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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

Critical reaction websites?

Is there a aggregate data website for books? Something like Rotten Tomatoes, but obviously for a different medium. EVula 18:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

A request for the project page

Would it be ok to link the discussion on the proposed notability criteria for books WP:BK on the main page of the project? I think the input from project members could really help to shape this guideline. I already put a notice on this talk page a couple of months ago and this did attract a couple of comments but putting it on the project page as something the project should look at would make sense. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 17:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

criteria for infobox "influences"?

There really need to be some clear guidelines for who to include in writers influencing and influenced by an author.

At the moment, it's totally the subjective judgment of individual editors as to who should be included.

Dybryd 22:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


Short story collections

I have just read The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge and I am interested in creating an article for it. I see that the collection is already somewhat described in the Vernor Vinge article itself, but a seperate article seems appropriate to me. Looking through various articles I have seen short story collections included in the authors page and in their own pages, but with no mention of any preference or guidelines for creating these articles in WikiPedia:WikiProject Books or its child projects. Do any guidelines exist? Is anyone interesting in helping me to create a template and guidelines for short story collections if nothing already exists? -- Andrew Sullivan Cant 05:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

So what do You propose (guidelines)? feydey 06:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I have start the article for The_Collected_Stories_of_Vernor_Vinge and I am working to get it into a format which would work for anthologies. I have stolen elements from the novel templete where appropriate and left others out. For example the additional details sections that come after the plot summary in the Novel template do apply to an entire anthology but they might apply to the stories. A short story description could be kept in th anthology article until more information exists for it and it can be broken out into a seperate article, if necessary.
Please let me know if you, or any other more experienced wikipeians, have suggestions for how I have laid things out.
(P.S.: I am still working on writing the story summaries.)
-- Andrew Sullivan Cant 05:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Uncategorised Books

Would anyone here be interested in helping to maintain an "Uncategorised books" category by sorting it? There are a large number of them in the Uncategorised articles category. If so, please reply here and I will create it. Aelfthrytha 05:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I or someone else from the Books Portal can work on the category, go ahead and create it. feydey 10:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Not sure I understand the concept or the category. Where is Category:Uncategorized articles or Category:Uncategorised articles. The tempate marker {{Uncategorised}} I understand but the whole use of that implies that someone "hasn't" put on a category yet. Surely it is as easy to place on a Category:Novels or Category:Books or idealy something more helpful. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
My reasoning was as follows. I don't have enough expertise (or interest, to be honest) in the sorting and categorization of books to be effective at sorting them. Putting them into an uncategorised books category rather than throwing them all into either novels or books would prevent someone having to root through those categories to find those that need attention. Oh, and the category you're looking for is Category:Category needed; there are a group of editors who go through and see that those articles are properly categorised - all the ones which take the tag {{uncategorised}} or any of its variants end up there. Will create the category. Aelfthrytha 12:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Surely the way to drive this would be with a clone of {{Uncategorised}}, something like {{UncatBooks}}. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 13:03, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
That would be another way to do it, but basically what the template {{uncategorized}} does is put things into a category - it's the same thing, really. Aelfthrytha 14:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

How do you move a book from being a stub to being a stand-alone article of its own? I feel that Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning is a classic and needs its own page with everything related Ivankinsman 19:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

{{WPBooks}}

A created a basic template {{WPBooks}} for articles in the scope of the project. Keep in mind that I have limited template-making experiences, so feel free to expand it. What do you think of it? Should it be added to the front page? NauticaShades 08:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a good basis to start from - for other techniques you might like to use, trawl the {{NovelsWikiProject}} template for ideas. Good one! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I've tried, but it's so complicated, it's hard to make anything out. It gave me a few good ideas, though. NauticaShades 09:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
So, what made you remove it from the main project page. Did someone object to it? :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, what gives? I've actually already added it to a couple of articles... unless there's some reason for its removal (like if it was hypnotizing us to kill babies), I don't see why you removed it. EVula 14:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I had put it on, then had second thoughts, thinking I might have been a bit hasty. But I suppose it it has support now, so it's officially on! NauticaShades 15:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Check the To Do list to see what's been tagged and what hasn't. NauticaShades 15:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

cat year nav

I'm developing a template called {{cat year nav}} that has most or all of the functionality of the dedicated yearly navigation templates. I've already replaced {{cvg year nav}} with it. If it is suitable for your project, I encourage you to use it (or tell me what it needs so I can fix it up). Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 14:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Uncategorised books

Category:Uncategorised books has become very large. Aelfthrytha 04:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Advice wanted re: author's notability

