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Author bibliographies

FYI
 – User:JCScaliger has been indef blocked as a sockpuppet of User:Pmanderson (blocked for another year for abusive sockpuppetry).

Is this project really attempting to distinguish author bibliographies from bibliographies about an author by using the titles X bibliography and Bibliography of X?

Are readers likely to percieve the difference? What do we do with the quite sensible article (especially for authors who write on themselves) which has both types?

If we are going to have a standard form (and considering the number of bibliographies which are sections in the parent article, the use of a form seems limited), can we at least have a distinction that is intelligible without clicking through to the articles themselves?

I would suggest List of works by X for author bibliographies and Bibliography on X for subject bibliographies, but there are certainly other possibilities. JCScaliger (talk) 03:41, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand why one might think that changing an article title to …. bibliography from works of … might be confusing the reader, but because policy and guidelines in WP generally follow practice, I believe the criteria of consistency in WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA was written to follow practice, not create confusion. And here’s where a simple summary of practice, I think, supports the naming suggestions in this project.
This project is concerned with bibliographies, not discographies, videographies, or filmographies. Many of these types of articles are entitled Works of, works by, list of works, etc If indeed as some articles are, a list of multiple types of works, then the project actually recommends, the Works of title. Unfortunately, many of them are miscategorized, and through the use of multiple, unreconciled titles and categories, there is significant fragmentation of these articles among categories. If a reader wanted to see a list of all the discographies in WP, they would have to visit multiple (not sub) categories to find them all. It doesn’t seem, at least to me that changing the ~1000 articles already entitled ...ography would be productive, but that reconciling all similar article titles to the largest extent practical and harmonizing the categories, would be a good thing for WP. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Criteria is a plural because there are five of them. This bizarre formulation lacks Precision, Recognizability, Naturalness, and Concision. Please replace it. JCScaliger (talk) 21:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
JCScaliger, do you really think that X bibliography isn't concise? RockMagnetist (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Indeed there are five Principal naming criteria as JCScaliger points out--Precision, Recognizability, Naturalness, Concision and Consistency. For some reason JCScaliger believes the term bibliography is Bizarre: "markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange; odd" [1], but provides no tangible evidence for such a statement. For each of the criteria in WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA, I believe using the term bibliography when describing the contents of the lists we are discussing here meets all of these criteria better than other alternatives in most cases.
  • Precision-Bibliography is a precisely defined term. When used its meaning is unabiguous. a complete or selective list of works compiled upon some common principle, as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer. [2]. The alternatives List of works by or List of works about is no less precise but takes four words instead of one to explain.
  • Recognizability-Bibliography (108 million ghits) is far more recognizable than "List of works of ..." (1.1 million ghits). If one does the same search on Google scholar its 3.3M to <2000. Similar results for Google books. Bibliography is by far the most commonly used term for a list of works on a subject or by an author.
  • Naturalness-I believe the Google search demonstrates what is most natural.
  • Conciseness- One word (with a precise definition) versus four words
  • Consistency-the current category statistics demonstrate which term is most consistently used in the titles of the current locus of lists already within WP.
This project recommends the use of the term Bibliography in titles when describing lists of published works by an author--Author bibliography and when describing lists of works published on a topic--Bibliography of topic. Of course there are variations on these two types of bibliographies as some are hybrids of both, and some contain other types of works not typically considered bibliographic--videos, recordings and films--and the project takes these into account and makes appropriate recommendations. Regardless, the use of the term Bibliography in titles of these types of lists, certainly meets all the criteria in WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA when compared to List of works by ... and List of works about ... titles. Editors creating these types of lists may name them anyway they see fit. The advice given in this project is here to help editors create bibliographies that meet WP policies, guidelines and MOS. --Mike Cline (talk) 03:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
  • (unindent) The distinction between "John Doe bibliography" and "Bibliography of John Doe" is absolutely unclear. Each time I see this mentioned, I have to check back here to see what is "about" and what is "by", because I just can't remember it. For our standard readers, this is going to be absolutely obscure. Several reasonable alternatives have been proposed and I don't see why they would not be acceptable. Bibliographies (although in many respects similar) differ from filmographies and such in the sense that most filmographies will be a list of works by an actor, director, etc. There are preciously few people (if any), where so many movies were made about them that we would need a separate list article for that. With bibliographies this is different, because there are many people whose life/works have been the subject of many books and other publications. JDb and BoJD are going to be enormously confusing. --Crusio (talk) 09:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Crusio, I would agree with you except for one point, the actual number of bibliographies currently in WP that are topical bibliographies where the topic is actually a person is pretty low compared to the number of bibliographies that are works by a person. I'd guess its about 1 to 50. The number of bibliographies that are bibliographies of a topic where the topic is a discipline or some other non-human subject is about equivilent to the number of author bibliographies. This discussion is about author bibliographies and not topical bibliographies but because there are hybirds, we find ourselves with the usual WP dilemma--everyone has a better idea. Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln is an example an excellent topical bibliography on a person. In its category Category:Bibliographies of people there are 17 entries, with 3 or 4 different naming conventions for the same type of article. Most are entitled Bibliography of or for The only outliers here are List of books by and about Hitler and Richard Nixon bibliography, both of which contain works by and about the author/person. Both are titles are fine, as the inclusion criteria makes it clear what's included in the list. We could name the Nixon bibliography - List of books by and about Richard Nixon but that would be inaccurate since the list contains entries other than books--ie. journals articles so the title would have to be List of books and journal articles by and about Richard Nixon although you could shorten that to List of works by and about Richard Nixon. Now take the article Works of Rambhadracharya. It is an author bibliography, discography and videography and I think the current title is appropriate. IMHO, I think a select few editors are imagining confusion here, and not actually examining what already exists in WP. Bibliographies in WP (regardless of how they've been named) have not been causing confusion as far I can tell for the 5 years that you and I have been editing WP (we started the same month in 2007). But what they have suffered from is lack of discipline from a list content and MOS standpoint. That's what this project is all about, trying to improve the overall body of Bibliographies in WP, yet here we are, focused on a titling issue that should not be an issue because of current practice in WP and not focused on content. Why on earth woul we want to change 240+ author bibliographies currently entitled Author bibliography to List of works by author when apparently the author bibliography convention has been working fine for a long time. I seriously doubt anyone is actually going to step up an make those changes as suggested above, but I am confident they'll keep on harping about it. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I see the problem. So why not leave "John Doe bibliography" for works by John Doe and use "Bibliography of works on John Doe" for the others? The currently proposed solution is not clear at all. --Crusio (talk) 18:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
    • So I think from your comment above that you'd be comfortable with a convention as follows:
      • Author bibliographies are named: John Doe bibliography
      • Topical bibliographies where the topic is a person are named: Bibliography of works on John Doe
      • Topical bibliographies where the topic is a non-person are named: Bibliography of topic
    • There would certainly be some exceptions to this when hybrids are considered, but this convention would certainly meet WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA in most cases and not require an extensive renaming of existing lists currently within WP.

