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Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2007/February

Comprehensive reorganization
There have been a number of fragmented conversations recently all aimed at reorganizing some important pages here on wikibooks, and hopefully to produce a more efficient system of discussion. I am going to summarize some of the important points here, and interweave them with some of my suggestions:
 * 1) There is a push to reorganize some of the "get help" pages into a single resource. Specifically, the WB:VIP and WB:AN pages, along with new sections for requesting other types of help and services from administrators and staff are going to be merged into a comprehensive new page. It has not been decided what the name of this new page will be.
 * 2) The staff lounge is far too long, and there is some sentiment that we should break it up into a number of subject-specific subpages. The staff lounge would become predominantly a wikipedia-style disambiguation page that will direct people to the appropriate venue. The general concensus is that there should not be too many subpages to the staff lounge, because that will only create more confusion.
 * 3) Some of the proposed subpages of the staff lounge are:
 * 4) *news (points to the bulletin board)
 * 5) *help (points to the new "get help" page, discussed in point 1)
 * 6) *announcements (points to a page where we can announce other discussions, such as important RfA votes, and policy votes)
 * 7) *basic help (points to a page where people can ask for general editing help)
 * 8) *subject help (points to the study help desk)
 * 9) *General discussion
 * 10) The staff lounge page can be kept as either the general discussion area, or a general noticeboard to post links to important discussions happening in the subpages.

While all of these points won't necessarily be implemented, there is some change coming to a number of pages here on wikibooks. I would like people to post their questions/comments about this project here. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that a reorganisation of the help sections would be a good idea, as specific help items can be dificult to find, especially for new users. I also believe that a reorganisation of the staff lounge may have the potential to be a good idea. Urbane User (Talk)   (Contributions)  19:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Don't even start talking about the help pages. That entire namespace is a complete mess. Let's ignore that for now, and focus on smaller projects, such as the complete reorganization of our entire discussion mechanism. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I really like how the Wikinews water cooler is set up. I think we should categorize similarly here.
 * Bulletin board (points to the bulletin board)
 * /Question and answer/ (a page where people can ask for general help)
 * /Policy discussion/ (a page where people can discuss changes to policy and guidelines)
 * /Miscellaneous discussion/ (a page where people can discuss anything that doesn't fit elsewhere)
 * /Technical discussion/ (a page where people can discuss technical issues and get help on technical issues.)
 * Ask a Wikibookian (points to the study help desk)
 * -- xixtas  talk 23:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Image Delinking
Several users on this project are busy dealing with our backlog of untagged images. Previously, we had been deleting images indiscriminately, a process that drew criticism. These image deletions, while appropriate under policy, have created another problem with books being filled with red links where images used to be. An effort is underway now to correct these red links, attempt to find suitable replacements, and contact the original uploaders for more detailed copyright information.

I would like to ask the community therefore, not to delete these red links, and instead report them to myself or User:Iamunknown as they are found. All help in this matter would be greatly appreciated. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably OR problem
Herbythyme and I were discussing the book ATALL, which appears to be an approach developed by the main author and added to by his students. On his website, he writes "I am currently focusing my research activities on what I call Autonomous Technology-Assisted Language Learning (ATALL). ATALL involves using and developing technology, in particular Internet media and communication tools, to enhance education in foreign-languages and cultures."

While it's a good, active book, it's probably something that should be transwikied to wikiversity because of the Original Research component of it (if I understand correctly, it's more or less describing the author's pedagogical approach, which is precisely what Wikiversity is designed to do).

I thought I would bring this up here rather than on VfD, but perhaps it belongs there? -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

wikibooks junior physics: the elements
I just discovered Wikibooks, and see that the section on physics needs a lot of filling in. For example, under the heading, "common non-metal elements", nothing exists! Right underneath, however, one common non-metal element, hydrogen, has an article already written under the heading "published articles." How can I have this entry appear under "common non-metal elements" without necessarily removing it from the other list, where someone may want to find it?

Also, how can I add new, obviously-needed, elements to the list(s) while still conforming to the rather nice format that already was used for other elements? Is there a template available for that? I have the ability to fill it in, but want it to appear in a consistent fashion.

Thanks. Thinkbridge Thinkbridge 01:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Most of those pages already exist, and there are links on the main page. All the elements have subpages of the form "Wikijunior The Elements/XXX". where XXX is the name of the element using title caps. You can add links to these pages in the non-metal elements part by using this format. Links that show up as blue lead to pages that already exist, and links that are red do not yet exist. Please let me know if you need anything. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Can I do a complete rewrite of a book not started by me?
Dear all,

I am a newbie and if this sounds stupid, kindly forgive me. I am working on the book on Principles of Finance. I wanted to know if I could do a major rewrite as right now the thing is not in proper shape and I would like to arrange it in an orderly fashion. Can any of the senior editors help me out with this. Also, wanted to know if I could create a table of contents of my own instead of the default one that is being displayed on the page right now??

Thanks in advance and sorry once again if I asked a stupid noob question.

--Venky 13:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Looks like the book isn't all that active, so I'd say go ahead and be bold! The Table of contents on that page is just for the headers... you can make it disappear, but you can't really re-order it unless you reorder the headers. Probably your best bet would be to start making chapters... you can make "red links" to the chapters from the main page by adding /CHAPTERNAME/ on the main page, then click on the red link and start writing. So far there is only an author's page and a to-do list as chapters. -- SB_Johnny | talk 14:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Holy shortcut batman! I had no idea you could replace the book name with a slash! I don't know how many times I've typed out the whole name of my book in the past ~17 months, but I'd bet it's close to 500.  Too bad I didn't know about this a long time ago!  Thanks SBJ! Jim Thomas 15:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * LoL... we really need to work up those help pages :).-- SB_Johnny | talk 16:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks a lot Johnny for the prompt reply. Really appreciate it a lot. Can you help me disable the default TOC that appears on the page, I would like to design my TOC. Thanks once again in advance.
 * -- Venky Msg Me 05:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Update - Johnny I have no removed the TOC from the page, thanks a lot for your help.
 * -- Venky Msg Me 06:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Subprojects, etc.
I realise we've been discussing wikiprojects a bit, but it seems to me a more specific kind of "project protocol" might be useful for getting the individual books organized. I've brought up pieces of this before, but I'm hoping we can re-address the topic a bit.

There is often talk about each book having it's "community", and it seems to me that some steps towards making that sort of thing "official" might be a wise idea, since the various books sometimes have radically different approaches to style, inclusion, and so on.

What might be good is if each of the larger projects has some easy to find features, such as:
 * A "policy" or "LMOS" page, which defines the scope and standards of the project
 * A "contributors" "community" or "authors" page where contributors sign in to be recognized (book-specific userboxes would be nice too!)
 * A "project" or "discussion" page where policies, to-do lists, and chapter deletion are discussed (the deletion of chapters from books with large, active communities probably doesn't belong on WB:VFD).
 * An "interproject communications" page, with boxes similar to sister project boxes that might be used from other books (or indeed other projects). Perhaps "book-specific welcome templates" could be added there as well for new contributors to a particular book.

The idea is to have a "standard notation" that will give any wikibookian who is aware of the standard some quick and easy access to these pages. For example, you could find if the book has specific policies by going to Bookname/Policy or Bookname/LMOS, find the contributors by going to Bookname/Contributors, ask questions about the book on Bookname/Discussion, and so on. This would perform a similar function that is provided by wikipedia's wikiprojects... essentially making it easier for new contributors to find their way around, and for other wikibookians to use when they need to know something. -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I would strongly support this, under the condition that we specify what happens if a book doesnt have these things you've pointed out. Many books hvae only one author, or no active authors, and these are not likely to develop a set of standardized policies or even an LMOS for future contributors or editors to follow. For instance, we cannot leave the VfD of individual chapters up to the book community if that book has no community to speak of. If we created a template with links to a "/Contributors" page, and a "/Projects" page (among others), and we automatically tagged all new books with this template, authors would be more likely to use them. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, I don't think this should be a requirement, but rather an option. A modified welcome template for those who start new books might be a good idea, but on the other hand if they don't get collaborators right away the /Project page in particular might emphasize a certain kind of loneliness that is inherent in the writing of wikibooks, and particularly discouraging to wikipedians who expect more input. It seems to me that some sort of combination of this and parts of what's on WB:RFC might ease the way... my hope is that we can find a way to both encourage new contributors while at the same time giving the established contributors of a book a way of relating their aspirations, lessons learned, etc. -- SB_Johnny | talk 22:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

As a new member of wikibooks I think this sounds like an excellent idea and one which I felt was missing when I first began to look at the different books. After all each book is a project in itself, so a project page makes a lot of sense. I wasn't sure about the policy of adding "non-book" subpages, would it be acceptable just to add a "/Projects" page to a given book? Would it make sense for each project page to have standard sections such as: what is in and out of scope for that book; A list of tasks needing attention on that book; a projetc log etc..? I'm sure we can come up with some others--AdRiley 19:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Appropriate to use Wikibook for Tech Manual?
I'm a member of the Experimental Aircraft Assocation. We build airplanes in our spare time. Would it be appropriate to use Wikibooks for creating a detailed "User Guide - Technical Manual" on how to use a specific manufacturer's Electronic Flight Instrumentation System (EFIS)?

The current manual isn't bad, but we have a Yahoo Group of about 600 members that use the EFIS system, and we would like to improve the existing technical manual in a collaborative manner. The company that makes the EFIS comes out with updates to the technical manual about once a year. The Yahoo group would like to create updates much more frequently (say once per month or quarter) and greatly improve the content.

We would have to obtain company approval to do this given the GNU licensing...but before we press the question...is writing a tech manual using WikiBooks appropriate? Or should I look for another collaborative writing environment?

Thanks for the great site!!! Sincerely, HplevyakHowardHplevyak

 * If it's under GFDL, it should be fine, but getting the company to agree to that might be difficult. -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

 * If the how-to tech manual turns more into a set of connected procedures that is not appropriate as a Wikibook textbook then please consider using www.wikiversity.org to host the GFDL'ed procedures and lessons. We are a pretty new project and could certainly use some expertise from craftsmen capable of building airplanes!  user mirwin @ wikiversity.

