Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2007/September

images w/o license info

When deleting these, we're supposed to "check if their authors have other images without proper copyright information - if yes, these images should be also deleted and their authors blocked temporarily."

1. Is that correct?
2. What constitutes 'temporarily'?

– Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 22:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There have been a few users over the lifetime of Wikibooks that have uploaded images in complete disregard to copyright. In some cases we have even caught them "red handed" where the original source of the image is known and known to be under classic proprietary copyright terms (meaning no rights to reuse them at all... except as fair-use). In a few situations, some of these individuals even go so far as to "randomly" pick one of the license tag templates just to get admins to leave them alone. As a result, all of their contributions have been suspected.

In a few cases, some of these users have gone on to perform acts of vandalism and do other things to make life miserable for administrators. When this happens, our user block policy is the governing how administrators should react. Keep in mind that intentionally uploading copyrighted images can be damaging for Wikibooks as well, particularly if misleading copyright tags are applied. A single case of uploading a copyrighted image is not the issue, but those who continue to upload many images that are illegal for us to have on Wikibooks, in spite of repeated warnings by administrators.

Basically, this is another type of problematic user to watch for as an administrator. --Rob Horning 23:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Mike, what are you quoting from above? For me, it's a question of whether they've been repeatedly uploading after repeated warnings, and not responding to those warnings. If the user is blocked, the only thing they can edit is their own talk page, which can at least force them to discuss the issue. Just make sure to check the contribs and see if they've actualy been around to see the warnings after the warnings were left. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 23:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

That was from the infobox at the top of Category:Images with unknown copyright status. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I would say that you really shouldnt block a person without warning them first. If a person uploades a large number of "inappropriate" images (inappropriateness here defined as not properly licensed or sourced) without having been warned, we can't assume that they knowingly did anything wrong. If you warn the person about the issue and they continue to upload inappropriate images, you should definitely block them. "Temporarliy" in this case means: "block them until they understand". If they don't understand the problem, there is no hope that they are going to stop uploading problem images. Some people will go to their talk pages and dispute it, and these people are likely to learn from the mistakes. Some people will leave it at that, in which case it's no matter to me if they never get unblocked. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I figured it applied mainly to cases of deliberately uploading inappropriate images and/or extremely large numbers of inappropriate image contributions. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Trying to Get the Hang of This

I'm a programmer, and I use C# a lot. So I've read some of the current version of the C# Programming book. This looks like a great place for me to get my feet wet with adding a bit to a work in progress.

My question is: is there a programming text that could be a model of what is considered "good form"? Like it has been a book of the month or otherwise honored?

Well, I don't know how much time I'm willing to spend on this textbook writing business, but it is somewhat attractive to me right now. --Weblum 04:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find a programming book that was listed for BOTM. But you may want to take a look at Programming:PHP, it seems to have a pretty good structure/layout. --Az1568 ^(Talk) 00:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

School science/Demonstrating missing page.

The page "School science/Demonstrating properties of waves with a ripple tank" at http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=School_science/Demonstrating_properties_of_waves_with_a_ripple_tank&action=edit has not been completed. I will be proforming this experiment at my school as a science project and would like to see what Wikibooks has on the subject. After I perform my experiment, I would like to create this page as part of my project if you do not have the page created yet.

I am a new user, so do not know if this is allowed.

Phoen 15:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not just allowed: that's the whole purpose of Wikibooks :). If something's wrong or missing, we hope someone will come along and make corrections and editions. If you need help or someone to bounce ideas off of, feel free to ask here. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I'm Cacafire

Hey, everyone. I'm a new user who's been watching this sight for quite some time, and would just like to introduce myself. Then again, it might not have been so long; I don't know all the technical conventions for editing posts yet. Then again, I've hardly ever edited anything on this sight. I hope I can be excused for getting here late in the game.

Anyway's, I think I'm going to start a wikibook on my personal conlang, which is currently still under work. I will try to make it as instructional as possible however. Thanks for listening, Cacafire 6:29, September 2nd, 2007 (eastern)

Hi Cacafire. I hate to say it, but you've come to the wrong place: Wikibooks is not an appropriate place to create and define your own conlang. Try asking around here instead... there are a lot of good people out there working in the field of conlangs, and you'll almost certainly find a supportive community if you shop around on the wikia sites dedicated to the subject. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Where do Psychology books go?

I've been going through some of our uncategorized books and trying to properly categorize and shelve them. However, i've run into a bit of a roadblock: Where do psychology books go? LOC classifies them as being in a similar subject area as philosophy and religion, but some of our psychiatry books and neural science books are better located on the medicine shelf. Does it belong on the health science shelf, or the humanities shelf?

For that matter, I have a second question: Where does geography go? There are geography sections on both the natural science shelf and the humanities shelf. I think it would be prudent if all geography books went on one or the other, not both. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

And Agriculture. At the moment, agriculture books, such as A Wikimanual of Gardening, Goats, Raising Cattle, and Raising Chickens are hosted on the How-tos shelf. I feel like we can probably do better then that. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The field of psychology can definitely be placed in a very academic and research area or in a field-study and hands-on type area. In fact, the two often mix together. Psychology really is a science however and I think its rightful place here would be with health science or another related science. Humanities starts bringing in philosophy which is often associated at times but not really true to psychology.

I don't really see how geography could be humanities and it's really a straight science. When you start bringing in discussions of culture and societies I think it needs to be dual-listed since those are humanities topics.

Agriculture is a science too, but if the book is written like a how-to then that sounds like the appropriate place. Are we big into the business of dual listings? -withinfocus 15:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I really like the idea of crosslisting. If a book fits on more than one shelf, then put it on more than one shelf; that's one of the advantages of our books not using paper. My main contributions have been to First Aid, which is a prime example of difficulty in finding a single "best" place to put it. Health sciences? Well yes, but it's not for doctors, which is the audience for most/all of the rest of that bookshelf. How-to? I guess, but first aid isn't that simple. Sports & Rec? Sure - we cover injuries that commonly happen in sports, and folks in PE often are involved in first aid. And we can go on. The solution is to list First Aid in all these places, so that it would be found by any of those audiences. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey!!

Hey. My name is Lucky, and I have just created my account. I was looking for something in particular: a list of most all spices and their serving sizes. My mom had one for a while, and it somehow got lost, so I would like to surprise her with a new one. Anyone that can help me, I thank you greatly. I may create a page for it, and if you only think of one spice (ex. arrowroot powder- serving size 1 tbsp.) I can find the serving size. Much gratitude to all.

Lucky

G'day Lucky, welcome to Wikibooks. You might find that the Cookbook is where you want to look, starting with Cookbook:Spices and herbs. However, I'm intrigued by this concept of serving sizes - in some dishes, I use a specific spice by the tsp or ½ tsp, in others by the Tbs (e.g. ground coriander seed), so I don't really know how a single list could help. Perhaps you can start a discussion about it on the Cookbook talk page. Webaware ^talk 01:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been my understanding that the "serving size" of a food product is arbitrary. Food companies will alter the serving size in such a way as to keep the negative aspects (fat, sodium, cholesterol) looking small, while at the same time keeping the good aspects (vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, etc) looking large. This is why you see irrational stuff on a package label, such as "serving size: 7 ounces, servings per container: 1.25". What is more important is to measure the nutritional value of a foodstuff per "unit", and then use basic unit conversions to calculate how much nutrients you are getting from a particular amount. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Help:Archiving a talk page

FYI: I imported this from WP and started modifying it for use here. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 15:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Acoustics/Bass-Reflex Enclosure Design

On the bottom of this page, there are some missing definitions. From what I could see, they're critical in using the expressions. If there is no "author" available to contact, is it up to me to research the listed references and then make the corrections? If so, that wouldn't make this page useful to me and I dare say anyone else who wished to APPLY its conclusions. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Netspin (discuss • contribs)

All the books we host here are ongoing, collaborative efforts. If something isn't finished, be bold - contribute. If you want to research these definitions, feel free. If not, then you'll have to be satisfied with the text in its current condition. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi

My name is Frank. I'm new here, i'm a Physics/Education major at Villanova University, planning to teach Physics and Math. Not a very mathy person though, more of a philosopher

I wrote the wikibook "Connect four" since I happen to be an expert player in that game. I'm also in the process of writing a real (for-publishing) book on the game, which might be done in a few years.

