User:OhanaUnited/Book Reviews

Lately, I am interested in reviewing books on Wikipedia or Wiki in general (just for personal interest). Yes, I know this page falls under What Wikipedia is not, but let's pretend it's not here ;)

Wikis For Dummies
Author: Dan Woods, Peter Thoeny ISBN 9780470043998

This book focuses on how to set up on your own wiki. It teaches you how to find hosting, softwares, maintenance, and how to advertise it. It does mention Wikipedia a couple of times, and gives a brief overview on what it does. Since Wikipedia is the largest wiki in the playing field, it compares English Wikipedia with Encyclopædia Britannica. Again, it's oriented towards making your own wiki (for interest or for work). I won't recommend this book unless you want to start your own wiki. OhanaUnitedTalk page 09:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual
Author: John Broughton ISBN 9780596515164

Oh yes, this one is popular. Even Wikipedia Signpost mentions it. In fact, it's written by one of Wikipedia editor, John Broughton. Now I don't want to get him mad, so if you are reading this, please take my review with a grain of salt.

It covers ALMOST everything you need to know about Wikipedia. One thing that I liked is that it goes through extensively on markup language as well as tables. As an added bonus, it goes through how to upload pictures (and mentioned Commons along the way).However, some items that should be in the book are not in the book. For example, the book only mentioned featured articles, featured pictures, featured portals, and featured lists. Surely he forgot featured topics and featured sounds. Another thing that I think the book missed is Wikipedia's sister projects. In the 500-page book, almost all the focus are on Wikipedia. It mentioned Commons a few times and 3 lines each to describe Wikiquote and Wikinews. What about the other projects? It doesn't even mention at all (as if they weren't there)! We don't need a one-page summary for each project, but it doesn't hurt to write one or two lines for each project. Anyone who's completely new to Wikipedia or just started may find this book very useful. On the other hand, experienced users and admins will find nothing interesting in this book. OhanaUnitedTalk page 09:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)