Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Creating a new book?

Hello,

I have just found this feature, and I found it very useful. I have several questions:

  1. Can anyone create a community book? If yes, there needs to be some information on how to do that, either in FAQ or Help.
  2. There are very few books on literature. Any particular reason about this?
  3. I am interested to create books on Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin, Russian literature, French literature, Mahatma Gandhi. These seem subjects which would attrack many people. How do I advertise about a new book?

Thanks for your help, Yann (talk) 17:36, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for showing interst Yann.

  1. Anyone can create a community book.
  2. The reason there are no books on those subjects is because no one has created them yet.
  3. Advertise by using {{Wikipedia-Books|BOOK-NAME-HERE}} at the bottom of related pages. It'll look like this (to the right):

{{Wikipedia books|Love}}

I'll poke at Headbomb, essentially the leader of the books wikiproject, to make a guide. In the mean time, you can create a book like this:

  1. Create the book's page (it'll be in the book namespace, so for example Book:Russian literature.
  2. At the top of the page, type in exactly as follows {{subst:Template:Book}}, and click save.
  3. Go back to the editing window and start filling in the link information.
  4. Once you're done, you can check how it will appear as a PDF by using the "[ Download PDF ]" button in the box at the top of the book.

Hope this helps, thanks for helping out, and don't forget to claim a free printed book for your work here. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:08, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Basically a "community book" is one that is found in the Book namespace (i.e. starts with Book:... such as Book:Lysenkoism). User books are those in the User namespace (such as User:Grzechooo/Books/Poland). The difference between the two is pretty much the same as an article vs. something found in userspace. The first can be edited by anyone and considered "Wikipedia content" proper, but what is found in userspace is usually left alone (unless it's an attack page or something like that) and not considered actual Wikipedia content (you would not find a link to User:Grzechooo/Books/Poland in an article, but you could find a link to Book:Poland assuming it existed). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Question

I added a question here. Thanks for your attention. --Elitre (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I need your help (again :) )

Please read my question here. Thanks! --Elitre (talk) 11:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Cover images.

I can help create transparent images for use on covers, if anyone needs them.--Architeuthidae (Talk | Contributions) 00:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost interview

Proposal for, maybe, stimulating development

First, I want to say what my motivation for this proposal is, just for clarity. I have looked over most of the best web reference listings from the American Library Association. Although I don't have at least a few of the articles in full text, I haven't seen us listed as one of the best web based reference sources yet. This annoys me, and is the basic driving reason behind this proposal.

Now, I have recently been spending a great deal of time looking over what are considered by that group, and by Booklist, the outstanding reference sources. These include quite a few geographic based books, like the Encyclopedia of British Columbia, which was at least for a while the number one bestseller in that province, the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, called the greatest publishing event in the history of that province, and the Encyclopedia of New York State, which received $650,000 from the state for the development of the book, and in return each of the 1,056 libraries in the state received one free copy on publication. That last is about $600.00 per copy. Granted, Melton's one-volume Encyclopedia of American Religions costs about $1,000 per single-volume edition, but that is still a lot of money.

There are some other works which are devoted to a larger area, like the Encyclopedia of New England and a similar volume on the Canadian and US plains region. For the most part, I don't see any specific individual volumes on, for instance, Maine, Delaware, Wyoming, or South Dakota, among others. I think that might, in part, be due to the comparative smallness, and comparatively small target audience, for these works, although, I acknowledge, there might be locally published versions of these of which I am not aware.

Anyway, I have also noticed that there isn't as much effort being spent on a lot of the articles on these smaller areas in general as well. And, of course, as we all know, anyone is free to edit our articles, and, if they so wish, publish material from our articles, with proper attribution.

So, finally, my idea. I wonder whether it might be possible to contact the governor of a state or other area which does not have such a dedicated encyclopedic source and, maybe, ask if he or she would be willing to consider the following.

  • 1) Contacting the state librarian, or the state's leading historian, or some similar person, and request from them a list of articles which they think would belong in an encyclopedic source on the state or area
  • 2) Make a public statement, that, at some upcoming anniversay (maybe a multiple of 25 or 50 years) the state wants to be able to produce one or more reference works about the state, possibly a single encyclopedic work, or maybe one for history and one for biography, and/or, maybe, a narrative history.
  • 3) Request the state colleges and universities and high schools, similar private institutions, and even the local libraries to actively take part in the development of content related to those articles in preparation for publication;
  • 4) have some party, possibly the state librarian or some group of academics, edit the material for inclusion in the bound volume; and finally
  • 5) Possibly on their own, possibly in conjunction with us, print the material.

