Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books/Archive 1

Use of ISBD
It started off with this question:

If you were to put up a proposal (or the start of a discussion) for using the International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD (in some form or other) or some other standard for getting a good handle on articles which describe books, where would you place it? I was thinking of putting it on the WikiProject Novels discussion page since the Infobox controversy for books was indrectly discussed there. I would announce it elsewhere too. But where? The appearance of a book-related Infobox in the article onComics and Sequential Art got me started on this path, along with a recent flowering of articles related to book collecting. In a sense, my putting together the ISBD article a few hours ago, with parts from the Catalog article was my first step towards this. AlainV 07:04, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)

Then:

There really should be a WikiProject Books as a parent project of Novels, Comics and other literary Wikiprojects. And you wrote a good article on ISBD. However, I'm hesitant to require an ISBD in all book articles. Requiring too much formatting might kill WikiProject Books just as people are reluctant to contribute to Wiktionary -- it would place all the burden of researching the info for each book on the few people (you and me?) who know ISBD format well enough. If you want a standard description in the Infobox, then show them how to cite the book for a bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style which more people know how to write -- and so those who don't know can learn. GUllman 17:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I just know something should be done but not how. At least not yet. I am thinking about it as I scour the incoming articles, correct typos, make links on those I read (not all of them) and (just recently since I discovered that book list just 2 weeks ago, after 6 months of editing in here) make entries for the book related articles

I just know for sure a couple of things that should not even be dreamed of being done. You pointed out the first one to avoid: Requiring an ISBD in all book articles. After reading the relatively old posts on Wikiproject Novels I realized also that quite a few persons will always hate an Infobox because of the space it takes and its garishness, so I would not think of requiring it, even if I think the garishness and the obtrusiveness could be limited by the application of some simple usability heuristics (the use of pastel colors for backgrounds and the elimination of solid lines around the box for instance) and the space issue could be resolved by technical means like the ones used for the automatic table of contents box, which users/editors can make invisible in their preferences. Too bad getting such an Infobox together is so difficult because one of the advantages of being Web based is making full use of colors, shapes and automatic appearance or disappearance of such things according to user/editor preference.

The advantage of the ISBD is that it is much more flexible than citation styles and that there are examples of it all over the Web, in Web based catalogs, in numbers greater than any citation style. But I would not expect the majority of the editors to use something known as the ISBD. I would opt for a Wikipedia variation of the ISBD and I would not even call it ISBD. The problem with The Chicago style for citations is that it is meant just for citations and does not have provisions for being used as a general bibliographic description for such purposes as general info for potential book buyers (with a lot on the distributors like in the Comics and Sequential Art article) or publication history for book lovers like in the English-language editions of The Hobbit article. Worse of all the Chicago manual is not open source.

But in the end, if the Chicago style is the simplest answer because it is in a certain way there already in Cite your sources and because we have somebody like Stevenj who seems to believe in it, the real problem is access and convenience. Some people have other guides for citation style at home. Others have none. So how can we even adapt it? If we could adapt it or some other open source, Web-available citation guide then I could, (or _we_ could) do a thorough "reference librarian" makeover of the tool, giving it many pages/articles at different levels of difficulty and for different audiences, with different numbers of examples. AlainV 02:49, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)


 * The ISBD style is not too hard, so I would be tempted to encourage (a modified version of) it for books that fit into the project. It probably belongs in a box of some sort - at the bottom of the page.  This avoids distracting the reader who just wants to know something about the book, and it avoids people feeling like it's too difficult to add a new book (books without it don't look badly wrong).  --Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

I am not sure about the usefulness of a box at the bottom. See below AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

- A suggestion that I have found useful: for books that are available online (Project Gutenberg or other etext, say) a link to one or more online copies is extremely convenient. Especially for Project Gutenberg books, there is no convenient way to find out much about the book before reading it (usually not even as much as appear on the back cover of a paperback) so I'd rather find my books here. No reason that a list of books with full text online couldn't serve as a bookstore... --Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, giving the metadata useful for picking ebooks fron the Gutenberg collection or other open source text archives would be nice, but I would not want book entries or lists in Wikipedia to be just that given the unpredictable nature of external links. If the links were trustable then the Wikipedia entries could become a combination of an online public access catalog and Amazon book descriptions and reviews for the open source books. But in theory at least a book is worth an encyclopedia entry becasue there is something lasting or significant about it in human History or in its immediate impact on society. So. it should be more than an enticing book review or a useful warning, and the structure of the template should take this into account. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

Also: are audio books included? --Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Sure, audio books should be included, but the question is do we make a separate multimedia template, or do we accomodate them within the ISBD(G) or one of the specialized ISBD media templates ? Both are valid. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

What's the fair use situation on book covers? If I own a paper book, can I scan the cover and post a low-resolution picture on the book page? That would be really nice... --Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

We were discussing just that on the web4lib list ( a list for reference librarians who use the web a lot) and the upshot was that even though cases like Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation seem to consider thumbnails to be some form of fair use and the libraries own the books whose thumbnails they would be posting, nobody wanted to risk being sued by just one disgruntled artist or publisher or author. The thing is that when we are dealing with a library there are potentially hundreds of thousand or more of those thumbnails, which greatly heightens the chance of a suit or some other legal attack at some point. Many artists and illustrators sell only partial and very limited rights to a publisher for using their illustration as a book cover. In addition, there is a company in Washington state which specialises in selling (among other things) thumbnails of books, for use as metadata in a library's digital [catalog]] or OPAC. They have negotiated the rights with the publishers, one by one. Given this presence in the marketplace I doubt the publishers (or the lawyers of the ilustrators) would all smile upon Wikipedia producing thumbnails or other images. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

