User:Thierry Dugnolle/ Wikibooks for everyone

Thierry Dugnolle

How to read my books cooperatively

How Wikibooks works

“There is no danger to feel the truth
So come again
We need you”
Michael Jackson, Another part of me

Wikibooks invites all human beings to write their textbooks in our pedagogical library, or to participate, in many ways, to its development. Wikibooks belongs to everyone. It is a community where we help each other to write textbooks. Authors and readers all contribute, because any reader can write on the book he or she reads.

Authors can decide how their readers are invited to contribute to their books. They have the right to refuse any unwanted modification. To avoid conflicts, it's better that they claim explicitly this right when they create the book.

Everyone is invited to participate. The sole requirement is to read and write the language. Even those who don't speak it correctly are invited, and welcome, because they can be helped.

In Wikibooks the whole community does its best so that we all work in the best conditions. There are no chiefs. The common rules give to contributors a full power. We are all equal before the common rules. We respect mutually our freedom.

Wikipedia became the best encyclopedia in the world because it is the best way to make an encyclopedia. Leibniz imagined it more than three hundred years ago. Now in the twenty-first century, it's done. Similarly, Wikibooks could become the best pedagogical library in the world because it is the best way to make a pedagogical library.

There are many rules, more or less clearly written, known and respected, but the beginner does not need to know all of them, because usual work is founded on mutual trust. Be fair play. That's all you really need to know to work with us.

This book is a quick start guide for new contributors. In order to be short, it explains only the most elementary techniques and the general principles. Writing a simple wikibook is very easy. Sophisticated techniques are required only for the quality of presentation (pictures, mathematical formulas, covers...), and they are not difficult to learn.

If you don't know how to proceed, you can always ask for help. Post a message Wikibooks:Reading room/Technical Assistance (when a word is in blue, it means it's a link to another page, click on it to see). You should see a page intitled "Reading room/Technical Assistance". You have to click on the tab "Add topic", on the top of the page, to, write your request for help, to click on the button "Show preview" to see and verify the presentation of your message, and finally to click on the button "Publish changes". Your request is then posted. But before that, you should take a look at the help pages. If your question is ordinary, it should be already answered somewhere.

Respect for authors

In Wikipedia, it would be nonsense if authors wanted to be identified as such in the encyclopedia. We don't want many articles on the same subject written by different authors, we want a collaborative work of many authors who seek consensus. In Wikibooks, the situation is different. Many different textbooks, written by different authors, are a good thing for science, for its diversity and its richness. That a textbook has an author, or a few ones, responsible for the book, is also a good thing, because there is a strong will to complete the book. Such responsibility does not prevent cooperative work. On the contrary, it might help it, because it prevents conflicts between authors, and because potential authors are not afraid that their work could be destroyed by others.

Any author can claim the right to refuse any unwanted modification. To avoid conflicts between different contributors to the same book, an author who want to be responsible for his or her book, should state it clearly on the first page of the book he or she creates. How readers are invited to cooperate may also be explained on this page, or on a linked one. When you create the book, you decide of its future development. You may decide to give up any privileged role. Then the development of the book is under the collective responsibility of the whole community, and all contributors are on an equal footing. The book can be signed by an open list of authors who decide to identify themselves. Such fully collaborative books are sometimes called wikibooks of the original kind, because it is how Wikibooks began. There are wikibookians who think that all wikibooks in the catalog shall be of the original kind. As Wikibooks is an anarchy and respect human rights, these wikibookians attached to the traditions are not a problem. You will understand easily how to manage your books, and how to live peacefully with traditionalists.

Authorship and cooperative work fit very well together. Strict equality between authors is not the only way for authors to work on the same book. One author can be responsible for the book, or a few ones, the others criticize or give additions, or any other kind of help.

Authorship is freedom, simply because an author is free to make of his or her book what he or she wants. If wikibookians always have to justify what they publish to others, they're not free, they are under the yoke of the dictatorship of opinion.

Why write on Wikibooks?

Wikibooks could become a great educational library, where the best knowledge would be given to all and renewed permanently. There are many advantages for authors:

• Cooperative work. Wikibooks enables authors to get out of their isolation, communicate with their readers, help other authors and get help from them.

