Wikibooks talk:Textbook planning

Please dont stone me if this is not the correct place for this type of discussion .. - Karl Wick


 * No - there will be no stoning here. :) --mav

Some of these points (not all) contain list of options that people might express support for. So I listed my support for some. I also listed support from mav and Karl for options that they themselves proposed, but since I don't speak for them, these votes should not be construed as correct until they corroborate them here: Finally, although I've listed my support for various options, I do not in any way mean to stifle further discussion, and I expect people to revise their selections over time. Nor do I support making final decisions by counting the votes and interpreting those data statistically (say, by applying approval voting), unless consensus is reached that we'll need to do such a thing. -- Toby Bartels 08:29 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * mav: Y (I agree with Toby's changes)
 * Karl: Y/N

-

Suggestions go here?

Is it possible to be able to print a whole chapter at a time? From my own experiences of doing tutorials on the web, I like to have a hard copy to read "on the road" but hate having to waste paper and ink to print the same header information multiple times and sometimes have a page almost completely blank except for a single paragraph.

The option to "Print this article only | Print whole chapter" would be good, and articles should flow on from one another without pagebreaks between them.

Any thoughts?

Neolux 15:17 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Advanced printing options would be very useful. Oh, BTW, the Wikibooks project works with modules, not articles. Somebody needs to update the interface... --mav 01:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Manuals vs. Textbooks?
Hi, I was planning on converting the manual for one of my free software projects (http://ab-initio.mit.edu/mpb/) into a wiki, and someone suggested Wikibooks to me. However, I'm confused over whether Wikibooks is appropriate for my purpose.

The front page used to say "textbooks, manuals, articles and other texts". Now it says only "textbooks and classroom texts". On the other hand, Wikibooks already contains "books" on lots of things, like OsiriX and Vi, that look awfully like manuals to me.

The Textbook planning page says that manuals "Should be textbook-oriented in presentation." This confuses me. Can you give me an example of a manual that is not "textbook-oriented"?

If you simply mean that the manual should be long, well-written, and contain tutorials as well as bare-bones reference materials, then I would suggest that this is equivalent to saying "the manual should be good." Being good is, of course, a goal for all manuals and texts, and one they will hopefully attain in time on a wiki.

Can you please clarify? This is in the FAQ, but it only says "no answer yet".

&mdash;Steven G. Johnson 19:45, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comments on proposal to increase user and contributions
IMHO, here are some reasons why Wikibooks is not more successfull. First, I agree on all points of the main page. Second, I think that those points are importants:
 * Books are not like encyclopedia articles (Staff_lounge). It is much more easier to contribute on a Wikipedia article then to write a book. Writing a book requires deep knowledge of the target field, as well as a good writing style and a lot of time.
 * Authorship (Staff_lounge). Scientists and teachers should be the primary source of textbooks contributors. Unfortunatly, often, scientists are judged from the number of publications they produce. It is thus very important to keep track of who did what. It could be cool to have wikimedia's engine giving stats on pages, such has the actual and the total content each contributor has edited, both in absolute and in percentage. This would help to cite the authors correctly.

&mdash;Nct 17:21, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Additional comments on Wikibooks success
While I will admit that Wikibooks doesn't have quite the same impact that Wikipedia has had, it certainly is doing better than Wikispecies or some of the truly failed projects that have occured.

I have also noticed a significant increase in activity lately, although it does come in fits and starts. One of the things is that each book seems to be an independent "wikipedia" of its own, and seems to form its own separate community.

I don't think that is a bad thing either.

As pointed out above, books require a slightly different mindset than simply writing a few things down like a typical wikipedia article. You need to spend a little more time trying to research out the content of modules, and more importantly, try to keep a vision of how the whole book is going to come together. It is this holistic view of modules that distinguishes Wikibooks from Wikipedia.

Growing pains will happen here with Wikibooks, and I think that some truly remarkable things will come from this project.

Standard for WikiBooks
Hi, I would suggest to set up a page that provides guidelines for WikiBooks. Particularly, I'd suggest, that all pages belonging to a book should start with "bookname:..." so that they are easily recognized as part of the book. This policy is already beeing used in many books, like Cookbook, Wiki Science, etc..., but there should be a page for setting up new books, that mentiones this. --Andreas Ipp 15:12, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)