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Welcome to the Assistance reading room where Wikibookians help each other solve problems encountered while contributing to books or otherwise taking part in the Wikibooks community.

Copyright rules about adding a book that will later be commercializedEdit

Hello

Thank you for your work. My names is Tomas, a math instructor, and I just want to make sure I understand the copyright rules for wikibooks. My partners and I are writing an ODEs (ordinary diffential equations) math textbook aimed for commercial use.

However, I feel bad that there is no ODEs wikibook, so I started adding content to: Ordinary Differential Equations

Do you think it is possible to keep adding content and later on publish our textbook? The plan is to add a lot of the foundational material in the wikibook and the more exotic stuff in the textbook.

According to Wikibooks:Requesting copyright permission

"The main legal issue that is important to explain to potential contributors: they would be agreeing that their material can be used freely by Wikibooks AND its downstream users, and that such use might include commercial use, for which the contributor is not entitled to royalties or compensation. "

we are allowed to use wikibook content for commercial use as long as we make a reference of the Wikibook authors.


Is that correct or did we miss something? Thank you and have a great day, Tomas — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tkojar (talk • contribs) 01:54, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Please let me know, if I should post this elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 02:00, 26 September 2018 (talk • contribs) Tkojar (UTC)
@Tkojar: This is a perfectly good place to ask... --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 05:21, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
You are correct. There are many books that have been published this way. For example, this one QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 10:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Can you give me examples of textbooks that started as wikibooks and got published by major companies such as Pearson or Springer? So I am guessing there are no or few wikibooks that got published by such companies, but maybe they accepted rewrites and enhanced versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tkojar (talk • contribs)
I don't have any such examples, although they may exist. I think it is likely a question of degree - I see many books that incorporate material from Commons or Wikipedia (e.g., a diagram or paragraph of text) with a citation using "by Wikipedia authors" (which is not sufficient). You have to question whether a major company would publish a book where all the content was already freely available under a copyleft license. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 14:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Improving the Puzzle Wikibooks StylesEdit

Hi all ,

I am newcomer and I have a proposal to be made

I love Puzzles (and hence my username and I see that the Wikibooks for Puzzles is somehow lacking of contents.) I have read the guide for a while and create this account .

I have see the puzzle and think of why not the answer are put on same pages: Puzzles/Non-scientific puzzles/Boy and Girl

After searching quite a while, I found out that there are a template for hiding text: Template:Hidden

As you can see my sandbox, this is my suggestion for improvements. User:Miss Puzzle/sandbox

Hopefully, my improvement are accepted and I can contribute for many years to comeMiss Puzzle (discuss • contribs) 06:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Aside: Wiki notation for a "wikilink", a link to a page on the wiki, is double square-brackets around the name of the page within the wiki. I've edited your above text (pardon) to demonstrate. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:05, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@Miss Puzzle: The issue you are raising (so it seems to me) is one of interactive wiki pages. Fwiw, I can offer some general thoughts about interactive wiki pages. Wiki markup is, originally, about creating hypertext documents: a collection of pages, each containing formatted text, and some words are clickable links to other pages within the collection. That's all. It's basically static. But puzzles are one of a number of purposes for which one may wish for something a bit more dynamic. There are three ways that puzzles have been traditionally handled on wikis, and a fourth way they might be handled, based on something I've been working on.
  • It's more-or-less possible to handle puzzles using just ordinary wiki hypertext. You have a question, and either a link to the solution, or links to possible answers. Here's a favorite page of mine (worth a smile, anyway) that uses this technique, though it's not on a wiki: [1].
  • One might set up a page with the answer to a problem in hidden text. This has the drawback that when a page loads slowly, hidden text may be temporarily visible while the page is loading, which annoyingly shows the answer before the user has had a chance to try to solve the problem on their own.
  • There is a "quiz" wiki extension, which we have installed on wikibooks. I'm not personally enamoured of the quiz extension, as it seems complicated and brittle to me, but it does exist. See Help:Quizzes.
It has seemed to me that what wikis need, in general but it does apply to the particular case of quizzes/puzzles, is a truly general sort of page interactivity that can be specified as part of wiki markup. I've created such a thing; it takes the form of a small set of templates for adding input fields of various kinds to a page, and buttons that can be clicked to send the input somewhere. The next step is to learn how to wield this tool effectively. See Help:Dialog.

It should be possible, using dialog, to create quizzes/puzzles that aren't just multiple-choice, but can take more general kinds of input. I've come to believe that interacting with another human being is what people would really like to be able to do on a wiki, and I've wondered if dialog could be used to facilitate that; a core challenge needing addressed for that is, how to ensure there's someone else to interact with. But even without another person, a much wider range of possibilities opens up with dialog-driven quizzes. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Pi Zero, I think I may cleanup the Puzzles pages a bit but I think I may implement the hidden text for now (shown in my sandbox) as I think that, we don't need to have too many pages of question and answers, which I think may lead to difficulties of cleaning up the pages later on. Also, I may add some rebuses (hieroglyphic puzzles) of my own in the near future. Thanks for your kind input. Miss Puzzle (discuss • contribs) 16:43, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Cateogry, project or?Edit

I have started a book VCE Physics. VCE stands for Victorian Certificate of Education which encompasses curricula for a variety of subjects, including physics. There seem to be some other VCE books already started (e.g. VCE Chemistry and VCE Specialist Mathematics). So I thought it would be suitable to create a "Category" called VCE to encompass them. But then I read the advice about Categories and thought the VCE Category would be better as a "project". But going to projects, this seems to be all about Class Projects in seeming contradication to the advice on the categories page which indicates a project would be good to encompass books on related curricula. I'm confused! Please provide advice!

In a related question about categories etc. I've also added a subject category tag of "physics" to the bottom of the VCE Physics main page. But it is not showing up. It is just showing the Subject : Book : VCE Book (I created a "book"). I am not even sure what the purpose of the "Book" is. Surely the main page I created was the "book"... why was I directed by the Categories advice to create a book category?... what is it used for?... how does it relate to the book and/or subjects and/or projects!

I want to do the right thing. I'm academically astute (teach at a university), IT savvy (program in multiple languages etc.) so I am inclined to think the system, at least in relation to the current existing explanations, is objectively unclear... but maybe it will all become clear when someone provides just a little explanation?

Please provide further explainattion of the logic of category, book, project etc. (and, preferably, include advice relating to my situation) it is unclear, to me, from the existing documentation.

--Theo Hughes (discuss • contribs) 05:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

OK, so I found the help info I should really have been reading (Wikibooks/Shelves, Categories, and Classifications), and looked at what other books did, and now things are starting to make sense . However, I'm now not sure about the relevance of the Categories help page which initially led me astray... does it need updating?... or how is it now relevant?... is it an old thing that was replaced by books and shelves etc?
--Theo Hughes (discuss • contribs) 21:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
@Theo Hughes: Well, we're really still in the midst of converting from the older subject pages to the new shelves. Which is itself the most recent step in a multi-stage infrastructure upgrade I've been working on for some time now. There's some history at Wikibooks Stacks/History. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 05:29, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Many thanks, its starting to make sense now. And the fact that I have come to wikibooks in the middle of a transition explains the slightly confusing documentation. I will attempt to organise things as per the new shelves etc. At the moment I'm now just playing around with the best format for TOC for the book I started. I started playing with templates... then realised what I was trying wasn't quite correct. I'm playing around with having a complete book TOC in a collapsible column etc Navbox that will automagically (template parameters based on page names sort of thing) have the current "topic" uncollapsed. Not sure if this is still what I want, but I'd like to get the navigation somewhat sorted before going to far with content, and then making it difficult for myself to rearrange - though I intend not to spend too much time fiddling with this as I do want to get onto content... ooops forgot the sig, here it is --Theo Hughes (discuss • contribs) 05:42, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Renaming "Medical Suction Machines"Edit

I'm thinking to generalize the coverage of Medical Suction Machines to Medical Machines. How can the renaming be accomplished? Suppose I create a new book named Medical Machines. Then can Medical Suction Machines be moved into it as Medical Machines/Suction Machines? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 18:20, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@PeterEasthope: Yes, an admin can do that for you. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:24, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
What if I create the new book, add the content from Med. Suction Machines and then request deletion of that? The expanded book wouldn't have the creation date and history of the older book but that would be a minor loss. Does any policy apply here? Is one method preferable? Otherwise I'll just begin the new book. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 05:13, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
I'd rather save the history. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:11, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
> Yes, an admin can do that for you.
What is the procedure? Just state the request here. Please move Medical Suction Machines to Medical Machines. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 22:38, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
@PeterEasthope: Um. I'm hesitating, here. It seems as if that much material about just one kind of machine wouldn't belong in the book-main-page of a book about all kinds of medical machines; cf. {{split}}. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:57, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
OK, now there is a book, Medical Machines containing a heading/link "Suction Machines and Aspirators" which I visualize being connected to the existing book. Under that heading are subheadings for the existing sections in the existing book. There are also headings for a few other classes of machine I want to include. It's similar to the structure of This Quantum World. How is that? Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
I moved the pre-existing page. There's plenty of neatifying to do, of course, but it's a start. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 05:11, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. A little elementary tidying done. Plenty of work ahead, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 20:06, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Experienced Wikipedia editor wanting to get started on WikibooksEdit

I am an experienced editor on the English Wikipedia (12 years, 45,000 edits) who is thinking about getting involved in Wikibooks. Obviously I need to learn any differences in how things are done here.

I am working on a book on the topic of running diagnostics on various scientific and graphing calculators. Everything I write I release to the world under a CC0 license.

Would Wikibooks be an appropriate place to put my work? Are there any tutorials, help pages or examples I should know about? Do I need to put it in a specific place? --Guy Macon (discuss • contribs) 05:41, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Welcome! :-)  You might read Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks? for a start, then the book Using Wikibooks. (It occurs to me that Using Wikibooks may not be up-to-date with our recent replacement of Subject pages by the Wikibooks Stacks, but that's just one detail.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:16, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! My only remaining question is whether a book on running diagnostics on various scientific and graphing calculators belongs in Shelf:Computer hardware, somewhere in Department:Mathematics, or some other place. Is there a place where there are discussions on where a book belongs? --Guy Macon (discuss • contribs) 17:20, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: Computer hardware sounds like a good place. The goal is for people to be able to find the book, after all. Looking through the hierarchy under Department:Mathematics, I didn't off-hand see a place where it would likely be looked for. (If you do think of a second place that would be useful to list it, listing on two shelves is generally considered reasonable.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:46, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Page information in mobile viewEdit

Hi, is there any direct way to reach page information when viewing a page in mobile view? Of course desktop view can activated; then the "Page information" link in the left margin is available. There should be a more direct path. Thanks, PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:27, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@PeterEasthope: You could activate "Page information" in desktop view and then switch back to mobile. I don't think there is a more direct way, however. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 08:40, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Leaderboard, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 18:05, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Creating a book as a compilation of truncated Wikipedia pagesEdit

Hi, I am hoping to create some re-compile (and cut down) the content from existing Wikipedia pages to create an open educational resource (OER) for a course I teach. I've created two example pages: User:Cameronpiercy/Social_Loafing and User:Cameronpiercy/Nonverbal. I am a novice Wikipedia editor and have never used Wikibooks. The first question I have is (1) is it okay to create a Wikibook in this manner? The second question is (2) all of the links broke when I copied the page, is there an easy way to restore existing links to Wikipedia pages? As I read here Using_Wikibooks/Wikipedian_Primer I'm thinking Wikibooks may not be the best venue for this type of "mashup." Any advice? Cameronpiercy (discuss • contribs) 19:52, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

This is not Wikipedia, and one of the differences is that we do not have lots of wikilinks that link to other books or to Wikipedia. You are strongly advised not to "repair" the links to Wikipedia but instead remove them. If you are copying material from Wikipedia you must observe the license requirements. That means you must link (in the edit summary) back to the permanent URL from where you copied it or, preferably, request the material is imported to Wikibooks at WB:RFI which enables the edit history to be maintained. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

How to import an existing book?Edit

I want to import this book: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/criminalinvestigation/ ...in order to rewrite it to conform to US law. The existing book can be downloaded in a number of formats: EPUB Digital PDF Print PDF MOBI XHTML Pressbooks XML WordPress XML OpenDocument

What is the best/easiest way to import the book? I tried to paste in the XHTML, but this gave me an error message for entering too many links at once.Verklempt (discuss • contribs) 21:35, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

I see that book is licensed under Creative Commons 4.0. I've heard some perplexing things about importing CC 4.0 material to projects that (like this one) are under CC 3.0. Anyone know more? QuiteUnusual? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:06, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't think we can accept 4.0 into 3.0, the licenses are incompatible with each other, according to WMF legal too. I think the only way is to ask for dual licensing which means releasing text under CC 3.0 and 4.0 concurrently.--Cohaf (discuss • contribs) 04:03, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
That checks with what I'd heard (alas): that individual projects within the sisterhood have considered going to 4.0, which they could because 4.0 subsumes 3.0, but then their 4.0 materials couldn't be imported to projects that were still using 3.0. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 10:18, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

text colorEdit

Hi. How cena add change text color in wikibooks. I can do it in table but not in the normal text. TIA --Adam majewski (discuss • contribs) 14:37, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

@Adam majewski: {{Color}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:18, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
thx. --Adam majewski (discuss • contribs) 18:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
@Adam majewski: Nice. I highly recommend against using "green means good, red means bad" since it is impossible to distinguish for someone with red–green colorblindness. At the very least, please also use another marker (e.g. italics or a different font) to make the distinction clear. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:31, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Renaming "GCSE Computer Science"Edit

I have updated the content of GCSE Computer Science to the newer syllabuses and so would like rename the book as GCSE Computer Science(9-1) to indicate the current nature of the book. The assistance of an admin would be much appreciated. Johnkn63 (discuss • contribs) 08:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@Johnkn63: Would that be GCSE Computer Science(9-1) or GCSE Computer Science (9-1)? The difference being a space before the left-parenthesis. I would have thought the latter, with the space. Wouldn't want to rename the whole book and then discover the name wasn't quite right and have to do it all again! --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
@Pi zero: Good point, with a space GCSE Computer Science (9-1) would be best. Thank you!Johnkn63 (discuss • contribs) 04:26, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
"9 - 1" is just a grading scale. I would keep the name as it is and make a note on the front page that it refers to the current version of the book. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 14:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
@Leaderboard: This was my initial thought. However have subsequently become aware the differences are more than just the grading scale, and more importantly that for many of the target audience, students of the exam, such a difference in title is significant. Johnkn63 (discuss • contribs) 04:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
@Johnkn63: Yes, but what would be the issue with noting the change in the title page? After all, if this is V2, and five years later, another change is effected, then you'll have to change the names all over again... (or alternatively keep the link the same but change the display name?) Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 03:02, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Moving the pages in Wikijunior:How Things are MadeEdit

Hi ,I accidentally create some pages without great foresight as I want to group the item lists according to their category

Need to move the following pages from: 

