Talk:Main Page/Archive 3

Link needs to be changed

The link at the bottom of the page going to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_Wikimedia_projects#Proposed_projects needs to be changed to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects 220.233.48.200 13:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Months...

I have a proposal to make - that is, that we have three or four Collaboration of the Months instead of one. Should be selectedas follows:

• one from thr Arts/humanities/languages bookshelf,
• one from the maths/science/engineering bookshelf, and
• one from the computing/IT/games bookshelf,
• with possibly one from the Misc/How To bookshelf as well.

While I hear people ask; "Why split it? Why dilute the limited amount of people who take notice and work on these each month anyway?" I believe that the opposite is the case, and that if there were three or four as opposed to one, everyone would have something they could work on. Being a humanities orientated type person there hasn't really been much to interest me in the past couple of months and so I haven't worked on CoM's at all. However, if there was a variety of books this might entice more people to work on them. Serge 08:15, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest splitting it even further by using a system similar to Wikipedia where they have many distinct 'stub' templates which are attached to every page that needs attention (e.g. "science stub", "arts stub"). This way, users can pick and choose which pages they might like to work on from a much larger variety. It also means we would no longer have to update that section of the main page each month, which is by no means automatic, but takes a lot of editing and creating of new pages to work. - Aya ^T E C 17:32, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

While this is all well-intentioned, I think the focus at this stage should remain, well, focussed. With Wikipedia's COTW recently split into two articles per week, numbers of edits and articles' general improvement has collapsed. This is a shame, and there are suggestions to revert back to the old system. By all means, have 'local' COTWs or COTFs, but we must make sure that we are not diluting effort. However, I like the idea of specific stubs, provided it doesn't slow the whole system down! Mark Lewis 22:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I do like the idea of trying to "split up" the CoM into seperate sections, but based on the number of votes that are being cast right now, it seems as though the current CoM section is close to a dead section entirely. Particularly interesting because the Book of the Month section seems to be really taking off in popularity, and that there are a few "voters" that also visit the CoM page, it doesn't get nearly the same number of people "participating". I don't know exactly why that is. Part of that may be due to the fact that actually adding content, and in particular getting away from your "pet" Wikibook is a bit harder than it may seem on the surface. I think this is a good question to ask: Does this seem to help out with the quality of the Wikibooks when they get made "Collaboration of the Month"? I'm sure the Wikibook may get some extra attention due to the fact it is so prominent on the front page of Wikibooks, but how many new editors show up to the Wikibook and actually get involved with adding new content? Compared to Book of the Month? I know it isn't the same thing, and I'm not advocating the elimination of CoM by any means, and perhaps the minor boost from advertising in a prominent location is worthwhile on its own. --Rob Horning 12:37, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Removing bookshelves from main page

Compare the Wikipedia page to the Wikibooks main page. I believe we need to shorten the page considerably; and what I suggest is removing the partial bookshelves from the bottom (why are they partial? Why are some books listed and not other?) and have a link to each bookshelf. This would mean also that there is one less place to place a link to when you're creating a new book, so there's less confusion. Serge 02:22, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Please delete The_Manual_of_Crime

(no comment entered)

Deletion (which seems likely) is pending a more precise definition of what is and is not acceptable on wikibooks. See its VfD page for more discussion. Kellen ^T 19:35, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we don't need to wait that long. Does any bureaucrat want to delete it now? As far as I know all admins agree that Jimbo's comments imply the book is not appropriate. But it seems no one wants to actually do the deed. Since I was involved in the discussion heavily I think perhaps a bureau would be more appropriate. MShonle 21:33, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I guess the admins are afraid that somebody is going to have the contents of the book applied to them if they delete the book by sticking out their necks.  :) I didn't do the deletion because I had some very mixed feelings about the book, despite Jimbo's opinion on the subject. --Rob Horning 00:04, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Large main page (wow, first comment?)

I was wondering if maybe anyone feels the same about the main page being a little large. There's a gigantic wall of links and it's pushing down the language links too much. I haven't thought about this much, so I don't have a new proposal or anything, but maybe it's something we can think about. --84.41.190.238 15:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC) [edit: I wish my account on Wikipedia would also work in here.]

The Bookshelf idea needs to be rethought somewhat, but at the same time this is precisely what Wikibooks is all about: Books that have been written. If the front page seems a bit long, it is due to the success that we are having by attracting people to come help us out, and the amount of content that has been written. Thank you for not trying to "rock the boat" until you come up with something else. --Rob Horning 00:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Most Popular Wikibooks

Just a suggestion. I think it would be a good idea to have a small "most popular" section (or just a link) on the 5 most viewed books or something.

