Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2008/June

help me!
I need to add images to a book. How do I add pictures I found on Wikipedia?

Lunakeet (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's actually not an uncommon question, and one that we should probably answer in a help page somewhere (if we don't already). Here are some things you could try:

I hope this helps you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Best: Click on the image on wikipedia, this will bring you to an information page about the picture. If the picture says that it's from Wikimedia Commons, then you win: Images on commons can be used immediately on any Wikimedia project (Wikipedia AND wikibooks).
 * Good: If the image is not on commons, you can probably move it. Go to the Commons upload page, follow the directions, and have the image moved. Once it is on commons, it can be used immediately on Wikibooks.
 * Fair: You can download the image from Wikipedia and upload it directly here to Wikibooks. When doing this, you MUST faithfully reproduce the licensing information, and properly attribute the original author. If you do not, the image will be deleted here.

Hello
Hi, I am new around here; I started editing at WP a few months ago. At the moment I focus at rewriting at WP the History of democracy and Eleftherios Venizelos (biography of a greek prime minister). I can contribute on other topics such as chess, physics, maths and history (mainly ancient and medieval). Best wishes, A.Cython (talk) 00:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello A.Cython, welcome to wikibooks! We're always happy to have new members around here, and if you've been to WP then you should be up to speed on all the technical details about editing. You will find that our environment here is slower, more relaxed, and less stressful. Some people like that, some people don't. Chess, physics, math, history? We need help in all those areas! Take a look around, find a project that you like, and dive right in! If you have any questions, let us know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I do have a question, I just looked at the World History (the Ancient Greece is underdeveloped) and seems that I will contribute there, at some point. However, since I am a newbie and not a native speaker of the English language I would be grateful if you could show me a couple high quality wiki books. I want to check the style and the way of organizing the references. Thanks in advance. A.Cython (talk) 01:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * To see the list of all our best books, check out WB:FB. These are good examples that you could follow. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 12:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Greetings
Hello, I'm a new user, of course. I'm happy to be part of the wikibooks community and would be willing to help in any way I can, (strong points are Computers (I'm taking the Cisco IT training course to get Net+ and A+ certifications here in 2 or so years) and I'm going to try to help the Japanese Wikibook if i can) so if you need me to do research on anything or help fix pages / revert vandalism, just drop me a message, I'll be on when i can, or if we have a meeting or something like that where we start doing some kind of planning, I'll try to jump on then.

And I apologize in advance for any lapses in spelling I may have, I'm fairly good, but I play games a lot so i may slip back. >.< Cysaki (talk) 02:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Cysaki, welcome to wikibooks! More computer people is always good, we have a large number of computer books and many of those need some help. If you're interested in doing relevant stuff, you can take a look at Network Plus Certification, Networking, and A+ Certification. When I was still a student, I found that working on related wikibooks was a good way for me to study for my classes. You don't have to work on these books, we have hundreds of other books that you can look at, and all sorts of maintenance projects that you could work on as well. I think User:Swift was starting to do some cleanup work on Japanese, so you might be able to work with him to make that project go more smoothly.
 * We don't have any kind of planning meetings, although sometimes I wish we did. However, if you come on to IRC at #Wikibooks on Freenode.net, a few of us chat there. Otherwise, we can always chat here on wiki too, if you need anything. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Uploading Images
Hallo - I am new to Wikibooks and struggling a little trying to upload some images. I have been commissioned to write a help manual for some software and in order to make the help as explicit as possible I have taken a load of screenshots and annotated them. I have tried to "upload files" and am told that I do not have administrator permissions. I have looked at "Wikimedia Commons" but the amount of information I am asked to provide for each image uploaded is more than I was writing in the manual to start with!

There must be an easy way to do this - but I need some direction.

thank you in anticipation Hskeet (talk) 19:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a common problem, and one that maybe we need to consider fixing. New users are restricted from uploading images here until they are "autoconfirmed". What this means is that the account must be at least 4 days old before you can start uploading images here. We do this to help cut down on image-based vandalism, where miscreants upload things like pornography. Wikimedia commons doesn't require autoconfirmation, but then again (as you mentioned) they require a lot of information from you. Of course, we require information about copyright status on the images too, but if it's the same for all the images then you can copy+paste it.
 * How many images do you have? I might be able to help you with the uploading if you can't wait for autoconfirmation. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Abyssal has some questions...
One thing I've noticed here is an almost complete lack of references/inline citations in the various articles. I'd like to contribute specific information on keeping and breeding reptiles and amphibians from a book I have, but would be loathe to not credit the book's author. How is attribution supposed to be handled here?

Also, what exactly is the difference between Wikipedia and Wikibooks? I understand that this place covers some material that Wikipedia excludes (such as how-tos), but could some please elaborate on the differences in detail? For instance what would be included in the Dinosaur Wikibook that wouldn't be included in Wikipedia's Dinosaur Category articles?

Any help for this noob would be greatly appreciated. :D Abyssal leviathin (talk) 15:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Here at wikibooks we've generally taken the stance that references could be credited in a separate chapter called "bibliography" or "references" or whatever. This is how things are done in most books, where citations are not usually made inline, but references to sources are made at the end of individual chapters, or at the end of the book. However, this is all up to the author, and you are free to use inline citations if you wish. To create a citation, use the tags to create your citation inline, and then use the tag where you want the footnotes to appear. The page is parsed from top-to-bottom, so the tag only displays the notes that appear above it.
 * The differences between Wikipedia and Wikibooks are numerous. Wikipedia is about collection and display of information, wikibooks is about the teaching and conveying of knowledge. Wikipedia displays information in an "encyclopedic" way, Wikibooks attempts to teach that information to students. This means that articles at WP tend to be individual, but pages here on wikibooks are formed into books where each page builds on the information presented before. A Wikibook also needs to consider the target audience, and present information that will be understandable to them. Where the Wikipedia article on Color is written in a single way, we would brake that up for different audiences like Wikijunior:Colors for children, and more advanced books for older readers. I hope this answers your questions. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:48, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. :D Abyssal leviathin (talk) 04:05, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

can u help me to settle up my C++ programming assingment
Actually I have a problem to do my new one assingment in c++ programming for my study...can anybody help me to settle up that assignment? I really don't know how to do it because I fresher in this C++ programming and not expert in this subject.. The question are like this:

A company runs it bussiness by selling houses.The company will get a commission of 7% of the ttal selling price of the house of the month. The house type sold is given code 'A' for landed house and code 'B' for apartment. The company has asked you to develop a computerized list of sold houses. Assume that the total number of houses sold everymonth is at most 30.Write a C++ program to:

i) read the input data from file; ii) display the input data in an output file; iii) sort the data from the lowest to the highest selling price and then display the sorted list in the output file; iv) calculate the number of houses sold, the total selling prices, the average of the houses selling price and the company commission; v) display the calculation results in (iv) above in the output file.

