[Foundation-l] Re: Cleaning up Wikibooks

Fri Nov 18 21:54:48 UTC 2005

Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Wikibooks and what should and should not be there.  In particular, Jimbo
> also changed the wording of an official policy from:
>
> "As a general rule, any book you might expect to find in the non-fiction
> section of your local library or bookshop is acceptable."
>
> to become instead:
>
> "As a general rule, most books you might expect to find in the
> non-fiction section of your local library or bookshop are not
> acceptable. This is for textbooks."
>

This definition is not only , in my opinion, not only cumbersome,
but also open a serious question: What is a textbook?

Just as an example why a cookbook is not a textbook? In many school
cookbook are used as a textbook. Morover they are used in some small
lecture course about cooking. What should be consider as a textbook?
Just what is normally used in American High school?

And should the subject only be limited to normal subject textbook are
written about?

For instance there exist a lot of book about chess (and many of them
not only dealt about chess, but are even organized in lesson). Anyway
I have never seen a textbook about chess (because chess is not taught
at school).

Thank you
AnyFile