Wikijunior talk:Big Cats

Scribd
The current scribd version looks terrible in both Firefox and Chrome. The kerning is all off on the headings and the placement of text and images is wrong in some cases. The forward on pg 5 had text cut off on the right hand side.

Style for Younger Readers
To appeal to younger readers, it would be useful to avoid a dry style and include true stories and "amazing" factoids. And lots of pictures.

Measurements
I am not sure weights and lengths (let's say 250kg and 3 metres, respectively) mean much to Juniors. What if we have a practical equivelency - "250kg, about the weight of 5 men", and "3 metres, roughly the height of [insert everyday object - bus maybe?]". --OldakQuill 23:18, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just what I was thinking. I'm not a junior, and I still find things like '250 kg' and '3 meters' mean almost nothing to me. Mihoshi 02:01, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vocabulary & Age Level
What age level are we aiming for here? I have a feeling words like "captivity", "sleeker", and "prey", along with the generally dry writing style (as mentioned earlier) make this inappropriate for children in, say, early elementary school. Is there any way we could ease back on the difficult words (or, alternatively, explain the terminology thoroughly along the way) in order to reach a younger audience? Also, the question "How do they raise their young?" doesn't seem like it would be of much interest to kids. Buggi22

Actually. Non-fiction children's books is a rapidly increasing genre. It is highly sought-after these days in elementary schools as an over-looked genre in the past and of great interest to some children who are not interested in fiction. "How do they raise their young" is also an important element of the elementary school curriculum and it would be advisable to keep this book as useful as possible to schools and students. I don't advocate using difficult words but I don't believe in dumbing down either. It should be a learning experience but, obviously, not an overwhelming one. "Captivity" and "prey" are somewhat usable for primary school-aged children, especially with a glossary as I have recommended. They are definitely usable within a primary school where help and discussion is available. Double Blue (Talk) 22:30, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC) I think that vocab is good, but we do have a problem with writing style. It varies wildly from article to article, with some employing massive number of circumlocutions to avoid a word that our age group should get. My strategy has been to always replace a circumlocution by the appropriate word, and then explain that if I'm certain it's a tough one. I think that's better for kids than if they feel talked down to due to our vocabulary.

Panther
According to Black Panther, a Panther is a varient of several species of Balck Cats. For this reason I think it deserves its own article, not just a mention in Leopard (which is misleading). --Bjwebb 12:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


 * All I can suggest here is to simply be bold and start making the changes. Wikijunior Big Cats can certainly use a few more articles, so adding a "Black Panther" article really is no big deal at all.  I'll go ahead and add the link, but make sure that you fill it with reasonable content. From both reading this series of articles as well as other sources, it appears as though genetically the cats are quite closely related, and the speciation (distinguished between different species) is in many ways harder to define with the cat family.  Almost like the different breeds of dogs (although apparently a bit larger extreme).  Don't sweat the fine stuff... just make it something that would be interesting to kids and be as factually accurate as you can be.  --Rob Horning 20:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

List of Contributors
I'm working on a PDF version of Big Cats, and it appears that I need a list of the contributors for the copyright information. Could someone please provide this? --Munchkinguy 02:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I hope you look at this page (the list of authors) for this information. BTW, there is a MediaWiki feature that for some weird reason has been "turned off" that would make collecting this information far more easier.  It would have put a "credits" button at the top of the page, and I've seen it working in the demo versions of Media Wiki.  Perhaps someday it will be added.  In the meantime, I'm going to try and do some more searching of the list of authors and update this page.  This certainly should not be considered an exaustive list at the moment.  --Rob Horning 22:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay... I have the preliminary PDF version. Click Here to see it. Make sure to change your Page Layout to "Facing". --Munchkinguy 01:45, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Lynx and bobcats
The title of the section "Lynx and bobcats" is misleading and contains false information. It would be like saying "Canines and wolves". This is because bobcats are actually a type of Lynx (see the Encarta article. ) Therfore, all the information about the differences between lynxes and bobcats is false. --Munchkinguy 04:13, 3 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Ultimately we need to separate the lynx species because they bridge the ocean and cause problems with OLD WORLD and NEW WORLD cats. Bobcats are famous in their own right, much more widely known than the other lynx.  I don't mind doing this since, as we say at my work, those who gripe about a problem automatically appoint themselves as chairman of the correction committee. John Burkitt 15:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

One quick thing...
What should the standard units of measurement be? Metric or other? I propose standardising the units of measurement to whatever country the Beck Foundation is based in. If America, us feet, miles, etc. and if in a country that uses metric, meters, kilograms, etc. --Lord Voldemort 16:08, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It appears the Beck Foundation is based in Chicago, Illinois, USA, so might I suggest using feet, miles, etc. as the main untis with metric in parentheses? We should try to keep "the money" happy. --Lord Voldemort 17:39, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Deadline

