This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Notability check/possible merger
Hi there WikiProject Children's literature. I stumbled across a group of related pages about a book series and related topics that are almost exclusively linked to from each other, somewhat like a walled garden. Perhaps the members of your project can give some advice on how notable the subjects are, and whether some merging is in order. (I do not think the whole group of articles should be deleted.)
It looks to me as if Edgar & Ellen deserves to have an article, but the rest may or may not. The articles don't show notability apart from the connection with the successful Edger & Ellen series. They should either be merged into Edgar & Ellen, or given some incoming links as appropriate. Thanks for your attention. --Reuben (talk) 04:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I forgot to mention, the whole group seems to have beenmany of the articles in the group were created in a short period of time by User:Master izzy, who has no other edits at all. This may indicate some conflict of interest / promotion issues. Several others were created by User:Rettstatt, who according to his user page is an employee of Star Farm Productions and has few unrelated edits. The editors involved were acting in good faith, and have been advised of COI guidelines, so the best thing to do now is just to decide which articles to keep and which to merge. We can sort out any promotion on the remaining articles afterward. Thanks. --Reuben (talk) 04:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Alphabetizing participants list
How about alphabetizing the list on user names? The only objection would be the loss of 'seniority' but this is retained by inserting a 'joined on ...' statement. Alphabetizing seems sensible. I'll do it if there is a consensus as I've done it at another projects participant list to good effect. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't know whether it should be alphabetised, but I certainly think we ought to clean it up a bit. Some people have (talk • contribs • count) listed, some (talk • contribs), some none of these. I think perhaps we should also move people's comments on their expertise/areas of interest/current projects to a separate section; it looks a bit confusing mixed in there. Whether we alphabetise the list or not, I think we ought to keep a "joined on" statement: new people investigating the WikiProject may decide whether to join us or not based upon how active this WikiProject looks. (And, while obviously a lot of us are working on things, there's not much evidence of that on the front page.) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 17:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Always alphabetize. Seniority has little significance. TCO (talk) 20:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Guestbook
What is the point of the 'Guest book'? Either someone wishes to join the project or not; having a list of non-participants is strange. I'm going to be bold and eliminate it after inviting everyone on the list to join the project. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Created this article a couple of days ago, and it seems to fall under your remit. Any comments/criticisms/project tags to add? --Paularblaster (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it does seem to be relevant. I've added the WikiProject tag to the talk page. :) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Are we assessing our articles? Because one of the main projects is to tag articles, which I've been doing, but I've not had time to assess the articles I'm tagging, and once I've tagged them, I can't seem to find a list of tagged articles. Actually, that's my second question - is there a list of all the articles that have been tagged by this WikiProject?
I am interested because I've also done some work on WikiProject Schools and they have a table which lists the articles they have by quality and importance (under statistics in the sidebar). Is this normal for a project, or specific to them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Strdst grl (talk • contribs) 14:06, 31 January 2008
I believe we are supposed to be assessing our articles, but I could never get my head around what constitutes each class so I've likewise just been tagging them. And yes, there is indeed a list of all the articles: it's here, along with its accompanying statistics box. There's a bot that updates all of these pages and a WikiProject has to sign up to it, but otherwise it is normal. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, there is now an assessment page. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I just joined, but I've been tagging articles (mostly author biographies and individual novels nominated under prominent awards) right and left. I'd like to start using the assessment page to compare the different ratings of articles by subject. Is it possible for the unrated articles to get a page listing them too, so members can see which articles have yet to be assessed and then rate them according? --Mistsrider (talk) 08:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Ah! Excellent, I see. Then perhaps on the main page, where the assessment table is, someone could remove the rating category of "None" from the list? (I don't understand how to edit tables yet so I can't do it). --Mistsrider (talk) 02:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I think 'None' is for things without an importance assessment, 'unassessed' is for things without a quality assessment. By the way, how often is that table updated? I've been assessing all weekend - alphabetically, I've reached the L's - but the numbers haven't changed since I started. Strdst grl (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
The bot WP 1.0 bot (talk·contribs) is run every so often. The last three updates were 09 Feb 2008, 03 Feb 2008 and 01 Feb 2008. You can request the bot be run if you'd like to see a more recent update. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Prioritizing, To Do List, and Collaboration
I have to say that it kind of bothers me that on the Wikipedia "Open Projects List", there are specific article links to Darren Shan / Demonata and Philip Ardagh. I'm not sure why these two authors are so notable that they get a prominent place in this location, whereas other much more notable, acclaimed, and awarded authors (e.g. Roald Dahl, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula Le Guin, Lloyd Alexander etc.) are not? I would like to remove this preferential treatment. ;)
Also, is there a way we can prioritize topics that need to be worked on (other than the priority assessment list) or collaborate on projects that we are working on? Going around haphazardly editing articles seems inefficient if you share interests with someone. --Mistsrider (talk) 03:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I just edited the Philip Ardagh article, thinking it was ultra-high priority, without checking here first. So...what's really high priority? Tem2 (talk) 19:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, we don't have the activity level necessary to see such administrative tasks to get off the ground. In short, priority level is chosen by a single interested editor. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Proposed merger with WikiProject Shredderman
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
I believe that, given the rather limited scope of the above project, it might best function as a part of this project, either as a separate work group or simply integrated into the main project, and I would Support a merger of either kind. John Carter (talk) 16:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Comment. I've gone through the entire list as an extreme inclusionist and either removed the notablilty tag or deleted the article. Feel free to look through the list; or even adopt one or two and bring it up to standard. In general, the articles are either stub-class or suffer from in-universe problems. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 06:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Coretta Scott King Award
I've begun expanding Coretta Scott King Award to include Honor Books and Illustrators awards. See Talk:Coretta Scott King Award for more info. I left the books themselves as non-WikiLinks, but IMHO each of these award-winning books needs at least a stub with a book template and cover-jacket photo. If anyone wants to jump in and help, please do so. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Children'sLiteratureWikiProject: Articles of unclear notability
Hello,
there are currently 37 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)
I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.
It seems that it was superseded by {{Children'sLiteratureWikiProject}} a while ago as that can use the class and importance parameters, but some of the pages that had already been tagged with {{Childrens-literature-WP}} continued to use it. I've just gone and changed over all of those pages, so now it's not used at all and it's just floating around doing nothing.
What's the usual procedure in cases like this...? -- KittyRainbow (talk) 05:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Please come to an informal gathering of Vancouver Wikipedians, Monday, May 5 at 6:30 pm. It will be at Benny's Bagels, 2505 West Broadway. We'd love to see you there, and please invite others! Watch the Vancouver Meetup page for details.
Both of these discussions have been under way since May 13, so if you wish to add your thoughts please do so ASAP. Cgingold (talk) 13:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Rating scale
A suggestion for the assessment. I find it difficult when adding the project tag to rate an author or book. Obviously, for instance, Leon Garfield is an important author (winner of most major prizes in English children's literature, etc.); but should he be mid, high or top, when (in the whole history of world children's lit) there are far more important subjects. Looking at the list of assessed articles to see what's comparable, I find a lot of recent work rated higher, which, perhaps unfairly ("Well I've never heard of it"), I suspect is being overrated. (Clearly popular recent work is important.) Could we agree a set of good examples of appropriately assessed articles so that people wanting to add an assessment could have a point of comparison. For the purpose one would need to have older books and authors, more and less popular, and from more than one country. N p holmes (talk) 08:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
I think the quality scale here is pretty straight forward, however there seems to be a lot of gray areas in terms of the importance scale. I've studied the scale over at WP:Novels would like to adapt theirs in oder to create a more project-specific importance scale. Any thougts? Aurum ore (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes it was the importance scale that was my problem. Something like the Article importance grading scheme on the Assessment page of WP:Novels would be exactly right, preferably with at least a couple of examples for each importance grade. N p holmes (talk) 06:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I would appreciate both a project-specific importance scale and a project-specific quality scale! None of the examples given in the default grading scheme are novel or biography articles, so I find it hard not only to rate articles but to work out how to write them. Can we get examples of each type of article at each quality level (so, a novel article, a series article, and an author or illustrator bio article for each class)...? -- KittyRainbow (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I am not all sure what y'all count as within your scope, but anyway, I made a number of revisions to this article concerning a significant figure from children's (young adult?) literature. Please note the previous version versus the current version. Please also note Talk:Jim (Huckleberry Finn), as even more sources can potentially be used here. Anyway, I hope that helps! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 06:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, as a character of a children's novel it definitely falls within our scope. Thanks for letting us know! I've added the WikiProject banner to the talk page. Mr. Absurd (talk) 19:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.
Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.
Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Our assessment pages don't seem to be registering the new C-Class (e.g.Talk:Alan Ayckbourn, still listed as 'unassessed') Does anyone know why? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Just a note: this issue is now fixed. (see below for details) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Drama
Should we regard plays for children as part of the project's field? There are some children's plays and dramatists tagged this way at the moment. My opinion is that they clearly are literature (just as Shakespeare's plays are literature) and therefore at least fit the project title. Others might think it adds things outside what should be the main focus, books. N p holmes (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree; I think they definitely should be included. This WikiProject is about literature in general, not just books (unlike, for example, WikiProject Novels) so it also applies to plays, authors, and other subjects related to children's literature. Mr. Absurd (talk) 21:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree that drama is part of our remit. I think pretty much anything that could be classified as "words or pictures designed for children" comes under the project, so that includes plays, picture books, graphic novels, etc. And of course the people who write/draw/publish/analyse them.
On a related note: Mr. Absurd, I see that you removed the project tag from Talk:Madonna (entertainer). As she is a children's author, doesn't she come under this project? Yes, she's far better known for other things - but she received massive coverage for her work as a children's author, it's not like it was a tiny unnotable incident in her career. (In fact, in some ways, because it won't be the focus of the article, isn't it more important that this project keeps an eye on her article so we can ensure that the subject is adequately covered, and not forgotten?) Anyway, I wanted to seek project consensus on this matter... -- KittyRainbow (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I personally don't object to adding here, if she's written a children's book she'd seem to fall within our scope. Aurum ore (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Thirteen children's books, actually. And at least half of them have been bestsellers. XD; (But, checking her article, I see that there is no mention of this. Probably why Mr. Absurd removed the tag...) Anyway, I'll add the tag back then. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Just to note - he was the son-in-law to John Newbery and wrote some of the earliest poems dedicated to children. Both of the two books listed were dedicated directly to two children (one noble, the other the child of a friend). Ottava Rima (talk) 12:34, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
I've added the project banner to these articles' talk pages. One of the other members should be along to assess them in the near future. :) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Looks like they've been taken care of. Aurum ore (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
The Lord of the Rings: FA review
The Lord of the Rings has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Davémon (talk) 10:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
Rudyard Kipling FAR
Rudyard Kipling has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Template glitch
If an article is rated "C-Class" then the template won't show its importance scale rating (this seems to be the only rating this is an issue for). I'm not experienced enough in markup to try to correct it, but it'd seem the sooner its resolved the better.
Aurum ore (talk) 06:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
My knowledge of markup is admittedly sketchy but I think I've managed to fix it. I just edited it so that all lists of classes included C. In any case, as you can see from this example it now seems to be working, and it doesn'tseemtohavebroken. Which is good. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 13:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Wow, thank you for that incredibly quick response. You're right it works perfectly now.Aurum ore (talk) 02:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Don't mention it. It was just by chance that I happened to be here at the time; I only returned from a prolonged WikiBreak two days beforehand. So I wouldn't place too much importance on the speed of my reply - that would be giving me too much credit!
The template does seem to be working now, but like I said I don't know that much about markup so it's possible it could develop some, umm, unexpected quirks... We should probably keep an eye on it, LOL. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Another glitch
There's also no page for "A-class" articles belonging to this project. The Hobbit is currently listed as A-Class and the rank doesn't even appear on the assessment scale.
