Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2010/October

Why do you participate in Wikibooks?
I'm currently writing a paper on the economics of the open-source textbook market. Needless to say, it's really exciting.

Anyway, I could use a good quote or something as to why one of you contributes to Wikibooks. What do you get out of it? I'll check back in a few hours.


 * "Ask not what Wikibooks can do for you - ask what you can do for Wikibooks!" (with apologies to JFK) Recent Runes (talk) 19:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I seek to enable others to fulfill their educational goals, whether I contribute to content creation or site administration. The personal satisfaction I gain is what I get out of it. Take a look at this – [[User:Adrignola|Adrignola] talk 19:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I came here to write a book that serves a community of volunteers with which I was already associated. It made sense to me that the information we needed should be open, freely distributed, and developed collaboratively.  The materials we used before were neither free nor collaborative, because they were not electronically distributable.  They were also woefully out of date.  Developing new resources here solved those problems. --Jomegat (talk) 19:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Another quote would be what Jimmy Wales says about Wikibooks here at 19:15 (near the end). – Adrignola talk 20:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * It's entirely selfish. I needed a way to modularise textual training materials in such a way that they could be easily updated, revised and extended and then selectively compiled into book form for printing.  I looked at several solutions and then I tried Wikibooks.  It has by far the best work flow and I leverage a whole community of expertise and knowledge.  In return, my materials are released under the wikibooks license conditions and I'm even happier about that!  Jimbotyson (talk) 10:35, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Because it's fun! The process of writing books and illustrating them is very boring but every time you finish a module I get happier. When I complete a book (I've only completed 1 so far) I'm in seventh heaven! I also think that the Wikibooks community can benefit from a user who is a secondary school student, because AFAIK most active users are grownups. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 14:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Copyrights
Is it a copyright violation if I upload a picture (that I took) of a picture (that I didn't take) of a neolithic artefact? Thanks Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 13:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is. You have either created a derivative work in which you own the copyright but still require the permission of the original photographer to publish it or, more likely in my opinion, you've just created a copy (not a derivative work) and the whole copyright still remains with the original photographer. QU TalkQu 15:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, thanks. I saw those pictures in the museum yesterday. I'm not sure about the copyright status of those pics though, it wasn't stated. If it was photographed by the government I think there's some chance that the government may release it under PD but then if the archaeologists took it then probably not. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 00:51, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * What if I take a picture of the reconstruction of a neolothic man in a museum display case? Would that be a copyright violation? (BTW: yes taking photos is allowed there) Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 05:06, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's okay. If the neolithic man was considered an artwork (unlikely) and is on permanent display in a public place then it's also okay. It probably is only a problem if there are some kind of restrictions applied that you consent to when taking photos (very unlikely). On the government point, if it is a US government employee who took the photo in the course of their duties then I believe it is always consider public domain. QU TalkQu 22:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, the way I see it, if it's an artwork and is on permanent display in a public place then it's okay. But the photographs of artefacts are also on permanent display in a public place. Does that mean this is also okay? What licence should be used then? Also, if this is not okay does it qualify for fair use if I use it for the History of Hong Kong book, in the chapter about the stone age? Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 03:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference is when you take a photograph of a 3D object you own the copyright in the photograph because the photo itself is an original creation (the use of light, the angle, etc., making it "art"). When you take a photograph of a 2D object, you are just making an all but identical copy so there is no original creation. This distinction between 2D and 3D subjects in a photograph is specified in the US copyright law. If you have taken a photograph of this artwork on permanent display in a public place then you choose how to license it. To upload it to Commons it would need to be one of the free licenses accepted there (there's loads of info on Commons as to what to use, usually CC-BY-SA 3.0 is chosen). Fair use depends on whether the picture is genuinely not replaceable by a free alternative and without the picture the book cannot serve its purpose. So, if the book is about that specific neolithic artefact then it might qualify for fair use. If it was about neolithic artefacts in general then it probably wouldn't be eligible as you could find a free photograph (or take one yourself) of another artefact that could illustrate the book just as well. Copyright law is a complex area, but this is my understanding...! QU TalkQu 22:24, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We need another bureaucrat
Wikibooks could certainly benefit from another bureaucrat. I think any wiki with only one bureaucrat will suffer from a problem: if a bureaucrat decision is challenged, there is nobody to reverse it. (No really, I know bureaucrats cannot uncheck admin rights, and I don't know if a renaming can be reversed but...) Also, if there are two bureaucrats the bureaucrats can keep an eye on one another to see if they made any 'crat mistakes. However I won't nominate anyone in case the nominee refuses, and other admins who are also, IMO, eligible to become a 'crat take offence. If you think you can become a 'crat, please self-nominate. :) Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 01:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A bureaucrat decision naming a sysop can be questioned and reversed at meta, with a showing of local consensus. I do agree, though, that it's better to have two. It may be more important, though, that a 'crat be highly trusted to remain neutral. --Abd (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Thenub314's bureaucrat nomination
The comment above inspired me to nominate myself as a bureaucrat. As per policy I am advertising my nomination here. Thenub314 (talk) 02:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Doing it right.
I just started a wikiBook at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Untitled_Bro.Gers_Book for my writing co-op, and I'm wonder how do I avoid the deletion of my Wiki.