 * I moved this discussion from Wikijunior Big Cats because it was getting really long and I got tired of scrolling past it all the time. &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 03:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Folks I will do anything and everything possible to get this project COMPLETELY wrapped by the 10th, no matter what it takes or what favors I have to reel in. John Burkitt 02:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Printing Wikijunior Solar System first instead was discussed (Talk:Wikijunior Solar System/Archive 2), but I guess that went nowhere. The grant proposal does say that our first printed one would be on animals &mdash; too bad we actually specified that before finding out participation levels.  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 02:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Is there anyplace anywhere (preferably on-line, but even in print format that could be photocopied or scanned into a PDF file would be good) where the actual text of the grant is located at for ordinary folks like myself to be able to read what needs to be accomplished? Frankly, for a project involving a fairly substantial amount of money ($10,000 is enough to make an impact with this whole thing) the leadership for the whole of Wikijunior really stinks at the moment, especially when I read statements like that listed above.  Had actual deadlines been listed more than just a few days before they were to come up there would have been much more effort to get this accomplished.  As it stands, I see that this whole book is about 3-4 months from being ready for publication, at least to the standards that Wikijunior Solar System has been moving toward.  It will not be done in 3 days, at least with the current group of volunteers.  There is a very decided disconnect between those administering the grant money and those who are trying to work on Wikijunior itself.  Feel free to add messages on my talk page.--Rob Horning 04:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikijunior/proposal to Beck Foundation. &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 15:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Is this honestly the whole grant proposal? Was there any sort of reply from the Beck Foundation?  While I see a tentative deadline listed on the page listed above, where does the December 10th deadline come from as mentioned in this section heading?  While I don't mind working on the Big Cats Wikijunior book, the general concensus was to finish the Solar System book first mainly because it was already complete in terms of content and we had an abundance (indeed an overabundance) of multimedia content for the sections needed.  Many images for this Wikibook have a questionable pedigree as the zoo that many of them were taken at is asserting copyright on the images of their animals (I know, I don't think that is legal anyway) and has filed a cease and desist judicial order against the original photographer, who did release them through copyleft principles earlier.  There are some huge issues that still need to be worked out with this book.  Still, I am willing to dive in and try to help out.  --Rob Horning 18:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have done everything humanly possible to finish this thing today that I can think of. Anything else anyone notices that needs to be fixed?  John Burkitt 20:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Reading Level
We should check the reading level of every section (see tools at Wikijunior Solar System/Proofreading) and then make sure everything that should be is in the glossary along with thorough proofreading in general. &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 20:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My journalism class has a list of things to do every time we edit an article/page. Here are a few of them:


 * Make sure every phrase is as "small" as it could possibly be. Most of the phrases in this book are overly wordy.
 * There should not be a single word repeated in a headline.
 * Think up better introductions or leads
 * Check basic grammar and spelling rules
 * Make the paragraphs flow.

Remove redundant phrases and sentences; read them outloud to yourself. Sentences next to each other should not start with the same word for instance. This is a big one, probably because we all can edit a single paragraph, we add our 2 cents and are done with it. But now is the time to make it all "flow", and the book isn't flowing as much as I'd like to at this moment. --Dragontamer 00:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Let me just add that as one of the side effects of a group-edited project, one of the big grammar problems is number and tense agreement. I've found a lot without even checking carefully, so that's something to keep an eye out for.  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 01:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Proofreading
I starting using this reading level tool to check our modules, and most sections end up with around a 10-12 Fog Index (supposedly corresponds to years of education needed to understand a text). Most is apparently from really long sentences with lots of relative clauses, so I've been concentrating on cutting those up right now rather than doing any serious replacement of long words. I might be done for tonight, but I'll be back tomorrow to do lots more. &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 03:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Status
Gang, I've really enjoyed working on this Wikijunior book with you. At the moment I'm unsure what its status is. Has it been finalized, and what is the proper way to make edits at this late date with, presumably, a PDF floating about to secure our grant funds? John Burkitt 01:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * So far as your additions, we do have a policy to be bold, and this book needed more length anyways. Besides, I think it's fun to teach kids about cats they haven't seen in every zoo and book and movie.  So far as communicating with someone who knows what they're doing, we have been having severe issues.  Currently we can't even get the Wikimedia Grant Coordinator to respond to our questions.  My two cents is that we've done the best we could at the last minute, and should simply work on this book at a normal pace until we think it's really the best we can make it.  This is also my first wikibook (I'm much more used to the wikipedia style where nothing is ever really done) so I'm not really sure where to go from here.  The book did tend to move slowly before you came along, John, so perhaps we should all agree on a realistic deadline to get it done right by. Any suggestions?  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 10:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Angela says that the whole matter will be discussed at a board meeting this week. Continue being bold for a couple more days, hack away and add at will. I'd personally like everything to be wrapped up soon, because I can only design the thing at school, and I'm only at school until Friday. --  user:zanimum

Revised PDF file for "published" version of WIkijunior Big Cats
For those that are interested, I have just created a revised version of the PDF file for this Wikijunior book. If this were computer software, I would call this an early beta-test release, but it is IMHO good enough to take to the printer in term of doing some preliminary hard copies that could be sent to either the Beck Foundation or presented during Wikimania as an actual book produced through this project.

