Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books

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Wikipedia main articles: WikiPedia:WikiProject Novels, WPP:Novels, WikiPedia:WikiProject Books, and WPP:Books
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Archives
  • 1 2004 - Sept. 2006 (Topics: Use of ISBD, Wikireader, recasting the book (related) subcategories, crime book category, Infobox Writer, new fields to book infobox, Books about film)
  • 2 Sept. 2006 - Dec. 2007 (Topics: {{WPBooks}}, Amazon template, List of books by title:0-9, Literature to its own project, Category:Short story templates)

Contents

[edit] Peer review notice

Getting It: The psychology of est is on Peer Review. Your comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Getting It: The psychology of est. Cirt (talk) 02:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Brhmaand Pujan

Dear Editor of wikiproject books, I desire to add a seprate 'url link' which will reflect or throw light on news/reviews in Hindi on the said book or it's author . As ISBN no. still not exist/considered by Indian HRRD Govt yet. But I can obtain & post a photo of the original 'copy right registration certificate' which was done in year 2002. These will be put on 'url' as original cutting scanned & photographed . I am taking help of some good members wiki indian projet team editors to translate them. But guide me -Prior to posting on main page - Can I go ahead & put it here to your goodself or on my persoanl talk page or Brhmaand Pujan's discussion page? Kindly Help me out -Regards - --Dralansun (talk) 08:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please review proposed WP:FICT guideline

I would like to get more eyes to review the proposed version of Notability (fiction) beyond what those participating on the current talk page have provided. This is not to get consensus for it yet, but to make sure there are no major issues with it before going to that step. Please address any concerns on WT:FICT. Thank you. --MASEM 18:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAR notice

A Tale of a Tub 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. Cirt (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Toward Peer Review

Gospel of Mark could use some help tracking down missing citations to get ready for peer review. Thanks in advance. Ovadyah (talk) 16:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Book title redirects

Should book titles ever redirect to (a) their author (e.g. Cult of the Amateur, Parasite Rex) or (b) to their subject (examples include The Intentional Stance to intentional stance and The Theory of Island Biogeography to island biogeography. I had one of the latter two deleted. Richard001 (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't redirect the titles unless the book is not notable. Before redirecting the title, check for incoming red-links. If there are a lot, consider creating a stub article and explain in the discussion why the non-notable book is getting a stub. If there are a few, consider replacing the incoming links with links to the subject or article, like this link to Donald J. Sobol:Two-Minute Mysteries, which does not have an article of its own. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Does it say this anywhere, or are you just basing this on your own judgment? I disagree that you should create an article for a non-notable subject just because a lot of pages link to it. As for not creating redirects, I tend to agree with you, but at Cult of the Amateur where I applied your rule the admin seemed to think that a redirect is appropriate. Richard001 (talk) 04:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Should this book have its own article?

Discuss at Talk:Gustav Kobbé. — AjaxSmack 23:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image requests

The {{Books}} template now allows image requests using the code |needs-photo=yes. Richard001 (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of FAR

Voynich manuscript 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. Cheers. Zidel333 (talk) 18:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] needs assessment by your project

this may be in the wrong space, but i'm running out the door. The Canon of Medicine - this medical text looks like it is an extremely important book but has no assessment/wikiproject template. thought you'd might like to know. JoeSmack Talk 17:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How best to organise articles about bits of large and complex books

I have created a proposed guideline about how articles on the bible should be organised:

Since it may indirectly impact on articles about other large texts (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings spring to mind), I wonder if you would like to comment on it. Clinkophonist (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I've responded there, but there's a major difference--nobody is proposing to write articles on individual chapters of Potter, let alone individual sentences--while I think for the Bible and Koran this could be well justified. . DGG (talk) 17:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The Qur'an is very repetitive, to hypnotic extents, and it would be a very inappropriate thing to cover it entirely on a verse-by-verse basis. That's not to say that there aren't significant verses which deserve articles of their own (like the sword verse); and even then, other significant sayings like 2:256 (...there is no compulsion in religion...) are still not given articles entirely of their own.
The Qur'an doesn't have chapters. Sura are closer to books (in biblical terminology), since they are each individually named, and have always historically been distinct units - and they don't usually relate to the following or previous sura in anything other than length - which is not true of the biblical chapters, but is often true of the biblical books. Clinkophonist (talk) 12:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of conjunctions in titles

There is an open request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization) that discusses whether or not all conjunctions in the title of a published work should be lowercased, regardless of their length. As this obviously concerns literature-related articles, input from members of this WikiProject would be much appreciated. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 00:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Point inclusion

What began as an inquiry about point inclusion on To Kill a Mockingbird has grown into a discussion of the worthiness of First Edition Points as an addition to Book articles.

My proposal: Inclusion of First Edition Points as subsections of articles or perhaps part of an infobox. Merely the basic information that would identify a true first edition from a reprint. Including an external link to a "guide" somewhere on the internet is not enough and unworthy of WP. No external link would be appropriate unless it was sponsored by a non-profit org such as the LOC or a trade group such as the ABAA. And even then there is almost no motivation for such a site to collect and provide the information for free. Sending people to a commercial internet site for general information flies in the face of everything Wikipedia stands for. How do YOU know a commercial seller's information is true and accurate? Not that there would be motive in posting false data, but there is no guaranteed and no recourse if it were incorrect. I think Wikipedia would be the ideal central location for this reference information. One of the WP goals is to make valuable information centrally available, accurate point referencing is very important. Points don't change, they are not subjective information. I live and work on a trade mailing list with hundreds of sellers, collectors and professionals and we must field at least one or two inquiries a day asking for the correct points on this title or that one. The internet is filled with many people selling books as firsts which are anything but.Having such data available on WP would assure that it was communally corrected and readily available.

one example:

[edit] Points

Number of 1st printings: 5,000 approx.; verso: "FIRST EDITION" ; DJ: $3.95 on the lower corner, no printing statement, Harper Lee's photograph on back, Truman Capote quote in green ink on the front flap, Jonathan Daniels blurb on the rear flap; Boards: brown with green cloth spine.

EraserGirl (talk) 03:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia is not a "how to" site, it's an encyclopedia. I think it's reasonable to include publication details in describing the history and production of notable books, but I think it goes beyond our purpose to try to include advice for collectors. If there are good references for this, then we could link to them. If there are no references, then we can't verify the information and would risk spreading misinformation. To use the above example, we should cast it in encyclopedic prose rather than as a checklist. Something like "The first printing of To Kill a Mockingbird consisted of 5,000 copies on brown boards with a green cloth spine. The dust jacket, designed by Shirley Smith, featured a photo of Lee taken by Truman Capote and blurbs by Capote and Jonathan Daniels. It sold originally for $3.95. The book went through many subsequent printings after winning the Pulitzer." (or something along those lines, with a reference to Cather's description [1] or a more authoritative source if there is one) --Dystopos (talk) 18:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
This isn't HOW to information or advice for collectors, these are well documented facts with references that people spend hours trying to find. However I do completely agree about rewording, in the case above the article was shy on room and I was being very restrained. I was hoping that if it were restricted to very few lines, then it would not be a large addition. I simply cannot explain the importance of this information if you have never needed to find it. Collectors would be a very tiny percent of the people who would look for it. EraserGirl (talk) 23:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
  • If the information is so critical, then surely there's a better reference than Wikipedia which we can cite and link to. --Dystopos (talk) 03:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
One would think that, but no the online sites which offer the information for free are all commercial sites. There is no motivation for the LOC or the ABAA to collate and offer the information for free. As it stands Points exist in reference books and back issues of magazines and being passed around like phone numbers of loose women. I have been selling antiquarian books for 32 years and Wikipedia IS the ideal location for this data. I am just shocked that no one has thought of it yet. EraserGirl (talk) 12:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I understand the importance, i understand the difficulty in finding them , but I think this belongs in a specialist wiki of some sort. Arent there enough collectors and dealers interested to support one? DGG (talk) 19:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Are there tools to make book stubs or fill in a book template?

Are there tools that can take a spreadsheet or database of notable books and pre-fill a stub article or at least the book template? If not, is there interest in such a tool? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] WPBooks: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 84 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] J. C. Winnington-Ingram

Does anyone have information on this figure (red-link from St Anne's Church, Soho) ? I think he/she's a mid 20th century English author, but can't find any info on him/her ? Any help greatly appreciated! Neddyseagoon - talk 11:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone subscribed to Publisher's Weekly?

