Tomer Chachamu wrote:
On 23 Apr 2005 00:24:43 +0200, Manuel GR mgrojo@ya.com wrote:
Probably Wikibooks needs more administrators or at least more active ones.
I think the main problem is that nobody is really interested in Wikibooks. They just want to contribute to their own group of (no more than) 5 books. Therefore, we also have no {{cleanup}}, low activity on VfD, etc.
The problem is not this I belive - there are many people who are interested - most of them are very active in other older projects (wikipedia, wiktionary etc.) and so they spend some additional time on wikibooks - it is the same to me - the admin of the Italian wiktionary does not allow to follow up things like I would on wikibooks. What I am trying to do is to interest other people who are potential" new editors" to go to wikibooks, but this takes time. Out of 50 conversations you have maybe one who is going to contribute. It is not like wikisource or wikiquote or wikinews that you write short articles or add just a quote - you "write books" and that is hard work.
One thing wikibooks should try to insert are software manuals - those of the OpenSource community that are under GFDL. This helps both: the software project and wikibooks as any user going there to search for information is a potential contributer.
I will start with our OmegaT manual - on the English wikibooks and then translate it into German and/or Italian. We will insert the link to the OmegaT website and when I give explanations I will send people there to look up a how-to. This makes the project known. People using OmegaT are language professionals - so it is quite likely that sooner or later they read the books being edited to learn their specific language and they very likely will then start to add.
What I am also trying to create on the Italian wikibooks is not so much a German teaching book, but an exercise book teachers at a certain point can use in the class, Anyone can use for own exercises. There are no solutions up to now - people will have to ask me for now - so I have a reason to talk about the project.
For the admins: they should concentrate on their rule of cleaning up things and only after having done that edit. But even this is hard, as most admins are the major contributors ...
Hmmm ... whoever thinks there's not enough done: why don't you just start to do what needs to be done?
Wishing you a great weekend!
Sabine