Talk:War of the Spider Queen

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Hey guys... I just wanted to say that I made a page for book 1 of WotSQ, Dissolution. It is done according to the Wikiprojects on Novels (anyone interested find a link to it in my usertalk page). I will do a page on Condemnation when I finish it. Arkhiver 09:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Continuity Glitches Most Evident With Pharaun

This article currently says so. Could someone who has noticed such a problem please add a description of in what way it is most evident with Phauraun? His own article doesn't say anything about it. -- Noneofyourbusiness 20:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Och... I may have been the one to add that line. The continuity glitch I remember involved the fight with the lich, something involving Sovereign Glue and a crystal, I think. The fight seemingly had lasting consequences... and then was dismissed at the beginning of the next book as if it had never happened. -Fuzzy (talk) 17:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bullshit vomit spewed out by Gavin Collins

I fail to see how a series comprised of six New York Times best-selling books is not notable enough to be on Wikipedia. Furthermore, what's up with this {{context}} template? "The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject." Here's the introduction:

The War of the Spider Queen is a series of novels set in the Forgotten Realms setting, with six books overseen by R.A. Salvatore:

  1. Dissolution (2002) by Richard Lee Byers
  2. Insurrection (2002) by Thomas M. Reid
  3. Condemnation (2003) by Richard Baker
  4. Extinction (2004) by Lisa Smedman
  5. Annihilation (2004) by Philip Athans
  6. Resurrection (2005) by Paul S. Kemp

That is insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject? Do readers not know what a series is? Or a novel? Or a series of novels? Are they too stupid to follow hyperlinks? If Gavin is not educated enough to understand basic English, perhaps he should use a dictionary or not be editing Wikipedia at all.

I don't support the personal attack, but I understand where you're coming from. A lot of editors are of the opinion that he doesn't necessarily read the articles he slaps tags on before he slaps the tags on them. Opinion aside however, he isn't very familiar with the RPG genre, its sources, novels, etc. That makes appropriate tagging virtually impossible, but it's not stopping him. It's frustrating to say the least.Shemeska (talk) 14:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Ignorance (of the topic one is discussing) is bliss? BOZ (talk) 14:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

I'm in agreement over the notability citation place on the page. The others are acceptable at this point as the article is not yet complete, but the series is certainly notable. As the un-signed writing says above, these novels are a New York Times best-selling series and part of a fantasy world which already has a vast amount of coverage. I will not remove the tag myself, but perhaps someone with more authority should review and reconsider the tag. Dark Squall (talk) 04:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. The NYT bestseller list is more than enough to establish notability for the entire group of books. Someone just needs to properly add the citation, and at that point the template can be nuked from orbit, because that's the only way to be sure. ;)Shemeska (talk) 14:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Very good thanks! I'll look up a ref for that right now and add it to the article, thank you :)Dark Squall (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and i also believe its time to remove the tag for no sources/references. I have already put in 28 sources and that number will grow as i complete the article. Anyone in agreement?Dark Squall (talk) 20:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Try searching for these so called "reliable" secondary sources. Other than a few published articles by Wizards of the Coast and a few published book reviews, most data about these books/characters/events are written by fans or in fan fiction. Sites like "Lavender Eyes" are written by dedicated fans to spread knowledge of Forgotten Realms. As for notability, i put published sources that say directly that these books are New York Times best-sellers, and therefore are notable by any standard. The notability template WILL NOT be restored. As for the Wikia sources, i will remove them, however it is impossible to find other information on these characters, so in their place i will reference the books in this series and others involving the characters which i own.Dark Squall (talk) 03:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Sourcing the books directly is better than wikia because the books themselves are considered a reliable source on their own plot. Here are three reliable sources, although you would have to pay money or go to the library.[1] This looks reliable although I'm not totally sure, it's a complicated matter to determine reliability. Although I support you article regardless, I feel I should tell you that some users may attempt to delete it. The best way to put a stop to that is to find non-wizard reliable sources that mention it. I found that last reference on the 7th page of [of this google search. I basically looked for pages that weren't forums or looked like they were user created. There probably aren't many more, so here's what I would suggest. Try and find non-wizard refs that mention the book's sales figures, try and add a summary of a review (or two ideally) that isn't fan generated, and look to see if the books have a forward or something that describes their creation and summarize it as well. If Salvatore did a forward for each talking about how he selected each author or whatever and you summarize it, although it won't directly establish notability it will make it much more difficult for people to delete this page. Please reply if you have any questions. I read the comic book adaptions about Drizzt and enjoyed them, by the way. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks mate, i just went through and deleted all wiki sources, and linked all sources directly to the books. I do own the books so this makes it easier for me, however i dont plan to pay to get legitimate sources on the web :P So yes, no more wiki sources, i figured they wouldn't be allowed. Hopefully these sources will meet up to this absurd standard for notability!Dark Squall (talk) 04:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I see what you mean, i'll go look for another source for these sales numbers. Basically every site that sells the books (Chapters, Amazon, Barnes and Noble) List the series as "New York Times Best-Selling", however i could not find the books in the New York Times database. I'll keep looking, thanks for the supportDark Squall (talk) 04:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I would use those as references then. This search shows how in the past you could have cited newspapers and the NYT itself for these numbers but now one has to pay for the articles. I would use several of those to make up for the fact that we can't get to the real articles. If you can find anything that discusses the book's creation like forwards or on wizards.com, that will also help to make this article bulletproof. Something like "Salvatore chose Richard Baker for Condemnation because of his work on Unapproachable East" or whatever would be nice for instance. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
To kind of summarize how wikipedia works with fiction, references to reliable sources and info about it's creation are like currency. You can "buy" the existance of an article by providing a certain amount of reliable sources. You created this nice article about this book series, but if you don't "pay" for it, someone may come along and try to delete it. If it hasn't been fully "paid for," when someone tries to delete it it will be up to whoever notices to then "pay" for it or it may be deleted. It's a messed up system in a lot of ways, but it also seems to make people research their topics on the web a bit, which is why I think the system is kept. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I am currently adding in quotes Salvatore had printed on the back of each book referring to the authors, along with some of their past/recent work, citing as many sources as possible along the way.Dark Squall (talk) 05:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow. I've never seen anyone anyone else go from from questionable sources to good sources in one day. I'm very impressed. I think you're well on your way (and maybe finished) with protecting this article from deletion in the future. One other thing I figured I'd mention is how to pick your battles. You picked exellently by focusing on the series of Dark Queen books instead of trying to improve each book's page. I looked at the edit history for Dissolution (novel) and didn't notice you there. You can see as you look for references for the whole series that it would be difficult to find them for 1/6 of the series. If you think of a topic as a pyramid shape, and in this case RA Salvatore as the top of the pyramid, then there's a certain depth you can acheive while still having lots of refs. At the top RA has tons of refs that are easy to find, at the next level you would have Drizzt and the first series which would also have a lot. As you go down there are less refs to be found. This article is probably in the middle of the pyramid and you've done an excellent job of salvaging it. Without you, I bet this article wouldn't last a year. The point I'm trying to make (although I don't do it myself, I start at the bottom) is that if you start at the top it's easy to find refs, and then a lot times you can reuse some of those refs for the next level. If we put 100 refs in RA Salvatore, 90 of those can be reused for articles on Drizzt and other articles about novel series'. Find 50 for Drizzt and 40 of those can also go into the articles about novels that Drizzt appeared in, and so on. Just food for though, but also everyone who contributes to wikipedia wants their contributions to stick and not be deleted. Cheers - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks man, i appreciate the advice and the help. I'm still working on expanding the article and adding references. Someone came along and updated the tags to a better status, so thats pleasing. I see what you mean here by the pyramid effect on resources, after I'm done the main i may go back and fix the pages of each individual book, though that will be a huge investment of time. Anyways, back to work, thanks again! Dark Squall (talk) 02:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikia cannot be used as a source. Here are some sources you may be able to use. [2] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Insufficient Context

