Talk:Concealing something in a book

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An entry from Concealing something in a book appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 4 July 2006.

++Lar: t/c 15:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Literary Instances

In "Over My Dead Body" by Rex Stout, a character hides an important legal document in a book in the office of Nero Wolfe.

In one of the Black Widower short stories by Isaac Asimov, something is hidden in a book which is uncut, meaning the leaves of paper aren't cut to form seperate pages. tharkun860 17:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I really don't like the title of this article ("Concealing something in a book"). Just doesn't sound encyclopediac to me. Some suggestions: "Concealing items in a book", "Hidden objects in a book", "Hollowed-out books", "Book safe". Well, that's my humble opinion, but a good article (other than the title that is!). --Midnighttonight please tell me off for procrastinating on my essay! 22:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I chose it as quite an odd title because it is an odd concept, and it covers physical items as well as hidden messages, so your suggestions don't quite meet that. Having said that, at the moment it doesn't cover hidden messages very well at the moment. And thanks for the positive feedback.  :) violet/riga (t) 19:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I chuckled when I read the title, kudos to that. However, I agree that it does not seem appropriate. I would argue that the focus of this article should be book safes, and that should be the title. Concealing a secret code within the words or pictures of a book is Steganography, and should be discussed there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.119.245.55 (talk • contribs).

Thanks for pointing me to that article - I knew there was a proper name for it. I've done some more work that I hope highlights why I don't think this should be restricted to book safes. violet/riga (t) 23:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This article, although interesting and well-written, is too broad in its scope. It seeks to treat a two-faceted topic, that of a book's ability to conceal, with a single article. The two facets are that of a book safe and that of steganography. Both can use books to conceal a thing, but a book safe uses the physical construct of bound paper to conceal a physical object, whereas steganography uses some codification technique to conceal a message in text. Since steganography is possible using any text in any form and is thus not dependent on books as such, it cannot rightly be defined as "concealing something in a book." Therefore, steganography does not properly belong in this article. Once that is removed (although it should be referenced in the introduction) the article becomes about one thing only: book safes. I vote to re-focus this article on the single topic of book safes, and then the re-naming of the article to "Book Safe" will be obvious.Alexlockhart 06:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It's about more than book safes and should be. It is about all the possible ways of concealing something in a book. Placing a piece of paper into a book to hide it does not make it a "book safe". The part about steganography is only a small part of that wider topic and is mentioned only in direct relation to books. violet/riga (t) 15:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bible Code

I don't think the bible code should be mentioned. As far as I remember it was debunked (you can basically find any message you want using their proposed method. If I remember right, someone got the message "The bible code is a hoax"). As far as I understand this article is more about concealing an objeact and not meaning anyway. Delete the section? Lukas 03:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It is a high profile example of a code being hidden in a book, even though it is clearly false, and thus deserves mention. violet/riga (t) 19:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)