I agree. There should be a most popular section, and the "most active" wikibooks section needs to be revived. Whatever happened to it, anyways?

The problem for putting this information on the front page is that we need to collect the data. Right now we can guess the "most popular" wikibook by trying to count edits done in the past month, but that requires at the moment a download of the full database, which is getting quite large. Unless you have a broadband internet link (preferably a T1 or T3 dedicated connection to a major backbone) getting this data is really prohibitive at the moment. For that reason, nobody has taken up the task. You also have to know SQL programming to extract the data as this is not easily done. It would be nice to have "direct access" to the MySQL database running Wikibooks, which would be able to get this information. Unfortunately, that is restricted due to the fact that queries of that nature are very CPU intensive and the servers are barely keeping up with normal page requests right now as it is. BTW, if you think this is bad, try to consider doing something similar on Wikipedia. Nearly impossible to download the full database of all edits. If you want to help out and get this done as a MediaWiki feature, you are welcome to do so, but you need to get into the MediaWiki software directly to try and fix those features...and have the requests restricted in some way that isn't going to kill the whole server farm if it is used. --Rob Horning 04:30, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

PLEASE! +sk

[[sk:]]

I added link to Wikibooks language, but only sysop can add interwiki to main page. --Derbeth 07:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Month

I have created the collaboration of the month voting page for November but cannot fix the main page. Could someone with the appropreate level administrative privieges do that? Klingoncowboy4 22:32, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks mentioned on podcast

PowerUser.tv is where it is talked about on a podcast. --86.134.81.77 22:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Outdated link to English WikiSource

The link on the bottom to WikiSource points to http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page:English but it has been moved to http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page:English --209.7.171.66 19:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Book of the Month Trophies

I just noticed a cool "feature" that I'm surprised hasn't been discussed yet... Minature "trophies" for each Book of the Month winner on the bookshelf section of the Main Page. I don't want to clutter up the front page more than it already is, but this is a nice "bonus" feature for books that have earned this distinction. I'm too lazy at the moment to note who has added the feature, however. Thanks for trying to keep the front page fresh and interesting. --Rob Horning 00:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey, that is cool! I definitely think leaving them after the month is fine, it's not like they take up much more room that way. Garrett^Talk 12:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Ido Wikibooks

I'm aware that this isn't the place to ask, but I've been going around to the main page on the multilingual portal, a few sysop pages etc. etc. since May. Still nothing. Um, can anyone tell me who I have to contact to get a Wikibooks set up in Ido? mithridates

Oh, another thing I've yet to receive an answer to is when the Ido Wiktionary will get put on the search bar for the main page, as it is the 4th biggest Wiktionary after all. That's something else I've been waiting for since May. Thanks for your indulgence.

See m:Requests for new languages. As for the Wiktionary question I'm not sure where you should ask that but it's certainly not something we can help with. Garrett^Talk 00:14, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

No, I didn't think so but it was an act of desperation I suppose. Nobody seems to know. ^^ Thanks. mithridates

Is there a way to dowload Wikibooks ?

Although I have been using Wikipedia for a while, I just understood the Wiki power today (I am planning to learn how to insert the MS blush figure and would have put here if I knew how). In the Wikepdia, one is usually looking for short articles or definitions and thus the information per page is very useful. When it comes to books, however, it would be more convenient to be able to download to read them on paper, not on the screen. Is there a way to download large sections of these books or to download them entirely?

Regards,

AbuDhir

This is a goal we are working toward. Within an individual Wikibook you can collect all of the pages together through a process called transclusion. There are some drawback to this approach, but it does allow you to "download" the whole book at once. There is also an effort right now to try and get a single page or even multiple pages to be converted to a PDF file directly to download. Keep in mind that Wikibooks is still a relatively new project, and only recently have we been able to get several books somewhat ready for public distribution in general. Any help to get this goal accomplished will be appreciated.

As an example of a whole Wikibook at once, take a look at the Complete Wikijunior Solar System Wikibook (be careful on clicking there as there are many images that come up at once as well). Other Wikibooks have put together similar kinds of collections for their pages. --Rob Horning 01:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Something I was just thinking of: I know it was decided to not use wiki resources to make an extra copy of the whole wikibook for download, but considering there are at least 2 mirrors of Wikipedia out there, do you suppose there is a mirror that either can or already has compiled a wikibook for download? I figure, if they have enough spare servers to mirror wikipedia, an extra set of wikibooks probably isn't that much more. --2tothe4 04:01, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of any WB mirrors other than that GFDL-violating cookbook mirror. Once we have every book using the / naming convention it would be possible to add a customisation that could quickly dump an entire book, but for now an initial transclusion is the only way. Garrett^Talk 06:12, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikijunior New Book of the Quarter template

