[Textbook-l] Game Guides

Wed Jun 14 13:41:31 UTC 2006

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Indeed, even the idea of making Wikibooks strictly non-fiction content 
> is something relatively new, although I think this is a reasonable 
> focus. 

I do not think this is new at all.  I have said, from the very beginning
of Wikibooks, that NPOV is non-negotiable here as elsewhere.  Go read
the archives of the mailing list for an extended discussion of this.

Fiction has never been contemplated as being part of the Wikibooks mission.

> The problem that Wikibooks is facing now is the incredibly 
> limiting restriction of making Wikibooks only for textbooks, with no 
> real clear definition as to what a textbook really is.  Saying that you 
> must cite a course of study in an accredited educational institution and 
> that the textbook fits in with a proscribed syllabus is going way too 
> far in my opinion.  How could anything possibly be written at all with 
> that sort of very strict interpretation?  Yet that is precisely the 
> standard that is being used.

I do not see how this is the current standard, nor do I see how such a
standard is especially restrictive.

> If we (and especially Jimbo) is suggesting that this is the standard 
> that needs to be applied, perhaps we simply need to nuke the whole 
> website, such as was done with French Wikiquote.  Kill everything and 
> perhaps bring back the one agreed upon textbook that started it all: 
>  Organic Chemistry.

?  There are thousands and thousands of perfectly legitimate pages in
Wikibooks which stick quite firmly to the mission.  And there is a tiny
handful, which the community has been eliminating over time, which do
not.  No problem, and certainly no reason to shut anything down.

> Calling in the U.S. 
> Federal Government on this issue is an attempt to distract from the 
> issue, which is a policy dispute between one rather prominent individual 
> (namely Jimbo) and admins on Wikibooks. 

I do not think there is any dispute between me and any admins.  As far
as I have been able to determine whenever you and I have emailed about
this privately, we see 100% eye to eye on all these matters, for example.

>  My understanding was that
> they were very distinct groups (Wikia and Wikimedia) and the policies 
> and even existance of a Wikia project has no bearing on Wikimedia 
> projects.

I agree with you completely.  If community members are making decisions
on that basis, that is their right, but there is nothing coming from me
that would lead in that direction.

--Jimbo

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