Wikibooks:Requests for deletion/Wikijunior:How Things Work/GUI

Wikijunior:How Things Work/GUI (Graphical User Interface)
No reason given. Was tagged by RT Jones. &mdash; Mike.lifeguard &#124; talk 20:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that was like a year ago that I tagged it. I probably shouldn't have, considering that I still don't entirely understand the deletion criteria or process. The original reasoning is that it didn't fit in. It just didn't match with the rest of the book. It seemed to me that that book was more to be about simple machines and appliances and everyday objects, not abstract concepts. Also, having looked at the talk page, it seemed that toher people agreed with me. I haven't noticed any real changes to the article since I tagged it anyway. RT Jones (talk) 20:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I agree with deletion, but this page does feel strangely out of place in the book. A GUI is a very abstract and high-level concept to be dropping on a young Wikijunior reader. I do think we should have more books teaching children about computers and programming (I've been idly planning such a book myself), but this really seems like the wrong way to go about doing it. I don't know what to do about this page in the long run, whether it can be cleaned up or whether it should be removed, but maybe it should be marked in some way to let readers know that it's "experimental" or "advanced" or something. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:39, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol delete vote.svg|15px]] Delete I've done a lot of work with wikijunior, and dont think that this page is inkeeping with the books target audience. I think that the topic is too advanced for the book, no matter how simple it is made. Though maybe it could be moved into a computing book. Reece   (Talk)   (Contributions)  21:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol delete vote.svg|15px]] Delete Since it appears that my orignal rationale made sense, I'll say "delete." Maybe move it to an "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Computing Acronyms" wikibook, but it'd still need a lot of work first.  RT Jones (talk) 23:06, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol keep vote.svg|15px]] Speedy Keep This is not advertisements, spam, nonsense, vandalism, etc. or outside Wikibooks' scope. This decision should be left up to the book contributors to decide and not the Wikibooks community. Any decision by the Wikibooks community could be in conflict with the wishes of the book contributors in terms of their vision of the book's scope, audience, etc. If the book contributors decide they do not want to keep this and nobody wishes to salvage it for another purpose on Wikibooks than it would meet the speedy deletion criteria (provided proof that discussion and a decision by the book contributors took place is provided of course). --dark lama  15:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol keep vote.svg|15px]] Keep While it may be a bit high-level for Wikikjunior, there is nothing that places it outside the scope of Wikibooks. --Swift (talk) 19:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well surely it needs to be moved to a more appropriate place then. If its too high-level for wikijunior whats it doing there? Wikijunior is starting to look more and more like it needs its own scope policy... Reece   (Talk)   (Contributions)  22:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I have to go with darklama's comment below; the discussion here is only about whether the material fits the scope of Wikibooks. Not whether it fits the scope of that particular book. --Swift (talk) 20:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Reece here, there are more then two options on a VfD, we don't just decide whether to "keep" or "delete" things, although those are definitely the most popular options. This page really isn't appropriate for this book, which is a normal occurrence in the editing and authoring processes. Wikijunior is books for children, and things that aren't appropriate for children don't belong in Wikijunior. The correct course of action is to move it out of WJ, even if there is no home for in in WB. In that case, we delete it because it can't stay where it is and it has nowhere else to go. It's not a bad thing, it's called "revision" and it's something we need to do in our books all the time. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Book contributors decide what the aim, scope, purpose and intentions of a book are. All I'm saying is that because they make those calls, they should also be making the call as to whether this page fits within the aim, scope, purpose and intentions of the book. What makes something too high-level for Wikijunior? How do you define what is and isn't appropriate for children to learn? Children use computers too, so how is understanding how a GUI works inappropriate for children? To me this seems like a case of some people having a very limited idea of what is appropriate for children. If the book contributors don't want it than that is fine, but I don't think this the right way to determine Wikijunior's scope and what is and isn't appropriate for children. Remember Wikijunior includes books for children of all ages. Surely parents and guardians should be making the call on what is appropriate for their child or children to read and not us? There may even be books outside of Wikijunior that parents might consider appropriate for their children to read. --dark lama  17:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol comment vote.svg|15px]] Comment Well put.  Question: Where are the contributors of this book, anyway?  It seems to have been almost abandoned, especially the GUI module.  I guess my point is that this particular module appears as if it was written on a whim by someone who promptly disappeared.  As far as I know, there have been no major edits since I nominated this for deletion.  Once again, I apologize if I'm going about this the wrong way. RT Jones (talk) 00:40, 21 November 2008 (UTC)  Edit: This seems to fit the bill of a module explaining GUI a bit better, if it makes any difference.
 * Lack of recent activity is, however, hardly an argument for deletion. There is nothing wrong with users disappearing after doing a little bit of work; we can use all the help we can get. This book seems to have enjoyed a very large number of editors. I'd see that as a good thing and is indicative of its popularity. --Swift (talk) 03:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Most certainly not. Any help certainly is appreciated.  What I was saying, from my particularly limited viewpoint, was that this module seemed to have been written almost entirely by one person.  The significance of that is that nobody else in the Wikijunior project appeared to support this module.  How Things Work is a popular article, but the GUI chapter hasn't really gone anywhere practical at all.  Or that's what it looked like to me.  I could have sworn I nominated this longer ago than the 19th of October.  I seriously thought I nominated it much longer ago, like in January, when I didn't understand how much of this process was supposed to work.  There was some discussion on the How Things Work talk page against the inclusion of this module, but it wasn't much.  RT Jones (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC) Edit: Seems appropriate to ask: Since we can only decide if this fits the scope of Wikibooks as a whole here, and not whether it fits some scope of Wikijunior or whether the book contributors (of How Things Work, I guess) want it, where would those issues get tackled?
 * The talk page of WB:WIWJ might be a good place to discuss the scope of Wikijunior. The talk page for the GUI page might be a good place to discuss the appropriateness of the page in the book, or perhaps Wikijunior talk:How Things Work will get the attention of more contributors of the book as a whole. Also just because another book has a page about GUIs too doesn't mean this should be deleted. The GUI information in the OS Design book is likely to have a very different audience, purpose and scope than the GUI page in How Things Work book. You could use the OS Design's GUI page to aid improving the page in the How Things Work book though if you think it provides more useful information that kids would enjoy. --dark lama  23:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)