Although I agree with you, Sanford, with wikibooks, a teacher, parent, school, district, or state can take it, leave it, or adapt it for their needs. I'm looking for open curriculum or anything like that out on the web and there really isn't anything right now. The South African stuff is a structure but there isn't anything there for a teacher to use, let alone adapt. -kathy -----Original Message----- From: Sanford Forte [mailto:siforte@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:07 AM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands The essential challenge is to get end product into the K-12 education channel, in a way that 1) meshes with the requirements set by state education departments to strictly adhere to curriculum frameworks; 2) devise effective means to inform the established K-12 education community that #1 has been completed (on a subject by subject basis); and, 3) establish a means to distribution of materials *in print* that is easy to access. Content is decidedly _not_ the problem. The real problems are logistics and effective project management toward a goal of completing the above, Cheers, Sanford *************************************** Sanford Forte, Director California Open Source Texbook Project Palo Alto, CA sforte(a)opensourcetext.org 650-321-9152 (Office) 650-888-0077 (Mobile) On May 11, 2007, at 10:28 AM, KH wrote: _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

Sorry Sanford, I think too much coffee has muddled my brain. I'm not sure what you mean but I'm very, very interested in getting your point. -Kathy -----Original Message----- From: Sanford Forte [mailto:siforte@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:21 AM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands Hi, Kathy, The irony here is that materials that are created in a way that meshes with already-approved state curriculum frameworks are _also_ available to "a teacher, parent, school, district, or state can take it, leave it, or adapt it for their needs". Cheers, Sanford *************************************** Sanford Forte, Director California Open Source Texbook Project Palo Alto, CA sforte(a)opensourcetext.org 650-321-9152 (Office) 650-888-0077 (Mobile) On May 11, 2007, at 11:16 AM, KH wrote: _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

"The SRA materials are wonderful, but not even one state education curriculum committee (most states have these) will pass them through peer review for serious consideration by districts as _required_ books." I suspect that the reading, math, and spelling curriculum are somewhat dry and boring and need teacher imagination to "punch them up." What if curriculum were designed in such a way that it could be outlined with key words to ensure teachers could teaching "in their own way" but also switched to full script for teachers that want to use the script. Add in some more cartoons, images, video, and some funny lines or inquiry/Socratic methods to change it up. The Reasoning and Writing program by SRA is most certainly more entertaining (at least the first 3 years) than the other curriculum. BTW, your resume is very impressive. -Kathy -----Original Message----- From: Sanford Forte [mailto:siforte@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:59 AM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands Kathy, At long week's end, we are all a bit muddled. :) That said, my point is that _any_ textbook written to a state curriculum standard would have the same open access for revision, by whomever wished to do so. The advantage is creating a book that strictly adheres to a state curriculum standard (pick a large state, like California, Texas, Florida, or New York) is that it will pass muster in that one state, and inspire similar projects by others who want to write for other states. The SRA materials are wonderful, but not even one state education curriculum committee (most states have these) will pass them through peer review for serious consideration by districts as _required_ books. Andrew's point is well-taken, but the assumption that Wikibooks would have to do different materials for every state is unfounded. All we need do is construct _one_ book that follows the standard, as a placeholder and proof of concept. Once that's done, there would be a definite viral effect in the market, because although the K-12 education community is massive, word travels fast. Currently, one fo the weaknesses of Wikibooks in regard to K-12 textbook production is lack of a seamless way to get all WYSIWYG to print, and garnering a focus on one project, to prove it can be done. In fact, _most_ of the hard work in curriculum construction has been done by the state's curriculum standards committees. Go to my website www.opensourcetext.org and link to the California State standards, just to get an idea about how comprehensive those standards are. byw, I have migrated the purpose of COSTP to one where I am helping to spread the word about the necessary strategic and tactical actions that are necessary to get a truly open and well-distributed K-12 textbook databank accomplished. We're all working toward the same goal[ Cheers, Sanford *************************************** Sanford Forte, Director California Open Source Texbook Project Palo Alto, CA sforte(a)opensourcetext.org 650-321-9152 (Office) 650-888-0077 (Mobile) On May 11, 2007, at 11:24 AM, KH wrote: _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

