Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)/Archive 7

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Sourcing list

I'm officially starting up a thread for a sourcing list similar to the ones at WP:VG/RS and WP:FILM/R. We also need to discuss what in-depth means as far as reviews go, but that's a whole other discussion. I'm proposing that the following are reliable sources and in which context:

Name	Type	Notes and limitations
The New York Times	General coverage, reviews, bestseller list	Bestseller list is only usable for notability if it is the main fiction or non-fiction list.
Boston Globe	General coverage, reviews	This should be applied to other major news outlets such as the Houston Chronicle and so on as well.
USA Today	General coverage, reviews, bestseller list	Bestseller list is only usable for notability if it is the main fiction or non-fiction list.
Horn Book Magazine and Guide	General coverage, reviews
Locus	General coverage, reviews, bestseller list

This is only a starter list to get things running - I know that there are far more out there, but I wanted to get this started. I also plan on creating a list of blatantly unusable sources as well. These will mostly be vanity awards and paid review sites to start with, though. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:07, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I think this is a good list. I would suggest that the NYT bestsellers list is useful for teen bestsellers for sure. Would need to do some more examination but I also suspect that the middle grade list is likely a good one too. I would also add Library Journal and School Library Journal somewhere. I'm not sure I would go so far as to put Publishers Weekly in unusable but the fact that it reviews everything should be noted somewhere (I tend to only use their starred reviews when trying to establish notability myself). Perhaps there's some middle category that could include Kirkus (because of Kirkus Indie) and PW? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

There have been many discussions, and I've never seen consensus anywhere that Publishers Weekly should be deprecated. I agree about the paid review sites, of course. Newimpartial (talk) 16:30, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying to depreciate them. They are a RS for their reported coverage. However, their reviews are not helpful for establishing notability. They review like EVERYTHING because that's their mission. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:41, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Publishers Weekly do not review everything. They review many popular-press books from major publishers. They frequently do not review poetry books, genre fiction, or academic monographs. The fact that they review something suggests that it is mainstream and popular and is therefore useful as evidence that a book is notable, even if you somehow think "notable" should mean "famous" rather than what it actually means here, "covered by multiple independent reliable sources". —David Eppstein (talk) 17:48, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't somehow think notable means famous considering I regularly write articles that are notable and get read by dozens (dozens I tell you!) of readers each month. I'm just noting my experience/training but this could be biased towards children's lit rather than all publishing. Given the feedback then it would suggest they too could be included. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:47, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Unusable sources

Name	Type	Notes and limitations
Reader's Favorite	Vanity awards, paid reviews	The awards and reviews are both pay to play, making them vanity. One free review is offered to authors, however the expectation is that they will go on to use their paid services and RF has openly stated that their reviews never go below 4 stars.
Kirkus Indie	Paid review site	Reviews published through this wing of Kirkus are paid for by the author and/or publisher. This poses an issue since paid reviews are less likely to be negative, as this could potentially result in reviewers couching negative feedback with praise or outright eliminating any negative reception in order to maintain customer satisfaction.
Midwest Book Review	Paid review site	In 2011 MBR began charging for reviews despite prior claims that this was a scam. Even though the site claims that they do not write their reviews to be deliberately positive for the authors, the paid aspect still poses an issue.
Indie Reader	Paid review site	Paid reviews pose issues of neutrality.
iCNN	Section of CNN that accepts user submitted content, such as reviews or coverage	Material created through this outlet is unusable unless it was promoted to the main portion of CNN (where it undergoes editorial oversight and vetting), which is very rare.

For right now this is just a list of blatantly unusable sources. The only exception is with iCNN, as very rarely some of the citizen reporting will be used on the main site. It's pretty rare, though. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

To me the blacklist of unusable sources looks far more useful than the whitelist of usable ones, both because there are far too many usable publishers of reviews to list them all (more or less: all mainstream newspapers and all legitimate academic journals, for starters) but also because it seems more likely that the bad sources will be mistaken for good ones than vice versa. For the same reason I wouldn't bother listing the many review blogs on your blacklist: there are too many of them and they're generally not difficult to recognize. I certainly agree that pay-to-play reviews should be avoided, but more strongly than just not counting them for notability: they shouldn't be listed or linked at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

• For the most part I'm trying to list the ones that tend to very frequently pop up in articles. It seems like there's been a resurgence of the ones I listed lately, much to my dismay. But yeah, pay to play reviews shouldn't be listed at all in articles. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:34, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Contemporary Musicians and notability of reference works

I found the biographical dictionary Contemporary Musicians (ISSN 1044-2197, OCLC 19730669, wikidata:Contemporary Musicians) quite useful when looking for resources to improve MF Doom. It seems reasonably well-cited, but I can only find two reviews of it: JSTOR 30163606 (page 16; just more than a passing mention) and ProQuest 1296752868. I note that NBOOK specifically disclaims applying to reference works in its coverage notes: this guideline does not provide specific notability criteria for … reference works such as dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, atlases and almanacs …. But I was hoping watchers might be able to help me decide whether it makes sense to write an article on this or not (and/or might know of any other sources that would help it pass GNG). It's no The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, but it seems encyclopedic to me. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 20:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Vanity awards essay

Hey, I recently nominated an article for a vanity award for deletion. I laid out some reasons as to why it's a vanity award and some explanation as to why this was pertinent, and MarnetteD suggested including this information somewhere.

I've started on a draft about identifying vanity awards, which can be found here. Right now it's in a rough draft format, so I thought it would be good to get some feedback and see if anyone would be interested in working on it as well. Literature and books in general is an area where there are often a ton of vanity awards, so this is one of the WikiProjects I wanted to reach out to. Film and companies are two of the other areas. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Reprints in selective collections as a sign of notability?

I'm currently involved in a AfD for the short story Strange Eden by Philip K Dick. The issue I'm running into here is this: the story seems like it should be notable, however coverage for it is more than a little lacking. What I did find is that the story has been republished in a number of collections since it was originally released in 1954. (Not directing anyone to the AfD, just mentioning this since it was what made me consider this as a potential sign of notability.)

The thought crossed my mind that reprints might be usable as a sign of notability, however the qualifications for this to be a sign of notability would have to be pretty selective so that it would be exclusive. My thought is that the qualifications would be along these lines:

• The reprint would have to be published by an academic or scholarly publisher known for being selective in what content they put out.
• The reprint publisher must be different from the original publisher.
• The reprint can only establish notability if it were published 5+ years after the original publication.
• The work must be reprinted in its entirety - in other words, the short story or novel must be complete and not an excerpt.
• The reprint must be in a collection or individual work. By this I mean that it would be republished as an individual book or part of a book collecting stories. A reprint in a peer-reviewed journal would count (something that would be extremely rare), however a reprint in a newsletter or magazine would not.
• Failing to meet this guideline does not mean that the work may not be notable under other NBOOK criteria.

