We have to draw a line somewhere, and we can argue internally endlessly without getting much resolution. So a useful technique is to try really hard to reference some external standards.
- What about guides to games that are not video or computer games?
These can include guides on how to play chess and go (which we already have), bridge, whist, etc.. together with suitable strategies; conceivably this may also include more modern games such as risk or monopoly or cluedo. To my mind, guides on well-known intellectual games such as these have educational value and are worth keeping, but your comments would be welcome.
My question would be whether or not there exist classes at accredited institutions on the subject which use something similar _as a textbook_.
Notice how this works: first, we can be quite broad in what constitutes a textbook, for example at my sister's cooking school, they use a cookbook for a textbook, no question.
But in virtually every university, there are classes on Shakespeare which use Hamlet as material, but not as _textbook_ per se.
I am unaware of any course at any accredited institution which teaches risk or monopoly or clue. Chess and go, probably, but I actually don't know. Doom? No.
- Your comments included a direct reference to wikibooks having
textbooks suitable for "elementary school, high school, or college courses" (and I'm not sure what age groups you meant by "college" as it seems to mean different things in the US from what it means in the UK). I trust this list was not meant to be exhaustive and that you would agree that textbooks related to professional learning (eg accountancy), adult learning (eg cookery) and (if not covered by "college") university learning are suitable for wikibooks.
Yes! I think we should be quite broad about it. The key point is that there have to be some kind of courses offered by some kind of serious institution of learning.
Jimmy Wales <jwales@...> writes:
But in virtually every university, there are classes on Shakespeare which use Hamlet as material, but not as _textbook_ per se.
I do not understand. High school and university students in parts of the United States do read printed copies of Hamlet. Those are textbooks, no? I think that Hamlet is an obvious example of a textbook.
... The key point is that there have to be some kind of courses offered by some kind of serious institution of learning.
Some courses assign essays praising the fall of communism. Some courses assign the Communist Manifesto. Wikibooks do not want essays (Wikibooks is not a blog), and they do not want source texts. This "key point" will not help anyone remove "game walkthrough books".
I am unaware of any course at any accredited institution which teaches risk or monopoly or clue. Chess and go, probably, but I actually don't know. Doom? No.
[[b:Doom]] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Doom is a project that I worked on recently. I had discovered that some IP users had copied some Wikipedia articles into the Doom book. These new Doom submodules had the usual metaphorical ocean of red links, the various broken template calls, the use of nonexistant images and categories... and there was credit to Wikipedia in the edit history, but not in the book itself.
I spent some time searching Wikipedia and eventually found that these two Wikipedia articles were copied: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay_of_Doom (deleted from Wikipedia because of the transwiki to Wikibooks) * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enemies_in_Doom (kept at Wikipedia, but forked to Wikibooks)
They now form 5 modules in the Wikibook of Doom.
Thus I had explored the Wikibook of Doom and the Wikipedia articles of Doom. By then I knew that Wikipedia had much more information about Doom than what I would suspect: * http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Prefixindex/Doom/ The Wikibook of Doom contains 10 subpages. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Doom Wikipedia contains *51 articles* about Doom, plus 9 subcategories.
On average, the Wikipedia articles seem to be longer than the Doom submodules. The Wikipedia articles also contain more images. Thus, Wikipedia has at least 6 times, probably at least 12 times, as much information about Doom as the Wikibook of Doom does. Also, the larger half (5 modules) of the Wikibook is information moved or copied from Wikipedia. Several other computer and video game Wikibooks, though not all of them, are like this. Why?
These gaming wikis all have MediaWiki server software and use the GNU FDL: * Gameinfo - http://gameinfo.wikia.com * Encyclopedia Gamia - http://egamia.com * Strategy Wiki - http://strategywiki.net
However none of these are sister projects of Wikipedia. Thus English Wikipedia designates *English Wikibooks* as the preferred place for game guides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CVG wrote:
Articles on computer and video games should give an encyclopedia overview of what the game is about, not a detailed description of how to play it. Such topics should be moved to Wikibooks computer and video games bookshelf.
(None of this explains why Wikipedia has so many computer and video game guide authors.)
So, what I think that we need is a mechanism to move computer and video game guides from Wikibooks to any of these gaming wikis. Currently, I cannot move a guide; I must fork it.
I suggest that it is time to move some or all of them to other wikis, for no reason (related to institutions of learning or otherwise) except that we have too many of them, and that gaming wikis are better locations for them.
-- [[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kernigh http://gameinfo.wikia.com/wiki/User:Kernigh
Jimmy Wales wrote:
We have to draw a line somewhere, and we can argue internally endlessly without getting much resolution. So a useful technique is to try really hard to reference some external standards.
- What about guides to games that are not video or computer games?
These can include guides on how to play chess and go (which we already have), bridge, whist, etc.. together with suitable strategies; conceivably this may also include more modern games such as risk or monopoly or cluedo. To my mind, guides on well-known intellectual games such as these have educational value and are worth keeping, but your comments would be welcome.
My question would be whether or not there exist classes at accredited institutions on the subject which use something similar _as a textbook_.
In Oregon, USA a B.S. Degree in game development from a technical institute .... might be IIT but I am not certain ... is being advertised for a full four year degree available in three years of full time study on National Broadcast Television during primetime.
The creator of Total Annihlation has announced a new "game" which is a three sided war game which allows various combinations of teams, solo players, computer controlled forces to interact at various scales from ant to global overview with land, sea, space, and air assets that interact as an accurate simulation. Big units can step on little units. Nukes have cumulative accurate effects on all units within primary blast radius and perhaps downwind. Artillery is accurately calculated ballistics.
