Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2006/March

de:Hauptseite

If we are going to talk about attractive front pages for Wikibooks, I think the German Wikibooks is at least one to try and compare to. I like the clean boxes and even how they organized the "Welcome" message at the top. Pay attention to "Buch des Monats" (Books of the Month) and "Hilf mit!" (Collaboration of the Month). Neither are over powering on the front page. One feature we don't have that they do have is "Review des Monats" (Book review of the Month), where a nearly finished Wikibook is put up for editorial review and a request to give it a quick glance by Wikibooks contributors is made to the community.

One thing that both the French Wikipedia example and this German Wikibooks do well is to have a clean "table of contents" or content search area. One thing I would like to add (and is hinted to on the Main Page) is to have multiple methods of searching for content. Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress, Wikibooks Bookshelf, Alphabetical, Google, and other search methods for content ought to happen. Some more on that it a bit, but this is a good place to try and cut down on the content. One place I would like to see substantially enhanced with a search like this is to strongly emphasis what is the best of Wikibooks. Considerable criticism of Wikibooks by many bloggers and outsiders to our project has been leveled at the quality of the content we have here... considering we have been going now for a couple of years with (from an outsider's viewpoint) nothing to show for all this effort except for a poorly done reproduction of Wikipedia.

As the "flagship" Wikibooks project, I think it is critical to keep the "Wikibooks in other languages" section on the Main Page, even if it takes up a little more room. It needs to be updated (See Meta:List of Wikibooks for a more accurate and up to date list) but still should be here. --Rob Horning 14:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Prometheuspan 00:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC) "Considerable criticism of Wikibooks by many bloggers and outsiders to our project has been leveled at the quality of the content we have here... considering we have been going now for a couple of years with (from an outsider's viewpoint) nothing to show for all this effort except for a poorly done reproduction of Wikipedia."

Actually, as a think tank, this is unfair of them, because if you use systems theory and reduce this effort to years and then think of wikibooks as an entity going through its mirror of evolution, Wikibooks is still just a toddler. Skeptical review of the sort I imagine exists ought to wait till there are 20 years of development. Of course there is crap in wikibooks- frankly I have spotted some stuff i think is bizzare and slightly frightening. But there is also very good, very high quality, open source content here, and noise to content ratio is only going to improve as time goes on.

Skeptics of wikimedia fail to understand the exponential growth principle as it applies to information systems. An open edit system may mean that there are 100 articles generated by somebody who knows next to nothing on the subject for every article that is generated by that team of experts. The happy thing is, each of those pieces of junk is "do-over" bait for the interested, and the potential user base is literally in the millions. Somewhere in America, some geek somewhere DOES know the facts, and, given an opportunity, probably there are 10 of them who would be willing to share them. Our job is to create a strong enough knowledge base that experts start to take the resource seriously. From there, interest alone will drive a geometric expansion, which will eventually yield the largest and most complete database on any given subject ever created.

Back to the point at hand. I have generated a list of bookshelves, and i'd like your opinion on it. I will go look at the "Total list" and perhaps add it as the next item to my talk page. Thanks. Prometheuspan 00:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"will eventually yield the largest and most complete database on any given subject ever created." Yes! The only problem with Wikibooks versus Wikipedia is that a Wikipedia article takes a few hours whereas a Wikibook takes a few months. Wikipedia started on its truly exponential phase after almost 2 years, Wikibooks will take 4 or 5 years. It is essential that worthwhile output from Wikibooks is put "up-front" on the main page so that new contributors can see what might be done and are drawn in. "Highlighted books" does this to some extent but readers must still explore the book development environment before finding something to read. RobinH 11:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

functional main page

What about heading the main page with a functional table of books that are ready to read? Readers can then go straight to the book they desire. ie:

Books that benefit from online random access

Cookbook - Chinese - French - German - Spanish

Classic Textbooks	PDF (Edition)	Edit Draft Version
Cell biology	PDF(1.0)	Edit
Physics (Free High School Science Text)	PDF	Edit
US History	PDF(1.0)	Edit
UK Constitution and Government	PDF(1.0)	Edit
Special Relativity	PDF(1.0)	Edit
Introduction to Paleoanthropology	PDF(1.0)	Edit
Consciousness studies	PDF(1.0)	Edit
Introduction to sociology	Print version	Edit
ADA Programming	PDF	Edit
How to build a computer	PDF	Edit
There are many other books under development, page down for more!

Books for children	PDF (Edition)	Edit Draft Version
Big Cats	PDF(1.0)	Edit
The Solar System	PDF(1.0)	Edit

There are 4 or 5 other books that could be added once Print versions/PDFs have been made. Perhaps authors can make the production of print versions a priority?

I am no artists. Small images could be added and the colour scheme improved.

Readers who are interested in less complete books, and contributors can then be given a more complex set of instructions further down the page. This would be a temporary fix with some other method being used once 30 or so substantial books have been completed.RobinH 11:21, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

three places

We currently discuss the main page at three places. So I have to add a shameless plug to to draw some attention to my proposal of improving the front page: Template_talk:Main_Page_introduction#Suggestion:_A_copy_from_w:fr:Mod.C3.A8le:Encyclop.C3.A9die. --Krischik ^T 18:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as your plug, I think it's a great layout. With a little section moving I think it would be a great addition to Wikibooks:All Books. -Matt 20:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Removal of All Wikibooks

I decided to be bold and do some more rearranging of the content on the Main Page. The big difference is that I created a new page called Wikibooks:All Books and moved the list of Wikibooks that was ever growing to that page instead. I also added a very prominent link to this new page, and moved it directly underneath the list of featured Wikibooks.

One of the things that I would like to see changed, however, is perhaps the placement of the books themselves. It is conflicting with the "Other langauges/FAQ/table-free version" floating bar and I'm not sure if this is the best place to put all of these books anyway. I just wanted all of the book related links grouped together at the moment.

BTW, this isn't by any means the "final" version of this, just a suggestion to help cut down on the huge overload from having every single Wikibook on the main page. Please discuss other options and ideas for this as well to help improve things here. --Rob Horning 16:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Two notes. First, on Karl's computer, the FAQ and Table-free bar does not extended into the Highlighted books box [1]. However, it does on mine (as it does on yours). I haven't checked it from my Linux computer; but the spatial conflict is there on my Windows XP computer with both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Second, the collected bookshelf templates you moved from the Main Page to Wikibooks:All Books does not contain all books. In theory, at least, a bookshelf template don't include the more stubby books from its bookshelf. (Or at least I've seen Derbeth remove books from a template for being too stubby.) --JMRyan 19:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for being bold, Rob, I think the main page is much more friendlier and clearer now. I don't think this is the end of necessary changes, but I think we are heading towards a good direction. --Derbeth ^talk 19:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I notice that book category sections are now on the main page. Would it look better to have all the featured information above the category lists? Seems like it give special books more attention that way. -Matt 18:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Transwikiing a book from WP

The Wikipedia article TimeSplitters: Future Perfect strategy guide is being proposed for deletion, but I thought that the information should somehow be saved. Would it be appropriate for me to just dump the text here and not (necessarily) work on formatting it/etc.? Ardric47 04:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Either it's already been deleted or you've given the wrong URL. As to whether it belongs here, the questions to ask are (1) is it a textbook?; or (2) will it develop into a textbook? If the answer to at least one of those is yes, then it can be transwiki'ed here - however, it's best to let the editors of a transwiki'ed page know that it's come here if they may wish to work on it. As far as formatting, ideally you'd do it yourself, if you're unable to, don't worry, that can be done later, Jguk 08:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it has been deleted. I would have assumed that the person who deleted it would have noted the discussion in the talk page...I'm not sure if it would be worth it to go through deletion review. In any case, I wouldn't exactly call it a textbook, although I have noticed that Wikibooks has many video game strategy guides. Ardric47 09:26, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently undeletion "[t]o permit a deleted article to be transwikified or properly moved to a sister wiki-site" is a common reason, so I'm going to try that now. Ardric47 09:44, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

As I'm not an administrator on Wikipedia, I can't help you out with trying to undelete content there, although you are always welcome to remove the deletion tags on Wikipedia content as long as you have a good reason. Wikipedia has a markup tag of {{Move to Wikibooks}} that you could have used to replace the speedy delete tag at any time with. It is unfortunate that the Wikipedia administrators were abusive to you in this way that it seems. Gaming strategy guides are welcome here on Wikibooks, and I hope that you have the opportunity to further the development of this content. BTW, there is a talk page about this content at w:Talk:TimeSplitters: Future Perfect strategy guide, and it appears as though the user listed above did try in good faith to move the content to Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 12:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; I'm about to begin this daunting process (!). Ardric47 22:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I've copied the main text. What's the preferred way to include the edit history? Ardric47 23:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone has a bot that does it automatically. I forgot who though :( --Dragontamer 23:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[[Talk:Transwiki:Quicksort implementations]] seems to be the most recent example. Could that have been done manually? Ardric47 23:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no 'bot that adds the edit history (or is required at least), although there are some 'bots that do this automatically in terms of transfering complicated amounts of text from one Wikimedia project to another and include the edit history. For a single article on Wikipedia this is completely unnecessary, but I would recommend that you add the edit history in some format on the talk page here on Wikibooks. This is usually done immediately after you have copied the content. Technically we ask people doing a transwiki to add it to the [[Transwiki:]] namespace (it makes it easier to make sure it gets to a logical place on Wikibooks), but if you are going to be adding substantial amounts of new content afterward you are certainly welcome to simply create the new Wikibook just like it was completely new content and go from there. There is no real standard way of adding the edit history, although most people do a simple cut and past from your web browser when you bring up the old history and simply put it into the talk page, with a note at the top where the content was transfered from (aka Edit history on en.wikipedia:) Note that Special:Import, if it ever gets working correctly, would allow importing a page with the complete edit history as well, but that is not working yet. I think the developers are waiting for the universal login working first. --Rob Horning 19:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I did put it in the transwiki area, but shortly thereafter copied the main text. Was I supposed to leave the second part for someone else? Ardric47 23:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The point of the Transwiki namespace is if you plan on moving content over to a project and then not do any further development or editing. It is also a transition warning to administrators and other participants on the project that some new content is being added, and that perhaps it needs to be reformatted or have other things occur with the content before it is added to the main project namespace. If you intend to be active within Wikibooks and understand existing policies here, there is no need to move it into the transwiki namespace. --Rob Horning 18:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Copied a wikipedia article to a book... anyone have a bot for adding "w:"?

