Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2009/May

Original Research
Y'know, I'm struggling a bit with defining "original" research. For example, I've got this idea that I think would be a value Wikibooks project in the Religion section. A pre-set list of questions for Protestant Clergy....about their personal doctrines, backgrounds, etc. .....I think this could have value here. The hitch, though, would be that I (or any other contributor) could not do a'lot of editorializing about the respondents' answers.....we couldn't really draw conclusions or do any armchair psycho-analyzing about why the Episcopal priest believes this thing whereas the Pentecostal pastor believes that thing.....that would really kind of be "research". The interviewers would take the questions to the clergymen, ask them, record their answers, then publish them here....maybe more like journalism really. How would the original research policy factor in on something like that??Buddpaul (talk) 04:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No worries, Buddapaul. The community has struggled a lot with these, too. Currently, my understanding of community consensus is that we allow content that is verifiable.
 * I'm afraid that this book would suffer from several flaws. Firstly, choosing the right number of questions would be extremely difficult, and adding questions would require tracking the former interviewees down to ask them the newer questions. Secondly, choosing the interviewees would similarly be difficult. The main problem I see with this idea is that, as you noted, drawing any conclusions would be extremely difficult and, in my opinion, over the original research line and makes this the wrong venue for an otherwise interesting resource.
 * If you're interested in this resource, I would try to contact a church, or some umbrella group that could help you set up a project with a database of questions. That would also allow you to set up features like comments, tags, searches and various other things which the wiki simply isn't designed to do. There you would also find more people to collaborate with; both in developing a good set of questions. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. --Swift (talk) 18:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikiversity accepts totally original researches subject to its policy, such as very original opinions not found elsewhere.--Jusjih (talk) 01:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Can't seem to import
I tried importing a couple of pages (Simone de Beauvoir and Susan Brownell Anthony) as requested on WB:RFI, but always got the error "Import failed: Could not open import file". Anyone know what that's all about? I tried importing Bracket as well but, again, without luck. --Swift (talk) 17:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. There are bugs in the import code.  The failure typically manifests itself when the article has a long history.  I have found that if you uncheck the "Copy all history versions for this page" box, it will come right over, minus the edit history :-(  If you want the edit history (or why import?), you can keep trying.  I don't fully understand everything that goes on under the hood, but I have at times attempted an import a hundred times, succeeding on the last attempt.  I have found that success is more likely if I uncheck the box, do the import (no history), then check the box and reimport.  Good luck. --Jomegat (talk) 15:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Using templates to store variables
Hi,

A slightly complicated query.

I'm writing a wikibook and want to be able to use a particular word multiple times in multiple pages (it is a parameter value for a template, currently the word "text"). However, I'm hoping to be able to store this word in a single place, so that if necessary, I can change it simultaneously on all the pages at once (this is because I'm hoping that wikibooks will, in the future, implement syntax highlighting of a particular computer language).

I thought the easiest way to do this was to store the word "text" on its own on a single page. I then transcluded this page, rather than using the word itself, whenever necessary. Effectively, I was using the page as a variable to store a single value ("text") to which I could refer on other pages.

However, my one-word page has just been deleted because it has "no meaningful content". I could reinstate it, but before doing so, is there a better way to do this?

Cheers HYanWong (talk) 14:46, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Instead of a normal page, you should probably use a template page with a comment that explains the purpose of the page. (Use ... to make sure that the comment is not included.) --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikibooks already supports syntax highlighting, no need to wait. Example: . --dark  lama  16:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving image to Commons
Is it possible to move image to the Commons? I want to use that image in a portuguese book page, but I think re-uploading it is too rude (and space-consuming). Albmont (talk) 12:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. Please see Help:Uploading files. --Swift (talk) 14:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I guess I did it right - at least it appeared in Portuguese. Albmont (talk) 19:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * And I've deleted the local copy here. All looks good. Good job. --Swift (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Leviathan
New here, though an old hand on Wikipedia. I've been working on a modern-language version of Thomas Hobbes' 1651 book Leviathan. I'd like to post it here so that I can annotate it. I've formatted it so that every change from the original appears in red.