Covers for print version
I have created two templates: print version cover creates "cover" of a book when the book does not have a separate cover page. Second one, print version cover text, was designed to be used on separate cover pages, to add link to original book (required by GFDL) and "GFDL disclaimer". Detailed descriptions can be found on template pages, together with application examples.

How do you find these templates? Should GFDL disclaimer be more formal ("Copyright... Permission is granted... with no Invariant Sections..." etc.)? --Derbeth talk 23:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I wouldn't mind a little more info about the GFDL on there. I also wouldn't mind a little fancier of a design to the page. Yes, I know it needs to be suitable for print but I feel it could look a little better. However, I don't feel qualified in sprucing it up. -within focus 01:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks New Title Policy - Move to Adopt
I have made a motion to adopt the proposed Wikijunior New Title Policy. Please review it and comment. -- xixtas 17:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Can a section expand/collapse script be created?
Dear all, I was wondering if a section expand/collapse script be created on the lines of the expand/collapse script at the category template page. This would help as the reader does not have to scroll too much.

Thanks in advance

-- Venky Msg Me 07:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I might not have fully understood what you need but it sounds like you need a drop-down box control. See Template:Dropimage, or Template:Droplist within WikiBooks. 81.131.67.219 (talk) 11:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio template bug
G'day, a template wizard is needed to take a look at the copyvio template, which doesn't account for talk pages outside the Talk: namespace; see Cookbook:Khagina for an example. Webaware talk 12:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I fixed it. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 13:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ta, I have a feeling I'll be using it again in Cookbook. Webaware talk 13:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

how it works
it will be great to know how wikimedia works

 * Whih part of it, how to use the wikimedia, or how it actually runs? Urbane User   (Talk)   (Contributions)  11:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia & Wikibooks
Exactly what is the difference between Wikipedia and Wikibooks? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.116.6.73 (talk • contribs) 21:09, 11 Feb 2007 (UTC)

 * The goal of Wikipedia is to create a digital free-content encyclopedia. The goal of Wikibooks is to create digital free-content textbooks and other narrative-style educational material. --Iamunknown 21:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Missing TOC
I'm working on ERP Internals. In some sections, == title == commands produce a TOC as expected. In others, they don't. I can't see any difference between the code in the different spots. I would appreciate any help. AlanClifford 17:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I haven't looked at the book specifically, but there is a command that can be used to suppress the Table of Contents. Is that perhaps the culprit? If not, you might put up a link to a page that is not working as you expect. --xixtas 18:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the quick response. I haven't used the _NOTOC_ command.  ERP Internals/Modules/Accounts Payable works as expected.  ERP Internals/Modules/Bank Reconciliation doesn't. AlanClifford 22:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * ERP Internals/Modules/Bank Reconciliation is too short to have a TOC automatically. If you want to force one, add to the page (NB: two underscores + FORCETOC + two underscores). See: Help:Magic words. Webaware talk 23:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * For a page to automatically generate a TOC, it must have at least 4 subheadings. If your page does not have that many, you can either use the keyword as User:Xixtas pointed out already, or you can try and subdivide some of your existing headers into subsections. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks to both of you AlanClifford 00:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Main Page
Is it just me or does the main page of Wikibooks looks awful? Until you scroll down all you can see are rows of boring text and not even a single image outside of the sidebar. I rarely visit the main page as I usually head straight for the RC list but most new users see that depressing main page on their first visit. I certainly wouldn't stay around if that's what greeted me. Anyone else have an opinion about how the current main page looks? I just think we need to remove the first few tables of 'hot picks' and stuff like that. Xania talk 01:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * This issue comes up about every six months or so... and for a good reason. This is the "main face" of Wikibooks and is the best way to introduce this project.

 * One of the issues that has come up is the elimination of the "Book of the Month" and "Collaboration of the Month" in January, because it was felt that a general cleanup of Wikibooks needed instead of pushing for any specific Wikibook. I believe this to be a failure, so far as it has made the main page very empty and nothing was put into its place.  So unless there is a serious objection, I would like to reinstitute those two "features" of Wikibook for March.  If they are not restarted, I would like to have something very significant that would take their place that would also feature a significantly completed Wikibook or something that certainly is "the best of Wikibooks" that would rotate every month.... in essence, a Wikibook of the Month.  I also don't think it should be arbitrarily decided by the admins or a special committee, but by the rank and file Wikibookians.

 * The main point of the Collaboration of the Month was to pick one particular Wikibook that could become a featured Wikibook, but at the same time needed a serious infusion of support and effort. I don't think this need has passed either, and the real question again is how is this Wikibook selected?  For this particular Wikibooks feature, I think it was abused and turned into mainly a P.R. campaign by the group developing that particular Wikibook which became featured.  At the same time, if competing Wikibooks try to get the same coverage, what seems to be the problem here?

 * de.wikibooks has a feature we don't have which is, roughly translated, a "finalization of the month", where a significant Wikibook that is near ready for publication has requested a formal editorial review. This is essentially like the Wikipedia A-Class review, but is done on one Wikibook per month.

 * We have also in the past had a statistical summary for "growing Wikibooks" and other interesting statistics. I know that these features can be "gamed", but it might also encourage the primary activity here of actually developing content, which is something we need to refocus here on Wikibooks.  A statistical graph showing current growth of Wikibooks is also something that could add some extra splash and pizzaz to the main page.  Raw information about Wikibooks (the full text of all en.wikibooks content) can be downloaded here, and there are some tables that don't require the full db download in order to be useful and allow comparisons between various Wikibooks.  The full en.wikibooks data dump (minus images) is 86 MB, for those who want to be adventurous and try to plow through that much data.

 * The point to all of this is that there are things that can be legitimately added to the main page that either have been there in the past or have been done by other Wikibooks projects in other languages... and have enhanced the appearance overall of this project. I agree that this is something that needs to be worked on.  --Rob Horning 16:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to see the return of the Book of the Month and Collaboration (although I agree that Collaboration seems to be just another book of the month in practice). If we can't agree to return these features then we should at least move the Categories panel (Natural Sciences, Computing, Social Sciences, Humanities, Miscellaneous and Special Groups) to the top of the main page as this is more appealing visually and less cluttered. I also like the idea of 'Finalization of the month' and this could also be an added feature in Wikijunior and the Cookbook. Also maybe we could have a Cookbook feature on the main page because Cookbook pages tend to have nice bright images, somewhat which is much needed on our main page. Any comments? Xania talk 17:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I think having "featured books", "collaboration of the month", etc. on the main page is a bit silly... almost all of the material here is "not ready for the presses", but it is a good start. IMHO, the main page should be aimed towards inviting people to contribute, rather than inviting institutions to "keep us in mind, because some day we'll have some good textbooks for you." I would even go so far as to suggest that "completed books" don't need listing on the main page at all, except perhaps at the bottom of the page.

 * I think we need to be realistic about this: it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to write textbooks... Wikipedia is essentially a single (many volumed if it were paper) reference book which has tens of thousands of contributors and yet is still not completed after several years of hard work. Wiktionary likewise. Wikibooks is responsible for writing all the other non-fiction books in the library... if your mental image is anything like mine, I've made my point.

 * We also need to be hopeful about this: given a decade or two, someone might be able to go to college (or high school, etc.) and see that GFDL license on the back pages of most of their textbooks, and be a few bucks less into debt because we (you and me, the Wikibookians) have come up with the world's best textbooks.

 * What we need now are contributors, and the Main Page should be directed at them. -- SB_Johnny | talk 00:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The main page does need work, but that's only because it's been so neglected of late. User:Hagindaz had done a large amount of work on that page before he became inactive. Before we can make any gigantic changes to that page, we as a community need to decide precisely what we want to appear there.
 * Should we be focused more on readers or contributors? Considering our dearth of "really good" material, I agree with Johnny that we should probably be catering to the latter for now.
 * What books do we want to advertise, and how do we want to advertise, and how exactly do we want to advertise them? Do we want a "Book of the Month", or a "book of the Week", or a "Book of the day"? Who is going to take charge of the advertisment on the main page?
 * How do we pick books to advertise in this way? Do we pick books that are "good enough to publish", or books that are "generally good books", or do we pick books that are good "collaboration projects"? Who decides on the criteria, and who decides what books meet the criteria?
 * I've put forth the idea of a wikiproject for doing these things at Good books, but this idea was met with some resistance and criticism. The BOTM and COTM were unabashed failures, that didnt help to increase interest, or contributorship, or readership. The COTM books didn't get any boost from new contributors, and the BOTM books were chosen so arbitrarily that they often weren't great examples of what we do have here.
 * What we need is for the community to decide some of these questions, and it's my experiance that people tend to either avoid this issue, or get tied up in endless bickering about the specifics. I'm willing to take some initiative and make these changes by my lonesome, but not at the expense of the endless criticism that inevitably follows. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Any book requires both good contributors and good readership. Without the former, there's nothing much to read, whereas without the latter, there's little point in writing it.
 * With the way that Google works currently, I imagine that readership wouldn't really be that much of a problem - the Wiki projects are well represented in search engines, often appearing in the first few links on the first page of a related search. What we don't have enough of is good contributors.
 * Thus, I would argue that the Main page should be focussed towards encouraging people to contribute, first and foremost, for now at least. "Build it and they will come", as they say - so let's get on with building it! Webaware talk 01:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

After changes the main page is very unfunctional. We should advertise ourselves by showing the best we have. Instead, we give just a list of categories. This is not the way. We have to convince visitors that there's something finished, worth reading on Wikibooks. Look at the main page on Wikipedia: the list of categories is very small, most content is "self-advertising": fragments of good articles.