In the future you might see articles/wikibooks from me in any of the following topics:

• board games
• texas hold'em
• physics
• math

Feel welcome to email me at any time about anything :) Div0ckrehnee 22:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello Frank, welcome to wikibooks! We really dont have enough books on board games, besides Chess and Go. Connect 4 is a game that many people will be familiar with, for which there is deep strategy and wide area for mathematical analysis. We already have several books on physics and math, but we never have enough of those either! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

A new proposal

Thanks for the welcome by User:Herbythyme. I am a teacher educator and interested in working with my teacher education students on a Wikibook entitled "An Introduction to Antiracist Activism for Teachers and Students." I have posted the title on the class projects page. Is there anything else I need to do before we begin uploading chapters to the text? Sanlaw33 19:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to go over how pages in a book are named here and go over that with your students along with any other instructions you may be planning to give your students to help them be able to contribute to the class project. --darklama 20:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

New member

Many thanks for the welcome Darklama, i am currently grabbing the proverbial "Bull by the horns" and working on the LPI_Linux_Certification Project. As an administrator for many years i hope to be able to contribute something to this project. I have placed a project plan up here to discuss the way in which this can be achieved. Everyone is welcome to come join in the discussion in fact they are encouraged to do so. The discussion as it were is based more on how to proceed with moving and developing the book rather than on Linux content itself. Looking around at many of the books here, anyone who is reading this will have a beneficial contribution to make to the project. Barry 14:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Lojban for Beginners

I noticed that this book is licensed under Creative Commons 2.5. Does this mean that I can move it onto here? Are you allowed to credit authors on WikiBooks? Talkie Toaster 18:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Technically: no. Wikibooks is released under the GFDL, not the CC-BY-SA-2.5. In order to move the book to Wikibooks, it must be released or re-licensed by the original author under the GFDL. Many authors, if you ask them nicely, will consider changing licenses, or granting special permission. But, this is not always the case. You are allowed to attribute original authors, and there are various ways of doing this. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your help. Talkie Toaster 19:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Subject: Namespace, implemented

I just got an email today from bugzilla, the tech's have installed the new "Subject:" namespace. Ideally it will become an organizational space where books can be cross-referenced by subject, audience, completion status, language, license, etc. We can use a combination of manually-updated lists (for lists of books that are small and are unlikely to be updated often) and automatically-generated lists using categories and templates. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Do we have a planning page for deciding exactly how the namespace is going to be setup? I'm really interested to see what direction this takes now that we're away from the hypotheticals "It'll help us organize!" and heading towards "How do we actually set up a Subject: page? What should it look like? How should the namespace interact with other ones? ..." – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 01:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

At the moment, no we do not have a central organization page for discussing how this will be implemented. There are, however, a few good ideas floating around. Basically, We will make a different "Subject:" page for groups of books. For instance, "Subject:Calculus as a Prerequisite", "Subject:Books for Grades K - 5", "Subject:Books written in Simplified English", etc. We can then use DPL to generate book lists automatically, or else manually write lists on these pages. Eventually, categorization will be pervasive enough that we will be able to use DPL to gather lists of books based on all sorts of search criteria.

What we don't have really is a single way to organize all these subject pages, once we list books on them. If we treat the Card Catalog Office as the root node for all organization (a scheme that i've been trying to popularize myself), we could add a "By Subject" node, followed by a "By Target Audience", "By Prerequisite", etc. In other words, a logical extension of what we already have going.

Because many of these book lists can be automatically generated using DPL, it really highlights a need for books to be properly categorized. Darklama just created a nice {{Subject}} template that can automatically add multiple categories to a book without having to add a lot of messy categorization templates. I would like to go further and add lots of other templates, {{Audience}}, {{Prerequisite}}, in addition to the existing templates {{DDC}}, {{LOC}}, {{Shelf}}, and {{Alphabetical}}. Also, this creates a very standardized way for authors to describe what their books are going to be about. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds goodish. We should make a page for planning/discussing implementation though.

What's DPL, and does it mean that these lists will be dynamically created? (please say yes)

– Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes! DPL is a MediaWiki extension that enables lists of pages to be automatically generated based on a variety of criteria. We are using an older version of DPL then is currently under development (we can't upgrage to the newer versions because the techs say it is too resource-intensive). DPL Allows you to list all pages that are in one or more categories, and in particular namespaces, etc. I want to set up a few demonstration pages for how it can be used around here. I'll post a link as soon as I have made them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here is an example of the subject namespace, and the DPL extension in action: Subject:Engineering. It includes a list of all the books in Category:Engineering, and all the books that might not be properly categorized. What you see here is most of the functionality of the DPL extension, although there are a few options that i did not use. This is just a prototype page, not necessarily the kind of thing that we need to do with it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Another way to interpret this namespace is with something like Subject:Logic. I've created a simple, automatic list of all subject pages at Subject:All Subjects. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 22:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I created Subject:Computer software yesterday to get things started, since nobody else had jumped right in yet. --darklama 00:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I took a look at Subject:Engineering. It looks great, and the "problems with organization" section will be a great way to make sure things are done right. I notice someone has already started clearing out that section, which has unfortunately left a "no results" message. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 01:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Whiteknight I read your blog and I feel the need to clarify something about DPL as it is misleading on mediawiki.org . In special page:Version the link goes to this page: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList, where in fact the extension in the SVN (for all Wikimedia projects) is this one: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList/old. so instead of using <DPL> you can only use <DynamicPageList> as tag. I have tried for the dutch Wikibooks to get an update of the DynamicPageList to the current version as this is much more powerfull, but Brion did not want to install or change that: see here my Bugzilla http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10807. FYI Londenp 20:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Plus, it's good to hear that people read my blog! We've asked brion a number of times, and I know several other projects have asked him as well to install the updated DPL. however, the new DPL version requires too many server resources and would be detrimental to the wikimedia server farm. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Narrow subjects and interwiki links

So far we've been talking about broad subjects, but maybe more specific subjects would be useful too. For example, Subject:Strawberry could have links to A_Wikimanual_of_Gardening/Fragaria_x_ananassa, Cookbook:Strawberry, and Category:Strawberry recipes, as well as interwiki links to wp, commons, wv, ws, etc. If nothing else, this would make it a little neater on interwiki templates on the other projects (i.e., rather than having 3 or 4 {{wikibooks|etc.}} templates on an article, there would only be one).

As the namespace is filled out, it might be a good idea to switch the default search preferences to either add the subject namespace, or perhaps even set it to search the subject namespace in lieu of the main namespace. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 09:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

See Subject:Garlic as an example (note the template as well). --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 12:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Did a couple (will do a couple a day for a while), and one thing we probably need is an easy way to do "collapse/expand" for some of these, particularly for cookbook categories (i.e., an included DPL-generated list that could be default hidden). --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 14:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

pinched nerve

How can i repair a pinched nervewhich is being pressed by a herniated disc.If there are some execise that i can do can you please tell me.Ihave numbness from my right thumb and up my right arm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.127.228 (discuss • contribs)

Hmmm. w:Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Linking_out. Not sure if we can answer that here, sorry! --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 10:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that applies, Johnny. Is there any link here from Wikipedia other than the one you provided ? StuRat 11:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Before we go into a long argument about how we answer questions here, I've removed a supplied answer to this since I definitely agree with almost everyone at Wikipedia which is that we shouldn't answer this sort of thing. First of all this is a random request and I doubt the user will return, and second I think a very bad precedent is set if we become Dr. Know and just answer any random question that comes our way not even considering the dangers or inaccuracies involved in the response. The answer can be pulled from history later if needed, but I don't recommend we do this. Let's not bring a Wikipedia fight over here either since we don't really even offer a reference desk and I don't think we should. -withinfocus 13:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with withinfocus. We have a Wikibooks:Study help desk here, and it's rarely ever used. We really need to keep in mind that we are writers of textbooks, not keepers of trivia, problem solvers, or providers of links to wikipedia or other websites. The best we can do is write books on various subjects, and expect that our readers will be able to find and understand that information. This concept of instant gratification, that people can simply ask us questions without doing basic reading or research on their own is not conducive to our mission here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is not the right place, which I why I recommended the Wikversity Help Desk, which is the right place. StuRat 19:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with all that was said before, but a better solution for this kind of questions is to educate in place of just ignore this sort of questions. I have on the books I've been working on, provided a Q&A page (not part of the book itself) and sometimes I answer questions from anonymous users (even if they don't read the answer later, it still may be useful to others or provide useful content) in this case and because the user is anonymous, the best answer is that we should give it if we know about the subject or a link to the relevant information. On the other hand had the user been registered, even an off topic question could be answered in the user talk page with some pointers to how to do it next time in the proper forum (if available sometimes a more public page may be needed), we must keep in mind that as a community we must sometimes help each others even on matters not directly addressed by Wikibooks, this is far better that send users to other communities if not expressly required or asked. --Panic 21:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

We are not Doctors and we should not be giving out medical advice. Ever. Under any circumstances. Period. -- xixtas ^talk 03:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• reset

That was not the point, User_Talk:Xixtas. On the other hand even if I'm not a medical doctor, I can offer an opinions if asked about a subject. If someone posts a public question he will get replies from the public, if he wanted expert replies he would/should have asked an expert.
In the end everyone has an opinion and everyone is an expert :) Some stuff really falls down to common sense. (but that was not the point I was making).
Can't we point out that he should at least get an expert opinion? That was what I stated above... (was not commenting on the real question asked) I was only offering a contra point to the rational of "I've removed a supplied answer to this since I definitely agree with almost everyone at Wikipedia which is that we shouldn't answer this sort of thing." or "Not sure if we can answer that here, sorry!" responses... --Panic 04:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's one thing if a user comes to your talk page and says "Hey, what do you think about pinched nerves? Are you into them?" and another when someone posts a question about a serious medical problem in a public place that has almost nothing to do with medicine or human health. You were not asked in this situation, and it wasn't a question looking for an opinion but a real medical solution. We have to protect ourselves from others' ignorance. I think "we can't answer this" or "please seek help elsewhere from someone more qualified" will do. -withinfocus 12:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

log in problems

I can log in but then everytime I jump to another chapter, I am logged off- I have accepted all cookies and checked the box to "remember me" and this still happens. I do have hughes.net satellite internet service- how can I fix this problem? I'm desparate to get this resolved since I need wikibooks for a college course. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.14 (discuss • contribs)

This question has already been asked, and an answer attempted here. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 12:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Library of Congress classification: Category's alphabetic sort?

What determines where WikiBook titles go in the Categories section of the LOC index pages?

For example, on the LOC page Category:Library of Congress/QA76.75 (Computer Software), there are several WikiBooks listed in the Q section, none of which have titles starting with a Q. There are many WikiBooks listed in sections that do seem appropriate, however.

The one I'm specifically interested in is titled Celestia. I recently added a footer to its contents page which included its LOC classification number. Within seconds, it seemed, DarkLama converted my initial crude attempt into a more appropriate use of the LOC template. (Thanks!) However, instead of being listed in the section for C, it is listed in the section for Q. I assume that this listing happens automatically as a side effect of using the LOC template. Unfortunately, none of my edits of the footer LOC code seem to help place it correctly. I'm assuming I shouldn't edit the LOC index page manually.