Is that something that would be useful here? And is it possible/useful to set it up so that the red words appear in red? --TheEditrix2 (talk) 15:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm sure people will find a modern-language version of the book with annotations useful. Perhaps someone studying language literature where that book is required reading. Besides WB:AT there is no other requirements for what to do for annotated texts. You are free to use whatever style you want, just try to be consistent with the style you choose to adapt. Depending to what extend you plan to develop the text you may also need to be careful to avoid WB:OR because Wikibooks is not for original works of fiction or for original research. You may also want to see about putting the original version up on Wikisource as well, if its not there already. --dark lama  16:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Put citation information at end of book?
I hope this questions has not been asked before, but given its relevance, I suspect I am wrong. Is there any way to cite a reference on one page and put the citation information on a separate page? I don't see how to do this with the Cite extension. In more detail, I would like to break up a book into pages (using a combination of a tree organization and a linear organization) and collect all of the references in the text at the end of the book in a References page. This means the reference number on multiples pages would have to correspond to the number of the citation given on the citations page. Also, is there a way to keep references and notes (i.e., non-citation parenthetical comments that go either at the end of a page or at the end of a book) separate? Dnessett (talk) 16:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The citation extension isn't used much because of its limitations. Wikibooks focuses more on providing citations or references for books as a whole, rather than for individual sentences or paragraphs like Wikipedia does, so there isn't as much need to preserve reference numbers or to even use them. Usually references are for dead-tree books or other reliable resources that cover the same subject material as the book itself. Like a math book that covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division would likely include the name, author, ISDN number and a link for math books that also covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division rather than embedding citations throughout the book and citing websites for addition, other websites for subtraction, yet other websites for multiplication and further ones for division. IOWs references tend to be more general rather than specific. --dark lama  17:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. While I understand your reasoning, it doesn't really answer my question. Some books simply provide a bibliography at the end of the book without embedded references to the listed texts. Others provide references within the text. I suppose the approach depends somewhat on the level of the material covered in the book and the book's intended audience. For beginner books the bibliography approach seems prevalent, while for books on more advanced topics or ones intended for an audience who is familiar with the basic concepts but seek advanced treatment, embedded references are common. I agree that the Cite extension doesn't really work well for books (even though that extension is available on wikibooks). I was just wondering if there were ways of citing references in the text and gathering all of the citation information in a References section. Dnessett (talk) 00:36, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No there is no automated way to gather all citations from the book and list them on a reference page. --dark lama  01:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In the print version of the book ( Help:Print versions ), the Cite extension ( Help:Editing, Mediawiki: Extension:Cite/Cite.php ) can automatically gather all the citations from the Wikibook and list them all in a References section at the end of the book. Cite individual paragraphs in the Wikibook using the  tags wrapped around the reference to that other source, as normal. Put the reflist template where you want all the references in one major References section. Wrap any other minor references section, including their reflist template or   tag, with.


 * Another way to put references on a References page is to put each reference in its own "section" in the References page, and have the relevant paragraph in the Wikibook link to it using a "section anchor" (#) such as  which appears as  Chapayev1919 or  Chapayev1919.
 * --DavidCary (talk) 14:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Those are some good ideas for working around it. You could also use  if you wanted to still be able to include the references on other pages but not on any print page. You could also avoid having to create sections for every reference by using   while still allowing browsers to jump to a specific reference. --dark  lama  15:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for everyone's help. Dnessett (talk) 15:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There may be something wrong with the currently installed Wikibooks Cite Extension
I am trying to figure out a way to use the Cite Extension to build a book References section (see Previous question for some history). It seems to me the obvious way to go about this is to design a template that uses  on all but the main namespace. Wikibooks is not. So, using the Cite extension on Wikibooks does not behave as the extension does on Wikipedia. However, the good news is the developer made a suggestion how to use the Cite extension in a way that works better for books. I am in the process of testing the suggestion (there is still one problem). If I get it working, I will announce it in the appropriate place. Dnessett (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