List of books near completition is essential on main page. We need it to boost Google PageRank of our books, to encourage visitors to try out some good books. Currently the main page is too spartan. There is even not enough content to make main page as long as list of interwikis on the left. --Derbeth talk 21:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki
Hi, I've requested a transwiki move for a Wikipedia article but I'm not sure I've put it in the right place. I placed it on Requests for Import but now I've discovered Transwiki log and the related page Pages to be transwikied which seems to have a different list. Which is the correct one? Kijog 11:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

 * You listed it in the right place, just no-one saw it :). Unfortunately there were too many edits on the wikipedia side for the import tool to handle though... the best I could get was all edits up to June, 2006. If you like, you can just copy from there and leave a note on the talk page about the copying (include a link to the current diff). -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This book, IMHO, would be improved by adding a Categories section to the title page for (among others?):
 * Appetizers
 * Canapes
 * Tapas
 * Breakfast
 * Lunch
 * Entres
 * Deserts

Authors may then categorize entries with appropriate (multiple) tags that will get their entries listed for the category.

Also a User Rating box, along the lines of Amazon's for books, say a 1 to0 5 scale, that dispalys a running average of what others think of the recipe, presumably having tried it. I don't know how to impelement this; but some Admin may do that for us. Yes? Frankatca 19:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

 * G'day Frankatca, sounds like you are talking Cookbook recipes here. I like the sound of the user ratings page, perhaps we can discuss it further on the Cookbook general talk page. I'll go add a topic there to kick it off.
 * Also, you might be interested in checking out the links at the bottom of the Cookbook:Table of Contents – might help answer some questions you may have. cheers, Webaware talk 07:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

How to find out if the image is copyrighted or not?
Dear all, How do I find out the copyright status for images I wish to use for my book. Kindly advise on the same. Is there a way to identify it? Thanks in advance.

-- Venky Msg Me 06:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Current international copyright law says all images are copyrighted by default. If there is no explicit statement of releasing an image into public domain or licencing it under a free license, there is no way to use it. One exception is a narrow scope of fair use we have on Wikibooks. Old images become public domain 70 years after death of their author. --Derbeth talk 09:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks Derbeth for your response. I will now not try to use any images unless I know whether it is covered under Fair Use guidelines or not.
 * -- Venky Msg Me 17:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Surfer Comment
Was just researching rape, this page needs some serious work fast. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.25.117.25 (talk • contribs).

 * Be bold. Help us fix it. -- xixtas 17:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I've been looking at this page, and I'm going to do some work on the page he was talking about, because it's just a stub at the moment. I'm not exactly an expert in this subject though, so we will see what I can come up with. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

 * In this case it might be a good approach to transwiki rape and prune it back to fit the needs of the book. --xixtas 03:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I was planning on harvesting wikipedia pages, and possibly see what other information I can gather from around the internet. The hardest part is figuring out what information to include, what not to include, and how to word everything so that it fits in with the theme of the rest of the book. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 04:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this a Wikibook?
Hi. I've been putting together a wiki-version of an academic art book called New Media Art, by Mark Tribe. Tribe teaches an entire course based on the book at Brown University, and I know it is used in classes at other institutions. I started to put it up on wikibooks, since that seemed to be where it fit best (rather than wikipedia or wikiversity). You can see the content so far at: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/New_Media_Art. I was soon warned by two editors that it was not appropriate content -- that it was encyclopedic/macropedic and thus not a "textbook." Though the content of the book is structured in an encyclopedic way (a series of sections, each on a particular artist or artist group), it can still be considered an art historical text. The introduction, for instance, gives a broad overview of the New Media art tradition and ties together the artists discussed in the rest of the book. I've already been told that the content I've put up so far will probably be deleted. Where does this book belong, if not in wikibooks?

Your help is greatly appreciated! I'm new to the whole wiki communication thing, but I think you can leave me a comment on my "talk" page: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User_talk:Lblissett

Thanks again. Lblissett 20:49, 8 February 2007 (UTC)Lblissett

 * The "not a macropedia" guideline was created to help distance our project from our more popular older sister, wikipedia. The idea behind the guideline is that a book should not just contain information, but it should also teach that information to a specific target audience. This book is still young, and you are a new contributor, and I think it is unlikely that any new user would understand these little difference from the start.
 * The fact that this book currently resembles a macropedia does not mean that it will always remain so, and If you were willing to work to fix the formatting (under no particular timeline), then I am inclined to say that you and your book should stay here. I will even be willing to help you out, if this is your intention.
 * By the way, how closely is your book related to Mark Tribe's book? You can't just copy+paste information from a copyrighted book to this website, unless you have his express permission. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 21:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for offering your assistance. After more thought, we've decided to put the book elsewhere.

Monitoring Wikijunior
Today (Fri, 9 Feb 2007), I scanned the Wikijunior page, and, under "current titles" read the list copied below. It, and the introductory paragraph (copied at the very bottom), are clearly cases of vandalism, but I see no way of deleting this stuff myself -- that page seems not to be editable, or perhaps I'm too unfamiliar with the protocol to find out how to edit it. I hope someone who knows how will rectify it soon!

 * -- Offensive content removed, no need to keep perpetuating it here.

Welcome to Wikijunior The aim of this project is to produce a series of full-color booklets for children aged 8 to 11. The subjects will be appealing to kids, and the writing will be light and friendly. These booklets will be richly illustrated with pornographic photographs, diagrams, sketches, and original drawings. The texts will also follow a format, so that each booklet, while different, will also have certain common features. --P
 * I fixed that page and blocked the user who vandalized it. -- Thanks for the heads up.--Az1568(Talk) 22:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I know this would be sort of a pain in the neck, but maybe we should protect the WJ main page to "sysop only"? This would mean that the admins would have to be quick about responding to recommendations on the talk page, but might be worth it: I would be really pissed off if I were surfing Wikijunior with my daughter on my lap and found offensive text (let alone images!) on that page! -- SB_Johnny | talk 23:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I would fully support protecting the main and main Wikijunior pages with cascading protection sysop-only edit and move. --Iamunknown 23:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Eek, yeah, cascading protection would be wise in this case, the problem is that I don't fully understand how it works. Some of those images might be on commons too (I could in theory protect them on commons, but I don't think protecting on commons just because it's used on wikijunior would go over well). -- SB_Johnny | talk 00:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

 * True. We could upload them to new file names, protect those, and then delete them when they are off the page. --Iamunknown 00:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

 * You know, if it was anyone else suggesting that my response would be "OK, and who's gonna keep track of this?"... sound good to me as long as we have people like you watching the shop, but that of course depends on us having people like you around watching the shop. OTOH, having orphaned and protected image files sitting around wouldn't be any hinderance to anyone, so why not? As long as the WJ people think it's a workable solution, I think we should just go ahead with it. -- SB_Johnny | talk 00:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I know of few administrators who are very active at Wikijunior. I think that the current level of protection is good enough. Perhaps it could be protected against users with few edits, or whose accounts were too recently created? --xixtas 04:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

 * If it would stop the kind if vandalism listed above in a project for younger people, i, as a wikijunior editor, would welcome full protetion for the main wikijunior page. Urbane User  (Talk)   (Contributions)  08:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

<--- Reset Tabs

Speaking as the only person who has made any substantial content edits to the front page of Wikijunior since August of 2006. I don't think that making it so the only person who maintains this page can't do it anymore is a good idea. --xixtas 14:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I should point out Xixtras, that I have been monitoring the main Wikijunior page, and have not had a reason to question what you've done there... and I've been caught up with other details, so I felt it was in good hands. Thanks for the work you've done here on Wikijunior, and it is generally appreciated by the community even if it isn't always acknowledged.  It is little things like this that actually make this project so much better than what it would be without people like you trying to help out.  --Rob Horning 00:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's good to know. I didn't really think that nobody was noticing when I made changes. Just that nobody else seemed to be jumping in and actually doing them. --xixtas 05:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to allow a select group of individuals to edit a page, not necesarily admins or sysops, but orinary users who have the bility to edit certan protected pages? Urbane User  (Talk)   (Contributions)  15:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There was a discussion on Wikipedia to set up a group of users that would fall somewhere between "administrator" and "registered user". I was actually quite supportive of the idea, as I believe the full admin powers are perhaps a little to overwhelming and perhaps powerful for those overzealous new users who are just starting out.  The main feature to be given to this group was the ability to do the quick reverts when doing a recent changes review (or looking at your watch list) as an attempt to help fight against vandalism.  Adding a level to page protection could be viewed in similar light, where people who are generally trusted could do edits on semi-protected pages but wouldn't have to deal with the hassels of doing all of the duties of being an administrator.  Unfortunately (from my viewpoint), the proposal was defeated on Wikipedia.  We do have the ability to semi-protect pages so that only registered users with more than a certain number of edits and has been around for more than a few days would be allowed to edit a page.  This keeps the typical vandal (generally they create the account, do the damage on the same day immediately, then throw the account away) from being able to do too much damage, but allows serious user the ability to edit.  We have had some complaints about this when done on voting pages, but I havn't seen too many problems when this is done elsewhere.  Semi-protection, however, seems to be flaky in terms of what is actually protected by the software.  --Rob Horning 00:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the page is already semi-protected as you describe. It seems that this vandal created the account, came back 4 days later and vandalized the Wikijunior front page. A very unusual situation to be sure. It was reverted quickly despite having some of our most dedicated vandal fighters on wikibreak. If vandalism on Wikijunior becomes a real problem in the future I may change my mind, and that might in turn push me into trying to become an admin, but I wish that everything could just be peace love and baby ducks instead. --xixtas 05:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a few points to make that seem pertinent to this discussion:
 * Protecting an image does not prevent a new image from being uploaded to that page. If we protect an image used on WJ, it can still be overwritten by a new upload.
 * Besides the images, I would say that that wikijunior main page is sufficiently "high traffic" as to warrant some sort of protection. I would be inclined to say that only sysops should edit that page (because there currently is no middlground between registered users and sysops).
 * If User:Xixtas is the key contributor to the WJ page, I would be inclined to say that he should become an admin. This would serve the dual purpose of making the main page more protected against vandalism, and giving a trusted user of this community some recognition.
 * In fact, if nobody else makes the nomination, I will likely do it myself soon. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair Use
I ask all wikibookians to take a look at this link: The WMF has decided to not allow Fair Use materials on the projects, something that Wikibooks traditionally allowed here. This link is an unofficial announcement, but it has claimed the WMF will make an official declaration about it in the future.

