Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2009/February

World War I
I am a new user to Wikibooks and I have been working on writing a World War I Wikibook. I would like to split the causes page into multiple pages (one for each cause), as once I have included all the important causes it will be a very long page if I do not split. What would be the correct way to split the parts of the page I have already written - should I just move the text to a new page, or is there a different way which is preferred? Thanks, --Anonymous101 (talk) 19:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The only issue is with attribution. As far as I know, we don't have the ability to copy version history (without exporting a page and importing it again) so usually content is just copied to the new page and the attribution mentioned in the edit summary. Happy editing. --Swift (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help. Anonymous101 (talk) 17:26, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Circumstances which will allow me to produce text pages for biology/ecology and one laboratory manual
Hi I don't know if this will end up right, but I'll give it a whack. I am a retired science teacher of 30 years, all sciences, hold an earned M.S. in Ecology and am now teaching biology and ecology at a college in the U.S. I have been provided with a situation in which I can produce a complete laboratory manual and also edit biology/ecology texts as desired. I assume that discussion about this might be on an IRC as mentioned elsewhere. If someone could reply with some specifics as to a time, I'm central time zone in the U.S., then I could visit and get started. a teacher 12:20 a.m. 03 Feb 2009A teacher (talk) 06:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. Could you elaborate a bit further? Are you asking for collaborators, or just whether this is the right venue for your work?
 * If it is the latter, you should have a quick look over What is Wikibooks and the available material on the topics you're interested in adding to. Searching and browsing through the Card Catalog Office should be a start. There is a subject page on biology, but none on ecology.
 * Discussion about page development takes place on their corresponding talk pages, but you're welcome to join us on IRC (see Contact us for more).
 * Should you find dormant books, feel free to adopt them. If you plan to pick up or start a new book, you can place an announcement in the projects reading room.
 * I'll leave you a welcome message on your talk page. Please have a glance through the links there. Happy editing! --Swift (talk) 07:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Reporting bug with source highlighting
What's the best way to report a bug with the source code highlighter in Perl Programming/Data Types - in particular, it highlights variable names prepended with $, @, and %, but not the * used by the typeglobs. --Sigma 7 (talk) 01:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably Bugzilla. --Swift (talk) 03:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

New user, I am a bit lost
Hi!

I hope this is the right place for my question I am reading the Blender_3D-_Noob_to_Pro_-_Beginner_Tutorials, if i clic on a link to download an image, I have got a message saying that i am not a register user, but I am.

Can you help

Jeanclaude

Ps i am french, hope my english is acceptable


 * The links in the Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Beginner Tutorials module don't work for me either.
 * I would skip that page for now, and go on to the next page: Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Tutorial Syntax.


 * You and I are registered users here at Wikibooks. But those links take us to an IRC discussion channel.
 * The "not a register user" message is not coming from Wikibooks.
 * Perhaps that message comes from the IRC discussion channel.
 * Perhaps that message comes from your IRC client -- perhaps a different client would work better for you ( Liste de clients IRC ).
 * --DavidCary (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Confusing subjects
After responding half-ignorant to a request for assistance, I started looking into the whole subjects thing. I was away when the project abandoned the bookshelves/departments and only recently heard that they'd been deprecated in favour of subjects.

Well, not completely deprecated. There still linger remnants of these old systems and they make understanding how things are done somewhat more complicated than they need be. I wanted to raise this here to draw this to the community's attention. Please share what you can to shed a light on what has been done and what still needs to be done to complete this move.

Subject pages seems to be the canonical page for this, but it is poorly linked to (currently: one meaningful link) and could use expanding.

Something which confused me is that on module pages, the list of categories is preceded by a link to Special:Categories with the link title "Subjects" (other pages still have the link title "Categories"). Is this a feature, or a remnant of the past?

Other relevant pages that I found are
 * Subject:Major Subjects
 * All subjects is hardly used and should maybe be deleted.
 * Category:Cataloguing
 * Card Catalog Office
 * Category:Subjects: Pages and templates in this category are used to help keep the Subject: space organized.
 * Category:All_Subjects

Cheers, --Swift (talk) 10:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * While I like the idea of keeping Subject pages up-to-date by generating them automatically with Dynamic Page Lists, I'm against moving to Subject pages unless we have a way of alphabetically sorting the lists. It just doesn't seem very reader-friendly to present apparently randomly ordered lists of books. --Martin Kraus (talk) 11:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There isn't a requirement that subject pages use DynamicPageList even though most do. The CategoryTree extension could just as easily be used for instance: . Also for what its worth, the sort order that DynamicPageList uses isn't random its by the time each page was added to the category. DynamicPageList also can sort pages by the time each page was last edited. --dark  lama  12:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I wasn't aware of . --Martin Kraus (talk) 13:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well I think the intent was to deprecate bookshelves slowly to make sure most things are in place for subject pages first. Which I think means as more things are in place Subject pages and Subject:Major Subjects would be linked to more.


 * Subject/Subjects only replaces Category/Categories in category listings in the main namespace and the Wikijunior namespace IIRC. Both namespaces consist of books and the intent is to have people think of categories in those two namespaces in terms of what subject(s) a book covers. is also intended to support this way of thinking about categorizing books. I would consider this a feature, but maybe other people would disagree?


