Wikibooks talk:What is Wikibooks/Unstable/book criteria

Thoughts and ideas about the current version of the policy
I'd like to note that from a historical perspective, the most potent and (in term of VfD reference) useful policy that seems to have been consistantly referenced was the "What Wikibooks is not" page. It is also very true that every "generation" of admins has come along and added their $0.02 into the mix as well, which is very reasonable.

This move to a more positive view than saying "thou shalt not do...." and condemning actions of new users from a pedistile. For this, I like the new version in many ways.

I will say, however, I still disagree with the sentiment that Wikibooks is only for textbooks. If you have to put a scope on it, saying that Wikibooks is more for general "instructional materials" that can be generated using a Wiki is perhaps a little more correct, at least with the vision that Jimbo seems to have and as a matter of practice here on Wikibooks as well. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to discourage people who want to come up with a very original idea that just doesn't quite fit the standard model of what somebody would think of as a collegete textbook. That clearly abuses have occured in the past, I will openly admit, and this is a slippery slope in the other direction as well to be far too permissive for Wikibooks content. Again, this is likely going to be a part of Wikibooks for the rest of the life of the project, to debate exactly where the line should be drawn to demark Wikibooks content from non-Wikibooks content.

Slamming down and saying something is "not a textbook" I think will lead, unfortunately, to a deletionist camp thinking that removes content from Wikibooks that can and should stay. I do believe that far too much has been deleted from Wikibooks over the past year and I'm trying to "dig in" my heels and say that the line is here and no more, at least in terms of what content is largely left on Wikibooks at the moment. Proposals to cull and move the How-to guides like the Video Game guides were removed I hope are dead in the water at the moment.

Some additional thoughts on the textbook criteria:


 * One of the biggest problems that we have is one of semantics. Clearly the "textbooks" that we host here will not be textbooks in the traditional sense. As much as we would like to call each individual book a "wikibook", it is far less clear to say "Wikibooks is for wikibooks" then it is to say "Wikibooks is for textbooks", and then broadly define the term "textbook" for our own uses. I think that in a broad sense (at least as it has been interpreted by the community in general) is that general instructional resources can be considered textbooks so long as they aren't better suited as wikipedia articles or wikiversity courses. A trend among current movers and shakers is to leave policy more open to interpretation, which will allow us to "know it when we see it", and avoid becoming mindless decision machines. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

"Not already exist on Wikibooks with a similar scope and target audience."
I'm not completely comforatble with this idea. I understand that duplication of effort seems to be an issue here, but I do see the potential for "forking" and two different approaches to the study of a topic happening. In other words, having two different books covering the very same material would IMHO be acceptable on Wikibooks, particularly due to the fact that these are book-length approaches. If you do create a new book on the same topic, there should be some sort of "manifesto" that spells out exactly how the second book is going to be substantially different and how the approach is going to be done.

Forking for the sake of a different POV is clearly not acceptable.


 * This is about two books covering the same material with a similar scope and target audience. It doesn't disallow forking and if you read the bit above where this is written about textbooks must have a definition, then you can see a "manifesto" of sorts must be spelled out for all textbooks. Scope and target are defined in terms of how they are used in the textbook definition to define each textbook. Hope that makes sense --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 19:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm of the opinion that multiple books with similar scope and target audiences can be merged together into a single book, and perhaps delineated internally based on other factors. As a classic example, consider the teaching of college-level probability courses where some students learn probability as a set of algebraic equations, and some students learn probability in terms of calculus. Both aspects can be covered in a single book, with an "algebra" section and a "calculus" section. No need to have multiple books on a given subject, just a single book with many facets. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * In principle I agree books can be merged - however all too often they tend to merely stay with a tag on them? -- Herby talk thyme 08:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Isn't there already a policy on forking and merging ? If a policy is to cover several topics it's best to vote them on the specific points and work them one by one, this is a better way to archive consensus. --Panic 17:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"Not be a promotion or advertisements for products, services or companies."
I understand the rationale for adding this, and certainly the WMF doesn't want to be seen as endorsing for-profit activities. Still, this is a fine line to look at and I see some potential for some content that might be pushing the line a bit here. Merely having a book about a product, such as the Blender 3D book, certainly is in a way a sort of advertising here. Or a book that describes the history of a prominent company like Union Pacific. Clearly there is a difference between a scholarly discussion of a person, product, service, or company and blatant advertising, but the difference I think is perhaps a little more subtle than might be apparent on the surface.

Link spamming is clearly unacceptable, but if you are talking about a product I don't see the harm to have as a bibliographic reference an external link to the company that produces that product.


