text:
How to use a Motorola DVR/Using i-Guide/User Setup

Some options depend on the version of iGuide used. You can determine the version by following the instructions at How To Check Your Firmware and Software Versions (i-Guide).

The iGuide version can be found in the middle of the software version string. Newer versions are A25 and A28. Previous versions may not have listed the version using the Axx format.

User Setup Options
There are many options in the user setup menu that will let you customize features of your i-Guide.

To access the user setup:
 * 1) Press the Menu key twice
 * 2) Scroll to Setup and press OK/Select (older versions of i-Guide will require scrolling down to a second screen.)

To change most settings, you use the up-down arrows to select the option, then left-right to select the available settings of that option.

To exit the setup, you can either press the Exit key to return to your video, or OK/Select to back up a menu level.

Not all versions of i-Guide will have all of these options.

As you select an option, the upper-left corner of the display will give a brief description.

Audio Setup
These options configure the audio outputs of the DVR.

Default Audio Track
Selects the language you prefer. The settings are Channel default, English, Español, Français, and Portuguēs. For analog or broadcast channels, Channel default and English will play the main audio, and the others will play the SAP channel. For HD and digital channels, they may or may not select an actual language.

Descriptive Video Service
Replaces the normal audio with a narrative audio (version A25 and newer)

Audio Output
This setting only affects the analog audio output. It has no effect on digital audio (optical or coaxial.) The settings are TV Speakers, Stereo, and Advanced. TV Speakers sets the audio to a high level. Stereo sets the output to line level. Advanced enables the two options below.

Compression
This option is only available if Audio Output is set to Advanced. This option configures the amount of audio compression (increasing volume of quiet audio, and reducing volume of loud audio). The settings are None, Light, or Heavy.

Stereo Output
This option is only available if Audio Output is set to Advanced. This affects how audio is output. The settings are Mono, Stereo, and Matrix (fake stereo created from a mono signal.)

Optimal Stereo
Setting this to Yes will reset the analog audio volume to a standard line-level output.

Cable Box Setup
These options configure the LED display, AC outlet, and RF bypass options. You can also list firmware/software versions.

Front LED Display
Selects whether you want displayed on the DVR's LED display on the front panel. The selections are Current Channel or Current Time. When displaying time, PM is designated by a dot at the top between the last two digits.

AC Outlet
Selects whether the AC outlet on the back of the DVR will turn on and off when you turn the DVR on and off. The selections are Unswitched and Switched. Depending on your model, this option may have no effect, and the outlet will always be on.

RF Bypass
This option is supposed to allow the cable RF signal to pass through when the DVR is turned off. This feature no longer works and should always be set to Off. If you turn it On, the Record light will always be on (see Record Light Bug.)

Configuration
Displays software and firmware versions, ID information, and whether it is receiving data. The Message number will increment once a second and Status will rotate between 18 alphanumeric values.

iGuide Diagnostics
Pressing the FAV button on the Configuration page will display the iGuide diagnostics pages. Each press of FAV will move to the next page. Pressing OK/Select will update the currently displayed page.

 * GUIDE STATISTICS
 * Run time since last reboot is displayed at the top in the format number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
 * The last time an EAS code was received (as of version A28)
 * Several rows of status codes.
 * Information on Clickstream and IR output.

 * Status
 * The 18 status codes that are shown on a rotating basis on the main Configuration screen.

 * DB Status Report
 * Information on the iGuide database. memory usage, program (slot) counts, and housekeeping information is displayed

 * Order Log
 * Information about VOD purchases. Displays date, time, and title.

 * PID Status, Credit database statistics.
 * PID status is the type of personal identifier used.
 * EPG upgrade status lists whether configuration updates are available or needed.

 * Software Filtering
 * Information about memory usage, country code, DVR and VOD skip and review settings, and what additional features are enabled.

 * TSID Stealth Session Status
 * Information about VOD.

 * TSID Report
 * Information about the latest VOD use. The frequency and subchannel (TBF MPEG Service#) are the most useful.

 * VOD Misc Data
 * More information about VOD settings.

 * GuideNet GMTS Stats Page
 * Information involving the GuideNet service.

 * VRN Diagnostics
 * Information dealing with Video Rich Navigation. This is used for channels such as Comcast Central that use multiple videos on the same screen, but allow you to navigate to menus or the videos.

 * Debug Logging Configuration
 * A grid of settings allowing logging information to be enabled or disabled. You can use the arrow keys and OK/Select to move and enable/disable options. These are highly advanced settings and should NOT be altered by users or your cable box could become disabled or unusable.

 * Third Party Application Report
 * Information on any additional applications installed.

 * Web Access Status (as of version A28)
 * Information on web scheduling features, such as Comcast's MyDVR feature.

 * Switched Digital Broadcast Status (Pages 1 and 2) (as of version A28)
 * Information about Switched digital video, even if it's not active in your area.

DVR Setup
Allows you to set several DVR related features. This menu entry was added in software version A28.

DVR Folders
When set to On, any program that you have multiple episodes of will be listed in folders.

Live Program Notice
When set to On, you will get a notice asking to add additional time when you set up a recording for a live program. The default is to add 30 minutes. (version A25 or newer) In version A25, this was in the Guide Setup settings.

DVR Clipping
When set to On, if two scheduled programs overlap by 5 minutes or less, and there is no available tuner, the start of the second program will not be recorded. This is noted by a "(Clipped)" note in the scheduled program list. (version A25 or newer) In version A25, this was in the Guide Setup settings.

Favorite Lists Setup
Allows you to create, edit, or delete several Favorite lists. The display will list any current Favorite lists. You can edit a list by using the up and down arrow keys to highlight it, then pressing OK/Select.

