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Archive 15Archive 16Archive 17Archive 18Archive 19

Quran listed at Requested moves

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The Republic (Plato) listed at Requested moves

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It should be mentioned that Ms. Nkomo admitted that she had not read "Capitalist Nigger" when she made her criticism, for which she was accused of intellectual dishonesty.

Onyeani's new book, "Roar of the African Lion," is already being acclaimed as the first of five titles that are tackling the African economies.

Cover of Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads

Hello. Could someone please upload the cover of Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads and add it to the infobox? I will expand the stub later.Zigzig20s (talk) 11:37, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

*-gonist language

Hi all, what's the WikiProject Books community's general attitude on the inclusion of *-gonist labels in articles? The Film and TV communities tend to shun labels like antagonist, protagonist, tertiary deuteragonist, and even labels like villain, main character, and so on. Just curious. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Full Service (book) listed at Requested moves

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Talk:Full Service (book)#RfC: One or two articles?

A proposal on this article has started. I invite you for your comments there. --George Ho (talk) 05:23, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Not in Front of the Children - at Peer Review

I've requested Peer Review for Not in Front of the Children.

Feedback would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Not in Front of the Children/archive1.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 06:03, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Changes to Infobox bibliography

I am proposing some changes to {{Infobox bibliography}}. See the discussion at Template talk:Infobox bibliography. RockMagnetist(talk) 00:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

The Meditative Mind listed at Requested moves

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External Links to text of book?

For a book published prior to 1923 (For Ex. Gulliver's Travels), is there a rule regarding whether there should be a link to a readable copy of the book and if so, are some sites (archive.org, google books) preferred?Naraht (talk) 14:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Created new article on book - Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand

I've created a new article on the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand.

Input and suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated on the article's talk page, at Talk:Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 06:01, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Illuminatus article review

I have nominated The Illuminatus! Trilogy for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKay (talk) 09:55, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Red Gambit

Would someone from this Wikiproject mind taking a look at Red Gambit. The series doesn't appear at first to satisfy WP:NBOOKS and none of the sources provided seem to meet WP:SIGCOV. The series appears to be self-published based upon this Amazon page. This Barnes and Noble page shows and ISBN number and lists the publisher as CreateSpace, but that appears to be somehow connected to Amazon. The only things I found from Googling were Amazon and Good Reads pages; I could find nothing which indicated the series or any of the individual books satisfy WP:BKCRIT. In addition, it also seems that one of the main contributors to the article is the author himself based upon this post at File talk:Stalemate Cover.jpg. So, there are possible WP:COI and WP:PROMOTION issues as well. Anyway, I'm not too familiar with book articles, so not sure how rigorous the sourcing needs to be for lesser none books such as these. I'm tempted to WP:Prod or WP:AfD it, but would like to hear other opinions first. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

  • I also was not able to find significant independent coverage in the newspaper or magazine/journal databases I use. Per Wikipedia:Notability, this lack of third-party (published) coverage is rationale for deletion. If the contributor/author is active in editing it would be better to AfD, rather than Prod, to give them the benefit of doubt. AfD is only really concerned about whether the subject of the article meets the notability criteria so I don't think COI/PROMOTION matters unless it is kept. maclean (talk) 04:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Maclean25 for checking for sources and the feedback about AfD. Since I made my above posted, the article has been tagged for various issues by @Rocknrollmancer:, so I'd like to get their feedback as well to see if bringing it to AfD is justified. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:46, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I couldn't find anything, so I ended up nominating it for deletion myself. You can find it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Red Gambit. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments. I stumbled into this by eavesdropping on a talkpage where the editor/image-'owner'/author was complaining about having his cover-art images deleted (again), as possible copyvio image(s) were used as the bases for embellishment by overlaid graphics. The author added most of the prose to what was a pre-existing poor stub, starting over a year ago, tried to establish a draft article about himself that went stale, and the user contributions show a {{spa}} - single purpose account. I tagged everything I could, including double-tagging the inline citation boxes to reveal reasons with a mouse hover, and hoped it would get noticed. The cites were added by an unconnected GF editor way back after it was tagged as no sources. I messaged the editor/author- deliberately without a standard warning, recognising a type of newbie, so don't bite - advising as best I could, but didn't want to be presumptive that it would not survive as it's not my usual topic area. The main temporary measure was to clean-up by deleting the trivial page-size sentence and condense the array of relatively-large images chronicling the volumes and swamping the article. It's on my list and I will vote on the AfD later.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 09:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Animals, Property, and the Law

I've nominated this for deletion, but I'd like to be convinced otherwise, if possible. If the article's claims about this being the first setting out of the legal case for animal rights are true, this is a very notable book, but the source for the article's claims are... the book itself. Not a source we can necessarily take without questioning. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:46, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Declaration of Sports

The photo of the Book shows in the caption that it is supposed to be the 1633 version, yet in the image I see MDXXXIII. Isn't that 1533? I believe this is an error on the print, not the article, but it does require clarification, does it not? The Average Wikipedian (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Barsetshire Pilgrimage listed at Requested moves

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Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team to be moved to Vengeance (Jonas book). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 12:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

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There is currently a dispute at Talk:Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds over whether the "genre" field should be used in the article's infobox. Project members might want to comment. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

International Article Number (EAN) in infobox?

Is there a way to add the International Article Number (EAN) to the infobox? I tried to add the number to the ISBN section for L'Exigence and it didn't work. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:40, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

ISBN13 is by definition an EAN, so it should go under |isbn=. I've added the EAN from this site to the article, which seems to be working. ‑‑YodinT 15:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
User:Yodin: Thank you. Not sure why it didn't work when I tried.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
User:Yodin: Would you or someone else be able to add a picture of the cover please?Zigzig20s (talk) 15:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Full Service (book) listed at Requested moves

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Jesse Haynes

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jesse Haynes Joeykai (talk) 04:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Change to WP:Books

When are we going to do something about this daft surname only disambiguation rule for 20th Century writers? In ictu oculi (talk) 13:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Invitation to our April event

You are invited...

Women Writers worldwide online edit-a-thon

(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 02:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Jews Against Zionism (book) listed at Requested moves

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Notice regarding use of Goodreads template as an EL

Interested Project members are invited to comment on a discussion regarding the use of the {{tl:Goodreads}} template. Here is the link: WP:External_links/Noticeboard#Is_Goodreads_an_appropriate_EL.3F. 20:03, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Talk:What's So Amazing About Grace?/GA1

Can anyone help here? The nominator Neelix appears to be inactive since November last year. Thanks. Sainsf <^>Feel at home 13:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

"#property:" in Infobox Books

In case anyone comes across an infobox parameter where "#property:" has been added, as in this version of Phantoms in the Brain, it seems that this is a system which adds Wikidata to the record so that content can be re-used across different Wikipedias (eg {{#property:P212}} for isbn). It doesn't appear to be clearly documented anywhere yet. See discussion at User_talk:Magioladitis#Phantoms_in_the_Brain. PamD 16:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I've noticed that all of a sudden, the infoboxes of books are now sometimes showing the "genre" parameter automatically, even when the book is non-fiction. Is this related? It seems totally wrong, given that "genre" is specifically for fiction works only, per Template:Infobox book. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:38, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I also noticed that in case of multiple ISBN entries, this addition displays all of them. Sometimes, these ISBNs are not even from the first edition of the book. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

OK after some consideration I think the recent changes have to be reverted for now till we really synchronise how the Infobox grabs the info from Wikidata. For example in many cases we have omitted the display of an ISBN for a reason. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

@Prairieplant, Frietjes, and Bgwhite: -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:29, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Magioladitis. Books first published before the ISBN system was invented do not get ISBN in the infobox, which has first edition information. One I noticed for a 1936 book by a British author yielded a 2006 American published edition (tracing it out on World Cat). Editors can add isbn for more recent editions in Publication history section of the article if it exists but no in the infobox, but for major authors, this is not done -- e.g., Auten, Dickens, Bronte, Twain, Harper Lee, though their books are still in print. Plus such a big change needs to be placed in the infobox book template so an editor knows what is expected. Now that template says use first edition isbn, for example. --Prairieplant (talk) 08:39, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Is there any indication of when the changes are likely to be reverted? They're still in place now, and the effects, apparently including the addition of inaccurate information to infoboxes that cannot readily be removed, are very aggravating. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 09:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Publishers--not magazine

I'm doing some articles focused on publishing history. If a publisher is a book publisher--but not a magazine publisher--which project should it be tagged with? --Jaldous1 (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Not so useful and misleading information in book templates

Can someone please explain the rationale for including the following things in articles about books, namely: an OCLC number, ISBN, Dewey classification (regardless of edition), and full LC classification. I get a strong impression every time I see these things that whoever's doing this does not understand how either of them actually works or what they are for. Putting them in will not help someone find them in their local library without first consulting the library's catalogue, as some seem to think (I've been told this was why they were there by one editor, so people could go find them). Take the article for Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. That novel has run through probably thousands of editions by now, in many English-speaking countries. The OCLC number which is there in the article is not some universal unique number for that book, now and forever: it is not "the number" for the novel! It is a number assigned by OCLC to one particular MARC record for one particular edition of the novel, published in 2003--of itself, that is no use to the casual reader of this article. The reader cannot jot down the number, take it to the library and find that book with it. The most one can do is click on the link and discover (wonder of wonders) a record for the edition of the book published in 2003--considerably less informative than the article the reader has at hand, one assumes. The ISBN is even less useful, and again, there is no single ISBN which somehow "represents" the novel--so what is the point of including one from 2003, 1975, or 2016? What does it matter--what's it for?

