Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Userbox

This user is a member of WikiProject Literature.

What do people think of this box? I just can't resist the urge to make new userboxes. This is just an offering; I know Warlordjohncarter offered to make one too. – Scartol · Talk 01:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I love it. Wrad 01:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Adding to my userpage now. Awadewit | talk 01:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk page project banner

Wow. Freaky. I was just about to post {{WPLit}} when Wrad's {{WPLIT}} showed up on the project page. Spooky! – Scartol · Talk 01:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess we're on the same wavelength, or listening to the same muse, rather. Wrad 01:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

assessment

Wrad (et al), I see you're adding the project template. This might be a good opportunity for me to shamefully/lessly promote the script I developed for this purpose: user talk:outriggr/assessment.js.

Might I also suggest we take a "reasoned" approach to article assessment. Rapidly adding "stub/start" ratings on articles can have a rather deleterious effect, sometimes, on the writers who may be working them (as was observed during the "WPBiography assessment drive"). I'm not sure what the "reasoned" approach should be, though. Assess "B"s and higher, and leave the rest for later? Do we want to use the "importance" tag broadly, or just for "Top"-importance articles? These are questions that we should have agreement on before implementing too many talk-page templates. This is a smart group of people and we don't necessarily have to implement the "template first, ask questions later" approach. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of creating the mentioned script, then talking about cautious use of templates.) –Outriggr § 02:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• I don't have a problem with just tagging things as we come across them and then leaving little notes explaining our rating. If we do that, we are less likely to cause the eruption that WPBiography did with its assessment drive. In the end, I'm not sure how helpful it is to know that there are a certain number of stubs, starts, B's, etc. since everything below GA really needs a lot of help anyway. Awadewit | talk 02:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all, the javascript is a bit over my head. Could you briefly explain what it could do for us? Secondly, sure, we can hold on the importance ratings. I've mostly been picking out the more important ones anyway, so I doubt anyone has been offended quite yet. As for the rating of quality, I've never heard anyone put up a serious fuss over something being labeled a stub, but maybe I've just been lucky. If you know of problems it has caused, maybe we should just do B or higher. I think one thing we can all agree on, though, is that the banner should be put on as many relevant articles as we can so we can see where we stand. Wrad 02:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Outriggr's script is really cool - it lets you rate articles and see their rating from the article page itself - no need to go to the talk page. However, having been a part of that WPBiography drive, I can tell you that people do get upset over the stub/start rating. Some people even get upset over the template itself. There was a near civil war over it with a few users - it was crazy! That is why I am suggesting the "attach and comment" as we go approach - the laid-back approach. I think users will respond much more appreciatively to that. Awadewit | talk 02:45, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, can you show me an example of an "attach and comment"? Wrad 02:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

See Irony, a key concept as you know. :) Awadewit | talk 03:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Alrighty then. Wrad 03:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, where put this?!) The javascript sets up a little interface on the article page. You can select a default template, like WPLIT, then press/key one of the "grade" links, which opens the talk page with the template automatically added and positioned. Just preview and save. Less mousing and keyboarding for the same result. I can provide you with the code you'll need to add to your monobook.js if you'd like to try it.

I don't know, maybe I'm being too picky and am just projecting, but I've been offended by stub ratings, and am not the only one. No volunteer who puts a few hours into producing even three well-written, researched paragraphs on a subject should be hit with the implied no-merit of a "stub" tag. Plain counter-productive.

I agree and disagree with Awadewit at the same time regarding "everything below GA...". Many fine articles are not nominated for GA, in which case they remain at the arbitrary "B" ceiling. Practically speaking as well, there is likely much less "editor attachment" to the broader articles that fall within the scope of this project; in other words, who to offend by a rating? Perhaps forget I mentioned it, but some guidelines for friendly assessment might be

• use the higher rating when it could go either way (as Awadewit says, below GA, they aren't horribly informative anyway)
• consider the article's current state against what it could be. Not every article can become a 7,000-word FA, although with the more general topics in this project, that's less true.

Yours in rambling, –Outriggr § 03:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wrad or others, if you want to try the javascript, put this code in User:yourNameHere/monobook.js and refresh according to the instructions at the top of the that page:

// [[User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js]] <nowiki>
importScript('User:Outriggr/metadatatest.js');
assessmentMyTemplateCode = ["{{WPLIT|class=|priority=}}"];
assessmentDefaultProject = "WPLIT";
// </nowiki>

–Outriggr § 06:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a word on attach & comment: I think it's a good idea to start with "This article has been rated [whatever] by WP:LIT because…" This way there's less confusion for people who stumble into it later on. (I know our template's the only way a person is likely to find these comments, but I still favor universal stand-alone-ness.) – Scartol · Talk 13:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

GA noms

Awadewit needs reviewers for a couple of articles. They've been waiting awhile and are starting to go sour :) . Anyway, the articles are The Guardian of Education and Lessons for Children. Wrad 02:39, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Scope

It would be nice if WPLiterature could encompass all of the other projects related to literature - if we could be an umbrella project for WPBooks, WPPoetry, etc. I suppose that would involve turf-warring, though. It just makes so much more sense to me to have everything under the name "literature" and then subdivide it. However, I see the Machiavellian politics now. :) Awadewit | talk —Preceding comment was added at 02:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this, too. My personal feeling on this is that the best way to get that sort of umbrella system is to gain respect by 1) creating good articles and 2) (and possibly more important) helping other projects out with their work as much as we can. Wrad 02:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

wee question... Can I assume of "Literature of Country" articles are within scope here? –Outriggr § 03:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say so. Wrad 03:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

How does everyone feel about bringing in rhetoric and rhetorical terms? They don't seem to have any other home. Wrad 04:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I dunno about rhetoric and rhetorical terms. I don't see another project that would fit better, but it doesn't feel like a snug fit for us. (Interesting that there's no language project.)

Another question I have: Are we taking on individual literary figures? If so, I know of a few FAs we could add. =) – Scartol · Talk 13:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think it makes sense to include rhetorical terms. "Rhetoric and Composition" is subsumed under many "Literature" departments these days. Perhaps listing a few would help us decide? Awadewit | talk 18:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hendiadys, Metonymy, etc. Rhetoric definitely spills over into writing as well as speaking. I think we should add it. I don't know about literary authors though, unless they have contributed heavily to literary theory. Is there an authors wikiproject? If not, then maybe. Wrad 18:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think of those as terms from rhetoric, usually; those are literary for me. When I think of "rhetoric" I usually think of Ciceronian terms. Awadewit | talk 18:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess we have different ideas of what rhetoric is. A rhetorician would claim those terms as his own, even though the are used heavily in literature. Wrad 03:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should be an umbrella project to Wikiproject Books and such, because I think our scope is different--more general types of articles. Bardofcornish 19:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There is an Authors WikiProject, but it only has two members and appears to be dormant. (And it's up for merging with other projects.) Of course, if we take on individual authors and/or works, then we'll have to differentiate between who is and is not classified as "literature". Messy! – Scartol · Talk 21:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

That group has been marked inactive and merged back into the Biography group. I think there should be SOME form of overlap between their group and ours.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The original conception of this project involved not getting into specific authors or works, so I'd rather not cover those. There is a WP:Biography Work Group covering writers and critics. I'd rather just point people there. Wrad 21:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not finding the Bio Project helpful in leading me to authors. I'd think it'd be useful to include authors under both the Bio and Lit projects. Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Something else that could be covered in here is themes in a literature. For example the treatment of landscape in gothic and romantic literature, or the Trojan War and the matter of Rome in medieval literature. For example, I would consider Troilus, an article on which I have done much work, as falling under this project as well as under Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology.--Peter cohen 10:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Literature peer review?

It's occurred to me that we might like to make a Literature peer review sponsored by this project. Many of us already handle lit articles at peer review, and it might be nice to have a literature-specific review here. Wrad 03:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

FA drive

I'm proposing that we start an FA drive. I think Literature might be a nice one to start with, but obviously I'm open to other suggestions. Bardofcornish 20:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Wrad 20:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, I would suggest working up to "literature". It is usually easier to write the "subarticles" first and then the umbrella article. "Literature" is such a broad topic that I would shudder to think how difficult such a page might be. Tackling something a little more manageable first might be good, especially since our members list a little short right now! :) I think even something like metaphor would be a challenge. Awadewit | talk 11:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I was proposing Literature because it seemed "traditional" to start with that sort of umbrella article. However, I see your point about the lack of members, and I agree that it might be easier to start with a smaller article. I'm open for suggestions. Bardofcornish 20:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

• What about plot? Basic, but still important. Awadewit | talk 21:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes. Looks like it could use a lot of work. I'm definately not experienced enough to do this on my own, so if someone would like to help me I would be very grateful. I'll start making a list of things that need work on the article's talk page. Bardofcornish (talk) 21:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure. I think the best way to do it would be to have each person involved tackle a certain aspect of plot, such as history, technique, differences between mediums, etymology, and so on. that way people won't get too overwhelmed. Wrad (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Listing in Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Literature

Is there a reason why this project is not listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Culture/Literature? I'm not sure of all the entries to be put in the table, so haven't added it.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Scope, Peer Review and Assessment wrt Troilus

I've almost going through the issues User:Awadewit suggested when Troilus became GA. Would people agree with me that as the article is about a title character in works by Shakespeare and Troilus, among others, and it deals with the development of the character through the ages, that this article should fall under WP:LIT or should only Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology apply? In any case, I am intending to push on towards the next point on assessment, so is literary peer review being established? And should I go for an assessment and attempt at getting to A here before going for Peer Review or after?--Peter cohen (talk) 20:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• I think that is the perfect article for this project because it spans all sorts of genres. As to the point about A-review and peer-review, I'm not sure we really have an A-review all up and running yet, so I would suggest peer-review. However, since peer-review is backlogged beyond belief, you will probably need to solicit reviews. See this list for people who volunteered to be contacted. Awadewit | talk 21:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Setting help

I'm engaged in some discussion of the nature of setting, here, and was wondering if I could solicit some input. Thanks! SharkD (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration

I wonder if you would like to adopt the rather abandoned Wikipedia:Literature collaboration of the fortnight. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 10:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't sure how free everyone is here about adding members, but I just thought I'd throw it out there that my Spanish Lit. class is doing a project called Wikipedia:WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem and could definitely use some help! thanks--Abarratt (talk) 02:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC) (Particularly with Dictator novel which I am working on)

WP:FICT has been revised

WP:FICT, the notability guideline for elements within a work of fiction (characters, places, elements, etc) has a new proposal/revision that is now live [1] Everyone is encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page. Ned Scott 22:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

1970s in literature

This article was nominated for AfD 2/24/2008. If you'd like to participate in discussions, please comment here. Coffee4me (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Academy in New York City

Hi literature aficionados! We're planning a Wikipedia:Academy at Columbia University in New York City in a month or two, and we would like some input on the possibility of an article-writing drive by Columbia students focusing on the topic of literary history. For background, see Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 8#Neglected subject area needed for Wikipedia:Academy content drive by novice Wikipedians. See also User talk:Pharos#Wikipedia Academy for a proposal by someone from the Wine WikiProject. Thanks for your help.--Pharos (talk) 21:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

What sort of articles are you looking for? Wrad (talk) 23:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles about authors, books, literary movements etc. that could be easily created and expanded by a novice, working from accessible library books and online resources. Basically, envision a computer lab full of students (without specialized knowledge in literature) working over a 2-3 hour period from online sources and whatever stack of secondary sources and reference books you might recommend. I think we're looking mostly for new articles (or I guess stubs might be OK too).--Pharos (talk) 05:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

why no authors?

Maybe there needs to be a clearer comment at the top of the project page about whether/how authors fit into the Literature Project. It doesn't make sense to me that authors are not included under biography AND literature simultaneously. I also notice that on the A&E Bio project page, the Artists and Dancers sections contain the templates for their respective WikiProject page, but the Writers section doesn't -- why are we leaving this information up to the Bio people? And is there a problem with having authors pages linked under both projects? Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 19:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

If they really aren't getting covered, and if people agree to take them in, let's take them in. Wrad (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think many of them are being categorized by the Biography A&E work group, but that's easy to miss on the talk page and doesn't really seem intuitive -- when I think of literary authors, biography is not where I would look. However, I realize now that this project is limited to the technical side of literature. I was mistakenly thinking that the name implied an umbrella grouping of all literary topics. Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Where does the Portal tag go?

