Help!
Wikibooks in in disarray, and we need to work together to make it presentable, if we really want anyone to ever use it.
We have been working on the (English) main page for the last week, getting rid of the bunches of dead links, organizing the information, and makin' it look purty. But there is still work to be done there. Especially making sure that all of the links that are there take people right to the information that will be most helpful to them, and eliminating or consolidating all other options.
And there is still a lot of work to be done to the pages that are linked from the front page, as these are the first and most important pages that newcomers will find. (Especially Wikibooks:About; Welcome, newcomers; Wikibooks:FAQ; etc.)
It is time to begin to elect a couple of books that we can take as far as possible, to ready them for actual real-world use. It is much better to have one great example than have 1,000 bad, mediocre, or half-done examples.
Karl
PS I was living outside my homeland for over a year there, in a place with limited internet access. But now I am back, and eager to get back to work to make this a resource that really will change the world!
Karl Wick wrote:
Help!
Wikibooks in in disarray, and we need to work together to make it presentable, if we really want anyone to ever use it.
We have been working on the (English) main page for the last week, getting rid of the bunches of dead links, organizing the information, and makin' it look purty. But there is still work to be done there. Especially making sure that all of the links that are there take people right to the information that will be most helpful to them, and eliminating or consolidating all other options.
And there is still a lot of work to be done to the pages that are linked from the front page, as these are the first and most important pages that newcomers will find. (Especially Wikibooks:About; Welcome, newcomers; Wikibooks:FAQ; etc.)
It is time to begin to elect a couple of books that we can take as far as possible, to ready them for actual real-world use. It is much better to have one great example than have 1,000 bad, mediocre, or half-done examples.
Karl, please be cautious in pruning. We are finally beginning to see real experts and enthusiast show up to begin filling in the fractal knowledge base. Unfortunately, a zeal to look professional to potential students may backfire.
Is it better to attract two thousand highly qualified individuals to write high quality books or a million volunteer students from all walks of life to initialize Wikiversity?
I favor the latter. It is fine with me if material is moved away from the inital portals easy to find by newly arriving wiki neophytes but deleting or excessive pruning is inevitably going to lead to massive conflict as local owners of polished materials competitively discourage newcomers who threaten their dominance from intialization efforts of what everyone hopes will become a massive pivot point for human attention worldwide.
Consider an embryo growing in the womb. Excessive pruning of initial scaffolding to the discouragement of later arriving protein folders probably contributes to defect or abortion ??????
I am not a biologist, physiolist, or medical person. Perhaps we should seek JWSurf's assessment of you and I's inverted images of the best way to proceed?
piles to integrate eventually or high quality singular or low integer count correct complete final files?
Can both paths coexist peacefully or could Wikibooks take one and Wikiversity support the other (among many others obviously).
lazyquasar
I only subscribed to the list the other day, so I didn't receive Karl's original mail - I'm going to have to reply to two posts in one mail - sorry about this. (See below)
On 3/12/06, michael_irwin@verizon.net michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote:
Karl Wick wrote:
Help!
Wikibooks in in disarray, and we need to work together to make it presentable, if we really want anyone to ever use it.
We have been working on the (English) main page for the last week, getting rid of the bunches of dead links, organizing the information, and makin' it look purty. But there is still work to be done there. Especially making sure that all of the links that are there take people right to the information that will be most helpful to them, and eliminating or consolidating all other options.
And there is still a lot of work to be done to the pages that are linked from the front page, as these are the first and most important pages that newcomers will find. (Especially Wikibooks:About; Welcome, newcomers; Wikibooks:FAQ; etc.)
It is time to begin to elect a couple of books that we can take as far as possible, to ready them for actual real-world use. It is much better to have one great example than have 1,000 bad, mediocre, or half-done examples.
The Wikibooks front page looks good - nice work. I agree that it's vital to have good welcoming pages and help pages, espcially in an environment like a wiki, with which many people are still not familiar. However, these aren't exactly books.Regarding "great examples", is the only place to find these [[Book of the month]]? If so, I think the voting section should be further down the page, and some selected examples left at the top, to impress the curious newcomer. (Is this the equivalent of the Featured Articles on WP?) I'll leave someone who's more knowledgeable on Wikibooks content to decide what they should be.
Michael (Lazy quasar) wrote:
Karl, please be cautious in pruning. We are finally beginning to see real experts and enthusiast show up to begin filling in the fractal knowledge base. Unfortunately, a zeal to look professional to potential students may backfire.
Is it better to attract two thousand highly qualified individuals to write high quality books or a million volunteer students from all walks of life to initialize Wikiversity?
I favor the latter. It is fine with me if material is moved away from the inital portals easy to find by newly arriving wiki neophytes but deleting or excessive pruning is inevitably going to lead to massive conflict as local owners of polished materials competitively discourage newcomers who threaten their dominance from intialization efforts of what everyone hopes will become a massive pivot point for human attention worldwide.
Consider an embryo growing in the womb. Excessive pruning of initial scaffolding to the discouragement of later arriving protein folders probably contributes to defect or abortion ??????
I am not a biologist, physiolist, or medical person. Perhaps we should seek JWSurf's assessment of you and I's inverted images of the best way to proceed?
piles to integrate eventually or high quality singular or low integer count correct complete final files?
Can both paths coexist peacefully or could Wikibooks take one and Wikiversity support the other (among many others obviously).
lazyquasar
I think you're right in as far as what will make a successful Wikiversity community to begin with. We need enthusiasts, not necessarily experts. If we can attract two thousand experts early on, excellent. But they will start trickling in as long as we, as a community, provide for and value theirs and others' diverse experience and needs.
