Template talk:Copy to Wikibooks

Merge Template:Howto
It seems to me that when an article or section is written as a how-to or a manual, there are two options: (a) Howto, which suggests exclusively that the text be reformatted, or (b) this template, which suggests mainly that it be transwikied. As I see it, both options should be considered whenever a how-to appears in article namespace. Therefore, I think we need one template that suggests both, which can be applied to all how-tos. Besides ensuring that both options are always considered, even by novice editors who might not know of our sister projects, it will reduce the problematically large number of cleanup templates.

A parallel to this is Move to Wiktionary, to which Dicdef redirects. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but Wiktionary is, so all dicdefs should be either made encyclopedic or moved to Wiktionary. Similarly, Wikipedia is not a repository for how-to guides or instruction manuals, but Wikibooks is, so all how-tos should be either made encyclopedic or moved to Wikibooks.

If there are no objections after 72 hours, I will go ahead with the merge. I am also proposing a parallel merge invloving quotefarm at Template talk:Move to Wikiquote. Seahen Neon Merlin  04:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Articles with only small how-to sections are not really being considered to be transwikied. I guess that it would be most helpful that the template would suggest the most appropriate course of action, but I do agree it can be unclear in some cases. Sometimes an article is written as a how-to in its entirety, and transwiki might be a good option. I think it is important NOT to suggest that minor errors would make an article a candidate to another wiki. If this goal can be achieved, why not merge the templates. Santtus 06:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This is one suggestion: This article includes how-to sections and may need to be edited to encyclopedic style. Articles written mostly as how-to's may need to be moved to Wikibooks. Please improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page.

Santtus 07:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Or how about...

This article includes how-to sections and may need to be edited to encyclopedic style. The how-to sections may qualify to be moved to Wikibooks. Please improve the article by removing or rewriting the how-to sections, or discuss the issue on the talk page.
 * Seahen Neon Merlin  20:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * excellent suggestion, I'd say that just go ahead with it. I tried to phrase the template so as to be equally supportive of rewriting and moving to another wiki, but I realized that most of the time one of the options is much more appropriate than the other. I'd suggest that we keep both templates, so that both of them strongly suggest one course of action, and suggest of the other possibility. Santtus 20:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Be careful about strong recommendations to move to Wikibooks
There is a movement within Wikibooks to cull a considerable amount of content off of Wikibooks, and the How-to guides are one of the items being debated strongly. I'm just warning that any strong warning about moving the content to Wikibooks should also be met with a jaundiced view that it might as well be deleted altogether in a more permanent manner. Certainly for this reason alone, you should not automatically delete templates like the How-to template. This was a very, very, very bad idea and should be reverted as additional instructions specific to "how-to" guides may be important in the future.

Mind you, this isn't saying that deletion of all how-to guides on Wikibooks is inevitable, but I am giving fair warning here that it might happen, and other non accredited college course specific textbooks may also be deleted in the future. BTW, yes, this includes kids books and perhaps even high school textbooks. It is not a pretty picture right now at Wikibooks. Adding this template may just be simply putting the equivalent of a speedy delete template from Wikibooks on the article. --Robert Horning 20:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with your concerns on the future of Wikibooks, and I understand the need to communicate this through this template. On this basis I'd agree that two separate templates are needed. I'd hope that the issue with how-to content in Wikibooks would be settled as quickly as possible, so that more informative warning may be used instead of the current. I feel that this issue should become clear in about week, or if not, I'll rephrase the template to include the warning in a subtler fashion. Santtus 21:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't count on this being resolved in the next week or so. This is an issue that may be resolved in about a year or so.  I'm serious.  It takes a week sometimes for Wikibooks participants to clear their throat.  Still, it is important for the Wikipedia community to know that this is an issue on Wikibooks, and that proposing a move of content to Wikibooks may simply result in its out right deletion.  If you don't think that is the best approach, join in the policy discussions.  Of course, much of this is because Wikipedia deletionists have become quite active on en.wikibooks lately.  --Robert Horning 15:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've mentioned (a) that how-tos might be moved to Wikibooks, and (b) that this has been disputed. However, I need some cites for the latter statement. Whereabouts on Wikibooks has there been a call for the deletion of how-tos en masse?  Neon    Merlin   03:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There hasn't been. How-tos are mostly welcome on Wikibooks. Content should be double-checked against b:WB:WIW before being transwikied. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 02:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is a small but very vocal group of individuals who started a Wikia How-to group, with the understanding that eventually Jimbo would allow them to create this as a full independent Wikimedia project. I don't understand how or where they got that idea, but some of these individuals (mainly one seemingly well-connected individual) was active in getting this project put together, and even succeeded in deleting some content off of Wikibooks as it was moved to this how-to wiki in a manner similar to how content was yanked from Wikibooks for the gaming Wiki.  Policy pages on Wikibooks and Meta were modified to indicate that how-to books were not welcome.  Fortunately (from my perspective) this did not gain "concensus" from most of the Wikibooks users and has since fallen upon deaf ears that the how-to books should be deleted.  There still is, however, a minority opinion on Wikibooks that the how-to books really aren't textbooks and don't deserve to remain on that project.  I think it is wise that people using this template be aware of this issue, which is why I brought it up in the first place.  --Robert Horning 13:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

removed text
The how-to sections may qualify to be moved to Wikibooks, but is uncertain whether such content will be acceptable in Wikibooks in the future and may be deleted if moved there.

Before you move this content to Wikibooks, verify that it conforms to Wikibooks policies of acceptable content at What is Wikibooks?. Often content unacceptable to Wikipedia may not be acceptable on Wikibooks either.

You should also follow Transwiki guidelines when transferring content and move the article into the transwiki namespace on Wikibooks, entering a log entry at wikibooks:Wikibooks:Transwiki log to let the people at Wikibooks know that you have new content on Wikibooks. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in the content transferred to Wikibooks to simply be deleted as vandalism and spam.


 * Note: removed, because the amount of text greatly exceeded what can be consider user-friendly. If you feel that you personally must explain the transwiki process in such a great detail, I feel that it is much easier to drop such suggestions alltogether. It is not conceivable anyway, that small how-to segments might be accepted to wikibooks anyways, so the issue is moot. The template has not been used for that purpose originally, and it is now in use in about 20 articles. Those editors who originally added this message box to the articles probably did not think about transwiki:ing, so I believe it is fine to remove any such suggestions from the message box alltogether.

Please do not re-insert such huge loads of text without discussing the issue thoroughly. Santtus 11:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is the issue....  Far too much raw garbage is being dumped on Wikibooks that simply does not fit the mission of Wikibooks, and there are people on Wikipedia who "feel good" that the content is moved elsewhere rather than simply being deleted.


 * Furthermore, people using this template and trying to copy content to Wikibooks don't understand transwiki procedures, so I felt it was explicitly required to spell out what is expected when this is done, including GFDL copyright requirements when copying content even between "sister projects". This isn't so much hardcore vandalism but rather ignorance that there are transwiki procedures in place.  Not everybody participating with this process is a 5 year Wikimedia veteran and sometimes they need to be taught about these procedures.


 * BTW, since I made these changes, the Transwiki log on Wikibooks has been used considerably more often, and it has made the work of trying to administer the new content on Wikibooks much easier. --Robert Horning 13:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

