Romance Wiki:Community Discussion

Welcome to a new discussion page. This page is used to discuss the general topics that don't fit on an article or user talk page. You can ask questions, discuss policies, contents, operations and technical issues of RomanceWiki. Discussions will be archived once this page gets too long.

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Note: The talk page (reached by clicking "discussion" tab at the top of the page) for this Community Discussion page will be used to discuss things concerning this page itself, e.g., the layout, content.

What Should We Call This?

Yay! We have a place to talk about all those things that don't fit anywhere else. But, what should we call this discussion page? On Wikipedia, the page is called the "Village Pump." That does not sound very "romance-y" and we don't want to just copy them. I have suggested elsewhere that we call it the "Tea Room," or "Coffee House." What are your suggestions?--Kay T 16:02, 19 September 2007 (PDT) P.S. While we get the page set up, is it okay to have discussions about this page here. Once we have it going, such discussions should go to the project talk page.

Discussion Parlor? --Robini 19:49, 19 September 2007 (PDT)

I like Parlor(y) type names, water cooler is good, Tea Room...like that. Or we could go with a Regency theme with Assembly Room(s).--Romancewiki 09:56, 22 September 2007 (PDT)

I vote for "Tea Room". --DawnBurn 14:29, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

Announcements?

We could also use this for announcements although that does not seem right. Anyway, there is a new Help:Talk Pages with a question on its Help talk:Talk Pages. --Kay T 16:25, 19 September 2007 (PDT)

Awards

I think we need an award for User:Leigh and User:Amy. It is a slow day when they are not around adding/fixing hundreds of books! Thanks! --Kay T 15:00, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

I second this nomination (though would also note that User:Kay T and User:DawnBurn have been equally awesome. I only glanced at the site while on vacation (apparently there's a rule against wiking while on vacation, though I did get a few interesting comments about my RW t-shirt -- wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian!), so it's just awesome to see all the new stuff and, especially, all the content clean-up. I know that Leigh is aware of the offer for a book bag (and Kay's was finally put in the mail!), so Dawn and Amy, if you're needing a bag, let me know.--Romancewiki 19:48, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

Um, I'm highly flattered. I do think Leigh & Amy should get awards for most prolific and most page additions. I believe I serve mostly as a gadfly and doing background organizational stuff which appeals to my anal retentative side without requiring new content from me. If you have extra bags, I would be honored to receive one, but I'd prefer to wait until both Leigh & Amy have been contacted because they are super duper awesome. --DawnBurn 16:05, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

Wow, thanks guys :) I have to say I don't add nearly as many pages as Leigh -- I tend to get on something like adding book descriptions to Superromance pages and go and go and go until I find something else to obsess over. What I really need is wiki rehab! :) --Amy 18:01, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

Chocolate for rehab! We need chocolate! We really do appreciate all of your hard work - fixing or adding. I just know that when I first made the comment, I looked at Recent changes and there were no entries from Amy or Leigh yet that day - a slow day indeed! Sort of scary. Felt like I needed to call you to make sure you were okay. ;) And having people understand RomanceWiki well enough to do the behind the scenes stuff is so great! Thanks --Kay T 16:07, 1 November 2007 (PDT)

Category: Books by Publisher

I have noticed that several publisher categories have been created and used on book pages for that publisher's books. This is not a bad idea, and I created a mega-category: Category:Books By Publisher. We could add a publisher category on the book template. What do you all think? --Kay T 20:20, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

Looks like we're both up late (okay, heading off to bed after this -- have to return to the Evil Empire tomorrow). I think, way back when, I might have started to categorize books by publisher, but not categories. I quickly realized that the by publisher designation might be useful, but was also unwieldy. Books by imprint -- which is closer, I think, to what you're doing here -- makes more sense. Nobody seeks "Books by Harlequin", but they do seek "Presents" (or Harlequin Presents). Just as with the author designation, it makes sense to categorize books in this way.

