Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2006/July

Help with setting up a "wikimanual"
I've just started a book called A Wikimanual of Gardening, and would like some help getting it working properly. The book is inspired by the recurring discussions over at WP about getting "how-to" information out of articles dealing with plant, insect, soil, etc.


 * It would be wise to retitle to "A Wiki Textbook of Gardening". "Manuals" are frequently rapidly deleted or voted for deletion (VfD) and then deleted.  Local policy is TEXTBOOKS ONLY. user:lazyquasar

What I'm hoping to do is enable them to create chapters in an organized wikibook, rather than "dumping" information through the transwiki process. I've opened a chapter on that (A_Wikimanual_of_Gardening/How_to_Transwiki_Information_to_this_Book), perhaps I could get a few pointers on that part of things from you folks?

Also, I'm moving a couple other books (ones I started) to this one as chapters. Still figuring that part out. Johnny 17:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * We already have a Gardening textbook. Can you not merge your work into here? Unless you're trying to appeal to a different audience than the Gardening book, we really shouldn't have two books on the same subject, Jguk 07:54, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Forgive me for asking I am simply hanging out waiting for Wikiversity. Can you cite a policy such as NO DUPE or is this a personal interpretation of the best way to proceed locally at the moment.  You are contending that there should only be one textbook on Gardening at Wikibooks? user:lazyquasar


 * From what I understand from the Talk:Gardening page, that book has serious issues and was slated either for deletion or to be moved to wikisource. Seems better to start anew than work on a book with that hanging over it. Johnny 13:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, by all means - though do bear it in mind as a potential source of info for a revised/new book. Once you have culled everything of value, feel free to mark up pages for deletion with, Jguk 17:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The Gardening book really doesn't seem to have much in it when I look at the individual chapters, it's more of a commentary than a guide, and much is quite out of date. I'll keep looking though. Is deletion compulsory? Some readers might find it interesting. (BTW: Why would having "manual" in the title attract an RfD? It's a how-to book, which is just a long-winded way to say "manual".) Johnny 11:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

New Logo Discussion
There is a logo discussion for Wikibooks going on at Meta. See Wikibooks/logo. Dbmag9 19:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm curious about a couple of things regarding this:
 * Who is starting this movement to replace the logo? i.e. what is the motivation behind why this needs to change?
 * What is wrong with the existing logo?
 * If this was the outgrowth of a discussion here on the Staff Lounge or the mailing list (perhaps even an IRC chat), I might be more inclined to support a move like this. At this time we have a project logo that has been used for a couple of years, so IMHO changing the logo should be for something much cleaner and simpler, or add a huge value to the project.  It is not that I have anything against this, just that it seems to have come from people external to typical Wikibooks contributors that are pushing for this change.  --Rob Horning 17:29, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You make a good point that I didn't even consider. The wikibooks logo might not be perfect, but does it really need to change? Who want's it changed and why? What benefit will a new logo bring us, that this logo doesnt? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Apparently (after some digging around), some of the motivation was by a Russian Wikibooks editor who didn't like what he was seeing, especially when he was trying to translate the Wikibooks "slogan" (Think free. Learn free.) into Russian.  I've said on many occasions that Wikibooks was more than en.wikibooks, and this apparently is one of those situations.  The idea of changing this slogan I would support much more than changing the logo, and that is something that has come up here on the Staff Lounge in the recent past.  Any ideas for a better slogan? --Rob Horning 12:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * "OMG Free Books!". --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Most of the current logo discussions (there are 5) are stimulated in some way by User:Nightstallion. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances about this one. Answers to both questions at the meta page. Dbmag9 19:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

collaboration and book of the month
Someone please write some nice descriptions for these books. I have made basic templates, but I am a failure at exciting writing. Kellen T 01:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, we should close voting earlier and make the templates before the actual day they change. That way we won't get redlinks like we had this evening. Kellen T 01:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I tried to add a bit to the Muggles' Guide section. I wish there were more Commons HP images. -Matt 13:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Computer Help Wiki
I work for a charity called U Can Do IT (see www.ucandoit.org.uk) which provides computer tuition for disabled people in the UK. I am currently trying to start up a wiki at wiki.ucandoit.org.uk which will fulfill various functions for the charity. Perhaps the most important of these is the provision of a set of Instructions and Course Notes for U Can Do IT students to use while they are taking the course.

I have publicised the wiki amongst other U Can Do IT tutors, but I don't think many of them are particularly experienced in editing wikis. Would any experienced wikipedians be able to provide any help in building the UCanWIKI? Accounts are by invitation only, but there's a link on the main page of the wiki from which you can email me an account request. Even if you don't want to contribute, any general advice (e.g., already-extant sources of computer instructions, general design tips etc etc) would be great.

