Misplaced Pages

I will volunteer to participate on behalf of WP:BOOKS if no one objects. --maclean 07:44, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability/pretension re Klamath Knot

I happened across this article while correcting another; please see my notes at Talk:Klamath Knot.Skookum1 (talk) 21:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Ernest Hemingway project? taskforce?

I am interested in starting am Ernest Hemingway project or taskforce to improve content related to his life and works, and have proposed the project at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Wikiproject_Ernest_Hemingway_project. Please share your thoughts there! kilbad (talk) 19:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Misplaced Pages:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Misplaced Pages talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:53, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

AssessorTags

Hello! I thought that I'd bring to your attention a new script which I have created, AssessorTags, which helps to add WikiProject banners to talk pages. The banners for this project and its task forces have have now been included in the script, so it may be helpful when locating and tagging articles. Documentation for the script can be found here, and if you have any questions feel free to ask at my talk page. Please not that I will probably not be watching this page, so comments left here will not be responded to. –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Chapters/sections template

A cheap substitute for a synopsis/summary is a list of sections or chapters in a book. When a real synopsis is added, I usually delete such a list. However, I was thinking about this and had the idea of a template which appears to the right, probably hidden by default and just saying 'Chapters' or 'contents', which can be expanded to show the book's chapters. Lists of chapters are somewhat redundant to a good synopsis, but it would be nice if there was a way of keeping them without them featuring very prominently, and this seems to be a good way to do it. Any thoughts on this idea? Richard001 (talk) 09:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Why would an encyclopaedic entry here benefit from a chapter listing? This adds very little to the understanding of the volume and looks extremely "cheep". It would be better not included and focus straight away to a plot summary or non-fiction synopsis. :: Kevinalewis : /_(Desk) 11:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

When you're making a synopsis it's a bit tiresome to keep saying "in chapter 4, which is about ...", but information is lost if that's left out. A hideable template would make it easier to cover this information. Richard001 (talk) 23:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Any opinion about the chapters being merely listed in the body of the article? It doesn't strike me as encyclopedic. Some little discussion here Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. Шизомби (talk) 20:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for assistance due to my own stupid mistake

Thanks I just tried to make Template:Infobox Bibliography and it didn't go quite right:

Clearly, I am not a templates whiz, but I was even worse at making one than I thought. If someone wants to help me fix this, I'd appreciate it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

New template for bibliographies

Check it out It should be working now: Template:Infobox Bibliography. Comments, questions, edits, usage, etc. welcome. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge discussion: Slice of life story → Slice of life

Please come and participate in this discussion. Thank you. ···日本穣 23:42, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion

It has been proposed below that In Search of Lost Time be renamed and moved to Remembrance of Things Past. Please take a look. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability of short stories

I've asked a question at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (books)#Short story?, about whether a guideline for short story articles should be created. There are many short story articles that have only a synopsis. Any opinions and suggestions offered there are appreciated. NJGW (talk) 02:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Christian Ward

I declined the db-bio deletion on this one because of the credible claims of notability, but I'd like a second (or third) opinion. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 19:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Pen on fire

Any thoughts on this article, speedied by another admin?

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, born in Altoona, PA, is author of Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within (Harcourt, 2004). As of April 2009, the book has had seven printings. She is host of "Writers on Writing," a weekly radio show that broadcasts at KUCI-FM and on iTunes. She teaches at UC-Irvine Extension and online at Gotham Writers Workshop. She is founder of Pen on Fire: A Speakers Series. She has written for The Los Angeles Times, Poets & Writers, Westways, The Writer, Writers' Digest, The San Jose Mercury News, Toronto Sun, Sunset and more. Her website is www.penonfire.com.

- Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 22:09, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT

Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology on Peer review

Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology recently achieved WP:GA status and is now on peer review. See Misplaced Pages:Peer review/Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology/archive1. Cirt (talk) 20:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hrafnkels saga

I have nominated Hrafnkels saga for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Tom B (talk) 13:48, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Peterborough Chronicle for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:20, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Fiction

Can some people from here review this? I don't want to be unfair to it, but I think that it shows little relationship to anything sensible. Notably, it proposes that if someone starts an article with an introductory sentence and a plot summary, the article should be immediately deleted; and the whole thing seems nothing more than an attack on plot summaries and other basic information about fictional works. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Persian Fire

Right now, the article Persian Fire constitutes a redirect to Tom Holland (author), however, I have found non-trivial mentions of Persian Fire by both The Independent () and The Guardian (), passing Misplaced Pages: Notability (books). I think Persian Fire needs its own article, but I wasn't sure, so I asked. mynameinc 00:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the article Persian fire is the redirect. Persian Fire is a redlink. mynameinc 00:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Prod template warning

During the week I added a propsed deletion template to The Ringbearer's Diary and the article on its author Peter Kjærulff. The prods are on grounds of being self-published based on what I could understand of the websites for book and publisher.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability and fiction

"Year in literature" linked years on Philip K. Dick

An editor is proposing that all "year in literature" links be stripped out of the article of Philip K. Dick. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 04:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Italicized titles

A relatively new template, {{italictitle}} is currently being used to change the article titles on various pages that have the scientific name of an organism. There is currently a bot request to mass-update these articles. I just wanted to bring up a discussion here regarding the use of this template in other article titles where it may be useful.

Throughout many articles, including Dracula, the title is italicized when used within the article, but not in the actual title. All input is welcome to decide whether or not to implement this new feature in films, video games, and book titles.

Discussions on the use of this italicized title feature for use in organism articles can be seen here and here. --Spotty 20:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

General RFC on italic titles

I've started on RFC on whether or not this template should be used here. All comments are welcome. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist request

An agenda account, User:DarlieB, has recently reappeared at The Man Who Would Be Queen.

Background on the book: TMMWBQ is a controversial book that a vocal subset of transwomen have attacked for saying politically dangerous things in insensitive ways, and for dismissing the "woman trapped in a man's body" story as if it were simple nonsense.

Background on the Misplaced Pages article: At least one Misplaced Pages editor figured prominently in the associated scandal. As far as I can tell, DarlieB believes that the peer-reviewed journal article PMID 18431641 is libelous, but that, e.g., when a transwoman posted photos of the author's children on the web with their real names and nasty captions, that was perfectly fair. I believe that I'm the only editor at that article that isn't a transwoman and hasn't ever met any of the principal figures. So we have WP:BLP issues, we have WP:COI issues, we have regular WP:SPA problems, we have POV-pushing, we have a hostile editing environment, and we have just about anything else (bad) you can think of at this article, and repeated efforts at various levels of dispute resolution have failed (including two formal mediations).

Today, in addition to the usual POV-pushing that we've come to expect from DarlieB, s/he is insisting that it's critically important to include (in the lead) the full name of the author's university's spokesperson, who made a routine statement at some point.

I'm horrified, and I think all decent people are horrified, by how the author and those connected to him have been treated by certain trans activists, so perhaps my impulse is to avoid naming innocent bystanders is overdeveloped in this case, but the fact remains that the statement

• is not a direct quotation,
• tells us nothing about the spokesperson's personal opinion, and
• was only made to discredit unfounded rumors started by trans activists that the author had been fired (or forced to resign) because of the book.

The name of the spokesperson therefore seems entirely irrelevant to me: The university made that statement, not the individual. I can't think of any plausible reason to include irrelevant details, and WP:DUE prohibits it. But I don't think I'm getting anywhere with this conversation; at the moment, I can't even keep it on topic.