This should be selective enough to help establish notability, as an academic or scholarly press that is bothering to reprint something would be seen as a sign of the work's legacy, whereas a regular mainstream publisher wouldn't since they have more leeway as far as reprints go. I think that real deal, this would likely only apply to about 1% of published works. Of those, most would likely meet other criteria as well. It would be akin to criteria 5, where if the author is that notable there would be other coverage in some form or fashion.

What do all of you think? This isn't the first time I've run into a situation like this. I don't think that Strange Eden would qualify even if this was a notability criteria, but this might cover some other works, especially poetry. I just don't want it to be misused, which is what I'm worried about. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:44, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

ReaderofthePack, It's worth noting that translation reprints should qualify too, but they are often difficult to find. Out of curiosity, for Strange Eden, are there any reprints that meet your proposed criteria? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• There are two translations, one in German and one in French, but I don't can't remember if either was by an academic or scholarly press. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

As per the discussion at the AFD on Strange Eden, are collections or anthologies that are created by publishers more notable than the stories themselves? It is a bit like a compilation album from a well known artist which has hits on it, but the album has no actual coverage. Most poets work is a snapshot of them at that time, but as I know from my Spike Milligan collection that publishers like to create new compilations which do not reflect the artists work in a specific time frame. I think a sensible discussion at AFD is best without adding more ammunition to some editors guns. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Davidstewartharvey, As I noted there, I think the story should be more notable than an anthology (likewise, an individual book is more notable than the series it is a part of). At least, this is true for prose. For poems, this may be different, as in my experience, there are more awards/reviews for short stories than for individual poems. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:47, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

• Mainstream publishers being keen to create new collections to sell consumers is why I figured this should be limited to just academic and scholarly (A/S) presses. While yes, the A/S presses do wish to sell their texts, they tend to produce a far more limited amount of collections and general reprints. Some don't publish any, to be honest. For example, last year Harvard Press published a collection of Oscar Wilde's short stories. A look at their offerings concerning Oscar Wilde shows that they have only reprinted a very select few of his works in general (and even then, typically the fairly well known and covered stuff), so they're fairly selective in what they publish. (FWIW, Princeton University Press didn't republish any of his work and a look at the Cambridge UP shows that they mostly publish books about Wilde, so it's not like A/S will reprint everything that the others would.) Also of note is that A/S printings are likely to be accompanied by annotations, something I didn't think about but was likely in the back of my head when I was thinking of this. I know I was thinking that the collections would be accompanied by a lengthy foreword that would cover the "why" of the selections and a general critique. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
• I've changed the years needed since the original publication date to just five. I've been assisting in a search for sourcing and honestly, I've found that most short stories and literature in general doesn't get the republishing treatment from A/S presses. The only one I've found so far was The Exit Door Leads In, which was republished by Southern Illinois University Press. It looks like this is actually rare enough that this may not need any specification on time period other than "not the original publisher". I doubt that there would be many where this would be the only criteria for notability. If there's concern with this, this could at least be considered a factor towards notability, as that would at least be a sign that the work in question is considered major enough for A/S perusal. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:46, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't think the time frame is important. Wouldn't the original publisher lock in reprint rights for a specified time period anyway? I think a second publisher picking it up is a strong enough indicator. Argento Surfer (talk) 14:00, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• That's a good point, I was thinking of the film notability guidelines when I wrote that one, but realized that it's a little too restrictive and for no truly good reason. Academic publishers are selective enough as it is. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:56, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Potential phrasing

I'm thinking that this could be viewed as a subset of the fourth criteria, if not both, at least. The phrasing for it as a criteria could be like this:

• A book or short work is presumed notable if it has been reprinted by an academic or scholarly publisher known for its exclusivity and/or is affiliated with a reputable and notable educational institution, and which is not the original publisher of the work in question. The work must be reprinted in its entirety in book or journal format; newsletters or magazine do not qualify under this guideline.

Adding it to the fourth criteria:

• The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country. This includes the book or work being republished by academic or scholarly publishers known for their exclusivity and/or is affiliated with a reputable and notable educational institution, and which is not the original publisher of the work in question.

Any other additions to make it more exclusive could be added in the notes section. Examples of notes could include:

• Reprints of works through self-publishing companies, predatory journals or publishers, or mainstream and indie publishers do not satisfy the requirements for an academic or scholarly press. Reprints of journal articles or academic or scholarly papers do not qualify under this criteria.

I also added that the publication must be attached to a well-known and notable university, as I figure this will help weed out anyone trying to skirt around this by launching "University of Billy Bob Press". ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:08, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• Tagging to get more discussion on this. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:11, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• For those coming in, the TL;DNR here is that it's extremely rare for academic and scholarly publishers to reprint work that was republished elsewhere. The ones that get reprinted are almost always notable in other regards, however this is intended to help borderline cases where the work in question is on the cusp of notability but could use that one last good push to establish notability. To put it bluntly, getting republished is about as likely as winning a very major award as academic presses publish on the merit and notability of the work and its author, not its popularity. I'd say that less than 1% of 1% get republished through reputable academic and scholarly publishers.

I'm thinking that this would mostly cover fiction, poetry, and some limited non-fiction works. Any suggestions on how to better fine-tune this is much appreciated. I don't anticipate this getting approved this time around (although it would be nice), but I'd like to open up discussion. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• I did change this up a little to do an and/or since I realized that this would eliminate outlets like Routledge, typically seen as extremely reliable. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 10:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. SNG:s are supposed to be rules of thumb and quick reference guides that apply for the majority of cases. They're not supposed be bloated with every conceivable scenario. If it's "less than 1% of 1%", "extremely rare", it doesn't belong in an SNG. If something is "on the cusp of notability", then you do what the guideline tells you to do: look for enough sources that you're satisfied that WP:GNG is met. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:23, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's not obvious why reprinting, per se, should mean greater notability; it might merely mean that the publisher has decided to run a line of out-of-copyright books, or that one publisher has bought another and is reprinting the books that were published by the other, or that the "reprint in its entirety" is merely a critical edition of an obscure older work. I'm also not convinced that the existing criterion 4 is appropriate, so expanding it seems like a mistake. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:31, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Issues with WP:BOOKCRIT #1

Book crit #1 says that The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. The issue with this is that many reviews, while independent for the purposes of usability, aren't independent for the purpose of notability; entities like Booklist have a symbiotic relationship with publishers, with the publishers seeking to get their book reviewed - regardless of whether the review is positive, negative, or in between - as part of their efforts to promote their book.