I was just informed that the Portal tag belongs to the Talk pages, not the main pages. But the instructions on our site imply that it belongs on the main page. What's the correct procedure for marking the Lit portal? And what are the limits of the Lit portal tag -- can we use them on authors as well? Aristophanes68 (talk) 20:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "portal tag"? What does it look like? Wrad (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• Literature portal

It's mentioned on the main Project page. I found the portal guide, and it says to put the template on the bottom of the main article pages, esp. in the "see also" section. I think the person who "corrected" me was confused. Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Me too. Wrad (talk) 00:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Studying Literature

This is a discussion that I started on the wikiproject novels talk page,they told me it would be better if I moved to the literature wikiproject, contribute. DangerTM (talk) 08:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Is anyone going to comment on it?

---

Maybe we should define what comes under the heading of literature before we rush out and tag every book related article out there, some books shouldn't be added because they aren't very good in a literary sense, but others out there that have been classified as literature, don't deserve the title that has been given to them, maybe we should ponder this further, my talk page is always open.DangerTM (talk) 08:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

To answer this, we include all fiction narrative prose. If it is notable enough to be included on Wikipedia, it is notable enough for us to be interested in it. Bera in mind there are at least two major definitions of "Novels" (one that relates to "higher" literature and one which relates to all longer narrative fiction). We have extended our interest to short material (without changing the project title). Hope that help understand the project scope a bit, any questions please ask. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 08:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

But just because it is on wikipedia, doesn't mean that it is good enough. Take Jane Austen's Edgar and Emma short story, that is the worst terrible piece of fiction that i have ever read in my entire life, and others will agree with me, but it is considered literature because all of what Jane Austen wrote is considered literature, and that is wrong, i would group Jane Austen's works into the category of pulp fiction of 200 years ago, read pride and predjudice, it is terrible, worse than terrible in fact, i would say that edgar and emma is better, and that is worse than bad is bad. DangerTM (talk) 09:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

"Good" is a subjective term that we, as part of the Wikiproject and throughout Wikipedia, should never use to measure an article's worth. Notability is something with which we can judge whether or not an article has a right to exist and therefore be included under a particular Wikiproject, but just because you or I dislike a book does not make it any less literary. Pride and Prejudice and Emma, to use your examples, are literary classics and that cannot be disputed, unfortunately for some of us. :) Or, take The Last of the Mohicans, thought even when it was first published to be a truly horrid book; sometimes works become notable literature for reasons other than its sub par writing or predicable ending. It could be the first of its kind (LotM = one of the first American novels) or perhaps even a quintessential example of its genre (Emma = comic novel). María (habla conmigo) 13:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

"just because it is on wikipedia". As María says is all about notability, nothing about quality. In fact as I said earlier, "novels" can have different meanings, so can "literature". Literature can mean "high literature" a qualitative statement or it can refer to all types of written material in a certain field. (e.g. "it can be found in the sociological literature"). There are other meanings as well. If the output of notable authors of notable works are to be qualitatively commented on then the articles themselves should reflect this, but only from third part verifiable sources. We are to document the "literature" of a subject not to create it. (see WP:Notability, WP:Verifiable, WP:No original research for basic Wikipedia discussion of many of these issues. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to add my 2 cents, in order to declare something as "literature" or "good enough" for Wikipedia requires us to violate WP:NPOV. At that point the conversation ends. 23skidoo (talk) 14:40, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The negative version of this is similarly true. What if the work is "not good enough"? Also point of view. Notability is the test. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 14:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I am merely asking if we should classify it as literature or as a text, it is not based upon how good the book is, it is based upon its merit in today's society. It is based upon how it affected the culture in which it was written in, and us deciding the class of the article (stub, start, b, etc) is no different from this, just add a thing to the template and some criteria, the only main difference is that it cannot change, ever. Maybe there should be a client project or a task force that is related to this, and we only take on tasks that are related to literature not novels, that is, books that have received enough merit from the community (not just wikipedia, but the whole community) that they can be classified as literature, and the definition of how we classify literature would be the accepted definition by oxford university. DangerTM (talk) 10:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

"Class" of the article (i.e. stub, start, B etc) relates to quality of the article and does not say anything about the subject of the article. "Importance" (or "Priority" in some wikiprojects) relates to the subjects relative notability which will include factors like the works impact on society (or sub-section of society). When you use terms like literature you need to be very careful that everyone in the conversation is working with the same definition, it may just be easier to avoid it, or to qualify meaning constantly. If what you are saying is that some further statement of literary merit is needed that my be needed. We would need to discuss how that might best be achieved. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 11:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, we would use the Oxford dictionary definition, which is: n. Literary production (engaged in literature) writings whose value lies in beauty of form or emotional effect; the books etc treatment of a subject. DangerTM (talk) 11:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the OED to hand but just from what you have posted the definition appears to have included a few different shades of meaning even in these few words. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 12:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that is the main problem with trying to classify literature, which is why I move to use the OED definition as a base, but discuss the true definition within this discussion, it wouldn't be new research, it would just be a discussed and agreed apon, which is why a governing body would help. DangerTM (talk) 06:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Having search the OED online myself, I would like to point out that DangerTMhave cited. the definition out of context in order to bend the evidence to fit his argument. The full citation of this definition of literature is as follows: "3. a. Literary productions as a whole; the body of writings produced in a particular country or period, or in the world in general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to writing which has claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect. light literature: see LIGHT a.1 19. This sense is of very recent emergence both in Eng. and Fr." --chemica (talk) 21:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I for one don't see a need to classify literature as it pertains to this WikiProject. What is important is that we cover fiction, whether it be in short story or novel form. The idea of what constitutes "Literature" has changed vastly over the past one hundred years; On the Origin of Species, for example, is often found in the "Fiction and literature" section of bookstores although it's non-fiction and therefore out of our scope. Poetry is obviously considered "Literature", as well, but there's WikiProject Poetry for that. We should not confuse things by referring to our concentrated works as "Literature", since it's such a broad-sweeping term. We deal with fiction. < / two time English major > María (habla conmigo) 13:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Fiction is more of a sweeping statement than literature, literature only represents a select bunch of novels and works. And since Origin of species does not represent fact but theory, it is somewhere in the grey area of fiction and non-fiction.DangerTM (talk) 01:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What you're saying is true in many cases, but this is not the Literature WikiProject, it is the Novels WikiProject. As such, it encompasses all novel articles on wikipedia, whether those novels are brilliant or terrible. Wrad (talk) 01:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

literature only represents a select bunch of novels and works... no, it doesn't, and that is my point. Most of anything can be considered literature; that is not the case with fiction. What is not fiction, but is in book form, falls under WikiProject Books. What you seem to be looking for is a quality-based version of WP:LIT. WikiProject Novels deals with all novels and short fiction, regardless of whether one person may subjectively consider it "literature" or not. María (habla conmigo) 03:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you are quite wrong, books can be anything in book form, but literature is of a different caliber, it has to be of literary merit, so some piece of pulp fiction could not be classified as literature, but as pulp fiction. There should be a task force or a sister project relating to literature specifically rather than books. And no, it wouldn't be a quality based version of WP:LIT, I have said it many times, it is not how good a book or novel is, it is how much merit the book has, how it represents the culture and values of the context in which it was written. It is a whole lot more than just "How good a book is" an in pulp fiction, it can be incredible, thrilling, brilliant, but it will still be pulp fiction, how ever you paint it. DangerTM (talk) 04:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

But this project isn't about books either -- there's a Book Project for that. This project is simply about a genre: fiction. Plus, you're ignoring the fact that literature is not defined as works of merit, but simply as anything written down. Second, even pulp fiction is gaining a lot of attention in literary scholarship -- so it passes the notability test. What you're really arguing is for "High Art" in the most restrictive (and perhaps outdated) sense. Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Danger, I've felt the same way at times, and have tried to start a medieval literature task force for that time period. I've wondered if it might be wise to have some sort of project focusing on the classic literary canon. the problem is, the canon is disintegrating, and the definition of literature is becoming blurry. Everyone is going to have a different idea of what literature is depending on their perspective. According to the Oxford English dictionary, literature is nothing more than a body of written works related by subject-matter, by language or place of origin, or by dominant cultural standards. It just isn't a simple as you think. Back in the 1960s scholars generally agreed on what was good literature and what wasn't, but they don't anymore. I'd encourage you to join relevant wikiprojects and work on those articles which you consider to be about good literature. You're going up against a brick wall if you're asking this wikiproject to change. Wrad (talk) 04:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Danger, according to the OED online, your definition of literature is a restricted version of a much broader definition, viz., 3. a. Literary productions as a whole; the body of writings produced in a particular country or period, or in the world in general. Now also in a more restricted sense, applied to writing which has claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect. Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It's true. You and many others may think it's sad, but it is still true. Literature doesn't mean what it used to. Wrad (talk) 04:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Or, to look at it from my perspective, literary merit is no longer assessed solely according to the standards of wealthy white men.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Also a legitimate view. Wrad (talk) 05:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

But we are not defining literature as anything written down, as it was said before "...applied to writing which has a claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect." That is literature, oh and I was using the 1982 edition, hard cover, so the definition will have evolved since then, but it was the only definition I could find. LIterature is more than books. DangerTM (talk) 06:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the point, though. That is an old, outdated definition. Literature is now, in many cases, just books. Anything written. And that's according to the most current Oxford definition. The world has changed. Wrad (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Danger, why don't you start a task force to focus on Great Books. As I understand it, the Novels Project is open to all notable fiction. It's simply not set up to consider quality. Besides, your argument was already defeated in the USA around 1990.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 06:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd join it. Wrad (talk) 06:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, tell me how to start the task force and I will join it, but it still comes back to the entire basis of the argument, who decides what is great? DangerTM (talk) 07:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Task Forces I will not be joining, as in the literary traditions I study, beauty and emotion are less important than didactic and social value, i.e., literature is not meant to move us, but to empower us. Aristophanes68 (talk) 07:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Literature is meant to do all of those things, it could move us and still be crap, even though it is moving. DangerTM (talk) 07:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Alright people, the definition we used in university (English undergraduate, which I topped by the way) was Literature is text that is valued by many because, through beauty of form, it represents the culture and values of the context it was written in. Which basically means, so long as it is beautifully represented, and it portrays the culture and values of the time period in which it was written in, it is literature, if it doesn't do that, it isn't. DangerTM (talk) 09:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That might be what you used, and others might as well; but there are other definitions and it is not the most commonly used understanding based on the trends I see expressed above. Even if we worked with your "limited", "specialist" or "literary" definition it wouldn't affect the majority of what we do here bcause as a definition is isn't the focus of our activity. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 10:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That is the literary definition, and maybe we should get to the root of the problem and ask, Why is it defined in this way?DangerTM (talk) 10:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is silly. We cannot and should not group works together because of subjective definitions, going so far as to declare what has merit and what doesn't -- I for one want no business in supporting a taskforce that would omit Jane Austen's work simply because one user says it's without merit. This is frankly opening up a can of worms and would lead to endless philosophical discussions about individual texts' "beauty of form" or what have you; we have no business doing that. The only way this WikiProject can remain NPOV is to create and utilize taskforces that group works by genre, something that is easily definable, not one person's ideas of quality. María (habla conmigo) 13:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• No, Danger, it is not the literary definition, it is simply a literary definition--and one that lost currency about 20 years ago. There has been a shift away from the study of the aesthetic and affective quality of a text to reclaim the older criteria of mimetic and didactic power, what might be considered more content-oriented analysis. (And I for one am less interested in a book's aesthetic quality than in its historical importance--especially for social groups that have to struggle to be accepted as writers.) This project, as I understand it, is focused quite simply on the historical aspect of literary production--which books have been notable, for whatever reasons. I assume it is perfectly acceptable to include in every article a discussion of the work's critical reception, pointing out (e.g.) that Austen's short story is not considered indicative of her talents, etc. But the assessment of quality MUST be done from a NPOV. So, this is your chance to dig into the critical scholarship and use that information to inform the articles you want to work on. I think we could all be happy with that procedure? Aristophanes68 (talk) 15:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• How long ago did you graduate? I'm a current undergrad and the definition is currently much more diverse than that. Wrad (talk) 16:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Who? Me, or Danger? Aristophanes68 (talk) 22:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• DangerTM. Sorry, this sequence is getting confusing. Wrad (talk) 22:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that DangerTM received his degree in that days when all literature departments (English or otherwise) were dominated by a sense that the literature defined as canonical are the only texts worthy of study. The goal of Wikipedia is not aesthetic analysis of the works in question. The novel articles are meant to present readers with an understanding of why people have found this texts to be important works. Like Kevinalewis said, if we begin to give personal value judgments about the works we are in violation of NPOV. --chemica (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I assume that it's fine to discuss critical reaction to individual works? Would that be an acceptable way to address questions of literary merit while staying within the NPOV requirements? Aristophanes68 (talk) 22:19, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Absolutely! Criticism and analysis isn't just ok, it's a must! As long as there are sources to back it up. I assume Chemica means saying things like "this is a truly beautiful work worthy of being referred to as 'literature'". Wrad (talk) 23:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I never said that Jane Austen's work didn't have merit, I just don't like it because I am from a different generation, I think that it really shows the culture and values of early 19th century England, which doesn't stop me from hating her work more than anything, but still...DangerTM (talk) 23:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That is the whole point of this argument, What is Literature? I have read most of Jane Austen's work, I did so in University, all I can say is that it left me cold, I did not enjoy it one little bit, which is more of an assesment of me rather than of the writter, remember, People read in search of a mind more original than our own. She was a very intelligent woman, and she was writting as a result of the times in which she was writting in, the context of her work is; She was on the periphery of the middle class, she wrote about what made sense to her. I implore everyone to read the novels, they will teach about the life she lived, and about the time in which they lived in. Which doesn't mean that I have to like her work. I am saying that I can respect her tallent, her grasp of English language was far greater than mine, I can respect her for the way in which her writting represented the times, but that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy the books that she wrote, I found them dead boring, but that is just one man's opinion. Oh and wrad, I graduated a few years back from English, and I can tell you, I may have not been from the genration that thinks that all of the old works (war and peace, etc) were incredible and the only things that should be taught, but my teachers certainly were. DangerTM (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

