Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Wikipedia books

First Draft MoS for Wikipedia-Books

I wrote this so Wikipedia books can become a bit more streamlined and have a more standardized feel. It's probably a bit drafty, but the core elements should be there. Feedback would be welcome and appreciated.

If you never heard of Wikipedia books, here's some basic details:

Wikipedia books (simply "books" from now on) are collections of article which can be downloaded electronically for free (in PDF or ODT formats, which can then be read offline, or printed by the user), or ordered in print. For examples, see Book:Hydrogen, Book:Canada, Book:Prostate, Book:Invincible class battlecruisers, (more can be found here). If you are still confused, I suggest clicking on "PDF" to see what exactly a book looks like when in PDF (ODT format is similar, printed books look better since they are printed on smaller pages, but the general idea is the same). The exact format of books can be varied: simpler books are just a bunch of links (Book:Invincible class battlecruisers), more complex books are usually structured in chapters such as Book:Hadronic Matter.

For more informations, you can check these Signpost articles

• Books extension enabled
• New Book-Class released, WikiProject Wikipedia-Books looking for volunteers
• New Book namespace created
• Proposed deletion process extended to books, cleanup efforts

As well as

• Wikipedia:Books
• Help:Books
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books

If you want to create a book, simply click on the "Create a book" link in the "print/export" toolbar on the left. (Or click here if you can't find it).

If you read all that and checked a few books in PDF, you should now be pretty familiar with what books are.

Any comments on WP:MOSBOOKS? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:41, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The main MoS and all of the specific MoSes are presently under scrutiny over at WT:MOS. Perhaps this page could be discussed as part of that process? --Jubilee♫clipman 01:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

• More helpful (perhaps) comment: thanks for this, Headbomb. There can be no doubt that a MoS for WP Books is necessary, especially given the fact that the bot picks up all sorts of things that we would not normally consider in normal editing. I'll check through the page soon and leave extended feedback here (remind me if I haven't done that by 7th April). Cheers --Jubilee♫clipman 22:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Feedback

As promised, here are my thoughts on the guideline. Note, I do not claim to be an expert on the MoS, or anything else for that matter, just an every day editor with some general observations based on his (still rather limited) experience.

• Rationale
  • The purpose of this guideline is clear: Wikipedia Books need to follow a consistent and understandable style of formatting that does not break any of Wikipedia's Policies or Guidelines; therefore, specific guidance is necessary for the less obvious points of style.

• Overall:
  1. The guideline (small "g", note) probably ought to be proposed formally and the {{proposed}} template added to it.
  2. Various Guidelines and Policies are pointed to that this guideline "also applies to" etc. These probably ought to be mentioned at the start of the page as they are crucial to the understanding and application of the guideline. E.g. "Note: WP:MOS also applies to..." and the Policies section at the end. That's just my view though, there may be other ways of looking at this.
  3. {{Tick}} and {{Cross}} look a bit forbidding. Perhaps just use "Right: John Wayne [etc]"?

• Wording
  1. "Books have no special consideration for how they should be named..." - Does this mean "The naming of book titles is not given special consideration in Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines or any other relevant document" or "Nothing special has to be considered when naming a book"? The former seems unlikely given the following statement but the present statement is somewhat clunky, anyway. Perhaps: "Books can be named in any manner as long as the Guidelines on article titles are followed" would be better?
  2. Layout and formatting: "All of these should be written as they usually would be in articles." - Perhaps: "Use the format and wording normally used in articles"? Also, a link might not go amiss here for the unschooled...?
  3. "'Attention grabbing' subtitles are OK" - A little colloquial. Perhaps: "'Attention grabbing' subtitles are acceptable." Also, I would be wary of promoting that fact, even with the disclaimer, unless the lines are more firmly drawn. Presumably Title: Jimbo Wales; Subtitle: The people's encyclopaedist would be slightly misleading, to say the least...

• Details
  1. "Titles are mandatory." - According to whom? This is only a guideline, remember...
  2. "Articles need to be written with a preceding colon (:[[Article]])." - Actually, they appear to be written with a preceding bullet (*[[Article]]). Is this out of date or have I misread it?
  3. "Therefore if the title and/or the subtitle are too long to fit in..." - Why not specify that titles and subtitles should be relatively short?
     • E.g. Presumably The layman's handbook of why, how and when to apply the Policies and Guidelines of Wikipedia in the context of Wikipedia Books and other related miscellany would be unhelpful to the general reader...? Even as a subtitle.
  4. "Note: Fair use cannot be claimed on covers..." - Why not? Presumably because the books can—indeed, are intended to be—printed off and therefore the image could be seen outside of the context of the Wikipedia website?

There is probably more I could say regarding general layout, etc, but I hope these thoughts help for now? BTW, Bug 704 is new to me: thanks for that --Jubilee♫clipman 00:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the feedback. I've updated a couple of things, left a few as they were. Some specifics

• I wanted to have feedback before formally proposing it. IMO, it makes no sense to send a draft to proposal.
• Left out "attention grabbing" subtitles. You're right that in the long-run, this would become a problem, trigger edit wars, etc... Better to stick to descriptive subtitles.
• Titles are mandatory, otherwise you have a title-less book, and a blank title page. It's the equivalent of having an article with no name. This an impossible situation to arise with articles because of the software, but for books it's possible to happen. So I guess according to common sense.
• Some titles are inherently long and cannot be shortened. See Book:Members of the Gregorian mission, and Book:Admiralty Ships and Submarines Lost from 1939 to 1946 for examples.
• Fair use is so we can illustrate historic events, and discuss art style, etc... Fair use cannot be claimed on covers for the same reason they can't be claimed on the front page.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)