Re: [Foundation-l] Rethinking brands

Robert Horning wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>> On 5/8/07, Johannes Rohr <[email protected]> wrote:
>>   
>>> Besides everything else which has been said already, I do not find
>>> these names particularly appealing. "Wikibooks" is short and catchy,
>>> "Wikipedia Textbooks" is long and clumsy and has a taste of
>>> ugly marketspeak.
>>>     
>> Wikibooks is actually one of our most problematic names, as the focus
>> is very much on textbook development. Short and catchy as it ma ybe,
>> it is misleading. Fundamentally, I can see problems with the project's
>> conception around a very specific type of knowledge representation (be
>> it generally a book or specifically a textbook), but if that is how we
>> define it, then we should at least be clear what _kind_ of books we
>> are talking about.
>>   
> 
> (Cross posting to textbook-l as this is a perennial issue that still 
> needs to be resolved)
> 
> I don't see that the name "Wikibooks" is necessarily as problematic as 
> you are suggesting here, Eric.  Nor do I see that "textbook development" 
> is necessarily the only focus of Wikibooks, even though I would admit 
> that it is a major component of the Wikibooks and should be emphasized.
> 
> It would be interesting to see what the sense of the WMF board is on 
> this issue in terms of how focused Wikibooks ought to be on textbooks 
> and what kind of definition of textbooks could be used to distinguish 
> what should or should not be found on Wikibooks.  A massive campaign to 
> remove whole categories of content from Wikibooks has been underway for 
> some time, but the actual working definition of what really should 
> belong on that project has never been made clear by those who would have 
> the authority to define this sort of scope of the project.
> 
> An effort by the community is currently under way on Wikibooks to help 
> define this scope as best as can be done at the moment without WMF board 
> assistance:
> 
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks/Unstable
> 
> I would hope that WMF board members would be aware of this current 
> version of this fundamental policy, 

ok

as it appears very likely that this
> will become official and enforced policy on en.wikibooks in the very 
> near future.  I have raised some objections to this policy as it has 
> been written, but this is as much of a compromise as we ordinary folks 
> trying to figure out the mayhem of our little project can muster at the 
> moment, and represents nearly a full year of effort by very active 
> community members to help come up with this definition.
> 
> I would hope that non-textbook books could also eventually have a role 
> on Wikibooks, but mine is a small voice that is mostly ignored on this 
> subject.

I would be curious to hear more about what you disagree with in that 
definition.

I, for one, think it is great to work on better defining the mission of 
Wikibooks. I have one question though, do you know if the definition 
worked upon is generally shared with other wikibooks people ? Are they 
other wikibooks that have worked on such a definition, and where the 
outcome differs widely from yours ?

ant