Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2014/May

Hi all
I was surfing the web and came across wikibooks, I kinda looked at my field of expertise in Geology, Engineering Geology and Geotechnical Engineering. The books were started but nobody has made an edit in over 3 years and looking at the edits more like that nobody has made a sincere effort in the fields since the inception of wikibooks. Since I'm studying for Masters in Engineering Geology at the University of New South Wales, I might contribute to Wikibooks while studying for the subjects. It might help me achieve my postgrad degree in the end. I kinda want to make two books. An Introduction to Engineering Geology and the other into An Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering. The two fields are related, one leans more towards Geology the other to Civil Engineering. I'll start with Engineering Geology that focuses on geology and geological hazards such as landslides, earthquakes etc. Geotechnical Engineering is all about quantifying rocks, soils and groundwater, to build structures on. If you want to check out my resume click here to find out my qualifications.

It might take a few years to finish the books as its a complex topic, that most people might find alien, but its foundational to our way of life. Excuses the pun.

I'll give it my best shot.

Cheers --IliyaJ (discuss • contribs) 02:56, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Welcome Iliya. If you have any questions feel free to ask.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 08:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Automatic PDF/ePUB download links (or collection shortcut)
At the moment, generating an ePUB ebook can only be done by manually adding each page of the book to a collection (which can be an error-prone process if you miss subpages) and downloading the resulting ePUB file from the collection manager.

For PDF files, some books seem to have had their PDF generated and uploaded as a static file (I gather this from the URL of said files). Which would mean that the PDF file becomes obsolete after the first edition of the book.

What would be the technical difficulty of having at least a link that gets the user to the collection manager pre-filled with the pages? Also, a few links for the most obvious choices in options would be great, at least 1-column PDF and ePUB.

--Nowhere man (discuss • contribs) 13:15, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by your question. When I look at, for example, the German Wikibook, all the way at the bottom on the right side it says "This book has a collection" that already has "a link that gets the user to the collection pre-filled with the pages". --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 14:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with DavidCary, that if I see, it shows both the printable version and the collection link. You can also render a | pdf version. Also, I am unsure of just one thing. I have myself downloaded a pdf book, however, what I cannot understand is that, the way the book is written, is not complete, neither comprehensive. Please understand I mean no harm, or mean any bad thing for the person who gave tremendous efforts behind this project. I am currently trying to modify and rectify as much as I can, and add as much as I know. I am myself learning the language, but I have got the complete resource from start of the course to the end of it, so it should cause me no trouble. I wish all my friends a hearty congratulations, and my full support for all the things that go towards doing such a great thing. Danke. Vishal Bakhai - Works 17:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW, can anyone suggest me how to get the earlier PDF version deleted, and how to generate a new one, since the old one is quite redundant and is also obsolete with me making quite a number of changes to the chapters. I am trying via "book creator", but there seems to be some trouble with that and it is not generating any PDF.

Danke Schôn. Vishal Bakhai - Works 18:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * A new PDF can be uploaded by any administrator or someone with the uploader right. Re. your comment (" what I cannot understand is that, the way the book is written, is not complete, neither comprehensive") is simply that the book isn't finished. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello Quite. Thanks for this. However, when I stated that comment, I meant it myself that it was unfinished, but still there was a PDF version released for it, with lots of grammatical errors, and in an unfinished stage that too, which was literally left out by the editors. Currently, I am trying to get it back in a proper manner as much as I can, and that I why I wished to know of the way to get a PDF file for it. Although I will say that I am not too sure of how to amend the print version to show it properly, but I believe that it will be at a later stage that I will look at it, since, first I need to complete the actual book and also the BLL one. Hope, someone can assist me, but not by editing the book, as I have kind of adopted the book, and am taking the ownership of it till the time it is complete. Contributors can contact me on my talk page or can contact me via email, with the contribution.  I am stating this just to make sure that there are no differences with others, and also that I have taken the ownership for this complete book, including that of BLL German.