With that in mind, I have altered the text of both Copyright and Fair use policy to reflect this stance. While the wording of my changes may certainly be open to debate, I think it would be a very bad move for this project to try and oppose the WMF on this issue. Once we get the wording right, I think we should make the Fair use policy an official policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I've also made the necessary changes to the proposal at Image use policy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Wait. This message from Kat Walsh does not forbid fair use from what I understand. Kat only writes that no project should use "licenses other than those allowed on Wikimedia Commons and limited fair use" - so there should be no transitional licenses, like Noncommercial or No-Derivs. I think you overinterpret the message. --Derbeth talk 10:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I share Derbeth's sentiments; Kat Walsh is not expressly forbiding fair use, just severely limiting it. Also, I think you may be jumping the gun: remember, "A formal declaration in the form of a Board resolution has not yet been made and will be forthcoming." While I definitely support limited fair use, I think that we should not forbid it in its entirety. --Iamunknown 17:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I Posted this on the mailing list but for community's sake I'll post it here too. Now that I've thought about it, and read the letter again, I think that the WMF IS saying that fair use should be limited a lot more, but they didn't say that all fair use could go (indeed, they explicitly said that if there was no possible alternative to fair use, then it would be better to use it). That said, I do think a tightening is in order, and I would propose that we should either have some specific categories in which fair use could possibly be allowed (such as perhaps screenshots and logos as someone mentioned on the fair use policy talk) or judge the images on a case-by-case basis. Of course the latter would not be too practical if we had a lot of requests, but the purpose would be to limit the number of requests so that people are willing to seek other options, such as a free alternative or corporate permissions, or such things as that. I also propose that we have a more formal way to recognize the current copyright owner for those fair use images that ARE used, since by law one's sources have to be cited regardless to avoid plagiarism and other nasty stuff, unless it is common knowledge, and the fair use images probably can't be considered common knowledge since by definition they are copyrighted by someone. Mattb112885 18:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I disagree with both User:Derbeth and User:Iamunknown. I find these quotes from that message particularly illustrative:
 * The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to develop educational content under a free content license or in the public domain. For content to be "free content", it must have no significant legal restriction on people's freedom to use, redistribute, or modify the content for any purpose.
 * ...all media we allow on our projects must be free for all users and all purposes, including non-Wikimedia use, commercial use, and derivative works.
 * ...all media on Wikimedia sites which are used under terms that specify non-commercial use only, no-derivatives only, or permission for Wikimedia only, need to be be phased out..
 * It is important to remember here that fair use is "no-derivatives", and is not usable for "all purposes", two things that Kat expressly says are not acceptable. The two exceptions that are listed are "historically important photographs and significant modern artworks", a category of images that is small, and can be dealt with individually. Kat also says
 * ...no project may have content policies less restrictive, or that allow licenses other than those allowed on Wikimedia Commons and limited fair use.
 * This says to me that we at least need to impose the limitations that are being described here, with the possible exception of historical photographs and modern artworks. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that you misunderstand the message. Kat says: "Some works that are under licenses we do not accept (such as non-derivative) may meet these [fair use - Derbeth] conditions." Kat does not disallow fair use: she mentions "limited fair use" as an acceptable license for images.

Whiteknight, I'm not sure if you are familiar with image copyright issues. Some time ago, English Wikipedia accepted images which terms of use disallowed commercial use or making derivative works; these "Noncommercial" and "Non-Derivative" terms apply mostly to Creative Commons licenses, which have NC and ND variants. After message from Jimbo all these images were either removed or their license was changed to "fair use". I think that Kat's message is an enforcement of similar policy on all Wikimedia Projects. Works of "noncommercial use" and "no-derivative works" are not equivalent to "fair use". "Fair use" is a "backdoor"; with NC or ND works you can legally use them (copy, sell, etc.) as long as you follow their license having NC or ND clauses. Please read about variants of Creative Commons licenses if you already haven't done it.

From what I understand, Kat is saying that there should not be any "half-free" works: either the image is fully-free (no NC, ND clauses in license) or it has to be a subject to fair use. The motivation is to make authors of NC and ND works to license them under fully free licenses.

To sum up, you should not change important, project-wide, enforced policies (Fair use policy, Image use policy, Copyrights) without asking anyone for opinion. There was no clear "Foundation does not allow fair use on any project and wants all of fair use media to be deleted"; Kat wrote: "A formal declaration in the form of a Board resolution has not yet been made and will be forthcoming". You have no right to make such changes without explicit order from the Foundation. I expect you to revert all your changes to project policies. --Derbeth talk 21:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * My changes to the Copyrights page were premature, I admit that and I apologize for my haste. The Image use policy and Fair use policy page are both just proposals, and I don't feel that I need any special permission to alter the text of those pages. Both of those proposals are old and have never been accepted, making me wonder how much the community wants them to remain unchanged. I wont make any further changes to these pages until after the WMF makes an official statement on the matter.
 * I don't feel that my understanding of Kat's message is a "misinterpretation". Many people here are reading that message with a bias towards keeping Fair Use images, and people are trying to find a means to that end in the text of the message. Everything in that message says to me that the WMF wants to ban fair use images, barring a very limited set of exceptions. We all need to prepare for the WMF's final word on this matter, and I am urging people to prepare for the "worst". --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Changes to main page
Nearly_complete has a list of most of the books that are fairly substantial. If we were a commercial site we would have a listing of this type as the main page. Should our main page look like this test version with a booklist incorporated? RobinH

Here are some examples of commercial ebook sites:

http://www.ebooks.com/

http://www.free-ebooks.net/

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.ebookimpressions.com/

Wikipedia was based on the layout of existing encyclopedias. Wikibooks has copied this layout to some extent but Wikibooks is not Wikipedia. At Wikibooks we need to advertise our books, up front, to give people a good read straight away. Most people are coming to Wikibooks to read, not to write.

I would like to propose that the main page is changed into a classic ebook front page with a book list, images of front covers and brief descriptions of books. The Spanish Wikibooks has already opted for this type of layout but, unlike Spanish Wikibooks we can populate our main page with virtually complete textbooks (Although their guide to Seville Cathedral is interesting). RobinH 12:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I can't remember where I heard the statistic, but apparently over 90% of traffic to WMF sites is composed of readers, not writers. With that in mind, I think that more people are going to appreciate wikibooks, and hopefully join our project if they see some inspiring examples of good books right on the front page. I agree with this effort 100%, and besides a few minor changes, I like this new page, and I like the idea of transcluding it into our main page.
 * I've started working on a set of criteria at Good books. Ignoring the fact that this page is a "Wikiproject", I would like everybody to take a look at these criteria and make sure they are acceptable by the community. If we dont want this to be a wikiproject, then we should likely turn the criteria into a policy or guideline. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I definitely think that the main page needs to approcahed from a PR perspective, to draw in readers. If necessary a link could be put on the main oage to a secondary main oage for editors. If the main page was designed with the reader in mind, i think that wikibooks would definitely get more traffic and consequently more editors. Urbane User   (Talk)   (Contributions)

I also think that a list of "good books" should be an essential part of Wikibooks main page. As I have written in another thread, current main page is very poor from PR point of view; it does not offer anything to a random visitor. --Derbeth talk 01:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * It's a big improvement over the previous version of that page, but you are right that we still need more content on it to catch the attention of visitors. I say we transclude the book list onto the main page, and maybe add additional links to books later. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I see that the book list has been hidden again. Is there really a problem with displaying the full list (about 50 items when complete)? RobinH 11:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Common resources for language learning
Hello. I am active on fr.Wikibooks where I am working on a book see here. I think that some work may be shared between different courses on the same wikibooks and on courses on different wikibooks. For example, I made several galleries with pictures from Commons to learn vocabulary. See for Vocabulary on transport. I think that such galleries may be used for learning Spanish, Japanese, etc on all Wikibooks. I am not very familiar with Wikibooks in English. Could you suggest me a good place to start importing these galleries on this site?. Regards.--Oualmakran Youssef 12:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for your message. I like your idea and think that different Wikibooks should work together more. With regard to sharing language resources - this is a great idea. I've done some work on the English and Polish books and having such a vocabulary list readily available would be useful for other language books on Wikibooks English and of course for other Wikibooks also. I may have to steal your example given and then I'll make some other vocabulary galleries myself... Xania talk 20:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Reports
Well i have a question, obviously wikibooks is meant to have books posted in it, but can reports be posted as well? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.217.206.24 (talk • contribs).

 * Class assignments, you mean? It would depend on whether you want to include it in a book or use it as the start of a book, since our goal is to create textbooks. What topic are you thinking about? -- SB_Johnny | talk 02:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Well i am working on a report on softwarepiracy and i think that the information of my report could be useful for others and am woundering if thats something that could be posted to wikibooks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.217.206.24 (talk • contribs) 03:12, 18 Feb 2007  (UTC)

 * Well, there is a book called The Computer Revolution that addresses that in some chapters, I think the book was actually a class project at some point, but not sure what the status is now. Perhaps you could include it in that book? -- SB_Johnny | talk 03:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

 * In general, Wikibooks is for the creation of Textbooks, for the full explanation of that subject, see WB:WIW (it's very long). If you have a paper or a report of your own that you would like to post here, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
 * Is it acceptable material as a "textbook"?
 * Can it fit into an existing book?
 * Could it be modified to become a stand-alone book?
 * If the answer to all these questions is "no", you might do better to upload your report to academai wikia, or even wikiversity, depending on the policies of those sites. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:30, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Create subpage for arbitration discussion
I would like to propose that all discussion on staff lounge related to arbitration, dispute resolution, and the current dispute be moved to a subpage titled Staff lounge/Arbitration. This would help to make both workplaces more productive, IMO. The conversations I would propose to move are:

 * Wikibooks:Resolving disputes
 * Arbitration Policy
 * Taming the elephant in the room...
 * Wikibooks:Editorial board
 * Arbitration, my role, and the Wikibooks "community"
 * My thoughts on Arbitration Committee proposal

Individuals have argued that some of these discussions should not be in the staff lounge at all. I think moving them to their own temporary workspace makes sense. -- xixtas  talk 16:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * -- There are other issues we need to work through, but the page is dominated by one issue as it is now. -- SB_Johnny | talk 16:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * . be bold and just do it, but make sure to include appropriate links from the old discussions to the new locations. I still want to go forward with the plan (some weeks ago) to partition staff lounge into a number of sub rooms, but I haven't had the time to do it just yet. Maybe I will have time tonight or tomorrow for such an undertaking. Of course, perhaps it would be prudent to get everybody's permission again. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I was bold and went ahead and moved it. I hope the addition of an Arbitration link near the top of this page is noticeable enough. --dark lama  17:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Search in Help
How to search in help easily,so that i can find the help regarding the topic i want. 203.197.43.34 16:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

 * You'll need to make an account, then modify the "search" part of "my preferences". -- SB_Johnny | talk 16:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Sub Discussion rooms
I want to re-raise this issue now, in light of the previous discussion. Are people here still interested in breaking the staff lounge into smaller discussion rooms? I envision a small number of "standing rooms" for discussion, such as an administrators room (to replace WB:AN, and possibly other rooms), and a general discussion room. Other rooms could be created for the discussion of particular topics, as needed. This main page could likely contain links to the sub rooms, and links to the archival pages. There previously was support for this, and then we all got side-tracked. If people are still interested in this, I have time to work on it this week. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * - I don't even know if we're using the green things here or not, but I'll be trendy and give a support vote. I'd like for WB:AN to be removed and somewhat hybridized into having items for admins in several other pages. I think we need to define a hierarchy here of how things will work. We will use WB:RFC to handle user issues (and I think we should split that page up too) and then split up the AN functions into several pages as well. I don't think this should be under WB:SL, but under a new Wikibooks namespace page elsewhere. -within focus 18:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * WB:AN, and WB:VIP should likely be merged into a single room, that would be easier for an admin to monitor. Whether this new administrators room is here in the stafflounge hierarchy or not is not really an issue of concern (we can move it wherever we need). I think we could have several pages here: (1) General Discussion, (2) Administrator Discussion, (3) Technical Help, (4) Subject/Project Help. At the very least, if we have the administrator page somehwere else, we could post a link from here to there. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * - particularly things like arbitration discussions and similar slanging matches really should not be paraded here for all to see (a likely source of discouragement for new contributors). If people want to know about them, they can wander into those sub-pages. Kind-of like "take it outside, fellas". However, I think that the main Staff lounge page should still be used for General discussion, Technical help and at least the requests for Project/Subject help. I for one have learnt a lot from reading this page (particularly, "never become an Admin" :-) Webaware talk 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * - I only pay attention to what ever's at the bottom of the page as it's now too time-consuming to dig through the rest. Separate rooms would be a great idea provided that they're linked to from here. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_2.svg|15px]]talk 21:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * - I like this idea since staff lounge is way too big for anyone to keep track of... I do think though that we should make the links more prominent (maybe where the links to reference desk and such are now?) because otherwise people will ignore them and just post their comments here anyways, I know I wouldn't have noticed them if it hadn't been for this topic. Mattb112885 02:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm preparing a quick and dirty version of my plan at User:Whiteknight/stafflounge. People who are interested can feel free to check out that page, make suggestions or changes, as needed. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I like it so far. Maybe the new staff lounge should be protected so NO posts are made there and only on the appropriate pages. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_2.svg|15px]]talk 18:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I like it too, although I still want to do a little more work on it before I move all the pages around. I dont think that the staff lounge should necessarily be "protected", but we should put a note that discussions on that page will be moved to more appropriate places. We'll see what we come up with though. It looks like we have plenty of support for this, now we just need to do it right. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

 * - Woo! I'm trendy! Umm... seriously... yeah. Staff lounge has gotten far too large; hard to see new stuff going on. If there were sub-areas, it would be a lot easier to set Watches on specific areas that actually were of interest to us. Chazz 00:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * - This was already discussed in the past, the benefits outweigh any problems, as it is the staff lounge is not of great use to common users. Go for it. --FallenKnight 19:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Goodbook
I've started work on this template which produces a "book blurb" for advertising high-quality books. The template is based off the current text blurbs used on Main Page/test to advertise good books. I would like to get some feedback about this template before we try and put it into wide-spread use.

Eventually, I think that book authors can insert these blurbs on the bookshelf pages, and a bot (or patient human) could scan the bookshelves, find these templates, and use them on the main page automatically. This would help to partially automate the task of updating the book entries on the main page. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 16:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Staff lounge archive links
Immediately after I finished moving around the staff lounge, i started getting complains from people who thought we should delete the archive links from that page. The archive links do take up a lot of room on that page, but I dont necessarily see a problem with them staying on that page. There are a few options: What do people think? --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Do nothing, leave the links where they are.
 * 2) Move the links to a different "archive main page" or something, away from the staff lounge main page
 * 3) Remove the links entirely, delete the archive pages, because all the discussions are available via the page history.

 * I think the links and archives should be deleted like option 3 says. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 23:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I pick Box #2, as this keeps the archives easily readable and able to be referenced next time you lot get into a shirtfight. However, I agree that they detract from the new image of the Staff Lounge and should be removed from it. Webaware talk 03:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I strongly oppose deleting the archives as I regularly refer to them. I have been bold and made these three edits to preserve the archives. --Iamunknown 07:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I am strongly in favour of Webaware and Iamunknown's views and the action of Iamunknown -- Herby talk thyme 08:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ditto. :) --Remi 09:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Progress indicators for Wikiversity

 * I'd like to give you all a big HOWDY from Wikiversity. We are discussing the possibility of implementing progress indicators on the site. I know Wikibooks uses a square graphic divided into four smaller squares, but I also remember seeing a while back like 10 tiny squares all lined up horizontally with different colors. I can't find it, and it might suit our purposes more appropriately. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction. Thank so much.--Remi 09:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * You might be looking for this which is the closest thing I can think of. -within focus 14:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Search

all: progress indicator
 * See category: Progress templates . — Cp i r al §<font color="#2820F0">Cpiral  06:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Archiving
The previous monolithic staff lounge became large for a number of reasons. First, it was the only place to go to discuss a large number of topics (since remedied), but also because there was frequently a large delay between archivals of old discussions. Wikipedia is very aggressive in archiving it's village pump: Messages are sent to the archives after 1 week, and are deleted from the archives a week or two after that. That system mandates that discussions must be moved to a better place within 2 weeks if people want to continue the discussion.

I don't think we need to quite to go the lengths that wikipedia does, but we should give some serious thought to how we want to archive, and how frequently we want to do it. We now have 4 or 5 discussion pages that we can use for a variety of subjects, but if we neglect maintenance, all of them will be large and unwieldly like the old SL was. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Progression with Wikibooks logo
I haven't been active here for a while, but was surprised to see the progressive changes that have taken place both with the main page and the staff lounge, though I don't think the logo discussion has moved on with as much pace. Looking at the page, it seems that they have pondered over the colour specifications for three months. My question is, echoing the previous debate, do users present at Wikibooks actually support changing the logo? --Herraotic 19:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I couldn't care less, honestly :). We can't actually change it locally (at least i don't think we can), but I assume the devs will make the switch whenever a consensus is reached. -- SB_Johnny | talk 19:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I would be in favor of a change, the new logo is far more professional and sleek then our current version. There is something to be said for nostalgia, but the current logo is simply lower-quality then he newer logo is. I think the whole discussion over the colorscheme is moot, but if the WMF wants to impose arbitrary restrictions then we can't argue too much. I just wish they would finalize it, so we would have something to actually vote on. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I've already voiced by opposition to the new logo over on Media. My opposition isn't that it's a bad logo but that the muppets who voted for it don't even use Wikibooks.  This vote should only be open for users of this project. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_2.svg|15px]]talk 21:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * A good portion of people who voted were members of other wikibooks language projects. Just because they aren't members of en.wikibooks doesnt mean they aren't wikibookians. Also, you shouldn't condemn people who want to help our project just because they arent members of it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 22:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry, yes I knew that some were from other language Wikibooks but my point was that this is a decision that should be made by Wikibooks users and not Meta users. Community is important in Wiki and their decision didn't represent a community decision from Wikibooks users. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_2.svg|15px]]talk 22:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion the logo selected on meta is very amateurish, I can't see any good things of it apart from possibility to create a favicon. The discussion about the colours makes it only worse and for me, it's agains good habits to change the project after it was chosen. People voted on a certain design, including the colour scheme, and it's a manipulation to completely change the chosen logo after the vote is finished. --Derbeth talk 12:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I've been lead to believe that the new logo will not be implemented here unless our community votes and agrees to include it here. In other words, en.wikibooks could vote not to use the new logo, in the same way that fi.wikibooks has voted to use the new logo with the red-blue-green colorscheme. Similarly, I think that we could vote to use the new logo as-is (without changing colors), or that we could vote to keep the current logo. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:26, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I actually like the fi.books logo with that color scheme since that's a color group that actually works. I'd like it if we brought that one in for ourselves and not worry about people above us disliking the colors. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus

I don't like the situation when different language versions of a project have different logo colours, not to mention completely different logos. It's unprofessional. On the other side, the new logo is catastrophic for me. --Derbeth talk 18:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * "Catastrophic"? that seems awfully dramatic for a simple logo change. The current logo is very low quality, both in terms of design and resolution. I've used CSS to change the logo manually in my browser so that I don't have to look at it anymore. The new logo might not be the absolute best choice, but i think it's certainly better then what we have now. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I think the design of the existing logo is fine. It's certainly better than the new one, that looks like we've been incorporated into the Freemasons. Webaware talk 01:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A "bill of rights"?
If Panic is right, I'm outta here. Let me explain:

He seems to believe that he can change his mind about any content he contributes under GFDL (as in, change the licence), and that minor contributions (such as copyediting, etc.) don't mean that he can't revoke the license. This would mean that if someone starts a book, and I lend a helping hand here and there, the author could later just change his or her mind and demand the book be deleted, meaning that my good faith efforts to help improve the book were just time wasted.

