Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2013/June

Is VisualEditor the answer to our prayers?
w:WP:VE seems to be answering many of our complaints about MW during the past few months (years). I've tried it, and it does seem pretty intuitive, though it's still in beta and is extremely lacking in features. What do you think? Kayau (talk · contribs) 14:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think it's putting a lot of effort into the wrong problem. Rather like Lua, in that respect.  It's a shiny new thing (or it would be, once tested; this has been discussed some over at en.wn, that en.wn has exactly the characteristics they should be looking for in a place to try it out, but I digress) &mdash; as I was saying, it's a shiny new thing, but the big problem with the wiki software is in what kind of activities it supports rather than in how prettily it supports them, and at least on en.wp there are also fundamental social problems that, while exacerbated by the software shortfall, are deeply entrenched.  AGF is at the heart of some of the social problems there.  As for technical problems, I believe I've identified the problem:  managing expertise.  The projects need to handle expertise &mdash; identify experts, capture their expertise, aid newcomers to apply and acquire it, aid experts to apply it.  All that can be done now is to write pages about stuff, which is orthogonal to how to identify experts; a poorish way to capture expertise; a dreadful way to try to impart it to newcomers; and not only not an active aid to applying the captured expertise, but worse even than a [generic] passive aid in that one has to go to rather a lot of trouble in order to consult it.  (I'm slowly assembling my first try at a technical solution, using javascript as the only thing versatile enough other than a wiki extension, wiki extensions being precluded for serious work by red tape and lack of foundation commitment.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * What do you think VisualEditor addresses? A text editor whether the horse-drawn carriage or Rolls-Royce of text editors is still a text editor. I think VisualEditor could make some text editing tasks easier and other text editing tasks more difficult. --dark lama  22:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Review template
Somebody added some kind of Review template without changing the history of Chipmunk Basic help: I have three questions about this in my eyes odd behavior:
 * 1) What is the {advantage of|deeper thought behind|use of} this?
 * 2) What we have to do to (get) remove(d) that ugly thing :-?
 * 3) Why the author(s) refuse to sign their work and do this so secretly behind our backs?
 * Kind regards from a hot Tuscany,
 * ZeaForUs (discuss • contribs) 12:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what ugly thing you're asking about. Is this something that's visible on that page?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Could be talking about the edit review interface. --dark lama  19:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, someone removed it. Thanks a lot. @Pi zero: It was visible on top of the page and perhaps you still can see it on other pages in this great site, ZeaForUs (discuss • contribs) 13:57, 20 June 2013 (UTC) P.S. Apparently removal has been done as silently as insertion like two or three days ago :-)


 * Ah. When the current revision of a page has not been reviewed, there's a notice at the top to that effect.  While I was visiting the page, I looked it over and sighted it.  Which did eliminate, for the moment, the notice that it hadn't been reviewed.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:13, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Great! That means you're probably a moderator. Thanks again and keep up the good work, though I doubt I have to be managed by you, I'm not stupid (some people might disagree though ;-}) Minor 'problem' solved, but why we can't see your contributions viewing the page's history? beats me... Kind regards, Klaas&#x7c;Z4&#x241f;V:  08:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't call it "moderating". Because when someone edits a page, their work is immediately displayed on the page for all to see.  We do use flaggedrevs to keep track of which revisions of which pages have been checked over by an experienced Wikibookian to make sure they don't contain vandalism or something equally egregious, but it's not supposed to matter to those viewing a page whether or not its latest revision has been sighted.  After you've been a Wikibookian for a while you get autopromoted to reviewer (specifically, when you meet the criteria here).  The software has an annoying habit of telling non-reviewers more than should matter to them about the review state of a page; I think there's a way you can change your user preferences to make it not tell you stuff like that.  (There's an exception made for Wikijunior: There, we configure the pages so anonymous users see the most recent sighted revision, to make Wikijunior a safer environment for kids.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

X!'s Edit Counter
(Sorry for writing in English. You can translate the proposal.)

Should X!'s edit counter retain the opt-in requirement? Your input is strongly encouraged. Voice your input here.— cyberpower Chat Automation 04:21, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Distributed via Global message delivery. (Wrong page? Fix here.)

