Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2020/September

Numbered description list?
Can the items of a description list be numbered automatically? The help document claims that list styles can be nested but I failed to make a description inside a numbered list. My failure is here. The intended format is here. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:26, 14 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure quite what you're trying to do. Here's something one can do, that might or might not be in the ballpark:
 * foo
 * bar
 * blork
 * glorp
 * quux
 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:38, 14 August 2020 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks. My description lists are better now.
 * Next problem: insert code examples into the descriptions in the usual monospaced style. My current best is this section. Can a code block be indented by WikiMedia syntax rather than by including non-breaking spaces (&#38;#160;)? WikiMedia syntax? Ideally align the code block with "A:". Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)


 * There are a few ways I can think of that one might try to achieve this, at least one of which almost works.
 * Here's the one I know almost works, but has a couple of flaws. Embed the code block in a wiki table, and prefix the open-table line with a series of colons.  One flaw is that, although it seems this works, the prefix has to be colons-only, so this can't be combined with the trick to keep an enumerated list from losing count of its items.  A small second flaw, at least within my level of skill at these things, is that the code block cannot be the first line of its cell in the table (because of the way the wiki syntax for the code block interacts with the wiki syntax for a cell of a table); so either the preceding "A:" is separated from the table by some extra vertical space, or you put the "A:" inside the cell, slightly reducing the vertical space, and the "A:" is indented by an extra pixel or so.  It may be possible to get rid of that extra pixel-or-so of indentation by means of table style (or cell style?) that zeros out the one pixel's worth of padding, or margin, or whatever that is, but, as noted actually achieving that is beyond my level of skill.  Here's an example of what it might look like (this is the second version, with less vertical space but the extra horizontal pixel-or-so):

BEGIN foo bar END
 * A:
 * }
 * I'm uncertain whether the wiki may allow a template to contain table syntax that can then be invoked with mixed-prefix indentation. If so, it'd be a way to get around the colons-only limitation; but it may well be subject to the same colons-only limitation.
 * Is there a way to force fixed-width text within a line? I'm a bit foggy on this point; at any rate, if that can be done, one could, somewhat painfully, produce the code block one-line-at-a-time.
 * Possibly there may be some sort of trick one could use involving book-specific style files, which are supported on Wikibooks; you'd need an "interface admin" to help with that. The policy position we settled on, when the interface-admin group was decreed by the Foundation, was, as I recall, that any admin that feels they have a need for the interface bit should be given it (which afaik respects the spirit of the separate bit, to prevent the interface privs from being needlessly spread to all admins).
 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Pi zero. I'll study and try the techniques, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 15:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Another way of indenting pre blocks (other than the table used above) by using the CSS margin-left property. Take a look at the coding for the below:

 Example

However there is a problem in doing so on your page: I think it is because of your non-standard combination of ordered lists and description lists. Using whitespace may be your best option, as the table syntax didn't work too. Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jules. Unfortunately I've descended into hours of trial and error, the last desperate technique of programming. By "non-standard combination" do you mean that a revised combination should be tried; or do you mean I am attempting something beyond the intended capabilities of MediaWiki? If the first case, can a revision be suggested? In the second, I should consider abandoning attempts to impose format and accept the automatic format of MediaWiki? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 15:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

What I mean can be demonstrated by looking at your coding, a snippet being posted here: Now what you're doing is combining an ordered list (with the first # symbol) with a description list (the following ; character). These are not normally combined in this fashion. Now I can see why you've done it, and it works to some degree, but for some reason it creates a problem when adding CSS to the pre block that follows. I don't really have a good explanation for this. One workaround would be to change your coding combining the two list types; another would be simply to insert white space in your pre block. If you wanted to change your coding, you could do something like this (look at the source): 
 * 1) ; How to compare procedure variables. Oberon only allows comparison of a procedure variable to NIL.
 * A&#58; Procedure variables can be compared in this manner:
 * 6. How to compare procedure variables. Oberon only allows comparison of a procedure variable to NIL.
 * A&#58; Procedure variables can be compared in this manner:

