Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2022/February

Multiple image on Spanish wikibook
I am having issues when I am trying to copy the template for a multiple image in English into a Wikibook in Spanish (I am actually translating the page and I would like that it appears in the same format in both languages). Being more specific, I would like my images correspoding to 'Sistemas de retroalimentación' and 'sistemas de compensación' in the Wikibook Introducción a los sistemas de control to appear as they do in the English version 'feedback sistemas' and feedforward systems' Introduction to control systems.

Thanks! --CarrotsMitHummus
 * I'm not an expert, but it looks like you would need to import Template:Multiple image. --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 03:57, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Please add Reference_Tooltips
Hi I like the Reference Tooltips gadget. Can you activate it for the wikibooks project? Is there a way to add it to ru.wikibooks.org (there are no interface administrators in the Russian section now) KKorzov (discuss • contribs) 20:05, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree this would be useful. --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 03:58, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Is it a copyright violation if I combine various recipes I've tried, plus some other stuff, and share it here?
Hey there Wikibooks!

I have a copyright question – I've made a recipe that is a combination of a multitude of recipes I've previously tried ( +some other ingredients ). If I share it on the Cookbook, is it a copyright violation, or not?

BTW, it's BBQ sauce. Cheers, --QuickQuokka (discuss • contribs) 20:16, 19 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I would have thought that that is fine. Almost all recipes are based on earlier ones, so there are few truly original ones. What you should always do is avoid copying text verbatim with recipes, always try to express yourself in your own words. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 08:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It depends, a derivative work is a copyright violation, but if you are creating your own new recipe based on previous ones - based on, not copied from - then it is okay. MarcGarver (discuss • contribs) 12:49, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * That's undoubtedly optimal. However case law generally doesn't offer much protection to recipes, as they are seen as ideas rather than expressions, which aren't seen as being copyrightable. The usual protection offered is the “substantial literary expression” of recipes, which prevents verbatim copying. See for a discussion on this. -- Jules  (Mrjulesd) 09:31, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

GFDL and CC-BY-SA 4.0
Can a text licenced only under the GFDL be used on Wikibooks (As is the case in Hindi Lessons)? --Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 05:26, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No I'm afraid not. See w:Help:Adding open license text to Wikipedia, Wikibooks licensing is identical. Only CC BY-SA (but not ver 4), CC BY, CC0, and PD can be accepted. The purpose of the dual licensing is to allow licensing of content before CC BY-SA was adopted. -- Jules  (Mrjulesd) 23:58, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Development status of a nearly completed book.
Hi, consider a book which is nearly completed or completed until a new section is created. An editor might assess as 95% complete for example. As I understand, development status is portrayed graphically as 25, 50 75 or 100% complete. 75% is unrealistically low for a 95% book. 100% suggests absolute completeness whereas that's not quite true. What is recommended? Show 100%? Remove the development status template? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 04:16, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I've always considered these templates to be rough approximations. Since 95% is much closer to 100% than 75%, I would choose 100%. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 08:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jules. Will do that after adding a few more pages.  ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 17:36, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Updates on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Review /community calls

 * You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.
 *  m:Special:MyLanguage/Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines/2022-02-02 Announcement/Short • 

Hello everyone,

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the Universal Code of Conduct across the movement. Comments about the guidelines can be shared here or the Meta-wiki talk page.

There will be conversations on Zoom on 25 February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Join the UCoC project team and drafting committee members to discuss the guidelines and voting process.

The timeline is available on Meta-wiki. The voting period is March 7 to 21. See the voting information page for more details.

Thank you to everyone who has participated so far.

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance Wikimedia Foundation --Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 09:36, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Rollout of the new audio and video player
Hello,

Over the next months we will gradually change the audio and video player of Wikis from Kultura to Video.js and with that, the old player won’t be accessible anymore. The new player has been active as a beta feature since May 2017.

The new player has many advantages, including better design, consistent look with the rest of our interface, better compatibility with browsers, ability to work on mobile which means our multimedia will be properly accessible on iPhone, better accessibility and many more.

The old player has been unmaintained for eight years now and is home-brewn (unlike the new player which is a widely used open source project) and uses deprecated and abandoned frameworks such as jQuery UI. Removing the old player’s code also improves performance of the Wikis for anyone visiting any page (by significantly reducing complexity of the dependency graph of our ResourceLoader modules. See this blog post.). The old player has many open bugs that we will be able to close as resolved after this migration.

