[Foundation-l] MediaWiki Handbook, i.e. Help pages

Tue Jan 3 06:06:49 UTC 2006

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Robert Scott Horning wrote
>
>> I got into an editorial dispute with another admin on Wikibooks, 
>> where I was having the help pages simply redirect to Meta (including 
>> the MediaWiki:Edithelppage location) to point users directly to the 
>> original source rather than trying to duplicate the content on 
>> Wikibook.  These changes were reverted back, so I started a VfD on 
>> Wikibooks over this whole thing to get community input on the 
>> concept.  So far, it is accepted as gospel fact that this content 
>> must be duplicated, but I am challenging that assertion and trying to 
>> find out why it is done in this manner. 
>
>
> I've just read through the Wikibooks VfD discussion on this, and find 
> it unfortunate that this was the avenue chosen for this discussion.  I 
> don't think that it's a deletion issue at.  Some of the pages are 
> probably very useful; if one of them fills a policy hole I don't mond 
> it's staying there for the time being.  It's really a question of 
> project members' rights to edit the pages.    A see also link to the 
> corresponding page in Meta should be adequate for having access to the 
> information there.

The reason I chose a VfD was because it was a reversal of a previous 
position on Wikibooks (I'm still trying to find the discussion that now 
appears to be wiped from the current forums) that all of the Help pages 
were to be hosted on Meta directly and not even dealt with on Wikibooks. 
 There have also been several Wikibook proposals to write about how to 
edit Wikimedia projects, and most recently I started a Wikibook about 
how to admin Wikimedia projects.  That one got a VfD within less than a 
day of creation, and a violation of Wikibooks policies at least for how 
quickly the VfD was applied.  The main philosophy that has been used in 
the past to get rid of such Wikibooks is that it is a duplication of 
effort detracting from the effort to create the MediaWiki handbook, and 
that the effort to create such how-to books should be done on Meta 
instead.  I'm starting to strongly question that line of reasoning, and 
I feel that it is a loss to the community as a whole that this is a 
forbidden subject on Wikibooks... especially when I can't find any 
formal policy anywhere on either Meta or Wikibooks that addresses the 
topic... even as a proposed policy.  I've even had a hard time trying to 
find this idea suggested on a talk page somewhere.

The point of deletion is to reverse this "spamming" of Wikibooks with 
duplicate content from Meta and revert to the previous state of having 
the help pages being hosted on Meta directly.  I don't consider this to 
be vandalism in the traditional sense, but it does cause headaches for 
admins when it would be better spent trying to deal with other issues on 
the smaller projects.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning