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Shannara

After a merge discussion, I've transformed the stand alone project to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Shannara task force. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Murder Madness and Mayhem

Just to let everyone know, a university class is in the final stretch of their attempt to get a series of novel articles up to GA and GA status. They are doing very well. Starting from scratch for the most part, they are working on:

Choose any article, if you wish, and jump right in. Some articles are at the cusp of FA, some are in GA nomination, and some are still being built up to a GA candidate. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Not me...this fellow Jbmurray (talk · contribs) is the head honcho. You ought to read his essay - User:Jbmurray/Madness - if you are interested in introducing Wikipedia into the classroom. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been pretty impressed with how effective this is. It'd be interesting to know how much time the students and teachers poured into the project. The students had never edited before. In the course of one semester they're on course to get 12 articles, some of them very important, to good and even featured status. I wonder if there are elements of this model that can be duplicated. Of course the most effective tool this professor has, his pupils' fear of bad grades, is something we won't have here.. --JayHenry (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The professor is going to publish an article in a dead-tree journal about the experience from the teaching perspective. Just from reading the bit he wrote at User:Jbmurray/Madness, it is evident that the project became time consuming. The major paper that the students were going to write was cancelled. What I found interesting was the poor sourcing skills the students had. I've read in a newspaper article somewhere that a professor who was initially against Wikipedia was won over when she realized that Wikipedia actually taught her students the skill of proper sourcing. Wikipedia isn't entirely foolish. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment. There is a bit of de-briefing going on right now. See User talk:Jbmurray#A few thoughts. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Project banner question

With the additions of the new subprojects, are there any intentions of maybe adding material to the Novels banner to accomodate the new subprojects, and if yes, what sort of "display" should the template have, that of the Australia project at Talk:Sydney, always displaying the subprojects, or that of Military history like at Talk:World War II, with an optional display? John Carter (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I was going to mimic what several projects do. I had the Biography and Film project as exemplars. In other words, there would be just one Novels Project banner with several task force parameters. Which method of banner display do people like? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please make the changes! Any task force or work group layout in the banner parameters is good. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment. I think it will be OK to make Shannara a task force too. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Not altering the existing structure of the template, the new version is at User:John Carter/Novels and it can be seen in use at User talk:John Carter/Novels. Look OK? I'll set up all the categorization later. It's also added FL class, which wasn't in the banner before. John Carter (talk) 16:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Looks great. I'm all for it. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Border Legion (Shannara)

Is it wrong to have references to the original novels themselves? (See Border Legion)...Considering that there are virtually no references to Shannara on the Internet outside of fansites, that's what I did.......Which is why I'm asking. =D the_ed17 02:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can always reference the novel itself. But, a novel is a primary source. Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Original Research are the two relevant official policies: note these are not guidelines. If you can not find any sources but the novels themselve, then it is likely the article is 'original research'. However, Terry Brooks must have plenty of secondary sources available - other than fan sites. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Google Scholar. I just did a quick search using Shannara as a key word on Google scholar. Academic articles and graduate theses have been written! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no rule against referencing the original novels, but it is not required, either. For plots and such fictional elements it is assumed that the source is the primary source. Of course, per Wikipedia:Notability, secondary sources establishing notability outside the fictional world is required and per Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) the fictional elements should not overwhelm the article. -maclean 04:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Narnia portal

One of the reasons I'm rather willing to adjust the banner for the various task forces is the fact that Portal:Narnia didn't have a selected article for April when I just now looked. I'm fairly sure there is sufficient content to make that portal a possible FP. Would the members of the project have any reservations about maybe making that one of the objectives to be listed in the April newsletter, not necessarily for this month, but maybe starting a portal review and going from there? Maybe trying to "improve" some of the related portals, and there are a lot of them, might be an objective. I could help deliver the newsletter myself, if someone could update the members count (which I don't understand) I could deliver it. John Carter (talk) 13:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. As far as I can tell, the Narnia Portal has never been properly formatted and the article of the month has never worked. There is enough content to supply articles. I've had a stab at updating member counts before and will try again. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review?

As many of you know, getting FA status is, well, difficult. Generally, it requires a good deal of ongoing consistent input from a dedicated editor. Many or most articles ain't going to get that degree of attention. I know from the biography project that assessment is useful, but A-Class review, possibly with useful commentary, would probably help this project develop articles to the point that GA or FA isn't too much of an additional step as well. The down side is very few people are interested enough or have the time to do such reviews. Would there be enough interest in reviewing for A-Class to start something similar here? John Carter (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely be interested in reviewing; I'm fairly active in reviewing articles for GA and FA as it is. :) There are very few novel articles that are at that point, however. Perhaps we should set up some kind of a action chronology: stub, start, B, Peer Review, copy-edit, GA/A...? María (habla conmigo) 13:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The film people have B-class and an A-class assessment. It isn't too involved. Someone asks "Is this B-class" and somone else says "Maybe not quite because ...". A system like that is fairly efficient. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The Biography Project does that, as well, but that's not what I was suggesting. I mean some kind of a check-list that would help members see what steps need to be taken to get to different points in an article's growth. An A-Class reviewing process could be part of that, as could an informed assessment task where people could ask for a 3rd party to assess a specific article's class status. María (habla conmigo) 15:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the WikiProject could have a more involved assessment/review system to guide motivated editors. This is where a task force may come in handy, say using the Participants listed at WP:NOVSF as a Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers contact list. --maclean 19:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Genre task forces?