#tag magic word doesn't seem to work with Cite extension references tag
I am attempting to write a template with a parameter GROUP that evaluates to, which results in the error I mentioned before: "Cite error: Invalid tag; no input is allowed. Use ". (Try it yourself. Save "" in a sandbox, say Sandbox1. Then past into Sandbox2 "".) I think the problem is the Cite extension does not allow the use of the pair. It only allows. Similarly, the #tag magic word does not support inserting parameters into <.../> tags Dnessett (talk) 14:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well than the order must matter, try . --dark  lama  15:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't work either. You second suggestion returns" Invalid tag; parameter "group" is allowed only. Use, or  . As I stated in my last comment, #tag doesn't appear to work with <.../> tags. Try it. Dnessett (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I did try it and it worked for me. You must still be doing something else wrong, that you haven't mentioned. --dark lama  15:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly what I did. I pasted into one of my Sandboxes  First Sandbox and saved it. I then pasted into another Sandbox,  Second Sandbox and previewed it. On the save to First Sandbox, I get the error message "Invalid tag; parameter "group" is allowed only. Use, or ". When I previewed my Second Sandbox, I get the same error message. I have left these two Sandboxes alone. You can see for yourself. Dnessett (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Names are case sensitive, you need to replace GROUP= with group=. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Dnessett (talk) 17:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

