Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2008/December

How are titles of Wikibooks changed?
I'm looking to see if I can help develop some of the books on basic mathematics. The sections in the current book Beginning Mathematics are actually about the underlying philosophy of mathematics with later sections focusing on Set Theory and Number Theory. The title is misleading as it makes it sound like the book is for people who have little or no experience with math and are looking to start learning how to do simple things like add and subtract and maybe eventually move on to algebra. Another user suggested that the title of this book therefore be changed to 'Foundations of Mathematics' which I think is an excellent idea. But I don't know how to make the change. I haven't been able to find it easily looking through some of the editing guidelines, although I suspect I just haven't been looking in the right place. So, what is the process for changing the titles of Wikibooks? Thanks, Atrytone (talk) 06:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Book renames result of plainly moving pages about, the best method (less conflict and work for all) should be to propose the name change on the book's talk page stating a timeout (>= 7 days) to arrive to a decission, you should also place a notice on the books cover/entry page (to publicize the discussion), if no opposition arises, then you are free to rename it by hand (move page, check what links to the old one and if none tag it for deletion), if there to many page needing moving, ask in the Reading room/Administrative Assistance (pointing to the previous discussion about the name change), and all those tedious changes will then be made by a bot. --Panic (talk) 06:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

How do you add a book to the new books list?
I started a new book A guide to identifying rocks and minerals and can't figure out how to add it to the new books list. I added the new book template to the main page but it still isn't on the list. Pleas help!! summergirl (talk) 03:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I see you already figured it out -- you've added the  template to A guide to identifying rocks and minerals, and now I see it listed at Category:New Books. Good job. --DavidCary (talk) 06:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The list at Bulletin_board didn't include the new book because of caching problems. I just edited and saved that page (without any changes) in order to bring it up-to-date. --Martin Kraus (talk) 09:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help. --summergirl (talk) 19:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Stable Versions Extension
For those who haven't noticed, the Stable Versions extension has been installed tonight. The extension, which we discussed a while back, allows people to review each revision of a page and mark it's quality. Good revisions of the page will be shown by default to anonymous users, instead of the most recently edited version. This is generally going to help us by not showing things like vandalism to school students by default. The inability to protect children from this kind of vandalism is one of the biggest complaints about Wikibooks I've heard from teachers in the past. This extension should help to alleviate that.

This extension is very very configurable. We've selected one particular configuration, but there are a lot of options we could change over time. As you use this extension, take notes and generate some good feedback. As a community we can figure out what works and what doesn't work, and make the necessary changes over time to suit our style of work. In fact, if we decide later that we hate this extension, we could even have it removed (but I doubt that's going to happen!). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I have had a play around with this tool but don't really understand the use of it. Wouldn't a vandal just review his own vandalism and say that it's top quality?  The drop-down list gives options like 'accuracy', 'spelling and grammar', etc. but you can only choose one option.  Maybe someone who understands it can write a nice guide at some point once any bugs have been ironed out.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 00:04, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No, they wouldn't have access to the interface. Help:Flagged revisions will be expanded as we get more experience with things. As well note that this configuration isn't final - we should make a point to review this in a month or so and decide whether any changes are needed. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 00:11, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

User Flags
In response to Xania's question above, the flaggedrevs extension comes with two new user flags: +editor and +reviewer. The exact uses of each are still being determined, but here is what we do know now:
 * 1) You can't review a page until you are a +editor or +reviewer. Bureaucrats can set these flags. Admins can also set both flags (We're probably going to need to add this to WB:RFA to select users who are trusted enough to get these.
 * 2) New page patrolling is affected by this extension. Patrollers cannot patrol pages in reviewable namespaces (main, wikijunior, cookbook, image, subject, template), which basically makes the patroller flag worthless I think. In place of simply marking a page "patrolled", our +editors and +reviewers can rate the page based on various criteria (spelling, grammar, structure, etc). This is more descriptive.
 * 3) We don't know yet what exactly the differences are between +editor and +reviewer. Darklama thinks (and we need to do a little testing) that +reviewers can mark pages higher then +editors can. So, a +editor can say that a page is at least good, while a +reviewer can say that a page is great, or something like that. If that's the case, +reviewers will probably be related to the featured books program, being able to mark books and pages which are of a quality worthy of being featured.