I've noticed that there don't seem to be devoted groups related to some of what might be called the "minor" genres of fiction, including Westerns, Romance, Spy, Gothic, Campus and what might be called Adventure (Rafael Sabatini, and the like), and possibly one for major literary series as a whole (The Saint, Nero Wolfe, Asimov's Robots and Foundation, and the like). I'm not sure if there is sufficient interest in setting up the project banner to provide "genre" parameters to help with these subjects though. Any other opinions? John Carter (talk) 14:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Right now our genre task forces include crime, fantasy and science fiction. I'm not sure if "gothic" or "adventure" would cover a large enough ground to warrant an entire task force, but others may be worthwhile. Romance novels are huge, but how much scholarly information is available on them to write a passable Wikipedia article? María (habla conmigo) 15:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
This is probably due to the - anecdotal - demographic of Wikipedia: adolescent male Americans. On the other hand, setting up the project banner parameters with these sub-genre to fish for potential editors is a good idea. One good thing about the 'task force' or 'work group' model is that we can efficiently do this without having useless full-fledge inactive projects. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I clearly acknowledge the staggering size of the romance novel field. I'm not sure that "scholarly" information is necessarily required, though. All that would necessarily be indicated is that the volume has received reviews. Romantic Times and other magazines provide regular reviews of at least some length which should be enough to establish notability. I also note that several novels by the more prominent writers in that field, like Nora Roberts, regularly get reviewed in standard publications. I doubt very seriously that even a large percentage of the total volumes would qualify for articles, but the percentage that do might be enough to start such a group. John Carter (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the current task forces do much anyway. A few questions get directed to their talk page every now and then, which are almost always answered by Kevinalewis. Unless someone is volunteering to lead (or 'coordinate') the task force, new ones probably shouldn't be created. --maclean 19:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The one advantage to having them, although it might not be enough to merit their creation, is that they would give editors who do have a specific interest in a given topic a quick and easy way to find other articles of roughly equivalent quality, if that's what they like working on. But such parties would have a real use for seperate statistics, if there's enough reason for the groups to be created. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
And, pre-emptive task force creation would stop the creation of one more inactive Wikiproject! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
One thing that would definitely make all the task forces more effective would be if they were to have at least quality assessments relative to each group, which they currently don't. Would the rest of you favor adjusting the banner for that as well. It'll make the bloody thing a lot bigger, but it would also be more useful that way. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, separate assessments would be a good thing. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It's doable, but it might take a while. Maybe a week. Mind you, I said that about the project directory about four months ago too, but this time I really mean it. John Carter (talk) 22:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Hey, this is a hobby! Whenever you do it is good. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 22:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The banner is set up, with all the categories, a bit earlier than I expected, and can be shown in use at User talk:John Carter/Novels. Requesting go-ahead to replace current banner with it. 14:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, go ahead. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Member count

Anyone know how to activate the bot to do the category count at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Members/StatsGraph. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Australia task force

I removed the Australia task force from the main page. It was folded into the Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian literature. --maclean 04:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. So the Australian task force is to go. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
An admin will also need to remove the "Australian task force" parameter from the {{NovelsWikiProject}} banner, along with the relevant information in the template's "Usage" section. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 12:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Alternately, I could retain it in the Novels banner, and set it up so that an assessment for that banner also provides assessment for Australia as well. I've left a message on that project's talk page to that effect as well. I'll act on whatever they say there. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The Australian task force does not need to go; it is a "feed" into the literature project and advertising the task force and the project are one and the same. Work being done for less thatn no reason. Let's cooperate here rather than fight needlessly. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Debbie

Hello everybody, my name is Debbie, and I'm glad to join your community ))

