Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books/Archive 1

message: It started off with this question:
If you were to put up a proposal (or the start of a discussion) for using the International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD (in some form or other) or some other standard for getting a good handle on articles which describe books, where would you place it?  I was thinking of putting it on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels discussion page since the Infobox controversy for books was indrectly discussed there. I would announce it elsewhere too.  But where?  The appearance of a book-related Infobox in the article onComics and Sequential Art got me  started on this path, along with a recent flowering of articles related to book collecting. In a sense, my putting together the ISBD article a few hours ago, with parts from the Catalog article was my first step towards this. AlainV 07:04, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)
Then:
There really should be a Wikipedia:WikiProject Books as a parent project of Novels, Comics and other literary Wikiprojects. And you wrote a good article on ISBD.  However, I'm hesitant to require an ISBD in all book articles.  Requiring too much formatting might kill WikiProject Books just as people are reluctant to contribute to Wiktionary -- it would place all the burden of researching the info for each book on the few people (you and me?) who know ISBD format well enough.  If you want a standard description in the Infobox, then show them how to cite the book for a bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style which more people know how to write -- and so those who don't know can learn. GUllman 17:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The ISBD style is not too hard, so I would be tempted to encourage (a modified version of) it for books that fit into the project.  It probably belongs in a box of some sort - at the bottom of the page.  This avoids distracting the reader who just wants to know something about the book, and it avoids people feeling like it's too difficult to add a new book (books without it don't look badly wrong).  --Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
I am not sure about the usefulness of a box at the bottom.  See below AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
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A suggestion that I have found useful: for books that are available online (Project Gutenberg or other etext, say) a link to one or more online copies is extremely convenient.  Especially for Project Gutenberg books, there is no convenient way to find out much about the book before reading it (usually not even as much as appear on the back cover of a paperback) so I'd rather find my books here.  No reason that a list of books with full text online couldn't serve as a bookstore... --Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, giving the metadata useful for picking ebooks fron the Gutenberg collection or other open source text archives  would be nice, but I would not want book entries or lists in Wikipedia to be just that given the unpredictable nature of external links. If the links were trustable then the Wikipedia entries could become a combination of an online public access catalog and Amazon book descriptions and reviews for the open source books.   But in theory at least a book is worth an encyclopedia entry becasue there is something lasting or significant about it in human History or in its immediate impact on society. So. it should be more than an enticing book review or a useful warning, and the structure of the template should take this into account. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
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Also: are audio books included? --Andrew 18:00, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Sure, audio books should be included, but the question is do we make a separate multimedia template, or do we accomodate them within the ISBD(G) or one of the specialized ISBD media templates ? Both are valid. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
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What's the fair use situation on book covers?  If I own a paper book, can I scan the cover and post a low-resolution picture on the book page?  That would be really nice... --Andrew 18:09, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
We were discussing just that on the web4lib list ( a list for reference librarians who use the web a lot) and the upshot was that even though cases like Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation seem to consider thumbnails to be some form of fair use and the libraries own the books whose thumbnails they would be posting, nobody wanted to risk being sued by just one disgruntled artist or publisher or author.  The thing is that when we are dealing with a library there are potentially  hundreds of thousand or more of those thumbnails, which greatly heightens the chance of a suit or some other legal attack at some point .  Many artists and illustrators sell only partial and very limited rights to a publisher for using their illustration as a book cover.  In addition, there is a company in Washington state which specialises in selling (among other things) thumbnails of books, for use as metadata in a library's digital [catalog]] or OPAC.  They have negotiated the rights with the publishers, one by one.  Given this presence in the marketplace I doubt the publishers (or the lawyers of the ilustrators) would all smile upon Wikipedia producing thumbnails or other images. AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
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I made two articles on books as an example of a possible template exploiting the table of contents feature:
*Control of Communicable Diseases Manual
*David Starr, Space Ranger
I thought that this would be a way to go around the objections some have made of using an Infobox, while at the same time giving a summary of the info.  You can always click a table contents off or choose never to see them.  Anybody have other ideas for this?  AlainV 07:07, 2004 May 1 (UTC)
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If you have no objections, or some reasons why not, I would like to split the WikiProject Mass Market and Genre Fiction Simonides added in two: WikiProject Mass Market and Wikiproject Genre Fiction, with both of them as direct descendants of WikiProject Books.  I know from experience with science fiction that genre fiction can be a monster, even when the genre is not fantasy, where truly there be real monsters.  Also I know that there is science fiction which is straight genre and mass market and other science fiction which is genre but not mass market, and still other like the works of Jules Verne or HG Wells which is canonical.  Splitting the genre fiction from the mass market fiction makes regroupings easier afterwards.
Finally I would like to eliminate the intermediary WikiProject Miscellaneous Prose - Criticism, Letters, Memoirs etc., so that the two others placed as its descendants (WikiProject Fictional Series and WikiProject Critical Theory) become instead direct descendants of WikiProject Books.  In a subject classification system like the Library of Congress classification there is some sense in making "miscellaneous" categories because they give more power to the cataloguing librarians  charged with attributing them to books and after that to the reference librarians helping users find books.  But Wikipedia does not have huge permanent staffs.  We need something light, with as a flat a classification as possible.
For months now, right after having set up Wikiproject books along with others whose names you see there, I have been sifting though all the new articles every day, looking for book articles, placing basic bibliographical info (author and title are usually there but place of publication, editor and correct date are often missing and ISBN is missing more than half the time) and placing an entry for the book in List of books by title.  I have also put all the pages of the list of books by title on my watchlist.  I did this to get an idea of what kind of "movement" there was in book articles, and also to see how much work it would mean to use a very simple variation of the ISBD as the basics for a minimalist book template.  It turns out that there are not that many book articles coming in:  Barely 2 or 3 per day on average.  It turns out also that just  getting and placing minimalist bibliographical elements and then putting the relevant entries to the articles in the List of books by title takes a lot more time than I thought it would!  AlainV 03:59, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Use of ISBD