--Mike Cline (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. RockMagnetist (talk) 19:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment that leaves "X biblio" as being unclear, while "biblio of X/works on X" as being clear. Why not have clear formatting for both? "Biblio of works by X" and "Biblio of works on X" would make it clear, and everything would be consistent. Unless you are a member of WPBiblio, there's no good way someone would know that "X biblio" is an article about works by X, instead of one about works on X. You've cleared up confusion amongst members of WPBiblio, but not the general public who are supposed to use Wikipedia as a resource, and not as something to edit on. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 10:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Interesting thought. I guess the two categories Category:Bibliographies of people and Category:Bibliographies by writer give the readers no clue as to what type of bibliography they are looking at. Are you going to take the lead in changing the titles of 246 author bibliographies that are already entitled John Doe bibliography if your suggestion was followed? --Mike Cline (talk) 10:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
      • Look at it from a user's point of view instead of from an editor who is intimately involved with biblios. You type it into a searchbox, it pops up, but does not indicate what kind of bibliography it is, because the title is ambiguous. The categories are not indicated from the searchbox. Further, from internal links from another article, the categories are also not apparent. If you click on the article, the categories do not appear unless the biblio article is very short, since the categories are at the very bottom of the article. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you mind if I open this up as an RfC? I think the naming issue is important to more than just one WikiProject, from the discussions of various biblios recently and conflicts with various other wikiprojects. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:45, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So it's been a few days without a reply... 70.24.248.23 (talk) 07:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Didn't see this question up here. Personally, I'd rather you didn't. We spend so much time discussing what articles should be called, or whether they should be deleted, while lots of bibliographies have more important needs. Recently, no one in this project but Mike Cline and myself have improved any bibliographies. Have you looked at recent changes or the cleanup listing recently? RockMagnetist (talk) 16:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, biblio articles touch upon a wide range of topics, so a local consensus founded at WPBiblio seems inadequate. Also, consider the objections that occurred at some other wikiprojects concerning their list articles becoming renamed, it would be better to have a wider audience to draw upon. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 04:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Those objections are precisely why I don't want to propose any more name changes. This wikiproject is already perceived by some as a "clique" that want to impose their ideas on everyone else. We can do more good by pursuing our goals, which don't include anything about changing the names of articles. RockMagnetist (talk) 05:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
As there is a perception of being a clique, it would seem that a wider audience to draw upon would be a good idea, since it would not then be a local consensus, because the idea has been "vetted" by the wider community through an RfC. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 06:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
In the long run that would be good, but what's the rush? I would rather first complete the work on a much more important question – inclusion criteria for bibliographies. Renaming articles won't prevent proposals for deletion, but well-designed standards for content might. See discussions above and in WikiProject Science pearls. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Why now? Simply because the naming recommendation is being created now, so it would be better to have the imprimatur of the community on it, rather furthering the perception of being a clique, as it has already caused some controversy. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 07:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Would this be an RfC for the guideline, or for actually renaming the articles? If the latter, would you be notifying editors of the articles on their talk pages? RockMagnetist (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