Proposed merger with WikiProject Sword of Truth

The above named project is tagged as inactive, and has a scope which already pretty explicitly falls within the scope of this project. I would Support a merger. John Carter (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge. Basically, if it is inactive and fits with the novel project we should make like pirates and take it. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 00:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Support AlmightyClam 17:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Support - seems entirely reasonable. Aleta Sing 12:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Suggestion : As the Sword of Truth is a Fantasy series, i would suggest that it merges into Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Fantasy task force group rather than just into the Novels Project, as there would be more interest from the Fantasy Task Force in handling that series. Boylo (talk) 08:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Support : I'm with Boylo, merge it with the Fantasy task force.--Tdh5609 (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Support either, with emphasis on the latter. However to my anal-retentive way of opining and organizing... any and EVERY book related project is really a sub-project of Wikiproject Novels. People don't have to participate in the broader fora, but standards can and should be set here for all literature related article matters. It's not like I get to these talks often, save for an occasional blue moon occurrence, but... that's the point. All the work I do on 1632 series I consider to be under the overall guidelines of this community. And that, besides the fact that the preponderance of writing in the 1632 series has for (by my estimate) three years now been shared universe collaborative fiction anthologies... which makes the whole an odd fit indeed at times! <g> I simply don't have enough time monitor talks or work on articles. So what little time I can and do spend on wikipedia these daze goes to articles first—as it should. Moreover, when I tentatively tried reviving Wikiproject series some years back, I considered that as a Novels sub-project. I'm just not good enough with talk-talk time or watching my watchlist to hash out the guidelines too. It takes too much effort to phrase things well to expend much of that husbanded energy doing that too. Besides, there's always WP:IAR when something doesn't fit! Like considering all related projects [de facto]] sub-projects, whether they likee it or notee! Cheers! // FrankB 03:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Population of category

There's an old request to populate the Category:Science fantasy. Anyone who can do so should feel free to do so. John Carter (talk) 17:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

  • The question, of course, is what constitutes "science fantasy". It's an old argument, and you find folks arguing it on all sides, from those who feel anything remotely fantastical deserves to be science fiction, to those who feel science fiction should be restricted to science textbooks with plot. I don't actually hear the term "science fantasy" used that much anymore, as the last 20-30 years the movement has tended to be to lump everything from Foundation to Star Wars under "science fiction". 23skidoo (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. We do have the Science fantasy page which gives some indications, though. My best guess would be that anything which has been called Science fantasy is science fantasy. I'm searching some Masterplots now, and I'll check Genreflecting and others later. Do you think anyone would object to my placing the articles either of them calls Science fantasy into the category? John Carter (talk) 22:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
No! Go ahead. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 23:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Specific importance rankings for subprojects?

I know that this can be a potentially divisive matter, and somewhat hesitate to mention it. However, the project banner now includes the possibility of separate assessments for importance for the main project and each of the other subprojects which use the banner. I think it might help draw a bit of attention to the various subprojects if they, like the main project did some time ago, created a page where consensus regarding the importance rankings for that group could be established. Also, it might help draw a bit of attention to what seems to me to be the often regrettable lack of content relating to certain particular subjects. As I remember, Oliver Onions' story "The Beckoning Fair One" is counted as being one of the most important short stories of the horror genre, and has a separate four-page entry in the Masterplots short story books. We still don't have an article on it. Any stories or novels which qualify as "top" importance within a given field would probably get at least a bit more attention from the members of that subproject, which wouldn't hurt. Also, it might help prompt greater discussion regarding the separate subprojects in general. Anyway, just a thought. John Carter (talk) 16:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

You raise very good points. I have been using the task force / subproject assessment parameter. However, this still has to be implemented fully. Hopefully, it will be. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Category lists

One thing that can be a bit of a problem is keeping up with new articles created. It is possible to place a bot request to tag all articles that fall in a given set of categories for a given project, thus allowing the group to keep up with the articles created. I've created a list of subcategories of the four genre projects at User:John Carter/Novels. If anyone wants to review the list to see if they think any of the categories don't qualify, and we can send the final list out for automatic tagging. John Carter (talk) 00:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. I was actually thinking about this today...strange. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:55, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for assistance and cleanup at List of species in Redwall

List of Species in Redwall is an article that gets very little attention outside fans of the series. While I believe the article is notable as per WP:FICT, the article is currently a morass of indiscriminate info. I've tried to clean it up, but I've run out of ideas on what to do with it and am involved in some other stuff now. I thought I would bring it to the project's attention in case there was anyone with the inclination to give pointer, guidelines, or just plain old step in and help. McJeff (talk) 01:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way to remove indiscriminate info is to title the article so that it naturally defines a boundary. I would rename it - at least - to something like List of the main continuing species in Redwall so that only the major characters that feature in more than one book are included. As it is, one mention and some one is going to edit war. Insist on sources other than the books. This should not be hard to do. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 13:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiSummaries

I came across an editor who just added an external link to WikiSummaries (a wiki comprised of novel summaries), to a number of Wikipedia novel articles. Aside from spamlink issues (the WP editor has edited a number of the WikiSummaries articles), I don't think a link to an unvetted, unsupervised website containing very detailed plot summaries that seem to violate Wikipedia's fiction Fair Use policy is desirable on WP fiction articles.