What does this have to do with the Novels WikiProject on Wikipedia? Wrad (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a thing. Enough navel gazing, back to work, nothing to see here... María (habla conmigo) 05:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

One more thing, is anyone on my side at all? It has been a long and open discussion, and I cannot see if anyone agrees with my point of view in the slightest.DangerTM (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

You may be able to generate a more conclusive discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature, which is probably a more appropriate forum for discussing "literature". Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 00:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

DangerTM is right. Horton Hears A Who! isn't even a novel! And this is the whole : What Is Literature? For me, literature is something enjoyable. I found the Buffy novels real enjoyable. Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban took my mind. Also, I only read some classic novels and BAM! dead boring. But, just my opinion. Pokemon Buffy Titan (talk) 04:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Danger, I find your concerns uninteresting at best and outdated at worst. Plus, they are outside the scope of this Project. However, if you take my suggestion to explore the critical reception of the works posted in the project and to add that information to the cite in the form of scholarly references, then I would be more interested. I look forward to seeing your contributions in this area. Best, Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

indipendence

How long has the word independence gone uncorrected on this article? EraserGirl (talk) 03:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Kannada literature

Hi. This article of mine is currently in FAC. I think this is the right place to request a copy edit. Some reviewers feel the article needs more prose styling. Please let me know if any of you have the time for this. If you dont, please forward me to someone who is good at this and your help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dineshkannambadi (talk) 13:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wǔxiá to Wuxia

Requested rename on the article for the literary genre from Wǔxiá to Wuxia - see Talk:Wǔxiá 70.55.85.177 (talk) 06:26, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vital articles

Any editor with a broad knowledge of literature is invited to take a look at Wikipedia:Vital articles and offer suggestions on how to improve the list of 1000 vital Wikipedia articles, as well as on the process of choosing them. It suffers from a severe lack of attention and POV editing. — goethean ॐ 01:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Fictional children Categories up for deletion

Category:Fictional children has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page.

Category:Fictional child molestation victims has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page.

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) 06:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Urtext

Hello, I watch over an article called Urtext edition, which covers a rather narrow topic--editions of classical music that attempt to recreate the composer's original intent. But there also seems to be a need to discuss "urtext" as a term of literary analysis and criticism. Such a discussion doesn't really belong in Urtext edition, so I removed what there was to a tiny new stub, Urtext. If anyone here has relevant expertise and could add more to this new article about what "urtext" means in the context of literature, that would be very helpful. Thank you. Opus33 (talk) 23:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Spotlight

...... Dendodge .. Talk^Help 18:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 10:11, 4 July 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) 20:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 463 articles are assigned to this project, of which 119, or 25.7%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 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. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=WPLIT}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Literature participants...WikiProject Media franchises needs some help from other projects which are similar. Media franchises scope deals primarily with the coordination of articles within the hundreds if not thousands of media franchises which exist. Sometimes a franchise might just need color coordination of the various templates used; it could mean creating an article for the franchise as a jump off point for the children of it; or the creation of a new templating system for media franchise articles. The project primarily focuses on those media franchises which are multimedia as not to step on the toes of this one. It would be great if some of this project's participants would come over and help us get back on solid footing. Please come and take a look at the project and see if you wish to lend a hand. Thank you. - LA (T) 21:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Franchise naming convention discussion at WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Literature participants...WikiProject Media franchises is currently discussing a naming convention for franchise articles. Since this may affect one or more articles in your project, we would like to get the opinions of all related projects before implimenting any sweeping changes. Please come and help us decide. Thanks! LA (T) @ 22:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Challenge

Hi. Any chance of some help over at Challenge (literature). I created the article a while back but stumbled when I was unable to find many sources. I think this could be a useful article since so many books suffer "challenges". Thanks in advance. GDallimore (Talk) 13:16, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Literature

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

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 22:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Latino/Chicano Literature project

North of the Rio Grande is an ongoing school project dedicated to improving select articles on Latino and Chicano literature. Among the articles we're working on are Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, and María Ruiz de Burton. We'd welcome any advice or help that members of WikiProject Literature may be able to offer. Please come drop a note on our talk page. Many thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Borges - review as good article

Jorge Luis Borges has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. 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. Tom B (talk) 18:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

As I Lay Dying disambig

A few months ago a very limited discussion was held by a few editors on an disambig redirect page which is associated with William Faulkner. The result was a claimed "consensus" that the article As I Lay Dying should redirect to As I Lay Dying (disambiguation). The reasoning was that a band named after the novel was now more well known than the novel, meaning the main "As I Lay Dying" phrase shouldn't link only to the novel.

The problem is that as it clearly states here, disambig pages should only be created "If there are three or more topics associated with the same term" and if one of the topics isn't the primary topic. That is not the case here. Since the band is named for the book, the book is the primary topic. In addition, the band's album has part of its title taken from the band's name, meaning there aren't three true items on that disambig page. As a result, the proper course is to have a disambig link at the top of the novel article and allow "As I Lay Dying" to either be the main article or redirect to the main article.

If people want to change this guideline, that is fine. But to do that, we need to have a true consensus building discussion. Please go to this link [2] to voice your opinion on this issue.--SouthernNights (talk) 17:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Bhaṭṭikāvya

Hi, I am the author of a new article on a Classical Sanskrit courtly epic the Bhaṭṭikāvya, And am concerned to be following the Wikipedia conventions correctly. Much of the article is adapted from the introduction to my peer-reviewed book:
http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/volume-v-78.html
All available research sources are cited in the references and bibliography. I am concerned that the standard of articles for Sanskrit literature be improved, there are many typos and many articles are poorly referenced and linked.
Could members please provide some feedback on Bhaṭṭikāvya and some guidance for editing/correcting/adding to current articles.
With thanks opfallon (talk) 20:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Article creation requests

I propose adding articles on Malla Nunn's A Beautiful Place to Die and having a redirect of Det. Emmanuel Cooper to the article. Entertainment Weekly's lead book review in its latest issue highlights this book and that character at some detail. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 20:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

FLRC & merge proposal

Notice: It is proposed that List of Merriam–Webster's Words of the Year be delisted as a Featured List due to several alleged deficiencies, and that it be merged into the article Word of the year, the combined result of which could become a Featured Article candidate after some further development. The FLRC and merge discussions are related but independent. This project is being notified because its project banner template appears on at Talk:List of Merriam–Webster's Words of the Year, asserting scope over or interest in the article. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Nominating an article for collaboration

Hey. I'm wondering about something. How does one go about nominating an article for collaboration in this project? Thanks. --Call me Bubba (talk) 19:38, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

proposed merger of Apparitional experience to ghost

See Talk:Ghost#Merger_proposal Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Big mess relating to a 19th century novelist and an Australian entrepreneur

See Talk:Andrew Picken#Note. The article itself needs some work, but it would be good if some editors could keep an eye on attempts to replace it with articles about entirely different people. I've cross-posted this to the Australian Wikipedian's noticeboard. Graham87 03:36, 26 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 05:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Misogyny criticism of Watership Down

Hello all, anyone familiar with literature is welcome to join a discussion at Talk:Watership_Down#More_on_the_misogyny_theme. A broader view to get consensus appreciated. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:01, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Link to text in question, which I readded. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Can someone help explain lit-crit at Talk:Watership Down#Re-reprise? There is a lot of personalized verbal abuse going on, so an outside voice would be very helpful. NJGW (talk) 06:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ernest Hemingway project? taskforce?

I am interested in starting am Ernest Hemingway project or taskforce to improve content related to his life and works, and have proposed the project at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Wikiproject_Ernest_Hemingway_project. Please share your thoughts there! kilbad (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Lead section of ghost

I am opening this up here at Talk:Ghost#Consensus_on_size_and_contents_of_the_lead so we can get a consensus on what should be in the lede. Comment on other ideas and/or add yer own on what the most salient points are. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Fiction

Hello. I've been looking at Fiction. I've been trying to group the sections into some sort of logical structure, but I really need some people who have a better idea of what should and shouldn't be in the article. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:52, 17 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) 05:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Merger Of Familiar spirits in popular culture into Familiar spirit

Proposed Merger Of Familiar spirits in popular culture into Familiar spirit, discuss at Talk:Familiar_spirit#Merger_proposal. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Portmanteaus

EncMstr added the following to WP:LING

"There is a wording disagreement about using the word Portmanteau. See recent edits to Buckminster Fuller, the ledes of Biostatistics, Backronym, Channel Tunnel, and the ordering of entries in Portmanteau (disambiguation).

"So far Drinkybird, who replaces the word with other phrases, is discussing it at User talk:Drinkybird#Issue with portmanteau. I hope this is an appropriate place to ask for additional opinions."

Since I ran into portmanteaus when I first read Jabberwocky in elementary school, I became a fan of the use of this device in literature and I think of its primary usage as a literary term. Moreover, I believe that the use by literary critics is directed at a broader audience than the more technical use by linguists. Therefore, I am hoping that this also is an appropriate place to ask for additional opinions. John Harvey (talk) 12:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. Please join the discussion at WT:LING#Portmanteaus. —EncMstr (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Where is this discussion going to take place? Project Linguistics or Project Literature? Or both? Mvblair (talk) 22:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Drinkybird is a new editor and unknowingly started discussions in three or four locations. I suggest it be centralized at WT:LING#Portmanteaus. —EncMstr (talk) 22:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with EncMstr. The discussion should continue at WP:LING. My comment was meant to invite participation from members of the WP:LIT community. Thanks to both Mvblair and EncMstr for helping me clarify this. John Harvey (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Harold Pinter

Hello, everyone. There is a longrunning debate about referencing and MOS style at the Harold Pinter article. Both ref tags and parenthetical references are used together, and the result is that the article is, IMO, very difficult to read. The article also appears to overuse quotation marks around one or two-word phrases. The footnotes are very long and often contain references to multiple sources, and there are often three or more footnotes in a row plus an in-line parenthetical cite, for assertions that would seem to need only one reference. Editors at the current peer review have suggested various kinds of simplifications, but one of the article's editors strongly disagrees with any attempts to simplify the footnotes and reference style. There is a lot of useful information and research in the article, but here is a situation where style is overwhelming substance. Can anyone help? Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated African American literature 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. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated African American literature 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. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:15, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinking adapted characters

General question: Should mentions of versions of characters that appear in adaptations be wikilinked to the article about the original character? To give an example, should a mention of DiCaprio's character from Romeo + Juliet wikilink to the article on Romeo Montague, if it's of the form "Starring DiCaprio as Romeo" and not of the form "DiCaprio's character is based on Romeo"?