Aurum ore (talk) 10:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Yikes! Quite a few of our selected articles are rated B-class, and some of them are even rated Start... :| It'd probably be a good idea if we made it a Project project (hoho) to polish these articles up a bit. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to help, but I'm going to be pretty busy in the near future. Did you have a timetable for when things should be done? Incidentally this was something I was thinking of suggesting for the Project tag. At the moment it invites people to expand articles on the Demonata series of Darren Shan and clean up the Philip Ardagh article. If we want to make suggestions (it's probably pointless), noting articles which are rated high or top importance and stub or start quality would be better. N p holmes (talk) 06:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone ele get the impression that the automated selection skews rather heavily toward Harry Potter and other franchises with recent films? Admittedly I'm biased because Madeleine L'Engle didn't make the cut - and should have - but it seems to me that many important authors and classic works that are still read and taught did not make the list. --Karen | Talk | contribs 06:34, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Overall I don't get that feeling. I think its odd that three out of the five character articles belong to Harry Potter, but other than that and possibly the inclusion of Animorphs and Artemis Fowl (which don't strike me as particularly notable even if they are popular) the picks seem pretty much right. There's certainly other articles I would've included myself (L'Engle among them), but those that have been selected seem pretty solid choices and span the history of the field. It looks as if we have some say in what gets included so we might as well exercise that. Maybe remove 3-5 articles from the current list and replace them with 3-5 more deserving ones? If others feel that we should deviate even further from the current list then that's fine, but I think the fewer changes we make the more likely we are to see them honored. Aurum ore (talk) 23:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Is it even possible for us to remove articles and replace them...? -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, I read the original message more carefully. It is possible to get more articles added, although it doesn't seem to be a simple trade-off, take-one-out-put-one-in kind of thing. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 04:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I do, but I think that's a quirk of how they were selected rather than a deliberate bias. The number of visitors to the page, the number of incoming wikilinks and interwikilinks, the quality of the page and the project importance assessment are all used to create a score for the page. So franchises such as Harry Potter, which have their own WikiProjects, and a large number of people looking at/working on/linking to them, and which are highly rated for both quality and importance are therefore going to have higher scores. J. K. Rowling, for example, is an FA (500 points), rated Top, has 646 wikilinks, 73 interwikilinks and a hit count of 102810, which gives an overall score of 1870. Whereas Madeleine L'Engle is a B (300 points), rated High, has 159 wikilinks, 7 interwikilinks and a hit count of 7530, which gives an overall score of 1198 — so it was 52 points below the threshold for selection. And they had a target size of only 30000 articles across all subjects, so I guess a lot of important things couldn't be included. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
It asks for revisions to be selected by October 20, so I guess that's our deadline? Yeah, our project task box kind of needs to be cleaned up and maintained properly, but that takes quite a bit of organisation and we're a pretty small project so it's never really happened... But as something to direct our efforts a bit with regard to this 0.7 release, I've produced a table of the Start- and B-class articles, along with their importance rating and any problems that they're currently tagged for. (See below.) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Interesting, I noticed that each article was given a numerical rating, and its nice they give us some insight as to how they were calculated. If we do decide to suggest revisions to the list (since we have about a month to do so), I think the Importance Scores of the article might be a more useful guideline in which articles to keep/drop rather then the Overall Scores (a high number of page links is desirable, of course, but it's not always a reliable indicator as to the notability or quality of an article). Aurum ore (talk) 03:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the documentation more carefully, it seems that additional articles can be nominated on this page if they meet the criteria outlined here. From the sounds of it, dropping other articles has no bearing on the selection of additional ones, and should instead be done if there is a problem with them (e.g. low quality). -- KittyRainbow (talk) 04:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking at what books I can get access to, I could probably do a little work on Robert Louis Stevenson, but not enough to get the article up to good article before Oct 20. How were you thinking of dividing the work? Everybody take what they like or something more systematic? N p holmes (talk) 16:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it's pretty much going to be a case of "everybody take what they like" — let's face it, as a project we don't have much experience at organising things like this, and the reasonably close deadline means I think we neither have enough time to get a proper system going nor to actually complete all the work that needs to be done with the number of people we have. (Thirty articles up to GA in a month? That's one a day. Not likely, really.) So I think everyone should just do what they can/want to. I'll be trying to sort out the specific things listed in the "problems" column and if anyone wants to help me, that's great, otherwise if you have time just pick an article (or two or...) that you're interested in and work on that. (Of course if somebody wants to jump in and start organising us all, now's the time to speak up! ;) ) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 00:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it'd be ideal if a few of us could cordinate on specific articles. However, any improvement is better than none. So by all means please make any that you can, no matter how small they may seem. I'm not really too familiar with Stevenson but I'd definitely be willign to help out if that's one you want to focus on. Aurum ore (talk) 01:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Maybe we could add another column to the above list, to allow people to sign up next to specific articles they're interested in? Aurum ore (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Articles to Nominate
Not a whole lot's been said on this topic, but hopefully this will get the ball rolling as we still have almost three weeks to nominate additonal articles. The criteria for inclusion can be found here:
An article's inclusion is based on it's importance and quality, and it looks like a high-importance article of B quality would have a decent shot inclusion with a high-importance GA being a fairly sure thing. I'd like to begin a list of articles that could merit inclusion with the goal of improving them as much as possible (to help improve their chances) before nominating them on October 19. The original selections were made by a bot based on a number of figures, and articles with a score of 1200 or higher were selected for automatic inclusion. KittyRainbow has provided a link to a list detailing the scores of articles within our project. It would seem articles with a higher score might stand a better chance of inclusion. Another editor has already suggested the Madeline L'Engle article could be worth nominating, and the fact that it missed automatic inclusion by 2 points would seem to support this, therefore I'll begin the list with it. Any additions are greatly appreciated.
Aurum ore (talk) 19:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Articles for Nomination
Please sign your name next to any articles you plan to help improve.
Okay, I've made a few small attempts at updating it in the past, but now I'd like to have a big go at getting Portal:Children and Young Adult Literature up to scratch. However, there are a couple of things about it that I think ought to be discussed.
Firstly, the name. Why is it "Children and Young Adult Literature"? Surely it should be "Children's and Young Adult Literature"? Otherwise it sounds like the portal covers "Children Literature", which, err, doesn't make sense. :| So, I'm proposing that we move it to Portal:Children's and Young Adult Literature... Or maybe Portal:Children's Literature (which is currently a redirect) as that is both the name of this WikiProject and a much more succinct name.
Secondly, in order to cut down on the amount of updating required, I think we should use {{Random portal component}} to automate the articles appearing on the portal. Basically you provide it with a group of subpages that contain the text that you want to appear, and it randomly selects one every time the page is loaded. (You can see it in use on Portal:Poetry.) I think I understand how to set it up, but before I do so I wanted to ask about something.
I was planning to set each of our featured articles as a possible choice for the articles on the portal, but I noticed that both To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lord of the Rings are listed there. Now, these are books that are often read by children, but which are technically adult novels. Are books of this sort really within our scope? I think there's a difference between books like this and, say, Anne of Green Gables, which was written as a book for adults but over the years has come to be seen primarily as a children's book—and sold as a children's book. If you go into a bookstore, Anne of Green Gables will be shelved with the children's books. I have never, ever seen either To Kill a Mockingbird or The Lord of the Rings in the children's section; The Hobbit, yes, but The Lord of the Rings, no. They are read by children, but I don't think the fact that many children have the reading age of an adult means that they are children's literature. Otherwise, everything is potentially children's literature, and there'd be no point in having this project, because there's already WikiProject Literature... So what do you all think? Are these sorts of books suitable for inclusion in this project, or not? (I know we'd all like to have more shiny stars on our front page! But I don't think these ones are appropriate.)
So, err, I think that's it. If any of you'd like to help me with this portal business, just jump right in. (It'd be especially helpful if people could help with, say, keeping the news regularly updated, for example.) :) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't have the time to make a full reply, but here's two points. First, re: the name — as far as I know, it was at one point the children's literature WP, but was expanded to include young-adult (teen) literature, probably because the overlap is so great and it's practically impossible to draw a clear line between the two. Hence the name confusion, and the various different names. This also applies to your question about To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lord of the Rings — they're not really children's books, but they're definitely teen books, and that's why they're included in this project.
Hope that answers your questions. Mr. Absurd (talk) 06:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Oh, another point: I haven't made a decision on this yet, but I've been thinking about maybe proposing a name change to WP Juvenile Literature. I know the word "juvenile" is a bit odd-sounding, but it would apply to both children and teens, and it would be a much easier name (or perhaps something with "youth"? Except "Youth Literature" obviously wouldn't work...) Mr. Absurd (talk) 06:19, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The problem that I have with "Juvenile Literature" is that it's almost exclusively an American term; it's very rare to hear it used here in the UK, at least. I think "Children's Literature" is a more international term — I can't think of a English-speaking country where it's not used. (And I don't think "Children's Literature" is that problematic a term in itself... Many people seem to consider "young adult literature" to be a subset of "children's literature".) And our project talk page banner makes it clear that we do cover teenage literature. *scratches head* I dunno. I don't think we're going to get a better all-purpose word to refer to people-that-are-not-adults than "children". -- KittyRainbow (talk) 22:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC) (Also, at the moment, juvenile literature redirects to children's literature? I guess there is some dissent on the definition of that, too...)
Oh, I wouldn't know. I've never actually heard it called juvenile literature. But putting teen/young-adult literature under children's literature sounds weird to me, because I wouldn't consider anybody over 13 or 14 to be a child — and they wouldn't be an adult either. That being said, I have to agree that there really isn't a better word, and I'd rather have just Children's Literature than the horribly long Children's and young-adult literature, which is both too long and weird-sounding, what with one being possessive and one not. So I would say just change the name to match the project as it is now. Mr. Absurd (talk) 23:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
I've run across the term a few times. (Amazon uses "juvenile fiction", for example: [1] Although I just did a Google news search for "juvenile literature", out of curiosity, and most of the results were from like 1900! Haha.) But "children's literature" is definitely a more commonly used term.
Yeah, I see what you mean. "Young adults" aren't exactly children, but... Yeah. Complicated. And I agree about "Children's and Young Adult Literature" sounding kind of odd because of the mixing thing. So I guess we wait and see what the other project members think about moving it to Portal:Children's Literature. (How many active members do we actually have at the moment, anyway? I know Aurum ore was thinking it'd be a good idea to send out a roll call or something...) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, there's no rush! Take as long as you need. Yes, I understand about the name changing and so on, and it is sensible to have young adult literature included here. But somehow in the middle of that, our portal has ended up with a name that... doesn't actually make sense.
That said, I'm not convinced that they are teen books. Again, read by teens, but not specifically for teens. They're not really "crossover books" in the same way that, say, His Dark Materials is. If you go to Amazon, TLoTR is just listed under regular adult fantasy ([2], [3]) and TKaM is classified as literary fiction ([4], [5]). If we can find a nice source that says, "yep, teen lit", then I would say, "thank you very much, we'll have those FAs then"... but I'm pretty certain that they are just books whose readership happens to include teens. Like, it's pretty common for 14-year-olds to watch 18-rated movies, but we wouldn't consider those "young adult movies". (An extreme example, but I think you can see what I mean.) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 22:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
This is a never-ending problem... I work at a library and we have multiple copies of LOTR shelved under adult, teen, and children. There's a ton of overlap between children's literature and teen literature — like LOTR, we have multiple copies in both sections, and sometimes even different books from the series shelved in different places. As for LOTR, I'd be inclined to agree, but for TKAM, it's very often studied in high school (at least in North America), and that's probably why it ended up as part of this project. Mr. Absurd (talk) 23:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like a nightmare! :/ I know that crossover books are not infrequently published with both "child" and "adult" editions, but that sounds like a whole 'nother level of insanity. :|
TKAM is studied in secondary schools over here, and I can kind of see the sense in using that sort of thing as a reason for inclusion, but then I think by that rule we'd also have to include Shakespeare because he's studied at secondary school too — I know some schools start their students on him at Year 7. So, I don't know whether we should use that as a rule or not... But I do think we ought to decide what we're going to do, one way or the other, and then consistently apply that. :3 -- KittyRainbow (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
"WikiProject Children and Young Adult Literature" isn't the shortest name but I personally feel its the most accurate. It seems that "Children's literature" and "Young Adult literature" are two distinct fields in the publishing industry, therefore I believe they both deserve to be mentioned in the title (although there is as has already been pointed out, considerable overlap). It also seems these terms are the ones most commonly used in the English speaking world to refer to these fields. For example the term "Young Adult Fiction" is used on Scholastic's American, Australian, Canadian, and UK sites. While "Catch-all" terms such as "juvenile literature" are appealing because of their brevity they don't seem to enjoy the same level of usage, especially in modern publication.
But coming back to the original point, wouldn't "Children's and Young Adult Literature" be better? There's "Young Adult Literature" and "Children's Literature", but nobody says "Children Literature". I take it "Young Adult" is a publishers' marketing term, that doesn't literally mean what it says (i. e. it means books aimed at teenagers, not at 21 year olds). N p holmes (talk) 05:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Regardless of what we do with the Portal, I'd rather keep the shorter name for the WikiProject. I don't think it's so necessary to be absolutely "correct" with that, as a WikiProject is much less about the "public face" of Wikipedia than a Portal is. (And I think there's enough confusion about what counts as "Young Adult Literature" and what counts as "Children's Literature" — plus those people saying that "Young Adult Literature" is part of "Children's Literature", in the same way that "8 to 12 Fiction" is — that we don't necessarily have to use them both at all. As long as we're clear in the explanatory text that we cover all Literature-For-Minors, I don't think both terms have to be in the name.) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I think another editor might have already said this but originally the WP was geared specifically to Children's literature. It was later ammended to include Young Adult literature and that's where the longer name came in. Maybe the logner name could be used for "official business" such as article titles, templates, etc. while the shorter term would be used in the day to day business of the project? Aurum ore (talk) 04:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that was mentioned further upthread... although it's difficult to see it now that this is getting quite long! -- KittyRainbow (talk) 04:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
In regards to how young adult literature is defined, the term wasn't really widely adopted by the publishing industy until the early 1970's, therefore a lot of novels that would today be considered "Young Adult" were either marketed as children's literature (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) or as regular adult fiction. Even The Catcher in the Rye, which I think a pretty clearly example of young adult fiction, was originally marketed as an "adult" novel. I think it's certainly possible for the term to be over-applied (I'm sure there are some teenagers who read Cormac McCarthy but that doesn't make his stuff young adult fiction), I think some lee-way should be allowed especially in regards to books published before the term was in wide usage.
The portal's one of the areas of the project I've been wanting to approve as well. I like the idea of having a random FA appear. Perhaps the same thing could be done for the featured biography section? The featured pictures and quote section might be a little trickier, I know they have featured images but I'm not sure about quotes. Aurum ore (talk) 03:48, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
"Young adult" is definitely quite a new term, so I don't see why we shouldn't have older books that weren't YA but have come to be seen as that within the project. (Like how I was talking about Anne of Green Gables... or similar anyway.) It's just... finding some external marker of their YAness.
I was planning to use Random Portal Component for the "Selected Article", "Selected Biography" and "Selected Picture" sections. :) And I think maybe we should drop the quotes section as it would be quite problematic in terms of a) finding them, and b) deciding what to include. As you say, there's no such thing as a "featured quote". A quote section may be the kind of thing that you'd probably expect on a literary portal, but if it's going to be rubbish then there isn't that much point having it, is there? -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Oh, also, can I ask — any particular reason why the portal is orange? o_o;; -- KittyRainbow (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
The color scheme also struck me as a bit odd, perhaps a more subdued color would look more professional? Aurum ore (talk) 04:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
A more subdued colour would certainly be less eye-hurty... XD;; Anyone have any suggestions for which colour we should go with? -- KittyRainbow (talk) 04:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Personally I really like the blue that's used in the roll call template, but that's just me. Aurum ore (talk) 01:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
yea blue is good. sorry about making it orange.KillaGorillaV (Talk) 08:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Project Roll Call
I've modified a template used by WP:Novels in order to conduct a project roll call. I've tossed around the idea with a couple of other editors and I think it'd be a good way to see who's still interested in the project and would possibly motivate less active participants to become more involved. The template is below:
WikiProject Children's and Young Adult Literature Roll Call
Hello, WikiProject Children's Literature is currently holding a roll call, which we hope to perform annually. Your username is listed on the members list, but we are unsure which editors are still interested in the project. If you still consider yourself to be an active member of the project, please move your name to the Active Members list. If you no longer are interested in this project, please move your name to the Former Members list, and you will no longer receive messages regarding this project.
