User talk:JoshuaKuo

Member news

• Coordinators election voting and question time is now open. Project members should vote for any candidates they wish to support by November 28 at the Coordinator Elections. Yllosubmarine, aka Maria, has decided not to be reappointed, her work as sole Coordinator since the last elections in May is highly appreciated by all members of the project.
• The Novels Project now has 88 active members.
• 18 positions remain unfilled at the Job Centre. Members who are active project contributors are encouraged to apply even if they can only do a position for a short time.
• Ladywitchthought has taken on the position of coordinator for the "Lemony Snicket task force".

Project news

• On September 26, a fact on Shea Ohmsford, the protagonist of Terry Brooks novel The Sword of Shannara appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.
• On September 29, the expanded article about the novel Thrones, Dominations written by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On October 11, the new article Going, Going, Gone written by Jack Womack appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On October 18, a fact from The Dragon Lord by David Drake appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.
• On October 22, the expanded articles The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 written by Doris Lessing appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On October 25, the new article A Real Basket Case by Beth Groundwater appeared on the main page in the DYK section.

- Contributors are the_ed17, Maclean25 & Captain-tucker (who searched the archives).

Task force and related news

• WikiProject North of the Rio Grande has begun. WP:NRG is an educational project aiming to "improve a selection of articles on Chicano and Latino literature to featured article status (or as near as possible)." Among the articles they are working on are How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and Who Would Have Thought It?. They welcome any advice or help that members of WikiProject Novels may be able to offer. If interested drop a note on their talk page.

– Position of editor for 'Task force news' is still available at the Job Centre.

Peer review and assessment news

• Peer Reviews are still open for three articles – At Swim-Two-Birds, The Emberverse series & Flowers for Algernon. Feel free to submit any novel-related article that you are working on for review, and please consider stopping by and reviewing an article, as we need more reviewers for our articles!

– the_ed17 (talk), Editor – Peer review and assessment news

Member in Focus

• Hi, I have been around this project for quite some time now. Bit of a hiatus earlier this year, but back now just contributing. The Novels WikiProject wasn't started by me but my interest in the subject initially attracted me to what was here. It has developed substantially in the last few years and now takes in all forms of Narrative Prose Fiction within its scope. We are about the content not the format of the prose so WP:Books differs a little in that an implied format is entailed; also they can also focus more clearly on non-fiction. WP:Literature are the "new boys on the block" and are a little more focused on the "quality" aspects of literature, and again they have less emphasis on pure fiction and the prose aspect. Our biggest problem is to maintain a certain focus of interest across such a broad subject area and we need workers who can develop task forces, teams for assessment, teams for peer review and so much more. "So much to do, so little time, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late" to misquote from Alice in Wonderland.

Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk)

Current debates

• The featured list Narnian timeline has been nominated for removal. You can comment here. The Narnian timeline is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community.

Novel related news

• Indian writer Aravind Adiga wins the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, The White Tiger.

From the Outreach Department

As I shall be leaving Wikipedia, this will be my last newsletter. Any member who is interested in taking over the role of editor can sign up for the position at the Job Centre.

Over the last month I have been working on a portal for our project. So am happy to announce that the Novels Portal is now up and running.

Boylo (talk), Editor

Boylo:
Thank you for getting this newsletter back on its feet and going again. No Boylo equals no Novels Portal...heck, without you, we wouldn't have had a newsletter for these past months...so, for all of the members of the Novels WikiProject, I want to thank you for the time and effort you have put into this project, and I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors. Thanks, pal.

the_ed17 (talk)

Collaboration of the Month

• This month's Collaboration has been selected by popular vote and is : Novel.
  As this is our Project's premier article, all members are asked to assist.
  The next collaboration is due for selection on 21 November, 2008 so cast your vote.

Newsletter challenge

Our last newsletter's challenge The Cater Street Hangman was uncompleted.

• The first person to start the article is mentioned in the next newsletter. This month's article is Mindplayers by science fiction author Pat Cadigan.

Announcements and open tasks

WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories) Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss • changes)

→ Please help with tagging articles!

• Critique (Featured article): 21 achieved
• Novels WikiProject Peer reviews: • Sector General • Petals of Blood • Flowers for Algernon
• Improve: The Age of Reason • Furies of Calderon • Wolf Brother • The Monk • The English Patient • Bones of the Moon
• Create: Oberon Past and Present • To the Vanishing Point • Spoilt City ...
• Our Collaboration Department is continuing with one more title for the current month: 'The Tin Drum'. Get collaborating on the article and also look at nominating other titles to be considered.
• Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
• Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.

From the Coordinators

As you can see, this is about as bare-bones of a newsletter as you can get. The reason for this is that the newsletter has and will be inactive, but we wanted to get a last one out detailing the current state of our project. The truth is that WP:NOVELS is in bad shape. Only a few editors are active in editing inside of our project. Our Peer Review section, this newsletter, our task forces, and our collaboration center are all dead; although a collab is picked each month, not a lot of work seems to occur.

Out of these ashes, we are proposing that the project start an A-class review system. This will hopefully bring people together for reviewing, and will perhaps get the project some sorely-needed attention from others who can come in and help rehabilitate it. Final plans have not been established, but we will see about getting a mass message out to all of the project members if/when it is set up; discussion of this can be conducted on the General Forum.

This newsletter will probably be the last we will have for a long time, as neither Ed nor Kevinalewis have the time to create these every month. However, if any editor is willing to step up and create one, we would be glad to assist you in making it up.

If you don't want to create a newsletter, but would still like to help, there are plenty of things that can be done. As detailed on the right, the Novels Peer Review section has four articles needing attention, but only one review has been done; one from May, one from November, and one from December have not had any comments left on them. Please consider helping out there; even a 15-minute review would help.

Your coords,

–Kevinalewis (talk · contribs) and the_ed17 (talk · contribs)

Member news

• Talk between Kevinalewis and the_ed17, the two project coordinators, has led to us deciding to suspend elections for coordinators indefinitely. With the exceedingly low amount of participation in the last elections (five total votes), we do not feel that it is worth it to try to set up another election.
• 20 positions remain unfilled at the Job Centre. Members who are active project contributors are encouraged to apply even if they can only do a position for a short time.

Collaboration of the Month

• This month's Collaboration has been selected by popular vote and is : Shantaram (novel).
  The next collaboration is due for selection in April, so cast your vote.

Peer review and assessment news

• Peer Reviews are still open for four articles – Sector General, Petals of Blood, Scenes of Clerical Life, and Flowers for Algernon. Feel free to submit any novel-related article that you are working on for review, but please consider stopping by and reviewing an article; we need more reviewers for our articles (there is a PR that has been open since May)!

– the_ed17 (talk)

Announcements and open tasks

WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories) Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss • changes)

→ Please help with tagging articles!

• Critique (Featured article): 21 achieved
• Novels WikiProject Peer reviews: • Sector General • Petals of Blood • Flowers for Algernon
• Improve: The Age of Reason • Furies of Calderon • Wolf Brother • The Monk • The English Patient • Bones of the Moon
• Create: Oberon Past and Present • To the Vanishing Point • Spoilt City ...
• Our Collaboration Department is continuing with one more title for the current month: 'The Tin Drum'. Get collaborating on the article and also look at nominating other titles to be considered.
• Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
• Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.

Member news

• Coordinators election. An election has been long overdue, and therefore one will begin shortly. If you wish to stand, please put your name in by June 28, when voting will start. Members are encouraged to vote for the candidate they wish to support by July 21 at the Coordinator Elections. The Ed17 has decided not to stand for re-election. His work as Assistant Coordinator, along with Kevinalewis, since the last elections in October is highly appreciated by all members of the project.
• The Novels Project now has 128 active members.
• 17 positions remain unfilled at the Job Centre. Members who are active project contributors are encouraged to apply even if they can only fill a position for a short time.
• The His Dark Materials task force has been set up, and the role of coordinator has been undertaken by Pmlinediter.