The program should be develop in modular form. The program should at least include the following function: a) void read_data (...) to read the input data from a file; b) void display_list (...) to display the input data; c) void sorted_list(...) to sort and display the input data; d) void compute_result(...) to calculate the items in (iv) above; e) void isplay_result (...) to display the calculation result in (iv) above.

The input data must be stored as arrays.Display the output in an output file.The program must read the input data until the 'end of file' is false.Make sure the program is not interactive and do not use global variables.

Thanks a lot to anybody who help me to complete the answer for my question...Thanks a million..

Sorry, but this isn't the place to be asking a question like that. Try reading the C++ programming book if you need C++ help. PiemanXC (talk) 21:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs Extension Live on DE.WP
The FlaggedRevs extension is gone live on de.wikipedia, and it's an extension that I think we should bring here as quickly as possible. There are many possible configurations available for this extension, although I think we can copy what the Germans are doing for now, and make tweaks to our implementation later if we decide we want them. Here, in a nutshell, is what FlaggedRevs does:


 * 1) Allows certain users to be able to "flag" a particular revision of a page. We can choose the user group that we want to give this privledge to (all users, autoconfirmed, patroller/rollbacker, admin, etc). I would venture to guess that giving flagging rights to autoconfirmed users (users with an account more then 4 days old) should be given this right no problem.
 * 2) When users come to the page, they can be shown the most current "development" version, or they can see the latest "flagged" version instead. There will probably be an extra tab or extra button or something that would allow people to change between them. We can set it (as I recommend) for readers to see the most recent flagged version, and logged-in users (editors) to see the current development version. Pages which are not flagged will always display the current development version by default.

What this extension does is make it so that readers can see "good" vandalism-free versions of a page. This is a must-have requirement for us if we want to be making inroads into schools. Teachers do not take kindly to textbooks for young children being filled with vandalism over night. Showing students a vandalism-free version of the page by default would help to reduce many of these concerns. In addition, having "stabilized" versions of pages would help in the construction of PDF versions and published books, which we haven't really gotten involved with yet (but I hope we will!). I would like to get some opinions on configuration settings, and if people do't have too many major complaints I would like to ask the devs to install this extension for us ASAP. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to note that there are two user groups introduced by this feature. Editors may sight a version - I think patrollers or emailconfirmed is fine for that. Reviewers can review a version (ie a higher level of quality) - this, I think, should be done by admins, as the highest level of review will be used only for Featured Books; there is no great need for many users reviewing stuff.
 * There are tons of config options. I will make a page outlining the exact configuration I'd like to see. It'll be lots of info, and somewhat technical, so it'll be over there. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would disagree with you a tiny little bit about user rights. Assuming we want to differentiate between "sighted" and "reviewed" at all (which we probably don't since we don't have the critical mass right now to be making multiple passes over every page), I would say that Sighted abilities should be given to all autoconfirmed users, and Reviewer abilities should be given to anybody with +patroller, +rollbacker, or higher (admins, etc). Many books are overseen by authors who are not admins and are not particularly interested in the politics here, and they should be given the tools to sight good pages in their own books without having to jump through hoops (hence, autoconfirmed). The people that we already trust to oversee content and make decisions about quality (rollbackers and patrollers) should get better tools as well. I definitely look forward to seeing your writeup on all the config options. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think we do want to differentiate between sighted and reviewed. If you look at my suggestions, we can autopromote users to Editor (ie they can sight pages). That plus the ability to autoreview in certain cases boots the level at which flagging will happen. I think if we autopromote users to Editor and give all patrollers & admins Reviewer we'll have enough hands to make this work. Editors may flag up to the stable level (Editors are autopromoted, so there is not much load). When autopromoting users to editor status we allow the people who know a book best (it's authors) to flag it up to stable level. The threshold for autopromotion should be relatively high (certainly higher than autoconfirmed) so we don't have users doing this who are unfamiliar with how things work. Admins and patrollers may flag up to the featured level (this would be after a FBN, so not much workload, therefore not much need for many to have those permissions). Stable and Featured are "quality" revisions (ie shown be default whenever possible). – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 20:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Available Options
I want to list out some of the possible configuration options here, so we all understand exactly what decisions need to be made.

There are a few other options that we can manipulate, but I don't think any of them are too important. I default to Mike's suggestions on all additional options. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Namespaces:Flagging revisions will only happen in certain namespaces. Mike suggests main, cookbook, wikijunior, image, and template namespaces. I'm tempted to add the "Wikibooks:" namespace too, just because most of those pages are important and shouldn't be messed around with by most users. Then again, partial page protection could serve the same purpose over there.
 * How Pages Are Reviewed:We don't just say "yes" or "no" to a page being stable, we also have the ability to grade the page against certain metrics. Mike suggests we have metrics like, "references", "prose", "spelling & grammar", and "structure". For sighting pages, this is fine because it can be done on a per-page basis. However, if we want to use the reviewed state to denote our featured books, we will want the whole book to be featured and not be giving bad grades to one or two pages.
 * How many levels of page quality are there?:Mike suggests 4: useful, good quality, stable, and featured. I might even be willing to drop this down to 3 and do some rearranging (stable, good, featured) or even just 2 (good, featured). The more levels we have, the more of a hassle it could be determining where boundary cases go. Featured books are determined from WB:FBN, good pages can be a person opinion of the reviewer. Adding additional levels seems like overkill to me for now. Of course, as our system is currently, non-admins can promote a book to featured. If we require +reviewer rights to set this on featured books, then normal users cannot do this anymore.
 * What should people see when they go to a reviewed page?: When a person goes to a page, should they see the current development version, or the current sighted version? We can split this up according to user group. I suggest that "readers" (people who are not logged in) should see the current stable version by default. Logged-in "editors" would see the current development version by default.
 * Should we allow user comments?:There is an option to allow comments from the reviewer. These are like an edit summary, but when you review a page. I say yes, Mike agrees.
 * What flags can different user groups give out?:If we have reviewer and editor groups, we need to determine which flags each group can distribute. In a 2-level scheme, editors can hand out the "good" rating on personal opinion, Reviewers can hand out "Featured" in response to WB:FBN. If we have three levels, an editor can mark pages as "stable", a reviewer can hand out "good" (on personal opinion or nomination) and "Featured" (in response to WB:FBN). I don't think that more levels buys us anything in terms of usability.


