Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2008/November

GFDL 1.3 is here

It allows a transition to CC-BY-SA 3.0, but with a catch:

Any content submitted to Wikibooks after November 1st must either have no coypright or be licenced under the GFDL, and any content copied from GFDL sources, must be now from a Wiki or similar collabrative site, or we legally cannot transition.

Its weird, but still, I WANT MY CC-BY-SA please. ViperSnake151 (talk) 16:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

This is being discussed heavily on foundation-l, and there will be a referendum to determine what we're going to do. That will probably not happen for some time, but it is nevertheless an exciting possibility. I'll try to make sure that Wikibooks is kept informed as this process chugs along.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 16:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.html a FAQ on the changes is available (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-faq.html), that limitation ViperSnake151 mentions (with some errors) is in section 11 of the license, and creates a real conundrum, since works aren't static it may require rollbacks to make a license change on Wikipedia this is a possibility here it would have to be done project by project in this case works that are thinking on the possibility of changing the license should seriously consider not to use any GFDL content (even transwikis from Wikipedia) or new edits in scale (with copyrights) until the options are made. I particularly dislike the use of that restriction since it doesn't serve the users nor authors but only the license itself.

Another interesting aspect is that here at Wikibooks we can make the changes now, project by project since the license we use states "Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation" changes automatically take effect upon this release people are now free to move content outside of the project under the new license, but until the Wikibooks project removes or restates the existing GFDL note in each page/contribution new edits will have to be rolled back if the CC will be used on site, an avenue to solve this conundrum is to make use of the authors page and clearly state on each book (as we have already done in dual licensed books) so to preserve any recenter contributions. --Panic (talk) 20:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Here is the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States if anyone has the curiosity to take a look. It is more detailed than the GFDL and has support for more mediums, while the GFDL attempts to simplify the legal code to be usable for all the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 provides two faces a simpler one (but for me more open to misinterpretation) and another with lengthy and hard to read legal code. I still prefer the GFDL even if I dislike the move of the FSF on the limitations imposed in section 11. --Panic (talk) 20:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

IE6 Browser Fails for Collapsible Tables

Hi, I notice that the collapsible table example on Tables does not do the usual thing when viewed in IE6.

Opera normally opens it such that it is in the closed state; i.e. the collapsed state. In IE6 it is always open and the link does not work.

Any ideas?

Regards, Armchair, 1459, 4 Novermber 2008.

IE6 is like a JavaScript travesty, and it's no surprise to me that it doesn't support the collapsible javascript functions. In general I like the idea of supporting a broad array of browsers with all our tools and scripts, but some older browsers like IE6 are so standards-non-compliant that it doesn't make sense for us to pander to them with all our stuff.

If we can fix the script (and I will definitely look into it) to work on IE6, we should try. If it's going to be a big pain in the butt I say we don't even worry about it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Whiteknight,

Be glad if the IE6 thing could be fixed. It is a bit more than usually difficult with IE6 since it represents an ownership threshold; the next browser up from that version, IE7, needs later Windows versions to install it, and I suspect many people around the globe still are using their older Windows versions. Thanks for any effort brought to bear.

On a more proactive note; those with such routine rendering problems on legacy platforms can solve them by downloading a version of either the free Opera browser, or the free Firefox browser without having to make a Windows upgrade for that reason alone. These two are also well up to date with CSS rendering standards.

Regards, Armchair (talk) 16:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Spurious rendering

Hi, from time to time I have found very minor errors cropping up on the Tables page. They confuse me. They consist of semi-colon insertions into <br> tags, and as a result they are shown as text on the page. They seem always to be associated with tags. So far I have corrected a few of these but have not found any history entry to account for it.

Can anybody please shed light on this matter?

Thanks, Armchair (talk) 13:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

New user Tktsui

Hi this is Martin. I'm a Chemistry student from UCSD and I'm helping my structural biochemistry class to create a wikibook that is related to structural biochemistry. That's the reason why I'm here :]

Tktsui (talk) 10:05, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Structural Chemistry is looking great - you guys are doing an exemplary job! If you need help, let us know - otherwise keep on with what you've been doing so far!  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 04:00, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

New user Is Ultor

Thanks for the invite. I just came here to provide some free information about Church Latin to anyone who wants to learn it. I have degrees in Constitutional Law and Linguistics so if any wants info about those I am also happy to help.--Is Ultor (talk) 12:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi there. You may be interested in some of our linguistics books. If you need help with anything come on back; we're here to help.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 04:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Collections

I noticed the new add-on to create collections. Those are indeed, great and I hope will be very useful. I did create a book using the tool but the "Create new chapter" button is not working. Could anyone help?-Ravichandar_{My coffee shop} 16:41, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The "Create new chapters" button doesn't create a new page, or even add a page into the outline. It simply creates a chapter break between pages in the final PDF. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, ok. Thanks :-) -Ravichandar_{My coffee shop} 12:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

US History Editor

How Do I engage a Rogue Editor whom doesn't register and won't discuss why he's changing a book?

As you all might now I am in the midst of a big rewrite of the book "US History." Our reason for writing was to come much closer to college board requirements about what an AP history text would cover. Thus organization and a succinct narrative with no irrelevant tangants is important to us. I have had a 205 IP address repeatedably alter material, often including tangents and altering carefully thought out organization.