 * I updated Requested books awhile ago to better reflect the major subjects listed at Subject:Major Subjects and to link to subject pages instead as one step towards deprecating bookshelves. IMO Main Page should be updated last, after everything else has. --dark lama  12:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I am new enough that I don't completely follow this discussion, so allow me to ask a few foolish questions. My main interest is mathematics, currently when I click on mathematics the main wikibooks page I get the mathematics bookshelf.  If I first click on subjects, then go to the top level subject of mathematics, then I get the subject page.  Is the bookshelf page intended to disappear at some point?  This would be a shame because of the two pages the bookshelf page is by far more useful then the subject page.  Thenub314 (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes I believe the intention is for the mathematics bookshelf page to disappear at some point. However I think by the time that is ready to happen, the subject page will be in a lot better shape than it is now. --dark lama  15:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification, Darklama. So it would appear that the bookshelves haven't been deprecated yet. While I'm sure that those involved in the discussion at the time are well on top of things, might it be a good idea to describe this move on Bookshelves and Subject pages (a link to relevand discussions could also help) so that users will be able to do their part on subjects that contribute in?
 * Regarding the category listings; The use of "subject" as a synonym for "category" really confused me when I found that there are also "subject-pages". It seems that these are supposed to complement each other, but using the same term for both seems a little odd. I don't think "category" organising books into subjects is in any way misleading and it would be useful to have separate terms.
 * On a somewhat related note. I seem to recall seeing a wiki setup with two rows of "categories" in the bottom (one called "category" the other something else). Does anyone know if I'm just mis-remembering, or is this an available MediaWiki feature? --Swift (talk) 09:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * In a way yes subject and category pages complement each other. In another way I think subjects are suppose to replace the need for most people to think about categories and categorization too. Not sure on the best way to describe the concept. Perhaps think about it like this: Writers write books. Catalogers catalog books. Writers aren't suppose to be concerned with the details of how books are cataloged, just assured that books will be cataloged. Basically a separation of interface from the details of how its implemented (does the average person really care how their OS makes it possible to read and write files for instance). IOW to the average user the difference between subject pages and categories shouldn't matter in theory. Only catalogers need to know the difference and how to assure the correct books show up on the correct pages. I think changing it back to "Category/Categories" would be a step back rather than a step forward. I think a step forward would probably be to have the categories that people see on book pages go to the subject page instead, assuming that were possible. Does that at all help reduce your confusion and explain why the same term is being used for both?


 * If the wiki setup is the same wiki setup that I am thinking of, the wikis that have multiple rows of categories are using an extension. --dark lama  11:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It would, indeed, be ideal if writers didn't have to worry about the internals of cataloging their pages. We are, however, not quite there yet.
 * Having the bottom-of-the-module links point to the subject pages, effectively hiding the categories behind them, would be an idea. Do you know if this is currently implementable?
 * But then what would the categories be used for? It then seems like the subject pages are just taking over from the categories. Do they have a different purpose, or are they just implementing the representation of their contents differently? --Swift (talk) 03:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I know Wikibooks isn't quite there yet. I guess you could say people were thinking big and long term, and why the decision seemed to be to take things slowly. I know category links could be changed to point to subject pages using javascript, but I much rather try to see if this could be done by changing a mediawiki page instead.
 * I think book categories will still be used as an index of sorts for books, like they are now. I think categories will also serve a vital role in making book listings on subject pages more automated. Yes I think subject pages will implement and represent category contents differently. Subject pages can display books from one or more categories or cross sections of categories. Most categories subject pages right now for instance have a general list of books, a list of featured books on the subject and a list of books on the subject that have versions available for print, which uses multiple categories. There might be other interesting uses of category cross sections people will find for subject pages as well. --dark lama  12:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I thought things were going too slowly. I was just stating my reason why I'd like to clarify things. Seeing how people are a bit confused by this, I'd like to add to the documentation where this is all going, what needs to be done, and how people (such as myself) who weren't involved in the discussion can pitch in.
 * So if I understand you correctly, subject pages would correspond to a sub-set of categories and are mainly for the purpose of being able to manually tweak the presentation. These would still have corresponding categories to help with maintaining these.
 * If this is the case, then having links direct to subject pages would be a big step forward. How about just redirecting from those category pages? --Swift (talk) 23:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

More than presentation
I didn't think you were implying anything. I was also trying to be clear in hopes that you and anyone else whose confused might understand some of the rationals and thoughts behind what's been going on with the subject namespace.

Yes I think you basically understand the intended correlation between subject pages and categories. I think there is a bit more to the purpose than presentation though. With bookshelves at some point there became so many that people started creating departments to organize bookshelves. I think unavoidably department would eventually have the same problem which would require more and more complexity to organizing books while making finding books more and more difficult. Also with bookshelves, I think people tended to feel like books only belonged on one bookshelf. Subject pages on the other hand could link to each other branching out creating more of a tree structure or web-like structure, rather than a hierarchy like bookshelves or categories do, and the notation that books only belong in one place is easier to get rid of. Also by being in there own namespace limiting searches to just subject pages is possible, which is not something so easily done with bookshelves and departments.

I think being able to view and link directly to categories is still going to be useful at times. Besides that would require a lot of work. FWIW I was just talking about changing the automatic list of categories generated by using on a book to point to Subject:Foo instead if the page exists, while Category:Foo would still point to Category:Foo. I think at the very least we should hold off on redirecting categories until that's been tried and see where people want to go from there after awhile. --dark lama  01:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Great. This is all becoming much clearer. Thanks for taking the time to bring us (me) up to speed!
 * This still leaves one question: We should probably encourage Wikibookians to take an interest in the subject pages to which their books belong, but to what extent can they help with deprecating the bookshelves?
 * "I think at the very least we should hold off on redirecting categories [...]" Fair enough. It would, indeed be a hassle to maintain that. How do you suggest we modify that? Do you know if there are settings available to change those links, or would that take some modification of MW scripts? --Swift (talk) 09:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a very interesting discussion, but I will have to read this thread a few more times before I really get the distinctions. But let me ask some specific questions just to get my bearings. The current mathematics book shelf page currently lists books roughly by sub-subject (Algebra, Geometry, calculus, etc) and makes some rough cutoff to distinguish how advanced the book is (Currently it is, and I am  not a fan of the term, "Higher Mathematics")  So if I was interested in really working improving the subject page for mathematics it seems like I should do the following things: Create subject pages for the sub-subjects (like the already existing Subject:Geometry).  Also place books into categories like "elementary school level", "high school level", "college level", "graduate level and beyond".  Then we add some pazzaz to the mathematics subject page (not my specialty) and the bookshelf is ready to go? Thenub314 (talk) 12:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * PS And is one of the categories a module is supposed be a part of a category that simply lists the modules in the book? Thenub314 (talk) 12:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, you could create subject pages for each math subject. You would place books into categories like Category:Algebra or Calculus, and place each of those categories and each subject page in Category:Mathematics. Yes you would than add some magic to each subject page you created to have the books from each category show up on the corresponding subject page. By placing the subject pages in the Mathematics category the magic on the Mathematics subject page would cause the related subject page to become listed. Yes than the subject pages would be ready to go. I'm not sure what you're asking in your PS but I'll see if I can try to answer anyways. If you had a book named "An Introduction to Algebra", that book would have all its pages placed in "Category:An Introduction to Algebra", and "Category:An Introduction to Algebra" would be placed in Category:Algebra.