 * I personally wouldn't mind a three-level scheme in some places, but as a whole I think it is too much maintenance and overhead for something simple. Here's what I want: anonymous users will see the stable or featured version by default, and logged in users the development copy. Only admins can be reviewers and thus mark pages as featured. Patrollers / rollbackers (and by default admins) can sight and mark pages as stable. This allows a quality crew of people to make the real content decisions and leaves only the high-level featuring of work to the admins (which is relatively rare). I absolutely don't want any autoconfirmed user coming into my book and making decisions on what quality is, and ideally I'd only want my team of editors to flag my book but that's not possible. This feature deserves little usage on the production side and heavy usage on the reader side, so I'd like to keep it tight. -within focus 21:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I certainly don't mean to lecture you or anything, but it doesn't really seem like the "wiki way" to limit decision-making to only a select core "team". I definitely understand your motivations for that, and I don't entirely disagree with it either. A three-level scheme that was essentially "vandalism-free", "good", and "Featured" would probably be acceptable. Any ordinary autoconfirmed joe-schmoe user can verify that a page does not contain vandalism. Being able to call a page "good" is a judgment call that maybe should be reserved for established wikibookians. "Featured" of course is only granted in response to an actual vote on the matter at WB:FBN. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not possible to have sub-groups so discussing the matter won't do us much good, but although I definitely believe this place should be free for editing, if we want to really establish ourselves as professional we need to limit access. I think the stable revision goes along with what the expectations of a patroller are, even higher actually since the flag should be given not to just a vandalism-free page but a revision that is clearly finished in some regard and not caught up with loose ends. If we wanted to have a third group for "vandalism-free" that's fine with me, but I don't really want that to be the version displayed to readers as it's only the first level of editing. A more respected member of the site, ideally one of the book's editors, would know how to best mark the page as "eligible for reading". -within focus 22:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, but even amongst admins we can't limit what books people mark as what. As a matter of courtesy I probably wouldn't go marking "good" pages in the Muggle's guide, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't if the whim so struck me. I agree entirely about the need for a stable version, teachers absolutely won't use our books unless we have some measure of stability (and this extension is probably just one of many steps we would need to take to get to that point). Readers in general have gotten along just fine looking at pages that are generally free from vandalism, and where that was the only option, it would be better then nothing. Books which are well watched-over and well cared-for would obviously reach higher levels of stable quality, and those higher levels would be shown to the reader instead. We simply don't have the manpower to raise every page of every book to "good" level and require that only "good" pages be shown to readers by default, we are going to need some gradiations, I think, and we are going to have to live with the fact that the majority of our pages will never be sighted anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Features Page
In order to have the FlaggedRevs extension installed here, we need to create a page with our list of configuration options, so the devs can see them all in one place. I have created a page like this here: FlaggedRevs Extension, also I have populated it with the proposal that User:Mike.lifeguard created. I also made one change, reducing the number of flagging levels for a page from 4 to 3. We can use that page to talk about further options, discuss conflicts, and try to reach a concensus on our desired extension configuration. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

A horrible thought
I'm thinking of renaming A Wikimanual of Gardening to Horticulture. The name is a bit too long, and stems from some rather odd advice I recieved when I first arrived on the project. Admittedly, I haven't done a lot of work on it lately, but would like to have it easier to link to from Wikipedia and so on, and maybe a more toned down title will help attract contributors in any case.

This would be a s**tload of pagemoves (and an even more massive need for re-interwiki-linking!), but I'd like to see the book growing again. The other issue is of course the Gardening book, which remains primarily a copy of a very old PD book which was partially moved to Wikisource a few years ago (I haven't been able to figure out what title it's under there though, and the person who originally started moving it around anymore). Most of the pages aren't particularly useful (very old info), and are rather POV-ish (the author was not averse to sprinkling in editorial comments and preferences into the text). I'm not sure though about moving WMOG to that name though, since it has a far more technical approach. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 12:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a good chance a "move all subpages of this page" feature will be soon implemented, which will make that easier. As for IW links, Ramac's bot should be put on the task. Regarding Gardening, I have no opinion. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 21:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with mike on all points, Ramac might be able to handle the page moves, or else we could find somebody else up to the task. My bot, while I have been intending to add page move functionality for a long time now, is not yet capable of doing this. As for the gardening book, if it is already duplicated at wikisource and has no annotations here, then maybe it needs to be deleted. If you think it's salvagable, then maybe not. If there is doubt, nominate it for VFD and see what the community at large thinks about it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry I've read this discussion just now ;) Working with Pietrodn's BimBot we moved some books on italian Wikibooks and I think we can do the same here, if we are allowed to (in fact, I don't know howe to move pages massively but while Bimbot move pages, my bot fixes links & redirects that is an important stuff too ;) ). --Ramac (talk) 10:36, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, I can help moving the pages with my bot. It will be hard work, but it's possible. --Pietrodn · talk with me 10:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can understand the reasons for such a name change but I don't think it should be changed. Users are far more likely to search for 'gardening' but of course it's very unlikely that someone would enter 'A wikibook to....' though.  I think you should hijack and replace the old 'gardening' book.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I like just plain old "Gardening." It's pretty obvious that it's a manual or book if it's on Wikibooks, and Horticulture is not the first thing that comes to mind searching for a gardening book. PiemanXC (talk) 21:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Christianity books
I've noticed that there is a rather pronounced lack of material relating to the general subject of Christianity here. It is remotely possible that I might be able to do something to address that situation. If I were to try to do so, are there any particular suggestions as to which kind would be best? Perhaps, for example, a history of Christianity, or just of a single church within Christianity, or the sacraments and liturgies, or something else? Any suggestions? John Carter (talk) 22:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I recommended, starting one that your interested in writing about, and know something about. It can be as broad or specific as you want, just try to make sure that what you decide on is clear from the title of the book and from the description of its scope. Avoid bias, generalizing or taking a specific stance on Christianity, because those have been some of problems that have popped up before when writing books about religion here. Also try to be as specific as possible when talking about a specific denomination, keep it balanced and fact based, those will go a long way towards making a good book here that will last. Needless to say religion I believe has been a controversial topic here that's been difficult to cover within Wikibooks NPOV requirements. --dark lama  23:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Many of the books which are created on Christianity tend to be shit. They're either full of Bible quotations or NPOV babble.  I don't think religion (unless it's based on a study of different religions and understanding of belief) has a place on an educational website.  Schools don't 'teach' Christianity because it's not educational (maybe they do in the US though).--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I had classes in college about the history of judeo-christian religion. The class covered mostly history, with some analytical readings of certain bible passages (more like "you notice the contradictions here?" and less like "notice how great god is?"). The professor was agnostic, and many in the class were athesists, so discussion was lively and secular. Those kinds of topics are fine here, the "god is good" kinds of books are not. Fine line, perhaps, but one which is worth drawing. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the slogan
I have this feeling that this point was raised in the past, but I'm unable to find any relevant discussion, so. Can we change the slogan "Think free. Learn free"? What I don't like about the slogan is that the word "Learn", which, in my opinion, cheapens textbooks or the idea of the self-study or formal or informal teaching using them. I'm contributing mostly to math books. I don't want readers to get an idea that math is just about learning how to do stuff (e.g., do calculation, apply formulas, etc) and math books tell you how to do that quick and easily. That's not the point at all. Math textbooks (at least not ones for kids) are meant to develop the theory and by doing so they aim to help you deepen the understanding of mathematics. This is clearly more than just "learning" or something you can learn from someone or some books. (And I don't want to go to the grammatical problem of the current slogan or the clichedness? of "think free". "think free" sounds too trite to me, not to mention "think different", which is way cooler.) If I am not alone in this thinking, can we come up with something cooler? -- Taku (talk) 08:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've never liked the slogan either. However, I don't think it's an official slogan so much as it is an artifact of the logo. I don't think anybody chose a slogan separately, it was always just part of the logo. I would love to change it, and i would like to maybe solicit some suggestions from people about it.
 * One problem is that this isn't the "only" wikibooks, there are wikibooks projects in over 120 languages. A slogan that we change here doesn't need to be mirrored on the other projects necessarily, but there is going to be some pressure to do so. Any slogan that we choose, therefore, probably has to take into account nuances and differences in many languages, not just english. This makes the task a little more difficult, and we end up stuck with the current slogan out of sheer inertia.
 * However, it's still something to think about, and maybe it's something that we should pursue. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 04:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My query is whether the equivilent slogan also contains poor grammar on the other language versions of Wikibooks? For an educational website should we really be encouraging people to learn "free"? --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello
Hello, I am Gorpik and have just joined the Wikibooks.

