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It started off with this question:
If you were to put up a proposal (or the start of a discussion) for using the International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD (in some form or other) or some other standard for getting a good handle on articles which describe books, where would you place it? I was thinking of putting it on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels discussion page since the Infobox controversy for books was indrectly discussed there. I would announce it elsewhere too. But where? The appearance of a book-related Infobox in the article on Comics and Sequential Art got me started on this path, along with a recent flowering of articles related to book collecting. In a sense, my putting together the ISBD article a few hours ago, with parts from the Catalog article was my first step towards this. AlainV 07:04, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)
Then:
There really should be a Wikipedia:WikiProject Books as a parent project of Novels, Comics and other literary Wikiprojects. And you wrote a good article on ISBD. However, I'm hesitant to require an ISBD in all book articles. Requiring too much formatting might kill WikiProject Books just as people are reluctant to contribute to Wiktionary -- it would place all the burden of researching the info for each book on the few people (you and me?) who know ISBD format well enough. If you want a standard description in the Infobox, then show them how to cite the book for a bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style which more people know how to write -- and so those who don't know can learn. GUllman 17:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I just know something should be done but not how. At least not yet. I am thinking about it as I scour the incoming articles, correct typos, make links on those I read (not all of them) and (just recently since I discovered that book list just 2 weeks ago, after 6 months of editing in here) make entries for the book related articles
I just know for sure a couple of things that should not even be dreamed of being done. You pointed out the first one to avoid: Requiring an ISBD in all book articles. After reading the relatively old posts on Wikiproject Novels I realized also that quite a few persons will always hate an Infobox because of the space it takes and its garishness, so I would not think of requiring it, even if I think the garishness and the obtrusiveness could be limited by the application of some simple usability heuristics (the use of pastel colors for backgrounds and the elimination of solid lines around the box for instance) and the space issue could be resolved by technical means like the ones used for the automatic table of contents box, which users/editors can make invisible in their preferences. Too bad getting such an Infobox together is so difficult because one of the advantages of being Web based is making full use of colors, shapes and automatic appearance or disappearance of such things according to user/editor preference.
The advantage of the ISBD is that it is much more flexible than citation styles and that there are examples of it all over the Web , in Web based catalogs, in numbers greater than any citation style. But I would not expect the majority of the editors to use something known as the ISBD. I would opt for a Wikipedia variation of the ISBD and I would not even call it ISBD. The problem with The Chicago style for citations is that it is meant just for citations and does not have provisions for being used as a general bibliographic description for such purposes as general info for potential book buyers (with a lot on the distributors like in the Comics and Sequential Art article) or publication history for book lovers like in the English-language editions of The Hobbit article. Worse of all the Chicago manual is not open source.
But in the end, if the Chicago style is the simplest answer because it is in a certain way there already in Wikipedia:Cite your sources and because we have somebody like Stevenj who seems to believe in it, the real problem is access and convenience. Some people have other guides for citation style at home. Others have none. So how can we even adapt it? If we could adapt it or some other open source, Web-available citation guide then I could, (or _we_ could) do a thorough "reference librarian" makeover of the tool, giving it many pages/articles at different levels of difficulty and for different audiences, with different numbers of examples. AlainV 02:49, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)
I am not sure about the usefulness of a box at the bottom. See below AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
A suggestion that I have found useful: for books that are available online ( Project Gutenberg or other etext, say) a link to one or more online copies is extremely convenient. Especially for Project Gutenberg books, there is no convenient way to find out much about the book before reading it (usually not even as much as appear on the back cover of a paperback) so I'd rather find my books here. No reason that a list of books with full text online couldn't serve as a bookstore... -- Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, giving the metadata useful for picking ebooks fron the Gutenberg collection or other open source text archives would be nice, but I would not want book entries or lists in Wikipedia to be just that given the unpredictable nature of external links. If the links were trustable then the Wikipedia entries could become a combination of an online public access catalog and Amazon book descriptions and reviews for the open source books. But in theory at least a book is worth an encyclopedia entry becasue there is something lasting or significant about it in human History or in its immediate impact on society. So. it should be more than an enticing book review or a useful warning, and the structure of the template should take this into account. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
Also: are audio books included? -- Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Sure, audio books should be included, but the question is do we make a separate multimedia template, or do we accomodate them within the ISBD(G) or one of the specialized ISBD media templates ? Both are valid. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
What's the fair use situation on book covers? If I own a paper book, can I scan the cover and post a low-resolution picture on the book page? That would be really nice... -- Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
We were discussing just that on the web4lib list ( a list for reference librarians who use the web a lot) and the upshot was that even though cases like Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation seem to consider thumbnails to be some form of fair use and the libraries own the books whose thumbnails they would be posting, nobody wanted to risk being sued by just one disgruntled artist or publisher or author. The thing is that when we are dealing with a library there are potentially hundreds of thousand or more of those thumbnails, which greatly heightens the chance of a suit or some other legal attack at some point . Many artists and illustrators sell only partial and very limited rights to a publisher for using their illustration as a book cover. In addition, there is a company in Washington state which specialises in selling (among other things) thumbnails of books, for use as metadata in a library's digital [catalog]] or OPAC. They have negotiated the rights with the publishers, one by one. Given this presence in the marketplace I doubt the publishers (or the lawyers of the ilustrators) would all smile upon Wikipedia producing thumbnails or other images. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
I made two articles on books as an example of a possible template exploiting the table of contents feature:
I thought that this would be a way to go around the objections some have made of using an Infobox, while at the same time giving a summary of the info. You can always click a table contents off or choose never to see them. Anybody have other ideas for this? AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
If you have no objections, or some reasons why not, I would like to split the WikiProject Mass Market and Genre Fiction Simonides added in two: WikiProject Mass Market and Wikiproject Genre Fiction, with both of them as direct descendants of WikiProject Books. I know from experience with science fiction that genre fiction can be a monster, even when the genre is not fantasy, where truly there be real monsters. Also I know that there is science fiction which is straight genre and mass market and other science fiction which is genre but not mass market, and still other like the works of Jules Verne or HG Wells which is canonical. Splitting the genre fiction from the mass market fiction makes regroupings easier afterwards.