 * I think trying to divide books by school level isn't going to work well. Keep in mind that people who use Wikibooks come from different parts of the world and have different backgrounds. At what age or school level a subject is taught at might be high school where you're at while being also being taught at the elementary level or college level somewhere else. Even in the same city at what point a subject is taught could just depend on the school or whether you attend a public school or a private school. In other words, eventually a book would be included in each category in order to better represent the world. I think instead an approach that depends on what you know already would work better because it doesn't depend on age or where you are in the world. Something like prerequisites or reading levels would work better. --dark lama  14:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess people could help to depreciate bookshelves by ensuring there is subject page for every subject that there is currently a book on. Again though there is some difference between bookshelves and subject pages. Some bookshelves include two related subjects like "Games and Athletics" together, but with subjects these can be split apart into smaller and more specific subject pages like with Subject:Games and Subject:Athletic Games. Like with Thenub314's question above, if a bookshelves divides books into subsections the best approach is probably to create a new subject page that corresponds to each subsection rather than keeping books together on one subject page. --dark lama  14:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

DropBox template not working?
I noticed this morning that a droptext (corr: DropBox) I use doesn't have the hide/show control (i.e., is showing without any control to hide, but should have been hidden by default with a control to show.). It's not just my usage. All the examples on the page describing the template is broken too. Can someone confirm this isn't just my browser? Thanks. --Az2008 (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Your confusing for  (b vs B). Templates names are case sensitive except for the first character. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  23:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I don't understand. I may have started the confusion by saying "droptext." But, if you go to the link I provided (Template:DropBox), the examples are broken. There is no show/hide control. I've viewed it using IE and Firefox. That page has examples saying "renders as:" and there's no show/hide control. One example use "hidden" but the "rendered as" shows regular text, not hidden, with no control. Thanks for your patience. --Az2008 (talk) 01:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok let's try again. There are two templates with the same name. Template:DropBox isn't broken, its just the wrong template. Template:Dropbox is the right template. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  01:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I must be doing something wrong. Are you saying you looked at Template:DropBox? And you see show/hide controls in the examples where it says "renders as?" I can change to Dropbox (b). It's not a problem. But, something changed because I use DropBox (B) and it had a show/hide control until yesterday (I just noticed it this morning). And, for me at least, the examples aren't rendering. One claims to be an example of the "hidden" option, but it doesn't render hidden (and has no show/hide control). Thanks for your time. --Az2008 (talk) 02:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No I'm saying I looked at DropBox (B) saw the same thing no collapsible box. I figured you must of got the name of the template mixed up because there is also Dropbox (b), which does include a collapsible box. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  02:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok. I can change to Dropbox (b). But, something changed with DropBox (B). I thought it might concern others that it stopped working and may affect other users. I hope reporting it here, the right people will be aware of it. Sorry for the confusion. --Az2008 (talk) 02:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No need, I figured out the problem and fixed it. DropBox should be working again as expected. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  02:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I looked at the history and compared your change to what existed. I don't know how you figured that out. :) The change wasn't picked up by my page until I edited it and saved. Do you know why that is? Would it have eventually been picked up? I think it would because it broke without me editing/saving the page. --Az2008 (talk) 03:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably didn't update right away due to page caching. Yes I think it would of eventually updated on its own. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  03:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Could it be a coincidence that the general question of text labels for the drop box set of templates has recently been studied, or that the text labels show/hide are themselves fairly recent for these Wikibooks controls? Anonymouse.

C Language While Statement Question
C Language While Statement Question

In C programming language, what does   while ((N < 1) || (N > 3)) mean?

Especially the two lines? Is that a set notation that means noninclusive??

I'm having trouble understanding this.

Can you help. --Rocket0348 (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * While N less that 1 or N greater than 3 --Panic (talk) 02:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, its not a set notation. There are three conditional expressions involved:


 * Is N less than 1?
 * Is N greater than 3?
 * Is either of these true?


 * However if the first condition is true the second condition doesn't get checked, because "Is either of these true" can already be determined to be true without needing to check the second condition. The second condition "Is N greater than 3" only needs to be determined if N is not less than 1. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  02:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I use this while loop so select 1,2 or 3. Let me show you my program. It is simple.

As you can see, it is a simple program to display tax. My books on C don't explain the while and if ((N < 1) || (N > 3)) statements.

I especially don't know what the two lines mean. Which is still a question.

Can you enlighten me further?

Thanks. --Rocket0348


 * See if reading C Programming/Control helps. If your book really doesn't cover while and if statements, you need a better book. That page also covers if statements and logical expressions. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  03:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * How can we make the C Programming Wikibook less confusing? The "||" operator is briefly mentioned in the C Programming/Reference Tables and Operators_in_C_and_C++. When you figure this out, please improve that book to better explain the "||" operator.
 * When I read the above program out loud, it sounds something like
 * " ... while either N is less than 1, or N is more than 3, scan another integer into N. If this N is less than one, or N is more than three, print "Enter the number associated to the store". ..."
 * In C, the two lines "||" is another way to spell "or". Some people prefer to spell it "or" -- those people would write the above code something more like this:


 * Please help us improve the C Programming by making its coverage of the "or" operator, also called the "||" operator, less confusing. --DavidCary (talk) 05:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's mentioned in C_Programming/Control - where || returns 1 if either a or b is true, and it's located after an example where the comparison operators were used incorrectly and changed to be correct under C.   Is there something specific about this section that's confusing?  As an experienced programmer, it seems relatively obvious to me and thus I don't see any immediate flaw (aside from it being on the short side.)  --Sigma 7 (talk) 06:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I am interested in...
I am interested for film and theatrical article of your reading room .Please provide me the same. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dsassam (talk • contribs) 15:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, Dsassam and welcome to the Assistance reading room where Wikibookians help each other solve problems encountered while contributing to books or otherwise taking part in the Wikibooks community. I'm afraid your request is too vague for us to be of much help. --Swift (talk) 07:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Free Software Meeting
I got this message from Sub, a Wikibookian in the French language version. There is going to be a "free software meeting" this summer in Nantes (France). See the details HERE. Sub would like to have a Wikibookian or two attend the conference since the conference focus is all about digitization of literature, online documentation, e-books, etc. It's exactly the kind of thing we do here. I can't make it for a number of reasons, but if anybody else is going to be in the Nantes area, or is able to travel there, it would be very cool to represent this project. You can contact Sub if you have any questions/comments, or if you would like to attend. Registration ends on March 1st, so if you think you can go you should hurry and register. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yepe, dont hesitate to contact me :). @Whiteknight : thank you for your help. Sub (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Please, note that i will introduce french project in this meeting. I'll talk a bit about en: projet but if you want to give an entire conference about en: projet, you're welcome. Sub (talk) 18:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Mass deletions
Hi all,

We've been hard at work over at the Japanese wikibook, refactoring the layers of content. I think it's starting to pay off. As part of this effort, we've deleted gobs of duplicate content (we recently passed the 100 page mark!). That era is finally coming to a close, but I recently came across a bunch of character images:. These all exist on Commons as well, I've made sure none of these are used here, and they are nowhere nearly as nice as the ones we now use from the Commons:Stroke Order Project.

