Sanford,
Would it be feasible to take the work done on the US Constitution and Government and/or US History books and adapt it to fit the CA state standards in place of the World History Project ?
Um, congrats or condolances on your new governor, depending on your opinion.
Karl
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--- Karl Wick karlwick@yahoo.com wrote:
Sanford,
Would it be feasible to take the work done on the US Constitution and Government and/or US History books and adapt it to fit the CA state standards in place of the World History Project ?
I don't think we should focus on standards. It would be better to focus on making good textbooks. To be realistic, public schools would probably not use our books, but there is a chance that private schools or homeschoolers (the ones that don't use more radical methods) would use them. These groups don't particularly like books that were formulaically constructed around state standards.
Um, congrats or condolances on your new governor, depending on your opinion.
Karl
Condolences. LDan
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Karl Wick:
Sanford,
Would it be feasible to take the work done on the US Constitution and Government and/or US History books and adapt it to fit the CA state standards in place of the World History Project ?
Daniel Ehrenberg:
I don't think we should focus on standards. It would be better to focus on making good textbooks. To be realistic, public schools would probably not use our books, but there is a chance that private schools or homeschoolers (the ones that don't use more radical methods) would use them. These groups don't particularly like books that were formulaically constructed around state standards.
I think that's a possibility. **As long as the framework standards are adhered to**, the book should pass California (and many other states) peer review. Note that the California frameworks are considered to be very progressive, and thorough, even by institutions that are outside the public school system, including home and private schools.
If you look at the frameworks for just about any course, they're really quite thorough. The beauty of open source content is that a lot more creativity and variety can be placed around state-approved curriculum frameworks. In this scenario, everyone wins. In fact, I know several home schoolers - both in and out of California - who use California K-12 textbook as part of their home-based curriculum.
Further, it's not at all accurate to say that home schoolers and private schools eschew state-approved books. I spent 15 years in the academic school book business; both home and private schools use "state-approved" books in very large numbers.
The whole idea behind the Wikipedia K-12 textbook project is to create open source K-12 textbooks. yes, it's well within the realm of possibility to create K-12 books that don't adhere to state frameworks. Personally, I think that would be a massive strategic mistake that leads to gross inefficiencies.
Sure, *some* private schools and some home schools might chose to use non-framework books; however, the *vast* amount of good that could be done by providing *better, cheaper, more flexible* content scenarios to *10's of millions* of students, worldwide, would be lost. We would not be able to use these materials in public schools. Millions of public school students would lose out - many of these students are from poor districts, which badly need quality content that is affordable.We also need to realize that the content created to state framework standards would be used by countries like India and China, who look to approved framework-standard materials in English to teach their students (many schools teach the native tongue, and English, simultaneously).
The argument for writing to a state framework standard is unassailable, especially in distributed, open, content environments. The fact is that is a book is written to a framework standard, it *will* be used by public institutions, and internationally. It *will* also be used by private and home schools (even some of the radical ones). Those private and home schools who want to variate Wikipedia K-12 content (picking and choosing and modifying what they want) would be able to do so, and/or add their own open source contributions to make it fit their exact needs. Thus, choosing to ignore state frameworks in this project severely reduces it's overall impact. Writing to state framework standards is clearly the only way to go, *if* we want to make the largest difference possible.
Let's do this project right, and create a K-12 textbook publishing revolution that makes a real difference, changes the way K-12 content is sourced and distributed, and sets an example - worldwide - that is nothing short of a gold standard.
Sanford
I think that's a possibility. **As long as the framework standards are adhered to**, the book should pass California (and many other states) peer review. Note that the California frameworks are considered to be very progressive, and thorough, even by institutions that are outside the public school system, including home and private schools.
We should still keep our focus on making good textbooks, even if that means deviating from the standards in some cases. We should not delete or summarize any existing content in accordance with the framework.
If you look at the frameworks for just about any course, they're really quite thorough. The beauty of open source content is that a lot more creativity and variety can be placed around state-approved curriculum frameworks. In this scenario, everyone wins. In fact, I know several home schoolers - both in and out of California - who use California K-12 textbook as part of their home-based curriculum.