For those that are interested, I can provide a printed copy of this book as well for a relatively modest fee (just for the printing... I won't make any money off of the deal). E-mail me on my user page if you are even remotely interested. Based on my costs for the Wikijunior Solar System, it would be about USD $15 to USD $20 per copy in limited numbers... substantially cheaper if done in large quantities. I would love to set up some sort of Wikibooks press to get this into the hands of other people as well, but that is going to take some up front captial and some people interested in setting up a web site for selling this.

I have the whole system for putting this together worked out now, so if there is a need I can easily get another updated/revised edition with just a little bit of work. It would be nice to have this automated, but in some ways it is nice to not rely on automated procedures quite yet. I did fix up a couple of things that need to be rolled back into the Wiki text, although I didn't do any spell checking (I need to do that).

Thanks to everybody who has put in so much work to get this Wikibook to its current state. We really have made some incredible progress, and I am certain that there will be some kids who will use this information in a very positive way. --Rob Horning 02:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Robert, this is a kids' book. Pictures should be much bigger. Secondly, the PDF you made is way too low resolution to print in real life. Thirdly, are the images CMYK? Otherwise they won't rip properly, and the printer will charge us a service fee. Books, magazines, etc., their pages are generally divisible by four. Can kids actually click on a interwiki link in a print publication? If not, why are the Wikipedia "For more information"s like that. You can waste your money at the printer's, but Wikimedia isn't going to waste their's. --  user:zanimum


 * I am reasonably print savvy. I can do a markup in Pagemaker and export it to PDF with nice banners for the sections. Let me take a stab at addressing these concerns. John Burkitt 16:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Personally, I've got InDesign and Quark, and they're a bit more sophisticated and up to date. --  user:zanimum


 * Where is the issue of resolution involved? PDF uses scaleable fonts, so other than for the images this is not going to be that much of an issue.  A larger issue regarding images is that they will have to be converted to B&W images for most of the printing unless you can find a good cheap color printing service that charges less than $0.25 per page.  To do this very inexpensively we need to drop the costs down to less than 3 cents per page.  I know of no color printing service that does low-volume printing (less than 10,000 copies) that can do it that cheaply.  As far as conversions from RGB to CMYK, that is a trivial detail that I can even write an automation program for it there is a huge need for it.  If a printer charges extra for that conversion they are just trying to milk you for more money.  Seriously.  Or they are simply incompetent and don't understand digital images.


 * Keep in mind that all I did was simply take the existing web pages and copy them directly from the current content on the web pages, with the existing resolution that is found on the wiki as it has been defined by the people editing each of the pages. Not the best, but it is the best way I know to make a book quickly.  If you want higher resolution images, that is going to require some considerable amount of hand labor and in some cases recreating the image with a high-quality digital camera and of course in this case expenses of actually going to a zoo or to the natural habitat locations to take new photos to get that higher resolution.  I was working with the material that we have at hand.


 * As far as having pages divisible by four... yes, I knew about that. Actually, the number is either a multiple of four, eight, sixteen, or sometimes thrity-two pages.  That is what is called in printing as a "key", and in high-volume printing they usually print several pages of a book at once on a huge sheet of paper and then fold it up to make a part of the book.  Mass printed Bibles sometimes even use a key of 64 pages at once (which is why you sometimes have a bunch of "blank" pages at the end of some mass-printed bibles... that are often filled with personal hand-written footnotes and family history information).  For low-volume printing that I've been used to, you only have to deal with individual pages... or at least facing pages where you print on the front and back and is done with what is generally a high-speed laser printer generating the image directly from the digital file (the PDF in this case).


 * As far as Wikimedia wasting their money... who even suggested that any money from the Foundation be used for this? I have simply provided a PDF file of this Wikibook as a volunteer service to the community.  If you don't like it, make your own.  Good luck at that, because you are going to need it.  Especially with trying to get higher resolution images into this Wikibook.  --Rob Horning 17:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, the fonts are fine. We don't need a conversion program to convert the images, it's a simple job in Photoshop. If a printer charges you for that, they're charging you for wasting their time. I'm afraid you're the one that doesn't understand digital images, in terms of proper prepress. RGB are fine with laserjet, but I was expecting we'd print something more than laserjet.


