Talk:Seraphina (novel)

Starred Reviews

It is a notable and relevant point that this book received the maximum number of starred reviews. Only a few out of the thousands of children's books published each year accomplish this. I am reinserting the statement to this, and ask that it not be removed. It is not redundant with the rest of the text, particularly the point that every literary journal that does give starred reviews did in fact do so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peepythefrog (talk • contribs) 16:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, it's not that rare. It's not astoundingly common, but it's not nearly as rare as your comment makes it out to be. It's also pretty much covered by the rest of the paragraph and at this point it just feels like it's overkill as far as the reception section goes. The sentence just comes across as being overly promotional and non-neutral, like something that you'd find on a fan-site or on a publicist's blog.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I must disagree here. In the last 2 years, exactly 5 books in young adult fiction have been given 6 starred reviews. You can find lists of them here http://www.youthservicescorner.com/starred-ya-book-reviews/starred-ya-book-reviews-2011/ and http://www.youthservicescorner.com/starred-ya-book-reviews/starred-ya-book-reviews-2012/. Considering the number of young adult books published every year, this is actually quite rare, and the same web pages will also make clear that people actually do keep track of this. The current text omits any mention of two of the six reviews, so this is not "pretty much covered" by the rest of the paragraph. There is a difference between "many positive reviews" and "got the higest number possible". I will try to insert a more neutral wording, if you think the previous version was not adequate---if you insist on continuing to change this, please at least try to work with me to improve the wording rather than ripping out the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peepythefrog (talk • contribs) 04:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC) ETA: by the way, other articles that list the number of starred reviews awarded to books and even authors are as follows: Kelly Murphy, Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty, and What I Saw and How I Lied, just to cite a few.

• Just saying, saying that other articles do the same doesn't mean that we should here. How about this, since you're so keen to include this: "Reception for Seraphina has been overwhelmingly positive, with the book gaining starred reviews from multiple review sites and being listed by the Center for Children's Books." It works in the whole starred review thing while still leaving it neutral. It's also a little premature to state numbers for 2012, as that's data that can quickly become dated by the end of the year. What if ten more books are released in the next few months that also achieve this? It's information that has to be updated and we have to try to avoid this. Also as far as reception goes, we don't really need to list every accomplishment review-wise or even every review the book gets. Achieving starred reviews isn't exactly on the same level as getting on YALSA's list for the year's best books, for example. It's just that when it comes to the review sections we have to be careful because at some point it just comes across like we're both here to promote the book. (I'm assuming that you're just a fan, of course, but I've been semi-accused of that in the past myself with various articles so I want to put that out there.)Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Better, but let me amend one word. I'm changing "multiple" to "six". For those people who are familiar with the starred review concept, the number will be significant. For those who aren't, it will at least be less vague than "multiple", and fewer bytes to boot, so I can't see any downside. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peepythefrog (talk • contribs) 16:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup

I'm explaining my recent removal of content here, as an anonymous IP removed all of it. Here's why I removed or altered specific sources:

1. [1] This is her publisher. It is a primary source and we have no way of knowing whether or not they tinkered with the reviews or took things out of context. It is very, VERY common for publishers to do this because it's in their best interest to promote their authors in the best light possible. This is why we avoid primary sources of this nature. To be honest, I almost removed the author's blog source but it was sourcing something so trivial that I decided to leave it. We can only use primary sources if there are multiple independent and reliable sources to back it up. Even then it's really only supposed to source trivial things. Since I was indeed able to find another source mentioning the sequel, I've continued to leave it although I'll remove it as soon as I find one that mentions the title of the book. The rules around WP:PRIMARY pretty much go as follows: you can only use it for trivial things and only if you have so many other reliable sources that using it would be redundant and rather pointless.
2. [2] Amazon is NEVER usable as a source for the same reasons. They're selling the book. It's in their best interest to say whatever it will take to sell the book. The page is also easily edited by the publisher, so again- it's unusable as far as sourcing reliable things go. We have no way of knowing what the full comments by the authors were originally stated and again, publishers often take things somewhat out of context to make the book most appealing. If you could find these quotes on the authors' sites then we could use them. But otherwise? No. I've seen publishers twist statements around to where the intent of the selected statement was actually far more praising than it was meant to be. Most authors and review sites don't argue overly much because they're afraid of the publishers cutting them off by refusing to extend review blurbs to them or to refuse them advance copies.

Now as far as the other content goes, the page as it was read like a fan site. It wasn't encyclopedic or neutral, with much of it reading "in universe" and again- like something you'd get from a fan site. We are not a fan site. We can put in information from the books of course, but we need to get it streamlined and encyclopedic. For example, we don't need to list every language the book has been published in. It's just as easy and far more succinct to list the amount of languages the book has been published in and state one or two as examples. I also listed Hartman's graphic novel under "see also" because well, that's where stuff of that nature is supposed to go. "See also" is where we put things that are related but are not directly involved with the actual topic of the article. I'm going to revert my changes and like I'd said earlier- I'm improving the article. Please don't take it personally that I'm changing your personal version of the article. I want the article to read encyclopedically, not like a fan site.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Tokyogirl asked my opinion. Multiple awards are not independent events: obviously a good will be likely to get many. Because of the different standards used, starred books reviews are not necessarily significant, except to the publisher's advertising. However I do not know any relevant studies of this. More to the point is the use of derivative opinion If six reviews said it was excellent, cite all 6 and let it go at that.. There is no need to draw an overall conclusion. Efforts to show how many good reviews a book gets strike me as a little silly--if the book is good, a few statements are enough. adding as many as possible is a promotional technique. Discussing, rather than just stating, them is also promotional. DGG ( talk ) 18:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)