Danke Schôn. Vishal Bakhai - Works 13:23, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Halo, Guten Tag Alles
Hallo. Mein name ist Vishal Bakhai. Although I am fairly new to the project books, but I have started amending and upgrading the German books section, as the German books have not had a revision in near past. I am not too much active, as I am on Wikipedia, however, I will try and add and make myself as useful as a I can. Danke. Vishal Bakhai - Works 17:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Welcome Vishal Bakhai. I have noticed the work you've been doing.  Good job.  --ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 19:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Xania.
 * I am currently revamping the German book, and would request if people with knowledge base both in terms of language and editing might assist me by letting me know of the inputs. I would also request if people can leave message on my talk page, or can mail me, anything, as I have my mail ID up as well. I am trying my level best to get the book up in a better way and hope it works well. Danke Schôn. Vishal Bakhai - Works[[Image:Flag_of_India.svg|15px]] 18:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

A public book watchlist hack
A few months ago, we discussed alternatives to deal with the problem of watching whole books and, in particular, book talk pages. I have been using the workaround suggested at w:Help:Public watchlist (i.e. place all links in a page and then use Related Changes) for a while, but only now I had a shot at making updates to the watchlist automatic. I took m:Module:Subpages (apparently an experiment by darklama), which gets the output of Special:PrefixIndex and strips the HTML around the page titles, made a few adjustments to it and used its output to fill in Template:La2 entries. The result is Module:PublicSubpageWatchlist, and here is a demonstration of it. Before I wrap it in a template and use it at the Haskell book, I would like to put it up for discussion, so that any possible issues are identified. In particular, I have no real idea whether widespread usage might be problematic performance-wise (I suppose the text processing is nothing out of ordinary, and what might matter are the calls to Special:PrefixIndex).

Duplode (discuss • contribs) 19:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * A few versions are floating about with various changes to reflect issues I missed from my initial quick "proof of concept" hack, like that redirects are included when they might not want to be, when there are a sufficient number of subpages not every subpage got listed, or when used in a namespace without the subpage featured enabled it should abort unless explicitly overridden. Those changes also come at a price, requires more time which can lead to exceeding the allocated time limit that Lua scripts can run on a page, and more complexity which can lead to exceeding the allocated complexity limit. See Commons:Module:Page for example. It might be possible improve the speed and reduce the complexity, but there should probably be a warning that it may fail in some cases. --dark lama  14:21, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Indeed; with Structural Biochemistry the list stops at "Deaminase". I will do some tests with the version at Commons; thank you for the pointers.--Duplode (discuss • contribs) 16:49, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I am sorry I missed the original discussion. For a long time I have used separte programs (such as Thunderbird) to take the RSS Atom feed, preform some keyword matching, and spit the output into a feed I would watch.  This is a nice alternative. Thenub314 (talk) 19:29, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully my little book is adequate for WikiBooks
Today I've uploaded my book Environmental_theory_and_collection_of_ideas, and I have only the seen WIW page afterwards. Is it okay to remain here? Fekarp


