We have to draw a line somewhere, and we can argue internally endlessly
without getting much resolution. So a useful technique is to try really
hard to reference some external standards.
> 1. What about guides to games that are not video or computer games?
> These can include guides on how to play chess and go (which we already
> have), bridge, whist, etc.. together with suitable strategies;
> conceivably this may also include more modern games such as risk or
> monopoly or cluedo. To my mind, guides on well-known intellectual games
> such as these have educational value and are worth keeping, but your
> comments would be welcome.
My question would be whether or not there exist classes at accredited
institutions on the subject which use something similar _as a textbook_.
Notice how this works: first, we can be quite broad in what constitutes
a textbook, for example at my sister's cooking school, they use a
cookbook for a textbook, no question.
But in virtually every university, there are classes on Shakespeare
which use Hamlet as material, but not as _textbook_ per se.
I am unaware of any course at any accredited institution which teaches
risk or monopoly or clue. Chess and go, probably, but I actually don't
know. Doom? No.
> 2. Your comments included a direct reference to wikibooks having
> textbooks suitable for "elementary school, high school, or college
> courses" (and I'm not sure what age groups you meant by "college" as it
> seems to mean different things in the US from what it means in the UK).
> I trust this list was not meant to be exhaustive and that you would
> agree that textbooks related to professional learning (eg accountancy),
> adult learning (eg cookery) and (if not covered by "college") university
> learning are suitable for wikibooks.
Yes! I think we should be quite broad about it. The key point is that
there have to be some kind of courses offered by some kind of serious
institution of learning.
--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
# http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################
Hi all, just a heads up.
Brion has agreed to setup an English language wikiversityen-l mailing
list for the English Wikiversity project. I posted the following
announcement both at the wikibooks main page and the Wikiversity
Subcommittee page at meta:
Mailing Lists
German wikiversityde-l
There is a mailing list regarding the German language Wikiversity
available. Check at the German Wikiversity or the Wikimedia Foundation
mailing lists page for details.
English wikiversityen-l
Brion has agreed to setup an English language wikiversity mailing list
for us. He needs an initial list of mailing addresses for volunteers
interested in administering the mailing list. Please send your wikimedia
handles and actual mailing address to michael_irwin(a)verizon.net NLT 26
April 06 and I will include you on the list of initial administrater
candidates submitted for activation of the mailing list. Lazyquasar
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Lazyquasar> 08:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to all Wikibookians for the use of the textbook-l mailing list
for the past few months. With luck we will soon be out of your wiki
space (excepting when using or contributing to textbooks) as well.
regards,
lazyquasar
The Wikibooks portal, http://www.wikibooks.org, is a redirect to the
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_portal which is maintained by the
sysops of the English Wikibooks. However all language editions of Wikibooks
should have opportunity to request updates or redesigns of this portal.
At March 2006, the English Wikibooks sysops redesigned the portal to feature
the top ten language editions, as does http://www.wikisource.org. Recently
an anoymous user noted that the Swedish edition reached 10th place.
However, when I checked the stats [1], Swedish had 11th place and Hebrew at
10th. Thus I would remove Hungarian and add Hebrew.
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikibooks
Instead, because positions 10, 11, and 12 seemed unstable, but there was a
larger gap between 12 and 13, I unilaterally increased the number of
featured editions to 12, thus retaining Hungarian and adding both Hebrew
and Swedish. However I do not have translations for "open-content
textbooks" and "modules" in those languages.
Thus, I need someone to provide the messages in Hebrew and Swedish. I also
want everyone to check translations for languages that they read, and
provide changes if necessary. Please also alert us if an edition is missing
from the list of "All Languages". You can use the talk page at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Talk:Wikibooks_portal or reply to this
message.
--[[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]], sysop
I forward an email claiming that Pakistan was blocking access to
Wikipedia. I do not know whether Wikibooks and other Wikimedia
sites were also blocked (they run on the same servers), but an
earlier block against one Blogspot blog apparently blocked all
of Blogspot.
The linked site http://help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/
claims that the Wikipedia block began at 31 March 2006, but was lifted
at
the same day. I have no way to verify this information.
The email said that Wikipedia "was likely
blocked because one article of the massive 3.5 million topics covered
on the website contained information pertaining to the controversial
cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)". I am aware that an
English Wikipedia article contains such cartoons. There is a thread
from February 2006 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kernigh
about them. Though I favor removing the cartoons from the article,
I think that governments should not block unrelated pages, and
governments that respect free speech should not block such cartoons
nor pages about them.