I'd like to try my hand at mass-deleting these by bot. Bots permits this, but as it's a potentially disruptive action, I wanted to request comments from the community. I plan to use the pywikipedia framework which ran on Wikipedia a long time ago to update links and deprecate outdated templates whose functionality I'd merged (linking to Wikibooks, think this was one of my first WB-related cleanup jobs). --Swift (talk) 05:10, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Book splitting policy?
What is Wikibooks policy on splitting up books? I saw the guidelines on forking and renaming, but I haven't been able to find anything on splitting. I ask because I of my resent comments in Talk:Blender 3D: Noob to Pro. --Null Point (talk) 16:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no such policy (the closes thing would be Be bold). Just consider whether the content would be more useful as seperate books. If you'll be cross-referencing a lot, keep it in one. If the book parts are independent or have a clear difference in audience, seperating them up could help. --Swift (talk) 17:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Splinting a book project is commonly considered a fork if done to another (in project) namespace or outside location, if I'm getting your meaning of split correctly. Since the resulting parts of the split would probably constitute a derived work of the previous version of the book. --Panic (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think you're misunderstanding him. From the book talk page, he seems to want to break a single book into several smaller ones. That is not a fork. --Swift (talk) 20:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * We have already discussed this. It all depends on how you see a book project and a fork. Each edit to a book automatically generates a revision to the previous version of the book, that revision could be directly considered a fork (since both version are still present on the project and should be assumed by default "as published" to a third party/location) then we have the situation of a split or a breakdown of a book in several parts, this can still be called a fork, the original version exists and derived works sharing parts of the old version were created (this is the situation Null Point is advancing) and then there a direct copy fallowed by a distinct evolution path that is more common on software forks. A Fork consists on the branching of a root work.  --Panic (talk) 21:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Discussed the difference between a split and a fork? Not in the last year or two.
 * I wouldn't worry too much about this, Null Point. Just do what's best for the book. --Swift (talk) 22:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Splitting a larger book up into several non-overlapping smaller books is perfectly fine. In this case, it is a split and not a fork. A fork is when a book is copied in whole and allowed to develop along two completely different paths. Splits are acceptable and in some cases are actually recommended. I have a page here that explains the procedure if you're interested: User:Whiteknight/New Book Guide/Split. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The distinction you make is only valid on content moved or duplicated in project, even then there can be collisions with revisions, editions and rolling back those changes.
 * I've read you essay (or opinion piece) and it is very supportive of book splits, I don't have nothing against that view but on very specif contexts. Books that are abandoned or stalled or lack o cohesive prose/structure as was the case of Blender 3D: Noob to Pro. this is very common on Wikibooks by the sole fact on how books are supposed to evolve and the very small number of works that get a long term commitment from contributors, so it will indubitably ease contribution and "proper" evolution in those cases (the majority of works). On the other hand there is a number of very extensive works that have a very good structure and a committed group of editors (ie: Nanotechnology, Rhetoric and Composition, Radiation Oncology and a few others) that wouldn't be expected to improve by a split, your text doesn't mention the positive factors of keeping very close related material in a single work. As a rule of thumb I agree with the recommendation to start small and avoid red links but I am not convinced that creating stubs from other books from the start is a good thing, as example of a evolutions contrary to that you propose I point out the OOP book that was created from the evolution of the C++ Programming book there are other books that with time could evolve from that very large book, for example a book about UML or the Boost Libraries and others. If done as you propose those subjects would have less visibility and on my view have a lesser chance to evolve as separated entities from the start, or be merely irrelevant as stubs... --Panic (talk) 00:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I was mostly talking about books that have become too large and sprawling. Not all large books fall into this category, some books can become very large and yet still focused on a single core topic. I'll update my opinion pieces to be more clear in this regard. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright Question
Hello, Wikibooks community. I am new to Wikibooks, and I have a question which I can't seem to locate the answer to in the Wikibook "manual"; If you have acquired knowledge from a physical textbook in "real life" (i.e. you have read a textbook in a class that you have taken) and have used the information (that is general knowledge about the topic (In my particular case, I have learned about the topic of Pantomime acting in the Theater category and had gotten some information that I would like to share with the Wikibooks community from a physical textbook made for Theater students) to help expand an existing Wikibook, is it necessary to credit the original author/ publishers of said book on the page that you create? If so, how would One go about crediting someone for work done.

Contributer1919 (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It depends, if you intend in using someone else's content then you must request that the copyright holder(s) grants you the right to use that content under the GFDL+exceptions( with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts), this is the license we use here, or that it uses one compatible license. This is valid for class materials you haven't yourself created or are copies of material made available to you on that class (since the copyright notice isn't a requirement, it is safer to assume the copyright belongs to the school or the educator), in any case you are free to ask about the status of the material and if you can use it (best in writing). You can always adapt any work using your own words and structure, this is pretty easy to do in the type of books the project supports...
 * As to acknowledge or to credit someone else on the book, there isn't at present any strict rule you should fallow, it is normal to create a pages name "Authors", "Acknowledgments" or something on those lines and provide the information that the book is made available under our license. (Example: C++ Programming/Authors) --Panic (talk) 04:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Common Mistakes - Improve the Help Sections
After a quick discussion with Jomegat we thought it might be useful to note some of the common "mistakes" that new contributors seem to make, with the aim of being able to improve the Help sections. This discussion was on my talk page, but would be better here I think:

My thoughts on newcomer common mistakes:


 * Images. Typical mistakes include:
 * Assuming that content found on the internet on a "public" website is "public domain" - i.e., failing to comprehend that public domain is a specific legal status rather than a descriptive term.
 * Uploading images with the author as "self" on the presumption that the "author" refers to who uploaded it rather than the original creator
 * Not providing a proper source. For example, the source is described as "the internet" rather than the actual URL where the content was obtained
 * Not attaching a license tag
 * Attaching a license tag as if they are the author giving up rights rather than the license of the true author. For example, stating that they found it on a web site then attaching a CC attribution or GFDL license instead of the true license.
 * Thinking this is Wikipedia. Typical mistakes include:
 * Applying the WP manual of style. For example, converting headings from title case to sentence case
 * Wikilinking everything
 * Not piping links to WP so they appear as Wikipedia Link
 * Writing in an encyclopedic style instead of a book style. For example, slavishly applying the third person, not providing a book like introduction
 * Not thinking "book"
 * Most new "books" are actually a single page article with no possibility of expansion. Guidance along the lines of "search for the subject you are interested in, then add new content / pages / modules to the existing books. If no book on your subject exists, before starting a new book consider whether your subject is sufficient to fill a whole book. Try writing the table of contents first to get the structure right... blah blah" might be useful.

Jomegat then added "Another common "Image" error I see is that people tend to upload images here instead of at the Commons (when the Commons would have been a better place)"

Can I suggest we spend a while adding thoughts to the list then try and get consensus on where the Help should be expanded?

<font color="#E66C2C">Unusual? Quite <font color="#306754">TalkQu 08:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's a few more:
 * Starting a book but not following the Naming convention (therefore making each page seem like a different book).
 * You mentioned sourcing but particularly problematic is people claiming fair use of images without a source or a rationale for the fair use.
 * I'm not really sure how many newcomers know what the GFDL is and its implications are (i.e. anyone can use for commercial purposes as long as they attribute you and allow others to do the same), which they should before conributing. It may be worth explaining this.
 * Moving pages without changing the link to them (although this isn't a huge deal if we have a bot to deal with double redirects).
 * Listing substantial pages as speedy delete candidates instead of listing them on VFD.
 * I'm sure there's others that I'm missing. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 14:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure there's others that I'm missing. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 14:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello & Editor status
I just got a welcome message suggesting I come by and introduce myself. I have watched wikibooks for a long time, but until fairly recently I mostly contributed on Wikipedia. (So I read the above section with some interest.) But on a personal note I find this whole FlaggedRev's Editor status a bit discouraging. I have been working hard and looking forward to the point when I am automatically upgraded to an editor, which hasn't happend yet. I don't understand why because I think I should meet most of the criteria. This has specifically prevented me from helping with checking through wikijunior books. Also the criteria don't make a lot of sense to me. (Why require the account to be 30 days old if the number of edit intervals requires the account to be 42 days old?, etc.) Anyways I thought I would suggest the the current setup seems a bit too strict. It might scare away actual editors away. On a side note it seems a bad terminology to call the editors int he flagged revs extension editors. Anyone can edit, a few people can publish the changes, and the reviewers can review. I suggest publishers/reviewers, it fits with the whole book theme a bit better anyways.

On another separate random thought. I have noticed the the micro-graphic that appears on my Firefox tabs and in the url bar are the old logo and not the new one. Well, hope that was an interesting rant/introduction. Thenub314 (talk) 10:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Thenub314, and thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to put the reading rooms on your watchlist and join us in the discussions.
 * There is general agreement that the FlaggedRevs criteria are poorly set. The extension is fairly new and there is a discussion at Wikibooks talk:FlaggedRevs Extension about modifying the criteria.
 * The favicon is indeed out-dated and a bug has been filed. --Swift (talk) 03:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi New and need help
I am looking for an early period artist that drew a picture of a girl, could be charcoal, little girl was sitting on a big chair, as if she just got up there and had big eyes with a sad look in them, at least my interpretation. I need this for homework assignment. I don't have name of drawing or artist....sorry. I also may have joined the wrong group, which I apologise, but this is a bit confusing. Any help would be apreciated. Who better than those who know alot about books. Oh yeah, this came from an art book.

Mary Ann Carrasquillo


 * Hi Mary and welcome to Wikibooks,
 * I'm afraid we don't have a study help desk here at Wikibooks. You might want to have a look at Wikipedia:Reference desk. --Swift (talk) 18:37, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Is a classroom a public or private place
I was browsing through the upload log and came across File:840.jpg which displays an adult and several children in what appears to be a classroom. commons:Commons:Photographs of identifiable people forbids photographs of "identifiable people" in places "where the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy". Commons has stricter media policies than we do (no fair use or non-commercial over there). Does the privacy clause also apply to Wikiboooks, and is a classroom a "private place"? --Swift (talk) 08:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the answer to your question could depend on the school or on what laws apply. There could also be more to consider than just whether the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since the photo includes children, some places might require permission from the parents or guardian before a photograph can be taken and they might also have a say in how or for what purposes their children's photo can be used.
 * Commons is only stricter about fair use. No Wikimedia project is suppose to allow non-commercial use now due to a WMF resolution awhile ago. NC images or media would need to meet fair-use requirements to be used on Wikibooks. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  09:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, this seems thorny! Is the school public or private? (Should that matter?) Do students/parents realize that pictures of the students may end up posted on the internet? My opinion borders on unreasonably harsh (even to me), but my gut says that I would expect a reasonable amount of privacy when my daughter is at school.  I would not expect her to be photographed at school for the purposes of writing a book (commercial or otherwise).  Not to mention that the picture is being released into the public domain so it could be used in all sorts of way (commercial and artistic) that the parents of the children may never even have guessed.  I think the picture should probably go.  It is also my opinion that it is not so vital for the content that is written there. Thenub314 (talk) 09:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Schools generally don't allow the general public to come and go freely on school grounds (although the degree of security varies greatly), so, to my mind, the interior of a classroom clearly is not a public place; putting it another way, there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in a classroom. (This might be a somewhat tougher call if the picture were taken in an outdoor playground; in that case, I suppose, one might need to know more about the venue.)  --Pi zero (talk) 14:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Bad image source links
Some images form sites such as Flickr that have been uploaded to Wikibooks under acceptable licenses have bad/outdated links. Examples: File:Punishment2.jpg (links to here) and File:Corner.jpg (links to here). Now, the only thing that matters is that the image was free under that particular license when it was uploaded to Wikibooks. Even if the image is relicensed or taken off the source website, that doesn't change it's state here. The simple fact that the link goes dead is not enough to require us to deleted the image.