 * I have updated the description in the hopes of being clearer about the purpose of the book. I believe the book may be within scope, if I have understood the intentions correctly. --dark lama  13:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Importing BSD licenced material?
Hello, I'm just wondering if it's acceptable to import a BSD (3-clause) licenced software manual to Wikibooks? Would I just need to retain the licence (perhaps with something like "this book was based on material licenced under the BSD" etc.) on a subpage? Thanks, &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 23:34, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The BSD license only protects source code and its binary form, it is not suitable for literary works, so you should contact the copyright owner for re-licensing if possible as the freedoms of the BSD license indicate that the intention was to make it free and only preserving the rights of acknowledgement something that our license does. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:48, 23 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, yes good point about it not really being a non-code licence. I'll see what I can do. Might just start writing the book here without importing stuff. :-) &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 04:34, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Seems to be a site script problem
Previewing page changes this evening, I keep getting the below notice as if I was just starting a new page. To wit (sans links): Wikibooks has a book or page by this name: Clicking the 'hide this message' box navigates one to Template:Editnotices which may be where the faulty code has been changed (affecting the logic flow/nesting).
 * New to Wikibooks? Read our help pages, ask questions in the reading room, or try experimenting in the sandbox.
 * Starting a new book? Read Using Wikibooks, Class projects, our Naming policy, and our Neutral point of view policy.
 * Want to use work from our sister projects? Let us know what you want imported.
 * Coming from Wikipedia? Read our Wikimedian Primer.
 * Which is patently WRONG, the page I'm working over was created several months ago. I suspect this is a scripting error somewhere. // Fra nkB 01:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Second clue
 * Scratch THAT thought... template is new. Suggest any admin blank the thing [encapsulating it with will do fine] until Darklama can take a look, I've left a Talk notice, but recent activity suggests she is gone for the day! // Fra nkB 01:46, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I have made it so it doesn't show for existing pages since it has been objected to. Maybe more of the message should be different for existing pages after all. People may be intending to start a new book/page rather then editing a existing one and those links would still be relevant. --dark lama  01:50, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Strange behaviour
Why is Punjabi/Vocabulary/Numbers appearing as a Speedy Delete when I can't find a delete template anywhere on the page and the oage hasn't been edited since February (and I usually check the speedy del cats a few times a week)?--ЗAНИA talk 10:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter. The speedy tag was in a template. Now removed.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 10:37, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I untagged at least one template yesterday. The requester of the deletion is the main author of the book, but if they want the template deleted they need to remove it from usage first - not just tag it then leave someone else to clean up the broken links. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 10:43, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The template Xania was asking about, NavigateVocabulary, was created in 2008 and scarcely edited since.
 * The other page tagged for deletion, afaics, is not actually a template, although used as if it were one: Punjabi/Navigation panel, created in 2009.
 * There is also an actual template, Punjabi/Navigation panel, created yesterday. Exactly identical to the template.
 * I've suggested at the user's talk page we could just move the 2009 page on top of the template. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:03, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi. actually, I am trying to make the navigation interface look consistent and for that end has transferred all navigation functionality, except that of templates 'Navigation bottom', 'PunjabiDictionary' and 'NavigateShahmukhi' to the newally created template named 'Navigation panel'. So templates 'NavigateConversation', 'NavigateGurmukhi' and 'NavigateVocabulary' need to be deleted. The page 'Navigation panel' wrongly created as a normal page rather than a template also needs to be deleted as the functionality has been transferred to the template with same name. May I request for help for cleanup. Help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Jaspal Singh 02:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * And sorry for the confusion created by me. 02:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I've got the earlier pages straightened out. Haven't gotten to the latter three yet.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've deleted the other two above-named retired templates. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:54, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Images to links
Quick question, I hope. I have a gallery of images on Wikijunior:Europe. I would like it so that if somebody clicks on the image it will take them to the page for that country rather than the image itself. So if you were to click on the Eiffel Tower image you'd end up on the France page. Is this easy to do?--ЗAНИA talk 00:47, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Use link before the description to link the image to a different page. --dark lama  01:45, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. So it is easy.  However, after applying these changes the allignment of the images changes and they are no longer in an ordered table format of 4x4x4.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 11:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * darklama had also added mode="packed-hover" to the gallery tag, which is what changed the format. Hopefully now linked with the old format.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You even did it for me, thanks. The hover captions looked really nice but as they messed with the alignment the old format will be best for now.  Thanks again.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 11:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Just noticed that none of the links in those images worked - they all pointed to books called France, etc. Only got them to work by adding the full address, i.e. Wikijunior:Europe/France.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 15:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Wouldn’t something like /France be enough in this case?  — Ivan Shmakov (d ▞ c) 16:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That is odd, I could have sworn the relative links worked when I tried them in preview. Nice catch. --dark lama  17:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't remember for sure but I thought I had also checked one or two of them after you'd made the changes.--ЗAНИA [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]]talk 17:32, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

How to justify the text
I am not sure if this is the place but if you can help me... I would like to set in my preferences the old feature "justify the text". How can I do it? --Circuit-fantasist (discuss • contribs) 20:25, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

LGBT collaboration as part of Wiki Loves Pride 2014?
Greetings! I was wondering about the possibility of having a Wikibooks collaboration related to LGBT culture and history, as part of en:Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride 2014. This would be for the month (or part of the month) of June, when pride celebrations often take place. Thoughts? Or, is there another avenue in which this discussion should take place? I'd be more than happy to update the Wiki Loves Pride page with details about the Wikibooks project, if one comes to fruition. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for your consideration. --Another Believer (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer
Greetings, my apologies for writing in English.