To create a new list, use the arrow keys to cursor down to the New button on the bottom, and press OK/Select.

Editing a Favorite List
Editing a list may require entering a PIN if you have a Locks PIN configured.

To edit a list, use the icons on the bottom of the screen after choosing a previous list or create a New list.

The left-arrow icon will return you to the Favorite list menu.

The heart icon will open up a channel list.
 * You can use the right arrow key to have the list sorted by name or sorted by channel number. Use the up arrow and down arrow keys to move one row at a time, or the PageUp and PageDn buttons to move a screen at a time, to highlight a channel. Press OK/Select to select or deselect a channel. Selected channels will have a heart icon.
 * The down-arrow icon will move to the next screen (or just keep pressing the down arrow key, or use the PgDown key.)
 * The checkmark icon will save the changes.
 * The X icon will clear the list.
 * The checkmark icon will save the changes.
 * The X icon will clear the list.
 * The X icon will clear the list.
 * The X icon will clear the list.

The keyboard icon will allow you to rename the list (the default is List01, List02, etc..)
 * Use the arrow keys to select a letter, then press OK/Select to type it.
 * Use the tiny left-arrow triangle above the letters to erase the last letter.
 * Use Sp to type a space character.
 * When done, use Save.
 * To cancel a name change, press the Last key on the remote.
 * To cancel a name change, press the Last key on the remote.

The X icon will delete the list.

The padlock icon will allow you to enable or disable locking the Favorite list. When enabled, you will need to enter your Locks PIN code to make any changes.

Guide Colors Setup
This option offers several color palettes for the display (depending on your mood). Use the arrow keys to select a color and press OK/Select to change the color. There are at least 2 pages of color (scroll down for the second page.) The default color is Topaz Blue.

Guide Setup
These options configures how the Guide display (the program listing) is displayed.

Flip (info bar) position
This is the position of the small bar that appears when changing channels or first hitting the Info button. The settings are Top or Bottom.

Flip bar timeout
This sets how many seconds until the flip bar (the small channel and program info pop-up) disappears on its own. You can always use the Exit button to clear it immediately. The settings are 2 seconds to 15 seconds.

Channel entry behavior
This specifies what happens if you do not hit OK/Select for a 1 or 2 digit channel entry. Auto-Tune will change the channel after a few seconds. No Auto-Tune will cancel the entry. If you choose No Auto-Tune, you MUST type all 3 digits (005, 013) or press OK/Select after entering fewer than 3 digits to change the channel.

Default reminder start-time
Specifies when a pop-up alerting you to a reminder you have set on a program will appear. The settings are 1 minutes early to 15 minutes early. You can also display the reminder by pressing OK/Select while a reminder is due or in effect, and you are NOT on the reminder channel.

Grid Cell Height
This sets the height of the program grid cells on the main Guide display (usually access by pressing the Guide key.) The settings are Double Height or Single Height. Double Height will display up to two lines of text for a program name, and lists 5 channels (no ads) or 4 channels (with ads) on-screen. Single Height will only display one line of text for a program name, and lists 6 channels (no ads) or 5 channels (with ads) on-screen.

Mini-Grid Cell Height
The Mini-Grid is accessed by pressing OK/Select while viewing video, and no reminder is active or you are on a reminder-active channel. It displays a shorter program grid on the bottom of the display. The settings are Double Height or Single Height. Double Height will display up to two lines of text for a program name, and lists 2 channels. Single Height will only display one line of text for a program name, and lists 3 channels.

Message Indicator
Selects whether or not the red light will turn on when your cable company sends messages. The selections are On and Off. Note: The cable provider can override this setting on a message by message basis with a special override flag.

About Us
Displays patent information.

Locks Setup
This is the basic Parental Control setup menu. Information about it is on the Parental Control page.

As of version A25, this has been expanded and moved into Parental Control Setup.

=Parental Control Setup= Parental Control

PINs Setup
These options allow you to clear or create Personal Identification Numbers (PINs). Note: As of version A25, this has been moved into the Parental Control Setup menu.

Remote Access Setup
Note: Cable providers can override this depending on the STB

This option returns a code and information for configuring the myDVR feature (certain Comcast STB models). This allows you to manage your future recordings via your cable provider's website.

Screen Position Setup
This option adjusts the position of the DVR's graphics on your TV. Use the arrow keys to adjust the position, then press the Last button to save. Be aware that if you move the display too far to the right, the video will not resize into the corner on some of the menus. (See Video Scaling Bug.)

Screen Saver Setup
This options enables/disables a screen saver for use with some TV's that can be sensitive to image burn-in (mostly CRT and Plasma.) It's triggered only when the DVR is in Pause or similar situation involving a fixed screen. It will display a moving image while active (on some systems, it may be your cable company's logo and the time). To restore the screen, just press any key on the remote. NOTE: In version A25, on an HD channel or if 4:3 Override is set to "Stretch", only the middle portion of the screen will be blanked As of version A28, the entire screen is blanked.

Screen Saver
The settings are On or Off. Note: You can also set how long there must be no remote control/front panel commands received before activating the screen saver. The settings are 1 minute to 15 minutes.

Service Locks Setup
This option allows you to enable or disable locks for services such as On Demand. You must have a Locks PIN defined.

As of the A25 version, this has been moved into the Parental Control Setup menu.

After entering your Locks PIN, there will be a list of supported services. Use the arrow keys to select the service. Press OK/Select to lock or unlock a service. Locked services will display a padlock icon.

