Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2012/April

What to do next
I've worked on a wikijunior book The Little Gardener, and I am pretty much done with it for now, although there is certainly room to expand. My question is, what can I do next with it? Is there a place to ask for the community to review, copyedit or give suggestions? I would love to get feedback and help to "finish" it.

I tried to keep the directions simple, so it is lacking more specifics simply because it acts to help grow the seed. Also, where can I add it to have more visibility? I don't think the title is very searchable, and if that is a problem I will gladly move it. - Theornamentalist (discuss • contribs) 02:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * If you haven't encountered our book Using Wikibooks (which was recently promoted to Featured Book status), you may find it has some quite useful information in it; several chapters in the part "The Wikibooks Writer" pertain to creating a book. Also, I notice there's some relevant stuff in Using Wikibooks/Cleanup and Maintenance.


 * You'll want to add, to your book's landing page, templates Subjects, Alphabetical, and Status. Take a look at the landing pages of some other Wikijunior books for comparison (say, Wikijunior:Big Cats).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 02:48, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Doesn't it miss the best time for planting information (I understand this changes from location, but since you cover outdoors planting...).
 * You could probably also link it to other Wikibooks (see Gardening) for more detailed information. It would also be interesting to kids to understand seeds and soil a little better, even how to make compost as a recycling activity. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:50, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * This is a Wikijunior book we're talking about, though. We generally don't link the books for kids (which have extra protection against vandalism, via flaggedrevs configuration) to the books for adults (where transitory vandalism is instantly visible).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:25, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I do not see that as a problem (like linking to Wikipedia), I have done so in the past. If I was a vandal attempting to get minors to view objectionable content that way I would think very about start betting the lottery. Wikibooks vandalism is not that bad, the added content that would be problematic to minors is as very small part of it, mostly done by kids themselves, and I never had to correct anything in the books related to this sort of topic (exception to the Cannabis book that I don't see Theornamentalist using). The idea is for the adult content to provide further explanations or be used as source to extend the subjects at Wikijunior... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 15:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Fwiw, as I recall there'd been an incident in the months leading up to our big push to vandalism-proof the whole of Wikijunior, in which a graphic image of... I think it was some variety of aroused human sexual organ... was put up in a bunch of places. I no longer remember for sure whether some of them were on Wikijunior, but the point of proofing Wikijunior was that while adults may (as I think I put it at the time) shake their heads at the folly of vandals, clean up the mess, and move on &mdash; kids, or their guardians, should expect they won't be randomly subjected to such things on Wikijunior.  We had a very off-putting warning notice at the top of the Wikijunior main page for a while, to the effect that we can't guarantee your kid won't be subjected to something really perverted, until we'd finished proofing the whole subproject.


 * I didn't mean to suggest vandals would deliberately plan to catch kids coming from Wikijunior, but rather than kids and their guardians ought to be given a browsing experience on Wikijunior that remains within the protected zone of Wikijunior. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand the preoccupation and intention but it seems that you are attempting to establish a best practice guideline for Wikijunior (I have been a merely sporadic contributor, some spellings or formatting and I think I have linked to wikipedia one time or another. I don't have kids and personally I do not believe in walled gardens of any kind, and I especially dislike self-censuring toward undefined dangers.
 * Since I'm not a persistent contributor to that project (nor have plans to do any major work there) it is beyond me to attempt to say what people should do or not do. I would not let my kids if below 10 to use the Internet without active guidance by a trusted adult, and I'm extremely open minded and not at all pudic. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 19:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Afaik, I'm describing existing best-practice. Not so much censorship as reasonable precaution; not a walled garden, but a playground with a chain link fence around it, which is pretty unremarkable.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I will work on it this week. Regarding linking to wikipedia on each page, I could link it to simple.wp instead, though I initially had reservations in doing so. - Theornamentalist (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you all again for the feedback; there is still work I plan on doing this week, but I wanted to know if the main Wikijunior page is reserved for books which are featured or are of a certain assumed level of completeness. As far as the book scope I intended (which was to assist with growing the seeds, I feel it is somewhat complete. However, with there literally being millions of plants to be grown, I don't feel comfortable marking it as complete with the status template nor even somewhat complete. I think that the tools and engine for this book are mostly complete, but not the breadth of it.
 * I am going to expand a bit on each seed directions, and also the glossary, as well as give some general sources or "see also" links, but for the most part, I am satisfied with it.
 * I would love to work with some other users on a new wikijunior book; is anyone interested or have any ideas? - Theornamentalist (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Regardless of whether or not it's complete enough for the Wikijunior main page, your book should be listed at WJ:All Books. When we get a chance I expect we'll automate WJ:All Books, but for now it's still manual.  Note that where your book goes on that page depends on its status, which it looks like you haven't defined yet.


