Talk:Podcast novel

Article Title

Suitable name? The idea of a "podiobook" is not limited to the novel form but includes other longer form works like anthology, novella, and non-fiction. Should this be renamed to podiobook with sections on the various forms? Serialized Audio Literature? Nlowell 2010 (talk) 20:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

When I wrote this article, I was thinking specifically of novels. As you have pointed out, that was probably a mistake. You are probably correct in your view that this should be renamed. In order for it to be renamed the article will probably have to be worked over a bit. I would be happy to try to do that sometime this week. Any help is always appreciated, but I can certainly understand if you have other things that you need to write (PS - I am liking Ravenwood very much). -- Fl1n7 (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Podiobooks section

The podiobooks section is not advertising. The podiobooks website is the only place that I know of that is a centralized source where people can download podiobooks. The Ipod has its own article and in that article there is a section about the Itunes music store. That section is essential to understanding the subject matter of the article. A section about the only site that offers a wide variety of podcast novels is essential to understanding the subject of podcast novels. The section was not written to promote the site but the let the reader understand the subject. Furthermore, a real understanding of the subject of podcast novels as they currently exist would be not be likely without the section about podiobooks.com. It would be like trying to describe why the Ipod was successful without being able to say that the Itunes Music Store made it easy for Ipod owners to buy music for their Ipods. Therefore I am reverting the edit that removed the section about Podiobooks.com. -- Fl1n7 (talk) 02:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

iPod and iTunies are notable and directly related. Podiobooks is not notable and they are not directly related. The section is inappropriate in this article for a general topic. One does not need to know anything at all about podiobooks.com to understand the concept of podcast novels, anymore than one would need to know about itunes to understand the concept of a podcast. I have removed the section again. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that I disagree. Podiobooks is the most often used method of obtaining podcast novels. the Podcast novel may not mention itunes, but it sure does mention the ipod. Is an ipod essential to listening to a podcast. Of course it isn't. You can use another portable media player, or even just your pc to listen to a podcast. But understanding the idea of a podcast means understanding that the Ipod help popularize the podcast. Podiobooks.com is much the same thing to the podcast novel. The site helped popularize the idea of podcast novels, and it is still the most widely used mean of getting podcast novels. I am not making this stuff up, nor am I not citing it. All this is documented by the new york times, and TIME. I really think that this section need to be here, so I am going to re add it again —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fl1n7 (talk • contribs) 02:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Podiobooks is not "podcast novels" it is a single distributor of them. Highlighting it in such a manner gives it WP:UNDUE weight, and is clearly inappropriate for the topic. From your other remarks in these topics, I realize you enjoy this medium, but please look at it from a neutral fashion. Podiobooks is not the same as an iPod, nor can you claim that it has helped popularize anything without reliable sources, which have not been provided though they have now been referred to twice. Please refrain from continuing to readd this section each time you reply, and obtain consensus to have such content. To continue to readd it in a manner is considered edit warring and is against Wikipedia guidelines, and can be considered disruptive. Remember, Wikipedia works on a consensus basis, and is a community. While you may feel the section is appropriate, another editor (i.e. myself) has disputed it, pointing to policies and guidelines. Thus far, your argument appears to be based purely on personal opinions and your own like of the medium. If Podiobooks has been significantly discussed in the New York Times, Time magazine, etc, that would seem to indicate it is a notable company and should have its own article. It should not, however, have a section devoted to it here. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

My arguments are not simply based on personal opinions. As to edit warring, you are the person that, in this instance, appears to be disruptive. If you wanted consensus you might have wanted to bring it up in the talk page first. Instead you went the BRD route, which is just fine. However, I have done a bit of research into this topic. Several of the articles in the references mention Podiobooks.com and some of the most successful podcast novelists use the site to promote their work. Let my try to explain it this way. If almost all regular podcasts were available from one single website, would it be appropriate to mention that site in the podcast article? I think it would. That is the case with podiobooks. Almost all the existing podcast novels are avialable, sometimes exclusively, from Podiobooks.com. It is sort of hard to write a descriptive article about podcast if you are not allowed to mention the major distribution channel for podcast novels. -- Fl1n7 (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Merging Podcast Novel

moved from Talk:Serial (literature)

