. Please advise me what to do. Thanks. David H 20:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

N.B. Other Parts are:
 * Part One Thinking And Moral Problems. This part includes Chapter One Thinking, Chapter Two Solving Problems and Chapter Three Making Decisions.
 * Part Two Religions And Their Source. This part includes Chapter Four Religions' Origins, Chapter Five Revelations And Conversions and Chapter Six Present Day Religions.
 * Part Three Purpose. This part includes Chapter Seven The Universe, Chapter Eight Life, Chapter Nine Looking For A Purpose and Chapter Ten Life And Exploiting.    David Hockey


 * More Commentary - This does seem like an arbitrary decision here on some of this content. One of the problems here is that books like Jokebook have been allowed to persist on Wikibooks for some time.  Going through the history of this Wikibook you can see that the first edit was November 2004.  That means it has been on here for some time and until now never challenged.  There were also early edits by people who were admins here, so obviously there is some question as to if it really belongs.  Generally, Wikibooks that predated my active involvement here I've left alone unless it was an obvious policy violation, particularly if it was an individual soapbox, of which this wasn't.
 * There were several problems with Wikibooks, of which a few have been resolved somewhat recently. One of the largest of them was the fact that bureaucrats running this project "fell asleep" and didn't approve any new admins for a considerable length of time.  Thanks to Aya, that logjam has been broken, but now we are facing a situation where there are a bunch of brand new admins who are still trying to get used to Wikimedia policies in general, and as a matter of fact trying to even establish consistant policies here on Wikibooks where essentially none have existed until recently.  There were some general ones, but they were very confusing.  The current set of policies for this project are a huge improvement over what was here earlier and a bunch of work has gone into trying to write those policies.  I don't see the huge need for new admins compared to what was the problem earlier, although I will be the first to admit that we could use a little more help in general.  At this point, IMHO, we need to develop some more users who are contributing to Wikibooks in general and help them get the skills needed to become admins.  Or more importantly, we need to recruit more general participation in Wikibooks so we have a user base to draw upon to get more admins.
 * At the same time, a general housecleaning has been needed as well. The problem that we have been facing as admins is that projects like Jokebook and others have such a huge established development community that no single admin has been willing to take the arrows needed to remove such content.  The best tool we have, the VfD discussions, would be quickly overwhelmed and have so many votes to keep that it would be hard to remove content like this, even if it doesn't belong.  Brand-new Wikibooks don't have this problem as it is usually just one author trying to get started and the rest of the active community who participates in VfD discussions generally form more rational arguments for or against this new Wikibook.  There are still some issues like the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter where a large community comes from another project, especially Wikipedia in this case, and not only are well versed with Wikimedia policies and the use of MediaWiki software, but have a unified voice even though they are not necessarily sock puppets in the traditional sense of the term.  BTW, nothing against the Muggles' Guide in particular, but other projects can come over like that and have in the past.  The problem is most pronounced with a VfD discussion happens on Wikipedia and the supporters of an article try to refocus and do things here on Wikibooks when they are told to go away from Wikipedia, often with the support of Wikipedia admins.
 * Things like Colonising Mars are another example of an outside group that tries to write a Wikibook as a group where an individual admin can feel brow-beaten to aquiesce and allow a Wikibook to develop even if it shouldn't be here. In this case I've stuck to my guns and tried instead to mentor the contributors to keep it from becoming a political soapbox, which I think may be a better solution anyway.  This isn't as big of a problem because the contributors are still new to Wikibooks and Wikimedia projects.  On the other hand, we should be encouraging groups like this to author legitimate textbook material.
 * I guess what we really need to have here is a good review of the "project charter" for Wikibooks as opposed to the goals and aims of Wikimedia projects in general. What should the future of Wikibooks be?  Should it be confined strictly to textbook materials that could be found in a formal educational setting?  Should we even go so far as to require that a Wikibook meet specific curriculum objectives and be academically focused?  Would the "charter" of a Wikibook require specific application to a specific educational setting such as a university course or something on Wikiversity?  In this regard, that would be a huge change for Wikibooks and a significant narrowing of the scope of this project.  The other extreme is to allow any non-fiction material on here that can't be relocated onto one of the other Wikimedia projects.  This opposite extreme is more or less what has happened here on Wikibooks and apparently something Jimbo isn't happy about.  I think scholarly publications that you can cite references and in general document the source of the ideas you are presenting should be allowed to remain on Wikibooks, but even that has its limits.  What should we do as a project?  --Rob Horning 05:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I was suprised when someone showed me Wikibooks talk:Policy/Vote, because I saw it for the first time. In my opinion, it's fairy good attempt to clearly state what content is and what is not suitable for Wikibooks and covers most of types of books I would like to see on Wikibooks as well as books I think shouldn't be here. In needs some work (there's open discussion there) but I think with small tweaks it will be very useful. Wikibooks has tendency to make endless discussions (like about Naming policy) and as a result we have great mess. Maybe we should move on with this proposal. Having this compact set of rules, we can easier discuss future of Wikibooks with Jimbo. I think this discussion should move to that page. --Derbeth &#91;&#91;User talk:Derbeth&#124;&lt;sup&gt;talk&lt;/sup&gt;]] 09:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

what it means to be a text
Getting a date is not based on a random idea for a book; the subject is repesented by courses in many continuing/community education programs, in courses on dating - sometimes specifically for a narrow audience (specific gender or age). I happen to live in Boston, and am most familiar with courses available at unis there; at any given moment there are a few about dating skills, often withslightly provocative names.

Some random googlable examples : The whole "Skills with Dating" course set at (Fondation Course, Intro workshop, 'for Teens and their Parents') at Strathfield CC in Oz, semanticist Steve Stockdale's "lucid dating" classes at SMU, ... in Boston: Boston Center for Adult Education, and the Cambridge Center.

Not to mention all of the self-help and life-improvement courses one can take outside of universities, complete with dozens of sessions and texts and audiotapes... I don't know if these count as 'courses', or if the assigned texts (often authored by the person leading the course; though this happens in academia as well) count as texts.

Is the opposition to Getting a date a naming issue? A lingering issue based on the crudeness of some of the original content? Bad content should not bar an entire class of books from the project forever. Would people opposed to that wikibook (or set of books) feel better if it were renamed to "Dating skills", or became a section of longer books with titles such as "Developing healthy relationships"?

Most of the dating courses I found in a quick google search just used syllabi or a set of notes... or a motivational book, with little other content. Of course having access to a good free textbook with accumulated information might change that.

