User:Raylton P. Sousa/Tests

Using Wikibooks/Page

What is Wikibooks?
Wikibooks is a collaborative book authoring website, where users from all over the world work together to write textbooks and other types of instructional books on many topics. It is a Wikimedia project, operated by the same group of people who run Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation. You can edit this page, and almost all pages like it, at any time. That is the basic principle of Wikibooks. Anyone can edit it.

History
The Wikibooks project was started in 2003, and has since become one of the largest free e-book websites in the world. More information about Wikibooks can be located in the information page Welcome. In the early history of the project there were many high and low points, but more recently things have begun to even out. Wikibooks has a large volume of books on a variety of different subjects, and a vibrant community of volunteers to write and maintain them all.

Collaborative Community
Wikibooks is a completely volunteer online collaborative community. Many members of Wikibooks are anonymous in that they have not provided much, if any, information about themselves. Wikibooks does not have a government nor any form of centralized decision-making body. Instead, all decisions are decided by the community via discussion, compromise and consensus. All changes are implemented by our hardworking volunteers. Let's reiterate: anybody can edit nearly any page at any time, often anonymously, and there is no central governing body to keep everything running smoothly. How, it can be wondered, does the project function at all? How do we keep everything running smoothly, much less make progress?

The secret is the dedicated volunteer community, a community that we are going to discuss in great detail in the section The Wikibooks Community.

What is Wikimedia?
The Wikimedia Foundation is a not-for-profit foundation that oversees the operations of Wikibooks, Wikipedia, and a variety of other projects. Some of these projects are:


 * Wikiversity
 * Wikisource
 * Wikinews
 * Wikiquote
 * Wikimedia Commons

What is Wiki?
The word "Wiki" is derived from the Hawaiian word "WikiWiki", which means "quick" or "fast". A wiki is a program that lets users generate content quickly. On almost every page in a wiki, there will be an edit button. Clicking on the edit button allows any user anywhere in the world to modify the contents of the page, and add new content. Some wiki websites restrict who can edit pages, but Wikibooks does not.

Wikitext
Pages in Wikibooks are written in a special format called "Wikitext". Wikitext is very similar in many respects to HTML, and several pages are written using a combination of Wikitext, HTML, and CSS.

The benefit to Wikitext is that it's very simple and quick to write. A large amount of formatting can be accomplished with a very small amount of effort. Also, the Wikitext helps to keep features on Wikibooks, such as page section titles and other formatting standardized. The section The Wikibooks Editor will focus on using Wikitext.

Inclusion Criteria
Wikibooks has specific criteria for the inclusion of new materials. The name "Wikibooks" is a bit of a misnomer in the sense that this project does not allow all books to be hosted. On the contrary, only the small subset of instructional non-fiction books are allowed to be hosted here. Traditionally the term used was "textbook", although blurring of the definition led to the current standing that wikibooks allows "Textbooks, manuals, and other instructional texts". The final interpretation of whether or not a particular book belongs on Wikibooks is left up to the community.

It is worth noting that Wikibooks overlaps considerably with the Wikiversity sister project. Materials that are outside the scope of Wikibooks may very well be suitable at Wikiversity.

Wikibooks also puts a premium on creating material, not just hosting material. While we do allow materials to be donated by authors, we always insist that the material must be editable. Also, historical works that are out of copyright should not be posted to Wikibooks, but instead should go to Wikisource.

The Advantages of Using a User Account
There are a number of benefits to creating a Wikibooks account, and using that account consistently. We'll list some of the benefits below:


 * Anonymity:You are actually more anonymous when you register for an account. This is because when you edit anonymously, your IP address (which can be used to identify your location) is posted. When you have a user account, your IP address is hidden. Notice that if there is a problem, specially elected users known as Checkusers can access the IP records. However, Checkusers only access the records in response to specific needs. We will discuss Checkusers and the IP logs in greater detail in the section The Wikibooks Administrator.
 * User space:If you have a user account, you also have a personal userpage, and any subpages to that page that you want to create. Some users have literally hundreds of personal pages for various uses. You can write about yourself on your userpages, or you can write about anything you want. Many users use their pages to write about books, and keep track of various tasks that need to be completed here. Also, users have their own personal javascript and CSS stylesheets that they can use to customize and personalize the Wikibooks interface. Some users have very simple user spaces, while some users have very elaborate spaces. It's your space, so feel free to use it however you want.
 * User talk pages:In addition to a user page where you can write about yourself, you also have a user talk page where other people can write messages to you. When somebody writes you a message, a notification will appear at the top of your page. This is a great way of keeping in touch with people, especially when timezone differences make direct communications difficult.
 * User Preferences:You can set a number of preferences for your account including: Setting an email contact address that others can use, changing display themes ("skins") to change the way the website looks, changing the appearance of certain items and changing time and date formats. Wikibookians and other Wikimedians have also developed a number of javascript-based productivity tools called gadgets that can be added to your account. There are lots of options for you to check out and customize your wikibooks experience.
 * Watchlist: You will get a personal watchlist that will show changes that other people make to pages on that list. This way you can monitor pages that you are interested in, such as pages that you author, and discussion pages that you participate in. The watchlist gives you a way to keep track of pages you like, and play an active role in their development.
 * Voting and Discussing: While even IP users can participate in community discussions, their voice usually carries little weight and in some cases will be ignored entirely. This is because people editing from an IP address are not considered to have a vested interest here, and because there is a one-to-many relationship between most IP addresses and individual people. As a registered user you will have full rights to participate in community discussions and help make decisions, even from your very first day here.

This is a long list, but it is not inclusive. There are many reasons why you should create an account at Wikibooks. If you plan to spend much time here, you should consider signing up for one. The process is free, quick, and easy. You are not required to supply any personal information, so you can always remain anonymous if you choose to. We know it's yet another internet signup, and we know you've probably been through a million, but we promise that this signup process will be fast and painless.

Setting up a User Account
Setting up a user account is quick and easy, often taking less than a couple of minutes to complete. Before starting this process you must first choose a username. Once you set up your account all of your edits will be performed under this name, so it is important to choose a name that you are comfortable with. Also, the username that you choose has to be unique and must conform to the Username policy (see below).

Once you have decided on a username you can register it. Click the "Sign in / create account" link in the top right of the screen to bring up the login screen. From here click the 'Create One' link at the top of the login box. Ensure that all of the mandatory boxes are filled out on the form on the registration page and click 'Create Account' to finish the process. Make sure you choose a strong password that isn't easy to guess so that your account remains secure (See Below).

Once you have finished registration you can login with your username and password. You now have access to your own personal watchlist and preferences, selected from the links banner in the top right corner.

Username Taken?
Over a hundred new user accounts are created every day, so the odds are good that the username that you want might already be taken by somebody else. There is some chance that the username you want may be available for usurpation. That means that special users known as "bureaucrats" can try to give you the username you want by taking it away from an inactive account. It is not a guarantee, but in some cases it is possible. Ask for help from a bureaucrat, including the username you want and your current username (if any) at the Administrative Assistance discussion page.

Choosing a Username
It is worth choosing a username that is not insulting or confusing to those around you in order to promote a harmonious editing environment. There are no policies regarding this in particular, but Be civil is relevant. As a guideline, we suggest avoiding:


 * 1) Confusing usernames:
 * 2) * Usernames that are very similar to the name of another Wikibooks user and might cause confusion.
 * 3) * Usernames that confusingly refer to a Wikibooks process, namespace, or toolbar item.
 * 4) Misleading usernames:
 * 5) * Usernames that imply the user is an administrator or official figure on Wikipedia, or of the Wikimedia Foundation.
 * 6) * Usernames that match the name of a well-known/famous living or recently deceased person, unless you verifiably are that person, in which case please note this on your user page.
 * 7) Disruptive usernames:
 * 8) * Usernames that are similar to those previously used by persistent vandals or banned users.
 * 9) * Usernames that are attacks on specific users.
 * 10) * Usernames that contain personal information about people, such as a telephone number or street addresses.
 * 11) * Usernames that allude to hacking, trolling, vandalism, legal threats, or computer malware (viruses, spyware etc...).
 * 12) * Usernames that include profanity, or obscenities, or references to genitalia or sexual slang.
 * 13) Promotional usernames:
 * 14) * Usernames that match the name of a company or group, if the user is using the account as a promotional tool.
 * 15) Offensive usernames:
 * 16) * Usernames that promote a controversial or potentially inflammatory point of view.
 * 17) * Usernames that are defamatory or insulting to other people or groups.
 * 18) * Usernames that invoke the name of a religious figure or religion in a distasteful, disrespectful, or provocative way, or promote one religion over another. (Note that simple expressions of faith are allowed unless they are disruptive, but are generally discouraged.)
 * 19) * Usernames that refer to real-world violent actions.
 * 20) * Usernames that refer or include allusions to racism, sexism, hate speech, etc...
 * 21) * Usernames that refer to a medical condition or disability in a belittling way.
 * 22) * Usernames that include slurs, or references to reproductive or excretory bodily functions.
 * 23) Usernames containing the at symbol (@)
 * 24) *These are disallowed due to technical restrictions.