message: If we could get the Books project underway, what do people think of making a Wikireader of books. I, personally, would like to get an organised set of articles to read about books as I love books! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:09, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Did anything come of this?  I am connected with the Wikipedia 1.0 project, (specifically part of the Work via WikiProjects section), and we are trying to organise such lists on each subject.  Any list you have would be very useful for our project.  You might consider formatting it like in WP:Chem, see the very successful worklist of around 380 chemical compounds, which incorporates an assessment system like we use at WP 1.0.  I think a Wikireader for books is a great idea, I'd buy one! Walkerma 07:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikireader 

message: I've just created Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) for discussion about the layout of discographies, filmographies, bibliographies and the like.  It is an attempt to standardise these lists, as their styles currently vary greatly (order, content, layout).  I thought it might be of interest to the partipants on this WikiProject.  violet/riga (t) 16:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists of works 

message: The articles on Franz Kafka and Greek literature have been listed to be improved on Wikipedia: This week's improvement drive. Add your vote there if you want to support the article.--Fenice 06:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement drive

message: Hi folks,
I just wanted to let you know about a list of votes for deletion on articles about individual publications.  (That includes magazines, pamphlets, essays, poems, etc, as well as books, but books go through VfD pretty often too).  You can find the list here:  Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Publications.
Since you're interested in books and improving Wikipedia's coverage of them, you might want to monitor this list.
If you find the list useful, please also help to maintain it by adding new items and archiving old ones.  Thanks!
Cheers,
-- Visviva 15:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion list 

message: Hello,
Please notice this project. 
Thanks,APH 06:31, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls| Science pearls]]

message: Think all the interesting good books have been covered? You might be surprised what books are missing.  I have created a list of notable books (critically acclaimed or best selling) that may not be covered in wikipedia as part of the Missing Encyclopedic Article wikiproject.  The goal ultimately is to reduce the list to nothing, creating articles or redirects for redlinked movies and removing valid blue links in the list.  For a comparison, you may want to see the companion lists, notable albums and  notable films.  Any area where you can help would be awesome.  Thanks!!! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 01:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/List of notable books|List of notable books]] 

message: Humanities is now a COTW candidate. Please vote/comment/help! Thanks, Walkerma 05:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collaboration of the Week 

message: Should there be a seperate offspring wikiproject for short stories, or should they just be part of this or novels?
Billy Shears 03:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Problem is one of definition. As part of the [[:Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels] we are including a broad definition of Novels that would include Mass Market novels and Genre fiction novels. So I don't see the need for seperate projects for these as such (mainly as I can't really see what oversight and guidance help such projects could offer). Also I believe that would include "Novellas" (i.e. short novels) - but when does a story become a "Short Story". We could debate that one for years and still not make much progress. We need to be sensible and use a bit of give and take here. Try not to debate too much and just get on and sensitively get on and write good articles. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 09:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Short Stories?