The book is Vermicomposting, which will make a good foundation for a how-to book. I'd like to edit it for the formatting (making it more of a how-to than it already is), but it also has a million red links because it was well wikied on the 'pedia. Does anyone have a bot for adding "w: " to these links? It would take a lot of time to do it manually :). Johnny 15:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that you are going to need to do a considerable amount of editing for this content anyway if you are going to try and turn this into a book. Generally, most of the content here doesn't have nearly as many link as a typical Wikipedia article does, and a good number of what you have in this initial stub would be good to remove as well. Compare what you have there to How To Assemble A Desktop PC (a very good example of a polished Wikibook) and there are some major differences.

Formerly, we had a specific policy that prohibited exactly what you did here by copying a Wikipedia article. I fought to change that policy as I felt it was too exclusionary and arbitrary, but remember that if you want to work on content that is basicly an article worthy of inclusion with Wikipedia, you ought to keep it on Wikipedia and not here on Wikibooks. A good rule of thumb is that the content should exceed the 32K text limit that generally enforced on Wikipedia for a single article. Wikibooks is for situations where you need content on multiple pages that goes into much more depth than a typical Wikipedia article.

I guess what I'm saying here is that simply having a 'bot clean up the red links and point them at Wikipedia is not going to be sufficient and much more editing needs to happen, with almost a complete rewrite of the whole content as well. As a stub and a start to something much larger is fine, but what you have here would generally be considered a stub for Wikibooks, even if it wouldn't be for Wikipedia. --Rob Horning 17:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've been wonjdering about how much "wiki-linking" needs to be done, actually. A lot of the links there aren't really necessary. So there are no 'bots?

Don't misunderstand my intentions... I'll be reformatting it, and am recruiting some folks with know-how(-to) from web forums. OTOH, it probably won't ever end up more than 10 or 20 pages with illustration. It might end up belonging to a larger book about composting in general, but the folks interested in writing and editing I've found so far are worm-bin fanatics. A lot of the gardening how-to stuff is going to be stubby (for example: How to Grow Daylilies is almost complete... there's just only so much to be said), and will probably end up needing to be reorganized into larger books. Small steps lead to great projects, of course :). Johnny 17:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

---

When I use KDE, the Konqueror browser lets me search and replace wiki text. I type Command-R, search for "[[" and "]]", and replace it with "[[w:" and "|]]". This changes [[link]] into [[w:link|]], but it also changes [[link|label]] into [[w:link|label|]], so I then have to search for "[[w:" or "|]]" and manually fix the labeled links. In effect, Command-R in Konqueror is almost like the bot that you want. If I am at some other browser, like Firefox, then I must wait until I find a computer with Konqueror again.

Actually, some users like to copy and abandon Wikipedia articles on this site. These are often the same users who forget to mention that Wikipedia is the source. Instead of fixing those pages, I try to have those pages deleted, because Wikibooks is not an encyclopedia. --Kernigh 05:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Watching all pages of a book

Old title: "Maybe a silly question..."

If I'm "watching" a book, am I also "watching" all the chapters of that book, or do I have to watch each chapter? This relates to my previous question, because the Vermicomposting book currently has all red links for its chapters, but I've been "advertising" it on web forums and expect content to be added. Johnny 19:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

You'd have to watch each page separately. I prefer using the Related Changes page. --Brian Brondel 21:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiNovel?

I'm going completely out on a limb here, but I've been discussing an idea with a few friends and colleagues of a creative writing wiki. If this is already in place somewhere, could I please get a link? Otherwise, I know that the idea might be somewhat far-fetched, but I have reason to believe that this kind of an effort would bring forth a new level of collaborative thinking. My main question is simple, is there a place that I could attempt to put my thoughts out on this, and possibly get a start for it? Even if it is on one of the WikiMedia user pages that I have yet to create. Could this be done without violating some principal rules or 'laws-of-the-land'? Would I be somewhat brow-beaten, or would this be acceptable somewhere? I'm sorry if this comment (question, really) is ill-placed, but since I had the idea, WikiBooks was the closest place I could think to get some insight. Thanks much in advance for any assistance/guidance you can provide.

You might instead want to check out http://novelas.wikicities.com/ which is a part of the Wikicities family of projects. A proposal for making a fiction based Wikimedia project has been offered many times and simply needs somebody to sit down and make a formal proposal that incorporates all of the various ideas. As to if it will be accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation board, that remains to be seen. The Novelas Wikicity is a much better choice at the moment as it is current up and running.

Generally speaking, Wikibooks is only for non-fiction content. I hope this answers you questions, and I hope that you can get a collaborative fiction group working. There are some outstanding things that can be accomplished in this way, and writing fiction as a Wiki brings the whole concept of a detailed common fictional universe to an extreme that has not really been dealt with before. I hope you can get your project put together and going. --Rob Horning 04:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

What a coincidence, me too!

Yeah, I kind of had figured out that Wikibooks was not a place for fiction writing so I went looking for a free Wiki farm to host my stuff. I settled on EditThis.info Renmiri 05:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Policy/Vote/Deletion Policy

This is a general announcement that I am restarting the vote for Wikibooks:Deletion policy to become enforced policy on Wikibooks. Aya was bold in even suggesting that it was only a proposed policy in the first place, as it has been on Wikibooks now for over two years and added by one of the early founders of Wikibooks (Mav). A few changes have happened over the years, including some significant changes this past year.

If you have an opinion on this, please go to the vote page listed in the section heading. It is important that we do get community input on this, and try to come up with what the actual policy should be here for deleting content, as Special:Log/Delete is hardly dead by any means.

There is nothing special by my moving to make this a formal vote, but the previous voting page didn't really get any realistic input and needed to be advertised better. I'm hoping that there will be some significant community input on this policy by becoming an enforced policy. --Rob Horning 03:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Talkpagetext

Just a suggestion, but the current text/box is rather large. Over on the English Wikipedia there's a few smaller suggestions available that you may wish to consider. See w:MediaWiki talk:Talkpagetext. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I propose this design: --Kernigh 05:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a talk page to discuss changes to the module.

• Please sign your comments using four tildes ~~~~
• Start new topics at the bottom of the page and give them == A Descriptive Header ==

Guess I'll propose my design from over on Wikipedia as well. =) This is quite small, not intrusive, and reminds the editor of one of the most commonly forgotten talk page requirements. As a colored bar, it'll also serve as a visual clue that you're on a talk page (and not an article page). If you see it and aren't expected to (or vice versa) you can also correct whatever mistake led you to the talk page instead of the article page. Anyways, my proposal: —Locke Cole • t • c 16:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You're editing the talk page for Reading room/Archives/2006/March. Please don't forget to sign your new comments using four tildes (~~~~).

I finished my book!

After 3+ months, Stuttering is finished. It's about 55,000 words. I'm sure there are many possible improvements but I'm going to leave it alone for awhile.Thomas David Kehoe 00:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wow! You might want to watch your book in case someone vandalises it. If the book pages are on your Special:Watchlist, then you can use that. --Kernigh 05:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm watching all the pages. I did have one vandalism while I was writing it. Is there an easy way to backup all the source pages to my hard drive?--Thomas David Kehoe 15:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You should be able to just revert vandalism... you might be able to save the pages too. Johnny 21:31, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The Book Of The Year (BOTY) Award & Book of the half-year Awards(1/2-year Book Award)

This is just a suggestion and is not been totally accepted by anyone. I have an idea that apart from Book Of The Month,we should create a Book Of The Year Award, because a year is always a blessed one, and we'll decide which was the best book created in that year. The Half-Year Award, I'm not so sure but I think it should be given to the best book created in the fisrt half (six months) of the special year). The nominations rules for the Awards should be as follows:-

BOTY = Book Of The Year ; 1/2-Year = Half-Year Award

• BOTY: Every Book that has been a Book Of The Month in that specific year will receive a free nomination, although any exterior book can also be added (at least which is senseful). A Collaboration Of The Month book nominee which is been finished before the year also receives a free nomination.

• 1/2-Year: All rules are followed here from BOTY except that the books must be before the half of that specific year and after of the starting of that specific year.