I just wrote a new template that is to help decide future Wikibook projects on Wikijunior. You can look at the template directly here:

Template:Wikijunior:New Book Description

We are calling this the New Book of the Quarter because it is felt that with the current participation level on Wikijunior that we can only get one new Wikijunior book out every three months at best and don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We also need to get some "fresh blood" into the project, so we are experimenting with a new way in Wikimedia projects to encourage some growth but not overwhelm everybody with stuff going in all directions. In this case we are seeking proposals for new book subjects to add to Wikijunior, but the decision as to what book to add next is going to be determined within the community.

The reason I'm bringing this up here on this talk page is that I want to add this template to the main page for Wikibooks under the Book of the Month section. As an admin I can do the update and put it in, but I would like to get some feedback before the changes to the front page occur. Mainly, are there any objections to me adding this to the front page? --Rob Horning 18:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm all for this template. Wikijunior needs more attention. - 68.106.140.79 (really W:En:User:Kookykman)

Computing bookshelf

Does anybody know what happened to the Computing bookshelf. It appears to have been removed from the list of bookshelves. Thanks. — RJHall 19:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, somebody put it back. Thank you! — RJHall 21:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Voting links wrong

The CotM link is pointing to Jan 2005 rather than 2006. In addition, they are both hard-linked to the edit pages, whereas I have just created both... Odd bloke 15:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Fixed CotM and BOTM templates. --Derbeth ^talk 16:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

:fr version of the main page

I have seen here some comments about the oversized bookshelves. Please have a look at the main page of the french version of Wikibooks. We have selected the best books and the rest is stored in a subpage. It can be accessed through a simple link. We have less books but the point was to show the best contributions on the main page. Dake - 11:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I think this is not suitable for our Wikibooks - we have to many books, it would be hard to select as few as you have on the main page. --Derbeth ^talk 14:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that we are performing a rotation of the books shown on the main page. Dake - 13:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Social Sciences

Perhaps the social science bookshelf could be added to this page. Vault 18:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Nevermind, found the template. Vault 05:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Bulgarian Wikibooks

Could you link this Wikibooks to the Bulgarian Wikibooks, please? I believe the language code should be bg: Thank you. --Vanka5 22:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Derbeth ^talk 22:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

vandalism

im no regular here, but i guess that the picture of human faeces shouldnt be on the front page.

How does Wiki fight vandalism? You have to spot it to remove it? Do you rollback a to a previous safe version? How does it work?

It's a one-click revert, if you want to know. --Derbeth ^talk 23:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Serbian Wikibooks

Could you link this Wikibooks to the Serbian Wikibooks? The language code is sr:. Thank you in advance. --Djordjes 19:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity

We would like a link from the main page to [[1]] to help our students find the current main entry point to Wikiversity. This will be beneficial in the long term to Wikibooks as we obviously search the wikibooks stacks and sister projects for applicable materials when assembling our learning materials and portals. The 200/300 vote to proceed as well as the multitude of external free online learning environments suggest that a free online university will arise somewhere on the Terran Grid. The only real question is whether it will be using wikibooks.org as a primary source of free online material. 70.110.48.73 23:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I hope I did a better job than simply a link on the front page. I added a link on the navigation bar that goes straight to the main page of Wikiversity instead. I hope that works out better, and is a link that is available on all of the pages. --Rob Horning 00:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Other language box

Please add "Suomi (finland)" list... fi.wikibooks.org/wiki, thanks folks

Done. --Derbeth ^talk 22:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Pictures to link to articles?

I notice that pictures link to the source page for that picture. That's a great feature, but it seems counterintuitive. On most internet pages using a layout like Wikibooks, the graphic would be a link to the article (or in this case, book module). I've forgotten and made that mistake a few times now. Is there any chance of changing to a format where the picture links to the article and the picture box contains a link to the picture info? Irrevenant 02:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It's default behaviour at all MediaWiki-based projects, I don't think we should change it. --Derbeth ^talk 09:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

This has been brought up before. One way around it is to make the Image: page a redirect, but other than that there's no solution unless we enable external image display (i.e. pasted image URLs turn into images) which causes its own problems. Garrett^Talk 20:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"mirroring" wikibooks

is there anything wrong about "mirroring" wikibooks, as long as the copyright notices are perseved and the origin is pointed out? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.136.128.14 (talk • contribs) .

No, we are happy if materials from Wikibooks are used in proper way. Read Wikibooks:Copyrights to ensure you understand our license. --Derbeth ^talk 18:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)