 * Though we generally wait until a book is useful (ideally, complete) before putting it on the WJ main page, how that translates into "status" may vary. For example, there's no reasonable doubt (imho) that WJ:The Elements belongs there, despite the number of elements not covered.


 * I'd say your book should be brushed up just a bit, and then go up on the WJ main page. Looking at it, there are just one or two purely technical things I'd say really need to be cleaned up (hope I can get to that tonight or tomorrow); and I've got one suggestion for improvement I hope to discuss with you on the book's main talk page (and then if you've no objection we can act on that).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Silly question about book subdivisions
Hello everybody! It's great to be back here after so long :)

I return with a lingering doubt about what is the better way to name book subdivisions. The ultimate source of my worries is that I would like to make such "meta" terminology uniform within the Haskell Wikibook, but it has a deeper structure than usual is making things trickier. If you go to its main page, you will see first there are three big coloured blocks in the table of contents. These, in turn, are divided in a few slices; and these slices contain the pages proper. Now, "module", which is the default Wikibooks term for the individual pages, is objected by contributors because there are things called modules in Haskell, and so it would sound strange to use the same word for the pages. Lately I have used "chapters" to talk about to the pages, so that "sections" can be used to refer to level 2 headers within them. Problem is, there are two other levels in the hierarchy... one of them might be spoken of as "units", but I'm not sure about what to do with other one. So, what options do I have?

Cheers, --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 06:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * In the Conlang book, units at all levels are called "sections", as I recall.


 * Commonly, if a book has a small number of major units, they're called "Parts" (e.g. Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced), units below that level are Chapters, which are divided into Sections, which are divided into Subsections, Subsubsections, etc. I'm actually studying a purchased textbook atm in which the major units, that I'd have called Parts, are called Chapters.  So there's a lot of flexibility in usage.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I had forgotten about two facts about the book. Firstly, two of the three larger divisions are already referred to as "Tracks" (as in "Beginner's Track"), so we could simply extend the nomenclature to the third one. That would leave "Units" for the intermediate divisions and "Chapters" for the pages. However, and secondly, there are several templates (navigation, etc.) which refer to the intermediate divisions as Chapters (just like your textbook). And there seem to be no regular contributors around with which I could discuss any possible changes... :( --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 00:45, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not uncommon for a given book to have only one person actively working on it at a given time. This was so for much of the time I was working most actively on Conlang.  I always announced what I was doing on the talk pages, and if it was something especially significant I generally announced my intention and waited a while before acting on it (sometimes as much as a week, if I had the patience :-).  If someone did come back later, they could read on the talk pages all about what I'd done (and that did, in fact, happen after I'd been working on it for a few months).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 01:02, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * "If you build it, he will come". I will keep my hopes up, then :) [Loneliness really shouldn't be an excuse for me this time, however: I have a debt with that book.] --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 14:24, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

motto
When did the motto "open books for an open world" get adopted? I just noticed it. I liked the old one a lot better, whatever it was. I don't even remember what the old one was, but the new one makes me cringe. 67.117.131.84 (discuss) 08:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * See here. There was a vote back in 2009. QU TalkQu 09:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Writing a Wikibook
I am in the process of writing a language; is it okay to make a Wikibook about it in the Constructed Languages section?


 * It will not fits our project. You should check the Wikiversity project. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 23:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Open Knowledge Repository
World Bank Announces Open Access Policy for Research and Knowledge, Launches Open Knowledge Repository "...adopting a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) copyright license for content published by the Bank, the most accommodating of all licenses offered by Creative Commons. It allows anyone to distribute, reuse, and build upon the Bank’s published work, even commercially, as long as the Bank is given credit for the original creation. The CC BY license helps the Bank to maximize its impact while simultaneously protecting the Bank's reputation and the integrity of its content.". The Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 is more permissive, compatible (they do not force the Share Alike requirement). (But since they may use other licenses do verify).

http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ They already have compatible works online even if by the article states July 1, 2012 as the date it becomes effective.