Text Language Setup
These options select the language used for the i-Guide display. Use the arrow keys to select a language, then press OK/Select to change it. The menu will then exit. It will take a few minutes while the DVR downloads and recreates the main menu in the selected language.


text:
Cookbook:Hake

Hake is a whitefish with a moist, flaky texture and a subtle flavour, like a milder version of cod. It is also sometimes known as ling or whiting, although in the UK, "whiting" is used to mean a different, less tasty fish.

This fish responds best to simple cooking, and can be fried or poached, or used in fish soup.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Cookbook:Hake


text:
User talk:72.38.50.246

Regarding edits made during February 25 2007
Thanks for experimenting with Wikibooks. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in modules will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our project. Thanks. If this is an IP address, and it is shared by multiple users, ignore this warning if you did not make any unconstructive edits. Az1568(Talk) 20:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:72.38.50.246


text:
Wikibooks:Wikibookians Bill of Rights

The Wikibookians Bill of Rights is a document that attempts to tell what rights members of the Wikibooks project have, and what rights they do not have. Some of these rights are based on legal copyright issues, and others are rights granted to individuals by the community.

Ownership and Copyright
Wikibookians may:
 * Make contributions of book content, edit to improve existing content, and alter the markup formatting of a page without needing to ask for permission from any other Wikibookian or group of Wikibookians.
 * Donate text, images, or other media to wikibooks under the terms of the GFDL or a fully-compatible license.
 * Release text, images, or other media to wikibooks into the Public Domain.

Wikibookians may not:
 * Make demands of other users concerning the style, quantity, or timeliness of contributions.
 * Assert ownership or editorial control over any page or module, regardless of contribution quantity or quality to that page or related pages.
 * Release text, images, or other media to Wikibooks under a license not compatible with the GFDL, except where those materials satisfy the Fair use policy.
 * Attempt to alter the license under which text has already been contributed to something not compatible with the GFDL.

Free Speech and Censorship
Wikibookians do not have a generalized freedom of speech.

Book content may be censored if it:
 * Contains needless profanity, obscenity, or vulgarity.
 * Is offensive to Wikibookians, and creates a hostile work environment here.
 * Is considered inappropriate by the community.

Contributions may be removed or reverted if they:
 * Are spam, advertisement, or other promotion for a company, a group, or an individual.
 * Are malicious, or represent vandalism.
 * Decrease the quality of the page or book, without providing any benefit.

User and Talk Pages
Wikibookians may:
 * Exercise editorial control over pages in their user and user talk namespaces.
 * Post information to their user or user talk pages that violate the principals of NPOV, or that represent original (unverifiable) research.

User pages, user talk pages, and discussion pages are not free for the posting of any content or information.

title: Wikibooks:Wikibookians Bill of Rights


text:
LaTeX/Installing Extra Packages

Add-on features for LaTeX are known as packages. Dozens of these are pre-installed with LaTeX and can be used in your documents immediately. They should all be stored in subdirectories of texmf/tex/latex named after each package. The directory name "texmf" stands for “TEX and METAFONT”. To find out what other packages are available and what they do, you should use the CTAN search page which includes a link to Graham Williams' comprehensive package catalogue.

A package is a file or collection of files containing extra LaTeX commands and programming which add new styling features or modify those already existing. There are two main file types: class files with .cls extension, and style files with .sty extension. There may be ancillary files as well. When you try to typeset a document which requires a package which is not installed on your system, LaTeX will warn you with an error message that it is missing. You can download updates to packages you already have (both the ones that were installed along with your version of LaTeX as well as ones you added). There is no limit to the number of packages you can have installed on your computer (apart from disk space!), but there is a configurable limit to the number that can be used inside any one LaTeX document at the same time, although it depends on how big each package is. In practice there is no problem in having even a couple of dozen packages active.

Most LaTeX installations come with a large set of pre-installed style packages, so you can use the package manager of the TeX distribution or the one on your system to manage them. See the automatic installation. But many more are available on the net. The main place to look for style packages on the Internet is CTAN. Once you have identified a package you need that is not in your distribution, use the indexes on any CTAN server to find the package you need and the directory where it can be downloaded from. See the manual installation.

Automatic installation
If on an operating system with a package manager or a portage tree, you can often find packages in repositories.

With MikTeX there is a package manager that allows you to pick the package you want individually. As a convenient feature, upon the compilation of a file requiring non-installed packages, MikTeX will automatically prompt to install the missing ones.

With TeX Live, it is common to have the distribution packed into a few big packages. For example, to install something related to internationalization, you might have to install a package like texlive-lang. With TeX Live manually installed, use tlmgr to manage packages individually.

tlmgr install ... tlmgr remove  ...

The use of tlmgr is covered in the Installation chapter.

If you cannot find the wanted package with any of the previous methods, see the manual installation.

Instructions for specific operating systems
On Ubuntu, with releases such as Trusty, you can use texlive and texlive-extra packages, e.g. texlive-full, texlive-latex-extra, texlive-math-extra, texlive-plain-extra, texlive-bibtex-extra, texlive-generic-extra, and language packages, which are all available here on the Ubuntu packages site, as well as here for Trusty updates. You can install these packages with.

Downloading packages
What you need to look for is usually two files, one ending in .dtx and the other in .ins. The first is a DOCTeX file, which combines the package program and its documentation in a single file. The second is the installation routine (much smaller). You must always download both files. If the two files are not there, it means one of two things:
 * Either the package is part of a much larger bundle which you shouldn't normally update unless you change version of LaTeX;
 * or it's an older or relatively simple package written by an author who did not use a <tt>.dtx</tt> file.

Download the package files to a temporary directory. There will often be a <tt>readme.txt</tt> with a brief description of the package. You should of course read this file first.

