Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/GeneralForum/2008ArchiveQ2

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Welcome - to our April 2008 – June 2008 GeneralForum archive

Archive
Archives
  1. pre January 2006
  2. January 2006 – March 2006
  3. April 2006 – June 2006
  4. July 2006 – September 2006
  5. October 2006 – December 2006
  6. January 2007 – March 2007
  7. April 2007 – June 2007
  8. July 2007 – September 2007
  9. October 2007 – December 2007
  10. January 2008 – March 2008
  11. April 2008 – June 2008
Current GeneralForum
updated 1 May 2008 — (changes • edit)

Contents

Shannara

After a merge discussion, I've transformed the stand alone project to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Shannara task force. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Murder Madness and Mayhem

Just to let everyone know, a university class is in the final stretch of their attempt to get a series of novel articles up to GA and GA status. They are doing very well. Starting from scratch for the most part, they are working on:

Choose any article, if you wish, and jump right in. Some articles are at the cusp of FA, some are in GA nomination, and some are still being built up to a GA candidate. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Great idea! I started a thread on the Chronicle forums about using Wikipedia in the classroom -- maybe you could post there and tell us how you designed the project? Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Not me...this fellow Jbmurray (talk · contribs) is the head honcho. You ought to read his essay - User:Jbmurray/Madness - if you are interested in introducing Wikipedia into the classroom. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been pretty impressed with how effective this is. It'd be interesting to know how much time the students and teachers poured into the project. The students had never edited before. In the course of one semester they're on course to get 12 articles, some of them very important, to good and even featured status. I wonder if there are elements of this model that can be duplicated. Of course the most effective tool this professor has, his pupils' fear of bad grades, is something we won't have here.. --JayHenry (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The professor is going to publish an article in a dead-tree journal about the experience from the teaching perspective. Just from reading the bit he wrote at User:Jbmurray/Madness, it is evident that the project became time consuming. The major paper that the students were going to write was cancelled. What I found interesting was the poor sourcing skills the students had. I've read in a newspaper article somewhere that a professor who was initially against Wikipedia was won over when she realized that Wikipedia actually taught her students the skill of proper sourcing. Wikipedia isn't entirely foolish. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment. There is a bit of de-briefing going on right now. See User talk:Jbmurray#A few thoughts. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Project banner question

With the additions of the new subprojects, are there any intentions of maybe adding material to the Novels banner to accomodate the new subprojects, and if yes, what sort of "display" should the template have, that of the Australia project at Talk:Sydney, always displaying the subprojects, or that of Military history like at Talk:World War II, with an optional display? John Carter (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yup, I was going to mimic what several projects do. I had the Biography and Film project as exemplars. In other words, there would be just one Novels Project banner with several task force parameters. Which method of banner display do people like? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I like the Talk:Sydney layout. I also like the Biography project layout. Are we going to have a primary and superdelegates? Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I can make the changes if desired now, if that's OK with others. John Carter (talk) 13:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please make the changes! Any task force or work group layout in the banner parameters is good. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment. I think it will be OK to make Shannara a task force too. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Not altering the existing structure of the template, the new version is at User:John Carter/Novels and it can be seen in use at User talk:John Carter/Novels. Look OK? I'll set up all the categorization later. It's also added FL class, which wasn't in the banner before. John Carter (talk) 16:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Looks great. I'm all for it. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Border Legion (Shannara)

Is it wrong to have references to the original novels themselves? (See Border Legion)...Considering that there are virtually no references to Shannara on the Internet outside of fansites, that's what I did.......Which is why I'm asking. =D the_ed17 02:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can always reference the novel itself. But, a novel is a primary source. Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Original Research are the two relevant official policies: note these are not guidelines. If you can not find any sources but the novels themselve, then it is likely the article is 'original research'. However, Terry Brooks must have plenty of secondary sources available - other than fan sites. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Google Scholar. I just did a quick search using Shannara as a key word on Google scholar. Academic articles and graduate theses have been written! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no rule against referencing the original novels, but it is not required, either. For plots and such fictional elements it is assumed that the source is the primary source. Of course, per Wikipedia:Notability, secondary sources establishing notability outside the fictional world is required and per Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) the fictional elements should not overwhelm the article. -maclean 04:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Narnia portal

One of the reasons I'm rather willing to adjust the banner for the various task forces is the fact that Portal:Narnia didn't have a selected article for April when I just now looked. I'm fairly sure there is sufficient content to make that portal a possible FP. Would the members of the project have any reservations about maybe making that one of the objectives to be listed in the April newsletter, not necessarily for this month, but maybe starting a portal review and going from there? Maybe trying to "improve" some of the related portals, and there are a lot of them, might be an objective. I could help deliver the newsletter myself, if someone could update the members count (which I don't understand) I could deliver it. John Carter (talk) 13:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. As far as I can tell, the Narnia Portal has never been properly formatted and the article of the month has never worked. There is enough content to supply articles. I've had a stab at updating member counts before and will try again. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review?