• The durability of the support. As Wikipedia has become necessary to humanity, it can not disappear, so Wikibooks either.

• Excellent visibility. As Wikibooks is attached to Wikipedia, enjoys its visibility. In particular, Wikibooks can be cited in the bibliographies of Wikipedia articles. Such quotes are less easily accepted for links to sites external to Wikimedia. It is nevertheless good to write a book knowing that it may be quoted in the largest encyclopedia on the planet!

• The iconographic richness. One can easily draw from the resources of Commons to illustrate the books. One can even make multimedia books.

• The diversity of tools. Wikibooks offers many customizable editing tools, such as the ability to receive an email when a page on its tracking list is changed, or to track the number of readers on a particular page per period.

When one quotes a wikibook in a Wikipedia article, in a section of complementary readings, the wikipedians are not obliged to accept. If the reference is inappropriate, it must of course be deleted. But even if it is appropriate, a Wikipedia may point to a conflict of interest, if a Wikibook author wants to place one of his or her books on Wikipedia, especially if it is signed. It is therefore not always easy to be quoted on Wikipedia, even for wikibooks.

Why and how to create a user account

To read and write on Wikilivres, creating a user account is not required, but it is recommended. Simply choose a username and password after clicking on the "Log in" tab in the top right of the page. The username may be a pseudonym or a real name, provided it has not already been used by another. It identifies all user contributions, which are otherwise identified by their IP address. Once the account is created, the username appears in red in a top-left tab. By clicking on it, the user can then create his or her user page, but is not obliged to do so and can also create this page and leave it blank.

Creating a user account offers several advantages:

• A personal space. The page entitled "User:Username" and its sub-pages are a personal space which can be used freely, to present books, to present oneself to others, to work on drafts, or projects, ... and to publish your own books, if you don't want them in the catalog of Wikibooks.

• A discussion page. It allows other users to come and talk.

• A watchlist. It is the indispensable tool for all contributors. It constantly informs you of changes to the pages of books you have chosen to follow.

...

How to create a wikibook

If you want to create a new book, just edit a link

[[Book Title]]

by clicking on the tab to modify the wikicode of your user page, or any other page which already exists. After you publish the change, or only by previewing it, you should see the clickable link in red, like this: Book Title. Click on it and you will come to a page entitled "Creating Book Title". You can then start working on your new book. Warning: as soon as you click on "Publish the page", the first page of your book will be published. It can be deleted if you eventually renounce your project. It is always recommended to click on "Preview" before publishing.

If you want to create a new chapter, just edit a link

[[/Title of chapter/]]

on the first page of the book, to write the table of chapters. Just click on the red link, as before.

The same technique works to create subpages of any page. Just write the code above on it.

The source-text (the wikicode) can be edited as an ordinary word processor. For the beginners, it is enough to know the use of the signs of equality to identify the sections of a chapter (on Wikibooks, a chapter is simply a page) and their sub-sections:

== Section Title ==
=== Sub-section Title ===
==== Sub-sub-section Title ====
First paragraph ...

Second paragraph ...

To learn more about presentation techniques, mathematical formulas, images, animations, ... the best way is to read the wikicode of good existing books, by clicking on the tab "Edit" of their pages. Do not be afraid to click on this tab to read the code without modifying it. No changes are saved until you click "Publish Changes".

The complements present information and recommendations, not obligations, for beginning authors.

With a little practice, and many copied-pasted (I'm not talking about plagiarism, but about quotes and reusable code), you will realize that work is easy, quick and cheerful at Wikibooks .

“ Wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning Quick. ” Wikipedia

Complements

How to work in cooperation

To make a book by the spontaneous encounter between several authors who work on the same subject is a beautiful idea, but too often it does not work, unless the book responds to a collective will. The books begun with the hope that other authors will complete them remain generally unfinished.

On the other hand, other forms of cooperation work very well:

• make additions to existing books,
• criticize or request clarification (the discussion pages are for that purpose),
• correct minor mistakes (typographical, spelling ...) when one reads,
• help a contributor, novice or not, who does not know all the useful techniques (wikicode, ...)
• ask for help or advice,
• not all writers are good english speakers. If you are, you can correct their expression,
• any kind of help you imagine.