Right now, I am only using "Opening theory in chess" and correcting a few minor things there. Misspellings and the like.--Gorpik (talk) 21:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Welcome, hopefully you decide to stay. Red4tribe (talk) 22:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello
Hello, my nickname is Lechatjaune and I intend to work on books about mathematical analysis and other mathematical subjects. My first language is portuguese (my home wiki is wiki-pt where I am a sysop) so I know I will make some mistakes. I hope I may join a project here. Lechatjaune (talk) 21:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Mathematical analysis is a great topic, and one that we don't have too much material on. I started a book on Engineering Analysis (which is, I know, not exactly the same thing), but which hasn't progressed much since I left school. We have a few books that could probably use your help, and a few empty spaces on our bookshelves where new books can be written. If you have any questions or if you need any help, please let us know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey everyone
My nickname is varnis and i'm presently working with a friend on the inorganic chemistry book, fixing stye issues and expanding some things, in the end i intend to help with both that and the organic chemistry equivalent. --Varnis (talk) 14:10, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Varnis, welcome to wikibooks! The Organic Chemistry book is one of our oldest books, so much of it's style and formatting is out of date. The Inorganic Chemistry book is relatively old as well, and can use all the help you can give it. Please don't hesitate to ask us if you need help, or if you have questions. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the Inorganic Chemistry book and found a bunch of scanned notes (e.g. Inorganic Chemistry/Chemical Bonding/Ionic Bond) uploaded by . If these were taken in class, they'll probably need permission from and attributition to the lecturer. --Swift (talk) 03:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Publishing personal (as in made by self) notes of a class, lecture or any other type of conversation by third parties were you were acknowledged as being a receptor (and expected to take some form of memorandum) for the information being passed shouldn't be targeted for copyright violation, if no statement was made to reduce the freedom to retransmit the pertinent information. Can you expand on your logic ?
 * I have checked google about this and it seems Kansas was about to rule on copyright for lecture notes but can't find the outcome (probably to soon), I found also this page AA committee discussed the sale of class notes by various commercial companies. 2000. I don't fallow the evolution of US Law, but since state law can become relevant to the discussion, the one that has a bearing here is the one that exist in the state where the servers are hosted. In any case I think the concept to be against the idea of teaching (dissemination of information) and even more since it probably wouldn't be an exact copy (even considering for the variations of a live presentation) on the other hand a voice recording, video etc would be different, this issue seems to have only came to light since people (at least in the US) buy notes, and the creator wasn't cut in the profits. I always got and provided my notes for free. --Panic (talk) 05:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure it's so much my logic that needs discussion as it is my premise. I'm not sure where I have this notion from, but I guess I was simply under the impression that a lecture to a limited audience was strictly for the benefit of that audence least the author stipulated otherwise. Having no problem with open-door educational institutions (this would be a strange project for me to contribute to if I did) I'm only commenting on what I've thought to be the copyright status. I'm glad to be wrong on this.
 * Many thanks for your research. That's a very interesting page you provide. There does remain the question of whether the notes in question are copies or derivative work. My experience with science lectures is that the lecturer writes a series of structured lectures and then presents them to the students, most of whom copy it verbatim. In that case, it is a copy of a work already created. If the memorandum applies, I can't see how we can get around asking the uploader whether these are copies of the lecturer's notes, or deviate substantially enough to be considered a derived work. --Swift (talk) 15:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the friend. :P Is or any of the other original authors still around? We need to ask about the intended tone of some of the pages, see the discussions, like the qualitative test pages e.g.... Their last non-anon edit was in March this year. --Ojno (talk) 12:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen User:Thewinster around in a little while. That's not strange though, because in any volunteer project people come and people go. This contant shuffling means that some books are going to be left abandoned when old editors leave for other pursuits. You could try to send emails to previous authors, but in general you should be bold and make improvements that you think are necessary. As a volunteer, your time here is to valuable to be waiting for all sorts of feedback from inactive and long-gone editors. Of course, if User:Thewinster or any other previous editors to the book do return to regular editing, then you can all work and plan and discuss things together. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello there
I new wikibooks and wikipedia for some time, No i want to rewrite our Kicad project documentation to the public on wikibooks then transfer it to a nice PDF.

Thanks guy for this great on-web software free to use.

May the more open win.

