Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)

NBOOK#4

Has anyone ever seen an AfD where a book article is kept based solely on this criterion? I'm unconvinced that this ever works successfully in practice. -- asilvering (talk) 16:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I have. It was one I nominated -- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sweet Sixteen Novel. The article today (Sweet Sixteen (Abdullahi novel)) demonstrates notability through other criteria, but that was what got it through. I tend to think it's one of those "shortcut for when coverage will clearly exist" situations that are easier for some people to assess when they might not know where to look for certain sources, but it's weaker in that than, say, NPROF5 is. Vaticidalprophet 16:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Hm, it looks to me more that the cincher was those sources added after the relist in this case... but it does look like the "it's on the JAMB" was sufficiently persuasive as an argument that it wasn't laughed out of the discussion, at least. -- asilvering (talk) 16:35, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

May I ask here...? Regarding the criterion: The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country - what is the necessity of the word 'particular' in this sentence? If the word were removed, would it make any difference? Connoissaur (talk) 16:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@Connoissaur, well, that wording has been there for at least 18 years so it doesn't seem to have caused a problem. I think the overall wording is ambiguous: is it (two schools in a particular country) or (two schools)(either school may be in any country)? The criterion might be sufficient as The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs. Schazjmd (talk) 16:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

What does the whole phrase "in any particular country" contribute here? Would the meaning change if it were removed? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

The way I read it, this does not count books that have been taught at two or more schools globally but not in the same country. ie, if a book was taught once in France, once in Canada, and once in Haiti, it's no good, but twice in France qualifies. I'm not sure this is a relevant distinction. -- asilvering (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why we should be making that distinction. If it's taught in scattered schools internationally, surely that's evidence of greater notability than being taught in a local cluster of schools. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Previous discussions on this criterion (oldest first): [1][2][3][4][5] Schazjmd (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for digging those up. It looks like no one's been all that excited about this criterion for ages. I don't think that's in itself a good reason to remove it (no one's come up with any serious problems with it), but it doesn't inspire confidence in me that we need it, either. -- asilvering (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@David Eppstein I guess the idea was that "individually, in multiple countries" could just be two profs with unusual curriculum ideas, but the local cluster implied by "multiple in one country" suggested broader notability than "two people who happen to be profs liked it". Either way I don't think it's a very useful yardstick. -- asilvering (talk) 19:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I've read "any particular country" as meaning that any country will do - I would be happy with the formulation that @Schazjmd suggests (just drop the "any particular country"). But I'm fine with keeping it. I think this criteria is sometimes useful as support to other criteria, especially for literary works not published by conventional publishers. For example, the fact that the digital poem Böhmische Dörfer has been taught at French high schools helps convince me that the work is notable. It has also has been discussed in peer-reviewed articles, so gets notability from that anyway, but if it hadn't been for NBOOK4 I probably wouldn't have searched to see if it was taught in schools - and I think that's useful information. Lijil (talk) 11:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, it was Tramway (digital poem) that was taught in high schools. This work has less of the other notability criteria. Lijil (talk) 11:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Which reviews count?

In terms of criteria 1, do reviews in sites such as Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly and Booklist count, given the breadth of their coverage? BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

From previous discussions, I think many editors consider Kirkus, Booklist, and PW to be more "routine" coverage (not being very selective in which books they review). I've written several articles on books, but I wouldn't write one about a book that had only been reviewed by those sources as I would consider its claim to notability to be questionable. Schazjmd (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