It would be an RfC on the guidance for the naming pattern of biblio articles. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
What would your question be? RockMagnetist (talk) 18:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
We would like to come up with a standardized naming method for bibliography articles. The names of these articles should be succinct, distinct, and recognizable without needing to click on the article to determine what they are, or needing to be immersed in WikiJargon, but available to the general reader at a glance from the searchbox dropdown. We are trying to determine such a name for the topics of (1) bibliography of works by a subject, (2) bibliography of works about a subject, (3) combined bibliography articles that cover both the works by a subject and the works about that subject.
70.24.248.23 (talk) 11:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography of sociology

I have been editing Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls/Bibliography of sociology, and I am confident that it is ready for mainspace. However, the history of this article is so irregular that I would like to reintroduce it to mainspace in as non-controversial a manner as possible. Doing this from project space instead of user space or the incubator is a bit irregular, I suspect. Suggestions would be welcome, as well as any comments or improvements to the page. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Rock, I would treat it like a new article, as it really is and move it to the mainspace in the normal way. Curb has already screwed up the old talk page so a history merge would be necessary to restore the old talk page stuff, but the main article looks good. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I have moved the article into mainspace. Mike, can you take care of the history merge? Note that only the talk page is missing its history. RockMagnetist (talk) 18:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

List of important publications in law

What should we do with Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls/List of important publications in law? This was created as a stub by Curb Chain and then disowned by him and dumped in the Science pearls project space. The original, List of publications in law, was deleted; it probably had a lot more content than Curb Chain's version. RockMagnetist (talk) 07:06, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Rock - I looked at the deleted article and there's not much there either. Let's just consider this one dead until someone comes along and wants to create a new bibliography from scratch. Place a {{db-g6|rationale=reason}} tag on the article project page with the above rationale and an admin will come by an delete. I want to recuse myself from this delete as Curb and I were involved. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I tried your suggestion, but DGG (talk) didn't like it. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Rock, I queries DGG on his talk page. Let's see what he recommends --Mike Cline (talk) 03:42, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Proposal

With all these names being renamed... some sort of disambiguation system should be built for those subjects with multiple biblios... like X biblio is a disambiguation page, with two targets, one for Biblio of works on X and the other Biblio of works by X. And the List of works by X and List of works on X should be created for all biblio articles to point to the appropriate article. Biblio of X would then point to the disambiguation page X biblio. And if a subject has only one biblio, instead of two, the generic titles "X biblio" and "Biblio of X" would point to the same article, as redirects (either "works of" or "works by"). List of works of X would point to the "by" article.

