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.
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 Many of our old policies were based on outdated forks of Wikipedia policies.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.
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Some time ago I was trying to find a place for moving essays from Serbian Wikipedia. I realized that WM+Wikia don't have related project. And I think that Wikibooks/Wikiverstiy are the right places for such works.
Imagine an essay about Dostoevsky's poetry: - It may be a work of some student of literature or even a work of some professor of literature. So, in the academic sense it may be completely relevant work. Also, it is *very useful* to anyone who is learning about Dostoevsky; so it is strictly related to gaining our goals. - An essay may be very good verified. However, such essay as a whole *is* OR. - Almost all kinds of content analysis of fiction works are fiction works, too. If you want to say what do you think about the content of, for example, The Brothers Karamazov, you have to deal with your position (which means emotions) related to characters, Dostoevsky's ideas and so on. This means that such essay is POV, too.
Yes, any kind of book related to natural and mathematical sciences may be NPOV. Books in a number of fields of social sciences (like history, psychology or linguistics) may also be NPOV.
OR is questionable: I tested performances of web servers Apache and Roxen. You may test it, too and if we are using the same methods (which I described in the paper), you will get similar results. However, I did OR and strictly speaking, it doesn't pass NOR.
But, not-strictly-factographic analysis of art work is art again and inherently it is both OR and POV. In this sense, the question is -- are Wikibooks limited only on books about natural sciences and only on books which deal with factography? Is our goal is to make books only for some academic fields or to all (reasonable, of course; I am not speaking about books for studying astrology)?
* * *
The question related to the fiction is not so important. It deals with popularity of Wikibooks and not with basic principles.
On 3/10/07, Garrett masterthiefster@gmail.com wrote:
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.
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Garrett wrote:
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.
This is historically inaccoruate. NPOV rules predate all the projects, and were established by me socially as the one non-negotiable thing that unifies us all.
I don't consider that individual projects were "inspired to inherit them".
Wikipedia was never the "Wikipedia Textbook project".
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I don't consider that individual projects were "inspired to inherit them".
Wikipedia was never the "Wikipedia Textbook project".
--Jimbo
That was an honest typo. Wikibooks was originallly at http://textbooks.wikipedia.com/ (a no longer valid URL, BTW) and it was called the "Wikipedia Textbook Project", at least based on some very dated pages I've seen.
Still, I would have to agree with Garrett that many of the policies on Wikibooks were inherited from Wikipedia... some so much that the name "Wikipedia" remained for as long as two years on some of the pages. I don't know of any that remain like that, but it was an issue in the past. And Wikibooks has things from Wikipedia like the VfD pages that Wikipedia no longer does. In addition, we are debating things like fair use policies due in part because of inherited philosophies on that topic as well.
But at the same time, Wikibooks certainly has chartered an independent course from Wikipedia on many policies.
--Robert Horning
Milos Rancic wrote:
I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks) or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
NPOV is a global policy across all projects and is older than the foundation or wikibooks. It is non-negotiable from the start.
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.
Fiction is absolutely not appropriate for Wikibooks.
--Jimbo
On 3/12/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks) or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
NPOV is a global policy across all projects and is older than the foundation or wikibooks. It is non-negotiable from the start.
But, where to put something like "Impressionist analysis of Orwell's 1984."? This is useful for learning about a book, but this is inherently POV.
So, where to put such papers?
Dnia Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:40:20 +0100, Milos Rancic napisał(a):
NPOV is a global policy across all projects and is older than the foundation or wikibooks. It is non-negotiable from the start.
But, where to put something like "Impressionist analysis of Orwell's 1984."? This is useful for learning about a book, but this is inherently POV.
So, where to put such papers?
The problem with essays is that you can find many people having different opinions on the same topic and therefore able to write different essays covering this topic. These essays can contradict themselves. Wikimedia projects were created to provide readers with accurate knowledge; you can always correct factual errors in essays but you cannot correct personal interpretation of the facts. There will always be fundamental conflicts between various essays, people may argue about them endlessly and I think it's not what we want. Prohibition of expressing personal point of view in Wikimedia projects is a protection against self-promotion of amateur authors and nonsenses in their writing.
On 3/12/07, Piotr Derbeth Kubowicz derbeth@wp.pl wrote:
The problem with essays is that you can find many people having different opinions on the same topic and therefore able to write different essays covering this topic. These essays can contradict themselves. Wikimedia projects were created to provide readers with accurate knowledge; you can always correct factual errors in essays but you cannot correct personal interpretation of the facts. There will always be fundamental conflicts between various essays, people may argue about them endlessly and I think it's not what we want. Prohibition of expressing personal point of view in Wikimedia projects is a protection against self-promotion of amateur authors and nonsenses in their writing.
I completely understand why NPOV is nearly perfect for any kind of something which we call "objective knowledge". And there is no question about NPOV inside of factographic descriptions of anything.
However, POV analysis of art are very usable for art studies. Actually, there is no such thing like NPOV art critics. (But it is possible to have NPOV book about art critics.)
My point is that I think that we need, for example, "Dadaist critics of South Park" -- for educational purpose because:
- Dadaism is not live cultural movement and it is not so obvious that there will be some dadaist who would do so. However, it is possible to imagine dadaist critics of South Park. - If Wikibooks and Wikiversity want to have complete courses for some art field, there is a lot of needs for improvisation. If there is no some art critique which we need because of educational purposes, we should make it. In other words, if we want to have a *real* free source for complete education, we need a lot of things which are not NPOV nor NOR.
So, there are a couple of solutions: - Wikibooks and/or Wikiversity allow POV and OR for art analysis. This is the best solution because we will have one community. Also, realization of the goal "free education" will stay inside of the projects which aim to work on this goal. - Wikimedia makes another project for such purpose (something like "wikiartstudies"). This is something like a "middle solution" because we will have de jure one community, but de facto two. Realization of the goal "free education" will be outside of Wikibooks and Wikiversity, but inside of Wikimedia. - The worst solution is to try to find a solution out of Wikimedia (i.e. Wikia or anything else) because we will have both de jure and de facto different communities. Realization of the goal will be outside of both -- projects and Wikimedia.
Right now Wikiversity allows editors to make non-NPOV edits as long as they make a full disclosure ( http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Disclosures ), which is why I wasn't aware NPOV was a Foundation-wide rule (although it does make sense). In light of this correction I don't know that POV writings have much of a future there either (and perhaps someone should bring this up on Wikiversity before writings in breach of global policy get too much out of hand).
As for a non-Foundation home there's the Academic Publishing Wiki ( http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page ), but right now it's for journal-style works rather than book-length ones (although this could of course change). Wikiversity currently links to some of its content in a roundabout way and there has even been talk of possibly merging the project (although, again, if NPOV is still a mandatory rule this may not be possible as some works on that wikia seem to be slightly POV).
Regardless of the implementation, the type of criticism/instruction being written should never be an excuse for not sticking to rules against POV and OR if it is at all possible to find other works detailing the topic.
Anyway, that's the state of things.
Garrett
On 13/03/07, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
I completely understand why NPOV is nearly perfect for any kind of something which we call "objective knowledge". And there is no question about NPOV inside of factographic descriptions of anything.