Thanks, 62.180.36.1 (talk) 00:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Grub Street

I've been expanding Grub Street in my sandbox. I think its an article that is of interest to this wikiproject, so I thought I'd just mention it and see if anyone had any opinions. Its a bit of a ragtag article right now, I haven't really decided on a structure. Any criticism would be most welcome. Right now I'm just adding whatever I find that is of interest, but that doesn't really make a good article. Parrot of Doom (talk) 22:16, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

"Romance"

There's a discussion at WT:ANIME#"Romance" genre about currently unfixable links to the Romance disambiguation page. Many of them can't be fixed due to the limited scope of Romance (genre) and Romance novel. Discussion seems to be trending towards writing a summary style article for Romance fiction. Anyone interested in taking part? I'd like to hear your thoughts over there.... Dekimasuよ! 04:24, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the word "duology"

Please see and respond at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Regarding_the_word_.22duology.22. Dcoetzee 05:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Persian literature

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found a large number of concerns with the article which you can see at Talk:Persian literature/GA1. I have de-listed the article and when the concerns have been addressed it can be renominated at WP:GAN. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Character (arts)#Gathering material on character into one article

Other thoughts are needed on this matter. I especially encourage editors here involved in topics relating to this to weigh in on it. I fully expect some to disagree with me on this matter and am not simply looking for people to agree, but also consensus. Two editors by themselves going back and forth on this -- whether the article is best titled Fictional character or Character (arts), or whether we should have articles with both of these titles -- is not going to solve anything. Flyer22 (talk) 01:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Fernando Pessoa needs your help

Our article on Fernando Pessoa ("The critic Harold Bloom referred to him in the book The Western Canon as the most representative poet of the twentieth century, along with Pablo Neruda") is IMHO not in very good shape.
Article has been tagged "This article is written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanup" since December 2007.
Article is also pretty light on cites, and some of the cites seem to fail WP:RELIABLE -- there's also a cite to another Wikipedia article, which as I understand it is something that we don't do.
There seem to have been some edit wars a few years back, with one post "The original article was replaced a short time ago with a highly POV essay that seems to be a copy of a review posted at Amazon.com." -- I don't know whether the existing article is a descendent of this one or not.
Thanks -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 12:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Book cover guidelines

Someone said here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga#Manga_covers_-_English_or_Japanese.3F that, for originally non-English works of literature, one ought to use the first edition foreign book cover instead of the English book cover, while The General in His Labyrinth, a featured article, uses the English cover. Which one is preferred? WhisperToMe (talk) 21:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Would someone mind reviewing a new article for me?

Hello

Can someone take a critical look at the following article for me?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_(novel)

I just recently made some final edits and additions and would very much appreciate your input so that this article remains live and posted. This book is due to be released in Jan 2010 and I would appreciate any help in making this a great wiki entry. In particular I'm looking for guidance on references and citations (I'm new to wiki as a contributor). Please also let me know actions I can take to make sure this article does not get deleted. Thanks. Sincerely, Eric Bynum Eric f bynum (talk) 18:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Relevant AfD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/101 People Who Are Really Screwing America. Cirt (talk) 06:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Input at the Human disguise article's AfD would also be helpful. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Word games and Word play?

What projects or subprojects would these come under, if any? Шизомби (talk) 21:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge discussion

There's been a suggestion that Menippean satire and Menippeah be either merged or more clearly distinguished. There's also an orphan article, Mennipea, that needs addressing. Any input, advice and/or assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for book Help at Any Cost

I put the article about the book Help at Any Cost up for peer review. Input would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Help at Any Cost/archive1. Cirt (talk) 00:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for book Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

I put the article about the book Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control up for peer review. Input would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control/archive1. Cirt (talk) 01:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Genre and colour

Hi all. Probably no-one noticed my creation of Literary genre#Criteria that define genres, and likewise, probably few noticed that I created an infobox for the genres.

What the music genres people do is assign different colours to the major, inclusive genres; for example, "folk" is coloured "goldenrod" (I'd never heard of the colour before either), and pages like Electric folk (a subgenre) use it as well. Their page is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music_genres/Colours.

Anyway, I was wondering whether someone wants to come up with a colour scheme based on maybe the List of literary genres page, and on the Literary genre#Criteria that define genres section.

My only suggestion would be that similar genres be grouped as similar colours; for example, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy should be similar colours because they're all sub-branches of "speculative fiction".

HTH, -- TimNelson (talk) 03:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:42, 8 December 2009 (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) 03:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The Late Shift (book)

• The Late Shift (book)

This might be a fun collaborative project to work on, in light of the recent debacle with the controversy of the 2010 Tonight Show host and timeslot conflict. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 08:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Categories for 'creative works' - music, visual arts, literature etc.

Please see this discussion at the Arts Project about reorganizing high-level categories for 'art works', including music, visual arts and literature. (The intention is to make it easier for projects to look after large sets of articles.) Thank you. --Kleinzach 00:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

RFC for Another Gospel

Please see Talk:Another_Gospel#RfC:_NPOV_and_article_Another_Gospel. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 00:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Outrageous Betrayal

Please see Talk:Outrageous_Betrayal#RfC:_Removal_of_words_Is_and_Was. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 01:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Editio Princeps article has no useful information

The editio princeps article has a table of when each classical work was first printed. At least that's what it's supposed to have. Instead the table shows when the author was first printed without showing whether or not the edition included all the author's work or just some of it. Therefore I still don't know at what date The Odyssey was first printed.

Homer is not a book. The Iliad is a book and The Odyssey is a book.

So does an author's name count as all of the author's works or not? 110.174.166.224 (talk) 04:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

MOS?

Hey guys, I just started editing Nigger Heaven, and would like to eventually push the article to GA/FA. I've been looking for a dedicated MOS or set of guidelines for literature articles, and was wondering if you all could point me to something of the sort. Or even a few FA-rated articles to base the article on. Thanks!Strombollii (talk) 01:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, in the infobox, if the original image being used is of the first edition (in this case, printed in 1926), should the information in the infobox reflect that edition or the most current (in this case, under a different publisher, with a different isbn, etc), or should it be a conglomeration of the two? Strombollii (talk) 01:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Finnsburg Fragment Translation

Is this type of article appropriate? PDCook (talk) 22:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Farida Samerkhanova‎

I tend to work with visual art articles, but also with Canadian topics in general. I came across this article and tagged it for multiple issues. It has been steadily edited by a number of IPs, probably the same person, possibly the subject of the article. I have not had the time to clean it up: it may be salvageable, although I suspect it may need to go to AFG. If anyone here wants to take a stab at it, it would be much appreciated. I am unable to devote too much time to lengthy edits at this time and I'd rather have literature-minded editors take a look rather than sending it over to the Canadian wikiproject. Thanks. freshacconci talktalk 16:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Is the Paranormal pseudoscience

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Is_the_paranormal_pseudoscience.3F. Unomi (talk) 05:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Peer review of sister portal

I invite you to come participate in a peer review of Portal:Speculative fiction. You can see (and participate in) the discussion here. Thank you for your time. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:29, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing literature topics

I've updated my list of missing literature topics - Skysmith (talk) 12:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Horrible Histories (plus spin-offs) help

There are a whole collection of articles found at Category:Horrible Histories. Created by me initially but unable to be upkept due to inexperience in advanced editing and unavailability to edit due to other commitments, this whole category has become a bit of a mess. Some of the larger articles (such as Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and Murderous Maths) are probably reliable enough to become more than just very long lists of books. Horrible Histories (TV series) has recently become like a fansite, and some book series which have become obsolete (such as Dead Famous which is being made obselete by the Horribly Famous series, and The Knowledge (book series) which is now being re-released as Totally (book series)) remain. A lot of the articles are heavily out of date - expecially the Titles in progress sections. I have found many notible sources for a video games based on the series, found at Horrible_Histories_(other_media) and Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans but I am not quite sure the best way to extract the information out of them to create encyclopaedic material. Pretty much the whole category is in dire need of help. Please could some editors experienced in this type of project help? Thanks. The pages in question (for the moment) are: Horrible Histories, America's Funny But True History, Boring Bible, Dead Famous (series), Foul Football, Horrible Geography, Horrible Histories (TV series), Horrible Histories (other media), Horrible Histories: Ruthless Romans, Horrible Science, Horribly Famous, Killer Puzzles, The Knowledge (book series), Murderous Maths, The Spark Files, Terry Deary's Tales, Time Detectives, Top Ten (book series), Truly Terrible Tales, Twisted Tales (book series), and Wild Lives.--Coin945 (talk) 21:35, 12 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)--Coin945 (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Cyber Rights

I have started a peer review on the article Cyber Rights, which was recently promoted to Good Article quality status. Feel free to provide feedback, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Cyber Rights/archive1. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 23:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Duplication? Historical fiction and Historical novel

I've opened at thread at Talk:Historical fiction#Historical novel to discuss possible duplication. I'm posting a notice here because the articles might not be watched widely.   Will Beback  talk  08:48, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Should List of Nobel laureates in Literature have links to "[year] in literature" articles for each award?

Only two editors are discussing this, so far, and we've reached an impasse. The discussion isn't very long, but more participation might help resolve the matter. The discussion is [[Talk:List of Nobel laureates in Literature#Links to national literatures and "[year] in literature"|here]]. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 00:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Scope

A topic of possible interest: see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Books#Scope_.28book_types.29. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:22, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Speculative fiction nominated to be featured portal

Portal:Speculative fiction is now a Featured portal candidate. Please come participate in the discussion here. Thank you for your time. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:50, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Philosophical literature

Is it necessary to have a "philosophical works" category in addition to "philosophical literature?" See: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_June_18#Category:Philosophical_worksGreg Bard 22:55, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts

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.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:21, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

writers

who were the three most important renaissance writers

Template:Book list

I have put forward a change with Template:Book list that may be of interest to some readers here. d'oh! _talk 12:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Novels that needs input

If anyone here gets a chance, please weight in at the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Novels#Category:American_novels, the discussion is kindof stalling and we could use some new thoughts. Sadads (talk) 16:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Italics permissible in titles of articles on books?

See the ongoing RfC at Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment:Use_of_italics_in_article_titles. Wareh (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

George Orwell bibliography at FLC

Please see Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/George Orwell bibliography/archive2. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Throughout 2010, many Wikipedia editors have worked hard to halve the number of unreferenced biographical articles (UBLPs) from more than 52,000 in January to under 26,000 now. The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons has assisted in many ways, including helping to setup a bot, which runs daily, compiling lists of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your WikiProject's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 537 articles to be referenced. A list of all projects that are being tracked can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects. You can also use the WP:CatScan tool to generate most specialised lists of whatever interests you - for example, this search generates a list of the 76 articles which are both unreferenced and in Category:British novelists or it's subcats.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. We've done a lot, but we still have a long way to go. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 14:16, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

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 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 Monday, October 11th.

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 October, 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!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:16, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

New article - Recursive science fiction

• Recursive science fiction

Thought WikiProject members might be interested. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Character Sketches

There is a multi-volume set called Character sketches of romance, fiction and the drama that contains hundreds of high quality black and white sketches pertaining to characters in various types of literature. The volumes, which were published in 1892, and 1902 appear to have been largely unused on Wikipedia. I was wondering if anyone is interested (or if its a worthwhile effort) to extract the images and put them in appropriate articles.

• Google (1902) Vol 7 (Google's scans appear to be the worst...)
• University of Wisconsin Digital Collections (1892)
• Gutenberg (1892)
• Archive.org (1892)

Smallman12q (talk) 00:22, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, great resource! The link to archive.org is for the first volume, covering from A to BALIN.--Sum (talk) 17:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Great. Thanks for posting. Spangle (talk) 19:06, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Modernism

modernism was designed to grow the faith the republican army in china as the civil war broke out between the sweity and higlo's. The classic style of fighting which had been used for many centuries had grown obsolete —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.157.19 (talk) 19:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

"The Believer" magazine as RS source for legal issues?

