Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2010/December

The Nth appeal
Have we descended to begging, or what? I am getting tired of continually closing appeals. I thought they ain't supposed to come up again. -Arlen22 (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Tricky, aren't they? I added the gadget back in to Special:Preferences that allows you to hide the banner permanently.  It's in the browsing gadgets section. – Adrignola talk 17:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * And that will only affect fund-raisers, correct? -Arlen22 (talk) 17:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it only targets the central notice and not the site notice. – Adrignola talk 19:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Adrignola your a genius, though for a while I was beginning to wonder exactly how many images of Jimbo there were. It seemed like they were grains of sand on the beach.  The more man must be blind from all the camera flashes. Thenub314 (talk) 22:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

WB:OWN
For a little while now I have been wanting to hash out WB own. Since it came up in a minor issue, and some felt that it might never become a policy. I thought perhaps some more eyes could be useful, particularly because a there is some dispute as to if the page should be about the nature of Copyrights at wikibooks, or if it should be similar to w:WP:OWN and the other ownership policies at WMF sites. Since it was just a few of us discussing it I thought I might seek a larger audience for discussion. Thenub314 (talk) 00:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware that we had many problems with edit wars here, probably because we are more accepting of different books covering similar subjects in different ways than Wikipedia would be with their articles. Does the proposed policy actually add much to our basic ground rules anyway? We wouldn't necessarily want people making edits just in order to exert their "right" to do so. Class projects could be deterred or people who have their books deleted could treat this policy as a licence to insert their deleted material into existing books. Recent Runes (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've seen the occasional "edit war", but it is usually when someone is new and / or unfamiliar with the WB inclusion criteria... it stops fairly quickly. I think people do feel more strongly though that they own "their" books because most books are written by one person. Of course they do own the copyright, just not the right to direct the content. I think though that the current discussion on ownership is more related to a bit of WB history. QU TalkQu 18:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed there is a long and checkered history at WB on this topic. However I think Thenub314 and myself had the intent to focus on present issues, and intended to avoid reviving discussion of past issues. Panic and I have a history of disagreement on this topic as well, so in that respect it might of been unrealistic to think discussion of past issues could be avoided. --dark lama  18:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikibooks hasn't always been accepting of different books covering the same subject and edit wars have happened. I think creating a new book on a subject as a way to deal with the frustrations of an edit wars isn't the best solution, since it discourages collaboration, discussion and compromise, and allows people to justify ownership by way of suggesting people can just fork even for the tiniest of reasons. While I wish not to deter class projects, I think helping teachers to understand anyone even non-students can edit would be healthy for Wikibooks. I think people can treat many existing policies as a license to insert deleted material into books, but all of them that I know of mention the need to stop, discuss, and compromise when there are disagreements, including that proposal. Edits wars often go unnoticed and are often tolerated because the Wikibooks community has a history of not taking a firm and united stance against it and has been unable to agree what if anything should be done about it. --dark lama  18:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * To be clear there hasn't recently been any serious problem. My attention was called to the page by this edit and the ensuing conversation.  And my limited on wiki experience (as well as gut instinct) tells me the worst kind of problems occur when there is no clear guideline/policy to work from.  Without something official there are many cries of "foul play" by both sides and things quickly become poisonous.
 * Also I am hopeful WB is growing, I personally have noticed a lot of new people editing books that had previously been derelict for some time, the recent changes now goes by faster then I put the time in to keep up with, etc. Mostly it seems to me there haven't been many problems in part because we have a we don't often have multiple people working on the same book at the same time.  And so I hope to help make sure things run smoothly.
 * As a final comment, there is brewing a bit of a disagreement between myself and Panic (see Talk:C++ Programming/About the Book/Authors for details if your interested.) This is a bit of putting the cart before the horse though.  The executive summary would be this: it was my interest in WB:OWN that much older history involving the C++ Programming book.  Since I had contributed to it before, and I on the talk page Panic welcomed authors to add their name I decided to add mine.  This lead to some discussion (and disagreement) about whether or not I should be on the authors list along side Panic.
 * Quite probably I am the one who is incorrect, since I seem to frequently hold unusual points of view. But in that case I could really use this policy to clarify my understanding.  And if I could use it, less experienced people could too. Thenub314 (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't call it a disagreement (since we don't have an established conflict) but a small difference of opinion and continued exchange of view points that I took as a result of your position in relation to the text draft.
 * In any case Darklama and you have at least agreed that there is some good on having this subject further discussed so we should attempt to centralize the discussions. In any case I would like to see more people in support of the fragmentation of the WB:OWN content before we decide how to proceed, this is important but not an urgent subject. --Panic (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We will have to agree to disagree as to whether or not we have a disagreement. :) Thenub314 (talk) 20:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That is an interesting concept :) but there can be a disagreement without the other party taking an active role, or even being aware it is a quarrel. In all this subject matter I haven't been a promoter, initiator of a state of conflict and so refute that role. I find myself reacting to actions that I hope are not intended to create antagonism, and it is in that spirit that I act without pushing anyone to agree with my own position on the mater. I see that as futile outside of a broader discussion. In fact I already expressed my limitations regarding how I see the pertinence and importance of this subject and promoted changes, alerting even to the fact that there was already a previously established lack of consensus, hence a fertile ground for escalation.