However, POV analysis of art are very usable for art studies. Actually, there is no such thing like NPOV art critics. (But it is possible to have NPOV book about art critics.)
My point is that I think that we need, for example, "Dadaist critics of South Park" -- for educational purpose because:
- Dadaism is not live cultural movement and it is not so obvious that
there will be some dadaist who would do so. However, it is possible to imagine dadaist critics of South Park.
- If Wikibooks and Wikiversity want to have complete courses for some
art field, there is a lot of needs for improvisation. If there is no some art critique which we need because of educational purposes, we should make it. In other words, if we want to have a *real* free source for complete education, we need a lot of things which are not NPOV nor NOR.
So, there are a couple of solutions:
- Wikibooks and/or Wikiversity allow POV and OR for art analysis. This
is the best solution because we will have one community. Also, realization of the goal "free education" will stay inside of the projects which aim to work on this goal.
- Wikimedia makes another project for such purpose (something like
"wikiartstudies"). This is something like a "middle solution" because we will have de jure one community, but de facto two. Realization of the goal "free education" will be outside of Wikibooks and Wikiversity, but inside of Wikimedia.
- The worst solution is to try to find a solution out of Wikimedia
(i.e. Wikia or anything else) because we will have both de jure and de facto different communities. Realization of the goal will be outside of both -- projects and Wikimedia.
From: "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies onWikibooks? Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:39:41 +0100
- Wikibooks and/or Wikiversity allow POV and OR for art analysis. This
is the best solution because we will have one community. Also, realization of the goal "free education" will stay inside of the projects which aim to work on this goal.
Every field, not just art, contains people who criticise and interpret the works of others. In economics, for instance, where people make financial decisions based on interpretation of data and also intent. Engineering, also teaches students to use arbitrary, personally selected metrics for optimizing designs. My point is that art is not a special case of this, and allowing OR and POV for teaching art for these reasons would require an abandonment of the policies completely. In many instances, OR and POV might be nice. They should not, however, be permitted on Wikibooks.
- Wikimedia makes another project for such purpose (something like
"wikiartstudies"). This is something like a "middle solution" because we will have de jure one community, but de facto two. Realization of the goal "free education" will be outside of Wikibooks and Wikiversity, but inside of Wikimedia.
Again, my point above that art is not special, and no one particular discipline requires it's own special wiki. You can suggest this on meta, i doubt the proposal will get far.
- The worst solution is to try to find a solution out of Wikimedia
(i.e. Wikia or anything else) because we will have both de jure and de facto different communities. Realization of the goal will be outside of both -- projects and Wikimedia.
So then a solution needs to be found in wikimedia. I think you don't understand the difference between explaining of an opinion (especially a common opinion), and the statement of that opinion as if it were fact. NPOV requires only that opinions not be treated as facts, and we can discuss art criticisms from an purely NPOV, academic background.
--Andrew Whitworth (Whiteknight)
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
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.
Fiction is absolutely not appropriate for Wikibooks.
--Jimbo
For en.wikibooks, this has been official and enforced policy for well over a year now (nearly two years). While this user/contributor may be wanting to change that policy and is certainly free to express that opinion, there doesn't really seem to be that much support to modify this policy. Even with a major discussion to substantially revamp the "What is Wikibooks" policy, this has not even been a point that was raised at all.
And I would agree with you here... fiction is not appropriate for Wikibooks. It is far too easy to have somebody contribute random stuff and get into a major edit war and cause all kinds of other mischief. Besides, the Novella Wikia does a pretty good job and has taken other formerly Wikibooks fictional content.
-- Robert Horning
I am exceptionally proud of you, Mr. Wales. Thank you very very much for all that it is that you have done for the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge for mankind. THE GLOBAL BRAIN MUST EVOLVE!!!
Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote: Milos Rancic wrote:
I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks) or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
NPOV is a global policy across all projects and is older than the foundation or wikibooks. It is non-negotiable from the start.
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.
Fiction is absolutely not appropriate for Wikibooks.
--Jimbo
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Why not have "fiction" at wikibooks?
> Jimmy wrote: ... Fiction is absolutely not > appropriate for Wikibooks ...
from http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2007-June/001107.html
Huh?
At http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page search for "fiction" and see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=fiction&go=Go showing 458 results for "fiction" at Wikibooks.
But, I find no "fiction" page at Wikibooks: "Warning: You are recreating a page that was previously deleted.".
Can someone explain? You're joking, right?
What could "wiki" and "books" mean, after all?
From Google define:wiki
- A website or similar online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. - A collection of websites of hypertext, each of them can be visited and edited by anyone. "Wiki wiki" means "rapidly" in the Hawaiian language. - online collaboration model and tool that allows any user to edit some content of webpages through a simple browser. - A wiki ... is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software).
From Google define:book
- a written work or composition that has been published (printed on pages bound together); "I am reading a good book on economics" - physical objects consisting of a number of pages bound together; "he used a large book as a doorstop" - ledger: a record in which commercial accounts are recorded; "they got a subpoena to examine our books" - a major division of a long written composition; "the book of Isaiah" - script: a written version of a play or other dramatic composition; used in preparing for a performance - a collection of rules or prescribed standards on the basis of which decisions are made; "they run things by the book around here"
Yet the front page says "wikibooks = TEXT books ONLY"?!? What could "text" or "textbook" mean, and why not have them in the name of the wiki after all if it's going to be limited to "textbooks"?
Google define:text
- the words of something written; "there were more than a thousand words of text"; "they handed out the printed text of the mayor's speech"; "he wants to reconstruct the original text" - a passage from the Bible that is used as the subject of a sermon; "the preacher chose a text from Psalms to introduce his sermon" - textbook: a book prepared for use in schools or colleges; "his economics textbook is in its tenth edition"; "the professor wrote the text that he assigned students to buy"
Google define:textbook
- A book used in schools or colleges for the formal study of a subject. - 1. a book used for instructional purposes, especially in schools and colleges. Cp. trade book. 2. as in a textbook in style and content, as a textbook definition of literacy. - means a standard book about a branch of study (curriculum subject). - Systems Architecture, 3rd edition by Stephen Burd; handouts covering additional/supplemental material - a book prepared for use in schools or colleges; "his economics textbook is in its tenth edition"; "the professor wrote the text that he assigned students to buy" - casebook: according to or characteristic of a casebook or textbook; typical; "a casebook schizophrenic"; "a textbook example" - Textbooks are defined as "a manual of instruction, a standard book in any branch of study". They are further defined by both the age of the person who is to study the text and the classification of the subject matter itself. Textbooks are published by specialty printers to serve every request for an understanding of every subject that can be taught. It is a big business that requires mass volume sales to make the publications profitable ...
Huh? Misnomer? Why not change the name of wikibooks to Wikiralph if the title is not going to describe and relate to the contents? I call for moving the "textbook" contents of wikibooks to a new namespace or enhanced, smart categories under wikibooks, like wikibooks:textbooks as a subset to allow wikibooks to become the BOOK library it promises in it's title.