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Believer. -- Cirt (talk) 14:51, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Peer Review for Life at the Bottom

I have just started a peer review for the article Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, which you can find here. I have started this in order to improve the article so that it will eventually meet FA class. Any help that the members of this Wikiproject could give would be much appreciated. Thanks. Silverseren^C 02:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Restoration literature FAR

I have nominated Restoration literature 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 "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Adabow (talk · contribs) 09:21, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Quality improvement project - Slaves of Sleep by L. Ron Hubbard

I am going to try to work on a quality improvement project - Slaves of Sleep by L. Ron Hubbard. It'd be nice to see if there is enough source coverage to fully cover the topic for eventual improvement to GA quality. (Right now it'd simply be nice to flesh it out a bit more with additional WP:RS secondary sources.) Help would be appreciated - if you'd like to collaborate on this project and pitch in somehow, please post to Talk:Slaves of Sleep. Thank you for your time! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

New category - Category:People in literature

Proposal: create a new category - Category:People in literature (similar as the category Category:People in transport). Move some categories from the Category:Literature category (and from the Category:People by occupation category): Category:Literary agents, Category:Bibliographers, Category:Editors, Category:Writers, etc into that new category. Add that new category into upper categories - Category:Literature, Category:People by occupation, Category:Writing occupations. --Averaver (talk) 03:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this would work.

First, if there is to be a Category:People in literature, then it should include people who are not writers, such as publishers ... so a Category:People in literature would not work as sub-category of Category:Writing occupations.

However, the wider problem is that many of the ancilliary occupations which would belong in a Category:People in literature are not exclusively, nor even mainly, literary. Publishers, copy-editors, bibliographers, translators etc all work with a wide variety of non-literary writing genres, such as journalism and scientific writing ... and lumping them all in under literature would be misleading. If we split out literary translators from other translators, literary publishers from other publishers, etc then it might start to be workable ... but how viable is such a split? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:13, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Now, the Category:Editors category is sub-category of the Category:Literature category. My proposal - to merge all literature and nearly-literature people in the Category:People in literature category. The Category:Translators category may has some upper categories. One person (translator) can works in some areas of knowledge. --Averaver (talk) 08:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The name "People in literature" similar as names - "People in transport", "People in finance", etc in the Category:People by occupation category. --Averaver (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the proposed name is similar to other categories, but that doesn't mean that a "People in literature" category is workable. Literature does not compare well with broader fields like transport of finance; it's more like trying to separate out "People in real estate finance" from "people in finance", which would be very problematic because so many finance businesses operate in a range of areas of buisness.

As above, the new category isn't really workable unless we have Category:Literary publishers and Category:Literary translators etc ... and I'm not sure that's a great idea. For example, all the literary translators who I know personally make the bulk of their income from non-literary commercial translation, and very few publishers can survive by publishing only literary works. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Move (or copy) Category:Poets from the Category:Writers by format

Proposal: move (or copy) Category:Poets from the Category:Writers by format category into the Category:Literature category or new Category:People in literature category. The Category:Poets is large separate category. --Averaver (talk) 03:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• I'm note quite sure what's being proposed here, but I think I the proposal is that Category:Poets should cease to be a sub-category of Category:Writers by format, and become instead a sub-category Category:Literature.
  Technically, no moving or copying would be needed to accomplish this: instead Category:Poets would be edited to change its parent category.
  That said, I think the change would be inappropriate. A poet is not literature; a poet is a person, specifically a writer in a particular format, so poets belong in Category:Writers by format. However, what a poet writes is called poetry, and that is a form of literature: so it is correct that Category:Poetry is in a sub-category of Category:Literature, namely Category:Literary genres. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:10, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
• I agree with BHG: keeping "Poets" under "Writers by format" makes perfect sense, whereas the category "Literature" should include the "Poetry" category. I'm also unsure about the "People in Literature" category, as that sounds too much like it means "Characters IN the stories" rather than simply "writers." Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:34, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• Keep the present set-up - Category:Poets is a subcat of Category:Poetry and everything is just as it should be. Occuli (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Please view and comment my proposal about the Category:Writers

Please view and comment my proposal about the Category:Writers :

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 January 8#New category Category:Writers by movements.--Averaver (talk) 00:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Procedural close. --Averaver (talk) 14:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

template:South East Asian Literature

{{South East Asian Literature}} has been nominated for deletion. 65.93.14.196 (talk) 05:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Running gag

Can anyone supply an example or two from literature of a running gag, perhaps in a series of books? I suspect that there are such gags in Robert A. Heinlein's books. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Running gag is a discussion of deleting the running gag, but there is a rescue effort, too.--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

RfC of interest to this project

Although it's specifically framed in terms of books and films, the question in this RfC will naturally be of interest to those writing articles in which books and their adaptations into other media (plays, for example) are covered. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

New article: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

New article, created, at The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Additional assistance in research would be appreciated, feel free to help out at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 13:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Help please

The article Neo-Pagan (literature) is one of Wikipedias article tagged the longest as needing references, if someone knowledgeable could take a look it would be a great help. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 12:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Michael Irving Jensen

I was wondering if someone more familiar with the notability guidelines than myself could take a look at Michael Irving Jensen, and determine whether he is notable (and if so, possibly expand and introduce a couple of addtional sources?). A quick google search suggests that he might be, but I've got no experience when it comes to authors, and on that basis I don't feel comfortable taking it to AfD without the input of a more experienced person. Thanks in advance, —WFC— 14:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

CFD notification

Please come comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_March_22#Category:Academy_Award_for_Best_Original_Screenplay_templates.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:AcademyAwardBestOriginalScreenplay1940-1949

Template:AcademyAwardBestOriginalScreenplay1940-1949 has been nominated for merging with Template:AcademyAwardBestOriginalScreenplay 1940-1960. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Fictional fictional character

The article Fictional fictional character has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No such concept exists; unreferenced for 4 years; contains original research written in essay form; no reliable sources use this term - it's been invented by Wikipedia

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. DionysosProteus (talk) 18:01, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Fictional fictional character has been nominated for deletion, at AfD. 64.229.100.45 (talk) 04:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Non-fictional character

The article Non-fictional character has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No such concept in use in standard sources (a character is by definition fictional, even when based on a real person); article has no citations to support its claims; has been tagged for more than a year; unsourced since 2006

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. DionysosProteus (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Please help with featured list candidacy

Resolved

I invite comments, questions and suggestions for the featured list candidacy of List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: others). The nomination page can be found here. Thanks. bamse (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

It has been listed as Nominations urgently needing reviews, meaning that it is in danger of failing because of a lack of reviews. So far it has received one "support" vote (no "oppose") while three votes is considered to be the minimum for success. Hopefully a member of this wikiproject will have time for a review. You'd need to do the following: Check this list for these criteria and leave your comments (together with a "Support"/"Oppose" vote) here. Thanks a lot! bamse (talk) 21:08, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Portal:Children's literature at peer review

Portal:Children's literature is at portal peer review. Review comments are welcome, at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Children's literature/archive1. -- Cirt (talk) 19:03, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Two new Children's literature articles A Taste of Blackberries, and Doris Buchanan Smith have been added, for which I'd like to invite discussion, or to ask whether any discussion is deemed warranted. From the article: "Published in 1973, it was the first modern children's book to take the loss of a child's playmate as it's main theme." Thanks. Howardrandallsmith (talk) 16:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to introduce myself. I wrote the two articles mentioned (above) and they are my first forray into Wikipedia editing. Once I am confident that both articles are solid, nuetral and encyclopedic, and that they do not constitute COI, I would be happy to assist in any other compacity the administrator(s) see fit, given my experience. I am open to criticism, especially if it is constructive. As to the COI, I am the author's son, and although that fact would tend to disqualify me from contributing these two articles, I believe that I have composed neutral, well referenced articles -- and I continue to search for more references. Thanks! Howardrandallsmith (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

An IP user added information to the trivia section of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place that appeared to be spam to promote a new literary journal, which hasn't yet been in existence long enough to demonstrate notability. I reverted the addition, but another IP with a similar address – or the same editor with a dynamic IP address – has undone my reversion. I would welcome a second opinion here. --Deskford (talk) 15:29, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Request review

If anyone is interested in a doing a FAC review, I've nominated Olivia Shakespear. Although only a minor novelist and playwright, she is important for her relationship with writers such as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound. The review is here. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:14, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

British Library editathon with focus on English literature and Drama

Hi WikiProject Literature editors,

The British Library is planning an editathon on 4 June with a specific focus on English and Drama and they will be providing access to rare archive material on a variety of authors and playwrights. If you can make it to the British Library and participate in the editathon, please see the page on the Wikimedia UK wiki. If you've got any questions about it, please ask User:Fæ or post about it on the talk page on the Wikimedia UK wiki. Please also tell editors you think might be interested in participating. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Shane Stevens

The article on crime/splatterfest author, Shane Stevens has been languishing as an unreferenced biography of a living person since December 2009. I've added a couple of refs to the article to take it out of the UBLP category but, having done that research, I have doubts as to whether this author is still alive or whether this is a pseudonym for another author. There appear to be several references to Shane Stevens being a pseudonym. Stevens seems to have either died or disappeared in 2007 according to various sources ([3] (Italian);[4] (Italian); it.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia). The bio at the literary agent is in the past tense. The article could definitely do with attention from editors with knowledge of the area. --CharlieDelta (talk) 09:32, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Sharyn McCrumb

I would like to request editors to have a look at the Sharyn McCrumb page and the copyright violation issue. The page was created as a stub in 2005. You can see for yourself what has happened in the last couple of days. The editor LoraOliva is a newbie, who I believe was making good faith efforts and erred. I don't believe deliberate plagiarism was the intent. Discussing the matter, and helping a new editor, would have been preferable to what happened. I've tried to help somewhat by communicating with the editor on User_talk:LoraOlivia. I believe this is more helpful than what happened on Sharyn McCrumb. Anything anyone can do to assist either that editor, or the Sharyn McCrumb page would be good. It's not helpful for Wikipedia readers to see a page that has a copyright violation slapped right across the middle of a page. Maile66 (talk) 17:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

New article - Savage Love: Straight Answers from America's Most Popular Sex Columnist

• Savage Love: Straight Answers from America's Most Popular Sex Columnist

New article, of interest to project members. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:22, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Recently expanded article

Skipping Towards Gomorrah - I recently expanded this article. Check it out, if you are interested. Feel free to suggest additional secondary sources, at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 06:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

New article - Book about adoption by Dan Savage

• The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant

New article - Book about adoption by Dan Savage. Feedback, and suggestions for additional research and more secondary sources - would be appreciated, at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

New article - Book about same-sex marriage by Dan Savage

• The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family

New article - Book about adoption by Dan Savage. Feedback, and suggestions for additional research and more secondary sources - would be appreciated, at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 08:30, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

New article - book - It Gets Better by Dan Savage

• It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living

Created, new article. :) Feedback, and suggestions for additional research and more secondary sources - would be appreciated, at the article's talk page. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

New page - created - Dan Savage bibliography

• Dan Savage bibliography

Newly created page, Dan Savage bibliography. Feedback and ideas for additional information and secondary sources would be appreciated, at the article's talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 06:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs - the final surge

Since early in 2010, many editors have assisted in the referencing or removal of over 90% of the Unreferenced Biographies of Living People, bringing the total down from over 50,000 to the current 4,861 (as of 16:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)). Thank you for all of the work you've done to date, but we are now asking for your help in finishing this task. There are two main projects which are devoted to removing UBLPs from en.Wikipedia:

• WP:URBLP has set up a large number of topic based lists, which are updated each day by a WP:BOT. Your project's list is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature/Unreferenced BLPs and currently contains 95 articles.
• WP:URBLPR is focusing on clearing out the backlog based on the month in which each article was tagged as being unreferenced. The current task is Category:Unreferenced BLPs from September 2009, and it is the last month remaining from 2009.
• You can also reference a random article or make your own lists using one of the catscan tools, such as this search for British novelists.

