Wikipedia:Peer review/List of fictional books/archive1

List of fictional books[edit]

Hello peers :) This list was nominated as a Featured List and got slammed pretty hard (comments available here). Those of us who know and love this list would appreciate some feedback on what we can do to make this better, more useful, better organized, etc. Thanks!--Bookgrrl 19:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lets begin with the basic things need to be done:

A summary box at the beginning with the names of all authors, preferably by alphabet, listing the number of fictional books each one wrote, and an image of them.

Not sure I understand what you mean by summary box. How does it differ from a TOC? Could you point me to an example? --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure:

Author	Image	Born	Died
↓ Michael Chabon	File:Michaelchabon.jpg	May 24, 1963	-
↓ Michael Chabon
↓ L. Frank Baum		May 15, 1856	May 6, 1919

Just with more parameters and colors by language/nationality. Michaelas10 (Talk) 13:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neat, thanks. I wonder though whether it would make this list (already criticized as too long) waaaay too long? Also, this is not a list of actual books that these authors wrote, but rather a list of imaginary or fictional books that appear in books that they wrote; hence I wonder if photos of the authors are really relevant (i.e. do they add anything to the reader's understanding of fictional books)? :) --Bookgrrl 19:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about a table for the books themselves with the number of fictional books mentioned inside them? Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images for notable books/authors with a corresponding copyright tag and fair use rationale.

Sounds good, we can work on that... --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All the listed authors are English. Please try to find at least 5 notable non-English authors and include them on the list.

Clarification: Do you mean that the authors are English by nationality, or that all the books are written in English? We do have a number of non-English representatives, including French (Rabelais), British (Clarke, Tolkien, Pratchett), Canadian (Atwood), Polish (Stanislaw Lem), Irish (Flann O'Brien), Russian (Nabokov), Italian (Umberto Eco), Argentinian (Borges) and just recently ~~Japanese~~ Chinese (Jinyong). Their works are listed by English titles which, this being the English Wikipedia, I think is OK? --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see. For non-English authors I recommend writing the non-English book titles and putting the translated ones in brackets. Michaelas10 (Talk) 13:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Once you finish with the ones above, I will continue to more advanced expectations of a featured list. This is a long list, and getting it featured will be quite difficult. Michaelas10 (Talk) 19:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the constructive feedback; I can see how it will be tough with such a long list, but as long as it's not impossible it's worth trying :) --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little confused by the whole existent of this list. Can all fiction novels actually be included onto a single page? Otherwise wouldn't picking and choosing of notable authors be based on the writer's bias, and therefore violate NPOV? Honestly, I would rather sugest sorting by Fiction novels by genre on multiple pages, if such lists do not yet exist. - Tutmosis 22:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. We could further subdivide by fantasy, horror, mystery. Acrimonious debates might ensue over where Borges for example belongs (but hey, this is Wikipedia, debate doesn't scare us LOL!). However, it would still leave us with the majority of authors as indivisible general fiction (Atwood, Brautigan, Nabokov, etc)... --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lastly even if this list does have the merit to exist, why isn't it in alphabetical order? - Tutmosis 22:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The authors are in alphabetical order by author's last name but you're right, some of the lists of titles aren't correctly ordered. I'm embarrassed, I thought I got them all. Will check and fix those. Thanks! --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tutmosis actually touched upon the thing that bothers me the most about the list: they way it is organized. I don't approve taking selected authors and listing all (?) fictional books they have invented in their writings. It would make a lot more sense taking the fictional books and sorting them by genre/theme/time when written/etc. The inclusion of the book would not be determined by notability of the writer, but notability on its own. Renata 03:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...this is a pretty substantial change...however, since fictional books are in essence "supporting actors" serving as part of a larger story structure, it seems to me that keeping them sorted by inventor, and then by title of the book in which they appear, makes more sense and provides at least a little context. Also, sorting it this way gives the reader a bigger picture of how the inventor uses fictional books in his entire oeuvre which, given that fictional books are a literary device, seems to me to add to the usefulness of the list rather than detract from it...Anyone else have thoughts on this question? --Bookgrrl 04:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know that what I am saying would require to re-write the list from a complete zero. But I think it would be far more useful. Because books would be included because they are somehow notable by themselves they could have a nice short description next to it - who's the author, where and why was it used, why is it notable, when was it invented, etc. And now it's just a laundry list of tons of books, and you have no clue which one was important and which one got there just because the author (somehow) was chosen to be in the list. ANd why is it limited to just books from book? Wasn't there some fictional books in movies, theatre, mythology, music, etc etc? Renata 07:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's the thing, though -- fictional books aren't notable by themselves, only as part of a larger work or as part of an author's style of writing. Yes, there are fictional books from the media you mention -- they have their own lists and are cross-referenced in the See also section. --Bookgrrl 13:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing about that is this lists are already present on the main authors page and just putting them here seems redundant. Secondaly the list obviously doesn't include all fiction authors and therefore becomes biased, a bias which can't be fixed, I'm sure a lot of people have a favourite author not on this list that they think is notable. It would be much better to have, List of fiction authors, List of fiction book by genre, etc. rather than this. In my opinion at least..., I'm suprised the list survived an afd. - Tutmosis 14:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well therefore this list is tagged "incomplete", and I don't think it will ever be completed. There are actually many featured lists, such as List of HIV-positive people, who are tagged as incomplete as well. No, I don't think the mentioned lists will replace this one, as it would be a difficult task to browse through each one of the authors to find the fictional books that you're looking for. Michaelas10 (Talk) 14:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect Tutmosis is confusing this with is a list of fiction books, not a list of fictional books (i.e. books that don't exist, except within the world invented by a fiction writer). Colin°^Talk 17:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh jeez, wow am I embarrassed. Thanks for pointing that out. - Tutmosis 18:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. No worries, it happens a lot to people who run across this list :) --Bookgrrl 19:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the point of this list. At what point is someone going to need to look up a list of fictional books? --SeizureDog 10:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]