We should not be cluttering up articles with data for its own sake, particularly when that data adds nothing to the article. Similarly, the LC classification given in the box is for a particular edition of the novel published, again, in 2003. You can see the 2003 in the classification itself. When it comes to literature, Dewey, at least, is a bit more justified, in that there is no date or variable Cutter number as there is with LC. But outside of literature, Dewey classifications, as LC ones, can vary considerably from one cataloguer or institution to another, and they can vary even more across editions of Dewey, which are issued every 4-5 years. All this strikes me as rather a lot of trainspotting, in that the information is jotted down for its own sake, the information is apparently chosen arbitrarily if not completely randomly, and its purpose is utterly mystifying rather than edifying to the casual reader of the encyclopedia. Sorry if I took a long time to say this, but this has been bothering me a long time, and I've never been sure till today where I could bring up the question. I strongly urge us to consider why a template has been created for these pieces of information about a work which exists in multiple formats--which can never adequately accommodate the breadth of diversity of data in those formats. I believe strongly that these articles do not need that data and are in fact worse for having them. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 07:13, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

I might further add, from the same example, that whoever is doing this does not understand that the numbers they've added to the Dewey class (22) are for the edition of Dewey (that's an older edition) and that the slash is not part of the official classification scheme--it's something various agencies put in so that a local library cataloguer has a place to abbreviate if they want, or where to break along the spine. As well, many public libraries who use Dewey don't actually use the system for their fiction--they just have fiction sections or genre fiction sections and then arrange by author and/or title. So again I ask, what's all this for? Same thing with the page count--who bloody cares that the 1949 American edition is so many pages? Is that the edition being referenced in the body of the text where an editor has written what happens on "page 222" or something similarly daft? How likely is it that a reader of the encyclopedia anywhere in the world has that edition to hand, even if that's the one being cited (which is not likely)? See what I mean? All this stuff is just so much clutter--worse still, it is actively misleading. Some might even argue that all those OCLC numbers are effectively free advertising for a multinational company (who I work for, full disclosure)--I can't think of who else possibly benefits from having those numbers--along with those letters--prominently displayed in every book article on Wikipedia--it sure as hell is not the reader. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 17:14, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

I cannot answer all your points, but the ISBN if clicked brings one to the Book Sources page, scan down that page to World Cat, click again, and you will see the libraries holding that book in distance rings from where you set your location. I find that useful. Both the World Cat entry and knowing where there is a library with the book. World Cat gives the option to View all formats and languages, and also View all editions. Try it for Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie, one of her novels published after 1970, so it has ISBN. OCLC also shows libraries holding the book, and gives one the option to View all editions and formats. We try to put the first edition ISBN in the infobox. The times I have followed out to find where a book is, there were libraries holding it. Of course, I have not tried this for every article on a book with an ISBN in Wikipedia. ISBN is new, in use since 1970. Once on that ISBN page, other sources besides World Cat can be searched as well. My assumption is that OCLC is useful for the books published before ISBN came into being, again leading to a library near you, or one that might consider interlibrary loan, which is very practical in my mind. It also lets an editor who does not have the book in hand learn information about the book like number of pages, format, translator if there was one. --Prairieplant (talk) 14:18, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. The last time I clicked on ISBNs here, years ago, all it led me to was a page about what ISBNs were. I take your general points about usefulness of finding a book near to them for some people. However, because most people who edit here are not cataloguers or other people working in library and information science, it still strikes me that much of the way the data is presented (as well as what data has been selected) leads to (or rather springs from) many false assumptions about books: for example, "number of pages". There is no single number of pages for a book that exists in multiple editions, just as there is no single ISBN; sometimes there are multiple ISBNs for the same book by the same publisher (as many as three, sometimes, for the same physical book). There can also be several OCLC records for the same physical book. Now, if people were to follow some sort of guideline saying, go to WorldCat and find the earliest edition you can find, and if published in more than one country at the same time, choose the one the author lives in, and figure out from all the records which one is the best representative of the first edition and use that information consistently across the template, we might be getting somewhere. But as you correctly point out there were no ISBNs before 1970 (though there were SBNs, and you can convert those to ISBNs by adding a zero to them). So they will want to put one in, and they seem to be just putting an ISBN from any random copy they have to hand.
Returning to the point about LC classification, in the example you gave, have you noticed that under LC class it has two distinct classifications? The PZ number given is an out of date classification for popular fiction which no-one has used in decades. The second classification is incomplete (it's Christie's English author class)--the title Cutter number is missing. All of these things taken together make the article box look incoherent. This makes Wikipedia look incompetent--which it is, actually, because, again, its editors are not cataloguers and don't how any of this works; the template is trying hard to do something it cannot possibly do: represent "the book" when there are hundreds of them. I am all for helping people find information but if that box is going to be useful, someone needs to figure out how to do so in a meaningful manner. And I suppose in future I will do my best to fix up such article info boxes myself to reflect what I'm suggesting. But I'd like to know if there are there guidelines about which OCLC, which ISBN, which Dewey, which LC, etc., to be used, written in such a way as to explain what they are and how to apply them coherently, for editors who are not library cataloguers? ZarhanFastfire (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
I do not see why one must be a cataloguer to find useful information about a book at World Cat or the other places listed and linked at Book Sources. The template itself says, use first edition at the ISBN, as you see if you read the guidance at Template:Infobox book. OCLC is to be used when there is no ISBN, and again first edition is preferred. The guide right now is to use the First Edition ISBN, and thus the first edition number of pages. Some articles on books add a publication history section, listing other editions with year published, publisher, ISBN, including foreign language editions (e.g. A Morbid Taste for Bones, first in the Cadfael series by Ellis Peters). For books written before 1970 and without an ISBN, no ISBN is entered. Sometimes the OCLC is entered for that easy link to World Cat. Articles on books by Dickens, Austen, Twain, for a sample, show no ISBN and no OCLC in the infobox book template, and publication history covers only the first edition, not later editions over the decades. Some include a "definitive" annotated edition in a section titled further reading, which will have an ISBN. Some articles of English language books include information on translations, usually found from World Cat, so that the publisher, translator, year and ISBN will be available for the article. I have not looked so much at books translated into English, beyond The Little Prince and The Stranger (novel), both translated from French; the first was published in the USA in French and English, the second was published by a French publisher in French and then later translated. The latter includes some discussion about the different translations to English, and the two different titles chosen in English for UK (The Outsider) and the USA (The Stranger). In the article on The Little Prince, in one section (not the template, but a section in the article) The Little Prince#Literary translations and printed editions, the translations into English are listed as first editions in each case, with the associated ISBN for those translations done 1970 or later. What seems chaotic to you seems orderly and helpful to me. There is also the satisfaction of knowing the book exists, listed in other databases, and that information is consistent in multiple sources. When I look for less famous novels, it is much harder work tracking down the needed information. The Book Source page has been improved over the years, I guess -- the introduction is less confusing than when I first encountered it, and did not realize I needed to scan down the page to find useful information on where to find the book. Another editor explained that to me (thank you Magioladitis). If I add an OCLC to a template, I use the one provided at the World Cat page for the ISBN I used. Most of the detail you explained about LC, P2, Cutter number, English author class (she is English, eh wot?) went over my head. Perhaps much of your objection is going over my head, as I am not a person who specializes in library catalogues, rather one who uses them to find books in all their versions. There are some other changes to ISBN being done and sometimes discussed, where later year ISBN are put into the template by some invisible manner to books published long before ISBN came into being. Wikipedia says it is a tertiary source, so these secondary sources are essential to a well-written article, no? --Prairieplant (talk) 10:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I agree, you don't have to be a cataloguer to find at least some of that information useful, and I don't think I said that, just that the rather flat way the information is provided is potentially misleading. You do need to be a cataloguer to understand and fill in the lower parts of that template competently, though, I think, and you have to be aware of what is supposed to go where, and your response is the first one I've had that suggests there is in fact some kind of standard--so thanks for that. Probably it should all be consistent with the entry from a first edition. What I was objecting to (actually there were several discrete objections, excuse my grumpy letter to the editor tone), in part because I did not understand what was supposed to be in the template, was what I have actually been seeing, as in the example I cited, and now I know that's not what was supposed to be there and I am pleased to hear it. In other words, I've seen a lot of bad examples. The template would be more user-friendly if it said explicitly that it ought to be a first edition, etc. Maybe it is, I'm not used to dealing with them directly, I've never edited one, just grown increasingly frustrated at seeing random stuff dumped in them apparently for the sake of it. And yes, to confirm what you've heard, in recent years ISBNs have been retroactively assigned to pre-1970 books via their reprints (always assuming they genuinely are reprints)--but that's something publishers are doing, the "validity" of those ISBNs is a matter of some debate, but like it or not they're getting added to records for the original works, ideally provided the "new" book really is a reprint without corrections or additions. (There have always been publishers who misuse them: sharing a single ISBN across dozens and dozens of books, getting confused about what they're for, e.g., using them for a series instead of a book, using the same ISBN over the course of different editions). Thanks once more for replying and clearing things up a bit for me. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 04:44, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Genre edit war

