Common Knowledge

From WikiThing

Common Knowledge (CK) is a LibraryThing technology that lets you contribute interesting facts and data about books, authors, editions, and other items within the LibraryThing universe.

The project's development codename was "fwiki."

For now, let the blog post speak for this page. More help information will be available as the Common Knowledge feature matures.

Discussion of the rules for formatting data is taking place in this forum discussion.

1 Links
2 Formatting rules and usage guidelines

[edit] Links

[edit] Formatting rules and usage guidelines

[edit] General

You can use parenthesis in most fields to include "meta" information that is secondary to the item.
- All data after the first open parenthesis is considered to be part of the metadata.
- While it is not necessary, it is certainly helpful for future expansion if you separate meta values by pipes "|" in the parenthesis (first value | second value). Spaces around the pipe are optional.

[edit] Canonical title, canonical name

LibraryThing aims to display the most general, common and accepted form of a work's title or an author's name. So, for example, we prefer "The Princess Bride" to "The Princess Bride (25th Anniversary Edition)." To get this common form, LibraryThing chooses the "democratic" answer--the title or name that is used the most on the site. The "Canonical title" and "Canonical name" fields are there for when this falters.

The goal is the most general, common and accepted form in the language of the site, not the most "correct."

The Brothers Karamazov. The Russian Братья Карамазовы is generally known in English as "The Brothers Karamazov," although both "The Karamazov Brothers" and the Russian title are arguably more correct.
J. K. Rowling. In English the author of the Harry Potter books is known as J. K. Rowling, not Joanne Rowling or Joanne Rowling Murray (her legal name). In Germany, however, her books are ascribed to Joanne K. Rowling, so this would be the canonical form of her name on LibraryThing.de.

If you leave the field blank, LibraryThing will continue to use the democratic method. When in doubt, trust in that.

Names, generally speaking, should follow the MLA Style Manual, §§ 3.6 and 6.6.1, and Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed., § 18.41 (q.v.). Do not list titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) with names. A book whose author is named Edward Pedant, PhD should appear simply as Pedant, Edward. However, suffixes like 'Jr.' or 'II' should be included. To combine examples, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be listed as King, Martin Luther, Jr.

Note: Canonical titles and names are not a solution to these three problems:

Library vs. Amazon capitalization differences
Combination problems
Multiple-author problems

The Canonical Title of a work should be in the language of the site. E.g. The English version of the site (www.librarything.com) should have the English title; the French version of the site (www.librarything.fr) should have the French title.

[edit] Dates

Dates should be formatted in the ISO-standard format: YYYY-MM-DD
The format can be shortened in the case of unknown data: 2007-01 or merely 2007
If there is some question about the date and you would like to show that then put a question mark in parenthesis behind the date like 1600 (?)
- If there is a BC/BCE designation it should immediately follow: 1600 BCE
- AD/CE is implied if the era designation is not there.
- You may use whatever form you are most comfortable with: BC/AD or BCE/CE.

See this post for debate on it Timspalding 22:38, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Place Names

U.S. State names should be spelled out (Mississippi, not MS). Do not use state abbreviations. Don't forget to include USA (Georgia is a country, Georgia, USA is a state).
If the name of a location has changed since the time of writing please use the name used in the work. You may optionally add a line for the modern name of the place (or any other names that it has been called). These extra lines will help for cross-linking items.
When referencing the city of New York it should be entered as New York, New York, USA.

[edit] Character Names

Use separate lines for alter egos.
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde should be separate entries.
- Superman and Clark Kent should be separate entries.
- Do NOT list alter egos as meta data in parenthesis. This may give spoiler information that some people do not want to know. For instance, listing Clark Kent (Superman) would be a spoiler to those who did not know that fact. This information should be listed as separate entries.
Titles? (Dr., Colonel, Lt., etc.)
- There is no decision on titles yet.

[edit] Education

Education entries should be Common Name for School (Degree | College or major | YYYY)
In the U.S. the most common name is the University level.
- Example: Mississippi State University (B.A. | Graphic Design | 2007)
There is no decision on whether to include periods in the degree abbreviation. Is it B.A. or is it BA?

[edit] Awards and Honors

List each award on a separate line.
Use the same labels as previous entries (when appropriate). If entering the first instance of an award, use a relatively short label to limit the truncation of parenthetical information during browsing.
List all awards that are not associated with a specific work on the corresponding author page.
- Example: Nobel Prizes should be listed on author pages.
List book awards on the work page (not the author page). Awards listed for works will eventually appear automatically on the corresponding author page (see Chris's comments here and here).
- Example: Pulitzer Prizes, Booker Prizes and Hugo Awards should be listed only on work pages.
- Exceptions: an award for a writing that does not itself constitute a separately-published book (for instance, an individual short story, poem or essay) should be listed on the author page (rather than on the page for each "work" that includes it).
For awards given in multiple categories, include both the category and year in parentheses. Omit the word "Best" from the category description.
- Examples: Pulitzer Prize (Fiction, 1976) and Nebula (Novella, 2006)
For awards given in a single category, include only the year in parentheses
- Examples: Booker Prize (1999) and Yale Younger Poets Prize (2004)
For books that were shortlisted or longlisted for an award, or books/authors that were award finalists or nominees, specify the status outside of the parentheses (so that they browse separately from the winners)
- Examples: Booker Prize Shortlist (1999) and Hugo Nominated (Novel, 2001)

And most of all HAVE FUN! Don't stress out too much over these rules. If you mess up somebody will be along to correct it.

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