Thank you! --Jim0203 10:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC) wiki.ucandoit.org.uk

Help with Orthopaedic Surgery
I have been working for some time on Orthopaedic Surgery. Recently I created two navigation templates. One is for the page navigation and the other is for chapter navigation. The idea of having the Chapter navigation was to allow the user to access another chapter in the module easily, which they can do right now. But the problem is the user is not aware of the chapter he is in unless its the first page of the chapter as the link in the template leads to that page. One way to do that would be to probably categorise it into the concerned chapters. However, it would make sense to do it through the navigation template. If anyone has ideas about how to sort this out, I would be more than grateful if you let me to it. Any other ideas are also welcome. Thanks in advance! BDB 04:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, you could add a parameter to OrthoMainTOC, that would be the name of the chapter that the individual page belongs to. Then, you could add a series of conditional expressions to the navigation template to selectively apply formatting (such as bolding, or underlining, or whatever) to the chapter. This would require some effort, however, so it might be a better idea to simply take an extra parameter, that would be a backlink to the chapter, and then display a "Current Chapter: " statement at the bottom of the TOC. if the parameter isn't provided, you don't print out anything. I'll work out a quick example for you, and see if you like it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I made a quick version that can be found at OrthoMainTOC/test/. This one takes, as an optional parameter, the name of the current chapter, and displays a note at the bottom of the template, as to which chapter the reader is currently in. The formatting is simple and lousy, but you should get the general idea. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems like a splendid idea! Why not put it into action? We can always modify it if necessary.BDB 17:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I made attempts but failed to make any progress. Some help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.BDB 18:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Whew!! That was a lot of experiementing. I finally got it right ...hope it works. But surely this is not the final tweak. Any suggestions are still welcome. BDB 17:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That looks pretty good! I'm glad you got it to work correctly. Let me know if you need any more help with it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Help me turn on DynamicPageLists for wikibooks
Hi everybody; We at the cookbook would like to turn on DynamicPageList for the Cookbook so we can create context-sensitive lists from our categories. User:Brion VIBBER has indicated that it would be okay on the bug; but he wants a "Yes, turn this on" from other wikibookians. So please, say "YES" here. Kellen T 20:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You mean, you want to display newest pages in each category? --Derbeth talk 21:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have to admit that I have no idea what DynamicPageLists are, what they do, why they currently aren't turned on, or why it would be an issue. A little more information, and perhaps I will agree. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for the lack of extra explanation. Here's a fuller description: DPLs would allow us to create transcluded lists of modules by category. The important part is that we can use multiple category filters; so you can generate a list which has pages which are in BOTH category A and category B. This, for instance, would be useful in automatically creating a listing of recipes for an ingredient, diet, etc ("Breakfast recipes containing apples" "Desserts containing apples" "Vegan Desserts" "Chicken Stews", etc, etc, etc). For the cookbook, this should signal the end of hand-maintained lists of recipes -- instead we can maintain the categories only but still have nicely formatted views for each page.

They are not currently turned on because DPLs are a mediawiki extension, so they a developer to turn them on explicitly. There shouldn't be any real issue with having them on, but Brion wanted some show of consensus from wikibookians. Kellen T 01:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Does DPL not have some performance costs? --Derbeth talk 09:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * They are apparently not super efficient, so they won't be turned on for wikipedia for now, but Brion said there shouldn't be any problem with them on wikibooks and that we can turn them off if they become a problem anyhow. Kellen T 10:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

BTW, something to keep in mind here is that Wikinews uses this feature as well for the "local bureau" pages that are able to pull up the list of say sports stories that happened in New York. Look at wikinews:Portal:New York for a Wikimedia project example of how this is used. I'm not sure what would happen to these pages or indeed much of the Wikinews infrastructure if this were turned off. --Rob Horning 12:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well if that's the case, then we should turn them on, but immediately employ them to a large degree so that they can't be turned off again. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Drat! You're on to my plan! Kellen T 18:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, turn on DPLs for wikibooks

 * Kellen T 20:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)...
 * You got my vote. Why not?  --Rob Horning 03:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Based on the above discussion, and the fact that I don't really understand the issue. I'll just cast my vote here. If they do have a performance penalty, and we do need to turn them off in the future however, it will be bad if we have built too much infrastructure around them. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. pfctdayelise 01:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Gentgeen 19:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Huh?

