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

Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
> Why not have "fiction" at wikibooks?
>
>     > Jimmy wrote: ... Fiction is absolutely not
>     > appropriate for Wikibooks ...
>
>         from
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2007-June/001107.html
>
> Huh?
>
> At http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page search for "fiction" and see
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=fiction&go=Go showing
> 458 results for "fiction" at Wikibooks.
>
> But, I find no "fiction" page at Wikibooks: "Warning: You are recreating
> a page that was previously deleted.".
>
> Can someone explain? You're joking, right
We do permit annotated texts about fiction, but the fiction itself is 
not generally permitted on Wikibooks.  For example, a book about "The 
Chronicles of Narnia" or "Harry Potter" (a major Wikibook BTW) is 
permitted, if you try to address the book(s) from a literary standpoint 
and help to develop study guides and other learning materials that are 
about those books.  A clear example of this is here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter

For more specific details, you can get out the official policy for 
fiction on Wikibooks at:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:What_is_Wikibooks

There was a very interesting book called "Aarvard the Aardvark" which 
was started several years ago on Wikibooks that more or less set the 
precedent for fictional resources.  In the case of this book, it was 
intended to be a 1st Grade reading primer to go through the stories of a 
little Aardvark, with illustrations and other gently humorous content 
intended for children.  Clearly it would fit within the general 
definition of a textbook, as other similar reading primers have been 
written and used in other K-5 reading programs, but due to the questions 
of original research and allowing other 3rd parties to help participate 
in the development process, it was voted off of Wikibook in a VfD.  As a 
result, nearly all other forms of fiction including adult novels have 
been asked to move off of the project as well when they were started, 
and asked instead to be using the Novella Wikia, which specializes in 
writing fictional content.

http://fiction.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Mainly this is just a way to help refine the content on Wikibooks, and 
to emphasize that anything written on the project must be factual and 
verifiable from independent sources.  We do tend to not get so harsh on 
original research as Wikipedia tends to get, but if you write a mystery 
novel, we simply are not equipped to deal with an editorial dispute 
between two authors who want to take a plot line in two very different 
directions.

This has been a long standing policy now for at least two years, if not 
longer, and should not be a new revelation for any long time Wikibooks 
user.  I'm sorry if this does seem to be a bit of a surprise, and I hope 
that this doesn't offend anybody here.  I'm willing to at least listen 
to the arguments in favor of allowing fictional content, but it really 
ought to be something like the "Aardvard the Aardvark" or something 
specifically tied to an educational curriculum, and is something that 
would have to be discussed among the community at large to permit such 
content.  This would be a major change of policy to include this type of 
content, at least at the moment.

-- Robert Horning