Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2010/January

Fundraising Notice
For those who have either donated time or money to the Wikibooks project and would rather not see the notice any longer asking for donations, a gadget has been added at Special:Preferences to hide the donation box. -- Adrignola talk contribs 17:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Can we not get rid of the annoying notice now? The money's been raised and the notice is a pain, obtrusive and reminiscent of someone holding out a cap on the street begging for spare change.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 22:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's due to be taken down on 15 January unless someone changes that at Meta. QU TalkQu 00:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Statistics
Thought I'd share some links regarding Wikibooks statistics. See Wikibooks Statistics. Fun fact: we get 18,000+ views per hour.

From the same pages you can also see Wikibooks Charts and Wikibooks Tables. Scroll down the tables page and you can see the top 50 recently active editors and the top 20 recently absent editors (as in, who was valuable contributor that we've lost). 24% of the edits during the period were by anonymous users. Under the database records per namespace, I admire the increase in entries in the category namespace from 2,300 to 4,300 from Mar 2009 on. The top eight most edited pages are in the project namespace, but the three after that are three users' talk pages. I didn't expect that.

View the top Wikibooks by size, authors, edits, and chapters. Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book takes top position for edits and authors. Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment is largest in size and chapters, though that's no surprise for those familiar with it. Second place in terms of authors is Horticulture, interestingly enough, as I haven't seen it actively edited lately. -- Adrignola talk contribs 22:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Editor counts include editors from WP who contributed to articles imported from there. Since a lot of Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book was drawn from WP, that's why it has so many editors.  I suspect the same could be said of Horticulture. --Jomegat (talk) 21:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

needing tutor to help with my math skills and some english skills
ive been out of school for 4 years and ive forgotten most of my math and part of my english and even though ive graduated 4 yrs ago i still have trouble remembering my english and all of my math. math was never my subject so if u know anything that may help feel free to let me know.
 * We do have textbooks on English and mathematics, feel free to look through them and see if any of those suit your purposes. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 19:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Making anonymous editing less convenient to help fight vandalism
At the moment, the quickest and easiest way to edit a Wikibooks page is to do it anonymously. While there are many advantages of logging in, not everyone knows or cares about them. A large proportion of current vandalism is done anonymously and fighting this is a bore and takes up time that could be more productively spent improving Wikibooks. Blocking IP addresses seems like a blunt instrument that is not always effective. I'm not an IT expert, but it looks like the ConfirmEdit utility could be used to require people to enter a CAPTCHA for each edit if they are not logged in. Casual vandalism would be deterred, and non-vandals would have an incentive to log in so reducing the number of anonymous edits in Recent Changes. People who really wanted to avoid logging in for some reason could still edit, if a bit less conveniently. Recent Runes (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * If we could make it easier for anonymous editors to contribute, it would behoove us to do so. The general principle in play is a marketing phenomenon called The Long Tail, which is key to the success of Amazon.com, Netflix, and Wikipedia (and was the subject of a good-natured rant of mine here a while back).  --Pi zero (talk) 13:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, you can't do much on Amazon for example, without setting up an account and logging in. As I understand the Long Tail, it is about removing barriers to diversity and preventing domination by particular products. I would suggest that the main barrier to wider participation here is the Wiki markup language itself. It would be easier to edit pages if this could be done in MS Word or plain HTML were used, but I don't see these as likely reforms. There might be other proposals to increase participation, but that is another debate really. The main point about my little proposal is whether it would be of any value in improving Wikibooks. Recent Runes (talk) 15:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to clear up the confusion I've evidently created by mentioning the long tail: The long tail principle is about offering humongous numbers of different very-very-low-demand items for sale, and making a profit because your overhead for offering so many different items is (for some reason) insignificant and the sum of the demand for all those items is significant.  For Amazon, the items are book titles, whereas for us the items are first-time edits.  Those Amazon products are incredibly expensive compared to our products; if people will pay multiple dollars to buy a book, it's no big deal to ask them to log in etc., but the first-time contributors we're trying to attract aren't going to pay dollars, or even cents, for the privilege of correcting a typo or whatever.  What they get here in exchange for the purchase is going to be mostly a small amount of personal satisfaction from knowing they've contributed, and their demand for that is small enough that we have to make it really, really, really low-cost for them to make the purchase.  --Pi zero (talk)