* Wikibooks:textbooks * Wikibooks:fiction * Wikibooks:nonfiction * Wikibooks:nonfiction:more * Wikibooks:nonfiction:more:and-so-on * Wikibooks:unplublished manuscripts * Wikibooks:...and on and on.
Book category wise, http://www.lib.upm.edu.my/clas.html has a nice short listing - only 84 book categories! But, what was wrong with the 3 digits in the Dewey Decimal System? See http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/dewey.html ... and some endless challenges or discussions at links like http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/%7Elandc/fulltext/LandC_33_2_Wiegand.pdf - nothing perfect, buy why not try? Why not have such a bifurcated namespace scheme on wikibooks? We might as well get started now rather than wait for someone to create a separate Wikilibrary that includes periodicals, audio, video and so on!
I'm sure there are many, many schemes for organizing books by content. Yeah, yeah, I know about http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Main_page, but really, "mobile phones" is a category? Are we idiots who've never been inside a real library? It seems to me that the challenge is to proceed with both energies - contributing books and organizing them at the same time. Waiting for one task to be complete or perfect before doing the other seems impractical. I guess we need to do both at the same time - upload our books of any category while at the same time, moving them around the virtual shelves so they can be found by their content ... and title and author, of course. We are expanding "search" to facilitate searching by the classical:
* author * title * subject
... right? After all, these are the 3 card catalogs in our old-fashioned libraries, right? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_catalog. Let's get to work! ;-)
-- Peter Blaise PS - Doesn't anybody vet out the potential meanings of new words in the public lexicon before getting started and publishing new web pages and products? The same shenanigans are happening with "wikimedia" versus "mediawiki" versus the "foundation" versus "meta" and other combinations of those words. Which word represents a product and which represents the source identifier? No one really knows how to keep them straight! Wasn't there an on-line questionnaire recently trying to vet out the meanings of the names, and all this years after the fact of introducing the names the public?
From: "Monahon, Peter B." Peter.Monahon@USPTO.GOV Why not have "fiction" at wikibooks? Huh?
Because Wikibooks is for text books and instructional guides. Fiction does not fall under this category. Beyond that, there are several reasons for not including fiction:
1) Wikibooks has a strict "No Original Research" clause which would prevent authors from writing or creating new content like fiction works. 2) Pre-existing fiction works that are not subject to copyright (or are available under the GFDL) belong at Wikisource, not Wikibooks.
At http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page search for "fiction" and see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=fiction&go=Go showing 458 results for "fiction" at Wikibooks. But, I find no "fiction" page at Wikibooks: "Warning: You are recreating a page that was previously deleted.".
We allow pages about fiction, but we do not allow fiction content itself.
Can someone explain? You're joking, right?
We never joke.
What could "wiki" and "books" mean, after all?
We do write books, not just all manner of books. We have precise definitions on what we do and do not include. You can find these guidelines at:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
So we are a "Wiki", and we do write "books", and therefore we are "Wikibooks". Notice that the word "book" does not imply "all types of books", textbooks can be referred to as simply "books" without any loss of generality.
From Google define:wiki ...
Yes, we all know what a wiki is. This much is not being disputed, is it?
From Google define:book ... Yet the front page says "wikibooks = TEXT books ONLY"?!? What could "text" or "textbook" mean, and why not have them in the name of the wiki after all if it's going to be limited to "textbooks"?
If you notice, the google definition restricts a "book" to a printed and bound medium. Wikibooks, under this definition, does not contain any "books" at all.
Google define:text ... - textbook: a book prepared for use in schools or colleges; "his economics textbook is in its tenth edition"; "the professor wrote the text that he assigned students to buy"
This part of the definition is pretty consistent with Wikibooks.
Google define:textbook ...
This is also perfectly consistent with Wikibooks.
Huh? Misnomer? Why not change the name of wikibooks to Wikiralph if the title is not going to describe and relate to the contents?
Because we are not for "ralph", we are for books. Nowhere is it stated that we may not use the word "books" to mean a subset of all possible books. Technically, a set of textbooks can be called "books" with no loss of generality.
I call for moving the "textbook" contents of wikibooks to a new namespace or enhanced, smart categories under wikibooks, like wikibooks:textbooks as a subset to allow wikibooks to become the BOOK library it promises in it's title.
No. Also, we never promise to be a "library".
Book category wise, http://www.lib.upm.edu.my/clas.html has a nice short listing - only 84 book categories! But, what was wrong with the 3 digits in the Dewey Decimal System? See http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/dewey.html ... and some endless challenges or discussions at links like http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/%7Elandc/fulltext/LandC_33_2_Wiegand.pdf - nothing perfect, buy why not try? Why not have such a bifurcated namespace scheme on wikibooks? We might as well get started now rather than wait for someone to create a separate Wikilibrary that includes periodicals, audio, video and so on!
Wikibooks is for textbooks. If people want to start another project for a generalized library of books, we welcome and support that effort.
I'm sure there are many, many schemes for organizing books by content.
All our books are textbooks, and the only real organization that needs to be accounted for is separation by subject. In addition to categories, we also have an alphabetical listing, a dewey-decimal system, and a Library of Congress system. This is all on top of our bookshelves, which keep books neatly organized by subject.
Are we idiots who've never been inside a real library?
No. Wikibooks is also not a "library".
It seems to me that the challenge is to proceed with both energies - contributing books and organizing them at the same time.
We already do this.
... After all, these are the 3 card catalogs in our old-fashioned libraries, right? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_catalog.
Oh right, i forgot that we already have a card catalog. We haven't been maintaining it like we should but we do have it.
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________ Get a preview of Live Earth, the hottest event this summer - only on MSN http://liveearth.msn.com?source=msntaglineliveearthhm
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
Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
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.
I will note that this is an ongoing issue that we are trying to deal with. One of the problems we are facing with the English-language edition of Wikibooks is that we are getting crushed under the weight of the sheer volume of content that is currently found on Wikibooks, and trying to come up with an ontologically sound schema for organizing the content.
I would love to use the Dewey Decimal system, but unfortunately it has been copyrighted and requires a fairly expensive licensing fee to get access to the classification guidelines that would help us in terms of getting a more specific classification codes. There have been abortive attempts at starting a classification of the content at least down to the major 1's level (nothing after the decimal point) of categorization within the Dewey Decimal System, but it has proven to be an absolutely huge task. While the Library of Congress schema is not nearly as restricted from an intellectual property standpoint, it is still a near nightmare to get the necessary resources put together to perform a proper classification of the content.
One system that has seemed to work out for us in the past, and I think it should be pushed harder at the moment, is the "bookshelf" system of organizing Wikibooks content:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:All_Books
There is a link to this page right on the "main" page of Wikibooks, but it isn't quite so obvious as perhaps it should be. Originally the "main" page of Wikibooks consisted of all of this content, when we didn't have nearly so many books of fair quality to link to. Most of the books listed on this page are of pretty good quality, but they are not the "best of the best" of Wikibooks, which would instead be found here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Featured_books
These are books that are roughly equivalent of the "article of the day" feature on Wikipedia, and are complete enough to be usable by somebody not familiar with the topic. This is a relatively new feature to Wikibooks as well, as we are still in the process of identifying some of the more outstanding books that might have been missed, although it is a good collection. It is from this list that the rotating "featured books" are drawn from.
