Talk:A Conspiracy of Paper

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 13:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Stub class for novels

I rated this article article a stub for the following reasons:

• The only real content is that of the plot, and the real world content is unreferenced (which we be a good place to go to get up to start class)
• Common literary issues are not dealt with (again criteria for start or c class)
• Contains possible OR that does not add to the depth of coverage of the article (i.e. the section title "Real World ties")
• The writing is not very exemplary, nor explains very much (poor quality w/ little coverage = stub)

Hope that helps, some people may assess this article as a start, but many would not, and it is certainly not C class,Sadads (talk) 13:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

When I have time, I'll have a look at it. Know the book and the author well. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Responses to Sadads comments:

• How much content do you expect for a genre novel published in 2004? We're not talking about Grapes of Wrath here.
• The items in the 'Real world' section are not unreferenced; links are provided to other articles, where external refs may be found. The book is not a history text; it's a novel that incorporates some historical (maybe) material. To me, part of the fun with historical novels is doing follow-up reading on those 'Real world ties'. For that purpose, I'll turn to scholarly history works (which are referenced in the linked articles).
• What literary issues might be addressed in an article about a recent genre novel? There are links to the appropriate novel genre articles, where such issues are discussed. When I have a chance, I'll add some external links to reviews, but those certainly won't provide any in-depth literary criticism.
• The 'Real world ties' section contains only links to article on subjects mentioned in the novel. How can that be OR?
• I reviewed the assessment criteria in Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Assessment and found no encouragement for generalized critiques of writing quality. Specific important WP quality issues are mentioned, such as OR, POV, Manual of Style, etc. Saying that "The writing is not very exemplary" is nothing more than an opinion, and provides no guidance for improvement.
• I don't think articles about mystery novels should contain "spoilers". Therefore, I tried to follow the KISS rule when writing the 'Synopsis'.
• I reviewed the first four in a list of existing low-importance, C-quality articles about novels. I suggest that you do the same. On average, I fail to see that they are better than this one. I don't claim that this is a great article; I'm just looking for some consistency and intent to be helpful to other editors. WCCasey (talk) 19:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

A Conspiracy of Paper was Liss' first novel and had a big buzz when it was published. I'm sure information can be found, in the form of book reviews and such, that can be added. Because it's historical the reviews may be helpful to add sources to the real world section. I haven't a lot of time at the moment but will do a quick search myself. I'd rate this a start class because that's what it is - a good beginning. I like the nav bar to the Liss' other books. Let's get in some sources and then I'll re-evaluate, or Sadads can re-evaluate. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 21:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Here are some sources:

• Salon.com review
• New York Times Sunday Book Review
• New York Times Review
• New York Times Review of the paperback edition

This should be enough information for a really nice piece. Don't hesitate to ping me if you have problems. I have this page watched, so will see anything posted here. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Truthkeeper, as always you add some additional sanity to my thoughts.

WCCasey, sorry if I seem abrupt, I am now watching the page, so I can help with expanding the article. A good example of a historical novel that would have similar scholarly/critical coverage to this one is Quicksilver (novel). It took me about a month to patch that together, and as you can tell the reviews were rather short, but by extracting the most useful information out of each, I was able to get a fair amount of information about themes and style. Also, as Truthkeeper pointed out, Here Be Dragons is a good example of a very low coverage novel which has a fairly good examination, a few more sources and it would be a B class.

Also, your no spoiler policy doesn't quite float on Wikipedia. That is a serious omission of relevant facts. Your plot section sounds like a movie trailer or the blurb on the back of the book, we aren't trying to sell the book, instead tell exactly what happens in it.

Again, questions will be great, I haven't read the novel, so am not sure how much I can add, but will definitely give advice, I love reviewing articles where the main editor is receptive to advice and actively working to improve the article, Sadads (talk) 22:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review refs, Truthkeeper88. I added them to the two articles, except for the 'paperback' review, which is very short and contains no new information. Glad you liked the 'nav bar'. I saw one in another article and liked it, so I copied the template and adapted it for David Liss.

Sadads - while studying the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (novels)#Plot, I found the "Wikipedia contains spoilers" policy you referred to. That doesn't seem quite the same as "tell exactly what happens in it". I'm not trying to sell the book either; there are no superlatives or gushes in the plot section, just an attempt to be concise (another dictate of the Manual of Style). Last word on ratings, I promise; until there are consistent, objective and quantifiable guidelines for article assessment, the ratings have very limited value. WCCasey (talk) 23:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Very true, the ratings are rough guidelines, not definitive. I garentee thought that the higher you go in the ratings (B, GA and FA) the more accurate and reliable the assessment actually is, Sadads (talk) 23:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the plot - I read the book when it was released in hardback, so it's been a few years. That said, I thought the plot was quite well done. WCCasey, instead of adding the sources to the External links, it's actually better to use them as references, and to write the article around what the sources says, if that makes sense. Are you familiar with formatting references? You might want to have a look at this handy tutorial: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-04/Tutorial - Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)