Finally I would like to eliminate the intermediary WikiProject Miscellaneous Prose - Criticism, Letters, Memoirs etc., so that the two others placed as its descendants (WikiProject Fictional Series and WikiProject Critical Theory) become instead direct descendants of WikiProject Books. In a subject classification system like the Library of Congress classification there is some sense in making "miscellaneous" categories because they give more power to the cataloguing librarians charged with attributing them to books and after that to the reference librarians helping users find books. But Wikipedia does not have huge permanent staffs. We need something light, with as a flat a classification as possible.
For months now, right after having set up Wikiproject books along with others whose names you see there, I have been sifting though all the new articles every day, looking for book articles, placing basic bibliographical info (author and title are usually there but place of publication, editor and correct date are often missing and ISBN is missing more than half the time) and placing an entry for the book in List of books by title. I have also put all the pages of the list of books by title on my watchlist. I did this to get an idea of what kind of "movement" there was in book articles, and also to see how much work it would mean to use a very simple variation of the ISBD as the basics for a minimalist book template. It turns out that there are not that many book articles coming in: Barely 2 or 3 per day on average. It turns out also that just getting and placing minimalist bibliographical elements and then putting the relevant entries to the articles in the List of books by title takes a lot more time than I thought it would! AlainV 03:59, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
If we could get the Books project underway, what do people think of making a Wikireader of books. I, personally, would like to get an organised set of articles to read about books as I love books! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've just created Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) for discussion about the layout of discographies, filmographies, bibliographies and the like. It is an attempt to standardise these lists, as their styles currently vary greatly (order, content, layout). I thought it might be of interest to the partipants on this WikiProject. violet/riga (t) 16:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
The articles on Franz Kafka and Greek literature have been listed to be improved on Wikipedia: This week's improvement drive. Add your vote there if you want to support the article.-- Fenice 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi folks,
I just wanted to let you know about a list of votes for deletion on articles about individual publications. (That includes magazines, pamphlets, essays, poems, etc, as well as books, but books go through VfD pretty often too). You can find the list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Publications.
Since you're interested in books and improving Wikipedia's coverage of them, you might want to monitor this list.
If you find the list useful, please also help to maintain it by adding new items and archiving old ones. Thanks!
Cheers,
-- Visviva 15:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
PS New members are needed and welcome at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting. Hope to see you there!
Hello, Please notice this project. Thanks, APH 06:31, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Think all the interesting good books have been covered? You might be surprised what books are missing. I have created a list of notable books (critically acclaimed or best selling) that may not be covered in wikipedia as part of the Missing Encyclopedic Article wikiproject. The goal ultimately is to reduce the list to nothing, creating articles or redirects for redlinked movies and removing valid blue links in the list. For a comparison, you may want to see the companion lists, notable albums and notable films. Any area where you can help would be awesome. Thanks!!! -- Reflex Reaction ( talk)• 01:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Humanities is now a COTW candidate. Please vote/comment/help! Thanks, Walkerma 05:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Should there be a seperate offspring wikiproject for short stories, or should they just be part of this or novels? Billy Shears 03:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
The next 3 sub sections have been written and posted by Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
This is an Idea raised in WP:Novel Below is the conversation between me ( Eagle ( talk) ( desk)) and ( Kevinalewis)
We need to be sure that each novel has the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This will help with catorization and stub sorting. Trust me when you are sorting stubs the last thing you want to do is read through half the article, just to find that the novel is a horror, romance, sci fi, classic, ect novel. Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree except that as we share the infobox use with many others - and also particularly with the WikiProject Books, we will need to get concensus on this. Also we might not bae able to get it a mandatory as Non-Fiction books might have a Category but not use the description "Genre". Purhaps we could have two "optional" fields one "Subject" and one "Genre". Being optional that will allow the changes to be made (if agreed fairly safely and quickly) with out upseting existing usages. Try raising this on the WP Books talk pages first as see what response you get. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 09:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
In brief, I was wondering if we can get the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This makes for easier catorization, and sorting. Many articles as is do not have the genre stated at all. The reader is left to infer what the genre is. This also makes it easier to regex and sort things into categories.
This will help our project greatly.
All of the above was written and posted by Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
When one walks into a bookstore or a library and is looking for a fiction book, does one go to the "Novel" section? The answer is no. There is no such genre or subject. After being a bookstore employee and a user of the public library system in my area, I can tell that when you are looking for a fiction book in a genre, you will not go to the "Novel" section. There will be a "Fiction" section, but that will hold general fiction that would not fit elsewhere. The other fiction sections may be in a general fiction area of the store, but that area will not be called "Novels," it would be called "Fiction."
When discussing fiction books, one does not call a book a novel normally. For me it would be more along the lines of "I am reading fantasy right now." or "I am reading science fiction at the moment." The word novel does not enter into the conversation. If someone askes about the book in my hand, the question is usually "What kind of book is that?" Still no mention of novel.
What is with this novel hang-up everyone here has? If you look up novel on Wiktionary, you will see under the noun definition that book is used in the description and that fiction is only in parentheses meaning that a novel could be a non-fiction book. A non-fiction event can be novelized and still be non-fiction.
I dumped a few categories out of the Novel category into the book category since that is what made the most sense. It allows for greater visibility to the subjects, and it makes the subjects that much less difficult to find. I moved fantasy books stubs into the general book stubs area, and it was reverted. Well, if you walk into a bookstore or library, wouldn't you go straight to the "Fantasy" section instead of going to a section called "Novels"? Have you ever seen a section in a bookstore or library called "Novels"? I never have. So why do we have such a section here?
I have just now seen that you have redundant categories. Fantasy books and Fantasy novels are the same thing, so why are there two categories? If Fantasy novels were removed, then there would only be Fantasy books left which would make categorization a lot easier and faster.