We're working on it, I'll post more info as I get it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:30, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I know I've been essentially absent from here for a few months but I am quite excited to see this installed and usable. The Muggles' Guide will love this. -within focus 03:40, 15 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've also been playing with the new tool, and confess that I don't particularly like that it substitutes the patrolling feature (that verifies only validity) to a quality rating system, even more if the poor or objectionable content is just left as un-reviewed. The patrol did serve its purpose and function, and conflicts of edits were made in a plain field were every Wikibookians could make changes as needed. In this case quality of the content will be rated (or at least stated on the review ), and so, to preserve equality, granting the new tool will need to be subjected to lower standards, so anyone can "review" content. Ultimately due to the structure of Wikibooks not every Wikibookian will be capable of reviewing every type of subject let alone share a similar aesthetic taste (this is not a problem within projects like Wikipedia).
 * How much does the new tools affect the footprint of the project on Wikimedia servers? (due to the stable versions, reviews, etc)
 * There is still a problem with the patrolled status of pages on the new restricted namespaces, they aren't being tagged as patrolled (even after review), and removed from the new page list (not big problem now since there aren't patrollers anymore), but they are never the less patrol logs and the infrastructure created around patrolling that will need rewrite.
 * Another problem is that even if reviews are logged there isn't the same infrastructure to check for un-reviewed pages...
 * At first inspection the usefulness of the new tools seems to be restricted only to reviewers being able to establish feature quality of pages (and this only directed to the future possibility to print featured works, this also has limitations since we aren't dealing with articles as Wikipedia does but with specific projects were asserting that the hole project has is pages in a feature state seem not to be available), any other benefits that would exist if the scope of the reviews could be restricted inside projects (for instance attributing the editor status to contributors with a set number of edits to it isn't possible at the moment) will be absent.
 * The new tools are new and more time should be given to test them out, but speaking of the use I will give them, it will be district from the patroller function, since there is no way to know what pages were patrolled, I will halt patrolling functions (except that vandalism is in evidence) to dedicate time to qualify and add reviews (stable versions) to the works I've been contributing so anonymous readers aren't given a warning about the probability that the content quality and validity hasn't been checked.
 * I think that it is of major importance to address the issue of how to verify the patrolled status of pages, even more than the makeshift solution to do quality checking that the tools permit (ultimately to be fair the tool has to be made accessible to all and that will also reduce any quality checking ability that they pretend to validate, possible solutions were advanced so to improve this effect, like DL advanced the idea to not base the quality status of a page on the last review but on the sum of average of all reviews made to it, but implantation will certainly not be kick if even possible).
 * I dread the backlog this will ultimately generate, if a solution to the patrol status isn't found and vandalism increases we should seriously rethink if this new setup is of any real benefit to us at this state. Without being restricted by projects and a real substitute to patrolling, I very skeptic about any benefit to the previous way of operating. --Panic (talk) 04:07, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Reviewed pages are not considered patrolled (and removed from the new page lists), so that is fixed, but due to the quality assurance needed, processing pages takes more time and requires a bit more work to be done. --Panic (talk) 02:56, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * We have created another barrier for anonymous Wikibookians, considering that other than the main contributors, most productive edits comes from anonymous users, I think this is a big problem...  --Panic (talk) 18:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

RC Changes
I assume that the new red exclamation points in the RC log ( ! ) is related to the new review feature. Can anyone explain why some edits get one, and other's don't? I have been unable to detect a pattern. --Jomegat (talk) 04:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems so, if you take in consideration the namespace there will be a pattern any page on the main namespace not reviewed seems to have the mark. (user and talk space aren't reviewable but seems to still being patrollable) --Panic (talk) 04:34, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That derives from the patrolled edits which are the basis for the flagged revisions. A red exclamation mark means that that diff is not patrolled yet. -- heuler06 (talk) 12:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

