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Wikibooks:Editing guideline

Perfection not required; or, the joy of editing
It is a wonderful thing when someone adds a complete, well-written, final draft to Wikibooks. This should always be encouraged.

However, one of the great advantages of the wiki system is that incomplete, poorly-written first drafts of textbooks can evolve into polished, presentable masterpieces through the process of collaborative editing. This gives our approach an advantage over other ways of producing similar end-products. Hence, the submission of rough drafts (but not too rough) should also be encouraged.

One person can start off with an overview or a few random facts. Another person can add a minority opinion. Someone else can round off the content with additional perspectives. Yet another can play up an angle that has been neglected, or reword the earlier opinions to a more neutral point of view. A following person might have facts and figures or a graphic to include.

As all this material is added, anyone can jump in and refactor to turn it into a more cohesive whole. Then more text will be added, then more refactoring, and the module will gradually evolve ever-closer to the ultimate final draft.

During this process, the module might look like a first draft—or worse, a random collection of notes and factoids. Rather than being horrified by this ugliness, we should rejoice in its potential, and have faith that the editing process will turn it into brilliant prose.

Of course, we don't have to like it; we even, occasionally, criticize really substandard work, in addition to simply correcting it. The most important thing, though, is to correct it if it can be corrected. For text that is beyond hope, we have gotten into the habit of removing the offending content to the corresponding talk page, or, in cases where the content obviously has no redeeming merit whatsoever, deleting it outright. The latter action should not be done lightly, however.

On editing styles
Generally, different people here have different editing "styles". Some people edit lightly, and focus on contributing new content. Others prefer to greatly expand existing "stubs" and improve content. Some like to make relatively small copy-editing, linking, and page-naming changes. There's room for all of these on Wikibooks.

There are also different editing styles in the sense of how bold people are willing to be. Generally, most of us think we should be bold in updating pages. Virtually no one behaves as though previous authors need to be consulted before making changes; if we thought that, we'd make rather little progress. Quite to the contrary, some of us think you should not beat around the bush at all—simply change a page immediately, when you see something problematic, rather than to discuss changes that need to be made. Discussion, from this point of view, is a last resort. Then there is a more intermediate view, according to which dialogue qua dialogue should be respected, but at the same time a minor tweak early on can avoid a flame war. In this view, to edit radically or not will often depend on the context—which seems reasonable enough.

Again, there is a place for all of these attitudes on Wikibooks.

With large deletions or replacements, it might be better to suggest changes in a discussion, lest the original author get discouraged and quit posting. One person's improvement is another's desecration, and nobody likes to see their work just flushed without warning.

So, whatever you do, try to preserve information. Reasons for removing bits of a module include:

 * factual errors
 * duplication
 * irrelevancy
 * patent nonsense
 * copyright violations

Alternatives include:

 * rephrasing while keeping the content
 * moving text within a page or to another page (existing or new)
 * adding more of what you think is important to make a page more balanced

If, in your considered judgment, a page simply needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do that. But preserve any old contents you think might have some discussion value on the talk page, along with a comment about why you made the change. Even if you delete something that's just plain wrong, odds are that it got there because someone believed it was true, so preserve a comment that it is in fact wrong to inform later editors.

In any event, whether you decide to edit very boldly or to make inquiries on talk page first, please bear in mind that Wikibooks is not a discussion forum. Wikibooks can be a very energetic place, and it's best for the project as a whole if we concentrate our energies on improving modules rather than defending our pet theories, ideologies, religions, etc. Some consideration of Etiquette wouldn't hurt.

Further suggestions for the etiquette and method of editing

 * Perhaps use the discussion page to first preserve content that could be added back in error and explain why the content is being altered. Use your browser's back button to copy-paste the content to be quoted, or to reduce mistakes use two browser windows or tabs.
 * Since discussion pages can get lengthy and all content is preserved in the history, one paragraph on what is wrong and why is probably all that is needed most of the time. The exception might be when someone drastically refactors a page, in which case use a subpage of the discussion page and link to it from the discussion page.
 * Use the top of discussion pages to help organize and plan collaboration efforts. For example use an outline of what still needs to be done (a to-do list for example) and who is currently working on what parts of the model. Also include links to other related discussion pages, categories or any important notices at the top so people don't accidentally delete them by mistake.
 * As the top of discussions pages or any discussion section gets long, archive old business and discussions. This helps keep discussion pages current, relevant and understandable, which is most important for keeping discussion pages usable and readable. Use archive names with the same name as a section name whenever possible so people can find discussions later on.
 * Summarize long discussions and retain conclusions of long discussions, so that others can get involved later or get up to speed quickly. While this isn't required per se, doing so goes a long way towards keeping collaboration with others pleasant and discussions fresh so everyone can keep up with developments.
 * Sign your posts on talk pages (but not your contributions to actual book content).
 * Fill in an edit summary before saving your changes.
 * Preview your edits before you save.
 * Avoid using bots.
 * Contribute what you know or are willing to learn about
 * Create stubs responsibly and make obvious omissions explicit.
 * Explain jargon.
 * Integrate changes, instead of just appending your thoughts at the end of a page
 * Define and describe
 * Cite your sources, and use proper references.
 * Avoid statements that will date quickly
 * Check your facts
 * Avoid blanket statements
 * Avoid self-references
 * Avoid creating deeply nested sections.
 * Aim for brilliant prose, accessible structure, wide-ranging and in-depth coverage, and verifiable contents so that your book may one day join the ranks of featured books.
 * Last, but not least, some numbering scheme ought to prefix all sections below the fixed sections (i.e. all are categorized as 'temporary topics' even though most of each are eventually separated and archived.) The section ordinal number prefix serves notice when something no longer appears in the ordinal list of sections as it contains only expired discussions, and pertinent information is retained.

ja:Wikibooks:編集方針

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

title: Wikibooks:Editing guideline


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Wikibooks talk:Editing guideline

Initial text adapted from en:Wikipedia:Editing policy. --mav 07:35 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Comments? RobinH 10:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

snippet-01
re:So, whatever you do, try to preserve information. Reasons for removing bits of an module include:
 * List is missing the obvious: Factual error or error in context, A is 'wrong', and C goes with B, but B doesn't apply in the context so neither does C. (One hopes these sophmoric gaffs happen less here than at Wikipedia! ) FrankB-[[User talk:Fabartus]] 06:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

snippet-02
''If, in your considered judgment, a page simply needs to be rewritten or changed substantially, go ahead and do that. But preserve any old contents you think might have some discussion value on the talk page, along with a comment about why you made the change. Even if you delete something that's just plain wrong, odds are that it got there because someone believed it was true, so preserve a comment that it is in fact wrong to inform later editors.''
 * I'd suggest exporting only the parts most likely to be duplicated as an error to the talk, with comments, before altering content. It's easy to do from within the edit window by backspacing, cutting, moving to the talk, pasting with comment. Even easier with two browser windows open, or two tabs. One useful 'safeguard' is to edit in one type browser and browse, check, monitor, extract, compare in the other. For the latter use, one of the Tabbed browsers is best. Firefox and Netscape both fail to search into the edit window, whereas IE6 does, so that is the better browser for copyedits, spelling and minor grammer corrections.
 * Since the talks can get lengthy with too much, and all content is preserved in history pages, so a paragraph on what is wrong, and a paragraph why is probably the only need 98% of the time. The histories solve the odd 2% where large recoveries are in order. The exception might be when someone attempts a drastic refactoring, but cutting that into a 'temp page' (Sandbox) rather than the talk, with a link to it in the talk (one of those 'organized common resources' mentioned in the below— information is a resource!) page.

 * Using the top of talk pages as a Organized Project page is a good idea. By that I mean place project resources, including ToDo lists, lists of who is taking on what sub-part, perhaps an outline, etc. RobinH asked me for comments herein, but I don't know enough specifics of how you all work together to get specific myself. But taking the Heading with a Roster, ToDo's, and some resources as an example, the top section would be a general precise on the aims of that module, followed by the roster which should probably include when someone generally works, Third I'd place resources such as links to other modules, categories (if you use them here) and links to outside references, etc. each to their own sub-section. Fourth, the ToDo list, which people would strike out as items get finished with signature (I like to use #, and ## items in such— helps in planning and organization, as the numbers can be referred to in talk sections following obviating confusion (of terms or task).
 * As this list or any talk section gets long, it can be archived to 'clean' the page into the archive page which matches title sections, thus archiving old business and old discussions et. al by archiving just part of a section or many sections is quite easy to do. Such tidiness also helps in keeping the obfusticating clutter away from ongoing business, it's most important feature.

 * Do retain a conclusion of a long discussion linking to the archived long parts, so others can get involved later or get back up to speed after a time away, as may pertain.
 * While this 'exercise in verbosity' is not 'On Policy' per se, it goes a long way to keeping collaboration with others ameniable and pleasant, so it might be considered as a 'potential guideline' as to how to keep talks fresh enough for everyone to keep up with developments. In this model, the old goes, and the fresh and useful stays that way without fighting clutter.

