Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2008/July

Hello, My Name is Teresa
My name is Teresa and this is a new experience working with wikibooks. My University of Mary Washington students are researching, writing, and creating media for the Introduction to Information Literacy in the K12 Classroom book. We are newbies and would welcome any assistance, guidance, comments, suggestions, and feedback that you are willing to provide.

teresacoffman (talk) 03 June 2008


 * Welcome. It looks like it's coming along quite well so far. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. Red4tribe (talk) 14:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you haven't already read it WB:CLASS should help. --dark lama  14:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

All books?
Is there a category containing all books without subcategorising? I am trying too see approximately how many books there are and using the using Category:Alphabetical I have to add all page counts, if there is a single category I could just look up. /90.229.131.75 (talk) 15:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No there isn't. I made a bit ago, which adds up all the alphabetical pages. According to it there are  books on WB that are properly categorized at least. --dark  lama  22:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That template that darklama mentioned is helpful but is suspect. It only counts books which are tagged (and tagged properly) with . I was able to tag some books automatically using my bot, but I used the list of books on the various bookshelves, and they are terribly incomplete too. I would not be surprised to hear that the number of books here on Wikibooks (for various definitions of the word "book") is closer to 2500-3000. What would be awesome is if we had a way to find and tag all the "missing" books. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think due to it's continued growth of uncategorised pages this want's to be resolved in some way. I estimate about 2000 uncategorised pages have been added this year alone. Perhaps a bot could go through them and put some template on them to get them appropriately categorised? SunCreator (talk) 16:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A bot fix is not inconceivable. However, adding all currently un-categorized pages to a single generic "uncategorized" category doesn't help anybody, and simply duplicates effort that the software already performs. A good bot would probably follow these basic rules, if it wants to be worthwhile:
 * For toplevel pages such as "Bookname", add (with the first letter of the book name) and  (possibly with no arguments immediately). Also, add it to "Category:Bookname"
 * For subpages such as "Bookname/Pagename", add them to "Category:Bookname". Notice that this is done automatically with the template.
 * Pages in other namespaces get dealt with differently. Talk pages should not be categorized. Pages in "Cookbook:" should have special cookbook-specific templates added. Pages in "Wikijunior:" should probably be treated similarly to points 1 and 2 above, except the main pages of the books should also be added to "Category:Wikijunior".
 * This is a pretty big job, and one that we should not just throw together. We should spend some time talking about what, exactly, we want to have happen. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Book on Mathematical Physics
I am frankly astounded that Wikibooks neither has a book nor a request for a book on this topic. In my opinion, an undergraduate text on mathematical methods is invaluable before going to standard books on advanced physics (including some of our own: Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Statistical Mechanics etc.). I plan to start a book about general mathematical methods (I've just had a course on it). I'd like to invite specific guidance or help in contribution.

S Pat   talk 11:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I wish you the best of luck, because I'm sure this stuff would make absolutely no sense to me. I have never been good at anything math related. I will have to take a look at it. Red4tribe (talk) 15:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I wish you luck as well, a good understanding of the core mathematics is key to understanding advanced topics in physics. I'll try to help if I am able. Feel free to ask for guidance or opinions if you need them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Search
The search doesn't find things discussed on this page for example search for 'PAGESINCATEGORY' as mentioned in 'All books?' discussion above. SunCreator (talk) 17:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You are probably looking for m:Help:Variable - we do not have documentation on such things locally, but you may often find the information at Meta or MediaWiki wiki. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 00:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't looking for anything. I was pointing out the search doesn't always work, and wondered why. SunCreator (talk) 10:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The default search only searches in main namespace I believe. Take a look in your preferences under search. You can change it to search as many namespaces as you want for you. In my case doing a search for 'PAGESINCATEGORY' does turn up this page. --dark lama  12:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello
Hello, my name is Dallas.

I am a computer programmer and am primarily interested in working on texts for C++, Mathematics, and Game Programming. If anyone needs help formatting material or with other maintenance tasks feel free to contact me.

Dallas Stowasser dallas.stowasser@gmail.com

Dallas1278 (talk) 00:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Welcome to wikibooks. If you need help with anything, you may feel free to ask me. Red4tribe (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge or more separate more clearly
The book Developing A Universal Religion has four parts, that take up four books in the main namespace. Do you think this would this be best to keep as one book and merge everything into a four part book, or more clearly separate them into a tetralogy? Thanks. Emesee (talk) 06:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Collapsible Tables
MediaWiki has collapsible tables in their Javascript support. Can we get this please? It seems that when one project has a feature of this kind that it would be as well for the others to have it as well.

The cost of the resource is presumeably already met. Constructive comments please. Armchair (talk) 17:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to something like or m:User:Pathoschild/Scripts/AJAX transclusion table (not implemented here, but could be) or something else?  &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 20:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I mean the simple mention of a class or two to convert a Wikitable into a drop, as in WikiMedia Collapsible Tables.


 * Wikipedia supports these collapsible tables as well as the NavFrame, NavHeading, NavContent set.


 * WikiMedia has no Nav set installed but has collapsible tables!


 * WikiBooks has the Nav set but no collapsible tables?


 * We all three of us should have both, to afford some consistency, and to render more work as portable.


 * This is an extract from the link page:  This makes a drop in Wikimedia, initially closed.