I also take the chance to remember the post made in February regarding the The Open Textbook Challenge that also has usable content. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 20:03, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Two questions about history merges
Assuming no objections are raised I will perform a merge of Haskell/Class declarations into Haskell/Classes and types in a few days. In order to avoid link rot, "Class declarations" (which currently has the bulk of the content) will be retained as a redirect. My questions, then, are:

1. Is it necessary/recommended to ask for a history merge in such a situation, or is it simpler to just cross-reference the involved pages in the edit summaries of the merge?

2. Does the history merge procedure imply the deletion of the source page of the merge? (That would mean I would have to recreate "Class declarations" as a redirect afterwards.)

--Duplode (discuss • contribs) 00:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It is recommended to ask for history merges if indeed source material is to be deleted. Cross-reference is always welcomed just to make clear that the content that is being moved in bulk is from a merge.
 * History merges imply the deletion of the source page(s) unless a request is made not to delete (in this case it is not categorized as a merge but a derivation). This cases are rare and should be carefully considered, since there is no point in Wikibooks hosting duplicated material (see the fork policy draft and discussion for the arguments). --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I would disagree in this particular case, where you goal is to leave a redirect. By leaving a link to which ever page your merging from in the edit summary (or perhaps the talk page) your satisfying any copyright requirements that exist.  Then changing "Class declarations" to a redirect requires no special tools and makes life simpler all around. Thenub314 (talk) 03:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * That would imply that the administration would be perfect in checking history logs when deleting redirect page. That a redirect outside of the root namespace has any long lasting usefulness (unless it is included in the navigational structure of the work) and that the one doing the copying would also not make mistakes in referencing in the destination the source page and on the redirect that the content was moved. Overall doable, but highly risky and so the alternatives should be pursued, even if the redirect is what is intended. Easier on the one using the content and on the administration doing the deletions (and any future admin that has to handle the redirect).
 * In this cases it is not even specifically about copyright issues but just to maintaining a consistent edit history log. There are many other benefits one is attempting to contact the ones responsible for some action, even helping detection and correction of malfeasance... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 04:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Well I think we will have to agree to disagree. From an administrative point of view I find redirects fairly easy to deal with.  I find history merges often rather difficult.  When done in error (which would not be the case here) they are very difficult to undo.  Links are also more appropriate in many cases, such as one page merged into multiple places,  etc.  As I understand this was a major reason for changing the license so to alleviate the requirement of keeping a complete author list on every page.  But I digress.  Thenub314 (talk) 14:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I have no problem with that. But since we are discussing methodologies I must confess that I do not know how many merges you performed but as an editor I have done plenty. Never done history merges because I'm not an admin, but think you are over selling the complexity. When done in error merges are not difficult to undo, unless they are done in some sort of convoluted way, like the one you are proposing.
 * In case you use content, from a single source page, into multiple target pages, you should select the one that closely matches the previous content/function and that, at the time of the merge, has the best chance for stability in the resulting merged project. That would be the best repository for the merged edit history.
 * As the one performing the merge moves content from the source location he should add on the resulting edits' comment that the content is the result that merge (time of edits will suffice for later correlations).
 * To undo a merge you must only determine what page was deleted and restore it. Look at it's history, see the time and read the merge comment/edit for the target of the merge. Go into the target look at edits near that time frame revert the content to the nearest possible and check edits from that user on that timeframe on all pages on that namespace (you can probably get a easy match in the user's contribution page). Note also that there are very few cases of complex merges and due to their complexity they are mostly performed by competent editors with some experience, they will often be available to help undo any action.
 * I've been here since 2004 and never have observed reversing a merge.
 * If one takes only the requirements of copyright attributions, reversing a merge is simply the splitting up of a work, in that case one should need only to mention that and give any required attributions to the copyright owners if listed, it will constitute a derived work, if both works will rest on the project the source (the merged work) edit history will provide all the edit information. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 18:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well I will comment first that History Merges are notoriously difficult to undo, in some cases may be not possible. Let me explain how the merge/unmerge process works, because it is not quite as you describe above.  Suppose we want to merge the history of A into B.  First you delete B, then you rename A to B, then you delete B again, then you undelete all the edits from B.  Then you correct the current version B.