 * Last, but not least, some numbering scheme ought to prefix all sections below the fixed sections (i.e. all are categorized as 'temporary topics' even though most of each are eventually separated and archived.) The section ordinal number prefix serves notice when something no longer appears in the ordinal list of sections as it contains only expired discussions, and pertinent information is retained. FrankB-[[User talk:Fabartus]] 07:21, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

policy?
This isn't really a policy... Kellen T 16:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

 * It is a guideline. I dont know why it has been classified as a policy. RobinH 09:26, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Move to "Guidelines"
Moved 13th May 2006 RobinH 09:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Firefox
This guideline mentions "... Firefox and Netscape both fail to search into the edit window ...", which is incorrect. I'm using Firefox now, and it seems to search and find text in the edit window (textarea) just fine. How do I fix this without getting sidetracked into yet another overly detailed "Software A vs Software B" flamefest? --DavidCary (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

 * Fixed. I also found a lack of any consensus to make this a guideline in the first place, so I've switched it back to a proposal for now. --dark lama  21:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

title: Wikibooks talk:Editing guideline


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Spanish/Cover

'''¡Bienvenidos! ' Welcome!''

Vaya a los contenidos» Go to the contents»

El español como idioma extranjero (Portada) fr:Cours d'espagnol : Couverture Hiszpański

title: Spanish/Cover


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Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines

Origins
Initial text adapted from w:Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. --mav 08:12 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * And it's caused us much confusion ever since. ;-) - Aya T C 16:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for major policy overhaul
Original e-mail from User:KelvSYC at: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2005-July/002415.html

Reply from User:Robert Horning at: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2005-July/002416.html

My original plan was to try to get all 'policy' pages such as WB:WIN, etc., onto Meta, but I don't think it's going to be practical. The alternative is that each Wikimedia project remains autonomous, and has its own policy pages. It just seems a shame that many (at least en.wikipedia.org and en.wikibooks.org) shared common policies (such as w:WP:NPOV and WB:NPOV) which become desychronized over time. One of the keys rules for a DBA (database administrator) is that each datum should have one, and only one, canonical location, otherwise you end up with contradictary data. But how did things end up so confusing?

 * A brief history of Wikimedia

First of all, I haven't been around that long, so some of this is guesswork.

It all started with the project now hosted at en.wikipedia.org. The idea being to collaboratively create a generalized encyclopedia with no (apparent) limitation on its scope. That is to say, entries in any natural language were considered 'fair game', and some users felt it was appropriate to create extensive entries such as 'How to play chess', and the like. The scope also allowed entries pertaining to concepts which were very specific to Wikipedia, its users, and their culture.

At some point, someone (perhaps Jimbo?) decided this was going to get in the way of creating an encyclopedia, so a number of other Wikimedia projects were set up, in the hopes that this data could be transferred to a more appropriate location.

The Wikipedia project was split up into different language codes. This was probably a good idea. It would be impossible to administer a site containing text in a dozen languages you don't understand. I realize that some people speak multiple languages, but I doubt anyone speaks all of the languages for which a Wikipedia current exists.

Meta-Wiki was put in place to take on all the Wikipedia-specific concepts, including policy, but it was only used for a short while, after which it all moved back to Wikipedia. The only roles it now serves are as a host to pages about the myriad 'associations of Wikipedians', and as a place to post news about, and arrange translations between, projects. It also ended up as a dumping ground for content that users were told was 'inappropriate for Wikipedia'.

Wikibooks was created for the much larger articles which had enough text to constitute a whole book on the subject, but has also ended up as a dumping ground for encyclopedia-length articles.

Wiktionary was created for the shorter, dictionary-length entries, which were felt to be inappropriate for Wikipedia. This project has actually worked quite nicely, although it will always have minor scope overlap with Wikipedia, since the first sentence of a Wikipedia article is generally a dictionary-length definition, and where multiple meanings exist for the same word, they generally exist as both a Wiktionary entry, and a Wikipedia disambiguation page.

Over time, some content was transferred, while some was not. Since each project had its own 'what is/isn't' page, users changed its scope over time as well. The endless cycle continues today:

 * 1) Create a new wiki
 * 2) Create a badly-defined scope
 * 3) Fill it with inappropriate content
 * 4) When it becomes unmanagable, goto 1

What the projects need is centralized management, but with the flexibilty and freedom to post what you like, where you like, combined with the fact that there's a negligable amount of responsibility as to who should be sorting it out, I don't think it's ever going to work.

 * But what is a wiki anyway?

I guess at its most basic, it's a mapping of key/value pairs. The key is the name of a page, and the value is the text on that page. For some wikis it's pretty obvious how this mapping should work. The page named 'Programming' on Wiktionary and Wikipedia are fairly obvious, but what about Wikibooks? Should it be a book on programming? Or should that data fall into a subpage of a book on computers? e.g. 'Computers/Programming'. The point is that the MediaWiki software is a poor choice for a project intending to create books.

 * Back on topic

First of all, using a 'What is not' page as a means to determine scope is a rather strange idea. See the paragraph starting with 'The asymmetry of not' at http://abelard.org/category/category.htm#zero_error for an explanation. Personally, I think something along the lines of User:Aya/Wikibooks/A critique of Wikibooks might be better, which is really just an elaboration of the fundamental policy that 'Wikibooks is a collection of open-content textbooks'. That's all you really need. I don't know where you got the phrase 'instructional material' from, but looking in a dictionary, the word 'instructional' would not preclude biographical material. Creating more pages such as WB:IM and WB:RM in addition to WB:WIN may just make things worse, as there is always the possibility that a user will find one of these pages, and not the other.

My own view is to throw away the page WB:WIN, and use the page About to define the scope in a more positive fashion. The exclusions listed in WB:WIN could still be a part of this page. The advantage of the page About is that it's highly visible (just click on the word 'Wikibooks' on the Main page to get there). Most new users will probably just read that, not bother reading anything else, and just get on with their editing. Meta uses the page m:Meta:About for this purpose.

WB:HNS should be merged into WB:NC, and the colon separator should perhaps be dropped completely, since many users are too lazy to provide backlinks to their book's main pain. As for WB:MOS, that doesn't even exist. I don't recommend creating it, since it will be a fork of w:WP:MOS. Remember forks are evil. My own view is that any parts of Wikipedia's version which are relevant to all Wikimedia projects (most of it in fact) should be moved to Meta, and a new section added which pertains only to Wikibooks.

I noticed a lot of people are creating their own standards (MOSs) for individual book projects, and including the standards in subpages of the books. This is perhaps a better idea than having one big MOS containing everything.

I could go on for ages, but I'll stop here for now, to put a bit more thought into the problems. I still believe that the 'all policy should be on Meta' is right (just read m:Meta:About). I think what I need to do to fix it, is to get admin privs on meta, and tidy up the whole damn thing. I've made a start (Directory and Policy), but I'll need to make changes to Main page to make it much clearer as to what the hell it's all about. - Aya T C 17:36, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree that it is time for some more organization and policy review. "What Wikibooks is not" also seems kind of strange to me and I like the idea of simply stating it in positive terms in the "about" page. I was thinking about an organizational division between
 * textbooks,
 * study guides,
 * non-textbook books and how-to's, including non-serious material,
 * lesson plans and other didactic materials.

 * I might mention that it always seemed to make more sense to me to house everything on the same website, the encyclopedia, dictionary and textbook materials at least. Maybe someday it will all move to Wikipedia and we can just click a tab to switch between the different sister projects. --Karl Wick 22:07, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * We certainly need a more clear cut definition of what Wikibooks is, and hence what it is not. The current definition has been causing problems on VfD. But, that's part of a wider problem with VfD, whereby some people vote to keep or delete a book depending only on how much they like it. Our most important polices (permitted content, naming conventions, rules of conduct, etc.) should be more visible, and presented in a concise form for newcomers. Neglecting to complete edit summaries seems to be the rule, maybe we need to apply some pressure to change that. (Donovan|Geocachernemesis|Interact) 05:20, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Personally, empty edit summaries don't bother me for the most part, since I don't necessarily trust that they match the actual edit. That is to say, I will always check the diff. The only time they're important is when the edit is contentious, especially when removing content from a page. I will almost always revert an unexplained deletion. - Aya T C 16:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Categorization of policies
All those pages about policies should be categorized, and those categories should be subcategories of another category like Category:Wikibooks policies and guidelines. Maybe we can get some ideas from Wikipedia, for example the w:Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines is also a subcategory of w:Category:Wikipedia. --surueña 11:32, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

 * If you read WB:PAG, you will notice that the following categories already exist:

 * Category:Wikibooks enforced policies
 * Category:Wikibooks proposed policies
 * Category:Wikibooks obsolete policies
 * Category:Wikibooks rejected policies

 * Pages are automatically added to those categories when you include the appropriate template in the page. I have made all those a subcategory of Category:Wikibooks policies. That should suffice for now. - Aya T C 16:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Behavioral policies
After seeing a three-year old version of a Wikipedia policy be revived and reading the above comments, I propose that:

Wikibooks should treat the behavioral policies listed on w:Wikipedia:List of policies as one entity, and vote on whether to enact them all and use the next versions of those policies, created on Wikipedia (provided that they aren't radically different, sort of like agreeing to license your work under the next GFDL version).

Benefits: --अagin·ძaz 10:37, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) All behavioral policies are written in the same spirit, and with the same goal in mind
 * 2) Wikipedia's policies have had several years of field-testing and corrections
 * 3) Behavioral policies are general, all-purpose rules that are not unqiue to any wiki

 * This is a very good idea, I agree with you. We should not waste time trying to invent something that is ready on Wikipedia. I don't think wikietiquette should be different on Wikibooks and Wikipedia. --Derbeth talk 12:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Eleven new, somewhat verbose policies taken from a sister wiki that is not noted for its friendliness? I really hope not. What about one single concise behaviour policy (if we really need to have something formal). After all, what do we really need to say? My thoughts are:

 * Rule 1: Be nice.
 * Rule 2: If you break rule 1 then other wikibookians will take appropriate action to encourage you to be nice.
 * Rule 3: If you really do refuse to be nice, you will end up being blocked (though may be unblocked later if you offer credible evidence that you will abide by Rule 1).