 * We are entering a time of the year where is customarily for the community to have blow outs, as people tend to have more time indoors to ruminate issues and take actions out of proportion. I urge people to keep focused on generalities that if resolved will be more productive and probably dissipate any perceived personal conflicts that may exist. --Panic (talk) 21:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * My understanding was that the community had refused the definition of forks (even if we don't have a policy or guideline on that, only the draft, forks as in duplication of content is not permitted, my understanding is that this was consensual to all), the only way to have different books covering the same subject is if there is intrinsic distinction regarding the scope or presentation.
 * I do disagree to the idea that volunteers must be made to collaborate to the detriment of providing free content, I put providing usable content above the need to engage in political/structural even editorial discussions, even if people fail to come to an understanding the provided content can always be used. There is also a difficulty in establishing what collaboration means or how to enforce it, I don't think it can be enforced, only requested, even similar books can be seen as collaborating in some instances, over time merges of content can always be made if the content is available.
 * I have thought about the issue of editorial control as part of the contributions and discussions made to this draft and Darklama's point about class projects is pertinent and relates to the issues of forced collaboration and editorial control, to me the issue seems simple, since we don't have a strict policy on managing user space, it is feasible to start and run the project in the teacher's user space with stated edit permissions to some users, this puts the work under a stricter editorial control without violating our rules, this practice is not new nor problematic, even if I think we intentionally do not publicize the possibility. --Panic (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * For others' benefit the forking proposal is at Forking. Regarding running a book development in user space with more than just the user contributing to his/her own space and with restriction on who can edit, in my mind that would end up prompting rules to be created where none currently exist or an expansion of WB:HOST. – Adrignola talk 21:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the solution shouldn't be promoted or if so expressly indicated as non-optimal. But the reality is that to a small degree this is already happening and there is an established practice that provides some basic guidelines, unless hugely abused I don't see it as an issue. We do in fact have a need to put some guidelines on the use of the userspace, not an urgent subject, but as you personally experienced not so long ago (the deletion of a page IIRC) things are not exactly clear or consensual.
 * I do have an issue with your invocation of the WB:HOST (as is) in regards to the userspace. I remember a prominent figure of Wikimedia promoting the use of that space for users to run blog like content, any rules we create for managing that space should be based on the impact to the project. User space is still under the general license agreement so any content will be reusable. In fact I see making user spaces more active and creative as factors to increase visibility to the project and promote general support/donations to Wikimedia in general. --Panic (talk) 22:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, you'll have to point me to the situation I personally experience as it doesn't ring any bells. If you can point to the prominent figure mentioned above that would also be good.  User space is a big can of worms and the use of that space actually dovetails nicely into the page targeted by this thread since it's the most likely to be seen as owned.  That can lead to problems with deleted content being recreated in userspace, offensive content being located in userspace causing disputes over what can be considered offensive, and the use of userspace as one's own website space.  I've seen heated discussion at en.wiki over something as simple as people making fake "you have new messages" notices on their main userpage.  Even more than books, user pages are the most likely to prompt "it's mine and I'll do what I want with it". – Adrignola talk 23:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I was referring to the time a user blanked his talk page a page and you deleted/restored it. Not very important now but it remains in my memory.
 * I did have to do some research, the person that "seems" to support the idea(I can't find the original source, it was in a mailing list. I also can't put it in any real context from memory), was Jimbo Wales, as per a previous dialog we had on the subject of valid uses for the userspace (here). Why not start a draft so to attempt to crystallize the community views on the issue. That would be useful as a way to deal slowly with this complicated issue, we already had some RfDs and there is a lack of establishing consistency in regards to administrative actions on that space (privacy etc).  --Panic (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding forking or duplication of content, I suppose it depends on how narrowly the term "subject" is being defined. If we think of a given high school "subject" then how many different curriculums and examinations are there around the world in all the different English-speaking countries? In the USA I think all the States set their own curriculums, and in the UK, Canada, Australia and India etc. different standards are also applied. Each curriculum or exam could presumably be used to justify a different Wikibook, regardless of the amount of "duplication" observable at a given point in time. Recent Runes (talk) 23:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, but I kind of felt the WB:Forking tried to take different curriculum into account, because two books aimed at different audiences. A "Highers" level book in Scotland vs. an "A-level" book in England, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenub314 (talk • contribs) 05:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Flagged Revisions feature update: November 23
We are currently planning to roll out a new version of the FlaggedRevs extension to all wikis on Tuesday, November 23 starting roughly 3:15pm PST (23:15 UTC). This is used for Pending Changes on en.wikipedia.org and Flagged Revisions on many other wikis. This will have a new reject button, some diff page load optimizations to help complicated diff pages load faster by displaying the diff prior to displaying the old revision,  and many under-the-hood code improvements.