The website has no policies or guidelines regarding contributions, so there's no assurance of avoiding in-universe problems. Also, the summaries contain no sourced analysis or much real-world perspective. Of additional interest, is that the website has a drive on to link its articles to Wikipedia's novel articles. It even has an assignment list for its editors to check off as links are made. Here's the pitch:

Wikipedia has many, many articles on books, but virtually none of them have detailed summaries of the books' individual chapters. Below is a list of the articles where WikiSummaries may compliment Wikipedia. If you feel that the readers of a listed Wikipedia article could benefit further by WikiSummaries then copy the line of code provided, go to the appropriate Wikipedia page (which will be linked on this page) and paste it in that articles "External Links" section. When you do that, then please return to this page and remove the link from the list.

I started reverting the links, but stopped to obtain some other viewpoints.
Jim Dunning | talk 00:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Grey Griffins Task Force

I think it would be great to have a Grey Griffins task force to expand the huge world of the Grey Griffins in general(Including TCG and artciles about creatures featured throughout the books). If i can get some fellow Grey Griffin fans to reply we may be able to work together to start a new task force. King Rock Go 'Skins! 00:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It's possible. The easiest way is to build up an article. Acivity attracts other interested editors. So, if you can get an article to GA and then to FA status, you might find enough fans to build an active task force. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Update: Grey Griffins now B class King Rock Go 'Skins! 05:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The citation of a Novel's appearence in a collection.

Several articles, among which Lilith (Novel) is one, cite prominantly their appearence certain (later) collections. It seems to me that this debases the work's importance in favor of the importance of the collection. Is there a pollice on this? Any thoughts? An extended discussion of the merits and problems of this practice appears on the discussion page of Lilith.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.245.57.35 (talk • contribs)

There is no policy in place that puts preference over an original publication or any subsequential publications, or vice versa. It's not uncommon that a work becomes more popular after additional publication in a collection, and I do not think that assertion (as long as it's factually correct) is an issue of WP:POV, which I believe you're making a case for. However, the addition of any such statement referring to notability and importance requires a citation from a reliable source. The sentence in question, "Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fifth volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in September, 1969" requires verification per WP:V. I've added a {{fact}} tag as a reminder to the primary editors that a citation is needed. María (habla conmigo) 16:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the rapid response. I have a quesiton. If I can show that Hamlet has sold more copies in a Dover Publication than any other, would this then warrent me mentioning in the article on Hamlet that "Its importance was recognized after its apperence in the Dover Thrift series"? Or, is it the case that whatever edition of the Bible has been the most distributed is then de facto deserving of a similar note? I am simply making a case for a standard of merit rather then mere factual accuracy.

You're making a straw man argument; let's just concentrate on the subject matter at hand: Lilith, for which a source apparently exists that can demonstrate a reawakening of interest in the novel after it was published by Dover. Perhaps it's not worded entirely accurately in the article, but the fact is definitely notable if it can be reliably sourced. The article is sparse on publication information as it is, so perhaps more background on its initial release and reception would help but things into context. There is no standard of merit in regards to such things, only what is notable and what can be sourced. :) María (habla conmigo) 01:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually I am not making a straw man argument. I am in no way misrepresenting my opponent's position. I aknowledge my opponent's have taken up two positions: first they claimed that adding the note about Lilith's apperence in the Ballintine Adult Fantasy Series shows the importance of Lilith (novel). When I explained that important novels (or works) do not benifit from such citation notes, then my opponent's line of arguemnt changed and they claimed that Lilith (novel) did in fact need such a citation , as it was not important enough to stand alone. So my resonses to my opponent's positions have taken two forms. The first was an argument on principle (i.e. the connection between the importance of a work and its appearence in a collection). In order to make this point I tried to take cases which were very clear (i.e. Hamlet, The Bible). If we can look at these cases and see how we are inclined to act in such cases then we can analogusly figure out how to act appropreatly in less clear cases, such as that of Lilith (novel). This could be called arguing from the greater to the less, or arguing from extrapolation, or arguing from the logical extent of a dicision, but it is not a straw man argument (particularly as the moving parts of the arguemnt do not even address my opponent's position). My response to the second line of argument given is not principaled but factual/historical. Whether or not Lilith had been "forgotten" before its appearence in the Ballentine collection is a matter of research. Indeed part of this work has been done by one of my opponent's locating of the publication history of Lilith (novel). This is a step in the right direction, but I do not think that it is conclusive. I think that there are other ways to check the status of the novel in the public consciousness, and I am busy looking into those. Certainly what I said was correct that the popularity if Chesterton, Tollkin, and Lewis has helped to keep the novel arround. This line of argument is a lot of things but it is also not a straw man. It might be the case that this discussion has just gone on too long, and that I am out voted, yet I do not want my positions to be mischaracterized. In my opinion, this is just the kind of issue that strikes at the heart of what a project like Wikipedia can do. The resolution of such concerns will reveal the limits of what a democratic baised knowledge project can do. That is not to say that the issue should be resolved here and now, but that the discussion is worth having.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.245.57.35 (talk • contribs)

