Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels

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Introduction to Discussion Forum

As some are getting a little confussed about where to go for General Project Wide discussions, and as other projects, (including the WikiProject style guide include a forum like this) I have established this for General discussion.

It should be used for anything project wide, and try to use the individual page talk pages for anything specific to that page. i.e. smaller issues.

Also announcements to the wider project user base perhaps should be made here. Not quite a one stop shop, but close.

Enjoy :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)} 09:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussions

The True Snow White

This is an article about a recently self-published book. I am reluctant to AfD it, due to ignorance about novels and notability etc. Could someone with the right knowledge have a look at it? Anarchia (talk) 22:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• It does look a bit dubious. It's not listed on Amazon and the links and sources are a bit suspect. The article definitely comes off more like an essay than an encyclopedia article, and some of the links are dead, too. Any other opinions out there? 23skidoo (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems legit to me - however the issue of notability does naturally arise. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I see no signs of notability. Doczilla 08:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I have begun an AfD of this article. You are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_True_Snow_White. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Recruitment - Activation of Members

I would like to raise a perennial problem. The need to raise the profile of involvement. In other words recruiting more members and getting more members to become more active. The is both within the project itself and in improving the articles within our scope. All ideas to this end are welcome but I would like to start off by proposing a few.

• Project coordinators (as WP:MILHIST or similar)
• Job centre ("center" for the U.S. people) - where specific responsibilities might be picked up by volunteers. (i.e. "monitoring groups of stub cats", "editing the newsletter", "welcoming new members", "mentoring new members", "managering the announcements template", "job centre manager", "particular task force coordinators", "outreach and promotion", "task force expansion", "collaboration management", "assessment management", "peer review team", "inter WikiProject collaboration" and any others people can think of please)

none of this is intended to be "heavy" but more to assist the smooth running of the project. The main aim would be to clear give individual editors "ownership" of tasks so that we can encourage more involvement from everyone. I get the impression many have little idea how they might contribute.

Anyway more ideas and reactions please. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. Where do we sign up? :) María (habla conmigo) 13:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I like your spirit. I had only floated the idea so far - but if you could give me a notion as to what you might volunteer for - I might be able to set something in motion early. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I would love to be more active in the project, so I could go for just about anything; I could definitely see myself volunteering for outreach (greeting, mentoring), some kind of peer review team, and assessments, of course. I'm also quite keen on finding book cover images; I always thought we should have some kind of a "Request images here" page where people who aren't aware of where/how to find first edition covers or even just add the fair use rationale; that way we won't have images being deleted right and left. I hate those bot notices.

As for expansion of task forces, I've always thought that there should be some kind of Award Winners category where we can group together the prestigious award winning novels and work on improving those according to our MOS, since they are arguably the most critically acclaimed works we have to play around with. María (habla conmigo) 15:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

One difficulty you'll have in recruiting members is simply how very, very broad "Novels" is. Doczilla 08:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

We have obviously had no difficulties in the past, what with nearly three hundred members as of now. :) I think "Novels" is relatively easy to define, and people have little difficulty in understanding our mission statement. María (habla conmigo) 14:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST have as broad a subject area (Military History), but have more task forces to focus editor involvement. Perhaps we should have more of these and group our efforts more. What my aim is here is not just to gain more members but to get more activists. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Can I suggest a "keeping an eye on book cover images" job? If anybody needs help with their image uploads so that they don't get tagged for deletion by bots, I'd be happy to do that. Bláthnaid 17:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, will add that and article challenges to the mix too. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

One question: how do you become a member? I am posting articles, does this count? --76.251.237.193 02:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It would help if you had a user name, but please see the members list for more info. Also, please remember that this general forum is for general Wikiproject discussion; if you have a question or two regarding specific novels, then you can direct them to the respective articles' talk pages. Take care, María (habla conmigo) 02:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks--76.251.237.193 (talk) 02:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The Cornelius Quartet by Michael Moorcock up for deletion

Someone's got it in for Jerry, Catherine and Una. The discussion is here [1] Nick mallory (talk) 09:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Light House: A Trifle

Hi: Could you guys incorporate Light House: A Trifle into your WikiProject and rate it and perhaps categorize it? It's a new but fleshed out article on a first novel.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 12:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Considering this is a new article it appears a very good one. Others may look it over to check accuracy and other things that may be added etc. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits. It spent some time in the List of works by William Monahan before becoming its own article. What did you mean by a 1st edition cover? I think this is the 1st edition because it looks exactly like the hardcover cover I have. Do you mean first printing 1st edition?-BillDeanCarter (talk) 11:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, what I mean is that if there is a cover it ideally should be the 1st. You add no caption that declares it to be the 1st. So, I just normally add this "comment" to prompt those who have not loaded a "1st edition cover" to load one, or those who have added one, to add a caption to declare it. I'll add one as I assume from what you say it is a "1st". :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 12:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, okay. Thanks.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 12:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