--Sj 12:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The opposition is mainly on the part of Jimbo coming in and trying to clean house. Wikibooks has strayed from the "original focus" of being a space for collaboratively written textbooks.  This has nothing to do with any particular Wikibook, but the focus of Wikibooks as a whole.  In this case, he is using Getting a date to give an example of how Wikibooks has gone too far, and perhaps we need to retrench and think about how we can get more into traditional textbooks like Calculus and World History.  More particularly, how can we recruit people to help us with these more traditional books instead of off the wall books like Useless Information.  Just where do we draw the line on books like this?  --Rob Horning 16:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if this is really a good idea for wikibooks long term. One of the things brought up in the wikiversity vote was that it overlapped too much with wikibooks.  If wikibook takes a straight college textbook only line, they'd be right-  wikibooks would become a subset of wikiversity. --Gabe Sechan 18:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I put Getting a date on votes for deletion. Discuss it there. --Kernigh 23:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Pages needing attention
I think we need to pay more attention to controversial and inaccurate books. I don't think that current structure with Pages needing attention, List of controversial issues and some similar pages helps tracking problems. Someone should re-organize these pages and provide proper links to them from Community portal and from other articles. --Derbeth talk 19:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I created Wikibooks maintenance page to gather all maintenance tasks in one place. I hope this will help cleaning up Wikibooks. BTW, I think that Accuracy dispute should be marged to Pages needing attention and List of controversial issues should be merged to NPOV dispute - it's hard to watch all these pages (and they are blank now). What do you think about it? --Derbeth 11:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

is there an online catalog?
I am writing a freeware plugin for Media PCs running Meedio (see here : http://www.meedio.com/maid/detail.php?mode=detail&plugin_id={A6FD6A4A-1BCD-4D7F-ADE7-C84C6E2F43F8} ) which allows people to read and browse for books in Project Gutenberg from their media PC. I currently also link into Google print, amd am working on a new version which brings in information from Project Gutenberg's MARC records file and ties in (where possible) to the Library of Congress' web site.

I'd like to also tie in to wikibooks. the end effect would be that the user has a list of available works on his machine, browses for what they want, and, on selecting a work of interest, goes to the wikibooks site.

But, to make this happen, I need an XML document, a MARC record file, an RSS feed -- something. Anything which points to all the works currently on the wikibooks site. Spidering the site is possible, but impractical. it would be a *lot* of hits on the site, would be slow, etc.

So, does anything resembling what I would need exist?

BTW, my plugin is freeware. I'm doing this because I can and because I'm having fun. I'm not affiliated with Meedio.


 * We have the Card Catalog Office where we are trying to organize a cataloging effort, but I have been side tracked into other areas to really push this effort forward like it deserves. The big problem we would face with Wikibooks is trying to actually classify each of the existing Wikibooks, and try to organize the effort to classify the new Wikibooks as well.  There are some neat ideas on the talk page of the CCO, but they need to be actually implemented.


 * If you have an idea for a file format that we could use for this classification effort, that would be appreciated as well. Establishing an XML Doctype or other similar protocol would be useful as well.  Adding RSS feeds, however, is something you need to take up with the MediaWiki developers.  I think it is a neat idea, and it would be fun to have some sort of RSS record get sent whenever we create a new Wikibook.


 * Basically, you have caught us at a bad time for this idea, and we need to build the tools that you are asking for. If you want to help do this for us, it would be very much appreciated.  This is something that we need somebody to take leadership and make it happen.  Right now most of the participants on this project are so busy simply adding content to the books that usually they don't get involved in the larger organizational issues here, and that is unfortunate in some ways.  --Rob Horning 18:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

New CSD criteria proposal
I recently added a comment at Wikibooks talk:Deletion policy and am seeking comment. I am a little unsure how many people will see it there, so I figured I'd note it here as well. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm going to bring up a slightly larger issue here. The page Wikibooks:Redirect has some policy/guideline issues on it, and I'm suggesting that perhaps this page needs to be rewritten to become a policy on Wikibooks.  It is both a policy page and a tutorial, and I'm suggesting that the two concepts need to be seperated.  Lord Voldemort's suggestion of dealing with double redirects could be added or adapted from this page.  If you want to tackle that issue LV, you are welcome to start the new policy page as well.  --Rob Horning 18:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's a simple evolution of the old help page for redirects, forked back in 2003. The most up-to-date version of the help page on redirects can be found at Help:Redirect.  Anything in Wikibooks:Redirect that duplicates the actual help page can be discarded, and I have done so. Uncle G 01:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

VfD
VfD is getting rather large, and in particular, I have an issue with one of the sections. How to crack a Widows XP password has a lot of anon votes. I have a list of the IPs and how they voted if someone wants them. And how long do things need to stay in VfD??? Let's move things along over there. -- LV (Dark Mark) 16:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Have some patience here. Things just take a little bit longer on Wikibooks.  I'm going take a look right now at the discussion.  Often a VfD discussion, particularly if there is mixed opinion on the topic, will go on for a month or more.  The anon votes in particular add confusion, but I think their opinion is still relevant as long as they are giving coherant and rational justifications to the argument to keep or delete a Wikibook or module.  The other aspect is that I prefer to let a neutral admin try to resolve a VfD discussion if I have a personal stake in the argument and have advocated a clear position, in an attempt to try and be fair to the discussion as opposed to appearing arbitrary in my decision to end the discussion.  --Rob Horning 17:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Well obviously a neutral Admin should be the one closing the votes, but some of those sections have been sitting around for weeks upon weeks now. And I don't think anon votes should be counted. That's how we stop sockpuppets and proxies from imposing their will. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The opinion of anyone who makes a civil and rational argument based upon our policies should be counted, anonymous or pseudonymous. I repeat two things that I've stated at Wikipedia more than once: Anonymity is not by itself a sign of bad faith; and it is about the discussion not about the votes. Uncle G 00:37, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I get that it is about discussion, not votes, but one of the advantages of having a user name is the privilege of voting on things. The comments should not be removed (they might influence logged in users to their position), but they cannot possibly be regarded as part of consensus. We don't want someone just stopping by for the first time to determine the content here. Trusted members of the community simply carry more weight. -- LV (Dark Mark) 15:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Book v. Image Deletions
When a book is deleted, do the images that link to nothing but that book also get deleted? The reason I ask has to do with Naturism. One of the images used by that book may have legal difficulties with child porn laws. I was going to raise the issue here, but I saw that it had been nominated for speedy deletion and didn't worry about it. But it occurs to me that the images might not get deleted with the book. If the images do not get deleted with the book, then we need to decide whether one of its pictures has the potential to get us in trouble. (I don't remember offhand which image is the possible problem. I am checking while writing this, but the images are taking intollerably long to load.)  --JMRyan 22:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No, when you delete page, only its content is removed. If you have a multi-chapter book you have to delete every single chapter and every single image used. --Derbeth talk 22:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Then the problem of the possibly illegal image is still live. Most of the images on this book with under-age subjects are so completely non-sexual, that I would assume them to be legally innocuous. However, one image shows what appears to be a partially erect teen-age boy sitting at a table (using a laptop computer, IIRC). It's taking long enough for the images to load that I'll have to check back latter for the image name. --JMRyan 22:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * This book according to What is Wikibooks should be speedy deleted. unsigned comment by unknown user


 * We can do it even now, the question is - should we leave some time for book author for copy it's contents? --Derbeth talk 22:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The image I was concerned about is Image:Privatenaturism.jpg. I understand that the book will be speedily deleted for other reasons.  I just wanted to make sure that whoever deleted the book was aware that there was separate issue beyond the reason for book's speedy deletion concerning this image (it may count as child porn).  Either the image should go with the rest of the book or the legality issue should be taken up separately. unsigned comment by unknown user


 * I'm hoping that most new media content for Wikibooks is added to commons instead. You can then deal with the policy on that project who are much better equiped to deal with those issues indepently.  IMHO, if the one and only place that an image links to is a Wikibook that is being deleted, there is generally no reason to keep the image either.  I think it would be a good change to deletion policy to remove all media files associated with that Wikibook as well.  The one issue that may come up is the undeletion issues.  Once you have deleted an image, it is a permanent deletion, unlike deletion of text.  Admins can "undelete" text that has been killed earlier.  If a Wikibook was removed and then undeleted, it would be nice to get the images back that were there in the first place.