 * We already use ConfirmEdit with FancyCaptcha to provide captchas where needed (ie not everywhere). That won't be changed to require a captcha on every logged-out edit because that would violate our foundational principles. We could explore other options, like Extension:AbuseFilter, but I don't think it helps a huge amount. I think the best solution is to spread out the workload - to do that we need to attract more editors, and motivate more editors to become administrators. WMF now has a whole wiki for such outreach activities, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. (As an aside, a major goal of that project is to produce textbooks... notice that those textbooks are not being written on Wikibooks. I have a problem with that.) &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 16:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Or motivate more administrators to be more active. Trailing statistics for the past three months shows trends. -- Adrignola talk contribs 18:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you direct me to the particular foundational principle you have in mind Mike? Recent Runes (talk) 17:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Founding principles. Our sysadmins have told other wikis in the past "no" and I expect they'd do the same here. Forcing users to create an account to avoid the annoyance of solving captchas is a textbook example of being a bad web citizen, and an even more striking example of how not to run an open wiki. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 17:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, article 2 does seem to forbid my suggestion - though I don't see the big deal about account creation myself. It strikes me as a good reason not to become an administrator, if a large part of the role is just playing cat and mouse with vandals. Recent Runes (talk) 17:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good. These tools are basically for maintenance and cleanup; blocking users and deleting pages. We should really start referring to admins as janitors. --Swift (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should rename them to custodians like at Wikiversity... (Apologies if that pun doesn't translate outside the US). -- Adrignola talk contribs 18:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't like the idea of inserting a hurdle just to push editors to sign up. The captcha is for catching automated vandalism, which I don't think has been much of a problem. I agree that the best method is to spread the work-load and recruit. For that we need to make the community more attractive and pleasant to engage in.
 * We have a good number of seemingly dedicated editors. I made a little list at User:Swift/Active users. It would be interesting to get or compile data over time to see how many of these stick around. The bottom line is that there are plenty of people contributing to the project but for whom the maintenance and administrative aspect isn't interesting enough.
 * Personally, I think that documenting the project is much more useful than closing it off to newcomers. Make doing the right thing easy, rather than the wrong thing hard. --Swift (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I continue to think my suggestion was sensible, practical and proportionate. It just went against the prevailing ideology here. You win some, you lose some, I guess. But is there anything else we could do about the people who have created accounts but prefer not to log in and also save their work every 2 minutes? Take a look at Recent changes, and you will see who I mean. Recent Runes (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said in a previous comment: make it easy for them to do the right thing. Outreach is one way. I try to put on talk pages of anons that contribute more than a couple of edits in the same book.
 * I completely agree with you on the serial-savers, and have mentioned the issues to several ones. We could introduce something like w:Template:Uw-preview or even write a short guideline if enough editors who might actually heed it are committing these. I'm still skeptical of how productive it might be. Possibly better to keep it simple. --Swift (talk) 19:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Extensively sighting every page in the wiki will make it less convenient to edit anonymously, as edits will not show up immediately, for better or worse. Still permits anonymous editing without forcing account creation. -- Adrignola talk contribs 18:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I support this. I've been trying to target pages with a high volume of change as these are the ones most in need of review, the flip side of that is that they then need re-sighting frequently, which again needs editors to take an interest in checking and reviewing changes to their "favourite" pages. QU TalkQu 20:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Some thoughts on this:


 * 1) Wikinews' approach to page quality review seems better, which includes [ graph stats]. I propose we use Extension:ReaderFeedback in the place of FlaggedRevs like Wikinews does. FlaggedRevs could than be changed to apply only to the Wikijunior and Wikibooks namespaces or simply removed. ReaderFeedback provides similar feedback to FlaggedRevs, it relies on users instead of editors, and it does so without concerning itself with stable/drafts as far as I can tell.
 * 2) Lets ask for Extension:Nuke to make deleting vandalism easier for administrators so that they can work on contributing to books.
 * 3) Lets ask for Extension:AbuseFilter to make finding and dealing with vandalism easier.
 * 4) I believe Wikipedia attempted to reduce some of its problems some time ago by taking the ability to create new pages and move pages away from anonymous users. Anonymous users can still edit existing pages. Wikipedia also took the ability to move pages away from users who are not autoconfirmed yet. Maybe Wikibooks could do similar?

Doing this would remove inconveniences that people feel FlaggedRevs causes while keeping a means of getting quality feedback, adds some tools that are actually meant to be used for dealing with vandalism, and removes two methods of vandalism from anonymous users. --dark lama  22:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I support any proposal to require autoconfirmation before page creation as deleting inappropriate or vandal-type new pages probably takes most time for an admin... although the workload might shift to existing page vandalism. As for the other suggestions here, I need to read the stuff about them on Meta first. QU TalkQu 22:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Probably the daily reader numbers for most pages would be zero, and having Reader Feedback displayed might be rather discouraging for our authors. Although, even on Wikinews I have not found any news stories that actually report any user feedback. Recent Runes (talk) 22:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Extension:Nuke is already installed. See Special:Nuke.  Moves can't be performed by anonymous/unconfirmed users in the current configuration.  As for new page creation, I'd only support locking it down for anonymous users; existing users trying to become autoconfirmed would never be able to do so if people not autoconfirmed couldn't create new pages.  Not allowing those not autoconfirmed to create new pages would also put up yet another barrier to entry to new editors, to use the terminology others have used. -- Adrignola talk contribs 22:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd be against any attempt to make annonymous editing more difficult. It goes against the very thing that wiki stands for.  Wikibooks is a small project and vandalism is not very common.  When I'm online usually (late night Euro time, mid evening North and South American time) vandalism happens rarely - maybe once an hour and that's it.  Too much information is collected about people online even if it is data on an alias name.  The use of IP addresses helps you remain more anonymous - most of us have dynamic IPs except for people with some ISPs and the more nerdy among us.  I like the idea of this 'sighted revisions' stuff - I see the little exclamation marks on RC but I have no idea how it works or how to make it known that I've viewed something in the RC list...--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 23:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The exclamation mark means the edit hasn't been sighted (or patrolled in "old" terminology). If you have the editor flag, then if the page has never been sighted you can view the page and then click the "review" button at the bottom to sight it. If it has been previously sighted you should see (review) in RC after the page name. Clicking this shows a diff which you can then review in the same way as for a previously unsighted page. QU TalkQu 23:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes I have the editor flag. I presume all admins have it by default.  I didn't know it was the same thing as the 'review' function.  Was hoping for a simple system where if an editor/admin/other trusted user has viewed the recent change then the '!' will disappear - i.e. no clicking of any buttons...--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 01:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Admins have the permissions that editors and reviewers have. The only difference between editors and reviewers is the level (quality) of review they can flag a page as having. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 14:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Discontinuing FlaggedRevs
I want to pick up on a comment that Mike made in the technical assistance reading room and suggest that we discontinue using FlaggedRevs on Wikibooks. I believe I once heard that it would be possible to use it for individual name-spaces, in which case I think there is consensus that we should continue to use it on Wikijunior.

