Wikibooks:Study help desk/Archive (March 2005-June 2006)

Question on which template to use on image for copyright

Image in question: File:HornWagnerLongCall.png. I generated this image of this music - do I release this into the public domain (template "PD-self")? Richard Wagner, long dead, has released this into the public domain according to current law - should I use template "PD" instead? Or should I use both templates? Ross Uber 01:54, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Where to report wiki spammers?

221.196.142.68 has spammed 3 sites with commercial links and am not sure what is the procedure?

You can report all vandalism on the vandalism in progress page. If you have time, then you can try dealing with it yourself if you want. Leave the user a message on their talk page asking them to stop. If they continue, give them a second, then a third warning. If they still continue to vandalize after the third warning, then you can report them to an administrator, and they will probably block their IP address. -Frazzydee 16:51, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stick of Butter

Copied from Cookbook:butter: I don't understand the term sticks for butter, how many grammes or ounces is this?

1 stick butter 1/2 cup 4 ounces 113.4 grams 8 tablespoons

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/BritishEquiv.htm

--Eibwen 20:59, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC) The term 'stick' describes butter and margarine as packaged in the United States: One package is one pound of butter, wrapped (in waxed paper or just paper, sometimes aluminium foil) in 1/4 pound (4 oz.) blocks, 4-to-a-package, the four blocks or sticks are additionally wrapped in a nice shiny commercial package. The term 'cube' of butter refers to the same (4 oz. weight/8 packed, level tablespoonsfull) of butter as well. We use lots of packaging in the U.S., alas. One advantage to the sticks-type packaging is that there are markings on the side (of the sticks wrapping-paper) that show measurements... to measure 4 tablespoosnfull, one cuts on the line marked 4 tablespoons.Pedant

Dial-by-letter

I have noticed some phone numbers which contain letters, like "1-800-THE-BOOK". What are these numbers and how can I dial them from Europe? It looks like an American custom, right?

Possible answer:

The 1 indicates to a local land line telephone in the US that you would like to use your default long distance carrier to make a call or you can replace the first numeral one with a code for a different long distance carrier. (For my cell phone the 1 is optional because there is only one carrier.) In short, the 1 tells your telephone network that you want to call a land line outside the area code your own cellphone is located in (i.e. long distance call)

The next three numbers are the area code and in your example is "800" which is a special area code meaning that the recipient of the call will pay the toll charges in the U.S. and Canada. Typically businesses pay for an 800 number that is forwarded to one of their regular business lines or to a call center.

The letter system is a standard. There is a picture on wikipedia under telephone. Q and Z are not part of the system but they are on my cell phone. Most european cell phones (mobile phones) have the letters on their number keys, as well as many new land-line phones. (Cell phones need them so you can type in text messages a.k.a. SMS messages)

2 a b c
3 d e f
4 g h i
5 j k l
6 m n o
7 p (q) r s
8 t u v
9 w x y (z)

NOTE: In the US, "0" or Operator was also "Z" on some rotary dial phones.

To dial 1-800-THE-BOOK:

You know it's a US number, so dial the international access code in your country (i.e. the number you have to dial so the network knows you're making an international call. e.g. "00" in Germany, different for other countries), then the country code ("1" for the U.S. (*) ), followed by the area code (city code, but often refers to several cities), which is 800, followed by the numeric equivalent of each letter as described in the previous answer.

(*) Please note that this is a different "1" from the "I'd like to make a long distance call"-1 (long distance prefix). From outside the U.S. you always have to specify an area code, so there's no need for a long distance prefix. Instead, this "1" tells your local telefone network in which country the called phone is located.

THE-BOOK would then be 843-2665

Most 1-800 numbers cannot be dialed from outside the United States, try to find the alternate number.
I got this from the Barnes and Noble website:

Please call 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-843-2665) between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. ET, 7 days a week, and we'll answer your questions. If you are calling from outside the United States, dial 201-272-3651.

I found that many companies (ATT, for example) have their 800 numbers available locally - i.e., ATT's collect call number here is 1-800-CALL-ATT; in Germany and the Netherlands, it was something similar - a toll-free city code followed by CALL-ATT

I've found that 1-800 numbers work from the UK, but they're not free. In most cases, a female voice (i assume recorded by the carrier such as AT&T) informs you that 'calls to this number may not be free'.

Maybe the reason Barnes & Noble have a different number is because they pay per-incoming-call on the freephone number?
James Booker 10:57, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

King Lear

What is the source of the devils Edgar makes reference to in King Lear? Is it available online?

They're generally references to Old Testament Devils, I don't quite remember the exact names but some of them at least can be looked up in the Catholic Encylopedia

Self-Help

I have the feeling that there should be some good PD or otherwise reusable self-help references available, not only pre-1915 (some of those are already in Wikibooks) but also by caring people who want to get out the good word; help for addicts, for one. Does anyone know of such resources? Perhaps via a local community center / support group? Sj 22:18, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Music Scores

This may be a MediaWiki question, but I was wondering if it is possible to use lilypond formatting to create music excerpts withing a document similar to how it is possible to do math markup. I found one project, WikiTeX, That seems to have added this functionality onto MediaWiki. Would anyone know if this could be added to WikiBooks? It would make things incredibly easier. Thanks!

See: Meta:Music markup and http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Music . I have no idea why this is not a standard feature yet (its real neat; click on the sheet music to listen to it!). Respond to my recent Wikitech-l post about this so that the developers know this is important. --mav 06:28, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inclusion of new public domain material

I am currently writing in the school of philosophy and I would like to include links to classic works which are, no doubt, in the public domain. For example, I would like to include an excerpt from Hesiod's Theogony, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (died 1924). What I would like to know is if I should make a copy of the whole book and include it in wikibooks, or just copy the excerpt, or include a link to an external page where the book can be found. Thank you very much for your attention, (Alex beta 23:47, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC))

I'm not certain, but I assume you should copy the whole book into Wikisource, include the excerpt into your book, with a link to the document on wikisource. --Lbs6380 00:51, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much, (Alex beta 23:30, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Hosting your own Wiki

Is there a step-by-step guide on how to create and host your own Wiki using MediaWiki software? --206.45.175.211 02:20, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Get the latest mediawiki package and unpack it on your webdir. Access your website using the browser and go to the directory on your site where you unpacked mediawiki. It will give you instructions on how to go on. If you have problems, remember that google is your friend...

