On 11/22/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Still, as a Wikibook admin I am scratching
my head to understand the full impact of this official policy change. In
particular, it means that non-textbooks like the Cookbook may have to
go, at least if we have a consistant textbook-only policy.
In legitimate, accredited cooking schools, cookbooks are textbooks. I
see no reason why a cookbook should not be considered a textbook in this
context.
There is a general tolerance of new content that
goes onto Wikibooks, in
part because it is a smaller project and we are trying to attract and
keep contributors even if they add content that perhaps should be there.
This is a mistake, actually. The best way to attract and keep new
contributors is to have a clean and passionate mission which is kept as
simple as possible. Seeing tolerance for a "white power" racist tract
(which went through a long vfd before finally being deleted after I saw
it and complained, rather than deleting on sight and banning the creator
as a racist vandal...) is a great way to drive away contributors -- the
same goes for other cruft like "How to get a girl".
SJ made a good post about this one. Call the book "Dating Skills" or
"Developing Healthy Relationships" and it's more clearly not cruft.
In fact, you could probably even call it a textbook.
"I'm
happy to give more time, but these books are already candidates for
speedy deletion. The point is that, to give on example which was
thankfully already deleted, a racist white-power book is not a textbook,
never will be a textbook, and should have been deleted on site and the
creator banned for vandalism on site. --Jimbo Wales
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales> 21:03, 13 November 2005
(UTC)"
The user that added this white power book has otherwise done Wikibooks
quite a bit of good, and banning him would only make an enemy rather
than a useful contributor.
I very strongly disagree. Wikibooks does not need such books, and it
was an is an embarassment to see such a thing.
--Jimbo
I agree that Wikibooks doesn't need such books, and I'm sure you were
embarassed to see it. But that doesn't mean you need to ban the
person who added it.
Anthony