Further, it's not at all accurate to say that home schoolers and private schools eschew state-approved books. I spent 15 years in the academic school book business; both home and private schools use "state-approved" books in very large numbers.
IANAFormer academic school book writer/seller, but would it possible that this could be because most textbooks are written according to standards? Even if one standard is better than the others, most textbooks are still written according these standards
The whole idea behind the Wikipedia K-12 textbook project is to create open source K-12 textbooks. yes, it's well within the realm of possibility to create K-12 books that don't adhere to state frameworks. Personally, I think that would be a massive strategic mistake that leads to gross inefficiencies.
Sure, *some* private schools and some home schools might chose to use non-framework books; however, the *vast* amount of good that could be done by providing *better, cheaper, more flexible* content scenarios to *10's of millions* of students, worldwide, would be lost. We would not be able to use these materials in public schools. Millions of public school students would lose out - many of these students are from poor districts, which badly need quality content that is affordable.We also need to realize that the content created to state framework standards would be used by countries like India and China, who look to approved framework-standard materials in English to teach their students (many schools teach the native tongue, and English, simultaneously).
I don't think it's a certainty that these books will be used just because they're approved.
Don't you think that foreign countries would want textbooks written in simpler English?
The argument for writing to a state framework standard is unassailable, especially in distributed, open, content environments. The fact is that is a book is written to a framework standard, it *will* be used by public institutions, and internationally. It *will* also be used by private and home schools (even some of the radical ones).
The radical ones use real books. I think that's a lot of what Wikibooks should be doing (not specifically for the homeschoolers, though).
Those private and home schools who want to variate Wikipedia K-12 content (picking and choosing and modifying what they want) would be able to do so, and/or add their own open source contributions to make it fit their exact needs. Thus, choosing to ignore state frameworks in this project severely reduces it's overall impact. Writing to state framework standards is clearly the only way to go, *if* we want to make the largest difference possible.
Let's do this project right, and create a K-12 textbook publishing revolution that makes a real difference, changes the way K-12 content is sourced and distributed, and sets an example - worldwide - that is nothing short of a gold standard.
Sanford
Let's be realistic: probably no wikibooks will be printed, and if one is printed, it will be a highly-edited and non-wikified, and this won't happen for a while. I think that the goal of Wikibooks shouldn't be centered around things like the High-school extentions book, the programming tutorials, and other things aimed at informal self-study. LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
We should still keep our focus on making good textbooks, even if that means deviating from the standards in some cases. We should not delete or summarize any existing content in accordance with the framework.
That is what optional modules are for! :) We could have base distributions of a book that are each in 100% compliance with different standards and then have optional, more in depth, modules that can be added on top of whatever base distribution an instructor chooses to use in the classroom. Of course that does require WikiBook software functionality (which will come - even if I have to learn PHP - do we have a textbook on that yet?).
Let's be realistic: probably no wikibooks will be printed, and if one is printed, it will be a highly-edited and non-wikified, and this won't happen for a while. I think that the goal of Wikibooks shouldn't be centered around things like the High-school extentions book, the programming tutorials, and other things aimed at informal self-study.
Well it is a good thing that you are not the only person in the project then! ;) Go ahead and work on the self study guides and other people will be writting standards-compliant textbooks that will one day be "printed" on digital paper (many of our textbooks will be maturing by the time digital paper becomes popular, IMR - killing trees bad and transferring webpages to dead tree book form requires a great deal of formatting).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
We should still keep our focus on making good textbooks, even if that means deviating from the standards in some cases. We should not delete or summarize any existing content in accordance with the framework.
That is what optional modules are for! :) We could have base distributions of a book that are each in 100% compliance with different standards and then have optional, more in depth, modules that can be added on top of whatever base distribution an instructor chooses to use in the classroom. Of course that does require WikiBook software functionality (which will come - even if I have to learn PHP - do we have a textbook on that yet?).
----------- Exactly.