message: I agree except that as we share the infobox use with many others - and also particularly with the WikiProject Books, we will need to get concensus on this. Also we might not bae able to get it a mandatory as Non-Fiction books might have a Category but not use the description "Genre". Purhaps we could have two "optional" fields one "Subject" and one "Genre". Being optional that will allow the changes to be made (if agreed fairly safely and quickly) with out upseting existing usages. Try raising this on the WP Books talk pages first as see what response you get. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 09:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  genre explecitly stated in the info box (to Eagle)

message: In brief, I was wondering if we can get the genre explecitly stated in the info box. This makes for easier catorization, and sorting. Many articles as is do not have the genre stated at all. The reader is left to infer what the genre is. This also makes it easier to regex and sort things into categories. 
This will help our project greatly.
All of the above was written and posted by Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summery 

message: Maybe you guys have been over this ground. I'd like to see a sweeping proposal to standardize all the subcategories of :Category:Books by author, :Category:Novels by author, and similar categories in :Category:Poems, :Category:Short stories, and :Category:Plays. Before I slap cfr labels on everything, I'd love to see a consensus here on what should be done. I'm not sure I have a consensus in my head, so it might be hard to find in a group. But anyway, right now there are the following variations (and probably more):
*:Category:A. E. Van Vogt books, :Category:C.E. Dorsett novels, :Category:Edgar Allan Poe short stories, :Category:Rudyard Kipling works, :Category:Auden poems
*:Category:Books by Jeffrey Archer, :Category:Works by Arthur Koestler, :Category:Novels by Jeffrey Archer, :Category:Short stories by Stephen King, :Category:Poems by Shelley
*:Category:Enid Blyton's books, :Category:William Blake's poems
*:Category:Works of Henry James, :Category:Novels of Russell Banks, :Category:Poetry of Lord Byron, :Category:Poems of Shakespeare
My preference is to make everything "(subcategory) by (author)," possibly even leading to elimination of "Books by author" and replacing it with "Novels by (author)," "Anthologies by (author)," and "Nonfiction books by (author)". (Does that cover every book possibility? Maybe not.) But even if there isn't universal agreement about that, I'd like to see the "(X) of (Y), " "(Y)'s (X)," and "(X) (Y)" go into the dustbin of history, and I'd like everyone to get a first name. Does anyone else like standardizing everything as "(X) by (full Y)"?--Mike Selinker 07:25, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: wow, what a task. Laudible aim and I would strongly support such consistency. We would need to publish and police such a restructure in standards thoughout the Book related WikiProjects once agreed. Two observations though: Firtly, you may get few responses as I find few people tend to get envolved with the Book projects unless encouraged. Secondly, I might prefer the :Category:C.E. Dorsett novels pattern if only because it might appear to be more usual in other projects ie. Singles, Albums. e.g. :Category:The Beatles singles, :Category:The Beatles albums, :Category:The Beatles songs, :Category:The Rolling Stones songs etc. even Film categories seem to have the same structure, :Category:Cold War films, :Category:World War II films, :Category:Prison films etc. where the unique, and particular element is first and the media type is second. In short I Support the general aim, but Oppose the particular option proposed. But if you have perticular reasons for what you suggest, please let me know. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 09:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only reason I'd pick "(X) by (Y)" rather than "(Y) (X)" is that the author might also be the subject of other works. So, for example, you wouldn't know whether Profiles in Courage is by or about John F. Kennedy if the title was "John F. Kennedy books." But I'm certainly not wedded to the proposal. I'd just like them to be consistent.--Mike Selinker 19:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I see your point although as you might see from mine I am also aiming at consistency - albeit across a wider article base than just books. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 19:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, absolutely. I think the "(Y) (X)" scheme is fine. You want to ping some more of the participants in this project and see if they have opinions?--Mike Selinker 20:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: After printing out the categories below :Category:Books in order to look at the big picture, I agree it is quite a mess, not only from inconsistent use of "books by", "novels by", "works by", but the scattering of genres such as fantasy and science fiction.  I'll offer my suggestions, and a survey should probably be announced on the Community Portal, but it would probably take a bot to change the categories on so many pages after a plan of action is decided. GUllman 22:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  recasting the book, poem, and play subcategories 