 MODULE Temp; VAR p, q: PROCEDURE; PROCEDURE P;     END P;    BEGIN p := P; q := P;     (*IF p = P THEN END;*)  (* does not compile *) IF p = q THEN END (* but this works *) END Temp. This looks quite similar to User:PeterEasthope/sandbox, but is differently coded. Or else just use whitespace to shift the coding in the pre block. Jules (Mrjulesd) 17:20, 22 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm changing the coding as you describe. Automation is good but in this circumstance, it's too devious. Better to make the result directly. Finishing the page will take a few more days. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 15:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * P.s. Appears the last resort is to use HTML5 tags; &#60;ol> &#60;/ol>, &#60;dt> &#60;/dt>,   &#60;dd> &#60;/dd> and etc. I'm working on a section in my sandbox. Closing and nesting all the tags properly requires non-trivial effort but it works. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:01, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in the conversation
We are excited to share a draft of the Universal Code of Conduct, which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier this year, for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open until October 6, 2020.

The UCoC Drafting Committee wants to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges for you or your work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and what could be improved?

Please join the conversation and share this invitation with others who may be interested to join, too.

To reduce language barriers during the process, you are welcomed to translate this message and the Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review. You and your community may choose to provide your opinions/feedback using your local languages.

To learn more about the UCoC project, see the Universal Code of Conduct page, and the FAQ, on Meta.

Thanks in advance for your attention and contributions, The Trust and Safety team at Wikimedia Foundation, 17:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Cucumber
Wikibooks has, for example, Cookbook:Cucumber and Horticulture/Cucumber. The former is matched to the Wikidata item on Cucumbers, d:Q2735883, and thus to Wikipedia articles, Commons, and so on; the latter is not, as there can only be a 1:1 link. the linked Wikidata, Wikipedia and Commons pages are about all aspects of cucumbers, including horticulture, not just cooking with them.

