Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2008/May

Categorising my article
Hi

I originally wrote this article up (see link below) in Test-Wiki but it was deleted in time. Now I have put it in Wikibooks and need to categorise it into this grouping How-To Guides - Model Railways - Computer Control.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Working_Rocrail_with_Hornby_Elite_DCC_Controller

The instructions for doing this are not very clear, especially for generating a new category, so if someone could please advise me or even amend the article to suit that would be appreciated.

Thanks, Robbie RAFHAAA96 (talk) 14:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You will likely want to search through WB:AS to choose better categorizations. When you have done so, you can add them using at the bottom of the page.  – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 15:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Filling in the wikibook outline
Hi all!

I have just started a wikibook. It also means I am beginner.

my book is Computers & Society and I have just made book and chapter outline

I can only work on this few hours per day (real day job gets in the way)

I use placeholder text...

but am getting Wikibookean queries on this?

any other way to give outline structure to be filled in?

thanx in advance

--Михал Орела 11:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Those are probably from me. As long as you're planning to put some content there soon, just put a note on the talk page for the tagged module and/or remove the template. Creating modules with no content as a placeholder is mostly useless, and mildly annoying - they often get forgotten, leaving empty pages laying around being useless. As I say - if they're going to be filled with content, there's no problem.  – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 23:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you allowed to copy a page from wikipedia?
As a wikibooks is suppose to be self-contained. I'm considering copying a page(copy/paste) from wikipedia (at least a large part of it) rather then rewriting much of it myself on wikibooks. Would that be a copyright violation? SunCreator (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I do that all the time. Wikipedia content is licensed under the GFDL.  In order to remain compliant with the GFDL though, you should write something like "imported text from Article " in the edit summary.  Another option is to log an import request on the Requests for Import.  When an admin sees it, it will be imported into transwiki space, and you will be told where to find it.  You can move it to where you want it from there and the edit history will be preserved.  You cannot, however, merge it with an existing module and preserve both edit histories.  So if you're starting from scratch, an import is a good way to go, but if you've already started, cut-n-paste + summary comment is better.  And BTW, sometimes imports fail if an article has more than 100 edits or so.  My recommendation: cut-n-paste+summary citation. --Jomegat (talk) 17:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would recommend that you always request an import for anything more than a paragraph. An admin can merge the page histories if you need to merge content into a pre-existing page. At the very least, a link to the Wikipedia article in the edit summary is required. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 18:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. I will make a Requests for Import. SunCreator (talk) 18:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

WMF Board of Trustees Election, Suffrage
The elections committee has released a list of requirements for all wikimedians who wish to vote in the upcoming board elections. To vote, you must have at least 50 edits on one project since January 2008. I don't know when the cutoff date is. If you've been mostly inactive this year, but want the right to vote, you should make a few quick edits here and there to fill the requirement. Of course, Wikibooks benefits from every edit, so the more the merrier! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The page with all the information is here: Board elections/2008/en. It's 50 edits between Jan 01 and June 01 (which gives people 1 month to comply), and 600 edits total prior to March 01. If you haven't met the march requirement, you're out of luck. However, you should make 50 good edits here anyway! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyone know Greek?
At the page Writing_Adolescent_Fiction/Character_names/Greek, someone made an edit. It added the surnames "Res", and after the surname "Siannas", added "poutsogliftra": Siannaspoutsogliftra. What does this mean? The word "Siannaspoutsogliftra" gets no Google hits, but there are a few for the word "poutsogliftra" (nowhere telling you what the word means though). Is there anyone around here who speaks Greek? Cilantrohead (talk) 22:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

About being adminstrators and Wikibookians
I have known that no everyone can be adminstrators, but I'd like to know how. Also, in fact, what are wikibookians? Can I be one of them?


 * A wikibookian is a person who participates at Wikibooks. Anybody who comes here to author, edit, or even just to read is a "Wikibookian". Administrators are a rarer breed, however. To be an administrator, you must be elected. Create a nomination at WB:RFP for yourself, and people will vote on it. However, successful administrator candidates usually need some qualifications first:
 * Experience editing: You seem to have about about 10 edits so far, we typically like to see administrators with several hundred or even a thousand edits. We also like to see members who have been active here for a long time, such as several months. This way, we know that you will be familiar with all our policies. These numbers are just a guideline, not a strict requirement.
 * Experience in maintenance. There are lots of jobs to do here at Wikibooks, and since administrators are primarily used for maintenance tasks, we ask that candidates have experience with them. See Wikibooks maintenance for some idea of the jobs that need to get done around here. Vandal fighting, new page patrolling, book organization and categorization, and answering questions here on this and other discussion pages. If you demonstrate a need to be an administrator, we will elect you to be one.
 * I hope this answers your question. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Wikibookians are people who contribute to Wikibooks in some way, or can refer to someone whose a registered member of the Wikibooks community. You become a Wikibookian or a member of the Wikibooks community simply by contributing to Wikibooks. Administrators are Wikibookians with a few extra tools. A Wikibookian becomes an administrator by showing there willingness to have the extra tools and other Wikibookians showing there general willingness to let that person have the extra tools. Anyone can become an administrator provided those two things are true. --dark lama  15:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Featured books/Nominations
I just wanted to draw people's attention to the three open nominations at Featured books/Nominations. That page hasn't been particularly active lately, and I want to make sure that people aren't forgetting about it entirely. Also, I do know that Wikibooks has been a little quiet lately. Hopefully, as the current semester draws to a close, things will pick up again. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Does activity usually pick up over the summer? I'm never really sure. But yes, with less new books comes less FB nominations unfortunately. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 02:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