Sanford Forte wrote: I would have to agree that this is a weakness of Wikibooks, even though some efforts along those lines have been done using PDF files to try and make up for some of the short comings of the wiki markup syntax. Part of the problem here is that HTML was never intended to be a WYSIWYG markup language, and the Wiki environment suffers from the same shortcomings in this regard. The strength of Wikibooks, however, is the collaborative nature of the wiki interface. In spite of those who suggest Wikibooks authors tend to go off onto their own "pet" project and not have any interaction, I have seen a huge degree of collaboration or at least commentary on several "books" that I've worked on within Wikibooks. I will admit that often months or years go by between comments sometimes, but several of the pages I've worked on have had some significant fixes, if even only to correct spelling on a couple of words. The prevailing attitude at the moment on Wikibooks is to get the content put together, and then we will worry about formatting and appearance at a later date. Some of the Wikijunior books have gone beyond this point to be something where actual formatting has become an issue, but this seems to be a rarity on Wikibooks at the moment... even for "featured books". From a technical standpoint, I am curious about how we could put into the Wiki markup syntax some features that could be applied to a more standardized formatting system, either borrowing heavily from or even completely adopting LaTeX or some other similar WYSIWYG description language. This to me is the #1 issue that applies to any proposals that attempt to do a Wikisyntax to PDF direct conversion, as the current HTML to PDF approach will IMHO simply look plain ugly. I would not want to even read much less purchase a book that uses the current Wikisyntax converted to HTML, and then have that printed out on paper. Firefox does a valiant job when you try to print a web page onto paper, but it still looks like a very approximate representation and not the medium that the content was originally written to be read. I have noticed that the FHSST group has tried to move toward something like LaTeX. Compare these two pages: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=FHSST_Physics_Units:Unit_Systems&… http://www.fhsst.org/?q=node/6872 This is two very different ways to mark up what is supposedly the very same content. I don't see as much coordination between the two versions of this textbook as I would have hoped for, but this does show some alternate ways to do this sort of markup on a text that is currently in use in a formal educational setting, and is Wikibooks related. There are enough technically minded individuals on Wikibooks that may want to realistically come up with something that perhaps could overcome these barriers. Since we are talking about books here and not encyclopedia articles, what kinds of changes ought to be made to help with the development of actual books that would be along these lines?

By WYSIWYG, people mean that HTML is typically relative and the layout of a webpage may be different depending on a number of factors. To a small degree, webpages will render different browsers, but even in the same browser the webpage will render differently when the browser is resized, etc. For a great example of "what you see is not what you get", try to print a webpage, and compare the printout to what you see on your computer screen: The page needs to be re-rendered to fit onto a piece of paper (especially if you print in "portrait", not "landscape"). That's the approach that i've been taking, personally. I've done some work on some printing templates that help to format a printed book, but don't look so good on the screen (how do you render a page break on the computer screen?). I think that there is alot that we could do straight from the HTML, if we avoid things that don't work when printed, and if we are willing to do the work to implement the proper styles for printing. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best Web mail—award-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

Forgive me for over simplifying the matter. I was not ignoring print preview, just pointing out the differences between how a webpage looks when displayed regularly in a browser, and when it is printed to paper. I've received many complaints in my time about how great a page looks in the browser, and how trashy it looks when printed. Even if the printed copy looks alright, it is frequently "not what I expected" because the page looks different on different display media. There is going to be an inherent difference between what is printed and what is displayed in the browser. Authors of wikibooks would probably do well to use specialized formatting for each so everything looks decent. It was a rhetorical question. You cannot sensically render a page break in the browser, but a printed book will require page breaks. This means that the formatting and styles for the print version of the book needs to be different from the in-browser version, even if only though the addition of page breaks and the like. A common example is people who use object widths incorrectly. For instance something large with a fixed width might not fit entirely onto a sheet of paper. Another issue is using a percentage width while not accounting for the fact that a sheet of paper is thinner (and in a completely different orientation) from a 1024x768 display monitor. If you use a small percentage for an object's width, it will be too small on paper and the contents inside will look "smooshed". It's not an underlying problem with the software or the rendering or anything, it's a problem with authors who don't take printed media into account when they design a page. Because it's author error, it's not a problem with all books, and I would like to think I've avoided in when I authored the pages in the [[Circuit Theory]] book. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ Make every IM count. Download Messenger and join the i’m Initiative now. It’s free. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGHM_MAY07