 * In this case, because of Jimbo's fiat demand that the book be deleted, there is no way it will be undeleted. The images might as well go with it. --Rob Horning 14:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I displayed two images (the Hong Kong and Macao flags) at WB:VFD. I did not request deletion, I only commented that they are unused. Maybe they should be speedy-delete candidates. --Kernigh 23:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see much sense in listing images in VFD. They are subject of speedy deletion. Flags can be deleted safely, because Commons has such images. BTW, link to images like that: Image:animage, not [[Image:animage]] --Derbeth talk 23:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Unlinked Images - Candidate for speedy deletion?
Hi fellas. Have strolled thru the policies and have one question: Are Images that is not used (not linked) a candidate for Speedy deletion? Oyvind 09:21, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * AFAIK there's no strict policy. You have to be careful when deleting images, because they cannot be restored. I delete only images older than a year. --Derbeth talk 09:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If it isn't a copyvio, see if there is a module that would be improved with the image in it. If so, add it. If not, you could always nominate it for deletion. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps they should be trans-wikied to Wikimedia Commons instead? We don't need them cloging up the database locally, and it allows us to deal with issues like fair-use that Commons doesn't want to work with.  That would be the only reason IMHO images should be uploaded locally anyway.  --Rob Horning 20:47, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not good idea. Most of unused images don't have license (we introduced copyright tags just a month ago) and they are Wikibooks-specific (diagrams, book covers, etc.) or have very poor quality (small size miniatures, duplicates). --Derbeth talk 20:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The key point here is unlinked images. Not something that is directly connected to a current Wikibook.  As for copyright tags, the presumption is that the images have to be compatable with the GFDL in some manner.  I was not aware that the copyright tags were recently introduced for Wikibooks, but that shouldn't matter too much anyway, as the disclaimer to strongly recommend the images be put on Commons is several months old now.  Commons has had copyright tags almost from the beginning of that project, and is yet another point to strongly suggest that the images be kept mainly on that project, where there is a much better job of policing the images there.  Commons may be willing to give a little more lattitude to images that predate the establishment of Wikimedia Commons as a project if it came from another Wikimedia project like Wikibooks and otherwise seems to be a legitimate attempt to have free-source images.  Project specific images and charts that are specific to a deleted module don't need to be kept.  Of course I could be spouting off patent nonsense on this issue as well. --Rob Horning 02:33, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

GnuFU

 * See GnuFU, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GnuFU, and Wikipedia:Deletion review.

Wikipedia originally gave the Gnutella For Users document to Wikisource. Wikisource is in the process of deleting it (because it comprises original work by contributors to the project and so doesn't fall within the remit of Wikisource). In reviewing its deletion, Wikipedians have decided to give it to Wikibooks instead. Please contribute to the Wikipedia deletion review discussion. Uncle G 01:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If it is a software manual, Wikibooks is very appropriate. The only problem is if Jimbo's textbook-only policy becomes fully enforced, we may have to delete it instead as well.  I guess Wikicities is going to get a lot larger real soon.  --Rob Horning 14:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * A manual for use of productive software can be considered a "textbook or manual", as per enforced policy. Strategy guides for games, i think, are the only software manuals that need to be worried. --Whiteknight T C E 15:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It is a slightly larger issue than that. The whole issue with the computer game guides is something that does need a strong community forum to discuss.  So far I havn't seen that either although I suspect it has been debated on IRC a few times.  We do need to debate the whole issue about the role and purpose of Wikibooks, and perhaps bring it to the wider Wikimedia community as well.  So far I have resisted adding the discussion about this whole thing to Foundation-l until we have been able to form some opinions on this whole subject within our community here on Wikibooks.  We are not existing within a vacuum either, as this not only affects en.wikibooks, but this formal policy change also affect the other language Wikibooks as well, particularly coming from Jimbo as it has.  Changing the wording of the enforced policy makes a huge difference in this case, especially when one significant sentence had its meaning changed to the exact opposite of what was there before.  --Rob Horning 16:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it is a bit worrisome that at this point in the project, we are suddenly unclear about the mission of the site. Textbooks are a given, but i think it's also of significant benefit to host manuals as well. I say this especially because both textbooks and instructional manuals can both be used to teach a topic. Also, there is a significant different between manuals, that we might need to take a look at. Consider the difference between a manual on "Basic Photoshop commands", as opposed to a guide on "How to create interesting web graphics using photoshop." In general, i think it's in our best interests to accumulate useful, teachable information, regardless of the specific form that information takes (manuals, books, textbooks, etc...). This is not to say that wikibooks should be a catch-all, but things that don't quite fit on the 'pedia, and are "good enough" should probably be able to find a home here. This is an important discussion, that I think we might need to open up soon. --Whiteknight T C E 18:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I have contacted Jimmy at his WP page to inquire about what direction Wikibooks should be moving in. Hopefully we will have an answer soon. -- LV (Dark Mark) 19:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I created Game manual guidelines and Wikibooks talk:Game manual guidelines to discuss whether to allow game manuals/guides/strategies. --Kernigh 00:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

See RuneScape cheats and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RuneScape cheats. Wikipedia now wants to give us a book on cheats for RuneScape, too. Please contribute to the Wikipedia deletion discussion. Uncle G 04:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Undeleted Naturism book
I have undeleted the naturism book. There was never any consensus to delete this, and the notion that this is a candidate for speedy deletion is disputed. Guanaco 22:12, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I put my reasons for deletion on the VfD page, so I won't add more here. If you want to change Jimbo's opinion on this matter, be my guest.  The page when I deleted it had a speedy delete tag and no opposition to its removal when I killed it first.  --Rob Horning 02:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Referencing
I have used information on this website for a university assignment. I need to reference it appropriately and i do not know what i am suppose to write as the author and basically all the other information needed for referencing. Could someone please help me?
 * See Copyrights. If this information is not clear, let us know. Can you tell us which books you find useful? --Derbeth talk 22:22, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Categorizing books by educational attainment, level, difficulty, target audience, etc.
I was browsing the Algebra book when I stumbled on a discussion about the appropriate level of understanding required of the audience and the category that the books belonged to. While reading the, short, discussion it occured to me that some of the terms used were meaningless to me because they referred to a particular educational system (US I think). For textbooks of fundamental mathematics and similar topics it is very important that the exposition be appropriate to the target audience but how can we do that if we do not have any consensus regarding the description of that audience? Here is the comment that I added to the discussion.

