There have been numerous disagreements over it, several of them have been voiced at this link:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Policies_and_guidelines/Vote/What_is_...

Basically people disagree to what extent things that are not textbooks should be excluded, the definition of textbooks, the process by which the policy was brought to the fore, how strictly we should follow the letter of the policy/guideline, and various other things.

I also do not feel that the name "wikibooks" is particularly problematic because some of the things on there it would be somewhat a stretch to call them textbooks (eg chess) but they're closer to it than VG walkthroughs. Plus I do agree that "wikipedia textbooks" is clunky AND implies a dependence on Wikipedia which, as far as I know, we are trying to avoid in the interest of maintaining a sort of separate identity between us.

Matt

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com To: textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 08:40:57 +0200 Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands Robert Horning wrote:

...

Erik Moeller wrote:

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On 5/8/07, Johannes Rohr jorohr@gmail.com wrote:

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Besides everything else which has been said already, I do not find these names particularly appealing. "Wikibooks" is short and catchy, "Wikipedia Textbooks" is long and clumsy and has a taste of ugly marketspeak.

Wikibooks is actually one of our most problematic names, as the focus is very much on textbook development. Short and catchy as it ma ybe, it is misleading. Fundamentally, I can see problems with the project's conception around a very specific type of knowledge representation (be it generally a book or specifically a textbook), but if that is how we define it, then we should at least be clear what _kind_ of books we are talking about.

(Cross posting to textbook-l as this is a perennial issue that still needs to be resolved)

I don't see that the name "Wikibooks" is necessarily as problematic as you are suggesting here, Eric. Nor do I see that "textbook development" is necessarily the only focus of Wikibooks, even though I would admit that it is a major component of the Wikibooks and should be emphasized.

It would be interesting to see what the sense of the WMF board is on this issue in terms of how focused Wikibooks ought to be on textbooks and what kind of definition of textbooks could be used to distinguish what should or should not be found on Wikibooks. A massive campaign to remove whole categories of content from Wikibooks has been underway for some time, but the actual working definition of what really should belong on that project has never been made clear by those who would have the authority to define this sort of scope of the project.

An effort by the community is currently under way on Wikibooks to help define this scope as best as can be done at the moment without WMF board assistance:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks/Unstable

I would hope that WMF board members would be aware of this current version of this fundamental policy,

ok

as it appears very likely that this

...

will become official and enforced policy on en.wikibooks in the very near future. I have raised some objections to this policy as it has been written, but this is as much of a compromise as we ordinary folks trying to figure out the mayhem of our little project can muster at the moment, and represents nearly a full year of effort by very active community members to help come up with this definition.

I would hope that non-textbook books could also eventually have a role on Wikibooks, but mine is a small voice that is mostly ignored on this subject.

I would be curious to hear more about what you disagree with in that definition.

I, for one, think it is great to work on better defining the mission of Wikibooks. I have one question though, do you know if the definition worked upon is generally shared with other wikibooks people ? Are they other wikibooks that have worked on such a definition, and where the outcome differs widely from yours ?

ant

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