Choosing a Good Password
In order to maintain the integrity and security of your account, you should choose a good, strong password.

Weak Passwords:

Poor/easily guessable passwords tend to include words in the dictionary, proper names, words based on your username or common variations on these themes, as well as information such as birth dates and pet names.

Example of weak passwords include:
 * - too easily guessed
 * -- too easily guessed
 * - repeated letters and or adjacent letters on a keyboard (e.g. qwerty)
 * - common personal names
 * - easily guessed, used very often
 * -- simple letter substitutions are pre-programmed into cracking tools
 * - common name for a pet, also a dictionary word
 * -- date, possibly of personal importance
 * -- a user name, and if so, very easily guessed

Strong Passwords:

Strong passwords avoid using dictionary terms and are generally made up of a random sequence of letter, number and symbols. Unusual/bizarre phrases can also be acceptable. The length of a pasword can also slow down the time which it takes to guess it, often causing a hacker to deem the amount of time needed is not worth it.

Examples of strong passwords include: Note: these particular strings are no longer strong passwords, because they have been published.
 * - not a dictionary word, has both cases of alpha, plus numeric, and punctuation characters
 * - long, with both alpha cases and numeric characters
 * - phrases can be long, memorable and contain an extended symbol to increase their strength
 * -- A mixture of varying-case letters, numbers, and symbols. It is memorable as an initialism of "The password for this computer is too strong for you to guess!"

New User Restrictions
Newly created user accounts have a few restrictions placed on them. We do this because vandals and other unsavory elements set up temporary user accounts in order to post spam and vandalism here on Wikibooks. This restricted period lasts 4 days from the time you create your user account. Once these 4 days have passed, your account is called autoconfirmed. Here are some of the restrictions that new users face until they become autoconfirmed:


 * Image uploads:New users cannot upload images to Wikibooks. This is because we have historically had a large problem with vandals uploading inappropriate pictures to Wikibooks. However, there is an easy solution to this: Wikimedia Commons allows new users to upload images without having to wait to become autoconfirmed. Images that are uploaded to commons can be used here on Wikibooks as if they have been uploaded here. Commons is the preferred place to upload images, even for veteran users.
 * Page Moves:New users cannot move pages. However, if you have a page that needs to be moved, you can ask on WB:PROJECTS or WB:AN for help. Make sure to read the guidelines at Naming policy, to help avoid some common mistakes.
 * Editing protected pages:Some pages on Wikibooks are protected against being edited by anonymous users. Unfortunately, registered users who are not autoconfirmed cannot edit these pages either. Luckily, these pages are not common, and it is unlikely that new users will need to edit many of them anyway. Ask for help at WB:HELP or WB:AN for help with this.

User Page
Every user account has two special pages, a user page and a user talk page. These two pages are yours, and yours alone. What you do with these pages is for you to decide, however, here are some common uses:
 * Your User Page:People often use their user pages as profile pages. Write about yourself, what you like, who you are. Many people also use it as a place to organize thoughts, prepare a list of links that are needed often, tips and reminders. Many users also take some pride in decorating their user pages, and making them look fancy. There are many options, and you should feel free to experiment with your user page as much as you want.
 * Your User Talk Page: The talk page is a place where other users can contact you, and where you can carry on discussions with others. When another user writes a message on your user talk page, you will see a banner at the top of your browser that says "You have new messages". When you see this banner, go to your talk page, because somebody has left you a message. If you want people to contact you in a special way, or if you want to provide basic guidelines for how people talk to you, you can post them at the top of your talk page.