 * Ok, we might need a bit more than this, but probably not too much, Jguk 18:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

 * One single policy is also a good idea. Really anything is better than having a dozen various policies, with half being enforced and half only proposed. But a simple three-rule policy runs the risk of growing longer and longer to handle upcoming circumstances. Of course we may be able to keep it simple, but there's a reason Wikipedia has all those policies. Assuming Wikibooks is eventually going to become as large as Wikipedia, we need to be prepared for the future. And a reasonable set of time-tested policies already happens to exist. --✉haginძazt\c 18:55, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

there's a reason Wikipedia has all those policies. Yes, but what is that reason? People like me suspect that reason is apathy: old policies tend accumulate like barnacles long after they become irrelevant, and there is no pressure to get rid of them. --70.189.77.59 14:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Reorganising this page
I'd like to reorganise this page quite dramatically and, therefore, have deceided not to be too bold and consult with the community beforehand.

I think the page would be more sensible for the user if the page grouped policies and guidelines according to their status, rather than treating them one after the other (in its present form, we might as well split the page in two).

I'm thinking:
 * 1) Definition of terms.
 * 2) Procedures
 * 3) Formulating policies and guidelines
 * 4) Enforcing policies
 * 5) Enforced policies.
 * 6) Accepted guidelines.
 * 7) Proposals
 * 8) Obsolete
 * 9) Rejected

--Swift 06:21, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd like to polish the Definition of terms section to include the should/must definitions.
 * I think Proposals should perhaps transclude Category:Wikibooks proposed policies and Category:Wikibooks proposed guidelines rather than duplicate the content, possibly (probably?) causing inconsistencies.

 * Sounds good to me, this page always has been a bit of an eyesore, in my opinion. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 12:37, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Definition of terms
I've cleaned this up for clarity. I commented the "Wikibooks * ..." parts out since I don't really think they are necessary. Their meaning is simply so obvious. As for the must/should, these have a subtle difference which is good to clarify. I'd still like to slim that section down a bit.

I'm still not sure how to word the official/obsolete/rejected/proposed definitions. --Swift 00:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've also acted on my slimming down on the must/should definitions as threatened earlier. --Swift 08:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Change to categorization
Currently, we have several categories which I'd like to see changed/merged. See table:

The rationale for merging the proposed policy and guideline categories is that, at least recently, proposals have been switched between the two, and being able to discuss which it should be would be a useful option without much beurocracy. The category page could also be used to coordinate which PAG proposal was currently being discussed. As for the rest of them, I think seperating them into seperate categories serves little purpose (except in the current official ones).

The names begin to sound a little odd, though, so I've been wondering if there is a nice collective term for "policies and guidelines" (and even essays?). The best I've come up with is "principles", but that might just confuse and complicate. --Swift 08:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

 * This is now mostly done. There is now an over-arching category, Category:Wikibooks policies and guidelines, for all PAG matters. It should contain everything.
 * The only two outstanding issues are to run through everything and make sure there aren't any typos, mistakes and inconsistancies, and to make sure everything is categorized properly (pipe what needs to be piped so that it appeas at the correct place in lists etc.) --Swift 06:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Enforced and Official
I'm inlcined to start using "official" instead of "enforced" when referring to a policy or guideline. It seems odd that a policy should be enforced without being official and vice versa.

Essentially, there are some policies that are simply "generally accepted" without having been voted on (these would be enforced, but not official; though the page makes it seem that these aren't labelled as enforced). I'd say, we brand these as "official" as well (and, if need be, vote on them).

Using the term enforced for guidelines (as is currently done) also seems a little odd. --Swift 00:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

 * Done. Policy and Guideline now use "official". --Swift 06:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

these need some explanation
Under style guidelines, there is listed

 * 1) Use color sparingly
 * 2) Use subheads sparingly

why?? I'm not going to follow arbitrary guidelines for no reason whatsoever. Subheadings provide structure. Colour can be very illuminating. Why not do what works? Other similar 'one liners' are also owed some explanation. --pfctdayelise 02:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Good point. The color one, i think, just makes things more readable, especially for people who are colorblind, or who need high-contrast settins in their browser. Sometimes manually setting the colors using HTML directives can override the disability settings on the person's browser. Perhaps it's a small reason (and possibly contrived), but it's something to consider before you turn your page into a terrible rainbow.
 * As to the subheadings one, I think the point is to use "deeply nested" subheadings sparingly. High-level subheadings can actually be smaller then the surrounding body text, and pages with so many levels of sub-headings should probably be broken into sub-pages instead. Also, pages with dozens of headings and subheadings will have an obnoxiously long TOC on the page, which can be annoying. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 03:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging Policies and guidelines sections
I'd like to merge the policies and guidelines sections. They are topically identical and only differ in how strict they are. I suggest the following structure (sublists contain which current sections should go where):

Official policies and guidelines
 * Copyrights policies
 * Don't infringe on copyrights
 * Project scope
 * Wikibooks is an instructional resource
 * Structure
 * Wikibooks structure
 * Content
 * Wikibooks content
 * Content guidelines
 * Style guidelines
 * General guidelines: Editing guideline
 * Behaviour
 * Respect other contributors
 * Behavior guidelines
 * Maintainance
 * Administrators
 * General guidelines: Decision making

Comments appreciated. --Swift 23:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

 * The word "guideline" usually means a weaker form of policy. So, yes, gudielines are less strict policies. The reason policies are separated from guidelines in general is to highlight the fact that the policies are strict rules. I am happy with the current division - it draws a clear line in the sand: on one side are guidance notes and on the other side there are rules. RobinH 10:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Merging policies and guidelines into one category
Currently, our policies and guidelines are seperated only by strictness. Some are policies actually have some parts that have "should"s in them and some guidelines might have some "must"s (haven't checked the latter). Anyway, given the definitions given at the top of the page, we really don't need to distinguish between policies and guidelines; a policy can contain both requirements and recommendations.

I'd really appreciate a discussion on this as it would be quite a drastic move. --Swift 01:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Objections to Merging policies
As I have stated elsewhere, I personally prefer several smaller policies that are short and to the point as opposed to a single monolithic policy. Here are some reason why:

Individual Policies are....

 * Easier to reach a concensus. If the topic is focused, you can usually get a number of people to agree to individual points.
 * Easier to change. If a policy contains just a few words and the justifications for the policy are weak, it is easier to change a single small policy instead of a huge monolithic policy document.
 * Easier to write. By keeping a policy to a specific point where there have been issues raised in the past, you can usually come up with come very clear wording that doesn't try to be everything for every situation.

This IMHO is where What is Wikibooks/Unstable is falling apart as it is trying to become a single monolithic policy for a whole bunch of things at the same time. My experience is that such policies rarely gain community concensus and often languish for years before acceptance, if ever.

My comments I made earlier with Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines/Proposed reform still apply here. It is possible (and it works rather well) to ammend policies one section at a time, making overall very minor modifications. That precludes such massive overhauls such as what is being done with the What is Wikibooks, which really need to have stronger attention by the Wikibooks community for such a massive change. Smaller changes, while significant over time, can also be reversed easily. --Rob Horning 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I fully agree that it would be far easier to get acceptance of smaller policies. Indeed all three points of Rob's seem entirely valid to me. The sheer content of a single (or small number) all embracing policy is quite worrying never mind being all things to all people -- Herby  talk thyme 17:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I think you may have misunderstood Swift's suggestion (if thats what this is in response to). Swift was suggesting only the merging of categories and I think getting rid of the distinction between policy and guideline. Not about merging any current policy/guideline. I agree with your pointers, but disagree with your use WIW/Unstable as an example. It has a focused topic, what contents of Wikibooks consists of. Its about the same size as the current WIW. It does address problems now and in the past. It doesn't try to be everything to everyone. Before I did some major editing of it, the proposal was a lot longer and I think a lot less focused and didn't really address a specific point. It tries to be a more general policy (or guideline if you prefer) to address some confusion over what Wikibooks is for. I do admit its a major change in approach and probably the best solution which has already been suggested on its talk page is to discussion and deal with each section one at a time. --dark [[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]] lama 00:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm in agreement with Rob here, and even though I appreciate your vision, Darklama, I don't think it's a method that's going to work in the long term. There are two options that I would like to consider:
 * A small number of policy documents, reasonably large, but vague. These documents would be supported by a number of smaller ancillary guideline pages, that would detail the specifics of the policy, as needed.
 * A large number of small policy documents, specific to their own topics, and not requiring external supporting documents.
 * WIW is an important policy I think, but if we try to make it the only resource, or the only policy document, we are going to fail. I say we make it more simple, and use guidelines to fill in the details. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 02:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo
I've removed the following text from this page:

 * In extreme and unusual cases, Jimbo Wales has stepped in to ban a user who has proven to be unusually disruptive. Jimbo has also declared certain policies to be, essentially, official Wikimedia policies; see this Wikien-l post.

I did this for a few reasons: I'm hoping that this removal won't upset anybody. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Jimbo has never really been as big an authority here as he has been at wikipedia (although many people, myself included, highly value Jimbo's opinions)
 * 2) Jimbo is generally less active in WMF things then he used to be.
 * 3) If anybody has the ability to dictate policy, it is likely the WMF board as a whole, not just Jimbo.
 * 4) To the best of my knowledge, Jimbo or the WMF has never dictated a policy to us that we must obey.