Now I am not possessive of this book. I welcome and REALLY want collaboration. But a book should be true to its purpose, should it not?? and that books' purpose is to succinctly cover college board material. I'm honestly not sure whether the user is a troll. I've assumed he isn't and haven't undone any changes and altered as little as possible. However today, he inserted the 'marco polo game' on the page about early explorers (if you check the logs you can see it). I'm pretty dense but doesn't that seem like a joke?

It would be nice if the 205 user who's been recently editing this book, reads this notice. if you are, PLEASE talk with me! It is courteous and normal to discuss any upcoming changes in a discussion page. I have done so with this project. you can also click on my name and leave me a note on my talk page.

Should I fail to get timely notice from this edior, WB community. What should I do? I've inserted a note to the editor on the page he's been altering. --JoliePA (talk) 13:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the logs later tonight and see what's going on. Good work on the US History book, by the way! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

If there is a problem happening on a page it is best to provide a link to the page in this Reading Room so that other editors can have a look. RobinH (talk) 10:08, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Any Useful Table Classes?

Hi, Does anybody know of any useful table classes, or at least classes that might be useful for quick tables? So far the ones that I have tried are not too great. They either have too many restrictions to overcome or simply have the important stuff missing.

I have at present:

• Wikitable class
• mw-metadata class
• gallery class
• toccolours class

Also, would some kind admin consider adding a table class in the form of Wikitable, only with increased cell padding and a heading background similar to the cells? Why is it that this has not been implemented in the past, or is there one out there somewhere?

Any other classes that readers know? Thanks to all, Armchair (talk) 17:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Can you suggest some CSS for a class like this? I'll review/implement it if you make a suggestion. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Plaintable Simulation

Heading 1	Heading 2
Cell 1	Cell 2

Hi again Whiteknight,

• I have listed the usual table styles for "table", "wikitable", and a suggested new tables class, "plaintable", only slightly changed from wikitable, in the drop box, along with a couple of questions which still puzzle me.
• The sample of the simulated table class is shown on the right, and although it does not look very enthralling, I believe it to have a much better appearance than the Wikitable class itself.
• Thanks for your interest in the problem, and your help is appreciated. Regards. Armchair (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for a "Plaintable" class The Default Table Class /* general styles - This is the basic table class.*/ /* this is not changed but it given for reference only. */ table { font-size: 100%; color: black; /* we don't want the bottom borders of <h2>s to be visible through floated tables */ background-color: white; } The Existing Wikitable Class /* The existing "Wikitable", (identical to the "wikitable" class).*/ /* It is enclosed only for reference.*/ table.wikitable { margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; } table.wikitable th, table.wikitable td, { border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; } table.wikitable th, { background: #ccccff; text-align: center; } table.wikitable caption, { margin-left: inherit; margin-right: inherit; } The Proposed Plaintable Class /* Proposed "plaintable" class: - note that it is built on the table class */ /* Suggest only TWO changes for "plaintable" compared to the "wikitable" class */ /* these are: make a uniform background color for the whole table, and increase */ /* the cell padding for all cells to about 0.6em or so. */ /* This is intended to give all round good padding and the ability to modify */ /* the whole table's background property from the table line.*/ /* Suggestions please for expansion and/or improvements.*/ table.plaintable { margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; } table.plaintable th, table.plaintable td, { border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.4em; } table.plaintable th, { text-align: center; } table.plaintable caption, { margin-left: inherit; margin-right: inherit; } Question 1: Where does the table class, (the default table), get its heading styles from? Question 2: If the padding were not specified in the proposed class at all, (and it is not specified in the basic table class), would that permit the use of the table attribute cellpadding, for a user to add all round padding to suit themselves? If so, would this be better?

Old Style Recent Changes

I know that the new look Recent Changes has been in use for a while but I don't like it. Is there an easy way to get the old version back? I prefer to see all changes in chronological order rather than grouped as it is now.--ЗAНИA ^talk 00:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Sod it. I found the option in Preferences to removed the so-called 'enhanced' Recent Changes. --ЗAНИA ^talk 00:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Bots

Wikibooks:Bots is now a policy. It was a pretty non-controversial proposal that mostly documented the things that we already do here now, so nothing changes because of this. This proposal purposefully errs on the side of being "too little", and we as a community can update it piecemeal as issues become apparent. There was a branch proposed and opened for voting, although it was more controversial and was raising some concerns. We can certainly continue discussion on the branch, and use points from it to update the new Bots policy as needed. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:03, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications

Looks like we have a WMF newsbot here! If we have any news from this community, let's make sure it ends up on Meta so it can be syndicated to other wikis too. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

{{print version notice}} for chapters?

