Help talk:Style Manual

It's A Start

Just saw that you were working on this and I really like what you've got so far. --DawnBurn 14:21, 5 September 2007 (PDT)

Thanks Dawn! I know that we have not really needed this so far with just a few editors, but clearly people needed more info, and Leigh even asked me where something was the other day. This is a work in progress, though, so please feel free to bring up issues for discussion, or edit, add as needed. It was looking so quiet around here today, I was worried we had broken the wiki! --Kay T 14:44, 5 September 2007 (PDT)

This page looks great and has been SOOO helpful, there are no words. Thanks, Kay T! ---Robini 14:35, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

Author Name Format

Oh, but one question - (Ok, two now that I think about it)

1) Did you want to include instructions for Author names with spaces (like we ran into in the Cheryl St.John v. Cheryl St. John issue, and

2) When listing authors alphabetically, should we bother with "Firstname Last|Lastname First" syntax as they do here - Erotic Romance, or just leave the format as "Firstname Last" Format, to avoid confusion when new users populate pages? Personally, I am leaning towards the latter, having just found articles for "Racy Li" and "Li, Racy" that were identical, and most likely came from the page I linked to.--Robini 14:43, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

To Do

Things to add:

1 - Author names with spaces (like we ran into in the Cheryl St.John v. Cheryl St. John issue - what did we decide on this?

2 - Author names when more than one author with same name - What did we decide on this?

3 - how to list Author names in list:

okay, I sort of like the list entries to be Last, First (but I had recently noticed the problem with author pages being created in that format too!). The author "First Last" format is what shows up in categories, I think. Maybe we should leave this out there for discussion a little while. --Kay T 16:02, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

My thought: Have all be of the same format "First Last". If you wish to display them as "Last, First" do so using the pipe: [[First Last | Last, First]]. And do redirects for any pages that already created under the Last, First to First Last. --DawnBurn 18:06, 11 September 2007 (PDT) (late time stamp)

On #1 (Authors with spaces)- The suggestion you(Edit: it was actually Romancewiki) had at the time (which I agree with) was keeping the space in, unless the author explicitly instructed otherwise. I think in this particular case, the author *didn't* want the space, but as long as it still sorts fine, I'd rather leave the space in for readability.--Robini 18:41, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

On #2 (Authors with same name) Maybe call them #1, #2, so on, either by the order in which they were added to the wiki, or the date of their first published book (probably order...date would be too hard to manage since I'm betting most recent stuff will get added first, and changing #s will = broken links)...we could do a disambiguation page like we do for Multiple-author titles, and list the years the author wrote (1960-current, 1987-1989), or their publisher. I don't know that there's a foolproof way to tell who's who on the disamb. page (most popular title? IMDB usually puts a movie they were in next to same-name actors, or their job title...perhaps genre is also an option), but I think people will eventually get sent to the right place. We could also add a "got the wrong Author X? Here's #Y" link to the pages themselves, in the space usually reserved for psuedonyms. That might aid confused clickers in finding the author they are looking for --Robini 18:41, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

I found the existing instance of this same name thing Kathryn Blair - 1. What do you think? Also see Authors - B. --Kay T 13:03, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

Reissued books

More Style guide questions. What is the stance on books that have been reissued? There are a bunch by Kate Hill

• Darkness Therein (reissue)
• Immaculate (reissue)
• Infernal (reissue)
• God of the Grim (reissue)

And they have (reissue) in the title. I can tell from websearching that these were all previously published, but that those publications are no longer in print. Personally, I think having one page for the title (sans reissue) with a note that they were originally published elsewhere (include name of publication/publisher if possible) and that they are currently published by Ellora's Cave. Which would mean moving all of these pages and minor editing. I don't know if there are more out there, but I wanted to get opinions on what people think.

I think there should be a one page for the book and reissue info would go on the page, just like there should be one page which would include e-book/print/audio/paper/hard/trade/graphic, etc. (Okay, maybe graphic could have its own page, but my imagination was failing me). --Kay T 18:11, 11 September 2007 (PDT)

I agree. If we make a page for each reissue, that's a LOT of redundancy, since really only the cover image, publisher, and ISBN change. Maybe we could just have first publishing (Pub, year, listing) and second publishing (Pub, year, listing)in the info section? Here's an example I put together from a reissue I'm familiar with - The Hostage. Alternately, we could do a section on "Previous Editions" (Example - The Mistress) and leave the info there. Personally, I like the look of the second one better. As for formatting it (and deciding which goes up top) I do like having the most recent ISBN/Listing first (so anyone who calls a bookstore is less likely to get told it's out of print), but I don't like that you don't see the year it was written first. What does everyone else think?--Robini 13:44, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

also, I agree with KayT's list, except that I do think movies should have a separate page, if someone (like Lifetime) bothers to adapt them, because they often do rearrange plots then. --Robini 13:44, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

Movies! I knew my brain had stopped working. The problem is that the movie adaptions are so painfully inferior (what with the rearranging the plot, etc.)! IMHO that is. I will check out examples. This work thing is really interfering with my wiki-ing. --Kay T 14:13, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

This work thing is really interfering with my wiki-ing. Word to that. Ugh. Silly work getting in the way! I'll add the above examples to my list to move/redo. There are several other titles (with correct article name format) under Category:Re-Issued Titles. I like: American Pie.

Ex: * Year: 1990, re-released in 2004 under author name Maggie Osborne

List all under the year and note new publisher/author name in that line. Avoid ISBN's (personally) or add separately to previous editions. And that way just also do the category correctly for all involved years. --DawnBurn 14:40, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

We should also remember that Reissued does not mean Re-Released. Different formats (trade/hardbound/paperback) all have different ISBNs but are (usually) the same text. Furthermore, some titles are also given a different cover on a second printing, but that is the same ISBN (I think). For The Mistress I'm curious as to why it was reissued after 3 years. What were the changes? --DawnBurn 14:43, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

My brain is hurting still. Tell me the difference between reissue and re-release. I think we will need to make this clear in any instructions. Also, you are thinking that there should be a category entry for each year the book was released/reissued/released? I guess I was thinking that the "release" year should be the copyright year, but it obviously is not the same (but should it be?). Or the first release date. (I ran into this with my book database for my PDA. Release year and copyright year being different, that is.) Late, confusion, work...

Yes * Year: 1990, re-released in 2004 under author name Maggie Osborne

Yes: List all under the year and note new publisher/author name in that line.

Something like that: Avoid ISBN's (personally) or add separately to previous editions. --Kay T 17:16, 12 September 2007 (PDT)