gmane.org.wikimedia.textbook

Cookbook - The Food Geek

Brianna Laugher — 2008-11-25T02:36:18

Hi, I came across this post from the CC News feed that Cookbookers might be interested to read: Thefoodgeek.com is licensed CC-BY so I think their material could be repurposed in the Cookbook if desired. Incidentally it might be useful if the Cookbook had a page listing other freely licensed recipe/cooking resources. cheers Brianna

Connexions

Mike.lifeguard — 2008-11-21T00:14:26

I just finished watching Richard Baraniuk's 2006 talk at TED (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_baraniuk_on_open_sour ce_learning.html) and took a look at Connexions. I notice that they use CC-by-2.0 (note it's not ShareAlike). So, that is a potential source of content in the future if WMF migrates in the end. I'm only just starting to explore it, I may have more to share later. If you're interested, take a look: http://cnx.org/ -Mike ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+qA< at >public.gmane.org

load collection not working on en.wikibooks

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-18T19:26:08

I tried it today, and the "load collection" feature doesn't appear to be working on en.wikibooks. I've tried with several saved collections, and none of them will load. I don't remember the last time I tried to do it, it may have been before the flaggedrevs extension was installed. Any ideas on what might be causing this? Is this error happening for anybody else?

Wikibooks logo vote in progress

Cary Bass — 2008-11-17T21:31:51

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I haven't seen this yet posted to the Textbook-l list or foundation-l so I wanted to make it known that Wikibooks is winding down its logo vote over the next couple weeks. While we're asking people not to specify color, text, and there may be some minor tweaks to style, the end logo will be look extremely similar to what we decide here. Thanks. Cary Bass Volco Wikimedia Foundation -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFJIeLGyQg4JSymDYkRApxjAKDYJ8fH5b6x7L0qrs4W9g+mF51XtwCfYDBD iSVbdENIjUQB4qTk21FMzWk= =9fKj -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Some help with translations needed - Two sentences,four terms

Heiko Hees — 2008-11-14T13:55:50

Hi, please help us localize some strings used in the generated PDF. The process of localization will be updated to use BetaWiki in the future, but for now we'd appreciate your help. See this page if you have two minutes spare: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PDF_Writer/Localization Thanks, Heiko

First book Feedback

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-13T23:54:01

First off, I've seen some of the new software changes on the wiki, and they look great. As promised, I got my first book today, and I'm racing through it to come up with feedback for the PediaPress people. I have lots and lots of feedback already, most of it is not urgent or anything and some of it is going to be difficult to implement because it's sort of wikibooks-specific. Having a robust set of configuration options that can be set on the wiki would help alleviate a lot of these things without having to tie the extension to any single wiki. 1) On the table of contents, it says "Articles", when that word really doesn't mean anything for books. The first heading that says "Articles" should either be changed to the name of the book or should be removed entirely. Actually, you could probably read the value from [[MediaWiki:Article]] to make this solution portable. 2) Subpages shouldn't be prepended with the name of the book. For instance, the chapter should just be titled "CHAPTERNAME", not "BOOKNAME/CHAPTERNAME". Maybe we could have a way to override the displayed name of a chapter, which would make good sense for books where technical difficulties prevent the name from being displayed properly on the wiki. 3) On page "ii" it should probably contain the name of the wiki where the PDF was generated, and a link. Maybe also some kind of note that the "authors" are volunteers at the project, and that the name on the front of the book is an editor, not the "author" of it. 4) On the cover, the editors name should be marked with "edited by" or "Editor." or something so people know it isn't an author. On Page "i", it should say "Written by the volunteers at project X, edited by Y". Or something like that. 5) I like the way external hyperlinks are put into footnotes. Maybe we could have something like a special tag, or a

or something that would allow writers to put certain notes in the page footer. This would be a great substitution for some of the messagebox templates that act like footnotes on the wiki. 6) Math formulas are generally very well rendered and handled, although integrals, limits and summations seem to be a bit cramped. 7) "articles" should each begin on a new page (I'm using the word "article" here so as not to be confused with the collections concepts of "chapter" and "page"). 8) Chapter headings should probably be on their own page, not just as a bigger heading before the next chapter heading. 9) I would love it if authors could specify some kind of "print name", such as in their preferences. That way people could be recognized by their real names if they choose, instead of by their on-wiki screennames. 10) Some images look very pixelated and fuzzy. What kind of compression is used? Can it be improved? 11) I'm sort of surprised that PediaPress doesn't post some kind of disclaimer here somewhere. Like "PediaPress and it's affiliates aren't responsible for the content of this book...". I'm even thinking that [[Wikibooks:General Disclaimer]] should become a permanent part of these books (But I want to see what people like Mike Godwin say about it first before I go on a crusade about it). This is about it for now. Most of my other nitpicks have to do with formatting issues that we can fix by overriding templates, so I won't mention them here. --Andrew Whitworth

Got my book!