For dummies like me...
Uh, how do you mark a page as reviewed/etc.? Also, do we need to separately add this to admins and 'crats, or does this "come with the package" for admin+ usergroups? -- SB_Johnny | PA! 11:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I had a hard time finding that too, but once I did, it was a plain as the nose on my face. The review buttons are at the bottom of the page, and I believe that's exactly where they belong.  Presumably, a user will have reviewed the entire page before marking it as such. --Jomegat (talk) 12:52, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the intent is that you'll do a review with enough detail for whatever level you're flagging it. So if you only want to flag it at the lowest level for the three criteria that might only take you a minute. But for reviewing it up to the 3rd level, that would take longer. As well, it takes more trust, which is why the Featured level is restricted to admins and reviewers. (And yes, admins can flag to any level without adding other rights).
 * Also awesome for admins -- hit the protect tab, and then on the first line, click the link to change the page's stabilization. That's a great alternative to page protection (though not used terribly often in any case, it's still cool). &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 17:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, how can I become an "editor+"? I don't see any of those review buttons! Although I have a high number of edits here (about 2000) and am one of the main authors of a wikibook, I'm not as active as some months ago (probably that's the reason why I'm not promoted automatically to "editor+": "Editors are promoted automatically by the system according to a complex set of criteria"). How can I ask an admin for promotion? Thanks! &mdash;surueña 19:42, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I imagine we'll set something up on WB:RFP shortly. For now, I'd say wait a bit. The automatic promotion isn't instantaneous, so you may yet be promoted by the software. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 19:44, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Has any editor been already promoted? &mdash;surueña 20:07, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
 * For what I understand only by hand (no automation yet, see User rights log), but the tool documentation seems to state that it will happen, probably some tweak to the config is still needed (you can take a look at it FlaggedRevs Extension). --Panic (talk) 20:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Effect on newcomers to wikibooks
Ever since this extension was first installed here, I've been worried about the possible effect on potential new members of the wikibookian community; but I've held off voicing my concerns because the facility was clearly very far from full deployment, and it seemed possible that my fears would be obviously groundless once the shape of full deployment became clear. Further hints at that shape haven't done anything to make me less worried, though, so I have a couple of specific questions about where all this is going. Pi zero (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If, say, a year from now with flaggedrevs fully deployed, a freshly registered wikibookian were to come to a neglected wikibook, would they be unable to make any of their edits appear on the primary copies of the book's pages since there would be no-one around to sight their edits?
 * If a registered user makes an edit that is neither sighted nor reverted, does it count toward the 100 edits after which (with some other conditions) that user automagically becomes an editor?


 * With the settings requested for, I think all registered users see the latest unstable revision of a page, regardless of how new they are. Only anonymous users should be effected by the presence of a sighted revision. I don't think the 100 edit count considers whether their revisions were sighted or reverted, which should mean registered users can become editors without another editor being present to sight their revisions. In theory the settings picked should be as non intrusive as possible while requiring a bit of devotion to contributing to Wikibooks to become an editor automatic. --dark lama  14:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Self-review, and verifiability
I have two questions about the decision-making involved in reviewing articles (as my subject heading suggests). An associated meta-question is, are either or both of these discussed somewhere, and I just haven't seen it?
 * What, if any, are the ethical boundaries of an author reviewing their own work?
 * Is the fact that editors can't review beyond level 3 the extent of the community's (generic) reservations about the power to review?


 * What is required in practice to achieve page verifiability?
 * The paragraph about accuracy level 3 at Using Wikibooks is laudably nonprescriptive, but I admire less that I don't really don't know what substance it's asking for. Riffling through some Featured Books leaves me unsure how or even whether they address verifiability.  Do the existing Featured Books meet the new standards?  Latin?  This quantum world?  Is the means to verify the pages provided by the books as a whole, let alone by the pages themselves?

