User talk:Paul Lynch

Wikibooks Embassy and technical help

Thanks for helping with new embassy. I moved it to Wikibooks:English Embassy and linked it from MetaWikipedia:Wikimedia Embassy.

You asked me (User talk:Kernigh#Wikibooks Embassy and technical help) if you would find potential ambassadors by posting in the Wikibooks:Staff lounge or on their user talk pages. Maybe you should try both. However, before posting on a User talk page, check their "User contributions" to make sure that the user is active – so that you avoid messaging someone who has not edited English Wikibooks since March 2006 (or January 2006, or 2004 ...).

About Russian: I noticed that the Wikibook already has a template, Template:Russian. To put that template on a page, one writes {{Russian}}. If you need more templates, just create some [[Templtae:XXX]] page and write {{XXX}}.

If you want to change Template:Russian into a box, you need to use a CSS "style" attribute with an HTML tag or MediaWiki table. For example <div style="border: 1px dashed orange; padding: 0 0.5em; background-color: #ccffff;">insert text here</div>, makes:

insert text here

The easy way is to copy and adapt someone's box, like Template:Guide to X11, Template:NetHack, Template:Java Programming. There is also a way to make a "Show/Hide" button, though I do not understand it well. --Kernigh 16:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Russian language

Hello, Paul. I am Ramir, de facto the manager of ru:. Among my long-term plans is to write a Russian language textbook for those who know the core of the Russian grammar and understand it well, but have difficulty expressing their thoughts precisely and choosing the right words. The more advanced part of the book will be targeted at native-level speakers of Russian who still need to be taught how to use their vocabulary more meticulously. So the textbook will combine an “Advanced Russian” grammar and a thorough “Style Guide” (that will both give rigid instructions and explain the reasoning behind them). You can help the process by giving me, or whomever else interested, the most general and/or common problems faced by students of Russian. You can do that on the page ru:Обсуждение:Русский язык (here is a direct editing link).

Now, about an embassy. Tell me exactly what you need it for. The Russian Wikibooks has a good, yet very small community of authors, and, at least in the beginning, I will be the only regular participant. But perhaps our activity will attract other people and we’ll be able to make a regular Russian-English language school on Wikibooks. Ramir 04:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

(having read your reply) I am ready to support your idea. Again I say: now there are very few (less than 10 regular) contributors to the Russian partition of Wikibooks, and even they are not the kind that would form a tight and permanent community. I am only prepared to advise about Russian language, communicate news and proposals to the community (also to ru.Wikipedians), and translate to and from English. There is no point in doing anything beyond our immediate interest until more people join: you and me alone can not do much. In the following week I will talk to people on other active Wikibooks about setting up "embassies" there, or (I like this idea more) making a common forum for all Wikibooks projects for discussing matters of interlingual significance. And regarding your study of Russian, please be welcome to ask questions: as I have said, they will be helpful later, in writing a Russian language Wikibook. Ramir 10:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

social sciences bookshelves

I have been watching the Wikibooks:Economics bookshelf, and very little has been added to any of the books on this bookshelf. There is such little content, I would suggest many of the modules be deleted, and the rest be moved to the Wikibooks:Social sciences bookshelf. It seems like the same story with the Wikibooks:Business bookshelf and, to a lesser extent, the Wikibooks:Law bookshelf. Here are some of the modules I think should be deleted.

• Stock Market Technical Analysis delete- only one page, untouched since September 2005
• Bioeconomics delete- only one page, no real content added since October 2005
• Ecological Economics delete- no real content.
• EconometricTheory unsure- there is some good content here, althoguh it hasn't been touched since August 2005.
• A-level_Economics/OCR- some content, but has been untouched since November 2005, and not really in wiki format. I suggest this module deleted or moved elsewhere unless someone decides to do something with it soon.
• Asset allocation -there is some content, added in January of 2006, but it seems like it may be original research. I suggest contacting the author, User:Paul.Paquette.
• New Zealand Economics delete- raw dump of essay material, untouched since September 2005

I also suggest that the wikibooks Macroeconomics, Principles of Economics, Introduction to Economics and Microeconomics be merged, as all the content seems to be of basic economics principles. Most universities have courses on Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, then upper division courses Microeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Theory, although the first two and last two courses often use the same textbook.