Hey, I was working on getting Halo: Contact Harvest up to FA-class, and the only thing its really missing is reviews. I've been scouring the web, not finding much, but I think Publisher's Weekly has one archived on their site; the issue is, I can't read it. Does someone subscribe to the magazine who can fetch the review? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to ask also in Talk:Publishers Weekly and/or Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)? feydey (talk) 10:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Style guide for academic books?

Is there a style guide out there for academic books (that are not biographical), like Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation? If it's an academic book, and the book notability guidelines say it should be well-cited-by-others and assigned as a course text, does the article on the book need to say that it's well-cited-by-others and assigned as a course text? -Malkinann (talk) 08:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine every article should at least hint at its notability, but you can probably word it so it doesn't sound "oh yeah, here's why"- "...It has since been used as a course text for [blank]" or something similar. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks :) Can you please check the page again to see if I've done it right? -Malkinann (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Looks good, for a stub :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't actually own the book, haha. What other kinds of sections is it missing? -Malkinann (talk) 23:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure, since it's a different kind of article than most... maybe a section detailing the motivations of the writer in making it, interviews, that sort of thing? Also, content about the release of the book. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if the author's motivations count as fancruft, though? As far as I can gather, she liked comics as a child, when she was an adult, one of her students showed her Akira, she went to see the film version, was wowed, so she started writing about anime. Eventually the book came out of that. -Malkinann (talk) 01:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition

There's a merge proposal at Talk:The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition which may interest some members of this project. At issue is whether The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics and The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition should be in the same article or separate articles. If you have an opinion, please feel free to leave a message on the 2nd edition's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Getting It: The psychology of est is up at WP:FAC

Getting It: The psychology of est is up at WP:FAC, comments would be appreciated. FAC discussion page is here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Getting It: The psychology of est. Cirt (talk) 09:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The FAC nom for this was restarted. Comments would be appreciated at the FAC discussion page. Cirt (talk) 18:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Required Reading

will there be required reading sections from various colleges?

No, there won't.  Marlith (Talk)  00:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Contents/synopsis question

As the non-fiction guide seems to suggest, and as I've been doing everywhere (e.g. A Devil's Chaplain, Naturalist on the River Amazons and several others), I have added a section on the contents of the book The Cult of the Amateur. I understand that a real synopsis is better than a contents section, and that the existence of one makes such a section of little enough value to remove it, but in the absence of any such section, isn't a contents section preferable for a start? I create them with the intention that others or myself will turn it into a synopsis section (I even point this out explicitly in to-do lists sometimes). But before this happens, they at least give the reader some sort of information on what is in the book. Richard001 (talk) 06:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

In some cases its a good idea, but where the chapter titles are non-descriptive, as in this case, I do not see what it adds. DGG (talk) 03:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say non-descriptive is a fair word to use in this case, though they could certainly have been more descriptive had the author wished. Perhaps a short sentence after each chapter title would help, though I still think a section like this is better than nothing if the descriptions provide any information. Richard001 (talk) 11:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FICT

I invite all present to head on over to WP:Notability (fiction) to look over the proposed guideline, as well as to comment on it. There is currently an RfC on it. Crossposted from WT:VG. --Izno (talk) 06:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Digging up sources

Hello, all. I am trying to improve The Myst Reader, but I'm having issues with sources. Even on ProQuest, I'm just getting citations for lots of possible sources, not the full text. If anyone knows where to find these, or can find them themselves, I would greatly appreciate it. Leave me a note on my talk page. The citations (or, if have any others!):

Spoken audio for fall: Zinsser, John. Publishers Weekly. New York: Jul 29, 1996. Vol. 243, Iss. 31; pg. 43, 15 pgs

Myst: The Book of TI'ana by Robyn and Rand Miller. Simultaneous release with the Hyperion hardcover. Two cassettes, 3 hrs., $18. Two-CD package, $19.95, Nov.

Fiction -- Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand Miller and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove: Steinberg, Sybil S. Publishers Weekly. New York: Oct 16, 1995. Vol. 242, Iss. 42; pg. 46

Science fiction -- Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand Miller and others: Duncan, Melanie. The Booklist. Chicago: Nov 1, 1995. Vol. 92, Iss. 5; pg. 458

Fiction -- Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand Miller and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove: Burgess, Edwin B. Library Journal. New York: Oct 1, 1995. Vol. 120, Iss. 16; p. 120

Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 00:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)