Let's be realistic: probably no wikibooks will be printed, and if one is printed, it will be a highly-edited and non-wikified, and this won't happen for a while. I think that the goal of Wikibooks shouldn't be centered around things like the High-school extentions book, the programming tutorials, and other things aimed at informal self-study.
Well it is a good thing that you are not the only person in the project then! ;) Go ahead and work on the self study guides and other people will be writting standards-compliant textbooks that will one day be "printed"
on
digital paper (many of our textbooks will be maturing by the time digital paper becomes popular, IMR - killing trees bad and transferring webpages
to
dead tree book form requires a great deal of formatting).
----------------- Good insight. One caveat. Digital paper is maturing, but probably not rapidly enough to see ubuquitous use within the next decade (I've spent some time in that sector, having had to look hard into Gyricon (Xerox PARC's spin-off) and eInk as part of an investment diligence a few years ago. This is wonderful technology, and someday it *will* largely replace paper, but that is some 1.5-3 decades away, maybe longer.
Printed books do use paper, but paper can be made to be a "cradle-to-cradle" resource http://www.mbdc.com/, rather than a "cradle-to-grave" resource. Also, intelligent environmental planning can eliminate the environmental threat caused by over-printing on paper. Much of the world will depend on paper, or "paper-like" products for decades. This is the reality. Another reality is that most schools - whether public or private - will not universally use a "textbook" that is available only in digital format. Not in the foreseeable future (see above).
Question: The Connexions Project at Rice http://cnx.rice.edu/ has the facility to be able to create printed pages quite easily, or so I've been led to be;ieve by several people who have participated in that project. Is there any possibility of hooking up this pilot project with Connexions, or learning from them, as regards the printing constraints in Wikipedia?
Sanford
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Op za 11-10-2003, om 20:18 schreef Sanford Forte:
Question: The Connexions Project at Rice http://cnx.rice.edu/ has the facility to be able to create printed pages quite easily, or so I've been led to be;ieve by several people who have participated in that project. Is there any possibility of hooking up this pilot project with Connexions, or learning from them, as regards the printing constraints in Wikipedia?
The Connexions-software platform will be released to the public in december. Connexions uses masterfiles in XML (CNXML) that can be converted to other formats.
Wouter Vanden Hove www.opencursus.be www.open-education.org
11-10-2003, om 20:18 schreef Sanford Forte:
Question: The Connexions Project at Rice http://cnx.rice.edu/ has the facility to be able to create printed pages quite easily, or so I've been led to believe by several people who have participated in that project.
Is
here any possibility of hooking up this pilot project with Connexions, or learning from them, as regards the printing constraints in Wikipedia?
Wouter Vanden Hove: The Connexions-software platform will be released to the public in december. Connexions uses masterfiles in XML (CNXML) that can be converted to other formats.
-------- This is wonderful news; thanks Wouter!
Several months ago someone who had been given a thorough demo of Connexions' software told me that they had "solved the web-to-print problems that open source content models have heretofore lacked". He claimed that the Connexions software was very facile, transparent, and was able to nicely format text-to-print. He was also very excited about the formatting control with mathematical and scientific notation.
Essentially, with their software release, Connexions will be enabling anyone who wants to do open source text-to-print models. Again, a perfect scenario for school systems that want to perform POD (print-on-demand) or larger, scaled print runs for a whole district, state, etc.
With licensing issues being ironed out, and the release of this software, we should be on our way to a successful pilot in US History (assuming that topic remains a consensus choice), with other curriculum topics soon to follow.
Sanford
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wouter Vanden Hove" wouter.vanden.hove@pandora.be To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" textbook-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:13 PM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Re: history texts
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Sanford Forte wrote:
Note that the California frameworks are considered to be very progressive, and thorough, even by institutions that are outside the public school system, including home and private schools.
Can you expand on what you mean by 'progressive' here? To me, 'progressive' is a political word used to describe a particular viewpoint that is offensive to many. I don't think you meant it that way, did you?
If you look at the frameworks for just about any course, they're really quite thorough. The beauty of open source content is that a lot more creativity and variety can be placed around state-approved curriculum frameworks.