As Mike noted, we simply don't have the manpower to sight all the pages, let alone assess them. The limited resources we have should be focused on a decent patrolling system to curb vandalism as it happens (we'll have to clean up in the end, anyway). By eliminating the extra hurdle to becoming a member of the community and putting a little bit of work into making our help pages, policies and guidelines more accessible, we might just do better than with this extension. --Swift (talk) 22:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * If sighting is just to say "no vandalism", then it can be done relatively quickly (I can't remember how long it took me to do the 500 odd modules in WJ that needed a first sight, but it was only 3 or 4 days elapsed time I think). Similarly one or more editors sighted all of the templates relatively quickly, although I accept this is quick as templates are easier to check than books. A mass effort could probably see everything else done in no more than two months. Question for me is "is it worth it?" to sight them all. If nobody then feels any desire to keep particular books to a good standard by actively reviewing them as they change, then we'll soon have a 20,000 page backlog of out of date pages. It's an attitude problem maybe rather than a technical issue. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 22:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Meant to add - it takes me quite a long time to "sight" a book because once I've checked the spelling and for vandalism I start looking to see if it should be split into sub-pages, if other "one page" books could be merged in, if it is in the right subjects and on the bookshelves, if the DDC and LOC categories are right and so on. This can mean one book takes all day. So when I say I think it'd take a couple of months to get everything done I mean just ticking to say "no vandalism" without any further tidy up. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 22:17, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I also thought that FlaggedRevs reduced vandalism but I was told I had it wrong. I haven't checked the statistics but I've come to accept that FlaggedRevs hasn't been having a significant impact on vandalism, more so on the last weeks.
 * I was the first to propose the calling to an end of the trail of the FlaggedRevs. For clarity and to give some organization to this discussion it should be moved to the Wikibooks talk:FlaggedRevs Extension talk page, this discussion/topic has been going on in several places for some months now, I even have raised the issue on the RFD. It even relates to the previous discussion thread going on on this page.
 * One thing that should be made clear is how beneficial FlaggedRevs has been to Wikibooks (I see a few good points), the problems it has created and finally, if it should be deemed as useful, how the extension could be tweaked to be perfect for Wikibooks. --Panic (talk) 03:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Re moving the discussion: There's been discussion scattered all over, presumably because the issue is pervasive, but it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle; and given that discussion is already so scattered, it makes some sense to put consensus-forming discussions in the most public place on Wikibooks, which is here.  The irretrievable reality that consensus discussions for flaggedrevs configuration are not all at Wikibooks talk:FlaggedRevs Extension is handled reasonably well by having a complete enumeration of links to these consensus discussions at the top of FlaggedRevs Extension.


 * Re the proposal: What exactly are we proposing to do here?  It sounds as if we're talking about changing the value of , which is a list of namespaces to which flaggedrevs applies.  Currently, these are:  mainspace, image, template, cookbook, and wikijunior.  The proposal would remove mainspace from the list, and would keep wikijunior.  I'm guessing cookbook would also be removed.  My recommendation is that, even if we do remove mainspace and cookbook, we should keep image and template on the list, so that flaggedrevs still applies to them.  The entire change to the array would then be the removal of mainspace and cookbook.  --Pi zero (talk) 06:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Ideally for counter-vandalism, what would probably work best here is to have some namespaces display the most recent sighted version by default (wikijunior, template, image), and many other non-talk namespaces be reviewable too but display the most recent draft by default (mainspace, cookbook, Wikibooks, Help, conceivably category and subject). My reasoning is this: On Wikijunior and the allied template and image spaces, we want to be sure that the default displayed version is free from vandalism; but aside from that, the great merit of flaggedrevs as a counter-vandalism device is bookkeeping:  by providing a clear record of which edits have been examined and cleared, it prevents non-blatant vandalism from being slipped in to pages during periods when they aren't under much scrutiny. For example, when I was "sighting" Wikijunior books (as QuiteUnusual puts it above), although I was mostly limiting myself to some straightforward mechanical issues plus vandalism screening, it was still fairly time-consuming because I found, after the first few pages, that the screening really called for skimming through the entire edit history of each page looking for "sleeper" vandalistic edits. With flaggedrevs enabled on mainspace but the most recent draft displayed by default, the shortage of labor wouldn't be a problem (on mainspace) and the counter-vandalism function would remain intact: if a page is edited all the time, but the last sighted revision was over a year ago, the value of the current draft is not diminished, and the value of the old sighting is actually increased because it's a clear record for counter-vandalists of just which edits have not yet been screened.