There has been a reliable reference added to the statement in question. Again, it may need to be reworded and expanded upon (the article is barely a Start as it is), but it has been established that the assertion is verifiable. Further comments regarding research for the article would better belong on the article's talk page, I believe. María (habla conmigo) 13:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Not good

This is very very bad or at least it is to me. Orange Mike a very good admin has decided that the Fall of the Templar is non-notable and so are the other books of the grey hrif series. Tell me if i'm wrong here, but if you think Orange Mike is wrong contest the first of the three deletions at The Fall of the Templar page King Rock Go 'Skins! 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

To keep the article from being deleted, my advice would be to put all the individual articles into one good article. Don't have an article for each book. And, most important, you must find references. I've added two book reviews for this particular book. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Good article icon

A proposal to add a symbol identifying Good Articles in a similar manner to Featured ones is being discussed: see Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Proposal. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

GA Nom for Grey Griffins

Grey Griffins has been nominated for GA status, please help edit the article quickly before the assesment starts and add your comments to the assesment. King Rock Go 'Skins! 18:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Although your enthusiasm is clear, the nomination was premature; I don't think the article will be promoted to GA status at this time. There simply is not enough information to make it comprehensive, especially in regards to out-of-universe details. I still do not see an assertion of notability/importance and there is only one reference used for multiple citations -- everything comes from the same website. You may wish to withdraw the nomination to work on the article further. Perhaps you should look at current novels-related GAs such as A Canticle for Leibowitz or Eldest for inspiration. More time and experience will help. María (habla conmigo) 20:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Grey Griffins/archive1

Please leave some advice at the Grey Griffins peer review page so that i can kniw what I must do to get the article to GA status. King Rock Go 'Skins! 21:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT proposal relating to Plotlines

I haven't seen this mentioned here, but there's yet another discussion going on at WP:NOT here which is basically a variation of the old "unless it's Moby Dick we don't want to hear about it on Wikipedia". Incidentally, while skimming the debate I see that the article on Winston Smith - a major character in 20th Century literature - somehow fails WP:NOT and as such might be merged with another article. Just a heads up for anyone who wants to try and rescue it. 23skidoo (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I've made a few comments. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Assessment requests and quality scale

I've recently taken Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Assessment under my wing and have noticed the assessment request section receives a fair amount of traffic. I get the feeling, however, that most of the users who submit articles they have worked on for reassessment are fairly new and unable to grasp what makes a novel article Stub, Start or B. The run-of-the-mill Quality scale does not use novel articles for examples, nor are the descriptions tailored for works of fiction. I also feel the prose is a little too wordy and confusing for new users.

Therefore, I propose a reworking of the scale, using novel articles as specific examples as well as describing what is expected at each stage. Because others may have different views of what makes a certain quality of article, here is some brainstorming for what I had in mind as far as specific criteria:

  • Stub: Very short article that may or may not lack references to reliable, secondary sources. Has little context/few headings; may only be a short plot summary. Usually missing an infobox/book cover, but not always. (Example: Fall on Your Knees)
  • Start: Longer than a Stub, with varying use of section headers, but is weak in areas. May be strong on plot and character details, but missing key out-of-universe elements such as critical reception and thematic elements. May or may not lack references to reliable, secondary sources. (Example: Pop Goes the Weasel (novel))
  • B: Includes the majority of material needed for a comprehensive novel article, including in- and out-of-universe details listed above. Must include some references and inline citations from reliable, secondary sources; at least a minimal amount. May still require clean-up, balance of content and references. (Example: Life of Pi)

Thoughts/suggestions? María (habla conmigo) 17:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

This sounds good. After looking at random samples, this seems to be a pragmatic progression that matches how novel articles develop. My only suggestion is to strengthen B-class' requirement for sources. Perhaps drop the "at least a minimal amount" or perhaps up "some references" to "numerous references" maclean 00:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
The problem with strengthening the requirements for B-class (which I personally very much support) is that there are a ton of current B-class novel articles with no, or merely one or two, sources. I came across this issue while looking for examples by rifling through the categories; I came across five or misses before finding Life of Pi. If it were to be made more stringent, would we have to go on a re-assessment bender to right these wrongs? Setting examples, etc.? María (habla conmigo) 01:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Good point. B-class covers a wide diversity of article structures - everything from somewhat developed to successful GA. We should probably go with the flow rather than fight an unending battle over a coloured square on the talk page. Though we should also keep raising our expectations and enforcement as the prevailing standards rise wikipedia-wide. I would not be in favour of a re-assessment drive (that is just paper shuffling) but something that would benefit the article and future writers would be to add to the reference sections the results of potential sources from a quick google search - though adding footnotes would be extraordinarily time-consuming. --maclean 06:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Something that some larger project do is establish "basic" criteria for assessing articles. ie. those factors which define what should be included in an article for it to qualify for "Start" and what is should have to qualify for "B" etc. I belive "Film" is one of these projects and it would help editors to know what is expected for each class and assessors to better gain consistency in assessment. Such project even have check lists which appear in their talkpage Project Banners to point editor in the direction of the "next" items that could do with adding. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I know that two projects which do so are WP:MILHIST and WP:GREECE. Also, for what it's worth, there is currently a proposal that the criteria for various assessments be changed, at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Overhaul and rewrite of the assessment scheme. Anyone interested in perhaps having some input on the basic assessment criteria is more than welcome to indicate such interest there. John Carter (talk) 14:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Public Reception in Novel articles