Special:ValidationStatistics
Does nobody review pending changes anymore? I was away from Wikibooks for about 6 weeks and on my return there are in excess of 600 mainspace pages and (critically) over 40 Wikijunior pages awaiting review. Why doesn't anybody check these changes? Surely that should be the basis of anybody seeking out vandalism. It should also be vitally important to keep on top of any Wikijunior pages awaiting review because changes to pages in this namespace are not visible until reviewed meaning that some of those pages were related to edits users made 50 days ago. Anyone who has time to review pages go to the above link.--ЗAНИA talk 10:14, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The changes to Wikijunior:Solar System, I've been pretty closely involved with and have been sort-of taking my time to work through slowly and carefully. Which, actually, won't really be changed one way or another by their having now been checked.  (In fact, the person making those edits had asked me to try to upgrade one of the pages... well, I'll get to it; even my slow working thorugh the material is quite rapid compared to how fast that book usually develops.)  Admittedly I hadn't checked the whole of Wikijunior just lately for pending pages.


 * One thing about flaggedrevs, it keeps track patiently of which revisions have been checked, so it continues to perform its useful function during a labor shortage (a shortage I rather think is common to all the sisters including Wikipedia, appalled though many there would be to be compared to their sistren). In the long run, of course, as I see it &mdash;not to avoid an opportunity to sound like a broken record-player&mdash; what we need is to expand the capabilities of the wiki software to encompass expertise-management, so that new users can operate immediately at a higher effective level of expertise.  This should lower the bar for contributing; lead to a more satisfying contributing experience; increase our ability to successfully deliver products with specialized construction requirements (such as a book, or a news article, or... an encyclopedia article); and, by increasing the usefulness of our output products, increase the interest to prospective contributors.  And, of course, allow more to get done per contributor.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I review pending changes that are in Recent Changes whenever I am here; if the change is not vandalism and not in my field of my expertise then I won't review it. I have been real life busy which is part of the reason for the backlog. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 14:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

How to achieve what I want?
What I want to achieve is to pass on the ideas and considerable work that went into the programming of a File Data Management System(FMS) in Visual Basic. I'm facing several problems in doing so

1	First I have to find the best way of doing it on WB. It seems a bit daunting and there is a wide range of things to consider. Its not that easy to take it all on board when you're the wrong side of 70 and get off on the right track. Is there some kind of book template where you just change the Title and such? If not can I make a kind of test book to find out how to do it and then delete it to start the proper one.

2	Although I have had books edited prior to publishing, so I'm used to that, its never been a joint effort. Having read some of the comments here and there on existing books its clear its easy to get bogged down in trying to deal with those rather than advance. Could I just plough on and let the others sort it out?

3	The amount of material is considerable. I have around 400 documents on it, so I don't loose track myself and around 1200 procedure in Visual Basic – would that be too large. If not how should it be split up? i) It evolved towards a batch processing where you controlled what was being done via simple commands in a text file, a kind of job control thing. ii) Would it be better to bring this up in the relevant section of books and if so how should I do that?

--TRUTHACHE (discuss • contribs) 09:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

If you want to share a piece of software, you may find that Google Code or SourceForge or some other source code repository is a better place to post the source code than Wikibooks.

As long as your work meets our "textbook" criteria -- see What is Wikibooks? for details -- we are happy to host it here. Often books about one particular piece of software are accepted -- see category: computer software for many example Wikibooks. But it seems that books about entire categories of software are more likely to attract more people to help you edit -- Social Web, Operating System Design, An Introduction to Weblogs, etc.

1. Feel free to go to the Sandbox and make all the test edits you want. You can't hurt anything there. A robot empties out the sandbox every day.

2. Yes, just plow on. Once the information has been saved in a book, often other editors fill in missing details, or adjust the formatting, or replace normal dashes with en-dashes or em-dashes as appropriate. You don't have to get it right the first time.

3. Many Wikibook authors simply enter all their text in one long file. Later, other editors split it up into chapters. Often people discuss how to organize a book in the "discussion" page behind the main page of the book -- the "discussion" tab at the top of that main page takes you there.

Happy editing. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 05:20, 30 June 2013 (UTC)