I wanted to let you know that Media Viewer will be released to this wiki in the coming weeks. Media Viewer allows readers of Wikimedia projects to have an enhanced view of files without having to visit the file page, but with more detail than a thumbnail. You can try Media Viewer out now by turning it on in your Beta Features. If you do not enjoy Media Viewer or if it interferes with your work after it is turned on you will be able to disable Media Viewer as well in your preferences. I invite you to share what you think about Media Viewer and how it can be made better in the future.

Thank you for your time. - Keegan (WMF) 21:29, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

--This message was sent using MassMessage. Was there an error? Report it!

New guy here; apparently here is where I say what interests me
Well, this is weird; my interests appear to be the same as Daddou einstein's (below). I'm a college student double majoring in Computer Science and Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (mainly studying Arabic). I love both topics and I really dig free information on the internet, so I'm mainly here to add what I can to flesh out the Arabic wikibook. Michaelt (discuss • contribs) 20:30, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see an opensource version of Dr. Judy Wood's book "Where did the Towers go? Evidence of Directed Free-energy Technology on 9/11" ... but on wikipedia it's treated as a hoax, certainly not instructional; I think wikipedia should be required to prove that in court. Wikipaddn (discuss • contribs) 04:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Enhancing a Published Bibliography through Social Editing: is this the right place?
May I seek your opinion on the appropriateness of creating a Wikibooks edition of an academic research work we are about to publish?

In the Lands of the Romanovs by Anthony Cross is a large annotated bibliography of over 1200 English-language accounts of the Russian Empire written during the period 1613-1917. The title is published by Open Book Publishers under a CC BY license, is freely available to read and download (in HTML format) from the OBP website, and will also be made freely available from outlets such as Google Books, Worldreader etc. The book is also available in printed hardback and paperback editions and in various e-book formats, all of which will be retailed from our own and other sites (e.g. Amazon).

We (Open Book Publishers) would like to create a socially enhanced version of the book, and encourage readers to add new entries and create links to existing resources. In this way we believe that the content of this wide-ranging and ambitious work could be made even more comprehensive and useful for the scholarly community. We see Wikibooks as the perfect place for an edition of this kind, following in the footsteps of other social editing projects like The Devonshire Manuscript.

Before loading the work onto Wikibooks, however, we want to seek your feedback, and know whether you feel this is appropriate. In alternative, we are planning to create a private wiki on our own website, but we would much prefer to host the title here!

If you wish to have a look at the book, you can visit this page. Please note that this is just a prototype, provisionally built to test conversion into wiki markup, and that some minor parts of the book are still missing (front matters, introduction, bibliography and index). The HTML edition of the complete work can also be viewed from our website.

Lastly, some background about Open Book Publishers. We are a non-profit, Open Access publisher, committed to making high-quality research freely available to readers around the world. Founded by academics we have now published over 40 titles in the humanities and social sciences – all of which are free to read and download from our website. We have already loaded one of our books onto Wikisource, which however does not allow social editing of texts.