how to determine if content conforms to license?
I'm planning on publishing several wikibooks in physical book form, and I've read the terms of the license quite thoroughly - still is there a way to have someone view a PDF of the book to verify compliance with all license terms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.119.237.32 (discuss • contribs)
 * I would be happy to view your PDFs to check them for compliance, and I'm sure other Wikibookians would be happy as well. If you upload them here to Wikibooks, it will have the dual benefit of allowing us to look at it, and other readers to download them as well. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Introducing Myself
Hi my name's Robbie. I'm working on a book here about linguistics, and I generate graphics that can be used for language and writing topics. :) Robbiemuffin (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Robbie. I like the sound of "I generate graphics" - I'm sure folks will have requests from you on that front. I hope you enjoy contributing here. The language texts are some of our best, but there is of course always work to be done. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 00:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Robbie, I've been watching some of the work you've been doing in your user space, and I'm very impressed! I take it you have wiki experience on some other project? Welcome to wikibooks, let us know if you need any help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

How to categorize a book?
I've recieved a notice that my new page "animal taxonomy" needs to be categorized. How do I do so?


 * Add a suitable category at the end of the page for example Category:Taxonomy. You can find existing categories here Alphabetical_classification, although in your case I suspect it's suitable to create a new category. If you choice a new category click it's red link and save the page. SunCreator (talk) 12:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Templates to expand images and formatting
I've created two templates (both of which probably need to be improved) to makr books that are light on formatting or images:, and. This way we can be more precise about certain requests then saying or. Also, I've written up a short "cheatsheet" for all these templates in one easy place: User:Whiteknight/Template Cheatsheet. For people who are confused about the templates or can't remember them all, I've found this to be a helpful resource to me. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Engineering bookshelf deprecation
I've taken the liberty tonight of deprecating the engineering bookshelf. It now redirects to Subject:Engineering. I'm going to fix up some of the double-redirects next. It's been a long term goal, not only of mine but of several other wikibookians, to deprecate all of the bookshelves and use the dynamically-updated subject pages instead. The engineering bookshelf is a personal pet project of mine, and so has progressed further then any of the others so far. Thus, I think it makes a good pilot for this initiative. Over the summer, as I have time and motivation, I would like to start increasing the quality of the remaining subject pages and deprecating additional bookshelves. I think it's going to be a much better solution for us in the long run, and I hope people agree. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Categories Overlapping
There's a little bit of a problem with the category system that we've been using, and for the most part we've been ignoring it. The problem is that both subject categories and books share a "namespace" when it comes to categorization. A book "X", and all it's subpages, will be in Category:X. This can overlap if X is a common name for the subject.

For instance, we have a book Calculus, but we also have a few books by other names that are about calculus-related topics. If we put all the subpages of Calculus and the books that are related into the same category, it's not useful as a navigational or organizational tool anymore.

