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(a)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(a)verizon.net <michael_irwin(a)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
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