Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2015/April

Coffee table books
I propose the scope of Wikibooks be extended to include coffee table books, by which I mean books oriented around images. Wikijunior already has many books in the image-per-page format, such as Wikijunior:Animal Alphabet. Allowing non-Wikijunior books in this format could attract contributors to Wikibooks who don't have the specific knowledge needed to write a textbook. A larger balance of types of books on Wikibooks would better justify this project's name. We are Wikibooks, not Wikitextbooks. The main problem with allowing coffee table books is that we could be flooded with large amounts of what amount to no more than slide shows. There would definitely have to be a policy of some sort mandating that there be text as well as images on every page. Wikijunior has not had a problem with tons and tons picture books of kittens, even though it's conceivable that that could happen. Coffee table books would probably need a better name, especially if it were given its own namespace. "Table:" might be a bit misleading, and "Coffeetable:" isn't very catchy. Anyway, what are everyone's thoughts on this? Liam987 talk 15:17, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that this runs a risk of books like Pictures of My Cat but first off, this project doesn't a lot of activity in the first place, so it's unlikely that many users will show up to make out-of-scope books and secondly, a coffeetable book about art history or of travel photos can certainly be educational (or high-res photos of place of worship, etc.) —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:22, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I can agree with what User:Liam987 said . This is definitely an interesting idea, so instead of outright banning them , why not just moderate the type of books allowed under this format? That is , make a policy/guideline on that?
 * For instance, my Internet Explorer book has most of its sections primarily centered on images. --Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 15:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting idea.


 * If we're considering extending our scope in this direction &mdash;which would clearly call for a strong cosensus (following the preliminary discussion we're having now)&mdash; we need to be very clear on what we're adding to our scope. What makes a coffee table book?  Why, exactly, is it different from a "pictures of my cat" book?  When somebody does submit a book of pictures of their cat, we need to have a very clear rational basis for telling them why it isn't appropriate, and for discussing it at an RFD.


 * We'd want to ground the idea in the wikimedia educational mission. (In theory I understand that to be the theoretical justification for the "textbook" scope of Wikibooks, although I recall hearing, from those who were here well before I came, that there were suspicions of a dubious economic motive being involved too).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:38, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Educational merit would have to be requirement, naturally. (Although, as you mention, Wikijunior seems to be a bit of an exception to the requirement. There was some sort of grant that started it. Wikibooks talk:What is Wikijunior has some very enlightening discussions from years ago on the subject.) The problem is, it's hard to quantify educational merit. A few ideas and thoughts:
 * *Every page (or most pages in a book) could be required to have text as well as a picture. It is normal for print coffee table books, even photography books, to have large amounts of text.
 * *There could be strict guidelines of what types of books would be allowed, and guidelines to define what those books include and don't include. For example, a defined type of coffee table book could be "Nature Photography". There would be a guideline page for books on nature photography, defining scope, requirements, and format, and all books of this type would have to follow it. Each coffee table book would have to, when created, declare which one of the approved types of books it is, or else propose a new type for community discussion.
 * * Another problem I could see arising is, among photography books, how to define the scope of a book. What would happen if one editor created Images of London, and another created Photographs of London, but with a very different format and style of photographs and text. Would they be allowed to coexist? Or, would Animals be allowed, despite its very broad scope, and would The Lives and Habits of Albino Male Lions in the Serengeti During the Dry Season be allowed, despite its very narrow scope?
 * * Books on photographic technique, or simply showcasing photographs, could be educational, as could travel books, as User:Koavf mentioned. However, there is the problem of a potential overlap with Commons and Wikivoyage. As far as I know, neither project has anything like this, but there is still the question of wether they might not fit better there than here.
 * As you can see, I haven't thought this through completely. It definitely needs shaping and clarifying before it can become a serious proposal. Liam987 talk 21:12, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * First off, pardon me for lightly editing your comment above. Regarding redundancy, Wikipedia articles oftentimes include etymology, which might overlap Wiktionary. Wiktionary has attestations and citations as quotes, which overlaps Wikiquote. Wikiversity grew out of this project. There will be some overlap between all the sister projects and that's okay. I personally don't think that The Lives and Habits of Albino Male Lions in the Serengeti During the Dry Season would be a problem at all: if we have the content, why not display it? It's not like this is print and we have only so many pages or a bookshelf that holds only so many books (or an actual coffee table!) For what it's worth, nothing on Wikijunior strikes me as un-educational... —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:05, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. I wanted to bring up some potential problems/objections I could think of, but I agree that none of them would be major problems. Liam987  talk 22:32, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced they are out-of-scope today... The implied "textbook" (as in "Wikitextbooks") is really about excluding fiction and things like biographies. A book of, for example, pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope with short captions is both educational and non-fiction. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 10:25, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:11, 10 April 2015 (UTC)