     Wikijunior:How Things Are Made/Ceramic/Ceramic Tiles

     Wikijunior:How Things Are Made/Ceramic/Ceramic Wares

     Wikijunior:How Things Are Made/Wood/Newspaper

     Wikijunior:How Things Are Made/Wood/Paper

- By Wikijunior contributor, Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 06:47, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

If anyone does this, I'd urge you to consider "... Are ..." for the title. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:06, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
Ahh.. You meant changing from How Things are Made to How Things Are Made ? AM I correct Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 07:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
Correct. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:56, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi @Pi zero: ,just in case you missed this - Pinged by: Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 07:44, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
@Encik Tekateki: I'll try to do it in the next few minutes; which means things may be moving around. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:27, 25 August 2019 (UTC) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:27, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
@Encik Tekateki: I've moved the book, and I've moved those four subpages within it. You'll need to fix/rearrange some links between pages. I noticed {{BookCat}} was missing from a bunch of the pages, probably because it had been omitted from the page-template; so I added it to all the existing pages and to the template. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:55, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
@Pi zero: Nice Pi zero, thanks a lot for your help !
P.S: Also delete this Wikijunior:How Things Are Made/Paper things, you miss this during the transfer. Thanks once again. @Pi zero:
Always grateful --Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 15:20, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Did a history merge on that one. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:54, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

RollbackEdit

Hi, does anyone know why I can't use rollback sometimes? 大诺史 (Talk/留言/토론/Discussion) 12:21, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

We can't rollback the page creator to nothing. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Not about the IP, just sometimes I run into the problem when trying to revert random vandalism in a structured page. 大诺史 (Talk/留言/토론/Discussion) 12:57, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
User:大诺史, I had the same problem. I think its because our accounts are rate limited on rollback, as we don't have the "noratelimit" right.
See mw:Manual:$wgRateLimits, default is 10 rollbacks over a 60 second period for confirmed users. So any faster than a rollback every six seconds can be rejected. I suspect that en.wb has the default value.
See also Special:ListGroupRights for which groups have the"noratelimit" right, not included in the reviewer group. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 13:23, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Can someone change the limit as it will be easier to use mass rollback instead of rejecting/undoing their changes individually. 大诺史 (Talk/留言/토론/Discussion) 13:28, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 I don't know too much about it, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. But to alter the ratelimit you would have to edit the LocalSettings.php file for en.wb, see mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php for an explanation. I don't think this can be done on the web interface, so would have to be done by a WMF sys admin. Quite how you would go about requesting this is not something I know.

I think it makes sense for reviewers to have a ratelimit applied for rollback, otherwise there could be abuse and a very large cleanup in the hands on a rogue editor with a scripted bot. But I would like the reviewer rollback ratelimit set to something lower (e.g. 1 rollback per 1 second), as otherwise it can be a pain for reviewers to do mass rollback when needed.

@QuiteUnusual:, @Pi zero:, @Leaderboard:, @JackPotte: in case they have an additional input on this matter. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:55, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe it is, yes, the sort of thing for which we'd get a community consensus to change the site configuration. It's quite rare for us to tamper with that.

(This difficulty with rollback was invisible to me, apparently because as an admin, looking at the above, I'm exempt.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:23, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Nothing much to add to the comments above. Yes it has to be modified by a developer and to do so would require a community discussion and approval followed by a phabricator request. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 20:36, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Wasn't aware of this issue. If the limit is indeed the issue I'd be happy for it to be raised, but I somehow doubt that's actually the problem - I would have thought that it's high enough. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 01:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd, Pi zero, QuiteUnusual, Leaderboard, JackPotte:. I've created a proposal at WB:PROPOSALS#Raising rollback limit, do check it out. 大诺史 (Talk/留言/토론/Discussion) 06:55, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Boston, etcEdit

I want to create books on Boston, like info whatnot. Also other books. How? GazaOaku (discuss • contribs) 13:53, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi GazaOaku, Welcome to Wikibooks. I suggest you read it here first ( See Wikibooks FAQ ) before you start to create a book . Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 15:02, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi @GazaOaku:. Books about a place would probably be better suited to out sister project Wikivoyage. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 01:09, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Guidelines for adding a new subjectEdit

I have been adding information to Wikipedia about "Enthronement of the Sacred Heart" under the subject "Sacred Heart". I was told some of the material I have would be more appropriate under Wikibooks because it is more about how to actually do an Enthronement as opposed to information about an "Enthronement of the Sacred Heart." After talking about how to, I also have manuals that I would like to include. I have 26 edits under Wikipedia, so I was thinking I can create a new section. What would that section go under? We have copyrights to the manuals.Shenaw2016 (discuss • contribs) 21:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Who are "we" and what are the copyrights you are discussing? It is not sufficient that you are the copyright owner. You must release the work under the Wikibooks CC-BY-SA license and you will need to prove you are the copyright holder. I'd also say this really doesn't look like an educational textbook and I'm not convinced it is in scope of Wikibooks. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 15:37, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
I added a page "How to Enthrone the Sacred Heart". The article still needs to be reviewed. Let me know what you think.Shenaw2016 (discuss • contribs) 12:56, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

If I am editing a problem in a book, do I also need to make the same edit to the solution page?Edit

Hi Wikipedians,

I am working on editing our text for Linear Algebra as I work through the book for my own studies. Most of the minor edits I'm making are to the wording of problems.

If I edit a problem, do I also need to edit the solution page?

I ask because I know that edits go up for review, so perhaps those edits are handled by a bot, I do not know and I did not see a question on this page. Thank you!

Fantasticawesome (discuss • contribs) 20:56, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Fantasticawesome. Yes you would need to edit the solutions too; bots do not update the solutions. Edits may be reviewed and reverted, but this should only happen if the edits make the page worse. Hope this helps. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 23:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Op Amp actual terms are used wrongly, need to correct the terms used.Edit

Hi admins, kindly move this book from Practical Electronics/Operating amplifiers to Practical Electronics/Operational amplifiers as Op-amps is really referring to Operational Amplifiers : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_amplifier

Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 14:23, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Encik, did you know that this can be done at Special:MovePage/Practical Electronics/Operating amplifiers? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:05, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Ah Mrjulesd , this is first time I seen this special pages, I move it right away! Thanks for your kind guidance Encik Tekateki (discuss • contribs) 15:09, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Sure thing. Btw take a look at WB:MOVE for more guidance. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:10, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello [Basic Introduction]Edit

Greeting Wikibookians,
I am new, and have so far survived the DELETE speedy-creation-Page stage. I have a lot of questions, and would appreciate help from other people!
I have started a book/page: Create Vampires. I hope this book, suggested as a guide and factual resource, will help people in general.
Any title suggestions? Ideas on how to avoid copyright violations?
Anyone want to volunteer as contributors?
I have created a basic outline [Table of content] that is just a suggestion.