Pi zero (talk) 00:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style is being constantly violated
Thread on Manual of Style have been moved to Wikibooks talk:Manual of Style. --Panic (talk) 19:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Using Template:Page-break
I've begun work on a Wikibook intended for use as a printed workbook. Each "chapter" is a page of the workbook and needs to start on a new page of the printout. I tried using and  on my print-version page, both in front of each chapter (template inclusion), and surrounding each chapter, but when I printed (using Firefox browser), no page breaking occurred between the chapters. Is there a discussion or example somewhere that shows how to cause page-breaks on the print version? --Lindsay (talk) 12:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of the templates or, I'll look at them and make sure they are doing the right kinds of things. I have some other templates that can be used with a printable version, and I can make you a printable version of your book if you want. What book is it? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not public yet, only a few pages have been written so far. To see what I have so far, click here.  In addition to your generous offer to help with this particular project, I'd appreciate any suggestions on how I might have found this information on my own.  I haven't found any good way to locate templates for common jobs, such as the "tlx" template you used in your reply.  Thanks! --Lindsay (talk) 14:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem seems to be that most of the functionality offered by Page-break is not supported by popular browsers (Firefox, IE). However, some of it is. In fact, sufficient to force a page break. I implemented a template called Newpage (the name is similar to the LaTeX command \newpage ). As far as I tested it, it works with Firefox, IE, Safari, and the Adobe PDF printer for Windows. (The current PDF generation with the link "PDF version" does not support it.) Comments are welcome. --Martin Kraus (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Martin. I tried it on my Mac with Firefox and a Preview print, and it seemed to work perfectly. --Lindsay (talk) 21:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Great. I'm also using it now to produce a PDF version of a multi-module wikibook and realized that it is recommendable to have no white space (in particular no empty lines) right before Newpage in order to avoid completely blank pages. However, two or more empty lines after Newpage are a good idea to have some vertical spacing if there are no page breaks at all as in the HTML rendering of the print version. I've added a corresponding commont on the template page for Newpage. --Martin Kraus (talk) 09:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Subject Categorising
Hi!, Can anybody please advise me in simple terms... I have read the advice pages but... Why are there both category and subject links in book pages? I know what a subject is, and why sub-categories are useful, but why don't I just need subject links? What are category links for? How are these intended to differ? Armchair (talk) 16:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you asking what the difference is between and  ? The first is a template which uses category underneath. You can include multiple categories (up to about 10 categories) using subject so less typing is involved and can make things look nicer. The subject template also automatically includes the book category when used. There is no real reason to use both. --dark  lama  17:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

How to create sub-pages or sub-topics?
I am almost ready to start a book. But, I don't understand how to create sub pages. For example,
 * 1) If I start a book with a brief overview, and then link to major subtopics like "Introduction", how do I use *my* introduction and not someone else's?
 * 2) If others contribute to this book, adding further sub pages, how can it be assured that they create pages so that they are kept within this book's "namespace" (so to speak). So that someone doesn't create a sub-page that is a "book" instead of a sub-page (or topic) of this book?

I've looked at other books, and seen two possible ways.


 * This book[1] seems to "namespace" the subpages by naming convention:


 * :Finance


 * This book[2] uses a convention I don't understand:


 * | 2. /Booting/

What does the "/" characters do?

Thanks for any help. I've spent a lot of time reading the help materials and I barely understand more now than I did two days ago. Wiki stuff isn't clear to me. And it seems like the information is spread around in different places. It seems hard to tie it all together.

[1] Software Engineers Handbook [2] Puppy Linux

Thanks, Mark -- Az2008 (talk)


 * Take a look in the proposal Manual of Style and the active discussion on its talk page Wikibooks talk:Manual of Style. --Panic (talk) 19:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I looked at it, and it describes the kind of structure I'm imagining (main page, sub pages with more detail). But, it doesn't say how to create those sub pages without them being "books" themselves. That's what I'm not understanding. I know how to create a book, and do formatting and linking. But, I don't understand how to create the sub-pages so that they are limited to my book. Or, does that just happen automatically?
 * Also, could you explain what the forward slashes do in the example sup-page link I provided above: /Booting/ ? I can't find any reference to to slashes like that, either formatting or linking.). Thanks for your time. I feel like I'm close to getting it. -- Az2008 (talk)
 * Update: I think I found what I'm looking for: naming conventions. This talks about specifying subpages as book_name/sup-page_name. I guess I just create the link, then follow the link and I'll be prompted to create the page(?). I guess it doesn't hurt to try it. -- Az2008 (talk)


 * Subpages work like a directory tree root/subdirectory in this case book/subpage ... --Panic (talk) 19:53, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I also found something about sub-pages at naming policy. This is an example of how information is spread around. I don't know why I found this (and the naming convention) all of a sudden. I've been looking at the help resources for 2 days. Nothing says how to create these pages. But, I guess it's a matter of creating the link, then following it.
 * I still don't understand the difference between the book:page:page convention (an example provided in my first post) and book/page/page. They both imply a hierarchy. The only thing I read was that using slashes causes wikibooks to maintain a hieararchy. But, I don't understand why it wouldn't with colons (when it seems to connote the same thing?).-- Az2008 (talk)