I made two articles on books as an example of a possible template exploiting the table of contents feature:


 * Control of Communicable Diseases Manual
 * David Starr, Space Ranger

I thought that this would be a way to go around the objections some have made of using an Infobox, while at the same time giving a summary of the info. You can always click a table contents off or choose never to see them. Anybody have other ideas for this? AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

If you have no objections, or some reasons why not, I would like to split the WikiProject Mass Market and Genre Fiction Simonides added in two: WikiProject Mass Market and Wikiproject Genre Fiction, with both of them as direct descendants of WikiProject Books. I know from experience with science fiction that genre fiction can be a monster, even when the genre is not fantasy, where truly there be real monsters. Also I know that there is science fiction which is straight genre and mass market and other science fiction which is genre but not mass market, and still other like the works of Jules Verne or HG Wells which is canonical. Splitting the genre fiction from the mass market fiction makes regroupings easier afterwards.

Finally I would like to eliminate the intermediary WikiProject Miscellaneous Prose - Criticism, Letters, Memoirs etc., so that the two others placed as its descendants (WikiProject Fictional Series and WikiProject Critical Theory) become instead direct descendants of WikiProject Books. In a subject classification system like the Library of Congress classification there is some sense in making "miscellaneous" categories because they give more power to the cataloguing librarians charged with attributing them to books and after that to the reference librarians helping users find books. But Wikipedia does not have huge permanent staffs. We need something light, with as a flat a classification as possible.

For months now, right after having set up Wikiproject books along with others whose names you see there, I have been sifting though all the new articles every day, looking for book articles, placing basic bibliographical info (author and title are usually there but place of publication, editor and correct date are often missing and ISBN is missing more than half the time) and placing an entry for the book in List of books by title. I have also put all the pages of the list of books by title on my watchlist. I did this to get an idea of what kind of "movement" there was in book articles, and also to see how much work it would mean to use a very simple variation of the ISBD as the basics for a minimalist book template. It turns out that there are not that many book articles coming in: Barely 2 or 3 per day on average. It turns out also that just getting and placing minimalist bibliographical elements and then putting the relevant entries to the articles in the List of books by title takes a lot more time than I thought it would! AlainV 03:59, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wikireader
If we could get the Books project underway, what do people think of making a Wikireader of books. I, personally, would like to get an organised set of articles to read about books as I love books! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Did anything come of this? I am connected with the Wikipedia 1.0 project, (specifically part of the Work via WikiProjects section), and we are trying to organise such lists on each subject.  Any list you have would be very useful for our project.  You might consider formatting it like in WP:Chem, see the very successful worklist of around 380 chemical compounds, which incorporates an assessment system like we use at WP 1.0.  I think a Wikireader for books is a great idea, I'd buy one! Walkerma 07:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Lists of works
I've just created Manual of Style (lists of works) for discussion about the layout of discographies, filmographies, bibliographies and the like. It is an attempt to standardise these lists, as their styles currently vary greatly (order, content, layout). I thought it might be of interest to the partipants on this WikiProject. violet/riga (t) 16:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive
The articles on Franz Kafka and Greek literature have been listed to be improved on This week's improvement drive. Add your vote there if you want to support the article.--Fenice 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Deletion list
Hi folks,

I just wanted to let you know about a list of votes for deletion on articles about individual publications. (That includes magazines, pamphlets, essays, poems, etc, as well as books, but books go through VfD pretty often too). You can find the list here: WikiProject Deletion sorting/Publications.

Since you're interested in books and improving Wikipedia's coverage of them, you might want to monitor this list.

If you find the list useful, please also help to maintain it by adding new items and archiving old ones. Thanks!

Cheers,

-- Visviva 15:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

PS New members are needed and welcome at WikiProject Deletion sorting. Hope to see you there!

Science pearls
Hello, Please notice this project. Thanks,APH 06:31, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

List of notable books
Think all the interesting good books have been covered? You might be surprised what books are missing. I have created a list of notable books (critically acclaimed or best selling) that may not be covered in wikipedia as part of the Missing Encyclopedic Article wikiproject. The goal ultimately is to reduce the list to nothing, creating articles or redirects for redlinked movies and removing valid blue links in the list. For a comparison, you may want to see the companion lists, notable albums and notable films. Any area where you can help would be awesome. Thanks!!! --Reflex Reaction (talk)&bull; 01:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week
Humanities is now a COTW candidate. Please vote/comment/help! Thanks, Walkerma 05:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Short Stories?
Should there be a seperate offspring wikiproject for short stories, or should they just be part of this or novels? Billy Shears 03:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Problem is one of definition. As part of the Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  09:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Template
The next 3 sub sections have been written and posted by Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

This is an Idea raised in WP:Novel Below is the conversation between me (Eagle (talk) (desk)) and ( Kevinalewis )

More Idea's from Eagle (to kevinalewis)
We need to be sure that each novel has the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This will help with catorization and stub sorting. Trust me when you are sorting stubs the last thing you want to do is read through half the article, just to find that the novel is a horror, romance, sci fi, classic, ect novel. Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. just look at my edit history and you will see that my last 1000 edits have been catorization and stub sorting, I know what I am talking about. What I mentioned above is one MAJOR fault of the music wikiproject. 50% of the articles in there do not inform the reader (sorter), what genre an article is in. Please for the sake of this project add this to the mandatory part of the info-box template!!
 * Sorry about that, but I have about had it with article that don't say what genre or category they are in.Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

genre explecitly stated in the info box (to Eagle)
I agree except that as we share the infobox use with many others - and also particularly with the WikiProject Books, we will need to get concensus on this. Also we might not bae able to get it a mandatory as Non-Fiction books might have a Category but not use the description "Genre". Purhaps we could have two "optional" fields one "Subject" and one "Genre". Being optional that will allow the changes to be made (if agreed fairly safely and quickly) with out upseting existing usages. Try raising this on the WP Books talk pages first as see what response you get. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  09:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Summery
In brief, I was wondering if we can get the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This makes for easier catorization, and sorting. Many articles as is do not have the genre stated at all. The reader is left to infer what the genre is. This also makes it easier to regex and sort things into categories.