 * Still not sure what all this means, though the WP article on "transclusion" was a mildly interesting read. Johnny 10:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It means we can use this piece of software to generate lists from categories that show up on normal pages ('transclusion' is maybe not quite correct). In the cookbook, this means that we don't end up with two pages that a user must visit for an ingredient, e.g. the page on Lemon, Cookbook:Lemon and the category containing lemon recipes Category:Lemon recipes. Instead we can use DPLs to put the recipe listing right on Cookbook:Lemon. Kellen T 10:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Slightly more wiki-savy users could also use the feature to do recipe sorts. A user could use DPL on one of their user subpages to find, for example, all very easy through medium dificulty beverage recipes that use Oranges and Chocolate, but no milk, or any other combination of types, ingredients, and ratings. The editors could use such a list to prepare print-version Cookbook Pamphlets, with perhaps 100 recipes and enough technique and ingredient pages for the recipes involved. I think it would be a very useful feature. Gentgeen 19:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, this might seem like a silly question, but couldn't you just put the content of "Cookbook:Lemon" on the "Category:lemon recipes" page? (I don't have any objection to the DPLs, but wonder if that might just be easier). SB_Johnny 11:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, you can do that in certain cases. Consider Category:Dessert recipes, instead of lemon ones. A listing of dessert recipes would benefit from greater organization (see Cookbook:Dessert), which just isn't possible with flat categories. We can categorize the recipes all we want, but the truth is that the categories are not a particularly accessible or obvious way for our users to view recipes. Kellen T 12:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:PokemonBugWater
I'm still waiting for this template. Please copy it over to http://www.wikiknowledge.net/wiki/index.php?title=Template:PokemonBugWater&action=edit. Thanks, Gerard Foley 11:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks to whoever copied it over. I finished cleaning up all the Pokémon pages, so that was the last missing template. I should now have no reason to ever return here so bye all! Gerard Foley 14:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks is reaching three years
On 10th July 2003 main page of Wikibooks has been established and the new Wikimedia project started. I think that third birthday of Wikibooks is a good opportunity to promote this website. Perhaps we should write a longer news at Wikinews or even create some kind of 'press release' summarizing what have we achieved during these three years, as well as showing things that still are need to be done? --Derbeth talk 12:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm all for it. I think we could probably get a little bit of press over at slashdot as well, along with some other websites (possibly). 3 years is a long time, and it's amazing to me that i've only been here for 1 year or so. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * July 10th. This is an excellent idea Derbeth. Do you want to make up a draft? Kellen T 12:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

To accomplish this task, I started this page, which may be something to look into and see if we can expand it somewhat, and perhaps turn it into a formal press release:

State of the Project/2006

BTW, it would be nice to get information from other Wikibooks projects in other languages besides English and Polish (thanks Derbeth for the Polish information). --Rob Horning 13:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I wrote to the German edition asking them to help preparing the state of the project report. Unfortunately, I am not able to help any more since I am going to two-week mountain trip and will be completely offline then. --Derbeth talk 20:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I added some statistics about the german wikibooks project onto the page-link above. Please leave a message on de:Wikibooks:Projekt, if you need some more oder even additional information about our project. -- ThePacker 23:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Decimal Classification
Your Card Catalog Office is quite cool and the German Wikibooks are growing. So soon or later we will have to use decimal classification too. But at current state our man-power ist too small, to make large steps forward. I would like to ask whether there was a vote or even the idea discussed, to make a Free-Decimal-Classification-Index e.g. on meta. I ask this because the Dewey index is not free and we don't have the knowledge to apply the smaller numbers after the first three (from the main category). Thanks for your attention. -- ThePacker 23:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I would note that the Library of Congress classification is free (as in speech and beer) to use and is a decimal classification system. The Dewey Decimal Classification system is free.... as long as you are using the classification catalog from before 1920.  That is the largest problem with the DCC and free projects like Wikibooks and Wikisource, where many categories have been created that are much more modern in origin, even though the basic 100's level classification have been unchanged.
 * In terms of trying to come up with a more "modern" classification system, that is an interesting point. It would be interesting to come up with a categorization system that would allow you to look up a book in multiple langauages that would show related books of the same topic.  Right now the best developed original system that comes close is the current bookshelf system in use here on en.wikibooks, and that basic philosophy has been carried over into other language Wikibooks projects as well.  This is something that does need some more attention and establishing a "classification" system is not a trivial task.  --Rob Horning 12:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The german wikibook also has bookshelves, they even have their own namespace. I know that a new decimal classification systems is a huge task, because it depends on knowledge. But a consistent decimal classification of articles and books would even improve the basic search mechanisms in a wiki. Imagine what could be, if you choose the topic in the search-mask, rather than searching for special words in a huge database. Anyway, i wanted to know whether this idea could interest some people, to start such a project. maybe it will be discussed in the next month on your wikibooks, we discuss this topic also. -- ThePacker 15:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I would be interested in helping out with the creation of a new classification scheme. It certainly won't be easy, but if we can come up with a good one, and implement it here on wikibooks, it would be a benefit to the community as a whole. Of course, implementing it would involve the creation and adoption of a new policy, and we are historically slow at doing that kind of stuff here on en.wikibooks. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to make such a project on meta. But at first: we will have to invest some amount of time into such a system, i mean before any voting to adopt it into an enforced policy. Everybody must be sure about it. It could be, that our efforts will not be accepted at all. Everyone must be sure about this too. The Classification System must come first. -- ThePacker 18:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't go to fast with that. A free classification would be a big think, exspecialy if it should be ready for international usages. (maybe the old DDC isn't the best base for that) A free classification can be used in many projects in the net and would be it own big project, so don't do it fast and ugly ;-) --PatrickD 13:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Happy Birthday Wikibooks!
Today's the big day... should this be announced on the maiin page of WP (maybe under "on this day...")? SB_Johnny 11:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a note on our Main Page, but someone else should write some better text. Kellen T 14:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I added notes at both wikipedia and wikinews, but if someone wrote an actual press release, it'd be more likely to get used. Kellen T 14:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If i knew how to write a press release, and if i would even know where to send it, I would offer to help. Beyond that, you have my best wishes! --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Candidates for Speedy Deletion
Could someone clean out candidates for speedy deletion? Some pages have been there for 19 days. Thanks in advance. --Think Fast 14:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll get a few of them now. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I deleted a bunch. I didn't delete the ones that I could find reason not to, and there are some at the end of the list that I would have deleted, but I got tired of deleting. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * only 19 days. Wow!  Somebody has been being a diligent admin here!  Seriously, don't get a stress attack over this.  It takes somebody with a lot of time to keep up with the speedy deletes and often it is a thankless and boring job as well.  I also like to let speedy delete markups ferment for some time just to let contributors know that there are objections to the content and potentially respond if they think it should remain, such as turning it into a VfD discussion instead.  This isn't to say that a speedy delete should be up for six months without being culled, but don't expect the same speed of service that you might expect on Wikipedia.  This isn't Wikipedia and I hope that the deletionist culture there never gets to this project.  In other words, relax and trust that it will eventually be dealt with.  --Rob Horning 12:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

