The Book Creator - Wikimedia-l

27 Dec 2023

Dear all,
Some years ago, when we started the Education Program at the Basque Wikipedia, we used a
lot the Book Creator (or Collections) extension. It allowed to bind some articles and
download them in PDF or DOC/ODT formats for further editing
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book). This was a great feature, as it allowed us
to send the teachers and students a collection of articles they had created. The teacher
could create free learning materials from the articles created by their students, and
download them in DOC/ODT format allowed to edit them, rearrange and add other materials.
Some teachers said us that they have created learning materials using Wikipedia articles
created by their students.

Anyway, in 2017 the Wikimedia Foundation decided to break the book creator, because there
were some errors in the PDF creator. So they disabled the book creator and added a note
saying that the system is "Undergoing changes". The message is still visible,
but no changes are being done. (You can follow the last messages of redesigning the book
creator here:https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T175681).

I know that this is not the most important feature that is broken. There are many other
broken things. But creating materials for students, and being able to read them offline or
edited by teachers is a feature that aligns with our mission and vision. As always
happens, no one is accountable for having something broke for six years. And it
doesn't seem that this feature will return in the future. At least, the PediaPress
link is still working, but there you can't edit your book, only pay for have it
printed.

I think no one knows what will happen with this feature. I write this message simply to
say that I miss it a lot.

Thanks

Galder Gonzalez