This will help our project greatly.

All of the above was written and posted by Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The novel hang-up
When one walks into a bookstore or a library and is looking for a fiction book, does one go to the "Novel" section? The answer is no. There is no such genre or subject. After being a bookstore employee and a user of the public library system in my area, I can tell that when you are looking for a fiction book in a genre, you will not go to the "Novel" section. There will be a "Fiction" section, but that will hold general fiction that would not fit elsewhere. The other fiction sections may be in a general fiction area of the store, but that area will not be called "Novels," it would be called "Fiction."

When discussing fiction books, one does not call a book a novel normally. For me it would be more along the lines of "I am reading fantasy right now." or "I am reading science fiction at the moment." The word novel does not enter into the conversation. If someone askes about the book in my hand, the question is usually "What kind of book is that?" Still no mention of novel.

What is with this novel hang-up everyone here has? If you look up novel on Wiktionary, you will see under the noun definition that book is used in the description and that fiction is only in parentheses meaning that a novel could be a non-fiction book. A non-fiction event can be novelized and still be non-fiction.

I dumped a few categories out of the Novel category into the book category since that is what made the most sense. It allows for greater visibility to the subjects, and it makes the subjects that much less difficult to find. I moved fantasy books stubs into the general book stubs area, and it was reverted. Well, if you walk into a bookstore or library, wouldn't you go straight to the "Fantasy" section instead of going to a section called "Novels"? Have you ever seen a section in a bookstore or library called "Novels"? I never have. So why do we have such a section here?

I have just now seen that you have redundant categories. Fantasy books and Fantasy novels are the same thing, so why are there two categories? If Fantasy novels were removed, then there would only be Fantasy books left which would make categorization a lot easier and faster.

- Lady Aleena (sig buggy)


 * Hi, thanks for discussing this, we hopefully will be able to find a way through this one. The problem I think is basically that we useing slightly different definitions of "Novel". As you may appreciate there are a number. At least one, restricts "novel" to a fairly tight meaning of "fresh", "unusual", or "novel" in the semantic sensse. Once this was first used of Books this soon came to be s slightly different, form of narrative style. Exemplified by Dickens, Austin, etc. However the usage has broadened ever more over the year, and although retaining both those in specialist use it now in general usage (particularly by publishers) seems to refer to most books of longer fiction. (i.e. not short stories.) It is this later definition that we have been working with. I hope that helps clarify where we are coming from. Perhaps it will help our debate, do lets continue this and improve wikipedia if we can. Thanks for your comments. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  07:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The first problem I see with this project is that you do not have a clearly defined category list. If you were to create a category list which includes all of the categories which this project covers, you would see the redundent categories and will be able to purge them. Would it not be better to have a few well defined categories rather than several poorly or undefined categories which cover the same ground?
 * Over at the Films based on books categorization project, we are currently debating the category structure. We are striving to make it as simple as possible to use and to make it make sense. We do not want our work scattered all over Wikipedia, we want it clearly defined. That is what you need here.
 * - Lady Aleena (sig buggy)


 * Ok, let's assume you are correct in your first assertion that we "do not have a clearly defined category list." I dont' agree, but you might expect that. Please can you detail you observations. Second to contrast ours with yours over at the "Films based on books categorization project" I thought would help but doesn't as I can see you have problems too. Just for instance, James Bond films I was amazed to see under Mystery rather than Thriller. Any illustration perhaps of how such categorisation is often a personal thing - difficult to standardize. Also on our subject of debate Fantasy and Science fiction are both sub-categorised under fiction and are also described as refering to novels, almost exactly my point. Let's get real about this we are trying to come to terms with ways of describing the world that do not easily fall into to neat logical schemes (without reproof) as language (it's usage) and culture are rarely purely products of logic. Lets keep talking and maybe we can find good common ground. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  15:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, by the way were you looking for the Category heirarchy structure on the Books project or the Novels Project. Personally as part of the Novels project that is where you should be looking for the one we work with. Sorry if there has been any confusion. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  15:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

recasting the book, poem, and play subcategories
Maybe you guys have been over this ground. I'd like to see a sweeping proposal to standardize all the subcategories of Category:Books by author, Category:Novels by author, and similar categories in Category:Poems, Category:Short stories, and Category:Plays. Before I slap cfr labels on everything, I'd love to see a consensus here on what should be done. I'm not sure I have a consensus in my head, so it might be hard to find in a group. But anyway, right now there are the following variations (and probably more): My preference is to make everything "(subcategory) by (author)," possibly even leading to elimination of "Books by author" and replacing it with "Novels by (author)," "Anthologies by (author)," and "Nonfiction books by (author)". (Does that cover every book possibility? Maybe not.) But even if there isn't universal agreement about that, I'd like to see the "(X) of (Y), " "(Y)'s (X)," and "(X) (Y)" go into the dustbin of history, and I'd like everyone to get a first name. Does anyone else like standardizing everything as "(X) by (full Y)"?--Mike Selinker 07:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Category:A. E. Van Vogt books, Category:C.E. Dorsett novels, Category:Edgar Allan Poe short stories, Category:Rudyard Kipling works, Category:Auden poems
 * Category:Books by Jeffrey Archer, Category:Works by Arthur Koestler, Category:Novels by Jeffrey Archer, Category:Short stories by Stephen King, Category:Poems by Shelley
 * Category:Enid Blyton's books, Category:William Blake's poems
 * Category:Works of Henry James, Category:Novels of Russell Banks, Category:Poetry of Lord Byron, Category:Poems of Shakespeare