I'm happily using {{print version notice}} for printable chapters of the wikibook Spanish by Choice (since other books are doing the same thing). But now I'm realizing that I'm flooding the Category:Books with print version with these chapters. Is this a problem? And if so, shouldn't either the template {{print version notice}} be renamed to something like {{print version of book notice}} or the mentioned category be renamed to Books and chapters with print versions? --Martin Kraus (talk) 18:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The template {{Print version notice}} should only be put onto the print version itself, not on every page in the print version or on every book with a print version. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:25, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Right. Now, for the lessons in the Spanish by Choice wikibook, there is one page for each lesson. The lessons can be read in any order and therefore it made a lot of sense to me to have a print version for every page. Thus, I have the template only on print versions. However, every page has a print version. So, do you think I should remove the template from the lessons' print versions? --Martin Kraus (talk) 14:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem with promoting a by lesson print version is that each of the provided avenues to generate a printout have to include a complete copy of the GFDL license, mentioning the license wont suffice, it is up to the user to decide what to print, but the offer must include it. --Panic (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Panic: OK, I changed my template for the print version. Now it includes the full GFDL license and it is up to the user to decide what to print. --Martin Kraus (talk) 19:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem in wikibooks.

Hi everybody!:

I'm having a problem, i can't find what i was editing!!!, please i need your help. Yerterday i was editing "Crear una extension para Firefox 3" create an extension for Firefox 3, but today in my contributions there is nothing and if i serch for it, doesn't found it. I save the work but i don't know i can't found it now. I can't lost all that work!!

Thanks. Tinchomaru.

Sounds to me like you're looking for the Spanish Wikibooks.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 23:23, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

User Stylesheets

Hi,

I have read that it is possible to make a user stylesheet to experiment with writing CSS styles. Unfortunately, my efforts so far have not met with success. Is there a foolproof description of how to do this, or is there some permission required?

My intention is just to add a couple of classes to the user sheet to see the effect of changes. Can anybody advise me on how to do this?

Thanks, Armchair (talk) 15:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Well first you need to know what page to edit, this depends on what you've set your skin preferences to. For instance you might need to edit Special:MyPage/monobook.css or Special:MyPage/myskin.css. The first if you haven't changed it from the default skin, and the later if you've changed your skin preferences to use MySkin. After you know which page to edit, your set to add your CSS styles to that page to see the effect, unless you don't know CSS. --darklama 16:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I copied the proposed "plaintable" class from the drop-box in the above section into my monobook.css and saved it, cleared the cache, and made a table in the sandbox, using the "plaintable" class, but the result was not expected. The borders of both the headings and the data cells were missing, and all cell padding. Thinking that I might need to copy-in the default table css, I did that but found that it made no difference.

Any ideas? Armchair (talk) 17:06, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

What do you see? I see a border around the table, but not the caption, and no border separating each cell. CSS for tables is a bit different than what you would probably expect. Like if you used:

table.plaintable {
  border:5px solid #aaaaaa;
  border-spacing:5px;
  background:blue;
}
y. 
table.plaintable th,
table.plaintable td {
  background:red;
  padding:5px;
}

You will end up with a gray border around the whole table. a blue border that separates each cell, and the cells themselves would be red. You can think of what you got as being the outer gray border when what I guess you want is the inner blue border. --darklama 17:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Just the same; whatever you call these things, the CSS properties are correctly written in my code and should produce the expected result.

The border-collapse and border properties are correctly applied. They are similar to the Wikitable class with the minimum of change.

Are users allowed to make such new classes at all? Armchair, 2000hrs GMT, 16 Nov 2008.

Anyone can make a class in their user stylesheet, but unless its added to the project-wide stylesheet only users who've added the same style to their stylesheet will see it. User stylesheets override project-wide stylesheets, so the only reason you wouldn't be seeing what you expect to be seeing is because you've applied the CSS properties wrong, your web browser doesn't fully support CSS, or your web browser doesn't implement CSS correctly. --darklama 20:33, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

You weren't signed in when you posted that comment. --Swift (talk) 01:25, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi again,

Surprise! I left it for a few hours today and tried it at the library PC and it works.

Does it take a while for the process to take effect? Having worked once it responds quickly to changes in monobook as soon as the browser cache is cleared, or "refreshed".Armchair (talk) 13:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't take awhile, but that could depend on the web browser. The browser cache needs to be cleared or refreshed for that stylesheet in order for the changes to take effect. Since you had mentioned having already done that, I didn't think that would be the cause. --darklama 13:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

It may take some time. Wikibooks pages are aggressively cached at the server-end, and may be cached in your browser as well. When you make a change to your stylesheet, first thing you want is to reload your browser by bypassing the local cache. For IE and Firefox, you can press "Ctrl F5" to do this. If the changes don't show up after that (and they typically do for me), you can try to purge the CSS page. Click "edit this page", go up to the URL, and change "action=edit" to "action=purge" and hit enter. Then, refresh your browser cache again. Let us know if this doesn't work. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Whiteknight,

I have followed the advice and the summary of noted effects is as follows:

• My IE6 SP1 browser does not even open WikiBooks pages but opens all others. The same version of IE at the public library works fine with WikiBooks and now renders my Monobook CSS styles in the Sandbox. This suggests that my IE6 is different or the link speed is affecting something, but in any case the styles work for it.
• My Firefox browser does not work with the monobook styles.
• My Opera browser does not work with the monobook styles.

Thanks, Armchair (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

C wikibook

Comments on the C Programming wikibook have been moved to C Programming/Content#C wikibook. --DavidCary (talk) 21:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

yet more categories

I'm considering tagging all the Wikibooks in the Category:Programming languages and also Category:Application software with one of two category tags: either

• Category:Proprietary or
• Category:Open Source or
• both tags -- when a wikibook discusses both open source and proprietary software.

Is there a better way to do this? Is there a better name I could give those two categories? Is there a better place to ask for help with this project? --DavidCary (talk) 06:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

What if it is OpenSource and Proprietary ? I think you are using mismatched qualifiers...

Personally I don't think you should tag the pages, just add the relevant information to the content. --Panic (talk) 06:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think identifying programming books by whether they mention open source or proprietary software is particularly useful. Consider that most languages can use and can be used to make open source and proprietary software. Also the category Open Source in theory and typically in practice is reserved for a book. The category should be Category:Open source software. --darklama 13:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Trouble with IE6 Browser

My IE6 browser is suddenly hanging-up when I try to open a WikiBooks page - it is OK for Wikipedia! Other pages from WikiBooks of similar size opened normally that same day. My Opera and Firefox browsers open the pages normally, even with a cleared cache. Is there a problem for IE-related access?

Happened 25 October 2008 at about 2200 GMT and again at 0830 GMT the next morning.

Any ideas?

Regards, Armchair, 0854 hrs , 26 October 2008.

Hi, more on the IE problem; OPERA and FIREFOX have no problem getting the site whereas IE keeps latching up. I checked at the library's IE6 installation and the sites load OK --- mind you, I am on a dial-up and the library is broadband. Also, I reinstalled my IE and cleared the cache and cleaned the registry. When the Editing_Wikitext site is accessed, it gets the banner at the top then the whole IE latches up and is unuseable. I have to use a Ctrl-alt-del to close the browser down. Any ideas? Armchair, 27 Oct 2008, 1652, GMT

IE has bad javascript support - can you tell us if you are getting js errors?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 16:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no errors popping up but then I am not sure how a java error presents itself. Mystified! I will stick to Opera or Firefox. Armchair, 27 Oct 2008, 1737, GMT

I have now gone back from IE6 to IE5.5 and the user stylesheet works fine...Armchair (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

White margin on float images

Hi again,

I am getting a white margin to the right of left-floated images, and the converse for images on the right.
Does any kind person know how to get rid of it. For an example of it see The Quick Course.
I would normally use a frameless image in a table in an attempt to avoid it, but the object of the exercise is to show the basic floating image method, and it seems to fail with a coloured background.
Regards and thanks to all,

Armchair (talk) 18:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

HideNseek template

I have created HideNseek template to be used like this

Click for the list

1. Who
2. Eye
3. House
4. Ice

I want only the [ ] sign to appear in title text when the hideable portion is invisible and a [-] sign when it is visible. Is it it possible? If so can somebody guide me or change the template? I also want the dropdown image on the right to disapear.

Jaspal Singh 16:10, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

This should be possible with some creative javascript. Maybe we could fold these changes into {{dynamic navigation}} too. Any solution that we come up with should be customizable to some degree. I'll take a stab at this eventually if User:Darklama doesn't want to do it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

PDF upload failing

I have been trying to upload a PDF of the Special relativity book but when I attempt to view the uploaded file File:Special relativity.pdf Adobe comes back with the message "The file is damaged and could not be repaired", however, I can view the original PDF on my machine without problems. Any ideas? RobinH (talk) 11:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC) I've just rebooted my PC and the problem has gone. Was a bad PDF being cached??RobinH (talk) 11:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

There have been plenty of problems in the past with the PDF uploads on the server. A better approach would be the print-on-demand PDFs from the new collections extension. That way you don't need to worry about making PDFs by hand and uploading them (and then trying to download them from a buggy server), the PDFs generate and download themselves. I can try to make a collection for this book today so you can compare the performance of it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I just tested the PDF generation for collections and the "Printable version" and "PDF version" link in the "toolbox". My results for pages of the Spanish by Choice wikibook are pretty bad: in particular images often have the wrong size. This is somewhat surprising because the "traditional" way of providing a print version handles images a lot better. For the time being I added a warning to this book that the new PDF generation leads to inferior results. I hope you don't mind. --Martin Kraus (talk) 14:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The software is still under development, and improvements to the rendering algorithms are being made pretty regularly. Give it a week and try again. If you have any feedback, post it here or post it to textbook-l. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:33, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

For example, I created a "PDF version" for Spanish by Choice/SpanishPod newbie lesson A0001. I see the following problems: 1) the first right-aligned image is not rendered at all, instead the text "right" is rendered; 2) most of the right-aligned images are actually left aligned; 3) the table in the section "dialogue with translation" is streched in a strange way; 4) bold text in image captions does not work. Interestingly none of these problems occur when I save the "traditional" print version as a PDF (with Firefox on MacOS X). --Martin Kraus (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

On the original error, have you tried reuploading the PDF file?  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 17:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I get no errors opening the latest version. So... perhaps something with your PDF reader.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 17:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

What about quizzes?