Unfortunately, I don't actually see a hook in the extension for doing this. (I'd love to be wrong about that.) If this is what we'd really like to have, though, we should work out the details and then ask for it; maybe we'd have to wait and wait for it (unless we could successfully pitch it as Useful For Wikipedia), and maybe we'd want to disable flaggedrevs on mainspace and cookbook in the meantime, but I've long suspected that "Ask and ye shall receive" really ought to be usefully understood as "If ye don't ask, ye won't receive." --Pi zero (talk) 15:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Admins are able to change the settings per-page to control whether it shows the most recent sighted version or the most recent draft version. It can even be set to show the most recent quality revision. -- Adrignola talk contribs 17:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

PDF versions
Are there specific Wikibook policies on how to create a PDF version of a Wikibook? I'm interested in created a PDF version. Thanks,  The New  Mikemoral  ♪♫ 23:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The "help" is here, the list of current books with a PDF version is here. See if either of these helps... <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 23:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, -- The New  Mikemoral  ♪♫ 23:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You'll find more information about creating PDF versions with "collections" here. However, I still find the results produced with collections rather disappointing. For me, the best way to produce a print version is still to print-to-PDF with a web browser and insert a table of contents with page numbers manually. (Note that page breaks can be inserted with the template Newpage). --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Shared login account with Wikipedia?
I currently have an account on Wikipedia, but not on Wikibooks. I vaguely recall seeing somewhere that it might be possible to have a single account that is shared across all Wikimedia Foundation sites (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary etc), but I can't any mention of this now that I need it. Is it possible to have a single account shared across all of these Wikimedia Foundation wikis? Mitch Ames 58.7.192.116 (talk) 04:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Visit Special:MergeAccount while logged into Wikipedia to unify your account across all the wikis. -- Adrignola talk contribs 04:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems to have done the trick. Thanks. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

New RC patrolling concept
Hello, is there any needs to add the site in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21517? JackPotte (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No, we use flaggedrevs. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 18:21, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer this system to flagged revisions, simply because we can see a ! directly into the RC list. Moreover, it's already used in fr.w, and it.wikt. JackPotte (talk) 19:35, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you fail to understand that we cannot use patrolling. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 19:36, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikibooks does not need patrolling to see ! in RC. FlaggedRevs shows it for revisions in RC that have not yet been reviewed by editors. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  21:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * To be exact the flaggedrevs is "still" under evaluation, that was what we agreed on, there have been several Wikibookians that have already spoken against the final adoption of flaggedrevs and highlighted some of it's problems (specially regarding Wikibooks), including me. To my knowledge more persons have raised issues with the final adoption of flaggedrevs that those that have praised the "innovation", even if I'm sure we all like some of the attributes of the new arrangement...
 * Since the evaluation has gone beyond what should be expected as useful, I propose, if anyone wishes to second my proposal, to get a final validation (or not) on the adoption of the flaggedrevs system. IIRC this is the second or third time that flaggedrevs have been indicated as having the community approval, this is not the case, we agreed only on a test period... --Panic (talk) 03:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You regularly make that assertion about flaggedrevs, that it hasn't really been adopted. This is a living project, nothing is set in stone, we're always assessing everything dynamically as we move forward, and there is no such thing as "final adoption" of anything; so I've been regularly puzzled by this claim of some sort of special tentativeness for flaggedrevs.  I can't figure out where it's coming from.  We reexamine flaggedrevs from time to time, reassessing how it's going and to what extent it is and isn't meeting our expectations and serving the needs of the project.  From the initial consensus discussion I'm familiar with, here, that's what people thought we should do &mdash; rather obvious, really, for such a significant measure, but reminding each other of the obvious is a perfectly valid part of the normal operation of the collective consciousness of Wikibooks.  Are you drawing for the claim on some other discussion somewhere?  --Pi zero (talk) 15:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The proposal put forward for the community was for clearly for a test period. The process for reversal of a passed as approved decission is very distinct to one for implementing a new change, if consensus fails the new change will not pass. It is specially important to make that distinction regarding what we have agreed previously.
 * I also agree that most non formalized actions on the project are as you describe above (but they aren't community decisions), they fall in what we came to define as BeBold. --Panic (talk) 20:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You say "clearly", but this is exactly why I'm asking whether you're drawing on another source besides the consensus discussion that I linked above: Each time I read that discussion, I see it not saying what you say is clear.  So I'm trying to understand whether you're looking at different data, or perceiving the same data differently.