There are slow-moving edit wars at Hammer of the Gods (book) and Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored on whether the infoboxes should give the genre as "non-fiction", with both participants accusing each other of being blocked, vandals or whatnot. I have semi-protected both (of course at the Wrong Version) for now to stop those edit wars and would appreciate it if someone more familiar with how book infoboxes usually handle the genre could take a look. Huon (talk) 16:55, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Fitz Balintine Pettersburg

The article Fitz Balintine Pettersburg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non notable subject as no RS to support notability can be found

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:49, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Chaos Monkeys

Thanks to the community for creating an entry for my recently-released, bestselling book on Silicon Valley. One nit: the linked name actually goes to a Spanish cyclist that is definitely not me. To my knowledge, I don't have a Wikipedia page. Either that should be remedied, or the link removed. In case you opt for the former, there's a basic bio at Everipedia: https://www.everipedia.com/antonio-garcia-martinez/

There's also a more long-form bio at my author site: http://www.antoniogarciamartinez.com/about-antonio-garcia-martinez/

Antoniogm (talk) 03:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Curse Workers series

Hi everyone - I am working on sprucing up the Curse Worker's series by Holly Black (stumbled upon them one day, and as Wiki-things go, they pulled me in, wanting to improve them a bit). In any case, I am starting with White Cat by adding a reception section to the article. My question then is this, as I haven't really worked on book articles before: are there any particular places that the project looks for good critical reviews? I have pasted a few in my sandbox, but I am not sure if these will pass muster, as some of them seem a bit bloggy... In any case, any guidance provided will be of much help! -Pax Verbum 02:44, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Newspapers can be good; could try a Google News search (like this) and go from there? ‑‑YodinT 12:19, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Are most books notable

In context of Wikipedia:Notability (books), I just thought that I very rarely see articles about books in my new article feed. I was just thinking that essentially most films, tv shows (often - their individual episodes), video games, and albums are notable. How about books? And should there be some rough equality here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

A book is wiki-notable in the same sense as any other topic: reliable sources have taken notice of it. That said, for many, many books such notice amounts to basic cataloguing data and little more. That's quite enough information to build an Open Library wiki page, but not an interesting Wikipedia article. Many others have book reviews available from non-reliable sources (open blogs, publisher or vendor websites, etc.) which we cannot trust to be objective. At best these can support statements of the form "The publisher describes the author as...", which is hardly optimal content. Not everything on the internet belongs on Wikipedia. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:20, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Bible listed at Requested moves

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Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

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You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace to be moved to All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (collection). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 03:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

To opt out of RM notifications on this page, transclude {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}}, or set up Article alerts for this WikiProject.

Article alerts?

I am trying to create article alerts for this wikiproject, but having trouble. Anyone? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:18, 21 September 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Reviews for Reception section

Hello, for the Reception section from where do I get critical reviews? The positive reviews are easily available on the book itself. Also if the negative reviews are not from any known persons, is it usable (like from Goodreads or other websites)? Most importantly is it absolutely necessary to go hunt for negative reviews to balance the positive ones? Roshni Kanchan (talk) 17:15, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Roshni Kanchan The blurbs on the book's cover are not a good source for reviews to bring into the article -- no date for one thing. Those are neatly clipped from a larger review, and that full review is what to find for the Literary Significance or Reviews section. I look for reviews in major newspapers, in Kirkus Reviews, in Publishers Weekly, in Library Journal. Sometimes magazines review books, too. I do not believe that Goodreads reviews are allowed as part of a Wikipedia article, see MOS:NOVELS for some guidance. I think newspapers.com might be useful, but I have not got into that source myself, yet. Some books are reviewed and discussed in other books, depending how long since the book was published. Blog reviews, no matter how interesting, are not considered reliable sources. Sometimes a blog contains a copy of a review published elsewhere behind a paywall. If the full citation is available for first printing, then I use those reviews. My big challenge is finding a review in the British or Irish press for books by British or Irish authors -- all behind paywalls? Find as many reviews as are out there. Some books get wholly positive reviews, that is what there is to find. Other books have intriguing reviews that note the strengths and the shortcomings all in one article. That is my 2 cents worth. --Prairieplant (talk) 22:49, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
User:Prairieplant, thanks for the reply (and for adding the heading :) ). One more question please - So then if I don't find any negative reviews, shall I not mention the positive ones also? Is it ok to keep that section blank?

--Roshni Kanchan (talk) 15:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Roshni Kanchan Use the reviews that you find. If you look again another time, at least in my experience, more reviews may appear. Over the time I have looked for reviews, many newspapers in the USA changed who had control of their archives. So In one year of seeking reviews, I would find nothing of use, and then the next year I find several reviews, now popping up on google searches. With google, I learned to type the newspaper name in the search key, for better results. Never does the word Reviews get me more than what Amazon or Barnes and Noble has on their selling page. Well, never say never, but rarely. That is why it might be better to look from a public library with their larger resources of archives, and of current newspapers. I think of the middle of the Patrick O'Brian series, when readers in the US abruptly discovered the series, and reviews were universally positive on every aspect of the novels. Later toward the end of the series, some reviews were more varied, judging one novel against the other as to structure or plot, and the big issue with those books, are they literature? If anyone had negative things to say in that middle period of the novels, those are still hidden from my view, and not in the articles. Reading the whole review is the key, as a good reviewer covers a lot of territory. I would not skip a Reviews section if Reliable Source reviews exist and you can access them. For books, the Reviews are a proof of notability as well as interesting to read. If some editor says a Review section is too positive, then the point of discussion is to ask, have you seen more critical reviews? If so, then include those reviews. Does that answer your question more clearly? --Prairieplant (talk) 01:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Prairieplant Yes, that does answer my question more clearly. Thank you. Meanwhile I also read a couple of How-To's and other articles on Wikipedia (from a contributor's point of view this time :) ) and I understood that I need not have a 100% complete article. As you also explained, I can start with the material that I have and then keep on adding (or someone else will add!). The sections that lack sufficient info have boxes over the heading. So I saw 'this section need citations' or 'this section needs more specific categories' and so on in many articles. So then I understood that I need to keep looking till the section is complete according to me. And yes, you are right Googling for reviews gives me book-sellers only!! I will use your method. Thanks again for clearing that. :) --Roshni Kanchan (talk) 02:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

RFCs on citations templates and the flagging free-to-read sources

See

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

List of Railway Series books

There's a discussion at Talk:List of Railway Series books#Notability and primary sources tags in which I'd like some input. TIA Andrewa (talk) 05:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Have the books republished by DC Comics.
Because if this was Batman, it would go to Good Article without the slightest questioning of entirely in-universe sourcing. Once again, fiction standards are imposed strictly on non-US articles that are completely ignored for the US.
As to tagging Thomas the Tank Engine for questionable notability! Andy Dingley (talk) 10:54, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

History of the Great War

I've not used this infobox before and see Pages using infobox book series with unknown parameters but don't know where to start to resolve it. I'd be grateful for suggestions, thanks. Keith-264 (talk) 10:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

 Done Hi Keith-264. The problem was that the infobox image was trying to access a later page in the djvu file, but the infobox thought that the later page was a separate unnamed parameter ({{{1}}}). I've fixed it by switching to use {{!}}, which the infobox assumes is part of the image parameter, but becomes a separate parameter when it gets to the image module. A bit convoluted, but I hope this answers your question? ‑‑YodinT 15:21, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Also pinging @Atlantic306: who kindly fixed the old [[File: image syntax from the infobox, but inadvertently stopped it from accessing the later djvu page. ‑‑YodinT 15:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing that Atlantic306 (talk) 15:50, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks very much! Regards Keith-264 (talk) 17:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
PS I remember setting the dijvu at the title page rather than the red cover but someone (Atlantic 306?) altered it. I suppose if they do the ! will still do the trick. Regards again. Keith-264 (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing

FYI on the AfD that is within the scope of this project. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:29, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Greetings WikiProject Books/Archive 18 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Make more use in infobox of preceded by/followed by for authors with multiple books

Can it be advised to editors to make more use of the parameters preceded by and followed by in the infobox for books by the same author? I have seen the feature used on articles about books by one author that are not a series -- I did some edit work on an article about an Agatha Christie novel and recalled that all 90 or whatever articles use this feature for the novels in chronological order, not by fictional detective or the way her author template is organized, as a pertinent example. I find it helpful, even when the article has a template with all the articles about the author or the books written by the author down at the end of the article, and never thought it was for series only, rather to link to the next book published by that author. Now that I use a mobile phone on occasion to read articles, the feature in the infobox shows up and can be used to navigate to the prior or next book by that author. Those handy templates do not appear on the mobile version. A point for discussion, as another editor keeps undoing the links in the articles on the six novels by Jane Austen, saying that only a series can use that feature. --Prairieplant (talk) 06:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC) [added a solid example just now --Prairieplant (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)]

