Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books/Archive 3

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

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

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

FAR notice
A Tale of a Tub has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cirt (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC).

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

Book title redirects
Should book titles ever redirect to (a) their author (e.g. Cult of the Amateur, Parasite Rex) or (b) to their subject (examples include The Intentional Stance to intentional stance and The Theory of Island Biogeography to island biogeography. I had one of the latter two deleted. Richard001 (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't redirect the titles unless the book is not notable. Before redirecting the title,  check for incoming red-links.  If there are a lot, consider creating a stub article and explain in the discussion why the non-notable book is getting a stub.  If there are a few, consider replacing the incoming links with links to the subject or article, like this link to Donald J. Sobol:Two-Minute Mysteries, which does not have an article of its own.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  01:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Does it say this anywhere, or are you just basing this on your own judgment? I disagree that you should create an article for a non-notable subject just because a lot of pages link to it. As for not creating redirects, I tend to agree with you, but at Cult of the Amateur where I applied your rule the admin seemed to think that a redirect is appropriate. Richard001 (talk) 04:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Should this book have its own article?
Discuss at Talk:Gustav Kobbé. —  AjaxSmack   23:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

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

Notice of FAR
Voynich manuscript has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cheers. Zidel333 (talk) 18:29, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

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

How best to organise articles about bits of large and complex books
I have created a proposed guideline about how articles on the bible should be organised:
 * Organisation of Bible articles

Since it may indirectly impact on articles about other large texts (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings spring to mind), I wonder if you would like to comment on it. Clinkophonist (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've responded there, but there's a major difference--nobody is proposing to write articles on individual chapters of Potter, let alone individual sentences--while I think for the Bible and Koran this could be well justified. . DGG (talk) 17:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The Qur'an is very repetitive, to hypnotic extents, and it would be a very inappropriate thing to cover it entirely on a verse-by-verse basis. That's not to say that there aren't significant verses which deserve articles of their own (like the sword verse); and even then, other significant sayings like 2:256 (...there is no compulsion in religion...) are still not given articles entirely of their own.
 * The Qur'an doesn't have chapters. Sura are closer to books (in biblical terminology), since they are each individually named, and have always historically been distinct units - and they don't usually relate to the following or previous sura in anything other than length - which is not true of the biblical chapters, but is often true of the biblical books. Clinkophonist (talk) 12:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

Points
Number of 1st printings: 5,000 approx.; verso: "FIRST EDITION" ; DJ: $3.95 on the lower corner, no printing statement, Harper Lee's photograph on back, Truman Capote quote in green ink on the front flap, Jonathan Daniels blurb on the rear flap; Boards: brown with green cloth spine. EraserGirl (talk) 03:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


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

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

WPBooks: Articles of unclear notability
Hello,

there are currently 84 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 2008-03-12 and may be slightly outdated.)

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

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

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

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


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

Style guide for academic books?
Is there a style guide out there for academic books (that are not biographical), like Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation? If it's an academic book, and the book notability guidelines say it should be well-cited-by-others and assigned as a course text, does the article on the book need to say that it's well-cited-by-others and assigned as a course text? -Malkinann (talk) 08:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I would imagine every article should at least hint at its notability, but you can probably word it so it doesn't sound "oh yeah, here's why"- "...It has since been used as a course text for [blank]" or something similar. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 11:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) Can you please check the page again to see if I've done it right? -Malkinann (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks good, for a stub :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 23:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't actually own the book, haha. What other kinds of sections is it missing? -Malkinann (talk) 23:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not exactly sure, since it's a different kind of article than most... maybe a section detailing the motivations of the writer in making it, interviews, that sort of thing? Also, content about the release of the book. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 01:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if the author's motivations count as fancruft, though? As far as I can gather, she liked comics as a child, when she was an adult, one of her students showed her Akira, she went to see the film version, was wowed, so she started writing about anime.  Eventually the book came out of that. -Malkinann (talk) 01:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