 * Putting the thumbnails in is just a no go. Put in the actual full size uploads. Look at the comparison of the image used in the fossil section. Yeah, the file quality's pretty bad a lot cases, even with the uploaded files, but hakuna matata. They worked fairly well for the first design, which had the photos fill the page occasionally.


 * "Actually... four, eight, sixteen, or sometimes thrity-two pages." Yes, well 8, 16, and 32 are multiples of 4 themselves. And while the blank pages in Bibles have a fantastic purpose, and I'd likely


 * "As far as Wikimedia wasting their money... who even suggested that any money from the Foundation be used for this?" Gee, I don't know. Perhaps it was the fact that the only reason this project was ever green-lighted was because of a grant. --  user:zanimum


 * TeX is all I know, and I only have used it for reports... I doubt TeX is suitable for the job however, as we probably want some "magazine" style pages, background pictures and stuff of that nature, correct? Although... I think it would be possible to create PDFs and then modify the PDFs to have a background image? If that is possible, then maybe we get a basic outline going in TeX, create several page layouts, and then it would be trivial to create a program for wikitext to tex. Granted, I know absolutly no pagemaker (nor do I have it) so if there is some sort of "import" page maker has... then I would like to withdraw everything I just said :) ) --Dragontamer 23:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not terribly familiar with TeX, but I doubt it would work for what we need. Still, anyone that wants to suggest concepts for layouts, go right ahead. Upload sketches even, doesn't need to be anything too complicated. --  user:zanimum


 * Awesomeness, my "l33t" gimp skills will start work :-p I should note that I have next to no exp with this sort of thing, so sorry if any of these layouts suck in any kind of way. But here is a start... Layout1 Layout2 --Dragontamer 02:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The old version Was along the lines I was looking for btw :) But I understand the amount of time that has to go into typesetting that, and I am content with what we got right now. I just want to know how to get this book looking like that again, if it is possible. --Dragontamer 23:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The amount of time was why I would have liked this book to have been finished a while ago. If we don't have something looking at least like that, we'll loose them by second page. --  user:zanimum


 * I think we all would have like to have this finished a while ago, unfortunately we were notified of a deadline with a few days notice. &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 19:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I thought all contributors were aware the grant was about to expire, so I didn't bother reminding anyone. --  user:zanimum


 * Well, I'm glad we've all decided who's at fault for missing this deadline: the people who worked hard on this book despite being left completely in the dark on what's going on.


 * I wasn't trying to get you on the defensive, merely pointing out problems with the process so that it doesn't have to happen again. The communication between the people working on this project and those administering the grant money has been appalling.  I'm not sure how to fix it, but I know it'll be necessary for the success of future grants like this.  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 00:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Pardon me for sounding like Ghandi (the ideas, not the funny accent), but I think we should remember what we have in common here, be thankful we're together, and enjoy this task we have set ourselves. John Burkitt 00:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I liked the layout of my PDF version better (found here) and I'm a bit upset that you didn't at least email me to ask for the original file so that you could add to it. --Munchkinguy 21:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Length
Do we all realise this book is 13000+ words? -- user:zanimum


 * The book or the talk pages? Actually I think the structure is partially at fault.  It forces separation into blocks.  For instance, "My car is a Nissan.  The model of my car is Nissan Sentra.  The color of my car is gray.  The configuration of my car is four door."  How about this?  "I have a gray four-door Nissan Sentra"?  John Burkitt 14:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * And it seriously needs to be edited for reading level. Some sections register at a college reading level.  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 00:14, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I just checked and most of our articles are about the length they are over at Wikijunior Solar System, and if we're shooting for ~50 pages then that's just 260 words per page, which doesn't sound too bad (about a third the words per page density of my papers). So I guess I'm saying I'm not sure why the length is really a problem.  &mdash; Laura Scudder | Talk 00:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The current version as of my sig-date has 14657 words, including headings, glossary, and so forth. Assuming 8 pages for intro, index, and GFDL (out of a total of 48 pages, or 32 + 16) we got between 366 and 367 words per page on average. I'd say thats room for improvement, considering that intro to parents is 323 words long. Taking that basis, we probably should be aiming at 250 words per page.