Jerryjacobs (talk) 23:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

When to use object mode and edit mode?
I was just wandering how do I know when to switch to edit mode and when to use object mode. I use Blender 2.46. It dosen't automatically switch me to edit mode. Some tutorials tell you switch to edit mode, then back to object mode. Some do not. What is the determining factor to decide what mode(object or edit) I should be in. Thanks for any help in advance. ````Jacob, New WikiBooks member. 6-27-08````

new bureaucrat nomination
User:Mike.lifeguard has been nominated for bureaucratship, the first new nominee that we've had for the position for a long time. All wikibookians are encouraged to take a look at the nomination and vote accordingly. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Languages
I don't like the way the languages are set up here on Wikibooks. There's too much translation and not enough of learning a language the way one learns a language as a child. I suggest that the Language Wikibooks be converted to a method like the one used in Rosetta Stone Software. To me, the Rosetta Stone Software method is clearly the best method for learning a new language. Do we have any thoughts here? Marcus2 (talk) 15:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I dont' know much about the Rosetta Stone software, although I assume that copying their methods would be bad for us in a legal sense. If you have the desire and the energy to start a major overhaul of the language books, that would be fine. If you intend that we should redo all the books, maybe it would be smart for you to do one of two things:
 * Overhaul an existing book to use a better method
 * Create a new book to use a new method of teaching
 * In either case, you can show an example of how other books should be written, and other authors can help to follow your example. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Image uploads
How do I get permission to upload images for may WikiBook?
 * Your account must be 4 days old to upload images. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 01:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Copyright tag question, uploaded images, all taken from commons (GDFL or PD) and cropped by me
Hi, folks. I'm snagging some photos of plants and animals uploaded on commons, and cropping them for use here in the Field Guide. Example here, which leads off with the photo here. (The cropped images are for use in a large thumbnail gallery showing a large number of related species. The purpose is to allow users to scan all the species of a general type, narrow down the specific species they're looking for, and then consult the detail page(s) for the most likely candidate(s). The more detailed the thumbnail is, the more useful it is. So when pastures and fence posts and whatnot consume over half the image real estate, I crop it.)

My question, I didn't see a choice in the copyright tag pull-down menu for public domain, someone else's work, or perhaps it should be called a derivative work? I'm guessing there's a better way to fill out the summary information than the method I chose. If so, would somebody be kind enough to point me in the right direction?

Thanks! Snakesteuben (talk) 17:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I double-checked today, and there is an option for Public Domain works (it's worded a little strangely, so you need to read the options closely). There is an entire section for works which are created by other authors, and you pick the licensing option under which they have originally been released. When you upload an image (or a derivative image) that you got from commons, post a quick link back to the original to satisfy the attribution requirement. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a reminder there's no need to ever move images from Commons to here - you can use the image as normal. If the image doesn't exist here, then the software will automatically look at Commons. I'd recommend keeping all free images at Commons for simplicity's sake, but that's your choice, and either here or there is perfectly acceptable. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 01:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Full-book move
Apparently, one of the features we requested a while back has been implemented: Sysops (and maybe other users, I dont know) can now move an entire book in a single click. On the "Move" tab, there is a checkbox to "Move all subpages, if applicable". This only appears on root pages, not subpages. I dont know all the details, but it should make things very easy for us to fix books with bad naming conventions or bad titles. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It is sysop-only currently (issues with pagemove vandalism). Aside from that issue, I think it is really only useful to us, as we have no rate limits on page moves - if a non-admin tried to move a whole book, they would hit the rate limit very quickly, and the moves would be incomplete. Perhaps note should be made of this somewhere, and a pointer to WB:AA for requests? – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 00:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Naming conventions seems like a logical place to make the first note about this. I'll make note about it in Using Wikibooks as well, and any place else I can find. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

FireFox 3 Download Day
Today is FireFox 3 Download Day. The new version of the browser has been released, and they are trying to set a Guinness record for the most downloads of a single piece of software in a single day. Firefox is a good browser to use with Wikibooks because most of our cool JavaScript gadgets work better in FF then in Internet Explorer. Some fancy CSS formatting works better too. Wikibooks is certainly very usable with IE, and will always be so, of course.

The open source software movement is closely related to the open content movement, and FireFox is one of the most visible and most successful open source projects. If people would like to support Open Source and Open Content, download FireFox 3 and give it a try. If you don't like it, at least you tried. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * PS, forgot the link to the page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Firefox is amazing, and the improved javascript in FF3 is lovely (faster!). But most/many add-ons/extensions aren't compatible with it yet. Firefox is much better for both js and css, but until the add-ons are updated, the new version isn't worth it for me. Just a heads-up to anyone already using FF2, that they may want to wait a bit before getting FF3. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Programming:Common Lisp nonconform?
Hi! I cleaned up Common Lisp half a year ago, thinking it was conform with the naming policy. A bot thought otherwise. What to do? --Qubodup (talk) 22:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Instead of Programming:Common Lisp/Subpage modules should be Common List Programming/Subpage. If you wish to update it please do! You can find pages needing to be moved at Special:PrefixIndex/Common Lisp. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 22:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I renamed the book to Common Lisp the other day, so this shouldn't be a problem any more. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking for Help
If there is anyone who is interested in helping me with World War II please contact me. It is a huge project, and although I've done work on it tus far, it isn't too much. Red4tribe (talk) 19:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

WMF Board of Trustees Election
There is currently an open election for a new member for the WMF board of trustees. User:Anthere, the current chairman of the board (A woman who has been sympathetic to the sister projects, and on occasion has offered specific help here) is stepping down and her chair needs to be replaced. I think only the one seat is open for election.

A list of all candidates is posted here:.

Last year, there were some hot tempers and polarizing ideas running around concerning the sister projects, like wikibooks. For people who have never heard the term, "Sister projects" are all the projects which are not Wikipedia (Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikinews, Wikisource, etc). Traditionaly, the sister projects have been treated as less important then Wikipedia is, for a number of reasons. Last year, these feelings came to a point, and I made recommendations for and against certain candidates based on their opinions towards Wikibooks and the other sister projects. This year, things seem to be more calm on that front, and I won't make any specific recommendations (several of the candidates are still very WP-centric, however).

Users who have more then 600 edits prior to May 1st, and at least 50 edits here since then are eligible to vote. I know that this disenfranchises some users, but it was decided at the foundation-level and cannot be changed.

