[Textbook-l] Game guides

Fri Jun 9 19:44:45 UTC 2006

Jon wrote:

>It would be useful if Jimmy would comment on the questions asked, but I would like to make the following comments (the numbers refer to Lord Voldemort's initial email):
> 
>1, 2. My understanding is that Wikibooks' purpose always has been to provide textbooks. Article II of the Wikimedia Foundation bylaws says, in part, refers to  "... a collection of e-book resources aimed specifically toward students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks".  (see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws )
>

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  This clause was put into the 
bylaws completely without any participation by the Wikibooks community 
or input of any kind.  It was also created (the bylaws) well after 
Wikibooks was a well established project, and the video game guides were 
already a major section with their own bookshelf.  Refering to this 
section as the constitutional basis for why these books need to be 
deleted is patently a false assumption and does nothing to help the 
argument to keep or remove these Wikibooks.  In addition, the bylaws 
don't go into specific project policies, but only give a general broad 
definition as to what (at the time) the Wikimedia Foundation did do when 
it was incorporated.  There is also the very broad general clause of "to 
encourage the further growth and development of open content, social 
software WikiWiki-based projects".  I fail to see how any of this 
content violates that clause of the bylaws.

The bylaws were never intended to be used in this fashion to restrict 
the scope of existing projects beyond what they were when the bylaws 
were adopted.

>3. The Wikimedia Foundation, operating through its Board, have overall control of Wikibooks (they set its scope in the Foundation bylaws, and can choose to change this or to close the project if they see fit). However, subject to this, Wikibookians deal with the day to day editing of the site, including the setting of site policies (whilst this is subject to them being consistent with what the WMF says, the WMF is very hands-off in this regard).
>
There is also the preceedent that this is a very unusual move from the 
history of other Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia.  So far I 
havn't seen anybody suggesting that the video game Wikiprojects be 
removed from Wikipedia, for instance.  About the only time I've seen a 
major action on the part of the WMF taking a decisive role in the 
*CONTENT* of a Wikimedia project was with the temporary closure and 
restart of the French Wikiquote, where large quantities of non-free 
(read copyrighted) content was added in violation of project policy in 
general.  This was indeed a legal liability to the WMF, and they needed 
to act decisively on that issue.  I fail to see how the video game 
guides rise to that level of critical importance that such intervention 
is necessary with Wikibooks, and specifically en.wikibooks, where I 
don't see any attempt to address this with the other wikibooks projects 
in other languages either.

> 
>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.

>6, 7. Wikibooks' contributors must work within the defined scope of the project. They are on a very free rein as to what they do, but they cannot extend this scope. Requests for scope changes and new Wikimedia projects can be made on Metawiki.
>
Again, even the Meta wiki is a more recent development than Wikibooks, 
and I have never seen such a "scope change" for any project, except 
perhaps the Wikiversity proposal.  And that was to split Wikiversity 
from Wikibook.  The red tape to accomplish such a task has proven to be 
so incredible that I'm surprised that anybody tries any more.  In 
addition, the scope of Wikibooks has been well defined, especially 
through the "What is Wikibooks?" and "What Wikibooks is not" pages. 
 Until recently, the largest problem was seeing Wikibooks become 
Wikipedia II, where people would write duplicate Wikipedia articles on 
Wikibooks, or using Wikibooks to host original public domain source 
material.  I have been very active in trying to define the relationship 
between Wikibooks and the other Wikimedia sister projects in this 
regard, and there has been some success in this regard.

> 8. "Textbook" has its normal English meaning. There is no special Wikibooks definition of it. A textbook on games, game design, history of games that would assist someone studying them would be within Wikibooks' scope. Note, however, that no-one would reasonably describe a simple games walkthrough as a textbook. They might call it a guide or perhaps, at a push, a manual, but it would not be a textbook in the normal sense.
> 
>9. A straightforward guide on a board game would not normally be described as a textbook. As for game guides, however, it would be possible to write a detailed textbook on some board games suitable for students.
> 
>10, 11. The talk of an "accredited institution" metric appears to have been suggested mostly by those speaking out in favour of keeping games guides, with the idea of rubbishing it as providing too narrow an inclusion criterion. We don't need such a metric - the general test is whether the book is or is not a textbook (but see my qualification of this below). An "accredited institution" metric along the lines of "if a subject is studied in a number of accredited institutions it can be deemed worthy of study" may be acceptable in the sense that textbook subjects meeting that test should be allowed. However, any such test should not be limiting - there are many worthwhile subjects for study that do not meet that test that are within Wikibooks' scope.
> 
>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.

>13. I would add the following. "Textbook" has its normal English meaning. There are many possible subject areas and styles for textbooks. The word should be interpreted widely on Wikibooks, but the meaning should not be stretched so as to include texts that are clearly not textbooks in any sense of the word. There are also some subjects that are innately inappropriate as subjects of textbooks, or which would be deemed unsuitable - these are few and far between, but might include textbooks extolling black (or white) supremacy, a textbook to train people in terrorism, a textbook on a little recognised constructed language (such as one I have just made up, or which literally only a handful of people have any interest in). Other than extreme cases such as these (which can be discussed on WB:VFD), all textbooks should be welcome on Wikibooks.
> 
>X. There has not been a suggestion that all "How-tos" were removed. Jimbo has noted that some "How-tos" should be removed (which was certainly true at the time). This unfortunately, but I believe erroneously, was picked up by some to mean that all How-tos should be removed.
> 
>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.
>
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?

> 
>Kind regards
> 
>Jon
>(jguk)
>  
>

-- 
Robert Scott Horning