On 5/18/07, Martin Swift &lt;martin(a)swift.is&gt; wrote: The problem is, while support does exist for page breaks and the like it will be excruciatingly difficult to both implement it and also ensure editors understand it. If someone creates even a simple sidebar template it will need to have a print style assigned to ensure it floats correctly on the print page. The other problem is how to preview it. Even if an appropriate Greasemonkey script were supplied (in which case you could just toggle the monkey and hit show preview to see the edit with the other stylesheet) not every contributor uses or wants to use Firefox, and there's no easy way to turn user stylesheets on and off. One possibility would be designing the book pages in a "print-like" format, and then transcluding them into web-friendly equivalents for casual screen reading. You may remember how Amazon Online Reader used to have Adobe Acrobat-like page divisions until they changed page movement to left/right arrows. That's the sort of thing I'm thinking of. Live wiki text, but styled to the hilt to automatically take on the limitations and appearance of the American "Letter" paper (although it would also work with A4 since the margins would be more than enough to cover the difference and printers can handle such discrepancies without user intervention). A wide-margin web viewing equivalent would of course still be available. Unfortunately this would require CSS2 at the very least, and possibly some minor JavaScript. The advantages of such an implementation would be far-reaching, however. Editors would see the pages exactly as print version readers would, and the print stylesheet could override any colors or fonts unsuitable for printing. Thanks to <includeonly> and <noinclude>, any discrepancies between the print and web versions of the page could be dealt with, and automatically correct both pages. As long as the reader's browser was CSS2-capable they could click print and see an identical copy of the "print preview" they were already looking at. As for those with older browsers (which, without CSS2, would print the page completely wrong), since there are websites able to convert HTML to PDF on the fly it would be a simple matter for additional toolbox links to send the current chapter or the whole book to a suitable conversion site, thus giving the reader an up-to-the-minute and fully accurate PDF copy. This would eliminate people painstakingly laying out each edition and then uploading the PDF, as all tweaks could be done on the live copy, since CSS2 can handle most of what's necessary. Even nitpicking such as breaking a word onto the next line with a hyphen can be included and then marked for exclusion from the web copy. As for how the user would go between the web and print views, it's really quite simple. There would be a "print" function somewhere on each page. Clicking this would then take them to the print view page (which, again, is live wiki text). If they were then satisfied they would click a confirmation button and a simple JavaScript function would bring up the browser's print window, or they could click a back link to return to the web view. For those with browsers incapable of rendering CSS2 it would be quite possible to piggyback MediaWiki's existing user agent check to instead link to an HTML to PDF service, thus ensuring they still get to see what the genuine printed page will look like before actually printing it. None of this will be easy to implement but the point is that it is possible, and it would be wonderful as the end user is concerned. It's a rare occasion when a website is print-ready to this extent. Unfortunately, my knowledge of CSS2 is far too limited to help implement such a solution. If anyone's interested I could cobble together an example; it wouldn't be good enough to actually use on books any time soon, but it would look about right and hopefully include most of the functionality I've talked about. Garrett

I'm terribly sorry to interject again as this is a passionate subject for me. My dream would be to purchase the DI materials from SRA and stick out there for the public to have at. I don't think it is for sale, and if it were, it would be millions, maybe tens or hundreds of millions. The DI materials have the basics of what is needed starting at pre-K or K. Although scripted, it can be adapted for more constructivist methods (cooperative groups, although they are in there already) and multimedia (images and short videos). The other option is to simply try to re-do the materials with a good copyright attorney and starting from scratch. A simple project seeing as the DI materials were started in 1966 and have been updated throughout on a regular basis. Apparently SRA and McGraw-Hill have some money in their companies (note sarcasm). -kathy -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Whitworth [mailto:wknight8111@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 11:22 AM To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands When it comes to writing books for a standardized curriculum, it's more difficult. Wikibooks just doesnt have the man power to write a new book tailor-made for each different jurisdiction. We've been brainstorming ideas to find a way to write a single book, and taking information piece-wise to create a book for a particular curriculum. What we do not have are: 1) Specifications of various curriculums, which we could attempt to satisfy 2) people willing and able to write the necessary material 3) A mechanism to really advertise our books, and compete in the marketplace with established commercial book vendors This isn't to say that the situation is hopeless, because we are making progress every day. However, there is alot of work left to be done before we can market wikibooks as being a viable alternative to traditional commercial printed textbooks. With US teachers going on vacation for the summer, perhaps we would be able to attract some of them to help author new material? I don't know how we would attract them, however. --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_mig… n_HM_mini_pcmag_0507