I'd like to be clear on that, because if that's really what the GFDL means, I'd rather not waste any more time here. If the GFDL "might" mean that, then I think we need to make a very clear local policy, stating that previous contributors do not have the right to demand their contributions be deleted (because they've decided they didn't want to release it under GFDL after all, and including their contributions is now copyvio), since it's unfair to those who come later in the interests of improving the book. -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * For me, the only way for Panic to revoke his agreement to use his work here, is to show that he was insane any time he edited here. It's like selling a car: you cannot come back one year after making the deal and say "hey, give me my car back, I need it desperately". --Derbeth talk 17:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, it turns out that he can do this (on pages he started), though he would have to pursue legal action against subsequent editors to force them to revoke the GFDL as well. I've offered to simply delete the C++ book, since it's crap now, and has no chance to grow until he gives up editorial control (which he clearly won't do). -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Derbeth is right. To paraphrase Lawrence Lessig (and the below was written by him under a creative commons license, but because I'm crediting him, you need not worry about it): One point to clarify, however, is that GFDL licenses are permanent, in the sense that the term is as long as copyright runs.

 * But just because you can’t revoke a particular license doesn’t mean you can’t revoke the offer. If, for example, you offer content under a GFDL license for a month, and then change your mind, you can stop offering the content under that license. Anyone who accepted your offer while it was valid, of course, has a deal. But no one after you withdraw the offer can accept anymore.

 * In other words (I am no longer paraphrasing Lessig here), he could republish his original contributions under a non-free license (such as the default of traditional copyright), and no one would be able to copy it. But when he submitted the text to wikibooks under the GFDL, he irrevocably licensed that text to wikibooks under the GFDL, and that license on that work will last until his death. He may no longer want to license his work under the GFDL to anyone, and he may wish he hadn't licensed his works under the GFDL to wikibooks. But the fact of the matter is that he did, and now wikimedia gets to alter, republish, publicly display his text, etc. and he cannot restrict us from doing so on the basis of copyright violation.

 * By licensing his own work to us under the GFDL (by submitting it) he gave us a license to use that work, and that license will last until his copyright expires and the work goes into the public domain. It changes nothing if he later regrets said licensing. - Monk talk 19:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Once an edit has been made to an author's original contribution, even a minor edit, that work ceases to be the author's work, and instead becomes a derivative work with multiple copyright holders. As a GFDL derivative work, it is not possible for an author to unilaterally alter or remove the license. Further more, The author has granted that license to the WMF (and wikibooks in particular) for use, and no author can have his contributions removed without consent from the WMF or Wikibooks. Panic, as usual, is wrong about the GFDL. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * To reiterate this point, let me link to Section 9 of the GFDL, where it states expressly that an author may not cancel the license agreement with the licensee (Wikibooks) unless the licensee is found to be in violation of the GFDL. By clicking the "Save Page" button, an author is granting a license to Wikibooks to host the material, and that license cannot be cancelled or modified unless Wikibooks screws up (which it doesnt). --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Annotated texts
I've gone ahead and labeled WB:AT an official policy. This has existed for some time and basically just needed to be cleaned up and modernized a bit. We've been working with annotated texts for years and I think it's appropriate to label this as policy. Please voice your opinion below if you disagree and perhaps we can make some changes, but this looks easy and solid to me. Thanks. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus 05:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Good job, i'm glad this is official now. There is nothing on that page that seems particularly controversial, and nothing that I can find that differs from the way the community currently handles those texts. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Main Page
The main page is still oriented towards authors rather than readers. There is a discussion of this at Main Page/test where there seems to be some agreement that details of a few choice books might be shown on the main page and subsidiary pages have their own book lists with pictures and annotations. What do people think about this? If you have an opinion please go to Main Page/test. RobinH 14:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I think all the efforts made on that test page are very valuable. I think that the current look of the test page is fantastic, and the people who have worked on it should be proud of it. Where do we vote to make it official (because you have my vote). --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Good job. I like the 'test' page.  It would be nice to feature an item from the Cookbook and Wikijunior but that's just me being picky.  You have my vote too. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Poland_2.svg|15px]]talk 21:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I like it too. It's a huge improvement over what was there three weeks ago. Kudos to everyone involved. -- xixtas talk 03:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Making a method for easily finding author's names
I was looking at a book and I wanted to go to the author's talk page. How exactly do we find that page if they haven't discussed it in the book discussion page or signed it in the edit page?

I know that we are all open and sharey here, but shouldn't there be some kind of box or other special catagory where author names are listed automatically?

Is there one that i simply haven't noticed? Rozzychan 00:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * All the authors of a page, and all the contributions that have been made to a page can be found in the page history. At the top of every page there is a link that says "history", and if you click on that you will see a list of all the authors and their contributions. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rozzychan 19:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Community Portal
I would like to commend RobinH and the other contributors, for their outstanding design of the recent main page overhaul. Though attempting not to sound idle, I would like to bring the community portal, to the attention of Wikibooks users. It has not been edited since the 18th of October 2006 and is a testament to our lack of structure. If we were to produce a similar test page to that of the main page and contribute, I would confidently foresee that it will develop to become intuitive and informative. --Herraotic 23:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The Community Portal was nice a few years ago, but you are correct that it has since fallen into complete abandonment. Updating the staff lounge and the main page are, i hope, harbingers of a new renaissance here at wikibooks, and updating the community portal seems to be the next logical step in this process. You can feel free to start creating a new page at Community Portal/test if you would like (and i assume that you would like). In fact, you should feel completely free to create a proposed revision of any page that you see that needs a little work. I would certainly help with the community portal project, at least at first, but i'm not nearly the HTML/CSS wizard that some people around here are. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree with revising the community portal. I would recommend maybe using a similar theme to Main Page/test with the box style. Be bold comes to mind and using a test page like Whiteknight suggested. --<span style="font: bold 10pt 'courier new', comic, sans, ms;"><font color="midnightblue">dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 23:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Making an Island
Is this for real? 01:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

 * LOL Yes. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

 * It's just amazing what man can achieve with a solid endowment of fossil fuels! :-) Webaware talk 02:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Tech help needed with NavFrame (Spanish Wikilibros version), please!
The version of NavFrame in the Spanish Wikibooks project seems to have developed a "tic", and I need somebody to "cure" it please, as I am making heavy use of several templates that call up NavFrame. I posted a request for help in the Wikilibros café yesterday, but nothing's been done and there has been no indication that anyone is going to do anything, so I wonder if perhaps somebody here who understands the technicalities would be kind enough to drop by and fix it? I am developing books following a very similar pattern, with virtually identical templates, on both English and Spanish wikibooks and the English ones work fine, so the problem seems to be a glitch in the programming of the Spanish NavFrame version. It would be great if both versions of NavFrame could behave identically except for the language of the buttons: "Show" -> "Mostrar" and "Hide" -> "Esconder". At present, the "tick" of the Spanish NavFrame consists of displaying both of these buttons twice in succession, so what you get is "Mostrar Mostrar" and "Esconder Esconder" (with two separate links). Apart from being unsightly and looking silly, the real nuisance is that this takes up too much room on the bar leaving the bar's own text cramped (especially when the width is set to less than 100%). Another "funny" behaviour of the Spanish NavFrame I've noticed, not present in the English one, is that the text of the title bar is not centred on the whole bar as it should be, so that when you click on "Show", the title bar text is not aligned with the rest of the table, which is centred properly, but shifted somewhat to the left. This also affects the aesthetics of my templates. So again, can't the Spanish algorithm just be realigned with that of the English version and just the language of the buttons replaced? Here are examples of my templates in action in both languages: English here and Spanish here. Many thanks to any wizard who can fix this! --A R King 07:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The JavaScript that creates the navigation bar differs between en and es. This may or may not be the problem - I see it in both IE and FF (contrast that with the script comment below). The en copy has this for function createNavigationBarToggleButton:

// Find the NavHead and attach the toggle link (Must be this complicated because Moz's firstChild handling is borked) for(var j=0; j < NavFrame.childNodes.length; j++) { if (NavFrame.childNodes[j].className == "NavHead") { NavFrame.childNodes[j].appendChild(NavToggle); } }
 * whereas the es copy has this:

// add NavToggle-Button as first div-element // in NavFrame.insertBefore(	NavToggle,	NavFrame.firstChild );
 * Perhaps someone more familiar with these JS files in wiki could fix the es copy and try the page again. Webaware talk 08:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Webaware. Would somebody out there be so kind as to try and do the fix suggested. I'm not at all familiar with the syntax so it would might risky for me to try going in there myself. As I said, I already asked for help in the es community and so far there's been no response! --A R King 10:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Note that this JavaScript can be found (changed) in MediaWiki:Common.js on the en.wikibook; however, it appears to be under a different configuration on es.wikibook, as es:MediaWiki:Common.js only has a comment. Note also that you need certain privileges to change such scripts. Webaware talk 11:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

All the more reason why I need help, then. Where or how can I go about getting such help? --A R King 12:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * You'll need to enlist the help of an admin or sysop on es.wikibooks, or alternatively, a Spanish-speaking admin from en.wikibooks. If you're lucky, one might notice this here soon; otherwise, add a link to this discussion from your post on es.wikibooks' Café. Webaware talk 12:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll do that now. --A R King 16:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Book stub
hi, i would like to create a book specific stub, i found where the existing stubs are listed but could not find info on how to create one. i am working on the animal behavior book and any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robert Huber (talk • contribs).
 * I think you mean you want a book-specific stub template. Create Template:Behavior stub, for example, then fill it with the text you want to show up. Then to use it, you'd type . Change the name to suit your needs. Kellen T 14:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