Centering a heading properly

Headings in the form ==<center>Table of Contents</center>== don't line up with titles in <center> tags outside of = headings. Is there a way around this, other than the ugly hack of using six &nbsp's? Also, the "Add new question" link above is broken.

Can't these books be offered in an easily downloadable format?

I think it'd be really useful and in the interests of Wikibooks to offer each book as a pdf or text file or ebook or similar with an easy link in the top right of the table of contents of each book or something. Sure its important that people get the most up to date version and to contribute what they can online, but for the essentially complete texts, like the conciousness studies one, I think it'd be a good idea to offer the book as a download

Creating PDF's requires some effort. I think the better solution is to make printable versions of books (they're automatically updated) like in How To Build A Computer or Programming:Python. --Derbeth ^talk 08:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The best solution would be to suggest to the MediaWiki foundation that they update their software to include a "Print this page and all sub-pages" feature. This would allow you to print a book, a unit, a chapter, a section, etc. of any book formatted using the slash convention. The next step would be to allow it to output to .pdf, .odw, or .rtf. Just my 2 cents. --Aaronsama 16:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

You know, if you let something to be done automatically, many errors may occur. Creating print versions of book does not take long - and you have to take into consideration, that most books don't use slash convention. Also many people think this naming style is not good. I think for practical reasons manual creation of printed versions is the only possiblity. It's not as hard as it looks like. --Derbeth ^talk 17:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

For books that don't follow the slash convention, one could create a sub-page for "This book on one Web page." This would be a compound document that transcluded all the other pages, in the order they appear in the TOC, in a form like this:

{{:Sample book}} <!--Title page and TOC-->
#Appendix: GNU Free Documentation License <!--As an added line to the TOC; style may vary-->
{{:Sample book/Chapter 1}}
{{:Sample book/Chapter 1/Subpage 1}}
{{:Sample book/Chapter 2}}
{{:Wikibooks:GNU Free Documentation License}}

However, it would also be good to put a page break (which would render on the printer, but not on the screen; is there a code for this?) between sub-pages, and suppress module TOCs when they're redundant. Also, this should be done only once the module structure has stabilized, since that is the one type of change that would require a manual update to this page. (However, it would probably be possible to create a bot to make this type of page out of a TOC page, and perform updates.) Seahen 22:04, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Special character input

Why doesn't Wikibooks have a menu at the bottom of the edit page for inserting special characters (diacritic marks, greek/cyrillic letters, etc.) like Wikipedia and Wiktionary do? More importantly, how can I get that feature added? --Aaronsama 16:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Derbeth ^talk 17:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow. That was probably my easiest IT experience ever. Thanks! --Aaronsama 20:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Asking a question

Good Morning Staff WiKi-Books,Iam a member of the,WiKipedia group and the Wiktionary group My question is this a place for a book Iam writing Iam on chapter 12# its Called A Wizards Tail.Small parts of my book are on theses two groups of mine that I spoke of the body of the work from one caratior from the book is on my blog site vary highly read by all the reason Iam asking is I do not see a place for wizards or witches stories that I could fine, Thank You User]Jackhagrit.

Hello and welcome. Wikibooks is not a suitable place for fiction work. As it is written in WB:WIN, we reccomend you Fiction Wikicity. --Derbeth ^talk 23:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Old Books

Does anyone upload old books whose copyrights has expired or who are in the public domain? If not, why not?

Wikisource is proper place for ready books. --Derbeth ^talk 09:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Setting Up a text on the bookshelf

Once my book/curriculum is ready to go... how do I designate it to a category on the bookshelf... as well... how does one get a category added to the bookshelf... Mfinney

• You could always just be bold and add it yourself. I'm not sure there is a specific process you have to go through to add a book to a shelf. If you are really worried about it, perhaps just ask on that shelf's talk page. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• There's a difference between a Category and a bookshelf. See Wikibooks:Bookshelves for more. Uncle G 00:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Song

Is it OK to post articles about self-made poet/poem/song lyric in wikibooks? Is this policy also affects/applies on other language of wikibooks? Borgx 01:45, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry, but Wikibooks is not a place for original research of this type. Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks states that Wikibooks is not a free web host. I am sorry. Perhaps one example of a poem in a Literature or Language Studies book. Other than that, I am not sure it will be allowed. Regards, LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

By itself, I would have to say no. There is a new project proposal on the Wikimedia Meta Wiki called WikiScores that could use your support if you are interested in this concept. I especially like the Lilipond proposal as an addition to Media Wiki, which would allow you to edit a score and then have the MediaWiki software generate a PNG file which would display the traditional notation for some music, together with perhaps generation of a Midi file as well.

There is no problem if you publish a Wikibook about folk music (keeping in mind the GFDL restriction and that all contributions have copyright clearance) that happens to have perhaps a few original songs as a sort of example, but Lord Voldemort is correct that this is not a forum for simply publishing poetry or music. If you want to write a textbook that covers music theory with some original musical examples to demonstrate styles, that would be not only welcome but encouraged. Or examples of types of poetry that could be used in a textbook. Keep in mind that this is much harder to write than you may think to start out with.

As far as other language versions of Wikibooks, the policies are very similar but on some of the more obscure languages there may be quite a bit more lattitude (like Tongan or Maori). A critical component there is that Wikimedia projects are also trying to help preserve the linguistic culture of those languages, especially when there are very few speakers. In those cases, an original composition may be the only way to get content in that language except for translations from other languages. For more widespread langauges like French or German, you will find Wikibooks (and other Wikimedia project) policies to be very similar to the English websites with just a few exceptions based on cultural issues like the German prohibition of a swastika, or French cultural heritage issues. --Rob Horning 01:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

copying permission?