I came across this article, Lynn Coulter, and saw it need clean up. I also wondered it the subject of the article was sufficiently notable as to merit an article. I don't have a good feeling for writer notability -- could perhaps one or more WP Books members take a look at it and see if it merits deletion? Thanks, --A. B. 02:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Nothing links to it. I can't see any reason to say it's notable.
Incidentally, the original contributor, whoever he or she may have been, has never contributed anything else except (almost the same day) an edit to Heirloom plants. Andrew Dalby 09:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks -- that's the way I felt about the article, but I wanted a second set of eyes. I will list for PROD. --A. B. 11:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
I've listed this article now at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lynn Coulter. The author has made some edits to further establish her notability; I think it's still borderline at best, but others may disagree. Once again some objective third parties with a good feel for what constitutes author notability would be helpful in sizing this one up given the recent changes. --A. B. 17:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I vote for the article to stay. She has won an Independent Artist Award in Literature from the Georgia Council for the Arts, which I regard as being notable. Alternatively, do we need an entry for the Georgia Council for the Arts where Coulter and others could be listed? Just my 2 cents worth  :-) Roaming27 21:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Amazon template request

Howdy all - Since so many articles use external links to Amazon.com, I put in a request for an Amazon.com template here. Is anyone good at this? Thanks for any help - Pegship 16:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Template made (see the requested template page), but like I said there, I'm unsure of whether or not the template should even exist. EVula 16:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Claude Frollo

Would anyone who read the original Hunchback of Notre Dame book add some info on his character? Most of the stuff at his article is from the Disney movie version. --DrBat 21:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion section for author and book articles?

Hi. I was looking at the 13 November 2006 version of the article and noticed it had a "Discussion" section. It seemed a bit unusual by Wikipedia standards, but I don't normally work on book and author articles. For now, I have moved the material to the article's talk page. Could one or more of you take a look at this and see what you think? Thanks, --A. B. 02:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You were right to take it out of the Harry M. Caudill article. Articles don't have discussion sections because this is what the talk page is for. But in this case I don't think the material really belongs in the talk page either! I suppose the first paragraph could be shoehorned into an article about the specific book referred to, but the long quotations from the book don't really suit Wikipedia at all. Andrew Dalby 16:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"New books" listings on "[Year] in literature" pages

Is there any kind of standard in place for what gets listed on the "[Year] in literature" pages?

At the moment, the "New books" sections appear to be totally random assemblages, neither limited by notability nor in any way complete.

Dybryd 19:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

James Joyce

James Joyce is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 21:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

{{WPBooks}}

After some hard work, I've incorporated a rating system into the {{WPBooks}} banner, so go out there and get rating! NauticaShades 09:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Uncategorised (non-fiction) book (stub)s

I've 'bot-catted a number of non-fiction book-stubs with no other categories into Category:Uncategorised books. Alai 22:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Book cover replacement project

I've started WikiProject Free book covers, which used to be in my user space, as a project to replace fair use images of old books with public domain ones. All of these images are affected by the replaceable clause of the fair use policy, so this is a crucial task. We've gotten a lot done while it was in user space but there's still a lot of work to be done, so please come lend a hand. Every replacement advertises the project, so even doing one or two will help. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! Chick Bowen 21:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Uncategorised books

It is starting to fill up again. Not that bad right now but there are still articles there.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.131.61.103 (talk) 22:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Books/works/etc. by author categories

Cross-posted to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Novel categorization, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories) (this is where the November discussion was), Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion
I know this has been hashed over before. Each of the sub-cats of Category:Works by artist has its own style, but they are relatively consistent within their sub-cats, and I for one would like to apply a consistent style for written works. I have done a count: of the 344 sub-cats of written works by author (books, short stories, novels, etc.), 162 sub-cats are named [X] by [Name] or [X] of [Name] and 182 are named [Name] [Xs]. If we can't agree on aesthetics, can we at least go with the numbers (i.e. [Name] [Xs])? Any thoughts? Her Pegship (tis herself) 21:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(categories)#The_Return_of_Works_by_Artist... should be the single place to debate this. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Character Guidelines

Hi! I am a member of your daughter project WP:ASUE. There was a recent question on the Project talk page regarding Character Guidlines. For example, what is considered a major character? What about minor? Main? Extra? (etc.) Does this WikiProject have certain guidelines for these? Thanks.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 15:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

RfC of Palestine:Peace Not Apartheid

As per WP:RFC, I am requesting the help of this wikiproject in solving an RFC of a book issue. I've pasted the RfC below. Thank you. GabrielF 13:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a dispute over the length and readability of this article.
  • GabrielF believes that at 70+kilobytes of text, this article is too long. Further it is difficult to read because it contains too many quotes which are poorly organized. Further, in a number of cases a one-sentence quote is preceded by as many as three or four sentences explaining the background of the person being quoted, and GabrielF believes this information is unnecessary. GabrielF believes that the Reviews and Commentaries section needs to be considerably paired down, with non-notable quotes removed and other quotes reformatted so that the opinion is in the first sentence of the paragraph and not the last. Further, he believes that some material about specific disputes should be taken out of the giant Reviews and Commentaries section and placed in new sections describing those specific disputes. (E.g. disputes over the use of the word "apartheid", the resignation of Kenneth W. Stein, etc.)
  • NYScholar appears to object to deleting any sourced material from the page.13:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