 * Also, I'm really not following the distinction you've just made, to the point where I'm not even sure whether or not it actually came out the way you intended it to. The process for reversing a decision is very distinct from the process for implementing a new change?  Neither of those sounds much like a "test period".  Could you give an example of another past community decision process that involved a "test period"?  --Pi zero (talk) 02:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry being late, hadn't noticed your post. To my knowledge there hasn't been any other proposal that depended on a test period, to my recollection of the discussion that lead to the adoption of the flaggedrevs, there were 2 threads IIRC it was imitated my WhiteKnight that if I also recall correctly has also stated that he would support the end of the flaggedrevs on Wikibooks.
 * The secondary thread is what was voted and was later moved to the talkpage were the configuration of flaggedrevs now resides. The only mention of a evaluation period is only on one of the vote/comments. But that was my understanding and the base for my support.
 * The "vote" of the proposal was done after some previous discussions, it would be very had to have passed it otherwise since the flaggedrevs would and has involved a deep restructuring on how we did things, and none of us were aware of all the implications and what benefits it would bring.
 * It has become prominently clear that the benefits are few, even as a dissuasion for vandalism (another Wikibookians has quoted some statistics as way of proving that point), and the limitation is has on our project are vast (we could start a thread on how it could be improved to fit our project but that would be an exercise on wishful thinking since it would requires someone willing to implement those changes on the code and I'm not sure all are feasible and consensual, there was a thread somewhere that addressed these issues in more depth were Darklama even proposed some possible solutions).
 * As for the distinction I make. It is clear that any future discussion should seek a consensus for keeping the tested features and in case of failing the project should be restored to how it operated before it was approved. This is distinct to asking the community to reach as consensus for the removal of the flaggedrevs. --Panic (talk) 03:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If I take Meta's definition of a sighted page as being vandalism-free and a reviewed page as having good content and attempt to sight all the vandalism-free pages, I'll have a lot of work cut out for me. Looking at Special:ValidationStatistics, only 14% or so of the pages in the main namespace have been sighted as free of vandalism. It states there are 45,000 pages (while the main page shows 38,000), so it'd take 450 sightings per day to inch that up by 1% a day and 86 days to sight every page in the wiki even at that high rate. So whatever your opinion on FlaggedRevisions, we're not fully utilizing it and from the backlogs I've seen before I've cleared them out, people aren't taking an active role in sighting changes that appear in recent changes. If all the pages in the wiki were to get sighted according to Meta's definition (which I do adhere to), we need to pull together to make sure we're reviewing changes by anonymous/new users to pages that have been previously vetted. One good thing is that if there are pages in your watchlist that need review, you get a big notice at the top letting you know. Hence unreviewed and outdated reviewed pages that aren't watched have a red background tint to them. -- Adrignola talk contribs 15:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I still think we should stop using flaggedrevs. We don't have the manpower to make it work. In fact, the (perhaps perceived) barrier to editing makes the manpower shortage worse by discouraging new editors. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 16:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * IMO Wikijunior needs Flaggedrevs; in all honesty, before Flaggedrevs I never quite found Wikijunior a credible concept. Flaggedrevs also ought to be available for use on other specific books, specific parts of books, and specific administrative pages.  (Unfortunately, the current configuration doesn't encompass the Wikibooks namespace.)  There are lots of places it shouldn't be used, and I think we're still learning what those are.  --Pi zero (talk) 20:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Swift (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs Icon
Has anybody noticed that the FlaggedRevs icons (the little icons that say "Current revision" or "Sighted Page" on the top-right) are wrecking havoc on a very large amount of Wikibooks pages, including the Main Page and all cookbook pages using the correct templates? Is there anyway to fix this, by moving the icons somewhere else? --Yair rand (talk) 06:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I hadn't noticed, but I see what you mean. As I use a widescreen display it doesn't actually break the format having the icon there. I guess it could be moved, any suggestions as to where would work better? <font color="#E66C2C">Unusual? Quite <font color="#306754">TalkQu 12:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Having been using the detailed stable version user interface as selected under Stability in my preferences, I instead get a horizontal bar that extends across the width of the page and pushes the content down evenly without breaking formatting. Switching to the simple version I see what you mean.  Potentially the detailed interface could be made the default? -- Adrignola talk contribs 12:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I see at FlaggedRevs Extension that <tt>$wgSimpleFlaggedRevsUI</tt> is already set to <tt>false</tt> so that doesn't affect it. However, comparing the simple interface option in preferences here with that at the FlaggedRevs test wiki, I notice that the content of the interface is slightly different.  I was going to say that theirs allows the page content to flow under the icons in the simple interface, but on, for example, Cookbook:Gluten-Free, I see that page content flows around it here as well.  I think it's only certain page formatting that clashes with the interface.  Switching to the detailed interface in your preferences is a workaround for now then. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You could probably fix that by adding &lt;br style="clear:both"/&gt; to the top of the pages in question. Bawolff (talk) 22:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Added clear:both to the style on the table of the main page. Thanks. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:10, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Simple English Wikibooks' books?
