Help talk:Book Template

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By the Numbers?

So I've been going through entries and maybe this would be better off on the Help talk:Style Manual page, but I wanted a little more of a call out.

What is the 'standard' for linking the # of a imprint book? I see a lot of linking to the "Imprint By The Numbers" general page, but when that is merely a relisting of the specific years/1-100 pages, I tend to prefer linking directly to the subpage that lists the book in question.

Frex:

[[Harlequin Intrigue 1 - 100|#99]]
vs.
[[Harlequin Intrigue By The Numbers|#99]]

I recognize that the majority of the listing may be dated from a time before the breaking out of the series and just not updated, but I wondered if I was going through the effort of "correcting" something that was preferred in the original format.--DawnBurn 17:06, 24 September 2007 (PDT)

So the first would be correct, and the second would not? (makes sense) I have no experience with this. I think User:Leigh is the numbered series "expert". --Kay T
Well, the first is what I prefer, yes. And the second works, but is not 'correct', except in cases where there aren't subpages. --DawnBurn 17:37, 24 September 2007 (PDT)
I've been using a link back to the basic By The Numbers page for every series book page I've set up, which is my own preference (and how I've been setting up pages for more than a year, so every single one of them--several thousand at this point--would have to be changed if it's decided the other is the format you wish to use). I'm guessing it's how Romancewiki originally did it, since I first started creating pages by copying the format of ones she was doing. I like it because, I figure if a reader is going to follow a link back to other numbered books in the series, she should get a page with that would make ALL the numbered books in the series available to her, whereas a link back just to the one that particular book is listed on would only reveal, why, yes, this book is that number and here are the ones closest in number to it. But then, I just assumed readers would be looking for all the numbers in the series if they followed that link, which may not be the case. (But then, I also thought it was a good thing to have the Year on a book page link back to the books released in that year--which also seemed to be part of the original template--rather than have it as a dead/no link, which everyone else seems to be removing now, so what do I know?) I'll go with whatever Kay or Romancewiki thinks is best, and hold off adding any more book pages until it's decided. --Leigh
Leigh, first off I'd like to apologize if I gave any offense. It was not my intent. You have done an amazing amount of work and I just looked at it different before 'fixing' stuff and then asking. I don't think my way is necessarily better, I just thought a discussion and decision would be good.
Re: year removal Yes, it was in the template way back (and I checked) and then removed. I'm just fixing that because it seemed that wasn't being used. What I love about wiki's is that nothing is ever 'wrong' just different. And changing. When you did the massive work you did (which is highly appreciated!) that was the current standard. The year standard seems to have changed so now we go back as we see fit to update (or not).
Your thought that others might be looking for the rest of the series is good one and one I hadn't considered. My thought was to have the page link back most closely with the book in question. Either way is neat and good, just think we should be consistent. Your point about THOUSANDS of corrections (which by that way, wow) is a very valid objection too. I'm willing to abide either way.
Again please. I apologize if I gave any offense. --DawnBurn 15:54, 25 September 2007 (PDT)
Oops...did I sound mad? Because I'm totally not, I swear! Sorry if my response came off as kind of heated. I didn't think it did, but...maybe it did. Maybe one of those tricky coming-across-differently-in-cyberspace-than-intended things. Sorry! --Leigh
Or it is just me reading too much in. I was worried that you were upset given how much work you'd done that this upstart was saying CHANGE IT ALL. Hee, glad we are both on the same page and not mad. --DawnBurn 16:11, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

Okay, now that you have that sorted out, I did not mean "correct" in that way either, just which one each of you preferred. I can see wanting to go to the general "this is the series" page as opposed to "this is number 1-100" page. And vice versa. When you are working on titles and organizing them, the link to the specific number page is handy (and seems to be what is implied by making the number the live link, at least to me). When you are the general reader browsing through RomanceWiki you are probably looking for "what is this series/imprint?" In some cases I have (lazily) just included the number without making it a link back to any page assuming that the link to Harlequin Intrigue is what the reader would be looking for and the number link not adding a whole lot. So, shall we make the existing way the "standard?" I.e.:

[[Harlequin Intrigue By The Numbers|#99]]

Or is there an even better suggestion? While having to go fix 1000s of pages is a good argument NOT to change, maybe it isn't the most important factor (especially when we get that bot going - ha!).

Leigh - the link to a year like this [[1975]] was in the template at the begining, but it didn't really accomplish what we wanted - a category or list of all titles that came out in 1975. It just linked to an "article" page about 1975 (which we never created). It was replaced by the category:1975 Releases idea. I played around with making the year in the body of the article a category, but that did not work. --Kay T 16:45, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

Yeah, I had started putting the [[:category:Year Releases|Year]] in that space when I noticed you guys doing it (for instance, most of the Everlasting Love books are set up that way), but I stopped when I realized it was going to just be the plain year without a link. Going back and changing those now. It doesn't really matter to me, as long as I know.
One more reason why I prefer the existing By The Numbers way as the standard: when we create a page for a new series, the pages for the books in those series would have to be linked to the general By The Numbers pages, since they haven't been broken down into 1-100, 101-200, etc. yet as the series hasn't reached more than 100 and may not. Then, when the series crosses 100 titles, the By the Numbers page would be broken down into multiples of hundreds, and the pages themselves would have to be changed as well. Again, using the Everlasting Love line as an example. As you said, laziness isn't the best reason for anything, but it does seem like a lot of unnecessary work. JMO!--Leigh

I have been linking back to the main "By The Numbers" page since the beginning. At first, it was because the pages were really short and I didn't know exactly how obsessive some of us (me!, Leigh!) would get about By The Numbers (interestingly, we get a lot of search traffic looking for listings of the numbered series, so just shows what I didn't know way back then).

The other reason I prefer to link to the main page is that, over time, we may choose to reorganize the information, meaning we'd have to relink 100 items or so if that happened. Right now (unless someone has already done this), we're doing groups of 100 (except the Harlequin Romances, which I did by year because it simply made more sense for that line). A year from now, someone might think of a better way to organize the information.

And, oh yes, I think have the release year as a category is critical. I know there's been some confusion about linking in the release date field in the template -- when I encounter those, I just fix them so they link back to the category. As Dawn noted, there's no wrong, just lots of different approaches. It's actually been sort of cool to see the various books by release year categories growing. Actually, it's really cool to see all the categories growing.--Romancewiki 21:01, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

I'm glad I asked. I just now wish I'd asked sooner... =) So if anyone sees those 'incorrect for now' links and wants to correct them, I'd appreciate the help. I'll just look through my stuff too and see what I can do. I know basically all the A & B books with multiple authors for a single title are differently formatted.
Where should this style notation be noted? On the book page? Style guide? --DawnBurn 19:55, 27 September 2007 (PDT)
I think it should probably go both places. once we get it sorted. --Kay T 10:01, 28 September 2007 (PDT)
I think/though it had been sorted. Romancewiki & Leigh both have good reasons to why it should be the former usage and not my suggestion, beyond just work & laziness. So I would now vote against myself. --DawnBurn 15:31, 28 September 2007 (PDT)
This made me laugh, Dawn! I am one who believes that lazy people are naturally efficient, so it's a fine reason to raise a question.--Romancewiki 10:44, 29 September 2007 (PDT)
Plus, being "sorted" also means having time! If this is fresh in your mind, go ahead and make the changes on both pages (unless you already did that). I was just not really following too closely, and at work, so not ready to try to make the changes myself. (still not). --Kay T 14:56, 29 September 2007 (PDT)
Well, it is a lot more than two, but yah. Having it sorted means that I will be correct in the future an dtry to catch a lot of the stuff I misdid. Not 1000s, but probably dozens.--DawnBurn 16:37, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

Okay now I have another question.

or

  • ([[Intimate Moments|Silhouette Intimate Moments]] [[Intimate Moments By The Numbers|#318]]) which appears the same by contains two links.
  • (Silhouette Intimate Moments #318)

I prefer the latter, because then it follows the convention of linking directly to the publisher as well as the additional number page. But I dunno what other people think. --DawnBurn 20:08, 27 September 2007 (PDT)

or ([[Silhouette]] [[Intimate Moments By The Numbers|Intimate Moments #318]]) which appears the same but contains two links to publisher and line
(Silhouette Intimate Moments #318)
just to confuse things further! --Kay T 10:01, 28 September 2007 (PDT)
True, but that one just seems off. Most of the time the publisher isn't linked directly over the imprint in non number imprints (Luna imprint of Harlequin, but usually just linked as Luna or Luna Books). So I don't think that solution is reflective of the other non numbered series standards. --DawnBurn 15:31, 28 September 2007 (PDT)
If I recall correctly (and since I've been working on authors, not books, it's possible that I don't), my syntax has been [[Silhouette Romance]] [[Silhouette Romance By The Numbers|# 3]]. Possibly there's a comma or other punctuation in there. I like having the link to the publisher/imprint (I do like links to be as specific as possible, when they make sense) as well as the by the numbers pages.
I tend to type in "wiki code" so automatically that the extra keystrokes don't even register. Plus, I sort of cheat and use concatenation functions in Excel to add various code elements when I'm working on large chunks of content. This lets me get lots of formatting out of the way before I even start. Yeah, crazy much?--Romancewiki 10:44, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

So, it looks like

  • ([[Intimate Moments|Silhouette Intimate Moments]] [[Intimate Moments By The Numbers|#318]]) which appears the same by contains two links.
  • (Silhouette Intimate Moments #318)

is the consensus. --Kay T 14:56, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

Just a quick note for my edit. I think that

Intrigue #99

looks better than

Intrigue # 99

Specifically, no space between # and the actual number. --DawnBurn 18:49, 30 September 2007 (PDT)