When these sites have paid review branches [6], those reviews count for nothing. Otherwise, everything counts, to me; I think the depth of coverage of a review is more important than its venue. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 to Schazjmd. Kirkus, Booklist, and PW are librarian trade publications and are meant to have broad capsule coverage to aid in book selection. Short reviews in those periodicals does not amount to significant coverage, especially if the book is not reviewed in outside publications. czar 17:35, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Here's a recent thread that discusses the question pretty thoroughly. Schazjmd (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I also would not write an article about a book that was only reviewed in these venues, though I would pass one through AfC as "borderline enough to deserve wider consensus at AfD". But I've seen enough AfDs close as Keep with only this type of review to know that "PW is routine coverage" is far from a universal opinion. (I don't think I'd call Kirkus "routine", but they aren't hugely in-depth either.) -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing in WP:GNG about excluding coverage for being routine. All coverage that is in-depth, reliable, and independent counts. The paid reviews are not independent but otherwise the question should be how in-depth they are. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Given the shocking frequency with which I encounter attempted articles on books which have no reviews at Kirkus, Booklist, or PW, I consider them sufficiently selective venues to suffice for notability. Kirkus, especially, reviews surprisingly few books. Of course one always likes to see as much coverage as possible, and at AfD I would highlight longer & rarer reviews if they exist, but I think all three "count." (Excluding, as always, the non-independent "Kirkus Indie" paid reviews.) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The fact remains that if a book was capsule-reviewed in all three sources, we still wouldn't have enough info to write more than the briefest stub on the topic, which is why we require coverage to be substantial. Appearance in all three sources isn't an indicator of the book's wider notability or cultural impact, just that it appeared by a major publisher and so librarians need some detail on whether to buy a copy for patrons. If it appeared in those trade publications and didn't receive wider coverage, that would also indicate a lack of impact. czar 18:48, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Notability through GNG is not based on impact, it is based on depth of coverage. So "wider coverage" and "lack of impact" are irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it's already clear, but I'm saying that those go together. Capsule reviews aren't deep and anything to be said about a book beyond its basic description will not be in these trade publications' short reviews. I'd include Choice (publisher) in this grouping as well. czar 21:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. A publication notification of one sentence may not offer enough encyclopedic material, but the three venues named here all provide a meaty paragraph, including at least some non-synopsis material. I have more than once written a perfectly fine, simple article using only reviews like Kirkus et al. Furthermore, once a book has cleared NBOOK it becomes permissible to also draw from non-independent sources like interviews to add detail to the article — and if a book is covered in all three sources, I find there is usually at least one author interview available as well. I don’t understand what problem would supposedly be solved by acting like Kirkus, Booklist, and PW are not RS. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Ironic institutionalization of "highbrow" sources

I wrote an article on a book, Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy‎, that has at its thesis that American media are turning away from a mass appeal and towards a selective readership of highly educated, upper class readers. I think it's ironic that an editor has immediately removed book reviews from mass market media like The New York Post.

In a followup on the talkpage, the other editor said they didn't meet WP:RSP criteria (though they were in Further reading not used as sources). Of lesser concern, why Jewish Journal and New York Journal of Books were lumped in with these "tainted" sources of wide appeal and removed from Further reading at the same time.

Given the notability discussion in the immediately prior section, I think the article's between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, straightforward "factual" reviews like Publishers Weekly are attacked as "routine". But reviews that go into any analysis are labeled as POV and tainted, and therefore inadmissible to even indicate they exist. My worst fear is that we allow sources that do socio-political analysis, but only by publications with the "right" political bent like The New York Times and not Fox News or Quillette.

Reactions? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Should NBOOK cover series or just individual books?

Right now there is a discussion at AfD for the series Safehold.

The status of the article at this point in time is that some of the books in the series pass notability guidelines per NBOOK by way of reviews and placement in the main NYT Bestseller list (hardcover fiction).

The nominator, Orchastrattor, is arguing that the series is non-notable because there is little to no coverage for the series itself and as such, there should only be pages for those books that pass notability guidelines. Any other information should be on the page for those books (or just the first book) and that the series page should redirect to that main book or to Weber's bibliography, where the series is listed. Orchastrattor further argues that there is no specific criteria for series and, if I'm understanding correctly, it should be judged based on GNG and that NOTINHERITED should apply.

My argument against this is that series should qualify under NBOOK as the individual novels make up a single whole. None of the books were written to be standalone pieces, although the first could be read by itself. This is a case where notability for the individual parts make up notability for the whole, so NOTINHERITED is not intended to apply here. Furthermore, I think that putting this all in the article for the first book would result in one of two scenarios: the series is either given undue weight (making a spinoff page a necessity) or it would result in us covering the series less than we could in a properly sourced and written series page (where the notability type coverage is more for the reviews and NYT listings). This is also beneficial in cases where there are multiple sources for the individual books where we could create a good series page, but not really enough to establish notability for the individual books. (IE, a series has 4-5 books. Each book manages about 1-3 reviews, there's 1-2 sources about the series as a whole, and a plethora of primary sources discussing the book's development and release. Enough to where we could establish notability for the author, but the series is their only notable work and people would more want coverage for the series, not the author.)

I'm worried that this could be detrimental to overall coverage on Wikipedia, as it's kind of the norm for us to have a single, stronger page for a series rather than lackluster articles for single books. It could also go beyond books and into other forms of media, like films, music, and so on. It's not something I think should be handled lightly.

So my question is this: would the individual books count towards overall notability in this case? If so, do we need to update NBOOK to cover this? (And if that's yes, then we may need to consider what is required for series notability, but that's another discussion.) If an update is not required, what part of NBOOK would cover this?