Please think and then discuss. — Mastermind 007 16:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Because this is March and not December, it seems premature to suggest this, but yeah, I think a Wikibook of the Year would be a good idea. There is a small but dedicated community that seems to hang out with the Book of the Month nominations. I don't think it is too late to hold a quick vote over the best of Wikibooks for 2005, however, and that might be something fun to do even now. If you can come up with something that would be a useful template that we could add to the Main Page, feel free to write up the content and I'll try to find a place to put it. With the reshuffling of the main page, I hope it doesn't get lost. An honest question would be to determine how long a Book of the Year would appear on the main page (all year long? one month?) and how long we ought to be doing the voting. Even now, the Wikijunior New Book of the Quarter seems to be up for far too long and IMHO is the absolute longest you want a voting page up. --Rob Horning 17:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

---

I was trying to suggest it must not be done that quick either because 9 moths are left before the end of this blessed year so Rob Horning here are the answers to your questions:-

• The voting should begin at the starting of December. All the books who have became a Book Of The Month in that specific yearwill receive a free nomination (automatic nomination) although the useres can add a good collaborative also.

• If a book which has been nominated Collaboration Of The Month and has been finished completely in the same year, it also receives a free nomination.

• The voting for the Book Of The Year should appear on the Main Page at the starting of December and when the Book is won the award, it must remain for the next month's January (it will be taken off from the Main Page at the 31^st of January of the next year.

• The Book Of The Month should be concluded in the case of Book Of The Year. It must remain and must be carried on.

Since, there are 9 months remaining, more rules, logo can be created and more collaboration debates of the Book Of The Year logo, template and rules can be discussed first not accepted. Have a nice time, Rob! -- Mastermind 007 08:56, 5 March 2006 (UTC) .

---

I'm planning for the Book Of The Year logo and the Award logo. Shall we carry out an election? I think preparing everything and planning now itself would be better to save time for something more creational later this year. -- Mastermind 007 09:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

interlangua links xx:wikibooks:foo

• Hallo! Sorry for this: In the old source of Wikibooks:Administrators you could find the following interlanguage links:

1. da:Wikibooks:Administratorer
2. de:Wikibooks:Administratoren
3. es:Wikibooks:Bibliotecarios
4. fr:Wikilivres:Administrateur
5. it:Wikibooks:Amministratori
6. pl:Wikibooks:Administratorzy
7. vi:Wikibooks:Người quản lý

• es:Wikibooks:Bibliotecarios generates http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Bibliotecarios and this is translated to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bibliotecarios.
• The correct project namespace is Wikilibros and the correct interlanguage link is es:Wikilibros:Bibliotecarios.
• Please note that the interlanguage links to project namespaces ("xx:wikibooks:foo") need to be changed if these project namespaces change. Best regards Gangleri | w: Th | T 19:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for making these changes. It can be sometimes difficult to keep track of all of the changes in all of the rest of the Wikimedia projects. It is fairly recent to have a Wikilibros namespace, as (unfortunately) it takes some developer intervention to make those changes at the moment. Any help to keep these links coordinated would be appreciated, especially interlanguage links which do change from time to time. --Rob Horning 12:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

If you make a link like es:Project:Bibliotecarios then it will work. "Project" always redirects to the correct namespace. --Kernigh 03:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikijunior New Book of the Quarter Policy

This is a solicitation for comments about the current state of the Wikijunior:New Book of the Quarter process and if this should become policy. I would appreciate comments at:

Talk:Wikijunior#Non Cannoical Books for Wikijunior (to keep the discussion in one place).

For some background material, you can also check out: [[Talk:Wikijunior:New Title Suggestions]]

Thanks. --Rob Horning 00:32, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The need for use and content statistics - So many books and so little time.

I have been trawling through our books and gems keep on appearing. The latest is:

XML:_Managing_Data_Exchange

This book has no "development stage" tag on it. It is also hidden under "Domain specific languages". Yet it is probably more developed than almost any Wikibook, has probably several hundred pages and it has a host of contributors. I had no idea it was so complete and only clicked on it by mistake! My guess is that there is about 6 man-months of effort by experts in XML:_Managing_Data_Exchange ($30,000+ of value) and it is hidden.

One way out of this problem is to produce statistics that rank books by content in megabytes and by number of views. This would allow two pages of rankings to be produced that could be used by administrators to highlight valuable books. Unfortunately we do not have any up-to-date statistics on views and the content statistics are difficult to use.

Does anyone know how to produce these statistics? RobinH 13:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

For a source of this sort of statistical information, you can look at: http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/EN/Wikibooks_EN.htm

This is a link that is buried in the Community Portal page, and something that is semi-regularly updated. As far as sorting the information from largest to smallest, that may take a little more work, but at least the raw stats are here you you to look at. I've used this page from time to time to find content that needs cleanup, or at least find stuff that doesn't look right. The last update for this page was in December. --Rob Horning 13:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The list shows there are 4 or 5 large books outstanding that I had not located as candidates for PDFs. So there are at least 25-30 substantial books in Wikibooks! I am surprised because, at a cursory inspection a couple of months back, there seemed to be around 10.

The other essential statistic is "views per book". This statistic will allow the most popular books to be identified so they can be placed prominently on the front page to attract readers. A "views per page" statistic would expose navigation routes and help system design. RobinH 15:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that "views per book" would be an excellent statistic to generate. Unfortunately, the view counter was disabled by the developers due to raw server load and an attempt to try and streamline the Wikimedia servers. The raw growth in terms of page requests and the number of contributors is so large right now that there are some serious lags between a page request and content delivered. An increase in bandwidth as well as expanding the number of servers on the cluster are both happening, as is physically moving some of the data to other locations. The asian languages (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc.) are now hosted on physical servers in Korea and there is talk about physically locating some of the other languages on a server farm in Europe. All of this takes money and time, and increased complexity as you expand these resources. If enough CPU bandwidth can be opened up, the page counters may be turned back on. It is a part of the MediaWiki software, and is used on other MediaWiki websites outside of Wikimedia projects. The only other alternative for activity is to determine edit frequency per Wikibook, which can only realistically be calculated with a full DB dump of Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 17:21, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Those stats.wikimedia.org tables are out of date: "Generated on Friday December 23, 2005." --Kernigh 23:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

They are updated roughly quarterly, so there is an update that is due. The Wikimedia user who has been doing these stats is still active, so I think this is a likely place to look at some interesting information about the growth and development of Wikimedia projects. --Rob Horning 05:31, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Structure by interest group

I believe it would be useful to have a structure for the main page by interest group, by which I mean:

• Wikids (for example), for children under 8 (I don't think we have any books in the category yet though)
• Wikijunior, for 8 to 12 year olds
• Wikistudy I, for those progressing towards exams usually first sat at age 15 or 16
• Wikistudy II, for those progressing towards exams usually first sat at age 17 or 18
• Wikiversity, for undergraduates and graduates
• Wikiprofessional, for books useful to those engaged in a profession (eg accountancy)
• Wikilearn, for adult-learning books (eg computer programming books)
• Wikileisure, for books on leisure pursuits (eg the cookbook, Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter)

I'd be interested in others' views, Jguk 14:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I was also thinking about a structure that helps people finding educational materials at their level (we probably have discussed it at IRC, haven't we?). But my opinion is that it should be parallel to existing book organisation, I think the best situation is when people can find a book in several different ways. An yes, I find your proposal reasonable. --Derbeth ^talk 19:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It is interesting that Jguk chose a structure where Wikiversity is a method to organise books. Some users are trying to make a separate wiki (see MetaWikipedia:Wikiversity). A while back, I started a MetaWikipedia:No to Wikiversity essay explaining why I opposed the creation of such a wiki. Then, after the Wikimedia Board opposed the wiki ("no online courses"), some users, including myself, attempted a MetaWikipedia:Wikiversity/Modified project proposal.

Wikiversity tried to distinguish itself from Wikibooks by claiming that a "course" is different from a "book" - see Wikiversity:About. I disagree; a project like Engineering Acoustics or Cookbook or NetHack is both a course and a book. Wikiversity:School of Music and Wikiversity:School of Library and Information Science seem to belong on a bookshelf.

I considered creating a section of Wikiversity for Unix courses-books, but I am uncomfortable with how Wikiversity currently divides itself into schools and courses. --Kernigh 23:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree to a structure that reflects the level or focus of studies, so for example a college student can go in and see all college texts grouped together. I am not sure what folks have made Wikiversity out to be, but for me, we need a university book section here on the site, and that could be Wikiversity. Course-related materials could be submitted along with the book, such as laboratory manuals, teachers' manuals, presentations, notes, etc. But it makes a lot of sense for a person to know if they click on General Biology if it is going to be a college text, or for eighth-graders. --Karl Wick 21:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

PS I agree with the proposed divisions above. --Karl Wick 21:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I too support the proposed divisions (Wikids, Wikijunior, Wikistudy, ... Wikileisure) of Jguk. We still need to decide how to implement them, but students of various levels should be able to find their books! (Or contributors who want to help students of various levels should be able to find books to edit.) --Kernigh 03:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Identifying the Hot Picks

Please help identify the best work on WikiBooks so we can include it in the Main Page's Hot Picks section. This is the link to where you can suggest books.