What I would like to do is change major-subject categories to have some kind of prefix, like "Category:Subject-X". Book subpages could still be in "Category:X", like usual. This won't really take much effort to implement, we would change the behavior of, and then update all the dynamic lists in the Subject namespace. This way we won't have to worry about category name collisions anymore, and all the details will be hidden in templates that people are already mostly using. If nobody has strong opinions about this, I want to try to make this change next week. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Why wouldn't we have all modules of the book go in Category:Calculus (book) instead? This is a standard method which is used everywhere I've seen this overlap occur. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a good possibility too. I suggest doing it "Category:Foo (Subject)" or something similar instead for 3 reasons:
 * We can hide all the details inside, and no authors will really need to deal with it.
 * If we wanted to make it standard, we would have to add "(book)" to the categories in every single book (and there are at least 1100 of them, depending on how you count). If we don't keep it standard for all, then we're left with another hack-job and there's no sense making any changes at all.
 * We would have to update all documentation to tell authors to use "Category:BOOKNAME (book)", and then ensure that this was happening when we patrol.
 * I'm fine with either way, we can employ bots to do it on the book-end like you suggest. I would prefer a method that doesn't put any work or strain on our authors, since the barrier to entry around here is already high enough without having to worry about your book's category. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * How about renaming books to be more descriptive instead? Calculus isn't a descriptive name, it doesn't say who the audience is for, is it an introduction to Calculus, an advanced calculus book, how much coverage does it include, etc.? Using a descriptive book name would remove overlap between subject categories names and book categories as well. Its not like you'd goto a bookstore and find a textbook named just "Calculus" --dark lama  18:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This really isn't an appealing solution to me. It requires that we rename books, as many as several hundred that are currently using common names. It also means that we will have to require new authors to avoid common names for their books, when it has been our de facto policy not to place any requirements on a book's title. We would have to police new books to ensure they weren't named after an existing or potential topic. A solution that requires us to do a large amount of work and requires new authors to jump through more hoops before they can start a new book is decidedly not a good solution. Changing the names of the subject categories, on the other hand, requires us to modify and modify (probably by bot) several dozen Subject: pages. This is easier to execute immediately, requires far less maintenance, and won't cause additional hassle for new book authors. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * And on another note, I have two books named "Calculus" (one has a subtitle), a book called "Fortran", a book called "Algebra", etc. Ordinary books do use common names. Also, it's easier for a user to search for "Calculus" then "Introduction to calculus". --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think its easier to search for books by subject than it is by title. I don't think Category:Subject-X and Category:BOOKNAME (book) are good conventions to use. Another solution might be to enable case-sensitivity of the first letter as is done on Wiktionary, so that Category:calculus would be different from Category:Calculus, than we could require all subject categories be completely lowercase. --dark lama  21:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Now that IS a good alternative solution. It has the benefit that we can do most of the modifications in the template (use the #lc: magic word so we don't even need to fix any pages), and we guarantee that no collisions will ever happen because Book titles must have a capital first-letter. It also had the added benefit of fixing the non-standard way we've been capitalizing subject names so far: Some are "Title Caps" and some are "First caps". Using #lc: for all of them would completely remove these issues. I'm in favor of this proposal. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Good thing I read this just after I cleaned up Category:Social Sciences and Category:Social sciences! Νεοπτόλεμος ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 14:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Another possible solution: Check out what I've done with Category:History. Each book gets its own category- for example, History of Spain is in Category:History of Spain. This category is then put in Category:European History, along with other national histories. The book European History is in this category as well as pages, while the other books get their own subcategories. So, all the pages in, say Intermediate Algebra would go into Category:Intermediate Algebra, while all the pages in Algebra go into Category:Algebra, of which Category:Intermediate Algebra would be a sub-category. Νεοπτόλεμος ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 15:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I see the use here, it's like including one book as a subcategory of another book. Plus, if you try to set up a subject page to list just the main pages of a book, you're going to include all the subpages as well. This organization would suggest that a book like Abstract Algebra was a subset of the Algebra book when the exact opposite relationship is true.
 * Also, consider if we have two books, X and Y, with Category:Y being a subcategory of Category:X. If we delete book X for whatever reason, the category system for Book Y gets all messed up. This creates a level of interdependence between books when we've traditionally tried to make books monolithic and independent. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Allowing lowercase titles is probably the worst option, IMO.  would break many links, and is generally not useful here. I don't see what's wrong with having Category:Name (book) where there is a conflict against a category used for the subjects (and only where such conflict exists - there's no need to avoid a conflict where one doesn't exist).  – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 16:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right, I was under the impression that Category:Calculus and Category:calculus would be different pages, but they apparently arent. With this realization, a capitalization-based scheme is obviously not acceptable.
 * As for making "Category:BOOKNAME (book)", it requires us to change the de facto way that our books have been categorized since the very beginning of Wikibooks, and the possibility is there that we will have to recategorize 1000 books (plus all subpages) or more. Plus, we will have to write documentation to require new book authors to use this new scheme, and we will have to include a check for proper categorization when new books are created. In short, it puts the burden on the book authors, a group of people who's life we should be striving to make easier, not harder. Any system that decreases the usability of this site for the common author really isn't an acceptable one. Now, if we could find a way to abstract out the details into a template like or something, then it wouldn't be as big a deal. Still, we would have to go through every single page on wikibooks and include this template to make it work ubiquitously. Plus, there are lots of books that use header templates to include categories automatically, and those will need to be edited manually. I think it's just a lot of work. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

i want to do a small beginning project in c-language.plzz any one suggest me

Green on Black Style
Hi, can someone create a green(fond) on black(background) style that is better for intensive reading. Thanks for your attention and hope someone can help!