Thanks for whatever help you can provide. ...Selden 21:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It was an issue with the {{LOC}} template that caused things to be sorted based on the LOC sub-category instead of the alphabetical order of the book's title. I have fixed this issue in the template, because i dont feel like the way it was was particularly helpful. Give the categories some time to readjust (it takes the software some time to apply the change to all those pages) and check it again to see if things are arranged in a more logical manner. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Whiteknight, thanks! It looks fine now. ...Selden 12:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

(top) ??

In a list of contribs, what does (top) mean?

(Newest | Oldest) View (Newer 100) (Older 100) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)
   * 14:29, September 7, 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikibooks:Sandbox‎ (top) [rollback]
   * 14:29, September 7, 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikibooks:Sandbox‎
(Newest | Oldest) View (Newer 100) (Older 100) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)

– Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 14:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it means its the most current ("top") version of the page at the time you were looking at the contribs. --darklama 14:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Correct. It's the most recent edit. -withinfocus 00:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Any way to print entire screen for Wikibooks?

I'm introducing my class to Wikis this year, including Wikibooks, and I'm wondering if there's any way to force printing of the ENTIRE screen (i.e. including all the stuff at the top and in the lefthand column), not just the text area? If I can do that, then I can make copies and/or transparencies as demonstrations "slides" to use in class. My room is somewhat low tech, so it is not always possible to go online to show students what Wikibooks looks like visually.

KelvinLeeSeifert 13:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You can take a screenshot, then print the image. In Windows, I think it's ALT+PrtSc (you should verify that though). That has the added advantage of giving you the ability to add arrows or circles or whatever to point out important stuff. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 14:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's just printscreen, and then paste it into a image editor (such as MS Paint) for touchups like Mike suggested. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 20:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe Print Screen (above the Insert key on most keyboards) copies the entire screen while Alt + Print Screen copies the current active window only to the print buffer. I'd suggest the latter since you probably don't want the current time, start button, system tray, etc., to clutter up the slide. Even using Alt + Print Screen will give you stuff you don't want, like frame and tool bars for your current browser. So, as suggested, after doing an Edit Paste in MS Paint, use the crop tool (it looks like a dotted rectangle). Once you have what you want in the rectangular frame, do an Edit + Cut, then a File + New, then an Edit + Paste. Also, always say yes when it asks if you want to increase the size to match the clipboard image. You may find that a full page of computer text is too small to read when projected, depending on the size and quality of your projected image. If so, try breaking the page up into pieces (along with one full page projection to show the overall layout). StuRat 14:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiversity

This has been something that has been bugging me for some time now, why are there so many wikiversity pages archived here when live versions are being edited at wikiversity? Users are prohibited from editing the wikibooks versions of wikiversity modules through the use of the MovedToWikiversity template. If you look here you can see a large number of these articles, though i suspect that these are not all of them. Should these pages be deleted? Or maybe just turned into soft redirects? I feel that it is a little counter-productive to keep non-live versions of pages lying around, and then prohibiting users from editing them.

A previous VFD for the Wikiversity project can be found here though i don't think that it is of any relevance as it is from a time when wikiversity was no it's own project.

P.S. Please don't read this and assume that i have anything against the wikiversity project, that is not my aim here, nor is it the case. Urbane (Talk) (Contributions) 20:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

There was another VfD for it a bit ago. The decision was basically:

1. keep anything that might be useful to Wikibooks
2. notify the Wikiversian custodians of any Wikiversity pages which may have failed to be imported as indicated by {{MovedToWikiversity}} or any related templates missing from the page.
3. delete everything else and delete the other Wikiversity pages once they've been imported.

I've been deleted Wikiversity pages slowly which have been marked as having been moved to Wikiversity, if its a stub and Wikibooks already has more information in one of its books, or pages which seem to be related to the organizing and operation of Wikiversity. --darklama 22:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment It's been my personal policy for a while now to sort through these pages as I find them. I merge the ones that contain useful content, and tag for deletion those that do not. Important pages would do better as soft redirects, on the off chance that outside links will still point to them. Non-important pages, sub-pages, or stub-pages really can be deleted now. I don't think we even really need a policy on this, we can really just start phasing these pages out in the way that we best see fit. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - I see no reason to keep them. If there's useful content, let's merge into a wikibook, then delete. If it's not useful content or if it's Wikiversity meta-content, then delete outright. I suppose some pages might have historical value. I can't think of what that might be offhand, but I don't rule out the possibility. I'd also suggest letting folks there know that we're not going to be holding onto their stuff any longer - they'd better make sure they have whatever they want if we're going to cull the pages. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Again keep in mind that these pages aren't doing any harm, so there's no urgency in deleting. There's not enough support staff available on wikiversity to go through all these pages now, so perhaps patrollers would consider using {{wv-doomed}} to mark any unwanted pages so that custodians can just go through the pages in that category from time to time. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 08:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

  (Oh by the way: these pages can be deleted, renamed, or merged without any interproject issues).--SB_Johnny | ^PA! 08:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment I've gone through all those pages and deleted a lot of them. All other pages looked like they could possibly be useful as part of a book, to start a book or to begin page in the subject namespace. --darklama 15:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing Links? Serial_Programming

First, know that I am a Wikibooks newbie, so fogive any ignorance here.

A day or two ago, I located two excellent Wiki articles by Google search and bookmarked them: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming:DOS_Programming#Simple_Terminal http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming:8250_UART_Programming

This link still exists, but the specific pages do not: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming

Checking up the first link (Simple_Terminal] shows it was delete from Wiki in Dec 2006. If that is so, how is it possible that I was able view them yesterday, but not today? Those contained well written summaries, and I would like to see them restored if at all possible.

72.24.86.94 05:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)Rex Pirkle

I'm not quite sure what's missing, I was able to go to all three links above. However, in general, you could have old text in your browser's cache which would allow you to view old versions until the cache is cleared. And, if you want to restore some lost material, this is a wiki, so you can do it yourself, if you wish. StuRat 14:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Very odd -- now I can acess the links again. I don't think it was a cache problem; the link was broken, not outdated. Maybe a server down or something like that. In any event, thanks for responding. I've copied the files to a local drive. 72.24.86.94 00:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC) Rex Pirkle

OK, glad it worked out for you. StuRat 05:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

What is the "External editor" option supposed to do?

The user preferences page for Editing includes a checkbox for "Use external editor by default".

1. Is there any documentation for the external editor function anywhere?

2. When I selected that option and tried to edit a page, it downloaded to my system what seemed to be some kind of description of the page I was interested in editing. It did not download the WikiBook markup text contained in that page, which is what I wanted/expected.

3. It'd be really nice if each preferences page included a link to the appropriate section of the Preferences help page, or even just to the Help:Preferences. I had to use Google to find a mention of "External editor", which I discovered was far down on the page http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Preferences

4. Unfortunately, both of the Help page's "(New to 1.5)" links to "Help:External editors" are red, implying that the page doesn't exist. I'd be tempted to write something if only I had some idea of what the WikiBook external editor function was supposed to do, but maybe that documentation already exists somewhere else. ...Selden 15:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want documentation about anything software related here, your best bet is to go to http://www.mediawiki.org. That's the website for the software, where all the documentation is. My internet connection right now is terrible, so i can't go there and check to see if the information you are looking for is there or not. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

unfortunately, my searches of mediwiki didn't turn up any more info -- other than discovering that the current Wiki software version is 1.12, so the external editor feature really isn't all that new. ...Selden 18:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I tried using the "external editor" option once, and it locked up my computer. I was barely able to get online long enough to change the option back. Bad news. StuRat 20:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't lock up Firefox v2.0.0.6 under Windows XP SP2 on my computer: it downloads a copy of a file named index.php, which doesn't really include anything useful, and which Firefox doesn't know what to do with. I told Firefox to invoke Emacs (I'm using v21.1.1) which it did. I'll try bugging the folks on MediaWiki about it. ...Selden 18:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Try m:Help:External_editors, this should tell you everything you need to know. Urbane (Talk) (Contributions) 19:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There really should be a page on WikiBooks, but the page's history says it was deleted by User:Jguk in March, 2006, as "(not relevant to English wikibooks)" which I don't understand. I've recreated it containing just a link to the corresponding WikiMedia page -- that's to avoid unnecessary duplication and to avoid having to change it if the functionality changes when the Wiki software is updated. There's a brief discussion of the external editor function on mwusers.com at http://www.mwusers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58& It references the page that's on wikimedia.org: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors ...Selden 12:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

passwords

Hi dont no if in correct place but can anyone help me. I cannot log in to anything on my laptop that needs a password. All the account are still open on other computers but obviously just done something to my own. I deleted cookies password history. I did a system restore but that did not sort it out,

If anyone could point me in the correct direction that would be wonderful. thanks. e.s.

Yea, I don't think this is the right place. I'd suggest either the Computer Reference Desk at Wikipedia: [1] or the Wikiversity Help Desk: [2]. In either case, they will need more details, however. Do you mean the laptop no longer fills in passwords automatically ? If so, what browser are you using ? StuRat 15:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Stage short

Anyone have any idea what happened to Template:Stage short?? It was fine this morning, looks horrible now (if stage=100%), but it hasn't changed since March. But look at what it does now:

This is an example.
This is another example.
But this is OK.
And so is this
this
and this.