 * Please do sign your posts. The colon convention is for namespaces (like "CookBook:" "Wikijunior:" etc ) by common agreement (no strict consensus was reached), but practice has made it very difficult to change once a pattern was set. For Wikibooks use the slash convention this creates also a navigational aid. It doesn't seem too complicated... --Panic (talk) 20:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think I have a better understanding now. -- Az2008 (talk) 21:05, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Just for the sakes of completeness. /Page/ is a relative path that means the same as Page when added to a page named "Book". Every page in a book should include the name of the book followed by a slash before the page name in order to ensure its part of the right book and not the start of a new book or made part of another book. Wikibooks has not always required this convention, so that is why you might see some books still using a colon instead. --dark lama  22:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. That's helpful. It's becoming clearer. I appreciate the explanation. Az2008 (talk) 02:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello I need some help...
I would like to start a wikibook i'am not sure yet on what can you help me with what are the basics to writing a wikibook i also will look around at other wikibooks to give me ideas. Thank you. --Squidking101 (talk) 04:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Removing unused images
I've come across a number of images of that were uploaded for use in the Japanese wikibook. These are no longer used as there is a repository of superior ones at Commons. Should these be removed, or is there no benefit to that? --Swift (talk) 04:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Whiteknight/Visual Book Designer
I've been doing a lot of development work on my book designer gadget, and today I released a new version of it. I've taken into account a lot of the feedback I got after the last release, and I think it's becoming a pretty cool and easy tool for making new books. I would love people to try it out and give me some more feedback. Some features:


 * 1) The tool now supports collections. You can load an outline from a collection, or save an outline as a collection (personal or private). Combine this ith the ability to load in an outline from an existing book TOC, and you have a cool semi-automated tool for creating collections. I've used it for this purpose myself on a few books already and the results are good.
 * 2) I streamlined the interface, there are now fewer links and things to look at (they're mostly hidden behind menus). It should be more straightforward to use now
 * 3) Added an AJAX editing mode, for administrators only. I might open it up to all autoconfirmed users in the future, but it's a beta test so I want it limited to users who could clean up any mistakes that are made. Once you have an outline made, you click a Create link to make the book. It will create all the necessary pages for you.

These are the biggest changes made, but not the only ones. Again, I would appreciate any feedback that people get and I would be happy to hear if anybody uses this tool to actually create a book. Thanks! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

wikibooklets
I'm working on the wikibook Spanish by Choice that accompanies some shows of the podcast SpanishPod and a Spanish audiobook for listening practice: Novelas Cortas. The longer I work on this, the more I'm convinced that the idea of wikibooks, or "wikibooklets", accompanying audiobooks and podcasts is quite powerful. There are many very good educational podcasts and audiobooks, which sometimes come with transcripts and additional images, tables, collections of links, and other textual material. While the majority of these podcasts and audiobooks might not be suitable for a wikibook for one or another reason, I think there are several podcasts that are excellent candidates for wikibooks. To give you an example, have a look at the German GrammarPod and the corresponding web page with transcripts and tables. (Note that I don't know whether the author of this particular podcast would be interested in licensing this material under the GFDL.)

Currently, I see three basic types of wikibooklets of this form:
 * 1) transcripts of educational podcasts or audiobooks
 * 2) *although the style is often more informal than in a traditional textbook, this type of material will usually qualify as a good candidate for a wikibook
 * 3) *example: German GrammarPod
 * 4) visual and textual materials accompanying educational podcasts or audiobooks
 * 5) *for example transcripts of lesson dialogues of podcasts or audiobooks for foreign language learning
 * 6) *other possible materials are: vocabulary lists, exercises, images, links to related material, etc.
 * 7) *example: Spanish by Choice/SpanishPod lessons
 * 8) *the problem with this type is that there is no continuous text; I think it depends on the amount of additional material and its educational value to determine whether it qualifies as a wikibook even if it has no continuous text (which is after all provided by the audiobook or podcast).
 * 9) annotated texts of audiobooks
 * 10) *annotated texts is one of the few areas where WikiSource and WikiBooks overlap
 * 11) *for listening and reading practice, annotated texts of audiobooks in foreign languages can have great educational value; again it depends on the amount of the additional material (the annotations, translations, exercises, etc.) whether this material qualifies as a wikibook
 * 12) *example: Spanish by Choice/Novelas Cortas

