We should still keep our focus on making good textbooks, even if that means deviating from the standards in some cases. We should not delete or summarize any existing content in accordance with the framework. IANAFormer academic school book writer/seller, but would it possible that this could be because most textbooks are written according to standards? Even if one standard is better than the others, most textbooks are still written according these standards I don't think it's a certainty that these books will be used just because they're approved. Don't you think that foreign countries would want textbooks written in simpler English? The radical ones use real books. I think that's a lot of what Wikibooks should be doing (not specifically for the homeschoolers, though). Let's be realistic: probably no wikibooks will be printed, and if one is printed, it will be a highly-edited and non-wikified, and this won't happen for a while. I think that the goal of Wikibooks shouldn't be centered around things like the High-school extentions book, the programming tutorials, and other things aimed at informal self-study. LDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com

----------- Exactly. on to ----------------- Good insight. One caveat. Digital paper is maturing, but probably not rapidly enough to see ubuquitous use within the next decade (I've spent some time in that sector, having had to look hard into Gyricon (Xerox PARC's spin-off) and eInk as part of an investment diligence a few years ago. This is wonderful technology, and someday it *will* largely replace paper, but that is some 1.5-3 decades away, maybe longer. Printed books do use paper, but paper can be made to be a "cradle-to-cradle" resource http://www.mbdc.com/, rather than a "cradle-to-grave" resource. Also, intelligent environmental planning can eliminate the environmental threat caused by over-printing on paper. Much of the world will depend on paper, or "paper-like" products for decades. This is the reality. Another reality is that most schools - whether public or private - will not universally use a "textbook" that is available only in digital format. Not in the foreseeable future (see above). Question: The Connexions Project at Rice http://cnx.rice.edu/ has the facility to be able to create printed pages quite easily, or so I've been led to be;ieve by several people who have participated in that project. Is there any possibility of hooking up this pilot project with Connexions, or learning from them, as regards the printing constraints in Wikipedia? Sanford

11-10-2003, om 20:18 schreef Sanford Forte: Is -------- This is wonderful news; thanks Wouter! Several months ago someone who had been given a thorough demo of Connexions' software told me that they had "solved the web-to-print problems that open source content models have heretofore lacked". He claimed that the Connexions software was very facile, transparent, and was able to nicely format text-to-print. He was also very excited about the formatting control with mathematical and scientific notation. Essentially, with their software release, Connexions will be enabling anyone who wants to do open source text-to-print models. Again, a perfect scenario for school systems that want to perform POD (print-on-demand) or larger, scaled print runs for a whole district, state, etc. With licensing issues being ironed out, and the release of this software, we should be on our way to a successful pilot in US History (assuming that topic remains a consensus choice), with other curriculum topics soon to follow. Sanford ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wouter Vanden Hove" <wouter.vanden.hove(a)pandora.be> To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:13 PM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Re: history texts

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com> To: "Wikimedia textbook discussion" <textbook-l(a)Wikipedia.org> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 8:44 AM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] history texts ------------------- Thanks for bringing this up, Jimmy. There is no particular political connotation intended by my use of the word 'progressive' (above). By 'progressive' I mean the very extensive process of inclusion and reaching out to citizens, parents, students, educational researchers, and others involved in education. The very scope of the current California Frameworks effort is unparalleled in public education. Note that California has had to include many, many viewpoints in the construction of curriculum for its public school students due to the massive cultural diversity present in this state. The outcome of this process is why the California frameworks are considered a model for others to follow. Note that these frameworks are used even by many private, and home, schools in California. ---------- Absolutely. Sanford