 * The Blender 3D book teaches how to use Blender 3D, I don't see how its promoting or advertising it. Sense the line isn't defined, its up to community concensus to decide where the line is and that line can change without any need to update this if made policy. You may not of noticed this proposal says that bibliographic references are fine as well. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 20:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with you entirely. I think this line of the policy refers more to "unnecessary promotion". Linking to the software developer when writing about a peice of software is a necessary addition. Linking to a retailer who sells that particular peice of software is not. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Specifically on Blender the pages cause me no problems at all (as an unreformed spam fighter) but the links pages within it is dire. There are a number of pages that are about commercial products - if they are textbooks - fine, if they are ads I will take a strong view -- Herby  talk thyme 08:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * BTW the "I approve" cannot be said about Blender 3D/Tutorial Links List which is dire. I'm itching to delete all content and put in dmoz and a google link.  It would be more useful and would remain up to date (a real issue with links) -- Herby  talk thyme 16:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I hardly call DMOZ to be "up to date", as there are some significant issues with how the links are maintained (being an old tyme DMOZ editor myself). Google, perhaps, but there can be a legitmate links page, and being on a Wiki can be maintained as current as any other wiki page.  --Rob Horning 18:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

However they are not maintained as current -- Herby talk thyme 18:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * reset

"Be acceptable to the Wikibooks community"
This is something that is definitely a slippery slope to worry about. I guess this is openly saying that mob rule can dominate VfD discussions, but clearly current practice is that admins sometimes overrule VfD votes from time to time as well. I know this is something more akin to what Justice John P. Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court said about pornography: "I know it when I see it."

Sometimes there is something etherial that you can't just point to and say why you think a book just isn't acceptable on Wikibooks, but you do know in your heart that it just shouldn't be here. Books like How to build a bomb shouldn't be written, or at least have been deleted in the past using the community standards as a sort of guideline. I will say that any admin who uses this as justification for deleting content should certainly get a rebuke unless it has gone before a VfD first. This is something, however, that the Wikibooks community has been criticized in the past over as being far too permissive over this kind of content. --Rob Horning 18:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the deletion policy does a good job of covering the issues involved in deleting contents. Sometimes VfD discussions are used as a bases for what current practise is in regard to what the community is willing to allow or not allow. This proposal even says that I think. Its not a mob so much as community concensus that decides what stays and what goes. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 20:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with this sentence as well in some aspects, and not in others. For instance, the Decision making guideline really lays out how the community makes decisions on these kinds of mattes, and tries (succesfully I would hope) to curtail "mob rule". Keep in mind though that if there is a single large majority here at any time, that majority will likely find the power to rewrite policy as needed to suit themselves, if we don't leave in a provision allowing for changing tastes. Perhaps a dire prediction, but possible nonetheless. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I've tried to make wording clearer by instead saying "Be able to pass commmunity consensus." --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 19:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh... thats what you meant :-) Lol, I should read the talk page before editing stuff. Hmm... lets see... I much prefer the original wording by Rob, so I'll place that back in. I'm putting in "Must be morally acceptable to the Wikibooks Community (ex. We will not accept "How to Build a Bomb") "--Dragontamer 21:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There have been a number of issues in the past (and I'm certain there will be plenty of them in the future) where materials like this have been brought to VfD, and people have argued against deletion on the grounds of anti-censorship. Wikibooks may not be explicitly censored, but this clause should allow us to draw a line in the sand between the things that do not belong, and the things that do. It may be a slippery slope, but I would rather censor some material by concensus (and be accused of all the negative things that come with censorship) then to maintain a whole listing of such books. Perhaps a note should be added to this policy (or a related policy or guideline) that wikibooks is neither for nor against censorship explicitly, but that the community can choose what kinds of material to host and what not. Conversely, this message might be implicit in the statement that a book must "Be acceptable to the Wikibooks community". --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Textbooks, some changes.
I edited the "textbook" section and here is why:


 * Scientifically doesn't match the goals of say, a history book. Wikibooks includes books on history, and religion, so I took out "scientifically". Either way; it should be verifiable someway, somehow. So "scientifically" doesn't really fit.
 * Wikibooks includes forks from other published books. So I removed "Not copy previously published works or source texts.". Maybe there should be a note that it is allowed as long as the text is GFDL or donated to Wikibooks.
 * I don't recall any books passing a concensus before they are started. While that was done (maybe still is done?) on wikijunior, I don't think it should be done on Wikibooks.

The rest of the edits were minor. --Dragontamer 21:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I clarified "Textbooks may be based on previously published works", since you removed that criteria. I also clarified the passing concensus bit since I disagreed with your changed to that part, by instead saying "If disputed be able to pass community concensus". I don't believe we should be excluding books based on moral grounds, since what is moral is dependent on who your asking. There is already a brief disclaimer in the policy about contents that me be harmful or objectional with a link to the full content disclaimer. I support your other changes though. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 00:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I can agree with that. I should note that I have made another minor edit, hopefully no big deal. --Dragontamer 01:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement "Not already exist on Wikibooks with a similar narrative and definition". If I write a book on mathematics, say, for people sitting an exam for 16 year olds in England, it's perfectly reasonable for someone else to write a separate book, borrowing heavily from my text, for people sitting an exam for 16 year olds in Scotland. Jguk 08:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That would have a differerent target audience and so would have a different definition. So I don't see the issue. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 14:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, that is kinda indirect reading. You have to know what a "definition" is to understand that. So I added a little redundancy to the text. Sets of 3 sound better anyway :-) --Dragontamer 17:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't think I like your quick fix. The definition has to do with text "All textbooks should have both a central narrative and a definition. A textbook definition should specify all the following aspects of the book:" and defines, scope, audience and goal. So it says what a definition consists of in the text. Maybe just make it clearer that "definition" is referring to that? --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 18:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * More changes