 * I think the key aspect here is that Jimbo is not really active with WMF projects (although I've seen some recent posts by him on Foundation-l). Part of this is (I think) to give Florance the chance to take the helm of the WMF as the current chair and not overshadow her.  Jimbo does maintain a seat on the board of trustees, but is concentrating most of his efforts on Wikia, in terms of making policy decisions and such.

 * As far as the WMF or Jimbo "dictating policy", I'll leave that subject alone. I've spilled far too much ink on that subject.  --Rob Horning 11:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Mm, not me. I like the occasional improvement of this document, and wish to see more.  :-)  --Iamunknown 00:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Things have changed since 2007 (e.g., the wmf:Resolution:Biographies of living people was adopted). WhatamIdoing (discuss • contribs) 04:15, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Must and should
I appreciate the use of RFC 2119 definitions for these words must and should.

This page says that policies contain rules that must be obeyed, and that guidelines contain rules that should be obeyed. However, this isn't true. Policies contain descriptive information, alternatives, help material, and statements that something "should" be the case or "may be" this or that. Even the #Policies section itself uses the word should: "The site should primarily be used for developing textbooks..."

I think it might be appropriate for the statement "A policy is a set of rules that must be followed. A guideline is a set of rules that should be followed" to be removed. WhatamIdoing (discuss • contribs) 04:14, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

 * Object, the text does not intend to define what a policy or guideline is in general terms, but what they are in regards to Wikibooks bureaucracy. If it seems confusing to you, policies are guidelines that have some dictates that must be enforced by the community (or a proposal made to change them) a guideline is not enforced, it states that something should or may be done in the preferred stated as agreed way but there may be reasons not to do it so or existing exceptions, it is simply a communal request of compliance.
 * "The site should primarily be used for developing textbooks..." is correct not all the projects on Wikibooks are textbooks or even intended to be so, but that is the primary goal.  --Panic (discuss • contribs) 06:58, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Saying that policies are rules that must be obeyed, when the policies themselves say that some rules "only" should be obeyed seems self-contradictory to me. For example,
 * Annotated texts says "There are no absolute rules for texts of this kind and any reasonable decision by the contributor(s) should be respected" – but this page says that if it's a policy, then you must obey that page.
 * NPOV says "competing mainstream views can and should be presented" – but this page says that if it's a policy, then you must do that.
 * Deletion says, "you should add rfd to the top of the work" – but this page says that you must do what the policy says.
 * Profanity says, "Module titles should not include profanity unless specifically required by the content" – but this page says that this is a "must", even if the policy says "should".
 * If this bit is supposed to mean "We enforce these consistently, and we recommend these", then we should just say that, instead of adding a layer of falsehoods about policies containing absolute requirements even when the policies themselves say that some of their content is optional. WhatamIdoing (discuss • contribs) 18:13, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Add in new policy inside
What do you guys think of this newly added guidelines?

(1) No solicitation of paid work: All contributions (in any forms such as creating new page, edit pages) made to the Wikibooks must be done in voluntarism spirit and without any expectation of financial compensation.

(2) No self - promotions or advertisements: The Wikibooks should be a platform for sharing information, not a place to promote personal websites, businesses products, services, or individuals. This means that any promotional content, including links or mentions of products or services, should be avoided and banned if found. Any information shared in Wikibooks should be objective and focused on providing helpful, relevant content to the community.

(3) Transparency: If a contributor is found to be soliciting paid work or engaging in any other form of self-promotion, they should be transparent about their intentions and immediately remove any inappropriate content.

(4) Bias : The Wikibooks should be driven by the community, with contributions coming from a wide range of individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. This helps to ensure that the content remains unbiased and relevant to the community as a whole.

By your truly Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 12:50, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

title: Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines


text:
Spanish/Lesson 1

Introduction
This is the very first lesson in learning a second language, the Spanish language!

This lesson begins with simple greetings, and covers important ideas of the Spanish language. Throughout education, methods of teaching Spanish have changed greatly. Years ago, the Spanish language was taught simply by memory. Today, however, the Spanish Language is taught by moving more slowly and covering grammar and spelling rules.

Again, this is an introduction. If this is the first time you are attempting to learn Spanish, do not become discouraged if you cannot understand, pronounce, or memorize some of the things discussed here.

In addition, learning a second language requires a basic understanding of your own language. You may find, as you study Spanish, that you learn a lot about English as well. At their core, all languages share some simple components like verbs, nouns, adjectives, and plurals. English, as your first language, comes naturally to you and you don't think about things like subject-verb agreement, verb conjugation, or usage of the various tenses; yet you use these concepts on a daily basis.

While English is described as a very complicated language to learn, many of the distinguishing grammar structures have been simplified over the years. This is not true for many other languages. Following the grammatical conventions of Spanish will be very important, and can actually change the meaning of phrases. You'll see what is meant by this as you learn your first verbs ser and estar.

Do not become discouraged! You can do it.

Dialogue 1
Two good friends - Carmen and Roberto - are meeting:

[[Media:SpanishL1D1.ogg|Listen to the dialogue.]] (139KB)

Dialogue 2
Two people - Señor González and Señora Pérez - are meeting for the first time:

Nice to meet you.

Listen to the Dialogue. [[Media:SpanishL1D2.ogg|listen]]

Vocabulary
Exercise: Greetings

Grammar: Subject Pronouns
A few things to keep in mind:
 * It is normal in Spanish to omit the personal pronoun (i.e. you seldom say yo estoy bien, but estoy bien, and you ask ¿Cómo se llama? instead of ¿Cómo se llama usted?) because the specific conjugation of a verb usually indicates which person is the subject. However, usted, él and ella all use the same verb form so if you choose to drop the pronoun in this case it must be clear in the situational context which pronoun is being referenced.
 * In Spain the vosotros form can be used to address a group of familiar people (e.g. friends), and ustedes is used with more formality (e.g. recent acquaintances). In Latin American countries ustedes is used also for a familiar group of people; in these countries the "vosotros" form is almost never used.
 * In Argentina, parts of Uruguay, and some other countries, the tú form is replaced with vos.
 * Usted and ustedes can be abbreviated as Ud. and Uds., respectively.

Grammar: Verbs ser and estar
Spanish has two different words that can be translated with "to be". Ser is used more for more permanent characteristics ("Soy Luis") whereas estar is used for more temporary or changeable conditions, such as location ("La papelera está al lado del escritorio", "The trash can is beside the desk") and feeling ("Estoy bien"). A good way to remember when to use "estar" is by using the rhyme, "To tell how you feel or where you are, always use the verb estar." In future lessons we will come back to the uses of ser and estar.

Here we will look at the conjugations in the present indicative.

Ejemplos de los verbos ser y estar (Examples of the verbs ser and estar)
Note: *This use of estar is the Spanish present progressive which is used for actions in progress. More about the present progressive in Lesson 4

Dialect Note: Spanish which uses the vos form conjugates ser with the following irregular form: sos.

Exercise: Verbs ser and estar

Hay
Spanish uses a different verb (haber) to express "there is " and "there are". The form of haber used for this purpose is hay, for both singular ("there is") and plural ("there are").

Spanish alphabet
Here is the normal Spanish alphabet. However words aren't alphabetized by it. Please read the notes and sections below. (Blue letters are a part of the normal English alphabet.)

Audio: [[Media:Spanish alphabet.ogg|OGG]] (646KB)

Although the above will help you understand, proper pronunciation of Spanish consonants is a bit more complicated:

Most of the consonants are pronounced as they are in American English with these exceptions:
 * b like the English b at the start of a word and after m or n; otherwise is pronounced like a cross between a v and a b (in Spanish there's no distinction for b and v)
 * c before a, o, u and other consonants, like English k
 * c before i and e like English th in “think” (in Latin America is like English s)
 * ch like ch in “cheese”
 * d between vowels (even if it starts a word following a word ending in a vowel) or at the end of a word, like English d in dental
 * g before e or i like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in “loch”, except that it is voiced
 * g before a or o like g in “get”
 * h is always silent (except in the digraph ch)
 * j like the Scottish pronunciation of ch in “loch”, except that it is voiced
 * ll traditionally pronounced like lli in “million”, it is now pronounced like English y in “yes”, except that it is more voiced
 * ñ like ni in “onion” (or gn in French cognac)
 * q like the English k
 * r slighty trilled; like a soft d except at the beginning of a word or after l, n or s where it is trilled
 * rr should be trilled longer than a single r
 * v like the English b at the start of a word and after m or n; otherwise is pronounced like a cross between a v and a b (in Spanish there's no distinction for b and v)
 * z like the English th (in Latin America, like English s)

Vowel pronunciation
The pronunciation of vowels is as follows:

The "u" is always silent after q (as in "qué" pronounced kā).
 * a [a] "La Mano" as in "altar"         (ah)
 * e [e] "Mente" as in "melow" (e)
 * i [i] "Sin" as in "into"  (i)
 * o [o] "Como" as in "opera". (short o)
 * u [u] "Lunes" as in "lunatic" (oo)

Spanish also uses the ¨ (diaeresis) diacritic mark over the vowel u to indicate that it is pronounced separately in places where it would normally be silent. For example, in words such as vergüenza ("shame") or pingüino ("penguin"), the "u" (sounds the same as the "u" in "ultra") is pronounced similarly but with more strength to the English "w" forming a diphthong with the following vowel: [we] and [wi] respectively. It is also used to preserve sound in stem changes and in commands.

Semi-Vowels

 * y [ʝ] "Reyes" similar to the y of "yet", but more voiced (in some parts of Latin America it is pronounced as s in "vision" [ʒ] or sh in "flash" [ʃ])

At the end of a word or when it means "and" ("y") it is pronounced like i.

