Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2017/June

Validity of HTML
Difficulties with indentation are mostly solved now. Thanks for the earlier help.

The markup for the table in Oberon has | align="center" | for specific cells. WikiMedia generates &#60;td align="center">, which the W3C Validator reports as erroroneous. As I understand, the validator will accept &#60;td style="text-align: center"> as correct. A small change to eliminate many validity errors. Any chance of correcting the MediaWiki software? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:17, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

background-color in a preformatted block
Prefixing a line or each of a series of lines with " " produces a preformatted block. In the default case the block has a faint blue background. Can this background-color be changed? In User:PeterEasthope/sandbox, only the background behind the characters is set. I am interested to set the background throughout the box. Thanks, PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:20, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Scalable Vector Graphics Editor/Converter
With respect to Open Office Draw (version 4.1.1), there is an issue when exporting the image to a .svg (scalable vector graphics) format where any text may not display correctly. Does anyone know of a program that converts existing vector graphics based formats to the svg format, or directly edits .svg files? Thanks, Math buff (discuss • contribs) 00:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * GIMP. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 08:26, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The strategy discussion. The Cycle 2 will start on May 5
The first cycle of the Wikimedia movement strategy process recently concluded. During that period, we were discussing the main directions for the Wikimedia movement over the next 15 years. There are more than 1500 summary statements collected from the various communities, but unfortunately, none from your local discussion (the only comment visible there was imported from Meta). The strategy facilitators and many volunteers have summarized the discussions of the previous month. A quantitative analysis of the statements will be posted on Meta for translation this week, alongside the report from the Berlin conference.

The second cycle will begin soon. It's set to begin on May 5 and run until May 31. During that period, you will be invited to dive into the main topics that emerged in the first cycle, discuss what they mean, which ones are the most important and why, and what their practical implications are. This work will be informed and complemented by research involving new voices that haven’t traditionally been included in strategy discussions, like readers, partners, and experts. Together, we will begin to make sense of all this information and organize it into a meaningful guiding document, which we will all collectively refine during the third and last cycle in June−July.

We want to help your community to be more engaged with the discussions in the next cycle. Now, we are looking for volunteers who could We are looking forward to your feedback!
 * tell us where to announce the start of the Cycle 2, and how to do that, so we could be sure the majority of your community is informed and has a chance to feel committed, and
 * facilitate the Cycle 2 discussions here, on Wikibooks.

Base (WMF) and SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 16:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Seems to me your process is inherently (and probably irredeemably) flawed. Surely it can't be a surprise that you get no feedback from a project the Foundation has dissed for years.  A veteran Wikibookian would naturally expect that participation in the process would be time wasted, and that the Foundation would use their participation to help legitimize whatever the Foundation wanted to do anyway; the difference with non-participation would be that the Foundation would use that as an excuse for ignoring us, which they would do anyway, and without our having invested profitless time in it.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:52, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The movement and the Foundation are two different beings, and now, we're running a strategy process for the former. The movement has many stakeholders: there are many wikis, developers, readers, long-term donors, affiliates, partners (like GLAM institutions). All of them are to be heard and are being heard, so please, don't imply that there is a match WMF vs. anyone. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 18:20, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Realistically that's a fiction. The "movement", in that sense, is an invention of the Foundation.  The Foundation is a centralized organization that, by the nature of such organizations, seeks to centrally control, including defining the rules of the game.  The " (WMF)" at the end of your username defies the claim that it's not a Foundation process. Whatever one calls the evolved means by which such organizations manipulate the perceptions of their personnel, you're within its field of influence.  I'm outside.  What I see from here is, a stark contradiction between the Foundation (not its personnel) and the volunteers. A striking pattern I've observed amongst WMF personnel is that they pretty consistently underestimate the schism by a huge margin.  The problem isn't just that the Foundation needs to "communicate better" with the volunteers, the Foundation's basic objectives (in practice, not on paper) are actively counter-productive.  This is visible from a quick list of key concerns from the volunteer side.  The sisterhood is a bottom-up decentralized structure, with the primordial goal of empowering The People to have a voice in information providing (of course it sounds idealistic &mdash; idealism is the required fuel of all volunteer-driven efforts), wiki markup is the key technical device that makes it possible, and societal evils combated notably include propaganda.  The Foundation, as a top-down centralized structure, inevitably seeks to centralize control and thereby disempowers volunteer control of infrastructure, notably including sidelining and undermining wiki markup.  As for propaganda... well.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:11, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but WMF is younger than Wikipedia. My home Polish Wikipedia was primarily outside of the Wikimedia umbrella and branding, before WMF was established, and simply it's not true that the movement is an invention of WMF. It's precisely opposite. Let's talk about Wikimedia without mentioning WMF. It's possible. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 21:35, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Dzień dobry you must know some of the disses concerning only Wikimedia. For example, I couldn't help thinking about the [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki%3AGadgets-definition&type=revision&diff=3172807&oldid=2984463 JavaScript developers works sabotages]. I'm referring to the broken gadgets, several per site every year for at least five ones (including this week!), which have provoked the resignation of a few qualified fellows.
 * So naively I didn't propose anything hopping that our website performances, which seems to be taken for granted, would stay a priority. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 22:26, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Salut, JackPotte. I think your concerns fit the strategy discussions. You should elaborate on that during the Cycle 2. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * In this exchange you repeatedly failed to understand the points I was making. First, you missed my point about the inherent flaw of the process you're describing.  You then shifted the topic from that process to the Foundation's relationship with "the movement", where you confused the history of the Foundation with the de facto policies of the Foundation.  You appear to have mistaken me for someone ignorant of basic history; and then you suggested that we talk about wikimedia "without mentioning WMF" &mdash; which is literally impossible since "WMF" is part of the username of the account you're editing from, as well as impossible in spirit because you are, apparently, editing in an official capacity as a representative of the Foundation.  Sadly, I don't think we're going to successfully communicate.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Freely available math textbooks
At least some are copyright reserved: http://people.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:47, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Is that material on Wikibooks somewhere? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:16, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No, sorry. First off, I fixed the link. Secondly, I am pointing to available books (almost 80 of them); some of them may be CC licensed such that we can use them here but even if not, someone may see the link and be able to use the books independently. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:59, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Some of them are CC licensed. Personally I prefer (simply because nobody is interested in the work involved in importing stuff into WB structures) either uploading a PDF version to Commons or getting WS to import them... QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 14:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

U of Missouri to use open textbooks
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20170621/university-of-missouri-to-push-cheaper-textbook-plan —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Search results from Wikibooks now active in Wikipedia's search system
Just to let you know, as announced via mailing list service, English Wikipedia is now receiving search results of this project, Wikibooks, intended to direct Wikipedia users to this project. Currently, an option to suppress the search results of this project from the English Wikipedia search system is proposed at Village pump's "proposal" subpage, where I invite you to comment. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 19:15, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Correction: The search results were mistakenly included by developers. There was "no consensus" to include those search results. Therefore, I filed a task at Phabricator to suppress those. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 01:10, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Recently, another proposal to include Wikibooks in English Wikipedia's cross-wiki search results system is made. --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 22:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)