I am guilty of being inconsistent in this regard (having not found my original method of categorizing books by publisher to be particularly effective). I would agitate for imprint over publisher, but publisher if imprint is unknown/not easily discernible. I am strongly in favor of offering the maximum number of options for finding content. Other thoughts?--Romancewiki 23:46, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

Yes, I would probably do book imprints since we have started to use those for Harlequin, but for Red Rose it is probably okay to just do the publisher for now. The other publisher category that had been created was for Samhain, but that was one that had been nominated for deletion, and I think you did delete it this weekend. Maybe Dawn or others will have some thoughts on this. I am not wedded to one way or the other. --Kay T 13:24, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

The reason why the Samhain page was up for deletion was because it was a double, IIRC. I'm not against Category:Books By Publisher in that the point of RW is to help people find the books they are looking for. However, I do think Romancewiki's notes are potentially troublesome. In that what category do we use for things like Harlequin versus Blaze (Publisher versus Imprint). I think more people do look by imprint,and if each imprint category was a subset of the overarching publisher, that might be good. But we already have inconsistencies in how the imprints are named or referenced on the book pages. I'm realizing I'm not making a preference either way. Umm... yes to having the mega-category being added, and potentially yes to that being added to the template. But realizing that all previously created pages won't have and that we'll likely get duplicates of categories due to spelling/caps/inclusion of publisher and imprint or just imprint/etc. into those categories. --DawnBurn 16:03, 30 October 2007 (PDT)

Darn you Dawn for practicality! Here's my thinking, for what it's worth (about what you're paying...). When I first started, I was a naive babe in the woods. I think -- and someone will surely correct me as it was a rookie error -- I named a page "Romance". It meant either Harlequin or Silhouette Romance (I can't recall), but it was a stupid page name and I'm crossing my fingers that the more organized of us have fixed it.

I do believe that people search more by imprint than publisher (though in the case of Harlequin, both are equally popular). If I were to do it all over, I would create a mega-category for each publisher and then a sub-category for each imprint. That would achieve the goal of making sure that information was accessible no matter how people search (and people search in ways you cannot begin to imagine -- if you're ever bored, watch a co-worker or friend or (best) mother search. It's quite stunning and also educational.

So I am advocating for a particular hierarchy, but also realizing that this is a huge time suck (and when it comes to the wiki, we all so many of those, right?). But...light, tunnel, all that. If someone has the energy and time to write a set of rules for categorization, I do have a resource who can help. If not, my feeling is we make this a future project while we put guidelines in place for go-forward content. Thoughts, agreements, disagreements, better ideas (you all have way better ideas than moi)...? --Romancewiki, signed for author by DawnBurn 16:58, 8 November 2007 (PST)

Shock, gasp! You forgot to sign your post, RomanceWiki. My thought was that this could be added to the template and as you said we could add the publisher category going forward, gradually adding to existing books as needed. What other complications are we not thinking of? One is that a category of "Avon" might contain both books, info about the publisher and authors. Does that matter? I also wonder if there is some "easy" way of doing this. At this point, as you see from the mega-category (Category:Books By Publisher), there are both imprint categories, publisher categories, and articles with lists of books by publisher. We could also add the numbered series here if we wanted to. hmmm...--Kay T 13:22, 2 November 2007 (PDT)

Replying to Kay's post, but the general thread. I have some LIMITED experience with writing code. I might be able to come up with a rule set, if we are talking about a bot. I think this thread speaks to a general "need" to clean up. There is still the Romance page, and the naming of the imprints (and their associated by the number pages) is um... random at best. But moving all of those pages (nominally annoying) and then fixing all the redirects (way more annoying) could be more easily done by a use of bot, which would then potentially allow at the same a restructuring of the mega-category to allow more searching. So, it might be of benefit to examine if from a complete overhaul instead of just 'going forward.' I'm willing to use what limited code skills I have toward this and I've considered more than once figuring out enough to write a bot that would auto add the Same Title, Multiple Author books to the Books Alpha pages (which, incidentally, I'm not fond of and are incomplete and hard to use, not that I actually have a better suggestion). Umm... short summary:

Let's talk (here or in group chat) about how it might be best to restructure from the ground up with the use of a bot for any high repetitive tasks in cleanup.--DawnBurn 16:58, 8 November 2007 (PST)

Dawn, I think that someone here might have figured out how to use AWB (from Wikipedia) to do some repetitive tasks, and I have wanted to learn but am afraid. :) One of the problems of thinking or talking about a mega-category and the category tree structure is that there is no good way of seeing that structure on the wiki. That even drives me crazy on the RomanceWiki:Category Index -- hard to show the structure. At one point (many moons ago) I had dumped all the categories into Excel and then made the structure more obvious. How would you suggest we do a restructure? Should we move this to the category index talk page?--Kay T 13:43, 9 November 2007 (PST)

Traffic Analysis

Before I go back and read what Kay and Dawn are discussing above (lot of words, little coffee), I'll introduce a new idea for those of you who love to waste time on research. When I have time, I like to focus on building up content related to search phrases used to bring (see recent pages for Anne Weale and Sara Seale as examples). I've pulled out the approximately Top 20 Search Phrases that our readers are using (note: this list is edited to toss out things like "romancewiki"). If you're looking for hours of fun, adding content to these pages is the way to go!--Romancewiki 10:12, 10 November 2007 (PST)