 * Hi:  I am not sure that I like the colours but the usual way would be to put the whole page in    tags, and to include a style expression for the font.   If you copy this code line into the sandbox and Preview it, it will give the result below...


 * All the text of the page goes here...


 * All the text of the page goes here...


 * ...a bit tough to read maybe...also, the Opera browser has choices of syles for viewing, and if it is just for your own viewing, they say that you can make your own stylesheet in Wiki.  If I got your intention wrong, just add a comment below.   All the best. Armchair (talk) 12:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd also recommend the style features in Opera. The above text is probably not great for intensive reading but I'm sure other combinations would work. --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You can edit your .css to create a custom style. The CSS book has info you may find helpful in doing so. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Automatic Book Outline Tool
I've been hard at work for the last few days (as any RC patroller will probably tell you) working on a new JavaScript-based tool for designing and outlining new books. User:Mike.lifeguard did a quick beta test for me yesterday, from which I got a lot of good feedback. I have made a lot of improvements, and would like to get more feedback from a wider audience. Eventually, if things seem to work well, I would like to turn this into a gadget and actively promote it as a way for new users to easily and methodically create new books.

To install the gadget, add the following three lines to your personal monobook script:

import_script('User:Whiteknight/gadgetscore.js'); import_script('User:Whiteknight/categorize.js'); import_script('User:Whiteknight/designer3.js');

Once these lines are added, do a hard reset in your browser (probably by pushing ctrl + f5, or similar), and go to User:Whiteknight/Visual Book Designer. This is the page where the form is located, although I have it set up as a template so it could be transcluded into other pages as well if desired.

The tool uses a visual outlining interface. You start with the main page of the book, and you can add subpages or headings. To those headings and subpages you can add more subheadings and sub-subpages, etc. The tool recurses so you can add as many levels of detail as you can fit on your screen. This means you have the flexibility to make Book/Page, Book/Chapter/Page, Book/Section/Chapter/Page, ... Once you have your outline, the tool has the ability to convert the outline into wikitext. It also has an AJAX interface where it can open an edit window automatically to save the generated text to the specified pages. You can add categorization templates too. Basically, it has a lot of features, and I would like people to play around with them. I would love to hear any and all feedback about this. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've fixed it up so IE7 works reasonably well. There are a few bugs in IE that I can't quite dig out yet, but you should be able to get the idea about what this script does. I've also tested, and it works 90% in Safari. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks great to me. I wonder if we should consider pointing new users towards this tool from the welcome template/help pages etc. I think that as long as people can figure out how to use it properly, it'll result in books which are better structured, which is definitely a good thing. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've already turned it into a gadget, which is the first step in making it usable. There are still a few issues to iron out when it comes to differences between browsers, however. I definitely intend for this, or some other similar tool, to become a primary landing point for new users. This is similar to some of the custom tools that Commons uses to faciliate it's new users. We have a long way to go before this is good enough for ubiquitous use, but it's a first step along that road. Thanks for the input, mike! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * WK, the basic idea is a very good one, I think this could become very useful (especially for people who have difficulty understanding the naming convention, this does it for them so that they'll learn what it's all about!). Is it possible to put a link to preview what the page will look like from the menu on the top? (next to edit, save, etc.) For someone who hasn't used it before, previews are nice to know what each function does / will look like when finished.
 * I didn't test it, but I presume that if you make a sub-page to a sub-page, those are all created too? I'd imagine it'd be pretty difficult to get those in a preview since the mediawiki software isn't set up that way.
 * I think it's also pretty confusing having two different "save" functions, one which saves the book 'for real' and one which is a temporary save; would it be possible to change the latter labels so that it is clearer that these saves aren't permanent? Just my three cents, overall though I'm impressed. Regards, Mattb112885 (talk to me) 23:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback matt! A preview button would be a nice addition, and I could probably add a button for it pretty quickly. You're also right that having two functions to "save" is probably not intuitive. Maybe I could include the temporary save/load functions in a separate menu?
 * I'm also working on a function to "automate", using AJAX to perform edits on all pages in the outline in one button click. I'm hesitant to add this feature until we get the "delete this book" function for admins. One mistake creating a book could leave a very large mess for admins to deal with otherwise. needless to say, there is a lot of work to be done on this. Thanks for the feedback! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * mw:Extension:Nuke would do that nicely. Also, there is a gadget for scripted deletion. I think there is somewhat less potential for disruption here than you think. Pages can be cleaned up easily, and first-time users of the script will likely be careful for fear of making a mess. I suppose malicious use to create many bad pages is a possible, but again easily dealt with. I wouldn't worry too much about holding back on TEH POWAAH with this script. If it's too much, we can restrict use later. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Manual on Salt Lake Methods
Hi, I am Peri Coleman, completely new to Wiki-anything. I have been nagging away at anyone who cared to listen for some years about the need for a "Standard Methods" book for analyses of hypersaline brines. At the recent 10th International Society for Salt Lake Research triennial, held in Salt Lake City this month (May 08) a number of delegates agreed on the need and suggested to me that Wiki would be the place for it - Wikibooks in particular. So here I am, learning rather rapidly. I plan to get the basic outline up, then the various members of ISSLR will be approached to fill in the methods with which they are most familiar. Any pointers will be greatfully received.