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

Getting It: The psychology of est is up at WP:FAC
Getting It: The psychology of est is up at WP:FAC, comments would be appreciated. FAC discussion page is here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Getting It: The psychology of est. Cirt (talk) 09:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The FAC nom for this was restarted. Comments would be appreciated at the FAC discussion page. Cirt (talk) 18:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Required Reading
will there be required reading sections from various colleges?
 * No, there won't.  Marlith  (Talk)   00:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Contents/synopsis question
As the non-fiction guide seems to suggest, and as I've been doing everywhere (e.g. A Devil's Chaplain, Naturalist on the River Amazons and several others), I have added a section on the contents of the book The Cult of the Amateur. I understand that a real synopsis is better than a contents section, and that the existence of one makes such a section of little enough value to remove it, but in the absence of any such section, isn't a contents section preferable for a start? I create them with the intention that others or myself will turn it into a synopsis section (I even point this out explicitly in to-do lists sometimes). But before this happens, they at least give the reader some sort of information on what is in the book. Richard001 (talk) 06:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In some cases its a good idea, but where the chapter titles are non-descriptive, as in this case, I do not see what it adds. DGG (talk) 03:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fragmenta Historicum Graecorum (Karl Muller)
When searching the article on this (very important) 19th century series of books Wikipedia automatically redirects to the stub of Felix Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, which is an entirely different book. We are in serious need of disentangling these two book series since, due to expiration of copyright, Karl Muller's book is now available online for free at the Internet archive. For the time being I will add the link to Muller's the four available volumes at the article, but somebody please disentagle the Articles. Ikokki (talk) 23:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability of article Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations
I have created an article Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. One editor felt it didn't meet the notability guidelines, and has since decided to let it go, but I would like to know if any others feel it should be deleted (I don't want to work on something that's just going to be deleted later on). Richard001 (talk) 10:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Some remarks on "Cyropaedia"
I find the quality of the entry concerning Cyropaedia absolutely below any standard, whether scholarly or otherwise. The present text largely consists of a reproduction (and a very clumsy one at that) of the article by Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg in Encyclopaedia Iranica (see here: ). It is for this very reason, it seems to me, that the present entry has all the qualities of a hackneyed work. For instance, who on earth begins an encyclopaedia entry by citing such a controversial statement as Cyropaedia "is a political romance, describing the education of the ideal ruler, ..."? This statement is copied and pasted from the above-mentioned Iranica article without giving due attention to the context in which it has been made. As can be verified, this controversial sentence is not the opening sentence of the latter work; rather, it comes after the writer has made a careful examination of the contents of the book and exposed the divers set of extant views on the book, its historical origin, etc., etc. Actually, from the little that I know of Cyropaedia, I am able to raise some reasoned objections against some aspects of Ms Sancisi-Weerdenburg's Iranica article (I believe, for instance, that her discussion of Chapter of 8 of Cyropaedia is imperfect, if not defective).

I have just checked, and it appears that in particular on the Persian-language Internet there is an unimaginably large amount of useful information on Cyropaedia which can be tapped into for the purpose of extending and improving the present entry &mdash; unfortunately, at this moment I am not in a position to do this myself, leaving aside that I am professionally not competent to write on Cyropaedia. For instance (and this has been indicated, without any elaboration, in the above-mentioned Iranica article by Ms Weerdenburg), there is a close relationship between Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Ferdowsi's Shāh'nāmeh. In this connection, one should note that in Persian, Cyropaedia is referred to as Kurosh'nāmeh; replace Kurosh (or Cyrus) by Shāh (and Cyrus was a Shāh &mdash; in fact he proclaimed himself Shāh'han'shāh), and Kurosh'nāmeh becomes Shāh'nāmeh. There is a wealth of reliable information on the Persian-language Internet that deal with identifying a large number of apparently unrelated personalities that one encounters in various texts, such as Cyropaedia, Shāh'nāmeh and Old Testament.

Kind regards, --BF 20:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC).

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 1458 articles assigned to this project, or 16.7%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-06-18.) 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) 12:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Zad al-Ma'ad
--Umm, ya: you guys need to get a look at this page; absolutely horrifying what they've done to it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zad_al-Ma%27ad (it's under your project responsibilities..that's why i notified you about it) 75.163.62.159 (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)genieyclo -- (Moved to correct date on this page -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 15:49, 5 October 2008 (UTC) )

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  22:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

WP huh?
Is there no Libraries Project? Nothing to encompass Library at Alexandria, Library of Congress, & the great libraries of London & Paris? I'm shocked. TREKphiler 15:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Book Plot as a Seperate Article?
Someone has created a seperate article for the book Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn. The problem is that the article is nothing more than a user-written plot summary with no citations or refrences, not to mention the fact that it reads like a high school book report. Should this page even exist? Oviously, I do not have the right to delete an entire page, but I don't think this page has any place on Wikipedia. Launchpad_72 08:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC) -- (Moved this to correct date on this page -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 15:51, 5 October 2008 (UTC))

Destitution at Portal:Literature
Attention bibliophiles: Portal:Literature needs to be updated for July. If it is not properly maintained, it will be delisted as a Featured portal. Sincerely, Skomorokh  22:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

