Should all books in Wikibooks have subpages for chapters?
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All books in Wikibooks should have subpages for chapters
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Pro Reading subpages may be easier for people with attention deficit.
Objection People with attention deficit can copy the text to Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice analogue. It is no good idea to inconvenience an overwhelming majority in the name of serving special needs of a small minority, when the needs of the small minority can still be addressed, albeit with an overhead.
- Pro Revision histories of smaller pages create less burden on database storage.
- Objection That does not prevent Wikipedia from having some pages 100 KB to 200 KB long. Surely Wikibooks present a tiny fraction of database storage use compared to Wikipedia.
- Pro Having a uniform approach is easier for management: one does not need to decide on a per book basis.
- Objection That is no too big a decision burden.
- Pro Smaller pages lead to shorter loading times.
- Objection The difference is likely negligible, for pages less than 100 KB or even 200 KB. With one-page format, one gets the loading delay only once rather than getting it repeatedly as one navigates the page structure.
Con
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Con One-page format makes it easier to find things using Control + F function.- Con One-page format makes it easier to skim the resource and get an overall impression by mere scrolling.
- Con One-page format makes it easier to review changes in the history of the artifacts and see the snapshots of the book development in time. When there are separate pages, one can only get the history by consulting revision histories of all chapters. This is especially important for cases where someone decides to turn the structure of the book upside down, as all too often happens.
- Con One-page format makes it easier to get statistics for the page. With multiple pages, one would need to aggregate the statistics from the subpages.
- Con One-page format obviates the need to create and update a printed version page, which is done in the English Wikibooks for multi-page books.
Comment The arguments against only have force for books up to a certain size. Once the book gets very large (over 200 KB?), the arguments for possibly prevail.