How to use Per-Book Gadget
I need to provide a per-book stylesheet containing 2 css style tags for a template that I am writing (which in turn is for a book I am writing - if I ever get back to that). There appears to be a gadget called "per-book" that is available on wikibooks. However, there is no documentation on how to use it. Whiteknight provided a documentation page back in 2007, but never put anything on it. Can anyone tell me how to use this gadget and whether it is appropriate for downloading a per-book stylesheet? Dnessett (talk) 19:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The per book gadget uses pages named <tt>MediaWiki:Perbook/ .css</tt> and <tt>MediaWiki:Perbook/ .js</tt>. You will need to ask an administrator to add any styles or javascript you want to use for a book. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  19:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. There is also a Personal Per-Book gadget. Does that require an administrator to add styles for my own use? I don't want to get into site-wide configuration just yet, because I am still developing the template and the stylesheet could change. Right now I just need something I can use for development. Dnessett (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No it doesn't. It uses <tt>User: /per_book/ .css</tt> and <tt>User: /per_book/ .js</tt>. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Once again, thanks for the help. Dnessett (talk) 23:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed new global policy: Biographies of living people
There is a proposal for a new global policy regarding biographies of living people. Comments, suggestions, and other input are welcome at m:Talk:Biographies of living people. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In general I don't think this issue applies much to Wikibooks, but we do have some books where such a policy would be important. See, for instance, US History that cover up to and including current events and current government officials. I do suggest Wikibookians take a look at this policy, just to make sure that our needs are met. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 12:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Right now it may seem to not be an issue that applies to Wikibooks, but biographies of living people are certainly within Wikibooks' scope. Depending on ones interpretation and on the outcome, Wikibooks could potentially need to start citing references for and include reference numbers for each statement in order to ensure compliance with the proposal. The proposal had said that "unsourced statements must be removed immediately", until I changed it to "anything that doesn't have a reliable source must be removed immediately", and it may get changed again. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  12:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Science Prize for Online Resources in Education
Hi all. I just got an e-mail about this and thought Wikibooks people might be interested. I'm not sure if it would be better to nominate Wikibooks as a whole, or just some specific science books. the wub "?!"  19:41, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Zip files
For exercise solutions, i want to upload zips with files per exercise. Is zip an allowed file type? The upload page specifies png, gif, jpg, jpeg, xcf, pdf, mid, ogg, ogv, svg, djvu, oga, but none of them looks like an archive where i can combine several html, css and javascript pages in 1 file. Of course, if zip is not an open fileformat, a format with the same functionality is an acceptable solution to me, as long as i can combine files and preferably maintain relative paths between them. TeunSpaans (talk) 14:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Those type of exercises shouldn't be uploaded as separate files. Just add exercises within the book. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your quick reply. I don't think that is a good solution for these exercises. TeunSpaans (talk) 17:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You can't upload zip (or other archive types) since that would be a massive security risk. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 17:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Zip files yes, maybe, gz archives: i dont see that risk. But both may be lack of knowledge on my side. TeunSpaans (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Archives allow you to upload any arbitrary file. That's a very large security risk. This applies to zip, tarballs, in fact any arvhive like that. Wikitech-l has excellent discussions about these and related issues if you're interested in learning the details. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 17:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand this. The book I was working on is about javascript. Good practice is to separate html and javascript file. Good exercise answers shoudl reflect sound programming practices, with stylesheets, html sheets and javascript files in different directories. As the limitations here prevent delivering quality, I will stop working on this book. I don't want to compromise on quality. I wish you good luck. TeunSpaans (talk) 18:05, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with putting the js on a wiki page? That also lets others edit it easily, which is the whole point of using a wiki. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 13:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean other than the fact that he would have to manually copy the files, since he can't upload them, and that would add more errors, which he couldn't debug because he couldn't run the files?--Graeme E. Smith (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * He can cut&paste, without risking to add errors (cut from a text editor, and paste in the Web browser). --Carlo.milanesi (talk) 23:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * way too cumbersome, certainly for a person who is erring in just the aspect of relative file locations. Elementary principle: KIS=Keep It Simple. TeunSpaans (talk) 22:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Name of personal per-book stylesheet page