{|class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" ! Press for a Table Code Summary
 * Hidden text here
 * }
 * Regards, Armchair (talk) 13:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Regards, Armchair (talk) 13:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This would be useful indeed. --Swift (talk) 20:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe User:Darklama is working on implementing this. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 23:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Linux Networking How-to
Hello, I am Senthil and I tookover to maintain the Howto document of Linux Networking. It transformed that into the wikibook and would be maintaining and updating it. I am from India and I find the wikibooks project exciting. I hope I will make this a polished product and with good amount of information available in a simple and easy understand manner.

Thank you, --Phoe6 (talk) 18:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've been validating your edits on page patrol and the work is great, I really have a good time looking to your ascii art :), you could probably save some of your time and upload some simple images. Keep up contributing. --Panic (talk) 18:56, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Javascript
The Javascript book needs improved VASTLY. I've started work on it. Feel free to join me. 78.144.106.182 (talk) 18:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I would help, but that is not my area of expertise. Think about making an account, especially if you will be working on here a lot. If you need any help, such as how to organize the page or licenses for images, feel free to ask me. Good luck. Red4tribe (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

New Admin Nomination
has been nominated for adminship. In about a week, only a small handful of people have voted, and the bureaucrats would like to see a few more voices before any decision is made. All Wikibookians are invited to come take a look at WB:RFP and vote as they see fit. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * With all positive comments over the nomination period, Red4tribe was promoted. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 12:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone with administrative power?
Is there anyone at Wikibooks that has administrative power over content of books? I have a suggestion regarding a book called "Marksmanship" and would like to have someone with administrative power other than the originator of the book to see and comment on my suggestion. You will find a copy of my comment I posted with the book below:

I agree with the opening statement at the top 100% and it angers me that a book titled "Marksmanship" includes facsimiles of the human form as targets. Incuding being exceedingly distasteful, there are ethical, psychological and legal issues that make the use of the human form as a shooting target dangerous. To begin with those who oppose the non-military/non-police use of firearms can use this book as an argument against those who legally use firearms for other purposes therefore supporting their arguments. I am suspicious of the person who has published these targets in this book for that reason and the others you will find below. The purpose of using the human form as a target is to desensitize people to make it easier for them to shoot and possibly kill other humans. I have no intention of ever killing another human, so do not even like seeing a target of the human form. There have been court cases and legal precedents regarding practising shooting on targets representing the human form where premeditation of murder was proven based on this. A case could be make of premeditated murder or attempted murder if there was say, a shooting accident and the defendant had at some time practised shooting at a human form target. I once had a police officer attempt to gift me some human silhouette targets. He had a reputation of being shady. I would like the original contributor to remove the human silhouette targets from the book and replace them with types of targets that were more traditionally used by marksmen or to be more PC "sharpshooters".

Thanks in advance for your attention.


 * Who has power over the content of books? You do! If you see a page that needs to be changed, click the "[edit]" links on the page, or the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page, make your changes, and then click . You don't need anybody's permission to edit, be bold and just do it! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Deleting a Wiki Page
I went to edit a page in a Wikibook and I think that I accidently deleted the whole page. When I went back into the page I did not see the material there. Any suggestions? This is not my page, but another person in my class that is helping to compose a Wikibook. Any ideas of what I can do to get the page back after it is supposedly deleted?

19:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)~Thanks T19:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)~


 * I can assure you that you did not accidentally delete the page. Deletion requires admin privileges.  If the page was deleted, it would have been by an admin.  Can you tell us the name of the page?  If it should not have been deleted, it is possible to undelete, but we'd have to know the page name. --Jomegat (talk) 20:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Interfacing microcontroller with gsm mobile or modem
'''dear sir how to interface microcontroller with gsm mobile or modem&which mobile is suitable for that &pls give me AT commands for that'--Satheeshkumar (talk) 08:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot request
I while back I was working on Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Birds and created several subpages that I then transcluded. Each of these pages have the prefix Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Birds/ (note trailing slash). After working with it for a while, I realized that it was far beyond the scope of a single chapter, so I added them to Field Guide/Birds which has a couple of sub pages which link back to the originals. I would like to remove my original tentacles. I started doing this by hand, but it's quite tedious. To further complicate matters, I feel that the pages should be named according to the bird's latin name rather than its common name. Fortunately, each page uses a template that includes latin_name as an argument.

Long story short, I would like to have the remaining several pages moved to Field Guide/Birds/latin_name_of_bird. Then edit all the pages that link to it (there may be more than one, such as Field Guide/Birds - Eastern US and Canada and Field Guide/Birds - Western US and Canada. Most - if not all - of these also have pages in Transwiki space from where I imported the base info from WP.  The transwiki pages should prolly be deleted, and finally, the original page should be deleted too.

