Help:Books/Feedback/Archives/2015/October

Download as ZIM and/or EPUB??

I just don't get why you guys removed the feature of downloading an article/book as a ZIM. It's so disappointing, bring it back for god's sake. PDF files are so large in size, takes Megabytes of size for one little article!! You say wikipedia is available offline as ZIM, then why remove it? Bring it back I beg you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sree has it (talk • contribs) 03:38, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
yes for me too.it will be very nice if zim feature is available so that we can use it on kiwix.but why you people removed that??? please add this feature The Help:Books page says that the option is enabled but is not true and I think it is necessary for all those who do not have internet access 24 hours.

ZIM has been disabled. Thanks for pointing out the obsolete information at Help:Books. I have updated a caption.[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2014-September/000955.html says: "As part of this change, we will disable ZIM and EPUB export for the time being."

Template talk:Saved book#Template-protected edit request on 10 October 2014 says: "The ePub, ZIM, and Pediapress entries in this template should be commented out (since there is a chance these features will reappear)".

That's all I know. I don't work on the software. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:23, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Can anyone please contribute a little more substantial information on why something immensely useful is silently removed just like that? Better yet,instead of justifications or blunt statements let's hear somethings constructive, like "feature is scheduled to be re-enabled on ... ". The current behaviour is not just disappoting, it is a damned nuisance and appears to result from the ever-growing distance, nay - alienation - between WP bureaucrats and the technical&user community. Any comments?? -- Kku 10:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to see this feature back, please subscribe and give a token to this feature request. Kelson (talk) 11:28, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@Kku: I agree, completely. This is, IMO anyway, the exact antithesis of what Wikipedia—nay, the Wikimedia Foundation—is supposed to stand for: transparency, being composed of the users by the users for the users. >:( We shouldn't have to file a feature request just to get answers...

After having just emailed Wikipedia suggesting they add a download as epub option (and admittedly, I couldn't fathom why this was not already an option), I now see that this option already existed and has been removed. Is there any official explanation for this bizarre move, anywhere? Strictly speaking, PDF is not technically an "ebook" format at all. It is a fixed-pagination, portable document format. Ebooks require fluid pagination. InspiredLight

As of 16/07/2015 still no zim/epub download facility. No transparency at all, very sad and depressing. I guess there are political reasons, possibly to ensure that everyone only accesses wikipedia online. I wonder why... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.93.4 (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello, folks. This was announced in 2014, and we haven't had volunteers to fix this feature since then. The task is phab:T73660. However, I'm pleased to report that there is an Outreachy volunteer interested in working on ZIM export for the next few months. So perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel. C. Scott Ananian (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

This is just a bad joke

It's nearly a year since books started ignoring tables and stuff, we have only two sizes in one lone format that still works at all and nobody with any responsibility in the development process can do anything except bleat about their own impotence. I feel like replacing every darn Help:Books/ page with

OK I'm a professional author in my day job and I feel real pain when my tools don't work, but even so... Tell you what, pay me a living wage* and I'll go back to coding, learn a new language and fix it up for you.

* Sorry, it'd be a long job and I have to eat.

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 17:18, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

So anyway I created Template:Bookcreatorstatus and posted it on a few relevant pages. People deserve to know these things before we waste our time on it. If it brings in someone who will fix these bugs for free, that will be a bonus. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)