New York Times non-fiction best sellers
Hi all, I've never actually ventured into WikiProject Books before, but I just started up a substantial book centric undertaking, and I wouldn't feel right getting too far in without consulting with the book experts first. I was writing up an article for PJ O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores and wanted to look up how many weeks it was #1 on the NYTimes best seller list, and I'd just figured this would be one of the things we had, similar to how music has List of number-one hits (United States). I was able to find Publishers Weekly lists of bestselling novels in the United States but I couldn't find a similar category for non-fiction. So, I went ahead and got started, making the very bare bones List of New York Times Non Fiction Best Sellers and filled in New York Times Non-Fiction Bestsellers of 2008.

I'm checking in with you guys because I wanted to see what community opinions were of how the main list and yearly lists should be titled, if you guys like the table format I used or would prefer something different and those sorts of things. I also just wanted to double check if this list (or a similar one) already does exist and I just couldn't find it, or if this list didn't exist on purpose and you guys wouldn't like it created.

I think having a resource of the #1 non fiction book in the US at a given time would be encyclopedic and good for the project, and it's something I'm willing and excited to work on. That said, I also don't want to step on any toes, and I have a full appreciation that people who've previously been involved in WP:Books are going to have a better understanding than me of what the best style, set up, and organization of such a list is going to be. So any input you guys have (even if it's "No we don't want that list made") would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Vickser (talk) 10:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I just wanted to check in and give anyone who might be concerned an update on how the non-fiction best sellers drive is going. I've created Template:NYT non-fiction number 1s to link the yearly lists together, but as this is the first time I've ever made a template, I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could eye it over and see if it's okay.  I've got the yearly lists up for 2004-2008, and am currently working on filling in the 2008 books and linking them through succession tables.  If anyone has any tips or suggestions on how I could go about this whole project better, I'd greatly appreciate any comments. Thanks! Vickser (talk) 19:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've made some changes to help with viewability. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you! It does look much better now with the added separation between decades, and the editing only line separations should make editing easier. Great changes! Vickser (talk) 22:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Building better plot summaries
I've worked up a potential guideline on how to write plot summaries at How to write a plot summary. I welcome input from members of this project as I try to move the page to guideline status. Thanks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"Reception"
In the article for The Emperor's Children, other editors added to the section intended for critical reviews descriptions of Amazon reader reviews, and something called the "Delete Key Awards." I don't think any of this (or anything in that article's section beginning with "However...") is appropriate, notable, verifiable, etc., but as I'm not a usual editor of book articles, I thought I'd seek comments here. Cheers, Postdlf (talk) 21:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment from WP:DYK
Hi. The new article List of characters in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has been nominated to appear in DYK here, but another editor expressed concerns about the notability of such a list. I'd appreciate it if someone could take a moment to comment there on whether such lists are generally allowed their own articles or not - obviously we don't want to feature it on the Main Page if you have a policy of discouraging them. Cheers, Olaf Davis | Talk 10:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

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

WikiProject Media franchises
Dear WikiProject Books participants...WikiProject Media franchises needs some help from other projects which are similar. Media franchises scope deals primarily with the coordination of articles within the hundreds if not thousands of media franchises which exist. Sometimes a franchise might just need color coordination of the various templates used; it could mean creating an article for the franchise as a jump off point for the children of it; or the creation of a new templating system for media franchise articles. The project primarily focuses on those media franchises which are multimedia as not to step on the toes of this one. It would be great if some of this project's participants would come over and help us get back on solid footing. Please come and take a look at the project and see if you wish to lend a hand. Thank you. - LA (T) 21:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Franchise naming convention discussion at WikiProject Media franchises
Dear WikiProject Books participants...WikiProject Media franchises is currently discussing a naming convention for franchise articles. Since this may affect one or more articles in your project, we would like to get the opinions of all related projects before implimenting any sweeping changes. Please come and help us decide. Thanks! LA (T) @ 22:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The Lord of the Rings: FA review
The Lord of the Rings has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Davémon (talk) 09:57, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

"General audience" requirement for notability
There seems to be support for removing the "general audience" clause in the notability guide. Is this just the result of a small pool of input, or is there really no support for this requirement? Please drop by if you wish to comment. Richard001 (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Help discuss categories of fictional characters
Categories for Discussion has a series of discussions about whether to categorize certain specific types of fictional characters: double agents, dictators, characters with eidetic memory, et al. Advice from the Books project would be valuable. -- ℜob C. alias ⒶⓁⒶⓇⓄⒷ 20:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

