Offer to upload a book, subject to conditions

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Simetrical

8 Feb 2007 8 Feb '07

2:07 a.m.

I know a professor of art history, Ph.D. from Columbia University and currently teaching at the City College of New York, who has written a book on how to write about art. She isn't interested in making money off it, and would be interested in releasing it under a free license for Wikibooks to use. However, she wants: 1) That it come up on a Google search for her name, i.e., that there's some attribution on the pages themselves (not just in the history). 2) That no one other than her change it (presumably other than wikilinking, breaking it into subpages, modifying navigational headers, that sort of thing). Now, obviously both points are largely against wiki principles, but my impression is that the basic goal of Wikibooks is to publish quality textbooks, and that wiki is just a means to an end here. Would Wikibooks be willing to accept these terms?

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Robert Scott Horning

8 Feb 8 Feb

2:40 a.m.

Simetrical wrote:

...

Has she considered Wikisource? The goal of Wikisource is to preserve the content as is, with the only editing to improve minor spelling issues or to fix the content to a more historically accurate version. "Donated" works are acceptable from what I understand as well. The main thing that must be done is that it must be available for licensing under the GFDL, or something semi-compatable like the Creative Commons licensing (not CC-by-SA-NC though), or simply released into the public domain. Apparently that isn't a problem. In addition, I don't see a problem having her name clearly labeled as the author on the "title page", or even having subpages also listing her name as part of a navigation header or something like that. This doesn't really go against Wiki principles at all. Wikibooks themselves often have author pages where principle contributors try to stake out authorship claims for copyright purposes, with a list of authors sometimes on the "main page" of the Wikibook... or "people willing to help put this book together" like would also be found on Wikipedia on Wikiprojects. Wikisource also has other navigation aids that might be useful, such as "author pages" and other things that might also fit in here. She might even get a kick out of being lumped into the same page as other more classical authors like Samuel Clemmens and Frank Baum. As far as being referenced on bookshelves on Wikibooks, I don't see harm in that either. I've long been an advocate of integrating links between Wikisource and Wikibooks where appropriate, but trying to find volunteers who would be willing to catalog the content of both projects has been very hard to come by. This certainly can be referenced by Wikibooks projects, as well as be used on Wikiversity, and in fact is encouraged. Getting high rankings on the Google search would not be a problem at all. Considering the high number of links going to and coming from various websites, the categories such a book would be in on Wikisource, and the activity on the various Wikimedia projects, I would have a hard time seeing that this wouldn't appear as one of the top 20 websites with her name if it were put on there. I'm not speaking for Google here or promising anything in particular, but historically Wikimedia projects generally appear quite high in google rankings for many reasons. The other issue that I would imagine would be to have resolved would be to have all of the images properly sourced and to make sure that they can be available to a GFDL'd project. If there are some fair-use images being used, you might want to take this issue up with the Scriptorium on Wikisource for some further guidance. This is a good idea, and I think that some accomodations can be made. Try to follow up on this and see if there is some way we can get the content onto some sort of Wikimedia server, although I would recommend Wikisource as the ultimate site, considering what she is aiming for here. -- Robert Scott Horning

Simetrical

3:08 a.m.

On 2/7/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning(a)netzero.net> wrote:

...

According to the policy, <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:What_Wikisource_includes>, non-documentary sources "must have been published in a medium that includes peer review or editorial controls; this excludes self-publication". Although she may publish the book more conventionally too, it's not going to happen right away and it may not happen at all, so I don't think it qualifies (yet).

...

The main thing that must be done is that it must be available for licensing under the GFDL, or something semi-compatable like the Creative Commons licensing (not CC-by-SA-NC though), or simply released into the public domain. Apparently that isn't a problem.

No, I don't believe so.

...

In addition, I don't see a problem having her name clearly labeled as the author on the "title page", or even having subpages also listing her name as part of a navigation header or something like that. This doesn't really go against Wiki principles at all. Wikibooks themselves often have author pages where principle contributors try to stake out authorship claims for copyright purposes, with a list of authors sometimes on the "main page" of the Wikibook... or "people willing to help put this book together" like would also be found on Wikipedia on Wikiprojects. Wikisource also has other navigation aids that might be useful, such as "author pages" and other things that might also fit in here. She might even get a kick out of being lumped into the same page as other more classical authors like Samuel Clemmens and Frank Baum.

That sounds very good.

...

The other issue that I would imagine would be to have resolved would be to have all of the images properly sourced and to make sure that they can be available to a GFDL'd project. If there are some fair-use images being used, you might want to take this issue up with the Scriptorium on Wikisource for some further guidance.

Apparently there are no images. (Which seems strange to me for a book about writing about art, but hey, not like I've read it.)

Robert Scott Horning

4:14 p.m.

Simetrical wrote:

...

On 2/7/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning(a)netzero.net> wrote:

The purpose of this is to avoid people who seek vanity publishers. There have been a few "books" that have been uploaded to Wikibooks that IMHO are really just vanity publishing, but usually the idea that the content must be editable to others scares away most of those who seek to go this route. Obviously Wikisource gets hit much harder on something like this, which is why they have such a firm policy. Honestly, another "alternative" to this perhaps might be Wikiversity. The policies are not quite as firm there, but I would have to say that the definition of a textbook on Wikiversity would be much stronger than perhaps what you would find on Wikibooks, where more general purpose "How-to" books are allowed. If this could be integrated into a Wikiversity "course", there might even be some very real interest in having this hosted on Wikiversity. Certainly this is something to bring up on the Wikiversity "Collequium" (the Wikiversity village pump). Her professional credentials may have some influence on Wikiversity, as well as if the textbook is actually being used (or has been used) in an actual college course. Such things shouldn't matter ultimately, but Wikiversity is trying to get something going and this would also help bring legitimacy to that project. If this professor were to accept some legitimate "peer review" and legitimate criticism, try fix up some things that may be some glaring holes (she would still retain general editorial control), perhaps there might be some room as well. I'm just trying to find a solution to this. If she is simply tired of working on it, Wikibooks would be a better solution as it would open it up for further editing by somebody who might be interested in taking it somewhere in a new direction. At least try to offer a suggestion to go this route or try to find out why she is insisting on maintaining control over the word of the book and not opening it up for collaboration. Another very real possibility, and something I'm just trying to dig up right now, is the Academia Wikia, which you can find at: http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page They mainly do scholarly research, but something like this may also appeal to participants there. I will admit that I don't have any contact with the regular contributors there, however. -- Robert Scott Horning

Martin Swift

4:34 a.m.

Hi Simetrical, I fear there may be a snag in that second condition. As Robert pointed out, Wikisource might be a better place for this, but I believe they only host published works which, since your friend is considering a free license, this book isn't. On Wed, Feb 07, 2007 at 09:07:44PM -0500, Simetrical wrote:

...

2) That no one other than her change it (presumably other than wikilinking, breaking it into subpages, modifying navigational headers, that sort of thing). Now, obviously both points are largely against wiki principles, but my impression is that the basic goal of Wikibooks is to publish quality textbooks, and that wiki is just a means to an end here. Would Wikibooks be willing to accept these terms?

Yes, Wikibooks is an open forum for the collaboration to write quality educational material for public use. The problem is that the framework of the wiki as a tool for collaboration allows easy modification of any page to create a derived work which then becomes the new current version of that page at Wikibooks. Basically, I see no way, under as free a license as your friend wants to use (and Wikibooks requires) to ensure that the current version contents of the book are mostly her original work. In my view, the best way for her to realise her objective, is to simply host the book herself somewhere on the web. That will ensure that she has editorial control of that copy at that location (though others may choose to modify it elsewhere -- e.g. on Wikibooks). Sincerely, Martin Swift -- \u270C

Simetrical

1:43 p.m.

On 2/7/07, Martin Swift <martin(a)swift.is> wrote:

...

Well, you can just protect the pages. I assume that sysops won't go willy-nilly editing them. Obviously then she won't be able to directly update it, but she could still use the equivalent of {{edit protected}}.

...

In my view, the best way for her to realise her objective, is to simply host the book herself somewhere on the web. That will ensure that she has editorial control of that copy at that location (though others may choose to modify it elsewhere -- e.g. on Wikibooks).

This has pitfalls with respect to readership volume. Basically, publishing it on Wikibooks will ensure that it reaches a comparatively large audience, through Wikipedia sister links if nothing else.

Andrew Whitworth

2:13 p.m.

...