I decided to use the project's full name thinking this would help broaden the appeal to editors more interested in contributing to Young Adult-related articles. My biggest question for the time being is, should I start notifying people right away or should I wait for the beginning of the new month? Any comments are, of course, welcome. Aurum ore (talk) 01:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'd suggest using something a little more standard, like this (taken from here):
WikiProject Children's and Young Adult Literature Roll Call
Hello WikiProject Children's literature/Archive 2! WikiProject Children's literature is currently holding a roll call, which we hope to perform annually. Your username is listed on the members list, but we are unsure which editors are still interested in the project. If you still consider yourself to be an active member of the project, please move your name to the Active Members list. If you no longer are interested in this project, please move your name to the Former Members list, and you will no longer receive messages regarding this project.
Please note; there's a {{PAGENAME}} after "Hello", and the image is small because otherwise it expands outside of the box when the window goes past a certain width. Mr. Absurd (talk) 03:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure the example is displaying correctly on my computer. I can see a frame around the lower portion of the template, but not the rest of it. However, the example you linked to displays fine. Is the picture causing the problem? I like including it (editors can tell its from our project before they even read it), but if the example at films is more typical then I wouldn't be opposed to switching to a similar style, with or without the image. As far as the signature goes, I only included it because of the example at Novels. I don't care whether it's removed or replaced by someone else's. Aurum ore (talk) 04:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Is there a chance we could get some feedback from other editors? Does the second template display fine on everyone else's computers? The end of the month is fast approaching and I don't care which one's used, but it'd be nice to send the notice out at the beginning of the month. Aurum ore (talk) 18:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
The second one looks fine to me (the first has the picture cutting through the border). N p holmes (talk) 07:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I had been looking at the templates on my PC, and when I use it the second one displays weird. However, right now I'm viewing them on my brother's laptop and I see exactly what you mean. The image from the first one juts out past the lower border and the second one displays fine. I have no clue why they display so differently on my PC (its about five years old so maybe I just have an outdated monitor?), but since the second one displays better on most computers, it looks like we should use it. Aurum ore (talk) 17:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Roll Call is a Go
All the steps are in place, so I've gone ahead and initiated the roll call. I've done a clean sweep to the participants list and moved us all to inactive (even though some of us are obviously aren't) so that we can each have the chance to re-commit ourselves to the project. Everybody will get a notice on their talk page (thanks go to Mr. Absurd for creating the template) so please disregard it if you've already read this message or moved your name to the active list. Aurum ore (talk) 18:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
This children's book article Why I Will Never Ever Ever Ever Have Enough Time to Read This Book is up for deletion review and there is an interesting discussion regarding whether of not certain types of children's book should have their own article pages or should be merged into a single article. The discussion can be found here --Captain-tucker (talk) 10:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Vandalism on Children's literature
In reviewing some questionable material in Children's literature, I discovered what appears to be the work of a sockpuppet. (It's also possibly WP:CONFLICT.) I've explained on the discussion page, but am unsure how to proceed, since many changes have been made to the article since. I started by asking editors at large to comment, but now it seems more appropriate to systematically undo the "damage", making use of the attentions of several editors familiar with the subject? I'm not sufficiently expert in this to attempt it myself. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 20:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Do books about college age-ers like Stover at Yale fit in children's books project?
Not unless they're geared to children or young adults. If the target audience is over 18 then I think it's pretty safe to say it's not children's literature. Aurum ore (talk) 08:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense. So Space Cadet as a Heinlein juvenile would count, but not The Paragon. TCO (talk) 11:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Yep, sounds like you've got the gist of it. Aurum ore (talk) 01:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
PJ Haarsma and The Softwire
Greetings, folks. I have a few questions regarding the PJ Haarsma article and something I've been developing for his The Softwire series of young adult science fiction novels. My goal is to have the biography article up to if not Good, at least not stub standards! I also want to have at least an article for the series of books, if not individual articles for each novel. I'm seeking guidance, I suppose, in what would be best in this case. The series and the first two novels have been awarded several awards and been nominated for several others. Would this constitute grounds to give the novels individual articles with proper referencing and substance? PJ himself has been doing a lot of good works in promoting child literacy (including founding Kids Need to Read)... I suppose further questions can be asked/answered on the individual article pages, I just wanted to get the ball rolling and have some advice from those of you who have been at this longer than I have. Thank you. --Kethra (talk) 14:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Anyone want to help add Illustrator Award-winners and Illustrator Honor Award-winners? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Done. I also added the 2009 winners and reordered the list to match the Newbery Medal list, that is most recent first. Einbierbitte (talk) 18:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Importance scale
Can someone tell me the rationale for the importance rating of "Low" for the Newbery-winning Bud, Not Buddy? Other Newbery winners have at least a "Mid" importance and a couple have "High". Einbierbitte (talk) 00:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm only passingly familiar with the novel, but based on level of notability it's acheived, I agree it should be at least mid-priority. I'll go ahead and correct it. Aurum ore (talk) 05:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
At one point there was talk of creating a set of guidelines to help editors rate articles on the importance scale. I even began work on a preliminary draft, but then school started back up and I got distracted and never finished them. However, Einbierbitte's recent comment has reminded me of how helpful such guideines could be. I'm going to look over what I previously wrote and hope to have a rough draft up here within the week so I can get some feedback and we can get the ball rolling on this. Aurum ore (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.
All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I have nominated J. R. R. Tolkien for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
It's more than about time, but I wrote the article on Ashley Bryan. It's very basic and sparse. I also hesitate to write about living persons. Could someone who knows more about him please flesh out this article? Thanks! Einbierbitte (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Nancy Drew books
Hi, I was just stub-sortingHigh Risk (novel), looked to see if it was linked from the series page, observed that at Girl Detective none of the titles are linked to individual articles so planned to make a redirect, then found that at Category:Nancy Drew a lot of the books seem to be listed as having individual articles (eg Race Against Time (Nancy Drew)). I looked at previous contributions by the editor who created this latest stub, and of their previous contributions some have been turned into redirects, others not. Maybe someone would like to check this series? I know nothing about the books myself, and am not a children's literature expert, just a wikignome. PamD (talk) 07:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 563 of the articles assigned to this project, or 20.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Personally I would find this sort of thing very useful. Would anyone object to me signing us up for it? The information is contained on its own page, so you shouldn't be bothered by it if you're not using it yourself, but it's still kind of a project-wide thing so I thought I should ask... -- KittyRainbow (talk) 12:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
This sounds useful indeed, my vote would be to sign up. Aurum ore (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so that's one vote in favour... It's been a week, so if nobody objects within the next 24 hours or so, I'm going to assume that there aren't any objections and sign us up. -- KittyRainbow (talk) 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Right, I've signed us up. (I've set the template to "hidden" though, because it kept borking the text around it.) The first cleanup listing should be generated by the bot within a few days and will appear at this page. Might I make the suggestion in advance that when someone has cleaned up a page, they use <strike></strike> (or <s></s>) to cross it off the list? (Rather than removing it from the list... Makes it easier to find the articles again. Until it gets overwritten by the next bot update, of course.) -- KittyRainbow (talk) 03:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.
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Hi, I produced a read link in the last chapter of novel - it goes to Young adult romance. I think it could also go to Teenage Romance. Secondary literature would be - perhaps:
Carolyn Carpan, Rocked by Romance: A Guide to Teen Romance Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2004).
I might just have missed the right article to link to. Would someone be able to offer the missing link, or write the article that link should lead to? --Olaf Simons (talk) 10:05, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello, the pages in this category appear to be an unsourced, in-universe free for all. Perhaps a masochistic editor familiar with Tamora Pierce books would like to tackle it. Best, momoricks 06:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.
We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.
If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:06, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I have conducted a reassessment of the article as part of the GA sweeps process. The article needs some work to meet WP:GAC so has been delisted. You can find details of issues that need addressing at Talk:Treasure Island/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
length of breaking dawn
Australia movie is like 2 and a half hours long so why cant they make breaking dawn into 1 movie not 2?it wont be that long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.130.146 (talk) 08:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Listas
I've just noticed that some books whose titles begin with The are listed under Title, The, whereas others are listed as The Title. Which of these are we using? I started converting the FA and GA articles to Title, The - which I prefer - but I felt it was best to get a consensus before going too far. If we can make a decision, I'm happy to put in the leg work of changing everything over. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure books should be listed as Title, The; but I don't quite understand all the templates etc. involved here. How does the Listas parameter that you're adding to the talk page template relate to the defaultsort command that most books have on the article page? Do they do two quite different things? N p holmes (talk) 15:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't know for certain. I think adding listas to the template reorders it within the categories the template adds it to (the class and importance categories within the project), but the defaultsort reorders it within the categories listed in the article itself. For example, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has a defaultsort, but no listas. In the Oz books category, it's listed under W, but in the Top-importance children and young adult literature articles category it's listed under T. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 19:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I've now added listas to all articles C class or above, and I'm working my way down - anyone who can help is welcome. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 14:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I have done a GA Reassessment of Harry Potter influences and analogues as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found the article to be sound and to nearly meet the GA Criteria My two concerns were numerous dead links in the reference section and the lack of images. I have placed the article on hold for a week and I am notifying all interested projects and editors of this review. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this review please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 18:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Nathaniel Hawthorne has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Awadewit (talk) 18:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Succession box removed
I've removed the succession box on The Tale of Despereaux. This article is about a novel, not about the history of the Newbery Medal. The books that came before and after are completely unrelated, too.
This idea of succession is appropriate where a single author is involved, or a single series. (It also works to a degree in pop chart ratings, where an artist's popularity in a sense displaces another's.) But here there is no logical connection to the topic. It isn't any more relevant than the ISBN number that came before.
Finally, it's intrusive. The box caught my eye, I scrolled down, and discovered nothing of interest related to the topic. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps this won't catch attention until I actually make the changes, but enough time has passed that it's reasonable to remove the succession boxes. I tried removing only one on The Tale of Despereaux, but the sole response I got was that removing a single box was breaking a succession of links [7]. Piano non troppo (talk) 06:27, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Multiculturalism in children's literature
Would there be any interest in starting a page or a category on multiculturalism in Children's Literature? Or is there a page already which I'm not finding?
I see we list various themes such as fantasy and there is a link to Native American children's literature, but not the wider theme of the portrayal of ethnically diverse characters. In the UK there has been a lot of work in schools in recent years to increase the inclusion of a more ethnically diverse range of characters in children's books, which has resulted in increased awareness and focus. Arts Council England has been particularly active in improving the awareness of this strand of literature. In the US there is the Coretta Scott King Award which is focused on the African American experience. There are other awards in other countries, although possibly not as well established.--Plad2 (talk) 08:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I have an issue. Some years ago, the British "Geographic" magazine researched cultural distinctions in the USA. They based it, as I recall, on choice of language, clothing and suchlike. Those are cultural distinctions based on researched fact. There are, however, distinctions that simply amount to a special interest group making unattested claims about nebulous cultural legacies. A scholarly treatment of cultural heritage is one thing. Unsupported claims by a special interest group are contrary to WP:BIAS, WP:V and WP:NOT. Wikipedia is WP:NOT a soapbox to push politically correct agendas. There are hundreds of cultures, culture mixes, people who don't see their action in terms of a particular culture. Myself? I would be strongly opposed to having any of my publications labeled as belonging to some particular culture. I wasn't making a cultural statement. I was just writing. And I suspect most authors are of the same mind. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 09:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
OK. I've left this for a few weeks and, apart from Piano non troppo, no-one seems interested in this idea. I still find it interesting and may come back to it but I have other things to do and will leave it for now.--Plad2 (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't have time to help at the moment. But obviously it's a real subject. The discussion came immediately before a bot archived some of the talk page. So that was the only change I noticed on my watchlist. There's a broader topic of ideology and inclusiveness in children's literature, with attempts by some to reject certain works or promote others for their proper teachings. In the 1930's for instance "The Family from One End Street" was regarded as important for portraying a working class family. N p holmes (talk) 06:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Available time is an issue. Perhaps if others are interested, we could aim to get this going in the New Year.--Plad2 (talk) 08:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that an article about multiculturalism in children's literatures is important. One textbook I am reading on children's literature includes a chapter on this subject. There are many scholarly articles and entire books on the subject in general. I would be happy to help. I can sympathize with some of the objections and cautionary advice given above, but we don't have to place authors, illustrators, and their works into such categories (although I admit that including them in such an article does imply something of that nature). We can acknowledge how children's books and certain aspects of certain works are relevant to the history and representation of our various cultures.--RainbowWerewolf (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Roll Call?
Our last 'annual roll call' was in September 2008. Should we hold another one? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 12:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me.Barkeep49 (talk) 14:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy to post to everyone's talk pages if we decide to. We could re-use the same template as last time:
WikiProject Children's and Young Adult Literature Roll Call
Hello WikiProject Children's literature/Archive 2! WikiProject Children's literature is currently holding a roll call, which we hope to perform annually. Your username is listed on the members list, but we are unsure which editors are still interested in the project. If you still consider yourself to be an active member of the project, please move your name to the Active Members list. If you no longer are interested in this project, please move your name to the Former Members list, and you will no longer receive messages regarding this project.
Or should we update it a bit? Also, should we post to just the Active Members or include the Inactive Members list as well? Perhaps the Inactive Members should be moved to Former Members now that a year has passed without a reply. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree it's a good idea. I don't get the impression that there are many active members at the moment --Plad2 (talk) 20:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
After looking through some of the usrs currently listed, my suggestion is this: all users who are blocked indefinitely or have no contributions dated after December 31st 2008 (i.e. in the past year) get moved to the Former Users list. Everyone else is placed on the Inactive Users list and receives the Roll Call message above, which I will modify slightly to show that this is the second roll call for the project. If no-one objects to this, I will try and perform the Roll Call next weekend. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
All sounds good to me.Barkeep49 (talk) 02:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Performed the roll call. (I know I said I'd wait until the weekend, but I've been snowed in.) Hopefully, everyone should have received messages. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Children's literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Children's literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Children's literatureWikipedia:WikiProject Children's literatureTemplate:WikiProject Children's literaturechildren and young adult literature articles
) on talk pages of articles I've created myself but that haven't seem to have gotten much or any attention from other editors? I'd like to know if the articles are acceptable and worthwhile, but I don't want to sidestep an important step by perhaps declaring something acceptable when a seperate individual should really be the one to place the banner on the page.--RainbowWerewolf (talk) 16:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't, although if you feel you might be biased it might be best not to specify the class/importance parameters yourself.strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I would hope people adding new pages WOULD put the banner on them. I recently created a whole bunch of stubs for Newbery Honor books and made sure to place the banner on all of those ages. I would agree with Strdst_grl that evaluating, particularly the quality, of a page you make large edits to isn't ideal.Barkeep49 (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Importance Assessment
I am interested in helping out with this project, so I looked at the Top importance articles to try and find the stubs there, to see if I couldn't help on those articles. But in looking at the Top Importance articles it seems like the list is either too long, or too short. I frankly cannot tell how certain items made it on the Top list vs High list. I then looked at the archives and it seems that there was some discussion in September 2008 on this topic and the people who posted agreed that the importance scale needed some clarification. But that agreement never really led to any standards. So it seems like it might make sense to rediscuss this topic and come up with some clear examples for each category to help with ongoing assessments. Here is my first take at an enhanced children's lit importance table.
Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within the field of children's literature, and may have been included primarily to achieve comprehensive coverage of a notable author or other notable subject.
Firstly, I would like to say that as far as I am aware, I am the only person on this project actively assessing articles, and therefore I have personally assessed many of the project's articles. Assuming this is true, (I apologise if there are other users working on assessment, but I have not noticed any) then the importance ratings are very uncertain. The guidelines for article class are very specific and I have been able to use them to assess articles, but importance has always confused me. The guidelines so far have been unclear, and when the article's topic is something I am unfamiliar with I have difficulty making an accurate judgement - for instance, I have always felt that I over-use the mid importance category. I would be grateful for any more specific guidelines to help with rating in future, and especially for any users willing to check through the articles already rated and ensure they are rated correctly. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 16:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, assuming that is true, what do you think of the revised standards? I have changed it slightly from what I originally posted to make it clearer. I looked at a bunch of projects to see how they breakdown their categories. While there is a fair amount of variation, we do seem to have more Mid class articles than most projects. Once there is a project consensus about the importance scale, and some agreement about the examples, I would be happy to go back and do some work reassessing importance.Barkeep49 (talk) 01:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the new standards look good, although could you add examples for Top and High class? It does not look complete without them. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I gave a couple of example for each, and modified the other two, though I am hardly wedded to any of the examples. If after some more time we (the project) decide to adopt these standards I propose we rerate each of the Top Importance articles, with discussion at the Assement Talk Page. For instance, I don't think you can make a case that the Series of Unfortunate Events is a Top Article. It seems that many projects come to consensus about their Top Importance articles and it seems like a good practice for this project, even if it would just be the two of us at the moment.Barkeep49 (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm somewhat opposed to assigning importance ratings to specific books. This isn't a neutral assessment, but effectively original research about a book's value.
Also, having just looked at the articles for several Newbery books, collectively they are of poor quality. The Wiki editors seem to be young fans, who are unlikely to consider the "importance" -- especially as expressed on a page that they may well not read.
Back to importance assessment. I went to From the Earth to the Moon[8], and agreed that it is of high importance, but not that it is start class. Ironically, the *reason* this book is so important is not mentioned in the article. I.e., it was the direct inspiration for several of the most important real world rocket pioneers. Then, turning to Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century, inexplicably, even though a best-seller and quoted as being "of inestimable historical value", it's rated as of mid-importance.[9]
The amount of Wikipedia editor effort to assess would be better spent making simple improvements to the articles, themselves, I'm thinking. Because many children's novels -- as distinct from the relatively "adult" treatment of the Verne books, are in dire need of first aid. I.e., it might be better at this point to improve the articles, rather than formulate how they might be improved in the indefinite future. Respectfully, Piano non troppo (talk) 02:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that time spent improving articles is important. However, I think if assessment is done well it can be a valuable indicator as to where time might be best spent improving articles. I like well function systems and so the idea of having everything classified correctly appeals to me, but on a practical level Top and High importance articles, correctly labeled, signal an important priority about where, else being equal, time should be spent improving. In fact the whole reason I got down this path is "I am interested in helping out with this project, so I looked at the Top importance articles to try and find the stubs there, to see if I couldn't help on those articles." You argue, "The Wiki editors seem to be young fans, who are unlikely to consider the 'importance'" to which I would respond that sophisticated editing, by a person of whatever age, is important. To produce the best children's lit articles we need sophisticated editors and I think sophisticated editors are far more likely to pay attention to things like importance ratings. While the majority of editors on these project's pages might not be sophisticated, those editors are also unlikely to produce quality articles.
And that, to me, is why the assessment is important. I want Wikipedia to be a legitimate resource. I think the Wikipedia 1.0 project helps with that, and assessment is a part of that project. I think, however, even with-out Wiki 1.0 that assessment is important for the legitimacy of Wikipedia.
I also think the assessment process can be an important way for editors to receive validation and recognition for the work they have put into articles and serve as a road map for where they should go next.
I respect your opinion about where time is best spent, but in the end cannot agree. I do hope that there would be more than just two of us doing the assessment piece, however, because of the original research/POV problems that you suggest.
As a postscript, 2 comments about From the Earth to the Moon. First, you do realize that page isn't even tagged for this project? The rating you're talking about is for the Novels' Project. Second, what quality rating do you feel the article deserves?
It will be interesting to get opinions on why people choose to edit book articles. I'll make casual edits as a part of anti-vandalism patrol. More considered edits when I'm especially fond of a book, and particularly when I have reliable references. I've made 10,000s of Wiki edits, I don't believe a single one was on account of how the article was rated. So, again ... I'm just wondering ... where do we direct editorial effort? Perhaps it's the case that there are editors who do not, for example, know a book, or have references, but who still want to contribute? And for whom the assessments are cogent? Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 03:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
While I see the point here on the value of improving articles, it is generally impossible to choose an article at random and improve it beyond the most basic level - you need to know something about the subject matter, be that prior knowledge or research. An article which has been assessed as being important to the project is far more likely to attract experienced editors who are prepared to devote their own time to researching the subject, not just users who happen to be fans - in the same way that assessing an article's quality lets users know how it needs improving. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Stardust, would you say then that importance assessment guides your editing? That's a good data point. (I was just thinking of doing a poll?) The issue isn't whether assessments are *ever* useful, but whether overall, the time would be better spent elsewhere.
(Parenthetically, as a professional editor, a common comment on the job is "You aren't an expert, what right do you have to criticize my writing?" The official answer is: "The company is paying me to do this, if you have an issue, take it up with them." The unofficial, non-diplomatic answer is: "It doesn't take an expert to correct poor writing, bias, or logically invalid arguments." People tend to confuse their professional competence with being beyond the criticism of "normal" people.) Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 21:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
My answer to the unofficial poll question: Truthfully, I have to say I have never edited an article based on its importance rating, although I have good reasons for doing so: firstly, I assessed most of the articles in this project (which is the main focus of my editing) for importance, so it doesn't really tell me much about the article in question; secondly, I prefer working on less important articles where there is more freedom to make big changes without an edit war; and thirdly, I tend to work on bringing very low-quality articles up to standard, and most of the higher importance articles are already of reasonably good quality.
Now that I have said that, I'd like to say I've rather lost track of this conversation. What are we here to discuss, other than general comments on the system of importance ratings? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 22:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Hee, hee, hee. I didn't consider selecting low-importance articles to avoid edit wars. That seems a pretty fair reason!
The opening section phrase I was responding to was "the importance scale needed some clarification" ... my comment is that assigning importance to a work of art is an unhelpful form of original research. In the case of From the Earth to the Moon, which I gave as an example, the article editors don't even seem to clearly understand what makes the book (in my subjective opinion) high-importance.
I have created a number of children's book articles, and I'm happy to see they have not been assigned an importance. Since they were thoroughly researched, I probably have a better idea of how "important" each is than an arbitrary editor does. But, I hasten to say, this isn't a move on my part to avoid criticism. Rather, it's a response, perhaps, to a specific situation where an established editor marked a single book in a series as non-notable (but not the rest!) I hadn't originally felt it necessary to justify the article to someone unfamiliar with the series; it wound up taking me longer to defend the article than it did to write it.
So, getting back to the section topic, my comment is the existing system, whatever its benefits and deficiencies, does not need revamping. Deletion, perhaps, but not revamping. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 22:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Well, in that case I'd say that revamping is precisely what the system needs to solve this kind of problem, since deletion seems unlikely. Revamping the system to make the importance criteria clearer and easier to understand will reduce the number of misunderstandings and badly-considered ratings and mean a fairer rating system for all of the articles in the project - including the ones you are working on which, if they have the Children's Literature project box, are going to receive importance ratings sooner or later. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 12:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think you are supporting just original research, but demonstrating hubris. Neither you, nor any Wikipedia editor has a right to quantify the importance of an artistic work. Apparently you imagine on account of some bureaucratic necessity, that you do. Piano non troppo (talk) 06:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
A project-based importance rating is hardly a sweeping judgement. It is designed to be a rough guide to the article's relevance within this particular project so that editors can find key topics more easily. Just because an article is assigned Low importance within this project - or any other - does not mean it is generally unimportant. It simply means that, to this particular subject area, it would not be considered as important as something in a higher category. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Do you see harm coming from the assessment or does it just bother you as not being NPOV and being OR? I can understand why you find the ratings offensive, but to me the response there is to ignore them yourself. At this time in the WP community there isn't a consensus around not having importance ratings. As such it makes sense for us to have them and for the ratings to be effective. I have been staying mostly quiet at this point because I really do see your POV, but I would suggest you consider fighting this battle on a larger stage than this project. 14:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Shall we update this, then? Also, is there any way to provide a better guideline between 'Mid' and 'Low' class, because while 'Top' and 'High' are generally fairly obvious, the lower classes are often hard to differentiate between if you are not familiar with the subject matter. For example, a supporting character within a series of books is generally Low importance, an award-winning series is generally mid importance... strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Since there has been no more discussion in the past 6 days I'm going to go ahead and update the criteria. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
Wall of Recognised Content
I have been experimenting in my sandbox with using User:JL-Bot/Project content to create a Wall of Recognised Content to go in place of the user-updated Accomplishments section. Since this would be automatically updated every few days, it could conceivably display far more information about the project, including nominees for GA and FA, and former GA and FA articles. What does everyone else think? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I love it. My only thought is about the space it will take up. Thanks for this, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
It's wonderful. Joyous! | Talk 15:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Any suggestions about what should/should not be included? A full list of what's available is on the template page - basically, current, former and nominated FA, FL and GA, current and past Featured Pictures and Portals, current A class and previous Did You Knows. It seems obvious to include current FA, GA and DYK like we have currently, but what about the others? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
This project hasn't really adapted A-Class level articles at this point so I don't think that makes sense for us right now. I would suggested we'd want current and nominated FA, FL, and GA, and DYK historical. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Project Scope
Currently the project's scope includes fictional characters. It seems as though very few pages of fictional characters have been tagged. Before I go around and try and find pages to be tagged, I wanted to make sure people agreed that these pages should be tagged.
On a related note I think there are categories out there that would make sense to have a bot tag for us. For instance, there is a Percy Jackson and the Olympians category. It seems as though those pages, especially if we're covering characters, should be tagged. If people are alright with it I will attempt to make a list of categories to request bot tagging. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
This sounds like a good idea to me. The subject of Children's Literature clearly encompasses characters in children's literature, so I agree they should be tagged - and if we can find a way for a bot to handle some of this, it will be much quicker. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I've started doing some project banner tagging by hand as there seem to be literally dozens of categories that this projct covers and for which there are some pages with no tags. Some categories are better than others. I am not sure if submitting such a large list to a bot is appropriate. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Having looked through some of the categories myself, I see what you mean - many of them fit into this project. But without a bot's help, won't it just take even longer? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Oops! I forgot - a while back I tagged as many category pages as I could find for the project. You can find a fairly comprehensive list at Category:Category-Class children and young adult literature articles, although it is a few months out of date. Also, if you find any I missed could you tag them? strdst_grl(call me Stardust)
Assistance
Hi, I'm currently working on an article for the novel Dot.Robot. I've started to work on it here. If anyone could give me assistance, I would be much obliged. Many thanks. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 13:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Project Scope
I've been looking at categories for bot tagging as suggested by Barkeep49, but I'm uncertain about some of the categories. Does this project cover television (or any non-book) adaptations of works of children's literature, or is it limited to the books themselves? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
My initial reaction is articles strictly on adaptations fall outside of this project. So the Harry Potter books and characters yes, articles about specific films no. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people
List of cleanup articles for your project
If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here
Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"
If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip
Watchlisting all unreferenced articles
If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people
List of cleanup articles for your project
If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here
Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"
If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip
Watchlisting all unreferenced articles
If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
I've added some sources and references to the John Masefield page and have proposed (on the Talk page) deleting the very old (2006) "Cite check" tag. The article still needs a bit of work but the bulk of it seems generally to be a thorough piece of work (not sure about the "pub sign" paragraph someone has added). I'm still relatively new at the protocol of removing tags, so thought best to mention it here.--Plad2 (talk) 11:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Is there any chance of setting up a CHERUB and Henderson's Boys task force? I'll try to drum up some support. If you reply please leave me a talkback template. Many thanks. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 13:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea, but I don't think there are any official task forces for this project yet - they all seem to get set up at WikiProject Novels. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 13:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I see; but other than that are there any major (or minor, come to think of it) problems that would stop the creation of a task force? Cheers. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 14:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I can't think of any reasons why there shouldn't be one if you can get enough interest to be worthwhile. But getting enough interest could be hard... (Just so you know, I would be happy to help out.) strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
But do you think it should be here or at WikiProject Novels? Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 17:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it should be here, but it may be easier to attract attention at WikiProjet Novels. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Fine by me but you might want to wait for more users to comment, and also check that WP:NOVELS is okay with a redirect. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 18:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
A result of my work earlier today to on the unreferenced BLPs in this project has stimulated a response from an editor called Kevin, who has Clive King on a list of almost 500 BLPs he's proposing to delete en masse. He's stuck another banner on the page and comments that the refs aren't good enough (actually the whole article isn't really good enough - see my general point above).
So, my question is a) can he just delete this page just because (in his opinion) the references aren't good enough? and b) would any of you feel like either helping improve the article or adding a comment to User:Kevin's talk page to make it clear that the page should not be deleted? You might also like to have a quick skim down his list of proposed executions to check that whether anyone else you care about is there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plad2 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
What to do about stubs that really aren't worth keeping?
