Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels

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WikiProject iconNovels Project‑class
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
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It would be really helpful to get more opinions here. Thanks! PermStrump(talk)

Novels by Colin Dexter[edit]

The articles on the 13 Inspector Morse series novels by Colin Dexter need work. Only one includes reviews of the novels, and few have any inline citations at all. The first novel is Last Bus to Woodstock, from which you can access the following twelve. I put in a References section in each article, anticipating that there will be inline citations some day. Few have a Plot summary that covers the resolution as well as the crimes, fewer list the the characters. I read one of the novels, The Jewel That Was Ours, and I found two reviews of that novel online. My plot summary is too long by 400 words, so I need to shorten it someday. Two of his novels won the Gold Dagger award for Crime novels, and there is no plot summary for one of those novels nor any external reviews.

I have read just the one book in the series, so I cannot do more than set up a more consistent pattern in the articles. I could hunt for reviews, which I suspect are out there, online perhaps. There is a book cited in each article that apparently collects reviews of the novels, but I do not have that book. The novels were adapted into a television series, and then two more television series, on following the main character's death (Inspector Lewis or Lewis), and the other exploring Morse's early days in the police force (Endeavour). The actor who player Morse, John Thaw, was a very good actor, drawing many viewers to the television series. I tried to separate the mentions of the adaptations from the sections on the novels. There is an article with a List of Inspector Morse episodes, and the plot summaries in those are mainly blurbs; even the longer ones never get to the denouement. Anyway, there are many opportunities for work on the articles about the novels or about the television series. I did expect that the novels would have more complete articles, given the interest in the series, so help is welcome! --Prairieplant (talk)

Janissaries series listed at Requested moves[edit]

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Janissaries series to be moved to Janissaries (series). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 01:48, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Synth and Novels[edit]

Hiya! I've been discussing an article with a newer user (@Samuel Adrian Antz) and would like a second opinion on original research and primary sourcing in articles about novels.

Notability of the books aside, are sections like Dichronauts#Background (mathematics and physics) and The Eternal Flame (novel)#Background (mathematics and physics) good to keep? Personally it feels like either synthesis or over reliance on primary sources, is there an exception in fictional works? Justiyaya 16:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m actually a little torn, so I’m going to think aloud a bit. None of these background sections (including the “background (literature)” one on The Eternal Flame) look like what I expect from a “background” section. Typically I think of the “background” section as a place to describe contextual information about the book’s publication— see Beachy Head (poem). So my first instinct is that all this math can’t possibly be WP:DUE or reflected in the sources.
But then I notice that the source is actually Egan, the book’s author. At the Beachy Head article, even when writing about the French Revolution and Romanticism there, I’m citing sources that are primarily about the poem: in other words, including this background is a way of following the sources. WP:SYNTH would have been citing works on romanticism that don’t mention Smith (in my case) or math papers that don’t mention Egan’s books (in this case). But at first glance, these sources don’t look like WP:SYNTH because the source does make the direct link between the book and the math.
But of course, an author’s personal website isn’t usually a WP:RS. And there’s still the matter of what’s WP:DUE in an encyclopedia article. I think I would lean toward a more “zoomed out” use of these sources from Egan, saying things like, “Egan’s website provides detailed mathematical explanations of how the book applies X and Y concepts”, wikilinking the concepts and citing the sources. That makes the information available to mathematically inclined readers without derailing the article as a whole. At least, that’s how I’d go about it! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

better source needed tags on referenced reviews[edit]

The reception section of Acrobat (novel) mentions what review sites, all considered reliable sources, said about the book, and references those official sites linking to the actual reviews there. An editor has tagged these places with a "better sources needed" tag. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acrobat_%28novel%29&diff=1197539304&oldid=1197503587 Dream Focus 03:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The edit has already been reverted, but I am not sure why we would want to instead cite sources quoting the reviews we are quoting. As an aside, I realise PW and Kirkus are embedded in the publishing industry and accept indie submissions, but they are in no way "review mills". They are highly reliable and respected sources. Οἶδα (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to deprecate the country parameter of {{Infobox book}}[edit]

There is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox book#Proposal to deprecate "country" in favor of "location" that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Οἶδα (talk) 10:40, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Best practice when not all of the books in a series are notable?[edit]

There's a book series I was quite fond of when I was younger and I'd like to improve the pages but I'm not sure about the best way to go about it. The first book is notable, while the rest are kind of scattershot - the fourth book, strangely, seems to fulfill NBOOK, while I'm not sure the rest do. I was able to find one review for each of them at least. They've been tagged for uncertain notability for over a decade. Should I merge all but the first into the series page (which has virtually no content)? Unsure how that works. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cumulative coverage can validate the existence of a holistic article, but not necessarily for each entry. If you evaluate that certain entries fail NBOOK then I would go ahead and merge and redirect to the series page. And the series article would stand to gain from the merger given it has little or no content. The Neapolitan Novels, for example, was broken into separate articles due to extensive coverage for each book. The article remains a structured overview, but if you look at the page before it was split[1] you can get a good idea of these types of articles. Even if the two individual articles are somewhat developed (plot summaries etc), I would still merge if they fail NBOOK. Οἶδα (talk) 05:32, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Yeah a few have plot summaries but no reception or development or anything. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:The Inheritance Cycle#Requested move 23 February 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 03:01, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IDreamBooks[edit]