Acute accents
Spanish uses the ´ (Acute) diacritic mark over vowels to indicate a vocal stress on a word that would normally be stressed on another syllable; Stress is contrastive. For example, the word ánimo is normally stressed on a, meaning "mood, spirit." While animo is stressed on ni meaning "I cheer." And animó is stressed on mó meaning "he cheered."

Additionally the acute mark is used to disambiguate certain words which would otherwise be homographs. It's used in various question word or relative pronoun pairs such as cómo (how?)& como (as), dónde(where?) & donde (where), and some other words such as tú (you) & tu (your), él (he/him) & el (the).

Emphasis
The rules of stress in Spanish are:

1. When the word ends in a vowel or in "n" or "s" the emphasis falls on the second to last syllable.

Eg: Mañana, Como, Dedos, Hablan.

2. When the word ends in a consonant other than "n" or "s", the emphasis falls on the last syllable.

Eg: Ciudad, Comer, Reptil.

3. If the above two rules don't apply, there will be an accent to show the stress.

Eg: Fíjate, Inglés, Teléfono.

4. SPECIAL CASE: Adverbs ending in -mente, which are derived from adjectives, have two stresses. The first stress occurs in the adjective part of the adverb, on the syllable where the adjective would normally be stressed. The second stress occurs on the -men- syllable.

Eg: Solamente, Felizmente, Cortésmente.

title: Spanish/Lesson 1


text:
Help talk:Contents

Which pages should we still link to?
I assume all the pages of the old help hierarchy that we no longer link to should be deleted in the future. (I've included Help:Introduction 2 in them in order to mark them.) Should we still link to Help:Introduction? Doesn't Welcome and Wikibooks:About cover the same information and more? I would like to keep a link to Help:Contributing to Wikibooks for a while because this was my primary source of information about editing (or at least of links to the corresponding pages). --Martin Kraus (talk) 19:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

 * @Martin Kraus Ndaba Sinothando (discuss • contribs) 08:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Should we include a link to Templates? I think it is about the only useful directory of templates. --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

 * i think so too Ndaba Sinothando (discuss • contribs) 08:56, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

PDF Books
I have spent the last 4-6 months working on the Commons Category:Pdf files and have created several subcategories. Many of the saves and deletions are books, University theses, manuals etc in Pdf format. It was suggested on a discussion page at one time that Pdf books and Theses go in wikibooks. If so how do I go about linking or moving these book files to here? WayneRay (talk) 15:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)WayneRay

 * You might want to discuss this question at WB:RR. I think University theses don't belong in Wikibooks because (at least in the Universities I know) they usually include original research, which should not be published at Wikibooks (WB:NOR). Moreover, you would have to convert the PDF files to the wiki markup language, as the hosting of existing books (in the PDF format) is discouraged (WB:SOURCE and WB:HOST). --Martin Kraus (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Last I heard in a recent reform of Commons' inclusion policy, PDF files are still allowed on Commons. I don't see any reason why they would need to be moved anywhere. They can be accessed from any project where they might be appropriate. -- dark lama  14:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Help cleanup
Some clean up effort has been going on for some time now, on and off again, to make Wikibooks' help more useful. I propose that Wikibooks' help space be treated like a book. By formatting pages like is done within our books, people unfamiliar with Wikibooks' style can quickly become familiar with how things are done differently on Wikibooks. Using this approach the help space can teach and help people understand how to do things on Wikibooks by following its own example. To this end, I think some requirements are a must: each page must include a 2 level heading with the page/chapter title; additional headings must use 3 level heading or greater; text must not come before the first level 2 heading; and the help space must have a consistent style, which means discussion needs to happen to develop a style guide for the help namespace.

I also think the help space could be made more useful by including more media, diagrams, illustrations, etc. However media should be used to compliment rather than substitute for missing information, in order to make Wikibooks' help accessible to more people, such as the blind.

Any thoughts, ideas, opinions, or any other suggestions? -- dark lama  14:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

 * I don't have any objections as such to treating the Help name-space as a book, but would caution against forcing it into that mold. First of all, I don't foresee anyone really reading this cover to cover. It should, therefore, be treated more as a handbook with a strong emphasis on structure to help readers quickly locate useful information.
 * Linear navigation aids will not necessarily be of much use for such a book. As for other Wikibooks conventions, I would think it more useful to point to various featured books for examples as there often exist multiple approaches to similar issues.
 * Whiteknight wants to take the book-approach a step further and deprecate the Help name-space all together. I'm not sure which approach is the best. I've so far just been trying to wrap my head around the sprawling set of pages that we have here. For the time begin, I think it would be best to implement changes in increments, first organising the available contents and then molding it into whatever we deem best. --Swift (talk) 03:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Your saying what I really meant anyways. I was trying to suggest a strong emphases on structure, as well as a strong emphases on consistent style. I wasn't suggesting that there necessarily be a specific reading order or navigation aids. I guess I'm a bit ahead of you in that regard, I've already wrapped my head around the help pages, years ago. -- dark lama  18:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Great! It sounds like we have a similar enough a vision. Let's get to work! --Swift (talk) 01:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 * So, how will the redesigned help space be different from Using Wikibooks? One of the major differences between the current help pages and Using Wikibooks is probably that help pages are full of links (and should be in my opinion) while the pages in Using Wikibooks have less links (since they should be self-contained as in a good textbook). Do you intend to keep this difference? --Martin Kraus (talk) 12:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Well I guess to me the most obvious differences will be in presentation and audience. I think Using Wikibooks is intended to be read in a certain order and is intended to be read by an audience already familiar with most wiki concepts, while the help space is likely to depend less on a specific reading order and should be intended to be read by people not familiar with most wiki concepts. I would like to make the help space more self-contained and limit links to important things explained in greater detail that don't quite fit the beginner audience, by linking only to Using Wikibooks and to the MediaWiki website if I can. I think links should be used more sparingly than they currently are. Does that answer your questions?

 * It does, thanks. I wasn't aware that Using Wikibooks is intended for an audience who is already familiar with most wiki concepts. Since I'm rather new I often read help pages and in fact I'm often missing links. In particular, I often know that I have read some information but don't find the page to read it again. The most recent case was Help:Category which didn't link to the Wikibooks-specific information at Categories (I added that link); thus, I was searching quite a bit for that page. Thus, at least currently I think links to the Wikibooks namespace should also be included. --Martin Kraus (talk) 14:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

 * I could be wrong about the intended audience or what assumptions Using Wikibooks makes. Even if there is some overlap, I don't think that is going to be a problem. I think linking to related Wikibooks policies like with your example is fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that links be blindly deleted. I just think the help space relies too much on external links in an attempt to make up for what is missing or what is lacking, rather than expanding the available help. -- dark lama  20:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Deleting non-Wikibooks-specific pages
I've mentioned this to Darklama, but I figured I'd add this here in case others would like to comment.

We have a number of help pages that explain how to use markup. The problem is that they are unmaintained versions of content that rather belongs at Meta and the MediaWiki wiki. I've gone through these and have found nothing of use to describe Wikibooks related syntax. I propose that the following be deleted:

 * (See mw:Extension:EasyTimeline/syntax)
 * (See meta:Help:HTML in wikitext)
 * (See meta:Help:List)
 * , (See: mw:Help:Magic words)
 * (See meta:Help:Navigational image)
 * ,, Help:Turkish characters}} (See: [[meta:Help:Special characters).
 * , (See meta:Help:Displaying a formula
 * redirect to Help:Editing?

The parenthesised links indicate where I believe we should point users who might be looking for this sort of content. --Swift (talk) 22:11, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and this one too: --Swift (talk) 07:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Help:ISBN links (See mw:Manual:ISBN)

 * I don't think these pages are needed because the majority of the markup is described already in Help:Editing or should be described there. I think Help:Templates should also discuss variables and magic words. I don't think there will really be a need to point users to content on the other projects.

 * Also I think a lot of the help on Meta is in the process of being moved to MediaWiki, because its not specific to Wikimedia projects. I think there also has been some talk of using Wikibooks to aid in improving the mediawiki documentation. In either case the lack of stability is one more reason not to rely on Meta or MediaWiki much. -- dark lama  05:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * As far as I know, the transfer from Meta to MediaWiki to the help namespace was abandoned after the MediaWiki Help namespace was put in the public domain (the manual and extension namespace are still transwikied). The MediaWiki Help namespace has since been built from scratch. It is steadily improving and I recommend that we help direct our non-Wikibooks specific documentation efforts there. --Swift (talk) 07:22, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I think it may still be happening. I have tried to improve some help on Meta for instance only to go back to it to find that the page had moved to MediaWiki. I have also occasionally went to a help page to double check something only to find that that its been marked to be moved to MediaWiki or a notice that updates should now be done at MediaWiki. I think Wikibooks needs to maintain some local documentation, because linking to Meta and MediaWiki doesn't seem to be enough for most users. I just think that these pages are unneeded because local documentation is either already present on another page or should be. -- dark lama  09:08, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * [[Image:Yes_check.svg|15px| ]] Done Whew! I've updated a bunch of links, but left most of those on pages in the help namespace as we'll have to go through those anyway. --Swift (talk) 10:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Page headings

 * The following discussion was moved here from Help talk:Tracking changes after it moved on to a more general discussion about the sectioning of content in the help namespace. --Swift (talk) 04:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just reverted part of an earlier edit. I removed a section header titled "Stable revisions" that spanned the entire page, and bumped the sub-section headers. If a section really spans the entire page, then the page should probably be renamed to its title.