When describing the level of the audience it would help if everyone explained their terms a little more. We all of us tend to think first of our own educational experience and terminology but very often this can be either incomprehensible or, worse, misleading to others. I think I understand what is meant by primary here but I really don't know what junior college means. I think that most of this book was covered in my junior high school years (1966..1969) but whether my junior high school corresponds with anyone else's I have no idea, even with England there were wide differences in terminology and organization of schools. For the sake of comparison here are the types of educational establishments that I attended (ages in brackets): infants school (5..6), primary school (7..10), junior high school (11..13, that is first to third form), senior high school (14..18, fourth form to upper sixth), university (19..21, bachelor's degree). My children however are attending schools described like this: grunnskole (6..12), ungdom skole (13..15), videregående skole (16..18) and might go on to any of a wide variety of further education establishments. Grunnskole can be translated roughly as primary but note that the age range is not the same as the English one, ungdom (literally youth) as junior high school (but note that most UK schools are not divided into junior and senior high schools) and videregående (literally further going) as senior high school. Perhaps WikiBooks needs a glossary that describes the target audiences. --kwhitefoot 11:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Some of our books are for specific government standards, and these can have audiences ("AP", "A-level", "college", ...) that might not make sense in other parts of the world. Most of our books only seem to be for older students and adults in general.


 * If a book claims to target a "junior college" (which I think is something like a junior high school or ungdom skole) then you should edit that text or use the talk page. Do you have an example of such text? --Kernigh 06:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The example that triggered my comment was the Talk:Algebra page linked in the first line of the comment. If you look at this page: Algebra:Functions you will see a 'breadcrumb' trail at the top that clearly identifies the page as primary school mathematics. The original discussion was about consistency and appropriate style of exposition; however, my point is that the terms used in the discussion were so poorly defined as to be misleading because they assume a common background that simply does not exist. As for government standards such as A-level (I have three of those), etc., they are well defined in theory but how many people could state with confidence, for instance, whether A-level physics in the UK is in any way similar to VK1+VK2 fysikk in Norway without having a summary of the standards easily accessible from WikiBooks so that they could decide whether or not a book described as suitable for one would be broadly suitable for the other. --kwhitefoot 09:12, 22 November 2005 (UTC)


 * A junior college is a community college- a 2 year college after high school.  Usually a lot of adult education courses (learn how to use MS Word, learn conversational Spanish, etc) and general education courses.  Sometimes they offer Associates degrees, they never offer Bachelor's or higher.  Generally the people going there are either just taking a course or two, or are using it to get their pre-reqs for college done (junior colleges are incredibly cheap, you can do your first 2 years there for 10% the cost, then transfer).  Level of education is generally poorer than a real college, science and math classes are laughable, but credits for english and the like will transfer to most major colleges.  Something at a junior college level is pretty much late high school/early college material, with an emphasis on practical use instead of theory. --Gabe Sechan 10:31, 22 November 2005 (UTC)


 * That last comment can still be confusing to some: in some countries such as Germany, what transliterates as "high school" is what an American would call a college.  In the US, a primary or elementary school is for about ages 6–10 and is usually preceeded by a kindergarten for 5-year olds.  A US junior high school (often called a middle school) is for students about ages 11–13.  A US high school is for about ages 14–17.  A US college degree usually requires about 4 years with students generally starting at about age 18.  A US university offers both college and post-graduate (usually just called graduate) education, the graduate education typically ending in a masters, doctorate, law, or medical degree.  A doctorate degree is a research degree, and a masters degree is generally equivalent to the first 2 or 3 years of doctorate training.  A US junior college is in theory equivalent to the first two years of college but in practice often resembles remedial high school or training for low-level professions. --JMRyan 23:37, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Arranging the Books in a PDF Format
Why dont we arrange the open text books on wikipedia in a PDF format also?.That would be easier to read and access and go through the part of the book.We could do this at least for the developed books.And its revised versions can br published for eg. once a month..?

-archird


 * There was some earlier discussion about trying to write a MediaWiki plug-in that would allow conversion of Wikibooks content directly to PDF format. At the moment, the only way to accomplish this is to import the pages into a word processing program like Open Office (that doesn't require any $$$ but it does take quite a bit of time to download) and then do some minor cleanup to fit more into a book format, with export to a PDF file.  That takes time.  There are several Wikibooks, however, that have done this so far as "snapshots" from a specific dated version of Wikibooks.


 * Are you volunteering to help out with this task? --Rob Horning 20:45, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to volunteer for this task (and, indeed, have started on the Algebra WikiBook as a bit of practice). However, I would recommend LyX for this sort of thing (though it's a pain to install on Windows) because it outputs pretty LateX, which gives the ability to use the LaTeX maths stuff (and means that the alternate text for all the mathematical graphics can be used almost verbatim). In addition, I don't think a plugin would be that hard to write, provided someone who understands both the appropriate language (I can use Python, if that can be used in plugins) and LaTeX (which I am completely in the dark about). Odd bloke 14:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we should concentrate on creating print version of our books. Look at Programming:Python and How To Build A Computer - they have automatically-updated versions designed for print. It's not hard to create such versions - I can even write a tutorial if someone has any problems, but the best way is to learn from example. Books that have this form often don't need to be converted to PDF. And even if someone wants it, it becomes very easy (you just have to convert HTML to Acrobat format). --Derbeth talk 18:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I just have a couple of questions about print versions. First off, what paper size/margins should be used as standard? Secondly, what text should be included by default? Obviously the GFDL falls into this category, but how much of it and where can I get the right part(s) from? Odd bloke 01:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Again: see Python/Print version. This module is created automatically from chapters, GFDL is also included like template. I think it can be good example for all print versions (by "print version" I understand single HTML file here on Wikibooks, no PDF).
 * BTW, we can create something like "Requests for print versions" page. I can create some print versions from well-formated books, but I don't know, which ones need this. Someone will write a short tutorial how to create print versions and other people could help in this. --Derbeth talk 08:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm just thinking if, down the line, we intend to have text-books which will be used in classrooms, then we're going to need a format that a publisher will accept (ie. PDF). Though an HTML version may be easier, it doesn't allow references to page numbers or even particularly nice formatting, as LaTeX can... Odd bloke 16:07, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * You can create PDF much easier from a single HTML file - which print version is. Regardless we create PDF or not, print version are useful. --Derbeth talk 17:00, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I never meant to say otherwise, and apologise if I gave that impression. Nonetheless, these typesetting issues need to be addressed at some point, so I brought them up now, as I'm in the middle of PDF'ing the Algebra WikiBook. I don't really know enough about typography to even suggest anything, so I thought I'd throw the query out there for more experienced people to answer. Odd bloke 01:06, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Disappearing User Page
My user page user:lazyquasar that I established to begin participating in Wikiversity keeps disappearing. Since there is no history I assume this is deletion by an administrator and not simple vandalism. I have been getting a lot of errors while browsing the wiki and I had a link to wikipedia user page on it w:user:lazyquasar so perhaps this is a manifestation of my browser? I am using Firefox 1.0.7. Any assistance would be appreciated. My wikipedia user account has a currently valid email for me. Thanks. Lazyquasar 18:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There are some server error, maybe it just disappeared because of a bug. I can assure you that your user page hasn't been deleted by any of sysops. If a page is deleted, there is a notice on it. See Special:Log/delete --Derbeth talk 18:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Derbeth! I found the problem. I created the page at meta.wikimedia rather than en.wikibooks.org. I am getting bounced around attempting to find and follow wikiversity links and material and I must have been actually at meta while mentally at en.wikibooks.org/test/wikiversity. Thus I created the user page in a different wiki than I thought I was using. In the old days there were only two! 8) Thanks again! Lazyquasar 18:47, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Making Wikibooks Matter
I've been having a lot of meetings with very important people, billionaires, high level UN types, major nonprofits, and people are very very excited by the concept of Wikibooks as a serious project -- but unfortunately, the project itself has not been nearly serious enough. So we have allowed ourselves here to become a dumping ground for nonsense that doesn't belong in Wikipedia.