We have several test environments in place with FlaggedRevs/Pending Changes configured:


 * 1.16wmf4 core + trunk FlaggedRevs extension (this is the closest to a production environment):
 * en.wikipedia.org: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevs/Main_Page
 * de.wikipedia.org: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/flaggedrevsde/
 * trunk core + trunk FlaggedRevs extension (this is a more experimental version of the core software with the same version of the extension):
 * de.wikipedia.org: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/de.wikipedia.org/
 * pl.wikipedia.org: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/pl.wikipedia.org/

Please let us know if you have any problems. Thanks! -- RobLa-WMF (talk) 07:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Bit late to try testing as the rollout starts today... Guess we'll find out. Your test configuration is probably very different to the WB config anyway. 'QU' TalkQu 12:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I've noticed that the update contained the author's modifications that disregarded current projects' use of the system. Namely that higher quality revisions cannot be given precedence for being shown over lower quality revisions.  Now the only option is stable or latest.  Not that this was a surprise.  Glad to see performance concerns at en.wiki override other projects that have been using this extension for far longer and I'm glad to see testing is performed here before rollout.  (sarcasm)  Maybe that would have caught the errors in the stability log that appear now. – Adrignola talk 23:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to use JavaScript for table filtering?
I have some tables in my book and at the moment I have the sorting option for them. Was wondering if it's possible to use javascript to add a filter so that only table rows with the value in the filter can be shown. I know that it's possible with javascript but is javascript enabled in wikibooks? Else is it possible to do that with CSS? Pithikos 13:03, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