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote: Not under the Wikimedia Foundation auspices, no. NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything that we do. I know there was some discussion about NPOV and textbooks awhile back, but I really should make clear that I think that discussion wound up with a definitive answer: under the Wikimedia Foundation, everything we do is required to be NPOV. Sure. Books _about_ religion are fine. Doesn't even have to be comparative. A fine book would be an NPOV look at the history of Islam, for example. But it can't be pro-Islam or anti-Islam. It has to be neutral in the NPOV sense. What do you mean exactly? I guess it's allowed for NPOV reasons, but not allowed for POV reasons, if you see what I mean. The analogy I would use to illustrate this is how articles are sometimes split up on Wikipedia. People are tussling over what a particular article should say, and then they realize that, hey, the problem is that I'm trying to write about X and you're trying to write about Y, but we've unfortunately named the article XY. If a group is writing a book about genetics to fit the requirements of a particular sort of course on genetics, and if some other people try to put in too much information about political controversies within evolution, then it would be perfectly fine for the groups to part company and realize that they are working on different things. But it would NOT be o.k. to have 2 books written "from a perspective". If people want to do that, I think it's great. Someone should write a GNU FDL book about evolution, specifically from a Christian point of view let's say. And other people could redistribute it or modify it or whatever. But that's not the right book for us. --Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote: Well, my position is that what you're talking about is fully subsumed under NPOV. I think concrete examples can be very enlightening here, because at this level of abstraction it's hard for us to be very clear about what we mean "on the ground". And assuming for a moment that we all here more or less agree on a broadly humanist, scientific world view, an example running contrary to that might be best. But since I can't think of one, I'll keep it abstract. :-) A book might contain in the preface a disclaimer, added only if needed in response to someone who actually is complaining about the content of the book, similar to this: "This book deals only with accepted mainstream views of physicists. There are certainly other views out there, ranging from creative new innovations, as yet unproven, by the great scientists of tomorrow, to purely crank theories that are unlikely to ever be noticed beyond the feverish dreams of the creators. Although a book about such theories would likely be stimulating and entertaining, they are beyond the scope of this particular text." "On controversies within mainstream physics, we endeavor to speak neutrally, to merely present the controversy in a way that both sides would consider fair. On controversies that lie beyond the edge of mainstream physics, we endeavor here too to speak neutrally. The lack of inclusion of some idea here is not a condemnation (or endorsement, of course) of that idea, but rather an acknowledgement simply that the idea is not sufficiently mainstream to permit us to include it within our limited scope." O.k., let me spin that around and make it about something else entirely, to try to illustrate the same point again in a different way. "This book deals only with accepted mainstream views of Catholic doctrine. We are here attempting to simply present in a neutral fashion what Catholic doctrine is, and controversies within the Catholic church, rather than addressing critiques and controversies arising outside the Church. There are certainly other views out there, and a book about such critiques and controversies would likely be stimulating and entertaining, but those are beyond the scope of this particular text." "On controversies within the Church, we endeavor to speak neutrally, to merely present the controversy in a way that both sides would consider fair. On controversies that lie beyond the edge of the Church, we endeavor here too to speak neutrally. The lack of inclusion of some idea here is not a condemnation (or endorsement, of course) of that idea, but rather an acknowledgement simply that the idea is not sufficiently internal to the Church itself to permit us to include it within our limited scope." The point is that in a chapter in this book about homosexuality, it would be perfectly appropriate to exclude secular critiques of the Church's position, except to the extent that those critiques have gained currency within Church or theological circles. The book would simply not be _about_ that. I think that such limitations of scope are perfectly NPOV, and also resolve the issues about how to keep textbooks from having to endlessly cover crackpot theories or extraneous controversies. "On the ground", we'll have to look to specific controversies and come to some consensus or compromise as to what we're doing. Probably the most effective way to resolve such things is to negotiate and then _firmly adhere_ to an overall statement of purpose for each book. That way, particular controversies can be handled by asking "does this meet the mission statement of the book", something that's easier for partisans to agree upon, rather than "Should this book be about X or about Y?" a question upon which opinions may legitimately vary. --Jimbo

Wikibooks is in no position to judge who is an expert on the issues. As long as they've been published, they're an expert. But that sounds somewhat impractical. The solution is to have different textbooks for different groups of experts emphasized, and have more of a focus that group. This can be a little bit POV towards that group (as I think) or completely NPOV, just focused (as most other people think), but this seems to be the general consensus of most people here. LDan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com