I am fairly new to wikipedia and in reviewing WP:NOVPR, I ended up looking at Earth Abides, and in this article there is a Public reaction section where an overview of the book reviews on amazon.com are given with some snippets of specific reviews comments entered into the article. This seemed to me to be a reasonable section for a novel article to give an overview of the public reaction to a book. I recently read Children of God (novel) so I created a similar section in that article which was reverted today [1] with the comment "a mere internet discussion forum like the Amazon reviews board would not qualify for being used in Wikipedia." So I am here looking for some opinions on whether a Public reaction section like the one in Earth Abides is suitable for inclusion in an novel article. Thanks --Captain-tucker (talk) 16:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A very good question, and fortuitous that you ask because Earth Abides is currently up for Peer Review here at Novels WikiProject. :) One of my comments at its PR was to point out its erroneous use of reviews from Amazon as sources; basically, user reviews from a discussion-board based site like Amazon do not constitute reliable sources. In order for a source to be reliable on Wikipedia, it must be from a reputable source; the average Joe on Amazon.com does not a reputable source make. Although a section dedicated to critical reception is a great idea, and highly encouraged, you should look for other references (and so should the main editors at Earth Abides, for that matter). You can search the New York Times archives or findarticles.com for book reviews, or I tend to just start with a basic Google search and wait until a notable magazine or newspaper review pops up. In short, rely on policy and/or guideline, not other articles, for guidance in the future. I hope this helps! María (habla conmigo) 17:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I found that in WP:NOVSTY it does say "Quotes from users on Amazon.com and blogs do not count, as these are self-published". Thanks! --Captain-tucker (talk) 01:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
However as blogs - the prime example of self-publishing on the Net - become increasingly sources of record for the media, I feel this policy may need to be revisited or updated in some way, at least as far as blogs are concerned. I'm less convinced regarding Amazon and IMDb reviews also though I know for a fact there are professional writers who use them as their chosen venue. However I also know of Amazon reviews that have been posted as joe job-style attacks, too. But in terms of blogs that's an area that needs to be updated. An example is that Harry Potter Lexicon fansite/blog that got into trouble with JK Rowling because it was going to be published. Reportedly the book was just going to be a verbatim reprint of the site, so does that make the site any more a reliable source simply because it becomes a book? 23skidoo (talk) 13:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

What I'm reading

Hey, all! Why not update your entries on Wikipedia:What I am reading at the moment? Deb (talk) 19:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that list is really out of order! :) I don't know where to add mine... is it newer ones at the top? María (habla conmigo) 20:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I added mine at the bottom, but I've no idea if that's correct. Deb (talk) 20:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
It has been disorganised from even it's earliest days. My personal belief is that is should be alpha by editor identity. Then there is no ambiguity where you add "your" own reading. It just needs someone to re-organise it and document a new way of working on it. 08:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Right, I was also thinking that alphabetically would be the way to go. I'll see if I can rework the instructions and reorder everything. María (habla conmigo) 12:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Done with re-formatting; I used subheaders to make the usernames stand out more, and added a subscript with a timestamp so people can easily come back and update their entries if they wish. I also added the 5-star scale instructions at the top, since users may want to rate the books they have read. What do think? María (habla conmigo) 13:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, very nice job - even better than I imagined it - I trust editors will like the new format and make plenty of use of it now. I think it is so much easier to follow. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 14:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I know I am. I never even knew this existed until just now! 23skidoo (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Maybe a good idea to mention it in the next Novels WikiProject Newsletter, made a post to editors about it. Also there was a Wikipedia:Wikipedia Book Club but it has now became inactive. Boylo (talk) 06:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Although technically both the Book Club and the "What I'm reading" list are not regulated by WP:NOVELS, I don't think it would hurt to mention either/or in the Newsletter. They're fun! :) I'll suggest it when I get a chance. María (habla conmigo) 03:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for peer review on Nero Wolfe article

I have recently requested a peer review on the Nero Wolfe article. Any and all input on what the article might need to help get it to GA, and then maybe FA, would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 14:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bots

Thought you all might be interested in maybe getting Igor and maybe another bot that generates a list of all the articles tagged by a given project with quality tags here. John Carter (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Grey Griffins (book series)

This article is currently under GAN, anyone and everyone is welcome to review the article(see notes on GAN page for reason why the article has been nominated. King Rock Go 'Skins! 02:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Great Gatsby cover

The article says Xavier Cugat did the cover. It was not. IT was his brother Francis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.111.126 (talk • contribs) 14:36, 16 May 2008

Two novel articles currently at WP:FAC

I'm going to periodically report current Featured and Good Article nominations. Hopefully, these notices will alert interested members of where reviewers/commentators are needed in regards to potentially higher-quality articles within our project. Anyone can comment during these reviewing processes, but be aware that this isn't a vote; articles are being judged according to specific criteria, so please do your homework first! See the Featured article criteria page for more info.