[No question from anon]

Did you have a question about copying Wikibooks? --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Help, what online program, course/school or self study books would you have to recommend to me. I am interested in the IT Program and I have read your article. Can I purchase an online course or self study books from Wikibooks? Or do you recommend a local IT tech school. Thank you, Mark Hodgson hodgi63@hotmail.com--152.163.100.195 08:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

We are still in the process of trying to set up printed materials here, and this is an ongoing discussion in a number of areas. You can help participate with this discussion on this page: Wikibooks:Wikibook Press. With Wikijunior moving towards its final stages of completion on a couple of book modules, including some grant requirements on money already spent that needs a physical printing as one requirement, this is going to be be done sooner than later, most likely some time in the early part of 2006.

As far as "purchasing" an on-line course covering something from Wikibooks, you are free to do that without charge and can freely copy anything with no restriction, as long as you follow the requirements of the GNU Free Documentation License. This is a general license very much similar in philosophy and spirit to the GNU General Public License that is used by computer software like the GNU/Linux operating system, and you don't even have to tell us if you are using it, although a quick note to the author is generally appreciated, especially for things like Wikibooks where we really don't know who is using the stuff we have written. Everything here on Wikibooks has been written entirely by volunteers who simply love learning and education for learning's sake, and have some unique knowledge they want to share with the rest of the world. I hope that you enjoy your experience here on Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 03:02, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Can someone use this photo?

Eastern Banjo Frog

Hi I'm new to here, mainly on the en and commons wikipedia's, but I've got a great cut out which I think would work really well with a kids book. I have a fully layered PSD file as well which can be used to make a cover or something in a Reptiles book. Anyway thanks, --Fir0002 08:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not aware of any current Wikibook that could use this photo. However, storing it on Commons is a good way to make the photo available to Wikibooks.

Here is a suggestion: Commons:Image:Pobblebonk cutout.jpg is only categorised in Commons:Category:GFDL. Try searching Commons to for a category or gallery with similar images, and put your frog there. That way, it will be easier for other users to find this frog when they want one. --Kernigh 18:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Can I add photos of objects?

If I go to a museum, and take a photograph of one of their paintings or sculptures, can I post that photograph? If I visit an archaeological or historical site and take photographs, can I add those photos to the Wiki Commons or to a Wikibook? Or does the institution or organization retain rights to control printed reproductions of the objects and locations? Andrew Watt 14:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I got an answer to my own question over on the Commons. No, I probably can't add phots of paintings or sculptures, and while I can add pictures of public views of important buildings, I probably can't take photos of buildings or ruins within an archaeological site or a historical but open-air museum. Institutions seem to retain some reproduction rights over materials in their collections. -Andrew Watt 10:32, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Ethical cooking

Is it ethical for wikibooks to list recipe for cooking unusual meat?Midori-me 02:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

There has been some very heated discussions about this issue in the past on the Wikibooks:Votes for deletion page, particularly for things like Placenta and Human flesh. My own opinion on this is that they should not be in Wikibooks, but that is something that is best saved on the VfD (Votes for Deletion) page to express the specifics of that thought. If you think something is inappropriate for Wikibooks, please read Wikibooks:Deletion policy and try to follow the various suggestions on that policy page. Even though it is written as a suggested policy, it is pretty much the current procedure for getting things accomplished here on Wikibooks. We try to discuss things like this as a community and attempt to remove controvercial content when it comes up. Another place to look for guidelines on something like this is Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks, which is often cited during VfD discussions. You can also bring this to the attention of the Wikibooks community at the Staff Lounge. --Rob Horning 04:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Separate accounts

I recently got a wikipedia account...do i need a separate wikibooks account? Can't the be under the same one? 70.26.230.177 15:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

No, unfortunately you have to register for a new account here at Wikibooks. You can use your same name from Wikipedia if it is available though. For example, I use the same name here and at WP. A lot of us do. It's just easier that way. Hope this helps. Cheers. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 16:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

There is some discussion at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ which is the best place to send requests for changes to the underlying MediaWiki software (which this sort of request would definitely require). Try to search for an existing bug report and add a "vote" to increase its priority, or simply add a new bug request if you can't seem to find it. There are some developers who will help you find a similar bug report and try to merge them together if you are having difficulty trying to find your way around the site. Discussion about trying to have a common login for all Wikimedia accounts has been discussed for some time, and there are good and bad things about having it come together, along with some technical issues like multiple people having the same user name but on seperate projects and deciding who "gets" the common account after the merger. The #1 problem right now is simply to get somebody to write the software that would create a common database for all Wikimedia projects, which is proving to be tougher than it would first seem. For now, most people who are active on multiple projects simply use the same user name to keep things simple when possible. --Rob Horning 01:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Bugzilla:57 -- I voted for it. There are now 77 votes, I am "xkernigh" --Kernigh 17:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Providing a PDF version of a book.

People are beginning to modify the text of Religions And Their Source (and maybe some of the companion Parts to the series). This is great and was hoped for.

However, differing opinions are replacing original statements and making some parts difficult to follow. When I, or another reader/administrator (thanks again, kwhitefoot) find them, we can move appropriate parts of the additions to the discussion page (and leave a note saying that this has been done). This may become too time-consuming to continue, and the series may become useless as a text to promote discussion and learning if this is not continued. (I have placed a note on the Introduction pages of the series asking for opinions to be placed in the discussion page, but this is not being done.)