70.24.248.23 (talk) 11:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

It might be useful if you would point us to a specific case where this disambiguation is required with the current set of bibliography type lists. Right now your apparent confusion and the confusion you believe others suffer from is hypothetical. Remember, guidelines and project advice typically follow practice. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
To quote JCScalinger Is this project really attempting to distinguish author bibliographies from bibliographies about an author by using the titles X bibliography and Bibliography of X? Are readers likely to percieve the difference? ... can we at least have a distinction that is intelligible without clicking through to the articles themselves from further up this page.
To quote Crusio As far as I can see, the distinction between "John Doe bibliography" and "bibliography of John Doe" is absolutely artificial. Both could refer to works by or about John Doe. "List of works by John Doe" is an unambigous title or this kind of articles, just as "list of publications about John Doe" (or the above-proposed "Bibliography of works on John Doe") would be unambiguous. from Talk:List_of_works_by_Mary_Shelley .
To me this shows that "X bibliography" is in itself ambiguous, even with the new format replacing "biblio of X". As it is a former recommendation of this project to use the ambiguous titles, then a disambiguation page should be situated at the ambiguous title for all topics which have more than one biblio list. The other titles that have been recommended or widely used in the past would then redirect to the disambiguation page. Meanwhile the non-ambiguous titles that have been widely used (like "list of works...") should be redirected to the new standardized names, since they were widely used, and therefore expected to be the title of such things. As well, some of the wikiprojects that rejected the new naming scheme recently have articles with the form of "list of works...", so having redirects from those titles is helpful with navigation.
70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree that redirects for List of works by John Doe (to John Doe bibliography) and List of works on John Doe (to Bibliography of works on John Doe) would be helpful. I would modify the disambiguation idea, though. If both articles exist, a disambiguation link should be provided at the top of each page. There is no need for separate disambiguation pages. RockMagnetist (talk) 06:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Newbie

Hi guys I was invited to join this project by User:Mike Cline. I am glad to join!! As all can see I addd some stats that are self updating to the project page. I have also added Google book tool Coverts bare url into {{cite book}} format - This tool is great in converting to short urls from overly long google book search I have created a few bibs (Bibliography of Canada - Bibliography of Canadian history - Bibliography of Canadian military history) my self and hope to make more. I am an old editor here and very well versed In all our policies - so if anyone has questions pls ask me. urls.Moxy (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Glad to have you aboard, Moxy! Nice additions to the project page. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:32, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Some more additions

Hope you dont mind me jumping in here ...I have added some policy and a technical related addition to the project page. I hope all are ok with them.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Book links - Google Book should only be added if the book is available for preview; etc...
Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Using citation templates - The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Citation templates are used to bring consistent formatting.....
Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Infobox-The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for...(see also)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Template limits - The MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia has several parameters that limit the complexity of a page, thus limiting the amount of templates that can be included.
...Moxy (talk) 04:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

AfD of possible interest

While it's not exactly within the scope of this project, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of collections from Easton Press may be of interest to project members. LadyofShalott 06:06, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions for an Bibliography Improvement Checklist

Bibliographies within the scope of this project may be improved by:

  1. Ensuring the lead conforms with WP:LEAD, the appropriate words are bold faced and the article the bibliography is related to is wikilinked.
  2. Finding and adding sources to the lead showing that books, journals, and other literature about have been discussed as a group. Compliance with WP:NOTESAL (See Bibliography of American Samoa)
  3. If not already contained in the lead, adding a couple of sentences from the related article lead enhances the applicability of the bibliography to the overall topic. (See Bibliography of the Front de libération du Québec)
  4. Add an image at the top of the article that is indicative of the topic. A book cover is ideal, but images used in the main article may be appropriate as well. (See Bibliography of Midway Atoll)
  5. If the main article contains Navigational Templates at the end of the article, consider using the most appropriate one for the bibliography. Additionally, adding the bibliography as a link in the navigational template makes it more accessible from all the related articles. (See Bibliography of Idaho history)
  6. If the bibliography contains multiple genre or topics of works, use section headings to organize the works into logical sub-groupings. Long lists of works that contain many different sub-topics are much less useful to someone trying to use the bibliography.
  7. If bibliographic entries contain less than the optimum information—author, title, date, publisher and isbn (if applicable)—find and add the needed information. If the author has an article, wikilink using |authorlink=
  8. If bibliographic entries are not organized alphabetically by author, or chronologically, then move entries as necessary to achieve the desired order.
  9. If the bibliography does not have a DEFAULTSORT key for its categories, add one. For example: Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln should have a {{DEFAULTSORT: Lincoln, Abraham}} to ensure the article is listed under L not B in its category listing.

Having worked sporadically and randomly on a number of Bibliographies by Subject lately, I’ve compiled the above checklist of potential improvements that any editor can make. After some discussion here, we can add to the main project page. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a very useful checklist. I would be inclined to add to point 6, suggesting that much of points 1-3 apply also to the top of each section (as in Bibliography of biology). RockMagnetist (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Science pearls

WikiProject Science pearls covers far too few articles to qualify as a wikiproject and is already part way to being a task force in this project. To complete the transition, a number of steps are needed, including moving it to a subpage of WikiProject Bibliographies, renaming it to Science Task Force, and removing it from the registry of wikiprojects. Any objections to my doing these things? RockMagnetist (talk) 01:54, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. LadyofShalott 02:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Fine with me too. --Bduke (Discussion) 06:07, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone likes our recommendations

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide/WikiProject#Developing_recommendations. Good work, Mike! RockMagnetist (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Announcing a position for a Wikipedian

Hello lovers of knowledge! OCLC, the non-profit behind WorldCat and other library services, is recruiting for a paid Wikipedian in Residence position based in the San Francisco Bay Area. This summer, 3 months. Your knowledge and passion for the 'pedia is desired! Here's a link to my blog post about it -- linking there because it also covers a similar (but not library-focused) opportunity at Consumer Reports in New York. Please apply! -Pete (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi! At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of writers in Who's Who in Contemporary Women's Writing a copyright question has been aired - don't know if people here know anything relevant. Dsp13 (talk) 10:01, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Improved watchlist

I have created a more comprehensive watchlist for recent changes using Special:RecentChangesLinked and a page that I created that holds a list of all the articles currently managed by the project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies/List of articles). Of course, this watchlist is only good if the list is kept up to date. The link for this watchlist is in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Bibliographies#Recent_...

Putting bibliographies into collapsible tables

Hello, I just noticed what struck me as a significant issue at the article on Brian Stableford - the bibliography was horrifically long, to the point of being intimidating. I felt overexerted simply scrolling to the bottom of the page.

As there is no assertion that Stableford is notable beyond the said titanic bibliography, I elected (rather than creating a new article) to simply put the entire mess into collapsible tables. You may view my solution here in case anyone has undone it in the intervening time.

I feel that collapsible tables are an extremely elegant solution to this rather daunting problem. I wanted to ask whether this is already considered a suitable method, and propose it become so if it is not already. 134.71.140.129 (talk) 07:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I see that someone has already reverted your changes. According to the Manual of style on scrolling lists and collapsible content, collapsible content should not conceal article content. The usual way to deal with a page that is too large is to split the content into multiple articles. However, I don't see the point of doing anything until the notability of this list is established. The article may end up being removed. RockMagnetist (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Bibliographies within topic articles

The recent development of the OCLC Facebook app brought to my attention that the short list of bibliographical references on topical pages is sometimes approaching random. As more apps pick up these bibliographies from the topic pages it becomes more important that the items listed there be a "good start" for readers. It would also be ideal (although possibly not achievable) that there be some coherence between the bibliography on the topic page and the bibliography page where one exists. This is less vital for author bibliographies, which must be complete to be of interest, than for topical bibliographies, which are more appropriately a selected bibliography. Is this something this group could be involved in? LaMona (talk) 15:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

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