Hello, I just wondered why the MediaWiki Quiz extension is not available on WikiBooks? (link to mediawiki) I realized that several wikibooks use the Template:Question-answer, but the Quiz extension would be more suitable for some of the quizzes. (Although I have to confess that I really like the hide-show mechanism because it has a fresher look&feel than clicking a submit button and only one click is required, while quizzes need at least two clicks.) --Martin Kraus (talk) 12:36, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

The quiz extension is probably more suitable for Wikiversity. We do books here, and books don't generally include interactive quizzes. Wikiversity does more "learning modules", which can include tests and quizzes. I think they have the extension there. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, foreign language learning books generally include exercises. In the case of dead-tree books the readers are usually asked to answer the questions before comparing their answers with the solutions. This is a form of interactivity. The featured wikibooks Miskito, Latin and Spanish all include interactive exercises using templates such as {{Question-answer}} and I think that there is a consensus among most authors of foreign language learning wikibooks that interactive exercises are important. Yes, Wikiversity has the extension. As some language courses at Wikiversity refer their students to the corresponding wikibook, these wikibooks are an important part of "learning modules" and therefore it probably makes sense to support a similar set of extensions. As mentioned above, I have no strong feelings about this since I think that the {{Question-answer}} template works well for my purposes, but for many of the exercises in language learning wikibooks, the Quiz extension would obviously offer some benefits. --Martin Kraus (talk) 17:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to deny that sometimes the line between Wikibooks and Wikiversity is blurry. That doesn't mean we should not distinguish between the two. Exercises in a book are common, even outside of foreign languages, but that's not the same thing as a quiz, and they aren't really "interactive" in any sense. My suggestion to you would be to create Quizzes at Wikiversity, and link heavily between your book here and the related learning materials over there. That way you could have a book which can be printed neatly (for distribution to students without internet access) and interactive supplementary course materials. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think I have to take the position of authors of language learning wikibooks here (in particular because there are only very few active authors on language learning wikibooks). When I refer to "quizzes" I refer to "whatever is supported by the Quiz extension". And this includes for example gapfill exercises, a typical form of exercises for language learning books. Of course, translation and conjugation of words is also supported by this extension. In a dead-tree book readers would have to look up the solutions and compare their answers themselves. An electronic wikibook with the Quiz extension could provide better support for such exercises by doing the checking automatically. I think wikibooks should be allowed to do better than dead-tree books. And I wouldn't like to put the exercises on Wikiversity, in particular because the exercises would be missing in the printed version.

I agree that it is important to print books neatly for many reasons. If you compare Spanish by Choice/SpanishPod newbie lesson A0001 and Spanish by Choice/SpanishPod newbie lesson A0001/Print version you will see that the interactive exercises at the end of the page print neatly by using a two-column format and instructions to uncover the solutions in the right column line by line. I agree that such a printable version should be provided for any kind of interactive exercise, including anything that is done with the Quiz extension. If authors are willing to provide such printable versions, why not include the Quiz extension to improve the electronic versions? --Martin Kraus (talk) 18:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Page too long; break into smaller sections

I've been editing the page Discrete mathematics/Set theory, and I now notice the following message at the top of the edit page:

WARNING: This page is 58 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections.

How do I do this?

Thanks. Nigeltn35 (talk) 07:06, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Just start a new page and copy&paste some of the content of the existing page to the new page. Of course, you also have to link the new page appropriately (from the table of contents etc.) I'm not aware of any special functionality for breaking up pages. Hope this helps. --Martin Kraus (talk) 14:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice - that's now complete, and looks OK, I think. (After a bit of a struggle getting the syntax of the links correct!) Nigeltn35 (talk) 13:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

How to best cite references in wikibook pages?

howdy crowd,

i am citing a bunch of material from published work in the wikibook that i am working on and i see about a million different ways of doing things. the one that struck me as most useful was the one used in the wikipedia page [[1]] but i found nothing that summarized the official policy on this. would somebody be so kind to point me towards the currently acceptable way of doing things? thanks a stack Robert Huber (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

All references tend to be collected together in one place, like a bibliography section in dead tree books, if used at all. Wikibooks doesn't really require that sources be cited and books are expected to be completely self contained, unlike encyclopedia articles. If Fisher's principle is relevant to the topic of the book your trying to contribute to, it would be better to mention Fisher's principle directly within the book as it applies to the scope of the book. --darklama 23:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The Wikibooks:Manual of Style#Footnotes and references appears to recommend to collect all references of each page/module/chapter at the end of the page/module/chapter. This is different from collecting all references of a whole(!) book in one place, which is probably the most common approach in traditional books, although some traditional books also have bibliography sections for each chapter. From the point of view of scientific textbooks and scientific writing in general, I strongly disagree with the comment that "Wikibooks doesn't really require that sources be cited." The official content guidelines of wikibooks include: Cite your sources, and use proper references. Citing sources is a crucial element of any scientific writing, including textbooks. If you have a single source: cite it! If you have two or three independent sources: cite them! You can omit some oral sources (e.g. lectures) and you can omit sources when there is a common consensus among many independent publications. If we apply this to children books then you will probably omit most sources because of the common consensus argument. But for textbooks on scientific topics, citing sources is crucial. And just to clarify my point: I think the concept of citing sources has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of writing a self-contained text. These are two completely independent concepts: you can write a perfectly self-contained text and give all your sources, and you can also write a non-self-contained text without giving any sources. In practice, it is usually easy to distinguish the specification of a source with bibliographic information (which should not be avoided in any scientific writing) from a hyperlink that serves as an explanation of a term (which should be avoided in wikibooks but not in wikipedia). --Martin Kraus (talk) 13:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikibooks does require that if you include material from other works that you provide proper credit, so a quote like in the manual of style example should include a reference to where that quote comes from. If material from a work is used within the book, you must credit the source of the information, in that sense does Wikibooks require that you cite your sources. However unlike Wikipedia, books are not required to provide evidence and backup every single piece of information included by referring to or linking to other sources. I am not aware of any attempt to require books to provide sources for every piece of information in order for information to be included, like is usually done on Wikipedia, are you? I only mentioned that books are self contained and should include all relevant information inside the book directly for completeness sakes. Books shouldn't rely on other works for explanations, for missing details, and for understanding the subject better. In that sense, using or citing sources shouldn't be done.