So if anyone else is willing to have a look, or to express an opinion on whether it's important to name the specific employee made the announcement, I'd appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There has been a long discussion of the talk pages of this and associated articles, and, being aware whom most of the contributors individually are, I reiterate the warning that some who concentrates on these articles is likely to have a strong point of view, based on personal and well as intellectual considerations, to the extent that may in some cases be incompatible with objective editing. They are, however, not all of any one gender or sexual identity, and I would urge extreme caution in making any assumptions positive or negative about any of the editors, or allowing extra-wiki considerations to influence one's view of the editing. The only out-of-wiki consideration is that those who harass someone because of the editing of wikipedia are not allowed to edit here. Other outside activities are not our concern. And WP:BLP applies to talk page discussions as well as articles, though not quite as stringently. DGG (talk) 03:08, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Danny Deever

I am conducting a reassessment of this article as part of the GA sweeps process. There is one minor issue - some citations have been tagged with page needed. My review is at Talk:Danny_Deever/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:39, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of The Absent-Minded Beggar

I am conducting a Reassessment of the article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have one small concern which you may find at Talk:The Absent-Minded Beggar/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of The Botanic Garden

I have conducted a reassessment of this article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have a few concerns about the prose, which you may find at Talk:The Botanic Garden/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Underground (stories)

I have conducted a reassessment as part of the GA Sweeps process and found some concerns, which you may see at Talk:Underground (stories)/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

A large number of problematic articles

There is a large number of articles in the Warriors (novel series) series of books which have no reliable sources. Just click on each of the linked titles in the template at the bottom of the novel series article, and you can see that every one of those books relies entirely on self-published sources or interviews with the author(s). What should be done about this? Merge everything together into one article that has sources? Start removing unsourced information, leaving nothing but stubs? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:27, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Could someone add this to your rating thing?

The book series Ordinary Boy. Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 20:53, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Images of book covers in articles on book series

There is discussion on how best to use cover art to "significantly improve reader understanding" for book series, without going overboard on non-free content images, both at WT:NFC#Requesting_comment_about_galleries_of_book_covers_for_book_series_articles and at Misplaced Pages:Files for deletion/2009 July 23, where a very large number of book covers has been nominated for deletion.

Please do pass this on to relevant associated WikiProjects and sub-projects whose members may be interested. Jheald (talk) 23:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Utility of outlines to wikiprojects

Here's a discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist    21:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Publishing History Question

I'm having a problem with the publishing information for The Robert Heinlein Interview and other Heinleiniana. The book is a collection of articles and has two pages of publisher and copyright data. Even if I ignore the individual articles (which are copyrighted back to 1972), the book itself has three copyright dates:

• Digitally by Softserv Publishing Service Inc. in Sept 1990,
• Digitally by Pulpless.com in June 1996 and
• First Trade Paperpack Edition by Pulpless.com in May 1999. (I'm using this.)

The actual copyright line says: Copyright (C) 1990, 1996, 1999 by J Neil Schulman. The Library of Congress (catalog.loc.gov) says published in 1999.

So:

1. Should I include all three dates in the infobox or just 1999?
2. Should I have a section on the pubishing history?

Thanks. RoyGoldsmith (talk) 18:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Textual criticism

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Textual criticism/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:48, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

New article: London's "South Sea Tales?"

Don't know if this is where I'm supposed to do this, but it appears that this article does not exist. What do you think? It is available on Amazon if you're not familiar with it, or I believe you can Gutenberg anything by Jack London... Should it be created? --Jp07 (talk) 21:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Urban fiction

Hi. Could someone familiar with this subject please take a look at the article and check it over for vanity press/non-notable authors and other unencyclopedic miscellanea. There are quite a few redlinked authors and books and also the line "Many of these titles are published by independent houses, and the ones from those houses are known for their lack of copy editing", which sounds a little bit suspect. Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Outrageous Betrayal

A Request for Comment has started regarding the article Outrageous Betrayal, comments would be appreciated at Talk:Outrageous Betrayal. Cirt (talk) 05:35, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Relevant AfDs

Two relevant AfDs to this project are Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard, and a related article Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Jane Self. Cirt (talk) 14:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Also Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of books by Ian Stevenson -- Johnfos (talk) 19:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Oroonoko - FA needing fixing

Oroonoko is currently a featured article under the project, however it contains massive amounts of unsourced content that needs addressing or it could end up at FAR and be delisted. I tagged the article for needing more citations to support the claims, and left a note on the talk page as well. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I have nominated Oroonoko for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

NOTICE. RFC: Changes to Naming policies which may affect WikiProject naming conventions.