Discussion Options

To make the discussions about structure and content more efficient, I am wondering if we need to create a list, forum, blog (which, yes, is still high on my list -- just waiting for tech guy to add Kay's category page. I am turning into quite the nag on that).--Romancewiki 10:12, 10 November 2007 (PST)

Publishers and Books with Same Name

I've encountered another problem with creating disambiguation pages - books that have the same name as a publisher or imprint. Some examples:

• Splendor and Temptation - imprint pages to which another user has added information about a book (sigh)
• Genesis (publisher) and Genesis (CP) (book)

Should we create a disambig page listing both the books and imprint (and if so, do the imprint pages need to be moved to "Title - Imprint" -- as we renamed similar anthology pages "Title - Anthology")? The problem with that, of course, is that a ton of links to that imprint will have be changed. Does anyone have a better solution? --Amy 19:47, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Funny you should mention this as I encountered this situation this week. In my case, because there were so few links to deal with, I changed the publisher name to the full title. However, since someone (me, I'm ashamed to admit) started off calling Temptation, Temptation, there are far too many links to change (though, I can ask my husband's assistant to do that if we choose to got that route -- she has the, as they say, bandwidth).

I admit that I like the idea of adding imprints to the disambiguation pages. Sick I know. I am willing to manage the task of dealing with the Temptation and Splendor links (first) if we agree that this is the optimal solution. I'm going to ping Leigh, Kay, and Dawn to weigh in.--Romancewiki 21:05, 30 November 2007 (PST)

Sorry, I have not been around lately! I have to say that I like the solution of having the imprint on the disamb page. Of course, thinking about the consequences of this is rather mind-boggling. If we moved Temptation the imprint to a page called Harlequin Temptation the the links would automatically redirect. But if we then wanted to make a disamb page called Temptation we would have to change all the links (I am not sure if that is even doable without a bot, has your "assistant" figured out bots?). I suppose we could call the disamb page Temptation (disambiguation)?? Don't really have my wiki-hat on right now. In the short term we could just make the book pages with the author's name, a disamb page called Temptation (disambiguation) and ?? --Kay T 15:52, 4 December 2007 (PST)

Actually, I'm more than halfway through making the page changes (I had some client downtime this week and am taking full advantage of this brief respite!); however, making the change through the database was option two. In fact, I was in the process of writing the rules for this when I realized I was going to be done with the project before I could turn it over. So I'm thinking that when this done (today or tomorrow), I'll contact Amy and she can her piece, I'll do my piece (moving a few authors), and we can add the Temptation imprint to the disambiguation page. I like that this makes the disambig concept more complete. I like complete.

I'm hoping the Genesis project is much smaller, otherwise, I'll go with making the changes on the database side (or, if you will the "bot" solution).--Romancewiki 11:25, 5 December 2007 (PST)

So I haven't been around (just started a new job and didn't see my talk page), but I just wanted to briefly say that I like the idea of having moved the Temptation to Harlequin Temptation. And I do think a bot solution could be done (still on my list of things to do is to play with a bot) since it would be a matter of changing all the pages (mostly) that link there. So, in general, I support fuller Imprint Article Titles (Publisher Imprint). --DawnBurn 11:35, 7 December 2007 (PST)

Kassia, thanks for taking care of the Temptation thing. Fixing Splendor and Genesis will much, much shorter since only a couple pages link to them. In fact, I should get Splendor done tonight. --Amy 16:37, 10 December 2007 (PST)

Then there's the final one to look at: Desire. It's on my mental radar rather than active radar since the schedule is much tighter this week.--Romancewiki 19:50, 11 December 2007 (PST)

Author Page Help

Hi, this is Lillith Payne. I'm new here and confused! I set up a basic page and can open it and print it. I CAN'T OPEN IT FROM THE AUTHOR LIST! If anyone can give me simple directions to correct this I'd appreciate it. My thanks, Lillith

Hi Lillith. Looks like you edited your user page User:Lillith Payne with your info but didn't create an actual wiki page. I've gone ahead and started one at Lillith Payne with the info from your user page and added you to the author list so you should be good to go. --Amy 15:15, 16 January 2008 (PST)

Hi Amy, Thank you so much for your help. I found the process completely frustrating not being able to find the fix. When I logged on today I knew I must have found a guardian angel. Consider me your random act of kindness for the week. Lillith

No problem Lillith, glad to help :) --Amy 14:44, 17 January 2008 (PST)

RW Workflow

Rather than post this on my personal page (which I'm sure is out there somewhere!), I just thought I'd give a quick update about the big content stuff in progress (especially since Amy and Leigh are going gangbusters!). I'm adding author pages for all the Silhouette Romance authors and will do the by the numbers pages if someone doesn't beat me to it (I have all the content ready to roll when I get that far in my file). After that, I will go back and add the author pages for Harlequin Temptation authors. For some bizarre reason -- old age, probably -- I did the by the numbers pages, but never did all the work for each author. Quite a few have already been created by others, so I'll be filling in the gaps there. Phew!

