The rules against OR and POV were first established on EN Wikipedia, and other projects have since been inspired to inherit them (after all, Wikipedia was originally the "Wikipedia Textbook project" or somesuch). Many of our old policies were based on outdated forks of Wikipedia policies.
First I'll talk about OR. Writing a textbook is very different from a Wikipedia article; while a Wikipedia article can only cover a topic that already exists, a book is free to reveal an entirely new topic.
However, with both methods verifiability is still crucial; if any previous works cover the topic in question it's very important to mention them; even if they were not used to write the book it shows its authors have read widely and really know their topic. If no traditional sources exist then it is perhaps a topic a more trusted source should cover first (such as a real professor with a real degree), rather than the semi-anonymous laymen of Wikibooks. I'm hesitant to mention it, but the recent unfortunate events involving Essjay on Wikipedia show the limited verifiability of a wiki user's qualifications.
NPOV is a vaguer issue; since a textbook is covering the topic from a particular angle, some degree of POV is often inevitable for the cause of interesting prose. However there's a difference between POV and actual bias. This is a matter better explored at a later date.
OR aside, (although references and NPOV are still preferable if possible), hosting non-annotated fiction simply isn't within our scope. Our donations and tax breaks have been generously and specifically given for the purposes of running a non-profit source for copyleft textbooks. Even fiction focussed on instruction such as Ardvark the Aardvark ( http://novelas.wikia.com/wiki/Ardvark_the_Aardvark ) had to be moved because of these restrictions.
While in the past we have been lenient (some would say lax) about fiction and other non-textbook content being on Wikibooks, continuing the errors of the past doesn't help anything. Jimbo has stated we need to stick closer to our goals, and he's right.
Anyway I hope I explained everything sufficiently.
Garrett
On 10/03/07, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks) or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
Yes, this is reasonable if we are talking only about manuals and school books. However, I would like to see, for example, a book about web servers comparison and I don't think that it is reasonable to stop people writing such kinds of books. Also, I'd like to see essays and even fiction books on Wikibooks, too. Of course, with defining what kind of books would be able not to be NPOV and NOR (for example, I don't think that a book about history may be POV) and with marking such books as OR and POV.
If it is locally related to en:, projects in other languages may not follow such rules. However, it would be better to have a global policy with definitions what may and what may not be OR and/or POV.
I think that it is better to have strong Wikibookian communities with a lot of fiction on Wikibooks then much smaller communities without fiction on Wikibooks.
I know that it sounds hereticly :) However, I would like to see a good skilled (amateur) astronomer who prefer to write SF on Wikibooks. He may start to write a book about astronomy through some time.
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