I wasn't sure what the most proper page name would be so I checked mw:Help:FlaggedRevs which states that stable revisions are only revisions of a certain limit. On Wikibooks that limit is currently at the lowest (sighting). It might be more useful to keep a more general title for this page in line with the help page currently being developed over at MediaWiki.org. --Swift (talk) 07:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Don't think of it as a section heading, but as a page heading. Books do that all the time, its considered part of Wikibooks' style. This goes back to my suggestion on Help talk:Contents to make the help pages follow some basic book style guidelines. -- dark lama  14:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Oh. But we already have page headings: the page titles. I'd agree that designating the help pages with a certain look could be useful. Instead of a "page heading" we could adda navigation bar with a nice, helpful looking icon. The useful template helps with creating a standard look, but, ironically, isn't very useful itself. I'd be rather opposed to adding these page headings. --Swift (talk) 17:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I disagree. A page's title isn't a heading. The page title doesn't even show up in the TOC that is generated. Why would you be rather opposed to using page headings? I've been trying to add them to every help page I've edited for awhile now. I don't think a page's title is very useful on paper. I'd like the help pages to eventually be printed as a way of attracting more contributors to Wikibooks. Also I thought we had already agreed on Help talk:Contents that navigational templates shouldn't be used? I guess you could say I'd be rather opposed to not using page headings. -- dark lama  04:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * The page title is a h1-heading. That isn't just technical hair-splitting as that's how it's rendered both on screen and in print. I remember reading in some W3C document on HTML recommending that pages have only a single h1 level heading each, but be sectioned up with h2 and higher. A single section for the entire page just seems redundant.
 * I consider it a feature that this doesn't show up in the generated TOC. The "Stable Revisions" heading in this version serves little purpose on that page and forces every other section to be pushed down one level. I, furthermore, prefer having the h2 level headings to section pages up into logical parts as they render by default with that line underneith and the higher level headings as rather small and similar.
 * If you'd like this type of page-wide sections to make it easier to stich them together in a print version, how about adding h1 level headings on the print version page (which I'd consider the the most logical approach) or create a collection?
 * I think I misunderstood you a bit in the Help cleanup discussion. I think we shouldn't necessarily conform to a linear navigation, but consider a template with an overview of useful pages, well ... useful. It might be useful to move these two topics to Help talk:Contents. --Swift (talk) 06:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * First off I was using a h2 heading, not a h1 heading, so there was only a single h1 level heading on the page. I think h1 headings should correlate to the sections of the help (like Introduction, Browsing Wikibooks, etc) and h2 headings should be used to divide the help into "chapters". I think this is what books do, although the separation tends to depend on whether a book merely has chapters or needs to be divided further than that. From there h3 level headings and higher are used to further divide content. This still is in line with W3C's recommendation, so I don't see the problem.
 * As I'm sure you know, modules are often chapters or parts of a chapter. I think if a module is a chapter it should only have one h2 heading, or if a module is part of a chapter it should only have one h3 heading. I think doing this does serve a purpose beyond pushing page sections down. I think how the help is divided should be reflected in the use of different heading levels, and should reflect more than just how a module is divided, so that readers and writers understand how a book is divided. Plus I don't think there should be any text above a page's generated TOC. I think having text above a page's generated TOC interferes with or interrupts the flow of reading the page.
 * Some printed books don't require that they be read from front to back in a liner order. I think this could be considered that type of book, so that's why I don't see a problem with not using navigational aids. Feel free to move this discussion there. -- dark lama  08:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I've just moved the discussion here: Help talk:Contents. --Swift (talk) 04:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I know you used a h2 heading. I thought that was clear from the first paragraph of my previous comment: "[Pages should be] sectioned up with h2 and higher. A single section for the entire page just seems redundant." I do realise that you had a useful purpose in mind with your edits. I never said that "pushing page sections down" was the purpose, but noted it as the effect.
 * I think we may have been mis-reading each others comments a bit lately on issues where we don't see eye to eye. Do you see how I think you've misinterpreted my previous comment? Do you find that I'm misunderstanding you as well? I'd appreciate it if we could sort that out as I feel like we're talking in two different dialects and not progressing much because of it. --Swift (talk) 04:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(reset)

I still don't understand what you're trying to say or why you disagree with my approach. Whatever you were trying to explain wasn't clear to me from the context. I guess I don't understand your reference to h1 and W3C's recommendations. To me what you said suggested that you think I wasn't following W3C's recommendation because I was using h1 headings, which wasn't apparently what you meant.

I only see that I must have misunderstood your previous comment, but not how I misunderstood it because you haven't provided any further explanation. I can't tell yet if you've misunderstood me as well. What have I said that you think you've misunderstood? If I understand you right, you seem to think the purpose of section headings is to separate a module into sections. I on the other hand think section heads are for separating a book into sections and subsections. I guess you see each help page as standing on it own, and I see the each help page as being part of a book where each chapter can be read independently. Other than trying to explain in our own words what we each think the other person is saying and trying to clarify what is misunderstood, I'm not sure what else we can do to reduce any misunderstandings, without knowing what is misunderstood. -- dark lama  13:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Sorry for the late reply. What I disagree with is your use of a single section to encompass the entire page. I was concerned that you might think my approach didn't tie the sections of the page together tightly enough. Rather than just saying that I disagreed with the use of only a single h2 heading per page, I therefore lead into it with the reference to the W3C's recommendation. My aim was to clarify that I didn't think the sections should just dangle unconnected, and that the h1 section (the title) should — and already does — do this.
 * I don't, actually, think that I'm misunderstanding you a lot, but figured I'd still ask.
 * I think we have fairly similar ideas of what to do with these pages, but differ mostly on formatting (well, and that I want to "outsource" simple syntax stuff to ; but that's a different topic). I don't think the help pages shouldn't form a whole, but feel (like you) that it's important that they be able to stand on their own. I'm less interested in printing these out, than in having them accessible and organised for users. Would you be willing to accept the compromise to place h1 headings between page inclusions on print versions? I don't think we should be formatting individual pages in for how they should come out on print and should focus on how they display to online users of Wikibookians. --Swift (talk) 06:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Weeding
I'd like to get the community input before weeding out a few practically unused pages in the help namespace:

 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * None of these is linked from anywhere useful. I suggest we delete them all. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

 * The only meaningful link to this page is from a ) --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The only meaningful link to this page is from a ) --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

 * A borderline case in my book. The only link to it is through a redirect at and may not have been intnetional.  is in need of an overhaul anyway and I just don't see this to be very useful. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A borderline case in my book. The only link to it is through a redirect at and may not have been intnetional.  is in need of an overhaul anyway and I just don't see this to be very useful. --Swift (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree on deletion of them all. I had never seen them before you pointed them out, so how would they be useful to anyone who might need to see them if regulars don't even come across them? Plus, they are either lacking in meaningful content or the results of over-importing from other projects without regard to redundancy with other help pages. -- Adrignola talk contribs 00:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

 * Yes check.svg Done Those interested can browse User:Swift/Help pages to see a (once full) list of help pages. I'm trying to merge, refactor or rewrite these to make our support pages more accessible. --Swift (talk) 19:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Good point people for WikiBooks to help new editors from Wikipedia?
Hi everyone. I'm looking to gather 1-3 contacts for WikiBooks who would be interested in serving as point people for new editors from Wikipedia. I don't expect that it'll be too time consuming, but, just in case we have a new editor stop by the Teahouse who expresses interest in participating in media contributions and you can be friendly and welcome them and perhaps direct them to an area that might interest them. You're welcome to respond here, or even better, on my talk page if you're interested in being added to this list. Thanks :D SarahStierch (discuss • contribs) 15:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I've copied your post to Reading room/General due to a likely lack of attention to this page; I linked to this discussion so that responses can be seen here by yourself, though posting to your talk page will be preferable, of course. – Adrignola discuss 17:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! SarahStierch (discuss • contribs) 22:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

title: Help talk:Contents


text:
Spanish/Lesson 2

Díalogo 1: El salón de clase
La profesora entra en el salón.

Profesora: Buenos días alumnos. Hoy estudiamos los objetos en el salón de clase. ¿Cuántos libros hay?

Carlos: Hay catorce estudiantes. Hay catorce libros.

Profesora: Bien Carlos. Marianela, ¿Hay un mapa en el salón?

Marianela: Sí, señora. Hay un mapa a la izquierda de la pizarra. Está en la pared.

Profesora: Bien, Marianela. ¿De qué color es el mapa?

Carlos: El mapa es verde y azul. Es el mapa de México.

Marianela: ¿Profesora, porqué está el mapa en la pared y no está en la pizarra?

Profesora: La pizarra es para escribir con la tiza. Tengo un borrador aquí. ¿Quieres escribir la capital de México en la pizarra?

Marianela: No sé la capital de México.

Carlos: Marianela, mira el mapa.

Marianela: Ay, gracias Carlos. La capital es Ciudad de México.

Profesora: Bien.

Vocabulario: El salón de clase
All vocabulary will be given with the appropriate definite article; however, the article will not be translated. In addition, note that all nouns have a gender: they are either masculine or feminine. This will be important in later lessons when you begin to learn adjectives.

Grammar: The Definite Article
Like in English, Spanish has definite articles that serve to identify the location of the noun in the sentence. These are commonly called "noun markers". These articles have a gender that is equivalent to the gender of the noun they modify. However, sometimes pronunciation requires the article to be different than the gender of the word. In these situations, the gender of the noun will always be indicated. Otherwise, you can use the article to determine the gender of the noun.