AFD notice

I don't completely know what I'm doing yet, but I made 1 small change in the entry on The Accidental Tourist, which I hope will help.Thaddeus Slamp 03:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

need help placing these images of a Chinese bamboo book

I have these four great images of a Chinese bamboo book, found on flickr and now on the commons, but I'm having trouble placing them on Wikipedia. Where should these photos go? Any thoughts?

  • unfolded
    unfolded
  • "page" edges
    "page" edges
  • binding
    binding
  • cover
    cover

Thanks, — coelacan talk — 06:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to place pics/photos. But you might consider posting them in the Bamboo - other uses article? Or how about the Book - history article?
Roaming27 06:57, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Bamboo! Of course! I'll squeeze one in there. And book is kind of full, but I put one at history of the book. By the way, you can learn to place images at Help:Images. Here's an example: [[Image:Bamboo book - binding - UCR.jpg|thumb|The binding of a Chinese bamboo book.]] will produce the photo that you see in this page. So yeah, thanks for the suggestions. I'll go do bamboo and if anyone else has further suggestions, I'll be checking back here. Or just stick the pictures where you feel appropriate. — coelacan talk — 07:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Glad to be of help  :-) And thank you for the Help:Images link, I'll check it out. Roaming27 08:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There have been some disputes regarding East of Eden. This has been assessed as "Top Importance" by WikiProject Novels. Please check out the situation and make some comments. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Literary criticism

I'm planning on doing some major revisions on the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland article, but I haven't done that much work on book articles before. One of the biggest things that needs work is information about its themes, motifs, allusions, etc., but I'm not quite sure how to go about it. The easiest way would probably to divide them up and give examples of each, but doing solely that will just end up in an article of OR, which is unnecessary given the plethora of available sources. How are these topics normally approached without delving into mere anecdotal examples? ShadowHalo 06:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The FA The Old Man and the Sea has a section on literary criticism and Starship Troopers, The Giver have some. Just source it well, then all is ok. feydey 13:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks. ShadowHalo 00:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Restoration literature FAR

Restoration literature has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Documents / Literature category loop

There currently exists a loop of Category:Documents → Category:Literature → Category:Documents (Shortened as Documents used to feed into Literature via Non-fiction literature). Clearly the loop ought to be broken, and I favor doung so by removing Documents as a parent of Literature, but since this is this project's bailiwick, which should link should be cut? Caerwine Caer’s whines 04:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team

Can someone please contribute to this article? -Sunshine 20:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Seven Years in Tibet

This article is in dire need of distinction between the book and the film. Currently the page covers the film plot only and very little about the book appears at all, despite it being something of a classic book long before the "blockbuster" film.

Looking at other books which have been turned into films, the film(s) tend to get a separate (and somewhat subsidiary) page, which is what I think really needs to be done in this case. Any suggestions / offers of help? Rlfb 23:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Project Scope issues

I have no problem with the all encompasing scope of WP:Books; however it seems to me a little pointless to tag multitudes of "Novels", "Novellas", "Novelettes" and "Short stories" with the WPBooks project template when the works themselves fall into the purview of the descendant project. It is not "generally" as if there is not work going on in that project to work on these articles from a literature point of view. I can see a point in tagging highly prominent novels with the extra tag. It just seems to be we are seeing needless overlap - which can become unproductive. Just my two penneth! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk)


Os Lusíadas could use some work

Howdy, literature folks. The Portuguese national epic Os Lusíadas is considered to be "one of the most important literary works in the world". The en Wikipedia article could use some work. Much of the current article was translated from Portuguese Wikipedia and could use some rewriting and cites. -- (I wanted to post this to Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature, but of course that redirects here to Wikipedia:WikiProject Books. I'm also crossposting this note to other projects. If you know somewhere that this should be crossposted, please do so, but please leave this original here. Thanks.) -- Writtenonsand 12:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I have started some work on it, hope it meets with approval so far. Give me a bell if you want me to stop :) SGGH 11:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Special characters/typography in titles of works of art (books, etc.)