 * wow, what a task. Laudible aim and I would strongly support such consistency. We would need to publish and police such a restructure in standards thoughout the Book related WikiProjects once agreed. Two observations though: Firtly, you may get few responses as I find few people tend to get envolved with the Book projects unless encouraged. Secondly, I might prefer the Category:C.E. Dorsett novels pattern if only because it might appear to be more usual in other projects ie. Singles, Albums. e.g. Category:The Beatles singles, Category:The Beatles albums, Category:The Beatles songs, Category:The Rolling Stones songs etc. even Film categories seem to have the same structure, Category:Cold War films, Category:World War II films, Category:Prison films etc. where the unique, and particular element is first and the media type is second. In short I Support the general aim, but Oppose the particular option proposed. But if you have perticular reasons for what you suggest, please let me know. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  09:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The only reason I'd pick "(X) by (Y)" rather than "(Y) (X)" is that the author might also be the subject of other works. So, for example, you wouldn't know whether Profiles in Courage is by or about John F. Kennedy if the title was "John F. Kennedy books." But I'm certainly not wedded to the proposal. I'd just like them to be consistent.--Mike Selinker 19:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I see your point although as you might see from mine I am also aiming at consistency - albeit across a wider article base than just books. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  19:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, absolutely. I think the "(Y) (X)" scheme is fine. You want to ping some more of the participants in this project and see if they have opinions?--Mike Selinker 20:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * After printing out the categories below Category:Books in order to look at the big picture, I agree it is quite a mess, not only from inconsistent use of "books by", "novels by", "works by", but the scattering of genres such as fantasy and science fiction. I'll offer my suggestions, and a survey should probably be announced on the Community Portal, but it would probably take a bot to change the categories on so many pages after a plan of action is decided. GUllman 22:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Heck yes, that's a bot's job. The trick is (a) deciding what format we want to cut across all these lines, and (b) finding where all the categories that have to changed are.--Mike Selinker 16:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Stub proposal
Howdy all - I would like to propose a political book stub and a religious studies book stub category, as Category:Non-fiction book stubs is getting full and there are at least 140 titles that would fall into politics, and 85 into religious studies. Please discuss at Religious studies book stubs proposal and Political book stubs proposal if you like. Cheers - Her Pegship 22:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Created Category:Political book stubs; feel free to populate. "Religion book stub" is still under discussion. Her Pegship 06:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Redundant crime book category
I have run across, which is a sub-cat of. They appear to contain the same thing - books about crimes or mysteries in "real life". (There is a separate .) Shouldn't True crime books and Crime books be merged and one of them deleted? Her Pegship 19:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree - question is which should be the correct title, or should we refine it further. No debate on should, only on what to. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  07:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * My vote would be for . More accurate. Cheers, Her Pegship 18:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

As there are no further comments, I'm going to list for deletion and move  directly under. H e r P e g s h i p  17:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Update: We ended up with, which suits me fine. Her Pegship 19:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Books vs Literature
When adding interwiki links, I was surprised to learn that en.wp has a WikiProject Books rather than one for literature. What I'm missing here is people: authors, translators, reviewers; institutions: libraries, publishers, bookstores, bookfairs, academies, writer schools, literary prizes; theories: (sub/cross) genres, classifications, patterns, history. Perhaps some of these are covered by other WikiProjects (e.g. biographies for authors), in which case I'd like to see links to those. --LA2 18:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * We have WikiProject Novels, which would probably be a closer match for the "literature" interwiki links you just made. Wikipedia:WikiProject Books can cover all the other topics you mentioned that are even remotely related to books, whether it's the physical object (publishing, printing) or the works within (whether fiction or nonfiction). If someone has a project they want to promote, they can list it here, and attract support until it's big enough for its own WikiProject page. GUllman 00:10, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Given the amount of clutter in the categories and pages of literature in general. I think that there should be a Literature WikiProject. What do people think? Any takers? – chemica 07:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There is one, WikiProject_Literature from 3 August 2005 :) if You know what I mean. feydey 11:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I still think there needs to be a project that covers others forms of literature other than the novel. A lot of the poetry and drama articles need collobrative effort but get somewhat loss in the big category of books. --chemica 19:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Related WikiProjects, or WikiProject Theatre. Cheers, &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 19:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Guidance?
I don't actually see a lot of guidance at this page. I was looking for advice on what to do with an article like The Jazz Piano Book. Are our articles supposed to contain "reviews", summaries, links to reviews, or what exactly? Or is this WP still getting off the ground? Stevage 12:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not too active here - but what there is by way of guidance I think is in WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. Firstly I would add an  and flesh that out. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  12:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

An invitation to all members of this project
 WikiProject Arts Announcing the creation of WikiProject Arts, an effort to create a collaboration between all arts projects and artistically-minded Wikipedians in order to improve arts coverage. If you think you can help, please join us! H AM  17:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

No category for chemistry books?!
Please, let's make one, under, to accompany the sub-cats for astronomy books, biology books, ecology books, etc. Her Pegship 22:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. . --feydey 22:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * And thanks! I wasn't sure how much discussion I had to elicit first or I woulda done it myself. Cheers, Her Pegship 03:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Template for writers
I wasn't able to find a Wikiproject for articles on writers/authors, so I'm writing this here. I've been thinking about creating an infobox to use with articles on writers. Here's the basic idea for one:
 * Note: * denotes optional feilds.

