Talk:List of Women's Prize for Fiction winners

Sexism

Why is it only for females? That's so sexist. If only there was a prize just for males. Skinnyweed 01:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Lol its not sexist, but anyway can you add an edit my aunt just won this award for her book "Half of a Yellow Sun", her name is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

-- Agreed, it's sexist, and actually pretty disgusting. Women get away with too much, e.g. Women's-only evenings at the swimming pool; "Woman's Hour" on UK Radio Four every weekday morning plus Saturdays; Women's only races such as Race for Life; Women's-only literary awards. For every women's only privilege, there should be a male-only equivalent. Since women have this prize, there should be an equivalent men-only literary prize. Does anyone want to sponsor such an award (e.g. a brewery)? 82.43.213.59 (talk) 11:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Shortlisted titles?

Most literary awards articles on Wikipedia, that include shortlists, also include the titles of the shortlist, not just the authors name only. This article seems only half-done, though I recognize it's a lot of work to enter those shortlisted titles, and wikilink them back to this article. It also doesn't have a lead section. It seemed to pass Featured review with very little comment, I'd be surprised if it survived a featured review in its current form. In any case, it would be helpful for readers to include the titles of the shortlist. The folks over at LibraryThing made a list of the Orange Prize Shortlist, in case anyone needs or wants it. Green Cardamom (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

We could add the shortlisted items. Not quite as important as the winners, but still relevant. Would possibly add a fair few red links to the list as well though. Are there any other featured literary lists? The article is not "half-done". The article "does" have a lead section, are you looking at the same article I am? Six paragraphs with nearly 4,000 characters of text? If you're concerned about it retaining its featured status, you are very welcome indeed to nominate it for delisting at WP:FLRC. Oh, and thanks for updating the 2011 entry with the shortlisted authors! The Rambling Man (talk) 17:15, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The "red links" problem may be why the titles were not added, because it wouldn't pass FA and too much work to create the stubs. It is incomplete, I can point out all the other articles on Wikipedia that include shortlists, this one is very unusual to only list the authors. What I meant by the missing lead section is there is no section break, if 6 paragraphs is the lead, that is wrong, leads shouldn't be that long, leads are meant to summarize the article contents, not be the article content. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I added a "History" section break to create a lead section. The lead (for a featured article) can be read about at WP:LEAD, it would "stand alone as a concise overview" of the article, "a summary of its most important aspects" and not contain information that is not already in the rest of the article. It repeats, in summary form, the rest of the article. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Well that's buggered things up. While the previous lead wasn't ideal, it was agreed to be acceptable during the FLC process that saw it promoted. Now all we have is a minuscule and unhelpful (and far-from-MOS-compliant) lead. You need to know the difference between a featured list and a featured article. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

There, four paragraphs, not so bad now. Of course, if you wish to seek it's demotion, feel free to nominate it at WP:FLRC (note, it's a featured list not a featured article as you seem to think). The Rambling Man (talk) 18:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I see. Well, in that case it goes against conventions for most literary award articles elsewhere on Wikipedia. Literary awards are normally not lists, they are proper articles. Sometimes the winners-list is created in a separate "list of" article. But the main text about the award is normally considered an article, not a list. By forcing the content about the award into a list article, it's limiting. Probably what should be done is this article renamed to "List of winners.." or something, and the main text moved to a proper article with a lead section. BTW you'll notice from my user profile my "specialty" on Wikipedia is literary award articles; this one breaks the mold in a number of ways. I'm not out to take away anything, just want to improve. Green Cardamom (talk) 19:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

As I asked back in April, can you point me to other featured literary award content here on Wikipedia please? I've been finding it difficult to see anything. So I feel this is a precedent. If we can expand it to be Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 etc, then brilliant, but when I found and expanded the article to this featured list, it seemed unlikely to work. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't believe there are any featured literary award articles, though there are many well developed ones. As far as awards go, the Orange Prize is pretty simple because there is just one category (best book). The Booker Prize may be the one to emulate since it lists winners in the main article, and full winner/shortlist in a List-of article. What would you think about structuring the Orange the same as Booker? Green Cardamom (talk) 23:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happier to leave the main list as it is and then wikilink the year of the award to each sub-list, once they've been written of course. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