I submit "No." While this serial article references novels that were first published in serial format, the definition specifies that a serial is continuous with no fixed ending under an umbrella title with numbered episodes. A podcast novel varies from that definition in that the podcast has a finite end in mind when it is begun. The umbrella title refers only to that instantiation and not to some wider entity. Escape Pod is a good example of a podcast literary serial, because it is an anthology of short stories with numbered episodes offered on a regular basis with no fixed end point. If they were to offer novellas or novels in serial form, the serial would still be Escape Pod as the umbrella entity - the content of the serial would be the novella or novel. By contrast, a podcast novel has a finite number of episodes, the serial nature of it is limited by that finite number, and while the umbrella name is the title of the book, the nature of the intended limitation on time removes this from the general nomenclature of "serial" as defined in this article. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Serial is not limited to one with no ending, as is seen by Stephen King's The Green Mile. The podcast novel appears to be similar to a serial novel, except for being online instead of in written form, which would make it appropriate for merging here. Do you another possible target it can be merged to instead, as in and of itself, it seems like an unnotable neologism. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that Green Mile, as "serial novel," is not a "serial" in the sense of the definition provided. A serial is, as noted, a Periodical publication. I would further argue that this article should rightly be merged with Periodical publication since the terms are synonymous. The article lists several *serialized* novels, that is novels that were broken into pieces and published *in* serials. If you want to create a NEW item for serial novel, then that might work, but this construct of serial is quite clearly related but not identical. A "See Also" entry works for me, but unless you want to change the established definition of serial, I'm not sure how this would apply. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 04:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to think of what other target it might be merged into. Ebook? No. It's digital but not text. Audiobook? Maybe. That's closer in that it's a serialized audio book that is delivered via RSS enclosure tags. Podcast? Possibly as a special kind of podcast content, but the problem there is that Podcast is a means of delivery, not the content payload itself. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 04:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not think that this is appropriate. The argument hinges for merging hinges on Podcast Novels being an unnotable neologism. It is neither. If you were to look at the references for the article you would see that the podcast novel "movement" (for lack of a better word) has been written about by publications such as the New York Time, The London Times, and TIME. That is not unnotable. Nor is it a neologism. A neologism is a newly coined word. The term podcast novel is just that a term not a word. The article is not an article trying to define a new word or a new term. The definition of the term is only one section of the article in fact. The rest of the article covers things like what kind of content is available in podcast novel form to how authors have used podcast novels in the past to promote their work. Having read the policy page about neologisms I have found nothing on it that the podcast novel article violates. I can see where that policy would rule out an article about kipple for instance. That is a word invented by author Philip K Dick to describe useless junk. Such an article would essentially be a dictionary definition. And we all know that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The podcast novel article is not like that. It does not simply define a term, it also provides references and describes what uses people have used the podcast novel for (for example, using it to promote the printed version of a work). The article is more than a simple definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fl1n7 (talk • contribs) 01:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC) -- Fl1n7 (talk) 02:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you point to the sources that would allow the filling out of podcast novel to be beyond podcast, or novel, and show that it is somehow unique between them or this term? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

A quick look at the references provided in the article should be sufficient. Particularly the pieces by the NYT, the San Francisco Chronicle, and TIME. That is three major periodicals that ran pieces about Podcast Novels. How is the Podcast Novel Unique. Well to put it simply, the traditional podcast does not take the form of a longform fictional narrative, and a traditional novel is not broadcast over the internet in audio episodes. The podcast novel is quite obviously a unique format separate from the traditional novel or audiobook or podcast. -- Fl1n7 (talk) 02:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The sources serve to show that there is no such term. Neither the Times article nor the New York Times one refer to "podcast novel" at all, only to podcasting period. Same with the BBC article. This would seem to further strengthen the need to merge the article, though rather than here, to podcast. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking over the notability guidelines (and the absolute disarray of the podcast article) I'm reminded of one important aspect of Wikipedia. It is not concerned with what is, only with what can be proven to be. AnmaFinotera is correct. The references do not demonstrate that this process of distributing long form narrative via RSS is called "Podcast novel" or even "podiobook." There are numerous references to the subject, but according to the Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms guidelines,this article falls clearly into tracking "the emergence and use of the term as observed in communities of interest or on the internet." According to the notability guidelines (and looking over the archives of Podcast discussion), there's not even a clear consensus that podcasting exists, let alone a podcast novel. I'm beginning to get a clearer understanding of Wikipedia. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 11:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The unnotable neologism argument hinges on the assertion that without a scholarly article defining the term -- not merely describing its use and impact -- it's considered to be outside the envelope of notability? Do I have this correct? Nlowell 2010 (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Merging with Podcast