To summarize:
 * move Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Nature/Birds/common name → Field Guide/Birds/Latin_name
 * edit all pages that include the original, except the one in Transwiki name space
 * delete the transwiki page.
 * delete original (should be an orphan)

Can anyone recommend a bot for this job? Would anyone like to tackle it? --Jomegat (talk) 21:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Page moves and redirects and all are well outside the capabilities of my bot. Mike might know some AWG or Pywikibot voodoo to make this happen. We could also ask around at 'pedia and commons to see if somebody else has something. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * There are probably between 30 and 50 pages (I guess I could count them) needing this treatment. It could probably be done by hand with two or three hours of effort.  If customizing a bot takes longer than that, maybe it's not worth it (except that writing bots is far more interesting than moving pages and deleting redirects). --Jomegat (talk) 21:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I can do the pagemoves if you give me a list of what should go where (ie the bot can't see the ). Not sure what you mean by "edit all pages that include the original" though. And the deletions are not a problem either. I suspect Monobi is the one you want to ask though, as he knows python and could probably program this properly (ie get the latin name to do the appropriate page move). Furthermore, I'm ridiculously busy for the next 3 weeks, so Monobi would probably be faster even though it'd be a custom script.  &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 03:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I shoulda written "edit all the pages that transclude the original." --Jomegat (talk) 12:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wanted pages not updated
Hi everybody, why are the wanted pages not being updated on WB, and where was this decision taken? Kellen T 12:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't realize that it wasn't being updated, but it's definitely not a problem we've caused. It might be worthwhile to contact some of the developers and see why this feature is turned off. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried asking about it earlier today, just before I had to leave. Supposedly some special pages are inefficient, and that's why they are not being updated. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sigh. "This thing is inefficient so let's NEVER RUN IT AGAIN rather than running it less frequently or making it more efficient." Thanks, developers! Kellen T 14:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

wikitable (Old topic revived)
Where can I find information/documentation on class="wikitable"? ChessCreator (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * G'day, you'll find most CSS styles in MediaWiki:Common.css. The code is the documentation, as they say... Webaware talk 05:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, well maybe to but it more clearly. I'd like to change the purple heading colour from this.

to more subtle grey shading found in the table of this article.


 * If you want to customise the look just for yourself, you can either modify your own User:username/common.css file, or use the per-book CSS gadget - but I suspect you want to change it for all readers, in which case you will need to specify the background colours for each cell, like this:
 * You could wrap that up in a template for ease of use, but ultimately that's how you'll need to do it. Webaware talk 03:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You could wrap that up in a template for ease of use, but ultimately that's how you'll need to do it. Webaware talk 03:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Our wikitable class was once that subtle grey color. I don't know when or why it changed. I use a custom skin, so I didn't see it change. Given the option between the two, I would probably prefer the grey version instead of the current one. However, it would be trivial to create a second class, "greytable" or something like that, that uses the old colorscheme. If we created this second class, would that be good for your project? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I seems to have missed this before. Yes most likely so to a second class. SunCreator (talk) 16:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Five Year Anniversary
It is hard to believe, but the five year anniversary of Wikibooks is coming up! On July 2003, Wikibooks was started by User:Karl Wick and a few others as a result of a Vote for Deletion on Wikipedia when a "textbook" about Chemistry was debated. Going over some of those historical pages of the very first edits on this project as well as plowing through the archives of Textbook-l give some interesting insight about how crazy it was just to get this project started.

In these five years, we have seen a huge turnover in terms of participants and contributors, but through it all some amazing progress has been made. I'd like to take this time to urge some reflection on just what has been accomplished and "toot our horn" as this project passes this important milestone. With well over 1 million edits on just en.wikibooks, we've had our fair share of edit wars, wheel warring, arguments, flames, and vandalism. We've also in spite of all of that contention some incredible books that have been written and have come through all of that discussion with a rather amazing body of literature.

The wiki concept seems to be alive and well here, and on a personal note I'd like to thank all of those who have made donations to this project (both financial and in terms of making editorial contributions) and for the hard work that a small cadre of people have done to keep the flame alive that is Wikibooks! This project wouldn't be what it is without you. If you are a long time contributor or somebody new to Wikibooks, I hope that you can join with me in an amazing next five years that can only promise more and exciting things in the future. --Rob Horning (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We should perhaps think about a "press release" sort of thing on Foundation-l, Whiteknight's blog (etc?) and see if we can't use this milestone as an opportunity to gain some new contributors. Any other thoughts on harnessing this for recruitment? &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 12:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried a similar kind of tactic to help promote the project a couple of years ago with State of the Project/2006, as it was encouraged to give some kind of status report to the WMF board on a "regular basis" about each of the sister projects. It would be interesting if perhaps we could come up with something a bit more up-to-date like that.  It takes quite a bit of effort to dig up even a statistical summary of significant accomplishments, much less go into issues related to project governance.  Still, it would be worthwhile to reflect back and see what has happened in the past couple of years.  --Rob Horning (talk) 16:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

We should have someone place an article about this on Wikinews. Agomulka (talk) 18:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

List of all books
I've just been informed by User:Ramac that there is now a program on the toolserver to list all books on wikibooks: http://toolserver.org/~john/wikibooks-works.php I've gone down this list and already found a number of orphaned subpages (which likely can be deleted), uncategorized books (which should be tagged with, at the very least), and other stuff worth cleaning up. If other users would like to take a gander at this list and help find/fix some trouble areas, that would be great. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:34, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikibook on Fluid Mechanics.
I am a retired professor of Aerospace Engineering at a Research Center where a gave Lectures on different topics of Fluid Dynamics. My Lecture Notes on "An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics" are available in PDF format and I'm ready to submit them as a Wikibook free of Copyright. No version is available, as now, as a web page. Is the PDF version sufficient ? Any help ? Meco39.
 * The PDF would be fine, but we will want to convert it to wikitext - that is the most onerous part. You can upload the PDF (once your account is 4 days old) & we'll go from there. Remember to fill out a template, and choose a license template (probably ). If you need help, come on back here.  &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 02:42, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

GeSHi doesn't support HTML?
I am trying to include some HTML source in PHP Programming/User login systems, but the GeSHi doesn't seem to want to help. The following should work, should it not?