There are only six books per year for this prize. Normally there are separate articles when there are multiple categories of prizes with many books to list, that can't be easily tabulated, like with 2011 Pulitzer Prize. This is a simple prize, all the info can be easily in a single table view. The two Booker Prize articles are the perfect model, have you looked at it? Is there anything about that model don't you like? Green Cardamom (talk) 16:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Far from perfect. The list article is of very poor quality indeed. I see no point in creating a very weak list article just to add the nominations. If you want to add the nominations to this list, then I suggest you mock it up in a sandbox to see what it looks like. Otherwise, this article is as good, if not better than the Booker Prize article. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about perfect, but the list article for the Booker prize is better than this one because it has more information and is presented in a better way (that's my opinion, but I think others would agree). The Booker primary article is also better than this one since it's a full Wikipedia article, as all literary awards deserve. Those are the two problems with this article: the list itself is incomplete of information and could be presented better, and the text part is incomplete since it's limited by being a list-of article. It's a hybrid, a list-of article and a normal article at the same time, neither fish nor fowl. Green Cardamom (talk) 18:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

So mock up the nominees (with references for each and every one from reliable secondary sources of course) in a sandbox based on the current featured list and then we can discuss how good it is. It would also appear that we'll need to run it through WP:FLRC again if you wish to make radical changes, it's only fair on the community to see a highly revised version of a previously reviewed list, to determine if it still meets the featured list criteria. Also, when you claim the Booker list to be "better than this one", you should really familiarise yourself with what makes a featured list, like MOS-compliance, references, WP:ACCESS, no dabs, proper lead etc etc.... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The next week or so will be busy, I'll return later. (Booker is just an example of how this article could improve structure, design and information, it is better in some ways. Booker article isn't better in all ways). Green Cardamom (talk) 20:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

As I said before, the Booker list is appalling and should not be used as a model for any featured material at all. The main Booker article is below average with a lot of unreferenced material, so not sure why that's a good thing to follow either. I may try to add the shortlisted titles, but I insist on decent third-party sources (rather than lazily relying on the official website), so if you can't achieve that, I'd say it was a fruitless exercise. Perhaps take Booker to FA/FL (and I'd be more than happy to help with that) and then come back to explain why it's "better in some ways" than this existing piece of featured material. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Please do add the shortlisted titles and 3rd party references. Also, the current shortlisted authors are not referenced at all (or consistently), apparently it was not considered during the FL nomination. Every year, shortlists are announced in the press, that announcement needs to be included, for each year. Arguably since this is a FL, it should also include the long list announcement, but I don't know if Orange has been consistent, need more research. Many other literary award articles on Wikipedia include long list announcements. As for the Booker article, please read what I wrote more carefully. The table design is better, and the amount of information included is better (judges, short-listed titles, etc). It's just an example template for how to improve this article. The full list of winners/shortlist should be in a separate "list-of" article, while the main article is about the Award proper with multiple sections like judging process, history, criticism, controversies etc. Green Cardamom (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the shortlisted authors are referenced by the general reference at the top of the References section. Table design is "better" in your opinion, that's all, in my opinion it's a lot worse. If you can provide the third-party sources for each shortlister and their work, go for it. If you wish to radically overhaul this list into a naff list and a main article with a weak winners-only list, then I suggest you send this to WP:FLRC as the community should be allowed to contribute. At the moment, you're the only one who seems to have a problem with this. By all means write a main article in your sandbox to demonstrate how much better it could be than this. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, the "better" list you refer to does not comply with WP:ACCESS at all, is not sortable, is not fully referenced, starts with "The following is a list..." (we stopped doing that years ago), has disambiguation links, has nothing referencing the paltry lead and is incomplete (why no chair in 1970? why some unlinked names and some redlinked names?). What was the reasoning to turn this list into something like that? Perhaps you should work on the Booker list to make it more like this. As for the main Booker article, it fails WP:LEAD, has just about the same amount of detail on the controversies as the Orange list, has an entirely unreferenced "Judging" section, rambles into unreferenced "Related awards" and another unreferenced section on "Cheltenham Booker Prize". I would suggest you spend some time working on the Booker stuff rather than get unnecessarily agitated that the names of the shortlisted novels don't appear in this list. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's forget the Booker because your focusing on its implementation defects (lack of refs) and not the design features (two articles), it was just an example, apparently not an effective way to communicate my point, but you did get the idea of two articles (see following). Green Cardamom (talk) 07:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Question: what would you think about keeping this article as-is, but rename to List of Orange Prize winners and shortlist (or some variation). The article would not change in any other way. That would free up the name space to build a proper full Wikipedia article for the Literary Award, that isn't restricted by being a list-of article. It would give room to write sub-sections including history, judging process, controversies, etc - I don't believe an article rename would require a WP:FLRC. This FL article would not change, other than to optionally add some fields like shortlisted works with proper sources. Green Cardamom (talk) 07:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I've always understood the point of two articles, but if you'd care to check the state the article was in before I turned it into a featured list, you can see why no "list of winners" was needed. This list (beside the non-notable shortlisted books) contains a good overview of the prize and the winners, thus no need for separate articles. What more would you add to it, besides the shortlisted books? Are you just going to copy and paste the judges names (for example) from the official website? Perhaps if you could be specific about what more the "main" article would have in than is covered here and we can make a judgement whether there's any point in repeating most of this list there, or indeed any point in a "main" article. The best idea for me is to make this just the list of winners and have a yearly Orange Prize article where you can go into minute detail about judge composition, shortlisted isbn's etc. The intention of this list article is to provide a reasonably comprehensive history of a very young award, including some of the controversies surrounding it, along with the winners etc. It does this, if I dare say so, rather well. Also worth looking at List of Manchester City F.C. managers which, while not a literary prize, deals with a topic quite nicely, is still a featured list and covers all the bases. This could be the model you're after. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