I spent a couple of years as a volunteer with the Open Directory Project (I am no longer involved), and I learned quite a bit working there of the complexities of having to classify human knowledge, and to keep up with changing technologies and "user communities". That project attempted to classify and categorize every web page on the internet, and the volunteers there have done a pretty good job, all things considered. Good enough that Google uses the categories in that project as one of the major criteria for ranking web pages, particularly if your keywords match one of the category names. It isn't the only criteria, but it does have an impact.
Wikibooks doesn't have nearly this level of complexity, but it seems as though trying to come up with a process and page organization schema, and getting the software to work properly to help organize all of the different varieties of Wikibooks has been an ongoing challenge. The MediaWiki software (the name of the software running these websites.... and yes, the name stinks and even those who are major authors of the software hate the name) does leave some challenges to organizing multi-page documents such as are developed on Wikibooks. The category system was designed more for dealing with individual encyclopedia articles, as is the case on Wikipedia. It was apparently this category system, which is also used to a certain extent on Wikibooks, that you stumbled across.
Every method of classifying human knowledge seems to have its own strengths and weaknesses. My #1 complaint about Melvil Dewey and his classification system is that it shows a very 1 dimensional way of thinking about human knowledge, and the major 100's level categories break down when there are topics that belong in multiple major categories, in terms of grouping content "near" related thoughts and ideas. Just check out where the Computer Science books are in the Dewey System, to give an extreme example of where they are located compared to digital logic books covering electrical engineering, even though they cover very similar ideas. The Wikipedia category system takes on a slightly different approach, and does allow "multiple parents" for a given category, but other kinds of content are subsequently lost.
Ideally, what I would like to do is to organize Wikibooks in some way that could show you a book about a topic that you are interested in, and show other books in decreasing relevance further down the list based on some sort of cataloging code. That is one of the whole points of classification systems anyway.... to help organize content and allow you to see "nearby" content which is closely related, just as you often find in a library. Of course since Wikibooks is new and original content, it has not been through the roller mills of librarians trying to figure out where a specific book belongs in the classification scheme. This is not an easy task, and those who are good at doing this have decades of experience at classifying books and understand the classification codes cold.
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
BTW, I do share your viewpoint that "Wikibooks is for books" and not just textbooks. Still, the sheer volume of the types of content that people do try to add to Wikibooks would simply amaze you, and often the more outlandish ideas for content tend to have a very short development period and then languish unedutied for years afterward, never in quite a completed state of development. The books that best fit our current policies are those books that do seem to have a solid development community of several interested author/editors and have shown consistent growth and development over the years. Those who are on the "cleanup crew" that tries to police the content have over the years developed a general feel for what sorts of pages are likely to "make it" and become something very outstanding, and what sorts of ideas tend to die a slow death. BTW, most of the "policing" is to keep people from "vandalizing" pages by individuals writing complete nonsense and even grossly offensive content which is so obvious that it should not be on our project that it doesn't even have to "go to committee.
-- Robert Horning
It has been an ongoing process of trying to find what works and what doesn't work, and to gently tell those who would use Wikibooks as a sort of vanity press to move along and try somewhere else. Sometimes we aren't quite so gentle either, and that does cause some problems, although that also is something that tends to create problems.
From: "Monahon, Peter B." Peter.Monahon@USPTO.GOV 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.
I didn't provide links to the pages I mentioned, because while they do in fact exist, they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing. The most important method of organization, and the one that is best maintained, is the bookshelf system, to which there are ample links.
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?
The fact that you are confused about our name is misfortunately, certainly. However, your confusion is simply not enough impetus for our entire project and it's community of volunteer authors and editors to change completely. A little confusion is a small price to pay for the name recognition that the "Wikibooks" brand has aquired over the years. Despite your complaints, wikibooks is not named "Wikilibrary", and it does, in fact, only contain "books".
And, I'd go to Wikisources because ... I'm looking for "sources"? "The free documentations library" means nothing to me.
And Nike's "Just Do It" slogan doesn't mean anything to me, but that doesnt make it a less effective advertising tool. Wikisource contains original source documents, so the name seems pretty appropriate 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.
Trust me, if you hang around long enough, the name "Wikibooks" will grow on you too. But let me ask you this: When Amazon first started up, did you send them an email saying that their name was stupid and that they should change it?
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?
It's not really our job to point visitors to other people's websites. If you do a search on google, and it doesnt return any results, it doesnt say "Sorry we couldn't help you, how about you try your search on MSN instead?"
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________ PC Magazines 2007 editors choice for best Web mailaward-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migr...
I can understand the confusion. After some research, I found wikiversity (also some issues with the name) is a good home for the k-12 curriculum that I am trying to develop. It has different rules than wikibooks that are open to different materials.
Hope that helps, Kathy
-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Whitworth [mailto:wknight8111@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 3:46 PM To: textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policiesonWikibooks? Importance: High
From: "Monahon, Peter B." Peter.Monahon@USPTO.GOV 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.
I didn't provide links to the pages I mentioned, because while they do in fact exist, they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing. The most important method of organization, and the one that is best maintained, is the bookshelf system, to which there are ample links.
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?
The fact that you are confused about our name is misfortunately, certainly. However, your confusion is simply not enough impetus for our entire project and it's community of volunteer authors and editors to change completely. A little confusion is a small price to pay for the name recognition that the "Wikibooks" brand has aquired over the years. Despite your complaints, wikibooks is not named "Wikilibrary", and it does, in fact, only contain "books".
And, I'd go to Wikisources because ... I'm looking for "sources"? "The free documentations library" means nothing to me.
And Nike's "Just Do It" slogan doesn't mean anything to me, but that doesnt make it a less effective advertising tool. Wikisource contains original source documents, so the name seems pretty appropriate 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.
Trust me, if you hang around long enough, the name "Wikibooks" will grow on you too. But let me ask you this: When Amazon first started up, did you send them an email saying that their name was stupid and that they should change it?
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?
It's not really our job to point visitors to other people's websites. If you do a search on google, and it doesnt return any results, it doesnt say "Sorry we couldn't help you, how about you try your search on MSN instead?"
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________ PC Magazines 2007 editors choice for best Web mailaward-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migr... n_HM_mini_pcmag_0507
Thanks for your considered reply, Andrew.
We disagree, and that's not a bad thing. Perhaps this dialog will help us polish our beliefs, perhaps we will even persuade ourselves to new beliefs.
Although I'm only one person, that's neither important nor unimportant. It's the ideas themselves that I share that are worthy or unworthy, on their own merits, regardless of how many people sign my email.