It's the filter2 that I was thinking to use. Beyond that I would need to use  and probably replace 'sf' with 'wikitable sortable' to work on my tables. That's just the filter field but I noticed that the tag is not allowed in wiki. So there are two things needed. Summarizing: Can I have every page linked to the javascript code? Do I have to tell an admin where I need the filter field? Pithikos 1:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Per-book JavaScript can be set up for Lua in SpringRTS if you provide the code. For the protection of readers, only administrators can set this up and it will have to be vetted by our JavaScript expert, Darklama. – Adrignola talk 15:28, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go as far as to say anything needs to be vetted by me. I'm willing to review and make improvements where I see an opportunity to do so, just like anyone can with anything on Wikibooks. Anyone with any JavaScript knowledge could do the same. --dark lama  21:19, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the code is not mine. Here it is: http://www.vonloesch.de/node/23?filt=javascript
 * Using the per-book JavaScript will mean the javascript code would be used for every page of the book. I will work on adjusting the code you wish to use for this wiki. --dark lama  12:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You can now add class="filter" to any table within Lua in SpringRTS and it should work. See Lua in SpringRTS/Callins for an example. --dark lama  00:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you loads!! It looks fantastic! :) Pithikos 2:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Update: It seems there is a minor problem with the filter. If you enter "xx" in the field the filter will work for "x". If you enter "xxx" the filter will work for "xx" and so on. It seems that it waits for any keystroke to start the filter. So you can enter "xx" in the filter field and as long as you press a key, only then it is going to filter the term. Works like that even for caps-lock.


 * It wouldn't be a big problem if it wasn't about the backspace as now if you enter "xx" and press backspace, it's going to search for the term "xx" instead of "x" that the user will see in the field. Pithikos 12:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My mistake, I was capturing a different event to trigger the filter. Seems to work as expected now, you may have to clear your web browser cache in order for it to see the changes. --dark lama  16:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, works perfekt now :) Pithikos 20:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Pre Tag Font Changed
The preformatting tags are meant to be Courier, a monospaced font.

They have been changed, I assume in a stylesheet. Descriptions elsewhere depend on the Courier font. If another font is needed by users, it can be done with an inline style.

I have no access to the stylesheets, so can some kind authorized admin please consider correction? Regards, Armchair (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Preformatted text
 * I have noticed no such change. The <pre ></pre> tags just add exactly that straight into the HTML output and there are no entries in MediaWiki:Common.css, MediaWiki:Vector.css, MediaWiki:Monobook.css, or http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/common/shared.css that address the tag to change the font.  It is browser dependent.  If it does not appear correctly somewhere, please note the location so that we can troubleshoot. – Adrignola talk 21:18, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There are actually several places where pre can be effected due to style inheritance rules. http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/vector/main-ltr.css is the main one for anyone using the vector skin, where it explicitly sets the font-family with monospace before Courier. Anyways I've fixed this now. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  21:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

ATS: Programming with Theorem-Proving
I'd like to draw attention to the new book that we (Hongwei Xi and me) have begun writing. My intention is to make ATS more accessible to a wider audience of programmers, so I will follow the track of the book on Haskell. Hongwei has written a lot about ATS already, but his writings are more technical in style, which makes them hard to follow for many people. I hope that this book will be useful for others. For now, the book contains two tiny chapters, but that's a start.

Since I have no experience in writing (wiki-)books (and certainly lack educational skills), help and advice are much appreciated. --Ashalkhakov (talk) 09:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't let your lack of book writing and educational skills worry you too much. Most contributors could probably say the same about themselves. I still feel like I don't have the skills and I've been helping Wikibooks for about 5 years now. Your intention is great and should be enough to get started. Hongwei Xi could focus on the technical aspects of the language, while you compliment their writing to make it easier for more people to follow. Working together like that could allow you both to focus on your individual strengths and could allow your strengths to be used together to make a great book. More people with similar or different strengths may also join the two of you in writing the book at some point, and that could also help to improve the book. I encourage you to welcome anyone that decides to join in, learn what they want to do, and possibly offer some suggestions of where the book could use the help in the area that people want to work on. That is one way to work together in writing a book in any case. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  13:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Copyright issues with IB Physics
One page IB_Physics/Physics_and_Physical_Measurement tries to limit the copyright by saying that "Any IB syllabus statements included here are NOT under any free license and remain property of the IBO. They are reproduced here for personal study purposes only." Is this allowed here, and would it require the material affected to be clearly identified (which it seems not to be)?