AIM Link
I want to try and make an AIM link, for instant messenger. Hyperlinks need to have the form of: "aim://goim?username=", or something (I forget the exact syntax, but it's similar to this). Anyway, mediawiki absolutely refuses to let me create a link like this. Any idea how to make it happen, or if it is even possible? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I couldn't figure it out. Soz. Kellen T 19:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I tried &lt;nowiki> tags, I tried every different variation of hyperlink format that mediawiki offers (at least that I know about), and nothing will just come out working. It's just interesting to me, because I know that "irc://" style links are allowed. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know much about mediawiki, but I suspect there's a whitelist for link types somewhere. I'm not quite sure of what security implications AIM links might have (can't think of any except perhaps sending messages to the wrong people), but perhaps we can turn them on. Kellen T 22:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Can't you just use the pure HTML? test ArrowHate 20:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Notice how that doesn't work =) Kellen T 20:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I tried the pure link, and I tried embedding it in &lt;nowiki> tags. I tried single brackets, and even double brackets. I'm wondering if there is some kind of CSS class i can utilize, but if there is, i dont know about it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Transwiking Video game books
When Jimbo ordered the removal of all video game books, people started to move them to StrategyWiki, because it was a gaming wiki and used the same license. However now it looks like the license is being changed to a custom version, so what will happen to the game books that have yet to be moved? Will a new wiki have to be found for them or something? Gerard Foley 14:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think... thats a good question to ask over at SW. ArrowHate 19:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Protected project
Hi, I used to work on a project called Players_guide_for_Star_Sonata before it was moves to Strategy Wiki. Now all that remains is a link SW. However, the strat-wiki project has been depreciated and replaced with a dedicated wiki. I was wondering if I could get an admin to add a link to the project page, since it's protected. The address to the new wiki is http://www.lyceumarchives.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and it's proper title is "The Lyceum Archives".

Thanks, ArrowHate 19:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll simply put a link to both. Hows that? --Dragontamer 15:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that would be great. 63.80.111.2 17:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Candidates for speedy deletion
Ehm... very full there. It could be useful to delete some of the listed pages and images. Most of the images are in the list since nearly a m onth or so. Thanks. -- 85.176.120.162 14:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Please see Staff_lounge. Wikibooks is slower than wikipedia as we have fewer admins and less public attention overall. These will eventually be cleaned up. Kellen T 18:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure, but one month is a bit long anyway (It would be too long in my eyes with one admin as well). -- John N. 19:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It is certainly not, and please, stop posting these type of messages here on the Staff Lounge. The next one I see here I will simply remove from the Staff Lounge altogether.  This is expecting service and behavior of paid staff when we are all a group of volunteers, and I've railed against that in the past too.  It will be dealt with, and leave it at that.  It is not like admins aren't aware of this category and have never removed content from here in the past.  --Rob Horning 13:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but it looked like that. I only wanted those imaged deleted, becouse they were marked for speedy deletion a long time and on .de we've found out, that the author wanted them to be deleted and that he hadn't licenced them right. -- John N. 13:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