To save wiki foundation server cycles, I am doing my development on a personal wiki. When I have something worth publishing, I will upload it to Wikibooks. Right now I am trying to get the personal per-book gadget to upload a stylesheet for an example I have created for a template I am developing. I have installed the per-book and personal per-book gadgets on my personal wiki and now need to figure out where to put the stylesheet. Following the instructions in How to use Per-Book Gadget, I attempted to create a page for the stylesheet. My username is User:Dnessett. Under it, I created a per_book page and now need to create a .css page. The "book" is actually a set of examples for the template located in the subtree structure under User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/Examples. So, the personal per-book stylesheet should be named: User:Dnessett/per book/User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/Examples.css. However, when I attempted to create this page, I received the warning: "Warning: There is no skin "Examples". Remember that custom .css and .js pages use a lowercase title, e.g. User:Foo/monobook.css as opposed to User:Foo/Monobook.css." This suggests I should create the page User:Dnessett/per book/User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/examples.css. However, before doing this, I thought it best to ask: 1) is the page name of the top level page in the book>; and 2) if so, and the first letter in is capitalized, should I use a lower-case or upper case letter in the name of the stylesheet page. In other words, should I ignore the warning and use .../Examples.css or pay attention to the warning and use .../examples.css (I could just try things out, but that has a tendency to create a bunch of pages that I then have to go back and delete). Dnessett (talk) 17:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You should ignore the warning. Yes is the name of the top level page in the book. If you were trying to customize a book named "Example" which had pages named Example/Page_1 and Example/Page_2, you would use User:Dnessett/per_book/Example.css to effect the styles for Example, Example/Page_1 and Example/Page_2. You should use uppercase for the first character of the book name, casing matters here too. I don't think the gadget really works well with books in the userspace. I think it would be looking for User:Dnessett/per_book/User:Dnessett.css as the name of the book rather than for User:Dnessett/Book/. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  18:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I will play around and see if I can get it to work some way. I will report back my experience Dnessett (talk) 18:33, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't look like anything works. I tried: 1) User:Dnessett/per book/User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/Examples.css, 2) User:Dnessett/per book/User:Dnessett.css, and even 3) User:Dnessett/per book/User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/examples.css. When I rendered User:Dnessett/Template/Bref/Examples/Example1/References and viewed the HTML source, none of the style tags in the .css pages showed up. Is there any way to see what is happening (i.e., some way to see what the personal per-book gadget is doing)? By the way, in case you are wondering, I have enabled both personal per-book and per-book gadgets in my preferences. Dnessett (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Are you doing this under a different name or on a different wiki? I tried looking at your contribution history to see what your doing and I see no edits anywhere in User:Dnessett/ and I tried looking at the deletion log and there hasn't been any pages deleted either. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I am experimenting on my personal wiki. This gives me the freedom to try out things that require administrative privileges and also doesn't clutter up the wikibooks site with extraneous litter. Dnessett (talk) 22:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In that case, you need to have the Gadgets Extension installed and you will need to copy over the mediawiki messages used. The only reason I can think of for why its not working is because you didn't copy everything that's needed by the per-book gadget. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  10:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I have installed the Gadgets extension, but I am not familiar with mediawiki messages. Could you explain (or point me to an explanation) of what I need to copy, where I can find the messages I need and to where I need to copy them? Dnessett (talk) 14:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You need to copy MediaWiki:Gadget-Perbook, MediaWiki:Gadget-Perbook.js, MediaWiki:Gadget-Personalper, MediaWiki:Gadget-Personalper.js, MediaWiki:Gadget-predef.js, and the related lines from MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition to your wiki under the same names. If you have done everything right you should be able to select the per-book gadgets from the Gadgets tab in your preferences. You will than have to enable it before you will see any effects of the gadget. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I did everything you specified when I installed the Gadget extension (BTW, are these files somehow identified as mediawiki messages?). I have also enabled both per-book and personal per-book gadgets in my preferences. The HTML produced by the wiki markup still does not contain the style tags I defined. Some questions: I have not defined a personal per-book .js page, since I don't use it - should I create an empty .js file?; 2) Even though the template isn't fully tested, I could copy it and the examples of its use to Wikibooks and let you take a look. Would doing so be presumptuous, i.e., incorrectly assuming you have the time to look it over? Dnessett (talk) 15:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Update: Figured out the problem. I had to enable user stylesheets on my local wiki. That is, I had to add: $wgAllowUserCss = true; to the wiki's LocalSettings.php. Dnessett (talk) 17:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Want to hide answers to questions
Hi, i made a wikibook for the conlang unlingvae, and i want to know how to make one of those boxes with an option to show or hide content. I need to hide the answers on a unit test. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Secondguess (talk • contribs) 21:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, Secondguess. You'll find these in Category:Drop Control Templates. --Swift (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added to this category, which is a quite popular template for this purpose in language learning books. --Martin Kraus (talk) 08:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if this is a bug or I misunderstand something
I am trying to use a switch statement in a template. At the beginning of the template is an HTML comment. If there is a line break between the comment and the switch reserved word, the template dumps a line break into the transcluded text. I illustrate this as follows. Put the following text into a sandbox (say Sandbox 1) and save the page;