Why match to the cookbook page, and not the horticulture page? Should there not be a higher level page, which is paired with sister projects? Pigsonthewing (discuss • contribs) 08:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The Cookbook is considered to be a single book, organised as a namespace due to its size. Each book is considered independent with the only higher level structure being analogous to a bookshelf or subject area. Unless someone chooses to write a book on cucumbers, encapsulating both the horticulture and cooking, there won't be a higher level page. Of course, it is also possible that even if we were to do this, someone else would write another book that happened to involve cucumbers - e.g., science projects using cucumbers - and this would then not be linked. I can't think of any structural way within the intent of Wikibooks that can solve the Wikidata problem. Frankly, that's not surprising because Wikidata was - in my opinion - predominantly developed to work with Wikipedia. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 09:48, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikidata was planned as if there were only one Wikipedia, actually; its rigid one-to-one-mapping arrangement loses when presented with multiple-language Wikipedias that don't analyze the world quite the same way. However, for the long run, I have hoped to solve the general problem of providing Wikibooks targets for incoming sister links &mdash;which would be a problem even without Wikidata&mdash; by introducing a whole new set of categories here for potentially-per-page topical categorization.  The first problem that had to be solved was that we already had, at that point, two different kinds of categories that would get confused with each other, and this would be introducing yet a third kind of category.  I'm now several years in to, and mostly but not yet entirely finished with, an overhaul of our entire existing category hierarchy, in preparation for introducing a third set of categories that would provide suitable unique targets for encyclopedia-like topical categories.  Cf. Reading room/Proposals Wikibooks Stacks/History. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:31, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It's disappointing to see Wikidata wrongly disparaged in this way; it was neither "predominantly developed to work with Wikipedia" nor "planned as if there were only one Wikipedia". Wikidata is perfectly capable of representing the concepts on Wikibooks (just as it does for other non-Wikipedia sister projects); you can have a Wikidata item corresponding to "Cookbook:Cucumber" and another corresponding to "Horticulture/Cucumber", if you wish. My question is more about whether there is, or should be, a Wikibooks page representing the general subject of "Cucumber", in the sense encompassing not only cookery and horticulture, but also biology, representations art, and any other aspect. Pigsonthewing (discuss • contribs) 11:17, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Seems to me you may be somewhat hasty in supposing that "wrongly disparaged" thing. Despite widespread good will and competence of Wikidatans (in my experience), there are some structural design flaws in Wikidata, which can be traced back to structural bias that flows from the Wikimedia Foundation through the vehicle of Conway's law.  (That is, design by a top-down centralized organization will favor top-down centralization, which is often profoundly inappropriate for an inherently distributed bottom-up volunteer community.) Notably, the function of Wikidata toward other projects is apparently based on naive assumptions that (1) information is structured in a unique, unambiguous way, and (2) interwiki links should be limited to perfect matches in this unique structure.  Neither of which is true.  The structure is not at all unique, consequently its organization ought not be entrusted to the POV of a single central project (a particular instance of the general damage to voluteer projects caused by wresting local control away from them); and interwikis are an important social (only partly, and flexibly, ontological) connection between projects that should be maximized and cannot be properly judged by mechanical/objective means, so here again it is inappropriate to relegate their control to the POV of a single central project.  Granted a single central project can be valuable in aiding coordination of other projects, though that is not, alas, the function baked into Wikidata's technical design.  Just for example: on English Wikinews, we have a category called "free speech"; and iirc there may be one or two other-language Wikinewses that have such a category; but several Wikinewses have instead a category whose name would translate as "censorship" (interesting optimism/pessimism interplay there), and I think when I delved into this a few years ago I may have found one or two Wikinewses that managed to find some yet-different approach to the subject.  Freedom of speech is definitely not the same thing as censorship, and although these categories would likely apply to many of the same news articles, they might occasionally lead to different categorization decisions; nevertheless, if these categories did not have interwiki links to each other it would be a disservice both to readers/researchers and to the social well-being of the Wikinewses involved; and Wikidata's organization pretty-much guarantees they will not be linked to each other.  That's a flaw in the design of Wikidata.  (Yes, I see how it's possible to fix, even now, with some time and effort; but it's not easy, nor quick, to effect a large-scale fix to a problem people don't want to acknowledge.)  I have occasionally see, though cannot alas readily produce an example of, some simple cases of the same phenomenon arising on Wikipedias. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:29, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Should there not be a higher level 'Cucumber' page, which is paired with sister projects? Pigsonthewing (discuss • contribs) 13:47, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The answer to this is distributed through some of the earlier remarks.
 * We wouldn't call it "Cucumber".
 * Eventually, I hope, we'll have infrastructure in place so that the page you're asking about would be called . I have been moving toward a solution of this sort for several years now, but am not yet there.  Not sure yet what &lt;some prefix&gt; would be; we have a prefix   for the category tracking all pages associated with a book, and   for the category tracking all the books that belong to a shelf.
 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:56, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Global ban RFC for Nrcprm2026/James Salsman
Nrcprm2026, better known as James Salsman, has an active discussion regarding a possible global ban.--GZWDer (discuss • contribs) 07:57, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of functions naming contest
. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.

There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. --Quiddity (WMF) 21:25, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