The possibility of cooperative work distinguishes Wikibooks from other free online publishing sites. It enables authors and readers to get out of their isolation and to help each other.

The ideal wikibookian in a discussion

Discussions can be very fruitful. It can even be a way to write a book. Invite other wikibookians to talk on the subject you're interested in. But it can also lead to psychological and social pains, as any internet practitioner already knows.

Here are a few advices if you want to avoid the most common traps and be a good wikibookian.

Remain civil, and as friendly as possible. I you humiliate your opponent, you won't win the debate, you will only show your wickedness. Never write about your opponents' intentions if they have not written anything about them. Never insinuate anything but always speak frankly and politely.

Seek consensus. If you want your opponents to change their mind, you have to give them good reasons. Don't hope that they will be seduced by the quality of your writing. It never works. They will agree with you only if they think that it would be silly to disagree.

Invoke the rules. If you think your opponent is not right, you have to find a good rule which proves it.

Never pretend you know if you don't know. Otherwise you will be an easy prey in front of verbal fighters. Remember that a wise human being is not someone who always says that they know, but someone who always says that they don't know, except when they know.

Do your homework. Before participating to a discussion, you should read the page which is discussed, the previous interventions of others, at least if they are not off topic, and the other pages relevant to the discussion. Don't intervene if you don't know what the discussion is about.

Focus on the subject, the title of the discussion, and never make personal judgment. If you think your opponent is silly, don't publish it. Just explain as diplomatically as you can why you consider wrong what they wrote on the subject. If your opponent is off topic, just answer that. You don't have to comment.

If your emotion is too strong, don't click on Publish changes. Wait until you have calmed down. Remember you can remain silent as long as you want. No one can force you to react. Take your time. Remember also that all versions of all pages of Wikibooks are archived. Look at the History tab of a page to check it. This means that what you publish can be read by the whole humanity for ever. With a few exceptions, what is written is never deleted.

Be fair. Don’t extract a few of your opponents’ words out of their context to mislead the reader. More generally, never suggest a false interpretation of their words. Remember that there can’t be any successful communication without the linguistic principle of charity : always interpret the others’ words in a way that is most favorable to them.

Respect previous workers. If you disagree with their work, start a discussion in the relevant page and be polite. Otherwise you could be perceived as a vandal.

Good verbal « fighters » always take the side of the truth, as much as they can. They always respect proofs and refutations. They don’t repeat a false argument if it has been refuted. They always recognize that they are wrong when it has been proven, because they know that proofs must be respected.

Don't repeat a false accusation if its falsity has been proven. Otherwise your behavior could be considered as malevolence.

Do wikibooks have to have an author?

A wikibook can respond to a collective will. It then belongs to no one in particular, nor to the one who created it, nor to its most regular contributors. Anyone can contribute constructively to its development, just like any other contributor. Such a book may be signed by an open list of authors who decide to identify themselves.

One or a few authors can also be clearly the authors of their book. They can identify themselves as such, or not. All constructive contributions are always accepted, but an author is free to refuse the proposed changes.

How to invite other authors or contributors

If you decide to be reponsible for your book, you may also decide how to invite your readers to participate to its writing. An example : User:Thierry Dugnolle/Cooperative reading.

If you create a wikibook of the original kind and think other authors will spontaneously come and participate, you are too often wrong. I know that from thirteen years of experience. Here are a few advices if you want your project to be a success.

Start a discussion before starting the book. So you will know if other wikibookians are interested, or not.

Have a good project. You must convince your readers that the work deserves to be done.

Give advices and tools to the hoped-for contributors.

Be welcoming and friendly.

Who is the book addressed to ?