I'm still not sure what Wikibooks is. Although you can try to educate me, why not enhance the Wikibooks front page for everyone, and then just share a link here? Are you saying Wikibooks is for cooperative authorship of NEW technical, non-fiction, and how-to manuals? Let me study the NOR No Original Research policy on that one! Or, is Wikibooks only OLD stuff that's not copyrighted anymore ... and, what, we're just editing and rewriting OLD stuff? Are you saying that because fiction is too hard to cooperatively co-author, the Wikibook site has evolved away from fiction? Because it's too hard? Geesh - I'd love a Wikimusic, er, excuse me, a Wikicomposer site. Teams make music all the time. True, one author makes a vanity press, but two authors together make a Wikipress. HEY, a new Wiki name! Get in cahoots with some on-demand publishers and let author teams have at it, and let visitors order their own hard copy! I digress ... but do I, really?
I didn't write to Amazon, but I also didn't buy from them (I used http://www.abebooks.com/). As I mentioned, the Amazon name at first seem to mean nothing, but ACQUIRED distinctiveness as a book store, and it was only later that I realized that the word Amazon was not descriptive of their bookstore-ness, but was a hint or simile describing their desire to be as large a thoroughfare as the Amazon River is, "the largest river in the world by volume" according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River. In other words, Amazon wants to be "the largest internet seller in the world by volume", or something like that. By the way, Amazon is so taken by the Wikipedia/MediaWiki whirlwind that they have started their own at http://amapedia.amazon.com/. Check it out.
You make my own point in why you didn't share links to Wikibooks: "they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing"! Hey, Andrew, I'm not faulting anybody. I'm just saying. Why are we writing here when we could find and fix 'em, instead?
Nike's slogan (battle cry) may be "Just do it!" but "Just do it" is not their name, and neither their slogan nor their name is a generic description of their product. Wikibooks IS intended to be a generic identifier of the product, and as such I found it inaccurate and misleading (a waste of the builder's and visitor's time), hence the suggestion to switch to a non-descriptive name like "Wikiralph", hahaha. I was joking, but consider the source. See my email address to help explain why I'm focusing on marks in trade. "Nike" is a GREAT mark in that it does not define ONE product. If they had called themselves "Sneakers", they'd eventually have a challenge selling non-sneakers. By calling themselves Nike after the Greek goddess of victory, they can sell anything to anyone who wants to feel victorious. Very savvy. "WIKI"-anything is descriptive; a "Wikibooks" that excludes SOME books is by definition misdescriptive. I'm just trying to find out what Wikibooks IS, if it's not where to find "quick, community built books" of any type, totally in the control of the individual teams of contributors.
It absolutely IS our job to provide Wikibooks visitors with information, especially about what Wikibooks is NOT, and share where others go to find non-Wikibooks offerings. Like Santa Clause in the "Miracle on 34th Street" movie, if you ask Macy's for something they don't have, and you know it's at Gimbals, then send them to Gimbals. Instead of frustrating visitors, you're inviting them to come back, time after time, because THIS is where they found help! In that vein, I suggest, on the front page,
Wikibooks is NOT: - A cooperative of fiction authors - see http://www.yada,yada,yada.com/ for that. - On-demand publishing - see http://www.blah-blah-blah.com/ for that.
... and so on. Actually, why not make a Wikibooks page saying what Wikibooks is NOT? I'm familiar with http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Replies_to_common_objections but it's buried, not well formatted, and seems structured as a random sheave of notes. Let's create:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_is_not
... linked form the Wikibooks front page. Then, let us all share our own links in various categories that direct Wikibooks visitors to reasonable alternatives for what they are looking for, because NPOV Neutral Point Of View and NOR No Original Research and other "limits" cause Wikibooks to refrain from such offering. But, "thanks for visiting, return often, and share what you learn when it's appropriate to do so here."
What say?
- Peter Blaise
PS - I'm reading and will respond to others very, very thoughtful replies later. I must get some other tasks completed first. Thank you all very much. GREAT discussion!
-----Original Message----- From: textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Whitworth Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 6:46 PM To: textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies on
Wikibooks?
I didn't provide links to the pages I mentioned, because while they do
in
fact exist, they are not particularly well-maintained nor
aesthetically
pleasing. The most important method of organization, and the one that
is
best maintained, is the bookshelf system, to which there are ample
links.
The fact that you are confused about our name is misfortunately,
certainly.
However, your confusion is simply not enough impetus for our entire
project
and it's community of volunteer authors and editors to change
completely. A
little confusion is a small price to pay for the name recognition that
the
"Wikibooks" brand has acquired over the years. Despite your
complaints,
wikibooks is not named "Wikilibrary", and it does, in fact, only
contain
"books".
And Nike's "Just Do It" slogan doesn't mean anything to me, but that
doesn't
make it a less effective advertising tool. Wikisource contains
original
source documents, so the name seems pretty appropriate to me.
Trust me, if you hang around long enough, the name "Wikibooks" will
grow on
you too. But let me ask you this: When Amazon first started up, did
you send
them an email saying that their name was stupid and that they should
change
it?
It's not really our job to point visitors to other people's websites.
If you
do a search on google, and it doesn't return any results, it doesn't
say
"Sorry we couldn't help you, how about you try your search on MSN
instead?"
--Andrew Whitworth
Peter, I was given this page as one to look at and discuss naming, branding, etc: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_brand_survey
Maybe you can give them your quarter's worth using your expertise and motivation.
-Kathy
-----Original Message----- From: Monahon, Peter B. [mailto:Peter.Monahon@USPTO.GOV] Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 5:29 AM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies onWikibooks?
Thanks for your considered reply, Andrew.
We disagree, and that's not a bad thing. Perhaps this dialog will help us polish our beliefs, perhaps we will even persuade ourselves to new beliefs.
Although I'm only one person, that's neither important nor unimportant. It's the ideas themselves that I share that are worthy or unworthy, on their own merits, regardless of how many people sign my email.
I'm still not sure what Wikibooks is. Although you can try to educate me, why not enhance the Wikibooks front page for everyone, and then just share a link here? Are you saying Wikibooks is for cooperative authorship of NEW technical, non-fiction, and how-to manuals? Let me study the NOR No Original Research policy on that one! Or, is Wikibooks only OLD stuff that's not copyrighted anymore ... and, what, we're just editing and rewriting OLD stuff? Are you saying that because fiction is too hard to cooperatively co-author, the Wikibook site has evolved away from fiction? Because it's too hard? Geesh - I'd love a Wikimusic, er, excuse me, a Wikicomposer site. Teams make music all the time. True, one author makes a vanity press, but two authors together make a Wikipress. HEY, a new Wiki name! Get in cahoots with some on-demand publishers and let author teams have at it, and let visitors order their own hard copy! I digress ... but do I, really?
I didn't write to Amazon, but I also didn't buy from them (I used http://www.abebooks.com/). As I mentioned, the Amazon name at first seem to mean nothing, but ACQUIRED distinctiveness as a book store, and it was only later that I realized that the word Amazon was not descriptive of their bookstore-ness, but was a hint or simile describing their desire to be as large a thoroughfare as the Amazon River is, "the largest river in the world by volume" according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River. In other words, Amazon wants to be "the largest internet seller in the world by volume", or something like that. By the way, Amazon is so taken by the Wikipedia/MediaWiki whirlwind that they have started their own at http://amapedia.amazon.com/. Check it out.