The new player will solve a lot of old and outstanding issues but also it will have its own bugs. All important ones have been fixed but there will be some small ones to tackle in the future and after the rollout.

What we are asking now is to turn on the beta feature for the new player and let us know about any issues.

You can track the work in T100106

Thank you, Amir 17:59, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

New book idea
Hi, I'm new to wikibooks - but autoconfirmed on wikipedia - and couldn't find a book about the Godot game engine (https: //godotengine.org). I really want to make this book. How should I go about this? Thanks. L10nM4st3r (discuss • contribs) 14:05, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Well we've got a general help page at Help:Contents, and a detailed book at Using Wikibooks. Is there anything specific you needed help with? -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:26, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore is extended till 15th March
Greetings from Wiki Loves Folklore International Team,

We are pleased to inform you that Wiki Loves Folklore an international photographic contest on Wikimedia Commons has been extended till the 15th of March 2022. The scope of the contest is focused on folk culture of different regions on categories, such as, but not limited to, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, etc.

We would like to have your immense participation in the photographic contest to document your local Folk culture on Wikipedia. You can also help with the translation of project pages and share a word in your local language.

Best wishes,

International Team

Wiki Loves Folklore

MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 04:50, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now closed

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 * m:Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Board of Trustees elections/Call for Feedback is now closed • 

The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now closed. This Call ran from 10 January and closed on 16 February 2022. The Call focused on three key questions and received broad discussion on Meta-wiki, during meetings with affiliates, and in various community conversations. The community and affiliates provided many proposals and discussion points. The reports are on Meta-wiki.

This information will be shared with the Board of Trustees and Elections Committee so they can make informed decisions about the upcoming Board of Trustees election. The Board of Trustees will then follow with an announcement after they have discussed the information.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Call for Feedback to help improve Board election processes.

Best, Movement Strategy and Governance

--Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 14:57, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Several improvements around templates
Hello, from March 9, several improvements around templates will become available on your wiki:
 * Fundamental improvements of the VisualEditor template dialog (1, 2),
 * Improvements to make it easier to put a template on a page (3) (for the template dialogs in VisualEditor, 2010 Wikitext and New Wikitext Mode),
 * and improvements in the syntax highlighting extension CodeMirror (4, 5) (which is available on wikis with writing direction left-to-right).

All these changes are part of the “Templates” project by WMDE Technical Wishes. We hope they will help you in your work, and we would love to hear your feedback on the talk pages of these projects. - Johanna Strodt (WMDE) 12:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Remember to Participate in the UCoC Conversations and Ratification Vote!

 * You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.
 *  m:Special:MyLanguage/Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines/Voting/Announcement • 

Hello everyone, A vote in SecurePoll from 7 to 21 March 2022 is scheduled as part of the ratification process for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement guidelines. Eligible voters are invited to answer a poll question and share comments. Read voter information and eligibility details. During the poll, voters will be asked if they support the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct based on the proposed guidelines. The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The revised enforcement guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. A Wikimedia Foundation Board statement calls for a ratification process where eligible voters will have an opportunity to support or oppose the adoption of the UCoC Enforcement guidelines in a vote. Wikimedians are invited to translate and share important information. For more information about the UCoC, please see the project page and frequently asked questions on Meta-wiki.

The Movement Strategy and GovernanceMovement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team is on 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Please sign-up for this conversation hour to interact with the project team and the drafting committee about the updated enforcement guidelines and the ratification process. See the Conversation Hour summaries for notes from 4 February 2022 and 25 February 2022.

You can comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact either team by email: msg wikimedia.org or ucocproject wikimedia.org

Sincerely, Movement Strategy and Governance

Wikimedia Foundation --Mervat (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 19:39, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Glossed historical/folkloric texts?
I've been thinking of glossing some historical/folkloric texts in rare languages morpheme by morpheme at some point - partly as an exercise for myself, but I imagine that it could be of some help to other people trying to learn about these languages. Do you think that such a project would be appropriate on Wikibooks? I saw that the current policy allows annotated texts in principle, but I'm asking this to be a little more certain that I won't be investing effort into something only to see it deleted.--95.42.19.211 (discuss) 03:58, 5 June 2021 (UTC)