  • I don't agree with this. Those parameters should only be used for a related series of books. The infobox should be only include characteristics the book, not characteristics of the author (like what they got published next). There are templates, like {{Jane Austen}} that can be transcluded for this purpose you describe. maclean (talk) 18:02, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
If there must be a series to use those parameters, then why not disallow their use unless series= is filled in? I am also thinking of the mobile users -- the so-very-useful author template is not visible on those mobile devices, at least not on my phone, so that was a second reason to me for letting the feature be used to find that author's next (in chronology) book on Wikipedia. However, I added a series name to the books by Louisa May Alcott that are considered as a series beginning with Little Women in the event that change is made. --Prairieplant (talk) 02:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
  • It's a bit of a difficult one: as maclean25 says it's currently for series only... then again I'm sure that in practice there are lots of examples of chronological ones, and, for example, the album infoboxes are purely chronological, and if readers would find it useful (and I think they would) then it seems a good idea. Personally, I wonder if it would be an idea to put the series and "before/after" together, and add a separate "chronological author's work" before/after below (or above) it. The way to get this changed, Prairieplant, would be to start a discussion at Template talk:Infobox book. ‑‑YodinT 10:05, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Okay Yodin, I put a new section at the Talk page for infobox book. See what happens. Thanks for the suggestion. --Prairieplant (talk) 13:01, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I mentioned the way the feature is used for the many articles on books by Agatha Christie at the template's talk page. --Prairieplant (talk) 11:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to abolish "magic" linking of ISBNs

There seems to be a well-advanced proposal to abolish the "magic" automatic linking of an isbn simply by writing ISBN 9781910392171. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Removal_of_ISBN_magic_links. PamD 18:45, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

PamD This applies to ISBN in an article, but not in a reference format, right? isbn= in a cite format will be unchanged, if I follow that discussion at the link you supplied. This means people who avoid cite formats will need to use a template. And lists I have occasionally put in Publication history sections, they will need the template, or I should consider using cite book for those lists, made a few years ago. Thanks for flagging the discussion. The term "magic links" is quite new to me. I think I understand it now -- do I? --Prairieplant (talk) 10:07, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
"Magic links" is the slightly quirky, non-standard, but very useful system whereby if you type "ISBN" followed by a space and a number, the system "magically" creates a link to the "Book resources" page for that ISBN.
As I understand it the links within templates will still work as at present: what we will lose is that adding "(Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-312643-0)" after a title in the flow of text will no longer automatically link the ISBN to the "Book resources" page as it does at present "(Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-312643-0)". There is a bot, or a bot request, which will replace all existing occurrences with a template {{ISBN}}, but no indication I can see as to what will happen in future, when "magic links" are switched off, when an editor adds an ISBN without using the template. PamD 10:29, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:Nobel Prize in Literature at WP:TFD

Please comment at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2017_January_2#Template:Nobel_Prize_in_Literature.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Opinions requested at Requested move Nineteen Eighty-Four → 1984

It would be really helpful to get more opinions here, specifically opinions that are supported by WP policies and guidelines. Thanks! —PermStrump(talk) 03:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump (proposals)#Future of magic links   Bgwhite (talk) 05:52, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this link, Bgwhite. At this minute, people tend to support the change from the "magic link" for ISBN and PMID, and replace them both with simple templates for use in text other than isbn= in a citation format. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:50, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources for categorization of authors and books?

Specifically for Napoleon Hill and his works. --Ronz (talk) 18:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Ronz The template for infobox writer Template:Infobox writer, used in the article on Hill suggests entries for Subject for nonfiction writers, and not using genre. Those items are commented out from the infobox at this moment, but both had been filled in. So, delete genre and its entries, then keep the Subject entries, but shorter list, maybe just self-help. This article shows possibilities for nonfiction--List of writing genres#Common genres: nonfiction. The article on Norman Vincent Peale has motivational as the genre for his writings, with a wiki link to a long article on motivation, which says nothing about books. Maybe that wiki link is not appropriate! The article on Dale Carnegie lists two of his notable books, does not use the genre or subject category. Both authors are in the categories of Self help writers and motivational writers. I had never heard of this man, so I read the article, and fixed some of the references, plus added a bit of text from the Lingeman article, which certainly balances that biography. Suggestions for you to consider. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:07, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the help! --Ronz (talk) 22:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420 collaboration"

You are invited to participate in the upcoming

"420 collaboration",

which is being held from Saturday, April 15 to Sunday, April 30, and especially on April 20, 2017!

The purpose of the collaboration, which is being organized by WikiProject Cannabis, is to create and improve cannabis-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in a variety of fields, including: culture, health, hemp, history, medicine, politics, and religion.

WikiProject Books participants may be particularly interested in the following category: Category:Non-fiction books about cannabis.

For more information about this campaign, and to learn how you can help improve Wikipedia, please visit the "420 collaboration" page.

---Another Believer (Talk) 17:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Page footer, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Archive 18/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Books.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

  • The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
  • The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
  • The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Books, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Seeking feedback on a guide for students who edit articles about books

Hi everyone! The Wiki Education Foundation is creating a guide to help students write about books. It's a handout intended to supplement their other resources, such as the interactive training and basic editing brochures. I'd love to get some community feedback on the draft here: User:Ryan (Wiki Ed)/Books. We're planning to send these off to the printer at the end of the month, so feedback by Sunday, May 28, would be appreciated. Thanks! --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of The Plot to Hack America for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article The Plot to Hack America is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Plot to Hack America until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Sagecandor (talk) 20:39, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to join the WikiProject

I'd like to join the WikiProject.

Is there a place to list myself? Sagecandor (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Imprint of a publisher or publisher with imprints?

The lead of our article on Del Rey Books appears to contradict itself. Could someone with more knowledge of publishing than I have look into it?

Also, it's a relatively minor issue, but "novels" probably account for only a small percentage of the output of "LucasBooks", if I recall correctly from when I was nine and collected everything Star Wars my parents could afford.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC about the author credits of first edition in first sentence in book article

RfC about the author credits of first edition in first sentence in a book article.

Please see Request for Comment, at Talk:Trump_Tower:_A_Novel#RfC_about_the_author_credits_of_first_edition_in_first_sentence. Sagecandor (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC about inclusion of films in Bibliography of Donald Trump

RfC about inclusion of films in Bibliography of Donald Trump:

Discussion at Talk:Bibliography_of_Donald_Trump#RfC_about_inclusion_of_films_in_Bibliography_of_Donald_Trump. Sagecandor (talk) 04:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

New handout to help student editors edit articles on books

Hi WikiProject,

A few weeks ago I posted here soliciting feedback for a guide for student editors contributing to articles about books. The guide has just been published and is available on Commons here:

File:Editing Wikipedia articles on books (Wiki Ed).pdf

It will be used primarily as a printed handout, distributed to students in a classroom setting, but may be applicable to any new user.

Thanks to Czar, Hoverfish, MarnetteD, Mike Christie, NinjaRobotPirate, and Ronz for your valuable feedback (on this and/or the films handout, which includes some similar material). --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:02, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Notice about Country novel by year categories

Hi, I have left a notice in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Novels#Notice_about_Country_novel_by_year_categories but I do not see any recent activity in the talk page of the project, so I thought maybe I should notify here as well. The partial and previously undiscussed restructuring of the novels categorization tree that was performed, influences the appearance of all the articles affected in incategory and PetScan search results. Thank you for your attention. Hoverfish Talk 22:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Elijah Daniel for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Elijah Daniel is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elijah Daniel (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Sagecandor (talk) 04:19, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Experiences with EEBO

Is there anyone around who has experience with working with EEBO (Early English Books Online)? --Dick Bos (talk) 14:55, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Penguin 60s, Very Short Introductions

Are there independent sources for "Penguin 60s" -- whose item here is oddly titled "Penguin 60s Classics"; see its talk page -- or OUP's "Very Short Introductions"? Currently, neither "article" (i.e. list) has any. -- Hoary (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life

Hello. I've created a stub for Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life. Feel free to expand it. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 18:03, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

"[Year] in literature" articles: copyedit on opening sentences

The start of all literary annual-overview articles (e.g. 2014 in literature) reads as follows:

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 2014.

Given that such articles cannot be exhaustive, I would suggest re-phrasing to the following:

This article lists some significant literary events and publications of 2014.

Would there be concensus for this change? — Hugh (talk) 02:50, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Books

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod talk 13:49, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Notification of WP:RFC regarding including historical figures in navboxes

Join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Templates#Removal_of_historical_characters_from_navboxes.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Verification request

There is some contention at Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention on content regarding homosexual activities. This could use some verification. Also should an RFC be held to discuss presentation of the content?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:45, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Fire and Fury

Requesting additional eyes on the Fire and Fury (book) article for the next few weeks. The article is guaranteed to receive traffic given current press coverage, thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 21:43, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Request for input: Series article vs. individual book articles

Hello,

AFD is not the perfect forum for this, but for what it's worth, there is a discussion currently in progress that could use some more input. For a series of novels whose articles currently have little information other than plot summaries, should they be merged to a series article or articles? Or should they be kept as individual articles, one per book? (Obviously, if an individual book's article is expanded to not be a plot summary, it'd be its own article.) Or should something else be done, and if so, what?