This can be updated to include more fields if needed. I'll probably be creating this template soon. If anyone has any comments on it, get back to me about it. -- LGagnon 04:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think this is largely superflous and will get deleted fairly quickly. There is a perfectly good {{t1|{Infobox_Biography}} for the basic infomation required and the extra ones mentioned here are probably best served in the body of the article. It is not too widely used and deserves more exposure! i.e. use (used in George R. R. Martin, Aleister Crowley, Dorothy Parker and others ::  Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  10:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Kevin, Infobox_Biography is enough, f.ex. genre could get a long list, but it could be easier to explain genres associated with the specific books that the author has written in the article itself. feydey 13:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * We have more detailed infoboxes for other people than writers, such as musicians and philosphers. I don't see why it would hurt to use one with more detail for writers, who have just as much info to summarize in an infobox as either of the aforementioned. I've seen Infobox_Biography, and I find it rather useless for this purpose; thus, I've added the most important info that could go into an infobox for a writer to give it some use other than to just repeat the birth & death dates. While that can appear later in the articles, it's easier on the reader to get this info up front through an infobox. As for genres, if a writer has written in a lot of them, then we only need to mention major genres; the others can be mentioned in the article body. -- LGagnon 16:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Genre is probably the lesser of the problems with this (other biographical infobox are also problematic) Occupation is another. You could argue that in most cases this is redundant, they are a writer. If not a particular branch of writting (cuch as novelist), but many have other professions, but these are notorisous for changing through time, so which to choose. Influences are more often than not highly subject assignment of critics. Infobox should be kept for pure Fact. (i.e. data). Magnum Ops, implies the author is known for one, in many cases this ia true but again this case be high subjective. Not helpfull. Most of these extra fields, create problems, rather that help. At rush - excuse the mistakes :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  16:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I changed it around on the final version of the template (Template:Infobox_Writer), and most fields are optional. If a writer has a definite magnum opus, then add it; if not, don't. If the writer mentions influences, or if some are obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt, then they can be added. I've tries to make the working version of it as loosely structured as possible so it works with any writer. If there's a problem for a specific writer, we can work it out on a case-by-case basis. For occupations, we can limit it to writing occupations to reduce the amount of info to add. -- LGagnon 18:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Overlapping templates
I noticed the recent use of Template:Infobox Writer on several pages about authors. Please note that there is a similar, unused, template at Template:Author. I've added notes to the talk pages, but notes on the actual pages in "noinclude" tags might be better, or just get the unused one deleted. Carcharoth 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The Author template is a bit lacking. It gives less info than the Writer template, and it makes too many fields a requirement (not every writer has a pseudonym or website) instead of having the lose structure of the Writer template. Additionally, the Writer template was made for all types of writers, not just fiction authors (thus the low amount of required fields). -- LGagnon 15:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. But shouldn't the Author template be retired/deleted or something? Carcharoth 19:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not being used for anything, so maybe it should be deleted. -- LGagnon 20:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with deletion - when I created the template I was looking for something lightweight for Robin Hobb and hoped people would take it and extend it as necessary. That didn't happen and nobody's using it anymore --PdDemeter 20:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Updated User Participant template
I updated WikiProject Books/User Participant. When I tried adding it to my userpage, but it kept screwing up if it wasn't first. I first removed an unneeded tag, and then decided to just overhaul the entire code (using Template:User geek as a base). Just letting everyone know. EVula 18:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh I see now - you left the GEEK category in - I'll go back and remove it.! :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  08:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sorry about that; I could have sworn that I'd gotten it all. Terribly embarassing. EVula 15:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Notability guidelines
I wonder why the WikiProject Books page is cited as a notability guideline in the templates template:notability or template:IncGuide. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me but I would assume that the short notability guidelines given on the project page have not been subjected to some kind of approval procedure by the community, right? In any case, I feel that there should be a separate proposal for notability guidelines concerning books. People in AfD discussions are currently citing the Project page as a notability guideline and arguing that "any book with an ISBN number" should be in. I think that part of the project page is way too lax. Pascal.Tesson 15:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As I just looked neighter of those templates have links to WikiProject Books? Am I missing something? WikiProjects are never to be considered as Guideline pages. feydey 19:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I just changed them to redirect instead to the new proposed guidelines. Pascal.Tesson 03:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Help on notability guidelines
User:Fuhghettaboutit has just proposed a new set of guidelines for notability of books. It would be a great help if some of the active members in the books project could weigh in on this and in particular if they have some ideas for particularly relevant past AfD discussions concerning books. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 03:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Bin there, Done that! // Fra nkB 01:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Blame Her Pegship WP:WFs
Per advice from my good friend, I've re-activated the daughter sub-project WP:WikiProject Fictional series, since I'm editing fiction articles in nothing but series pages. Also created category:WikiProject Fictional series. I can use some help while I study up on these guidelines and those in the Novels daughter=project in purusing those (fairly unevolved) listed and try to synchronize them.