 * Either that, or we raise the page count to 50 for the body, + whatever we need for GFDL, indicies, table of context, and so forth. --Dragontamer 02:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I can edit it down if you wish. I've had experience editing both children's nonfiction and textbooks.  You're right when you say less is often more, but please also remember that we must do the topic justice, and so in the words of the Einstein Admonition, "Make the universe as simple as possible, but no simpler!"  John Burkitt 00:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, I might as well start on that as well. Conciceness is one of the first things taught in a High-School Journalism class :)


 * I should add that anyone else cutting down the size of this book: When you cut down the number of words, it should still hold the same amount of information. I think this raises the "Fog Index" a bit, but I don't believe in those things anyway. :) --Dragontamer 01:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Title Change
I see that you all have put a lot of work into this project and that it is coming along nicely. However, I am concerned that the title is misleading. Many of the animals listed in the book are not commonly referred to as "big cats," such as the ocelot, serval, and bobcat. Instead, a title like "Wild Cats" might better describe the contents of the book, without being misleading. Also, many common non-domestic cats are missing from the book, such as the fishing cat, leopard cat, margay, sand cat, jaguarundi, pallas cat, and the wildcat. (I'm sure I'm missing a few.) These are animals that children would commonly come across in any quality zoo. This is my first time visiting this sight, so I apologize if this has already been addressed.

Also, children begin studying concepts of predator and prey, animal life cycles, animal reproduction, animal behavior, along with concepts such as camouflage, savannah, rain forest, ect. as young as second and third grade. I am concerned that many authors are trying to unnecessarily "dumb" the material down. Especially with the popularity of animal related programming on television, kids are much more knowledgeable about the subject than many might think.


 * You are SO RIGHT about the boundary between "big cats" and "wild cats" being crossed. For instance, an ocelot but no margay.  Maybe it should be "Wild Cats" rather than "Big Cats".  I added two missing "official" big cats myself (marbled cat, clouded leopard), but gang, there are 37 species of cats all told... John Burkitt 01:14, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I support the name change as well, with a bit of history thrown in. The name "Big Cats" was chosen only to limit the scope of the initial set of projects for Wikijunior.  As it turns out, the Big Cats book seems to have less overall conent than the rest of the current Wikijunior books, and I myself lead to an expansion of the Wikijunior Solar System to include the larger moons of the Solar System like Callisto and Europa.  In this case, simply be bold and make the changes.  I personally would like at least a little bit more input from the current development community of this Wikibook before the change is made, but I certainly would support such an action and include the defintely finite number additional cat species not already covered.  The Disney movie "The Lion King" certainly has introduced the Meerkat, and would be something kids would like to know more about beyond the Disnified version displayed on that movie.  --Rob Horning 18:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The book cover would need to be changed, as well as all of the links, but the meerkat isn't really a cat (I don't think... it's been awhile since I've looked at anything regarding meerkats). So should we start with the change? I would still like to see Laurascudder's, and any other regular contributors' opinions on the matter. -- LV (Dark Mark) 19:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You are correct in your assumption; a meerkat is not actually a cat. It belongs to the family Viverridae, along with civets and genets. But, their are definitely additional popular cats to be covered, as stated above.Bvcxz 22:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: We should consider grouping some of the more obscure pages the way LYNX covers the Canadian, European, Spanish Lynx and Bobcat. I would like to walk away from phylogeny for a bit and consider these other cats by geography, a page on the little cats of southeast asia, for instance.  John Burkitt 00:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Here is a helpful link expaining what makes a "small cat" a small cat. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-smallcat.html Here is a second link, which has a comprehensive listing of the small cats and small cat characteristics. http://www.thebigcats.com/smallcat/smallcat.htm Bvcxz 04:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Changing the name to "wild cats" isn't going to make kids any more informed. If you want kids to know the difference between a big cat and a small cat, then we can just say on the bobcat page "The bobcat is not a true Big Cat...". Perhaps the small cats should have their own section. As for including the other cats you listed, I'd love to see more species, but the book is already much to big and wordy. Perhaps a page of pictures with minimal text so kids can just know they exist, and find out more about them on their own (we live in the age of the internet after all). As for coming across the cats you lited at "any quality zoo": of the last seven zoos I've visited (all of which had lions and tigers), only one had the wildcat, and I saw none of the others. &mdash;Pengo 00:14, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I fully support a change in the name for Big Cats to Wild Cats, with the way this book is heading. I disagree that we should keep the title "Big Cats" and put a note on small cat pages saying they are not because the number of small cats greatly exceeds the number of large cats. I also support grouping the smaller, lesser known cats into single articles as a lot of the pages do not have much information in the first place. MiltonT 21:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The Structure
We need to change the structure of the book. I could handle this. Frankly it's a little annoying to have the same fact "This is one of the four cats that can roar" on Tiger, Lion, Leopard and Jaguar separately. Much rather I should write a chapter to introduce them and have a short discussion of what makes a big cat big (and it's not size!). Soon to come:


 * Focus on the most endangered cat of all, the Iberian Lynx
 * Fossil History will be more fun with references to the sabertooth and cave lion. It reads too technically for kids.