- Lady Aleena (sig buggy)
Maybe you guys have been over this ground. I'd like to see a sweeping proposal to standardize all the subcategories of Category:Books by author, Category:Novels by author, and similar categories in Category:Poems, Category:Short stories, and Category:Plays. Before I slap cfr labels on everything, I'd love to see a consensus here on what should be done. I'm not sure I have a consensus in my head, so it might be hard to find in a group. But anyway, right now there are the following variations (and probably more):
My preference is to make everything "(subcategory) by (author)," possibly even leading to elimination of "Books by author" and replacing it with "Novels by (author)," "Anthologies by (author)," and "Nonfiction books by (author)". (Does that cover every book possibility? Maybe not.) But even if there isn't universal agreement about that, I'd like to see the "(X) of (Y), " "(Y)'s (X)," and "(X) (Y)" go into the dustbin of history, and I'd like everyone to get a first name. Does anyone else like standardizing everything as "(X) by (full Y)"?-- Mike Selinker 07:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Howdy all - I would like to propose a political book stub and a religious studies book stub category, as Category:Non-fiction book stubs is getting full and there are at least 140 titles that would fall into politics, and 85 into religious studies. Please discuss at Religious studies book stubs proposal and Political book stubs proposal if you like. Cheers - Her Pegship 22:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I have run across Category:True crime books, which is a sub-cat of Category:Crime books. They appear to contain the same thing - books about crimes or mysteries in "real life". (There is a separate Category:Crime novels.) Shouldn't True crime books and Crime books be merged and one of them deleted? Her Pegship 19:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
As there are no further comments, I'm going to list Category:Crime books for deletion and move Category:True crime books directly under Category:Crime. Her Pegship 17:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
When adding interwiki links, I was surprised to learn that en.wp has a WikiProject Books rather than one for literature. What I'm missing here is people: authors, translators, reviewers; institutions: libraries, publishers, bookstores, bookfairs, academies, writer schools, literary prizes; theories: (sub/cross) genres, classifications, patterns, history. Perhaps some of these are covered by other WikiProjects (e.g. biographies for authors), in which case I'd like to see links to those. -- LA2 18:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't actually see a lot of guidance at this page. I was looking for advice on what to do with an article like The Jazz Piano Book. Are our articles supposed to contain "reviews", summaries, links to reviews, or what exactly? Or is this WP still getting off the ground? Stevage 12:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
WikiProject Arts
Announcing the creation of
WikiProject Arts, an effort to create a collaboration between all arts projects and artistically-minded Wikipedians in order to improve arts coverage. If you think you can help, please join us!
HAM 17:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Please, let's make one, under Category:Science books, to accompany the sub-cats for astronomy books, biology books, ecology books, etc. Her Pegship 22:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't able to find a Wikiproject for articles on writers/authors, so I'm writing this here. I've been thinking about creating an infobox to use with articles on writers. Here's the basic idea for one:
{{Infobox Writer | name = (writer's name) | image = (picture) | caption = (caption for picture)* | birth_date = (date of birth) | birth_place = (place of birth) | death_date = (date of death) | death_place = (place of death) | genre = (any and all genres written in) | movement = (literary movement associated with or involving the writer) | magnum_opus = ([[magnum opus]], or most famous work)* | influences = (other writers who influenced his/her work)* | influenced = (other writers who were influenced by his/her work)* | website = (official website)* | footnotes = (misc info)* }}
This can be updated to include more fields if needed. I'll probably be creating this template soon. If anyone has any comments on it, get back to me about it. -- LGagnon 04:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I noticed the recent use of Template:Infobox Writer on several pages about authors. Please note that there is a similar, unused, template at Template:Author. I've added notes to the talk pages, but notes on the actual pages in "noinclude" tags might be better, or just get the unused one deleted. Carcharoth 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/User Participant. When I tried adding it to my userpage, but it kept screwing up if it wasn't first. I first removed an unneeded tag, and then decided to just overhaul the entire code (using Template:User geek as a base). Just letting everyone know. EVula 18:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I wonder why the WikiProject Books page is cited as a notability guideline in the templates template:notability or template:IncGuide. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me but I would assume that the short notability guidelines given on the project page have not been subjected to some kind of approval procedure by the community, right? In any case, I feel that there should be a separate proposal for notability guidelines concerning books. People in AfD discussions are currently citing the Project page as a notability guideline and arguing that "any book with an ISBN number" should be in. I think that part of the project page is way too lax. Pascal.Tesson 15:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
User:Fuhghettaboutit has just proposed a new set of guidelines for notability of books. It would be a great help if some of the active members in the books project could weigh in on this and in particular if they have some ideas for particularly relevant past AfD discussions concerning books. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 03:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Per advice from my good friend, I've re-activated the daughter sub-project WP:WikiProject Fictional series, since I'm editing fiction articles in nothing but series pages. Also created category:WikiProject Fictional series. I can use some help while I study up on these guidelines and those in the Novels daughter=project in purusing those (fairly unevolved) listed and try to synchronize them.
I'm heavily involved with constructing 1632 series articles, which throws some interesting curveballs... about half the extant series is short fiction anthologies at the moment, and since it's a web based collaborative fiction follow-on to what was meant to be a stand-alone novel ( 1632 (novel) wherein the priciple author and editor was dragooned into postponing other work by his admiring public and come up with sequels, etc.)
Even the novels won't (definitely) be released in 'milieu calendar order' (the next two novels in publishing scheduled order will be 1635: The Canon Law and then the long awaited 1634: The Baltic War now to come out next December and May respectively) and the short fiction is all over the calendar too! — let's say I've got my hands full, and can use some help. We're looking at about three to four books a year at the moment, each over 400 pages! // Fra nkB 01:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
(forgive me for 'adapting this' from the Harry peoples talk message... RL is demanding attention!) This fellow (rather mature middle aged) fan of Harry has been buried in another favorite series, and it was suggested that I resurect the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional series project as one means of developing standards. My 1632 series articles have potentially far more characters, places, and historical matters (it's an alternate history set back in the 1630's, which makes it another sort parallel universe like Harry's and Honorverse (not to mention most speculative fiction genre that become series), another series I contribute some.) than Harry Potter books, assuming she stops after seven novels.