I made these changes. I think textbooks developed here at Wikibooks should not be limited in scope to post-secondary accredited institutions, but should also include and allow textbooks developed for use in home-, primary, and secondary school environments. --Iamunknown 09:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I added another change. I'm sorry that the first paragraph got moved down in the change-log. I changed free open-content textbooks and annotated texts to free open-content textbooks, annotated texts, and reference texts. I think it is appropriate to detail under what conditions reference texts are permitted on Wikibooks; namely, when they correspond to and supplement one or more an existing legitimate Wikibook textbook and/or annotated text.

Two existing example of one such a text are the Engineering Tables and False Friends of the Slavist modules. The former is of significant use to the engineering, math, and physics Wikibooks textbooks, while the latter is of great use in linguistics and the Slavic languages. Neither, however, are necessarily textbooks or annotated texts by themselves. References, such as a concordance of Shakespeare's works or a task- and language-organised programming reference text could also be included as reference texts under this addition. --Iamunknown 10:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I made some changes to your reference text that I hope will be clearer and easier to understand. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 14:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is unneeded because established primary and secondary schools (as well as educational organizations which aren't even schools) will fit under the definition of "institution". --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that "institution" is clear enough as well as the use of the words "student" and "class". I also have issues with the use of "supplement material" because that can include things like notes which belong to Wikiversity. As a compromise I've said "Textbooks help students understand what is taught in a class in an accredited or respected institution and in a home-school environment." --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 18:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

What is Wikibooks
I disagree with the need to identify reference texts and study guides differntly from textbooks. I'm also thinking we may need to add something about licenses compatible with GFDL if we are allowing more then just the GFDL license to be used. Should we even mention any licenses? --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark lama  05:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I certainly agree vis-a-vis reference texts, and I have removed the reference to them (see the thread below). Jguk 12:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * On reflection, I've removed the reference to study guides. These are just a form of textbook, so we don't need a section of them all by themselves. I suppose we could (briefly) refer to them explicitly in the definition of a textbook. Jguk 12:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Without explicit mention of study guides and other reference works, we run into a little ambiguity. such guides and references would seemingly already be cut by the need of a textbook to have a narrative (as per the definition we've included). Reference works certainly don't have narratives, and study guides might not either. Also, encyclopedias and dictionaries count as reference works, and they are expressly not allowed. In general, I dont think that study guides are a problem, and I would be inclined to explicitly allow for them in this policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Reference texts
I have removed the section on reference texts. The reason for this is that it says no more than that we allow appendices to textbooks that might appear in standard, written textbooks, which is obvious from saying that we allow textbooks. Having an additional section is just confusing: it might suggest that we allow content more suited to Wikisource. Jguk 12:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I would tend to disagree with this, it serves as a point of clarity. We do say that wikibooks aren't a collection of tables, charts or definitions, but we also want to specifically allow a wikibook to contain such things. Don't forget that there are people in this world who will follow the letter of the policy. Can you imagine a crusade to delete tables and glossaries from all the books here? It may be improbable, but certainly not impossible. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability

 * "Like other projects of Wikimedia Foundation, to be on the English-language Wikibooks, textbooks content must:


 * Be verifiable and peer reviewable; that is anyone can verify the material will work every time through repeating it."
 * Be verifiable and peer reviewable; that is anyone can verify the material will work every time through repeating it."

Admirable though this is, we don't currently adhere to this. I therefore think we should delete it. We can always discuss the benefits of introducing such a rule later. Jguk 22:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree its good to reflects what is currently adhered to. I think though we do try to adhere to it and I don't believe its introducing a new rule. Original research is in essents anything thats not been peer-reviewed and generally accepted as true. As I tried to explain to Rob above, there seems to be a move to losen the current definition in WB:WIW. Just look at WB:OR to see what I mean. I don't really agree we need that proposal though. I would call myself skeptical that its needed. I think a few well picked words in this policy is enough to say what current practise is.
 * I slightly clarified that criteria with "Be verifiable and peer reviewable; that is anyone can verify the material is correct and will work every time through repeating it", although I did that before reading your comment on it. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 01:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've made a number of further tweaks - mostly, but not wholly, just tidying up things. Regarding "verifiability", I have replaced this with a requirement to be "accurate". It may be that we develop a verifiability policy to expand on what we mean by accurate, but I don't think we need to do this when describing what Wikibooks is. Jguk 20:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would disagree on some points here, I think that it is current practice on wikibooks to delete material that isn't verifiable. However, we also don't have any guidelines as to what constitutes "verifiability", and that's perhaps where our biggest shortcoming comes from. Unfortunately, just saying that things must be "verifiable", without qualifying that term doesnt help, and only serves to create arguments on VfD. Perhaps we should remove this statement then. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)