Those who want to follow the basic justification for the facts and ideas presented may like to read the original, unmodified, version of the text. I have a PDF version of this. Is it possible and permissible, for this PDF version to be offered by Wikibooks? If yes, then can someone tell me what to do to make it accessible. Thanks. David Hockey 14:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

How much space does PDF version occupy? I think if it is reasonably large, there would be no problem with uploading it to Wikibooks. Click "Upload file", upload PDF and link to it using [[Media:filename.pdf]] (haven't used it but should work). BTW, how did you create this PDF version? If you did it manually, you might want to read Help:Print versions to learn how to create automatically-updated print version. --Derbeth ^talk 20:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Derbeth. I tried what you wrote and I think that it worked. This is what I used: PDF file. But I see that an Adobe logo was included in the file page. Presumably Adobe includes that automatically. Is this image likely to cause trouble, or do they want people to include it? (The PDF file is just over 1.3MB. I made the PDF file using Adobe Distiller about three years ago to send the book to the printer.) David Hockey 21:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

One thing: don't link to PDF like this: [[Image:file.pdf]]. This causes entire PDF to be downloaded when loading this page ;-) Use [[:Image:file.pdf]] - this will link to description page - or [[Media:file.pdf]] for direct download link.

And PDF icon - it is automatically generated by MediaWiki software, so no problem. --Derbeth ^talk 22:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, thanks, Derbeth. I have made the change. (And I am relieved that the PDF icon is put in by MediaWiki.)

One last thing. When I click through to the PDF Image page and then click on the file it either comes back with:

“The page cannot be displayed,” or nothing, although the Windows flag in the top right corner begins waving (and continues to do so, even through a full game of Spider Solitaire). I assume that this is because someone at Wiki is working with files, and will try again in a few hours. David Hockey 14:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For me, everything works fine. You must have met some temporary server problems. --Derbeth ^talk 18:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The PDF file downloads OK if I use another computer. Thanks. David Hockey 01:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

can i write information from book i purchased to make it available to all

Hello .I first like to appreciate your efforts for making books available to those who cannot purchase.I would like to contribute by adding information from books I purchased.for example I got Software Engineering book by roger pressman with me. Can I write the information in that book here so that persons who cannot purchase it can read it here?. It would be very much useful to persons in need.

You cannot repeat exactly what is written there, but you can use information from this book to write your own work. --Derbeth ^talk 19:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Try to read up on the concept of Fair-Use. The best thing you can do is to perform scholarly research, including making references to earlier books like the one that you mentioned. That is called a citation, and is encouraged as a matter of fact. If you have ever written a term paper for a class report, try to keep the citations at a similar sort of standard. If the text you are referring to is available under a copyleft license, you can add the whole text into Wikisource, but it seems unlikely given the history of the textbook publishing industry, and specifically that particular author.

Keep in mind that ideas can't be copyrighted (well... as long as the judge understands copyright in that manner). If you express the idea from a textbook like this in a new way, that is considered an original composition. --Rob Horning 15:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

sebab-akibat

Can you explain for me about sebab-akibat?? What that mean and when we can use these words? Thank you for the answer.

I'm not entirely sure of what you are talking about. I did find this short explanation here: Wikt:id:Wiktionary:Klasifikasi Tesaurus#Bagian VIII. Sebab akibat, but I don't speak that language. Any other takers on trying to translate these words and put them into a cultural context? --Rob Horning 17:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Heat Treatment

i m mech engr. n working as heat treatment engr, i m doing working on case hardening (Cyaniding). but unfortunately i m not getting the result.

material is SCr4, req case depth is 0.5 ~ 0.8mm, bath temp is 900Ċ, given time 3hrs, hardness req HRC 58~62 on case and 45~55 on core, bath's chemical composition is 30% NaCN, 40%Na2CO3, 30% NaCl,

I have test for checking the case depth from lab, the result comes, "FULL HARD NO CASE DEPTH FOUND" i have hardened the material 5 times on different temperatures, (800 ~ 920Ċ) but every time the result come "FULL HARD NO CASE DEPTH FOUND" PLEASE HELP ME —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.92.52.205 (talk • contribs) 20:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

English as a Foreign Language

Hi:

I would like to produce an interactive course to learn English as a Foreign Language. Because I work with multimedia and in order to make use of all these fantastic possibilities I was wondering if wikibooks provides the alternative to upload swf files, mov and flv files, apart from images and sound. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mrossetti (talk • contribs) 20:24, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Because it is not a PNG, GIF, JPG, or SVG image, what you probably want to use is Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a repository of free (like GNU Free Documentation License) images and other multimedia, for use in all Wikimedia projects, including English Wikibooks. You upload to Commons, and it works as if you uploaded to every Wikimedia project.

However, Commons seems to only allow ogg files (see http://www.xiph.org). So I was surpised to find a MIDI file, File:wikinewstop.mid. I am posting to Commons:Project:Village pump#Allowed file formats to ask Commons if they allow swf, mov, or flv. Note, however, that you should use NO file formats with patents in the United States - this means that MPEG is not allowed, because we do not want to force users to pay MPEG licensing fees. --Kernigh 01:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I found Commons:Project:File types, which says what to use. Ogg is on the list, but swf, mov, and flv are not. If you want to use them, they compress reasonably, and they are not encumbered by US patents, then maybe you should ask the Commons:Project:Village pump. --Kernigh 01:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"Open-content" vs. "free"?

Why does Wikibooks refer to itself as open-content, rather than free as does Wikipedia? I think free is clearer as well as more striking. If you don't buy that argument, I think we should follow the convention set by Wikipedia. Anyway, any insight into how it got that way, and/or how to go about changing it? --Tetraminoe 08:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Our motto in the logo is already "Think free. Learn free." though this is wrong and should be changed to "Think freely. Learn freely.". --Kernigh 20:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

But it would be too long then. I'm not free software or free-something fanatic, so open vs. free is irrelevant problem for me. But I wonder if "fee books" would explain newcomers what Wikibooks is. If you think so - no problem, change "open content" to "free". --Derbeth ^talk 22:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

If Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia, and Wikinews is the free news site... But I'll admit that "free" and "open content" are mixed pretty, well, freely. But I still think "free" is more consistent as well as better. --Tetraminoe 11:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I would personally prefer Open-content to Free. I think the terminology is best understood with respect to software, and thats where the concept really took off. Often to retain interest in their products, companies offer older versions free and charge a fee for their latest/newest versions. The software, old or new, is not available for tinkering, and that makes it proprietary. They retain the copyright!! On the other hand, most of linux-based software or all of wikipedia/wikibooks is open-content, and therfore subject to modifications by anyone. One of the criteria for modifying the content is to keep it open-content and that forms the basis for GFDL - the copyleft concept! Therefore material that is free need not be open-content but that which is open-content is necessarily free. This made me realise that contents in both wikipedia and wikibooks are open-content and not just free.

BDB 14:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Jokebooks

Werent there jokebooks on this site?

The big Cheese in charge of all of the Wikimedia projects didn't like the Jokebook as a Wikibook. It has been renamed currently, but I reconnected the redirect of Jokebook to get you back there. This has been in an ongoing discussion within the Wikibooks community about what to do with this particular Wikibook, and I suspect more changes are going to happen with that particular Wikibook for the moment. --Rob Horning 17:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Where To Put

I'm trying to find the category to put my new Wikibook Football (Soccer). Where shall I put it? I'm confused. Please help. --Mastermind 007 13:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe Wikibooks:Miscellaneous bookshelf? --Derbeth ^talk 13:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I did not see this thread, but I put the book in Wikibooks:Miscellaneous bookshelf and Category:Games. --Kernigh 19:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Will files uploaded here automatically be placed on Commons?

I upload a LOT of photos here at wikibooks, and on alot of them i go and ask the owners for license permission, so i would really like the work i do to be available to all the projects. Will the files I upload here be placed in the commons database automaticaly or do I need to upload them there as well?

—Basejumper123

No, no, no, please never ever upload any images both to Commons and any other project. If you want an image to be re-used, upload it to commons and mark with {{NowCommons}} all local copies. Image on Commons is simply available everywhere, so there is no need to waste server space for redundant copies on Wikibooks. And, of course, if you upload images to Wikibooks, they are not uploaded to Commons. You have to enter Commons site (and create there an account if your still haven't). --Derbeth ^talk 07:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a cleanup project to move images that are under a free license (Creative Commons or GFDL) to Commons, but that is going to take manual intervention, and not done automatically. Your help is welcome to sort these images out and to move them to Commons if you have time. --Rob Horning 01:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

PDF files

How can i place pdf files inside a text as a picture? (I want to use worksheets that I design, and to add tests and other teacher resources to the end of my project Introduction to Physical Science) --Basejumper123 23:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Question

Is this site a reliable an edited one?

Your question does not make gramatical sense, but if you are asking if this site is reliable the answer is (for the most part) YES. Although all research, writing, editing, and administration is voulenteer work, this site is protected from truly nonsensical content by the sysops and beauracrats. The work here is baseline passable. Work that is unnacebtable to the wikibook standards are deleted or cleaned up. Access is open to all who do not abuse the privilage of open content. Please proofread your questions in the future. If you are a native speaker of another language, you may ask questions on the board in other languages.

--Basejumper123 00:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents Bar

Hy there,

this site Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas uses a Contents Bar.

How can i create one of those ?

Miguel Albano

Very good question. This Wikibook is using a template to add this bar. To see how that is done, look at Template:Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas/Header for more details.

Writing templates can be tricky because there are some more unique syntax issue that go into them which are beyond the scope of basic editing here. For some further in depth content about template writing, see meta:Help:Template

Still, these templates are pretty cool, and add some good eye candy to pages, making it easier for people reading the content to know what else is available. There are many different styles to do this, so look around on Wikibooks to get an idea on how to do this. --Rob Horning 13:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Where to put my book?

What bookshelf does my book Coding Divert Sockets belong in? --ness

In an attempt to help out new users...especially as Wikibooks grows and the difficulty increases in deciding exactly where a new Wikibook ought to be put in various categories, I created the Wikibooks:Card Catalog Office to help with the classification of new books. Ultimately I want to see all new Wikibooks put in a simple request for classification and a team of volunteers who like to classify stuff to go through the effort of adding a Wikibook to the various bookshelves, with cross references as appropriate. This whole project is just starting, however, and we are not quite prepared to deal with all of the requests that are likely to come that way at the moment.

For the moment, I would likely suggest the Information technology bookshelf if this is going to be more hardware oriented or perhaps Computer software bookshelf under the Linux sub-section if this is just an API documentation book. At the moment, we suggest the original authors try to do a best fit for these books at the moment, but the bookshelves are often in flux with content moving from one to the other. We are also trying to do Library of Congress classification as well as Dewey Decimal for subject grouping, but that is going to be another very interesting effort by itself. Thanks for your interest. --Rob Horning 18:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

bending moment

A beam carries a mass of 180kg at its center of 2.5m with a maximum bending moment not exceeding 90KN/m.Calculate its mass in tonnes--Adex walex 08:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This problem is poorly worded and probably incomplete. A specified maximum bending moment probably has no relation to the beam's actual mass in tonnes unless you specify a handbook, regulatory requirement or engineering safety factor with which to size the beam. I suggest you add a freebody diagram to explain the problem adquately, better define your nomenclature and vocabulary, and place it the engineering help desk at Wikiversity:School of Engineering:Help Desk. Lazyquasar 22:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

future of fuel cell and adsorption techiniques

hi i am interested to know which field is having a greater scope in the coming future.whether it is the fuel cell or the adsorption technology.

There are so many factors that go into a question like this that you really can't come up with a difinitive answer. I have seen technologies with a huge potential, such as VRML, go totally bust due to either a mistake in the way it was implemented, lousy marketing, or legal difficulties that keep it from getting developed completely. Video Laser Discs are another example that didn't take off as a mass consumer product until it was retooled as a DVD with considerable thought into how it would be put together and getting the significant interested parties agreeing on what the real requirements were. Fuel cells are definitely in this situation right now, as even the application of fuel cell technology is being debated right now. Is it going to power automobiles? Cell phones? Houses? And what fuel is it going to use? Hydrogen? Natural Gas (aka Methane)? Alcohol? Gasoline? (yes, that is being discussed by some fuel cell researchers.)