Now transclude this sandbox text into a header. e.g.

==Header ==

The

}}

everything works fine. For some reason the parser is throwing a line break between the comment and the switch statement if they appear on consecutive lines. Is this defined behavior? If so, is there a way to work around it (other than the obvious tactics of placing the switch on the same line as the comment or putting the comment at the end of the template)? Dnessett (talk) 22:27, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This is definitely a bug. After some more testing, it is apparent that there is a bug in the mediawiki template processing logic. A detailed description of the problem is given in the bug report - 18994. Dnessett (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikibooks cleanup
I am mildly concerned about the current condition of Wikibooks. Don't get me wrong, this is not criticism. Rather, I am seeking specific policies and rules so that I can begin improving the situation.


 * 1) Sentence case vs. title case
 * 2) * I have yet to see a definite consensus. I'm under the impression that books and their cats. use title, and subjects use sentence.  Personally, the entire idea of case-sensitivity irks me, but here's my question:  is it policy?  It seems to me that every page kinda has its own style.
 * 3) Bookshelves
 * 4) * I don't know exactly where, but I thought I saw something saying that bookshelves are deprecated, use subjects instead. Why are they still here?  Can't we delete them, or at least remove all links to them?  Also, what is a department?  It looks like a bunch of bookshelves to me.
 * 5) Naming convention
 * 6) * Should colons be eliminated from names? If so, why don't the old names get deleted?
 * 7) Subject pages
 * 8) * Why exactly is there a difference between subjects and categories? Is there a difference between putting  and Category:Chemistry at the bottom of a book?  I'm under the impression that every book must be categorized/subject'd and all subpages go in the book's unique category.  The whole Subjects system seems a little messy to me.
 * 9) * Of particular concern to me are Subject:Mathematics and Subject:Programming/Subject:Programming language. These pages will show you a glimpse of my confusion.  Aside from the casing/naming issues, I show you these pages because I think anyone would have a really hard time finding the book they want from these subject pages.
 * 10) * There are many books (stubs, mostly) for tests. For instance, IB Chemistry and AP Chemistry.  Should they go under Subject:Standard Curricula or Subject:Chemistry or both?
 * 11) * Why is there Subject:Literature and Subject:Language and literature?
 * 12) * Let's say there is a book called Forth Programming. Should it go under Subject:Programming, Subject:Computer science, Subject:Programming language, Subject:Interpreted language, or some combination of these?  Also, what if, eventually, there are several books written about Forth, just like we have now for C++.  Would we have to create Subject:Forth, and recategorize all related books?
 * 13) * Another example: Should I put Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian under a new subject page Subject:Scandinavian languages, or just leave it in the European languages subject?
 * 14) Featured books
 * 15) * Zine making or maybe Zine Making is a featured book. Yet, I have never seen it on the front page, or on the featured book page.  Did it's author lie about the featured book status, or is Zine Making out of sight for a reason?
 * 16) * High School Mathematics Extensions. Take a peek.  It's very disorganized, somewhat incomplete, inconsistent in style and organization, etc. etc. etc.  Also, it violates naming convention.  Several subpages are directly in the main namespace, starting with HSE in the title, no slashes or hierarchy.  I think I saw colons in a few page names, but maybe it was a different book.
 * 17) ** I haven't "been bold" and fixed it because of my above question: does the old, NC-violating page get deleted?

The list goes on. These aren't really specific concerns, but rather an expression of my general confusion towards the organization of the entire project.

Whew, that's a lot! Again, I'm not criticizing. These are all issues that I would be happy to take on. The problem is that I don't know what the actual rules are. I'm clueless. So, I would appreciate some concrete policies so that I can begin. I don't want to, for example, recategorize a hundred pages only to discover that I did it wrong and made a mess and wasted my time. <font color="#000090">Mr. NMC (<font color="#000090">talk ) 22:59, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * On #1: It would seem that official policy is title case, or at least that's what I took away when I consulted Naming_policy. I won't speak to community consensus, though.  On #4: I've been trying to eliminate all pages in Special:UncategorizedPages and the difference I see between  and  is that the former puts the book into a category of its own name and the names to the right of the pipe are additional categories it will be filed in.  Using the former I would see "Subjects: BookNameAsCategoryName | Blah" at the bottom of the page which link to  and  .  That's just the Subject template versus the Category namespace.  Looking at the Subject namespace versus the Category namespace, your point that Subject:Chemistry and Category:Chemistry are different was a surprise to me until I looked into things further.  I was thinking Subject was a pseudonym for Category, like File and Image because of the label that shows up on the bottom of a page that has been filed into a category.  But I see that they are indeed different.  Looking at the code, adding a page to  will get it to show up on the Subject page under Chemistry books.  Any pages in  and  show up in the respective section on the right of the Subject page.  Same with books in  and  .  On Card_Catalog_Office there are options to browse by Subject and browse by Category.  Browsing by Subject presents the user with a prettier layout, yet the pages listed on a Subject page are not in alphabetical order, yet those on a Category page are.  Those on a Category page are in alphabetical order, but you can't see which have printed and PDF versions and which are featured books.  Don't know if I added to the confusion or cleared things up, but that's my take as a newer user of Wikibooks. Adrignola (talk) 00:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply (and your efforts to help). I was once going to try categorizing the Special:UncategorizedPages, but this underlines my concern.  What if, Adrignola, you spend hours and hours categorizing hundreds of pages.  Then, we decide that some categories need their names changed to/from title case.  Now you just wasted all of that effort because many pages will need recategorization.  That's why I haven't done much to help clean up.  I'm waiting for official decisions to determine exactly how things should be done.  Then, we can be confident that our efforts won't be wasted.