book idea (cell microprocessor)
I want to read an up to date book on cell microprocessors developed by IBM and Sony. I want to learn about them but the available information is very scattered. thank you for reading my post 152.27.19.213 (discuss) 15:18, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Vocabulary practice app for foreign language learning
I've set up a working prototype of a foreign language vocabulary practice web app. The idea is to offer an easy way for users to practice foreign language vocabulary, using vocabulary lists from Wikibooks. The app depends on the vocabq template I set up, which displays a vocabulary table and optionally links to the app. You can see it by going to the end of Polish/Adjectives where it links to practice these translations. My intention is to make this an open source project, possibly by publishing the source code on github, and hopefully welcome pull requests, but I could use advice about how to deal with licensing and related issues. Should it be GPL v2-or-later so it matches the license used by MediaWiki? Is it relevant that my current prototype is built in React? Is this the right place to be asking these kind of questions? Thanks for any advice. Krubo (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't mean to offend anyone but your help documentation sucks.
Guys and Gals, I am a retired computer programmer. I programmed real-time embedded OS utilities for 35+ years in many languages and environments. I feel I am quite capable of picking up a new environment. I've been seriously trying to use Wikibooks for a couple weeks now. I don't mean to offend anyone but wikibooks help documentation sucks. There is no (or none I can't find) single place to go to to find the nuts and bolts of writing a page. Yes, there is a lot on planning a book and accompanying policies but no pointer to finding basic nitty gritty of how to do stuff. The current instance that is frustrating me is I want to limit the number of heading levels that the TOC displays. What is the syntax? I know I have seen it in my poking around. If I do a search on "Table of Contents" I get a message that tells me I can't create that page (thank you very much). (Searching sucks also.) The info I need is not (that I can find) referenced within 2 level of an intro page. A link to all the help should be at the very top level. Instead it is just a glitzy page with pointer to high level stuff or cursory introductory material. If I am frustrated imagine what someone with no computer background feels. I shouldn't have to go to the reading room and ask for help on something that should be in a document that is obvious. If you want to attract users your interface is going to have to get a lot more friendly. This has to be fixed. If the info is there then make the path to it obvious. If it is not available then it needs to be created. I am willing to help. In fact, I have already started. See my user page. But I am getting very frustrated trying to write that, too. If you happen to know where the documentation for the TOC is then that would be great to know but that is not what I am asking for. I would like some changes that would make this a friendly useable environment. --Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:35, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I apologize if I did offend anyone. I really did not mean to. I am quite sincere when I say I would really like to see this site thrive. I think it is or could be important. I'm going now to do my afternoon meditation and see if I can calm down.  I'll check back later for comments. --Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:35, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Entirely non-judgmentally: in practice, for technical details of wikis I generally look at the documentation on Wikipedia. I had no idea there was a way to limit the depth of a TOC; generally, on Wikibooks, if a page has that deep a TOC the page should be broken up into sub-pages. There is a template for the purpose on Wikipedia, which has never been imported here and, I suspect, we might be better off not importing so as not to encourage that sort of thing. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The syntax to do so is  where x is the TOC limit. e.g.   would show   but hide  . See also w:Help:Section.
 * For technical matters I wrote w:Template:Wikipedia technical help which is pretty good for finding advanced technical matters on Wikipedia. The equivalent for Wikibooks is Template:Wikibooks editor navigation, but the info in general is not as advanced, but more specific. See also Template:Wikibooks policies and guidelines for Wikibooks rules. Also the site MediaWiki has a ton of technical info if you can find it, e.g. mw:Manual:Table of contents. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 01:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that’s what I needed but it begs the question of how do we make the info readily available in Wikibooks. Once again, I apologize for the tirade but I just lost it after searching for an hour and a half. Finding something like this should be rather trivial. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 12:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Hello Eddie, I've also encountered some difficulties finding help documents. Some confusion can be avoided by eliminating duplication. For example the front help page, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Contents, has two links for editing: "Editing" and "Editing Wikitext". Harmless for an experienced user. A novice must think "which will help with ... ?" One link for editing is enough?
 * As Pi zero remarked above, the documentation in Wikipedia can be advantageous. I wonder about consolidating documentation across the projects. Links in each project are OK but can the documentation be centralized?
 * Incidentally, probably you meant "invokes the question" rather than "begs the question". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question. Question begging is done by lazy or weak students in maths and philosophy courses. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 03:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You are exactly, formally correct. However, I used the phrase correctly in the vernacular sense. Not being able to find the correct info easily invokes/begs the question of why it is hard to find. (In my opinion (which really makes no difference) correct language usage must follow the usage in the society. Language is alive and changing.  The French are wasting their time trying to control the correct usage of their language. But that’s their business.) I don’t think the problem is that there are too many links to the information (though that may be a problem also) but that there are no readily available links to the information. Either way, if a new user becomes frustrated he/she (or whatever the correct usage is) is not going to stick around and this site will die a slow death. That is the real point.
