Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2013/September

Are there book "editions"?
I'm enjoying Wikibooks after making the leap from Wikipedia. One question... does Wikibooks ever take a snapshot of a book's content and release it as an "edition"? One print/ebook publisher I know makes errata corrections in each subsequent printing (and to their ebooks continually), but only adds substantive content in new "editions." I believe this is common for textbooks and other instructional material.

The concept of a "printing" seems forgettable in the digital age (better to push out errata fixes immediately), but the idea of an "edition" might still hold merit. A teacher may value a Calculus text that doesn't change from year to year. There may be an analogy with "Wikipedia 1.0", and the concept makes even more sense for books.

A related question: Are there guidelines for when to revise a book versus when to start fresh? If the state of public knowledge on a topic changes suddenly and drastically (e.g. subatomic physics), should a previous book on the topic be gutted and rewritten, should a new edition be released, or should a newer book be created?

Apologies if this is covered in the docs. I've spent some time reading it, but may have missed it. Proxyma (discuss • contribs) 05:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Wikibooks does take snapshots -- but of individual "pages" of a book, rather than the book as a whole. Every time a person makes some change to a page and hits the "save" button, the old version and the (hopefully improved) version are both stored in the "history" of that page. Later, people such as yourself can review those changes and perhaps approve them (see WB:REVIEW for details), or perhaps revert those changes. When a person thinks a page is pretty good and wants to link to it, there are 4 different URLs that can be used:
 * https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikijunior:Solar_System/The_Sun&oldid=524413 : a permalink to the exact page that person just read -- the contents will never change.
 * https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikijunior:Solar_System/The_Sun&stable=1 : the "stable version", the latest reviewed version of the page -- the contents only change after both someone edits the page, and then some reviewer approves those edits.
 * https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikijunior:Solar_System/The_Sun&stable=0 : a link to the very latest version of the page, which changes every time someone edits the page (so occasionally might be defaced by vandalism).
 * https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Solar_System/The_Sun : the "current version" of the page, which is either the stable version or the latest version (set through Special:ConfiguredPages).