message: Howdy all - I would like to propose a political book stub and a religious studies book stub  category, as :Category:Non-fiction book stubs is getting full and there are at least 140 titles that would fall into politics, and 85 into religious studies. Please discuss at Religious studies book stubs proposal and  Political book stubs proposal if you like. Cheers - Her Pegship 22:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Created :Category:Political book stubs; feel free to populate. "Religion book stub" is still under discussion. Her Pegship 06:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub proposal 

message: I have run across , which is a sub-cat of . They appear to contain the same thing - books about crimes or mysteries in "real life". (There is a separate .) Shouldn't True crime books and Crime books be merged and one of them deleted? Her Pegship 19:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - question is which should be the correct title, or should we refine it further. No debate on should, only on what to. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 07:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My vote would be for . More accurate. Cheers, Her Pegship 18:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Update: We ended up with , which suits me fine. Her Pegship 19:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant crime book category 

message: When adding interwiki links, I was surprised to learn that en.wp has a WikiProject Books rather than one for literature. What I'm missing here is people: authors, translators, reviewers; institutions: libraries, publishers, bookstores, bookfairs, academies, writer schools, literary prizes; theories: (sub/cross) genres, classifications, patterns, history. Perhaps some of these are covered by other WikiProjects (e.g. biographies for authors), in which case I'd like to see links to those. --LA2 18:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We have Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels, which would probably be a closer match for the "literature" interwiki links you just made. Wikipedia:WikiProject Books can cover all the other topics you mentioned that are even remotely related to books, whether it's the physical object (publishing, printing) or the works within (whether fiction or nonfiction). If someone has a project they want to promote, they can list it here, and attract support until it's big enough for its own WikiProject page. GUllman 00:10, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Given the amount of clutter in the categories and pages of literature in general. I think that there should be a Literature WikiProject. What do people think? Any takers? – chemica 07:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is one, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Literature from 3 August 2005 :) if You know what I mean. feydey 11:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I still think there needs to be a project that covers others forms of literature other than the novel. A lot of the poetry and drama articles need collobrative effort but get somewhat loss in the big category of books. --chemica 19:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at Related WikiProjects, or Wikipedia:WikiProject Theatre. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 19:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books vs Literature 

message: I don't actually see a lot of guidance at this page. I was looking for advice on what to do with an article like The Jazz Piano Book. Are our articles supposed to contain "reviews", summaries, links to reviews, or what exactly? Or is this WP still getting off the ground? Stevage 12:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not too active here - but what there is by way of guidance I think is in Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. Firstly I would add an  and flesh that out. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guidance?

message: WikiProject Arts 
Announcing the creation of WikiProject Arts, an effort to create a collaboration between all arts projects and artistically-minded Wikipedians in order to improve arts coverage. If you think you can help, please join us!
HAM  17:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: An invitation to all members of this project

message: Please, let's make one, under , to accompany the sub-cats for astronomy books, biology books, ecology books, etc. Her Pegship 22:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. . --feydey 22:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And thanks! I wasn't sure how much discussion I had to elicit first or I woulda done it myself. Cheers, Her Pegship 03:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  No category for chemistry books?! 

message: I wasn't able to find a Wikiproject for articles on writers/authors, so I'm writing this here. I've been thinking about creating an infobox to use with articles on writers. Here's the basic idea for one:
:Note: * denotes optional feilds.