I have asked a question over at the Manual of Style (titles) page that is relevant to this project. —pfahlstrom 21:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Literary style

Can I tag an article about a literary style, namely sensibility (although it was more than a literary style), with a books tag? If not, what is the right project for it? Thanks. Awadewit 06:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles have sometimes several tags from different wikiprojects, so I see nothing wrong with tagging it. feydey 13:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Although the article itself is really a real mish-mash and is hardle all about a literary style or genre. It needs a fair bit of attention before it is clear what it is about. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 14:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I know, I was planning on working on it. Collaborators would be nice, though, since it is a difficult topic. Awadewit 14:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Send Me Home

I'm having trouble navigating my way to an assessment request area in this project, I must be tired :(. Is there anyway I could leave the link here? Just hoping someone could come and assess it so it doesn't sit unassessed all the while. Thanks, and sorry to bother you/for being in the wrong place! SGGH 22:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

I will appreciate any editor who could improve this article. I am not certain whether we can classify this book as a fiction or not. It is a spiritual book written in allegories, and while it is written in the form of a fiction, it doesn't really have a plot... --BorgQueen 09:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Literary criticism for comprehensiveness

I think we should explicitly say in the project page, that in order for a Literature article (books, concepts, etc.) to be considered "Comprehensive" ( and therefore FA ), it must contain a section of Literary criticism ( =analysis ) of the subject.--BMF81 11:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

POV list of novels

I edit novels for a living. And I'm weary of explaining POV to my clients. I want them to have, on one page, a list of well known books that illustrate each of various points of view, so I've created an article called List of novels by point of view to fulfill my unmet need. Here's hoping my fellow literate types will embrace the page and assist me by populating it with a few well known, widely read novels. The associated Talk page may likewise interest you. Thanks, folks! --TheEditrix2 16:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Archive.org

I've been watching the Internet Archive's new books feed. Each day there are about 500 new books added, it's like rummaging through the stacks of an old library, a wide mix. Many of them are quiet spectacular and useful for Wikipedia, such as most of the works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, some of which are not available anywhere else. Most well known books published before 1923, my experience is a 50/50 chance it's currently available on IA, or Google Books.

Is there a project or initiative on Wikipedia to sync up the book scanning projects with Wikipedia articles? At the most basic level, any author who published between 1500 and 1923 should have a link such as:

Thoughts or ideas? -- Stbalbach 03:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica is now a FAC

Hi all,

After several months of work, I think Encyclopædia Britannica might be ready for FAC. It's presently rated as "A-class" by this WikiProject. Please take the time to look it over, and I hope that you all can support it there — thanks! Willow 01:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Book Collecting

Can some of you help out on the book collecting article? I just spent a few hours getting rid of POV issues and structuring it, but it still needs a lot of work (especially towards the end). --'oac' (old american century) | Talk 02:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ahh the gift of EB1911 just keeps on giving. Best to start from scratch. Save anything obviously original, dump anything obviously from EB1911. It will open up room for improvement. -- Stbalbach 03:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, one minute after my major contribution it was reverted by a user using the PNG crusade bot. I left a comment on their talk page, as I don't know if this was an automatic edit or if they actually knew what they were reverting. Could someone please view my contributions by clicking here, and reverting back to my edit if you feel it appropriate? I believe my contributions help the article have a more NPOV, and reverting my edit is clearly reverting back to a more poor article (the grammar in some parts is terrible). I don't want to go around reverting articles to my own edits, so I'd like someone to give me feedback and let me know if my contributions were appropriate or why the article is best without my edit. Thanks. --'oac' (old american century) | Talk 04:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Fine, I've done as you requested (I see the bot-editor has meanwhile apologised). The two subsequent edits were 1 unnecessary category and 1 dubious link -- please check that one in case it's good. I think you need to do a bit of copy-editing -- I don't have time. Note that the correct English for "whom's" is "whose"! Not sure if that was your slip or someone else's. Andrew Dalby 11:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Galician literature

I would appreciate some expert help to distinguish the minor authors and the outstanding ones in Galician literature. Some of them received an homage in the annual regional literature celebration from 1963, so they are more than fourty! The list in that article is about the "Main authors" and it would be good to select the best. Thank you for advance.--Garcilaso 10:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:SPOTLIGHT work on Poor Richard's Almanack

Howdy folks, we put the spotlight on the stub Poor Richard's Almanack. Its now a fully fledged article.We started off with this. You guys can check out our changes at this link. If you want to join our efforts, just hop into #wikipedia-spotlight on the irc.freenode.net network. If you need any help with this just ask me. —— Eagle101 Need help? 23:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The Brothers Karamazov FAR

The Brothers Karamazov has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 19:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

New York Times Best Sellers

What has been the experience of justifying the notability of a article on a book on the basis of the book appearing on the NYT Best Sellers List? To me personally, I would say that any book that has appeared more than one week on the list is notable (A single week at the bottom might be a fluke--and I would be a little doubtful about the ones where the NYT adds its note about bulk purchases). DGG 22:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The Freedom Writers Diary

This page is little more than a sentence. Can this please be expanded? <3Clamster 00:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you put a link to a review of a book in the External links section of the article? Tamino 16:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as long it's a professional review not your own or some other amateur one. feydey 19:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

New child project proposal

I have listed a proposal for an Australian literature WikiProject with the Project Council. If anyone is interested please go here and register your support or add your comments. Thanks. xx baby ifritah

Proposed writer biography project

There are an incredible number of biographical articles in wikipedia, many/most of which fall within the scope of WikiProject Biography. I have recently proposed that the Biography project perhaps be involved in a number of subprojects to work on smaller, and perhaps more focused, areas. One such proposal relates to writers of books and short stories. This proposal can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Writers. Any member of this project who would be interested in working specifically on biographical content relating to writers would be more than welcome to indicate as much there. Thank you. John Carter 16:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Please review Design_matters

Hi. An author appears to be promoting his book at Design_matters. The article's not bad, although the language could stand to be more neutral. Would somebody from this project mind taking a look at it to see if the article should be kept, and clean up the puffery? Thanks, 03:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

T. H. White needs your help

(Wikipedia:Wikiproject literature redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Books).
- T. H. White is currently very short; If we subtract a couple of short lists, it's really just a stub. Can anybody add anything to this? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand 19:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Translation as title?

Should an article on a novel have the original title or the English translated version? The book in mind is In Evil Hour. Thanks, GiantSnowman 19:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

tag

Should the tag be added to pages which already have the wikiproject novel tag? Also, I've added the tag to Forerunner, as it was a means for Charlotte Perkins Gilman to publish many of her novels, stories, etc...Was I correct?Zigzig20s 08:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - we'll hope to have a joint tag in the future, so You are welcome to tag it now as it will then be merged if needed. Anything related to literature should be tagged, except see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books#Hierarchy definition. feydey 12:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


Good-bye to All That

Please can the title of the article be corrected to Good-bye to All That and NOT Good-Bye (i.e. capital B) to All That. Ivankinsman 20:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Book - trade, antiquarian, collecting - in this project or elsewhere?

Please I need advice - I see there is a gap and lack of co-ordination (unless anyone can point me to something i have missed) around the issues of the book trade/antiquarian books/book collecting - is this something that others might consider comes under this projects banner - or is it a separate issue? I'd be very interested to see any reactions advice on this. cheers SatuSuro 10:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest Series

Hi,

I am creating an acticle on the Book(s) "A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest," by Gregory A. Plumb, and I had a question that I thought you would be able to answer for me (being the Book Project and all).


The "Series" is currently made up out of 4 books: Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest, A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest (Second Edition), A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest (Third Edition), and A Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest (Fourth Edition).

I was wondering if I should make separate articles for each book, as they're a "series", or just as a single article.

Which should I do?

Thanks in Advance

--Mooshykris 19:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can show that the books are important, you won't be able to have an article on them at all. See the notability guidelines for what counts--for books, this amounts to reviews, awards, and perhaps sales. Unless each of them are really separately important--if they have won individually important prizes, for example, your best bet is to try for one article--and to work on finding the sources to prove it. DGG 00:42, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, I see, I the book has to be a big award winner to deserve an article. It doesn't count that in this case, I searched the book and found absolutely no information on it.

--Mooshykris 23:04, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply quite that--if the general series is reasonably notable, and if you have several reviews in published sources, you might be able to get an article. See what you can find. Trying to get one article for each, on the other hand, would take some doing. DGG 04:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

New potential category inquiry

Hi. I'm working on the Uncategorized category Wikiproject. I'd like to create a subcategory of needed categories relating to this project, Category:Uncategorised books. You could refine it or alter it to be better suitable for project needs. I also posted this notice at WikiProject Novels, since they would likely find it useful too. Just a humble suggestion. :) -Ebyabe 18:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I remember that the category used to exist but was deleted (not sure why). I thought that before we recreate it, this point should be addressed by the more active WP:BOOK users.--Fisherjs 21:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The Category:Uncategorised books wasn't needed as all the uncategorised book articles are usually sorted under Category:Books. feydey 13:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
OK. I see that now, scrolling up a bit. I'll just start categorizing them as Category:Books, then. Just a headsup, though, that there's a bunch. But that's why we get paid the big bucks... oh, right. :) -Ebyabe 14:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley

I wanted you to know that I have nominated the above article, which falls under the scope of this project, for deletion at AfD. Interested editors please comment on your opinions. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Extra book cover template?