It is a very similar situation to what inspired WP:NCRYPTO, and I suggest we apply the same standard here; book-centric organizations (this would include entities like Booklist, but exclude entities like the New York Times) do not provide coverage that can be considered independent for the purposes of WP:BOOKCRIT or WP:GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 04:38, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

That's unworkable. Independence must be strictly construed (A owns B, A pays B, A controls B, etc.) rather than just tangential (A derives revenue from advertisers who have products like B, etc.) or we risk upending all of Wikipedia's notability ecosystem. The WP:NCRYPTO decision is not a precedent--Wikipedia doesn't have them--and should be seriously reviewed (i.e., probably scrapped) on the basis of this attempt to apply it elsewhere. Jclemens (talk) 05:53, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

The relationship here is more than tangential, with close relationships between the publishers and these reviewers - closer than between most crypto currencies and crypto-centric publishers - as well as the publishers providing free copies. As a consequence these reviews are routine and an indicator of a successful marketing strategy, not notability.

If you disagree with NCRYPTO I encourage you to open a discussion at WT:NCORP. BilledMammal (talk) 06:05, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with BilledMammal. There are publications funded by publishers whose sole purpose is to give a "review" of every published book. They can be useful resources for librarians looking for what to purchase, but they mean nothing with regard to notability. However, they are invoked in notability discussions because the criteria don't exclude them. I don't know of the best wording, but they really should be excluded. One proof that they have nothing to do with notability is that they usually appear at the point of publication or even before it, when the book is essentially unknown. Zero^talk 06:40, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

This issue came up before in Archive 6, but it should be revisited with an actual proposed change. Zero^talk

[Citation needed]. Kirkus Indie is a special case, but I do not know of any reviewer that would usually be considered reliable and independent that reviews "every published book", nor one that is directly funded by the book publishers to review their books. Any such arrangement would cast into doubt its reliability and independence. I do not know of any reason, for instance, to question the independence of Booklist, although the depth of its reviews could be a different issue. The fact that publishers send reviewers copies of books hoping that they are selected for review is neither subsidization nor dependence. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:26, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

An example is Publishers Weekly, "the international newsmagazine of the book publishing industry". It publishes "reviews" of 200-220 words in a standard format by anonymous staff writers. If a book is published by one of the covered publishers, it will be "reviewed" there. I have seen it invoked in notability discussions, but it is simply wrong that appearance there is evidence of notability. There are also similar publications which are more specialised. The wording of the criterion should be adjusted to exclude sources like this. Zero^talk 07:42, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

A correction: they also pay for freelance reviews. The volume I scanned had no authors shown for any of the reviews I looked at. A possible way to exclude things like this would be to require reviews to be signed, but I'm not sure how precise that would be. Zero^talk 07:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I think there's a reasonable case that Publishers Weekly shouldn't be used to establish notability. I don't think that extends to review journals, as opposed to the broader purpose of PW. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 08:21, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Clearly there are publications devoted to reviews, such as NYRB, that should definitely be taken as notability indicators. But how do we write the rules to establish a good boundary? Zero^talk 08:41, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Maybe if we focus on how selective the source is? A source that reviews almost everything major publishers send them provides routine coverage and doesn't contribute to notability, but more selective sources like NYRB do?

The idea needs some work, but I think the general principle is workable. BilledMammal (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's workable. This merely faults a publication for the crime of being systematic. XOR'easter (talk) 14:50, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you are confusing notability and reliability. Notability is about standing out from the crowd, which being systematically included with everything else does not indicate. Zero^talk 14:57, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

No, notability is not necessarily about "standing out from the crowd". Sometimes it correlates with that, but the fundamental question is whether there is enough to say about the topic that we can write an article. XOR'easter (talk) 15:00, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I think there’s two separate things at play here.

Some sources (e.g. NYRB) are very selective and somewhat prestigious. If you get a review in one of those, that’s definitely an indicator of notability, regardless of what the review says. On the other hand, if another source writes a review for every book they are sent, the mere fact that a given book is covered does not contribute to notability. However, the content of the review might make it a usable source, even if its mere existence is no indication one way or the other.

I think "enough that we can write an article" is too low a threshold for such comprehensive sources. We will always be able to write an Aguaxima-type stub of X is a book written by $AUTHOR in $YEAR and published by $HOUSE. It deals with $AUTHOR_PROVIDED_SUMMARY. That would not be a valid permastub IMO, because it's a catalog entry, not an encyclopedia article. That’s exactly the same situation as company stubs based on directory listings. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 08:44, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that if the distribution of review copies of books were construed to violate WP:IND, that would lead to the conclusion that large parts of the review ecosystem for books, for films, and (at least in the era of label distribution) for music, would no longer contribute to Notability. This seems to me to be an absurd result. Newimpartial (talk) 12:26, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, so that should not be the criterion. However, for a review to indicate notability, the reviewer should have chosen it on notability-related grounds. It's the situation where practically everything gets an automatic routine review which we should exclude somehow. Zero^talk 14:25, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Zero, I think practically everything gets an automatic routine review is the answer to your question how do we write the rules to establish a good boundary because in the context of a different SNG WP:ROUTINE already exists. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:52, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

The fact that practically every topic in a certain category gets coverage (whether it is true for books, or rather whether it is true for mass-market books from major publishers) is a very bad reason to discount that coverage. Practically every US president gets coverage for being US president; does that mean that US presidents are automatically non-notable without exceptional non-presidential coverage? Of course not. If practically every major-publisher book gets coverage, it could reasonably mean that practically every major-publisher book is notable. Why would that be bad? They are still a small fraction of all books. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:06, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you and I agree on the broader question David, though might disagree on the specific application of Publisher's Weekly which feels like maybe a discussion for a different forum. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:37, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Publishers Weekly claims to review about 9,000 books per year. If all of those reviews are in fact substantial and in-depth, then that's 9,000 books which are halfway to warranting an article. Is that actually bad? XOR'easter (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Zero, you appear to be very confused about what "notability" means for Wikipedia. In general, it has nothing to do with significance or importance. It is entirely about whether there exist multiple in-depth sources that are reliable and independent of each other and the topic. Your phrasing "the reviewer should have chosen it on notability-related grounds" makes no sense at all. Book review publishers do not generally select books on the basis of whether other reviews exist, which is the only thing "notability-related grounds" can mean in this context. If you think we should only have articles on books that are significant or important, rather than on books that are adequately reviewed, I think that's a defensible opinion, but it would be a major change to how notability works on Wikipedia and would require some reasonably objective way of identifying the significance or importance of books. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:03, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

On the contrary, notability is all about significance. NACADEMICS is an example of a notability guideline that is almost entirely a list of things that make an academic significant. Many notability guidelines are like that. One of the general criteria is coverage by reliable sources, which is obviously needed for writing an article, but more relevantly here it is a proxy for the types of judgement of significance that we aren't allowed to make ourselves. So when a reviewer decides to review a book, we are entitled to consider why: it is because the reviewer considered the book significant enough to spend a lot of time on, or was it the reviewer's job to write brief synopses of all the books published by some publisher? These two extremes should be treated differently because they provide different degrees of evidence of significance. Zero^talk 07:58, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for us to exclude indiscriminate or otherwise routine coverage:

1. WP:NCRYPTO
2. WP:ROUTINE
3. WP:SPORTCRIT #4
4. WP:AUD
5. WP:NBASIC (footnote 7)

Excluding routine coverage of books would not be an exceptional decision, and I think it would be a good one. BilledMammal (talk) 17:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:NCRYPTO doesn't exclude news coverage for being "routine" or "indiscriminate"; it excludes such coverage for being corrupt. The problem with CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, and their ilk is not that they write about every event like they are staring into an aleph. They may well pick and choose topics; the problem is that what they say about the topics they do choose is not trustworthy. XOR'easter (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

it excludes such coverage for being corrupt ... what they say about the topics they do choose is not trustworthy - NCRYPTO covers crypto-focused sources that are reliable, as it excludes their use for the purposes of determining notability but doesn't exclude their use generally. Plus, unreliable sources are already cannot contribute to notability; we don't need another guideline to tell us that. BilledMammal (talk) 05:22, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Also, I think the comments above about reviews represent a misapplication of WP:ROUTINE (and indeed, I suspect that ROUTINE is one of the wikilinks most frequently - even routinely - invoked as though it said things that it actually does not).

ROUTINE actually says, routine news coverage of such things as announcements are not sufficient basis for an article. Planned coverage of scheduled events, especially when those involved in the event are also promoting it, is considered to be routine. Wedding announcements, sports scores, crime logs ... should be considered routine.

ROUTINE would cover announcements of books and lists of books, but not reviews of books, and the basis of the exclusion should be understood IMO as using the usual WP:N requirement that Notability requires independently sourced material that can be used to build an encyclopaedia article - and not interpreted based on the apocryphal notion that WP:N requires sources demonstrating that a particular topic has a certain degree of exceptionally or importance. (WP:NBASIC note 7 seems to use the term "routine" in the same misleading way, though in that case I think I understand sets of cases - e.g. subjects of local human interest stories, and people mentioned only in RS databases - that it intends to exclude. It is the explanatory language, not the intended exclusions, that I find to be mistaken.) Newimpartial (talk) 17:52, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

I like this interpretation of ROUTINE for books, as discounting publication announcements, publicity-tour "interview with the author" pieces, and "books received" listings, but not actual in-depth independent reviews. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:43, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

That sounds fair. I can imagine tricky edge cases: if someone's publicity tour includes an interview in Vanity Fair or The New Yorker, would we really discount that as "routine"? On the other hand, if a book is getting the kind of publicity than an author would kill for, there will probably be indications other than interviews. XOR'easter (talk) 20:41, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

That’s easy: "interview" = non-independent (in 99% of cases) = not a notability-granting source.

Of course, the more tricky case is interviews-in-disguise (the article is written in the third person, but every quote is from the person, and it’s clear that the article merely repeats what the interviewee said without much fact-checking or critical analysis). Those are easy to detect for companies: if the journalist writes that company X plans to develop product Y, move into market Z etc., there’s no doubt as to where they got the info. However, if a journalist writes that book X follows in the footsteps of author Y, developing themes of Z etc., that could come either from the journalist reading the book themselves and coming to their own conclusions, or from copy-pasting the press release. Unless there are five articles in different venues that say the exact same thing, there’s no way for us to know. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 08:52, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. Interviews should be judged on the basis of the outlet doing an interview. Blog interviews get blog notability, NYT interviews get NYT notability. For the life of me I cannot understand why so many other editors don't see this. Jclemens (talk) 11:15, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The issue with interviews is that they often lack independent coverage of the subject; without such coverage we cannot write an article which complies with NPOV. BilledMammal (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Cunard You may be interested in this discussion. I will comment later, time permitting, myself. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping, Piotrus (talk · contribs). Wikipedia:Notability#Why we have these requirements says: "Editors apply notability standards to all subjects to determine whether the English language Wikipedia should have a separate, stand-alone article on that subject. The primary purpose of these standards is to ensure that editors create articles that comply with major content policies."

All books that have received significant coverage in at least two reviews published by independent reliable sources should be considered notable under Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Criteria. Publications like Booklist and Publishers Weekly are well respected, so I oppose excluding reviews in book-centric publications from contributing to notability.

From Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, but a digital encyclopedia project. Other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page, there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover, or the total amount of content." It is fine to allow articles on all books that meet the notability criteria by having two reliable reviews, even if the reviews are in book-centric publications. Cunard (talk) 05:29, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Have you looked at Publishers Weekly? Please explain why 200-word anonymous synopses count as "significant coverage". Zero^talk 06:12, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline says: ""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material." A 200-word review in Publishers Weekly "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content" so qualifies as significant coverage. Cunard (talk) 06:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The point of this discussion is to decide whether NBOOKS needs to be tightened, not whether particular sources satisfy the existing NBOOKS. Arguing that PW satisfies the existing rules does not address the question, which is not "does PW indicate notability according to the existing rules?" but "should the rules allow something like PW as indicating notability?". My case is the PW does indeed meet the rules but it shouldn't, therefore the rules should be revised. Zero^talk 07:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

My case is that Publishers Weekly meets the rules and should continue to meet the rules as it is an independent reliable source, so the rules should not be revised to exclude publications like Publishers Weekly. Cunard (talk) 07:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

We had a somewhat similar discussion recently at WP:BOARDGAMES in the context of capsule review (apparently that concept has its own article). It also exists in other fields, even within academia (I've seen "academic" book reviews that are just few sentences long...). SIGCOV has the problem of saying "one sentence is not enough, one book is more than enough", so everything in between is a gray area. Frankly, I have mixed feelings when it comes to capsule reviews, and I'd treat them as "half of a proper review". Since my interpretation of SIGCOV (which overrules NBOOK and like) is that we need two good reviews, I'd treat capsule reviews as "halves", so four capsule reviews or two capsule and one regular one would work. Mind you, that's just my own attempt to quantify what, at the end of the day, is a non-quantified by the community concept of "significant coverage". _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, SIGCOV is part of the WP:GNG, which is specified/overruled/outflanked (different editors interpret the relationship differently) by NBOOKS. But in any case, SIGCOV doesn't overrule BOOKCRIT in any straightforward way. Newimpartial (talk) 10:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

No, it isn't. SNG's explain the GNG and either being met demonstrates notability. There have been increasing non-policy-based attempts to implement the above, like NCORP and some sport-related SNGs, but they are exceptions that are not binding--as Wikipedia has no precedents--on the rest of the SNG/GNG relationship, and, as you might expect, I view them as improper LOCALCONSENSUSes. Jclemens (talk) 11:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid there hasn't been any consensus that SNGs merely explain the GNG; this may be seen in the process that mandated the current text of WP:SNG (the RfC was this one, and the RFCBEFORE may be found here.)