No problem (although we were certainly editing at the same time). But I can't figure out if it needs to be other places (like the style manual) and where that would be. It seems like it would come up a lot, but -- do you want to add the discussion elsewhere? Is it clear as I wrote it? --Kay T 18:54, 30 September 2007 (PDT)
Is this going to be part of the standard now, or are we discussing it? Because personally, I prefer the space (and have been putting it in almost all the time), because #99 all together looks too cramped to my eye. But I'll go along with the consensus. -- Leigh
I don't really care. I like the space. I would like to emphasize that we should not be "fixing" lots of pages just for the space. Going forward, it would not matter to me if some had a space and some did not. This might be getting too detailed! --Kay T 16:58, 1 October 2007 (PDT)
I don't know that it truly matters then. I prefer without because it is how I'm used to seeing #blah written but I can see the cramped objection. --DawnBurn 17:02, 1 October 2007 (PDT)

Book Template Adjustments

(moved from User talk:DawnBurn

Dawn, Thanks for fixing the categorization of the the real template:book (as opposed to the article Book Template), but I am sort of confused about removing the Amazon link. It seems that it would be hard to insert this link from scratch each time. Is there a reason you removed it from this template? Have you used the {{subst:book}} syntax with this template? was that the bug you were talking about? Maybe you could make an Amazon link template?--Kay T 12:35, 1 September 2007 (PDT)

I removed it because the link was dead and it made the capache (human test) go off, which was an extra layer. The amazon link needs to be added each time anyway. The bug was that there was extra data in template after I changed it and I wanted that removed. --DawnBurn 14:22, 1 September 2007 (PDT)
I don't understand. The link was dead until you filled in the ISBN number. The only thing you needed to fill in was the ISBN number. Now you have to find the info for the link each time and copy and paste it in? Is that what you are thinking? I know that there are an increasing number of books which link to the e-publisher, which I assume is fine, but for books that are sold on Amazon, it seems like a major pain to have to cut and paste all that Amazon code (since it can't be filled in from memory or just from the ISBN info). --Kay T 14:30, 1 September 2007 (PDT)
I added back the Amazon link -- while it does set of the evil Captcha (which much as I hate it, is working), I think most users are getting that they're supposed to properly fill in the ISBN and book title. But I'm going to add instructions to make that clear. Ideally, we would have links to multiple bookstores, but until there's a module that makes that feature easy-as-pie, we'll stick with just the Amazon. It looks like I won't be around much today either , book is done, review (totally biased!) is half-written, and the husband is planning an afternoon out of the house.--Romancewiki 09:50, 2 September 2007 (PDT)
As you say. I thought that the Captcha was slowly people down. I also didn't realize that you only had to sub the ISBN. I was always copying the whole Amazon link. =) --DawnBurn 01:19, 3 September 2007 (PDT)
Put me down for hating that Captcha too - I'm on a slow (but still broadband!) internet connection at home and it takes *forever* to load... Is there a way to maybe comment out the "http..." and then leave instructions to UN-comment it out in final formatting? I've also been just cut-and-pasting the Amazon http directly, because unless the book is in front of me, I have to go there to get the ISBN anyway. --Robini 14:48, 4 September 2007 (PDT)
Well, as Kay T said you could have your own template on your User Page or Sandbox and cut & paste. I think I could comment it out but I'm not sure that is a good solution because I think it would be harder to comment back in for low level users. I created Template:Book_linkless for a double from the old page. Usage is {{subst:book_linkless}}--DawnBurn 16:26, 4 September 2007 (PDT)
If you had been here pre Captcha when we had vandals constantly (I mean lots every day for several days, very scary), you would appreciate that it has stopped that problem. I think the Captcha is weird because it seems to think there are links even when there are no links, or something. Maybe Dawn will know if we could comment out the link. The other option would be to make your own template on your user page and cut and paste. Or we could have two templates, with and without. --Kay T 16:04, 4 September 2007 (PDT)
Let me be clear. I LOVE the Captcha in general. What I didn't/don't like was having it auto load for the Template with a broken link and then have to go again when I fixed the link. Mostly the slow down for a dead/useless link. --DawnBurn 16:26, 4 September 2007 (PDT)
Thanks for the new template! I think that is the best solution (the comment out would probably be too confusing for non-techies). --Kay T 16:37, 4 September 2007 (PDT)

Another Question

The Amazon link on the template is set up this way

with a hyphen connecting Amazon Listing to the actual link. Is this correct? A few days ago I noticed a few people were going in and changing the hyphens to a colon on the pages that have already been set up, so I figured it was another change that I needed to start doing too, and I started going in and changing them as well while I was changing the year links. Which was dumb, because I didn't check the template. Sure enough, now that I have, I see it hasn't been changed, and maybe those people shouldn't have been making the changes, so I shouldn't have either. Just wanted to clarify whether it is supposed to be a hypen and not a colon (which is what all the Author/Year/Publisher headings use, which is where the confusion may be coming in). --Leigh

This is what comes from examining our standards! (Not to mention all the tidy types who are cleaning up around here.) Mistakes are found. I assume that the hyphen should be a colon. I don't see why not, don't think there is any reason for not using the colon, and probably it should be consistent. It really doesn't matter, so the ones you have changed as you go along are fine. I don't think we should do a wholesale change just for that, but the template could be fixed. Let's see if RW has anything to add on this before I make the change. --Kay T 15:04, 26 September 2007 (PDT)
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