Following recent changes by some editors to the Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions policy page, a Request For Comment, (RFC) is now being held to debate the removal of the passage specifying that individual WikiProject and other naming conventions are able to make exceptions to the standard policy of using Common Names as the titles of Misplaced Pages articles.

This WikiProject is being notified since it operates such a specific naming convention. Editors are invited to comment on the proposed change at this location. Xandar 00:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The above "notification" is a grossly biased misrepresentation of the changes under discussion. The old version of the naming conventions policy tried to lay down binding rules; we don't work that way, so it was necessary also to make explicit exceptions. The new version articulates principles, and allows for consensus to establish how they should be applied. Thus there is no longer any need for exceptions. In fact, making exceptions is nonsense, since there are no rules to make exceptions to. These changes are good for specific conventions. Xandar is trying to induce moral panic in those who stand to gain the most from this. Xandar is only opposed to the new version because he thinks the wording, not the general thrust, weakens his position in a dispute unrelated to this RfC. Don't be fooled. Hesperian 02:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Relevant RSN thread

Please see Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#60_Minutes_and_the_Assassination_of_Werner_Erhard. Cirt (talk) 15:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Book articles without ISBNs

Hello. I operate a book-related bot (CobraBot); using its logs from an unrelated task, I've compiled a list of book articles that currently lack ISBNs. The last can be found at User:CobraBot/Without ISBNs if people want to work through the list and add the ISBNs. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

1421: The Year China Discovered the World

An RfC has been started at Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World#RfC: Article neutrality regarding the neutrality of this article. As it is a book article, views from editors in this project may be useful. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Input sollicited on template discussions

There are currently active discussions on Template talk:Infobox Book about modifying {{Infobox Book}}. As the template is strongly related to this WikiProject, any input would be welcome. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Re bibliographies

A discussion is underway at Talk:Phage monographs that would seem to be of interest to editors here. Please chime in! LeadSongDog come howl 20:31, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Another editor feels that the article about the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is an advertisement, in part because it quotes a number of favorable reviews. I disagree, but I would be grateful if editors from this project would take a look at the article and make whatever improvements seem appropriate. -- Eastmain (talk) 04:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The trouble with the article, I think, is that the quotes are too bland and too good, so they sound uncritical. It may be the best book the reviewer has ever seen, but that might be a comment on the reviewer as much as the book. It may be the most important book since 1962, but such claims are hard to support. So, it would be a better article with more nuanced quotations that add some detail, including possible faults and problems with the book. I saw some suitable quotes in the New York Times review, which is referenced but not, as yet, quoted. Andrew Dalby 17:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Table of Contents Subpages

A little while ago, User:Headbomb requested that a bot tag manually created "Table of Contents" subpages of Books for deletion under criterion G6, since the software now makes Tables of Contents automatically. I volunteered my bot and filed a BRFA. During the course of the BRFA, it was decided that the 116 subpages should simply be deleted by an administrator. My question is this: are there any administrators in the project who can simply delete these unnecessary pages? Twinkle's batch deletion function would make things easier for that admin, and If someone could delete these, it would ease the process of my BRFA to remove the redlinks, since I think the Bot Approval Group (and you guys) would like the pages to be deleted before I go through removing the links. If any admins would be willing to do this, let me know either here or on my talk page so that I can provide the list of TOC subpages that I have compiled. Thanks, Robert Skyhawk (You'll lose) 18:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)