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-13T19:00:18

Just wanted to post a quick message to the list here to say that I got my first book in the mail today! Actually, I think I would have gotten it on Tuesday except there was a holiday and then the UPS guy came on wednesday when I was at work. The book looks awesome, much better and much higher quality then I was expecting. I've seen books before that were self-published and print-on-demand that were of very low quality, and this is not one of them. It's a good weight paper, good printing and typesetting, nice cover, etc. It's going to be so much more awesome when we get customizable cover images and ISBN numbers, but that can wait. The book dimensions are a little smaller then I expected (I didn't pull out a ruler or anything beforehand), but it's not too too small by any stretch. I wonder if we could have the option to have a larger book size (8x11 or something)? That would help for books with more content, to help keep them under the 800-page limit by increasing the amount of "stuff" per page. Anyway, I'm still at work so I can't give it a complete review now. However, it's very awesome! I'll post more feedback tonight when I get the chance. --Andrew Whitworth

800 page upper limit

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-11T23:58:31

How strict is the 800 page upper limit for printed books? Is there a way we can increase this limit (possibly for a higher price point)? I don't want to say it's common, but I've already found one book that's larger. Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment, First edition (there are three separate editions of it!!!) is a whopping 870 pages long, not including all the optional frontmatter that could have been included. Obviously, for groups who have put so much effort into their books, I would like to find a way for them to be able to buy and enjoy them. --Andrew Whitworth

Collection Extension Usability

Heiko Hees — 2008-11-10T17:18:58

Hi, we received a lot of feedback that suggests, that the extension needs some usability improvements if it shall be useful to casual visitors. I ´ll share our thoughts on how to improve the situation and it would be great if you could share yours. We distinguish two use cases: * Users want to create collections * Users want to share/find collections = Creating collections = The main challenge for most users is to discover this feature at all - as most visitors simply ignore the sidebar. The current solution having a dedicated portlet for the extension labeled "Create book" is the best we could think off so far. We plan to remove all but the "add wiki page" links if users have no active collection. This will save some space in the sidebar making it less obtrusive if users are not interested in creating collections. When compiling collections users are limited to add articles they are visiting (except for categories). We thought it might be beneficial to permit to add articles which are linked on a page without visiting them. The idea is to have an advanced book-creation-mode which allows for easier collection building. It could be activated if users have non- empty collections. Using JS article links could be enhanced to have an "add article" button if users hover them. This mode could be displayed and disabled in a box in the upper right content area. See the following link for a mock-up: http://code.pediapress.com/wiki/raw-attachment/wiki/UsabilityIdeas/mock-up-bb-mode.png We refactored the collection page which now allows to resort articles and chapters using drag and drop. A more fine grained and verbose ajax progress was implemented when documents are generated. As this is not yet updated on Wikibooks - you can always find the latest version of the software running at http://simple.pediapress.com/w/ . = Sharing / Finding collections = The current implementation allows: * saving collections in user or global namespace * all collections are listed in the category collections * manually editing (e.g. adding them to more categories) * direct links to load, or export collections can be created and used on other pages (this needs some documentation though) Still missing is some mechanism to track, describe and promote valuable collections - distinguishing them from those trial or outdated collections that start piling up in the collection category. Maybe one could use ordinary wiki pages ("featured collections") to list good and maintained collections. Collections could also be linked from topic main pages (books, portals, ...). Do you think this will be sufficient or is a more formal and technically supported solution necessary? Please comment and post your thoughts on how to improve the usability? Thanks, Heiko