Also, it seems to me that extensive discussion and an RfC at Wikipedia Talk:Notability represents quite the opposite of a "local consensus". (The extensive process that produced the NCORP guideline also seems to me to go well beyond "local" consensus, and various NPROF discussions would also seem to me to give it a more than "local" status.) Newimpartial (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Piotrus I like this. Doug Weller talk 09:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Draft Proposal

As the discussion has started to die off I want to propose a change based on it; I would propose we add a new section, titled "Sources".

This section would read: When determining the notability of books we should exclude routine coverage. This includes capsule reviews and book announcements.

I believe this would allow us to exclude routine coverage such as this review, while still permitting us to include reviews from sources like NYRB and NYT. I expect that this proposal will need significant modification; I only propose it to help move the discussion forward. BilledMammal (talk) 04:29, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I very much object to a full-paragraph description of a book being described as "routine" and excluded for notability on that basis. I am happy to exclude coverage that is not actually in any depth (example: "Telegraphic Reviews" from the American Mathematical Monthly) or not actually independent and reliable (example: Kirkus Indie, or many interviews with authors). But to me using the word "routine" in this way is a fig leaf for "I really really want to have a significance-based standard for what gets into Wikipedia in place of the standard we have based on depth of published coverage and so I'm going to pretend that some sources are not in depth even when they are in order to allow myself to vote against content that I think is insignificant even when it has enough depth of published coverage". GNG is not about significance. It's about the principle that everything that has sufficient sources to be covered, should be covered. If you don't like that principle, then maybe you don't like GNG. If you want a significance-based standard, take a stand and go for a significance-based standard in place of a GNG-based standard. Don't pretend you're doing something you're not and in the process warp GNG beyond all recognition to fit it to what you think should be notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:07, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

That paragraph is a capsule review (although it is far closer to a blurb than a review) that isn't going to help us write an article beyond a summary of the novel - and an article consisting of only a book summary is not one that should be on an encyclopedia. The concept is also not exceptional; it would align with WP:NCRYPTO, WP:ROUTINE, WP:SPORTCRIT #4, WP:AUD, WP:NBASIC (footnote 7), and possibly others. BilledMammal (talk) 06:13, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

You're saying: those other people already warp GNG to pretend to be about sourcing but really be about subjective significance, so we should expand the same problem to here.

If you can't give a proper definition of how long a review should be to count (and our capsule review article definitely does not) then there is no good reason to pretend to have a different criterion than the existing requirement of being in depth in GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:17, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I suggest if you disagree with the broad concept you open a discussion about removing those guidelines. However, can we focus on the proposed change; I understand that you oppose the entire concept, but it isn't productive to do that while we are still in the process of writing the proposal.

Regarding specifying the length of a capsule review, I don't think it is beneficial or necessary to do so; WP:SIGCOV is better because we don't specify an exact length but instead leave it up to editors to assess whether sources meet its general requirements. BilledMammal (talk) 06:21, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes. We already have SIGCOV. So why do we need WP:CREEP that redefines significance in a more idiosyncratic way here? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

• No The way it is is fine. Jclemens (talk) 07:42, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure if capsule reviews are routine. I'd treat them as half or a regular review, perhaps. Depends on whether they have any analysis or are just a blurb plot summary. A bit of a personal rule-of-thumb. Also, capsule reviews can be shorter or longer, I've seen some as short as few sentences, but the ones for board games are I think several paragraphs long, but still called the same? (Ping User:BOZ). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Correct, the definition of "capsule review" varies wildly by publication. Some will use that term for a sentence or two, some will use it for three or four chunky paragraphs with plenty of analysis. BOZ (talk) 09:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

How about:

While capsule reviews can contribute to notability they give less weight than standard sources containing significant coverage.

Or, if we want to focus on the content, and whether it can be used to create an encyclopedic article:

When assessing whether reviews of books contribute to the notability of the book the content of the review must be considered. Coverage that is limited to plot summaries should be excluded when determining whether a given source contains significant coverage

I think this second option may be preferable; it would still exclude sources like the one I linked above (which would be shortened to Readers will be captivated by Mina’s lyricism and the insightful connections she draws between medieval ideological battles and 21st-century culture wars. This is a triumph, which is clearly not WP:SIGCOV), while avoiding complexities around determining whether a given source is a capsule review. BilledMammal (talk) 11:59, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

The thing I never liked about the current rules is that, if sources like Publishers Weekly are allowed, every book by a mainstream publisher (and many non-mainstream publishers) passes. What is the use of a criterion that excludes nothing? BM's proposal "When assessing..." is a step in the right direction. Don't use "capsule review"; it is too poorly defined. Zero^talk 13:52, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Why would it be a problem that "every book by a mainstream publisher" passes? If you believe in GNG, then every book that has significant coverage by independent sources should pass. If you believe in significance-based inclusion standards rather than coverage-based GNG notability standards, then still books by mainstream publishers are probably significant compared to small-press or self-published books. In any case you seem to be limiting your attention to mass-market books or novels. I am more interested in technical monographs and for those it is definitely untrue that all pass. I have a long list of technical books that I'd like to create articles on but am unable because of a paucity of in-depth reviews. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if they were all actually notable, but so many of these review are not sufficient to write an article. For example, look at The Grief of Stones. It has four sources, all of which could only be used to expand a "plot" section. The novel might be notable, but the sources currently used aren't able to demonstrate that.

Looking at what I wrote earlier, I wonder if the following would be better:

When assessing whether a book is notable the content of the source must be considered. Plot descriptions and quotes should be omitted when determining whether a source contains significant coverage.

BilledMammal (talk) 22:12, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Why is it a problem if the sources about a work of fiction describe its plot and our article uses those sources to describe its plot? What would you expect them to describe instead? Also, why are you pushing shortsighted proposals aimed only at fiction books but calling them proposals about books in general? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Picking one of those reviews at random, this item in Tor sets The Grief of Stones in the context of the author's earlier books, compares the main character to other fictional detectives, gives the reviewer's impressions of the book's themes and emotional tone, and presents an overall (positive) evaluation. None of that is mere plot summary; all of it could be incorporated into an encyclopedia article. XOR'easter (talk) 22:58, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Tor is the publisher of the book. BilledMammal (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

That's a different issue with that source, unrelated to your falsified claim that these sources only provide plot summary information. Additionally, the Locus Magazine review is properly independent, and is six paragraphs long, of which only two are plot summary. And the Milwaukee Sentinel review is ten paragraphs long, of which only three are plot summary. So there is plenty of content in that review to expand the article beyond being only a plot summary. The fact that these reviews also describe something of the plot, alongside many paragraphs of other stuff, is non-problematic even for the purposes of NOTPLOT, since NOTPLOT doesn't say to avoid plot summaries, it merely says that there should be something more beside them. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) What I said was all of which could only be used to expand a "plot" section. Try using that source to expand the article; see how far you get. BilledMammal (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you are overestimating the amount of coverage that goes beyond describing the content of the book in both Locus and the Sentinel - paragraphs describing the previous books, paragraphs describing the series, and paragraphs describing the author, are not useful for writing an article on or demonstrating the notability of this book, although they may be useful for writing an article on and demonstrating the notability of the previous books, the series, or the author. BilledMammal (talk) 23:33, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I think you are moving the goalposts after getting caught in a blatant falsehood. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