See: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alphabet Series. SnowFire (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@SnowFire, Wikipedia is generally written in summary style, such that if there is coverage about a set of books, that the article scope be about that set of books. If a section of the article grows disproportionately large based on an overabundance of sourcing, then it can split out to its own article. But it might be that a single book in a novel series receives all the coverage and the series none, caveat emptor, etc. czar 23:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Is the series Black Dagger Crime notable?

Xx236 (talk) 10:37, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

What sources have you found in your own researches? MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:37, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Black_Dagger_Crime Xx236 (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
Well, that may establish that a publisher with that name exists, but it isn't an independent reliable source. Several of those would be needed to establish enough notability for a stand-alone article. The topic "needs to have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject": see WP:SIGCOV. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:49, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Can I send invitations to new members for your project?

Hi, I have been working on recommending new members for your project for a while, and have sent some lists to Czar who helped invite those recommended editors. I wonder if you mind me sending invitations directly for WikiProject Books on your behalf to save time and efforts of yours? Thank you! Bobo.03 (talk) 16:44, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Really lame request - Lucy Crawford

Hi all, I happened upon Lucy Crawford recently and have created The History of the White Mountains as a stub. The problem is, I can see all sorts of sources that discuss the book - she is a "one hit wonder" - but very few in sufficient detail to make a decent job of what is surely a notable subject. She is very much a writer of the American frontier tradition and that means I've not got much chance of progressing it here from the UK without visiting top-class libraries because most of the decent sources will be US university presses etc, of which I can only see snippets using Google Books. Can anyone take it on? It is a fairly fringe subject but I am seeing lots of references to it and, indeed, lots of "wow-ness". American woman, living on the edge in the early to mid-1800s with an interesting family and with definite sourcing available has got to be something worth looking at. It ties in with a lot of related articles concerning the White Mountains/tourism etc in New Hampshire. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 01:42, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Book Article When There Is No Author Article?

I'm relatively new to this project so I'm not quite up to speed on policies for book articles. In short, can there be an article about a notable book even though the author has not been deemed notable enough for his/her own article? See The Land of Open Graves as an example. That book article needs help and I am willing to do it. There have been some significant reviews that can be cited to show that the book is notable, but I do not want to do that if the whole thing could be deleted by policy. (As a comparison, at WP:ALBUMS it has been decided that if a musician is not notable, neither are any of his/her albums.) Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 17:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

@Doomsdayer520, which reviews? The general rule of thumb is summary style. If an artist's album or author's book has some coverage but not enough for a dedicated article, that content is merged up to the parent article (the biography of the artist/author). If you have multiple reliable, secondary sources that review a book but make no mention of the author, then the book is the subject of the coverage and would be the standalone article. Often if an author is primarily known for a single book, the author's name will redirect to the book's article. czar 01:59, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
@Czar -- Sorry, I forgot to link the reviews I found: [1], [2] (PDF), [3]. The article on The Land of Open Graves has been noted at Wikipedia:Cleanup for its excessive content and for self-referencing the book itself. I do recommend that member of the Books Project check it out. Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 12:44, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
It's not a strong case for a separate article but likely sufficient. Those sources have enough detail to write substantially on the book as a subject. Most of the summary on its current article page just needs to be blown up. I'd only include the summative elements that the source reviews found important enough to include. czar 00:31, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Pretty much what I was thinking. I will clean up the article sometime soon. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 12:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Would this project by OK hosting a WP:PCW (Publishers cited by Wikipedia) compilation, similar to WP:JCW/WP:MCW?

The idea of a compilation of publishers similar to WP:JCW/WP:MCW has been floating around for a while, but where exactly to host it it somewhat up in the air. The natural place to host it would be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Publishers, but we have no such project. While we could create one, I don't know that there would be a high enough demand for this.

But since the vast majority of the compilation's information would come from {{cite book}}, I feel it makes sense to host it on WikiProject Books, even though you can publish things other than books. Any concerns or objections to this? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:22, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not that experienced here, but this sounds like a good idea. I'm interested in the history of publishers and publishing so I could see this as being useful. --Jaldous1 (talk) 19:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom

Hello. Could someone please upload a fair-use picture of the cover? Not sure if that's possible. I will expand the article in the next few days. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 06:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: Done. It's pretty straightforward. Use the Upload Wizard for English Wikipedia rather than uploading to Commons, and select the options for a Copyright work believed to be fair use, Cover art, Cover of a book (or something like that, from memory!). Copy image from anywhere eg Amazon. Others may have more precise advice, or perhaps tell me I'm doing it wrong! PamD 07:08, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 07:11, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Title

I created Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman) but was unsure about the title. Today I found Smoke and Mirrors (Gaiman book), is that better? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I've not seen the use of the author's name added. I've usually seen something like Neverwhere (novel). For Norse Mythology--maybe Norse Mythology (book). For Smoke and mirrors, I would suggest Smoke and Mirrors (short-story collection). --Jaldous1 (talk) 23:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books), you'd use Norse Mythology (book) first, and if that is too ambiguous—i.e., if there are other major books called Norse Mythology with potential articles—you'd go to Norse Mythology (Gaiman book). Is it a novel? If so, use that as the disambiguator. czar 10:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Czar. It's not a novel, and though it's a collection of stories that are short, it's not exactly a short story collection either. I think Norse Mythology (book), though WP-logical, is unhelpful[4], so I'll probably go with Norse Mythology (Gaiman book). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Norse Mythology (book) will redirect to Norse Mythology (Gaiman book) anyway until there are other claims on the title, so there's no harm in using it as the primary topic czar 21:17, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Cover request

Hello. Could someone please add the cover of The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America to its infobox? Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 18:30, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: Is there any reason for you not to learn how to do it yourself? See a couple of posts higher up for a brief note on how to do it. PamD 19:16, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't upload pictures I've not taken. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Book covers are covered under fair use so using a publisher's image of a cover is acceptable. No need to take a photo. --Jaldous1 (talk) 20:33, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
As I said above, copy the image from Amazon or anywhere else you can find it. PamD 22:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
User:PamD: If you wouldn't mind helping me with this--very helpful. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
@Zigzig20s: Have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Images.
  • Find an image of the cover, on Amazon or anywhere else, 1st edition if possible
  • Copoy it and save it to your computer, any file name will do
  • Open the "File upload wizard" (click on "Upload file" in left margin)
  • Follow the instructions carefully. Choose a nice clear name for the image file (eg "Views from a Window - cover of 1987 UK ed"). You're going for "This image is copyright but fair use"; "this image is the cover page of a book", etc. See how you get on. Good luck. PamD 17:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:27, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Bibliography of works on Madonna/archive1

If anyone wants to check out the article and nomination as well. —IB [ Poke ] 14:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Infobox book for multiple editions

This edit replaces a first-edition image with the image for the (newly released) second edition. I don't know much about the best practices for articles about books; if this isn't right, could someone please boldly fix it? (I'm not watching this page.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I reverted the edit. We prefer the first edition unless a later version has a free use image or becomes provably more iconic. czar 03:58, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Skin in the Game reception

Can I recruit an editor to weigh in on whether and how to include information on reception for Talk:Skin in the Game (book)? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

BookExpo/BookCon

Hey book editors,

I'll be attending some of this week's BookExpo and BookCon. There will be an awful lot of well known authors there and I hope to take a few pictures. If there's an author article you've been working on that needs a photo, check bookexpoamerica.com and thebookcon.com to see if they'll be there and then ping me if so. No promises, of course, and unfortunately I don't have time to attend the whole thing, but if I'm there I'll do my best. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Have fun at the show! Here are few scheduled authors that it would be great to have photographs of: Carl Hiaasen, Barbara Kingsolver, and James Frey.
Leonard Riggio, Chairman of Barnes & Noble is the main keynote and we need his photo.

--Jaldous1 (talk) 00:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

@Jaldous1: Well, I couldn't make it in time for Riggio or Kingsolver. May be able to find Hiaasen tomorrow. Got pics of Frey, though (and lots of other people). It's surprising how few people are there taking pictures. Almost like it's more of a literary crowd. Ping me if you see any others. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:23, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Jaldous1: FYI commons:Category:James Frey. The pics of him aren't as good as I had hoped (he looked kind of unhappy to be there -- at least for the moments I was lingering around his booth... maybe it was me :) ), but I've uploaded 4 nonetheless. I've added one to the article, but perhaps you prefer one of the others. I've just uploaded (but not yet done anything with) the second of three batches of pictures from the event here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: These are great--thank you for braving the crowds at Javits! Jaldous1 (talk) 14:54, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

RRTF is hosting an Edit-A-Thon

Announcing RRTF's second annual Edit-A-Thon! The event is being held June 23 through July 28 in honor of author Rick Riordan's June birthday and author/illustrator John Rocco's July birthday. The focus of the edit-a-thon will be on expanding Wikipedia's coverage of these two authors in an encyclopedic manner.

The Edit-A-Thon is open to all Wikipedia users - you do not need any experience with Riordan, Rocco, or RRTF! Help is needed in a variety of areas, including referencing, copyediting, and new page creation. Prizes will be given for first, second, and third place and will consist of a barnstar and Amazon gift card. To enter, please visit this page. The winners will be announced by July 31.