You could say I was trying to deal with the ambiguity of what citing sources can mean and was focused on what citing sources means on Wikipedia and how Wikibooks does things differently and does not have the same requirements as Wikipedia. --darklama 16:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I guess I just wasn't familiar with this particular meaning of the phrase "citing sources". --Martin Kraus (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Reading what was asked again. I'm wondering now if by citing perhaps Robert Huber means actually using material from another work within a book. If this is true Robert, you do need to acknowledge the work. If a lot of the work is being used you should include an acknowledgment type page to acknowledge all works that were used in the book. On the other hand if say a quote from a book was used you could just use a footnote on the page the quote was used on to acknowledge the work. If the work isn't GFDL you cannot use the material in any book, and if the material is GFDL but didn't come from a wiki there might be implications down the road if the WMF decides to switch all projects to a CC-BY-SA license. --darklama 16:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

thanks a major stack folks, the style manual ref did the job. i don't use references in wikibooks to refer to other critical material that the reader needs and which is located elsewhere. i use references mostly when i am faced with an important set of considerations which goes beyond the scope of the book. that way i include the most salient points needed for the book and refer the reader to the main source for anything that might be of interest beyond that. thanks a major stack for your comments and suggestions Robert Huber (talk) 11:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

If that's what you're using it for, you might consider templates like {{info}}, {{warning}}, and {{SideBox}}. These set tangential information aside from the normal text flow, but make sure it isn't lost in the footnotes. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:18, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Print version of module (2nd try)

I wrote two new templates {{Print version of module}} and {{Print version of module notice}}, together with a new Category:Modules with print version (subcategory of Category:Print Versions). As mentioned before, I think I'm flooding the Category:Books with print version with the printable versions of lessons of the wikibook Spanish by Choice. To avoid this (and since the new printing possibilities don't work well for these lessons), I'm now using these two new templates for modules of that wikibook; thus, they don't appear in Category:Books with print version (at least they won't appear after caches are updated; this might take some time). Of course, everyone may still use the templates {{Print version}} and {{Print version notice}} for modules. The new templates and category just offer a way to avoid flooding of the Category:Books with print version with printable modules. Is this OK? --Martin Kraus (talk) 09:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess I didn't quite understand what you were doing, but I've taken a good look at this book now and I think I see. You are creating a separate printable version of every single page, not a single printable version that contains all pages together. This isn't "wrong", but I've never seen it before. What is the difference between a page and the printable version of that page?

On the left side of the page in the "toolbox" (you might need to scroll down a little), there should be links to "Printable version" and "PDF version". The PDF version link will automatically include the GFDL in the PDF for you. Are there things that you are trying to do that are not satisfied by these two links? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, the page with the table of contents also provides a single printable version that contains all pages together: Spanish_by_Choice/SpanishPod_lessons. BTW the C Programming/TOC1 book also provides printable versions of "chapters" of the book. In the particular case of Spanish_by_Choice/SpanishPod_lessons the pages can be studied in any order; thus, it made sense to me to make each page printable. The main difference between a page and the printable version is the abscence of audio players and a completely different format of the exercises. For the things that are not satisfied by the "PDF version" see above. The "Printable version" doesn't handle the exercises correctly and keeps the audio players. --Martin Kraus (talk) 17:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Collections Preface

I started working on this page today, which is going to be like a forward or preface that we can attach to our printed and published books to explain where the book comes from, who we are, and how to get involved. It's probably a little verbose (I have that tendency), so any help to make it shorter, better, more informative, etc would be appreciated.

There isn't an automatic way yet, but if you're going to be creating collections for print and distribution, a little page like this in the front as an explanation would be a big help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think we should be evil and call this an invariant section though, but good idea. ViperSnake151 (talk) 20:51, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

We can't. Its barred on the license we use. Anyway some books already have a similar text or author/works and license attribution, a shorter version of what is drafted could be useful but the medium is different and printed versions will be most useful to readers not people interested in contributing. --Panic (talk) 23:52, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

No, we definitely cant call this an invariant section. In fact, I don't even like the idea of requiring this page to be in all printed books, although I think it's a nice suggestion. The fact is that our books (at least initially) are going to be incomplete and occasionally incorrect when compared to traditional textbooks, and having a little bit of an explanation of this phenomina up front will help to keep readers from getting angry at us. It's better to be honest about our shortcomings, and invite new members to come help us fix them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

In how far should this text differ from {{Print version cover}} and {{Print version cover text}}? I wonder whether they should differ at all. --Martin Kraus (talk) 10:15, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Editors and Reviewers

I noticed that in Help:Article_validation it says:

"Administrators and Bureaucrats can set flags for people who want and need them. If you want to get editor or reviewer flags for yourself, or if you want to nominate another editor for them, post the request at WB:RFA. The community will discuss the request, and an admin or bureaucrat will act on it in a reasonable amount of time."