I have noticed that there are separate encyclopedias which have recently been published for Cleveland history and Cleveland biography. I suppose the same could be done for other areas or states as well. Also, it might very easily be possible to create some sort of narrative history of the region, of some length, which could be published concurrently. If such was wanted, it might even be possible for the various schools of education of the state to get involved in turning that narrative history into a textbook for state history. I remember having a section in my own eighth-grade history class on state history, and it might be very useful if these smaller states had some sort of textbook specifically designed for their use at reasonable prices.

And, yes, if these books were well done, I think it might be very, very hard for the ALA to ignore them at the time of noting the best reference sources of the year. It would also probably be good publicity for wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation as well.

And, presumably, if such were to be successful in one state, other states, or maybe large cities or other well-populated areas, might be interested in coming here to do something similar.

Anyway, any opinions? John Carter (talk) 18:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Book Review

I made a book and saved it at User:Nathan2055/Books/Wikipedia Intro. It's called Introduction to Wikipedia, and it contains a wide variety of help documents and the entire Manual of Style. I was wondering, what does someone here think of it? Do you think it could use work? Or can I move it to the Books namespace now? If so, how should I go about doing it? Thanks! --Nathan2055talk 21:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

BOTREQ for automated creation of books related to hurricanes and tropical cyclones

See Wikipedia:Bot requests#Create books for WP:WPTC and WP:WBOOKS. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:59, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

RfC

There is an RFC on whether WP:REDIRECT should contain advice related to Wikipedia books. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:20, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

How to keep a template from Printing.

How to turn off a template. I have created the book Book:Arkansas Confederate Units, and most of the articles include the template {{Arkansas Confederate Infantry Regiments}}, which I would like to shut off for the purposes of printing. This is just a navigation tool and takes up unnessary page space.Aleutian06 (talk) 20:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

See Help:Books/for experts##Fixing problems (aka you just need to do this). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! Aleutian06 (talk) 18:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

How do the book report templates work?

There is no documentation for {{book report}} and its brethren, and it's not clear to me how the reports should be set up on talk pages. What information do I need to provide and what gets filled in automatically? Do I need to ask a bot to start doing the reports? Does it make any difference whether my book is in user space or not? RockMagnetist (talk) 22:43, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

It's all taken care of by bots. You don't need to do a thing. (Sorry for the long delay in reply). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:58, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I presume that only works if your book is in article space. RockMagnetist (talk) 03:48, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, at least for now, since book runs take quite a lot of time. User:Noommos might do it on some user books on requests however, but that probably depends on his availability and willingness. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:53, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Book:Church Buildings of Great Britan and Ireland

If anyone wants to expand on what's there , feel free Sfan00 IMG (talk) 17:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

No Cover

Hello, I have a no Cover template pasted on my book side, but cannot find any help, creating and saving a cover for others. For the printed version I do it myself, but I want to suggest a cover to others. R(ead) U -- Room 608 07:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roomsixhu (talk • contribs)

Cool

I just created my own small book on "Educational psychology" from Wikipedia articles, and then downloaded it in PDF format. I am thinking this is really cool! Thanks for putting this project together. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

How Wikipedia Works - the book?

Please see the idea at Talk:How_Wikipedia_Works#Integrate_into_Wikipedia.3F. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Deletion discussion - List of books about AIDS

  1. List of books about AIDS
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books about AIDS

Ongoing deletion discussion for List of books about AIDS at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books about AIDS.

Perhaps this WikiProject and its members may be interested in contributing to this discussion, and/or a quality improvement project for this list page. — Cirt (talk) 07:04, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

redirects in Book space

Per a recent request of mine at WP:AFC/R, I was wondering why redirects are not supported/done in Book-space? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 20:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Template to list books by an author

Hello, I'm trying to assist a new editor that came to the WP:HD looking for some help with her draft. I answered the original question, and the editor should be currently filling in the {{Infobox writer}} template I've put on the page. However, looking over the page, the listings of books by that author leaves much to be desired, and I was hoping that someone that has more experience with book and/or author articles may be able to help tidy the lists up. If you can help with that or at least point me in the right direction to an example of how it should look, a template I could use, or someone else who may know more on the subject, I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you for your time. Technical 13 (talk) 12:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

PDF export missing several notes and references

For any bug trackers reading, I've posted about PDF export missing several notes and references at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Book tool PDF bugs and lack of support and at meta:Book tool/Feedback#Bug: Notes and References all end up as Notes. I am unsure of the cause, it could be mediawiki's collection extension. -84user (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Archived some threads

I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. — Cirt (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Other than ZIP, is there a way to make PDFs smaller?