I'm not looking for anyone to come to the AfD, just that this is something that could have some longer reaching implications. If the consensus is that individual books don't establish notability for their parent series, then we need to update NBOOK (and potentially NOTINHERITED) to cover that and discuss how this could impact other articles. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 20:37, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I also wanted to add this from the AfD - from a deletionist type viewpoint, having a series page would cut down on the amount of useless pages and reduce the amount of information that is scattered over multiple pages that technically pass notability guidelines, instead condensing it into one place and making it less likely that people will try to create individual pages for the books - or at least giving us a reason to argue against them doing so. I personally prefer series pages to individual book articles unless there's a ton of coverage to justify scattering the information at this point, honestly. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 21:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Interesting question. Until you brought it up, I didn't realize that NBOOK doesn't even mention "series". I do think that NBOOK should provide some level of guidance on notability for a book series article. Some are clearly notable, such as when the series itself wins a major award (such as Hugo Award for Best Series) or when a series is regularly examined as a whole (such as Future History (Heinlein) and The Wheel of Time). Whether awards and reviews for individual books in the series contribute to notability of the series...I have to think about that for a bit. Schazjmd (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Two points I was going to go into on the AFD but would be more useful to get the discussion started here:

1. I at one point compared it to WP:NMUSIC because they already distinguish between WP:NSONG versus WP:NALBUM and do not inherit one from the other so it would make sense for an equivalent policy on literature to function accordingly; The idea is that there are things that go into the creation of an album that do not go into the creation of an arbitrary collection of single songs, the same way that there are things that went into Tolkien's legendarium that would not have gone into it had he and Christopher instead published The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Simlarillion as three separate epic stories across three separate settings.

2. If inheriting N from constituent books is to be applied as an actual policy then it will need some very strict minimum requirements; If you're trying to add something on a new series to WP but only the first one or two books have had any significant discussion in RS then you obviously shouldn't publish an article on the whole series, you would publish independently notable articles on however many entries is appropriate and then briefly mention the rest elsewhere as part of a bibliography. Orchastrattor (talk) 22:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

For human beings, we expect them to be involved in two notable things, otherwise we consider that WP:BLP1E applies and they are best covered in the article on that one event. For actors, under WP:NACTOR we want them to have had two notable roles, otherwise they get put in the article of the one thing they starred in. Following this logic, two books of note should be enough to make the series of note. Makes sense to me, and it creates a place where we can point titles of other volumes that may be on the edge of separate notability (indeed, even multiple notable books may work best as redirects to a series article.) So, say, Leonard Wibberly's Grand Fenwick series -- a five novel series of which the first and third get the bulk of the attention -- should suffice for an article. (We may need to clarify what a "series" is in this context; it may not apply to, say, The Complete Idiot's Guides, which have a uniform format and tone but not author and subject.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:34, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Well on the other hand, what about Morrison's Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise? Or Atwood's duology of Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments? All five books are perfectly notable and either series has both RS and authorial statements describing them as a series or shared setting, but the concepts of them as series aren't notable enough to bother writing about. Looking past books for a second we have the opposite extreme of things like the Dollars trilogy, which neither the author nor the RS describe as an intentional trilogy but are still covered as such because the concept of a shared chronology between the three constituent works is popular enough to generate notability regardless. Orchastrattor (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

For a rather less cerebral example, Warhammer Fantasy disambiguates between the wargame and the setting, while Age of Sigmar and 40K redirect to their respective flagship game lines. All three are fully standalone IPs covering dozens of games and hundreds of novels and stories, however one has been demonstrated to pass notability outside of its primary work where the others haven't. Orchastrattor (talk) 04:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a differentiation between "series" and "universe" that is comfortable to those of us in the comics realm (Action Comics and Detective Comics are separate series in the same universe) and can be found in prose (Stephen King's The Dark Tower books are a series; many other books are in the same universe.) Whether we need to make that distinction is a separate question, but it is an option open to us.

Also, having something sufficiently notable for a page does not mean we need to have a page for it; it may be more conveniently covered by a placement within another page. For a two-book series in which they are both notable, it may be easiest to put the content in one of the two articles; that's a different situation from three books in a thirteen book series being notable, which a reasonable run-down of the entries would overwhelm any one entry. There are already cases where a notable books unnotable sequels are described on the book's page. We have different ways of looking at a serialized larger work -- we have entries for the three individual books that make up The Lord of the Rings but not the six books that served as the original edition of The Green Mile. There are times when a series may be best covered as part of an author's bibliography. We are allowed to be flexible. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:20, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

While I support strict notability criteria, I do think that we should be open to having articles on book series where 2+ book in the series are notable. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I've got a few concerns about mandating that 2+ of the books must be individually notable in a series. My thought here is basically that there are series out there where the individual books have maybe 1-3 notability-granting sources. Individually these are perhaps not enough to establish notability for the books, but cumulatively there is a lot of coverage.