I'm heavily involved with constructing 1632 series articles, which throws some interesting curveballs... about half the extant series is short fiction anthologies at the moment, and since it's a web based collaborative fiction follow-on to what was meant to be a stand-alone novel (1632 (novel) wherein the priciple author and editor was dragooned into postponing other work by his admiring public and come up with sequels, etc.)

Even the novels won't (definitely) be released in 'milieu calendar order' (the next two novels in publishing scheduled order will be 1635: The Canon Law and then the long awaited 1634: The Baltic War now to come out next December and May respectively) and the short fiction is all over the calendar too! &mdash; let's say I've got my hands full, and can use some help. We're looking at about three to four books a year at the moment, each over 400 pages! // Fra nkB 01:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC) (forgive me for 'adapting this' from the Harry peoples talk message... RL is demanding attention!) This fellow (rather mature middle aged) fan of Harry has been buried in another favorite series, and it was suggested that I resurect the WikiProject Fictional series project as one means of developing standards. My 1632 series articles have potentially far more characters, places, and historical matters (it's an alternate history set back in the 1630's, which makes it another sort parallel universe like Harry's and Honorverse (not to mention most speculative fiction genre that become series), another series I contribute some.) than Harry Potter books, assuming she stops after seven novels.
 * Spam 'update' a few steps further on

I'm just getting started on 'blowing off the dust' on the Project page, so can use some help, and I'm sure as mature as this project looks, you will have some interesting input and experience on how to juggle, arrange, and format the myriad details that go into a deeply developed complex milieu such as these have become.

1632 series has some unique issues in that it is currently about 75:25 short fiction to Novels, but that will change rapidly as it is also a collaborative fiction experiment that involves literally dozens of authors, most of whom have been active participants helping the principle author and editor define the canon for the series... essentially research and development in matters historical and technical, as the works are making a serious attempt to keep realistic assumptions given the series premises&mdash;a small town of about 3,000 souls, Grantville, WV finds itself confronted with the religion based Thirty Year's War, Machievellian politics, and large armies. At the moment, five hardcover book releases are planned to my knowledge in the coming year&mdash;which is saying a lot at at least 400pp per book.

To add insult to injury, the works (by design) aren't published in the order of any particular timeline outside the 'main storyline threads', of which there are five... so this makes it like five sub-series, but one's in which the short fiction anthologies are canonical, a very unusual feature in a shared universe setting. But that's part of the great scope of the milieu, which is fascinating if you are at all interested in history and how the modern world came about&mdash;the effect of all that research and pre-planning via the internet. (It's not too great a stretch to think of it as a wikiproject, save the issues are the talk forums, and the article outputs are generated by individual or teams of writers working their own sub-projects.)

Enough of my problem, what I need is help defining standards from others involved in similar wikipedia tasks like yourselves (WikiProject Novels in general) for such a mixed series. So watchlist the talk page, and WP:WFs, sign on, and integrate your project cats, templates, etc. into Category:WikiProject Fictional series, list your Project on the see also there, along with it's cats (Being a project cat, the navigation from project to project is for us editors to use, not the general public, so WP:Btw!) so other fiction related editors can find your stuff, secrets, and vice versa.

I'd also like to point out an oxymoron of sorts. The WPP:Books is parent to all these heirarchially lower projects (Novels, series, etc.), yet has the smallest membership list of the lot. Makes no sense! Please sign up and ditto WPP:Novels, and WPP:series for news and contributions. Best regards to all! // Fra nkB 20:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

On category pipesorting conventions
I need to add here, that I've done some organization stuff like the new shortcuts WPP:Books], [[WPP:Novels, WPP:series, and WP:WFs, and cross-linked some of the pertinent cats. Redirects (like those just listed) will show as '-' pipesorted (dash), Main daughters as space, templates under '!', though I haven't back tracked to verify consistancy yet, but it helps keep things straight. Technically, that sort of standard ought to be imposed from this parent project and be consistant downwards. (As Pegship knows, I've been spending a lot of non-fiction edit time in the interwiki Wikimedia Commons and cross-project category organization and equalization, so these 'sort tokens' are fairly debugged, though a different 'system of symbols' is worth discussing... it just sort of happened over the last six weeks on the commons. Gotta run! // Fra nkB 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Just out of curiosity, where did the convention for the - and ! sortkeys come from? Did I miss a discussion? So far I've only seen comments about using spaces and asterisks. Cheers, &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 23:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I covered this on around the time you were going on vacation... but then again there was that thunderstorm that killed some edit buffers I never got back to saving. One for certain was on your page just before you left for vacation. Now that I'm trying to play catch up from mine... the answer was that it seemed the right thing to do at the time.     With my learning disabilities setting related matters off in their own little group makes sense as a     A) reminder (of alt. names (redirects), templates, etc. that bear on a topic (Category).)... no reason a cat can't be a reference after all for more than one type of object. The pipe tricks cause said objects to group, which keeps them straight as well as out of the way of the main business of the cat.     B) List place for others to look at and learn the ropes. Particularly potent for our situation as people can just follow the listed link to see the why and wherefore's.     C) Mostly, I have enough trouble with all the ins-and-outs around here that I forever and always try to think of ways for things to be easier on the newbies.     For example if a template operates on the articles listed in a cat, and really doesn't have other scope, I believe it should be catted there as well. Whether you use a SPC, '!', '*' or whatever to sort assets of one type into their own special group is irrelevant as to that chosen. Consistancy across every group of cats would be ideal, but is wholy unnecessary if one is consistant in the local page spaces.     So How do you use a SPC and '*'... maybe I made a mistake and got at least one of them 'right' by accident!  // Fra nkB  18:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I understand the reason for using sortkeys, I only wondered about the choice of sort characters, since on the EnWP we rarely see ! and -, but rather use the spaces & *s. You just type in a pipe | with a space or an asterisk after it, then the page name. &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 22:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Book card
Template:Book card 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. &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 17:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tag Request for comment
There is a dispute on whether or not spoiler tags are appropriate for Wikipedia. Some editors wish to remove spoiler tags while other editors wish to keep them and/or update their guidelines and appearance. A request for comment has been started at Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC. All editors are invited to share their input on any or all of the issues being discussed. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Two new fields to infobox
I would like to add two new optional fields to the infobox. There could be two books which tie to the same film, the original and the tie-in book. This is part of the child project Films based on books. &#151;Lady Aleena talk / contribs 22:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Film adaptation - if a book was adapted into a film, then the film would be listed on the right.
 * Based on film - if the book was based on a film, then the film would be listed on the right.