This is somewhat understandable -- part of the explanation is outlined above. The bureaucrats fell asleep, not enough admins were made. Also, people want the project to succeed and felt that allowing people wide latitude as to what they were doing was going to be helpful. But in fact, I think it turns out that allowing nonsense was one of the worst strategies for growth, because it has diluted the mission.

Wikipedia didn't grow because we let anyone write whatever they wanted. Wikipedia grew becuase I was firm from the very beginning about certain core policies that defined the project in a way that lots of people can understand and support it.

SJ asks whether the problem with "Get a girl" was a naming issue, a content issue, or what. The answer is yes in every regard. It was a shocking embarassment. It was extremely sexist (and making 4 sexist books instead of 1 is not a fit solution), it was incredibly stupid in content, it was original research, it was not a textbook, and it was a magnet for bad writing.

SJ asks as well whether a book "Building Healthy Relationships" or similar would be ok? Well, perhaps but probably not. Would such a book be NPOV? Would it contain serious references to peer-reviewed academic research? If so, then fine. But a rambling book of mostly idiotic opinions is not a textbook.

It's important to understand that not every sort of book used in a classroom is a textbook.

Because of all the problems we've seen here, my recommmendation is that we pursue something like the "directly enumerated" policy.--Jimbo Wales 09:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Everything you said makes sense to me, except for the part about the "Directly Enumerated" policy. What is that? --Whiteknight T C E 13:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

''The next post is by Rob Horning. It is interrupted several times by the reply of Jimbo Wales.''


 * Keep in mind that the reason why Wikibooks has become a dumping ground for content from Wikipedia is because it is often "forced" upon us by the community at Wikipedia, and in many ways we have been powerless to really stop the effort sometimes. The Wikipedia is so large that even a small "faction" can swamp the efforts on the other Wikimedia sister projects, especially if language is not a barrier (like it is between Wikipedia and Wikibooks).


 * Well, I'm here to defend you from that. I would recommend starting some rules here which give differential treatment to wikibookians over wikipedians in some borderline cases.--Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * VfD discussions come up and that large group from Wikipedia can dominate the discussions. This issue is going to improve over time, simply because the Wikibooks community is becoming larger and more established.  Also, many of these special interest people who do come over for a specific book project end up staying on Wikibooks and helping out with other areas, and offer resistance to other Wikipedia groups trying to do the same thing.  In this case, a stronger trans-wiki policy needs to be made across all Wikimedia projects.


 * There has also been a learning curve among other Wikimedia users as to what Wikibooks is all about. I have not even completely understood the whole relationship between each one of the projects.  There is one school of thought that all of human knowledge can be found on all of the Wikimedia projects, including potentially offensive things like "How to get a girl" or "White Nationalism".   I know that having these items becomes an embaressment when you are talking to a minister of education in some country, but other than suggesting it was against policy like a copyright violation or NPOV dispute, it is hard to find a rationale to remove the book.


 * It *is* a violation of NPOV. If we were to have a wikibook on "The history of racial movements in the United States" or something like that, then that'd be great.  But a book explicitly advocating?  Absolutely not.--Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a similar issue that comes up in the USA when trying to fight pornography or publication of offensive books as well, and the same arguments come up. Even a strict "textbook only" policy only offers some protection for a project like this, and in some ways only changes the format of the book, not the content.  "No illegal content" offers some additional protection, but at the same time, almost all content can be considered illegal in some country of the world.


 * I don't think it is very similar to those issues at all. We are a serious effort to create textbooks, not a "free speech platform" for people to publish whatever nonsense they like.--Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Some progress has been made along these lines, however. The effort to turn Wikibooks into an incubator of new Wikimedia projects has ended, not only from general pronouncements by members of the Wikimedia Foundation board, but in actual practice as well.  There were several attempts to start a new Wikimedia project here, and it used to be a common statement on the New Project Suggestions Page on Meta to start a Wikibook on the topic as a way to explore the idea.  That common suggestion has all but disappeared on that page and is no longer even recommended on the Foundation-l either when a new project suggestions comes up.


 * Right now it could be argued that if a Wikipedia article exists on a topic, that it should be fair game on Wikibooks to develop a book-length project on the topic as well. Using this argument, both "How to get a girl" and "White Nationalism" would be allowed, as long as they conform to a NPOV policy and follow the other Wikibooks policies as well without regard to content.  Similar Wikipedia articles on both topics do in fact exist.


 * I also want to emphasis that these extreme books are just that. They represent the periphery of what is being accomplished on Wikibooks, and many new very non-controvercial books like AP Computer Science are being started that represent not only the educational mission of Wikibooks, but show the potential of becoming something that we can all be very proud of.  I recently put Astronomy up as a VfD, mainly because this is an example of a textbook that needs a massive cleanup, not because it is offensive content.  That IMHO is where we should be focusing our energies and working to help improve this project.  --Rob Horning 14:06, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree that these books are at the periphery. That's why they are fit to be immediately deleted.  They are totally not helpful to our mission. --Jimbo Wales 17:01, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * "Wikibooks is not a soapbox" (for advocating political agendas, for example) is already part of policy What is Wikibooks. --Kernigh 01:38, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

How to link to Wikipedia and other sources
(see also Help:Contents)

Linking to Wikipedia See Help:How to edit a page

Numbers instead of words for external links I tried the format [ http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X X], but frequently got numbers instead of words! It didn't happen all the time, and I didn't specify I wanted numbers. Could someone please explain to me what's going on? --Trebor1990 (17 March 2004)


 * Could you name an example page where this happened, so we can look at it to try to figure it out?