On a go-forward basis, I am building a whole slate of author pages for various category lines. This is going alphabetically by author and should take a good long time. However, we'll have a huge database of romance authors with the best biographical information I can find (and yeah, if you know stuff I don't...). After that, I'll need to come up with a game plan for the rest of the bunch, but since I'm still on the "A" list of authors, I'm not rushing there.

To add some color, especially for older authors without much information, I'm also tracking down at least one halfway decent cover image. If anyone needs me to work on something else, just give a shout-out. Since this current workplan is so huge, I don't mind getting sidetracked a bit.

Also, I'm thinking we need to give some love to writing romance -- anyone know anyone who might be a great resource for this?--Romancewiki 21:30, 24 January 2008 (PST)

"give some love to writing romance"

What did you have in mind here RW? Good game plan, I somehow missed this when I was here the other day. --Kay T 17:46, 2 February 2008 (PST)

Specifically, I referring to building a good, strong writer resource section. I know we have some bits and pieces here and there, but it would be terrific to have an organized section. It's really the one area where we haven't made inroads, content-wise. It's on my long-term mental plan of things to do, but given my current workplan, it's a seriously future deal.--Romancewiki 21:09, 6 February 2008 (PST)

Yes, we could use some more here. Just for future reference, I have tried to keep up lists and links on the Resources page and in the category:Romance Resources. --Kay T 21:08, 7 February 2008 (PST)

Publisher's lines, numbered series

Leigh has been busy cleaning up the pages that contain lists of books in publisher's lines. Proactively, should we have a section in the style manual that says something like:

Publisher Imprints & Lines
When creating a page for a publisher's imprint, for example, Intimate Moments, it is best to include the name of the publisher in the title, Silhouette Intimate Moments. This makes it clearer that the article is about an imprint or line and not about a book with that title.

What do we think?? --Kay T 11:49, 31 January 2008 (PST)

That sounds like a good idea to me. --Leigh

I am in agreement with Leigh (who has been doing amazing work lately!). As noted above, I am doing loads and loads of author pages (which will be added to wiki as I get through the previous things -- there is something about having a queue that makes me excited), and I am using the publisher pages as guidelines when I create my links.

If Leigh needs to push some mindless content clean-up my way, just say the word. There are days when I need to put the brain on auto-pilot (especially lately...if only I had the time to do so!). And the husband's assistant is available for projects -- she's super tech savvy and has done a few wiki projects already. Wiki projects are not highest priority (!@@#$ men!), but tell me if there's something that you can't get to.--Romancewiki 20:58, 31 January 2008 (PST)

Done

--Kay T 17:52, 2 February 2008 (PST)

Kay -- I love the little graphics. They make me smile!--Romancewiki 20:43, 6 February 2008 (PST)

Yes, it is so perky! Hope your temporary dislocation is going okay, and you have found some books to read! even if you weren't dislocated we are in a dry spell, I think. --Kay T 21:08, 7 February 2008 (PST)

Author Page Help

Hi, my name is Cheryl A. Cornell. I set up a new page for myself yesterday, 2/9/08 for my first published novel, Treasure Found through The Wild Rose Press. Thought I followed the directions but I'm not showing up on the author list. If anyone has any ideas what I did wrong or how to fix it I'd appreciate any information you can give. I believed I edited the page but wasn't able to create it. Thanks to anyone who can help, Cheryl 10:35AM 2-10-08

• I'm not sure if there was some database funkiness, or if you actually set up your info on your user page by mistake. User pages are different than author pages, because not every wiki user is an author - I've got a user page frex., but I'm just an editor. Anyways, I went ahead and added a page for you in the actual content of the wiki (user page "space" is different) and filled out the sorting/listing stuff for you. Your page can be found at Cheryl A. Cornell, and I filled out what I could of the Standard wiki template. You can edit it as you see fit, and delete the sections that don't apply to you (like pseudonyms). Also, if you click on the link for your book, I've loaded the books page template onto that page. You can click "edit" and fill out the info for your book, specifically. --Robini 13:37, 10 February 2008 (PST)

Thanks for Author Help

Hi Robini, Thanks for your help getting this straight and posted. I truly appreciate you giving me your time and knowledge; as you can tell this is beyond what my brain can compute. It's nice to be in a place where people actually help each other. I appreciate the welcome, Cheryl 2/11/08 9:52AM

HQ Series Numbering Discussion

Hi Teresa, I'm pasting your question below first, then trying to answer the question (I'm still out of town ... and down with a nasty cold, so if I'm incoherent, excuse me):

I have resently downloaded the Presents and Romance by the number pages to have a complete list of the titles. The problem i'm having is that there seems to be 2 seperate and distince collections in both. I don't understand how this is possible. Is there someplace else i can find the alternate lists?

What we're using here at the RomanceWiki is the US numbering system. The lines are also released in other countries, so that might account for differences. Or there is (always) the possibility of user error -- especially when it comes to the very early Harlequin Romance titles as I had to do a lot of digging to find those titles (and, yeah, I've whined to the Harlequin people about this, but I suspect they don't have a database going back to day one either).

If you're finding differences, I'd appreciate it if you brought them to my attention, or, since Leigh has been uber-terrific about adding content to these sections, her. We definitely want to get it right!--Romancewiki 17:26, 11 March 2008 (PDT)

It looks like Harlequin released some Romance and Presents titles to subscribers only in the late 80s/90s. The numbering for these books began again at 1 rather than fitting into the numbers of the retail books, creating a second set of Romance and Presents books whose numbers were significantly lower than the regular ones released at the same time, even though there doesn't seem to be much difference in their covers or content. We probably should add pages for these lists too, but I don't know what they should be called. --Leigh

Okay, I do have those subscription listings in my (extremely long) queue! I am adding the word "Subscription" to the end of the imprint name (ie, Harlequin Romance Subscription By The Numbers, etc). Since it's going to be a while before I upload these lists (I have found -- don't call me a slow learn (g) -- that if I do the author listings before I do the By The Numbers pages, I can correct for many of the "same title, multiple author" scenarios without having to do a lot of rework), if someone wants to start these listings now, just follow the above syntax so things will line up nicely with the categories. If for some reason it's deemed that a better title would work, just let me know and I'll do a search and replace in my text file (it won't be the first, nor the last!).--Romancewiki 15:22, 13 March 2008 (PDT)

I went ahead and started the pages. I'll add the titles ASAP. --Leigh

Vintage Romance Novels - best places to find

I collect vintage Gothic Romance and Romantic Suspense novels (and have fallen in love with adding them here) but anyway back to the point - I used to be able to pick these up quite easily at books sales, garage sales, and flea markets. But not anymore they are becoming harder and harder to find. The only place I can usually get them at consistently is at Ebay. I have found another site that is fun that does have a lot of vintage novels on it and I am picking up quite a few of the Mystique books that I don't have there. It is Paper Back Swap - I've found it useful to list my duplicates. So the question is - what other resources do you guys use?? Anyone else know of other websites that you can get vintage paperbacks on at a reasonable price?? --Devilbuny 05:10, 20 May 2008 (PDT)

I don't buy as many vintage romances as I used to, though I have a weakness for 1950's era medical romances -- which I pick up at a vintage bookstore when I get out that way (my schedule is too insane to contemplate trying eBay or other sources). I think there used to be a group called Bookstore Junkies (might want to check Yahoogroups) that was a terrific resource for swaps.

You might want to set up a page for other readers who are looking for great sources for classic books...I'm sure there are lots of great resources out there!--Romancewiki 20:11, 20 May 2008 (PDT)

What style for anthologies?

Hello! I'm a little confused about which style to use for anthologies. I've seen different styles A Gift Of Love - Anthology, Taming Him - Anthology (and also creating some by myself :( A Holiday Of Love, Upon A Midnight Clear - Anthology) and before I change them, I would like to know if there's a prefered style? And if so, could someone please include the style into the book template? And should I treat the novellas like book titels by creating a link (and later an own page)? Sweety1746 05:56, 1 October 2008 (PDT)

Listing in Category Authors by Surname

And my second "question" concers the line "" in the author template. If I use it, the author is listed by its last name in category:authors - * . If I don't use it, the author is listed by its first name in the same category. So which way is correct? I mean, you didn't include that line for nothing in the template and if I want to search an author by its last name, I don't need a listing by first names within the category. But if the listing by last names is your aim, I would suggest to list them "last name, first name", if this is doable. Sweety1746 05:56, 1 October 2008 (PDT)