Once more into the fray, but this may be moot on the basis of unnotable neologism.

The first problem with merging this with Podcast is that the podcast article can't seem to agree that podcasting exists, let alone that the diagnostic characteristic of podcast is the presence of an RSS feed. Second, there doesn't seem to be any section in that article that discusses the various forms of podcasting content in a meaningful way. Even the first line indicates that a podcast is either audio or video, and while those two media represent the most common ones, they do not represent the sum of possibilities - or even of past history. Any information that can be digitally encoded and put into a file enclosure tag could be a podcast, but since that aspect of podcasting is not written up in any verifiable source, it can't be included in the article in question.

On the plus side, Podcast should be notable enough in that it's the word of the year for the Oxford. The challenge will be making it more than a dictionary entry. Adding a section on the main formats of audio podcasts might actually help that work if we can come up with enough verifiable descriptions of them. What might they be? Talk, News, Music, Anthology, Novel, Audio Drama ... given the difficulty I've had with notability and verifiability in the last few days I'm feeling particularly gun shy on this aspect and wonder if *any* of those are verifiable enough to be recognized. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that is a good reason not to merge. Yes, the podcast article is in rather poor shape itself, but from the sources from this article, it could actually be improved as clearly it does exists and this is verifiable. The arguments over what specifically is a podcast is a separate semantic issue that I don't think should hinder this. Really, the article seems mostly to have issues with editor bickering more than lack of sources. For main formats, I don't think "Talk, News, Music, Anthology, audio drama" are formats per say, more like genres, similar to genres of books. I think its best to have format really focus on the technical things - audio format, RSS structures, etc. Then there could be perhaps a section of broad genres (or see what terms sources use), that would include the major varients - video podcasts, the podcast novel, etc. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

If this article really does have to be merged than I guess it would be better to merge it into the podcast article rather than the Serial article. But I still believe that this should be a separate article. -- Fl1n7 (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree a poor article is no reason not to merge and I think the podcast article could be improved a lot. Just changing the Trademark section to prose form would help. But I'm not seeing where this article fits into it if the focus is on technical things except as you suggest -- one element in a list of major variants. That will lose all the significance of the podcast novel as an emergent literary movement in its own right, but maybe it is too soon since the only people who recognize it as such at the moment are part of the echo chamber. If we're focusing on the technical rather than the literary, by pushing this article back into podcast then I think we need to actually go to the portmanteau term "podiobook" - the blending of "podcast" and "audiobook" because that's the technological focus of the podcast article. Now, whether we can justify THAT term any more than we can the phrase "podcast novel" I don't know, but it steps us back out of literary form (novel) and puts us on an equal cognitive/semantic footing with podcast without worrying about whether the book is fiction, non-fiction, anthology, or whatever. I agree that "podcast novel" is a unique entity in the sphere of podcasting from a variety of perspectives -- markets, new economy, disruptive innovation, promotional, etc -- that can only exist because of a convergence of technologies. Knowing it and proving it are two different things. Nlowell 2010 (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Merging with Audiobook ?

If we go technical, then maybe we should consider skipping the podcast (distribution) side and going with the audiobook (content) side of the object. It's actually not too far off the beam to consider adding some of this material there anyway. This construct really represents the intersection of those two Nlowell 2010 (talk) 20:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)