As I said, I'm currently working on the wikibook Spanish by Choice, which seems to follow this idea of a "wikibooklet", and I hope that it will illustrate the potential of "wikibooklets" and provide solutions to several practical problems. However, I would also be very interested in opinions and comments of other users about this idea. In particular, whether there are any related (wiki) projects (I'm only aware of the LibriVox site for public domain audiobooks). I would also be interested in any existing wikibooks, which are related to this idea. Also, would a new category "Wikibooklets" be a good idea? --Martin Kraus (talk) 13:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Listen and Audio Templates
Just wanted to let the Admins know that there is a problem with the Audio and Listen templates on this site. The code is different than what is currently on Wikipedia. I did not want to just do a cut and paste, because I did not know if the problem is with just these two templates or whole bunch of templates need to get synchronized with the main Wikipedia site. Also, does anybody know if there is a version of the gallery code that allows for adding a sound file as well as an image and text? Basically I want to add a gallery of a bunch of images, and if the image has a sound file that goes with it (eg. image of a bear and a sound file of a bear growl) I want to place them nicely into the gallery setup. Thanks. Zzmonty (talk) 01:06, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikibooks doesn't normally synchronize templates with Wikipedia typically that I know of. Books are different from articles, so there are different needs here than from Wikipedia. I wouldn't call differences between templates here and on Wikipedia a problem in and of itself. What matters is whether the changes would be considered beneficial to the people who are using the templates.
 * I think you can add sound files to a gallery as you would an image and it will work, but I could be wrong. Another option is including the sound file as a link within the description. Would either of those be what your after? --dark lama  02:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I did try to add a sound file as I would an image file, actually below the image file with the text part. The problem is that I end up with a question mark icon that I do not want, and the image and sound icons don't line up.  When I try to use the template, the visual aspect is now correct, but you can't play the sound.  The one in Wikibooks prompts you to download something.  The one in Wikipedia provides an interface to play the sound directly.  The Templates just need to be updated.  It has nothing to do with articles vs. books.  It just has to do with an original design that was not perfect.  It was updated on Wikipedia to be a better design, but that change was not moved over here.  At some point today when I have time, I will try to just copy and paste the templates over to here.  Hopefully, the fix will be that simple.  I was just concerned that if there are problems with audio files, then the same problems also probably exist in video files.  Zzmonty (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Copying from Wikipedia can break current uses of templates in unexpected ways. So I don't think its going to be that simple. There have already been several reverts to some templates due to undesired breakage from people trying to copy over from Wikipedia. Changes at a minimum need to be backwards compatible so that current uses don't break, otherwise someone is likely to revert since its less work than trying to fix every usage of a template. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  19:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)




 * Well, updating templates is a bit of a problem. For example, I'm using the Listen template in a specific way which includes the graphical interface to play sound files. Thus, if the template itself is changed to do this, my specific usage of the template might break. Thus, it's not just a matter of updating templates, you also have to make sure that the updated template still works fine with all the ways it is used here at Wikibooks. Please keep this is in mind if you are really going to change templates such as Listen.
 * Regarding the original questions: you can get rid of the question mark with the option "noicon". My attempts to solve the problem (as far as I understand it) all have some disadvantages. I guess I'd prefer the one to the right. (See the wiki text of this page for details of how to generate the two solutions.)--Martin Kraus (talk) 12:25, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, since an IP has changed the implementation of Listen to Wikipedia's implementation, I checked several pages using this template and almost all of them seem to require adjustments to the new implementation. I suggest that we first discuss whether the implementation should be changed and if yes, we should make sure that all Wikibook pages using it are either adjusted or the reference is replaced by Listen old version. (Since I finally decided to no longer use Listen due to the obvious instability of its implementation, I no longer feel biased about this issue.) --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on starting a new book!
I'm revisiting WikiBooks after a long absence and looking at some of the new books. When I look at them, up the top of the page it says (for example):

"Congratulations on starting a new book! You have created the new book Open Collaboration in Aging Research. Please properly categorize your book using {Subject}. Read The Wikibooks Writer for more information about starting books. Ask questions in the Reading Room. Keep this template for at least 1 week to advertise your book. Do not remove this template until your book is properly categorized. If this is not a new book, but is not properly categorized, use {Cleanup-link} instead."