User Space
In addition to the two pages mentioned above, you can have a multitude of additional pages for personal use. These pages together are known as your user space.

The user space works like any other book. Your user page is like the main page, and you can create subpages with a forward slash. Here are some common examples:
 * Your Page/Sandbox: Wikibooks has a large Sandbox page that people can experiment with, but some people would like a personal sandbox where they can experiment with things without being disturbed. If you want to practice with templates, you might also like to create a Template Sandbox page, and experiment with that.
 * Your Page/Links: Create a list of links for your benefit, or to help others get around quickly.
 * Your Page/About: Create a page about you, your interests, your experience, your background.
 * Your Page/Books: Write a little bit about the books and projects you are working on, what your goals are, and what you think needs to be fixed. In book writing, the more plans you write out, the easier it will be for other users to join in.

These are just a few ideas. Some people don't use any pages in their user space, while some users have hundreds of pages there. Feel free to use as much or as little as you want.

Deleting User Subpages
If you have a subpage in your user space, and you want it to be deleted. add the following tag to the top of the page:. An admin will find it and delete it eventually. If you are in a big hurry for some reason, you could contact an admin directly.

Admins may delete pages in their own user space at any time for any reason.

Your Contributions
Your contributions are important, and you should be proud of them! Go to Special:Contributions and type in your name to see a list of your edits. In the upper-left corner of your screen, there should also be a link that says My Contributions. Clicking on that will take you to your edit history directly.

Who Makes Decisions?
If anybody can edit any page, who decides what goes where? Who keeps things in order? Who prevents this whole website from descending into total chaos?

The simple answer to all these questions is you. You, as an editor can help to keep things in operational order, so that everybody can share and enjoy Wikibooks.

The long answer is that people who edit Wikibooks form a type of community, a social group of people who want the project to grow and improve. It is through collaboration with the community that we develop a series of policies and guidelines that all Wikibookians agree to follow, in order to keep the process running smoothly. With a username, you can join this community too, and help to keep everything in proper working order.

How are Decisions Made?
Wikibooks doesn't operate in a way that is similar to regular governments or groups with set leadership patterns. Simply put, Wikibooks doesn't have any official leaders, although there are always members who do take on informal leadership roles. Often, the best way to lead others into doing something is to do it yourself and set a good example.

Complicated decisions on Wikibooks are made by the community as a whole through a method called "consensus". Consensus is when the community discusses a situation, finds compromise, and comes to a general agreement on a proper course of action. Notice that this isn't the same as majority voting. Wikibooks is not a democracy, and we rarely vote. Even on occasions when we do cast votes, they are informal votes, used as a general way to measure consensus. A 51% majority never wins a discussion, you need to find compromise and get everybody, or almost everybody to come to an agreement.

Why do we say "almost everybody"? Sometimes, people get angry and can just be unreasonable. If you can't be mature and work towards compromise, other people just won't listen to what you have to say. Other times, and this is something we especially appreciate and encourage, people who are in the minority tend to "stand aside". This means that a person will say "This is not what I want, but I will not stop the community from moving forward". Being respectful in this way never goes unnoticed, and it's precisely the users who take this option when necessary who are the most appreciated. After all, we may not always agree, but by being respectful and courteous, we can always improve and make forward progress.

The Reading Room
The central point for discussion and participation at Wikibooks is the Reading Room, a collection of discussion rooms where people are free to ask questions, and discuss various topics.

History
The Staff lounge was a page nearly as old as the Wikibooks project itself. Created in 2003, it was a single discussion page where all topics were discussed. The single-page structure of the staff lounge was unwieldy, and the page often became very large, a point that was brought up frequently.

The Administrator's Noticeboard was created in October 2006 as a separate discussion and notification area specific to Wikibooks Administrators. Special:Import has recently been enabled, and the Noticeboard was designed to be a centralized location where people could ask for help from admins.

In February 2007, the Staff lounge was broken into various sub-discussion rooms, including General Chat, Project Chat, and Technical Chat. A room specifically for new users and new book projects, the New Books and Users Chat was created in June 2007.

In October 2007, the Staff lounge was renamed the Reading Room. The Administrator's Noticeboard and the Bulletin Board were merged into the new discussion area in an effort to make finding and participating in discussions easier.