Also, someone has added a link to a printable version on Google docs, which seems not to include any licence statement. Is that OK? Recent Runes (talk) 13:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * [ The notice was added in the second edit by the page's creator.]. I don't know when the Google Docs version was created. Topic 1 - Physics and Physical Measurement was started in December 2006 though which predates the page at Wikibooks. That Wiki's copyright notice says submitted work is under the CC-BY-SA license too and has no such notice either. IBO's FAQs states that syllabus and past examination papers can be purchased from the IB store, but are available free of charge to universities and governments. Based on this information I would conclude that syllabus are not free to use. The notice may be trying to alert people to that fact for or when any syllabus are used. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I also just found Revision:Measurement which was started in August 2006. That website's terms states users maintain ownership of their submitted works, but anyone else may only use submitted works from the website for private non-commercial research and studying unless permission is obtained from them. I'm not sure if there is any way for us to determine whether the person that submitted Revision:Measurement also submitted Topic 1 - Physics and Physical Measurement, if another person did, or if permission was obtained from the website to license under the CC-BY-SA. There are also many other websites that use it and they have all rights reserved notices, but I wasn't able to determine when the work was added to them. Might need to delete this after all. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think we can ignore the text on the student room site as this one from the Kstruct IB notes site dates from September 2005. This seems to be the original text, so we should credit it with a link really. Regarding the notice on "syllabus statements", I think this should be removed or changed to say that no material should be copied from the IBO site as it would not be available under a compatible license.
 * The Google docs copy of this page seems to have been created recently. Although it does not credit Wikibooks, perhaps we don't need to make a fuss about it as the only way anyone is likely to find that document is via the Wikibooks page. Recent Runes (talk) 17:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't notice there was another much older copy at Kstruct. Good catch. Yes credit should be given, hopefully Kstruct is the original source. Wikibooks is the only website I found with the syllabus statement. If a warning against copying syllabus from the IBO site is to be kept around, I think the top of Talk:IB Physics might make more sense. Hopefully no one has already copied IBO's syllabuses into the book. I guess Wikibooks would of heard about it from IBO, if there has been. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  18:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Alignment of Collapsible Tables
The collapsible class defines the behavior of collapsible tables, but within that class the alignment must have been css-defined as left. The upshot of this is that an HTML attribute used in a table that makes use of the class, cannot override the class's style, and as such cannot align such a table to center.

Am I right in assuming that if the collapsible class alignment style were not specified at all, it would still default left, and yet also allow in-line changes by users?

Thanks, and regards to all, Armchair (talk) 16:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The default would be for text in a cell to be left-aligned unless it's a header row. Also, one thing that's annoyed me as well is the border applied to tables using the collapsible class.  My opinion is that no formatting should be applied except for that needed for the "show/hide" link. – Adrignola talk 17:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The show/hide link really only exist to deal with web browsers that don't support click events anywhere else. Anywhere within the cell can be clicked for web browsers that support it. Part of that is setting the background and border, and changing their style when the mouse is over the area to make this fact more intuitive for users. The tooltip for that area is also changed to reflect the current expanded/collapsed state. The text alignment of a table's contents should be able to be set and respected, but web browsers are never guaranteed to respect alignment of tables themselves with respect to their place on a page. Also there is no left alignment set for any part of the collapsible class that I could find. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  19:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Is there any objections to making the collapsible divs and tables look more like the collapsible elements in vector skin's sidebar and toolbox? Since people are probably familiar with them by now, I think that would be one way to minimize styling while keeping them intuitive. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Can I just say that you're a design genius? Let's make Wikipedia jealous. – Adrignola talk 13:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