Why is the casual reader seeing this information that's clearly intended for the creator of the book?

Thanks. --Irrevenant (talk) 01:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Good question. For visibility, I suspect. It could be more appropriate to place these on the talk page, but new users might not notice the talk page being created. A solution to that potential problem would be to place the template on the talk page and alert users on their talk pages too (which would also teach them about the talk page). --Swift (talk) 01:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The information is not just for the creator of the book. Anyone including casual readers can help improve books by categorizing them and the like. Visibility is only part of it. This approach awhile ago replaced the manual approach where people who didn't know about a list for new books didn't get their books listed there with an automated approach that lists books that make use of the template automatically. I've gone ahead and modified the new book template some to make use of collapsing so it doesn't take up as much space and people who are already familiar with the information don't have to see most of it. In collapsed form people only see "Congratulations on starting a new book!" I hope this is a reasonable compromise. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed the new book template from several pages, in particular those that had it for some weeks and have a query template now. I don't think queried pages (which usually do not even qualify as stubs) should be advertised as new books longer than a few weeks. --Martin Kraus (talk) 13:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Box templates
I've been writing a textbook and looking for templates to implement textbook "boxes": the sort of thing that contain supplementary information to the main text, labelled "Box 1.1", etc. These are often independent (to some extent) from the main text, so I'm guessing that for these, book writers will want the content to be transcluded from another page. The nearest I've seen are the various PrettyTextBox templates, but these aren't quite flexible enough (for example, I'd like to be able to collapse the box) I've written a template myself, which allows a fair amount of flexibility, but it's not been given a very sensible name Template:Code:Transclude, and I have a few questions: Cheers, HYanWong (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Am I reinventing the wheel: is there some template designed for this already?
 * If not, I'd like to rename mine to something more generic (e.g. FancyBox, SupplementaryBox, TranscludeBox, BookBox). Any suggestions as to a good name?