In all reality, Several wikibookians would be happy if he would clarify it to us as well. Unfortunately, the situation is that the wikibooks community makes up it's own rules, and the WMF doesn't always know exactly what it is we are doing. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ More photos, more messages, more storage—get 2GB with Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

I agree, but I sure wish Jimbo would then redefine what he meant because his blog post (I believe it is his as he was filling in for Lessig) and/or presentation is what lead me to wikibooks.org. Just any old person saying that wouldn't hold water with me but one of the founders? If I was led to the understanding, there might be others. Again, Mr. Wales needs to intervene and either denounce what he said/wrote or help us with the issue. -kathy -----Original Message----- From: Florence Devouard [mailto:Anthere9@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 3:45 PM To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands KH wrote: info: Hmmm This looks like one of the 10 points of his presentation last year at Wikimania (10 things to become free). I am not sure it is a blog afterwards, or actually the transcript of his presentation. You should be able to find a video of it somewhere on the wikimania 2006 site (or somewhere else...) This said, wikibooks was created long before than presentation. I certainly do not think a presentation done in 2006 define the goal of a project created 2 years earlier roughly. Ant _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

Nice to see this list become so active... I wonder sometimes if Erik is just ribbing us into talking more, but in any case the renaming thing seems to me to be a tempest in the bathwater (the baby is fine and growing). This sort of reminds me of a story a greenpeace activist wrote about a convention, where it was decided that "ChemLawn" just needed to change their name (and they did, now they're "Truegreen"). It's still Chemlawn, of course. Likewise, renaming the project won't make more Wikipedians burst through the door, because Wikibooks is just really different from Wikipedia. With the exception of Wikispecies (which is a metadata project built by biologists), we are the only project that's named in the plural, and that plurality shows in how things happen here: we Wikibookians tend to just work in our little corner, and don't have hundreds of people popping by and adding a tidbit here and there to the things that are on our watchlists. Going to a random page isn't likely to be an interesting read (not that random page searching is all that much fun on Wikipedia as it used to be), because a random page is going to be a page of some book that you need to read from the start. It's just different -- inherently so -- and rebranding will do nothing but annoy the current volunteers, and cause trobles with everyone's external links and bookmarks. Books for any topic and any age group -- and thank you for the trip down memory lane... I *loved* SRAs when I was a little guy! -- require an author or group of authors. We can find those by dropping notes to people in our neighborhood (your child's teacher, your mechanic, the farmer at the farmer's market, etc.), or by trying to build relationships with other non-profit organizations (like Cary Bass is trying to do with the AARP). Or start a letter-writing campaign to Laura Bush ("be bold in propagandizing"). We've had a lot of class projects going on lately (with at least one good book as a result!), and we can build on that tradition as a path towards building more wikibooks. -johnny. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367

Kathy Harris wrote: Since we are in branding discussion... I am not sure who is "they", but I can give it a try It was perceived that we should give a real identity to each project logo, not make the logo a derivative either of Wikipedia, or of Wikimedia Foundation. If I remember well, the logo suggested used WMF colors. And we asked that this be avoided. I presume this is the right page:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/Logo See at the bottom of the page. Ant