I encourage all Wikibookians to read over the candidates and their statements, and vote at Special:Boardvote. This is a great way for Wikibooks to get involved in the foundation. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads-up WK. It does seem the field is more balanced this year, which is good for all. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 00:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi all, it's hard to compare the candidates so i asked them what do they think about WB and what they can (or want to) do for it. You can read my questions and their answers on meta. Subfr (talk) 16:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Some interesting answers particularly from Gregory Kohs, I must confess i took a look at the chapters he was talking about and although i am no expert on American History i could see his point. I took a look at the discussion pages of the chapters to which he refers also and indeed there is talk of inaccurate information in the chapters. If a featured book has disputes about accuracy should it still be featured? On the other hand Wikibooks is a different beast to wikipedia, putting together a whole book from an NPOV is a skill in itself and on history and with all the different nationalities involved in the editing of these books nigh on impossible. Makes you wonder how the wikibook space on the web could be evolved to take account of all the opinions in a text book format and still maintain an NPOV. Barry (talk) 19:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right Barry, and Greg is right too. However, his criticisms of this project aren't entirely unexpected or inaccurate. The bar here is far lower then it is at Wikipedia, it's a function of manpower: We've been in a "habit" (for lack of a more appropriate word) of one book, one author. Even with our long history of forbidding forks, we've been hard-pressed to get much "group" activity on any of our books, with the exception of class projects (which are organized off-site).
 * In making a book "featured", we tend to do so based on it's size, structure, formatting. With one book per author, we can't possibly expect that we will achieve the benefits of regular wiki projects: NPOV, accuracy, quality. One person can carry a baton so far, and we should commend good efforts even if the result isn't polished and brilliant. Problems with spelling, grammar, facts, these are all things that would be fixed if there were more eyes looking and more hands working, things that we don't have in high abundance. If we demanded perfection, we would not have now, nor would we have ever, any books listed as "featured". We do not demand perfection, we only inch our way towards it, setting reasonable goals and incrementally raising our expectations.
 * If a book is featured here, it is because the book is better then most books, and serves as a good example for new books. It is precisely why we never call our books "finished". As the bar gets raised, necessarily some of our featured books will fall below it and will be replaced. I would love to see what Wikipedia's featured articles looked like, back when it was the same size as Wikibooks. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Having been working on Wikipedia lately a bit more than Wikibooks, I'd like to point out something: A great many articles on Wikipedia are also "one article, one author" types as well.  I've written a few even.  Using this criteria as a complaint about Wikibooks can be focused right back at Wikipedia and be just as damaging there as it is here.  Featured books are similar to Featured Articles on Wikipedia, and the standard is incredibly high for something like that.
 * Karl Wick's Organic Chemistry is the oldest of all Wikibooks, and IMHO a good book to measure the overall progress of this project. No, Karl isn't the only person who ever worked on the book, but his style and outline certainly is a dominant feature.  I'd also say that for good or ill, this book is also what has set the standard for how Wikibooks were organized.  A few minor tweaks and improvements in style since them for some other books that IMHO are of much better quality, but it is something good to fall back onto if you want to see the roots of this project.  It also is a showcase to both the problems and the solutions we have faced at trying to organize collaboratively written books.  --Rob Horning (talk) 04:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs Extension discussion
We've got a proposed configuration for the new FlaggedRevs extension, and we need people to vote on it so we can have it installed. FlaggedRevs is going to do a lot of good around here, I think. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I get what it about, but please post some sort of understandable info on the voting page, people are being directed there only to see some colored config file... I was going to post this there but since I also was out of the loop, I did a search and came into this post that also doesn't provide much info :), next time I'll oppose just for spite...
 * I refrain myself of being useful and provide any info since I may have got things wrong, not a problem with the support vote though, since no one was opposing it, so it all must be good for the project, but I hate being "made" a yes man.
 * Next call for participation must be full of details, diagrams and comparative studies or I will be royally annoyed. --Panic (talk) 07:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Adding graphs
Is there an easy way to add graphs? I want to help improve some of the A-level economics pages, but don't know how to add essential graphs. Do I just draw them on the computer and then add them as an image, or is there a more direct way? Thanks.

Sonofecthelion (talk) 22:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to create graphs in the wiki (i wish there was!), so anything you want to do will have to be by hand. Create images on your own computer and upload them here. That's the most direct way, at the moment. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree with Whitenight -- except for the part about "upload them here". It's often better to upload them to Commons (see Help:Uploading Images for details).
 * Also, I disagree with the part about "no automatic way" -- there is an automatic way that doesn't work very well :-). The mw:Extension:EasyTimeline can automatically draw a few kinds of very simple graphs, although most people find it too limiting and draw their own graphs anyway.
 * If you have already drawn the images, please upload them in whatever format you have them in, and tag with "public domain" or whatever copyright tag is appropriate.
 * If you haven't drawn the images already, you might find the tips in Help:Graphics tutorials useful.
 * In particular, saving computer-generated graphs in JPEG causes weird artifacts, so eventually (unless you fix them first) someone will convert those images to (better) PNG or GIF or (best) SVG format.
 * Thank you. --DavidCary (talk) 13:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Existlist
Hello I've copied Template:Existlist to Turkish Wikibooks. But it doesn't work. I can't do link with this template. Here is the link of Existlist template which is at the tr.wikibooks.Srhat (talk) 13:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You had the category included outside of the noinclude section, which means it included the category as part of the link as in [[C

]] and since the category's text is moved as part of its interpretation it looks like its just C when its not, resulting in not being able to link. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:14, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot Darklama Srhat (talk) 19:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

How do I get permission to upload images for my WikiBook?

WB:FBN
I would like to try to get some more people involved at WB:FBN, where we nominate new books for featured status. This is a quick and easy way to get involved in the community more, and also to affect the level of quality that we display on the main page and also the level that we expect other books to rise to. Here are some things that people could do: Again, WB:FBN is a great way for people to get involved, and we need a lot more involvement around here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) If you find a good book, nominate it! Anybody can nominate a book, and there are lots of good books out there worthy of being nominated (and more being created every day!)
 * 2) Discuss the current nominations, every wikibookian from from absolute newest to the oldest gets a fair say in them.
 * 3) Close nominations when they have reached a solid level of support or opposition. You don't need to be an admin to close a nomination, anybody can do it if you are patient and reasonable. We have at least two outstanding nominations that likely could be closed soon, if somebody were up to the task.
 * Following the "issues" with the US history book, I wonder if we should try and have some sort of regular review of our featured books to ensure that the standard of them is kept high. I thought of perhaps trying to review all of our featured books once every six months?  It could be a good way to get new users involved in the community by getting people to read through the featured books and offer their opinions.  The way I thought it could work is using this page Featured books/Review (an initial stab at it so far, but should give the outline of what I am thinking).  Then have a template on the top of all our featured books something along the lines of "Get involved in wikibooks review this book!", which could be removed once the book had been reviewed in the current 6 month period.  It could be an easy way for people who come here just to read the information to get involved.  What do people think?  If people think this could work then I'll put some effort into getting a template together and tidying up the page some more. --AdRiley (talk) 12:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think every time a book is read its being reviewed. I don't think there is any benefit to having a fixed review time frame. I think instead people should be encouraged more to speak up, participate in discussions, and to start discussions. Something along the lines of "Read a book and thought it was a good read? Nominate it to be featured. Read a featured book and thought it wasn't all that good? Nominating it to be unfeatured." That's not to say if people feel like reviewing books every 6 months that they shouldn't. I just don't think it makes sense to be required. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  12:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes I agree, but at the moment people aren't speaking up. I guess I was thinking of this as a way that we could encourage more participation. Give people a reason to speak up and somewhere to sign their name to say they had contributed to the project.  --AdRiley (talk) 13:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See Reading_room/General below. RobinH (talk) 14:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs Extension Bugzilla Request
I'm posting a bugzilla request to have the FlaggedRevs extension installed here at en.wikibooks. People who know of it and who think it would be valuable here, should show their support either in the discussion area on that page, or here. People who have serious objections to it should say something as well (although I hope that few people will find much to object to seriously). If you have any questions about the extension and cannot find the answers in discussions here in the Reading Room, feel free to ask and I&mdash;or others who are familiar with the details&mdash; will he happy to answer them. As soon as I post the bugzilla request, I will provide a link so people can keep up with the status. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The bug request is visible here: 14618