Installing a package
There are five steps to installing a LaTeX package. (These steps can also be used on the pieces of a complicated package you wrote yourself; in this case, skip straight to Step 3.)

1. Extract the files Run LaTeX on the <tt>.ins</tt> file. That is, open the file in your editor and process it as if it were a LaTeX document (which it is), or if you prefer, type latex followed by the <tt>.ins</tt> filename in a command window in your temporary directory. This will extract all the files needed from the <tt>.dtx</tt> file (which is why you must have both of them present in the temporary directory). Note down or print the names of the files created if there are a lot of them (read the log file if you want to see their names again).

2. Create the documentation Run LaTeX on the <tt>.dtx</tt> file. You might need to run it twice or more, to get the cross-references right (just like any other LaTeX document). This will create a <tt>.dvi</tt> file of documentation explaining what the package is for and how to use it. If you prefer to create PDF then run pdfLaTeX instead. If you created a <tt>.idx</tt> as well, it means that the document contains an index, too. If you want the index to be created properly, follow the steps in the indexing section. Sometimes you will see that a <tt>.glo</tt> (glossary) file has been produced. Run the following command instead:

makeindex -s gglo.ist -o name.gls name.glo

3. Install the files While the documentation is printing, move or copy the package files from your temporary directory to the right place[s] in your TeX local installation directory tree. Packages installed by hand should always be placed in your "local" directory tree, not in the directory tree containing all the pre-installed packages. This is done to a) prevent your new package accidentally overwriting files in the main TeX directories; and b) avoid your newly-installed files being overwritten when you next update your version of TeX.

For a TDS(TeX Directory Structure)-conformant system, your "local installation directory tree" is a folder and its subfolders. The outermost folder should probably be called <tt>texmf-local/</tt> or <tt>texmf/</tt>. Its location depends on your system:

 * MacTeX: <tt>Users/username/Library/texmf/</tt>.
 * Unix-type systems: Usually <tt>~/texmf/</tt>. If you use TexMaker on Ubuntu 18 it may be in
 * MikTeX: Your local directory tree can be any folder you like, as long as you then register it as a user-managed texmf directory (see http://docs.miktex.org/manual/localadditions.html#id573803)

The "right place" sometimes causes confusion, especially if your TeX installation is old or does not conform to the TeX Directory Structure(TDS). For a TDS-conformant system, the "right place" for a LaTeX <tt>.sty</tt> file is a suitably-named subdirectory of <tt>texmf/tex/latex/</tt>. "Suitably-named" means sensible and meaningful (and probably short). For a package like paralist, for example, I'd call the directory <tt>texmf/tex/latex/paralist</tt>.

Often there is just a <tt>.sty</tt> file to move, but in the case of complex packages there may be more, and they may belong in different locations. For example, new BibTeX packages or font packages will typically have several files to install. This is why it is a good idea to create a sub-directory for the package rather than dump the files into misc along with other unrelated stuff. If there are configuration or other files, read the documentation to find out if there is a special or preferred location to move them to.

For most fonts on CTAN, the <tt>foundry</tt> is <tt>public</tt>.

4. Update your index Finally, run your TeX indexer program to update the package database. This program comes with every modern version of TeX and has various names depending on the LaTeX distribution you use. (Read the documentation that came with your installation to find out which it is, or consult http://www.tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html#fndb):
 * teTeX, TeX Live, fpTeX: <tt>texhash</tt>
 * web2c: <tt>mktexlsr</tt>
 * MacTeX: MacTeX appears to do this for you.
 * MikTeX: <tt>initexmf --update-fndb</tt> (or use the GUI)
 * MiKTeX 2.7 or later versions, installed on Windows XP through Windows 7: Start -> All Programs -> MikTex -> Settings. In Windows 8 use the keyword Settings and choose the option of Settings with the MiKTex logo.  In Settings menu choose the first tab and click on Refresh FNDB-button (MikTex will then check the Program Files directory and update the list of File Name DataBase). After that just verify by clicking 'OK'.

5. Update font maps If your package installed any TrueType or Type 1 fonts, you need to update the font mapping files in addition to updating the index. Your package author should have included a <tt>.map</tt> file for the fonts. The map updating program is usually some variant on <tt>updmap</tt>, depending on your distribution:
 * TeX Live and MacTeX: <tt>updmap --enable Map=mapfile.map</tt> (if you installed the files in a personal tree) or <tt>updmap-sys --enable Map=mapfile.map</tt> (if you installed the files in a system directory).
 * MikTeX: Run <tt>initexmf --edit-config-file updmap</tt>, add the line "<tt>Map mapfile.map</tt> to the file that opens, then run <tt>initexmf --mkmaps</tt>.

See http://www.tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html.

The reason this process has not been automated widely is that there are still thousands of installations which do not conform to the TDS, such as old shared Unix systems and some Microsoft Windows systems, so there is no way for an installation program to guess where to put the files: you have to know this. There are also systems where the owner, user, or installer has chosen not to follow the recommended TDS directory structure, or is unable to do so for political or security reasons (such as a shared system where the user cannot write to a protected directory). The reason for having the <tt>texmf-local</tt> directory (called <tt>texmf.local</tt> on some systems) is to provide a place for local modifications or personal updates, especially if you are a user on a shared or managed system (Unix, Linux, VMS, Windows NT/2000/XP, etc.) where you may not have write-access to the main TeX installation directory tree. You can also have a personal <tt>texmf</tt> subdirectory in your own login directory. Your installation must be configured to look in these directories first, however, so that any updates to standard packages will be found there before the superseded copies in the main <tt>texmf</tt> tree. All modern TeX installations should do this anyway, but if not, you can edit <tt>texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf</tt> yourself.