 * The consequence of this is that, no where in the database is there a list of edits that originally belonged to A. From the point of view of the database it is as if A never existed.  So you cannot "determine what page was deleted and restore it".  Instead to undo a history merge you must first delete B again, then undelete just those edits from B that corresponded original to A.  Since this information doesn't exist anywhere outside of being deduced by the admin, you have to go through and examine every individual edit.  It is very tedious.  Then you move B to A.  Then since there are still deleted edits left at the B page, you can undelete it again.  I am pretty sure I have done this here at WB in the past, because I recall trying to tell two pages apart that were very similar to begin with and I found it very difficult to tell which edits originally belonged to A.  Overall, of the tools available to an admin, history merges are the only bit of maintenance that is actually destructive in terms of preserving information (ie which edits originally belonged to A).
 * To preform a history merge, you delete the target page. Move the old page to the target page name, and undelete everything.  Which means you cannot ever go back to the old page name and undelete to look at it's history.  That information is lost.  You can only look at individual edits and try to decide for yourself what belongs to which page. Thenub314 (talk) 21:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes most people do not know these facts. I have made references to that loss of data when calling attention that edit histories may be corrupted (I have seen and called attention to that effects of those administrative actions on the C++ Programming project).
 * I'm of the opinion, and have stated it before, that history merges should not be performed by the same administrator that is doing the content merge (or even working on the same project). This seems to be good ethical rule of thumb.
 * That was why I also did not comprehend your approach as described in the posts above, it seemed that you were defending a history merge of the source page with multiple destination pages (in the previous post to the above) and to keep redirects with the edit history (in the first and second reply), that would just complicate tracing back the alterations because it can't be applied consistently. That was why see it as a more convoluted approach...
 * I haven't seen a reversal of a merge. I have only noticed that type of actions as attempts correct administrative errors in handling page history logs, if my memory does not fail me, I think that your experience was also due to a mishap. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 23:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Amidst this conversation about history merges, I feel the key point is in Panic's second reply, which indirectly states that redirects are discouraged. While I found such a position a bit baffling at first, searching project pages led me to this illuminating discussion which lends support to it. By now I am inclined to ask for the history merge and forget about the redirect. Even though I will not be completely satisfied with the outcome (link breakage is always nasty, even if it is just on a handful of blogs and mailing list posts as in this case), it does seem to be the saner solution. P.S.: thanks for the clear explanation of history merges Thenub! --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 04:02, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If the link is relevant to the work you can ask the acting admin to preserve it after the history merge (add that to the merge request, ultimately it is up to the admin if it is a valid request). If the redirect is only used by links in talk pages you can ignore that if the post is over 30 days (or you can even fix it it you feel it is important), if it is used in other works or in the work you are merging then it is part of the merge process to fix those or the merge shouldn't be considered complete (because it will indeed break things). Looking into Special:WhatLinksHere/Haskell/Class_declarations that seems part of the merge process and a issue you will need to address (but for instance the links in this discussion become irrelevant after the task is complete).
 * The Help:Pages is a great location to replicate some of the point made in this discussion. I'll try to take a careful look at it when time allows. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 04:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Glad to help! Thenub314 (talk) 16:15, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

A final idea to deal with my redirect paranoia worries: would it be acceptable if I "cheated" a little by: --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 23:41, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Asking for the history merge;
 * Recreating "Class declarations" afterwards as a redirect; and
 * Linking to it from a "meta" page such as Haskell/Preserved redirects, so that in the future admins will know it was retained for some reason?


 * I have done the merge of the two pages for you. (No redirects) --Panic (discuss • contribs) 00:15, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, stage one completed, thanks :)--Duplode (discuss • contribs) 00:24, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge concluded, thanks QU! --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 00:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Publishing book-writing helper scripts
Long ago, the Haskell Wikibook print version used to be generated in a semi-automatic way through a tiny Haskell script. I am currently working on improving it; and it would be really convenient to publish new versions of the script here, in a talk page of the book or something of that sort. Sounds great, until you think about licensing - as it is widely known, releasing code under CC licenses or GFDL is a Bad Idea. Is there any reasonable workaround in such a case? (Probably not, I guess, but worth asking anyway.)