He, the short stories

Currently there is an article on the short story "He" by H. P. Lovecraft. The problem is that there is another short story titled "He" written by Katherine Anne Porter that currently isn't on here. This may lead to some confusion for people who are looking for the "He" by Porter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leechristensen (talk • contribs)

added both short stories to He (disambiguation) page. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In addition, if and when an article on the Porter story is written, an additional dab statement can be added to the Lovecraft story page. 23skidoo (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Herland (novel)

Herland (novel) could use some cleanup. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Creating a collage from several book covers for an article about the series they're part of

I currently have 5 articles that are largely ready to go (except for one) about the Dragon series by Laurence Yep. They haven't been put together in an anthology of some kind. I'm thinking of making a collage out of the 4 books that make up the series to use on the article page about the series as a whole. Is this kosher? --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 22:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably not, unfortunately. The collage would still consist of four copyrighted book covers, so it could be viewed as an image gallery (similar to album cover galleries, which are frowned upon). In my opinion, it would be best to use the cover of the first book in the series article, and then use the other covers on the individual articles. Bláthnaid 12:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Unless I find a pic of all 4 book covers together, right? --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't "bust a gut" over this issue. Most novel series articles do not have cover illustrations for the reasons mentioned above (i.e. copyright and fair use issues). Also the most importance part is the quality of thetext of such article rather than dubious rationales for images. If there is an obvious need for a image then by all means but not normally. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 16:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Obviously you could find instances of compliance/noncompliance with that if you look; Lord of the Rings for example does this, and it's FA. Personally I like to have illustrations in my articles if possible, but no biggie on 1 vs. 4. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I know the "Lord of the Rings" example and is doesn't seem to add to the article anything significant. I would be better if is gave the cover for the first combined edition published as Tolkien originally planned. (it was divided for publishing reasons, against his original intentions). :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 16:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW, thanks for "wikifying" the templates I was using. BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

It's what we do! Keep editing :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 17:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Eyes needed at On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace

The message on the talk page here suggests the article may be a copyvio. Can someone from this project follow up on this claim? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Completely out of scope this is non-fiction . :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

A Canticle for Leibowitz nominated for GA

I've nominated A Canticle for Leibowitz for GA. If someone has some time, could she/he do a GA review on this noteworthy novel, please? Thanks.
Jim Dunning | talk 03:30, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Brideshead Revisited needs cites

Brideshead Revisited is short on cites, especially the apparent personal opinions in the section "Motifs and other points of interest" -- 201.37.229.117 (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Baen Books DOI's

If you all hadn't noticed, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) listed by Baen Books and affiliate Webscriptions has essentially no chance of returning meaningful information from the {{DOI}} search template (or DOI website ...e.g. DOI: doi:10.1125/0008). Contrarily, some older Baen DOI's may work, or once have worked but I haven't found one that does.

So shortly before Christmas, I looked into this when frustrated again by an attempt at verification and invested in a phone call to find out why. The result is that Baen DOI's simply aren't DOI's at all, in the sense of being a registered unique ID number, and if I understand things properly, Baen's is further using "DOI", a registered trademark (a surmise), improperly. The most recent Baen DOI's are in fact, the ten digit ISBN of the printed work, a different registration system.

In any event, on the Ring of Fire series books I'll be editing systematically to avoid the confusion to our readers and substituting the template Template:Baen DOI as a prefix where we document their listed (non) DOI. Webscriptions itself, who produce the e-published versions in the multiple formats have pretty much eliminated the DOI term on their webpages, using instead the term "SKU". I further suggest that any cited reference based on their content include that prefix after the {{Baen DOI}} template, should that page be the information cited (e.g. checking a electronic copyright, but not wanting to by the book—the SKU page is open content and costs nothing! On the other hand, one cannot read content, but catalog!). I see no way to cure the potential confusion and "conflict issue" originating in that Webscriptions and Baen attach different "linking identifiers" (and url's) for what is content generated from the same digital source file. Webscription SKU's are simply catalog numbers, and I suspect but can't prove the same source files are in play when down loading or previewing, albeit through a webpage "Frame". There is a distinct difference in looking through a frame reading on line, say at a book on the Baen Free Library, and one which is downloaded. In the latter case, the e-copy title data is available... in some cases, it isn't when read online.