In the case of the two images mentioned above, however, they were both uploaded less than two weeks ago. The first link is rather evidently not a direct link, but the latter possibly a link to removed content. Does anyone have experience with this type of situation? --Swift (talk) 08:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The easiest thing to do is to try searching for them yourself. Like I found rather quickly the first and second image. Neither image can be used here. The first has all-rights reserved and the second image doesn't allow commercial use or derivatives to be made. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  09:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Rather than just clearing up the issue with these two, I'd be interested in the general case where the link is broken (or the license status has changed). Can we at some point do we just take the uploaders' word for it that things were OK in the past, or are we going to require uploaders to maintain sources and provide proof of past license status? --Swift (talk) 10:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well if other information is present I would say try your best to fix the link based on available information, otherwise delete the work. I doubt a past license status would stand up to a court challenge without some kind of proof if the copyright holder demanded people stopped using their work. For that reason I think either the uploader has to provide proof of past license status should the license status change, or else the work has to be deleted if the change in license becomes incompatible with Wikibooks' requirements. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  10:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Good point. I agree. --Swift (talk) 10:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

New to wikibooks authoring...
I was always been a reader.. Now i think i have some pretty good knowledge in a technical subject. I am glad to contribute to wikibooks.org

- Mahend


 * Hello Mahend, welcome to Wikibooks! What subjects do you want to write about? We have lots of books on lots of subjects already, and lots of subjects where no books have been written yet too. We always need more writers! Some points:
 * Sign your posts with the special code . This gives a link to your user page and also timestamps it.
 * If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them. You can ask here, or you can ask me on my talk page, or any other user on their talk pages.
 * Welcome to Wikibooks again, and happy editing! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I need a High School level Physics Textbook in SPANISH
Actually, I need all kinds of textbooks in the Spanish language. I'm finding it difficult to find them in paper, new, used, online, or anywhere. I would LOVE to see it as a Wikibook. SSCampbell


 * You should have a look at Spanish Wikibooks. All languages are available through the Wikibooks mulilingual portal. --Swift (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I am a bit confused again about the category/bookshelf/subject distinction. After editing a book I am interested in for a while today, I decided to take a break and categorize some uncategorized pages. So, for example, if I look at Algebra At the bottom I see a list of "Subjects". These subjects really seem to be categories. But is perhaps more confusing is the the actual subject page is not linked on this list (but the mathematics category is). So... am I missing something? Thenub314 (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact that you're confused means you're on the right track! ;-) The links down below are simple category links (like every categoriesed) page has. Modules, however, label these as "subjects" which gets confusing because we also have subject pages which are separate from categories.
 * This is one of the things that confused me as well and why I started the topic above where we discussed this to some extent. It would be nice if we could make this clearer. --Swift (talk) 06:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well I don't know who has such uber privileges, but clearly there is some way to configure the software. For example someone installed flagged revisions, and decided to call these "Modules" (and I often wonder why? why not sections, or chapters, or pages?  but I digress)  Can't we submit a bug asking to rename these categories as categories instead of subjects? Thenub314 (talk) 08:34, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe one or all of Whiteknight, Mike.lifeguard and darklama have access to the configuration but I have no idea how that is decided. Darklama stated before that he thinks renaming that system message "categories" would be a step back. In my opinion it would be a useful temporary solution. Perhaps more stories of people being confused by this might help bring about some change. :-) --Swift (talk) 09:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is time I go back and re-read that thread. I knew at the time there was something I was missing out on.  I agree that renaming the system message would seem to be the minimal temporary fix.  Why would this be a step back?  Thenub314 (talk) 10:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Ok, after re-reading the thread I think I understand a bit better. Clearly, what we want is an implementation that allows subjects instead of categories to appear at the bottom of the page. In the meantime, I think it doesn't help to have Categories appear as "Subjects" or to have an idea that "the intent is to have people think of categories in those two namespaces in terms of what subject(s) a book covers."

Here are my reasons. First being a wiki, we should hope all our readers are also editors and catalogers, etc. We don't want to assault readers with how the wiki works, but this seems to be a bit of misdirection. Secondly to take the example that I first noticed that confused me, Algebra, we are currently calling "Books to be merged" and "Algebra textbook pages" subjects. By no stretch of the imagination they are those concepts subjects. The links there are useful, shouldn't go away, but they are really categories and not subjects. Also when I click on Mathematics I am immediately confronted a bold "Category:Mathematics" and I think, "This isn't where I was trying to get to!" Until we find an implementation that doesn't list categories and list subjects, or something that lists both, we should change the bottom of the page to say "Categories:". Thenub314 (talk) 11:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Editorial Question
I have been autopromoted to editor and I am still getting used to the tools. I noticed that I do not seem to be able to give a rating of: Is there a reason for this? Thenub314 (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * composition:correct spelling and grammer
 * accuracy: acceptable
 * coverage: poor or unrated


 * Only that combination, or any of these?
 * By the way, which pages are you trying to review? There is some support for the view that Wikibookians shouldn't review their own work. I'm of the opinion that editors shouldn't be doing reviewing at all, and that be handled by people interested in reviewing other people's work. --Swift (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That particular combination, I haven't tried other combination where one of the choices is poor or unrated. In this case I was looking at Real analysis/Rational Numbers whose page title is a misnomer, I have done some small editing there, but I fell this particular rating applies to applies to many pages I look at, and I thought I would in some small way warn the reader this is so incomplete it borders on not making any sense.


 * I am also a bit squimish about reviewing my own work, but I am not sure how many other people are working on books I am interested. (My guess is very few to none) so sometimes I don't really see who else would do it. Thenub314 (talk) 08:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just tried on the new Revision review testbook (I think it'll be a candidate for featured by the end of the year ;-) ) and it seems that you can't rate a page if one of the criteria is at the lowest level. I'm not sure if this is a feature or a bug. --Swift (talk) 09:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose my comment would be, if this is a feature why provide us with the option of poor at all. Why not start off the reviewing process with simply the choice of acceptable?  I have some sympathy with the idea that if there is poor spelling/grammer, poor accuracy, poor coverage then perhaps we should fix it if we can.  But with a module this may take a lot of work, and we may just want to say what needs to be fixed.  I understand the images of 0-4 blocks also gives us a way to warn the reader about how rough a module/book is, but it seems tool could also give us a way to pass on more specific information.  Thenub314 (talk) 10:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Category:Freeware
Would it be possible to create a freeware category?