More information on rules and scoring can also be found on the contest page. Questions about the subject material should be left on the RRTF forums. Questions about the contest should be left on the contest Q&A. Good luck and happy editing! -- 2ReinreB2 (talk) 22:34, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:OR vs book summaries

I’ve noticed that most book articles on Wikipedia have a summary, some of them quite extensive. Many of them are an accurate synopsis of the book, complete with verifiable references from the book itself.

Now for very famous books, there are lots of independent sources that provide a summary of the contents. But how do we write summaries of books that aren’t famous enough to have their own independent sources summarising them. They may be notable enough to have independent sources testifying to their existence and reception, but not enough idepenmdent sources for a summary. Technically this is a violation of WP:OR.

So how do we write book summaries / plot synopsis without violating WP:OR? Knobbly talk 01:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Knobbly, MOS:PLOTSOURCE might answer your question. The gist is that we view simple plot summary as being sourced to the book. Any interpretive analysis atop that basic recitation would require secondary sources. czar 03:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Knobbly, I agree with Czar about how to write a plot summary following MOS:PLOTSOURCE without extra analysis, which analysis is really better when placed in the Reviews section, themes, or any other section based wholly on secondary sources. I would go further to suggest that relying on quotes from the original text are not necessary most of the time, and do not add anything. Again, those are more effective in the other sections of the article. Short plot summaries are recommended. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Does MOS:PLOTSOURCE apply equally to both fiction and non-fiction? Knobbly talk 01:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Knobbly, MOS:PLOTSOURCE is part of a page with the title Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction. There is a page about nonfiction, WP:NONFICTION, with some specific guides for an article about a nonfiction book, like a biography, and which points out similarities with the guidance for writing articles about fiction. I think the short answer to your question is, Yes it does. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:34, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion about article "Dressed to Kill (book)"

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Dressed to Kill (book)#RfC about the summary section of a book review article, which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Naming the murderer and the victims in the Character list

A discussion began recently on this topic, of the character list in an article about a mystery novel. Specifically, one editor reverts if I identify the murderer in the character list -- thought the murderer is named in the Plot summary. The discussion is here. There is a bit of reverting going on, for this novel and other mysteries, which is not good. What is your view on this topic? What do you think of the view of the other editor who posted views in the discussion? Or of my views regarding WP: SPOILER? What resolution do you suggest? --Prairieplant (talk) 10:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The editor in question is ‎GUtt01. If there is no resolution soon, I will need to ask for mediation, or some higher level editor to step in, as so many articles get changed without discussion or more important, agreement. --Prairieplant (talk) 09:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
This is posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels#Naming the murderer and the victims in the Character list as well as on this list. --Prairieplant (talk) 09:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Outline of Books

I've been slowly going through and updating Outline of books with links and descriptors. I'd appreciate any additions, reviews, edits. Auldhouse (talk) 23:44, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Help with determining the notability of a work

Hello everyone,

I've recently created my first article on Wikipedia. It's about Zinovia Dushkova, a Russian author. One of the editors who are currently helping me improve the article suggested writing a separate article dedicated to her major work, The Teaching of the Heart.

Before undertaking this, I decided to inquire more experienced editors in this domain as to whether the work is notable enough in order to have its own page on Wikipedia.

On Wikipedia:Notability (books) it is said that a book should meet one or more of the five criteria listed:

1. The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself.

The Teaching of the Heart was the subject of a 12-year research which was reflected in a PhD dissertation.

Excerpts and quotes from The Teaching of the Heart were used in a book published by a state pedagogical university in Russia for educational purposes. The decision to publish the book was taken by the council of the pedagogical department of that university.

2. The book has won a major literary award.

The Teaching of the Heart is a series of books. As a complete work, it won some award in Russia at a book fair, but I cannot tell whether it is a major award or not.

In the United Stated, the first book of the series won the silver medal of Nautilus Book Awards. Wikipedia has questions to the notability of this award. But I found that all imprints of the "Big Five" publishers in the Mind, Body, Spirit genre submit their books to this award program (they would not do this if it were insignificant in their eyes).

3. The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to a notable or significant motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement.

According to the above mentioned PhD dissertation, the publication of The Teaching of the Heart marked the beginning of a spiritual movement in Russia and Ukraine. The participants of this movement created an organization, which later was regarded by other religious scholars as one of the three largest centers of Rerikhism, which itself is one of the most influential New Age movements in Russia and Ukraine.

4. The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country.

Zinovia Dushkova is a subject of study of one university's department of religious studies (included in the curriculum for students who study the New Age movement in Russia). I suppose her major work is implied since it was the cause of a movement.

I believe The Teaching of the Heart meets the criterion #3, but I'm not sure about #1 and #2, and it meets #4 only by half, since "two or more" are required.

What do you think? Does it deserve a separate page on Wikipedia and can it be within the scope of WikiProject Books?

I'd like to know your opinion. Thanks. Sogras (talk) 21:01, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Summaries for individual chapters of a book

I don't have any real experience with articles written about book and only stumbled upon God Is Not Great while checking on some non-free images, but I'm wondering if its common practice to do a separate summary section on each chapter of a book like is being done in this article. I can see how an overall plot summary/synopsis would be helpful per Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/ArticleTemplate, but subsections for each chapter seems to be a bit extreme per WP:NOTEVERYTHING and WP:NOTGUIDE. Some of the subsections have content supported by citations which might be encyclopedically relevent, but many are unsourced and possibly WP:OR. Normally, I'd post this on the article's talk page, but this does seem to have been previously discussed as far back as 2012 at Talk:God Is Not Great/Archive 1#Synopsis oversized, but that does not appear to have been resolved either way. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:19, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:BOOKSUBTITLE

please see discussion and hopefully cautious edit at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) In ictu oculi (talk) 10:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Help with updates for author Wednesday Martin

Hi all! I'm wondering if any editors from this WikiProject would be interested to help with a request for author Wednesday Martin, seeking to update the Works section for her article. She is best known for her book Primates of Park Avenue, and has published some newer works that have not yet been added to the article. My request includes addition of a full list of works and a brief mention of her newest book.

Could anyone from this WikiProject take a look? In full disclosure: I'm making these suggestions on behalf of Wednesday Martin, as part of my work at Beutler Ink, so I will not make any direct edits to the article myself. Thanks in advance! 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 18:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done

Thanks for responding here, Jmabel! This request has already been reviewed, so I'm all set here for now, though of course you're welcome to take another look if you'd like. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 22:50, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

BookAuthority rankings

Are book rankings from BookAuthority such as this one 1) credible and 2) relevant? Should such a ranking be mentioned as significant book-related accomplishment, for example in Alejandro Cremades? Here is the site's about page. Obviously I have my doubts (the domain was created in February 2017, their expertise and methodology seem unclear to say the least) - it would be great if knowledgeable editors in this area could look into this and give some advice. GermanJoe (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Category:Books with missing cover

Slowly working my way through this category... If you are interested in helping, let me know? One thing I really need is ISBN numbers added to infoboxes for my script to work. Down to under 7,500 from 10,150 a few days ago! :-) --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Wonderful work, Zackmann08! I will check the articles on books I follow to be sure the ISBN is present. ISBN works only for books published 1970 and later. I hope most of your backlog is for such books with first publication 1970 and later. I have not mastered the art of adding the covers, and my first efforts to learn were not successful. I will ask only about the cover for The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman. The University of New Mexico library, linked under External links in the article, shows a different first edition cover, with no mention of that movie made from the novel. --Prairieplant (talk) 23:49, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
@Prairieplant: (and anyone else who is interested), just FYI I have a series of scripts that I'm using to upload these images. If you are interested in helping I setup a page: User:Zackmann08/books. If you add a line there that is in the format <article_title>@!@<image_url> I can drop it into my script and it will upload the image, tag it with the proper license and links to the article and author, tag its talk page and insert the image into the article all in one go. All I need is the url for the image and the title of the article. No pressure at all, but if you are interested in helping... :-) --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Zackmann08 I added one title, with the link to the U of New Mexico Library's image of the cover for the novel. Your format shows < and > around the items in your script, but the items already on your page do not have those characters around the article name or the url for the image. So I left them off with just the string of symbols
at sign exclamation point at sign
in between them, was that the right way to do it? --Prairieplant (talk) 03:22, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Help with misguided edits on Zadie Smith articles

I noticed today that an unregistered user has inserted reception sections on both White Teeth and The Autograph Man for the sole purpose of sharing negative critiques from one reviewer. It's been a while since I've been an active editor, so I thought I'd send a request here for help on the best way to handle it. --JUN1U5 (talk) 20:11, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Junius49 I looked at White Teeth, and fixed the bare url reference to learn it is from The New Republic in 2000, a reliable source for a review on the novel. Prior to adding the only cited Review to the article, the same IP address had deleted all the sections analyzing the novel (Themes, Teeth and so on), because those sections had no inline citations. The basis for the change is okay, but I would have marked the deleted sections as needing citations, and will now mark the Reviews section as needing to be expanded. If you would like, you could restore the deleted sections in one Undo, I believe, and mark them with citation needed flags (the template citation needed, Template:Citation needed) if you think those sections are well-written but simply lacking reliable sources identified by inline citations. I am no expert on the author Zadie Smith, but suspect there has been much written about these novels and the author as well that ought to be included in the article. --Prairieplant (talk) 03:43, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Plus I added something on the Talk page here, a list of links to reviews that I found with just one search. I suspect there are more reviews of this book, to give a more complete picture of the Reception, and perhaps Themes as well, than is now in the article. The edit where all the other sections of the article were blanked out is here. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:31, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Confusion of two publishers, both "Macmillan"