You make my own point in why you didn't share links to Wikibooks: "they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing"! Hey, Andrew, I'm not faulting anybody. I'm just saying. Why are we writing here when we could find and fix 'em, instead?
Nike's slogan (battle cry) may be "Just do it!" but "Just do it" is not their name, and neither their slogan nor their name is a generic description of their product. Wikibooks IS intended to be a generic identifier of the product, and as such I found it inaccurate and misleading (a waste of the builder's and visitor's time), hence the suggestion to switch to a non-descriptive name like "Wikiralph", hahaha. I was joking, but consider the source. See my email address to help explain why I'm focusing on marks in trade. "Nike" is a GREAT mark in that it does not define ONE product. If they had called themselves "Sneakers", they'd eventually have a challenge selling non-sneakers. By calling themselves Nike after the Greek goddess of victory, they can sell anything to anyone who wants to feel victorious. Very savvy. "WIKI"-anything is descriptive; a "Wikibooks" that excludes SOME books is by definition misdescriptive. I'm just trying to find out what Wikibooks IS, if it's not where to find "quick, community built books" of any type, totally in the control of the individual teams of contributors.
It absolutely IS our job to provide Wikibooks visitors with information, especially about what Wikibooks is NOT, and share where others go to find non-Wikibooks offerings. Like Santa Clause in the "Miracle on 34th Street" movie, if you ask Macy's for something they don't have, and you know it's at Gimbals, then send them to Gimbals. Instead of frustrating visitors, you're inviting them to come back, time after time, because THIS is where they found help! In that vein, I suggest, on the front page,
Wikibooks is NOT: - A cooperative of fiction authors - see http://www.yada,yada,yada.com/ for that. - On-demand publishing - see http://www.blah-blah-blah.com/ for that.
... and so on. Actually, why not make a Wikibooks page saying what Wikibooks is NOT? I'm familiar with http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Replies_to_common_objections but it's buried, not well formatted, and seems structured as a random sheave of notes. Let's create:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_is_not
... linked form the Wikibooks front page. Then, let us all share our own links in various categories that direct Wikibooks visitors to reasonable alternatives for what they are looking for, because NPOV Neutral Point Of View and NOR No Original Research and other "limits" cause Wikibooks to refrain from such offering. But, "thanks for visiting, return often, and share what you learn when it's appropriate to do so here."
What say?
- Peter Blaise
PS - I'm reading and will respond to others very, very thoughtful replies later. I must get some other tasks completed first. Thank you all very much. GREAT discussion!
-----Original Message----- From: textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:textbook-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Whitworth Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 6:46 PM To: textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies on
Wikibooks?
I didn't provide links to the pages I mentioned, because while they do
in
fact exist, they are not particularly well-maintained nor
aesthetically
pleasing. The most important method of organization, and the one that
is
best maintained, is the bookshelf system, to which there are ample
links.
The fact that you are confused about our name is misfortunately,
certainly.
However, your confusion is simply not enough impetus for our entire
project
and it's community of volunteer authors and editors to change
completely. A
little confusion is a small price to pay for the name recognition that
the
"Wikibooks" brand has acquired over the years. Despite your
complaints,
wikibooks is not named "Wikilibrary", and it does, in fact, only
contain
"books".
And Nike's "Just Do It" slogan doesn't mean anything to me, but that
doesn't
make it a less effective advertising tool. Wikisource contains
original
source documents, so the name seems pretty appropriate to me.
Trust me, if you hang around long enough, the name "Wikibooks" will
grow on
you too. But let me ask you this: When Amazon first started up, did
you send
them an email saying that their name was stupid and that they should
change
it?
It's not really our job to point visitors to other people's websites.
If you
do a search on google, and it doesn't return any results, it doesn't
say
"Sorry we couldn't help you, how about you try your search on MSN
instead?"
--Andrew Whitworth
_______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Kathy wrote: Peter, I was given this page as one to look at and discuss naming, branding, etc:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_brand_survey
Maybe you can give them your quarter's worth using your expertise and motivation.
Thanks, Kathy,
THAT was the link I was looking for. I searched and searched for "questionnaire" to re-find the link, and found nothing - doh! "SURVEY"!
I put in my 2 cents (thanks for inflating the potential value of my contributions!) on May 31, 2007 - search the page for "peter blaise" and see 6 separate posts from me. I could/should revisit it, but I got tired. As it was, my next to last contribution there ended with " AAAaaaarrrggghhhhhhh!" and my final question was " Should WikiMediaFoundation give up on everything but Wikipedia?" Perhaps I can collect my contributions across all the MedaiWiki/WikiMedia/whatever and start a wikibook! ;-)
Anyway, thank you to everyone for continuing to explore this and for kindly revisiting your thoughts and decisions. Disagreement is one thing, but the ability to discuss and review with the community is so important, nonetheless. THAT, I think, is the underlying strength and salvation of any wiki community.
- Peter Blaise
Kathy wrote: ... look at [this page to] discuss [Wiki Media Foundation] naming, branding, etc:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_brand_survey
I think I see the problem. Here's a copy of the structure of that survey:
===== Contents: - 1 Current projects - 2 Perception of names -- 2.1 Do all these project names communicate their intended use? If not, which ones could be improved? -- 2.2 Do you feel that the current number of unique names is too large, not large enough, or "just right"? - 3 Logos -- 3.1 Do all current project logos communicate their intended use? If not, which ones could be improved? -- 3.2 Should we strive for more consistency in the design of the logos (e.g. Wikimedia colors), or more diversity? - 4 Licensing -- 4.1 Should the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia chapters license the project brands to makers of games, gadgets, toys, etc.? -- 4.2 Should the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia chapters license the project brands to ad-supported mirrors, mobile phone portals, etc.? - 5 Brand protection -- 5.1 Should the Wikimedia Foundation attempt to give all its official names an equal level of protection? -- 5.2 Should the Wikimedia Foundation attempt to protect unofficial local name variants such as "Vikipedio" and "Wikiştiri"? - 6 Brand strategy -- 6.1 Should new projects generally be started under a unique name that is not associated with any existing names? -- 6.2 Would you support or oppose rebranding the projects as "Wikipedia Sources", "Wikipedia Quotes", "Wikipedia Textbooks", and so on? -- 6.3 Would you support or oppose rebranding the projects as "Wikimedia Sources", "Wikimedia Quotes", "Wikimedia Textbooks", and so on? -- 6.4 Would you support or oppose rebranding the "Wikimedia Foundation" to "Wikipedia Foundation" in order to reduce Wikimedia/Wikipedia confusion? -- 6.5 Would you support or oppose rebranding the "Wikimedia Foundation" to an entirely different name in order to reduce Wikimedia/Wikipedia confusion? -- 6.6 Any other bright renaming ideas? -- 6.7 Are there other specific changes you would suggest to the current branding? - 7 Analyse the benefits and costs of doing nothing option - 8 In which wikis are you active? - 9 What does a Wiki-X name mean to you? =====
=8^o
Simple, no?
It spun my head off.