Check out Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Arts and Crafts or Wikibooks:Education bookshelf for "real" examples of its brokenness. --Jomegat 02:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Commons is having trouble with thumbnails not rendering; this seems to be affecting Image:100%.svg, but not the others. They're trying to get it fixed. Details here. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 04:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like they have had some success - hooray! --Jomegat 12:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Growing sprouts

I'd like to create a set of detailed instructions, with many illustrations, on how to grow sprouts at home or for a small local business. Alfalfa sprouts, broccoli sprouts, and all sorts of other sprouts -- clover, radish, or various blends of different species. Sprouts are popular salad in sandwiches and wraps. Most people can grow their own or restaurants can grow their own. Sprouts don't keep very long or travel well, but they're good food when fresh. This is a field of agriculture or hydroponics, but I'm not sure where to start a book or section about this. Any guidance truly appreciated! Sproutable 01:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

You could either start a new book on the topic (if there's enough info to base a book on), or perhaps include it as a chapter of A Wikimanual of Gardening. I'd be happy to import w:Sprouting for you if you'd like to base the text on that as a start. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 09:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If I start a new book, can it be merged into another book if it ends up too short? I have three paperback books on sprouting to use as sources, and I have photos and can take more photos showing how to grow sprouts for food. The sprouts aren't grown in the garden -- they're grown inside, in jars, bags or trays. They're not meant to be planted, so I don't think it quite fits A Wikimanual of Gardening. What about if I start something on a user page, then maybe you can tell me where it looks like it would fit? Can you import w:Sprouting onto a user page for me to start with? --Sproutable 23:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Now imported to Transwiki:Sprouting. Yes, it can always be merged later if need be (though only if really necessary)... personally I would work on it in the main namespace under whatever title you want it to have, since that's more attractive to potential colaborators :) .--SB_Johnny | ^PA! 07:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

How come there's all that red text? I don't understand what you did in Transwiki:Sprouting. Can I edit it slowly over the next few months? I don't understand what a transwiki is. You've lost me here. I'm not that techy. --Sproutable 01:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The red text was due to the heavy amount of wikilinks... they don't work the same way here as they do on wikipedia (we don't have an "article" for every term). Whiteknight has dewikified it now.

Certainly no deadlines here, so no worries about getting it done quick :). --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 02:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

"Transwiki" is a fancy term that we use to say that we are moving material from one wiki (in this case Wikipedia) to another (Here to Wikibooks). When a link points to a page, it is blue, and when it doesnt point to a page (like a page that hasn't been created yet), it is red. When we moved the page from Wikipedia, all the links that were pointing to good Wikipedia articles are suddenly not pointing to pages that exist (because this is Wikibooks, not Wikipedia). I've removed all the links, and therefore all the red text.

You may edit it as slowly and as infrequently as you want to. We can move the page to any place you want, such as to "Sprouting", or "Growing Sprouts". Just let us know where it belongs. At the top of the page are a few notices. They aren't bad, just reminders of jobs to do. If you think you have completed a particular task, you can remove that notice. If you aren't sure, ask and we can help you.

You are not in any hurry here, so you have nothing to worry about. Contribute what you want when you want, and always ask if you need any help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you SB Johhny and Whitenight! I'm going to try to move it from Sprouting to "Growing Edible Sprouts". I thought about this a bit, and "sprouting" seems vague. I mean, most seeds sprout in the right conditions, but only some sprouts are good to grow for food. Does that make sense? Anyhow, I'm going to give it a try to move it. If I mess up will you please fix it and forgive me?

How do I find people to help me write the article? --Sproutable 01:26, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I moved it but it still says it has to be "bookified" and "adopted". I don't understand that. --Sproutable 01:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Mike Lifeguard! --Sproutable 01:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Test ETC

hi my self prathima m i wanted to learn SAP please provide the SAP text book in ur new books

I don't think SAP publishes a textbook. Try looking through http://www.sap.com/community/india/ for help. --Sproutable 01:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Can I use Wiki-Media to create a WikiBook for my company?

I am at a small company, and we were thinking of creating all our user documentation in WikiBook format - the advantage being that you get the rich Wikepedia format for online documentation, and a printable format for someone who wants to read cover-to-cover. However, it's not clear to me whether wikimedia can be used to do that - Can I create my own wikibook and host it on my company's server? AnshulS 22:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I dont think i understand exactly what you are asking. I can read your post in one of two ways:

1. Can I write a book, for my company, here on Wikibooks?
2. Can I write a book using Wikitext and host it on my company server?

The second question is the easiest to answer: If you want to use wikitext, and the wiki software, you can download it. The software is called "MediaWiki", and can be obtained from http://www.wikimedia.org. It's free software (i dont know what license, but I think it's GPL), and requires PHP and MySQL.

The first question is a little more tricky to answer. Wikibooks has a few policies that you must meet if you want to have a book here: It must have a neutral point of view (cannot be biased or be an advertisement), it must not be original research (it must be verifiable in some way), it must be freely editable by everybody and anybody (you can't protect it or prevent others from helping/editing), and the book must be instructional (it must teach something to somebody). If you can follow all these policies, you should be able to have a book here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

One other thing, you must be willing to license the textual content under the GFDL, since that's what all text on the project is licensed under. It is preferred that the images be licensed under a free license (GFDL or one of the CCs) as well. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 00:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! My question was #2 - "Can I write a book using Wikitext and host on my company server". Yes, we understand the licensing considerations. Our goal is indeed to create open documentation and have been looking a format that is more than just converting a pdf book into html. Wikitext seems to satisfy the need. Just wasn't clear that Wikimedia can be used to create pages, as well as books. (One primary difference from a novice user's perspective like me is that with wikibooks, you can generate a large, single html page with all the content. Thanks for the comments! AnshulS 05:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The site is http://www.mediawiki.org, not http://www.wikimedia.org. I hope you still found it. 62.195.239.22 18:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Template Standardization

En.wikipedia recently went through and started standardizing all their message templates. The templates all have consistent styles, and are differentiated according to type and severity by a color coding system. For an example of the new wikipedia template, see w:Template:ambox. I've copied a version of that template to here, you can see it at Template:Mbox.

I'm not saying that we should necessarily use the same exact templates that wikipedia is using (although they are nice-looking templates), but a little bit of standardization of our various templates would be a good idea. What do people think about this idea? What do people think about this particular template? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think its a good idea, less templates to remember. I think like the wikipedia one, we should use css styling though, so Wikibookians can adjust their appearance according to their preferences. I think a few types aren't really used here and should be replaced with some types that are more frequently used here. --darklama 16:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both points. I ripped the wp one off directly, but there are certainly changes that we could make in this template to reflect the needs here at wikibooks. Common templates, like {{vfd}}, {{delete}}, {{qr-em}}, {{merge}}, {{cleanup}}, {{cleanup-nc}}, {{featured}} etc could all be made to have this same shape, but using different colors and icons. For instance, the featured book template could be blue or green, the delete and vfd templates could be red. Doing things in CSS would be nice too, if people decide to use this template en masse, I would definitely suggest we make the css global. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

We should absolutely follow suit. Our user talk templates in particular are lacking in oomph - wp has a large array of somewhat-beautiful warning (etc) templates for every purpose under the sun that we could certainly import. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 17:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with going that far. I don't think templates are needed for every purpose under the sun, since most Wikipedia templates won't apply to Wikibooks. We just need to standardize the templates we do have and try to make them less dependent on inline styling so that they all work better with different skins and make them easier to use. --darklama 18:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean we had to import all of them - only the ones we want. The point was that they have lots to choose from. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion either way. This falls more on aesthetics/functional tastes and this is a very personal thing... :Standardization is always a good thing it reduces effort in use and understanding, makes things common and expected on a particular scope. But for it to function you should probably establish a guideline for the creation of templates, defining color schemes, styles etc... before wasting time implementing a specific vision that if not covered in a generic and generally accepted definition will not last or have a chance to function as a standardization effort. --Panic 18:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that the point of this discussion? – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The proposal did not indicate a way to push the idea forward. I was only expressing that it maybe be a good thing but it would be better to establish a guideline first before implementing the concept, since most people will not agree in the details (for instance I don't think we should just import the concepts used on Wikipedia), this would further confuse the idea that we are an independent project with different goals and methods...

The other thing is that it will entail a lot of work (voluntarily), not only reach an agreement on the guidelines but on reviewing all the existing templates and verify the creation of new ones. Will it be worth the effort? is it a priority? or will it only create something that is more easily defined than implemented and we risk that most will never complete/fallow the requirements.

On the C++ Programming we had a similar discussion about the codestyle used on the book the concept here is the same, enforcing a single trait on the entire project. --Panic 18:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

We already have all these templates, many of which I have named above. What I would like to do is to make the wikibooks-wide templates (things like vfd, merge, featured, etc) all look the same, and at the same time be distinguished from templates used in a particular book. Making these templates is a trivial task, once we decide as a group that we should do it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I have posted some examples of templates that use this new standardized scheme at User:Whiteknight/Message Templates. This isn't all the templates we would need to design (although i think it is most of them). I haven;t completely replicated all the text or functionality of these templates, such as categories, parameters, etc but you should get the general idea about it. As an added bonus, I have put up some demonstrations of side-box templates, such as IW templates and the Print/PDF version templates. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Support - That said, I think we can do better on some of the icons. Specifically, Image:Nuvola Green Plus.svg looks blocky and the query templates should probably have a question mark or something (ie "I have a question about this" rather than "I have an idea about this"). Lastly, a wider variety of User Talk: messages would be nice, especially with some stronger languages. The idea though is spot on - by and large they look great, and the standardization will make stuff look rather more official. Great work so far! I'll see if I can find some icons on commons that might be better. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

How do we feel about using / for protection levels? / for queries? for user talk warnings? Just some ideas - the icons that are already there might be better - you decide. As well, this might necessitate implementing additional types in {{Mbox}}. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure there are a million better images. These images are the ones that are used on Wikipedia, so they likely arent going to be so suitable here. I was mostly trying to match colors to the "moods" of the messages, the images can be set as needed on a per-template basis. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Magenta for merges is probably not the best option, yellow seems to indicate pending decission/action so that seems better, blue for informational tags seems ok and green for active or completed decisions, but why use colors on print or pdf versions ? the extra meaning/mood is not needed... but if it is only to comply with the overall look then all should be blue even the license info that is yellow... --Panic 01:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't care about this at all. It's not important. If someone feels important about it then they should go ahead, make changes and see if anyone objects. What I would like to see is standardization of the names of these important templates. I don't remember any of them and always have to call up my bookmark of template names when I need to use them - i.e. what the hell is "qr-em" and why is it so called? Xania ^talk 20:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have to agree with Xania. The names are very confusing. Even the user talk warnings are fairly obscure - you might have noticed that I created 2 redirects {{will block}} and {{blocked}} that redirect to the old templates, but have easy-to-remember names that describe the template. FYI: {{qr-em}} now has a redirect: {{query}}. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 23:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Mike's plan of attack is really the best one, i think. Create better-named redirects for the existing templates. We can slowly move things over to the new names over time. The problem, of course, is picking names for these templates that everybody can agree are "good" and "obvious". --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

OK see User:Xania/Template for a few possible changes. One problem is the use of strange names (i.e. 'verror' for adding misleading info), strange use of numbers (test1, test2, test3, test4, test5 but verror, verror2 and verror3), differing use of capital and lower-case letters ('Join us', 'join us', 'Joinus' or 'joinus'?). One idea is to create templates with names like testfinal (for final warning), testblock (for the block notice) - this will help if you don't remember what number template you should be using. Xania ^talk 23:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of those user-talk templates can really disappear, as far as I am concerned. For spam or vandalism we need two templates: "This is your first and only warning", and "You are now blocked". The verror templates are pretty useless and can really all be deleted. For newbie tests and off-topic stuff, we need one template that says "thanks for participating, but this isnt correct. if you need help ask". All told, we can break this mess down to {{warn}}, {{blocked}}, {{test}}, and {{joinus}}. In this way, we dont have to remember any numbers, and we also conform to the general practice of only giving one warning to vandals anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I say we delete all those test and vandalism templates and go with your suggestion. They should allow the inclusion of an optional reason as well. --darklama 23:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a more gradual approach, although that's neither here nor there. Let me create these few templates (or recreate them, as the case may be), and we can determine then if the smaller set satisfies our requirements. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to a reminder from Panic, I just created {{Vfd warning|pagename}}, which can be used on a user talk page to let primary contributors to a module know that it's been nominated for deletion. Feel free to modify the message if you like. As well, I added to {{vfd}} a request to consider using that template to notify the primary contributor(s). In the process, I made {{tlxs}} because I couldn't figure out how else to do it. This template will take 2 parameters (I don't know what it'll do if you don't give it both). {{tlxs|templatename|parametername}} gives you {{subst:templatename|parametername}}. This might be useful on {{no license}}, where I will try it out imminently.

I'd be happy with the user talk templates WK listed. For less serious stuff, use {{test}}, then {{warn}}, then {{blocked}}. For more serious stuff, skip straight to {{warn}}. I don't really care to have specific templates for spam, deliberate errors, blanking... where does one stop? (just look at the list at en.wp - it's a nightmare) – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Are we going to standardize {{copyvio}} and {{no license}}/{{nld}}? I have a mock-up of {{no license}} here if you want to see what it might look like. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 16:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should. Both need to stick out and not blend in. I think we could perhaps create a general {{license}} template for standardizing our licenses. --darklama 16:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Blend - To combine or mix so that the constituent parts are indistinguishable from one another

Since the importance is equal on a particular set of tags, if standardization is what we are aiming for then they should become a set in the scheme used, even if we create a special set no tag should be unique or contrast with others, since then it would reduce importance of any other set of similar tags.

The number of tags in a particular page (especially book "covers") doesn't exceed 3 (different tags), similar tags like merge in some cases may go beyond that number but probably they should be tweaked to enable only one tag for related information. As an example of a particular set take for instance the Print/PDF Versions information, they aren't really equal to other tags, they falls more in general information, the location is not the same and their importance is also reduced. --Panic 17:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the first part of your message only, Panic. If what I'm understanding is what you meant, then that's exactly what is being done. We have that first set of templates that look like {{vfd}}. Darklama is proposing (and has started work on) another set specifically for licenses and related notices. What's done so far looks very similar to the others, and are consistent within the set. I think theat approach is perfect, and I look forward to the completed templates. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:New Updated

User:Darklama and I have updated the {{New}} template to use DPL instead of the previous manually-updated list. Adding a new book to the list is now as easy as putting the template {{New book}} onto the new book page. I've tagged all the current books on the list with the template, so all we need to do now is make sure that all new books are properly tagged.

Pages will appear on the list until the template is removed. Before removing the {{New book}} template, make sure the page is properly categorized using the {{Subject}} template. We're working to write up some detailed instructions for all this, probably in the new-ish Using Wikibooks help book. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks no longer has untagged images

As of this instant, all our images are tagged with something. Thanks to whoever made those "untagged" and "unlicensed" tabs! I went through all the untagged images and tagged them (mostly) with nld. Bocklog=gone. Feels good, don't it?! – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 01:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

That's good news, but just wait for 7 days when the deleting begins...--Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

That's good news, but just wait a few minutes and there will be again. First law of wiki, what you fixed will be broken soon after. --darklama 02:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

That's true, I guess. One backlog simply creates another. It will be a constant battle. That said, enjoy the view from here, especially if you don't think it'll last long. Hopefully some will get tagged appropriately (indeed, that's already begun). – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 02:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"FlaggedRevs" and Quality Assurance

A new MediaWiki extension is being developed, which many people here may have heard of through various channels. The "FlaggedRev" extension enables the community (most likely the admins) to specify certain revisions of a page that have a certain quality standard. When a page becomes "good enough", that revision is flagged. When readers come to the site, they will see by default the most recent flagged version of the page, not the current "development" version. In short, this means two things: Page vandalism and spam won't be displayed to new readers by default. Readers would have to view the development version in order to see those kinds of changes. It's like a page protection, except that people can still make edits to the page, but those edits aren't displayed by default until they are approved.

Some people here may also be aware that the WMF has launched a new website, http://quality.wikimedia.org, and a new Wikiquality-L mailing list to deal with this extension and other quality assurance issues.

This is something that Wikibooks should be thinking about, for a few reasons. First is that we have to question whether we want the extension at all. If so, we need to decide how we would use it. This would give us the opportunity to quell one of the most common criticisms that we get, that the content of a book can change over a school year, when most classes need them to remain static. Having a stable default version of a book for the period of a school year would mean that more classes can make use of our books. This is especially important for classes of young children, where we can't wake up one morning to pornographic image vandalism on the children's book. This extension would give us the ability to prevent that, while still allowing people to continue development and improvement of the book in the background. We could decide to only flag certain book versions upon request from a teacher, or we could decide to protect only the featured books. I dont think we necessarily have the staff we would need to be continually flagging and unflagging pages, or to be patrolling every single edit made by every user to determine whether those changes should go live or not. If we do decide to use this extension (when it is released), we would have to factor in a certain amount of restraint. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This could also be a solution for previous suggestions of having stable and developmental branches of books which previously seemed implausible. Once a book has gotten to the point where its got enough quality to it, it could use this feature to create a stable version to view while development continues to happen. I think its a good idea to have once its ready for use. --darklama 15:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's page on the subject is very thorough, and includes a number of possible "levels" of use for this feature. ideas range from using this as simply a vandalism prevention tool ("sighted versions") to using it to mark certain pages as being good ("Quality versions"). I suggest everybody read this page: w:Wikipedia:Flagged revisions. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC) [

Counting hits with Google Analytics

I believe that feedback on the usage of Wikibooks is very important. It will give authors an essential guide about popular subject areas and whether the style of a book is working (whether readers give up!).

This issue has been raised at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_talk:Analytics , many people are in favour, but nothing has been done. Google are offering a zero cost service, both in money and performance, to provide hit counts.

All we need to do is permit their little script on our pages. Surely this has very minor disadvantages and major advantages so should simply be permitted now. Can someone make up a template for including Google scripts? Details are at http://www.google.com/analytics/en-GB/#utm_source=en_gb-ha-uk-google_brand_goog_analytics&utm_medium=ha&utm_campaign=en_gb&utm_term=google%20analytics. Here is a run down of how it is done on the web page (an account is also needed): https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/bin/static.py?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=tracking RobinH 08:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The text that goes on a given page is:

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-XXXXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
</script>

In the first instance a template could be provided that allows any value of "UA-XXXXXXX-X" to be substituted so that any interested editor can insert an analytic script. There is no need to get permission from on high for something like this. (It is no worse than including a google search ability on a page). RobinH 10:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I've signed up for a google analytics account, and I've installed the google analytics code into my own personal javascript page. It takes 24 hours for results to be registered, so I am not certain yet that i've even installed it correctly. If other editors would like to help test it, let me know and i can give you the code (at least the version i'm currently using, as that may be incorrect). If we get this well-tested, and the community approves, we can put it into the site-wide javascript and start getting some serious results. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Do we have an image tag similar to this?

Wikipedia has a tag used for trivial images that are ineligible for copyright - things like a square, or a key signature or something which requires no creativity whatsoever. Do we have something similar; could we have something similar?

"w:Template:PD-ineligible - for images that are inherently ineligible for copyright protection because they are based exclusively on common knowledge with no element of creativity. An example would be w:Image:F Major key signature.png or things like multiplication tables." – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you try Template:PD-ineligible ;) That brings up an interesting point. How do we decide what qualifies as being ineligible for copyright? I think the multiplication table is not eligible, but I think a specific drawing of a multiplication table is eligible for copyright. --darklama 21:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

hehe. *is embarassed* It is a slippery slope, I admit. I ask because I was sorting through some of our new candidates for speedy deletion, and some of those images are so simple that I don't think that they're eligible for copyright. Take Image:MVC-3D-Coords.png or Image:DoingInvestigations chp6 12.png. Those are simple enough, I think. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's going to be, "you'll know it when you see it". I agree those two are ineligible. --darklama 21:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you mind (or someone else) verifying these ones? I'd like a 2nd opinion - whether they're ok with {{PD-ineligible}} or not.

19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:Trivial Venn Diagram.png‎
19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:Trivial Elliptical Venn Diagram.PNG
19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:Straight8ths.png‎
19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:SA NC Saaste Modules 23.png
19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:SA NC Saaste Activities 28.png
19:03, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp7 21.png‎
19:02, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp7 19.png‎
19:02, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp7 17.png‎
19:02, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp6 4.png‎
19:02, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp6 2.png‎
18:59, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:DoingInvestigations chp6 12.png
18:59, September 21, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Image:MVC-3D-Coords.png

Thanks. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 22:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what would qualify an image as PD-ineligible. Isn't that the same as saying that the image is simply PD? My thoughts on this issue would be that an author could not upload an image as PD-ineligible (the Author would upload it as PD instead). However, for an image that is uploaded under a copyright, another editor could assert that the image is ineligible for copyright because it is trivial. Ie {{PD-ineligible}} would not be an upload license, it would be a response to the original license, asserting that "no, you can't copyright this image like you had wanted because it is trivial". My recommendation for these kinds of images would be to upload them to commons, and let the admins there deal with the licensing minutia. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You're right, but it (I think) applies to uploads that aren't tagged at all. If someone uploads a square, we can (instead of using {{nld}}), tag it as {{PD-ineligible}} since the work is trivial. I think moving images to Commons would be a good idea. They know this kind of stuff inside out, whereas we clearly don't. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 13:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly my point. The person who uploads an image wouldnt use this tag, but another editor could use it to change the existing image tag (nld or other). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

omg what a mess!! some of the scripts ok.....

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Mycomputer.jpg/500px-Mycomputer.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_To_Assemble_A_Desktop_PC/Printable_version&h=457&w=500&sz=59&hl=en&start=28&tbnid=Vq-AG1OG8QZ3NM:&tbnh=119&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcomputer%2Bbenchmarking%2Bterminology%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

The above is taken from this Wikibooks site i just happened across. Omg. it looks as though a half trained e.c.t addicted brain baked chimp has thrown a load of wires in a washing machine along with some hot water piping. This is a terrible example of what a Computer should look like after spending time, effort and money to make a machine, unless its only supposed to be worthy of playing frogger. Or worms. Im sorry but this was supposed to be constructive criticism. Ok. It may be a large case and being so why is everything crammed up together? Bad planning. The heat build up this machine will endure due to lack of air flow alone (because of the all the spaghetti junction style wiring) would be enough to start over. Theres no need to TRIPLE power connectors and stretch them everywhere, buy extensions. All the wiring could be as it is and create more air flow by simply cable tying or professionally wrapping/covering and heat sealing them. I just finished building my first P.C for music creation and the advice on this page also states that EXTERNAL devices should be preferable and did not mention VST technology or any other useful information!!! OMG. Anyway i feel better now. Thanks.

So fix it. This is a wiki, you are welcome to do it yourself if you think you can do it better. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Bot Templates

As a sort of temporary solution to the "bot problem", i've updated {{User bot}}. All bot accounts should be tagged with this template, so we can keep track of them all. When a user is tagged as a bot, we can start to consider giving that account the bot flag. This way we can keep track of who is and is not a bot without having to give out flags to each bot account (which the bureaucrats have been cautious about doing in leiu of a formal policy on the matter).

I've also created {{Toolserver Bot}} for use with the various bots and scripts that run on the toolserver. It's a warning that these bots should not be blocked with the "autoblock" option, because that will block the entire toolserver (and that would be bad). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Log on to wikibooks

I am having trouble creating a user account in Wikibooks. It can't find the server. Have you any ideas on what's wrong? Thanx. HamboneX (Michael)

Where and when can't it find the server? What is the URL that it is attempting to load? What does the error say, exactly? give me all the information you can and I can see if i can help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiNode

All the cool wiki have wiki-nodes (for example w:Wikipedia:WikiNode, v:WikiNode, and wiki:WikiNode). I'm surprised that Wikibooks doesn't have a wikinode already. Since a wiki-node is a single page (not an entire book), is the appropriate location for the wiki-node in the "Wikibooks:" namespace? --DavidCary 21:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I followed the links but still have no idea what a "Wikinode" actually is. Any help please? Xania ^talk 22:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Wikibooks use to have one but it was deleted due to a VfD decision at some point with a pointer that What is Wikibooks is the page to read. --darklama 00:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

So, explain to me beyond just being a part of the "in crowd", what exactly the advantages of a WikiNode are? What I see on Wikipedia is a poorly done community portal. --Rob Horning 14:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that a WikiNode is some sort of navigational tool between various wikis, not just WMF projects. Strikes me as being a little bit useless, but that's just me. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Let me try to be a little more serious this time.

What is a WikiNode? It's a page (usually named "WikiNode") on one wiki, that links to several closely-related wiki. (Typically the WikiNode of those other wiki links back, and also to other, more distant wiki).

It's one of the "standard" pages that the people at the WikiIndex expect every wiki to have -- similar to, but less important than, the "main page" and the "recent changes" page.

a poorly done community portal. I would very much appreciate tips on how to improve the WikiNode network -- both ways to make them less poorly done :-), and also ways to make it look more like what it is, rather than giving people a mistaken perception that it is a "community portal".

What good is a WikiNode? Sometimes sincere writers start writing something at some other wiki -- stuff that would fit well in a Wikibook here -- but that writer has never heard of Wikibooks, and the people there feel that stuff is off-topic there.

The WikiNode network helps those writers find a wiki where their writings *are* on-topic.

I hope you agree with me that, when a few pages would fit well in a Wikibook here, but they were originally written on some other wiki where they are off-topic, it would be better to move those pages here, rather than permanently deleting his writing.

There's a longer description of the WikiNode network at wiki:WikiNodes.

--DavidCary 23:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

When you put it into those kinds of terms the usefulness of such a page is more readily apparent. I would suggest, if you are so inclined, to create the necessary page at Wikibooks:WikiNode (or similar). Create it, let us see what it is and how it's used, and then we can decide later whether to keep it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It still sounds like WB:WIW but with suggestions and links to other wikis where off-topic-for-Wikibooks stuff would be within-that-other-project's-scope. That said, I think some examples of "this kind of this isn't ok for Wikibooks, but go to some other project for a different wiki where it would be" would be useful on WB:WIW. That sort of effort would help reduce the amount of lost content. I'd say go ahead and show us what it should be and we'll see whether we like it, whether we could simple add to WB:WIW or whatever. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 00:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Taking apart a book...

While creating a few of the "narrow" subject pages, I've run across Ethnomedicine/Home Remedies on a few searches (while looking for stuff about flowers, produce, etc.), And I've been talking to Mike.Lifegaurd about how to rearrange that page. The Ethnomedicine book had a few very active contributors this past spring (and might have been a class project), but has since gone dormant. Most of what's on that particular page has nothing to do with ethnomedicine, so I'm planning to break off the subheadings as chapters of the Home Remedies book (also long abandoned). I'm wondering if there's a template to be used on the top of the page to announce this process.

The Ethnomedicine book as it stands would be perfect fodder for the "scrapbooking" approach I had brought up last winter. There's content to be preserved, but the whole thing is just a mess. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 21:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

{{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}}, or {{merge section}}? --darklama 21:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just thinking of the best way of doing this. If I created a link to a subpage out of each heading, then we could just copy and paste each section onto a subpage. Once they're separate, it'd be a simple task to move them to other books or whatever we decide in each case. I just did that (turning headings into a link to a subpage) and undid it since I didn't know if that'd be the easiest way. If it sounds like it'll work, then you can just revert to that version instead of doing the work again. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 22:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It may be worth creating a new template for this purpose, as it's not a completely uncommon task. Probably something like "Template:Brokenoff", or "Template:Movedto", or soemthing like that. Let me throw soemthing together quickly and see if it is what you are thinking about. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Check out {{Movedto}}, see if that's what you are thinking about. Feel free to tweak it, if not. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

One Laptop Per Child

One laptop per child (OLPC) is an organization dedicated to manufacturing a specially-designed cheap laptop as an educational aid for the developing world. See [3].

A couple days ago, a program was announced where people in developed nations can give one and get one. The donated machines are bound for Cambodia (90% Khmer speaking), Afghanistan (50% Persian, 35% Pashtu), Rwanda (Kinyarwanda) and Haiti (95% Creole, 10% French).

I wonder what we as Wikibookians can do to support this project and prepare content for these machines. The preferred format for text content to be included is ODF. Wikibooks is already listed as a preferred source and content suggestions can be found at [4]. Is anyone else interested in working on a project to prepare materials specifically for this program? --xixtas ^talk 03:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly like to be involved, but I dont speak, read, or write in any of those languages. I feel like the best that we could do would be to write good books and hope in vain that somebody else came along to translate them into the proper languages. Another thing we could do would be to have books in simplified english to help encourage non-speakers to learn english, but that seems like an awfully anglo-centric solution to a non-problem. What do you suggest? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 04:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't speak any of those languages either (except some French). Well... here's an idea. What if we wrote a basic math textbook using only pictures and numbers. Could it be done? I think it could. Part of the idea of the project is that kids and schools develop their own content, but if they had a framework to build on, it seems like it would be that much better.