I'm just getting started on 'blowing off the dust' on the Project page, so can use some help, and I'm sure as mature as this project looks, you will have some interesting input and experience on how to juggle, arrange, and format the myriad details that go into a deeply developed complex milieu such as these have become.
1632 series has some unique issues in that it is currently about 75:25 short fiction to Novels, but that will change rapidly as it is also a collaborative fiction experiment that involves literally dozens of authors, most of whom have been active participants helping the principle author and editor define the canon for the series... essentially research and development in matters historical and technical, as the works are making a serious attempt to keep realistic assumptions given the series premises—a small town of about 3,000 souls, Grantville, WV finds itself confronted with the religion based Thirty Year's War, Machievellian politics, and large armies. At the moment, five hardcover book releases are planned to my knowledge in the coming year—which is saying a lot at at least 400pp per book.
To add insult to injury, the works (by design) aren't published in the order of any particular timeline outside the 'main storyline threads', of which there are five... so this makes it like five sub-series, but one's in which the short fiction anthologies are canonical, a very unusual feature in a shared universe setting. But that's part of the great scope of the milieu, which is fascinating if you are at all interested in history and how the modern world came about—the effect of all that research and pre-planning via the internet. (It's not too great a stretch to think of it as a wikiproject, save the issues are the talk forums, and the article outputs are generated by individual or teams of writers working their own sub-projects.)
Enough of my problem, what I need is help defining standards from others involved in similar wikipedia tasks like yourselves (WikiProject Novels in general) for such a mixed series. So watchlist the talk page, and WP:WFs, sign on, and integrate your project cats, templates, etc. into Category:WikiProject Fictional series, list your Project on the see also there, along with it's cats (Being a project cat, the navigation from project to project is for us editors to use, not the general public, so WP:Btw!) so other fiction related editors can find your stuff, secrets, and vice versa.
I'd also like to point out an oxymoron of sorts. The WPP:Books is parent to all these heirarchially lower projects (Novels, series, etc.), yet has the smallest membership list of the lot. Makes no sense! Please sign up and ditto WPP:Novels, and WPP:series for news and contributions. Best regards to all! // Fra nkB 20:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I need to add here, that I've done some organization stuff like the new shortcuts [[WPP:Books], WPP:Novels, WPP:series, and WP:WFs, and cross-linked some of the pertinent cats. Redirects (like those just listed) will show as '-' pipesorted (dash), Main daughters as space, templates under '!', though I haven't back tracked to verify consistancy yet, but it helps keep things straight. Technically, that sort of standard ought to be imposed from this parent project and be consistant downwards. (As Pegship knows, I've been spending a lot of non-fiction edit time in the interwiki Wikimedia Commons and cross-project category organization and equalization, so these 'sort tokens' are fairly debugged, though a different 'system of symbols' is worth discussing... it just sort of happened over the last six weeks on the commons. Gotta run! // Fra nkB 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Template:Book card has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 17:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a dispute on whether or not spoiler tags are appropriate for Wikipedia. Some editors wish to remove spoiler tags while other editors wish to keep them and/or update their guidelines and appearance. A request for comment has been started at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC. All editors are invited to share their input on any or all of the issues being discussed. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I would like to add two new optional fields to the infobox.
There could be two books which tie to the same film, the original and the tie-in book.
This is part of the child project
Films based on books.
—
Lady Aleena
talk/
contribs 22:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
:Support -- very sensible //
Fra
nkB 17:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC) (See below vote)
Fra
nkB
A flashbulb just went off over my head, Film adaption(s) needs to be used instead of singular adaption. One book can spawn several films. Pride and Prejudice and The Hobbit come to mind. - LA @ 18:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Oppose I support the Films based on books project in general, but I noticed a lot of older books had multiple movies made out of them. Rather than "picking" one over the other, I would rather leave thim on the section marked for adaptations. PeregrineV 19:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. I gather that since this debate is rather old and most contributers oppose the motion, I might be beating a dead horse, but ah well here are my two cents anyway. My objections: there is already an adaptations section in the main article template; such an inclusion would make the box much more unweildy; many books would require a link to a list of adaptations anyway (most classics have multiple adaptations, e.g.); are we then to include adaptations or references in other forms of art? what about ballets, operas, musicals, theatre? (or why stop there--paintings, sculptures etc.).