The goalpost was all of which could only be used to expand a "plot" section. You tried to move it, and are now objecting that I am not pretending to have made an argument I did not make. BilledMammal (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I share the sentiment of Jclemens on this point: it's not broke, so let's not try to "fix" it. XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Except it is broken; it results in us having articles that we can't expand beyond a plot summary, which is against WP:NOTPLOT. BilledMammal (talk) 22:12, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it's NOTPLOT that's broken. Articles that only contain a plot summary sourced only to the work itself are a problem, but that's NOT what we're discussing here. Lots of NOT is dubious at best, especially when taken to an extreme. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Then I encourage you to open a discussion about removing it, but until it is removed whether it still has consensus (and I believe it does) is not relevant to this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, it doesn't, since reviews are reception. XOR'easter (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Not when the reviews themselves are little more than a plot summary. BilledMammal (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Third party RS plot summary is transformative--you have to make decisions about what to include or leave out--hence secondary, hence acceptable. It's a pretty low bar to overcome NOT#PLOT: naming the reviewers and the publication in which the reviews appeared is all that's needed. Jclemens (talk) 23:26, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment of WP:NOTPLOT, but articles that cannot be expanded beyond a plot summary and a note that it was reviewed by person a and person b in source c and d respectively do not belong in an encyclopedia. BilledMammal (talk) 00:20, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

You are absolutely entitled to that opinion, which I don't happen to share. I'll note that we're unlikely to acquire a plethora of such articles, as they cannot be autogenerated and would have to be crafted individually by editors willing to expend the effort. Jclemens (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Prior to the release of ChatGPT that was true, but now such articles can be autogenerated. I would prefer we step in now and prevent such efforts, rather than have to clean them up five or ten years down the line. BilledMammal (talk) 00:37, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Jclemens, David Eppstein and XOReaster on this matter, and oppose new restrictions on book articles. I think that Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus (though not Kirkus Indie) are acceptable sources, although longer reviews should be cited whenever possible. Plot summaries are fine, as are quoting review A saying X about the book and review B saying Y about the book. We have nearly 6.7 million articles, and to me this looks like a solution in search of a problem. Cullen328 (talk) 00:54, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not attempting to prevent the use of reviews that say things about the book beyond describing the book. The issue is reviews like this one, which when we cut out the description only says Readers will be captivated by Mina’s lyricism and the insightful connections she draws between medieval ideological battles and 21st-century culture wars. This is a triumph. We can't write an article based on two such articles saying so little; we can only write a plot summary. BilledMammal (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. Add that quote plus one of comparable length from a second reliable, independent source to a "Reception" section, and you are good to go. Cullen328 (talk) 03:26, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

WP:N says "A topic is presumed to merit an article if ..It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline...". So, contrary to some argument here, NBOOK is not subject to GNG but is an alternative to it. In fact most subject-specific notability guidelines include criteria not derived from GNG. Zero^talk 01:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Second draft

When assessing whether a book is notable the content of the source must be considered. Plot descriptions and quotes should be omitted when determining whether a source contains significant coverage.

I think this provides the best balance; plot descriptions are not useful in writing an article, and quotes lack independence. It won't outright ban capsule reviews from being used, but it will restrict them in a way that I think is comparable to Piotrus' proposal of giving them half weight, but without the complexity of adding weighting. BilledMammal (talk) 23:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

This is only useful for assessing fiction books. Why do you want to restrict your attention in that way? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:52, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

In my experience, reviews of non-fiction books tend to be more substantial and thus are a better basis for creating an article. I may be incorrect about that, but if I am we can always address that issue later; we don't need to fix everything in a single proposal. BilledMammal (talk) 00:03, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I might have lost track of what we are discussing here. I'd generally agree that for measuring SIGCOV, plot description or quotes from the original work should not be considered as useful. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:44, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If the proposal just says "a book" without further specification, then yes, it needs to consider fiction and nonfiction both. XOR'easter (talk) 21:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Can you explain why? Reviews of non-fiction books don’t contain plot descriptions, and I don’t see any issue with excluding quotes generally - we should already be excluding them for lack of independence. BilledMammal (talk) 05:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Reviews of nonfiction books do contain the counterpart of "plot descriptions"; for example, a review of a textbook will typically give a synopsis of the topics which the author chose to cover. And if a review of any book, fiction or not, includes a direct quote from it, then that is an indication that specific quote is significant in some way, and so we might behoove ourselves to quote it too. "Independence" is a red herring. The review is independent if the author and publisher of the original book did not have control over it. XOR'easter (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand your point; they might contain the counterpart, but so long as we use the words "plot description" rather than something more inclusive this standard will not affect them? BilledMammal (talk) 01:51, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

we might behoove ourselves to quote it too That's true, but we're not discussing when it is appropriate to include content - we're discussing notability. BilledMammal (talk) 01:51, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

No. This attempts to change what a secondary source is; the proper discussion for that is elsewhere. Plot summaries are transformative, hence secondary, so if an independent RS spends a bunch of time on plot summary, to omit it in the article would be WP:UNDUE and there is no other policy basis for not counting plot summary as SIGCOV. Y'all are forgetting that WP:NOTPLOT determines how we write about things, not how we prioritize how other people--you know, our sources?--write about things. Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree. If reliable, independent, secondary sources go into detail about the details of the plot, that's the coverage we build upon.

I remain completely unclear as to what problem these proposals are supposed to be solving. XOR'easter (talk) 21:42, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If it's the fact that "capsule reviews" do not have sufficient depth of sourcing, as suggested by the original poster's claim that this proposal will somehow restrict capsule reviews, then the appropriate response would be to consider depth of sourcing as one of the components of whether a review contributes to notability. You know, as GNG already does. So why is a proposal to do something tangential needed for this?

I do agree that quotes do not count towards depth or independence of sourcing. For instance, the "reviews" one sometimes sees that consist only of a quote of a publisher's description of a book, or of a quote from the book's preface, do not count as in-depth independent reviews. But I don't think we need additional wording to say so. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The issue is articles that contain 90% plot descriptions and can’t be expanded because the book lacks notability to the extent that no one has bothered to write any significant content about it beyond a plot description.

