Talk:List of books by Enid Blyton

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[edit] Merge discussion

Large ongoing/prior discussion at User talk:Charles Matthews#Enid Blyton. Length of this list seems to be the main (only?) problem from his perspective. I favour the merge. --Quiddity 18:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I have spent time upgrading List of Enid Blyton's books, 1949 to reasonable standards of inline referencing, a paper reference, links to major websites giving bibliographical information. This wasn't a peak year for Blyton, but still has about 35 titles to list. I really don't see the advantage of creating a page which might have of the order of 300-400 footnotes. Having year-by-year and the template to navigate by seems to me a perfectly adequate solution. Charles Matthews 18:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I am all for bibliographies, but it does seem cumbersome to have so many separate pages. It would be difficult to see Blyton's writings at a glance (one reason for a complete bibliography). Have you tried double or triple columned pages? Then perhaps only two or three pages would be needed and you could break it down by genre or chronology, whatever seemed more appropriate. Awadewit ^Talk 04:01, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The material is all in the main list, now arranged chronologically, which is much more rational by any standpoint. We could usefully use columns within each decade, which would make a compact list. As for the others, I suggest listing them in an AfD, requesting deletion as duplicates. (It doesn't fall into any of the categories for a speedy, and prod will work only if everyone agrees) I don't want to be the one to request it, but I will certainly support it, and then we will have agreed on something, which will be a good start. DGG 06:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I think using columns would only discourage adding extra information (rather than the bare titles). I don't think the suggestions really take into account what a properly annotated list with 600+ books on would look like. Charles Matthews 18:18, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

How about two properly annotated lists of 300+ books? --Quiddity 18:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Obviously that's better; but it is clear that the material will easily expand to over 100K if some attention is paid to it. You're only going to get a sensible size with decades. (And, by the way, what's all this about AfD? There are page histories, you know. Cut-and-paste creation on a massive scale is not good practice.) Charles Matthews 18:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

5 decade lists is still better than 28 span/year lists... I'll try columnizing, and maybe even tablifying the data here later.

As for a hypothetical Afd-cleanup of the merged pages: Redirects are cheap and would be just fine, no need to delete afaik.

However, this seems a bizarre case to bring that point up in, as there is no real content (text changes) to be kept; it's just a lot of lists of data that anyone could have entered, and 95% of the edits are either bots doing cleanup or you making minor adjustments/additions. Why would these page histories be useful to keep? --Quiddity 19:17, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it is a basic principle that (under GFDL) you credit authors properly. Cut-and-paste is not acceptable. I don't think you get to decide on what is useful about the work of others. As in the authors of prior versions have to be acknowledged, you know. Charles Matthews 09:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages#Merging: "Merging — regardless of the amount of information kept — should always leave a redirect". I wasn't aware it was so strict (but just to be clear, I didn't suggest AfD at all ;) --Quiddity 17:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] size

WP can deal perfectly well with lists of 600 items. There is no need to an unprecedented division of a authors works into a large number of different chronological pages. 100K will still be nowhere near the longest WP article. There is no arbitrary limit. . DGG 06:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a policy. My problem with the whole discussion is that 'mergist' thinking seems to be that there is no policy at all. It is not great for anyone on a slow connection, to create vast articles. It happens that Blyton is different: she is in the top five of translated authors, and if we even began to deal with a complete bibliography of the 3000 translations we'd have a huge article. I have not argued in those terms up to now: but consider the verifiability. That means in effect one reference per title. Who wants a page with many hundreds of notes? The wiki way is to consider cases on their merits. Charles Matthews 10:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I'm going to complete the merge, and make the source pages incoming redirects.

Hopefully the data will eventually be tabulated, for easy sorting by title/year/series/illustrator. --Quiddity 20:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Individual book articles

Not sure if this is the right place to discuss, but I was surprised that hardly any of the books have their own article, particularly those from popular series such as 'The Secret Island'. Is there any reason for this, or am I free to start writing some? Twistme 20:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

If they conform with Wikipedia:Notability (books), then write away. --Quiddity 20:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Number 5 of the notability criteria is that "The book's author is so historically significant that any of his or her written works may be considered notable, even in the absence of secondary sources." Does this mean that all of EBs books conform with wiki notability? I'm new to all this, so forgive me if I'm asking stupid questions. Twistme 21:04, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know. Notability arguments are an area I stay away from when possible! But I'd guess your interpretation is correct.

Check Enid Blyton#Most popular works to make sure they don't already exist (they might, and just not be linked from this list...?), then create away. :) --Quiddity 21:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)