 * I already know the book would need to be moved to an actual title at some point. I provided you some advice on your talk page.  I'm still unclear as to what you actually intend to do at Wikibooks.  The best I can do is point out that Wikibooks is not a web host, so you can't simply create a book here for your organization to coordinate its activities.  If your organization wants to do it the other way around, and coordinate its activities to create a book, then that is acceptable.  You'd want to create a page for a book on an actual topic and can then use the discussion page for that book to coordinate efforts.  Additionally there are several WikiProjects as they are called to coordinate efforts in a specific area.  I am not familiar with your group, so I can't specifically suggest an existing or new one to create.  If you have a website for the group, please provide it or detail your intentions more thoroughly.  Otherwise, my advice will simply have to be pretty generic.  What is Wikibooks details exactly what is acceptable here. – Adrignola talk 15:37, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Producing refereed academic papers on Wikibooks
For some time I have had the idea of using the internet to produce academic papers in the public domain. Wikibooks might be the place to do this. The idea is that an author submits a new draft paper. People can jump in to make additions and possibly add their names as co-authors. People can jump in to edit and add their names as editors. When the paper has sufficient content it can be frozen for refereeing. Suitably qualified referees can be invited (or maybe just drop in) to determine if the paper is suitable for publication. If it is suitable it can be sent to Wikisource and linked (if appropriate) to articles in Wikipedia. Wikibooks academic papers would need a special format.

The advantages of this system is that the papers would be created and remain in the public domain. Publication might also be faster than through the established printed journals. Academics like myself want the widest possible distribution of their work but this gets blocked because the publishers of academic journals normally take the copyright of the papers away from the authors.

I am new to Wikibooks and Wiki space in general, so I apologize if I'm way off track with this. It is just an idea, hopefully it can gain substance if other people are interested. Logicalgregory (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments. It seems that wikibooks is not the place for this idea. However, I will continue the thread for a moment longer, if only for the benefit of others who are lost in wikispace. At wikia I found a page that has been set up to do almost exactly what I proposed. It seems to have been in existence for some six years and, although all the infrastructure is there, there is virtually no content. It seems that an "academic publishing" page is just too general to attract participants. It needs to be more focused on a specific area of study. Also, I think it needs a strong group to start it off. I do not think it can be started by just one person with the expectation that others will just drop in (it will end up as dead space). I might pursue the idea further at wikiversity if I can put a group together.Logicalgregory (talk) 09:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What you are describing sounds more like Wikia. We have a policy against original research here on Wikibooks. Recent Runes (talk) 09:03, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please, I beg of you, let's not advertise for Wikia, as that is a conflict of interest with the Wikimedia Foundation board. As for the "policy against original research" here, I personally think that is something that ought to be reconsidered by the community. Having now carefully read that policy, I am wondering if this recent output is actually in violation of Wikibooks policy? -- Thekohser (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, don't worry about "advertising" on this level. It is traditional to suggest to people, before nuking their silly contributions, to point out other places that will take them, "this is better for Wikia" is quite a bit nicer than "get that crap out of here!" We could also point out, for example, MyWikiBiz. Just don't you point it out, okay! More to the point, though, is that Wikiversity is a great place for original research, it is explicitly allowed, just don't try to present it as a scientific consensus, for example, if it isn't. But you can put up a page on your Favorite Crackpot Theory, note that it's not accepted, and then pretty much say what you want as long as it isn't illegal or fattening. At least that's the theory, the execution of the theory gets a bit ragged sometimes, but we are working on that.