I noticed that the WikiProject Music folks have created a template called "Extra album cover" which they use in articles on albums where there is a significant re-release or alternate edition of an album. For example, see the article on this David Bowie album. I could see this being helpful for an article on a book, where there are different editions of the book that are somehow siginificantly different (partially censored editions, different translations, etc.). Thoughts? Fairsing 18:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Check Please

I fished the article The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child out potential deletion and updated the page somewhat, this included adding your project banner to the page. Since I am not familar with the banner used here I would appreciate it if someone could check the article out see if everyting was filled out correctly. Thanks in advance. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Urgent portal maintenance needed

Portal:Literature is in urgent need of new content if it is not to loose featured portal status... Gralo 00:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

"List of books by title" is AfD

The 27 pages of List of books by title from A through Z have been nominated for deletion, and so far everyone is voting to delete. I don't have a good argument against it, since I created them as a finding aid four years ago, before there were categories or an alphabetical index of the articles in WP. So to prepare for the almost inevitable deletion, I have copied all the pages here. They are safely stored as subpages of Wikiproject Books, and can we use them as a checklist for adding category tags, or any other projects we have. I also copied the Lists of books page here as well. There is a growing movement to replace all lists with categories, and who know which of these lists will be next! GUllman 01:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The Rape of Nanking FAC

I've nominated The Rape of Nanking (book) for FA status. Interested editors please vote or leave a comment.

Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal re "Books by..." and "Works by..." categories

I have written a proposal for discussion on what seems to me the unsatisfactory present situation in these categories. All comments welcome at User:Johnbod/Books v Works. Thanks, Johnbod 16:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Having just noticed, from just above here, that the Lists of books were deleted whilst I was on holiday, this issue has i think extra topicality. At the moment the categories are far from perfect as a substitute. Johnbod 16:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The alphabetical list of books is now a subpage of WikiProject Books. It was not a proper encyclopedia article since the criteria for inclusion in the list was that the book had an article in Wikipedia. Please continue to add to it if you still find it useful. GUllman 02:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

FYI

I have made a comment here on what is perhaps some very basic information missing from an FA-class article within this project's scope. VanTucky Talk 19:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I'm copying this message I wrote to Mike Klassen here, as it relates to quite a few literature-related articles, and I think it might be useful to invite comments from other editors. Perhaps the elements of the articles I'm pointing to aren't that contentious, but it'd be good to hear what others think.

I see that you've moved a load of articles to the (fiction) form--Narrator, Plot (narrative), Exposition and a few others. While I understand your desire for consistency, I'm not sure they have been really thought through from the POV of a wikipedia user - they seem, rather, to be serving your exposition of your own ideas about writing. What I mean is, for example, Plot (narrative) is unambiguous, whereas plot (fiction) may refer to a secret plan that is not real (like a fictional version of the Gunpowder 'plot', off the top of my head). Narrator doesn't require a disambiguation. Same goes for First-person narrative (fiction), Third-person narrative (fiction), Unreliable narrator (fiction) You've organised Fiction into your own categories, though I'm not aware of anyone else in the scholarly community using these; they seem very idiosyncratic, and unsourced in every case, yet they're appearing on almost all of these pages; this makes it seem like an act of self-promotion, rather than detailing existing knowledge. It makes an appearance in Dramatic structure, Setting (fiction), Story arc, Plot hole, Plot device, Theme (literature), Style (fiction), Fiction writing... really, I didn't imagine the list would get that long when I began it! Point of view (literature) was there to distinguish it from cinematic POV, which is also fictional, so your move makes it less precise and increases the potential for confusion. Imagery isn't only found in fiction. The only one that appears to have originated as (fiction) is Scene (fiction), for which that designation is the least appropriate (it being a specifically dramatic term that is used for other forms metaphorically at best). I see that I'm not the only one to have been concerned by the general tenor of many of these changes. I understand that you have a particular point of view and that your contributions aim to assist fledgling writers (I presume), but I'm not sure Wikipedia is the place for this. Can I reiterate the plea that you cite other sources than your own web article. There is a great deal to object to in that scheme, but this isn't a collective blog and our job as editors isn't to debate these things, but rather to reference already-existing debates beyond this project. I see that you've tried to offer a caveat on most of the articles to the effect that 'the debate is on-going', which is certainly a step in the right direction, but it needs to be cited and not original research. Please don't misunderstand me--I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong or to convince you to abandon your beliefs, nor, indeed, to discourage you from contributing (which would be the worst outcome); but the principles of the project are there for a reason and the only integrity we have is in a strict adherence to them. Only today I saw Wikipedia mocked on The Daily Show (we get it a day later) for its unreliability. All I'm asking is that if you want to use this scheme, please cite scholarly works that substantiate it. I don't feel its appropriate for me to go straight to a request to have the pages moved back, as that doesn't give you an opportunity to present your reasoning. Instead, please take a fresh look at the project you're pursuing overall and try to assess it objectively. I'm going to copy this to some of the talk pages, as I think the issues affect so many articles that its best to initiate a debate. Regards, DionysosProteus 01:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Fictional events

This question is about the "years in literature" pages. However, as it is about all of them, this talk page seems a better forum than an arbitrary one of those.

