Wikibooks:Title pages
 | This page documents a rejected Wikibooks policy or guideline proposal that should not be followed. It is documented here for historical reasons. If you would like to open up this proposal for reconsideration, do so on the discussion page. |
 | This has been rejected, and portions have been merged into the Manual of Style. |
As each book has a front cover, so to, does a Wikibook have a title page. You can create a title page separate from table of contents for your book to provide a short description of scope of your book.
Abstract
A book's cover should describe the purpose of the book, and thus, there should be a short paragraph explaining what the book is trying to teach, and the topics that it may cover. In short, the title page should summarize the entire book to the best of your ability. You can also a cover image for decorative purposes.
Example
Naming conventions
As per naming conventions, if your book is named Book, then title page should be named Book/Cover and book table of contents should be named just Book.
What should go on the title page?
As a rule, link to the table of contents should be placed on your title page. Title pages should also link to a book's specific manual of style. There should be also a link to list containing the names of all the users actively working on the project - it can be placed in manual of style, foreword or separate "Authors" page.
It's good to point a central discussion page for the whole book so that contributors have one place for discussing book-related issues.
If a print version or PDF version of your book is available, you can announce it using {{print version}} and {{PDF version}} templates or just add a normal link to them.
Cover images should be kept to a minimum, and should not dominate your title page. This is as if your book is nominated for book of the month or collaboration of the month, the cover image is used to represent your book on the main page.
If wikibook is listed in categories and has interwiki links, all of them should be placed at cover page, not table of contents.
Cover page and table of contents
If a book has a cover page, its table of contents should not contain any interwiki links or categories. You should provide link to the cover at the top of book TOC page like:
How to link to title page
If you use only default backlinks for pages using slash-convention, all chapters of your book will automatically link to table of contents, not cover page. If you use custom navigation templates, you should also not link to cover page.
External links, like links from bookshelves, should point to the book cover, not table of contents.
Cataloging
The main page of your book is where the important information regarding how the book is in relation to other books, or Wikibooks in general, resides. If your book needs to be transwikied or is put up for deletion, then that information will be on the book's title page. Our category system will also only categorize title pages of the books.
Like a library, each Wikibook must be categorized. Currently, the card catalog office organizes books by their bookshelf, by the Dewey Decimal Classification system, as well as the Library of Congress system. If you are unaware of how your book is to be categorized, please place a link to your book at the CCO's main page and other Wikibookians will help you categorize your book.
Title page and print version
If you are preparing a print version of your book, include the title page in it.
Some things from title page should not be included in print version - like interwiki, categories and some templates (for example, {{print version}}). Hence, you should put them inside <noinclude> ... </noinclude> tag. You are also encouraged to add some information visible only in print version (using <includeonly> ... </includeonly> tag), similar to:
Current, editable version of this book is available in Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks at URL:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Book_name
The whole text is available under GNU Free Documentation License.