However, there is no section in WB:RFA that deals with these applications. I was tempted to add the appropriate sections but there is no help or policy section to describe the roles of editors and reviewers. If this new facility has been documented in Wikibooks could someone tell me where? RobinH (talk) 09:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Those sections were added.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 03:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Moving and Renaming Confusing or Lonely Pages

User:Darklama, User:Mike.lifeguard and I were talking on IRC a little earlier today, and had a few things to say about the various discussion rooms we have. We've been living with the current Reading Rooms and discussion rooms for a while now, and I think some of the problems with it are becoming more apparent. On the bright side though, we can always learn from our mistakes and continue to move forward. Here are some observations that we've had:

1. Popular and well-used rooms, such as WB:CHAT and WB:AN shouldn't be moved, renamed, merged, or whatever. People are already using them and we shouldn't change something that works.
2. WB:VFD and WB:VFU should be merged together. The later receives hardly any traffic or exposure, and nobody uses it.
3. WB:FBN has been very low-traffic too. This might be because it's too secluded, it's not well-advertised, etc.
4. WB:HELP seems to be a little confusing. It was originally intended as a place where announcements could be made about new users, new projects, and new books. Now, it seems to be a strange mixture of WB:CHAT and WB:AN and nobody seems to know waht kinds of discussions belong there.
5. WB:PROJECTS is in the same boat. it was originally intended as a place where groups of people could work on collaborations, either in a single book or spanning multiple books. This hasn't panned out, yet.

Here are some suggestions we mentioned for fixing these issues. some of these are contradictory (and this probably isn't a complete list so feel free to add more). I would like to get some feedback on these:

1. WB:VFD and WB:VFU should be merged. They both deal with discussions about inclusion criteria and book deletions. They could both use the same templates and procedures, and attract the same audience. We might also like to rename the joint page to something like "Book Inclusions" or "Deletion Discussions" or something like that. I prefer a name with a more positive attitude (focus on inclusions instead of deletions). Also, Darklama suggested and I agree that we should remove the word "Vote" from the title to prevent mere voting and encourage more active discussions.
2. I personally would like to see the WB:PROJECTS merged into WB:HELP and WB:FBN. We can revitalize the new room as a "Books Discussion" where people can announce new books, discuss novel ideas for books, get help with and collaborate on books and select books which are "good", "featured", etc. It would also be a good central place to discuss stable versions (once we get that damn extension installed).
3. The WB:SHD room is terribly underutilized. Either it should be moved into the Reading Room where it can get better exposure, or it should be merged into an existing page. WB:HELP would seem like a good cnadidate for such a merger, if it hasn't gotten merged into something else already.

The point is to make sure that things are being well-utilized and are able to be found quickly by the people who would like to use them. These aren't the only ideas (if you have more, do share!), but I think they are good starting points for now. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of Confusing Pages... I know we just renamed the Reading Room recently, but now that I've had six months (?) to think about it, I think it is a horrible name. When you go to a library and want some help, do you go to the "reading room"? Didn't think so. That's where I'd go if I wanted to be left alone and read something. I would expect a reading room to be a quiet place. Maybe the reference desk? Perhaps, but there is surely a better name than that. I would like to hear from new users what they think of "Reading Room" being the name of the place you go for help. --Jomegat (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Jomegat and some remarks on that issue were made before on the same subject. --Panic (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Whiteknight, would you mind clarifying your proposals I do see some benefits on the merge of the WB:VFD and WB:VFU for example but what would become the target page and or how would you propose it to be named, the same clarification is needed for other actions you are proposing. --Panic (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't really making any concrete proposals, just putting forward some ideas that were discussed. I think that WB:VFD and WB:VFU should be merged together because both of them are on the topic of deletion, and neither of them get a lot of traffic. I would like to see them merged and named something like "Inclusion Discussions" or "Content Discussion". Most of the other proposals I agree with (to varying degrees), but I would like to get some more feedback before pushing forward any other issues.

As far as Jomegat's idea about renaming the Reading Room, I don't think it's a terrible idea, but I would want to see a very compelling alternative before I got involved with the hassle to rename this all. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

H€re we go...

1. no problems but the acronyms can be confusing and geeky.
2. good idea but not the part about changing the name to something like 'book inclusions' - would an occasional user have any idea what that page might be about? And it should remain a 'vote'. By encouraging discussions you are likely to only get input from those who've been on WB for years and are able to quote silly policies and guidelines and then shout down other people when they simply say 'support' or 'delete'. If you want more people to contribute then you have to LET them get involved and people won't get involved when we use strange acronyms, quote unfamiliar and lengthy policies and tell people not to vote.
3. there is no question posed
4. why do we have so many pages for help, admin assistance, project stuff, etc.? It's a small project and so many different pages are unnecessary and confusing especially when you have no idea where your question might belong.
5. waste of space, delete it.