My main objection is that we should treat books qua books for the purposes of the project, for the purposes of an encyclopedia. I'm finding that there seems to be a great emphasis on books qua popular culture with regard to assessment for example. In my opinion this is contrary to what one would see in any encyclopedia of literature or even any general encyclopedia. When discussing books, we should focus on their place in the world of books. Adaptations into or inspiration of other art forms should be included by all means, but it should be treated as extra information--perfect for a section of the main article (and that not near the top!), but inappropriate for the book's infobox. Of course, if a book is actually a novelization of a film, that will undoubtedly be mentioned within the first sentence of the article.-- Ibis3 12:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The Giver is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Middle-earth is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm about to create a sub-cat of Category:Non-fiction books, Category:Books about film, which would include reference works, history of film, Leonard Maltin, etc. Any thoughts? ♥ Her Pegship♥ 16:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I have opened a new can of worms at Category talk:Non-fiction, regarding use of the terms literature, books, non-fiction, and non-fictional. Have at it. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 22:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there any guidance of listing individual chapters for books and/or serialized fiction? Does anyone have opinions on if it should be done or not? -- Kunzite 03:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I have just greatly expanded this article from its initial stub status, and I would like suggestions. marbeh raglaim 01:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
It started off with this question:
If you were to put up a proposal (or the start of a discussion) for using the International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD (in some form or other) or some other standard for getting a good handle on articles which describe books, where would you place it? I was thinking of putting it on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels discussion page since the Infobox controversy for books was indrectly discussed there. I would announce it elsewhere too. But where? The appearance of a book-related Infobox in the article on Comics and Sequential Art got me started on this path, along with a recent flowering of articles related to book collecting. In a sense, my putting together the ISBD article a few hours ago, with parts from the Catalog article was my first step towards this. AlainV 07:04, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)
Then:
There really should be a Wikipedia:WikiProject Books as a parent project of Novels, Comics and other literary Wikiprojects. And you wrote a good article on ISBD. However, I'm hesitant to require an ISBD in all book articles. Requiring too much formatting might kill WikiProject Books just as people are reluctant to contribute to Wiktionary -- it would place all the burden of researching the info for each book on the few people (you and me?) who know ISBD format well enough. If you want a standard description in the Infobox, then show them how to cite the book for a bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style which more people know how to write -- and so those who don't know can learn. GUllman 17:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I just know something should be done but not how. At least not yet. I am thinking about it as I scour the incoming articles, correct typos, make links on those I read (not all of them) and (just recently since I discovered that book list just 2 weeks ago, after 6 months of editing in here) make entries for the book related articles
I just know for sure a couple of things that should not even be dreamed of being done. You pointed out the first one to avoid: Requiring an ISBD in all book articles. After reading the relatively old posts on Wikiproject Novels I realized also that quite a few persons will always hate an Infobox because of the space it takes and its garishness, so I would not think of requiring it, even if I think the garishness and the obtrusiveness could be limited by the application of some simple usability heuristics (the use of pastel colors for backgrounds and the elimination of solid lines around the box for instance) and the space issue could be resolved by technical means like the ones used for the automatic table of contents box, which users/editors can make invisible in their preferences. Too bad getting such an Infobox together is so difficult because one of the advantages of being Web based is making full use of colors, shapes and automatic appearance or disappearance of such things according to user/editor preference.
The advantage of the ISBD is that it is much more flexible than citation styles and that there are examples of it all over the Web , in Web based catalogs, in numbers greater than any citation style. But I would not expect the majority of the editors to use something known as the ISBD. I would opt for a Wikipedia variation of the ISBD and I would not even call it ISBD. The problem with The Chicago style for citations is that it is meant just for citations and does not have provisions for being used as a general bibliographic description for such purposes as general info for potential book buyers (with a lot on the distributors like in the Comics and Sequential Art article) or publication history for book lovers like in the English-language editions of The Hobbit article. Worse of all the Chicago manual is not open source.
But in the end, if the Chicago style is the simplest answer because it is in a certain way there already in Wikipedia:Cite your sources and because we have somebody like Stevenj who seems to believe in it, the real problem is access and convenience. Some people have other guides for citation style at home. Others have none. So how can we even adapt it? If we could adapt it or some other open source, Web-available citation guide then I could, (or _we_ could) do a thorough "reference librarian" makeover of the tool, giving it many pages/articles at different levels of difficulty and for different audiences, with different numbers of examples. AlainV 02:49, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)
I am not sure about the usefulness of a box at the bottom. See below AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
A suggestion that I have found useful: for books that are available online ( Project Gutenberg or other etext, say) a link to one or more online copies is extremely convenient. Especially for Project Gutenberg books, there is no convenient way to find out much about the book before reading it (usually not even as much as appear on the back cover of a paperback) so I'd rather find my books here. No reason that a list of books with full text online couldn't serve as a bookstore... -- Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, giving the metadata useful for picking ebooks fron the Gutenberg collection or other open source text archives would be nice, but I would not want book entries or lists in Wikipedia to be just that given the unpredictable nature of external links. If the links were trustable then the Wikipedia entries could become a combination of an online public access catalog and Amazon book descriptions and reviews for the open source books. But in theory at least a book is worth an encyclopedia entry becasue there is something lasting or significant about it in human History or in its immediate impact on society. So. it should be more than an enticing book review or a useful warning, and the structure of the template should take this into account. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
Also: are audio books included? -- Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Sure, audio books should be included, but the question is do we make a separate multimedia template, or do we accomodate them within the ISBD(G) or one of the specialized ISBD media templates ? Both are valid. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
What's the fair use situation on book covers? If I own a paper book, can I scan the cover and post a low-resolution picture on the book page? That would be really nice... -- Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
We were discussing just that on the web4lib list ( a list for reference librarians who use the web a lot) and the upshot was that even though cases like Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation seem to consider thumbnails to be some form of fair use and the libraries own the books whose thumbnails they would be posting, nobody wanted to risk being sued by just one disgruntled artist or publisher or author. The thing is that when we are dealing with a library there are potentially hundreds of thousand or more of those thumbnails, which greatly heightens the chance of a suit or some other legal attack at some point . Many artists and illustrators sell only partial and very limited rights to a publisher for using their illustration as a book cover. In addition, there is a company in Washington state which specialises in selling (among other things) thumbnails of books, for use as metadata in a library's digital [catalog]] or OPAC. They have negotiated the rights with the publishers, one by one. Given this presence in the marketplace I doubt the publishers (or the lawyers of the ilustrators) would all smile upon Wikipedia producing thumbnails or other images. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
I made two articles on books as an example of a possible template exploiting the table of contents feature:
I thought that this would be a way to go around the objections some have made of using an Infobox, while at the same time giving a summary of the info. You can always click a table contents off or choose never to see them. Anybody have other ideas for this? AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
If you have no objections, or some reasons why not, I would like to split the WikiProject Mass Market and Genre Fiction Simonides added in two: WikiProject Mass Market and Wikiproject Genre Fiction, with both of them as direct descendants of WikiProject Books. I know from experience with science fiction that genre fiction can be a monster, even when the genre is not fantasy, where truly there be real monsters. Also I know that there is science fiction which is straight genre and mass market and other science fiction which is genre but not mass market, and still other like the works of Jules Verne or HG Wells which is canonical. Splitting the genre fiction from the mass market fiction makes regroupings easier afterwards.