A book is not always intended for all audiences: novices or specialists of the field, students or teachers, children or adults. It may require prior knowledge. It is desirable that these conditions be specified from the beginning of the book and be accompanied by references to the appropriate literature: introductory texts, articles from Wikipedia, other wikibooks, etc. Example:

Who is this book addressed to ? Primarily to students who have already had a first course in quantum physics (for example, the first chapters of Feynman 1966, Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu & Laloë 1973, Griffiths 2004). More generally, to any interested reader who is not frightened by the expressions Hilbert space or unitary operator. The first chapter proposes an introduction, intended for a reader who approaches quantum physics for the first time. It should be enough to understand the concepts presented in the other chapters. (Quantum theory of observation)

Educational objectives

It is desirable that the pedagogical objectives of the book be defined and presented in a few sentences on the first page. The reader must be able to understand clearly what the reading of the book is likely to bring. Example:

Pedagogical objectives: To know, to understand and to know to justify the great principles which must be applied when working to develop scientific knowledge and, more generally, to develop reason. (Handbook of epistemology)

Appropriateness of content

There are not any clear and conclusive criteria for the appropriateness of content in the catalog. The sole consensual criterium is that books should be pedagogical. No fictions, except if they are used for pedagogical purposes.

If your content is unusual and not clearly pedagogical, you might have to convince other wikibookians that it has its place in the catalog. Since there isn't any conclusive consensus about the concept of pedagogical book, you may be allowed, or not, to publish your content. You have to know how to defend it, and it must neither illegal, nor unethical, nor contrary to the founding principles of Wikipedia : human rights.

There is always a discussion, open to everyone, before a book is excluded from the catalog. Any wikibookian can suggest such discussions. Just put the following code at the top of the page you want being discussed :

{{rfd}}

You will then see :

rfd means request for deletion. But it does not mean that the book will be deleted. Of course its author does with it what he or she wants, in his or her userspace or anywhere. Deletion here only means that the name of the book could be deleted from the catalog of Wikibooks.

If you're a newcomer, don't make use of the rfd warning. You have to learn the common rules first.

If your own book is requested for deletion, please stay calm, don't let your pride be hurt by such a detail. If the content of your book is clearly appropriate, the discussion will end quickly. And even if your book is excluded from the catalog, you can always place it in your userspace, where you are free to do what you want - if it is neither illegal, nor unethical, nor contrary to our founding principles.

My personal opinion about appropriateness of content at Wikibooks is that we should keep the right to exclude wikibooks from our catalog, but that we should never make use of it, except if the excluded content is illegal, unethical or contrary to human rights.

Titles

Wikibooks are identified only by their titles. There cannot be two different books with the same title. It's not completely fair, because it gives a privilege to the first arrived. But this favors a rich diversity of titles, wikibooks are easier to cite and this small injustice is not a real problem. For example, there is already a book intitled Quantum Mechanics. If you want to write another textbook on the same subject, you can choose for example Quantum Mechanics, a first course or Advanced Quantum Mechanics or any other title which suits you and which is not already in the catalog. You won't have any difficulty to find one.

If a good title is already taken, if the author or authors of the book abandoned it in an unfinished state, and if you want precisely this title, you can ask for it. The title of the other book may be changed, with a suffix which means unfinished.

To know whether a title is already taken or not, just try it : Edit any page, type the following code at the top of it, and click on Show preview.

[[title]]

If title appears in red, it means it's not taken, if blue then it is. Don't click on Publish changes if you don't want the page to be modified.

And the « not very good » wikibooks in the catalog ?

Since we cannot be selective (who could take such decisions ?) there could be « not very good » wikibooks in our library. At present, there are not many completed wikibooks, but we could be afraid to be drowned in a flow of bad wikibooks in the future. Even if this happens, it would not be a real problem. To be in the catalog of Wikibooks is in itself insignificant. What is important is to be at a right place. Through consensus we choose rules to elect the good wikibooks. In this way, we can separate the wheat from the chaff. We don't care about bad wikibooks. They are not a problem. Our problem is that we don't have enough good wikibooks.

If you already have your own readers, you don't need to be in the catalog of Wikibooks, because all your books can be in your userspace, and your user page may be a starting point for your readers, where you show the covers of your books, and give all additional information you want. But you don't have the right to explicit commercial promotion.

To be in the catalog of Wikibooks is a good way to attract new readers. To be at a right place means to be not too far from the Main Page, and, if possible, on a page which shows that your book has been approved by its readers.

Translations

Since english is the most international language, almost everyone on the planet who writes a textbook wants it to be translated in english. But we are not always good english speakers.