To answer a question like this, you also need to pare down the question to what is really being asked here. There are energy collection and energy distribution issues related to what the future is going to bring with this as well, including vested interests that may or may not want to see significant changes in the current energy distribution infrastructure as well. This is where a legal framework needs to be considered as government entities who support one technology over another are going to see different rates of progress for a giving tech as it is being researched. And it is possible that something like fuel cell research could be overshadowed by yet another energy production technology in the future, like a successful consumer-grade fusion cell or even more exotic energy production ideas like a practical zero-point energy cell (in theory something like a D-cell battery that could power your house, car, and everything you could use for an entire lifetime.)

If I had to make a guess, I would suggest as an approach to this topic to instead look at where the money is being spent. Discount heavily government spending and concentrate on energy production techniques that require private investment alone avoiding any goverment spending. And especially look for changes in R&D spending for that technology compared to itself, not the rest of related energy concepts. It is not a perfect method, but generally people are only going to be putting their money into something they feel is going to have a realistic chance of making some money back. Time has also shown that the people who really make money off of a technology are not those who take the first steps, but usually groups that sees the mistakes made by those who came before and come in a little bit later... just not too much later. This can be either a new start-up or an established company, although start-ups tend to have more flexability. --Rob Horning 11:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Bookshelfing

How exactly do I add a book to a bookshelf? I'm just curious, mainly.
Eagleguy125 22:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually in the middle of trying to build an infrastructure to get this accomplished. By far the best way to get started after you have created a new Wikibook is to add the book to Template:New, which will get the attention of the rest of the Wikibooks regulars that you have created this Wikibook. This also acts as an advertisement on the main page to hopefully bring other people who are interested in this topic into your new book projects.

Ideally, once the book has been added to this list of new Wikibooks, there will be a group of people who like to catalog stuff that would go and put this new Wikibook onto the proper bookshelf and classify the Wikibook. At the moment we are still lacking in people who are interested in doing this task (at least in large numbers) so you may have to go through the effort of adding it to a bookshelf yourself. To do this, find the bookshelf that you think is most appropriate for the content you are writing, and add it to the list. This is a case of helping to be bold and simply make changes around here because it is useful and needed. I know that is intimidating for a new user, which is why we are trying to make it easier.

One other approach that you can do is to add the template markup tag of {{cleanup-link}} somewhere inside of the main page of your Wikibook. This automatically adds this Wikibook to Category:Not linked Wikibooks, which is monitored by the administrators of Wikibooks and alerts interested helpers for Wikibooks to put the book on a bookshelf. This may take a couple of weeks before your book is put on a shelf, but it will eventually happen once this template has been put onto your project.

If you are really interested in helping out with classifying Wikibooks and help organizing the bookshelves on a larger level, I would recommend that you get involved with the Wikibooks:Card Catalog Office, which will eventually be the central place to both search for and classify Wikibooks onto bookshelves. --Rob Horning 02:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

How do I go back older version

I am newbie, (self evident in the question lol) I made a change to a table of content and then when I pressed on the link, the content or text was gone? So how do I get it back. I tried FAQ bud did not seem to find my answer. I can get to history but don't se a revert link.

What I did to fix my blunder was to go back in history find the content and then copy and past into newly titled page.

I also tryed to find info on changing location and name of pages or moduels but the FAQ with that title was blank?

The book I am working on is "go" in games. I added "Foundational concepts:" I then was going to add content to what was already existing but that vanished.

I tried irc chat but the I could not connect through ezchat for firefox always an error.--Mystic Philosopher 19:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Ok I figured it out you press on "move" tab when you want to change a name. Why did I not see that before? Lol Oh well at least things are ok now. Hay I am learning as I go. --Mystic Philosopher 20:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Unlike with some wiki software, MediaWiki does not give you a revert link. However, you can revert pages using the following procedure. --Kernigh 16:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

1. Go to the history. For example, history of Wikibooks:Sandbox.
2. Click on the date of an old version, such as "05:31, 25 March 2006". You are now looking at the old version.
3. Click "edit this page". You will see: WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost.
4. In the "Summary" field, type a reason like "revert vandalism" or "revert mistake" or "rv". This is to tell other users (who see the history) that you are doing a revert.
5. Click "Save page".

Remember, when you look at an old version, and click "Edit this page", it shows you the old version, allowing you to save it again. --Kernigh 16:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Organic Chemistry

I WANT COMPLETE INFORMATION ABOUT BASIC CONCEPTS USED FOR ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.LIKE CONJUGATION HYPER CONJUGATION & TAUTOMERISM. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.87.99.74 (talk • contribs) 12:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The Organic Chemistry book might be difficult to navigate, but tautomerism is mentioned in their "Ketones and Aldehydes" chapter. --Kernigh 16:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Top 1000 SCIENTISTS

I was regularly referring to this book. I am a science teacher. I see it has been deleted. May I ask the reasons. JS 10th April

See Talk:Top 1000 Scientists from the begining of time to 2000 AD by Philip Barker. --Hagindaz 08:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I looked through the list, and the talk page is gone PCU123456789 (talk) 00:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

math book titles matching their immediate category name

if, for example, i wish to add a new book on algebraic number theory entitled "Treatise on algebraic number theory", am i obligated to put it under a certain sub-category of 'mathematics', such as 'number theory'?

also, it is confusing for me to encounter a book named after a category, such as a book entitled 'number theory' or 'algerba', when most printed books do not have titles that exactly match their subject category!

so, to summarise, my questions are two-fold:

1. do i have to put a book under a certain agreeable categorical structure?
2. why are almost all math books that i have encountered in wikibooks have their titles as same as the immediate category name they belong? eg. a book entitled 'A-level mathematics' belonging to 'A-level mathematics'.