In those circumstances there is nothing to build with; it doesn’t matter that we have a sourced plot description because we need more than that to write an article that complies with WP:NOTPLOT. BilledMammal (talk) 05:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

No, we don't. First, there's no obligation that any article has to be expandable. Second, We can write a "Reception" section that notes that reviews focused on plot details. XOR'easter (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

So the concept of "perma-stubs" is acceptable? -- llywrch (talk) 19:49, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is any community-wide agreement about that. But perma-stubs on topics presumed to be of encyclopaedic significance (like independently published and reviewed books) certainly "play" better with navigation through the category and list systems than other approaches to such content. And unlike a print encyclopaedia, entries in Wikipedia article space also serve the function of an index. Newimpartial (talk) 19:54, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Full RfC draft

The following discussion 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.

---

RfC on requiring non-plot coverage to demonstrate book notability

Should the following be added to Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Other considerations, below Wikipedia:Notability (books)#Articles that are plot summaries?

Sources that are plot summaries

When assessing whether a book is notable the content of the source must be considered. Plot descriptions and quotes should be omitted when determining whether a source contains non-trivial and significant coverage.

00:55, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Survey

Discussion

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.

If there are no problems with this - although I understand that some editors disagree with this proposal, I am asking about practical objections - I will open the RfC at the VPP within the next few days. BilledMammal (talk) 00:55, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Your "some editors disagree with this proposal" appears to be an understatement. Did you receive any support for proceeding with this wording at the above discussion? Why do you think the discussion should be taken as an indication that you should steam forward with the same proposal? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. And more support for some action in the discussion before. I believe there is a good chance this will find consensus and believe it is worth taking to a broader audience. Now, beyond your opposition to the proposal, do you see any practical issues with the proposal that should be resolved before an RfC is opened? BilledMammal (talk) 01:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

RfC opened. BilledMammal (talk) 02:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Add machine translations of titles?

I've been writing some author bios lately for authors who did not write in English and whose books typically weren't ever officially translated. To help with understanding I've been adding machine translations of the titles (at least when these obviously were not nonsensical). Obviously I am aware that it is better to use an official translation, but where none is available, using a machine translation (or my own translation) is kosher, right? Is there something I should do to indicate that the name is not an official translation? FOARP (talk) 13:23, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Machine translations in general are a bad idea. Titles are not really any different. See Help:Translation § Avoid machine translations and Wikipedia:Content translation tool § Why machine translation is disabled in content translation: "Raw or lightly edited machine translations have long been considered by the English Wikipedia community to be worse than nothing." You should not be adding machine translations, even of titles, unless you understand the language well enough yourself to check and correct the translation. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:34, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Both of these are referring to the translation of articles as a whole, not the names of books (which are often give some general understanding of their nature/content). FOARP (talk) 21:47, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Why would the titles of books be different? Machine translation could be even more misleading in these cases? Lijil (talk) 04:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Notability of works of electronic literature - should not require ISBN

I have been using Wikipedia:NBOOK to evaluate whether a work of electronic literature is notable, and it works pretty well. If a work hasn't had significant coverage in two or more independent reliable sources (e.g. reviews, scholarly papers) it probably isn't notable.

I just read the whole page, though, and see the requirement that a book have an ISBN number. This would invalidate almost all works of electronic literature as they are generally published online - sometimes in literary journals but often self-published, because there is no commercial system for publishing electronic literature. For instance, Caitlin Fisher's These Waves of Girls is obviously notable (it's on university syllabi, won an award, significant coverage in news media and scholarship) but was technically self-published and certainly doesn't have an ISBN number.

Can we specify that works of electronic literature are exempt from these requirements? Lijil (talk) 19:49, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I would rather just eliminate this text altogether. A work should be notable when it receives in-depth reliable independent coverage (such as published reviews) regardless of the technical form of its publication. Self-published books or other works are less likely to be notable than ones from major publishers, but that is because they are less likely to have this sort of coverage, not because of any stigma associated with being self-published. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There's already a statement to the effect there: There will be exceptions—books that are notable despite not meeting these threshold standards—but good reasons for the notability of such books should be clear. Realistically, I think it's good to have it set up that way—there will be the occasional exception, but the vast majority of "electronic literature" (e.g., fan fiction, musings someone posted on the Internet, etc.), is indeed going to be non-notable. We can make the occasional exception as needed, but I think we probably should warn people that works which haven't even gotten an ISBN probably, though not absolutely, are not going to be notable. Basically, it seems you've found an exception that proves the rule, and indeed the rule provides for the existence of such exceptions. So, I would be in favor of leaving that as it is. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

It's a pretty major exception though - by electronic literature I don't mean random stuff someone posted on the web, but an entire genre of literature including hypertext fiction, digital poetry. I'm open to eliminating the text altogether, as User:David Eppstein suggests, especially since anyone can get an ISBN so it doesn't vouch for having a publisher. Lijil (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

There is no evidence that refusal to grant an ISBN has anything to do with self-publishing. An ISBN can be refused if a publication is, loosely speaking, not considered to be sufficiently text based, sufficiently monographic or sufficiently one-off. Non-educational software, for example, cannot receive an ISBN. James500 (talk) 04:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support complete removal of the threshold standards. There is no evidence that the threshold standards have ever been used to delete, merge or redirect a book that actually satisfied GNG or BKCRIT, but which needed to be deleted, merged or redirected despite that. If the threshold standards are never used for that purpose, they are useless and only serve to waste the time of people reading this guideline. In fact, the threshold standards are almost never cited by anyone for any purpose. And in the very small number of cases where the threshold standards were cited at all, they were mainly mistakenly cited for books from non-western countries where ISBNs were not normally used. James500 (talk) 01:56, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
  • The threshold standard requirement for an ISBN also violates WP:NOTPROMO, because ISBN numbers are sold to publishers on payment of a sum of money, said to have been $125 in the USA and £126 in the UK in 2013: [1] [2]. The threshold standards are presently instructing publishers to go and purchase an ISBN, and this instruction is reinforced by non-notability, which is equivalent to a sanction for failing to purchase an ISBN. This has the effect of promoting the business of whoever is selling the ISBN numbers. James500 (talk) 04:57, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Criteria

Hi, I want to know if a book is translated into foreign languages, shouldn't it be considered a notable book? We know only those books that are widely read and make some impact upon the readers' circles get the privilege of being translated into other languages. Thanks. Persona2two (talk) 14:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Being translated is not in and of itself a notability criterion -- "notability" is (or should be, when well-interpreted and excluding some important edge cases) really a fancy word for "can you make a good article about this?", and if all you can say about a book is that it's available in two languages, you might not be able to, you know? However, the notability threshold for books is fairly generous (they are, in turn, not hard to write good articles about); a book that's been translated is, as you note, quite a bit more likely to have made some impact expressed in the form of multiple reliable reviews or equivalent. If you know a book's been translated, that can be a good sign you'll unearth something when you search. Exceptions always exist, in all cases; reality is a square peg. Vaticidalprophet 14:31, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

AFD of book within niche subject area with correspondingly niche reviews

Any input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Power Without Glory (2015 book), on a book about early racing cars, would be appreciated. The AFD has been dominated by me (the nominator) and the book's author and I think some fresh perspectives would be helpful here. Graham87 (talk) 12:14, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I have never seen an editor who was the author of the book the article is about, dominate the afd with such veracity - it needs some other eyes... JarrahTree 12:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

You probably meant voracity. :-) Graham87 (talk) 16:35, 11 October 2023 (UTC)It's been res

It's just been relisted for a second time. Graham87 (talk) 02:18, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Question

Could someone weigh in here on whether that is a notable textbook or not? Thanks. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 01:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Which reviews count?