Criteria: The most complete, most useful, best-looking books... overall, the books that show the best of WikiBooks right now. Thank you in advance! --Karl Wick 23:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

May I modify the request, and ask for books that people consider to be "complete" and "near-complete"? Jguk 06:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense to me, although at this point we should consider relative completeness, especially for books that will be very long. --Karl Wick 21:42, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I have identified the following 36 books that are worth a look:

The Cookbook and the language books that have been identified elsewhere such as French, Chinese(Mandarin), Japanese, Spanish and German. (6)

These books are basically at the stage of an "edition":

Wikibooks:PDF Versions. (By an "edition" I mean that they have reached a development stage where they are substantial texts that are definitely rewarding for a reader.) (20)

These books are substantial and complete enough to be well worth a read:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Communication_Theory - a tiny academic niche that is well covered in this book, undergrads should be grateful

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Canadian_law

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior_Ancient_Civilizations

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Algebra

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Engineering_Acoustics - this is excellent

(5)

These books are also substantial but have problems of major sections missing etc:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:C_plus_plus http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Visual_Basic_Classic

(what is going on with HTML/XML/Perl/CSS/Web Design/Java/Javascript?)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Electronics - this is more advanced than the authors admit

(3)

Others

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Calculus - has excellent content but is so spread out into infinitessimal parts that new contributors will find it hard to discover whether their contribution has already been covered!

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guide_to_UNIX - quite good but highly fragmented

(2)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Jokebook - Has a lot of jokes but all spread out and hard to access

It is interesting that fragmentation - using too many small sections - can ruin a book.

There are also a large number of handbooks and user guides. Latex, Postscript, game guides etc. etc... Many are complete in their limited sphere - what can we do with these? RobinH 10:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not stick with Book of the Month?

Why not simply stick with the Book of the Month winners as the criteria? This avoids controvercial decisions on the part of trying to add picks to the Hot Picks list, and provides a forum to legitimately add new Wikibooks to the list as well in a slow but controlled manner. My adding Cookbook near the end of the voting for the current month's Book of the Month was something unexpected, but demonstrates that a clear well written Wikibooks is likely to win the monthly competition. Indeed, there are some Books of the Month that are IMHO sub-par, but the hits are much better than the misses. If you have discovered a very good Wikibook that you think is one of the most outstanding here and deserves recognition, please add it to the Book of the Month nominations.

Far too often the Book of the Month is being used as an advertising forum instead, and where there are no high quality books that have been nominated, it is hard to turn down the sub-par books to win the monthly contest, sock puppets not withstanding. I've had to go digging through the Wikibooks archives specifically to find some books that would be worth nominating so there might be something worth having on the front page. --Rob Horning 15:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that is too restrictive. What would be useful would be to separate the complete and near-complete books out from the rest as it is those that are useful to readers. I doubt whether we really need to vote on these, their quality should be self-evident, Jguk 16:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

We would still need a pannel of trusted wikibook users to decide. And we can't grow the list indefinatly we need a limit like on "new books" - so eventualy whenever a new book comes along another has to go. There will be tears sen. With the BOTM there is only one new book a month but with "hot pick" there will be lots of new nominations coming pretty soon. --Krischik ^T 17:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I am in favor of being flexible and practical, and am afraid that using just BOTM will not be either of those things, although the BOTM list was the first and primary source for "Hot Pick" books. However there are great books that have not been featured yet, and I see no reson to wait months to see if they can be featured. --Karl Wick 21:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

A question about Wikibooks setup

Maybe you can help me with something that is making me crazy: How do I make / in titles work in a plain Wikimedia site as it does here ?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but this Illustrated Guide to the world of Spira (FFX and FFX-2)/Culture work at Wikibooks but it doesn't work in my wiki: At Wikibooks when you add a slash to the title it shows the "parent" link on top of the page. I want the same thing for my fiction stories but I haven't figured out what I need to do to fix it. Renmiri 05:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a feature in WikiMedia which must be switched on by the administrators. i.E. it's off for Wikipedia. --Krischik ^T 17:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Which feature ? Is it one of the MediaWiki variables ? I am Admin at my Wiki, I just don't know how to do it. I've been googling and searching Mediawiki.org for days w/o finding it :( Renmiri 18:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Replied to User talk:Renmiri. --Kernigh 03:38, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Foundational Books

Here is something I have been thinking over: an effort to focus in on the most foundational books. That is, books on subjects that are most universally given as core subjects: the basic sciences, mathematics, language skills, the stuff that you should learn if you aren't gonna learn anything else. This is naturally a controversial subject, but hopefully not so much, and my hope is that we can identify a dozen or a couple dozen prioritized books which can be promoted with the goal to be completed first. My first shot at it, at least for the university level, is located here. Pls look it over and help me make it better. Thanks in advance, --Karl Wick 02:39, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Looks like you've done a lot of work. (I'm focused on Wikipedia at the moment, so I'm not offering to help at this stage.) --Singkong2005 03:56, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The PDF Versions page

This page seems to have become a bit confusing. Originally it was intended as a quick access to the PDF version of a book with an auxillary link to the home page for the Wikibook where the book can be edited.

There is already a "Print Versions" page and there are already bookshelves that allow contributors to locate and edit a book.

The Wikibooks:PDF_Versions (see http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks:PDF_Versions&oldid=396281 - now changed - see below) page now consists of a table where most of the links do not connect the reader to a PDF version. In fact the first column in the table connects the reader to the home page for the book, not the PDF.

I would suggest that we make the first column a link to the PDF, the second column a link to the home page for the book and the third column a link to previous editions (Just three columns).

Books with PDF Version (click on name)	Edit the book	Previous PDF Editions
Ada Programming Volume 1: Tutorial	Edit	Prev

There are however some major books that have a print version but no PDF. My suggestion is that the authors are encouraged to create a PDF (or someone does it for them). The trouble with HTML Print Versions is that they can take some time to be displayed, they provide a low quality print without pagination and often include navigation tables and other distractions. Perhaps we can encourage this process by explaining that "HTML" means a draft version in preparation for PDF. The page would appear as follows:

---

Items marked "HTML" are at an intermediate stage of preparation for conversion to PDF. See Category:Books with print version for a full list of WikiBooks with HTML versions ready for conversion to PDF.

Books with PDF Version (click on name)	Edit the book	Previous PDF Editions
Ada Programming Volume 1: Tutorial	Edit	Prev
Ada Programming Volume 2: Keywords (HTML, not PDF)	Edit

Instructions on the creation of PDF Versions can be found at: Help:Print versions.

---

Another suggestion is that we change the name "Print version" to "Continuous HTML file".

RobinH 21:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

---

The problem I see is that we have not yet got the means to automate the generation of PDF print versions. So I expect them to be old by an average of one month. So the reader has to choose:

1. the pre-rendered fast-loaded but old pdf print version
2. the slow-loading but up-to-date html print version.

We should not take that decision away fromt the reader especialy since any book with a pdf print version will have a html version as well.

But not vice versa and the Ada example shows that nicely. I expect that User:ManuelGR will create pdf's for all three volumes next time he creates the pdf version - however I don't know when he will have time to do so.

--Krischik ^T 07:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

On the main page the reader has access to the bookshelves as a primary route into Wikibooks, the PDF versions are tucked away at the bottom. How is this taking "the decision away from the reader" as to whether the reader accesses a transiently fixed or continuously variable version of the text?

My original design hat Main Page navigation before Main Page content which placed printable version in the middle - but it was though that content is more important the navigation. --Krischik ^T 13:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The Wikibooks:PDF_Versions page is simply a list of PDFs. There are separate lists with the "Print version" links and there are bookshelves. Surely a list of PDFs should have access to the PDFs as its most prominent feature.

Perhaps there is a policy issue here about whether there should be fixed editions at all. However, the page listing PDFs should just do what it says. I would like to propose that we restore the PDF Versions list to being a list of PDF versions.

Perhaps we could hold a debate on whether PDFs and fixed editions containing completed books are desirable at all. But until this debate is resolved I really think we should restore the list of PDF versions. RobinH 09:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I have just put into place a compromise version. RobinH 11:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting - have the main link point to the pdf version seems consequent. --Krischik ^T 13:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

A "last updated" column should definitely be there. --Hagindaz 13:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Role of PDF files in Wikibooks

My kid reading a dead-tree version of a Wikibook

I'll be honest here, I started a PDF file here in part due to the Print edition of Wikinews. I figured that if somebody could put together a daily news digets in PDF format, I could do the same for a much more leisurely content like a Wikibook. In addition, I wanted to get some Wikibooks content into an actual bound book. This image at the right, BTW, is a real book, not just something Photoshopped. The web is a good way to help organize content and do collaborative writing and editing, but it really isn't a good place for doing in depth reading. There is IMHO something special about sitting down with a bottle of Coca-Cola in your back yard and simply reading a book without having to deal with all of the electronic BS that goes with being connected to the internet.

I'll be honest about another idea I've had kicking around. I'd like to try and get several Wikibooks up to a good quality to start a simple on-line printed book store of Wikibooks content. I kicked around some ideas a while back through private e-mails and other channels about trying to get this accomplished. Yes, we have Wikibooks:Wikibook Press, but I would like to see something substantial move forward. I have a small amount of money to get something like this going, but I need to find somebody who has experience with running an on-line e-Retail service and would like to get this going. Mainly this is a way to get a wider audience for the content on Wikibooks, and frankly I'd like to have some of the Wikibooks content in dead tree format for my own pleasure.