THE GIRL WHO OWNED A CITY
THIS WAS A GOOD BOOK i REALLY ENJOYED READING IT AND I GUESS IT MADE AN IMPACT BECAUSE i READ IT ABOUT 30 YEAR AGO AND I STILL REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.238.56.236 (talk) 05:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a point to this comment? And are you SHOUTING AT US for a reason? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Rudyard Kipling FAR
Rudyard Kipling has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 16:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Scattershot: My Bipolar Family
Hi: I created a new article about a new book, Scattershot: My Bipolar Family, soon to be reviewed, just out, pretty fascinating, about a family's troubles with bipolar disorder. Could someone help me categorize it, wikiproject it, and add the book cover to the infobox? I would really appreciate it. Sincerely, Once on a vending machine (talk) 21:46, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a category and the wikiproject tag. maclean 05:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I didn't know a book could have an ISBN and an OCLC. Do you know how I could--in line with Wikipedia policy--add a picture of the book cover to the Infobox?Once on a vending machine (talk) 19:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The War Within: A Secret White House History (2006-2008)
Could a project member rate this for importance and give it the appropriate tags/categories? Thanx. The Squicks (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never really understood the point behind 'importance' ratings. I rated it as Start class and nominated it for the DYK section. Good work. --maclean 01:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Book
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Books that are overshadowed by other works
I notice that the book Life on Earth was a bestseller, yet the article Life on Earth (TV series) gives it minimal attention. What should be done in this case? Should the book have its own article, or simply receive more attention on the TV series article? Should the article have the books banner added? The same applies to many other series, especially those by Attenborough. Richard001 (talk) 10:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I know for a fact that the book was "huge". Mainly on the back of the series though. It does need more; my preference would be to a separate article that gives detail of "its" impact. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  11:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The Innocents Abroad needs serious attention
Our article on Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad seems to consist mostly of personal opinions / OR, and seriously needs re-writing. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 15:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

New Book Article - Feedback Desired
I've just created an article entitled: Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream along the guidelines this project lays out for non-fiction literature. As I hope to create many more such articles on fly fishing related literature, I would appreciate any feedback on the above article.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:17, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Handy infobox?
I figured this was probably the most propos wikiproject to bring this up at, but correct me if I'm wrong. There is a specific infobox that is currently essentially unused for publishing companies - Template:Infobox publisher. Since books are published, well I'm sure you can see my reasoning. Unfortunately it needs some work, and I'm very far from a template wonk. Anyone have the know-how and wherewithal (or even some hiterto, or a dash of whatnot)? WLU (t) (c) (rules - simple rules) 01:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Pages with duplicate ISBNs
Hi everyone!

I've noticed that quite a few book articles have Infoboxes that contain an ISBN of a completely different book. Maybe the infobox was copied from another article and the author forgot to correct the ISBN?

I've compiled a list of such pages that contain identical ISBNs and I'm slowly going through it and correcting the entries. If anyone feels like some ISBN surfing, feel free to use the list and strike out corrected articles.