New Algebra text in simple language
A new user, User:HSTutorials, who runs HSTutorials.net, has started an Algebra in simple english text that looks rather ambitious. I hope other maths contributors can help it conform to style standards and link out to other related texts here. Sj 14:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, why was this not added to the Simple English Wikibooks instead? I know that project doesn't get too much support, but this seems like a no-brainer about the fact that it should be transwikied to that project instead, if you want to consider Simple English to be something of a seperate language.  It would also get quite a bit more support simply by being associated with other Simple English contributors.  I'm not going to rehash all of the arguments for if a seperate set of Wikimedia sister projects should be set up as a whole other language just for the "simple" versions of English, but this does looks like a good addition to that project.  And nearly double Simple English Wikibooks just off of a transwiki like this.  --Rob Horning 17:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't even know there was a "simple english" project. I know this isn't the right venue to discuss the merits of that project, but it seems to me a needless diversion of resources away from this project. However, that being said, I doubt that this new book will be written in a manner that distinguishes itself enough from other texts on the subject, and it will probably just be merged eventually. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Enhancement request for separating page title rendering from subpage syntax
Some time ago we discuss this issue (see Wikibooks talk:Naming policy/Archive 2). In Spanish Wikibooks we have recently talk about it and have decided to open an enhancement request in MediaZilla, see bug 6723. Please, contribute your thoughts. ManuelGR 20:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems like you should just ask for some html wrappers around those elements to be added and some CSS classes applied. Then you could adjust the local stylesheet. This would be easier than having conditionals everywhere. Kellen T 23:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * We have prepared some mockups in es:Usuario:Ciencia Al Poder/Pruebas and most of them are implementable using CSS classes. ManuelGR 11:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

"Important" Books
Hi all,

I was doing some reading on Wikipedia the other day, and came across their proposal for a Wikipedia 1.0 CD, which would have good quality articles about "core topics." I was just curious, what do you all think the "core books" of Wikibooks would be? Personally, I would think the most "important" books would be ones that college freshmen and sophomores would use. I'd like to make a list of the "core books" of the Wikibooks project, and see how good the books we have on those topics are- User:Paul_Lynch/Core Topics DettoAltrimenti 07:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well we have lots of books which might be considered core subjects, but unfortunately, few of them are really all that complete or up to snuff. Kellen T 09:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * "core subjects" and "good quality" are not the same. A small but determined community can produce a high quality book while larger comunity might not bothered because the subject has allready been covered elsewhere. In this we are different from Wikipedia. So if we are to colled "core books" I would go by the quality book in existance and not on how main stream the subject is. --Krischik T 09:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a good point. I think that in many developed countries, the books aimed at undergraduates would make the biggest financial impact. After all, I can't think of anybody who is paying more for texts then undergraduate students. However, in the developing world, it is much harder to get ahold of any books, especially books to teach children basic subjects. Fortunately, I think a wikibooks CD would have enough space to include many different books on many different subjects. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Is this opening a can of worms or what? As far as core subjects of Wikibooks, I would have to point to the books of the month as the real place to look. Now if you are trying to come up with a full university-level curriculum based on Wikibooks content, it will be years or even decades before that is going to happen on Wikibooks.

I don't think you can find even one Wikibook near completion that is based off of any specific educational standard of any kind, although there are a few that certainly are trying to get there. The problem here is what standard should be we using? You can look at Help:Textbook Standards for some standards that have been gathered together in once spot to at least begin the search. Most of these standards are for traditional elementary and secondary educational instruction, but that is a place to start. I do wish these standards were used more in Wikibooks.

One of the best "core curriculum" series of books on Wikibooks at the moment is the International Baccalaureate series that covers many of the core courses mentioned above. While the depth of these books isn't really up to book of the month standards, the breadth of this project certainly is incredibly ambitious and worthy of continued support by Wikibooks users. I hope this is more toward what you were looking for in terms of quality core books that deserve note. --Rob Horning 14:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

wikibook "blender: noob to pro"
link in 'blender 3D' has failed to launch for a couple days on my computer.

thnx zhnkiu


 * I don't know what to tell you, the link works fine for me. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

okay, it works now. tastes like spyware. i reformated my hd... zhnkiu [delete this whenever]

ICT4D books
Dear Wikibooks Staff:

APDIP, the Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (under the UNDP), is willing to donate to the Wikibooks programme some of its many ebooks and primers that it brought out, on the theme of ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development). Would Wikibooks be willing to create a special category to give this topic its deserved prominence? --Fredericknoronha 19:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC) (Frederick Noronha, co-founder BytesForAll)


 * That certainly sounds like a generous offer. We can easily set up a new category for this type of information. Also, there are bookshelves such as the Computer science bookshelf, and the Engineering bookshelf, that would make good homes to books on this subject. It might take some work to get all the material formatted for wikimedia, but free ebooks is something that we shouldnt scoff at. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to note that by moving the content to Wikibooks, you are indicating that you want to allow others to be able to add to, modify (perhaps substantially), and update the contents of these books, all without any formal approval process for these changes other than what is normally done on a Wiki. If instead you simply want to preserve this content as e-books that would be available to people to read, but you would like to have essentially complete books available to be freely copied, I would suggest our sister project, Wikisource.

I do agree that this is a very generous offer, and if the quality of the content is high, they would deserve some front page attention as well, including a seperate bookshelf and perhaps on things like the Book of the Month or "Hot Picks" sections.

Please make sure that you understand the terms and conditions of the Gnu Free Document License (GFDL) when you donate this content. Generally this isn't a big deal for small contributions of text, but for something major like this I just want to make sure that everybody involved understands just what a copyleft license is about and its implications. That doesn't mean you can't later use the original content under another copyright license (you are the original copyright owner), but that everything that is added to Wikibooks must be available under that distribution license.

I'm certain if there was some significant quality to this content, there would also be some volunteers to perform formatting tasks and other items to make the content "look nice" and conform to typical Wikibooks styles, as well as give it a good look through for any obvious mistakes. --Rob Horning 06:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The Assayer
Should Wikibooks carry a link to the Assayer on its main page? Certainly we should try to add as many of the completed Wikibooks to the Assayer's list. RobinH 15:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Probably not. We don't link to gutenberg or other such projects, so I'm not sure why assayer should get any special preference. Kellen T 16:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that Wikibooks should be linked into the Assayer in terms of book reviews and showing off some of the best of what we got here. I don't think Mr. Crowell would mind that at all.

As far as having a link from Wikibooks to the Assayer, I would have to agree partially with Kellen that it should be part of a list of "suggested" free e-book links. The nice thing about the Assayer is that it encourages reviews of copyleft or public domain books, and I think any link from the front page (even if on a seperate page of links to free e-books) should meet a similar standard. Links to Microsoft publications, for example, would not be encouraged.

We also don't want to clutter up the front page with a bunch of useless stuff, and should make changes there as careful as possible. --Rob Horning 18:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikimania Awards
The Wikimania Awards honors the best writing and media on the Wikimedia projects from the past year. One category is specifically for textbook material. Please nominate great modules and texts that have been written, or almost entirely rewritten, since last August. Please also let the authors know their work has been nominated.

Cheers, +sj + 23:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Help merging transwikied pages
These are all the pages still in Special:Prefixindex/transwiki. Not all of these have been added to Category:Modules from transwiki.

Could those managing a book spend a few minutes to merge any relevant pages into their books. I want to clear up our backlog as quickly as possible. --hagindaz 03:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go through, and pick out the articles that i can find a quick home for. I'll be back later and try to work on whatever is left. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Navigation links
I noticed today that the navigation links on the left-hand side have changed. I don't particularly miss the link to wikiversity, but i know some people did use the links to wikijunior. I personally found the link to the staff lounge to be particularly useful. Why did they remove these links, and how can we change them back? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought this was controlled by MediaWiki:Sidebar... but it appears to still have the wikijunior, etc, links so perhaps the mediawiki version was updated and this is now ignored? The new version of this is bad, too, because it includes Current events which is just a redirect to Community Portal Kellen T 20:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This is a long standing problem with the current version of MediaWiki, and is a bug right now. Generally it will get "fixed" here in a day or so, so don't panic yet.  For some reason the sidebar doesn't always work the way it should, especially when for some reason the servers are being worked on or are particularly slow.  It would be nice to track this bug down, however.  --Rob Horning 22:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * A workaround for this is quite simple: An administrator needs to edit MediaWiki:Sidebar, klick on preview, and then on save. No changes will be needed and not even saved, but: The cache will be updated with the correct version. -- ThePacker 00:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Now that is one bug for the recordbook. I'll have to add that to the MediaWiki Administrator's Handbook.  --Rob Horning 02:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Weird. So ... a new installation of mediawiki has a precached version of the page? Does this work if you just use the purge option on the page's URL? Kellen T 03:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * A Purge doesn't work. I tried it more than one times. -- ThePacker 08:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

and
These templates are now deprecated and are replaced by ParserFunctions. Could an admin please unprotect them and put up a notice on each? I've already removed them from all pages on wikibooks. Kellen T 14:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * On the unlikely chance that the parserfunctions are removed or discontinued, I think we should keep these around, unaltered. No sense unprotecting them either, since most users wont even know what these templates do, much less how to edit them in a way that is consistant with their purpose. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 14:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, meant "unprotect so as to put up a notice not to use the template". Kellen T 15:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are the affected pages, in case I screwed up any:

Kellen T 15:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, I'll unprotect them now, and we can put up a note that they are deprecated. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. Kellen T 09:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

General voting rules/Proposal
I don't remember if i mentioned this before or not. I have created a proposed revision of the general voting rules policy: General voting rules/Proposal. I created this revision with the intent on removing hard percentages from the voting requirements, and putting an emphasis on community and concensus.

Also, whether this revision is acceptable or not, I would like the community to come together, and finalize at least some general version of the general voting rules policy. It is my firm belief that if we can get a voting policy enforced, we can move to decision on other outstanding proposed policies relatively quickly. This policy will help to form a policy foundation that wikibooks can stand on, and can move forward to the future with. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, let's get the format for voting accepted and then tackle the problem of consensus, majority votes etc. as a separate issue. RobinH 09:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've made changes to this policy as suggested by the few people who have actually come to read it, so far. I think (hope) that this proposed version is broad enough that we can move to a vote on it. I am going to start a vote on it soon, and I will send out a few messages and try to get some more opinions on it first. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be a pagemove vandal/bot of some sort, moving pages to some foreign characters. Can anyone block it?? --Wur-dene 19:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I just took care of it, thanks for the head's up. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization Advice Sought
I've been working on a book (Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book) since October, and I have now come across a bit of an organizational problem that I need advice in addressing.

First a bit of background. This book is an instructor's guide for teaching Pathfinder honors. Pathfinders is an international youth club similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and the "honors" are the equivalent of merit badges.

One of my contributors has been adding entries based on the way the honors are defined in Australia - each area of the world is given the latitude to adopt its own version of the honors, and in some cases they can change substantially. I have been using the North American version. It is important that the honors be taught as adopted by the local division, and I estimate that perhaps 60% of the honors differ between these two areas (and there are other areas to consider as well that may have their own version).

I don't want to say - "use the North American version," but I need to make it the distinction clear so that the users of the book don't accidently grab the wrong version.

As it is now, the book has three levels of hierarchy:
 * Top Level
 * Honor Categories
 * Individual Honors

The second level has ten sections, and the third level has something like 350 chapters. Work has been done on about 25% of these, so anything I do to re-org is going to be painful.

Should I fork the book, making locality-specific versions? Should I add a fourth level to the existing hierarchy (between the first and second levels I would think), or should I do something else? Oh - one other thing: not all of the honors are different. Many of them are exactly the same from one locality to the next. So if I add a fourth level, I may end up sharing chapters rather than duplicating them.

Moving it to a different language almost does what I want, but they speak English in Australia so that's not gonna fly. I really need some ideas here!

Jim Thomas 03:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the way in which pages are marked right now, with the little maps works pretty well for distinguishing the region for specific honors. If you have the same honor in different regiions that differ substantially, just give it a different name like "Sewing (South Pacific Division)." Also, you might consider organizing the honors with categories for each division. That way, you can encode the fact that the honors apply to more than one division, and you can produce a complete listing of available honors by division. Or, you could fork the books and have "Adventist Youth Honors (South Pacific)" but that seems like it'll just make more work for people if a good number of the honors are exactly the same. Kellen T 09:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I wouldnt even do that. I would attempt to separate each page, into different localities. Use headings and templates to indicate specific points or requirements that are specific to a single locality, and don't mark the things that are pretty universal. This way, you dont need to reorg the book at all, and the different material can become very clear. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism templates
There has been some discussion about deleting some of the vandalism user templates, and I would like to turn it into an official discussion. I would like to permanently delete the following templates:


 * Template:WoW
 * Template:MPS
 * Template:sockpuppet
 * Category:Suspected Wikibooks sockpuppets of Willy on Wheels
 * Category:Suspected Wikibooks sockpuppets
 * Category:Suspected Wikibooks sockpuppets of Mr.Pelican Shit
 * Category:Suspected sockpuppets

If a user is found to be a bad-faith sockpuppet or a sockpuppet of a known vandal, that username should be blocked forever. We do not, however, need to erect a monument to every single sockpuppet, with a fancy template. sockpuppet accounts, IMO should be blocked, and forgotten forever. Also, I would like to delete the several (verbose) categories that accompany these templates, as being nothing but listings of users who have already been identified as vandals, and blocked forever. No sense listing information that doesnt matter.