Not all Wikibooks have to be done this way, and many won't be. As is stated with WB:WIN, Wikibooks is not paper. But some of the content can be transfered to paper and it is one of several analogies that can be followed, and is a role that Wikibooks can play. For those Wikibooks authors who want to go this route, formal publication in a traditional sense may be possible.

My goal here is to mainly get something together that essentially sells books at a very modest markup to cover costs, and any excess profits would go to the Wikimedia Foundation directly. I wouldn't anticipate the money would bring in that much, but this is something that is eventually going to happen one way or the other. I would rather that the Wikibooks contributors themselves are the ones that are involved with any major leap of this nature and not some fly-by-night group that sees a bunch of PDF files and decides to make some money selling Wikibooks on their own. This does not have to be official and approved by the Foundation Board, and indeed it would be better for the Foundation if it wasn't. It would simply be a bunch of Wikibooks contributors who got together and were bold enough to make something happen. As all of the content is available under the GFDL, if you want to make your own publishing company you are certainly welcome to use all of this content and make a stab at it yourself. I just feel that if a bunch of us got together and worked together rather than against each other on this concept that we could make it something very worth while and be beneficial to the Wikibooks community as a whole.

PDF files are a critical part of this, because many printing houses can adopt the content of a PDF file and use it for publication directly. There are also many e-book readers that can import a PDF file, so having data in this format is going to make it easier for us to expand Wikibooks into a much wider audience than what we have so far as simply another website. It is also a demonstration of the level of quality that Wikibooks has reached, even more so that there are so many Wikibooks available in this format now. That editorial issues need to occur with this content is true, and perhaps this next step will help attract those who are inclined to help with that sort of editorial assistance. --Rob Horning 06:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks Theory

I think that the Wikibooks project still needs more theoretical guidelines to make it as successful as Wikipedia. Stating that Wikibooks aims for offering manuals and textbooks is not enough. Checking various books offered on topics that I also know quite well (languages, eonomics, music) I could hardly find any satisfying book, because there’s seem no real difference between Wikibooks and Wikipedia. As a matter of fact, many articles in Wikipedia are much more elaborate and much more helpful.

How could we change this? I suggest that Wikibooks includes two types of books: (1) “How-to-do” books and (2) textbooks that not only includes information (which could also be gathered from Wikipedia) and which actually be used in teaching.

Wikibooks of type (1) should comprehend

• a step-by-step presention of the necessary information and activities in the necessary chronological order
• suggested exercises
• a forum where readers can find help (e.g. the discussion page)
• bibliographical information on exercise books or further information

Wikibooks of type (2), this means that the textbook could, or should, include the following elements:

• presentation of core knowledge/basic information (this could be done by giving the necessary information or by giving the relevant Wikipedia links)
• a didactically sensible structure (modules should be ordered in a certain degree of progression)
• recommendations for further reading
• task type A: simple information questions (either with solutions in a separate chapter or for correction by a teacher)
• task type B: discussion tasks (for plenary discussion in a class or on the discussion page or on a discussion forum)
• suggestions for little research projects or call for participation in a research project

What do you think about this? -- Sinatra 13:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment from Kernigh: Each book is different. I will let each group of authors decide whether their book is type (1), type (2), both, neither, or otherwise.

Since you mentioned Wikipedia, I want to quote Wikipedia:Encyclopedia Gamia, a Wikipedia article about the Encyclopedia Gamia, a wiki at http://www.strategema.net/ about games. Much of the Wikipedia article is a comparison of the Encyclopedia Gamia to Wikipedia. Near the end is this boast: "Furthermore, it is important to note that Wikipedia's computer and video gaming content, both in number of articles and depth, eclipses all third party gaming wiki's."

This is despite the fact that Wikipedia limits itself to encyclopedia articles. You will find much information in Encyclopedia Gamia, in Gameinfo (http://gameinfo.wikicities.com), or here at Wikibooks:Computer and video games bookshelf that is not in Wikipedia. --Kernigh 02:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the problem content or structure?

When I first accessed Wikibooks, over a year ago, I found no books that could be read as books and turned away, disappointed. A few months ago I looked again and went, painstakingly, through the bookshelves and found about 13 substantial books. (About the same number as were discovered by a recent reviewer of Wikibooks). Recently, having become more skilled and having been introduced to some tools for investigating where books are located I found 36 substantial books! No, no-one has written 23 books in the last 3 months, it is just that the books themselves are so fragmented and difficult to access that it is not obvious whether a book contains anything of value.

Perhaps we should consider the structure of books as well as desirable content.

I agree with Rob Horning that Wikibooks should be about books. Many contributors are just visiting from Wikipedia and seem to be following the same approach of highly fragmented, hyperlinked text. Take Modern Physics as an example, the first page looks fine, click on "special relativity", another set of headings appears, click on a topic such as "time dilation" and we get a single page (about two thirds of an A4 printed page). Each individual physical page has its own link. This technique would require the reader to operate at least 200 online navigation links to read a 100 page book! The online book is basically unreadable and readers just give up.

There are some books, such as the cookbook and language tutors with audio files, that demand a hyperlinked presentation. However, most books benefit from being read as a single text. This is what differentiates "books" from "articles"; books are extended, connected texts not sets of unconnected articles. Sets of articles can be held in encyclopedias and readers return repeatedly to read them. Books are held in libraries and readers take them away.

So I would suggest that the minimum level of fragmentation of the hyperlinks in a Wikibook should be the chapter, not the page. Further, although contributors need access by chapter and section within a chapter I believe that readers want access at the level of the whole book. Would you take out books from the library or buy a book that consisted of 100 pamphlets? Basically the reader wants a stable PDF or other continuous file to read. They can scan this to see if the book is of interest, download it for rapid access and print it, or sets of pages from it, if desired. RobinH 08:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

One thing I will note about smaller modules in a larger Wikibooks is that they give both bite sized chunks for editing and proofing, as well as something that isn't so intimidating for a first time contributor. Making a "printed version" of a large Wikibook is essential in this aspect, as it gives the opportunity to allow a very different group, the readers and reviewers, to get the content in a format that is easier for them. By allowing transclusion of smaller chunks, it also gives the editor a chance to rearrange the content for presentation without having to deal with all of the linking issues.

I had many of the same concerns about the chapter and page issues of Wikibooks, as can be see from this archived discussion that was on the Staff Lounge last June. Garrett's advise is the typical standard that does exist here on Wikibooks, although I would have to agree that a chapter by chapter approach seems to me as something more reasonable.

The other issue that affects having many smaller modules is simply the editing interface with the MediaWiki software... or in reality the issues relating to editing through a web page. HTTP (not HTML) doesn't seem to handle large chunks of text very well, and the typical web browser starts to go nuts when the text is over 32K. That is the unofficial limit on Wikipedia for the length (in text) of the article. I consider that limit to be unfortunate that it is often enforced, because I think some longer Encyclopedia articles can indeed be written. Wikibooks is a good place to do that for the truly committed, but a longer treatment of a Wikipedia article so far hasn't been done too much. This is a reality that we have to live with here, unfortunately. It does tend to make content fragmented, and there is a tendancy to really break things up.

The worst offender here on Wikibooks is Puzzles:Riddles, where the solution is given on a seperate page, and often is just a single word. That seems to work for that Wikibook. I'm not suggesting the Riddles book change much or is written incorrectly, but it does show the minimal degree that some content can end up looking like.

This is just more food for thought. --Rob Horning 19:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the 32K still really accurate? Mozilla in the past has opened 80 MB web pages for me, and displayed it fine (after an admittedly very long delay of parsing and downloading an 80 MB HTML file). It seems to be almost a legacy idea these days. I do absolutely garuntee that the HTTP portocol has no issue with going over 32K- what do you think you use to download images and movies on the web? HTTP. If there is an issue, its with old versions of IE.

I'd also say that puzzles is perhaps the one exception I'd make to a chapter like rule- you don't want to put the puzzle and answer on the same page, its too easy to read it accidently. And you don't want to put all the answers on 1 page, its too easy to read more than you want to check. Puzzle magazines solve this by randomizing order (puzzle 1 answer on page 86, puzzle 2 on 89, puzzle 3 back on 86, etc). Hypertext allows 1 answer/page, a more elegant solution. --Gabe Sechan 23:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

It isn't HTTP in itself (yes, that can in theory handle quite a bit of raw data), but the way it is implemented both by servers and web browsers... and unfortunately we have to take a lowest common denominator here, in other words, the browsers with the least features and the oldest browsers... at least browsers up to five years old or perhaps a little bit older. And it isn't just the transfer and download of the files as a reader, it is the issue of being able to edit the content. The Windows API library (aka Internet Explorer) had a problem with the traditional text edit windows that didn't let you edit more than 32K of raw ASCII text, due to using legacy 16-bit code for the edit windows (even in Windows '95). This had to do with string allocation length and the transmission of over 32K of text in a submit request to a server. Yeah, this is a legacy issue, but HTTP 1.0 (and HTML 1.0) didn't anticipate this sort of activity for web browsers. Even now with MediaWiki software you get a warning message for pages over 32K of length, which has been interpreted on Wikipedia as a cut-off length for a page. --Rob Horning 14:38, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I use several browsers (including Explorer 5.0) to access Wikibooks and use Windows 98 as well as XP. I have not found any problem editing pages over 32k. Incidently, I am having trouble hanging on to Explorer 5.0 on our backwards compatibility machine - I am always being prompted to update. RobinH 12:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I did mention Windows '95, didn't I? Believe it or not, there are still many people using that operating system, and yes, connecting to the internet. I can't imagine people still using Windows 3.1, but you may yet be surprised. That is the problem with trying to find a lowest common denominator for something like this, you have to think very old systems that normally belong in a museum. Even suggesting that you might be willing to drop 1% of all internet users is still going to be a huge number to consider, and should not necessarily be ignored for a whimsical reason. In some ways it is too bad that we can't get some statistical information about the types and names of browsers (& OS platforms) that are accessing Wikibooks, which gives a much more reliable number to compare to. --Rob Horning 02:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