 * I don’t get the impression that there are a lot of users here. I don’t see anyone asking question even though the documentation I read leaves me with a lot. I didn’t used to be dumb. I think there needs to be a formal movement to fix it. Or, I could be shown I’m wrong, in which case, I’ll shut up and tow the line. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I could be shown I’m wrong, in which case, I’ll shut up and tow the line. Well i don't think you're probably wrong, the help situation with regard to technical matters could probably be improved. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that the solution would not to put more technical stuff here. My grand plan for a technical help utopia would probably be along the following: Now obviously the big flaw in this plan would be the amount of work to do this: even a single page would likely take many hours of work to truly expand it in this way. So it might be a "pipe dream", but I feel it would probably be the best solution. The main questions are how many would agree with me, and would anyone want to do all the work. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) There should be a central technical help depository. For me, having separate technical help projects for the English-language WMF projects (i.e. English Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, etc.) is a bit of a waste. That's because almost all technical aspects are the same for all the projects. Now the big difference is that there is huge differences in template and module use between projects. But if you exclude this, technically contributing to these projects is mostly the same, barring some configuration differences. Technical aspects you learn about one project can mostly be exported to other projects.
 * 2) Now where should this be held? For me the obvious place would be MediaWiki. Now I feel this would  be the best place as it is project agnostic. Now it does sort of cover most technical aspects, but unfortunately I feel many of the pages there need updating and expanding, they don't always cover subjects in enough depth. An example of this would be mw:Manual:Table of contents versus w:Help:Section, they cover roughly the same area but the en.wp has much more info.
 * 3) This would then restrict technical help pages on projects to the basics, but also importantly template and module usage, as well as configuration differences. If everyone used the MediaWiki site there wouldn't be much need for anything beyond this. Things like policies and guidelines would also need to covered separately.
 * An all inclusive solution would be ideal. But getting other projects to update their help because ours is poor may be a problem unless there is some overarching Wiki leadership that can push it. I was looking for a Wikibooks comprehensive solution but would settle for a single very visible page that had a list of help pages in this or other projects that covers all the info. That would go a long way to solving the problem. I think users can understand that the projects are different and stuff goes out of date but just not finding anything is unacceptable; a newbie certainly does not know that looking on another site is possible. I can’t even figure out how to filter searches on this site to just look for help info; i.e., I haven’t seen search help either. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 23:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Help pages for search are at Help:Navigating or w:Help:Searching. Basically you click on the 🔍 icon in the top right hand corner of each page, and then select the "search in" namespaces that you want, for help pages they would typically be in the "Help:" or "Wikibooks:" namespaces.
 * I think the idea of having a general directory for technical help would be a good idea, maybe I'll look into writing one. At the moment the WB:FAQ, may be useful, espcially the Help:FAQ/Editing page. And don't forget to look at the links at Template:Wikibooks editor navigation. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ... how many would agree with me, ...
 * That's the right way.
 * ... would anyone want to do all the work ...
 * I can't do all the work but can do some. With the Oberon book I take the initiative. A few can be relied upon for help. I email "Hello X, please have a look at such and such. If it needs correction please go ahead or please reply. ..." When the right person is asked, progress occurs.
 * For "help", develop one page at a time in MediaWiki. When it is ready, create appropriate links to it. Then delete redundant help pages elsewhere. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 14:55, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

page restricted to administrators help
Hi, I have a student attempting to complete an assignment. Based on this page: Exercise_as_it_relates_to_Disease/Improving_executive_functions_in_children_with_autism_spectrum_disorder_through_mixed_martial_arts. When the student goes to "start" the page the error message comes up:

''The page title or edit you have tried to create has been restricted to administrators at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, which is usually used to prevent vandalism. If you receive this message when trying to edit, create or move an existing page, follow these instructions:

Any administrator can create or move this page for you. Please post a request at the administrative assistance reading room. You may also contact any administrator on their discussion page or by e-mail. Be sure to specify the exact title of the page you are trying to create or edit, and if it might be misunderstood (for example, a page with an unusual name), consider explaining briefly what you want to do. If you wrote any text, save it temporarily on your computer until you can edit the page.''

I am not sure why this would come up - I can't see why it would be blacklisted, they are just writing a critique of a research article about an exercise intervention and autism. Are we able to clear that?

Thanks --Benrattray (discuss • contribs) 05:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I've created the page. I'd guess that at some time or other we had a problem with spam about autism "cures", and a blacklist entry was created that the pagename triggered. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:25, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Awesome, many thanks. Understandable.

--Benrattray (discuss • contribs) 23:32, 16 September 2020 (UTC)