Using Wikibooks/About The Book

Who Wrote this Book?

This book, like all books on Wikibooks, has been written by ordinary users, just like you. Any person who visits Wikibooks can edit almost any page at any time. Some of the users are experienced Wikibooks veterans. Some are just passersby, fixing small grammar or spelling errors as they read. You can help to write this book, and you can choose how much you want to help and in what way.

You can fix errors that you see, or you can add entire lessons that you've learned from your own experience here, or you can start and write whole books. If you have questions about using Wikibooks, ask! When you've learned the answers, you can write them down in this book for future users and readers.

Feedback

One of the best tools in the writing process here on Wikibooks is feedback from readers. If you are a new user and have learned from this book, we would be happy to hear about it. Also, if you find certain portions confusing, or even know of certain information that is missing, we would like to hear about that too. One of the best places to provide feedback about this book is at the assistance reading room. When leaving a question or comment, include a link to the book page in question, and discuss what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you think can be improved.

How Is this Book Set up?

This book is arranged by job. Wikibookians tend to assume different roles when they visit Wikibooks. The vast majority of our visitors are readers, who want to learn for free. Some Wikibookians help fix problems, like spelling and grammar or formatting errors. We call this second group "Editors". Other Wikibookians actually create new books and generate new content. These people are called "Writers" or "Authors". Other Wikibookians keep watch over the website, performing cleanup and organizational tasks and taking on responsibilities that other users don't. This last group is known as the Wikibooks "Administrators".

People who come to Wikibooks don't always fall into just one category but can be a combination of some or all of the above groups. Some people perform tasks that are entirely different from all those listed above. Most tasks at Wikibooks can be very similar to the four listed above though, so this book will divide the material into those four groups. Just remember that even though this book breaks up our users into four primary roles, this is just a simplification and not a reality. You should feel free to perform any helpful tasks (and there are a lot to choose from!) at Wikibooks.

The first section provides an introduction to Wikibooks, and an overview of what this project is and how it works. The second section is devoted to quick-start guides for various audiences.

A Note on Form

This book uses a pretty simple organizational format that other books can feel free to copy. The decisions that the authors of this book have made are not the only way or even the best way to do things, however. It's good to follow existing examples when creating your own books, but keep in mind that there is no single "right way" to do things, and different books may have very different needs.

This book is specifically intended to be printable, so it is held to a particular standard that other books on Wikibooks do not need to follow. The internet makes available a number of technologies such as interactivity and multimedia that cannot be translated easily into a printed medium. Even though this book is focused on being printable, other books on Wikibooks are not limited by that restriction and can make use of various technologies to improve their educational benefits.

Beyond being a good example, this book aims to be a good resource for readers who are new to Wikibooks or merely curious about it. If you have feedback about this book, or would like to make changes and improvements, remember that this is a wiki and anybody is free to edit it at any time. This may seem like an unbelievable concept, but throughout the following chapters we are going to talk about how the editing process works and how easy it really is to get involved.