--ЗAНИA ^talk 19:23, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

We don't vote anyways, so having "vote" in the title of the page is incorrect. We're also not going to start voting - the reasons for that should be abundantly clear to any administrator in particular.

The point of this discussion is to reduce the number of noticeboards because "It's a small project and so many different pages are unnecessary and confusing especially when you have no idea where your question might belong."

 — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 19:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Pages that are being well-used have clear utility and should stay, regardless of their number. Pages that are not being used are superfluous and should be merged with pages that are more popular. What we want to do is reduce the number of pages that active Wikibookians need to watch and participate in, but keep the same amount of information available to people. There are a number of pages that are rarely used (WB:PROJECTS, WB:VFU, WB:SHD, etc) and they should be merged or deleted because they aren't used.

The debate about whether we "vote" or not is a waste of time, I think. It's mincing words. What we don't do is majority-wins voting, or simple binary voting. People express their opinions on an issue, sometimes in the form of a simple yes/no, but sometimes in the form of a thoughtful explanation. It's very free form, unlike traditional "voting" that people are familiar with. I think it's confusing to tell people "We do vote, but not in a way that you might be familiar with", as opposed to the simpler "We don't vote, we discuss". Again, it's mincing words, but we need to settle on a single terminology to prevent confusing new users. The learning curve around here is already steep enough.

That brings us to the issue of naming pages. Pages like WB:VFD and WB:VFU use the word "vote" which would imply to new users that it's an up/down binary vote where people can blindly cite policy and be lawyering assholes. It also brings to mind the issue of suffrage, which we really don't have here. I think the word "Discussion" makes it more clear that people should participate in it. So, we could merge these two pages into "Wikibooks:Deletion Discussions" or even "Wikibooks:Reading Room/Deletion Discussions", whatever people want. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that this page is unused. The point of the split up was because there was too much traffic to pages which required more frequent archiving, and to allow people to watch only what they are interested in while not being distracted by other things. I think this page should be kept. I propose for now WB:SHD be merged with WB:HELP to help give WB:HELP more focus on assisting users. I also agree with the proposal to merge WB:VFU with WB:VFD and to renamed it Wikibooks:Reading room/Deletion Discussions. I think those two mergers is all we need right now, remember we can always improve things more later if a need arises, but for now I think this would be a good start. --darklama 16:40, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

PDF version

Nissan 240SX Performance Modification/Engine Swaps/SR20DE. The info in the versions and specs section of this has all wrong info, the versions and specs are all wrong

Extremely respectuous to the daily creators of Wikipedia, I find however hilarious how impossible is the process of obtaining a pdf of a listed wikibook:

I have been turning around the pot for 30 minutes before giving up, so promessing and irrelevant were the pages supposed to direct me to a pdf file.

The technicity allowing readers to download a pdf should not be seen as a luxury, nor should it be perceived a thread to the popularity of their web equivalent: Everyone knows the web equivalent is regularly updated / corrected / improved, and wikibooks do serve the prestige and popularity of Wikipedia !

Yours, faithfuly.

PDF versions are currently created manually. There is an extension currently in development for automatic creation, but it is a difficult process. It's currently in beta, and will hopefully be rolled out soon.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 19:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The extension is out! Visit Help:Collections for more information, and contact me personally if you need more help. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:37, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Flaggedrevs

I find the lack of more specific information regarding the Flaggedrevs system alarming. I am very involved in the internet community and a frequent visitor to the sister of wikibooks, wikipedia en. I was recently asked by a former teacher of mine who has been working on creating on online textbook since I was in the seventh grade, to assist in the setup and creation of this wikibook in it's final stages. I seek to, in time, upon the completion of the wikibook, remove the warning at the top of the page stating, "There are no reviewed revisions of this page, so it may not have been checked for quality". I have read all of the information, but have found absolutely no information regarding becoming an editor or reviewer so that I can check articles upon their completion. Any information regarding how to become a reviewer or editor would be appreciated, as I seek to review many wikibooks, now and in the future. Thank you for your time. Ebmonkey2 (talk) 17:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You can see Wikibooks:Reviewers and WB:REVIEW for more general information. We're still figuring things out, but you can expect some progress on that front in the coming weeks.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

We also are developing information about it at Using Wikibooks/Reviewing Pages. This is a very new extension for us, so as you use it and learn about it, we would appreciate feedback and contributions to all these pages. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Using Wikibooks

I would like to get this book, which is like an instruction manual for new Wikibooks users, into better condition for printing. Eventually, I would like to be able to print copies of this book and distribute them to teachers and students, or other prospective Wikibookians. There are a few things that this book needs:

1. More content. If everybody could write a few paragraphs about their "specialty", that would be great. There are lots of details to be added.
2. Images. We need screenshots of the Wikibooks interface, showing some of the things we talk about in the book.
3. Editing. Book needs copyediting and general improvements of what is already there.
4. Reviewing. There are a lot of pages written, and they need to be reviewed for quality.

If we had a concerted community effort to do it, this book could probably be featured quality before 2009, and we could start getting copies printed. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)