Re: NPOV and NOR as a local or a global policies on Wikibooks?

The rules against OR and POV were first established on EN Wikipedia, and
other projects have since been inspired to inherit them (after all,
Wikipedia was originally the "Wikipedia Textbook project" or somesuch). Many
of our old policies were based on outdated forks of Wikipedia policies.

First I'll talk about OR. Writing a textbook is very different from a
Wikipedia article; while a Wikipedia article can only cover a topic that
already exists, a book is free to reveal an entirely new topic.

However, with both methods verifiability is still crucial; if any previous
works cover the topic in question it's very important to mention them; even
if they were not used to write the book it shows its authors have read
widely and really know their topic. If no traditional sources exist then it
is perhaps a topic a more trusted source should cover first (such as a real
professor with a real degree), rather than the semi-anonymous laymen of
Wikibooks. I'm hesitant to mention it, but the recent unfortunate events
involving Essjay on Wikipedia show the limited verifiability of a wiki
user's qualifications.

NPOV is a vaguer issue; since a textbook is covering the topic from a
particular angle, some degree of POV is often inevitable for the cause of
interesting prose. However there's a difference between POV and actual bias.
This is a matter better explored at a later date.

OR aside, (although references and NPOV are still preferable if possible),
hosting non-annotated fiction simply isn't within our scope. Our donations
and tax breaks have been generously and specifically given for the purposes
of running a non-profit source for copyleft textbooks. Even fiction focussed
on instruction such as Ardvark the Aardvark (
http://novelas.wikia.com/wiki/Ardvark_the_Aardvark ) had to be moved because
of these restrictions.

While in the past we have been lenient (some would say lax) about fiction
and other non-textbook content being on Wikibooks, continuing the errors of
the past doesn't help anything. Jimbo has stated we need to stick closer to
our goals, and he's right.

Anyway I hope I explained everything sufficiently.

Garrett

On 10/03/07, Milos Rancic <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks)
> or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
>
> Yes, this is reasonable if we are talking only about manuals and
> school books. However, I would like to see, for example, a book about
> web servers comparison and I don't think that it is reasonable to stop
> people writing such kinds of books. Also, I'd like to see essays and
> even fiction books on Wikibooks, too. Of course, with defining what
> kind of books would be able not to be NPOV and NOR (for example, I
> don't think that a book about history may be POV) and with marking
> such books as OR and POV.
>
> If it is locally related to en:, projects in other languages may not
> follow such rules. However, it would be better to have a global policy
> with definitions what may and what may not be OR and/or POV.
>
> I think that it is better to have strong Wikibookian communities with
> a lot of fiction on Wikibooks then much smaller communities without
> fiction on Wikibooks.
>
> I know that it sounds hereticly :) However, I would like to see a good
> skilled (amateur) astronomer who prefer to write SF on Wikibooks. He
> may start to write a book about astronomy through some time.
>
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