But it gives this:

Can anyone shed any light on what's wrong here? &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 00:54, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You can use html4strict or maybe xml (not 100% sure what the differences are): or    &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 01:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Good point; I'll do so. It's odd that the example they give in the error message isn't actually valid... :-)  &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 01:18, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Collapsible - what is possible?
Hello,

I'm hoping to start developing Calculus/Tables of Integrals, but before I get started I have a question about the collapsible class. I spend most of my time on Wikipedia so if I'm asking this in the wrong place then a point in the right direction will be appreciated :).

Ok, some background. There are a lot of "in print" tables of integrals around (some over a thousand pages long with tens of thousands of results), but for practical reasons none of them contain the derivations of each (or any) result. Wikipedia is starting to amass a few tables (see Lists of integrals) and in some cases derivations (see Integral of secant cubed). They're tempting additions since the Wiki software solves all the practical 'paper' problems that I mentioned above. Ultimately, they don't really belong on Wikipedia though - it's textbook stuff and should be fully fleshed out here, and so I'm hoping to get that ball rolling.

This brings me to my question. There will be a problem when it comes to readability. Some of the derivations will be painfully long, and others so simple they won't generally be worth looking at. I'm hoping it's possible to set up a collapsible 'class' (or something similar) that lets people add an integral, so the integral sits left aligned on the page, and a show/hide derivation button (right aligned) that readers can click if they want to. Most readers will simply want a particular result, so the default value should be 'hidden', allowing readers to quickly scan the results to find what they're looking for. On occasion, readers may want to see how a result is derived. There may even be more than one derivation. Some users will be able to contribute results but not the derivation, so a template message could be developed asking for someone else to add the derivation and placed in this hidden area. In other cases, derivations have references in journal articles that people might find interesting or helpful. Maybe there could be interwiki or crosswiki links too.

I can't think of a way of doing this with a template (would it even be possible? I believe all the collapsible stuff is tucked away in MediaWiki:Common.js), but my template experience is next to nil so maybe I'm overlooking an obvious way to do this. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Ben Tillman (talk) 13:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * We do have a template that collapses and expands when clicked on. I don't know if you want something more general or flexible then that, maybe you could ask User:Darklama (he created that template and is the resident expert on it). For most derivations, maybe you should consider creating sub-pages to host them, instead of trying to keep things inline. If you put the derivation on a separate page, you can transclude it to a main page with many derivations. You have lots of options here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought about subpages, but as the number of integrals grows, certain classes of integrals may need to be shifted off onto their own separate pages, and so on. I thought it might get a bit messy that way. The dynamic navigation template looks great though, so I'll have a chat to Darklama. Thanks for your help. Ben Tillman (talk) 03:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

hi i am a student, doing B.E CSE second year. i need help or assitance for collecting information about algorithims as per as the following 1. using linked list 2. poly addition and poly subtraction.

Request inputs on IE7
Hello, I am trying to find out whether or not the IE7 browser can handle the CSS white-space's pre-wrap property. In particular, does the pre-wrap value of that property permit the effective wrapping of long lines while preserving the preformats of others?

Comments from users using IE7 would be greatly appreciated. If it does, then YIPEE! If not, then when will it??? Regards, Armchair (talk) 19:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Introducing myself as a new user
Hello, my name is Jugandi. I am a person of no importance residing somewhere on an unregarded little blue-green planet in the outer reaches of the western spiral arm of the galaxy.

I would like to become a regular contributer to Wikibooks and would appreciate any guidance the Wikits (?) can offer.

Thank you.
 * Everyone is important in their own way - perhaps contributing here can be yours. We're certainly glad to have help. Would you like to help with cleanup and maintenance, or would you rather author content? WB:AS is a good starting point to find books on subjects which interest you, or you can start a new book. If you have more specific questions, you can always come back - we're here to help. If you do, please sign after your message with four tildes ( ~ ), which will automatically give a signature with timestamp; this makes conversations easier to follow. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 21:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you Mike. I would like to contribute content to Wikibooks on electronics communication. I have been teaching at a junior college for many years and have created courseware which can be examined at . One of my concerns is math formulas. Some authors like to write equations in the most general form (hence obscuring the main point) and I prefer the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle. I have already started to contribute and hope it will be acceptable. All advice will be gratefully received. Jugandi (talk) 01:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Jugandi, welcome to Wikibooks! I actually created the Communication Systems book, a long time ago when I was taking the class in college. I've also created books for Signals and Systems, Signal Processing, Communication Networks, and Data Coding Theory, all of which are closely related. I obviously haven't had the time to complete these books, or even spend much time improving them. If you are interested in adopting one (or more!) of these projects and leading them to greatness, that would be awesome. Let me know if you need some help, or want to bounce some ideas off somebody, or whatever. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you Whiteknight. With your permission, I'd like to start working on your Communication Systems book. Please feel free to offer any suggestions or advice at any time. Jugandi (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You don't need anyone's permission to start editing. Just dive right in, be bold. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Question about the tone of writing in a Wikibook
Hello! I'm literally brand new to the Wikibooks community, and of course I got started in the logical place to start - Using Wikibooks. As I was working my way through, I noticed that certain sections (notably Advanced Techniques) had a very casual tone. I'm used to Wikipedia, admittedly, and I know I shouldn't apply my understandings of style from different projects, but I'm wondering if it's appropriate to edit for style, or if that would be considered bad faith/vandalism. The last thing I want to do is start off on the wrong foot.