Bot policy proposal

Mike.lifeguard — 2008-11-09T17:07:50

There have been only a few people who took notice that there was a policy proposal up for discussion, so hopefully this will get a few more people interested. I've proposed a bot policy for approval. I think it's decent. Here's why: * It is descriptive and informative * Uses a lightweight approval process leaving plenty of latitude for bureaucrats * Allows administrators the use of the flood flag (proposal borrowed from Meta, where it's been working very nicely, I think). The flood flag portion is important, I think for a few reasons: * When admins want to move 500 pages at once, it lets them not flood RC. Now that we have move-subpages, this will be important. * Extends temp bot privileges to admins - until now really only bureaucrats could to this (in fact, I think WK might be the only person who's ever done this?) for a few reasons: * Too much trouble to ask for it * 'Crat has to be there to give & remove * There will now actually be permission in policy to let us do that Clarifies a few things like "scripts are not bots"Right now, the only objection I can discern is that the policy is too long or unfocused or something. I don't see any way to make it shorter or otherwise remove stuff without losing valuable clarity. I suppose it is possible to split out the flood flag sections to a new page, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that all this should be on one page. If we decide to split it, we would not need a separate vote or discussion - a simple "{{support}} but split out the flood flag bits ~~~~" is all we need, I think. Thanks, Mike ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+qA< at >public.gmane.org

Adding a border around text

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-08T16:15:17

I have a few templates on Wikibooks that are designed to show some text with a border around it or with a different background color, to set it apart from the rest of the text. This is used for Examples, Questions, Sidenotes, Vignettes, etc. None of the templates we have now seem to generate borders/background colors in generated PDF files or printed books. Is there a way to offset text like this from normal paragraph text? If not, can one be added? --Andrew Whitworth

Colors in printed books

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-08T02:05:08

I've been putting together a colleciton for Wikijunior:Colors[1], and I remembered that the printed books don't come in color. That's a shame, because this is a charming little book for kids that relies pretty heavily on colored pages. What are the chances that we could get some kind of "color option" for printing the books? How much would that affect the price? [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Colors --Andrew Whitworth

Wiki-To-Print Extension Nitpicks

Andrew Whitworth — 2008-11-05T17:48:57

I've been using this wiki-to-print extension today, and it's wonderful! However, I have come up with a few details that I would like to mention and hopefully have addressed in the future. Is this list a good place for these points, or should I open bugzilla tickets, or what? 1) The connection to PediaPress seems unreliable. Clicking "Order Book from PediaPress" returns an error about as often as it succeeds. I will try to record more data about this failure mode next time I see it 2) The books generated by PediaPress look amazing (I've just ordered my first one, so I will tell you how it looks when it gets here). However, I would like to be able to adjust the cover image, and possibly list multiple editors on the cover 3) In the generated PDF files, at the top of the GFDL license, there is a shortcut link to "WP:GFDL". This shortcut won't work on en.wikibooks. We either need to localize this to say "WB:GFDL", or we need to provide a fully-qualified URL to a place where a person can actually find the GFDL. 4) In addition to the GFDL, I would like to be able to specify additional boiler-plate preface and appendix text, such as an "About Wikibooks" page that will be automatically included in all books (perhaps as checkbox option, if some people don't want it). This way when/if we start to distribute/sell these books, recipients will know what the book is, where to find the electronic copy of it, how to edit and improve it, etc. I'm working on a page now (at [[Wikibooks:Collections Preface]]) that people can include manually for now, but having to manually include this page in every collection we make will be annoying. 5) PDF rendering times, especially for some of the larger books I've tried (>200 pages) are very slow. Is this an acceptable server load? 6) I've noticed problems with rendering nested list structures, like: *First *:Note about the first (this renders wrong) *Second *:Note about the second (this also renders wrong). These are some of the biggest issues I've seen so far, and they're very small! I look forward to seeing how things progress on the development of this extension. --Andrew Whitworth

GFDL 1.3 released

Mike.lifeguard — 2008-11-03T17:47:56

For those who aren't on foundation-l, news has arrived that the GFDL 1.3 was released, containing the relicensing clause which could allow us to move to CC-by-sa-3.0 My general impression has been that we think this is a good thing, and we would discuss it if/when the option arrived. So, let's start thinking about this some more. I suggest reading the new bits of the license, the FAQ and perhaps reviewing some comments on foundation-l if you need background. I look forward to some fruitful discussion. -Mike ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+qA< at >public.gmane.org