Checking package status
The universal way to check if a file is available to TeX compilers is the command-line tool <tt>kpsewhich</tt>. $ kpsewhich tikz /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf-dist/tex/plain/pgf/frontendlayer/tikz.tex

<tt>kpsewhich</tt> will actually search for files only, not for packages. It returns the path to the file. For more details on a specific package use the command-line tool <tt>tlmgr</tt> (TeX Live only):

tlmgr info

The <tt>tlmgr</tt> tool has lot more options. To consult the documentation: tlmgr help

Package documentation
To find out what commands a package provides (and thus how to use it), you need to read the documentation. In the <tt>texmf/doc</tt> subdirectory of your installation there should be directories full of .dvi files, one for every package installed. This location is distribution-specific, but is typically found in: Generally, most of the packages are in the <tt>latex</tt> subdirectory, although other packages (such as BibTeX and font packages) are found in other subdirectories in <tt>doc</tt>. The documentation directories have the same name of the package (e.g. <tt>amsmath</tt>), which generally have one or more relevant documents in a variety of formats (<tt>dvi</tt>, <tt>txt</tt>, <tt>pdf</tt>, etc.). The documents generally have the same name as the package, but there are exceptions (for example, the documentation for <tt>amsmath</tt> is found at <tt>latex/amsmath/amsdoc.dvi</tt>). If your installation procedure has not installed the documentation, the DVI files can all be downloaded from CTAN. Before using a package, you should read the documentation carefully, especially the subsection usually called "User Interface", which describes the commands the package makes available. You cannot just guess and hope it will work: you have to read it and find out.

You can usually automatically open any installed package documentation with the texdoc command:

External resources
The best way to look for LaTeX packages is the already mentioned CTAN: Search. Additional resources form The TeX Catalogue Online:
 * Alphabetic catalogue
 * With brief descriptions
 * Topical catalogue with packages sorted systematically
 * Hierarchical mirroring the CTAN folder hierarchy

title: LaTeX/Installing Extra Packages


text:
User talk:142.240.200.10

This IP address, , is registered to City of Mississauga and may be shared by multiple users. Comments left on this page may be received by other users of this IP and appear to be irrelevant. Caution should be used when blocking this IP or reverting its contributions without checking. Attempts to vandalize using this address will be reported to City of Mississauga as network abuse.

Notify an administrator • contribs • block • [ block log]

Regarding edits made during February 25 2007
Please take care not to replace Wikibooks pages with blank content. Blank pages are harmful to Wikibooks because they have a tendency to confuse readers. If it is a duplicate article, please redirect it to an appropriate existing page. If the page has been vandalised, please revert it to the last legitimate version. If you feel that the content of a page is inappropriate, please edit the page and replace it with appropriate content. If you believe there is no hope for the page, please see the deletion policy for how to proceed. If page is no longer useful, insert delete to its top. Thanks for contributing to Wikibooks! If this is an IP address, and it is shared by multiple users, ignore this warning if you did not make any unconstructive edits. Az1568(Talk) 21:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding edits made during March 3 2007
Thanks for experimenting with Wikibooks. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in modules will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our project. Thanks. If this is an IP address, and it is shared by multiple users, ignore this warning if you did not make any unconstructive edits. Az1568(Talk) 00:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC) --Jusjih (discuss • contribs) 04:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

title: User talk:142.240.200.10


text:
User talk:71.207.91.69

Regarding edits made during February 25 2007
Thanks for experimenting with Wikibooks. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in modules will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our project. Thanks. If this is an IP address, and it is shared by multiple users, ignore this warning if you did not make any unconstructive edits. Az1568(Talk) 22:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:71.207.91.69


text:
Talk:Biology Laboratory Techniques

This is a stub.

I came, I saw, I fiddled with it.

Add notes as you see fit. Please!

Someone ought to know how to clean glassware at least. Come on chemists. Talk about Alconox. Lets all pitch in. Rozzychan 23:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this needs updated. I disagree that clean glassware is a critical section of a text on biotechniques. Perhaps a Chemistry Techniques book. And I'm not saying that I don't clean glassware in the lab (I do), but those kinds of things were covered in chemistry courses, not biology courses.

But to the rallying point. Can more people get involved in this! A free book of this nature is long over-due! Tmbirkhead (discuss • contribs) 03:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Biology Laboratory Techniques


text:
Wikibooks talk:What is Wikibooks/Unstable/book criteria

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

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

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

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

Some additional thoughts on the textbook criteria:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 * More changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Wikibooks
I disagree with the need to identify reference texts and study guides differntly from textbooks. I'm also thinking we may need to add something about licenses compatible with GFDL if we are allowing more then just the GFDL license to be used. Should we even mention any licenses? --dark lama  05:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Verifiability

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

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

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

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

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

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


text:
Wikibooks talk:What is Wikibooks/Unstable/book criteria/video game guides

Two more additions
I have added sections related to study guides and to how-to guides here and here. I apologise for not adding these earlier. I never really noticed the advertisement in the staff lounge or on the bulletin board, and I just now decided to add my own $0.02.

I realise that how-to guides are a touchy subject. I tried to remove ambiguity that I know has been dragged to death in the past. Unfortunately, I am afraid I may have added some myself. Specifically, I tried to note that how-to guides should be somehow relevant to education provided by universities, home-schools, etc. I provided the example of an appropriate how-to-create-a-video-game guide, as it would certainly be relevant to computer programming programs across the country. I know that is a very loaded topic, and please feel free to change my wording or my example if necessary.