As many of you know, getting FA status is, well, difficult. Generally, it requires a good deal of ongoing consistent input from a dedicated editor. Many or most articles ain't going to get that degree of attention. I know from the biography project that assessment is useful, but A-Class review, possibly with useful commentary, would probably help this project develop articles to the point that GA or FA isn't too much of an additional step as well. The down side is very few people are interested enough or have the time to do such reviews. Would there be enough interest in reviewing for A-Class to start something similar here? John Carter (talk) 13:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely be interested in reviewing; I'm fairly active in reviewing articles for GA and FA as it is. :) There are very few novel articles that are at that point, however. Perhaps we should set up some kind of a action chronology: stub, start, B, Peer Review, copy-edit, GA/A...? María (habla conmigo) 13:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The film people have B-class and an A-class assessment. It isn't too involved. Someone asks "Is this B-class" and somone else says "Maybe not quite because ...". A system like that is fairly efficient. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The Biography Project does that, as well, but that's not what I was suggesting. I mean some kind of a check-list that would help members see what steps need to be taken to get to different points in an article's growth. An A-Class reviewing process could be part of that, as could an informed assessment task where people could ask for a 3rd party to assess a specific article's class status. María (habla conmigo) 15:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the WikiProject could have a more involved assessment/review system to guide motivated editors. This is where a task force may come in handy, say using the Participants listed at WP:NOVSF as a Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers contact list. --maclean 19:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree. It would also be helpful for people who prefer to assess articles as they come upon them rather than systematically seeking out articles to work on. Aristophanes68 (talk) 20:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Genre task forces?

I've noticed that there don't seem to be devoted groups related to some of what might be called the "minor" genres of fiction, including Westerns, Romance, Spy, Gothic, Campus and what might be called Adventure (Rafael Sabatini, and the like), and possibly one for major literary series as a whole (The Saint, Nero Wolfe, Asimov's Robots and Foundation, and the like). I'm not sure if there is sufficient interest in setting up the project banner to provide "genre" parameters to help with these subjects though. Any other opinions? John Carter (talk) 14:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Right now our genre task forces include crime, fantasy and science fiction. I'm not sure if "gothic" or "adventure" would cover a large enough ground to warrant an entire task force, but others may be worthwhile. Romance novels are huge, but how much scholarly information is available on them to write a passable Wikipedia article? María (habla conmigo) 15:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
This is probably due to the - anecdotal - demographic of Wikipedia: adolescent male Americans. On the other hand, setting up the project banner parameters with these sub-genre to fish for potential editors is a good idea. One good thing about the 'task force' or 'work group' model is that we can efficiently do this without having useless full-fledge inactive projects. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I clearly acknowledge the staggering size of the romance novel field. I'm not sure that "scholarly" information is necessarily required, though. All that would necessarily be indicated is that the volume has received reviews. Romantic Times and other magazines provide regular reviews of at least some length which should be enough to establish notability. I also note that several novels by the more prominent writers in that field, like Nora Roberts, regularly get reviewed in standard publications. I doubt very seriously that even a large percentage of the total volumes would qualify for articles, but the percentage that do might be enough to start such a group. John Carter (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the current task forces do much anyway. A few questions get directed to their talk page every now and then, which are almost always answered by Kevinalewis. Unless someone is volunteering to lead (or 'coordinate') the task force, new ones probably shouldn't be created. --maclean 19:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The one advantage to having them, although it might not be enough to merit their creation, is that they would give editors who do have a specific interest in a given topic a quick and easy way to find other articles of roughly equivalent quality, if that's what they like working on. But such parties would have a real use for seperate statistics, if there's enough reason for the groups to be created. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
And, pre-emptive task force creation would stop the creation of one more inactive Wikiproject! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
One thing that would definitely make all the task forces more effective would be if they were to have at least quality assessments relative to each group, which they currently don't. Would the rest of you favor adjusting the banner for that as well. It'll make the bloody thing a lot bigger, but it would also be more useful that way. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, separate assessments would be a good thing. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It's doable, but it might take a while. Maybe a week. Mind you, I said that about the project directory about four months ago too, but this time I really mean it. John Carter (talk) 22:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Hey, this is a hobby! Whenever you do it is good. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 22:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The banner is set up, with all the categories, a bit earlier than I expected, and can be shown in use at User talk:John Carter/Novels. Requesting go-ahead to replace current banner with it. 14:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, go ahead. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Member count

Anyone know how to activate the bot to do the category count at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Members/StatsGraph. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Australia task force

I removed the Australia task force from the main page. It was folded into the Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian literature. --maclean 04:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. So the Australian task force is to go. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
An admin will also need to remove the "Australian task force" parameter from the {{NovelsWikiProject}} banner, along with the relevant information in the template's "Usage" section. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 12:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Alternately, I could retain it in the Novels banner, and set it up so that an assessment for that banner also provides assessment for Australia as well. I've left a message on that project's talk page to that effect as well. I'll act on whatever they say there. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The Australian task force does not need to go; it is a "feed" into the literature project and advertising the task force and the project are one and the same. Work being done for less thatn no reason. Let's cooperate here rather than fight needlessly. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I'm Debbie

Hello everybody, my name is Debbie, and I'm glad to join your community ))