Talk:General Relativity (book)

Removal of "Table of Contents" and "Versions" sections
Hi everyone!

An editor wants to remove the contents and versions sections of the article, citing that they are unencyclopedic / "have no value at all", as well as violates the WikiProject Books guideline WP:NONFICTION.

Upon my first look at this, I could not find anything in Manual of Style or any policies stating that book articles should not have these sections in them.

I had a look at other articles in categories like Category:Physics textbooks, and came across many other articles that also have sections covering table of contents and editions of the book, examples: 1, 2, 3.

I can make sense of these sections as it is quite a large book, covering a broad range of topics, and also, there do appear to be a number of editions of the book that are slightly different (hence the versions section).

Discussing the WikiProject Books guideline cited above in greater detail:

It does look like some of the book contents are covered in the synopsis / overview, however the overview does not cover all of them and there seem to be quite a lot more topics than what's covered there. Seeing that a majority of those individual topics listed in the contents section have articles on them, the list does appear to have encyclopedic value to my eye.

I'm making this thread as although admittedly I'm not familiar with Wikipedia articles about books, I would like some consensus to be gathered here, so this dispute can be settled. The opinions above are purely my own view of this. It's worth noting that while Wikipedia policies can't be overridden by consensus, guidelines can be.

Best regards, — AP 499D25  (talk)  03:03, 25 April 2023 (UTC)


 * According to the guidelines for articles on non-fiction books, at least some details on the publication of the book should be included. I doubt what we have here is out of the ordinary. As for giving the table of contents, it is not universally done, but is not against the guidelines either. I do not see a problem with giving the table of contents of a book. That makes it easier for the people looking for information about said book. Nerd271 (talk) 13:19, 25 April 2023 (UTC)


 * User:Nerd271 has unilaterally added regurgitations of contents and publication metadata to many articles about textbooks. Whenever other editors remove this cruft, the user simply puts it straight back in with meaningless edit summaries like "restored stable version". The guidelines state very clearly that tables of contents should not be included. It is really just common sense. Metadata that a monkey could copy and paste in adds absolutely nothing to any reader's understanding of a book. It is a pity that someone with just a few months of editing experience and no evidence of any prior interest in this topic has decided to assist an editor with a years-long history of ignoring guidelines and editing disruptively. 131.251.253.112 (talk) 16:46, 25 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Ad hominem attacks do not make your arguments stronger. Besides, many of the articles on books with tables of contents are not created by me. In most cases, I did not include the version numbers. This is a technical book. You could list the topics or you can give the table of contents. That's a good way to summarize the article of the book.
 * Did you actually read the whole thing? It says, "...Unless the list has encyclopedic value it is better to convey this in the synopsis."
 * An example which I did not create or edit a lot is Course on Theoretical Physics, which has some publication details, but no tables of contents because it is a series. An example of a book with a table of contents but few publication details is Principles of Quantum Mechanics. Further examples of books with both publication details and tables of contents are University Physics, Classical Mechanics (Kibble and Berkshire), Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Principles of Optics, Introduction to Solid State Physics, and Introduction to Elementary Particles (book). Check the histories. I did not contribute a lot to them, or even nothing at all. Nerd271 (talk) 19:25, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You can find plenty of articles containing spelling mistakes; that does not make spelling mistakes acceptable. There is simply no encyclopaedic value in regurgitating a table of contents. It is pointless. A monkey could do it, and it does not summarise anything. How many times have you reverted those who take them out with dishonest edit summaries like "restored good version" or "restored stable version"? Dozens? Hundreds? Even once would have been too many. The account which decided to support your years-long campaign of disruptive editing despite no prior interest in the topic and no familiarity with the guidelines should undo their most recent revert. 131.251.253.112 (talk) 12:34, 26 April 2023 (UTC)


 * You're making a false equivalence. Precedents are not the same as misspellings. Those can and should be fixed by anyone who spots them. Actually, modern web browsers have spell checks, so this is trivial, or, as you would say, something a monkey could be trained to do. This is about the substance of the contents.
 * Wrong! A 'stable version' is used in the sense of computer programming, the same way you use the word 'cruft'. There is encyclopedic value in discussing the contents of a book.
 * The account that decided to disagree with you can do whatever he/she wants, within the confines of the community guidelines of Wikipedia. ( Don't let this person intimidate you.) What that person did was not disruptive at all. What you did was. You took relevant contents away from an article that has been around for a long time and has received attention from multiple editors. Nerd271 (talk) 13:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that the table of contents should be maintained as I see no harm leaving them there Nagol0929 (talk) 14:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The table of contents as given here is not "exhaustive", since the TOC in the book itself breaks the chapters down into sections. The wiki-links to other articles are an indicator of topics' significance and a measure of editorial commentary. So, even following the letter of the guideline being quoted, the TOC can stay here. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 12:57, 5 May 2023 (UTC)