Yes, I agree with that 100%.
Also, I didn't mention this in my other email, when I said that if people are looking for a "Christ-centered" curriculum, then wikipedia texts aren't going to be right for them. However, it is worth noting that a solid Wikipedia foundation would provide enterprising home-school curriculum providers with a solid base from which to derive their own variants.
--Jimbo
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" textbook-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 8:44 AM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] history texts
Sanford Forte wrote:
Note that the California frameworks are considered to be very progressive, and thorough, even by institutions that are outside the public school system, including home and private schools.
Can you expand on what you mean by 'progressive' here? To me, 'progressive' is a political word used to describe a particular viewpoint that is offensive to many. I don't think you meant it that way, did you?
------------------- Thanks for bringing this up, Jimmy. There is no particular political connotation intended by my use of the word 'progressive' (above).
By 'progressive' I mean the very extensive process of inclusion and reaching out to citizens, parents, students, educational researchers, and others involved in education. The very scope of the current California Frameworks effort is unparalleled in public education.
Note that California has had to include many, many viewpoints in the construction of curriculum for its public school students due to the massive cultural diversity present in this state. The outcome of this process is why the California frameworks are considered a model for others to follow. Note that these frameworks are used even by many private, and home, schools in California.
If you look at the frameworks for just about any course, they're really quite thorough. The beauty of open source content is that a lot more creativity and variety can be placed around state-approved curriculum frameworks.
Yes, I agree with that 100%.
Also, I didn't mention this in my other email, when I said that if people are looking for a "Christ-centered" curriculum, then wikipedia texts aren't going to be right for them. However, it is worth noting that a solid Wikipedia foundation would provide enterprising home-school curriculum providers with a solid base from which to derive their own variants.
---------- Absolutely.
Sanford
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Also, I didn't mention this in my other email, when I said that if people are looking for a "Christ-centered" curriculum, then wikipedia texts aren't going to be right for them. However, it is worth noting that a solid Wikipedia foundation would provide enterprising home-school curriculum providers with a solid base from which to derive their own variants.
--Jimbo
Do you mean to say that people are not allowed to write textbooks that advocate for a certain religion? I know that someone can't just go up to a history textbook and write a chapter about how Jesus saved us all, but aren't seperate religious textbooks allowed? I assume you'd allow comparitive religion textbooks.
This also brings up the issue of forking textbooks within Wikibooks. Is this allowed? LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Do you mean to say that people are not allowed to write textbooks that advocate for a certain religion?
Not under the Wikimedia Foundation auspices, no. NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything that we do.
I know there was some discussion about NPOV and textbooks awhile back, but I really should make clear that I think that discussion wound up with a definitive answer: under the Wikimedia Foundation, everything we do is required to be NPOV.
I know that someone can't just go up to a history textbook and write a chapter about how Jesus saved us all, but aren't seperate religious textbooks allowed? I assume you'd allow comparitive religion textbooks.
Sure. Books _about_ religion are fine. Doesn't even have to be comparative. A fine book would be an NPOV look at the history of Islam, for example. But it can't be pro-Islam or anti-Islam. It has to be neutral in the NPOV sense.
This also brings up the issue of forking textbooks within Wikibooks. Is this allowed?
What do you mean exactly? I guess it's allowed for NPOV reasons, but not allowed for POV reasons, if you see what I mean.
The analogy I would use to illustrate this is how articles are sometimes split up on Wikipedia. People are tussling over what a particular article should say, and then they realize that, hey, the problem is that I'm trying to write about X and you're trying to write about Y, but we've unfortunately named the article XY.
If a group is writing a book about genetics to fit the requirements of a particular sort of course on genetics, and if some other people try to put in too much information about political controversies within evolution, then it would be perfectly fine for the groups to part company and realize that they are working on different things.
But it would NOT be o.k. to have 2 books written "from a perspective".
If people want to do that, I think it's great. Someone should write a GNU FDL book about evolution, specifically from a Christian point of view let's say. And other people could redistribute it or modify it or whatever.