In 2003 I conducted a survey of 1000 PC users in the UK and we found that 7 had Windows 95 (0.7%). We presented 5 of these with free copies of 98 (cheap ex OEM versions) but we can't do that here. My guess is that about 0.4% in the UK are still Windows 95 users. RobinH 12:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding puzzles, you can just use Template:Solution. --Hagindaz 23:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hhrumph. I'm fairly new here, but it seems to me that wikibooks is fairly new "here" too. Like WP, it's not on a deadline. Books are harder to write than articles. WP took only a few years to become somewhat authoritative, and it might take a decade or three for WB to achieve that. I don't think it's a question of content or structure, but rather a difficulty inherent in a project that demands more than just explaining "what it is". Wikibooks are going to be written by people who want to share, but don't have the time or patience (or independent wealth) to devote themselves entirely to writing a book. Over time, we'll have a few more writers and editors interested in helping, but it's small now, and so it crawls a bit. The only way to improve WB is to improve it yourself, and perhaps encourage others to do so. I understand your frustration, but this isn't a publishing house or TV network... this is wiki! Johnny 01:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Semi Protect Programming languages bookshelf and it's template.

I would like to semi protect the above shelve and prehaps all the other bookshelfes as well. The Problem I have noticed is that anonymous bypassers randomly add links to non extisting books. As they are anonymous bypassers they have never heard of "suggested books" and the difference between writting a book or suggestion a new one. I guess they come from 'pedia where this behavior is accepted.

Programming languages is especialy hard hit since language advocated are keen to have there language of choice displayed but are to lazy to actualy begin a new book. And there are a damm lot of programming languages. Sometimes they just copy the entry above which is "50% finished" and create a red link to a non existing book which states that it is 50% finished.

Semi protection would at least mean they need to go to the effort of to register which is likely to stop most of them. And if it does not stop them we would have a talk page to tell them why we had to remove there change again.

--Krischik ^T 09:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added a warning for anyone trying to edit the page. Hopefully that will work, Jguk 10:15, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggested Books on the shelves

Hello Jguk,

You also removed some of the "Suggested Book" chapters. Now I don't thing that was a good idea. I patroll the Bookselfes in general and the Programming languages bookshelf and the Wikibooks:Domain-specific languages bookshelf in particular for quite a while now. A year ago one could not remove the red links as fast as they where reappeared. They where just to many anonymous bypassers mistaking the shelfes with list of all available programming languages in existence.

Only after I have moved all red links into "Suggested Book" chapters the situation improved. I intentionaly added a suggested books sub-chapter to each chapter instead of adding a general chapter at the end of the shelf.

The reason is that the average Lua programming language fan will look at the "G – L" chapter and notice that his beloved programming language is missing and add it. He/She will not scroll down to the end of the bookshelf to take note of a "Suggested Book" at the end of the shelve. He/She will click on the [edit] button for "G - L" and won't read your "Important Notice" at the beginning of the page. And most certanly He/She will not search Wikibooks for the Wikibooks:Suggested books.

Side Note: I copied the link from your "Important Notice" and the link turned out to be red. I did search for "Suggested books" and did not find it. I am an administrator and I don'd know where the b**y page is - How can we expect an anonymous bypassers to find it.

If we want to go the way you suggest then we don't only need to semi-protect the selfes and add an "Important Notice" - we also have add __NOEDITSECTION__ to the sleves to make sure the notice is actualy read.

And - of corse - do it for all shelves!

An alternative would be to continue to have one ore more "Suggested Books" sections on each shelf. It did actualy work - the additions of red links to the shelfes went down to zero - only on the shelve template there where new red entries. But then the shelve templates have no suggested book section. That's a QED for me.

--Krischik ^T 07:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

No strong objection

User:222.152.177.146 has just added a programming platform to the programming language bookshelf - and not the first time such an a false addition is made.

Which again proofes my point that anonymous bypassers should not be allowed to edit the bookshelves - they just haven't been here long enough to understand our bookshelves and how they work and what belongs where. And since there was no strong objection to my post I might just go ahead and semiprotect the bookshelves and there templates. Well I sleep over it first to be shure.

--Krischik ^T 11:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Protected page

... says nothing about the rules for semi protection. --Krischik ^T 11:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps because it was written before semi-protection was available. This is a relatively new thing for Wikimedia projects and has only been available for the last couple of updates of the MediaWiki software. I'm not exactly sure what sorts of things would have to be protected from unregistered users only, although it might be nice to put that sort of protection on voting pages, for instance. I recently re-applied move protection to this page (the Staff Lounge) due to the fact that it is very visible and because it has been moved by vandals in the past. No need to go into specifics, but it can be a pain to revert move changes. The developers have made it easier, however. --Rob Horning 05:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning up Category:Stubs

I'm about to go through most of the category and organise it into subcategories, but there isn't any policy or guideline for creating subcategories. So, I've started a discussion on the issue, and would appreciate feedback soon so I can get started on the cleanup. Xerol Oplan 00:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Cataloging Wikibooks

I've been going through fits and starts over just how to approach this topic of cataloging Wikibooks. I started Wikibooks:Card Catalog Office as a place to try and get some discussion about the topic, and to try and get some effort organized, but what I've done so far just doesn't seem to "feel" right and I'm not happy with the direction the various approaches to cataloging Wikibooks have gone.

Indeed, the best system that seems to be working out right now is the Bookshelf system, that seemed to get at least an initial boost because of its impact on the main page of Wikibooks. It is one way to try and organize the content, but it shouldn't necessarily be the only way.

This is an ontological discussion, as the number of Wikibooks is now bursting apart any initial attempt at trying to classify the content. My concern is that there is a huge amount of content on Wikibooks, and no real way to keep it all organized, with the current classification systems breaking down. If you look at the number of modules lately, the number is actually going down, not up. Some of this is due to an agressive deletion campaign that is going on to clean up some deadwood, but I'm also going to suggest that simply finding if some content exists takes a dedicated Wikibookian who really understands the structure of what is here.

Mind you, I'm not talking here about "featured content", which has been the topic of discussions as of late, but I'm talking even obscure modules. Some content is neglected or even duplicated due to the fact that nobody knows that it even exists.

Some approaches might include:

Organization by Category

Using a standard template to automatically add Wikibooks to a series of categories, depending on how the book is classified.

Manually Classification

Simply taking every Wikibook and adding it to a page, with manual organization. Note that this is the way that the All Wikibooks page is working at the moment and seems to work out just fine.

Automated Scripting (external)

Erik Zachte created a seperate script found here that classifies Wikibooks by size and following naming conventions of some sort. This was prior to WB:NP, but does surprisingly a pretty good job. The drawback is that you either have to have access to the raw database or wait for Erik to get around to updating these pages when he feels like it.

Automated Scripting (internal)

This could be done in theory, and if somebody who has a passion for Wikibooks also wants to get involved with the main Wikimedia development team, I supposed it could be done. The problem for both forms of scripting is that it is very hard for mere mortals to be able to make changes if it doesn't quite fit the needs of Wikibooks users.

Here are some goals that I also have in mind, before we consider where to go here as well.

• All new Wikibooks should be linked somehow into the classification system.
• Several different approaches to cataloging the books should occur. No one single cataloging system is really adequate, and besides, with hyperlinking you can have multiple cataloging approaches (portions of all approaches listed above can be done). Cataloging approaches should include alphabetical, by topic, and by classification code (aka Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress Catalog, perhaps other systems as well).
• A classification system should have ideally the ability to have related books "close to" each other, in a format similar to a public library. At least as easy to use as glancing down a (real physical) bookshelf for similar books to that topic. Multiple web pages breaks this analogy pretty hard. BTW, this was the original idea of a bookshelf here on Wikibooks.
• It should be expandable so content even outside of Wikibooks could be integrated into this cataloging system. My thought here is to add hyperlinks to other Wikimedia projects, primarily Wikisource, but it could also include Project Gutenberg or other free e-text repositories that would be of value to Wikibooks readers. Categories are hard to work into something like this.

I've been working specifically on the Library of Congress Classification system, and my approach was to do deep categories. I was thinking along the lines of ODP(Open Directory Project) here, but MediaWiki software doesn't seem to work very well for this type of classification method. The problem here is that deep categories seldom have more than a few Wikibooks in them, and seems to fracture the whole organization.

The approach followed by the folks who helped put together the Dewey Decimal set of pages seems to work a little better. It seriously needs to be cleaned up, but it is an approach to grouping books. An approach that could be done here is to simply list all of the Wikibooks on one single page. At some point in the future it would have to be broken up anyway (if it gets over 1 MB or raw text, for example).