I looked around at
 * Computer science bookshelf, Category:Computer science, Category:Computing, Information technology bookshelf, Computer software bookshelf, etc..

I don't see much easy-to-use software that is free. Software for average people not working in the field. I see a lot of middleware, programming languages, server stuff, other advanced tools, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Did you try Category:Computer software or Category:Open source software? Categories are typically created after a book on a subject has been created rather than before. If there is something particularly you feel is missing you could start a book on it yourself, or make a request and see if anyone else might be interested in starting one. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  02:32, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I don't see much easy end-user stuff there in those categories either. Thanks for the link to make a request. It is almost impossible to navigate that page, though. The table of contents has been eliminated with wikicode.


 * How do people help out on a book that has only a "chapter" or page? I mean how do they find the "book" if it is only categorized after it is written? The organization here is unintuitive to new people here. I have thousands of edits on Wikipedia and the commons, but it does not seem to be helping me much in figuring out things here. Coming here is confusing even to experienced editors elsewhere. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I am interested in getting the ball rolling, though I may not be able to write much myself.


 * Of interest are these wikipedia categories, portals, and projects:
 * wikipedia:Category:Free software
 * wikipedia:Portal:Free software/categories
 * wikipedia:Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Free Software
 * wikipedia:Category:Freeware --Timeshifter (talk) 03:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a custom table of contents on that request page that will jump you to the right section instead. The table of contents begins with "Contents" and underneath it there are links like "Languages", "Science", "Humanities", etc.
 * I don't mean after a book has been fully written if that is what you thought I meant. If you were to create a category on any project, the category would be empty until there are pages to put in the category. I mean that before you create the category there should be books to go in it first, even if those books might only have one chapter or page right now. The organization here might be unintuitive because Wikibooks has to deal with organizing both books and pages, while projects like Wikipedia can be looked at as a single book, and because Wikibooks is undergoing some changes in its organization right now. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  04:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks again. If I am remembering correctly I believe I saw some pages that deal with some freeware. Can I start the category?


 * About the changes in organization Wikibooks is undergoing. I suggest focussing on categorizing pages better. For example; The GIMP/Saving has some great charts of image file formats. That page would help a lot more people if it were categorized under Category:Image formats, and not just Category:The GIMP.


 * People do not often read nonfiction how-to books in order by chapter. When I go to the library to get such books I get several books on related topics, and skip around all over in all the books to learn what I find interesting at the moment. Those interests change even as I am skipping around. Categorizing the individual pages in multiple categories acts like a detailed book index, and allows people to skip around, just as at Wikipedia.


 * The books also have a more general organization called tables of contents. But the real action for most people is the index at the back of a book. In Wikipedia the equivalent is the category system. This is now intuitive for most people coming here from Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Navlist
I'm hoping for a bit of community feedback on a package/family of templates I've been developing. (This didn't seem to belong at the projects reading room, because it isn't meant to be restricted to any one book.)

Following up on an (offhand?) remark a while back that it would be great if navboxes were dynamic, the package allows the table of contents for a book to be kept on just one dedicated page (with a specific, but hopefully manageable, format), from which templates can be used to automatically generate the TOC for the book and top- and bottom-navboxes for each content module. For lack of a better name I've been calling the one dedicated page a "navlist". Change the navlist, and the book's TOC and module navboxes are all automatically updated. I'm actually using the package for the Conlang book.

For example &mdash; Do people think this might be useful? (Has someone already done this?) Are there particular kinds of features, or changes of technique, that would make it more useful? (There's a list on the documentation talk page of upgrades I already have in mind.) --Pi zero (talk) 15:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've actually been contemplating doing something similar myself with javascript so that navigation boxes wouldn't have to be placed on every page. Just change one page in a book interpreted as a TOC and have navigational boxes added automatically to ever page listed using javascript. Ultimately I was thinking down the road if people liked the javascript navigation of trying to make a mediawiki extension to do it instead. I am a bit curious how you would do this using only templates though. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:14, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes, whereas I tend to think of javascript as an 'extra' feature that everything should function properly without; I normally operate with javascript turned off myself (to minimize tracking and malware), only turning it on when I really want to use a site that refuses to work without it (and then I grumble about sites that aren't designed to degrade gracefully). My package only uses  at the top of each module and  at the bottom, with no need for parameters on either &mdash; and both of those transclude, so that hopefully they'd be the only such administrative markup needed on the modules.


 * This is a fairly vigorous exercise in templating (though I won't claim templates can't be stretched further &mdash; I've gotten from this a pretty deep respect for the versatility of the template facility). Each module entry on the navlist page is actually itself a template call to a template whose name is the null-named parameter, i.e.  .  The client templates like Navlist/Top, etc., call the navlist as a template, providing a null-named parameter that is the name of a template to call for each module; for example, to generate the TOC for the Conlang book, the Navlist/Contents template would call that book's navlist providing Navlist/Map/Contents as the null-named parameter:   .  --Pi zero (talk) 16:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nice. Would it be possible to create a print version of a book automatically from the Navlist page? --Martin Kraus (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That's one I'd overlooked. Ought to be a natural (unless there's something about print versions I'm missing).  --Pi zero (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

technologies for rural development building houses
i would like to know more about the new rural technologies for making a enviormental project in foot hills of himalayas. its an eco tourism project. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jitendraa gupta (discuss • contribs) 20:16, 8 February 2009


 * Welcome to Wikibooks, Jitendraa gupta. Feel free to search for it here, but that's a pretty specific subject and you haven't given us much to begin with. Hope you find it. --Swift (talk) 13:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Language Courses Need Some Fixing
Wikibooks really needs to start working on its language courses; some are only 5 lessons long! How are you supposed to learn a language in that manner?

A few courses need to be completely rewritten from the ground up, such as Dutch and Mandarin. In Dutch, for some reason, a lot of the definitions are in Farsi and the Mandarin course is just unorganized. Some courses have a title page, others don't.