I think that the idea of this professor wanting to maintain creative control over her book is a difficult one to reconcile with Wikibooks, and one that I don't think a compromise is going to be found on. the primary goal of wikibooks is the collaborative authoring of textbooks, not simply a compilation of existing textbooks. While there have been some efforts in the past to "donate" existing books to our server, those efforts were only undertaken because the authors agreed to license the text under a compatable license, and were also willing to relinquish complete editorial control. One point that is worth making, however, is that contributorship on wikibooks is reasonably small. So long as your professor actively monitors her book, it is unlikely that anybody else will ever edit it (except for the occasional small spelling or grammar fix). As an example of this, the United Nations have donated a number of free books to our server (about two dozen, I believe), and besides small fixes on occasion, nobody has substantially edited any of those books in months. By being an active editor on this book, it is likely that your professor will maintain creative control by default, although if other interested contributors do try to make changes, there really isn't anyway that she could stop it from happening.

...

This has pitfalls with respect to readership volume. Basically, publishing it on Wikibooks will ensure that it reaches a comparatively large audience, through Wikipedia sister links if nothing else.

This point is true, but wikibooks is not supposed to be an advertising platform or a personal webhost. Getting the "wiki benefit" of readership requires that authors release there contributions under a particular license, and that they agree to let anybody edit it mercilessly. It's the price you have to pay, unfortunately. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ Laugh, share and connect with Windows Live Messenger http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0020000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://im…

Simetrical

4:54 p.m.

On 2/8/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

...

Well, it seems to me that the purpose of Wikibooks is to be "the open-content textbooks collection", not "the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit". But perhaps this is a matter that the Foundation should be consulted on. I know that Jimbo has stepped in to reorient the site in the past, with the game guides and so on.

...

This point is true, but wikibooks is not supposed to be an advertising platform or a personal webhost.

No, but it is supposed to get quality textbooks to as many readers as possible. That goal is better served, leaving aside for the moment how fundamental wiki is to Wikibooks, by accepting a quality textbook than by refusing one. In that regard, it benefits everyone more to allow a good textbook to piggyback on Wikibooks' and Wikipedia's success. The issue of wiki or not does remain, of course. On 2/8/07, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning(a)netzero.net> wrote:

...

Honestly, another "alternative" to this perhaps might be Wikiversity. The policies are not quite as firm there, but I would have to say that the definition of a textbook on Wikiversity would be much stronger than perhaps what you would find on Wikibooks, where more general purpose "How-to" books are allowed. If this could be integrated into a Wikiversity "course", there might even be some very real interest in having this hosted on Wikiversity. Certainly this is something to bring up on the Wikiversity "Collequium" (the Wikiversity village pump).

That's possible, of course, but I think that the issue of wiki (which is the point of contention here) would be just as much of an issue there as here. And while of course there's some overlap between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, I think it makes substantially more sense for Wikibooks to take a textbook than Wikiversity.

...

try to find out why she is insisting on maintaining control over the word of the book and not opening it up for collaboration.

Well, as I see it, the openness of wiki and the openness of traditional academia are similar in some ways but not the same. In academia, it's common to allow others extensive use of your work for free (after distribution costs, which are now close to zero with the advent of the Internet), but to claim credit for the work. That is, she wrote this book, and so it goes on her CV. If it's widely used, that probably also goes on her CV, along with the publisher and so forth. But "Wrote a textbook that other people modified and that is now used" isn't the sort of thing that's customary among academics, I don't think. Coauthorship, yes, but then you coauthored it with a few defined experts. The wiki idea of not really claiming credit for the work doesn't sit well with her, I don't think. Now, she's perfectly happy for other people to modify it. She would be fine if there were two copies, each linking to the other, one written by her and one editable by anyone. In her words:

...

I'd also be happy to have a version of it available for people to revise, so long as that one is clearly marked as an open mss and, this is the key point, so long as the one I wrote (perhaps revised as per some of the suggestions, as I have with the comments of 150 CCNY students and various art historians) remains posted, clearly marked as the work I wrote.

Perhaps this would be acceptable? Possibly the unmodifiable one need not even be hosted by Wikibooks, just linked to by it, which would neatly solve all the problems. I assume that Wikibooks would be happy to put a prominent link to the original at the top of every module, if it's available online somewhere.

...

Another very real possibility, and something I'm just trying to dig up right now, is the Academia Wikia, which you can find at: http://academia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Again, the basic idea here is to get the textbook to a broad readership, which tying into the WMF sites would do admirably. If it's not put at the WMF or some other prominent place, it may as well go on a personal or college website.

Andrew Whitworth

6:41 p.m.

...

It's a little pretentious to think that wikibooks should change itself, or that it should be changed by the WMF to allow any one particular book. Since it's inception, Wikibooks (and all WMF projects for that matter) have been primarily concerned with open content and collaboration. The rejection of one or both of these ideals is not one that should be encouraged or accepted. Even if the professor's motivation is not financial, the desire for recognition still counts as personal gain. If the selection as wikibooks as the webhost for the book is made only because of readership traffic, and it benefits the author more then it benefits the project, then I would certainly call it an attempt to use Wikibooks as a personal webhost.

...

This point is true, but wikibooks is not supposed to be an advertising platform or a personal webhost.

The stated goal of wikibooks is "the creation of open content textbooks". No part of that statement may be omitted and still have it be truth. We are more concerned with content creation then content hording, and the books must be "open content" (and therefore free from unilateral editorial control). Plenty of quality textbooks have been turned away from wikibooks in the past, and many will likely be turned away in the future. We are not currently desperate for new books enough to compromise our policies.

...

Now, she's perfectly happy for other people to modify it. She would be fine if there were two copies, each linking to the other, one written by her and one editable by anyone. In her words:

This would be perfectly acceptable. As has been done in the past, if a book is donated to wikibooks, prominent links will be displayed to the original version of the book, and information will be posted about the original author. If she has a PDF or other version of the book already, that version could even be uploaded to our server for reference (although we can't make a guarantee that any files uploaded won't be modified or overwritten, but it is more difficult). --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ Get in the mood for Valentine's Day. View photos, recipes and more on your Live.com page. http://www.live.com/?addTemplate=ValentinesDay&ocid=T001MSN30A0701

Karl Wick

7:10 p.m.

This book, if uploaded to Wikibooks, will be able to come up with Google searches. However the book will NOT be able to be eternally protected from editing by other authors. The donating professor would, in practice, likely be the main or only author/editor of the online text, but Wikibooks would NOT be able to host a static text over the long haul. For a limited time, as a service to an author or group of authors, Wikibooks could offer edit protection. But that protection would eventually have to be lifted. Perhaps the professor would like to host a static version of her work on another site, then offer the text to Wikibooks to create a "living", community-editable version. Karl

Simetrical

8:18 p.m.

On 2/8/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

...

It would indeed be pretentious to think that Wikibooks should be changed for a single textbook. It would not be pretentious to say that accepting certain conditions for a textbook is more in keeping with Wikibooks' ultimate goals than not accepting them, and that if Wikibooks policy currently doesn't allow it it should be changed. That's debatable, but it's not pretentious. WMF projects have not only been about public collaboration. The earliest project that could roughly be said to fall into the history of the WMF (even though the Foundation didn't exist then), Nupedia, permitted only very tightly controlled editing. Its content was still open and free, in that anyone could reuse or modify it, just as MediaWiki is free software but very few people have commit access (which is comparable to my original suggestion). Anyone can use or modify, but that doesn't mean you can modify the master copy. The open-content part of the WMF's philosophy is not negotiable, and will never be violated. Nor should it be. But the collaboration part was only ever a means to an end, and is most assuredly negotiable. Stable versions, when they come, will significantly cut down on public collaboration, and as the general quality of the projects improves, I predict that changes will be clamped down further. Remember that if Nupedia had worked better, Wikipedia would have been shut down. Wikipedia is only a wiki because it advanced the goal of free content better. The means should not be mistaken for the end. Instead, in each case evaluate whether the means better advances the end. And indeed, more concretely, it's perfectly possible for a Wikisource contributor to copy an entire work and have it permanently locked from editing. There, the collaborative part is optional. Because it doesn't serve the goal as well. But this is hopefully not an argument we need to continue, because I think everyone will be happy with Wikibooks having a modifiable copy and linking prominently to the main copy. I think that the focus on editability and collaboration is not as suitable for Wikibooks as for, say, Wikipedia, and that in the long run it won't do the project any good to reject requests like this, but it's probably not going to be an issue that directly affects me right now, and I have other things to do than to pursue it. So for now, I'm not very interested in continuing that branch of the discussion, assuming everyone is fine with a modifiable copy with links.

Martin Swift

9 Feb 9 Feb

2:04 a.m.

On Thu, Feb 08, 2007 at 03:18:16PM -0500, Simetrical wrote:

...

But this is hopefully not an argument we need to continue, because I think everyone will be happy with Wikibooks having a modifiable copy and linking prominently to the main copy.