How do I start a book?
Nearly all instructions insist that it is possible to type a subject name into some box 'on the left'. What box on the left? When I use the one at the top-right of the screen I get nonsense, and no offer to make any page whatsoever. How, physically is a new blank page obtained? I thank you, somewhat lost, Armchair (talk) 13:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, as you may be aware of, the default skin was changed to Vector, and so the search box is now at the upper-right. We've been updating the help pages in a furious spurt lately and you can find updated instructions at WB:CREATE.  – Adrignola talk 13:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure when it happened, but the search page no longer seems to include a link to a page when it doesn't exist. That was the bases for that recommendation. Wikipedia's search page still does, so it may have been a local change. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  13:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed this behaviour a while ago, I don't think it changed that recently. It might be nice to have a "create a book" link that actually created the framework a little like the "new article" creator on WP. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 14:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've noticed it for months now, just couldn't pinpoint when. If you click on the Gadgets tab in your preferences you'll notice under Book Gadgets there is a Book Designer Gadget. So this already exists. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, I had forgotten that. I meant really though that it would be nice if the gadget was listed on the navigation somewhere so it was obvious to a new contributor. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 23:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Right now we have a bit of a confusing setup. In the print/export menu in the sidebar there is already a link to "create a book".  That's the PediaPress tool and it talks about creating books in terms of collections of wiki pages.  While this works at Wikipedia, with its Book namespace, we need to localize the tool here because we have actual books.  I'll see if I can resolve that in the interface messages. – Adrignola talk 00:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Selected class not working
Hello again,

I note that setting the selected class with collapsible no longer opens with the box dropped. See Add Classes. Thanks, Armchair (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * was removed from dropthing. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  17:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you:I could not figure it out - it works well now.  Armchair (talk) 22:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Batch uploading pages
I was wondering if there is a tool to upload multiple pages for a book at once.

I was thinking to make a page for each function in http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lua_in_SpringRTS/Callins with each page having the same look as http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lua_in_SpringRTS/Callins/UnitCreated%28%29

So if I make a script and get for example 20 text pages(in wiki format) is there a way to upload them all at once under the chapter "Callins"? <font style="color:green;">Pithikos 16:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Hidden begin not working
I notice that the template for hidden text (click to show, click to hide) no longer hides text. Looking at the information page for Template:Hidden begin, none of the examples are now clickable. Just me (e.g. javascript settings, cache or something) or is it general? -- JamesCrook (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Was general. Needed to be updated, which I did. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  00:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! Appreciated. --JamesCrook (talk) 12:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The protection 'topicon'
In Chrome, the green lock on WB:RR/G as well as this page covers the word 'log' in 'log out'. Kayau 02:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * What skin are you using? I've been observing this phenomenon for any protected page for the last few days (but it may have been happening longer, and I just noticed because I've been dealing with protected pages lately).  I figured maybe it was because I use monobook.  I'm running Firefox, as it happens.  --Pi zero (talk) 04:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm using monobook too. The problem also appears on IE8. Kayau 05:51, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The CSS for the topicon div is in MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Vector.css and matches that seen in Wikipedia's implementation. Potentially Darklama can take a look. – Adrignola talk 13:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think Wikipedia's stylesheets assume that there is no site notice and no fund raising banner. Wikipedia repositions the icons when there is a site notice and/or fund raising banner using javascript. I think Wikibooks should instead use a system that can fallback when JavaScript and CSS are not available. I suggest a notice/message box that alerts people that the page is locked or whatever. After that I think JavaScript could be used to either place an icon next to the page title based on the notice/message box, or replace the notice/message box with an icon next to the page title. I think either way having a fall back and not relying on CSS to position the icons would be better than the way Wikipedia does it. Heck Wikipedia seems to already position some icons next to the page title, so there own methods are inconsistent. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I see you added the tagline back to the pages. That would make us the only English-language site besides Wikipedia that added it back.  I can understand a system that doesn't require JavaScript, but wanting to make it so it doesn't require CSS seems to be pushing it.  I seriously doubt many people are using Lynx. – Adrignola talk 19:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps not many people are using Lynx, but the point is to try to fail gracefully in a way that maintains usability for all and it shouldn't require a lot of work to do. I went looking at the various skins cleaning out things which ought to be consist across skins and what wasn't being used any more. I added the things which ought to be consistent across skins to the commons stylesheet. The monobook skin was still showing the tagline except for on the Main Page. I have no objections to hiding the tagline in all skins or in just some skins if that is really what is wanted. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * My personal opinion is that it looks cleaner without the tagline. The tagline is also present in the HTML page title and there is our logo in the upper-left.  I don't know how others feel, though. – Adrignola talk 23:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I've updated what the tagline and the HTML page title says, so now it really shouldn't matter either way. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Obscured Page Title
The 'percent completed' link obscures the page title on first opening. Not a lot more I can say about that! Regards to all, Armchair (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I noticed I made about 4 changes before having seen your comment. I'm curious, is this still a problem? --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  21:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, It seems to have been fixed. Thanks, Armchair (talk) 21:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's obscured now in Firefox 3.0.15 (I should upgrade some day). --Jomegat (talk) 01:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The JavaScript and CSS can be cached for up to 30 days. Have you tried bypassing your browser's cache? – Adrignola talk 13:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's different today. Instead of covering the page title, it covers the [edit] link for the top-section (I have that enabled in my gadgets).  Changing the width of the browser makes no difference - the stage icon is placed smack over the [edit] link regardless.  Disabling the gadget "fixes" the problem, depending on the definition of "fix". :-/ --Jomegat (talk) 13:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Adrignola and I both made some changes. Is anything still covered/obscured? --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  15:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Now the stability notice covers the stage icon. See Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book. --Jomegat (talk) 15:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * From my perspective that is good news, because the short stability notice plays havoc with lots of our templates to begin with. I think the only non-temporary solution to that problem would be to force it to be on its own line like with the long stability notice. I'll try to work on doing just that later today. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  16:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems OK now. Thanks. --Jomegat (talk) 21:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Language courses - audio material
The course Dutch is pretty much all from my hand (I used the username Iarlagab here before I consolidated to SUL-account) and I am looking for ways to improve the book and make it more attractive to people who have no knowledge of the language at all.