All you have to do is pick your articles and then add suitable references from reliable sources and remove the {{BLP unsourced}} template. There is no need to log your changes, register or remove the articles from the list. If you need any help, or have any comments, please ask at WP:URBLPR or WT:URBLP.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. The-Pope (talk) 16:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

List Peer Review - Dan Savage bibliography

• Dan Savage bibliography

This page is undergoing a List Peer Review, feel free to provide feedback, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Dan Savage bibliography/archive1. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 19:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

List of postmodern writers

Has anyone seen or done work on this? There is also a category. Well...they're completely inaccurate! Faulkner? Roald Dahl?? WTF?? I'm kind of stupefied as to what to do, because it would take a lot of work to sift through. --Lazer Stein (talk) 16:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured Article nomination - Everything Tastes Better with Bacon

Hey all. I've nominated Everything Tastes Better with Bacon for consideration as a candidate to Featured Article quality status. If you don't mind taking a look, comments would be welcome! Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 20:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Categories by century, country and genre

Are the following over-categorised?

Four centuries of Category:American novels by century

Three centuries of Category:British children's literature (including a half-century which is about to be renamed)

It seems to me that they are 3-way category intersections within Literature. Would it be desirable to expand this pattern of categorisation? Or should these categories be upmerged into each of their respective head categories (i.e. abolished)?

Category:American novels by century seems to have been set up last year following Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Archive 15#Category:American novels because of the need to diffuse a large category, but there is a case to answer. - Fayenatic (talk) 20:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

• Neither of these seem the least like over-categorization, but rather like the basic necessary expansion. Literature of any language or genre is customarily studied by period. Typical academic course would be the British 19th century novel, etc. The Library of Congress classification categorizes literature first by language, then by century, then alphabetically. there is only one thing wrong with the American categories is that they are not adequately populated, except for the 21st century. The addition of the appropriate books for the 19th and 20th century is what's needed. I'm perfectly willing to do them. The only thing wrong with the children's literature category is that it's populated somewhat heterogeneously and inconsistently including a mix of books and authors.

Certainly I would expand them, as far as the material warrants. The depth of classification depends both on logic and thon the number of items involved. I do not think there is any case to answer at all for whether we need centuries; the question is whether we should expand further, by decades. Broad classifications are undeniably useful, and so is close categorization. DGG ( talk ) 22:44, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

LC is a scheme for placing books in a single position on shelves. The category after country and century is alphabetically by author, and then alphabetically within the authors works. At what point would you divide by genre? We're not physical bricks on a shelf, so we do not have that problem. But even for genre, the literature classification also does have a genre section, for works not about a particular author. see PR500 and following. And what it does, is divide genre by period!.

More generally, the underlying reason for categorization is to permit browsing or searching by general topic. As a librarian, my experience is that what people want to browse by is unpredictable, but when people want to search within a broad topic they are typically looking for material to write a school or college paper. We should therefore have categories to facilitate such searches, whether or not they fit into our idea of logic or rational subdivision. This , for example, is the justification for categories by ethnic group--that school children often get such an assignment, to write a paper about a particular ethnicity scientist/politician/whatever (and children's divisions of libraries usually make special displays of books to match the usual assignments). At the college level, we should have categories corresponding to the usual undergraduate courses.

More generally still, every time a question like this arises, I have suggested adopting Category Intersection, as proposed on that page, in particular the variant in Section 2.3 "User created category intersection" Item 5, with check boxes at the bottom of articles. It will at one stroke eliminate most of the CfD problems, and the dilemmas of just what 3rd order categories to choose,by permitting every possible one of them that is useful on an ad hoc basis. It is very hard to predict in advance what people will want, and this makes it unnecessary to guess. Unfortunately "it requires a change to the MediaWiki software as well as a major change to the policies related to how categories are populated." I'm not sure how major a change in the software would be needed, especially if we kept them ad hoc only, rather than saved them. The first step would be fully populated parent categories--that is, listing every individual item included in the subcategories in the parent category also. (Actually, what I would really prefer is a switch to using the Semantic Mediawiki extension throughout Wikipedia, if this could be done in a way transparent to the readers--which I rather doubt. I've used it elsewhere--it's wonderfully powerful, and the software has already been developed. DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

• • I don't think this is done anywhere else within Category:Works by century. It goes two steps further than the Library of Congress, splitting by country and genre. This opens up vistas of massive amounts of work to do, for other countries & genres. It replicates what could be done using the tools linked at the end of Wikipedia:Category intersection (which may of course be helpful for the work you have offered to do). As for further splitting into decades, where would it stop? Going all the way e.g. to "2011 American thriller novels" would reduce "category clutter", but is not usual and I assume that you would not advocate that.

As for the British children's lit, I'm prepared to tidy up those existing categories, but not to sub-categorise all British literature. - Fayenatic (talk) 11:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

One step at a time. I agree it's important to rationalize what we have that is confusing. When you say "I'm [not] prepared to categorize all British literature" do you mean that you personally do not want to do it, or that you object to it being done? I regard the general categorization of literature as a fairly important thing to do, but not something I intend to do myself either. But I certainly would not interfere with categories someone else wants to make, any more than with articles someone else wants to make, whether or not I myself though the category was valuable or important. Categories that don't fit into my concept of the way things ought to be seen as significantly related do not bother me in the least, any more than articles about things I don't care about. When they amount to nonsense, they're a bad idea. I'm not sure I agree that there is such a thing as overcategorization. I see nothing wrong with the example you picked as absurd. I at first though it would be better by decade, but then I thought, someone might want to go through year by year. DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I meant that I personally do not want to do it; I would not object to others doing it, but I am sceptical that anyone would. And then there are many other national categories that have not been started; and within American literature, only Novels have been started. It might be better to wait for category intersection tools, than to continue with a few categories that are only very partially populated.

Talking of which, would it be better to create intermediate head categories e.g. British literature by century/ Children's literature by century/ Children's literature by country/ Books by country and century, which could raise even more of an expectation gap, or to leave only the current sub-sub-intersections directly within the head-head-categories? - Fayenatic (talk) 08:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, I agree--I think it would be better to wait for intersections than to do a full scale project on this now. Let's try to figure whom to push in order to get that done--but looking at the progress of non-essential software improvements, it won't be in 2011. Looking at the material, the aspect I think needs working on first is to clear up the situation where we have categories that lump together articles on books, on authors, and on miscellaneous related subjects--it shows a fundamental lack of analysis, a lack of logic that would make it very difficult to do rational intersections. It would only be acceptable for a much smaller database, which was presumably the case when the system was started. I think it would be best to clear this up first In terms of whatever are the existing categories If we were to do a more general project, there are equal reasons to do first the division by first by country, or century, or genre. As they are all equally necessary, I'm trying to think through what would be the easier. My own bias , though, would be to do all three at once, in order to avoid screening the material three separate times: there are a lot of articles. (This is the basic library operations principle I was taught, of handling each item once and getting it right.) DGG ( talk ) 06:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Everything Tastes Better with Bacon - copyediting help

• Everything Tastes Better with Bacon

Hey all - this article is currently at FAC, where it's been suggested to get some additional copyediting help to improve prose. I'd really appreciate any assistance, if anyone's willing to pitch in a bit. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 04:08, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

What belongs in the Fiction categories?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Category sorting approved and completed

---

I notice that for a few countries, the "national fiction" category includes novels, short stories, etc., but it's not true for all countries (see the various entries at Category:Fiction by nationality for examples). In fact, for many countries, the fiction category is made up only of fantasy and/or horror. I'm confused as to the discrepancies here--are we supposed to distinguish the plot genres from the media/formats? What categories SHOULD be placed within the "fiction" category? I'm willing to sort these to make them more consistent. Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 10:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• Threaded discussion - I can't remember where the conversation is now, but I think this was done last summer when some cats were disaggregated. My view is that it's fine to have overlapping categories. Thanks btw for all your work - my watchlist is lighting up! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
• All subcategories are okay: format, author, and genre - All kinds of subcategories are appropriate: genre, format, or author. The irregularity you see in the various nations is simply due to the fact that no one has gotten around to tagging all the subcategories yet. For example, Spain has "Horror" and "Fantasy" genres, whereas other nations (Britain) has both genre and format; Japan focuses on Author. The path forward is to create the missing subcategories: for example, create categories for Spanish novels or Spanish short stories. If someone were to suggest that the subcategories be only genre; or only format or only author - that would not be acceptable, because they all have merit and utility. The guding rule is to do what is best for the readers, and categories provide a fundamental indexing function. For that reason, we should not delete any existing genre/format subcategories, and instead focus on filling in the missing subcategories. Eventually, all nations will, I suppose, have format & genre & author subcategories. --Noleander (talk) 17:15, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I have added all the Novel categories into the Fiction categories. I'll try to add the Short Story and Play categories over the next few days. Any objections? Aristophanes68 (talk) 20:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Not from me. You're doing a nice job. Lighting up my watchlist with articles I'd forgotten about. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

All done! Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2011 (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.

Move categories from Category:Slovene literature to Category:Slovenian literature category

In my opinion, all sub-categories should be moved from Category:Slovene literature to Category:Slovenian literature category. --Averaver (talk) 07:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Formatting of Template:Pulitzer Prize for History

Resolved

I am requesting your feedback at Template talk:PulitzerPrize History#Reformat.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:08, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Color

Resolved

I have a second issue in need of feedback at Template talk:PulitzerPrize History#Color.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Major and lesser prizes

Does anyone have any information on the relative importance of the various Pulitzers. See here for the discussion?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Question re: Category:Literary critics

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Category:Literary critics has a large number of members listed, as well as a large number of "by nationality" subcats (American lit crits, Brit lit crits, etc.). Should the individual members be dispersed to the national subcats, so that the main cat remains small, or should everyone in the subcats be listed in the main cat as well, so that names are easier to find (if you don't know their nationality)? Aristophanes68 (talk) 17:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

• Duplicate - I think the latter, for the reason you mentioned. Rick Norwood (talk) 17:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
• No duplication - The WP guideline Wikipedia:Categorization is pretty clear on this (see "Threded Discussion" below): Nationality is a "diffusing" subcategorization, and hence persons should not be duplicated in both the per-nation category and the top-level category. --Noleander (talk) 19:57, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• No duplication per Noleander. I'm of the opinion that any navigational benefit in being able to find a name in the specific case that the user knows the name but not the spelling or nationality would be significantly outweighed by how unwieldy the parent category would be if every entry in every one of its subcategories was lumped together. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 05:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

That is an excellent question ... but it must arise all the time in various categories. What does the WP guideline Wikipedia:Categorization say on this matter? --Noleander (talk) 19:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I looked in that guideline, and the guidance is:

"Pages are not placed directly into every possible category, only into the most specific one in any branch. This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C. For exceptions to this rule, see Eponymous categories and Non-diffusing subcategories below..."

For example: categories Category:Rivers of Europe and Category:Writers by nationality both follow that rule. On the other hand, an exception is permitted for "non diffusing categories", and that guidance is:

"Not all subcategories serve the "diffusion" function described above; some are simply subsets which have some special characteristic of interest, such as Best Actor Academy Award winners as a subcategory of Film actors, Toll bridges in New York City as a subcategory of Bridges in New York City, and Musical films as a subcategory of Musicals. These are called non-diffusing subcategories. They sometimes provide an exception to the general rule that pages are not placed in both a category and its subcategory: there is no need to take pages out of the parent category purely because of their membership of a non-diffusing subcategory. (Of course, if the pages also belong to other subcategories that do cause diffusion, then they will not appear in the parent category directly.)"

So the question is whether the Nationality, for Literary Critics, is diffusing or not: I think that, since Nationality is the primary subcategorization for Literary Crtiics, Nationality is diffusing. Furthermore, dozens of other WP categories seem to follow the rule that Nationality is the primary subcategorization system, and hence they DO NOT repeat the articles. --Noleander (talk) 19:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

One of the questions here is how likely people are to use the Category to search for other critics, and whether the diffusion would make it harder to locate someone by name. If were trying to find the name György Lukács without knowing how it's spelled or what country he's from, would you be able to find him in the diffused category? I'm not sure how often the categories get used for actual research, but this seems to be a case where it might be really useful to keep everyone duplicated. Aristophanes68 (talk) 22:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand what you are asking, but the same could be asked about the hundreds of other Categories throughout WP that categorize by nation: the convention is that a person is only listed in the per-nation Category (not in the top-level Category). Regarding the scenario you describe (a user trying to find György Lukács), I think the WP Search function should work: I typed in "Giorgy Lukas" and it returned "Did you mean György Lukács?" So, that should meet the need you describe. --Noleander (talk) 04:21, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'll try to work on dispersing that category later on in the week. Best, Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited everyone who was already in a national cat list so that they are no longer in the main cat. That means everyone remaining in the main cat will need to be dispersed manually. Aristophanes68 (talk) 20:26, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I've got that finished for all the nationalities that already had subcats set up. The remaining entries will need to have national subcats created manually. Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:30, 5 July 2011 (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.