Does anyone agree that there is now enough information written on this series that i can remove the "insufficient context" tag? I have info about authors, summaries of each novel, and character listings, everything you really need to know. If you agree please say so, and if not, then what else needs to be added?Dark Squall (talk) 01:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the tags. We'll see if anyone complains but there seems to be ample context in the article to me. You might consider adding an infobox like Template:Infobox Book. See an example of it at Harry Potter. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright great thanks alot. Hopefully we won't have any more troubles. As for that infobox i will certainly add one in, and i appreciate the example there. Only problem is a picture for it.. Would i be able to photoshop all 6 book covers into one illustration? or would that by dis-allowed by all of the free-image rules?Dark Squall (talk) 04:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

If you want to do all the books like the HP image, I would just copy their example at Image:Harry potter stamps.jpg. Those are stamps so they have a better rational for "Purpose of use" but just come up with the best reason you can. Mention they are the subject of the article and that the article mentions the cover designer or something. You could also just do one of the book covers if you want. Either way, make a very good image description page to avoid breaking any rules. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright that sounds great, i'll do a Photoshop image and give a few reasons, including the one you gave about the illustrator (thanks!). hopefully that will pass, and if not i will use just one of the books, which are already uploaded.Dark Squall (talk) 05:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

If you use an image that's used on muptiple pages make sure each has its own rational, else it will be deleted. See Image:Action1.JPG for an example. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reassessment

I reassessed this article as B-class, but thought I would leave a few comments regarding its future improvement. As of now the article is largely in-universe, meaning that it is mostly about the world of the series (plot, characters). Some concentration on the outside world, including information about the series' publication history, influences, themes, and reception would be helpful. Also, keep in mind that references must come from reliable sources. Some sources, such as the websites Fantastic Fiction and Wizards.com seem to be fansites and not reliable citations from authorities on the subject. Best of luck in expanding the article, María (habla conmigo) 13:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to throw in the discussion that in Novel 1, Dissolution, the leader of the slave renegades in Menzobarranzan is not the lichdrow Dyrr, as stated in the article, but the illithid lich Syrzan. The main page for Dissolution shows the proper description although it doesn't name Syrzan. The article is protected at the moment so I can't fix the error. Thanks. Pennywisdom2099 (talk) 07:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)