This is my first experience with Wikipedia Books. I selected 30 or so articles on baseball players, downloaded the PDF, and it was 35000 or so kilobytes ... I zipped it, which knocked it down to 29000. Does anyone know of a way to make it smaller than that? Thanks. Go Phightins! 20:25, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Try 7zip. emijrp (talk) 09:33, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Also try Compress PDF. (I've used this before and never had problems with it.) TeragR disc./con. 23:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

List of battles

Hi, I'm not sure where to post this, so I decided to post it here. I want a chronological list of battles in the American Civil War in order, can someone please create it for me, starting at the top with the first battle (Fort Sumter) and ending with the last battle. Since I don't have enough time in one day to get every article for my book about ACW. EVERY BATTLE (double checking is much appreciated)

Get them from this list: List of American Civil War battles

Thanks! -- Signed, Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa123|UPage|☺★ (talk) 11:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

(note: post it on my talk page when you're done!) Yutah Andrei Marzan Ogawa123|UPage|☺★ (talk) 11:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Smollin9/Write Notes Here

Dear book experts: the above page has been submitted at AfC. I don't know if it should be a an article, but it seems like an interesting idea. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Userbox

I created the userbox. ☴ Jaewon [Talk] 16:00, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Can I Delete Books?

Dear book experts, I have accidentally created a book about Nerf, but with a wrong name (User:NerfersUnited/Books/User:NerfersUnited/Books), so I have made a second book, User:NerfersUnited/Books/Nerf. Is it possible to delete the wrong book? Please answer as soon as possible. — NerfersUnited (talk) 08:49, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@NerfersUnited: Yup, just put {{db-user}} at the top of the page you want to delete and an admin will come around eventually. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:37, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Error in creating book

Not sure where to put this, but am consistently getting this error:

Generation of the document file has failed.

Status: Rendering process died with non zero code: 1

when trying to generate User:WikiCopter/Books/2014 Ebola outbreak brief and other large wikipages. WikiCopter (t • c • onau • omt • cvu) 01:56, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

This is happening when trying to render the book/page in PDF format. WikiCopter (t • c • onau • omt • cvu) 01:58, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Why are unreferenced articles included in Wikipedia books?

This is causing headaches for people who are trying to source very old unreferenced articles, like those in Category:Articles lacking sources from October 2006. A number of them seem to have been included in Wikipedia Books, which then feature prominently in book search results. Generally for historical articles I turn to book searches first, as the web tends to be full of lots of unreliable nonsense. Now Google Book searches are turning up Wikipedia Books containing copies of the unreferenced articles I'm trying to reference. I've brought this up at the Reliable sources noticeboard, but I thought it a good idea to bring it to the attention of this WikiProject too.

I don't know much about Wikipedia Books; what they are or why they exist, other than that they seem to be compilations of articles revolving around a similar topic that someone wants in book form. But if they're available on Amazon and Barns and Nobel and Google Books and libraries, shouldn't they contain our best work? Or at least, decent work? Shouldn't they be referenced and fact-checked? Why are people including unreferenced articles in them? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:34, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

The people placing them on Amazon et al. are doing so to make a profit and don't concern themselves with the books' quality. Quite frankly, I consider such to be scams (with some notable exceptions). You just have to use the mental filter of ignoring them. --Izno (talk) 19:43, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Pretty much. The point is/was to have collections of articles in downloadable PDF format that you could order (print on demand model) in physical form if you wanted. Some people made bots to spam online retailers with Wikipedia books, and tend to be pretty badly outdated, given they are not updated once 'uploaded'. I think PediaPress stopped printing the books on demand (they were the only legit place to get them from) but the PDF functionality remains. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:24, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
PediaPress was the name of the org that I couldn't remember. --Izno (talk) 13:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Wikipedia-Books/Archive 2 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 18:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books/Archive 2/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Wikipedia-Books.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

  • The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
  • The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
  • The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Help subpage title

I have started a discussion at Help talk:Books/PediaPress PDF rendering#Article title, please stop by and give your views. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Rubbish

Most of the book, including the featured ones, are rubbish. Why did someone want to delete all of the portals but not all of these useless books. I told my library not to get the Wikipedia books because they are really bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.75.91.33 (talk) 01:38, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

A Wikipedia book is simply a distinct medium for a related set of articles. Some people do find the medium useful. Many of these sets need more work, but that is mostly because the individual articles that make them up need more work. Because a book is not intended as an article per se, it does not belong in main article space. (Some of us feel that that is not true of portals, seeing them as in essence overview articles about other articles - but that is now a dead issue.) — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 04:59, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Suppression of template

New book not having book reports generated

I started the Book:State highways in Georgia (U.S. state) page on September 20. It's been about a month, but no book reports have been generated on its talk page. Did I do something wrong? How often are they generated? Thank you for your help. Morriswa (Charlotte Allison) (talk) 14:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "report"? books pages just sit there doing nothing unless you export the book to an external program. ....our book creator is dead. --Moxy 🍁 16:02, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Can you give an example of such a report on another book's talk page? (Just to clarify, the Book Creator (aka Collection Extension) itself is working, only the softcopy rendering service is dead). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
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