Thank you for your help! Keakealani (talk) 01:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * :D
 * If the tone seems excessively casual to you, if it doesn't fit with the rest of the book, then it should probably be changed. I wonder whether the casual tone is for effect. Feel free to dive in though. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 01:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to second Mike.lifeguard's opinion. Wikibooks has a be bold policy that covers this. --Jomegat (talk) 01:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikibooks includes many separate works, unlike Wikipedia where every article can be considered part of a single work. The import thing is for the style to be consistent within a single book. A casual tone is fine, and may help the audience the book is aimed for to not feel overwhelmed or intimidated when learning the subject for instance. You may find Help:Wikibooks for Wikipedians a bit helpful in understanding some of the differences between Wikibooks and Wikipedia. I recommend getting a feel for the overall style of the book first. If you still feel it could be improved, be bold and do so, or discussion it with other book contributors, depending on how conferable you feel. The worst that could happen is you end up having to discuss the style of the book with other contributors anyways. Depending on how drastically you want to change the style you might want to discuss it first anyways. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  01:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Mm, yes, that's pretty much the kind of conclusion I reached as well. I'll definitely check out the pages you guys mentioned - that would be a great first start.  I don't want to step over toes or make the book seem too encyclopedic, but at the same time, sometimes I feel like referring to specific things as "stuff" might just be confusing... At any rate, I'll probably read those articles, make a couple specific changes, and address any other problems on the discussion page, and I think it's all good.  Thank you for the help though! ^_^ Keakealani (talk) 03:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Why aren't we more popular?
Wikis are good for collaborative, standardizable projects, like encyclopedias and software manuals. However, textbooks are more individualized. From what I've seen, good books usually have at most a dozen significant contributors, although the number is often significantly less. For example, the Formal Logic book is largely the work of user:JMRyan, and New Zealand History by User:Helpfulstuffnz. A notable exception is the Cookbook, due to its modular structure.

In an encyclopedia, there is one "best" way to convey information. In a textbook, the presentation depends on the audience. Hence many books will overlap the same material, but teach in a different way, leading to what could be interpreted as wasted effort. A good example of this is the Mathematics bookshelf.

Textbooks also require much more in terms of graphics. Encyclopedias are meant for reference, not for learning. Because of this, they only include a picture if it is noteworthy. A textbook, on the other hand, are made to teach people something that they don't yet know, and quite often diagrams and pictures are necessary for retention of information.

Another problem with Wikibooks is the lack of a uniform goal. WikiHow is very organized and easy to browse, and has a clear "how-to" theme. Wikibooks, on the other hand, is a mess.

The sad truth in my opinion is, most Wikibooks are mediocre at best at teaching what they're supposed to, and there are usually other websites that are more comprehensive, and when necessary, more personal.

In other words, I pretty much agree with Wikibooks.
 * I'm not familiar with wikis so apologies if there are formatting shortcomings but I think I might have an answer to your question and that's in the lack of the definition of the target user.


 * Who is it that's supposed to grab an open source textbook and use it? Not students, they get the textbook they're told to get or are handed. Generally, it won't be teachers who decide which textbook to use. Teachers are too low on the hierarchy to make what, in the selection of a textbook, would be a policy decision. In most schools the decision's made higher up the hierarchy by administrative or elective persons. If you'll grant that I'm correct, how are these people being made aware of open source textbooks?


 * But the lack of awareness of the existence of open source textbooks by the people who run public education is only one problem and not, I feel, the most important problem.


 * The inescapably political nature of the management of public education creates barriers to open source textbooks which have nothing to do with the quality, or lack, of the textbooks. Without getting into the merits of the demands of competing interest groups on textbook publishers and textbook selection committees just the fact that there are competing demands has an inevitable erosive effect on the educational value of the textbook. Commercial publishers will accommodate those often conflicting demands by producing an educationally inferior but politically acceptable textbook. Since I very much doubt that the authors of open source textbooks are willing to accommodate those demands, were they even in a position to do so, the bulk of the public education market is off limits.


 * So, in a couple of paragraphs I've disposed of students, teachers and public schools as possible "customers" for open source textbooks. Does that leave anyone/anything? Yes, I believe it does. I believe there are several worthwhile markets for open source textbooks.


 * One worthwhile market may be public charter schools. While they are public schools in every sense of the word they enjoy a great deal more autonomy then schools which are part of a school district. They develop their own policies and to a considerable extent, go their own way within the legal requirements set forth in law. That independence alone provides an opening for open source textbooks.


 * Sorry, I just noticed the extent to which I've warmed up to one of my favorites subjects so I'll try to wrap things up.


 * The reason you aren't more popular is that you represent a pretty peculiar breed; people who are willing to put a great deal of time in on a project which doesn't appear have much chance of ever being put to use. In the public education system open source textbooks are an order of magnitude less well know then open source software which is only now starting to make inroads against commercial software. So other then the rare exception you won't see open source textbooks being used in the public education system. The only motivation in that circumstance is purely internal - the hope that someday open source textbooks will be put to use. That sort of faith just isn't a common commodity.


 * I'll finish with what I believe is the other viable customer for open source textbooks: private schools for lower-income families. More common then is generally suspected in the U.S., much more common then is realized in the "poor nations" of the world. Allen majorovic (talk)

What can we do about it?