 * If you use [URL] with just the URL in brackets, you will get a number (useful for providing an in text reference). To see WORDS, use [URL WORDS] . For example, [ http://www.google.com/ GOOGLE] comes out as GOOGLE. Theresa knott 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Several modules use Template:Wikipediapar to link to Wikipedia. But today, it suddently stopped working -- go to any page where it is used, and it gives a long wikibooks URI, not the wikipedia URI it used to give. Is there any way for me to fix it? --70.189.75.148 03:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Why I have resigned as Administrator here on Wikibooks
The next post by Rob Horning is interrupted by...
 * replies of Jimbo Wales...
 * ''and reply of Kernigh.

User:Jimbo_Wales continues to do personal assults upon me as a person, and dispite repeated attempts at trying to get input as to why he made the decisions he has done here on this project, he continues to rail against me here.


 * Where have I made any personal attack of any kind upon you? I have been writing daily about various things regarding Wikibooks, and I am happy to continue the dialogue as long as is necessary.

Most important, as the current policy for deletion is mainly whatever Jimbo decides does not belong on Wikibooks, regardless of any other rationale or general community input on the decision. As an administrator I cannot possibly enforce this policy mainly because of its arbitrary nature.

In addition, with the kinds of actions that he has been doing here on Wikibooks, if it were anybody else besides this person, I would be posting a notice on the Wikibooks:Requests for adminship page asking for de-adminship of this user, for several reasons. Arbitrarily deleting content that is already under a vote for deletion that is still being decided and has ongoing comments, especially multiple instances, would be a major factor. Publicly threating to block users, especially specific users, is another major factor. Making policy decisions without community comment is still another.

Basically, I am right now in an edit war with Jimbo, and I know I'm on the losing side of that fight. I am trying to stand up to this individual who IMHO is abusing his position, and has apparently little understanding of how to run a volunteer organization. Attacking individuals who are making genuine contributions is not a way to grow a volunteer organization. Having arbitrary policies and policy changes without apparent cause or rationale is still another way to cause the people you are "leading" to lose faith in you.


 * We are not in an edit war of any kind. In order to have an edit war, it takes two parties, and I am not going to take part in an edit war.

Also, I see little content that is currently safe here on Wikibooks. There is no more point in my making any more contributions here as I feel that it is just as likely, perhaps even more likely due to my public dispute with Mr. Wales, to be removed or essentially made irrelevant.


 * I do not see us as being in any sort of public dispute at all. I very warmly encourage you to continue the dialogue, since as far as I can tell, we are on the same side on every substantive issue.

Wikibooks is an awsome project, and it will likely survive this current spat. Still, I can't in all honesty continue here, and as long as Mr. Wales decides to run this project with an iron fist, I can't continue to advocate for those individuals who feel that they are being run roughshod by other admins and people in "higher power" within this project. Wikibooks is a lesser place than it was, and the damage has been done.


 * What 'iron fist'? No one has been blocked, no pages have been protected, there have been no edit wars.--Jimbo Wales 03:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Remember, all of the content belongs to you, the contributors, not the Wikimedia Foundation nor Mr. Wales. If you have written anything here, in Jokebook, or Getting a Date or Wikijunior Solar System, the content belongs to you and nobody else.


 * (It is at Getting a date. --Kernigh 02:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC))

I may come back to editing here in a while, but I am going to take a very long Wikibreak. Perhaps a few years or more. I would love to participate and make this project grow, but I also know I've said my piece. If the community here would like to fork Wikibooks and take it somewhere else besides the Wikimedia Foundation, look me up. I would be interested in helping to grow an on-line textbook community. Just not with the current leadership as demonstrated by the actions of Mr. Jimmy Wales. --Rob Horning 00:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I apologize very deeply for anything I may have done to offend you. Please reconsider and let us continue this dialogue.--Jimbo Wales 03:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Rob, the point of WikiMedia is to create a "better solution." Jimbo has certainly done that.  It isn't a perfect solution, but I think that even you would agree that it is better than anything else the world has ever known for the purposes it espouses.  As such, I personally support any system that is a step in the right direction.  You can't expect the hierarchical system used throughout the ages to be replaced by equality overnight.  Refusing to back down, even when you know that you will lose, is a sign of integrity and I have respected you for that for some time.  Your integrity has inspired many others to take a stand and fight for equality too.  If you stick to your principles and post a notice on the Requests for adminship page asking for de-adminship of Jimbo, you will be saying that you consider him to be an equal in this project.  When enough people consider Jimbo to be an equal, he will be free to assume that role.  Until that time, for the stability of WikiMedia, he has no choice but to assume the role we give him.  --Zephram Stark 03:20, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * "Only textbooks" is an interesting idea, but has it worked that well? Lots of unfinished books.  Why not just say "only textbooks are allowed to suck"?  Wikipedia allows all sorts of unencyclopedic things, like the recent reatured article "Cool (song)".  But you need a better article if you want to stray from encyclopedic.  Nyarlathotep 12:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Rob. Please don't go. I enjoy and learn from what you write and will miss you if you leave. David H 14:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Dammit Rob, if the people who care as strongly as you do leave we are in deep trouble. --kwhitefoot 19:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If the page in dispute is What is Wikibooks, then I do not Rob Horning in the edit history. I noticed that my "disputed section" marker at What is Wikibooks disappeared in this edit. --Kernigh 01:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * However, What is Wikibooks has seen no major changes recently, other than the addition of "Wikibooks is not censored for the protection of minors". There is also the proposed addition (summarily "Wikibooks is not a thesaurus") currently at a vote on Wikibooks talk:What is Wikibooks.


 * Jimbo Wales has left policy essentially the same as it already was. Lots of books (soapboxes, encyclopedias, ...) remain unpermitted at Wikibooks. --Kernigh 03:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The edit war
Here is part of the problem. The deletion log for Jokebook shows that Jimbo Wales deleted the front page of Jokebook, then Robert Horning undeleted it.

The deletion was not appropriate because the discussion on WB:VFD remains open. Some users want to delete Jokebook, but they also want to move it somewhere, so it cannot be deleted yet.