In terms of criteria 1, do reviews in sites such as Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly and Booklist count, given the breadth of their coverage? BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

From previous discussions, I think many editors consider Kirkus, Booklist, and PW to be more "routine" coverage (not being very selective in which books they review). I've written several articles on books, but I wouldn't write one about a book that had only been reviewed by those sources as I would consider its claim to notability to be questionable. Schazjmd (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

When these sites have paid review branches [3], those reviews count for nothing. Otherwise, everything counts, to me; I think the depth of coverage of a review is more important than its venue. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 to Schazjmd. Kirkus, Booklist, and PW are librarian trade publications and are meant to have broad capsule coverage to aid in book selection. Short reviews in those periodicals does not amount to significant coverage, especially if the book is not reviewed in outside publications. czar 17:35, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Here's a recent thread that discusses the question pretty thoroughly. Schazjmd (talk) 17:43, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I also would not write an article about a book that was only reviewed in these venues, though I would pass one through AfC as "borderline enough to deserve wider consensus at AfD". But I've seen enough AfDs close as Keep with only this type of review to know that "PW is routine coverage" is far from a universal opinion. (I don't think I'd call Kirkus "routine", but they aren't hugely in-depth either.) -- asilvering (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing in WP:GNG about excluding coverage for being routine. All coverage that is in-depth, reliable, and independent counts. The paid reviews are not independent but otherwise the question should be how in-depth they are. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Given the shocking frequency with which I encounter attempted articles on books which have no reviews at Kirkus, Booklist, or PW, I consider them sufficiently selective venues to suffice for notability. Kirkus, especially, reviews surprisingly few books. Of course one always likes to see as much coverage as possible, and at AfD I would highlight longer & rarer reviews if they exist, but I think all three "count." (Excluding, as always, the non-independent "Kirkus Indie" paid reviews.) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The fact remains that if a book was capsule-reviewed in all three sources, we still wouldn't have enough info to write more than the briefest stub on the topic, which is why we require coverage to be substantial. Appearance in all three sources isn't an indicator of the book's wider notability or cultural impact, just that it appeared by a major publisher and so librarians need some detail on whether to buy a copy for patrons. If it appeared in those trade publications and didn't receive wider coverage, that would also indicate a lack of impact. czar 18:48, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Notability through GNG is not based on impact, it is based on depth of coverage. So "wider coverage" and "lack of impact" are irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it's already clear, but I'm saying that those go together. Capsule reviews aren't deep and anything to be said about a book beyond its basic description will not be in these trade publications' short reviews. I'd include Choice (publisher) in this grouping as well. czar 21:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. A publication notification of one sentence may not offer enough encyclopedic material, but the three venues named here all provide a meaty paragraph, including at least some non-synopsis material. I have more than once written a perfectly fine, simple article using only reviews like Kirkus et al. Furthermore, once a book has cleared NBOOK it becomes permissible to also draw from non-independent sources like interviews to add detail to the article — and if a book is covered in all three sources, I find there is usually at least one author interview available as well. I don’t understand what problem would supposedly be solved by acting like Kirkus, Booklist, and PW are not RS. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

NBOOK#4

Has anyone ever seen an AfD where a book article is kept based solely on this criterion? I'm unconvinced that this ever works successfully in practice. -- asilvering (talk) 16:18, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

I have. It was one I nominated -- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sweet Sixteen Novel. The article today (Sweet Sixteen (Abdullahi novel)) demonstrates notability through other criteria, but that was what got it through. I tend to think it's one of those "shortcut for when coverage will clearly exist" situations that are easier for some people to assess when they might not know where to look for certain sources, but it's weaker in that than, say, NPROF5 is. Vaticidalprophet 16:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Hm, it looks to me more that the cincher was those sources added after the relist in this case... but it does look like the "it's on the JAMB" was sufficiently persuasive as an argument that it wasn't laughed out of the discussion, at least. -- asilvering (talk) 16:35, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

May I ask here...? Regarding the criterion: The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs in any particular country - what is the necessity of the word 'particular' in this sentence? If the word were removed, would it make any difference? Connoissaur (talk) 16:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@Connoissaur, well, that wording has been there for at least 18 years so it doesn't seem to have caused a problem. I think the overall wording is ambiguous: is it (two schools in a particular country) or (two schools)(either school may be in any country)? The criterion might be sufficient as The book is, or has been, the subject of instruction at two or more schools, colleges, universities or post-graduate programs. Schazjmd (talk) 16:46, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

What does the whole phrase "in any particular country" contribute here? Would the meaning change if it were removed? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

The way I read it, this does not count books that have been taught at two or more schools globally but not in the same country. ie, if a book was taught once in France, once in Canada, and once in Haiti, it's no good, but twice in France qualifies. I'm not sure this is a relevant distinction. -- asilvering (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why we should be making that distinction. If it's taught in scattered schools internationally, surely that's evidence of greater notability than being taught in a local cluster of schools. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Previous discussions on this criterion (oldest first): [4][5][6][7][8] Schazjmd (talk) 18:58, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for digging those up. It looks like no one's been all that excited about this criterion for ages. I don't think that's in itself a good reason to remove it (no one's come up with any serious problems with it), but it doesn't inspire confidence in me that we need it, either. -- asilvering (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

@David Eppstein I guess the idea was that "individually, in multiple countries" could just be two profs with unusual curriculum ideas, but the local cluster implied by "multiple in one country" suggested broader notability than "two people who happen to be profs liked it". Either way I don't think it's a very useful yardstick. -- asilvering (talk) 19:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I've read "any particular country" as meaning that any country will do - I would be happy with the formulation that @Schazjmd suggests (just drop the "any particular country"). But I'm fine with keeping it. I think this criteria is sometimes useful as support to other criteria, especially for literary works not published by conventional publishers. For example, the fact that the digital poem Böhmische Dörfer has been taught at French high schools helps convince me that the work is notable. It has also has been discussed in peer-reviewed articles, so gets notability from that anyway, but if it hadn't been for NBOOK4 I probably wouldn't have searched to see if it was taught in schools - and I think that's useful information. Lijil (talk) 11:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, it was Tramway (digital poem) that was taught in high schools. This work has less of the other notability criteria. Lijil (talk) 11:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)