Hi,

I have a request, with the blessing of Jimbo Wales, to open up a subdomain on WP for the exclusive development of open content textbooks. The subdomain name http://textbook.wikipedia.org has been suggested .. Jimmy told me to send an email to this group so that someone could do the under-the-hood work to get it going ... Thank you very much !!

Karl [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Karlwick]

Jimmy Wales wrote: Write to wikitech-l, and pass along my endorsement of the idea.

I'm personally (a) clueless about how to do this, and fearful of breaking something and (b) totally swamped. Brion is taking a week or two off, as I recall, so technical stuff isn't being handled with the usual diligence.

This will happen, yes, but it will take a couple of weeks I bet.

Karl Wick wrote:

Hey Jimbo,

...

I am very excited to hear that ! Is there a way to open up a spot on WP for this

development, at least for now ? (Mav suggested http://textbook.wikipedia.org ).

...

Karl

Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:

...

Well, I'm with you 100% on this.

Karl Wick wrote:

Hey Jimbo,

...

I dont have a big group of people who have expressed

interest but there are a couple. Mav told me that there were already plans to eventually build textbooks from WP materials, but that there should be a consensus on its

name

before he buys a separate domain name.

...

A user named April also has her own science textbook

Wiki

set up on a personal site hidden away somewhere but she

has

some pretty specific goals which are going to keep it pretty independant of the WP project.

...

I think there may be some people out there who would

work

and contribute to a textbook project even tho they might not be interested in an encyclopedia ... anyways there

are

some differences between the two that make it a separate beast although related.

...

People spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to

purchase

textbooks that contain nothing more than public domain material that would as well or better presented in hypertext, and I'm eager to start work on it ....

...

Sorry, dont want to chew your ear off.

Karl

Jimbo Wales wrote:

...

As far as I'm concerned, yes. I saw a thread on the

mailing list, but I haven't read it yet. Are people generally on board with the concept?

Karl Wick wrote:

Hi Jimbo,

...

I was wondering what I could to to get a subdomain

opened

up on Wikipedia for the development of textbooks. I've

got

a physics book I am writing that I would like to donate

as

well as some ideas for an organic chemistry book.

...

Thanks,

Karl

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