Likewise, I wonder if we could build a basic vocabulary book (in English) that teachers could use as a template to develop vocabulary books in their own languages. I'm also thinking of a children's health book with pictures of kids doing healthy things (getting vaccinated, brushing teeth, dressing cuts, using mosquito nets, sleeping, reading, taking medicine, etc.) with text (in English) describing what they are doing and why it is a good idea. Then once it is in book form, the text could be translated "on the ground".

I guess the basic idea is to create books that have an excellent structure that are highly visual which a smart teacher on the ground could use to create his or her own materials in the local language. --xixtas ^talk 09:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

One of the things that I was trying to do with Wikijunior:Colors was to make a very visual book, even to the extent that the TOC was image-based. If anything, it's proof of concept that it can be done. An image-based math book would be a similar type of endeavor, and while it would require the creation of a large number of images, it could certainly be done. All the books you describe are good ones, and I would recommend that any books that we do write for this goal have an absolute minimum amount of text (and therefore an absolutely simple translation task).

Once we know what books we are going to be working on (I really like the idea of an image-based math book myself) we could post an open letter to commons asking budding artists there to help us out. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 11:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there some sort of deadline for preparing content for these computers? Despite my userpage saying fr-2, I can translate to French. For the other languages, image-dense books sounds like a good idea. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 23:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Can the warnings about editing pages while logged out be improved?

I keep saving edits which I thought I made while logged in, but then it transpires that I was logged out and my IP address is recorded in the page history instead of my real ID. I can see 2 possible ways to reduce this problem. 1. Make the initial warning message more conspicuous, by having it in bold red text with red graphics. 2. If the user is not logged in when they hit the "Save page" button, another warning message is shown before saving the page. Peter R Runes 10:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't think showing another warning message before saving when the "save page" button is clicked is possible, but I did try to make the message more clear. --darklama 16:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You could submit a bug report at Bugzilla. Why is it that you get logged out when you are trying to save anyway? That seems to me like the more pressing problem. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. It's hard to say exactly when I get logged out, it usually seems to happen between starting an edit and saving the changes, particularly when there is more than say 10 minutes between starting and saving. Plus the times when I just forget to log in and don't notice the edit warning, though I have just seen some more prominent warning messages at the top of the preview today. (ie "you have new messages" - Darklama's change?). I am using a rather old Firefox browser (which I am otherwise quite happy with BTW) with session cookies enabled running in Suse Linux 9.1. I'm mainly working in my User area, so I don't think I've contaminated any books so far. I'll get back to you in a couple of days if I'm still having a problem. Peter R Runes 20:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to take a look at the message anonymous users see when they edit. So I signed out, and hit the link for the last page I visited, then went to edit it. This is what I saw (File:MLError.JPG). There was a random thing about the new {{Mbox}} above the edit window. I dunno what happened, but I'm going to try to replicate it. *is confuzed* – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 20:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Happens every time. Anyone know what the Mediawiki: page is that provides the text there? – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 20:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I fixed it now, I kept logging in and out to see if it was working right yet and the last time was as I was expecting it to look. --darklama 21:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"you have a new message" has nothing to do with my change. That means someone has left you a message on your talk page. Enabling only session cookies for this website, is probably the source of your problem and why your only remaining logged in for 10 minutes at a time. --darklama 21:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've added http://en.wikibooks.org to my browser's list of web sites which are always allowed to use cookies. Hopefully that will fix it. Peter R Runes 23:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Change in "wikipedia" template?

What's changed in the "wikipedia" template?

I'm referring to the template which says there's related infomation on that site.

It used to be (like just a few days ago) that the templates "commons" and "wikipedia" produced boxed images which had identical sizes. Now, for some reason, the box displayed by the wikipedia template is significantly wider than the box displayed by the commons template. This change has caused an annoying change in page layout. The templates themselves don't seem to have been touched since some time in 2006, however, so presumably the change happened in something that the wikipedia template references. Personally, I think the previous, narrower, display box is better than the new wider one, which has had a vertial blue bar added to its left side. ...Selden 19:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I changed that template last night, part of an ongoing effort to standardize various templates that all use different styles and formats. I was hoping it wouldn't cause new problems, but your complaint seems to prove the opposite. Hypothetically speaking, if i made the box "narrower" and also converted the commons template to use the same format, would that eliminate your concerns? I can gladly switch it back if the new format is an unfixable problem. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

They now both are the same (narrower) size with the vertical blue bar. I think this version is fine. It was really that they were different sizes that caused my discomfort. Thanks! ...Selden 20:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a hard time figuring it out due to all the embedding, but are these mbox-side templates set to "noprint"? Actually, none of the mbox series should be printed. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 07:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The {{mbox-side}} is just an implementation of {{mbox}} (at least right now, we may subst it when everything gets more stabilized). We are doing this because we are trying to keep all changes consistent across both templates, and as this discussion is pointing out, there are still many changes to make. {{mbox}} was defined as "metadata", which is an analog for "noprint". I have added "noprint" anyway, as extra insurance. Either way, they shouldnt print. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 12:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Corps-Style Marching

This book should be added to the Performing Arts bookshelf...perhaps under a new sub-heading for "Pageantry" (eventually I'd like to do books on drillwriting, arranging for marching music, guard routine writing, etc.--all of which would fit under that heading) Deus Trombonae 16:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I added your book to the Subject:Performing Arts page. In the future, you can add more books to this page by using {{Subject|Performing Arts}} in the book itself. If you create new books, you can put this template on them to make sure they end up in the right place. Let us know if you need any help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey Deus, I wrote some stuff on the Block for the book, when I get some time, I will write more... (I'm a Junior in a High School Marching Band, and I plan to continue to be in marching band in College, just in case you were wondering) Kevin Lakhani 17:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

help needed

Hi

Thanks God that i know this website.Information it contained has helped

me to straighten the intermingled fibres of my concepts and thoughts, concerning many topics of life.This website has been my friend for four months.Iam basically a science student.My fields of interest are both scientific as well as literary.

Nowadays i started a novel .I am also a poet and have written some sonnets .Befor this i wrote a short story and now quite passionate to write this novel.Now i m going to write its second chapter,can i also add my poetry into that,according to suitable circumstances of the story of novel? Another thing,is it necessary to describe the location by its existing name if any character in the story migrate from one place to other? I read some classics of novels but didn't find much mentioning of locations there.

                                                  Thanks,
                                                Aquistive.

I think you're in the wrong place for this (Wikibooks is for textbooks, not fiction). There may be some creative writing resources on our sister project Wikiversity though, so you might try asking on the Help Desk there for pointers.--SB_Johnny | ^PA! 14:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks johny!

I went there on help desk and then search for novel.There i got my point,in the topic of novel.Thanks to you.My IP has been blocked, Can you help me?Have a nice time.Aquistive 21:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Allowing each book to have its own CSS stylesheet.

After seeing something on another wikimedia project, I was thinking how it might be nice to allow each book to have its own CSS stylesheet as a means of making Local Manual of Style easier to implement for each book. What do other people think of the idea? If it were to be implemented should it be a specific page in a book so that anyone can edit it or should it be in the MediaWiki namespace to reduce abuse and vandalism? --darklama 23:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea, I like it a lot. The project in question is En.Wikinews, and the script that causes it is located here: n:User:Matt/public/pagecss.js. On Wikinews, the per-page CSS and JS scripts are located in the MediaWiki: namespace, which means only admins can play with them. What darkcode wants, and I think that I generally agree with him about, is that the css files could be located in the main namespace, such as "BOOKNAME/style.css". There is very limited risk that a vandal could do much major damage by simply modifying the local CSS file (and that damage could be easily reverted anyway, like any other page). These pages could, of course, be protected.

If the book's style page were left blank, or if it does not exist, it would have no effect on the book. In other words, it's strictly opt-in: Authors can choose to add a stylesheet if they choose, but are not required to do so (it can be assumed that most wont). It will, however, enable authors to take their books to a new level of style without having to make a large collection of elaborate formatting templates. It would also give us the opportunity to test proposed changes to the site's style on individual books.

Another issue that darklama isn't proposing here, is the issue of allowing per-book javascripts as well. Because of the potential for a vandal to abuse javascript, these would have to be in the MediaWiki: namespace. This kind of thing would be a great boon to certain types of books that could use javascripts to automatically generate necessary figures (graphs, for instance, or music scales), or other tasks that we can't perform easily now. The javascript really is a separate issue, but I want to point out that it would be a benefit to us in the long run, and that it's already being tested with success at Wikinews. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the per-page css would be a really great addition to the project, and could possibly save quite a bit of development time within books. I'm not too sure about per-book javascript, but if it could be proven to work safely without browser integrity threats then i would welcome that too. Urbane (Talk) (Contributions) 06:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

For clarity I was proposing per book css not per page, since Wikibooks is about books and pages within a book should be consistent. Its a modification of the per-page idea employed at Wikinews. I didn't propose per-book javascript, because of the possible issues involved, and because I didn't think Wikibooks has gotten to the point yet where it would be useful. --darklama 06:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, per-page would be better for at least some books. For example, the modifications to the Cookbook namespace currently have "recipe" as the tab for ingredients (e.g. Cookbook:Carrot). --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 06:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, I had meant to say per-book. Urbane (Talk) (Contributions) 12:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to Johnny, in the case of the cookbook, you would want a single style-sheet for the entire cookbook, so you could uniformly apply a change in the tab text across all recipe pages. Doing it per-page in the cookbook would require the creation of many (hundreds) of identical CSS pages, one for each cookbook recipe. The idea of per-book CSS is that an entire book could be standardized to use a single style. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well (and remember that this is all way over farmer Johnny's head), couldn't the tabs respond to a simple template? For example, the cookbook pages for recipes could just have {{tab-recipe}} or {{tab-ingredient}} to inform the css? --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 22:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, howabout we do more general then that even? A {{Tabname|<TABNAME>}} template could custom change the tab name on any page. We can really think big here (even if we dont a ct on all the possibilities quite yet). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. So for Cookbook:Carrot we could use {{tabname|ingredient}} and perhaps {{titlename|Carrot}}? Maybe for subpaged books it could also be {{titlename|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}? --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 10:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Greek Alphabet lesson 3

if delta is pronounced 'th', why are all the example words transliterated as 'd' instead of 'th'?