Should the "years in literature" pages include fictional events, so-labeled? If so, what notability criteria should be used? I added "The Great Silence Epidemic" from The Phantom Tollbooth to 1712 in literature under a ===Fictional Events=== heading and had it removed with a comment "real-world events only."

My proposal is that any event which is included with its associated year in another Wikipedia article is fair game for these lists. An alternative might be an entirely separate fictional timeline. Matchups 13:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I remain interested in this topic, and hope that members of this project will be able to assist in forming a consensus guideline. Please comment. Matchups 01:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


Sinthome needs rewrite for comprehensibility/clarity

-- Not sure if this is the right place for this comment but I don't know of a better. If you do, please add a copy of this there (but please leave this original here for now.) -- I added the *cleanup-confusing* tag to to Sinthome, as it is "likely to be confusing to the average reader, because it is obtuse, confused, or missing key information. Sometimes, we all write text that makes perfect sense to us, but does not make sense to most other people." (Per WP:CLARIFY) -- 201.19.77.39 11:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Both of them (see below) look pretty clear to me. They're outlines, but not "missing key information" nor "confused". These are not general concepts, but specialist terminology in Lacan's psychoanalytic theories. Based on my own most recent browsing outside my own area, for example, compare the use of a specialist vocabulary in Reptiliomorpha (very random, I know). DionysosProteus 11:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Foreclusion needs rewrite for comprehensibility/clarity

Per previous on Sinthome, I see that Foreclusion is if anything even worse. -- 201.19.77.39 11:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Request for 3rd party opinions about on-going dispute

Hi. I've recently gone through an arbitration case over a dispute over at Mao: The Unknown Story and it hasn't resolved anything. Another user made some changes, the other party in the arbitration case reverted it back after a week or so, I then reverted him back and another user who has been involved reverted most of my changes.

If anyone is willing to discuss things from a neutral perspective on the article's talk page about the recent changes it might be useful. The more feedback the better. Cheers, John Smith's 22:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Book cover images

Just an FYI to the group that there are currently about 450 book cover images that are in fair-use dispute and will be deleted if the appropriate fair use isn't added. For those interested in saving any/all, you can find the list of them here. Thanks! SkierRMH 01:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Scope: Books and Literature in General--Literature needs its own project

The intro to the project page says that this project covers literature in general as well as books. I think literature should be a separate project, as it covers way more than books. It covers poetry, short stories, speeches, written plays and screenplays, comics, essays, pamphlets, websites, etc. Right now, the articles on the List of basic literature topics page are really suffering. These articles are linked to by thousands of poem articles, book articles, author articles, etc. I am proposing that the Literature project be reinstated with a narrower focus on the most general of literature subjects, so that the Books wikiproject can focus on books, and the basic literary articles don't get left behind. The proposal is here. Please add your name to the list of participants if you are interested in improving basic, general articles on the subject of literature. Wrad 20:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The goal of the WP: The members of this WikiProject have come together to make some suggestions about how Wikipedians may contribute to articles about books and literature in general. Note literature there... A task force here maybe? feydey 23:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I did note it, and I think it shouldn't be there. Literature deserves its own project, in my opinion, rather than being a kind of sideshow to this one. I feel it is time for Literature to be split from this project so that it can receive a better focus than it is currently getting. Wrad 23:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment - Literature is a wonderfully unhelpful, i.e. imprecise term, to one it means a high art form of novel, to another all writing. (E.g. science literature, railway literature etc). The terminology in the arena is generally imprecise and leads to confusion. Also bear in mind if you mean narrative prose the Novels WikiProject all ready covers that! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm aware of all the vagueness, and that's why I think it needs a separate project to hammer it all out. It just doesn't belong here, it needs its own focus group. Also yes, I do mean prose, along with other things, such as poetry. Novels only covers novels and short stories, and I'm sure we all know there's more to prose than that. I'm not too worried about overlap because this project will only cover the basic, general, literature articles. We'll figure out the specifics of scope among the other lit projects once we get underway. Wrad 15:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
That the term "literature" is a site of contested meanings should not surprise us, nor does it act as an obstacle to critical inquiry in the field--university departments all over the world manage to negotiate its variations, and so should we, without any great trouble, I think. The term "books" contains a comparable degree of imprecision.
The proposal is far more specific than the comments so far seem to recognise; yes, there is a degree of overlap with other Wikiprojects--Books, Novels, Poetry, Drama, Philosophy--yet the proposal has identified an area that none of those projects are serving well under the present organisation, in my experience. Rather than a narrow focus on prose fiction, as I understand it, it proposes to address subjects that traverse these diverse fields; not to address individual novels, plays, poems, etc., but to address the vast field of knowledge that the critical investigation of those individual works involves today. There is certainly a need for such a focus here, I would argue. As Wrad suggests, not only are many of the relevant articles in serious need of sustained attention, but also our imagined readership certainly exists--the majority of students who embark each year on an undergraduate course of study in literature or drama are deluged with critical theory of many kinds. While the philosophy project has something to contribute, contemporary literary theory does not merely import philosophical concepts unamended; there is a specific articulation between the fields of philosophy, politics, history, cultural studies, etc. and "literature" (broadly defined). The breadth of the field gives a sense of why treating these articles as a subset of a Books wikiproject hasn't generated the quality of articles we feel are needed. That the proposal specifically identifies poetry and drama also provides a good reason why a subset of Books might not be the best arrangement; for example, the valencies of "performance" and "performativity" that pervade much recent critical theory require a more interdisciplinary approach than a narrow focus on "books" is likely to produce. The proposal also covers more "traditional" general subjects as well, which, again, "books" or "novels" are unlikely to cover appropriately; for example, off the top of my head, mimesis, iambic pentameter and the like. I think the proposal gets at something that's being missed at the moment. DionysosProteus 17:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Literature would certainly justify a separate project, and if enough people are ready to work on one it will get it, but there's no point it setting up another ghost ship. Johnbod 17:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Trust me, it won't be a ghost ship, especially if you join :) Wrad 17:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 18:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Mann needs additional cites