 * Also, what if you categorize books one way, and I categorize another. Then Wikibooks will be inconsistent.  So, I'm looking for a "plan of attack" that everyone can agree on before I spend too much time on stuff like this.  <font color="#000090">Mr. NMC (<font color="#000090">talk ) 00:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Having a consistent categorization scheme that has community consensus would be nice. I think people do end up often times working against each other when categorizing pages. If you look at Wikibooks talk:Categories you can see that there has even been issues in the past on whether Wikibooks should even require that pages be categorized. However I think most people do agree that categorizing pages and books is helpful. From time to time this discussion comes up. From time to time I try to work on Categories to make it better in hopes addressing specific issues and in hopes that eventually there will be something people can agree too. I think it does a good job of explaining what the general idea is. There are still some things like what the casing should be for categories, should categories use singular or plural case, etc. In an ideal world books would use more descriptive names and there wouldn't be any conflict with subject names, but often times books simply use the name of the subject. I think using sentence case for categories is a good way to avoid conflict with book categories in most cases. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  01:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right about the waste it would be to categorize incorrectly. I'll stick to only putting subpages that are in Special:UncategorizedPages into categories equal to their book name until this is figured out.  I did further analysis of your points to come to that decision and I'll share my thoughts below.
 * #1: I see that the contents of the Subjects pages borrow from a category coded into them. Along the lines of your comments on casing, I see that Subject:Fine Arts draws content from Category:Fine arts.  I see on Subject_talk:Major Subjects that there is debate on the casing that seems to lean toward sentence case for categories/subjects (yet Subject:Major Subjects is title case...).  It would be nice, in my mind, if whatever is decided on, the categories and subjects match each others' case.
 * #2: You're right about the bookshelves. All bookshelves (among others) redirects to Departments.  Browsing by subject, category, Dewey Decimal, and Library of Congress all appear on Card Catalog Office, but no browsing by bookshelf.  It would appear that bookshelves are no longer used.
 * #4: Trying to decipher the organization I found, for example, that Category:Languages goes like this: Main page > Wikibooks > Books by subject > Languages. On the other hand, Category:Humanities goes like this: Main page > Humanities.  Yet both are on the same level in Subject:Major Subjects.  There is no clear root level.  To take another example, Category:Vedic Mathematics is directly in Category:Mathematics but Vedic Mathematics is in Subject:Calculation which is in Subject:Mathematics.  To top it off, Category:Calculation, which is where Subject:Calculation gets its content isn't filed anywhere.  So the structure of the categories isn't matching the structure of the subjects or vice versa.
 * #5: On High School Mathematics Extensions, it appears that it only shows up on Featured_books because someone has manually added it to that page. It is not in the Category:Featured book.  As for why Zine Making doesn't show up on the front page when it is in Category:Featured book, it looks like the Template:Goodbook/Zine Making needs a blurb/image and then should be listed on Featured_books/Templates under the relevant section instead of the "Needs blurb, image, or improvement" section.   Category:Featured book, , and placement in  seem to be the three steps necessary. --- Adrignola (talk) 06:19, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for helping us organize our books.
 * I wish the answers to all your questions were all clearly explained on some "guideline" page. If you do figure them out, could you help us write such a guideline page? Or at least tweak Card Catalog Office, CCO Resources, and Categories to make things more clear to the next person who tries to help us organize our books?
 * There is no clear root level. The root category is Special:Categories. So the structure of the categories isn't matching the structure of the subjects or vice versa. And how is that a problem? Have you considered that maybe the two structures don't need to match up? maybe we don't need to organize our books into a strict hierarchy, since hierarchy can be considered harmful ?
 * Thank you again for helping future readers find books more easily.
 * --DavidCary (talk) 15:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Those 3 pages have been tweaked recently in an attempt to make things more clear to the next person who tries to help. Special:Categories isn't a category let alone the root category. It just lists all categories that something in it, even if that category hasn't been created yet. With some recent changes Category:Categories could be considered the root category now. There has been some attempts to eliminate confusion about which category is the root category. I would agree there isn't a need for subject pages and categories to match exactly structurally, but some consistency between the two can't hurt. Like if subject A is considered related to subject B, then the same could be considered true for the categories, even if how the categories relate might be more defined or more degrees apart. I also agree that thinking of the category system as a hierarchy can be harmful. I like to think of the category system as more like a web or matrix rather than as a hierarchy. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Layman's Guide to Cellular Automata
The module on Cellular Automata is geared towards a mathematical, academic approach; I'd like to start putting together a module that everyone can enjoy with little mathematical background. The existing text also solely focuses on 1-dimensional CAs, I'd like to briefly touch on them but mostly focus on 2D and 3D versions that people can wrap their eyes around, and mainly generate interest to the point where readers may want to start looking into the deeper mathematical aspects. If it's successful I may spearhead a similar project on fractals.

