Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Indeed, even the idea of making Wikibooks strictly non-fiction content is something relatively new, although I think this is a reasonable focus.
I do not think this is new at all. I have said, from the very beginning of Wikibooks, that NPOV is non-negotiable here as elsewhere. Go read the archives of the mailing list for an extended discussion of this.
Fiction has never been contemplated as being part of the Wikibooks mission.
The problem that Wikibooks is facing now is the incredibly limiting restriction of making Wikibooks only for textbooks, with no real clear definition as to what a textbook really is. Saying that you must cite a course of study in an accredited educational institution and that the textbook fits in with a proscribed syllabus is going way too far in my opinion. How could anything possibly be written at all with that sort of very strict interpretation? Yet that is precisely the standard that is being used.
I do not see how this is the current standard, nor do I see how such a standard is especially restrictive.
If we (and especially Jimbo) is suggesting that this is the standard that needs to be applied, perhaps we simply need to nuke the whole website, such as was done with French Wikiquote. Kill everything and perhaps bring back the one agreed upon textbook that started it all: Organic Chemistry.
? There are thousands and thousands of perfectly legitimate pages in Wikibooks which stick quite firmly to the mission. And there is a tiny handful, which the community has been eliminating over time, which do not. No problem, and certainly no reason to shut anything down.
Calling in the U.S. Federal Government on this issue is an attempt to distract from the issue, which is a policy dispute between one rather prominent individual (namely Jimbo) and admins on Wikibooks.
I do not think there is any dispute between me and any admins. As far as I have been able to determine whenever you and I have emailed about this privately, we see 100% eye to eye on all these matters, for example.
My understanding was that they were very distinct groups (Wikia and Wikimedia) and the policies and even existance of a Wikia project has no bearing on Wikimedia projects.
I agree with you completely. If community members are making decisions on that basis, that is their right, but there is nothing coming from me that would lead in that direction.
--Jimbo