This can be updated to include more fields if needed. I'll probably be creating this template soon. If anyone has any comments on it, get back to me about it. -- LGagnon 04:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is largely superflous and will get deleted fairly quickly. There is a perfectly good  for the basic infomation required and the extra ones mentioned here are probably best served in the body of the article. It is not too widely used and deserves more exposure! i.e. use  (used in George R. R. Martin, Aleister Crowley, Dorothy Parker and others :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Kevin, Infobox_Biography is enough, f.ex. genre could get a long list, but it could be easier to explain genres associated with the specific books that the author has written in the article itself. feydey 13:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We have more detailed infoboxes for other people than writers, such as musicians and philosphers. I don't see why it would hurt to use one with more detail for writers, who have just as much info to summarize in an infobox as either of the aforementioned. I've seen Infobox_Biography, and I find it rather useless for this purpose; thus, I've added the most important info that could go into an infobox for a writer to give it some use other than to just repeat the birth & death dates. While that can appear later in the articles, it's easier on the reader to get this info up front through an infobox. As for genres, if a writer has written in a lot of them, then we only need to mention major genres; the others can be mentioned in the article body. -- LGagnon 16:08, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Genre is probably the lesser of the problems with this (other biographical infobox are also problematic) Occupation is another. You could argue that in most cases this is redundant, they are a writer. If not a particular branch of writting (cuch as novelist), but many have other professions, but these are notorisous for changing through time, so which to choose. Influences are more often than not highly subject assignment of critics. Infobox should be kept for pure Fact. (i.e. data). Magnum Ops, implies the author is known for one, in many cases this ia true but again this case be high subjective. Not helpfull. Most of these extra fields, create problems, rather that help. At rush - excuse the mistakes :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it around on the final version of the template (:Template:Infobox_Writer), and most fields are optional. If a writer has a definite magnum opus, then add it; if not, don't. If the writer mentions influences, or if some are obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt, then they can be added. I've tries to make the working version of it as loosely structured as possible so it works with any writer. If there's a problem for a specific writer, we can work it out on a case-by-case basis. For occupations, we can limit it to writing occupations to reduce the amount of info to add. -- LGagnon 18:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Template for writers

message: I noticed the recent use of Template:Infobox Writer on several pages about authors. Please note that there is a similar, unused, template at Template:Author. I've added notes to the talk pages, but notes on the actual pages in "noinclude" tags might be better, or just get the unused one deleted. Carcharoth 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Author template is a bit lacking. It gives less info than the Writer template, and it makes too many fields a requirement (not every writer has a pseudonym or website) instead of having the lose structure of the Writer template. Additionally, the Writer template was made for all types of writers, not just fiction authors (thus the low amount of required fields). -- LGagnon 15:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. But shouldn't the Author template be retired/deleted or something? Carcharoth 19:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not being used for anything, so maybe it should be deleted. -- LGagnon 20:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with deletion - when I created the template I was looking for something lightweight for Robin Hobb and hoped people would take it and extend it as necessary. That didn't happen and nobody's using it anymore --PdDemeter 20:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overlapping templates 

message: I updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/User Participant. When I tried adding it to my userpage, but it kept screwing up if it wasn't first. I first removed an unneeded tag, and then decided to just overhaul the entire code (using Template:User geek as a base). Just letting everyone know. EVula 18:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh I see now - you left the GEEK category in - I'll go back and remove it.! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, sorry about that; I could have sworn that I'd gotten it all. Terribly embarassing. EVula 15:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updated User Participant template 

message: I wonder why the WikiProject Books page is cited as a notability guideline in the templates template:notability or template:IncGuide. Perhaps someone can clear this up for me but I would assume that the short notability guidelines given on the project page have not been subjected to some kind of approval procedure by the community, right? In any case, I feel that there should be a separate proposal for notability guidelines concerning books. People in AfD discussions are currently citing the Project page as a notability guideline and arguing that "any book with an ISBN number" should be in. I think that part of the project page is way too lax. Pascal.Tesson 15:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I just looked neighter of those templates have links to Wikipedia:WikiProject Books? Am I missing something? WikiProjects are never to be considered as Guideline pages. feydey 19:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I just changed them to redirect instead to the new proposed guidelines. Pascal.Tesson 03:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability guidelines 

message: User:Fuhghettaboutit has just proposed a new set of guidelines for notability of books. It would be a great help if some of the active members in the books project could weigh in on this and in particular if they have some ideas for particularly relevant past AfD discussions concerning books. Thanks. Pascal.Tesson 03:07, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help on notability guidelines 

message: Per advice from my good friend, I've re-activated the daughter sub-project WP:WikiProject Fictional series, since I'm editing fiction articles in nothing but series pages. Also created :category:WikiProject Fictional series. I can use some help while I study up on these guidelines and those in the Novels daughter=project in purusing those (fairly unevolved) listed and try to synchronize them. 
I'm heavily involved with constructing 1632 series articles, which throws some interesting curveballs... about half the extant series is short fiction anthologies at the moment, and since it's a web based collaborative fiction follow-on to what was meant to be a stand-alone novel (1632 (novel) wherein the priciple author and editor was dragooned into postponing other work by his admiring public and come up with sequels, etc.) 
Even the novels won't (definitely) be released in 'milieu calendar order' (the next two novels in publishing scheduled order will be 1635: The Canon Law and then the long awaited 1634: The Baltic War now to come out next December and May respectively) and the short fiction is all over the calendar too! — let's say I've got my hands full, and can use some help. We're looking at about three to four books a year at the moment, each over 400 pages! // <B>Fra</B>nkB 01:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Blame Her Pegship [[WP:WFs]]