Yes, I believe that would be very acceptable to everyone (wish I'd come up with the idea myself ;-). I'm sorry for what may appear like a hostile tone in parts of this discussion. I would like to point out that there is some background to why the community is so strictly defending the collaborative control. We aren't just blindly following the old means, but also trying to protect the ends. In the Wikibooks community, it is practically near impossible to attribute a contributor with status of "main editor" and give that user more editorial control than others. This /has/ been suggested and discussed in the past and the community found that the drawbacks and pitfalls were to many and too severe to accept this. I don't think anyone would contend to say that some books wouldn't benefit from a main author. But because of the current structure of the project it is unfeasable. Similar arguments apply to the topic of "free webhosting". I certainly don't think that your friend was looking to leach of Wikibooks. Most academics that I've interacted with are deeply dedicated to their field, and to furthering our collective understanding of the topic. Still, while your friend most likely has the best of intentions, at Wikibooks we don't allow conditions set on content. Again, it's not because we're hard headed and unwilling to deliberate the options. It's because we're an open community without any formal ranks (e.g. admins have no more authority in discussion and disputes). If your friend is looking to publish in a community with control based on expertese, she might want to - ehemm - look to academia... More seriously; your friend might actually want to explore whether there is some project like MIT's OpenCourseWare open to her: <http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm> "a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world." I have no delusions about the superiority of Wikibooks over academia. It's just one method of content creation and still in it's infancy. Thank you for contributing, Martin Swift -- \u270C

Simetrical

8:45 p.m.

Okay, it seems that everyone is happy with the idea of posting it with a link back to a controlled copy on her website. I've explained the terms of the GFDL to her and she's perfectly happy with them. I'll probably end up putting the book up sometime reasonably soon. On 2/8/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

...

Just for reference, what's an example of such a Wikibook?

Andrew Whitworth

12 Feb 12 Feb

1:08 a.m.

...

What format is your book in, currently? If it's in HTML currently, or some other kind of text-markup format, I have a bot available that can quickly handle the formatting changes. If not, you have to do it all the hard way (which I know from experiance can be a big pain).

...

On 2/8/07, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

This would be perfectly acceptable. As has been done in the past, if a

book

is donated to wikibooks, prominent links will be displayed to the

original

version of the book, and information will be posted about the original author.

Just for reference, what's an example of such a Wikibook?

When the UN APDIP donated their library of ebooks to our project, we included links to all the original PDF versions on the UN website. You can see all these books at [[Category:APDIP Books]]. All of those ebooks also include information about the original authors, and other meta-information to help direct interested readers back to the UN. An important point to make here, however, is that the links to the UN website are not considered to be links "for profit", and so we don't consider them spam or anything like that. -- Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________

...

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Robert Scott Horning

3:55 a.m.

Andrew Whitworth wrote:

...

I don't think that the issue of external links on Wikibooks or any other Wikimedia project really has to do much with wheither the link is "for profit" or not. The main issue is if the link has any relevance to the material that it is related to. A Wikipedia article (or even a how-to repair manual on Wikibooks) about the Ford Motor Company certainly can have a link to the official corporate website... and be considered a high quality link. In the case of the UN APDIP books, a link to the original PDF files is certainly relevant as it is the original source material, and you are maintaining academic integrety by noting the original source of the text. In a similar vein, if this offer to have the book on Wikibooks were to happen or even if it were just used as source material to create a very different book, its use as a bilbliographic reference certainly is very justified. The problem with link spamming is that 300 links for Viagra on a page about Quantum Mechanics is completely irrelvant to the topic under discussion. A sexual health Wikibook, on the other hand..... -- Robert Scott Horning

Andrew Whitworth

2:08 p.m.

...

I've said for a long time that many links are necessary as bibliographic, reference, and further reading information in a textbook. There is a camp of people who believe that there should be no external links in books whatsoever, as books are supposed to be "self-contained" resources themselves. I think that the "self-contained" metric is simply an alternate way of stating that a textbook is not supposed to link frequently to wikipedia, but instead should maintain it's own narrative. This is, however, neither here nor there. Because external links are often required in textbooks (or, barring requirement, that they are helpful), it has traditionally be left up to the judgement of the page patroller as to whether or not a link is considered "bibliographical/legitimate reference" or "spam". A potential metric to be used in making such a determination is to ask whether the link in question represents advocacy (and therefore violates NPOV), and also whether or not the link provides financial gain to the target at the expense of Wikibooks. My point above is that proper bibliographic and academic links rarely fail these tests, and won't be deleted as spam. --Andrew Whitworth _________________________________________________________________ Turn searches into helpful donations. Make your search count. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagli…

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Andrew Whitworth
Karl Wick
Martin Swift
Robert Scott Horning
Simetrical