I am kind of looking forward to setting up Wikiversity's War College. It will be useful outreach for our engineers as they work with the military students and history departments to discern tactics and strategy from history; update it for proper time frames, and then simulate scenarios or run war game tournament to see who makes accurate predications and statments vs. who is hot air or misinformation specialists. Perhaps the Poly Sci or Wikinews folks might find some benefit in being able to verify or validate some of the Pentagon's vs. freedom fighters claims independently via forensic science (accurate physics vs. propaganda or cartoon physics).
Considering that the U.S. Army uses an internally modified and supported version of DOOM for situational awareness training .... it is going to be hard to claim that guidelines regarding how to manage the economy and various scales of forces of the above while avoiding getting stepped on or nuked or bought out by bigger or smaller or other peoples or things are not educational at some level regarding some things.
Outpost from Sierra and Lunar Command from Mallard are both improved versions of NASA simulations studying how to establish, maintain, expand and operate space science stations and setttlements.
Notice how this works: first, we can be quite broad in what constitutes a textbook, for example at my sister's cooking school, they use a cookbook for a textbook, no question.
But in virtually every university, there are classes on Shakespeare which use Hamlet as material, but not as _textbook_ per se.
I am unaware of any course at any accredited institution which teaches risk or monopoly or clue. Chess and go, probably, but I actually don't know. Doom? No.
Chess is common in computer science classes and projects.
Doom. U.S. Army. See above.
- Your comments included a direct reference to wikibooks having
textbooks suitable for "elementary school, high school, or college courses" (and I'm not sure what age groups you meant by "college" as it seems to mean different things in the US from what it means in the UK). I trust this list was not meant to be exhaustive and that you would agree that textbooks related to professional learning (eg accountancy), adult learning (eg cookery) and (if not covered by "college") university learning are suitable for wikibooks.
Yes! I think we should be quite broad about it. The key point is that there have to be some kind of courses offered by some kind of serious institution of learning.
There will obviously be courses in user interfaces, ergonomics, realtime processing, simulation modeling, etc. in the curriculum cited above for a B.S. in Game Engineering or Design.
Perhaps it is time to modify the mission statement to match the site name or vice versa.
What exactly is the point in restricting Wikibooks to tomes on trigonometry when it is faster and easier for a kid to program a turtle to circumnavigate a triangle drawn onscreen and then divide the timed duration of the task by the programmed speed of the turtle to arrive at the circumfrance. Further the same kid can throw away his calculus book by pouring water into a plastic form or 3d wire frame at a known rate and timing or programming each infinitesimal to have the same weight and couting the number of jelly beans that fit or the number of ants that wander through Wikipedia.
How much does Wikipedia weigh in neutrinos Alice?
I am kind of curious. How much do you think the rascals learn by checking to see if the walkthroughs actually work? It seems to me that the cheat codes that were available for Warcraft II might have had an adaptive quality related to the video drivers being used. I never sorted it though, we could always get our CAD sytems back online by replacing the corrupted dll's with the backup files so I did not worry about it much. The cheat codes allowed my office managers' kids to compete with me and my professionals effectively in after hour recreation. They seemed to be learning how to count their gold and assets. Kicked my ass a few times.
Regards, lazyquasar
On 4/22/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We have to draw a line somewhere, and we can argue internally endlessly without getting much resolution. So a useful technique is to try really hard to reference some external standards.
Perhaps the project should be officially renamed to "WikiTextbooks" to avoid misunderstandings - or would that be overkill? People probably base their ideas of what is acceptable on a) the content that is already there, b) the name "Wikibooks" suggesting an open-ended project to create books using wiki technology.
I agree that clear standards of what a "textbook" is are needed. But besides these, I think it is important to work out a way to get Wikibooks from "here" to "there".
For projects which are deemed outside the scope, as an alternative to deletion, it might be a good idea to have "Votes for adoption" - books tagged in this form could continue to be developed for the time being, but people would be encouraged to find a different, free content wiki to host them. Once there is consensus about a new home, the Wikibooks version would be redirected there.
This would recognize the fact that in its first couple of years, Wikibooks hasn't been very strict about the "textbook" requirement. People may be understandably concerned to have their work deleted without trace, having links break, etc. A gentle process might help to strengthen the textbook focus of the project without making people too mad about it.
Just some ramblings from a non-Wikibooks editor,
Erik
Erik Moeller <eloquence@...> writes:
Perhaps the project should be officially renamed to "WikiTextbooks" to avoid misunderstandings - or would that be overkill?
That name is occupied - http://wikitextbook.co.uk
I agree that clear standards of what a "textbook" is are needed.
That would not help. The current scope of Wikibooks is already narrower then textbooks in general. We sometimes have visitors to the site post wondering why they cannot find public domain content such as Shakespeare.
Users who associate Wikibooks with textbooks expect to find classical fiction at Wikibooks, like they find in United States high schools and universities. However, you will not find that at Wikibooks - you would have to go to our sister project Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org
The other major restriction is that material at Wikibooks must have a neutral point of view.
For projects which are deemed outside the scope, as an alternative to deletion, it might be a good idea to have "Votes for adoption" - books tagged in this form could continue to be developed for the time being, but people would be encouraged to find a different, free content wiki to host them. Once there is consensus about a new home, the Wikibooks version would be redirected there.
I will forward this idea to the [[Wikibooks:Staff lounge]] (the equivalent of the Scriptorium or beer parlour).
Just some ramblings from a non-Wikibooks editor,
Actually Jimmy Wales does not edit Wikibooks much (his user page does not even mention his role as President), and the project seems to have poor communication with the Wikimedia Foundation, meaning that the Foundation is unaware of situations at Wikibooks (both en.wikibooks and the other language editions).
-- [[User:Kernigh]] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
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