I really want this project to be a good guide for people, written by several people, not just by ME.
Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peyton09 (talk • contribs)

@Peyton09: Thanks for joining up with us. I'm a little confused about the scope of your proposed book. What would the book be about exactly? It's about best practices for writing fictional characters that are vampires or writing in a sub-genre of horror fiction, is that correct? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
@Justin I may be the only contributor so far, yet the ideas and good advice of other people are always good. I mean, if you want to contribute new ideas... Ideally, the book is, and will be a guide for writers that will focus on what makes a vampire a original fictional monster, what aspects make a vampire a unique character. Tips to help writers begin their own fictional creation, or monsters, will guide introducing moral points of view. The ideas and good advice of other people are also good, because ideas should be shared. Peyton09 (discuss • contribs) 13:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
@Peyton09: Just a heads up, with each new comment you add directly referencing one before it, add a new colon <:> and if you want to notify users that you are mentioning them, use {{ping|[username]}} (e.g. {{Ping|koavf}}) to get my attention. I think that guides on writing fiction are a great idea. It seems like you have a very narrow topic that doesn't really fit an entire booḱs scope but certainly a subsection of a book. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
trying this new stuff...:)…@Koavf: Thanks Justin. I am not worried, although I do hear your subtle criticism, I do think that I am blending several book types: textbook+guides, and this may create a split, meaning that people may choose a textbook, over a writing guide. I think my idea works...yet, I also wondered, would it be better to 1. stay general, meaning suggest a Wikibook like "Create Monsters," or 2. move towards a more neutral zone, with a less horrific creation, such as "Create Ghost," A NEUTRAL ZONE that allows for positive creations, as well as negative creations.
I was going to next suggest Create Ghost, yet I have problems naming titles, and I feel that this project is 1. big enough, and 2. a clear zone that others can move away from. I hope this makes some sense. I think other people could use these guides when they are better understood. Thanks. Peyton09 (discuss • contribs) 03:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Trying to make the perfect book is hard, choosing to make a good book is less difficult. I'm going to aim towards making a good book. Peyton09 (discuss • contribs) 03:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: Justin, I hope you don't mind me asking, are you available? I wonder, should I focus on teaching some people's ideas, or should I work out a way to teach ideas? I could use help. I have this in mind: Textbooks [collected info], Tutorial [guide by Tutor], Self-Study course [self guide. read recommendations]. This seems to be the key to what I had in mind. Today, I discovered a new approach. Create Vampires was intended to focus on vampires, and introduce zombies, demons, ghost, and hungry-ghosts. I could suggest a logical fallacy is created when we choose to "create" monsters, rather than reflecting actual people, their dramatic or horrifying stories. This suggests readers have a choice in the type of fiction they can study. This seems better as a formula. I wonder how I can get help from writers? Any suggestions? There are flaws... Thanks. Peyton09 (discuss • contribs) 04:54, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Peyton09: I'm happy to help but I'm not quite as experienced on this project as I am on other ones. I think you should focus on what you feel like is highest value. I think that tutorials on writing genre fiction are a perfectly appropriate venture. If you stick with it, I'd love to see what that looks like in several months or years. If you want feedback from other writers, that's tricky. Maybe you could have a little project on Wikiversity and see if anyone wants to collaborate on best practices for writers there? In reality, it seems like a lot of writers are out of work now due to all the pandemic lockdown but I have no idea how to reach out to them or convince them to give free labor to Wikibooks. :/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Koavf:} Thanks. Good advice. Sorry to hear about other people's modern problems...I hope things get better.


Greeting wikibookians, my internet connection is down, meaning that for the past few days I am having a difficult time connecting to Wikibooks. I have done nothing with Create Ghost. Sorry.Peyton09 (discuss • contribs) 10:51, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: I want people who dream of writing their own books, text-books, or tutorials to slow down. I myself am less willing to pay expensive postage to mail new ideas, and although computer connections do communicate at higher speeds than traditional mail carriers, computer connections do not often connect, link, and computers may "freeze" for unknown reasons. Although several writers may be out of work, this time could be a blessing in disguise. I hope we can share good advice with people, and information of use. ThanksPeyton09 (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Some advice on plan for final touches on making completed book publicly available?Edit

@Mrjulesd: hello (& hello to other readers), you previously sent me a message offering kind assistance on finally transferring my book to the main public work-space. I've tried to figure out what needs to be done by looking through the Wikibooks help, but not so sure that I've made no mistakes in my planned course of action. Could you, or even other people, please advise as to whether my following plan of action appears to be correct?

  1. First run MovePage tool shown here on every page of the book.    ✓ OKAYED BY Mrjulesd.
  2.   ADD "BOOK CATEGORY" INFORMATION
    1. Add {{BookCat}} to the bottom of every page of book other than the main page, as well as to every book template.    ✓ OKAYED BY Mrjulesd.
    2. For each image in book, add [[{{BOOKCATEGORY|End-user_Computer_Security}}/Images]] to the bottom of the Wikibooks page for the image (the page here is an example of such a page).    ✓ OKAYED BY Mrjulesd.
      Is this the case even for images that may be reused in other book projects?    Mrjulesd seems to say 'yes'.
    3. For each talk/discussion page of book, add [[{{BOOKCATEGORY|End-user_Computer_Security}}/Discussion]]to the bottom of the page.
      NOT NEEDED   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
      Is this right?    Mrjulesd says it's not needed.
  3.   ADD "SHELF AND SUBJECT CATEGORY" INFORMATION
    1. Place {{subjects|Information security|Business}} at bottom of main page of book.    NOT NEEDED   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
    2. Place {{shelves|Information security|Business}} at bottom of main page of book.    ✓ OKAYED BY Mrjulesd.    

      DECIDED TO ALSO ADD BOOK TO ENGINEERING SHELF AFTER HAVING READ THE SHELF'S DESCRIPTION.
  4.   ADD "NON-SUBJECT CATEGORY" INFORMATION   USE Wikibooks Stacks,   ADD  CCO Resources ⇒ MAIN PAGE   
    💬
    Mrjulesd.
    1. Add [[Category:Categories|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] to bottom of every page of book, where Categories is the specific name of the NON-SUBJECT category into which the page should be placed. When the page should be added to more than one category, add this code more than once, with each instance being for a different particular NON-SUBJECT category under which the page should be classified. The code just mentioned, should be adapted for certain pages of the book; specifically, the {{SUBPAGENAME}} magic word in the code ought to be appropriately exchanged for other text in each such instance; the specific adaptions are outlined in the next list item (b).   PROBABLY UNNECESSARY.   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
    2. For each of the following pages, instead of using the magic word {{SUBPAGENAME}} for the sort key, the special sort key indicated in the table for the page, should be used (default sort key is overridden in such cases):
      Page name Other identifier Sort key to use instead
      Some measures that are primarily physical chapter 5 "physical"
      What to do when you discover your computer has been hacked chapter 9 "hack"
      New security inventions requiring a non-trivial investment in new technology under appendix "inventions"
      Preliminaries contents, index, & foreword "Computer Security"
         PROBABLY UNNECESSARY.   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
    3. After more or less exhaustively examining the present NON-SUBJECT categories, I have determined that I will likely be using the following NON-SUBJECT categories:
      1. Intermediate reading level
      2. Advanced reading level
      3. Books_containing_original_research
      After perusing your NON-SUBJECT categories, it does appear that maybe your current list is a bit lacking. I'm wondering whether I should create some new NON-SUBJECT categories, such as one for user-credential security, since I have a chapter on it, and there may be pages in other books also dealing with the same subject. What do you think about this?
         CREATE YOUR CATEGORIES BY CLICKING ON THE RED LINKS IN THE CATEGORIES NAMESPACE.   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.

         CAN CATEGORISE ON AN INDIVIDUAL-PAGE BASIS (RATHER THAN JUST ON A BOOK-WIDE BASIS), I ADVISE THAT YOU USE SUB-CATEGORIES OF THE BOOK CATEGORY FOR SUCH    (EG. "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security/Whatever").   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
    4. Add the presently unfinished book index (only part of book that is currently incomplete), to a new category under the TODO parent category.    PROBABLY UNNECESSARY.   
      💬
      Mrjulesd.
      1. Create "TODO/Index for End-user Computer Security book" as a Category page. Then add following to page: 
        __HIDDENCAT__
[[category:TODO|End-user_Computer_Security]]
[[{{BOOKCATEGORY|End-user_Computer_Security}}]]
      2. Then add the following text to the talk page for the book: 
        * {{todolink|End-user Computer Security book|todo-list of End-user Computer Security book}}
  5. Add the following code to bottom of the book's main page: 
    {{Alphabetical|E}}
{{status|100%}}

       ✓ OKAYED BY Mrjulesd.

MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 13:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)


That's essentially it. I'll direct you to Wikibooks:CCO Resources and Template:BookCat which better explain things than I could probably do.
But in summary:
Point 1: correct
Point 2: yes add {{BookCat}}. I imagine your book will be called "End-user Computer Security", so it would add to "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security". Categories to images can also be added by "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security/Images", and templates to "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security/Templates". Talk pages don't need cats, as the parent pages should already have cats.
Point 3: {{shelves}} is sufficient. I think {{Subjects}} came before Wikibooks Stacks came into operation, so is now legacy.
Point 4: Firstly please don't add your pages to "Category:Categories". Basically what you need to do is use Wikibooks Stacks; it works very well in practice, and is now the default for books on this project; further categorization could be done but is probably unnecessary. It's also very simple: all you needed to do is add {{BookCat}} to each (non-talk) page, and the CCO Resources to the main page. You also need to create your cats by clicking on the cat red-links and clicking create. All the rest is done automatically. You could further categorize pages within your book, but I would suggest you use subcats of the book cat, which I would imagine would be "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security", so something like "Category:Book:End-user Computer Security/Whatever".
Point 5: correct.
Overall my advice is to keep it simple at this stage, and move on to more advanced things later. Thanks to Wikibook Stacks, its all incredibly simple to get going, and is all you need to do for now. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:46, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

🙏👍


@Mrjulesd: was just wondering whether you could advise as to the categories selection part. So what I've done, is that I've gone through all the categories, in the categories namespace, and selected the following rough list of categories that might be appropriate:
Can you just comment on this? Does it look right? Am I perhaps not doing something quite right?


MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 11:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
OK I'll tell you what you need to do (at this stage anyway):
* In your book click on the category red-link at the bottom of a page, i.e. Category:Book:End-user Computer Security. To this page add two templates: {{Book category header}} and {{BookCat}}. Put in an edit summary "create" and then press "publish page". You're essentially done with cats at this point, although you could create subcats at some point, depending on how you feel about it.
* To the main page, i.e. End-user Computer Security, you need to add the following:
** {{alphabetical|E}}
** {{shelves|Information security|Computing}} - this is a suggestion, you may feel other shelves more appropriate
** {{status|100%}} - if complete, otherwise something else
** {{reading level|intermediate}} - I would imagine that this is roughly right, if you disagree that's fine
Now I realise that you've put your main page as a speedy delete, so it may not be possible to do it at this point. But these are the first steps, once you've done this you can think about more advanced options. But for many books this is all you need. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:01, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd: the book is virtually ready to announce to others. In fact I can announce it even now. There is just one outstanding issue, and that is to do with my images being CATEGORISED in my IMAGES BOOK-CATEGORY SUBCATEGORY. I tried to follow yours and Wikibook's guidance, but am not getting it to work. Can you please direct me as to how I can get this image, to be CATEGORISED in my images BOOK CATEGORY?

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 15:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarkJFernandes: Ah that's a good question, since its uploaded to Commons it may not be possible. This edit didn't work. Maybe ask at Wikibooks:Reading room/Technical Assistance, as there might be a way that I don't know about? But if it's not added to the cat it shouldn't matter too much. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Followed Mrjulesd's advice, and posted query to the Technical Assistance reading room here.

Is it not okay to CATEGORISE chapters in non-BOOK, non-SUBJECT/SHELF categories?Edit

@Mrjulesd: thanks for your guidance thus far. I've created and used all of my BOOK CATEGORIES, and I'm happy with them for the time being. I'm slightly confused as to whether it is correct or not, to CATEGORISE chapters in non-SUBJECT categories (non-SHELF categories) that are also not BOOK CATEGORIES. Your guides seem to say that you shouldn't do that, and that instead chapters and other non-front-page pages should instead be categorised into BOOK CATEGORIES under the BOOK CATEGORY for the overall book. I know it's probably not necessary at this stage to do any such further CATEGORISATION, but once I've finalised the book, I'm not sure when I'll be returning to it for further improvements, so it might be best to get it out of the way now.

thank you     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 08:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarkJFernandes: well in general that shouldn't be necessary, but I suppose it might depend on the category you have in mind. Have you got a specific example of why this might be necessary, and an example of a category you wish to add chapters to? Sometimes chapters get automatically added to categories like Category:Pages using deprecated source tags through the use of templates. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 10:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
We don't use non-book, non subject categories, for example to group pages in different books together. That's because books are seen as independent self-contained things, and one page of a book wouldn't be grouped with one page from a different book. Occasionally people try to do this - usually Wikipedia editors - by adding article type categories, but someone else usually removes them very quickly. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 10:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd, QuiteUnusual: thanks for both of your responses. I'm going to go with QuiteUnusual's thinking, as this seems to make the most sense to me given what I found in the published guidance, and what QuiteUnusual said about what happens when ppl violate the rule.

thank you     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 14:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)


Tips on how to create a first bookEdit

Any tips on how to create a first book please?Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesthrive (talk • contribs)

@Jesthrive: Thanks for asking. Have you looked at Help:Contents yet? If you haven't, there's a lot to poke thru there. I suppose things that may not be explicit in the help documentation are:
  1. Make sure you have some idea of the structure of a book before you start. This will save you a lot of administrative headaches later.
  2. Books here generally tend to be solo projects. There's no reason why this has to be true and of course, as a wiki, we are here to help one another but there are just very few editors at Wikibooks, so many, many books end up being either essentially the work of one person or a failed experiment that is abandoned for years. :/
Here's hoping you stick around. Let me know how I can help. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:43, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jesthrive: You'll want to read this book: Using Wikibooks. --17:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

WrestlingEdit

I want to start a new book. What do I do? Gorozigg64 (discuss • contribs) 15:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, @Gorozigg64: We provide a book about this, Using Wikibooks. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:20, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

contributionEdit

Hi. Here is a link. Here 3DickUlus writes: "wiki books doesn't give me the freedom I need to maintain it properly... they complain when I post a screenshot and tell me that I'm not allowed to post copyrighted material...FragM is opensource and I have contributed more than half of the code, so wikibooks is not the place I want people going for proper and up to date documentation." What do you think about it ? --Adam majewski (discuss • contribs) 19:05, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@Adam majewski: FragM is a redlink, so I have no clue what the guy is talking about. Can you please be more explicit about exactly what the problem is? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
@Koavf: Thx for replay. I have updated a link. I have also strikeout some text because it is IMHO normal. Only second part of his comment shows the problem--Adam majewski (discuss • contribs) 16:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)answer

Importing  CC BY 4.0 text to WikibooksEdit

Hello all, I would like to import some CC BY 4.0 text into Wikibooks. I suspect that it may be possible if the text after importation also includes information about the text also being licensed under CC BY 4.0 (licensing in addition to the CC BY-SA 3.0 licensing from Wikibooks).

Anyone have any thoughts or comments on this?