Furthermore, the curriculum for the languages should be similar. Of course, grammar would need to be adapted per language. It would be pointless to mention the accusative case in the Mandarin course, while it is absolutely necessary in Greek and German.

All native speakers should pitch in as well to make audio files to accompany the lessons.

Abandon the vocabulary lists. Vocabulary can't be properly learned like a phone book.

The Catalan course is a great example of good planning - the lessons are already planned out in a manner that builds upon itself to achieve proficiency in the language. Now all we need is implementation :)

I am currently working on a separate, fully-featured Brazilian Portuguese course that I will later implement in Wikibooks.

Theunixgeek (talk) 14:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that the language books are in disarray. That said, Wikibooks is a forum for collaboration of authoring educational textbooks. It would be great if we could attract more contributors to this area, but we haven't in the past.
 * It is neither productive, nor realistic to place a a requirement on curriculum. Not only can each book differ in terms of how the languages differ, books with differen approaches on a single language can also exist. There are, I believe, more than one book for both Spanish and German.
 * See Authoring Foreign Language Textbooks for a book (in progress) with thoughts on this. It is currently piecework of old single-page books on the subjects and would benefit from more thoughts on the subject.
 * It would be great to get native speakers to pitch in, but this is naturally English Wikibooks and most people here are English speakers. I've considered putting out requests for help on our language books. Just as how most Wikibookians on en: are pretty busy with their own little corner of Wikibooks, I'm not too hopeful that there would be too many takers.
 * Please feel free to put whatever you have up at Wikibooks and work on it here. You might even get collaborators that way. --Swift (talk) 15:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree the language books need a lot of work. I think the current approach for most of the languages books is more suitable for Wikiversity because the focus seems to be on teaching the language through short lessons, rather than intended as an in depth guides to learning languages. I think the language books need to be redesigned to build knowledge from one page to the next and with a more chapter-ordinated approach in mind. Maybe this could be partially done by using more descriptive pages than Lesson 1, Lesson 2, etc. I think a lot more elements need to be in English as well, like link names, section names, etc. as well. I only know English so these criticisms is more from a usability perspective. I would probably never use any of the language books as books in there current form because they don't seem like books to me. I doubt I would use them to learn another language because I think the use of another language right away in different elements of books would turn me off as being too advanced for me. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:54, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm looking very much forward to your fully-featured Brazilian Portuguese course! :) With regard to the existing courses, the typical pattern is: a new wikibookian comes and sees the bad state in which the language books are; the new wikibookian starts to change bits and pieces; the new wikibookian realizes that this is far too much work for a single person; the new wikibookian gives up, leaving the language books in an even worse state than before. This has happened before; thus, please don't work on multiple language books at the same time but improve (or create) one after another. Thanks! --Martin Kraus (talk) 17:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikimania 2009
Wikimania 2009, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from August 26-28 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For more information, check the official Call for Participation.  Cbrown1023  <font color="#002bb8">talk  18:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikibook to PDF
I'm planning to convert a few Wikibooks to PDF soon. What was used to convert the Spanish and Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Wikibooks into PDFs? The formatting is practically identical. Theunixgeek (talk) 17:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Apparently, the PDFs were generated with OpenOffice, specifically this template. I have no experience with this process though. --Martin Kraus (talk) 08:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Navigation Question
I submitted a number of changes to various items. When I logged in again I was presented with a new message prompt. How do you view these messages? MacNala (talk) 19:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * These are on your talk page (User talk:MacNala). Oh, and I moved a previous question of yours to a more fitting reading room. Please ask for assistance in the assistance reading room. This one is for general discussion. --Swift (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Why we pass String Arguments in main method
Dear all,

Why we always pass string arguments in main method during java invocation, why we not pass Interger or other objects ! Could u please give me detail


 * Welcome to wikibooks. We do not have a place here designed to answer specific questions on some topic.  You may want to try asking your question at Wikipedia's computing reference desk.  Don't forget to "sign" your posts by typing ~ Thenub314 (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Muggles' Guide PDF
A while back we tried to get a PDF version of our book created but things didn't work out due to the sheer size of our book since no tool I came across could process a book so large. Would anyone care to share some ideas on how to accomplish this and can maybe someone help? We'd really like to get this done. If you could, please leave your ideas on my talk page. Thanks. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus 00:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That is one of the things that the collection extension is for. See Collections/Muggles' Guide to Harry_Potter. I've put a bit of a dent into starting it. The load collection link will let you load the collection so you can add more pages, and the PDF link will presumably generate a PDF out of all the pages that are part of the collection. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  02:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a limit on size (I think it's a number of pages - 500?) - you may have to do a separate one for each chapter or something. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 02:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think your thinking of the size limit for printing the book through the publishing company, which is 800 pages. I passed 500 pages for sure with the PDF version for Muggle's Guide. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  03:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

How do I update the description page on an image
I received an email that my image is missing copyright information. My BAD! I did not understand how to fill out the page properly and didn't get the info on the download. The image is from a government website and is public domain. I just can't figure out how to "update the description" page, as directed in the message, for the image. I had a heck of a time just figuring out how to get to the image (went thru my contributions list). Any guidance you can give me would be very much appreciated. Cjohn144 (talk) 14:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just hit the "edit" tab to edit it like any other page :-). See Help:Uploading Images for more details. I just updated that page today. Please let us know if there is anything that's particularly unclear about the whole process. --Swift (talk) 16:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Haskell :: Functional Programming with Types
Is there anyone actively editing this Wikibook? --MacNala (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As you can see from the recent changes there doesn't seem to be anyone really working actively on it, no. The book talk page would be a better place to inquire about that since not all Wikibookians seem to actively monitor the reading rooms. --Swift (talk) 16:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

"POST request failed"
When I try to export a collection to PDF (stored collection -> load collection -> PDF download), I get a message saying "The POST request to http://pdf1.wikimedia.org:8080/mw-serve/ failed (Empty reply from server)."; is this a bug, or is it my mistake ? - Erik Baas (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's doing it for me as well, in both Firefox and IE. So either a bug or, more likely, a problem with the server. Will see if I can find out what's wrong. <font color="#E66C2C">Unusual? Quite <font color="#306754">TalkQu 22:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's working again now, thanks. :-) - Erik Baas (talk) 12:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)