Help:Glossary

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Each term should have its own heading, and kept short so it can easily be linked to with [[Wikibooks:Glossary#term|term]]

[edit] admin

An admin (short for administrator) is a Wikibookian with the ability to delete and restore pages, block and unblock users, and protect and unprotect pages from editing. They tend to have more editing experience on the project than an average user. See the Wikibooks:Administrators policy for more information.

[edit] book

See also: Help:Books

A collection of modules associated together is called a book.

[edit] data dump

To import material from outside sources into Wikibooks without editing, formatting and linking. This is frowned upon by most Wikibookians. See also: wikify.

[edit] edit conflict

Two or more parties both attempt to save different edits to the same page.

[edit] edit war

Two or more parties continually making their preferred changes to a page, and undoing the changes they don't agree with. Generally, an edit war is the result of an argument on a talk page that could not be resolved.

[edit] GFDL

Acronym for GNU Free Documentation License. Wikibooks modules are released under this license (see Wikibooks:copyrights for details).

[edit] Google test

Running sections or titles of modules through the Google search engine for various purposes. The two most common are to check for copyright violations or to determine which term among several is the most widely used.

[edit] GPL

Acronym for GNU General Public License. MediaWiki software, the one used to run all Wikimedia projects, like Wikibooks, is released under this license.

[edit] linkspamming

A technique employed by unscrupulous websites, which consists of adding URLs to their website to (usually important) wiki pages, in order to increase their site ranking at search engines such as Google. This process is often scripted, and may come from several anonymous IP addresses simultaneously.

[edit] Meta

(also meta-wikimedia, metawiki): A separate wiki (meta.wikimedia.org) used to discuss general Wikibooks matters along with matters concerning other Wikimedia projects.

[edit] module

An instructional resource entry (a "page" in a book, if you will). All modules are pages, but not all pages are modules. See Wikibooks:What is a module.

[edit] namespace

A way to classify pages. Wikibooks has namespaces for instructional resource modules, pages about Wikibooks (Wikibooks:), user pages (User:), special pages (Special:) and talk pages (Talk:, Wikibooks talk:, and User talk:). See Help:Namespace.

[edit] NC

An acronym for naming convention which is the suggest naming scheme for books and chapters within them.

[edit] newbie

(also newb, noob): A newcomer to Wikibooks.

[edit] newbie experiment

(also newbie test) An edit made by a newcomer to Wikibooks, just to see if 'edit this page' really does what it sounds like. Use Wikibooks:sandbox for these.

[edit] NPOV

Acronym for Neutral point of view, or the agreement to report subjective opinions objectively, so as not to cause edit wars between opposing sides.

[edit] orphan

A page with no links from other pages. You can view lists of orphaned modules and images.

[edit] page

Any individual topic within Wikibooks. Pages include modules, talk pages, documentation and special pages.

[edit] POV

Literally, a point of view, but often used negatively as an adjective to indicate bias.

[edit] redirect

A page title which, when requested, merely sends the reader to another page. This is used for synonyms and ease of linking. See Wikibooks:Redirect.

[edit] subpage

A page connected to a parent page (a / character is used here).

[edit] talk page

A page reserved for discussion. All pages within Wikibooks (except talk pages themselves!) have talk pages attached to them. See Help:Talk page

[edit] transclusion

A page that has its contents included on another page without needing to copy or transfer the content by hand whenever the content changes.

[edit] TeX

A programming language utilized in the wikibooks (and other wiki) project to write mathematical equations. See Help:TeX markup for help with how to use it.

[edit] user page

A personal page for Wikibookians. Most people use their pages to introduce themselves and to keep various personal notes and lists. They are also used by Wikibookians to communicate with each other via the user talk pages. A user page has a name of the form User:<username> (e.g. User:Jimbo Wales).

[edit] vandalism

Specifically, an edit deliberately intended to sabotage the site. This includes linkspamming. More generally any edit which serves to make the content of a page worse from the community's point of view. See also newbie experiment.

[edit] wiki

(also wikiwiki): A website which allows its readers to change its content. See: the article at Wikipedia.

[edit] Wikibookian

A user of the Wikibooks project.

[edit] Wikibooks

This website. Also refers to a collection of "books" that have been written on this site. A Wikibook is just one of those books. See also book listed above.

[edit] wikify

To format using Wiki markup (as opposed to plain text or HTML) and add internal links to material, incorporating it into the whole of Wikibooks.

[edit] wiki markup

Code like HTML, but simplified and more convenient, for example not <b> and </b>, but in both cases '''. See also: Help:Editing.