FW: [Wikitech-l] en.wiki migrated to new search backend

Mike.lifeguard — 2008-10-31T16:43:39

We're not migrated yet, but once we are, the prefix: feature will be /very/ useful for us, I think. Something to look forward to! -Mike ---- Hi all, We now have english wikipedia fully migrated to new servers / new search backend. We cannot fully migrate other wikis until we resolve some hardware issues. In the meantime, here is the overview of new features now deployed on en.wiki: 1) Did you mean... - we now have search suggestions. Care has been taken to provide suggestions that are context-sensitive, i.e. on phrases, proper names, etc.. 2) fuzzy and wildcard queries - a word can be made fuzzy by adding ~ to it's end, e.g. query sarah~ thompson~ will give all different spellings and similar names to sarah thompson. Wildcards can now be prefix and suffix, e.g. *stan will give various countries in central asia. 3) prefix: - using this magic prefix, queries can be limited to pages beginning with certain prefix. E.g. mwsuggest prefix:Wikipedia:Village Pump will search all village pumps and archives for mwsuggest. This should be especially useful for archive searching in concert with inputbox or searchbox 4) intitle: - using this magic prefix, queries can be limited to titles only 5) generally improved quality of search results via usage of related articles (based on co-occurrence of links), anchor text, text abstracts, proximity within articles, sections, redirects, improved stemming and such Cheers, Robert ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+qA< at >public.gmane.org

Open knowledge events in London on 1st, 6th,8th November

Jonathan Gray — 2008-10-31T15:51:08

Hi all, We're hosting three open knowledge events in London this November that may be of interest to people on this list: * Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information - Saturday 1st November 2008, London Knowledge Lab - http://okfn.org/wiki/PublicInformation * Open Everything London - Thursday 6th November 2008, The Roundhouse - http://openeverything.wik.is/London * Workshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources - Saturday 8th November 2008, London Knowledge Lab - http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenScience/Workshop If you plan to attend a workshop, please add your name to the wiki. If you plan to come to Open Everything London it might be advisable to book a ticket as there is limited space. More details on the events below. Please circulate as appropriate! Warm regards, Jonathan Gray The Open Knowledge Foundation --- Open Everything London ====================== On 6 November 2008, London will host an Open Everything event, a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of 'open'. The conversation will cover, well, everything. Qualifier: the 'thing' in question is built using openness, participation and self-organisation. There are people coming to talk about open technology, media, education, workplace design, philanthropy, public policy and even politics. These people want to tell you what they're doing and find out what you're up to. And they'd like to have lunch with you. ## Details * When: Thursday 6th November, 0900-1730 and then drinks afterwards! * Where: The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH * Wiki: http://openeverything.wik.is/London * Cost: £15 donation for venue, lunch and refreshments. * Register: Book your place! ## Speakers * Glyn Moody - "...a technology writer. He is best known for his book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution (2001). It describes the evolution and significance of the free software and open source movements with many interviews of all the notable hackers." * Charles Leadbeater - "... a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning." * Rufus Pollock - Director at the Open Knowledge Foundation, and an economist at Cambridge University focusing on innovation and IP, with particular attention to open models of innovation. The day will include speed geeks, lightning talks, discussions, open space for breakout sessions and lunch. Other speakers, presenters, facilitators and organisations who have confirmed include: * Helen King, Principal Advisor, Shuttleworth Foundation * Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation + Visiting Professor at University College, London, the London School of Economics and University of Melbourne + Chair of Involve * Tom Steinberg, Founder and Director of mySociety * Charles Armstrong, Founder of Circus Foundation + CEO of Trampoline Systems * Kennisland * One World * Social Innovation Camp * Maslaha * Brave New Collaboration * NESTA * Think Public --- Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information =================================================== * When: Saturday 1st November 2008, 1030-1600. * Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS. * Wiki: http://okfn.org/wiki/PublicInformation * Participation: Attendance is free. If you are planning to come along please add your name to the list below, or email us. The UK Government produces and distributes a vast amount of documents and datasets - from national statistics to environmental information, from socio-economic data to legal material. Recent technologies allow this information to be explored, built upon and made accessible in new ways - whether through visual representation, semantic interlinking, or through social media applications. This informal, hands-on workshop will bring government information experts together with those who are interested in finding and re-using government information. In addition to focused discussions about legal and technological aspects of re-use, government information assets will be documented and tagged on CKAN, a registry of knowledge resources. This workshop is presented by The Open Knowledge Foundation, the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI), the Power of Information (POI) Taskforce and mySociety. It is kindly hosted by the London Knowledge Lab. --- Workshop on Finding and Re-using Open Scientific Resources ========================================================== * When: Saturday 8th November 2008, 1100-1600 * Where: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS. * Wiki page: http://okfn.org/wiki/OpenScience/Workshop * Participation: Attendance is free. If you are planning to come along please add your name to the list below, or email us. This informal, hands-on workshop will focus on finding and re-using open scientific resources - including open and public domain data, open access journal articles, and open educational materials. We will look at existing tools for discovering open material, metadata standards for relevant material in different domains, and how researchers go about looking for the material they need. In addition to focused discussions about legal and technological aspects of re-use, open scientific resources will be documented and tagged on CKAN, a registry of knowledge resources.

