Talk:List of books about the Troubles

Renamed

I moved the page from List of books about the Troubles to Bibliography of the Troubles and updated incoming links (many templates). It was kept on the basis of it being a bibliography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Naming suggests this is the more appropriate title. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Never rename an article without first discussing on the talk page and building a consensus. This is a list of books, not a bibiliography. I am moving it back. The article was not kept as it being a bibliography. IQ125 (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@IQ125: Did you even look at the WikiProject style guide? It's pretty explicit. It was kept at AfD on the basis of being a bibliography. What is your argument against the rename such that we shouldn't follow standard naming guidelines? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:50, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You just went and undid everything I did. Can't help but think you're acting on a grudge you're harboring from a while back. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Build a consensus and then move. I think the original name is correct. IQ125 (talk) 21:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:CONSENSUS on Wikipedia is based on strength of argument. I just asked for yours and you didn't provide any. Last time we interacted you edit warred, refused to discuss, and filed a spurious SPI about me. I was hoping this time we could work together, but instead you're just reverting all of my edits and providing no rationale. ("Never rename" and "Build a consensus" are not rationales). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

A basic question: Speaking in terms of Wikipedia style guidelines, why do you think it should be List of books about the Troubles and not Bibliography of the Troubles? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

A bibliography is a specific list of writings used or considered by an author in preparing a particular work; it is used in conjunction with citations to support a specific scholarly work, such as an article, book or essay. The List of books about the Troubles is a general reference or list of books about the subject of the Troubles. This list of books was not used by any author to write a specific article, book or essay and definitely was not used to write the article The Troubles as that article was created long before this list of books. Therefore, this item item-by-item group of books is a list and not a bibliography. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists for more information. My final word on the matter. IQ125 (talk) 15:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Competence is required. It's obvious you have not read any of the pages I linked to, nor the one you've linked to. Right there on the lists MOS page you just linked to it says "A Bibliography page presents a list of relevant books, journal or other references for a subject area." Do you really think we have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies about "lists of writings used or considered by an author in preparing a particular work"? A bibliography is just a list of works on a particular topic. See Category:Bibliographies by subject for a whole lot of bibliographies Wikipedia has about particular subjects (obviously not bibliographies related to a particular work by a particular author). The manual of style for lists of works (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works) defers to Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies (which I've repeatedly linked to). That page defines a bibliograhpy as "a systematic list of books and other works such as journal articles" and "Within Wikipedia, bibliographies are specialized lists of books, journals and other references important to the topic of the bibliography." The same page says explicitly "Because Bibliography is a recognized type of list in Wikipedia, an explicit use of the word is preferable to titles such as List of important books about biology and Publications on biology." I don't know what you're trying to do here, but it's disruptive. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

First, let me say that I would like to see this list expanded as it is quite short at the moment compared to the available literature. Also, there are many works of fiction that use the Troubles as their backdrop, and a section with those would be useful. Second, I disagree with the statement that a bibliography is "a specific list of writings used...preparing a particular work." Bibliographies can be stand-alone, and there are many thousands of them. I would consider any list of books that is on a select topic to be a bibliography, whereas I'd be fine with a list of newly arrived books in a bookstore. Personally, I'd like to see a bibliography of books related to the Troubles on Wikipedia, including the vast number of fictional accounts. However, I note that on WP the two terms have been used already inconsistently, e.g. Isaac_Asimov_bibliography_(chronological), Bibliography_of_jazz, List_of_books_by_or_about_Adolf_Hitler which calls itself an "annotated bibliography", etc. My !vote, therefore, is to call this topical gathering of writings a bibliography, but also to expand it to be more inclusive. (Somewhere I have a long list of fiction relating to the Troubles - when I find it again I'll add a link here so we can discuss what to do with it.) LaMona (talk) 06:18, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Concur with LaMona. The name of this article is the least of its problems. While the topic is notable there is nothing in the way of WP:RS that justifies keeping any of these works. A reasonable place to start would be the bibliography assembled by Maria Luddy at Warwick: 'The Troubles':Northern Ireland 1968-1998 - bibliography. Many of those works will have their own bibliographies. As to the question of the name, Rhododendrites is right on the merits but deserves a WP:TROUT for pulling out WP:CIR. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 06:58, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello fellows, nice to see editors interested in improving the article and I am certainly willing to abide by the consensus. Let's leave the article name as it is for 30-days and allow editors a chance to comment. It is quite easy to move "if" required. I note there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists Thanks again :) IQ125 (talk) 12:26, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Lists is one of the parent projects for Bibliographies. RockMagnetist(talk) 19:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Rename. Rhododendrites does a good job of summarizing the rationale behind renaming this list. However, it's just a recommendation by a WikiProject, not an official policy or guideline. Manual of Style/Lists of works doesn't really defer to it, just offers the link for more information. Soon after Bibliographies was founded, one member tried to force the name change on some lists, and it did not go well. But here a consensus seems to be building for renaming it. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:49, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

A note on improving the list: It's good idea to include some of the published bibliographies so that anyone looking at the list can immediately see it satisfies the notability criteria. I am going to add the ones that were mentioned in the deletion debate. Also, you might want to think about making the selection criteria more explicit. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:01, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I wondered about selection criteria. Are we restricting to works about the Troubles in general (ie those with quite a wide scope), or should we include books about specific events within the Troubles/people related to the conflict/etc? What about books about Northern Ireland history or the IRA (just for example) in general? I'm not particularly fussed either way, but it should be decided. Personally I think giving the list a wide scope would make it a more valuable resource, but a narrower scope would alas make it more navigable. (Oh, and I don't really care whether we call it "list of books" or "bibliography"; I don't think it really matters). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:30, 17 September 2015 (UTC)