Finally I would like to eliminate the intermediary WikiProject Miscellaneous Prose - Criticism, Letters, Memoirs etc., so that the two others placed as its descendants (WikiProject Fictional Series and WikiProject Critical Theory) become instead direct descendants of WikiProject Books. In a subject classification system like the Library of Congress classification there is some sense in making "miscellaneous" categories because they give more power to the cataloguing librarians charged with attributing them to books and after that to the reference librarians helping users find books. But Wikipedia does not have huge permanent staffs. We need something light, with as a flat a classification as possible.
For months now, right after having set up Wikiproject books along with others whose names you see there, I have been sifting though all the new articles every day, looking for book articles, placing basic bibliographical info (author and title are usually there but place of publication, editor and correct date are often missing and ISBN is missing more than half the time) and placing an entry for the book in List of books by title. I have also put all the pages of the list of books by title on my watchlist. I did this to get an idea of what kind of "movement" there was in book articles, and also to see how much work it would mean to use a very simple variation of the ISBD as the basics for a minimalist book template. It turns out that there are not that many book articles coming in: Barely 2 or 3 per day on average. It turns out also that just getting and placing minimalist bibliographical elements and then putting the relevant entries to the articles in the List of books by title takes a lot more time than I thought it would! AlainV 03:59, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
If we could get the Books project underway, what do people think of making a Wikireader of books. I, personally, would like to get an organised set of articles to read about books as I love books! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've just created Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) for discussion about the layout of discographies, filmographies, bibliographies and the like. It is an attempt to standardise these lists, as their styles currently vary greatly (order, content, layout). I thought it might be of interest to the partipants on this WikiProject. violet/riga (t) 16:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
The articles on Franz Kafka and Greek literature have been listed to be improved on Wikipedia: This week's improvement drive. Add your vote there if you want to support the article.-- Fenice 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi folks,
I just wanted to let you know about a list of votes for deletion on articles about individual publications. (That includes magazines, pamphlets, essays, poems, etc, as well as books, but books go through VfD pretty often too). You can find the list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Publications.
Since you're interested in books and improving Wikipedia's coverage of them, you might want to monitor this list.
If you find the list useful, please also help to maintain it by adding new items and archiving old ones. Thanks!
Cheers,
-- Visviva 15:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
PS New members are needed and welcome at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting. Hope to see you there!
Hello, Please notice this project. Thanks, APH 06:31, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Think all the interesting good books have been covered? You might be surprised what books are missing. I have created a list of notable books (critically acclaimed or best selling) that may not be covered in wikipedia as part of the Missing Encyclopedic Article wikiproject. The goal ultimately is to reduce the list to nothing, creating articles or redirects for redlinked movies and removing valid blue links in the list. For a comparison, you may want to see the companion lists, notable albums and notable films. Any area where you can help would be awesome. Thanks!!! -- Reflex Reaction ( talk)• 01:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Humanities is now a COTW candidate. Please vote/comment/help! Thanks, Walkerma 05:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Should there be a seperate offspring wikiproject for short stories, or should they just be part of this or novels? Billy Shears 03:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
The next 3 sub sections have been written and posted by Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
This is an Idea raised in WP:Novel Below is the conversation between me ( Eagle ( talk) ( desk)) and ( Kevinalewis)
We need to be sure that each novel has the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This will help with catorization and stub sorting. Trust me when you are sorting stubs the last thing you want to do is read through half the article, just to find that the novel is a horror, romance, sci fi, classic, ect novel. Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree except that as we share the infobox use with many others - and also particularly with the WikiProject Books, we will need to get concensus on this. Also we might not bae able to get it a mandatory as Non-Fiction books might have a Category but not use the description "Genre". Purhaps we could have two "optional" fields one "Subject" and one "Genre". Being optional that will allow the changes to be made (if agreed fairly safely and quickly) with out upseting existing usages. Try raising this on the WP Books talk pages first as see what response you get. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 09:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
In brief, I was wondering if we can get the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This makes for easier catorization, and sorting. Many articles as is do not have the genre stated at all. The reader is left to infer what the genre is. This also makes it easier to regex and sort things into categories.
This will help our project greatly.
All of the above was written and posted by Eagle ( talk) ( desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
When one walks into a bookstore or a library and is looking for a fiction book, does one go to the "Novel" section? The answer is no. There is no such genre or subject. After being a bookstore employee and a user of the public library system in my area, I can tell that when you are looking for a fiction book in a genre, you will not go to the "Novel" section. There will be a "Fiction" section, but that will hold general fiction that would not fit elsewhere. The other fiction sections may be in a general fiction area of the store, but that area will not be called "Novels," it would be called "Fiction."
When discussing fiction books, one does not call a book a novel normally. For me it would be more along the lines of "I am reading fantasy right now." or "I am reading science fiction at the moment." The word novel does not enter into the conversation. If someone askes about the book in my hand, the question is usually "What kind of book is that?" Still no mention of novel.
What is with this novel hang-up everyone here has? If you look up novel on Wiktionary, you will see under the noun definition that book is used in the description and that fiction is only in parentheses meaning that a novel could be a non-fiction book. A non-fiction event can be novelized and still be non-fiction.
I dumped a few categories out of the Novel category into the book category since that is what made the most sense. It allows for greater visibility to the subjects, and it makes the subjects that much less difficult to find. I moved fantasy books stubs into the general book stubs area, and it was reverted. Well, if you walk into a bookstore or library, wouldn't you go straight to the "Fantasy" section instead of going to a section called "Novels"? Have you ever seen a section in a bookstore or library called "Novels"? I never have. So why do we have such a section here?
I have just now seen that you have redundant categories. Fantasy books and Fantasy novels are the same thing, so why are there two categories? If Fantasy novels were removed, then there would only be Fantasy books left which would make categorization a lot easier and faster.