If you only look at the page history, then you see no sign of deletion or undeletion. You must use the deletion log. --Kernigh 18:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a similar problem at deletion log for Getting a date. Robert Horning and Guanaco, thank you for allowing discussion to continue! --Kernigh 18:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikiprojects for bookshelves?
I've been reading wikipedia lately, and have been introduced to the concept of WikiProjects- groups of people dedicated to improving articles related to a topic. I'm wondering if an equivalent wouldn't be a good idea for wikibooks. I see a lot of books where content is duplicated, in many cases poorly. Or where 1 book tries to hold the entirety of a large subject, and ends up becoming a survey of the subject rather than a good text on one topic of it. The bookshelf that I saw that drove me to this post was Math, but I'm sure its happening in them all. I wonder if a place where editors on a subject could talk, ask for help, give suggestions, etc would help improve the average quality of the books. Does this make sense to anyone else? --Gabe Sechan 20:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Certainly sounds an idea, especially if it makes compiling a book less likely to stall (as currently seems to be the case with Wikijunior Solar System...) David Kernow 20:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I wonder if we should rework the general philosophies here that instead Wikibooks bookshelves become Wikiprojects. This is Wikibook bookshelves as Wikiprojects.  Each bookshelf has its own discussion page, and is in many ways just like a portal for many Wikiprojects on Wikipedia as well.  It isn't a perfect fit, but it is a way that you can get several like-minded individuals to work together.  Also, even each seperate Wikibook is more organized along the lines of a Wikiproject on Wikipedia anyway, so this is more a meta-project space as well.  --Rob Horning 14:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Anyone having a deja vu? I could have sworn that Wikiversity went down this path. (then again, I didn't frequent this site when wikiversity was starting up). --Dragontamer 20:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

"100% finished" list
I can't find a page listing all of the completed books. Does such a page exist? Thanks - Xed 20:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * How do you define completed? For some books it isn't too difficult: a high school textbook, say FHSST Physics, is complete when it covers the official national (in this case South African) syllabus.  But for others such as Visual_Basic_Classic which is an evolving text treating programming through VB6/5 it is much more difficult because no one declared a list of topics to be covered at the beginning.  In fact it is something that I have on my to do list: an outline of the book briefly listing what it is and is not intended to cover.  You can get some idea of which books are regarded as complete by looking at the links on the page for the 100% graphic: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Image:100%25.png.  --kwhitefoot 22:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It would be difficult to say if a book is done. A nice place to look is in the Book of the Month page. Note: most are not 100% finished, but they are generally well-done. Feel free to help out. :) --Gflores Talk 19:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

For most users of Wikibooks (i.e. readers), a page listing the completed books would seem to be essential. - Xed 19:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a category listing could be added to the completion percentage templates. But, it probably won't work (haven't actually looked at the templates, it looks like it's just one though) and you'd just end up with 5 very cluttered categories. Xerol Oplan 05:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Now that I look at it, actually, if you look at the "Links" section here, that does exactly what I was describing. Now, it won't help for modules that are complete (as much as you can use the term on a wiki) and NOT marked with the 100% stage, but it's a good start. Xerol Oplan 06:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Collaborative editing
Please review the projects listed at Engineering Acoustics. There appears to be module ownership occurring here. At least one of these has sported a notice claiming that the page must not be edited by anyone other than its creator, which I have twice removed with a prominent link to the MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning notice that "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here." Whilst a class project to write a textbook is a laudable one, it should embrace our collaborative editing process, not oppose it, and should embrace the principle of freedom that underpins the GNU Free Documentation License that we use. Wikibooks is not for proprietary works (indeed one of its fundamental aims is to be non-proprietary) yet this is exactly what is occurring here it seems. Uncle G 06:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If it becomes a sore violation of policy, and the contributers resist reasonable participation in the community, this page could easily be hit with a VfD. Of course, we don't want to stand in the way of a learning opportunity, but we do have policy here that needs to be enforced. I will also leave a message on that page, and see if I can get a response from them. -- 21:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * As they can't prevent anyone editing the page why should anyone care what they want? All that need be done is to notify them that they are misbehaving.  If they won't behave it's the contributors who need to be excluded not the content (some of it could be deleted on the grounds that it is just a lab. report).  --kwhitefoot 22:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

FREE textbooks... can/should they be integrated into Wikibooks?
I've just found some FREE textbooks on the internet, and I'm wondering if these can or should be integrated in the Wikibooks project.

Textbook Revolution (http://www.textbookrevolution.org/) has a lot of Creative Commons licenced books on various topics.

Motion Mountain (http://www.motionmountain.net/) is a free Physics textbook, but is copyrighted, and so it might not be able to be part of Wikibooks.

I haven't looked at the quality of these sites, but I just discovered them and wanted to know if any other Wikibook users knew they existed.

Singingwolfboy 03:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The ones under copyright definately raise a red flag, but the ones licenced under the Creative Commons licence might be okay. I dont think we should attempt to merge those books into wikibooks, but if contributers happen to gather information from sources online (or better yet, if they reference these FREE books), then i dont think there is a problem. In general, I would warn against any use of Copy+Paste. --Whiteknight T C E 04:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I would say that unless someone wants to make significant changes to them they do not belong on Wikibooks. On the other hand if they are good and there is a risk that they might disappear from their original home then they could be copied to Wikisource.  Of course this applies only to those that have a GFDL compatible licence, but don't forget that authors want readers and that the author might well be willing to license the book under the GFDL if asked.  That's how I got the coding guidelines for Visual Basic Classic, I just asked the copyright holder and he said yes.  --kwhitefoot 07:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Forgot to say that Motion Mountain is an excellent book but is not really a textbook in the modern tradition. Mind you it is all the better for that.  Unlike most textbooks Motion Mountain can be read for sheer pleasure as well as the hard information it contains.  Instead of exercises it has challenges which are much less amenable to parrot fashion answers.  The reader is expected to think as well as read, to examine the subject in depth and develop an understanding rather than merely learn procedures.  I'd be surprised if Christoph Schiller were willing to relinquish control of a book that has so clearly cost so much time and effort.  --kwhitefoot 22:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Addendum to Missing Policies
I have started a list of missing policies that would be helpful for Wikibooks to develop and start enforcing. So much that is decided and done around here is based on policies that have never been established. The list is on my user page if you would like to see it. I know some of the policies are perhaps briefly mentioned in other policies, but they should really be explicitly spelled out for people to be able to read and understand. I would appreciate any comments. Thanks. -- LV (Dark Mark) 20:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I looked at most of them, and cast my votes on the ones that had open voting. I think that many of these pages arent particularly needed right now at wikibooks, but many of them definately could be of use. -- 22:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Some may not be absolutely necessary right now, but as WB grows, it is important to have policies decided upon and enforced, or else we fall into the whole "Wikibooks is only for textbooks" thing. Right now there is no policy even saying Admins can block or ban people. I think this needs to be reconciled. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:44, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Dispute resolution
How is the best way to handle disputes here at Wikibooks? I know the dispute resolution process over at Wikipedia, but am unable to find one here. I don't see Wikibooks as needing anything close to the level of processes over at WP, but I think it is necessary to establish some sort of process early enough before we really need it. I would be interested in working on some sort of dispute resolution process development with a few other people if WB doesn't already have something in place. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * What kinds of disputes are you talking about? I guess we dont have much mechanism to solve problems, but it also hasnt come up much before. you could author a new policy on dispute resolution if you have the time and inclination. -- 22:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Like if two editors have a fight, or an Admin wrongly blocked someone, or a module is in a constant edit war and needs a third opinion. Basically how are we supposed to solve problems that come up? Eventually bringing problems to the Staff Lounge will be unmanagable. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I created page Wikibooks maintenance, there are some links to disputes. --Derbeth talk 23:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Not exactly the dispute resolution process I was looking for. If I have any time, I'll draft up something more like I had in mind. -- LV (Dark Mark) 17:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