 * Welcome to wikibooks, remember to sign with ~ so we know who is talking. You might want to look at Help:Contributing to Wikibooks. Red4tribe (talk) 11:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks like you've got a great start on this book. I look forward to seeing it fleshed out! – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 11:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello!
I'm Robert, user:AtlantisEndevour, and am a contributor to wikipedia as well. I am currently working on the welding book, as it is my trade, and pretty well the only thing that I know enough about to write a book on..
 * Looks like a good start there. If you need help with anything in particular come on back. I'd suggest reading the naming policy for when you start creating subpages for that book. If you end your posts to discussion pages, it will turn that into a signature with a timestamp so conversations are easier to follow. The signature can be customized in Special:Preferences. ~ turns into &rarr; – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 01:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

revolving field theory for induction motor

 * This message will be archived normally

sir, please supply me the material for " revolving field theory for induction motor " as i am not able to find it on the net..


 * Stepper motors use a revolving magnetic field. Also, three-phase motors use a revolving magnetic field. See three-phase,  three-phase electric power,  stepper motor, Practical Electronics/Stepper Motors, Basic Electrical Generation and Distribution. --DavidCary (talk) 03:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Opening a pdf file
I have tried to open the Blender3D: Noob to Pro.pdf several times on more than one computer and it won't open. I am just clicking on the icon to open it. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.
 * That should work just fine. Can you please provide any error messages that you receive when trying to open the file? – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello from new user
Hi, I am Carlo Milanesi, I am Italian, and a new en.wikibooks author, but long time author of it.wikipedia and it.wikibooks. I wrote a complete book in Italian in it.wikibooks, and I am translating it into English for en.wikibooks as Optimizing C++. As I am not a native English speaker, I ask for collaboration to improve the text readability.

--Carlo.milanesi (talk) 17:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Very glad that you joined. Your english seems very good, I would not suspect you of being an Italian. There is an Italian book right now, for people who wish to learn Italian. I am looking forward to see how you translate things, it is something I am personally not very good at. Welcome! Red4tribe (talk) 20:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Welcome to en.wikibooks! I've seen your new book, and it's very cool! I'll definitely be watching your progress. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Template column help.
I'm trying to extend the template Template:Chess Position so that there are some options below the diagram in 2 columns in the same way as shown here w:Template:Infobox chess opening. Problem is I don't understand how to align columns. I've tried putting in the top '''! colspan="2"''' but then the column sections at the bottom are not neatly aligned, but rather stretch the box to the right. I've create a test version here(Template:Chess_PositionTest), please experiment! SunCreator (talk) 10:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Anyone? SunCreator (talk) 22:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at it a little later, I hope that I understand what you want exactly. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetical_classification/All_Books
In the "0 - 9" section, the phrase "DynamicPageList: No results!" appears a number of times, presumably because no book titles start with 0, 4, 7, or 9. This is a bug, right? Hoogli (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes and no. It's the default behavior when the page list returns no entries. There is a way to suppress errors, however, so that you dont see those ugly error messages. I'll work on that now. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

How do I trigger an email to an email list when someone edit the wiki book ?
I like to have the email mailing list users notified when book is edited. Is this possible ?

T.J Yang


 * Not with wikibooks' tools, but you could set up a scheduled script to fetch your Special:Watchlist every day/hour. Kellen T 18:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Double spacing
Is there a reason why Wikibooks doesn't show double spacing between the end of a sentence and the start of the next sentence? There should be double spaces after a full stop ('period' for Americans). This makes it easier to read a page especially one which is full of text. I have just tried to add extra spacing to an article but on making the changes I noticed that the spaces don't appear. --ЗAНИA talk 00:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that's a function of most browsers. Back when I was first learning HTML I remember reading that browsers collapse all white space into a single space.  I could be wrong of course. --Jomegat (talk) 02:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * See w:Wikipedia:MOS. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Some say that a slight improvement can be had by using justified text for the page.  Although it does not address the specifics of double-spacing, the slight spreading of text over the page width sometimes helps a bit. Regards,Armchair (talk) 13:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Rescuing and forking off the cookbook
For background: the cookbook was once one of our most successful collaborations, and in some ways helped us learn how Wikibooks should work. However, activity on the cookbook has been slowly decreasing over the last couple years. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with a lot of reasons, but the four that I can think of off hand are (1) User:Kellen is not very active any more, (2) there are a lot of websites out there allowing recipe sharing now, (3) the cookbook above all other books has served as a "dump" for the Wikipedians (who despise recipes as unencyclopedic), and (4) it's a big mess and no-one has dared clean it up.