I don't really know what the rest of the mail is about, however :-)
Cormac
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
For the record, I myself am just a student (well, graduated now.) I'd welcome constructive contributions from everyone who is able to make them.
And no plans for any pruning, just looking for the way to present the available information in the way where the greatest number of people can find meaningful material as painlessly as possible. It's about focus.
Karl
On 3/12/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
I only subscribed to the list the other day, so I didn't receive Karl's original mail - I'm going to have to reply to two posts in one mail - sorry about this. (See below)
On 3/12/06, michael_irwin@verizon.net michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote:
Karl Wick wrote:
Help!
Wikibooks in in disarray, and we need to work together to make it presentable, if we really want anyone to ever use it.
We have been working on the (English) main page for the last week,
getting
rid of the bunches of dead links, organizing the information, and
makin' it
look purty. But there is still work to be done there. Especially making
sure
that all of the links that are there take people right to the
information
that will be most helpful to them, and eliminating or consolidating all other options.
And there is still a lot of work to be done to the pages that are
linked
from the front page, as these are the first and most important pages
that
newcomers will find. (Especially Wikibooks:About; Welcome, newcomers; Wikibooks:FAQ; etc.)
It is time to begin to elect a couple of books that we can take as far
as
possible, to ready them for actual real-world use. It is much better to
have
one great example than have 1,000 bad, mediocre, or half-done examples.
The Wikibooks front page looks good - nice work. I agree that it's vital to have good welcoming pages and help pages, espcially in an environment like a wiki, with which many people are still not familiar. However, these aren't exactly books.Regarding "great examples", is the only place to find these [[Book of the month]]? If so, I think the voting section should be further down the page, and some selected examples left at the top, to impress the curious newcomer. (Is this the equivalent of the Featured Articles on WP?) I'll leave someone who's more knowledgeable on Wikibooks content to decide what they should be.
Michael (Lazy quasar) wrote:
Karl, please be cautious in pruning. We are finally beginning to see real experts and enthusiast show up to begin filling in the fractal knowledge base. Unfortunately, a zeal to look professional to potential students may backfire.
Is it better to attract two thousand highly qualified individuals to write high quality books or a million volunteer students from all walks of life to initialize Wikiversity?
I favor the latter. It is fine with me if material is moved away from the inital portals easy to find by newly arriving wiki neophytes but deleting or excessive pruning is inevitably going to lead to massive conflict as local owners of polished materials competitively discourage newcomers who threaten their dominance from intialization efforts of what everyone hopes will become a massive pivot point for human attention worldwide.
Consider an embryo growing in the womb. Excessive pruning of initial scaffolding to the discouragement of later arriving protein folders probably contributes to defect or abortion ??????
I am not a biologist, physiolist, or medical person. Perhaps we should seek JWSurf's assessment of you and I's inverted images of the best way to proceed?
piles to integrate eventually or high quality singular or low integer count correct complete final files?
Can both paths coexist peacefully or could Wikibooks take one and Wikiversity support the other (among many others obviously).
lazyquasar
I think you're right in as far as what will make a successful Wikiversity community to begin with. We need enthusiasts, not necessarily experts. If we can attract two thousand experts early on, excellent. But they will start trickling in as long as we, as a community, provide for and value theirs and others' diverse experience and needs.
I don't really know what the rest of the mail is about, however :-)
Cormac
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
Karl Wick wrote:
For the record, I myself am just a student (well, graduated now.) I'd welcome constructive contributions from everyone who is able to make them.
And no plans for any pruning, just looking for the way to present the available information in the way where the greatest number of people can find meaningful material as painlessly as possible. It's about focus.
Karl
I'd like to note that the pruning and interior cleanup of Wikibooks has been happening now for some time. The very active Votes for Deletion is a demonstration of this, which has also served as a general forum for trying to determine on a case by case basis what kinds of content ought to remain and what should go.
For the record, I tend to try and keep stuff here rather than remove stuff all over the place, but there has been some content added to Wikibooks that simply didn't belong. Several projects like the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica or posting the Quoran have been moved to Wikisource, some content has been moved to the Academic Publishing and Fiction Wikicities, and the Jokebook has become its own independent project all to itself and completely removed from Wikibooks.
Is the the kind of pruning that was being refered to?
I also like what Karl has been doing on the front page. The previous front page had been a good introduction to Wikibooks and served its purpose, but Wikibooks has simply grown so much that all of the books on Wikibooks is now simply overwhelming to a brand new user. If you look at the bottom of the page, even the number of active Wikibooks projects in other languages has grown considerably, and (unofficially) I've culled out those alternative language Wikibooks projects that have less than 10 pages of actual content.
If you look at the front pages of the top six (by page count) language Wikibooks, you see a huge variety of approaches to cataloging this information. Indeed the discussion that took place on Staff Lounge for English Wikibooks took special note of the French and German Wikibooks as well as from other Wikimedia projects and some of the ideas that seemed to fit our current situation were adopted.
A good demonstration about the growth and development of Wikibooks is clearly the number of Wikibooks that are now available in PDF format. I count over 21. Because it does take some effort to make a PDF version, this is an example of content that has developed at least to a point that somebody found it worthwhile to assemble the pages of the Wikibook and put a printable edition out. This is an outstanding development. These have been available for some time, but I've got to thank Robin for putting these together in one place.
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org