As the Simple English Wikibooks is due to be closed (the vote for its nuking was lost about half a year ago but it still hasn't had its plug pulled) what will happen to the 429 books which are presently there? Can space be made on English Wikibooks for this? Seems a waste to simply delete it all especially as people worked really hard - most of those who voted for its elimination don't contribute to Simple English projects (as far as I can see) and although the SE Wikibooks users were notified unfortunately SE Wikipedia users weren't as aware that there was a vote going on to kill off its sister project.--ЗAНИA talk 23:32, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry the vote started half a year ago but whoever chose to say that the vote was over only did so today. vote I'd urge anyone who has contributed to Simple English projects to add their opinions to this charade vote.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 23:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have cross-posted this thread to the site notice at Simple. <font color="#778899" face="high tower text">Microchip08 <font color="#B0C4DE" size="2">@simple 23:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm still holding onto optimism that it won't happen. I thought I came across a policy on project closures awhile ago that required more than support for a project to be closed. Like if there is activity in last 30 days the closure won't happen. That shows there is consensus that the project is still considered useful. Maybe I'm just wishful thinking, I can't seem to find the policy in question now. Could be why the project was never closed though. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  00:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * An option is to create a <tt>Simple</tt> namespace here (through a bug report and via a pseudo-namespace beforehand) and importing the pages at simple.wikibooks via Special:Import, preserving full edit history. -- Adrignola talk contribs 01:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The transfer can and should be done server-side; open a bug for that. I forget which maintenance script it is, but JeLuF knows for sure, and it should be easy to figure out in any event. &mdash; <b style="color:#309;">Mike.lifeguard</b> &#124; talk 05:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I want to remind everyone here that the reason Simple English Wikibooks is being closed is due to long-term inactivity and that Simple English is not defined as a real language. Also there is a bug request that has been already filed. (#22103) The discussion at meta was closed after consensus was leaning in favor for closing the project. I hope that clears any confusion here. Thanks, Slipknot1 (talk) 11:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is a language, it is an undefined language. The bug is to 'close', not 'delete'; we can still talk about options here. Regards, <font color="#778899" face="high tower text">Microchip08 <font color="#B0C4DE" size="2">@simple 13:02, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Strange. Wiki foundation obviously thought it was a 'language' when they initially approved the project but as per 1984 they make the decisions and change history and we just accept that it's not a language now nor never has been.  Most closed projects at least have hope for the future as demand may open the project again in the future but with this project because of Wiki foundation deciding that there'll be no more Simple wikis there is no future.  That's why this vote was different to the other votes for closing of a project.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) As per the new language rule at meta, simple language projects are hereby banned (except for SEWP and SEWKT). Once simple wikibooks is closed, it cannot be reopened, ever. Also I find it weird why this project would want to have a simple wikibooks subproject. It is the English Wikibooks, not Simple English for crying out loud. Additionally it would be out of scope for a Wikimedia project. The contents at simple wikibooks are a mess and in inferior quality, and I doubt anything could be gained or benefited from importing. Why shoot yourself in the foot? Slipknot1 (talk) 13:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * We've already polluted Wikibooks' scope with the Cookbook. We have Wikijunior which targets a sub-section of the total English speaking audience, namely children.  A Simple namespace and content targets a sub-section of the total English speaking audience as well, namely those for whom it is not a first language.  I view Simple English as a subset of English, not something that is mutually exclusive.  See Special English, one of the dialects of English.  That's where my perspective is coming from. -- Adrignola talk contribs 14:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Polluted? Just because some of the content of this project isn't about computers or science doesn't make it out of place.  The more the merrier.  Wikibooks needs to grow and it needs to expand its remit from technical and computer related topics.  The Cookbook is the best example of what Wikibooks can do.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 21:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not a textbook in my view, which is what Wikibooks is supposed to be about. Potentially it may have begun as a book on teaching cooking techniques, but now it's a collection of recipes, many of which may be pulled from a copyrighted cookbook somewhere.  If you want recipes, you can go to foodnetwork.com.  -- Adrignola talk contribs 22:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Foodnetwork.com is not suitable because it is an American website (written purely for Americans because of its use of imperial measurements [ounces, cups, etc.]) and it is a commercial website. I avoid commercial websites like the plague as commercial entities have one aim only: profit.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 23:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * IMO, English Wikibooks is and should be an open-content textbook collection written in the English language. I don't care if you want to start your own cookbook as long as it is in proper English, but combining simple wikibooks to here is like trying to kill this project as well. Other wikimedia projects like Wikitionary for example, don't target for a specific audience or demographic. They serve to be a free, online English-language dictionary. Anyways regardless of whether content from simple wikibooks is transferred here, I doubt that simple wb can be reopened. Also the whole purpose for the closure discussion at meta was to decide by consensus whether the project should be closed. A firm consensus supported closure. Importing content here is like trying to have simple wikibooks cheat its closure. Slipknot1 (talk) 18:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As many have mentioned, there are different levels of English. Our inclusion criteria require content for an English audience, but we allow different books to be written to different audiences (even parallel books on the same topic). This won't harm English Wikibooks at all. The Simple English Wikibooks content is a drop in the ocean.
 * It does hurt Wikibooks to be so fragmented into books whereas Wiktionary and other projects are essentially huge, single books. But Wikibooks is more than an informational resource; it is an educational resource. Requiring each book to cater to a broad audience would hurt the project. --Swift (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Bug 22106 filed, depends on 22103. Could be done by hand even if developers opt out and regardless of discussion at Meta. -- Adrignola talk contribs 13:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Bug closed; premature and lacking community support. -- Adrignola talk contribs 05:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Set up a page at Simple English merger to organise the cleanup following the merge. --Swift (talk) 01:36, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * If people are willing to put the effort in, we should import then merge / adopt / delete based on the current WB policies. This is no different to someone importing a WP article as the basis for a book, merging some of the content then deleting the rest (i.e., the original Transwiki namespace import). Surely we can use Subjects or Categories or Bookshelves to present appropriate material to appropriate audiences? A "simple" bookshelf or subject, but not called "simple".. "Books for those with a level X command of English" for example. As for the Cookbook - a course on cookery would include recipes as examples to practice out the techniques, and the Cookbook does contain technique and tool pages too. Perhaps it is just structural wrong and lacks the overlay to present it to the reader as an instructional guide rather than a recipe book. I can be salvaged I'm sure. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 14:29, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