 * As to your brilliant paper, while one might quibble with some words at the end, one might also allow an author some flexibility, especially if the conclusions reached are obvious, and Wikibooks policy on Original Research seems far more flexible than that of Wikipedia. In the end -- in both places! -- the real standard is consensus, there is no way around that unless the Foundation wants to step in, i.e., no way, so my advice: remember to be nice! Now, if I could just take my own advice..... --Abd (talk) 19:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikiversity is a good place for this, which is still within the Wikimedia projects. --dark lama  14:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. My opinion is that it is possible that Wikiversity could establish a peer review process, and that it could become, effectively, a publisher of peer-reviewed papers. There are quite a few obstacles to overcome, though. I don't expect to see this soon. However, papers can be written there, just as students and teachers may present, in classes, original research. An exciting idea is the collaborative writing of papers that might be submitted for publication elsewhere, under normal peer review. I've even set up a lab resource at Cold fusion/Lab, something that would be completely inappropriate on Wikipedia or here. I work extensively on Wikiversity because of the great academic freedom that is the ideal there. It's largely realized, and there have only been problems arising from WMF critics using Wikiversity to criticize WMF projects, and then individuals criticized, often politically powerful within the WMF community, and their friends, also came to oppose, sometimes also in disruptive ways. The use (for "Wiki studies") is theoretically possible, but will require the establishment of ethical standards, and I wanted Thekohser to be unblocked there precisely so that he could support the development of those standards, from the critic side, and I assume that there will be others who will participate from the "defense." If, absent such standards, he abuses the relative freedom of Wikiversity to prematurely criticize, I will act to prevent it. But I don't expect it to be a problem. He's been very cooperative. --Abd (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Dear Logicalgregory,
 * That sounds like an excellent idea. However, as Darklama and Recent Runes pointed out, other wiki exist that would be an even better place for it than Wikibooks.
 * If you are thinking about publishing some particular paper, perhaps it would be even better to post an outline on a wiki dedicated to whatever particular field you are interested in. A few such narrowly-focused wiki are:
 * Science of Spectroscopy wiki
 * OpenWetWare wiki: biology
 * Renewable Energy Design wikia
 * SklogWiki dedicated to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
 * BioMineWiki: biology and hydrometallurgy
 * UsefulChem Project wiki
 * Pretty Science Wikia
 * --DavidCary (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