State of Wikipedia
I want to draw some attention to a recent essay written on wikipedia concerning the state of that project: w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia is failing. This essay shows some problems with wikipedia, some of which I will enumerate here: This raises some questions about our work here on wikibooks. We also are criticized for our lack of books on "core topics", and several books in the page Featured books are too poor to really appear on that page. These are things that we really need to be thinking about, because they are issues that could become bigger problems for us in the future. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 15:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A lack of good articles on "vital topics".
 * Good articles tend to degrade over time, as a result of vandalism, and poor-quality (but good faith) edits that aren't patrolled.
 * The vast majority of all articles (over 99%) are low-quality.
 * Many of my postings have been on trying to get an emphasis on quality (well before the "almost ready" book status), much of my frustration is about the lack of action, a part of the weakness is the lack of workers (I've still kept an eye on RC but - effectively - there have been no "welcome" templates handed out to newbies since I stopped & apologies to the ones who have but there are not many). Look at the naming of some "offerings" for example - however I am one person and less of that than I was!  Apologies for the negativity but each time there is a new initiative (holiday cleaning, RFC, Cleanup, Active Wikibookians, Gazette etc etc) things start or sometimes seem to.................-- Herby  talk thyme 15:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I can understand your frustration! I've been dealing with the indecisiveness of this community for 2 years now, and it never gets any better. A big problem that I see is that there is alot of work that needs to get done, but there is no plan to do it. And worse then not having a plan is having a whole community that refuses to agree on a plan. People generally would rather have no solutions at all then to have a solution that isn't 100% agreeable. I think what people really need to realize is that much of the time they aren't going to agree with things that happen around this project, but that doesnt mean that things should stop happening. Sometimes the best thing for a person to do is simply stop arguing for the greater good. Once we start getting a plan together that people can all follow (whether they agree 100% or not), it will go a long way to improving Wikibooks. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 16:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It sure as hell doesn't help but I so agree with you. In the real world people know things have to changed (or indeed they are left with no choice) and they get on with it.  Here there seems to be a virtue in not moving forward (& of course standing still is not possible). ( how many postings before this one dies, certainly the odds are against anything actually happening <g> -- Herby  talk thyme 17:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, in any collaboration people will have to make compromises in order to move forward, the thing is that a lot of people seem to only be interested in moving forward on their own terms on this project since there is no real "deadline" for things to get done, unlike in many "real-world" collaborations, so people figure the most patient\stubborn will have their own way. It may be something inherent in how the wikimedia system works, since no one has the power to cause change unless they claim it, and if someone does claim that power there'll always be opposition. The solution I'd suggest is to decide what needs to be addressed first, and then we can address it and look for a majority decision (there is a reason government is not run by the consensus of its people, and I do not personally feel that it is feasible to go based on having unanimous decisions), and go based on that. Maybe we can use the main page as a place from which we can inform people of what is happening? If we put it in a prominent place we cannot say people are unaware of the decision, and therefore if people do not vote we can only go on what votes we have. As a side note, with regards to the RC, I admit that I haven't been welcoming people, I thought that was your niche in the project ;). But yeah, if I see a red talk page for a registered user I could do that. Regards. Mattb112885 17:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, whilst this project has many and varied needs, there are two specific ones that stick out a mile and that Whiteknight alludes to: Getting better organisation is the hard bit, as it requires some agreement from people, and some policies (which I believe some, like Whitenight, have been working on). There truly is an enormous amount of work to be done here, but it needs to be done through coordinated effort. The Wikiprojects mentioned a while back are a prime example of the sort of coordinated effort needed here. Good contributors need to be enticed to join projects so that there is a chance of getting things done. Some of the projects that I perceive, outside the obvious book-specific projects, are: However, even if it could be agreed that the above Wikiprojects were needed, there remains the problem of contributors. We need more! Those that are here now are generally here for a purpose - the book(s) they are working on - so we need more contributors if we want to address any of the above points. Maybe we need to advertise on the Wikipedia:Community Portal or something - I don't know - but we need more contributors (and we need guidelines for them to follow, and we need contributors to write the guidelines...)
 * —reset
 * We need a lot more contributors, especially ones that have time and inclination to do some of the donkey work (i.e. not focus on a specific book)
 * We need better organisation
 * Policy - a coordinated effort to hammer out Policies and Guidelines, and get them agreed upon (Whitenight has been doing a lot of that already, I believe).
 * Help pages - the help system here isn't up to scratch, and needs a lot of work.
 * Images - there is still a licensing problem with some images (and other media), plus now a lot of good images have been erroneously deleted and pages vandalised in the process; needs a coordinated effort, with a set of guidelines this time.
 * Quality patrol - I believe that WB would greatly benefit from a coordinated effort to address book quality, operating under a strong set of guidelines and addressing a book or bookshelf at a time.

(sigh) My AUD0.02 is running out now, and I don't have another to put in the slot. Webaware talk 22:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

 * "Better organization" is certainly a need here, but it's so poorly defined. We do have the bookshelves, and to some degree that is a very good start. There have been other efforts to organize and categorize books, such as the Card Catalogue Office, the infobox project, the dewey-decimal categorization, the alphabetical list of wikibooks, etc. The list at Requested books is essentially useless, because that list isn't well maintained, and the books listed there don't get started. The list at Featured books is similarly unmaintained, with a number of books on that list being in poor condition, and a number of good books not being listed. Mass-categorization was a strong effort at organization spearheaded by User:Jguk, but with his decline in activity, that project has fallen by the wayside.
 * The issue about getting new contributors is one that is echoed frequently, but that there aren't any good ways to fix. We could advertise on wikipedia, but that is likely to be scorned or even deleted outright. I think there are some places where we could advertise, like websites for educators or websites for textbooks or whatever, but that's likely to create a problem in itself. Unfortunately, I dont think that getting new contributors is going to be particularly easy. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Um, I meant organised effort. There are some groups of people who have spontaneously organised themselves around specific books being edited, and it seems that some educators have organised their students into editing a book here and there, but there is no concept of the Wikiproject here as there is on WP; this is what I meant, essentially.
 * Categorisation is something I haven't looked at here (mostly because it seems that someone is or has been looking at that), but it sounds like a candidate for a Wikiproject.
 * In terms of attracting new contributors, perhaps we need to think about what brings people to WB in the first place. I came here because I had a need to post some recipes somewhere, and the Cookbook looked like a good place for it, but what specifically brought me to WB was a link to the Cookbook from a WP page. Since then, I've had a need to record centrally some software documentation and notes, so I've started a book here, but would never have conceived of doing that before I stumbled into the Cookbook.
 * Maybe we should look at promoting WB though sister links in other Wiki projects, particularly WP. Links do get followed. What is then needed is a slick Main page that encourages people to become contributors :-) Webaware talk 01:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Oh, organized effort is good too (sorry for the misunderstanding). The wikiproject idea is one that I have been trying to promote, but there have been some notable criticisms of them have have slowed me down. The wikiproject system is a really good one to manage large groups of editors, which we dont have yet. If we have the system in place though, we will be in good shape to support more editors when we start growing. Of course, this brings us back to the need to have more contributors, which is likely our most pressing problem. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 01:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Agreed! Webaware talk 03:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of the above and so OK - I must be mad. Below this there is a proposal.
 * reset

Do not discuss it, do not wonder if the tag would look better in a pretty colour, do not say that it is not your book, under no circumstances refer to policy and a discussion.

Maintenance tags are necessary - they do not enhance the image of Wikibooks. If you want to make Wikibooks better let's deal with some of these (you may find it hard to get to the category as it is buried in dust - in the one I am pointing to some birthday celebrations are due).

Proposal
Everyone reading this goes to Category:Naming convention change. They take one book and they correct the naming of it (including the redlinks) and remove the tag. If you do not know what to do ask. When this is done we deal with something else. This is a community wide issue and requires community wide action. Do it - bad karma will follow you for an hour if you don't! I'm off to do the first on the list now. -- Herby talk thyme 11:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah well - first red herring of the season and only took 5 hours. Still it was good while it lasted - sincere thanks to those who just got on with it. -- Herby  talk thyme 16:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * One of the meta people actually has a very efficient bot for this sort of thing (he used it a couple months ago to move things from "talk_transwiki" to "transwiki_talk"). Maybe just make a request for this? -- SB_Johnny | talk 16:54, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I was was swamped yesterday because of the weather, but this is a great idea and i definately have time to fix a book tomorrow. Maybe that's what we need to do, have either a "small project of the day", or similar for a week. We can pick things that require less then 30min of work, and ask each person to just do one (fix one bad naming convention, tag 10 images, dewikify 1 page, etc) task from the list. This requires, of course, people to compile such a list of tasks. If there was a finite list of things to do, I would likely be motivated to do them more often. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I also agree this is a good idea, I know I tagged one book for NC, I'll see if I can fix that one up tonight (right now I'm in the middle of stuff, just passing by, but tonight I'll have some time). Some of the NCs are extensively cross-linked which makes things more interesting/difficult, but just gotta go back and fix the crosslinks/double redirects after its all moved, and work from the outside in on branched books. Mattb112885 19:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks should do it a book at a time
The most important objective in Wikibooks is Wikipublish. Each set of authors should try to get their books into a state suitable for a fixed edition. RobinH 16:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This fails to address the vast majority of books that have no "current author" and bring down Wikibooks as a whole IMO -- Herby talk thyme 16:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The trouble with a Wikipedia approach to Wikibooks is that a book is so much bigger than a Wikipedia article. Two hundred pages in a book are the equivalent of two hundred Wikipedia articles and about 400 Wikipedia editors. We are never going to get 400 editors per book on Wikibooks. Wikibooks needs a few individuals with wide expertise and drive or whole classes of students doing a project and these people have to see the book through to the bitter end. The books that are left open ended with a few outline chapters tend to stay that way. So Wikibooks is not Wikipedia, not even vaguely.  I favour putting the skeleton books into a closet so that if a motivated author or group arrives they can resurrect a given book if they desire.RobinH 19:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * OK now we have some common ground I favour putting the skeleton books into a closet so that if a motivated author or group arrives they can resurrect a given book if they desire works for me. From either end
 * Good books for editorial review
 * Middle ground still be worked on currently
 * Hum - I'm sure we will come up with a word for it but it is a category that should be "parked" and not in full public view (my view would be to reverse the order btw!)
 * I'll go think -- Herby talk thyme 20:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Scrapbooks! :P -- SB_Johnny | talk 20:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I would go further and only put the best books on the main page. The middle ground and SBJ's scrapbooks would be accessed via the bookshelves (see discussion of Main Page below). Also see Nearly_complete. RobinH 14:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