There's a problematic new editor called Themashup who is currently adding results from the "review aggregator" IDreamBooks to literary items. They don't seem sufficiently encyclopedic to me to warrant inclusion. Could this problem be taken to administrator level and a ruling made whether its use is legitimate by WP guidelines? Sweetpool50 (talk) 11:09, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sweetpool50, if you tried to ping @Themashup, you didn't succeed, check your link. A couple of diffs you see as problematic could help people form an opinion. At a glance, iDreamBooks could be an acceptable WP:EL in some cases. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but could you, when sending messages, not use a strong and problematic attitude (personally I found your attitude of rude and talking down to me and felt it could've been expressed better but understand I overthink things). I like to keep things positive and all and if any problems come up I am trying to always talk civil and be positive though I am not perfect as we all aren't. It just bothered me a bit and I want to start to be a bit more open. Themashup (talk) 11:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't sure how to provide diffs. Here's 1 for Mansfield Park and another for Hamlet, since reverted by another editor as "not the best source" per WP:NPOV. Sweetpool50 (talk) 13:34, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For Hamlet that made sense since the site didn't provide score since didn't have enough reviews but thought it worked for contemporary views. Mansfield Park was given a score and with 11 critic reviews which reflects modern critic views of the work. I could've added more commentary explaining that looking back but it works well in showing modern (21st century) views of a work. I was trying to add a sentence saying a preface to it to show this is ref. to 21st century and more modern views after time but acc. put "contemporary" thinking it meant 21st century lol and tried to change it but got message from you to stop editing.
Almost forgot, iDreamBooks is also not just some site it had alot behind it (such as mul. media places discussing it) and some relation to Sony. It was intended it seems to be a RT of books for modern and sometimes classical books and it seems more newer reception of them after all these years.
In that sense, I don't see the issue with it at all and find it problematic to hide 21st century looks at works and to shelter it to one viewpoint at one time when, with Pride and Prejudice for instance, there is a whole section discussing 21st century reception yet nothing but lists is there and iDreamBooks would be, imo, a perfect place to show 21st century views as intended.
It would be like saying RT and Metacritic shouldn't be on any old film's wiki page in that sense. Though, you might be critical of how I forgot to preface it which is true but I could simply add a couple of sentences fixing that. If I should've asked everyone or something please tell me how and I will I get so confused by this site and it's rules sometimes. Themashup (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that I wrote my post below without reading yours. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:01, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. In those examples. there is no WP:RS problem (any source is an RS for its own words), the idea may be that this is similar to adding Rotten Tomatoes to a film-article, which is fairly common. Plus points for the well-made cites. Seems like good faith edits.
The question is rather, is it a good idea to add IDreamBooks per WP:NPOV (those who haven't read it, please do). I'm leaning no, based on that I've never heard of it and it seems to be inactive. In an article like Hamlet, mentioning IDreamBooks in-text seems to fail WP:PROPORTION IMO. It may be an ok WP:EL in some cases. Ping @Poirot09 if you wish to comment.
However @Sweetpool50, per WP:OWNTALK, you should not have made this edit [2]. @Themashup can remove comments from their talkpage if they want to. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The site shouldn't be included at all, imo. Some of the "critic reviews" seem to be from blogs (ex. [3]), so it doesn't even pass WP:EL criteria. Here, they say they have a "criteria", but they don't specify it so I'm a little bit skeptic (and anyway, we don't usually add "consumer ratings" to Wikipedia). Poirot09 (talk) 16:22, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Taking the Hamlet one [4] as example, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but stuff included like [5][6] is a fairly clear indication of "not good enough." So yeah, I'm at "don't include." There may still be an argument for WP:ELMAYBE#4 in some cases. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:29, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add another concern, I'm not sure some relation to Sony is a recommendation for its reliability. I immediately thought of the incident (from 2001) where Sony published fake movie reviews, resulting in an out-of-court settlement, and was accused of using employees posing as moviegoers in television commercials (see David Manning (fictitious writer)). The site appears to be defunct, but based on the iDreamBooks article, it aggregates views of professional critics "as well as from writers who were vetted by the website and allowed to submit reviews". "Revenue is generated from paid partnerships, of which the first one was the Sony Reader store partnership." I know Wikipedia is an unsuitable source for articles, but I hope it's useful in discussions like these. In my opinion, iDreamBooks should not be regarded as a reliable source. signed, Willondon (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it offers meaningful encyclopedia value to cite a defunct review aggregator site for reviews of "classics". Contemporary reception is of course worth discussing but it is best supported by much more rigorous sources like this one. The iDreamBooks are neither restricted to just RS, nor comprehensive of all non-RS sources, and so the aggregate score is not very informative. I actually think it is more informative to include the average GoodReads rating, since at least people have a sense of what GoodReads is and it's a currently active site. All of the edits citing iDreamBooks strike me as entirely good-faith but not something I would personally advocate to include. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(For books published during the site's operational years, I suspect it is a more comprehensive resource and so more likely to be informative, though I don't think it rises to the RottenTomatoes level of informative.) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree and share your concerns. Albeit harmless, there's very little encyclopedic value to these additions. For example, how does this edit to David Copperfield make the article more informative to Dickens readers? As you alluded to, it is not reasonable to say readers have any sense of what iDreamBooks is (or was, to be exact). And even if they do, are readers consulting a Victorian literature article really interested in the opinions of Teen Ink, Gather Books, Brothers Judd, http://www.bookdrum.com, http://www.reviewstream.com, http://roofbeamreader.com, So Many Books, and For What It's Worth?
In general, I find aggregates to be far less interesting for books than for film or television. Prose is far more valuable. Ratings and scores are not even a fixture of literary criticism, and for a good reason in my opinion. Οἶδα (talk) 08:25, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]