Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2011/April

A PROPOSAL WHICH MIGHT GIVE A BIG MOMENTUM TO WIKIBOOKS
There is a webpage called Free-Science which has over 2000 files a considerable percentage of which are serious/well written science books which are put to internet by their authors. These books are free of charge however this doesn't mean of course the content is open though I assume some of the content has Wikibooks compatible licence. My point is if we can contact authors for permission to export their books to wikibooks with a wiki compatible licence, Wikibooks can gain a huge momentum I think.Condmatstrel (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Just so you don't feel ignored :), I didn't knew that site, some of the works available are very interesting. Sadly the licenses and copyrights aren't clear at least before you get some of the works. Added to my todo list, thanks... --Panic (discuss • contribs) 04:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

American English/British English
The English Wikibooks should probably be split into American English and British English Wikibookses. It would resolve the multifarious vicious conflicts regarding this. --Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 06:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not how even en Wikipedia works, where the conflict is much greater and there are sufficient editors to handle all the additional work that would be created by having two projects. If we did it here we'd end up with even less content I think. A nice gadget that translated from one to the other based on user preferences would be great, if somewhat technically challenging. Or maybe just label each book as "Written in XXXX English" so at least the reader knows and then use an associated category so the books can be sorted according to language. Generally speaking I only change between British and US English where both are mixed up badly in one page of one book. Other than that I just leave it alone. I don't know how many other people even bother trying to be consistent and personally I don't think it matters that much, I've just got OCD for tidiness. It'll be interesting to see what other people think QU TalkQu 07:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it doesn't really matter if you mix the two. Afterall, what about Australian, New Zealandic, Canadian, and South African English as well? If you don't know a word in another dialect, use wiktionary. Obviously to look consistant we should try our best to keep books in their respective dialects, but if you are an American contributing to a section of a book written in British English, I don't see why there should be any serious conflict writing "color" instead of "colour". Afterall, there isn't a British English Wikipedia nor an AMerican English WIkipedia and you can find articles written in both dialects in a mix. --Girdi (discuss • contribs) 08:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree and it has been so, as far as I know. You can specify (by proposing and adopting) a specific preference in a given work. This not only makes it clear to editors but will avoid conflicts if you do implement a standard. I have done so in some of the works I do contribute, not only on language but on the use of hyphenation for instance, I find that this makes life easier for all especially in lengthy and complex works that wouldn't be possible or consistent without establishing this simple conventions. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 10:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Should book contributors agree, an editnotice can be set up to appear when editing any page of the book detailing the version of English being used. I set this up for the contributors to Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter; try editing a page in it and see the example on the template that implements it.  Beyond that, we saw what happened with Simple English Wikibooks&mdash;it was closed and mostly merged here.  The Foundation will also not approve any new English variant wikis.  Redcoats and Yankees will just have to get along. – Adrignola discuss 12:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Bot, gadget or tool for dewikification
It would be great to have a bot, gadget or tool that simplifies the dewikification process by handling simple tasks such as delinking, removing Wikipedia-specific templates, and replacing Wikipedia templates such as ndash with the actual characters (–). Kayau 12:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * If you made a module with a bunch of regex for AutoWikiBrowser, that would work. Easier said than done, though. – Adrignola discuss 15:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikibook on Vtk
Moved to WB:PROJECTS Kayau 09:55, 4 April 2011 (UTC)