As someone who recently repurposed a small portion of his undergraduate honors thesis here on Wikibooks (perhaps unwittingly in violation of policy!), I would like to say something. I can attest that there were at least 100 honors papers coming out of Emory University every year in the late 1980's, and one would estimate with near certainty that easily half of them never reached a "digital age" reformatting. It seems an utter waste of talent and labor to not reach out to people with honors research "collecting dust", and ask them (plead with them!) to consider scanning the work for OCR, then releasing it under a free license to share with the rest of the world. Multiply my experience at Emory by at least 200 (or 400, or 800!), to cover the many outstanding universities worldwide that have featured honors papers, etc. We're talking about a great deal of content and information that really should be gathered up and made digital. If not on Wikibooks, why? And where? -- Thekohser (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not peer-reviewed, but this material would presumably be fine for Wikiversity, no question, and some of it might be okay here as well. It's likely to be of better quality than the average. Great idea, Thekohser. The problem with great ideas is, frequently, too many Chiefs with great ideas and not enough Indians. I'd suggest this as a project on Wikiversity, to get the papers in a place which is pretty safe from deletion based on arguments of POV, etc., and then review them for transfer to Wikibooks. But I have no problem with placement here first, and then a move to Wikiversity if that seems more appropriate at the time. What I don't like is the raw deal of you do all this work on a page or set of pages and then they are deleted because Randy from Boise and a few drive-bys thought it wasn't notable or was something else Bad. (It's hard to imagine a submitted degree thesis or an honor paper that wouldn't be appropriate, at least, for Wikiversity. But the world is big.) --Abd (talk) 19:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Concerning Thekosher and Abd remarks on undergraduate honors thesis, I am very confused about where papers can be uploaded on the various Wiki Foundation sites. I have a lot of papers that I would like to make more available to the general public. These are undergraduate thesis, Masters thesis, PhD thesis, a collection of working papers published by University Departments, an even larger collection of papers published in academic journals. The copyright of the published papers have been hi-jacked by various publishers, so there seems to be nothing that can be done about these - they will be locked away in print libraries (where nobody will ever read them) until long after I'm dead (which is why I suggested academic papers could be produced on a Wiki). Going one step back, there are the working papers upon which the published papers are based. They are not as polished as the published papers but are a valuable research resource that could be placed in the public domain. Working papers are peer reviewed within a University Department. When I brought up the question publishing these at Wikisource I was told "We would only look at the papers following peer review" by which I understand them to mean that the working papers would have to be peer reviewed again. This requirement would, I think, be difficult to meet because I know of nobody that would be prepared to spend their time reviewing a paper that has already been reviewed. Now Thekosher suggests collecting undergraduate thesis (I do not think this is a bad idea), when papers that are far more developed, and only one step away from being lost for 100 years, have nowhere to go. Logicalgregory (talk) 07:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If you prefer to stay within the Wikimedia Foundation wikis, then Wikiversity is the only place that original research is acceptable. – Adrignola talk 12:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Having been peer reviewed means the work isn't original research per say. The existing peer reviewed journals where the work was previous published and polished up could be cited as sources. However the papers are probably most useful if preserved as papers, so Wikiversity would be the place for that since papers are a type of educational resource acceptable there, while non-book materials are not meant to hosted at Wikibooks. Anyone could use the papers when made available at Wikiversity as a bases for developing books at Wikibooks, if they cite the journals where the work was peer reviewed. Since copyright seems to be a concern I think confirming permission with OTRS should be done before making the papers available at Wikiversity. --dark lama  15:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * If it is in the Public Domain and has been published in a "verifiable, usually peer-reviewed forum", it is welcome at wikisource. The Wikiproject can be found at s:Wikisource:WikiProject Academic Papers. -Arlen22 (talk) 18:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think, thought I could be wrong, that wikisource requires the material to be published elsewhere before they will accept it. I suppose this keeps people from posting their rejected papers there straight away without correcting the flaws. Thenub314 (talk) 18:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Placement of HTML tags: Wiktionary or Wikibooks?
Hello. I am a Wiktionarian administrator, interested in seeking feedback and opinions from Wikibookians, to solve an issue directly related to both projects.

There is an ongoing discussion about the existence of individual entries for HTML tags. As notable examples, on Wiktionary, there are Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/img, Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/h1 and Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/title, to define, respectively, the tags img, h1 and title.

However, especially since the creation and maintenance of HTML tags at Wiktionary is a fairly new project, it depends on further consensus. All these pages may conceivably be kept or be deleted from Wiktionary, according to the development of possible discussions and/or votes.

One particular argument for deleting these pages from Wiktionary is that there are already pages on Wikibooks, including HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/img, HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/option and HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/table for similar purposes, therefore Wiktionarian versions would be redundant.

Since the particular message "Given this book is a user guide, it is organized around topics from the user's perspective, not around the names of the tags." is displayed at the top of HyperText Markup Language/Tag List, am I right in assuming that individual pages for each HTML tag would be better placed in Wiktionary? Or, perhaps, there are reasons for keeping them at Wikibooks, that I am unaware of?