 * Add the template to corresponding Wikipedia articles. This is probably the easiest thing to do, and I've already done it a few times.
 * Know our audience. I doubt that many people who want to learn Arithmetic know about Wikibooks, let alone Wikipedia.
 * Make it easier to create print versions. I'm no PHP/Mediawiki/PDF expert, so I don't know how this could be done.
 * Use Bittorrent to distribute PDFs of featured books. Most BT users use it for movies and TV shows, but a decent amount (which includes me) use it for e-books.
 * Get other websites to link to and collaborate with us, e.g., what Blender has already done.
 * Get hitcounts for WikiBooks pages; not just overall edits, surfers too.  Writers like their work to be read, or is that too obvious?  Armchair (talk)

A large part is few visitors, because search engines show few wikibooks pages high. There are some ways to boast your profile in Google and other search engines.
 * A simple way would be to remove the wording from the title in every book '- Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks'.
 * Have more links from appropriate articles on Wikipedia
 * Another would be to submit more books(perhaps every Featured book?) to DMOZ.
 * There is some more Optimization for Search Engines type things you could do but the above three would be a great help. SunCreator (talk) 12:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

What things can we do that are less likely to succeed?

 * Make free, open-source projects in general more mainstream. Most people won't go through the effort of finding a GDFL-compatible license or fair use rationale just to upload a picture on Wikimedia Commons. Also, most computer users don't care what the EULA of their product says, just as long as it works. Mention GDFL and Creative Commons and they'll look at you like the geek you probably are. =)
 * Recruit people on forums to work on specific Wikibooks. I already tried this with the College Guide, but it didn't work.

Hoogli (talk) 04:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

 * I agree that books need more graphics. Wikibooks also needs more motivated artists to make relevant illustrations, diagrams, figures, etc. I encourage you to add images to books.
 * A book's scope, depth, audience, and presentation should be different enough to avoid material overlap. These things should probably be made more clearer in more books, just as more books need to use more graphics. A neutral audience and presentation would be difficult, if not impossible, to do without leaving some people needing to turn to other sources for books.
 * Wikibooks has a uniform goal: "to write free open textbooks". I think the problem is that not enough people outside of the project understand Wikibooks' goals. This is reflected in how often Wikipedians use Wikibooks as a dumping ground for there unwanted materials for instance.
 * I have at times used the wikibooks template on wikipedia pages as well. One thing to consider is sometimes people also remove them, because some consider it spam, advertising, etc.
 * In order to know our audience, Wikibooks would need more readers to provide feedback. The sad fact is currently only even a minority of contributors, contribute to discussions such as this. Most people focus on there individual books, giving the impression that only a minority of people are really all that interested in any bigger picture.
 * I think there is some work already to make it easier to generate print versions of books. If you have some ideas on this or any other ideas for improving the software for Wikibooks, I encourage you (and everyone else for that matter) to contribute your ideas to Reading room/Feature requests.
 * Anyone can redistribute books found here. To make books available by bittorrent it only takes people willing to make the books available by bittorrent. The same is true for making books available by any other methods or means. If there not available its because there isn't anyone willing to do it. I encourage you to make books available by bittorrent if that is what you want.
 * ✅ Hoogli (talk) 16:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that it would be good if more websites linked to us and more people used Wikibooks for there collaboration needs. I think some of this goes back to not understanding Wikibooks' goals and scope. Wikibooks gets some book donations and sometimes people do decide Wikibooks best meets there needs. Perhaps you could help improve Help:Why contribute?, help to do something to make pages like that more known, and help encourage any websites you know of that would be interested in books here, to link to Wikibooks.
 * Recruitment isn't easy as you and I have both experienced. In my case the feeling from people was that it is much more rewarding to contribute to short one page articles, tutorials, etc. that don't take a lot of time and effort. I think this goes back to knowing your audience. Its hard to go to the right places to get people interested, if you don't know what audience would be interested in Wikibooks.

All in all I think it comes down to being bold and trying to make a difference where you can. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This doesn't quite answer the concerns raised above, but this is my thought. I think that it is expected that Wikibooks would evolve differently from how Wikipedia has, because the nature of textbooks is different from that of encyclopedia. Textbooks are often more personal and individualistic. Even though we have the NPOV policy in Wikibooks (which is of course necessary one), the books are going to reflect inevitably the research interest and background of the authors. Since we are not here to create a new kind of textbooks, I don't think this is a problem. As to why Wikibooks isn't popular as we hoped (I don't think the project has (so far) lived up to the hype.), I would say it is too early to make a judgement. Serious books take literally years to write. (For example, writing proofs is really time-consuming even when you know the materials very well; and making sure that the ideas behind the theory develop well is a very challenging job. writing good exercising is in an order of magnitudeharder than solving them, etc.) Accordingly, the development process is probably not going to be linear. Books or parts of them may be abandoned from time to time. This need not be perceived as failure. It's just part of a process. Overall, my impression (mostly from math books) is that we are moving forward, if very slowly.