 * As long as you follow policy, it is unlikely to be deleted. Typically works that are deleted don't follow policy, or are fairly obviously problematic in other ways. Note that if a good-faithed work was deleted that was broadly in line with Wikibooks' purpose, I mostly likely would be open to restoring it to user-space for it to be worked on and represented to the community, if requested. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks! What I wanted to check was precisely whether the idea would seem 'fairly obviously problematic' (or perhaps would violate some policy that I hadn't noticed).--95.42.19.211 (discuss) 21:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, if this results in a handy template for interlinear glossing, I'd happily use it over at the Láadan project. Arlo Barnes (discuss • contribs) 08:21, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Update: it turns out there is already a good one used on several Wikipedia editions, and there is a planned import to ENWB at requests for import. Arlo Barnes (discuss • contribs) 23:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Phonetics and Phonology
I'm no professional linguist, but these books seem to cover nearly the same scope (seems like the latter is a little wider) and both seem to have been abandoned at an early stage. The only difference I can distinguish is intended audience, with 'Phonetics' describing itself as an introduction, and 'Phonology' describing itself as being for [post/under]grads -- so maybe 'Beginning Phonetics and Phonology' and 'Intermediate Phonetics and Phonology' might be more apt names?

I don't know if merging books is ever done at ENWB; if so, I'd be glad to contribute what little I know about the topic, or corral some resources. But it's hard to choose between the two right now and I'd rather not have to. Arlo Barnes (discuss • contribs) 08:32, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * These aren't really synonyms, see Phonology for how they differ. Theoretically they could be combined into a single book, but I don't think this is particularly optimal. -- Jules (Mrjulesd) 23:48, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Creating book content but limiting collaborators during its creation
I am undertaking a history project for a not-for-profit organisation that involves a large group of academic collaborators which, when it is ready, we plan to publish as a Wiki-based resource open to the public.

However, it would be ideal that during its development I can limit access to read and edit the content to a defined group of users.

Is this at all possible using Wikibooks as the platform? It seems the ideal way to develop the content and, ultimately, Wikibooks will be the perfect medium to publish the end product.

Maungle (discuss • contribs) 06:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Welcome. First off, there is no technical way to stop everyone else from editing your work while it's in process with MediaWiki other than admins blocking everyone else's account from those pages, so strictly speaking, I don't think we can ensure that no one could edit pages you are working on. The reality is, the individual books on Wikibooks act like kind of silo-ed projects that generally don't have a lot of outsiders editing them between a mixture of lack of interest, the small user base, and some amount of conscientiousness. If you'd like to request that admins keep an eye on pages and try to respectfully request limited editing from anyone else for a period, I think that's a fair and reasonable thing. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:00, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, it isn't fair and reasonable because the purpose of Wikibooks is the free and open collaborative creation of textbooks. Asking an admin to watch the pages is more likely to get the people trying to prevent editing blocked than the other way round. Even asking people not to edit has, in the past, led to contributors being blocked for violating the intent of the project. MarcGarver (discuss • contribs) 14:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Technically speaking, there is another way to achieve that (prevent editing): using abuse filters. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh (discuss • contribs) 22:15, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * In addition to what koavf mentioned, there is technically a workaround to host a non-editable version of your book on Wikimedia, but it's something you'd only want to do once it's done. You'd basically upload a printable version (Typically PDF) to Wikimedia Commons, and then link to the specific revision in the File History.
 * You mentioned restricting read access during the development process.
 * I'm not sure there's any way to avoid having development of the page occur out of the public eye on Wikibooks directly. Quantitatively speaking the most popular pages on Wikibooks (Via the topviews software on toolforge) belong to mostly finished or finished books, such as Scrabble or LaTeX, with some edge exceptions. If strict secrecy during development is required, it would be best to do it off site. Once ready you could publish it under a compatible licence and then have it imported. This also gives you the advantage of publishing a canonical text off site. Mbrickn (discuss • contribs) 08:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem is more fundamental. One of the core pillars is that anyone can edit. We cannot restrict the work to one or more editors because it defeats the whole point of Wikibooks. Nor do we "publish" "end products" - it will always be open for others to modify, adapt, add or delete content. Source texts (i.e., those not intended to be edited) belong on Wikisource. Finally, you appear to be doing work for hire which is frowned upon as well. I think you're better off looking a private wiki. If you try and restrict editing here, it's you who would end up blocked. MarcGarver (discuss • contribs) 14:10, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks to everyone who has responded so far! It sounds like the best approach is to work on the content off site, then publish it here once it's in a suitable state to do so. The idea is that it the published text will be open for others to modify, adapt, add or delete content. Maungle (discuss • contribs) 22:10, 3 February 2022 (UTC)