大三夜
I am trying to add a navigation template to the pages here, however they look shite! I would appreciate it if someone can improve the template used, or replace it with a suitable substitute template. Thanks, Gerard Foley 02:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The template seems to be Template:第三夜Nav. --Kernigh 15:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that is the one. Any advice? Gerard Foley 22:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

CREATIVE COMMONS
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

I want to add stuff I found I a website to Wikibooks. It uses the Creative Commons License. Is it OK to add? Gerard Foley 04:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, unfortunately no. Unless you can arrange with the authors for their content to be cross-licensed under the GFDL (ala GNU Free Documentation License, the license we use) their content cannot be used here. :( GarrettTalk 09:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Over at Wikicities:c:Gameinfo:Battle for Wesnoth, I added some non-GFDL images to a GFDL wiki. I tried to claim "aggregation" because the two licenses (GNU General Public License, GNU Free Documentation License) were incompatible. A similar strategy might work with the CC-BY-SA license; one would insert a small amount of CC-BY-SA text into an existing GFDL wiki module, and mark which text was CC-BY-SA. --Kernigh 15:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * But the CC-BY-NC-SA license is a problem because it prohibits commercial use. Try Garrett's suggestion of asking for a GFDL license, which allows commercial use. --Kernigh 15:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Gerard Foley 22:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Answers to copyrighted textbooks
I'm not really sure on this one. Would a WikiBook of detailed methods to solve the questions in a specific copyrighted textbook be legal/appropriate on WikiBooks? I only ask because I already have quite a lot of Maths work already in a TeX'd maths format, which would seem a shame to waste if this would be OK. Odd bloke 14:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that would fall under the umbrella of "Annotated Texts", which is allowed under current policy. Check out WB:WIW to make sure, but i think you should be fine. -- 19:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The Fleecing of Students with Textbook Buyback Programs
Greetings,

I was wondering if there are any organized attempts to increase the amount offered for used textbooks when students attempt to sell them back at the end of the semester; and/or controls on publishers making new editions for minor changes within current editions for the purpose of putting a new product on the shelf? As a student, it's not uncommon to hear each semester of students forced to take a tremendous loss on a book in excellent condition, for a new edition of the same book with only minor changes or renumbered homework problems. I'm sure there are others out there that see something wrong with this system. Any feedback...

Kim, AKA, "Baffled Oldtimer"


 * One solution is not to buy the books in the first place, and do all your reading on wikibooks! Seriously though, the college textbook market is a travesty of the educational system. Worse then the publishers putting out new versions every year on 100$ books are the professors who insist that the students buy the current version each year, so that all the page numbers line up. I've had 2 professors in my educational career that actually authored their own textbooks, and threatened to fail any students that didnt buy the current version at the beginning of each semester. It's all a shame, That's why i spend so much of my time contributing to wikibooks: because I want to try and alleviate this problem for future generations of students. -- 19:06, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * 'Tis a shame and a sham. I remember being so excited to get back 40 bucks on 300 dollars worth of new textbooks that were barely touched. I think it has somehting to do with the monopoly some book distributors have on buy-back programs. It might be wise to look into starting a selling program at your school to buy books back from students at a little more than currently offered, and then sell them back to students taking the class next year at a lower price than the bookstore. Not really sure what to do with classes requiring new textbooks every year though. Perhaps just use Half.com or the like. -- LV (Dark Mark) 19:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * What I did was use college newsgroups and similar free advertising sources to announce the books I had, and offer them at a fiar price. Generally I split the difference between the cost of a used book at the bookstore and the price they were buying used books for.  I made a bit of cash, he saved a bit, we both went away happy. --Gabe Sechan 21:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I used a combination of techniques and probably spent no more than $300 on textbooks my last two years of college:
 * See if the professor has a copy available on reserve at the library. If not, ask them to put a copy on reserve. Some will, some won't. Usually that will allow you to check it out for a few hours at a time. Beware, though, this can get frustrating during finals week.
 * If you have a friend (or friends) in the class, split the cost or borrow the book.
 * If you won't have to *turn in* homework problems, get an old edition. Sure some of the stuff is different, but it's good enough to pass the tests. Ask former students who will usually sell dirt cheap, go to the discontinued section of your bookstore (they're often steeply discounted, as in 90% off), or look in the library for an old edition.
 * Even if you will have to turn it in, buy an old version, then borrow a new version from a fellow student for a day and photocopy just the homework problems. I believe that's fair use. And if anyone argues it isn't, smile and nod (and do it anyway). Another alternative (for non-shrinkwrapped books) is to buy it, copy the homework problems, and return it.
 * If there's no alternative market at your school for used textbooks, create one! Post up billboards all around the campus with a catchy marketing message such as "Screw the bookstore before they screw you!" then below it, in smaller print, "Buy and sell your books directly to other students to avoid giving the fat pigs at the bookstore a chance to profit off starving students such as yourself." Then end with a website: groups.yahoo.com/U-Mich-Used-Books, and watch the traffic start to come in. Of course, you'll have to create the group first and write a simple introductory message.
 * Maybe somebody can make a wikibook out of this.--Aaronsama 16:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I actually keep about 8 out of 10 textbooks I've purchased, and only sell the ones back for dead-end courses. It's a pretty good idea to keep textbooks in your field of study, as they can be good references for future coursework, study guides in general, or just plain relics. I also do tutoring in Accounting at a community college and have an old edition of the textbook in use there--the text material is identical (with the exception of the combination of chapters one and two - which threw off all the page numbers) but the problems are different, which gives me a good amount of supplemental study material to give to my tutees. Xerol Oplan 05:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Reiki
Is it OK for Wikibooks to have a book on how to do reiki? Gerard Foley 22:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * As long as it is written as a textbook, that should be fine. Maybe start an overall book of Holistics or Natural Medicine and have that as a section? Just my thoughts though. -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 22:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I have no interest in Reiki, it's a lot of crap, but I know someone who might. I just don't want to tell him he can write it and then see his work deleted. Gerard Foley 02:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Well as long as it is written as a textbook, it should be fine. -- LV <font color="#3D9140">(Dark Mark) 19:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Exactly. So long as it's a textbook, and it doesnt violate the NPOV or soapbox rules, then it should be okay. Just tell your friend to keep his sentences in the form "Reiki is performed as such...", and not "Reiki is super awesome because..." or even "Reiki is better then the following things...". -- 20:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone! Gerard Foley 23:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)