Thanks in advance. --Daniel. (talk) 17:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I would consider that page more of an alphabetical index of tags and the note is indicating that the chapters shown at the root of the book will use those tags as needed based on the functional organization of the book. The book as a whole is based around what kinds of things you want to do with HTML rather than going through each tag in turn.  HTML tags are not anything close to what I'd imagine being hosted at Wiktionary and it seems like that's a reach for Wiktionary's scope. I compare HyperText Markup Language/Tag List/img with wikt:Appendix:Hyper Text Markup Language/img and the former is far superior.  – Adrignola talk 17:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Since Wiktionary is already more reference-like, it makes sense in that view to put them there. But Wikibooks would be a more logical choice given the content and purpose of Wikibooks itself. I can't, however, imagine that a separate book would be created for the reference of each computer language. Which, in turn, means that if they were to be placed on Wikibooks, they'd necessarily have to form part of some sort of appendix within each wikibook on their respective subjects. In either case, a reference list for HTML as well as for other computer languages is certainly extremely useful. I really think we should at least have references for computer languages somewhere on Wikimedia. But where, I don't know. CodeCat (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict, above comments by Adrignola and CodeCat not yet read.)That is an interesting question, and one I don't know I have a quick answer to. My feeling is that the tag list you point out is certainly appropriate for the book it is in, that is as an appendix to the textbook on HTML. As to the individual structure of the book, one entry per page seems a bit cumbersome but I usually defer to individual book contributors for how they like to structure their books.  So I imagine that the pages are reasonably covered by our scope.  I am less familiar with wikitonary's scope, but roughly speaking traditional dictionaries have appendices on all sorts of things (how to convert cups to tablespoons, etc.), and I am not surpirsed that wikitionary has such an appendix.  But then again, it really becomes a line as to where the scope begins and ends, this wouldn't be covered in a more traditional dictionary... so, to summarize, I don't know how to feel about these pages at wikitionary, but the pages pointed to in wikibooks are well suited to our scope. I am not sure how to handle the duplication of effort problem. Thenub314 (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think "HyperText Markup Language/Tag List" with all its subpages should be separated again into a standalone book, named along the lines of "HTML Reference". I do not think a reference book should be presented as an appendix of a guidebook; these should be two standalone books instead. On the other subject, this seems to be a Wikibooks material rather than a dictionary one. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think "which project" is the wrong thing to focus on. A dictionary explains how to pronounce words, there definitions, and correct grammar uses. Books may have a glossary, which usually only include unfamiliar words that people in the field should know without details usually found in a dictionary. Books should have glossaries. I think what Wiktionarians should focus on is if explaining how to pronounce words, there definitions, and correct grammar uses for programming terms is relevant to Wiktionary's scope. --dark lama  18:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Re Dan: Maybe, but the implication is that there will be more than just one reference book. If there is a HTML reference, then we'll also want a reference book for C, Python and so on for every other computer language with a sizable collection of names. CodeCat (talk) 20:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Wiktionary has developed a consistent format to organize morphemes of multiple languages. I believe it may as well be consistently expanded to include commands, tags and other characteristics of computer codes, that may in turn be further organized by categorization and indexes. For example, once this project reaches a certain level of maturity, a page called wikt:Appendix:Control flow statements could explain "go to", "for" and "while" of various languages together.
 * If one particular goal of Wiktionary is to explain the grammar of many natural languages, it may as well conceivably explain the syntax of programming languages similarly. Since Wikibooks has Subject:English language, in addition to the coverage of English from Wiktionary, I assume each project may treat the same subjects from different approaches, without them becoming redundant to each other. --Daniel. (talk) 20:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Question
Just now all WMF projects, including wikimediafoundation.org and the secure server. were down for a while. What was wrong? Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 14:53, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Happens all the time ;-) When it does, I go on to IRC to find out that by the time I've joined the right channel the WM servers are responding again. Yes, not very helpful I know. QU TalkQu 14:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Using # on title
Hi. I am from Turkish Wikibooks. I have seen that the title of C Sharp Programming book contains # symbol. I want to learn how did you achieved that. And more importantly did this affect Google rank when searching "C#" instead of "C Sharp"? Bekiroflaz (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hello. It uses the displaytitle template to override the page name to display "C#" instead. That is, it includes . If you look at the wikicode in the template you'll be able to see how it is done. It doesn't affect the Google ranking as the page name is still "C Sharp", not "C#" - the "#" is being inserted dynamically. QU TalkQu 22:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Google likely still sees the book as "C Sharp" because "C#" is achieved dynamically using javascript and Google likely ignores javascript. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  22:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comprehensible explanations. Bekiroflaz (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikistution
I'd like to solicit thoughts on this recently-created book, with discussion having occurred at the creator's talk page already. It is proposed that it may be a better fit at Wikiversity. – Adrignola talk 16:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree the project seems to better fit Wikiversity (it would also be interesting to bring more editor on board proposing an internationalization of the constitution's text), another idea that would be interesting is to have it cover multiple Wikimedia project by referencing Wikisource and not to unnecessarily duplicate the content (in a similar format) and start an annotation and historic analysis (even referencing the original declarations that helped to form the original text) with the revisions at Wikibooks.
 * For what I read at User talk:Norton he does not oppose moving the work but does require some assurance from Wikiversity that it would be welcomed there. My understanding is that darklama has helped clear that out. The issue seems to be that the user may be unaware of darklama's activity at Wikiversity...
 * I also like to praise this action (and the previous dialog with the user) as an avoidance to initiate a RfD that would probably result in the alienation of the editor, Norton should take it as a constructive criticism as to benefit his work and a recognition of the value of the idea, even if we seem to agree that as is it doesn't fit Wikibooks definitions.  --Panic (talk) 01:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe that the work is better suited at WV also. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 02:16, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm convinced! My thanks to all concerned.  I would appreciate any help on the task of moving Wikistution from Wikibooks to Wikiversity.  Is there a a way to move it all at once, or will I need to go into mass production copying and pasting?  Thanks in advance for suggestions.  Appreciatively, - Norton (talk) 02:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * An admin at WV should be able to import it. It will still be done a page at a time, but the edit history will come over with it. --Jomegat (talk) 02:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I can do the importing when Norton is ready. Norton has solicit thoughts at Wikiversity as well as I had previously suggested. I think Wikibooks can afford to wait a few days more, if Norton would prefer to wait and see if anyone else at Wikiversity has anything to say on this. Adrignola had mentioned briefly previously that I contribute to Wikiversity. I don't know if awareness of my activity at Wikiversity would give Norton more confidence or not to move ahead, or perhaps what has been written in this discussion has already been enough. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  09:43, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm ready, Darklama--and I'm very grateful to you for this generous offer, since moving Wikistution will take time. And thanks also for your offer to wait a few days more--but at this point I'm pretty confident that Wikistution belongs at Wikiversity.  You've earned my confidence in your judgment.  Thanks to all Wikibookians for their help--and in particular to you and Adrignola.  I would also like to thank Panic for helpful thoughts and suggestions--and to agree emphatically that this was handled in a generous and respectful manner that raises my esteem for the Wikibooks community. - Norton (talk) 14:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The process is rather fast and I've already taken care of it. You can find it at Wikistution now. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  14:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Darklama! Norton (talk) 14:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