 * Support An excellent idea. EVula 17:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A flashbulb just went off over my head, Film adaption(s) needs to be used instead of singular adaption. One book can spawn several films. Pride and Prejudice and The Hobbit come to mind. - LA @ 18:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose This would certainly be acceptable if a novel (and most relate to novels) spawned only one such adaptation, however the increasing number of remakes and multiple adaptations would make this increasingly unwealdy. Also where do we stop. What about TV adaptations etc? In addition there is rather a lot of information already in the template and in many instances of it's use, all of which directly relate to the book itself. This is surely likely to dilute it's focus (the book) and unbalance, particularly the shorter articles, away from the article itself towards the template. Also mention is made of a "Tie-in" books, are we now considering articles for reprints of novels with "tie-in" covers, or have I misunderstood? :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  09:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment - please as we share (Books and Novels WikiProjects) this template rather a lot - could you either make such suggestions on the template talk page itself or at least notify the project that such a discussion is taking place. My own tendency is to place such suggestions on the Template Talk. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  09:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose for reasons similar to those already expressed by Kevinalewis. Given that some books spawn multiple films, I could see that rapidly becoming unwieldy. As far as I can see the point of having the infoboxes is to provide concise information. Make them too big and that rapidly stops being the case. It makes far more sense to me to have such information contained within the article itself under an appropriate sub-heading.Silverthorn 11:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment As WikiProject Novels is a child of WikiProject Books, the decisions made here will affect WikiProject Novels no matter what. WikiProject Books is, in my opinion, the master project over all book related projects, so the children do not need to be informed of changes.
 * As to the infobox becoming unweildy if there is more than one or two adaptions, yes, I can see where a problem would exist, however, a link to the section for the multiple film adaptions should be in the infobox if that is all the reader is looking for in the first place. If there are only one or two, they can comfortably rest in the infobox. A film adaptions section should be before the plot of the book so that it will be towards the top of the article. - LA @ 11:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * "before the plot"? - not on the majority of novel articles I have seen and not in the standard article template that has been established. Also not logically in sequence based on the focus of the article which should be on the novel rather than further adaptations. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  12:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Questions, How many WikiProject Books have film adaptations? How many novels do? I'm not a member of WikiProjects Books, so don't check here except when there is a posting on the Novels talk page. My current thoughts are it's not needed, if there is a film adaptation use a dab link. Grey Shadow 12:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow - "As WikiProject Novels is a child of WikiProject Books". I hope no-one else here thinks like that this "hierarchy" is not about some people having more say than others. I don't believe this is how Wikipedia works at all. And I don't believe that WikiProject heirarchies are established for that purpose of "driving down decisions". Dangerous stuff - also an unhelpful way to calmly discuss a subject. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  12:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment (Interleaved): I don't believe the matter is one of a project having 'More or Less' weight, but one of where such a discussion is most appropo. There is a necesssary heirarchy to the projects, esp. in this rather wide field of literature, and therefore a necessity to participate at least periphially by following discussions in the whole Project tree back to the root (though not necessarily across sister projects tree nodes, given some 'Poetry Books' project for example).


 * To not do so is logically inconsistant and somewhat stubbornly perverse, as all are inter-related and should be sharing much the same toolset (templates/infoboxes/techniques, etc.), or an alternative template modeled on one developed by one of the related projects (i.e. A Fictional series, has some different needs than that of a stand-alone novel, and both differ from a non-fiction work like a collection of monographs on say Catastrophy theory).