I was also thinking something like this:

• 448 - French
• 449 - Catalan
• 458 - Italian
• 459 - Romanian

instead of having the full Dewey Decimal page with all of the sub-classification heading listed. Any other thoughts? --Rob Horning 06:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetical Listings on Wikibooks

Related to the above notion, I compiled a complete (more or less) list of all Wikibooks that is in the main project space. I am basing this list off of the statistical analysis that Erik Zachte did on Wikibooks last Decembers. Newer Wikibooks aren't in this list yet, but it is at least a place to start.

I'm going to ask that if you have a pet project and want it classified through the various Wikibook classification schemes, to please check through this list and see if it is listed here. I've uncovered a few orphaned Wikibooks by going through this process, and I had to fix some links as well. Erik's method culled out all of the Wikibooks that didn't have consistant naming systems (there are a few missing because of that) and any very short Wikibooks. By his admission that was content < 10K in length. Because of those restrictions, I think this is a very good representation of all of the content currently on Wikibooks at the moment, arranged by book title.

The next step I'll be doing after I do some rough verification of some of the content here is to proceed with the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems from this list of Wikibooks, slowly crawling from the "A"'s to the "Z"'s. I'll also try to put those books that aren't on bookshelfs where they perhaps ought to go as well.

I know I'm going to miss stuff in all of this, so any general assistance in this matter would be significantly appreciated. The goal here is to make Wikibooks much more usable simply by being able to find what you are looking for, and realizing that Wikibooks is going to double in size over the next year, provided the current trends toward new users and content continues. --Rob Horning 18:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

While I'm all for organising books in as many ways as possible, I see a potential problem with having lots of different shelving systems - in order to "keep up", new books would need to be shelved in several places, something which might be a little overwhelming to new users. Although there's a possible workaround to this: a subsection of the Card Catalog Office where new books can be placed pending shelving, and then a more experienced user could place it in the appropriate places.

I also feel that categories are being underused for organisation. A category listing has several advantages over some of the bookshelves right now: Automatically alphabetised, automatic "backlinks" (category links at the bottom), they can be added at the book level, rather than requiring that a link be added on a seperate page, and they can also easily be added to multiple categories.

That isn't to say using categories would be less work; the initial workload would be slightly larger due to the need to add categories to the front page of every book, but maintenance workload would be significantly less, and it would be a lot easier for new books to be added to the proper place(s) from the start. Just looking at Special:Lonelypages, the lack of shelving on creation is a bit of a problem; in just going through the "A" and "B" modules there, I found at least 10 books that were unshelved (and marked them with {{cleanup-link}}).

In any case, I do agree that there is significant room for improvement in organisation of books, and will try to help out whereever I can (it is, however, 5:30am right now, and I would like to get some sleep, so I won't exactly jump in right _now_). Xerol Oplan 10:28, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I see some problems with categories from several vantage points. One huge one is that content can't be added through transclusion to another page if it is merely listed within the category. Another is that you have no control over the formatting of the information inside of the catagory, as that is controlled entirely through the MediaWiki software instead. That could be modified in the future, but it is a significant limitation. I'm not saying that the developers need to make it a priority to allow customization, just that a tool like categories can't be a tool for all purposes in all places.

For strictly alphabetizing books that are within Wikibooks, I would agree that categories can be useful, and it is something is currently underutilized. A major motive I've had with trying to put together this list is that there is no current difinitive list of all Wikibooks anywhere. The MediaWiki software simply doesn't accomodate our needs as well as for what it was designed to do: writing an encyclopedia. Furthermore, naming conventions have been haphazard at best, so even trying to design an algorithm to extract the titles of all of the Wikibooks is still going to miss some. With WB:NP, I think this situation is going to improve significantly.

I'd also like to point out that a key component of this is also cataloging content on other Wikimedia projects as well, or at least debate that point. Wikisource in particular needs this sort of cataloging as much as we do here, and it would be nice to have a "one stop shopping" area that could help in identifying useful source material for other Wikimedia projects. BTW, I've mentioned this at the Scriptorium and the Wikisource people seem as receptive to the idea as could be reasonable.

Ideally, the ultimate solution would be to have the Wikidata proposed project set up a database for all Wikibooks allowing you to catalog each Wikibook with multiple cataloging systems and allowing you to use search terms to find the books through various means. There has been some amazing progress with that project, but it isn't quite ready for open participation yet, or at least integration into Wikimedia projects. --Rob Horning 13:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the alphabetical listing is much needed (if only to see exactly what we have!). The next stage is going through this list to identify more good books so we can give them more publicity. We shouldn't be afraid of relegating publicity for weaker books until they have improved.

I really think the Card Catalog Office denominations by LOC and Dewey are a waste of time (sorry, Rob, I know you've put a lot of work into them). To use them a reader (assuming they are not a librarian by profession) first has to look up what number covers the subject they are interested in, and then has to check what's listed under that subject. They are therefore less useful than the bookshelves - particularly as we are not trying to cover everything covered by Dewey and because we only have a small number of books. In this case they are poor mimics of the bookshelf system.

The category system also duplicates the bookshelves. But, offers a different way of finding information that may appeal to some. I therefore see no real problem with maintaining it. I do, however, think we can get away from putting all pages in the same book into one category - under the naming convention, the list of all pages in a book can easily be found by using the "Prefix Index" from the Special Pages, Jguk 16:41, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The next stage that I was going to do after I simply collected a list of all of the Wikibooks that are here (that is harder to do that I first realized!) is to go thorugh this alphabetical list and try to see if all of the book on the various bookshelves are listed in the alphabetical list (I still havn't done that) and to make sure all of the various wikibooks are listed on the various bookshelves. Adding them to a category at the same time would be trivial in comparion, so this is something perhaps worthwhile to set up a reasonable category structure. Wikibooks is seriously lacking in this regard as no serious thought has gone into the category structure on Wikibooks.

I was also thinking of perhaps setting up a special template for the name of each Wikibook that would be able to do something like load up the list of all pages for that book (aka Prefix index) list BOM winners, stages, or other information that would be useful for somebody trying to find some quick information about the book.

As far as the LOC and Dewey tables are concerned, it is very difficult to topically arrange content, as human knowledge can be expressed in multiple dimensions. Most of these cataloging schemes (including our Bookshelves) are largely expressed as a linear display of information, and it is very hard to say that one classification system is better than another. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Keep in mind that what I'm trying to accomplish here is to use the various classification systems to suggest that here is a Wikibook that you like, and to demonstrate a related book here are some others you can look at as well. Books that are physical closer on the classification pages are more related than books that are listed further away. This is precisely how libraries organize their book inventories, for the same reason. The Library of Congress has over a century of experience in doing this, and it would be a shame not to at least try and see what their motivations are for their classification system, especially if we are going to repeat those same mistakes with our own bookshelf model. Other major libraries have followed the lead of the Library of Congress, and are actively involved with discussions of classification systems.

The ultimate goal is to have somebody come to Wikibooks, have a topic in mind that they want to learn more about, and have a place to find where that content might be located at. On Wikipedia you can use the "search" tool and get the content rather effectively. Here on Wikibooks, it is a bit tougher to do that as the content here isn't quite organized as cleanly as it is on Wikipedia. I've already noticed a couple of real good-faith efforts to create content here on Wikibooks that largely duplicates content that already exists, including people doing a transwiki of content from other Wikimedia projects. Most of this is marked up for mergers into other Wikibooks, but we don't catch all of that often before substantial amounts of material are added. --Rob Horning 17:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

www.wikibooks.org

I have changed this portal, which users see when they look for www.wikibooks.org based on www.wikisource.org (though other Wikimedia projects such as www.wikipedia.org also have a similar format). I don't claim that the new version (now improved by others since it went live) is the last word (I'm sure it isn't), but it is much better than old version. Further suggestions are welcome either here (or if you are a sysop just make general improvements on Wikibooks portal itself - just bear in mind that this is the first thing people who go to www.wikibooks.org see), Jguk 20:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Nobody else has had any comments on this? Well, I like it. Good work. --JMRyan 19:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Depreciation of the "Programming:" psuedo namespace

A large number of Wikibooks have been named using the "Programming" psuedo namespace in their titles. I don't know where the notion to start this practice originally came from, but as has been pointed out these are often distinctively different books in many cases. Some arguements about this very topic have come up where some people suggest these are all in fact a part of a huge book called "Programming".

What I'm suggesting here is that we have a discussion if it is wise to discontinue the use of this naming convention altogether, and possibly rename most of the Wikibooks that start with this prefix. Very, very few naming conflicts exist with the book names not having the prefix, and otherwise it is just an advertisement of what bookshelf it is located on. Other books have a similar issue, but it is the computer programming books that seemed to have adopted this standard most often.