I think it would be a damage to Wikibooks brand when different language editions would introduce different logos. We have to make decision together. Looking at Wiktionary case, which has similar logo vote at the same time as us, they seem to be in similar situation. The logo has been chosen but no one is eager to replace the old one. My personal view is that both communities - Wiktionary's and Wikibooks' - have decided to simply ignore results of the vote as they feel this hasn't been their vote. People having nothing to do with these projects were leading discussion on new logo and voted for it. Personally I find chosen logo a peace of rubbish, complete amateurish work and a complete mistake, having nothing to do with a professional logo. It looks like it was drawn by a child with crayons. If you compare it with logos of Commons, Wikipedia or Wikisource, it becomes clear that new logo does not represent the same level; it's in kindergarten of logo making. Beyond my personal looks: it's not fair to change rules during the game. People have chosen certain design: with Wikimedia colours. After changing colour version, the logo became another design; thus, the vote should start again. Currently the status quo shows: practically no one is interested in introducing new logo. New logo is defunct, has not gain acceptance and the vote should start again. With more serious candidates. -- Piotr 'Derbeth' Kubowicz Jabber id: derbeth(a)jabber.wp.pl Wikisłownik to więcej niż słownik! Sprawdź: http://pl.wiktionary.org/ Opera - the fastest browser on Earth! http://www.opera.com/

Please, can we at least go back and start the voting process again? A new logo would be very nice. -Kathy -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Whitworth [mailto:wknight8111@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 4:55 PM To: textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Logo discussion I would agree to that, in theory. I disagree in general because the various language projects have little interaction, have different user bases (in general), and have different target markets. If the different projects have different logos, few people will notice. The most important thing is the logo that appears at www.wikibooks.org. I'm eager to replace the old one, we all should be. It's not that we are ignoring the vote, because at the end of the day it isn't really our decision: The change will be implemented by the developers or whoever does it, whether our community really wants it or not. The old logo is trash, and I think we should all be jumping at the opportunity to replace it. I disagree with this entirely, the new logo is sleek and professional. The old logo was drawn with the crayons, and drawn without too much thought about the project or it's possibilities. Is it the absolute best logo we could ever have? maybe not. Is it better then the current logo? absolutely. The status quo only shows that people are confused. You are right, the rules of the vote weren't followed to the letter and there is a good reason why they were not followed (because the WMF wanted us to change the colors). People were confused, nobody provided clarification, and we didnt move to the next stage because we dont know what stage to go to next. That's why I'm asking Anthere about this now, because i feel that she can provide that clarification and get the process moving again. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ More photos, more messages, more storageget 2GB with Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig… n_HM_mini_2G_0507

I would tend to see a different cause and effect pattern to this. The logo, when it was voted on originally, had been created by the artist using WMF colors. If it had been known at the beginning that the WMF colors were unacceptable, the artist would not have chosen those colors for his design, the voting process would have proceeded as was stated in the "rules" of the discussion, and we would have a logo right now. If the discussion has stalled, It's not because people are trying to make a logo that is a derivative of the WMF logo, it's because the process has hit a bump and nobody stepped up to clarify what to do next. This is precisely why I want to talk to you, Anthere, on this mailing list about this subject: because you are an authority figure who could step in and say "this is what we do now", even if that something is as simple as another round of votes. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ Like the way Microsoft Office Outlook works? You’ll love Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

The discussion and vote was completely derailed because the WMF waved a "magic wand" and said we couldnt use the color scheme that everybody had already voted on. Since the WMF did have a negative effect on the progress of the discussion, it would seem reasonable that the WMF could lend us a helping hand as well. I'm not asking for any miracles or any "magic", just a little help. What wikibooks doesnt have is a suitable public image, in part I would say because of it's old logo. I had heard a suggestion on foundation-l about creating a common tag-line for all the projects, but perhaps Wikibooks needs a new slogan as well as a shiny new logo. Wikibooks is never going to reach it's potential as a great project with a second-rate logo and no help from the WMF. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best Web mail—award-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