 * (straying further from the main issue), to me the major problem of wikibooks isn't the contributors, the community nor the policies; but the software on which Wikibooks runs. I know I'm not the first to say this, but mediawiki, at the current state, is very ill-suited for textbook writing. Manually maintaining the books (e.g., chapters, pages, navigation stuff etc.) is just so tedious, error-prone and no fun at all. I have been witnessing a lot of time wasted on the maintenance work. This is very serious issue. My most-wished feature is a referencing mechanism across not just pages but the entire book. This is, for example, numbering theorems or adding reference to them in an automatic manner. If you know Latex, you know what I'm taking about. (Though I'm thinking if this can be achieved via templates. An alternative is to use bots or scripts.) -- Taku (talk) 00:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Recently I've been tagging more articles on wikipedia with wikibook tags, but I agree with TakuyaMurata. Many books develop at an extremely slow rate, and more often than not it appears the author leaves the book half completed. Red4tribe (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the end user needs to know that the information in the book is reliable. The current system unfortunately is open to abuse either by straight sabotage, a book I was looking up a reference in had had its title / contents page edited by some one who replaced it with a rather impolite comment, or by some one not understanding the system and putting capitals on page so the links get lost.  Yes I corrected them but I don't really have time to patrol each page each day.  Once a book gets a cetain amount of work in it can it get assigned a group of people who may make corrections or approve corrections made by others?  It is of especial concern on the Trainz wiki book where we have some tutorials that say on your computer do this or that.  If the instructions are modified to say "format C:" then people's computers can be damaged and this is a major concern.  Perhaps wikibook without some safeguards is not appropiate for certain types of material?  JohnWhelan

Books with only a title page
Given that 68% of "books" only have a title page or 1 page - see http://toolserver.org/~john/wikibooks-works.php - why not place all of these "title page" books in a separate area once they are 3 months old and delete them after 2 years? This would help cleanup exercises because orphaned pages would disappear from books. A new book type of "pamphlet" might be needed so that "books" that are really pamphlets are not removed. The separate area could be called "empty_books". As well as helping cleanup, this process would remove the clutter of shell's of books that put off readers of Wikibooks. Authors could find pages that have disappeared because of poor naming etc. by looking in the empty books folder (ideally a robot would remove these pages and mark linked pages with "see empty_books"). RobinH (talk) 09:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Some of them are redirects to outside projects, and could probably be deleted by now. Some of the results are due to having moved books and having left only the title page as a redirect. Some of them are due to using inconsistent names, but aren't really orphaned. Some might be due to a decision to delete a book, where someone didn't take care of the subpages too. Some of them might be duplicates that need to be merged due to copy+pasting rather then just moving the pages. Overall I don't think 68% of "books" consist of 1 page, but consist of problems that just need to be fixed. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That tool probably doesn't list redirects, right? You're correct about the rest though. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 14:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It lists soft redirects that are used to warn people of the move and the need to update there bookmarks. Some subpages might be listed because there title/main page was redirected, which seems to be treated the same as if the main/title page doesn't exist. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Misleading tool and somewhat misleading post. SunCreator (talk) 17:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, so part of the solution here is to have the tool exclude soft redirects (which are probably categorized - if not, excluding pages less than Xbytes might work) &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 18:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I went over the list from the bottom up and looked at every 30th 1 page book until I had examined 15 1 page books. (I tried to correct any problems like spelling as I went). I found the following:


 * 1) P http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Zope#Windows 1 page pamphlet
 * 2) O http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=XML%3A_Managing_Data_Exchange%2FRSS%2Fexercise This seems OK - why is it in the list?
 * 3) P http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Workbook_Canada_-_Citizenship_test#Section_II._Questions_about_your_region 1 page pamphlet
 * 4) R http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wings_3D%3A_User_Manual%2FEdge_Operations_with_Advanced_Menus redirect
 * 5) E http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_for_starters
 * 6) E http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Web_Imaging
 * 7) S http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Video_producion%2Fsave_dvavi_from_premiere_pro spelling error
 * 8) N http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Van_Dwelling%3AExercise Naming convention?
 * 9) D http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Urdu%3APlanning Page no longer needed
 * 10) P http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Uniform_Investment_Adviser_Law_Exam pamphlet
 * 11) P http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Training_and_Assessment#Assessment pamphlet
 * 12) E http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=The_different_modern_dialects_of_BASIC
 * 13) O http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=The_Gimp%2FAdd_a_Shine_to_Buttons This seems OK - why is it in the list?
 * 14) S http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Techincal_Theatre%2FSound%2FCondenser Spelling
 * 15) O http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/TeX%5Cabove This seems OK - why is it in the list?

There were:

4 P pamphlets

3 O Seemed OK and were bona fide parts of larger books (misclassified by tool?)

3 E Were effectively empty. Weirdly they were all started in November 2006!

2 S were page spelling errors

1 R was a redirect

1 D was an early take on work already covered ie: should have been deleted

So 7 out of 15 were in classes (PED) which fall under my original comment (ie: about 40% of Wikibooks "books"). The comment still stands - what about deleting empty books after a while and having a separate category for pamphlets? RobinH (talk) 10:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikibooks doesn't delete "books" simply because there stubs ("empty"), and Wikibooks doesn't work on a timetable. What your calling pamphlets are also considered stubs. I suggest you add or  to them if you feel like categorizing them. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  11:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think RobinH has a good point, there are a lot of pages that require some effort even if that is adding an appropriate category and 1 page books in my view require filing in some other way then being a book. There perhaps could be a systematic check through of pages and categories. Problem is it's a very big task so perhaps break it down into sections. SunCreator (talk) 17:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In reply to --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  's point: yes, Wikibooks does not delete empty books. I am suggesting that we should if they are over 2 years old. Just look at the three empty (E) "books" on the list above, they are just jottings.
 * As SunCreator (talk) points out, 1 page books need to be seen as such by readers. Perhaps Pamphlets could have a special symbol next to them on the Bookshelves so that potential readers can see what they are.  In a bookshop or library it is obvious when a publication is a pamphlet, we should make it obvious here.
 * A simple way to ease cleanup at Wikibooks and to ensure that pamphlets are properly classified is to put 1 page books that are over 3 months old and not classified as pamphlets in a separate area and then to delete them after two years. RobinH (talk) 08:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Standards for Box and other Margins
Can somebody please advise me on the following? Are there house standards or recommendations for the padding and margins for box template making? I mean, should margins be provided on the right and bottom or what: Are top and left to be ignored?