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 07:52, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@MarkJFernandes: Yes, you can do this. I would include attribution in the edit summary and the talk page to be safe. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
@MarkJFernandes, Koavf: It's my understanding (having consulted with someone more expert in copyright than I) that 4.0 doesn't allow 3.0. This has, iirc, been a problem for the entire wikimedia sisterhood, that they'd all have to go to 4.0 at once because if just some projects went to 4.0, their content would no longer be exportable to the ones that were still using 3.0. (And good luck getting everyone to agree to go to 4.0.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
@Pi zero, MarkJFernandes: Seems like this kind of backwards-compatible use is explicitly allowed:
“The ShareAlike licenses require that licensees make their contributions to adapted material available under the same terms and conditions, or, where the license allows, under a license designated by CC as compatible… Starting with the release of the 2.x license suites, CC expanded compatibility by allowing contributions to adapted material to be created under the same or later version of the original license, including other ported versions of the same or later version of the license. The 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike goes one step further, by allowing those contributions to be licensed under under a “Creative Commons Compatible License,” defined to mean licenses approved by CC as essentially equivalent to the 3.0 Attribution-ShareAlike license.”
As a not-lawyer, seems like they're saying that 3.0+ recognizes that licenses with the same kinds of restrictions are allowable. (cf. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/) Am I missing something? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:46, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
A document that has been released under 3.0 can be released under 4.0, as I understand it, but a document released under 4.0 is not automatically allowed to be released under 3.0. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 22:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
You don't have to re-license the entire document, as the contributions are by a license with compatible restrictions. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
As I understand it, there is a difference between CC BY 4.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0. I don't really understand it, but apparently CC BY 4.0 is acceptable, but CC BY-SA 4.0 is not. This is by looking at w:Help:Adding open license text to Wikipedia which states this; if it is acceptable for Wikipedia use, then I would presume it is OK for Wikibooks use.
Accepted license
  CC BY-SA versions 1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, but not version 4.0
  CC BY, all versions and ports, up to and including 4.0
  CC0
w:Public Domain Work in the public domain is not "licenced" because it is not copyrighted. We treat it similarly to CC0
--Jules (Mrjulesd) 23:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd: You know what, I should relook as I didn't consider the -SA requirements. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
@Koavf: Yes its easy to miss. Apparently SA means "w:Share alike", which means that it can only be shared under the same or similar licence as the original. The problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is it demands that it must republish only under CC BY-SA 4.0, which is a further restriction addendum: as pointed out below the main problem with CC BY-SA 4.0 is its restrictiveness for imports. So CC BY-SA 4.0 is extremely restrictive for which license it can be share under, which creates the problem. By dual licensing I presume that content can also be relicensed under the GFDL, and therefore exported to the GFDL. However importing from GFDL is not possible because of the nature of the share alike licensing. Or at least that is how I understand it. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd: GPL v. 3 is explicitly allowed for CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:15, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
@Koavf: But note that the w:GNU General Public License (GPL) is different to the w:GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL); but what difference this makes if any I don't know. Also note that the transference is only one way. "Note that compatibility with the GPLv3 is one-way only, which means you may license your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 4.0 materials under GPLv3, but you may not license your contributions to adaptations of GPLv3 projects under BY-SA 4.0. " So if you have GPL content you can't export them to CC BY-SA, but you can export CC BY-SA content to GPL. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:32, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@Mrjulesd, Koavf: thanks for looking into this into some detail.
Just started examining the licence texts and Wikibooks terms to try to figure out the answer to this issue. According to my initial analysis, CC BY 4.0 material cannot be imported into Wikibooks without the original licensor(s) agreeing to it being re-licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. I came to this conclusion through the following logic:
  1. The Wikibooks terms seem to mandate that contributed material is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
  2. The CC BY 4.0 terms appear not to allow sub-licensing.
I know this conclusion somewhat clashes with the Wikipedia guidance quoted by Mrjulesd, but I'm inclined to believe that the guidance might be wrong, partly because my prior experience with Wikipedia in respect of their user agreement left me feeling that they weren't quite 'on the ball' in respect of licensing.
Anyway, of course I could be mistaken, so I'm leaving this issue open for the time being, in case I become enlightened in the short term. I'm also emailing Creative Commons for their advice about this.

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 14:37, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@MarkJFernandes: Well I've been reading up about licensing, and I think that importing CC BY 4.0 into Wikibooks is fine. If you read https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the main thing you'll notice is that it is not a w:Share alike, which are quite restrictive on compatible licenses. In fact there doesn't seem to be any relicensing requirements at all. All it really requires is attribution: from my understanding you can then relicense derived works any way you wish, including CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL of Wikibooks.
My understanding of most license is that you are generally free to license derived works how you wish; obviously the original source remains under the original license. Now "share alike" licenses, and licenses like the w:GPL and w:GFDL, adn w:Apache License are quite restrictive in this regard. But other license, like public domain, are very open in this regard; derived works of public domain works can be relicensed any way you wish.
Also if you look at Creative Commons > Share your work > Licensing considerations > Compatible Licenses it only lists the share alike licenses; I feel this is because with their other licenses no compatibility problems occur. Also if you look at https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ only their share-alike licenses have the note "Adaptations must be shared under the same terms".
Now I understand your hesitancy, as I could be wrong in this regard. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to ask somewhere like the w:Wikipedia:Help desk? Its part of Wikipedia, but as far as I know licensing is identical for all WMF sites. Perhaps they can reassure you; if they tell you I'm wrong I'd be most perplexed! --Jules (Mrjulesd) 15:07, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
@MarkJFernandes: furthermore, CC BY seems to be explicitly described as being compatible with Wikipedia (and therefore WMF projects) in their FAQ. To quote:
"Can I include a work licensed with CC BY in a Wikipedia article even though they use a CC BY-SA license?
Yes. Works licensed under CC BY may be incorporated into works that are licensed under CC BY-SA. For example, you may incorporate a CC BY photograph into a Wikipedia article so long as you keep all copyright notices intact, provide proper attribution, and otherwise comply with the terms of CC BY. Learn more about the licenses." --Jules (Mrjulesd) 09:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd: upon revisiting this issue, I think you are probably right. Just looked at the Wikibooks terms and conditions, and have just noticed that there is a separate section for importing works co-authored with others (didn't see it before). The section appears to allow what you say. Thanks for looking at this issue again.

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 08:24, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in the steps I plan to take in the process of importing such content to Wikibooks, you can see documentation of the steps on the Wikipedia site here     (wanted to transclude the content but doesn't look like inter-wiki transclusion is enabled?)

     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 13:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)


Are the servers, offices, and entity of Wikibooks, in the USA?Edit

Just trying to comply with contractual obligations in respect of importing content from another service into Wikibooks. One of the terms is that I must comply with import/export restrictions and like sanctions, that are in force in the USA. In such regard, does anyone have an answer to the question in the subject text of this section?

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 08:42, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@MarkJFernandes: Wikibooks is hosted by the w:Wikimedia Foundation. According to Tax Deductibility "Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit charity (tax ID number 20-0049703) established in the United States under the US IRS Code Section 501(c)(3). Donations from persons or entities located in the United States may benefit from tax deductible status." So it is a USA registered entity, but it is also multinational to some extent in that servers are hosted around the world, see m:Wikimedia servers; and there are local chapters: for example Wikimedia UK. For copyright purposes it acts like a USA entity, but it tries to respects local laws. e.g. see w:Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights, "Copyright status of a work in its home country is often important in evaluating its copyright status in the United States. Nevertheless, a work that is in the public domain in its home country can sometimes be under copyright in the United States and so can not be used on Wikipedia." Most countries feel that it respects local laws, although Wikipedia in particular is blocked in many countries: see w:Censorship of Wikipedia. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:45, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
@Mrjulesd: thanks for this.
Does anyone have any ideas as to how one would be able to keep abreast of the current export/import laws and related sanctions of the USA? I use very many US software and services, and they very often stipulate that you must not violate such rules. So not only for the sake of this issue would I like to have greater cognisance of such rules, but anyway, simply for the sake of this issue I would like to find out whether anyone else has comments regarding keeping abreast with such rules.