CAN ONE "FORWARD" INFORMATION FROM WIKIPEDIA INTO THE GERMANE WIKIBOOK SECTIONS?
Hello, my ID is Plutophanes, I contribute to Wikipedia and I beleive that the WMF Open Knowledge Base is an important step in educational evolution. Perhaps on the Top Ten along with the printing press! I have multiple degrees ( all information is available on my user page in Wikipedia under the same username ) and work as a Behaviour Analyst ( a discipline deeply interwoven with learning theory- leaning on the Behavioural theory of learning but requiring a graduate-level understanding of Constructivism and Post-Modern learning theories) and as a Junior Statistician at a research firm and live as a Contemporary-Music Composer with diplomas, awards and top Conservatory associations.

'''My question is: Can we copy & paste information on a subject from Wikipedia to Wikibooks, if: a) The license for the Wiki allows for such a reproduction and dissemination? b) We have enough knowledge of the subject to make judicious and informative decisions?'''

This seems to me an exigent question- it may be answered somewhere within the labyrinth but I have not found it yet. Please respond to me in this arena, or as a PM to my username, or to my Wikipedia account.  Thank you all for your hard and noble work!!!

Plutophanes (talk) 18:23, 16 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. See WB:RFI. --Swift (talk) 19:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki Citing
Am I allowed to cite wiktionary or wikipedia in a book? --Popsike (talk) 02:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're allowed to cite anything that is useful. You're not, however, allowed to copy content over without proper attribution as required by license. If you want to base a module on a Wikipedia entry, please place a request at WB:RFI. We don't have imports enabled for Wiktionary. What do you want from them? --Swift (talk) 03:56, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Copying material from other Wikibooks
Suppose I wanted to reuse some material from another Wikibook, but also wanted to modify it significantly to meet the needs of the new book. If I just create a new page and copy in a large chunk from another book, does this create any copyright issues. As far as I understand Requests for Import, WB:RFI this just applies to imports from other Wikimedia projects. Recent Runes (talk) 00:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Just include in the edit summery a permanent link to the revision you used for copying contents and you should be covered by current requirements for reusing contents from Wikimedia projects. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  00:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the above opinion, the comment on the edit history won't suffice.
 * If you copy content in quantity from one book to another you have to give the original work a reference (in project or outside of he project, depending also if there is a copyright attribution page) or merge the edit histories (you should place, by courtesy a note on the talkpage of the source book as well), another solution that has been defended in the past is to use trasclusions but I don't see that as something you would be interested or a good idea to be used across book projects in any case. Basically you use the same requirements for using content from Wikipedia, etc... ( I think that darklama above is only mentioning copy content inside the same Wikimedia project not across projects. I would agree that it would be the general practice for copies made on the same book. ) --Panic (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not talking about contents copied from within the same Wikimedia project. This applies for copying contents from any Wikimedia project including any Wikibooks language project. Whenever someone edits now the text below the textbox says "You agree to be credited by re-users at minimum through a hyperlink or URL to the page you are contributing to." This was suppose to be changed on all projects to apply to all Wikimedia Foundation projects. If I wanted to reuse or distribute a copy of a book from Wikibooks, I would only need to include a link to the book to satisfy the requirements. I don't see this being any different for copying between language projects. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  20:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I never saw it mentioned before as a accepted way to acknowledge copied content, even for instance from Wikipedia (it would make even more problematic the discussion we have been having about tagging that content as a copyvio in place of fixing the issue), but in any case I disagree that a comment on the edit history would suffice even to enable coping from Wikipedia, just because after a book is removed from Wikibooks project that mention would most probably disappear.
 * You also know that the click through is yet to be verified as valid (at best you should acknowledge that its use has a more informative and protective function than a legally binding one, this has been discussed elsewhere, and that particular change would at best cover recent edits). In this particular case it continued not to apply in general as it doesn't take in consideration of the contributor using third party content. Consider for instance copies from Wikisource were edit histories are mostly irrelevant...
 * "If I wanted to reuse or distribute a copy of a book from Wikibooks, I would only need to include a link to the book to satisfy the requirements.", this is extremely wrong as a generalization and as a practice. This seems a rehash of our previous discussion that you objected to having the authors mentioned in the print version of a book. One has to respect the rights of others, Darklama, because it is at least morally correct to do so. The Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 even mentions in the dumbed down version "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor..." (this is more or less the same requirement made on the GFDL, the GFDL requires the specific mention the name of the source book/work).   --Panic (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * What is an acceptable way to acknowledge copied content from any Wikimedia project changed awhile ago. If clicking submit isn't a legal binding way to show that a person agrees to give up certain copy rights, then all contents on all wikimedia projects would be under a copyright with all rights reserved. By clicking submit the author has agreed to a manner specified by the Wikimedia Foundation, which is to include a URL or hyperlink to the work. I choose to assume that the Wikimedia Foundation consulted a lawyer to ensure they would be in compliance with any relevant laws and have adequately safeguarded against the possibility of any licensing agreement and and manner of attributing authors from being voided if challenged in a court of law. Can we stop with the wikilawyering now? --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  00:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That is not so and if you don't remember other discussion on the subject on this project about that, I do. At least I know several problem we are opened to because the way changes have been proceeding in that subject, and I'm not as certain as you that Wikimedia Foundation consulted a lawyer, there are known problems even on the adoption of the dual licensing, but the legality is not extremely relevant (at least to me) what is important is the safeguard of the intentions and aspirations of contributors, because even if they can't be said to be equally shared by all they run mostly in parallel, I doubt any legal issue will arise from those minor mishaps. Again this was the reason I objected to have content from Wikipedia deleted as a copyvio.
 * This is not wikilawyering by my part only my response to your invocation of click through notice. See if you agree with what Adrignola stated, I'm in agreement with that view.  --Panic (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

