Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2010/August

Assume good faith
I propose merging WB:AGF with WB:Be civil. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 10:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Can't, first you have to make WB:AGF an accepted policy. You can however merge WB:AGF and WB:Be civil in a WB:Be civil unstable branch.
 * You can expect great opposition from me in making the WB:AGF a policy, read that proposal talk page to understand my position on the subject. --Panic (talk) 11:34, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Whoa, Panic. That's a real w:WP:TLDR discussion. (And you've been opposing that for nearly four years! Really, that's quite impressive.) Anyway, back here. Why I am proposing merging AGF with CIVIL is because I know AGF is too minor a point to survive as an individual guideline in a small wiki such as Wikibooks. See also an essay I recently wrote up at Assume good faith. It's not the most well written essay in the world but, what the heck. :) I don't know if you know, but at Wikipedia AGF is probably one of the most cited Wikipedia behavioral guidelines, perhaps even more than w:WP:CIVIL. Adrignola has once reminded another user to assume good faith too. And, we even have a template about agf: please agf. You see Panic, if everything were common sense, then we should probably delete WB:BITE and WB:BOLD and WB:NPA and quite a lot of other guidelines. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 11:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm going to repeat myself here, but so you understand the distinction it comes to how it is enforcible (the distinction between policies and guidelines and what makes them necessary). As you can see on the last comment of the talk page I'm not opposed to make it a guideline (even if I don't see it as extremely useful, as you say most of us do assume good faith, but we also are honest enough to understand the possibility that not everyone has good intentions, so making this a policy is indeed problematic, we can even say cynical).
 * In the case of AGF what would be the beneficial changes of the adoption of the text as a policy?
 * I would understand a merge of WB:NPA and WB:Be civil. --Panic (talk) 12:48, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't but will read your essay. --Panic (talk) 12:50, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you say it all in the closing paragraph relating to Wikibooks. "Therefore, the lack of AGF does not affect Wikibooks." --Panic (talk) 13:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Argh! A very dumb mistake indeed. I meant to say, the lack of AGF POLICY doesn't quite affect Wikibooks. Thanks for pointing that out before anyone laughs at me. :) Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 13:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * WB:BITE (guideline), WB:BOLD (guideline), WB:NPA (policy), WB:CIVIL (policy). WB:AGF is a draft.  Panic is right that merging to the unstable branch is the only option.  Merging a draft, or even a policy/guideline into a policy/guideline then makes the result a draft, as the changes have to be approved by the community.  Wikibooks is larger than Wikinews and Wikiversity.  I see nothing wrong with having clear distinction between ideas.  WB:AGF deals with how you feel others are behaving.  WB:CIVIL deal with how you are behaving.  As for WB:AGF not being an official guideline; keep in mind that some may be de facto guidelines.  I've not seen any drafts promoted to official guidelines/policies during my time here.  Everything was done years ago when there was enough input to gain consensus. – Adrignola talk 13:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Requests for comment/Global banners
^ --MZMcBride (talk) 22:37, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Renaming books
I think that auto-confirmed users (or reviewers) should be able to more easily rename books. So, I propose that we get move-subpages support. — I-20 the highway  14:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Question - um, how is that related to suppressredirect and transwiki importers? Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 14:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Somewhat. suppressredirect maybe. I'll revert back to the previous version if you want. If I can't make up my mind... this will be it. — I-20 the highway  14:32, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * A problem is that too often people don't move a book correctly. Say we combined your ideas and gave reviewers (no way I'd support autoconfirmed) the ability to move subpages and suppress redirects.  You'd get less experienced people moving books, not creating the new book category, not null editing every page to put it in the new category, and suppressing redirects without first checking that all links are relative (breaking countless links and inter-book links) or leaving redirects and not having the ability to delete them soon afterwards as an administrator when links are corrected.  Just as an import is more than an import, a move is more than a move.  Moving subpages has the potential to leave up to 500 pages at a time in need of checking for double redirects and incoming links that need to be corrected.  Moving that many pages at a time also corresponds with an administrator's ability to suppress their edits from recent changes. – Adrignola talk 14:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. I think there needs to be a easier way. — I-20 the highway  15:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As the double and broken redirect pages show sometimes, even administrators aren't immune from making this mistake... Always a pleasure to find 100+ pages to fix! QU TalkQu 15:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I try my best... Another issue is the need to have a temporary talk page created at the root if any of the subpages have talk pages, otherwise the subpages' talk pages won't get moved. – Adrignola talk 21:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

