Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies on Wikibooks?

Monahon, Peter B. wrote: We do permit annotated texts about fiction, but the fiction itself is not generally permitted on Wikibooks. For example, a book about "The Chronicles of Narnia" or "Harry Potter" (a major Wikibook BTW) is permitted, if you try to address the book(s) from a literary standpoint and help to develop study guides and other learning materials that are about those books. A clear example of this is here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter For more specific details, you can get out the official policy for fiction on Wikibooks at: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks There was a very interesting book called "Aarvard the Aardvark" which was started several years ago on Wikibooks that more or less set the precedent for fictional resources. In the case of this book, it was intended to be a 1st Grade reading primer to go through the stories of a little Aardvark, with illustrations and other gently humorous content intended for children. Clearly it would fit within the general definition of a textbook, as other similar reading primers have been written and used in other K-5 reading programs, but due to the questions of original research and allowing other 3rd parties to help participate in the development process, it was voted off of Wikibook in a VfD. As a result, nearly all other forms of fiction including adult novels have been asked to move off of the project as well when they were started, and asked instead to be using the Novella Wikia, which specializes in writing fictional content. http://fiction.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Mainly this is just a way to help refine the content on Wikibooks, and to emphasize that anything written on the project must be factual and verifiable from independent sources. We do tend to not get so harsh on original research as Wikipedia tends to get, but if you write a mystery novel, we simply are not equipped to deal with an editorial dispute between two authors who want to take a plot line in two very different directions. This has been a long standing policy now for at least two years, if not longer, and should not be a new revelation for any long time Wikibooks user. I'm sorry if this does seem to be a bit of a surprise, and I hope that this doesn't offend anybody here. I'm willing to at least listen to the arguments in favor of allowing fictional content, but it really ought to be something like the "Aardvard the Aardvark" or something specifically tied to an educational curriculum, and is something that would have to be discussed among the community at large to permit such content. This would be a major change of policy to include this type of content, at least at the moment. -- Robert Horning