CZ Talk:Literature Workgroup

Thanks for creating this workgroup. I look forwarding to taking part in it.--Jason Sanford 09:30, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Jason, do join the discussion on the Forum Amal Chatterjee 14:05, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Bonnie Hicks

I know that Sanger has urged authors to focus on major articles, but circumstances in my life have occurred such that I needed a good grasp of the Singaporean author Bonnie Hicks. I therefore thought I would contribute this article to maximize my labor. I am unsure exactly how the approved article nomination works - specifically, whether or not authors as well as editors can so nominate - but I did nominate this article. While the article could go into considerable more detail, I do not think that is appropriate in this case. So here we have my first significant contribution to CZ - one I would never have prior foreseen. Stephen Ewen 02:15, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Though not familiar with Bonnie Hicks, the article looks well-written and well-researched indeed. Will keep an eye on Hicks in the future - yet another advantage of being part of this! --CM 05:29, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Minor revisions

I just read through the article, which indeed seems to me to be well-researched and amply documented. I have made just two small stylistic revisions, and I think there may be a few other places where a kind of 'copy-editing' editing could strengthen the overall flow of the article. I don't know enough about Hicks to comment on any substantive matters, though I do have some background in, and occasionally teach, postcolonial literature.

Russell Potter 07:32, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Hi Russel and Carmen. Thanks much. I addressed Russel's referencing concern at Talk:Bonny_Hicks. I did copyedit the article some more but have probably exhausted my own ability at such for now by reason of my proximal investment in the article. Stephen Ewen 19:08, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Are all workgroup discussions this slow?

I joined, but what's the point of the workgroup, if there's no collaboration? Kevin Scott Bailey 02:59, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Literature is tiny compared to others. The best way to get attention to whatever it is you'd like to write is just to be bold and write it for now. :-) Stephen Ewen 12:14, 1 December 2007 (CST)

Will do, and thanks for the response. I contributed heavily to the To Kill a Mockingbird article at WP, so I may C&P that, and rework it for CZ. Kevin Scott Bailey 15:51, 2 December 2007 (CST)

Categorizing literatures by "nation," language, etc.?

When this workgroup was just getting started, various suggestions were put forward about how to subdivide "Literature." Now that we have the "Related Articles" subpage, such subdivisions could have a practical effect. How, for example, do you navigate from the top "Literature" article to, say, H.G. Wells? Via "British literature" (which, if interpreted literally, he would share with 14th-century Welsh-language poet Dafydd ap Gwylim), or "British literature in English" (with the Welsh-, Cornish-, etc.-language authors off in their own categories), or "English-language literature" (with Mark Twain, V.S. Naipaul, etc.)?

The Britannica, in its "Outline of Knowledge," seems to go for pragmatism over a strict scheme. They have some strictly national articles ("American Lit.," "French Lit.," "Japanese Lit."), though their "English Literature" article covers works in English by authors from all the British Isles, including Ireland. Then they have "German Lit.," which is really German-language, as it includes Austrians and Swiss, and "Yiddish Lit.," including residents of many sovereign entities. There are regional entries ("Scandinavian," "Australia and N.Z.") and cultural ones ("Islamic Arts").

Why does it matter? Well, if I, or others, goes through now and puts "British literature" as the parent topic in the Related Articles page of every English-language British writer, and then some Powers That Be later decide that we want to categorize by language, it might require a lot of drudgery to change them all. With an individual writer of ambiguous status, it's not a big deal -- it's not much work to move Kafka from Czech to Austrian to German and back again, but if the whole scheme changes, lots of Related Articles pointers will have to move. (Or is there an easy way to do that on a large scale that I don't know about?)

Any thoughts? Bruce M.Tindall 21:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Maybe there might even be overlapping categories. Dylan Thomas, for instance, might be mentioned on one article about "Welsh poets," where his work could be placed in a context including Welsh-language poets, and also in "British lit.," where he would be discussed alongside English and Scottish poets who wrote in English. Bruce M.Tindall 21:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I have been experimenting with masterlists so that if changes are made they only have to be made a few times. For example, you could start a page British Literature/Related Articles/Masterlist where all brit lit authors are kept. Such a page can then be transcluded to multiple pages. For example, the Dylan Thomas/Related Articles subpage could have {{:British Literature/Related Articles/Masterlist}} under the related topics section. As would many other brit lit authors. If a change is subsequently needed, a deletion or an addition, then the change is only needed once on the masterlist, not on many different pages. I started a discussion on the forum with a few examples. Is this what you had in mind? Also see Leptotes/Related Articles, it uses two masterlists, one under Other related topics and another under subtopics.