As a consequence of the work I'm doing down in the gutters of this project with the unreferenced BLPs, I'm coming across pages like The 22 Letters by Clive King which seem to have been started by someone a while back who thought that all their favourite books should have a page of their own in Wikipedia, wrote a couple of lines and left. IMO both Clive King and his best-known book Stig of the Dump are worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia (although possibly merged into a single article as both current pages need work - one to discuss at another time) but The 22 Letters (lovely book but long out of print) is probably not.
I'm more of an inclusionist than a deletionist, but life's too short to spend time on books few people know these days when there are more important books to work on. I'm sure there's a Wikipedia procedure for this (and I'm just going to dig a bit deeper into this) but it would seem to me to be sensible to start with a discussion here, first about the principles, then about the specific pages before proposing a formal delition. Or is there a better way?--Plad2 (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Basically, this is a problem with notability. Having looked through the notability criteria quite recently, and looking at some of the suggestions on this project page, I am sure there are quite a few articles which may well be better off deleted. Perhaps Google the subject, and see if it is notable in some way which the article fails to mention (e.g. an award winner, a frequently taught book) but if you really feel it doesn't deserve an article - and especially if you post it here and get agreement - then it should go. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 18:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Wow! that was quick! Thank you! I've just been looking through the Deletion policy and guidelines and it seems to me that PROD is the way to go on this. I might be bold and PROD the two bios I mentioned above and The 22 Letters and see what happens.--Plad2 (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Peter Sís
I'm in the process of cleaning up this page from where it was languishing in the unreferenced BLPs listing. It's in better shape now but really needs a re-write of the main section. It's a really interesting story and a worth while subject. I don't think it will take long to do as I've added a number of external links to the page which carry the relevant background bio info. I've run out of steam on this tonight and would be more than happy if someone else in this project felt like making a stab at it.--Plad2 (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
More content added, plus a load of references (which probably need standardising but I've run out of energy to deal with this tonight)--Plad2 (talk) 22:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Gail Hennessey
This page has had a Notability and "unreferenced" template since June 2008. The links on the page are poor. The books referred to all seem to be out of print and I am unable to find any reliable third-party sources on-line to support the subject's notability. Possible candidate for PROD unless anyone objects?--Plad2 (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Unreferenced BLPs in this Project - which ones are worth keeping?
I've gone through the Unreferenced BLP's in the cleanup list, added references to some and deleted the "unreferenced" tag from these and those few which still had the tag even though a previous editor had added references. That still leaves several without references.
However, the thing that struck me was that all of these articles should be classified as stubs (not all are), they all need a lot of work, and some are questionable as being worth keeping at all. Being a bit of a newbie, I'm reluctant to start scattering tags and proposing AfDs all over the place but could I suggest that others in this project look at Karen Beaumont and Jennifer Armstrong and help make a decision about whether they should be kept and expanded or proposed for deletion?--Plad2 (talk) 22:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I would object to PRODing Jennifer Armstrong and will attempt to provide a reference. I think she may be legit to go through regular AfD, however. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Upon further research it seems as though the Jennifer Armstrong who is currently listed there is different from the children's author. I am going to go the BLP noticeboard to seek guidance.
As previously noted, I've been concentrating on cleaning up unreferenced BLPs in the Children's Literature Project. Mostly this has involved finding a few references and removing the "unsourced" template. In some cases this has been replaced with a "cleanup:multiple issues" template as that is the main problem with the article. In the process, I'm sorting them out into:
Articles worth improving (IMO)
Articles where the subject is probably sufficiently Notable but the article needs a lot of work or a complete rewrite
Articles where I doubt that the subject is sufficiently Notable for it to be worth trying to save the article. I may suggest these as proposed for deletion after discussion here.
In most cases (I got a bit more systematic as I went along), I've posted a message on the article's Talk page and, if the original creator (or recent editor)is still active, posted a message on their Talk page. The full list of articles I've looked at and how I've currently sorted them is on my User page. If anyone is interested expressing a view on the work, or, indeed in helping, please post a message on my Talk page.--Plad2 (talk) 09:53, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Stub improvements
Looking through some of the article categories, there seem to be a lot of stubs in this project which really ought to be better articles. I know lots of people do good work improving articles individually, but could we organise some kind of collaboration on this? For example,a task force, or a 'Stub of the Week' for everyone to help out with? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Happy to help. I'm currently concentrating on improving unreferenced BLPs. I've asked for help on Robin McKinley, Newbery-winning author. Article better than most of the ones I've been looking at (several of which may be beyond rescuing) but hers defintely needs work. Also see request for help on Peter Sis, above.--Plad2 (talk) 17:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Can we ask Walterbot to run a new cleanup listing?--Plad2 (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Cleanup listing sounds great, but I can't find any sign of a Walterbot... did you get the name right? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 18:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I think he used to be called WolterBot (I spelled his name incorrectly, which wouldn't have helped!). I've just found him here User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings and it seems that one can request a cleanup listing or subscribe to an automatic cleanup. I believe he generated our current cleanup list.--Plad2 (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Stardust, shall I request a new clean up listing, or have you done so?--Plad2 (talk) 19:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I would prefer it if you could - I seem to have enough stuff to keep track of at the moment. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 21:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Done. Or, at least, I've added the template to our main page as per instructions (in the "cleanup" section) and we wait to see what happens next. Instructions say it can take a few days for the bot to generate a new list.--Plad2 (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I've just added references to Canadian author Deborah Ellis. Subject meets notability criteria and belongs with this project but article needs a lot of work. I have added a cleanup template to the page. --Plad2 (talk) 19:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Project Suggestions
I have recently come up with a number of ideas for this project, so I thought I would share them here and see what you think:
Bot tagging based on category. I have a list of categories that I believe are suitable for bot tagging in this project in my sandbox, which I plan to sumbit to a tagging bot next week. Please add any categories you think are missing to this list (note: there are lists of categories suitable for tagging by hand as well, please use the correct list).
Needs infobox tagging. I have requested a modification to the template which will categorise all articles tagged as needing infoboxes under Category:Children's and young adult literature articles needing infoboxes. I plan to request a bot to automatically tag any B class or lower article which lacks an infobox as needing one. Please tag any relevant articles, or check out the category to add infoboxes.
A newsletter or bulletin. Many projects run a newsletter, which helps to co-ordinate the members and keep them up to date. Should we run one?
A subpage for article discussions. Plad2 in particular has come up with several articles which need discussing, and I feel there should be a dedicated page for these discussions to take place.
I am glad you have taken the lead with the bot tagging and hope to see that move forward.
Seems like a no brainer.
I support this idea as well though do worry about making sure it is something manageable so that there can be some consistency to it.
I had thought about this myself and wonder. At the moment there is only a small group of us that are posting here. I'm not sure if giving a subpage would encourage or discourage others involvement.
I don't feel qualified to comment on the bot discussion. My only question is whether we should have a category for 20th Century Children's Literature, since we are now in the 21st Century. And whether we could have a Multicultural Children's Literature category.
Info box tagging, seems fine to me. If it could have a link or template to show beginners how to add a info box, that would be helpful.
I think the problem is that this project has a very small group of active editors, many of whom have quite specific areas of interest and an even smaller number of whom are regularly editing. If we take time to run a newsletter, that's time away from editing pages.
Perhaps we could organise the Main page to have sections for "Project of the Month"; "Possible Deletion" discussions (which could include name of page and a one line description of the subject and problems), which then could direct to a more free-form discussion/Talk sub-page; and any other topics which come up regularly, leaving this page for more free-form discussions or topics which come up from time to time.--Plad2 (talk) 19:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Update:
Barring any future contributions, I plan to organise this and make a bot request by early next week.
Infobox tagging has been requested and the request was accepted by Xenobot Mk V. It should take place soon.
Okay, the newsletter issue as far as I am concerned is this: we don't have many users, and most of those we do have don't seem to visit the project page much (just judging from the fact that only four users have posted non-automated messages in the last month). On the one hand, a newsletter distracts from editing - but on the other hand, it might help encourage the editors we do have to contribute more to the project, and keep them focussed on the current ideas...
The point of a sub-page would just be to move some of the more routine article discussions about notability, deletion concerns, work needed etc. to somewhere where they are the main focus of attention - pretty much what Plad2 said. THis might put them a bit out of the way for casual browsers, but I think it might help interested users focus on the discussion more.
I agree that a newsletter would not be good for this project.
I like the "Project of the Month" idea. Has anyone considered putting together a collaboration project? I think it would encourage users to become more active. I am currently trying to get a collaboration project up and running on Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats, and would be willing to use what I've learned from other WikiProjects I'm involved in to get one started for this group. --Tea with toast (talk) 22:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I think it's fair to say at this point that the bot tagging topics are going to happen, but the newsletter isn't very popular. Some of the suggestions about the sub-page ideas need discussing though: I think a collaboration project of some kind is a great idea (it seems to me that it esentially encourages participation in the same way as a newsletter but is more focussed on improving articles). Does anyone have any ideas for how to organise it, or what articles could be used? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I have just been made aware of this discussion due to the infobox tagging. I would like to suggest that in the future such changes not be made without at least something resembling a decent amount of time allotted for discussion - one day is hardly sufficient. I noticed all of the project tags suddenly being labeled "needs infobox=yes" on all the articles I work on and I was appalled. I have specifically chosen not use infoboxes on some articles. Contrary to popular belief, they are not required and should be used with care, as they tend to introduce incorrect information in literature articles and often scare away new editors. Could we at least have a discussion about this for a week or so? Awadewit (talk) 22:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
If, in a week, it's determined that these tags should not be there, let me know and I will mass-revert. Also keep in mind that this was a one-off task so if an editor decides that the article does not need an infobox, simply flip the yes to no, and carry on. –xenotalk 22:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Ursula K. Le Guin - and an idea for prioritizing work
I'm having one of those OMG moments that one occasionaly gets in Wikipedia. This article appears to be rated as a Start Class and carries several tags. IMO, she's one of the greats and a page on Ursula K. Le Guin should at least be at GA status by now.
My suggestion for prioritising work is that we each nominate our top three articles (based on importance to the project) which need work and collaborate on getting them fixed. Doesn't stop us working on our own areas of personal focus as well, but if we can harness our collective efforts on a small group of really important pages and work together, I think we will achieve more and get a real sense of progress. Comments anyone?--Plad2 (talk) 23:58, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
We could take advantage of the new project stats box. It lists all the Top-importance stubs etc. on separate pages. There are 28 top importance articles currently below B class and 172 high importance ones. That's clearly too much to do all at once, but those lists could be a good starting point. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that's an excellent idea! That's a pre-determined list and I see no reason to start creating a different (rather subjective) list. I'd be happy to concentrate on the biographies. Stardust, could you have a look at the Roald Dahl article and see whether it is correctly categorised? It also turns up on the cleanup listing in a few places and I propose to work through these and get them sorted out.--Plad2 (talk) 11:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Ana Malit
Unless I'm going mad, this article, Ana Malit, seems to be about a town and doesn't belong with this project. I have left a message on User:KittyRainbow's talk page, since she added the template in the first place. Second opinion anyone?--Plad2 (talk) 07:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Looking at the revision history, this page was about Doreen Cronin, a children's author, at the time it was tagged. Then User:Three01 moved it to Ana Malit and wrote about the town, for reasons unclear, and a new Doreen Cronin article has since been created. It is, as Nedlum pointed out when creating the new article, most bizarre. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
So, shall we just delete the Children's literature template from the page so that it stops turning up in our lists?--Plad2 (talk) 11:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Peculiar indeed. I've history split and merged the early revisions to Doreen Cronin and re-added the tag to her talk page. –xenotalk 16:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Request for comment on Biographies of living people
Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:
Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.
The two opposing positions which have the most support is:
supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect
Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.
Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced article if they are not sourced, so your project may want to pursue the projects below.
Given the heated nature of the debate and that it seems that there may a be a group of editors which is prepared to delete unreferenced BLP articles unilaterally, may I suggest that we make it a priority for this group to clean up the relatively small number of unreferenced BLP articles associated with this project? I'll do the ones I know about.--Plad2 (talk) 10:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I've started attacking the unreferenced BLPs attached to this project. Steve Cole, Jane Hissey and Gene Kemp done so far.--Plad2 (talk) 07:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
The RfC is now closed (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people) but the debate rumbles on. There is now a proposal for a new BLP specific PROD and new procedures for dealing with new page unreferenced BLPs as they are created.--Plad2 (talk) 08:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Phase II of this RfC is in progress at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase IIin case anyone is interested in following the debate. I have resisted the temptation to join in, preferring to get on with the business of dealing with the BLPs in this project.--Plad2 (talk) 20:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Articles for possible deletion: discussion
Having completed a second pass through the "unreferenced BLPs" in the cleanup listing, I have found a few articles which I think probably are not worth trying to save. I would appreciate a second (or third) opinion before proceeding.
Bjarne Reuter I haven't tagged this one but it should probably be tagged as it is largely a list of books with only one reference (added by someone before I got there)
Mike Phillips (illustrator) British illustrator. Probable PROD as I have been unable to find reliable third party references, apart from a gallery of images here [10], which is not useful.
Jennifer Armstrong (tagged Sep 2009) Doubtful Notability already mentioned Now seems to have an article of sorts. Needs work.--Plad2 (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
And I'm not sure what to do about Thomas Brezina (tagged Apr 2008).--Plad2 (talk) 23:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Jennifer Armstrong should no longer be tagged for our project as the person listed isn't a children's author, and should be deleted. I have begun work on creating a page for Jennifer Armstrong who is a children's author and is notable in my sandbox, but have no idea when I'll be posting it. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Can I take it that everyone is happy if I go ahead and PROD the above list?--Plad2 (talk) 07:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Mike Smit proposed for deletion
Continuing the work with unreferenced BLPs in this project, I have posted a PROD template on the Mike Smit page. Published author but both books appear to be out of print and a Google search turned up nothing. If anyone would like to discuss this, please post a message on my Talk page.--Plad2 (talk) 18:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Mike Smit page has now been deleted.--Plad2 (talk) 09:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Peter Corey
Just placed a "multiple issues" on the Peter Corey page. Looks like a spam job, possibly a cut and paste from the subject's own website. As far as I can see, the series of books referenced are all out of print and I can find little in the way of third party references to support this page's inclusion. Courses of action could be to remove from the Children's Literature Project and let others deal with it, or discuss whether suitable for PROD. Either way, I don't feel inclined to spend time tidying this one up. Any thoughts, anyone?--Plad2 (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
...and the related page Coping With has the same issues. I'm inclined to suggest a merge of the two pages, pare it down to the bare facts and leave the "multiple issues" template on it. If it's not been touched in a few months time, we might consider whether to PROD it.--Plad2 (talk) 09:52, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
The 22 Letters page: possible candidate for deletion?