User:Auldhouse recently asked me to look at his article in progress on the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. (My father was an executive there in the 1960s and early 1970s, so I know a lot about the topic, but it would probably be a conflict of interest for me to be at all significantly involved in the article). In doing so and following up some related topics I noticed that there seem to be a lot of incoming links in various articles to Macmillan Publishers that should be to Macmillan Publishers (United States) or to Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. I took the liberty of changing the redirect Collier Macmillan to point to the latter, but I see this error on both Gone With the Wind and Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the American Macmillan company's biggest bestsellers in two different decades. If those are wrong, a lot else of that sort must be wrong. - Jmabel | Talk 04:29, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I did not know there were two Macmillan publishers. Thanks for the information. There is a category of Macmillian publishing, and there is this link List of authors of Macmillan Publishing (United_States) for the defunct publishing company, which gives a start for finding books where the infobox link needs a correction. I checked only one, Jack London Call of the Wild, and its link in the infobox is to the article on Macmillan Publishers (United States), though the infobox shortens that to Macmillan in the part after the pipe. It is a confusing name for books published in this century per the article on it, "Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America since 1998, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included various Macmillan properties).[1] Pearson sold the Macmillan Reference USA division (which included Scribner Reference) to Thomson Gale in 1999." Will an editor see Macmillan, Simon and Schuster, or Thomson Gale on a book published after 1998-1999? --Prairieplant (talk) 04:51, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Saylor Academy

Greetings! I am seeking editors to review a new draft of Saylor Academy in my user space and at Talk:Saylor_Academy#New_draft_available. I noticed this WikiProject was listed under the Saylor Academy Talk page, and figured this may be a good place to reach out.

I will not be making edits to the article as a result of my conflict of interest. Can someone please review this request?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Regards,

Andrewggordon84 (talk) 03:02, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion of Amazon Book Review (amazonbookreview.com) on the reliable sources noticeboard

There is a discussion on the reliability of Amazon Book Review (amazonbookreview.com) on the reliable sources noticeboard. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Omnivoracious: The Amazon Book Review for material on the Adam Hughes article. — Newslinger talk 03:04, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

online sources for book reviews

Hi, I'm putting together a guide for writing children's book pages on Wikipedia for an upcoming editing event. I'm writing a page for I See the Rhythm and for some of the reviews I found, the publisher's website is my main digital source (our library either doesn't have access to online versions, or they are nonexistent). Similarly, the library I work for has quotes from reviews for some books in our catalog, but the catalog quotes don't cite the exact issue of the book review publication (see here for the same book on the library catalog). Is it okay to include these kinds of tertiary sources, or would it be preferable to leave them out entirely until someone can find the original source? Thank you, Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:16, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Rachel Helps (BYU), I believe that all of the Kirkus Reviews are on line now, so there is no need to use a secondary source for their reviews. There is a School Library Journal as well, whose reviews I have occasionally encountered on line, a branch of Library Journal, perhaps? You can see some of their reviews here. You can then have the date of the review, and an author sometimes. With Kirkus Reviews, the date it went online and the date the review was first published are both given for older books. I have used a library's copy of a review as the hint to search for the whole review; that works sometimes. The one problem with the reviews in a library catalog is that the library may remove them, which leaves a dead link in the article. Now and then, children's books are reviewed by the New York Times, and other newspapers. And Wikipedia's Manual of Style has suggestions for finding reviews, at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Novels#Finding sources. I hope this is the kind of information you seek. --Prairieplant (talk) 16:07, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, thank you! Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:19, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
  • @Rachel Helps (BYU), I'd be wary of creating articles that only have the book's publisher and trade publications (Publishers Weekly, ALA Booklist, CHOICE, Library Journal, maybe Kirkus) as sources. (1) Because those pubs rarely go into depth with their reviews, which tend to be two paragraphs or less, and (2) because their selection criteria is fairly more indiscriminate than any other review source, by the nature of their intent: to provide breadth of reviews for librarians to make selections for their libraries, and also to provide short, summative blurbs for venues such as your library's catalog. I suppose that their editors' choice selections would indicate a certain form of notability, though. More on these sources and notability here.
Depending on the type of quote/paraphrase, it's acceptable to cite what one source quotes from another source, but in that case I'd indicate in the source that the quote comes |via= another source. This said, it's almost always worth the work of digging up the original citation. Most of the trade pubs I listed above are either available online in the open or in the basic ebscoHOST/ProQuest database packages. czar 01:06, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Czar that is an interesting comment about reviews from the "trade sources". Yes they are often terse, but what is wrong with terse? If there is a book about the author's works, yes, all the better. Amazon and Barnes and Noble do sometimes include the entire review under Editorial Reviews on their pages, and occasionally that was the only place I found it, but I agree, the original source is better. As to the trade sources, I watched Kirkus Reviews for two different novel series, with about 20 books in each series, and the reviews were terse but not uniformly glowing; they varied by the novel and picked out the varying aspects of each novel, which seems an honest review to me. The reviews that are annoying are blurbs pulled from presumably longer articles by notable newspapers, and I never can find a full review from that newspaper, so I skip those blurbs that the publisher includes on the dust jacket or in an online posting about the book. When writing about a Dickens novel, of course there is a continuing stream of books and journal articles, but not all authors get the attention that Dickens gets, yet are still notable novels. --Prairieplant (talk) 07:39, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Right—nothing inherently wrong with using the sources I listed, but it's insufficient to write an article solely based on those sources, which are are far less discriminate in their selection (and usually, far less detailed) than dedicated book reviews. (I.e., inclusion in Publishers Weekly, ALA Booklist, CHOICE, Library Journal, maybe Kirkus is not a sign of significant coverage.) It's hard to do justice to a book as an article subject if the only source material comes from trade pubs and primary sources, hence the discussion at WT:NBOOK. czar 11:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@Czar: Thanks for the heads-up about the controversy over reviews from "trade publications" as a source of notability for books. Luckily for our editing event, we're focusing on award-winning books (so they're already notable). The subject librarian for children's books in our library recommended School Library Journal, Booklist, Horn Book, and Kirkus as the top review publications for children's books for librarians. Would newspapers be preferable to fulfill Wikipedia's notability guidelines? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:53, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
If the book has won a noteworthy award, that should be sufficient. It's more that it's hard to build an article that does justice to the topic if the only sources are three single-paragraph summaries. For what it's worth, a local newspaper is rarely a better source than a librarian trade publication, but depends on the type of claim you're making. If the question is whether a children's book is considered noteworthy by reliable, secondary sources, I'd sooner look to reviews written for a general audience than those written by trade publications. The latter were written to make a determination about library selection (not necessarily a discernment of noteworthiness) so the former are more likely to cover the book in greater depth and thus give a better indication of significant coverage. czar 03:12, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

The Story of Music

Hi -- I recently finished an article on this book. I don't write many articles on books and it probably shows, but personally I'd have rated my effort C-class, as it briefly summarises all freely available online book reviews. The main flaw that was apparent to me is that I had to flesh out the contents by thumbing through my own copy, as few of the reviewers bothered to note what fell in what chapter. Also I'm missing pay-walled newspapers such as The Times. (I checked JSTOR for academic reviews but came up blank.) I also was unable to track down translations. Genuinely interested to know, for future reference, what further material I would need to provide in order to achieve a C-class rating from this project. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

  • JSTOR has a moving paywall but don't think that's the holdup in this case. Depending on the book's audience, sometimes it just won't get academic reviews.
Next stop is academic databases. Gale has a product called Book Review Index Plus that handles a variety of contemporary publications. Had to search by author on this one since there are many books by this title, and there was only one hit: in CHOICE, a trade publication, usually brief so probably not worth pursuing.
EBSCOhost has a bunch, mostly on the television show, if you want to include those reviews. Other times, not always guaranteed a bevy of reviews. For publication history, helps to find interviews with the author/publisher when available. Also the publisher's page for the book normally aggregates pull quotes from reviews so can point in the right direction. czar 04:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, @Czar:. I've never encountered JSTOR's paywall going beyond 2–3 years (and it usually indexes the material, even if it won't give one access), so doubt that's an issue here. Some of Goodall's other works were reviewed in journals archived there. I was explicitly trying to write focusing on the book because I have a copy, while I haven't seen the television series. Publisher's page didn't seem to have pull-quotes (perhaps not helped by the Random House–Penguin merge shortly after first publication), though there are a few more on the book jacket, however, I thought it wasn't considered reliable to use that kind of material unless one could get one's hands on the original? (I've witnessed them being excerpted in a very promotional manner.) There's some puff material about the writing but it's mainly trivial/obviously promotional. Goodall did a Radio 4 publicity piece with John Adams which presumably discussed the rather odd judgements of Schoenberg et al. which -- wonder of wonders -- I see does appear to be still available online.[5] Will give it a listen when I get a mo. Would that be a reliable source?
Hmm, food for thought... Could you point me at a few typical C-class articles for broadly similar books? (I was thinking of reviewing one of the children's book GA candidates currently hanging but if my judgement is that way off I probably should give that a miss.) Perhaps I'll just steer clear of popular-audience books; I haven't had much luck with them. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:32, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I wouldn't use the promo material verbatim but it can help figure out where to look for full reviews, especially if the publication is offline-only. The BBC interview looks good but I'd be wary of how it can be linked/referenced in the future if the link goes down. I find interviews most helpful for information on publication—otherwise, I'd prefer reviews for filling out details on the book's subject matter. You can find a list of recent GA promotions here but note that they vary widely in quality. If the breadth passes the reviewer's sniff test for the GA criteria, most reviewers don't go further than basic searches. czar 04:55, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Maybe someone needs to come back and read what you have there now. It is beyond Start Class in my eyes. C-Class book articles start here. I saw some having less than your article, only a few with more. Maybe the Classical Music Wiki Project is particularly fussy? --Prairieplant (talk) 07:32, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, @Prairieplant: -- I will take a look at some. I assumed it was this project, because I know the Classical music project doesn't support assessment. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

