Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2016/August

Wikiversity or Wikibooks?
Recently (Aug 2016) I've been developing an article on the issue of file descriptor leaking (it's a Unix/Linux programming thing). It's written less like a book, but more like a study note intended for people in confusion. So I guess it should go to Wikiversity right? Dannyniu (discuss • contribs) 14:49, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If it's an original work like a thesis, it's undoubtedly for the Wikiversity. Otherwise, I would say that it depends on if you could integrate your material in an existing book or course. But the Wikiversity recommends to present it to be teachable: one hour per page. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 17:29, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Strange Pretty Pages
Hi again!

My work page suddenly changed to one in another style the other day. The page addresses are characterized by an extra .m in the name. For example, the pages start with https://en.m.wikibooks.org/ instead of just https://en.wikibooks.org/...

I must have missed all the info on it. Can anybody please steer me to it?

Armchair (discuss • contribs) 10:06, 27 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That would be the mobile version of the site you're seeing. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:59, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Page Breaks for Print Version
Hi!

Can anybody please tell me; is it possible to add page breaks to a print version?

Armchair (discuss • contribs) 10:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * there are Page-break and -. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 14:43, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

PDF and ODT download
I am trying to download the Blender 3D: Noob to Pro book. Most times clicking the PDF download link brings an immediate message that rendering failed, occasionally the process of creating the book seems to work up to about 90%, then I get the message 'Generation of the document file has failed. Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1.'

Using the other option, which should be ODT format I get a txt file, this of course has no images in it though it does give me all the text to download.

Either I am doing something wrong or the system it not working as expected, any advice would be appriciated.Weedreak (discuss • contribs) 09:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm encountering the same error with my Firefox 47. The source page Wikibooks:Collections/Blender 3D: Noob to Pro is still present but it might have overflowed the books generator.
 * Anyway, I propose to use the plan B: Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Beginner_Tutorials/Print_version. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 13:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for the file, I had tried to d/l a print version but only ever got one page. At least I can read and annotate improvements and additions next month when I will have very little online possabilities. If I knew more about the site operations I could update the d/l instructions but for now I will leave that for someone who knows the system.Weedreak (discuss • contribs) 07:26, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Print_version&printable=yes This link displays] the "annotable" page which can be printed to PDF (eg: with PDFcreator) with 208 pages. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 08:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Save/Publish
The Editing team is planning to change the name of the “ ” button to “  ” and “  ”. “ ” will be used when you create a new page. “ ” will be used when you change an existing page. The names will be consistent in all editing environments.

This change will probably happen during the week of 30 August 2016. The change will be announced in Tech News when it happens.

If you are fluent in a language other than English, please check the status of translations at translatewiki.net for “ ” and “  ”.

The main reason for this change is to avoid confusion for new editors. Repeated user research studies with new editors have shown that some new editors believed that “ ” would save a private copy of a new page in their accounts, rather than permanently publishing their changes on the web. It is important for this part of the user interface to be clear, since it is difficult to remove public information after it is published. We believe that the confusion caused by the “ ” button increases the workload for experienced editors, who have to clean up the information that people unintentionally disclose, and report it to the functionaries and stewards to suppress it. Clarifying what the button does will reduce this problem.

Beyond that, the goal is to make all the wikis and languages more consistent, and some wikis made this change many years ago. The Legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports this change. Making the edit interface easier to understand will make it easier to handle licensing and privacy questions that may arise.

Any help pages or other basic documentation about how to edit pages will also need to be updated, on-wiki and elsewhere. On wiki pages, you can use the wikitext codes  and   to display the new labels in the user's preferred language. For the language settings in your account preferences, these wikitext codes produce “ ” and “  ”.

Please share this news with community members who teach new editors and with others who may be interested. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:03, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Deletion
Every book with a lack of enough content (e.g. with a development stage less than 25 percent) should be deleted IF it is abandoned for several years like Nuclear Medicine. I think this rule can be added to Using Wikibooks/Deleting, Undeleting, and Importing. Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 14:59, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow, I would find this a good idea if everyone could awake a sleeping project. But as the administrators are the only users who can restore these pages, I believe that deleting them will engender some recreations from the scratch. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 15:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * One thing Wikibooks shares with Wikipedia imho is that there is, and absolutely properly should be, no deadline for completion here. I helped to breathe new life into a Wikijunior book that had lain dormant at an under-25% level for years.  It's in the nature of our books that there can be long gaps of time between contributors.  I do hope to develop semi-automated tools to help with things like coherently stepping into the weave of an inactive/underdeveloped book.  But deleting such things would be counterproductive.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:07, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think in this case Wikibooks should behave in the same way as Wikipedia. Users should add templates like " Template:Proposed deletion " to incomplete books. Long gaps of time between contributors would decrease the number of active users as we see currently in this project. We are not going to asleep this project for long time, are we? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 06:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've just created Nuclear Medicine/Print version to have a quick look on the whole book and it doesn't seem totally stubby.
 * Moreover, I can't see how this could be related to the number of active users, because personally I didn't come here the first time for one book and decided to create another one ex nihilo: I began by continuing an unfinished but respectable work (which was quite much easier for a beginner). JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 07:12, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * This is not a project with hundreds of administrators and tens of thousands of editors. The Proposed Deletion process from WP is inappropriate here for a number of reasons not least because, unlike WP, typically one person edits one book. There are very few collaborative projects. Therefore if someone is away for, say, three months, they could come back and find their work deleted for no reason other than "tidiness". For genuine cases of truly abandoned stubs there is already a process. I for one am completely opposed to any proposal to delete things for being "incomplete" particularly as nothing is ever complete - there's always more to add to any book. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 07:59, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Any way the book is 0 percent developed and the audience should know that the print version is not complete. By the way it does not have a cover page. Maybe it needs preface, index, images, etc. I see no labels that inform me how to read the book or how to edit it while it has been abandoned for years. How do you solve the problem? Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 13:15, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Books tend to have one editor at a time. Projects that have fewer editors like that tend to be more respectful of what was done in the past; one thinks of oneself as collaborating with others who aren't present because they're located in the past or future, a sort of 'consensus across time'.  Adopting a book is a Thing here.  Part of this is having a lot more respect for relatively incomplete works than a large Wikipedia might.  Imho English Wikipedia (the one I have direct experience with) does damage even to itself by its cultural dismissal of past precedent; even within Wikipedia's own context Wikipedia should do better on that score, and smaller projects have, and need to, maintain a much more respectful attitude toward past contributions.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:50, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Since there is no predefined minimum nor maximum length to a book so you are right. You can keep the book but there's a problem that how should the volunteer author or the reader guess the final length determined for that book or which content is not yet completed? --Doostdar (discuss • contribs) 14:07, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I assume that you're right about the fact that at the bottom of the wikicode, displays a non-explicit and discrete icon at the top right which says 0% developped on hover (as described into Help:Development stages). But it could be precised with Todo. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 14:24, 24 August 2016 (UTC)