I can contribute pictures of Cuba to spanish book

hello I have many pictures of Cuba, my native country, in jpeg or for powerpoint that I can contribute to the spanish book. Unfortunately, I do not know how to do this, please send message to my e-mail, and I will gladly contribute them. I also have a blog dedicated mainly to travel it is: http://gchord0.spaces.live.com please pass on this information, I would like to add more friends or visitors to my blog georgina

LPI Project

The existing project LPI_Linux_Certification seems to be in need of some care, looking at the history minor updates appear to continue but as far as i can tell major work seems to have stalled. I have just today requested an update on the project, on the main discussion page. However i have since wondered what the etiquette was on existing wikibook projects were? If a maintainer was not available how does one go about starting work on a project like that? Things like whom should be the first point of contact? What sort of edits can be made without maintainer input? Can anyone just go in and push a project like that forward if it turns out that it has stalled? I guess in other words How BOLD can one really be :)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barry Sharpe (discuss • contribs)

You don't need to get in contact with anyone or need anyone's permission to make any sort of changes. If you want to discussion changes before you make them, thats fine too. You don't have to wait, just go for it and push the project forward! The only time you need to discuss changes is when a disagreement arises and than thats to try to work out a compromise that can be agreed to. You don't have to be bold, but you can be as bold as you want to be. :) --darklama 15:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Darklama is exactly right. You don't need anybody's permission. The book doesnt have a single "maintainer" that you need to get in touch with. If nobody else is working on it, then you are the "maintainer" yourself. Never hesitate to make improvements to a book, any book at any time. If you need any help or have any questions, let us know. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks For the reply's i have placed up a Plan page here just to start organising my thoughts. As this is my first go at this any input will be appreciated. Mistakes will be made obviously, i think the most important things for me is too add value to the project. So how i go about implementing the structure without losing any original work until new pages can be written and to also keep in mind the administration of the whole thing are priorities. I see two possible ways forward, live changes obviously advantage is that other contributors may get involved quickly. The danger is that the whole thing gets messy. I could use my user space but thats likely to indicate a solo project and the LPI covers a heck of a lot of ground. For the next week or two i am going to let things settle just add content to the Plan itself. and start to firm up on ways forward this should also give other existing contributors chance to express opinions. Barry

Breadcrumbs?

When one names and references pages properly with "/" between the name parts, WikiBook automatically generates a "breadcrumb" trail at the top of the page, showing the path of pages that leads to the current page.

Is there a template that can be used to display this breadcrumb trail at other places in a page? At the bottom, for example? It often can be awkward to scroll up to the top to find out where one is in a WikiBook. ...Selden 12:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea, certainly something i'm sure we could create. We have templates that can give partial results, such as {{BOOKNAME}} or {{CHAPTERNAME}}, but nothing that is completely general for multiple levels of recursion. Let me see if i can throw something together for you. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There are other means of achieving this than templates. For example adding javascript to your monobook.js file that clones the subpages header and adds the clone to the end of the page. --darklama 15:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

True, but that method doesnt really provide the flexibility that an author could want, such as the ability to embed those links into a larger navigation template. It also doesnt really give us the ability to custom modify the formatting to suit individual needs. If you want to play with the javascript that's fine, but I would like to try and make a template for this anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't know what this is but

I don't think it is a Wikibook? The Father speaks to his children - I'm reluctant to delete it speedily but I think it is out of scope (& copy and paste from somewhere?). Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It is a little strange, i'll give you that. Even if it is instructional, it's suffering from an obvious POV bias. Talking about this or that is the truth, or this or that person is holy and learned. I would say that we should VfD it (although I suspect strongly the consensus will be to delete), but we should try and get the authors to move it elsewhere. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's been published. The page starts off with

Imprimatur:
+ Petrus Canisius van Lierde, Vic. Generalis e Vic. Civit. Vaticanae, Roma, die 13 Martii 1989

I think "Imprimatur" means "printer" as in "publisher" which is followed by a name and title, then Vatican, Rome, 13 March 1989. Seems like an attribution to me. Also, if it was published by the Vatican, it isn't likely to appear on Google Books or in any bookstore, and I don't know if they give their works an ISBN. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 22:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's previously published and released under a free license, it is likely a better candidate for Wikisource then Wikibooks. If it's owned by the Vatican, I can't imagine that it is released under a suitably free license anyway. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

PDF request : This quantum world

Hi. I'd like to request a PDF file for This quantum world It seems to be very interesting, and having a PDF would ease things up. Thanks. Peteturtle 21:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

lol help

Hey how do u use this thing

See Using Wikibooks. It's still under construction, but it is a very good resource even now. --Jomegat 12:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

RSS to track changes

Hi, Is it possible to create an rss feed for wikibooks so that we can keep track of changes made in the book we are very much interested?

It already exists. you can get the RSS feed here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss

Also, you can get the ATOM feed here, if you are interested in that too:

http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=atom

Hope this is what you are looking for. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 15:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding import sources

I think it would be nice to add some additional sources in which we can import pages from for use as material in books. I would like to see English Wikiversity, English Wikisource and Simple English Wikibooks added to the import list.

• Wikiversity contains lessons that may be useful to begin or expand books with that may not require as much effort as Wikipedia articles to use.
• Wikisource contains public domain books and from what I understand are intended to remain more or less static, but which may be useful here for creating updated versions of cooperatively and for annotated texts.
• Simple English Wikibooks may contain books that may be useful here or contain pages that can be used in existing books.
• By allowing materials from these projects to be imported, we could save useful materials that may come up for deletion as has been done for Wikipedia material thats out of project scope there, but is within scope here.

A bug report has been filed to request it now, since clearly there is support for this. --darklama 14:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Its been done. we actually got two more import sources then we asked for. Wikinews and Wikiquotes. --darklama 15:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Vote

• Support I've wanted to have more import sources for a long time now. The projects that you've listed are good candidates. Wikiversity and Simple.Wikibooks have import enabled from us, it's inconceivable that content can't travel in both directions. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I've often wondered why Wikipedia is the only option. These are a good start. In principle, I'd like to see all of our sister wikis in the import from box - I don't know if that's really practical though. Stick with these for now. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Unfortunately for WB-de this is not allowed due to licence issues (e.g. WV-de to WB-de). But definitely a good idea. You have my vote. --Erkan Yilmaz 19:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Sometimes projects get started at Wikiversity and they naturally evolve towards a book format. It should be a simple matter to send such book content to Wikibooks. --JWSurf 19:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Can only see advantages... --Panic 21:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - bigtime. I'll happily snowball this vote with wikiversitans too, because we really want our textbooky stuff to be here where it belongs. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 23:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support Webaware ^talk 02:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support I would also like to see wiktionary added to the list for use in glossaries. xixtas ^talk 03:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support A really good idea. Urbane (Talk) (Contributions) 21:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

New Fair Use Image Tag

I've been working on a new license tag for Fair Use images. The tag requires the uploader to provide both a source for where the image came from, and a rationale for why the image must be released under fair use and why there are no acceptable free alternatives. The template is located here: {{Fairuse test}}. This template creates two new categories, in addition to the currently existing category for fair use images, one for images which don't have a proper rationale, and one for images which are not properly sourced. It is my intention that images that fall into these two other categories become candidates for speedy deletion after a specified amount of time.

Once this template gets better, I would like to replace {{Fair use}} with this, to keep things standard. What do people think about this? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I like it, since it's crazy to allow fair use lacking either one of these things. But how would we achieve the conversion from the current standard to the new one if we were to implement this? I don't think it's something that would be easily automated. I do agree, however, that it is a good idea to have a standard way to provide both rationale and source of the image. Mattb112885 (talk to me) 22:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Like I said this is just a concept piece. I agree with you that a wholesale transition to the new template would cause every single fair use image here to be instantly noted as being in trouble. It would either require a herculean effort to fix (or delete) all the old images, or else there would simply be a gigantic work backlog from the very beginning that we might never get on top of. Another option would be to slowly phase in the new template, ie replace the old template with the new one in the upload page, so that all new images were tagged with the new template, but all the old images would stay the same. We could alter the category on the old template to "Category:Fair use images (old)", or something, that wouldnt exactly be a red flag, but would be something we could fix over time.

I'm not in any hurry with this. I think the system we have for fair use needs to be improved eventually, and it's good to think about it now, even if we dont do anything right now. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I must admit I don't see the point of having two separate fair use categories. How about "Fair Use Images" and "Images with missing information". The later could be useful for more then just fair use images missing needed information. As for transiting, could mention on the current fair use template that its old and should be eventually replaced with whatever name is chosen for the new fair use template and should not be used for new images. --darklama 00:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea very much, but I agree with Darklama: a single category for images with missing info should be enough. If the parameters aren't specified, then the image gets put in that category as well as the fair use category. WK's transition plan looks like it's right on the money. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)