- Lady Aleena (sig buggy)
Maybe you guys have been over this ground. I'd like to see a sweeping proposal to standardize all the subcategories of Category:Books by author, Category:Novels by author, and similar categories in Category:Poems, Category:Short stories, and Category:Plays. Before I slap cfr labels on everything, I'd love to see a consensus here on what should be done. I'm not sure I have a consensus in my head, so it might be hard to find in a group. But anyway, right now there are the following variations (and probably more):
My preference is to make everything "(subcategory) by (author)," possibly even leading to elimination of "Books by author" and replacing it with "Novels by (author)," "Anthologies by (author)," and "Nonfiction books by (author)". (Does that cover every book possibility? Maybe not.) But even if there isn't universal agreement about that, I'd like to see the "(X) of (Y), " "(Y)'s (X)," and "(X) (Y)" go into the dustbin of history, and I'd like everyone to get a first name. Does anyone else like standardizing everything as "(X) by (full Y)"?-- Mike Selinker 07:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Howdy all - I would like to propose a political book stub and a religious studies book stub category, as Category:Non-fiction book stubs is getting full and there are at least 140 titles that would fall into politics, and 85 into religious studies. Please discuss at Religious studies book stubs proposal and Political book stubs proposal if you like. Cheers - Her Pegship 22:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I have run across Category:True crime books, which is a sub-cat of Category:Crime books. They appear to contain the same thing - books about crimes or mysteries in "real life". (There is a separate Category:Crime novels.) Shouldn't True crime books and Crime books be merged and one of them deleted? Her Pegship 19:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
As there are no further comments, I'm going to list Category:Crime books for deletion and move Category:True crime books directly under Category:Crime. Her Pegship 17:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
When adding interwiki links, I was surprised to learn that en.wp has a WikiProject Books rather than one for literature. What I'm missing here is people: authors, translators, reviewers; institutions: libraries, publishers, bookstores, bookfairs, academies, writer schools, literary prizes; theories: (sub/cross) genres, classifications, patterns, history. Perhaps some of these are covered by other WikiProjects (e.g. biographies for authors), in which case I'd like to see links to those. -- LA2 18:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't actually see a lot of guidance at this page. I was looking for advice on what to do with an article like The Jazz Piano Book. Are our articles supposed to contain "reviews", summaries, links to reviews, or what exactly? Or is this WP still getting off the ground? Stevage 12:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
WikiProject Arts
Announcing the creation of
WikiProject Arts, an effort to create a collaboration between all arts projects and artistically-minded Wikipedians in order to improve arts coverage. If you think you can help, please join us!
HAM 17:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Please, let's make one, under Category:Science books, to accompany the sub-cats for astronomy books, biology books, ecology books, etc. Her Pegship 22:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't able to find a Wikiproject for articles on writers/authors, so I'm writing this here. I've been thinking about creating an infobox to use with articles on writers. Here's the basic idea for one:
{{Infobox Writer | name = (writer's name) | image = (picture) | caption = (caption for picture)* | birth_date = (date of birth) | birth_place = (place of birth) | death_date = (date of death) | death_place = (place of death) | genre = (any and all genres written in) | movement = (literary movement associated with or involving the writer) | magnum_opus = ([[magnum opus]], or most famous work)* | influences = (other writers who influenced his/her work)* | influenced = (other writers who were influenced by his/her work)* | website = (official website)* | footnotes = (misc info)* }}
This can be updated to include more fields if needed. I'll probably be creating this template soon. If anyone has any comments on it, get back to me about it. -- LGagnon 04:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I noticed the recent use of Template:Infobox Writer on several pages about authors. Please note that there is a similar, unused, template at Template:Author. I've added notes to the talk pages, but notes on the actual pages in "noinclude" tags might be better, or just get the unused one deleted. Carcharoth 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/User Participant. When I tried adding it to my userpage, but it kept screwing up if it wasn't first. I first removed an unneeded tag, and then decided to just overhaul the entire code (using Template:User geek as a base). Just letting everyone know. EVula 18:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I wonder why the WikiProject Books page is cited as a notability guideline in the templates template:notability or template:IncGuide. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me but I would assume that the short notability guidelines given on the project page have not been subjected to some kind of approval procedure by the community, right? In any case, I feel that there should be a separate proposal for notability guidelines concerning books. People in AfD discussions are currently citing the Project page as a notability guideline and arguing that "any book with an ISBN number" should be in. I think that part of the project page is way too lax. Pascal.Tesson 15:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
User:Fuhghettaboutit has just proposed a new set of guidelines for notability of books. It would be a great help if some of the active members in the books project could weigh in on this and in particular if they have some ideas for particularly relevant past AfD discussions concerning books. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 03:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Per advice from my good friend, I've re-activated the daughter sub-project WP:WikiProject Fictional series, since I'm editing fiction articles in nothing but series pages. Also created category:WikiProject Fictional series. I can use some help while I study up on these guidelines and those in the Novels daughter=project in purusing those (fairly unevolved) listed and try to synchronize them.
I'm heavily involved with constructing 1632 series articles, which throws some interesting curveballs... about half the extant series is short fiction anthologies at the moment, and since it's a web based collaborative fiction follow-on to what was meant to be a stand-alone novel ( 1632 (novel) wherein the priciple author and editor was dragooned into postponing other work by his admiring public and come up with sequels, etc.)
Even the novels won't (definitely) be released in 'milieu calendar order' (the next two novels in publishing scheduled order will be 1635: The Canon Law and then the long awaited 1634: The Baltic War now to come out next December and May respectively) and the short fiction is all over the calendar too! — let's say I've got my hands full, and can use some help. We're looking at about three to four books a year at the moment, each over 400 pages! // Fra nkB 01:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
(forgive me for 'adapting this' from the Harry peoples talk message... RL is demanding attention!) This fellow (rather mature middle aged) fan of Harry has been buried in another favorite series, and it was suggested that I resurect the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional series project as one means of developing standards. My 1632 series articles have potentially far more characters, places, and historical matters (it's an alternate history set back in the 1630's, which makes it another sort parallel universe like Harry's and Honorverse (not to mention most speculative fiction genre that become series), another series I contribute some.) than Harry Potter books, assuming she stops after seven novels.