   --Mmmooonnnsssttteeerrr 03:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I am convinced that there is no one perfect cataloging system, especially for books. In part because of this, I'm trying to go through and even establish a reasonable cataloging system for all of the Wikibooks, but first I have to identify what content has already been written. I thought that was going to be an easy task, but it has proven to be a much harder task to accomplish than I originaly thought. How we are going to catalog Wikibooks is currently up for debate, and a few different systems are being proposed, most of which are based on our current bookshelf system. This was a very flat cataloging system, and has broken down due to the growth and size of Wikibooks, including the "addition" of the "department" level to our bookshelf system. However this is still largely in flux. If this bookshelf system is a mess, the categories on Wikibooks are much worse off and in a dire need of practically a complete overhaul.

Little thought has gone into the full depth on how we are going to use categories, although categories have been used for both within individual books, such as the Cookbook and how it uses categories, as well as trying to catalog the "front page" of each Wikibook to some sort of consistant category scheme. These have been thrown into sometimes whimsical categories, and not really grouped together in a logical and consistant manner, just as you have pointed out. Some of these categories have been established like the Category:A-level by a group that has a specific goal in mind for some of the content here on Wikibooks, and trying to tailor the needs of their particular school system for the content in one of their Wikibooks.

I know this isn't the answer that you were looking for, but the point is that we need some volunteers to help out with this task here on Wikibooks, and any assistance to trying to find a solution and answer is greatly appreciated. There are some interested Wikibooks participants who want to deal with this issue, so I think there will be some more clear guidelines in the future. --Rob Horning 12:41, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

how to sort search results by word count?

how to sort search results by most to least number of words?

--Mmmooonnnsssttteeerrr 03:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You might want to look at Special:Specialpages, and in particular look at the following search pages:

• Special:Shortpages
• Special:Longpages
• Special:Ancientpages
• Special:Newpages

I will warn you however, going to the extremes of Wikibooks in this manner is not going to give you very much interesting content, as these pages are mainly used to identify problem modules rather than being used to actually find something interesting to read. Still, if this is what you are looking for, here it is. --Rob Horning 13:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Everquest Wikibook moved for no reason

The Everquest wikibook was moved for absolutely no reason, to an unofficial site. Why was this done, and why is the person who did this an admin? He or she is abusing their power and this move was completely unnecessary.

It's not a textbook. New policies around these here parts. Sorry. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 00:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It is too bad that such a harsh attitude was presented for this user. If there is a legitimate reason why you don't think something should have been deleted, but it was, users should be pointed to the Wikibooks:Votes for undeletion page and recommend that they plea their case for undeletion to the Wikibooks community. This includes arguing over the value of some particular content as a textbook or not, or if it might have violated other policies as well. Or to suggest ways to make something more "textbook" like. --Rob Horning 12:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to be harsh... but when people come around shouting "admin abuse", "desysop them", and the like, I am less likely to react in a coddling way. But yes, they should have been pointed to VfU from the module page... Sorry. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 21:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

and now strategywiki is down (for two days now). what can be done now?--Kajolus 07:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I won't belabor this point, but I think I can say "see, I told you so!" Moving the content to an external wiki has its own problems, and it was done too quickly without really thinking through the issues or if the Strategy Wiki was necessarily the best place to put it. Please make a request for undeletion page and raise this issue again to note that there is value to this sort of content. Potentially we could undelete the content even temporarily and allow you to move the content to yet another Wiki that might prove to be more stable, like Wikia, even if it shouldn't be permanently on Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 12:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Rob, I just put it up for the vote.--Kajolus 15:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Character attacks from One Piece

There was recently a traswiki of this information from wikipedia as preferable wikibook material. It was deleted around a brief timeframe a few days ago, most likely speedied. Why was this module speedied..? And without any previous discussion prior to said deletion..? -K' 20:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks is not for Wikipedia's leftovers. It is a place for textbooks. Not just anything WP doesn't want. If you want it back, I can move it to your userspace. Just let me know. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Answer the question. Why was this article speedied..? No policy page restricts against the transwiki of information to its proper project. The ineptitude demonstrated by the lack of any discussion on a talkpage, much less a proper notification validates this deletion as extremely ill-concieved. Your evasion of the question is surprising and something I did not appreciate.-K' 19:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, no need to get worked up though. You stated it came from Wikipedia. Well, it shouldn't have. It was incorrectly sent here. Nothing "restricts against the transwiki of information to its proper project", however, WB is not the proper project. Wikibooks is for textbooks. It is not just a storehouse for random lists of information. It isn't just for anything WP sends us. We do control our own content. Things that violate What is Wikibooks may be deleted. I didn't evade any question. Again, if you would like a copy, just let me know and I can move it to a space of your own. Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 02:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not worked up in the least. If the purpose of deletion is a incorrect transwiki, then a note should have been posted. That is not outlined in the speedy deletion criteria. I would probably support a proper deletion of this module, but that's not germane to this conversation. -K' 14:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Strange question

1. My question is that how do i becme a Wikiversity student . Suppose i want to be a part of School of Engineering. How do i do that.
2. Secondly what is a user talk page and watchlist.

   I would be highly greatful to all those who are going to help me in the above two questions

   Thanking you sincerely,

   Deepu 00.02 20 May 2006 (UTC)

For (1) I don't think wikiversity is taking students yet, but I could well be wrong. You might have better luck asking at Talk:Wikiversity

For (2) (a) a user talk page is the "discussion" page for a particular user. If you have an account on wikibooks, you can get to your own user talk page by clicking the "my talk" link in the upper right hand corner. If you want to look at other users' talk pages, you can usually click their name in a signature, then select "discussion" from the menu at the top of the page. (Also, you can correctly sign your name using four tildes, like this ~~~~)

For (2) (b) a watchlist is a way for you to monitor changes to specific pages. If you have an account on wikibooks, you can add items to your watchlist by clicking "watch" from the menu at the top of the page. You can get to your watchlist by clicking "my watchlist" from the upper right of the page.

Kellen ^T 17:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

wikiversity

1. is the wikiversity a fairly new establishment on wikipedia?
2. how do i become a student and become engaged in courses?

   --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by anonymous (talk • contribs) .