P.S.: One thing that might, in theory, solve the problem would be myself being granted uploader rights and then uploading the script as a "public domain" file. In practice, that wouldn't work due to the file extension restrictions, however...

P.P.S.: It would be nice to know of similar situations in the past, if any. Also, please warn me if you feel I am being overzealous... --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 05:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem with the GFDL in software is that it really does not apply well and requires a copy of the license to be included. I do not know of any problem with the CC (and would like to ear your issues with it).
 * When you contribute source code to Wikibooks it becomes licensed by the project wide coverage as CCSA30 and GFDL (with limitations, not relevant in this case). You can however state in the code that it is licensed with a less restrictive license like BSD, MIT or even as public domain. The GPL license may be more complex to handle (I haven't really looked into that) but it puts some burden on the use of software that can be seen as contradicting our project licenses (that does no posse any restrictions on use, only attribution and relicensing). IIRC there was (and may still be) some source code on the project that was GPL (I doubt that anyone will use it abusively but if they do they can get into copyright issues with the copyright owners of that code). In any case that is going beyond the point here.
 * Solutions are as I indicate, ignore the project's licenses if you use a less restrictive license (or it is public domain, but be sure to state the license/copyright status) or upload it to a service that hosts that type of material and provide a link (sourceforce for instance).
 * Uploading locally is an interesting concept but not necessary if it is easier to use one of the previous options, even if it could be interesting for incompatible licenses, for example a license that prevents commercial use. It could probably be explored but I don't think that Wikibooks is the right place to host source code. Feel free to explore that as a proposal if you wish, with good enough reasons I would probably support it.
 * To my knowledge (I'm here since 2004) there has never been a discussion around this topic in these terms. I did initiate a similar discussion regarding programming books and the licenses of the source code included. Most code does not have a license indicated even if they are intentioned as public domain, they get license within the project with our licenses, making reuse problematic (especially at the time we only used the GFDL). My view, at times, is that near the copyright attribution of a work it should be clearly stated that if source code does not explicitly state a license it should be considered public domain. Of course this is simply for ease of mind, most code we have (or I have seen) is mostly trivial (but there are exceptions, for example the More C++ Idioms has complex examples and implementations that are explicitly copyrighted), then we have ASM books and Embedded System books that a very small code may be commercial relevant. This type of legal matters is one more thing that I get annoyed by Wikimedia's lack of proper guidelines, because what they provide serves only to legally protect them, not the contributors or the final users.
 * In any case this is my general view, I'm not a lawyer. But the solutions above will suffice for your purpose. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 06:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * PS: Why not include the script in the book itself as a practical example (in place of a talk page). That would be fun. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 06:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * PPS: Since you are using transclusion in the print version. I note that there is a "silent" limit on the number (don't know if you have reached it, but look at the end of it to see if something is missing). I put this here so others became also aware of that limitation... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 06:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I don't see the issue: of course, you can put things under a less restrictive license or into the public domain; see for example Wikimedia Commons. (And I agree with Panic that this should be stated explicitly; I'm doing it on every page of the GLSL Programming book because I know how annoying programming books are that put their code under a license.) I don't know why you would want to upload the Haskell script as a file and not include it as source code in wikitext? Is the typical Haskell programmer not able to use copy&paste? ;) --Martin Kraus (discuss • contribs) 06:25, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The only issue, it seems, was that my understanding of multi-licensing in Wikibooks was a bit broken, but you guys set the record straight (the main point being, if I understood it correctly, that the CCSA30/GFDL condition does not exclude redistribution under other compatible licenses). As for the practice of "hosting" code here, I agree that it is not a good idea in most cases. Still, IMO it makes sense for small, single-purpose tools that would be only of interest for contributors to a particular book (or readers of a book - fun suggestion indeed, Panic!). And conversely, if that tiny script eventually grows into something more general moving it elsewhere will be the sane thing to do. --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 07:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Almost. They do not exclude redistribution under other compatible licenses (if they are indicated). In case of public domain (the copyright is terminated), if you do not indicate it is public domain, because of the "not so smart" move to remove the obligation to add copyright notices it will be presumed as licensed under our license (this may seem unimportant, but in a world that no one speaks for public domain it is important that all public domain has an indication of what it is. As soon as anyone has the only copy of a public domain work they can own the copyright (or if scarce and badly documented they can litigate for control over those that object to the new ownership). Trivia: Most Open Source licenses were created because (but not exclusively) of this. -Panic (discuss • contribs) 07:27, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