When to revise a book versus when to start fresh? That's a difficult question. I generally lean towards creating a new book and leaving the old one alone, if the changes are extensive. For example, when Python 3 came out, rather than completely re-writing the Wikibook "Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python", I'm glad we created a new Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python 3 (and renamed the old book to Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python 2.6 and otherwise left it alone). --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 17:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * David, thanks, that helps clarify things. It looks like the concept of "review" is one difference from Wikipedia. Proxyma (discuss • contribs) 04:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Review is overt only on Wikijunior. In other Wikibooks content spaces, review is really only a behind-the-scenes thing.  The difference is that on Wikijunior, when an anonymous user (someone who isn't logged in) looks at a page, by default they see the most recently sighted version of the page.  In other namespaces, an edit to a page is immediately visible to everyone.  Our intention is to give kids a degree of protection against viewing vandalism.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:34, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Categorize a book on the library selves
Hello Folks, I have been contributing with a book named “Information systems in the consumer industry “ but I have difficulties in categorizing it; it could belong to to a class like “enterprise information systems” or similar. Can someone help me ? Thanks for the help in advance
 * Hi. I'm not sure how old this request is, but it looks like the book already is categorized pretty well. If you need anymore help, you either can reply here (be sure to sign your messages with  ~  so we can see your name and the date you posted) or leave me a message on my talk page. I also see that you used an anonymous IP address to post the preceding message. You really should join Wikibooks, because it makes both editing and communicating directly with one another much easier. If you do have an account, you must not have been logged in when you posted that. Welcome to Wikibooks, and I hope that we have been able to help you.  Will  scrlt ( Talk ) 09:53, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Personal Library Feature
I have just discovered WB, and the first feature that seemed very obvious to me, but was missing, was a My Library capability. At first, I thought the Watchlist might work, but does not appear to do what I am suggesting. At the top of the page, right next to My Discussion and Preferences, there would be a My Library button. When clicked, it would have a list of links to books that I am reading and perhaps tracking of which pages or chapters I have read / not read. Somewhere else on the page, maybe on the left sidebar, there would be an "Add to My Library" button. Whenever I'm on a book page, clicking the button would add the book to my library. Whenever I come back to WB, I can go to My Library and see what I had been reading on past visits and figure out where I was in the book. Maybe there would be a Bookmark button, too, so that I could bookmark a page or paragraph, and my bookmarks would show up on the list, as well. Thoughts anyone?
 * Hi. Welcome to Wikibooks. I am surprised that nobody responded sooner. I like your concept, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be. Tracking pages and chapters would be quite difficult to do since this is not a static document like a PDF file or a eBook. These are essentially just Web pages, and you can skip around between the pages, and even between sites (like Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc.), right in the middle of reading a book.
 * The English Wikipedia has the ability to create a collection of articles and bundle them together into a "book". I am not very familiar with the technical details on how it works, or even what it is like to use them. That is, I think, either an extension (i.e., an add-on to the software) or part of the core functionality of the MediaWiki software. Either way, if en.wiki has that feature, it's very likely that it could be enabled here if there is a consensus that agrees it would be a good idea. It may even be here now, but I don't see it in the menu bar like it is on en.wiki.
 * As far as bookmarking, I think that your own Web browser's bookmarks should work for that. The watchlist is another type of bookmark that you could use. It keeps track of all the changes to pages you've added, and it alerts you when changes are made to the page. You also can setup your own User page with links to pages that are of interest to you. People use their user pages for all sorts of things, and making your own reading list is a great use for it.
 * I hope that I have given you some ideas. Maybe someone a little more familiar with the Book feature of the software or extension can chime in on that specific feature. Good luck! And please remember to sign your posts with  ~ .  Will  scrlt ( Talk ) 09:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Contributing a manual on setting up libraries in rural communities
Hi, I am new to Wikibooks. I have just completed a manual in MS Word describing how to create and set up a library in rural Africa. Since 1997 my wife and I have set up 53 libraries in Ghana, West Africa in small rural communities. We have also developed a curriculum for training librarians for these small rural libraries. I summarized our experiences into a step by step manual which I want to make available to any internet user on any continent. How do I convert a MS Word document to a Wikibook and upload it? The material in the manual is copyrighted, and I hope to make the material available for sale as a Kindle book and as a PDF on our website. My purpose is to make the material more widely available. Is this allowable to have the material in a Wikibook also published in different forms? kirtbromley Kirtbromley (discuss • contribs) 16:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Kirt! That sounds like a fantastic thing to have in wikibooks.  I can help you out, but you should also read your rights and obligations as a copyright holder.  One important thing to note is that if you put it up on wikibooks, you are allowing the public to have access to it under the CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses, and that wikibooks editors can use and edit it in any number of ways without seeking your permission first.  Also note that you can't revoke these licenses, so if you sell the book as a Kindle book later, people would still be able to find your work for free here on Wikibooks without paying for your kindle book.  But you do retain copyright to your book, so you can certainly publish your work in other ways as well.  (I'm not a lawyer at ALL, but that is my understanding of the Copyrights)
 * As far as getting your manual up on Wikibooks, I would suggest that you read through this to get familiar with the basic editing tools. Then you can create a page for each of the chapters of your manual, copy/paste your content from Word, and then go back and revise formatting and such.  I am also more than happy to help (I am a librarian in a rural community, and I have been doing a lot of work with library-related textbooks here on wikibooks) -- to get in touch with me, you can go to my talk page and click "Add Topic". Sandbergja (discuss • contribs) 16:47, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

My fiction book
I have been reading Wikipedia, it seems forever. A few years back I wrote my first novel, which I kept in manuscript form, but never published. Editors characterized my novel as too "cerebral", but with literary merit. It does not fill the Hollywood void of car chases or "jumping into the sack" scenario. According to reviewers/editors, I would have more success if published within the European market. I never had the time to do so, because I was busy with my own medical practice. The manuscript remained in a corner eating dust. Now that I have finally closed my practice after more than 30 years, I am ready to continue my pursuit as a novelist. I would like to donate this first novel to Wikipedia, but need assistance as to the steps to follow. It is about 120 words and falls within the genre of the psychological thriller. The main premise of the book is that "we can fool most of the people some of the time but ultimately we must confront ourselves".

