[Textbook-l] Some concept ideas

[Magnus Manske]

IMO writing a textbook (which I have done, on a very small scale; 
nothing to buy in a shop;-) takes a more organized approach than 
wikipedia. If we just start writing like on the 'pedia, we'll recreate 
it. So, what we need is

* Structure

By which I mean a table of content. That can be altered, fine-tuned and 
subdivided during writing, but we need a structured

* list of topics

to cover. *Then*, we can start filling in the pages. Because unlike 
wikipedia, where everyone writes about a random topic and interconnects 
it with the rest, there has to be a "what we want, what we need" kind of 
thing.

As Karl and others already said, we'll need to create "stable" versions. 
This is something any software developer should be used to. Therefore, 
we have to say, at some point, "this is complete". That could be a fixed 
date, but I think it will be hard to meet a deadline in a wiki environment.
So, my suggestion is that we freeze the table of contents (TOC) instead. 
It could still be open for minor adjustments, but we should decide early 
about

* what our first release should cover

We should keep track of the status of each page on both its talk page 
and the TOC. I'd say if you find a page to be OK for release, you add 
your signature to the talk page. If you're the third (or tenth;-) to 
sign, you put an "OK" on the TOC at that topic.

Once all topics are marked OK, we take a few days going through it again 
(here we could set a deadline!), then dump the whole thing into HTML 
pages (I can do that, if you like), and put it somewhere (as an online 
or ZIPped HTML collection, as RTF, PDF, or whatever).


Karl mentioned scattered attempts for free non-wiki textbooks on the 
web. Once the site is up, we should try to go through these web pages 
and ask the authors to join us, or to release their attempts under GFDL. 
This could be organized on the site so we don't bother the same guy 20 
times (like "declined", "donated his texts", "joined" etc.)



One more thing (more like a personal request): I would like to limit 
editing to logged-in people only. Now calm down, I don't try to rip the 
wiki principle apart. I just think that since this will be a more 
organized effort than wikipedia, and as I'd rather not spent my time 
cleaning up vandals on the textbook wiki all the time as well, I think 
it might be a good idea to prevent bypassing vandals from inserting "yo 
mom's stupid". Everyone would be free to get a user account, just like 
on wikipedia. Just an extension: "You can edit this page right now. Just 
get a free user account first". People who'd like to invest serious time 
here will most certainly do that.

Magnus