Regarding my slew of edits, I think that the motion to enforce should probably be closed and re-opened or delayed because of these new additions, which I realise significantly changes the meaning of this version. I do not intend to do last-minute back-room additions akin to United States Congress. On the contrary, I hope that these changes do not change the intended scope of Wikibooks, but instead more correctly define it. Right now there are several study and how-to guides, and I think that they are something we should definitely keep. That is why I added these.

Cheers, Iamunknown 06:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I completely disagree with both additions and believe they make the text longer then necessary. I think study guides are being mostly moved to Wikiversity because that is one of the focuses of that project rather then this one. Even if this is not the case I believe the wording of the text before the addition may of been enough to permit it somewhat. The point of defining textbooks was to make having so many sections completely unnecessary. I believe textbooks as defined in this text covers howtos as you tried to define it. I think both additions should be deleted as they are just adding instruction creep that is not needed. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 09:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I believe [if] you feel strongly about having it be explicit that something along the lines of "study guides, howtos and a book on video game programming are examples of textbooks." This of course is dependent on how others feel about using that as an example. This is an alternative to having these two sections. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 09:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I will agree with you that by the current definitions given, a how-to guide is redundant to a textbook. As I defined it, the former introduces a subject, whereas the latter covers a subject; well, the latter could very well just introduce/cover the subject!
 * Study guides, however, have what I consider a distinct scope. That is, study guides are meant to review material, which I consider distinct from covering it. They may or may not have a central narrative, as they may contain relevant points in a list or partial-prose format. Thus I consider them necessary.
 * I don't know why you would consider me strongly believing in a video game programming textbook. For one thing, I have not played a video game in two years, could care less (I spend all my time elsewhere – a.k.a. wikiwiki), and thought of that off the top of my head.
 * Iamunknown 10:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I made some changes here another point is the addition of the study guide section is in contradiction of the Wikibooks complements Wikimedia section that says that exams are not permitted here. I wasn't saying you felt strongly about it, just giving an alternative to the additions of two sections which you added, if you feel strongly that it needs to be covered. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 10:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I partially restored my edit here. I think that study guides are specifically distinct from textbooks for my reasons previously stated. I don't think that it contradicts the Wikibooks complement Wikimedia section because it is does permit doing testing on Wikibooks, it is permits providing study guides for testing that is totally external to Wikibooks. --Iamunknown 10:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * It is in contradiction and here's how and why:
 * Your addition state in the study guide section that "Study guides are a kind of review text that help students and professionals prepare themselves for subject, standard or professional examination."
 * And the Wikibooks complements Wikimedia section states that "Quizzes and Exams: Wikibooks is not the place to host quizzes, exams or other tests of comprehension. However, Wikibooks textbooks can contain example problems, study questions related to the narrative of the text, etc."

 * The later section permits tests and quizes within books, but disallows books that consist of only being a quize of exam book. Which contradicts what you added. Such books aren't really approperiate here and belong on Wikiversity. Wikibooks provides books for learning about a subject and Wikiversity provides materials for study for a subject in preperation for exams and tests. Wikiversity use to be a project on Wikibooks before it was seperated and that is probably why you can find some books of that sort here, but which probably need to be moved there or changed to be more then just a book on preparing for an exam. At least that is how I understand things. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 10:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Most study guides that I have read are not quiz and test material. But they generally neither have a central narrative nor are something more than a collection of articles or list of terms, quotations, facts, images or other information.. Thus by our definition of textbook, they fail on two counts. Note that these are study guides for standard examinations that I have taken. I cannot judge by others experiences without data collecting.
 * But specifically because study guides contain review material, whether it be prosaic in lists or in questions with answers in the back, I think are appropriate for Wikibooks. They are review texts (though I could imagine them using images depending on the subject, such as multimedia or something), not review media. They do contain text that can be used for quizzes, exams or tests of comprehension, but as texts hopefully to be printed off, published, or used as ebooks they are not meant to have dynamic javascript quizzes such that Wikiversity has nor should they.
 * Study guides are not generally quiz or exam books, but are instead combinations of prose, lists, (maybe graphics like I said above), and raw data which a student or professional can use to study for a subject, standard, or professional examination. I think that there is a distinct difference.
 * Iamunknown 10:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Simple lists and tables generally do not count as individual textbooks. However, if these "resources" are accompanied or paralleled by a narrative, then they do qualify. For instance, a textbook could contain appendices that contain lists and tables. However, these appedix pages do not stand alone as books. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Are you saying you don't agree with his addition on study guides too? --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 15:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Videogame guides
The time has come for us to finally make a decision on the topic of videogame strategy guides. This issue has been in the air for some time now, and although we haven't made an explicit policy about it, the numbers of videogame guides has been constantly decreasing. We are at the point where the wholesale expulsion of these books would not be a significant detriment to the wikibooks project, or the wikibooks community. To this end, I have added the following text to this policy, and I would ask that it not be removed from this policy barring discussion and agreement on the matter:
 * http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Wikibooks%3AWhat_is_Wikibooks%2FUnstable&diff=735417&oldid=732375

Some points of justification for this: While last, the final point above is the one that should carry the most weight. I think it's time that we finally laid this matter to rest, once and for all. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Jimbo has specifically mentioned videogame guides as something that does not belong on this project. He personally attempted to add such text to the previous version of WB:WIW, although he was reverted after some discussion.
 * 2) Strategywiki is a much better, focused place to host such guides. Many guides have been moved to that location already.
 * 3) Videogame guides have been being deleted on VfD for some time now, especially those that have been transwikied. At the very least, policy should be made to match practice.
 * 4) Many decisions that have been made about videogame guides (especially on VfD) have not been grounded in any kind of policy, and are therefore open to too much ambiguity.
 * 5) While it may be a slippery slope, videogame strategy guides are not textbooks, and no educational institution teaches a class about how to play videogames, with an associated textbook.