Translators are now a wonderful tool for human translators. If you have never tried one, you should, you will be surprised. They do not function as a dictionary of words, but rather as a dictionary of expressions. They find the most common expressions which translate yours. That a whole sentence is correctly translated is not exceptional - the sentence you just read was translated automatically, and re-read by the author. Of course, these automatic translators do not understand what they are translating, and they always make a lot of mistakes. Never post an automatic translation if a human being has not corrected it, because too often it would not be understandable.

Obviously, such translations, even if they are well corrected, are not good for literary purposes. For a literary translation to be good, the translator must be a writer as good as the author he translates, or almost. But for educational purposes, the style of writing is generally simple. In this case, automatic translations are not too bad, if properly corrected by a human being. And even if its translation is not good, the automatic translator can help, faster than a dictionary, to find a good expression.

Pictures and multimedia

Pictures and other multimedia contents can be found at Commons and easily, and freely, incorporated in your books. All you have to do is to find their names. Don't forget the suffix : .gif, .jpg, etc. and write the following code at an appropriate location on a page of your book :

[[File:Name of the content]]

You can also try other presentations. Examples :

[[File:Name of the content1|center|thumb]]

[[File:Name of the content2|thumb|right|400px]]

[[File:Name of the content3|left|100px]]

Read the wikicode of good wikibooks if you want more examples.

You are invited to give your own pictures, or other multimedia contents, to Commons. All other users, and everyone, will be enabled to use them easily on all Wikimedia projects, and everywhere on this planet. See the Help pages of Commons if you want to do it.

A recipe for making covers

On your user page, you put a link

[[/Cover Title/]]

to create the page User:Your user name/Cover Title which creates the cover.

You copy the following code, which you can adapt freely to your needs, and paste it on the page User:Your user name/Cover Title :

Book Title
subtitle or comments

Author name, if you want.

For example: Your username

How to read this book

File:Picture name

“One or several sentences of presentation of the book.”

File:Name of another image

<div style="float:left; width: 30%; min-width: 270px; max-width: 333px; padding: 10px; vertical-align: top; background-color: #FBFBFB; border: thin solid #A7D7F9; text-align: center; height: 400px; margin-left: 7px; margin-bottom: 7px;">
<div style="margin-top: 10px; height: 250px">

<big>'''[[Book Title]]'''</big><br>
<small>''subtitle''<small>  or comments</small></small>

Author name, if you want.

For example: [[User:Your username|Your username]]
<br>
<br>
<small>[[Title/Cooperative reading|''How to read this book'']]</small></small> 

[[File:Picture name|155px|center]] 

<small>
''“One or several sentences of presentation of the book.”''<br>
</small>

[[File:Name of another image|right]]
<br>
<br>
<br>
[[Image:Wikibooks-favicon.png|link=Main Page]]
</div></div>

To display the cover of your book on a page, just type the following code:

{{User:Your user name/Cover Title}}
{{clr}}

Arbitration of conflicts between editors

Administrators carry the heavy burden of managing the library. They are experienced contributors who have decided to work more for the community and have demonstrated their abilities. One of their tasks is to arbitrate conflicts between wikibookians. They have some technical privileges in order to apply the common rules. Apart from that, they have the same rights as all other wikibookians. They are not chiefs. You do not need to become an administrator to have authority, you contributor qualities are enough. In Wikibooks, there is no other leader than reason. Common rules protect the freedom of all wikibookians to speak in the name of reason.

Since no one is perfect, an administrator may forget the common rules. If this happens to you, do not worry, do not lose your temper. Simply explain the problem, on an appropriate page, and the community will solve it. Remember that an administrator can not deprive you of your rights, as long as you respect the common rules. If you do not know them, it's not a problem. Just be fair play. Well-intentioned wikibookians are never punished for their mistakes. All we do is explain the rules they have broken. Any wikibookian can explain the rules to any other. You do not need to be an administrator to do this. Everyone can remind a negligent administrator to rule, but first learn the commonly accepted rules.

We like the rules because we need them to work in satisfactory conditions. But exclusions almost never occur, and they are never definitive. An excluded user can always choose a new pseudonym and try to damage the library again. But he or she never will, because it is always possible to protect our work against such malicious users.

Reference

• Michael Jackson, Another part of me