Is there anybody here that is active that even supports keeping the Programming psuedo namespace? It doesn't really fit with WB:NP, but that is mostly because the policy doesn't even cover this topic. --Rob Horning 17:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I vaguely seem to remember our having this conversation before and the decision being to dump the Programming psuedo namespace (but I don't have a reference for you). Indeed, a number of old Programming:Xyz books have been renamed. For example, Ada Programming used to be Programming:Ada. As for where it came from, I suspect it is an old practice that became depricated. However, I don't know if deprication really counts if someone as active as Rob can't remember it. :-) And besides, it may very well be my memory, not Rob's, that is faulty. I also suspect that these the Programing Xyz books were always conceived as separate books rather than belonging to one big Programming book. It seems to be an example of what was once considered the bookshelf naming policy, see this old version of WB:NP where Programming:Xyz books are cited as an example of that policy. At any rate, I suggest going to the individual Programming:Xyz books one by one and try to get a consensus for a name change, perhaps with the aid of tsca.bot. If noone responds after a respectful wait, than declare yourself a consensus and hire tsca.bot without further ado. --JMRyan 20:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I have the same memories- that the programming pseudo-namespace was an old deprecated convention, and that new books should not be using it. --Gabe Sechan 20:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

B:CVG

I dislike typing the full names of bookshelves, especially Wikibooks:Computer and video games bookshelf which is five words. So, I decided to create a shorcut B:CVG. The idea is to introduce a system like Wikibooks:Shortcuts for bookshelves.

Any comments? Should bookshelves have shortcuts? Is "B:" okay, or should I have used "WB:" like for other shortcuts? --Kernigh 23:54, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

"B:" looks fine, and using "WB:" could collide with other Wikibooks shortcuts. It's a good idea, and I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet. Xerol Oplan 00:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Do we have a "registry" of available shortcuts? I know I could do a special:prefixindex on it, but this would be a good page to put together that lists where everything goes. --Rob Horning 15:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Transwiki process is ridiculous

The transwiki process is way, way too complicated. Transwikiing an article from wikipedia to wikibooks, for example, involves creating a new article on wikibooks, copying the text of the old article into the new article, copying the history page of the old article into the discussion page of the new article, leaving tags on both articles and on the new discussion page saying what you've done, putting info into the summaries of the new article and talk page saying what you've done, adding a line on the wikibooks transwiki log, including links, explaining what you've done, and adding a line to the wikipedia transwiki log, including links, explaining what you've done.

This is, no doubt, why virtually no one ever does this. Go through the transwiki log, either on wikipedia or on wikibooks, and you'll see that almost every one of these in the last year and a half has been done by Uncle G's 'bot.

Uncle G and his bot haven't been around for weeks, leaving me trying to figure out how to get 90 articles transwikied to wikibooks. I have no intention of spending 10 hours going through this whole laborious process by hand, and am about to rebel against the whole process and just ignore the logs on both sides completely. So, now no one can say I didn't notify anyone of this. I'd have mentioned this on the transwiki talk pages, but no one reads those.

(I posted the above on one of the wikipedia village pump pages, I'll go into a little more detail here since you all may care more than they do, as you'll be the ones receiving the 90 new articles) The articles are all cocktail recipes, they make up about half the articles on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Move_to_Wikibooks They need to end up the in wikibooks bartending area. If someone wants to give me some advice on this, feel free, I'm trying to clean up a mess on wikipedia (recipes don't belong there at all) and am looking for the best way to do it. --Xyzzyplugh 06:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Before you start, may I ask what the 90 new articles are. It is unusual, to say the least, for a short article originally on WP to develop into a viable textbook here on WB. Whilst recipes (for the Cookbook), drinks (for Bartending) and How-tos (for the How-to bookshelf) can be pretty much standalone, other individual articles/pages tend not to be worth transwiki'ing.

On the other hand, the only real issue is to allow the history of an article (including in particular the names of the contributors) to be traced. Provided everything being transwiki'ed in goes to the pseudo-namespace, Transwiki:, under the name used in the old wiki, that the old location is identified in the summary and the transwiki page redirects to the new page, that is sufficient - and I wouldn't worry about the rest of the bureaucracy, Jguk 07:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

(Actually, I said this above, but...)they are all cocktail recipes, which would end up in the bartending area here. Click on the link I gave above, if you want to see them; of the 150 articles on that page, 90 or so of them are the ones I'm planning on moving. And, thanks for your response. --Xyzzyplugh 13:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

A fair number of those articles are duplicates/alternatives of existing articles. Also, be sure to liaise with User:Discordance, who is the main editor of the Bartending book. We're currently looking at how best to organise the cocktails, and the addition of 90 more needs to be organised carefully, Jguk 15:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but I've checked them all, and the duplicates all have substantially different content, meaning they could be merged or replace the current ones. I tried to make sure that if the wikipedia version was lower quality than the wikibooks one, I didn't bother transwikiing it.

And, another notification -I've begun transwikiing these articles. Wikibooks is not currently accepting articles which contain external links. There is a server which is supposed to send you the picture which you type the matching text in for, to prove you're a person and not a spambot. I'm assuming this server is down or so backed up it is non-functional. So I've begun deliberately breaking the external links by inserting spaces into them. Such is life.(fixed and cleaned up now) --Xyzzyplugh 15:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The real point of the transwiki is to do several things:

1. help copy over the content from one project to another. Sometimes things get left out by new users doing a transwiki, so it helps to make sure that everything has been moved over... including the page history from the previous project. This is omitted so often you wouldn't believe.
2. to notify administrators and other active members of the new project that new content has been added that has at least been partially reviwed for copyright clearance, but is being added by people who don't have a clue as to what the policies of the new project. Perhaps it is misplaced and needs to be moved elsewhere.
3. log that the move has been made and there isn't a variation of an "edit" war that is more a transwiki war where neither project really want the content. In theory we can (and should for many items) send stuff right back to Wikipedia with a note that it is completely inappropriate to have it on Wikibooks and it really belongs (from our perspective) on Wikipedia. If an article ping-pongs between the two projects, we can either delete it or even move it to Wikicities somewhere.
4. sometimes links and markup of content must occur where there are huge differences between the two projects, such as category naming systems, wikification (dewikification in the case of Wikibooks), and linking into any classification system (which is critical for both Wikibooks and Wikisource).
5. it is a way to keep cordial relationships between each of the various Wikimedia projects and not seem to be imposing policies on each other.
6. and most important: Allow a project to simply "accept" the content altogether before it is moved into the main project namespace.

Mind you, Transwiki policies are not Wikibooks policies but rather Wikimedia policies. Please refer to the process on Meta for more details. I've been a pain in the a&& on Wikipedia by changing the {{move to wikibooks}} template because I saw so much pure cruft that has been dumped on Wikibooks that I knew was from Wikipedia (I even found the deletion commons on Wikipedia). The users who put the content here totally bypassed the transwiki process and I couldn't stand it anymore. More to the point, I warned Wikipedia users in a very visible template that if you dump content on Wikibooks without going through the transwiki content, you might as well consider that you have just deleted it from all Wikimedia projects, and have caused grief and pain to Wikibooks administrators in the process... not a way to make yourself welcome here.

As far as moving 90 pages of content... I don't consider that to be that big of a deal, unless it is 90 pages of content that accumulate over a week and every week this happens again. If there is that much content on Wikipedia that new users are adding to warrent this sort of content volume, perhaps some policy changes need to happen on Wikipedia instead to allow the content (obviously many users think it belongs there) or some very clear new user pages to help mentor them to keep from creating this sort of content. --Rob Horning 15:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is perhaps a year's worth of cocktail recipes, so there shouldn't be any more coming soon. I have been/will be communicating with the people on the bartending book as to how best to handle these articles once they get there. And, I'd like to once again thank you all for responding. I can't get any responses on any of this on wikipedia at all. --Xyzzyplugh 16:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW, the reason why you are being blocked for external references is because you have a low edit count and that you have a new user account. This was a recently added feature to MediaWiki software that was to help stop some of the link spamming that has been going on for some time now. Any admins/recent changes patrol guys notice any difference lately on that? --Rob Horning 17:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I had to pass the "image test" for an external link on my recently-created de.wikibooks and en.wikinews user pages. However, other than that I forgot about it.

However, I have been reverting vandalism and test edits from this wiki, and none of my recent reversions was against WikiSpam. It is as if all of the spammers disappeared. --Kernigh 23:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

introductory course edit.

hello, i dont really know how who (if any) will read this or how the system of editing works but i have recently stumbled on wikiversity and saw a few probs in your school. firstly id like to say that this is the best idea and i love whats happening. i have been looking around wikipedia for weeks trying to improve my knolage in a few areas (spellings beyond hope) one of those being physics. i found that to go too quickly to subjects i desired to know about was in-practicle as they where complex and required much back reading, so started going through basics and improving my maths. you have created exactly the tool i and others will need, and that is great. howether, on aprouching your scool and being derected to high school physics (i doupt i need to go back this far but i thought id brush up) i was supprised to see that from the first paragraph the piece was badly written. im sorry to the auther but the grammer is awfull and the flow messy. im not suggesting that i could do better (indeed i touched my first edit button but pondered the legality of scrubbing whole sentances) but for me or another to take it in it needs clarity, i read the standard modle wiki the other day and it was clearer than the basic physics para 'the atom'. another problem i thoght of was the possibility of bad editing. perhaps this article started out clear and consice and was then edited by a, less clear person. i hope someone can take a look because if basic phisics isnt accessabe then the whole thing will fail. and i for one think wikipedia is genius, and the future. thankyou for your time. john f

sorry id like to ammend myself, some of 'high school physics' is fine. the atom needs drastic work. and electricity is great but it is insyncranus, its first sentance is already assumes knolage of ac dc etc. sorry, thanks john f