A link to the book allows viewing of the edit history and viewing of the book's title. You can choose to reuse content under the GFDL or CC-BY-SA. If you choose the latter, attribution can be a minimum of a link or you can go through the trouble of listing every editor to every page of the book (the PDF generator does do that for you automatically, however). When content is imported through Special:Import, it brings over the edit history for the GFDL but also has a link to the original in the edit history for CC-BY-SA. If the full history import fails, bringing over a single revision still satisfies CC-BY-SA through a link to the original in the edit history, which you can follow for the full edit history up to that point in time. Printing out a book shows "Retrieved from ..." at the end of the copy. Where exactly is the problem? -- Adrignola talk contribs 23:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * What you said is more or less what I stated above, Adrignola (you have even generalized to any usable content and made clear the link to other projects/books edit histories). So we seem to agree that a simple comment on the edit history alone (as advanced by Darklama) will not suffice, am I reading it correctly?
 * If so I don't have any issue with that. On the other hand I did fail to notice that change on the click through (I did notice the inclusion of the CC-BY-SA) and it seems the wording is not clear enough, when has the text changed to include "at minimum, through a hyperlink or URL to the page you are contributing to". Where, when did that discussion took place ? --Panic (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

As a relative newbie here, I don't feel qualified to get involved in a debate. What would be more useful are some references to official policies that cover the scenario I have outlined. Recent Runes (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  01:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In practice, if I were looking to do such a thing, I would consult, and adapt however seemed appropriate, w:Wikipedia:Splitting. --Pi zero (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The Wikipedia project has a different structure and attributions requirements. The URL Darklama provided is better detailed and covers almost any instance and Wikimedia project (it is hard to cover clearly all the projects needs under the same text). If no one is opposing the Adrignola statement above (the most complete so far) it answered Recent Runes doubt. The rest of the discussion can be dismissed, even if pertinent it constitute minor corrections, that complemented the information that was provided. --Panic (talk) 01:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

ODU book consolidation
Not that I'm planning to tackle it right away, but I was contemplating merging the various editions of Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education and Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment at some point in the future. The point of a wiki is to be able to improve upon previous content and these books, when creating subsequent editions for newer classes, often duplicated the prior edition's content and worked off of that, rather than improving upon existing pages. Looking at the tables of contents, the different editions are extremely similar. Now that the classes have finished with these two books, it would seem prudent to refactor them so that they are more inviting for the general populace to work with. Of course edit histories would be merged in the process. Any objections or thoughts? -- Adrignola talk contribs 15:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, these versions seriously need to be merged. I slightly feel we've been taken advantage of by ODU in that they should have done the refactoring themselves. I noticed this a while back, but always felt this was too big a task to deal with &mdash; especially since the books were actively being worked on. If they aren't at work on yet another version and you're up for it, this might be just the time to merge these versions. Also, we might want to keep an eye out for this sort of (well-intentioned) behaviour in the future so that hard-working Wikibookians don't get thrown yet more work to shovel through... --Swift (talk) 16:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I would think that Wikiversity is a better place for this kind of course texts. Only one version should be hosted on Wikibooks. --Martin Kraus (talk) 10:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

3D Robot
Hello all! I'm all about giant robots/mechs. I'm using blender to make 3D models of them. I'm still tutorialing, but once I've got it down pat... WHAT SHOULD I START WITH?!?!?!?!?! Plz answer. --68.221.140.66 (talk) 01:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)Grayson wolowicz


 * I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Could you clarify? --Swift (talk) 02:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

alphabetic sorting of DynamicPageLists
Good news: if I understand it correctly, in revision r60800 of MediaWiki (currently wikibooks uses r59858) we might finally be able to sort DynamicPageLists (which are used on the subject pages) alphabetically (using ordermethod=categorysortkey ). --Martin Kraus (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)