The Signpost

WikiProject report

Make your own book with Wikiproject Wikipedia-Books

Contribute  —  
Share this
By SMasters and Mabeenot


WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
A variety of Wikipedia books printed by PediaPress
Tables and figures

This week, we turn our attention to WikiProject Wikipedia-Books. Started in March 2009 by Cerejota, the project is a collaboration to improve Wikipedia's coverage and documentation of Wikipedia-Books (from now on, simply 'books'), as well as to improve and maintain the organization of books, books-related categories, and books-related templates. [A Wikipedia Book is a collection of Wikipedia articles that can be easily saved, rendered electronically in PDF, ZIM or OpenDocument format, or ordered as a printed book.] The project has 20 participants, who currently look after over 1,700 books.

The Signpost interviews project members Headbomb, Discographer, and Sven Manguard. Headbomb is a Canadian Wikipedian who has had a Wikipedia account since 2006, but only became active from March 2008. Discographer, a European living in Canada with his wife, has been a Wikipedian since August 2009, and is a huge fan of The Supremes. Sven Manguard is an American Wikipedian who works primarily in files and back end areas of the project.

What are Wikipedia-Books and what are the most important functions of the project?

How did you get involved in the Wikipedia-Books project?


Related articles
WikiProject report

Make your own book with Wikiproject Wikipedia-Books
6 June 2011

ArbCom tally pending; Pediapress renderer; fundraiser update; unreferenced BLP drive
6 December 2010

Fundraisers start for Wikipedia and Citizendium; controversial content and leadership
15 November 2010

Wikipedia books launched worldwide
10 May 2010

Wikipedia-Books: Proposed deletion process extended, cleanup efforts
22 March 2010

New Book namespace created
11 January 2010

35k donated, WikiProject for Wikipedia-Books, 2M rated articles, and more
30 November 2009

Books extension enabled
2 March 2009


More articles

What are the biggest challenges for the project?

What are the most pressing needs for WikiProject Wikipedia-Books? How can a new contributor help today?


You can download book versions of The Signpost at Book:Wikipedia Signpost. Next week, we'll take to the skies. Until then, glide over to the archive.

+ Add a comment

Discuss this story

These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try purging the cache.

One more thing worth saying; I believe that WikiProjects can form very natural partnerships with Wikipedia-Books. WikiProjects can make and maintain books on their fields as part of their regular duties, and are best equip to improve the articles in those books. Just one person in even the largest of WikiProjects can ensure that the work of that project is represented in the Wikipedia-Books library. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The editing process here didn't go off very smoothly, but now that the article is published, let's bury the hatchet.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • My comments went under significant editing, which I do/did not appreciate. For my answers as I intended them, see this version of the interview. It contains some typos and other minor mistakes, but at least it reflects the interview I did take. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you please point out where the significant editing occurred? Comparing both versions, most of it was quoted verbatim. Any editing was to make to story more reader-friendly, concise and to highlight points that would promote your project. – SMasters (talk) 14:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Things like this and this and this and many others. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I had hoped to keep the ugliness of this editorial process out of the public, but since it's already here, I might as well say my piece. My comments were also edited in a way in which I did not approve. Most prominently several questions were combined, which mixed separate trains of thought and muddled what I was trying to say. The comment I made at the top of this thread is one example. When the interview was set out, that was a freestanding question on WikiProject collaboration. When SMasters edited it, he stuck it onto another question. I moved it back down to the other comments section so I could separate the two different statements properly, and then he cut the other comments section entirely. Therefore the only way I could make what I consider a rather important point is by posting it here. I'm unhappy with how this interview turned out, and I place the blame firmly in the lap of the interviewer. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • The first question, was put into prose to form the introduction. There is nothing unusual about this. The question about collaboration was about inter-WikiProject collaboration, not about personal collaboration. This is, after all, the WikiProject Report. As such, I decided to remove the question. However, there were one or two points which I thought were good, and worth mentioning. But as the question had been removed, I thought rather than waste these gems, I would use a literary device to add them to the end of other responses. Since there was unhappiness over this, I removed them. The final question was about anything else that one might like to add. I then added them to where I thought it was appropriate and made sense, and removed the question due to length considerations. I did not change any quotes (except to correct errors, and for clarity or brevity). I edited this piece in good faith, and meant well in terms of helping promote the cause of this WikiProject. The above statements imply that I have gone and changed what was said in the interview, which simply did not happen. – SMasters (talk) 23:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm collapsing this. As far as I am concerned, mistakes were made, but there was no malice. As the article is now live, there's really not that much else to be done. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • Since adding it to the Suggestions was useless, I'd like to add a footnote to this full story about Wikipedia-Books. Last week I launched a coupon giveaway project on it.wp, thanks to PediaPress, aimed to collect 35 new community books based on featured and quality articles as a way to celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary. It's a first on our project, that's why I thought it would be worth mentioning it again. You can read more on Wikilove's blog, on my blog (in Italian, but there's a button to Google-translate it), while the project itself is here, and on the talk page you can read a statement by PediaPress. --Elitre (talk) 09:25, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, Erik Zachte recently started producing regular stats on sales of printed books through the book tool, available here (the CSV file includes per-country breakdown); WMF receives 10% of the revenue reported here. The book tool is part of our larger efforts to make Wikimedia content usable offline, with the principal motivations being 1) reaching people with no or limited connectivity, 2) allowing educational institutions to manage their own collections of educational content they want to use. See m:Offline Projects for more. :-) --Eloquence* 20:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]



       

The Signpost · written by many · served by Sinepost V0.9 · 🄯 CC-BY-SA 4.0