 * It will be easier to write good books, if the authors have examples of other good books to emulate. Even though it is certainly possible for an author to not follow an example and still make a good book, it is more likely that regular authors will repeat what they see. It should be the goal of every book to be used in a classroom somewhere, and that requires publishing and distribution. Many books do have no current author. Perhaps we should start an "Adopt a book" initiative as a way to find authors, and possibly draw new contributors to wikibooks. The books that we advertise in this way should be salvagable, not completely useless. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, if a few books are set as examples to work from, and used as 'quality templates' then a large number of the books here at wikibooks could be raised to such standards. Urbane User   (Talk)   (Contributions)  19:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I also agree, which is why perhaps everyone should get onto the good books wikiproject and nominate one book soon, so that we have a good list to work from from which we can choose some to display on the main page. This may be more encouraging to potential contributors than seeing stubs on the main page, since they'll tend to think "oh my, if there is nothing here there's too much work to be done and no one is here to do it, I better not get involved" or something like that, I know I thought that when I first came here. I was also somewhat shocked that it wasn't formatted the same as wikipedia (though I got over that more quickly). Whereas if potential contributors see a good, solid start in the good books we have so far, they may be more willing to build on the groundwork we already have.

 * As for the adopt-a-book project, I think its a good idea, problem being that since we have a limited number of contributors, a large number of books would have to be left alone since no one here would know enough about the topic to write a book on it. I mean, we could adopt books and then just add as much as we could to them. I think, however, that whiteknight is right: It would give new contributors something to concrete to work on and therefore make them more likely to contribute. It's like all the old writing prompts from middle school, the hardest ones were the completely open-ended assignments, give them something more specific and they'll be more comfortable starting off.

 * One final point, if we DO end up going the route of having a stable and unstable version, the main page should point to the stable version, since for example we wouldn't want a new contributor coming into a book full of vandalism or that's currently in transition or something, and thinking "why is this one of the best books on Wikibooks?". This is another argument for use of stable versions and I think they're an excellent idea, though I can't remember what the arguments against them were. Mattb112885 16:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Listing problems by time to correct
I think one of the most helpful things that we can do is to list problems in terms of how much time it will take to correct. For instance, we can say: We can break this down into categories, and people can go to "Category:10 Minute Problems" or "Category:30 minute problems". There are plenty of times in my day when I have 10 or 20 minutes, and I dont want to start anything "big", but I do want to help out. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 20:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fix Naming Convention: 10 minutes
 * Create Inter-page Navigation: 30 minutes
 * Categorize book and all pages: 20 minutes

 * Here's another couple (some of these were your suggestions):
 *  Dewikify a page: 10 minutes
 *  Add verification to an unverified page: 30 minutes
 *  Write a module with a red link/fix a stub: 1+ hours (depending on how detailed you want to get and how much you know about the topic)
 *  Check the user creation log and welcome newest contributing users: 10 minutes
 *  Make a print version for one book: 30 minutes
 *  Fix 30 double-redirects (if any exist of course): 10 minutes
 *  Rewrite one help module so that it makes sense, and mark it as such: 1+ hour (note that I DO think we should mark the useful vs. non-useful help pages, if not just for the sake of knowing which ones still need the most work and also for people to know what is still a work in progress)
 * Feel free to add anything else you want. From where would we link these categories so that people see them? "module cleanup"? Staff lounge (top)? Main page? (probably not if we're looking to get substantial contributors) Mattb112885 00:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I'd suggest that Fix naming convention would be at least 5 minutes per page, if done correctly. Bear in mind that one needs to:
 * Check to see what links to the page
 * Check to see whether the page / book will be merged into something else (at which point the page move effort should end!)
 * Move the page, including the talk page (just a checkbox on the page move request)
 * Fix links in other pages, so that they point to the moved page
 * Fix any links that may be referencing other pages in the book, also to be moved
 * tag for delete any unlinked redirects to the page, unless it is the root page of the book (bearing in mind that external websites, including Wikipedia, may link to the old book name)
 * tag for delete any unlinked redirects to the talk page, if it exists
 * Fix any red links for pages in the book, so that they point to (non-existent) pages that comply with the naming conventions also
 * So, at least 5 minutes per page, bare minimum. With a complex book, that can mean a good couple of hours with cross-checking of interlinked books. Anything less is asking for another "image cleanup" debacle :-) Webaware talk 01:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

All printable versions
Where can i find printable and pdf versions of all books and i am want to convert some books to printable versions,how can i do it?

Vinay h 19:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Go to PDF Versions

(Open Office is probably the best way to make a PDF nowdays.) RobinH 21:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that, i personally use something called PRIMO PDF, it's nice because you can make anything you can print into a pds, because all you do is select print and select Primo PDF for the printer and it has a dialog that allows you to setup the pds and where to save it then click ok and you got a PDF. So i can use word or whatever app i want/need to.RyanB88 21:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Yeah, CutePDF does the same thing... problem with those programs though is that you're stuck with what you get, unless you copy and paste it into a word processer and change the indents, page breaks, etc. first, and THEN print it. OpenOffice would be more convenient if you're going to do this since you don't need to install another program, but programs like PRIMO and CutePDF do allow you to make PDFs from whatever you want (including HTML, as I do all the time, and also PS files which I personally do not like since I cannot scroll between pages like you can with PDFs, so I just convert them). Regards,Mattb112885 22:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Possible templates of interest
I happened across the given templates surveying templates for Wikiproject template sharing, and thought some here might be interested or make use of such: Best regards // Fra nkB 01:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) -- poets by country indexed template plus poets by type (class) of poetry.
 * 2) -- Handy formatting tool for writing technical modules, it (manually) numbers equations on right hand side of page, displays math in the middle.
 * 3) There may be a few others of use as well, see W:Cat: List templates.

 * We do have a local template, eqn that can be used to label an equation. The list of poets one just doesn't seem particularly useful to me, outside of the occasional poetry book, of course. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The overall purpose of Wikiproject template sharing, is to empower all editors with choices and to make us all more productive when doing cross-sister contributions by providing as much as possible, the same standardized tools with good documentation. DPP was in fact in part inspired by lobbying I'd been doing all last summer to improve documentation practices on Wikipedia. DPP(and why) is a bit more formalized and elegant than the include/noinclude nesting I'd suggested and started by including snippet sections of talk pages, where inefficient and disrespectful of a volunteer's time, usage was haphazardly sometimes good, sometimes awful, but nearly always mixed in with discussion loaded with Jargon and arcana. That movement to better face documentation for the benefit of the user was all in flux when Tim Starling put the limits on template expansion, so the two merged and became the doubly beneficial doc page pattern. That will hopefully soon also extend internationally (Already does, based on interwiki's on many templates-- See the lists in Tl/doc in edit mode for example). So until we get some of your local editors involved directly, if it's all the same to you, I'll just drop the occasional note about something I think someone here might find useable and useful. <g> "Useful" does not equate "directly" with immediately useable in the case of the poets template... but the stimulus of seeing it might be inspirational to someone here who is into poetry and perhaps assembling an anthology of such. Hence, without a crystal ball, I mentioned it. OTOH, the 'equation' I mentioned does the math formatting AND the same labeling function as your 'eqn', so it's a better human time saver--less keystrokes==less chances of a typo. So far as I sampled, it's output and 'eqn' are virtually identical with respect to the template labeling. Q.E.D.A new mention for your collective consideration is the flexible set of templates illustrated here:, which  can be used to make a variety of bar graph presentations. If there is any tool of a particular nature someone is desiring, do let me know, the guys working on surveying an recatting the wp templates are well along, and I can have them keep an eye out, etc. Best regards // Fra nkB 06:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Movie Making Manual
I'm not a contributor on Wikibooks, so I'm a bit leery on toe-stepping, but, I noticed something at the bottom of the"Movie Making Manual" that begins with "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE". To me, it looks like advertising, and I'm not familiar enough with the way things work here, so I figgured I'd bring it to somebody's attention. Weaponofmassinstruction 16:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Gone now. Looks like random text-copying. Thanks for noticing. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus 16:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Special pages
I've been doing some cleanup lately using Special:Wantedpages. It's a good way to look for certain things, like copy-paste transwikis, and books that use wikipedia style linking rather than chapter linking. A lot of the ones at the top of the list are created through TOC templates, but further down there are a lot of "one-word" links (including a lot of links to dates!), which can be followed to find books that aren't using links properly.

Also, I had gotten Special:Uncategorizedpages below 1,000 a few months ago, but it's well above 3,500 now. We haven't done a "policy of the week" for a while, but maybe we could try to finish up with Categories, in order to have a consistent way to clear that log? -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * BTW, a lot of the "wanted pages" are linked from the old "top active" pages. Any thoughs on what to do about those?-- SB_Johnny | talk 16:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The top active pages will be deleted shortly. I figure I'll process the February statistics once March starts. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus 01:47, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Mind if I delete (or at least blank) them before that list is updated then? That way I won't be chasing shadows. -- SB_Johnny | talk 09:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Go ahead and just delete them then; wipe the whole book. If I need to see a previous page I can since I am able to browse the deletion history. -<font color="#000000">within <font color="#7A7A7A">focus 16:53, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Will do. -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)