In that sense, the titlepage information from a SKU# accessed and downloaded page from webscriptions will and should contain the Baen DOI (unless the page is a Baen e-ARC, or "preview sampler", which by definition is a temporary webpage or downloaded version!), but this is surmise, and untested beyond a small sampling. I haven't verified to my own satisfaction versus CDROM versions yet either... (Sorry- my interest was more on making an ordered table and "sense" of actual dates of first publication, regardless of formats.)

Baen CDROM copies like their website seem to carry the same DOI as one can access online via the Baen website, but this state is based on a small sample at the moment, for I've done no systematic cross checking. I have checked enough to know NOT to rely on a Baen DOI as an official registered DOI, and that is the message. DOI's and what Baen calls DOI's are as Apples and oranges.

The Template:Baen DOI

Consequently, I've written the "handle this explaination" template to be multipurpose, three modes of which can be used as boilerplate, plus the 'main mode' usage as a pre-fix. The prefix mode generates a link to the template text, thus giving the same explaination if the link is followed. The "visualized use" there is in infoboxes.

Two of the three boilerplate modes are seen in these edits:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1633_%28novel%29&diff=prev&oldid=181687616
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baen_Books&diff=prev&oldid=181685972

The parameters '1632', 'indent' and {{{1}}} are tested so that specifying either '1632' or anything as {{{1}}} displays the text as modified by specifying 'indent'. One of the two, the novel article Template:1633, uses indent and one does not. The indent mode uses a bullet prefix and a smaller font. Both use the '1632' switched logic, which merely adds the last paragraph about the Grantville Gazettes... presuming such a paragraph would be both useless and a total non sequitur in books or series by other Baen authors like honorverse, I wrote the template so it must be asked for. The indented version makes sense as a lead in to document the three versions extant, as in the 1633 article, which uses double indentation to set off the separate releases.

Best regards, and happy New Year! // FrankB 22:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Book covers with disputed fair use rationales

As some of you may be aware, about 12,000 images were tagged for deletion because of missing or incorrect fair use rationales last week. There is a list of tagged book covers here, if anybody would like to add a few rationales. Please start from the bottom of the list, because other editors have started from the top! There is a template {{Book rationale}} that can be used. There is a good example of the type of rationale to add here, and there are more guidelines here. An image needs one rationale for each article it is used in. If the book cover is used in a list, gallery, or in the article about the book's author, don't add a rationale because book covers usually can't be used in this way.

Also, if anybody has received tons of warnings about their image uploads on their talk page and needs help working through them, please let me know and I'll help out with adding rationales as best I can. Bláthnaid 12:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Kudos to Bláthnaid and others for taking on this rather thankless task. I have given Bláthnaid (and anyone else) permission to to delete bot warnings from my talk page once they've dealt with them, and I recommend others give similar permission. I don't think we need to flood these folks with permission messages: I have simply posted a "permission given" message at the top and bottom of my talk page, which hopefully is good enough. Alternately, editors who deal with the images could add a "Resolved" note to the bot messages and then the talk page owner can delete or archive the messages as desired. Although deleting warnings and correspondence from talk pages is frowned upon, I am unaware of any prohibition regarding bot messages, especially ones of this repetitive and non-disciplinary nature. 23skidoo (talk) 20:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone would have problems with the "fixer" adding a {{resolved|1=~~~~}} after having made the necessary changes. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 08:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

19th-century novels task force

I'd like to start up a task force for 19th-century novels. This would cover the works of novelists such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and a great deal many others. It would also encompass Romanticism, Regency literature, Victorian literature and early Modernism, as well as region-specific literature of the period (e.g., British, American, French, Russian). Any thoughts? Cheers. – Liveste (talk) 16:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

probably overdue. Any help you need let me know. If can gain some support prior to launch so much the better. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 16:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Do I need to do anything in particular...

... in order to join the WikiProject Novels? I've been invited but have no idea what to do. I am new here and would love to help out if I can. Thanks. Katie1971 (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• All you need to do is go to the Members sub-page (the link can be found in the box at top right) and add your name to the list as instructed. Welcome aboard! 23skidoo (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Watership Down by Richard Adams

What relationship is there, if any, between the painting of "More Watership Down" by Frederick Morgan and the book "Watership Down" by Richard Adams ?

It is interesting to me that the themes seem to be common, although the artist would have rendered this work many years (roughly fifty, as best I can tell) before the book. It is mere coincidence or is there a connection ? I would appreciate any enlightenment.

More Watership Down

Sorry, the above was my posting. Appreciate any responses. --66.235.91.49 (talk) 04:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)