Thomas Mann is in need of additional cites. -- 201.53.4.206 19:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Greetings! While monitoring new articles for COI issues, I came across three related ones, Monk Ashland, Kaimira and The Sky Village, all created by a user with a close connection to the subjects (in fact, one is his pseudonym and the other two books that he has authored). Could I leave you to ponder the merits of these please? Thanks. --Malcolmxl5 04:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

New template category?

I would like to create a new template category. We have "Category:Book templates" and within it "Category:Novel series navigational boxes" category; I propose a "Category:Short story collection templates" or "Category:Short story templates sub category of" Book templates." My reasoning is that it is more specific than "book" but should be able to be populated--I hope. I thought about being bold and just making it, but I second guessed myself and figure that y'all know what you're doing, too. What do you think? —ScouterSig 06:29, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I counted Template:Shortstorydecade and Template:Shortstoryyr to go into that category. Do You have more examples of templates? feydey (talk) 13:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
There are all the ones in Category:Isaac Asimov-related templates, at least. And if similar templates were created for articles like The Stories of John Cheever, Twice-Told Tales, or The Piazza Tales should more of their stories have articles written. —ScouterSig 15:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd say go ahead and create Category:Short story templates and try to fill it, we'll see what comes of it. feydey 13:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Done. —ScouterSig 00:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

And the Band Played On

I've worked on this article for a few months, and I would like to nominate it for GA status. I have a few questions, since I have not written a non-fiction book article before. I've gotten a peer review from WP:LGBT, and it has been helpful, but I'd like to see if there are other suggestions.

  • In the Subject Matter portion, Shilts made many claims, the most contentious of which I have cited, but I am concerned about overciting the article. It would seem that every other sentence would require a citation.
  • Do I need to include a bibliography for the book itself, since it's the subject of the article, but I have to cite from it?
  • There are some photos of Randy Shilts, Larry Kramer, and the AIDS Quilt that I can put in the article, but except for Shilts these images illustrate the article only tangentially associated with the content.
  • Any other suggestions anyone can give would be appreciated. Thanks so much. --Moni3 19:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I have a question related to this as well, about Moni3's question regarding the book in the Bibliography. I've added a list of some editions of the book per the possible structure suggestions. Now what that brings up is I'm wondering how to cite a specific edition of a book when all that varies is the year and the edition. In Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark(a recent literature FA), the modern reprints provides a full citation, and the individual reference lists the editor and the publisher along with page numbers, making the cite "Wollstonecraft (Holmes/Penguin), 152–53". For this instance where Shilts is the author, and lets say the editor is looking at the 2000 edition of the book, and the page is 384 would the reference be "Shilts, 2000, p.384", and the full citation already corresponds to the book listed in the editions. Or if the editor was using the first edition "Shilts, 1st ed., p. 384". Since page numbers can vary sometimes wildly among versions. Would either of those reference/cite pairs work? - Optigan13 (talk) 06:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Vlad Vladikoff

I had written an article called Vlad Vladikoff about 2 days ago, unfourtanetley I was told that it should not be there. So I was was wondering if it might be possible to start a project which takes Dr.Seuss'es book and takes each of the minor and major charecters out and writes a section about them.

Tell me what you think! --Stealth500! (talk) 11:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Current fiction

Template:Current fiction has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Erik (talk • contrib) - 05:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Project award

We could adopt this. What do you think? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 05:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested. But for what use? feydey (talk) 05:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Recent book

Template:Recent book has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. The log page is here. Pixelface (talk) 20:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

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