Examples: The following examples come from the vocabulary of the first dialogue. Note that no matter whether the word is singular or plural, the meaning of the definite article does not change.

The Indefinite Article
In English the indefinite articles are a and an (singular) or some (plural). In Spanish there are different forms for masculine-gender, feminine-gender, singular or plural.

Examples: For phonetic reasons some words beginning with accented a may have the article un: un ave blanca (a white bird), las aves blancas (the white birds). This is basically the same idea as el ave blanca (the white bird).

Remember, do not confuse uno (one) with un (a or an). Also, do not confuse una (a or an) with uña (fingernail).

Exercise: Spanish/Exercises/Articles

The colors
As in English, colors in Spanish are adjectives. As adjectives, their endings will vary according to the nouns they modify. The following adjectives are in the masculine singular form. Most adjectives will be presented to you in this form.

Examples:

Los números (Numbers)
The numbers 16 through 29 can be formed in two ways: (1) using the conjunction "y" like veinte y uno - 21, or (2) as one complete word, changing the spelling of the word like dieciocho (18) or veintiséis (26).

title: Spanish/Lesson 2


text:
Wikibooks:Contact us

 * Welcome to Wikibooks! If you are new to Wikibooks please visit our welcome page for a quick introduction to the project.

Most general discussion takes place on-wiki in the reading rooms. See Reading room for an overview of these.

If your question or comment is about a particular page, then use the Discussion link that is displayed when you are viewing that page (it is by default in one of the tabs near the top-left of the page).

If you are the owner of content that is being used on Wikibooks without your permission, please read our copyrights policy for information about how to have the issue resolved.

IRC
Real-time conversation takes place on several IRC channels at Libera. This is often the fastest way to contact other contributors. Keep in mind that IRC conversations aren't archived. Consider discussing things that need consensus on-wiki so that others can read up on and understand the rationale for decisions made.

Connect to irc.libera.net with your IRC client and /join one or more of the channels listed below. If you don't already have one, consider registering a nickname. Firefox users can try ChatZilla. Wikipedia has a large comparison of IRC clients. If you're behind a proxy or want to connect within any browser, you can use libera's web chat page.

Learn more by reading the IRC chapter in our very own Internet Technologies book.

 * #wikibooks is the main channel.
 * #cvn-wb-en reports possible vandalisms in recent changes. If there is no bot in the channel, ask for one at #countervandalism. CVN/Bots provides help on using counter-vandalism bots.
 * #en.wikibooks on irc.wikimedia.org tracks recent changes.

 * Related project channels

 * #wikimedia is for discussions concerning the Wikimedia Foundation
 * #wikimedia-admin is for cross-wiki admin cooperation (private; ask Az1568 for access)
 * #wikimedia-tech is for discussing issues with the Wikimedia servers
 * #wikimedia-labs is for discussions concerning the Wikimedia Labs.
 * #mediawiki is for MediaWiki software development and support.
 * #mediawiki-es is for MediaWiki support in Spanish.

Mailing Lists
The Wikimedia Foundation maintains several mailing lists that can be used to discuss the Wikibooks projects and other issues.

Reporters and others who wish to get in touch with the project are encouraged to send an email to our mailing list. Many people subscribe to the mailing lists who do not check messages on Wikibooks regularly. You must be subscribed to the mailing list if you wish to send emails to it.

Wikibooks has two mailing lists for general users and administrators. Mailing lists are available in a number of formats: via a web archive, by email, or by NNTP using the mail-to-news gateway GMANE. Mailing list posts are indexed by search engines such as Google.

Offsite archives of Wikibooks's mailing lists can be found at GMANE and MARC.

 * textbook-l (archive, via NNTP) - for discussing Wikibooks in general
 * wikimedia-l (archive, via NNTP) - for high-traffic discussions concerning the Wikimedia Foundation and all the projects.

 * Technical mailing lists

 * wikitech-l (archive, via NNTP) - for software development and Wikimedia maintenance
 * mediawiki-announce (archive, via NNTP) - for low-traffic announcements of new MediaWiki releases and security updates. (read-only)
 * mediawiki-l (archive, via NNTP) - for announcement and help for people using the software to run other wikis

The Wikimedia Foundation operates a number of other mailing lists as well: http://mail.wikipedia.org

Email
You can send questions, notifications of copyright problems, and other issues to the Textbook-1 mailing list above.

Bug Reports and Feature Requests
You should first search existing entries to get started. You can then report bugs and suggest features related to the MediaWiki software. MediaWiki uses a customized version of Phabricator to track bug reports (learn more). Bugs and feature requests not directly related to the MediaWiki software should be discussed in the technical reading room.

Note that unlike before, you do not have to create a new account to file a bug report at Phabricator; just use your Wikibooks (or your unified Wikimedia) account at Phabricator.

da:Wikibooks:Kontakt os Wikikönyvek/Levelezőlisták pl:Wikibooks:Lista dyskusyjna pt:Wikibooks:Contatos de:Wikibooks:Chat it:Wikibooks:Canale IRC pl:Wikibooks:Kanał IRC

title: Wikibooks:Contact us


text:
Wikibooks:Reading room/Bulletin Board

 * Have a significant announcement? Post it!  See an announcement that is wrong?  Edit it!

Latest Bulletins

 * Looks good. In 18 years on Wikibooks this is probably the first time I've ever read the Bulletin Board. Xania [[Image:Flag_of_Estonia.svg|15px]] [[Image:Flag_of_Ukraine.svg|15px]] talk 01:23, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I am new here and looking around to see if I like this project. Not sure what this Latest Bulletins board is supposed to be used for. It is obviously not very active?
 * I was expecting to see the many announcements from WMF that seem to clutter the various Village pumps on other wmf-projects, where the employees of the WMF do not expect followup posts and rarely reply to any questions by participants. Does the English Wikibooks have such announcements? Ottawahitech (discuss • contribs) 16:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

de:Wikibooks:Rundschau ms:Wikibooks:Pengumuman pl:Wikibooks:Tablica ogłoszeń

title: Wikibooks:Reading room/Bulletin Board


text:
User:ThomasStrohmann

I joined Wikibooks on Aug 1, 2003 and started the Spanish and the Puzzles Wikibooks. Other books I've contributed to is so far just the German one.

If you want to leave me a message, please visit my Talk page.

Cheers, Thomas

My university home page: http://ml.cs.colorado.edu/~strohman

title: User:ThomasStrohmann


text:
User talk:ThomasStrohmann

Hello and Welcome! As you can see this is a very new and experimental project - pardon the mess while we get settled-in. You might be interested in Textbook planning or more casual discussion about the project in our Staff lounge. Cheers! --mav 09:24 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Just a note, I am very excited to get an open content Spanish textbook started because it is a big need worldwide to teach people new languages, and you have just started the first of many language textbooks. I am almost as excited about the book you started as the organic chemistry one that I started to kick off the new site. Welcome aboard de todos modos y estoy muy contento de tenerlo aca. (Perdon, me considero bilingue pero ya tengo un rato de no estar hablando cada dia y se me esta echando a perder el espanol ... ) --Karl Wick 03:12 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hey Thomas, what do you think of this page: Spanish contents ? Its a compact alternative I created of the main Spanish page .. --Karl Wick

Hey Thomas, you are the one uploading Mariela Riva's stuff for her, right ? I ask because some people were talking about this sound file format, the ogg. Have you heard of it ? Do you have the capability to produce that kind of file ? It is all the same to me but they did have some good arguments on why to use that particular format .... -- Karl Wick 03:00 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I applied the contents page to the Spanish page. If this was unexpected or unwelcome to you I will defer to your preference. A revert is quick and easy. By the way, check out how you were a trendsetter and led the way with the language textbooks, now there is a Japanese one that started up! Oh yeah, what do you think of the pictures ? With time we can match pictures to textbook topics, I jsut uploaded a couple I had of Mexican friends .. --Karl Wick

I created an authors page for the book and included my name on it per your suggestion. Karl Wick
 * Visit http://www.vorbis.com/download.psp to get ogg players and encoders. --mav 03:35 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I really appreciate all the work you are doing man, I think it is great. I am now officially more excited about the Spanish book than I am about my own Organic Chemistry one. -- Karl Wick

Thomas, I have created a few Spanish grammar comments. You can see it in here. I'm not very sure where it should go in the textbook, but these are very basical stuff. Tell me if you want that I paste that in any place or fell free of pick up that yourself. My English is not the best at world, so, maybe (well.. sure) there are errors in the sentences. Regards.

Wintermute 19:21, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I was just thinking about how to get some good photos of hispanic people to liven up the pages .. huh so you studied a bit of French too ? I always wanted to visit Africa and thought French would be a good tool. So you speak English, some French and Spanish, and German ? It sounds like you've got the memory of two men. --Karl Wick

--

Your "nicer arrows" cannot be viewed on many browsers. Please use the old ASCII arrows. --mav

Just an idea. I see you have created "Web resources" in the Spanish course, how about creating "software resources" ? I guess, there are downloadable (free) dictionaries and conjugators. Kpjas

Thomas, I have written two pronouns exercices for lesson 1 but I don't see clear where it should be paste. Is there one exercice page for every concept? for every lesson?. Tell me where it should be or fell free yourself for paste it. Regards.

Wintermute 22:26, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hey Thomas, hows it going with the Spanish studies ? Any plans to visit a Spanish-speaking place soon ? --Karl Wick

Thomas, sorry, I didn't see your apendix E for the solutions. I can change the solutions to the lesson 1 exercises there if you think that is a better idea.