My personal recommendation is that we allow NBOOK to cover series. We allow cumulative coverage to establish notability, but double or triple the minimum amount of sources needed to establish notability. So rather than a 2 source minimum people have to supply 4-6 RS (or show that one of the books has received a major award or is the subject of instruction and so on, I suppose). Series would also have to be labeled as such by the publisher or author. A primary source could be used for this last part.

For an example, let's say Merlin's Magic is a 4 book series. The series has received a cumulative total of 6 sources that can grant notability. Individually the sourcing could maybe justify an article for one of the books, but it would be weak. There are also additional issues. The series section has enough sourcing to where even basic coverage would overwhelm the rest of the article. Sections on themes and development are either minimal or nonexistent because there is not enough info on these as it applies to the main book - but there is coverage for some of the other books, adding to the issue of the series section overwhelming the rest of the article.

Then let's add a new wrench into the issue: only book 2 passes notability guidelines. So rather than a series page, we have an entry on the second book in the series where the content for that book is bare bones but we have a far more robust series section.

Limiting it to the sole book severely limits what we can have in the article. It would also run the risk of eating up more editor time because we'd potentially have to keep explaining why the series isn't notable and why there can't be more series information in the article. We'd also have to explain why themes and development for the later books can't be covered in the applicable sections for book 2.

To be honest, I think we'd come across as looking pretty silly or at worst, far too exclusionary. Especially when you consider for larger, ongoing series (10+ books) we might have 20-30 sources but only enough coverage to establish notability for the first book. I'm worried for smaller articles but I'm also worried about cases like say, we have popular, long running series where establishing individual book notability is difficult or impossible. For example, let's say that LA Bank's The Vampire Huntress Legend Series fails notability guidelines because only 1 of the books is notable - but the 11 books have about 15-20 cumulative sources. The page is put up for deletion. The fanbase discovers that the page has been deleted and replaced with a subpar article for the first book. We then have to explain why those 15-20 other sources weren't enough for an article.

Let's also go one step further here as well. Let's say that the fanbase makes enough of a fuss that the media picks up on this. Then we have to explain why 15-20 sources weren't enough to justify a series page. People bring up the Donna Strickland affair and comparisons are drawn, as the now-deceased author was a woman.

I know, I know - it's entirely possible that none of that could happen but I must emphasize that this could have long reaching impacts and this could look very, very bad. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 15:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

This seems reasonable and the issue of NBOOK "skipping" an entry or more in a series was also something I was concerned about on the AFD, however I think your reasoning is rather biased towards episodic SFF fiction rather than anything with actual literary significance - Strickland was a major political figure, I don't think some pulp series about teenagers fighting vampires would be quite as impactful on Wikipedia's reputation in comparison. Orchastrattor (talk) 16:17, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Eh.. you'd be surprised. LA Banks has gone on to influence more writers than you'd think. Even before her death she was seen as a pioneer in the UF genre, as the genre has and still pretty much is dominated by white authors. You see more on the shelf now, but when she was alive and publishing her most well known series she was basically the only black author on the shelf in the chain bookstores in my area.

In any case, part of ensuring that the more high brow literature and such gets kept means ensuring that the more "common" stuff gets kept as well. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:05, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

We can say that "two notable books is sufficient for proving series notability" without saying that that is the sole possible criteria. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

My comment on this is that it represents a fairly typical example of what happens when "AfD thinking" (based on WP:N) is applied to what is really a WP:PAGEDECIDE question.

By Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, all reliably sourced content that is relevant to an encyclopaedia is to be included in article space in a proportionate manner and following the best available sources on a topic. There is no question that books passing NBOOK are to be included. The question, then, is in each case what is the most encyclopaedic treatment - it seems to me that if particularly "jagged" edges occur where some books in a series (or albums by a band, or installments in a games series) are clearly notable and others may not be, the encyclopaedic treatment will sometimes mean creating a page for the series (or band or whatever) that includes all reliably sourced entries, whether they are independently notable or not. By contrast, the question "is the series notable independent from its parts" only really comes up in cases like A Nomad of the Time Streams where the series may, or may not, be covered and analyzed apart from the individual parts, so articles may be appropaiate at both levels of analysis.

Also, in passing, I don't think editors' views of actual literary significance versus episodic SFF fiction are especially relevant to any of this. For example, dividing the work of, say, Doris Lessing based on what is or isn't episodic and SFF and then stigmatizing one part or another of that oeuvre isn't going to help improve the content of an encyclopaedia. Newimpartial (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I am generally in favor of finding ways to cover topics more fully in a more limited number of articles. This way we still serve the information needs of our editors while also increasing the chance that vandalism and misinformation is found rather than stay buried on some page no editor discovers. So yes to series pages for me and sometimes I'd be in favor, as an editorial decision rather than a strict NBOOK notability decision, of having that even when 3+ entries could justify their own pages. Others have explained the advantages that these series pages have above and I agree with them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)