Message boxes
I am going to be taking a little undertaking. I don't see any other Wikimedia site using Ambox on EVERY NAMESPACE. I have made a customized version of the English Wikipedia's tmbox template for us to enjoy, and all the "talk page templates" will soon be modified to use this style...for the few anyway. Though personally, I'm also going to be making a similar one for images. ViperSnake151 (talk) 18:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I said this earlier on IRC, but I can say it again here too. If you're willing to do the work, that's cool (I wasn't even aware that we had too many talk page templates). If we don't like the look of them, it's easy enough to change the code of the template to improve them all. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Excuse me, but what is the purpose of this? I'm not sure how Template:Mbox is insufficient? On the contrary, it seems much more flexible than your new templates.
 * It would probably have been a better idea to import these to preserve edit histories. --Swift (talk) 03:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

PROBLEM DOWNLOADING C# WIKIBOOK
Hi i have problem downloading the pdf version of "C# Programming" wikibook. This is the URL: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Sharp_Programming if i click "download" link it starts downloading, but it does not complete downloading. kindly assist me regarding this issue.... And i can download the other wikibooks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sundaralingam2112 (talk • contribs) 12:04, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you referring to the PDF version? I have no problems dowloading it. --Swift (talk) 15:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

US History - is this a wider problem?
The request to have US History removed from the list of featured books seems to me to be part of a wider debate about how we offer books to readers.

Perhaps there could be three categories of books:


 * 1) Featured books - books that are an example to others.
 * 2) Substantial books - books that have substantial content.
 * 3) Other books.

Readers need to know which books have substantial content and which are just skeletons awaiting fleshing out. The term "substantial" does not carry any judgement about the quality of presentation, just that there is a substantial content. Nominations for "Substantial books" would be based on factual accuracy and coverage rather than adherence to stylistic conventions etc.

This scheme could be implemented by changing the title for "featured books" to "substantial books" and then highlighting the subset of "featured books" within this list. ie:

&mdash; &mdash;  Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book  &mdash; Algorithms &mdash; Anatomy and Physiology of Animals &mdash; &mdash; &mdash; &mdash; &mdash; &mdash; &mdash;  Chess  etc. RobinH (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The classification of a subset of "substantial books" as "featured books" is largely a technical issue and could be done by some of our excellent admins who would check that the books met the Wikibook's guidelines. RobinH (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think quality is as important as substance, and both should be kept in mind when working on books. Books need a consistent style and presentation in order for readers to be able to easily use, navigate and read books. Book needs to be accurate in order for people to correctly learn a subject. Books don't need to have a substantial amount of content in order to teach and explain a subject, or to be good books. There have also been resources with a substantial amount of content, which were not considered books or within Wikibook's scope and were deleted as a result. Quality over quantity is an important concept here. Substance alone does not make a book.
 * I don't think this is a wider problem. I think just making all other books easier to find is all that is needed, and that is work-in-progress. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Books that are accurate with enough content to be useful are "substantial books". I am glad that we agree that these books are important.
 * I agree we should make books easier to find. But readers do not want to find empty books. There are a lot of empty or nearly empty books in Wikibooks. All I am suggesting is that substantial books should be made easily accessible. In particular, as the criteria for "featured books" are tightened the previously featured books can remain listed as substantial books.RobinH (talk) 16:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We only agree on some points. To me something that doesn't consider presentation and style is just enough for a lengthy encyclopedic article, and not enough to make a book. What readers want or don't want isn't something that can be realistically guessed. A small book may be good enough for some readers. I think it would be better to focus on ways to attract contributors to work on existing books, than to further make distinctions between books. By having enough contributors working on books, less books will than be empty. One way to help might be to add or  to books, as a way of marking "empty" books that need help. Other than that I think you should keep in mind that books can become featured again once they improve enough to meet the community's expectations again. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  17:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Accuracy has never been something that we've really stressed here, but as the average quality of our "good" books continues to improve, we are going to need not only to check for accuracy but to actually demand it. "Quality", something we should be striving for, does include factual accuracy. Our current methods of writing books (typically 1 author, or a small handful of authors per book) doesn't lend itself well to the "many eyes find many problems" mantra that has powered Wikipedia. The idea of the Editorial Board, something that I championed for a while, fell flat because people viewed it as just another form of bureaucracy. However the concept of it, that we could have a formalized review process for books, is a good one I think. We need to be able to closely read the books we are calling "good", and we need to be able to find strengths and weaknesses in their content and presentation. We could attract outside reviewers to read through our books, and make specific notes and suggestions about what needs to be improved. This would also be an excellent opportunity for outreach, because we would be able to attract people like college professors (who in turn could bring their classes here).
 * Wikipedia uses two classifications: good articles and featured articles. The bar to becoming featured is obviously much higher, and the article must pass muster on both content and presentation. A second classification for books might be useful too, books which are "good" are not the same as books which are deserving of a place on the main page. Getting up to a higher level of recognition would require some kind of checking process, looking not just as the book's formatting, but also on the accuracy and completeness of the content. Some kind of a review stage could be the barrier between these two. Almost all printed books have independent editors and reviewers, and it would make good sense for us to adopt that mentality too, at least on some level. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good points. As you say, accuracy is of central importance for textbooks. I also agree with <span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  that presentation is important.  The division into "featured" for books with good content and good presentation and "good" or "substantial" for books that have acceptable content will give readers the necessary guidance when selecting a book.  I prefer "substantial" to "good" because it does not emphasise approval and stresses that the book is not empty or sparse.  Obviously a "substantial" book should have accurate content however, accurate content does not mean that the book has sufficient scope or an impartial emphasis and, as you point out, without a full Editorial board review these issues cannot be exposed in a fair way.
 * The division into "featured", "substantial" and "other" also answers the problem of removing a book that has substantial and accurate content from the "featured" list. These books can be reclassified as "substantial books".  Obviously if a book is full of inaccuracies it should be demoted to "other" until these are corrected.
 * This would actually be quite a small administrative change. The books on the Main page could be selected from "featured books" and the Featured books page could be renamed "substantial books".  Any substantial books that are "featured" would be highlighted in green or some other colour. This would also allow a smooth re-assessment of the current "featured books" - those that no longer make the grade for presentation could have the highlighting removed and be barred from the main page. RobinH (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How are substantial books any different from featured books or from other books? Featured books are judged already by the requirements you suggest for substantial books. I don't see how substantial books would be any different from how featured books work already nor how substantial books would not involve some sort of judgment call. If I don't get it, how will readers? I think issues already are exposed without an editorial board existing. Issues are already exposed by the community, including readers sometimes, and I think it will become much easier to expose problems with FlaggedRevs. More people involved in the reviewing process the better it reflects the community stance on quality. An editorial board would limit reviewing to a chosen few which would only reflect there opinions. I think both suggestions would just cause unnecessary confusion and complexity. I don't see the benefits, how anything is improved or changed from either suggestion.
 * I think there are other ways to emphasize non-empty books, that could work better and would be easier to do. With the move to Subject pages and using DPL, Subject pages could also include a section of filtered list of books that are not in categories X, Y, Z. For instance books which are not inactive stubs, do not have NPOV problems, and do not have accuracy disputes could be listed by not being in categories used by the relevant templates. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason for having a separate set of "substantial" books is to offer our readers some books that can really be used as textbooks (ie they are not sparse/empty or dubious). Wikibooks has a huge number of books that are not suitable for reading at their current stage of development and we need to save the reader from the disappointment of finding endless shells of books.
 * Substantial books would be selected by vote in a similar way to "featured books". They could be selected by the more lenient procedure that you suggest ie: "not inactive stubs, do not have NPOV problems, and do not have accuracy disputes".  I prefer a vote because this encourages the community to take a look at the books.
 * The difference between substantial and featured books would be roughly what Whiteknight suggested. Being "featured" would mean that the book is not only substantial but is an example of how to produce and format a book and has been subject to a more thorough review. RobinH (talk) 14:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