You could maintain the script at User:Duplode/PrintVersion.hs, link to the script at Talk:Haskell, and use the CC0 license to possibly avoid any concerns with public domain. --dark lama  13:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Suggestion adopted. --Duplode (discuss • contribs) 15:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

revocation of editing privileges?
I was working on an article. Since I'm an incremental editor, and since wikibooks is moderated, I placed the page contents in my sandbox, so the moderator wouldn't be bothered with my flood of incremental edits. This morning I decided to remove all content from my sandbox, seeing how it was supposed to be temporary. I received the following message:
 * "Warning: An automated filter has identified this edit as removing all categories from a page, which is potentially unconstructive. Please be aware that vandalism may result in revocation of your editing privileges. If this edit is constructive, please click "Save page" again, and report this error."

Is this message correct? Can editing privileges be revoked for editing my own sandbox? Gzuufy (discuss • contribs) 16:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Editing privileges won't be revoked for editing your own sandbox. Looks like that needs to be fixed. --dark lama  17:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Gzuufy (discuss • contribs) 17:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons, Books' PDF hosting and Fair use
I call the community's attention that since Wikimedia Commons does not support fair use content, when generating a PDF to be hosted on Commons you will have to exclude fair use images from the PDF. If someone is active on the Commons community please replicate this note so they can help identify any violation of their licensing policies. Of course an exact copy of the published revision work can be hosted here without such concerns. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 19:14, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Reader feedback Broken?
For a long time I thought no pages were being reviewed by readers. Because the page: Special:RatedPages doesn't show any. But then it was pointed out to me by QU that the main page has something on the order of 160 reviews in the past month. So the question becomes why is this not showing up as a rated page, and why is there not Page Rating system claim there is not enough data to graph?

Notice, that the extension we are now using is considered obsolete, and has been replaced by the Article Feedback Extension.

My questions are as follows: Is it a configuration issue that keeps this data from being graphed and displayed, or is it a bug in the extension? Thenub314 (talk) 22:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * We really should look into implementing the replacement extension and not continuing to use and troubleshoot an extension that will not be maintained. – Adrignola discuss 00:24, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Images in Wikibooks
In updating World Stamp Catalogue/United States/2011, I added an image of File:Ronald Reagan stamp 2011.jpg from wikipedia. It was promtly removed because of a "copyright violation." I don't understand.

If it is on Wikipedia then why is it a copyright violation to put it in Wikibooks?

How can I get images of stamps into World Stamp Catalogue/United States without a copyright violation?


 * By default, when you upload an image on Wikibooks, it is really uploaded at Wikimedia Commons. When it comes to images and other media, they are a lot better at policing copyright issues than we are.  However, they do not allow non-free (i.e., fair use) media at WM Commons, which is why they deleted it (according to the WP page, the USPS holds the copyright).  We do allow fair use materials at WB (as does WP), but we control access to the upload feature.  You can either request the upload capability at WB:RFP (but you'll have to demonstrate an understanding of the issues involved), or you can request that the image be uploaded for you.  Actually, you already have kind of done that, so I will upload it shortly.  --Jomegat (discuss • contribs) 18:46, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ You should be able to use the image now. --Jomegat (discuss • contribs) 18:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Request for review
I would invite anyone who is interested to look at the Wikibook I'm working on, Wikijunior:Countries A-Z, and give me some feedback on ways to improve it. Thanks,  Liam987  15:12, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Can I publish essays here
well, can I?--Deathlaser (discuss • contribs) 20:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)


 * In general Wikiversity is the optimal location for that type of content. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 21:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Unless you mean a Wikibooks namespace essay, then there are a few. The "policy" is at Essays QU TalkQu 21:04, 30 April 2012 (UTC)