Although style sheets are no doubt useful to those who are thoroughly familiar with such things, is there not a summary of intent which could be used as a guide for the uninitiated, like myself?

Comments would be appreciated. Regards, Armchair (talk) 14:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Navigation sidebar question
Hi, Is the site sidebar customisation where the following html code comes from?

I'm curious because I use this line in my custom js on about a dozen wiki sites:

But here, I had to change it to p-Navigation. And, none of the sites where the original code works, as well as the others I happened to spot check, capitalise the word "navigation." Curiously, with your customisation, I would expect to see "Navigation" with a capital letter on the actual sidebar. But I don't--it's lower case.

But I could be barking up all the wrong trees here. :-) Thanks for any and all enlightenment. Snakesteuben (talk) 17:41, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, colleagues. "Broke" down for 30 seconds to answer my own question. ;-) Snakesteuben (talk) 04:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to disable hotlinking
For all those interested, I have made a proposal to disable hotlinking on all Wikimedia projects. Please join the discussion at Meta. JohnnyMrNinja (talk) 20:54, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

guys i need the trend of solubility of ionic compounds in the periodic table plz help me asap.

New page on PHP user login systems
After trawling the web and finding umpteen articles/tutorials about how to build 'secure' user login systems in PHP&mdash;many of which have huge security flaws&mdash;I've started building a page in the PHP Programming book devoted to this topic. However, I'm no expert, and I'm quite sure I've missed out some things (in fact, I can list a few of them...).

So, this is a call to anyone here to knows a bit about PHP (and computer security) to come and edit this new page and make it a well-written, well-researched article about how to build (actually) secure user login systems in PHP. Thanks! &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 08:12, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

X86 Disassembly on del.icio.us
A buddy of mine sent me a heads-up this morning that a book I've been working on, x86 Disassembly made the popular list at del.icio.us. I don't follow that website often, so I don't know if any other wikibooks have been featured there. Maybe this, and other venues like it, would be good ways for us to advertise some of our better books. Does anybody else know if other wikibooks have been featured here before, or if our books have been featured on other websites? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:05, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, for instance the C++ Programming (15 + 16 + 64 people, depending on C++, C++ Programming or TOC1 url ref.) and More C++ Idioms (saved by 158 people) have also featured on that page several times, it all depends on the number of people subscribing the same url in a given timeframe, and it's pretty common since the site permits you to subscribe to other people directly or to a given tag, so people with the same interest can share references. The best way to get a notion of what's been said about a book in general is to look into google "what links here" or groups/newsgroups discussions... --Panic (talk) 14:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

So Confused, my questions have questions - please help 1st timer!
After spending 90 minutes bouncing from page to page, I still do not have an understanding of what I was hoping would be a simple question. After discovering Wiki Books, I want to use the content of some to benefit the visitors of my website/blog.

My questions are:


 * 1. If I copy Wiki book content verbatim and convert it to a PDF, is this allowed and what (if any) copyright or legal disclosures need to be added to the PDF document?


 * 2. I would like to use information from several books, and add my own images and edit the content.
 * A. Is this OK to do?
 * B. What copyright or "author" credits need to be on the new document?
 * C. Do any answers to the above questions change depending upon me making the new document available free of charge, versus for a fee?

Thanks for any help in understanding this.

Photoman11 (talk) 20:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You can use, modify and redistribute for free or for a fee any books you want, if you follow the requirements of each license that a book is effected by. The text of any books is licensed under the terms of the WB:GFDL. For images and other media files, different licenses or requirements may exist. For text see Copyrights for an explanation of the requirements concerning crediting authors and copyright. For images and other media files you'll have to check out the terms included on there respective "Image:" page. WB:MEDIA list Wikibooks' requirements for inclusion of images and other media files, so any images or media files you encounter will hopefully meet those requirements. The only images or media files that you might not be able to use are ones used under fair use or fair dealing terms. You don't have to worry about images or media files if you don't plan to use any from the books. The answers don't change depending on if its made available for free or for a fee. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

All the Wiki book content was given to us to edit and use, under the terms of the GFDL. That authorizes us to give you the Wiki book content, under the same terms.

1. Many of our books already have a Category:Books with print version, and some already have a PDF versions. Those versions should already have the all copyright and legal disclosures and author credits included, so you are free to copy and distribute and sell them -- you don't need to add anything.

The bottom of every page at wikibooks has a link (in tiny, easy-to-overlook letters) to About Wikibooks. That page links to Wikibooks:Copyrights, which should answer all those questions. Please tell me if it doesn't. --DavidCary (talk) 14:18, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not only that but it also says "All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details)." at the bottom of most pages, and mentions this requirement just below every edit window, also with a link to Copyrights. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)