I was a bit alarmed by this discussion, but after thinking about it for a few weeks, I think I might have an idea. Kellen has a good point about remaking the cookbook as a textbook about cooking methods, ingredients, etc. Deleting all the recipes seems a bit over the top.

I propose we transwiki the recipes of the cookbook to Wikiversity. There we could poll for yumminess, collect/collate/rate infinite numbers of variations on each recipe, and link it into other Wikiversity content related to availability of local foods, etc. The cookbook, as textbook, could then have content related to the history and "basics" of a recipe, and allow the back and forth of "whose mom's meatloaf recipe is the best" take place on Wikiversity (where participation is at least as important as content).

My agenda is just this: I want to do outreach for the cookbook through churches and folks I know in the restaurant industry. It would be a lot easier to sell if we could have "research projects" where people try recipes, rate them, and make improvements towards recipes they don't like.

I eagerly await your fruity missiles :) -- SB_Johnny | PA! 22:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Forking is fine, but reducing the cookbook to only "basic" recipes doesn't sound so hot to me. I think a decrease in contributions is not a good reason to discourage recipes or to reduce its size. Maybe the cookbook has reached a point where there is enough coverage that there isn't much left to add, but variations. The cookbook could become a multi-wiki project if that is what's wanted, but I don't think anything needs to change in its scope or coverage. People seem to still be contributing to it, and someone may come a long at some point with the motivation to take over where Kellen left off. Nothing has to change here in order for the cookbook to be forked on another project and for you to achieve what you wish on WV, this isn't a WB issue, but a WV issue. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have a clear idea of what your fork concept entails would it be a duplication of content (no deletion), and then reformat the relevant parts of it on Wikiversity? I don't see a particular need for this as the content can be referenced here and extended there and later synchronized, (I think I remember some proposal, not on Wikibooks, of Darklama on a similar solution for translation that addresses a similar synchronization problem, but can't find the link), but most of this we already do it here with articles on Wikipedia, we transwiki them here completely, partially (with attribution), or link to them and at least I try to maintain both (on Wikipedia I don't edit articles, but use the discussion pages to reference updates,etc...). One should keep in mind that one of the problems with forking is that it not only fragments the work but the contributors, and increases work for all, even to users, ultimately the optimal outcome of a fork is a merge and that is even more work...
 * Moving the content out of Wikibooks doesn't seem to me the best path and the rational that it would fix the problem of new contributions is debatable. As a user it would upset me since I'm not and active on Wikiversity and so having the content forked there would have some impact, since I do use that book from time to time.
 * The expressed needs to have a "research project" does seem suitable to Wikiversity but if it is not, you can even do it on your and other participants user space, since ultimately the content would be volatile and intended to be merge to the book.
 * I haven't contributed content to that particular book, only minor edits but I would support any decission that users that have/are working on it to reformat or even fork the book (on the Wikibooks project) if no loss of content occurs. I strongly object to deletion of useful content from the Wikibooks project. For the rest the users that are willing to do the work and have been doing it should have a free hand on implementing any changes they come to agree upon. --Panic (talk) 03:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I do like the idea of the cookbook becoming more textbook-like, it's been a little bit of a sore thumb because it stands out as such a large example of a book which isn't textbook-like but is allowed to stay here anyway. I think the cookbook is great and valuable, but if it sets a bad example for new books and leads new authors into thinking the wrong things, then it hurts us more then it helps. That said, I definitely do not want to delete it.
 * The point about there being an infinite number of recipes is also a problem, because it's a violation of our requirements that books have a finite scope. If I make a recipe and add paprika to it then I have a second recipe which is almost exactly the same except for a small variation. Trying to be a mere collection of recipes, then, is not good for the cookbook to do.
 * Better would be to talk about how to cook and cooking utensils/techniques, and use select recipes as examples of those ideas. It's the same way we show particular programs as examples of vague computer science topics.
 * Doing it this way, a central narrative with copious examples, would seem to suggest a massive reorganization. For one, it probably doesn't need it's own namespace if it's going to have a more concrete organizational structure like ordinary books. As a collection of unrelated articles a namespace is fine, but as a traditional textbook about cooking this method is far less then ideal and probably would encourage people to write articles instead of chapters.
 * I'm also not interested in "moving" content to Wikiversity, although I am highly interested in "Sharing" content. If WV could use it's magic to rate and improve recipes, WB could discuss them. It would be a great way for us to work together. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Whiteknight, can't find a policy that defines that books must have a finite scope. I understand the intention but don't see how it would be enforcible, and it wouldn't be a good wording for a scope limiting policy, a book on mathematics, physics, languages (even computer languages) could suffer the same problem of never ending additions of "recipes", examples and updates. --Panic (talk) 18:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You're right, the passage that I was referring to is actually part of What is Wikibooks/Unstable, which is not yet policy. Regardless, the scope is just one problem from many that could justify deletion of the cookbook under it's condition. So far we've avoided the issue for many reasons, but that doesn't mean it's really the model for aspiring textbook authors. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, what I had in mind was more what Whiteknight was referring to: judging by my experiences over the years and the most recent discussions by the main editors, it seems the recipes have been a distraction from the core goal (keep in mind that the vast majority of them are transwikis kicked our way by the wikipedian deletionist cabal, bless their hearts). As an "outreach project", it would be a bit easier to point to one project as a starting point, and the cookbook as it is now is not such a great thing to point to. Adding a bit of paprika/lemon juice/marijuana/whatever is probably a minor thing, but not necessarily a trivial thing to the person who comes up with the idea. Wikiversity's scope is much more slanted towards community participation than end results, and while we of course want as much participation as we can get on Wikibooks, we're really aimed at an end result (i.e. textbooks). My hope is that this could take advantage of the strengths of both projects and communities by enticing people to edit and contribute in the "come what may" atmosphere on Wikiversity, and use the Wikibooks cookbook as a textbook (to be improved as often as possible and necessary). -- SB_Johnny | PA! 23:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm against any moving of the recipes to Wikiversity (why move it to a virtually dead project?) or making it more textbook like. It's a cookbook and that's what's good about it.  It still needs massive improvement.  Creating a Cookbook recipe (or any type of wiki book or article) is very difficult.  Wiki software and markup is not user-friendly and creating attractive pages is not easy.  I'm talking personally here and I have many years experience of the IT industry so if I find it difficult and time-consuming to make good wiki pages then ordinary non-geek editors probably won't even try.  Look at some of the other cooking and recipe websites out there.  Notice how they incorporate far more images, animated flash pictures and instant conversion from American measurements to standard metric measurements.  Notice how some of them include alternative recipes on the same page and how the presentation of the whole page is clutter-free and easy to read (why do Wikibook pages have to have the annoying wiki bar on the left, another bar at the top and then a copyright section at the bottom - so much wasted space and not relevent for people unless they are editors as opposed to readers).  We need to get the opinions of those who 'read' the Cookbook rather than the very small number of people who edit on Wikibooks (and rarely on the cookbook). --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 22:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with most of what you've said. However I don't understand why you would think that anyone who contribute to other books, cannot be a reader, or doesn't read the cookbook. While I can agree that the opinions of readers need to be considered, I don't agree with the implication that people can't be both readers and contributors, that there opinions don't represent the views of a reader, or that anyone whose responded so far doesn't read the cookbook. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  01:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * My point was that we need the views of the readers. Most views and decisions on Wikibooks are expressed by us (the editors) but the vast majority of people who visit Wikibooks visit only to read (the same applies to all wikies, us editors are probably only a small part)--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 20:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I would disagree with what Xania said about Wikiversity. Wikiversity isn't a "dead project" by any means. By my measurements, WV has edits at about 1/3 the frequency as Wikibooks does. It's also significantly younger then WB is, and is growing at a steady rate that is similar to the growth Wikibooks experienced when it was the same age. Of course, Wikibooks hasn't been particularly lively in recent months either, maybe we're becoming the "dead project".
 * As for the stuff about the user interface, I agree, although it's an issue that affects more books then just the cookbook. The user interface is significantly more cluttered then it needs to be for either readers or writers. A solution may be to create a javascript that removes, for people who are not logged in) a number of unnecessary links and tabs from the main interface. That could be something we discuss in more detail at the Feature Requests page.
 * The issue about difficulty editing wikitext is well-understood, but there is nothing that we can do about it from our end. The developers are going to have to create a better editing interface if we are going to have it at all. There are, I think, some things that we could try to do locally like creating better templates or boiler-plate text for Cookbook pages that insert all the necessary templates and categories automatically.
 * Regardless, the cookbook really isn't a "textbook" as most of our other books are, and while I don't disagree that recipes have their place here as examples, the cookbook should really be a textbook first and a recipe book second. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't trying to dis wikiversity (well reading what I wrote it appears that I was). The aim of Wikiversity has been explained to me many times but I still don't see the need for it and defining the difference between text books and courses seems unnecessary - if editors have trouble knowing where to put their work and understanding the differences then there's little hope for ordinary editors.  Can we have a good definition of 'text book' please? I'd assumed it was simply an instructional book which includes text.  --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 20:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * My definitions to explain the differences goes something like:
 * Wikipedia explains what something is
 * Wikibooks explains how something is done
 * Wikiversity explores why and the many ways how something can be done
 * Wiktionary defines what something means
 * Wikisource documents something previously published
 * --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  21:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Help: Typo
I'm working on the book Real analysis and in several places, I have misspelt Riemann as Reimann. Is there any efficient way to fix this?