I am not aware of any similar content on Wikibooks, but we could
have such content in the future. English Wikibooks policy at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW states that "Wikibooks is not
censored for the 'protection of minors' (content-rated)," and that
"modules can be, and are, censored by consensus."
-- [[User:Kernigh]], in USA
-----Original Message-----
From: Sabahat Ashraf <ashrafs(a)alum.rpi.edu>
To: pakistan-l(a)wikicities.com; wikia-l(a)wikicities.com
Sent: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:24:33 -0800
Subject: [Wikia-l] Fw: [Pakistan PRESS RELEASE] PAKISTAN BLOCKS
WIKIPEDIA
I am not on the wikipedia lists; please forward.
S
<-----Original Message----->
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dr. Awab Alvi
Date: Mar 31, 2006 12:20 PM
Subject: PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
31st March 2006
For Further Information:
Dr. Awab Alvi (Pakistan)
Cell: 92-333-2373493
Email: drawab(a)cyber.net.pk
Blog: http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/
Omar Alvie (UAE)
Cell: 00971-50-6268410
Email: over_email(a)yahoo.co
Blog: http://oream.blogspot.com
URL: http://help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/
PAKISTAN BLOCKS WIKIPEDIA
Today, 31 March 2006, at around 13:00 Pakistan Standard Time, it has
come to our attention that another important website was added to the
blacklisted domains from Pakistan: that is the entire domain of
Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, was likely
blocked because one article of the massive 3.5 million topics covered
on the website contained information pertaining to the controversial
cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). While the block appeared to
be limited in duration, having been lifted at 20:00 (PST) seven hours
after the initiation, the real issues remain about the future
censorship of education and knowledge in Pakistan.
We request the international print and electronic media to bring this
issue to light in order to ensure that the concerned Pakistani
authorities and ISPs understand the importance of free access to the
Internet.
A month back, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blocked
access to upwards of 10 million websites being hosted on the
blogspot.com domain, following a Supreme Court order issued on March
3rd condemning the controversial cartoons. The judicial order
instructed the PTA to regulate only twelve offending websites which
were promoting the blasphemous cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH). One of the offending websites happened to be hosted on the
domain www.blogspot.com. The PTA, as the supreme controlling body of
internet access in Pakistan, entirely blocked access to upwards of 10
millions websites.
Wikipedia is the world's largest online encyclopaedia and is
considered as the single largest online storehouse of knowledge having
over 3.5 million articles on every imaginable topic conceivable in the
world. These articles are gradually improved by contributors and then
the topics are stored safely to then be freely shared with the entire
world. The wikipedia project is translated into over 200 languages
with over one million pages written in the English language, and it
even contains hundreds of topics specifically written in the Urdu
language. It should be important to point out that the largest
printable encyclopaedia Britannica can only cover 65,000 topics which
is easily dwarfed by the 3.5 million topics on Wikipedia.
Simultaneously the printed version of the Britannica Encyclopaedia can
cost upwards of $1400 to purchase but on the other hand each and every
article on Wikipedia is free to read by anyone having an internet
connection.
The DON'T BLOCK THE BLOG campaign
(http://www.help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/ ) was launched
on 3rd March, 2006 in order to highlight and protest the issue of the
blockage of blogs in Pakistan. We now extend our campaign to protest
any blockage of Wikipedia in Pakistan. Both these issues are
important to a developing nation such as Pakistan. What began as
censorship of simple freedom of speech appears to have the real
possibility of being extended to censorship of education and knowledge
in Pakistan.
--
[Sabahat Iqbal Ashraf]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
c: (510) 304 5927 www.ashrafs.org/iFaqeer
ashrafs(a)alum.rpi.edu pakistan.wikia.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please visit: http://pakistan.wikia.com/wiki/Earthquake_10-05
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://iFaqeer.blogspot.com Socio-Political Commentary
http://WadiWallah.blogspot.com Technology, Life & Silicon Valley
http://PakistanFutures.blogspot.com Possible Futures for Pakistan
http://Urdu-ke-Naam.blogspot.com Language, Poetry and Spirituality
http://Rickshaw.blogspot.com Rickshaw!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My religion is humanitarianism?.. Which is basis [sic]of every religion
in this world.
Abdus Sattar Edhi (Pakistan's humanitarian phenom)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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