Current novel-related Featured Article candidates:

María (habla conmigo) 15:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Problem in "Part Two"

There is mention with the obsession with the taking of revenge with the Officer by walking down the street and having to move around him. In fact what the "Underground Man" does is CLose His Eyes while walking toward the Officer and the officer does not not notice but he had moved aside for the Underground Man. Thus symbolizing the lack of awareness(consciousness) by the closing of the eyes, as reason for the ability hold steady in his path.

If you a bumping taking place - which you have described - please let me know of the translation.

jisaacflores@hotmail.com

Historical Fiction Task Force

I think that a historical fiction task force would be a great thing and have submitted a request for it on the appropriate page. If you agree with me, please document your support on said page. Thanks, The man in the mask (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me, but where exactly is said page? Dozenthey (talk) 23:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
The proposal for the task force can be found here. – Liveste (talk • edits) 23:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I re-started the Historical fiction article a little while back and it's become more of a list than I had intended. If anyone wants to work on improving it, feel free. Hewinsj (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The Shakespeare Stealer

There was severe vandalism to the plot summary section of the article on Gary Blackwell's novel, The Shakespeare Stealer. I have reverted the article to an earlier version, but the plot summary is incomplete. I am on a vandalism patrol right now and do not have time to rewrite the article. I would be most appreciative of anyone who would improve the aforementioned section.

Literary magazines

I notice that literary magazines such as Lapham's Quarterly, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement are not being covered by any projects. Maybe they should be added under one of our projects, but which one ? Boylo (talk) 05:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hm, that's a good question. Literary magazines that contain fiction works (short stories, excerpts from books, etc) would potentially fall under our project, but literary reviews, criticism and other scholarly-related magazines are out of our scope, I should think. It would be difficult to separate lit magazines depending on their content, since some magazines do a little of everything, so I'm lost as to what to do. Any suggestions, guys? María (habla conmigo) 14:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
My guess, and it is just a guess, would be to leave the magazines themselves to Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature, but any specific entries related to fictional works within those magazines would reasonably covered by this project or one of its subprojects. John Carter (talk) 18:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Short story without an infobox Cat.

Is there any chance we could get a Category like this made? Right now they are all in the Cat: novel articles without infoboxes. Novel infoboxes and short story infoboxes while they share many of the same things are completely different beasts to research and get information for. The short story infoboxes being much harder and taking much longer. It would help in pruning down the amount of work in the novel category if we could do this Thanxs Jask99 (talk) 03:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Couple of questions

  1. When listing the publisher in the infobox do we use the imprint or the actual publisher. eg HarperVoyager or HarperCollins?
  2. How long should a bibliography be before it should be split off onto its own page?

Salavat (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

1. I have been using imprints in the infobox. 2. There is no limit for a bibliography, just use your editorial judgement. While Wikipedia:Featured lists don't explicitedly set a minimum, they have rejected lists of 2 (here). There are two categories of bibliographies Category:Bibliographies by subject & Category:Bibliographies by author to browse for ideas. maclean 17:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for response, i might change to using imprints myself then. So for example do you think the published works section by Gary Paulsen is too long? Salavat (talk) 14:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I would vote yes but that's me. Here take a look at the Nora Roberts article. They put her published works on a separate Bibliopage page and linked it down in that section. Good Luck! Jask99 (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, might organize that list soon then, and the list should it be organized by year? If so ill use that list of Nora Roberts as a guideline. Salavat (talk) 16:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
According to WP:LOW: "Items should be listed in chronological order of production, earliest first." As for listing imprints vs. publisher in the infobox, I tend to list the imprint but link to the publisher since notable publishers tend to have Wiki articles, but most imprints do not. Using your example, I'd put [[HarperCollins|HarperVoyager]]. María (habla conmigo) 18:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your helpful answers. Salavat (talk) 02:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
The imprint is usual for bibliographic purposes; the various imprints generally indicate editorial divisions with well-known standards. In fiction, its particularly relevant, since they sometimes indicate particular editors.DGG (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