Fact is, you can't write a 40 page book about 37 species of cats and do them justice. Let's condense where it is necessary, but geez, there is a lot of things to know about cats, even at the most basic level possible. Perhaps we should work on less detailed discussions of where cats live and how they raise their young. Concentrate more on warm and fuzzy. John Burkitt 14:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Your changes look good. I have been going through some of the articles and running reading level tests.  I have edited several of them so that the secions fall within a fourth to sixth grade reading level. I can't remember which ones I did. I will come back and list them later.Bvcxz 19:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Those new chapters I added will need looking at badly.  They were hacked together during today's slow work day.  Even when I'm not working, I'm working....  John Burkitt 02:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Front cover

 * Hi I see you used my suggestion for a front Cover :-) I will be happy to donate it in a better resolution and maybe in black and white if it is nessesary - please let me know on my user page. Regards 83.94.150.173 23:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Should it be changed to reflect the new "wild cats" focus? Bvcxz 01:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should. John Burkitt 02:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know where the appropriate discussion for this is, so I'll say this here. I think the present proposed cover is not the best design for a children's book. I took the liberty of quickly trying a simplified version with a different image - although I think the image used before could be great too - and it's here: - I'm a graphic designer and if anyone would like any assistance with the design and layout of this or any other project here, I'd be happy to help. --LoganCale 20:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I kinda have no clue on how to do layout for this book :-/ I thought I did... but I didn't. Any online books or references on that subject? As far as programs, what should be used? (I know that one version of the book was made in Corel Draw, and I was also taking a look at Scribus) --Dragontamer 20:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I use Adobe InDesign for multi-page layout. I haven't used Corel Draw, but I'm checking out Scribus now.  InDesign is fantastic, though, for managing large amounts of text.  I don't know of any great references - something that really needs to be worked on.  I think I'll be doing some contribution to the graphic design wikibook...  Anyway, if you have any questions or would like opinions on things, I'd be glad to give them. --LoganCale 01:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Arrrruuggghh!
Managed by the hardest to add Margay, Jaguarundi, Rusty-spotted cat, Manul, Wild cat and Sand cat in one day. Need range maps for them. I have some raw (and non-PD) range maps if Laura could use them as models. Am pretty much exhausted for Xmas and need help. Oh, and Merry Christmas and happy/prosperous/safe New Year to you all. John Burkitt 02:02, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Errors
Just browsing the files and the pdf has some errors. Specifically, the word 'with' seems to never actually appear. There are several places where it's the only word that would fit, but it's not visible. (anon reader, 1:40 pm EST jan 02 2006)

Size of Page
Erm, I downloaded scribus (pagemaker clone for linux) so I can start getting a complete layout done, and I'm wondering; what should the size of the pages be? I'm not so good with publishing stuff myself, so I dont know what the cheapest size and so forth is. --Dragontamer 21:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Layout Examples
I've uploaded some pages of my old favorite Children TextBooks. I have lots to say, so just click on the pictures to see what I wanted to say.



As a summary on what is on those pages; Know It All is the style we should aim for at least (heck, it could be automatically generated from the pages easily); Your Amazing Body seems dead on, with exception of the 2x headlines on the same lines (kinda makes the whole thing seem like 1 topic) but in terms of quality, it is good. Paint and Painting seems almost overdone in terms of layout, but if we can hit it, then lets go for it. --Dragontamer 01:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and there are a few consistancies I should note between these 3 pages. They all use a serif font for body text, and a sans-serif font for headings and captions. And 2 of the 3 have questions for headlines. And although you can't see it; the topics are not repetative from page to page; that is, the same questions are not asked over and over again; and the questions seem to be tailored specifically for that paragraph.


 * I think it is too late to change the layout of the heading of this book; but perhaps it is possible to correct the next book; the Dinosaurs book, to have a better layout. IMO, it is a minor thing anyway, so it isn't anything that is glaringly bad. --Dragontamer 01:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Measurements (US contributors please pay particular attention!)
Please remember that 95% of the world's population uses metric measurements, and that for them, 'feet', 'inches', 'pounds', etc., are alien terms that mean nothing at all. Metric should always be given first, with imperial measures afterwards in brackets, if at all. - 82.39.130.135 16:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it was decided that since the Beck Foundation is an American entity, and since it was their grant that made Wikijunior possible, it was to be the other way around. -- LV (Dark Mark) 18:14, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that strikes me as a disgraceful example of US imperialism - 82.39.130.135 00:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Uh, it's not about forcing the measurement system upon others. Consider that meters, kilograms, etc mean very little to Americans, especially to young children. Kellen T 16:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Er, so what? Why should a 5% minority take precedence over the 95%? - 82.39.130.135 22:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It's funny, because US measurements are called the "Imperial system" --Munchkinguy 13:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations for becoming Book of the Month for Wikibooks
I've got to give a lot of credit to the people who have been contributing to the content of this book lately. Especially John Burkitt and Dragontamer, although there have been many others, including several anonymous (but appreciated) users making some significant changes as well. The quality of this book has improved considerably over the past couple of months, and IMHO is very nearly close to being ready for publication. Yes, some extra work needs to be accomplished, but as for what is here now.... Wow! --Rob Horning 13:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Images
Hello. This looks really impressive, obviously a lot of work has gone into it so far, so congratulations guys. However... is it right to include images in the PDF with no attribution or source/licensing information? Maybe you need to append another page with this information. eg. "p7. Graphic: Lion. Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lion.jpg . Author: Foo (English Wikibooks User:Foo). License: Bar (see http://blahblah.com for full terms and conditions)."

Also, can I suggest you please tighten the belt wrt images. From going through the wiki-version of this book, these images have some problems:


 * Image:Rockylion.jpg Little bit suspect, very low res for a "self" created image. Images with "-self" licenses should always be the high-res originals.
 * Image:Leoni-cuccioli.jpg License on Flickr is "all rights reserved". It is possible that the uploader lied/made a mistake, or that the Flickr person changed the license.
 * Image:Female lion.jpg This lists en.wikibooks as the source but there is no such file at en.wikibooks. If it got deleted, the source information should be recovered and transferred to the Commons.
 * Image:Lion zoo antwerp 1280.jpg The source is a website in Dutch, so I can't be certain, but it certainly has a lot of copyright symbols on it. The condition "Inform the photographer before any use of this image." is also a non-free condition - it is fine to request to be informed, but you can't require it.
 * Image:White tigers drinking.jpg Same Flickr problem, tagged CC-BY, flickr says CC-BY-NC-SA (NC is non-free)
 * Image:Tigercub.jpg has no source, thus its license cannot be verified.
 * Image:Tigers playing in water.jpg non-free license ("notify" - as I mentioned above, requiring notification before use is not free). I asked the uploader if she would consider changing it.
 * Image:Panthers.jpg no source.
 * Image:Young leopard.jpg the source website has taken down their images due to legal threats from the zoo! the author also explicitly disallows commercial use.
 * Image:Leopard on the tree.jpg incomplete source information (only lists another Wikimedia project - though the info is there, it just should be transferred)
 * Image:Jaguarcub.jpg no source
 * Image:Snowcub.jpg no source
 * Image:Cloudedleopard.jpg no source
 * Image:Cloudcub.jpg no source
 * Image:Swiftcheetah.jpg no source
 * Image:Marbledcat.jpg no source
 * Image:Huntcheetah.jpg no source
 * Image:Cheetahcub.jpg no source
 * Image:Puma.jpg needs an exact source
 * Image:Puma lying.jpg non-free condition (notification required)
 * Image:Calvinkleinobsession.jpg well this is copyrighted... I would not think putting it in a book would be a great idea. Perhaps you could use a generic kind of cologne-looking-bottle image instead?
 * Image:Ocelotkitten.jpg no source
 * Image:Rustyspottedcat.jpg no source
 * Image:Caracalkitten.jpg no source
 * Image:Servalcat.jpg no source
 * Image:Servalkitten.jpg no source
 * Image:Manul.jpg no source
 * Image:Manulkitten.jpg no source
 * Image:European wild cat.jpg no source
 * Image:Sandcat.jpg no source
 * Image:Bertramliger.jpg no source
 * Image:Proailurus.jpg assrted as self-made but I would like to see a bit more information about how exactly it was made...
 * Image:Egyptcat.jpg very low-res for a "self-made" photograph
 * Image:Balicolor.jpg no source
 * Image:Clearcutforest.jpg no source
 * Image:Likecameras.jpg no source
 * Image:Tuckingin.jpg no source
 * Image:Nalaplaying.jpg no source

These "no source" images are obviously the most pressing. Most (all?) of them are uploaded to Wikibooks directly. Some, it's possible the author just forgot to say "I took this image/self-made/Taken with [X camera]" etc. Others look very much just "grabbed off the net".

To prove "self-made" images (images with "-self" licenses), I ask the uploader to upload the original high-resolution image over the top of the thumbnail. Maybe you should consider doing the same.

Regards, pfctdayelise 14:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * A couple points of observation here. First of all, some "self-made" photographs may be from a very cheap camera and therefor may be low-res as well... or be cropped from some other image that was owned by the contributor.  By itself low-res images shouldn't be dismissed although I do think questioning the attribution is appropriate.


 * The other thing to consider is that this Wikibook is older (indeed the oldest of all Wikijunior books) and some of the images listed above predate the attribution requirements. While not an excuse that can be used for newer images, but it was presumed that all image uploads, like text contributions, conformed with the GFDL in some way.  This has proven to be problematic and that unfortunately users couldn't be trusted to make this sort of determination.  I agree that this sort of image should be still questioned, as you have done above, and if an appropriate substitute can be found, it should be.  Any images that have been uploaded more recently than about a year ago should definitely be questioned and even have a copyvio notice put on them.