Project news

• On April 7, a fact about novelist Karin Bang appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On April 10, a fact about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies written by Seth Grahame-Smith appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On April 23, a fact about the protagonist Cousin Betty in Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.
• On April 25, a fact from the article Blanca Olmedo written by Lucila Gamero appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On June 9, a fact from The Fox and the Hound by Daniel P. Mannix appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
• On June 15, a fact from The Road to Yuba City by Tracy Kidder appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.

- Contributors are Alan16, (who searched the archives).

Task force and related news

• His Dark Materials task force has begun. This task force is dedicated to improving all articles in the scope of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The main purpose of this taskforce is to expand, cite, and promote all articles in scope of the series. They welcome any advice or help that members of WikiProject Novels may be able to offer. If interested, drop a note on their talk page.

– Position of editor for the task force has been undertaken by Pmlinediter.

Peer review and assessment news

• Peer Reviews are still open for seven articles – The Last of the Masters, The Kindly Ones, Flowers for Algernon, World War Z, Sector General, Petals of Blood, and Scenes of Clerical Life. Feel free to submit any novel-related article that you are working on for review, and please consider stopping by and reviewing an article, as we need more reviewers for our articles!

– the_ed17 (talk) and Alan16 (talk)

Member in Focus

• Hi, I have been a member of this project for a few months now, and after finally gotten to grips with Wikipedia I have decided to take on the role of writing this newsletter (currently by myself, but any help would be appreciated) with some helpful tips from The Ed17. After undertaking this I realise why it was so difficult to keep it going. I will, however, persevere. From the members, I would encourage you to vote in the Coordinator elections, and take up roles at the Job Centre. The project has struggled recently, and I am hoping to try and revive it. If, with the publication of this newsletter, there are a couple of things that aren't quite up-to-date (like the Collaboration part), you can be certain I am working on it. I will be trying to get a newsletter out on around the 21st of every month. Finally, thanks for the help Ed. Regards, Alan16 (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Current debates

• A Kenneth Oppel task force has been proposed. You can comment here. Oppel is a Canadian author who specialises in Young adult fiction.

Novel related news

• American writer Michael Hemp wins the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award in the Action/Adventure category for his novel, The Nadjik Pheromone.

From the Outreach Department

This is my first attempt at the newsletter, and I hope it at least gets close to the previous high standards set by Kevinalewis and The Ed17. I will once again encourage you to vote in the Coordinator elections, as I hope it could be the springboard to revitalise the project. I'll keep working on the newsletter, partially because I like the stress, and partially because we need it to get members and would-be members interested. Hopefully the start of great things. Regards, Alan.

Collaboration of the Month

• Because there has been little activity on our Collaboration page for a long time, I have made an executive decision, and chosen The Tin Drum as our Collaboration of the month.
  All members are asked to assist where they can.
  The next collaboration is due for selection on 21 July, 2009 so nominate and vote.

Newsletter challenge

This month's article is Mindplayers by science fiction author Pat Cadigan. It is a previous, uncompleted challenge.

Announcements and open tasks

WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories) Announcements and open tasks (watch • edit • discuss • changes)

→ Please help with tagging articles!

• Critique (Featured article): 21 achieved
• Novels WikiProject Peer reviews: • Sector General • Petals of Blood • Flowers for Algernon
• Improve: The Age of Reason • Furies of Calderon • Wolf Brother • The Monk • The English Patient • Bones of the Moon
• Create: Oberon Past and Present • To the Vanishing Point • Spoilt City ...
• Our Collaboration Department is continuing with one more title for the current month: 'The Tin Drum'. Get collaborating on the article and also look at nominating other titles to be considered.
• Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
• Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.