non-citation footnotes
I'm trying to figure out how to best format footnotes which aren't citations, but are "asides". Is there any way to have these non-citation footnotes be handled separately from the citations? Should I be ditching the footnotes and going for sidebars or something instead? TDang (talk) 18:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * References can use the <ref ></ref> tags with reflist under a references section, while notes can use ref and note. If you click the blue links you'll see the documentation pages explaining the differences more fully.  – Adrignola talk 19:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I'll explore those. TDang (talk) 19:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can also try using ref groups. Our sister project has a page explaining all this. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 11:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, thanks! I'm not sure which approach I'd like, but I sure am embarrassed that I didn't see that before. Trying to edit in my sleep. TDang (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The great FlaggedRevisions mystery
Comments for flagged revisions have not been turned off, yet. Will they be turned off? Frozen Wind want to be chilly?  20:01, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * We tried to get that option set in the configuration. There is actually a piece of code in our configuration that should have turned off the comments, according to the documentation for the extension at MediaWiki.  It didn't work, however, or maybe the developer put it in the wrong place. – Adrignola talk 20:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * 24304 reopened. Frozen Wind  want to be chilly?  00:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Regex
What regex would I use to remove every ref on a page? -Arlen22 (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Depends on the dialect. Maybe: /\<\s*ref\s+(?:name\s*\=\s*(?:\"[^\"]*\"|\'[^\']*\'|\S*))?\s*(?:\/\s*\>|\s*\>.*?<\s*\/\s*ref\s*\>)/gi --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  18:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For what I needed, this worked (which I got on IRC): -Arlen22 (talk) 18:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * As long as none of the refs use a name argument you should be fine. See Help:Extension:Cite if you want to try to make a regex that catches all possibilities. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  18:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Countervandalism IRC Channels
I've started a discussion on Meta (following a discussion in IRC) about the CVN IRC channels used to monitor, amongst others, EN Wikibooks and whether they should be merged into the "small wikis" channel to facilitate monitoring by Global Sysops. Further comments welcome <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 13:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Five-year WMF targets
There was a thread on the foundation-l mailing list on five-year Wikimedia Foundation targets excluding non-Wikipedia projects. Below are some highlights that would be most relevant for those concerned with Wikibooks. The full postings are linked. – Adrignola talk 15:30, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The vast majority of our users are using Wikipedia and not the other projects, which means even a small improvement to Wikipedia is likely to have more impact than even a large improvement to one of the other projects. Sue was very clear that prioritising Wikipedia only applies to the WMF. The community can, and should, continue to improve the other projects, the WMF just feels that its limited resources are better used where they will have more impact.