 * Apparently some Wikibooks content has been deleted by a certain overzealous Wikibooks admin for things like Image:Female lion.jpg. I've tried to be more careful about stuff like this, but this has indeed turned into a circular reference that goes to nowhere.  For this particular image, I found the source of the image, which was the Fish and Wildlife Service of the U.S. Government, which puts the image into the public domain.  I wonder how many images like this have been culled from Wikibooks accidentally?  Please drop me (or other admins) a line if you need help looking through the edit history for deleted images like this.  --Rob Horning 11:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Big Cats Layout PDF Layout Done!
I am putting the finishing touches on the Big Cats PDF layout. It is a first edition, and I have excluded any cat that does not have enough information about it. As always, if anyone would like to edit it, I will email it to them. Also, I am about to publish it with Lulu.com, with zero commission going to me, so if you would like to order it (it will be inexpensive) please do so. --Munchkinguy 01:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

You can now buy the Print Version of Wikijunior Big Cats or download it for free at http://www.lulu.com/browse/book_view.php?fCID=346504. --Munchkinguy 04:58, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

How do cats raise their young?
In following the idea of being bold, I have created a whole page dedicated to talking about how cats raise their young. The reason I did this is because, in many ways, the method is similar over all cats. So rather than have one or two sentences under some species where actual reproductive information is limited, we can generalize and talk about all of the cats. Of course, there are some exceptions to these generalizations. In some cases, these can be mentioned on this page. (In the case of lions, I believe that the pride behavior of the lions would be best talked about on the lions page, so this page does not talk about them in detail. The lions page may have to be reconstructed more than the rest of the other pages due to this change.)

I have not removed the corresponding parts from the rest of the pages yet, as I'm waiting for everyone else to give their feedback. However, if you compare this ONE page to the sum of all the corresponding parts that answer this question, it is about a third of the current amount of text used. On top of that, many of the pages do not have very complete information about how cats raise their young in the first places. But because, as I said before, we can generalize over many of the cat species, a child can learn about ALL the cats, rather than a good amount about some cats and almost nothing about others.

Of course, it is not finished yet. It's not formatted to the rest of the book (I don't know what order to put it in the pages, anyway). It might benefit from some more information, and it also doesn't have an introduction to the section. I also didn't include any pictures, but I assume we can use some of the images from the other pages. MiltonT 03:10, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

So how is this book being distributed?
Everyone did a great job--but are there going to be any readers?

Lotsofissues 05:45, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

With still missing
I don't know if you guys missed the previous anon's comments, or what, but the PDF version of the book is still missing the word "with" in several places, and there may be other words missing. I hope you don't (didn't)? go to print with such obvious mistakes. 128.227.68.119 15:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to echo the previous comments. The pdf has repeated blatent word omissions, which is quite unsatisfactory. Whoever is taking ownership of the pdf, please fix this. The text appears correct in the articles.

Examples:
 * "Their [bite] is very strong..." under "What do pumas eat and how do they catch their prey?"
 * "All of them have [white] bellies." under "What do lynx look like?"

Saying "All of them have bellies." makes Wikibooks look idiotic.

--Rickpock (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

move protection
the page is move-protected, but should now be moved to Wikijunior:Big Cats // tsca [re] 20:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Browser Display Problem
This page does not display nicely in Firefox. Near the end where the 'PROPOSAL FOR FRONT COVER' is the page all merges and runs off to the right of the browser. Simple attempts to correct did not bring success.

Putting WikiJunior Books up at Hindi Wikibooks for translation
The Hindi Wikibooks community at hi.wikibooks.org is very inactive right now.

I guess translating already completed wikijunior books and working on such well defined projects might allow the community to develop over time. Any thoughts/comments/suggestions/words of advice before the said translation request is put up on Hindi Wikibooks? --14.139.160.2 (discuss) 00:25, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Big Cats is ebook of the day today at Unglue.it
Every weekday Unglue.it picks one Creative Commons licensed ebook to promote. Unglue.it is a website dedicated to the development of sustainable funding and distribution models for Creative Commons licensed books. It's compiling a comprehensive catalog of CC licensed books while offering authors and publishers new ways to make ends meet. It recently launched "Thanks for Ungluing" which lets creators ask readers for support for CC licensed works on our download link pages and from inside the books.

Wikijunior: Big Cats at Unglue.it

Unglue.it is also providing catalog records to help libraries promote Creative Commons licensed books- here's a blog post about it: MARC Records for Creative Commons

Gluejar (discuss • contribs) 16:29, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this great book
I'm a grown adult but I love big cats and this is written in a fun but informative way. Thanks! Popish Plot (discuss • contribs) 18:44, 7 April 2015 (UTC)