Probably all author of language books are dealing with the same issues and it would be nice if we could pool our experiences a bit. If that has already been done somewhere I'd appreciate a link.

I have been experimenting with adding more audio information, including 1-2 minute long drill files on pronunciation / the conversations / memorizing numerals etc and I would not mind a bit of feedback on that. There is also a technical question. If I put the sound file directly on the page using "Image" and push the button I get a strange echoing effect unless I push the arrow key again. Of course I can also use the audio template, but then I get sent to a separate page where I cannot see the text anymore. In some cases like the drills that is fine, but not if I am trying to let people hear the pronunciation of a written piece of text.

E.g.:



versus:

Merry Christmas!

Jcwf (talk) 19:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia Commons may already have what every language book needs: Category:Dutch pronunciation --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Another idea. If Commons doesn't have what you need my guess is the wiktionary in the language you want pronunciations from does since audio pronunciations seem to be a priority there. For example at German Wikipedia's English entry you can find out how you pronounce Englisch. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:13, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I work mostly at nl.wikt and upload such files for pronunciation with some regularity. And yes those are useful here too, particularly in vocabulary lists or exercises with images intended to build vocabulary. However, they are typically single words (or spoken versions of entire wikipedia pages). Not pronunciation of listening/speaking drills. You cannot learn to speak a language without training your ears and your mouth. This is why commercial language courses come with tapes/ cd's whatever. Some of them like the Pimsleur ones only come with that. No written text at all. The philosophy behind that is that the way a child acquires language (entirely by ear) is still the best way. I am looking at ways to include that kind of ideas into the language book and wonder if there are others here with experience in generating such material.Jcwf (talk) 21:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well even if they don't have what is needed, I think those are the people who are most likely to have the experience to know how to create the listening/speaking drills. I think people have wanted audio drills for a long time now. I figure there would already be what is needed if there were people at any of the language Wikibooks with the expertise to do it. OTOH the people who could help could just be unaware that files are wanted, and I have thought Wikibooks could benefit from some audio/video/diagram/illustration/image/media wanted templates to encourage people to create and add those type of things to books. BTW I'm not experiencing any echoing sound when first playing the audio file above. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  22:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The WikiProject Languages header for the talk pages I placed on all the language books can use the yes parameter to add pages needing audio clips to Category:Language pages needing sound bites. If you want to be more invasive, there's always images and need soundbite. – Adrignola talk 01:16, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am aware we already have some templates, but those aren't quiet what I had in mind. I will probably get around to creating something along the lines of what I have in mind eventually, like I began to do with media quality. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  09:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * An alternative approach could be to go into greater depth on a topic like weather forecasts which have regular time-slots on Dutch radio stations which are streamed on-line. New material is produced every day, which has a balance of repetitive and varying vocabulary over a fairly limited range. Recent Runes (talk) 22:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)


 * RE: the echo effect. I only get this strange effect in firefox, not in explorer. In firefox I also get that sound files will start re-playing spontaneouly, sometimes two simultaneously if I have used more than one button on a page.