Well, here goes. Before I start a formal PROD ( proposed deletion) for The 22 Letters page on the grounds that it does not meet Wikipedia's Notability criteria, it seems sensible to open a discussion here and on the page's Talk Page. It's a lovely book but it's no longer in print in the UK. The page is very scanty and I, for one, don't propose to spend time trying to bring it up to scratch. Any objections or opinions on either this particular page or the principle, please let me know.--Plad2 (talk) 20:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Going gently through the PROD guidelines, it seems to me that the page has: not been previously proposed for deletion; not been undeleted; not been and is not being discussed at AfD (though how you work that one out, given the HUGE, number of lists they have over there, I don't know)--Plad2 (talk) 20:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I can find no reason to suggest notability and would support such a PROD. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
OK PROD template added. If you want to second the deletion, you will need to add a Prod-2 template.--Plad2 (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
I see that the PROD has now taken effect and the page has been deleted.--Plad2 (talk) 07:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Looking through Google, I found enough evidence of notability that I disputed the prod, restored the article, and added a couple of refs. It may not be enough to keep should it be AfDed, but the sources in Google Books should be findable at college libraries. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Infoboxes
I'm perfectly happy to add info boxes to the pages I'm watching (don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other about the need for them) but think it would be helpful if those adding a "need info box" tag would also add a quick fix template guide to adding the thing. Could the tag include this information, please? Could someone add a) a rationale and b) a simple guideline? BTW, I do agree that it's not terribly helpful to have loads of extra tags added to the many problematic pages in this project, when what actually needs to happen is some thorough research and editing. Rather than spend time adding templates to articles, I think it would be more helpful to focus on actually doing the work to fix the articles in question.--Plad2 (talk) 22:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I seem to have made a wrong call on this issue. I wasn't aware that it would annoy so many people, or I would have had a longer discussion. I just thought that since the majority of suggestions made here only receive one or two replies, I probably would not get more feedback. What I will say is this:
I have no idea how to change the template message about infoboxes to be more helpful, the current one was auto-generated. Perhaps we could produce a quick guide somewhere on the project page?
Since this was a one off bot tagging which will not be repeated, if there are particular articles you feel do not need infoboxes then simply remove the needs infobox parameter. They will not be retagged.
The main reason I suggested this in the first place was because I believe many articles in this project would benefit a great deal from the addition of an infobox. If you feel differently, then please disagree and we can decide whether to completely untag. However, I feel certain that the majority of freshly tagged articles would be improved by an infobox.
Personally, I'm not at all annoyed by this ( I apologise if it sounded as though I was). I've switched some of the articles I'm watching to "no" because I think the lack of an info box is not a priority (there are bigger issues with many of these pages) and left some as "yes" as it seems a reasonable suggestion. Being a bit new at this sort of thing, I would appreciate some help on how to create an info box. If it can't be added to the template, then perhaps someone who is a wiz at these things could help with a tutorial?--Plad2 (talk) 11:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm no wiz but I think I know the basics. Generally, you can add an infobox by copying and pasting the text on its template page (generally under Usage in the Documentation). This will include a list of attributes for you to specify about the particular subject you are writing about (so for a Harry Potter book, you would enter J K Rowling after |author=). Some useful infoboxes for this project might be Template:Infobox character or Template:Infobox book. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 13:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
It would be simple to add a link from the "needs-infobox=yes" message to a project-page that describes the various infoboxes used in this project (Author, novel, book, publisher, etc.). After the page is drafted, just let me know and I'll do the needful. –xenotalk 15:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I like Xeno's suggestion and would be happy to help put a project page together with examples (as this will help teach me how to do it). I've found the following templates which we could base them on. Haven't found a specific "author" template yet. Also if any of you would like to nominate good examples of the various forms of info box for the page, that would be helpful:Template:Infobox book;Template:Infobox book series;Template:Infobox artist--Plad2 (talk) 07:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I think we should ask: why are we adding these infoboxes? We should have a good reason to add something like this across so many articles. Strdst_grl says that they would be "improved", but she gives no reason as to why. Infoboxes in literature articles tend to detract from articles, in my opinion. for several reasons. If the boxes are reduced to the fields that objective, they simply repeat information that is already in the lead of any decent article, making them redundant. The boxes will also add a lot of intimidating code to the article, which demonstrably scares away newbies from editing, while at the same time adding no real content to the article. If the boxes include fields like "Influence" or "Genre", subjective fields, the boxes start to misrepresent the sources and mislead readers. For example, if a book is listed "fantasy", "alternate fiction", and "romance", but never all three together, listing all three in the infobox is misleading to the reader. Also, listing "novel" about a book from the 18th century, is highly debatable. These are some of the reasons why I feel infoboxes are unhelpful and potentially misleading. If we are going to include infoboxes, I think a good argument should be made for them. It needs to be something specific, beyond "improvement". Awadewit (talk) 16:46, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, infoboxes can help to seriously improve articles. They provide a quick-glance summary of the article for casual readers, and can be very useful when browsing through topics. However, their main benefit seems to be something your argument overlooks: while they contain information which should be present in "any decent article" - and for that reason I specified the tagging be limited to B class and below, although perhaps with hindsight B and C class would be better excluded - the majority of articles on this project and almost certainly of the articles tagged are stubs, many of which lack even the most basic information. An infobox can be the gateway to expanding the article, giving a guide to the information required by the type of article and helping to focus editors, and adding a reasonably complete infobox would automatically expand many of the articles tagged to a far more reasonable standard. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 19:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Since it seems that info boxes are entirely optional (there doesn't appear to be any requirement for them in the Wikipedia style guides) and it can't, therefore, be asserted that all articles "need" an infobox, may I suggest that we reverse the bot? We can, at the same time, add a section on the main page about infoboxes (suggest that Stubs and Starts might like to add them) and provide a link to some good examples. so that those editors who want to add them can do so easily. Of the FAs in this project, 6 have info boxes, 11 don't.--Plad2 (talk) 19:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I admit it might be best to undo the bot tagging, at least for now, but the category should remain in place and editors should be encouraged to tag articles they feel need an infobox. Also, I will go through existing articles in the category (i.e. hand-tagged) and check they have been tagged correctly. Does anyone think differently? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 13:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Awadewit (talk) 04:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Infoboxes are a nice-to-have, and are not essential. They are ideally treated as a summary: anything mentioned in the infobox should also be mentioned in prose, with the possible exception of the image (no real need to duplicate images in an article). A short article where the infobox is longer than the actual text can look a bit silly; see The Tale of Pigling Bland for example, which has acres of white space at 1280x1024, and only loses this at resolutions of 800x600 or lower. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Done - The bot tagging has been reverted. I will begin to check the remaining tags soon. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
New Article Alerts
I've just discovered this bot User:AlexNewArtBot which generates an automatic daily listing of newly created articles which may fall into a specific category or area. I've just been through the existing "Wikipedia:WikiProject Children" list and found a number of new articles on children's books or authors. I've tagged some of them, added references and "multiple issues" templates to a couple and left a message for the editor User talk:Mhjohns who has just created a number of single line articles for a raft of Newbery Honor Books. The "Wikipedia:WikiProject Children" (which seems to be a dead project) parameters capture too wide a range (child sportsmen/women, general articles about children) but I think the concept is a good one, if we can get an alert run on more narrow parameters to do with this project. Our current Article Alert subscription covers a number of useful things but not the creation of new pages which might fall into our remit. If you think we would find this useful, I'm willing to explore it further.--Plad2 (talk) 21:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I think this might be a good idea to help with tagging new articles, which is one of the project's weaker areas as far as I can tell. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 21:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this seems like it could be of benefit to the project. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Charles Dickens - C-class assesment - really?
I see that the Charles Dickens article is still assessed as a C-class and I wondered why. It seems to me to to warrant a higher rating than that. It has quite a number of active editors, so perhaps it's not ready for reassessment yet? In any case, I don't think there is any point in my trying to join in the editorial discussion on this page when people who know the subject and the books a whole lot better than I do seem to be getting the job done.--Plad2 (talk) 22:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
I took a look at the article. One of the problems with the article is revealed in the footnotes - it cites a whole host of random sources, not high-quality Dickens scholarship. In my opinion, worrying about the assessment of an article other than stub or GA does no good. All of the fine gradations in between are rather meaningless. It is only important once an article meets a basic standard of quality. Awadewit (talk) 00:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Jules Archer
Any idea why this one is tagged as belonging to the Children's Literature Project?--Plad2 (talk) 23:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I know that. But why has he been included in the category? I can see nothing on the page to indicate that he belongs with this project.--Plad2 (talk) 00:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
OK, Let's see whether Cgingold (talk·contribs) responds to the post you've placed on his/her Talk page.--Plad2 (talk) 00:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Roger roger. –xenotalk 00:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
[unindent] Sorry for the delay in replying. The answer is very simple: virtually all of Archer's books were non-fiction US history written & published for Young Adults, which falls under the heading of "Children's non-fiction". Hope that helps! Cgingold (talk) 03:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
The Project Page
To increase readibility and help implement several recent suggestions for the project, I will be working on a new design for the project page in my sandbox over the next week or so, located at User:Strdst grl/sandbox/project. The redesign will focus on layout and style changes, and changes to actual content will be minimised. This is not yet complete enough for direct comments or suggestions, but I will post updates and requests for comments as it progresses. This notice is to allow anyone who objects to a redesign to put forward early objections. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 13:28, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Given the debate about info boxes above, perhaps a sub-section in the "Style Guide and Resources" section on info boxes with links to the most useful templates might be an idea? Having now experimented a bit, I'm rather inclined to think that it is not necessary to create children's and YA specific templates. I think I'd also like to suggest a subsection with the key points about BLPs and links to good examples--Plad2 (talk) 20:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
The proposed changes are now ready for comment. The changes are summarised at User talk:Strdst grl/sandbox/project and can be viewed on a number of my sandbox pages. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I would prefer it if all comments were left on the user talk page above, so that I know where to find them, but I will check here as well.
In response to Plad2's comment, I have included some information on Infoboxes, but none on BLPs because I am not sure I fully understand the recent changes (anyone who does is welcome to add some information). I would also like to know if anyone objects to a message sent to all Active users notifying them of the proposed changes, because they are fairly major and not all members check this page regularly. If no-one objects to this, I will send it out tomorrow morning. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:10, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that all looks very good. May I suggest that the "Articles for Discussion" sub-page would be the appropriate place for a sub-section on BLPs? While many of the issues are similar to issues on all articles, there are some which are peculiar to BLPs and the source of the heated debates about the deletion process. There are a number of proposals being discussed and, my reading of this is that they may have a separate PROD process. May I also suggest that we provide links to some of the commonly used editing templates (such as "clean-up" and "references"). As a newbie, I recall finding my way round the various pages about references tortuous and I think it might be helpful to offer some links to the less daunting pages. In conclusion, I support these proposed changes--Plad2 (talk) 17:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Article Discussion would be a good place to put information on BLP issues, and I do agree with the idea of expanding the template section, as this seems to confuse a lot of users. Can I suggest you either make those changes to the sandbox proposal for discussion, or wait for when/if it goes live and make them then? I don't think I know enough about the topics to do it myself, although I'd be happy to help if you give me some pointers. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Added to the draft Project Talk page.--Plad2 (talk) 07:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
After 6 days of discussion, 7 project members have supported the proposed changes and none have opposed them. I am therefore going to carry out the changes. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 14:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Watson Charlton
Would welcome a collective view on whether the article on Watson Charlton is worth keeping. I'm inclined to PROD on notability grounds but I'm aware that not everyone has the same views on what counts as notable. My interest and expertise is more with living authors and artists than those with historical importance. I've not tagged the article for this project yet. --Plad2 (talk) 09:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
I did a very cursory look and couldn't find notability but that doesn't mean he isn't. The person who has edited that page still looks to be active so I think I'd stick a notability tag on it and see if it can be established. I think PROD is unlikely to work for any article which has a major contributor who is still active on the site, so if you don't want to go notability I would try AfD. Barkeep49 (talk) 13:57, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
George and Doris Hauman
Creator of George and Doris Hauman, User:Pmbgggw was alerted in Feb 2009 by User:PamD to the probable lack of notability of this subject but nothing has happened since to improve the situation. These artists seem to be notable only for their illustrations for The Little Engine That Could and it seems to me that this page has nothing to add. I have added the Project template but I'm inclined to PROD the article unless anyone thinks otherwise.--Plad2 (talk) 21:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Fine by me. Next time I'll post there.--Plad2 (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
That is pretty much what the new page is for. Should I leave some kind of message here about the new discussion sub-pages? I'm not sure where I would put it. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 14:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Archiving Talk Page
I propose we archive the current talk page. With the redesign there are several discussions which would now be better suited to one of the project discussion forums. We have also had several long discussions, combined with the BLP notice, which is making this page quite cumbersome I feel at the moment. If someone would prefer a specific discussion not be archived, it is easy to ensure it remains on this page. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm generally in favor of letting the bots autoarchive after a certain point -- that tends to avoid arguments on the merits of archived threads. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I think they are meant to be bot archived if no-one responds for 60 days, but there has been a lot of discussion recently. Perhaps some of the article/project discussions should be moved onto the new pages and the others should stay here until the bot returns. Or we could change the archiving age. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I see now. The first comment is over 60 days, but the second one isn't, and the default is to archive at least two at a time. 95K doesn't strike me as overly unwieldy, so I don't see any reason to change the settings quite yet. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
We could change the time settings, though. Shrinking from 60 days to 31 would get rid of the first ten or so conversations. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with that, but I'm not in here much anyway. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
As the generator of a lot of the recent discussions about specific pages, I'd support moving them to the new discussion page.--Plad2 (talk) 20:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I just dropped it down to 45 days -- let's see how that works. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
That looks better. About the article discussions, I think it might be best not to move the existing conversations, and just start using the new page for new discussions. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Louise Rennison vandalism
There seems to be a sequence of silly vandalism on the Louise Rennison page. I don't have time to sort this out right now so thought I would flag here in case anyone felt like fixing it.--Plad2 (talk) 07:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
I think I've fixed it all, but there was a lot on there. I might have missed some. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
Tim Burton looms
Not to be alarmist, but we should be prepared to semi-protect Alice's Adventures in Wonderland due to the madness that is likely to shortly ensue when Burton's film is released. -- Evertype·✆ 20:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
Should all published children's writers and illustrators be tagged for this project?