Also there does not need to be one route to an author. Mutliple classifications is preferable as you never really know which route someone will be browsing through related articles. I don't think of it as a linear hierarchy but more of a network. From each Related Articles subpage one can browse up and down. Track any given path as readers move between different RA subpages, via the [r] links and the path could be quite complex. The more chance of hitting Dylan Thomas, as in the more related articles subpages that point to him, the better. Chris Day 21:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris -- that would be a big help for a problem I hadn't even thought about, although I don't think it solves the one I was thinking about. My problem is: We set up "British literature." Then we decide we want to classify literature by language instead. "British literature" and all its subpages get deleted, a new "English-language literature" gets created, and there are ten billion articles out there whose "Parent Topic" now points to a nonexistent article. Redirects would probably help in some cases but not necessarily in all. Anyway, the Masterlists idea does look like a great solution to the problem you described. I'll try it out. Bruce M.Tindall 21:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Somewhere recently, and it's driving me crazy because now I can't find it, I wrote a number of words about my thoughts on subgroups. Various people were discussing the possibilities of creating new subgroups, or sub-workgroups, and I asked if anyone at all, such as me, could come along and add "Mystery stories" and "Science fiction" and so forth to the Literature Workgroup? And then sub-sub-groups, such as "Agatha Christie" and "Rex Stout" to the "Mystery stories"? It seems like a tempting idea, but one fraught with dangers, I would say, it if isn't very carefully worked out in advance. I would think that my comments would also apply to what you've written above. I really don't have any answers of my own -- I really *was* asking other people precisely what they meant.... Hayford Peirce 22:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hayford, it was on Russell's talk page. See User_talk:Russell_D._Jones#Subgroups. Chris Day 02:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

[undent]Bruce, redirects do help under such a situation. Remember that after a page move all the subpages do get redirected to the new location, not literally deleted. The main term in the {{R}} template will change from a plain text blue link to bold text black link if a redirect is the target, so CZ authors are subtly alerted to the change and the links would eventually be updated. If the term is part of of a masterlist then it would be easier to change many at once. Here is an example of how it would look on a Related Articles subpage for the scenario you outline above. We have an article on Drama and with the R template it looks as follows:

• Drama [r]: A type of literature, especially plays, meant to be delivered in spoken performance on stage. ^[e]

But let's assume that it was originally called Dramatics and for the sake of argument it would have looked like the following:

• Dramatics [r]: A type of literature, especially plays, meant to be delivered in spoken performance on stage. ^[e]

After a move from Dramatics to Drama any of the original links on a Related Article subpage, such as {{R|Dramatics}}, would not be disfunctional but look exactly like the following example:

• Dramatics [r]: A type of literature, especially plays, meant to be delivered in spoken performance on stage. ^[e]

Obviously this is not a disaster, although it is dependent on the presence of the redirects Dramatics -> Drama and Dramatics/Defintion -> Drama/Defintion. Chris Day 22:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I would expect that rather than deleting "British literature" to start "English-language literature", we'd supplement "Brit. lit." with "English-language lit." The two can and probably should exist simultaneously. There's no harm done if they dicsuss some of the same things, because they will provide different ways of looking and would very probably each refer to the other as another way to think about the material. Chris's comments about multiple paths to arrive at an article would apply here. --Joe Quick 02:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, one could exist as a main article whereas the other might exist as a Related Articles Only subpage. I guess it depends what all our writers have to say, certainly both could coexist in the parental topics section on the related articles subpage, they do not sound synonymous. Chris Day 02:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

News (updated 4/11/07)

CONGRATULATIONS! to the Literature Workgroup -- our toplevel entry for Literature is now approved!! Russell Potter 16:34, 11 May 2007 (CDT)

To get this group underway, I've created this page. Please feel free to edit and get involved. We do need to decide on subgroups and update and expand topics. Amal Chatterjee 03:52, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Suggestions for subgroups

These are just thoughts, can we get a discussion going? One way to go would be to organise literature on language

• Literature in English
• Literature in Spanish
• Literature in Indian Languages
• Literature in Arabic
• Literature in Russian
• Literature in Chinese
• Literature in East Asian Languages
• and so on

Or to use region-based categories common in university departments, eg:

• English Literature
• American Literature
• Spanish Literature
• Indian Literature
• Arabic Literature
• South Asian Literature
• East Asian Literature
• Chinese Literature
• Sudanese Literature
• and so on

We could also begin with categories like Prose, Poetry etc ...

Amal Chatterjee 03:46, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Categories and subgroups

While these high-level categories may have their uses in terms of lateral organization -- each, presumably, would involve a sub-group of editors and authors fluent in the requisite language(s) -- for the time being I think we would do better to see what areas of interest current editors and authors have, and set about working on articles. Ad-hoc working subgroups could then be created as needed if, for instance, a group of people working on Victoria literature, or the Epic, or the poetry of Languedoc, or graphic novels, or whatever. In other words, I think for now we should write 'from the bottom up' as it were. There may also be a need to edit from the top down at some point, but this will be far easier once we've all done some work on specific articles together.

Let's continue to discuss this in the forum!

Russell Potter 10:33, 21 November 2006 (CST)