I'm just thinking about a PR standpoint. It's going to be easier for "real" organizations to take our project seriously if we have a professional look to us. This requires a good logo, a good slogan, and some kind of indication that we aren't a rag-tag group of internet losers. I think that we carry ourselves very well, but if our logos and slogans and all are trashy, our project is going to look like trash by extension. That's been my primary motivation behind redesigning the main page, or redesigning the staff lounge, or making all sorts of other aesthetic improvements. I'm not against doing that kind of thing. I'm busy myself in the next few days, but if nobody steps up to this plate, I will. I'm pretty convinced that "what went wrong" was the WMF enforcing new stipulations after the voting was already over. They had a logo all picked out and voted on, and then the WMF told us that the colors were wrong. This is the fault of the wikibookians, not with those who were voting on the discussion. We posted notices, on the site notice, on the main page (when the site notice was hijacked for Wikimania and fundraising messages), and I personally posted it on the staff lounge more then once. If wikibookians were not part of the discussion, it's because they chose not to participate. We can't complain if people are given the opportunity, and choose not to take it. What I can't speak for, however, are the other languages, I dont know how well the logo discussion was advertised to speakers of other languages. I don't think that we should cast non-wikibookians as second-class citizens when making votes. All wikimedians want our project to succeed, and all wikimedians have to look at our lousy logo on the main pages of the other projects. Like I said before, the process would have succeeded if a last-minute color change stipulation wasn't made: A logo had already been selected. Again, Something that I will look at personally, if nobody beats me to it. I'm not asking for a fiat decision, just a hand up out of the hole that we've been dug into. Maybe what we need is some kind of impetus: the WMF could set some kind of "deadline", even if it was a soft one, and that would motivate people to get off their asses and get the job done. Or, the WMF could say "we have selected a logo, we want to change the colors. Vote on the new colors, and the winner is the new logo of Wikibooks". Even if the board never follows up on these statements, it will serve as the motivation the community needs to finish this mess up. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ More photos, more messages, more storage—get 2GB with Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

On 5/17/07, Guillaume Paumier &lt;guillom.pom(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Thanks Guillaume, but this is not made clear anywhere obvious - if at all. After a root around I found <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marketing> - but there is no mention of this on <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logo>, where I think it should be - go edit! The idea of a colour scheme was introduced very late into the Wikiversity logo vote, and I gather it was likewise in the Wikibooks one too. The subsequent vote on the Wikiversity logo colour change was not to change it. ;-) So, what should we do? And will/should this colour scheme apply to all projects, effectively prompting a series of logo changes? I think it would be great if the Marketing committee would give guidance and leadership on the issue of the logo - provided this is open to discussion. I'm open to rethinking the whole process in the light of various comments in this branding discussion - is this something the committee have thought about? Cormac

Guillaume Paumier wrote: What is this "marketing committee"? I have never heard about this group at all. I know there is a plethora of planning groups that report only to the WMF board, but it seems this is getting just a little out of hand here. And I know for a fact that the current Wikibooks logo did not have "approval" from the WMF board nor even from Jimbo, even through I don't think he openly objected to the idea. This is precisely what I was talking about when I said that the board needs to be very clear what the ground rules ought to be well before we try to come up with a logo, and this seems to be far too much bureaucracy than is absolutely needed. I mean, how many sister projects are there, and why can't a well formed ad hoc committee that was formed independently by users themselves be able to present such an idea directly to the WMF board itself? How many times per year is the WMF expecting that logos are going to be changing for each project? This isn't to say that the WMF can't ask a group of independent people (say a marketing committee) to review logo proposals after it has been formally presented to the board, but this group should not be the "gatekeepers" on any logo proposal. As far as the visual colors of a project are concerned, I don't understand this attitude at all. Particularly with Eric's current rant about trying to unify the marketing image of the WMF and the various sister projects, it seems like this would be something that could give a visual clue that all of these projects are somehow related, if they tend to show similar color schemes. By encouraging completely different visual identities, it is in effect suggesting that each sister project can go its own way and ignore the wishes of the WMF. I have seen some very well designed corporate logos for subsidiary companies that have a common motif and color scheme to suggest corporate unity, even through the logos themselves vary quite a bit. This hard-core attitude that not only are related color schemes supposed to be different but simply can't use the main WMF logo colors at all in any way, nor even suggest the WMF in any other way seems to fly in a diametrically opposite direction from any kind of common marketing or unifying philosophy.

