Hi, I am the guy who made the initial request to open up a spot on Wikipedia for textbook development. I have a physics book I am writing and want to donate and probably give a good start to an organic text as well.
Text of an email I just sent to Mav, who asked me to sent it thru the mailing list:
It seems like some people on the mailing list want things defined real well from the onset. Is that necessary or can we just wing it and develop policies as time and need warrant ?
I had the idea that textbooks could be started as units with a defined goal and audience. For example, my physics book could be designated as an introductory college-level text suitable for pre-meds.
I am imagining the textbook development as beginning general and moving towards specific, as one basic "unified" text for each discipline that eventually differentiates into multiple books over time. Books for more narrowly defined audiences, levels, goals, study guides, etc. Since textbooks have a voice could we not allow this to happen naturally and even allow multiple voices ?
My opinion is that rules and regs should be a bit lax on the textbook subdomain until needed ... I agree that NPOV should not be required .. there is also an issue that authors styles can be quite different, some study guides even use little jokes to help you remember information.
And one unrelated question: Do you have an idea of copyright issues, specifically, if I use the chapter structure of an existing book written by another author for a Wiki book or is that infringement ? I am imagining I could lift the overall structure from one of my old orgo textbooks for the basis of a book on O Chem ..I read that the information itself is not under copyright, just the "creative presentation" of it. Do you happen to know where the chips would fall in this case ?
Thanks, Karl
PS Thank you for your support of the wiki textbook concept ..
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Karlwick
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On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Karl Wick wrote:
It seems like some people on the mailing list want things defined real well from the onset. Is that necessary or can we just wing it and develop policies as time and need warrant ?
It's probably best to get the basics sorted and let the rest develop "naturally", as otherwise there's the risk of stagnation.
And one unrelated question: Do you have an idea of copyright issues, specifically, if I use the chapter structure of an existing book written by another author for a Wiki book or is that infringement ?
My understanding is that the book structure itself is copyright unless it is a logically obvious structure.
Imran
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org