 * OTOH, a point raised in discussion-debate here should certainly be emplanted as a notice on other heirarchial member projects up and down the tree... including project pages of sub-daughters such as a project page for say Honorverse or Harry Potter. With that in mind, there ought to be a navigation template on each project's talk page to quickly and easily make a post to such daughters as need to be advised such topics are being discussed on the topic. It is the wikipedia way to involve the greatest diversity of viewpoints into a discussion, and if such were the project practice, the WPP:Books would have all members of all sub-projects as members, as indeed they should be to make informed editorial applications of guidelines debated on such pages. // Fra nkB 04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I lost your line of arguement there a bit. If you mean all logically associated projects are in this together, I agree wholeheartedly. Only the technical point about "automating" the notification to such grouped projects, just goahead and do it!. :: Kevinalewis  :  <sup&gt;(Talk Page)  / (Desk)  08:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose, not a bad idea, but it makes more sense to have such information contained within the article itself under an appropriate sub-heading. P.S. This discussion should be moved (now or later) to the talk page of the template. feydey 14:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment I'd say that most books do not have multiple adaptations. For those that do, a simple anchor should be placed that points the person at the "Adaptations"-type section of the article. That way, even books with a dozen adaptations will only have a single link in the infobox, and we won't have tons of information being duplicated in multiple places. EVula 14:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As of this morning, there are 1,603 film articles under and its sub-cats, after eliminating duplicate counts due to multiple categorizations. I cautiously support the idea but would like to see how it would look. Lady Aleena is meticulous about being sure the correct book & film articles are linked; as long as others are as well it could work. As for multiple adaptations, EVula's idea is interesting. Cheers, &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 16:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose, This really isn't necessary and won't apply to most novels, we have a subheading for film adaptations in the article template; for novels with multiple adaptations, it might be worth making some sort of linkbox to insert somewhere, but really the subheading and links should suffice. -- Gizzakk 18:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * May I temporarily add the fields so that I may show examples of what I had in mind? - LA @ 19:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose I support the Films based on books project in general, but I noticed a lot of older books had multiple movies made out of them. Rather than "picking" one over the other, I would rather leave thim on the section marked for adaptations.PeregrineV 19:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose (changed vote, upon further mature reflection), Kevin and Feyday make good points. On further mature reflection, any book article made into a film for either the silver or the small screen should have it's own section about such. Hence there is no need to mention an inferior art form on an book infobox, as almost all infoboxes already hog too much space in articles. Secondly, if the book is an adaptation of a movie (and or stageplay), that ought to be a prominent mention in the introductory paragraph of said article, at the very least. Adding two (even optional) lines or more (someone can chain together several links separated by 'BR' expanding such) simply adds to detracting the reader from the article itself, the screen versions are almost certain to have their own articles after all. That includes what seems to me to be a dreary trend to remake even classic movies, leading to many versions as noted by others. Keep it in the text or see also's. I could by into film adapted into books however... the film would be specific. // Fra nkB  04:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If a book has only been adapted once, does that one film really need a whole section for it? I can see the need for a section if the book has been adapted a half a dozen times, but for just a single adaption, a little line in the infobox wouldn't be that obtrusive would it? Take the book A Spell for Chameleon, a film adaption is in the works, and it is the first time for this book. The film adaption, when the article is written, can go in the infobox, because it doesn't need a section for just a single film. However, Pride and Prejudice has many film adaptions, so the list of them DO deserve a section in the article, but only as a list. So, its not as if I am asking that all of the adaptions be put in the infobox, just the books with one film adaption. - LA @ 04:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That approach would then lead to inconsistency of article construction, making it more difficult for the novice contributer to get the hang of what to do, and for the reader not sure where the definitive information is to be found. ("oh I don't see an adaptation section, therefore there might not be one", type of misread). We do need to keep a tight check on what goes in the infobox or as I said before we lose subject focus. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  08:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I would agree. For ease of use, either the information is included or it isn't included. The moment we start saying that it should be included under situation x, but if we have situation y something else applies, is the moment that people start getting confused and inconsistencies begin to creep in. As I have already stated, I believe it shouldn't be included, but whatever the decision that is made, I think the result should be one that is carried through clearly and doesn't start bringing in strings of exceptions.Silverthorn 08:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. I gather that since this debate is rather old and most contributers oppose the motion, I might be beating a dead horse, but ah well here are my two cents anyway. My objections: there is already an adaptations section in the main article template; such an inclusion would make the box much more unweildy; many books would require a link to a list of adaptations anyway (most classics have multiple adaptations, e.g.); are we then to include adaptations or references in other forms of art? what about ballets, operas, musicals, theatre? (or why stop there--paintings, sculptures etc.). My main objection is that we should treat books qua books for the purposes of the project, for the purposes of an encyclopedia. I'm finding that there seems to be a great emphasis on books qua popular culture with regard to assessment for example. In my opinion this is contrary to what one would see in any encyclopedia of literature or even any general encyclopedia. When discussing books, we should focus on their place in the world of books. Adaptations into or inspiration of other art forms should be included by all means, but it should be treated as extra information--perfect for a section of the main article (and that not near the top!), but inappropriate for the book's infobox. Of course, if a book is actually a novelization of a film, that will undoubtedly be mentioned within the first sentence of the article.--Ibis3 12:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A Very good summary of the issues - in my view. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page) / (Desk)  15:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The Giver
The Giver 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 17:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Middle-earth
Middle-earth 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 17:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Books about film
I'm about to create a sub-cat of, , which would include reference works, history of film, Leonard Maltin, etc. Any thoughts? &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 16:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I see that cat having many articles, so IMHO go ahead. P.S. I hope that screenplays won't be included (some ppl might think they are books about films...). feydey 21:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm hoping to make that clear in the cat description. Thanks for the note (I hadn't thought of that!). &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 04:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Non-fiction naming
I have opened a new can of worms at Category talk:Non-fiction, regarding use of the terms literature, books, non-fiction, and non-fictional. Have at it. Cheers, &hearts; Her Pegship &hearts; 22:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Listing Chapters in Books and Serialized Fiction.
Is there any guidance of listing individual chapters for books and/or serialized fiction? Does anyone have opinions on if it should be done or not? --Kunzite 03:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Well some have chapters listed, like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and some guidance here: WikiProject_Books/Non-fiction_article. feydey 12:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The Prehistory of the Far Side
I have just greatly expanded this article from its initial stub status, and I would like suggestions. marbeh raglaim 01:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)