How Not to Die

I often go to Wikipedia for 'book reviews', which generally summarize the content of a book, how it was received, etc. But today I found something different when I looked up the book "How not to die" (a best-seller on nutrition): Instead of a book review, I found a disambiguation page that pointed to two pages containing information not about the books but instead about the authors. What's up with that? It seems there would be two ways to improve upon this: Delete the disambiguation page (since Wikipedia apparently has no content yet on those two books), or create 'book articles' for those books. I hope for the latter, as I think there would be interest in 'book articles' for those books. (Apologies if this isn't the place to discuss this topic; I wasn't sure where.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.159.6.107 (talk) 16:29, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Someone has to write an article, on the book by either author, if the books are notable. Articles were written by two different authors who used that title for their respective books. The authors are Jan Garavaglia and Michael Greger. The disambiguation page sends a person to the article on each author, and mentions their book. --Prairieplant (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

RfC: And Then There Were None and racial language

A discussion is taking place that members of this project may be interested in:

Talk:And Then There Were None § RfC: And Then There Were None and racial language

Any input would be appreciated. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 18:25, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Book article move - additional opinions requested

I believe a discussion at Talk:Into the Wild (book) regarding a potential rename to avoid confusion with Into the Wild (novel) could benefit from the experience of editors wtih more expertise in article naming criteria. Thanks! DonIago (talk) 02:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Responded at talk page. maclean (talk) 03:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Are essays in scope?

Are essays within the scope of WikiProject Books? I'm trying to find best practices for writing articles about essays; can one just follow the recommendations on the project page here? Or are they covered by general, article-writing guidelines? (ping, please) Mathglot (talk) 04:04, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Rating of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens article

Another editor and I have been working on David Copperfield for a while now, following up on the suggestion that translation from the top-rated article in French Wikipedia might improve the article in English Wikipedia. We kept the references as orderly as possible, using harvard for long refs and harvnb for short refs, and cite formats for other references. The WikiProject Novels noticed the effort, and moved the article up from Start Class to C. At the top of the Talk Page, there is another rating space, saying it is a Vital article, but still rated Start Class, here. Who sets that rating? We keep working on the article, in particular seeking more sources, and working on more challenging aspects of this novel by Dickens, like fine points of his writing style. Whoever suggested the French article had a great idea, it is an article in depth about a 19th century novel written in English, including original reception and the continuous stream of popular and critical response to the great work since its initial publication. Curious about ratings and who makes them. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:18, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:The Hot Zone that would benefit from your opinion. Please come and help! Paine Ellsworth, ed.  put'r there  22:28, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

BookExpo / BookCon

Hi all,

I'll be at BookExpo [6] / BookCon [7] for the next couple days with my camera. Last year's event was relatively productive, so I'm looking forward to going back. If you know of articles about current authors missing pictures, check those websites. If they'll be there, ping me with the names and I'll try my best. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:16, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Suppress rendering of Template:Wikipedia books discussion

There's a discussion concerning books at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Suppress rendering of Template:Wikipedia books which may be of interest. --Trialpears (talk) 20:25, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Miniature book, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Books, Assessment

Greetings, for WikiProject Books/Assessment, I added links to Quality operations log and Popular pages. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 13:36, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal - Police procedural

Opinions sought at Talk:Police procedural#Merger proposal, please. Meticulo (talk) 16:40, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Balance at Forced into Glory

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Forced into Glory § Balance: Conflict between Lincoln critics like Bennett, and critics of those critics.

The article (on a somewhat controversial biography of Abraham Lincoln) rarely has editors or even talk-page comments, so additional input is requested. PoV issues with our article have been pointed out since 2009, and the off-site academic controversy involving the book's notable author, Lerone Bennett Jr., and his views about Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation goes back to the 1960s.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:01, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:On Directing Film#Book report or Wikipedia article

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:On Directing Film#Book report or Wikipedia article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests

Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to WikiProject Books since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with {{ping|Trialpears}} and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as {{infobox journal}} for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as {{starbox begin}} should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Deletion of Updike-related article

Hey all. There is currently a deletion debate ongoing about Brewer (John Updike), the setting of John Updike's "Rabbit" cycle of novels. Any input at the AFD would be welcome, as would any contributions anyone might have from reliable sources discussing this topic outside of a plot summary. Thanks! — Hunter Kahn 13:22, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Publisher articles: include all books published by the publisher?

While wikignoming to fix some misspellings I came across Walden Media and Walden Pond Press, both of which include sections "Published books", each with an undifferentiated and unsourced list purporting to list every book published by that publisher. I'm not particularly active on book-publishing article; is this standard practice? My first instinct is to delete the sections, but want to hold back if this is an accepted practice. TJRC (talk) 22:38, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for asking here! I looked over the pages of some similar publishers and it confirmed my hunch that this is not typically part of a publisher’s article. Perhaps the titles notable enough to have wiki links could be listed in a “notable publications” section but I think that is the maximum it would make sense to dedicate to this kind of list. ~ oulfis 🌸(talk) 00:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Panzer Aces

Panzer Aces, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Mujinga (talk) 21:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Multi-volume books

Do we need a category for multi-volume books? If not, I think we don't need the individual category "Category:Multi-volume biographies". Ali Pirhayati (talk) 19:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Is Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality a B-class article?

I believe that Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality meets this WikiProject's C-class criteria, but not B-class. Two other editors disagree. I am therefore posting this question at the three WikiProjects with interest in the article—the other two are WP:PSYCH and WP:LGBT. Please weigh in at Talk:Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality#Article rating. Thank you   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 22:27, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Character section?

Hi, is there general consensus about "characters" sections on fiction book pages? I usually remove them, but are they acceptable for certain kinds of books? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

MOS:CHARACTERS states that the section is not needed for 'most' novels, but I find it's often helpful to have a list of the principal characters with identifying details such as roles/occupations etc; that can really help the reader make sense of the plot, especially if it's complex. There are some common issues I'd change, though:
  • Where the section is just a long, raw list including absolutely every character. If I see that I'll rename the section 'Principal Characters' and cut it down. This sometimes happens for fantasy fiction and others that have a fan following.
  • Where the section includes long (unsourced) character sketches and literary criticism that go beyond a straightforward recitation of what's actually in the book. That ought to be in a separate section, with sources - or deleted.
  • Where the section effectively acts as an extension of the plot section, with plot and event details for each character. This seems to happen where the plot is already long, and editors are trying to shoehorn in more plot details without exceeding the guideline on plot length. If those extra plot details are critical they should be worked into the plot, but more often than not they can be deleted as they're entirely peripheral.
Don't know if others agree, but that's my approach. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I am strongly in favor of the Character section for articles about novels. If you pass by articles on the novels by Charles Dickens or those of Jane Eyre and delete the Characters section, I will put it right back. The Character section can be quite useful for novels that have had much written about them. They are useful for mystery novels, including all the mystery novels written by Agatha Christie. Some people, and this includes me, listen to audio books and sometimes need to see the names written out to get characters straight. I see that all the articles on novels by P G Wodehouse have had Character sections removed, but then link to a Russian source written in English, where the characters are named and described. I do not understand why anyone looks down their nose at a list of characters, they are important in novels, as I see it. --Prairieplant (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree with you that such sections are more often useful than not (subject to my comments above about proper sourcing etc) and I find it really odd that MOS:CHARACTERS starts out by saying that the section is not needed for most novels. I wonder if there would be any appetite for making the guideline a bit more nuanced? MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:50, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Just in case there are folks here who might be interested in reviewing drafts awaiting article status that are particular to this WikiProject. If you'd like to sign up to review/approve/decline new Drafts, instructions are here. AFC Reviewers get to use really cool automated tools that make reviewing really quick and easy, and I've really enjoyed volunteering there, and I'm really digging the AFC Sorting tool so instead of having to comb through lots of articles, I can zip right to topics I'm interested in. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:06, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Format for book award lists?

There doesn't seem to be an agreed format for annual book awards which have shortlists: interested parties might like to comment at Talk:Wainwright Prize. PamD 12:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

List of editions of a certain written work - created by Wikidata

Maybe this is interesting for you:

User:Nstrc/Unfinished list of editions of Louis Althusser's 'For Marx'.

Further examples (unfortunately in German) you can find there:

and

--Nstrc (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

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