removal of merge discussion tag
Removing as obsolete. There are such greatly different views as to what should be suggested in the message box as to justify the use of two or more separate message boxes. Should this issue change, merging can be suggested again. Santtus 12:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Rename as Copy to Wikibooks?
I suggest that this template be renamed to "Copy to Wikibooks". Putting this template in place does not cause an article to be moved, it causes it to be copied. Once copied, the original might be deleted from wikipedia, or it might be rewritten, expanded, etc. Calling this "Move to wikibooks" makes people who come across the template think that the template will cause the deletion of the article, and often leads people to remove the template inappropriately. Giving it the proper name would end that. Note that I'm also suggesting the renaming of some of the other "Move to" templates to "Copy to", see Village_pump_%28proposals%29. --Xyzzyplugh 11:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Move to Wikibooks is now Copy to Wikibooks
For the reasons listed above, I have moved this template to Copy to Wikibooks. Also, see Template_talk:Move_to_Wiktionary, where this subject was discussed (although for Move to Wiktionary) and consensus was that this change was appropriate. I plan to similarly rename the Move to Wikisource and Move to Wikibooks Cookbook templates, and possibly some of the others. There are mentions in various articles and help files and such around wikipedia which mention "Move to Wikibooks" which will need to be changed, I will do that after some time has passed, waiting first to see if there is some major disagreement to this change. --Xyzzyplugh 04:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks Inclusion Rules
Hello, I'm an active wikibookian, and I would like to make a few points here that should help make decisions about moving things from wikipedia to wikibooks. It is my hope that our two projects can work closely together in getting materials where they need to be, and ensuring that valuable educational resources are made available. --User:Wknight8111 (WB:Whiteknight) 01:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) How-to books and guides are very well tolerated on Wikibooks, and we have a whole bookshelf dedicated to them. Dire warnings to the contrary are typically an over-reaction to the deletion of particular how-too guides that don't meet our inclusion criteria in a blatant way.
 * 2) Many books do start life as macropedias, or collections of related wikipedia articles. To become a book, these collections need to be given a unifying narrative, a time-consuming step that experianced book authors can do. To that end, if one page is going to be moved to wikibooks, it would likely be beneficial for several related pages to be copied to wikibooks, and we can try to turn those into a book. Pages that are short and are unlikely to become a new book, or be integrated into an existing book could end up deleted.
 * 3) Wikipedians who contribute book-like material here, should be invited to move to wikibooks along with their transwikied content. An original author of book material can be invaluable in providing a vision for the future development of a new book.
 * 4) Wikibooks is significantly more tolerant in areas such as NOR then Wikipedia is. Wikibooks gives strong flexibility to authors to use creative new presentations or orderings of materials, title and promote new books, and coin necessary terms for teaching material. Textbooks also require far fewer citations then an encyclopedia article, so articles that are poorly referenced, improperly formatted, or written with a voice inappropriate for inclusion into the encyclopedia would likely be given more leniency at Wikibooks.


 * I will say that the validity of how-to books on Wikibooks wasn't always as secure as it seems at the moment. The attempt to remove them was significant, and involved more than one user.  This was not an over-reaction, but a warning that voting them off of here on Wikipedia might result in the deletion in the future on Wikibooks.  BTW, one of the reasons I put it on the warning box here on Wikipedia was also to get the attention of Wikipedians, so they could help in keeping the How-to books within the Wikimedia projects.  I think that effort succeeded completely, and was one of the reasons why they weren't removed from Wikibooks.


 * There are other issues that have come up in the past, but I think that the Wikipedia admins are getting better at determining what content simply needs to be deleted and what can be moved to other sister projects, including Wikibooks. It was mainly a matter of education.  In addition, there are many other outlets for adding content other than Wikipedia than when this first started, which was also one of the issues for why content like the Organic Chemistry book was started here on Wikipedia in the first place, causing Wikibooks to be created.


 * I would still advise those who move content to make sure it fits whatever sister project you have marked for deletion/importation. When content has to be pushed around to multiple projects, content is likely to be lost and perhaps deleted accidentally even with the best of intentions.  Neither the page import tool works 100% of the time, nor are the admins doing the page move/deletion always accurate (even though we often try very hard).  Early prevention is always the key when somebody adds content that is inappropriate due to content type, where you can get them going in the right direction where it would have much more success.  --Robert Horning 03:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

meta:Transwiki is a disambiguation page.
Perhaps the link to Transwiki should go to meta:Help:Transwiki. Taemyr 04:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)