I'm just getting started on 'blowing off the dust' on the Project page, so can use some help, and I'm sure as mature as this project looks, you will have some interesting input and experience on how to juggle, arrange, and format the myriad details that go into a deeply developed complex milieu such as these have become.
1632 series has some unique issues in that it is currently about 75:25 short fiction to Novels, but that will change rapidly as it is also a collaborative fiction experiment that involves literally dozens of authors, most of whom have been active participants helping the principle author and editor define the canon for the series... essentially research and development in matters historical and technical, as the works are making a serious attempt to keep realistic assumptions given the series premises—a small town of about 3,000 souls, Grantville, WV finds itself confronted with the religion based Thirty Year's War, Machievellian politics, and large armies. At the moment, five hardcover book releases are planned to my knowledge in the coming year—which is saying a lot at at least 400pp per book.
To add insult to injury, the works (by design) aren't published in the order of any particular timeline outside the 'main storyline threads', of which there are five... so this makes it like five sub-series, but one's in which the short fiction anthologies are canonical, a very unusual feature in a shared universe setting. But that's part of the great scope of the milieu, which is fascinating if you are at all interested in history and how the modern world came about—the effect of all that research and pre-planning via the internet. (It's not too great a stretch to think of it as a wikiproject, save the issues are the talk forums, and the article outputs are generated by individual or teams of writers working their own sub-projects.)
Enough of my problem, what I need is help defining standards from others involved in similar wikipedia tasks like yourselves (WikiProject Novels in general) for such a mixed series. So watchlist the talk page, and WP:WFs, sign on, and integrate your project cats, templates, etc. into Category:WikiProject Fictional series, list your Project on the see also there, along with it's cats (Being a project cat, the navigation from project to project is for us editors to use, not the general public, so WP:Btw!) so other fiction related editors can find your stuff, secrets, and vice versa.
I'd also like to point out an oxymoron of sorts. The WPP:Books is parent to all these heirarchially lower projects (Novels, series, etc.), yet has the smallest membership list of the lot. Makes no sense! Please sign up and ditto WPP:Novels, and WPP:series for news and contributions. Best regards to all! // Fra nkB 20:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I need to add here, that I've done some organization stuff like the new shortcuts [[WPP:Books], WPP:Novels, WPP:series, and WP:WFs, and cross-linked some of the pertinent cats. Redirects (like those just listed) will show as '-' pipesorted (dash), Main daughters as space, templates under '!', though I haven't back tracked to verify consistancy yet, but it helps keep things straight. Technically, that sort of standard ought to be imposed from this parent project and be consistant downwards. (As Pegship knows, I've been spending a lot of non-fiction edit time in the interwiki Wikimedia Commons and cross-project category organization and equalization, so these 'sort tokens' are fairly debugged, though a different 'system of symbols' is worth discussing... it just sort of happened over the last six weeks on the commons. Gotta run! // Fra nkB 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Template:Book card has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 17:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a dispute on whether or not spoiler tags are appropriate for Wikipedia. Some editors wish to remove spoiler tags while other editors wish to keep them and/or update their guidelines and appearance. A request for comment has been started at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC. All editors are invited to share their input on any or all of the issues being discussed. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I would like to add two new optional fields to the infobox.
There could be two books which tie to the same film, the original and the tie-in book.
This is part of the child project
Films based on books.
—
Lady Aleena
talk/
contribs 22:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
:Support -- very sensible //
Fra
nkB 17:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC) (See below vote)
Fra
nkB
A flashbulb just went off over my head, Film adaption(s) needs to be used instead of singular adaption. One book can spawn several films. Pride and Prejudice and The Hobbit come to mind. - LA @ 18:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Oppose I support the Films based on books project in general, but I noticed a lot of older books had multiple movies made out of them. Rather than "picking" one over the other, I would rather leave thim on the section marked for adaptations. PeregrineV 19:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. I gather that since this debate is rather old and most contributers oppose the motion, I might be beating a dead horse, but ah well here are my two cents anyway. My objections: there is already an adaptations section in the main article template; such an inclusion would make the box much more unweildy; many books would require a link to a list of adaptations anyway (most classics have multiple adaptations, e.g.); are we then to include adaptations or references in other forms of art? what about ballets, operas, musicals, theatre? (or why stop there--paintings, sculptures etc.).
My main objection is that we should treat books qua books for the purposes of the project, for the purposes of an encyclopedia. I'm finding that there seems to be a great emphasis on books qua popular culture with regard to assessment for example. In my opinion this is contrary to what one would see in any encyclopedia of literature or even any general encyclopedia. When discussing books, we should focus on their place in the world of books. Adaptations into or inspiration of other art forms should be included by all means, but it should be treated as extra information--perfect for a section of the main article (and that not near the top!), but inappropriate for the book's infobox. Of course, if a book is actually a novelization of a film, that will undoubtedly be mentioned within the first sentence of the article.-- Ibis3 12:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The Giver is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Middle-earth is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm about to create a sub-cat of Category:Non-fiction books, Category:Books about film, which would include reference works, history of film, Leonard Maltin, etc. Any thoughts? ♥ Her Pegship♥ 16:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I have opened a new can of worms at Category talk:Non-fiction, regarding use of the terms literature, books, non-fiction, and non-fictional. Have at it. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 22:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there any guidance of listing individual chapters for books and/or serialized fiction? Does anyone have opinions on if it should be done or not? -- Kunzite 03:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I have just greatly expanded this article from its initial stub status, and I would like suggestions. marbeh raglaim 01:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)