Guillom, it appears you have all the answers (or all the answers that are available), so let me ask you this directly: If the marketing committee is working on this proposal for presentation to the board, should any logo discussions just wait until that happens? I mean, I dont want to set up a logo vote/discussion now if the board is just going to go in a different direction from us. In short, should we wait for the marketing committee to present? I want to get the ball rolling on a new logo discussion ASAP, but i'm not going to waste my time with it if the board changes the rules in mid vote. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best Web mail—award-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_mig…

On 5/17/07, Guillaume Paumier &lt;guillom.pom(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Thanks Guillaume, and fair points in this thread. I look forward to more work on this issue - it's an interesting one, and I fully trust both the goodwill and the expertise of the current marketing committee members. I'd like for this to be a more Wikimedia-wide process too - as Robert says and as you acknowledge, not many people have heard of (or remember hearing of) the marketing committee. :-) Added to this of course is that this is a matter close to many people's hearts - the identity and image of their pet projects. :-) Cormac

Thanks. It was definitely the board member guy (forgot name) who email the list with the differences between wikibooks and wikiversity that pushed me to move/develop under wikiversity. They they seemed to have changed their mission statement to include everything I need (worksheets, multimedia, curriculum tests, etc.): http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Elementary_Curriculum_and_Training The guy even has a pedagogy template statement (giggle - note, that is a teacher joke). I was really surprised at wikiversity as they gave a nice "welcome and here is a nicely formatted help guide to get you started" under my talk page when I registered (harriska2, same as wikibooks). I'll still hang around wikibooks as I'm partial and loyal - plus it's where I started this venture that is likely to kill me. I started a science kindergarten curriculum. I'll still script in what the teacher will say but will end up giving a general summary for teachers that don't like scripts. I'll also add videos (homemade and links to http://avgeeks.com), pictures (cool bacteria), and sound clips of the songs because sometimes I, myself, don't know them all. You know those kindergarteners, they need motion and action. I hope to move forward this summer with some volunteers from a nearby university but I'm not holding my breath. No-pay doesn't seem to garner as much interest :( -Kathy -----Original Message----- From: Robert Horning [mailto:robert_horning@netzero.net] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 2:29 PM To: Wikimedia textbook discussion Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands KH wrote: info: I'm not sure where you got the idea that we can't put together a curriculum package for a K-3 instructional environment on Wikibooks. I am sorry that you have felt that such a concept is something that is heavily discouraged on Wikibooks, and this is precisely why I feel that a "textbook only" philosophy is so heavily flawed... even if you try to stick with an educational content basis to Wikibooks content. The main issue I have about this heavy emphasis on textbooks is that it gets rid of the concept that "Wikibooks is not paper". There are some very interesting things that can be done using an electronic interface even on a wiki that can be very productive and not necessarily look like a "textbook" but can clearly be educationally oriented. Indeed, some very interesting things along these lines have been going on with Wikiversity, which is where most of the creative energy seems to have gone from Wikibooks. Administrators and participants on Wikiversity don't seem to be so worried about format standards and appearance so much as trying to provide educational experiences. Perhaps this is something that needs to be defined in terms of where the distinction between these two project (Wikibooks and Wikiversity) ought to be made. There were many individuals who objected to Wikiversity getting "kicked off" of Wikibooks in the first place precisely because this would set up an arbitrary distinction of content that was "traditional" and "non-traditional" kinds of books. Wikibooks like "Aarvard the Arrdvark" also introduced some interesting ideas in terms of what can or should be done for the K-3 audience, although what it mainly accomplished was the idea that Wikibooks should be non-fiction only and not include fictional content. This does make it difficult in terms of making a 1st grade reading primer where there is a tradition of using fictional content as a methodology for introducing language concepts. I certainly would encourage the development of such a 1st grade reading primer on Wikibooks, and I think it would be a very useful addition. The main point is that the development emphasis would have to be on the primer and reaching explicit goals for language introduction and not trying to be creative with your writing. I would also have to say that for this age group, a larger coordinated educational package including suggested lesson plans, activities, informational resources (including recommended Wikipedia articles for further reading) and worksheets is something that perhaps should be used as well. The only reason I see for the distinction of "no quizes" or other non-textbook material is mainly to give a mission to Wikiversity instead. But to scatter a curriculum development package between the two projects doesn't make any sense either. I would hope that others would support experimentation on the development of such a curriculum package on Wikibooks, and do keep in mind that if there is resistance to such a project on Wikibooks, there are many on Wikiversity that would be willing to see such content at least be found somewhere on a Wikimedia sister project. _______________________________________________ Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l