Application of Proposal - An example
How would this proposal be applied to the new wikibook on The Lord of the Rings: Guide_to_The_Lord_of_the_Rings? Is this a textbook? If not, what would have to be changed to make it a textbook? Clearly, the works of JRR Tolkein are legitimate subjects of classes at a university. DSYoungEsq 17:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, that's well within the scope of wikibooks, as an annotation. -- SB_Johnny | talk 17:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

 * An annotation in the event that the text of the original book was reproduced here on our servers (a large task, and likely illegal, I think that book is still under copyright). However, it would definately qualify as a "reading aide", or a "study guide", both of which are perfectly fine here. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 18:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Ah, yep... that's what I meant. :) -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. What about Roulette? Now I don't know of many colleges that teach a class on how to play gambling games. How would this be significantly different from Computer Game guides? DSYoungEsq 22:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Interesting example. A book on Roulette (like a book on any casino game) might be used in a school that trains people to be employees of casinos. "University" is probably too broad a term in any case, since we write a lot of stuff for primary and secondary education, vocational/technical training, etc. -- SB_Johnny | talk 23:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Quoting from the section just above this one: "While it may be a slippery slope, videogame strategy guides are not textbooks, and no educational institution teaches a class about how to play videogames, with an associated textbook."  I think it would be difficult to assert that this is absolutely true, and still maintain that the roulette example is legitimate.  Frankly, I think one could easily replace the words "videogame strategy guides" with "roulette guides" and the sentence would still be true.

 * If we are not going to allow videogame or computer game strategy guides, we should do so by specifically excluding them, not through torturous interpretations of words like "textbook." Of course, if we are going to exclude them, there should be a good reason to exclude them, something other than, "Jimbo says," or "they aren't part of the mission."  I can think of several good reasons; let's make it explicit, let's spell out exactly why, and then we can stop worrying about the dichotomy between Roulette and Everquest.  DSYoungEsq 02:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I am very much trying to avoid invoking "Jimbo says" as rationale for making decisions here. The undeniable fact is, however, that Jimbo did say these things, and he sounded pretty serious about it at the time. The videogame guides in particular have been a target of numerous deletion attempts, and a large number of those guides have been deleted in the past year or so. There are plenty of "slippery slope" continuations that we could take: if videogames are not appropriate, then what about other "non-video" games, such as chess, and Roulette? Or, to really blur the lines a bit, what about a book detailing strategy on a collectable card game, like Magic the Gathering? Alot of the grey area I think we can hammer out using our own judgement, but we need to draw a line in the sand somewhere to use as our starting point. I would make the argument (spurious though it is), that people in this world can make a living playing Roulette (or other casino games), that Roulette strategy has been a topic of serious academic study, and that a book about roulette would implicitly be a book about probability and economics. Of course, the counter-argument could be made that plenty of people recently have earned prize money for competing in videogame competitions, but we can just ignore that for now. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

 * You see how this gets difficult? Trying to differentiate Roulette from a guide on how to play Magic: The Gathering is very tough.  If we try to rely upon some generalized description of what a Wikibook should be, we will never be able to make that distinction.  This leaves us with making a specific exclusionary rule.

 * Which brings us to the main issue: what is the rationale for NOT allowing gaming guides as wikibooks? They teach you how to do something, as much as a book on roulette or craps does.  They are as likely to be part of a "university" course catelogue (that is, extremely unlikely for either).  They service much the same sort of audience (someone with an interest in a recreational pasttime).  And other than attempts to assert they don't meet the main "mission" of Wikibooks, or an appeal to "Jimbo says," no one seems able to articulate a good reason why they shouldn't be allowed.  I, personally, have always suspected that a good reason not to allow them is because of trademark and copyright issues that would inevitably crop up, but I also suspect that the main reason that they are frowned upon by TPTB is that they appeal to kids and computer geeks, which are somehow not quite "acceptable" as an audience.

 * So, I guess my suggestion is this: articulate a working rule that would exclude gaming guides, and articulate a valid reason why they should be excluded. Otherwise, let's stop trying to split infinitismally thin hairs. DSYoungEsq 02:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * My counter-suggestion would be to delete Roulette, and all other such books that are inappropriate here. The primary rationale for not allowing gaming guides is that they are not textbooks, and they are not used in any school ever to teach a class. No teacher uses a gaming strategy guide to teach a class, and there are similarly no classes at any school titled "how to play doom", or "how to win at everquest". The rationale is that this simply isn't the correct place for these books, in the same way that this is not the correct place for encyclopedia or dictionary content. This is not to say that the subject of videogames is never discussed academically, and plenty of colleges and universities teach classes about how to program videogames, or how to appreciate videogames, or even a critical understanding of videogame themes. Notice however that none of those topics involve videogame "strategy", or "walkthroughs".
 * With this in mind, we do not necessarily need an explicit rule to ban videogames, because they are already banned by our other rules (must be a textbook, must help teach a class, etc). We are making it an explicit rule, however, because of confusion that has been caused in the past by leaving it implicit. There are schools in this world that teach games like Chess, and I suspect that there are even some schools that might teach Roulette, although I find that pretty unlikely. We can sort through these games on a case-by-case basis, and remove the ones that do not meet our mission. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 17:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have long been an advocate of keeping the Video Game books on Wikibooks, and I still fail to see why this is such a huge point of interest that they be eliminated only because of their content. That perhaps some standards ought to be established to raise the bar on what would be considered acceptable, and make some video game book policies that are exclusive to the "genera" of Wikibooks, but I still don't see why having a book about Roulette or even Doom is necessarily something that can or ought to be removed strictly because of the title and subject matter.  OK, I admit that a book which is strictly a walk-through perhaps shouldn't be on Wikibooks (such as "how to play Doom") that goes through each level and talks about the monsters.  But a legitimate textbook can be created about the topic that would include some strategies, biographical information about the designers of the game, history of the game including influences on subsequent games, and chapters about game modding and how Doom influenced the video game industry.  This is a very valid and legitimate Wikibook that would indeed be used in a university curriculum as a textbook.  Particularly as something to be reviewed as a part of a study of video game design, which is a university major at several colleges, where both bachelors and even graduate degrees are offered.  There is a place for these books here.  --Rob Horning 18:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


text:
GIMP/External Tutorials

Many other people have written high quality tutorials. This page will collect links to some of those.