But that's not the right book for us.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Do you mean to say that people are not allowed to write textbooks that advocate for a certain religion?
Not under the Wikimedia Foundation auspices, no. NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything that we do.
I know there was some discussion about NPOV and textbooks awhile back, but I really should make clear that I think that discussion wound up with a definitive answer: under the Wikimedia Foundation, everything we do is required to be NPOV.
I believe the consensus was that textbooks should be written from the "POV" of experts on the subject in question. So, for example, a textbook about evolution would not include a Kansas-style disclaimer because the creationism POV is largely irrelevant among experts on evolution. It might include a short segment about the controversy, but would probably tend to end with something like "There is virtually universal agreement among biologists that .."
Wikibooks could, in my opinion, be somewhat more expert-centric than pure NPOV would allow. In case of controversies, we should try to decide whether this is a legitimate controversy among experts on the subject, or whether we are dealing with "crackpot" theories which have no place in serious textbooks. On Wikipedia, we would always try to include the opposite POV, if only as a link to a separate page. On Wikibooks, we may sometimes have to decide to remove it entirely.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Wikibooks could, in my opinion, be somewhat more expert-centric than pure NPOV would allow. In case of controversies, we should try to decide whether this is a legitimate controversy among experts on the subject, or whether we are dealing with "crackpot" theories which have no place in serious textbooks. On Wikipedia, we would always try to include the opposite POV, if only as a link to a separate page. On Wikibooks, we may sometimes have to decide to remove it entirely.
Well, my position is that what you're talking about is fully subsumed under NPOV.
I think concrete examples can be very enlightening here, because at this level of abstraction it's hard for us to be very clear about what we mean "on the ground".
And assuming for a moment that we all here more or less agree on a broadly humanist, scientific world view, an example running contrary to that might be best.
But since I can't think of one, I'll keep it abstract. :-)
A book might contain in the preface a disclaimer, added only if needed in response to someone who actually is complaining about the content of the book, similar to this:
"This book deals only with accepted mainstream views of physicists. There are certainly other views out there, ranging from creative new innovations, as yet unproven, by the great scientists of tomorrow, to purely crank theories that are unlikely to ever be noticed beyond the feverish dreams of the creators. Although a book about such theories would likely be stimulating and entertaining, they are beyond the scope of this particular text."
"On controversies within mainstream physics, we endeavor to speak neutrally, to merely present the controversy in a way that both sides would consider fair. On controversies that lie beyond the edge of mainstream physics, we endeavor here too to speak neutrally. The lack of inclusion of some idea here is not a condemnation (or endorsement, of course) of that idea, but rather an acknowledgement simply that the idea is not sufficiently mainstream to permit us to include it within our limited scope."
O.k., let me spin that around and make it about something else entirely, to try to illustrate the same point again in a different way.
"This book deals only with accepted mainstream views of Catholic doctrine. We are here attempting to simply present in a neutral fashion what Catholic doctrine is, and controversies within the Catholic church, rather than addressing critiques and controversies arising outside the Church. There are certainly other views out there, and a book about such critiques and controversies would likely be stimulating and entertaining, but those are beyond the scope of this particular text."
"On controversies within the Church, we endeavor to speak neutrally, to merely present the controversy in a way that both sides would consider fair. On controversies that lie beyond the edge of the Church, we endeavor here too to speak neutrally. The lack of inclusion of some idea here is not a condemnation (or endorsement, of course) of that idea, but rather an acknowledgement simply that the idea is not sufficiently internal to the Church itself to permit us to include it within our limited scope."
The point is that in a chapter in this book about homosexuality, it would be perfectly appropriate to exclude secular critiques of the Church's position, except to the extent that those critiques have gained currency within Church or theological circles. The book would simply not be _about_ that.
I think that such limitations of scope are perfectly NPOV, and also resolve the issues about how to keep textbooks from having to endlessly cover crackpot theories or extraneous controversies.