Split Lit Critics cat into Reviewers and Scholars?

While going through Category:Literary critics, I noticed a wide divergence within the cat between scholarly critics and reviewers (both professional and blogger types). Seeing that another category of Literary Critics has been proposed to be renamed "Literary Scholars," I wonder if we want to divide the Critics category into Scholars and Reviewers. It seems the term critics has two different meanings that I'm not sure belong together in the category. Thoughts? Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

• Don't split - Distinguishing scholars from critics from reviewers seems to be splitting hairs: there is way too much overlap between those three groups. If such a split were done, it is very likely that one year in the future, a merge will be proposed :-) Perhaps there is some broad generic term that encompasses reviewers, critics, and scholars? (I cannot think of one). Or maybe the categories could be named Category:Literary critics and scholars? That may be the simplest, safest solution. Whatever is decided, it should be adopted across all Literary critics/scholars categories for the sake of uniformity. (PS: Aristophanes68: can you provide the link to that proposal to rename a category?) --Noleander (talk) 04:26, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It just seems odd to me that you have academic critics mixed in with the woman who writes all those reviews for Amazon.com and with people who review genre fiction for trade publications or on their blogs. I notice that there's a subcat for academics--maybe I could simply sort the academics into that category and not double-list them? Aristophanes68 (talk) 05:16, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if there is already a subcat for Academics, that may be the way to go. I still maintain that the distinction between a critic & scholar is very, very blurry. The distinction is really based on whether the author of the work being reviewed is alive or dead :-) When reviewing the work of a live author, you are a critic/reviewer; when you review the work of a dead author, you are a scholar. In any case, too blurry to make a big deal out of it. But if the Academic subcat exists, I see no harm in utilizing it. --Noleander (talk) 22:04, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

As a professional literary academic, I don't think that distinction sounds right. The job of a reviewer is to comment on the quality of a book: is it worth reading or even buying? Critics are less interested in evaluating works than in interpreting them: what do they mean, what are they telling us, why do they do/say what they do, etc. Academics tend to be critics more than reviewers. At least, you don't get tenured if all you do is review books.... Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:37, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

A Princess of Mars vs. Moons of Mars

Hey guys, I typically work on film related articles, but a recent confusion over a book-to-movie adaptation had led me here. I'm currently working on the John Carter (film) article, which is an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. To my knowledge, the book was originally released in 1912 under the title "Moons of Mars." In 1917, the title was changed to A Princess of Mars, but the story remained identical. The publish date is often listed in books as 1912, but I can see why users often reference the release date as 1917. In the John Carter (film) article, we are trying to reference the publishing date, but we are unsure which to use. Which date is correct to use? Thanks.--TravisBernard (talk) 15:36, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

FLC of List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Chinese books)

Resolved

Hi! I nominated List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Chinese books) at featured list candidates and would be very happy if somebody could have a look at it, checking for these criteria and leaving questions/comments/suggestions and possibly a vote (support/oppose) on the nomination page. Thanks. bamse (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The article has been listed as Nominations urgently needing reviews, meaning that is in danger of failing the nomination because of a lack of reviews. Hopefully somebody will find the time to do a review of it. bamse (talk) 16:53, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books#Publishers cited by Wikipedia

A discussion about building a compilation of publishers cited on Wikipedia is going on at WikiProject Books. Since literature and publishing are related, I figured I'd let you know and ask for your participation in this discussion. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Japanese books National Treasures

Hi! I nominated List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Japanese books) at featured list candidates and would be very happy if somebody could have a look at it, checking for these criteria and leaving questions/comments/suggestions and possibly a vote (support/oppose) on the nomination page. Thanks. bamse (talk) 10:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Romance and Drama as redundant genres of Harem

I am hoping to gain some comments from the members of this WikiProject for the RfC at WT:ANIME regarding whether the romance and drama genres should be considered redundant when harem is listed in the infobox, in particular for visual novel articles. Even though visual novel is a type of video game, I figured I should also ask here because the video game genre falls under the Language and literature banner. -- クラウド６６８ 21:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

John Henry (folklore)

Recent edits to John Henry (folklore) cut out any discussion of the folklore/myth, and replace it with vague biographical theories. This clearly misses the point: John Henry is important because of its mythical proporitions, (like Paul Bunyan, etc.) and not because there may have once been a person or two on which the myth might be based. Help on reforming/expanding the article would be appreciated! linas (talk) 01:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Category talk:Fan fiction writers

I've just tagged this category for this project, and have a question there about its membership. I hope you'll offer input. Thanks, Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for Online Ambassadors interested in helping writing courses

Hi WikiProject Literature members! The Wikipedia Ambassador Program is working with a number of communications, composition and similar classes for the upcoming term. Students will be assigned to contribute to Wikipedia articles, and we're looking for some experienced Wikipedians with an interest in writing/composition to support the classes as Online Ambassadors. If you're interested, please let me know.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Slavery system in India is still continuing

Does democratic system of government allows the politicians to accumulate black money in different foreign countries of different nations? What is the democratic form of government? Why rich and financially well established people are representating the parliament or different houses of different nations instead of brainy and talented one,who are not financially sound. Will it develop the economy of any nation or down it. Feudal Lords system is still continuing. People are running after the financially sound people to get some benefit from them because of their poverty. Is it not the slavery systems of the globe,where people have accumulated huge amount of black money by exploiting money from public. To whom we call powerful women or men? It has appeared in the news papers that Sonia is the 7th powerful lady of the world. Why she became more powerful in India when many many talented and educated ladies are available in India having tremendous knowledge like Kiran Vedi-retired Police Officer, Swasama Swaraj and many others. Because, Mr. Sonia Gandhi is financially sound, and her husband has accumulated crores and cores lakhs dollars/rupees in United Bank of Switzer Land, other countries and in India also. Is it justified for a person? This is not in India, in most of the nations, there are corrupt leaders, who accumulate huge amount illegally by exploiting public,causing price inflation and down fall of economy world wide. Are we not able to eradicate corruptions from different nations by making a strict bill in UNO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sambhunath Tiadi (talk • contribs) 18:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for collaborator

Hello, I just finished a write-up of the short story "Langit Makin Mendung" and I was wondering if anybody would be interested in collaborating with me to bring it to FA. Thanks. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Strawpoll. How many want to make being on the bestseller's list proof of notability for a book?

Please come participate in the discussion and poll. Thank you. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 17:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Collaborative_fiction

I'm doing some rebuilding at Collaborative_fiction. I'm interested in advice and suggestions. Particularly suggestions for pictures. Also could someone fill out the 'class' and 'importance' fields for me? I'm not familiar with project guidelines. AdamCaputo (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Good Article nomination.

Hi all, I nominated Collaborative Fiction for a GA review and it's slipping down the list with no love [5] - anybody fancy a review? AdamCaputo (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Have you had it peer reviewed? I recommend that first. Best wishes Span (talk) 21:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Gothic fiction

Is it just me or do large chucks of this read like an essay. For an example look at the first sentence in the section on Shakespeare:

The connections between Shakespeare and Gothic fiction may not be directly obvious upon first consideration; yet, the Gothic genre of literature has been influenced to a great extent by Shakespearean characters and themes, as well as by Shakespeare’s own personal views and beliefs.

That doesn't feel encyclopedic to me. Thoughts? Duggy 1138 (talk) 13:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, most of it reads like it's been lifted from an essay. They haven't even been bothered to change the referencing in some places. Worth checking if it's been nicked from a websource or book. Lots of work to do here. Span (talk) 21:40, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I've done some major hacking and slashing and reorg. Too much? If so revert it. I think I haven't done enough. Still needs heavy cutting. Duggy 1138 (talk) 11:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I have done some tidying too, but it is in a mess. It wasn't doing too well went Colin4C added a large chunk of unsourced essay in March 2011 that should have been reverted and wasn't, it seems. He's made hardly any edits since. Articles on whole genres are tough, I would say, and often sprawling. This one might be like trying to fit an octopus into a satchel. Span (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Legacy writing

Article claims it's a 19c literary genre (unsourced since 2008). Could someone have a look - and see the talk page. Thanks. PamD 07:55, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

DYK nomination for C. A. Patrides

The DYK nomination for C. A. Patrides needs to be reviewed.

• Did you know ... that Constantinos A. Patrides, the author of Milton and the Christian tradition, earned a medal for heroism for his boyhood service with the Greek Resistance against the German Occupation?

Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Opinions please on whether fables should be shoved together

More input please. Are these other fables related in any possible way to the other ones? We have a dispute going again over the Lion's Share article. [6] Dream Focus 22:54, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Poetry's FAR

I have nominated Poetry 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 "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 15:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Literature will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles in literature. I'm also going to ping the folks at Novels and Poetry, too. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 18:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Requesting - Frederick H. Dyer - For Assessment

Article: Frederick H. Dyer

I would appreciate anyone from the WikiProject Literature to assess the above article, as I have helped with the article it would be a Conflict of Interest (COI). It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 06:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Rename of category

Proposed move of History_books_about_philosophy

Folks, could you take a look at this category name, and my proposal to rename it consistent with all of the others in the philosophy department. I certainly would not like to see a massive restructure that would make it harder to categorize things. Greg Bard (talk) 06:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• • Now closed with no consensus. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 09:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Book censorship

I have created the Book censorship article. It needs work from the experts over on this side of town. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 09:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Arts for featured portal consideration

• Portal:Arts

I've nominated Portal:Arts for featured portal candidacy, discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Arts. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

New Jane Austen portal

Hi all, Just placing a note that I just created Portal:Jane Austen. Any editors interested in improving Austen-related articles, or who just like reading her novels, are welcome to put their name down at Portal:Jane Austen/Editors. Thanks! Ruby 2010/2013 21:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sonnets

People reading this who are interested in Wikipedia's coverage of literary subjects might like to weigh in on the topic of what to do about Petrarch's and Shakespeare's Sonnets (AfD discussion) at its discussion. Uncle G (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability: Borges and mathematics

Hi,

I've been working a bit on Borges-related articles. I was looking for opinions on whether something like "Mathematics in Borges' writing" would be a notable topic for a new article or a large section in an existing article. I've found three books *dedicated* to this topic (Unthinking thinking, The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, Borges y la Matemática) and possibly several other works that talk about it. Unfortunately, I have almost no experience in literature-related topics (I come from a science/math background), so I'm not comfortable judging these things myself.

I'd also appreciate if anyone could direct me to any relevant notability guidelines or help pages.

Many thanks, SPat ^talk 19:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I've created a proto-article in my userspace. I'd be happy if anyone wants to provide feedback and/or collaborate in expanding. Thanks, SPat ^talk 01:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam details a limited opportunity for experienced Wikipedia editors to have free access to HighBeam Research, an invaluable resource for locating reliable sources for articles related to literature as well as other subjects.--JayJasper (talk) 18:47, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

New article: Critical précis

Can anybody review this new article? Thanks! ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 19:51, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Dan Savage bibliography for Deletion?

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Savage bibliography

Dan Savage bibliography has been nominated for deletion. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan Savage bibliography. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 14:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes has the potential to reach the main page via WP:ITNC due to his recent death. Unfortunately, his article's an unsourced train wreck. Would anybody like to help me and others with its expansion? See you there, Khazar2 (talk) 19:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Assignment to related WikiProjects

If I understand correctly, this project (and Books) hope to see most articles and categories in their fields "assigned"(pardon the term?) to related, more specialized projects --the Literature banner replaced by, say, Bibliographies or Children's literature.

(quote) "Authors are covered by the Biography project, and books are covered by several other projects, including Books and Novels."