For a laugh, I cranked it through Microsoft Word 2003's grammar checker (ignoring the misspellings!):
Readability Statistics:
Words 21,572 Characters 109,768 Paragraphs 468 Sentences 1,198
Sentences per Paragraph 20.3 Words per Sentence 14.9 Characters per Word 4.9
Passive Sentences 9% Flesch Reading Ease 48.8 Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 10.0
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test for reading/grade level number explanation.
... when I have the editing time, I try to rewrite with a 4th grade reading level as my target so that I and my readers have a chance of getting my point in one reading. We contributors to the above web page require an audience who consistently comprehends at the 10th grade level in order to understand our points in one reading. Anyone else would require repeated re-reading to understand our points - and who would do that?
I think I see the problem.
Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us." (from a cartoon by Walt Kelly)
- Peter Blaise
I'm still not sure what Wikibooks is. Although you can try to educate me, why not enhance the Wikibooks front page for everyone, and then just share a link here?
The wikibooks front page already does tell what wikibooks is all about. Here is the first sentence from the main page:
"Welcome to Wikibooks, a Wikimedia project that was started on July 10, 2003 with the mission to create a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit."
The term "textbooks" is used unambiguously in the very first sentence on the very first page. I really don't feel like any additional information beyond that needs to be crammed onto the main page, because we have enough information crammed on there already. Also, in that very first sentence, the word "Wikibooks" links to a help page that talks all about our project (including the types of books that we do and do not include).
Are you saying Wikibooks is for cooperative authorship of NEW technical, non-fiction, and how-to manuals? Let me study the NOR No Original Research policy on that one!
Yes, that is what wikibooks is for, and no it is not a violation of the NOR policy. Wikipedia is similarly for the authoring of NEW encyclopedia-style articles, and that doesnt violate the policy either.
Or, is Wikibooks only OLD stuff that's not copyrighted anymore ...
No, that is what Wikisource is for.
Are you saying that because fiction is too hard to cooperatively co-author, the Wikibook site has evolved away from fiction?
Wikibooks never included fiction. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of writing fiction, or the perceived value of it. Books on wikibooks should be "instructional", such as a textbook or a manual. Fiction, while it may have educational value, is not by itself instructional, and is therefore not included. For more information about what we do and do not included (including a discussion on fiction and the like), see:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
You make my own point in why you didn't share links to Wikibooks: "they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing"! Hey, Andrew, I'm not faulting anybody. I'm just saying. Why are we writing here when we could find and fix 'em, instead?
The most important organization method that we have right now are the bookshelves. As Robert pointed out in his reply earlier, there have been attempts by people to institute other organizational methods. If you are interested in making these organizational tools better, you are welcome to try (this is a wiki after all).
"Nike" is a GREAT mark in that it does not define ONE product. If they had called themselves "Sneakers", they'd eventually have a challenge selling non-sneakers. By calling themselves Nike after the Greek goddess of victory, they can sell anything to anyone who wants to feel victorious. Very savvy.
This assumes that Wikibooks is interested in producing or distributing things in the future that are not textbooks, which we do not. Nike's name is generic because they want to sell lots of stuff: more stuff = more money. However, wikibooks is a non-profit and our value as a resource will be based on our focus and on our strength. If we included a whole bunch of stuff, some textbooks, some fiction, whatever, we would lose our strength as a textbook producer, and textbook consumers would be less-less likely to take us seriously. As a wikimedian, i'm sure you are aware that instead of diluting one project with unrelated materials, the WMF has historically chosen to create new projects. Instead of creating a "textbook" namespace in wikipedia, for instance, the new project wikibooks was formed. Instead of polluting Wikibooks with fiction and nonsense, you should petition to create a new Wikifiction, or whatever. I would probably vote against such a proposal, but I won't discuss that issue here.
"WIKI"-anything is descriptive; a "Wikibooks" that excludes SOME books is by definition misdescriptive. I'm just trying to find out what Wikibooks IS, if it's not where to find "quick, community built books" of any type, totally in the control of the individual teams of contributors.
Wikinews is not a general purpose news repository, they have policies and guidelines that discuss what kinds of news are fit to print. Wikipedia likewise has guidelines (verifiability, notability, etc) that limit what kinds of materials they host. I could list every WMF project, and every single one of them has limits as to what they will allow. But of all the projects, you seem to think that wikibooks should be some kind of free-for-all, some kind of general-purpose repository, or perhaps even a garbage dump.
Also, the fact that Wikibooks is for "textbooks" is written both on the front page, and has been mentioned by myself several times. I'm sorry if you still have confusion on the matter, but i can't really keep repeating myself.
It absolutely IS our job to provide Wikibooks visitors with information, especially about what Wikibooks is NOT, and share where others go to find non-Wikibooks offerings.
There are lots of places on the internet that contain stuff that wikibooks doesnt contain. Should we post links to everything? Wikipedia doesn't give you links to other websites if you search for something that wikipedia doesnt include, and Wikibooks does not either. We are not some kind of web directory, nor a general-purpose search engine, nor a web-hub to direct traffic around the internet. We have textbooks, and if you don't want textbooks, then our site cannot and generally will not help you.
Let's create:
We already had it, we deleted it because it was redundant. Again, see:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
This page discusses what wikibooks is, and if you can't find something on that list, it likely means that wikibooks is not for that.
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________ Get a preview of Live Earth, the hottest event this summer - only on MSN http://liveearth.msn.com?source=msntaglineliveearthhm
I read the link thoroughly. I can see a gap in your definition: A reading textbook used in the elementary school level. All texts at very early grades are fiction to motivate and relate to very young readers. Plus early grades are still learning sounds so you have to make up stories that contain only sounds that have been learned. So the definition is most definitely not complete. You would not find an early reader on the fiction bookshelf at a store. They are purchased as a textbook.
Not to be a welt on your tush but I am not convinced of the definition of what a wikibook is.
-Kathy
-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Whitworth [mailto:wknight8111@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:58 PM To: textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policiesonWikibooks?
I'm still not sure what Wikibooks is. Although you can try to educate me, why not enhance the Wikibooks front page for everyone, and then just share a link here?
The wikibooks front page already does tell what wikibooks is all about. Here is the first sentence from the main page:
"Welcome to Wikibooks, a Wikimedia project that was started on July 10, 2003 with the mission to create a free collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit."
The term "textbooks" is used unambiguously in the very first sentence on the very first page. I really don't feel like any additional information beyond that needs to be crammed onto the main page, because we have enough information crammed on there already. Also, in that very first sentence, the word "Wikibooks" links to a help page that talks all about our project (including the types of books that we do and do not include).
Are you saying Wikibooks is for cooperative authorship of NEW technical, non-fiction, and how-to manuals? Let me study the NOR No Original Research policy on that one!
Yes, that is what wikibooks is for, and no it is not a violation of the NOR policy. Wikipedia is similarly for the authoring of NEW encyclopedia-style articles, and that doesnt violate the policy either.
Or, is Wikibooks only OLD stuff that's not copyrighted anymore ...
No, that is what Wikisource is for.
Are you saying that because fiction is too hard to cooperatively co-author, the Wikibook site has evolved away from fiction?