Discussion Rooms
There are several discussion rooms in the Reading Room, each with a particular theme. Often the line between them is a little blurry, so there are few hard rules about what kinds of topics can be in which rooms.


 * General Chat: A discussion area for all discussions that relate to Wikibooks, but which do not necessarily fit into any of the other discussion rooms. When in doubt, post your messages/questions/comments to this room.
 * Bulletin Board: Not a true discussion area, the bulletin board is a place where you can post announcements about important events.
 * Project Chat: A page to discuss and collaborate on various projects, such as books, organization, cleanup, and maintenance.
 * Proposal Chat: A place to suggest improvements to Wikibooks, to its policies, methods, or any other area.
 * Technical Chat: A page to discuss technical issues, such as wikitext, javascript, mediawiki, and other related topics. A good place to request help from people who are proficient wikitext editors or computer programmers.
 * User Assistance: Where new users can introduce themselves, and where new books can be advertised. This is a good place for new users to become acclimated and greeted warmly by veterans.
 * Administrative Assistance: The place to report vandalism, request help from admins, or report problems. Most admins keep this page on their watchlists, and if you ask for help here you will usually get it quickly.

Posting a New Message
All the Reading Room discussion areas have a link at the top that says "Post a Comment". Clicking on this link will open an edit window where you can write a comment or question to post on the page. Make sure you:
 * 1) Give your post an appropriate title
 * 2) Sign your name with ~.

Policy and Guidelines
The Reading room is an important discussion area, and most discussions that affect the project will happen there. However, equally important are many of the ongoing discussions about policy, many of which happen on their own pages. These discussions, when they gather enough attention, will typically be announced on the Bulletin Board, or somewhere in the Reading Room.

Wikibooks has a large number of policy and guideline pages. Each page has an associated talk page, and that is where the discussion about that policy or guideline is taking place.

What Kinds of Policies are There?
Wikibooks has a few policies that Wikibookians really need to follow in order to keep this website running smoothly. Luckily, the amount of policy we have is really kept to a bare minimum, and is constantly being modified, expanded, reduced, and rewritten to make sure it's the best we can do.

Here are a few of the most fundamental policies, some of which we will discuss in greater detail in later chapters:
 * Be Bold:...but don't be reckless. "Be Bold" is a common phrase at Wikibooks. Because everybody has the tools available to make improvements, we expect people to just make them without asking for permission. See something you don't like? Don't complain about it, jump in and fix it! Sometimes however, being bold means not making changes, and asking for other people's opinions. Getting the community involved in a tricky discussion is much better than making controversial changes.
 * Neutral Point of View:Often abbreviated "NPOV", the neutral point of view policy means that we can't use Wikibooks as a tool for pushing a particular social, political, religious, or personal agenda. When writing a Wikibook, you need to make sure to include opposing points of view, and discuss material in a fair and unbiased way.
 * Be Civil:We know that some people are difficult to deal with, and sometimes people can get so angry that they want to say some nasty things to each other. Don't. On Wikibooks, you need to try to stay nice to each other. If you absolutely can't be nice, you need to at least keep the conversation civil. If you can't be civil take a walk, or watch some TV, or check your email. Whatever you do, calm down before you start saying things that you are going to regret.
 * Be Mature and Professional:Some things just aren't appropriate, and we aren't going to list them. You just need to use your best judgment, and try to stay mature and professional. Some people who can't follow this rule post some lousy things on Wikibooks, and we call them "Vandals". We will discuss vandalism, and how to deal with it, in a later chapter.

Those are the most important policy rules, but there are plenty of other policies that you should probably familiarize yourself with. You can find the complete list at Wikibooks Policies and Guidelines. As with any community, there are norms that are pervasive. Important ones are sometimes reflected in the proposed guidelines, policies and information pages in the Wikibooks and Help namespaces. You'll get a feel for these norms as you participate, and some of them will be pointed out to you. For example, Wikibooks has no guideline or policy that says you should add a signature to discussions, but not to content. But this makes perfect sense - so much so that it is a social norm, but is not enshrined in policy.

Who Gets To Write Policy?
Anybody can draft a new proposal, but the community needs to reach consensus on it before it can become an official policy or guideline. Notice that this doesn't mean that nobody rejects the proposal. Instead, a proposal must have overwhelming affirmative support in order to become an accepted policy or guideline.