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 08:29, 20 July 2020 (UTC)


Currently thinking that the page @ https://www.trade.gov/us-export-controls might be a good starting point. It seems to outline precise information on how to get information on all the other export regulations not covered by the site and that are applied by other agencies, by telling you where you can get a list of all the other agencies involved. If anyone has any comments on this, I would appreciate reading them (am not a US citizen).

thanks     MarkJFernandes (discuss • contribs) 16:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)


Dangerous pageEdit

When I was reviewing some pages, PSP/Official Extras is somehow flagged as dangerous. Any idea what's causing that? --Sigma 7 (discuss • contribs) 02:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

@Sigma 7: Google has decided the page is dangerous, but afaics they provide no information that would be useful to us, as a good-faith information provider, in determining exactly why they've decided that. I'm thinking of providing the urls without links, if I can remember how to do that, but then I also don't know how long it would then take for Google to decide to reassess. [2] --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 03:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
My guess is that pspdemocenter.com (which has since gone) was reported by Sony for malware, maybe because it hosted unauthorized PSP software. I have replaced it with another link which is up, hopefully when Google crawl it it wont flag it further. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 05:37, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Newbie questions about creating a book.Edit

I have some questions about creating a new wiki book. I would like to create a “Culinary Arts” textbook which would be comparable to and with the detail of the textbooks used by professional Cooking schools but meant for non-professionals. I installed mediawiki on my computer and began developing the book. I now have a well defined structure and have begun fleshing the pages out but now I’m running into issues like not having the needed wikibooks templates. So now I’m interested in using my account here that I resurrected from mediawiki from years ago.

So here are the questions...

Should I just start building the book on my user page until I’m sure it is viable?

Or should I just formally start a new book?

It appears that I can clip a great deal of the material from Wikipedia then format the clipped material into a textbook format. Is that legal and/or appropriate?

Also, there will be much of the technical material that I can get from the wiki book cookbook which would also need to be reformatted and edited. The Cookbook has much good info but seems very encyclopedic though informal. Is that ok to have so similar of a book?

I’m assuming that any pages I create in my user space will be globally visible. Do I need to make the pages look like what they would in the final book or do I need to prefix every page with my username?

Thanks in advance for your help.

EddieM0710 —Preceding undated comment added 01:44, 19 August 2020.

Hi, @Eddiem0710: Pages to be used from Wikipedia should be requested for import. You may want to take a look at Using Wikibooks, which includes info about how to create a book. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 05:08, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Hi, @Pi zero: the stuff I need would be 1 or 2 paragraphs from a large page. I’m not understanding why the page should be imported by an administrator when I can simply copy and paste the paragraph and underlying refs. I would be looking at hundreds of imports with most of it being deleted.
Also, did I reply to this correctly. I sort of expected a reply button. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddiem0710 (talk • contribs) 13:38, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Eddiem0710: The conditions of copyright of Wikipedia do not allow material to be copied without attribution. That's the basic hang-up. The usual solution is to import pages from Wikipedia at need; granted, that is most practical when one is importing most of a certain Wikipedia page to a particular Wikibooks page. You're saying you'd be drawing small(ish) passages from hundreds of Wikipedia pages? --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:55, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pi zero: yes. For instance, under ingredient definitions I would have an entry for salt. I expect I would only need a couple of paragraphs from the Wikipedia related article to composition and it’s importance to cooking. The material incorporated would probably highly edited and additional connecting material added. I would want to keep the external references as references for the book. I expect I would do something similar for most entries in the book. Thus probably hundreds of imports. I certainly don’t mind giving Wikipedia due acknowledgement. I’m doing little more than organizing and editing and really expect no acknowledgement.
@Pi zero: Is that an appropriate way to develop a book?
@Pi zero: @QuiteUnusual: I’m still struggling with what is ok and what isn’t. Here is a page/chapter I’ve been working on to see what I can do. Much of the text was copied from several Wikipedia articles and edited for more of a book feel rather than a research paper. Knives please take a look at it and tell me what you think. Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 22:09, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
@Eddiem0710: The outline of Culinary Arts looks plausible to me. There's some interesting food for thought (er... actually didn't intend a pun there) in how to arrange the relationship of this book to our existing Cookbook. That is presumably a topic to discuss at Talk:Culinary Arts. The Cookbook page itself could be improved; I see it doesn't even use our shelving system, nor is it immediately obvious how to make it do so, something I really should try to redress (in my copious free time), and Cookbook:Table of Contents seems to me to rather fail to advertise the actual outline of the thing, such as it is. I agree that it's rather encyclopedic. There are also some aspects of Wikibooks that are set up on the rather arrogant assumption that Cookbook is the only thing here on its subject, e.g. Cooking is a redirect to the Cookbook ToC.
@QuiteUnusual: Thoughts on the matter of importing and merging large numbers of Wikipedia articles for the sake of borrowing a sentence here and a sentence there, or alternatives thereto? (Also, @JackPotte:?) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
We might avoid a few imports with {{WikipediaCredit}}. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 11:13, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
@Pi zero: @QuiteUnusual: part of the reason I am struggling is that it seems way overkill to import the whole Wikipedia article. What seems appropriate to me is that I should copy what I need, freely edit it removing all the wiki links, maintain any references it uses and add another reference back to the Wikipedia article. I wanted my final book to look like any other printed textbook when done and referencing this way would look appropriate. Btw... I didn’t want to beat up the cookbook too much because I thought it may be an important someone’s sacred project. But there is a lot of good info there.
I suggest you do what I did. Copy the text into your page and in the edit summary insert a permalink to the Wikipedia source. QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 13:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't mean to offend anyone but your help documentation sucks.Edit

Guys and Gals, I am a retired computer programmer. I programmed real-time embedded OS utilities for 35+ years in many languages and environments. I feel I am quite capable of picking up a new environment. I've been seriously trying to use Wikibooks for a couple weeks now. I don't mean to offend anyone but wikibooks help documentation sucks. There is no (or none I can't find) single place to go to to find the nuts and bolts of writing a page. Yes, there is a lot on planning a book and accompanying policies but no pointer to finding basic nitty gritty of how to do stuff. The current instance that is frustrating me is I want to limit the number of heading levels that the TOC displays. What is the syntax? I know I have seen it in my poking around. If I do a search on "Table of Contents" I get a message that tells me I can't create that page (thank you very much). (Searching sucks also.) The info I need is not (that I can find) referenced within 2 level of an intro page. A link to all the help should be at the very top level. Instead it is just a glitzy page with pointer to high level stuff or cursory introductory material. If I am frustrated imagine what someone with no computer background feels. I shouldn't have to go to the reading room and ask for help on something that should be in a document that is obvious. If you want to attract users your interface is going to have to get a lot more friendly. This has to be fixed. If the info is there then make the path to it obvious. If it is not available then it needs to be created. I am willing to help. In fact, I have already started. See my user page. But I am getting very frustrated trying to write that, too. If you happen to know where the documentation for the TOC is then that would be great to know but that is not what I am asking for. I would like some changes that would make this a friendly useable environment. --Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:35, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I apologize if I did offend anyone. I really did not mean to. I am quite sincere when I say I would really like to see this site thrive. I think it is or could be important. I'm going now to do my afternoon meditation and see if I can calm down. I'll check back later for comments. --Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:35, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Entirely non-judgmentally: in practice, for technical details of wikis I generally look at the documentation on Wikipedia.