Continuing my hunt for unreferenced BLPs belonging to this project, I started looking at the lists at "Category:Children's book illustrators" and "Category:Children's writers". It seems that the majority of the writers are already tagged for this project but several significant children's books illustrators are not. So I started tagging them. And then stopped as I realised that I ran the risk of assuming that everyone would agree that they should all be tagged. So I offer the question for discussion.--Plad2 (talk) 08:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
We touched on our project's scope not too long ago and I think the consensus answer to this question was yes. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
They should be tagged. I requested a bot tagging for several categories (including this one) by KingpinBot but it seems to be taking a while to get started. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 14:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. For the time being (until the bot gets going) I'll go on doing it manually when I have the time.--Plad2 (talk) 19:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
there are some authors do both children and adult books, like Gregory Maguire and Anne Macaffery so be careful to make sure that your tagging the right books.
Publishers (UK Headline; USA HarperPerennial) have it on adult lists. It seems to have been picked up by the bot tagging books for this project, presumably in response to some key words in the text. Unless anyone feels strongly that it should be included in this project, I suggest we remove the template.--Plad2 (talk) 06:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd ask for no immediate action. I am pretty sure that this has been marketed to Young Adults which would mean that it would qualify for our project, though I certainly understand the initial reaction. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
The Wicked Years series is not marketed to Young Adults its marketed to Adults which the author makes clear immediately on his site. Their publisher also lists it as an adult book. I think it is the same for other books of that nature.
I could find no evidence that it has been marketed in any country as a YA book. As such I definitely support the removal of the tag. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
What "tag"? -- Evertype·✆ 19:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
The tags for The Wicked Years have thankfully being removed. My understanding is most of the Oz books with the exception of a few re-imaginings are kid friendly however the only Oz books I am familiar with are: Wicked, Son of a Witch, Lion Among Men and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. For all I know Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage and the book Was... for example could be as kids friendly as the original or they could be adult re-imaginings like Wicked. My understanding from the summaries of both is that Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage is the former and Was... is the latter. However I understand that books not marketed to adults can still have adult content especially if they are marketed to teens so I don't want to be overzealous in the removal of the tag. I Think that the people familiar enough with a specific Oz books to know if a specific one was actually marketed to kids or teens should look at the article for that book and delete the 'this book is in the kids and teen book category' tag if needed. Which is why I brought up the issue about all Oz books being labeled for kids and they shouldn't all be labeled for kids using The Wicked Years as an example because that was the series I was the most familiar with.
It looks like some of them aren't. We just got a bot to tag some categories, and that included Category:Oz books because I presumed Oz books referred to the original series. The other ones will be gradually removed as we assess the articles, but that might take a while - if you find any inappropriate ones, please just remove them. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 14:09, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
No doubt. In fact, based on the last time I think it's best to wait at least a week for comments =) –xenotalk 17:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
Please, yes. Do it. Just looking at the list exhausts me... I just wish you could bot-assess importance as well. (Although, I agree - after the infoboxes lets not rush into anything.) strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 17:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I can set importance by a "key" if you want. See how Indiana did it here: WP:CATS/INDIANA. –xenotalk 17:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
How long will it take for the assesment to be set up? Or is it already? Cheers, Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 18:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
It is trivial to set it up, but I do want to make sure there are no objections from other members of the project to auto-assessing. –xenotalk 18:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, I just saw the infoboxes incident. It went on a while didn't it? Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 18:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
I confess I'm a bit anxious about bots making any kind of assessment but if those currently doing it manually feel that it could be automated and that this would be helpful in the process of identifying where the work is needed (and allow more time for actual editing), then we should do it. My only caveat is that a human pair of eyes should follow along and double-check its work (and do a bit of tidying up afterwards as well). In the work I've been doing to clean up the large number of unreferenced BLPs, I have found some really poor articles, which have been assessed for this project but should also have been tagged with clean-up templates of various sorts or, even better, had some work done on them. My personal rule is that I don't tag a stub with the project template unless I have done at least one thing to improve the article's structure or sourcing first. I've refrained from doing an assessment as I go through these articles as I am new to that process and felt that it would be better done by someone more expert at it. On the other hand, perhaps even my inexperienced eyes would be one level up from a bot (though not as quick).--Plad2 (talk) 06:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I handle quite a lot of the assessment for the project, and I think this is a great idea. The recent bot tagging of articles means that there are nearly 3500 articles awaiting assessment - the vast majority of which are likely to be stub articles (judging from a random selection). While I agree that it would be great if human assessment could happen and help to improve these articles, I know from experience that even a five-second glance to assess each article would take me months to get through a back-log that large, by which time many more articles will have been added... Realistically, I think bots might be our only option, although I would support a way of double-checking - perhaps a category for all the auto-assessed articles? They will need checking for importance anyway. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:20, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
The bot will tag the banner with "|auto=yes" (if it tagged it as a stub because of the prescende of a {{stub}} template) or "|auto=inherit" (if it inherited the class rating from another project). In both cases, the articles will be placed into Category:Automatically assesed Children's literature articles and human editors are encouraged to vet the rating and remove the "|auto=???" parameter. (By the way, you can see User talk:Xenobot Mk V/requests&/archive for past auto-assessment runs of this bot - thus far no complaints have been received about the bot assessing in a problematic fashion) –xenotalk 13:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't think your bot is going to do it wrong. I think there is a nontrivial amount of articles which have progressed (or in far fewer cases regressed) since their last assessment. When assessing articles I try not to see what has been done before, but rather rate the article for where it is against our criterion on the day of rating. See more below. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
I share Plad's concerns. I know strdst does more assessments than anyone and I understand her desire to narrow it down. But I frankly feel assessment is just too important to bot that way. I especially say this because reassessments are infrequently done and so there is a status quo bias inherent in tagging this way. The project existed for a while, but it seems only more recently have we become more organized and more like an actual project and so having a large backlog of unassessed articles strikes me as something that's alright given the current status of the project. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
If the apprehension is over inheriting ratings from other projects, I could only do the first half of the auto-assessment: tagging as stub where {{stub}} templates exist on the article. In this case, either the bot will be right, or it will be wrong and it will require a human to remove the {{stub}} tag from the article and re-rate as start or better. FYI there are approximately 1500 like this: [11] –xenotalk
Could the bot just asses articles which are obviously stubs? For instance, if an article is below a certain number of characters it is obviously going to be a stub. This is somewhat like Strdst's point above; most of the articles are going to be stubs, why not only asses them? Thanks, Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 20:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Not necessarily, see WP:CL-RULE. However articles that already have a {{stub}} template (such as these) can probably be rated as stub without much margin for error. –xenotalk 20:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Going back to Stardust's point above, I found myself wondering whether we really need to rush to mass/bot assess these new articles. It seems to me that the bigger problem is the number of them which are poorly written or lacking references and/or have notability or other issues. It may be that some of them should really be discussed for PROD rather than be given an assessment. Once they have a Stub rating, there's a sense of "job done" and the article might not get looked at again for months, if not years (apart from being picked up by a passing bot for some automated fix). I know it's a more long-winded process, but I would like to propose that an initial assessment should be done by a human (who also has both the ability and responsibility to flag up any other major issues). We could, perhaps, also set ourselves a target of getting the unassessed articles down to xx% of the total by the beginning of June. BTW, I have one technical question about the Project template. There's a line which says "Tasks you can do:" which doesn't appear to get used much (if at all). Could we bring that into play to help identify work that needs doing? Sorry. Scrub that last thought. I've realised what the "Tasks you can do" line is about! --Plad2 (talk) 21:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Just done my first assessment on one of the newly tagged articles Julia DeVillers. Did a bit of tidying first, then gave it a "Stub" and "Low", adding a note on the talk page about work I think needs doing. Quite happy to carry on assessing as I go. I can bring anything I'm not sure about to the Assessment Department or the Article Discussion page.--Plad2 (talk) 07:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
The issue of reassessment seems to me to be something else which needs dealing with separately to the idea of bot assessment. I put a note in the assessment department about periodic reassessment of articles, but I realise it is difficult to achieve. Perhaps we could find some way of tagging assessments with a month so that the oldest ones could be categorised as needing reassessment? In the same way, bot assessments will be categorised so they can be checked for accuracy - it would just be an interim measure to relieve the pressure created by the bot tagging. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I think the idea of the bot categorizing pages which are rated stub AND below a certain number of characters seems like something which would indeed have a fairly small margin of error. But beyond being psychologically depressing for those of us who look at the unassessed page/box, I don't see any reason to rush through assessment, especially with the rarity of reassessment (which is indeed a completely different issue). Barkeep49 (talk) 18:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm also bothered about the idea of a bot picking up class level from other Projects. I've just done a bit of work on the Martin Ebbertz stub which had survived an AfD but has been classified as a "Start" by the Biography Project. He's got a slightly fuller page over at de.Wikipedia (but they don't seem to do classifications...).--Plad2 (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
It looks like auto-assessing in any form does not have consensus at this time, please contact me if this changes. Best of luck with your assessment/improvement drive! –xenotalk 14:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
May I just point out that there are currently about 3600 unassesed articles, just for this WikiProject. I personally feel that we should do someing about this. Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 13:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I see that a second bot has been running over the last couple of days, which is possibly why the unassessed total has been going up, not down. I think we should wait until that has finished and then take stock after a couple of weeks, when we can see what the true rate of change is. Then we could set some targets or parameters for a bot (if we think we need it). My reservations and doubts about a rush into auto-assessing stand as previously stated. I'm now assessing as I go. If others do that too, I don't see this as an insurmountable task. The number of unreferenced BLPs has dropped by 10,000 over the last few months, just because enough editors have decided to focus on it. Our problem is small compared to that.--Plad2 (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I think KingpinBot is done its run, so it won't be getting any bigger. I understand your view that "once an article is assessed there is a feeling of job done" - I suppose the only remedy would be to educate people that job not done! =) If auto-assessment were to be completed, every auto-assessed article would be placed into a category and editors would be encouraged to review the members of said cat to confirm the assessment - hopefully improving the article at that time. But perhaps table this for a week and see if the category shrinks significantly by elbow-grease alone... –xenotalk 14:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Proposed Criterion for Bot Auto Assessment
If an article has been rated as a stub by another project and is currently under 5,000 bytes in legnth be designated as a stub by a bot. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:59, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree, provided it gets tagged with auto=yes so we can categorise for checking. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
Somewhat reluctantly, I'm going to agree to this. I've spent the last few days trudging through the category:children's writers list, tracking down unreferenced BLPs and while it is, really, a matter of minutes to assess the newly picked up articles as I go, all those minutes add up and it's unrewarding work. On the understanding that human eyes will follow up and check (we'll need to do this to get the importance value anyway). To my mind, the much bigger problem is the truly awful state of many of these stubs and I would like to suggest that we move to a discussion of what we believe to be minimum standards for articles in this Project - refining on the broader Wikipedia standards to arrive at additional criteria for Children's Literature. Other projects seem to do this, so I think it would be OK for us, too. Views anyone?--Plad2 (talk) 07:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Do you have an example of a project which does this so I may see the ballpark of what you are proposing? Barkeep49 (talk) 12:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I'll work this up into a proper proposal when I've got a moment. I shouldn't really have added the question to this section as it's rather off-topic.--Plad2 (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
This article really needs to be cleaned up. Thanks, tedder (talk) 00:31, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Looks as though a bunch of students have been editing it since Stardust did the assessment in April last year. If it's possible, it mght be worth looking back at what it looked like then and seeing whether it can be reinstated.--Plad2 (talk) 06:39, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
From what I can tell, it wasn't that great even when I rated it - I assessed it at [12]. I probably inherited the rating from WikiProject Novels, who assessed it at [13]. Neither of these look great, and it seems like the article has always beeen undersourced. If I were rating it now, whatever version, I'd call it C class at best. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 10:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I recommend nominating it for potential collaboration as I think it might be a good candidate. I have changed its assessment to reflect the current state of the article with acknowledgement of strdst grl's comment that even when originally granted B class status it was also undersourced, meaning a simple fix isn't likely.. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Unreferenced BLPs for this Project
There's a new bot available to help identify UBLPs by Project. Unless anyone disagrees, I propose adding our project to the list, which will be posted to a Project sub-page on a daily basis. OK?--Plad2 (talk) 18:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added us to the list. it will be interesting to see how many unreferenced BLPs we still have.--Plad2 (talk) 22:21, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Update. The bot has run but produced a (0) result since it is matching the UBLP with "Category:Children's Literature Articles" which is hardly used at all. Other Projects are having a similar problem and the originator of the idea is looking at it. I'm hopeful that between them, the techies will come up with a solution.--Plad2 (talk) 06:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Odd category on this page
This Project Talk page turns up on the "Category: children's writers" list, which has to be a mistake. I don't seem to be able to delete the category from this page. Can someone do that, please?--Plad2 (talk) 21:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Could someone have a look at The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which appears to have been seriously vandalised over a number of days. I did a quick "undo" on today's vandalism and then reverted my edit as I realised that the problem was a much bigger one with much of the page having been blanked. I'm not sure how to get it back to where it was originally, given the amount of damage which has been done.--Plad2 (talk) 23:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Looks to me as though 4 January 2010 was the last pre-vandalism version. Can we get it back to that and then look at getting it protected?--Plad2 (talk) 23:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I think the standard method for getting to a version back in the history is to open that specific version on the article's history page and then save it as an edit (I hope I've restored the version you wanted). I'm not sure how one gets a page protected. N p holmes (talk) 12:03, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll keep a closer eye on the page from now own. I had stopped paying attention due to the number of times Bruno's age was being changed by editors and so missed the sequence of vandalism.--Plad2 (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello. It seems this article has existed half-completed its entire life. I do not know the story, and so I cannot finish out the plot summary. I don't want it to be left in this state though. This WP is the best place I could think of for locating someone who has read the novel and would be willing to fill in the remainder of the plot summary. If not, do any of you know of another place I could ask? Thanks. ÷seresin 23:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.