Tutorial sites:
 * http://www.gimptalk.com/
 * http://www.gimpusers.com/

Single tutorials:
 * http://web.archive.org/web/20080206133322/http://gug.sunsite.dk/
 * http://blog.patdavid.net/p/getting-around-in-gimp.html
 * http://gimp-master.moy.su/
 * Adding film grain to images
 * Colorizing black and white sketches
 * Creating Simple animations
 * Creating icons
 * Creating a detailed sketch out of a photo
 * Creating minimalistic sketch out of a photo
 * Smart sharpening of images with edge sharpening - Sharpens images without the noise
 * Blending exposures - Allows for the best parts of two similar images to be integrated
 * Recovering highlights - Fixes photos that are washed out in certain areas
 * Adding a dreamy feel to a photo
 * Sepia toning - Like black and white, but with a different tone and feel
 * Contrast masks - Can enhance the feel of photos and give them a nice tone
 * Camera noise removal - Removes noise from digital photos
 * Selective colorization - Colorize parts of an image, leave the rest black and white
 * Converting images from color to black and white - Detailed tutorial
 * Batch image processing - Automatically process a bunch of images in the same way

 * Creating a stone texture
 * Create iText - Create shiny, Mac-like text
 * Create chrome text
 * Create fractal backgrounds
 * Create the Web 2.0 wet-floor-effect
 * Creating a "Neutral density filter" - (Fix dark lighting)
 * Change the focus - Blur the background to accentuate objects the foreground
 * Make photos look as if they were vignetted - Simulates having used a wide angle lens or lens hoods
 * Creating a website layout with GIMP
 * Creating lightening particle-like effects

title: GIMP/External Tutorials


text:
User talk:Poppy~enwikibooks

Hello and welcome to Wikibooks!

Here are some tips to help you get started:
 * You should sign your name on Talk and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~.
 * Remember to conduct any editing experiments in the sandbox.
 * If you're a Wikipedian, see Wikibooks for Wikipedians for a primer on how things work here (it's a little different).
 * If you want to base your work here on materials from Wikipedia, please use WB:RFI to bring the material over in compliance with the GFDL.
 * If you're an instructor and plan on using wikibooks for a class project, see Guidelines for class projects
 * Please say hello at the Staff Lounge with any questions or ideas.
 * Eventually, you might want to read the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines.
 * Please take a look at Naming policy before starting a new book.
 * Remember to maintain a Neutral point of view.
 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and have fun!

You will find more resources in Community Portal. If you want to ask a question, visit the Study help desk, the Staff lounge, IRC channel or ask me personally on my talk page. For site news, see the Bulletin board. It might be an idea if you add this page to your "watchlist" so that you can see when any new information is posted there.

Good luck! Mattb112885 00:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Persian/Alphabet
Warum schriebst du auf Deutsch? :) -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Of course! I was just a little confused there :P. Are these from German Wikibooks? -- SB_Johnny | talk 13:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Cool, sounds good. If you don't mind, try to leave a link to the source page on the talk pages (copyright stuff) :). -- SB_Johnny | talk 14:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Persian Questions/Corrections
Dear Sir (or Ma'am): Your Persian lessons are excellent. However, there were some questions I had, and also I think there are few formatting issues that may need to be corrected. These are all relating to Lesson One.

(1) Is "furniture" pronounced ASAS or ASAR--it looks like the final consonant is "se" but you have it written as "ASAR", with a "re." (2) Is CHERA ("why") written correctly? It looks like "che"-"wa" but it should be "che"-"re"? (3) There may be some spots where "jim" and "khe" are confused. (4) There are definitely several places where the whole letter is not fully visible, thus the reader cannot tell if it is "pe" or "be" (among others).

Again, your lessons are excellent. Keep up the good work. I plan to keep using them. Thanks --Dpr 14:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I appreciate your help. I'll try to contribute to the project where possible but I'm a complete beginner in Persian.

 * Regarding your question, I say introduce/use the Persian alphabet as soon as possible (i.e. right off the bat), under the theory that real-world use of Persian will require using the alphabet and it's better to master it as soon as possible. Anyone who wants to learn to speak it but not read it will have to be satisfied with a phrase book which can contain Romanized and original text versions of words/phrases. (You can move my comments to the talk page if you'd like).

 * Finally, if you have time for another question...I was trying to find out was whether there is a difference in pronunciation between the following groups of letters in Persian/Farsi:
 * se, sin, sad
 * ze, za, zad
 * te, ta
 * Does each group have the same pronunciation (i.e. /s/, /z/, /t/, respectively)? Thanks in advance! --Dpr 18:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

again Persian/Alphabet
Thanks for your valuable job ! i am native speaker of persian if you need any help don't hesitate --Mardetanha (talk) 23:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Poppy. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Poppy~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Poppy~enwikibooks