I'd like to comment on some things in Rob's last post.
First, where are examples of people moving How-to material that you believe ought to remain in Wikibooks to Wikia with a link thereto? I was not aware this was happening.
Second, I do not believe the responses to your suggestion about the possibility of having a textbook on Doom are consistent with your account here. I think the relevant discussions are all here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Staff_lounge/Archive_19#Gaming_manual...
You made a suggestion, Jimbo showed scepticism, but also noted that he was willing to be convinced otherwise. User:Jtvisona (which is not a Wikibooks user account name) then suggested that there were serious courses on it (without offering proof). After that, RobinH, Dragontamer, Lord Voldemort, hagindaz and myself noted that such a textbook would be possible and would be ok on Wikibooks. Although there were notes that the current Doom Wikibook was not such a textbook and that it would take a lot of time to write a textbook on Doom so that you may not wish to see it through, and there was a suggestion that a wider scope, to consider other strategy games, might be better.
The other commenters, Garrett and Gerard Foley, did not comment on the point explicitly, but their tone (and the knowledge that they are both keen gamers) suggests they are not against the idea. Jimbo did not comment again. I therefore think your statement that there was the "substantial resistance and even outright rejection" that you say there was.
Kind regards
Jon (jguk)
Jon wrote:
I'd like to comment on some things in Rob's last post.
First, where are examples of people moving How-to material that you believe ought to remain in Wikibooks to Wikia with a link thereto? I was not aware this was happening.
Well it is certainly happening with some potential Wikiversity content. Check the biology courses and some of the voluminous proposal revision for links if you are actually interested.
snip
After that, RobinH, Dragontamer, Lord Voldemort, hagindaz and myself noted that such a textbook would be possible and would be ok on Wikibooks. Although there were notes that the current Doom Wikibook was not such a textbook and that it would take a lot of time to write a textbook on Doom so that you may not wish to see it through, and there was a suggestion that a wider scope, to consider other strategy games, might be better.
Such a textbook or course would certainly find the game guides useful as reference materials. Who would presume to be presenting design tutorials for subjects related to video games without some basic understanding the previous two decades successful games?
The other commenters, Garrett and Gerard Foley, did not comment on the point explicitly, but their tone (and the knowledge that they are both keen gamers) suggests they are not against the idea. Jimbo did not comment again. I therefore think your statement that there was the "substantial resistance and even outright rejection" that you say there was.
I also saw a fair amount of rejection and outright hostility towards game focused materials in my occasional wanderings through wikibooks. It does not take a lot of deletion to establish a hostile environment to budding writers.
Sincerely, Michael R. Irwin
textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org