I had no idea there was a way to limit the depth of a TOC; generally, on Wikibooks, if a page has that deep a TOC the page should be broken up into sub-pages. There is a template for the purpose on Wikipedia, which has never been imported here and, I suspect, we might be better off not importing so as not to encourage that sort of thing. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:32, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The syntax to do so is <div class="toclimit-x">__TOC__</div> where x is the TOC limit. e.g. <div class="toclimit-3">__TOC__</div> would show ===sub-sections=== but hide ====sub-sub-sections====. See also w:Help:Section.
For technical matters I wrote w:Template:Wikipedia technical help which is pretty good for finding advanced technical matters on Wikipedia. The equivalent for Wikibooks is Template:Wikibooks editor navigation, but the info in general is not as advanced, but more specific. See also Template:Wikibooks policies and guidelines for Wikibooks rules. Also the site mw:MediaWiki has a ton of technical info if you can find it, e.g. mw:Manual:Table of contents. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 01:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, that’s what I needed but it begs the question of how do we make the info readily available in Wikibooks. Once again, I apologize for the tirade but I just lost it after searching for an hour and a half. Finding something like this should be rather trivial. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 12:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello Eddie, I've also encountered some difficulties finding help documents. Some confusion can be avoided by eliminating duplication. For example the front help page, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Contents, has two links for editing: "Editing" and "Editing Wikitext". Harmless for an experienced user. A novice must think "which will help with ... ?" One link for editing is enough?
As Pi zero remarked above, the documentation in Wikipedia can be advantageous. I wonder about consolidating documentation across the projects. Links in each project are OK but can the documentation be centralized?
Incidentally, probably you meant "invokes the question" rather than "begs the question". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question. Question begging is done by lazy or weak students in maths and philosophy courses. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 03:35, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
You are exactly, formally correct. However, I used the phrase correctly in the vernacular sense. Not being able to find the correct info easily invokes/begs the question of why it is hard to find. (In my opinion (which really makes no difference) correct language usage must follow the usage in the society. Language is alive and changing. The French are wasting their time trying to control the correct usage of their language. But that’s their business.) I don’t think the problem is that there are too many links to the information (though that may be a problem also) but that there are no readily available links to the information. Either way, if a new user becomes frustrated he/she (or whatever the correct usage is) is not going to stick around and this site will die a slow death. That is the real point.
I don’t get the impression that there are a lot of users here. I don’t see anyone asking question even though the documentation I read leaves me with a lot. I didn’t used to be dumb. I think there needs to be a formal movement to fix it. Or, I could be shown I’m wrong, in which case, I’ll shut up and tow the line. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 19:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
 I could be shown I’m wrong, in which case, I’ll shut up and tow the line. Well i don't think you're probably wrong, the help situation with regard to technical matters could probably be improved. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that the solution would not to put more technical stuff here. My grand plan for a technical help utopia would probably be along the following:

  1. There should be a central technical help depository. For me, having separate technical help projects for the English-language WMF projects (i.e. English Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, etc.) is a bit of a waste. That's because almost all technical aspects are the same for all the projects. Now the big difference is that there is huge differences in template and module use between projects. But if you exclude this, technically contributing to these projects is mostly the same, barring some configuration differences. Technical aspects you learn about one project can mostly be exported to other projects.
  2. Now where should this be held? For me the obvious place would be mw:MediaWiki. Now I feel this would be the best place as it is project agnostic. Now it does sort of cover most technical aspects, but unfortunately I feel many of the pages there need updating and expanding, they don't always cover subjects in enough depth. An example of this would be mw:Manual:Table of contents versus w:Help:Section, they cover roughly the same area but the en.wp has much more info.
  3. This would then restrict technical help pages on projects to the basics, but also importantly template and module usage, as well as configuration differences. If everyone used the MediaWiki site there wouldn't be much need for anything beyond this. Things like policies and guidelines would also need to covered separately.

Now obviously the big flaw in this plan would be the amount of work to do this: even a single page would likely take many hours of work to truly expand it in this way. So it might be a "pipe dream", but I feel it would probably be the best solution. The main questions are how many would agree with me, and would anyone want to do all the work. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

An all inclusive solution would be ideal. But getting other projects to update their help because ours is poor may be a problem unless there is some overarching Wiki leadership that can push it. I was looking for a Wikibooks comprehensive solution but would settle for a single very visible page that had a list of help pages in this or other projects that covers all the info. That would go a long way to solving the problem. I think users can understand that the projects are different and stuff goes out of date but just not finding anything is unacceptable; a newbie certainly does not know that looking on another site is possible. I can’t even figure out how to filter searches on this site to just look for help info; i.e., I haven’t seen search help either. —-Eddiem0710 (discuss • contribs) 23:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Help pages for search are at Help:Navigating or w:Help:Searching. Basically you click on the 🔍 icon in the top right hand corner of each page, and then select the "search in" namespaces that you want, for help pages they would typically be in the "Help:" or "Wikibooks:" namespaces.
I think the idea of having a general directory for technical help would be a good idea, maybe I'll look into writing one. At the moment the WB:FAQ, may be useful, espcially the Help:FAQ/Editing page. And don't forget to look at the links at Template:Wikibooks editor navigation. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
... how many would agree with me, ...
That's the right way.
... would anyone want to do all the work ...
I can't do all the work but can do some. With the Oberon book I take the initiative. A few can be relied upon for help. I email "Hello X, please have a look at such and such. If it needs correction please go ahead or please reply. ..." When the right person is asked, progress occurs.
For "help", develop one page at a time in MediaWiki. When it is ready, create appropriate links to it. Then delete redundant help pages elsewhere. Regards, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 14:55, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

page restricted to administrators helpEdit

Hi, I have a student attempting to complete an assignment. Based on this page: Exercise_as_it_relates_to_Disease/Improving_executive_functions_in_children_with_autism_spectrum_disorder_through_mixed_martial_arts. When the student goes to "start" the page the error message comes up:

The page title or edit you have tried to create has been restricted to administrators at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, which is usually used to prevent vandalism. If you receive this message when trying to edit, create or move an existing page, follow these instructions:

Any administrator can create or move this page for you. Please post a request at the administrative assistance reading room. You may also contact any administrator on their discussion page or by e-mail. Be sure to specify the exact title of the page you are trying to create or edit, and if it might be misunderstood (for example, a page with an unusual name), consider explaining briefly what you want to do. If you wrote any text, save it temporarily on your computer until you can edit the page.

I am not sure why this would come up - I can't see why it would be blacklisted, they are just writing a critique of a research article about an exercise intervention and autism. Are we able to clear that?

Thanks --Benrattray (discuss • contribs) 05:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Benrattray: I've created the page. I'd guess that at some time or other we had a problem with spam about autism "cures", and a blacklist entry was created that the pagename triggered. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 11:25, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pi zero: Awesome, many thanks. Understandable.

--Benrattray (discuss • contribs) 23:32, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Starting a new wikibook?Edit

What are the elements? I want to start one on criminals and crime. Seikopo (discuss • contribs) 16:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Seikopo: The basic reference on this is the book Using Wikibooks. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:15, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Visual editorEdit

Hi all

Sorry for the newbie question, I've been on Wikipedia for several years and interesting in writing a book for Wikibooks. I can't find how to edit using Visual Editor, I've looked in preferences, searched the help pages etc, I'm probably missing something obvious... Can someone help me out?

Thanks

--John Cummings (discuss • contribs) 15:22, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

There might be something about it in Special:Preferences. (Though I, for my part am only interested in how to prevent Visual Editor from appearing; I believe VE to be a cataclysmically bad idea, basically the opposite of what the Wikimedia Foundation would be trying to do if they were acting wisely. I reckon the great value of wikis lies in the markup language, wiki markup, and every time a user edits a page it's vitally important that they see the wiki markup, see how things are done, so they can learn it by seeing and doing, whereas a WYSIWYG interface like VE exists for the specific purpose of preventing users from seeing how things are done.) --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures - QuiteUnusual (discuss • contribs) 16:05, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
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