It's absolutely not clear to me (and I don't think anyone) that a focused investment in, say, textbook development is actually going to result in predictable payoff in a transformatively larger number of sustainable content contributors. That doesn't mean that there isn't a potential for such an investment to be successful, and it doesn't mean that it's not a risk worth taking.

But let's not kid ourselves -- transformatively increasing the productivity and success of efforts like Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikisource is not just a matter of tiny injections of bugfixes and extensions here and there. It's a matter of serious assessment of all underlying processes and developing social and technical architectures to support them. I hope that we'll eventually be able to make such investments, but I also think it's entirely reasonable to prioritize lower risk investments.


 * Wow, how extraordinarily depressing. Thenub314 (talk) 17:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. It's not surprising to me, however.  It just gives me all the more motivation to prove them wrong. Also, a relevant slide from Wikimania 2010, where Erik Moeller above took a look at the other Wikimedia projects besides Wikipedia: Slide 23.  Slides before and after cover the others, for comparison. – Adrignola talk 19:47, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with the ideas expressed above that collaborative text production is unlikely to grow dramatically. In fact, what we are seeing today is a proliferation in the quality and number of different wiki-like tools and communities for developing books. Booki and FLOSSManuals have been growing rapidly, CK12 has invested in a new book-editing framework and in training a small community of text authors to use them, &c.  I do think the thing to do is to prove such naysaying wrong -- but I also think that the technical tools available at Wikibooks are now inferior to what other popular collab-book-editing sites offer, and any serious attempt to develop texts must advance the tools used as well. Sj (talk) 13:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe I should get to work again! -Arlen22 (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought Moeller founded Wikinews... Anyway, but how can the WB community prove them wrong? It's not like WB will get much more traffic even if we make it 100% perfect... Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 10:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Quantity matters as much as quality. -Arlen22 (talk) 13:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I would think that high quality textbooks would attract more readers due to gaining higher rankings in search results. The moral of the above is that if we want to succeed, we have to do it ourselves and the WMF cannot be relied upon for support.  We prove them wrong about our prospects by not giving up even if the head honchos have forgotten where Wikipedia once was compared to where it is today.  It's apparent that they have not heard the idea that the greater the risk, the greater the reward.  As Wikipedia has matured, the potential for greater percentage of growth lies in the other projects. – Adrignola talk 13:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the biggest reason why WP is popular is because it's comprehensive. Whenever I want the basic info about something, I use WP. It's what makes WB less likely to succeed than WP... Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 13:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * But that is offset by the fact that textbooks are way different than encyclopedias. Something like Excel, PHP, or HTML wouldn't exist on Wikipedia. -Arlen22 (talk) 13:36, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Well one thing we have going for us is price, the text book for the course I am teaching at the moment is $209 from the book store. Multiply that by the 140 students I am requiring to by the text, times the number of years the course has been running, it is really quite a lot of money. And the book is required, I would love to convince the department to require something free (modulo printing costs) but we have to get the books there first. On the other hand I have seen many departments print and sell notes developed by the faculty, so if we had something that was a suitable replacement it would be possible to convince them. Last I checked university departments are not so in love with publishing companies either. (I mean really! They make minor tweaks every two years so there can be a new edition, which means students cannot by the old books used as easily. It is an amazing racket.)
 * Of course, secondary education and below is a whole different ball game, it would be much more difficult to get a wikibook adopted at that level in the US. Thenub314 (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * http://www.ck12.org is our main competitor on the secondary education front as it is aiming for approval by California's schools. Their licensing was changed to noncommercial a few months back, but I was able to pull content from their site under the cc-by-sa license before that and upload the PDFs to Commons.  There are Creative Commons licensed books and material at http://cnx.org, another competitor.  The advantage Wikibooks has over these two is that anyone can improve upon the content easily because this is a wiki. – Adrignola talk 16:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's out of the question that secondary schools use learning materials from free sources such as WB, in a truely commercialised world, except for 'non-traditional' subjects such as Liberal Studies. However, if the education bureau actually allows such materials to be used (which is highly unlikely), I believe it will be extremely popular. There are repeated complaints about book publishers realeasing a new edition every now and then. Sometimes it's necessary. For example, when we were learning planets in primary school, they had to make a new edition of the science book. However, most of the time the changes can be rather trivial, and like Thenub said it can be rather irritating that old books cannot be used. Also, books can be hard to find, especially 'non-traditional' subjects such as Liberal Studies. That's something they are also complaining about. I think using materials from sources such as WB has neither of these advantages and therefore has potential.
 * California has already approved the use of at least a half-dozen CC-BY-SA books in their secondary schools, thanks to CK-12. And there are some fabulous science books which are approved for use in universities, such as the Light and Matter series and FHSST texts, which are already available under a free license.  What's really missing is an organized, well-categorized and discoverable overview of all of these works; most of which are not available here on Wikibooks.  I'm not sure why this is -- if we were to find an archive of educational images or encyclopedia articles or dictionaries, in contrast, they would be uploaded to the appropriate sister Project by now.
 * We should be able to get wikimarkup versions of the original CK12 texts to facilitate an upload here. Sj (talk) 13:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * One major problem we may face is CC-BY-SA. I read in some paper a few years ago that it has been proposed to let CC-BY-SA become an alternative to public domain in Hong Kong law. I'm not sure if they have implemented it though... it was implemented. Kayau (talk &#124; email &#124; contribs) 09:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I find it inspirational rather than depressing. The chance to prove someone wrong. I think we could improve usability and uptake if we thought again about the way the technology is used and also tried to add a few missing "features". The use of Wikilinks is for me a real problem. A textbook is used differently to an encyclopedia and constantly hoping away via Wikilinks isn't great for the reading experience. Nor does it create a complete textbook when it is printed. But we still don't have any luck in persuading people to incorporate the content they are linking to into the book instead. Wikibooks should be full of duplicated content so that every book is self contained and can be read front to back. Having cross-referencing links within the book is good and useful, and having links out as "further reading" is useful, but there's too much use of a link to WP where some of the content should have been brought into the book. I'm rambling (I have flu!) I know. As I've said before as well, things like the Cookbook could be turned with effort into a "Basic Cookery", "Advanced Cookery" and "Expert Cookery" textbooks with supporting reference books on ingredients, tools, etc. This would be much more accessible to a reader than a thousand recipes seemingly randomly categorised by difficulty and main ingredient. <font color="#E66C2C">QU <font color="#306754">TalkQu 13:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This gives me an idea about the Messier Index. I think I will add it as an Appendix to General Astronomy for now, although sometime in the future I want to start an Astro-photography book (not that I am an expert by any means). -Arlen22 (talk) 01:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Blender 3D: Noob to Pro
I've started revamping this computer graphics book that appears to have been languishing. I'd love advice and feedback. Everything from the mission statement down to how keystrokes are documented. --Stepheng3 (talk) 15:20, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * That use to be a very good quality book, I think even the Blender website use to refer to it a lot, but somewhere along the way I think the book lost focus and declined in quality. I have thought the tutorials really out to be moved out of the book and imported to Wikiversity (or perhaps wikihow). I think the book should attempt to find a simple graphics project that could be worked on throughout the book with the aim towards teaching how to use all the tools and exploring the User Interface rather than a "how do I make my favorite 3D graphical thing". I think some links to websites that specialize in blender tutorials would be better instead. Techniques make sense too, but the book seems to have become more of a collection of tutorials which can be endless while short on education. I created some time ago for the Blender book to mimic the feel of a button because I think visualizing the keys is the best way to go, but using images should be avoided since its not really needed for key strokes. I also created a series of mouse images for left, right, and middle clicks, and for the scroll wheel to aid in mouse actions as well, but somebody else could probably make better images for those actions. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark  lama  15:40, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply, darklama. I definitely sense the book's lack of focus and hope to turn that around—boldly, perhaps even ruthlessly.
 * I'm open to adding links to outside tutorials. If you know which ones are particularly good, please add them in the appropriate places.
 * I recently created B3D:N2P/Key. I wish I'd known about Key before!
 * I was just thinking that images for mouse actions might help. Point me to your images and I'll take a look.
 * Cheers, --Stepheng3 (talk) 17:57, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Left clicked mouse.svg Right clicked mouse.svg --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  19:39, 17 October 2010 (UTC)