Jcwf (talk) 16:19, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * RE: undefined As long as commons is systematically thwarting the uploads of sound files (they are extremely tedious to produce, especially the one-word ones and even more tedious to upload), I really do not think that anyone here has any business putting such punitive templates on other people's pages. Especially someone who has never produced or uploaded any .ogg files, Darklama. see. In fact producing longer drill-files is easier because you only have to upload once. There is a new beta for batch upload, but I cannot get is to work. Jcwf (talk) 16:30, 25 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Would you also object to anyone adding templates that request expansion or improvements be made to a book when they have never edited or produced a book before? I didn't have audio specifically in mind when I created media quality. I had in mind a set of templates that served similar purposes to the maintenance templates used for books for use in the File namespace to suggest or request improvements when a person cannot, could not, or doesn't know how to help themselves. In the context of audio, a request for quality improvements might apply to an audio file with background noise that interferes with following what a speaker is saying. If I were to come across an audio file with the sound of airplanes taking off in the background that overshadowed the speaker trying to teach or explain something for example, I would have no problems with pointing out the audio needs to be improved despite my own inability to produce a replacement myself. I see nothing wrong with doing that. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  17:18, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Applicability of flagged revisions?
I was wondering whether all Wikibooks pages are supposed to be subject to having revisions approved. If not, are all Featured books at least supposed to be subject to that? I observed that some unexplained blanking by a user who had never edited before or since went unnoticed for a long time at Introduction to Sociology/Social Movements. It does not appear that edits to that page are subject to review, even though the book is Featured. Belteshazzar (talk) 23:20, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how the recent update for Wikipedia's benefit might have affected Wikibooks. However the decision as to whether books are to have stable revisions or not was suppose to be left up to the contributors of individual books. The default was to not be subject to review, unless book contributors request it. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I asked because I noticed that other pages in Introduction to Sociology do have notes in the edit history about revisions being approved or checked, while the one in question doesn't. Belteshazzar (talk) 23:36, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know why that would be the case. Why people review and when they decide to review seems to depend on each reviewer. There doesn't seem to be a good way to judge what a review or a failure to review means. I choice not to review at all personally, but my edits may be approved or checked automatically by the system, and that may be true for other people as well. The Wikibooks community has had trouble agreeing on specifics when it comes to the use of the review tool, which is why its been left up in air and to book contributors to decide. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  23:59, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've made an effort to review the front page of every single book on the wiki as part of my past efforts in development status tagging. Beyond that, I only checked that every page of a featured book was reviewed for a couple books, some time ago.  It only takes an initial review for a page to be subject to it.  I'd take a statement that someone doesn't want a page reviewed the same way I'd take a statement that someone doesn't want me to fix typos on the page.  It's a wiki, there are others here and trying to help and there will be others editing and reviewing your work.  The configuration got revised with the update for Wikipedia's benefit to make it so reviewers have new pages they create automatically reviewed.  I'm not going to complain.  Go for them all or not at all.  However I can tell, observing review tags for pages edited many many hours ago in recent changes, that Darklama is not the only one choosing not to review.  Sometimes I question what all the hand-wringing is for whenever there's a mention of removing flagged revisions since so few participate. – Adrignola talk 03:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I will typically review every page I edit, and tend to look through RC and pick out vandalism targets, etc., to review so there is a stable version. As I've said before, if people wanted to we could have every page reviewed within a few weeks with a concerted effort - it only took me on my own about two weeks to do virtually the whole Cookbook. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 19:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)