I don't think wikiversity is taking students yet, but I could well be wrong. You might have better luck asking at Talk:Wikiversity Kellen ^T 17:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Responding to this from somebody who has been on Wikibooks for some time:

1. Wikiversity is not really that new of a project. It has been going in one form or another for about two years now, although all of that as a sub-project on Wikibooks. See Wikiversity and if you really care to, look at the history tab to see how long ago the first edits really were.
2. As far as becoming a student, there have been a couple of courses that were started on Wikiversity with a teacher/student model being used and instruction being offered, usually through either e-mail or IRC channels. These unfortunately have been done on a completely ad-hoc basis and are more the exception rather than the rule at present with Wikiversity. Right now most of the effort for Wikiversity is going into the organization aspects of it, and trying to present a formal proposal to the Wikimedia Foundation board to become a full Wikimedia sister project. In one of the largest user interst surveys done to date, it was accepted by the body of Wikimedia users but has hit some serious red tape in terms of obtaining the final approval. I think there is some value to this in the sense that the mission of Wikiversity is being clarified and (hopefully) Wikiversity won't go through the headaches that Wikibooks is currently facing in terms of its mission.

I believe that Wikiversity, once fully established and promoted, will become a huge run-away success. Stay in touch and watch Wikiversity receive its formal launch some time this summer. There will be Wikiversity classes being taught this fall. --Rob Horning 04:29, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it. Wikiversity is linked to Wikibooks and has nothing to do with Wikipedia apart from the fact they're both run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia is it's best known project, but that doesn't mean it precedes over all other wiki projects in either the Wikimedia Foundation or elsewhere. Please see w:Wiki and w:Wikipedia to see the difference between the two. - 131.211.210.16 12:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

audio books

Hi,

after a brief search I can find no mention of audio books.

Is there a section which is available for audio books?

Is there any ongoing (or should there be) an ongoing project to create audio books from the written for those with reduced site, those who want to learn something while commuting, or those who wish to hear a book for, say, language learning reasons?

update

well after some more searching - I found an article where wikinews interviews Hugh McGuire about librivox - so it looks like someone is already doing something like this - it would be good if they cooperate with wikibooks as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by anonymous user (talk • contribs).

One thing to keep in mind here is that if you see a need, like making printed versions of Wikibooks (PDFs) or audio books, help us by creating the content. Things like this don't get created spontaneously, but need somebody to actually hunker down and make it. Wikinews in particular has been in the forefront of creating audio content, where there was even some talk about creating a 24-hour Wikinews broadcast channel of Wikinews stories. That may happen in the future still. As for audio Wikibook, you might want to help us out by creating something like Wikibooks:PDF Versions that instead is for audio books. I would recommend that you use .ogg (Ogg Vorbis) files simply because you don't have the patent issues of MP3s.

This is a cool idea, but it won't happen unless you are willing to help us out. --Rob Horning 12:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Abusive Article

How does one report an abusive article?

The following article, Wifi:Building an antenna, has no content, only a list of links to a site that is itself berift of content, cantaining not much more that advertising links.

It appears to be an attempt to co-opt WikiBooks to drive click-through advertising revenue.

Thanks for report, this was a simple spam, I reverted it. --Derbeth ^talk 19:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

RSS Feed for an entire book

Is it possible to either browse recent changes for an entire book and/or get an RSS feed for an entire book? I'm basically looking to setup a watchlist for the entire book's namespace. Alternatively, is it possible to filter the top level Recent Changes by namespace (i.e. only show Programming:WebObjects and below)?

No, there is no possibility of an RSS feed, but you can use Related changes function. --Derbeth ^talk 11:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks: Wikijunior: Wikiprimary?

As an elementary school teacher, I am always looking for resources that are well-written, engaging, content-rich, non-fiction that is written for K-2 readers.

How would I go about starting a project like this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MarvyMommy (talk • contribs) .

I would recommend that you simply try to start a brand new Wikibook that would demonstrate the idea you would like to start up. Perhaps it can be folded into Wikijunior or be something entirely different like the Wikiprimary that you are suggested. To do this, please read Help:How to start a book, that goes into some depth about the process of writing a whole new Wikibook.

One problem that I've seen by my particiation on Wikijunior is that dropping the grade level down to early reading levels is quite difficult for many adults, and K-2 grade levels I would imagine is especially difficult. It can be done, but this is a gift for prose that does require some extra work, and writing even a couple of sentances for this age group can be from my perspective just as difficult as writing a whole page of content for adults.

Having a child going into kindergarten this fall, I would appreciate as well the ability to give my daughter the chance to have some more non-fiction reading content. I support the concept in general, and I would like to offer a general word of encouragement to get something like this started. --Rob Horning 12:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Firefox extension building - need to have website respond with data

I'm starting to get down the basics of XUL and XML, but I'm still hazy on how to retrieve data from for example http://www.imdb.com/ReleasedInYear?year=2006&country=Netherlands

Does such a site have to be in a RSS or XML format (in which case this doesn't work unless you can convert it before use) or is it possible? And how would I select just the films with a certain release date from the list? I already perused the XML Wikibook, but so far I found the info here and elsewhere on the web with regard to info retrieval unclear. Any help is much appreciated. - 131.211.210.16 12:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If I was programming this in perl, I would use the HTML::Parser from LWP (libwww-perl). If I have time, then I should add LWP to the Programming:Perl book... but I see that you are programming in Firefox, not Perl.

The URL that you gave is not in RSS or XML but in HTML 3.2. You can still use the Document Object Model to extract info from it. First you need to grab the document object. In JavaScript, you can use var movieWin = window.open( ... ) to obtain a window, then var movieDoc = movieWin.document to obtain the document. However, this has the side effect of opening a pop-up window.

The answer seems to be to use XMLHttpRequest. Though that sounds like you can only get XML, the page at http://kb.mozillazine.org/XMLHttpRequest says otherwise. I have not tried this, but try creating an XMLHttpRequest object and GET the url, then using the responseXML property as the document, even though it is really an HTML document. I do not know if this works. --Kernigh 02:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)