If you write a proposal that doesn't get accepted, you shouldn't get upset. The vast majority of all proposals, both for new policies and changes to existing ones, are rejected or ignored. Sometimes a good policy author is a good salesperson too. Even the best salespeople can cross the line of harassment, however, so if nobody is interested in your proposals at all you might need to forget about it yourself. As always, a little bit of moderation and personal best judgment is the best prescription.

Changing Policy
No policy is written in stone, anything is always open to discussion. However, without strong community support, it can be difficult to change policy. The best way to try and make a change is to start a discussion and write up a quick draft. Any user may write a draft for a new policy or a policy change at any time.

Drafts and Proposals
All new policies start as policy drafts. Ambitious editors create a draft of a proposal that they think needs to exist. Then, a discussion can start about the proposal in a public forum. Drafts are located on the wiki, of course, so they will be edited and modified as various users provide their input. The draft will grow and change over time, and may even spawn entirely separate drafts which can be compared together.

Modifying an existing policy usually requires some sort of public proposal and community discussion. Sometimes, if the proposed changes are large enough, a new unstable version of the policy will be drafted and discussed. The unstable version may lead to individual changes being agreed upon and merged into the existing policy. Sometimes, if the unstable version is different enough and has enough support, it could replace the existing policy entirely.

Once a draft or a proposal has been created, it should be well-advertised to get community involvement. An obvious place to advertise these kinds of discussion is in the Reading Room. The Wikibooks Bulletin Board is a great place to make notifications as well.

List
Here is a list of some of the policy and guideline pages, and the associated discussion pages. The complete list of all Wikibooks policies and guidelines are located at WB:PAG. Policies that are not open to change or discussion will not be listed here.

Important Policies
These are some of our most important policies that define how Wikibooks works, what kinds of materials we accept, and how our users should behave.


 * What is Wikibooks:Also known as WIW, this is one of the most important policies on Wikibooks. WIW tells what kinds of books and materials can be hosted on this project, and what kinds of things need to be moved or deleted.
 * Annotated texts: Similar to WIW, the annotated text policy tells how annotated texts can be hosted here at Wikibooks and how Wikibooks is related to sister project Wikisource.
 * Naming policy:The naming policy tells how pages should be named, and how books should be organized.
 * Neutral point of view:Also known as NPOV, this policy is a very important limitation to writing styles here on Wikibooks. Authors cannot use Wikibooks as a forum or a soapbox to push religious, political, or personal viewpoints or agendas.
 * Deletion policy:The deletion policy tells what kinds of pages can be deleted here at Wikibooks, and how those deletions should be pursued to minimize project disruption.
 * Profanity:Wikibooks has a relatively low tolerance about profanity, but we aren't into aggressive censorship either. The profanity policy describes how we walk the fine line between these two points.
 * Be civil:Wikibookians should treat each other with respect, if not politeness and kindness. This is more of a rule than a guideline.
 * Administrators:Administrators are held to a certain standard. This policy describes the expectations made of our administrators, and how they should perform certain duties.

Guidelines
Guidelines are things that should be followed, while policies are things that generally must be followed. Here is a list of some of our most important guidelines.


 * Decision making:Wikibookians don't generally cast yes/no votes. Instead, we try to use discussion, compromise, and consensus to make decisions. The decision making guidelines outline how decisions can be made, and helps to ensure that the voices of all Wikibookians are heard.
 * Editing policy:More of an editorial philosophy than a rule, the editing policy page talks about some best practices in making edits and interacting with other editors.
 * Be bold in updating pages:Wikibooks can only grow and improve when its editors are bold in making changes. You don't need anybody's permission to edit, and you can edit most pages at any time.
 * Please do not bite the newcomers:All our active contributors used to be hesitant new users at one point. We try to treat our newcomers with patience and respect, to insure that they stay to become regular and active contributors.
 * Manual of Style:Wikibookians have developed a number of best practices that should probably be followed to insure books reach a high level of quality. The manual of style lays down some of these guidelines.

Proposals
Wikibookians often write proposals for new policy or guidelines, many of which are never accepted by the community. Some proposals are simply forgotten. Some proposals are never formally accepted, but make so much sense that we seem to follow them anyway. The complete list of proposals can be found here:


 * Category:Wikibooks draft policies and guidelines