I didn't want to make this a VfD discussion, because it is more a matter of policy (the policy of identifying and glorifying sockpuppets).--Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that those should be deleted. This isn't Wikipedia. The user who created these templates may very well just have the "all wikis are like Wikipedia" mentality thinking that all wikis work similarly in the project and is moving those templates, but we don't need them. Upon looking at his contributions, many of his edits seem questionable to me. All those Wikipedia-like template copies should be wiped in my opinion. -Matt 12:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The reason for having templates like this is to watch and monitor problematic users. From my opinion, templates like this add to the notoriety of this particular individual who deserves none.  The templates, categories, and any content in these categories need to be removed.  In fact, I have no problem even deleting any user pages for known vandals.  It is better to treat these users as if they never existed in the first place for some of the acts they have done.  Let's not give another excuse for people to become vandals.  --Rob Horning 15:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree 100%. Delete them. --Dragontamer 23:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, i'm going to just go ahead and delete them now. If we have need of them in the future (which I doubt), we can always undelete them. Perhaps we could write it into policy somewhere that userpages of known vandals can simply be deleted? but, that's a question for another day. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Collaboration and Book of the Month for August
August 1st is coming up. It would be good to actually have the templates for these ready to go before the front page tips them over into redlinks. The votes are:
 * Book of the month/August 2006 voting
 * Collaboration of the Month/August 2006 voting

And the templates which need to be made are:
 * Book of the month/August 2006
 * Collaboration of the Month/August 2006

Also, I think the pages state the voting ends at midnight the first day of the month. This is kind of stupid since we could use some time to actually create the templates. Ending it a week before would make more sense.

Kellen T 15:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I made these. For book of the month, it's the Movie Making Manual. For collaboration, it's Reverse Engineering. Once again, the text I've written in these templates is bad. The image for RE is a breakdown of CIDR blocks, which doesn't really make any sense for RE, but it does at least show translating between binary and something meaningful. I was unsuccessful at finding anything appropriate, so that's my straw-grasping. Someone should find a better image. Whiteknight, I'm looking at you. Kellen T 13:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Despite what I said on your user page, I actually did go in and change the picture and the text. I wouldn't say that either of them were "bad", but the new picture is slightly more relevant (i hope). I'll look at the Moving Making Manual, and see if I can do anything to that (although I dont know much about making movies). --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Transwiki redirect deletion
So with transwikis, do we need to keep the old redirects around or can we delete interim redirect pages, like Cookbook:Rice and beef soup? Kellen T 00:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I've been deleting them, as I merged them, so i'm going to say that is the correct way to do it. I dont think we need to keep around any redirects, because no books should link to a transwiki: page in the first place. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Some Wikibooks on our educational DVD
Hello, I would like to inform you, that some of your Wikibooks are going to be published and distributed for free on our Xplora Knoppix 1.2 DVD. To read more about the project read here:

http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/xplora/library/software/xplora___dvd_knoppix__make_sci.htm

If you send me an email address, I can forward you the preview of the DVD on our webserver.

Thanks Karl Sarnow


 * Sounds like an excellent project, if you ask me. I assume the wikibooks that you are using will all be in pdf format? All I would ask in return is some kind of mention of wikibooks, in an attempt to increase interest in our project, through participation in yours. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Category sort enhancement request
I've made an enhancement request on the mediawiki bugtracker requesting that categories be able to set the default sort key. This would mean that instead of doing on every single page in every single category we would just go to each category and do __SORTBYPAGENAME__ (or something similiar). This would be a huge boon for the cookbook as we have many, many categories and this would mean many, many places where we don't have to sort things by hand. Please go vote for this bug. Kellen T 17:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion policy
There has been a suggested ammendment to the deletion policy, HERE, that would include "redirects that aren't linked to" and "redirects that follow a deprecated naming scheme" under candidates for speedy deletion. At the moment, the only redirects that specifically qualify for speedy deletion are those for which it is "unlikely that anyone will inadventently search for a page under that name". I think that the policy here should be expanded to give admins more ability to clean out useless garbage like this. I would, however, like to ask for other opinions on the matter. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Requesting bot flag
My owner has been scouring the wiki, trying to find where he should ask that I be flagged as a bot. Can anyone point him in the right direction? --SwiftBot 22:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It used to be you could request a bot flag at Requests for Adminship, but now it is stated that bots require "community concensus" before the botflag can be granted. I would suggest that you use your bot a few times to prove that it is useful and benign. you can try to make a request at WB:RFA (down at the very bottom), but no guaruntees. Also, if you release your source code so people can see what it is made of, what it does, and that it means no harm, we will feel better about it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! --Swift 22:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)