message: I need to add here, that I've done some organization stuff like the new shortcuts [[WPP:Books], WPP:Novels, WPP:series, and WP:WFs, and cross-linked some of the pertinent cats. Redirects (like those just listed) will show as '-' pipesorted (dash), Main daughters as space, templates under '!', though I haven't back tracked to verify consistancy yet, but it helps keep things straight. Technically, that sort of standard ought to be imposed from this parent project and be consistant downwards. (As Pegship knows, I've been spending a lot of non-fiction edit time in the interwiki Wikimedia Commons and cross-project category organization and equalization, so these 'sort tokens' are fairly debugged, though a different 'system of symbols' is worth discussing... it just sort of happened over the last six weeks on the commons. Gotta run! // <B>Fra</B>nkB 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just out of curiosity, where did the convention for the - and ! sortkeys come from? Did I miss a discussion? So far I've only seen comments about using spaces and asterisks. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 23:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I covered this on  around the time you were going on vacation... but then again there was that thunderstorm that killed some edit buffers I never got back to saving. One for certain was on your page just before you left for vacation. Now that I'm trying to play catch up from mine... the answer was that it seemed the right thing to do at the time. With my learning disabilities setting related matters off in their own little group makes sense as a A) reminder (of alt. names (redirects), templates, etc. that bear on a topic (Category).)... no reason a cat can't be a reference after all for more than one type of object. The pipe tricks cause said objects to group, which keeps them straight as well as out of the way of the main business of the cat. B) List place for others to look at and learn the ropes. Particularly potent for our situation as people can just follow the listed link to see the why and wherefore's. C) Mostly, I have enough trouble with all the ins-and-outs around here that I forever and always try to think of ways for things to be easier on the newbies. For example if a template operates on the articles listed in a cat, and really doesn't have other scope, I believe it should be catted there as well. Whether you use a SPC, '!', '*' or whatever to sort assets of one type into their own special group is irrelevant as to that chosen. Consistancy across every group of cats would be ideal, but is wholy unnecessary if one is consistant in the local page spaces. So How do you use a SPC and '*'... maybe I made a mistake and got at least one of them 'right' by accident! <g> // <B>Fra</B>nkB 18:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand the reason for using sortkeys, I only wondered about the choice of sort characters, since on the EnWP we rarely see ! and -, but rather use the spaces & *s. You just type in a pipe | with a space or an asterisk after it, then the page name. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 22:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: On category pipesorting conventions

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 17:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:{{ucfirst:Book card }} 

message: There is a dispute on whether or not spoiler tags are appropriate for Wikipedia. Some editors wish to remove spoiler tags while other editors wish to keep them and/or update their guidelines and appearance. A request for comment has been started at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC.  All editors are invited to share their input on any or all of the issues being discussed. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoiler tag Request for comment 

message: The Giver is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Giver]] 

message: Middle-earth is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 17:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Middle-earth]] 

message: I'm about to create a sub-cat of , , which would include reference works, history of film, Leonard Maltin, etc. Any thoughts? ♥ Her Pegship♥ 16:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that cat having many articles, so IMHO go ahead. P.S. I hope that screenplays won't be included (some ppl might think they are books about films...). feydey 21:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm hoping to make that clear in the cat description. Thanks for the note (I hadn't thought of that!). ♥ Her Pegship♥ 04:37, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books about film 

message: I have opened a new can of worms at Category talk:Non-fiction, regarding use of the terms literature, books, non-fiction, and non-fictional. Have at it. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 22:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-fiction naming 

message: Is there any guidance of listing individual chapters for books and/or serialized fiction? Does anyone have opinions on if it should be done or not?   --Kunzite 03:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well some have chapters listed, like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and some guidance here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books/Non-fiction_article. feydey 12:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Listing Chapters in Books and Serialized Fiction. 

message: I have just greatly expanded this article from its initial stub status, and I would like suggestions. marbeh raglaim 01:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Prehistory of the Far Side]]