Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2020/October

DISPLAYTITLE template
Hello, does the DISPLAYTITLE template work only on the title page of a book. It doesn't center the heading in the Oberon/bootman page. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 14:47, 9 October 2020 (UTC)


 * DISPLAYTITLE is actually a "magic word": see mw:Help:Magic words. It just doesn't allow much customization; for example you can't radically alter the displayed title. I think also that it doesn't accept all CSS, and "text-align:center;" simply doesn't work. And I doubt there is a workaround.
 * My advice is to ignore DISPLAYTITLE, and instead use the template book title underneath it, which will be centered. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 20:53, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The page is just one in a book. Therefore "book title" seems illogical; no offense intended. An appropriate visual appearance can be achieved with a div tag. Is that objectionable? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 18:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
 * No not at all, it does exactly the same thing. All the template does is add a div tag and little CSS, so it makes no difference. Take a look at its source. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:10, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. .

Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees starts two calls for feedback. One is about changes to the Bylaws mainly to increase the Board size from 10 to 16 members. The other one is about a trustee candidate rubric to introduce new, more effective ways to evaluate new Board candidates. The Board welcomes your comments through 26 October. For more details, check the full announcement.

Qgil-WMF (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Criminals
I want to start a wiki book on criminals. Seikopo (discuss • contribs) 00:38, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe look into Subject:Criminal law? —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 01:29, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on October 27
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The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, October 27 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it.  If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal.  Then you should be able to save your edit.  But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. -- Trizek (WMF) (talk)  17:10, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Starting a new wikibook?
What are the elements? I want to start one on criminals and crime. Seikopo (discuss • contribs) 16:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The basic reference on this is the book Using Wikibooks. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:15, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Visual editor
Hi all

Sorry for the newbie question, I've been on Wikipedia for several years and interesting in writing a book for Wikibooks. I can't find how to edit using Visual Editor, I've looked in preferences, searched the help pages etc, I'm probably missing something obvious... Can someone help me out?

Thanks

--John Cummings (discuss • contribs) 15:22, 23 October 2020 (UTC)


 * There might be something about it in Special:Preferences. (Though I, for my part am only interested in how to prevent Visual Editor from appearing; I believe VE to be a cataclysmically bad idea, basically the opposite of what the Wikimedia Foundation would be trying to do if they were acting wisely.  I reckon the great value of wikis lies in the markup language, wiki markup, and every time a user edits a page it's vitally important that they see the wiki markup, see how things are done, so they can learn it by seeing and doing, whereas a WYSIWYG interface like VE exists for the specific purpose of preventing users from seeing how things are done.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Special:Preferences - QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

History of criminals
Could someone help? Seikopo (discuss • contribs) 03:10, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * What is it that you need help with? —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 03:22, 15 October 2020 (UTC)