 * Now modified and saved under Template:DropBox and Template:TranscludeBox. The latter is a bit hacky, but seems to do the job. HYanWong (talk) 00:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Subjects and Categories
Hello again, Can an admin advise on this please?
 * Can new subject pages, (not general category pages), be made, or are users stuck with the existing structure?
 * If they can be made, how is it done? I get spurious results trying to make one with the subject syntax.
 * The number of miscellaneous subjects is quite large and the top level subject list is quite restricted. For example, there is not even a 'Recreation' or 'Sport' top level subject.   Is there any existing group that is working on the subject structure.
 * Thanks for any input, as I have just realised that I do not understand the subject that I am trying to write about!!! Armchair (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * New Subject pages can be created - Whiteknight has the templates (1, 2) for that. But, I'd suggest that they be kept to a minimum. Miscellaneous is probably the only one that needs refinement. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 18:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I disagree there :-). The subject namespace is sadly empty... feel free to make pages! -- SB_Johnny | PA! 23:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * And I disagree with you disagreement. If we go about the subject namespace as we have gone with the categories then we lose a great chance to provide the community something useful, I have recently put some of my time on the subject of categories and as they are they should be turned into something more orderly but the work required is abysmal, please SB_Johnny, do help provide a guideline to the use of the subject namespace, if we let them get into a chaotic state then what's the point... --Panic (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Subject pages can be very useful for interwiki linking, and organizing subjects that are addressed in more than one book. That's actually what I plan to be doing this winter with plant names, etc. This was discussed when we first added the namespace. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 12:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Armchair, if you intend to put some time into organizing the subject namespace, try to talk with Witheknight he has done some preliminary work on that topic, remember to avoid using the subject namespace in a way similar to the category namespace, my believe is that it should replace the bookshelves that exist (they provide a similar function), avoid creating subjects dealing only one book and try to make a connection to categories, I have created subject pages to categories with more that one book, see Subject:C++, similar problems exist, names given to subjects should avoid conflict with book names and try to extend the information present on categories, with extended information on the books sharing a subject, as you can see in that example. If you have some ideas please use this space so work is synchronized.
 * For categories, I have been removing them from subpages and were relevant added what I removed to the book category so categories are crosslinked by the topic they share, for the names due to what is already present I've selected to keep using the prominent method, names start in upper case and the rest is always lower case (this avoids most conflicts with book names ie: Category:Windows Programming all pages of Wikibook Windows Programming and Category:Windows programming general and should also point to a Subject:Windows programming, were all books on the subject are given small description... --Panic (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Chords diagram
Hi. I came across Guitar/Chord Reference, which is both inaccurate and frumpy. I wonder if it would be possible to enable an appropriate chords output package for LaTeX, such as GChords, which is versatile enough to handle not only the guitar but also several fretted chordophones/plucked string instruments. Jd (talk) 11:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not aware of a way to do this kind of advanced type setting with the wiki markup language. Thus, I'm afraid you'll have to create an appropriate image (preferable SVG: scalable vector graphics) for each chord and upload it (preferable to Wikimedia Commons) to use it here at Wikibooks. There are a few such images already available in Wikimedia Commons, e.g.: here but many are missing and you might prefer a different notation. One way to create these SVG images might be to compile LaTeX code to Postscript, convert that to PDF and from that to an SVG image. There should be free software available for all the steps. --Martin Kraus (talk) 21:04, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikistudy
During my work on the Categories I've came across this project (it's not really a Wikibook) and it says so "Wikistudy is the home to textbooks that are directed towards specific syllabi and academic exams" and it crosslinks pages (I've found at least 2) that are out of scope in dangling namespaces, I would put this project for a VFD vote but it seems to be of some usefulness probably not as a Wikibook but as a navigational aid. So I'm making this post so other Wikibookians can  take the issue under consideration or the original maintainer gives a rational, is it obsolete as advanced on the project's talk page or is anyone willing to take up the job of maintaining this ? --Panic (talk) 03:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I would consider this obsolete. This could be easily redone using an exams category and a Subject:Exams page. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Should probably be in the Wikibooks namespace and/or replaced as darklama describes. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 01:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyone up for the job ? or at least move that page to what seems a proper location (I'm happy with the suggestions so far). I can help to verify and rearrange the linked pages.  --Panic (talk) 05:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Use the Source
I've made an undo that seemed needed and reworded it a bit to be more friendly and clear, this will probably no be consensual, the special problem here is that the author imparted a one sided view to the book so it somewhat violated the NPOV or what I think it pretends to defend in absolute terms, but this work is just in a gray area, see and say what you think of it. We have already discussed the other issues involved several times, but I think the request made here is not abusive of the standing policies and guidelines and I and others have taken similar steps to refrain BeBold actions (if deletive, contrary to the scope of the book) or just to give a definition of an wanted state or structure for a work, this reduces destructive edits that can be generators of conflicts if options and approaches are not clearly stated and given a chance to discussion. I make note that no one opposed the stated request since 2005 and that the Wikibookian that removed it did it anonymously, but I think this case is important to how we interpret the Neutral point of view policy and what latitude we should give to it. --Panic (talk) 05:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all
I've just found IB Biology and can safely say that, after looking through it's contents and category, these articles will help me pass my exams! These are by far the most in-depth, useful study notes I've ever seen and I'd like to thank everyone who has ever contributed to them for helping me get through my exams. --Gwib (talk) 22:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

New book doesn't have the hierchical links pointing back to parent pages?
I created a new book, Magicjack. It refers to sub-pages using links like

Introduction

I created those sub-pages by following the link. However, when I visit them, I don't see the small links in the top-left to follow the hierarchy back. (See MagicJack, Introduction.).

And, if I visit a page two levels deep, like:

MagicJack/Support_Resources/New_users

it shows the navigational/hierarchical link, but the base of the link doesn't contain the two components "MagicJack" and "Support Resources". (See MagicJack, Support Resources, New users.).

When I developed these pages in my userspace (User:Az2008) the link looked different. (See: the same page in my userspace.).

Can someone please tell me why it's different? Did I do something wrong?

Thanks. --Az2008 (talk) 01:02, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Update: I found my problem. I created the book name with the wrong capitalization. All the sub-pages were created with the correct capitalization. So, the links worked. But, the little link-back links in the top-left weren't right. Sorry. --Az2008 (talk) 01:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hint for the future: You could have left off the "MagicJack" part, and made your links like this: Introduction .  The leading slash implies the parent.  DOing it this way makes it a lot easier to rename the book too, should the need ever arise.  --Jomegat (talk) 02:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hint for the future: /Introduction/ is equivalent to Introduction - saves you typing. <tt>:)</tt> &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 05:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)