Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2012/August

How to crop a class project book
I have had students in a class work for a few semesters on a wikibook, with the intent that the book would eventually turn into the textbook for that same class. I think it's time to cut the students out of the mix and restructure / reedit the book to be a proper textbook. For much of the material that's no problem, it's just the same as editing any other book. However, some of the material which I was willing to accept as classwork, I'm not willing to accept in retrospect as part of a holistic textbook for the class. I don't want to delete the material, though, since the students put real work into it and much of it is good.

So, I'm considering options:
 * 1) Leave the current book just as it is, but make a clone of it which can be brutally excised into textbook-shape.
 * 2) Move all the material I want to leave out into appendices (this will be easy when the material to leave out is an entire module, harder when the material to leave out is 2/3 of a well-written module which should just be smaller for the textbook).
 * 3) Leave the current book just as it is, and migrate my updated version off of the Wikibooks system (this would give me my desired control over the project, but I've never done such a thing before, so I imagine there might be license-tracking headaches, plus I really value some of the feedback I get here).

I'm leaning toward option #1, but maybe there are other options I haven't thought of. I'd be grateful for ideas, particularly if you have done this or seen it done before. TDang (discuss • contribs) 18:14, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd favour #2. There are cases of books with large overlaps of material on here, and it can be valuable to have more than one perspective on a subject.  However, in this case where you say that the material is of variable quality, it would be best to give the better material more prominence by relegating the rest to appendices.--Collingwood (discuss • contribs) 19:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also favour #2. Clones of textbook can be very confusing for readers. Also, it is part of the learning process of the students to realize that the success of their work does not only depend on how much effort they put into it. That said, there is the example of Foundations_of_Education_and_Instructional_Assessment which exists in multiple editions, which is basically your option #1 but with your clone being the most visible edition. --Martin Kraus (discuss • contribs) 15:42, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for the thoughts. I'll keep mulling, but I guess I'll lean that way now. TDang (discuss • contribs) 17:22, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

RE: Artificial Intelligence Based Algorithmic Machine Learning, graduate level.
It has been suggested that I propose a topic and  inclusion aspects of a wikibook for creation. I am asking for feedback. Since, there are already an abundance of wikibooks on the subjects of Artificial Intelligence algorithms and also Attractor Neural Networks. This book will not discuss general Artificial Intelligence algorithms, nor aspects of Attractor Neural Networks. It will be based on original research and possible creation of computer based brains for robots; although, not the creation of robots themselves. This book could become part of a wikiversity course, let me know.if you are interested.

--Drmarcobitetto (discuss • contribs) 07:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)Dr. M. Bitetto 18 Aug. 2012


 * Note the limitations regarding original research on Wikibooks, the best locations on Wikimedia for original research is Wikiversity. Having said even considering the few exceptions that may exist to our limitation none will permit to center the subject of a Wikibook on original research. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 04:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

RE: STAR SHIP: A Practical Design for a Real Starship
 This book presents the scientific and engineering principles associated with the design and operation of an actual starship. This book is meant to be a supplementary book to the video dealing with interstellar navigation. If anyone is interested in this project, please let me know.  --Drmarcobitetto (discuss • contribs) 03:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Travel Guide
There is a proposal for a "travel guide" sister project here. A number of people think that instead of creating a new sister project the content could just be added to Wikibooks. A number of groups are interested in joining including the organization and editor community of Wikivoyage.org and the editor community of Wikitravel.org. WV has more than 10,000 articles while WT has nearly 30,000 articles in English. They also have extensive policies and procedure regarding editorial practice. What would this communities feeling be about a travel guide coming here? Jmh649 (discuss • contribs) 20:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * There are certain overarching policies at WB:WIW that all books must abide by, such as having a neutral point of view. Content at Wikibooks does not always meet a strict definition of a textbook (note the Cookbook for instance).  The content under discussion is not unlike what we have at Subject:Tourism.  I'm not sure why some think it'd all have to be in one book.  It could take a few forms.  Articles all related to one location could be placed under one book with that location's name, like what we already have.  Pages like wikitravel.org/en/Texas could be the root of a book, with regions and cities and other destinations as subpages.  Alternatively, a new namespace could be created, analogous to the Cookbook namespace, if content can be considered to be all part of one larger book but lacks the ability to be organized into subpages or you require greater separation and configuration based on namespace (with 30,000+ pages that might be preferable, for recent changes patrol and so on). – Adrignola discuss 11:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks and I see some discussion has occurred here in the past .Jmh649 (discuss • contribs) 16:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Love the idea of a Wiki Foundation travel site. Always avoided Wikitravel because it's a commercial website, full of advertisements and treats the reader in a way that suggests they really shouldn't bother traveling and ought to stay at home.  Hope it becomes a standalone project because traffic would be reduced if it were part of Wikibooks (first users would need to come to WB then navigate to Travel which is awkward and not the best solution).--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Italy.svg|15px]]talk 19:32, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think a separate Wikimedia Foundation project would be better. I think in the past people have tried to start travel guides only to have them nominated for deletion with the consensus being that WikiTravel was a better fit for those works. I think there were concerns that travel guides were a vehicle for propaganda, advocacy, personal essays, advertising, self-promotion, research, promoting the inclusion of personal opinions about places, and conflicts about what is and what is not appropriate to include in a travel guide which do not serve the educational goals of Wikibooks. --dark lama  01:12, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Definitely better to have a separate project for it, rather than here. Liam987  15:17, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I was involved with the original discussion on wikibooks around travel guides and through lack of user base moved my work to wikitravel. I agree that a different domain makes more sense as the name wikibooks doesn't necessarily imply travel guides, and has been actively disassociated by some. We can easily migrate the very small travel guides we have here to a new wikimedia project  Pluke (discuss • contribs) 11:48, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

RE: State of the Art in Nuclear Power
 This book clarifies the risks and benefits of nuclear power. It also states the state-of-the-art in nuclear power that presently exist. The book also deals with the other related factors of nuclear power - such as nuclear waste related issues. If anyone is interested in this book, please let me know.  --Drmarcobitetto (discuss • contribs) 03:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Problem with labelled image
I imported (actually, I didn't, I had it imported at WB:RFI) w:Template:Europe and Sea, a template using Image label, from Wikipedia for use on Wikijunior:Countries A-Z. (It is now located at Template:Wikijunior:Countries A-Z/Europe Labelled Map). I made many adjustments to it including adding an adjustable scale by setting the scale parameter to. I also added a label for Gibraltar. Everything looks fine on the template page, but when I transcluded it to Wikijunior:Countries A-Z/Europe using a larger scale, the Gibraltar tag appeared at the wrong position. Everything else was right except that one label. I would be grateful if somebody could help me fix that. Liam987 15:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)