RFC on WP:FICT

A request for comment has been made to determine if the Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) proposal has consensus. Since this project deals with many fictional topics, I am commenting here. Input on the proposal is welcome here. --Pixelface (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 3675 articles assigned to this project, or 18.2%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful idea! can someone make sure this happens or if not I'll put the list in a sandbox to work on Jask99 (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I just asked if he would make us up a list now we just need to put a link to it somewhere after he finishes it. Jask99 (talk) 03:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The listing can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Cleanup listing and the link is posted at the bottom of the main page. This is very helpful! I hope to do some much needed cleaning up and encourage others to do the same. :) María (habla conmigo) 12:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Novel series

I recently created a new infobox for novel series, as I was not satisfied with Infobox Book series. While this two templates overlap somewhat, I wanted to have a template that was much more consistent with Infobox Book. I also didn't think I could edit Infobox Book series without disrupting a lot of pages, and I did notice that it was in some cases used for graphic novels and comic books (which, incidentally, should probably use Infobox Graphic novel).

Any comments or suggestions for improvement are welcome. Mr. Absurd (talk) 03:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I like it except for the line about listing all the books. That just seems to make it weird for me, especially if the series has a lot of books in it. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 13:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Id have to agree with Zombie Hunter. Some series have alot of books in them eg Goosebumps. Salavat (talk) 15:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

New "C" assessment class added

In case anyone has missed the news, a new quality class has been added to the assessment scheme. As per Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-23/Dispatches, there are now five levels for quality assessment, C being the newest addition:

  • Stub – a basic description in a paragraph or two;
  • Start – an article that is developing, but is quite incomplete and lacks reliable sources;
  • C – an article that is moderately complete, but lacks sources or contains cleanup tags;
  • B – an article that is mostly complete, without POV or other major cleanup issues, but which requires further work to reach Good Article standards;
  • A – an article that is organized well and is essentially complete, but needs style issues addressed before submission as a featured article candidate).

These changes will affect new assessments within this WikiProject in the future. Please feel free to reassess articles accordingly. If you are not sure about an article's class or importance rating, you can always list it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Assessment. Thanks! María (habla conmigo) 14:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

A book-specific table?

Hi, guys. I've recently added a table to the "Book releases" section of Private (novel series). I'm really liking it so far, but the only problem is that I had to use a television "Episode list" table due to there apparently not being one for our medium. This forces the titles to be displayed in quotation marks instead of italics.

I'd simply use a normal table, but I couldn't find one that allows for story descriptions to be included beneath the other info the way that the television table does.

I was wondering if anyone else might be interested in having a book table created, and who we might talk to in regards to such a thing. James26 (talk) 18:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)18:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice innovation. I've noticed a few of these novel-series article struggling to take shape. Good work. If your looking for feedback, I'd say that the CAN release date isn't very important (I am Canadian), neither is the Narrative # (there is only one deviation here: a prequel). Also, I'm more interested in the 'peak' bestseller position (or #weeks in the top 10), rather than its debut spot. The ISBN would be nice because those link to that useful 'Book sources' page. ÷maclean 19:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your nice words, maclean, as well as the suggestions. I suppose I'll change "debut position" to "peak position." I agree that Canadian debut dates seem redundant now that the section has been converted into a table. I think I'll keep the Narrative # section, as the prequels and spin-off books may become slightly more abundant.
Anyway, do you think we should have a book-specific table? James26 (talk) 21:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think we should have a book-specific table. We can start by copy and pasting the episode code and make the necessary adjustments, as you've illustrated in the article. This table looks fine to me aesthetics-wise (but I don't have a good eye for that design kind of thing). maclean 06:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I've just launched the Jaz Parks series article, and this time I used a regular table I came across. This also works nicely, except there doesn't appear to be an option to change the colouring (helpful when distinguishing between arcs). Or is there and am I just missing something?
I still think a book-specific table would be nice, but this regular one I've found seems to work well-enough apart from the apparent colouring issue. --James26 (talk) 08:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an expert at tables or wikimarkup by any means, but I've tried to combine the styles of both tables you've used at my sandbox. Was this like what you had in mind? Colors can be changed/added according to taste, but this is a rather simple table that can be altered depending on the needs of a particular article. María (habla conmigo) 18:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your contribution. It simply appears that there's no way to change the line colour midway through (as with the episode table in the Private article), in order to distinguish between arcs/volumes. I do suppose, however, that for the moment, one could simply use a new header with different colouring when there's an arc change. This is due to the work you've done here, so thanks again. --James26 (talk) 13:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Added the new table system to the Private article. It's a valued improvement. --James26 (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Order of articles

Perhaps some folks would like to weigh in on (and may have missed) this discussion at the style guidelines page? – Scartol • Tok 16:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

No longer a stub

I've just got round to expanding Dead Famous (novel) so it is no longer a stub. It's currently rated as a stub on its talk page. How do I change its rating? Just edit the talk page or is it more complicated? -- Escape Artist Swyer Talk to me The mess I've made 19:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

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