Wikibooks never included fiction. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of writing fiction, or the perceived value of it. Books on wikibooks should be "instructional", such as a textbook or a manual. Fiction, while it may have educational value, is not by itself instructional, and is therefore not included. For more information about what we do and do not included (including a discussion on fiction and the like), see:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
You make my own point in why you didn't share links to Wikibooks: "they are not particularly well-maintained nor aesthetically pleasing"! Hey, Andrew, I'm not faulting anybody. I'm just saying. Why are we writing here when we could find and fix 'em, instead?
The most important organization method that we have right now are the bookshelves. As Robert pointed out in his reply earlier, there have been attempts by people to institute other organizational methods. If you are interested in making these organizational tools better, you are welcome to try (this is a wiki after all).
"Nike" is a GREAT mark in that it does not define ONE product. If they had called themselves "Sneakers", they'd eventually have a challenge selling non-sneakers. By calling themselves Nike after the Greek goddess of victory, they can sell anything to anyone who wants to feel victorious. Very savvy.
This assumes that Wikibooks is interested in producing or distributing things in the future that are not textbooks, which we do not. Nike's name is generic because they want to sell lots of stuff: more stuff = more money. However, wikibooks is a non-profit and our value as a resource will be based on our focus and on our strength. If we included a whole bunch of stuff, some textbooks, some fiction, whatever, we would lose our strength as a textbook producer, and textbook consumers would be less-less likely to take us seriously. As a wikimedian, i'm sure you are aware that instead of diluting one project with unrelated materials, the WMF has historically chosen to create new projects. Instead of creating a "textbook" namespace in wikipedia, for instance, the new project wikibooks was formed. Instead of polluting Wikibooks with fiction and nonsense, you should petition to create a new Wikifiction, or whatever. I would probably vote against such a proposal, but I won't discuss that issue here.
"WIKI"-anything is descriptive; a "Wikibooks" that excludes SOME books is by definition misdescriptive. I'm just trying to find out what Wikibooks IS, if it's not where to find "quick, community built books" of any type, totally in the control of the individual teams of contributors.
Wikinews is not a general purpose news repository, they have policies and guidelines that discuss what kinds of news are fit to print. Wikipedia likewise has guidelines (verifiability, notability, etc) that limit what kinds of materials they host. I could list every WMF project, and every single one of them has limits as to what they will allow. But of all the projects, you seem to think that wikibooks should be some kind of free-for-all, some kind of general-purpose repository, or perhaps even a garbage dump.
Also, the fact that Wikibooks is for "textbooks" is written both on the front page, and has been mentioned by myself several times. I'm sorry if you still have confusion on the matter, but i can't really keep repeating myself.
It absolutely IS our job to provide Wikibooks visitors with information, especially about what Wikibooks is NOT, and share where others go to find non-Wikibooks offerings.
There are lots of places on the internet that contain stuff that wikibooks doesnt contain. Should we post links to everything? Wikipedia doesn't give you links to other websites if you search for something that wikipedia doesnt include, and Wikibooks does not either. We are not some kind of web directory, nor a general-purpose search engine, nor a web-hub to direct traffic around the internet. We have textbooks, and if you don't want textbooks, then our site cannot and generally will not help you.
Let's create:
We already had it, we deleted it because it was redundant. Again, see:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/WB:WIW
This page discusses what wikibooks is, and if you can't find something on that list, it likely means that wikibooks is not for that.
--Andrew Whitworth
_________________________________________________________________ Get a preview of Live Earth, the hottest event this summer - only on MSN http://liveearth.msn.com?source=msntaglineliveearthhm
_______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
KH wrote:
I read the link thoroughly. I can see a gap in your definition: A reading textbook used in the elementary school level. All texts at very early grades are fiction to motivate and relate to very young readers. Plus early grades are still learning sounds so you have to make up stories that contain only sounds that have been learned. So the definition is most definitely not complete. You would not find an early reader on the fiction bookshelf at a store. They are purchased as a textbook.
Not to be a welt on your tush but I am not convinced of the definition of what a wikibook is.
-Kathy
The very definition of a textbook is something that has been something of a major discussion from time to time on Wikibooks. While there is certainly some grey areas that can be explored in detail, nearly everything on Wikibooks usually has to have some sort of educational goals of some sort or another as justification for remaining. And the stronger the case that you can make for educational applications of the content, the more likely it will remain on Wikibooks. This is precisely the issue that has revolved around video game guides, something that has been removed from Wikibooks recently in large numbers.
Keep in mind that the purpose for establishing Wikibooks in the first place was to help provide a place to write a chemistry textbook that was otherwise inappropriate for Wikipedia. Karl Wick, the original "founder" of Wikibooks, started writing this textbook on Wikipedia and the content was voted off of Wikipedia as being "not encyclopedic". Jimbo Wales, the big chief at the time, encouraged Karl to continue to develop the idea and agreed that a new project should be started. That is why this mailing list is called the "Wikimedia Textbook Discussion" instead of "Wikibooks Mailing List", as this mailing list pre-dates even the establishment of Wikibooks itself. Even before the name "Wikibooks" was chosen as the name. BTW, other names have been considered, including the name "Wikiversity" as the name of this project. Wikiversity as an idea has been transformed from another name for Wikibooks to its own completely independent project.
As I pointed out earlier, there may be some room for fictional content of this very limited nature, but it must be designed with strict criteria intended to meet specific educational goals. Perhaps even meeting explicit core curriculum objectives of specific school districts or state boards of education. That doesn't seem to be the proposal that is being offered here, but rather an attempt to expand the scope of Wikibooks to include any sort of fictional content.
-- Robert Horning
The point of the textbook is that it is instructional. So long as the book is adequately instructional (and so long as it doesnt violate any other policies), the format and presentation of the material seems mostly irrelevant to me. Allowing a young children's book to be written as an allegory or as a fable or other quasi-fictional device is far different from opening up wikibooks as a general-purpose fiction repository.
--Andrew Whitworth
From: "KH" kathy@teachernotes.org Reply-To: Wikimedia textbook discussion textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: "'Wikimedia textbook discussion'" textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] NPOV and NOR as a local or a globalpoliciesonWikibooks? Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:30:58 -0700
I read the link thoroughly. I can see a gap in your definition: A reading textbook used in the elementary school level. All texts at very early grades are fiction to motivate and relate to very young readers. Plus early grades are still learning sounds so you have to make up stories that contain only sounds that have been learned. So the definition is most definitely not complete. You would not find an early reader on the fiction bookshelf at a store. They are purchased as a textbook.
Not to be a welt on your tush but I am not convinced of the definition of what a wikibook is.
-Kathy
_________________________________________________________________ Picture this share your photos and you could win big! http://www.GETREALPhotoContest.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us
Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
Why not have "fiction" at wikibooks?
> Jimmy wrote: ... Fiction is absolutely not > appropriate for Wikibooks ... from
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2007-June/001107.html
Huh?
At http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page search for "fiction" and see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=fiction&go=Go showing 458 results for "fiction" at Wikibooks.
But, I find no "fiction" page at Wikibooks: "Warning: You are recreating a page that was previously deleted.".
Can someone explain? You're joking, right
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
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org