US History - why it went wrong
I have just been going over US History and have discovered numerous stray additions such as biographies of Ghandi, an article on Picasso, a weird section on "believe in hope", the origin of esperanto, spider webs in space and various other odd contributions. These were not really vandalism. They weren't even inaccurate, they were just bizarre. The original complaint about US History also noted these strange accretions (about Zion etc.). When I first came across this book about 2 years ago it did not have these odd contributions and was a "good book" if a bit sparse. This reinforces my feeling that books should have fixed editions once they have been voted for as "substantial" or "featured". Books are too big to be inspected every day to ensure that the bizarre contributions have not been added. RobinH (talk) 14:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That just brings up another interesting point for why substantial books make no sense. With FlaggedRevs we can flag the version that was voted in as featured and won't have to consider changes that happen after it, until a more updated version exists that should be featured instead. Even before a book becomes featured, good versions of a page will be shown to unregistered readers when flagged. FlaggedRevs may even one day make the featured books concept obsolete. I say hold off until FlaggedRevs has become available and has been used for 6 months. If there is still a need to emphasize certain books outside of fixed editions than this can always be brought back up later. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * From what I can see FlaggedRevs is effectively a fixed edition. I would be in favour of it being applied to substantial books and hence also featured books - which would be the best substantial books.  The process would be first to vote for a substantial book on the basis of accuracy and content, books that passed this vote would get a FlaggedRevs fixed edition.  Substantial books that are examples of the best practice in Wikibooks can then be highlighted, either by vote or by a couple of admins. RobinH (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The reason that whole books should be available as fixed editions is that wikibooks are supposed to be used as textbooks. It is no good having a textbook that advances in parts because academics and teachers refer to the books, not to individual modules. Are you sure that you are not suggesting a sort of Wikipedia-isation of Wikibooks where the module becomes the unit of interest rather than the book? RobinH (talk) 08:11, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In addition to Ghandi, I remember there being a section in the WWII part about a spy, who I have never heard of before. It was recently removed. Woman with a limp or something like that. Maybe that is an interesting story, but it has nothing to do with American History. Other people like Martain Luther, who made large contributions to European Histroy, but none to American, are talked about in there. It's a good book but goes very off the subject. Red4tribe (talk) 16:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Want "whole books ... available as fixed editions"?
 * Your wish has been granted. See PDF versions. --DavidCary (talk) 13:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I would be happy with this idea but it would mean providing preferential links to PDF's in the Featured books section. RobinH (talk) 14:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Some featured books already include a link to the PDF version of the book in their good book template, in the form of the download link, which than appears on the feature books page and on the front page. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking for work?
Someone looking for work to do could orphan all the redirects at Special:PrefixIndex/Programming:PHP (major brownie points) – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking for Help
If there is someone who would like to help with the American Revolution, please let me know. It is a brand new book, and any help would be apprecited as it is a large task. Red4tribe (talk) 21:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Galleries inside of templates
Is it possible to use a gallery inside a template? I've been working on revamping Template:Animal sign (experimental version is at Template:Animal sign2, but nothing I can think of makes a template argument show up as an image in a gallery. It seems to just insert the argument name (within the three braces) instead of the argument value.  Help! --Jomegat (talk) 01:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes its possible to use a gallery inside a template. I've fixed the problems for you. like most custom tags take template arguments as literals. To deal with this common problem the parser function was introduced to be used as a wrapper for tags to allow template parameters to be used. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  01:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It it possible to sneak a couple of gallery options into the mix, such as perrow="2"  and widths="300px"? --Jomegat (talk) 01:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Just an expansion of the above point; the gallery tag lends itself to modification by inline styles, in addition to 'perrow', 'widths', and 'heights'.  An example of such style mods and the use of several galleries within a drop control template can be seen at The Image Gallery.   The coloring of the 'picture mask' still defeats reason!   Regards, Armchair (talk) 13:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)