A bot-generated list of unreferenced BLPs is now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature/Unreferenced BLPs. I'm "watching" it but I think it would make sense to also list it in the "Articles needing cleanup" section on the Project page, so that others can keep an eye on it as well.--Plad2 (talk) 17:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC) Scrub this. I see that we have a link to the page already!--Plad2 (talk) 17:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Upon recent experimentation with some articles and a translation program, I am very confused to what other language article have written about the series. For example the Portuguese version classifies the whole "collection" as The Horrible and appears to have books written especially for the Portuguese language, unreleased in English.--Coin945 (talk) 21:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
P.P.S I have compiled a variety of different sources on different aspects of the Horrible histories franchise. Hopefully i will be able to sift through them to locate the most reliable ones. I have done this so any editors interested in aiding the growth of these articles will have a variety of useful sites at their instant disposable. They are located at: Talk:Horrible_Histories#2009_interview.--Coin945 (talk) 21:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
I created an advert for the project, which can be displayed using {{wikipedia ads|ad=212}}. If anyone has any comments or feedback on the advert, please let me know. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
After a couple of false starts, I've finally got a regular list of new Children's Literature articles going. Being a newbie at this sort of thing, the rules are fairly basic, so they might benefit from checking/improving by someone more experienced. The list updates every few days and the bottom of the list is archived on a similar cycle. It needs to be watched so that the articles can be checked, tagged for this Project and assessed before they are archived. If everyone approves, I suggest that it's added to the "Open Tasks" of the Project Main Page.--Plad2 (talk) 05:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Unreferenced BLPs - 2 left
There are currently only two Children's Literature unreferenced BLPs left. For reasons I give on my talk page, I am no longer editing Children's Literature BLPs. If someone else would take a look at these last two and decide what to do with them, the backlog could reduce to zero. Since I'm no longer involved in this project's BLPs, it would be good if others could add the page to their watchlists so that the Project can stay on top of this area of work.--Plad2 (talk) 06:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
There's no reason why he shouldn't, if other users would join it. Would you like some help starting one? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 09:19, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Now I think of it, it might be better to try this at WikiProject Novels - Roald Dahl wrote plenty of adult books as well as children's. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Buzz Books
Could we please have article about the children's book range Buzz Books?
Buzz Books was very popular during the very late 80s and 90s and released numerous books based only different television shows at the time. Each book was approx 30 pages and the range was owned Reed Children's Books but the inside of the books say all publishing rights are owned by William Heinemann. The shows which books based on were released are TUGS, Joshua Jones, Fireman Sam, Babar, Rupert, Bugs Bunny, Biker Mice from Mars, James Bond Junior, The Animals of Farthing Wood, Gremlins, Micro Machines, The Wind in the Willows, Skeleton Warriors, Barney, In My Pocket, Police Academy and their most popular series based on the episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. So would be able to have an article about the range? --VitasV (talk) 03:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
I am well aware of this series of books - i used to read them as a child :). Howeve, I fear there is just not enough information out there to warrant an article. I hae located [15] and [16] which list many of the books in the series and show that they are on sale. The home page is at: [17], and the Thomas the Tank Engine Wikia page (which doesn't have any reliability on its own) at [18]. There are also a few other fleeting references at [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. Personally I don't think it will be enough but there might be more out there (this is just after a quick check myself). Good luck.--Coin945 (talk) 09:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Few of these sources, wikipedia use the sites for ISBN searches so maybe just few of those links might be reliable enough. --VitasV (talk) 12:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused
Being new here, I'm confused about this. Can you just create a taskforce? How do you rank importantce, if you do? --CrabFreak (talk) 18:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
You can create a taskforce after you suggest it here and get agreement, although you should first make sure at least one other user would join. You rank importance according to the criteria at the assessment department - this has been hidden to declutter the page, so click "show" in the blue box. Hope this helped. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 19:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. --CrabFreak (talk) 07:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Hello! It has recently come to my attention that this WikiProject might make an interesting article, so I have decided to ask to feature this WikiProject in the Wikipedia SignpostWikiProject report on a future date.Please stop by our newsroom or contact me on my talk page to arrange an interview. Thanks! Before I can continue, please indicate your acceptance here, on my talk page, or at our newsroom. -- Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook) 18:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd be happy to join in, but I can't speak for anyone else. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 18:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Ditto (depending on what's involved).--Plad2 (talk) 20:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I can fit you in July 19, so notify your members and begin answering the questions here. Thanks, mono 05:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I've posted the above Beatrix Potter tale to GAN. Would a member review please? Also looking for comments and suggestions for improvement on Mr. McGregor before posting to GAN. Thanks! Susanne2009NYC (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Young Adult Literature (YA Lit) needs to be merged into Young-adult fiction as it's a duplicate article. I gave a go at doing it and gave up as it's a complex merge that I think requires some knowledge of the sources to do well. I would just redirect, but the page is partly sourced and not entirely badly written. The editor who created the duplicate article was a hit-and-run account, or I'd ask them to sort it out. Fences&Windows 19:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be a (small) consensus for this merge. Does anyone feel like taking on the task?--Plad2 (talk) 07:59, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Roll call
Should another roll call be held? It's been a while and it seems that a good many of our members are inactive. It would be good to clear up the membership list. Thanks, RockdrumBa-dumCrash 19:09, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I've drawn up a draft:
Hey WikiProject Children's literature! Thanks for being a part of the Children's and Young Adult literature WikiProject here on Wikipedia. We're cleaning up our list of members; the project would like to make sure all members listed are participating. Therefore, we're holding a roll call for the members of the Children's literature WikiProject and appreciate your help by acting quickly. Before you confirm your membership, you'll want to look over the obligations for members. In order to remain a member, you must:
Contribute to Children's and Young Adult literature-related articles constructively.
Be generally active in the affairs of the WikiProject (watchlist and participate in the General Forums, vote at AfDs, keep up with vandalism, and more).
Additionally, consider adding {{user WikiProject Children's literature}} to your userpage for project updates and to show off your membership. We hope you're still active and interested, as the Children's and Young Adult literature WikiProject is looking for more contributions from members. Thanks, ~~
I considered this, but the roll call is supposed to be annual and the last one was in January. I don't see any reason to hold another one until next year. The best way to clear up the list is probably to check which of the Inactive Members should be moved to Former Members - normally, I think it's no edits for six months, a retirement notice or a block.
Also, membership doesn't require any specific activities, I thought... everything is optional. I don't even meet all of the criteria above. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 19:57, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
I think we should wait for the annual roll call as per Strdst above. I get the impression from the other Project I'm involved in that they, too, are experiencing a slump in activity, which (as someone there pointed out) may have more to do with it being Summer in the Northern Hemisphere than anything else. Speaking personally, the demands of my garden and other Real Life activities have put a dent into the amount of time I can devote to Wikipedia in the past few months. Rather than a roll-call, it might be useful to put some thought into ideas for recruitment.--Plad2 (talk) 07:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
Edmund Evans is currently nominated as a featured article candidate, should anyone be interested in having a look. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Madeline Rating
I have recently completed an major expansion and revamp of the article Madeline, since Madeline has been rated high importance on the scale however only as an stub, I believe the article is way over the classification of stub and deserves a much higher rating. Thanks In Advance Matt-tastic (talk) 07:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
I have created a custom class mask at Template:Children'sLiteratureWikiProject/class which will allow the addition of more quality classes to the project - in this case, a Book class. Before it goes live, I wanted to check that this is okay with everyone - if not I can delete it. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 08:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
After a recent request, I added WikiProject Children's literature to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature/Popular pages.
The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:07, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I have this idea of moving WikiProject Fablehaven to a task force. When I brought it up at WikiProject Novels, someone mentioned that it would also fall under the scope of this project, which is true. So I'm looking for opinions - should the task force be created under Wikiproject Novels or here? Thanks, PrincessofLlyrroyal court 14:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
If the series is children's literature, it makes more sense to create the task force here, but there are quite a few children's literature task forces on WikiProject Novels. I don't think it makes a big difference. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 15:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
My biggest consideration here is activity. The task force needs active participants, so I would rather create it under the wikiproject that is more active. However, for accuracy, I could create it here and just hope to draw participants from novels. I'll get back to you when I actually do move it. PrincessofLlyrroyal court 18:22, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Merge Discussion
The discussion here may be of interest to editors frequenting this board. d'oh!talk 16:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Newsletter
I realise that the idea of a project Newsletter was disagreed with a while ago but I do think that it would be a good idea. It would boost the activity around the Project and work as advertising, because the newsletter would be on people's talk pages, other editors would see it and visit the project. What do you guys think? RockdrumBa-dumCrash(Review me) 10:39, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I think a newsletter is a good idea provided there's enough useful information to make it worthwhile, and someone is prepared to commit to updating it regularly. I would be happy to help out if we started one. strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 11:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
I seem to be fighting a losing battle in getting an article published in the WP Signpost so would be happy to take on regular responsibilities although wouldn't want to do it all. Thanks, RockdrumBa-dumCrash(Review me) 15:56, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I've been browsing around several WikiProjects and came across this. It's WikiProject Military History's Contest department. How about it? It could encourage activity in the project. RockdrumBa-dumCrash(Review me)
Fair point. It's a pity that the collaboration department is getting very little activity. I'd work on the article but I havn't read the book aand know nothing about it. Thanks, RockdrumBa-dumCrash(Review me) 14:38, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
This is a new stub about a UAE comic. I wouldn't normally add the Children's Literature Project template to the talk page of an article about a comic but I notice that it was awarded a prize "for children's literature". I'm in two minds as to whether that brings it within the scope of this project or not. Any thoughts on this, anyone?--Plad2 (talk) 06:01, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
Twilight importance
Twilight as a topic has a disproportionately low importance rating, probably because it was rated before the popularity of the movie franchise. I don't have time to fix this at the moment - any volunteers? strdst_grl(call me Stardust) 21:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
I went through most of the pages and the majority are rated mid-class. New Moon (novel) is rated high and Jacob Black is low, but I didn't change either of them. I did upgrade both Breaking Dawn (novel) and Edward Cullen to mid-class. The real question here is how important we think they are. So, mid-class or should we go higher? PrincessofLlyrroyal court 17:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
To tag or not to tag?
New article on Charles McIntosh (mycologist). Appears to have been the inspiration for Beatrix Potter's Mr McGregor. Do we we tag for this project or not? On one level he would seem to me to fit the "...relating to children's literature..." criterion. On another level, I can't help feeling that if we include this sort of article, that would risk broadening the scope of this Project too far. And, I wonder whether this subject really meets the notability guidelines. As you can see, I'm in several minds about all of these questions and bring it here for discussion.--Plad2 (talk) 06:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I would be inclined to say yes, tag him for the project. His notability (questionable) seems to be almost entirely in relation to Beatrix Potter. PrincessofLlyrroyal court 13:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
And here's another one I've tagged (somewhat doubtfully) for this Project just so that we don't lose sight of it. It's a not-for-profit literacy initiative involving children and children's books. As ever, I have no objections if anyone here feels that it's beyond the scope of this project and removes the template.--Plad2 (talk) 06:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
Copy vio removed
While adding references to the list of unreferenced BLPs for this project, I discovered and deleted huge portions of blatant copyvio from both Melissa de la Cruz and the article on her books Blue Bloods (series). Further information can be found on the relevant talk pages. I also cleaned up and referenced April Halprin Wayland and provided a suitable reference for Ana María Shua, a very notable Argentine author who deserves a better article. Voceditenore (talk) 10:01, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Members of the project are invited to look at, or comment on, this expanded article about an English Victorian writer of boys' stories. Brianboulton (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
wringers
This is an horrible book jacket and summary as a parent to read. How disturbing to think that it is a difficult "choice" for a child not to strangle a small animal?! There is pathological and psychological consequences in what is suggested and "entertained" by this deranged topic and implications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.128.151.159 (talk) 01:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
This comment appears to be a personal opinion about the 1997 Newbery Honor winner, Wringer (novel) by Jerry Spinelli. A better place for this sort of comment would be a book review page. Wikipedia is not a place for expressing personal opinions.--Plad2 (talk) 06:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Newsletter Issue (Pardon the pun)
Hi all, I've got a bit of a problem with Issue 003 of the newsletter. I need your help with writing. I've got a small section on Children's literature news (movies, new releases etc...) and a project announcements section. If anyone can help I would be much obliged. Many thanks, RockdrumBa-dumCrash(Driving well?) 14:07, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Children and young adult literature articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.
We would like to ask you to review the Children and young adult literature articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.
We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!
If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
Is anyone else concerned that the selection is so heavily weighted towards the classics? There are very few examples of great modern children's literature on this list. If this is going to children, shouldn't it be something they might find engaging?--Plad2 (talk) 19:24, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
2011 Carnegie nominations
The 2011 nominations for the Carnegie Medal are out. I added them to the Carnegie Medal page. Einbierbitte (talk) 18:46, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
This notice is to advise interested editors that a Contributor copyright investigation has been opened which may impact this project. Such investigations are launched when contributors have been found to have placed copyrighted content on Wikipedia on multiple occasions. It may result in the deletion of images or text and possibly articles in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. The specific investigation which may impact this project is located here.
All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to CCI clean up. There are instructions for participating on that page. Additional information may be requested from the user who placed this notice, at the process board talkpage, or from an active CCI clerk. Thank you. VernoWhitney (talk) 05:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
A search for references found a more then 100 published (gBooks) mentions, in unrelated publications. But they all seem to be in lists of kids books, with no special mention of notability. Fails WP:N and WP:V
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
There is a serious problem at Mad Hatter. Although the character is not called by this nickname by Carroll, and although the nickname is (thanks to Disney) widespread, it is essentially inaccurate for the article name to be what it is. The previous name of the article was Hatter (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and this was moved in 2006 on the basis of practically NO discussion at all. Carrollian scholarship is alway careful to use the Hatter's correct name, and never calls him by his nickname. The other articles about characters in Alice use the correct character names. The proposed move is either to Hatter (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) or to Hatter or to The Hatter. Please visit the Talk page and help us resolve this issue. Thank you. (I am the person who proposed the move.) -- Evertype·✆ 19:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
It was moved. I don't know if any members of this Project participated. -- Evertype·✆ 18:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
Task complete. 1,853 edits. Note some concerns were raised here: User talk:Xeno#needs-infobox article tagging (perm) - regarding an infobox being not a necessity, but an editorial choice. FYI. –xenotalk 21:09, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Done - The bot tagging has been reverted. I will begin to check the remaining tags soon. strdst_grl (call me Stardust) 10:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Rock drum (talk·contribs·guestbook)