DettoAltrimenti 22:59, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Alot of those books that you have listed do contain enough useful material that I suffest they be merged instead of deleted outright. I would suggest that perhaps we create 3 books total: "Macroeconomics", "Microeconomics", and "Advanced Economics". The advanced book would by necessity contain the information that is important to real-life and research (the stock market, bioeconomics, ecological economics, etc). Also, perhaps we should include a book on economic history, which could include all sorts of information about Smith, Keynes, and Marx.

If you contest that macroeconomics and microeconomics are related enough by basic principals that they should be merged together, then perhaps we could reduce our entire bookshelf to "Economics" (a combination of micro and macro), "Advanced economics" (topics above the basic level), and "historical economics" (to cover historical issues). If you would like, I am willing to help out in this project, although i confess that I know very little about economics. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I looked at that New Zealand book, and while i think that it should be deleted in general, it does have some good discussion of the subjects involved. you probably know the subject better then i do, so if you say it's trash, then i will delete it. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 02:53, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Wait a day before doing things unilaterally! Any of the sub-disciplines listed on w:Economics#Areas of study in economics should be acceptable as book topics. Someone will eventually take over and work on them. If I recall correctly, Resource Economics had its chapters already fleshed out, and as such should have been kept as one book. Ecological Economics should be kept as its own book (if it had anything more than a one paragraph introduction). A-level Economics is a book for a specific course and should be left alone. I suppose New Zealand Economics can be deleted on the grounds of orginal research and NPOV (although I think {{cleanup}} tagging it is better), but not on the subject matter.

I think we should merge business and economics into a Wikibooks:Business and economics bookshelf. The law bookshelf has enough content for its own bookshelf. --hagindaz 13:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

wikistudy and wikiprofessional

Jguk, why can't there just be a bookshelf for both of these? it seems kind of excessive to give them their own page, and put them on the sidebar. Is there a discussion about this somewhere? DettoAltrimenti 21:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest in what I am doing. This was an example of being bold, rather than discussing first - although I have mooted the idea around without actually proposing it a number of times. I feel that these areas are part of the core areas Wikibooks should be addressing, along with Wikijunior and Wikiversity, which already have special "sidebar" status. Of course, Wikibooks should have textbooks that don't fit within any of those four descriptions too, and these can all be found through the bookshelves. I think the Wikistudy area - essentially a place for textbooks addressed at specific syllabuses on core school subjects - is a particularly important one. It is here that we have the most (as yet untapped) outside interest. I hope to assist in getting that interest turned into useful school textbooks both here at Wikibooks and through my work with Wikimedia UK. It is also the Wikistudy area that could make a real difference, especially given the high cost of purchasing copyrighted texts. I hope the future of Wikibooks has the Wikistudy concept as an excellent core which then spans out to cover textbooks on other areas, Jguk 21:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ancient History

Hi, Paul. I'm a middle school teacher who teaches ancient and medieval history, and some English literature. I know a lot about the subject, but a lot of what I know is not very in-depth. It seems to me that my major contribution here could be to make a basic text available to edit. In some ways, it's sad that everything I write here may eventually get covered over by the work of others... but maybe I can help get it started, anyway.

I'd also like to ask about whether or not it's acceptable to get my own students involved in contributing to the project. They have to write all sorts of things for me about the major topics; it would be nice to require their work not only typed, but dedicated to the service of Wikibooks. I'd have to work out some policies and procedures here at school so they could get credit for contributing, and maybe you could help me work those issues out between now and September. Ideally, I'd like them to contribute a well-written paragraph or two on specific cultures as we study them, but we'd have to drill them thoroughly on copyright and plagiarism. What do you think? Andrew Watt 01:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge Macroeconomics and Microeconomics?

Why merge these two books? It's better to have several developing books on subfields of science rather than one well-done Science book. --hagindaz 02:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Editing disputes policy

This policy needs a few more people to take a look at it and vote. Any help would be most useful. RobinH 14:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikicode.

Instead of using html tags for bold <b>TEXT</b> you should just use wikicode. For bold text use three apostrophes ('''). For italics, use two (''). Hope this helps. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 03:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)