Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>Jguk wrote:
>4, 5. Games guides are not textbooks. Therefore they do not fit within Wikibooks'
purpose.
>
Define game guides and textbooks, and you might have a
point. The very
definition of these words is subject to a huge range of interpretations
and is the real crux of the argument here. I would agree that a video
game walk-through is not a textbook, and was something being addressed
by the video game guidelines/policies before this whole argument turned
that effort into a farce. Several video game books did need to either
be deleted or modified, but it didn't have to be so dramatic, and could
have been dealt with through more community concensus and editor
participation. Again my complaint was that Wikibooks were deleted
without even so much as a VfD, even when they contained dozens or more
pages of content from hundreds of different contributors. That didn't
have to happen.
This is somewhere where we have a completely different attitude to things: I think it is
important that textbook is not defined, but instead left to have its normal English
meaning. This makes things less restrictive. I also do not see a problem with
not defining it.
Maybe my background explains why I think not defining the term is helpful.
I am a UK tax professional - and the most common decision in deciding whether
a business expense is tax deductible or not is in deciding whether it is revenue
or capital. Revenue is deductible, capital is not. Neither terms are defined in
statute law. There have been many cases, however, on what capital is.
Largely this is not a problem. Transferring the point to Wikibooks - it would
mean that in marginal cases, we would discuss the point on VfD, but it
would also mean that we would allow more content on Wikibooks than if
we had a prescriptive, line-in-the-sand-type rule. The failure of the recent
attempt to suggest an"accredited institution" metric shows the innate problem
of getting a firm definition that will work in every case - a lack of definition
allows for greater flexibility.
Jguk wrote
12. Inevitably the removal of game guides from
Wikibooks will see those who
only edited those areas of Wikibooks leave. It will also see those who spent
some of their time on Wikibooks on editing game guides, and some time on textbooks,
reduce the time they spend on Wikibooks. On the other hand, a more focused
Wikibooks will help attract other new editors committed to providing quality
open-content textbooks.
I totally disagree on this point, and it is a point that we certainly
don't see eye to eye on. I do believe that contributors are leaving
that have contributed to other areas of Wikibooks, and this is a far too
callous attitude to hold a certain segment of the Wikibooks community
with contempt. Video game books were an excellent way for new
contributors to "get their feet wet" in editing some content that they
didn't feel they needed a PhD in order to make some meaningful
contributions. Rather than simply outright deletion of this content, we
should have been pushing to raise the standards of the existing content.
Also, I see here a huge contempt for new contributors
of any kind. I
believe that education and patience is a better answer to deal with
people new to Wikimedia projects, not a brazen removal of their effort
and a few harsh words or even just two or three words like "not a
textbook" to explain why their contribution has been deleted. These new
contributors is the lifeblood of the project and how Wikibooks will grow
to be successful.
Indeed, we do disagree greatly here. Far from showing contempt for new
contributors, I have received many notes of thanks for the help I have
given them (some of which can be read on Wikibooks, others were by
personal email). The problem with referring to "a few harsh words" is that
you do not see what is hidden behind the scenes.
In terms of whether we are, in practice, turning large numbers of people away,
I don't think that is true. I regularly look at the
alexa.com rankings, and have
been expecting a big dip after the removal of many of our game guides. This
hasn't happened.
jguk wrote:
Y. Eric Moeller's suggestion of renaming
Wikibooks to Wikitextbooks has some merit.
Although "Wikitextbooks" is longer and less sexy, it would make clearer to
everyone what
Wikibooks' scope is. Many people, particularly on Wikipedia, incorrectly think that
any
book content is suitable for Wikibooks. This is a misconception that really should be
removed.
Rob Horning wrote:
I think this is the wrong move, and something that was
brought up in the
very beginning of Wikibooks, when it was originally textbooks.wikipedia
It was felt at the time by the project founder, Karl
Wick, that
Wikibooks could be much more than simply college textbooks. I can't put
any words into his mouth, but if you read the archives of this mailing
list you can see some of the discussions about that point. As it is, we
have more than just university-level books, but for almost every age
group and over a huge variety of subjects. The very name of the project
suggests that Wikibooks is about books.... a topic exposition that is
much longer than an encyclopedia article. That is why I have long
contended that any topic on Wikipedia could be expanded into a full
Wikibook, which is why the current Wikipedia forking policy (to
Wikibooks) is written the way it is right now. If a very long Wikipedia
article is being trimmed down to fit within their 32k article limit, I
don't see a reason why it couldn't be moved to Wikibooks as a stub to be
expanded on Wikibooks. And that is any article on any topic currently
within the scope of Wikipedia. Explain why this shouldn't be the case?
I do see the future of Wikibooks as having a much, much wider range of
textbooks than just textbooks for schoolchildren, but I do see the latter
as being an essential core.
I certainly agree that much content from Wikipedia could and should be
honed into good working textbooks. Some Wikibooks (such as the
cookbook and bartending books) already are easy to merge new one-off
Wikipedia pages into.
For other one-and-a-half-pagers, I think there is a difference between whether
they can (and will) be grouped together with other one-and-a-half-pagers
on a similar subject into a meaningful general interest textbook or not. If the
former, we should accept them here, if not, then we should not.
Jon
(jguk)