move-subpages for importers

 * What about giving the ability to Importers? -Arlen22 (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * An importer is only moving one page at a time from a root position and shouldn't need this. – Adrignola talk 18:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * But if they are trusted enough to import properly, surely they should be able to use move-subpages correctly. -Arlen22 (talk) 20:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not really about trust and more about separation of duties. Reviewers get rollback because they will commonly come across vandalism when reviewing pages.  If people importing do not need to move subpages in the course of that (because you can only import one page at a time), it muddies what the user group actually is.  Then you get people requesting to be importers simply for the move-subpages and not for the original goal of importing. – Adrignola talk 20:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Then how about a group called "book-renamers" where "move-subpages" is granted (and maybe "suppressredirect"? — I-20 the highway  20:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * How often are you renaming a whole book that it's too much to ask for assistance? The complexities above I mention make it hard for me to trust anyone else with it. – Adrignola talk 21:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

suppressredirect for importers

 * What about giving the ability to Importers? -Arlen22 (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that's good to grant suppressredirect to importers. (So I don't have to tag the left-over redirects from moves) — I-20 the highway  15:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I can support permitting the suppression of redirects for importers. – Adrignola talk 15:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Split it. This section is for suppressredirect for importers. — I-20 the highway  16:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In all namespaces or just the Transwiki? To be honest I don't think leaving redirects behind in the TW namespace is an issue anyway, except for those who love tidiness (which includes me I should add). QU TalkQu 16:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * All namespaces, due to technical issues. — I-20 the highway  16:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That or leave the redirects and clean them out later. Not a big deal to me either way, but it's nice to be able to use Special:AllPages to see what content was imported and needs to be adopted or deleted without redirects getting in the way. – Adrignola talk 17:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I oppose more widely distributing suppressredirects. I don't see a need, and misuse would be easy and could create quite a mess; that doesn't seem like a desirable arrangement that we should go out of our way to reconfigure Wikibooks to enable.  Orphan redirects from   space can already be deleted on sight under the orphan-redirect SD criterion, can't they?


 * Perhaps, though, we should add another speedy-deletion criterion saying that any redirect from inside  space to outside it can be speedily deleted.  --Pi zero (talk) 17:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Good Idea, Pi Zero. -Arlen22 (talk) 20:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

merger
Transwiki:Rollback feature and Wikibooks:Rollback are about the the same thing. Can we merge them? — I-20 the highway  23:03, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

wikt:MediaWiki:Gadget-WiktSidebarTranslation.js
It would be elegant to import this gadget, especially for those who have never installed any additional fonts. It just translates the interwiki links into English, you can test it by ticking it here. JackPotte (talk) 09:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is now available. – Adrignola talk 12:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Cite button
On Wikipedia, for both the monobook and vector toolbars, there is a cite button which will help users cite sources with cite book, cite news, cite web etc. This can be enabled in the preferences. I'd love to see such a feature on Wikibooks as well. Does anyone else agree with me? And how can we request this? Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 05:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Citations aren't exactly standardized at Wikibooks. Each book has its own style for citations like everything else. --dark lama  11:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * To get some standardization, I had updated the documentation for those templates and imported some that were missing. Refbegin and Refend are also now available for bibliographies, with Reflist there for footnotes.  Which one is used is going to depend on the book.  And then there's Ref/Note and Harvard citation too. – Adrignola talk 18:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * @DL: Yes, but it's still nice to have a cite button, isn't it?
 * @Adrignola: Um, I don't think simple templates like Reflist need a button, but cite web, cite book, cite news etc have a lot of parameters, so it's good to have them automated by a cite button. I only want a button that can standardise the formats of books - whether books should list refs at the end of books, or at the end of each module as inline citations, is the book contributors' choice. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 02:24, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I see it as a controversial issue that has a good probability to cause unnecessary disruption and confusion (we are not Wikipedia but even experienced users often forget that). I don't have an issue with the templates or citations but I have one with adopting practices/facilities that will promote the entrenchment of citations in our project. I see them as sometimes useful but not a necessity. --Panic (talk) 03:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * True, it's not a necessity; that's why one can choose whether to use it or not. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 03:48, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * But by facilitating their implementation we would be in fact making them prevalent. --Panic (talk) 03:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * They already are the most popular, though this may be because they were popularised by Wikipedia. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 04:08, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In Wikipedia they are a requirement, making it easy for users to provide them makes sense there. --Panic (talk) 04:18, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * No, Panic, they are not a requirement on WP. There are cite templates other than those that also make sense, only they are not as encouraged. Consistency within an article is the minimum requirement. I've once passed DYK with terribly formatted refs. Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 08:27, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Where to place citations is just one choice that makes up the style that books can decide. The format of citations can also vary and is another choice that makes up the style that books can decide. A cite button here would either favor one format over another or would need to be able to know which format a book uses in order to use the correct format for each book. I think you won't be able to get any consensus that Wikibooks should have a standardized format for citations in all books and what the format must be, let alone that a button should be added. A button that favored one citation format over another would promote and facilitate the practice and adoption of one citation format over another. I believe promoting and facilitating the adoption of one practice over another is something that Wikibooks has tried to avoid doing without community consensus that one practice should be favored over another. I think a citation button shouldn't be added unless the Wikibooks community is willing to adopt a practice of using a specific citation format for all books. --dark lama  05:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Darklama, I fully accept that it is impossible to reach a consensus on how to standardise citation formats. I won't mind if there's a cite button for the Havard format as well, even though AFAIK they haven't made one yet. It is just that I want a button for the cite web, cite book templates etc, which I can use if I wish. It would be ideal if we had a button for each citation format, but I don't think the developers have time to do that, so the only button we can use now is for the most popular format, which is cite web, cite book, cite news etc. At WP, although the templates are encouraged, they are not compulsory. Why are they encouraged? Because they are more popular than the other formats. That's why we can choose whether to use it or not. BTW, if this doesn't pass (and it probably won't), is there a script I can put into my monobook.js or monobook.css to use it? Thanks Kayau ( talk &#124; email &#124; contribs ) 08:36, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I do not agree with Panic and Darklama above. A button will not make citations a requirement.  Technical measures are not a replacement and do not supersede policy or guidelines.  The only variation in citation templates is between the Harvard citation templates and the Cite templates.  All the Cite templates call Template:Citation and so follow the same pattern.  If you want your own style, you're free to not use the button or existing templates and simply use Reflist and/or Refbegin/Refend for formatting.  Making it easier to produce citations is not a problem and I'm not going to complain if we find that books become better sourced! – Adrignola talk 12:12, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Books are much larger than a single article. I think the use of bibliographies to cite sources is no surprise because using inline citations like Wikipedia would require a lot more work. I'm not sure what else you could mean by "become better sourced". There are citation styles unique to practically every subject. Just because there are currently only citation templates for 2 styles don't mean it couldn't grow to be over 100. Wikipedia has over 100 templates just for one citation style. If this is really about making citations easier to produce, I think some sort of Citation Gadget where you could pick a style from a drop menu and fill in some fields with info and the gadget would generate the citation for you would be better. --dark lama  12:38, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Book page top header
Currently the top header of every book page is set up like this:

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection &lt; Book name I think this is probably not the best setup. The top header should probably only display the page name, and the tagline and book link should probably be merged into one line, indicating that the page is part of whatever book as well as part of Wikibooks. Thoughts? --Yair rand (talk) 00:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My design:

From the book Book name on Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection Navigation: Book name
 * — I-20 the highway  00:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Would such a change require JavaScript, modification of interface text, or a programming change? How would it handle books using deep filing, as in Book Name/Chapter/Lesson? – Adrignola talk 00:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The tagline change could probably be done with parser functions in Mediawiki:Tagline (assuming parser functions are allowed in it), and the change to the header itself would probably require JavaScript. The change to (or removal of) the subpage bar could be done using CSS, I think. Or the whole thing could be done with JavaScript... --Yair rand (talk) 01:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The name of the page isn't standalone information, like the name of a Wikipedia article. The title of the book is an important part of identifying the page. The proposed alternative design would bury the lead, so to speak, making the book title much less prominent, harder to extract, and less closely connected to the rest of the page name (and harder to reconnect, because the book title comes after the rest of the page name); and it would increase the complexity of the administrative text at the top of the page.

It can, occasionally, get hard to read the page name in the current format when it has multiple fields that each have several words. For example:

Whether that's readable may actually depend on how wide your browsing window is; my ancient screen isn't wide enough to put it all on one line. So, at least for my screen width, and in this case, it might be better if there were a linebreak, and maybe some indentation, after each slash. Maybe something like this:

I'm somewhat dubious of this for most books, though, as it makes things take up a lot more vertical space, and may be needless in cases where it would all fit on one line (which depends on screen/window size) and the fields are short. To explore that question, here's another page that I looked at when trying to find a long complex page name; &mdash; from the same book, no less.

It's unclear to me that this really needs to be broken onto multiple lines. A more extreme case is

versus

Admittedly, I do find it easier to read the multi-line version. The question is whether that advantage is worth the disadvantage in vertical space lost. --Pi zero (talk) 13:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I am extremely confused as to why the slash was kept in every one of your examples. I don't know whether the header should just show the book title, or just show the page title, or show the book title with the page title as a subheader or vice versa, or if the header should be removed entirely, or whatever, but keeping the BOOKNAME/PAGENAME looks ridiculous. --Yair rand (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I use to use a javascript that did something like:

Combining the page title with the navigation and hiding the tag line. --dark lama  13:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Subtitled movies
Hello, the en.w, fr.w, fr.v et fr.b have installed this gadget, it can be useful as we can use a video in any language by pasting some customized subtitles above, with eventually some hyperlinks. JackPotte (talk) 13:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Bugzilla advises to put it directly in Mediawiki:Common.js in order to be able to give them enough feedback about the tool. JackPotte (talk) 19:49, 24 August 2010 (UTC)