Wikibooks talk:Book of the month

Book of the Month Award Template
I created a simple template to put onto the "winning" book that could show an "award" or special distinction has been granted to that book. This is just something to get started, and feel free to edit the template if you think some more work should be there. I was trying to do something like the picture of the day or the article of the day on Wikipedia, and added a trophy picture I found on commons to show it was something special. For now, this is just quick and dirty.Rob Horning 06:08, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

We sure are running out of good wikibooks to host on the front page aren't we, ey? --Cyberman 23:42, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Is a "Book of the Year" award planned? Xiaodai 8 July 2005 09:01 (UTC)

BotM completeness
Out of curiosity, what characteristics do you look for when voting? How important is completeness? Many past BsotM are relatively complete, but many books that are less developed are nominated every month. The German book, for example, is far from complete, but seems to be coming along nicely. The extra attention received by an award would be beneficial for any developing book -- but I also understand the argument that developing books may not represent the "best" of Wikibooks to new or casual visitors. Vault 20:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I litterally try to vote on the best that is currently available on Wikibooks at the moment, and hasn't yet won the Book of the Month title. Sometimes this does become a book that is not yet complete, mainly because Wikibooks is still a relatively new project.  It takes some time to complete a book and a lot of effort, usually from many people.  IMHO some books have "won" in the past due to the percieved benefit (and there is some) of getting a prominent place on the front page, which has resulted unfortunately in some "sock puppet" votes, or at least by relative newcommers to Wikibooks voting only for their favorite book because it is a topic they are interested in, not because it is necessarily the best on Wikibooks at the moment.  Some lower quality books have therefore won the monthly vote.  In the case of the German Wikibook, I think it has been developing quite nicely, and I don't have a personal objection to it becoming a Book of the month, although I think there are some better books out there.  --Rob Horning 14:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Inflation
Is it too much to hand out an award (and icon) for a wikibook every month? It seems like nearly everything on the main page now has an award next to it. Maybe it'd be better to save the awards for the projects which are *really* producing something substantial and useful. Otherwise the awards start to become a little meaningless or even counterproductive (all wikibooks with an award are not equal but it doesn't seem that way at first sight). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.72.169.116 (discuss • contribs) 14:15, 20 March 2006


 * The reason why so many books on the main page have an award to them is quite simple: Only bookshelves of the month books winners are shown on Template:Main Page navigation. Apart from BOTM winners, books with PDFs, Wikijunior Books, the 10 newest books, and so called hot picks are shown. That is a pretty select group. Prehaps you want to participate in Template talk:Highlighted as well if you are concerned about the main page. --Krischik T 15:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not entirely sure that we even need to have the book of the month winners listed on the front page in this manner, as it is going to get us back to the original situation we had earlier with a huge pile of listings of random books. Still, they are going to be somewhat higher quality than the list of all Wikibooks was before on the front page.  On average, I would say that about 5-10 serious books are started on Wikibooks each month, so handing out an award every month is not going to run out of a supply of possible book titles.  The real trick is to dig up the gems that are buried in Wikibooks at the moment.  --Rob Horning 14:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Voting Rules
If the rules is - just vote - why were 2 users deleted because they have less than 20 edits? You can have arule saying one should have at least 50/100 edits. But at the moment there is no such rule - so the votes shouldn't be disregarded.

Mailing list

 * Anyway to get a monthly email telling us the book of the month?--203.214.95.227 13:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)