SPat (talk) 13:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC) SPat (talk) 10:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're looking for, but most likely you'll have to do it the long way: go into every page and edit it manually (use CTRL+F to look for your misspelling before you edit it, so you know where it is and so on). Mattb112885 (talk to me) 01:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If there are many misspellings, I can have my bot fix them en masse for you. If it's just a few places, you're faster to do it by hand. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 22:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It's ok, that's not as bad as bad as I thought. In fact, I've noticed that few other authors have made the same mistake

New here
I am new.


 * Welcome, remember to sign with ~ so we know who is talking. Red4tribe (talk) 22:42, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Just joined up, hello
I'm Gaston Weisz, a psychologist. I have contributed a little to the introduction to psychology book. I'm curious who else is collaborating on the project.


 * Welcome, remember to sign with ~ so we know who is talking. I'm not sure with the project. It doesn't seem to be listed anywhere, sometimes it is. It doesn't appear(just by looking through a few history pages) that anyone is currently working on it. Red4tribe (talk) 22:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Special:UncategorizedPages
Some fault here it now ends at MediaWiki Developer's Handbook/Add Button and goes into numbers. I've been checking this for a while for any Opening theory in chess and I found there is at least one page that should be shown but it is not, hence an error. SunCreator (talk) 23:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The listing of that and many other special pages are cached. Any recently changes won't show up in the list until the next update. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not the issue as page that was missing was created 3 May 2008 and cache shows 10 May 2008. SunCreator (talk) 23:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case you should report it as a bug on bugzilla. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What page are you talking about? It's possible that the page is in a hidden category. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Go here Notice it's in alphabetic order you got UncategorizedPages beginning with the letters K, L, M on that page and A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J on the proceeding eight pages then after M it skips to numbers. Missing are all UncategorizedPages beginning with the letters N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z. SunCreator (talk) 14:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I have reported this as 14170. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I've created a test page that should show up when it's working. Opening_theory_in_chess/UncategorizedPage. SunCreator (talk) 07:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems the issue is that only the first 5000 are shown. SunCreator (talk) 15:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Dictionary extensions for the Firefox browser
Hi again,

Can anybody help with this problem?

As you know, the Firefox browser has a switch-on / switch-off spell-check for use in editing windows like Wiki. It is limited however, to the common language as opposed to encyclopaedic knowledge.

Does anybody know of an extension to spell-check HTML and Wikitext? In fact, is there a secret stash of dictionary add-ons anywhere for Wiki interests?

If so, it would help to clear the redlining which routinely results when tables or HTML is used in the editing of Wiki pages.

Thanks in advance for any help that users can provide. Armchair (talk)


 * I don't know of any such thing, but I would be interested if you could find one. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Skin!!
I don't like the skin I recently chose. OK....I need to pick a new one.....fine. But, when I go to my preferences page, the (supposed to be) hypertext word "Skin" won't allow me to click on it. Notably, the "hand" only appears on words that have 5 characters or more......grrrrrrrrr. I need my list of choices moved to the right, or something. Can someone help....I'm trapped in my skin!!!!!!!!Buddpaul (talk) 18:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You cannot click on the Skin tab in my preferences? I can't think of anything that would cause such an error, except on your end. Anyone else? – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 20:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Which skin did you select? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Um.....the ugly one. Honestly, I can't remember the name.  There's the column to the extreme left.  Then there's the "main" column in the middle of the page.  I can't click on the first 4 letters of any word in that center column....only on the 5th letter of any word (or any other letter to the right of the 5th letter).  Guess what?  "Skin" only has 4 letters.  How can I modify the layout of my preferences pages WITHOUT actually going TO my preferences page?  Buddpaul (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, try clicking on this link. It should open the preferences window using the "normal" skin. Change your skin, and click "Save". Let me know if that works for you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You're a genius WhiteKnight.....a total genius! Thank you. BTW: why is "Chic" so darned ugly?? :)         Buddpaul (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)