"On the ground", we'll have to look to specific controversies and come to some consensus or compromise as to what we're doing. Probably the most effective way to resolve such things is to negotiate and then _firmly adhere_ to an overall statement of purpose for each book. That way, particular controversies can be handled by asking "does this meet the mission statement of the book", something that's easier for partisans to agree upon, rather than "Should this book be about X or about Y?" a question upon which opinions may legitimately vary.
--Jimbo
Erik Moeller wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I know there was some discussion about NPOV and textbooks awhile back, but I really should make clear that I think that discussion wound up with a definitive answer: under the Wikimedia Foundation, everything we do is required to be NPOV.
I believe the consensus was that textbooks should be written from the "POV" of experts on the subject in question.
Back in the early days, mav was pushing for DPOV "discipline POV". But even he agreed that NPOV, together with focussed content, was sufficient.
To be sure, I haven't been paying good attention recently, so perhaps some other consensus was reached a while later. But I for one would oppose and "expert POV" even more than DPOV -- since the latter is (IMO) merely a different name for NPOV + focus, while EPOV favours the opinions of certain /people/ or others, a bad idea.
So, for example, a textbook about evolution would not include a Kansas-style disclaimer because the creationism POV is largely irrelevant among experts on evolution. It might include a short segment about the controversy, but would probably tend to end with something like "There is virtually universal agreement among biologists that .."
That is a perfectly NPOV statement anyway, so what's the problem?
Wikibooks could, in my opinion, be somewhat more expert-centric than pure NPOV would allow. In case of controversies, we should try to decide whether this is a legitimate controversy among experts on the subject, or whether we are dealing with "crackpot" theories which have no place in serious textbooks. On Wikipedia, we would always try to include the opposite POV, if only as a link to a separate page. On Wikibooks, we may sometimes have to decide to remove it entirely.
This is determined by the /focus/ of a textbook on specific content. For example, a book on Einstein's theory of gravitation (general relativity) need not mention the quite respectable -- but also decidedly minority -- Dicke-Brans-Jordan theory of gravitation, much less any random crackpottery. At best, a GR text could compare GR to DBJ in a section on experimental tests; but even there, only experimentally tested crackpot theories (that is, none) will be able to slip in. (I switch to physics for my own familiarity.)
Still, when the evolution textbook makes passing mention of creationism, it can link to the Wikipedia article on that topic, or that controversy. In this way, we avoid the "bias of inclusion", since Wikipedia covers all. It is because Wikipedia does this that Wikibooks can have focussed content without allowing any bias to come in. Thus, NPOV + limited scope.
-- Toby
I believe the consensus was that textbooks should be written from the "POV" of experts on the subject in question. So, for example, a textbook about evolution would not include a Kansas-style disclaimer because the creationism POV is largely irrelevant among experts on evolution. It might include a short segment about the controversy, but would probably tend to end with something like "There is virtually universal agreement among biologists that .."
Wikibooks could, in my opinion, be somewhat more expert-centric than pure NPOV would allow. In case of controversies, we should try to decide whether this is a legitimate controversy among experts on the subject, or whether we are dealing with "crackpot" theories which have no place in serious textbooks. On Wikipedia, we would always try to include the opposite POV, if only as a link to a separate page. On Wikibooks, we may sometimes have to decide to remove it entirely.
Regards,
Erik
Wikibooks is in no position to judge who is an expert on the issues. As long as they've been published, they're an expert. But that sounds somewhat impractical. The solution is to have different textbooks for different groups of experts emphasized, and have more of a focus that group. This can be a little bit POV towards that group (as I think) or completely NPOV, just focused (as most other people think), but this seems to be the general consensus of most people here. LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I don't think we should focus on standards.
I think that it is absolutely imperative that we do.
It would be better to focus on making good textbooks.
But, have you looked at the standards? I don't see any tension at all between making good textbooks and following the standards.
These groups don't particularly like books that were formulaically constructed around state standards.
If they're just opposed to the standards *period*, because they want a Christ-centered curriculum or whatever, then they aren't really going to be happy with our product, either.
But if the opposition is due to the generally lame ways that mainstream texts write to the standards *and* to pander to various pressure groups, then they will like our texts a lot, because they will be NPOV.
--Jimbo
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