Wintermute 06:16, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---

Dude I missed seeing you around, welcome back ! --Karl Wick

Admin
Thomas I want to nominate you to be an admin, as soon as I can find the nomination page. --Karl Wick

Thanks for keeping tabs on the German. I've not used it in about 20 years. I thought that mit mein Brudder needed a different case, but had not tracked it down in the grammer book. Hope it comes back to mind soon! Also, I left off the definite articles on that first intro page because they (articles) are not introduced until lesson 1. Although not exactly grammatically correct, the point there was just to show word comparisons, and not "translate" words. - Marsh 07:33, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

 * I agree with your reasoning on the inclusion of articles in the introduction page. As long as you do not think they will confuse the first-time reader - Marsh 01:29, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Man, you were right there with the alphabet tape! Great addition. Did you already have it in the wings waiting for the text to appear? Is it dialect or my ear, but the 'B' and 'E' sound a bit English to me - Marsh 08:58, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Thomas. How did you make those tables in the Spanish Book that are laid out nicely, and appear as if enclosed in

 tags, but are not (no tags of anykind evident in edit mode)? - Marsh 01:22, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Learning Project
Hej Thomas, I saw you contributed to the Spanish and German wikibooks, so I thought you might be interested in this. I have written a program for learning vocabulary. I think for this purpose a program is more useful than a website, although maybe one day we can make this a java project. It is based on the belief that it is best to learn foreign words by learning typical sentences. The program can also be used for learning other stuff that works with the question/answer scheme, e.g. the theory for the driving licence or anatomy. Unfortunately I wrote it in qbasic, which can be downloaded here. It also uses images and sound files for alternation and in order to work on the pronunciation. Let me know what you think about it. I currently have files in English, French (with sound), Spanish, and Portuguese. Catalan is in the planning. Corrections or additions are very welcome. The easiest thing to start with for improvements would be adding new vocabulary, sound files or images. A guide to the program will follow soon, although I think it is rather self-explanatory. In the long run the program should be rewritten in a better language. Afterwards it should be possible to switch languages within the program. Up to now there is a different version of the program for each language. Get-back-world-respect 23:15, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I TRY TO CONTACT WITH THOMAS

juani.franco@terra.es

Spanish textbook
Hi, I was wondering who to talk to about the Spanish textbook. I have Spanish textbooks from the 1910s and '20s that are in the public domain; I plan to digitize them for Project Gutenberg and wonder whether their content might be incorporated into the Spanish Wikibook. -- Tetraminoe 21:28, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks in Simple Eng. needs an administrator
I've just started working on Wikibooks in Simple English. We need to make someone an administrator. With very few other users (at the moment!) how can I become one and so start getting the project started? Any help would be great. Cheers Charlie123 14:19, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright tags
Could you please insert license information to files you have uploaded to Wikibooks? I would like to move Spanish dialogues to Commons, but they don't have any license, so it's forbidden. You can check Template messages/Image namespace for availables licenses. Thank you. --Derbeth 18:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Your De-Adminship
Hello. I would like to inform you that you will have your sysop rights removed here on 1 Nov 2006 due to inactivity. If you would like to discuss the matter, please see WB:RFA. You can re-apply for adminship at a later date if you wish. Thanks. -within focus 21:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:ThomasStrohmann


text:
Wikibooks:Etiquette

Wikibookians have different backgrounds and hold widely different views. When interacting with respect, users can cooperate effectively to develop free educational textbooks. In the vast majority of cases, people seem to get along, but occasionally people bump up against one another.

Like any community, Wikibookians have developed among themselves a certain etiquette to facilitate productive cooperation.

The community
Wikibooks is divided into a large number of books. Many of these have no active editors and most never see more than a single active contributor at any given time. There are, however, instances where multiple users find themselves working on the same book. In most cases the team-work that grows out of the interaction leads to better content as they bounce ideas off each other.

Given the open nature of the wiki, anyone is free (and encouraged) to start editing any page in any book they think is worth contributing to. In some cases a contributor will start editing pages that one or more editors had until then been alone with. As new ideas can rock the status quo, disagreements can arise.

While the community isn't the goal of the project, a well functioning one helps. Don't limit interactions to the negative: If you see people doing good work, let them know. Do your best to avoid conflicts and resolve those that arise. Don't hold grudges, bury the hatchet and give people a chance to redeem themselves.

Tread softly around your fellow Wikibookians. Contributors have often put a considerably amount of work into the content they have uploaded and can become offended when it is subjected to criticism. Help:Pages has some advice on how to properly approach contributors to pages that are out of scope.

Conflict avoidance and resolution

 * Assume good faith
 * This is an extremely useful principle. Rather than assume that other users are out to get you or "your" content, understand that the content isn't yours and they are editing the book out of a desire to help. Listen to what they have to say, communicate your thoughts and start a dialogue to figure out the best way forward.

 * Ask questions
 * Rather than just trying to convince your counterpart(s), ask them questions of their views and invite them to convince you. You cannot argue against a viewpoint you don't fully understand. Furthermore, there might well be something useful in their position.

 * Leave your pride at the door
 * No matter how long you've been at Wikibooks or editing a specific book, you're going to make mistakes. Acknowledge any mistakes and make apologies when you are wrong or being unfair. Don't get offended.

 * Stay calm or take a break
 * Most edits are easily reversible. If you're not making progress, just take a break for a while to calm yourself and let the dust settle.

title: Wikibooks:Etiquette


text:
Wikibooks talk:Etiquette

Adaptation and Resurrection
Initial text adapted from en:Wikipedia:Wikiquette. --mav 10:00 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

...And as such, it is out of date (and not even recommended here as a guideline). I recommend resurrecting this guideline, as I think it is core to working in a cooperative environment like a wiki.

w:Wikipedia:Etiquette is a guideline on Wikipedia, whereas w:Wikipedia:Civility is a policy - I don't exactly know why. My guess is that, in a Wikimedia context, etiquette is about particular instances of niceness or rudeness, whereas civility is about a whole attitude which is based on etiquette, no personal attacks, and so on. Perhaps the distinction is a pragmatic one; we can enforce a policy of civility (ie ban someone if they are generally repeatedly uncivil), but we can suggest a guideline of etiquette. I'm suggesting we do the same here on Wikibooks - enforce a civil environment, but in general, simply suggest getting everyone to cooperate. It's the softest way, but it is strong if needs be (ie if someone is really kicking up a fuss).

This page here is missing a few things, I think. It is generally concerned with refraining from being offensive, and being nice if possible. But fundamentally, as it says right at the top, etiquette is about treating people with respect. There isn't really any explicit mention of this (or certain aspects of this) in the breakdown of what etiquette is. Specifically, I'm referring to things like listening to other people, trying to see where they are coming from, answering questions politely (even answering questions in the first place and not deleting them), and acknowledging and apologising when you're wrong or being unfair. I think these are absolutely basic to working with other people, and I think we need to be clear about this with all participants, especially newcomers.

Sure, i'll "just fix" this policy. But I'd also like to raise its profile in the project in general. What do other people think? Cormaggio 09:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I suggest that we abandon this page (unless someone volunteers to completely replace it) and instead add a brief paragraph to WB:WIW, indicating that Wikibooks is not for bad behaviour against users. One wiki does this with "WikiFur is not intended to hurt anyone", WikiFur:What_WikiFur_is_not.

 * I dislike having all these extra pages copied from Wikipedia (where I am not familiar with most of the policies). --Kernigh 20:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I strongly disagree with abandoning this page - I have already volunteered to do work on it and I've already started. I can't see how this would be usefully integrated into WB:WIW, without destroying all its meaning - you need to spell it out for some people, and even on the example you give, that part of their policy is a red link, meaning they intend on expanding it there. But we have a perfectly good start, at least, of a policy here. Also, it was originally copied from Wikipedia (back in 2003), but that doesn't make it irrelevant to Wikibooks. Of course, it doesn't automatically make it relevant either, but I think it is very relevant, fundamental even - for the very simple reason that this is a collaborative site and in order to get along here, we need to be nice to each other. Cormaggio 21:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

 * For what it's worth, that policy was intended to apply to the people that WikiFur talked about, as well as its users. 68.40.114.223 17:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

 * The reason that I wanted to abandon the page, was because I thought it was a bad way to establish a policy against aggravating users. I now believe that it can work as a non-policy page, if we do not abandon it. Actually, I did some work on Assume good faith earlier, even though that page is also marked as a proposed policy. --Kernigh 21:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Policy or guideline?
I really don't see this as policy material. Proposed policies are or should be intended to become enforced eventually. I can just see the future arbitrations: "He wasn't say something nice when he could have", "No I couldn't, there just wasn't anything nice to say." Yikes! It's not that "Say nice things when you can" is a bad idea or that it shouldn't be included or that it should be changed. Rather, it's that much of good etiquette just can't be made sufficiently precise and objective to enshrine into a policy. I suggest making this a guideline. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JMRyan (discuss • contribs) 00:15, 22 March 2006

 * I agree. I think though, we need to make civility a policy (across all projects), and then to specify what that is in "sub" policies or guidelines, like no personal attacks and etiquette. I've also opened this discussion on the foundation-l mailing list. Cormaggio 14:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I remove the draft tag from the page, so it is not proposed as a policy. --Kernigh 21:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Use of the Idiom, "bury the hatchet"
Is it appropriate to use the phrase, "bury the hatchet" as it's an idiom that may not be used or understood in every region/culture of English speakers? Hillowrym (discuss • contribs) 19:43, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

title: Wikibooks talk:Etiquette