We've already discussed that model and for a number of reasons it doesn't make sense. For one, this is a simple award with a single winner and 5 shortlists, it doesn't justify the need for separate articles every year. All the info can easily fit in a single table. Second, it doesn't address the fundamental structural problem: currently there is no Wikipedia article for the Orange Prize. There is a list-of, but there is no proper full article. No other literary award is set up as only a list-of article, with all the info about the award pithily fit into the lead section. The current lead section is already very long, at what point does it become too long to be a lead? What if I or another editor wanted to add an additional 2 paragraphs of information, what then? Also, you've already agreed earlier about adding short-listed titles (with sources), now your saying they are non-notable, but then you say it's OK to add them to the separate articles model which would mean they are notable, so it's confusing what your position is on the short-listed titles question. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what other stuff exists here, it's how we best deal with this situation. I do happen to think that the shortlisted titles are non-notable, others may not. All you're suggesting really is to take a comprehensive article which is predominantly a list and turning it into a stub-style main article and feature-less bland list. I tell you what I'll do, and you can then do whatever you feel you like, I'll move this to the list of... title and you can do whatever you like with the main article. But before you hack-and-slash the lead of this to death, suggest you opt to get it delisted at WP:FLRC. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Rambling Man, thank you, for the article move. This list-of article is well written and useful, I don't mean to break it. My only concern at this point is getting the short-listed titles included. A FLRC is possible but prefer not to go that route if it can be avoided, if we can reach an agreement on how to go about it. As a suggestion, what if we added the titles without wikilinks, except any that already have articles. Also, I created a category tree for the prize, Category:Orange Prize -- before it's populated wanted to check with you on the naming if you had any changes. It follows the model of Category:British Book Awards and some others in Category:Books by award. Green Cardamom (talk) 18:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Okay, so the category Category:Orange Prize is fine but you have to accept that despite it being international, it's a British originated prize, so the cats etc should follow BritEng, so we would have "honoured" and not "honored". Better still, use "winners" or "recipients" or "nominees". I hope you're planning on expanding the main article substantially as right now it's offering nothing beyond the winners list. I had a thought about the shortlisters, and that would be to add them in the style of those in this current nomination, making them a bit smaller. Also, we could make the notes column a proper set of footnotes, which would be a bit more work, but not unachievable. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

expanding the main article. Well, I'm kinda split on what to do. The text in this list article lead section is basically a complete main article, it's well written and would be difficult (for me) to improve on at this time (though others may want to add more). Logically it would make sense to copy it all over the main article, add section breaks and a summary lead section, I'd do that if your agreeable, but I'm not sure what it would imply for this article since it might then look redundant. So I just kept the main article short for now, but at least the structure is in place for future additions by myself or others. Re: Cats will change to "recipients". OK about the smaller text, good idea. Question: The Guardian article appears to include short-listed titles. Since it is being used as the 3rd party source for the shortlisted authors, I assume it works for the titles? Green Cardamom (talk) 00:00, 8 December 2011 (UTC)