At present, I am changing certain portions of the book's structure and other aspects of the plot and the book is being translated into a foreign language for the European market. Still I would like to donate this original manuscript before the changes I am about to make.

Thanks in advance.

Daifu —Preceding comment added by Daifu (discuss • contribs) 12:25, 22 September 2013
 * Hi, Daifu. Wikimedia has several sister projects, each with a different purpose and different policies.  There's Wikipedia, which develops a free-content encyclopedia.  Wikibooks, here, develops a collection of free-content textbooks.  Wikisource develops a free-content library of source texts.  Wikiversity is a learning community, and can often take research books that contain too much original research to fit in here at Wikibooks.


 * I'm not aware of a Wikimedian sister that would be a good fit for a work of fiction. Perhaps someone else here can suggest where would be a good place to go for that, or perhaps someone at Wikiversity could suggest a suitable place.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

It's time to reclaim the community logo
Hello community,

this is to inform you about the (re)start of a discussion in which you might be interested. In short, myself and a few other Wikimedia editors decided to oppose the registration of the community logo as a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The history of the logo, the intents behind our action and our hopes for the future are described in detail on this page; to keep the discussion in one place, please leave your comments the talk page. (And if you speak a language other than English, perhaps you can translate the page and bring it to the attention of your local Wikimedia community?) I’m looking forward to hearing from you! odder (talk) 10:00, 21 September 2013 (UTC) P.s.: You can check whether the WMF protects the logo of your project by seeing if it's listed as "registered trademark" on Wikimedia trademarks.

Request for consultation on community logo


First, I’d like to apologize for the English. If you can, please help to translate this for other members of your community.

The legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation would greatly appreciate your input on the best way to manage the "community logo" (pictured here) to best balance protection of the projects with community support. Accordingly, they have created a “request for consultation” on Meta where they set out briefly some of the issues to be considered and the options that they perceive. Your input would be invaluable in helping guide them in how best to serve our mission.

Thank you! --Mdennis (talk) (via the Global message delivery system). 02:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC) (wrong page? You can fix it.)

How do I Remove 'Edit' on Page Titles?
Armchair (discuss • contribs) 11:40, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi,: My page The CSS Cascade has just been given a rewrite.  I notice now that preceding its title is the word Edit. I would just love to remove it. Any ideas folks?
 * I think this might be caused by the skin you are using or custom Javascript. I don't see "Edit" before the name. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 16:32, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * If that did not work, go to your Preferences, then to Editing, and look under General for "Enable section editing via [edit] links". Uncheck that, and you might find that fixes the issue for you. I hope that helps.  Will  scrlt ( Talk ) 09:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the input-I will try it...86.171.217.168 (discuss) 10:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Page not updating
Hi, Can anybody help? My page Here is not updating properly. I have the right display when I save it while logged in but when I go to the page while logged out I have some incomplete revision of my work. Any ideas? 86.171.217.168 (discuss) 10:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

An additional point: I have found that when the page shows the old version, I can force the system to fetch the good updated one by adding a question mark to the existing address, and then hitting Enter. If I have understood from the past, the sequence of work for the browser is:  look first in the browser cache if not there go to the ISP's cache and if not there go out to the source server  By putting a question mark at the end, neither the browser cache nor the ISP will recognize the address and go out for it. The trouble is, I would have thought that after getting it right, the ISP would deliver it with the new version after that. It reverts to the old one when I clear my browser cache and reload.

What does it take to get a clean updated version?Armchair (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Append "&action=purge" to the URL which will force the source server to purge its cache. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 15:27, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks QuiteUnusual, that did it, as long as I was logged on.Armchair (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 25 September 2013 (UTC)