A few points of discussion before I start the module, though:
 * The name: Just looking for general opinions on it
 * Some minor discussion of math is necessary in places, what level of math education should this require/target?

Xerol Oplan (talk) 22:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you do the discussion in 8th grade math?


 * I don't know what standard others use for Laymen, but my father who was a teacher always suggested aiming at a grade 8 audience.--Graeme E. Smith (talk) 05:20, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Grade 8 is the standard for adult readers outside their area of expertise. If you're writing for mathematicians a grade 8 level would be insulting, but for adults who don't specialize in math it'll be a good level and that generalizes to most areas. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 01:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good plan then. My own mathematical expertise isn't much beyond calculus so discussing it on that level would be a stretch for me, and as I mentioned the primary purpose is to get people interested if they otherwise wouldn't be. A minor technical consideration: It may be better to demonstrate some concepts interactively, say through an applet of some sort. Many of the concepts are definitely best expressed animated; apng support isn't too widespread yet so it will probably use a good number of animated gifs as well (or perhaps some script trickery to use an apng where supported, and a gif where not, although this is already sounding a little too complicated). A bit of set theory wouldn't be entirely out of place either, so I may include an introduction to that as it applies here. (Even elementary coverage of set theory and logic has been, in my opinion, sadly lacking in public education during my lifetime, and deserves a place in any curriculum that also introduces algebra and geometry.) Xerol Oplan (talk) 07:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Introduction to Biological Systems and Soft Condensed Matter
Hi!

I recently uploaded a book based on partial notes from a course, and will be uploading the rest in the following weeks as the course proceeds. The course itself is at the graduate/advanced undergraduate level and mostly based on a few standard textbooks, so it is certainly not original research. Also, the notes are laid out more or less in a book style rather than a learning project/teaching resource style, though they're less detailed than a good textbook. I therefore thought this was a better venue than Wikiversity. Several students in the course have agreed to add their own sections on specific topics, and I'm hoping that it will grow further.

Please take a look and tell me what you think, I would appreciate any advice and comments you may have - this is my first attempt at such a thing. I have a few specific questions/comments you may be able to help with as well:


 * I'm writing the notes in Lyx, which provides LaTeX output. I'm converting this with a python script called latex2wiki, which works pretty well for the most part, but has many bugs which I found myself repairing either manually or with vim text macros. If there's a better/easier way (and if this seems to catch on), I have several other courses I could upload.
 * Also, I don't see any way to synchronize the document between the two formats, especially as some LaTeX features are not supported by mediawiki. This is unfortunate since for PDF output, LaTeX is vastly superior. It seems like some people (for instance the book on LaTeX, which naturally couldn't be typeset by anything else) are synchronizing formats - is this done manually?
 * One specific example is footnotes, which of course don't mean much in the absence of pages. I dislike endnotes, though, and have made a template for sidenotes. I would welcome better ideas.

Guycohen (talk) 16:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)