For authors it may be useful to say something like "Biography project, and Bibliography for their lists of works". We do have bibliographies of scholarly and scientific topics, but within literature most are lists of a single author's works. I mention bibliographies also to observe that it is not listed here as a related project, although it seems to be active. --P64 (talk) 22:14, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Disability in literature

This is an invitation to participate in drafting an overview article - WP:WikiProject Disability/Sandbox/Disability in literature. I placed a provisional list of sources on the draft page. Please feel free to have a go at it. (This message is crossposted at WT:WikiProject Disability) Roger (talk) 11:36, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of List of works of William Gibson to FLRC

I have nominated List of works of William Gibson for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Town of Cats (talk) 14:17, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Because "Literature" covers such a wide range, there is no outline or suggestion for content. When I tried to add a "criticism" in a literary genre the other day, it was reverted because criticism sections are not allowed in genres. This seems odd. Criticism of literary works and genres ought to be the targets of prolific criticism, one would think. Are they then not allowed? Note that nothing is said about content in this project. Student7 (talk) 16:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

More opportunities for editors to access free research databases!

The quest for getting Wikipedia editors the sources they need for articles related to literature and other subjects is gaining momentum. Here's what's happening and what you can sign up for right now:

• Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries. There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
• Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries. There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.

In addition to these great partnerships, you might be interested in the next-generation idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. It's still in the preliminary stages, but if you like the idea, add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal to start developing the project. Drop by the talk page of User:Ocaasi, who is overseeing these projects, if you have any questions.--JayJasper (talk) 17:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Regionalism

Regionalism (literature) currently is a redirect to the disambiguation page at Regionalism. That page includes two links related to literary regionalism: American literary regionalism and British regional literature. It does not appear that there is a page for discussion of regionalism in general, and not immediately clear whether merging these two articles into one at Regionalism (literature) would be beneficial. This does seem like a missing article, however, as there is no current place for location-neutral discussion of the topic. Thanks! VQuakr (talk) 04:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Shakespearean character assistance

Can someone help me fill in the proper characters at {{Shakespeare tetralogy}}.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Adaptations

I created {{Eugene O'Neill}}, {{Edna Ferber}} and {{Thornton Wilder}} and I modified {{John Steinbeck}}. What do you think about the presentation of adaptations of literature? Should more writers have this type of format?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:36, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

These templates seem to depict an author's oeuvre and yet they feature prominently works of others. The author of a novel hardly ever happens to be responsible for the adaptation. Only in France: Odette Toulemonde_The man from Nordhorn 03:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Help me

{{Help me}}

Question for you literary people. Can one, or more, of you pop on over to the talk page of an IP editor, 86.40.102.64 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)? They're interested (perforce) in having their assessments assessed, so to speak--they've made a million edits to various article assessments in a very short time, in a manner deemed disruptive. Note their edit here, on y'all's project page. A quick look at their talk page (and there's an ANI thread which boomeranged pretty badly for them) will tell you what the issue is--they don't, or didn't, accept that these assessments shouldn't be done without membership of (and I mean the term not so literally--I mean "should be member of a community, sharing their values etc") the relevant project. Anyway, I'd really appreciate some fresh eyes. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed this. This project is basically moribund and as one of the few who works on lit pages, I found the edits to be constructive, helpful, and insightful. When I have more time I'll go through the lot of them, but feel strongly the IP should not have blocked for these edits. Perhaps someone else has something to add? Truthkeeper (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Mo Yan

Mo Yan needs a bit of improvement for the Main Page In the news section if anyone can assist. See nomination here. --Drmies (talk) 17:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

New article on novel Donkey Punch

• Donkey Punch (novel)

I've created this new article. If you've got additional input for secondary sources, please feel free to suggest them at the article's talk page, I'd really appreciate it. :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 18:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Society at peer review

Portal:Society is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Society/archive1. I've put a bit of effort into this as part of a featured portal drive related to portals linked from the top-right corner of the Main Page, and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 02:41, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Input sought

I've made a comment at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Creative professionals guidelines pertaining to notability criteria for writers. I think members of this project could bring valuable perspectives to the discussion. Cynwolfe (talk)

I am a student working with the Wikipedia Ambassador Program and I have been been improving The Knickerbocker this semester. The magazine was very influential as the source of many notable literary works pertaining to the environment. As a new editor, I welcome any comments or suggestions, from the members of this group who have an interest in and knowledge of historical literature. MelPav (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Society for featured portal consideration

• Portal:Society

I've nominated Portal:Society for featured portal candidacy, discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Society. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 22:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The Myth of the Latin Woman

The article about the short story should not be deleted because it is used as a teaching tool by many high schools across the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.188.76.11 (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Lola Shoneyin

I have just published an article on the Nigerian author and poet Lola Shoneyin, found in the user space of an absent editor. I've done some work to clean and update it, but more attention would be welcome, please. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:39, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Literature portal

The main sections of the Literature Portal are red links, and do not appear to have been updated since 2011. Is anyone willing to take responsibility for updates or for converting it into the rotating content model, which would not require as frequent maintenance? Otherwise I fear its featured status will need to be reviewed. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:41, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

TAFI

Hello, Please note that Writer, which is within this project's scope, has been selected to become a Today's Article for Improvement. The article is currently in the TAFI Holding Area, where comments are welcome about ideas to improve it. After the article is moved from the holding area to the TAFI schedule, it will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's Article for Improvement" section for one week. Everyone is invited to participate in the discussion and encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thank you, TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:19, 26 January 2013 (UTC) (From the TAFI team)

Literature portal

Literature has been nominated for a featured portal review and may lose its status as a featured portal. Reviewers' concerns are set out here. Please leave your comments (which can include "keep" or "delist") and help the portal to be of featured quality. The instructions for the review process are here. Espresso Addict (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Realism

The usage of realism is up for discussion, see Talk:Philosophical realism -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Women mystery writers

Just a heads up: I noticed earlier today that Category:Women mystery writers was created last year but had only been minimally populated. I've added some entries to it — specifically the women who are in all of the smaller subcategories of Category:Mystery writers by nationality, a handful of women who were being overgeneralized into Category:Mystery writers instead of being subcategorized by nationality, and a few others who are famous enough that I know their names off the top of my head even though I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the genre (i.e. who hasn't heard of Agatha Christie?) — but I still have not gone through all of the subcategories of Category:Mystery writers in order to comprehensively populate it with everybody who belongs in it. (Specifically, the idea of going through Category:American mystery writers and Category:British mystery writers all by myself, without anybody else helping out, gives me the shakes because of their sheer size — as does Category:Japanese mystery writers on the grounds that I don't have enough knowledge of Japanese names to be able to identify the women in it without manually checking each and every article.) Accordingly, I'd like to ask for some assistance in adding the category to relevant women who aren't in it yet. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Featured article candidate

The article about the play She Has a Name is a current featured article candidate. If you would be willing to review the article, your comments at the discussion would be greatly appreciated. Neelix (talk) 12:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

David Foster Wallace Bibliography

I've noticed that many of the links to outside articles and stories end up without a valid connection to said files. I am aware that his Literary Trust has been quite active in protecting his copyright since his passing, which is probably why many of these links go nowhere. This particular page could use some major housekeeping. --Poetwarrior62 (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Turkish women in literature

I don't know if this project is active, but I just added a project tag to Turkish women in literature, though it is mistitled I think. Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature/Article alerts will show a watchlistable summary of AfDs RMs etc if the redlink is added to the bot page, and thereby activated. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:20, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:Literature by genre, and by theme

Please see CFD for a proposal to split Category:Literature by genre to Category:Literature by form. – Fayenatic London 17:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 1#Category:Literature by theme re Category:Literature by theme to Category:Literature by topic – Fayenatic London 12:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

File:Report on the Settlement of the Bareilly District By S M Moens, North-Western Provinces Government 1874.pdf

File:Report on the Settlement of the Bareilly District By S M Moens, North-Western Provinces Government 1874.pdf has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

File:1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) Navy Unit Commendation Citation 2004-2005 Iraq War.pdf

File:1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) Navy Unit Commendation Citation 2004-2005 Iraq War.pdf has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Here's an idea: let's improve Iain Banks before he dies

As you might have heard, popular Scottish writer Iain Banks has only months to live. I wonder if anyone would be interested in helping to improve this article, to GA/FA quality, before he moves on? It would make a nice gift to one of the most important sf writers, and it's a one we could create without too much effort. What do you think? Centralized discussion: here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Vortex (novel)

Greetings, all.

I would like to call attention to an edit war looming on the Vortex (novel) article - perhaps somebody here could restore some needed sanity there by giving one's casual opinion on the plot synopsis of this piece? Another user, Eaglestorm, has repeatedly altered the existing revision by filling it with inaccurate information, unneeded tactical details, and overall plot dump. When I removed these on specified grounds, he attacked the earlier revision as being utterly inaccurate, even when I pointed out similar issues with his own. Although I have suggested he give me some examples of said inaccuracy to work with, (and even recommended that we approach the subject on the talk page) he has openly ignored this appeal and continued his problematic edits.

It's obviously a very situation, and a third opinion would very much be appreciated.

Thanks! --Katangais (talk) 03:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Miscellanies

Dear literature enthusiasts:

There is an interesting article awaiting review at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Miscellanies. Right now Miscellanies is redirected to Anthology. Are these terms interchangeable? Should the articles be merged? That would be quite a job. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:14, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Dear Anne et al.,

I am pleased to say that the article you mention has been reviewed and now has its own page at 'Miscellany'. Though the anthology and miscellany share a similar basic definition, in describing a collection of works by different authors, there are important formal, aesthetic, and historical differences between them. I have since drawn attention to such differences in the Miscellany article lead, and also the section (Miscellany#Succession of the anthology). Michael Suarez sums up the difference nicely:

The miscellany, then, typically celebrates – and indeed constructs – taste, novelty and contemporaneity in assembling a synchronous body of material. It should be distinguished from the anthology, which honours – and perpetuates – the value of historicity and the perdurance of established canons of artistic discrimination in gathering texts recognized for their aesthetic legitimacy.

I believe what Suarez means, more simply, is that miscellanies emphasise variety, collectiveness, and popularity (in being produced for a contemporary audience), while anthologies prioritise selectivity and canonicity (a determination of what are "the best" literary productions from a set period/movement). However, there are examples of some miscellanies verging on being anthologies, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the two terms 'miscellany' and 'anthology' are useful in discriminating what are two different forms of publication; though their history is related, the more formalised anthology in fact supplanted the miscellany by the end of the 18th century. Perhaps this is why the confusion exists, because we only really encounter anthologies these days?

In answer to your other question therefore, I think the anthology article ought to remain separate. There are other ways in which it might be positively developed. It seems quite general currently, and would benefit from a more detailed description of the historical development of anthologies (predominantly in the 18th century) - and more specifically the literary anthology. Then it would nicely tie in with the miscellany article.

BridgenAJ (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

List Peer Review for Dan Savage bibliography

• Dan Savage bibliography

List Peer Review for Dan Savage bibliography

Please see discussion, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Dan Savage bibliography/archive2. — Cirt (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:American women novelists

Category:American women novelists which I figure might be related to this project is under discussion. I figured people in this wikipedia project might want to add their imput into the discussion. There is also a sperate discussion on Category:American men novelists. Note that the discussion about these categories specifically are the lower ones on the category pages, although you might also want to weigh in on the much proder issue of whether we should use "women" or "female" in these category names.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_1#Category:Victorian_women_poets_and_novelists

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_1#Category:Victorian_women_poets_and_novelists. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

File:StjepanMitrovLjubiša.jpg

File:StjepanMitrovLjubiša.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Potential RFC on American novelists

You are invited to join the discussion at Category_talk:American_novelists#RFC_or_not.3F. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I am expanding this article (Lit. Nobel Prize winner in 1905) for a GA. If anyone would be interested in helping out, please check it out. I am particularly in need of an English prose copyeditor (I am not a native speaker). Cheers, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggested merge …

of Deconstruction and Jacques Derrida on deconstruction. See Talk:Deconstruction#Merger proposal. Kind regards, 㓟 (talk) 13:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

20 adjectives for tone

tone has many adjectives lets list 20 giving two examples of some — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.202.233.177 (talk) 18:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about novelist categories

Greetings! You are invited to take place in a conversation happening Category_talk:American_novelists#Stalemate here about how to move forward with discussion on subcategories of by-country novelist categories.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:50, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Bloomsbury Group Oct 19 2013

Hi, we are organising an editathon in October this year as part of the Bloomsbury Festival, we don't have full details yet as to who will be involved from the Library we are partnering with, but we are ready to announce it here and start taking bookings. Also I've taken the liberty of organising it as a subpage here Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature/Bloomsbury Group editathon rather than run it from Wikimedia UK's Wiki. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 12:49, 24 May 2013 (UTC)