Thank you, Andrew,
... for the quick and apparently knowledgeable and well-connected reply.
For your information and feedback, I'm not sure how on my own I'd find
the links you share, and you made many "we have that" comments where you
offered no links. Perhaps I'm too casual a visitor to wander deeply
enough below the main page. This seems a constant on the MediaWiki, er,
WikiMedia, er ... whatever ... projects I've visited - no intuitively
obvious organizational scheme or way to find one form the main page (or
anywhere inside!). Perhaps it will just take time. I'm sure the first
phone systems confused people, now we just "know" the meaning of area
codes and such.
Oh, and by the way, I totally disagree with your conclusions. Names
matter. While I appreciate that "books" includes "textbooks", I see
it
as "all girl-scouts are girls, but not all girls are girl-scouts". I
see you all opening up a "girl" site, and then saying it's only for
"girl-scouts"! You don't set that?
And, I'd go to Wikisources because ... I'm looking for "sources"?
"The
free documentations library" means nothing to me.
When Amazon started, I thought, "what a stoopid name for a book store".
Now, I see they really want to be an "Amazon river on the Internet,
through which everything flows", not just books, but movies, cameras,
personal gear, toys, appliances, and so on. "Books" was just a start,
and now I see "Amazon" as a very savvy name indeed. Also, the name
"Amazon" acquired distinctiveness through their persistent marketing.
Good luck with "Wikibooks .. you're telling me it's NOT the place to go
to learn all about books, they way we go to Wikipedia, to learn all
about everything (almost). Perhaps a compiled list page of what's NOT
on the site so (a) there IS a response to searches within the site and
(b) it clearly tells visitors why not, and where to go?
Thank you, Robert, also for your concise yet complete explanations -
background and alternatives.
- Peter Blaise