2nd open textbook virtual meeting - later today (27thOctober)!

Jonathan Gray — 2008-10-27T09:39:03

Hi all, A reminder that the a second open textbook virtual meeting will take place later today: http://blog.okfn.org/2008/10/26/second-open-textbook-virtual-meeting-27th-october/ * When: Monday 27th October 2008, 1800 GMT, 1300 EST or 1100 PST * Where: #okfn channel at oftc.net * Wiki: http://okfn.org/wiki/opentextbooks You can connect via mibbit at: http://ur1.ca/4fh It would be great to see people there! Regards, Jonathan

Logo selection process has stagnated

Mike.lifeguard — 2008-10-24T04:03:40

OK, so the logo thing has been stagnant for some time now. Someone should wrap up this section by choosing the winner from each proposal (maybe dropping the proposals that have very little support and substituting a popular second choice from the more active proposals) and set up the last poll to choose between those alternatives. Probably [[Wikibooks/Logo/Proposal]] is where that should be taking place (which means nothing to archive, I think :D ) I'd do it myself, but I have too much on my plate for the next week or two and I want this to get done sooner than that. Also, this serves as a reminder to everyone who forgot about it. -Mike

Wiki-to-print and ODT now live in all Wikibookseditions

Erik Moeller — 2008-10-24T01:21:37

The PediaPress technology is now running in all Wikibooks languages. We have also gone ahead and enabled ODT support, so you can export collections to edit them in a word processor. The help is currently available in English and German: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Collections http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hilfe:Sammlungen Help with translating it is appreciated; I've also posted a notice to translators-l to this effect. I've created an English example collection: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/Collections/Blended_Learning To get a PDF, ODT or to order a printed copy of that demo, go here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Collection/load_collection/?colltitle=User:Eloquence/Collections/Blended_Learning To report bugs, please visit: http://code.pediapress.com/ create an account, and create a "new ticket". The PP team is very responsive & helpful. :-) Known issues: * Licensing info isn't perfect. This is a tricky one because proper attribution of collaborative works is generally non-trivial, but we're working together on improving it. * There are non-internationalizable strings in the PDF output. The PediaPress team is working with translatewiki.net to sort this out. * ODT support is still experimental, so please give lots of feedback on brokenness.

PDF Customization

Volker Haas — 2008-10-14T10:55:06

Hi all. As pointed out by John, customization of PDFs generated with the Collection extensioin is currently not possible by the user. Our current goal is to generate PDFs with a layout that works for most of the users out of the box. Therefore we are happy to adapt the default layout to the community consensus. At some point in the (hopefully not to distant) future basic customization will be possible with the Collection extension, especially pagesizes for example. Regards, Volker

FLOSS Manuals Bookstore

adam hyde — 2008-10-13T18:44:49

hi, on the level of wiki-book projects, we have just launched the FLOSS Manuals bookstore...you can see it here: http://www.flossmanuals.net and details on how to embed it here: http://www.flossmanuals.net/bookstore Its an 'embeddable' bookstore -designed to fit on the sidebar of your site, and it advertises all books produced by the FLOSS Manuals community using the FM platform. We have some tools that enable print-on-demand print-ready PDF generation from the wiki. The format looks lovely...you can see an example of the PDF copy here: http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_64/3865000/3865224/9/print/g1g1_final.pdf There is a photo of the books someone brought here: http://olpclearningclub.org/2008/10/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/2925910346/ adam