When is a book a subpage?

[Chris Day]

So when is a book a subpage, if ever, or should all books reside at their own page? See the initial discussion at the link below.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Richard_Dawkins/Bibliography/The_God_Delusion

The subject of the discussion above is Richard Dawkins' most recent book is titled "The God Delusion". Should this be an article at The God Delusion (Book) or at a sub-subpage Richard Dawkins/Bibliography/The_God_Delusion ?

[RJensen]

Rarely should a book be a subpage.  In most cases the article is actually about the ideas of the authors and should be part of the main biographical article. 

Sometimes we will have an article on a book (like the Gutenberg Bible, Shakespeare Quarto), that talks not of its ideas but of publication history, binding, translations, variorem editions and the like.

[Aleta Curry]

Oh, good one!

Just read the talk page--ooh, I feel a fight coming up.

My thoughts--oh, one major thought, really, divided into subthoughts

There are books, and then there are BOOKS.

The Bible is a BOOK.  It gets it's own cluster.  It's not split up into the comprising "books" residing only on the pages of the individual authors.  Even if we could identify them all.  I mean the "J writer" cluster?  Of course, if people want to list various epistles under Paul of Tarsus, and the Gospel According to John and Revelation under John, in addition, that would be right and proper--and just think of the fun arguments we could have over whether Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and the rest should actually go under [[Moses]]!

However, I am a bit less happy with Larry's Shakespeare argument.  Yeah, I guess we could have a Romeo and Juliet cluster, although (and please don't anyone take this the wrong way) I think we have to be judicious about these things.  Plays don't need the wikipedia treatment, plenty of other venues do that well and better.  Short synopsis of the plot, please, and important performances, significance in culture, that sort of thing.  Like our entry on Star Wars should not be Wookiepedia!  Okay okay for R & J, but do we really need the Timon of Athens cluster?  How much do we need to say about Triolus and Cressida?

How are we going to distinguish a BOOK from just any old book?

[Chris Day]

In most cases the article is actually about the ideas of the authors and should be part of the main biographical article. 

Hi Richard, I missed this on the talk page.  So you think a short synopsis on the bibliography is more than enough, or you thinking just the bare essentials? What is the longest entry you envisage?

If big enough for its own sub-subpage should it then become its own article cluster?

[RJensen]

Practically everyone with an article in intellectual history has one or more important books. They are best covered in the biographical article, where they ideas expressed in the book are related to other ideas of the author and the era. The Bibliography is a place to list various editions or translations as needed.   With rare exceptions (like the Bible or Shakespeare Folio and Quarto) CZ's interest is in the author's ideas and not in the physical book istelf.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

On the whole, I am inclined to support Richard Jensen's position. Usually, discussion of the contents of an individual book would not merit a subpage. The case in question arose because someone started an article focused on a specific theory which is also the title of the book. We [some editors] decided that it should not be an article in its own right. The solution seemed to be to move it to a subpage of Dawkins, where it now resides. I think this is correct, because it is a book with a major theoretical idea. Such an argument does not apply to the works of Shakespeare, although it might to Newton's Principia. However, generally, reviews/discussions of a single book will not be appropriate for CZ.

[Derek Harkness]

I think it depends on how the article is written. If you are writing about the contents of the book, then it should be a subpage. If you are writing about the people who read the book, the influence of the book, the ramifications of the book, then you should be on a separate article of it's own.

On a different talk. Is the bibliography as list of books about the subject or a list of books by the subject. I feel it's important to distinguish between what was written about a person and what the person themselves wrote.

[Chris Day]

Is the bibliography as list of books about the subject or a list of books by the subject.

Good question.  It started as a list about the subject, and should be.  There is a more appropriate subpage for the books Dawkins has authored at:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins/Works

I just forgot when I created the Dawkins cluster since my primary goal was to see how the book might be incorportated into the Dawkins cluster rather than being a stand alone article. For the record here is a paragraph from http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Works

"Works pages contain lists of books, articles, artworks, etc., authored or otherwise created by the person who is the subject of the main article. They are separate from Bibliography pages, which contain lists of books, articles, etc. about the subject of the main article."

[Robert_W_King]

To add on to what Martin said (looking at it from the other side) I think if there is a book that presents a universal, repeated, formulaic *theme* then it should deserve it's own page.

[Chris Day]

then it should deserve it's own page.

Just to clarify, do you mean its own cluster or its own subpage?

[Robert_W_King]

then it should deserve it's own page.

Just to clarify, do you mean its own cluster or its own subpage?

Good question.  I think I mean cluster.

[Matt Innis]

Good discussion.  I think the solution that we have at the moment is most appropriate for this article:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins/Works/The_God_Delusion

I see this article as being about one of the books by Richard Dawkins (who the cluster is about). 

If it were an article about Richard Dawkins then we could use the Richard_Dawkins/Bibliography/The_God_Delusion.

If it were an important work of art then The_God_Delusion (book).

However, if the article were to develop into something substantially different, Then the EIC/Editorial council would be in charge because I see this more of a 'library' or organization issue rather than a workgroup editor issue.  As a healing arts editor, I trust librarians to keep my information organized.  We are full of computer people who best know how to organize data.

[Hayford Peirce]

Okay, let's take another concrete example.

There is a CZ article about the late American thriller writer Donald Hamilton, that I wrote. It's a fairly lengthy appraisal of his entire career.

It has a link to his most famous fictional creation, Matt Helm.  If you go to that article, there is another fairly lengthy overall appraisal of his fictional career, mostly, although not 100%, written by me.

In the list of books at the bottom of the Helm article is a link to The Interlopers.  If you go to that article, you will find a lengthy appraisal and synopsis of that particular book, plus a little historical perspective on it.  It is 100% my work -- I originally did it for WP, where it was distinctly NOT a WP sort of article. I think it fits into CZ pretty well, however.

The question: should all three articles be stand-alones (as I myself think they should be), or should "The Interlopers" become a subpage somewhere?

Finally: although I have my own opinion on the matter, I really don't care one way or another what is eventually done about it.

[Larry Sanger]

I'll just say what I said on the talk page, and it's all I'll take the time to say for now--it's very important.

The purpose of subpages is not to group any encyclopedia articles at all.  It is to group an encyclopedia article on a given topic with other types of information about that topic.  A bibliography is another type of information, but an encyclopedia article about a book that is in the bibliography is...an encyclopedia article.  And belongs alongside the other encyclopedia articles.

Encyclopedia articles about books do not belong on subpages, period, because "subarticles" do not belong on subpages, period.  All (collaborative) encyclopedia articles belong on their own pages.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

As far as I was concerned, the article in question was a very short summary of a book. It was not, therefore, a collaborative article and could by Larry's definition easily be located on a subpage. My problem with it having its own page was exactly that, of not having much to say at all, but providing some information which related as much to Dawkins as to anything else.