Avian (talk) 08:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I created an article! (Burn Rate.) Please help me with it!
I made a new article, Burn Rate (book). Please add content, corrections, rate it, add categories or whatever. I feel like a put a fair amount of work into it...and I NEED SOME LOVE. Don't like the interactions with the "deletionist" busybodies. Who drop antogonistic textboxes like turds and don't contribute content. So please come by and make my article better. And love me!TCO (talk) 19:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Book article up for deletion
A book article is up for deletion at Articles for deletion/Why I Will Never Ever Ever Ever Have Enough Time to Read This Book. Schuy m 1 ( talk ) 08:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Are Years in Literature pages within your scope?
I notice that none of the Years in Literature pages (that I've seen, anyway) have been tagged with your project template. Are you okay with these pages being tagged? Is there a more applicable project? Thanks! Cerebellum (talk) 17:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It's OK. feydey (talk) 18:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks. --Cerebellum (talk) 19:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Book list in Author article
Has anyone developed a template for listing books that could be subst into an author's article? I am working on Vic Braden; who has a number of books and videos...Mjquin_id (talk) 06:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Contents Section - Non-Fiction Books
Editors have recently removed Contents sections of two book articles Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream and Book of the Black Bass with the following somewhat cryptic edit summaries: removed non-encyclopedic material and removed indiscriminate information. In both cases, the contents section provided very descriptive information about the organization and contents of the books. Indeed, one could write the synopsis in a way that essentially replicates the Contents: In Chapter I: Fly tying the author .... In Chapter II: Knots the author discusses.... but in my personal opinion this does not make for a good article. Because non-fiction technical books generally contain a very descriptive Table of Contents, the inclusion of that table in the article provides great insight into the book. It is neither un-encyclopedic nor is it indiscriminate. The guideline for non-fiction does not say Contents are indiscriminate or un-encyclopedia, it mere suggests that the Synopsis and Contents sections should not duplicate themselves. Does the guideline need changing or are Content sections, when descriptive, appropriate for non-fiction books???--Mike Cline (talk) 15:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Mike, thanks for informing me of your concern. This project appears to have a style guide, WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article, which on this subject merely states a possibly header of "Contents / Chapters (avoid if you can convey this in the synopsis)", giving Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as an example. Embedded list is the related Wikipedia guideline. I would also recommend writing some prose for the critical reception, rather than bulk quotations. Marasmusine (talk) 15:42, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you cover publisher companies?
I was just trying to find the right tags to put on this talk page. Talk:Hamlyn (publishers) Govvy (talk) 13:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:Books Peer Review?
Hey there.. and I are working to lead to FA status Maya Angelou's autobiographical book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I know there's a peer review section for WP:NOVELS, but I can't seem to find one for non-fiction works. Should we just go with the general WP:PR page? Or am I missing something? Thanks in advance. Scartol •  Tok  17:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to redirect Seth Material
There is a proposal to redirect Seth Material (an article within this Wikiproject's scope) to Jane Roberts. Please comment at Talk:Seth Material. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer
The article should be re-written, putting controversy at end or as sidebar, not as main focus.

Dkoloko (talk) 19:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
Hi Bookpeople! I was wondering, is the article of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die okay? Like the title says, its about 1001 albums. In the article, every single one is listed. Might be infringement or otherwise overkill. I'm not familiar with the WikiProject Books guide lines, and I wouldn't know how to interpret them. If anyone would give it a quick glance, you'll be receiving some Wikipedia karma. -- Soetermans |  is listening  |  what he'd do now?  11:20, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No, that is not fair use (Compare with The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time). I will change the article presently. --Marcus Brute (talk) 04:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

OCLC controversy
I'd like to point out to you guys a problem that's arising with OCLC. Maybe you're not aware of this, but OCLC, the non-profit responsible for WorldCat, is trying to change the licensing for their cataloging in a way that'll make them "owners" of cataloging information of books, forbidding the free share of that information unless one follows their rules, which they'll be able to change anytime, for any reason. See Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab and past posts at the Thingology Blog for more details.

An online petition has been started so that they stop this absurd move, and I guess everyone in Wikipedia who works with books (specially those that spend time adding OCLC links to them) should be concerned, even if this, at first, doesn't prevent Wikipedia itself from linking to WorldCat. Please help by signing it!

I don't want to spam WikiProjects and Template talk pages (I'm thinking OCLC and Cite book, among others) about this, as I don't know what you guys think of it. So, I'm only currently posting it here. If someone else feels this is important, please try making it known to people who don't read this specific talk page, okay?

PS.: If there's somewhere more appropriate for this to be posted, I'd love to know! -- alexgieg (talk) 18:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the notice. According to Section C.3(a) and B.13(b) of the new Policy of Use Wikipedia may not be welcome. Specifically, "Use of WorldCat Records" is limited to those that don't "substantially replicate the function, purpose, and/or size of WorldCat". Wikipedia may be doing this. There are alternatives to using OCLC. maclean 20:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Daunting information. I've observed that WorldCat requires password access, so I'm not sure. What are the alternatives to OCLC?

Pinckney2007 (talk) 15:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Pinckney2007

request for review of Innocents Abroad
Hi,

I added some material to Innocents Abroad and would appreciate feedback, and some specific consideration of what to do with the material that I moved to the bottom of the page. It appears that this material was originally some sort of analysis of literature paper, and it's got some good insights, but I'm not sure how to make it "encyclopedic" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocents_Abroad#Starter_Commentary_and_Material_for_Innocents_Abroad_Wikipedia_Entry

Pinckney2007 (talk) 15:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Pinckney2007

Book Publishing?
Does book publishing fall within the scope of this Project? We don't seem to have a Project for publishing, so it would be good to have a "home" for articles about publishing houses (we've got hundreds of them). In any event, I just added the WPBooks template to the Temple University Press talk page -- but feel free to remove it if you feel it's not appropriate. I will hold off on adding it to others until I see what you folks think. Cgingold (talk) 16:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)