Openbookpublishers (discuss • contribs) 11:50, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the book may be appropriate at Wikibooks or Wikiversity depending on its contents and how you want it to develop further. You mention academic research. Is the book the primary source of information for academic research done about the Russian Empire, or does the book instruct people in the history of the Russian Empire with citations from academic research that has been previously published in peer reviewed academic journals? Do you want people to expand the book by engaging and adding their own research to the book, or do you want people to add their own annotations and interpretations of the history of the Russian Empire to the book? --dark lama  20:29, 3 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your feedback. We expect the book will be used as a reference tools for those undertaking primary research into the Russian Empire during the reign of the Romanovs, or by people like auction houses and collectors of books from the period. It is not an instructional text and, other than the introduction, does not contain footnotes. It is primarily a long list of works written during the period, comments about the importance and significance of some individual works are made as part of the description of each work but it does not provide an interpretation of Russian history over the period. As a research tool we envisage it being expanded by people adding: bibliographic entries about new works that come to light, or the author had not been aware of; links to digitalized versions of the works identified, as increasing numbers of them become digitalized; ISBNs so as to allow the wiki 'find this book' function to operate, or alternative links to discovery engines such as Worldcat etc; expanded descriptions of the works identified; links between works by date, location, person etc. As a bibliography it would not be an appropriate venue for interpretations of history - but an invaluable resource for researchers to discover primary sources on which to form and justify interpretations. -- Openbookpublishers (discuss • contribs) 09:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The Devonshire Manuscript seems to instruct people in the history of the manuscript and the people believed to be connected with the manuscript's development and lots of other information that people may want to know when learning about the manuscript. Wikibooks is primarily for books that educate people through instruction. People would have to read the bibliographic sources to learn anything about the Russian Empire. I think the primary benefit to Wikibooks is in the wealth of sources listed in In the Lands of the Romanovs that people can cite in books about the Russian Empire. Sounds to me like In the Lands of the Romanovs is more appropriate at Wikiversity where historians, educators, and learners may benefit from reading and contributing new bibliographic sources. In the Lands of the Romanovs may have more in common with Other Free Learning Resources (Wikiversity) than any books at Wikibooks. I may be overlooking other perspectives though, hopefully other people will comment. --dark lama  14:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I guess that much depends on whether we want to stress the fact that In the Lands of the Romanovs is a book, or rather present it as a learning/teaching tool. But you are absolutely right when you say that it does not instruct people on the Russian Empire: it is a source to find books on the topic. As such, it is probably more appropriate to Wikiversity, as you suggest. When referring to The Devonshire Manuscript I have in mind the collaborative dimension of that project, and the stress they place on social editing, which is what we are hoping to achieve. But I see that Wikiversity emphasises collaborative editing as much as Wikibooks does. Again, thank you very much for your feedback, and for the useful redirection!Openbookpublishers (discuss • contribs) 14:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

DBMS Project – Anyone interested?
I am considering doing a wikibook on Database Management Systems for this term at university. Instead of simply making notes, I thought why not create something that can be read by everyone. My aim will be to create a comprehensive conceptual book with examples with the different DBMS in existence. This is a huge undertaking and I definitely will be looking out for volunteers who have expertise on DBMS.

One question I have is about copyright. I am completely new to the wiki world and want to know if I need to explicitly ask permission of the authors of a publication or whether properly attributing them is simply enough.

About the project, any suggestions on whether to include different types of databases - document-oriented, object-oriented, graph etc. or to concentrate on RDBMS. I could later on take it up as different projects.

I can explain the project in more detail, if you have any questions.

--Ksimeon (discuss • contribs) 06:30, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The copyright issue is actually very simple, – to copy a substantial piece of text from a work to Wikibooks it’s required that either:
 * the work is already released under the [//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 CC BY-SA 3.0] (or CC BY) license;
 * the author (or some other person the author has transferred copyright to, as in: his or her employer or publisher) agrees to release the work under that license and confirms such a decision via an email to OTRS;
 * the work is in the public domain, – which in this case would mean that it’s either a work of the US government, or was explicitly released to the public domain by the author.


 * As a rule of the thumb, if the work is only available for a fee (say, from the publisher’s Web site), it’s unlikely that the copyright holder will re-release it under CC BY-SA or CC BY.


 * Naturally, one can freely borrow ideas from existing works, as long as the actual text is written anew.


 * As for the “RDBMS or more” question – just start with a smaller goal, for it’s always possible to expand the scope of the book, possibly renaming it in the process.


 * — Ivan Shmakov (d ▞ c) 20:33, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. So I gather I can borrow some ideas, as long as I use my own words. However, if I have to directly quote a sentence or two in between, is it enough to cite it?

I will follow your suggestion and start with a single topic on RDBMS and then expand, depending on the time I have and the number of volunteers I get.

Ksimeon (discuss • contribs) 07:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that directly quoting a few sentences is acceptable, as long as you attribute the source, and your own text related to these sentences is no smaller than the quotation itself. — Ivan Shmakov (d ▞ c) 07:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)